Ish

Oof, that is a lot of nasty packed into 1,000 Points... Three Assassins!? Well, I guess they don’t call them “The Blood Games” for no reason... ++ [ 988pts ] ++ + HQ + Captain-General Trajann Valoris [10 PL, 180pts] Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike [9 PL, 168pts]: Misericordia, Salvo Launcher, Superior Creation, Warlord . Auric Aquilis + Troops + Custodian Guard Squad [14 PL, 260pts] . Custodian: Sentinel Blade, Storm Shield . Custodian: Guardian Spear, Misericordia (x4) Custodian Guard Squad [14 PL, 260pts] . Custodian: Sentinel Blade, Storm Shield . Custodian: Guardian Spear, Misericordia (x4) + Elites + Vexillus Praetor [6 PL, 120pts]: Storm Shield, Vexilla Magnifica ++ Total: [53 PL, 988pts] ++ Created with BattleScribe

Well... They probably don’t have a maximum unit size of three. Remember that all the Primaris units in the Dark Imperium box had different unit sizes on the materials that came in the box than they did in the proper codex.

It will be a glorious training mission, Inquisitor. We will ensure that your hand-picked regiment of Imperial Guard that you’ve chosen to accompany you on your upcoming mission are fully prepared.

That we know of... I’m rather expecting Tyranid ‘Gaunts, Ork Boyz, Chaos Poxwalkers, and maybe Imperial Guard Conscripts to all have incentives baked into their rules that incentivize taking them in hordes.

I think they’re a little over-the-top due to the Total Obliteration special rule. I’m usually reluctant to make cross-faction comparisons, but in this case, it’s hard to avoid comparing them to Eldar Fire Dragons. Fire Dragons are PL 6 for a squad of five. With lower S, lower T, and significantly fewer W... They’ve got 2” extra movement, but that’s totally not worth bragging about since they have half the range on their fusion guns... To top it off, the freakin’ Eradicators get to double-tap, which means that they’ll get more shots than the Eldar, even though the space elves have two more bodies in the squad. Obviously, this all comes with a big asterisk and footnote about it being subject to change when we have a complete understanding of all the rules... But, for now? Oi vey.

So help me, Zod...

I swear to Zod, no one knows what the words “suggested” or “minimum” mean.

But the board isn’t getting smaller.

I don’t mind the change, per se, but I think it’s going to be one of the more difficult things to unlearn from editions past. There’s always a handful of rules from an earlier edition that I always forget work differently (or just plain don’t exist) in a newer edition... With 8th Edition, I still forget that vehicles no longer have different armor values based on arc, for example. Luckily, I’d already chosen to go collect Adeptus Custodes during the quarantine. I’m never gonna have to remember horde rules or conga line geometry with them!

As I predicted, people have already started math-hammering the geometry...

Is the Wall or Martyrs trenchline even deep enough to have two lines of men inside it?

I’ve always liked the way that WarmaHordes handled unit coherency. Every unit had a leader figure with a specific stat – Command, I think was the name – and all models in the unit had to be within that many inches of their leader. Simple to remember, easy to “eyeball,” and really simple to check with precision (if needed) without slowing down gameplay, and so forth. It seems like it’d be pretty easy to implement this sort of rule in WH40k, since every model has a Leadership stat on their profile already. ”Unit Coherency: All models in a unit must be wholly within X inches of the unit Leader, where X is equal to the Leader’s Leadership. At the end of your Morale Phase, any models not in coherency are removed from play.”

I’ve got 988 Points of Adeptus Custodes on my hobby desk (one of them is even painted!) if anyone is interested in one last game of Eighth Edition...

I’ve had some success with this method in the past for “bulk” troops, the sort of faceless masses that aren’t ever going to get much scrutiny from viewers: Guardsmen, Necron Warriors, zombies, skeletons, et cetera. Avoid this method for “centerpiece” models like heroes, elite units, dragons, and so forth. What I recommend is to cut away as many of the joints where the sprue meets the model as you can without wholly clipping it out. Then do your primer, base coat, and block in your major base colors. Then clip everything out, assemble, and continue to paint as normal. You cannot properly highlight or use shades/washes on a disassembled model — nothing’s in the right place! Also, plastic glue will not work through paint. You’ll need to use proper superglue.

I’m purposefully choosing to steer myself away from any of the cheesier Bikestodes lists (Supreme Command Detachment of nothing but Bike Captains or the Outrider Detachment of three units of three Vertus Prætors led by a Bike Captain) and am planning to lean hard on basic Custodian Guard squads for the bulk of my force. But the simple truth is that the Adeptus Custodes faction, on the whole, lacks for maneuvering, anti-horde shooting, and something that can act as a counter to a Knight or other Titanic unit... Except for the Vertus Prætors who are both maneuverable and anti-horde shooters (with hurricane bolters) and the Bike Captain who can (with the right relics) reliably fist-fight Titanic units. So, really, I just don’t think there’s any way to avoid having a few of them. At the moment, I have two bikers and one bike Captain. By week’s end, UPS will be delivering my second box, which will leave me with five bikers and the Captain... I plan to stop there, unless I can snag a single biker off eBay or Mindtaker (since the minimum unit size is three).

Slightly off topic, but since I’ve started collecting Custodes, I figured I’d flip through the Horus Heresy rules for them in case I ever wanted to play 30k (Spoiler: I don’t.) and they have a very interesting army wide rule in that system that gives them a 3” coherency. I was kinda half-heartedly hoping they’d add that to them for Ninth Edition... That looks like a No.

I can already see the 3++ Is The New Black article where they explore the precise geometry behind ways to cheese your way around this rule. For example, below, in a six man squad, ABC and DEF must be 1/2” apart from each other (as explained above), but C and D can be 2” apart. This pattern will repeat every three men in the squad. A <-> B <-> C <——> D <-> E <-> F

This means that a unit of six or more models cannot stand in a single file line, unless they are very close together... That’s gonna be rough for Imperial Guard and Tau that are trying to defend a trench line. A <-> B <-> C <-> D <-> E <-> F A 25 mm base is 0.984” in diameter. You’ll need to have A no more than 2” from C, meaning you can only have 0.508” between A <-> B and B <-> C. Same thing for D, E, F. But since very few of us bring calipers with three decimal place accuracy to game night, we’re really looking at a half inch or less gap between models. I understand that they’re trying to avoid things like the Kroot Conga Line, but, really, I think it would have been more practical to have this restriction kick in at 11+ models.

Shield-Captain on Dawneagle Jetbike. In a faction where every rank-and-file grunt has more bling than some named Special Characters in other factions, it can be kind of tricky to make the heroes standout. I think this should do nicely.

The Chaos Khaniggit preview is up and doesn’t contain anything that we didn’t all already guess yesterday: (This rule will also apply to Imperial Knights, with appropriate keyword changes.)

A Primaris equivalent to the Land Speeder Storm that can only be ridden by Reivers would be a pretty sweet addition to the line-up.

It’d be really niche, but maybe their grappling hook could also let them Fall Back even when surrounded (without paying CP)?

I want to like Reivers. They look awesome and the concept is great... But they totally fumbled on their rules (and they didn’t help by introducing those Vanguard super-snipers [I forget their name] and now the assault Intercessors). Moving them to Fast Attack would help, as would making their grappling hooks and grav-chutes a free part of their kit. Their morale debuffing also needs a re-evaluation.