C:SM Previews or I, for one, welcome our new Ultramarine overlords

[pretre]

Another solid chapter tactic.

[InfestedKerrigan]

15 minutes ago, pretre said:

Chapter Focus: White Scars

In today’s Chapter Focus we’re looking at the White Scars, peerless masters of the hunt. Similar in some respects to the Raven Guard (who we previewed yesterday), the White Scars exchange the stealth of their brethren for unparalleled speed.

The savage appearance of the White Scars belies an intelligent, measured approach to war; every brutal attack is the culmination of careful planning and reconnaissance. Attacking with primal fury, the White Scars are a storm from which there is no escape. On the tabletop, this is reflected by the White Scars’ Chapter Tactic, Lightning Assault. Firstly, all White Scars biker units move faster when advancing, allowing you to close in on the foe and outflank your enemies. Secondly, all White Scars units – including Dreadnoughts! – can charge in the same turn that they fall back. This is huge, effectively allowing the White Scars to guarantee priority in assaults and letting powerful close combat units engage and re-engage at will without getting bogged down.

This is going to be deadly with Reivers, who, as we’ve mentioned in their tactica, can use Shock Grenades to prevent enemies from firing Overwatch, or stymie units that inflict damage when they charge such as the Ironclad Dreadnought and Assault Centurions. Inceptors, in particular, are one of the most dangerous units that a White Scars general can field, capable of shooting and charging when they fall back thanks to having both Fly and the White Scars Chapter Tactic. Jaghatai Khan would be proud!

As well as Chapter Tactics, there’s a range of ways to further customise your White Scars. Kor’sarro Khan is as powerful as he ever was, and his unique ability For the Khan! boosts the Strength of charging White Scars units – combined with their Chapter Tactics, it’s going to be very hard to defend against getting repeatedly charged by a White Scars army. The White Scars Stratagem, Born in the Saddle, allows White Scars bikers to advance, shoot, and charge, meaning that each biker has a potential threat range of 26″, and you’ll be able to hit your opponent hard before they’re even able to react.

Finally, the White Scars have a unique Warlord Trait and Relic adding yet more powerful options to the army. Deadly Hunter allows your Warlord to deal mortal wounds when charging, while the Mantle of the Stormseer makes it easier for White Scars psykers to cast Smite and unleash the power of the storm.

If you want to win your games with speed, savagery, and liberal use of Smite, the White Scars are the Chapter for you. Come back tomorrow for another Chapter Focus, or pick up Kor’Sarro Khan today to lead your own White Scars.

 

 

[pretre]

Someone messed up over at GW and put the rest of the Chapter Tactics in the same image folder and now you can literally go find them with enough trial and error.

http://imgur.com/a/DAvUr





You can find these by using this link
https://17890-presscdn-0-51-pagely.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/WSChapterFocusBoxout.jpg
And changing the URL. For the Salamanders, change the end to SALChapterFocusBoxout.jpg for instance.

Thanks Dragon-Scale on reddit!

BEFORE GW MOVES THE FILES EVERYONE TRIAL AND ERROR THE CRAP OUT OF IT TO FIND THE REST!

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[WestRider]

The more I think about it, the more I really feel like the Salamanders Chapter Tactic suits their fluff incredibly well. It pushes them toward MSU with low-volume, high-quality Attacks, which is entirely fitting.

[pretre]

Warhammer Community immediately publishes the whole lot after the leak. Damn they are good.

 

Choosing the right Chapter Tactic for your Successors

Warhammer Community’s Sarah is a master of Warhammer lore, and with the new Space Marines codex coming out soon, she’s diving deep into the history of the Space Marines to choose a sufficiently obscure Successor Chapter for her army – the only question is, which Chapter Tactic should she pick for her army? If you’ve got a Chapter of your own creation, or a successor with an unknown founding Chapter, this is a decision you’ll have to make when the codex is out – Sarah has some handy suggestions for how you could go about this.

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Sarah: The new Space Marine codex isn’t just about the First Founding – there’s loads of information in there about successors old and new. Initially, I wanted to start a Rift Stalkers – these guys are Raven Guard successors, so naturally, use their Chapter Tactics. However, I fancied something more heraldic, so decided to dive into the more mysterious Successor Chapters for something distinctive and unusual.

The Blood Ravens, who star in the Dawn of War series, are much loved by Warhammer fans. If I were doing these guys, I’d probably take a Supreme Command Detachment with a few Librarians, then use the Siege Masters Chapter Trait from the Imperial Fists to represent the powerful bolter-armed Tactical Squads that make up the bread and butter of any Dawn of War army.

The right Chapter Tactic for the Fire Lords is an easy choice – the Salamanders are the undisputed masters of flamecraft. Their Master Artisans trait is great for making the most of special weapons in Fire Lords squads, while their flamer-based stratagem is also pretty fitting.

The Black Dragons are one of the most shadowy Chapters in the 41st Millennium, rumoured to use brutal osseus blades that spring from their forearms to devastate their foes in close combat. For these guys, the Black Templars Chapter Tactics, with their re-rolls to charges seems like a natural pick.

Each Exorcists Space Marine is a survivor of daemonic possession, and so I imagine they’d be pretty hardy. In this case, I’d lean towards the Iron Hands Chapter Tactic to represent this on the tabletop.

Of course, this is just my opinion – if you picture your favourite Successors fighting differently, you’re welcome to use whichever Chapter Tactic suits. You could just as well play on the rumoured links between the Black Dragons and the Salamanders, or play up the shadowy nature of the Exorcists and give them the stealthy tactics of the Raven Guard. It’s up to you!

I’m still not sure which Successor Chapter I’m going to pick… maybe I’ll make up a new one entirely, but finding a Chapter Tactic that suits your favourite fighting style is pretty easy with a little bit of imagination.

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Thanks Sarah! We’ll be checking back once Sarah has her army painted to see her progress. The Space Marines codex will be available to pre-order this weekend, and you’ll be able to use these rules for yourself very soon, whether you’re fielding an army of your own creation, some well-known Successors, or one of the legendary First Founding Chapters. Look out later in the week for the rest of our Chapter Focus articles, where we’ll be diving into how the Chapter Tactics work, as well as relics, warlord traits and special characters.

[pretre]

It looks like they started adding some random characters to their image names as well to avoid this going forward. 

[Munkie]

1 hour ago, WestRider said:

The more I think about it, the more I really feel like the Salamanders Chapter Tactic suits their fluff incredibly well. It pushes them toward MSU with low-volume, high-quality Attacks, which is entirely fitting.

It fits their fluff of liking meltaguns and makes those better, which is cool. It does almost nothing for flamers, which is lame.

But the fire lords thing mentions salamanders have a flame stratagem, so I guess we'll see on that. 

[Ish]

49 minutes ago, Munkie said:

It fits their fluff of liking meltaguns and makes those better, which is cool. It does almost nothing for flamers, which is lame.

But the fire lords thing mentions salamanders have a flame stratagem, so I guess we'll see on that. 

They get to re-roll a single failed hit and wound roll. Flamers won't benefit from the to hit re-roll, obviously, but they'll benefit from the wound re-roll just as much as any other weapon. More importantly, unlike past editions, the Salamanders' trait isn't limited to just flamers, meltas, and thunderhammers... They've now got mastercrafted everything! Salamanders' Hellblasters are going to be a scary prospect if you rely on a lot of Terminators.

[Munkie]

Sure, re-rolling one flamer wound is fine, but potentially one more wound with AP- isn't a great value.

Ensuring the meltagun, lascannon, etc. both hit and wound is a much better use of the tactic. I feel like it should've been re-roll 1 hit OR amount of random shots, AND one wound. Oh well. 

[pretre]

I bet one of the stratagems influences number of shots for Salamanders. Like 1CP and max # of shots or double # of shots or something.

[VonVilkee]

Yeah those command points are gonna get fun!

[Munkie]

1 hour ago, pretre said:

I bet one of the stratagems influences number of shots for Salamanders. Like 1CP and max # of shots or double # of shots or something.

And since the tactic encourages MSU as Ish pointed out, it seems like farming CPs might be the way to go with those silly sallies.

[InfestedKerrigan]

2 hours ago, Munkie said:

And since the tactic encourages MSU as Ish pointed out, it seems like farming CPs might be the way to go with those silly sallies.

You mean one man under str squads?

[Munkie]

Haha! I certainly do not mean that abomination of an oversight. 

Although that would get the most possible value out of the chapter tactic. 

[pretre]

 

 

 

 

 

 

Using speed, stealth or tactics to defeat your foes is one thing, but incinerating them, while less subtle, is just as effective. In today’s Chapter Focus, we’re looking at the Salamanders, stoic paragons of strength, honour and flamecraft. We’ve already taken a first look at the Salamanders Chapter Tactic, but today, we’re taking a deep dive into how this works with the rest of your army and other powerful abilities like the Salamanders’ Stratagem and their special character.

Salamanders are renowned on the tabletop for their mastery of flamer weapons, and Salamanders armies have traditionally revolved around getting as many of them into the opponent’s backline as soon as possible. This is still true of the Salamanders in the new codex, but their Chapter Tactic is far more versatile that before, to the extent that you’ll be able to field a viable Salamanders army with no flamer or melta weapons at all!

Master Artisans allows any Salamanders unit to re-roll a single failed hit roll and a single failed wound roll every time it shoots or fights – essentially, this is a more flexible version of the old Master Crafted rule. In practice, this opens up a huge range of possibilities for the Salamanders: safely supercharging plasma weaponry or guaranteeing a deadly blow with a power fist, for example. Like the other Chapter Tactics, Master Artisans will benefit Dreadnoughts as well, allowing them to make the most of their powerful weaponry – if you want a whole army of these ancient heroes, then Salamanders are one of the best choices for your Chapter Tactics (just as you’d expect from the guys who brought you Bray’Arth Ashmantle!).

Salamanders armies will be able to combine these Chapter Tactics with a range of other options in the codex to create some great armies. Salamanders Characters in particular are going to be some of the most powerful in the game, and it’s more than possible to have a Captain in Gravis Armour with Strength 5 and Toughness 6(!)  through their unique warlord trait and relic. The Salamanders’ unique Stratagem, Flamecraft, greatly boosts the power of flamer weapons of all shapes and sizes, while their unique character, Vulkan He’stan, offers further benefits to generals who want to bring the heat to the battlefields of the 41st Millennium.

Finally, the Salamanders can make great use of one of the most powerful units in the new codex: the Aggressors. In a Salamanders army, you’ll want to equip yours with Flamestorm Gauntlets; these powerful weapons benefit hugely from Flamecraft in the shooting phase and gain deadly accuracy from Master Artisans in the combat phase. A firebase of Aggressors surrounding Vulkan He’Stan is going to be nigh impregnable and is especially terrifying when you consider that these walking fortresses can fire twice if they remain still in the movement phase.

If you’re a fan of flamers, you really can’t go wrong with the Salamanders. Make sure to come back tomorrow for another Chapter Focus, looking at a more sinister but no less powerful Chapter of battle-smiths – the Iron Hands.

I bet one of the stratagems influences number of shots for Salamanders. Like 1CP and max # of shots or double # of shots or something.

[Munkie]

Not even a hint as to what Flamecraft does?!?!

More like "faction out of focus" (nailed it).

[Sugarlessllama]

Well it does look like everybody is going to get some love in this codex. Awesome.