Nothing quite like welcoming in the New Year with a weekly update! This week saw a lot of really good updates come through, some in the Final Drafts found here, others in the Rough Drafts that can be supplied upon request.
The Imperial Guard saw a lot of updates! Once again, the Guard forums and pages have been absolutely fantastic at providing information.
To start with, Rough Riders seem to test well with their new changes! We have cleaned up their Datasheet and added a very old option where they can upgrade to Jet Bikes! Good old Rogue Trader Era! They also use to have Bike options, but these have the same stats as the horses. Use what fits best for your army theme!
The Ordnance Battery section has had quite possibly one of the oldest guns restored to it. Thanks to GW recycling names for weapons and the general lack of information for very old models information has eluded me for a long time about the Heavy Colossus Siege Cannon. It is being introduced as a monster of a gun, with its caliber so big It can only fire every other turn and cannot fire on Turn 1! It also inflicts a M-8 penalty due to its sheer size. Some very helpful community members helped me find the necessary information and we hope to locate one for the collection.
The new Field Guns just really do not fit the rules to the weapon. They have been added to the Field Artillery Datasheet but have much better roles and abilities for all of your heavy cannon needs!
The Heavy Lascannon is only single shot but gained the Ordnance rule, allowing you to cripple even the heaviest armour. The Bombast is just a long barrelled Light Battle Cannon with an Indirect Fire ability. It has been changed to that, hits harder, and has longer range! Lastly the rocket pods can brutalize infantry with two 5″ templates each!
The Malcador Hunter was corrected of a left over rule. It was priced so it did not break the game, it just no longer fit the goal of the weapon and needed removed (but was left behind on accident).
Grinding Advance is an excellent rule that resides on a weapon and allows extra stable tanks to count as having not Moved for firing purposes. However, it almost exclusively resides on some very busy Datasheets with lots of upgrade options. To make it clearer and easier to find, it was shifted to a different section and colour coded with its keyword to make finding it easier. If there are any other ease of use changes that can be made, please reach out to us!
In older days, Sergeants and Veteran Sergeants could take Lasguns. I was reminded of this so this option has been added. We also have added the new Drum Fed Autogun from the Cadia Stands boxset! It functions differently, as it did not fulfill an unfilled weapon role and did not make sense for its real world application. It gives the Shotgun a run for its money, but I am still not sure which one I prefer!
Stormtroopers have had their long awaited Sniper Rifle and Demolition Charge added thanks to a recent Kill Team release. With the old Heavy Weapon Team options restored as well, they can form a stationary fire base with a lot of bite or form a hyper aggressive (and risky) heavy target hunting squad!
An Elysian Character was added as well! Thank to the community once again, Major Markus Durra comes in packing some serious Melee power… by Guardsmen standards. As a bio enhanced rank and file human, he carries a Heavy Chainsword, has an extra Attack, and actually hits on a 2+! His story leaves him as the only survivor from his company during a Tyranid invasion, and repeatedly fights them and survives until the Inquisition get their hands on him and give up some much needed bio upgrades! With an accompanying Company Command Squad, he is a very flexible character that can get hyper aggressive.
Some pending Changes for the Imperial Guard is the optional swap out of the Lascannons for Arkurian Pattern Sensors on the Stormblade and Shadowsword. They are from very old kits, and we have not settled exactly on what options they will provide just yet. Also, once again dealing with old pieces and rules, the Leviathan and Capitol Imperialis have had a break through in both lore and some old datasheets! These models apparently suffered from the same problem as the Black Stone Fortress models from Battle Fleet Gothic. They were undersized. So tossing a lot of hard work, crazy math, and my blueprint for building one that was pretty solid, we are going to utilize a .STL file and print one of each that someone did a lot of work on. The updates to the secondary weapons are both welcome and incredibly common coming from those old rules. See below for examples of an old Hellhound vs a modern one:
Tyranids saw a price correction to their Auxiliary weapons. This bumped two tails up by a couple of points. The system is testing well with multiple codexes, and it simplifies the multi melee weapon rules nicely!
Orks have had another two games and continue to test well. I was not part of them but it sounds like our new player is picking up strategy and unit interaction quickly! I am both excited and terrified to run into them! They had their Rough Draft updated. Most notably it saw a major price correction in their crane weapons on tanks. They were not updated with the new Auxiliary keyword and should work much better now!
The Core book had a very minor change. Trees have been changed to T7 W1. We feel this is more thematic as tanks and monster press through them and is more realistic for how hardy they are against small arms, but much more susceptible to heavy weapons.
Space Marines have finally had their 7th edition Blood Angels Characters and Wargear have been added to the Rough Draft! I thought I had them all but found I missed some. Dark Angels are in the works and they are feeling very lore correct on paper! Testing and time will tell!
As always, enjoy your gaming! Please reach out with any feedback that we can use to improve the readers experience or rule ideas. This is to be a community tool free for your use!
Alternate 40k Rules 