New Rulebook FAQ

Oh my god!! It has arrived!

The new 40k rulebook FAQ was posted on the GW homepage and it brings us a lot of new interesting stuff.
First of all: We can't stack units into each other any longer to get coversaves for both units. This means that one has to decide which unit can be shot by which enemy unit without getting a cover save.
Seems like a huge boost for shooty lists for me. Especially with a lot of tournament tables being wastes ...

Two other interesting clarifications are made for vehicles.
1. Units can't shoot out of transport vehicles, if the vehicles used smokes in the same turn.
2. Fast scout vehicles (and bikes etc.) can claim a cover save and do not get autohits during the firstturn, when they used their scoutmove.

Thinking of Vendettas blocking enemy ways when IG did not get first turn, I once more see a huge boost for those kind of armies.

The rest of the FAQ is more or less irrelevant and was played that way all the time.
The only other interesting restrictions belong to skimmers:
Units in skimmers are destroyed, when their vehicle is destroyed, but moved at cruising speed before, because in this case they aren't allowed to get out of the vehicle. This seems even to hold true if the skimmer explodes, because still the unit is not allowed to get our of it.

And last but not least we got a global answer to the Counterattack+FC problems and don't have to refer back to the Wolfes FAQ.


Let's look how this FAQ will change tournament play over the next months.

Cheers Cleutin

Tournament at MageStore in Düsseldorf

Two weeks ago I went to a tournament at a local store. Not having my IG ready by the time I speedpainted my Nobbikers, just to slam them right in the face of my opponents ;)

Lists were at 1850, so I had to add some stuff to my normal 1750 Bikerlist and came up with:

2 WBs on Bikes

2x10 Nobbikers

3x10 Gretchin

2 Deffkoptas (one with BSaw and one with Rockits)

A short look into the tournament rules made me nearly cry. I was not allowed to play the same HQ choice twice … So, back to the sketchboard and I exchanged one of the WBs for 10 Boyz including a Nob, riding in a Trukk. This way I got at least another Troop choice, because I had to play one of the Bikersquads as an Elite choice, that was able to reach objectives in enemy territory (Gretchin do not seem to be too good in fulfilling that task).

The missions were more or less standard. Capture objectives, capture quarters and killpoints. All of them had some special rules I’ll mention later on.

With the tournament starting at twelve I went to the location at eleven, to have plenty of time to register etc, just to stand about 30 minutes in the blistering cold, because the shop decided to open at 11.30. Great start, I could have stayed in bed longer if I had known that before.

First of all I took a look at the tables and almost cried for not playing IG. The tables were nearly empty and not even one LoS blocker was found on any table. So I just hoped not to face too many shooty lists during that tournament, because those games would be rather onesided.

At about 12.30 we were able to start off with the first mission.

First mission was to capture 5 objectives placed somewhere in the middle of the board. Special rules in this scenario: Every non-vehicle unit that is completely destroyed is placed in reserve and enters play over its own table edge … excuse me?! First thought: Great!! Killed Nobbikers just return to the battlefield. Second thought: Damn … my enemy also returns, how am I going to grab those objectives by the end of the game?

Opponent for this match: My brother with his Blood Angels. 15 players attending the tournament and I have to play my brother in round 1? Something here went terribly wrong. My brother’s list was based on multiple Troops with jumppacksincluding Sanguinary Guard and double Vanguard … so no way of keeping him away from the objectives.

He won the roll to place the first objective, to choose the side and wether to go first or second … of course he decided to go second, how I just hate that in such missions.

The game itself was not very spectacular. I moved forwards with my Nobs and killed every of those damn Marines I could lay my Powerclaws on, who didn’t care about that and just kept on storming the battlefield from their edge. It was just some pointless massacre on both sides and after turn 6 the game ended and both of us controlled one objective. With me having killed about 2.5k worth of Marines I won the mission 14:6. Great success, normally with those lists I should win this by far.

But at least I had grabeed some tournament points and we went on with game two:

Mission: Quarters, which can be held by Troop choices that have to be completely in the quarter (same was true in order to contest a quarter). Neutral quarters were worth 1 point, the enemy quarter was worth 2 points and the own quarter was worthless. Every piece of terrain was either burning or smoking, so that its cover save was increased by 1 or it was treated as dangerous terrain.

Opponent this time was a friend of mine playing Blood Angels (already seeing a pattern in this?). His list featured lots of jumping troops as well but this time combined with 10 AssaultTermis with a Librarian and a Priest for FnP … great fun for me. I am still looking for good ideas to handle such kind of lists with Nobbikers, ideas are really really welcome for the solution of this major problem (and yeah, even I found out, that driving away and shooting works, but not really good).

This time I was allowed to choose whether to go first or second and decided to go second. The game itself wasn’t that great to watch. My Bikers avoided his Termis and tried to kill of everything else he had. In turn 5 he was able to charge one of my Bikersquads with his Termis and three other troops. Before dieing after three rounds of combat my Bikers were able to kill at least nearly every normal Marine, leaving him with absolutely no chance to capture any quarters and my Gretchins (hidden heros in this list, killed 2 Sanguinaries with their mighty shooting attack) conquered both of the neutral quarters. That way I won with 2-0 what gave me a 15:5. Victorypoints were not able to change this further into my favour because they were only consulted when the score was equal after the mission?!?! Who decides such things … Well my friend had to go after this game and allowed me to call it 20:0 for me. Thanks again here.

After round two we had a short break while the organisator made the softscores for painting etc. I got 9 out of 20 points for having five unpainted models in my army and lost three places in the end due to this. For some reason I still don’t know why I only scored so low, but am too lazy to argue about that. For my part I still believe that 20 out of 80 points are just too strong softcores for any tournament, but that’s another story.

The final round was kind of a killpoint mission but you had to be within 18” when killing a unit in order to get the point and every killed HQ choice was worth D6 points rolled for at the end of the battle, so this mission was kind of random if you chased down the enemy HQ choice.

This time I played against another friend of mine and faced … right, Blood Angels once more (there were 4 people playing Bloodies at the tournament and I had to play against 3 of them, something really went wrong with this).

His list was quite shooty including 2 Razorbacks, 2 Predators, 1 Baal, 1 Redeemer filled with AssaultTermis, Corbulo and a Librarian and to round it up 2 TyphoonSpeeder.

I was able to choose the side, but he was able to go first and killed 4 or 5 Nobs in one of the squads during turn one (Remember? Right, no LoS-Blocker). The other squad was charged by the Termis, Corbulo, the Librarian and an AssaultMarine squad. I was able to kill all of the Termis but failed the MoraleCheck even with my Bosspole and was overrun … damn it. If I had passed the test, the game would have been over for him, because I could have killed both of his characters the next turn and his Marines. But as it was the other squad was killed by the weapons of all of his tanks and speeders. I was absolutely unable to destroy his tanks even with lots of penetrating hits made by my powerclaws (just have to love snakeeyes). In the end I lost 3:17 with only the Trukkboys being alive and hiding in a ruin.

In the end I placed 6^th,missing prizes by one place, having only played against people I already knew and always facing Blood Angels. The tournament organisations could have been better, the tables and missions clearly have to be improved, but all in all it was a funny day and at least all of the players were rather friendly.

Next time in this store I’ll play some shooty shit (built 14 Lootas yesterday, yes I can even play Orks shooty) and make sure that everything’s fully painted to grab more softscores.

Cheers Cleutin