8e - Transports

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2017/05/21/new-warhammer-40000-transports-may21gw-homepage-post-4/

Long time lurker here. I registered to the forum just now, to make this my first post:
"Units now disembark at the start of the Movement phase, before the Transport moves..."
WHHHHHHHHHHHYYYY??!?!

So much for wyches.

I mean I feel the discontent but 18" moves followed by 7-8" disembark into a 2d6 charge would be a bit silly.

The way I see it the best way to do melee is the way it's always been for us. Turbo boost multiple vehicles full of assault into the enemies lines and kill them next turn.

The only difference are the vehicles shouldn't die as quick.

If the harlequin vehicle is similar to the Venom,we are in trouble.

Troublesome enough for witches to weather at least one round of shooting...
So enough of Venom spam, welcome back gun boats?

So now we know how the venom profile will look like. mov16" 6W T5 S4+ (5++). 1 venom will die easily, unless you jink (+2 save -1BS), and remember target saturation, the Venom won't be alone. Also fairly good CC with BS3+ and 3 attacks, when you charge with multiple venoms they become a threat (and become inmune to enemy fire except for engaged pistols).

Furthermore, we know now that we can only disembark before the transports moves. BUT we get full movement, shooting and charging afterwards OR if we stay inside we can charge with the transport itself! Multiple Raiders charging the whole first line of a shooty army is a whole new galaxy of oportunities... It means an ensured 1st turn charge (18" distance between deployment zones in matched play), the enemy will overwatch but is far better than being shot without penalties as before, and then the enemy gets to fall back but then they sacrifice their whole turn (of course T'au will not be as easy but then they suck in combat anyways).

The main rules means Raider spam with Wych Covens has the tools to get into combat.

Oh, may I say that dying on 1's after the transport is destroyed is not that bad when compared to S4 autohits?

So take the Raider and slam it into the enemy. They fall back and can't shoot. Disembark the close combat unit inside and attack with both?

The profile seems to make the Venom much less durable though. I'm glad that I stopped buying them after 5.

But let's test it first.

They didn't mention assault transports so the distinction could be that normal transports require disembarkation before movement while assault vehicles allow for it at the end of movement.

We still don't know all of the open topped rules, the mention of disembarkation was before they mentioned open topped so do open topped still count as assault vehicles?

I assumed that open topped only meant that the models inside can fire as normal.

I think it's fine. The tactics change is all, more risk reward thought. Also they didn't mention if certain assault vehicles can allow direct assaults from the transport. These rules also limit full army assaults turn one. If we take harlequins deploy at the line 16 inch move + advance let's say 4 inch and be conservative + 7 inch charge = 27 inches. Your opponent better be in the back 7 of their deployment zone.

Toughness 5 sucks ass. I agree with the above, I can see Venoms being binned and mass Raiders having to be used. Shame.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

They didn't mention assault transports so the distinction could be that normal transports require disembarkation before movement while assault vehicles allow for it at the end of movement.

We still don't know all of the open topped rules, the mention of disembarkation was before they mentioned open topped so do open topped still count as assault vehicles?

Unit types are gone remember, I expect the effects of Skimmer, Open Topped, Assault Vehicle etc to be special rules applied on a per model basis.

Well I was right to guess that our vehicles (if we can take the starweaver stats and copy paste them to the venom before the effects of chain snares) would be great in CC compared to other vehicles and am still seeing this as perfect proof that my vehicle only cc army will still be amazing ... But they didn't really change much when it came to disembarking from the transport it's just now, "get out and charge because we are close enough" or "stay in move the boat and shoot" pretty much what we already did

"Be sure to put valuable units in your most durable Transports".

Erm .......

Assuming venoms have the same profile (or close enough) they got tougher. They get wounded on a 5+ by bolters instead of 6+, but the armour soaks half and it has 4 more wounds than before.
S8 weapons wound them on 3+ instead of 2+ with less chance to instakill.

CptMetal wrote:

So take the Raider and slam it into the enemy. They fall back and can't shoot. Disembark the close combat unit inside and attack with both?

The profile seems to make the Venom much less durable though. I'm glad that I stopped buying them after 5.

But let's test it first.

Actually, the Venom is slightly more survivable now. Currently anything S9 would auto glance and S10 auto pen but under 8th they'll only wound on a 3+ and 2+ respectively. Mid strength, high rate of fire weapons like the Scatter Laser will be a problem for them but thats not a change and to be honest light vehicle like the Venom are the kind of targets those weapons were made for anyway.

Infantry weapons would be a worry but the threefold increase in wounds means the random bolter shot isn't as much of a worry as it used to be. A 4+ armour save like the Starweavers would help a lot there and we've still yet to see whether Jink is still a thing or what it does exactly.

And I agree with you on the close combat there, I think Raider rush will be what makes DE close combat armies work in 8th.

Doing some rough calculations, the Harlequin vehicle is more durable to small arms fire. Anti-vehicle weapons still seem about the same. With the ability to split fire, I'm not sure if that is a general wash in practice. I'm guessing we will see first turn durability go up, but not over all. Which still seems fine to me.

Archon_91 wrote:

Well I was right to guess that our vehicles (if we can take the starweaver stats and copy paste them to the venom before the effects of chain snares) would be great in CC compared to other vehicles and am still seeing this as perfect proof that my vehicle only cc army will still be amazing ... But they didn't really change much when it came to disembarking from the transport it's just now, "get out and charge because we are close enough" or "stay in move the boat and shoot" pretty much what we already did

We've yet to see if there are any DE special rules that would effect that, but given how fast our vehicles are likely to be I wont be too worried if there aren't any.

As one of only two armies in the game with nothing but Open Topped Fast Skimmer transports so these changes wouldn't really have helped us much but then we had a bunch of exceptions to a series of core rules that basically borked the assault elements of most other armies.

See this is why I find these articles pretty useless in actually trying to figure out the game, they don't give us enough of a picture of what is actually going on. So this article is about transports, does a Land's Raider work the same as a Rhino, and does that work the same as the Venom? Oh we aren't telling you that much so waste your time speculating while those of us like Frankie and Reece laugh at your pathetic attempts at understanding what is going on without the whole picture.

This is just a marketing ploy to get people interested not to let us know what is actually going on. It's a movie trailer that shows a few clips of the action but tells you nothing about the actual plot.

As such, I'm going to go with a benefit of the doubt that this is not the entire picture of how open topped works and that there is more to it.

Yes there is no USR but I'm not convinced that the open topped rule for a Trukk on the datasheet will read differently then the open topped rule for a Raider on its datasheet.

Starting on the line is dangerous in T5/T6 vehicles so losing movement and being able to be wounded more easily.

And losing Movement OUT of vehicles (cant move 6" + disembark 6" then charge 9" average) for 21"

Over all DE CC units out of vehicles is looking bad..... very bad.

Well there is a small bit of hope, DE special rules/vehicles rules for DE only.

CurstAlchemist wrote:

See this is why I find these articles pretty useless in actually trying to figure out the game, they don't give us enough of a picture of what is actually going on. So this article is about transports, does a Land's Raider work the same as a Rhino, and does that work the same as the Venom? Oh we aren't telling you that much so waste your time speculating while those of us like Frankie and Reece laugh at your pathetic attempts at understanding what is going on without the whole picture.

This is just a marketing ploy to get people interested not to let us know what is actually going on. It's a movie trailer that shows a few clips of the action but tells you nothing about the actual plot.

As such, I'm going to go with a benefit of the doubt that this is not the entire picture of how open topped works and that there is more to it.

Yes there is no USR but I'm not convinced that the open topped rule for a Trukk on the datasheet will read differently then the open topped rule for a Raider on its datasheet.

Well this post is rather whiny, if you already understand that these articles are marketing pieces designed to give you a basic look at the core rules with a few examples to demonstrate them for the purposes of generating hype then why whine that they aren't giving us the special rules for every model in the game?

Open Topped was a unit type with an associated USR in Assault Vehicle to go with it. That is gone completely. Now I agree that all vehicles that previously counted as Open Topped are likely to still do so and we've already seen that you can shoot out of them as normal after moving. However, any replacement for the Assault Vehicle USR is absolutely going to be applied on a per model basis and if GW is smart it'll be only rarely and for a lot of points. Vehicles like ours that almost certainly will be able to go a long way could very quickly become overpowered if it lets your units get out and charge after it's move.

Hm. You guys are correct. They do seem more durable.

And close combat will be possible too and we will be safer than before:
Get close and weather the fire.
Get out and attack. If your boat survived, your close combat squad won't be shot at not even overwatch because you let the vehicle charge first.
Or you can just stay in board and shoot out of it as if you were stationary all the time.
Regarding split fire and Splinter rifles (please be Poisoned. Please be Poisoned!) that should be fun. Put a Blaster and a Lance inside and you got about real nice gun boat!
Three Lance shots and a s### load of dice.

How many Raiders did a own...?

amishprn86 wrote:

Starting on the line is dangerous in T5/T6 vehicles so losing movement and being able to be wounded more easily.

And losing Movement OUT of vehicles (cant move 6" + disembark 6" then charge 9" average) for 21"

Over all DE CC units out of vehicles is looking bad..... very bad.

Well there is a small bit of hope, DE special rules/vehicles rules for DE only.

Depends on what army you're up against and how much terrain the board has, but not that dangerous usually. And I completely disagree with you on combat out of vehicles looking bad, in fact with the speed our vehicles are likely to have I'd say it looks amazing (depending on how good the units themselves are).

Okay so maybe I'm focusing to much on open topped and it won't be multilayered. We still have not seen the data sheet at this point and it is very possible that our raiders, and venoms will have a rule, in addition to the already mentioned open topped allowing all passengers to fire from it, that allows units to disembark at the end of the movement.

In the end that was what I was attempting to say (and failing at) with to much focus on just a single rule that may allow it.

The basic mechanic has changed - full move and charge with the vehicles, if possible (which all have an invul. now), passengers join by shooting out of the vehicle into whatever they charged, then the opponent gets a chance to catch their breath and regroup, then the passengers charge unfettered or hunt them down if they legged it. Sounds legit, at least.

Can't wait to see what additional, specific rules our vehicles will have!

Curious effect of the rule about not being able to disembark after a transport moves: Surrounding a transport completely forbids all disembarking even if it's a skimmer and can move over the units to get away.

We don't know if entry/exit points are still a thing, but if that's the case then with those vehicles it will be even easier to minimize the participation of the passengers: Just park a couple reaver jetbikes by the back of that wave serpent and the guys inside can't do jack for the turn.