What's getting better, and how do we use things with 6th

Ok, so I figured I'd start this post to try and gather together what we know has improved under 6th (can you say hellions?) and how we're going to have to adapt tactics to take account of the changes.

I want this to be a positive topic so if you can keep any comments like 'don't bother assaulting' off I'd appreciate it.

I've got a couple of thoughts to start us off, and thanks to Ereshkigal for his Q&A post in terms of answering a lot of my questions, which should hopefully feed into you guys coming up with new options for posting here.

1. The biggy. Assaulting. So we can't get a first turn charge in anymore, but what options have we got that improve the situation for assaulting units?

Well to my mind Hellions seem to get the most benefit here. They have combat drugs, so get some buffs that can be very handy such as +1S, +1A or re-roll failed wound rolls etc. Now that fleet doesn't allow us to run and assault though, the splinter pods on their skyboards should really come into their own. My unit of 15 hellions letting off 30 poisoned shots before assaulting and gaining an additional I10 (not sure if you get the strength bonus for hellglaive on this) attack means that this unit should really be a viable assault proposition.

I think for wyches, chain snares also becomes a more viable upgrade, you disembark, then your venom/raider turbo boosts over the enemy inflicting D3+1 S4 hits. Granted, it's not going to cause horrendous casualties, but if you don't make your opponent roll dice, they'll never fail a save. Reavers with cluster caltrops are ideal for this tactic too, more so because they can turbo boost from so far away and still move in the assault phase.

2. Flyers. Now I'm a little hazier on the flyer rules, hopefully my rulebook is being delivered as we speak, but it seems that flyers are now slightly less a case of bringing it on, firing off every missile you can before you get smashed out of the sky. Only being hit on a 6 by most weapons and 3 hull points each means you can spread the missiles around a bit more rather than doing complete overkill and wasting some of your missiles. I can certainly see myself using flyers to soften up an assault target before sending in my wyches to finish it off.

I yield the floor to you good people, who will no doubt have more interesting ideas to put forward.

ps. What does a mandrake look like when it smiles?

TBE

Without the rulebook I think this is kind of crazy trying to figure out the rules before we have the rules.

Can you wait a couple days?

Coming to conclusions on tidbits and missing information is futile.

Except some people do have the book.

I can wait a couple of days, not likely to get a game in until next week (which will be in a GW store anyway) but I just thought I'd start the thread to see if anyone had any ideas based on what we know has come out already. I accept of course that the FAQ and more general availability of the rulebook will really help.

Yeah you sound a bit grumpy... Kwi.

1) Well my 1st thought was Mandrakes are going to be viable again. You can attach an Heamy, infiltrate and fire the balefire 1st turn if you play smart 'cause of the shared pain token. Makes it a very dangerous unit for the opponent to deal with in 6th edition.

2) Allying with Eldar. My personal thought on this was that I've always wanted to buy those Eldar scoutmodels. But in al honesty, it's also almost a necessaty with all that psychic power flying around.

3) The new Flyer rules make dropping that Voidbomb less difficult. So this should see more action in 6th.

Yay, I love mandrakes. Though I haven't got a haemonculus, d'oh!

3. I've been holding off on getting a second ravager in case they bring out a voidraven model and I can't deny that more missiles/void lances are very appealing. Not to mention that another flyer means more opportunity for funky base dioramas.

Reaver jetbikes will be ridiculously good. They're gaining speed and survivability. In addition, bladevanes taking effect in the Shooting phase is a boost against Necrons.

Gunboats can move 12" and have the passengers snap fire out of them. Big boost to the gunboat "threat bubble," and Splinter Racks will be worth the cost (re-rolling BS1 is a much bigger boost than re-rolling BS4).

Quote :

1) Well my 1st thought was Mandrakes are going to be viable again. You can attach an Heamy, infiltrate and fire the balefire 1st turn if you play smart 'cause of the shared pain token. Makes it a very dangerous unit for the opponent to deal with in 6th edition.

Well its not just the balefire. He have that facny Strenght 10 Large Blast.
And incidently Blasts got better and AP- have lost its penalty. We will have our own wolf scouts.

Mindphase Gauntlet. Perfect weapon for a Challenge. Up to 8 dices to just stand and drool. Even if it is 1++ armor.
I guess many of you already thought about Space Marine HQs who will be taking Artificer Armor en masse.
Well thats the answer for it. Even Wych and Haemy can afford one.

Azdrubael wrote:

Mindphase Gauntlet. Perfect weapon for a Challenge. Up to 8 dices to just stand and drool. Even if it is 1++ armor.
I guess many of you already thought about Space Marine HQs who will be taking Artificer Armor en masse.
Well thats the answer for it. Even Wych and Haemy can afford one.

Unfortunately Mindphase Gauntlets are only available to Haemonculi, who have I4 or I5. So unless the Space Marine IC has a power fist or other weapon that strikes at Initiative 1, the Mindphase Gauntlet will have no effect.

Oh well =(.
The heck they screwed our Furious Charge.
Damn Matt Ward.

Allandrel wrote:

Azdrubael wrote:

Mindphase Gauntlet. Perfect weapon for a Challenge. Up to 8 dices to just stand and drool. Even if it is 1++ armor.
I guess many of you already thought about Space Marine HQs who will be taking Artificer Armor en masse.
Well thats the answer for it. Even Wych and Haemy can afford one.

Unfortunately Mindphase Gauntlets are only available to Haemonculi, who have I4 or I5. So unless the Space Marine IC has a power fist or other weapon that strikes at Initiative 1, the Mindphase Gauntlet will have no effect.

Considering that PFs seem to be about the only weapons that have ap2, you can bet most chracters will indeed be equipped with them (or power axes which are also i1) to kill the other 2+ save characters.

Azdrubael wrote:

Oh well =(.
The heck they screwed our Furious Charge.
Damn Matt Ward.

This actually nerfs other armies far more than it does DE, particularly Blood Angels (which is good given their other buffs).

The most common Initiative Score out there is 4 (due to Marines being all over the place).

Coven units are I4, so while they now strike simultaneously against most enemies while charging, they also strike simultaneously when charged by I4 FC units.

Kabalite units are I5, so they still strike first against most enemies when charging, but now also strike first when charged by I4 FC units.

And Wych Cult units still have higher initiative than most things out there.

edit -

Nomic wrote:

Considering that PFs seem to be about the only weapons that have ap2, you can bet most chracters will indeed be equipped with them (or power axes which are also i1) to kill the other 2+ save characters.

True, and depending on how the challenge rules work it may prove worthwhile to have important ICs accompanied by a Haemonculi with a Mindphase Gauntlet as a sort of bodyguard.

"Oh, you want to kill me? No, I have better things to do. But the good Doctor here would like to play with you..."

Double post merged - Baron T

Just thought I'd do a little work on Allandrel's comment about gunboats and threat bubbles, and in particular what the changes we know about do to gunboats.
So under 5th edition, troops shooting from vehicles counted as moving, and couldn't shoot if it moved at cruising speed. That means that the vehicle can move up to 6", with the troops on board shooting up to 12". So a total threat bubble of 18" distance, covering an area of 1018 square inches.
We now get the opportunity to shoot (at BS1) when moving up to 12". So at full effect, no change from 5th edition, but(!) you can now fire up to 24" once when only moving 6", so a 30" threat distance, covering an area of 2827 square inches, 277% increase! But wait, there's more, because we can also now shoot when moving 12", giving a total threat range of 36", (which incidentally is also the distance at which you can't be seen under night fight, and half of a normal table width) covering an area of 4071 square inches - basically four times the threat area in 5th.

So what about splinter racks? I'm going to work all this in fractions rather than decimals, as i think it relates easier to the number of dice throws it takes to get a result. we know that if a raider only moves 6", nothing changes, you can fire at full BS and re-roll any misses, which means that the likelihood of hitting is (4/6) + (2/6 * 4/6), equivalent to 32 hits from 36 attempts, an extra 8 hits (equivalent to a 1/3 increase) above not taking splinter racks. Now when we have to assert our influence using snap fire, splinter racks take us from hitting 6 times in 36 to (1/6) + (5/6 * 1/6), or 11 times in 36 rolls, so slightly less than doubling the effectiveness of our shooting.

What is that likely to mean then? Well being able to shoot once at full BS up to 24" when moving 6" means a serious buff to the effectiveness of gunboats, especially if you take night shields to limit incoming fire. Being able to flat out 18" also means gunboats are more able to hang around at the back of the board, scooting forward and disembarking a full squad of warriors over the last couple of turns to claim objectives.

To conclude, as always, context is everything and I can't see too many cases when you'll need to snap fire from your raider, but in a pinch it's possible and if you need to take down a couple of models at extreme range you now have the flexibility to try it.

TBE

Thought of another one, Forgeworld's Reapers. Mega Haywire blasts FTW now with HP (Hull Points) and all...

On subject of the Wyches, defensive grenades now give the unit with them Stealth against shooting attacks as long as they are within 8" of the shooters and have not gone to ground. I'd wager a PGL on a Hekatrix will be pretty neat against them nasty Overwatch shots. It's 6+, yeah, but it's still an extra something we'd otherwise not get (because what the heck is out there that allows us to roll 6+ armor save, lasguns and that's it?).

6 to hit, 6 to save, sounds almost like it's been planned, haha! I'll turn my thinking towards wyches, see if I can't think of something to help them out. Hopefully my rulebook will arrive tomorrow...

tlronin wrote:

1) Well my 1st thought was Mandrakes are going to be viable again. You can attach an Heamy, infiltrate and fire the balefire 1st turn if you play smart 'cause of the shared pain token. Makes it a very dangerous unit for the opponent to deal with in 6th edition.

Sadly, it seems that this one wasn't true after all.

FootDEldar just got a whole lot more awesome.

I don't know where the worry is coming from but from everything I have heard of 6th edition is nothing more but a lot of stuff getting better. Not uber better or OMG I want to always run this better but a lot of our stuff just got a bit better hell even the hex rifle got a bit better! 15pts worth eh maybe but IMO so far we are still good.

I am honestly not even worried about psykers at all. In fact I don't ever plan to run Psykers unless I am feeling saucy and I want to have an invisible Dias.

Also I can't wait to exploit Night Fighting with a 50% chance of it staying around every turn.

So all in all what does this mean with hellions? We assault now with i10 due to them being jump infantry? Is this true???

Mindless_Murder wrote:

So all in all what does this mean with hellions? We assault now with i10 due to them being jump infantry? Is this true???

From what I understand all jump infantry get a free I10 hit when assaulting(Hammer of wrath I believe its called?) and barring any changes to skyboards then yes they do get it.

Hope that clears it up.

Also with the fleet (reroll charge instead of allowing assault after run)changes they can potentially shoot and then assault. That's a lot of splinter shots on a large group and then add baron into the mix and you got yourself a good looking troop choice

People who post [crap] about kabalite gunboats "awesome" snap fire...
re-rollable BS1 shots mean ~BS2 effectively. So - ten kabalites within such "gun" boat will pose same treat, as 10 Orks with Shootas against T4, or even LESS against T3. Just ask any Marine player, do they consider 10 shoota-orks as threat? and remember, this marines will wreck you gunboat and kill kabalites outright if you'd way too close.

Move 6" and fire at 24" - it's looking more solid, especially if our Raiders no more dying to the bolters (3 hp w/ all-time coversave is good enough, imo).

Modded. Gob.

Hijallo wrote:

People who post [crap] about kabalite gunboats "awesome" snap fire...
re-rollable BS1 shots mean ~BS2 effectively. So - ten kabalites within such "gun" boat will pose same treat, as 10 Orks with Shootas against T4, or even LESS against T3. Just ask any Marine player, do they consider 10 shoota-orks as threat? and remember, this marines will wreck you gunboat and kill kabalites outright if you'd way too close.

Move 6" and fire at 24" - it's looking more solid, especially if our Raiders no more dying to the bolters (3 hp w/ all-time coversave is good enough, imo).

Modded. Gob.

i wanna see the SM Unit that poses a threat to a raider, that is more than 30" away. as this is the distance where snap shot shooting out of a raider is viable, between >30" and 36". If the unit is closer that just go 6", and shoot with reroll and normal BF. so its only in the right circumstances, where snap shooting out of a raider is recomandable. ;-)

Crazy_Irish wrote:

Hijallo wrote:

People who post [crap] about kabalite gunboats "awesome" snap fire...
re-rollable BS1 shots mean ~BS2 effectively. So - ten kabalites within such "gun" boat will pose same treat, as 10 Orks with Shootas against T4, or even LESS against T3. Just ask any Marine player, do they consider 10 shoota-orks as threat? and remember, this marines will wreck you gunboat and kill kabalites outright if you'd way too close.

Move 6" and fire at 24" - it's looking more solid, especially if our Raiders no more dying to the bolters (3 hp w/ all-time coversave is good enough, imo).

Modded. Gob.

i wanna see the SM Unit that poses a threat to a raider, that is more than 30" away. as this is the distance where snap shot shooting out of a raider is viable, between >30" and 36". If the unit is closer that just go 6", and shoot with reroll and normal BF. so its only in the right circumstances, where snap shooting out of a raider is recomandable. ;-)

Man, if you are shooting at SM unit, you are within 24" anyway. Then they relent with their Bolters ^) but i doubt they could score 3 glances easily. "Way too close" i meant rushing into 12".

Hijallo wrote:

Crazy_Irish wrote:

Hijallo wrote:

People who post [crap] about kabalite gunboats "awesome" snap fire...
re-rollable BS1 shots mean ~BS2 effectively. So - ten kabalites within such "gun" boat will pose same treat, as 10 Orks with Shootas against T4, or even LESS against T3. Just ask any Marine player, do they consider 10 shoota-orks as threat? and remember, this marines will wreck you gunboat and kill kabalites outright if you'd way too close.

Move 6" and fire at 24" - it's looking more solid, especially if our Raiders no more dying to the bolters (3 hp w/ all-time coversave is good enough, imo).

Modded. Gob.

i wanna see the SM Unit that poses a threat to a raider, that is more than 30" away. as this is the distance where snap shot shooting out of a raider is viable, between >30" and 36". If the unit is closer that just go 6", and shoot with reroll and normal BF. so its only in the right circumstances, where snap shooting out of a raider is recomandable. ;-)

Man, if you are shooting at SM unit, you are within 24" anyway. Then they relent with their Bolters ^) but i doubt they could score 3 glances easily. "Way too close" i meant rushing into 12".

Men, what kind of brain fart did i have there XD Sorry. with the way too close i agree with you, better stay out in your comfort zone, if your not sure that they'll die. but in a combined charge it is a good idea.

Ok, so there's a couple of things about wyches I've picked up from elsewhere that I wanted to include in this post, with regard to charging/overwatch and general combat prowess.

Defensive grenades now grant stealth to units equipped with them if they are within 8" of the unit they're charging. Good start, but add that to charging through cover, and you get a very decent save against overwatch shooting that should minimise casualties. (Thanks to Ceddyn, Crazy_Irish and Siticus the Ancient)

Charging transports. Give your wych unit haywire grenades and charge that razorback/rhino etc. Surround it and hey presto you can wreck the vehicle with your haywire grenades, there's no explosion with a wreck so no damage and the unit inside is automatically destroyed. I guess you could try this with land raiders too to get rid of those pesky terminators, but I'd say it's more risky due to the number of access points and the sheer size of land raiders making them more difficult to surround. (Thanks to Ruke)