Take a look at the changes to Warhammer 40k in this free download of the 11th Edition core rules!
We are just a few weeks away from the launch of Armageddon and 11th 40k. The rules previews are gonna come in hot and heavy from here and they start with a download of the full core rules of the game as a free PDF! Helpfully, Games Workshop has also released a brief video overview of the biggest changes to the game. Here are a few of the highlights.
Objectives, Movement, and Unit Coherency
We’ve known for a few weeks now that objective markers have been entirely removed from missions in the new edition. Instead, your units now take special actions like holding terrain or cleaning a location of enemy forces. Today, we’ve learned of a few other changes to related aspects of the game.
All units can now freely move through friendly units by default and rotating a model as part of its movement is now free. A more substantial change is coming to unit coherency, though. Now, the rules require that every model in a unit be within 9 inches of all other models in the unit. That’s the end of the conga-lines of doom with very large units screening lengthy sections of the battlefield. I imagine we’ll see some exceptions to this coherency for certain skirmishing or guerilla warfare-themed units.
Save Roll Allocations
This is a big one. Now, before making your Saving rolls, you (as the player making the Saves) will assign hits to specific models or groups of models within the unit that’s been hit. Failed hit saves are assigned to those groups starting with the lowest rolls. This should speed up gameplay pretty substantially, however, it means characters will likely outlive their attached units pretty regularly. This will be especially true for those with better Saves than the rest of their units.
Battle-shock
The rules for Battle-shock are pretty familiar on the whole. Battle-shocked units have their OC stat reduced and cannot be targed by stratagems, and cannot take any actions. However, the crucial difference is that the Battle-shock is no longer automatically removed at the start of your turn. In the new edition you must test to remove Battle-shock from a unit during your Command Phase. This is a huge buff to armies like the Drukhari that thrive on inflicting Battle-shock on their enemies.
Charge Targets, Pile-in Moves, Fight Activations
Some big change are coming to the Fight phase. Dramatically, you now choose the target of your Charge after rolling the distance of the Charge. This will let aggressive players attempt to target enemy units further away with less chance of stranding themselves on a bad roll. Accompanying this change is the fact that all Pile-in moves now happen before any combats are resolved. No longer will you be able to plan your pile-in moves just to scoot closer to an objective. Similarly, Consolidate moves are now made together, after all units have fought. Finally, the active player now gets to activate first. Accordingly, units with the Fights First ability will be significantly less reliable.
Terrain Rules
A trio of big changes are coming to how Terrain functions this edition. First and foremost, a unit in terrain enjoys the benefit of being harder to hit. A flat -1 modifier is applied to the BS of units shooting at a unit in terrain. Cover is going to be much more tactically powerful with this change. Plunging Fire returns to 40k this edition granting a +1 BS for elevated units.
We already know that some very large models enjoy this benefit inherently but even your little guys can benefit from a sniper position now. Finally, Infantry, Beast, and Swarm units can now gain the Hidden status while in cover unless they have recently fired a weapon. This means that enemy units can’t target them unless they’re within 15″ This is going to be a huge benefit allowing your scoring infantry to increase their survivability while holding objectives.
These are some of the biggest changes but it looks like numerous other rules have been buffed or nerfed throughout the rules. On the whole, this looks like it’s a “quality of life” edition with changes made to improve the previous edition’s rules instead of a really major overhaul. Still, I like what I see so far and am excited to return to Armageddon with this Saturday’s pre-order!
I am really digging the new Terrain rules but what rules changes are you most excited about so far?
Don’t Miss:
Simon Berman has been a wargamer since 1993 and has worked in the tabletop games industry since 2008 as a staff writer for the first three editions of WARMACHINE and HORDES. These days he’s the General President of the Brush Wielders Union, a worldwide organization of miniatures painters of all skill levels, a freelance games writer who has contributed to a number of roleplaying games like Eclipse Phase, Dune: Adventures in the Imperium, and The Hammer and the Stake. He runs his own small-press publishing company, Strix Publishing, and paints more miniatures than he can keep track of. Simon lives with his wife in Tacoma, Washington along with a number of cats and a pack of savage wiener dogs.
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
