Goatboy here again and we are taking a close look at the 40K Octavius Book 2 – Critical Mass’ rules. Hello Speed Freaks!
We got some new Warhammer 40k rules to pore over. The new Campaign Book – Octavius Part 2 – Critical Mass is coming out next week and while it is short on amount of stuff it has in there – there are some interesting rules to pour over. These are especially important if Freebootaz takes a kick in the unmentionables in the coming FAQ most likely early next year. So with that – let’s dive in.
What is interesting in this book is that everything is sorta new. The book gives you 3 new sets of rules – a Rogue Trader set of rules that I don’t think are printed anywhere else and look to be changes/updates to the named rules from the Killteam boxed set. We get a Blood Axes Supplement that feels a bit lite but seems alright. Finally, an army of renown for all those wanting to play Pure Speed Freaks and not those pesky Freeboota Pirates ending games on turn 1-2. As it is pretty small amount of rules will forgo the Good/Bad/Ugly and just go into each section.
Rogue Traders
The Rogue Trader section is updated rules to give your Imperial Armies access to a Rogue Trader HQ and Voidsmen-At-Arms elite choice that doesn’t take up a slot in the army. This of course could be really interesting if the choices were super good. I get the feeling it is a bit of a wash as a lot of armies are finding it hard to spend points on extra bodies that are not just better choices from their own codex. I think if the Voidsmen were troops and were objective secured we could start to talk about something interesting. However, right now as a set of Elite choices this whole thing feels more like a fun campaign idea living in the rough and tumble world of Matched Play.
So you get an HQ with a lot of fun options who is like a souped up Guardsmen Captain. Now the interesting thing here is you can take this, give it a warlord trait to give you an Aura of Objective Secured for your VoidBros. Then you can drop them into a teleport to come down later. This is where I think we could see something interesting in that you can create a cheap 140 point option that doesn’t take up any detachment slots and can teleport down later in the battle. This is of course if your army can’t do it right now and you have 140 points to “use” on this versus something more handy. For example Servitors or a 5 man unit of Assault Intercessors that comes from the board edges and RODs for 4 points might offer more utility than these void-bros. There are a few stratagems that let you throw out some Mortal wounds but since they need to be within 6″ you can’t just magic pop out, throw a grenade, and win with some Mortals.
This whole little update is just not really that interesting in that it is a tad bit too expensive to take. I think if they had like a menagerie of options they could create in a little Warband it could be fun. But as is, you got to ask the question why this isn’t just in a White Dwarf with a quick box set release of the models again?
Blood Axes
Next up we get the Blood Axes supplement that gives you 3 new relics, 3 warlord traits, and a slew of Stratagems. I like 2 of the Relics as one is a super sweet Straight Shooter that throws out up to 14 Dakka shots at 24″ and str 5/AP -1/1 Damage but the kicker is you can target characters. You also cause a mortal wound on an unmodified wound roll of 6 and still keep the 1 damage. So this could be a fun surprise and thankfully not a Freeboota relic. The other one that seems neat is the Fight Detecta that was spoiled on Warhammer Community. I love the change from shooting at something to hey you get to charge and add 2 the roll. I don’t know how good it would be but it seems fun.
The Warlord Traits are alright with one of them maybe being worth it by allowing you to pick a Boyz or Kommandos unit that is in terrain and make it untargetable when in a terrain feature and more than 12″ away. There is also the interesting – Core units get to Heroic Intervene within 6″ of a warlord. I was hoping we would see some kind of push to make Snikrot super powerful with double Warlord traits or something but that is where I feel this supplements misses.
Finally we got some Stratagems and there are some powerful ones in here. There are two that help Stormboyz with a +1 to the strength characters for the unit (1CP for 10 and Under and 2CP for anything over 10) and a +2 to charge for 1CP that seems powerful. They also have a neat Shoota strat that gives your Shootas Dakka 4/2 and an extra AP which seems good. It costs 1CP for 10 and under and 2 for those over 20. The best one is the ability for a unit to perform an Action if it Advance, still make shooting a without failing the action, and it is a Character it doesn’t turn off its Aura abilities as well while doing it. That is 2CP and seems pretty good especially if we get some fun updated Missions that request more Actions. There is also a sweet Loota strat that lets your loots reroll the hit roll which again seems pretty good.
Speed Freaks go ZOOM ZOOM!
That ends the Blood Axes and finally we get the Army of Renown that might be the best thing – again if Freebootas take a hit which I expect at some point. The Army of Renown is all about a Speed Freaks Speed Mob that limits you only having Speed Freaks, Wagons, and Aircraft units in your army. You lose your Kultur but gain Adrenaline junkies which seems pretty good.
It got shown on Warhammer Community but it gives you a +1 to your attacks if you charged, where charged, or Heroically Intervened. Then when you advance you count as moving normal for the shooting phase (Everyone will shoot all the dang time). Finally you also get a 6+ invulnerable save unless you advance which makes it a 5+ invulnerable save. Oh and also your Bikers get Objective Secured and the Outrider Detachment gets a +3 command points if your warlord comes from it. Since you can only have Speed Freaks, Wagon, and Aircraft that is the only thing to really take to get this army working.
Now we know how powerful speed is in 9th edition so this army being able to always advance and shoot seems very powerful. Like pretty nutty especially with everything that goes fast being very good. Ork bikes going 20 inches to move up, shoot the heck of out something and steal an objective seems good. Heck you can get 6 units of bikes cuz Nob Bikerz from FW are there and hit all the keywords. You can tell the type of list I am going to throw up on Friday.
After this you get 2 extra Kustom Jobs and a new Warlord trait if you want. The 2 Kustom jobs are cut with one letting you do mortal wounds if you leave combat (what Ork does that???). The other is Raises Suspenshun that lets your vehicle shoot at other things even if it is in engagement range. The Warlord Trait seems pretty good as it gives the character a 6 inch Aura or reroll 1’s to wound. That is something Orks do not have and getting that seems really good. I like things with simple utility and this Warlord trait does that in spades.
Finally we end up with the Stratagems. We didn’t get any extra Relics but that is probably ok. I think the regular Ork ones are pretty good. Let’s see on the Strat side of things we get 6 extra ones. Orks were not currently using a ton of Stratagems so having some that seem to work better and are useful is a win. We get a reroll 1’s when within 12″ of a unit. If there are Kustom Boosta-Blastas it is reroll 1’s and 2’s that seems pretty good. Warbikers get a +1 to strength and an extra -1 AP when they make a charge move for 2CP.
There is a way to throw out mortal wounds if the unit charges and picks option within 1″ of it. On a 4+ that unit either takes 1 wound for Bikers or d3 for Vehicles. If they are a Megatrakk Scrapjet or Kustom Boosta-Blasta it is a 2-5 for d3 or on a 6 causes 2d3 mortal wounds. This could be a sweet way to throw out some extra damage as needed. We get a Fallback and shoot option that seems alright as well as an extra bit of wording that lets Boomdakka Snazzwagons score extra hits. I love the Deffkopta pick up and deep strike next turn option which could be neat. Especially with that whole “charge” 3d6 as needed. Finally Rukkatrukk Squigbuggies can get an extra Squig Mine if needed. Thankfully they didn’t just make it where the squigs do more damage or something and make a good unit even… gooder?
Octarius Verdict?
There is the end of this book for 40k rules. There isn’t a ton but there is an extremely powerful one in the Speed Freaks army. I like it as it is not as annoying looking as the Freebootas one as you don’t need the flyers. Heck I love the idea of a ton of bikers backed up by a Wartrike, Warboss on Bike, and a ton of cool buggies. We have already shown how just going one buggy per unit still lets the army work so will see if this list comes out as something powerful to deal with. Thankfully FW removed the Warboss keyword from the Biker Boss or else we would see an army that advances, shoots, and charges everything on the board.
~WAAAGH!
Source: Bell of Lost Souls
