9th edition is on the way!

[Karantu]

Oh boy, they released more info about CP and detachments.



This chart was featured in an earlier post too but with points going up by roughly 50% or so to increase granularity in balance, it'll be interesting to see what will fit into lists at each of these brackets. Anyway the main point of the article isn't the points limits but the CP and detachments. Although one small thing I noticed was that 50PL ≈ 500pts, where in 8th it was a ratio of 20pts per PL. Which probably means they're trying to add more granularity to PL as well.

In 9th, detachments are going to cost CP instead of generating them. A core detachment(Patrol, Battalion or Brigade) with your Warlord is going to refund the CP it costs. In their example a battalion costs 3 but refunds 3 if it includes your Warlord. With just this information I feel single Battalion in lower point games and single Brigade in higher points games is going to be the most efficient way to preserve your CP. This is interesting since it retains a HQ/Troop tax without making it farm-able. Therefore instead of trying to spread out your army into as many CP generating detachments as possible, you'd want to find the combination of detachments that costs the least CP while giving you access to the slots you need.This still favours cheaper armies though since they can spend less on HQs and Troops to fill in those mandatory slots leaving more points for other units.



In addition to the CP you gain form the scale of the battle, you also generate 1 at the start of your command phase each turn like AoS. So in practice a 500pt game running 5 turns would give you a total of 8 CP over the course of the game. Since there is a significant number of ways to spend CP before a battle currently in 8th, that's going to be limited by the starting CP.



Also, they showed one of the new generic strategems they're adding. It sounds pretty silly since you could also use it to punish hit-and-run melee units, as well as things like knights falling out of melee from a swarm of Grots or something. I'm doubt that's what they had in mind. Charging with Tau units just to try and force them to fall back might be a viable clutch move too depending on how the rest of the melee rules work in 9th.

[Jye Nicolson]

I believe the PL total is actually for both sides, so they're not actually doubling it. That would imply a Crusade game using full starting rosters would be an Incursion (though I imagine there's no requirement to field everything so you could still play Combat Patrol games just fine).

This stuff all looks good. Looking forward to all the super filled out Batallions, nice that there's a comfortable amount of Elite slots considering how heavily that gets used in recent codexes (well, Marines and Sisters ). Will be interesting to see how much Spearhead, Vanguard etc cost, since they'll be the go-tos for mixing in subfactions (like Bloody Rose Repentia in a Valorous Heart list)

[Karantu]

Edit: I missed the bit on their article that said that PL is the total of both armies.

Since there would be no benefit to bringing double battalions I'm mostly probably just going be to running a Battalion and extra specialized detachments if I run out of slots for something. Which means I'm probably going to be running less troops overall unless they add some incentive for having anything other than minimum units of troops. Another thing that this effects other than soup lists which I they're actively trying to nerf, is factions like Dark Eldar that need multiple detachments to function and Knights who should be able to soup up with AdMech without being punished in my opinion. Hopefully they add something to help balance out those cases sooner than later. I'd rather then fix problems caused by the transition before they add more "content" thus making those problems worse in proportion.

Also, there probably still are ways to generate CP such as using the relics and abilities in 8th since most of current rules are going to carry over unless changed specifically. And I have a feeling that the first few codexes (i.e. Space Marines) are going to get more ways to generate CP for sure.

[Karantu]

Sooo we are getting a July release for the launch box set. Hopefully they'll have the standalone BRB out at the same time too. At this rate we could be playing 9th edition at August's game day for sure. Maybe even July's.....

[Jye Nicolson]

Yeah, if July's is late in the month like June's, 9th is a very real probability.

I'm keen for this box, and not too upset by the idea of passively collecting a Necron army.

[Karantu]

I don't know if we'll be lucky enough to get the app on release with a full digital release but that would be help us get 9th on the table sooner. The points values probably aren't in the BRB so there's that too.

[Grantholomeu]

I doubt this will happen, but something I hope happens in 9th is reduced range overall.
In 8th it feels like basically anyone can spam 36 inch range weapons and shoot from deployment zone to deployment zone.
In my opinion, units like most Tau or space marine snipers should obviously be able to do that, but a more grindy and specific range
for a variety of weapons would both spice up the stat lines and the game-play. Especially if the boards are going to be smaller too.

I just saw a thing that was saying cover might work by completely denying you as a target to be shot at from a specific range.
So for example if you are in a ruin, you are considered to be completely concealed if your enemy is over 18 inches away.
I kinda like it, but it almost seems too powerful now. I think I'd like it if over long range you would be untargetable,
and then from mid-range the enemy has a debuff to hit.

[The Other Dave]

Hmm, so apparently the Indomitus box is "not a starter set," which implies a) it'll be expensive, and b) that was really my only point. Presumably there'll be decreasing sizes of actual starter set a la Dark Imperium / Know No Fear / First Strike.

[Karantu]

@Dave The not a starter set just sounds like marketing to me honestly. Other than being more expensive then usual starters the only thing that is different is that it doesn't come with dice and a ruler. Apparently they couldn't fit them in the box or some nonsense. They might have cut them to cut costs on the box since they were planning on marketing it as not a starter set. My guess for the cost of the new box set is around 26,000 to 30,000yen, the later being adjusted for GW inflation and "Brexit tax".

The smaller sets with the intro booklets are most certainly a given at this point. No reason for them to stop with that trend, especially when they can recycle the push-fit models into multiple box sets.

@Grantholomeu I doubt they're going to reduce weapon ranges for all armies at this point and newer Space Marine weapons tend to be longer ranged than their older counterparts anyway. However, from what we've seen from the terrain rules, having a decent amount of obscuring terrain should help with focusing fire across the board. The smaller board sizes combined with the new reinforcement/outflanking rules means that its going to be harder to keep things away from those big guns as well. Hopefully that combined with the new missions will put more emphasis on mobility and encourage players to stop castling as much.

Another change that should contribute to increased mobility is the change to vehicles/monsters. In 8th it was always more efficient to focus on either shooting or melee with a unit and the loadouts tended to reflect that. Since vehicles can now get into melee and keep using most of their ranged weapons, I hope to see more hybrid loadouts on units like Dreadnoughts, Daemon Engines, Tyranid beasts, and Ork vehicles. It might also make things more interesting for (chaos) knights.

There's still plenty of rules changes we've yet to see and its impossible to understand how things are going to work without seeing the whole picture. I'm pretty sure there are going to be plenty of let downs but most of the changes we've seen so far seem positive.

[The Other Dave]

Combat patrol news, which is presumably where Crusade will at least be starting.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... ge-post-3/

Nothing too shocking, but the fact that they're treating it as a legitimate play mode, complete with tailored missions, makes me happy.

TBQH I expect Combat Patrol size games of 40K will be much smoother-playing than Kill Team - with a similar(-ish) game size and time investment, I expect CP will suddenly look a lot more attractive than KT for me personally. Nevermind that Crusade and it's WarCry-lookin' narrative playstyle is *also* a big improvement on the extremely non-narrative Kill Team, and I may never look back.