6th Ed Impressions, Part Two - Special Rules

 

 You can find part one here.

First, since I don't recall seeing it mentioned elsewhere, a little snippet from the very back: "WRITTEN BY: Adam Troke, Jeremy Vetock and Mat Ward"  Guys like Jervis Johnson, Robin Cruddace and Phil Kelly (Sixes be upon him) are listed in additional rules development and playtesting, but presumably the three aforementioned gentlemen were primarily responsible for the sixth edition rules.  Perhaps we'll start seeing 40K codices from Mr. Troke and Mr. Vetock before long?

On to Special Rules!  Some of which may be indicators of the future...

(starting on p.32)

*Acute Senses - no longer anything to do with night fighting, lets you reroll Outflank or other arrive on random edge effects.  The only unit I can think of with both is Wolf Scouts, if there are others please comment below.  

*Adamantium Will - Better save vs. psychic powers.  Anyone have this already?

*ATSKNF - Aside from the previous benefits, also appropriately enough immune to the Fear rule.

*Barrage - Another way of sniping, though of course due to scatter an unreliable one.  The big thing in that respect is that unlike regular attacks or regular blast weapons, you determine wound allocation from barrage weapons from the center of the blast marker, not the firing unit.  So if people do it right, we will see chunks being blasted out of units by artillery shots, including potentially characters/special weapons.  With this and the other sniping/wound allocation rules I expect to see a lot more units getting shot out of coherency than before.

     - There's also a potential conflict between Barrage and the Night Fighting rules (p.124).  Night Fighting now doesn't involve spotting rolls, rather set distances.  Under 12" has no effect, 12-24" gives the target Stealth (+1 cover), 24-36" gives the target Shrouded (+2 to cover), and "The shooting unit cannot pick a target more than 36" away".  First of all, seems to interact poorly with units that may already have Stealth or Shrouding, which can stack with each other but not with themselves.  So a unit with Stealth still only has +1 at 12-24", but +3 at 24-36", and a unit with Shrouding has +3 at 12-24" but only +2 at 24-36".  Weird.

      But the bigger thing as I said is in how it might interact with indirect Barrages.  The Barrage rule says "Barrage weapons can fire indirectly.  This means that they can fire at a target that they do not have line of sight to".  The potential problem comes in with Night Fighting not saying that the attacker can't draw line of sight to a target over 36" away; it says they cannot pick such a target.  I believe that the intent is for Barrage to still be able to target such units, and expect if it comes up in a FAQ for it to be ruled the same way.

*Bulky, Very Bulky, Extremely Bulky - count as two, three, and five models respectively for transport purposes.  Perhaps we'll start seeing some larger models with the ability to be transported?

*Crusader - bonuses to Run rolls and Sweeping Advances.  I would expect to see this in the future Black Templars book, and maybe for some CSM units?

*Daemon - 5+ inv save and Fear.

*Fear - each round of close combat units facing enemies with Fear must pass a Leadership check, if they fail they're at WS1 for that round.  ATSKNF and Fearless auto pass, but units that cause Fear are not necessarily immune themselves (though most probably will also be Fearless).

*Fearless - cannot choose to go to ground, and cannot voluntarily fall back due to the Our Weapons are Useless rule (see part 1).

*Feel No Pain - 5+ instead of 4+, but only bypassed by Instant Death; AP is irrelevant.

*Fleet - doesn't let you Run+assault, but lets you reroll one or more Run and Charge distance dice.

* Deep Strike - pretty similar, but a couple of notes.  One, vehicles count as moving Cruising Speed, but I don't see any restrictions on them moving further, so I think you can Deep Strike and then move Flat Out (p.72, plus see Fast Vehicles and Skimmers p.83).  Two, the mishap table is even more forgiving than 5th ed (which was more forgiving than 3rd/4th ed), with you only getting destroyed on a 1.

*Furious Charge - +1 strength only, no effect on initiative.  No benefit if did a Disordered Charge.

*Gets Hot - affects vehicles; on a 1, then a further 1-3 the vehicle suffers a glancing hit.

*Hammer of Wrath - Essentially Fantasy impact hits.  Some units, like Bikes and Jump Infantry, get extra hits when charging in.  Those that made contact with the charge itself do one auto-hit each at I10 at regular strength, AP - .  Just because they're striking at I10 does NOT give them an extra pile in move!  Perhaps this might find its way into Eldar Striking Scorpion Mandiblasters, which used to fire at an increased inititative.

*Haywire - no real changes, but the changes to Glancing Hits, Hull Points, and attacking vehicles in assault make Haywire Grenades pretty dangerous.

*Infiltrate - cannot charge first turn.  Note that it does not specify "game turn", so I would expect that if you go second and the enemy moves close enough to your Infiltrators, in your first turn (but the second player turn) you should be able to charge.

*Instant Death - same, but note that Toughness modifiers affect ID, no more 4(5) stuff - a Marine character or a Nob on a bike is only ID'd by S10, etc.

*Interceptor - Able to shoot at units coming in from Reserve.

*It Will Not Die - recover a wound or hull point on 5+.  40K Regeneration.

*Jink - things like bikes and skimmers get this, a 5+ cover save, 4+ if flat out or turbo boost.  Remember to stack it with things like Stealth and Night Fighting bonuses.

*Missile Lock - missiles fired only scatter 1d6" instead of 2d6" - anything have this already?  One of the existing flyers perhaps?

*Move through Cover - same in regards to difficult terrain when moving, no effect on charge ranges, ignore dangerous terrain (nice!).

*Night Fighting (see above under Barrage, and p.124)

*Night Vision - ignore effects of Night Fighting.

*Outflank - as with all reserves, no longer assault turn come in.  If you have assaulty outflankers, may want to have a second look at your plan.

*Preferred Enemy - reroll 1s to hit and to wound vs. preferred enemy.  Applies both to shooting and to assault.  

*Rage - no more being led around by the nose, instead +2 attacks on the charge.

*Rampage - +d3 attacks if outnumbered in close combat.  I'd expect this to show up on Berzerkers and maybe on combat walkers like future dreadnoughts, defilers and the like.

*Scout - set distance instead of a move, can't charge on first turn (see Infiltrate notes).

*Skilled Rider - auto pass dangerous terrain tests, +1 to Jink saves.

*Skyfire - shoot at flyers, flying monstrous creatures and skimmers normally, other targets count as snap shots.  

*Slow and Purposeful - no more random movement, just can't run, turbo/flat out, sweeping advance or fire overwatch.  

*Smash - halve your attacks, double your strength (max 10), can re-roll armor penetration rolls.  MCs get this, replaces the old 2d6 penetration.

*Sniper - as before, plus to hit roll of 6 makes a Precision Shot (attacker allocates the hit).

*Split Fire - *one* model in the firing unit can fire at a different target if they pass a Ld test.  From what I can tell they did not replace Long Fangs' Fire Control with this version.

*Tank Hunters - may choose to reroll failed (or glancing) armor pen rolls.

*Vector Strike - lets units like Flying Monstrous Creatures swat enemies as they fly over for d3+1 hits at regular str and AP3.  

*Zealot - Fearless plus Hatred.  Another one I expect to see in Black Templars, plus may become the standard Chaplain rule and might find its way into some CSM units?

Next up, Unit Types!