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My blog is primarily my own personal fluff in the Warhammer 40,000 universe regarding the Draconis system such as the Knight House Yato in Ryusei, their Household Militia, the Draconian Defenders, and the Forge World of Draconis IV with its Adeptus Mechanicus priesthood, Cybernetica cohorts and Skitarii legions, and the Titan Legion, Legio Draconis, known as the Dark Dragons.

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Wednesday, May 17, 2017

Reserving your reserves

Warhammer Community has posted on Tactical Reserves today!

There seem to be many changes on tactical reserves in 8th Edition. While there are still several similarities, for example, only certain units can be placed in reserves - much like units with the Deep Strike special rule of old, it seems that new units will have specific reserve rules in 8th Edition. So not everyone uses Deep Strike anymore! Terminators, for example, will "Teleport" instead of Deep Striking, and...



Genestealer Cults "Ambush" while Ork Kommandos sneak up. I don't know what my Kamikaze Troopers (Draconian Stormtroopers, Draconis's version of Cadian Kasrkins...cough, Militarum Tempestus Scions, cough...) will get. Maybe we still have Deep Strike, or...uh, grav-chute insertion or Infiltrate. I don't know. We'll find out when we get the rules for Imperial Guard, I guess. On the other hand, I don't think my Skitarii needs such rules. Heh. They can continue to Scout.

Warhammer Community gives one thematic example for the Trygon. Yay. It's no Mawloc, but I'm sure Jesse Sinclair will be super-happy with the new rules the Trygon gets (correct me if I'm wrong and if it's an old rule).



Sounds cool, right? Wow...that's pretty powerful. My Guardsmen will be quaking in their boots now. Thankfully most of my Guardsmen hide pretty safely in their Leman Russ tanks, so we'll just blast them apart with battle cannons, Punisher gatling cannons or Executioner plasma cannons the moment they rear their ugly head from underground. That is, if we don't get clawed apart in melee. Gulp.

Oh well...I guess that's what the Skitarii are for. Thankfully they're supposed to be Fearless (in the fluff) but I don't know how that's going to work out in the tabletop.

There's also one very interesting line in there. When you look at the wording, "at the end of ANY of your Movement phases, set up..." This means that you no longer roll for Reserves to come in! That's right! You get to decide when they come in and they seem to drop in automatically, as long as you meet the restrictions of the deployment, such as more than 9" away.



Apparently, while you can theoretically deploy your entire army from Reserve (Deep Strike the whole army!) in narrative and open play, you're not allowed to do that in matched play because of balance.



Long story short, you can only place a maximum of half your army in Reserve. You must start with at least half your army on the battlefield. And if you still have units in reserve by the third turn, unable to be called down, they count as destroyed. Gulp! But then, as mentioned earlier, it seems that the new Reserves allow for you to bring in your Reserves any time you want, and you no longer need to roll for them. That's pretty powerful. You get to decide when you want to deploy your Tactical Reserves, and they come in automatically duing, say, the Movement phase. You can also decide to hold your forces in Reserve and deploy them during the turn you think will make the most difference. The restriction, of course, is that you must deploy all of your Reserves by the end of your 3rd turn, or any remaining units in Reserve will be killed. Probably BLAM-ed by the Commissar for cowardice.

There's a slight hint here that we'll still be able to field an entire army of Deathwing Terminators. Interesting. Apparently Games Workshop is keeping true to their word that while Formations are gone, we'll still be able to use our existing Formation armies in one way or another. Most likely such Formations have been converted into Battle-forged Detachments. I can't wait to see what Battle-forged Detachment my Emperor's Fist Armored Company will be converted into!



We'll be taking about vehicles tomorrow, so stay tuned! I'll be keeping my eye on this article especially since it concerns my beloved Leman Russ tanks!

8 comments:

  1. Everything about this reveal makes me happy! Especially because after over a decade they finally wrote a Trygon Tunnel rule that finally works, haha!

    I like the complexity these simple rules provide. Several factions have rules that apply a penalty to Reserves rolls, how will that be redone now?

    I'd LOVE to see a unit give you access to a new Strategem (2CP: prevent a unit held in reserves from deploying this turn) or something similar. The tactical options that COULD be introduced make me very excited.

    I really do think that 8th ed will be the best edition so far.

    Also: did you notice the keyword there? Looks like they have really tried to prevent unintended abuses.

    I bet that Tyranids will have the faction keywords: XENOS, TYRANID, . Whereas my Genestealer Cults will have: XENOS, TYRANID, GENESTEALER CULT.

    So I'll (potentially) be able to use them in the same detachment, definitely in the army, but I can't put a unit of Acolyte Hybrids in a Trygon tunnel because they don't have .

    If all armies have this much thought put into their special rules I think that we will have a fantastic set of rules to play with!

    I have wanted to start a heretic cult Ad Mech who worship a Necron C'tan Shard as the true Machine God for awhile. Hopefully 8th finally lets me do it ^^.

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    1. Oops got too excited, was supposed to be in the list of Tyranid keywords. Without ot my point makes less sense haha.

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    2. Er, ok every time I try and write the word HIVE FLEET within brackets Blogger deletes it, probably because it thinks I'm trying to write code...

      The paragraph was supposed to read:

      Also: did you notice the *HIVE FLEET* keyword there? Looks like they have really tried to prevent unintended abuses.

      I bet that Tyranids will have the faction keywords: XENOS, TYRANID, *HIVE FLEET*. Whereas my Genestealer Cults will have: XENOS, TYRANID, GENESTEALER CULT.

      So I'll (potentially) be able to use them in the same detachment, definitely in the same army, but I can't put a unit of Acolyte Hybrids in a Trygon tunnel because they don't have *HIVE FLEET*.

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    3. Awesome! I didn't think about that, but you could be right! That makes a lot of sense!

      Yeah, looks like Tyranids are shaping up to be terrifying monstrosities again! This will be so cool! But yeah, using certain Faction keywords will definitely prevent abuse. I mean, it'll be weird if Acoltye Hybrids follow Trygons in a tunnel when they obviously don't have diggng claws (I don't think human digging tools will help in this instance).

      Weird, I didn't realize that writing hive fleet in brackets will cause Blogger to delete them in the comments. That's so weird. Good thing you told me or I'll have no idea what's going on! I'm also glad you'll be getting much better rules for your Tyranids! They're finally going to be as powerful as the fluff!

      Speaking of which, you bring up a good point. That means I can build an Imperum army with Skirarii Troops and Imperial Guard Heavy Support in the same Battle-forged Detachment, plus an Imperial Knight as a Lord of War!

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    4. For sure! The QnA today seemed to confirm that "allying" is gone- instead you can fill a Force Org Chart with any units you want, but they ALL must share a Faction Keyword. However the more "specific" you get the more access to Stratagems you get.

      The specific examples were: if everyone shares the Imperium keyword you only get the 3 basic stratagems. If every unit also has the Space Marines keyword you get the basics AND Space Marine stratagem. If every unit also shares the Blood Angels keyword you get the Blood Angels stratagems as well!

      So, if I am correct in my understanding my force of Tyranids and Genestealers would get the basic and Tyrabid stratagems, but NOT the Genestealer Cult or Hive Fleet specific ones.

      I am actually very happy with this, I think it really balances out fluffy and competitive lists.

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    5. Oh, man! That's pretty awesome! On the other hand, there's no more allying with xenos? So I have to field an all-Imperium army, and no more allying with say, Eldar or Tau? Well, not that I want to ally with them, but that's still pretty cool.

      I mean, that means I can field Skitarii and Mechanius battle-servitors as Troops, Leman Russ tanks as Heavy Support along Onager Dunecrawlers, Stormtroopers as Elites, Vendetta gunships as Flyers, and an Imperial Knight as a Lord of War! But I have the option to play an all Imperial Guard army if I want to for the Astra Militarum Stratagems, and Adeptus Mechanicus army for their Faction specific Strategems. Hmm...very awesome.

      Thanks! I agree with you, it'll definitely balance out fluffy and competitive lists.

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    6. They haven't said hiw allying in "outsider" forces will work yet. I mean, currently my Genestealers can ally with Imoerial Guard and I doubt that will go away, and I really hope for ither players sake you can still run Traitor Guard (I have a friend who has 3000pts of converted up Chaos Guard), but how that might work is still a very unanswered question.

      But yah, you can run all your forces together very nicely. Certainly makes playing some really fluffy things a lot easier (my girlfriend has a Sisters of Battle army that always takes an Inquisitor and a squad of Deathwatch with it that we have built a big campaign out of fighting my Genestealer Cults, so its nice that she'll have an even easier time running that list.)

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    7. Yeah! Awesome! I can't wait to see all the different options!

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