You are correct. Sternguard have the Tacticus key word now. Aka one of three ways to refer to Primaris now without using the actual word. The other two being the other two armor types, Gravis and Phobos.
It just boggles me that in an edition that's supposed to be all about cleaning up and streamlining the game, where they've massively collapsed subfactions and removed a lot of characterful choice, they've opted to preserve the FB/Primaris split at nearly every point. This was such an obvious opportunity to clean up the fence-sitting mess that marines have been in since 8th, and they just... didn't?
It seems tossing all the Weapon profiles of these squads as the same might hint at them being replaced soon anyway so little to no point in designing rules for them. My guess is we will get Primaris versions of the Assault Marines as heavily hinted at by numerous places. And maybe more diverse Intercessors.
Yea I'm assuming the same thing, Primaris update soon. Probably with Vanguard Vets first. I also bet the Primaris ones will have a limited weapon set but divergent stats. I always had a theory that once they release all the special weapons as squads they would make a Primaris Tactical squad where you would need 2-4 kits to assemble the squad.
Yeah, that was my assumption too. I get the impression that either A) they're going to get the exact same treatment as the Sternguard with very limited weapon options in the new box, or B) they're going to get a completely different replacement with probably limited weapon options as well, and they didn't want the new ones being eclipsed by the old version.
@@jimmynicol7942 that sounds unlikely and impractical. if nothing else the two units need drastically different posing, long gone are the days of mixed ranged+melee foot veterans from 4th and earlier
GW wants us as the consumer to by as many boxes as possible. I mean you could roll aggressors, inceptors, eradicators, and heavy interssesors into one kit. The base is Gravis armor, but we have separate kits for all.
The only way this Vanguard sheet makes sense is if they want to make the primarisified version not look like a massive downgrade despite being worse than the firstborn version has been for decades.
i don’t entirely disagree in principle but vanguard veterans aren’t decades old in the first place,, they are a relatively young unit in the roster. until 5th changed it, all SM veterans were a single datasheet and only 2 of them could take either a power weapon, fist or claws or a special/heavy weapon (plus the sergeant had armoury access), with no jump pack access and just standard bolters (and that’s just in 4th, they actually had fewer options in 3rd and couldn’t take melee weapons other than a bolt pistol close and combat weapon on anyone besides the sergeant). until the changes in 5th in fact the only statline improvement they had over tac marines was +1Ld, with the option to pay +10pts per model to give them an extra attack too
Shrike has become a true master of stealth since the rule he can only be attached to vanguard manlets came in effect. I ain't going to embarrass big bird and let him be seen in public babysitting a bunch of black armored Votann, that and his special rule is redundant for a character with that much mobility, will only take if under 100 pts.
I did as well to accompany Shrike in my Raven Guard list for 9th... I thought great I can have shrike join the squad... except the Vanguard Vets don't have the option to replace their pistol with another Heirloom weapon (give them the twin-linked special rule)
@@Lerbrandt Except twin lighting claw VVs are illegal now, you don't have the option to swap the pistol for another heirloom weapon. The elite assault troops should not be worse than the basic assault troops.
Thunderwolf Cavalry for Space Wolves got the same treatment, gaining the exact same Heirloom Weapon profile. Though at least their special abilities bumps up the damage to 2 on the charge, which makes them slightly better.
@@utgar131this is just SW cope but you could try pointing out to him that you can bring a battle leader and wolf lord on Thunderwolf in the same squad of Cavalry making it a really interesting 5 man unit with multiple buffs that is very likely to complete your sagas. t. A fellow SW player trying to justify my three units of thunderwolves 😅
Yeah I build all of my lists around 2 units of thunderwolf cavalry and 2 units wolf guard with jump packs so I’m no impressed. Definitely moving to the terminator hype train.
Every casual player I've spoken to locally has already said they'll be throwing the tac marine locked-at-ten thing out the window in their games, doing the same 4-9 troop rule as most other units, as well as keeping the old limits of special/heavy weapons. I suppose tourney players are currently shafted, but those don't really matter in these parts. Opinions are more divided on the VanVets, but most folks said they'll probably just use WYSIWYG weapons with stats and point costs figured out from other datasheets. There's no good reason at all to tolerate lazy changes like this if you're not playing tourneys, which few people actually do out of the overall player base. As someone who mostly plays earlier editions with a circle of old friends I don't have a dog in the fight anyway, but it's gratifying to see than most other people around here are taking the sensible approach of Just Say No to bad rules changes.
I used to play with a guy who had six Razorbacks. Three of them were even the ancient hybrid metal and plastic kit with the las-and-plas turret. Needless to say his bolter boys came by the half-dozen too. Not to mention the obvious, but if you aren't playing an official tourney, just asking your opponent if they mind you using the traditional sarge + 4-9 rules will probably get met with a shrug and an OK, at least going by reactions I've seen from local players. Just because GW wrote a shitty rule doesn't mean you have to use it in casual games.
@@forgedwarrior20 Because my chapter is not codex adherent. my organisation fields iachoi (platoons) of 22 tacticals, an officer and an apothecary, as a single organisational unit. Thus there is a ten man and two 6-man squads
Auspex, my man, you’re gonna be busy these couple of days with all the data sheet reveals, so please remember to rest well and pace yourself! We all appreciate how informative your videos are!
My guess is that the change to VanVets is because they are planning to release a primaris kit for them with a new weapon look. So this is half way between new and old vanvets.
I've had your channel open on my computer for most of the time since the indexes started rolling out. You're ability to put out informative, concise and punctual material blows my mind. We all deeply appreciate the constant coverage. Love from Australia
I'm pissed about both these changes, because I have Vanguard Veterans I specifically outfitted to fill a role of being fast melee units with invulnerable saves with storm shields, now I get basically assault Marines. Tactical Squad kits came with enough parts to make two SGT models, so in every kit I would make a second a 2nd Sergeant Model and paint him as in my Chapter, the Gray Hussars, they have Corporals which are the assistant Squad Leader. So I'd have two squads of 5 tactical Marines that could secure objectives and cover more ground.
Heirloom weapons (AKA Rusty Longswords or rusty wulfen hammers) are a real disappointment. It makes no sense at all that the assault marines have better kit than elites. It's the same for thunderwolves and wolf guard in spacewolves too. But yet a scout can have a thunderhammer or a power fist, it doesn't make sense.
I am enormously sad about VanVets. And as I’m running space wolves - which wolf guards got “heirloom” sh*t and lost jump-packs, along with Thunderwolf cava, which just lost all weapons, and wulfen too… this is just unfair…
@@Cpt_Miller I'm a spacewolves player too. I think the start for this additij will change our armies for a while. Back in 2nd edition spacewolves didn't use jump packs nor did they teleport. Every edition is different I guess. I hope wulfen gets errata as the hammers seem ridiculous. But for the time being it's thunder wolves and terminators I guess with tanks and dreads with a few troops. D4 thunder hammers on t cav characters in t cav units looks interesting at least
combi meltas, combi flamers and combi plasmas having the same new profile is also a strange thing tbh. They used to add some flexibility, allowing units to deal with more than just light to med infantry. These new combi weapons seem worse against vehicles/monsters.
Yeah, I was looking through the CSM Index Cards and that change struck me as weird, especially on Terminators. Like, I put a good deal of thought into which Combi-Weapons I built with the options I had. This conglomeration is one of the few examples of simplification, so far, that I actually would go as far to say I dislike.
@@RecruitofApollo exactly, if GW would have looked at 1) which combi weapon options are most used by players 2) why are these options are most used, they would have easily seen it is so the unit has potential against different threats: 1) anti vehicle 2) anti light troop 3) anti elite troop Any player/playtester could have told them this too. It suggests they decided against allowing the flexibility.
@@fabr1cat0rgeneral94 for sure, on my CSM chosen i'd rather take the boltgun! Which is worse then a bolt rifle the loyalists get... Says it all really.
@@CrimsonVrs I would say that but the dev wounds anti-infantry combo allows it to punch up to elite infantry a bit which I actually do like. I am however quite sad to see combi-weapons go like they did they got done super dirty.
Sanguinary guard only guarded commanders in the lore, lowly priests aren't high enough ranking to get a sanguinary guard escort. You see that here in the rules that only captains can lead them, the rest has to do with lesser escorts.
@@Johan-hm5uc the rule is worded like it is so that the main codex doesn't reference blood angels rules. Normal apothecaries can attach to units that already have a captain. Why can't I have a sanguinary captain and priest with my guard.
I sort of like the idea of certain Characters only being attached to certain types of units, but yeah it's a bit too restrictive. For example a foot-slogging Captain should be able to attach to almost any foot-slogging infantry squad, but I can't take him with my Desolation Squad. And I don't think ANYONE can attach to my Devastator Squad. (edit: I can attach a foot-slogging Sang Priest to Devastators, but that's it)
@@mathewpowell-davis4545you're wrong. There are No FB marines could have their apothecary in codex marine index except stupid command squad. Now it seems the only way for FB marines is extinction😢
@@aheroforfun6401 They did my boy Shrike dirty with the rules you speak of. A 12" untargetable bubble for whatever unit he's attached to sounds good on paper until you remember this is Shrike who can get up into enemy faces at will and _wants_ to be within 12" of everything. His 9th ability to cancel overwatch made more sense for what they were trying to do with him. Being untargetable at range is pointless when you're already stuck in melee turn 1 is what I'm tryna say. Then we get to talk about the vanguard manlets Shrike is forced to babysit because GW has sat on the fence over Firstborn and Primaris for so long it sliced them in half from the arse up.
@@marksaunders3055 So just keep using those rules. You're playing casual. Do not let GW ruin your games with a bad rule when you already have ones that work, and have worked for decades.
@@richmcgee434 Exactly what we are doing, a lot of the time we use one page rules with GW stuff just for simple quick games. TBF with alternatives many were thinking on skipping 10th and trying something else.
@@marksaunders3055 I'm reserving opinion until we see all the indexes at least (I'm mostly orks these days, so that's no joy yet) but the usual circle I play with has been pretty mixed on what's seen so far. We rarely played 8th or 9th, and lately it's been almost all RT and 2nd edition, with a few 3rd/4th games, so we're not exactly keeping up with the Joneses. Not exactly reassured by stuff like that Deathwatch MW spam trick cropping up already, and we've already agreed with our two marine plyers not to dumb down the tac unit sizes or the van vet weapons if we do play 10th. Only two people out of eleven bothered to order the core box, and they may both be screwed anyway if the FLGS gets allocated as badly as rumors say it will.
@@richmcgee434 We have players that have been going since Rogue Trader that like to rant at how dumbed down things have gotten so 10th is fueling the fire :). We have as a club got lots of our own rules that we like, tanks have facings so shots to the rear get a bonus and if you dont point your tanks guns in the right direction when moving you don't get to fire them. Makes no sense when a sponson on the opposite side of the vehicle gets to shoot at you having drawn no line of sight during its move.
Unique weapons that are now basically "heirloom weapons" - Van Vet weapons - Ravenwing Biker hammers - Thunderwolf/Wulfen hammers - Anythhing else? I'm sure there's more.
You’ve been able to run 5 man tactical squads since 2nd edition. In their 2nd ed codex they were restricted to 10 man squads but in a later white dwarf article it let you do units of 5
When I saw the new T-hammers profile I was instantly excited for my two jump pack wolf guard, unleashing flurries of lightning-wreathed hammer blows of mortal wounds. This took the wind out of those sails unfortunately. But it is a new edition, and I'm trying to be optimistic. So until these guys either get an update, eratta or something I'll just be enjoying the new and improved SW dread march!
I have been wondering about this like most vehicles that are damage dealers seem worse than armigers for armies that can ally them and significantly cheaper seems weird. I like dreadnoughts but in my chaos army I take one helbrutes and two semi gets because they are so cheap for what you get. And they are better than almost every other vehicle except maybe the vindicator
I'd really love to hear what GW's justification was for the heirloom weapons. Even though it "simplifies" the game by removing additional profiles, it's completely subverted the functionality of some units, a great example was the Thunderwolf Cavalry in the Space Wolf list, while Lightning Claws made a very effective anti-infantry unit, the Thunder Hammers were massively useful to create an anti-elite/anti-light vehicle unit that could race up the board and engage turn 1/2. Not to mention the Wulfen Thunder Hammers going from S10 AP-2 D3 to S5 AP-1 D1.. For a melee focused army, that's crucial, but it seems that with very little anti-vehicle focused melee weapons, this edition is encouraging shooting vehicles instead. That's a playstyle breaker for some armies, as well as costly for others, it'd be nice to hear there was a reason that wasn't just "simplification".
Custodes have like 1 anti-tank weapon in their codex and with the incresed T and lowered AP they will do shit against vehicles. Its absolutly disgusting what they did to some hard hitting melee units (and some other stay the same for some reason...)
They already explained it, people seem to not have picked up on it. Thunder hammers and storm shields vs lightning claws in high volume make a unit vastly different in what it can do. They want a datacard to represent a unit's effectiveness and battlefield role quite cleanly. I expect they want small points variance too in options. So this is the solution for that rather than just having it be a points difference. Obviously they toned down Thunder hammers anyway, but still this is why I believe they did it. Not saying I agree, but it does making it easier on them and maybe good for the system overall.
@@ruas4721 The more options you have the harder it is to balance - especially with the volume 40k has. They add stuff like it is a roleplaying game because its all about the minis and then try to fix it like a strategy game. Not saying it's good or bad really, just my view on it and why they have done it, especially when they said this is what they were doing.
@@olith Interesting, I hadn't heard/noticed that specific goal of homogenizing the capabilities of a unit as well as overall rules. I agree, it doesn't matter whether we individually agree with that choice, but I do think that if enough of us feel the same way, they may make some concessions. In the case of the Space Wolves as a whole, I may still be lamenting that versatility removal effectively taking away almost all of the Anti-Tank Melee options. Thanks for the info though. We'll just have to see how things play out when we all get into 10th edition games.
GW seems to have done too much consolidation with a lot of weapon profiles. Their whole "Simplified not simple" line was correct, just not in the way people had hoped. They're removing flexibility from model builds. A friend of mine said they're doing this to make 40k play like Sigmar (gross). Another example of this is the consolidation of the shotgun and bolt carbine in the Crusader squad kit into the same profile, reducing the range of the bolt carbine and damage of the shotgun in the process (which is weird because they didn't do this for other units with carbines or shotguns.) I don't understand their thought process here at all.
Can't wait to see your DG breakdown. Lots of the other channels I've seen have been desperately trying to find something to salvage out of them or saying something along the lines of "It's not *that* bad" with pained voices.
@evanwoodham6296 not sure where you're getting -2 damage from; the -1 strat costs 2 CP and only counts in melee widespread cover is only if you bring along Morty, who is shaping up to be the weakest of the primarchs 6+ fnp is only within contagion range of a specific model (the DP) and other armies do FNP better face facts, DG are near-universally agreed to be the bottom of the barrel this edition
These are my two biggest bug bears with the new Index which I genuinely hope are rectified in the Codex when that drops but knowing GW they most likely won't, hell if they just gave the Vanguard Vet's the basic Relic Blade Profile ''S+3 Ap3 D2'' maybe with one less pip of Ap since that's been reduced across the board this Edition that woulda simplied'em down and kept them distinct from the bog standard Assault Squad.
As far as the ten-man unit goes, that is annoying for Deathwatch as we now don't get Terminators inheriting their OC from the parent unit. However, on the flip side we can now take 2 Frag Cannons per five models, 1 Heavy Thunder Hammer per five models. It states "models", not Veterans. So in a squad of ten, you can be packing 7 Vets, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers, 4 Frag Cannons and 3 Terminators with heavy weapons. Pretty punchy! Add Librarian for 4+ inv save all round, or a Lt and Captain for Lethal Hits and Rites of Battle once a game. Or tool them for pure CC and add a Chaplain for that nice +1 to wound. But what happened to Vanguard Marines is frankly inexcusable.
@@tripod222 i know they can't. I was more commenting about general odd changes as mentioned above. The point was that although I can take squads of five, I can't take ten and combat squad them. All combat squads are gone.
Part of me thinks that the new 10 man mandate for tactical squads is due to the Horus Heresy, since you can use the 20 man boxes of mark iii, iv, and vi marines to first born for 40k. I guess they might have some rule of “only two squads per box” or something.
So regarding the VanVets, I think it's a big mistake to look at them in a vacuum. If you attach a jump captain with PF to a squad of 10, and use the strat (0CP because captain), you get 40x S6 +1W AP-2 attacks + 10 S9 +1W AP-3 with lethal hits on the charge. Against your OoM target (recall that lethal hits skips wound roll), this deletes basically anything (23W vs a knight, 8 dead termis, 47 dead guardsmen or 30 wounds to marines, bracket Mortarion). Without OoM you are looking at 13 wounds vs a knight. Even with a chaplain with PF or a librarian you get very good output against basically everything. Clearly, their profile has been thunk in conjunction with the attachment options (jumplain, jupmtain, and jumplibrarian). This unit has a very good output given its mobility and potential survivability. Sure, bladeguard+ancient can also have an insane output for one turn if the captain goes in sicko mode and the ancient activates the banner (I computed an hilarious 35W against knights with OoM and max buffs), but D2 is a less flexible profile into 3 wound stuff, and they are much less mobile. Just do the math again with the potential support options. In 10th, you are not supposed to run the units alone, and every support option for VanVet is surprisingly good. Wait for points obviously, but if reasonably prices they will be a staple of all lists, even potentially in BA (I foresee one unit of VanVets with captain, one unit of Death company with chaplain, 1 Dante with sang guard to maximize bonuses).
Even though the VanVet profile is disappointing, I'm still going to run a brick with a jump captain with the thief of secrets for some teleportation shenanigans in my Deathwatch.
It might be an oversight that the squad is locked to 10. I've noticed a few inconsistencies in these index. The one that personally affects me is my Wolf scouts. Why do they have 1 wound, and yet standard scouts and sniper scouts are now 2 wounds, and scout bikers are 3. I think this is an oversight but will they bother to faq it?
"Let's make it so you can't split the squad and make it a minimum of a 10 man squad so they have to buy more models." "While we are at it, punish people wanting to keep using FB Marines by make Tactical Squads annoying and mediocre to use." "The customers are gonna love that. Trolololol."
I believe this is a clear consequence of all these indexes being rushed out. Hopefully the codexes will contain corrections or more well thought out rules. We will see.
Tactical Squads feels like a curse of box compliance. The kit only builds one Sergeant (not that it's hard to build a second but the box only has a single melee weapon) and the only Heavy Weapon is a single Missile Launcher. Van Vets... Either they just didn't care because new ones are coming or they realized Storm Shield + Lightning Claw was one of the most common builds and they've removed single Lightning Claws across the board.
I preferred to keep my Sergeant with a bolter or a combi weapon if they could use it. I ran my Tac squads as close support I wanted the extra shots instead of the slightly better melee attack if someone gets close.
These changes have basically completely rendered my army as modelled unplayable. It was built around Combat Squads for almost all of the squads, two of which being 10 man tactical squads that don't have any keywords on their weapons anymore, and part of my Vanguard Veterans was, both through modelling and proxies, dual wielding chainswords which is not allowed anymore.
* sad first company themed army noises * I put together 30 sternguard, 30 vanguard and 20 each of assault and tactical termies for my custom chapter like 6 years ago, but if regular assault marines are just a better deal than my 5 man squad of thunder hammer+storm shield vanguard star smasher squad thats just... sad times
The same relic weapons issue was bled over to Thunderwold Cavalry too, which is a HUGE shame. Not to mention the complete nerf of melee weapons to the Grey Knights.
One of the things I noticed with my Deathwatch Veteran box is that many first born lost options because it was not in the box. So, I used to have the option of power fist and thunder hammers. Both still exist in the game but no longer are an option for my veterans. Instead, I have the Long Vigil Melee Weapon (basically power weapon) and a Deathwatch Thunder Hammer (which is the old two handed Heavy Thunder Hammer). Also, because only two of the hammers are in the 5 man box, like wise only two heavy weapons, both are limited to 2 for every 5 veterans. So instead of changing boxes to match rules, they seem to be changing rules to match box. One interesting thing is the Deathwatch Shotgun has been removed from the datasheet despite being in the box. It also seems this is only affecting first born, as I don’t remember Intercessors having power fist or thunder hammer in the box. For the Tactical Marine, they should have kept the combat squad option. I can see potentially forcing taking a full squad so that someone couldn’t do two MSU with a heavy weapon, but then we have to have the combat squad option. It does very much seem that they are slowly phasing first born out as they are the ones I noticed getting screwed the most. Like I can no longer take a fist born apothecary as a solo character. Instead, you have to have one in a command squad because that is the only place you can buy one. Personally, I am kit bashing my own and just using the primaris version datasheet with the ability to attach to a first born unit. Don’t care if it isn’t official as I only play with friends and never competition. Some the restrictions GW has made are completely stupid.
They have basically rendered the Razorback pointless. It is just a crappy Predator now since it has nothing that can ride in it. At most, it is going to be for Command Squads or Assault Squads without Jump Packs. The Vanguard Veterans change is both lazy and uninspired. I will never run them in their current state. They might as well all have Chainswords. I had already decommissioned my Tactical Squads in favor of Heavy Intercessor Squads for my Crimson Fists and Assault Intercessor Squads for my Blood Angels, but this change to Tactical Squads is just dumb. While the ability to take six Battleline units makes it so Combat Squads really don't serve a purpose, they still should be able to run in Squads of five.
Space Wolves got a good handful of this a heirloom weapons now. Speaking of, I saw all the other Space Marine subfaction Indexes got a video, will there be one for the Space Wolves?
Tactical Squads were *exactly* as their name suggests, a more versatile and flexible alternative to the Primaris boys. Having the option to add a Missile Launcher for camping home fields objectives, or giving them a Melta/Combi-Melta, Plasma/Combi-Plasma to charge in with a chainsword for good measure, as they hop out of a Rhino in the midfield, was what made them worth taking instead of Primars. 10-man squads also weren't unheard of, but you only took them to combat squad and utilize their flexibility. This is just wrong and harmful, considering how frustratingly one-dimensional the Primaris options are, who aside from using very confusing names, operate more like Aspect Warriors... Ironically, it would make a lot more sense for most of the Primaris troops to be restricted to 10-man units (Tacticus armormored at least, not the Phobos)...
@@Marlena_M Seeing as GW is in their datasheets separating essentially the same units only because their methods for movement can be different, I would not be surprised if we would in the near future see simply "Assault Intecessors with Jump Packs" as some 'grand' catch-all fast melee unit.
This is exactly what happened to Chaos Chosen/Terminators with the whole “accursed weapon” rubbish. Makes no sense to dumb down power weapons so much across the board
So if tactical marines can no longer be purchased in squads of 5 or broken down into combat squads what are Razorbacks for? They can't carry Primaris of any flavour and now they can't even be used to haul around the very troops the kit was designed to support!
Probably because point costs becomes easier to calculate. Probably also because same range and dice rolls. Easier to balance and speeds up the gameplay... but balance in 10th feels strange so far.
@TheRatsintheWalls but they break this very rule themselves. Tactical, assault, devestator all have the option on sprue for single lightning claws but can only take doubles which they don't have in the kit
IMO, the weirdest are "Heirloom Weapons", and "Combi Weapon" (which isn't just space marines, but it is a very confusing difference). In hindsight of posting, I think I don't like the removal of the flexibility that those two signify.
Ten man squads were mandatory for tactical marines in 2nd edition but allowed for combat squadding (since the plastic squads came with a missile launcher, flamer and chainsword/boltpistol sergeant and you couldn't move a heavy weapon and fire it at all, and the flamer used an actual template which was quite beefy but also comparatively short ranged) this stopped 'half your squad' being useless one way or the other. I would be shocked if these changes stayed. Indexes were released with 2nd edition too on a handy stapled paper booklet in the 2nd edition box and were quickly replaced with much beefier codexes that completely changed what each army was.
I think dumbing down weapons options, is the worst thing they’ve done for tenth. Most of the changes look pretty good, but removing your choice to how you equip your army is a step too far for me.
As soon as they merged together non-Indomitus Terminators into one and merged Chaos Terminator melee into the same Accursed Weapon profile during their 9th Codex drop I truly hoped that this trend would not continue... Speaking of changes, I also consider the evolution of the Psychic Phase to be a step in the wrong direction because now that Psychic Powers are tied almost exclusively to just a single model datasheet/character within the army, you will need to own at least one of each psyker available to you to get the most out of the change. Hypothetically, during the last several Editions you could have on the field 10 Chaos Sorcerers and because they all got to choose their powers from the same pool, you could nicely spread them out among them and even have duplicates- no fancy models needed. In 10th, even the armor a model is wearing might change how they operate, like with the Chaos Lords or Thousand Sons Sorcerers having different abilities in Power Armor and in Terminator Armor, Psychic Power or not, there are differences.
I think it's an indication of what is likely being phased out. Already plenty of rumours about jump pack primaris coming probably the autumn so these are likely stop gap rules and we'll likely have new vanguards like the new sternguard but with jump packs and primaris scale with the new codex. Also probably an indication that updated models for BA death company and san guard are further away and they are very key units for BA players.
nid warriors, sacrosants wolf guard, thunder wolf calvary, zephyrim are all being phased out weird....... cus those are some of the most iconic units for their respect armies...... also sangunie guard are still pretty downgrade just not as badly downgrade s5 ap2 d2 while they have no inv save lost fnp and lost 2inch movement. .... yea 1 unit with dante is still good because they will hit on 2s and u can use red rampage on them when hitting vehicles. but really dont see 3 squads of them anymore.
I think it would be interesting if they gave the Heirloom Weapons an Anti-Vehicle/Anti-Monster Keyword so that the units equipped with them still has a bit of an all-round melee utility feeling. Anything big will probably still save away most of the wounds you deal, but that way they could at least deal some damage and wouldn't feel like rubber toy hammers given to Astartes.
Van Vets in BA are actually quite powerful too with a Sang Priest and Captain. Use Red Rampage. I first saw this full idea from the great Blood Angels Commander.
I hope you understand that the Vanguard Veterans are in this scenario so good only because of plenty outside factors? Chapter Tactic + two Characters, no crap that their power becomes much more significant, but all of us talking about the Van Vets as they stand on their own.
@@Saidan79 I hope you understand that I was giving a scenario where they are quite good and my commentary was just that and nothing more. No crap they won't work for everyone, but people need to learn new combos and uses and not just toss things away because of group think.
One of the core tennants of my mechanized force was running tactical squads in twin razorbacks for some extra fire support. Sit them on a objective and just watch your OP try and remove them.
Combat Squads were added with 5th edition. In Fourth, the optimal squads were 6 or 8 as it affected the break points for Leadership tests. You also weren't limited around what special/heavy weapons you could take in the squad so a 6man squads needed to lose 3 models before a leadership test had to be taken and could field both a Flamer/Melta/Plasma and a heavy weapon for capture point Defence. They also conveniently fit inside a Razorback for flanking positions.
The amount of flavor and fluff they just eviscerated for the sake of “simplicity” is baffling and bordering on stupid. And all of this somehow is green lit, while they didn’t address the most asked for point of simplification: the FB/primaris divide. Instead, despite getting rid of transport restrictions, they reinforce it otherwise by idiotically restricting what characters can lead what units.
I feel like this is a bit like what happened to Chaos Chosen in 9th with accursed weapons. This will likely get an FAQ, at the minimum for the Sargeant.
I had a squad of Vangaurd half painted for ages, finally finished them just a couple weeks ago and managed to play a whole one game with them in 9th. #£%*
The command squad taking only 2 company veterans and slapping 3 characters to it bugs me, especially since I just got finished making a unit of 5 company veterans the night before the index dropped. No other units can take the gear they can and until they release a primaris unit that can actually take a variety of weapons they might just sit on the shelf until I cave and remake them into a command squad.
Please make a video of space wolves as they suffer from the issues you brought up in the videos. Also right now long fangs cannot be fielded because they don’t have the space marine keyword.
I presume part of what I say has already been covered in other comments. However, I just wanted to show my support that silly 'simplified' choices gw have made have made it difficult for lots of wargamers! I for one think the vanguard vet changes are not needed and fully support what Auspex Tactics has raised! Yes for many SM players the assualt marines could just be a viable alternative, but what about players that don't have access to them eg Deathwatch? Yes I am making this a point because I do collect Deathwatch but I'm sure it's annoyed a lot of other players too. I don't want to promote myself too much but I will be talking about this in my podcast I do on 40k! And many more annoying rule changes for my armies! But a big thank you to Auspex for doing this video and getting out some of the 'simplified' rules changes which make everyone go 'what?' Take care everyone, remember the inquisition is always watching....
Have you noticed they reduced the number of melee weapon attacks for Space Wolves Blood Claws and Grey Hunters? They are basically worse than Assault and Tactical marines from some weird reason.
Either the Vanguard Veteran Datasheet is Incorrect or is intentionally being nerfed to make the new unrevealed Primaris Jump troop more appealing. The standard Assault Marine still has Lightning Claws and Thunderhammers after all. I think they will get an errata by the time the codex releases.
I'm curious if there is a way to make the Vanguard Vets work with the new codex. I don't see anything that jump out, but I'm also awful at spotting anything other than busted combos.
As far as the unit creation rules say, it has to be 9 marines and a sergeant, no more or less. I've managed to just about duck around the issues it caused by reshuffling my heavies into separate devastator squads, who can have the 5 standard devastators, and up to 5 optional normal marines alongside
Here's an interesting one. Hunters are maybe kinda good now? Since they've changed the rule from a bonus against aircraft to a general anti-fly keyword, and it has Devastating Wounds, so now it can land D6+2 mortals on a surprising amount of stuff. Demon Primarchs, Monoliths, Vertus Praetors, Riptides. Anything with Fly, it hits on a 2+, and does mortals on a 3+ Very interested to see how the points shake out, but they're only 110 in 9th so it could honestly be a great budget option that smacks a lot of stuff pretty solidly. T11 and 11W, too
Yet another terrible GW decision. Whomever planned 10e was an idiot. Even if this is purely about screwing over firstborn units, this is a very aggression provoking way to do it
My 500 and 1000 DA Green Wing Army has been built around Company Veterans rolling up in a Razorback with support elsewhere. This hasn't changed much in 15ish years because it always had a fairly solid win rate. Looks like its tiem to retire those good boys. Something new..onwards and upwards.
I would use the charge ability on this as a sacrificial unit. Fall back, shoot something, and charge something else just to tie it up. Situational but what I think I’ll get the most mileage out of if I play them.
Ruin things... Look what they did to World Eaters... Not only have they completely stripped away the attacks twice that has been part of the codex for how many editions, but they also stripped down the army. Why did they get rid of Raptors AND Bikes? I HAD both in my World Eaters. I even bought Berserker heads from Bits Barn back in the day to put them on my Bikers. All my Chaos Space Marines are painted as World Eaters. While it is not my largest army (which is my Eldar and Necrons), it sucks having them stripped down so much. Daemons is even worse. You get basically one fore each class and a handful of characters. Eight Bound are just another melee unit roughly between Berserkers and Terminators, but now there are no fast. The Bikes pisses me off the most. I used them in about half my battles. I loved them. They were still good at melee, but could lay down some fire too. No Chosen, no Possessed, no Obliterators, no Havocs... All these painted models I have and now they are worthless.
I think the auspex hasn't reviewed the Space Wolves index yet because he's also waiting for typos in the profiles to be corrected, especially for scouts and wulfen.
I'm actually very upset about the Vanguard changes. I just got two boxes finished and thunder hammers are out as well as dual pistols. This was one of things I was most excited to use and now they want me to chop the arms off of at least half of them
Haha I got two boxes for my white scars. Feels like a waste now. They can't do what I bought them for. One box I can return for most of the money back. The other one is too late. Maybe 4+ invuln can help them be playable.
@@Gojira1744I don't think they'll take my assembled and painted models back. I'm really upset about this, like I'd rather just play 9th as this was my favorite squad. I'm shocked at the disrespect they showed these guys
I like the idea of two special weapons in a tactical squad. Sadly I miss the ability to split them up and leave one squad with the heavy weapon and load the others in a razor back.
You are correct. Sternguard have the Tacticus key word now. Aka one of three ways to refer to Primaris now without using the actual word. The other two being the other two armor types, Gravis and Phobos.
It just boggles me that in an edition that's supposed to be all about cleaning up and streamlining the game, where they've massively collapsed subfactions and removed a lot of characterful choice, they've opted to preserve the FB/Primaris split at nearly every point. This was such an obvious opportunity to clean up the fence-sitting mess that marines have been in since 8th, and they just... didn't?
They don't even know how to play their own game, what you expect?
The babies would scream about their squats not being special and cooler anymore
Gw is massively anti consumer
FB need to be phased out. Wargear options are crazy for tac squads.
If he really wants to clean up the space Marines they need to start phasing out the firstborn models a lot faster.
It seems tossing all the Weapon profiles of these squads as the same might hint at them being replaced soon anyway so little to no point in designing rules for them. My guess is we will get Primaris versions of the Assault Marines as heavily hinted at by numerous places. And maybe more diverse Intercessors.
Yea I'm assuming the same thing, Primaris update soon. Probably with Vanguard Vets first. I also bet the Primaris ones will have a limited weapon set but divergent stats.
I always had a theory that once they release all the special weapons as squads they would make a Primaris Tactical squad where you would need 2-4 kits to assemble the squad.
Yeah, that was my assumption too. I get the impression that either A) they're going to get the exact same treatment as the Sternguard with very limited weapon options in the new box, or B) they're going to get a completely different replacement with probably limited weapon options as well, and they didn't want the new ones being eclipsed by the old version.
@@marcmiddleton2277 Vanguard and Sternguard should be a single multipart kit.
@@jimmynicol7942 that sounds unlikely and impractical. if nothing else the two units need drastically different posing, long gone are the days of mixed ranged+melee foot veterans from 4th and earlier
GW wants us as the consumer to by as many boxes as possible. I mean you could roll aggressors, inceptors, eradicators, and heavy interssesors into one kit. The base is Gravis armor, but we have separate kits for all.
The only way this Vanguard sheet makes sense is if they want to make the primarisified version not look like a massive downgrade despite being worse than the firstborn version has been for decades.
i don’t entirely disagree in principle but vanguard veterans aren’t decades old in the first place,, they are a relatively young unit in the roster. until 5th changed it, all SM veterans were a single datasheet and only 2 of them could take either a power weapon, fist or claws or a special/heavy weapon (plus the sergeant had armoury access), with no jump pack access and just standard bolters (and that’s just in 4th, they actually had fewer options in 3rd and couldn’t take melee weapons other than a bolt pistol close and combat weapon on anyone besides the sergeant). until the changes in 5th in fact the only statline improvement they had over tac marines was +1Ld, with the option to pay +10pts per model to give them an extra attack too
The Primarine jetpack guys will be nuts. Like Outrider bikers - three man squad 19 attacks on charge or something stupid
@@bumbyonline Huh. 6th edition feels like longer ago than 11 years.
Shrike has become a true master of stealth since the rule he can only be attached to vanguard manlets came in effect. I ain't going to embarrass big bird and let him be seen in public babysitting a bunch of black armored Votann, that and his special rule is redundant for a character with that much mobility, will only take if under 100 pts.
So that
Most baffling of all: the Vanguard Veterans can now take TWO types of pistols you don't get in the box.
And can't dual wield them any more either
So glad I just built two squads of twin lightening claw Vanguard Veterans. I'm sure those will be very useful long term
I did as well to accompany Shrike in my Raven Guard list for 9th... I thought great I can have shrike join the squad... except the Vanguard Vets don't have the option to replace their pistol with another Heirloom weapon (give them the twin-linked special rule)
They will be, as long as they are pointed correctly. VV are a solid chaff remover and can then be used to block the enemy before they die.
@@Lerbrandt Except twin lighting claw VVs are illegal now, you don't have the option to swap the pistol for another heirloom weapon. The elite assault troops should not be worse than the basic assault troops.
Me too bud, me too 🥲
As Warp Talons
Thunderwolf Cavalry for Space Wolves got the same treatment, gaining the exact same Heirloom Weapon profile. Though at least their special abilities bumps up the damage to 2 on the charge, which makes them slightly better.
Also Wolf Guard, which wasn't too surprising since they're basically our veterans
I have a friend who ran a space wolf list that comprised mostly of thunder cave and wolf guard... he hates it.
@@utgar131i use them and wulfan so yeah i hate this too
@@utgar131this is just SW cope but you could try pointing out to him that you can bring a battle leader and wolf lord on Thunderwolf in the same squad of Cavalry making it a really interesting 5 man unit with multiple buffs that is very likely to complete your sagas. t. A fellow SW player trying to justify my three units of thunderwolves 😅
Yeah I build all of my lists around 2 units of thunderwolf cavalry and 2 units wolf guard with jump packs so I’m no impressed. Definitely moving to the terminator hype train.
Every casual player I've spoken to locally has already said they'll be throwing the tac marine locked-at-ten thing out the window in their games, doing the same 4-9 troop rule as most other units, as well as keeping the old limits of special/heavy weapons. I suppose tourney players are currently shafted, but those don't really matter in these parts.
Opinions are more divided on the VanVets, but most folks said they'll probably just use WYSIWYG weapons with stats and point costs figured out from other datasheets. There's no good reason at all to tolerate lazy changes like this if you're not playing tourneys, which few people actually do out of the overall player base.
As someone who mostly plays earlier editions with a circle of old friends I don't have a dog in the fight anyway, but it's gratifying to see than most other people around here are taking the sensible approach of Just Say No to bad rules changes.
the 10 man tacticals saddens me. I always fielded 6 man squads for fluff reasons :'(
I used to play with a guy who had six Razorbacks. Three of them were even the ancient hybrid metal and plastic kit with the las-and-plas turret. Needless to say his bolter boys came by the half-dozen too.
Not to mention the obvious, but if you aren't playing an official tourney, just asking your opponent if they mind you using the traditional sarge + 4-9 rules will probably get met with a shrug and an OK, at least going by reactions I've seen from local players. Just because GW wrote a shitty rule doesn't mean you have to use it in casual games.
What's weird, is Gray Hunters, the space wolf tactical Marines, can be in squads of five
How is 6 fluff?? 10 is the fluff size.
@@forgedwarrior20 Because my chapter is not codex adherent. my organisation fields iachoi (platoons) of 22 tacticals, an officer and an apothecary, as a single organisational unit. Thus there is a ten man and two 6-man squads
@Rowan Pearce Okay. So it's fluff reasons for your army. Gotcha
You've successfully addressed the two things they've done that I hate: No Combat Squads and nerfed Vanguard Vets.
Auspex, my man, you’re gonna be busy these couple of days with all the data sheet reveals, so please remember to rest well and pace yourself! We all appreciate how informative your videos are!
Fully Agree, I'm in Eastern USA so time zone is way different but to me it feels like he is making videos around the clock 🤣🤣
PRETTY sure that this is a prepping move for jump-pack assault primaris. It's really the only unit type Primaris are missing.
My guess is that the change to VanVets is because they are planning to release a primaris kit for them with a new weapon look. So this is half way between new and old vanvets.
Jump Pack Primaris marines likely coming with the launch of Space Marine 2 video game. They're in the trailers.
This. I imagine that the van vet role will be replaced by primaries jump troops
Great. I'm glad they invalidated the multiple boxes I bought so they could sell me another. So happy
I've had your channel open on my computer for most of the time since the indexes started rolling out. You're ability to put out informative, concise and punctual material blows my mind. We all deeply appreciate the constant coverage. Love from Australia
I'm pissed about both these changes, because I have Vanguard Veterans I specifically outfitted to fill a role of being fast melee units with invulnerable saves with storm shields, now I get basically assault Marines. Tactical Squad kits came with enough parts to make two SGT models, so in every kit I would make a second a 2nd Sergeant Model and paint him as in my Chapter, the Gray Hussars, they have Corporals which are the assistant Squad Leader. So I'd have two squads of 5 tactical Marines that could secure objectives and cover more ground.
Heirloom weapons (AKA Rusty Longswords or rusty wulfen hammers) are a real disappointment. It makes no sense at all that the assault marines have better kit than elites. It's the same for thunderwolves and wolf guard in spacewolves too. But yet a scout can have a thunderhammer or a power fist, it doesn't make sense.
I am enormously sad about VanVets. And as I’m running space wolves - which wolf guards got “heirloom” sh*t and lost jump-packs, along with Thunderwolf cava, which just lost all weapons, and wulfen too… this is just unfair…
@@Cpt_Miller I'm a spacewolves player too. I think the start for this additij will change our armies for a while. Back in 2nd edition spacewolves didn't use jump packs nor did they teleport. Every edition is different I guess. I hope wulfen gets errata as the hammers seem ridiculous. But for the time being it's thunder wolves and terminators I guess with tanks and dreads with a few troops. D4 thunder hammers on t cav characters in t cav units looks interesting at least
@@johnmarshall3175 thanks for your kind support, man. I’m just disappointed that I haven’t even tried those units, I’ve just finished painting them…
I’m honestly sad about the vanguard vets, I have a squad and I love them. The design of the minis, the way they play. And now they’re getting nerfed
I have multiple, thunder hammers, lightning claws, dual pistols. Just assembled and painted in time to be useless for what I got them for
@@GuardianM25dont you love the new edition? Fuck GW
combi meltas, combi flamers and combi plasmas having the same new profile is also a strange thing tbh. They used to add some flexibility, allowing units to deal with more than just light to med infantry. These new combi weapons seem worse against vehicles/monsters.
Yeah, I was looking through the CSM Index Cards and that change struck me as weird, especially on Terminators. Like, I put a good deal of thought into which Combi-Weapons I built with the options I had. This conglomeration is one of the few examples of simplification, so far, that I actually would go as far to say I dislike.
@@RecruitofApollo exactly, if GW would have looked at 1) which combi weapon options are most used by players 2) why are these options are most used, they would have easily seen it is so the unit has potential against different threats: 1) anti vehicle 2) anti light troop 3) anti elite troop
Any player/playtester could have told them this too. It suggests they decided against allowing the flexibility.
Combis just seem to be flat downgrades in most of the units that can take them.
@@fabr1cat0rgeneral94 for sure, on my CSM chosen i'd rather take the boltgun!
Which is worse then a bolt rifle the loyalists get...
Says it all really.
@@CrimsonVrs I would say that but the dev wounds anti-infantry combo allows it to punch up to elite infantry a bit which I actually do like. I am however quite sad to see combi-weapons go like they did they got done super dirty.
Its dumb to me that the sanguinary priest can't attach to sanguinary guard.
Sanguinary guard only guarded commanders in the lore, lowly priests aren't high enough ranking to get a sanguinary guard escort. You see that here in the rules that only captains can lead them, the rest has to do with lesser escorts.
@@Johan-hm5uc the rule is worded like it is so that the main codex doesn't reference blood angels rules. Normal apothecaries can attach to units that already have a captain. Why can't I have a sanguinary captain and priest with my guard.
I sort of like the idea of certain Characters only being attached to certain types of units, but yeah it's a bit too restrictive. For example a foot-slogging Captain should be able to attach to almost any foot-slogging infantry squad, but I can't take him with my Desolation Squad. And I don't think ANYONE can attach to my Devastator Squad. (edit: I can attach a foot-slogging Sang Priest to Devastators, but that's it)
@@mathewpowell-davis4545you're wrong. There are No FB marines could have their apothecary in codex marine index except stupid command squad. Now it seems the only way for FB marines is extinction😢
@@aheroforfun6401 They did my boy Shrike dirty with the rules you speak of. A 12" untargetable bubble for whatever unit he's attached to sounds good on paper until you remember this is Shrike who can get up into enemy faces at will and _wants_ to be within 12" of everything. His 9th ability to cancel overwatch made more sense for what they were trying to do with him. Being untargetable at range is pointless when you're already stuck in melee turn 1 is what I'm tryna say. Then we get to talk about the vanguard manlets Shrike is forced to babysit because GW has sat on the fence over Firstborn and Primaris for so long it sliced them in half from the arse up.
I had bought 3 razorbacks…
I would think that they would follow the traditional tactics… not change them.
This is only a problem in games where the rules cannot be flexible, my group have already agreed combat squading and razorbacks are still good.
@@marksaunders3055 So just keep using those rules. You're playing casual. Do not let GW ruin your games with a bad rule when you already have ones that work, and have worked for decades.
@@richmcgee434 Exactly what we are doing, a lot of the time we use one page rules with GW stuff just for simple quick games. TBF with alternatives many were thinking on skipping 10th and trying something else.
@@marksaunders3055 I'm reserving opinion until we see all the indexes at least (I'm mostly orks these days, so that's no joy yet) but the usual circle I play with has been pretty mixed on what's seen so far. We rarely played 8th or 9th, and lately it's been almost all RT and 2nd edition, with a few 3rd/4th games, so we're not exactly keeping up with the Joneses. Not exactly reassured by stuff like that Deathwatch MW spam trick cropping up already, and we've already agreed with our two marine plyers not to dumb down the tac unit sizes or the van vet weapons if we do play 10th. Only two people out of eleven bothered to order the core box, and they may both be screwed anyway if the FLGS gets allocated as badly as rumors say it will.
@@richmcgee434 We have players that have been going since Rogue Trader that like to rant at how dumbed down things have gotten so 10th is fueling the fire :).
We have as a club got lots of our own rules that we like, tanks have facings so shots to the rear get a bonus and if you dont point your tanks guns in the right direction when moving you don't get to fire them. Makes no sense when a sponson on the opposite side of the vehicle gets to shoot at you having drawn no line of sight during its move.
Unique weapons that are now basically "heirloom weapons"
- Van Vet weapons
- Ravenwing Biker hammers
- Thunderwolf/Wulfen hammers
- Anythhing else? I'm sure there's more.
You’ve been able to run 5 man tactical squads since 2nd edition. In their 2nd ed codex they were restricted to 10 man squads but in a later white dwarf article it let you do units of 5
The unopened box of tac marines and 3/5 painted vanguard vets on my desk:
When I saw the new T-hammers profile I was instantly excited for my two jump pack wolf guard, unleashing flurries of lightning-wreathed hammer blows of mortal wounds. This took the wind out of those sails unfortunately. But it is a new edition, and I'm trying to be optimistic. So until these guys either get an update, eratta or something I'll just be enjoying the new and improved SW dread march!
I do love a bit of walkies!
I look for using the stormwolf in hover it looks good with 5 bladeguard 10 assault intersessors and a chaplein in it
@@tmasantal7049 that's potentially a lot of points in a flyer that has never been too hot, though I must admit I do have a soft spot for it myself.
I have been wondering about this like most vehicles that are damage dealers seem worse than armigers for armies that can ally them and significantly cheaper seems weird. I like dreadnoughts but in my chaos army I take one helbrutes and two semi gets because they are so cheap for what you get. And they are better than almost every other vehicle except maybe the vindicator
R.I.P my boys Assault Squad, Vanguard Veterans, Wulfen, Skyclaws, and Wolf Guard.
And hello shiny new Jetpack Assault Intercessors. You know theyre coming
I'd really love to hear what GW's justification was for the heirloom weapons. Even though it "simplifies" the game by removing additional profiles, it's completely subverted the functionality of some units, a great example was the Thunderwolf Cavalry in the Space Wolf list, while Lightning Claws made a very effective anti-infantry unit, the Thunder Hammers were massively useful to create an anti-elite/anti-light vehicle unit that could race up the board and engage turn 1/2. Not to mention the Wulfen Thunder Hammers going from S10 AP-2 D3 to S5 AP-1 D1.. For a melee focused army, that's crucial, but it seems that with very little anti-vehicle focused melee weapons, this edition is encouraging shooting vehicles instead. That's a playstyle breaker for some armies, as well as costly for others, it'd be nice to hear there was a reason that wasn't just "simplification".
Custodes have like 1 anti-tank weapon in their codex and with the incresed T and lowered AP they will do shit against vehicles.
Its absolutly disgusting what they did to some hard hitting melee units (and some other stay the same for some reason...)
They already explained it, people seem to not have picked up on it. Thunder hammers and storm shields vs lightning claws in high volume make a unit vastly different in what it can do. They want a datacard to represent a unit's effectiveness and battlefield role quite cleanly. I expect they want small points variance too in options. So this is the solution for that rather than just having it be a points difference.
Obviously they toned down Thunder hammers anyway, but still this is why I believe they did it. Not saying I agree, but it does making it easier on them and maybe good for the system overall.
@@olith killing options is never good for a strategy game
@@ruas4721 The more options you have the harder it is to balance - especially with the volume 40k has. They add stuff like it is a roleplaying game because its all about the minis and then try to fix it like a strategy game. Not saying it's good or bad really, just my view on it and why they have done it, especially when they said this is what they were doing.
@@olith Interesting, I hadn't heard/noticed that specific goal of homogenizing the capabilities of a unit as well as overall rules. I agree, it doesn't matter whether we individually agree with that choice, but I do think that if enough of us feel the same way, they may make some concessions. In the case of the Space Wolves as a whole, I may still be lamenting that versatility removal effectively taking away almost all of the Anti-Tank Melee options.
Thanks for the info though. We'll just have to see how things play out when we all get into 10th edition games.
GW seems to have done too much consolidation with a lot of weapon profiles. Their whole "Simplified not simple" line was correct, just not in the way people had hoped. They're removing flexibility from model builds. A friend of mine said they're doing this to make 40k play like Sigmar (gross). Another example of this is the consolidation of the shotgun and bolt carbine in the Crusader squad kit into the same profile, reducing the range of the bolt carbine and damage of the shotgun in the process (which is weird because they didn't do this for other units with carbines or shotguns.) I don't understand their thought process here at all.
Why gross, AoS plays good.
Can't wait to see your DG breakdown. Lots of the other channels I've seen have been desperately trying to find something to salvage out of them or saying something along the lines of "It's not *that* bad" with pained voices.
Yeah I certainly did a lot of groaning while reading it.
Deathguard reddit be posting images from Tyranids and World Eaters complaing other armies have taken their rules.
I played a game against sw last night. Horribly slow but I do really enjoy customizing pm with elites. Some cool combos
@@dawncracker6250 Probably the only thing that makes them even remotely viable. DG always had good characters and at least they didn't take that away
@evanwoodham6296 not sure where you're getting -2 damage from; the -1 strat costs 2 CP and only counts in melee
widespread cover is only if you bring along Morty, who is shaping up to be the weakest of the primarchs
6+ fnp is only within contagion range of a specific model (the DP) and other armies do FNP better
face facts, DG are near-universally agreed to be the bottom of the barrel this edition
These are my two biggest bug bears with the new Index which I genuinely hope are rectified in the Codex when that drops but knowing GW they most likely won't, hell if they just gave the Vanguard Vet's the basic Relic Blade Profile ''S+3 Ap3 D2'' maybe with one less pip of Ap since that's been reduced across the board this Edition that woulda simplied'em down and kept them distinct from the bog standard Assault Squad.
As far as the ten-man unit goes, that is annoying for Deathwatch as we now don't get Terminators inheriting their OC from the parent unit. However, on the flip side we can now take 2 Frag Cannons per five models, 1 Heavy Thunder Hammer per five models. It states "models", not Veterans. So in a squad of ten, you can be packing 7 Vets, 2 Heavy Thunder Hammers, 4 Frag Cannons and 3 Terminators with heavy weapons. Pretty punchy! Add Librarian for 4+ inv save all round, or a Lt and Captain for Lethal Hits and Rites of Battle once a game. Or tool them for pure CC and add a Chaplain for that nice +1 to wound.
But what happened to Vanguard Marines is frankly inexcusable.
Deathwatch can't even take tac squads (see detachment restrictions). You use the "veterans" unit and they can still be taken in units of 5.
@@tripod222 i know they can't. I was more commenting about general odd changes as mentioned above. The point was that although I can take squads of five, I can't take ten and combat squad them. All combat squads are gone.
Part of me thinks that the new 10 man mandate for tactical squads is due to the Horus Heresy, since you can use the 20 man boxes of mark iii, iv, and vi marines to first born for 40k. I guess they might have some rule of “only two squads per box” or something.
Wolf Guard got shafted with Heirloom Weapons too
So regarding the VanVets, I think it's a big mistake to look at them in a vacuum. If you attach a jump captain with PF to a squad of 10, and use the strat (0CP because captain), you get 40x S6 +1W AP-2 attacks + 10 S9 +1W AP-3 with lethal hits on the charge. Against your OoM target (recall that lethal hits skips wound roll), this deletes basically anything (23W vs a knight, 8 dead termis, 47 dead guardsmen or 30 wounds to marines, bracket Mortarion). Without OoM you are looking at 13 wounds vs a knight. Even with a chaplain with PF or a librarian you get very good output against basically everything.
Clearly, their profile has been thunk in conjunction with the attachment options (jumplain, jupmtain, and jumplibrarian). This unit has a very good output given its mobility and potential survivability. Sure, bladeguard+ancient can also have an insane output for one turn if the captain goes in sicko mode and the ancient activates the banner (I computed an hilarious 35W against knights with OoM and max buffs), but D2 is a less flexible profile into 3 wound stuff, and they are much less mobile.
Just do the math again with the potential support options. In 10th, you are not supposed to run the units alone, and every support option for VanVet is surprisingly good. Wait for points obviously, but if reasonably prices they will be a staple of all lists, even potentially in BA (I foresee one unit of VanVets with captain, one unit of Death company with chaplain, 1 Dante with sang guard to maximize bonuses).
GW needed to gimp Tact squads as they are still popular and they can't have that for any firstborn.
Even though the VanVet profile is disappointing, I'm still going to run a brick with a jump captain with the thief of secrets for some teleportation shenanigans in my Deathwatch.
Make sure they look like they are equipped with the same weapon loadout as the captain for maximum confusion.
It might be an oversight that the squad is locked to 10. I've noticed a few inconsistencies in these index. The one that personally affects me is my Wolf scouts. Why do they have 1 wound, and yet standard scouts and sniper scouts are now 2 wounds, and scout bikers are 3. I think this is an oversight but will they bother to faq it?
Just run them as regular scouts, SW aren't restricted from running them.
wahapedia. dont pay for a codex
"Let's make it so you can't split the squad and make it a minimum of a 10 man squad so they have to buy more models."
"While we are at it, punish people wanting to keep using FB Marines by make Tactical Squads annoying and mediocre to use."
"The customers are gonna love that. Trolololol."
I believe this is a clear consequence of all these indexes being rushed out. Hopefully the codexes will contain corrections or more well thought out rules. We will see.
Tactical Squads feels like a curse of box compliance. The kit only builds one Sergeant (not that it's hard to build a second but the box only has a single melee weapon) and the only Heavy Weapon is a single Missile Launcher. Van Vets... Either they just didn't care because new ones are coming or they realized Storm Shield + Lightning Claw was one of the most common builds and they've removed single Lightning Claws across the board.
I preferred to keep my Sergeant with a bolter or a combi weapon if they could use it. I ran my Tac squads as close support I wanted the extra shots instead of the slightly better melee attack if someone gets close.
Weapon specific stats is not the rule Bloat we were talking about...
They've introduced more rules bloat in areas which were simple and removed all the complexity in so many areas which people actually appreciated
The 10-man thing is even stranger given that Space Wolves haven't changed their model counts for Grey Hunters or Blood Claws.
These changes have basically completely rendered my army as modelled unplayable. It was built around Combat Squads for almost all of the squads, two of which being 10 man tactical squads that don't have any keywords on their weapons anymore, and part of my Vanguard Veterans was, both through modelling and proxies, dual wielding chainswords which is not allowed anymore.
Sadly, the discoraging point seems the most plausible one. So they can say "hey people don´t use them anymore".
* sad first company themed army noises *
I put together 30 sternguard, 30 vanguard and 20 each of assault and tactical termies for my custom chapter like 6 years ago, but if regular assault marines are just a better deal than my 5 man squad of thunder hammer+storm shield vanguard star smasher squad thats just... sad times
My only battleline units are 30 something tactical marines and I have a unit of power fist vanvets :(
The same relic weapons issue was bled over to Thunderwold Cavalry too, which is a HUGE shame. Not to mention the complete nerf of melee weapons to the Grey Knights.
One of the things I noticed with my Deathwatch Veteran box is that many first born lost options because it was not in the box. So, I used to have the option of power fist and thunder hammers. Both still exist in the game but no longer are an option for my veterans. Instead, I have the Long Vigil Melee Weapon (basically power weapon) and a Deathwatch Thunder Hammer (which is the old two handed Heavy Thunder Hammer). Also, because only two of the hammers are in the 5 man box, like wise only two heavy weapons, both are limited to 2 for every 5 veterans. So instead of changing boxes to match rules, they seem to be changing rules to match box. One interesting thing is the Deathwatch Shotgun has been removed from the datasheet despite being in the box. It also seems this is only affecting first born, as I don’t remember Intercessors having power fist or thunder hammer in the box.
For the Tactical Marine, they should have kept the combat squad option. I can see potentially forcing taking a full squad so that someone couldn’t do two MSU with a heavy weapon, but then we have to have the combat squad option.
It does very much seem that they are slowly phasing first born out as they are the ones I noticed getting screwed the most. Like I can no longer take a fist born apothecary as a solo character. Instead, you have to have one in a command squad because that is the only place you can buy one. Personally, I am kit bashing my own and just using the primaris version datasheet with the ability to attach to a first born unit. Don’t care if it isn’t official as I only play with friends and never competition. Some the restrictions GW has made are completely stupid.
They have basically rendered the Razorback pointless. It is just a crappy Predator now since it has nothing that can ride in it. At most, it is going to be for Command Squads or Assault Squads without Jump Packs. The Vanguard Veterans change is both lazy and uninspired. I will never run them in their current state. They might as well all have Chainswords. I had already decommissioned my Tactical Squads in favor of Heavy Intercessor Squads for my Crimson Fists and Assault Intercessor Squads for my Blood Angels, but this change to Tactical Squads is just dumb. While the ability to take six Battleline units makes it so Combat Squads really don't serve a purpose, they still should be able to run in Squads of five.
Space Wolves got a good handful of this a heirloom weapons now. Speaking of, I saw all the other Space Marine subfaction Indexes got a video, will there be one for the Space Wolves?
Tactical Squads were *exactly* as their name suggests, a more versatile and flexible alternative to the Primaris boys.
Having the option to add a Missile Launcher for camping home fields objectives, or giving them a Melta/Combi-Melta, Plasma/Combi-Plasma to charge in with a chainsword for good measure, as they hop out of a Rhino in the midfield, was what made them worth taking instead of Primars. 10-man squads also weren't unheard of, but you only took them to combat squad and utilize their flexibility.
This is just wrong and harmful, considering how frustratingly one-dimensional the Primaris options are, who aside from using very confusing names, operate more like Aspect Warriors...
Ironically, it would make a lot more sense for most of the Primaris troops to be restricted to 10-man units (Tacticus armormored at least, not the Phobos)...
I get the impression from this pretty poor Vanguard Veteran datasheet that there's a refresh or replacement unit coming for them in the near future
Yes, but it will be ̶C̶a̶w̶l̶'̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶m̶i̶n̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶ primaris.
@@manyslayer5889 Can't wait for copy pasted assault intercessors... not.
@@Marlena_M Seeing as GW is in their datasheets separating essentially the same units only because their methods for movement can be different, I would not be surprised if we would in the near future see simply "Assault Intecessors with Jump Packs" as some 'grand' catch-all fast melee unit.
Add no jump pack lieutenants to the list 😢
Most likely waiting for a primaris jump squad. No those heavy support squads do not count
Daemons going from 30 to 10 has me worried for my Boyz :(
might go down to max 20 like tyranid hormagaunts and termagants.
@@555tork That might be better actually, since I'd need to buy six less Boy kits to max them out.
This is exactly what happened to Chaos Chosen/Terminators with the whole “accursed weapon” rubbish. Makes no sense to dumb down power weapons so much across the board
So if tactical marines can no longer be purchased in squads of 5 or broken down into combat squads what are Razorbacks for? They can't carry Primaris of any flavour and now they can't even be used to haul around the very troops the kit was designed to support!
Devastators and Assaults maybe?
The only thing I can say about what they did to Vanvets is I’m glad I only bought 10.
I genuinely do not understand any of the reasoning behind the sternguard and vamguard losing all their unique weapon options
Because they won't make the kits like they used too with tons of combi and melee weapon options.
Probably because point costs becomes easier to calculate.
Probably also because same range and dice rolls. Easier to balance and speeds up the gameplay... but balance in 10th feels strange so far.
Because don't think just buy Primaris and wait for next Primaris.
@TheRatsintheWalls but they break this very rule themselves. Tactical, assault, devestator all have the option on sprue for single lightning claws but can only take doubles which they don't have in the kit
Same with Tyranid Warriors. All the bonerswords and lashwhip and Scythe Talons and Rending claws are gone. Just Warrior Talons st5 ap1 and 1 damage.
GW strange rules? I could never
Space wolves have been really screwed. No wolf guard with jump packs and all chain swords with just 3 attacks as opposed to 4 like all other SMs
IMO, the weirdest are "Heirloom Weapons", and "Combi Weapon" (which isn't just space marines, but it is a very confusing difference). In hindsight of posting, I think I don't like the removal of the flexibility that those two signify.
Ten man squads were mandatory for tactical marines in 2nd edition but allowed for combat squadding (since the plastic squads came with a missile launcher, flamer and chainsword/boltpistol sergeant and you couldn't move a heavy weapon and fire it at all, and the flamer used an actual template which was quite beefy but also comparatively short ranged) this stopped 'half your squad' being useless one way or the other.
I would be shocked if these changes stayed. Indexes were released with 2nd edition too on a handy stapled paper booklet in the 2nd edition box and were quickly replaced with much beefier codexes that completely changed what each army was.
I think dumbing down weapons options, is the worst thing they’ve done for tenth. Most of the changes look pretty good, but removing your choice to how you equip your army is a step too far for me.
As soon as they merged together non-Indomitus Terminators into one and merged Chaos Terminator melee into the same Accursed Weapon profile during their 9th Codex drop I truly hoped that this trend would not continue...
Speaking of changes, I also consider the evolution of the Psychic Phase to be a step in the wrong direction because now that Psychic Powers are tied almost exclusively to just a single model datasheet/character within the army, you will need to own at least one of each psyker available to you to get the most out of the change. Hypothetically, during the last several Editions you could have on the field 10 Chaos Sorcerers and because they all got to choose their powers from the same pool, you could nicely spread them out among them and even have duplicates- no fancy models needed. In 10th, even the armor a model is wearing might change how they operate, like with the Chaos Lords or Thousand Sons Sorcerers having different abilities in Power Armor and in Terminator Armor, Psychic Power or not, there are differences.
I think it's an indication of what is likely being phased out. Already plenty of rumours about jump pack primaris coming probably the autumn so these are likely stop gap rules and we'll likely have new vanguards like the new sternguard but with jump packs and primaris scale with the new codex. Also probably an indication that updated models for BA death company and san guard are further away and they are very key units for BA players.
Agreed. This is making room for a new jump-melee-primaris unit and continuing the slow squatting of firstborn.
nid warriors, sacrosants wolf guard, thunder wolf calvary, zephyrim are all being phased out weird....... cus those are some of the most iconic units for their respect armies...... also sangunie guard are still pretty downgrade just not as badly downgrade s5 ap2 d2 while they have no inv save lost fnp and lost 2inch movement. .... yea 1 unit with dante is still good because they will hit on 2s and u can use red rampage on them when hitting vehicles. but really dont see 3 squads of them anymore.
I think it would be interesting if they gave the Heirloom Weapons an Anti-Vehicle/Anti-Monster Keyword so that the units equipped with them still has a bit of an all-round melee utility feeling. Anything big will probably still save away most of the wounds you deal, but that way they could at least deal some damage and wouldn't feel like rubber toy hammers given to Astartes.
Van Vets in BA are actually quite powerful too with a Sang Priest and Captain. Use Red Rampage. I first saw this full idea from the great Blood Angels Commander.
Yeah, 4+ invul with SS and 5+ FNP from the priest should make them really hard to remove!
I hope you understand that the Vanguard Veterans are in this scenario so good only because of plenty outside factors? Chapter Tactic + two Characters, no crap that their power becomes much more significant, but all of us talking about the Van Vets as they stand on their own.
@@Saidan79 I hope you understand that I was giving a scenario where they are quite good and my commentary was just that and nothing more. No crap they won't work for everyone, but people need to learn new combos and uses and not just toss things away because of group think.
One of the core tennants of my mechanized force was running tactical squads in twin razorbacks for some extra fire support. Sit them on a objective and just watch your OP try and remove them.
Combat Squads were added with 5th edition. In Fourth, the optimal squads were 6 or 8 as it affected the break points for Leadership tests. You also weren't limited around what special/heavy weapons you could take in the squad so a 6man squads needed to lose 3 models before a leadership test had to be taken and could field both a Flamer/Melta/Plasma and a heavy weapon for capture point Defence. They also conveniently fit inside a Razorback for flanking positions.
6 man lasplas! six man lasplas!
Combat Squads were introduced during 2nd edition and re-introduced with the 4th edtion Dark Angels codex.
You coukd split 10man tac squads into two 5man squads since 2nd Ed. At least that's what's stored in my memory banks
The amount of flavor and fluff they just eviscerated for the sake of “simplicity” is baffling and bordering on stupid. And all of this somehow is green lit, while they didn’t address the most asked for point of simplification: the FB/primaris divide. Instead, despite getting rid of transport restrictions, they reinforce it otherwise by idiotically restricting what characters can lead what units.
I feel like this is a bit like what happened to Chaos Chosen in 9th with accursed weapons. This will likely get an FAQ, at the minimum for the Sargeant.
BA can make Vanguards work: Vanguard + Storm Shields + Sanguinary Priest + Captain + Red Rampage (0CP) = (+1A +2S -1AP +1 to Wound + Lethal Hits) on Charge +(4++) +(5+++) Salvation
The vanguard vets are still really useful in BA, we can give them extra attack, extra ap, 2 extra strength with a captain and Sanguinary priest
I had a squad of Vangaurd half painted for ages, finally finished them just a couple weeks ago and managed to play a whole one game with them in 9th. #£%*
A few days time? I thought the field manual was being posted up this afternoon?
The command squad taking only 2 company veterans and slapping 3 characters to it bugs me, especially since I just got finished making a unit of 5 company veterans the night before the index dropped. No other units can take the gear they can and until they release a primaris unit that can actually take a variety of weapons they might just sit on the shelf until I cave and remake them into a command squad.
Please make a video of space wolves as they suffer from the issues you brought up in the videos. Also right now long fangs cannot be fielded because they don’t have the space marine keyword.
I mean it kinda shows you time of old marines is coming to conclussion.
Would've been nice if Vanguard unit had at least few melee weapon options left, like hammers and twin lightning claws or something.
You know, the options that they showcase on the front of the box.
@@KameSennin4209 Indeed.
I presume part of what I say has already been covered in other comments.
However, I just wanted to show my support that silly 'simplified' choices gw have made have made it difficult for lots of wargamers!
I for one think the vanguard vet changes are not needed and fully support what Auspex Tactics has raised!
Yes for many SM players the assualt marines could just be a viable alternative, but what about players that don't have access to them eg Deathwatch?
Yes I am making this a point because I do collect Deathwatch but I'm sure it's annoyed a lot of other players too.
I don't want to promote myself too much but I will be talking about this in my podcast I do on 40k!
And many more annoying rule changes for my armies!
But a big thank you to Auspex for doing this video and getting out some of the 'simplified' rules changes which make everyone go 'what?'
Take care everyone, remember the inquisition is always watching....
Splitting Spacemarine squads into combat squads goes all the way back to 2nd edition.
I thought my eyes were decieving me
I joined in 9th so this is my first stab thru the heart from gw
Heirloom this 🍆!
Have you noticed they reduced the number of melee weapon attacks for Space Wolves Blood Claws and Grey Hunters? They are basically worse than Assault and Tactical marines from some weird reason.
Either the Vanguard Veteran Datasheet is Incorrect or is intentionally being nerfed to make the new unrevealed Primaris Jump troop more appealing. The standard Assault Marine still has Lightning Claws and Thunderhammers after all. I think they will get an errata by the time the codex releases.
I'm curious if there is a way to make the Vanguard Vets work with the new codex.
I don't see anything that jump out, but I'm also awful at spotting anything other than busted combos.
Do you have to make full 10 strong squads as well as not having combat squads?
As far as the unit creation rules say, it has to be 9 marines and a sergeant, no more or less. I've managed to just about duck around the issues it caused by reshuffling my heavies into separate devastator squads, who can have the 5 standard devastators, and up to 5 optional normal marines alongside
@@greg_mca wow, well this radically changes my first born army! I can't think what I'd use a razorback for that I wouldn't use a rhino....
Here's an interesting one. Hunters are maybe kinda good now?
Since they've changed the rule from a bonus against aircraft to a general anti-fly keyword, and it has Devastating Wounds, so now it can land D6+2 mortals on a surprising amount of stuff.
Demon Primarchs, Monoliths, Vertus Praetors, Riptides. Anything with Fly, it hits on a 2+, and does mortals on a 3+
Very interested to see how the points shake out, but they're only 110 in 9th so it could honestly be a great budget option that smacks a lot of stuff pretty solidly. T11 and 11W, too
I think they have the Vanguard Vet and Assault squad pages mixed up.
The Indexes have killed the already strained interest I had in 10th. GW fucked up royally.
This edition is massively screwed up from the start. Great job GW. Amazing job...
Yet another terrible GW decision. Whomever planned 10e was an idiot. Even if this is purely about screwing over firstborn units, this is a very aggression provoking way to do it
My 500 and 1000 DA Green Wing Army has been built around Company Veterans rolling up in a Razorback with support elsewhere. This hasn't changed much in 15ish years because it always had a fairly solid win rate. Looks like its tiem to retire those good boys. Something new..onwards and upwards.
I would use the charge ability on this as a sacrificial unit. Fall back, shoot something, and charge something else just to tie it up. Situational but what I think I’ll get the most mileage out of if I play them.
Massively cynical changes. The tactical squad one should be rebelled against and people should field them in the old way. This is not okay.
Ruin things... Look what they did to World Eaters... Not only have they completely stripped away the attacks twice that has been part of the codex for how many editions, but they also stripped down the army. Why did they get rid of Raptors AND Bikes? I HAD both in my World Eaters. I even bought Berserker heads from Bits Barn back in the day to put them on my Bikers. All my Chaos Space Marines are painted as World Eaters. While it is not my largest army (which is my Eldar and Necrons), it sucks having them stripped down so much. Daemons is even worse. You get basically one fore each class and a handful of characters. Eight Bound are just another melee unit roughly between Berserkers and Terminators, but now there are no fast. The Bikes pisses me off the most. I used them in about half my battles. I loved them. They were still good at melee, but could lay down some fire too. No Chosen, no Possessed, no Obliterators, no Havocs... All these painted models I have and now they are worthless.
I think the auspex hasn't reviewed the Space Wolves index yet because he's also waiting for typos in the profiles to be corrected, especially for scouts and wulfen.
I'm actually very upset about the Vanguard changes. I just got two boxes finished and thunder hammers are out as well as dual pistols. This was one of things I was most excited to use and now they want me to chop the arms off of at least half of them
@sturat5166 Ah yes, so they'll be display only models now. Perfect
Haha I got two boxes for my white scars. Feels like a waste now. They can't do what I bought them for. One box I can return for most of the money back. The other one is too late. Maybe 4+ invuln can help them be playable.
@@Gojira1744I don't think they'll take my assembled and painted models back. I'm really upset about this, like I'd rather just play 9th as this was my favorite squad. I'm shocked at the disrespect they showed these guys
With Assault intercessors, hellblasters etc, they are sold in discount boxes in 5s
My prediction is that a new primaris jump pack assault marine kit is coming with the codex release.
I like the idea of two special weapons in a tactical squad. Sadly I miss the ability to split them up and leave one squad with the heavy weapon and load the others in a razor back.
VV in blood angels can get some crazy combos.
i see this as a way of them telling people to not get the tactical kit. there way of getting away from them and eventually phasing them out