Warhammer 40k - Adapting to 5th Edition

Ah, a new edition is upon us, and as always, gamers line the counters looking for the latest tips, news, rumors, and lies regarding the latest and greatest tactics. In this knol, I'll focus on how to adapt your army composition and tactics to the 5th ed changes.

 

1: The big changes. Rending has been toned down, making it substantially less dangerous to vehicles in particular. Running is huge, making mobility more widespread, especially among assaulters. Snipers are different...but not necessarially better. Templates have gotten better. Vehicle damage tables have changed, making vehicles less vulnerable to destruction, especially from glances. Wound allocation has changed. Only troops are scoring. Last but not least, true line of sight and cover changes have entirely changed deployment strategies. Lets take a look at how these affect units from different armies.

 

2: The army composition:

Space Marines: The vindicator is a clear win now, with a much more accurate, lethal battle cannon, and the added survivability of armor. The Land raider models are also better, with even more immortality. Large troop units are gaining popularity in order to blanket objectives, and space wolves get their version of true grit back for another slight boost. The upcoming codex also contains a bunch of fun new toys.

 

Guard: Demolishers have improved greatly, but infantry squads suffer with the cover saves, as deployment on most maps requires choosing between cover saves for your units, or cover saves for your targets. Immolators are excellent, with the current proliferation of saves, and walkers/ogryn now can get into combat even faster.

 

Inquisition: Giving the Vindicare rending is a plus, and the usual land raider bennies apply, but for the most part, the inquisition suffers with the advent of fifth ed, as shooty units tend not to benefit from most of the rule changes, and running isn't helpful for most of the DH units. Witchhunters do a bit better, as they suffer from a CC/Short range army, and thus, running is huge, as is the cover issue.

 

Chaos: Essentially the same as for SM, with the added bonus of a relative advantage in tooled up armies for games using kill points.

 

Necrons: Gauss weaponry took a huge nerf, now that glancing is essentially unable to kill vehicles, the only real anti-vehicle weaponry in the list is in the heavy support and HQ slots. Given that almost all necron units are heterogenous, they also suffer by comparison with the new wound allocation rules, and the ability of assault armies to close the distance more rapidly can be quite difficult. On the bright side, turboboosting scarabs now get a 2+ cover save, and monoliths have gotten a boost.

 

Orks: Running is a pure win here, and trukks are both inexpensive and relatively hardy, Orks have pretty much only gotten positive things from this change.

 

Tau: Static tau is now dead, thanks to flanking, wound allocation and running allowing a second turn charge by most armies, but mech tau is alive and well, and hybrid lists can be quite powerful. Of particular note is the AFP, which was transformed from a relatively inaccurate flamer substitute to an exellent choice for a commander, and the ability for all tanks to grant themselves a 4+ cover save is amazing.

 

Tyrannids: Having no armor, the changes to damage tables hurts their ability against heavy armor, but running improves their speed a bit against infantry lists. All in all, a bit negative overall.

 

Eldar: Holofalcons are even better, though defensive weaponry changes hurts some eldar armor. Harlequins are less impressive, but all in all, fifth edition probably affected eldar less than any other armor.

 

Dark Eldar: For the few players left in this army, they're probably relatively negative about the changes, as DE are already so fast that running is mostly unimportant, and their armor is so fragile that it isn't going to live long regardless of changes. The inability to consolidate from one combat to the next is extremely rough when targetting armies with many units, such as guard.