Codex Astartes

[Charly]

over the next few weeks il be posting some ideas here for our new space marine codex. if you have anything to put forward please do!

[Charly]

the first change to the marine codex thats been sugested is the moving of the terminators from the squads section to the support section of the list.
this will obviously limit the marines massive 50% support section and should see more squads being taken in marine armies (this is generally agreed to be a good thing!)
this rule would be coupled with the already in use limit on veteran squads (no more veterans than 'standard' marines).

another main area for improvement will be the tactical squads.
it is already in practise that marine squads can no longer be bought as 10 man squads to be split at the start of the battle, but instead a five man squad must be bought as such.
it has been suggested that this rule could be waved for the tactical squads alone, to give them a more flexible (tactical) feel.

also in the ideas pipeline are skull probes for tactical squads and possibly techmarines (to give that compulsary choice a little more purpose).
these would work in a similar way to scanners (detect hidden troops within 24"), but available to standard troops for a cost of around 10 points but with a limited range, eg 18".

dreadnoughts are another main issue, with many combinations possible in the existing rules for two powerful heavy weapons for 200 or less points. my proposal would be to make 2 classes of dreadnought.
a standard dreadnought to follow the rules as they are in the codex but only to have one heavy weapon and one close combat weapon.
a 'hellfire' dreadnought (dow style) which could choose any weapon combination from those available in the codex but at an increased basic cost of 141 points. this insures that even the cheapest combination of heavy weapons will put the dreadnought into the 3 vp boundary.
Also the lightning claw with heavy flamer arm will only be available to space wolves.

[El Capitan]

Sounds good!

I would also suggest that the Lightning Claw and Heavy Flamer combo becomes a Space Wolf only Dreadnought option given it basically says that in the Space Wolf book!

[Simon]

The skull probe would also work well as a wargear card potentially, then it still is accessible to tactical squads via a veteran sergeant. Altering it slightly from a scanner might be interesting, but we'll see what ideas are bounced around.

A few (new) options in the assault weapons list should be confined to a Captain, such as a 'daemon' hammer or other items. Bringing in the 3rd/4th/5th edition Iron Halo item as something unique could also be useful (in those editions it is a conversion field, but the rules could easily be adapted into anything else like a boosted Ld range or something else).

[Adoni-Zedek]

I've already got a Daemon Hammer: 15 pt wargear card available to Space Marine Captains only. It's a force-Thunderhammer. Auto-wound, -5 to the armor save, auto-penetrate, and 1d6 wounds per hit. I guess really the force part is redundant, since it already autowounds daemons (and everything else), although it will negate the daemonic aura save. The only bonus here is that a captain in power armor can take it. But it's a unique wargear item, so even if you took two captains, you'd still only get one Daemonhammer (i'd need to field 3000 points before even considering a 2nd captain though!)

Now I just need to get that Empire Warrior Priest so I have a suitable hammer.

For the skull probes, don't make them too pricey! Remember a scanner is only 1 point.

[El Capitan]

that's more powerful than a daemon weapon! I don't think it should have the multiple wounds effect, considering an axe of khorne costs 15 points and gives +1 str. & D3 wounds and I'd up it to at least 20 even with this mod.

or make it power first stats with D3 damage, double handed and costs 20 points?

[James 40K Champ ***]

Good starter base of rules changes to go from, def agree with the concept on Dreads of course, but isn't +141points extremely steep? I know dreads need toning down, and 2 heavy weapon combos (or at least the more powerful ones), should count for 3 VP's, but that seems a lot to pay.

Dreads after all are one of the SM's strong points, other armies all have pretty good strengths too, their often just harder to use than SM Dreads. But if people stopped trying to field none SM armys that want to fight like SM's, its no wonder they'r not upto the task.

I'll have a think on other amendments that might be good.

[James 40K Champ ***]

Thinking on terms being support at first I was a little weary, as other army's elite squads wouldn't count as the same, again hurting one of SM's core strengths, their support choices.

But then I thought about army's, mainly my own, with 15 marines, 5 terms, and close to 1000 points of tanks, which is fairly space marine flavored , but I can see wouldn't hurt to water down to make for a better game.

So yeah I'll back that.

[James 40K Champ ***]

One possible one for across the board, although I'm not sure if it's needed or not, could be to limit any vehicle to 1 vehicle card per 100 point bracket, in the same way as VP's.

So only things like raiders could tool up with 3, and things like predators couldn't go overboard.

2 seems sensible for a main battle tank.

[Simon]

uk.games-workshop.com/storefront/newimage.asp?Size=A&Img=259879

Thought this might be a good model for a captain with a daemon hammer

[Charly]

ok, to simon on skull probes - the idea is to give tactical combat squads an advantage over say devastator combat squads, making skull probes a wargear card seems pointless when there is already the scanner wargear card available to any character, the skull probes need to be available to the standard sergeant or squad leader to use in order for them to make a difference.

to brown on dreadnoughts - yes 141 is steep but the goal is to encourage ppl to take a more tactically balanced dreadnought with one heavy weapon and one close combat weapon (the points of which will remain at 115). but leaving the option of a hellfire dread if u want it, i think its still a viable option given what they can do. oh and put the BS back up to 6?

[James 40K Champ ***]

Well mixed dreads would still be a brilliant option under original combat rules, the proof is in the pudding that we have seriously hurt the close combat abilities of dreads as everyone kits them out for shooting!

They just ain't worth the points in close combat.

[Simon]

Maybe if we're going to boost the BS back to 6 for the heavy dread, then it might be worth reducing the movement down to 4?

[Charly]

i dont really want to up the points for the hellfire dread AND make it worse tho. i was thinking possibly have the normal dread at WS6 but BS5, and the hellfire at WS5 BS6.

[El Capitan]

Eldar excepted I only ever remember Dreads assaulting once, that was my Chaos one on Lukes Imperial one, the Imperial one was destroyed, exploded and killed mine Chaos one, overall the Imperial one having a 3-2 victory on points. Dreads were never great in combat under any system they were just quite tough and obviously ace tank killers.

In old combat rules Gretchin number 4 would be on equal weapon skill, fumbles aside the kill ratio hasn't really changed

[James 40K Champ ***]

Yeah it has...

In old rules you get a very good chance of battering the first 3 models as you have higher WS and 3 attacks, which is a great number to have in old rules. You should really decimate 1st three, then also extra bonus chance of possibly killing any further ones.. and youve still got three attacks to level out some of their WS bonus.

In new rules youve only ever got the chance to kill a max of three, but after hitting, wounding and armour, youd be very lucky indeed to kill all 3, and often even to kill 2 with that many roles.


I'm not having a go at the rules as yeah they work great for us.. just pointing out that it does effect situations and also effects our army selection quite a lot because people dont take things that are now weaker, this might not be through people realizing this fact, just that they see what works and drop what doesn't.

Its just a no brainier between combat or shooty dread, because the combat side has been limited a fair bit.

The dread is of course very similar to a hefty character, which is what we've always tried to dampen the effects of, so yeah system works great. Just pointing out why no1 uses cc dreads.

[El Capitan]

Dreadnoughts aren't meant to fight infantry, it was never a choice in the first place, in 2nd ed it was a great strategy to pile in against the dreadnought as it would stop it shooting or charging armoured targets, including terminators with its cc weapon. Again with the exception of Eldar I've never seen anyone take a dreadnought with the intention of close combat in any rules we have used, except perhaps when I used a thunder hammer dreadnought, but as it came to 210 points it was more of a burden than anything.

[Simon]

Aside from the fact that I used to field a marine dreadnought with 2 power fists for a while...

[James 40K Champ ***]

and marks cc legion dread last tourn...

[El Capitan]

I don't remember that Simon. The only one I can find from photos and I think we actually have a pic from every time your blood angels played is of the one with multi-melta and power fist. Although a 2 power fist dreadnought would be nice, 4 attacks, all 3+ to hit and effectively 2+ to kill.

And yes I forgot about marks dreadnought that did tear the hell out of most things when it got into a fight, and laid waste to an eldar army almost on its own,. then again it did have 2 heavy flamers.

The point I was making is, I don't see how are CC system changes are to account for double heavy weapon dreadnoughts, one of the reasons we didn't see them for so long was because with the exception of the dark angels missile launcher, the left arm heavy weapon option generally didn't exist! And to take the examples above, we've only seen CC dedicated dreads since the CC changes, Tim and Pang have used just the 2 fists in modern times.

The reason we've seen double heavy weapon dreadnoughts as they are effectively very highly armed rigs that can move 6" a turn unleash the most accurate and deadly fire-power in the game usually for just 2 VPs. I don't think they were ever intended to be used this way given the only double heavy weapon one released in 2nd ed times cost 215 points.