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40K BREAKING: Morale In 8th

3 Minute Read
May 3 2017
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Have you been wondering how Morale is going to the battlefield in 8th? Take a look at what Games Workshop has to say about it!

If there was one thing that most folks could pretty much ignore in 7th, Leadership and Morale were it. Just about every single army had a way to bypass it’s effects and it just wasn’t used. Inversely, if you had one of those rare units that actually did suffer from it’s effects, you could really bog the game down with repeated tests! It did not impact every army equally and it just wasn’t fun.

Games Workshop has taken that feedback to heart and this new Morale system is a lot simpler, way more streamlined, and should impact all armies in some way.

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via Warhammer Community

“The new Morale phase is simple, and only happens once per player turn, at the end of all your other phases. It will apply to almost every unit, and represents warriors fleeing the battlefield, dying from the psychic feedback shockwaves of their allies, or retreating with injured or fallen brethren. There will be very few units indeed that will not feel its effects.

The mechanics are simple – any units that suffered casualties in a turn must take a Morale test at the end of it. You just roll a dice, add the number of models from the unit that have been slain, and if the number is bigger than the unit’s Leadership, the unit loses the difference in additional models.

That’s it! No units falling back, no regroup tests – all that is gone.”

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Read the full article HERE

Key Changes:

  • Morale phase happens once per player turn
  • Any unit that suffered casualties must make a morale test
  • Roll a die, add the number of lost models, compare vs your leadership value – that’s it!

I’m digging these changes! This system is already used in AoS and it works pretty well. Bringing the core of it over to 8th is a good call – but don’t worry, they’ve also mentioned that there are units that can modify the dice roll. Dark Apostles were one example they mentioned – nearby units from the same legion can use his leadership to roll instead of their own.

Enemy units can also negatively impact your morale tests as well. The example for that was the Hemlock Fighter’s ability to lower enemy units leadership by 1, which works out to 1 additional lost model on every failed test within range!

I do want to stress one important distinction: This test is for lost MODELS not lost WOUNDS. For some units, those are the same thing. For multi-wound models however, that can be different…Just something to keep in mind when you’re testing.

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What do you think of these changes to Morale? Let us know in the comments below!

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Author: Adam Harrison
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