Warhammer 40K: 10th Edition Weapon Rules Preview – What’s Old Is New
Games Workshop is updating weapon special rules in Warhammer 40,000: 10th Edition and what’s old is new again – Twin-Linked is back!
Yesterday GW teased the vehicle updates and they were looking plenty tough. We were wondering how we’d collectively deal with these newer and tougher vehicles. Thankfully GW also teased that they’d showcase some of the weapon changes today. So let’s get into those new weapon stats and see how they are going to stack-up.
“Up until now, your guns were divided into several categories: Heavy, Rapid Fire, Assault, and so on. In the new edition, these classifications become weapon abilities.
This change allows weapons to behave in more varied ways than before, without increasing the number of rules you need to learn.”
10th Edition Weapon Abilities
The first example Games Workshop has introduced is the updated Bolt Rifle and the changes to Assault and Heavy — both of which are now classed as “Weapon Abilities” thanks to 10th. And yes, a Bolt Rifle is now just the all-encompassing term for the Intercessor weapon-of-choice:
“This flexibility is perfect for representing auto and stalker bolt rifles, which are now streamlined into the same weapon profile. All Intercessors just have bolt rifles, which you can build with whatever scopes or magazines you please.”
So before we get into the rules changes, I’m a little bummed that all the Bolt Rifle variants got rolled into one profile. At the same time…I’m not that broken-up about it. This does make modeling the squads easier as you can just follow the “rule of cool” and go with the mag/scope option you like without worrying if you’ve suddenly and unintentionally picked the weakest option. But it does make the Intercessor unit just a bit more “baseline” and bland. Oh well. Perhaps this change will let other units step into the combat role those more specialized Bolt Rifles filled. /rantover. Let’s get to the weapon rules!
Both Heavy and Assault got a rework and I’m liking what I’m seeing. For the Assault weapon ability it now allows a unit to Advance and fire their Assault weapons — and notice the lack of any “to hit” penalty. Heavy as a weapon ability now provides a +1 to hit if the unit remained stationary! Also notice the lack of penalty or punishment for moving and firing. Now, if I had to guess that’s probably because of the weapon profile changes moving from a static BS roll to a more dynamic option based on the weapon. I can easily see how a Space Marine with a Lascannon could start with a BS of 4+ and if you don’t move it gets a +1 to hit from being heavy. Or Guardsmen starts at BS 5+ with the same weapon and if that team doesn’t move they now hit on 4s thanks to the Heavy weapon ability.
Also on the Bolt Rifle in particular notice that it doesn’t have the Rapid Fire ability? Instead it’s got a flat 2 attacks at 24″ — so there ya go!
Here’s another example with the new and improved Assault Cannon. It has the Devastating Wounds weapon ability which essentially causes mortal wounds on a Critical Wound roll. And as mentioned in other articles Critical Wounds is the new “unmodified 6s to-wound” roll. Basically the Assault Cannon doesn’t have any AP normally but it can bypass the armor of your target with a mortal wound if you roll a 6 to-wound now — a nod to the old school rend ability!
Almost all weapons have had their core statistics changed to help pull their weight in this new, more durable edition – especially those designed to tackle vehicles. You’ll generally find that most guns have not increased in strength, and have often lost a pip of AP.
We had hear this change was coming and seeing it in practice is going to take some getting used to. However, from a design standpoint, I can see what they are going for. It makes small arms fire more appropriate vs infantry but less effective against vehicles…which, yeah…makes sense. You’re going to need some dedicated anti-armor weapons to pop those hard, outer shells of vehicles now.
Melta weapons are still going to be a good option. Now, one thing to note is that the AP is still pretty spicy (at least on the Melta Rifle) at AP -4. But it’s “only” strength 9 so wounding those beefier targets isn’t going to be quite as easy as it used to be. However, if you get within 1/2 range you do get the bonus damage that the Melta weapon ability provides.
How about some non-Marine weapons? What are Shuriken Cannons going to look like? GW has you covered!
The Ignores Cover ability is pretty self-explainitory there. But the new Sustained Hits weapon ability adds an additional hit when you get a Critical Hit (which is an unmodified 6 on the to-hit roll).
Another blast from the not-so-distant past is Twin-Linked. It used to be a re-roll in previous editions and that was changed to basically make weapons double-up versions of themselves. Shifting the ability back to a re-roll makes the weapons more reliable instead of twice as killy as intended.
It’s interesting to me that it’s on the to-wound roll now as well. Again, it’s a more reliable attack so it makes sense.
There’s loads more weapon changes ahead and I’m sure a lot more weapon abilities to discover. I’m personally excited to see how GW reworked some old classics for the new edition. I wonder if Lightning Claws are going to be twin-linked or have some other ability now, too…
What do you think of these weapon changes for 10th?
