Games Workshop has dropped it’s first FAQ. A couple of good changes and a couple of stupid ones. I’ll try and go through them in order of the books.

Main Rulebook –

Some clarifications on cover, the big one for non-infantry behind you need to be “on” a terrain piece and then 50% obscured from the direction of the shooter to gain cover. This is a good change – a nice combination of the strong restrictions for cover but also making a crowded battlefield (and things without bases like hills and warehouses) more useful. Still hard to get cover but not a case of being able to see 1% of a vehicle and it getting no cover.

Same with clarifications on deployment – no more putting your tank on top of a ruin.

Characters can be overwatched. Equidistant, controlling player of the effect chooses (i.e. shooter says which one is closer). Instead of shooting moves can be used when Falling Back such as Smoke Launchers. Confirmed have to be over 9″ when deep striking.

You can get two chainsword extra attacks but only one scything talon extra attack… poor Tyranids.

Abilities that are similar only stack if they specifically say so (i.e. the Ghostkeel plus drones but not multiple Darkshrouds).

Anything which creates models is specifically identified as having to use Reinforcement Points unless it specifically says otherwise and vice versa for bringing back models.

Imperium 1 –

Grenade launchers are -1 AP. Blood Angels ASM have their special weapon options back (phew). Ironclad Assault Launchers have a cost now.

Imperium 2 –

Ratlings cannot scoot after Overwatch. Celestine is a unique character.

Acolytes are W1. Lame.

Chaos –

All is Dust impacts invulnerable saves as well (same quantifiers).

Xenos 1 –

Starcannons are D3 damage and now overpriced pieces of poop. They were easily doing the most damage but were also the most expensive – changing them to D3 and not adjusting their price means all that extra magnetising I did has been wasted. Imohtekh is Leadership 10.

Some confusing text on Ynnari which makes it seem like they cannot use transports – I don’t have the book in front of me so cannot see what has changed but one imagines they are just trying to say they can only get on Ynnari vehicles. Ynnari does have to be a separate detachment to their Eldar / Dark Eldar counterparts if they want to be Battle Forged.

RP provides models with full wounds and Quantum Shielding cannot be used against Mortal Wounds (they are rare so don’t worry ;)).

Xenos 2 –

Shield Drones are literally useless. Unless you want to pay 8 pts for a cheap, not that durable, objective holder? (Saviour Protocols now inflicts one Mortal Wound on a drone – great for soaking >1D shots but now it’s one drone per shot). Commander ability can only be used once per game regardless of number of commanders. Multiple Scything Talons gives you +1A regardless of number (poor Trygon).

Longstrike affects himself so he hits on 2’s while moving. Biovores can shoot without LoS. Minimum numbers updated for some Ork and Tyranid units.

Genestealer Cult Genestealers are now… wait they went from 10 pts more expensive to a handful of points cheaper than their Tyranid counterparts. GW… ASM / GSC / Tyranids confirmed.

Conclusions

The majority of fixes were type-os but some of those type-os were horrendous (Acolytes being W3 and Celestine not being unique for example). Not as bad as the FW books… So a lot of the changes were pretty intuitive (i.e. Corbulo impacting models and not units). The actual changes were a mixed bag. I’m not a fan of this minimum three for some medium sized Elite units (Crisis, Hive Guard, etc.) and the whole poor wording around an undersized unit I can see being pretty hamfisted by some. That’s more aesthetics and unclear writing though but changes like D3 damage for Starcannons makes no sense. It was not broken – they cost 30 points each. Just sigh. Changing Saviour Protocols as well – makes sense in terms of not wanting people to tank a bunch of lucky saves with Shield Drones but not sure if this was the best compromise – time will tell. Others make no sense like double chainswords giving +2A but triple Scything Talons giving +1A. I know the chainsword is a different profile but Trygons getting +2A or Carnifexes / Tyrants +1A over their current profile with Talons also would not be game breaking and just lets people whine about Space Marines being the poster boys.

Other changes I do like… Genestealers for GSC being better costed (though I find it ironic they are now cheaper). Longstrike helping himself. Biovores not needing LoS. BA ASM getting their special weapons back. Cover and terrain clarifications.

Overall I’d call this neutral tending towards positive and if they release these relatively quickly to address glaring errors or oversights (i.e. Celestine and Acolytes) and make adjustments where necessary and backed up by data and games (i.e. not what they did with the Starcannon), this can only be a good thing moving forward. The fact this was quick and addressed a lot of the silly things early is good but still a lot of things that have not been touched (Imperial soup, Smite spam, etc.) which are much more likely to break the game than a Starcannon’s 3D, Drones tanking wounds, etc. (stopping someone from running three Darkshrouds and the entire army missing was good though).