Stormy's A.S.S.: Rules Questions

One of  Dan Abnett's best.

It's been a while since I'd done one of these but a few things have arisen in 6th edition that have piqued my interest with odd rules interpretations, despite GW's best attempts to cock-block silly combos through the use of Allies.

One of these is how Victory Points for Lone Wolves after the latest Space Wolf FAQ. On page 2 it says:

Page 29 – Lone Wolves, A Glorious Death.
Replace the last two sentences with: “Furthermore, in missions that award Victory Points for each enemy unit that has been completely destroyed, a Lone Wolf does not concede a Victory Point if he dies in battle. Instead, to represent his failure to meet a spectacular end, a Lone Wolf awards a Victory Point in such a mission if he survives until the end of the game!”

So the thing I'm wondering is if the Lone Wolf is the first unit killed in a game does he deny the enemy a Victory Point for First Blood?

New FAQs: What's happened to the Wolves?

Logan's fine. What about the rest of us now?

Well it finally happened that GW realised that their their rulebook is quite sloppily written as they've released a slew of responses via FAQs to questions that were raised by gamers post-Dark Vengeance release. Here's the main rulebook and the Wolf FAQs respectively. So how have the Vylka Fenryka been affected by GW correcting their mistakes?

First up is that Njal's Lord of Tempest table doesn't affect Flyers and that he's also armed with a Stave (+2 S, AP 4 and Concussive).

Q: How do maelstroms, novas and beams – or indeed any weapon that doesn’t need to roll To Hit or hits automatically – interact with Zooming and Flyers and Gliding Monsters? (p13)A: Only Snap Shots can hit Zooming Flyers and Gliding Flying Monstrous Creatures. Therefore, any attacks that use blast markers, templates, create a line of/area of effect or otherwise don’t roll to hit cannot target them. This includes weapons such as the Necron Doom Scythe’s death ray or the Deathstrike missile of the Imperial Guard, and psychic powers that follow the rule for maelstroms, beams, and novas.

Clearly the head-honchos in Nottingham reckon they haven't sold enough Flyers yet so people are now pretty much forced to buy anti-Flyer units/Forts in order to get their Anti-Air on: the Wolves especially as they have so little of it in their army.

6th ed Space Wolf FAQ is out

Tell me: What has happened to my Axe in 6th ed?

Well, they're actually all out now but the one that I'm most interested in is the Vylka Fenryka (Space Wolves to non-Horus Heresy fans) and what the new rules mean for them. Much of it is bringing things into line with the new rules (ATSKNF for example) and Bikers are now base T5 which is nice for Attack Bikes as they aren't doubled-out by Krak Missiles anymore.

ICs on Bikes are the same making them a more attractive prospect for them now. Doubly so, as you'll get twin-linked bolters, the speed to get into favourable positions to snipe out fancy guys through torrents of firepower and Hammer of Wrath I10 attacks when you assault (with potential re-rolls to hit thanks to Preferred Enemy). Suddenly a Wolf Priest on a Bike is a really attractive prospect. Give him a 2+ save and he can soak up fire all day especially with his 2+ Look Out Sir save to have grunts take damage instead of him.

So let us see what else has changed.

New 40k FAQ's sticking it to Njal.

Njal: it kinds sucks to be him now.

These have been floating about for a couple of hours now and I'm going to assume that you've have a quick look over some of them. They're available here.

They've stopped Scarab spawn conga lines and it would appear that Jaws no longer needs to roll to hit. FFS GW: I'm going to have to go back and edit that Jaws article. Again.

There is one thing that sticks out for me in the 40k rulebook FAQ and I'm pretty sure it dicks over Njal amongst other units specifically and takes away from his abilities being able to mess with the enemy's movement and shooting prowess. 

The New FAQ

I've always liked this model. I might even paint mine.

So someone got the finger out over in Nottingham and decided that it would be a good idea to release a series of new 40k FAQs for a couple of the armies: mostly Marines from what I can see but also DE. My own favourite one to see was not getting the Dark Eldar one out (kudos to them for doing it *relatively* early) but for the Dark Angels. That's been a pet-peeve of mine for a long time.

To be frank, Jervis wrote the book and botched the job. It was ok when it was first released but it quickly became sub-par after 5th edition and the latest Marine codex was released where comparable wargear and weaponry was overpriced and/or overpowered.

Leaving it as it was, which seemed to be the GW MO when it came to rules-writing over the past few years, was not the right thing to do. Not just from a competitive gaming viewpoint where armies being closely balanced makes for more even-handed games but from a monetary point also.