Allies of Inconvenience: Episode 9- The Big FAQ Discussion and Review

The BIG FAQ for Warhammer 40,000 has dropped, and there are A LOT of changes. Join us as we ramble and rant about anything and everything released, from the "rule of 3" to reserve and deep strike limitations, and every little change in between (including all the comical ones!).

Kept this one down to right around an hour as well.

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Songs and Soundclips
Blue Mark- Atlan Urtag
Kaap mere- Bugotak
Clip 1 - Iron Man

Custodes 2k List with Beta FW Rules

While I let the FAQ sink in and reconsider everything I am going to run at NOVA and the collapse of my glorious Death Rider army in event play I went ahead and threw together this list to try out. Seems fun and the fact that Battalions now give 5 command points REALLY helps it out.

Custodes Battalion- 1995, +5CP
HQ: Shield Captain on Dawn Eagle Jetbike- 179: Salvo Launcher, Interceptor Lance, Misercordia, Warlord, Relic: Auric Aquillas
HQ: Shield Captain on Dawn Eagle Jetbike- 179: Salvo Launcher, Interceptor Lance, Misercordia
Elites: Contemptor-Achillus Dreadnought- 245: Achillus Dreadspear, 2 x Lastrum Storm Bolter
Troops: Custodian Guard Squad (3)- 171: 2 x Guardian Spear & Misercodia, 1 x Sentinel Blade and Storm Shield
Troops: Custodian Guard Squad (3)- 171: 2 x Guardian Spear & Misercodia, 1 x Sentinel Blade and Storm Shield
Troops: Custodian Guard Squad (3)- 171: 2 x Guardian Spear & Misercodia, 1 x Sentinel Blade and Storm Shield
Fast Attack: Vertus Praetors (3)- 282: 3 x Hurricane Bolter, 3 x Interceptor Lance, 3 x Misercordia
Fast Attack: Vertus Praetors (3)- 282: 3 x Hurricane Bolter, 3 x Interceptor Lance, 3 x Misercordia
Fast Attack: Caladius Grav Tank- 315: Twin Illiastus Accelerator Cannon, Twin Lastrum Bolt Cannon

So not all bike spam. Only thing I would consider holding in Reserve and Deepstriking (turn 2 now) is the Dreadnought. Get it in there after a solid round of harrasment from my bikes and hopefully something destroy a vehicle or two outright with the Caladius by the time it come in. It is such a good tank. Strong firepower and ability to shake of most anything as well as never get bogged down by assault due to its fly keyword. Basically use it to punish the enemy and then bring in the big distraction Carnifex that is the Dreadnought before the Caladius is finished.

Otherwise standard Custodes fare. Min troop Squads in optimal format- 2 Spears for shooting and combat, 1 sword and shield to tank. Misercordia on EVERYTHING. Captains with a Jetbike squad each, a melta missile on each to help strip down high T targets before charging (this was invaluable at Adepticon vs Leviantan Dreads).

Pure Custodes so 4+ universal Invuln save. And the new Battalion boon of +5 CP is so amazing!

Who knows, maybe the Beta Rules will be allowed at NOVA and this will make its appearance in the Trios event!

The "Independent Character" rule should come back

Just a quick little rules thought...

Why is Independent Character as a rule gone?

Why was it replaced with these super bizarre character targeting rules?

Remember back to 7th and 6th for a second. The issue a lot of the times was Universal Special Rules, when they conferred and characters joining units to confer rules they were never designed to have. It could really make abusive combos.

But this was fixed in 8th with the introduction of Keywords and the elimination of USRs. Now characters only confer rules as designed pretty much.

So why did joining get dropped?

You could say Look Out Sir and Wound allocation made characters in units weird, but that was easily fixed now too by making wound allocation pretty much as the controlling player desires.

"But that means adding a character to a squad effectively gives them 10+ more wounds!"

Okay, but as of right now, you can pretty much do the same by making the character untargetable behind a wall of bodies. And does Guilliman behind a wall of conscripts or a Daemon Prince behind a wall of cultists make sense to be untargetable? No.

It really go far to fix alot of the issues currently if they brought back a form of IC.

Here is how I would do it
-Have a generic set of IC rules in the core rules. Basically saying things with the keyword can join units. When in a unit they cannot be targeted by shooting.
-In the fight phase, they are always treated as a separate unit
-THEN on the model's profile, you specify what keywords the unit can join with. Sometimes it could just be as generic as , like for an Inquisitor. But obviously you could get more specific, like allowing Kharn to only join Bezerkers or Dante to join Blood Angels, while preventing something like hiding a Jetbike Shield Captain behind cheap guardsmen. 
-Add a few Keywords like and so you could have large models only able to hide with other large models.
-This would require a change to snipers as well. I would make it so they could still target units in the shooting phase, but I would consider going a step further and allowing them to allocate wounds to specific models, like sergeants and weapons specialists.
-Obviously the current way of keywords conferring rules and auras would still work.

Whats cool about this is it would allow you to have something like Leman Russ Command Tanks join other Leman Russ Battle Tanks or Hive Tyrants join specific units like Tyrant Guard.

It also really helps with certain orders and psychic powers that cause a unit to move... and then leave the character behind? Like I can give Move, Move, Move to my Death Riders by a Death Rider Officer, allowing my unit to move 10"+d6" in the shooting phase. But then my Officer is forever away... despite ALSO being on a horse and clearly "with" the unit before that. This change would totally allow units to include the character for such purposes.

Furthermore, you could add cool unit rules to honor guards and the like, like making characters untargetable in shooting or combat when in the honor guard.

Lastly, it brings being able to shoot a lone character with no one within any semblance to closeness to them back into the game...

What do you think? To me it solves a lot of of issues currently facing Characters in the game. Keywords fix everything wrong with them from before. There is no need for all these extraneous targeting rules.

Allies of Inconvenience: BONUS Adepticon Roadshow Special

Join Chris and myself in our mad ramblings on our Journey to Adepticon 2018!

Listen to us babble on about such things as

-Adepticon Lists

-Codex: Kroot

-Necron Previews

-Big Guys that need to come back to the game

-Tau and their Magic School Bus

AND MORE!

This episode is very stream of concious (and not the best audio TBH) BUT should give you some good laughs. ENJOY!

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Trazyn's "Lost Regiments"- Guard from our Adepticon Team Tournament Display

Now that Adepticon is over and we've dropped the shroud of secrecy around our board theme, I can finally post some pictures of the army I brought to the team tournament. As mentioned in an earlier post, our team's theme was the Vaults of Solemnace, and the collection of Trazyn the Infinite. Our four team members were Necrons (Trazyn's forces), Custodes/Sisters, Chaos, and Astra Militarum. I fielded the Astra Militarum force, themed around the Lost Regiments - those units and characters who vanished or were thought lost in the lore.

The army was led (of course) by the Lord Castellan Usarkar Creed, snatched from the fall of Cadia at the last second, along with a squad from his beloved Cadian 8th Regiment.

Also from the Cadian 8th, a Devil Dog tank for support that was heavily damaged during the battle, and has been undergoing meticulous repairs since then by Trazyn's scarabs.

Of course, Trazyn the Infinite would never be satisfied with only one regiment, so he also collected a squad of the Tanith 2nd Regiment, previously thought to have been destroyed along with their homeworld, but rescued by Trazyn in his quest for unique exhibits. I used the Borderworld Rangers models from Victoria Miniatures as the base for the Tanith, I think they're a pretty good match for the light infantry style of the Tanith.

Next up is probably my favorite piece in Trazyn's collection: Maximilian Weisemann. Originally described in Imperial Armour 1, Weisemann was the commander of the Baneblade 212 Arethusa who led a one tank assault against an ork army to buy time for the Imperial battle line. Though his tank was destroyed, Weisemann himself was never found on the battlefield. Not being one particularly interested in historical accuracy, Trazyn has faithfully recreated the 212 Arethusa for Weisemann to command - as a Leman Russ Punisher. I converted a Cadian tank commander model to match the old Maximilian Weisemann model (long since out of print).

Finally, rounding out the army was a unit of storm troopers from the retinue of Inquisitor Valeria that were captured during her assault on the Solemnace galleries, and a unit of the Vostroyan XXI, a long lost Vostroyan regiment that was noted to be in Trazyn's collection during the Gathering Storm event.