6th edition - The Scouring of White Dwarf

So as I am sure everyone in the 40K Universe knows by this time next week we will all be able to have a nice new shiny copy of the big big sixth edition book in our hands.

So I thought I'd take this blog post to describe what we actually know and what impact I think it will have to us, Space wolf players.

First off let me say that none of this has come from friends of a friend who work at GW but all from White Dwarf and trying to read closely the snippets of spoilers that the have given us.

So where to start?
Well its going to cost us £45 for the pleasure of this and still GW are working back before the millenium and they haven't caught on to the fact that plenty of tournament goers are IPad wielders and it wouldn't be a bad thing to have an electronic copy rather than a HUGE book to lug about at least until August or September when we get the box set.

On to the rule then.
We have always known that fliers would make up a big part of this edition, personally I didn't realise how big.
Page 24-25 of this months White Dwarf makes it quite clear that if you aren't specified Anti Aircraft you are only hitting them on a 6 +. This is then confirmed on page 61 with the mention of the quad gun on the bastion. The quad gun has the interceptor rule which means it shoots fliers as they arrive from reserve (which all fliers have to) and it fires at its normal BS.

So in one way a leaf blower army isn't going to be as nasty because they aren't going to be shooting 9 fliers at you first turn but secondly for the Space Wolves especially do we have anything to knock them down? Normal anti flier tactics is going to be to shoot them with everything we have (normally missile launchers), now that they are only going to BS1 they obviously aren't going to be nearly as effective. Hopefully there will be something in the new rule book that will mean that we have something to deal with them otherwise a bastion is going to be vital.

The next and perhaps most contentious rule change is going to be hull points.
As far as we know, Land Raiders, Soul Grinders and Ghost Arks have 4, most other vehicles including dreadnoughts have 3 while fliers have 2. So how do they work, nothing definite but as far as I can tell and I take this from the necron section where I quote 'Guass Weapons take off a Hull Point for for every 6 rolled to penetrate' as far as I remember that's a glance so each glance causes you to take off a hull point? Grey Knights look a little less resilient now?

The next biggies deal with the assault face, as predicted Assaults are now a random charge length of 2D6 and if you have fleet you can re roll one of those dice. The other main thing is that the over watch ability is now available this means that you can fire at an enemy that charges hitting them on 6's. Excellent for necrons who on a 6 get 2 extra hits from tesla weaponry and Orks who hit on 5 ups anyway so what does an extra 1 mean? Its also good for any psykers who can take from the Divination discipline so you can gain Foreboding which allows the affected squad to fire at an assaulting unit at their full BS which does include the might Space wolves.

Rapid firing seems to have changed but no complete details of how. For example page 54 says that fire warriors can now move and rapid fire up to 30' away.Again far more dangerous to your humble Space Marines.

So all in all this is what I know. I'd like to know what else you have spotted that I haven't and I look forward to next week and hopefully having my excitement of 40k renewed.