It’s not just your troops and leaders that are getting revamped and reinforced in the new edition of Warhammer 40,000 – their weapons are also seeing some major changes.
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. A bolt rifle has both the Assault and Heavy abilities, for instance – meaning it can be fired on the move or braced for extra accuracy, as needed.
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.
The core rules include a variety of other weapon abilities, which tie together similar effects found across factions. Weapons that shredded through armour on lucky rolls can now share the Devastating Wounds ability instead. This allows them to dish out mortal wounds on a Critical Wound – that’s an unmodified Wound roll of 6.
Even the new Terminator Squad’s assault cannon is getting in on the action!*
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.
What this means in practice, is that small arms and unit special weapons will still do work against enemy infantry, but you’ll really want to include some dedicated anti-tank to tackle enemy armour - the age of “plasma kills everything” is over.
The melta rifle, for example, gains a bump in Strength and the Melta rule to boost its Damage at short range, while the Hammerhead’s infamous railgun soars to Strength 20.**
The shuriken cannon picks up Sustained Hits, common among weapons that throw massive amounts of firepower down range – and on swarming Tyranid Invasion Fleets. This one simply adds the listed number of extra hits when a Critical Hit is scored – that’s an unmodified Hit roll of 6. Easy to remember.
Melee weapons can also have abilities, including a blast from the past – Twin-linked is back! This classic rule is now found on ranged and melee weapons alike, and confers a re-roll to wound. In recent editions, many weapons that used to be twin-linked were instead treated like two guns taped together, which had a serious impact on balance. This change makes them more reliable, rather than twice as killy.
There’s so much more to discover, more than we can possibly fit in an article, so make sure you come back and see even more from the new edition later this month – and check out the hub to see what’s come before. Next up, we answer the age-old question – why shouldn’t Aggressors get to ride in a Land Raider?
* Perhaps as a throwback to the classic Rending rule.
** Would you believe this isn’t even the strongest gun around?