The Ninth Gate: Movement

Gaze into my crystal ball, unbeliever! A Psychic Awakening is nearly upon us, an era of unknown change approachs, and the writing is on the wall for this great dark age. Behold once more - a grim dark future!


Yeah, I may be buying into the doomsaying of internet prophets. But let's be honest, GW has been releasing a new version of 40K every two to four years with relentless regularity since our current Millenium began.

The current set of army boosters, the Psychic Awakening stuff, feel rather like the fluff build-up just before 8th ed broke. Now, nobody I have read is predicting a total overhaul like that was. And sincerely, I hope it isn't - 8th ed is the best ed so far, I'd say, and I've played a few.

(Specifically, 1st-5th, then took a long break for what seemed like the rotten balancing act of 6th and 7th, and dived back in for this one).

With what sounds like a rules tune-up and tweak about on its way this summer, I thought I'd take a moment to have a look at the current edition in a little depth. Specifically, to have a stab at predicting what's going to change so we can all laugh when I'm wrong! But also so I can say what I like in the current game, and what I'd like to see made better.

I thought I'd do this phase by phase, maybe with an additional look at codices. For each one, I'll try and compare it to what I dimly recall of earlier editions and say what I think has improved, and what could benefit from a second pass.

Let's start at the beginning - the movement phase!

Moving Parts

Back in the day, the movement phase wasn't just the bit where you pushed the models round on the table. It had its own mini-phases, with charges, compulsory moves and psychological effects all bouncing around in the mix. And terrain, which often had its own effects, then as now written in a different section of the book, sometimes made it a confusing and long-winded part.

So much depends on it, after all! Who can see what, what can charge who - your strategy and tactics are almost always the biggest decider in the movement phase. You've got more control over the outcome of it than in any other phase, for starters, it's a lot less dice-dependent.

8th ed does it well by keeping it simple. Terrain rarely adds or subtracts from your base movement, so you can work out where you're going to be pretty quickly. Or, you know, quickly depending on model count. And how precisely you want to position everyone, and I'm naming no names mid-cough here, Pootle!

Other than the basics of shunting the troops where you want them, there is little to interrupt or complicate matters, no sub-phases to get in the wrong order or overlook, and a minimum of dice rolling. It's an easier system, point blank.

Do I miss the occasional rules flourish, like vehicle turrets having a separate line of sight? Or losing control of frenzied troops? Maybe I thought I did at the dawn of 8th, and I do wonder if some of the joy of ridiculous random narrative is sometimes lacking.

But I can't say I do want the old days back. Not that I wouldn't like to suggest a couple of little changes!

Recent Advances

Look, this is super-small. But I do wish Advancing (that extra d6 of move that sacrifices shooting for being quicker) was called something else! March or Run or, well, I don't know, just anything that doesn't mean the same as 'move forward'.

I've lost track of the number of times I've confused an opponent by saying something like "The Intercessors advance into cover", meaning it in the conventional sense rather than the technical one. It's never caused a problem yet, but then I never go to the LVO. Because I hear people there disembowel each other with tape measures over legal wrangles.

Likelihood of Tweak: 1/10, everyone else has learned this fine by now

8th Ed 3rd Player

Terrain rules might be nice and simple, but they're a bit boring. I liked the change from 'harder to hit' to 'easier to save' as a cover mechanic, but where are all the interesting tank traps, swamps and minefields from days gone by? I know they are out there, or you can house rule them, but they feel a bit missing from mainstream battles, somehow.

Difficult terrain would be nice to see back, I'd say. Woods and craters slow your charges down, sure, but I'd actually like to see that affecting standard movement as well (having just said I like how simple the movement phase is without such mathematics).

And while we're here - what is with those promethium pipeway rules? Who uses them? The way they are worded means that the more armour-piercing the weapon used on troops cowering behind them, the less likely an explosion is! That's infuriatingly counter-intuitive!

I'M EASILY TRIGGERED

Okay, I know it makes sense from a rules point of view. You don't want to scare people off using them, and high AP weapons are more likely to pick you off anyway. This is what I mean about losing some of the narrative in favour of simplicity, though. Having to, say, roll a d6 if any wounds get through the increased armour save, and the squad takes d3 Mortal Wounds on a six - yeah, it adds a swingy extra dice roll when you don't need one. But I think it's more fun.

Likelihood of Tweak: 1/10, this is probably just me

Next time - the Psychic Phase!