Good day at all my Hive friends and fellow hobbyists! I have recently been posting a lot about Warhammer 40,000 - The tabletop wargame and me getting back into the hobby!
I am writing to you from Cape Town, South Africa and I have not played the game since 5th edition and it is now in it's 9th edition!
Has a lot changed?
In a nutshell, yes! Firstoff there is ONE unit profile in the game now, where in my day, vehicles and walkers had different profiles than infantry, but now everything has the same Profile values.
The majority of the statline has not changed, but there is a lot of nuance that the current players who came into the hobby in this incarnation take for granted.
Since it does not help anyone learn the rules of many editions back, I will try my best to stick to the rules as they are right now and not obsess with the rules that are outdated.
This post is meant to give people an idea of what different units look like on paper. You can find this information in a variety of books, free to access online resources and many many youtube channels.
In my case, this is my own explanation in my own words as I rediscover the rules and take it one step at a time.
Unit Profiles
Right, when playing the game every unit is represented on a Data Sheet. This Datasheet shows us the model's unit profile and equipment and various rules that apply to that unit.
When looking at the average Human soldier, an Guardsman, his Profile list will look like this:
| M | WS | BS | S | T | W | A | Ld | Sv |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6" | 4+ | 4+ | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 5+ |
So let's explain this:
M - Movement in Inches - this means that a Guardsman can move 6" in the movement phase.
WS - Weapon Skill - how accurate the model is in Close Combat.
BS - Ballistic Skill - how accurate the model is when shooting
S - Strength - how strong a model is in close combat
T - Toughness - how tough a model is against shooting and close combat attacks
W - Wounds - when these are put to zero, the model is removed from the board.
A - Attacks, the number of dice you roll in close combat
Ld - Leadership - This is used to see how resilient a unit's morale is.
Sv - Save - How good the unit's armor is.
If the above is the statline for a Human soldier, then below is the statline for a Space Marine!
| M | WS | BS | S | T | W | A | Ld | Sv |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6" | 3+ | 3+ | 4 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 3+ |
Compare this to the statline of a Space Marine Captain:
| M | WS | BS | S | T | W | A | Ld | Sv |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6" | 2+ | 2+ | 4 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 9 | 3+ |
Or the Statline of the massive Space Marine Dreadnought walker:
| M | WS | BS | S | T | W | A | Ld | Sv |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 6" | 3+ | 3+ | 6 | 7 | 8 | 4 | 8 | 3+ |
These statlines are a good START to learning how to play with these units. There are weapon statlines and a plethora of wargear abilities and rules that come after that. I will have to re-learn everything slowly but surely. Usually, playing battles is the fastest way of learning how to play!
Until next time.
