Uh Oh, it looks like Papa Nurgle has his eyes set on the Galaxy’s most beautiful smurf kingdom. Check this out, just in from the Warhammer Community site.
PeteyPab Note: “As excited as I am about the next War Zone being Ultramar (Trust me, I’m pumped) I do really hope this is an indication of future Warzone: (Star System) books and campaigns. We can’t get this fluff progression fast enough.”
We’ve heard already about a lot of the war zones of the new Warhammer 40,000 – Baal, Armageddon, Damocles, Cadia – some are new battles and others are continuations of long and bitter wars that trace their origins back to before the Horus Heresy.
The war zone we are going to talk about today, though, is particularly hard fought – a war zone that contains hundreds of planets, amongst them the home world of the Ultramarines and their Primarch.
The region of Ultramar is one of the largest jewels in the crown of the Imperium and was one of the few places in the galaxy that could be considered prosperous… but that jewel is about to lose its sparkle.
The new Warhammer 40,000 book looks at this war zone in some detail. Let’s have a little look at what it has to say:
“WAR ZONE: ULTRAMAR
Greedy eyes looked out from the roiling warp. They lingered long over the southern reaches of Ultima Segmentum. Nurgle wanted them for his own. He wished to lavish his gifts upon them, to watch their citizens sprout new growths and lament while other parts rotted and sloughed off.
The worlds of Ultramar were prosperous, well governed and aesthetically beautiful. It is no wonder that such a gem drew the eager eye of Nurgle. Wishing to annex those worlds directly into his own Garden in the Realm of Chaos, the Father of Plagues set his minions to the task. After the Great Rift tore reality and flooded warp energies into the galaxy, Nurgle deemed the time was ripe.
Where seeds of corruption had been planted, where the Plague That Walks, the Oozing Pox, and the Eyerot had decimated overcrowded hive worlds, there did Nurgle put forth his greatest efforts. As darkness closed over those worlds, new, virulent strains of those dreadful diseases started the cycle of death anew. This time, however, the cycle was completed, for there was life also. From the corpses of the fallen burst countless Nurglings. In the devastation that ensued, Cults of Corruption summoned further aid. The following battles – known by the Imperium as the Plague Wars – ended when three systems to the galactic north of Ultramar were corrupted and turned into the Scourge Stars. Calling upon three of his greatest commanders, Nurgle tasked them with next conquering Ultramar.”
Well, things are looking pretty grim for the worlds of Ultramar. As if narrowly surviving a Tyranid hive fleet a few decades back and weathering a Black Legion invasion in the Gathering Storm weren’t bad enough…
As well as the background on the war zone though, we also get some maps of the region, seeing how the sub-empire of Ultramar and some of the 500 Worlds connect.
The story of the upcoming Dark Imperium box set is set in Ultramar (though battles like it are erupting all across the Imperium). The Ultramarines, of course, have been reinforced by the arrival of their Primaris Space Marine brothers and the return of their Primarch. The legions of Nurgle, though, are nothing if not tenacious, and with the Death Guard leading the way, will this latest, inexorable attack be the doom of Ultramar?
Let’s see how it plays out…
My goodness the rage on some sites… the internet really brings out the best in some people. Great work on all you’ve done for the new edition! Can’t wait to give it a go!
The rage is part of why I stopped reading comments on certain sites. Seriously, I get sick of this cycle repeating itself every time GW announces anything new, regardless of what it is. I understand that some people still don’t trust GW, but I feel like they would at least have some level of trust back if they’ve been paying any attention at all to recent developments. The don’t call it “New GW” for nothing!
Before I saw any leaks I was 100% on board with 8th edition and I am sure probably 85% of folks should be excited about the new Ed. However from the leaks I have seen Blood Angels and Thousand Sons players are going to be livid. As a t-sons player I was massively excited about the new Ed but after seeing the new rules I feel like I have been kicked in the gibblies. They took away my psychic tree, nerfed all of the new units introduced in wrath of Magnus, and gave the new nurgle faction their own unique psychic powers. GW slowly won back my confidence over the last year and then completely shattered it with this release. I dropped about $800 to purchase my Grand Coven army and in less then a year it has become completely invalidated. My fury burns with a passion that could consume heaven from the sky!
I’m a blood angels player, and really could we have got any worse than in 7th? I have an entire battle company of guys and all the speciality units and I’m ecstatic to put them on the table. These indexes are probably just placeholders before codexes drop.
the angel’s blade supplement was great though. My death company were murdering people…. until they FAQd the free move to count as a scout move(no charging). i was pretty pissed.
They faq’d that? I completely missed that. I used that wrong in a tournament last week!
as a person who owns 18 40k armies, i felt just like you. at LVO i spent somewhere close to $500 on forgeworld thousand sons stuff. Since 30k is staying 7th, AND the new leaks look really good. I have flipped to the positive side and im a small bit excited to play the new ed.
I was super excited until I saw the rules for T-Sons. Honestly I was expecting the stopgap faction codicies to be complete and new supplements would coincide with new model releases. Silly me for not expecting GW to rerelease of all the codicies. Looking through the other factions I do think alot of people will be happy and if I played another army I probably would not be so dejected. However I know I won’t be playing 8th until a Thousand Sons supplement is available. I hope I will be able to use it for more than 7 months too.
“Nerfed all the units introduced in Wrath of Magnus”
Huh? I get the psychic power thing which will be remedied when an actual codex comes out… but nerfing units? Sure Magnus isn’t as strong but he’s also 200 pts cheaper which means he doesn’t have to be literally your entire army. Also T-sons units were pretty garbage in 7th paying out the ass for invulnerable saves that didn’t help them against a lot of units and also paying for AP3 weapons that were useless against bad armor saves and 2+ saves alike.
Now, not only do they get the invulnerable save for protection against heavy fire they also get +1 to any save when getting shot by small arms fire. And now AP3 weapons are much more generically powerful as they help against basically any type of armor save there is. On top of that their guns can hurt anything and it’s generally easier for them to hurt mid-high tier targets which they really struggled at last edition. Plus everyone can actually reasonably cast their psychic powers now. Unlike last edition where 75% of your army walked around watching magnus cast fancy spells.
If you weren’t facing an entirely MEQ army that used high AP guns – most of the point value of t-sons were absolutely wasted. Not so anymore.
Honestly I don’t use Magnus that much it’s the rest of the army that got nerfed. I think Magnus actually got better in melee. With Grand coven I was reliably getting a 3++ save for my entire army plus rerolls to hit of 1 now it’s a 5++ against melta and grav and a 4++ vs bolters… super. The whole point of the invuln was to save against high damage weapons.The Sorcerer in the Scarab Occult was effectively a Terminator Sorcerer and could roll his 2 powers off any tree available to regular HQ Sorcerers, now he has 1 power, Smite “light”. With 18 WC base I could reliably cast 8-12 powers a turn from a wide variety of trees that could make my army a great jack of all trades. Facing heavy mech armies go heretech. Facing lots of 2+ armor Baleful Devolution, Breath of Chaos, Doombolt and Psychic Scream are all ap2. I did 70% of my damage in the psychic phase. Now excluding Smite only 3 psychic powers can be cast a turn. Oh and now perils can effect the units around the sorcerers doing D3 mortal wounds to nearby guys. That’s great to hear with my army where every unit has a psyker.
I get that math hammer make them look less than ideal but from your comments it sounds like you don’t have a lot of experience playing with or against a Grand Coven army. They aren’t going to win any tournaments but an entire army with storm shields is no slouch.
“a 4++ against bolters”
Why would you use a 4++ against bolters? You get a 2+ save… you didn’t get that before. Which was my biggest complaint with 7th. I never had a problem with t-sons against heavy weapons. My problem was that I’m paying over twice as much as a standard marine costs and I still die to small arms fire just as easily. Bolters, scatter lasers, anything with a high RoF cut them to nothing. The 2+ save is going to help that immensely.
Yes the invul save helped but, in my experience, getting that +1 to the save was not as “automatic” as you imply. The warp charge pools in 7th sucked. It made it so half your psykers couldn’t cast anything. Plus even if you went with 1 die per psyker just to get force off and give yourself a blessing that means you only have a 50/50 shot of passing. Not anywhere near guaranteed to get that extra invul on everyone.
One other thing to consider is that tsons actually went DOWN in points… at least with standard layouts. They’re 20 points a piece with inferno bolters. Whereas many, many units went UP in points in this new edition once you factor in their gear. So the fact tsons went down is nice.
I don’t know how you loaded your guys out in 7th but I’ll go for a mixed bag here: 10 man squad of rubrics with 2x warpflamers, a warpflame pistol, and a soulreaper cannon. In 7th taht would have cost you 309 points. In 8th it will cost you 261. That’s a huge difference and will really help against many units who are going up rather than down…
The 4++ against bolters was a facetious comment. The new rule gives them +1 to their saves so that includes the 5++ but most weapons you would want to use your invuln save against do more then 1 wound thus entirely negating the rule. Personally I’m expecting to see alot of heavy weapons in the new edition because of the change to snapfire which means they just switched getting plinked out by bolters to getting plinked out by a SM squad with a grav cannon.
The 3++ save was automatic for me because I built my army to make sure it was. Every squad of thousand sons in my army had a sorcerer attached with a spell familiar. Most times 1 dice was enough but if unit was in danger I could cast 2, rerolling, so yeah I always had it. Also with base 17 WC and maximum threat against my army I would have 9 WC + D6, but I usually had more, for casting offensive powers and spell familiar sorcerers are extremely efficient when casting powers so it went a long way.
As for points, not that my army is in anyway viable, there is only a change of about 30 points. I had x3 squads of 8 in a rhino with 0 flamers and 0 soulreapers and a squad of 5 Scarab Occult bare bones. The actual T-Sons aren’t really heavy hitters they are just moving shooting storm shields for the sorcerer. Anyway adding all that war gear doesn’t make em good against high toughness stuff. Sorcerers however are scary especially when they have daemon weapons or iron arm.
They kind of do call them that for nothing. What did they do? Release an FAQ? They did that in the past.
Did they release an FAQ that somehow salvaged the game back into a playable state? Nope.
Now they do a reboot edition that makes a ton of giant purchases people did for formations useless. Also standard GW churn.
The only difference is this time they supposedly had playtesters. They had that too in the past and it didn’t help.
All we got a assurances to just trust them and they have so little trust on credit they need to outsource that to more respected people like Reece and Frankie.
Trust, as you say is earned. But it is demanded in advance here.
LOL- The “New GW” is totally warranted, or maybe we should call it the “New-Old GW.”
From 2010 to 2015, GW seemed to be acting at random, and actively fought back against people who wanted competitive games.
Should we just trust everything is fine now and start buying models without seeing the rules? Um, no. But I’m keeping an open mind (and my wallet isn’t locked yet!)