BREAKING NEWS!: 8th Edition 40K Twin-Linked, Combi and Blast Weapons Explained!

In the latest drip from the 8th Edition 40K information tap, we can now see the effects for both twin-linked weapons, combi-weapons and blast weapons... and by the Emperor's Golden Throne do they represent a massive change.

Twin-Linked

Twin linked weapons used to let you re-roll misses, something which slowed down game play. Not a lot, but enough to be noticed.

Now the guns fire twice.

As in double the number of shots.

As in current Twin-Linked Assault Canons would fire 8 shots.

My god...

As Games Workshop pointed out, this has effectively doubled the number of shots a Land Raider can spit out, meaning 4 Lascannon shots, and 6 Heavy Bolter shots. For flamer weapons (like twin-linked flamer Tau Crisis suits) that would mean pumping out a mighty 2d6 shots!

Does anyone want to think about Thousand Sons Scarab Terminators? 4 heavily rending shots each? How about catapult armed Eldar jetbikes? Now they are serious competition for Scat packs.

This certainly speeds up game play, but don't think you'd be getting those extra shots for free. All you've really done is increase the points cost of your unit. So why would this be different from just letting them have another gun?

If you remember back to the Shooting Phase Explained piece I wrote, you'll recall that models in a unit can fire at different targets. If this is extended to different guns on different models, it would be a way to somewhat control the storm of fire coming out of something like a Land Raider... which would effectively be rocking 6 guns if they were all treated separately. This way, they stay at 3 weapons, but they're doubly good.

Thinking of guns on the same model firing at different targets...

Combi-Weapons

Two really big changes:

• You can fire both weapons at the same time at -1 to Hit
• The special weapon part doesn't run out.

So right away, Chaos Terminators and anything usually armed with combi-weapons gets a massive buff. The suicide-terminator squad just got tremendously scary, firing not only it's bolters every turn, but potentially a volley of melta, plasma or just plain old fire!

What could be even better is if the different parts of the gun could be fired at different targets! Fire the melta at a tank, and then bolter up the infantry next to it. Fire bolters at a troops screen for  character, and then plasma the exposed leader to death!

The only downside for this rule, apart from an almost certain points increase, is that Tau Crisis suits have had their main unique selling point co-opted by every other elite infantry in the game! Why bother with a multi-tracker when everyone can pull the same trick?

That said, they may make the multi-tracker into something that allows models to fire their guns at separate targets. That would keep them at least slightly more effective.


Also, stealth reveal of how melta is played in the new edition. At half range roll 2d6 for wounds, and pick the highest value. This makes it a truly monstrous anti-monster weapon, as well as being decently anti-tank. Plasma is going to need quite a hefty buff to compete with that! But with that said, 6" is probably closer than any model want to get to a Wraithknight...

Explosives

Just like flamer weapons, blast weapons will do random numbers of hits. This will speed up gameplay a lot, and make Battle Canons, Prism Canons, Thunderfire Canons, Earthshaker Canons... hell nearly everything with the name canon, particularly scary for monstrous creatures and multi-wound models.


See the notes I made back when the flamer was first revealed, only increase the strength of that gun!


Some good changes here, which will certainly change the metas and units choices for a lot of armies. I think the combi rule is going to be the most significant, but we'll have to see if the points cost is going to be worth having double the gun coming out of a model.


Until next time!

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