BREAKING NEWS: 8th Edition Transports Explained!

In the follow up to Friday's Vehicles reveal, we now have the Transport specific rules.

Here are the specifics

• Models now disembark before the Movement Phase.
• Disembarked models can move and shoot normally
• Disembarked models may charge!
• Multiple units can share a transport up to capacity (Taxi!!)
• Embarked models in an exploded vehicle are removed on a 1... No more wounds and armour saves

As I've explained a few times, transports can be used as a durable shock trooper. Games Workshop confirmed that in this reveal, and I wonder how many other blogs and mini-news sites have commented on it.


Since we're unloading at the start of the Movement phase, we're no longer using transports as a way to give units a 6" threat extension. Now it's literally to get them somewhere on the battlefield, and that's it.... apart from some sneaky tricks below.


Assault transports are no longer a thing, since everything can charge from a transport. There's one unit in particular that can exploit this: Drop Pods. Kind of.


The rules for non-standard deployment mean that a unit should set up at the end of the movement phase... which means that units cannot deploy out of the drop pod once it's been set up. So whilst you could set up in the enemy deployment zone, your grav-devastators need to ride out the 1st turn inside.


Drop pods are open-topped, meaning that this should be okay for shooting, but you're not going to get an Assault squad assaulting out of one. This seems like such a specific issue for Space Marines, I wonder if the wording for a drop pod will be different from the Trygon rules.

Okay I'm rambling. Here's a specific example of a transport:

It's blisteringly fast! As is fitting for a Harelquin vehicle, it's still reasonably good in combat (which now gives a point to modelling those clowns riding on the Weaver!). But what's interesting is the tiny snippets revealed in the paragraph explaining this.

You can see already that this it is likely to be considerably more durable than it is today, and the skill of the Harlequin pilots even makes it not too shabby in a fight. This being open-topped too, the passengers in it can shoot normally even after that huge 16″ move, and still shoot pistols into units that are in combat with their Transport in their own Shooting phase!

So from this we can pick out:

• Passengers in Open-topped vehicles can shoot "normally"
• Passengers inside can shoot pistols even if stuck in combat

 This is hot on the tail of the Dark Eldar release, and it doesn't take a genius to realise how big a buff this is for them. Now the Raiders can slam in, and the Wyches inside can unload Splinters into the enemy each round.

There are a few questions though:

• Can models disembark if the vehicle is in combat?
• Do Heavy weapons still have the -1 penalty if you're riding a transport that moves?

 Both would be a massive boost to the struggling Dark Eldar, who could finally fulfil their quote of never setting foot on alien ground!

Okay, enough for now. I hope everyone's having a good weekend!

Until next time.

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