Movement Module

So, turns out, you can only walk through wall sometimes. Which is an exciting twist.

Quantronic Combat

No real changes here but hoo boy has this been a big source of confusion for folks.

What this essentially clarifies is that hackers have valid Reset AROs when they are in the hacking area of an active enemy hacker. But you can’t dodge. This had already been ruled in the forums but led to some additional confusion about how the example in the book was then wrong, etc. CB’s get out of jail card on that is reminding everyone that you can declare AROs any time you want, and you later check if they were valid. This is a pretty important rule but it also means some of the examples are needlessly confusing.

Another clarification that had already been ruled in the forums is that you can ARO Controlled Jump against Combat Jump to make your opponent’s roll harder. Also, you can declare the ARO from anywhere, irrespective of where the trooper is combat jumping into (no LoF or ZoC needed) and it takes effect before they make their PH roll (whereas for any other ARO it doesn’t take place until after the roll). This is pretty handy if you have an opponent with a boner for Liu Xing.

Ammunition and Weaponry

There’s no real changes here, just some helpful clarification in case you were confused about how paralyzing weapons worked or pistol burst bonuses in CC. That said, if you were confused about the burst bonus, this may seem like a big change for you (OMG BURST 2 CC). That said, its impact is likely relatively minor as the confluence of good CC plus extra burst on a pistol is fairly low, and even where it exists (i.e. Perseus in Tunguska) you’re not going to see a huge difference in your options (in Perseus’ case, 2 Dam 14 pistol shots or 1 Dam 15 DA hit). Still, gun kata is cool and I’m here for it.

Special Skills

There’s a lot here.

Berserk

Beserk got a serious upgrade in this FAQ. Not only can you use it when already engaged, which the rules barred until now, but you can also use it in a fireteam. Military Orders got a serious bump from this, and I can see a serious argument for Teutonic Knights over their beefier brethren with this in place. A team of HI all beserking you as a fireteam is enough to make anyone pause. There are a handful of other factions where this really comes in too, and JSA will be thrilled. Also worth noting is that this further turns the dial up on Asawira, who were already a fantastic choice for Haqqislam. Of course, anyone who doesn’t have beserk as a tool in their armoury is going to find these changes more than a little aggravating. (Alfredo: just keep in mind that when you berserk you’re probably gonna take a wound in response, whether from CC in response or your target’s friends just shooting into combat since the target is probably gonna die anyway) (Lupe: Never underestimate the power of being pretty damn certain a target is gonna die.)

Bioimmmunity

The ruling that has led to a lot of bitterness among some players but is beloved by others, bioimmunity has had a serious bump in effectiveness in line with the provisional rulings offered on the forums. Bioimmunity now lets you effectively circumvent AP, as the AP does not apply to the save not specified by the weapon. That makes Bioimmunity a potent tool to help larger models survive, particularly the handful of TAGs with it. While a strict reading meant that this was always the case with ARM=0, it was very much up in the air for AP until now. It also explicitly impacts E/M, letting you use your full ARM value to save. This is a very small power drop for E/M weapons, but don’t worry they aren’t really hurting from this FAQ, as we’ll see later. (Alfredo: I think Xeodrons, Yan Huo and Chaksa are the only 3 models in the game where the E/M ruling makes a difference, as they all have bioimmunity and ARM > BTS/2).

This outcome is that a decent number of troops got a decent bit tougher. The real winners here are troopers like Muyibs (already a fantastic toolbox choice) and Xeodrons (which are now even more dangerous than they already were).

Combat Jump

Rules as written combat jump troopers couldn’t land on rooftops, so it’s good to see this clarified – they now absolutely can as you’d expect, but they lose the benefit of partial cover in that order (so ARO shots aren’t penalised for shooting them on the way in).

Immunity (Total)

This is half an existing rule and half a change, and while it’s pretty cool, I’m not sure it will have a huge impact. What the first part of ruling does is effectively clarify that yes, even if you have Total Immunity, you still roll two saves against Plasma, which is fair enough. The second bit, which is an actual change, makes Total Immunity models (with cubes) immune to Sepsitorized. This is very neat but in practice only 4 models in the game have Sepsitorized and less than that have both Immunity (Total) and a cube, so it will rarely come up. But when it does, and you get to smugly inform your opponent that actually, no, you will not be sepsitorized thank you very much, it will be glorious. (Lupe: As a Combined Army player I strongly disagree that it will be glorious)

Impetuous

The changes to impetuous are a significant change, and a pretty sizable nerf to what was before this FAQ one of the best special skills in the game. By clarifying the movement of impetuous troops when they can’t get into silhouette contact with an enemy, it’s made that movement much less flexible. No longer can you move laterally for most of your move and then simply move forward a short distance – you need to be heading as fast as possible to the end zone. (Alfredo: the community was basically already ruling this way, notably the Old Dominion Disagreement, which is being held via TTS this year, had included this very ruling in their tournament FAQ)

This shouldn’t be a shock to anyone who played earlier editions, and for many people this is how they were playing it out of habit, but the impacts are notable. Impetuous troops become a lot less flexible, and a lot more likely to run into danger without thinking about it. It’s still optional to take that impetuous action or not, but if you do take it you’ll find that your troopers are a lot more constrained. Slightly irritatingly, there are still a few confusions around this rule, mostly because when terrain ends up being a factor, you can end up with impetuous troops “trapped” in terrain, because they can’t double back, and they have to get as close as possible to the DZ. The combo can lead to some tricky little situations.

It apparently deserved a note, but yes, the bullet points on movement don’t apply to other kinds of orders taken by the trooper, which is a relief to anyone who is a fan of Kaung Shi or Ghazi.

Another changed to impetuous that has folks wildly overreacting is that now if you Airborne Deploy via the impetuous phase (or a combined order), you lose your order. So no, you can’t parachute your Yuan Yuan in during the impetuous phase and then use their irregular order during the orders phase in that turn, or drop 4 in via coordinated order and then still have 3 irregular orders available. So yeah, I guess Yuan Yuans are dead, there’s clearly no value in an 8 point model you can walk in on any edge with a chain rifle and smoke, zero.

Command Module

So, you know how E/M is real good in N4? Well, it just got a bit better (along with Oblivion) because now you can’t convert the irregular orders of isolated troops into regular orders with a command token. This is really painful and makes E/M and Oblivion stronger, along with making Veteran comparatively more useful since it immunizes you against being Isolated.

Conclusion

So there you have it folks. Nothing utterly ground-shaking but definitely some notable changes that will affect the way players evaluate the relative merits of skills and troops. Did we miss any changes that were notable to you? Reach out and let us know at contact@goonhammer.com!