We were taken a bit by surprise when a Day -1 FAQ and Errata appeared for 30k. We’ve now looked through what’s changed and look at how significant it is. There are seven pages of changes, covering the core book and the Libers Astartes, Hereticus and Auxilia. You can download the FAQ from Warhammer Community now.
Nearly all of these changes are things that are just clarifying or fixing rules that didn’t work as intended, like having Imperial Fists no-longer shoot themselves when enemies come nearby. Flyers get a real mechanical change however, as they’re able to come onto the board from different angles in later turns.
There’s nothing for the Questoris or Mechanicum Libers by the way, so they must be perfect.
Table of Contents
Core book
We get a page of FAQ clarifications and then quite a lot of Errata for the Core book. Let’s quickly go through both.
FAQ
Vehicles can be Engaged in combat but can’t be locked.
If something explodes and a vehicle is caught in the blast, it gets hit on the side facing whatever blew up.
The effect of Gambits only lasts for the challenge.
A Heedless unit (which can’t control objectives) that flees from an objective doesn’t grant Vanguard points.
The 50% limit on points spent on allies includes any Apex and Auxiliary Detachments attached to Allied Detachments.
Reserves and Aerial Reserves are two separate things.
A Stable unit with a Tactical Status doesn’t get the Heavy bonus for its guns.
“Moving through” a unit is clarified, to pretty much what you’d expect.
Moving into contact with the enemy during a Set-up Move is considered to be making a successful Charge Move. That’s important for Blood Angels and World Eaters, who do get their Legion bonuses if this happens.
Psychic Weapons and Weapons with the Psychic Trait are different things. Psychic weapons tend to be generated by Psychic Powers, while a Force Sword is an example of a weapon with the Psychic Trait.
Errata
Then there are quite a few bits of Errata. Again, many of these are pretty obvious but one or two do change things.
The Intercept reaction is declared as soon as the last model in the enemy unit is placed, and has moved.
A model must be a Psyker to use Psychic Weapons.
Flyers get a pretty meaningful change. Any plane that turns up from turn two onward can come on anywhere on the edge of the battlefield – not just edges within its Deployment Zone. Planes will be able to turn up right behind the enemy to shoot them in the back, drop off troops or even extract them. Of course, arriving in the enemy Deployment zone will tend to mean there’s a lot of Intercept fire in the vicinity.
Andrew_N: This change is pretty significant for Flyers – it definitely adds to their usability and utility in this edition. It also makes late-game objective grabs using Flyer Transports a much more viable possibility!
There are a few bits on challenges:
- Models with the Paragon Type are eligible to participate in challenges.
- Flurry of Blows works in the Strike Step.
- Test the Foe automatically gives you Challenge Advantage for the next round – if you live long enough.
- If both models in a challenge die simultaneously, neither side gets any Combat Resolution.
The Basic Close Combat Weapon Example Profile is full of errors, amusingly, and this FAQ doesn’t fix it completely. It can now only be used if you’ve got no other Melee Weapons. This is a problem because Krak grenades are Melee Weapons – the only one that lots of Legionaries carry – and they can’t be used against many targets. So technically, Legionaries are left without any way to hit enemy infantry by this change. Our advice is to not be a dick about this and let your Legionaries continue to punch and kick one another. Hopefully it’ll be fixed in v1.1 of this FAQ. For now it’s kind of a stealth buff for bayonets, which allow Tactical Legionaries to attack at all.
They also tell us to delete the Melee trait from the weapon, and that it is a Melee weapon. This does kind of make sense but it looks a bit weird.
Andrew_N: This definitely reads as a “Rules As Intended” versus “Rules as Written” situation…here’s hoping this errata get errata’d soon!
They also make some corrections to their examples of “How To Select An Age Of Darkness Army, because they mucked it up. So I guess if you’re having a hard time working out how to choose an army, you’re not alone.
One major Core Rule was corrected: Vanguard. In our test games, we noticed that as originally written, it was a bit hard for Vanguard units to kick off the second condition for Vanguard points – you could not kill off a unit on an objective and win Vanguard points. This issue was corrected in the errata – if your Vanguard unit kills a unit near an objective, it gets the VPs for it!
Liber Astartes
Tartaros Terminators are indeed allowed to access all the options from the Legion Terminator Melee Weapons List. Praise be! Tartaros are pretty good now they can actually use proper weapons.
Less nice, though it works with the models, is that people in Assault Squads lose their pistols or combat shields if you give them Heavy Chainswords or Axes.
Tarantulas actually get to fire their guns, which is nice. Technically they couldn’t shoot lascannons or meltas before, as they aren’t defensive weapons and normally wouldn’t be able to be used for reactions.
Jaghatai Khan and Leman Russ will be pleased to find that their “Sire of the Scars/Wolves” rules now apply to them. Might have been embarrassing if not.
Imperial Fists rejoice, their advanced reaction now allows them to shoot the Target unit, rather than themselves!
Relatively good news for Gorgon Terminators – they get Combi-bolters. Some people had thought a new kit was coming without guns, but perhaps not.
Liber Hereticus
There’s very little to see here. See the Astartes changes above for Tartaros, Assault Squads and Tarantulas. Additionally:
Saul Tarvitz now hates “Traitor” instead of “Traitors”
The Iron Warriors Bitter Fury reaction “modify” instead of “improve” a gun’s firepower by +1.
Perturabo’s “The Breaker” ability is clarified to be a Gambit rather than a Reaction.
The Combi-melta now has “Melta (6)”, like it does in the Astartes book, instead of just “Melta”.
Liber Auxilia
Andrew_N:
Liber Solar Auxilia mostly received small corrections:
- Hull weapons were clarified as being Front Arc weapons. No 360 no-scoping with your hull lascannon.
- Rapier crews were clarified in that unit entry, Also, the crew members were corrected to having 4+ saves instead of the 3+ save originally shown in the book.
- The Barbaran Ambaxtoi’s Outlast Advanced Reaction was clarified to use snap shots instead of full BS.
- The lasrifle’s blast charger was clarified to be a separate profile, unusable unless paid for. This seemed obvious, but it’s good to have it clarified.
- Flare Launchers were changed to provide an Invulnerable Save, instead of a Damage Mitigation Save. This will make Arvuses a lot more survivable, especially if you need them to drop off a squad for a last turn objective grab!
- The Malcador, Malcador Infernus, and Valdor all had their points dropped. This one confused me a bit – the points costs matched the points cost in our review copy of Liber: Solar Auxilia. Perhaps the changes had been made mid-print-run?
Final Thoughts
These are some fairly minor changes, some of which look a bit silly. That said, mistakes do always seem to creep through GW’s design processes so it’s good that at least they’re fixing them up front. The flyer change is unexpected, and welcome, indicating that they’re prepared to look at balance changes as well as fixing mistakes.
The second edition of Horus Heresy got only occasional FAQ support. We hope that any other issues which arise get dealt with in future. Hopefully things will be pretty stable though, without the need for regular balance updates.
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