Warhammer 40k 10th Edition Cover Will Completely Change in the New Edition of the 41st Millenium

The 10^th Edition of Games Workshop’s world-famous Wargame is looking more and more interesting with every reveal so let's look at the new Warhammer 40k 10th Edition Cover system.

Games Workshop has announced on March 30^th that the 10^th Edition of the Warhammer 40,000 Tabletop Wargame is coming this summer! Since the end of last month, they have revealed some new Space Marine Terminators and Termagant models, told us all about how to build a new army, what the new Unit Profiles will look like, how Detachment Rules work, what are the new Character Rules, how some of the Weapons will change, and how the 7 Phases are now condensed into 5 to shorten gametime and smoothen out the turns. And now, they revealed how the Cover system will change in the new Edition of Warhammer 40,000 – and it’s looking like a lot of fun!

Warhammer 40k 10th Edition Cover System

The new Cover system washes away the old, which means that Dense Cover will be gone after the Edition releases in summer (if all goes according to Games Workshop’s plan). Instead, every piece of Terrain, including ruins, barricades, containers, forests, craters, and broken down war machines get the new Benefit to Cover rule, which is almost the same as the current Light Cover – only almost, because if a model with a 3+ save is hiding behind one against an incoming attack with an Armor Penetration characteristic of 0, it doesn’t get any bonuses. This means that after the end of 9^th Edition, models won’t be able to get a 2+ Save via Covers. While this goes without saying the Benefit of Cover is applicable only once, which means that if a model is in cover of 2 terrain pieces, they still only get a +1 to their Save Rolls.

The new Cover system brings a new categorizing of the Terrains, which means that the 12000 possible combinations are gone, leaving us with only Craters, Barricades, Debris, Hills, Woods, and Ruins. While they all “just” give the Benefit of Cover bonus, they are still unique, as models receive the +1 to their Saving Throws with different prerequisites:

• Craters (and rubble):

  • Only Infantry models are in Cover, and only if they are wholly on top of the Crater Terrain – but line of sight doesn’t matter anymore, if a model is on the terrain piece, they get the bonus against ranged attacks.

• Barricades (and things such as Fuel Pipes):

  • The Benefit of Cover is given to models which are wholly within (so their entire bases are within) 3” of the terrain feature, and the model is not fully visible to the enemy shooting model.
  • These terrain pieces make melee fighting a bit difficult, so they also modify the Engagement Range rules: if a unit is within 1” of the feature, enemies can make a Charge against them if they can end it right on the other side of the Terrain. If they successfully Charge, the Engagement Range is 2” instead of the regular 1”, so models can Fight over Barricades.

    

• Debris (Statues, Barrels and Discarded Parts):

  • These Terrain pieces only give Benefit of Cover to models which are not fully visible to the enemy models shooting at them. This means that they will get the +1 to Saves if you can’t draw a 1mm line from each part of the base of the shooting model to the base of the target, so you can hide behind every piece of Debris now!

• Hills (and Buildings that units can stand on):

  • Hills and Buildings that haven’t been destroyed also have some new features to look out for. You can put models and even other terrain features on top of Hills, but you can’t overhang the edges with either if you want to get the Benefit of Cover. But if you keep this in mind, the Hills can protect your Units, because if your model is not fully visible (the firing enemy unit can’t see every part of the target, measured from the shooter’s head) to the enemy making the shots, you get the extra Save.

• Woods:

  • Woods were the premier Terrain if you wanted to get the Dense Cover (-1 to hit for enemies), but now that it’s gone, they had to be reworked a bit more than other terrain features. Models that are wholly within Woods are never considered to be fully visible, and if a model wants to shoot another one on the other side of the Woods, the same principle applies, and the target will get Benefit of Cover in both instances.
  • The only exception is when the target is and Aircraft or a Towering (I think it will be a keyword similar to/taking the place of Titanic) model, or when both the shooter and the target are inside the Woods.

• Ruins:

  • Ruins block the visibility of the shooting units if they are not inside or shooting inside the ruins, which is the same as the Obscuring Terrain rule of 9^th There’s an exception here as well, as Aircraft and Towering units can shoot models even if others can’t.
  • There’s a really interesting new mechanic for Ruins, called Plunging Fire, which gives the attackers a bonus if they shoot from an elevated position to the ground level. If the shooting model is at least 6” vertically from the ground, and shoots at someone below them on the ground level, their Armour Penetration is improved by one, so they can damage targets more easily. This puts a new layer to the game, as now you can play with the levels of the Ruins for advantage.

But overall, Games Workshop has kept their “simplified, not simple” philosophy with the Terrains and Cover rules as well, which are looking very interesting. The 10^th Edition of Warhammer 40,000 is closer by the day, and I am very excited to see what kind of changes GW has in store for us for the #New40K!