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40K Rules Blooper Reel

2020-09-20T17:35:23Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:A108:76C4:411B:8AD5: /* 4th Edition */

{{Fail}}
GW has a history of failing to make rules that work, whether intentional or otherwise. This page is meant to compile all the classic examples of...[[derp|unintended]] [[fail|hilarity]] of GW ruleswriting throughout 40k. The worst offenses, of course, became tactics like [[Screamerstar]] or [[Fish of Fury]].
Recommended listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sruEnQ9HkU

==2nd Edition==
*'''Derp From Above:''' Ramming rules for vehicles were the 2nd ed predecessor to Tank Shock. Units in the vehicle's direct path had to take Initiative tests to avoid being damaged, before being displaced the shortest possible distance. When a vehicle Rammed another vehicle, it came to a halt. The real comedy was dealing with the Lifta Droppa or D-Cannons, which could lift or teleport enemy units respectively. [[Derp|2nd ed had no resolution for what happened after one vehicle rammed another vehicle below it]]. [[Skub|While some players would displace the smaller vehicle as though it were a non-vehicle, others might keep the two vehicles joined together like an improvised Voltron]].
*'''Polymorphine:''' This little wargear card was not restricted to [[Callidus]] [[Assassin]]s at first, any Imperial character with a free wargear slot could take it. It allowed said character to start the game disguised as a member of a troop squad. Queue endless instances of severe [[rape]] when what looked like a mere [[Imperial Guard|guardsman]] with a [[Lasgun|flashlight]] actually turned out to be a Terminator-armour clad [[Space Marine]] hero (for instance). Fun times.
*'''Mask of Jain Zar:''' Similar to the Polymorphine problem, the second edition Eldar codex printed wargear cards for Eldar Phoenix Lords that simply read "Eldar Only," meaning any Eldar character could borrow Jain Zar's outfit and gain a Howling Banshee's ability to paralyze an opponent on the charge. Commonly used by Swooping Hawk Exarchs to insta-kill any target on the board.
*'''Virus Outbreak''': A stratagem card from the Dark Millenium box that was... interesting, to say the least. Basically you threw down a 2" pie anywhere on the table, with anything beneath it not explicitly stated to be immune dying on a 3+. That was already pretty good, but worse when a model was killed, every other model not immune that was within d6 inches would have to test, dying on a 4+ and recursively requiring every other model within d6 inches to test not to die on a 4+. [[Rape|Guess it sucks]] to play [[Imperial Guard]] or [[Ork]]s? (Hint: it sucked so hard the writers went so far as to recommend players tear up their Virus Outbreak cards since they hadn't intended on it being so grossly overpowered. Interestingly, Tyranids were not affected by Virus Outbreak.)

==3rd Edition==
*'''[[Fish of Fury]]'''
*'''Scourges Don't Lift:''' Back then Scourges were Jump Pack Infantry with no ability to move and shoot their Heavy Weapons (unless they took Splinter Cannons, which were decent but not stellar). To add insult to injury GW gave them a warrior statline (they were literally BS3 Imperial Guardsmen stat-wise), and ridiculously expensive weapons that don't come standard. They were also among the more fiddly of the metal models to assemble as well with casts that rarely came out right (Right up there with the metal Wraithlord, metal Daemon Prince, and [[Finecast]] in terms of outright defective models that you had to fix yourself with Green Stuff). Accordingly, they were seen as a joke unit in an already difficult to pilot army.

==4th Edition==
*'''Snikrot Shuffle:''' Boss Snikrot was made a unit upgrade for Kommandos, giving his unit the ability to appear from any table edge through "Behind Enemy Lines." However, due to the way Behind Enemy Lines was worded, Snikrot was granting the unit the ability, rather than the unit itself being upgraded to have the ability. Thus, although arguably unintentional, it became legal to use Snikrot to [[Creed|"smuggle"]] decidedly unsneaky Ork Characters alongside him; one must imagine they were carrying the Boss's Bike Fred Flintstone-style.

*'''Squad Broken!''': Units stopped scoring if they were below half strength. While this made little difference on 10 or 20-man infantry units, it made quite a bit of difference if you were taking vehicle squads. Players would deliberately take odd-numbered squad sizes to increase the threshold for half.

*'''Tau Piñata:''' The Tau Orca was billed as being a super-heavy transport flyer, one capable of carrying and deploying several squads in one turn thanks to a unique special rule that allowed it to disembark multiple squads at any point during its move (drop some off, move to the next point, repeat). The problem was that it had only one access point (its rear ramp) so if the units it carried were at their maximum size, they were too large to be deployed normally since all the models could not all be placed within 2" of the access point. This in turn meant the only way for the Tau player to get their troops on the board was to [[derp|hope the enemy player blew up the Orca in midair, and hope the troops inside survived the landing and didn't burst on the ground like the blueberries they were.]] Given the armour value of the vehicle (Rhino armour) and how easy it was to destroy, this ended up happening more often than not. This also started the trend of the Orca being a useless piece of shit that was a flying deathtrap to anyone inside of it, and this issue remained unfixed all the way through 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th edition.

==5th Edition==
*'''Musical Wounds:''' 5th edition wound allocation stated that you had to distribute wounds as evenly as possible between all models in a unit before it rolled for saves. In theory this meant that if you did a lot of wounds at once, you could force your opponent to risk losing Sergeants or hidden Special Weapons. In practice, Musical Wounds combined with multi-wound units led to a phenomenon where players would give each model a unique loadout, so that you effectively had to deal the model's unit worth of unsaved wounds before said unit removed any casualties. The two most notable example units that abused this mechanic were Nob Bikers and Grey Knight Paladins, though Thunderwolves and even Dark Eldar Grotesques could join in the fun.

*'''You won't need Eyes When You're Raging:''' 5th Edition introduced True Line of Sight, with the stipulation that infantry models had to measure Line of Sight "from the eyes." Tyrant Guard had a special rule that they would suffer from Rage if the Hive Tyrant they were protecting died. Unfortunately, Rage as written stated you had to move towards the closest "visible" enemy unit, which RAW was impossible for Tyrant Guard since they don't actually have eyes.

*'''Selective Warp Field:''' This one was a formatting goof, but when Codex Tyranids came out, the rules for Warp Fields stated that "A Zoanthrope with a Warp Field has a 3+ Invulnerable Save." The Doom of Malan'tai had a Warp Field but was not explicitly stated to be a Zoanthrope (this is one area where Keywords would have helped). Thus, until GW actually FAQ'd it, people could argue that the Doom didn't actually get an Invulnerable Save (and INAT ruled as such until the GW FAQ overturned it).

*'''Crouching Wraithlord, Leaping Ork Boy''': Since True Line of Sight also did not come with any real restrictions against "modelling for advantage," players initially sought to exploit this by heavily modding or basing figures. Comedically, Canis Wolfborn gained an extra attack for each model in base-to-base with him, and the rules stated "if you're thinking of modelling Canis on a really large base to take advantage of this, don't." This wasn't a formal restriction against basing however. In the meantime, legs were snipped to give upright poses and models raised high overhead to give the best lines of fire. The Eldar Wraithlord became one of the most notable offenders, being popularly modded into a crouching or "prone" position to lower its height and make it easier to acquire 50% cover (It did deliver some pretty boss looking conversions, though, so it wasn't all bad).

*'''By Any Means, Indeed:''' Inquisitor Lord Karamazov came back with a vengeance in Codex: Grey Knights. Although his statline was reduced from Strength/Toughness 6 to Strength/Toughness 5, he became an Independent Character and thus could be hidden in a unit. However, his main abilities were that he granted a bubble of morale/pinning rerolls, while having an Orbital Strike Relay and the ability '''By Any Means Necessary:''' Karamazov could center an Orbital Strike over any friendly model, even one engaged in melee, and it would not Scatter. Although fluffed as an "in extremis" ability to prevent the Grey Knights from being overrun by offensive hordes, a more amusing trick came into play when comboed with Grey Knight Interceptors: Interceptors had the ability to Shunt, letting them move 30" in exchange for not being able to assault. A Lance had a blast radius of 1.5 inches, and squad coherency was two inches. [[derp|However, in 5th, it explicitly operated at full strength even with partials. Thus, a common trick was to Shunt Interceptors so one sacrificial Grey Knight could tag two enemy tanks]]; [[Tallarn|for fun, model said Interceptor with a suicide vest going "Emprah Akbar!"]]

==6th Edition==

*'''Blinded by the Flashlights:''' 6th edition made Flyers and Flying Monstrous creatures into distinct types. This made units like the Nightscythe and Flyrant considerably more powerful than they were in 5th edition, but the rules were such that when a Flying Monstrous Creature was \*hit\* by an enemy attack, it had to roll a 3+ on a single d6, or crash to the ground taking a Strength 10 hit ignoring armor save. [[Derp|Thus, it was possible for Flyrants, Daemon Princes, etc, to continually 'splat' to the ground as Conscripts or Orks pelted them with attacks which otherwise would stand little chance of doing damage.]]

*'''Grumblegrumble Stupid Chariot:''' The 6th edition Burning Chariot of Tzeentch was introduced as a Skimmer Chariot, fast and fragile and meant to act akin to a Daemon Land Speeder of a sort. Unfortunately, the actual ranged weapons were on the Exalted Flamer atop the whole Chariot, which was not Relentless. Thus, the Chariot had to move or shoot, which was a death sentence for such a fragile ride (7th fortunately made them Relentless).

*'''Dude, Where's My Bomb?:''' The 6th ed Sunshark Bomber had a Pulse Bomb Generator: Whenever the Sunshark successfully makes a Bombing Run, you could roll a D6, and on a 2+, you got a bomb back. [[Derp|Unfortunately, the Sunshark as written didn't actually start with a Pulse Bomb]].[[Fail|This issue remained unfixed in the 7th edition reprint]] until being FAQed.

*'''Interceptor Drones Don't:''' Adding further insult to injury, the Sunshark Bomber came with two Interceptor Drones, that had Skyfire and the Interceptor rule. However, the way Intercept was worded, [[derp|it only worked if the weapon itself had Intercept; there was no wording for the model itself having Intercept.]] [[wat|The Early Warning Override was specifically worded that "all weapons on a model with an Early Warning Override have the Intercept special rule" to avoid this]], [[fail| so any Crisis Suit could be upgraded to intercept, but an Interceptor Drone RAW could not Intercept.]] [[RAGE|This was un-FAQed throughout both 6th and 7th]].

*'''Thermonuclear Pyrovores:''' The Pyrovore in 5th-7th was memetically known as a super-useless unit, but the 6th edition Tyranid Codex was known for a hilariously misworded Volatile rule: Whenever a Pyrovore died to Instant Death, ''"Every unit suffers a S3 hit for each model (excluding other Pyrovores) within d6 inches of the Pyrovore."'' Read that rule, and comprehend what "every unit" means.

*'''Lookout, Wez Ork Snipers!''': 6th edition introduced "Character" as a subtype for models; Characters could accept and issue Challenges to other Characters, and benefit from "Look Out Sir," which let other models take wounds on their behalf; furthermore, Characters in 6th ed had the Precision Shot rule, meaning that on 6s to hit, the attacker could allocate hits instead of the defender. When the 6th ed FAQs first rolled out, Ork Nobs were indexed to be Characters. However, the index didn't distinguish between Nobs leading Boys or units of Nobs; not only could Nobz play Musical Wound Games where they could pawn off wounds to each other on a 4+, but that a unit of Nob Bikerz (each Biker fires 3 shots, hitting on 5s and rerolling misses, and choosing the model affected on a 6) [[wat|was generally better at sniping out troublesome targets than many dedicated snipers]]. GW did eventually FAQ their FAQ to state that only ''one'' Nob in each unit of Nobz/Meganobz got the Character distinction, while 7th ed made Precision Shot a USR that Characters did not innately receive.

*'''Legion of the Dammit:''' Codex Legion of the Damned was touted as a standalone supplement that was meant to let players field them as a standalone force. The rules required the Legion of the Damned to start with their entire army in Reserves. Unfortunately in 6th, [[derp|you automatically lost if you didn't actually have any units on the table]]. GW would later apologize in an FAQ for the standalone touting and confirmed the rules were intended for Legion of the Damned to support another army rather than act on their own.

*'''Asses of Fire:''' Heldrakes' Baleflamer during its inception counted as being turret-mounted, allowing the Hellturkey to Vector Strike and then hose the same unit with hellfire from its, errm... eye of terror. It was quickly errata'd, but, while not exactly game-breaking, it still lead to horrifying implications, given the damn things were everywhere back then.

==7th Edition==
*'''Missile Lock:''' Missile Lock was a Universal Special Rule introduced in 6th Edition, which stated that 'blast weapons' with that rule only rolled 1d6 for scatter. [[derp|The only weapon with this rule was the Dark Angel Blacksword Missile, which was not a blast weapon]]. [[Rage|7th amended this rule so that non-blast weapons could reroll to-hit with them, but removed the rule from the Blacksword Missile]], [[wat|leading to Missile Lock being a USR that was not used by anything for half of 7th edition]]. [[herp|The 7th edition version of Dark Angels gave Missile Lock back to the Blacksword Missile, making it a USR that was used by one weapon on one unit on one codex]].

*'''[[Screamerstar]]'''

*'''Hard to Hit is not Hard to Hit:''' The rules for Flyers and Flying Monstrous Creatures were such that both units had a rule called "Hard to Hit." This meant that unless a unit shooting at them possessed Skyfire, then units 'targeting' them could only be resolved as Snap Shots. However, although both types of units possessed a rule called "Hard to Hit", [[fail|the Flyer version of the rule also said they could not be affected by blasts, templates, or attacks which did not roll to hit]]. The Flying Monstrous Creature version did not have this clause, which could lead to [[skub|lively debates]] [[wat|over whether a Vindicator's shots could 'scatter onto' an airborne Hive Tyrant]].

*'''Nobz In A 'Naut:''' This may have arguably just been insidious GW marketing instead of them failing to understand their own game, but Gorkanauts/Morkanauts were touted as "nearly indestructible" and reliably able to transport Nobz or other elite units into the fray, despite the fact that they were not Superheavy Vehicles. While you could one-shot them with a lucky Melta or Lascannon shot, a more common outcome was for one to be Immobilized by a Grav Cannon rolling a 6. As for serving as an assault transport, GW forgot to give the 'Nauts the Assault Ramp rule, and thus [[Fail|you couldn't actually assault from one]]. To add insult to injury, these vehicles cost ''more'' than a Land Raider while moving slower.

*'''Knight Rider Chronus:''' In 7th edition, Ultramarines could purchase Chronus as an upgrade to Tanks. Unlike Longstrike or Pask, Chronus was an Infantry Character, that would turn the tank he was riding into a Character, only to emerge from said Tank like a passenger should it be destroyed. However, RAW, Chronus was a Character and so was the Tank that Chronus was riding in, but neither were the same Character. Thus, you could either make Chronus your Warlord and wait before his tank was destroyed before you could use his Warlord Trait (assuming it required being on-table), or make his Tank your Warlord. Thus, it's more funny to imagine Chronus's tank as KITT from Knight Rider. (As an amusing bonus, he also had a Servo-Arm but not Blessing of the Omnissiah, so he could punch stuff but couldn't fix it).

*'''Khornedogs of Slaanesh:''' Daemons in Khorne Daemonkin had Fearless instead of Daemonic Instability. Thus, Battle Brothers from Chaos Space Marines could join Daemon units from Khorne Daemonkin. Although an Independent Character with a Mark could not join a unit with a different Mark, having the Mark of a Chaos God and being a Daemon of a Chaos God were two different things. Thus, Daemonkin meant you could have a Sorcerer of Slaanesh use Flesh Hounds of Khorne as bodyguards.

*'''Shred this Worthless Supplement:''' The Farsight Enclaves Supplement has the Warlord Trait '''Through Surety, Destruction.''' Once per game, the Warlord's unit gains Shred for a single Shooting Phase. Sounds good right? Who doesn't like rerolling to wound? Unfortunately, as worded, [[fail|Shred only works in close combat unless applied specifically to the weapon, meaning this Warlord Trait as written does nothing whatsoever]].

*'''Dastardly DJ Roombas:''' The '''Drone-Net VX1-0''' Formation required you to take at least four units of Drones, and granted them several bonuses: First of all, they got '''Collective Targeting Data''' which granted all Drones (including Drones that were not part of the Formation) +1 Ballistic Skill "In the Shooting Phase" as long as at least two Drones "from this Formation" were on the Battlefield. [[skub|It was never FAQed whether "from this Formation" allowed for the bonus to stack if you took multiple copies of the Formation, nor whether you applied it before or after a Drone Controller]]. Additionally, the Formation had the bonus '''Enhanced Tactical Responses:''' All Drones in the Formation had Jink, Split Fire, Precision Shots, and Interceptor. Similar to the Sunshark's Drones, [[fail|Interceptor as worded would be useless for the Gun Drones RAW]], [[derp|while GW had to FAQ that Gun Drones could not both Jink and Go to Ground]] [[wat|like sneaky DJ Roombas]].

*'''Ordo Xenos or Ordo Xerox?:''' Codex Deathwatch had generally sloppy rules, copypaste formations ("Reroll to-wound vs X"), and odd examples of GW being arbitrarily restrictive in unit loadouts (notably, Deathwatch couldn't take Rifleman Dreads or Strontos Razorbacks). However the most amusing example of this was how the Bane Bolts relic had a profile for being used by a Stalker Boltgun, despite Deathwatch HQs not having the option for a Stalker Boltgun.

*'''Siphon Magic, Period:''' Siphon Magic may easily be the worst-written power of 7th edition. ''"Siphon Magic is a'' '''Blessing''' ''that targets the Psyker. For the rest of the phase, each time a friendly model successfully manifests a psychic power within 18" of them, place a dice next to this model. Any dice accrued in this manner can be used by the Psyker as bonus Warp Charge points."'' This power itself was problematic for several reasons: Does "a friendly model" include the Psyker that cast Siphon Magic? Did casting Siphon Magic actually grant the Psyker an immediate bonus die? It was noted that Deny the Witch did not turn a Success into a Failure, but simply cancelled the power's effect, and so Siphon Magic still granted a bonus die. However, the real RAW kerfluffle was the fact that since [[derp|Siphon Magic did not grant bonus Warp Charge, but "dice that could be spent as additional Warp Charge,"]] [[skub|you could argue that it was possible to store dice from Siphon Magic across turns]]. You could even state that this was "intentional," since the Tyranid Neurothrope had a similar ability that let it gain additional Warp Charge that could only be used by its unit. Hilariously though, Siphon Magic was otherwise useless for ML 1 Psykers since if it was the only power that could be cast that turn, then it would mean storing up dice that could not be used. Oops.

*'''No Death Guard Zombies:''' Typhus let you nominate any Chaos Cultists as Plague Zombies at army creation, giving them Fearless, Feel No Pain, and Slow and Purposeful. They however could not purchase any other options besides increasing their unit size. When Traitor Legions came out, it added rules for different Legion Tactics; notably, Death Guard detachments required all units with the option to purchase the Mark of Nurgle. Due to ambiguous order of operations, it was entirely possible that the Cultists having to purchase the Mark of Nurgle precluded Typhus being able to nominate said Cultists as Zombies. However, Typhus let you nominate any Cultists in your army, and not necessarily the Detachment he was in, so if you took an allied Alpha Legion detachment, you could have Infiltrating ninja-zombies. Let that image sink in.

*'''Soul Pain:''' The Ynnari Psychic Power Unbind Souls targeted an enemy unit, and made a number of Strength 4 attacks equal to the number of models in the target unit. It was supposed to be used to cut large hordes down to size. However, the rulewriter forgot that only models in range and line of sight could be removed as casualties, and Unbind Souls only had 12 inches of range. The result would be a few unlucky Orks or Tyranids being struck down with extreme overkill, to the confusion of the rest of the unit.

*'''Revenge is Sweet:''' In what may be the best bit of poetic irony of 7th Edition, the Avatar of Khaine was completely immune to Guilliman, since all of Guilliman's close combat attacks had Soul Blaze. Feels good to be immune after being used as a punching bag in all of Matt Ward's old fluff...

*'''Stormsurge Fell and Can't Get Up!:''' When the Stormsurge battlesuit came out, it had a nice little rule that allowed it to fire twice at the expense of not being able to move. The problem? If it was tank shocked by anything (and this was confirmed in the FAQ) it would instantly die if its anchors were deployed, presumably because it would be tipped over and without arms (and thanks to being a super-heavy) it would be impossible to stand back up again. So, surprisingly enough, this is less a case of shitty rules and more one of the rules implementing the consequences of a shitty design ignored elsewhere.

==8th Edition==
Strap yourself in, son, this is gonna be a long one. This edition saw a major rules overhaul, stopgap rules brought in before full codices were released, and of course, the most recent fuckups tend to be easier to remember than the ones that happened twenty years ago.

*'''And They Shall Know Fear:''' As written, 40k uses a system where you roll dice (d3s, d6s, 2d6s, etc.) and add modifiers to the roll to get the result. If you have any ability to re-roll, those are applied before any modifiers. Space Marines have '''And They Shall Know No Fear''' which lets them re-roll failed Morale Tests. However, a Morale Test is resolved by rolling a D6 and adding the number of casualties the unit has suffered to obtain the result, before comparing against the unit's base leadership. [[Skub|Differring arguments exist as to whether adding a number to get a result is considered a modifier, vs a modifier being for a basic roll otherwise]], but the end result would be that through a literal interpretation, [[Fail|Marines by default could never reroll morale, since they would compare the d6 against their highest Ld (8 for the Sergeant), then modify the roll with the casualties]]. [[Wat|Ironically, this means abilities that lower the Marine unit's Ld would make it more likely for the Marines to actually use ATSKNF]]. [[Skub|You can argue if this is intentional or not too]], [[That Guy|stating "ATSKNF only kicks in when facing true fear."]]
*'''I'm Celestine! No, I'm Celestine!''': When a new edition is released there's bound to be one or two things that GW forgets to mention or include, in this case GW forgot to make Saint Celestine ''unique'' when they released her rules, which opened the way for Imperium players to field 5 (or more) of her. This might not be all that bad on its own, if it wasn't for the fact that each Celestine boosted the '''Shield of Faith''' rule that the Sisters of Battle possessed. Normally it gave them a 6+ invulnerable save and for every Celestine on the tabletop this increased by +1, meaning that it was very easy to give your entire army a 2+ Invulnerable save and steamroll the opposing army, while remaining entirely tournament legal (although don't expect any TO to allow you to use this technically-legal list).
*'''Holy Artillery:''' Compounding the Celestine shenanigans, thanks to how it was written the Sisters of Battle could use Acts of Faith on any unit in their army of the same order, even if they didn't have Acts of Faith. This was done by using an Imagifier or Celestine to grant the act on either a 4+ or automatically, which led to players using them to fire Exorcists twice per turn and just erase most armoured units/vehicles/monsters from the tabletop. This was later errata'd so that you can only use this power on units that can actually use Acts of Faith.
*'''Were we hunting somebody?:''' Another thing GW forgot at the start of 8th was double-checking army restrictions, specifically who could be allowed to fight beside who. This led to shenanigans like Fallen and Dark Angels fighting alongside each other without issue because they both had the Imperium keyword.
*'''Technically Correct: The Best Kind of Correct:''' The big FAQ introduced new suggested rules for Tournament play to prevent spam by introducing a hard limit to the same Datasheet to 3 ''per army'' in a 2k point game. On Paper this means you will see at most 3 Flyrants, 3 Units of Dark Reapers, 3 Fire Raptors etc. Sounds good on paper and limits MSU and Spam, right? Well they forgot about the Daemon Prince and the Leman Russ. [[Derp|First off, the Daemon Prince! You can still bring a Battalion of Chaos Marines, Battalion of Daemons, and then a Supreme Command Detachment of Thousand Sons or Death Guard because it is a separate Datasheet for each army]] (FAQ has since rendered this variant of the cheese irrelevant). [[Derp|Second, the Leman Russ is limited to 3 Squads of Leman Russ tanks, so you can bring 3 Squads of 3 in a Spearhead and 3 Tank Commanders in a Supreme Command if you want, then have the 12 Leman Russ Tanks all break unit during the game, giving you 12. 13 if you also take Pask. And then you could keep going with all the forge world variants...]] This works with anything that can Combat Squad or has similar abilities as well.
**Even better with Forge World and the Russes. The Death Korps Mars Alpha Russ is a separate datasheet, as is the Conqueror, Stygies Vanquisher and the Annihilator. So you can have [[Wat|48 units of Russes when there is meant to be a cap of three.]] This would cost far more than 2000 points, though.
**With the new Knights codex, there are new type of mini-knight called Armigers, which are split into 2 datasheets and can be taken in 3 man squads like the Russes. So have fun with 18 Lords of War when the limit should be 3.

*'''What Role Am I Anyway?:''' The rules to the aforementioned hard limit says "this rule does not apply to units with the Troops or Dedicated Transport Battlefield Role." [[Fail|However, this does not account for the fact that the same Datasheet can be taken for multiple Battlefield Roles]]. For example, Khorne Berzerkers are Troops in a World Eaters Detachment and Elites otherwise. [[Skub|Depending on your interpretation, this can either mean "ignore Troops and Dedicated Transports when determining your total," that units cannot be exempt unless they can only ever be taken as Troops or Dedicated Transports, or they can so long as the potential to take them as Troops exists]].
**The reasonable interpretation would be that, using Berzerkers as an example, you can have unlimited Troops Berzerker datasheets and a cap on Elites Berzerker datasheets. Why GW couldn't make this clearer is anyone's guess.

*'''Does anyone actually playtest this anymore?''' FAQ again! So the character targeting rules changed to prevent cheese. before you could only target a character with less than 10 wounds if they were the closest ''visible'' unit. This leads to [[cheese]] like surrounding squads with their own tanks and transports, leaving a small hole so a unit could only see a character, or attempting to snipe characters with Mortars and Basilisks. Instead of fixing this by saying something like "You can see through friendly units for the purposes of targeting (and only targeting) but cannot shoot through them", GW tried to patch this out. [[What|Now you can't target the character if there is a unit between the shooter and character '''even if that closer unit isn't in LoS'''.]] This has lead to characters like Archons and [[Smashfucker]] becoming the best objective holders and deep strike denial units in the entire game. Now imagine what a Reaper Launcher Autarch with Mark of the Incomparable Hunter can do with this...
::Note that as of the 2nd big FAQ this remains not only unchained, but now made into an official rule. If a character is in clear view and the only enemy units that are closer to your unit than them are completely out of Line of Sight, [[FAIL|then you still cannot shoot that character.]] The FAQ also specified that you ignore other characters for the purposes of 'closest enemy unit', but only if they have less than 10 wounds.

*'''GRAMMAR IS FOR THE WEAK!:''' The Chaos Daemon Codex has the rule '''Daemonic Ritual:''' Instead of moving in their Movement Phase, any CHAOS CHARACTER may, at the end of their Movement Phase, attempt to summon a DAEMON unit ''with this ability'' by performing a Daemonic Ritual. The key is the "with this ability," since this can form an ambiguous lexical construct. "I found you with my flashlight" can either mean subject A found Predicate B in the possession of A's Flashlight, or that A used A's Flashlight to find B. Only by noticing that non-character Daemon Units have Daemonic Ritual will a player infer that [[wat|having Daemonic Ritual does not let you perform a Daemonic Ritual]], [[derp|but lets any Chaos Character that doesn't necessarily have Daemonic Ritual perform a Daemonic Ritual]], [[FAIL| and the clause "By performing a Daemonic Ritual" is just flavor-text with no actual relevance to Daemonic Ritual]]. [[Skub|Feel free to attempt to summon a Heldrake]] [[That_Guy|on account of ambiguous ruling though]].

*'''Lesser Keyword of Solomon:''' The Daemon Codex came with many Stratagems, which people immediately started thinking of ways to apply to [[Cheese|Magnus and Mortarion]]. To curb this, GW released a FAQ stating that Daemon Stratagems and Relics only work on Faction Keyword Daemons. The problem? The Warhammer Designer Commentary FAQ (the same one preventing Sept<Craftworld<Wu'Tang Clan>>) states that [[derp|once the battle is begun, there is no functional difference between a Keyword and a Faction Keyword]], [[Fail|so the errata as written doesn't work]].

*'''Plasma is Hotter At Night:''' When you Overcharge Plasma weaponry, it explodes on a 1. Not a "natural" one but a "modified one." This means any penalties to-hit also increase the odds of Plasma exploding. The Machine Spirits are afraid of the dark. Note that supercharged Plasma Guns "slay the bearer on a hit roll of 1". Everything in the book draws gear from one list. Yes, including vehicles. Yes, that 371pts Land Raider with 16 wounds just spontaneously evaporated itself with its own pintle-mounted combi-plasma. Don't press that, brother!
**To add insult to injury, there is even a situation where you can make an Overcharged Plasma Cannon explode on any result to hit, thanks to GW giving -1 to hit effects to the Craftworld Eldar like it's going out of style. All you need to do is overcharge and shoot a Plasma Cannon at night (-1 to hit) after moving (-1 to hit) at some knife eared assholes painted blue (Alaitoc Attribute, -1 to hit at +12") with fancy armour (Warp Spider's Flickerjump ability, -1 to hit) who are pulling some Matrix shit (Lightning-Fast Reactions Stratagem, -1 to hit). So that's a total of -5 to hit, meaning any result you roll to hit will be modified down to a 1. I guess the Machine Spirits are also scared of Eldar too?
**On a more positive note, you can (almost always) fire the gun on regular mode at no risk. As hilariously bad as this rule is, you at least don't ''need'' to commit suicide or do nothing.
**Some models have special rules on their guns to "fix" this, mostly characters with big expensive minis and guns that only cause a mortal wound on a 1.

*'''Anti-Air Flamethrowers:''' Flamethrowers in 8th edition no longer use an AoE "teardrop" template, but instead inflict a random number of automatic hits on a unit. For example, a Hellhound's Inferno Cannon inflicts D6 automatic hits. Due to these changes, regular flamers are less important as a crowd control weapon, and more as an anti-hitmod (and [[derp|anti-aircraft]]) weapon; this is especially true of weapons that have a multi-damage value like the aforementioned Inferno Cannon. Where it gets silly though is how Flamers interact with "ambush/deepstrike" abilities. See, regular flamers have an effective range of 8 inches, but most "strike from Reserve" powers require you to set up more than 9 inches away. This means that flamers are useless when you appear from Reserves, but it also means they're useless for defending against units Charging from Reserves, since the flamers are [[fail|out of range and thus unable to actually lay down a Wall of Death like in 6th-7th Edition, or interrupt movement like in 2nd Edition]].

*'''All is Atomized Dust:''' The rules for Psykers in 8th are copied from Age of Sigmar: Roll 2d6 against the Psychic Power's difficulty, suffering Perils if you roll double 1s or double 6s. Perils means you suffer D3 Mortal Wounds, and inflict another D3 Mortal Wounds to all units within 6" should the Psyker be slain as a result. Unfortunately, the Aspiring Sorcerer in a unit of Rubric Marines...has 1 wound, while having a weaker version of Smite. Because Mortal Wounds spillover, this means you lose 2d3 models to Perils, the Sorcerer among them. Don't even think about trying to cast powers against Hive Fleet Kronos, lest your [[fail|expensive Rubric Marines go up in a blaze of Chaos is Fickle!]]. Keep in mind, although the entire unit is a PSYKER, the rules for Perils state that the psyker (not keyworded) suffers the Mortal wounds, and the Rubric Marine datasheet mentions that the Aspiring Sorcerer is the model doing the casting, so he has to be the first one removed from the unit no matter what you roll.

*'''Just Another Bugged Hunt:''' Genestealer Cults have a special rule called Brood Brothers: For each Genestealer Cult detachment in your army, you may take one Guard detachment, ignoring said Guard Detachment's Faction Keywords when determining if your army is Battle-Forged. The Guard Detachment cannot benefit from any Regiment-specific Stratagems, Doctrines, or Relics. However, a separate Forgeworld FAQ ruling states that Elysian and Krieg bonuses are not considered Regiment bonuses but their own "bespoke" rules. Combine with the fact that Brood Brothers has no restriction on being triggered by an Auxiliary Detachment, and you can have a Battalion of Tyranids fighting alongside a Battalion of Elysians, [[wat|with a single Cult Acolyte in an Auxiliary Detachment making the list Battle-Forged]].

*'''Unfocused Fire:''' Due to wonky RAW, the Tau Stratagem Focused Fire (hopefully to be FAQd) works best by splitting fire across the entire enemy army. Say the opponent has a unit. You shoot that unit, it fails its save, and you then activate Focus Fire. For the rest of that phase, any T'au Sept ''unit'' of yours that ''targets'' that unit gets +1 to wound. However, selecting targets and resolving shooting are separate steps; this means that RAW, a Hammerhead could allocate Smart Missiles against the unit that Focus Fire was activated against, allocate its Railgun against another unit, and get +1 to wound both units.
**The Big FAQ errata'd Focus Fire so that you get +1 to wound with attacks that are made by T'au Sept units from your army that target the enemy unit. [[Skub|Although some will argue that "that target unit" refers to the attacks]], even if that were the case, [[Derp|RAW units Choose Targets, and then after allocating weapons, you Resolve Attacks]], [[Fail|and therefore this errata effectively changes nothing]].
**'''Sidenote:''' 8th renames Tau to T'au, while adding bonuses for Sept T'au. Thus, there was a joke due to the Faction and Sept having the same name. "All T'au are T'au, but some T'au are more T'au than others."

*'''Really Hot-Blooded:''' Normally, the shooting sequence is: Select a unit to shoot, Declare targets, allocate weapons, then resolve attacks. Certain Stratagems or abilities may allow a unit to "fire its weapons twice" or "shoot an additional time at the end of the Shooting Phase." However, the Vior'la Stratagem '''Hot-Blooded''' is worded that at the start of the Shooting Phase, you may pick an INFANTRY unit from your army, and it may be "chosen to shoot twice this phase." The key is that normally, the rules state that you may not select a unit to shoot if it Fell Back, Advanced, or is engaged, [[derp|yet this Stratagem as written overrides those restrictions]]. [[Skub|Unlike other RAW screwups, it is unknown if this was intentional or just GW flubbing standardizing their rules]].

*'''They can have TWO weapons?:''' After waiting months for a FAQ, the tau finally got an answer as to what counts as a "shot" in the cadre fireblade's volley fire ability. GW answered "It means the player can make one more hit roll for each model that is firing at a target within half range", which conflicts with the wording of the ability which says the model gets an extra shot for EACH WEAPON, meaning drones, which carried 2 pulse carbines, would not get an extra shot per pulse carbine. Many months later GW issued a FAQ of the FAQ, saying the model would get one extra shot for each weapon.

*'''Supreme Lack of Fire Discipline:''' The T'au Sept Sa'cea has the Tenet '''Calm Discipline''', which at first looks similar to the Salamander Chapter Tactic '''Master Artisans''', in that it lets each Sa'cea unit reroll a single to-hit roll. However, while the Salamanders Chapter Tactic is worded that you "you can reroll a single failed hit roll and a single failed wound roll made for a SALAMANDERS unit with this Tactic each time it shoots or fights," the Sa'caea Tenet is written that "In the Shooting phase you can re-roll a single failed hit roll when a unit with this tenet shoots." [[Fail|As written, the Tenet gives you one reroll to-hit for the entire shooting phase, and not one per unit.]]

*'''Ork Snipers are totally a thing:''' Again with GW forgetting that -1 to hit is actually powerful and handing it out everywhere, this means that Orks are literally incapable of hitting anything with a -2 to hit, since there is no "6 always hits" rule (until the Orks' codex) the way there is a "1 always fails" rule.
** This can be exploited by a Tyranid list with [[Biovore]]s. The Spore Mine Launcher, on a miss, allows you to put a Spore Mine on the table for free, even in Matched Play. Tired of to-hit penalty cheese making all your guns hit on a 6+ or 7+? Have your Biovores shoot at them and they can literally cover the table in Spore Mines, because they'll always miss.

*'''Thermonuclear Spore Mines:''' The wording of the '''Floating Death''' ability states that a Spore Mine explodes if it is within 3" of any enemy units at the end of any Charge phase; whenever it explodes, it inflicts Mortal Wounds on the "nearest" enemy unit except on a 1. [[wat|The issue is that multiple Spore Mines in range of the same unit explode simultaneously, and thus their wounds must be sequentially resolved]]. Suppose I have three Spore Mines, each in range of a squad of 2 Space Marines. All three explode. The first one wipes out the Space Marine Squad, [[derp|while the second and third one each inflict Mortal Wounds on the "next" nearest unit]], [[Fail|even if on the opposite side of the game board and out of Line of Sight]].

*'''Sonic the Genestealer:''' Tyranids have a Stratagem called '''Metabolic Overdrive''' that lets a unit move a second time in the Movement Phase in exchange for not being able to Charge that turn. Hive Fleet Kraken Tyranids roll 3d6 and pick the highest roll for determining their Advance move, while their '''Opportunistic Advance''' Stratagem lets them double their Advance distance for that movement phase. The initial issue was that RaW, [[derp|Advance added to your Move Characteristic for that phase, instead of increasing your characteristic for that specific move.]] [[wat|Thus, a unit of Kraken Genestealers could move not 8 + 12 + 8 + 12 inches in the Move Phase, but 8 + 12 + 8 + 12 + 12]]. [[derp|Combine with a Swarmlord's Hive Commander ability for an effective top speed of 66", and a unit of Kraken Genestealers could outrun a supersonic aircraft on foot]]. [[Meme|Gotta go fast]]!
** GW FAQed this [[fail|not by stating that Advancing only applies to a specific move, but by stating that you can only advance once in a phase and it applies to all moves made that phase]]. This did make the initial Sonic the Genestealer option slower, with a top speed of [[derp|only]] 54". However, GW also clarified that Opportunistic Advance could be used with Hive Commander, Overrun, Mind Eater, or any other ability that lets a unit "move as though it were the Movement Phase." [[wat|Aside from giving a unit of Kraken Genestealers a theoretical top speed of 101" (8+12 from Move & Opportunistic Advance, 8+12 from Hive Commander and Opportunistic Advance, 12 from Charge, 3 from Piling In, 3 from Consolidate, 3 from Piling in and again with the Adrenaline Surge stratagem, 8 + 12 from Overrun (replacing Consolidate from the Adrenaline Surge) and Opportunistic Advance, and another 8 + 12 from Mind Eater and Advance)]], [[fail|it sets a messy precedent for Dark Eldar due to GW not strictly defining what "as if in another phase" actually means]].

*'''What Phase is It Anyway?:''' The Dark Eldar Wych Cult of Red Grief has the Stratagem '''No Method of Death Beneath our Grasp''' which can be used immediately upon destroying an enemy unit in the Shooting or Fight Phase. If you destroy an enemy unit in the Shooting Phase, you get a second round of shooting. If you destroy an enemy unit in the Fight Phase, you get to (after Consolidation) Fight a second time in the Fight Phase. By itself, this is remarkably innocent. [[Derp|However, GW forgot that Ynnari are capable of "out-of-phase" actions, and confirmed that Dark Eldar Ynnari still have access to Dark Eldar Stratagems]]. [[Skub|You can have a unit of Ynnari Red Grief Reavers destroy an enemy unit in the Fight Phase, use Soulburst to "shoot as if it were the Shooting Phase" to destroy another unit, pop the Stratagem, and then cause the game to break under at least three separate interpretations over what phase you are actually in.]] [[Fail|The fact there is no "Else" clause in the ability means that you can argue that if the Stratagem works as if in both phases, you can Consolidate, shoot and fight with this Stratagem]].
**The Big FAQ clarified that Soulburst takes place after you Consolidate despite triggering immediately, giving potential weight to the theory that you get both effects.

*'''The Howling Banshees got into the cookie-dough again:''' Howling Banshees get +3" to the distance they roll for charges, and are also supposed to be able to charge units 15" away. However due to how the rule is written, all it does is let them charge after advancing if a unit is 15" away, not that they get to ignore the 12" limit from the main Rulebook. I guess Jain Zar has some coupons for Ben and Jerry's or something?

*'''"We forgot the difference between Unit and Model" for 500, Alex:''' The rules for Advancing say that the unit may not be selected to shoot if it does so. The rules for Assault weapons say a model with an Assault weapon may shoot it if it advanced, but at -1 to hit. The problem is that you can never select the unit the model with an Assault weapon is in as a unit you want to shoot with, due to the rules for advancing. The same applies for Pistols with a unit within 1" of an enemy.

*'''Stop Betraying Yourself! Stop Betraying Yourself!''': [[Khârn]] the Betrayer has the rule '''Kill! Maim! Burn!''' which lets him (any friendly World Eaters within 1", so really just himself) reroll all hits in the Fight Subphase, and he hits on a 2+. Sounds good so far, right? However, his rule '''The Betrayer''' means he cannot reroll 1s (so he cannot reroll any hits), each 1 hitting a friendly unit instead. You would think this would mean that you should run him solo, for "If there are no friendly models within 1 inch of Khârn, the hits are discarded." Unfortunately, a model is always treated as being in range of itself for auras or other special rules, meaning [[Fail|a bunch of 1s (or modified rolls) will result in Khârn hitting himself instead of the enemy]].

*'''Dakkaskull of Dakka:''' The Admech Stratagem '''Scryerskull''' can for the measly cost of 1 Command Point be used "at any time" to do one of several things: Reveal D3 Hidden Setup Markers, reveal a Mysterious Objective, or shoot with an ADEPTUS MECHANICUS unit while ignoring penalties from Dawn Raid, Low Visibility or Cover of Darkness. The "At any time", a lack of a requirement that the mission being played is using special rules or a 'shooting phase only' limitation results in game-breaking issues.
**Stratagems used before a battle are exempt from the once per phase rule. So feel free to use Scryerskull "at any time" during your deployment phase until you run out of CP or enemies to shoot. If you don't feel like winning the game during deployment, you can still use Scryerskull once in every phase for both players, means that RAW, [[derp|you can use it once in every Movement, Psychic, Shooting, Charge, Fight and Morale phase, and then again in the next player's turn.]] Combine with Kastellans for almost enough dakka or a neutron laser Dunecrawler to wipe out every vehicle in the opposing army.
**This Blooper has been fixed in the Admech FAQ.

*'''Trash Can Lid of Faith:''' Seraphim have a 6++ save, and a rule forcing them (if it were optional this wouldn't be a problem) to re-roll failed results when using this save. Celestine gives a +1 modifier to those invulnerable saves. However, because of the totally fun and not at all stupid system where re-rolls must happen before modifiers, if a Seraphim rolls a 5 for their save, they are forced to re-roll it even though it would pass after modifiers.

*'''White Autarchs can't Jump:''' While it was fixed in the Codex for Warp Spiders (due to horrible wording in the Index, RAW said that Warp Spiders couldn't teleport out of combat in the Index), an Autarch using a Warp Spider Jump Pack can't use said Jump Pack to teleport out of Combat due to no current rules existing for the Autarch's version of it.

*'''Remote Serjery:''' Because the Painboy's healing ability works on models and not units, it's entirely possible for a Painboy to save an Ork in combat on the other end of the table if you conga-line a maxed out squad of Boys. While less of a blooper and more a silly rules interaction, there is something hilariously Orky about the Painboy being able to save something locked in combat several feet away just because it's in the same mob.

*'''High Speed Dirt:''' Deliberately crashing your own Flyers sounds dumb, right? Well if you read the rules for a lot of Kill Point missions (thankfully GW's No Quarter Given Objective is clear. Objectives written by Third Party groups are sometimes not so clear), or Tactical Objectives for Maelstrom Missions, deliberately crashing your own near-death flyer (by intentionally moving them for less than their minimum movement distance) means that your opponent doesn't get the kill credit as nobody actually destroyed it. This also leads to...

*'''Ynnari did 9/11:''' While there are many strange Soulburst interactions, it's entirely possible to deliberately crash your own Flyers by intentionally not moving them their minimum movement distance, something clearly unintended. This can result in some ridiculous [[Tzeentch |Rube Goldberg-esque chain reactions]] where a Soulbursting Warlock can Quicken a Flyer on 1-2 Wounds left and have them crash within 7" of [[Just As Planned|a bunch of Dark Reapers that nuke something across the map for free, which in turn triggers a bunch of Howling Banshees to slice up a unit, which lets the Shining Spears charge in and murder the unit that caused the Warlock to Soulburst to begin with]].

*'''Strength From Horrible Rape:''' Ynnari again, and while this one makes sense RAW it's horribly unfluffy. Yvraine and The Visarch are healed on a 4+ by friendly Eldar exploding near them. Yvraine also benefits if it just happens to be a Psyker exploding, as it gives her more powers. Warlocks are very spammable. Put it together and it's not unheard of for Ynnari players to use a Command Point Re-roll to deliberately Perils of the Warp so that Yvraine gets a benefit from a [[Rape| Warlock being sucked into the Warp, likely taking even more Eldar with them if you get really unlucky]]. Yes, Eldar being introduced to Slaanesh's personal Bad Dragon collection actually heals and benefits the Ynnari, but they still swear it's entirely unrelated. Uh-huh...

*'''"Drive me closer, I wish to hit them with my Agonizer!"''': [[What|Ramming is always better for Dark Eldar Vehicles]]. Because of a hilariously badly worded FAQ: everything has a Close Combat Weapon, even units that can't physically carry one (like Vehicles). [[Fail |Before this Dark Eldar vehicles were forced to Ram their giant pirate ships into people at the same Strength of a Space Marine punching someone, because Bladevanes were the only weapon choice for Vehicles]]. Post FAQ they can declare they are using their Close Combat Weapon and attack at full strength.

*'''"We found a bigger boat, Archon!"''': Dark Eldar and terrible FAQs again! The FAQ for Index: Xenos 1 ruled that Scourges and Hellions can't fit into Raiders or Venoms [[Derp| after an oversight in the Index allowed them to ride them]]. Well they never bothered to apply this FAQ to the Tantalus, [[What| so yes, Scourges and Hellions can still fit in there with their massive wings and giant blades hoverboards]] while still having space for loot, slaves, medical supplies, spare ammo, spare slaves, and someone to fetch the drinks. What else could a self respecting Space Pirate Vampire Elf want? (Hilariously ''still'' not fixed as of the 16/04/2018 Forgeworld FAQ update)

*'''Cruddex in a Box?''': Dark Eldar again, [[Robin_Cruddace|and White Dwarf April 2018 confirmed who is responsible for this shitshow of a decision]]. [[Fail| The Crucible of Malediction is available as both an overcosted stratagem, and Wargear option for the Haemonculus meaning there so no reason to ever use the Stratagem and the Dark Eldar have lost out on another Stratagem because of this...]]
** Ironically enough, GW did FAQ this for the T'au Stimulant Injectors, stating " No. You cannot purchase Stimulant Injectors anymore and the rules for Stimulant Injectors as presented in Codex: T’au Empire (i.e. the Stratagem) take precedence." Sadly due to the bespoke nature of 8th edition, this applies only to Stimulant Injectors and nothing else.

*'''Abaddonify''': More Eldar rules breaking something! Jain Zar can [[Abaddon|disarm]] models she is fighting in close combat, rendering them unable to use one of their weapons. Well things get strange if you disarm something carrying the basic Close Combat Weapon. RAW says that the unit can't use that weapon, but the Rulebook states that you are to always assume that they have that weapon. There hasn't been a clear FAQ on this either which makes things more complicated.
** Even more, how do you disarm a [[Tyranid]]? Even [[Hormagaunt]]s are bigger than a [[ork|puny eldar]], not mentioning the monstrous creatures.

*'''Space Elf Pirate Ninja?:''' Eldar yet again. This time the Corsairs. [[What| Because the Corsair Prince has vanished from the Index]], [[Fail |it's impossible to field a legal army if you go pure Corsairs]]. It's also impossible to bring Corsairs along with you as an Eldar army without taking an Auxiliary Detachment and losing CP, or going Ynnari and having your opponent flip the table.

*'''Plague Zombie Cloning:''' If a Poxwalker kills a Necron and turns it into an additional Poxwalker model, you can still re-animate that Necron. The same goes for any model that can "die" and then return to the table in some fashion. Don't think about that one too hard, [[Matt Ward |I don't think the person who wrote it did either]]. [[Derp|Amusingly, this means that one Pink Horror can turn into seven Poxwalker Zombies]]; a notable LVO list by a tournament-goer named [[Awesome|Joshua Death]] [[Peasant Railgun| ran a bunch of Horrors as a screen to "walk up" a bunch of Poxwalkers up the board like a Zombie Railgun]], through the '''Cloud of Flies''' and '''Poxwalker Hive''' Stratagems.
**Note that the Plague Zombie Cloning was supposedly fixed by the '''Curse of the Walking Pox''' ability being FAQ'd so that you have to pay Reinforcement Points to increase the unit beyond its starting size. However, the '''Poxwolker Hive''' Stratagem technically replaced '''Curse of the Walking Pox''' for the turn, [[Derp|while not being errata'd with the same Reinforcement Point clause.]]

*'''Scunthorpe Weapon Profiles:''' The Scunthorpe Problem is a classic problem with word-search algorithms that censored for filtered out "dirty" words. The problem lay in the fact that certain innocent words would yield "false positives"; the problem was named after users from the town of Scunthorpe, Lincolnshire were unable to create AOL accounts, [[Not As Planned|since "Scunthorpe" has the word "cunt" in it]]. How does this relate to 8th edition? In order to deal with the prior problem of weapon classification, many abilities and stratagems in 8th edition will state that a "X" weapon is defined as any weapon whose weapon profile has "Y" in its name (ex. blahblahblah). Aside from being a futureproofing timebomb waiting to happen, the rules for 8th edition have a messy definition for what exactly is a weapon profile: Is a weapon with multiple attack modes itself a weapon profile, or are the individual attack modes themselves profiles? [[Rules Lawyer |This may seem like pedantic semantics]], [[Tzeentch|but either interpretation will result in bloopers]].
**'''Prometheium is Heresy:''' Chapter Approved 2017 introduced Cities of Death Stratagems, including Siphon Promethium. Siphon Promethium lets an infantry unit double the range of its flamer weapons, including Skorchas, Burnas, and any weapon profile with 'flame' in its name. This particular wording hurts Orks in particular, since depending on the interpretation, this prevents Kombi-Skorchas from benefitting. The real comedy however comes from the fact that Horrors of Tzeentch use 'Coruscating Flames', which can now shoot out to 36" on account of a false positive.
**'''Holy Duality?:''' The Sisters of Battle beta codex had a stratagem '''Holy Trinity''', which granted bonuses when a unit used a flamer, bolter, and meltagun on the same target. The definition for each component was for any weapon profile with 'bolt', 'melta', or 'flame' in its name, while explicitly treating Inferno Pistols as Melta weapons. If the interpretation that the weapon profile itself encompasses all the attack modes available, the end result would be Sisters using Combi-Flamers and Combi-Meltas to trigger the Stratagem at a distance, for superior dakka.
**'''Weapons of the Derp Age:''' The '''Weapons of the Dark Age''' stratagem gives Dark Angel plasma weapons +1 damage, defining a plasma weapon as any weapon whose weapon profile includes plasma in its name. This means that it also accidentally applies to other weapons, like the bolter part of a combi-plasma, since it forgets to exclude them the same way the Beta Bolter rules exclude the non-bolter weapon profile of any combi-weapon.
**'''"How do you fix this:''' Although it would take time to implement, the "ideal" fix would add rules for giving keywords to weapon profiles (similar to 7th edition). A weapon profile would inherit the keywords of the model wielding it. So rather than "'''INFANTRY''' firing flamer weapons. A flamer as defined as a ...", you have "firing '''INFANTRY FLAMER''' weapons". This would also allow for handling false positives, including ensuring that a Baleflamer is not a Flamer...ahem.
*'''I Like my Genestealers Scrambled:''' Genestealer Cultists have the Cult Ambush ability, where they set up ambush markers, and reveal themselves on the first turn, appearing within 1" of the marker as if arriving from Reinforcements. Enemy units cannot move within 9" of said markers. The problem is certain units can project a 12" aura preventing enemy units from arriving from Reinforcements. Thus, some Primaris Infiltrators could walk 9.1" away from Ambush Markers, and unless the GSC player used Stratagems to relocate/hide undercover...[[fail|the units tied to those Ambush markers would automatically be destroyed]]. FAQed so GSC units using Cult Ambush Blips don't count as coming in from reserves.
*'''46 shots, 1 kill:''' The current character targeting rules exist to stop people from [[cheese]] such as parking two Rhinos so your Devastator Squad with 4 Lascannons can only draw Line of Sight to your enemy's Warlord. As the Rules are written right now, you can't do this as they need to be both the closest unit, and closest visible unit. This is very important when it comes to "Mortar" and "Sniper" units, as they don't overwrite these requirements: a Mortar can't just declare it's shooting at the character behind a wall because they can't see it, even if it's the closest unit, and they can't shell the Character at the back even if they can somehow draw LoS if there is just one intervening model. Why mention this? [[Fail| The new Space Marine unit: Primaris Eliminators simply don't function if you go by RAW]]. The new weapon profile is functionally a Sniper and Mortar unit combined, but the Rules don't actually allow this: They need both LoS on a Character and the Character to be the closest unit to take the shot. If you fail to meet any of these qualifiers then you can't target the character. They can, however, target regular units as normal but at that point why not just take an allied Heavy Weapons Team?
**This has been clarified in the Shadowspear errata. An eliminator with a bolt sniper rifle that is firing mortis rounds CAN target a Character that is not the closest enemy unit and not visible to the firing model.
*'''Superman Drop:''' Transport rules seem pretty straightforward, right? Except they weren't written with flying transports in mind, so nothing is preventing your marines from just jumping out of a strafing gunship. In fact, they can <i>jump back in</i> if they wanted to. Suck on this, Invasion Beams!
*'''Box-o'-Fuckoff:''' Transport rules again. Those were ''simplified'' like everything else in 8th, meaning each bloody unit now has a unique instance of it. Oh boy, how can THAT backfire on us? Well, remember there were units that took extra transport space like Jump Packers and Ogryns and stuff? ''Now each and every one of them must be written individually into every instance of the Transport rule for it to function.'' The writers thought themselves cheeky and limited the passengers by faction keyword, thus isolating each Codex and limiting the issue. Except there are unaligned Fortifications in the game that (still) have no such limit, so enjoy cramming Heavy Weapons Teams, Termies, Obliterators and all the other fuckhuge dudes into tiny bunkers. From which they can then shoot out. No, tying passenger size to their Wounds characteristic was too clear-cut of a solution, why do you ask?
*'''Too Quick for my Gunz!:''' The flying, Titan-killing wedge of death that is the Tau Tigershark AX-1-0 had a hilariously obvious oversight when the rules were ported to the new edition. The flyers party piece - its two Heavy Railguns - had their stats brought into line with the new edition, including being classed as Macro weapons. At first glance it was appropriate - Macro weapons do additional damage to superheavy targets and structures. However: you must remain stationary to fire them. These were mounted on a Flyer. With a minimum movement and no hover capability... Thankfully the problem was obvious enough to be quickly FAQ'd.
*'''The Best of the Best:''' When Vigilus Defiant was released, it came with the Stratagem "Veteran Intercessors", which increased their attack characteristic by 1. Seems simple, so what went wrong? Well this was one of those Stratagems used before a battle begins, so there was no limit on how many times you could use it... [[Derp|or how many times you could use it on a single unit]]. GW eventually came out with a FAQ stating you could only use it once on each unit, so the days of seeing models go from 3 attacks each to 20+ are over.
*'''Zhufor the Scary:''' Zhufor the Impaler from the Chaos Space Marine range had an odd rule, in that when you took your Morale test near him you added 1 to the roll, making it easier to fail. The problem came about when he fought Daemons who had the Daemonic Icon rule, which caused them to regain models if they rolled a 1 for their Morale test. While they were in range of Zhufor this was impossible, so somehow this dude was so scary, [[wat|literal Daemons would refuse to reinforce their brethren if it meant they had to fight him.]]
*'''Objective Unmanned:''' Buildings (and Fortifications) can control objectives in 8th. No further comment, just let that sink in.
*'''Mechanicus Understudy:''' The Mechanicus have a Stratagem called "Mechanicus Locum" that allows a character other than the Warlord to generate a Warlord trait. The problem is that, according to the FAQ, they're only considered the Warlord so they can use the trait they have, and it does not change which traits they can normally access. Since the traits they can normally access are none unless they're the Warlord, this Stratagem does nothing at all.
*'''Editorial oversight? Sounds like heresy:''' The Sisters of Battle 2019 codex states a Canoness can only take a rod of office if she takes a power sword and standard boltgun. The monopose Canoness miniature released ''the very same day'' in the box set is armed with a rod of office, a power sword... and a plasma pistol. Nobody checked if they were selling players illegal loadouts. This had to be fixed in an FAQ, the plasma pistol loadout is the legal one.

==9th Edition==

*'''"Look out!" "No, you look out!"''' The rules for Look out Sir! Were changed with the advent of 9th edition, here's the important bit: ''Models cannot target a unit that contains any Character models with a Wounds characteristic of 9 or less with a ranged weapon while that unit is within 3" of any other friendly Vehicle or Monster unit.'' you can probably see the issue, if two monster/vehicle characters with 9 wounds or less are near each other and they're not the closest unit, you cannot shoot either of them, regardless of how far the rest of their army is in relation to them. Fortunately this was FAQ'd out.

==Horus Heresy==
[[Awesome|Models by Forge World]], [[Fail|rules by Forge World.]]

*'''Ceremonial Daggers:''' In Forgeworld's Horus Heresy series, the vast majority of Horus Heresy Custodes came equipped with Misericordias, daggers that had use in the 40k incarnation of the Custodes. It didn't take long for people to notice that they had no rules at all in the Horus Heresy book, and given how different the rules were already for the two incarnations people were iffy on whether or not they should use the daggers as they are in the 40k book, or just as another close combat weapon. An entire year would go by before Forgeworld finally released a FAQ, where it was revealed that this whole time the daggers were just meant to be badges of office, had no effect whatsoever in game and were included in their wargear by mistake.

*'''You can't have these guns:''' Like many of the entries for Imperial Militia and Warp Cults, things are rather screwy. Grenadiers, in this case, may replace their lascarbines for a plethora of weaponry. The problem? [[Fail|They don't come with Lascarbines]].

*'''Herald of Schizophrenia:''' The Herald upgrade for the Legion Consul has both '''Rite of Command''' and '''Support Officer'''. Which means that, if you take him, you get to use a Rite of War. Support Officer means that the model in question CANNOT be a compulsory HQ. What's the issue then? A model with Rite of Command HAS to be the army Warlord. Yeah, even if you bring a Primarch, the Herald ''has'' to be the Warlord.

*'''Magnus Did Nothing Wrong:''' Despite the standard for Independent Characters to be divided into Loyalist and Traitor allegiances based on their fluff, Forge World [[Fail|forgot to do this for both Magnus and Leman Russ, allowing the later to display his Khornate tendencies by allying with Horus and the former to truly do nothing wrong.]] ([[Awesome|Tabletop Dornian Heresy, you say?]])

*'''Closet Loyalist Possessed:''' In true Alpha Legion fashion, the XX Legion can choose to take one unique unit from any other Astartes legion. Despite Forge World ensuring you can't do the above by taking Special Characters as opposite faction Alpha Legion, they failed to also limit Gal Vorbak (Word Bearers unique Possessed) to Traitor Alpha Legion only. [[Wat|So yes, your Custodes can fight alongside the Neverborn]].
::This problem got more complicated in book 6. So long as you use the Rite of War: Orphans of Betrayal, your Word Bearers can turn their backs on the traitors and fight as if they were Loyalists (although it doesn't technically change their allegiance, so you're still technically Traitors). The book does try to take care of the obvious problem by saying you cannot take "traitors only" units, [[derp|but none of the Word Bearers (including Erebus) are marked as traitor only units]] since the traitors only part was written to apply to the Legion itself and this RoW specifically bypasses that. As of book 8 this might have been intentional, or at least worked into the regular rules since Forge World have addressed the fact that Daemons can be given the Loyalist allegiance and fight along Custodes, and have allowed it into the game [[Inquisition|(representing radicals who choose to use the essence of the warp against itself).]] So long as you don't use unique characters you could have a case for this being almost lore-friendly, it's not like Loyalists in the Imperium [[Daemonhost|didn't start using their own possessed anyway,]] and you could also use it to represent Chaos infighting.

*'''Not-so-ancient Relic:''' When the rules for an Iron Warriors character named Kyr Vhalen released, they stated he had a relic blade, despite this being the Horus Heresy and these blades wouldn't be considered relics for thousands of years. To make matters worse, [[Fail|30k does not include rules for Relic Blades]], and you cannot assume them to be the same as their 40k variant for the same reason as the Misericordia above. Eventually this turned out to be a misprint and he was given the Paragon Blade he was supposed to have the whole time.

*'''F in Engineering:''' Kyr Vhalen again. He is a Warsmith, and naturally like all Warsmiths he has a servo-arm, so what's the issue? Well when you buy a servo-arm you also get Battlesmith, the rule that allows you to repair shit. Unfortunately Vhalen does not have this rule, despite it being a paired upgrade, and it was never given to him (or even mentioned that he shouldn't have it) in a FAQ. He can still use it to hit people, [[derp|but he can never use it for its designed purpose]]. No wonder Perturabo left him to guard some world nobody ever heard of or cared about.

*'''Unwieldy and Cumbersome Proofreading:''' When Eidolon was first given rules, it was stated that he had the ability to lose the Cumbersome rule from his Thunder Hammer in the turn he charged. The problem? [[derp|Thunder Hammers don't have the Cumbersome rule.]] It took some time but eventually this was fixed to have him lose the Unwieldy rule instead.

*'''In the Company of Monsters:''' Back when the Mechanicum were first given rules, they had characters without the Independent Character rule, and this created an odd interaction with the squads of monstrous creatures the Mechanicum could field. RAW you attached a character to a squad who they would stay with and could never leave unless they had the Independent Character rule, and Independent Characters could never join squads of Monstrous Creatures. However, for those characters without IC, there was technically nothing stopping you from joining them to those squads, even though they clearly weren't supposed to be with them. This was such a confusing issue that when FW was emailed about it the answer was effectively "Fuck if we know, just do what feels right." It wasn't until the Mechanicum were given their own book that this issue was finally cleared up.

*'''Build a Land Raider:''' Again this happened back when the Mechanicum were first given rules. One of their unit choices was a Land Raider with every aspect of it being completely customizable, allowing you to go full heretek and make some variants [[heresy|that did not exist and/or never had STC's for their manufacture.]] Apparently even FW thought this was a little too far and removed them completely from the Mechanicum list later on.

*'''Guidance is for the weak!''' All drop pods in the game have a special rule called 'Inertial Guidance System,' except for the [[Dreadclaw|Dreadclaw]]. Even though the rule is described in the fluff panel regarding the Dreadclaw.

*'''Virtue of Time to Call a Judge-ment:''' The Blood Angels unique Moritat character Aster Crohne is clearly intended to allow Destroyers and Angel's Tears to gain buffs against certain units. However, this is the exact wording of the rule: ''Whenever Crohne or a Destroyers or Angel's Tears unit is used to make a Shooting attack against a unit marked with the Angel's Wrath, '''his''' hand flamer attacks are made with the Shred and Rending special rules.'' See a problem with that? Forge World clearly didn't.

*'''Hive World Biker Gangs:''' One of the Rites of War for the generic Space Marine list is designed for [[Zone Mortalis]] games, with certain benefits but also restrictions such as the inability to have vehicles or large squads. It [[Derp|lacks a restriction on taking bikers, though.]]

*'''Turn up the Heat:''' When the Blood Angels were first given rules, they were allowed to take hand flamers on characters. Seems fair enough, until you realize these could also be given to Moritats, the guys who keep firing until they miss. Since this was before they could only hit up to 12 times this meant that anyone within range of a Moritat with hand flamers would be hit an infinite amount of times. The only way to prevent yourself from dying was either to be a vehicle, or have a Toughness greater than 6, so even the less tough Primarchs would suddenly evaporate before these roaming bubbles of flaming death. Eventually Forge World changed it so that you cannot use the Moritat's Chain Fire rule on Hand Flamers, since auto-hitting a unit 12 times with a template weapon would also have been pretty bullshit.

*'''What You See Is Not What You Get:''' A minor one this time, but Forge World released a model for a Night Lords Praetor in Tartaros Armour. He's described as carrying a Chainglaive and a Volkite Serpenta. There's a slight problem however: models in Terminator Armour don't have access to Volkite Serpentas.

*'''Slow and Not So Purposeful:''' Inner Circle Knights Cenobium have guns that gain a bonus in Overwatch. Yet they wear Cataphractii Terminator Armour, which means they can't actually ever use that bonus. Their datasheet was later updated to state that the Knights Cenobium are skilled enough to make Overwatch attacks despite wearing Cataphractii Terminator Armour.

*'''[[Derp]] follows with Them:''' The Word Bearer's trademark Rite of War ''"The Dark Brethren"'' allows them to take an allied detachment of Daemons to represent their Chaos speciality. Thing is, after the Release of Demons of the Ruinstorm in Book 8, Daemons are Sworn Brothers with all traitors now that they're ''"Agents of the Warmaster"'', thus making the entire RoW redundant. The only advantage this RoW (meant to be a stopgag measure until Ruinstorm was released) now gives you is [[RAW|exploiting a loophole]] that allows demons to use your transports and reserve roll modifiers, [[RAI|which in turn contradicts the Ruinstorm Demon rules]]. This [[FAIL|redundancy/contradiction]] also plagues all three of their diabolist special characters, who have a rule allowing to ally demons if chosen as the Warlord.

*'''Frag Assault Tank:''' In a grand example of Forge World's dedication to proof reading their books, the Malcador Heavy Tank can take Frag Assault Launchers, which allow units disembarking from the vehicle to gain Assault Grenades when they charge. Can you guess the issue? [[Fail|The Malcador Heavy Tank isn't a transport and never has been.]]

*'''Medusan Impracticals:''' Yet another example of proof reading. Medusan Immortals can take chainswords instead of their bolters, yet these do nothing as they can gain no extra attack benefit from close combat weapons due to being armed with breacher shields as well.

*'''Signs and Proofreading:''' The Horus Heresy is rife with spelling errors and misattributed rules, but no book is as bad as Book 7: Inferno. This was a book so terribly written that to go over all of its various mistakes would double the size of this page, so we'll keep it short. Suffice to say it was so egregious that they needed to release an entirely separate FAQ for the Custodes, renaming their gear and reprinting whole units so that they used weapons that actually existed (instead of gibberish or portmanteaus), before throwing up their hands and redoing them in the next book. This also affected the Thousand Sons in a few ways as well, such as allowing Sekhmet Terminators to swap their Force Weapon for a Power Fist [[wat|with an attached Power Fist.]] Yes, this would've let them get the +1 Attack bonus and they would also retain their combi-weapon. Perhaps this is just a third arm granted through the Flesh Change, but that doesn't explain why they share a rule with the Word Bearers: Signs and Portents. The Word Bearers use it to get Preferred Enemy, either for or against one of their units (it's a coin flip) while for the Thousand Sons it causes everyone in the army to take a Pinning test any time anyone suffers Perils of the Warp. In all honesty it's likely Forge World didn't even bother checking to see if their chosen rule name was already being used by another faction.

*'''Understaffed Tour Bus:''' RAW a Dreadwing Interemptors squad of 10 can have a Land Raider Proteus as a Dedicated Transport, however the squad starts at five, and the DT option lacks the "10 or fewer" clause every other unit in the game has for their DT. This means that if the squad isn't maxed out, they cannot take a Dedicated Transport outside of a Rite of War.

*'''We Forgot Our Shields, Sir:''' In the fluff, the Stormwing is a boarding focused detachment that uses Breacher and Retaliator Squads (Assault Squads with Combat Shields instead of Jump Packs). Take a guess what they lack access to in their Rite of War?

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]] [[Category:Gamebreaking]] [[Category:Warhammer 40000 Tactics]]

Officio Assassinorum

2020-09-20T15:29:34Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:A108:76C4:411B:8AD5: /* History */

[[File:Armyof4byIronShrineMaiden.jpg |200px|thumb|right|Dawwww.]]
{{Topquote|Ask not for whom they seek, lest it be thyself.|Tactica Imperium on The Officio Assassinorum}}
{{Topquote|The best government is a benevolent tyranny tempered by an occasional assassination.|Voltaire}}
{{Topquote|Nothing is true, everything is {{BLAM|HERESY!}}|A slightly redacted motto of the Officio Assassinorum's precursors from ancient Terra}}

You can tell you don't mess with the '''Officio Assassinorium'''. Anyone, from the lowliest of workers to the [[High Lords of Terra]], at ANY moment, is open to either having their brains spilled on pavement by a sniper round, their spleen torn out by screaming Wry-man, shanked by dear old mum for no apparent reason, or if they're a psyker die in absolute terror unable to use their powers. When the shit hits the fan, these are the guys that get their hands dirty. It's all about the wetwork. This branch of the [[Administratum]] recruits, trains and commands Assassins of all kinds; for more information on the individual Assassin types, please visit [[Assassin|this page]].

==History==
[[File:Nemesis_02.jpg|400px|thumb|left|If the [[Imperial Guard]] is the hammer of the [[EMPRAH]] and the [[Space Marines | SPESS MEHREENS]] are the sword, the operatives of the Officio Assassinorum are the poisoned needle. The scary thing is that that daemon in the back probably isn't the deadliest thing in the picture.]]
The Officio Assassinorum was founded at the beginning of the [[Great Crusade]] as a department for holding any up-and-coming warlords or heretical leaders accountable for their actions. And by "accountable" we mean "disposed of". And by "disposed of" we mean "killed so hard that they will die to death". Originally such work was performed by the [[Alpha Legion]], although like much of those bastards' history it's hard to be sure. Formed by [[Malcador the Sigillite]] and the six masters of the Clades (the future temples), it was founded in extreme secrecy in an attempt to keep it out of the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor]]'s knowledge and maintain his purity (a concept the Big.E always found funny). It's even more amusing that they thought they could hide something from someone capable of basically hearing the thoughts of every human at once. And they all seem to know of one another.

In the beginning, the Officio acted independently in the shadows under the guidance of [[Malcador the Sigillite]], their existence kept mostly secret. As mentioned, [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Empers]] knew from the beginning but tolerated the Officio. Constantin Valdor and the [[Adeptus Custodes|guys in gold]] found out pretty quickly there were other people dealing with threats to the Emperor behind their (and His) backs, but they too decided the Officio was a-okay. This unwritten arrangement worked out relatively well in the beginning until [[Horus Heresy|a large quantity of fecal matter hit the air circulation device]]. Malcador first sent individual assassins then a whole execution force after Horus, but the assassins were unable to kill the wayward Primarch. Worse, [[Rogal Dorn]] learned about the existence of the Officio. Being less... tolerant... than the Custodes, Dorn did not like what he saw. So he did the [[derp|sensible thing]] and invited himself to one of the Officio's meetings, intent on [[rage|voicing his opinion on their modus operandi tactfully]]. Malcador, who would not take shit from Dorn, politely but firmly told him he should grow up. Luckily, at that point Big.E himself walked in, told Dorn the existence of the Officio was [[just as planned]] and that he should leave them alone, but at the same time he told [[Malcador]] to drop the cloak and dagger and that the Officio from now would officially be recognized and work under strict rules of engagement.

From that time on, a terminatus order could only be issued by a positive vote of the Senatorum Imperialis (AKA the [[High Lords of Terra]]) and the members of the Officio Assassinorum are kept on a very short leash. Unlike the [[Inquisition]], they have no discretionary powers of their own, [[The Beheading|because they tend to horribly abuse them if they do]].

The head of the Officio is known as the '''Grand Master of the Officio Assassinorum''', or '''The Master of Assassins''', who sits alongside the Fabricator-General of Mars and the Ecclesiarch of the Adeptus Ministorum as one of the [[High Lords of Terra]].

Which, if you think about it, must be somewhat distracting during their meetings. The Lords are sitting around and discussing the fates of trillions of men, and as the debate goes back and forth, one of them says nothing, ever. He just sits there, smoking a lho-stick with his trench coat wrapped around him, almost completely overlooked. And then they remember that a bad decision could get them killed, and this is the guy who does that. And only that. His only job is to dispatch death on swift wings to any high official. It'd be like having the Sword of Damocles hanging over your head everywhere you went.

Members of the Officio are recruited at a very young age; most of them are children from Feral Worlds or are taken from the Schola Progenium. Recruits are biologically augmented and trained at the School of Assassins on Holy Terra for ten years before being assigned to one of the Assassin Temples to continue their training and eventually serve the Imperium.

The Assassin specialists approach Sly Marbo levels of awesome, as the Temples have permission make use of "any means or tools to get the job done," even if it means banned tech from the Dark Age of Technology (like the Terminus gland) or xeno artifacts (like the C'tan phase blade). These Assassins are also given crushingly restrictive psych treatments to ensure they never use these tools except when ordered, which can make them seem kinda spastic during downtimes when said tools are augmentations to their own body.

There are only 2 recorded examples of anyone in the Officio turning against the Imperium. Unfortunately, both times it was the Grand Master, Drakan Vangorich. The Imperium learned of the first one's butthole treachery when he had the [[High Lords of Terra]] [[The Beheading|wiped out to the last man]]. Very [[grimdark]], though the uncaring [[Eldrad|dicks]] had it coming to them. It could be said that Vangorich getting rid of the incompetent idiots was a ''good'' thing for the Imperium, but he did more harm than good in the longer run with his increasingly totalitarian ([[grimdark|totalitarian compared to the 'regular' Imperium standards which are already pretty fucked up, mind]]) ways to prevent the situation from going to shit ever again.

After that betrayal, an Astartes retribution force was dispatched to "resolve" the situation. It is not known how many marines were sent; since the force was made up of elements of three chapters ([[Halo Brethren]], [[Sable Swords]] and [[Imperial Fists]]), it was probably at least 1000 marines (400 Marines landed, half survived the initial purging, just one survived the whole “fight the Assassinorum” thing which at least proved that even ambushed by a hundred of Eversor assassins, the Astartes were still quick enough for one of them to get the job done). As soon as they landed on Terra, the commander of the force was assassinated. The remaining marines broke into the grand chamber of the Assassinorum Temple and found 100 (!) [[Eversor]] Assassins between them and their target. A single marine survived to plug the Grand Master in the brain with a boltgun. This super-hardcore-awesome-ass-kicking marine was definitely as badass as [[Darnath Lysander]]. As it turns out, it was the Imperial Fists' Chapter Master!

The other one was [[Love Can Bloom|Vindicare Assassin LIIVI]].

Ha, just kidding. The second time was during the Age of Apostasy in M36, when the Grand Master was himself assassinated by a [[Callidus]] Assassin under the orders of [[Goge Vandire]], the insane ruler of the Imperium. Of course, you don't become Grand Master without being an Assassin yourself, and it turned out that he had switched places with a body double. What followed was a civil war within the Assassinorum to mirror the one wracking the Imperium, and ended up filling the Imperial Palace with nerve gas and destroying entire wings of Mankind's greatest fortress with ancient Dark Age and xenos weaponry. Eventually, the Grand Master triumphed, but went into self-imposed exile at the end of it, and might still be alive today. After the war, the [[Inquisition]] set up the [[Ordo Sicarius]] to monitor the Assassins and make sure they stay in line.

Alas, they will always be second best, for they can never become [[Sly Marbo]] . They only exist in fluff for the purposes of showing just how bad-ass a specific enemy is. For example, during the [[Horus Heresy]], eight(!) Assassins, at least one from each temple, was sent to form an Assassin's Justice League of Doom and kill [[Horus|that asshole who started it]]. For [[Plot armor|SOME REASON]], like everyone else in the Imperium who tried to stop it, they [[FAIL|failed.]] Also, the same thing was tried during the Medusa V campaign, to assassinate the leader of the Chaos faction; seven of them failed, getting a front row seat to some [[Eldar]] stealing their kill. Imperial Armour books goes even further and currently have a Vindicare torn apart by an angry mob of Vraksian heretics after ''failing'' to shoot down his target, and Eversor being ripped to shreds by point-blank pulse carbine fire and only taking down ''one'' of his targets due to a tactical nuke strapped to his chest, with both cases causing the completely opposite effect imperials hoped for. This is known as the "[[Derp|Worf]] Effect" by [[Star Trek]] fans, or "The Avatar of Khaine effect" by Eldar players.

==Divisions==
The Officio Assassinorum has six "temples," or specialist branches, each focused on one particular method of assassination:
* [[Callidus]] - shapeshifters, masters of infiltration. Almost all women (or [[Squad Broken|women pretending to be Orks]], or...just...try not to think about it).
* [[Culexus]] - soulless gothtards that are invisible & immune to psykers, daemons & the Warp.
* [[Eversor]] - cyborg, drugged-up killing machines that have two settings: coma and '''RIP'N'TEAR!!'''1!!1!one!
* [[Vanus]] - leet hacker NERD CHESS PLAYERS. All are genii in the fields of intelligence gathering, strategy and [[JUST AS PLANNED]]. "The cleanest kill is one that another performs in your stead with no knowledge of your incitement." They are what every neckbeard wants to be.
* [[Venenum]] - master poisoners who can take the things found in a vegan's kitchen and kill a [[Space Marine]] with the resulting mixture (death by malnutrition, presumably).
* [[Vindicare]] - snipers that can "BOOM! HEADSHOT!" from beyond the horizon.
* [[Maerorus]] - a failed attempt at creating a [[Sly Marbo|living weapon able to operate without support or equipment for a prolonged period of time.]] The only one created proved to be impossible to control and went rogue; all attempts at making more were immediately discontinued. Think Alex Mercer from Prototype, only even more sociopathic.

[[Death Cult Assassin|Death Cult Assassins]] aren't part of this framework; there are thousands of death cults throughout the Imperium and they each train in their own way to kill enemies of the Emperor, but are not officially-sanctioned and are more autonomous than the Assassins. Although particularly talented Death Cultists might be trained by the Assassinorum as basically a reward and either just become a better Death Cultist for it or outright be inducted as an Imperial Assassin.

==Assassinorum: Execution Force==
[[Assassinorum_Execution_Force|GeeDubs released a (rather awesome) Space Hulk-style board game]] for 1-4 players that revolves around an Execution Force - an Officio Assassinorum team comprised of a Callidus, Culexus, Vindicare, and Eversor assassin. Gameplay is a combination of Splinter Cell and X-COM, wherein the four player-controlled Assassins run through the map attempting to find a teleportarium room, which in turn will allow them to move to the second (and final) map. Once there, players must kill a boss of sorts - a Chaos Sorcerer who is trying to blah blah kill the Imperium with blibbity bloobity Chaos shenanigans. You've heard the story before. Along the way, Assassins fight Renegades (Chaos [[Cultist-chan|Cultists]] and [[Dranon|Spess Muhreens]]) which are spawned either by revealing rooms (the only way to find the teleportato and its control room) or through random events. Renegades can be alerted to the Assassins' presence by catching them in line of sight or by hearing the sounds of glorious gunplay down the hall. The Assassins, of course, are all badasses with unique attributes and abilities, including Primaris and Omegon Tactics (super special powers that can be used thrice or once per game, respectively). All in all the game is an overcosted and short-lived boardgame compared to Space Hulk, which for the same price gave you almost triple the amount of good guys and also more uniquely posed bad guys as well as over a dozen different missions with differing map layouts. Not to mention the map tiles were embossed as well. This means you would need a week or so of daily playing to finish all Space Hulk missions, while Officio Assassinorum will get boring after 3 or 4 plays. A shame, GeeDubs. A shame.

On the upside, you can take those four assassins and bring them over to a standard 40k game as henchmen for an Inquisitor.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:AnotherGameNightRuined.jpg
File:Back in the Day by DeadXCross.jpg
File:AssassinsHangout.jpg|Eversors are the [[That Guy]] of Assassins.

</gallery>

{{Template:Imperium}}

The Last Chancers

2020-09-20T13:56:39Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:A108:76C4:411B:8AD5:

[[File:Last Chancer trooper.jpg|300px|thumb|right|The Imperium likes to put anything to good use, including the most dangerous of humans alive. Cus why would they stay in a cell? That's not fun, just throw them into meat grinders and don't forget to bring popcorns and drinks while you're at it.]]
{{Topquote|You are all here because you are scum, but you're the God-Emperor's scum. You have skills that are useful to Him and whether you wish it or no, they will be made use of.|Colonel Schaeffer, commander of the 13th Penal Legion}}

Amongst the [[Imperial Guard]], unique regiments consisting of convicted criminals of all stripes and shades who have avoided execution or a grim future in the form of a [[servitor]], only to be pressed into penal legions alongside thousands of others for a chance to absolve themselves of their crimes though suicidal acts beyond those of normal guardsmen - either though serving their sentence or being cleared of charges posthumously. A penal legion almost guarantees the innocence of an individual if they refrain from fleeing, but a messy, gribbly end awaits those who flee from battle or try to escape confines during transit, normally administered by an explosive collar or a bolt pistol.

Yet again, amongst the many thousands of penal legions reside the 13th Penal Legion - while not being the thirteenth legion to be formed, they are however legendary amongst the Guard for being a virtual death sentence to such a degree that even other penal legions see those residing in the 13th as lost causes. This dread reputation is a direct result of Colonel Schaeffer being the most heinous and downright evil imperial guard officer to ever exist. There is a high chance men under his command will die before reaching the front lines, normally a direct result of forced marching along the quickest path en route to the frontline, normally footslogging though "hazardous" environments, and on the off-chance they survive that, the missions they're employed on are so suicidal that it would be easier for them to just ask the [[Commissar]] to get it over with already (though if they did the Commissar would just have them flogged). It should be noted that the Colonel is right there with them through it all and keeps going like a man of iron, and will happily carry out the Commissar's typical punishment on his men if needed.

The Last Chancers literature series by [[Gav Thorpe]] follows legionary Lieutenant Kage as he shoots, stabs, strangles and shouts his way through a brutal sentence serving under Colonel Schaeffer in the Last Chancers as he leads the thirteenth penal legion on suicidal missions across the galaxy. As you might have been able to guess, the books are absolutely The Dirty Dozen made more [[Grimdark]] and 40K (though Mr. Thorpe's preface to the Last Chancers omnibus has him say the main inspiration for the first novel was a Sven Hassel book). Consisting of three major novels, 13th Legion, Kill Team, and Annihilation Squad, along with a scattering of short stories, Deliverance and Liberty.

Probably one of the more interesting Imperial Guard legions in that they actively question authority and say a lot of heretical things without worrying about Commissars or Commanding Officers executing them every five seconds (inasmuch as they're basically dead men walking anyway). Surprisingly, escape attempts are all but unheard of - partly because Schaeffer is a firm believer in delivering the Emperor's Redemption himself if necessary (making him the regiment's Commissar equivalent), but also because Schaeffer cherrypicks the people that get into his regiment and genuinely offers them a pardon if they succeed or die trying. They are the Last Chancers, they are lucky to be alive and by the Emperor they are going to defy the odds and do their utmost best to remain alive no matter what!

===History===
The Last Chancers were created for a special assignment 2.5 years in the making. The Inquisition needed to clean up a big mess they made in a highly populated Imperial city. Instead of declaring Exterminatus and calling it a day, they thought they could use an elite special forces team to break inside the heavily defended city. Instead they got a bunch of cutthroats and killers that would gladly kill their own mothers for a pardon for their crimes. Turns out that when you want to kill several billion people, these are the ideal candidates. Of particular note amongst the rabble, Kage was incarcerated upon a gulag (the 40k equivalent of one anyway) for stabbing a superior officer during a dispute over a woman during garrison duty on a backwater planet (the name of which nobody remembers). Being a opportunistic git, Kage took a opportunity to break free though hijacking a shuttle during supply drop off. Surprisingly, he made it as far as the gangplank, then he ran into Colonel Schaeffer, leading to three bloody years in the Last Chancers.

===Members===
[[File:Schaeffer.jpg|200px|thumb|right|A portrait of Colonel Schaeffer. Does this look like the face of mercy to you?]]
The following (incomplete) list of Last Chancers members should give you an idea of the unique skillsets that keep them from being used as simple meat-shields. Notable all these guys have models and are still being sold (in metal mind you) by Gameworkshop in the "Colonel Schaeffers Last Chancers" squad.

*Colonel Schaeffer: The regiment's commanding officer considers himself merciful for granting a "Last Chance" for his men to redeem themselves. It says a lot that most of the people he extends this offer to usually decide that they would prefer summary execution. An excellent judge of character, he has a knack for picking out only the most skilled and talented scum from across the Imperial Guard's prisons. He's been known to work closely with the [[Inquisition]] as well.
*Lieutenant Kage: The most senior officer other than Schaeffer and the de facto field commander, who somehow got himself stuck in the legion TWICE after a second offense committed after his first pardon, and isn't a lot less sociopathic than an [[Chaos Space Marine]]. A latent psyker, he was KIA in his successful attempt to assassinate Herman von Strab, dragging the traitorous former Overlord of [[Armageddon]] into a lava pit that he was falling into after being possessed by a daemon. He got better in Armageddon Saint though. Ultimately proved himself to be truly deserving of the name Guardsman and all the giant balls and the legacy of Ollanius Pius that comes with it.
*'Hero' Greene: A former Imperial Guard officer who graduated at the top of his class, but was convicted of insubordination after refusing a direct order to lead his men in a pointless suicide attack. He was chosen for his stubbornness and ability to fight even after suffering life-threatening wounds.
*'Fingers' Vagin: A shameless kleptomaniac, forger, and black marketer that was chosen for his ability to [[Blood Ravens|acquire]] specialty goods for the Last Chancers.
*'Rocket Girl' Mikhaels: A former Master-At-Arms and heavy weapons specialist convicted for the murder of a Master Sergeant. As her nickname suggests, she's a natural with a missile launcher.
*'Shiv': Arrested and held in custody for the serial murder of 20 Imperial citizens in 5 years. Needless to say, Schaeffer knew he would be useful as a stealthy assassin.
*'Grease Monkey': An expert driver and mechanic found guilty of stealing a grav-vehicle belonging to a Craftworld [[Iyanden]] ambassador(How do you even do that? Latent-ish psyker, maybe?) with a preternatural [[Ork|gift for driving and repairing just about any vehicle there is.]] Guess Iyanden makes sense, as they're in so much shit they'd be willing to use diplomacy with literally anyone who isn't Chaos or Tyranids.
*'Demolition Man': Convicted of breaking into his regiment commander's private drink cabinet and chosen for his ability to bypass locks and security systems.
*'Animal': A homicidal maniac with a criminal record 93 pages long, he's normally kept in chains and a gag when not in combat. When he is in combat, he's less of a soldier and more of something to point in the general direction of an enemy and unleash (preferably from a safe distance and a tranquilizer dart gun). [[assassin|Basically a cheap version of Eversor assassin without any funding for training, as well as WRYYYYYYYY]]
*'Warrior Woman': A peerless hunter and tracker hailing from the planet [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xena Xenan 7], she was conscripted into the Last Chancers after her involvement with the heretical Cult of Artemis was exposed.
*'Scope': Convicted for going AWOL (and suspected to be involved in the assassination of a Chief Arbitrator that occurred at exactly the same time he went AWOL) and chosen for his skill as a marksman. Also the owner of a rare Needle Sniper Rifle, which fires shards of crystallized toxins that can kill in seconds.
*'Ox': [[Gunnery Sergeant "Stonetooth" Harker|A veritable brute of a man that can carry a heavy bolter unaided. Such strength isn't too surprising given that he was convicted of murdering three officers with his bare hands in a fit of drunken rage.]]
*'Brains': The machine specialist/nerd of the regiment, who was taken in after he hacked into his regiment's account system and gave himself a considerable pay raise (wait, since when were Guardsmen ''paid''?).

===8th Edition Rules===
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/180-o7W5Hk8KNx_n0NnfU0EhSG10zbgm1/view?usp=sharing| An unofficial index for bringing these, or other Guard Penal Legions, can be found here.]
{{40k-Imperial-Regiments}}

Imperial Tithe

2020-09-20T12:09:41Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:A108:76C4:411B:8AD5:

In the [[grimdark|grim darkness]] of the [[Warhammer 40,000|far future]], feudalism is back in style with the '''Imperial Tithe'''. No doubt the irony of coming full circle was not lost on the Emperor.

As the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] was preparing the [[Great Crusade]], he realized that while the [[Legiones Astartes]] were excellent as the "spear tip", or vanguard troops, a spear tip still needed a wooden staff to support it. In other words, he needed regular humans to support the Legions. And while [[Earth|Terra]] alone had billions, the galaxy is a big place, and they couldn't hold every world with just Terran armies. To get around this, the Emperor imposed the Imperial Tithe, a set of payments that a compliant world must pay to the [[Adeptus Terra]] for continued protection. For this, an Imperial Commander, or Planetary Governor, must give the [[Imperium of Man]] not monetary taxes, but the following:

# They must pay a tithe of manpower in [[Imperial Guard Regiment|regiments]] for the Imperial Army, and later the [[Imperial Guard]].
# They must provide goods for warfare, such as food, weapons, vehicles, or minerals to make any of the above.
# They must provide the league of [[Black Ships]] with all the unsanctioned-[[psyker]]s that the planet has managed to capture.

Monetary taxes are officially separate from the Imperial Tithe, and weren't added until much later when the Emperor retired to Terra and [[Malcador the Sigillite]] took over the Council of Terra. [[Horus|Horus Lupercal]], [[Primarch]] of the [[Black Legion|Luna Wolves]], had concerns that the taxes could end up raising rebellions on planets. In the following ten thousand years, payment of the Imperial Tithe has resulted in planets declaring rebellion, but these in turn are [[Exterminatus|crushed with extreme prejudice.]]

This said, the tithe system isn't utterly one-sided. Despite the high burden of an "Exactis Extremis" designation (the highest conventional tithe level), many worlds would prefer to keep it as this means that the Imperium will in turn invest resources into the planet and ensure that it is protected. Having their status downgraded is rarely good and if it drops low enough, the Imperium functionally cuts the planet loose and forgets about it - why bother investing or protecting something that isn't useful. Then again, one of the most common causes of rebellion in the Imperium is the tithe rating of a world being jacked up to levels that would require conscripting every single viable citizen, enslaving the entire population for labour and having children work the moment they can walk. Occasionally all 3 at once, because the [[Administratum]] rarely sees these things as mutually exclusive or as a cause for concern.

As far as the [[Adeptus Terra]] is concerned, there are two big exceptions to the Tithe that are systematically classed as "Aptus Non": [[Space Marines|Space Marine]] homeworlds and [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] [[Forge World]]s. On paper, they are completely exempt from the regular Imperial Tithe. In practice, however, it is a little more complicated:
*[[Space Marine Chapter]]s, besides, you know, being super-soldiers fighting the Emperor's wars; must provide 5% of all their [[gene-seed]] to the Adeptus Terra. Said gene-seed is turned over to the Adeptus Mechanicus for testing to make sure that the Chapter's is stable and free of taint, to be used as emergency reserve should the Chapter get mauled or to be called upon if a new Founding of Space Marine Chapters is decided. Any further contribution to the Imperium wars and/or economy is made on a purely voluntarily basis.
*Adeptus Mechanicus Forge Worlds are individually free of the Tithe, but the Adeptus Mechanicus as a whole is still bound by the Treaty of Mars. Practically this translates in the Forge Worlds periodically sending huge shipping of weapons, tanks and other materiel to the [[Departmento Munitorum]] and starships to the [[Imperial Navy]], along with enough [[Enginseer]]s to keep everything running. The Forge Worlds also 'tithe' their psykers to the Black Ships when one cruises along, albeit this is more of an easy way for the Mechanicus to get rid of them.

== Real World Parallels ==
The most direct parallel from the Imperial Tithe and Real World history would be the operation of economies in the bronze age. In that system there was a class of scribes and bureaucrats employed by the state which took and kept track of what was produced and allocated it to various people so it could be used to achieve various tasks. Peasants farmed, provided a percentage of their crop to the state who used it feed artisans who made tools, cloth, beer and similar, which was taken by the government and provided to various peasants, who'd also spend some time working in mines or clay pits and working on large scale irrigation projects. Raising Troops worked along a similar line. How a group of peasants was to get the job done was broadly a matter for them to sort things out, as long as they met or exceeded their quotas was all that the scribes in the palace cared about.

[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Cannon

2020-09-20T09:31:02Z

2A02:1811:5180:A200:A108:76C4:411B:8AD5: /* Types of cannon ammunition */

After the [[China|Chinese]] worked out the basics of gunpowder, they began to experiment with how to use it on the battlefield. As such, during the Song Dynasty people invented basic bombs, rockets and [[firearm]]s for use in combat. Eventually someone decided that their firelance was a good idea, but it could become an even better idea by making it even ''bigger''. Thus were born the first '''cannons'''. By an odd quirk of fate this design process apparently happened in reverse in Europe when gunpowder got around to them, with cannons being built first which were then scaled down into man portable handgonnes/hand-cannons.

Not to be confused with [[canon]], though they do share the same word root which refers to a tube/pipe.

== Cannons in Warfare ==
[[image:TurkishBombard.jpg|thumb|300px|right|The Great Turkish <s>Penis Compensator</s> Bombard, when you absolutely positively need to conquer Constantinople, accept no substitutes]]
The history of the cannon is written in blood-- in its first chapters often the blood of their users along with their targets. The first generations of cannons were crude affairs made by people with rudimentary metallurgy working things out by trial and error, with error often ending with the poor sods manning the gun getting a face full of iron shards, if not vaporized by the blast outright. This was made all the worse by the crude gunpowder available at the time and mishandling by inexperienced crews. In this initial period history Cannons were used for two purposes: small wall mounted defensive weapons in fortifications and large siege weapons to get through city walls. While they were powerful, cannons were simply too inaccurate in the early times, which was especially true for the heavier offensive guns. The big siege guns would usually be carted into a fixed location and be set there. Even if nothing went wrong they could only get off a couple shots an hour. Early cannons fired a variety of shot from spears to rough rocks, though eventually cast iron balls became the most common as things progressed. While early cannons were dangerous and unreliable in terms of accuracy or lifespan, they were more easy to cast and maintain compared to the wood and rope used to make catapults and ballista; with the latter prone to warping and decay from humidity and weather.

Eventually the art of cannon making improved as time went on and things became more reliable as gunmakers and gun crews got more experienced in handling their weapons (partially as the stupid ones got their jimmies blown off) and tried and true designs were replicated. As this happened, it prompted a change in fortification design. Tall and comparatively thin walls with high towers might be imposing and good at fending off attempts to scale them with ladders and siege towers, but they could not take that many salvos from a besieging enemy. Walls instead became shorter and thicker, reinforced with heavy earth ramparts to absorb the shock of cannonballs, with pointed battlements better suited for mounting defensive cannon and bouncing shells.

An even bigger development was the matter of cannons at sea. Though some people tried using catapults, ballistas, and the occasional flamethrower ([[Standard Template Construct|until the Byzantines forgot how they worked thanks to Emperors keeping the recipe and well...a coup and a couple of dead folks later, no one remembered where they put it.]]) as ship-mounted weapons, naval battles were up until this point settled by ramming or boarding actions. By the late 1400s potential of naval guns soon became obvious, damaging or destroying the wooden enemy ships outright, and navies began adapting their ship designs to carry guns. In 1571 the naval forces of the Holy League faced off against those of the Ottoman Empire off the coast of Greece at Lepanto. Though the Ottomans had a slight numerical advantage in terms of galleys and soldiers, [[Dakka|the Christians had more that twice as many cannons as well as better trained gun crews which could get off two shots for every volley]] the Ottomans could which was a big factor in the crushing defeat that the Ottomans suffered that day. Even so, the days of the galley were done and the age of sail had begun. Purely sail driven warships might not have the short range speed advantage or the shallow water maneuverability of a Galley, but where a galley would have ranks of rowers manning oars and a five or so frontal cannons a sailing ship would have a broadside with dozens of cannon.
[[image:24_pounder_gun.jpg|thumb|300px|left|A 24 pounder Long Gun from the age of Sail]]

From about 1400 to 1800 there were two main materials used to make cannons: Bronze and Iron. Bronze was an easier material to cast guns out of and it had a fair bit of give to it. In Europe the fact that there was a long tradition of making church bells and bronze statues meant that developing a bronze gun industry was fairly easy. Additionally, unlike Iron, Bronze takes much less energy to recast, so it was much easier to smelt down a worn gun (or statues or church bells) into a cannon. (Next time you're in Europe, take a shot every time you find a church-bell older than 200 years. It sucks as a drinking game, since you won't end up drunk at the end.) Bronze guns are also lighter than Iron guns of a similar size, making Bronze more mobile on the battlefield. Furthermore Bronze has some give to it, which means you have some warning if the gun is going to blow up. When an Iron gun is about to blow up, it doesn't give any warning when it's no longer safe, but a Bronze one will bulge first letting you know when you're starting to push your luck.

The problem was that copper and tin were fairly rare and in short supply and the cannon makers were not the only ones who wanted the stuff, so the number of Bronze guns you could make was limited. Iron, by contrast was more common and harder. That said, it took more fuel to smelt, it was much harder to melt and reforge, it took different and less-common craftsmen (since you couldn't just conscript the various bell-makers in your given nation), and if you didn't have a good metallurgist you would end up making a brittle gun that was liable to explode in your face. However an Iron ''IS'' the stronger material thanks to it's hardness, thus an Iron gun will last longer than a Bronze one (which it has to since you can't melt back down as easily). It's just easier to make a big thing like a cannon out of Bronze than Iron. As a general rule, Iron became more and more common as time went on and with it the need for artillery increased and metallurgy improved (in particular the use of coke instead of charcoal and the development of puddling was a big deal in the history of cannon making). It was only around the late 1600s that it became expected that a cannon foundry would produce more working guns than failures that burst in test firings.

When it came to making your cannon your best option was [[Casting]], be it cannons or models of cannons, the process is pretty much the same (and the best).

Of course Iron and Bronze were not the only things we made cannons out of. In a pinch or on the cheap, you could use wood to make a cannon, but wooden guns need much thicker walls than a metal one, limiting the size and weight of your shot and how much powder you can use. Another material experimented with was copper bound with leather, first toyed with by Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden against Poland. They were... less than successful, and replaced with 3-pound bronze guns.

You might ask why Gustavus decided to make a cannon out of leather in the first place? The answer is that as time went on and cannons became quicker firing and more accurate, people began wondering about other uses for cannons besides blasting apart castles and ships. Armies back then formed up their infantry into large, blocky formations of arquebusiers (men armed with pre-musket guns), halberdmen, swordsmen and pikemen. Against such foes, the old and massive castle-crackers were overkill. Beyond that they were still slow-firing and a massive pain in the butt to move around. What was needed against those targets were smaller, lighter, (a cannon that can shoot a 3 pound ball is still very heavy, though much lighter than one that shoots a 12 pound ball which is why Gustavus tried leather to make a light gun) guns that could quickly be moved into position, loaded and fired. Thus, bit by bit Gustavus developed the idea of Field Artillery for antipersonnel use and would end up attaching 12 or so field guns to each of his brigades (a military unit he himself invented) to support his infantry. This made Gustavus army devastatingly effective against the Catholic forces in the 30 years war. Just not with the leather cannons.

In any case by 1700 it was made clear that field artillery was a critical part of any army on the march. This development also meant that armies began to shift their tactics away from blockish formations but to long firing lines. You see, you can aim a cannon ball so that when it reaches the ground it bounces off of it in front of the formation so that it would fly though a block formation of thirty or more pikemen and musketeers at hip level, killing and maiming until it went out the other side. This was called the grazeing shot and warhammer fantasy players are likely well aware of how effective this could be on thick blocks of troops. The same would apply to a three man thick line of soldiers, though with only a tenth the casualties.

As technology got better, shells started to become more common. A cannon ball can only kill people it hits or those nearby (the later due to the fact that [[Khorne|the bones of the people hit spray fragments everywhere]]), but a shell can spray shrapnel and lethal pressure waves over a much wider area. This made direct fire much less effective since a cannon needed to have a high muzzle velocity, meaning the shell had to leave the barrel going very fast. So to make a explosive shell for a cannon the designs had to balance explosive payload with the thickness of the shell walls so it could survive being shot. Additionally because the destructive power of the shell was now disconnected with it's speed, meaning a faster shell did not do more damage, cannons were phased out of use and armies switched to howitzers as the dominant form of artillery. Because Howitzers get their range from the angle of their shot rather than muzzle velocity they can shoot shells with more explosive (or other fragile materials like gas) than a cannon can. Additionally Howitzers don't need direct line of sight to hit a target meaning you can now lob shells behind the lee of hills while your safely entrenched behind the lines, and on top of everything else they have longer ranges due to their higher firing arc. Unlike cannons however, hitting anything was more difficult since you are often firing blind at the target and it is impossible to aim directly. Yes, you can use math to put your shell in an area near the a target, but aiming a shell you've just lobbed almost two miles into the air and three miles forward of you to land directly on anything smaller than a castle is pretty much impossible, but of course if you have a HE shell you're more likely to damage the target even if you're off target a bit. Which is why in world war one they used weeks of saturating bombardments to try and destroy fortifications. Though it often did not work, 1,738,000 shells were fired at the German lines before the battle of the Somme and enough Germans were left alive to kill 26,000 of the attacking British (Empire) and French on the first day. What was needed was a way to get a cannon in place to hit a target directly and allow the accurate destruction of fortifications. . . which lead of course to the invention of the [[tank]] and the modern infantry mortar to allow much closer range accurate fire support.

That pretty much leads us to today: though the propellent for modern artillery changes, tactics for Howitzers still have traces of the first world war in them. More and more however gun Artillery are getting a bit out classed. Not as accurate, hard to deploy, with far less range than a plane with a smart bomb and without the ability to barrage a target as hard as rocket systems. Howitzers however still have a role, in video games terms they are the DPM, they don't hit as hard as other weapons, but they can fire for much, much longer. Additionally howitzer shells and guns tubes are very cheap compared to planes with bombs or Multiple rocket launching systems. Cannons remain common and widely in use, but only for tanks at this point. Modern cannons are built to destroy other tanks and leave anti infantry work to their machine guns, and a select amount of special shells like canister or high explosive, but thanks to the cannons higher muzzle velocity, they tend to have HE shells that are much less effective than howitzer shells. Mortars remain very common and are a effective weapon for supporting infantry at close ranges. Their much smaller shell size means it's safer to use them, thanks to their smaller blast radius and their light weight means that you can carry them to where you need them easier.

Between Cannons and Small arms, cannons are the ones more likely to be replaced with a high tech system like a laser or rail gun. The reason the US navy have done rail gun research is only battleships really have the ability to carry the power generators needed to get them to work. However, much like regular firearms, these projects have yet to provide a system that can compete with the power of a chemical reaction since you don't need to "power" them in the same way you do a laser.

== Cannons in Fantasy ==
[[image:Emp great cannon 1434013374.jpg|thumb|300px|right|One of the [[Empire]]'s cannons, proving that you can mix fantasy with gunpowder weapons]]
Fantasy writers are a bit more accommodating to cannons than firearms: in part because they became more practical earlier on. Also they were crew served devices ill suited to use of a single warrior (unless he/she had fantastic powers to begin with) and cannons are the go to solution when someone says "thrilling non modern naval action". Even so there is some reticence about their use as it implies that sooner or latter someone is going to figure "Hey, why don't we take these things and scale them down?".

Many cannons in fantasy settings have some fancypants adornment with bores made into the mouths of roaring lions, dragons and similar and they are rarely even primitive breech loaders. Fantasy authors also have dislike of making their guns out of Bronze since we like the idea of a big black iron gun. Cannons also tend to exist in isolation, you don't see mortars or howitzers for example . Cannons also tend to be somewhat underpowered (compared to their real life counterparts) in settings where they have to coexist with monsters. To put another way, if a cannon can knock a castle down from 490m away, then I don't care how big your dragon is, one direct hit and it will be down for the count. Mind you, getting that direct hit is going to be a bitch and a half and they are not the easier things to lug around.

== Types of cannons ==
Note: for easy of use only list black powder weapons so we don't talk about every gun that ever existed.
*'''Cannons/Howitzers/Mortars''': The difference between these weapons is in how their projectiles are fired. Cannon projectiles follow fairly flat trajectory, Mortars are fired in high steep arcs that drop the round directly onto the targets head, while Howitzers are between the two firing upward but not as steeply as a mortar. These types of artillery are among the few still in use today, with mortars relegated as a portable infantry support weapon, cannons being mounted primarily on armored vehicles, and only howtizers still being used as static weapons.

*'''Carronade''': Short barreled, large bore cannons used for short ranged naval combat. These tended to be used on the main deck (above the gundeck) to give a ship extra punch at close range without making it top-heavy, as a carronade is always lighter than a cannon of the same diameter.

*'''Quaker "Gun"''': Named after the Quakers, a group of christian pacifists, and alternatively called "Dummy Guns". A Quaker gun is a gun mock-up (typically made of wood), made to look like real guns from a distance in order to deceive enemies you were more threatening than you actually were. Quaker guns found several instances of success throughout the ages and has negated battles that would have otherwise been an easy victory for the opposing side who didn't realize the guns they were scouting were fakes. These were particularly popular in the US civil war, when an infantry advance on foot against cannons was absolutely guaranteed to cost the attacker wagonloads of dead and injured. Advances in modern reconnaissance technology has largely rendered dummy guns ineffective.

*'''Disappearing gun''': Guns have recoil; a Disappearing gun uses the recoil to "blow" itself out of the line of fire after it shoots allowing safer reloading and harder counter battery fire on the now out of view gun. Later versions were mounted on retractable platforms for the same effect.

*'''Bombard''': An early cannon, a Bombard is a big iron wide bore cannon that fired massive stone balls at castle walls in order to break them down. Unlike later cannons bombards don't tend to have carriages and have to be fixed in place wooden frames, though a few bombards did have wheels.

*'''Culverins''': 15th and 16th century cannon that fired a ball weighing between 20 and 14 pounds. Used a slow match fuse.
**'''Hongyipao''': The name literally translates to ""red barbarian cannon" and was introduced to Korea and china by the Portuguese, however in most regards it was pretty much just a Culverin.

*'''Chongtong''': Not "really" cannons but this entry was here before the rocket page existed and these were fired out of a cannon. The Congtong was a Korean cannon, or rather, cannons since there was more than one type. The four types were the "Cheonja", "Jija", "Hyeonja", and "Hwangja", the names being roughly equivalent to Cannons A, B, C, and D. The Cheonja was the largest with a 130mm bore able to fire 30 pound rocket out to just over a kilometer. The other three types were pretty much the same, only shrunk down, the Jija had 100mm bore, the Hyeonja, 80mm while the Hwangja was very similar to a European hand cannon. (Wait a minute, barreled weapons that fire self propelled rockets... [[Bolter|Why does that sounds familiar?]])

*'''Saker''': A smaller version of the Culverin from the 16th century that fired a five pound ball.

*'''Minion ''': Minion is the french word for "cute" and it most certainty was. A 17th century version of the Saker it too fired a five pound ball. Used on ships as a weapon to repel boarding parties.

*'''Demi-cannon''': An 18th century cannon that fired a ball less than 42 pounds, while being bigger than the saker. Replaced full cannons in the British navy due to them being too unwieldy. First rate ships (Google it if you're curious what it is, but all you need to know now is that we're talking a big ass ship), mounted 100 such cannons in 50 gun broadsides.

*'''Falconet''': A light cannon that fired a one pound ball. Though invented for land use, it was common on ships and both the Americans and British used them in the revolutionary war. A breech loading version was invented in the 1620's

*'''Canon obusier de 12/Napoleon''': A French gun that revolutionized gunnery when it was invented in 1853. It was portable, yet able to destroy fortifications almost a mile away. Used by the French and both Americas in their civil war and were the last bronze cannons used in an American army.

*'''Parrott rifle''': A US civil war cannon, the Parrott rifle was, well, rifled. What made the Parrott special was that is used iron, not steel, to forge it but had a additional band of iron applied to the breech of the gun to strengthen it. Nevertheless, they had a distressing tendency to burst.

*'''Hook Gun''': Or Hakenbuechse, an oversized musket, that was always classified as an artillery piece, this weapon was popular in 16-18 century Eastern Europe and was usually used either in sieges or as a proto-sniper rifle.

**'''Abus Gun''': An Ottoman artillery piece, similar to a Hook Gun, the Abus gun was small, but still hard to move about and was fired from a tripod and shot a roughly 5 pound cannon ball.

*'''Basilisk''': A medieval big, big gun, the basilisk was a bronze cannon that was ten feet long, weighted up to 4 thousand pounds, had a five inch or 130mm bore (the [[M1 Abrams]] today is armed with a 120mm cannon) and fired a ball up to 160 pounds in weight. The basilisk was too big however, and it was phased out in favor of lighter more maneuverable guns.

*'''Swivel gun''': Essentially small cannons on stick, swivel guns were mostly used on ships and were mounted on the decks. While ineffective against all but the smallest boats, against boarding parties they could be very effective. Thanks to their small size, swivel guns were the first breech loading weapons, with such versions existing by the 16th century.

**'''Pierrier à boîte''': A french breech loading swivel gun made of Wrought iron. The Pierrier à boîte breech, though allowing it to fire more rapidly than other guns, still had issues and had a tendency to leak leading to a loss of power and additional danger to the gunners.

**'''Lantaka''': A (usually) bronze swivel gun developed by the Philippine Moros, firing a half-pound ball or charge of grapeshot. Mounted on the fronts of boats and on the walls of earthwork forts. Saw much use against the Spanish conquistadors, but was defeated by the howitzers and mortars brought by the American infantry.

*'''Double barreled cannon''': An idea that sounds good on the drawing does not always means good in real life. Case in point, US Confederacy double barreled cannon. The idea was to load the guns with chain shot, two cannonballs connected by a chain, and then fire both barrels at the same time, so that the twin cannon balls would fly in such a way that not only would each ball kill the enemy, the chain between the ball would as well. The problem was in step two of the plan, getting both barrels to fire at the same time. To put it simply, it could not. It was tested three times. The first time the balls flew off target and tore up a corn field before the chain broke. The second time it missed again and tore holes in a nearby pine forest "like mowing machine" a witness said. Third time it was fired, the chain broke apart instantly and one ball flew off hitting a chimney, and the other killed a cow. The over optimistic inventor considered these tests a success. That the gun was lost for over ten years and found under a pile of rock speaks to how much the confederates thought of the thing.

*'''Krupp Gun''': Krupp is an old German company that has been making guns and working iron for centuries, but it really made its name known in the mid 19th century when it worked out a system to load a cannon from the rear. The idea of loading a cannon from the breech rather than cramming everything down the muzzle had been toyed around with before, but there had been problems which prevented it from being fully practical. In 1859, Krupp solved these problems by introducing a sliding block system on an all cast steel cannon able to fire explosive shells. Long story short, there was a block in the back of the cannon which could be fastened into place and unfastened and slid out of the way to load it. These guns let Otto von Bismarck unite Germany under his banner and let him beat the muzzle loader using French in the Franco-Prussian War despite the French having better rifles, airships, and primitive machine guns.

*'''System de Bange''': Yes that's it's real name. No, it doesn't mean 'Bang System', instead 'de Bange' was its inventor, [[Skub|though that arguably makes it funnier.]] Essentially a very efficient breech loading system. After the Germans beat them with Breech Loading Cannons, the French wanted their own such guns if those Germans came back. The solution they settled on was to make a cannon with a steel plug which screwed into the back, but with the screw's thread being removed on two quarters of the length of the plug/bore so it could be secured and opened by rotating it 90 degrees with a washer of asbestos to get a good solid seal. The system worked very well and (with a few tweaks) is still in use today.

*'''Armstrong gun''': The Armstrong gun is, like the Bange and Krupp guns, a breech loader. What makes it special was that it was a "built up gun" which means if you cut a Armstrong gun in half, you see that it was built up in layers, an inner barrel made out of a wrought iron or mild steel, surrounded with more wrought iron coils that were shrunk to keep the tube compressed. Though common use for the big guns of the time period's dreadnoughts, it was not as common for smaller pieces. Armstong used a screw breech, so to load the gun you had to open it like the door on a ship by spinning a wheel to unscrew it. Armstrong guns were made in a wide range of calibers, from 6 pound horse guns to 110 naval artillery. Used widely by the British in their colonial wars and Japan in the Boshin War. The most famous Armstrong guns are the 100-ton guns used to defend Malta, capable of obliterating ships that are barely visible over the horizon.

*'''Autocannon''': Essentially an automatically loading gun that is too small to be considered a field gun (i.e. between 20-40mm). Designed for light weight mobile vehicles such as Aircraft and Armored Vehicles that are expected to take on targets either indirectly or of equal (or less) ability. Their origins date back to the late 19th century. (see Maxim gun below) The Autocannon came into its heyday during the Second World War. They commonly come in two flavors. Revolver and Rotary Cannons. With the former having a slightly lower of rate of fire but are less expensive, takes up less space and have a faster spin up time. Chain cannons and their issues are best left aside. The most common Autocannon is the Bofors 40. Just about every country that was involved in World War 2 and the Cold War had their own version of it. At the 40mm size (the bare minimum for artillery) Sabots, HESH and HEAT rounds can damage the armor of Main Battle Tanks and Warships. With a fire rate of 330 rounds per minute.

*'''Licorne''': Meaning 'Unicorn' in French, the Licorne was the earliest form of gun-howitzer and so named due to the unicorns carved into the original models. It didn't really catch on and thus only the Russians used it extensively.

*'''Secret Howitzer''': The result of pure Russian autism and [[Munchkin|min-maxing]]. This 'weapon' was a howitzer modified to have an oval barrel, [[Wat|in the hope that it would spread grapeshot more effectively.]] The drawback was it was useless for any other purpose and not much better at its intended one. Of course, the Russians being who they were, it was decided that the penalty for talking about these guns was to be death, hence the name. [[Fail|This policy becomes more ironic when you discover that the only response to their enemies, the Prussians, finding out about these weapons was a collective WTF and having the captured units melted down for scrap.]]

=== Noncannon guns worth mentioning ===
There have been numerous inventions in the history of firearms that use a cannon's limbers and caissons to mount a weapon that was not quite cannon, and was often used in a way most cannons were not. What they all had in common was that they were all "artillery" in the sense that they were static, mounted firearms that could fuck up enemies in ways that infantry-portable firearms could not, much like your average cannon.

*'''Da Vinci Cannons''': included in this section because, as far as we know, they were never actually built or used in battle. If they were ever used, we have no record of them, and you’d think it would be a big deal if they were successful. The famous inventor Leonardo understood the emerging importance of cannons, and sought to improve on its design. He had an early version of breech-loaders, but like a true mad scientist, that was just the beginning. Not only did he design a triple-barreled cannon, [[Steampunk|steam-powered]] cannons, and his own version of the Ottoman Bombard, but also a ''33-barreled'' cannon that had three rows of 11 small-caliber barrels set on a rotating axle, and each row would be fired in volley by rotating the row into firing position. [[The Empire (Warhammer Fantasy)|Certainly reminds you of a certain gun from a certain tabletop game, doesn't it?]]

*'''Ribauldequin''': Don't ask us how to say it (Ri-bow-de-kin, pretty much like it's written. Just ignore the 'l'). A simpler name is “Organ gun”, because the gun barrel arrangement looks like a pipe organ. The Ribauldequin is troubling to list as a "cannon", since it has a number of small barrels rather than one big one. Rather than a cannon, thinking of it as a bunch of guns on a cannon carriage may be more accurate. Of course, the downside to being able to fire a bunch of guns at once is that, in the age of muzzle-loaders, you had to take even longer to reload it. And compared to having a bunch of guys individually aiming an loading a single barrel, you had maybe one or two guys doing all the loading. Still, if you could take the enemy out in a single volley, or at least create an opening for the rest of your guys, it could be an effective force-multiplier and morale weapon. After all, it wasn’t called the “infernal machine” for nothing.

*'''Mitrailleuse''': French for "grapeshot" (though thanks to this weapon the word now means machine gun in general) was a weapon that looked like a cannon, only instead of one big hole in the muzzle it had 25 13mm barrels. However, like many such rapid fire weapons, despite working fine, the Mitrailleuse was used and treated like a cannon, not a close support machine gun, and as such it's use in the Franco-Prussian War was less than stellar.

*'''Gatling Gun''': More or less a contemporary of the Maxim Machine Gun, seeing deployment two decades earlier. It is named after a guy who created this pretty cool weapon during the American civil war. It is a heavy weapon firing repeating barrage of bullets on the field. It has a multiple barrel which each barrel takes its turn to fire every time they rotate in a cylinder fashion. This configuration allowed higher rates of fire to be achieved without the barrel overheating and the basic weapon would eventually be coupled with a motor to allow for so high a rate of fire that each of the guns "dakkas" blur into each other to become one long "BZZZZZZZZZZZZ". The earliest gatling gun however required a person to crank it like a pepper grinder, so it's not like it can be fired automatically by some sandwich eating Russian. It was mounted on a cannon's two wheel cart, or Caisson, that generally required horses to move it over long distance. When first invented, the Gatling gun had some teething issues due to the paper cartridges of the day, but once metal ones were invented the Gatling gun quickly hit its stride. Notable for its use in Zulu and the Boshin war, slaughtering those <s>pre-historical savages</s> unlucky per-industrial indigenous like no tomorrow. Electric versions of the gating gun existed before their widespread use in aircraft, but at the time, only naval warships were able to have portable electric generators, limiting their use. While modern machine gun mechanisms have largely replaced the Gatling gun as a main weapon, the Gatling design is still used for weapons that require a very high rate of fire, [[A-10_Warthog|particularly aircraft]].

*'''Puckle Gun''': Possibly the earliest repeating revolver; invented in 1718, before the gatling gun mentioned above. Just like the Gatling gun, it required a person to crank it like a pepper grinder. It was desired for use by the [[ecclesiarchy|Christians]] to slaughter the [[heresy|false believers]] like the Muslim Turks and it had a choice of round bullets for use against fellow Christians and square bullets that were considered to be more damaging. The Puckle gun however was unpopular because of its some what finicky flint lock and other mechanical issues, since it was revolver made 100 years before colt made his first revolver in a calibre over three times bigger. The technology to allow this sort of weapon was not there yet, which made its feasibility even worse when you allow religious fucktards to overcomplicate military logistics by demanding two different ammunitions which have absolutely no difference, unlike [[Bolter]] shell variations.

*'''Dynamite gun''': In the early days of high explosives, there were no explosives stable enough to be fired from a gun without blowing up, and high explosives were far more powerful than low explosives like gunpowder. Hence, the Dynamite gun, the most steam punk weapon ever deployed. Dynamite guns worked like a big air gun, only instead of a BB they fired a shell full of Dynamite or other high explosives and instead of air they used compressed steam if on a ship, or smokeless powder used to indirectly propel a gas into the barrel to launch the shell.

*''' Maxim gun''': The first successful weapon that can be considered a machine gun and one of the earliest recoil operated weapons. As such the origins of the autocannon can be easily traced back to the Maxim when it was scaled up for larger calibers. The QF 1-pounder (37mm) and the QF 2-pounders (40mm) 'Pom-poms' (nicknamed like that because of the continuous rumble one produces when firing) were adopted by nations as soon as they became aware of them or had been on the receiving end, essentially converting the machine gun design into autocannons. The QF 1 started out as a field gun before it was used on warships as an anti-aircraft weapon, Just like the Gatling gun years earlier. The Maxim along with it's descendants made field charges and line combat impossible, ushering in the era of trench warfare, with only [[Katanas_are_Underpowered_in_d20|mall ninjas]] and [[/pol/|other idiots]] lamenting the loss of those tactics.

== Types of cannon ammunition==
*'''Round Shot''': the first type of cannon ammo, Round shot is, as the name suggests, a round ball made of either stone or later iron. Don't knock a Stone Cannon ball because on impact they have a tendency shatter producing shrapnel. Round shot was best used against fortifications and infantry in the open. When firing at infantry the ideal use of round shot was to fire just in front of the infantry and let the ball bounce up and through the formation like a bowling ball from hell. This is replicated in cannon mechanics in Warhammer fantasy. This is also one of the reasons why armies stopped fighting in deep formations and switched to lines.
**'''Hot Shot''': Against wooden ships that were full of black powder and other flammables, often the best solution is to light them on fire. As such an attempt to do this was to take an iron cannon ball, and heat it up so that it glowed red and then fire it. . .carefully. As you can imagine sticking a red hot cannon ball down the barrel of an iron tube full of explosive was careful work in order to pull it off they had to put a plug of wet clay between the ball and the powder. This is word is the modern origin for the term "Hot Shot" as some one who is renowned for their skill and courage- like the people who could load said red hot cannonballs without blowing themselves up in the process.

*'''Chain shot''': used mostly at sea, Chain shot was either two small cannon balls linked with chain, or one single cannon ball that broke into two halves connected by a chain after firing. Chain shot covered a larger area and was used to target the rigging of enemy ships (though as the tv series 'The Borgias' shows, it could also be quite useful in mowing down infantry). As steamships become more common however, chain shot became less and less useful.

*'''Canister shot''': Canisters shot is a collection of small iron musket balls, that was jammed down the barrel in a tin can. Upon firing it turned the cannon into a massive shotgun, spraying the area in front of it with hundreds of musket ball; in a day and age where fighting was done shoulder to shoulder, Canister shot was lethal. '''Grape shot''' was similar but used bigger balls and was loaded in a bag, not a can (supposedly the bulges the balls made in the bag looked like a bunch of grapes, hence the name) and was more common on ships since it could better punch though wooden hulls. A cannon loaded with canister shot could and has stopped an infantry charge dead in its tracks. Canister rounds were made all the way to the modern age, and in many cases are still used for clearing out infantry at close range, but only with special tank cannons. For the same reason shotguns are smoothbore, rifled cannons have problems with canister shot since the grooves impart spin on the balls. However, the use of smoothbore cannons in modern anti-tank guns, canister shot is now a more viable weapon. Artillery-style canister shot, however, fell out of fashion even in the days of smoothbore field artillery in favor of...

*'''Shrapnel rounds''': You know how a person invents a thing and get his name attached to the invention so completely that if you tried to use it today as a name it just sounds strange? Well Henry Shrapnel was so successful with his invention that all types of flying debris now has his name. Shrapnel rounds were invented in 1784, and they're basically canister shot, with a fuse so that the shell explodes in mid air rather then only at the muzzle of the gun almost tripling the range of the anti personal round. Round shot for use against infantry became a thing of the past. Shrapnel rounds were used all the way up to the modern age and some countries still make Shrapnel rounds for their tanks.

*'''Shells''': A bullet that's hollow and has stuff in it. Typically explosives but chemical payloads are also known. While Shells have been known to exist ever since the 14th century, it was not until the modern day when accurate fuses came about that Shells became more common then solid shot. Shells come in a wide variety of munition types, but the most common versions are High Explosive, Armor-Piercing, High-Explosive Anti-Tank (combines HE with a shaped charge), and even guided shells.

*'''Carcass shot''': No, not something a [[Awesome|necromancer with a cannon]] would use. Carcass shot was a high flammable material with an iron shell around it and some vents to spray the chemical after firing. it was called Carcass shot because, supposedly, the shot looked like a human Carcass thanks to the holes. Carcass shot was used mostly out of lower velocity mortars and Howitzers and was one of the first chemical weapons to be used. It was especially useful at night as the glow allowed it to be used to spot for the gun.

*'''Junk''': Obviously if you're out of proper ammunition you could just shove anything you want down the barrel and hope it works. Supposedly a Uruguayan ship fired stale cheese out one of their cannons and shattered the mast of a Brazilian ship. Blunderbusses and similar man-portable weapons could also be loaded with scrap when nothing better was available. Contrarily to the common portrayal, however, the practice was discouraged as it would quickly wear the barrel of the weapon out and render it unusable.

*'''High Velocity Armor Piercing (HVAP)''': Also known as Armor-Piercing Composite Rigid (APCR) if you're a Brit or 'Hartkern' (hard core) if you're German. When World War 2 and its bigger and bigger tanks that could shrug off the fire from small calibre cannons came along, all nations were faced with the same problem of stopping those monsters. Without going into the physics of it, there were three solutions to the problem. First, the time-honored one of bringing a bigger gun, but that was often impossible. Second, lengthen the barrel of the gun so the gases can impart more energy to the projectile, but again this was limited in its execution. Third, make the projectile itself out of heavier, tougher material. That's HVAP/APCR/Hartkern. Same overall shell size, but the weight of the projectile is 'concentrated' in a smaller core made out of tungsten fitted with a lightweight aerodynamic cap that will do more damage than a larger, softer shot.

*'''Sabot (Old)''': Sabots (french for clogshoe and pronounced like "Sah-bo") were used in the 19th century with weapons like the Paixhans gun, one of the first naval guns designed to fire an explosive shell. A sabot is a container made of a light material that fits the barrel and contains the actual munition but falls away after leaving the barrel, leaving just the sub munition to fly toward the target. It was used to center the projectile and trap the gases of the explosion behind it, allowing to fire a shell smaller then the diameter of the gun (shooting a 20mm shell out of a 40mm cannon for example) and also back in the days to prevent a catastrophic explosion of the shell along with the powder. Advances in metallurgy and the invention of the driving band (and the generalized use of copper casings for smaller weapons) have made such sabots obsolete. Buuuuut...

*'''Sabot (Modern)''': Remember the HVAP above, where we said 'core made out of hard material to deal more damage'? Well the modern sabot rounds take this one level further. A small, very heavy projectile is encased in a much bigger shell casing, and the whole casing is discarded the moment it exits the barrel leaving only the core to fly toward the target. This allows the small core to be fired from a substantially large-bore gun, giving it a lot of kinetic energy while avoiding the poor ballistics of such a large shot. This has led to modern main battle tanks being armed with a 120mm cannon while shooting what basically amounts to a ballista bolt made of depleted uranium or tungsten at one another. Sabots are frequently used for armor-penetrating rounds that would be far too heavy to fire at full-size. When used against soft targets like car bombs, they tend to swiss cheese them.

*'''High-Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT)/High-Explosive Anti-Tank Fin-Stabilized (HEAT-FS)''': A modern round (it was introduced in WW2) that uses the Munroe effect to defeat hevily-armored targets, like a tank. In essence, all the force of the explosion is concentrated into a 'jet' that forces/melts/vaporizes its way through the armor and incinerates anything behind. These rounds were developed spocifically to deal with tanks, and while extremely effective, they have the drawback of needing to detonate at just the right distance and angle from their target to be effective. the fin-stabilized version is a later improvement that (as the name indicates) uses fins to stabilize the shell's flight and improve the chance of hitting at exactly said right angle/distance.

*'''Tandem Charge''': HEAT, when introduced, was a game changer and everyone scrambled to find ways to protect their tanks from them. The counterspell to the opponent's counterspell, a tandem charge is exactly what its name implies: a first small HE charge fucks up whatever HEAT countermeasures are installed to allow the secondary HEAT charge to strike true. It has since been broadened to different combinations of charges for different applications, but the general idea is always the same. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q6j9wEF1sf8 See here for a demonstration of a builing-clearing AP/HE combo.]

*'''High-Explosive Squash-Head (HESH)''': Bears a mention for completeness' sake, this one is a bit weird: the explosive charge is a blob of malleable plastic explosives. When it hits the target, the plastic is squashed against the target (hence the name), and the resulting pancake is detonated by the fuse. This creates a shock wave that, once it reaches the other side of whatever was hit, will fracture and spall it. Modern composite armor and anti-spalling liners have rendered this type of shell inefficient against tanks, but they are still extremely efficient to take regular buildings and concrete fortifications out.

{{MedievalWeaponry}}

Cannon

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2A02:1811:5180:A200:A108:76C4:411B:8AD5: /* Types of cannons */