Editing Warhammer 40,000 (section)

===The tabletop===
[[File:The Dawn.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Space Marines always steal the spotlight from all the other races and factions. Blood Ravens steal everything else. Except for the Glory. That belongs exclusively to the [[Galactic Partridges]].]]

Playing the tabletop game of W40k involves the placement of the small plastic and metal models that represent each unit onto a 6'x4' tabletop battlefield. This could be anything from a sterile kitchen bench to a detailed hand-crafted board complete with forests, ruins, rocks, bunkers etc. Terrain is an important part of the game, as the 40K shooting rules rely on "true line of sight" to target any given unit. Terrain can also be used to either player's (and race's) advantage to block units and vehicles and to provide extra protection against shooting, even if within range and line of sight. Difficult and Dangerous Terrains can also hinder movement or even kill models, because sometimes it IS possible for [[Derp|a tank the size of the Sydney Opera House to destroy its tracks on a stray log.]]

The rules for the game are drawn from the ''Warhammer 40K'' Rulebook, sold by [[Games Workshop]] as well as the supplementing 'Codex' books. While the Rulebook provides all the general rules required to play the game, the Codex books, one for each race and some factions, provide specific rules such as unit statistics, wargear and point costs.

====Missions====
There are many game modes you can [[Cities of Death|play]], no matter what race you are pitted up against. You can either decide to kill each other's units and then in the end count how many points all the dead models add up to and if that number is higher or lower than the opponent's death-count. You can capture a beforehand-decided amount of objectives on the board (that can additionally either buff or nerf units controlling them) or just have a single objective to fight over, resulting in a hilarious game of [[tarpit|tar-pits]] and clusterfucks. 
Some missions require the opponents to deploy and act differently, depending on mission-specific side-objectives and/or special rules. Most importantly of all, you can decide and combine any missions in a single game and play however you want. '''[[Rule Zero]]''' and homebrew rules and scenarios are king.

====Units====
[[File:Jump Troopers.jpg|350px|right|thumb|"With great balls I shall clad them"- Big E on Guardsmen]]

Each unit in 40K, whether an Imperial Guardsman, a Daemon Prince or a Falcon Grav-Tank, has a set of 'characteristics' that are compared to the statistics of whatever they are attacking to ascertain whatever roll may be necessary on a D6 to succeed in their action. The characteristics are as follows: Movement (M), Weapon Skill (WS), Ballistic Skill (BS), Strength (S), Toughness (T), Wounds (W), Attacks (A), Leadership (Ld) and Armour/Invulnerable Save (Sv). For vehicles; '''in 7th edition and [[Horus Heresy|Age of Darkness]]''' games it is simplified to Frontal, Side and Rear armor ratings, hull points (HP), and Ballistic Skill (BS). Certain units that are a mix between vehicle and infantry/monster, such as Walkers, who retain the Armour ratings and hull points in place of Toughness and Wounds, but use all remaining characteristics as well. '''In the latest edition, this was done away with for brevity.''' Depending on the type of attack made (shooting, assault, psychic, etc), different characteristics are used to resolve the attack. Some special close combat weapons, such as Power Fists, will enhance the characteristics of the user or provide other support bonuses. When shooting, the separate statistics of the weapon fired also come into play.

All units also have a "point cost", representing their overall worth and rarity in an army. There are a number of rules concerning selecting an army from a Codex army book, but one of the most important is the points limit. The points limit is the method used in W40k as an upper limit to army size and/or power. The most common type of W40k game is set at 1,500 points. For comparison, the average squad of 10 Imperial Guardsmen is worth around 60 points, and a Space Marine intercessor squad of the same size is worth 200 points. A single Grey Knight Dreadnought is 130 points. With any unit, upgrades can greatly increase their points cost and effectiveness. Fully-equipped Independent Characters can reach well over 100 points, for example, and the aforementioned squads will usually be equipped with more expensive heavy weapons, squad leaders, or other equipment. Army selection can be limited by the codex's Force Organization Chart; every unit is categorized as HQ, Troop, Elite, Fast Attack, Flyers, Heavy Support, or Lords of War, and the Force Organization Chart specifies the minimum and maximum number of each type of units any army may field in a single game. You may choose to ignore these charts and field whatever you like within the points value, but do so with a disadvantage in certain army-specific powers called Strategems.

Units usually fight as squads, though there are many exceptions. All infantry are formed into a squad with similar units and usually a squad leader (i.e. a squad of Ork Slugga Boyz led by a Nob or a squad of Guardsmen led by Sarge). Units such as vehicles/walkers (Tau Hammerhead, Baal Predator) are usually, but not always (in case of Sentinels and Jetbikes) fielded as a lone unit.

The role of hero units, known as ''Characters'', is an important one in 40K. They are the leaders for each army and one of the most powerful types of unit available to any player. Characters have the distinction of being able to operate as a single model. They can also be fluff-actual, named characters with their own history and unique appearance (such as Celestine the Living Saint), while others like a Space Marine Captain or an Ork Warboss are generic commanders. Both kinds can have a massive impact on the game, especially in the Shooting and Assault phases where their greatly enhanced weapons and abilities can be brought to bear and cause a big amount of [[Rage]] from the opposing player, or in area buffs, which greatly increase the effectiveness of nearby friendly troops.

Characters who are under a certain size (read: not FUCKHUEG) cannot be targeted if not the closest model to the enemy without special rules helping the enemy (e.g. a squad of red scorpions tactical marines cannot dive in front of a leviathan dreadnought). Let the plebs take the hits.

====Phases====
[[Image:Sighing_Marine.jpg‎ |right|thumb|200px|If I ever find the fucker who nerfed Rhino Rush...]]

'''Be wary of the [[skub]]by tone the following sections are written in, because a dispute reigns about how some in-game mechanics are not realistic, but must be applied anyway.'''

The game is divided into seven phases: the Command Phase, the Movement Phase, the Psychic Phase, the Shooting Phase, the Charge Phase, the Fight Phase, and the Morale Phase - each forming a part of each individual player's turn. Quite simply, the Command Phase is for using abilities, the Movement Phase is for movement only, the Psychic Phase is for casting psychic powers, the Shooting Phase is for shooting (or rarely moving), while the charge phase is for trying to get your dudes into gloriously bloody combat, and the fight phase is for resolving said gloriously bloody combats. The morale phase is for seeing if any of your dudes run away after taking casualties in their unit.

To resolve Shooting, players first check to see if they are in range; '''if''' they are, they roll to hit; '''if''' they hit, they roll to wound; '''if''' they wound, the enemy rolls saves. The same rules apply no matter how close the shooter is to the target, though many units can’t shoot if right next to an enemy, and certain weapons fire twice as many shots at closer range, which on second thought makes even less sense. Seriously, people are bad shots in the 41st millennium. (Imagine news footage of pirate gunmen who are shooting from the hip with AK's even though they're not fast drawing, or holding said AK's in front of them in willful disregard that rifle butts go on shoulders, who can't even hold their guns level to fire aimed shots, let alone look down the gunsights, all the while standing in the middle of the street, which they can do because the guys downrange are doing the exact same thing. I don't know if I should cry or laugh.) Thus, [[derp|while within the maximum range of the weapon, neither range nor cover makes you harder to hit]] (although cover does grant a bonus to the save roll of the target).

It's maybe for this reason that individuals in the 41st millennium like to carry outrageously huge and outlandish shooting and melee weapons and [[Ork|like to get stuck in]] with them. The Fight Phase is resolved about the same as the Shooting Phase (which at least makes more sense, since you can parry a sword, but you can't parry a hypervelocity slug, let alone a high energy plasma ball of death or a coherent, high intensity light beam, examples in other works of fiction notwithstanding), melee combat once begun can be disengaged from (but those who Fall Back forfeit their ability to shoot or charge in their next turn), and units not engaged in melee combat can't fire upon combatants in melee. Also, generally speaking, the fight phase is the only phase which happens for both sides every turn - you get to engage in vigorous melee combat on both your turn '''and''' your enemy's turn.

Hit rolls for soldiers in a squad can be rolled together, as can saving rolls. As yet, the gameplay mechanics genii at Games Workshop have not conceived of some physics-defying method by which more than one die can be rolled simultaneously to represent the myriad possible results to an individual unit, such as a tank, and so tragically gamers are still forced to roll to hit, and to roll for wounding, first one and then the other. (Although it's thought by many this is deliberate to draw out the tension and suspense, since victory can hang on these successive rolls. It's also thought W40k players could instead play back alley craps games for the same effect, and save some money in the process.)

In the 41st millennium, military engineers have not yet devised an effective targeting or guidance system that would enable a tank killer to fire on enemy armor (tank sized targets) with confidence of hitting these targets, at the ranges typical of combat in this futuristic era. As such, infantry are frequently tragically forced to engage in melee combat against such armored monstrosities with chainswords, handfuls of potatomasher grenades, and standard issue steel balls.

Both shooting units (e.g. Space Marine Eradicators) and assault units (e.g. Dark Eldar Wyches) have great but very different roles to play. The 40K rulebook describes the manner in which the many varying unit attributes in 40K interrelate. At the end of the Turn, when casualties on both sides have been resolved from shooting and fighting, Leadership (Ld) tests of all sorts must be made. These test how many models from each unit that has taken casualties turn craven and run away, if any. The number of models that run depend on the amount of casualties taken, the highest Ld characteristic in the unit, and a D6 roll made by the controlling player. In this manner an army can be destroyed without actually killing each individual unit, as units that ''flee'' off the board are not allowed to return in the following turns.

====General 40k Tactics====
Contrary to popular belief, you *can* actually apply tactics to 40k beyond the "hurl-your-units-or-park-them-in-front-of-a-gunline-and-yell-for-your-respective-god". You will sometimes be called a cheesemongering win-at-all-costs bastard, because why treat toy soldiers you paid craptons of money for like pawns in a chess-game? [[Skub|Am i rite?]] Building your army-list is a very important part of this, but given two balanced lists, victory tends to go to the better general (or the far luckier one... <s>some days, the dice *really* hate you</s> the dice always hate you). Tactics are gladly discussed [[Warhammer_40,000/Tactics_(9E)|here]]. There are also myriad tactics articles for pretty much every current army with rules, for 8e, 7e, 6e and sometimes 5e.