Warhammer 40,000/10th Edition Tactics

This page is meant to index pages for the Warhammer 40,000 tactics dumps, and also acts as a repository for more general 40k tactics.

This is the current 10th Edition's General tactics. 9th Edition Tactics are here.

Significant Changes

• WS/BS and Attacks are now integrated to the weapon's statline, trimming down on the needs for monsters to have double-attack rules or heavy weapons with hit penalty rules.
• Leadership has gone from a roll-under to a roll-over setup, with the sample Marine's Ld7 being made into a Ld6+.
• Battle-shock is now resolved at the start of your command phase. All your Units Below Half-strength must roll.
• With 40k filled with too many units that know-no-fear, it was silly how we had an entire rule taken from Warhammer fantasy battles about soldiers fleeing mid-frights that the majority of armies would never do in-game or lore-wise. Reworked to make units suffer shellshock instead of spontaneous 'tactical retreat', and suffer several debuffs: 0 OC, make Desperate escape test when falling back, and unaffected by friendly Stratagems.
• Objective Control (OC) is a stat that will show how many models a single model in your squad represents when capping objectives. Battleline units tend to have an OC of at least 2, while tanks and monsters can go up to 5. Questoris Knights have OC 10.
• Grenades are now relegated to a keyword, just like the Smokescreens before them. Expect a CRB stratagem to keep them relevant.
• Vehicles and monsters have higher toughness. Most infantry-held weapons now only wound them on 5+s with few exceptions (and on top of that, high AP weapons are less common so armor saves are more important).
• Psychic phase no longer exists. Psychic powers take effect in whichever phase is specified by the power itself, and each psyker has a preset list of powers.

Core Stratagems

Core Stratagems

Category	Name	CP Cost	When	Target	Effect
Battle Tactic	Command Re-Roll	1	Any, just after rolling	None	After rolling a Hit, Wound, Damage, Advance, or Charge roll, or a Desperate Escape or Hazardous test, or a saving throw or the roll to determine the number of attacks for a weapon, re-roll the entire roll.
	Go to Ground	1	Opponent's Shooting, just after an enemy unit selects targets	1 infantry unit selected as a target by the enemy unit	Target unit gains a 6++ and the benefit of cover.
Epic Deed	Epic Challenge	1	Any Fight, just after selecting a Character unit that is Engaged with an Attached unit to fight	1 Character model in the target unit	Target gains Precision on all of its attacks so they can easily take out another attached character.
	Insane Bravery	1	Your Command, just after failing a Battle-Shock test	Unit that failed the test; this stratagem ignores the rule preventing it from affecting said unit	The unit passes the test.
Strategic Ploy	Counter-Offensive	2	Any Fight, just after an enemy unit fights	1 friendly engaged unit that has not fought yet	Target unit fights next.
	Fire Overwatch	1	Opponent's Movement or Charge, just after an enemy unit is set up or starts or ends a Normal, Advance, Fall Back, or Charge move	1 friendly unit within 24" of said enemy unit and that would be eligible to shoot if it were your Shooting phase; 1/turn	Target shoots said enemy unit as if it were your Shooting phase, except unmodified 6s to hit are required to score a hit. This means (for now) Torrent weapons cause an unsolvable rules paradox: Torrent says they automatically hit and this stratagem says they automatically miss due to not making a hit roll.
	Heroic Intervention	2	Opponent's Charge, just after an enemy unit ends a Charge move	1 friendly non-vehicle or walker vehicle unit within 6" of the enemy unit that just charged and which would be able to charge said enemy unit were it your Charge phase	Target unit declares a charge that only targets said enemy unit and resolves it as if it were your Charge phase.
	New Orders	1	Your Command, at the end; 1/battle	1 of your active Secondary Mission cards	Discard it and draw 1 new Secondary Mission card.
	Rapid Ingress	1	Opponent's Movement, at the end	1 friendly unit in Reserves	Target arrives as if it were the Reinforcements step of your Movement; does not allow the target to arrive on a battle-round it otherwise could not arrive in.
	Tank Shock	1	Your Charge	1 friendly vehicle unit	Until the end of the phase, when the target ends a charge move, select 1 enemy unit within Engagement, then select 1 melee weapon on the target. Roll Sd6, where S is the weapon's strength, plus 2d6 if the weapon's Strength beats the enemy unit's Toughness. Each 5+ inflicts a mortal wound on the enemy unit, to a maximum of 6 mortal wounds. This means a) you should only use this stratagem after successfully charging for the first time, and b) you get diminishing returns on the size of the dice pool past 6; you need a pool of 17 dice to deal about 5 mortal wounds on average and it's basically a non-starter throwing so many dice you can reliably deal all 6 mortal wounds. If you roll 9 or fewer dice, your expected output is slightly less than that of the Grenades stratagem (2.99 rather than 3).
Wargear	Grenade	1	Your Shooting	1 friendly non-Engaged Grenades unit that has not been selected to shoot yet	1 visible non-Engaged enemy unit within 8" of the target suffers mortal wounds: roll 6d6, each 4+ deals a mortal wound.
	Smokescreen	1	Opponent's Shooting, just after an enemy unit selects targets	1 friendly smoke unit that was selected as a target of said enemy unit	Until the end of the phase, target has the benefit of cover and the Stealth rule.

USRs

After spending two entire editions trying to negate them, GW finally decided to reintroduce Universal Special Rules once more. Alongside these rules is also the introduction of "Critical Hits" and "Critical Wounds", which pretty much stand for rolling unmodified 6s for hits and wounds respectively.

• Deadly Demise X: New name for the various rules for Vehicles exploding and thus on tanks and some monsters. If this unit dies, roll 1d6; on a 6, it deals X mortal wounds to every unit within 6".
• Deep Strike: After spending all of 8E and 9E trying to reword it in a million fancy rules, they're now back to where they started. The reserves these units hide in are the same as the strategic reserves, with a cap of 250/500/750 depending on the game's size. Units that deep strike can be set up at least 9" from an enemy.
• Fights First:...um, duh. This unit always fights before an enemy unless they also have this same rule.
  • If the subfactions are getting trimmed as much as we fear they are, we might be seeing this rule as much as we used to.
• Firing Deck X: Despite 8th Edition mostly doing away with it, firing ports are back. Some transports let you have X models inside it hand their gun to the transport to fire, so it once again means your chimeras and especially your trukks can do a lot more now.
• Hover: Certain flyers can choose to deploy in Hover mode, essentially turning them from regular aircraft (with all the movement limitations that entails and the need to enter Strategic Reserves if it flies into a table edge without moving the requisite minimum) to a giant flying tank with a fixed movement of 20" and loses out on any other benefits from being a flyer aside from being able to move from table edge to reserves.
• Infiltrators: This unit can be set up anywhere on the board at least 9" away from the enemy DZ and from any enemies.
• Invulnerable Save X+: This is still kicking around, but now the datacard makes it more obvious with a big shield instead of just a line in the rules.
• Feel No Pain X+: Another rule that didn't need a hundred different rewordings. It's another "save" you can take after getting damaged, but you have to save against each point of damage individually, just like the Emperor intended. Note that despite working like a save, it isn't one, so abilities that interact with saves, like Mortal Wounds being Mortal or a rule that lets you re-roll saves, won't apply.
  • This can be limited based on what inflicted the damage, e.g. only against mortal wounds or only against psychic attacks.
• Leader: Pretty much explains which characters can attach themselves to units. Unlike prior editions, each character will only have an explicit list of units which they can attach themselves to. Any attacks against this squad will be resolved using the attached unit's stats over the leader's.
• Lone Operative: Prevents certain heroes from being shot at unless they're within at least 12" of the shooter.
• Psychic: With the psychic phase gone, this is your only way to indicate what weapons and rules are psychic powers, meaning that it applies to Force Weapons again. However, it no longer really does anything than indicate that a certain weapon or ability is psychic in nature, in case you have something that can ignore it like a Sister of Silence.
• Scouts X": Yet another rule that got too many variants. Lets a unit move X" after deploying but before the game begins.
• Stealth: Enemies shooting at this unit suffer -1 to hit. Not quite cover, but it can still stack. One of the few rules that requires all models in a unit to have it.

Weapon USRs

• Blast: You get +1 attack for every 5 models in the target unit. For instance, shooting a 10-man strong unit with a blast weapon which has natively D3 attacks will net you D3+2 attacks. However, this can't be used when in engagement range, even on a tank or a monster, and it ignores cases where multiple "bodies" share one model, like an Imperial Guard Heavy Weapons Team.
• Extra Attacks: Lets you use an additional weapon after fighting in melee. Likely to be saved for any special melee pairs, like whatever the greater daemons use or a Succubus's shardnet+impaler.
• Hazardous: The new edition of Gets Hot!, but even more dangerous since it also incorporates Perils of the Warp. After a unit finishes attacking, roll 1d6 per Hazardous weapon used; a 1 kills a model, though Character, Vehicle, and Monster units just suffer 3 Mortal Wounds. Note that unlike in every previous edition, this does not scale with shots per weapon.
• Ignores Cover: If you need to ask what this does, it ignores the rock you've been living under for the last nine editions.
• Indirect Fire: Your mortar and artillery rules. Lets you shoot at non-visible units at a -1 to hit, and the target receives cover (though it will often be paired with the Ignores Cover rule).
• One Shot: Single-use weapons. Once it's used, it's done.
• Precision: Better known as Sniper or Precision Shots/Hits, allows a successful wound to ignore the typical wall of bodies to pick out a single Leader model to hit. Requires you to wound, but does not require a specific wound roll.
• Torrent: Given to spray weapons like the Flamer, granting them their auto-hit properties.

Based on Movement

• Assault: Like last edition, Assault Weapons can be fired after advancing. Unlike last edition, doing so no longer inflicts any penalties to hit.
• Heavy: Weapons with this rule can be fired on the move, but they add +1 to hit if the model hasn't moved before shooting/fighting. Does absolutely nothing when combined with Torrent.
• Lance: Here meaning actual lances, not something like a Brightlance. If this unit charges, they gain +1 to wound. Poor synergy with Lethal Hits.

Based on Range

• Melta X: Meltaguns and other Melta-adjacent weapons always worked better at half-range anyway. This adds +X to the gun's damage if you fire it within half its listed range.
• Rapid Fire X: A mix between how last edition did it and the Orks' Dakka weapons. If this gun is fired at half-range, they now add +X extra attacks instead of automatically doubling the number of attacks it makes.
• Pistol: Allows pistols to shoot while in engagement range. However, they can't be shot alongside any other non-pistol guns unless you're using a Monster or Vehicle.

Based on Hit Roll

• Conversion: Remember how Conversion Beamers were actually better the further away they were from the target? This makes any unmodified successful hit rolls of 4+ on a target over 12" away count as a critical hit, i.e. they will succeed automatically even if a negative modifier would otherwise stop them, in addition to triggering other Critical Hit USRs you have, if any. This is based on both your hit roll and range, but is listed here because of its incompatibility with Torrent.
• Lethal Hits: Any critical hits automatically wound, and hence can't critically wound to trigger anything like Devastating Wounds.
• Sustained Hits X: Rolling a critical hit deals +X additional hits. Seems stuck on very rapid-fire weapons like Shuriken Cannons and Heavy Bolters.

Based on Wound Roll

• Anti-KEYWORD X+: Any attacks against a unit with the mentioned KEYWORD that roll an X+ to wound count as being critical wounds.
• Devastating Wounds: Rolling critical wounds makes any damage the attack deals mortal wounds. Can give otherwise outgunned squads the ability to threaten tanks, demons, dodgy space elves, etc.
• Twin-Linked: Back from the dead, this lets you re-roll to wound. Even better, this can now be applied to melee weapons in some cases where the model is dual-wielding, like Lightning Claws.

Unnamed

Like in the past two editions, there are rules many armies copy and for no discernible reason, GW refuses to accomplish this via USRs. The following rules can be found across many units and factions, but they will be named something different every time.

• CP Refund X+: Each time you target this (model's) unit with a Stratagem, roll 1d6; on an X+, you gain 1 CP.
• Objective Dice: At the end of your Control Phase, for every objective you control with at least 1 unit with this rule, roll a die and add it to your army's dice pool. Found on armies that have dice pools as their mechanic (Eldar and Sisters of Battle).
  • Objective CP X+: The same rule for armies that don't have dice pools; the rolled die will gain you 1 CP on an X+, subject to the usual maximum of 1.
• Objective-linked X: When this model makes a X attack, re-roll a wound roll of 1; if the unit being attacked is within range of an objective, re-roll wound rolls. X is melee or ranged.
  • There is a rare nerfed version of this that only upgrades to full re-rolls if you don't control the objective in question.
• Objective Super-secured: If this (model's) unit controls an objective at the end of your Command Phase, it remains under your control until your enemy controls it.
  • There is a rare improved version of this which also extends the ability to any transport carrying the unit.

Playing the Game

Command Phase 101

Command 101

Both players gain 1 CP, and then resolve all rules that resolve in the Command Phase. This means even a rule that says it resolves "at the X of the Command Phase" resolves now, even if X is "beginning" (you get your 1 CP first and so does your opponent) or "end" (you don't resolve Battle-Shock yet).

Battle-Shock 101

If any of your units on the battlefield are Below Half-Strength (remember, if your Starting Strength is 1, Below Half-Strength means below half wounds), they have to pass a roll on 2d6 as shown on their datacard under "Ld" (for a combined unit, use the best, i.e. lowest displayed number, Ld in the unit) - e.g. if you see 7+, 7+ is a pass. On a failure, the unit is Battle-Shocked until the start of your next Command Phase, meaning:

• The OC stat of every model in it is set to 0.
• If it Falls Back, every model in it must take a Desperate Escape test (see Movement).
• Its controlling player can't "affect" the unit with Stratagems.
  • This is word salad relative to the other game rules; in the general case, it's not clear when a stratagem is "affecting" or not a "unit" or not. For example, Tank Shock only targets one of your own units, but 100% of the stratagem's effects apply only to an enemy unit. Is the target unit "affected"? For another, Command Re-roll has no target at all, but can explicitly be applied to a single model or a single attack. If a model is affected, is its unit? If an attack is affected, is its model? Until this is FAQed, expect a lot of skub.

Your base odds of passing battleshock based on your listed Ld:

1. 100%
2. 100%
3. 97%
4. 92%
5. 83%
6. 72%
7. 58%
8. 42%
9. 28%
10. 17%
11. 08%
12. 03%
13. 00%

Movement Phase 101

If you have a unit outside of engagement, they can either move normally, advance (adding d6" to the unit's movement and barring them from charging or firing any guns that lack Assault) or sit still.

• This is also where you can enter or leave transports, with the former essentially only triggering if your unit's within 3" of a transport while the latter only happens at the start of the phase. While the vehicle can move as usual, the unit that just left will count as if they had just moved and thus will be unable to charge.
  • If a transport blows up, you need to roll a d6 for every model inside it, with each 1 dealing a mortal wound. The unit will then immediately leave the transport and become Battleshocked.

If you have a unit engaged in combat, they can stay where they are or fall back, forcing them to move away from the enemy they were just fighting and being unable to shoot or charge afterwards.

• If your unit's been Battleshocked or is moving through another enemy unit, you now have to account for the Desperate Escape test. These force you to roll a d6 for each model in the unit, with a 1 or 2 meaning that the enemy just cut that model down as they were fleeing.

Reserves 101

As with last edition, you can abstain from deploying certain units and store them in Strategic Reserves to deploy later. Unlike last edition though, you have a points cap on how many units you can throw in here (250/500/750 points or 25% of the total army cost) since Power Level got axed. Of course, units with Deep Strike do not count as part of this allotment.

Regardless of how they got there, you can deploy any units in reserves at the end of the Movement phase. Any such units that get deployed count as if they had just moved - which isn't nearly as troubling as in prior editions as any Heavy weapons can still fire after moving. While all units cannot be within 9" of an enemy unit, units coming from Strategic Reserves need to stay at within 6" of a table edge and not within the enemy DZ (on round 2) or just within 6" of a table edge (on round 3+).

Modes of Play

• Combat Patrol: Capitalizing on all those premade detachment boxes, this lets you play with one immediately with special rules provided in the box. The tradeoff is that you can only use what's in the box to make the army and they all use dumbed-down versions of their datacards.
• Boarding Patrol: Returning from last edition, now a clear prototype of what was to come.
• Incursion/Strike Force/Onslaught: The big battles and the least constrained.

Tempest of War

So rather than full pages of battleplans, you're now getting them set up in decks of cards. Alongside the deployment rules, primary mission objectives and mission rules (generally special conditions for a game, likely to cover something like Night Fighting), you've now got secondary objectives (now differentiated between attacker and defender rather than last edition's categories) as well as Gambits (end-game objectives that let you ditch your primary objective for some very risky goal that can potentially score you a massive amount of VP).

<tabs> <tab name="Mission Rules">

• Sweep and Clear: If you have a unit claim an objective at the end of your Command phase, the objective remains claimed until someone comes to claim it. Plenty of battleline troops have something like this already, so you're using this to even the field for armies less keen on using battleline troops.

</tab> <tab name="Primary Missions">

• Take and Hold: At the end of every Command phase after the first, you score 5 VP for each objective held up to a max of 15 VP (though at turn 5, the guy who went second scores at the end of their turn since presumably there's no point for stalling any later).

</tab> <tab name="Secondary Missions - Attacker">

• Capture Enemy Outpose: Score 8 VP when you capture an objective on the enemy's DZ.

</tab> <tab name="Secondary Missions - Defender">

• Overwhelming Force: You score 3 VP for every enemy you destroy while they're near an objective, with a max of 5 VP.
  • This objective is considered finished at the end of any turn where you score from it, meaning that you'll be needing all you can get to wipe out the one or two units you want done.

</tab> <tab name="Gambits - Attacker">

• Proceed as Planned: Ignore the gambit, you continue scoring VPs from your primary mission.

</tab> <tab name="Gambits - Defender">

• Orbital Strike Coordinates: When you have a unit that aren't Battleshocked within 9" of a table corner that isn't on your side of the table at the end of turn 5, you can roll 2d6, adding +1 for any further such units within 9" of any table corner that isn't engaged or Battleshocked. If you roll a 12+, you immediately score 30 VP. The enemy can't claim the battlefield if the battlefield got blasted off the face of the planet!

</tab> <tab name="GT Packs">

• PLACEHOLDER:

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (10th Edition)

General Tactics	General Weapons Terrain
Imperium	Space Marines (Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Deathwatch, Space Wolves) Grey Knights
	Adeptus Mechanicus Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Sisters of Battle
	Adeptus Custodes & Sisters of Silence Imperial Agents (Inquisition, Rogue Traders, etc.)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons World Eaters)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Chaos Titans
Eldar	Eldar (Craftworlds, Corsairs, Harlequins, Ynnari) Dark Eldar
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults
Votann	Leagues of Votann

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (9th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications Tactical Terrain Weapons Apocalypse
Imperium	Space Marines (Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Space Wolves) Grey Knights
	Adeptus Mechanicus Adeptus Titanicus Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Sisters of Battle
	Adeptus Custodes & Sisters of Silence Inquisition Officio Assassinorum Rogue Traders
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons World Eaters)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Craftworld Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins Ynnari
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults
Votann	Leagues of Votann

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (8th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications Apocalypse
Imperium	Space Marines Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Talons of the Emperor (Custodes and Sisters of Silence) Adeptus Mechanicus
	Adeptus Ministorum (Sisters of Battle and minor factions) Adeptus Titanicus
	Imperial Knights Imperial Guard Inquisition Officio Assassinorum
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (Death Guard Thousand Sons)
	Chaos Daemons Chaos Knights Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (7th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications
Imperium	Space Marines (Siege Assault Vanguard) Blood Angels Dark Angels Deathwatch Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Adeptus Custodes Cult Mechanicus Skitarii Adeptus Sororitas
	Imperial Knights Inquisition Officio Assassinorum
	Imperial Guard (Armoured Battlegroup Death Korps of Krieg Assault Brigade Death Korps of Krieg Siege Regiment Elysian Drop Troops D-99)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines Khorne Daemonkin Chaos Daemons Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Harlequins Corsairs
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks Ork Dred Mob
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids Genestealer Cults

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (6th Edition)

General Tactics	General Movement Psychic Fortifications
Imperium	Space Marines Blood Angels Dark Angels Grey Knights Space Wolves
	Adeptus Sororitas Inquisition
	Imperial Guard (Armoured Battlegroup Death Korps of Krieg Assault Brigade Death Korps of Krieg Siege Regiment Elysian Drop Troops) Militarum Tempestus
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines Chaos Daemons Renegades and Heretics
Eldar	Eldar Dark Eldar Corsairs
Necrons	Necrons
Orks	Orks Ork Dred Mob
Tau	Tau
Tyranids	Tyranids

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Warhammer 40,000 Tactics Articles (All)

General Tactics	General (8th) Movement (8th 7th) Psychic (8th 7th 2nd) Fortifications (8th 7th) Tactical Terrain Apocalypse (8th)
Imperium (8th)	Space Marines (8th 7th 6th 5th 4th 3rd) Blood Angels (8th 7th) Dark Angels (8th 7th) Deathwatch (8th 7th) Grey Knights (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd, AKA Daemonhunters) Space Wolves (8th 7th 6th 5th)
	Talons of the Emperor (Custodes and Sisters of Silence) (8th 7th) Adeptus Mechanicus (8th 7th) Adeptus Ministorum (Sisters of Battle and minor factions) (8th 7th 6th 3rd, AKA Witch Hunters) Adeptus Titanicus (8th)
	Imperial Knights (8th 7th) Imperial Guard (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd) Inquisition (8th 7th 6th) Officio Assassinorum (8th 7th)
Chaos	Chaos Space Marines (8th 7th 6th 5th) Death Guard (8th) Khorne Daemonkin - 7th Edition Thousand Sons (8th) Chaos Daemons (8th 7th) Chaos Knights (8th) Renegades and Heretics (8th 7th 6th)
Eldar	Eldar (8th 7th 6th 5th) Dark Eldar (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd Revised) Harlequins (8th 7th)
Necrons	Necrons (8th 7th 6th 5th 4th)
Orks	Orks (8th 7th 6th 5th 3rd) Ork Dred Mob - 7th edition (6th 5th) Ork Kult of Speed - 3rd edition Feral Orks - 3rd edition
Tau	Tau (8th 7th 6th 5th)
Tyranids	Tyranids (8th 7th 6th 5th) Genestealer Cults (8th 7th)

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