The 7th Edition 40K Rulebook Review - Warlord Traits (Part 5)

Just a (comparatively) short post today to talk about the Warlord Traits in the new rulesbook. Tomorrow I'll be talking about army selection in the new edition and as you'll see there, the advantage of a Combined Arms detachment is that you get a re-roll on the traits table. That's a pretty big deal when you're often getting a trait that simply doesn't apply to your army or isn't particularly useful if it does.

In the 6th edition book we were offered traits from Command, Personal and Strategic. These tables are still there but in addition we've got Tactical traits which are closely related to the Tactical Objectives and hence the Maelstrom of War missions (there'll be a post about those too).

Command Traits
Inspiring Presence - same.
Intimidating Presence - same.
The Dust of a Thousand Worlds - same.
Master of the Vanguard - changed to a +1" to run and charge moves rather than simply a extra dice when running.
Target Priority - now gives re-rolls on 1s to hit all the time not just when shooting objective holders.
Co-ordinated Assault - no longer affects charge distance but now gives re-rolls of 1s to hit in combat.

Not a bad selection really and most armies will find any of the results useful. I can't remember ever rolling on this chart as I was usually trying to get night fighting with my Dark Eldar so rolled on Strategic. Speaking of which...

Strategic Traits
Conqueror of Cities - same.
Night Attacker - same but now your army gets Night Vision making it useful for everyone.
Master of Ambush - allows three non-vehicle units to Infiltrate (used to give Acute Senses to Outflankers).
Strategic Genius - same re-roll to reserves but now also gives +1 to Seize.
Divide to Conquer - same.
Princeps of Deceit - no silly redeployments, instead causes three enemy units to take a Pinning test.

Like the Command traits these have received a bit of a buff. Dark Eldar used to love Night Attacker but now any army can make use of it. I sincerely hope that Dark Eldar have a way of making it night fighting outside of this though when their new book hits. I don't think there's a bad trait in this list actually. Only way for some armies to get Reserves manipulation too, especially with a lot of Battle Brothers being taken away.

Personal Traits
Master of Defence - gives Counter Attack all the time now, not just in deployment zone.
Master of Offence - as above, now get Furious Charge all the time but only the warlord, not his unit too.
Master of Manoeuvre - still gives Outflank which is passed on to a unit he joins.
Legendary Fighter - same.
Tenacity - just warlord gets FNP but all the time, not just when controlling an objective.
Immovable Object - Fearless and It Will Not Die. Used to make him scoring but everything is now!

Generally these traits have gotten more personal which you'd expect from the name. Easier to remember them though as they aren't specific to where the warlord is e.g. in his deployment zone. That makes them more useful but I think this is probably the weakest of the tables since, for the most part, they only benefit your warlord. Could be useful for a particularly powerful warlord but I'd rather have army-wide benefits.

Tactical Traits
These traits basically manipulate the Tactical Objectives allowing for more discards, extra VPs, etc. Difficult to say how useful these are because I've not played a Maelstrom game yet. From what I've read though these games can often result in a gap opening up between players, so it's probably worth rolling on this chart to give you the best possible chance of victory in your games.

Conclusion
There's some nice changes to the existing warlord traits with things getting a lot simpler and better for the most part. Still, generally speaking, the codex specific traits are better. Having the option to roll on these tables does give you some flexibility though depending on the army you're facing and having that re-roll will really help to get a trait that's useful. As it stands at the moment my Orks, Space Wolves and Dark Eldar are all forced to roll on these tables but I'm hoping not for much longer. In the meantime though I won't be complaining too much.

To be honest though, this was one of the things that I didn't really see the point of in 6th edition. It adds a random aspect to the game which can make things more interesting but in practice it's another thing to roll for during pre-game and another thing to remember. How many times have you only remembered your warlord trait after he's died? It's also frustrating that some of the special characters have a fixed trait which just feels like a special rule has been stolen from them.