In this video, we’re going to cover the
basics of how to play Warhammer 40,000 9th edition. Whether you’ve just discovered the hobby,
used to play a previous version, or just want a quick recap, this is the perfect video for
you. You’re watching Midwinter Minis. My name is Guy, and to help you learn the
rules, we’re going to play a small practice game. I’ll be playing as the Orks, a savage race
of aliens that love charging in and smashing stuff up. Joining me is my partner Penny… Hello everyone, I’ll be Guy’s opponent,
and I’m playing as Necrons today: basically undead skeleton robots… in space. These guys are good at shooting, and difficult
to kill. Now, these are just two of the armies you’ll
find in Warhammer 40k. There’s loads of different kinds… Space Marines, imperial guard, terrifying
bug monsters, sci-fi elves, literal demons, massive mechs… If you’re brand new to Warhammer and don’t
have any models yet, I’d recommend you just go for whatever models you think look the
coolest first. You’ll probably have loads of fun building
and painting them, and you’ll be inspired to play some games! You don’t need a huge army with hundreds
of models to play your first game, I’d always recommend starting out with just 1 or 2 boxes
of models. This will help you get your head around the
rules, without bogging you down, memorising loads of statistics, profiles, and special
rules. As you get more experience, you can start
adding things at a pace that you feel comfortable with. So, let’s assume that you’ve picked up
a few models. There’s a couple of other things you’ll
need to play your first game. You’re going to need a few 6-sided dice. You’ll also need a measuring tape that shows
inches. And, to give your models something to hide
behind and use as cover, it’s good to have a few terrain pieces. This can be stuff you’ve bought, things
you’ve made yourself, or anything you have lying around, really. Shoeboxes, books, and bottles make great starter
terrain! A bit of imagination, and it’s not junk
from your shelf: it’s a munitions factory, a chemical silo, or a hi-tech storage facility. Let’s take a quick look at what models we’ll
be using in this game. This is my little Ork army. Leading them is this crazy character. This is a Weirdboy, a powerful Ork that’s
full of psychic energy. He hasn’t got any guns, but he can channel
his psychic powers to do nasty things to his enemies. I have a squad of Ork boyz, the core foot
soldiers of any Ork army. They have a squad leader, a bigger, nastier
Ork known as a Nob… they’re armed with choppas and powerful pistols called sluggas. One of the Ork boyz has a massive machine
gun called a big shoota. Finally, I have this clanky looking mech called
a Deff Dread. It’s tough, well armoured, and packs a mean
punch up close with its huge claws and a flamethrower. Well, I’m not too worried about that because
I’ve got 20 spooky robot skeletons that are going to laser your green space monkeys
to death. Are you going to tell people what they’re
actually called? Maybe. These are Necrons, and this little army is
really simple. 2 squads of Necron Warriors, 10 models in
each team. They’re all using the same weapon: gauss
flayers. Now, all of these models have statistics that
tell you what they’re able to do in the game. This is called a Datasheet. Don’t worry, this might look a bit complicated
at first, but it’s quite simple, let’s do a quick introduction to each stat so you
know what to look out for when we’re actually playing. M stands for Movement: this is how far these
models can move, measured in inches. WS means weapon skill: how good they are at
fighting up close. BS stands for ballistic skill, or how accurate
they are at shooting. S stands for strength, and T stands for toughness. These are used to determine whether or not
attacks actually cause wounds. … and speaking of wounds, that’s what
the W means: how many wounds a model can sustain before it dies. A stands for attacks, the number of physical
attacks that model can make in the up-close fight phase. Ld is for leadership: how brave or disciplined
that model is, and finally, Sv stands for… well, Save. That represents the defensive property of
the model’s armour. Don’t worry if that was a lot to take in,
we’ll learn about how each stat works in the game as we go during this video. Some models also have special rules that will
help them out during the game, and we’ll bring these up as we use them, too. Most armies in the game also have things called
subfactions that add even more special rules… clans for the orks, dynasties for the necrons,
but for this game, we’ll ignore them to keep things simple. While this video will teach you all the core
concepts and the basics of how to play, it’s also helpful to have the official rules handy,
too. There’s an official free pdf of the core
rules on the Warhammer website, you can find a link to that in the video description. There’s an official app, too, which also
has the core rules. If you prefer having a book, the official
rulebook for the game itself is filled with loads of backstory, cool art, little stories,
and - of course - the full rules, covering everything you need to know for the actual
game itself. Also, each army also has its own rulebook,
known as a codex, that has all the statistics for all of the models in that army, and the
army-wide special rules. So, to find the Necron Warriors datasheets,
you’ll want to pick up the Necron codex, for the Weirdboy, Ork Boyz, and Deff Dread,
you’ll find them in the Ork codex, and so on. If you’re brand new to the hobby, these
are very heavy reads. I would recommend staying away from them until
you’re a little bit more confident with the basics that we’ll be teaching you here. One free app that we use every single time
we play Warhammer 40k is called Battlescribe. It’s a simple army builder that features
basic information on your army, their statistics, and their rules. A very handy reference! Once you’ve built your list based on the
models that you have, you can hit the view button, and it’ll show you all the rules
and stats you need to play. If you don’t have a codex, you might want
to print this out for easy reference later on. Okay! Ready to play our first game, and the perfect
time to bring up the most important rule: HAVE FUN! Remember that you’re playing a game, and
that games are meant to be fun! If you’re unsure of a rule or can’t figure
out how a specific thing works, just make a note of it so you can figure it out later,
come to an agreement with your opponent on how to proceed, and carry on with your game. Here’s our little battlefield setup with
some terrain. Penny and I agreed that this short game is
going to last 3 battle rounds. Regular games of 40k last between 4 and 6. We’ve also got 4 objective markers on the
table. Our armies can score victory points by controlling
them, being within 3” of an objective at the start of their turn. For this mission, objectives will be worth
5 victory points each if they’re held. We start scoring these from battle round 2. The winner will be whoever has the most victory
points, or whoever totally destroys their opponent’s army. This makes games of 40k a bit more interesting
than just shooting and chopping each other into bits. Now we’re going to deploy our squads so
they’re 24” from each other. That way, we’ll be able to show you the
different dynamics of the game, both at longer range, and up close. Just a quick note on terminology for the rules
before we begin: individual fighters within a squad are referred to as models, while the
squads are referred to as units. When placing and moving your models, if they’re
in units like both these Boyz or Warriors are, you need to keep the models in what’s
called “unit coherency”. Which is basically a fancy way of saying that
models have to be within 2” of each other. In Warhammer 40k, we always measure distances
from the edges of the bases, not any weird sticky out bits on the models themselves. One last thing before we begin: 9th edition
40k uses a concept called command points, special points which can be used to enact
tactics called stratagems. For this example game, to keep things simple,
each army will only get 1 command point to use for the whole game, and the only stratagems
we’ll be able to use are the command point re-roll, which lets you reroll certain failed
tests, saves, and rolls if you just really hate the result, or overwatch: the ability
to desperately shoot at a unit that’s charging you. Okay, the models are set up in our deployment
zones, and are ready to fight. To decide who goes first, we roll off! I rolled higher, so I get to go first! Each turn consists of a few different phases,
these are… COMMAND MOVEMENT PSYCHIC SHOOTING CHARGE FIGHT … and MORALE Let’s work through them in order. Orks turn 1 The command phase is when you score victory
points, generate command points if our armies are battle forged, and where some powerful
leaders may issue commands to their troops to improve their abilities. My Orks don’t have anything like that, and
we wait until round 2 to start scoring victory points from objectives… and we said we’d
stick to having just 1 command point for this demo game, so we don’t have to do anything
during this command phase. In the movement phase, I can move my models
if I want to. We can find out how far they can move by looking
at the Datasheet. As we said, the “M” is for movement, and
we can see that the Weirdboy and Ork Boyz have a movement of 5”. These Boyz will start moving up the battlefield
towards the necrons. The Weirdboy will do the same, staying behind
the boyz for a bit of protection. The Deff Dread has a movement of 6”, but
because its weapons only have a 12” range, it wants to close the gap fast. It’s going to do a special move called an
“advance”, where it sacrifices shooting or charging to move even further. To determine how many extra inches it moves,
we roll a dice, and add the number to its move characteristic. A 4, so adding 4 inches to its 6 inch move,
that means I’ll be running up the battlefield 10 inches. Rather than run in a straight line, I’m
going to aim at that objective marker so I end up within 3 inches of it. That means at the start of the next battle
round, I’ll score some victory points. All of my models have moved now… you can
keep your models still if you want, but once you’re happy, it’s time to move onto the
psychic phase. The psychic phase is where powerful warp-infused
psykers can use their powers. My Psyker, the weirdboy, knows 3 abilities… Da Krunch, which can smash my enemies to bits,
Warpath, which makes my Orks even more ferocious in close combat, and Smite - the default offensive
psychic power that all psykers in 40k can use. Annoyingly, those abilities all have an 18”
range, and the weirdboy is too far away from the necrons to do anything this turn. So let’s move straight onto the shooting
phase. I can now choose to fire at Penny’s Necrons
from any unit that has weapons in range… so now let’s take a look at the datasheet
for our weapons… and, huh, all our sluggas only have a 12 inch range, and Penny’s Necrons
are about 19” away. That means only the big shoota, with a 36”
range, can shoot. To let Penny know what my intentions are,
I declare my targets… so, I’m firing the big shoota from this squad of ork boyz into
that squad of necron warriors. Oooo, they’re quaking in their skeleton
boots… To find out how many shots we get to take,
we look at the weapon type. This type is Dakka 5/3. That’s a special ork weapon type, meaning
it can fire 5 times at half range, that would be within 18 inches, or 3 times at its max
range of 36… so, we’re at 19 inches, so we’re only going to get 3 shots. Better make them count! I pick up 3 dice, 1 for each shot my weapons
are making. Now, we need to find out if these shots are
accurate, and actually hit their target. This is known as rolling to hit. To figure out what we need to roll, we look
at the Ork Boyz datasheet again, but this time we’re looking for their BS: ballistic
skill. Orks aren’t the most accurate marksman,
and we can see it says “5+”, so for each dice we roll that lands on a 5, or higher,
that shot will hit its mark. We’d call this roll requirement a “5-up” Let’s do it... Okay, that was actually pretty lucky, 2 hits! Let’s remove the single dice that failed,
and then we can roll to see if any of those accurate shots wound the Necron Warriors. This is called rolling to wound. To figure out what we need to roll, we compare
the strength - S - of the big shoota, against the toughness - T - of the Necron Warriors. The big shoota is a pretty powerful weapon,
and has a strength of 5. The Necron Warriors have a toughness of 4. Because the strength of the attack is greater
than the toughness of the target, the shots will wound on a 3+. Let’s roll… Nice, both of those dice score 3 or higher,
meaning both shots wound. Now, there’s a chance that the Necron’s
armour plates could negate the wounds from this attack. For each successful wound I just rolled, the
victim of the attacks, that’s Penny, has to roll 1 dice. So, 2 dice in hand, but what do I need to
roll? I check out the Necron Warrior datasheet,
and see that they have a Save value of 4+, that means that if I roll a 4 or higher on
any of these dice, the warrior’s armour will protect them, and they don’t lose the
wound. Let’s roll… one success, but one failure. That means my Necron warrior unit takes one
wound, and as we can see, the WOUND stat says 1… that means each model only has 1 wound,
so a single model from the unit was shot and destroyed by the big shoota, and has to be
removed from play… or DOES IT? Necrons have a special rule called “reanimation
protocols”… basically they’re always reassembling and putting themselves back together. For every wound I lose, I can roll another
dice, and if I score a 5 or a 6, the destroyed Necron puts itself back together, and can
be put back onto the battlefield… Oh well, not this time… Bye bye skeleboi. If one of your units takes wounds, you decide
which models to remove, not the person doing the attacking. As none of the other weapons are in range,
that means it’s now the end of the shooting phase, and we move onto the charge phase. For a unit to be able to charge, they need
to be a maximum of 12” away from an enemy. This is because the charge distance is determined
by rolling 2 dice and combining the results. The Orks are still quite far away, so there’s
no way the Boyz can charge the Necrons, and the Deff Dread advanced, so it can’t charge. Let’s move on to the fight phase. But as we know, no units successfully charged,
and there are no ongoing fights, so we can skip straight to the morale phase. This happens at the end of each player’s
turn. Units that lost models now have to see if
any of their squadmates are scared off by the carnage happening around them. To see if any of my Necrons run away, I check
their leadership value on the datasheet… that’s 10, really high, meaning they almost
never retreat. Let me run you through how to take a leadership
test though, even though I know I’m going to pass it. Even though the rules call it a “morale
test”, you’ll find that most players, us included, still call it a “leadership
test”. That’s what it was called in most previous
editions of the game, and old habits die hard. First, you roll a single dice, and add the
number of models you lost from that squad to the number you roll… So that’s 4 + 1 If that number goes OVER the leadership value,
then we fail the test. Obviously I couldn’t have failed, because
even if I rolled a 6, I would have scored a maximum of 7, which is not even close to
my leadership of 10. I’m sure we’ll see what that looks like
in a minute when I start shooting at the Ork Boyz, I obviously passed this test, and nothing
else needs to be done. That’s my turn over, and it’s time for
Penny to take her turn in battle round 1. Okay, Necrons turn 1, and I start with the
command phase. This is normally where you’d generate more
command points if your army was battle forged, but as Guy said at the start, we’re just
getting a single command point each this whole game…. And I can’t score points this turn because
it’s round 1, so let’s get straight on with the movement phase. Let’s take a quick look at the necron warrior
datasheet… and we’ve got a 5 inch movement. Even though I want to try to grab one of those
objectives in the middle, getting close to the Orks is a stupid idea, so this bottom
squad are going to back off a bit, but keeping all of those models within range of my gauss
flayers… that’s 24 inches. Well, I’m not keen on getting too close
to that Deff Dread, so I’m going to move this top squad back a bit so I’m still within
3 inches of this objective, controlling it, but hopefully to too far away from the orky
mech thing for it to charge me in Guy’s next turn. That’s both of my squads moved, now onto
the psychic phase, but I don’t have any psyker models, Guy’s weirdboy is the only
one. Nothing to do here, on to the shooting phase. This is where the Necrons really shine. First off, declare your targets… I’m going to use my top unit to fire at
the deff dread, and the bottom unit to fire at the boyz. Even if I wanted to fire at the weirdboy,
and I was in range, I couldn’t at the moment, because he’s a character… it says “character”
on his datasheet… and that means I can’t target him unless he’s the closest unit
to the unit that’s firing… think of it like the boyz are getting in the way, protecting
him. Let’s do the top squad first… 10 Necron warriors firing Gauss Flayers, which
have the type “rapid fire 1”. This means they do 1 shot normally, but at
half range, they double their shots. Their range is 24 inches, and the deff dread
isn’t within my half range, so just 10 shots for this unit of necrons. 10 dice in hand... Necrons Warriors are pretty accurate, and
you can see their ballistic skill is 3+. This means they’ll hit on any result that’s
a 3 or higher. Let’s roll! 6 hits, not bad. Now, let’s see if the successful shots hurt
the deff dread. The gauss flayer’s strength is 4… but
the deff dread has a huge toughness of 7! Because the attacking strength is less than
the target’s toughness, you have a smaller chance to inflict damage, and only wound on
a 5 or more. Let’s roll those 6 successful shots and
see if we hurt it. Okay, 3 of them are successful. That nasty orky mech thing is pretty heavily
armoured though, and you can see on its profile it has a save value of 3+. That would mean that Guy gets to roll 3 dice,
and try to negate those wounds on any roll of a 3 or more… BUT these Necrons have got a little trick
up their sleeves. Do skeletons have sleeves? No, but they do have ARMOUR PENETRATION. If you look at the Gauss Flayers weapon profile,
under AP - armour penetration - it says -1. That means you reduce armour saves against
that weapon by 1… so that 3+ becomes a 4+. Okay, so let me try to save those wounds by
rolling a 4 or more for each wound… Ah, only 1… Each successful Gauss Flayer attack only causes
1 damage… so that’s 2 damage total to go through to the Deff Dread. Unlike the Warriors and Ork Boyz though, the
Deff Dread doesn’t just have 1 wound, it has lots, to represent that it’s a big,
hulking machine that’s difficult to kill. Looking at its profile, we see it has a W
- WOUNDS - of 8. So we take 2 wounds off it, bringing it down
to 6. A lot of people like to leave a small dice
next to models with lots of wounds, showing how many wounds it has left, to remind both
you, and your opponent. Okay, time for the next unit to fire. I’m targeting the Ork Boyz, but this time
I’ve only got 9 Warriors firing because Guy killed one of them in his turn. Rude. So, 9 shots, hitting on 3s, the ballistic
skill of the Warriors. Ho ho, nice, 8 shots hit. Now, let’s figure out what we need to wound. We know the Gauss Flayers are strength 4…
let’s take a look at the Orks toughness… 5! That means my attacking strength is STILL
lower than the target’s toughness, so I’m still wounding on 5s. Let’s roll those 8 successful hits and see
if we wound… Oh no, just 3! Now let’s see if Guy’s Ork Boyz can fend
off those wounds with armour saves. If we look at the Save value on the Ork profile,
we can see it says 6+... they’re basically just wearing makeshift armour and tshirts,
not very protective. But remember the armour penetration value
on my gauss flayers? It’s -1, so that makes that 6+ save 1 point
worse, making it 7… which is impossible to roll on a 6 sided dice, so Guy doesn’t
get to make any armour saves at all. We know that 3 wounds have been caused. Again, the damage on the Gauss Flayers is
just 1, so each wound will kill exactly 1 Ork Boy. I’m going to remove 3 of the regular boyz
with sluggas and choppas, I want to keep that Ork with the big shoota in the fight. Well, that is all the shooting I’ve got. Now we move on to the next phase, which is
the charge phase. I’m intentionally keeping my distance here,
I don’t want to engage the Orks up close, so I’m not going to declare any charges. I’m not even within 12” range anyway,
so even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. No charges, no ongoing fights, so we can skip
the fight phase. Now it’s time for the morale phase! The Orks use the highest leadership in their
unit, so that would be 7 for the Boss Nob. So let’s see if they pass or fail the leadership
test. Roll a dice… and add the number of lost
models… I rolled a 5. That brings my total to 8, more than the boss
nobz leadership. That means the squad’s bravery cracks, and
I lose a model straight away. Then we do a thing called an “attrition
test” for the rest. We roll a dice for every model left in the
unit… and for each roll of a 1, we lose another model. Phew, no 1s. That was quite lucky. That’s my turn over, now we start battle
round 2, following the same turn order… so Guy goes first. First up, the command phase. My ranks are getting a bit thin now… but
I’m within 3 inches of 2 objectives… that means I score 5 points for each of those,
bringing my total victory points to 10. I can see that Penny’s only going to score
5 points for that single objective she’s on at the start of her turn, so points-wise,
I’ve got a tactical advantage at the moment. So, in the movement phase, rather than hanging
around the objectives, I’m going to go full-on offensive and move everything up to get in
range of shooting, and hopefully charging. Because I want to be able to charge if I roll
well enough, I’m not going to advance the Deff Dread… so just a regular 6” move
here… I’ll move the Orks their 5 inches, and the
Weirdboy too, making sure to keep him behind my other models so Penny can’t target him. Okay, time for the psychic phase, and we’re
within 18” range now, so this time we’ll actually be able to do something! Oh yes! Let’s choose the best psychic power to cast. Annoyingly, my boyz aren’t going to be within
charge range this turn, so there’s no point casting warpath to give them more attacks. Let’s choose Da Krunch on that full strength
unit of Necrons at the top instead. Now I have to roll to see if the Weirdboy
can manifest enough psychic energy to smash those Necrons. Looking at the profile of the ability, we
can see it needs a warp charge of 6 or more. So, we roll 2 dice to see if we can get it. Yes, adding those dice together means I get
a 9. So Da Krunch is happening! For this particular psychic power, you roll
1 dice for every model in that unit, so that’s 10… and for every 6 I roll, the unit suffers
1 mortal wound… ah, look a bit closer at the description. If I rolled a 9 or more on the psychic test,
you add 1 to the rolls… so that would mean 5s AND 6s cause mortal wounds! Let’s roll. Okay, 3 mortal wounds caused. Mortal wounds are different from regular wounds,
because you’re not allowed to take armour saves against them. That means 3 Necron warriors are, well, they’re
just dead. And you can’t even use reanimation protocols
to bring them back, because they didn’t die in the shooting phase or fight phase. A decent start, now let’s move on to the
shooting phase. My Deff Dread has a weapon called a Skorcha,
which is a big flamethrower with a 12” range. Let’s measure and check we’re in range. Yep! So, let’s shoot… Time to declare our targets… so my deff
dread is firing at this top squad, and my squad of boyz will target the bottom squad
of warriors. Now we see how many shots I can make with
the Deff Dread. The profile says Assault D6… the assault
part means that you can fire after advancing, but at a penalty, reducing your to hit roll
by -1… we didn’t advance, so that’s fine, but what does D6 mean? Well, that simply means that we roll a single
dice, known as a D6, to see how many shots it makes. Let’s roll. Huh. 1. That’s obviously pretty bad, and a huge
waste of this weapon’s potential. I think this is a good time to use my command
point to re-roll that, and hopefully get a better result. A 3. A bit better, but still not great. Okay, now what do we roll to hit? Well, if we take a look at the special rules
for the skorcha, it says it automatically hits. This happens with nearly all flamethrower
type weapons, which is why people love taking them. So the 3 attacks we generated hit automatically,
so we move straight onto the wound rolls. The Skorcha has strength 5 against the warriors
toughness of 4. So that means we’re wounding on 3s. 2 wounds made. Now it’s time for the Warriors to make their
armour save throws. The Skorcha has an armour penetration modifier
of -1, so the warriors have their 4+ save reduced to a 5+. So Penny, roll 2 dice for those 2 wounds,
and see if you can save them on a 5 or more. Nope, but remember I get to use my reanimation
protocols to see if they rebuild themselves. On a 5 up… one does, but one fails. Check this out though, in the special rules
for my necron warriors, it says I get to reroll failed reanimation rolls of 1. HA. Both of them put themselves back together. Hmm, not the result I wanted, let’s see
if the boys can do better. The majority of the boys are still outside
of their small 12 inch range with their sluggas, but the big shoota is in range… just outside
of half range, that’s annoying, so I only get to make 3 attacks rather than 5. 3 shots, hitting on 5s… Nothing at all. Well, that’s Ork shooting for ya. I’m not too worried though, because now
it’s time to move onto the charge phase. I now have to declare the charges I intend
to make. The distance between your unit and the enemy
has to be 12 inches or less, otherwise there’s no way you can make a successful charge. So, Penny, I’m going to charge my Deff Dread
into this top squad of Necron Warriors. This seems like a pretty good time to use
my command point to overwatch with my warriors. This means I get to shoot out of turn at something
that’s charging me. You can only do this if the unit firing overwatch
isn’t already tied up in a fight. These Warriors are free and easy, so let’s
do it. Using my single command point, I can now shoot
at the Deff Dread… the only downside is that - because this is supposed to be a kind
of last ditch attempt to get shots off - you only hit on 6s, no matter what your ballistic
skill is. On the plus side, you’re within 12 inches,
and that’s half range of my gauss flayers… remember, they’re rapid fire 1, so now I
get to fire twice. So, that’s 7 warriors firing twice… 14 shots! 4 sixes, pretty decent. And we can remember from before that the strength
of the weapons is lower than the toughness of the target, so I’m only wounding on 5s. 2 wounds, that’s okay. With the -1 armour penetration from the gauss
flayers, that means my armour save is reduced from 3+ to 4+. Oh well, I fail both of them. 1 damage from each shot, means I lose another
2 wounds on the deff dread. It’s now down to 4 wounds. Okay, overwatch resolved, now I can actually
try to make the charge. There’s just under 10 inches between the
Deff Dread and the Warriors, and for a charge to be successful, you need to end up within
1 inch of the target. So I’ll need to travel at least 9 inches. To do this, you roll 2 dice, and add them
together. This is the distance your model can move in
the charge. Made it with room to spare. Now I move up and engage the Warriors. That’s all the charging out the way, now
we can move onto the fight phase. To decide who goes first, you always start
with units that charged this turn. So that’ll be the deff dread. If there aren’t any new charges in a turn,
but units are still fighting from a previous turn, you start with the other player… so
as this is my turn, Penny would choose a unit to fight first, and then we’d alternate
back and forth. BUT, this time, Guy charged, so he gets to
go first no matter what. Right, the Deff Dread’s up. First, we do a thing called a pile in move,
where we can manouvre up to 3” to position ourselves where we want to be in the fight. This can be useful for planning your next
moves. Now, how do we actually fight? Pretty simple. First, we figure out how many attacks the
Deff Dread can make. In its profile, under A for attacks, it says
3. This is its base attacks. Now, let’s see if any of its weapons add
to this. Aha, we can see here under dread klaw, the
deff dreads melee weapon, that I can make an additional attack with this weapon… and
because I’ve equipped the deff dread with 3 of these dread klaws, it can make 3 additional
attacks… so that’s 6 in total. So, six dice in hand… now we figure out
what we need to roll to hit. For that, we look at the model’s WS… that’s
its weapon skill… and we can see it says 3+. So, let’s roll 6 dice, hitting on 3s or
above. Ooo, 5 hit, pretty good. Now, let’s figure out if these successful
hits wound the Necron Warriors. To do that, we check the strength of the melee
weapon. Under S - for strength - in the datasheet,
we see it says… times two. That means we use the strength of the unit
itself, the deff dread, and double it… its strength is already 5, which means the strength
of these attacks is going to be 10. Crazy. Now, we’ve already seen that when the attacking
strength is higher than the target’s toughness, you wound on 3s, but when it’s DOUBLE or
more, like in this case with strength 10 vs toughness 4, you wound on 2s. Okay, let’s roll. Nice, that’s all of them. So that’s 5 successful wounding rolls made,
and now would be the time that Penny could usually take her armour saves, but if we look
at the profile for the dread klaw, it says it has an AP, armour penetration of -3. That’ll reduce Penny’s 4+ save to an impossible
7+, so she won’t get to take any. Now, the Dread Klaw’s attacks also don’t
just do 1 damage, these incredibly powerful attacks do 3 damage each. Now, fortunately for the Necrons though, a
single attack can’t kill more than one model. There were 5 successful attacks, so even though
they do loads of damage to those 5 models, only 5 die. Damage doesn’t spill over to the other models. If these Necrons had multiple wounds, 2 or
3 each, it would have still killed them outright. So tactically, it’s always more effective
to target enemies that have multiple wounds with high damage weapons. Okay, so five dead, maybe, the warriors still
get to do their reanimation protocols. Rolling 5 dice, needing 5s, and remembering
to reroll 1s. Okay, 2 are saved, meaning 3 die, leaving
just 4 models in the unit. Oh well, now the Deff Dread has finished its
attacks, all the charging units are done, it’s my turn to pick a unit to fight with. The only one that’s in engagement range
- within 1 inch - is my unit of 4 warriors here. First, I pile in up to 3 inches. I’m going to sweep around here so I can
be within 3” of that objective. All models that are within an inch of the
enemy, or within half an inch of friendly models that are within half an inch from the
enemy can fight. Basically, anyone that’s really close. Now let’s see how many attacks the Necron
warriors make… A in their profile. Hmm, just 1. Great. So that’s 4 models doing 1 attack each…
and their WS is 3+, so I’ll be hitting on 3s. Well, at least they all hit. Now, the warriors don’t have melee weapons,
so they just use the strength in their profile, that’s 4… less than the Deff Dreads toughness
of 7, so I’m only wounding on 5s. Pfft, just 1. No armour penetration from the basic attacks
the Warriors are making, so the deff dread gets to make its full 3+ armour save. And obviously makes it. Great. No damage done to the Deff Dread at all. So, everyone that can fight has done it, now
we move onto the morale phase. So, in this turn, I lose 6 Necron warriors,
so there’s a chance I could lose more when I take a leadership test. Let’s roll and find out… Nice, even though I rolled a 4, that still
only brings the total to 10, and that’s my leadership value. The result of the test needs to exceed my
leadership for me to fail. Brave, brave sandybois. Right, so Ork turn 2 was pretty horrible,
let’s see if I can turn this around in my turn 2! In my command phase, even though you could
argue that both the deff dread and my warriors are within range of this objective, I technically
hold it, because my warriors have the special rule called objective secured, meaning that
they take priority over enemies that don’t have that rule… and the deff dread doesn’t. 5 victory points for me. In the movement phase, I’m going to try
to get out of this suicidal fight that the warriors are facing against the deff dread
- if they stay there in the fight phase, because it’s my turn, Guy will get to go first,
and will definitely kill the rest of them. I’m going to make a move called falling
back. This means I can make my normal move in any
direction, so long as I don’t end my move within engagement range - 1 inch - of the
deff dread I’m escaping, or any other enemy model. The trade-off is that they won’t get to
shoot or charge this turn… but seeing as how they’d be dead anyway, it’s probably
a good choice. This has now freed up the deff dread to be
a target in the shooting phase, because you can’t shoot into ongoing fights. My bottom squad of Necron Warriors are going
to move their regular 5 inches closer to the Deff Dread, getting within 3 inches of that
objective marker, and ready to open fire on the deff dread, hopefully finishing it off. So we can’t do anything with that top squad
because they fell back, but let’s target the deff dread with the bottom squad. That’s 9 warriors, firing twice because
they’re within rapid fire range on their gauss flayers. 18 shots, hitting on their ballistic skill
of 3+. Fantastic. We needed those, because now we’re only
wounding on 5s, because the Deff Dread’s toughness, 7, is higher than the gauss flayer’s
strength of 4. Woah mama, 11 wounds going through on a 5+. That’s got to be it dead, surely! 11 saves to make on a 4+ because of the gauss
flayer’s ap of -1. This is going to be tough. 6 failed, that means my deff dread is definitely
destroyed. If we check out its profile, there’s a small
chance it could explode, doing damage to everything around it. That only happens on a 6 though. Aw, no explosions this time. What a shame. Deff Dread gone, that’s all the shooting
I’ve got, so we move onto the charge phase. My bottom squad are about 10 inches away from
those Ork Boyz, and even though Warriors aren’t really cut out for hand to hand combat, if
I successfully charge them, I’ll get to fight first and hopefully kill a few before
they attack me. I know Guy hasn’t got any command points
left, so he can’t overwatch, I might as well try. Rolling 2 dice to get the distance. WOAH! Here we go, the Necron Warriors are charging
the Ork Boyz. Right, put ‘em up, stupid Orks. I pile in 3 inches to get as many of my Warriors
in engagement range as I can. That’s all of them. My Warriors get 1 attack each, so that’s
9 in total. They have a weapon skill of 3+, so they’re
hitting on 3s… 6 make it. Now, Orks are pretty tough, toughness 5, and
my melee attacks are only strength 4, so those 6 successful hits will be wounding the orks
on 5s. 3 wounds, not terrible. Now let’s see if the Orks can save them. Remember the Orks have a really bad armour
save, just a 6+, but because my melee attacks don’t have any armour penetration, they
still get to try. 3 saves to make… and I don’t make any
of them, uh oh. That’s 3 boys I need to remove. Now that my boyz are engaged and fighting,
the model with the big shoota is less important than the ones that are equipped with sluggas
and choppas, so I’ll remove the big shoota model, and 2 of the regular boyz. That just leaves me with 3 boyz and the boss
nob in the squad to fight back with. Let’s pile in first, and then figure out
how many attacks we can make. Each boy gets 2 attacks, and the boss nob
gets 3 because he’s a better fighter. But take a look at the profile for the choppa,
the weapon all of these models are carrying. It gives them all an additional attack, so
the boys will be making 3 attacks, and the nob will be making 4. That’s why I got rid of the big shoota model,
because he would have only been making 2. So even though I’ve only got 4 models left,
I’m making a total of 13 attacks! Orks really love to fight up close. Because the Boss Nob and the Orks have different
strengths in their profiles, I’m going to be using different coloured dice for the boss
nobs 4 attacks. 13 attacks, hitting on their weapon skill
of 3+... Nice, 10 making their mark. The strength of the choppas is listed as USER,
so checking the datasheet, we’re going to be using whatever the strength is for the
model that made the attacks. Now, the regular boyz strength is 4, which
equals the necron’s toughness of 4… that means these regular dice will be wounding
4s - that’s what happens when the strength and toughness is the same. However, the boss nob is stronger, strength
5, so we know we’re going to be wounding on 3s. Let’s go! 6 wounds going through, pretty decent. Choppas have an armour penetration value of
-1, so the Necron Warriors 4+ save gets reduced 1 point to 5+, a bit trickier to make. Well, I still made 2 of them, so 4 warriors
die, unless I can reanimate them… So, doing the reanimation protocol rolls… 1 manages to pull himself back together, so
I’m down to 6 warriors in the unit. Every unit that could have fought has done
it, that’s the fight phase over, and we move onto the morale phase. I only lost 3 models from that warrior unit
this turn, so I know I can’t possibly fail a morale test with a leadership of 10, but
Guy lost 3 boyz from his unit, so there’s a chance he could fail it. So I roll 1 dice, and add 3 for the models
I lost… Uh oh, it looks like I’m going to lose some
more. So I lose 1 straight away, let’s choose
a basic Boy… And now we have to make an attrition test,
so we roll a dice for each model in the unit, so that’s 3, and because the unit is under
half its starting strength, models now run away on a 1 AND a 2. Okay, 1 more flees, so just the nob and 1
boy left… looking pretty thin on the ground here. Time for Orks turn 3, my final turn in this
short demo game. I score another 5 victory points because my
weirdboy is the only model within 3” of that top objective, but I don’t score the
bottom objective. Both the boys and the warriors have the objective
secured rule, but when both units have it, the one with the most models has control. MOVEMENT So I’m ahead on points, but I’ll only
win if I stay alive until the end of the game… and this is the last round. Let’s keep these boys in combat with the
warriors, they’ll be dead in Penny’s shooting phase if they fall back anyway, but I’ll
move the weirdboy so he’s closer to the top squad of necron warriors… that way I
can hopefully charge them. PSYCHIC In the psychic phase, I’m going to try to
cast Smite against the top squad of Necron warriors. Just needing a warp charge of 5… Oh no, I failed it. That’s a shame, so nothing happens in the
psychic phase. Onto the shooting phase... Now, my weirdboy doesn’t have any ranged
weapons, and models that are engaged in a fight can’t shoot… so you might think
this phase is over, BUT, my boys have a surprise. Because they’re armed with sluggas, and
they have the pistol type, that means they’re allowed to shoot at point blank range, even
when they’re busy fighting… but they can only target a unit they’re engaging in the
fight. So they shoot, 1 attack each, hitting on their
pretty bad ballistic skill of 5+.... And both miss, typical. Now let’s move on to the charge phase. A bit less confident, a bit more desperate
now… I need to jump my weirdboy into combat to
avoid the Necron’s next shooting phase. Just over 9 inches between the weirdboy and
the warriors… And I fail it! Luckily, Orks have a special rule called ERE
WE GO, that lets me reroll failed charge rolls. Phew, just made it. Okay, so if you remember, now we’re in the
fight phase, units that charged get to fight first. So the Weirdboy gets to flex his buns of steel
on those Necron Warriors. He has 3 attacks, and a weapon skill of 3+... Excellent, all 3 hit. Now, let’s see what his strength is, he’s
using his melee weapon, the weirdboy staff, which has a strength modifier of +3… the
weirdboy’s base strength is 5, so that means he’s smashing those necrons with strength
8… double their toughness of 4, which means he’ll be wounding on 2s. Nice, all of them wound. The weirdboy staff has an armour penetration
value of -1, so the Warriors get their saves reduced to 5+... And Penny manages to make 2 of them. Does that one dead Necron warrior reanimate
on a 5+? Nope, he gone, buddy! Now, because all the charging units have fought,
the person who’s turn it ISN’T, so that’s Penny because this is Orks turn 3… gets
to choose who to fight with first, and then we alternate until all the fights are done. Your weirdboy has already fought, so I might
as well try to kill some more of those boys before they get to fight back. I choose to fight with the bottom squad of
warriors. 6 warriors still in the fight, making 1 attack
each, hitting on 3s. Nice! 5 hits. The warrior’s strength 4 against the boyz
toughness of 5... I’ll need 5s to wound. 3 successful rolls there, which might be enough
to wipe out that unit… it all comes down to Guy’s 6+ armour saves. Aah, well, what a shame. All the models from the unit are dead, so
there’s no way I can fight back against those Necron Warriors, and they’re free
to make what’s called a consolidation move, where you can choose to move up to 3” towards
the closest enemy unit. Yes, I’m going to do that… ready to rapid
fire your stupid weirdboy to death. Now it would be Guy’s turn to choose a unit
to fight with, but his only engaged units have already fought. I’m going to active the top unit of warriors
to see if I can hurt that weirdboy. Just 3 warriors left in this squad. 1 attack each, hitting on 3s. Wow, just 1 hit. Great. Now, with strength 4 against toughness 5. I’m wounding on 5s. Nothing at all. Well, punching orks in the face isn’t exactly
what warriors are good at. Moving on to the MORALE phase, and no one
took enough casualties in this turn to warrant taking a leadership test, well, no one who’s
squad wasn’t just wiped out. so that’s the end of Orks turn 3. Onto Necrons turn 3, the 3rd and final turn
of the final battle round. In the command phase, my warriors are holding
the bottom centre objective now that those pesky ork boyz are dead.. So I get 5 victory points. That means we’re on 10 each. Well Guy, there’s only one way to end this
now, sorry, but I need to kill that weirdboy. In the movement phase, I’m going to fall
back with the Necron warriors that are engaged in combat with the Weirdboy… they won’t
be able to shoot or charge, but hopefully my other unit of warriors can finish the job. I’m going to move them 5” towards the
weirdboy, making sure they’re within half range, so I’ll get to fire twice with my
rapid fire gauss flayers. Again, I don’t have any psykers, so no psychic
phase, straight to shooting. Right, 6 warriors aiming at the weirdboy,
2 shots each, so that’s twelve attacks, hitting on their ballistic skill of 3+... Yeaah, Now, to wound, its strength 4 against
toughness 5, so I need 5s. Yes! 6 wounds, and crazily, even though that weirdboy
is an important character, it still only has a 6+ save. It does have a bare bum, to be fair. Now, the gauss flayers have an armour penetration
of -1, so Guy won’t even get to save it… and the Weirdboy only has 5 wounds! Sooo… that means 6 attacks going through
unsaved, HE IS DEAD. Sometimes important characters have a thing
called an invulnerable save, which is like an armour save that doesn’t get reduced
by armour penetration… this is usually used to represent force fields and magical auras,
stuff like that. Well, this weirdboy doesn’t have one of
those, sooo.. Yeah, he’s toast. The Orks are cleared off the table, and I
win! A close game, well fought, but yeah, skelebois
smashed the green chunky-monkeys. So that’s it. We hope you’ve found this video useful,
and that it’s helped you form a rough outline of the basic mechanics of the 9th edition
of Warhammer 40,000. This is obviously no replacement for getting
hold of the rulebook and codices, but it should give you a good foundation to start to play
games. There’s lots of other small details to cover,
like… well, COVER, and how to interact with buildings, climbing walls, getting in and
out of vehicles, that sort of stuff, but as you play more games, read more rules, and
watch more battle reports, you’ll pick up on how these things work in no time. Warhammer 40,000 is constantly evolving, with
FAQs, yearly updates called Chapter Approved, but it’s all still based on the concepts
in this video. Good luck getting started! If you’re looking for easy to follow painting
advice and fast, fun battle reports, subscribe to this channel! That’s sort of our specialty. We’ve recently started a Deathmatch series,
where all the main Warhammer 40k armies are going head to head in a tournament. We’ll leave a link to the first episode
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