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BATTLE PRIMER THE ESSENTIAL FOUNDATION FOR PLAYING GAMES OF WARHAMMER 40,000 CORE RULES Warhammer 40,000 puts you in command of a force of mighty warriors and war machines. The core rules on these pages contain the foundation for playing games of Warhammer 40,000 with your Citadel Miniatures collection and to wage glorious battle across the war-torn galaxy. MODELS & DATASHEETS The rules and characteristics for all THE models, and some terrain features, are BATTLE ROUND presented on datasheets, which you will Warhammer 40,000 is played in need in order to use the models in battle. a series of battle rounds. During each battle round, both players have a turn. The same player UNITS always takes the first turn in each Models move and fight in units, made battle round – the mission you are up of one or more models. A unit must playing will tell you which player be set up and finish any sort of move this is. Each turn consists of a as a group, with every model within 2" series of phases, which must be Tools of War horizontally, and 6" vertically, of at least resolved in order. The phases are In order to fight a battle, one other model from their unit: this is as follows: you will require a tape called unit coherency. If anything causes measure and some dice. a unit to become split up during a battle, 1. Movement phase it must re-establish its unit coherency the Move any units that are Distances in Warhammer next time it moves. capable of doing so. 40,000 are measured in inches (") between the 2. Psychic phase closest points of the bases Psykers can use powerful of the models you’re mental abilities. measuring to and from. If a model does not have a 3. Shooting phase base, such is the case with Your units may shoot many vehicles, measure to enemy units. and from the closest point of that model’s hull instead. 4. Charge phase You can measure distances Your units may move into close whenever you wish. combat against enemy units. Warhammer 40,000 uses 5. Fight phase six-sided dice, sometimes Both players’ units pile in and abbreviated to D6. Some attack with melee weapons. rules refer to 2D6, 3D6 and so on – in such cases, 6. Morale phase roll that many D6s and Test the courage of add the results together. depleted units. If a rule requires you to roll a D3, roll a dice and Once a player’s turn has ended, halve the total. When their opponent then starts their halving any dice roll, turn. Once both players have round fractions up before completed a turn, the battle round applying modifiers (if any) has been completed and the next to the result. All modifiers one begins, and so on, until the are cumulative. If a rule battle is concluded. requires a dice roll of, for example, 3 or more, this is often abbreviated to 3+. 2 Only fools fail in their duties. Wobbly Model 1. MOVEMENT PHASE Syndrome The ground shakes to the tread of marching feet and the growl of engines as armies Sometimes you may find advance across the battlefield and vie for advantageous positions. that a particular piece of terrain makes it hard to Start your Movement phase by picking Enemy Models put a model exactly where one of your units and moving each model All models in the same army are friendly you want. If you delicately in that unit until you’ve moved all the models. Models controlled by an balance it in place, it is models you want to. You can then pick opposing player are enemy models. When very likely to fall as soon another unit to move, until you have you move a model in the Movement as somebody nudges the moved as many of your units as you wish. phase, it may not be moved within 1" of table, leaving your painted No model can be moved more than once any enemy models. model damaged or even in each Movement phase. broken. In cases like this, Falling Back we find it is perfectly Moving Units starting the Movement phase acceptable to leave the A model can be moved in any direction, within 1" of an enemy unit can either model in a safer position, to a distance, in inches, equal to or remain stationary or Fall Back. If you as long as both players have less than the Move characteristic on its choose to Fall Back, the unit must end its agreed and know its ‘actual’ datasheet. No part of the model’s base move more than 1" away from all enemy location. If, later on, your (or hull) can move further than this. It units. If a unit Falls Back, it cannot enemy is considering cannot be moved through other models Advance (see below), or charge later that shooting the model, you or through terrain features such as walls, turn. A unit that Falls Back also cannot will have to hold it back in but can be moved vertically in order to shoot later that turn unless it can Fly. the proper place so they climb or traverse any scenery. can check if it is visible. Advancing If the datasheet for a model says it can When you pick a unit to move in the Fly, it can move across models and Movement phase, you can declare that Reinforcements terrain as if they were not there. it will Advance. Roll a dice and add the Many units have the result to the Move characteristics of all ability to be set up on models in the unit for that Movement the battlefield mid-turn, phase. A unit that Advances can’t shoot sometimes by using or charge later that turn. teleporters, grav chutes or other, more esoteric means. Typically, this happens at the end of the Movement phase, but it can also happen during other phases. Units that are set up in this manner cannot move or Advance further during the turn they arrive – their entire Movement Minimum Move phase is used in deploying Some models that can Fly have a Move to the battlefield – but they ‘Shall we lie down meekly characteristic consisting of two values. can otherwise act normally as a lamb before the The first is the model’s minimum speed ravening wolf or shall (shoot, charge, etc.) for the – in the Movement phase, all parts of we oppose such horrors as rest of their turn. Units that the model’s base must end the move at the galaxy will throw at arrive as reinforcements least that far from where they started. us with proud contempt? count as having moved in The second is its maximum speed – no Suffer not the beasts and their Movement phase for part of the model’s base can be moved abominations of other all rules purposes, such as further than this. If a model cannot make worlds to live in our shooting Heavy weapons. its minimum move, or is forced to move Imperium!’ Any unit that has not off the battlefield because of its minimum arrived on the battlefield by speed, it is destroyed and removed from - Orthas Gregoran, the end of the battle counts Chief Demagogue the battlefield – the model has either as having been destroyed. of the Forlan Synod stalled and crashed or been forced to abandon the battle. Negotiation is surrender. 3 Re-rolls 2. PSYCHIC PHASE Some rules allow you to Warrior mystics and sorcerers wield the strange power of the warp to aid their allies re-roll a dice roll, which and destroy their foes. Harnessing this force is not without risk, however, and with means you get to roll the smallest mistake, the effort can spell doom for all nearby. some or all of the dice again. You can never re-roll a dice more than PSYCHIC SEQUENCE Perils of the Warp once, and re-rolls happen 1. Choose psyker and power If you roll a double 1 or a double 6 when taking a Psychic test, the before modifiers (if any) 2. Make Psychic test are applied. psyker immediately suffers Perils 3. Enemy takes Deny the of the Warp. The psyker suffers Witch test D3 mortal wounds as the forces Roll-offs 4. Resolve psychic power of the Daemon-haunted warp Some rules instruct players claw at their mind. If the psyker to roll off. To do so, both is slain by Perils of the Warp, the players roll a D6, and 1. Choose Psyker and Power power they were attempting to manifest automatically fails and whoever scores highest Some models are noted as being a each unit within 6" immediately wins the roll-off. In the Psyker on their datasheet. Psykers can suffers D3 mortal wounds, as the case of a tie, both players manifest their otherworldly abilities and psyker is dragged into the warp re-roll their D6; this is the attempt to deny enemy sorceries. The or else detonates in a burst of only time players can re- powers a psyker knows, and the number empyric feedback. roll a re-roll – if the second of powers they can attempt to manifest or and subsequent rolls are deny each Psychic phase, are detailed on also tied, keep on rolling their datasheet. until a winner is decided. Psychic Powers Unless stated otherwise, all psykers know Sequencing the Smite psychic power, listed below. While playing Warhammer Some know other powers instead of, 40,000, you’ll occasionally or in addition to, Smite – the model’s find that two or more rules datasheets and other supplementary rules are to be resolved at the you are using will make it clear which same time – normally ‘at powers each psyker knows.

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