40K Rules Blooper Reel

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This article is about something that is considered by the overpowering majority of /tg/ to be fail.
Expect huge amounts of derp and rage, punctuated by /tg/ extracting humor from it.

GW has a history of failing to make rules that work, whether intentional or otherwise. This page is meant to compile all the classic examples of...unintended hilarity of GW ruleswriting throughout 40k. The worst offenses, of course, became tactics like Screamerstar or Fish of Fury.

2nd Edition

  • Polymorphine: This little wargear card was not restricted to Callidus Assassins at first, any Imperial character with a free wargear slot could take it. It allowed said character to start the game disguised as a member of a troop squad. Queue endless instances of severe rape when what looked like a mere guardsman with a flashlight actually turned out to be a Terminator-armour clad Space Marine hero (for instance). Fun times.

3nd Edition

  • Scourges Don't Lift: Back then Scourges were Jump Pack Infantry with no ability to move and shoot their Heavy Weapons (unless they took Splinter Cannons, which were decent but not stellar). To add insult to injury GW gave them a warrior statline (they were literally BS3 Imperial Guardsmen stat-wise), and ridiculously expensive weapons that don't come standard. They were also among the more fiddly of the metal models to assemble as well with casts that rarely came out right (Right up there with the metal Wraithlord, and metal Daemon Prince in terms of outright defective models that you had to fix yourself with Green Stuff). Accordingly, they were seen as a joke unit in an already difficult to pilot army.

4th Edition

  • Snikrot Shuffle: Boss Snikrot was made a unit upgrade for Kommandos, giving his unit the ability to appear from any table edge through "Behind Enemy Lines." However, due to the way Behind Enemy Lines was worded, Snikrot was granting the unit the ability, rather than the unit itself being upgraded to have the ability. Thus, although arguably unintentional, it became legal to use Snikrot to "smuggle" decidedly unsneaky Ork Characters alongside him; one must imagine they were carrying the Boss's Bike Fred Flintstone-style.
  • Squad Broken!: Units stopped scoring if they were below half strength. While this made little difference on 10 or 20-man infantry units, it made quite a bit of difference if you were taking vehicle squads. Players would deliberately take odd-numbered squad sizes to increase the threshold for half.

5th Edition

  • Musical Wounds: 5th edition wound allocation stated that you had to distribute wounds as evenly as possible between all models in a unit before it rolled for saves. In theory this meant that if you did a lot of wounds at once, you could force your opponent to risk losing Sergeants or hidden Special Weapons. In practice, Musical Wounds combined with multi-wound units led to a phenomenon where players would give each model a unique loadout, so that you effectively had to deal the model's unit worth of unsaved wounds before said unit removed any casualties. The two most notable example units that abused this mechanic were Nob Bikers and Grey Knight Paladins, though Thunderwolves and even Dark Eldar Grotesques could join in the fun.
  • You won't need Eyes When You're Raging: 5th Edition introduced True Line of Sight, with the stipulation that infantry models had to measure Line of Sight "from the eyes." Tyrant Guard had a special rule that they would suffer from Rage if the Hive Tyrant they were protecting died. Unfortunately, Rage as written stated you had to move towards the closest "visible" enemy unit, which RAW was impossible for Tyrant Guard since they don't actually have eyes.
  • Selective Warp Field: This one was a formatting goof, but when Codex Tyranids came out, the rules for Warp Fields stated that "A Zoanthrope with a Warp Field has a 3+ Invulnerable Save." The Doom of Malan'tai had a Warp Field but was not explicitly stated to be a Zoanthrope (this is one area where Keywords would have helped). Thus, until GW actually FAQ'd it, people could argue that the Doom didn't actually get an Invulnerable Save (and INAT ruled as such until the GW FAQ overturned it).
  • Crouching Wraithlord, Leaping Ork Boy: Since True Line of Sight also did not come with any real restrictions against "modelling for advantage," players initially sought to exploit this by heavily modding or basing figures. Comedically, Canis Wolfborn gained an extra attack for each model in base-to-base with him, and the rules stated "if you're thinking of modelling Canis on a really large base to take advantage of this, don't." This wasn't a formal restriction against basing however. In the meantime, legs were snipped to give upright poses and models raised high overhead to give the best lines of fire. The Eldar Wraithlord became one of the most notable offenders, being popularly modded into a crouching or "prone" position to lower its height and make it easier to acquire 50% cover (It did deliver some pretty boss looking conversions, though, so it wasn't all bad).

6th Edition

  • Grumblegrumble Stupid Chariot: The 6th edition Burning Chariot of Tzeentch was introduced as a Skimmer Chariot, fast and fragile and meant to act akin to a Daemon Land Speeder of a sort. Unfortunately, the actual ranged weapons were on the Exalted Flamer atop the whole Chariot, which was not Relentless. Thus, the Chariot had to move or shoot, which was a death sentence for such a fragile ride (7th fortunately made them Relentless).
  • Thermonuclear Pyrovores: The Pyrovore in 5th-7th was memetically known as a super-useless unit, but the 6th edition Tyranid Codex was known for a hilariously misworded Volatile rule: Whenever a Pyrovore died to Instant Death, "Every unit suffers a S3 hit for each model (excluding other Pyrovores) within d6 inches of the Pyrovore." Read that rule, and comprehend what "every unit" means.
  • Lookout, Wez Ork Snipers!: 6th edition introduced "Character" as a subtype for models; Characters could accept and issue Challenges to other Characters, and benefit from "Look Out Sir," which let other models take wounds on their behalf; furthermore, Characters in 6th ed had the Precision Shot rule, meaning that on 6s to hit, the attacker could allocate hits instead of the defender. When the 6th ed FAQs first rolled out, Ork Nobs were indexed to be Characters. However, the index didn't distinguish between Nobs leading Boys or units of Nobs; not only could Nobz play Musical Wound Games where they could pawn off wounds to each other on a 4+, but that a unit of Nob Bikerz (each Biker fires 3 shots, hitting on 5s and rerolling misses, and choosing the model affected on a 6) was generally better at sniping out troublesome targets than many dedicated snipers. GW did eventually FAQ their FAQ to state that only *one* Nob in each unit of Nobz/Meganobz got the Character distinction, while 7th ed made Precision Shot a USR that Characters did not innately receive.
  • Asses of Fire: Heldrakes' Baleflamer during its inception counted as being turret-mounted, allowing the Hellturkey to Vector Strike and then hose the same unit with hellfire from its, errm... eye of terror. It was quickly errata'd, but, while not exactly game-breaking, it still lead to horrifying implications, given the damn things were everywhere back then.

7th Edition

  • Nobz In A 'Naut: This may have arguably just been insidious GW marketing instead of them failing to understand their own game, but Gorkanauts/Morkanauts were touted as "nearly indestructible" and reliably able to transport Nobz or other elite units into the fray, despite the fact that they were not Superheavy Vehicles. While you could one-shot them with a lucky Melta or Lascannon shot, a more common outcome was for one to be Immobilized by a Grav Cannon rolling a 6. As for serving as an assault transport, GW forgot to give the 'Nauts the Assault Ramp rule, and thus you couldn't actually assault from one. To add insult to injury, these vehicles cost *more* than a Land Raider while moving slower.
  • Knight Rider Chronus: In 7th edition, Ultramarines could purchase Chronus as an upgrade to Tanks. Unlike Longstrike or Pask, Chronus was an Infantry Character, that would turn the tank he was riding into a Character, only to emerge from said Tank like a passenger should it be destroyed. However, RAW, Chronus was a Character and so was the Tank that Chronus was riding in, but neither were the same Character. Thus, you could either make Chronus your Warlord and wait before his tank was destroyed before you could use his Warlord Trait (assuming it required being on-table), or make his Tank your Warlord. Thus, it's more funny to imagine Chronus's tank as KITT from Knight Rider. (As an amusing bonus, he also had a Servo-Arm but not Blessing of the Omnissiah, so he could punch stuff but couldn't fix it).
  • Khornedogs of Slaanesh: Daemons in Khorne Daemonkin had Fearless instead of Daemonic Instability. Thus, Battle Brothers from Chaos Space Marines could join Daemon units from Khorne Daemonkin. Although an Independent Character with a Mark could not join a unit with a different Mark, having the Mark of a Chaos God and being a Daemon of a Chaos God were two different things. Thus, Daemonkin meant you could have a Sorcerer of Slaanesh use Flesh Hounds of Khorne as bodyguards.
  • Ordo Xenos or Ordo Xerox?: Codex Deathwatch had generally sloppy rules, copypaste formations ("Reroll to-wound vs X"), and odd examples of GW being arbitrarily restrictive in unit loadouts (notably, Deathwatch couldn't take Rifleman Dreads or Strontos Razorbacks). However the most amusing example of this was how the Bane Bolts relic had a profile for being used by a Stalker Boltgun, despite Deathwatch HQs not having the option for a Stalker Boltgun.
  • Siphon Magic, Period: Siphon Magic may easily be the worst-written power of 7th edition. "Siphon Magic is a Blessing that targets the Psyker. For the rest of the phase, each time a friendly model successfully manifests a psychic power within 18" of them, place a dice next to this model. Any dice accrued in this manner can be used by the Psyker as bonus Warp Charge points." This power itself was problematic for several reasons: Does "a friendly model" include the Psyker that cast Siphon Magic? Did casting Siphon Magic actually grant the Psyker an immediate bonus die? It was noted that Deny the Witch did not turn a Success into a Failure, but simply cancelled the power's effect, and so Siphon Magic still granted a bonus die. However, the real RAW kerfluffle was the fact that since Siphon Magic did not grant bonus Warp Charge, but "dice that could be spent as additional Warp Charge," you could argue that it was possible to store dice from Siphon Magic across turns. You could even state that this was "intentional," since the Tyranid Neurothrope had a similar ability that let it gain additional Warp Charge that could only be used by its unit. Hilariously though, Siphon Magic was otherwise useless for ML 1 Psykers since if it was the only power that could be cast that turn, then it would mean storing up dice that could not be used. Oops.
  • No Death Guard Zombies: Typhus let you nominate any Chaos Cultists as Plague Zombies at army creation, giving them Fearless, Feel No Pain, and Slow and Purposeful. They however could not purchase any other options besides increasing their unit size. When Traitor Legions came out, it added rules for different Legion Tactics; notably, Death Guard detachments required all units with the option to purchase the Mark of Nurgle. Due to ambiguous order of operations, it was entirely possible that the Cultists having to purchase the Mark of Nurgle precluded Typhus being able to nominate said Cultists as Zombies. However, Typhus let you nominate any Cultists in your army, and not necessarily the Detachment he was in, so if you took an allied Alpha Legion detachment, you could have Infiltrating ninja-zombies. Let that image sink in.
  • Soul Pain: The Ynnari Psychic Power Unbind Souls targeted an enemy unit, and made a number of Strength 4 attacks equal to the number of models in the target unit. It was supposed to be used to cut large hordes down to size. However, the rulewriter forgot that only models in range and line of sight could be removed as casualties, and Unbind Souls only had 12 inches of range. The result would be a few unlucky Orks or Tyranids being struck down with extreme overkill, to the confusion of the rest of the unit.
  • Revenge is Sweet: In what may be the best bit of poetic irony of 7th Edition, the Avatar of Khaine was completely immune to Guilliman, since all of Guilliman's close combat attacks had Soul Blaze. Feels good to be immune after being used as punching bag in all of Matt Ward's old fluff...

8th Edition

Strap yourself in, son, this is gonna be a long one.

  • Does anyone actually playtest this anymore? FAQ again! So the character targetting rules changed to prevent cheese. before you could only target a character with less than 10 wounds if they were the closest visible unit. This lead to cheese like positioning tanks so a unit could only see a character or attempting to snipe characters with Mortars and Basilisks. Now you can't target the character is there is a unit between the shooter and character even if that unit isn't in LoS. This has lead to characters like Archons and Smashfucker becoming the best objective holders and deep strike denial units in the entire game. Now imagine what a Reaper Launcher Autarch with Mark of the Incomparable Hunter can do with this...
  • Plasma is Hotter At Night: When you Overcharge Plasma weaponry, it explodes on a 1. Not a "natural" one but a "modified one." This means any penalties to-hit also increase the odds of Plasma exploding. The Machine Spirits are afraid of the dark. Note that supercharged Plasma Guns "slay the bearer on a hit roll of 1". Everything in the book draws gear from one list. Yes, including vehicles. Yes, that 371pts Land Raider with 16 wounds just spontaneously evaporated itself with its own pintle-mounted combi-plasma. Don't press that, brother!
    • To add insult to injury, there is even a situation where you can make an Overcharged Plasma Cannon explode on any result to hit, thanks to GW giving -1 to hit effects to the Craftworld Eldar like it's going out of style. All you need to do is overcharge and shoot a Plasma Cannon at night (-1 to hit) after moving (-1 to hit) at some knife eared assholes painted blue (Alaitoc Attribute, -1 to hit at +12") with fancy armour (Warp Spider's Flickerjump ability, -1 to hit) who are pulling some Matrix shit (Lightning-Fast Reactions Stratagem, -1 to hit). So that's a total of -5 to hit, meaning any result you roll to hit will be modified down to a 1. I guess the Machine Spirits are also scared of Eldar too?
    • On a more positive note, you can (almost always) fire the gun on regular mode at no risk. As hilariously bad as this rule is, you at least don't need to commit suicide or do nothing.
    • Some models have special rules on their guns to "fix" this, mostly characters with big expensive minis and guns that only cause a mortal wound on a 1.
  • Anti-Air Flamethrowers: Flamethrowers in 8th edition no longer use an AoE "teardrop" template, but instead inflict a random number of automatic hits on a unit. For example, a Hellhound's Inferno Cannon inflicts D6 automatic hits. Due to these changes, regular flamers are less important as a crowd control weapon, and more as an anti-hitmod (and anti-aircraft) weapon; this is especially true of weapons that have a multi-damage value like the aforementioned Inferno Cannon. Where it gets silly though is how Flamers interact with "ambush/deepstrike" abilities. See, regular flamers have an effective range of 8 inches, but most "strike from Reserve" powers require you to set up more than 9 inches away. This means that flamers are useless when you appear from Reserves, but it also means they're useless for defending against units Charging from Reserves, since the flamers are out of range and thus unable to actually lay down a Wall of Death unlike 6th-7th Edition, or interrupt movement like 2nd Edition.
  • All is Atomized Dust: The rules for Psykers in 8th are copied from Age of Sigmar: Roll 2d6 against the Psychic Power's difficulty, suffering Perils if you roll double 1s or double 6s. Perils means you suffer D3 Mortal Wounds, and inflict another D3 Mortal Wounds to all units within 6" should the Psyker be slain as a result. Unfortunately, the Aspiring Sorcerer in a unit of Rubric Marines...has 1 wound, while having a weaker version of Smite. Because Mortal Wounds spillover, this means you lose 2d3 models to Perils, the Sorcerer among them. Don't even think about trying to cast powers against Hive Fleet Kronos, lest your expensive Rubric Marines go up in a blaze of Chaos is Fickle!
  • Just Another Bugged Hunt: Genestealer Cults have a special rule called Brood Brothers: For each Genestealer Cult detachment in your army, you may take one Guard detachment, ignoring said Guard Detachment's Faction Keywords when determining if your army is Battle-Forged. The Guard Detachment cannot benefit from any Regiment-specific Stratagems, Doctrines, or Relics. However, a separate Forgeworld FAQ ruling states that Elysian and Krieg bonuses are not considered Regiment bonuses but their own "bespoke" rules. Combine with the fact that Brood Brothers has no restriction on being triggered by an Auxiliary Detachment, and you can have a Battalion of Tyranids fighting alongside a Battalion of Elysians, with a single Cult Acolyte in an Auxiliary Detachment making the list Battle-Forged.
  • Supreme Lack of Fire Discipline: The T'au Sept Sa'cea has the Tenet Calm Discipline, which at first looks similar to the Salamander Chapter Tactic Master Artisans, in that it lets each Sa'cea unit reroll a single to-hit roll. However, while the Salamanders Chapter Tactic is worded that you "you can reroll a single failed hit roll and a single failed wound roll made for a SALAMANDERS unit with this Tactic each time it shoots or fights," the Sa'caea Tenet is written that "In the Shooting phase you can re-roll a single failed hit roll when a unit with this tenet shoots." As written, the Tenet gives you one reroll to-hit for the entire shooting phase, and not one per unit.
  • Ork Snipers are totally a thing: Again with GW forgetting that -1 to hit is actually powerful and handing it out everywhere, this means that Orks are literally incapable of hitting anything with a -2 to hit, since there is no "6 always hits" rule the way there is a "1 always fails" rule.
    • This can be exploited by a Tyranid list with Biovores. The Spore Mine Launcher, on a miss, allows you to put a Spore Mine on the table for free, even in Matched Play. Tired of to-hit penalty cheese making all your guns hit on a 6+ or 7+? Have your Biovores shoot at them and they can literally cover the table in Spore Mines, because they'll always miss.
  • The Howling Banshees got into the cookie-dough again: Howling Banshees get +3 to the distance they roll for charges, and are also supposed to be able to charge units 15" away. However due to how the rule is written, all it does is let them charge after advancing if a unit is 15" away, not that they get to ignore the 12" limit from the main Rulebook. I guess Jain Zar has some coupons for Ben and Jerry's or something?
  • "We forgot the difference between Unit and Model" for 500, Alex: The rules for Advancing say that the unit may not be selected to shoot if it does so. The rules for Assault weapons say a model with an Assault weapon may shoot it if it advanced, but at -1 to hit. The problem is that you can never select the unit the model with an Assault weapon is in as a unit you want to shoot with, due to the rules for advancing. The same applies for Pistols with a unit within 1" of an enemy.
  • Stop Betraying Yourself! Stop Betraying Yourself!: Khârn the Betrayer has the rule Kill! Maim! Burn! which lets him (any friendly World Eaters within 1", so really just himself) reroll all hits in the Fight Subphase, and he hits on a 2+. Sounds good so far, right? However, his rule The Betrayer means he cannot reroll 1s (so he cannot reroll any hits), each 1 hitting a friendly unit instead. You would think this would mean that you should run him solo, for "If there are no friendly models within 1 inch of Khârn, the hits are discarded." Unfortunately, a model is always treated as being in range of itself for auras or other special rules, meaning a bunch of 1s (or modified rolls) will result in Khârn hitting himself instead of the enemy.
  • Trash Can Lid of Faith: Seraphim have a 6++ save, and a rule forcing them (if it were optional this wouldn't be a problem) to re-roll failed results when using this save. Celestine gives a +1 modifier to those invulnerable saves. However, because of the totally fun and not at all stupid system where re-rolls must happens before modifiers, if a Seraphim rolls a 5 for their save, they are forced to re-roll it even though it would pass after modifiers.
  • White Autarchs can't Jump: While it was fixed in the Codex for Warp Spiders (due to horrible wording in the Index, RAW said that Warp Spiders couldn't teleport out of combat in the Index), an Autarch using a Warp Spider Jump Pack can't use said Jump Pack to teleport out of Combat due to no current rules existing for the Autarch's version of it.
  • Remote Serjery: Because the Painboy's healing ability works on models and not units, it's entirely possible for a Painboy to save an Ork in combat on the other end of the table if you conga-line a maxed out squad of Boys. While less of a blooper and more a silly rules interaction, there is something hilariously Orky about the Painboy being able to save something locked in combat several feet away just because it's in the same mob.
  • High Speed Dirt: Deliberately crashing your own Flyers sounds dumb, right? Well if you read the rules for a lot of Kill Point missions (thankfully GW's No Quarter Given Objective is clear. Objectives written by Third Party groups are sometimes not so clear), or Tactical Objectives for Maelstrom Missions, deliberately crashing your own near-death flyer (by intentionally moving them for less than their minimum movement distance) means that your opponent doesn't get the kill credit as nobody actually destroyed it. This also leads too...
  • Strength From Horrible Rape: Ynnari again, and while this one makes sense RAW it's horribly unfluffy. Yvraine and The Visarch are healed on a 4+ by friendly Eldar exploding near them. Yvraine also benefits if it just happens to be a Psyker exploding, as it gives her more powers. Warlocks are very spammable. Put it together and it's not unheard of for Ynnari players to use a Command Point Re-roll to deliberately Perils of the Warp so that Yvraine gets a benefit from a Warlock being sucked into the Warp, likely taking even more Eldar with them if you get really unlucky. Yes, Eldar being introduced to Slaanesh's personal Bad Dragon collection actually heals and benefits the Ynnari, but they still swear it's entirely unrelated. Uh-huh...
  • [Insert Disarming Pun Here]: More Eldar rules breaking something! Jain Zar can disarm models she is fighting in close combat, rendering them unable to use one of their weapons. Well things get strange if you disarm something carrying the basic Close Combat Weapon. RAW says that the unit can't use that weapon, but the Rulebook states that you are to always assume that they have that weapon. There hasn't been a clear FAQ on this either which makes things more complicated.
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