The 3rd, and latest, edition of Warhammer 40,000 was released four years ago and since then we've received endless feedback from gamers. We recently published the trial Assault rules and this time we present the trial Vehicle rules. These are aimed primarily at veteran gamers and tournament players. These rules aren't radically different from those in your rulebook but do allow vehicles to be used more dynamically and make moving troops in transports more of a risky proposition. We welcome your feedback, so let us know what you think!
Designers' Notes: Throughout these trial rules you will see some notes (like these!) drawing your attention to things that have changed and explaining the reasons why. Hopefully, this should help you spot the differences a bit more easily!
War Machines of the 41st Millennium
Open-Topped Vehicles
Some vehicles are not fully enclosed, but expose their crews to a hostile environment. While crews and embarked troops on open-topped vehicles have more freedom of movement and much better arcs of vision, the lack of an enclosed cabin inevitably means that they, and their vehicle, are more vulnerable to incoming fire.
There are many reasons for this: it may be to give reconnaissance units a good field of vision, to make embarking and disembarking easier, or it may simply be impractical to enclose the crew. In the case of Imperial Guard artillery vehicles, such as the Basilisk, for example, the crew require plenty of space to load and fire the enormous Earthshaker cannon. This aside, it is mostly smaller vehicles that are open-topped, such as Ork buggies and trukks.
Fast Vehicles
There is a role in any army for high-speed vehicles. These are usually smaller vehicles which will often be used to reconnoitre ahead of an army or rapidly deploy heavy weapons systems or infantry squads to critical parts of the battlefield. Some races, such as the Eldar, use fast vehicles almost exclusively (Falcons, Vypers, etc).
Walkers
On any battlefield, there are places where conventional vehicles cannot go: built-up areas, dense forests, narrow tunnels, and so on. For this reason, many armies use vehicles that are propelled by two, or sometimes more, mechanical legs. These vehicles are usually capable of carrying as many weapon systems as a tank can on a significantly smaller and lighter chassis. They combine the armoured might of a tank with the manoeuvrability of an infantryman. In general, these vehicles have a single crewman. Space Marine Dreadnoughts, however, are more than simply a one-man vehicle: they contain the mortally wounded remains of great Space Marine heroes, becoming mausoleum and war machine all in one. It is considered the greatest honour for a Space Marine to be incarcerated into one of these ancient machines so that they may continue to serve the Emperor. The Eldar Wraithlord, on the other hand, does not have any crew at all — it is 'piloted' instead by a spirit stone containing the vital essence of a dead Eldar warrior.
Because of their manoeuvrability, lighter walkers are often used as recon vehicles. The Imperial Guard Sentinel and the Eldar War Walker are both designed with this role very much in mind. Dreadnoughts, on the other hand, especially those created by the Orks, tend to be used as shock assault vehicles, striding into battle alongside their infantry and spearheading assaults. The walker category also includes war machines that use anti-gravitic engines such as the Dark Eldar Talos. Although not literally a walker, the performance of these vehicles mirrors walker characteristics more closely than it does that of skimmers.
Tanks
These are a commonplace sight on the battlefields of the 41st Millennium. For an infantryman, a tank is an awesome sight as it rolls across the battlefield. It will not only be immune to most of the weaponry carried by his squad, but it is able to bring to bear enough firepower to utterly eradicate him and his unit.
Most races field some kind of heavily armed and armoured vehicle, whether it be the huge and lumbering Leman Russ battle tanks of the Imperial Guard or the sleek and sophisticated grav vehicles of the Eldar. Tanks are often fitted for multi-role capability and this will commonly include troop transportation as well as tank-hunting capability or infantry support with a deadly arsenal of weapons.
Imperial vehicles are often ancient in design, the basic plans having been rediscovered thousands of years ago, before the Emperor's ascension. Despite the antiquity of their design, their sheer ruggedness and versatility mean that they remain a match for enemy vehicles.
Alien tanks are very different machines. Eldar combat vehicles are highly advanced; not only do they float above the ground using sophisticated anti-gravity engines, they are also faster, enabling them to carry out the lightning raids and deep strikes for which they are rightly feared. Most of the fastest vehicles on the battlefield are skimmers, such as the Space Marine Land Speeder, as these avoid terrain problems which slow down conventional craft. However, a few wheeled or tracked vehicles are also capable of high speeds, mostly due to either ultra-light weight or extremely powerful engines.
Skimmers
While most vehicles travel across the ground using wheels, tracks or legs, some advanced machines are fitted with anti-gravitic drives that enable them to swoop and hover a few metres above the battlefield. This is not true flight, but rather gravitic repulsion in a limited plane. The Space Marine Land Speeder is the only Imperial vehicle with this capability, as the helio-prismic engines are very difficult and expensive to produce, limiting their issue to only the Emperor's elite troops. The Land Speeder is a highly manoeuvrable, light reconnaissance and fast strike craft. It is capable of high speeds and can execute very tight turns but is limited in its vertical movement by a climb/dive incidence of no more than 35° from the horizontal due to inverse flux anomalies which arise beyond this point.
The only race to have truly mastered skimmer technology is the ancient and highly advanced Eldar. They build nearly all of their vehicles around sophisticated tri-polar phased crystal engines. These are manufactured in all sizes from the small and super-light units in jetbikes to the huge engines that power super-heavy grav-tanks such as the Scorpion. The Falcon is perhaps the best example of Eldar skimmer technology — it is a large tank that is not only capable of low altitude flight but can also climb and dive almost vertically. Orks, on the other hand, are not sufficiently advanced to fully comprehend anti-grav technology.