The rumors are coming fast and furious at this point, and it appears a lot of them have come from actual reading of the new 6th edition book. I think overall this looks like a pretty significant boost to Daemons and I am going to hit on a few of the large ones here: Deep Strike Mishap Table, Vehicle Damage, and Assault Distances - I will address some of the later ones...later.
Deep Strike Mishap Table
The rumors on the new deep strike mishap table have suggested a major change to the results. Deep Strike still works as before but the results seem to be:
1 : Unit is Destroyed
2-3: Enemy places the unit
4-6: Place back in reserve
This halves the chance of losing a unit purely to a mishap which is nice, and biases it a bit more towards going back in reserve. Notably, there are still no changes to assault after a deep strike - but this is an expected change.
Overall it is a positive change although not really game/ground breaking.
Winners: Flamers
Vehicle Damage
The vehicle damage chart has changed to make vehicles appear - at first glance - more survivable, but I think what it really does is even out the probabilities for wrecking vehicles. A Glancing and Penetrating hit both remove a hull point from a vehicle - wounds for vehicles. A vehicle is suggested to have Hull Points equal to roughly (Facings - 10)/3. I assume there is a minimum value of 2 for any vehicle. Confirmed that a Soul Grinder has 3 Hull Points, where a Monolith/Land Raider have 4 Hull Points. In addition to this effect, penetrating hits roll on a revise damage table:
1-2: Shaken
3: Stunned
4-5: Weapons Destroyed/Immobile
6: Explodes
AP 2 gets +1, and AP 1 gets +2 on this. Overall I think this is a great change for Daemons (coupled with cover going to 5+) to let them break open those annoying vehicles with the firepower on hand. It also makes Soul Grinders a lot better since the odds of wrecking them with a single shot are reduced by 50% for penetrating hits and 100% for glances. My Seekers/Daemonettes/Fiends really like this with the huge number of glances they tend to generate and they have a great chance to surround a vehicles and get that desired wrecked result.
Worth noting here - it appears that vehicles are also a little easier to hit in assault.
Winners: Daemonettes, Horrors w/ Bolt, Seekers, Fiends
Assault Distances
Now we get to the huge change. Assaults are 2d6" and Fleet allows you to reroll one of the dice. This makes a lot of our slow units - Bloodcrushers, Bloodletters come immediately to mind, a lot better. Hear me out on this one. I know they lose that guaranteed charge, but they just gained the potential to get into combats that they had no business being involved in under the 5th edition rules. With cover going to a 5+, Daemons might as well deep strike in the open a bit more anyway. Even if it is a 1 in 36 chance to make that 12" assault on them - it will at some points win games straight up. Further, it forces an opponent to make this calculation when they deploy their forces and respond to your Deep Strikes. I also cannot remember the last time I was more than 3 or 4" out after movement with my infantry assault troops.
For fleet troops this change is effectively a Nerf (unfortunately). With fleet a unit had a threat range of 13-18". Although that range is the same - the chance to hit an 18" assault has gone from 16% to 5%.
One downside that effectively increases the distances Daemons need to go is that casualties are removed from the front rank according to most rumors. I will hit on this rumor and some others in my next update - one of which appears to dramatically increase the combat effectiveness of Daemons.
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