Core Abilities

Core abilities are the shared vocabulary of the datasheets: Deep Strike, Scouts, Feel No Pain, Leader and the rest. They are printed by name on a unit's datasheet and defined once in the Core Rules, so every army that carries one plays it exactly the same way. This page collects them.

How abilities are written

An ability tells you what a unit can do beyond the basics. Some are printed in full on the datasheet; the ones on this page are printed as a name only, because their rules live in the Core Rules and never change from army to army.

Several core abilities carry a value in place of an X, such as Feel No Pain 5+, Scouts 6" or Deadly Demise 1. Read the X on the datasheet, not the generic wording, because two units with the same ability can carry very different numbers.

Duplicated abilities. A unit will occasionally end up with the same ability twice, most often because a Leader brought a copy of something the Bodyguard unit already had. Having an ability twice is no better than having it once; it applies a single time. Where the two copies carry different values, use the better of them.

Getting onto the battlefield

Deep Strike

A unit with Deep Strike has a far freer arrival than one simply walking on from the table edge. When it makes an ingress move, you may place it anywhere you like, so long as it stays over 8" horizontally from every enemy unit, and that includes deep inside your opponent's own deployment zone. Deep Strike is what turns a reserve unit from a reinforcement into a threat that has to be screened against all game.

Infiltrators

Infiltrators deploy before the battle rather than arriving during it. Instead of setting up in your deployment zone, the unit can be placed anywhere on the battlefield, provided it stays more than 8" horizontally away from both the enemy deployment zone and every enemy unit. It is the cheapest way to contest objectives in the middle of the table from turn one.

Scouts

Scouts X" grants a free repositioning before the first turn begins. The unit either makes a Scout move of up to X", or, if you left it in Strategic Reserves, pulls it back out and redeploys it into your deployment zone.

A Scout move starts with the unit wholly within your deployment zone and must end more than 8" horizontally from every enemy unit. Both players' Scout moves happen before the first turn, so a unit that scouts forward can find the enemy has scouted to meet it.

Staying alive

Feel No Pain

Feel No Pain X+ is a second chance after everything else has failed. Each time the model would lose a wound, whether from an attack, from mortal wounds or from any other source, roll a D6, and on a result of X or better that wound is simply ignored. Roll separately for every single wound; there is no batching.

Stealth

While every model in the unit has Stealth, ranged attacks against it are resolved as though the unit had the Benefit of Cover. Note the wording: the unit is treated as having cover rather than gaining it, which is why [IGNORES COVER] shuts Stealth down along with the real thing. The "every model" clause matters too. A single model without Stealth joining the unit switches the ability off for everyone.

Lone Operative

A Lone Operative cannot be seen by enemy models more than 12" away, so it cannot be shot at from across the table, and [INDIRECT FIRE] weapons cannot reach past that range either. The protection lasts only while the model is on its own: the moment it joins an attached unit, the ability stops applying and the whole unit can be targeted normally.

Leading other units

Leader

A Leader is a character that fights alongside a Bodyguard unit. The datasheet lists which units it can lead, and the pairing is made while mustering your army, not during the battle. Once paired, the two are an attached unit and count as a single unit for the rest of the game.

Support

Support works exactly like Leader: a support unit joins a Bodyguard unit to form an attached unit. It exists so a Bodyguard unit can take two additions rather than one, a single Leader and a single Support.

Fighting

Fights First

While every model in the unit has Fights First, the unit fights in the Fights First combats step of the Fight phase, ahead of everything resolving normal combats. As with Stealth, the ability needs to be universal across the unit. One model lacking it, and the unit fights at the normal time.

Monsters, vehicles and walkers

Deadly Demise

Deadly Demise X is the death throes of something large. When the model is destroyed, roll a D6; on a 6 every nearby unit takes X mortal wounds. It cuts both ways: a dying tank is as happy to hurt the unit that killed it as the friendly unit standing behind it.

Damaged

Damaged X is the wounded-and-struggling profile. While the model is down to X wounds or fewer it counts as damaged, and subtracts 1 from its Hit rolls. This is the 11th-edition replacement for the old multi-row damage tables: one threshold, one penalty.

Firing Deck

Firing Deck X lets a Transport put its passengers' guns to use. When the Transport shoots, up to X models embarked inside it can fire their weapons through the hull, as though the Transport itself carried them.

Hover

Hover removes the usual penalty for taking to the skies. A model with it goes airborne without losing the customary 2" of movement, so it keeps its full Move characteristic while flying.

Super-Heavy Walker

Super-Heavy Walker is the ability of the largest striding war engines. The model moves through other models and over low terrain without being blocked, and it can take the MOBILE keyword for a move to push through Dense terrain, at the risk of Battle-shock on a roll of 1.

Frequently asked questions

What are core abilities in Warhammer 40,000 11th edition?

Fourteen abilities, listed on this page: the ones a datasheet names alone and leaves the Core Rules to define. Faction and detachment abilities are written out in full wherever they appear and are not core abilities, even when they resemble one. If an army rule modifies a core ability, the army rule's text wins for that army only.

How far from the enemy does Deep Strike arrive in 40k 11th edition?

Over 8" horizontally, measured from every enemy model. That gap is a 9" charge on the dice at best, so a deep-striking melee unit lands needing a 9 on 2D6, which comes up just under 28% of the time; the ability is far more reliable for units that shoot on arrival or that have a re-roll or a modifier to the charge roll.

Does having an ability twice make it better in Warhammer 40,000?

No. Two sources of Feel No Pain give you one roll per wound, not two, and two copies of Stealth are still a single cover benefit. The one thing a second copy does is set the value, so a Leader with Feel No Pain 5+ joining a squad with Feel No Pain 6+ lifts the whole unit to 5+.

How does Feel No Pain work in Warhammer 40,000 11th edition?

The roll comes after saves have already been failed, one die per wound about to be lost. Because it is not a save, nothing that modifies save rolls or ignores invulnerable saves touches it, and it works against mortal wounds, which no save does. A Damage 3 attack that gets through prompts three separate rolls.

What is the difference between Leader and Support in 40k 11th edition?

Nothing in how the attached unit then plays; the difference is the slot each occupies. A Bodyguard unit can hold one of each, so a Support unit is how you get a second addition into a squad that already has its Leader, while two Leaders can never share one squad.