Daemonic Instability

One of the significant changes in the new Daemons of Chaos book seems to have slipped under the radar somewhat. This is in relation to Daemonic Instability.

In the 7th Edition book when you worked out Daemonic Instability you added the combat modifiers to the die roll and then compared that to the Leadership value. The difference was the number of models you lost. In this process there was no limit to the number of models you could lose.

e.g. Leadership 7 ~ Combat Modifiers -10 ~ Dice Roll 10

Here you would have 10 + 10 =20 which you would compare to 7 and lose 13 models

Under 8th the process is different. Now you subtract the combat modifier from the Leadership Characteristic and compare that to the die roll. This change is important because Leadership is a Characteristic and Characteristics are required to be between 0-10.

Using the same example we get a different answer.

eg.  Leadership 7 - Combat Modifier 10 = Leadership 0. This is compared to the die roll of 10 and you lose 10 models.

This is a very subtle but important change and one I think is worth highlighting. What it means is that a unit can only lose a maximum of 11 models from Instability (the roll of 12 having far more dire consequences, excepted).