More 6th Edition Thoughts

Its been a few weeks since I bought the new rule book and I've been pretty consumed by 6th edition.

Between listening to podcasts, reading blogs, reading forums, reading the main rule book, writing up new army lists, contemplating armies, and playing games of 6th ed, I've neglected the blog a bit too much.

Don't worry I plan to continue posting new things on here, its not going away.  And I will finish the Book of the Arbitator game battle report soon I hope.

I've come to a conclusion about 6th edition that is somewhat surprising considering before I had the book in my hands, I thought GW may have actually screwed the pooch on this edition.  I have come to the conclusion that what they have done is pretty amazing.  The rules interact in a very interesting way which is very cohesive and truly are a new version of 40k.

They have turned the game on its head and with one release re-ignited the fan base.  I've heard rumors of game stores being packed with people playing and talking and buying stuff.  There has been plenty of discussion about the tournament scene and the organizers of the big tournaments trying to come up with codified tournament rules (for things like terrain, missions, warlord traits, etc).

Now before I get off track, which I am wont to do, I want to go over my thoughts about 6th edition and where I am going to go with it.

The rulebook is beautiful and worth every penny.  The index is incredibly useful and the rules are for the most part worded well.  I have only found 2 instances of bad GW editing, which is new for them.  I like the new missions with a few exceptions.  I like the changes to force and power weapons.  I like the new psychic powers and warlord traits.  I like hull points and how vehicles work.

The new missions initially seem unbalanced when playing with certain armies like the necron flyer spam lists, but in reality balance themselves out.  Its a strange thing that at first glance some of them seem bad but aren't actually.

I don't like mysterious objectives partly because I forget to use them, or they don't have any measurable impact on the game despite reading the descriptions of what they do and envisioning all sorts of mayhem resulting from them. In the games I've played they've had no impact and its a scramble at the end to grab them like it always has been prior to 6th.

Force weapons and power weapons stats are now based on how they are modeled.  Some people will be upset at this because they have a guy modeled with a power sword but really want a power axe for example.  I am totally cool with this because it opens up new modelling possibilities for me.  Many gamers like myself who have been playing for 10+ years have plenty of bits floating around which can be used to remodel their figs with the appropriate type of weapon and also welcome the chance to go back and update figs.

The new psychic powers are cool but not over-powering nor do they take over the game by adding a psychic phase, which was a huge failing in my perspective of 2nd edition or Fantasy.  They give my psykers something new to try out.  I like that.

The new warlord traits are neat and add something to the game but have been somewhat underwhelming so far in the games I've played kind of like the mysterious objectives.  I like Reece's suggestion from Frontline Gaming of rolling a d6 and then picking one trait from any of the 3 trait tables that correspond to the number rolled.  This system would still be random but would give you some choice, which is good, IMHO.

Vehicles have become much cooler in how they operate.  Hull points make rhinos tougher earlier in the game because a glance won't impact its usability.  The make vehicles weaker as the game goes on, because only a few glances separate a vehicle from destruction.  Vehicle movement got a huge boost in this edition because a rhino can now move 18" a turn which is awesome for actually getting a unit somewhere quickly.

These are still my initial thoughts since getting the book.  Now I will discuss my plans for 6th ed.

Unfortunately I have to wait until the new Chaos codex comes out before I do any more modeling or painting of anything.  I just can't get motivated until that happens.  Iron Warriors are my largest army and my favorite, so until the new codex arrives (Sept 1st is the rumor) I can't really do anything.

That being said these are my plans for chaos in the coming months:

I plan to play allied guard and Iron Warriors and the reverse.

I plan to either expand my Apostles of Contagion with more plague marines and/or guard.

I have ideas of doing an Exorcist Space Marine army with Grey Knight allies.

I may also do my Skulltakers Khorne Warband at some point depending on the new codex.

So hopefully I have said something of interest in this post.  I have probably just rambled on as I usually do.

Until next time.