More 6th edition thoughts..

Well its been a couple of weeks now with the new edition of 40K, I am still in the process of digesting the rules, making changes to my army lists, and best of all just having fun playing it. Part of the fun of a new edition is creating new lists with your existing armies as the rules might have made something better or something worse. In the case of my Chaos Space Marines, I have to say I just love how some of these rules actually improved the army. This last weekend, I was finally able to play a larger point game, 2000 pts in a large team game. As this was my first large game of 6th, I decided to go with my Thousand Sons with some allied Chaos Daemons (Fateweaver and a squad of Pink Horrors with the changling). As I really love some of the new psychic powers, and lets face it, the Chaos powers are really not any good anymore I decided to go with Ahriman so that I could generate 3 powers with him. Upon multiple readings of both the rule book and the chaos marine faq and the codex, I discovered that my aspiring sorcerers are all mastery level 2 (mark of tzenntch allows you to cast 2 powers) however since I could only "buy" one power for them in the codex, I could only generate 1 power for them (which sucks). Not to bad as I could cast level 2 spells and if I roll a level 1 spell, could still use my force weapon in close combat. Not to mention that on average, I would be getting a 5+ deny the witch roll unless the enemy psycher is level 1 which would make it a 4+; about time my expensive aspiring sorcerers count for something. I had Ahriman roll on the Telepathy chart as I really loved the invisibility ability I got during my last game and rolled a 6 for Hallaucation.

This power is unbelievable, it effectively shuts down an enemy unit with in 24 inches (basically they cant move, run, shoot, assault or hit in CC)if you roll between a 2-4 and since its a malediction, it auto-hits. Even though you need to roll for this, I have to say, this does seem a little OP for me. I casted this several times to the annoyance of one of my opponents as it allowed Ahriman and his squad of thousand sons to punch through a huge squad of scrabs and munch on a big squad of immortals and the Stormlord. I love the power but I feel that GW might need to nerf it a little bit like maybe allowing you to shut down a single phase or maybe having to roll to hit it or limiting it to just the player turn and not the entire game turn. It is a level 2 power so you would need a level 2 character to cast it so it does limit it in a way but most armies can get level 2 psykers. If I was lucky and generated this power along all of my squads, I could see this starting fights in a competitve atmosphere like a tournament or with WAAC opponents. Then again, maybe its a blessing against WAAC players... lol. I also ran a Daemon prince in order to have 2 flying monstrous creatures and the new vector strikes ability. As a whole, I love the idea of running flying monstrous creatures that are hard to shoot at and can hit units with their strikes and still shoot any weapons. What I dont like is how the rule reads in regards to being hit and taking grounded tests.

The rule specifically says that Flying MC's take the test if they are "hit", so I can have say a las pistol ground my MC just by hitting it. This in fact happened to me and so my Daemon prince was then lit up by 2 squads of plasma and melta toting Vet squads in Chimeras and he promptly died before doing anything. We had a discussion on this and we might house rule to say that the shot needs to wound the MC before a grounded test needs to be taken. I really hope that GW Faqs this as huge blob squads or units with a high rate of fire can knock MC's out of the sky with a single 6 rolled. I know the entry also mentions a Jink move so maybe if you are hit you are to roll your jink save and then if you fail your roll your grounded test but the rule doesnt say that. Fateweaver is fine, if I fail the grounded test he just takes his 3 up invul save but what about MC's with no invul save or a 5+ one? That just kills Nids as they dont even have an invul save to start with. Also, whats the deal of making it a strength 9 with no armor saves allowed?

The next army I would like to try is my Tau as I feel 6th really gave them a boost compared to the other older armies out there. With the differences in rapid fire, assault moves for jetpack toting troopers, the Tau are finally a highly movable force capable of laying down tons of fire while redeploying if an enemy gets too close. I will just need to finish painting the army.

6th edition - initial thoughts

Well the world has certainly changed for 40k. With the release of 6th edition this last Saturday, the world of 40k has been effectively turned on its head. I was fortunate enough to get invited to a 40k shindig held by a good friend of mine at his place to tryout the new rules with a large group of our friends. We decided to go with small 1000 pts games to make it easier for us to get a handle on the new rules. I played 2 games using my Thousand Sons as I wanted to try out the new psychic powers and I got to say, for this army, it definitely breathed some fresh air into it. With the ability to have a sorcerer in each troop squad, i got to use several of the new powers. Some of these were pretty bland while others are really cool. I ran Ahriman as he being a level 3 psycher would allow me to select up to 3 different powers if i wanted too and allow me to cast more then once per turn. Let me give you some benefits that i see with 6th - Flyer rules in. Flyers just became a valid unit to take. I am just hoping that all armies get access to them and it seems that in the future that they will. - New psychic powers! These are just great, I just wish you could choose which one you want to use instead of having to roll for it. Even with the random roll, the fact that we got more options for powers is always good. Some powers like invisibility are just awesome!! Terrify is also great with its ability to strip fearless away and give even the chance to fail a morale check. - Snapfire!! The fact that your troops can fire heavy weapons on the move and most importantly fire at charging enemies is just a great mechanic. Overwatch really helps out those shooty armies to at least take out some of their attackers before they get smashed to the ground and the fact that vehicles could fire a snapshot even when stunned or if they move 12 inches is just pure win. - Changes to rapid fire. I cant even begin to express how good this is for shooty armies. Tau firewarriors just got scary with the ability to move and fire at full range or firing twice at half range. Tactical space marines can also provide cover fire on the move just to name a couple of examples. - Warlord and the special abilities they get!! These are just cool, not over powering but a nice ability all HQ that are selected as your army's warlord get. Again, I wish you could just pick the ability instead of having to roll for it but most of them are really good. Having Ahriman and his Thousand Son retinue outflanking by rolling the outflank ability is pure win and I got it twice!! I am hoping that as new codexes come out that more abilities are added.

There are several more benefits but again this is my initial thoughts only after playing a couple of games. With these initial likes we come to some initial dislikes. - Allies. Ok, this is both a benefit and a dislike. I didnt include it in benefits section as I wanted to discuss this first in a negative light. As a whole, allies are a welcome addition to 40K. Allies will open up a lot of options for players especially where fluff is concerned. But with the good, you are going to get the bad with WAAC players finding the cheesiest combinations ever. GW at least built some counter measures to this by coming up with their Allies matrix but mark my words, there will still be those players that will find ridiculous combos that are both broken and just not fun for their opponent. I'm keeping my mind open to this one and hopefully it will be more of a benefit then a dislike - Relentless. - Giving rapid fire weapons the ability to shoot their full range once while moving is great and all but what benefit do people with relentless get? All I could find is the ability to charge after firing which is what relentless was in 5th. I had wished that relentless would have given models the ability to fire twice at full range and still be able to charge in combat after firing thus making it different from what Rapid fire is. - Power Axes, Power Weapons. This is just dumb, power axes being initiative 1 and just plus 1 strength but AP2, Power weapons being AP3 just made 2 plus armor saves boss. I had Sanguinor tied up for 4 turns with my obliterator as he is now AP3 with his power weapon which was funny to me but my opponent was just pissed. What will this do to Xenos armies with no access to power fists, thunder hammers, etc? I know that each army got faqs to address this but what good is high initiative if basic terminators will beat your face in? I know that this was done to address Grey Knights and their initiative 6 shenanigans but it really screws a lot of armies. The good thing is it seems that nobody barring rending attacks have AP2 weapons that attack at initiative so everybody is on the slow train if they want to by pass 2plus armor. Its funny but Necrons have the fastest AP2 CC weapon in the game with their Warsytches.

- Close Combat wound allocations. As we know, casualties in the shooting phase are taken out based on who is closer to the actual unit shooting. It is a nice simple way to deal with wounds when shooting is concerned but what about Close combat. This rule is just dumb and with mixed armor might tend to just slow the game the down. Why not keep wound allocation in CC the same as Fourth thus dealing with the wound allocating shenanigans of 5th? This one will definitely need some getting used to. - No assaulting out of reserves. This is just so stupid as it really nerfs outflanking units by not allowing them to assault out of reserve. I read this rule over and over again trying to make sense of it but as it stands, no unit coming from reserve (on either board edge) can not assault as if they deep struck. Web way portal Dark Eldar, outflanking Genestealers, or my own Chaos chosen can not assault on the turn that they come in. I have an idea of why they did this, (Thunderlords outflanking with Shrike)but come on. This is just dumb. Will guys thats it for now until I get more games in. All in all I have high hopes for this edition. I mean hell, even some big 40K talking heads are saying that this could be the best edition of 40K. I guess only time will tell...