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...