I was up against Stef and his kinda painted marines (chapter name escapes me) but the bits he has got painted are superb!
So 6th Ed, if your an old fart like me you'll have seen 40K grow from 2nd Ed to its present day version and oh hows its been an interesting ride with various changes along the way.
I'll start with is it better than 5th? Simple answer Hell yes! and these are some of the reasons why....
Allies - At last you can use that "new project" that you've had kick around for ages and field it next to your main force (terms and conditions apply)
Better Missions - kill points are kinda gone, but the secondary missions are a lovely twist, I'm liking them alot!
Far better psyker rules - ok so its not going to be as good as dark millennium but the previous few versions for psykers were pants at least this way you get a lot more choice, blatantly lifted from warhammer but I like it, Finally my thousand sons sorcerer can do something useful with his spells apart from turning people into gibbering loonies!
Pre-measure - At bloody last!! its the 41st Millennium not the dark ages! you can navigate across the Galaxy but not know the range of your weapons!
Random charge distance - counter balances the pre-measure superbly, I'm sure all the hardcore torney players will be spitting feathers but I'm not a torney play so actually like it, I rolled mental last night and one unit managed a 10" charge!! Only downside is that if you don't roll high enough you stand still. Maybe the lowest number on the two dice is your movement.
Page 6 of the book has a woman playing a game! about bloody time they realised that women game too....
Shooting just got funky! - Snap shots, focused fire, overwatch fire and focused fire lovely stuff!!
Cover saves - the difference is much better only a small change but that's enough!
Challenges - Nice and fluffy, and if you've a independent with a unit champion, challenge with your unit champion and let your independent clear up the rest of the enemy unit ;)
Universal Special rules - ye gods! they've changed only when having a second look today at various rules did I discover that furious charge doesn't give you +1 int anymore! sorry Stef!! theres a lot to take in from this section so worth spending some time to suss out what your stuff can now do!
Bikes are suddenly very tasty! - ignore difficult terrain, +1 toughness, hammer of wrath, jink & relentless = ding dong!
Jump units - again they've had a boost with the hammer of wrath, and a re-roll for the assault phase but you only can use your pack once per turn, so 12" move or re-roll assault and hammer of wrath not both.
Flying monstrous creatures - enough said!!
Melee weapons now have an AP value, kinda makes sense its now worth using termis without the stormshield spam.
Hull points on vehicles - another no brainier, and finally vehicle squadrons won't blow up there own tanks etc if its immobilised they carry on and it sits there waiting for the AA to turn up.
de-bussing from your transport - bit of a double edged sword, you deploy 6" and shoot or run but no assault, makes assault or open topped transports worth there weight in gold now!
Flyers - Only been on the receiving end of them and my 4 missile launcher havoc squad is now my "mastercard" unit. I'm waiting on the chaos codex before splashing out on a hell blade though.
Terrain - its got some funky stuff like the fantasy rules, and you can buy a bastion!
So onto the game...
The set up, landraider with kharn and his boys, the slannesh choosen waiting to be infiltrated, and the plague marines making ready to hold the right flank, with the noise marines and havocs centre stage,
The havoc's with a cracking field of fire!
And the noise marines ready for some walking....
Kharn and the boys ready for there big day out!
So first turn the choosen jumped into the terrain that Stef's techamrine had reinforced, much to his dismay ;) the land raider chugged forward and tried to hide behind a building!
The landraider was immobilised my the vindicator and forced kharn and the boys to walk!
A couple of turns later the choosen & berzerkers had reached stef's line and partied hard! The plague marines decided that the big forgeworld dreadnought was fair game and the noise marines and the havoc's made plenty of noise but didn't do any massive damage due to the scouts save in cover with night fight!
The mayhem in stef's deployment zone! bikers came on and help clear the area and the techmarine & kharn ended up killing each other, kharn with his 7 str 7 ap2 attacks teh tech marine with his powerfist!
So there was bugger all left at the end!
The game itself was quite brutal and the crazy mofo delivery system worked quite nicely, All I need to do is convert a khorne landraider and the jobs a good un! but with the rumours that I've been reading about the new chaos landraider can hold a few more models so I'm tempted to wait and see what they bring out kit wise, if not I'll look at a stormraven or spartan assault tank.
As we rolled night fighting that gave the scouts a 2+ cover save which in the end I bypassed them and played with the razorback instead,
The only negative point for the game was the constant referring to the rule book for various situations, sargents in a unit taking a wound and we didn't do wound allocation correctly so I'm going to have to start remembering that!
Overall yea its a good version, but it'll really start to shine once I start using fliers and defences.
Great review mate, I'm loving the new set of rules. Really happy with them.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I have heard anything negative, only from people that insist on looking for stuff to moan about!!!
well your never gonna please every one, trick is don't play the haters ;)
DeleteGlad to see you liked the new edition. I shall be down in a couple of weeks for a test game.
ReplyDeleteI thought Gorechild would count as an Unusual Power Weapon so was AP3?
I thought that too, but whilst looking at the chaos FAQ Gorechild is treated as a power axe, so I figured its unweildly?
DeleteI found that after my first couple of games i'm not referring to my rulebook every two seconds.
ReplyDeleteRight now i think i'm going to be using my necrons for a while as they don't need much tweaking to take out fliers, annihilation barges being twin-linked and hitting 3 times on a 6.
just a question though, you mention havocs being your mastercard unit, you do realise they don't have flakk missiles right?
nope, not until I read pg 57 did I notice that "some have the option..." personally we'll house rule it otherwise chaos has nothing to take out flyers (until the new codex)
Deletelots of people have made that mistake. GW should put articles in white dwarf about what has changes, especially as a lot of the changes u can only find by their omission, which makes it difficult to look for!
ReplyDeleteI myself played dreadknights with teleporters as a flying monster until i was told i was wrong by the internet.
I think CSM, when they get their new book in a couple of months will be the first to get flakk missiles and then they'll be FAQ'd into the other book i imagine
some bits of the rule book are quite well hidden, I would agree with the white dwarf article but I don't read it anymore,
Deletewell in the mean time I suppose I'd better proxi that hellblade...
There was some talk of them releasing a second FAQ when the starter set comes out to resolve some of the problems (like lack of Flakk).
DeletePerhaps it really will be a summer of flyers winning games followed by a winter of discontent as every one goes back to using Long Fangs with 5x Missiles. I know that and a Rune Priest are my top choice for Allies.