That was my future self.
Apparently my time machine was a failure, so that puts the kibosh on
that plan. Anyway what has happened in
the world of my favourite hobby? Well,
one of them anyway. Yep, trailing
ponderously late behind the news, this post is about 7th edition, or at least
my thoughts about it. There’s been a bit
of a drip feed of information about this and I feel that GW has actually been
handling this release about right. The
White Dwarf Weekly format has been a great help with this and it seems like
they’ve really hit their stride with that publication. Which is more than I can say for
Visions. I reckon they should call time
on that one, personally. I don’t hate it
though. Not really. Some of my friends do, and I can understand
why. I really don’t think it’s worth the
asking price. I only get it because I’m
on a standing order subscription-y thing and it’s less than half price and even
then, I’m deeply dubious about its value.
It’s not worthless. The photos
are great and some of the displays, set pieces and Golden Daemon stuff is
fantastic. One of the recent editions
had a Sanguinary guard trying to escape a veritable tide of Tyranids and it was
truly exceptional. It’s called The Last
Light, and you all really owe it to yourselves to see it.
Anyway, with that tangent dispatched, on to 40k 7th
edition. My initial response to the
rumours was to believe that this was a tweak edition, 6.5 ed, I suppose. Just a tidying up of the existing rules,
incorporating Stronghold Assault and Escalation. Maybe a few alterations to some of the more
contentious rules. However, I was wrong
and the dripfeed of new rules and teasers began. My reactions to change are usually equitable
to a few of the stages of mourning, if I’m feeling pretentious and dramatic
about it. I usually don’t go for the
denial or anger stages. Depression (or
more accurately, pessimism) is a fairly hefty stopover for me though and this
is where the added clarification of the rules really helped me through into the
acceptance category. I’m not sure if
‘Cautiously Optimistic’ is one of the stages of grief, but that’s roughly where
I am at the moment.
I’m nowhere near as amped about this as I was with the
advent of 6th. That’s probably because
6th hasn’t been around long enough to wear out its welcome. I was getting seriously sick of 5th when it
finally received the bullet. I’d had
enough of endless mechanised armies and the infuriating survivability of
vehicles. That hasn’t happened in
6th. Not yet. Yeah sure there are a great many things I
don’t like about 6th. Especially with
Escalation and the like, it was becoming too much of a scissor-paper-stone
game. If some brought a D-weapon and you
couldn’t kill before it fired twice, then you would most likely lose. If you took it down before it could fire,
then the opponent would most likely lose.
That didn’t look like fun to me.
Still doesn’t. Will 7th change
that dynamic? I don’t know. There are tweaks to how D-weapons
operate. You’ll get invulnerable saves
against them for example, which is nice.
Unfortunately, that does heavily imply that there will be more of this
crap in even low-level games. And there
I go into pessimism again. Is mood swing
one of the stage of grief?
Regardless of my exponentially fracturing mental state, a
lot of the new rules discussed are looking interesting. The varying objectives mid-game will provided
a very interesting dynamic. Bound and
Unbound, initially one of the horror stories about the new ruleset has been
counterbalance by scoring advantages for Bound armies. The Psychic phase is a new addition and it
looks like it will be a nicely interactive event, even for the non-pysker
armies. As a Dark
Eldar-turned-Necron/Khorne player, I was never a fan of the lack of decent
psychic defence (I felt it a step down from 5th) and the new phase looks like
it will add more of a push-pull feel and add more narrative depth for those so
inclined. It should also give us a way
of denying blessings, which is where a lot of the filth settled in 6th. I’m hearing heavy rumours of Ignores Cover
meaning only a modifier to cover save rather than a full denial, which is a
move a highly support. No, it has nothing
to do with me playing Nids and Venomthropes.
I haven’t heard a great deal about the allies system, and I know that my
ideal situation of nixing Battle Brothers entirely my well be out of bounds,
but (like most other things in 7th) I remain Cautiously Optimistic.
Guess we’ll find out on 2th, eh?
So long meatsacs!
