7th Ed Impressions

Well, I’ve actually played some 40k for once.  Got through a few games actually, and I have another one scheduled for tomorrow, so my burnout might be receding.  All these games have been with (pretty much) the same army though: Slaaneshi Chaos Daemons with CSM allies.  They’ve actually been serving me well for the most part, but the outcomes are not the point.  How have I been finding 7th?  For the most part, much like 6th, if I’m being honest.  I’m really enjoying the Psychic Phase, as a I suspected I would.  The ability to (attempt) to squash a Blessing or two has really been a great comfort and boon for me, as having a chance (however unlikely) does give me a sense of agency during the game that was missing before.  Aside from anything else, the new phase reduces the number of powers that go off (on aggregate) and makes everything that little bit more unpredictable.  I’ve yet to have anyone pulled into the Warp mid-game, but there’s still time.

I do have to say that I’ve only played the funky Maelstrom of War stuff once though.  It made the game run a touch long (in 3 hours, my friend and I only go round to turn 4, but he’d conceded by then anyway).  However, most games with me run a little long anyway, so I’m not sure if that’s really going to have an appreciable effect in most games once people are used to the changes in that type of situation.  One thing I did like in that game is the fact that you quite often find yourself trusting to luck more and lunging your guys forward to grab an opportune objective when it presents itself.  This could create chinks in your lines and weaknesses for your opponents to exploit, costing you valuable VPs in the long run, which is a dynamic I quite enjoy. I’m getting another one of these games in soon, so hopefully I’ll have a similar experience second time around.

Armies designed for Maelstrom are noticeably different from Eternal War forces in 6th ed.  And that’s before we even touch on the Unbound stuff.  There’s a greater emphasis on manoeuvrability and you’re going to encounter far fewer horrific hammer units, with a larger focus on multiple small units to increase board coverage for objective claiming.  This also provides greater tactical focus of smaller amounts of firepower, but also reduces survivability of each unit and give more ebb and flow to the combat in my view.

The change to Jink saves also had a significant impact in my games.  Not for me, as I don’t run that type of unit, but giving an opportunity to suppress bike guns for a turn was much appreciated.  Also, having the decision point be before any rolls are made was also an excellent idea and added a great deal of tension to the game.

Still not entirely sure what I feel about the change to vehicle durability.  Make no mistake, I’m happy that Hull Points are still here and mostly unchanged and I really like that my Soul Grinders don’t care about Krak Missiles much anymore.  But, aren’t they meant to care?  Krak missiles hardly feel like their designed to, well, crack tanks.  They annoy or suppress them, but don’t seem to pose a significant threat.  Autocannons still work though.  Glorious, glorious autocannons.

So they’re my brief impressions of 40k 7th edition at the moment.  Orks are incoming though, so you can probably expect some more in depth gibberish coming down the pipe shortly!

Rising from the Depths

Well, that’s at least one resolution broken.  Things got hectic, I had some games to play on another continent and everything broke loose at work.  Nevertheless, I’m back now for a nebulous amount of time before the next calamitous disastrocity hits.  Or a new game comes out.  Or I forget. Or my time machine works. Who can tell?  I can’t.  That’s why I need a time machine.  Oh, wait a sec…

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!