Wohoo! The weekend begins now.
Well, after a day of work. Bleh.
Newho, welcome to another Friday edition of Ex instinctu Imperator. I had promised to finish discussing Blog Wars, but I am not feeling overly well today and remembering stuff hurts my brain, so instead I am going to talk about something on a tangent to that, as well as being based on a question I was asked recently by a friend.
Having played continuously from near the beginning of Third Edition Warhammer 40,000 until now, I have seen more edition changes than most. Unfortunately for my occasionally scattered mind that does sometimes mean I'll start playing a rule and realise I'm actually referring to something from back in Third. However, far more often it simply leads to nostalgia.
Now, at Blog Wars, there were spot prizes for each round; one for something merely embarrassing such as killing a multi-wound Psyker by Perils of the Warp, and one for something that wouldn't have happened in Fifth Edition 40k. In two of my three games, I gave my opponent one of the spot prizes available. In the other, we only just missed out on doing so (Overwatch turning a 5" charge into an 8" charge). These prizes were a great way to add a little extra spice to the tournament and, whilst I have seen similar things in the past and want to implement them at the Student Nationals next year, having the direct comparison between 5th and 6th was a blast adding in a lot of humour.
As I said earlier, a friend recently asked me what my favourite rules change from 5th to 6th was. By now I hope you've worked out my theme in today's post. At the time I was more than a little groggy from only just waking up, but the question still got my neurons firing; although the core game play stayed reasonably static in this latest edition change, there are hundreds of subtle changes that have, for the most part, improved the game. It's not easy to narrow it down at all.
Trying to narrow down favourite changes across all of these would be even harder, but I think I'd have to say the move from Paperback to hard covers...
My initial answer to the 5th to 6th question was "directional damage", with a few caveats. In my opinion, the ability to out manoeuvre your opponent, get your units behind his and take out special weapons and/or squad leaders is excellent. It adds a further level of tactical depth to the game that was only seen with vehicles before, not just in how you go about attacking a unit but also how you deploy and move individual models within it. Without 'Look Out, Sir!', I think this could be a little over powered, rendering some units helpless very quickly and making it all but pointless to attach many characters to units. Equally, it sometimes seems a little odd that certain characters, such as Lysander, can tank wounds; soaking up hundreds of shots seemingly, the hail of fire being incredibly focussed. Still, I generally prefer it to 3rd Edition, were inexplicably the Sergeant, Flamer and Missile Launcher would always be the very last Space Marines in a unit to take any damage.
Having taken a little more time to think on the subject, whilst not disagreeing with my previous answer, I'd also like to add Overwatch in to that. I know that the turn sequence is an abstraction from the realities of war to make the game relatively fair and easy to keep track of, but it always felt odd that units would just stand there patiently and let the enemy walk up to them for a punch up. I mean, certain units it made sense (Why would a Khorne Berserker want to shoot you when he could get sprayed with your vital fluids?) but particularly those shooty units whose weapons were much more deadly than their own pitiful strength seemed kind of dumb. Most of the time, Overwatch will do very little, perhaps a wound or two before saves, but when it pushes back a unit so they just can't quite get off the charge, that feels like a victory in of itself. It's possibly the Tau have taken it a little too far, with so many units being able to Overwatch a single charging unit, but I guess that is more down to your own tactics to ensure you pull off multiple assaults at the same time.
I'd also give a final mention to pre-measuring. By hook or by crook, experienced players could do it anyway, ever since models came on certain sized bases. I knew my Rhinos were 6" long, so my Tactical squad behind weren't going to get a charge off against the unit a few inches in front of it. There was certainly a little gamesmanship in being able to gauge the finest of differences between just being in range or just out, but it always felt a little odd that some of the most finely trained warriors the galaxy could produce, regardless of race, couldn't tell if there weapons were going to be out of range and thus choose a more suitable target. So I'm very glad that is in the latest rule set, but of course it did have to be accompanied by random charge distances. If it wasn't, you could set up armies, never move the models, roll a few dice and decide the game without actually playing it. It retains the sense of tension and jeopardy without boiling the fun into pure numbers. Sure it can be annoying at times when you roll just short, but not half as much as when you were out of range by half an inch and your unit was sat around doing nothing for a turn.
So I turn the forum over to you, the reader; What do you like or dislike about the changes in the latest update of our favourite game? We've had a year to get used to it now (within a few weeks anyway) so this is no longer reactionary drivel and overblown misunderstanding of the consequences. Are you looking forward to seeing more things come in to effect as new Codex's are released to take advantage of rules (as the Tau have done with Overwatch) or rework them completely, as the Eldar do with shooting and running?
Matt
Well, after a day of work. Bleh.
Newho, welcome to another Friday edition of Ex instinctu Imperator. I had promised to finish discussing Blog Wars, but I am not feeling overly well today and remembering stuff hurts my brain, so instead I am going to talk about something on a tangent to that, as well as being based on a question I was asked recently by a friend.
Now, at Blog Wars, there were spot prizes for each round; one for something merely embarrassing such as killing a multi-wound Psyker by Perils of the Warp, and one for something that wouldn't have happened in Fifth Edition 40k. In two of my three games, I gave my opponent one of the spot prizes available. In the other, we only just missed out on doing so (Overwatch turning a 5" charge into an 8" charge). These prizes were a great way to add a little extra spice to the tournament and, whilst I have seen similar things in the past and want to implement them at the Student Nationals next year, having the direct comparison between 5th and 6th was a blast adding in a lot of humour.
As I said earlier, a friend recently asked me what my favourite rules change from 5th to 6th was. By now I hope you've worked out my theme in today's post. At the time I was more than a little groggy from only just waking up, but the question still got my neurons firing; although the core game play stayed reasonably static in this latest edition change, there are hundreds of subtle changes that have, for the most part, improved the game. It's not easy to narrow it down at all.
My initial answer to the 5th to 6th question was "directional damage", with a few caveats. In my opinion, the ability to out manoeuvre your opponent, get your units behind his and take out special weapons and/or squad leaders is excellent. It adds a further level of tactical depth to the game that was only seen with vehicles before, not just in how you go about attacking a unit but also how you deploy and move individual models within it. Without 'Look Out, Sir!', I think this could be a little over powered, rendering some units helpless very quickly and making it all but pointless to attach many characters to units. Equally, it sometimes seems a little odd that certain characters, such as Lysander, can tank wounds; soaking up hundreds of shots seemingly, the hail of fire being incredibly focussed. Still, I generally prefer it to 3rd Edition, were inexplicably the Sergeant, Flamer and Missile Launcher would always be the very last Space Marines in a unit to take any damage.
Having taken a little more time to think on the subject, whilst not disagreeing with my previous answer, I'd also like to add Overwatch in to that. I know that the turn sequence is an abstraction from the realities of war to make the game relatively fair and easy to keep track of, but it always felt odd that units would just stand there patiently and let the enemy walk up to them for a punch up. I mean, certain units it made sense (Why would a Khorne Berserker want to shoot you when he could get sprayed with your vital fluids?) but particularly those shooty units whose weapons were much more deadly than their own pitiful strength seemed kind of dumb. Most of the time, Overwatch will do very little, perhaps a wound or two before saves, but when it pushes back a unit so they just can't quite get off the charge, that feels like a victory in of itself. It's possibly the Tau have taken it a little too far, with so many units being able to Overwatch a single charging unit, but I guess that is more down to your own tactics to ensure you pull off multiple assaults at the same time.
I'd also give a final mention to pre-measuring. By hook or by crook, experienced players could do it anyway, ever since models came on certain sized bases. I knew my Rhinos were 6" long, so my Tactical squad behind weren't going to get a charge off against the unit a few inches in front of it. There was certainly a little gamesmanship in being able to gauge the finest of differences between just being in range or just out, but it always felt a little odd that some of the most finely trained warriors the galaxy could produce, regardless of race, couldn't tell if there weapons were going to be out of range and thus choose a more suitable target. So I'm very glad that is in the latest rule set, but of course it did have to be accompanied by random charge distances. If it wasn't, you could set up armies, never move the models, roll a few dice and decide the game without actually playing it. It retains the sense of tension and jeopardy without boiling the fun into pure numbers. Sure it can be annoying at times when you roll just short, but not half as much as when you were out of range by half an inch and your unit was sat around doing nothing for a turn.
So I turn the forum over to you, the reader; What do you like or dislike about the changes in the latest update of our favourite game? We've had a year to get used to it now (within a few weeks anyway) so this is no longer reactionary drivel and overblown misunderstanding of the consequences. Are you looking forward to seeing more things come in to effect as new Codex's are released to take advantage of rules (as the Tau have done with Overwatch) or rework them completely, as the Eldar do with shooting and running?
Matt
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