Goatboy 40k’s Thoughts – The Future!
Goatboy here again chatting up about 40k like I am some kind of crazy person. As usual, I am looking ahead at the new things that look to be coming down the pipeline.
We know that two books will come out most likely, as well as a chance to see some flyer rules that might be shoe horned into 40k or left as a “played for two weeks” side game. So lets look to the future and what we might do to keep our old armies up to snuff without having to call say they are the blue knights.
Grey Kinigets! (Monty Python Pronunciation)
First of all we know the Grey Knights are coming out. Some info was leaked out and I am sure most of you have seen it. We know they are going to be an extremely small build if you want to go Grey Knights, or some kind of ragtag band of commie haters out in the Midwest. I feel the smaller group will be more interesting to play as it just has lots of neat stuff. The big group version of the army will have lots of conversion material, but I just have a hard time seeing how good a lot of t-shirt wearing guys do when their pimped out ride breaks apart.
With the smaller army build your own armies can either go with torrent of fire or high quality fire. I think a mixture of both will do the best, and I see plasma making a come back. Lately in my goat and grammar builds I try to have some kind of plasma death unit to deal with MC’s or other things that don’t have an inv and need some strength 7 love. The other thing is that I feel any kind of anti-psyker will be mandatory if you see lots of Grey Knights. Yeah I know it sucks for you Ork guys but there is only so much you can do. Heck, allocated Nob Bikerz are not going to be nice to the Grey Knights either.
All in all I am not overly worried about the Grey Knights. It really depends on what their wargear actually is. The rumored +1 Str to a gun is pretty neat, and if true will help things out versus some of the massed mech builds. 4 Autocannons in a squad? Yes, please, can I have some more? There are also some annoying mind spells that will make for some interesting games versus Horde armies too. So far it still makes me want to make one (a real one no matter how many locals tell me to do Grey Goats) so look for me messing around with them in the coming months as I get a paint scheme done.
The Dead shall Rise again!!! – Necrons!
There is a lot of weight behind the Necron rumors. I feel they are a pretty good choice as their line is pretty old and there are at least 2 to 3 miniatures in the line that are metal and can easily become plastic and standard for the new army. This is what GW will look for it as it creates a “must” have to play this army design that will get people to buy it. Plus the overall design of the army still looks good, so it won’t take much to recreate units and make things a lot more fun for the model builder.
Rules wise the only thing we are most likely sure of is WBB will be replaced by FNP. It is just a more elegant rule that has less issues with players and will stop some of the annoying “well I won by 10 and I run you down because your WBB roll isn’t until the end of the phase” etc crap that can make Necrons rather unfun to play. I am not sure what they are going to do with the gauss guns. Rending would give them a rule within the already established USR’s but that much massed Rending might be annoying. Also what if all the Necrons became slow and purposeful (thus relentless) too, and you just had these massed blocks of warriors rending you out. Truthfully that sorta makes sense for them, but still you won’t how it would do well game wise. I guess the warriors would get super expensive at this stage, so you would only see 50 model count armies. Not the best as a selling strategy for any army.
Other rumors point at the Cthan getting kicked out or toned down or just changed into Necron Lords. Either way, anything that allows fore more HQ options is a good thing. Really the more things in the book that you can take the better it will be for an army builder and designer. I always like a book that lets me take a ton of lists and still be able to hang on the table top. I am hoping they have some kind of melta/lance gun too because armies should have something that just gives a big FU to a heavy tank. I am sure the Monolith will have some changes, too – with a function along the lines of a webway portal. You might also be able to purchase something that gives you the ability to bring back killed robots. Who knows – the sky is the limit with the army as long as you keep it within the realm of evil robots and skull faces with neon green energy.
Summer of Flyers!! Or I hope it is in within regular 40k and not a side game that no one will play!!!
I didn’t play one single game of Planetstrike. I thought the rules were designed to make one side unfun – which is something I think is rather stupid in a game build. I know we all like to “barely” win a game at times but really some of the designs and army set ups were just stupid. I never played a game of Spearhead. I thought it had some ok rules that could easily fit into 40k. I just never played it because, well, I hate Apocalypse and thought it was just another smaller retread of that. And I don’t hate the rules of Apocalypse I just hate the time it takes. Waiting around for your turn is just annoying, especially when the opponent just whips your army off the table with some strength D weapons. So here is hoping the summer of Flyers is actual 40k rules.
I know I want the Storm Raven to go for every marine build. I know people are groaning about the Wolves getting it, but think of this: it is a heavy choice so it would take away Long Fangs out of some builds. Mix this in with costing a lot more than the Long Fang unit, and you now have something that makes the wolves play fair if they want to play it. 200+ points cuts out a nice dent into their army. Mix that in with needing to take a Dreadnought to get the most out of it and you got something that most likely won’t be taken or at least you have to redesign the army to fit it. I think the army that would benefit the most is CSM. They usually take dreadnoughts, and having a faster way to dump TH/SS dudes into an army is a good thing. I also think Dark Angels would love it too as Deathwing could use it as another way to get a melta gun into their army.
So with most of the races getting some kind of flyer it looks as if it could help other armies out too. The Ork Bomba would be awesome to have as some kind of flying transport thing. Maybe it has a crap ton of rokkits or other kinda of neat options. I always wanted Orks to have Grot controlled guns options on their vehicles. Maybe some Mad Dok grafted a Grot brain to the gun and now the Ork hits on a 4+ instead of a 5+. That would have been neat. Giving some Grot upgrades to the flyer would be cool. We already have kinda flyer rules in the Dark Eldar book, so look for those guys to maybe bring the initial build design into the game. I hope the Harpy does come out, too. I think it would help breathe some life into the Nids book as I see less bugs on the table top all the time.
I would really like GW to use these rules supplements to help make tweaks to the game. We have already seen this in the FAQs, so it would be great to see more of this. The game has really done a lot of evolving and is getting closer to becoming a much tighter and better game on the table top. So here is to the future – hopefully it will be a good one this coming year and we see more armies on the table top.
What do you think about these possible new additions to the game? How would you use them?
