40K Truth Squad – Top Rules Impacts of 7th Edition
Now that we’ve actually been playing this game, let’s look at what we’ve found to be the BIGGEST impact changes of the game so far.
We’ve been playtesting madly at 3++ is the New Black and will hopefully have some battle reports soon as we get our head around this but for now, let’s see what our thoughts are…
1) Winning the roll-off – you can choose to deploy first and then decide to go first or second after your opponent deploys. Um, wow. Not only can you force your opponent to react to your deployment but then you can take advantage of it if necessary (opponent hides? make them either waste a turn of movement/shooting or run out and meet you, etc.).
2) Objective Secured – This and the above are really, really big factors and Objective Secured really changes the entire dynamic of the game. Everything scores but Troops override all other options so you can go with a list with very few Troops and still win end game but if an opposing army has Troops, particularly if they are mobile, they can disrupt this quite easily. No longer are Troops a “must” to win end-game situations but there is now a really important decision you need to make when building an army. When games are in their closing stages, nothing is more powerful currently than a fast unit with Objective Secured. You can take your 200 Warp Charges, Daemonology, 2+/2++ re-rolls, whatever to the bank – I’ll have my Objective Secured models minted thanks.
3) No more Focus Fire – This was probably something that wasn’t used a lot by everyone but it was something we used a ton at 3++ to avoid character tanking (Matt wrote a great series on it but its now useless :(). It’s not there anymore but character tanking sure as hell is and this was is a tactical option I’ve felt the loss of keenly.
4) Maelstrom Missions – My initial reaction to these was I didn’t like them; that’s still my reaction based upon their implementation but as I outlined here, I think their concept is brilliant and if incorporated into tournament missions will be an excellent addition to keep the game dynamic and put more focus on taking a balanced list which can complete mid-game winning conditions (i.e. less deathstars). We’re currently playtesting this with our group over here but even with their poor implementation
5) Invisibility – I haven’t had much playing time against this and there are certainly answers to it (ignoring, vector strikes, HoW hits, tarpitting, etc.) but I think this will be very hard to come to grips with for the average player and when you consider this can be placed on a very fast unit with Objective Secured…
6) Removal of area terrain – There’s still some references here and there to this (i.e. craters) but for the most part, the concept of area terrain is gone and this has a pretty big impact.
~What rule do you think is the biggest single change?
