Goatboy 40K: Looking Towards the Future
Goatboy here, and it’s time to talk about the Ghost of 40K Christmas Future!
Hi, thanks for coming out to the Goatboy Jamboree. I hope you stay awhile and add to the festivas festivities. Its another fine Monday morning and we are about to finish off one of the craziest years we have had for rules releases. With that in mind, lets think about what we might see in the future.
Currently we have one last 5th edition book left. The good ole Necrons are the final book and all rumors, hints, etc point to a quickly January release for these guys. No one expects much of a new model range just an overall cleaning, fixing, and aligning the army into the 7th edition dream.
Now I am not hating how 7th is shaping up. I find the overall power level dropping of books to be a blessing as it will let more armies actually compete. But that is something I will chat about towards the end of this soap box derby. Let’s continue on with the robotic discussions.
Future-crons
First – things we probably know are going away. They are going to remove some of the removes from play abilities, assault shenanigans (mindshackle wha), and most likely weakening a lot of the flyer nonsense. This is just means to an end in fixing the Necrons and making them feel more like they did in the past. Heck you can see how the new Monolith will most likely be with that nifty little “formation” gift in the new White Dwarf. I also would put money on the C’Tann getting an overhaul and becoming a new “feared MC” of the book.
The new mini army list for the Crons from the newest Campaign book is actually pretty good. I think the warlord traits are pretty strong going from creating a bad ass Destroyer lord to making a very linchpin style Warlord. Heck we’ll see if the new book has similar traits as I think its a good example of decent warlord traits that don’t have you just rolling on strategic. The 3 pieces of war gear are also pretty good – from add ons for the C’tan formation all the way to making your Necron lord actually pretty scary in close combat. I have a feeling the Cryptek is going to be the “librarian” of the Cron book and move away from getting a ton of them for your HQ choice.
Overall I expect the Crons to be powered down in places, models they want to sell pushed up, and most likely just getting some kind of way to make a cooler Destroyer Lord/Heavy Destroyer. Heck I wouldn’t be surprised if Destroyers get a nice boost as that 3 unit boxed set will sell a bit more.
The Usual Suspects
After that we’ll see if GW really cares about powering down the game. The next books after Crons is the initial 6th ideas of Chaos Space Marines, Eldar, Dark Angels, Chaos Daemons, and the Tau. I don’t expect a new Dark Angels book unless they want to bring it more inline with how the Blood Angels and Space Wolves look. I don’t think will see Chaos Space Marines for a bit as I expect them to finally do the Legion style book and get a big boost for one of the quarters. Heck we just want a book like the Space Marine book with the Legions instead of chapters.
I have a feeling will see the new Eldar book at some point. We have heard grumblings that they know the Wave Serpents is incorrect and maybe will get lucky to have the army book fixed. I think there are some other things that just don’t work right – Ghost Helm and other things that work for 6th edition but are next to meaningless in 7th. Heck I expect some push to make Falcons relevant again so I wouldn’t throw them on Ebay just yet. Beyond that I bet most of it stays the same as it still works we just have some stinky rules to deal with.
If Eldar gets fixed then we have to get Daemons fixed as well. It is the only book that when rolling hot it is just about unstoppable. I love my Daemon army but I can see the look of sadness in opponents faces when you get the perfect spell/gift combos. The Grim is just too good and the change to the Tzeentch ability of rerolling 1’s, while fluffy to their fluff, is just not good for game play. I also would like to see some push to these Chariots they introduced and making them actually decent. It is a shame as the models are not bad and we just never get to see them on the table top.
The Tau book is the next one I am not sure what they will or would do with it. The book isn’t the best as the troop section is weak and it can be rather static. I think the Riptide is a really strong MC and its Commander one of the best linchpin HQ units in the game. I just wonder if will see the “upgrades” move to a relic style status and tweaks to what they do. If they didn’t ignore so much cover I would say shrouding would be the biggest power to complain about in the game.
Moving Beyond Codices
After these books I bet will get more rules via campaigns and single page formations. I think that is the future will see for 40k – with either a push to create “all in one” formation boxes to drive sales or other ways to create a purchase stream that is more then one or two boxes. I think GW needs to build in some bonus’s for these formations monetarily instead of just rules. I love the boxed sets they create as they usually give you at least a discount of 20-25% – and mixed with any other discount you might receive it becomes a lot more feasible to create a new army or add on.
I am still happy painting/building 40k models and if I can rebuild my bank account after the kiddo and house stuff I might dabble in Fantasy. I am excited to see what 9th does and if it looks good I might pull out all these random Chaos Fantasy boxes to try and throw down in cubes of doom. Beyond that any new Chaos book will drive me to create a new army. I think for LVO I plan on taking Chaos Daemons because I don’t have the time to get a new Ork army built together.
Are you excited about the new books? Have you decided to build a new army for the new year? Has the Xmas spirit filled you up or are you just too grim dark to say Ho Ho Ho?
