Goatboy’s 40k: Ding Dong 7th is Dead!
7th Edition is headed towards the grave. Here’s why I’m happy to see it go, and looking at the bright future.
I originally wrote some small bit of 7th edition list nonsense with my updated Death Guard list but with the announcement of 8th edition it made that article seem well – a bit pointless. If you are living under a rock and haven’t heard – GW announced a new edition of 40k coming in the next few months. There isn’t a lock in date but a rumor of a big block of “no vacation” for GW store managers in June makes me think will see it then. Plus they can only have so many weeks of AOS releases without a 40k release and a new edition means no more “current” 40k releases in store so its pretty easy to figure it out. This is pretty dang exciting because I for one am very tired of 7th edition. In fact – this will probably derail me from getting started on a ton of AOS stuff as my first true miniature love is 40k. Plus I lost my AOS buddy in town who would have pushed me to get beaten by his dang Khorne legions all the time.
So many rules… You won’t be missed.
7th Edition – I’m Conflicted
I am very excited about the new game as I have felt the lack of excitement for 40k lately. The sheer amount of rules, bad interactions between different books, and the dread of facing something for 2 hours that you have no hope against made me drop most events for the year. With 7th ending soon and most likely those events switching to 8th means I have some events to go out too and a year of exciting games coming. Now this isn’t saying that 7th edition was completely bad. I did have a lot of fun with it. In fact if you just played it for fun without some of the broken combos – it worked out pretty well. I think the biggest issue with the game is that it just didn’t scale well. To play at the top levels you had to have an extreme ability to use a certain aspect of the rules. Either you over ran the board with “free” stuff, over powered a specific phase of the game, or ignored anything your opponent did. It was a complete sand box play set and that was the biggest issue with it.
Imagine this – but with a Marine!
Looking Ahead
The return of 3 levels of play into 40k is a good thing as it did wonders for AOS. Of course as I am a competitive player at heart – I only really look at the competitive side of things. This means I want some kind of balance either in army build, army abilities, or missions and rules to help ensure I feel like I have to win with skill versus getting the perfect roll of powers & abilities. If AOS is any indication then I expect the spells, powers, warlord traits will be locked in and choosable when you build your army. This will help clean up the initial set up of a game and remove the whole – hey I rolled ever power I need and you got crap so why even play this game we have right now.
Of course we can only have balance if we rebuild the entire game from the ground up by fixing all the unit rules and it looks like we got our wish. The 8th Edition FAQ says all old books are dead. This is exciting because I thought the only way to truly balance the game is start over as the rules were too all over the place and too hard fix. It also makes sense why the initial FAQs let you play with both sets of rule books instead of locking in the newest is the only one to use. How many Elite Iron Priests are there out there? Why didn’t they just change the name for the HQ Iron Priest to like the Mega Iron Priest? I also like how the new rules will be free – just like AOS. This probably means will see an app for the game with all the unit rules, ways to buy the formation rules, and most likely a good army builder. An official army builder that is updated with new releases sounds amazing. Plus we could have a “living” set of rules that could be updated and balanced every year in hopes to keep this game balanced, fresh, and fun. Heck they even said FW would have their rules updated too.
Imagine these – but with Imperium, Chaos & Xenos. OH YEAH!
Word on the Grapevine…
The chatter I have heard about the game is it plays faster, easier to pick up, and a move towards a higher point level at the old 5th level of 2000 pts. If they removed free vehicles and other options then a push to 2000 seems fine. It lets you fill out some units hopefully and make sure you are getting the extra “vehicles” you need to push your guys around. Plus it sounds like vehicles will finally get better instead of being all of nothing things (Imperial Knights) or only there because they are free (Battle Company’s buy one get one free mentality). I for one am stoked to see if Dreadnoughts finally get their day. Plus the idea that you can assault out of vehicles again could really refresh a lot of armies out there too.
I am hoping will see more previews and release notes from the Warhammer Community site. It sounds like they are finally embracing the idea of keeping the community involved as well as making sure to generate excitement for the release. I think the company was lucky they make some of the best massed produced models in the game and finally embracing the game aspect of their product will help keep the company moving forward. Games are sounding like they will move faster which is great for streaming content. It got boring watching someone “roll” up their army and take forever. Heck I am just excited to see a new set of rules for my Orks and maybe finally get a chance to throw them on the table top.
WE’RE BACK – maybe…
~What are you excited about with the new edition? Are you worried your army investment is ruined? Are you tired of all the terrible combos out there? When will this dang Deathguard book come out? Will Abbadon finally win something?
