Goatboy’s 40k: Moving Towards 8th
Goatboy here again and I just want you to know – EXCITEMENT FOR 8TH GROWING!
And that’s just the White Dwarfs… 🙂
I moved this past weekend into a newer and bigger house. It means a complete refresh of my “miniature” cave and a better office to work in. The last one was very cramped and packed full of stuff I just couldn’t part with – because a lot of it wasn’t mine. But I digress as it is moved, the cave is getting put back together, and I continue on with excitement to the coming new edition of 40k on the horizon. It is so hard to get motivated to start a new project right now. I have some AOS ideas but it requires a large amount of expensive models (Skullcrushers are my favorite and bane of my wallet) and the move keeps me from getting and true modeling time. I hope to start painting again on Sunday. We’ll see – there are still a ton of boxes to go through and some things to find that I need to start for a client or two.
Onto the awesome news from this last week:
Uber-marines
The biggest “preview” we got this week is the confirmation of bigger and “better” marines. I do like the overall design as it helps answer the “true” scale marine fanatics and gives GW another way to sell old Marine players, new marine units. I think rules wise they are ok. I always thought Marines should be moved to 2 wounds due to the new rend mechanic so having a “basic” marine with a better gun and more survivability is a good thing. We don’t know enough of their other weapon options yet so it is harder to judge. It sounds like all the “marine” options (Assault, Devs, Sternguard) might show up in the new bigger marine flavor. The idea of super assault marines is pretty interesting as they would come in with 3-4 basic attacks depending on how the rules for extra CCW work and Chainswords. The hints of their point cost being more then a “Grey Knight” is kind of worrisome as I feel this edition will be extremely bloody. AOS is a very brutal game and with 8th taking a ton of pointers from AOS it would seem this would be another hamper to a low model count army that isn’t a ton of big monsters. Will have to wait and see. Overall I like the way they look and their rules seem interesting enough to warrant review. The rumor of them showing up in the new starter box means will see a ton out there pretty quickly. I know I plan on trading out my bigger marines for more Death Guard because if Chaos is good I will always try to play Chaos.
Assault
The close combat weapon preview is very interesting as it seems to have “fixed” chainswords. Now of course you are losing your extra CCW attack you had from a pistol but you at least gain it back with that crazy buzzsaw. It gives me hope that the Khorne Chainaxe is some kind of monster weapon. Maybe it gives you more attacks as you roll a 6 and go buzzsaw crazy. I think the shift in the power weapons is a rather interesting one as giving the Sword the better “Rend” seems like a good answer to say more Marines and terminators. It depends on if they are heavily used in the new edition. For most “Xenos” it would appear the Axe would end up being a better option. I didn’t see anything about ranges in the Close Combat update so I still don’t have an answer on how many people get to attack. I get the feeling this edition is going to be a big “bases” matter so getting into base to base will be important. Or at least within the magical 1 inch of activation. We did get some good answers and it shows me that GW really has spent the time to work on this edition. I also liked how the Reaper Chainsword for the Imperial Knight is a murder machine. No info on AP – but I am guessing it is a solid -4.
Imperial Knights
Speaking of Knights we got a good answer on how many Wounds these big things might have. The Imperial Knight gets a nice 24 wound base to start with and sitting at T 8 and S 8 it should be a pain in the butt to deal with. I am annoyed the only answer we got on Stomps is that there is no more dreaded 6 option. I am thinking it is something like d6 Mortal wounds to the unit it is engaged with. It would be simple, not insanely brutal, but still decent to help get it out of scraps. I did like how it can “step” over infantry to continue its shooting rampage. I wish we saw more guns with this one as I was never a fan of the Melta Cannon. I won’t go into how many times it failed me within a half range. The super heavy detachment is pretty interesting too as it gives a simple and unique way for all armies with Super Heavies to work. Without knowing the point costs it has hard to truly judge if it will be an issue – but right now GW has my faith in that the game will move into one that will showcase your collection instead of just a few specific “good” models.
Dark Kin
The Dark Eldar preview was neat too. It gave enough hints of the army returning to the quick and surgical strikes it used to have. It always felt like an army full of beautiful models that never had a true “agenda” beyond just not being very good. I had memories of the old Dark Eldar kicking the crap out of me when they jumped out of a Webway portal. The old Wyches kicking my butt and the dreaded counter attack from the Incubi. I think the only good “unit” in the game was the Corpse Thief Claw formation. I painted a few of them for clients and have dealt with them in games. I don’t have any interest in playing the army but it sounds neat that it might show up again on the table top. Will see how “Forgeworld” 8th up’s the Corsairs for this new edition and maybe the Dark Eldar will be more then a footnote to an Elder army.
Vehicles
The vehicles preview has me interested in that they get an attack value now. It makes me excited to see the crazy stuff Orks get as I have a plethora of Battle Wagons, deff rollas, and orgs to use and abuse. I think that is the biggest faction preview I want now as I haven’t played Orks since 6th edition and I am craving a reason to paint me up some nutters. I do wonder how useful it will be to “throw” Rhinos at units to soak up Overwatch. It would depend on how fast the other stuff in the army is. I will laugh at any Rhino that Dukes of Hazards its way through an Imperial Knight. We are starting to see a pretty useful method for figuring out Wounds on a lot of vehicles. Obviously ones that need to get “slower” will have more and that is better set for the Marque vehicles – Land Raiders, Leman Russ’s, etc. I am really wanting to know some of these “extra” rules we get hints of with things like Titanic Feet from the Knights and most likely Machine Spirit for the Marine options. Its getting hard to keep from shouting at my monitor each day I don’t see a release date.
Command Points
The Command point usage was an interesting thing. I don’t know how good it will end up being but I suspect will see more “army” based usage of Command points. I think this is where will see some broken options as some armies might have extremely useful abilities. I think the auto pass a morale check will be useful at times – just to keep a unit around as needed. The single Reroll could be huge depending on the things we are needing. Trying to pull a 6 on a D6 wounded option will be important to take down the big monsters. I think any true issues will come from when they release “army” books but with just the Death Guard and most likely some kind of Marine release coming will probably have awhile to wait for something rough to come out.
Odds & Ends
Which of course leads into GW actually having a way to listen to issues. I know they will have the ears of the “event” organizers that helped them balance the new edition and those guys run enough events to foresee problems. With the idea of a living rule set and hopefully the continuation of “free” rules we might see fast fixes on things not found. This is really a new day and age for GW as they have come into the idea that while they do make the best miniatures, they could also make a really good game to go with them. Crazy hobbyists can only let the game survive so long. Heck I am just excited to try and find my box of Flashgitz to build and use finally.
The final thing that really had me excited is the return of only having half of your army in reserve. This is huge as it helps nerf the Drop Pod issue where some “maelstrom” things you could never lose due to a well timed Drop Pod assault. I also hear that with the removal of Scatter dice – deep strikes are limited to only being able to get as close as 9 inches on your army. This is huge as it gives those armies without the “deep strike” options a way to truly cover and protect themselves. It sounds like you can choose when your units come in from reserves as it states anything not coming in by turn 3 is considered dead. Its starting to look a lot like a balance game right now.
That is it for now – lets hope we see some Orks, a release date, and maybe a bit more about the new psychic phase or as I suspect – the Hero phase – that will be coming. I can’t wait to get my Death Guard army started and hopefully get a great refresh of the game I have spent so many years chattering on and on about.
~Which 8th edition reveal has you the most excited?
