40K 8th Edition: 5 Early Takeaways
We are only days away from 40K 8th arriving, and from the GW teases we can finally get a handle on the game.
In no particular order here’s my initial thoughts on 8th Edition:
These will obviously evolve as I get the full rules and some test games under my belt.
Nice of you Primaris Marines to take our knee-pads…
It’s NOT Age of Sigmar – but you can see the 8 Realms from your drop-pod…
GW said the game wouldn’t be Age of Sigmar and they didn’t lie. Unit statlines, army construction and things like command points all show a complexity that exceeds Age of Sigmar, and pull from 40K rules heritage. The rules are certainly not 4 pages long.
They are 8. The datasheets share a lot of shared philosophy with AoS Warscrolls and there is more in common now between a Kharadron Overlord Airship and a Rhino than you would think. Apparently in 2017, ultra clean slimmed down rules is the new black – across the entire tabletop industry.
The Sameness of Units is a Feature – not a bug
Get ready for the general homogenous-ness of all units in the game. The unified statline is the final nail in the coffin for GW trying for decades to nail down exactly how to handle vehicles. So don’t fret to much on the statlines – its the on-page rules that truly define your favorite units.
Commander REVERSE! Those 500 Chaos Cultists have hammers!
NOTHING is Safe
The grand unified stat-lines and the updated toughness/strength chart means the game is going to feel closer to a tabletop version of Dawn of War. If you just shoot or punch at anything enough – it will die. There are no more sacred cows. You also have the ability to “brute force” your way out of bad unit mismatches, where in earlier editions you might have just been screwed in a Kobayashi Maru encounter.
It’s Going to be Bloody
This is a corollary to “NOTHING is Safe”. The teasers have reminded me of the mindset of playing Apocalypse games. The primary hallmark of that rulesset is that no matter how badass your uber model/unit is, it’s going back into the army bag when anything gives it some serious firepower attention. Apocalypse games are also known for their incredible number of casualties, with only the dregs of both armies still slugging it out in the final turns. I think 8th will have this vibe.
We’re back baby!
Variety is the Spice of Life
It sounds like GW has really tried to give every unit in the game a new lease on life. For the last year or so – we haven’t really been playing in the Grimdark. 7th Edition has made us field armies of the best 10% of overbalanced units min/maxed with formations to slam against each other like an incredibly expensive version of Rock’Em Sock’em Robots. I really think 8th is going to pull thousands of old dusty units off shelves and make every pickup game you play something new and interesting.
~ Agree, disagree, asleep?
