Discussion: Army Constructs for 6th

So with NOVA out of the way I want to see what are the major thoughts on army constructs. For example, last edition was primarily MSU mech with the 1+1 (unit and fighting transport) taking precedence over most other lists. There were other strong lists often involving Hybrid elements, some foot armies (Loganwing), etc. but the primary aspect was generally MSU.

Has this changed? I have a few thoughts on this which I've been going through with my posts and seeing more and more in playtesting but would like to see other opinions and what people have found before I do a few exploratory articles. We're still not likely to nail down the exact construct for a while as things continually evolve and new books are released - MSU mech didn't take off right away for 5th remember, but this discussion and following articles should lead us somewhere closer.

So, begin! And remember to be nice to people with contrary opinions to yours.

Allies, Fluff & It's Cinematic

Reader's beware: not a happy post :P!

It's Cinematic. Forging a narrative. It's the 6th edition catch phrases and of course we love applying them to everything. Want to know what it's best applied to? Allies. The universe we all love and enjoy is bloody vast. We've all read lots of fluff background, books, stories, etc. and we've seen lots of crazy combinations. Off the top of my head I can remember Eldar & Imperial Guard allying, Space Marines & Tau, Blood Angels & Necrons, etc. I can remember Grey Knights allying with anything. And then killing them once their task is done.

Army Stereotypes - From 5th to 6th

Following on from the Venomspam article (and the usual Monday I'm in a rush post!) we just did, what other army stereotypes would you like to see transfered from 5th to 6th. Or rather, what armies would you like to see attempted from 5th to 6th. We've done several of the Blood Angel Jumper armies already and discussed a few tangentently but never really got into the meat of them - so hit us with ideas and we'll see if we can't look at a few of the more popular builds from before. Whether they were good or not.

Hint: if the army cannot really add Allies well or didn't get a major boost in what they can do (i.e. Flyers for example), it probably won't transfer well as we saw with Venomspam.

Discussion: What Next?

The discussion post seems to be turning into a Monday morning special it seems... Weekends work like that for me! I feel we've covered a lot of the basics and building blocks of what 6th edition is so far about. There's a ton more obviously (i.e. vehicle movement) but we've looked at a lot of the major new things, how this impacts things generally on the tabletop and how it impacts specific armies. We still have a few of those specific army posts to go but other than those, what do you want to see discussed next? We got several ideas from last week's discussion post in terms of what the discussion brought about in relation to 6th but anything more specific or that we've missed would be great.

Discussion: 6th edition thoughts so far

Puppy is still working on some of those new Tyranid posts. Hopefully one shall go up tonight but until then, what are people's thoughts on 6th edition so far? I've had about 20 games and it's no where near as bad as we thought in the build-up during the first part of this year. No where near as disgusting as that fake pdf either. Thankfully. It's certainly not perfect and I still have my issues with the system but neither was 5th. We'll likely never get a perfect system from Games Workshop but it's playable, enjoyable and I'm sure once tournaments start grinding out and our games reach the 100s level, we'll find a sort of middle ground for list building and what levels of anti-tank and anti-infantry are going to be required.

Forgeworld in?

The rumor mill never rests...and it looks like the latest rumors put some FAQs/erratas out in the near future to make Forgeworld 'mainstream' 40k. This is basically to remove the 'with opponent's permission' clause and bring extra releases into the tabletop realm we play.

How this is done is key. If Forgeworld is actually balanced appropriately and rather than becoming the area for crazy experimental designs, this could work. Things like specific campaign armies, extra units or armies entirely, etc. would all be welcome changes. Dread Mob Orks, Eldar Corsairs, extra Tau units, etc. are all lovely examples of this.

Then there's the stupid stuff. We can imagine a quick FAQ/nerf bat to that but what about the Achillies? Titans? Super-heavies? Super-heavy fliers? Are these going to be canon as well? D-weapons? If these are kept I imagine Forgeworld for tournament purposes will be kept the same or perhaps with some modifications (i.e. no super-heavies, titans, etc.) - you'll just see more of this in your casual gaming scene.

If this is Games Workshop's attempt to bring extra balance to 6th edition (i.e. re fliers), could work. May not work. We shall see, though I'd rather they take what they had and balanced it there and then tried to introduce extra things. But that's me :P.

Thoughts? Opinions? Written abuse?

6th edition 40k - Better or Worse?

My brain is asleep so going to wait 24 hours until I put up the post about fliers - see if I can actually make sense =D (for once)! So discussion thread! and this is a question which won't be answered for a long time... but is 6th better or worse than 5th?

Pre-release it was pretty doom & gloom. There were a lot of bits we didn't like, and really still don't like (random charge length didn't magically become better for example) but the overall product is something I think we are all surprised to see. In short: it's not a Chernobyl. Will it become better than 5th edition? Who knows but a lot of the same concepts are going to find their way over as our mindsets transfer from one edition to the other. It's obviously hard to see the other side of the river when you're on the opposite bank, but this feels a lot like the changes from 3 to 3.5 to 4. Obvious but not a complete overhaul and I think that's what most of us were afraid of. 5th was good because it made that overhaul from 4th and we wanted that to evolve and change rather than get wiped clean again.

Discussion: Fears & Hopes of 6th edition

So whilst I'm painting some Attack Bikes for one of the final 5th edition tournaments, I thought I'd get a discussion going. 6th edition is right around the corner. I'm sure you've all been reading the rumors and having thoughts about what the upcoming edition is going to be like and how that affects you.

So the discussion question is: based on these rumors, what is your major hope and fear for 6th edition? I'll start it off.

Discussion: Transition from 40k to Warmachine/Hordes

A lot of Warmachine/Hordes talk lately - you'll forgive us for this I hope considering several of us are now well into the game and we are in the doldrums of 5th edition 40k waiting for 6th... I will be trying to get as many of those Army Comparisons and the Eldar/IG reviews finished for you guys by the end of the month though. Then you can expect 40k out the wazoo as we officially look at 6th edition. There are still at least two if not more 5th edition tournaments coming up on my part so there will be that tricky phase as we transfer all our games to 6th edition (and Biomorph playtesting if it continues). Until then, well let's look at some more Warmachine & Hordes stuff!

There are two things I have come to realise in learning Warmachine & Hordes whilst playing both 40k and Warmachine & Hordes interchangeably. It would seem obvious but there needs to be a subtle yet major shift in philosophy in how you approach the game. Let's see what I mean.

Cygnar Stormwall - Rules Card & Discussion

Card rules after the break. The question here is: auto-include or not? Not sure on all the Colossal rules here (edit: I've been told they are in No-Quarter so if someone could enlighten us that'd be great) but we can assume they are going to be quite easy to hit/impossible to hide, etc. They obviously have two front arcs with specific weapon arcs devoted to them and the sweep ability gives them the ability to not only deal with heavy armor (which with 2 POW15 RNG14 and 2 POW20 open fists they can do) but infantry as well.

Is it comparable to 19 points of Warjacks? ARM19 with 56 damage boxes isn't a huge slap in the face in terms of taking it out and it does come with four weapon systems + two open fists so with the two facings this would probably be relatively comparable.

Anywho, have at it! And enjoy the pretty cards.

Email in: Benefits of Wargaming?

"Hi Kirby,

Always enjoy reading your blog and you always make things mesh nicely, so I just wanted to suggest a slightly different article on a subject that i've been thinking about for a while that you may or may not consider writing about?

Basically I was just wondering how you think warhammer (and wargames in general) might apply to the real world outside the confines of our gaming clubs etc.?

The Deathclock and Sportsmanship

Now I know that many of you are expecting another article about the Old Witch of Khador but I thought I would throw something a bit random.

Deathclock is a timed turn variant for SteamRoller 2012 (the official competitive ruleset for Warmachine/Hordes), which has been gaining popularity in both local and national metas. Deathclock is the same as using a chessclock to keep track of time. At the end of each turn you hit the button and it swaps over to your opponents time; this is an advantage over regular timed turns since it keeps you from having to worry about how long things like your feat turn is going to go and if your opponent has to make tough checks or out of activation movements during your time. 

Discussion: Fixing one gun tanks (again)

We've done this a few times and the fact of the matter is the point is moot (or was always moot since Games Workshop doesn't listen) as 6th edition is printed and ready but it's a fun intellectual and design exercise (and if 6th ed is just that bad...). Anyway, how to fix one gun tanks without completely changing them? For the most part, the majority of tanks have a major gun just some of them have one really big gun and little to nothing else (Exorcist, Vindicator, Fire Prism, etc.). This is an issue because that tank can become relatively worthless more so compared to their multi-gun compatriots (i.e. a single weapon destroyed result).

Email in: Best Space Marine (or Dark Angels) units

"Hi Kirby,

Looking at Abusepuppy’s post on “Evaluating Bad Units” made me think of what I think of as the best Space Marine or Dark Angels units

Here are my thoughts

HQ

Space Marines (Librarian, Terminator Armour, Storm Shield)

Dark Angels (Belial, TH/SS)

Changes: The Difference between Whining and Disappointment

All around the Interwebs people are liking or disliking the rumors - let's stress rumors though from seperarte sources some of these are likely to be included - and other people are jumping up and down on the opposite camp. One of the main things I seen thrown at the disliking of the rumor camp (particularly when that terrible hodge podge of an early rumor packet was going around last year) was that good competitive players (aka WAAC, cheesey, OP, whatever other bad and misappropriated names you'd like to label competitive players) were just angry because they'd have to change. This is false. I'm sure there are some people who are angry they'd have to change their armies or whatever but let us point out it has often been these players who have changed with the times best and been the ones to suck it up when their favorite armies don't do well (i.e. Eldar and Tau :().

Discussion: Terrain

I got an email recently from Genius Factory Games in relation to terrain, the body of which can be seen below. The gist is what terrain would be best to produce which would see most use in tournaments. Rather than let just myself answer, I'm opening this up to everyone on 3++ and we can hopefully compile a rough list to send back!

"We at Genius Factory have been looking at trying to put together a low-cost laser-cut terrain solution oriented in part towards those trying to put together big events-- our goal is to create "table in a bag" kits with all the terrain that one needs to set up a table available in one source for cheap. I know you have some experience with getting things set up for 3++ con, so in your experience, what sorts of terrain do you find most desirable and most useful, and how much of it do you tend to have per table?"

Disccusion: Staying in combat

Making combats last is an important and tricky part of 5^th edition. First off, the dice never do what you want them to do you’re not always going to get what you want. You might want to finish off a unit who rolls snake eyes in combat and continues on or Fire Warriors might turn around and drub your Daemon Prince something good. However, there are lots of ways to get around this through knowledge of the rules and this is something which should be talked about.

Guest Article: Walking the line: Competitive and casual gaming

By Sethis


I am, at heart, a competitive gamer. I wince when I see people fielding Tri-Las Predators or five Tactical terminators in a Godhammer Land Raider. I die a little bit inside every time someone puts Tau down on the other side of the table to me (joking! Mostly...), I enjoy tweaking my lists to get the most out of them, checking the net for new builds and adding/removing units to make them fit my collection while still following the ideas they are based upon. I have a fair interest in math-hammer and enjoy working out optimal units based on it, which seems to work reasonably well for me. I have great fun at tournaments even if I don’t place particularly well because that’s when I play against other top-end gamers.

Necron List Extravaganza

So, if you hadn't heard, Necrons got a new Codex.  And boy, what a doozy it is.  Similar to the Dark Eldar release, Necrons got a whole slew of new units, options and viable builds.  And, just like Dark Eldar, it's taking a bit longer for folks to flex those brain muscles and come up with much beyond "trying to be like Marines" MSU transports or "same as the old Codex but cheaper".

Well, here are a few lists to get your creative juices flowing.  Please bear in mind that these are suggestions and examples to show off different types of Necron armies and what they can potentially bring to the table.  Like any list, they are always works in progress and will be adjusted and improved with play experience .

Discussion Email: Teaching Help

"High Kirby, I have beeen reading your blog for over a year now, but have yet to ask you anything directly, until now. I'm an avid space wolves player (well I have my own fluff, but use that list) but thisisn't what I'm asking for help with, my girlfreind and one or two ofher freinds have recently started collecting 40k, and I have beentasked with teaching rules and tactics, and generally putting themthrough their paces, so theyu can deide for themselves which unitswork well and they should spend their money on more of.