8th edition

I've been rather quiet on the recent daily 8th edition updates. I wanted to see how they came together before posting rather than doing a day to day review. But I'm sure you have all been keeping up to date on them anyway so I'm just going to share my thoughts,


I'm excited for 8th. I wouldn't have made such a sweeping change to the game mechanics especially considering that so many 40K players didn't want the system to go the same way as Age of Sigmar. But most of what has been posted am I pleased about and a few minor niggles that have had me sitting on the fence for a bit.


In general I am happy with the new rules and extremely pleased that at last vehicles may become a lot more survivable rather than be a temporary expensive gun box before exploding. Immediately that is a big yay from me. I'm hoping that what Games Workshop have said about everything being balanced and usable is true. At present there are plenty of units in each codex that never get a look in and few players seem to take named unique HQ's as the generic ones are better mechanically. I'm hoping that GW will fix that and everything gets a decent spot in the limelight.


The new detachments also got me very excited. 14 new detachments! I've always said that the game needs more generic detachments rather than being stuck with the Combined-Arms Detachment and the seige attacker/defender ones from Stronghold Assault. At last we may be truly able to make the list format we want rather than being forced into a HQ plus Troops and then everything else. Although it was interesting to note that the three detachments previews none of them had a slot for Lords of War.


What didn't sit well with me... Summoning (such as it is) has gone the way of Age of Sigmar. In other words rather than just let you try and summon, you have to waste points to bring in what you want. I hate that in AoS and I don't like it here. I don't do it any more in 40K anyway but that's not the point.
More importantly, they have taken the Age of Sigmar alternating unit combat rule which is something that ruins AoS for me. It should be pick a combat and all units fight simultaneously. The AoS way of doing things is not tactical at all and quite frankly just screws over one player or the other.


No system is ever going to please everyone. It's a shame that a couple of my local players are considering dropping the game because of the changes. I can see why they feel that way but I can't see that the changes are going to ruin the game. Even with the elements that we don't like we should be trying to embrace the new direction and see where it takes us in the months ahead.


Right now though, I just wish Games Workshop would just drop the free PDF rules so we can read them for ourselves and get into the new mindset ready for the 8th edition codexes/battle tomes.