6th Ed rumors and DE

I'm still taking everything I read with a big grain of salt, but a few thoughts on these:

"Ultramarines as the protectors of the Tau" is one of the dumbest things I ever ever heard. Marines being able to ally with Tau I can see, just as they occasionally ally with those perfidious Eldar (well, not the super-xenophobic Dark Angels). But "we must protect these xenos" is the opposite of GRIMDARK. It's also really insulting to Tau players to be told that another faction is "protecting" yours.

Allies: Putting allies back in is, of course, a great way to Sell Models. Interested in another army but don't want to shell out hundreds of dollars just yet? Buy one battleforce to ally with your existing army! From there, expanding it to a full army becomes harder and harder to resist.

I expect ally restrictions to be similar to what they were in Second Edition. Presumably CWE and DE will be able to ally (there's more fluff precedent for that than for BA and Necrons), though I could see requiring a unit of Harlequins in order to do so. CWE will also likely be able to ally with Tau as well as IG and non-Dark Angel Space Marines.

Pre-measuring will be welcome, and I'm apparently one of the few people who likes WH fantasy going to random charge lengths. This "snap fire" sound worrying, though - an Ork shooty unit will do half as much damage when being charged as it does during its own shooting phase!

Going back to fantasy-style psychic powers sounds worrying. Magic is an integral part of warhammer fantasy, so having its own phase and complex sets of powers makes sense there. But from 3E on 40k has relegated psykers to "units with some unusual abilities" that only a minority of armies actually take, and three armies have no access to at all, along with little-to-no psychic defense.

Terrain: I personally LOVE the 8th edition fantasy terrain rules, having terrain that does something beyond slow you down/act as cover makes the game a lot more fun.

As with allies, the ability to buy specific terrain items is very plausible because it will Sell More Models. And I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed the MASSIVE price increase that a number of terrain kits just saw (+50-60% on some kits). GW clearly expects increased demand coming soon. Along that thinking, I think we will get a separate "terrain budget" of points so that purchased terrain is in addition to the rest of the army instead of cutting into it (which would Sell Less Models).

I think we can all agree that Hull Points would turn wyches and haywire blaster-armed Scourges into tank-killing monsters. And our vehicles die to small arms fire already, so likely having 2 hull points will not make them noticeably more fragile.

Hull Points would also nerf GK's freaking Fortitude down to being useful rather than "for 5 points, I ignore any damage result that does not actually break something." Overall, hull points alone would go a LONG way towards fixing tankhammer.

AP values for assault weapons is a good idea in theory (it streamlines and simplifies things, Rending for example), but the execution sounds problematic. It mostly seems to make Terminators unstoppable in assault because many armies have no access to power fists. There's also the question of what AP a simple close combat weapon receives - I would assume "-", especially if pistols can now be used for their S and AP in assault. I'm worried about this one.

I'm quessing ap 6 or 5 for basic ccws and ap - for units with no ccws at all. Also, speaking of Lelith, if the earlier rumours about ws chart being changed so that high ws actually matters (instead of the current one where it nearly always means you hit on 3+ and are hit on 4+), Lelith might actually be worth her points.

There is fluff precedent for Blood Angels allying with Necrons, it's tucked away in the Necron timeline in the codex.

Personally though I would prefer to see some kind of chart of threat index so that you can ally with anything lower on the threat index than your opponent, so for example marines would even ally with orks if the opponent was tyranids or chaos.

I love the idea of hull points, kind of a gradual damage building up type of thing.

I can see why they're looking to bring in AP values for close combat weapons, as well as making terminators really difficult to kill, after all the fluff would suggest they're all but unstoppable. Problem is, if they do that they'd need to drastically cut back how many terminators you could take, and they're not going to do that because, as Allandrel points out, that would mean they'd sell less models!

The_Burning_Eye wrote:

There is fluff precedent for Blood Angels allying with Necrons, it's tucked away in the Necron timeline in the codex.

Right, as in it happened once when both were faced with imminent destruction by Tyranids. That doesn't seem like a basis for regularly helping each other out as allying would. I dislike people taking it as "BA and Necrons are totally buds now."

Quote :

Personally though I would prefer to see some kind of chart of threat index so that you can ally with anything lower on the threat index than your opponent, so for example marines would even ally with orks if the opponent was tyranids or chaos.

I like this from a fluff standpoint, but it would restrict allies based on your opponent, so it doesn't really work for normal stand-alone army creation rules. Great idea for restricting allied armies in a campaign, though.

Quote :

I love the idea of hull points, kind of a gradual damage building up type of thing.

I also like that it doesn't make vehicles any more resilient, because they can be disarmed, immobilized, or one-shot same as before, but you no longer find yourself making roll after roll on the damage table without doing more than keeping the vehicle from shooting next turn (against GK, not even that).

Quote :

I can see why they're looking to bring in AP values for close combat weapons, as well as making terminators really difficult to kill, after all the fluff would suggest they're all but unstoppable. Problem is, if they do that they'd need to drastically cut back how many terminators you could take, and they're not going to do that because, as Allandrel points out, that would mean they'd sell less models!

Not to mention that two armies (GK and DA) take/can take them as troops. Problem is, they'd also sell less models of PW-armed models like Howling Banshees, Incubi, Lychguard, and Triarch Praetorians because Terminator-killing was one of their primary roles and they can no longer do it.

I rather liked how Terminator armor worked in 2nd edition, which had armor save modifiers like fantasy. (Strength 4 gives -1 save, S5 -2, etc. with some weapons having higher or lower modifiers than their S would indicate.) Terminators had a base 3+ save like power armor, but you took it on 2d6 instead of 1d6. So even a -6 Lascannon hit left them saving on a 9+ on 2d6.

Frankly, if their objective was to make Terminators more durable, I would have prefered to see something like "you can roll two dice and pick the higher when making a 5+ Crux Terminatus Invulnerable save" as opposed to effectively giving them a 2++ save in assault against most armies.

Funnily enough, traditional Terminator enemies the Genestealers will remain just as effective against them, assuming Rending hits simply become AP2 in assault just like in shooting.

Wasn't trying to suggest they're best buddies, but I can understand given the necron mindset that they might respect the BA after being forced to ally with them.

I did wonder if with the AP element of close combat weapons we might also be seeing some weapons reducing an armour save, so say a power weapon completely ignores armour of 3+ or worse, but reduces any better saves to 4+, similar to ork choppa weapons.

Allandrel wrote:

especially if pistols can now be used for their S and AP in assault.

If this is the case, it means that we can effectively have a "powerfist" in every squad (blast pistol), with harlies being able to effectively take "chainfists" (fusion pistol). They might go this route to avoid having to FAQ a lot of stuff as well, also, it would be a good way to sell some extra models (because how many of you have models with blast pistols on them?)... Harlies would effectively become terminators, really...

CC AP is going to be pretty freakin awesome actually... "wicked looking blades" sounds a lot like "chainswords" IMO

ccw = ap6
chainswords = ap5
force weapons/witchblades = ap4
power weapons = ap3
powerfists = ap2
chainfists = ap1

?

Quote :

If this is the case, it means that we can effectively have a "powerfist" in every squad (blast pistol)

Good point, it basically means every DE squad leader would be swapping their Agaoniser for a Blast Pistol.

Quote :

force weapons/witchblades = ap4

Under 5th edition, force weapons are power weapons (p. 50), so would presumably be AP3.

This would still act to nerf Grey Knights a bit, so I wouldn't be surprised if Nemesis Force Weapons get to be AP2.

Hmmm, the leaked version I have has power weapons, force weapons as AP2 and witchblade as AP -.

I think I have the wrong leaked version? lol

I would take most rumours with a pinch of salt at the moment. Until such time as someone actually shows me a copy of the finished rulebook I'm not taking anything as confirmed. Various rumours have surfaced over the last 6 months or so and half of them are contradictory so someone has to be wrong!

Probably all of us. Part of me wants every single rumour to have been a vicious lie. I vicious, vicious lie.

To be perfectly honest, I don't think the game needs a major change. Minor tweaks would be sufficient. However, GW likes to reinvent the wheel every so often in order to sell more models so i would expect some major changes. I would hazard a guess that if you look at the recent price rises you'll probably get a good idea of which parts of the game will be most important in 6e. They'll be the ones where the prices went up the most!

i can see GW releasing a Voidraven kit and making voidravens freakishly better than any heavy support option. Thus, forcing competitive people to buy them.

AP CCW weapons (and the AP system overall) largely just benefits the Marines (3+/2+ save armies). A better system would be armor save modifiers as it would even out rather than arbitrarily removing all armor from some armies and not even scratching others. It's not as though Kabalite Warriors are THAT much cheaper than a Space Marine; having some save would be nice. If they nerf FNP on top of it... things aren't looking great for an already frail army.

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/wnt/blog.jsp?pid=2700048

GW teaser trailer, looks like 23rd will be the advance order date.

Woohoo, that's payday!

Grumpy Kwi wrote:

Hmmm, the leaked version I have has power weapons, force weapons as AP2 and witchblade as AP -.

I think I have the wrong leaked version? lol

I hope not, because that would mean those weapons function exactly as they do now, but with clear AP values.

Count Adhemar wrote:

To be perfectly honest, I don't think the game needs a major change. Minor tweaks would be sufficient. However, GW likes to reinvent the wheel every so often in order to sell more models so i would expect some major changes. I would hazard a guess that if you look at the recent price rises you'll probably get a good idea of which parts of the game will be most important in 6e. They'll be the ones where the prices went up the most!

That's why I think the rumor about being able to buy terrain is very reliable. Most price increases were 3-5%, some terrains sets went up by over 50%.

By the same reasoning (and I've probably said this before here), I expect purchased terrain will come out of its own points allotment, so that players will buy terrain kits in addition to, not in place of, models for the army proper.

Allandrel wrote:

That's why I think the rumor about being able to buy terrain is very reliable. Most price increases were 3-5%, some terrains sets went up by over 50%.

I hadn't drawn that connection, but then I don't buy GW terrain. I hope that if terrain does become something that you buy for your army it doesn't force people towards standardized GW models, rather than scratchbuilds. (I'm thinking that people will complain if your bunker is larger or smaller than the 'official' one.) That would be rather depressing, especially if they continue to ignore xenos with their terrain line.

On a note of the 23rd, today I heard from a very good source that GW hobby managers were told to hand out tickets starting next week and that without a ticket people won't be able to get a book on release day. The source also strongly hinted at the 23rd being the release date.

*claps hands*

Excelllent

I've already seen some whining over the possibility of hull points, IMO, it's a welcome insurance policy for making certain that a lone dreadnaught doesn't get to shrug off over 9000 glancing hits during a game. In most situations, if your tank gets glanced/penetrated 3-5 times by a weapon, you're probably gonna end up with a wrecked or crippled vehicle ANYWAY. The only real tactical change is dedicated fire to a single vehicle is more likely to actually accomplish something, it certainly doesn't "nerf" transports. People have already cried over the suggestion that expensive Landraiders might not be worth the investment anymore. Let's be honest, if someone pens or even GLANCES that Landraider 4-5 times in a single shooting phase, you probably weren't gonna keep it anyway.

except to pen or glance a landraider is relatively easy for us, what with out lance and haywire weapons...

hrmmm... haywire LANCES! XD SCORE!

For the life of me, I will never understand GW's attitude towards generating hype and building anticipation for a product.

Is the need to keep the very existence of your products a secret until the release date a British thing?

Or does GW's management just think that every other company is foolish for putting their efforts towards getting customers excited about products months in advance is foolish, and that's why they do the opposite?

I may not agree with their strategy (which certainly isn't a British thing), but I can understand it. Their thinking is that if they tell us a year in advance that 6th edition is coming then we'll hold back on spending until it appears.

I doubt that this is a particularly good plan, but perhaps only because it's so imperfectly implemented - I've not bothered buying 5th edition because (since returning to the hobby around a year ago) it's been commonly thought that 5th edition's days were numbered. But had there been no inkling of 6th edition until now then I may well have bought 5th - so perhaps this shows that the problem with GW's strategy is the leaks, rather than the silence.

(Of course, had 6th been released just weeks after I'd bought 5th, I would be pretty annoyed. So I think it may be better public relations to let some of this information out, which may turn out more profitable in the long run.)

It is really just the fact that GW doesn't really "get" internet. Rather than leaking something for PR purposes and generate hype that way, they ignore absolutely any and all rumours as if they aren't there and then come with their Big Reveal about a week after everyone not only knows about it, but have also exhausted the topic.

Internet is a fantastic way of spreading positive word of mouth. It is also very good at spreading negative word of mouth, often even faster. It is possible that GW has decided that they can do no right and just not bother with releasing any info whatsoever.

It's all just my guessing, though. Who knows how it really is? GW moves in mysterious ways.