Vikki Stardust
Review on Sunday or your soul will be mine! emotion_omnomnom
Happy? Also, this isn't a review, more a change list I suppose.
Okay, straight away, for the people who are expecting an update document for their 6th edition rulebooks, don't bother. While the 7th edition isn't that radical a change from the previous edition, it does change a lot of things and it does address a lot as well, which would require GW to release a massive FAQ / errata document just to bring people back up to speed.
So, the big release had three things on sale: The books and two sets of cards: Tactical Objectives and Psychic powers. Being the gullible fool that I am, I got them all, because you know, I must or something silly. There's also a seperate art book out, but my store didn't get it, alas.
Books
While a bit skeptical at first, I do welcome GW's move to turn the big rulebook into three books instead. Spare me the nostalgia please, as this means we only have to bring along one book that is a bit thicker than the Space Marines codex, instead of a hernia inducing fat one. You have to admit, while the rulebooks were getting bigger and bigger on content, they did become more of a hassle to bring along, something GW probably finally took notice of.
Book one: A Galaxy of War a.k.a. the miniatures book. I've skipped this one for the most part because this is nothing more than a glorified gallery section of miniatures we have all seen a thousand times before by now. Fun for inspiration or to give to the wee ones who like the look of cool toys, but to us veterans, somewhat useless.
Book two: Dark Millennium a.k.a. the fluff book. People who know me know all too well that this is what I'm going for first, le fluff. This is the book to read if you enjoy the art that defines 40k, though a lot of it isn't new sadly. The few new pieces of art present though, gorgeous as always, especially now that GW has embraced full colour as the new standard for all of their books. As an added bonus, the book also features the cover art of the upcoming Codex: Orks. The fluff itself is nothing new sadly, in fact most of it appears to be a direct lift from the 6th edition rulebook. More annoyingly, the Pandorax Incursion campaign segment is a direct lift from the Apocalypse Warzone book of the same name! I fear that this book may not be satisfying for the veterans amongst us, but it still offers a good gateway into the madness of 40k for new players.
Book three: The rules. At 206 pages, this is a baby compared to previous versions of the rulebooks, though a lot has been left out this time round, like the massive weapon and unit stat tables found in the back of the previous rulebook, along with the filler art, instead now going for smaller filler pieces or large shots of miniatures in action.
The book is broken down into the following sections:
Core rules (Move-Psyke!-Shoot-Assault-Morale)
Unit Types (Delving into everything from infantry to vehicle rules and characters)
Battlefield Terrain
Preparing for battle (Army selection, setting up a battle, Eternal War missions, Maelstrom of War missions)
Appendix (USR's, ranged weapons, melee weapons, grenades, terrain datasheets, psychic powers, reference and index)
While I won't be delving into each and every change, I will say this, GW spends a lot of time clarifying and explaining certain terms, how modifiers are properly applied and how to go about things, thankfully leaving less leeway for the idiots who we love to hate when it comes to discussing the interpretation of how rules should be applied. Also, for those wondering, most of the "Forge Your Own Narrative" has been dropped. There are still a few present, but nowhere near as many as with the previous edition.
The Psychic Phase.
This is by far the biggest addition to this edition and also the one that sees the most radical changes to how something used to be done. While you still pick powers before the game starts, they do now reward people who give their psykers only powers from one discipline with Psychic Focus: If you pick all your powers from the same category, say Biomancy, you get the Primaris power on top of the other powers as well, as long as you haven't already taken it.
Manifesting psychic powers though.. Gone are the days of rolling a Ld test to see if you pass or fail, instead you need to roll a certain amount of 4+'s to get a power to pass, depending on the Warp Charge cost. So for example, Iron Arm costs one WC, so you are required to roll only one D6, whereas Summoning costs 3 WC's and requires you to roll 3 D6 at the very least. That's right, you get to decide how many dice you roll to manifest a psychic power. Though when rolling for these, a double six still results in a Perils of the Warp event to be triggered. Even worse, when you roll any sort of double when trying to manifest the new Daemonology powers, you Peril. Perhaps the biggest pro-change to this system is, a level one psyker could potentially cast WC level 2 or 3 powers, should there be enough dice in the Warp Charge pool.
Warp Charges are generated every(!) player turn(!), when the active player rolls a D6, that is then added to his own pool of Warp Charges (Which is all your psychic mastery levels added together), while his opponent gets the same amount rolled for, again adding in any psychic mastery levels. The pool may then be used to generate powers or in case of the opponent, be used to Deny the Witch, which is still on a 6+, though can be augmented by stuff like Adamantium Will and if the target is a psyker, a higher mastery level if applicable.
Finally, Perils of the Warp is no longer a case of taking a wound, GW finally decided to add a special table to this where you roll a D6 and apply the result, which ranges from you die to you gain a 3++ save, Armourbane, Fleshbane and Smash, because sometimes a Perils of the Warp thing can be good.
I still need to look at the powers, but so far, some have been tweaked, Iron Arm from Biomancy no longer gives D3 to S and T, it gives a solid 3 now! It is also possible to summon squads of daemons now, or to let your psyker be possessed and become a Greater Daemon of *insert Chaos god here*
Shooting.
Focus fire has been removed, plus you must now declare what weapon you fire first.
Assaults.
Aside from charging through terrain now giving you -2" I don't know about any changes, I play Imperial Guard remember.. sweatdrop Though as always, the assault section takes up the most pages, go figure.
Unit types.
This section is more or less the same as the previous book, detailing the special rules each type of unit has. Biggest changes so far:
- Beasts no longer have Move Through Cover.
- Flying Monstrous Creatures no longer need to take a grounded test when hit, this must now be an unsaved wound (So no more marker-light in the eye stuff).
- Flying Monstrous Creatures must glide for it to assault, meaning it is now easier to kill, because when it changes flight mode, going from flyer to regular model status, it cannot declare charges.
- The addition of Apocalypse units: Gargantuan Monstrous Creatures.
Vehicles.
- Despite GW's claims that vehicles are tougher now, they can still be glanced to death, they only changed the Explodes! result to a 7+ now.
- Vehicles now also always count as having WS1, regardless of whether or not they have moved. Only exception to this is immobilized vehicles and vehicles with a WS value.
- Biggest change is how the Jink save now works: When your flyer or skimmer is targeted by the enemy you must declare whether or not you will be jinking before any to-hit rolls are made. If you do so, you gain a 4+ cover save but can only fire snap shots until the next turn.
- Walkers now have Hammer of Wrath.
- Addition of rules for super-heavy vehicles, super-heavy walkers and super-heavy flyers.
Characters.
- By far the biggest change is how challenge outcomes are now handled, say a squad of Guardsmen is charged by the Swarm Lord (hilarious, I know) and the Swarm Lord challenges the squad sergeant to a duel, which it of course wins by launching a flurry of nine attacks, one attack kills the sergeant, the other eight are not lost, but instead heaped onto the remainder of the squad. This effectively means you can no longer tarpit scary melee characters with a unit of characters and scrubs.
- Characters have also lost Precision Shot.
Battlefield Terrain.
- Buildings now have hull points depending on size, though GW does not readily tell us how many are on the Bastion and parts of the Fortress of Redemption or their other building kits. Yay.
- Area terrain no longer exists.
Preparing for battle.
- One new set of warlord traits that directly interact with missions using the Tactical Objectives cards and rules.
- Reworked allies chart, the Imperium hates almost everybody now, yay!
- You can ally with anything, ANYTHING, even Come the Apocalypse units now.
- There is now no limit to how many detachments your army contains, as long as they are all 1 HQ + 2 Troops from the same codex.
- If going for the proper way of building an army, you gain the following benefits: Ideal Mission Commander (Allows for a re-roll on the Warlord traits table) and Objective Secured (All troops from this detachment control objectives, even if an enemy unit is in range, unless the enemy also has this special rule).
- Two sets of missions: Eternal War (See 6th edition) and Maelstrom of War.
- Maelstrom of War missions come with maps on how to arrange the deployment zones and whatnot.
- MISSION OBJECTIVES ARE PLACED BEFORE TABLE SIDES ARE CHOSEN, SO NO MORE SNEAKY OBJECTIVE PLACEMENT AFTER DEPLOYMENT RESULTING IN CAMPING.
- Missions can now include Tactical Objectives, which are extra ways to score points with orders such as "capture objective 5" or "challenge an enemy character" for extra victory points.
Appendix.
- All USR's are listed here now, instead of somewhere in the middle of the book. Not too many changes, though they did include rules on how to use the Apocalyptic templates, Destroyer weapon rules and the AV15 structures.
- A smaller selection of weapons and their special rules, both ranged, melee and grenades.
- terrain datasheets, a selection of terrain features and their special rules like the Manufactorum (Re-roll failed saving throws from Gets Hot results when inside ruin), Crashed Aquila Lander (Roll a D6 to see what the cargo is, could be explosive, could be Archeotech) and the moonscape..
- An extensive set of reference sheets, nothing wrong with those.
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Tactical Objective cards
Nothing too special about these and they are completely optional when you play the a mission. However, it does help to have a deck of these handy when you play one of those, meaning you don't have to keep the rulebook open on the mission page, but instead you can keep a stack of cards handy for when you complete a mission and need to draw a new one.
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Psychic Powers cards
Again, nothing too special about these, though this particular release did annoy me the most. I bought the previous psychic cards set, which came in a neat plastic holder with enough space for future psychic card expansions belonging to certain races. Sadly, with this edition the core set of cards are now obsolete. Not only that, but the new cards are bigger and not the same shape or size, so reusing the old container is also not possible.
The cards are by no means essential, though they are handy to have as it saves you the time and effort of leafing through the rulebook digging for the relevant pages you'll be needing.
+ + +
It's a decent release, I could've done without the Galaxy of War book, but eh, can't win 'em all I suppose. I'm also miffed about the psychic cards, but the new ones are nicely done at the very least.
I'm going to be playing my first two games of 7th edition this Thursday against a Tau Empire player and a Chaos / Tyranid player (Going to be a surprise what he'll bring), always fun. I'll post my findings here at the end of the day, so we can all have a good hearty laugh about my profusedly bleeding and destroyed a**.
Also, people who also took the plunge and bought the rules on release day, sound off, please tell us your thoughts!
