Doom, doom, doooooom!!

7th is here, 7th is here! Sooo... I succumbed most pathetically to temptation and had to get myself a copy of the new rulebook:

The bowl is for keeping track of Warp Charge dice. We love Daiso. We note the old objective dice are still of use in the new edition.

Out with the old, in with the new! I've been studying the new book religiously and I'm liking what I see. Anyway, straight to business. Here are some of the more interesting changes I've noted:


Movement

Pretty much nothing of note.

Psychic

A whole new ball game here. I noticed with great interest that Frontline Gaming was very quick indeed to find a way to break the game with this phase, putting together an army of Daemons with as many mastery levels as they could fit, resulting in 1,850 pts of Daemons that could quite comfortably summon another 600 pts of even more Daemons in the first turn. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other army which could possibly stand against that. Maybe Grey Knights. Maybe.

Outside of Daemon shenanigans, it's really hard to tell what impact this'll have. I'm gonna need to get a few games in, perhaps with lists involving 1 or 2 Librarians.

It's nice to see that Puppet Master no longer exists, though Invisibility looks crazy powerful.

I've noticed a typo between the rulebook (pg 194) and the Psychic cards. The Sanctic Daemonology power, Banishment, is stated as having Warp Charge (WC) 3 on the cards and WC 1 in the rulebook. Dammit, GW, that's a bit disappointing. Judging by the fact that its mirror power, Cursed Earth, is WC 1, I would surmise that Banishment should also be WC 1.

Here's a question: What's the point of the Aegis now?

Shooting

Shooting is now done weapon-by-weapon. i.e. You've got to fire that flamer first before your bolters kill everything in flamer range, wasting your burny death.

Snap shots remain unchanged, dammit.

Assault

Charging through difficult terrain is a bit more predictable than before, with just a flat -2" penalty on charge distances.

This is something worth noting:

Something of use, perhaps, to those armies low on assault grenades...

Unit Types

One is pleased to note that Jinking is a bit more sensible now. It's an active ability, i.e. you must choose to Jink to get a 4+ cover save, but it means you can only fire snap shots for a turn.

Flying Monstrous Creatures can no longer charge in the same turn they switched flight modes, drastically reducing the close combat killing power of flying circus armies. Also, they take a single grounding test at the end of the shooting phase.

Vehicles

We've all heard about the new vehicle damage tables, yay. Other things of note in that table:
On a Stunned, Shaken, Immobilized or Weapon Destroyed result, passengers must take a leadership check or be forced to snap fire only - good news for transport vehicles that commonly get used as mobile bunkers.

Crew Stunned and Immobilized results are now a bit more sensible for Flyers. On Stunned, they must fly 18" dead ahead.  On Immobilized, roll a dice: 1-2 means Crash & Burn, 3-6 is Stunned.

It is also worth noting that exploded vehicles NO LONGER LEAVE CRATERS, making life a lot harder for transports and their squishy contents. And Wrecked Vehicles are no longer Dangerous Terrain. I imagine this will make things a lot bloodier at my FLGS - we do love our vehicles there.

Characters

Challenges have gotten a lot more lethal, as wounds can now spill over between the duelists and their units. This is a good thing, I think. There was something a bit silly about slowing down big, horrible killing machines like Bloodthirsters and heavily kitted out characters by chucking a lowly sergeant or cultist champion out to absorb all of said super-killy character's wrath. Now a Chaos Lord with an Axe of Blind Fury can really get to work...

Terrain

Area terrain is dead! Mysterious Terrain is dead! Cover is a little harder to come by in this edition. Honestly, I'm glad to see the back of Mysterious Terrain - it just added another meaninglessly random element to the game. The back of the book has datasheets for a lot of Citadel terrain sets, like the ruined Manufactorum, the Battlescape, the crashed Aquila and what-have-you.

Also, buildings have hull points! Bastions and Bunkers both have 4 hull points now. Glancing hits knock off hull points with no further effect.

Army Composition

We've all seen the news on Unbound and Battle-forged. Moving on...

Oh, and Warlord Traits have been cleaned up somewhat so they're mostly useful now. e.g. Night Attacker now means Night-fighting on turn 1 PLUS your entire army has Night Vision.

Preparing for Battle

LOTS of changes here. In the past, the BRB order was:

1. Choose armies.
2. Roll for mission.
3. Roll for deployment map.
4. Roll for choosing deployment sides and placing objectives.
5. Set up Fortifications.
6. Set up Terrain.
7. Place objectives.
8. Determine Warlord traits and Psychic powers.
9. Deploy forces. Up to half may be in Reserve.
10. Seize initiative.

Now, we have:

1. Roll for mission on either the Eternal War table we know from 6th or Maelstrom of War. Note that the deployment zones are given in the Maelstrom of War missions. 
2. Choose armies.
3. Set up terrain.
4. Place objectives - always 6 for Maelstrom of War missions. Roll-off to see who places first.
5. Determine Warlord traits and Psychic powers.
6. Roll off. Winner chooses who deploys first. 
7. Deploy forces, INCLUDING FORTIFICATIONS, WITH NO LIMIT ON RESERVES. 
8. The player who deployed first may now choose who has the first turn.
9. Seize initiative.

So, it looks like playing pure Deathwing and starting with everything in reserve is back. Yay! 

Also, Night fighting is now rolled for only once on Turn 1, IF either player wants. If neither player wants Night-fighting, they can just agree to skip it. And what Night-fighting means now is EVERY unit on the board has Stealth. 

USRs

Notable changes:

Jink - Mentioned earlier. The decision to Jink must be made before rolls to Hit are made. Affected by this are Bikes, Jetbikes, Flying Monstrous Creatures, non-Heavy Skimmers and Flyers. A Flying Gargantuan Creature does NOT have Jink. Question: What about passengers of Skimmer Transports that Jink? If the transport jinks, do the passengers fire Snap Shots only, too?

Smash - AP 2 on all attack. May exchange all attacks for a single double-strength attack. Yay, again, my poor vehicles have become yet harder for MCs to kill.

Vector Strike - ONE AP 2 strike only. GOOD. 

Split-fire - No longer needs a leadership check. Yay for Deathwing again...

Skyfire + Interceptor - No longer means you can fire at a ground target at full BS!

D-strengh - I know there's been a lot of noise made over getting Invulnerable saves against the D. What struck me as equally important was the fact that now, cover saves can be taken against them as well. Suddenly, my Hellhammer is looking a LOT better...

And that's all I've got for now. Man, I'm itching to get my first game of 7th in...