Early Thoughts on 6th Edition

I've had another week with the new 6th edition book and some more time to read through my codexes and their updated FAQ's. I also managed to slip in my first game under the new ruleset this past weekend. Even though we had to cut the game a little short, based on the turns we played I'm pretty excited about the overall state of the game for 6th edition. While a lot of the 'core mechanics' have stayed the same, the changes and new additions have certainly breathed new life into the game. It's exciting to see what Warlord traits you and your opponent roll up, as well as psychic powers if you decide to roll for the new BRB powers.

I was feeling pretty sour about what happened to my untested Dark Eldar Webway army when the FAQ came out, however where GW closes a door they also open a window, or several. I gave my first serious read through the Craftworld Eldar codex this week, as they are the only Battle Brother Ally of the Dark Eldar. It was pretty fun! I was pleasantly surprised to find such fun and powerful abilities; it left me wondering why they received so much hate during 5th edition. At any rate, Eldar can certainly fill the psychic void of my DE and add some very adequate troops while they're at it. I'm leaning Pathfinders at the moment, but the other aspect warriors also deserve some consideration.

But for my first game I thought I should go with something that didn't rely too heavily on some of the more radical changes, like flyers, psychic powers, fortifications, etc. Plus we were only playing 1000pts, so I wanted to field something that would allow me to focus on the core rules. It was a job well suited for my Necrons.

Necrons fared well transitioning from 5th to 6th. They were strong at the end of 5th and I expect them to be even stronger in 6th. Even the lowliest warrior can strip hull points from the heaviest of tanks. Scarabs are still a hot knife through armor's butter and our ridiculously cheap monstrous creatures have even more tricks in the way of Fear, Hammer of Wrath and Smash hits.

Character challenges when Mindshackle Scarabs are involved should be very interesting for the robots. Necrons on the whole aren't known for their close combat prowess, but watch out for the one on one duels.

One of the biggest changes that is most apparent during the game is wound allocation. The closest models to the firing unit have to take the wounds, making deployment and subsequent movement even more tactically crucial in 6th edition.

That's pretty much it for now. I hope to get more games in soon and to try out some fun things like my new Storm Talon and some psykers. I definitely need to try out more of the missions as well. It's been fun re-writing the lists for my main armies and I'm definitely looking forward to figuring out what new combos work best against the ever changing meta. I'm also curious to see how tournaments react to the new rules and what they intend to do to balance a competitive event.