My First 6th Ed. Experience

Today was my first game of 6th edition and I loved it.  I'll be honest...the last year of 5th ed. I found myself losing interest.  The rules had gotten stagnant and the game balance was basically non-exsistant.  It just wasn't fun anymore.  Then came the promise of 6th edition that was supposed to fix everything.  I don't know if it did, but I am very happy with most of it, and pleased to have my hobby back.

     First, the good.  I loved that there is more strategy.  The new missions are more diverse and the bonus objectives make for an interesting extra goal.  I actually won just because I got all 3.  We played the 2 objective mission...his was well defended and he never really threatened mine as a result.  The new psyker powers were interesting.  I played against a Tzeentch heavy CSM squad so he had 4 psykers.  The Warlord traits idea is interesting, though the rulebook ones are so random and situational I don't see the point.  The new CSM will have their own that look much more useful,  I ended up with the one that affects his reserve roll and he had a squad of lesser demons, but that wasn't really a big deal.  Most of them are pretty useless.  I think the mechanic will be better used as books come out with specialized traits for that army.  I wished he'd experimented with swooping one of his princes (and it would have probably helped him) but he was afraid of taking a grounded test.  I liked that I had to be aware of not just where I moved, bit how I moved and what model went where.  I saw myself looking a turn or two ahead...something I didn't see a use for before.  My opponent declared charges and I saw myself thinking I'd have done them in a different order to affect overwatch.  All in all I'm pretty happy.

     Now the bad.  There was a lot to keep track of...we both forgot what our objectives did entirely...just now I'm remembering mine was supposed to explode.  Then there was a random river, warlord traits, damage, psykers...you have to take notes just to keep half of it straight.  I'm not a fan of the new wound allocation.  It's better then the old shenanigans of 5th, but there were a few where it was just annoying.  He rolled LoS for his champion on all the shots...1 stayed on him and he failed that armor save, then he had to roll each die until the meltagunner died as he was next closest and once he died he could finally scoop up the rest and roll together as there were nothing but bolters...and another meltagunner, but there were less remaining wounds then models between him so I couldn't get there.  I'll probably get used to it and I do like that I can flank his unit, but right now it seems tedious.  The new rules also ended up keeping one squad's champion alive when I inflicted enough wounds to wipe the squad, but he made all his LoS rolls so he survived alone.

     Finally, this was also the first time I ran my Necrons since...2008?  I played them a few times in 5th, got phased in 2 turns and went "see you when the new book comes out".  Well, I was impressed.  The Monolith, while not quite as unkillable as before is still awesome and I put a repair spider behind it so it was back to being practically immortal.  The Destroyer Lord's lack of an invulnerable save wasn't as bad as I'd expected.  Only once did I miss it when he took a hit from a psychic power that ignored his 2+ save.  He had fun fighting demon princes.  The foot list worked well...I deep-struck the monolith, which was gutsy, but let me pull troops through the portal.  Preferred enemy came in handy a few times on the shooty destroyers, even getting a hit from a Heavy Destroyer.  The Scarabs did their job well, devouring a predator and the Defiler.  Whip coils were useful on the Wraiths.  Mindshackle scarabs weren't too useful against a leadership 10 army, but I can see them being better against other armies.  All in all, I'm happy my undead robots are back.

     I really think this rulebook has rejuvinated my interest in 40k.  The last year has ensured that fantasy will be a bigger part of my very limited gaming time, but I won't be putting the grim dark future aside after this.