Building character(s) into an army

   To me, one of the best parts of the new 40k 9th edition is the army-building rules.  While I have some complaints and worries (check out my last post), the new detachment system is not one of them.  You see, 8th edition is easily my favorite edition but the army-building format was broken.  It encouraged people to take tons of troops, in MSU format, in order to stockpile Command Points for the 'good stuff' like elites and heavies.  In other words, it encouraged 'min-maxing' over army design.  That's not a good system. 

  The new system for 9th edition puts everyone on a more level field and encourages more unique army lists.  I mentioned in that last post that I want to build a daemonic Chaos Space Marine army without paying the troop and Huron tax and now I can- without losing access to the important Command Points to make it work!  Finally!!!  This also means that my son can play a pure Deathwing army, my wife can play an angelic Sisters army focused on Celestine and her flying friends, and even my Eldar may see a pure Biel-tan style for the first time in over a decade.  I really think that this new format of army-building is going to be so much more casual-gamer-friendly.

  All that being said, I do see a HUGE disadvantage to this newer system.  The problem is the opposite of 8th edition's issue- troops.  Where 8th basically requires troops to be included in armies (which totally makes sense), 9th can basically ignore them altogether in armies.  Elite armies will become the new norm.  Armies of Shining Spears or DG Terminators (arguably one of the hardest units in the game) will be present while the co-called 'Loyal 32' will be retired and never see the battlefield again.  It will be amazing to see just how unnecessary regular troops will become.

  There is hope, however.  Getting characters into an army under 9th will be a little more difficult.  The specialist detachments (Vanguard, Outrider, Spearhead) are all limited in how many HQs they can take (one required, up to two).  A Battalion, which requires at least three troops, 'unlocks' more HQ slots and becomes more attractive.  Otherwise, players will be forced to pay for multiple detachments and defeat the whole purpose of the new system (remember that the detachment including the HQ is basically free while others have to spend Command Points just to use).  This means that the equation for army-building in this new edition requires more troops to use more characters.  And that's the way it should be. 

  I'm very, very excited about the new army-building format of 9th edition.  I enjoy 8th edition so much that I'm actually willing to simply port over the new system and just keep playing with 8th's mechanics.  In fact, this almost makes me think that we didn't need a new edition at all and could have released a Chapter Approved update for adopting this new system into the current game.  But that's back to that old post I've already mentioned.  Moral of the story- you no longer need troops to build an army... unless you want characters!  That's awesome.

  Let me know what you think of the new army-building format in 9th below.  I'd be curious to see if I'm the only one that notices this or if I'm just diving too deep with this.  Otherwise, Happy Gaming!

How to fix Dark Angels?

  I read a post on another blog site earlier this week and they mentioned how the other Space Marine chapters could be fixed and it got me to thinking (which is often painful).  So I figured I'd give this a go and think about what could be done, if anything is needed.

  In this post, the author mentions the 'big 3'- Dark Angels, Space Wolves, and Blood Angels.  The biggest complaints flying around the blogosphere are about how these chapters have nothing going for them and have fallen behind the power curve since the release of the new Space Marine codices.  And they're not totally wrong, but there some room for argument here.  Let's start with the red beakies...

  The Blood Angels are still really good.  In fact, they were so good for some time that GW had to put out a specific rule to nerf them.  The red ones have access to the best 'Smash Captains' (Captain with jump pack, thunder hammer, and storm shield) as well as golden angels dudes, black angry dudes, and strategems that allow them to come in and hit VERY hard.  That created the 'alpha strike' in close combat and basically destroyed many armies' chance of a fair fight against them.  If you don't know, close combat has some very distinct advantages in the current edition of 40k- not the least of which is locking units so that they have to retreat (if possible) and not be able to shoot.  Locking units in close combat is a game killer.  Add to that the 'fly' special rule that all these jump pack dudes get and suddenly the Blood Angels were just too powerful for the meta.

  Admittedly, the Blood Angels don't get such cool rules as the new Doctrines and their strategems are a bit outdated in many cases.  But their chapter trait is the best in the game for power-armored armies- they get +1 to wound when they charge, get charged, or heroically intervene.  Having Intercessors or those funny-colored guys with two attacks, armed with chainswords for extra attacks and then the new rule, Shock Assault, that gives an additional attack...  You can see how ridiculous this is.  Being able to wound Imperial (or Chaos) Knights on a 3+ with nothing more than a knife is really, really good.

  On that note, the Space Wolves' chapter trait isn't much worse.  They gain +1 to hit in those same circumstances.  Now, the feral boys don't have alpha-strike units like the Blood Angels, but they do have a preponderance of storm shields, multi-wound beasts that move really fast (but, but, there are no wolves on Fenris!!!) and the ability of the copious amounts of characters to heroically intervene up to six inches.  And the army is 'chaos-armed', meaning that they have the full suite of wargear that can give them all the attacks in every phase possible.  I know that my boys-in-blue would LOVE to have bolters, bolt pistols, and chainswords on the bog-standard tactical marines, even if they can't have two special weapons...  Moral of the story- Space Wolves aren't hurting that bad either.

  So then we get to the Dark Angels.  What's their deal?  They're hunters.  They're the army that runs around the galaxy hunting for some bad dudes based on rumors alone.  They have massive amounts of speed at their disposal, from a moving Chapter Fortress in space to speedy bikes and deep-striking Terminators.  This is represented in their chapter trait as...  oh, wait.  They get to reroll 1's if they DON'T MOVE.  What?  Oh, and they pass morale automatically or never lose more than one model for the rookies on the force.  This does not at all in any way match up with the fluff.  It helps Dark Angels players not have to worry about bringing Masters (Captains in other armies), but it also encourages them to bring static units like Devastators and sniper Scouts.  But it gets worse...

  The majority of the Dark Angel army is supposed to be made up of the 'greenwing', meaning Tactical Marines and the like.  Instead, you see them running Ravenwing and sometimes Deathwing more often than not.  Why?  Well, simply because they're better than the greenwing.  Getting to reroll ones doesn't match up to bikers with assault plasma guns or Terminators that can shoot the turn they deep strike while surviving awesome firepower in return.  To make matters even worse, White Scar bikers are better than Ravenwing (Ravenwing get a jink bonus save when advancing (and giving up shooting for normal bikers) while White Scars get to retreat and charge) and the Deathwing have to pay at least two command points to take advantage of shooting as soon as they deep strike- and that's if you forgo close combat weapons for storm bolters!  Oh, and both Deathwing and Ravenwing can get really expensive if you load them up to take advantage of their theme.  Hmm...

  There are some other, small issues as well.  For example, Dark Angels have company veterans, but not Sternguard, so no special issue ammunition anywhere in the book.  They also don't have access to Centurions or Vanguard squads, not to mention the other flyers.  I DO NOT want Dark Angels to be green-colored marines with access to everything the Ultramarines have like the Blood Angels seem to be (but red), but I do think that sharing some of the technology would be in order.  After all, Bobby G ordered Azrael to accept the Primaris guys, but he forgot the Centurion suits?  Give the Dark Angels some of this stuff, for Emprah's sake!

  How do we fix that?  To me, it seems like a return to the Dark Angels' theme- hunters.  Take away the goofy standing still rule, it just doesn't fit them.  They aren't Imperial Fists!  Keep the bonus rules against Chaos armies, but add something that actually matters against the other 95% of the game.  And I'm just not sure what I would do to make this real.  After all, I don't want to the White Scars or Raven Guard to lose their uniqueness, but there's got to be something.  We'll start with the my point above- just give them Centurions and Sternguard Veterans.  That'll be a great start (and a fantastic sales point for GW).

  After that, my suggestion would have to focus on the chapter trait...  First, I was thinking that the Dark Angels could lose the penalty for moving and shooting.  But there's two problems with that- I feel like that's going to apply to the Iron Hands when they get their book and this still encourages the standing still build for Dark Angels.  So maybe not that one.  Then I thought about just applying this to just bikers and Terminators.  But bikers don't need it and Deathwing don't really care.  So what then?

  I then thought about making this army the first 'fearless' army in this edition of 40k.  But they're Space Marines and the power-armored champions rarely care about that mechanic anyway, especially with the And They Shall Know No Fear rule and running smaller units than horde armies.  Plus, the Inner Circle rule already covers that and battle-forged armies can't lose more than one model on a failed check anyway.  So maybe not that rule.

  The last suggestion that I have would be...  Hmmm, this is harder than I thought it would be!  I even consulted with my son, who currently plays my Dark Angels and may have some insight that I wouldn't.  After much deliberation, we basically came to one possible suggestion-

  Allow the Dark Angels to advance and fire rapid fire weapons as assault weapons- the same rule that the Black Legion have in Chaos.  And this makes sense for a couple of reasons- first, it would make sense that the lead Chaos Space Marine legion and the First Legion would share similar traits.  Second, it would totally match the theme of being 'hunters' rather than static defenders.  As always, kids see things we adults simply can't.

  Let me know what you think in the comments below.  I'd be really curious to see what everyone comes up with.  That article I read suggested making bikers troops and that would be... uninspired.  What can you come up with?  Thanks for reading and please, comment below (it keeps me coming back to write more!).

  As always, Happy Gaming!

One step backwards...

  Late last night, one of my buddies called me about a rules question...  Let's jump back to 

Rules I hate!!!

  So I don't know if you guys have seen, but GW released this little thing a couple of weeks before the Machine God came back.  To the wild acclaim of so many of my old-school gaming buddies, this book became very popular really fast.  You see, minus Kharne the Betrayer, this book took everything 'Khorny' and tossed it onto one army.  

  Enter the Khorne Daemonkin codex, probably the best book to be released by GW in a looooong time.  As a couple of my buddies noted, "I finally get to use my OLD Khorne army!".  I tend to have a lot of Chaos fans in my entourage, and Khorne is usually their favorite (we're all a bunch of angry people).  They used to use 'zerkers and Bloodthirsters to do terrible things to my army, and I was looking forward to it again.  

  
  Enter the artifacts...  The most powerful piece of wargear on this list is the Blood-forged Armour.  I say that because I wanted to use Grey Knights (finally) to kill me some daemons, and it turns out that a Daemon Prince can pop this little chestplate on and DESTROY all hope of my GK soul-zapping that bugger.  Wow!
  When my buddy and I played our game, he admitted that the wargear was really powerful and sort of apologized, but I advised that my Dreadknight pilot wouldn't have known better.  If there were other daemons on the board at the time, I could kill them instead!

Did you see the new model!?!  Damn, GW!!!

  Enter the Bloodthirster!!!  I want to kill him so baaaaaaaad!  My buddy chose not to bring one in the standard army list, instead relying on the Axe of Ruin to bring one in.  That is the second best piece of wargear on that list above.  I was excited by that because I would get to see a Bloodthirster on the table again.  Unfortunately, the game didn't work out anywhere near the level where we could have seen that, but that's another post...  In any case, what was going to be cool was seeing a Daemon Prince go down and a Bloodthirster replace him.  It was meant to be totally scary!!!

THAT'S precisely what I expected to see...

  And now back to my other buddy calling me.  Lacking his rulebook, he had a rules question.  This guy is desperately trying to avoid AdMech and he's focused on his Daemonkin army, and he got into a rules discussion with his gamer circle.  It was a rule I never thought about.  Like ever.  

  When the Bloodthirster arrives, does he arrive in Gliding mode or Swooping mode?  In other words, does he deep strike to the ground or does he pull a Goku and teleport directly into midair?  If I had to guess, he deep strikes onto the ground, like everyone else.  When the model is deployed at the beginning of the game, he starts on the ground.  Besides, Deep Striking and Swooping are both 'special' movement modes, and you shouldn't be able to do two 'special' modes at the same time.  So I open up my rulebook and search through the rules for Deep Striking (pg 162), Conjuration (pg 26), and finally Flying Monstrous Creatures (pg 68).   

  "Deployment...  If a Flying Monstrous Creature arrives via Deep Strike Reserve, it always counts as being in Swooping mode."  

BOOM!  This means that the character with the axe dies, then the Bloodthirster rips a hole in the air, has to spend the next turn landing, them finally get to charge the turn after?  Ouch!  In fact, this applies to the Daemonology power Possession- all Conjuration powers follow the Deep Strike rules for all intents and purposes!  I no longer fear, for at least three turns, a summoned Bloodthirster or even Daemon Prince.  

  Remember back in 3rd edition where Daemons popped up and immediately charged?  I hated that and then planned to use it for my cheezy army until the rules changed.  Remember the previous editions where Daemons are simply summoned and have to wait one turn before they can charge?  Yeah, that's normal.  Now we have Daemons that are summoned, then have to wait two turns to charge?  Wow, one step backwards each time...

  Now I'm supposed to be on the receiving end of this combo and actually looked forward to seeing it happen (I just have to get my Ultra-boys back to the range, apparently), but not like this.  This actually makes that combo very unscary (in that competitive way) and kinda ruins the point of this codex.  I mean, zerkers led by a Bloodthirster that might join the fray at some point?  That's not 'Khorny' at all.  That's just a rule I hate...

Let me know what you think!  

Rules I hate!

I have so much issue with so many things, but I don't really care as I'm not the designer, just the gamer.  But sometimes, and it's not often, sometimes I find a rule that just chaps my hide...

Here's the one that I had to clarify recently:

Pg 81, BRB, "If a unit disembarks from a destroyed vehicle during the enemy turn, it cannot charge in the assault phase of its own turn unless the destroyed vehicle had the Assault Vehicle special rule."

Now we all know that last edition saw that rule be put into effect (even if it required FAQ to clarify later), so this is not something 'new'.  But it is something that actually makes me sad when I have to be the victim of it.  Strangely, it makes me even more sad to see the effect this rule has on certain other armies.

Make no mistake, I LOVE these balancing factors that GW included.  To mitigate the 'parking lots' that we used to see in 4th edition, GW makes sure that vehicles are slower to fire more weapons (unless they're 'fast', in which case the rules make them TOO powerful) and makes sure troops can't use them as moving deployment zones.  To bring them back after the nerfing of said 'lots' in 5th edition, they made the vehicles more difficult to destroy and gave transports some extra overwatch love.  But those Khornate armies with Rhino support aren't terribly happy about those effects.

You see, some armies, like Orks and Necrons, have assault units and open-topped vehicles to take advantage of that.  While Necrons only have one good CC unit, Orks are all close combat and so both armies get to see their specialties taken advantage of.

But the poor Khorne Berzerker or Black Templar Crusader is strapped with the responsibility of bring ing a Land Raider or a really good set of boots.  Why?  Because all I need to do to stop those threats to my army is pop their Rhinos.  When I do that, not only are the squads now stuck where they didn't want to be, but they are also NOT ALLOWED to do what they're supposed to do.  I know that the vehicle blew up in my turn and those troops were on foot when their turn started.  But hey, the Gods-that-make-the-rules say that you have to look at me menacingly and toss a pistol shot my way.  But your Chain-axes and -swords can stay put away for at least another turn.


Does that make any sense?  Not too me.  All I can do is take advantage (remember, my buddy is a Khorne player) and complain incessantly about the common sense behind the rule.  I don't think it breaks the game, I just don't like what it does to certain armies.

What do you think of this rule?  Leave your defense or attack on the rule below and, as always, Happy Gaming!

Wait, another edition?!

Well, I said that I would reserve judgement about the new edition until the new book was officially in my hand.  All of my buddies asked relentlessly what I thought and all I could do was relay the same rumours we all know and express how cool or uncool they would be.  What were some of the rumours I was looking forward to?

Ballistic skill -2 for Overwatch.  That would make my Eldar and Space Marines especially happy.

Psychic Phase.  Ah, like I was back in middle school...

Consolidating into combat.  Finally, a way to defeat that pesky overwatch!

And from quite a while ago, Percentage-based FOC.  Seriously, how would we NOT want that?!

But alas, they were not meant to be.  These rumours were too good to be true anyway, and I don't expect GW to have everything I want.  I just play the game with the rules they give me and then reserve the right to complain later on, like any self-respecting gamer...  Yeah, I said it!  What?  What were my thoughts when the book was confirmed to be released?

Like everyone else, I was surprised that it was coming out so soon.  I was also under the impression that it was already 3 years, but my buddy pointed out that it was only 2.  So really, only 2 years?  Really?  I mean, really!?

But hey, if they feel like this was a 'transitionary' edition and they were ready to release the real game, so be it.  It must be a complete rewrite.  A hardcore departure from the last edition the same way that 3rd edition was different from 2nd, and 6th was different than 5th, right?  Well, let's see what they do.

I heard about the neat format of the books- 3 booklets in a hard cover-case.  That was cool!  I love the special-style format that they release stuff in.  I bought the special edition with the ammo can, the Apocalypse one in the ruck-sack, and even the fantasy set with the satchel!  If this is the cool way that this edition was going to be released, I couldn't be unhappy.

So what happened?  Well, the book was coming out regardless of whether I thought it was appropriately timed or not.  Besides, the possibility of a complete paradigm shift in the game was too intriguing to ignore.  But that didn't happen.  There was a prevailing opinion that this was little more than a '6.5', and I now confidently refer to it as '6.15'.  It changed so little that I was rather disappointed.  I was hoping for a rewrite, but that didn't happen.  Jay was sad...

I will get back to the positive very quickly here by noting that the 3-book format was rather good.  It is really cool and means that I can carry a single book to the store with me.  That means I took a codex and another codex-sized book and can call myself equipped with everything.  Here's another thought- GW has set it up that they can sell just the rulebook now.  You see, they could produce, let's say... 2000 of each of the 'Galaxy at War' and 'Dark Millenium' books and sell those each for $30 or something.  But they could produce 20,000 of 'The rules' and sell that at $35 and be able to make a great deal of money.  This is not different than buying the complete DnD set, only cheaper (and two of the books are about the hobby instead of more rules).  I think that it can be a brilliant business move.  I don't expect GW to take advantage of it, but I'm hoping all is not truly lost there.

As far as the rules themselves...

The BIGGEST change to the game is the fact that everything is scoring now.  Unless it's an immobilized non-walker, a swarm, or stated specifically, it can control objectives.  This is a very welcome change to me indeed as it means that competitive games aren't simply 'who kills the enemy's troops first' and becomes more of a decision-making game.  I am now worried that this will mean the disappearance of Troops because Elite and other units are more powerful and can fulfill the same purpose.  A buddy pointed out that Troops in battle-forged armies trump non-Troops in controlling versus contesting.  That matters, but damage output is so much more important than it ever was and Troops typically fall behind in that category.

Related to that is the 'Tactical Objectives'.  Basically, you can play missions where you always lay down 6 objective markers, numbered 1 through 6.  Then, at the beginning of each turn, the players draw cards or roll on a chart to randomly determine new objectives.  You can achieve these objectives and earn the victory points at the end of each turn, and you can discard and ignore objectives that you can't achieve to try and draw new ones.  Most of the time, these objective points are earned by controlling a specific objective marker (numbered 1-6), while it's other conditions at other times.  It adds quite a bit of variety to the game scenarios.  I actually rather like this and could see it mutated into a very effective tournament format.  More importantly, it really adds an element of randomness to the battle that can offset some of that imbalance in armies.  Probably not, though.

The next biggest change is the reincarnation of the Psychic Phase.  It's a bit different now.  All powers are cast by psykers in this phase (unless stated otherwise until FAQs are released).  The phase starts after the movement phase and takes place before the shooting phase, and doesn't affect any of it.  That means that a psyker can fire a witchfire power and then shoot with his normal weapon and then charge in the assault phase!  That's right, psykers basically gain an extra action in the game.  At the start of the phase, the players roll a d6 and add their Mastery levels to the score- that's how many dice they get.  Much like the White Wolf system, the ability to cast powers is dependent upon rolling a number of 'successes' on a number of dice.  The psyker attempting to cast the power chooses any number of dice and rolls them, looking for a target number of 4 or higher.  If the number of 'successes' equals or exceeds the Warp Charge cost of the power, it is successful.  So 'Smite', a primaris power with a Warp Charge 1, would typically be cast by a psyker using two of the dice from the pool.  As long as one of the dice shows a 4 or higher, the power is successful.
On top of that, Denying the Witch is significantly changed.  The enemy player can choose to Deny the Witch against any power attempt, regardless of whether he's the target or not (that includes Blessings and such!).  They simply choose a number of dice from their pool and roll, looking for 6s as the 'success' dice.  In order to stop a power, the enemy player must equal or beat the successes of the psyker's roll straight out- 3 successes of 4+ will have to be stopped with 3 successes of 6s.  There are ways to modify the Deny the Witch roll, like having a psyker in the unit and them being a higher Mastery level.  The average Space Marine player will have a single level 2 psyker, averaging 5-6 dice a turn, while the Grey Knights and Eldar can really beef those numbers up.
I worry that this will lead to those Psychic armies to really own that phase and cause some serious damage.  I shouldn't be too upset, considering that I own Grey Knights, Eldar, and Blood Angels.  But a buddy has play-tested his Grey Knights already and assures me that it's not nearly as bad as I think.  If it comes to that, I'm prepared.  Let's hope that I'm wrong in this prediction.

Finally, the last effective REAL change was the order of resolution with weapons fire.  A unit with multiple types of weapons has to separate and fire and completely resolve each group.  So a Space Marine Tactical Squad would have to fire the Sergeant's bolt pistol and completely resolve wounding and saving before moving on to the 7 bolters and starting over.  This slows the game down, but no more than the Psychic Phase already did, so nothing really lost here.  What that means is that different ranged weapons need to be fired in order of that range- short range weapons first, then longer, then long-range weapons.  When range is tied, template and blast weapons should be fired first to get more models before they are killed by other weapons.  Oh, something tiny in here- the effective killing range of a shooting weapon is it's max range, regardless of the mode it's firing in.  So a bolter firing in rapid fire mode can wound and kill a model up to 24" away.  Sweet, right?!  This adds a very specific tactical consideration to the shooting phase for those multi-weapon units.

After that, there's some weird changes.  Characters no longer come with Precision Shot and Precision Strike.  I don't know if that's going to be FAQ'd, but I thought that was interesting.  Those rules, and even 'One shot/One use only' were listed in the Special Rules Appendix.  I mean, wow.

Vector Strike is limited to one strike at base strength and AP 2.  We knew this one already.

Difficult terrain is no longer a dice game.  Any unit charging into difficult terrain rolls charge range as normal and subtracts 2 from it.  We knew this one as well, but it bears noting.

Night fight is no longer range specific, only happens in the first turn and only on a roll of 4+.  The effect is that all units on the table have the Stealth special rule for that turn.  Pretty simple.

Flying Monsters changed quite a bit.  First, they got more powerful by now only having to take a 'Grounding' test once a phase, and only if they're wounded.  It's bad to roll 1 or 2.  But it's now not possible to ground FMCs with laser pointers...  Then, they got less powerful as they are no longer allowed to charge in the same turn as switching flight modes from swooping to gliding or vice-versa.  That's right, flapping around the battlefield takes more time, so know what's up right now.

The vehicle damage chart is different and transports actually became a little better (in a very tiny way).  The damage chart is now this:

1-3:  Shaken (vehicle fires only snap shots)

4:  Stunned (vehicle can't move and fires only snap shots)

5:  Weapon destroyed

6:  Immobilized

7:  Explodes

That's right, you need a 7+ to blow up a vehicle now!  If your weapon isn't AP 2 or 1, you're creating another wreck for the battlefield.  That's a nifty little change that makes Land Raiders that much more awesome.
As far as transports- now, if the vehicle suffers any of the non-'Explodes' effects on the chart, the crew simply takes a LD test.  If they fail, they may only fire snap shots round, but passing means everything is normal.  Nowhere did I see anything preventing them disembarking!  Of course, only Assault Vehicles allow a disembarking charge still, so it's not that huge.  But still, a LD test or no effect.  Perfect!

We all know the Allies chart changed.  But the new edition went even further and stated that any number of any kind of detachments can be used as well.  Taking two Macharius detachments and a GK detachment is very tempting with my IG...

Smash has been reduced to a single attack.  No longer to monsters 'halve' their attacks- they just get one super-strike mega-blast uber-punch now.  

Of important note is the absence of 'Area Terrain'.  I personally preferred area terrain as it made it easy to just roll the dice and keep the game moving.  This whole idea of 'model by model' from the perspective of the shooters' can be tedious.  I like it well enough, but I'm a fan of simplicity.  Now, nothing in the game has the rule, and only a few of pieces of terrain listed in the appendix even have the effect (Imperial Copse, Battlescape, and Moonscape).  Woods and Ruins and such no longer grant the generic cover saves anymore, and claiming cover from barrage just become much more difficult.  I don't mid this change too much, but I can certainly see where it removes the gross reliance on cover that certain units had.  So, good job, I guess?

Oh, now any model that can 'Jink' may choose to do so and get a 4+ cover save, but may fire only snap shots next time it shoots.  This applies to bikes and such too.

And now, the most irritating to me- D weapons got nerfed!  I don't understand why.  I NEVER agreed with people who believed that those weapons were too powerful- they're Titan weapons, for Emprah's sake!!!  Now, Abaddon and Marneus, and anyone else with a respectable invulnerable save can ignore my Knights giant-freakin' chainsword!  That change just made my 375 point Knight worse than a 225 point squad of Thunderhammer Terminators.  I call BS.  I am sooooooper upset.  One of buddies understands as he literally bought the rulebook and Knight the same day and had his bubble burst instantly.  Boooooo, GW, booooooo!

As far as aesthetics, I really like the new edition.  As noted above, I love the three book format.  I'm focusing on 'The Rules' because that's what all gamers want to know about.  That book is laid out very efficiently, but may be a bit cramped.  There are tons of black 'sidebars' with special rules in them.  That can be overlooked.  Luckily, it's just a repeat of the appendix.  And that's the coolest part right there- 

The Universal Special Rules are now just in the Appendix.  The weapons listing and stats are now in the Appendix.  The Psychic Powers are still in the Appendix.  In other words, a competent player need only look in the newly-formatted Appendix to find everything they need.  It's awesome.  Great job on this part, GW!

There are other tiny changes in there, but these are the only ones that actually separate the 7th edition from the barely 2-year old 6th edition.  How do I feel about the edition?  Well, I don't really have a feeling right now besides the one I'll mention below.  But, I liked 6th edition, and since this is only '6.15' to me, I can't dislike it.  I think that most of the changes are welcome changes, if not more tactical.  But it's not different enough to really warrant a change of opinion from last edition.

The only thing that I can say is that I'm not sure it is worth the price point.  I don't need the other two books (I am already a ridiculous repository of 'fluff' information and I already paint at a good level), so the fact that the rules aren't that different don't really convince me that I needed to spend the money.  I will say that the format, layout, and appearance are really cool and that makes it worth the price as I said above.  But rules-wise...  Meh?

Let me know what you guys think and make it good.  After all, new editions only come once every...  nevermind.  In the meantime, Happy Gaming!