So all the stuff released so far for 8th edition has been pretty exciting.
I haven't really run into anything that really made me sit back and panic, and I think that's partly because of the good things I hear about AoS nowadays.
Having not played too many games of that when it first came out and only really beginning to get involved in it now (well eventually) 8th edition seems to be taking the best bits, and adding in loads of 40k things for us to consider.
The latest phase uploaded (Combat) was an interesting read, and comes back to you really paying attention to which units you want to charge with / be charged.
So my thoughts so far:
Unit Profiles
Good straightfoward stuff here, I hope that we keep some form of invulnerable style save, but it may not be needed with the other changes coming
Static numbers to hit in shooting (which we always had) and in combat are going to be nice and should keep the flow of the game, and especially help out new players.
While most of us playing for more than 6 months will know the WS / BS charts so well that we dont need to look them up, it removes something that can seem daunting to new people coming into the game.
Everything having wounds, will be interesting to see how this works for say a dreadnought as I did like the damage component (losing an arm / immobilised etc), but equally it was another thing to keep track of, difficult to represent and meant that your nice models might not get to do a lot on the table top!
As long as we dont see bolters bringing down Landraiders very often I think I can live with this!
Weapon Profiles
Again simplification, the damage output should work nicely, and might add an extra layer of dice rolling in some cases (it used to be BS roll, Wound Roll, Saves, and now will have a damage roll in there too) we will have to see how that plays out.
No Templates
Bane of my life, not using them in game, but making sure i have and can find all of the ones I need, honestly I must have about 10 of each, but when I play I either forget them all, or have all of them but the ones I need, this is great and removes any questions in each others heads.
Movement
Different movement values, running in one phase, all good here, nothing much I am worried about.
Being able to disengage from combat sounds like its a little too easy, and the downside of not being able to shoot isnt really a big enough negative for me, but we will see how it plays out with the full rules.
Psychic Phase
I havent really been involved too much in this phase since its introduction in 7th, but given what I have read and see any changes are likely to be welcomed.
All units getting to use their powers is good, something where if they fail to manifest one means they dont get to try another would be good to make sure they have to think about how they are going to play it!
Shooting
-1 to shooting when moving is nice and might bring back heavy weapons squads a bit more, it might also reduce some of the grav (maybe) spam you can see, although I am actually hoping for a change to the weapon stats to do this!
Shooting with pistols in combat I like, more bloody, more times to hurt people can only speed things up.
Cover
Bonus to the armour save sounds good, wonder how it will work for something with a 2+? maybe make it a 1+ to help negate the effect of weapons meant to punch through armour (1's always fail!)
Charge Phase
2D6 charge ranges, always been a little bit on the fence about how random this is, seems to me that dedicated combat units should as a rule be better at charging longer distances by default than ones that don't do that, but its not really changed since the previous edition so will see how that pans out.
Would have loved to see dedicated combat units (ones that can't shoot getting a 6+D6 charge), but I understand that keeping it all the same is going to be the way forward here!
Getting within 1" of each other in theory extends charge ranges, but can also cause plenty of arguments about distances charged (not that, that is a new thing!)
Overwatch multiple times a turn! Love it, wont be forced to waste it on the first unit that decides to charge you just to make sure you get your chance.
Assault Phase
This sounds good, charging and going first was always nice in older editions of Warhammer (those Dwarf hammerers that got to charge you were just brutal!)
How you lay units out while it has always been important to avoid those multi unit charges, is now even more important as models don't have to get into base to base, just into 1", and they get a free 3" move wrap round at the beginning of combat, which also means that you could technically move yourself in range of another unit that can then wrap round into you to join your combat (reading between the lines here).
Gun lines will struggle here if they don't play smart!
In Summary
It looks good, it sounds good and I have high hopes.
Final verdict of course when the rules come out, and we get our new unit stats!
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