Thursday 28 November 2013

Things I miss about 5th Edition

In 5th edition I used to have lots of fun running a 3 Stormraven Blood Angels  list. It wasn’t super competitive, but it was OK, and a lot of fun to run. I won “best Blood Angles player at Throne of Skulls using it (going 4-1), came third at the WPS Club Challenge, and won a local RTT.

The whole idea was to stuff 3 Storm Ravens full of Furioso Dreadnaughts and Death Company, take minimal scoring units, and rush my opponent. I tended to win big or lose big, depending on how many Storm ravens my opponent downed in his first turn. I knew it was weaker in 6th edition, but I had no idea how weak until I took it to a recent 3 game tournament … man it really sucks now! I went 1-1-1, and really should have lost the game I won. Ironically I won best BA player (out of 3 of us), which I think speaks volumes about how weak BA are now.

The list has so many problems, but the biggest one is Ravens becoming flyers. The list relied on getting the Dreads into combat ASAP. In 5th edition AV13 combat dreads with Blood Talons were brutal. They ate pretty much anything that didn’t have an invulnerable save, and the Stormravens were the ideal delivery mechanism – move 12”, get out 2 (plus the width of the base) and then assault a guaranteed 6”, giving them a 23” threat range. The Death Company Dread was even better because he had fleet – a few times I managed a turn 1 assault with a good run roll the DC dread (for the noobs, fleet was different in 5th – it allowed you to run and then assault).

Now, the biggest problem with the list is getting the Dreads into assault. Because I need to start the Raven’s off the board, and they can’t assault the turn they come on, the earliest I can get them to do anything is turn 3. I also need to start most of the army off the board, so risk losing by having what’s on the board wiped out if my reserve rolls are poor. At the tourni I ran a Bastion with comms relay, manned by Mephiston (and man he sucks now too – in one game a Rune Priest in Runic Armour held him up for most of the game!). Even with that I lost game 3 because one Raven refused to come on until turn 4.

And even when the dreads get into assault, they are nowhere near as good now that Blood Talons are AP3.

Now things move on, and lists never stay the same. I’m OK with that, and I wasn’t expecting the list to do well if I’m honest, however, writing this has me thinking about what I missed from 5th edition. Perhaps it’s rose tinted spectacles, but if GW had kept 5th ed, and simply updated all the old codicies, I can’t help feeling we would have a better game now.

So, for all the old codgers out there – what do you miss from 5th edition, or to put it another way, what do you dislike about 6th?

I dislike

·         Random charge distances. How annoying to miss a 3 or 4 inch charge.
·         Challenges. I really don’t see the point of challenges.
·         Flyers (although as more and more Codices get reasonable counters, it’s getting better)
·         Random events that can effect the whole game (my pet peeve being the warp storm table)
·         Allies, or rather Battle Brothers. The way that Independent Characters can join units and grant them USRs is too easy to abuse.
·         The very obvious lack of play testing leading to silly powerful units – eg  Helldrakes, Wave Serpents, Screamer stars, Seer Councils, Tau Buff Commanders, Riptides etc. This was a feature of 5th to be fair, but it seems much worse now.

On the flip side, what do I love about 6th edition?

·         The pace of codex release. While some of the codices may have issues, the fact that by the end of next year they will probably be all up to date for 6th edition, is fantastic.
·         Making Vehicles more balanced (maybe – you could make an argument that this went too far)
·         Allies – I know, I know, that’s contradictory, but it’s not allies I dislike as such, it’s the (hopefully!) unintended consequences of allowing allied HQ’s to grant USR’s to units they join.

Hmmm…. that’s about it really. I cant think of any change in the 6th edition rule set (other than perhaps rebalancing vehicles) that has actually improved game play! Oh dear…!

Could somebody please tell me I’m wrong? There must be lots of  game mechanic in 6th edition that weren’t in 5thwhich have actually improved game play?

EYIG

2 comments:

  1. Things that have improved the game for me:

    - Precision shots - IC's are actually special in some way (challenges do this too to an extent)
    - Focus fire - a lot more possibility for tactical decisions
    - Overwatch esp in terms of tau - positioning matters
    - Removal of models as closest to closest - most annoying thing of 5th was just never killing the 1 or 2 useful models in a unit
    - 6 genuinely varied missions
    - Possibility for endless allies/fw combos

    i could probably think of some more if i had more time

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  2. Hi this is Jacob from Games of War, and this is what I like about 6th ed.

    -The atmosphere of a good portion of the rules gives it more of a feel of the 41st millennium
    -There is a lot more ideas you can put into custom scenarios, campaigns, etc imo
    -streamlined special rules, such as Meltaguns 2D6 into armourbane, etc, etc,

    What I dislike out of 6th:

    -Necron Minshackle scarabs: Yeah because my Chaos Lord who has meant to butcher a shed ton of marines, kill countless Orks, claimed many souls for the dark gods, and puts dread into the hearts of Astartes, now suddenly hits himself in the face... Then the warscythe comes crashing down... So my lord never really stood a chance... Oh I have to shoot it? oh yey, so I cant really get into combat with it and have at least a fair fight, yey so fun *rolls eyes*...
    -Abusive lists: Serpent spam, missileside markerlight riptides, screamer star, etc, etc because some people just love to abuse a set of rules that were not designed for competitive play..
    -Random Charge distances, that was just thrown out and slapped in, it very poor ruling tbh, I liked fixed charge distances and I did not see why they had to change.
    -Walkers are now useless (and how MC are used in every new army now, so now not really the 'Nid special thing anymore) So dreads (which were one of the main things that got me into 40k) now just provide first blood, oh yey joy for my Hellbrutes and Dread mobs, even the new Maulerfiend is crap against other units its meant to be a close combat monster..
    -First Blood, obviously whoever made that rule, must had been watching a Michael Bay film (most likely Transformers...)..
    -Chaos Marine Codex, I like how they added Warpsmiths, but in all honesty its just bland and really boring, most of our options are CC units and in the age of shooting, it really doesn't work, and to actually get anywhere we need Helldrakes, I mean look past them and what do we have? nothing much really apart from FDP, but they lost Eternal Warrior, so Im not really too fond of them now, I have tried to keep my two Helldrakes out of my lists for a while now but whenever I fight my opponents I have just had a loosing streak, so I feel like Im compelled to use them just to compete, and Im not even talking about competitive games here, so imo I don't like our current codex, I've gone back to Orks and tbh, I've had a lot more wins and I actually did not feel powerless like I had with my CSM before hand (roll on the New codex WAAAGH!!!! hehe).

    Just my Opinion however I am really looking forward to Escalation, just the thought of being able to use my Stompa (and Kill Krusha tank) in normal games makes me feel rejuvenated to think of having my big stuff on the tale, alongside some Forge world I have :)

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