So, that’s it. We’ve been waiting for the 8th edition of Warhammer 40 000, and here it is. Now everyone who knows how to use Internet, can look through all 5 books and the rulebook. Sure, we won’t tell you, where to get them. Qui cherche – trouve. And we are going to share our first impressions with you. We’ve just played test game of 1500 pts and looked through all the books. Our point of view can differ from yours, but that’s ok. We don’t persuade anyone.
So, let’s start with the major issues. All the rumors came true. We’ve written that movement is now in unit’s profile, that they can shoot into close combat with pistols, you can’t join characters to squads and vehicles now are just monstrous creatures.
There was a hope that flyers will still be hard to hit. No. They are also just monstrous creatures now. Nonetheless, their toughness is still created in accordance with the armor they used to have. So, it’s quite low since previously flyers were hard to hit and had a little armor. Yes, now some of them have -1 modifiers. But who cares about -1…
All this system with toughness for everyone looks arguable. This definitely simplifies gameplay. Ok. But considering the fact that now even Str1 can hurt anyone, this makes vehicles totally useless. As the test game showed, the crowd of cultists can easily reduce Land Raiders wounds to the minimum, where it’s almost immobile and dies of a single lascannon.
By the way, everything doesn’t live long anymore. Nonetheless, some units got more wounds (especially vehicles), Rend mechanics almost neglects saves, invulns (in general) were lowered – you will have to mostly rely on the 4+ 5+ throws. Wounds multiplication doesn’t leave a place for big models at all.
There is an interesting thought, which comes after all this – it’s time for huge crowds of cheap models. Why should you buy an expensive (almost all point costs have risen) dreadnaught, if it can be seriously damaged by gretchins?
So, it’s obvious that Warhammer has become more expensive. The points have risen – you have to buy miniatures. Models die faster - you have to buy miniatures. The scale of battles has grown – you have to buy miniatures.
Another thing is that surprisingly there is even more random that it used to be. We were promised a reduced game length and less dice throws. In fact, now we have all ex-template weapons shooting d3 or d6 times and most weapons with random wound multiplication. A lot of random and throws still. Dreadfull vindicator’s cannon can shoot 1 or 6 times. Sure, the template could also miss, but it was much easier to rely on it before.
After looking into the armybooks it’s obvious that at this moment game is much more boring and plane. The same was with early Age of Sigmar. The most part of unique special rules has disappeared. Or it was changed by the simple ones, No more weapons description, and ideas of how it works. Now you can distinguish flamer from the autocannon only because flamer has the note that it hits automatically. Chapter tactics, legions, marks of Gods, daemonic rewards – everything that made your army unique, has gone. Now you only have one common special rule for an army and a bunch of numbers. All special rules are standardized and in general give bonuses to hit/wound/armor. There are also a lot of mortal wounds that also doesn’t add life to the models. Magic is limited to 3 spells per discipline and 1-2 disciplines per faction. So, psykers are nothing but usual shooters with random chance to be useful. It’s really sad to admit – now it looks more like primitivizing than simplification.
Sure, the comparison with Age of SIgmar is inevitable. Many people will say that now everything is like it’s there. No, it isn’t. And it wasn’t even at the start. There were a lot of unique (even though sometimes stupid) rules. Rend -2 is still considered great. 2-3 is a great result. What’s in 40K? rend 3-4 or even 5, damage comes to 6 sometimes and totally plane rules. Besides, in Fantasy Warhammer you never had so much shooting. So close combat armies have no problems with getting to the enemy. But in new 40k it’s kind of problem. With such heavy shooting and close combat units with 4 move and no save. Also 40k in 7th edition used to be so complicated, that now when simplified, it looks just like a contraption with a lot of unusual and unnecessary stuff which is there just because they didn’t know what to do with it otherwise.
Well, new edition seems not ideal. However, we’ll still play it since it’sWarhammer 40K anyway. Besides, it’s obvious that upcoming books will bring somemore rules and artifacts. It would be great if it happened not in several years…
