Sixth Sense.

 

So the last few days have been incredibly fruitful for those of us awaiting the new rules that Warhammer 40k Sixth Edition will bring. How will our armies be affected? How will it affect our opponants? How, and perhaps most importantly, will it affect our fun.  

One of the key sentences I've picked up on is that it has been said they GW want to make 40k more cinematic. This screams out to me as an ideal not of intent. I play games of 40k not to win or lose, but to have those hilarious or dramatic moments when the dice either favour or betray you and give you those jaw dropping moments. One of the richest things this hobby brings is its background story for the games. Why wouldn't you want your games ot be more involving of moments that tie into this richness? How the rules will help this, we won't know for certain until the rulebook is not just been in our hands, but has been used for a number of games. 

I like now that you have a Warlord. This HQ choice is then given an ability and can help add a wee bit of flavour to your army. Does he count as a scoring unit therefore making him a very hands-on character? Or does he give his Leadership to other friendly models and have such an inspiring presence? I think its a great little touch and helps add a little richness to your army.

Being able to buy buildings is a great idea, as hopefully it may encourage people (myself included) to be more hands on when it comes to building terrain. Is it practical to have to carry a bunker around? Probably not, but have themed armies that include certain fortifications or siege terrain could work well. Another cinematic box ticked. 

There was said to be a picture of a Beastman Guardsmen and mentioned ab-humans, YES!!! Anything ab-human could mean the possiblility of Squats. The more I hear about the new rules the more I see the 5th edition rulebook cwtching up into bed making sweet love to the 2nd edition rulebook. 2nd Edition was the last rulebook to feature squats, and thus gives me hope for a future appearence. 

Having to remove the nearest models from shooting attakcs sounds great too, when a unit is advancing towards you and only the guys in the back are falling its a wee daft, and now I'll be picturing the first lines falling with the slightly better troops behind ready to take their place. 

The rules for Snipers where if you hit with a six YOU allocate the wounds, this makes snipers a much better choice than they were and fits in with the sniper ethos much better. 

Finally, the last thing I want to talk about are the missions. It seems that theres more variety, and more abilities and changes for objectives and units as to what they do and who can hold what etc. I love this especially if its true that secondary objectives are in also. This adds even more to the game and will hopefully encourage more fluff inspired games. 

Overall I'm really looking forward to seeing the rules, and I'll certainly be playing some games as soon as possible to try them out. Lets hope we get plenty more of those little moments that we'll remember in years to come and add to the legend our armies build.