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Hi! I stopped playing toward the release of the new Necron codex and eventually found out about the release of the new edition and I want to get back in to the game, building a new army from scratch. But, I also want to do this responsibly and avoid buyer's remorse, so I was just wondering how much the game has changed and what sort of armies seem to be prevailing. From what I've read on here, it seems that infantry armies are more popular than they used to be. This has me pretty excited because I find painting vehicles to be pretty tiresome.

The game has changed enough to release a new edition and a new format for Codexs... since you have previous experience with 40k, it may be easier for you to see how a particular army has changed since last edition. (not to mention easier for others to help you) What force(s) are you planning on picking, or do you have any idea?

Also, I recommend taking a look at some 6th ed battle reports on youtube and such as well. Getting an idea how game flow has changed for each force is a little easier when you're actually seeing the boots on the ground.

In general... a lot is the same as the previous edition, but the mechanic of snapshots, overwatch, and hull points have vastly changed the game. A lot more people are going infantry heavy due to these changes (and others).... but again it's difficult to list specific changes if I don't know which army you're looking at, as the rules affect on each army has changed each one a little differently.

and I didn't even touch on flyers or Flying Monstrous Creatures!

Excluding 3 army lists (air cav, cortez inquisition spam, tzeench demons spam)...

6th became far more balanced and fun. They put randomness in, added a few things that made sense, such as overwatch, and once you know the rules, generally fast games.

Fliers aren't a big deal, but flier spam is a problem, since few books have options for shooting them down without buying a flier.

Psy powers got better, but not dumb good.

Transports that were for assault units, that didn't have the assault rule got terrabad. What I mean is you can't sit your khorne berzerkers in a rhino and expect to charge until a turn after you get out. This forces people to run more infantry.

The allies thing is fun, when used within reason. Provided you don't fight a guy that is allying in nercons or GK, you should be ok. Too many people allying these armies in are just doing it to win, not for fluff reasons.

 juraigamer wrote:
Too many people allying these armies in are just doing it to win, not for fluff reasons.

Yeah, how dare anyone try to win. 40k must always be a draw! Winning is shame!


Anyway, 6th edition overall:

1) Vehicles got better, relatively speaking. Hull points are kind of a break even change (less durability, but less vulnerable to 'glance and move on to the next one' suppression), and non-vehicle armies got much worse. Transports are still good, gun tanks got better, and any army with skimmers is very happy.

2) Assault got worse. No more assaulting out of a transport even if it didn't move, no more assaulting out of reserve, and the random overwatch failures to add insult to injury. Assault armies were bad in 5th, and they only got worse in 6th.

3) Horde armies (especially horde assault armies) got worse. Focus fire and removing casualties from the front makes it a lot harder to get up the field, and ensures that once you get into combat you can no longer depend on having the powerfist/klaw/etc up front doing damage while you pull off meatshield casualties from the front and keep the real weapons swinging.

4) Flyers are here. Even ignoring the flyerspam armies they add a lot of mobile firepower to even armies that are normally static, and they're very hard to kill with the usual weapons. There's a range of counters from "bring tons of your own flyers" to "ignore them and win the objective game", but you need a plan for enemy flyers.

5) Allies are here. A lot of the "OMG THE SKY IS FALLING" reaction from when 6th was first released has faded now that people have realized that the troops + HQ tax often makes those "powerful" combinations worse than just taking an army from a single codex, but there are still armies that make good use of allies. The lines between what each army is capable of are blurred somewhat now, and you can expect to see things like Tau suddenly gaining psychic defense and buffs from an Eldar farseer.

6) The game got more "cinematic". GW added a bunch of stupid new rules that slow the game down and result in ridiculously unrealistic outcomes, and called it "cinematic" to justify their terrible game design. Expect to be frustrated with challenges and wound allocation, and you should assume by default that you will remove mysterious terrain and use 5th edition style deployment where you place the terrain before rolling to pick table sides.

Hmmm, I'm not sure, but I might just go CSM due to the release of the starter set. That, and my friend is starting GK, so it could make for some interesting battles.

Thanks for the help guys!

Buy a fortification, or everyone at the LGS will look at you confused.

I like the new Chaos book and wholeheartedly reccomend it, the starter set is a good buy as well. The above posters are spot on about the changes.
Necrons are one of the better armies alongside Guard but certainly not unbeatable, GK and wolves are still powerful and Tzeentch Demons are very scary. Tyranids Tau and Eldar are all grossly underestimated, Orks saw a lot of their builds get nerfed, same with DE but a kabal list is still good. Blood Angels are still good, same with marines. DA and BT are the same. SoB are still underestimated. Chaos is a fun book that can potentially be very powerful. I think I hit em all. Welcome back to 40K!

Yeah, horde armies got worse thanks to new wound allocation and by-model cover (amongst other reasons) while assault armies got worse (6th ed having 8 rules that benefit shooting per 1 rule that benefits assault), which meant that assault horde armies like power blob and green tide were basically crucified.

Mech lists are relatively more powerful, and there are a lot of fliers out. There has been a temporary increase in the number of hybrid lists (not foot lists), but I don't anticipate that lasting very long.

The local Meta in my area is shifting a lot towards smaller death star style units with all singing and dancing delivery methods. I.E terminators in drop pods. The flyers arn't posing a big problem but its an extra consideration. Most horde armies seem to be on the decrease with the exception of Guard. I've not played anything other than marines, necrons or guard in about a month. I'm expecting the CC hordes to get a big boost this edition to compensate the BRB changes. Mainly orks and tyranids but we'll see later down the line.

Thanks for the advice guys! Out of curiosity though, are forge fiends good units? Because I think the models are really cool, but pretty expensive at the same time.

Also, would a more nurgle themed army be good? I really like the aesthetic of the plague marines and think it would be a fun challenge to GS the regular marines to look like them and to GS the cultists in to plague zombies.

Last thing, I promise, where are good places to get bits for special weapons? Because I tend to doubt that the boxes come packaged with all types and in suitable quantities.

I haven't used the Forgefiend yet, but points wise it seems ok. I was listening to a podcast (40k UK) and there is a guy who playtested it for CSM 6th, and he said it was orginally 125 points! Imagine that carnage. lol I'll let you know more results after I have used it. I've been busy using it as a maulerfiend, cuz the model is amazing!

** Magnetize your model! This way your mauler fiend can be a forge fiend with a moments notice. Saves money and simple to do**

Nurgle is solid. increased Toughness is almost always a good thing.

Special weapons? Either the GW bits page of the space marine army, or on Ebay.

1) Vehicles got better, relatively speaking. Hull points are kind of a break even change (less durability, but less vulnerable to 'glance and move on to the next one' suppression), and non-vehicle armies got much worse. Transports are still good, gun tanks got better, and any army with skimmers is very happy.

I think that vehicles aren't necessarily better or worse, just very different. I will argue that transports got significantly worse. The fact that shaken/stunned results confer to the squad inside AND the inability to assault after the transport is destroyed changes the utility in very negative ways.

2) Assault got worse. No more assaulting out of a transport even if it didn't move, no more assaulting out of reserve, and the random overwatch failures to add insult to injury. Assault armies were bad in 5th, and they only got worse in 6th.

Very true.

3) Horde armies (especially horde assault armies) got worse. Focus fire and removing casualties from the front makes it a lot harder to get up the field, and ensures that once you get into combat you can no longer depend on having the powerfist/klaw/etc up front doing damage while you pull off meatshield casualties from the front and keep the real weapons swinging.

Disagree heavily. A heavy foot presence is key to winning in 6th. There's a reason that many of the major tourney winners have had a guard blob.

4) Flyers are here. Even ignoring the flyerspam armies they add a lot of mobile firepower to even armies that are normally static, and they're very hard to kill with the usual weapons. There's a range of counters from "bring tons of your own flyers" to "ignore them and win the objective game", but you need a plan for enemy flyers.

Agreed. Play to beat them (hard) or play to ignore/outlast them (the best option). Remember, you already need troops in a more heavily objective based game. Foot presence and increased scoring units helps beat flyers.

5) Allies are here. A lot of the "OMG THE SKY IS FALLING" reaction from when 6th was first released has faded now that people have realized that the troops + HQ tax often makes those "powerful" combinations worse than just taking an army from a single codex, but there are still armies that make good use of allies. The lines between what each army is capable of are blurred somewhat now, and you can expect to see things like Tau suddenly gaining psychic defense and buffs from an Eldar farseer.

Allies rock. The game is so much more interesting now. Much less cut and paste then before. However, it is also harder to make a fully TAC list.

6) The game got more "cinematic". GW added a bunch of stupid new rules that slow the game down and result in ridiculously unrealistic outcomes, and called it "cinematic" to justify their terrible game design. Expect to be frustrated with challenges and wound allocation, and you should assume by default that you will remove mysterious terrain and use 5th edition style deployment where you place the terrain before rolling to pick table sides.

Most tourneys don't use mysterious terrain. Challenges can be mitigated with assault placement.

Yeah, horde armies got worse thanks to new wound allocation and by-model cover (amongst other reasons) while assault armies got worse (6th ed having 8 rules that benefit shooting per 1 rule that benefits assault), which meant that assault horde armies like power blob and green tide were basically crucified.

Mech lists are relatively more powerful, and there are a lot of fliers out. There has been a temporary increase in the number of hybrid lists (not foot lists), but I don't anticipate that lasting very long.

Disagree completely. Hoards are far better then in 5th edition. Mech lists (Razorspam) are much worse because Flyerspam is a hard counter. Cron Air is just a better Razorspam, which always gets the alpha strike. Going hard MSU just plays into the hands of the newer codices, which have far more firepower. Foot hoards counter flyers and simultaneously help with objectives (and table quarters in many tournies).

Strong ground prescence is key to winning 6th edition. Low AV mech spam has gotten considerably worse considering Flyers and the changes to assaulting vehicles. Hordes are great now and I would highly recommend bringing along a screening unit or two. I'd also recommend ~40% of your force be dedicated to the troops choice.

 JGrand wrote:
Disagree heavily. A heavy foot presence is key to winning in 6th. There's a reason that many of the major tourney winners have had a guard blob.

Yeah, and that reason has a lot to do with table quarters being a popular mission type instead of book-style objectives.

Most tourneys don't use mysterious terrain. Challenges can be mitigated with assault placement.

Where did the OP say they were talking about tournaments?

And sure, challenges can be mitigated, but they're still a stupid rule and even if you play around them you're constantly aware that the stupid rule exists.

Disagree completely. Hoards are far better then in 5th edition.

How exactly? Model-by-model cover and focus fire (IOW either bunch up behind cover and die to blast weapons, or spread out and have no cover save) make hordes far less durable, removing casualties from the front makes hordes a lot harder to move to a destination, and the new wound allocation rules make it impossible to have a 5th edition style hidden weapon(s) with a giant blob of meatshield wounds around it. Every rule change in 6th I can think of that is relevant to hordes went against horde armies.

And no, table quarters don't make hordes more effective because table quarters is a house rule. It's no more relevant than a house rule that bans units without a dedicated transport and makes mech lists more effective.

 Peregrine wrote:

 JGrand wrote:
Disagree heavily. A heavy foot presence is key to winning in 6th. There's a reason that many of the major tourney winners have had a guard blob.

Yeah, and that reason has a lot to do with table quarters being a popular mission type instead of book-style objectives

Yeah, I've been scratching my head on this one too. Blobs aren't very good in 6th ed, not only because of things that hurt blobs specifically, but because blobs don't really match up with 6th ed missions anymore. Having a few, hard, scoring units made sense in 5th ed where one mission had no objectives, one mission had one objective apiece, and the last mission only had a couple of objectives.

But now we're in 6th ed. Most missions have lots of obejctives. This makes MSU much better than expensive individual units.

So, after reading through this and some of the other tactics posts, forge fiends seem better and better with those Hades Auto-Cannons being able to take out transports and fliers.

I really want to take plague zombies (for gaks and gigs) but I'm not sure what I'd do with them or Typhus. I mean, I'd have to get a couple units with a whole bunch of them and just try to get them across the field and tie up my opponent's scoring units. I mean, with FNP, it seems like they'd be able to handle over watch, but I'm just guessing since I really don't have any experience playing with horde type units.

(also, does anyone know of good models to represent them? The actual cultist models have too much clothes for me to really play around with them the way I'd like... Story of my life lol.)

As for Typhus, I'm really unsure because it seems like big and tough CC units are out of style.

I really want to take plague marines since they seem like they'd be fun to paint, but I'm not sure if I should put them in transports or not.

As for elite and fast attack slots, I assume I probably won't use the elite slots and may just get some nurgle bikers with melta guns to try to handle the higher AV units that the forge fiends won't dent.

As for the question on whether or not I'm a tournament player... well, no. I'd rather have a solid army with cool aesthetics than always be trying to keep with with the Joneses so to speak. It's one of the reasons I don't plan on buying a Heldrake. I just can't really say I have any interest in the actual model.

Thanks for all the help so far though guys and gals! Also, sorry for being so newbie.

Strictly speaking I'd say the 4x autocannon Havocs are better than the Forgefiend. The biggest reason being that the fiends tend to go down quickly, scary model syndrome. If they were cheaper I'd take them no problem.

Autohavocs are a whopping 60 points cheaper the only downsides being that they have 1 less strength and dont shrug off small arms. Another less tested option is the predator with the lascannon sponsons. It has more game against high AV targets than the Autohavocs but less dakka, cost the same too.

Then you got obliterators. This is the most expensive option but the most durable with the most versatility. But you can almost take two autohavoc squads for the price of a full squad of oblits with mark of nurgle. Aside from termies and HQs, oblits are the only units that really benefit from mark of Tzeentch, though Nurgle is probably more cost effective.

Nurgle bikes are great and probably one of the best units to stick a sorcerer in (unmarked of course as the chaos powers are crap).

Typhus is overrated. First off, zombies suck. T3 fnp is too easily ignored. Especially since they cant shoot and are only really good for sitting on an objective in cover. A chaos lord is cheaper and regular cultists are better.

Yeah, I've been scratching my head on this one too. Blobs aren't very good in 6th ed, not only because of things that hurt blobs specifically, but because blobs don't really match up with 6th ed missions anymore. Having a few, hard, scoring units made sense in 5th ed where one mission had no objectives, one mission had one objective apiece, and the last mission only had a couple of objectives.

But now we're in 6th ed. Most missions have lots of obejctives. This makes MSU much better than expensive individual units.

Durability through numbers is amazing in 6th. Because cover saves are worse, transports are worse, and newer armies are more killy, 5 MEQ just doesn't cut it anymore. Good armies have little trouble concentrating on 10 MEQ and vaporizing them.

-Blobs are more resilient through numbers.
-They can push the center and hold and objectives.
-They can throw substantial weight into table quarters.
-They can chain out and contest an additional objective.
-They hurt flyers by limiting board space.
-They threaten vehicles now with grenades.
-They tarpit very well.
-They gain abilities from attached characters.

I don't see how anyone could say they are worse, except for changes to cover. Keep in mind, I'm not advocating an army of all blobs necessarily, but saying that for MEQ in particular, a guard blob should be an auto include.

 Tarrasq wrote:


Typhus is overrated. First off, zombies suck. T3 fnp is too easily ignored. Especially since they cant shoot and are only really good for sitting on an objective in cover. A chaos lord is cheaper and regular cultists are better.

Well, the thing is is that I'd really like to use them for modelling purposes mainly. I saw a P&M blog that had some really cool looking zombie models that looked like a load of fun to paint. I'm not asking whether or not they're great, I can tell they're not. I just want to know how to utilize them.