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Introduction:

So after having had a read through 7th edition, I have decided to write a small review and ask the community as a whole whether they think this edition was needed or not.

Just 2 months ago the general consensus on these forums was that 7th edition was not going to be 7th edition, but rather 6.5 with all the FAQ and Errata thrown in. Then the rumor changed to it also including Escalation and Stronghold Assault. Then it changed to being 7th edition alright, but nothing major. There was however, that vocal minority that kept insisting GW will be GW, and what that means is that they will release a new edition that nobody asked for, which fixes a couple of things but breaks a couple of other things and introduces new things nobody really wanted. And so finally we have a full fledged new edition just 1.9 years into 6th and it turns out this minority was right after all. Why am I not surprised?

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The Good:

Let's take a look at the good things first, shall we? And there a quite a few tidbits that I appreciate.

- No more Taudar. (this is awesome. Two top tier armies combining and abusing each other to dominate 6th's meta have finally been dealt with. And by dealt with, I do not mean nerfed into oblivion - both Tau and Eldar are still top tier armies with solid codexes that have almost no useless units at all. They will continue to perform well, just not so well as to leave everyone else raging)

- No more Marinetau. (while not as obvious as the Taudar alliance, marinetau also had many exploits such as a buffmander allowing a gravstar to re-roll all failed hits and grant them ignores cover while tanking wounds, or an Honor Guard providing Tau with some much needed elite close combat power. And you just couldnt go wrong putting Divination Tiggy in the middle of a Firewariror gunline that is "enhanced" by an Ethereal. Fluffwise Space Marines and Tau also would be allies of convenience, at best, but I am glad GW has stayed true to the grimdark lore and made them desperate allies now. Suffer not the xenos to live!)

- Adepta Sororitas and Black Templars can finally ally without anyone going like this

- BRB split into three hardcover volumes in a slipcase. (i like this. I really do. One of my biggest complaints about buying the BRB was that it was a chore to carry around to games, making minirulebooks so much more lucrative. Now, the Rules are about as thick and bulky as the Space Marine codex, and if you can carry that, you can carry The Rules).

- the clean layout. (seriously. I cannot emphasize this enough. I love the simplistic, clean, spartan interior design of the rulebook. It reminds me a lot of the 5th edition rulebook. I hated how 6th ed was full of spindly needly grimdark doodles that crept all around the text, it was hideous. I am glad they have done away with that).

- tiny buff to close assault units' ranged weaponry as units can now no longer go to ground and still overwatch. this used to be annoying in 6th ed as it was pretty pointless to spend points on giving assault troops plasma pistols because the defenders would go to ground, benefit from an improved cover save (sometimes making it just as good as their armor save in the case of space marines in ruins), and then still overwatch normally before getting charged.

- only 1 grounding check per FMC at the end of the turn. (grounding spam in 6th ed was hilarious and sad at the same time. It never should have happened. happy this is fixed.)

- Flying Monstrous Creatures can no longer assault on the turn they change flight modes (this is a fair balance, because in 6th ed, apart from the grounding thing, there really was little reason for you to field a footslogging Tyrant when you could field a flying one. 90% of Nid players had a Flyrant as HQ. We need more variety)

- D-weapon nerf (i welcome it - wasnt too keen on imperial knights roflstomping wraithknights for breakfast - though I have the foreboding feeling that we will see ranged D-weapons in this edition, and a lot of them Oh and GW, whats with the old D-weapon rules written for the Imperial Knights codex that came out ...like...2 months before 7th edition? I find it hard to believe the rules writers came up with the nerf after hearing the playerbase rage about Imperial Knights and thus nerfed it within the last 2 months. So now we have a codex that is not even 2 months old and some of its rules are already outdated. And technically since the official wording is "codex before rules", Imperial Knights actually didnt get fixes at all. This is once more, Gee Dubs being Gee Dubs)

- extra rules for manufactorum, sanctum imperialis, basilica administratum etc. (i like the flair, though I think most people have kitbashed the kits to look completely different than how they are "supposed" to be built/look like)

- sanctic daemonology. (rolling all GK powers into one convenient discipline is good in my book)

- psychic focus (free primaris power as a reward for staying loyal to one discipline? thank ye kindly!)

- new perils chart

- skyfire+interceptor allowing you to use normal BS on ground targets being removed. (i like this new change, as I always felt the quadgun and icarus las were too good all-purpose weapons that you just couldnt go wrong with - especially the way you could exploit them using characters with precision shot handling them. Now they are specific anti-air, and thus more straightforward and balanced, and also make things like Stalkers or Hydras not appear as crap as last edition in comparison)

- you can now pop a transport and then charge its occupants, all with the same unit. So a multimelta dreads/hellbrutes just got a whole lot better.

- immobilized flyers can crash and burn

- buildings have hull points

- explodes radius confers S4 hits now instead of S3 (stay away from those vehicles, lads!)

- you can fry the passengers of an open topped vehicle with flamers

- wounds now spill over from challenges into combat, so Abaddon attacking a unit of guardsmen can no longer be rendered harmless for a turn through the sarge sacrificing himself. On the other hand, other models locked in the combat can allocate wounds to the challenger after all other enemy models in the combat (if any) are dead, so a lone cc-monster charging into a big squad and challenging its sarge to get rid of that pesky powerfist will nevertheless find itself attacked by all other squad members. Then there is the removal of Moral Support "Get 'Im Boss".

- gun emplacements bought for ADLs can now be placed anywhere within 6" of the defence line, clearing things up.

- Linebreaker is 12 inches from your opponent's Table Edge, not deployment zone.

- Witchfire Beams no longer lose a point of Strength for every model they hit.

- Blind ruling has been cleared up: only one test regardless of the number of hits

- units that have gone to ground from pinning can no longer fire overwatch

- precision shots no longer work during snapshots

- you can charge out of a building

- scout + infiltrate combo: you can now infiltrate and do a scout move as well

- swarms can now score

- vector strike nerf to only 1 hits vs. non-flyer targets now instead of D3

- ramming has been changed in that 1) dozerblades grant +1 to ramming strength, and 2) the strength is calculated differently - instead of being +1S for every 3" moved and +1S for every AV value over 10, it is now replaced with a strength value half of the vehicle's front AV, rounded up. So while this does mean moving at bare minimum combat speed is already enough to ensure similar amounts of devastation as moving at cruising speed in 6th ed, I personally think this makes ramming more useful and thus better for aggressive players who need every tool at their disposal they can get to stand a chance in a meta dominated by shooting.

- smash attack nerf to only 1 now. While this might actually belong in the "ugly" category according to Tyranid players, you need to realize that this had tons of abuse in the previous edition, like the charge bonus also being a smash attack. Also, this change has made Dreadnoughts viable again now. Nobody even considered taking one with a DCCW to fight against MC in 6th edition, 5th edition, or even 4th edition (about 3rd I dunno). While 6th edition took away MC's default armorbane and introduced smash to make up for it; 7th has gone one step further and crippled smash as well. While this does affect a lot of S6 MCs, I think those that are supposed to be killy in cc usually have optional wargear that gives them more bonuses anyways; so I'm glad that 7th is trying to make the humble Dread with DCCW a valid MC basher once more instead of getting roflstomped in the first round of combat as has been the case for the past 10 years. Besides, a Carnifex is still going to have a field day cracking one open.

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The "meh":

- changes to ATSKNF: no longer regroup D3"

- The Psychic Phase. Okay so the good thing is, Leadership isnt an issue anymore (I always found it weird that leadership determined a psyker's ability to cast spells), but on the other hand having all spells going off on a set value (4+ per warp charge) is mundane. Basically, you get a pool of dice (D6+number of mastery levels of all psykers in your army) at the start of every turn and manifest powers by rolling any number of dice you want from the pool (no risk, no fun, right?), and if enough dice come up 4 or higher to equal or exceed the warp charge cost of the test you're taking, it goes off. Sadly, the enemy can now Deny the Witch your blessings as well, so there's always a 16.66% chance for him to pull a PITA move and cancel your power.

- Jink is no longer a flat 5+ save for moving, it now works exactly how evasion works for fliers (even when you are stationary!). If you choose Jink, you get a flat 4+ cover save, but you can only fire snap shots in the next phase. While this on first glance nerfs skimmers a lot, the fact that average jink has improved (hooray for transport skimmers who just want to get stuff across the table), and the fact that you can still use holofields / d-pods to hide behind terrain and get that 3+ cover save and still fire your main cannon at normal BS puts the tanks on par with Imperial ones. Let's face it - skimmers WERE overpowered in the previous edition as they were insanely hard to take out. Wave Serpents also needed some nerfing, but with scatter laser's laserlock twin-linking their entire ranged armament, they came off relatively unscathed.

- Shooting works slightly differently now. When you select a unit to shoot, you then choose one of its weapons to shoot, then roll to hit, wound, etc. for every model with that weapon. Then you move onto the next weapon, until everything has fired. (this prevents people using their bolters' range to allocate wounds from their flamer onto models that the flamer template could not reach. so I am glad this is fixed). But on the other hand it has made the whole process more tedious.

- Assaulting through terrain is different, you now roll 2d6 and subtract 2 from the distance, rather than rolling 3 and picking the two lowest. (not sure if this is better or worse)

- Independent characters can no longer join Monstrous Creatures, so no more Buffmander + Riptide units. (well, this is sad, but fair I guess. However, on the other hand another classic example of GW fixing one thing and breaking another - now thanks to the different wording, you can attach ICs to one man infantry squads like Mephiston or Castellan Crowe. Dunno if GW intended this or not).

- Terrain rules have changed, in that they've removed the whole terrain density deployment process. The book basically says to set the board up in such a way that both players are happy with it (good luck with that). In addition, you now deploy fortifications with your army, not when you put terrain on the board, meaning that you can deploy your ADL without having the opponent plop an obstacle right in front of it. (i felt the old rules were fine and more tourney friendly, but as always GW wants to give tournaments the finger)

- Maelstrom of War missions that utilize Tactical Objectives. GW sells a deck of cards so you can draw cards and use them as temporary objectives. They range from killing things in assault, taking specific objectives, getting into the enemy's deployment zone, all kinds of things. (looks interesting, but can definitely be very confusing)

- owners of chariots have relentless now and can allocate wounds either to the chariot or to the rider. (this allows for a Necron Overlord with his 3++ phase shifter to suck up all melta shots directed at his chariot, which really is unfair to be honest. Also, WBB can bring back the entire chariot.)

- small changes to rulebook warlord traits, including the addition of tactical traits (only relevant for maelstrom of war missions...almost an auto-take there, otherwise entirely useless)

- changes to psychic powers (some got nerfed and rightly so, like prescience; some got nerfed needlessly like invisibility that was split in two, some got buffed like Iron Arm that now gives a solid +3 characteristic modifier rather than D3 or other powers that have 18" range instead of 12"; and some disappeared altogether, like the awesome puppet master )

- leadership tests prior to using counter attack or split fire have gone the way of the dodo. (personally I didnt mind them at all - you need to collect your wits before pulling off such a stunt, after all)

- speaking of leadership, when a model is required to take a leadership test it now has to use its own profile instead of that of the highest LD in the squad. Enjoy your colossal Officer of the Fleet nerf, AM players.

- strafing run no longer pinning

- defensive grenades no longer confer the stealth special rule to shooting attacks received within 8" range, however can now be offensively used as thrown blind grenades

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The ugly:

Things that I hate - and this is what has ruined 7th edition for me:

- Malefic daemonology (SCREW you gw, seriously screw you. Having a 2000 point chaos daemon army and being able to summon 2000 more points into the battlefield is where the fun ends. having eldar farseers summon daemonettes and SM libbys summon bloodthirsters is also utter fluffrape. I have no words to describe how much of a nerdrage I am having right now)

- Every unit is scoring, with the exception of anything that is flying - dropping down to gliding/hovering makes them scoring again, however. (okay what the hell. ever since 5th edition troops have gotten some form of importance and worthiness. people just used to min/max beforehand to get a legal FoC and then spam their favorite FoC slots. Nobody bothered with troops before 5th. Now again, nobody will.)

- Oh, troops can deny others from scoring due to having "objective secured"? (Yeah, lets see your tactical marines deny my lightning claw terminators from taking their objective. What are you gonna do? Bleed on me?)

- Every vehicle is scoring. (oh wow. that really puts the nail in the coffin for armies facing armored companies, doesnt it? Having most of your low strength weapons useless against armored companies was offset by them not being able to score. Now that that's no longer an issue, all tank armies can just relax and win games without a hassle)

- You can ally with Come the Apocalypse now, just have to deploy more than 12" apart. (wow.....really...I am speechless. So Tyranids and Necrons can fight together with Chaos daemons and Tau vs a huge Imperial Guard army? Fething great.)

- Lists can now be Battle-forged or Unbound; Battle-forged means that it comes from one army, Unbound lets you throw the FOC out the window and play whatever you want within the points limit. (UNBOUND - freaking hate it. If Unbound couldnt score, it would be fair. But they literally have no drawbacks except not being able to re-roll warlord traits)

- Also, Battle-forged lists can have any number of combined arms detachments at any points level. (wow...just wow. 2 FoCs at 2k points were already frowned upon in 6th, to the point where people adopted the 1999+1 policy. This on the other hand is the deathblow to traditional listbuilding even in battle forged armies. Thanks GW, thanks a lot)

- And if all this isn't enough, battle forged armies can now legally include a Lord of War. (feth you GW. I DONT WANT TO PLAY APOCALYPSE but I'm forced to deal with this gak now because denying my opponent a game will make me look like a douche and its not his fault for bringing something that the rules 100%ly legally allow him to field) GW goes one step further and puts iconic special characters into the LoW section like Ghazkull Thraka or Kaldor Draigo...so if I bring one of these in my 2000 point army, and my opponent brings a Baneblade, I have no reason to complain because I have a LoW and so does he...

- Being able to deny the witch on powers that arent targeting you.

- ICs can no longer precision shot or precision strike

- Sniper rifles no longer have their hallmark pinning (neither do barrage weapons now) and they also can no longer hurt AV 11 or 12 vehicles through rending.

- Imperium best bro alliance. (so GW removes Taudar, Marinetau etc., but merges all Imperials into one super awesome bestest buddies 4 lyfe alliance? Great. Combos and exploits galore. We'll see what the future holds)

- Battle brother allies can board each others' transports, allowing for limitless shenanigans. Especially with the Space Wolf codes putting drop pods in the FA section instead of DT, you can now have Grav Centurions turn 1 deepstrike into the opponent's midst and unleash hell.

- Vehicle damage table having explodes only on a 7+ (*sigh* great. this will only convince people to go even more down the line of glancing vehicles to death using multi-shot mid-strength weapons than taking single shot high strength weapons. It also is another nail in the coffin for Railsides in the Rail vs. HYMP debate and for Vanquishers in the Pask Punisher debate)

- The main rule book now includes the rules for units that were previously Apoc/Escalation-only, like Gargantuan Creatures and Super-heavy Vehicles. This will probably mean their introduction in future "regular" army codexes.

- GW has made it an official rule that you must agree with your opponent what is allowed in a list and what isn't allowed (completely useless rule for pickup games, and with something so vaguely worded I think it's just GW trying to weasel their way out of writing a coherent and balanced ruleset. I now have a right to complain and whine about my friend's Paskisher, and he can whine about my 12 Jetbikes zipping across the board and claiming objectives (now even denying his units from claiming them just by ending their turn near them) This will get us nowhere)

- Adepta Sororitas being allies of convenience with Eldar. Like....seriously? SERIOUSLY? They were called Witchhunters for a reason. The fact that they can march along with an army of witches is a kick to the fluffnads. Of course, this is a consequence of throwing all Imperials into 1 faction.

- Orks being Allies of Convenience with Chaos but desperate allies with Eldar or Tau, and come the apocalypse with Imperials?

- having to buy Stronghold Assault just to be able to field an ADL (if you dont have the old 6th ed rulebook lying around). No more points costs listed for these fortifications in the BRB. Sucks for new players.

- the restriction that barrage weapons can only target top levels of buildings is gone.

- the restriction that a blast or template weapon can only target one level is also gone.

- the two rules above combined now allows you to place your marker always on the topmost level for maximum carnage, as long as you can reach it with the range of your weapon

- Chaos Space Marines can take sanctic daemonology. smh

- Area terrain is gone. Poof. No more. With the exception of Craters (6+ cover saves now; +2 to cover when GTG), ruins, and rubble, there are no generic "Area Terrain" rules anymore. So, things like forests and such that we'd designate as area terrain will only grant cover saves if the model is 25% obscured. This new ruling can potentially have huge effects on the various pieces of scenery people have created.

- Now in 7th the entire Ruin is just a bubble of magic cover (even for monstrous creatures) but somehow not cover the second you have a vehicle in it, unless its facing is 25% obscured. So a wraithknight or riptide with its toe on the base of a ruin or rubble is getting a solid 4+ cover save, while if your rhino isnt 25% obscured from the firer, sucks to be you. Some of the most visceral memories I have in 6th was flying a storm talon over a ruin to the other side so I could get a shot (no cover) on a unit that was otherwise obscured, this makes movement matter, this makes flanking MATTER, from my experience the second you go with magic bubble (area terrain) you start to diminish tactical play for the simple fact that you’ve removed any context as to how one unit may sacrifice shooting for movement to gain a better firing angle later in the game.

- Ruins used to have pages of rules. We lost the brilliant mechanic that allowed models to jump down from great heights, albeit at risk of taking damage without an armour save etc.

- We also lost the rule pertaining to what models were allowed on upper floor of ruins (whether walkers or monstrous creatures could be on upper floors of ruins or not). Hell, we even lost the incredibly relevant restriction that the model you’re attempting to move ACTUALLY HAVING TO FIT where you wish to place it in a ruin. So legally I could pass a dangerous terrain check and tank shock vertically up multiple floors of a ruin. Oh and I guess now bikes may as well be jetbikes for the purposes of movement.

- Oh, let’s not forget all the rules for how to handle close combat in three dimensions. You know, the rules that allowed you to still charge and count as being in base to base, ya, that rule is gone too. Throwing out area terrain while essentially making most terrain types area terrain just seems baffling to me.


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Summary:


Unfortunately for all the things 7th edition fixes, it ended up breaking a whole lot more things. So you are actually paying 50 pounds to get 6th with more stuff broken. Actually, scratch that. Since you need the mission cards and the stronghold assault book to make use of the fortifications you have at home, the grand total will be 75 pounts for the new ruleset. And some things didn't get fixed at all, like Ordnance weapons still being terribad in terms of weapon synergy (ESPECIALLY the missiles on the Valkyrie!) and assault still not having gotten fixed and shooting still being heavily favored. So, looking at all the changes, if we refuse to play any changes from the bad list, we remove a huge chunk of changes that 7th brought to the table. If we look at all the changes from the good list, almost all of them can be incorporated into 6th with minimal collateral damage. That leaves us with the meh list, where of course you have the psyker phase, but apart from that, 7th edition clearly is an edition nobody asked for. I'm willing to bet money 8th edition will see the light of day in summer 2016.

I for one don't understand the the D nerf. D weapons were good for one thing only , killing ++2inv deathstars , for everything else they were horribly OP. Now they blow up tanks and vehicles or ground MC just almost as good as before , but do nothing to the stuff they were ment to counter .

Makumba wrote:
I for one don't understand the the D nerf. D weapons were good for one thing only , killing ++2inv deathstars , for everything else they were horribly OP. Now they blow up tanks and vehicles or ground MC just almost as good as before , but do nothing to the stuff they were ment to counter .

You do realise that Strength D weapons were designed to be Super-Heavy killers? They're Apoc immigrants that, IIRC, predate the re-rollable invuln save monstrosities.

Anyway, I'm mostly positive on the 7th Edition, even though it has nerfed some of the things I rely upon, like the Quad-gun or Heldrake's Vector Strike. And even though the new army organisation options allow many insane combos, I'm not worried - none of my friends is going to exploit that.

@OP: Agree with basically everything you said. To me the very worst offender is Malefic Daemonology. I intend to make it very clear to my opponents that they won't be having a game with me if they intend to use that discipline.

If we're allowed the caveat of playing with sane army construction ground rules, I really like.

RAW? Worse edition ever.

Agreed with Lobukia, RAW this edition is all sorts of jacked up.

RAI, or friendly, its fine. Thankfully i actually dont give a damn about tournament play because thats where the "That Guy" type people flock and breed the most. I doubt anyone in my FLGS, even the daemon player, will abuse the summoning because its so op it makes the old taudar look like it wasnt a threat at all.

New allies are pretty much to let you bring any army you want in combo with another, but unless youre imperials, eld/deld, or csm/daemons you cant do any allied shenanigans. Again, thankfully my flgs almost never uses any allies and when they do its to bring some artillery in....which you can do WITHOUT battlebrother cheese. I have no issues with allies, its battlebrothers letting their rules spill over to each other thats broken as all feth.

i kinda feel sorry for tyranid players. aside from the grounding check change, this edition just seemed to slap them in the face more and more.

Also, Strength D needed to be nerfed if they wanted to allow superheavies in games without other superheavies. It was designed in apoc games FOR apoc games. It used to be auto wound, instant death, ignores any saves of any kind, causes D3 wounds if you have EW and pens the everliving gak out of superheavies. iirc the apoc book released awhile ago didnt change that, they just made it less common. If they DIDNT remove that, then if someone brought a strength D and you had no turn 1 answer to kill that thing, you lost barring worse dice ever existed being rolled. Now, it still sucks but its not auto-win shooting when getting hit.

There is one thing i noticed with the Allies though. As jacked up as it is, theres something even more jacked up. As you said Come the Apoc can ally now - GK and Daemons can ally now. WHAT HERESY IS THIS!?

The issues I have are unbound armies, allies and Malefic daemonology.

Malefic daemonology I will have to play a few games to see how it works out.

Unbound armies and allies I am just going to have to see my opponents list beforehand and decide whether it is something I want to play. But if it is bologna then I will just decline to play him. Easy enough.

Unbound is meaningless and anyone that does it is either doing a fluff list with no real intentions of winning, or theyre an idiot.

Bound armies can do the same thing as unbound, you just have to bring 1HQ and 2Troop for every 3 Heavy/Elite/FA or 6Troop you bring. I can legally field 2 commanders, 4 firewarriors, and 6 riptides in an 1850pt game. Never will because im not a dick, but i can lol. And thats with a "battleforged list"

Overall it seems that many people have the same complaints as I do about the new edition. Many, I feel are damaging to fluff or potentially disastrous to game balance. Fortunately, those that I play with are on the more reasonable spectrum and we've already agreed to some guidelines that will prohibit loyalists from summoning daemons, unbound armies (at least at this point) and choosing allies that spit in the face of reason and background. For this reason I am happy so far with 7th and expect it to be an enjoyable edition...especially the new psychic phase. For those that play pick-up games or with those who just want to put together the most broken list possible, you have my sympathy. This edition may not be enjoyable for you.

Deschenus Maximus wrote:
@OP: Agree with basically everything you said. To me the very worst offender is Malefic Daemonology. I intend to make it very clear to my opponents that they won't be having a game with me if they intend to use that discipline.

You would deny me a game if my one and only sorcerer rolled in malefic daemonology? I could reliably summon maybe 450 extra pts. of daemons in a game, assuming I rolled a six to get possession.

If the person is not running a daemon factory list then maleific should be just as balanced as santic with their s power.

The fact that you can take a Lord of War just as casually as you can take a fortification in a battle forged army is utter gak

Some of the small details are better.
Some are sideways movements, not better or worse.
Some changes are worse.

I feel that the worse changes outweigh the good ones.


And its a barely disguised cash grab by GW with little to no thought on how the game is played outside their studio.

Arun, nice summary. I'm actually in your boat.
Daemonology seems to mess up the game. The rest could be dealt with.

The big problem I have is that they appear to have focused on 'fixing' little things at the expense of glaring errors. There are many examples to list.

I never heard a single player wishing the game was more random. It's a dice game, I get that, every time I have to roll for something you are taking more tactics out of the game. Since I started in third we've gained loads, now adding (admittedly optional) missions as well as a far more random psychic phase. Did they ever give us reasoning behind that fact that the best psychic minds in the galaxy regularly blow the feth out of themselves? Like REALLY regularly! Eldrad? Yeah he's never actually cast a spell, too risky.

"Tigurius? Yeah, he's amazing, Sometimes he can lift a tank in the air and crush it with just a flick of his fingers.... Other times he can talk to squirrels." - I mean why would psykers be a tactical option!?

Anyway I digress. I dislike the inclusion of more random gak. I dislike that GW shat themselves so much over Taudar that they've messed up another allies chart. I dislike that they shat themselves so much over Buffmander and Riptides, they've over looked the single model restriction for independent characters (go check it and then join Draigo to Crowe) and they shat themselves so much over sniper rifles being the best thing ever they took away pinning and rending. It reeks of people that don't know their game or had any intention to put well thought out/playtested rules on the table.

However, that being said, I do actually like the combination of three books, the fact it's only a small price rise and the layout of the rules. Once I get used to it I think it will be much easier to use. They have even made some nice changes that I approve of (leadership tests for split fire and counter attack have gone from whence they came)

In short, 8th will either include random movement for everything, random shooting range, random armour save value, random attacks and random leadership or it will be a pretty good edition - I guess we'll find out in a few months.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Thankfully i actually dont give a damn about tournament play because thats where the "That Guy" type people flock and breed the most.

Really? I've been playing tournaments for ten years and I've never had a single bad experience. Not one.

But I've also played at tons of casual clubs and stores, all over the world, from China to Copenhagen to California, and I have had *tons* of encounters with colossal douche-canoes.

 Lobukia wrote:
If we're allowed the caveat of playing with sane army construction ground rules, I really like.

RAW? Worse edition ever.

Pretty much this. Also, I'm just disappointed that they didn't address a lot of real issues, like fixing Ordnance weapons. I literally facepalmed when I came to that section. Looks like 40pts for Hellstrike Missiles is still the absolute worst investment ever...

I believe the OP's review was very well written and balanced.


A nondescript electronic tome coalesced from the ether yesterday. After a good, long look, I shan't be giving GW money for 7th edition, or playing it.

It's as if the designers ignored many of the issues with 6th and decided to throw in things they think are fun without actually considering the effects of such changes.




While my Space Marine force is largely unaffected in it's effectiveness (I can tweak it to compensate), my 2.5K Thousand Sons have been dramatically affected (the force has 7 Psykers in it - Ahriman, x3 Sorcerers, Be'Lakor, x2 Aspiring Sorcerers). I've played around with the numbers and the army now has to spend far more Warp Charges to successfully use a spell with the same degree of success as they had in 6th ed (which results in less spells used per turn) and can be nullified more easily (so even fewer being successful per turn compared to 6th). They also now stand a much greater chance of perils on top of this and for what benefit? I dread to think how they will re-write my Dark Eldar and Ork codices and how much I would have to change my forces just to be semi-playable. Yet again another reason why sticking to 6th seems sensible.


I can imagine Ahriman trying to fire off his x3 witchfires and a another spell, only to find he perils and kills himself outright. When you look at the probability (as kindly posted by some good folk on this forum) you realize that for some forces and characters, it's just not worth the risk at all. So much for Chaos Space Marines being the Chosen of the Chaos Gods if they self destruct before they even see the Imperials. Thousand Sons the masters of sorcery, forbidden lore and magicks? Hah! No more!



I truly hope GW wake up and realize the damage they are causing to their own product / gaming system. The kids at the club I run can't afford 7th ed - they only just recently got 6th ed. GW is alienating both veterans (who could afford to pay for it but are increasingly deciding not to) and younger players (who are limited in what they can spend)

So, I'm of a mixed mind on this.

In some ways, 7th will put an end to a lot of consternation and argument. The problem is it's doing it in a manner that will honk off a lot of people. For instance, Escalation came out and tried to make itself part of the core rules, but wasn't truly accepted because most people didn't want to deal with pieplate tossing titans in a 1500pt game and having it as a separate book allowed people to simply brush it off as a skippable expansion they could say "no" to with a fair degree of confidence. Well, now there's no question, if someone wants to plop down a titan, it's no different than plopping down a Rhino.

Ultimately, 7E still has many/most of the fundamental gameplay problems 6E had (i.e. medium and light tanks still way too easy to kill, 2++ rerollable deathstars, people fielding rather unfluffy combinations of units and armies, etc), in some cases this has been exacerbated (the whole "detachments" mess for example). They didn't really "fix" the core gameplay problems. However GW has made their "intents" clearer, clearer rules and a highly solidified explanation of what you can and cannot take, and smoothed some of the divisions between things like D weapons, flying FMC's, etc. I think *running* a tournament or league will be much easier with this edition, but *playing* an event will be a lot more of a cluster****.

TL;DR core problems remain, but the organizational issues have been cleaned up. e.g. Your car might still have a flat tire, but everyone can agree where the brakes are now.

To top it all off I find the cover design of all three rulebooks hideous (well, Galaxy Of War is perhaps an exception).

Very little thought seems to have gone into it, especially the floating Uriel Rakarth cover for the rulebook.

And while Galaxy of War does give you a nerdgasm due to the gonzo style of closeup miniature photography, the fact that the hobby and "how to paint" sections have taken a severe beating and the custom battles section is virtually not present at all shows how GW has truly become a style over substance company these days.

Can we get a poll choice for 'little of column A, little of column B' or an 'undecided' option?

I think many of the changes are subjective (several of your 'bad' points I'd put into the 'good' category and vice versa), and that there are enough differences that it's going to take a little bit to come to a reasonable conclusion.

My thoughts,

6th could have been fixed, updated with errata. I don't understand some of the new rules changes either. I honestly think this edition didn't help. Have played three games so far and each one I find something vital and important has changed.
Psyker phase, completely stupid. You and your opponent bring 3 psykers each and it's like adding an extra hour or two to a game that my wife already hates for taking too long.

What's the point of the other two books? GW just wanted to make sure we noticed the same pictures and art we've seen in codexes and White Dwarf in the last 5 months? It's seems like every time it buy something I feel like I just wasted money.

Thanks for the review.

The more I read about this edition, the more my suspicions have been confirmed. I wasn't fond of the shift from the 5th to 6th, and a few of those changes are verging on deal breakers for me.

It appears that for everything they fixed/improved upon, they nerfed/broke another one. Time will tell how bad the summon factory is, especially if every daemon has access to Daemonology (would almost makes sense, eh?), it really could be game breaking.

For me though, I didn't like 6th as much as 5th. I don't like flyers, superheavies, D weapons, the model-by-model rules rather than unit based, and the changes to vehicles, among a dozen other smaller issues.

It seems 7th doubled down on that, and now the FoC is a joke and Unbound is a thing. Every game is Apoc now, and I was happier when I had normal 40k and a very distinct line between it and Apoc.

 Lobukia wrote:
If we're allowed the caveat of playing with sane army construction ground rules, I really like.

RAW? Worse edition ever.

This is a nice summary for me. RAW it is utterly horrid with the OP's mentioned flaws and more (I'm panicking on how to deal with wraithknights slightly as a CD player. I don't want to go slaanesh prince just to whip it, don't want Bel'akour cheese, and I'd prefer to stick to my Tzeentch daemon army. My DP already had flaws fighting the knight as well as my LoC. I guess soul grinder and flaming chariots of tzeentch? Granted the battle cannon might hurt them then (particularly the chariot)

you got problems with a Wraithknight?

Bring Skarbrand.

Insta Kill on turn 1.

 Blacksails wrote:
It seems 7th doubled down on that, and now the FoC is a joke and Unbound is a thing. Every game is Apoc now, and I was happier when I had normal 40k and a very distinct line between it and Apoc.

100% Agree

We used to be able to choose to involve ourselves in apocalypse - or not. Now it seems there is less and less of a choice and that's sad because I like 40k, never liked apocalypse.

On the plus side, the Apoc that seems to be included into normal 40k is vastly scaled down in power. Super heavies, gargantuans, and super walkers are still nasty as all feth dont get me wrong but they arent anywhere near as gamebreaking as they used to be to the point of you couldnt kill them without another superheavy, and they could win games against non-superheavy lists on their own.
Destroyer weapons arent as busted anymore, and are harder to get.

Also still limited by costs. Most of the people i know, both at my FLGS and afar, dont have any FW models because of costs. Only one that does doesnt buy jack squat outside 40k, and has almost an entire chapter's worth of BA models rofl. He put his entire collection out on the two tables we had to play on in south korea when i was stationed there before he left to make sure he had everything - we couldnt play for 4 days as he sorted them out rofl.

Personally, I'm looking forward to the Unbound thing. I'm an Ork player due to fluff and cost (can convert a ton of Ork things a lot cheaper than buying them) and being essentially required to take at least one mob of Boyz has always irked me (I always have a Big Mek, so my other troop is generally a Deffdredd). I like Flash Gitz and Battlewagons and Kanz and Dreddz and Meganobz over and above boyz or buggiez, and now I can take those guys without having to worry as much about fitting in a mob of shootaz.

 SarisKhan wrote:

Makumba wrote:
I for one don't understand the the D nerf. D weapons were good for one thing only , killing ++2inv deathstars , for everything else they were horribly OP. Now they blow up tanks and vehicles or ground MC just almost as good as before , but do nothing to the stuff they were ment to counter .

You do realise that Strength D weapons were designed to be Super-Heavy killers? They're Apoc immigrants that, IIRC, predate the re-rollable invuln save monstrosities.

Personally, I ofund the best way to counter 2++inv deathstars is through throwing more dice at it than the 2++ can handle.

But then again, I play Orks and Guard.

 Sir Arun wrote:
you got problems with a Wraithknight?

Bring Skarbrand.

Insta Kill on turn 1.

... how? Sorry just perplexed. Skarbrand has armour bane yes but he's a 6" movement monsterous creature that has no wings nor ways to make him tougher or more capable of avoiding shots. That plus wraithknights can kite him for days and have SD which even when nerfed can hurt quite a bit. Plus I was hoping to stick to Tzeentch

Skarbrand's warlord trait gives his attacks instant death. And with fleshbane he wounds the Knight on 2+. And he gets to strike first thanks to I10.