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After about ten games with fifth edition under my belt now, and I'd like to offer my impressions on what I thought GW did right with 5th ed, and what GW where GW went wrong. I'd like to update this after getting a couple dozen more games in and seeing how some of these changes end up effecting the game in the long run.

I'll start off with the good stuff.

The new vehicle damage table was much needed. Tanks in 4th were imply too easy to kill and infantry alternatives (at least for non-transport vehicles) were usually packed better bang for the points paid. The advantage most vehicles had was in mobility (something which will be addressed a little later) or specialized weapons such as Battle Cannons. The ability of massed bolter fire to kill a Leman Russ or Hammerhead from the rear quarter never made sense, and although I still think MBT's like those should be at least AV11 rear armor, the situation is much better now in terms of shooting survivability.

Close Combat is something I'm not entirely sure of yet, the massive morale modifiers or huge numbers of forced saves that result can seem a little bit punitive at times, however the change to consolidating into new units is definitely a step in the right direction to me. It never made sense that a unit could stay in close combat most of the game (and get to fight in both turns, killing a squad or breaking it, and consolidating into a new one every assault phase) and never get a real chance to be shot at or have a decent reaction to it.

SMF! I think this was a long time in coming. The "glancing only" rule was a bit much, especially when most of the really important skimmers (eldar skimmers, tau skimmers) had ways of mitigating or eliminating the drawbacks of being a skimmer, resulting in light and medium weight vehicles taking more hits and still sticking around than heavy battle tanks and some structure point vehicles. I was hoping GW would re-work Holofields into a cover save or something to do with it once 5th came out as they *really* don't make sense in many situations (why does a mirage projecting visual distortion device help keep a Falcon ramming at full speed into another tank alive?) but alas I digress. I think the current rule for a 4+ cover save if moving flat out is a bit simplistic, but passable. Also the removal of skimmers only being hit on 6's means that things like Meltabombs are useful against more than just Imperial Tanks again!

TLOS. I like the greater emphasis on actual line of sight rather than area terrain. Granted its open to abusive modeling and will generally require new terrain, but its also much more intuitive, however it does have some issues regarding wound allocation that I will address later.

Turbo-Boosting: The save being changed from invulnerable to cover makes a lot more sense. A bike travelling at high speed may be able to easier dodge a bullet, but its going to have a hard time dodging a wall of flame.

Rending: When this was only on Genestealers, it was fine. After they started handing it out to half the special assault units in the game and slapped it on the Assault Cannon, it needed to be toned down. The mechanic also really was somewhat poor in the first place, in that all it required was massed dice rolling to be effective. 6's always hit, and thus it basically ignored all 3 characteristics involved in an assault (WS, S vs T, and Armor Save). that was just too much, and made it a dicefest more than anything else.

Template Weapons: It never made sense to resolve these sequentially rather than simultaneously, and its good to see they have rectified that mistake, making a double-flamer squad a much more fearful unit than it once was.

Removal of Escalation: Escalation was a terrible mechanic that never made much sense (why could Obliterators start on the board, but an Armored Fist squad couldn't?) and its good to see they got rid of it.

Gets Hot!: I think the changes to this make Gets Hot! weapons less punitive and a balances it out a bit more between GEQ's and MEQ's using them, especially with the recent trend in increasing the cost of Plasma weapons.

Transports: Definitely way better. The disparity between a skimmer transport and a tracked transport in terms of possible effects on passengers has disappeared, and transports in general are more reliable, especially with no more auto-disembark for penetrating hits and no more possible slaughter of passengers for blocked hatches. Excellent change.

Perils of the Warp: its good that this now has the same effect on every model, regardless of toughness. I still don't quite think that Invul saves should be able to be used on it (it's attacking the brain and the soul, not an external attack on the body), but I'm ok with it in general I guess.


The "meh"

Movement: A unit can no longer move horizontally as far as it can move vertically. While this does make a bit more sense, it also makes buildings and ruins much more tedious to get into and out of. Also, the new rules for ruins are odd. Beasts cannot reach units on anything but the ground floor, and units must be able to be physically placed on higher floors to be able to move there (meaning no funny balancing or just saying "it's there" and moving it off to the side for a bit). Kinda weird and doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but whatever. The new rules for buildings I really do like however, so I have to say thats a step in the right direction.


Blast Weapons. The new rules make massed blast weapons (thudd guns, mortars, grenade launchers, etc) very useful, however for fewer numbers of blast weapons, they will tend to whiff more often. It seems much more beneficial for the Imperial Guard than for most other armies. Not that I necessarily have a problem with it, but it also doesn't make sense for every blast weapon either (or in the cases where it does for a lot of them, they should hit directly on much more often than they actually do, if you are looking at how the weapon would actually operate). An acceptable change overall however.

Missions. Barring KP's (see below) the objective missions are very bland. Capture and Control more often than not results in a draw, with Seize Ground being the only decent mission of the basic 3 that I really like (as it tends to be the on that has the least pre-determined outcome)

Ramming: Ramming seems cool in theory, but when you actually look at the units that can make use of the ability, and those that can make the best use, it becomes dumb. While its cool to see a Leman Russ drive balls to the wall to run over a Trukk, watching Eldar Falcons dive into Monoliths and generally take less damage, its slowed, both from a game mechanic sense and a fluff sense (honestly, most Eldar probably aren't going to be using their valuable transports as cruise missiles). This could have been implemented better I think and Skimmers (which should generally be the poorest rammers as a result of their low mass and general poor resiliency) recieve a 3+ save against ramming attacks, which they really don't pay for (IMO, as always) either. It kinda makes sense, but it also would make sense that a battlecannon shell would nigh-instantly plow a fast moving fire prism into the ground and into a billion little pieces, so I can't really feel that argument too much. That said, I think it could be made to work eventually.

And now, the bad.

Lets start with Kill Points. I won't go into much of the major arguments regarding Kill Points, however it should be obvious to most people that two gun drones off of a Devilfish should not give the same number of KP's as a 420pt 10man Terminator squad. Also, given the rather large imbalance many armies face in terms of #'s of KP's, it really makes me wonder what GW was thinking. I've seen the counter argument that armies with lots of KP's have an advantage in Objective missions, however this doesn't hold true, as many armies get stuck with superfluous KP's like gun drones (and to me, even dedicated transports in general), IG command squads, etc, and even those armies with lots of troops (like IG) may not exactly be ideal objective takers. KP games can often end up being decided before a single model is placed on the board, and nobody likes that. If Kill Points had been a %age of the army in terms of points cost or had been done in a manner where the number of KP's didn't matter but rather the fraction (i.e. killing 2/3rd of a MEQ army with 6 KP's results in an IG win that lost 1/2 of its KP's giving up 10 to the MEQ army) then KP games would have been just fine.

Vehicles hit on rear armor in CC! personally, I don't see why this was required. In 4th ed, with my Imperial Guard, most of my tanks already died to CC attacks rather than being shot. This rule takes much of the strategy out of vehicle placement since it no longer matters in a lot of cases where shooting isn't a tanks concern, and I don't think this should be, especially when so many vehicles have a much lower rear AV value than I think they should (e.g. Fire Prism, Leman Russ, Predator, Hammerhead, Skyray, etc). I could see rolling 2d6 picking the highest or re-rolls to hit or maybe +1 on the damage chart, but auto-hitting rear armor regardless of facing doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me.

Troops only as Scoring!. Now I can definitely see wanting to put the emphasis back on Troops, however to me this doesn't quite work for two reasons. The first being that not all armies Troops are equal, and not all armies were designed around their troops as much as others. Tau for instance generally don't need 60 Fire Warriors, and such armies often may perform not quite as well as those with only 30. However an Ork army can do quite well with 180boyz, and would do very poorly with only 20. The second reason is that there are units that are very specifically designed, both from a fluff standpoint and from a game design standpoint, as objective takers. Units like Imperial Guard Stormtroopers, Terminators, etc, whose purpose both in original game design intent and in the fluff has often been as the elite units that seize the objective. With the changes to Troops only as scoring units, this goes right out the window, and takes much from the value of such units. I don't see why a 6man unit of Kroot can hold an objective where 6 Terminators cannot. I will agree that some things should never have been scoring units such as Basilisks or Falcons, but many other units really should have been kept scoring.


Defensive Weapons! For the love of god and all that is holy, I don't see why this change was needed. Other than Starcannons (which lost a shot) and Assault Cannons (which got hit with the Rending nerf but really should never have had Rending in the first place) I can't recall anyone complaining about the old defensive weapons rule. It's what gave tanks a purpose over infantry alternatives which generally had more durability and raw firepower. This change has an impact that is much greater than what I think Alessio actually thought it would be, especially on the Tau and Imperial Guard armies. Now there really is no reason to take a lascannon equipped predator (with either HB *or* lascannon sponsons) over a couple of Obliterators instead.

Fast Vehicles. I'm not sure why Alessio thought it necessary to reduce the speed of non-skimmer fast vehicles, I don't see what the problem was before and it again give an advantage to skimmers that I don't think that they really pay for.

Intervening Models. This, along with defensive weapons, is probably the biggest "bad" to me. The way in which they did this is far too simplistic. A 4+ cover save for the Meganobz that interdicts any intervening fire because they have a a line of Grots in front of them (which don't get hit either) seems absolutely ridiculous. I really don't think that Chaos Space Marines or Orks are going to bother adjusting their aim too much when going full-auto into a squad of Imperial Guard or Gaunts, especially not enough to grant the unit a 4+save. Likewise I don't see Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Eldar, or Tau doing the same against a mob of Orks or against the agents of Chaos. I could see if they really wanted to take out a specific guy or unit, but then I would have treated that as a -1BS to a minimum of BS1, not a blanket 4+ cover save. For other enemy intervening units, I'd have treated it as a 5+ cover save for the intended target, with successfully saved shots then hitting the unit in front. Likewise shooting through friendly units shouldn't grant a blanket 4+ cover save either, again I would treat this as -1BS to a minimum of BS1. The blanket 4+ cover is simply unwarranted and messy.

Area Terrain!: the way the did area terrain in the rules is very counter intuitive. If you have a piece of area terrain with two placemarker trees on it, you get a cover save for standing behind it *if* you are between the two trees, but if you aren't, or it only has one or no placemarker trees, you only get a cover save for being *in* it.

Vehicle Weapons Arcs: I see no reason why GW decided to shrink the line of sight for hull mounted weapons by half from 90* to 45*. Not only does this drastically reduce their effectiveness for no good reason that I can see, but it also isn't as easy to measure, it's harder to draw it in your minds eye, making drawing LoS for such weapons more of a pain. Most people that I've seen simply ignore this and stick with the 90*.

Wound Allocation: This is a multi-part issue

First off, I can see where GW wanted to nerf hidden powerfists. They did this in three ways. First they increased the cost (in the newer books), then got rid of the 2nd CCW attack, then made them able to be killed much faster with the new wound allocation rules. Personally I don't think all of that was necessary. The new wound allocation would have done fine by itself, however that has other problems. It makes things like Chaos Icons and special weapons much easier to remove, much easier than they should be given the points paid for them. Furthermore, it slows down the game a lot, especially with larger complex units like a ten man Chaos Terminator squad with say, 4 combiweapons, an Icon, and two powerfists with two normal no frills guys. Thats essentially 4 different possible allocation groups in a single unit (even more if they have different combi-weapons), and 3 isn't uncommon at all. In the end, this slows down the game and kills of squad upgrades much faster than they should be going down.

Secondly, with the fact that one need only see one model to kill the entire unit potentially, it results in absurd kills. Just because you can see Guardsmen A doesn't mean you should be able to kill Guardsmens B through J even if you can't see them. *Especially* because only A would be able to fire back since the rest are out of LoS. ****ing slowed method of doing things, and I see no reason why GW did this.








I'm sure there is much I've forgotten, and if I remember anything I think is particularly important, I'll add it.

Overall, looking at 5th ed, I don't really see a great advance for 40k, rather a sidestep more than anything else. For everything that made the game better, there was just as much or more that was irrelevant or made the game worse. It's a change, which I think many people are happy with. Out with the old problems, in with the new, as long as its *different* problems I guess, even if the overall picture is still just as problematic as before (albeit in different ways). There are good things, there are bad, overall, it has just as many issues as 4th did.

What do you guys think?

Nice write-up. Thank you.

I haven't played a game yet so it's interesting to see what reaction people are having to practical in-game issues.

Ditto. V5 is catching me right at what may be my last army with few players, so I'm not rushing out the door.

I mostly agree, although:

I'm waiting for the IG to gain a rule that says that a Platoon counts as a single unit, so is only worth 1 KP - that would solve most problems for my Guard.

The Rear armor thing isn't a big deal to me. It just means we need RL-type mixed forces, with infantry to protect Tanks from CC.

I really like Troops as Scoring, and would like to have seen non-Troops be over 50% strength to Contest. At least Troops finally have some reason to exist.

I definitely like the Defensive Weapon change from S6 down to S4. This penalizes everybody, as opposed to just Eldar (as most Imperials are wont to do), so it's basically fair. PMSB is now meaningful.

I also like the whole conga line of death. "If one falls, another steps forward to take his place!" 40k should be bloody, and not "wasting" any kills is a good thing. It's also more dynamic and suggestive of motion and activity.

For me, there are only 3 things wrong with 5th (or at least, that I've discovered so far! )

1: Dawn of War deployment. What the crap were they thinking with this? I appreciate the whole 2 troops and 1 HQ bit, but they have made it needlessly complex with 'units' instead of FOC slots.
You basically end up with a situation where, for example, a SM player puts out 3 (empty) rhinos.
IG players have been totally screwed, as they will not be able to put out more than a fraction of their troops - and when the rest arrive they can't use their heavy weapons.

2: Kill Points. Same deal. I understand that they wanted to promote larger squads, but once again those FOC slots with 'units' are punished.
A tau unit in a devilfish with detached drones is 1 FOC slot, but could be worth 3 KP's.
As Vaktathi suggested, if KP's were worked out as a percentage of the initial number of KP's in the army it wouldn't be so bad (but then again we wouldn't want to strain Alessio Cavatore's 'I can't do basic math' brain! )

3: Defensive weapons. Why oh why oh spells yoyo. Streamlining is one thing, but this was definately a 'sledgehammer-to-crack-a-walnut' approach.
What vehicles needed was proper thought into how weapon systems work. BS modifiers for speed would have been better. As would rules for independent targetting of different weapon systems.
But were back once again to Alessio's math ability (or lack thereof).

Now, don't get me wrong, I really like 5th and think its a big improvement over 4th. The games I've played so far have been more tactical and more fun. But its sad that not everthing has been thought through....

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm waiting for the IG to gain a rule that says that a Platoon counts as a single unit, so is only worth 1 KP - that would solve most problems for my Guard.

I would be surprised if this comes. a 55 man platoon being only 1 KP? You'd have IG armies with 6 or 7 KP's instead of 20 versus MEQ armies being 9-12. Again, its a basic problem with KP's, a 55man platoon should not be worth what 2 gundrones are worth. Although, if the entire platoon gave up 2 KP's it would balance out the raw number of KP's in IG armies a bit better, but would be tricky to get working right.

The Rear armor thing isn't a big deal to me. It just means we need RL-type mixed forces, with infantry to protect Tanks from CC.

I've heard his argument a lot, but the only way for infantry to protect tanks from these sorts of attacks is to literally form a wall around said tank prevent units from making base contact with it. Infantry support should come in the form of suppression, not shooting the guys up after the fact. Also, it just removes too much of the strategy involving tanks and placement to me.

I really like Troops as Scoring, and would like to have seen non-Troops be over 50% strength to Contest.

This however drastically favors some armies over others. Orks would have a great time fielding 180 boyz, there army is built around that. Tau however are not, there Troops really are not their core units, rather its the suits. As a result, this would drastically favor armies like Orks over others like Tau.

At least Troops finally have some reason to exist.

Again, this depends on the army. SM's, CSM's, and Orks like this just fine. Tau, DH, and Necrons? Not so much.

I definitely like the Defensive Weapon change from S6 down to S4. This penalizes everybody, as opposed to just Eldar (as most Imperials are wont to do), so it's basically fair. PMSB is now meaningful.

The problem is it wasn't a needed change in the first place, and just because it hits everyone doesn't mean its fair as some armies rely a lot more on those S5 heavy bolters than other races do to make their support viable. Also, Eldar are probably the least affected race out there in terms of raw firepower that can be put out as they have so many weapons options. Granted it still hurts eldar, but the EML gives them much more flexibility than other armies. S6 was fine save for 2 weapons. S5 would have been fine and they could have just bumped the Shuriken Cannon down to S5 to make it a little less painful to Eldar (although I really don't think they needed it)

I also like the whole conga line of death. "If one falls, another steps forward to take his place!"

Except the squad would hug the wall, take cover, etc. I could see maybe Gaunts or other sort of mindless units doing this, but not marines, eldar, guardsmen or Tau. It's a dumb mechanic, especially because while everyone can be killed, not everyone can shoot back.

Chimera_Calvin wrote:3: Defensive weapons. Why oh why oh spells yoyo. Streamlining is one thing, but this was definately a 'sledgehammer-to-crack-a-walnut' approach.
What vehicles needed was proper thought into how weapon systems work. BS modifiers for speed would have been better. As would rules for independent targetting of different weapon systems.
But were back once again to Alessio's math ability (or lack thereof).

I could totally accepted BS modifiers for moving fast, it would have made sense, but alas it was not to happen. The more and more I hear Alessio's argument for this change, the more I think he just doesn't understand the role of the tank.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I also like the whole conga line of death. "If one falls, another steps forward to take his place!" 40k should be bloody, and not "wasting" any kills is a good thing. It's also more dynamic and suggestive of motion and activity.

I don't mind this in an open-field, where casualties may come from models out-of-range. I think it's really stupid when considered with terrain. If there's a piece of terrain that I can hide 9-of-10 men behind, and you get line-of-sight to that one guy, why on earth should the guys you cannot see be considered as potential casualties.

"Alright men, we found a good spot to hide. *BANG* Oh crap, Bob just took a head-shot, someone else go sit where he was sitting and see if you can see what shot him. *BANG* Oh gak, they shot Joe too. Ok, Karl, go see if you can see what's shooting at us? *BANG*"

Vaktathi wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I'm waiting for the IG to gain a rule that says that a Platoon counts as a single unit, so is only worth 1 KP

I would be surprised if this comes. a 55 man platoon being only 1 KP? You'd have IG armies with 6 or 7 KP's instead of 20 versus MEQ armies being 9-12. Again, its a basic problem with KP's, a 55man platoon should not be worth what 2 gundrones are worth. Although, if the entire platoon gave up 2 KP's it would balance out the raw number of KP's in IG armies a bit better, but would be tricky to get working right.

That 55-man Platoon weighs in around 500 points when you factor in Heavy and Special weapons upgrades, so IG can't afford so many of them, particularly at the recommended 1500 pt game size.

Assuming GW does the IG "right", my IG might be like this:
2 KP = Command Platoon & Chimera / Valkyrie
2 KP = Infantry Platoon & Chimera / Valkyrie
4 KP = Mechanized Platoon & 3 Chimeras
1 KP = Demolisher / Hellhound
1 KP = Demolisher / Hellhound
1 KP = Demolisher

That's 11 KP total, which coincidentally is in the same 9-12 range as the typical MEQ opforce.

Vaktathi wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:The Rear armor thing isn't a big deal to me. It just means we need RL-type mixed forces, with infantry to protect Tanks from CC.

I've heard his argument a lot, but the only way for infantry to protect tanks from these sorts of attacks is to literally form a wall around said tank prevent units from making base contact with it.

Yup.

Vaktathi wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I really like Troops as Scoring, and would like to have seen non-Troops be over 50% strength to Contest.

This however drastically favors some armies over others. Orks would have a great time fielding 180 boyz, there army is built around that. Tau however are not, there Troops really are not their core units, rather its the suits. As a result, this would drastically favor armies like Orks over others like Tau.

Except, Tau Warriors and Kroot *should* be their core units, not the suits.

Vaktathi wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:At least Troops finally have some reason to exist.

Again, this depends on the army. SM's, CSM's, and Orks like this just fine. Tau, DH, and Necrons? Not so much.

I don't see this as a major problem. The main armies all have answers and will do fine.

The only problem army DH can be ignored, as they're an insigificant splinter faction with an obsolete Codex. When GW finally gets around to the Inquisition Codex to bind them, their Troops will be fine.

The idea that the tail should wag the dog in a revamp doesn't make sense. Yes, some armies do better, and others do worse. Too bad. Play something else until you get your new, shiny toys.

Vaktathi wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I definitely like the Defensive Weapon change from S6 down to S4. This penalizes everybody, as opposed to just Eldar (as most Imperials are wont to do), so it's basically fair. PMSB is now meaningful.

The problem is it wasn't a needed change in the first place, and just because it hits everyone doesn't mean its fair as some armies rely a lot more on those S5 heavy bolters than other races do to make their support viable. Also, Eldar are probably the least affected race out there in terms of raw firepower that can be put out as they have so many weapons options. Granted it still hurts eldar, but the EML gives them much more flexibility than other armies. S6 was fine save for 2 weapons. S5 would have been fine and they could have just bumped the Shuriken Cannon down to S5 to make it a little less painful to Eldar (although I really don't think they needed it)

That's a *very* Imperial POV. Eldar are very heavily affected, as most of their guns are S6. One might just as well argue that AssCans and HBs should be nerfed down to S4 to fit the new Defensive Weapons rule.

Vaktathi wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:I also like the whole conga line of death. "If one falls, another steps forward to take his place!"

Except the squad would hug the wall, take cover, etc. I could see maybe Gaunts or other sort of mindless units doing this, but not marines, eldar, guardsmen or Tau. It's a dumb mechanic, especially because while everyone can be killed, not everyone can shoot back.

Marines and Guardsmen aren't selected for intelligence or self-preservation, so the conga line makes perfect sense. Eldar, yeah, if the "dying race" Fluff actually meant something to GW. Tau are somewhere in between.

Redbeard wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:
I also like the whole conga line of death. "If one falls, another steps forward to take his place!"

I don't mind this in an open-field, where casualties may come from models out-of-range. I think it's really stupid when considered with terrain. If there's a piece of terrain that I can hide 9-of-10 men behind, and you get line-of-sight to that one guy, why on earth should the guys you cannot see be considered as potential casualties.

"Alright men, we found a good spot to hide. *BANG* Oh crap, Bob just took a head-shot, someone else go sit where he was sitting and see if you can see what shot him. *BANG* Oh gak, they shot Joe too. Ok, Karl, go see if you can see what's shooting at us? *BANG*"

In the far future, soldiers are a lot more curious than they ought to be. Most of them are like the idiot in Saving Private Ryan who *removes* his helmet after it takes a thump from an enemy bullet...

It's still early. We're just beginning to shake out all the new rules. It will take some time to fully adjust to the many differences. Especially with the varying impact they have depending on the race you are playing.

I noticed you mentioned at least three points related to the missions in your "not so good" category. These missions will need some heavy adjustments to lists and tactics. Thus I see these as to early to call a judgement on. I've been having a lot more "draws" due to not knowing the best way to play these missions.

Yes, some of the game logic is a little shaky. e.g. Draw LOS and range based on the static position of the actual models but remove casualties regardless of range and LOS because the troops the models represent are supposed to be moving around. There will always be some of these quirks in the system.

The only way to judge 5E opposed to earlier editions is based on the level of fun. Is 5e more fun, the same or less? Has it re-invigorated the system for everyone?

I'm right behind the 'KPs are stupid' camp. It just makes absoloutley no sense that I could kill 30 chaos termis and lose because they blew up 4 trukks. CRAPTASTIC.

"I'm waiting for the IG to gain a rule that says that a Platoon counts as a single unit, so is only worth 1 KP - that would solve most problems for my Guard."

Strikes me as an awful idea, as once the platoons spread out you'll have free units engaging the non-IG units that are actually worth KP. It seems like the guard would put one squad behind a tank or some such, and engage with the remainder with no fear of losing points.

Well writen.

When KP's are used I think twice before I use combat squads.

utan wrote:It's still early. We're just beginning to shake out all the new rules. It will take some time to fully adjust to the many differences. Especially with the varying impact they have depending on the race you are playing.

I noticed you mentioned at least three points related to the missions in your "not so good" category. These missions will need some heavy adjustments to lists and tactics. Thus I see these as to early to call a judgment on. I've been having a lot more "draws" due to not knowing the best way to play these missions.

So how would you suggest I configure my IG to not generate 4 KP per troop choice.

You can still take Grenadiers at 1 KP per choice...

But.. but that would be playing against the spirit of the game because I can only take 3 troop choices then. Mr. Johnson says I have to focus on taking more troops, so now I'm confused.

IG can take:
3x Grenadiers @ 1 KP/unit

Then take Inquisitional Allies:
2x DH/WH Storms / SoB @ 1 KP/unit

That's 5 KP for 5 Troops!

EDITED TO PRESERVE THREAD

Suggesting that Guard players don't take Infantry Platoons - the core of the Guard army - to better fit with the Kill Point system? EDITED TO PRESERVE THREAD

I mean really:

you wrote:

I've heard his argument a lot, but the only way for infantry to protect tanks from these sorts of attacks is to literally form a wall around said tank prevent units from making base contact with it.

Yup.

You think that's fine? You think that it is in any way realistic that to protect a tank you need to surround it with infantry?

I could understand if you needed infantry to protect a takns rear quarters from assaulters, but now that assaulters are always getting rear attacks regardless of where they go, it just doesn't look right to have blocks of infantry surrounding tanks.

The vehicle rules in 5th are out and out stupid. From word one to the very end of the section, the entire part of the book is a complete fething mess.

As I said a while back, vehicles were/are the deal-breaker for me. Doesn't matter how good the rest of the rules are (and a lot of things in 5th Ed really are a giant leap forward from 4th), but the vehicle rules are terrible. Horrific. Unfun.

Combine that will Kill Points, unnecessarily lengthy blast marker rules and a clunky and counter-intuative method of removing casualties and you have a game I don't want to play.

BYE

I really gotta disagree with people on a few of these points-

the biggies for me are Kill Points, LoS and Vehicles


First of all Killpoints- its very much a balancing act- Something that we've been noticing alot at our store. Everything that seems to be awesome has a good balance to it- a weakness. Killpoints is just such a situation

With the structure of the missions- 2/3 of the time your objective grabbing with troops. 1/3 of the time your just trying to kill stuff. The original idea alot of people had was "max out on lots and lots of cheap troops and swamp the objectives" but the kill points discourages you from doing that to an extreme. At the same time your uber elite killy army of death doesn't work because it can't claim the objectives.
Its all a matter of balance- some troops, some killy stuff- and set yourself up to achieve the mission whatever it might be.

Now I do agree there are some odd situations with kill points and units-
Drones from a devil fish for example- I don't know if they'd really count as a unit for KPs- I shall check up on this one... but can anyone explain why they would?
but generally they do reward you for not only killing your opponents troops, but also protecting your own.

Sure the guard player can have 2-3 times more scoring units- but your opponent has to wipe them completely out to get the points- and since you have 2-3 times more units, they are gonna reallly struggle to do that. Your basically asking the smaller army to have each of its own units kill 2-3 enemy UNITS over the game... so every one of your units needs to kill 50% of a 10 man guard squad, or destroy a tank or similar...every turn of a 6 turn game?
Actually trickier than you'd think- especially with the increased survivability of units due to TLOS


Which leads us neatly on to that...

the biggest complaint i've heard is about being able to
"shoot through all the terrain"
surely thats a complaint about the terrain (built for 4th ed most of the time) than the rules. Its akin to complaining about using 40k terrain for warhammer (I can't fit my regiments in the ruins!!!!) its quite a different game.
Second to this- killing the unit-
it seems to be a change of emphasis- unit vs unit combat rather than model vs model. A trend that is shown through the rules with the wound allocation, the combats, the cover- its all about the unit now not the models.
So to keep with that- the unit takes the hits, you fire at the guy you can see and guess where the others are. If most of them are out of LOS your getting a save- which takes into account the enemy blowing your cover to bits


Finally vehicles- again I see all of this as a nice balancing factor. Generally vehicles have had a big boost in survivability due to the changed damage table.

But to keep in line with everything else- a "normal" vehicle should be limited in its choices and made to make a decison (akin to running)
you can stay still and fire to full effect
you can move 6" and fire at reduced effect- it is reduced now with str 4 def. weapons, as oppose to no difference for alot of tanks....
you can move 12" (like running) and have no shooting

It makes you decide on what you want to do and how to do it- as oppose to the old "well i might as well move it 6" and fire ALL the heavy bolters.... because...well- i can- its brainless"

Finally the hitting the rear- it represents you shooting hatches, vision slits etc... and helps make that devision between vehicles and troops more obvious- tanks suck in combat- they can still be tough to take out due to the changed damage tables- but get caught out and they are screwed- just as they should be

Well said HBMC...I rarely agree with you, but you hit the nail on the head...Combined with the counter-intuitive troops-only scoring BS...5th is not a fun game.

Btw, if GW wants us to take more troops, they need to have them be worthwhile in the game from their own merit, not sledgehammer us with an unrealistic rule that forces their use.

Bignutter wrote:First of all Killpoints- its very much a balancing act- Something that we've been noticing alot at our store. Everything that seems to be awesome has a good balance to it- a weakness. Killpoints is just such a situation

Kill points is a sledgehammer. It is not balanced in any way, shape, or form. The inclusion of it along with the other missions just turns all armies into rock-paper-scissors armies. Sorry, but basically automatically losing a mission because of your army isn't fun. Not to mention, take a unit of spore mines, and you are guaranteed to be giving your opponent kill points.

Finally vehicles- again I see all of this as a nice balancing factor. Generally vehicles have had a big boost in survivability due to the changed damage table.

But to keep in line with everything else- a "normal" vehicle should be limited in its choices and made to make a decison (akin to running)
you can stay still and fire to full effect
you can move 6" and fire at reduced effect- it is reduced now with str 4 def. weapons, as oppose to no difference for alot of tanks....
you can move 12" (like running) and have no shooting

It makes you decide on what you want to do and how to do it- as oppose to the old "well i might as well move it 6" and fire ALL the heavy bolters.... because...well- i can- its brainless"

The point is not about balance or more choices...It's about FUN. The new system is not fun. Not to mention, it doesn't feel like a tank should act.

I've kept my mouth shut about 5th since its release, but the OP pretty much summed up my thoughts on my first read-through of the game.

I haven't played any 5th yet, so I don't really intend to get too much further into this, but expect my own dissertation in the coming weeks once we've gathered to play a few games.

As a test I will be playing 5th with the old (ie. real) Chaos Space Marine Codex, as I still refuse to acknowledge that the current travesty of bland game design exists. I'll be very interested to see how Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion fare in 5th.

BYE

Vaktathi wrote:Movement: A unit can no longer move horizontally as far as it can move vertically. While this does make a bit more sense, it also makes buildings and ruins much more tedious to get into and out of.

It doesn't actually affect movement in buildings at all, because you don't move inside buildings. You just embark as you would a transport vehicle, after which the unit is just 'in' the building.

Beasts cannot reach units on anything but the ground floor, and units must be able to be physically placed on higher floors to be able to move there (meaning no funny balancing or just saying "it's there" and moving it off to the side for a bit). Kinda weird and doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but whatever.

Strokes and folks, I guess... because both of those things seem perfectly reasonable to me.

I would probably allow Beasts and Cavalry to move onto higher levels if there is some clear way of them getting there, though. And I would probably be inclined to add the same rule to Walkers...

Vehicle Weapons Arcs: I see no reason why GW decided to shrink the line of sight for hull mounted weapons by half from 90* to 45*. Not only does this drastically reduce their effectiveness for no good reason that I can see,

Given that vehicles can now pivot on the spot without it counting as movement, I don't think it really makes a huge difference unless the vehicle is immobilised... in which case the smaller arc seems more sensible to me.

What do you guys think?

It still has its quirks, but overall I think this edition is a huge step forwards, even if just in terms of clarity. There are so many areas in the rules where we've been complaining about unclear rules for the last two editions, where they have specifically addressed the problems in this version.

EDITED TO PRESERVE THREAD

If someone wants to play Guard, but risk fewer KPs, the only way to do that right *NOW* is to avoid Platoons like the plague, via Grenadiers, =I= Storms, and Sisters.

Otherwise, I have been consistent with my advocacy that Platoons only be worth 1 KP total. EDITED TO PRESERVE THREAD

H.B.M.C. wrote:I haven't played any 5th yet,

As a test I will be playing 5th with the old (ie. real) Chaos Space Marine Codex, as I still refuse to acknowledge that the current travesty of bland game design exists. I'll be very interested to see how Iron Warriors and Alpha Legion fare in 5th.

No wonder you hate it so!

Oh, I'm sure quad Pie with triple-triple Oblits will do just fine against the rebalanced (nerfed) opposition. EDITED TO PRESERVE THREAD

EDITED TO PRESERVE THREAD

I will withhold any further comments on 5th (as much as I am able) until I have managed to gather the group and play through a number of games using different armies.

BYE

@bignutter - the problem with the new vehicle rules is not whether or not you are forced to make choices, its the fact that vehicles don't behave the way they should.

GW designers have no idea of the distinction between a tank and a self-propelled gun. One fires on the move, one doesn't - its not hard!!
Further, all vehicles (and I do mean every single one since the advent of military vehicles nearly a century ago) have always been able to fire their defensive (anti-infantry) weapons at seperate targets to their primary (usually anti-armour) weapons.

All it needed was a bit of thought on GW's part and tanks would 'feel' like tanks!

(Mod mode on)
HBMC, JohnHwangDD

End the personal attacks. You can agressively attack the argument but please end the personal bickering. Although fun to watch it will ruin a good thread.
Your posts have been edited to preserve the thread.
move along now, nothing to see here
(Mod mode off)

I finally got in my first game of 5th ed, and I have to say a lot of my preconceptions were accurate. I like nearly everything about it, the game is faster, sleeker, and while tanks might be static pillboxes, blasts are amazingly deadly. My IG played my buddy's Blood Angels, and the poor guy never really had a chance. I went first, my Battle Cannons were unstoppable, and he had some bad luck. By the end of 5 we called it when all he had left was an immobilized Baal. He had lost Dante, Lemartes, a death company, 3 VASs, 2 Assault squads, an honor guard and a Baal. I lost a hellhound, an LRBT, 2 command sections, and two squads. It was a huge victory for me, until I realized that under KPs I only won 10-8. I'm all for checks and balances on army design, but I lost what I consider to be utterly acceptable losses for IG, I nearly tabled my opponent, and I barely won. Yes, KP missions are winnable for IG, I just can't think of a basic mission more stacked against an entire codex in 3rd or 4th edition. I have a feeling the community is going to eliminate that mission, at least when playing IG, simply because it can't be fun even for the non-IG player to win like that.

All in all though, the rules of 5th are great, it's just one mission that is a problem for me.

Polonius wrote:I finally got in my first game of 5th ed, and I have to say a lot of my preconceptions were accurate. I like nearly everything about it, the game is faster, sleeker, and while tanks might be static pillboxes, blasts are amazingly deadly. My IG played my buddy's Blood Angels, and the poor guy never really had a chance. I went first, my Battle Cannons were unstoppable, and he had some bad luck. By the end of 5 we called it when all he had left was an immobilized Baal. He had lost Dante, Lemartes, a death company, 3 VASs, 2 Assault squads, an honor guard and a Baal. I lost a hellhound, an LRBT, 2 command sections, and two squads. It was a huge victory for me, until I realized that under KPs I only won 10-8. I'm all for checks and balances on army design, but I lost what I consider to be utterly acceptable losses for IG, I nearly tabled my opponent, and I barely won. Yes, KP missions are winnable for IG, I just can't think of a basic mission more stacked against an entire codex in 3rd or 4th edition. I have a feeling the community is going to eliminate that mission, at least when playing IG, simply because it can't be fun even for the non-IG player to win like that.

All in all though, the rules of 5th are great, it's just one mission that is a problem for me.

Umm?
That is not "barely won". No missions count objectives or KP if you table your opponent (same goes if they "call it"). You simply win. Which is why elitist armies have issues with KP missions.

I have loved every 5e game so far. Even the ones I lost. Faster, more fun, and more interesting.

I agree with a few points of the posts, but perhaps try more than one game. You will need to change play styles from 4e. . . the rules have changed, the tactics will need to as well.


shrug

kirsanth wrote:

Polonius wrote:

All in all though, the rules of 5th are great, it's just one mission that is a problem for me.

Umm?
That is not "barely won". No missions count objectives or KP if you table your opponent (same goes if they "call it"). You simply win. Which is why elitist armies have issues with KP missions.

I have loved every 5e game so far. Even the ones I lost. Faster, more fun, and more interesting.

I agree with a few points of the posts, but perhaps try more than one game. You will need to change play styles from 4e. . . the rules have changed, the tactics will need to as well.


shrug

I'm not sure how much of your reply was directed at me, and how much for the forum at large, but I find your tone a little condescending and smug. I could be misreading, but you seem to be treating me like I was complaining about the rules as a whole. I know that a tabling is a win, which is why I mentioned that he still had a unit left. My point wasn't to undermine fifth edition, whcih I stated repeatedly that I liked, but to demonstrate that a KP mission is a really hard sell for IG.

And yes, I think I'll play another game of 5th ed. Maybe even two before I decide to sell all my models and play warmachine.... well, enough hyperbolic sarcasm.

Seriously, do you not think Iunderstand that tactics have to change? Of course I get that. I guess I was just shocked how easily my IG can give up 8 KPs, even in what would have been a big win under VP (1700-600).

I also don't get how elite armies have troubles with KP. Between reserves, durability, cover saves, mobility and finding LOS blocking terrain, I don't see how it's so hard to to keep one unit alive while the rest chew up some of the enemy. There are many ways IG can adapt to KP missions, but I think there are a lot of ways for other armies to adapt as well.