First; had a great time at the IC's Farewell to Fifth shindig this weekend. Much talk was smacked, the new book was perused and great minds are already at work on the best way to break the Allies chart.
Second; I picked up my own copy of the 6th edition book and now that I've had a little free time to look it over, all I can say is...
But in a good way!
(How fitting is it that the above clip is from a movie called "Trolls 2" given all the nerd-rage that is flailing about on Teh Interwebz about this new edition?)
It's too soon for me to have wrapped my head around all the new rules and FAQs for codices, but I REALLY like what I see so far. Not that I actually hated anything from Fifth edition, it's just that there is so much MORE going on in this book.
Fortifactions and Allies for a start. The significant rewrite of many of the most iconic USRs. New BETTER psychic powers, it... it's just... it's BIG!
What do I see happening with this new edition?
For starters, I expect the parking lot army is just gone. Over with. Through. Kaput. Tons of cheap vehicle spam can now be swept off the table far more easily than before. The same is probably true for dual- and triple-land raider lists. In the old game you could sit there and get glances on your vehicles all day with no ill effect, but now after 3 glances (or 4 for the big tanks) that pricey tank is toast.
I also expect to see a lot less in the way of assault armies. Overwatch and reduced benefits of cover will make mincemeat out of ground-pounding assault troops. That being said, once typical assault units do get in bat-swinging range they will be even more effective than in 5th edition.
As a result, I expect to see a resurgence of gun-line armies such as static IG and Tau. Tau in particular will benefit from the reduced amount of cover, overwatch, and usefulness of grenades.
Librarians should start to disappear with the nerf of psychic hoods from a 24" bubble to 6", particularly when everybody and their dog can negate psychic powers 1 time in 6.
Things are looking good for Eldar psykers again, however. Runes of Warding still extends across the board, and there are no more invuln saves vs. Perils. The good old ghosthelm still allows farseers to NEGATE Perils on a 3+, so they are sitting pretty.
If anything the new global psychic powers system is even better.
Think of this; Eldrad and a unit or two of Eldar Pathfinders accompany a contingent of Tau. The Tau bring a unit of Tau Pathfinders along to support their gun line. Eldrad can guide the Pathfinders on both sides, allowing the Tau to reroll their markerlight hits and stack up markers on a particularly troublesome unit. They should have no problem stacking up 6 or more markers.
Then the Eldar use those markers to reduce cover (probably 5+) and reduce the target's Leadership with the rest (why pump up the rangers' BS? You want them to miss so you can get a reroll and hopefully get a 5 or 6 out of each one of them!).
The target unit is getting no cover save, taking a number of AP2 wounds and furthermore is taking their pinning test at -2 or -3, to boot.
On top of that, the Eldar can bring along strong counter-assault units like Harlequins, to protect the gunline. It just gets worse the more I think about it.
Hold on here though. I hear a lot of whining about how Allies have "broken the game" before the first shot has been fired. I couldn't disagree more.
What the Allies rules have done is to destroy the current meta; no long will one army (cough-GREYKNIGHTS-cough) dominate the tournament scene. While there may be some broken combos yet to come - and I'm sure there are - the possible combinations are so numerous and varied that it will be almost IMPOSSIBLE for someone to construct an army list that will beat 2/3rds of the competition.
Think about it, so many of the armies at Adepticon were either GK or Anti-GK lists that the rest of the crowd never had a chance. I think we can say goodbye to those days for quite a while. Welcome back "All-Comers" Lists! O how I've missed you!
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