6th Edition; First Thoughs

First off, I want to say I'm not an expert on 40k. I am not the best player, nor do I know all the tricks and best lists to use. I have been playing since 1998-99 right after 3rd edition came out. I do not remember the "Rogue Trader Days" but I do remember people saying the sky is falling after 3rd came out.

I remember when 3.5 was adapted. It was the trial assault rules and the vehicle fire points. 4th edition came and made them official. It also brought with it the entanglement rules for destroyed vehicles. gunlines were king, and Drop pod armies were pretty good. 5th edition came and brought the rise of cheap transports.

Through it all, my armies adapted, and changed. One thing you can count on during a new edition is the new rules made new troops or vehicles better that were maybe lacking in the last edition. 6th is no different. So after 4 games of 6th, it's time to put some thoughts to paper so to speak.



Only 4 games into 6th edition, I can see changes I will have to make to my Crimson Fists and Sisters of Battle armies. They are minor changes that I could go without, but if they are made, will make my army preform better than armies that don't adapt to 6th. My first 2 games were played with my Crimson Fists and my last 2 games I tried out my SOB.

Games 1 and 2

6th edition 40k...rise of the terminators!



For games one and two we played at Zach's house ( of Independent Characters Podcast fame). Brian and Blake went over with me and we got a couple 1000 point team games in. We paired up and had 2 warlords per side, as we wanted to try out the warlord traits. We also used the allies rules even though we were more two forces than one major and a minor.

So first thing I noticed in game one was the terrain setup. I really liked it. We rolled randomly for every 2 by 2  section. The board came together nicely, and I think the lack of fortifications helped. I'll explain this in game 3.

Mysterious forests were pretty cool. They do random stuff and only had a minor effect on all our games. We also used the battlefield effects chart at the back of the book. This gave everyone FnP on a 6+ and was crazy fun. I hope we keep using these as they mix it up from time to time.

I played 2 full ten man tactical squads, Pedro Cantor, a sternguard unit, and a 5 man honor guard unit. I wanted to try out the rapid fire weapons and tactical squads. The sternguard were also there to help me try them out. I also wanted to see the effects of 2+ saves and ap 3 power weapons. That's what the honor guard were there for. What I didn't expect to see was the weird and wild effects of challenges in hand to hand.

Crimson Fist Emperor's Champion.

Game one I got to face off vs an ork nob unit with 2 warbosses. Pedro faced off and fought to a draw the first warboss. My honor guard later charged in and my chapter champion got to intervene for Pedro and put down a warboss in 4+ armour. He then faced off vs a mega armoured warboss and his relic blade's weakness of ap 3 really showed. In the end it was really epic and I loved the challenge system. I see so many different ways to play this, and I'll need to retool my sargents to better fit this edition.


Being able to cut down a sargent in a challenge before he swings is really good, so maybe power swords are the way to go. Then there are the challenges you face off vs a 2+ save character and the power sword is really lacking. Characters just don't put out enough attacks to hope he fails 2+ saves and dies first. So powerfists are good right? But what if he takes a power weapon and goes first..... It's a vicious circle. At this point I'm actually considering a Sargent armed with a power sword and a power ax! What an epic model this will make!

The next thing I noticed was that tactical squads are better. I liked having full squads and I liked having 2 units of them. I'm really considering taking another squad of them because I felt like they were useful for once. I think this is a good thing. I'm leaning towards using drop pods the next time I play. I think they may prove to be very useful.

One big thing I noticed was how hard it is to kill terminators and more specifically 2+ armor save guys. Shooting will not always get this done. I have not run a unit of terminator yet, and it is mostly because I can see how good they already are. My honor guard were really good. It was the lack of an invulnerable save that really hurt them. Shooty terminator are back for sure. Powerfist units with a ++ save and the ability to shoot will be very useful. This is good for me as I love terminators. Not since they got their 5++ have I been this happy. All hail the rise of the terminators!

So I'm going to wrap this up as this is most of what I learned in my first two games. My next article will focus on things I picked up with SoB