I played my first couple 6th edition games on Sunday! Since we were just starting out I suggested we play only 1000pts and I brought my Orks. As first impressions are important, I figured I would post a few things I learned so that I can look back on this in a few months.
Thing I learned: Positioning your models is SO IMPORTANT.
Having played so much 5th edition (where movement wasn’t as big a deal) I have got into the habit of just throwing around my units. You cannot do this in 6th edition. A friend compared it to microing units in an RTS and that sounded pretty accurate.
I do really like this change though as it brings a little of a skirmish feel to 40k. We were only playing at 1000pts though and I could see this may get annoying in larger games.
Thing I learned: Meganobs are awesome.
I took a small unit of 4 Meganobs and they just wrecked things. In one game they easily beat 5 GK Terminators. They managed to get a bunch of wounds on me before I was able to strike but because I killed his thunderhammer with fire before I charged he only had Halbreds left and I easily passed my saves. An easy 8 powerklaw wounds back means the GK are toast.
My second game was against friend’s Imperial Guard army with a couple allied Sisters of Battle squads. He had this cool Crusader/Assassin squad which was used the Crusader as Storm Shield wall to protect the Assassins behind. Two quick combi-skorcha shots left the Crusaders dead and the 5 Assassins unprotected. After charging my MANZ and his Assassins just obliterated each other (he had power axes) and only my Warboss walked away.
Thing I learned: Short table edge deployment is annoying.
How common is it to have one of the 4′ ends of a gaming table against a wall? Deploying on a side of the table that is against a wall is really fucking annoying. LOS is almost impossible to check and you are constantly having to run around the table. Not only that, but even at only 1000pts having a 48″ wide deployment zone was getting kind of crowded. 1500 or 2000pt games are going to be interesting.
Thing I learned: Dreadknights are OP
I’m only half kidding since I only played one game against it at 1000pts. But that single Dreadnight killed 7 Flash gitz, 20 Boyz, 2 Killa Kans and 4 Meganobs. I managed to get 3 wounds on it over the course of the game, 1 from Flashgit shooting, 1 from Flashgitz in combat and 1 from the boyz. The S10 on it is amazing and the fact that it counts as a character means it easily picks out any major threats to it. I’m interested to see how it is in a full size game.
That’s it for now! I’m off to play my 3rd game and am very interested to see what else I will learn afterwords.
I haven’t gotten in my first game under 6th Edition rules, but I’ve been suckered into being overactive on B&C particularly but also other electronic discussion forums. My primary and some would say only army is Chaos so until the new Chaos Codex comes out in a few months it seems pointless to invest too much time or effort into army optimization. I’ll probably play a game in a week or so against an old foe, he might bring Grey Knights who knows… Having a nice big table for gaming you can walk around is definitely a luxury I”m familiar with doing without, but I should have one available for my first game.
Many stores have tables up against one wall too, so perhaps some rethinking is in order for some, or just choose missions without this deployment. If you’re playing with your friends for fun you can do whatever, it is the competitive store and tournament atmosphere that some would argue is detrimental to the game and this edition some see as a lash back…
I still think it is too early to tell, but a lot of people complain about character or special weapon sniping in shooting. I was just thinking that you could field an ork army with 50 Nobz give or take. 3 Squads as Elites and 2 Squads as troops with twin warlords to make that possible. Never heard of anyone doing that, but if every Nob in a Nobz mob counts as a character…
Chaos might be able to do something similar with their Aspiring Champion upgrade, but currently there is no way to make Chosen or Terminators troops, but I predict there will be in the new Chaos Codex. I just hope I don’t need to run Typhus to run a mono-Nurgle army. I won’t be doing that, but I like Chosen, even if they can’t be troops, I’m thinking of fielding 2 maybe 3 squads of Chosen as long as they still have outflank/infiltrate and the ability to be totally customized to look cool. I’m thinking massed fire, snapped or otherwise may be necessary to take down some things. In the current Codex 5 Chosen can spit out a lot of shots on the move. I think movement and knowing how and when to move will be more important and this is a good thing in wargaming.
I want to try bikes and jump infantry out, but don’t have any painted. Cultists as Troops seems to be a given, which will open up lots of extreme builds in the new Chaos Codex perhaps. Cultists are arguably worse than guardsmen so should be priced accordingly, so army lists with sub-200 points spent on troops may be possible… Not my style especially when you consider troops are needed to hold objectives, but I also think cult troops will move back to Elite to be unlocked with an HQ choice… Lots of possibilities to consider.
Thanks for typing up your thoughts.
I played my Dreadknight as S10 prior to the FAQ coming out, the change to S6 back then didnt hurt me too much cause of my style of play, but definately not complaining about it going back up now.
I generally run two Dreadknights with Personnal Teleporters and Heavy Incinerators, at 1000 points a lot of armies struggle to kill two of them…