7th Edition and the Astra Militarum Codex Reviews

For the last few books (Tau, Eldar, Marines and Tyranids) I've produced detailed unit reviews for each section of the FOC. My intention was to do this for the Astra Militarum book too. I wanted to post today to say that I'm going to hold off on reviewing the AM book until after I've seen the new rules. I can't see the point in putting a whole load of time into posts that will be out of day by next weekend. Therefore I'll take some time, digest the new rules and then hopefully find the time/motivation to cover the AM book from an updated 7th edition point of view.

On the subject of 7th edition I have to say I'm cautiously optimistic about it. Pretty much everything I've read so far is promising. The internet at large may not be keen on Unbound but personally I don't see it making that much of a difference to my gaming. I'm sure I'll have the odd fun game at home with Unbound allowed but most tournaments won't permit it. I'm not going to commit to whether it'll feature at BW8 or not (BW7 will be the last of 6th) until I've read the rulebook.

Daemonology seems like a bit of a gimmick to sell Chaos Daemons models but I can see that it'll be fun from a narrative perspective and introduce a fresh set of drama for everyone to deal with. I'm a big fan of the psychic phase idea in general though as it seems, from early info at least, to be well thought out and answers a lot of questions about what order things are done in. Should make psykers pretty powerful too. Just a shame only a couple of my armies use them! I just hope that I don't have to buy a whole new set of psychic cards if the wording of powers has been changed.

The Maelstrom of War missions look pretty interesting and I'm already thinking of ways I can incorporate them in BW8. I'm pleased the other missions have stayed the same though as it's nice to have some continuity. My problem is I'm still getting rules wrong based on 5th edition assumptions!

My main hope is that the rules will be clearer with less ambiguity and therefore avenues for abuse. Whilst the more recent codices haven't been perfect I'm hoping they'll get FAQs updating them for 7th which will address some of the old issues at the same time. They did mention in the latest WD that the new rules have been written based on playtesting and player feedback. Easy to say I suppose but fingers crossed.

That being said, I've had some great games of 6th edition 40K in the comparatively short time it's been with us. I remember being there on launch weekend and playing in the first ever 6th edition event (that Matt won incidentally). I may not be a fan of some of the changes (e.g. flyers, allies and challenges) but other things like hull points, nearest model wound allocation, etc. are good ideas that I hope are developed further in the new book. Blog Wars 7 will potentially be the last event of 6th edition for those that attend and I'm planning a big send off for the old book with 7th edition goodies available as the spot and raffle prizes. It's funny really as the first Blog Wars of 6th edition tried to embrace as much of the new rules as possible whilst Blog Wars 7 is actually avoiding some of the more recent additions like Escalation.

I will, of course, be doing a full review of the new book and talking about some of what I consider to be most significant changes and a few subtle ones I think people might miss. I'm unfortunately away the weekend of release though so I won't get my copy until Mon/Tues at the earlies.