Warhammer 40,000 6th Edition – An Introspection

The book has a lot of new artwork

Well this week has proved to be one of most unique occurrence.  At work as well as at home I received some uniquely disturbing and tragic news relating to friends, the weather here in the midwest has been sweltering at 100°+ (F) temperatures with no end in sight, and the new 40k 6th edition arrived in stores.  Before it's arrival the new edition had so many competing rumors on the internet that eventually I just gave up keeping track.  One rumor indicated the game was making a dramatic turn back to 2nd edition while others were much more modest and offered only scant changes to 5th edition.  So let's peel back the rulebook and take a look at some of the big changes before finally looking at what the possible implications are for future codices and expansions down the road.





Big Changes
So outlined below are the biggest changes in 6th edition to me.  These are changes that have broad implications for all races and how the game is fundamentally played.  I also see many of these as opportunities for Games Workshop to include new units in future books to draw out some cash and expand people's model count.

• Flyers
• Flyers offer every army access to something fast and mobile that can lay down a horrendous amount of firepower.  While they are not typically very sturdy vehicles with usually weak armor and low HP count, they are hard to hit. 
• No assaulting the turn a unit disembarks
• I think this is the single largest change to the underlying mechanics of Warhammer 40k.  Many units in the past relied on rolling around in their transports and charging straight out of a vehicle.  To clarify, this rule is exactly what is sounds like.  If you disembarked from a vehicle in your movement phase, you can't charge in the assault phase.  This is regardless of how far the vehicle moved or whether it moved at all.  Huge change, and one that makes me rethink all of my current armies.
• AP3 Power Weapons
• Gone are the ages where a lowly grunt could pay 10-15 points for a weapon that gave them the ability to shred the galaxies toughest armors.  Since the most common power weapons out there are all AP3, players will have to rebalance their lists to deal with terminators and other 2+ armor units.  Large implications both for list-building as well as tabletop play.
• Snap Shots
• Heavy weapons are making a comeback for everyone as now they can shoot at BS1 when moving.  This also plays a role with vehicles as well and will allow all vehicles to lay down a pretty impressive hail of firepower.  While BS1 means only a 12.6% chance of hitting, that is far better than the 0% of previous editions.
• Wound Allocation
• Finally a 40k game where wound allocation can't be horribly abused.  Essentially it works like follows.  You allocate wounds to the closest model, until that model is dead, and then move on to the next.  Repeat as needed.  No tricks with allocating one wound to each model before allocating additional wounds, no statements about different wargear.  This does mean that important models better stick to the back of the unit, but, in my opinion, makes the game much richer as now people have to consider where they are placing models WITHIN a unit and not just the units footprint on the board.
• Hull Points
• I really love hull points.  One of my chief concerns since I started playing Warhammer 40k, was the reliance on a random chart to determine whether a vehicle was destroyed.  How many times have you played a game where you repeatedly glance that vindicator only to stun/shake them turn after turn?  While it is still possible to do that in 6th edition, vehicles now have hull points.  Glancing or penetrating will reduce the hull points by one while penetrating will allow the shooter to role on the usual vehicle damage chart.  This makes for a much more reliable way to destroy vehicles.  Since vehicles have no problems destroying anti-vehicle infantry (usually) I think this change is for the best.
• Challenges
• Despite my enjoyment of tournament play, I do love the narrative elements that GW has added to the new edition of Warhammer 40k.  Nothing better than two heroes squaring off against one another and I love the glorious intervention rule as well that lets other characters take over challenges.  You can either throw a sergeant in to save a weak HQ or vice versa.
• Scoring Restrictions
• Vehicles can't contest, units must be outside transports to score or contest.  All of these rules mean that units can't bunker down in their vehicles.  They actually have to *gasp* go outside and fight.  All awesome additions in my opinion.  I hated when people would drive their land raiders on top of an objective and just park there with a full squad of assault termies, Grey Hunters, or whatever.
• 25% Regroup
• For non-space marine armies this one is huge.  Nothing was worse than having a giant squad of twenty guardians lose 10 models and then flee off the table.  Being able to regroup all the way down to 25% really helps out the Xenos races quite a bit.
• Allies
• The ability to bring in some allies in games will be amazing.  Currently all books out there have weaknesses and allies will allow both fluff players and tourney places some flexibility to their lists.  I know I'm looking forward to working on my Eldar/Dark Eldar lists.  I simply need to figure out which way I want to address this.