First 8th Battle: Pt. I

It is kind of hard to believe, but there was a time (long ago) when I only had two 40K armies. A compact Dark Angels force, and a brand new Tyranid Swarm. It seems only fitting to bring an updated approximation of those armies for our first 8th Edition Battle report. Including a few hold-outs from that era, including my first space marine, the veteran with the powerfist and cape.
Rather than a blow-by-blow battle report, these posts will be just about our observations of the changes to 8th, and how the game plays overall.

We played at 100 Power Level, battle forged. The new 'Power Level' (PL) way is appealing, it significantly speeds up choosing your force. While it is a bit limiting on unit sizes (5 or 10 Tactical marines for example) you do get any options that unit can take as part of the PL cost, which if fun and for me more flavorful in the fluff context. You got a full Tac squad, why wouldn't they bring their full kit?
Of course detailed points list building is still available, if that is your kinda thing.

One of the big welcome changes was to the Battle Forged Force Organization Chart (FOC), to be specific, the addition of a wide range of detachment types. This makes for massive flexibility in army creation.

Battle Forged armies are important for two reasons: It makes armies that feel right in composition, and you get to use Command Points, more on that in a bit.

The missions have changed very little, a few new set-ups and some minor tweaks, which is fine with me. I'm glad they kept the Tactical Objective missions. What did change was the return of alternating deployment of units. A little slower, but removed the big advantage of deploying second.
Movement Phase has a few changes: Advancing (used to be called Running) is now done in movement not shooting. This speeds things up a little since now you roll to Advance before you move your mini. Just add the D6 score to you Movment stat and off you go.

The big change in the Movement Phase is the addition of Fall Back. If you are within 1" of a enemy model you can disengage and move the hell away, you just don't get to Advance, shoot or charge this turn. The trick is all the models in the unit have to end their movement further than 1" away from a enemy. This means surrounded models cannot fall back, something to keep in mind during the pile-in and consolidation parts of the Fight Phase.

Reserves happen at the end of movement. How this occurs varies by mission and sometime unit type. Some missions still use the 3+ to show up, others you pick who shows up and when. Deep Striking units get to choose when and where as long as it is more than 9" from any enemy models. They may shoot and charge as normal.

Ah, Psychic Phase. The continuously shifting Psychic Phase. There has been at least three major different versions of this phase through the years, I've lost count. As someone who disliked the 6th/7th edition versions, I am glad to say I like this cleaner system (one of the many things lifted from Age of Sigmar). It is straightforward but still is able to have the full range of powers, and a simple way to try and nullify those powers.

I'll cover the last three phases next time. Shooting, Fight, and Morale.