The End is Nigh!

So in about six days, we will see the 40K internet community explode. Reason being? Well unless you've been locked up in a darkened cell on Mars, you may have noticed GW's attempt at marketing about the new edition of Warhammer 40,000.

Although I'm "old" (if being in your 30's is old), I still get quite excited about new releases/things and so far this year I've had a few to get excited about (such as films like Prometheus and The Dark Knight Rises to new consoles like Wii U) but I am quite excited about the new edition of Warhammer 40K. Warhammer 40K was my first introduction to the world of miniature wargaming, as I can remember going into a computer shop in the 80s with my Dad and I noticed some of the boxes and blisters for Rogue Trader (1st edition of 40K). Even though I never got to play with any of those things (waste of money so says my Dad), it wasn't until 2nd edition 40K I really got into the swing of things.

So upon the eve of 6th edition, I thought I would do a couple of blog updates about what I like or hate about 5th edition and some of my hopes for 6th.

So to kick things off, I'll do something I hated about 5th but came to be okay with. This dreaded thing? True Line of Sight

True Line of Sight has been around in Wargaming for years. It's something easy to explain to the player and you don't need to spend a lot of time explaining concepts about how it works (if you can see it you can shoot it). However come 3rd and 4th edition of 40K, we were introduced to Area Terrain and unit types, which brought an abstract way of viewing things on the table. This meant whilst playing on the board with lots of models in dynamic poses, you also had to imagine that the terrain and models produced infinitely high cylinders/shapes which helped block line of sight. This allowed you to set up tactical games based around fire lanes and in my opinion was quite good fun. However, if I played anybody who was not a tournament regular or not part of my gaming circle, I would usually have to explain the rules about how this worked for some reason. So 5th came in and one of the changes was True Line of Sight and I hated it. I had visions of players abusing the rules and modeling units to be crawling across the board to limit what they could see or being based upon a really big rock so they could see everything. In reality, I shouldn't have been worried. In the four years of 5th ed, I have not seen or heard about anybody abusing this rule and over the years I have gotten used to the rule and have accepted why it was changed (because a lot of players used it anyway in 4th ed).