First 6th Edition Game

Last night was the Cabal's first game under 6th Edition. Jon's Orks and Kevin's Dark Eldar faced off against Carl's Grey Knights and my Ultramarines. Since we were already trying to figure out so many other new rules, we didn't bother with the allies rules.

The game was close, although Jon and Kevin had the most kill points left when we finally called the game. The Marines had the misfortune of being unprepared for the fight. Each player was limited to 750 points, meaning that we couldn't bring some of our meaner units to the game. Also, Carl was using a highly experimental list that proved to be uncompetitive. Finally, both Kevin and Jon brought flyers, which Carl and I were totally unprepared for. Although the Ork Bommer and the Voidraven didn't do too much damage, they attracted a lot of fire that would have been better directed elsewhere.

My overall impression of 6th was very good. It didn't take too long to get used to new rules like the revised wound allocation since most are pretty intuitive. I even took advantage of it by placing a Captain with artificer armor in the front of a squad. Jon initially laughed at me for putting my most important model directly in the line of fire (he put his Warboss in the middle of his mob) until he realized that the multi-wound model with the 2+ armor save was deflecting nearly everything he could throw at it in order to protect the rest of the squad. When the Captain got down to a single wound, he started taking advantage of the Look Out Sir rule.

I'm also a fan of the snap shot. One Ultramarine successfully fired a missile launcher while on the move, killing an Ork. And a Razorback with a twin-linked lascannon was able to get around an obstacle blocking its line of sight by moving at cruising speed and then successfully hit a Dark Eldar Venom, immobilizing it. Even though you usually have only a 1 in 6 chance of hitting something with a snap shot (a little better than that if you have twin-linked weapons or weapons that put out a lot of fire), it's nice that we're at least allowed to make an attempt under 6th Edition's rules.

For me, the biggest change (and best improvement) was the revision to the rapid fire weapon rules. Now that the range of rapid fire weapons is unrestricted by movement, Tactical Squads, Sternguard Squads, and Scouts with bolters no longer have to avoid moving just so they can get in that one 24" shot. Last night, when my Tactical Marines found themselves 26" from an oncoming Ork mob, they were able to move forward just enough to get in their shots. Under the previous rules the turn would have been an utter waste for the Marines. Between the new rules and my new Destructor-pattern Predator a mob that would have completely overrun my squad before was whittled down to a single boy and a wounded Warboss (the Warboss was promptly dispatched by a Dreadnought).

By the end, the other Cabal members said that they liked the new rulebook. I don't think they liked it quite as much as I did, though.