New 40k has been out a while now, how are people finding it? I've not even looked at my AoS stuff since it came out, been wrapped up in it. Really good game, addresses flaws in the system that are still in AoS even after GHB17... (Why is this the case?!)...
People in my local GW store seem to like it so far. I can't tell myself because I don't play 40K but the guys seem to be excited and there is really full house in the store every time I am there, with almost everyone playing and talking 40K. But there is quite some excitement for GHB2017 AoS as well. Even some of the grumpy old guys are now com8ng out of their 8thED holes.
Sorry to be a party pooper but I refuse to acknowledge the Imperium-vs-Chaos glorification that is 40K 8th Edition. Yes the story has always been there, but it is being celebrated far too much in 8th Edition and the aliens (the true protagonists ) are being celebrated too little. I'm sticking with the glory days of 6th Edition 40K and 8th Edition fantasy.
Bear in mind that the new edition is still relatively new. They're in the middle of a main story with Imperium v Chaos at the moment, but once that's finished I reckon they'll get on to more Xenos stuff. It's in the middle of a jumping on point for new gamers currently so it makes sense they'd want to focus in the introductory armies (Imperium and Chaos). To be fair though, Xenos aren't really getting any look in at the moment
Give it time. The aliens are coming. Both the Eldar and Tyranid books should be out by the end of the year. And who knows what next year will bring.
Tyranids are really cool. Aesthetically I only like two or three 40K armies. Tau, Tyranids and (to a lesser degree) Eldar. Although the bigger ones of the Space Marines (Primaris?) are growing on me a bit... Perhaps one day....
My take on 8th is that they over simplified things. IMO we need a balance between the bloat of 7th and the game my 8 y/o kid can pick up and play right away. In 7th you had characters buffing characters and deathstars ruled the day, with re-rolling re-rolls and stacking bonuses, including movement, to make a blob of unstoppable. 8th has given about every army some sort of first turn wrecking-ball. While I am loving the simplification of their To Hit and To Wound system, the limit of a D6 keeps it in the kids zone for me. They should have at least ramped the dice range to D10, D12, or even D20. It sucks for us xenos, and it must be difficult for the fluff writers, to make every faction the biggest baddest threat the universe has ever seen. My primary factions in 40k is tyranids, so yeah I'm *&^% pumped for a codex. But our fluff says we may have destroyed a complete other galaxy (or are fleeing something on the scale that did), and that we play attrition games on the scales of planets and systems. Either way that sounds scary on the galactic scale. If we lose a battle, we lost some bio-mass and then fled. But if we win, we lost absolutely zero bio-mass and gain some. We are a faction that can never have a Pyrrhic victory, and that is an incredible feat for any army. But look at us on the table. Since about 3rd edition (when I started playing), the tyranids on the table have not been this at all (except one specific 5th build with tervigon spam). In 8th thus far, we have, just like so many armies, some blender (super melee) unit that just gets sling-shotted into the enemy lines and eats face. My last game was against Tau gun-line and they started as far forward as possible! So, things change, that's fine and good. Stagnation in a game system kills it. I'm fine with my tyranids changing over time. And the new 8th does seem to put the vast majority of armies at least on a very close playing field to all others. GW will always (always always always) focus on Space Marines and the Cult of the Zombie-Emperor, so they (SM) will always (always always always) have some edge. Depending on where on the spectrum of army/faction you choose, you will just sort of have to accept this. If you are okay with this, and trust in dice being a good leveling of skill vs rules (which is why D6 sucks as it is such a smalllllll amount of variability, especially with those damdable rerolls) or if you are comfortable in your skill as a commander and your strategies, then you can have a wonderful time gaming in the Grimdark future. If not, we find other, better systems like Kings of War or 9th Age (or go even further with things like Malifaux and Infinity) or go back to things we are comfortable with like 8th (or 7th, which I see signs for posted in some hobby shops!). The toughest part of any new system is waiting for everything (codexes) to be out so we all have updated and complete rules.
I like Tyranids and Necrons best - I prefer the new Necrons to the 3rd Edition Terminator ones because I just think the Phaeron personalities are excellent, along with the new units like the Lychguard. GW have nerfed Tyranids in places, but not as much as others think - I like how they brought tail weapons back in 6th, for example, whereas I hate how they reduced the Bonesword's AP to 3 (whereas in 5th it was no armour saves allowed), most likely to stop Space Marine players bursting into tears whenever a Hive Tyrant slaughtered their squad of Terminators before they could strike. I keep to 6th Edition 40K and 8th Edition fantasy because the majority of armies in 6th Edition didn't have one super unit that was ridiculous, practically every unit had a weakness. OK, there was the OP Wraithknight, but my house rule is that if an Eldar player wants to play me, they may not have a Wraithknight because as everyone knows Wraithknights are ridiculous, but can still play around with Wraithguard, Wraithblades and Wraithlords. I also use the Genestealer Cults book in 6th Ed by simply ignoring Tactical Objectives, as 7th was basically 6th with Tactical Objectives and more Death Star units like the Stormsurge (which I also don't allow in case you are wondering). It's the same in 8th Edition fantasy except Warriors of Chaos are ridiculous as well, although I support WoC armies that have mostly Marauders and a couple of Chaos Warrior units because they are more balanced. If you ask me, Chaos Warriors should have been special choices rather than core.
Not me I don't think - I was tempted by Fyreslayers and Kharadron Overlords but my main priority is to continue reinforcing my Fantasy armies. Certainly that's the priority for the next ten or twenty years of my life alongside getting my book published, making my Shadow War Armageddon/Necromunda scenery and finding a suitable female companion...
I'm pretty happy with 8th. I've played enough games now that I know that a lot of the complaints I saw being tossed around locally amounted to absolutely nothing. The balance isn't perfect, especially when you compare Index armies to Codex armies, but it's constantly changing and there are far fewer "must haves" and "never field ever" units than there were in 7th. I think GW really dropped the ball when it comes to Chapter/Legion/Regiment bonuses though. I'll use Chaos Space Marines as an example to try and explain what I mean (because that's what I know and love). So in the Slaves to Darkness section of the codex it describes the <LEGION> and <MARK OF CHAOS> keywords (what I call "variable keywords"). The MARK specifies what you can choose, whereas the LEGION keyword is the name of whatever Legion or Renegade Chapter your force is made up of. So far this is pretty cool, you can choose one of the original Traitor Legions (such as Black Legion), their sub-factions (Sons of the Cyclops), or a renegade chapter (the Scourged) and that becomes a keyword that has a tangible effect on your army. This is cool. This is really cool. So when you start looking at the units available to you, some will already have a LEGION or MARK specified. Abaddon is Black Legion and has all the Marks, Huron is Red Corsairs and has no mark. Forgeworld continues the trend, with Necrosius being The Tainted, Zhufor being Skulltakers. All these characters have some kind of rule or ability that only affects models from their <LEGION>. That's fine, that makes perfect sense. The Legion Traits is where this all goes to hell. We have 8 traits in the Chaos Space Marine codex: one for each original Legion (sans Death Guard and Thousand Sons), and one for "Renegade Chapters". The traits themselves are good, I like them. They're characterful, none of them are TOTALLY useless and they all have a cool name. The problem I have with it is that everything that does not specifically have the appropriate Legion keyword (Alpha Legion, Night Lords, World Eaters etc) defaults to the Renegade Chapters trait, which is Dark Raiders. But what if that's not how I roll? What if I'm using an army of the Flawless Host? They're a Slaanesh worshipping renegade chapter that are NOT Emperor's Children but function in a similar way. While there's nothing stopping me from just giving them the EMPEROR'S CHILDREN keyword and gaining the Flawless Perfection trait, why should I have to? Why do I end up with Dark Raiders just for taking FLAWLESS HOST as my keyword? Therein lies my problem. I feel like we should be given a list of traits to apply as we see fit for our army, and have those armies that already have a defined style locked in to one of those traits, rather than the trait being locked to the keyword. For example, Iron Warriors always get the Siege Lords trait, but a renegade chapter can choose to gain Siege Lords without having to be Iron Warriors. I know it's largely a technicality and nobody is going to yell at you for using the wrong keyword as long as everything matches up. For example if your Black Legion are using the ALPHA LEGION keyword to be sneaky and gain the Hidden In Plain Sight trait, you don't then use Abaddon's Lord of the Black Legion to give them rerolls (since that only benefits BLACK LEGION). Sorry if this is a bit of an incoherent mess, but it's something that really annoys me. I just hate having to explain to people "this is my renegade warband, but I'm using this other Legion's keyword because their rule suits my army better".
I've heard from two different sources that Sisters of Battle are getting a plastic release in the new year. I won't be holding my breath on that, but one of those sources is a direct one who has been right in the past on these things. The other was on the internet. So we'll take this with a grain of salt.
I really hope so. I've got a friend who has shelved their Sisters army because of the cost of models, which is a shame because I'm soooo tired of being curbstomped by his Astra Militarum! Following my rant about the variable keywords it seems that with the new Astra Militarum codex they've included a caveat to pick your own trait for DIY regiments. That's perfect! So I decided to check the wording on the other codex armies with variable keywords Astra Militarum <REGIMENT>: If your chosen regiment does not have an associated Regimental Doctrine, you may pick the doctrine that you feel best represents your army. Hooray! I can choose a regiment trait to match my army theme. Space Marines <CHAPTER>: If your Chapter does not have an associated Chapter Tactic, use the Chapter Tactic of it's founding Chapter. If you're unsure of a Chapter's founding Chapter... choose a Tactic from the table that best describes it's character and fighting style. Also cool! Pick and choose depending on your playstyle or theme. Very nice. Adeptus Mechanicus <FORGEWORLD>: If you have chosen a forge world that does not feature on this list, you can choose the dogma that best suits the fighting style and battlefield strategies of the warriors that hail from it. Aweome! My purple forgeworld of Purpleos Secundus can use Relentless March, even though I'm not using the METALICA keyword. Chaos Space Marine <LEGION>: If your Chaos Marines are from a Renegade Chapter, or they do not otherwise have an associated trait, use the Renegade Chapters trait opposite. So I don't get to choose. Feeling kinda ripped off here when stacked up to the loyalists... I GUESS there's argument to be made that "associated trait" would let me pick what I want, but that's really pushing it. Mechanically this doesn't matter since I can paint my guys up as... I don't know, The Scourged, and then just use the WORD BEARERS keyword to gain the Profane Zeal trait, but it's still somewhat grating that if I want to play a renegade warband that has a similar play style to a Traitor Legion I have to pretend to be that legion (ruleswise) to get the appropriate benefits but if I use my own warband's keyword <THE SCOURGED> I'd be stuck with Dark Raiders. I guess I should just be thankful that Dark Raiders doesn't suck!