Warhammer 40,000 - 6th Edition

So the 6th edition of Warhammer 40k is finally here! 5th edition was a blast. I had a ton of fun with it and I personally logged almost 1,000 games of it since it's release! After having read most of the rules I have to say I'm quite impressed with the changes they made, and thinking about what the new codexes might contain excites me even more! So let's dive into the rulebook and talk about some things that not everyone may have noticed yet...
The first thing you'll notice is everyone gets to pre-measure, all the time. That's right! You no longer have to worry about how far you've moved or if you'll be in range to shoot later. It will take a couple of games to get used to being able to do it but I think it's cool.

Next up we have a list of little things I've found that I'd like to share for those that might not have seen them yet:

- Fearless models no longer suffer "no retreat" wounds for getting multi-assaulted and losing combat (or whatever the situation may be). If you're fearless, you're no longer somehow also stupid
- The Heavy Weapon in a squad does not have to move if the squad does, so he can still fire if the rest of the guys in his unit move
- Rage no longer requires you to move, or do anything in fact. Instead, you get +2 attacks for charging rather than the +1. That's it!
- Preferred Enemy, Feel no Pain, and Furious Charge are no longer as cool as they used to be. The way they work now doesn't really have a huge impact on gameplay. Don't bother wasting points on trying to include them in your army (unless you get them for free).
- Snap Fire is equally useless because you only hit on 6's. Oh, it sounds fantastic (who wouldn't want free shots?) but it's overall a waste of time because you might only cause one wound, which can easily be saved (unless you're packing tons of AP1, 2, or 3 ranged weapons).
- Random charge ranges suck unless you can re-roll it (either with Fleet or if you have a Jump Pack and are using it to assault instead of move 12"). This means anything without Fleet or a Jump Pack may not make it into assault regardless of how well you've planned the turn, or how close your models are to the unit you want to assault.
- After a shot-at or assaulted unit makes their saves, the firing or assaulting player gets to pick the order of which wound pool gets allocated when (wound pools are split up by AP values). This makes taking shooting wounds and assault wounds MUCH more deadly!

And finally, we have the Psychic Powers. There are 42 new powers (5 disciplines of 7 powers plus one "Primaris Power" that you can replace a generated power with) and each one is new and exciting! There are a lot of opportunities for certain armies to gain some huge advantages depending on what powers they get. However, the funny thing is that the chart that says who has access to which disciplines can only be found either in the most recent White Dwarf, or the insert in the Psychic Power deck. The core rulebook DOES NOT list the information saying who can use which powers. How odd is that? So, I present to you the chart for your viewing pleasure (don't forget to save the picture!)

I actually got to play a 500 point game last weekend too! I ran a small list with a Reclusiarch leading some walking Death Company (3 Power Weapons and a Power Fist in 6 models), plus an Assault Squad with a Power Weapon and a Meltagun in a Las/Plas Razorback. My friend Pete ran two Grey Knight Strike Squads with mixed weapons and Psycannons in a Rhino and Razorback with Coteaz. In the first turn I blew the weapon off his Razorback and discovered that the trees in the middle of the battlefield (that my Death Company ran into) were full of berries or something (+1 to cover saves vs Grenades). In the following turns I tried to hop out and assault but I either rolled very poorly for my assault distance or failed to hit and wound enough due to bad dice. My poor Death Company got whittled down from shooting and the turn they wanted to charge they failed to roll a long enough distance to engage a Strike Squad. They were shot down and assaulted in the following turn.

The thing I learned in that game though, is that Feel no Pain is useless (I rolled maybe two successful Feel no Pain rolls the whole game) and spending 130+ points on a Chaplain only to have him hit at AP4 against someone in 2+ Artificer Armor is dumb. What happened to the Chaplain's legendary weapon? It now hits as hard as a stiff breeze, and man did Coteaz enjoy picking on my Reclusiarch-level Chaplain.