40K- ramblings on "the newest version of change!"

I guess I’ll officially jump on a wagon of musicians. It is becoming ever so popular to list the hopes and dreams of the new mystery edition of 40K. Supposedly, the rumors are true and all that. I have finally seen many of these rumors, since I cannot look at a website nowadays and not see a list of 6^th edition rumors. I have read a few and then stopped once I realized what I was doing. I died a little after the fact and dismissed them. Sadly, this is what the next few weeks will bring as 5^th edition ends and 6^th edition prepares for release.

Where I started this journey, in 3rd.

We all should know every 4+ years this game, and many others, poop out a new edition. Why? Well sales duh! That is really about it. Don't get me wrong here, I'm fine with a new edition, but to think it is anything more than a business move is silly. Sure it might be a new edition for needed rules changes, exposition changes, etc., but we all know it is a monetary issue. In the pre-interweb days it was difficult to get the tweaks,  Q and A, buffs and de-buffs to a game out to the masses. Now it is pathetically simple to do that. So, is a new edition very 4+ years needed for game enhancement? Not really.


This is why a new edition of 40K is coming out for money first and everything else second. It is the old adage of not growing your dying and all that, but let us call a spade a spade here. The company needs fresh bodies and more capital and a new edition should do both. Well they hope.

Well with the end of 5^th, and brutally by some accounts, we get a slew of “confirmed” 6^th edition news and rumors. These, so far, are no better than the pre 4^th and 5^th rumors. I remember the doom and gloom of those days and it is no different now. Hell, the majority of those pre-release rumors were bunk and I can guess they will be again.

Where I was drawn back in after a hiatus in Middle Earth

 I had small wants for 4^th and 5^th. Did they come to pass? Well a few, like two ever did and did it make the game better for me? Hell yes it did! What do  I look for now in the new 6^th edition 40K universe? I have a few hopes that may or more likely will not pan out.

1. Make the WS to hit chart comparable to the BS to hit chart. There I no point in having a WS over 5 is there? A 3+ is the best you can ever do. What is the point of a WS 6 or higher? Give higher WS a re-roll on misses, even if it is just a single miss, like the guys who have BS 6+. That would give these guys the close combat potential they should have.
2. Make pinning a viable mechanic. Does anyone fear or get annoyed by pinning tests? Nope. They are all but pointless. Sniper fire and bombs raining form the heavens cause no concern. Most units just stand there and take it instead ducking for cover. Give pinning something to make it usable, scary or at least annoying. A -1 leadership modifier is a joke!
3. Wound allocation is fine, but needs a minor tweak. If you force wound allocation using a descending order of weapon strength it could stop the wound allocation, completely rules legit, insanity. This way the legal (but feels a bit cheats-ie) wound wrapping would work. Take a 5 man squad of guys that take 2 strength 7 and 5 strength 3 wounds. The strength 7 wounds must be placed on guys first and then the strength 3’s. Once everyone gets a wound allocated, then you wrap the remaining wounds. This keeps from one model taking both the strength 7 wounds and seems a bit more balanced (or less tricks-ie).
4. Multi-wound models and the shenanigans they cause with wounds. This was just over looked by the writers of the rulebook, I hope. The lengths to which this, completely legal, rule are manipulated are insane. I get why people do it and I don’t hate them for it. It is natural to exploit a weakness. Right? Still there needs to be something done to quell the allocation of wounds to multi-wound “different” models. You know since a 3 wound melta bomb carrying guy is so different than the 3 wound guy without a melta bomb.
5. A few more missions will also help. Having three became very tiresome. Hopefully, the writers can devise a few more games than: kill everything, capture one item or capture more than one item. Then add in more than three types of deployment. Even if they double this to six missions it will eventually get stale as the six missions will be just the old three with a few twists. These guys create all this futuristic background, gadgets, guys and stuff; and cannot come up with more than three missions? What is that about?
6. Get every army a new codex for the new edition. This way there is no old codex vs. new codex syndrome. It also would stop the bitching. Get all the armies a new codex and then wait a year or longer to release a new edition if there is a "need" for it. This way every army is updated and playable with everyone else in the current edition. Just think how that would make the game and internet universe. There might be less bitching because every codex is made for the current rules.

This is a short list of hopes for a new edition. Will any of them come to pass? Nope. Are they outrageous or ground breaking? Nope.

Then there is the, “Don’t hate the player. Hate the game.” This final bit does need some sort of change. I’m looking at you vehicles, transports in particular. In the previous editions vehicles were really not worth the time. They were costly and fragile. The 5^th edition gave most players cheap and reliable (and sometimes nigh unkillable) transports. This was a great for G.W. If they made the highest selling army’s basic transport super cheap then people will buy more of them. Then throw in that glancing hits do very little to it, along with two missions that require vast board movement and BINGO! The Rhino chassis dominated the tabletops.

Did it suck? Well yeah as some games devolved into strange traffic jams. There was also no reason to ever get out of these vehicles. There was always a weird chess match of who would be the first to disembark (either on purpose or forced). It made many games stale.

Now it was not mandatory to take multiple transports. Nobody forced people to play this way, or did they? If your area was nothing but boxes and boxes of guys then you probably joined with them. However, the hiker and hybrid lists seemed to disappear. A shame since many armies began to look similar with only a few shades of differing colors.

Well then what is the solution to this? Ummmm….let me think….I have nothing. Vehicles will not return to the fragile coffins they were 100 years ago. I imagine they will stay relatively the same. Sure they will have some new damage mechanic and chart, but they will probably stay very viable. How can they not? Do I see a broad sweeping change to vehicles? Nope, just something a little different.

Possibly where my journey to the distant future will end, and my favorite edition.

That sums up my minor rant and smattering of 6^th edition hopes. A few weeks will validate and disprove all the rumors flying around. It will be a vast sweeping time of change, hate, panic, happiness, lament and gods know what else. I am walking into this with as open a mind as I can have. If this new set of toy soldier rules doesn’t appeal to me then so be it. It will be harder for me to keep playing than walk away from 40K. Why is that? Well, since my local area is a 40K dead zone and  very Warhammer Fantasy heavy.

Time will tell.