My first impressions of 6th Edition (old Post) Jul 2012

My first impressions of 6th Edition note I’ve not played a game yet and I’ve only thought about it from my two main armies Dark Angels and Orks.



It’s big, a lot bigger, and physically heavy too, its more complicated than 5th edition but I don’t think too complicated (for me, your mileage may very…) its feels like they took some bits from fantasy battle and older editions of 40K and squished all together for the greater good. My feelings about 5th edition was that it was completely stripped down from what was in 2nd edition (and a much better game than 2nd edition). Conversely the game designers have gone back towards a more complex rules set but incorporating all the good bits (from what I can see) adding things which frankly I think needed to be added.

Psychic warfare has been boosted significantly with a plethora of wide ranging different powers oh the card deck is just like the battle magic cards for Fantasy you don’t need the pack to use the psychic powers all the rules are in the book (but like the FB magic cards they ease play)

Charging is 2D6 inches I don’t know if it is good or bad

Assaulted models can snap shot the assaulters (Stand and shoot the chargers)
You can move and fire heavy weapons (accuracies not so good though)

Characters can now challenge each other and get rerolls for having bystanders which is funny for Ork mobs

Jump infantry stole some rules from the deathwatch/computer games and get a base strength attack AP 0 at initiative 10 in addition to their other attacks on the charge

You can buy scenery (fortifications and so on) as part of your armies.

Power weapons and force weapons have gone back to individual rules for the type of weapon (axes, swords, staffs and so on all have separate abilities)

You can have allies, some marine chapters wont ally fully with xenos like Dark Angels are suspicious allies of Tau and the base marines are blood brothers with the Tau. There is a full matrix describing the allies’ rules. Dark elder will practically ally with anyone cept necrons and tyranids.

The summary at the back is big and comprehensive at a glance.

Flyers aren’t that complicated.

If you have battles over 2000 point you can have a second force organisation slot so 4 HQ, 6 Elite and so on Personal I think it should be 2500 or 3000 but 2G is the rules.
Comprehensive weapons guide including super heavy weapons

Tanks have wounds

Terrain is mysterious like WFB

The only thing I could see in the fluff that change is that now the Imperium is on the brink of collapse (don’t know if this is a new thing or not but it’s new to me.)

there is an emphasis on narrative gamimg and narratve scenarios

There is a whole more but that is my first impression