Presence of Faeit is my editorial, a chance to speak what is really on my mind. For most of the week, rumors and news control what is put on the site, but now its my open forum. These are solely my own opinions, be it for good or bad.
5th Edition
Lets get right down to it. 5th edition was great. There was some power creep towards the end, but it was an extremely popular edition of the game. The reasons? Tournaments were supported (Ard Boyz), there was some control of the army types that you would see, and hence tournaments were very popular (at least in my neck of the woods). I think the excitement of these events were like shots of adrenaline into the community, whether you participated in them or not.
The community was on the same page, but the age old limitations made everyone's army the same. You can blame that on the internet, and some of that is true, but in reality the game pushed it, and almost demanded it. That was nothing new though in Warhammer, and it was accepted.
Having been playing from 3rd edition, my biggest concern with the game was always its limitations. I simply wanted more out of it, more background, more units, more options. I wanted to use more, and have more. The Warhammer 40k universe is a big place, and what we had seemed very small. Personally I think the community was outgrowing it, with inspirations from the Black Library novels and the creativeness of the our fellow hobbyist.
6th Edition
This was the edition that was meant to last. Meant to open up the gaming world, with Allies, dataslates, formations, and towards its end, Escalations and Stronghold Assault. It was supposed to make it possible to play more of your collection of models (instead of sitting there for months and months or even years at a time). The release schedule was increased. With it came more codex releases on a yearly basis, and all looked good at the start.
It wouldn't last though, as 6th edition would literally tear the communities apart. Just so much was not accepted. It started off with double force orgs. 1999+ events and leagues were just the start of it. There were just too many stores (lots of them) that were not allowing and promoting these divisions.
December 2013 came. With dataslates, formations, escalation and stronghold assault. It really was the deathblow for this divisions, which now became long into the night arguments at our favorite watering holes. Instead of adding to the game, suddenly it became very clear that these divisions were in the way. Obviously I think at this time, and possibly even a little earlier, it was clear something needed to be done. The edition that was supposed to last for long number of years, needed to be updated.
7th Edition
While we are still early in the new edition, dataslates, formations, multiple force org (now just detachements), Lords of War, Escalation and D-Weapons, are just simply a part of the game. Vehicles have been brought back from near extinction, the psyker tables and powers expanded upon, and so many more of the dividing issues of 6th of the past have been really pushed under the rug.
I really do think that GW did a good job here in taking all these issues and wrapping them up nicely and I am enjoying the new ruleset so far. There are some new issues now though.
The mission cards themselves seem to really be able to swing the game one way or the next, and a bad hand of cards can decide the outcome of the game that fast, even before it begins. While I like this mechanic, I dont think it was pulled off successfully.
Summoning Daemons. I have seen bat reps of people just summoning tons of daemons reliably and very quickly flooding the tables with just far too many models, overwhelming the board and the psyhic phase of the game.
The last one is the Battle Forged and Unbound armies. I think this will be a big deal for some time to come. Tournaments and leagues will of course alter these rules, but I really wish we had another way to organize our armies. We have discussed that here on this site before, and if we do indeed see something for organized play, I think it could solve a lot of the above issues. After all if you are not playing a league or tournament game, then you can really alter what you want anyways.
I so far am really liking this edition. I think it goes a long way to encourage a lot of fun into our games. Please GW consider something for organized game play, the structure is needed by lots of us for pick up games, events, leagues and more. We like having a universal structure for this and a little tournament support goes a long long way.
Personally I am looking forward to 6 months from now... not just because I expect Dark Eldar to be coming later this year, because by then we will be very settled into this edition. I think the above initial problems we are seeing will be dealt with, and we can all be on the same page again. This is a hobby about fun, and I for one see a lot of life ahead for this edition.
Please remember that these are my own personal thoughts on the game as we head into this new edition. Everytime I do an editorial I get some crazy hatemail from someone that doesn't realize that this is an editorial, which means its an opinion piece.
Please remember that these are my own personal thoughts on the game as we head into this new edition. Everytime I do an editorial I get some crazy hatemail from someone that doesn't realize that this is an editorial, which means its an opinion piece.