So, we’re not even a week into 7th Edition but already speculation is abound on what’s what. Now first of all, whatever happens with this edition I hope we can finally get some community unity going – whether it’s basic tournament agreements (i.e. no unbound) or a generic FAQ (start filling in questions here); don’t care. Let’s do something together. There are a lot of people trying to work on this currently so hopefully we can get together and not only have the “big heads” working together but listening to what the attendees want…

Digressing. 5th edition saw MSU and mech spam rule. 6th edition saw infantry based Deathstars rule. What’s 7th going to do?

At first glance I believe there’s finally a pretty decent mix between the two. Vehicles are really sturdy when not being stripped of Hull Points and infantry cover saves have generally increased. Even with a meltagun you only have a 33% chance of exploding a vehicle once you get to the penetration chart which means lots of hulls will be littered around the field and Hull Point stripping is still the way to go. Importantly here as well, everything scores again but Troops gain Objective Secured – no contesting unless you also have this rule and Transports for Troops units gain this as well. This means certain vehicles in Troops are a lot more valuable and we were already seeing high AV vehicles in 6th. Expect this to increase with 7th. I still feel Hull Points are too weak for vehicle durability but currently I feel like this is a nice balance between vehicles and infantry.

Which also lends itself to more MSU builds as one tries to access more vehicles (if necessary) in the Troops section of the Force Organisation Chart. I feel a lot of people were looking to commence this idea at the end of 6th in counter to the deathstars which had started to take considerable dominance to simply overwhelm their damage output however, many of those deathstars had several ICs attached which could split off and go in any which direction for late game contesting. Objective Secured helps minimise this and the age old strategy of mass units against the deathstar feels a lot more viable than before. With many armies moving away from directly destroying vehicles, 30+ Hull Point armies would have been difficult to destroy and is probably something that will be the same in 7th edition.

Even though Deathstars are probably at a disadvantage in general there, some of them are still going to work quite effectively – specifically Seerstar where they can get a statline akin to 2+/3++/2+ cover, re-rolls and snap shots only / flailing at in combat with Hit & Run. That’s nuts and doesn’t even need an ally – you need psychic powers to go off but with Ghosthelms around, and a lot of WC on which to draw with cheap allies, they can fuel that although such a statline isn’t very likely all the time. It’s still an example of something that can exist. Same with 3++ stormshield Marine models with Sanctuary (hi Tiggy!) and some Priests; 2++ re-rolls in combat thank you…, etc. Paladins with a 3++? Oh hey Dragio; shit now they have Objective Secured, etc. There are really always going to be options like this – its a playstyle and some people like it (more than just to win) but does it skew the game like we were beginning to see towards the end of 6th (and never at all in 5th; get over the Paladin lists kids)?

We can see this is specifically mentioning psychic powers quite a bit and we haven’t even gone into Summoning spam; lucky us.

I know there’s a lot of optimism around 7th edition and I feel it quite a bit as well – a lot of the little issues were resolved but at the same time, there’s still some gaping issues and things which I don’t think were good for the game brought in or kept (i.e. bendy bullets; tanking characters; randomness, etc.). If we scrub the extremes out though, I feel 7th edition gives the best give and take options we’ve had yet for the major questions of infantry vs vehicles and MSU vs deathstars. There’s obviously massive grey areas in between where most lists fall but I think those arguments are a lot closer together for the main part than they were in past editions (even though 5th was super solid). There’s still a no duh question with shooting vs assault and scrubbing those extremes (i.e. potential deathstar stupidity) is looking through rose colored glasses…

Hell, I haven’t even mentioned flyers. Remember when they were whineville? Now just part of the game.

That being said, every Summon spam army I’ve seen – has lost. Every Seerstar list I’ve seen – has lost. It’s not a lot of games and people are still getting their heads around the lists (and balanced lists are always easier to learn than gimmick lists) but before kneejerks are made we need to see what the exact effect of these extremes are and then we need to decide what, if anything, is to be done about them. If the premise that the core rules have brought the divergent questions the closest together in three editions is true, then we should be on the road to a utopia of fun (with me as its pink overlord, BOW); if it’s not… well, we always had memories right :)?