Skip to main content

First Game of 8th Edition Warhammer 40k

I finally got in my first game of Warhammer 40k 8th edition. Like I mentioned before, I've been on the road a lot and I haven't had much time for anything else in life, let alone gaming.

Luckily I got Monday off from my day job and played my buddy Ryan in a small 1,500 game with my Astral Claws vs. his mixed Imperium. It was his first game as well and we were both excited to get our dolls on the table top.

I brought: 1 Battalion
Captain
Chaplain in Termie armor
Tech priest
1 Tac Squad in a Rhino
1 Scout Squad in a Land Speeder
4 Rifle dreads
1 Shootie Termie Squad

Ryan brought a mix of Blood Angels, Primaris Marines and Guard - mostly just to try out the various armies he wanted to play.

We played Big Guns never tire on a Dawn of War map. It was a blast!

warhammer
Astral Claws - a good leader stands behind his men!

A good opponent always helps but I liked the game and had a great time. We both spent a lot of time with our noses in the rule book and indexes double checking stats and rules; but that's to be expected with any new game.

Normally, I'm not a fan of such simple games that 40k has become but there's still a lot of complexity within the units that makes it more robust than it first appears.

Going back to the unit specific movement stat is going to take a while to get used to. My termies only moving 5 is a bit of a surprise but I don't hate the idea. At least now the various terminator armor units have a more distinct feel.

The psychic phase is far more simple - and deadly. Ryan had only one psyker so I didn't get to test things out firsthand but I did not like taking mortal wounds on a roll of 5+. I'm considering taking a psyker myself now and except for my Grey Knights, I was going to skip psykers in my other armies.

The shooting phase is far deadlier as well, especially coupled with HQ units camping near the shooty units and granting those free re-rolls. My captain stayed nearly motionless the entire game and directed the fire of my rifle dreads from a safe spot behind his multi-wound brothers.

The new way HQ choices interact with units reminds me of the old Warzone rules. "A good leader stands behind his men," was the best quote to remind players to keep those valuable leaders "in cover" and behind their squads. Of course, if you think you can tank shots, by all means keep your bosses in front, but even with just one game under my belt, you won't be successfully tanking any fire in this edition.

The close-combat phase is the part I like the least. I know it'll take a while to get used to, but it seems the clunkiest of all of the phases. The you-go-I-go selection seems to actually slow things down and I imagine that keeping track of which units have been activated will be challenging in larger games. I don't care for the idea of players being able to fight half of a battle between units and then come back to it later in the phase. I think a lot of skirmishes will be forgotten in the frenzy of game play, especially in a tournament.

The morale phase is OK, but I think if you won a close combat fight, you shouldn't have to take a morale test. I guess it's slightly more realistic if you took heavy casualties that you might run away from the fight ... even if you wiped out your opponent.

Despite my nitpicks, I enjoyed my first game of 8th and  I can't wait for the next battle!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Warhammer 40k Primarch Rumors

There's are a couple of rumors floating around from Games Workshop about new Warhammer 40k rules and models releases; as well as major changes to the fluff. Rumor 1: All of the Primarchs will return, including the dead. Rumor 2: One of the traitor Primarchs will become a loyalist and one of the Imperial loyalists will become a traitor. I got into a discussion with some people on a thread on Spiky Bits' Facebook page about it and here are my theories. The Emperor will briefly return, only to be killed again. Once he finally dies, all of the pysker souls he's been consuming on the golden throne will coalesce and bring all of the dead primarchs back to life. The missing primarachs will rush back to Holy Terra like moths to a flame. Of course, this means both Horus and Sanguinius have returned as well. Horus will see the results of his actions and will repent his wicked ways, blame Ebrus/Logar and the Word Bearers for tricking him into corruption and turn to the sid

Turnip28 Miniature

  "Fine words butter no parsnips."

RTT Tournament results!

  I played in a small RTT in Holton today and went 2-1, finishing 5th and beat one of the top players in our conference! (I sqeaked by with a 1-point victory...) I may have been able to beat my second opponent if had I made better selections for secondary objectives. In hindsight, I could have easily won but no matter how I plan for games on paper, there's no better teacher than experience.  I'm tuning up my list for the Bugeater Grand Tournament next month in Omaha and I think I'm getting close to my final list. It's not anything really nasty, but it's just solid, durable units. I'm digging it.