8th Edition And You

Right. So now that 8th edition has been out a few months it's only appropriate that I stop and have a bit of a look at how it has gone, how I feel about it and how GW's current approach to Codexes has gone.

First, let me say that personally, I like 8th edition 40k. I felt that 40k needed an overhaul of some sort. 7th was this tired old bloated monstrosity that consisted of tacked on rules on top of tacked on rules, some of which had been floating around as interactions in 3rd edition. Even army selection had started to diverge to an almost unacceptable degree - with Decurion detachments and random formation bonuses all but destroying the traditional Force Organisation chart and its variants. At the end of the day what the Force Org chart (or its faction specific variants) offered paled in comparison to the stacking bonus effect of the Decurion detachments - even more so when you consider that some of these offered the same exact bonuses the Force Org chart itself did.

With 7th it truly felt like the last vestiges of balance had been lost, swallowed by the bloat of the edition and the myriad rules interactions that led to tournament organisers having to produce multiple page documents in order to get things back to a remotely sane level.

So 8th edition was GW's fresh start.

They nuked almost all the rules back down to a simplistic core. Gone were the myriad USRs, gone were formations and bonuses, gone were individual unit and weapon bonuses that had quickly spiralled out of control.

Instead we got a very simple system that functions the same for everyone. You have your movement, your shooting, your assault and your morale. Advanced rules include army construction - which is interesting to say the least. A myriad of alternate detachment types which in their essence are exactly the same layout as the Decurion part formatons of 7th - just without the random bonuses.

And of course, a whole new edition, a whole new ruleset and we got a collection of Indexes - basic generic vanilla lists for everyone...but in a format that resulted in GW being able to add a bit more character and detail, unlike the vanilla lists of the 3rd edition rulebook.

A lot of people were and still are upset about these. They feel upset that they have to pay to get books when GW have announced plans to push out 10 Codexes this year alone. And when the SM Codex was announced for July, less than a month after 8th edition they harped on like this justified their concerns and anger.

Yet GW are crafty indeed - and have stated that the Indexes will still apply. Not every model is getting rules. Units they no longer produce or never officially produced models for will be phased out - and in these cases they have confirmed you can use the Index profile, the newer points and all and still get your army specific benefits.

We saw this with the SM Codex removing the Rifleman dreadnought and indeed removing Twin Autocannons altogether.

Note: Image not mine - just a random google search.

While this is..awkward I can see why they've done it. And to be fair, when an option you don't produce miniatures or parts for suddenly becomes Hot Shit and everyone spams the maximum number of them, that's a sign of a problem. And no, you can't tell me Autocannons weren't a problem because CSM had them - around the same time CSM's autocannons became the far shittier Reaper, their dreads became shittier Helbrutes and they never had the option of a Rifleman layout.

But as a whole, the Codexes appear to have been more good than bad. Several units got adjusted - point and power level drops across the board, more wargear options, traits for army flavour and extra stratagems and warlord abilities that add a whole lot of character.

While not immediately obvious in the SM Codex, which to be frank was mostly about padding the new Primaris range and giving them toys it's blatantly obvious in the CSM codex. So many units had points and power level cuts. So many units gained options. The entire army just got buffed across the board. The only 'casualty' other than non-existent units was the loss of Cult Troops for World Eater and Emperor's Children armies.Unfortunate, but with the openness of the alternate detachment types not a huge blow.

General impressions of the Codexes? They're solid. The background in them is great, the design is beautiful and they're very well done as a whole. If this is the standard then GW are doing it right - they don't overcomplicate the game at all - they add options. And better still the buffs also apply to current index lists that share units - Deathwatch, Space Wolves, BA and DA all benefit from the reduced points costs and buffed units in the SM book. Death Guard and Thousand Sons benefit the same in the CSM book - it's perhaps a little annoying that you may be considering buying two books for your army instead of the one - but don't feel pressured to. You function just fine with the Index lists. You don't need to buy the new SM dex or CSM dex. GW are ensuring that all new units have their rules in the book and the point/summary details available online. And over time will probably repackage units to do the same.

Next time I'll look at Points Vs Power and how that affects army selection for people.

And a bit of hobby as well as I start painting up my Deathwatch.