Tuesday, May 6, 2014

New 40K edition "eh", Star Trek and Motorcycles...

So…  New edition of 40K coming out after 2 years.  Not sure if it is “7th” or “6.5” or “6th revised”, and frankly it does not matter to me.  I think I can sum up my thoughts in a single word: “Disappointing”.  Now, I am reserving final judgment of course, but for the most part my 40K stuff is going back into storage I think.  A shame, overall the game is actually quite good and the new books were balanced and decent…  I say overall because there were the few “WTF” moment things that just make the game completely broken if and only if people play those broken things.  Problem being, it really only takes one or a small number of folks taking the “optimized” lists and units to break it for everyone.  And of course when there is money on the table in the form of prize support, etc. then you really have to be prepared for the most broken things to be fielded.  We’ve seen the Allies hit and really break the game through the USR interactions with Battle Brothers as well as breaking the FOC (“Force Org Chart”, I’ll keep using those silly military acronyms) allowing many armies to field the bare minimum “Troops” and “HQ” and focus on fielding the 4+ “Heavy”, “Fast Attack” or “Elite” depending on where the actual power units in your Army lie.   Looking at my Space Marine book, it is a fun army, and the book overall is pretty well balanced.  The “Troops” selections however are at best lackluster though.  Tactical Marines are “eh”, and in this 6th ed environment expensive casualties.  With SO many things specializing in essentially killing Marines these days the lack of that particular ability means that they start at a disadvantage.  Seems a bit odd that Marines would go into battle with the majority of their people armed with weapons that are ineffective against themselves.  I can bring the lads in a Rhino or Drop Pod, but of course those are easy to kill for First Blood or Kill Points in those missions.  So…  I have yet to field a Tactical Marine as a Crimson Fist or Dark Angel.  Scouts are Scouts…  Cheap, but craptastic.  If I HAVE to field Troops I will likely spend the minimum to field things that can actually kill things, so Scouts I guess…  So, on one hand I CAN field things like massed Centurion Devastators and Sternguard like I do now, without paying the “tax” of 2 squads of Scouts…  So, overall the Army gets no worse than it was I guess…  Just not better really.  And the game itself gets far less interesting.  How many Wraith Lords can I fit into a list if I am not concerned about anything else?  10?  And really how many other armies can deal with that?  Or perhaps an all Flier list?

Yes, you can say “Only Bound lists” or some other House rules, but really that is not an acceptable solution I think…  Good for small, local groups, yes…  But when you game outside of your local group?  A Tournament perhaps?  Killing off that scene does seem a priority for GW, but is it a good thing?  I think it is perhaps best if I simply step back and wait at this point.  My wife would agree that I have too many miniatures already, perhaps she is right.  I never really got rid of any of the 40K armies I had over the years, and with the pace they have released things in the current era I have not been keeping up with the books as I had in the past.  SO many rule changes and additions with what seems to be little regard to balance or play testing.  2++ re-rollable saves, D Weapons ignoring everything, etc…  Kind of makes even bothering to show up to play a game seem somewhat pointless… 

Eh, I have my Star Trek Attack Wing game now…  Looks like it will be a good one overall.  Think I have it more or less figured out now…  My 2 ship Federation build overpowered a fairly nasty Dominion/Romulan list in a Thollian Web test run last night…  The Torpedoes when run correctly are REALLY powerful.  USS Excelsior with CPT Picard, Spock, Scott, Lojour, the Doctor and just regular Photon torpedoes as I do not have the Defiant (yet) for the Quantum Torpedoes…  Still, hit a Cardassian ship for 8 damage in the opening salvo, destroying it completely…  Not everything went as expected in the test, but it was a REALLY good start.  And proof that as I progressed from losing my first game badly, to almost even the second game and a very narrow loss my third game to consistently winning since…  My learning curve seems about right for normal, and the locals were probably right that I’ll do fine with this game.  Inherited a few X-wing things as well, and might play a few games there as the local store has several events related to that…


Otherwise, ancient motorcycle running really well.  Still need to fix and straighten out the title for the Magna to sell it…  The Silverwing I will be selling as well, but as it is my working bike now…  Well, it works well enough for in town, etc…  REALLY wanting to get an older Goldwing to replace the 2 bikes I have now, so early to mid 80’s before they became more “luxury” vehicles than motorcycles…  I’ve heard them called “flying couches” and it seems an apt name for some of the really decked out ones…  I want something simple and reliable…  The Goldwing would allow me to stretch my legs enough to ride comfortably for longer distances and the real luggage would be less limiting than the current ones I have…  Those nagging old injuries are more a problem as I get old, so the bigger but slower bike I think would be better for me than the racing bike the Magna really is…

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