Knights and D weapons locally...

After a few games against the D weapons, I think my objections are at least for me confirmed.  It turns 40K into a "short hand" game.  No point bringing anything but the cheapest, best troops you can alon g with some big Alpha Strike to try and deal with the source of the D shooting.  Warhound Class Titans are popular here as are the Baneblade variants...  I have yet to face an Eldar Revenant, so guessing only there, but with the speed that thing can move?  Hard for a lot of armies to pin down.  Drop or fliers really are going to be it...  Well, except for IG gunlines perhaps...  AC are cheap and between than and Chimeras, seems like a LOT of firepower going into the 900 point monster.  Just a boring game, and not one a lot of people can bring especially to a tournament.  So, the D class weapons do kill the Death Stars of various flavors, but in so doing how much more of the fun parts of the game do they kill or make irrelevant?  ALL of the fortifications are now completely pointless EXCEPT the Void Shields...  Those become a necessary tax in an environment with D class weapons...  Much like the Aegis line was at the beginning of Sixth facing fliers...  So, the 5th ed Fliers are not looking so bad now in comparison I think, though they may well have a new lease on life as the answer to "D Class Weapons".  The cynic in me says that this looks suspiciously like the game developers making all but the new stuff completely irrelevant and thus pushing new sales over allowing existing armies to compete...

New things coming up?  The Imperial Knights look really nice...  I plan on one certainly, maybe a second one if the new Dreamforge one is of the same rough scale...  But as good as they look and will probably be on the table, do they stand a chance against a D class weapon?  Not really.  6 Hull Points, so it might take 2 hits to destroy it, but the same NO defense possible thing really bites the Knights...  4+ inv save that cannot be used just annoys me.  Next being IG or whatever new trademarked name they come up with for the next Imperial Army iteration...  Rumors of a new edition as well..  Dunno, we are at version 6.5 now...  How much more before they kill their cash cow?  There DO need to be some fixes I think, but a new $80 rulebook?  Don't know how many of us will buy it honestly...   And having seen more than my share of good, fun games die to their developers mishandling things and pushing out new editions?  Well, I hope they do not kill 40K...  Seems a long way to go before that happens, so I am most certainly NOT saying 40K is dead, just that I am concerned about it, especially on the local level.  It just feels a LOT like Confrontation did at the 3.5 level when Rackham seemed like they were working REALLY hard to kill the game in order to have the player base clamoring for the new edition to fix it all...  Well, they killed it, and the new edition flopped...  Oops...  Le Roy est Mort, Vive Le Roy?

Locally, Eldar continue to dominate the tables even if unintentionally...  No good answers to the Wave Serpent that will work in a time frame allowing most players a chance to deal with it before they lose the game...  Not unbeatable, but just really good...  Facing 4+ is going to be difficult at best for almost any army.  Add in Wraith Knights and Jetbikes and possibly Beasts from the DE codex?  Well, even my otherwise well designed Crimson Fist list just dies...  Hard and stubbornly, but barring odd luck I do not see my last wining often in that fight. 

Hate to say it, but between the Eldar and Tau appearing massively overpowered...  Well, it is killing the new interest in the game locally.  The Tau with the Riptides and so many rule exceptions combined in a really good Codex make for a less than fun game that a majority of the locals would rather just not bother playing against.  Yes, part is due to the let's call them "hyper competitive" players using and abusing those rules/lists...  But they are technically legal lists...  Not just the Eldar locally, in fact the Eldar are by and large NOT the problem locally, despite the general feeling that they are over powered...  Lacking a real FAQ, very open to interpretation...  So, other games are becoming popular locally...  X-wing and the Star Trek version, Netruner, etc...