Psychic phase/Magic phase... Pulled directly from Fantasy. Probably needed, and it does simplify some things. Problem is that it becomes TOO powerful is your army is built to take advantage of it. Chaos and Demons specifically are poised to become the new power army I think. We already had Demons with a flying circus being difficult to deal with, add in Psychics that make them even more powerful? Yes, you CAN try to block the powers, but blocking a blessing? Roll lots of 6's. Not just enough to cause the power to fail, you have to block them ALL. 4's to cast, can use as many dice as you have, 6's being bad in pairs for the Perils. So, the odds of stopping a powerful blessing or other non targeted spell are ridiculously low. This was the one major parallel I saw, Offense focused and Defense while technically possible is with significantly lower odds... So, in STAW the things like generic Klingon builds are really powerful... I am seeing this trend in 40k here I think.
As I said, only a brief reading of the rules, but I may have missed something regarding saving warp charges perhaps? The Eldar with the Farseer ghost helm being the one defense against Perils... Great during the Psychic phase, but what about when they get hit by the GK missiles causing Perils? Seems like that would have been a hard counter to the Seer Star, and it looks better now...
Fliers seem better than ever, and armies without good fliers of their own are still hosed. Everything scoring is neat, but no real major bonus to the sub standard Troops I see. Thinking specifically of the Marine Tactical Squads. Brand new codex, new rule set and really they are probably the worst basic troopers in the game, at least of the armies I play.
So far I am not seeing a lot to say I should come back and play 40k or even frankly buy the $80+ rulebooks. Could I build brutal and competitive armies with what I have? Yes. The Eldar are still probably the army to beat IMO. The Grey Knights I think are going to come back as a powerful force. Guard still spam metric craptons of dice so they will still be effective. I can now mix and match if I want to more than before... So the powerful forces become more powerful.
The armies I see losing in this edition are my Fleshtearers, Wolves, DA and Crimson Fists/Marines... The change to "everything scores" eliminated the small advantage the BA had with different Troop types. And of course, Death Company still do not score. Wolves are once again two full editions behind and it shows. Not that the Marines are much better off... Yes, they do have AA options and Grav weaponry but overall pretty lackluster. White Scar bikers I guess are pretty good, but the DA are still craptastic... DA Terminators are still "eh" at best until they run into an Eldar force, then they are just expensive casualties... 2+ armor and to an extent 3+ armor is still vastly overcosted given the proliferation of low AP weapons and rending...
So, locally and in a somewhat closed environment, I will still play I guess in a bit when things shake out... Guessing that there will be some FAQ changes to hit soon, I want to see how that all shakes out.... But overall I am not finding myself all that interested in playing the game at this point... And as I was writing this, the FAQs got released... The Wolves got completely hosed, losing the ONE thing that made them worth bringing (Rune Priests)... Oh well, maybe when their book gets released in a few Months... GK and BA are "eh" still... Really not a lot changed for my armies in the FAQ other than the Wolves dropping out of the "maybe I'll use them against the Demonic Hordes I anticipate"...
STAW on the other hand... And now X-Wing... Those are interesting to me... STAW especially with the deck building aspect and loads of options. This summer there is a big OP event, yes it will be blind buy but looking like some fun ships... Will be a PITA getting them unless the local store can order more kits... Betting that the locals would buy/play more events to get the ships for their faction... Well, at least I would :-). And I would be willing to run an event if the main Volunteer were wanting to play in one or was not available... Probably against WK policy to simply take up a collection and order more kits... I know I am going to want to pick up the Federation, Klingon and Romulan ships at the least... Looking like a War Eagle ("Bird of Prey" for the non SFB folks) hitting for the Romulans. If this holds probably a Miranda class for the Federation? Not sure for the Klingons but hoping for a K'Tinga or B'Rel class ship... 30 points for the sealed portion to go with the 90 point build supplied by the player... Hoping the Klingon is NOT a D-7... Lacking the Cloak, they are pretty bad in this system compared to their SFB roots at least... In any case I have my Federation and Klingon fleets pretty well set now, and I even have a basic Rebel force for X-Wing... Hear there is an event Saturday, but much going on at home so will be less likely to go out to play...
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