A Casual's Thoughts From the Open Day
'Some say there was models on display' - The Casual
We went to the Open Day and I have some thoughts. Read more to see.
Apologies up front, I may have lost some of the photos I thought I’d taken (I have 130+ to go through from the day.)
The New Edition Announcements
Pretty much everything that was announced on the Stream (at time of writing I still need to actually sit and watch that) was on display in some way in the few cabinets across one side of the Warhammer World gaming room. I have a few issues with this1 but I’m not going to derail this ramble on that. Mark 6 Tactical marines, Praetors, Spartans, Rhino’s and the Kratos dotted the cabinets. You could see different weapon options on the Spartan’s, heavy flamers and lascannons on the front of that thing really showing that the kit is going to have all those options in it. That is fantastic, especially since 1st Edition units like certain Land Raiders had the option to take a 3rd set of lascannons in that hull mounting but without finding parts and converting (or printing) it was a lot harder to do. This makes that a lot easier, which gets a big thumbs up from me.
The various turret and sponsons options for the Kratos were on full display as well which I really cannot fault them for. I know I’ll be getting at least one of these big toys for the 1st Legion and the question is going to be ‘how do I magnetize the Volkite to swap out for something else’.
Other than that we did see the covers of the new books on another shelf. Which was nice even if it was just the rule book and the two Liber Astartes/Hereticus.
Oh and Ka’Bandha’s absolutely huge model was on display. He’s a pricey2 boy and by all accounts that whip is in 12**!** pieces. That’s one very ambitious model to build. But the guy is massive and really fills out that base. If you do buy him, get a custom magnetic tray and lots of packing foam for transporting. You’ll thank me later.
Though he’s not as chonky as the dozer blade for the Kratos. You could do some serious damage with that piece of plastic if you wanted.
What was Missing
Sprues for starters. They announced all these really cool models, and we could see them built. But there was not a single uncut sprue of anything. Weapons pack, tactical marine, character, tank. None of those. I know that’s not for everyone but I would have liked to have seen the hands, arms and bits of the weapon packs to work out how compatible they would be for the mk4 or other plastic kits.
Anything not related to the ‘Box’ announcement with the exclusion of the Kratos. Look there are things I have been waiting on for a long time. Plastic Assault Marines I’m looking at you. They come out and I will have 60 of the lads painted black and leading the charge in the name of the Lion (or Corax because that’s still cool). GW have said in various ways that more is coming to plastic, and the Spartan and Rhino are fantastic starting points. But if we have a rhino base now… what about Predators? Command tanks? Whirlwinds? What about melee weapon arms for the mk6 plastics, all you’ve shown us is the Tactical loadout. What if I’m a World Eater that wants to cover my beak in Blood…. you get the idea.
No look inside the books. It’s an Open Day and they were locked in a cabinet. Fair enough.
No Q&A. I get it, this would have been an absolute mess with the various leaks and spoilers that have been going around, especially as some questions they would not have been able to answer (like: when are we getting plastic Assault Marines3).
Playing the Game
Time to talk mechanics. There’s a few things to note from the day. The rules presented to us were extremely stripped down. In fact the Open Gaming space mainly just had the unit profile print-offs, very simple rules reference sheet and copies of the three basic demo scenarios. These were fine but very bare of any actual information. For example, Scenario 1 pits 20 Sons of Horus against 10 Imperial Fists. There is a note that the Imperial Fists could Fury of the Legion as part of the Return Fire Reaction… but the specific rule for Fury of the Legion was not included in the profiles and rules sheets. So what does it do, does it have any penalty, how do we trigger it, etc. Yes you could say ‘but if you weren’t a Casual you’d have read the leaked rules and would know this already’ but that’s not the point. I have an effect but I don’t know why or how it functions. We ended up playing out that Scenario then pitting 20 Tactical Marines, 5 Terminators, a Contemptor and a Praetor against each other and muddled through playing a very basic game.
And at no point did I feel I could walk away for 30mins while my opponent was doing something. I was involved and interacting with the game state every turn, in both players turns. This I approve of.
Major Changes
- Dreadnoughts have the profile of Monstrous Creatures. I cannot overstate how phenomenal that is. No longer will you blow the cannon or fist off my Contemptor or the Lascannon array from my Deredeo. No longer will you be able to neuter a Leviathan Dreadnought. These guys stick around lot longer and are fully functional for all that time. Basically like Monstrous Creatures are right now. They even have a basic armour save and more wounds (5w compared to the current 3HP) so your other go-to option of chip damage from Autocannons is off the table. The trade-off: you can now wound a Contemptor with Bolters. Okay. Fine.
- Wound allocation is changing. This might have something to do with the 2w Legion Terminators that were rocking around (hey, you know that Instant Death is still a thing… right?). What this means now is, and I got this from one of the Demo Guys that had a copy of the book, you assign wounds to any model in range and Line of Sight not the closest and you have to assign wounds to already wounded models first. This is how current 40K handles this. I like this change just for how it speeds up the game. Could you create a situation where somehow your multi-wound unit is going to be spreading wounds around itself? Possibly. Is it likely to happen in your average game? Not likely. If you want to do this you’re going to have to jump through a lot of hoops and then hope your opponent plays into it.
- There is a lot of small changes to profiles and rules in general. Check the images below to see what I mean. As a Dark Angel the change to Plasma weapons going to Rending is interesting, but also healthier since it’s not just straight up the best answer to 2+ saves.
- You’re going to see a movement value, and the basic Space Marine has gotten faster with a move characteristic of 7". That also adds a bonus or inflicts a penalty on your charge distance. Less chance of a ‘feels bad’ when your Assault Marines are charging a unit 5" away now.
One thing to remember on these profiles: they are very stripped down. Take the Tactical Squad: it’s missing rules for Fury of the Legion but also the current options for the extra close combat weapon. These are demo games profiles and not the final rules for these units.
What we Didn’t Test/Check
- Moral. Sorry we didn’t have to ask how this worked, any combat we had we passed the eventual Leadership tests using the current rules.
- Tank Shock. Second point same as the first.
- Challenges. We played that out in the way we do now so if something has changed I can’t comment on it.
- Legion Specific Rules. There was no real way to check or find these out that I encountered.
How Did the Game ‘Feel’
Fine.
Okay I expect you want more. The flow of the game was very involved. The Tryhard did something, I responded. I did something, He Responded. Every phase there was a back and forth with each of us moving or shooting or just doing something that wasn’t making save rolls. It’s not a simultaneous turns kind of game, I just get to react a limited number of times during my opponents turn but it kept me involved. I had to make decisions during his turn that mattered, and had to think about the order in which I would fire my units. The Shooting and Assault phases really do flow well together. Movement might get clunky at larger size games and with lots of units on the table as that’s the only phase in which you aren’t reacting to your opponent doing something to you. But for what we played it felt and flowed fine.
Other Things That Were Just ‘Cool’ to See
There was a lot of content creators around with time they would be available to pick there brains. Unfortunately my anxiety kicked in hard during the day so I didn’t talk to anyone even though there was at least one of them who’s opinion on how the game played I was interested in (and I will try and ask through social media channels as I’m a subscriber to them anyways). The cool painted models people placed in teh cabinets for the painting competition as always had some stunning models. Something that I found from talking to staff at the event last November - the Heresy community really takes to this game as if it’s a passion project and that leaves us looking at some absolutely stunning models. Lots of inspiration around and I’m sure you’ll see more (and better photos) around social media from these cabinets.
Final Thoughts
It was a good day out all told. I’m excited for the changes and how the game plays going forwards. The move to plastic can’t come fast enough and I hope that a lot of new-er or returning players give the game a fair trial before making a final decision on if they want to play it or not. One thing I would like to stress now for those coming in from 40K is that the Heresy Commmunity generally treats this as Passion project. Rule of Cool is top of the list, so you may find that asking what the ‘best’ or ‘strongest’ options are is met with some push-back. But if you want to try a different game that has a lot of cool models and is only going to get more then the Age of Darkness box is a fantastic starting point.
And if you decide you regret your purchase then I’m sure I know of at least one person that would be interested in any spare Spartan’s that will be going around. But not the Contemptors thank you.
And now to just wait for the Assault Marines.
There was roughly six cases in total, most of them having models painted by the community / influencers invited. Which is fine but leads into the ‘What Was Missing’ because we saw the same 20 or so models again and again and again. ↩︎
£215 English Pounds ↩︎
Casual Theory time - they’re doing the same thing they did with Indomitus and Dominion and releasing the big box first, then they’ll show off the other bits coming later down the line. They don’t want to advertise something too early because GW still wats us to buy the big box and not hold money back for something else. But goddammit I wants me some plastic Assault Marines already. ↩︎
Images linked from Warhammer Community & More Warhammer Community ↩︎
