Fifth Edition Thoughts

Hey folks, meet the second of my new guest writers, Docrailgun! He has been a consistent contributer with nice articles and batreps in the past and has a flare for writing in character. Adding him to the fold was a no brainer! I was pleased that he jumped at the chance. I look to Doc to continue bringing this blog great stuff. I have two more guest contributers to introduce from my list of steady buddies who fell into that DUH list when I started thinking about adding guys to the blog. Then I will get to the pile of emails I got from other guys. I will be selecting two off the list to be added as well. More to come... Jawaballs

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Though the Ork Codex is considered to have been written with the 5th Edition rules, the Space Marine Codex was released after the new rulebook and the Tyranid Codex recently, it seems now clear that the first two truly 5th Edition armies have only just now been given to us: the Space Wolves and the Blood Angels.

Why are these two books "5th Edition" and the previously-mentioned two not? Let's examine the core changes of the most recent ruleset. The 4th Edition was about killing things, lots of things. We had Victory Points, which encouraged players to kill the most valuable units on the field. It didn't matter much what died, so long as there was lots of it. Vehicles were also discouraged, being deathtraps for their passengers. The 5th Edition is quite a bit different. Now, killing things is only a prerequisite for victory in 1/3 of the standard missions, and even then one must kill all of an enemy unit to get the Kill Point it is worth. The other 2/3 of missions are about objectives - capturing and contesting them. It's easy to contest an objective, any model can do that. It is much more difficult to capture an objective and keep an opponent from contesting them, (usually) only infantry Troops choices can do so. Thus, the game encourages draws and makes it more difficult to gain a victory. Further, one can kill every model in an opposing model save one and still draw or lose a game. It follows then that there are two ways of winning a game of 5th Edition 40K - kill all opposing scoring units or have the most objectives held by your own scoring units alone.

Orks were the first attempt at this - they have large scoring units (mobs of Boyz) that are difficult to kill off completely, especially when given cover saves or Feel No Pain. Large Boyz mobs can also potentially claim more than one objective at the same time. However, Orks have a low I and no armor to speak of, so die in droves to shooting. They would also die in close-combat if it weren't for the power-klaw Nob in every squad which discourages many from engaging them. Orks are a good army, especially if played well... but their success in the edition is due to the usefulness of some of their unit choices. The Space Marine Codex was also a step in the right direction. It provided players with the chance to have very mobile and sturdy (3+ armor saves) units on the field. Further, it made powerful weaponry cheaper, especially the free flamers and missile launchers. But perhaps un-Marinelike, this edition encourages Marine players to keep their scoring units in ther now-useful transports until they get shot out from under them... and the wreckage then becomes a cover save. The concept of Combat Squadding also helps Marine lists have a lot of scoring units (though without as much staying power as a full squad might). The Tyranid Codex gave players the ability to disrupt enemy formations and to keep them from coming across the table. There's something to be said for the 'be everywhere at once' approach.

This leads us to the Space Wolves and Blood Angels' Codexes. What these two armies do best are surely oriented to do what wins 5th Edition games - be in sole control of more objectives, or kill all the enemy scoring units.

The Space Wolves are very good at staying alive and in one place. They have Wolf Tails to protect their units from psychic attacks such as Lash of Submission, they have psychic powers of their own that can offer their units cover saves, their Tactical squad equivalant has an extra A (due to their bolter, bolt pistol, and close-combat weapon) and they have the Counterattack USR. So, assaulting a Grey Hunter pack will most of the time result in an opponent facing 3 attacks per Space Wolf, rather than the 1 they might face against normal Marines. Worse, for a small outlay of points, each Grey Hunter pack can have a model that gets +d6 Rending attacks. This makes taking an objective from a Wolf army a dangerous and difficult proposition.

The Blood Angels are excellent at the other task - killing enemy infantry. First, the Angels have Fast vehicles. This allows the army to put scoring units where they need to be in decisive moments, but more importantly to put massive firepower while still remaining mobile. A fast Vindicator can move 12" and still fire its S10 area affect weapon. For a few points it can do so while hiding in cover on its turn (the siege shield allows a vehicle to automatically succeed on dangerous terrain tests). The Baal Predator can move 6" to bring all its weapons to bear on a target. Fast lascannon Predators will always be able to get a good shot from behind a building. But what the Angels do really well is kill infantry. The 5-man Assault squad with a melta, and a power sword in a Heavy Flamer Razoback with extra armor is dirt cheap... one could easily max out one's Troops chocies for less than 1K points with them. Throw in the possibility of Feel No Pain and Furious Charge along with offensive grenades and a few gouts of heavy flamer Promethium, even enemy infantry in heavy cover will be in trouble. The list also has models especially designed to kill infantry, no matter how large the unit. A scoring unit might also drop an AV14 mobile bunker literally right on top of an objective late in the game. The list's weakness might be against heavy armor, but there will be a number of S10 attacks in most lists, along with melta pistols and (with Furious Charge) S9 power fists. There will be quite a bit of long-distance tank shocking going on at the end of Blood Angel gamers. The Blood Angels' army is made for Assaulting, from the surgical Deep Striking units to a 30-strong squad that can fire 60 bolter shots and still assault with 60 S5 I5 attacks.

Will the Design Studio continue this trend? It seems likely, as the Dark Eldar should be very good at snatching objectives at the last moment, and the Eldar after them should have very mobile firepower. The Necrons should be good at the defensive game, and the Tau at mobility themselves. If we assume that there will also be a Black Templar and Dark Angel Codex for this edition, we should also see these two design philosphies continue - the Templars might have large squads that simply won't go away, and the Dark Angels might have speed and firepower on their side.

The 5th Edition is quite a different beast than the 4th Edition. Embrace the change... the Design Studio has.

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