10th Edition

So, there has been A number of articles about 10th edition and I'm not going to go over them all now, I just wanted to pick out a couple.of things that I thought were interesting. One of the early bit of information we got was about the new ways to build armies, scrapping the detachment or FOC that we have had for many editions. The evolution of the original Force Organisation Chart (FOC) that we had back in the old days, from 2nd to 5th if I remember correctly(??) through in to detachments in 6th to 9th has been long and winding with various successes and failures has finally gone. Now it's a lot more free and fluid. 

The new Build method is a lot simpler, as shown above and contains a couple of key points that we know a little about but will no doubt have to wait until the release to find out the full extend of their impact. We know that when you select the detachment rules it gives you a core rule and then access to 6 or so stratagems. I suspect that for guard we will get detachment rules for an armoured list, one for a Mechanised list and one for an infantry list. I also suspect we will get a dedicated Scion detachment as well. We may get a more general one as well. Overall I recon we will get 6 different detachments in an effort to cover all the various types of guard regiments. I have to say I do like this new system, as it mean that future books can contain a new detachment, with flavour, such as a distinct marine strike force or AdMech maniple,and it would not break the game or an army as 8t would not add to existing rules but be completely separate. 

Alongside this change there is the necessary change to the way that armies are picked, with no FOC or detachment there still has to be a way to control what units there are in an army, after all, an army made entirely out of space marine smash captains isn't going to be fun to play against. In reality this seems to just be a continuation of what we have now wih a few minor tweaks. I don't see this as anything to worry about for most armies, some like scions might have a bit of an issue due to a lack of battleline unit options and the number of other types of unit options. 

One thing I do like is the new unit stats. While there is not really a lot of change here, but the subtle tweaks have made a difference. I'll look at the new data cards in depth in another post, but I do like the new way of doing things.

 

One thing I don't like, is the fact that my shiny new codex that I've waited 5 years for has now been invalidated withing 6 months, plus I brought the data cards as well, which are also going to be invalidated. I am hopeful that our next codex will not suffer the same fate. Don't get me wrong, I do think that 40k need some help as it's just a mess right now and so far I'm liking the sound of the reset but I do wish that they could have found a way to keep the codices.

The last thing I wanted to note here is the changes to the Agents of the Imperium rules. I like to run an inquisitor in my armies when I play, purely for narrative reasons and I think it looks cool. However the issue has always been that you can only run one units, so an Inquisitor but not their retinue, or visa versa. Now, at 2000 points (assuming the battle size designations won't change) I can take 4 units, 2 characters, so Inquisitor and assassin, plus a couple of squads or acolytes or maybe a daemon host. This is another good change that I will take advantage of.