6th edition enemies, the new rulebooks affect on other armies

[Bighead]

Hey, I wasn't sure if this is something that we really discuss on this site, but I was curious what peoples thoughts were on how 6th edition will affect armies that the Alpha Legion simply cannot (or should not) be.

First off, I was thinking about Eldar. It seems to me that Dire Avengers just got even worse than they already were, what with the ability for rapid fire weapons to move and shoot their full range, I would think that the DA's only real advantage (assault 2 18") is now nullified. On the other hand, rangers (and pathfinders) are now quite amazing. The new Precision rule means that, combined with the rangers long rifles, rangers will be picking out targets in a unit with AP1 shots. Brutal.

Additionally, Space Wolves now seem to have a devastatingly powerful advantage in anti-psycher combat. With the rune-weapon being a significant step above the new psychic-hoods, and the talisman upgrade essentially making any character they have able to do a 5+ resist the witch save (in addition to the usual resist the witch save), they now have better psychic defenses than any other MEQ army out there (by a wide margin).

Anyway, that's all that I can think of right now, I wasn't sure if anyone else had any thoughts on what the xenos scum may have gained or lost on this codex.

P.S. has anyone noticed any real gain by any daemons in this codex? As they are our only close allies, I thought it might be interesting if anyone has figured out a way to use them productively.

[WarpWhisperer]

Dire Avenegers might still be good at defensive duties; defend and bladestorm together in overwatch might still be quite brutal to assaulting forces? (Even better if coupled with doom and guide?)

Mt BA have been stymied with the nerfs to combat, FNP and furious charge, making them much closer to Vanilla marines than they were previously, which makes me a little sad. Although I haven't tried Mephiston yet

[bird94]

My buddy's ork biker army got a pretty big boost in 6th, with nob bikers now being T5 all the time, and a unit of nobz all being characters, which gives them all the "Look out, Sir!" rule, and allows him to (if the dice roll right) continue to spread wounds around the unit.

[Bighead]

Actually, a buddy of mine and I had a discussion about Nobs a few nights back.

The only definition for characters given is models that have a different stat line than the standard trooper of the unit, but that cannot be bought seperately (+independent characters, of course). By this definition, Aspiring Champions are characters, even if you have a terminator unit of only Aspiring Champions, because their stats are seperate from the standard Chaos Terminator. However, Nobs Squads are strictly Nobs, there is no seperate line of stats given for that Orkish Elite choice. Strictly by the definition given, I think that it is fair to say that a Nob in a Boyz squad is a character (with an independent stat line) whereas a Nob Squad has no squad leaders, and thus has no characters.

Haven't tried this logic out on an Ork (player) though...

edit: to further strenghthen my statement, on page 3 of the Space Wolves FAQ it states
Page 86- wolf guard, pack leaders
Add the following sentence to the end of the paragraph:
"Furthermore a Wolf Guard Pack Leaders unit type becomes 'Character' in addition to it's normal type"

This means that even something like the Wolf Guard, which is at least as justifiable as Nobs for saying that they are Characters, are not characters until they are added as leaders to a squad that has a different base statistic line than the Wolf Guard has.

And, yes, Ork bikers are now more terrifying than they were before

[bird94]

Interesting. I checked the Ork FAQ, and it doesn't address characters. So they're only a character if there's only one of them in the unit, eh?

Good news for us, but I'm pretty sure my buddy won't like it.

Following that same logic, my squad of sternguard wouldn't get LOS either, I suppose.

Don't have the codex in front of me, but I believe they don't have a separate "sergeant" like the vanguard vets do.

[Bighead]

sternguard have a sergeant, yea.

on a seperate note, "Line of Sight" and "Look out, Sir!" may get confusing in the future. My first thought was, 'what the hell does a sergeant have to do with line of...oooooh'

[bird94]

Hehe, true. Even LoS vs LOS can be confusing at a quick glance. And LO,S! would probably be obnoxious.

My buddy emailed me back the post he'd found about it, and the person mentioned that Nobs have a (ch) and no special explanation, so it's something that really needs to be FAQ'd to avoid confusion. He pointed out that GK Paladins have (ch) in their listing now, and the only way they come is as a unit, so that lends ammo to the other side of the argument (haven't checked the GK FAQ to see if they address this).

It wouldn't be 40k if there wasn't confusion. But then, I can't imagine creating a rules system this massive and not missing anything. Overall, they do a pretty good job.

[Bighead]

in the reference section, it does refer to a nob as a character, but it does not refer to Meganobs as characters. i would take that to mean that nobs as squad leaders are characters, otherwise it would make little to no sense to make the upgraded version of a nob squad not be characters. however, paladins as characters worries me deeply

I read through the grey knights and orks codices, and I couldn't find any references to nobs or paladins as characters.

i would be wary of people who claim this out of hand, since it doesn't look like the rules makers have backed it up yet..

[bird94]

True. Gotta figure this'll get clarified by GW. Hopefully soon.

In the meantime, I guess I'll just have to empty the mags on his nobz and make it a moot point.