Episode 154: What We Like (and What We Don’t) About 8th Edition
8th Edition has been out a month, and in this episode, the Preferred Enemies crew takes stock of the game. We each look at 5 things we like about the new edition, as well as pointing out 5 things that we don’t. From assault to cover to power levels to Perils of the Warp, we touch on a lot of the aspects of the game. What do we like? What rubs us the wrong way? Also, we look at recent releases of FAQs and the return of codexes. All this, as well as your listener mail, in episode 154 of the Preferred Enemies!
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Theme: Metal Slug 2: Super Vehicle-001/II ‘No Need to Reload’ by RoeTaKa, courtesy of OCRemix.
12 Replies to “Episode 154: What We Like (and What We Don’t) About 8th Edition”
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Love using Power level for “kill points”.
I also like idea of needing to kill the entire unit (combat squad-ed or not) to score the KP (in power level)… this encourages still running full sized squads and splitting them, instead of MSU (to game the detachment and CP system).
My Likes and Dislikes…
I actually like the cover stuff – it’s just doesn’t get in the way of gaming anymore. Units really hiding out in cover can be killed now and the vehicle aspect makes total sense to me.
I love the way vehicles work and now I can’t imagine going back to the clunky armor-facing and fire-arch system – the rules don’t get in the way.
I love the ‘anything can hurt anything’ style of play too.
I really dislike the Index rules at this point, knowing that they will be of course replaced. I agree with you guys that the Power Level versus Points seems incredibly inconsistent and there are still so many units that are better, by 7th edition standards, but still not really balanced. We’re getting closer though.
Also agree about Consolidation moves, and the rerolls and modifiers mess.
Really interesting listen this episode guys, much appreciated.
It seems weird to me that you don’t like the powerlevel “have to kill what you bought” because it doesn’t follow the old system of “moar units auto-lose!” When the whole purpose of the powerlevel system of killpoints is to kill that. The powerlevel thing is the best solution and you have to kill it as they bought it. Buy 3 carnifexes in a unit? Gotta kill those Carnifexes. Simple, and creates new tactical considerations.
I like the system in theory. In practice, there are some wrinkles that need to be worked out – namely, with multi-unit groups bought with one Power Level entry, and with the Power Level v. Points discrepancy. Iron out those wrinkles, and I think the system would work great. In a straight-up Power Level game, that latter one’s not even an issue.
In most cases doesn’t the Power Level increase when you add multi units etc?
I agree with Munn, I have a hard time seeing any downsides as far as using them for Kill Points anyway.
I do agree that strictly comparing balance – PL and Points seem to be off.
Not necessarily. Take the example from our latest episode – Mek Gunz. The base PL cost of 3 gets you 2 units – the gun and the gunners. For an additional 2 PL, you get one more gun/gunners unit pair, and that maxes out at 4 upgrades, so you could have 11PL in one choice that’s made up of 10 units. At base, though, it’s 3PL for 2 units.
In a straight-up 1-KP-per-unit game, it’s easy – each unit is worth 1, so each pair is 2 KP total. In a KP-equals-PL game, not so much. If I kill a gun (a single unit), do I get anything? Or do I have to kill the gunners too?
Fun fact: if there’s one gun only, and I kill the gunners, the gun auto-dies because there’s no gunners within 6″. Easy-peasy. If, on the other hand, there are 2 guns (and thus 2 units of gunners), and I only kill one unit of gunners, and the other is within 6″ of both guns, only the first unit of gunners dies. Do I get anything in a KP-equals-PL system?
Fix that issue, and it’s a lot better.
Ah didn’t know that about Orks… though that seems like exactly the sort of thing that GW is keen to fix nowadays.
On the other hand, KP-equals-total-unit-wounds-at-deployment (which is a mouthful, but gets around things like resurrecting units and respawning units) works passably well and gets around the multi-unit issue.
Yeah I like it.
As a Guard Player: Kill Points scare the crap out of me even more now. My reliance on Officers means I hand out KPs like crazy, and I can’t offset that by combining squads anymore. What used to be potentially 2 kill points (50-man blob, Command Squad) became 7 (5 10-man squads, 1 platoon commander, 1 command squad) Personally, I’d love to see kill points go a “Model Point Cost” route, as I already mentally have that going on anyways (I like to measure the worth of a play by how many points I removed, or how many I lost in retaliation).
Likes:
Dear lord I love how Vehicles seem viable now. Pask is still an autoinclude though 🙁
My Stormtroopers got a really nice buff to Hotshot Volley Guns (my favorite of the special weapons). Stormtroopers in general feel *really* good now and its nice to know what armor saves feel like.
Deep Strike rules change
No more bickering over scatter and templates.
Dislikes:
Frankly, just the fact I can’t “splash” damage. if 5 characters are bro’ing it up, my Baneblade hits ONE of them. He *will* die, but it’s kinda irritating to be unable to kill each character in order with one unit’s multiple guns.
Can we just admit KP just doesn’t work?
For the Tyranid discussion,Synapse is invaluable for the auto pass morale. He definitely should get an Exocrine and 2 if possible, the Exocrine is phenomenal
I feel that assault is where they could have taken full advantage of having stats over 10. The chart would be so much more dynamic than it used to be, but it would have required not thinking of 4 as the baseline.