The New FAQ

I've always liked this model. I might even paint mine.

So someone got the finger out over in Nottingham and decided that it would be a good idea to release a series of new 40k FAQs for a couple of the armies: mostly Marines from what I can see but also DE. My own favourite one to see was not getting the Dark Eldar one out (kudos to them for doing it *relatively* early) but for the Dark Angels. That's been a pet-peeve of mine for a long time.

To be frank, Jervis wrote the book and botched the job. It was ok when it was first released but it quickly became sub-par after 5th edition and the latest Marine codex was released where comparable wargear and weaponry was overpriced and/or overpowered.

Leaving it as it was, which seemed to be the GW MO when it came to rules-writing over the past few years, was not the right thing to do. Not just from a competitive gaming viewpoint where armies being closely balanced makes for more even-handed games but from a monetary point also.



People spend a lot of money to get into this hobby. €300 isn't an inaccurate guess for the minimum amount of money you need to spend to get an army together which are just the models and not the peripherals like glue, paints (probably another 25% of the price alone) and scenery. When you put that amount of money into something you want to enjoy using it and not retire to a shelf because winning with it is too much of a task as you're relying too much on the dice and they are fickle.

This was the Dark Angel's problem for a long time - GW (and by extension Jervis) were saying the book didn't to be amended as it was fine as it was and brought people enjoyment in their games. This is ok for some but for those who don't have a money tree growing in their back garden or a monstrous employee discount it meant that they grew tired of struggling to win games with their army so sold it off, retired it or even left the hobby. They're all bad for GW's bottom line as people wouldn't waste money on buying a pariah army that the dogs on the street knew was sub-standard nor would new games see such armies in action and enquire about them - we've all seen the young fellas in shops asking what army we're using and what certain units are as they've not been used before.

They're the people that will be playing in 10 years time so hopefully, by attempting to correct their mistakes by improving their older armies ever so slightly we'll see more variety in army selection at tourneys as people dig up or even buy into new armies for something different while the noobs splash the cash on these armies and get into the hobby.

Rant over, what are the main changes its brought. Vanilla Marines have 2 that stand out:

1. Regrouping allows you to move up to 9".
This isn't new to my tourney circuit but its nice to have it confirmed.

2. Land Raiders can no longer smoke and shoot guns.
This is a big deal as I've often encountered problems with Vulkan and his fecking twin-linked MultiMelta covering huge distances and slagging my vehicles while his Termies are pushing into the centre to deny me ground. 

There's a couple of other things there, for example the Dark Eldar solved the Duke deployment question as well as the Beasts in Beastmaster units not benefitting from Pain Token buffs but the two affected armies that stand out are the Dark Angels and the Black Templars. Other places will deal with the Templars in more detail but suffice it to say that their Terminator squads are going to be even more feared from now on as they're harder to kill now thanks to the standardisation of Storm Shield saves across the Marine books. Re-rolls to hit (thanks to vows), the Furious Charge upgrade and 3 or 4 guys with Storm Shields makes them very hard.

I'm going to wax lyrical briefly about the Dark Angels. They've always been one of my favourite chapters, mainly because they were the foil to my beloved Wolves and my buddy and I would usually play once a week, back when we hit each other on 3's in combat. Sadly I no longer see them as much as I used to simply because they're sub-par and relatively difficult to use, hence the rise in Loganwing and Vanilla biker armies. Hopefully the Deathwing will make its way back onto the tabletop after this update with the possibilty of TH/SS and Cyclones in multiples backed up by Raiders and Dreads becoming a tough nut to crack.


I'm going to have to cut this short and run off for food now so I'll post up a list or something more constructive when I have time. I'll end this by saying that I hope GW continue on down this path of admitting their mistakes and taking the time to fix things to make them half-decent.