5th ed. a review

Well, like the rest of you, I have seen "the new edition of Warhammer 40k" (if the version I saw was legit, and I think it was) and it is...not good. I'm not sure that they fixed anything that was wrong with earlier additions and from what I can tell they mostly reverted back to 3rd edition. They don't clear up cover (though the forests are now 4+ saves so there's no point in playing space marines), they didn't fix rending, nothing. I was kind of hoping there would be a reason for producing a fifth edition aside from them wanting more money, but none of the arguments that you have at your table will be solved with this new one.

Because the new rules basically allow troops to block one another and because there is that 4+ cover save everywhere on the board, I imagine this will be the hey day of hand to hand and big shooty armies. Everything in between will probably have to call it quits for awhile. Like I said, I don't see any reason to play space marines (maybe Blood Angels). Maybe they'll fix this in the codex but if there's going to be consistant 50/50 cover saves for every army, they need to make the 3+ a little less of a factor in marine costs (or give them a 6+ invulnerable, that I think would work too).

Good things? Not much. I like what they did with the area affects (though BS for blast weapons has now become totally irrelevant). Being able to shield is kind of cool, but it will make the Hormagaunt/genestealer combo absolutely deadly. I think its interesting that they'd include city fight rules in the main book, but hey, how about covering how hills work. Seems like that might be worthy something to someone.

Overall, I just don't really see the point. The book corrects little, changes little, and what they do change or correct they either get horribly wrong or the rule is now as it was in 3rd edition.