6th Ed. Rumors of particular note.

[jus]

Recent developments along the grapevine have caught my attention lately. most notably some rumors relating to the expanding the 40k fluff.

The Imperium is fracturing and the Space Marines are starting to separate themselves from the Lords of Terra. The heretical and xenophobia has gotten to a tipping point causing many chapters to take actions against the “best wishes” of many in the Imperium.
A discovery of galactic importance has happened.
At a time before right before the Horus Heresy the Emperor had intrusted Roboute Guilliman in the protection of one Xenos race that was completely immune the temptations of Chaos and would prove the ultimate key to the destruction of Chaos. The Horus Heresy ended such plans. Fast forward today with discovery of these lost correspondences, it is believed by the Ultramarines and others that the Tau are that lost race. So now instead of being charge with their destruction the Astartes are the Tau protectors.

--from blood of kittens.

Also, the return of ALLIES. Random charges ( like 8th Ed fantasy -- prims not going to like that) ? Premeasuring and saves vs psychic powers.

Riveting stuff.

Edit - also the leaked 6 th Ed ruleset was a complete fabrication.

[Spevna]

Ooooooooooooooo!

The Spevna's interest has been piqued.

[Miguelsan]

BoK, like Nostradamus, has a tendency to make up many many rumours and ofc some of them end up being right.
In DakkaDakka based on previous BoK posts the majority think that those rumours are more the result of wishthinking rather than having substance but we´ll see next month.
But about the leaked rules. BoK said that GW told him that the leak was fake fake and a fake. Ask yourself what GW, that does not totally have a super confidential arrangement with New Line Cinema about not leaking a bit about the Hobbit or else, would do faced with a leak of the 6ed rules.

M.

Item plus, sources more trusty than BoK said in other sites that the leak was not a fake but rather the alpha version of 6ed, where the devs tried to write their optimun ruleset. Expect the higher ups to tone down the changes lest it hurt the current target demographic (12-14yo) that apparently can´t do math or follow "complicated" rules.

[Primarch]

BoK does sometimes get stuff right, but a lot of people are hoping that this is just wishlisting. We shall see I guess.
Random charges seems a bit silly as the current assault range is only 6". If that number changes then that will have a huge impact on the game.

Other rumours kicking about are:
You CAN consolidate into combat with a new unit (used to be in 4th)
You CAN assault after deepstriking
You CAN shoot at units that assault you at -1BS.

[The Underdweller]

Well, due to the bad grammar I'm guessing it's fake...but I hope it's true, it would be awesome if Tau are the race that are destined to save the universe!

As for the other rules, random charges sound frustrating, but I would be down with premeasuring.

[me_in_japan]

Premeasuring - good
Random anything - bad

The whole point of a wargame with any level of competition involved is to win by being a better tactician than the other guy. Too much randomness makes it into a "who's luckiest" competition. Yawn

[Primarch]

Premeasuring - good
Random anything - bad

The whole point of a wargame with any level of competition involved is to win by being a better tactician than the other guy. Too much randomness makes it into a "who's luckiest" competition. Yawn

I generally find that premeasuring takes away from the game too. Eyeballing distances and making the call on whether to shoot/assault/unleash gribbly doom or not can be a big factor in the game. Knowing exactly what you can do at every stage of the game makes things easier, but not necessarily better.

But yeah, randomness should not be applied to everything. It used to be that the 'comedy' races such as goblins and skaven got loads of random stuff and they appealed to a certain set of players because of that. No-one ever took skaven because they were serious about the fluff. Players who had randomness imposed on them such as Chaos Marine Possessed and Dreadnoughts actively disliked the penalties they were under if they wanted to use the cool models they had bought.
In any game, there will be random variables such as shooting and fighting, but if the entire game becomes one continuous exercise in dice rolling then you may as well just roll 1d6 each and the higher score wins.

Still, lets see how things pan out. Maybe the random assault move will be counteracted by some other cool stuff we haven't seen yet.

[Eigen]

I haven't been through too many books yet, but how would this make sense in the fluff world of 40k? The Tau, in belief of the greater good, allow any people into their order that satisfy that philosophy...even those that want to continue to worship their own beliefs (as long as it doesn't conflict with the greater good). BUT, how would this work with the Astartes and the Imperium which is a fundamental ruling belief and structure opposed to The Greater Good and Xeno cooperation? Wouldn't the two naturally conflict? The two cultures seem destined to absorb one or the other, but not work interdependently together.

I'd love to hear some vets weigh in on the fluff, it really interests me if that's possible but I've only read about 5 novels from the Black Library so far, and just what I read in the codexes/player wikis. I know that members from the Imperium can be Tau, but they lose being members of the Imperium and become (what is seen as traitors) Gue'vasa.

[Primarch]

Currently the Imperial view of the Tau is "Something to deal with after we get round to it, but first we have Tyranids, Traitors, Orks and Necrons all over the place." In terms of scale, the Tau Empire is a blip on the galactic map and is not as directly threatening as a Hive Fleet. If the Tau take over a planet, the Imperium can come along later, wipe out the population and then drop an entirely new group of settlers onto the surface. Most of the other races pose a more lasting danger to the planet and so need to be stopped first.
Similarly, the Tau can at least be negotiated with, again making them less of a direct threat, especially when a 3rd party such as Tyranids appears. There is a fair amount of fluff of the Tau and the Imperium forming alliances to deal with such threats, though of course once said threat is dealt with it's back to slaughtering each other again.
The new fluff is problematic at best. As far as the Imperium is concerned aliens of any sort (with exceptions to animals and so forth) should be exterminated. Having the Ultramarines suddenly decide to protect the Tau goes against all the pre-established fluff. The reason given in the rumours makes it possible I guess, but I imagine that a large part of the Ultra's protective duties will be stopping other Imperial forces. Of course, I'm sure the Ultra's won't just be letting the Tau take over Imperial worlds at will, so they may still have cause to fight the Tau too.
Without reading more than a couple of poorly written sentences it is hard to see how this impacts the fluff as a whole, but I can see there being a few schisms in the Imperium if their poster boys suddenly start making nice with the Xenos.

Prediction for 7th ed.
Dark Angels decide to adopt genestealers as household pets. Can they keep them from pooping on the sofa? Only time will tell.

[me_in_japan]

The entire imperium of man is founded on xenophobia, from the high lords of terra right down to the lowliest hive scum. I call hooey on this piece of fluff. Even GW wouldn't do something so stupid. Seriously. I have that much faith in them, at least.