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40k is dead. Long live 40k!
The new edition is here. I was able to start downloading it around 11:30 last night. However, upon completion, I was told I was "Unable to open iBook". A most calamitous portent for the new unless if there ever was one. A quick check on the interwebs revealed that the best course of action was to delete said book and then re-download it.
Anyways, I shall spend the rest of the morning perusing it (while wrangling younglings and doing chores) and get back to you with me thoughts.
What you 'orrible lot think of the confirmed changes so far? Who else has the book?

Don't have the book yet, but will probably pick it up when I go to Scotland in the summer, mostly because I like my shelf of rulebooks. From what I've seen, rules wise it looks ok.

I like malefic, assuming players use it in character. (I know folks here will, and I've come to the realisation it doesn't really matter what folks on BoLS do with it.)

Likewise, Unbound is just GW telling us that we really should just be making this stuff up as we go along. I totally approve of it, actually. Instead of trying to police the waac crowd, they've basically thrown them so much waac-bait that players will be forced to self-regulate, or face social exclusion. "The rulebook says it's ok" is no longer an excuse for waacy armies, cos the rulebook says anything is ok. For those of us who used common sense to play the game* it's actually no change at all, as there was nothing stopping us from doing it in the last edition.

The whole psychic-phase thing seems natural to me, but that's just cos it's an old friend from days gone by. It'll make my Eldar nice and eldary again, which is good, I suppose.

As for the nitty gritty of consolidation and cover saves and whatnot, I'll withhold comment on that till I've actually read it. I don't imagine it'll radically change what it means to play 40k, though.

So, that's my 2 yen.

* edit - not to imply those who play entirely by the rules are without common sense. What I mean is that some players tend to be more flexible with the rules and apply their own judgement to any given situation, whereas others tend to be more rule based. Personally, I've been both.

Some initial thoughts etc...

The consolidate into a fresh enemy unit and cover/shooting modifier rumours were just that, rumours. They are NOT in the rules.

It really does seem more like 40K 6.5 rather than a whole new edition. There are some biggish rule changes but no real game changers, except for the 'new' psychic phase.

The new missions and cards etc seem interesting, although it remains to be seen how they actually play out in reality.

Some of the new Allies high jinks that seemed to be allowed in the new book and have been making the rounds actually seem kind of ridiculous. Sure you can put Howling Banshees in a Dark Eldar raider or venom but you still have to pay for transport itself + the minimum sized parent unit + Banshees still don't have grenades. Same goes for many of the other 'broken' combos being touted.

I think the most unfortunate thing is that GW finally had to put into print that players have to agree what kind of game they are going to play (i.e. Unit restrictions, unbound armies etc etc) beforehand. Our group and others I have been part of have always done this a general principal. What kind of Goat Boy world are people playing in that this needs to be written in stone rather than being a given?

So far as I have delved into the book, I think I can safely say the sky hasn't fallen on anyone's head. The new edition isn't going to change many things about the way we have been playing. I'm looking forward to trying it out tomorrow.

Only about 50 pages in so far. The changes to the shooting phase are fairly cosmetic, but the big change there is that now you roll your attacks with different weapons in the unit separately.

You decide to fire one group of weapons first. You then roll through every step before moving on to the next weapon. The main difference is that you can only hit things in range of the guns when you fire them.

E.g. You have a marine squad containing a flamer, a lascannon and some bolters. You want to shoot a unit of 10 Orks. The flamer is in range of 3 orks, the bolters are in range of 7 orks and the lascannon is in range of all 10.
In 6th you'd just roll all your attacks, hitting everything because the lascannon had range on them and then allocating wounds against the closest targets in any order. If you scored enough hits, you could wipe out the unit.
In 7th you'd have to choose which weapon to fire first, resolve it against targets in range and then choose the next weapon. If you did the bolters first and killed the 3 closest orks, the flamer wouldn't have any targets. If you scored the maximum number of hits, you could only kill 8 orks maximum because the bolters and the flamer can't hit the last 3 orks and the lascannon only gets 1 shot.

Of course, if everything is in range or every gun has the same range, you can just roll them all through faster. I think the idea was to stop people shooting guns at targets that were beyond their range by mixing in longer range guns. It wasn't exactly game breaking, but maybe it is better this way?

Primarch wrote:Only about 50 pages in so far. The changes to the shooting phase are fairly cosmetic, but the big change there is that now you roll your attacks with different weapons in the unit separately.

You decide to fire one group of weapons first. You then roll through every step before moving on to the next weapon. The main difference is that you can only hit things in range of the guns when you fire them.

E.g. You have a marine squad containing a flamer, a lascannon and some bolters. You want to shoot a unit of 10 Orks. The flamer is in range of 3 orks, the bolters are in range of 7 orks and the lascannon is in range of all 10.
In 6th you'd just roll all your attacks, hitting everything because the lascannon had range on them and then allocating wounds against the closest targets in any order. If you scored enough hits, you could wipe out the unit.
In 7th you'd have to choose which weapon to fire first, resolve it against targets in range and then choose the next weapon. If you did the bolters first and killed the 3 closest orks, the flamer wouldn't have any targets. If you scored the maximum number of hits, you could only kill 8 orks maximum because the bolters and the flamer can't hit the last 3 orks and the lascannon only gets 1 shot.

Of course, if everything is in range or every gun has the same range, you can just roll them all through faster. I think the idea was to stop people shooting guns at targets that were beyond their range by mixing in longer range guns. It wasn't exactly game breaking, but maybe it is better this way?

That makes a lot more sense I reckon.

Dear mikas pikas

How interactive is the "interactive" ibooks version of 7th ed. I am pleasantly surprised that is available at all on the japanese ibooks store. Please, do elaborate sir.

I played my first game of 7th Ed. Asch guided through the rules and it was quiet fun and smooth. I thought shooting and assaults ran smoothly. The psychic phase is very interesting and easy to follow. And the allied system seems reasonable . ( Also the search feature on the iPad version is very useful.)

I think if people are reasonable, tell their opponents whether they will run unbound or bound and what kind if armies they'll have, I don't think there's going to be too much trouble and plenty of fun.

It seems to be getting a big thumbs up. If there's a starter set, I might wait for that to pick up the rules. Can you wing a game with the 6th ed rulebook? I heard that the changes aren't major so wondered.

So what is the deal with the unrestricted army lists/allies?

If I wanted to make a Genestealer cult with real 'stealers (from Tyranids), Brood Brothers and vehicles (Imperial Guard), Hybrids (maybe using Ork stats for example), and a Magus (Imperial Psyker?) would it be kosher?

Excuse the ignorance if this has been mentioned elsewhere, I really haven't been bothered reading all the rumors, etc.