After years of war gaming I have never seen a change of this magnitude. The entire gaming system has been revamped to a much more simpler and streamlined system in fact the entire rule book as been condensed to 14 pages, 4 pages of actual rules, 10 for scenery. All the factions now have "warscrolls" available, this is essentially a larger version of the Hordes/Warmachine unit cards that have all the unit details on it. All of this for FREE! I mean getting something for free from GW you know the apocalypse is approaching.
All the rumors of round bases have been half true, all the rumors of races being dropped from the system false, and the rumors of "bubble wars"? Unknown. In fact not much fluff is really available, though I doubt that could be a saving factor.
Now let's look at some of the new rules.
From the start there is some confusion with these simple rules. Since you can have your army "as big as you like". The warscrolls are for most part actually quite nice, since you have everything you need on one page. all the special rules are on it, the lack of artwork does make it seem somewhat pale in comparison to the previous books.
That aside, there are no more "regiments" it has now moved to more of a "squad" base as in 40k, charges no longer go 2D6 + the movement characteristic, now it is 2D6 for everything, infantry, cavalry, monsters anything you can think of now can only charge 2D6, some nice communist equality.
Once you charged into combat the actual fighting is also somewhat different, there are no TO-HIT table or TO-WOUND table, your unit will hit another unit on the amount written on the Warscroll. So if your regiment attacks a mighty regiment of Greatswords or Dark Elf executioners, it will be equally difficult to hit a regiment of goblins... This is one major change that I do not agree with in the slightest. Once you finally hit your opponent, there is the matter of wounding, that has also now been cursed with the same logic that TO-HIT is now cursed with. Wounding a monster, a hero equally broken in the sense that you now only roll to wound on your warscroll. The only bit that relies on your opponent is the actual save, which is now easy to find on the warscroll, though you also now have a rend ability which deducts his save.
My one major gripe is how they have "modified" magic, in 8th edition magic played a big role, you had 4 levels of mages, this have now been negated, all wizards are now "equal" without level, the only difference is their actual abilities. Core spells that use to be 56 and 64 in end times for core selections have now been reduced to a mere 2 spells. Casting no longer gets any benefit from your awesome mage, dispelling is now as easy for a imperial acolyte as it is for a god like wizard (Slann).
The one major change to combat resolution is that a regiment no longer flees as one, individual warriors flee for their lives.
At the moment I am going through various warscroll compendiums to see how this will actually play out.
PS - Missing from previous editions:
- Regiments
- Rank Bonuses
- Troop Types
- Magic Items / Weapons
- Special Rules
- Regiment Upgrades
- Point costs associated with models
- Army composition rules
- Movement penalties
- Proper rule book
