40k has been my long lived main passion in the miniature worlds. I got into it in 3rd edition, and played actively until 7th, which IMO was kind of a train-wreck of a rule-set, which sapped my will to play 40k. Then I got a kid, and stayed out of 8th. At the tail-end of 9th, I considered going back in, but the complexity of the millions of stratagems etc made the learning curve too high. Then along came 10th edition, with some seemingly good simplifications to the rules, so I got a friend from back in the 6th edition days to try it out.
We played 1000pts, Imperial guard vs Eldar.
Eldar –
Autarch on jetbike
Warlock on jetbike
Jetbike squad, all shuriken cannons
Wraithlord, 2x bright lance, sword
Avatar
2x Fire Prism
Imperial Guard –
Creed
Kasrkin, 2x plasma, 2x volley gun, sniper
Castellan
Kasrkin, 2x plasma, 2x grenade launcher, sniper, meltamine
Marshall
Platooon command squad, lascannon, grenade launcher, vox
Full DKK squad, 2x melta, 2x plasma, 2x grenade launcher
2×1 Scout sentinel, autocannon
Leman Russ Exterminator
Manticore
The battlefield, which is now very small at 44″x60″, had several large buildings, two of them classified as intact buildings (hill) and one as a ruin. The “hill” classification of intact buildings turned out a bit weird, as from what we could see, tanks could in theory drive on top of them, even mine who are 9″ tall. Solved with some common sense, but I wouldn’t mind if intact building was something different from a hill.
The new rules for ruins on the other hand are great! 4th edition ruin rules were still better, but it is close enough to the best 40k terrain rules, with abstracted line of sight allowing you to build cool looking terrain, instead of stupid L-walls. Plunging fire from old school city fight is also a great addition. A bit weird you don’t get it from “hills” as well, but might be a balancing factor.
Since the free rules seemingly only have a “kill” mission, which would be very boring from our experience, we found some descriptions of missions and deployments and went with a corner deployment with 5 evenly spaced objectives. We skipped secondaries in this first game.
Eldar got first turn, and with the tiny table, large deployment zones and quick movement, they were on top of my army immediately. The prisms and wraithlord blew up my leman russ and a sentinel. A squad of kasrkin were wiped out by the bikes. The last sentinel would have been killed if my opponent had not gotten greedy and kept one of his fate dice with a “2”, since he instead rolled for his autarch fusion gun and got a 1. I got off an overwatch with the kasrkin, but only killed a single biker.
I tried to focus down the avatar, but with him halving wounds and having a very impressive toughness, save and wounds count, it was hopeless.
Turn 2 was less brutal for me. The DKK blob showed impressive survivability, tanking a ton of shooting. Overwatch did some damage to the eldar, wiping the jetbikes, leaving just the characters. The wraithlord took out the sentinel in combat. The avatar was ready to slaughter DKK next turn. I misunderstood the reinforcements stratagem and recycled the kasrkin, who took an objective.
Turn 3 was the last we had time for. The avatar and DKK started their brawl, the eldar secured some objectives, I lost a squad of Kasrkin. The wraithlord smashed the manticore around a bit.
We gave up at this point, as we had been at it for 4,5 hours including set-up time. Eldar would clearly win with the last two turns.
Thoughts on 10th
Codex & unit balance – The balance is not great from a first glance. The eldar army ability is absolutely insane. Of course, it gets worse at 1000pts, since you get the same amount of dice as you would at 3000pts (terrible idea GW), but anyways, having the ability to just guarantee results is just too good. Even 2s can be put to good use by units such as the autarch, and this was without building to abuse the rule at all. My opponent even had bad luck and had to re-roll twice and still only got a mediocre result.
Some units are also insane. 125pts fire prisms, which are just really good against anything, fast, survivable, amazing range and “indirect” ability, and which can use the fate dice very efficiently are clearly too cheap.
Imperial guard index – Internal balance in the imperial guard index actually seems pretty decent. Overall, I like the index. The power level is very high compared to the earlier editions I’ve played, but as long as that is the norm, it is fine IMO.
I think there is a lot of build options within IG. Infantry seems good, mechanized looks doable, medium infantry is great, sentinels rock, artillery is good, tanks seem usable, super heavies look allright. As long as you bring the Lord Solar, you can make a lot of different build types work, which is well done by GW. (except for “forcing” you to use Lord Solar if you want any non-regiment units)
Every upgrade is free – The lack of points for upgrades seem to work better than expected. I’m impressed by how they have managed to make most heavy weapons at least somewhat viable, even though they cost the same. But then I get disappointed that they have not done the same for pistols and close combat weapons. Would it be that hard to give the laspistol 3+ to hit and 2 shots, the bolt pistol could be the safe middle ground, and the plasma would always need overheat test? Then you would have three actual options for pistols as well. Overall, not great, not terrible.
Alpha strike – Alpha strike has always been an issue with 40k. From this first look, it is even worse now. Smaller battlefield, quicker units, more destructive shooting (Eldar showing up with guaranteed hit, wound and max damage in the first round) and abilities. Having played onepagerules, with alternating activation and all the glory and tactical options that presents, it is painful to just sit there while 33% of your army dies in the first round in 40k.
Stratagems – The insane amount of stratagems in 9th kept me away. I like that they have simplified a bit here, but it was still a ton to keep track of as a newb. I can also see stratagems costing a ton of time in games, as people ponder if they want to use this or that.
The IG reinforcements stratagem seems pretty insane. Just save 2 CP at all times, and you can get hundreds of free points that can come in from pretty much anywhere on the board. Build around it with stuff like armoured sentinels or big blobs of guardsmen for a ton of value. Of course, with the power level of other armies, it might not actually be insane from a 10th edition point of view.
Overwatch – IMO is way too good, and seemingly makes all close combat or short range glass cannon units unusable. The avatar managed to get into combat with my DKK, but without the “halving wounds” and insane toughness, he would be dead to simple guardsmen. Which means, pretty much any other unit would not have been able to get into combat. The jetbikes strayed into 12″ because my opponent wanted to use his flamer, and they died to overwatch. Heavy flamers makes sure light / medium infantry can’t walk within 12″. You really have to build your list and gameplan around this 1 CP stratagem, which likely means using only ranged units and only tough units. Stuff like banshees, wytches and slugga boys are dead in this edition.
Ease of play – The core rules were easy to learn, and we did not spend much time looking up those. However, we spent a ton of time looking up weapon and unit profiles, stratagems etc. I was overall happy with the core rules, they are simplified in a good way. However, I am fearful that unit special abilities and stratagems will make it somewhat hard to just jump in for a game of 40k every now and then.
Time efficiency – I was hoping for a quicker paced game. 10th edition does not deliver. Especially bigger units like my DKK with attached character and command squad, or the jetbikes with two characters, take a long time to resolve shooting. You have to decide split fire and you have to roll a ton of different weapons, many of which have special rules and lots of attacks. It is made worse by stuff like the IG datasheets, that prohibit spamming the same weapon (while eldar jetbikes can all get a shuriken cannon), ending up with 6 different weapon profiles in an optimised unit.
Overwatch and other out of turn abilities increase the time usage by a ton. All the decisions on stratagem use, fate dice use etc. probably increases time usage. Tons of re-rolls, tons of extra dice, modifiers….
With chess clocks not really being an option with 40k due to the back and forth, I am worried that 40k games will often end in turn 3, with no guarantee of equal playing time.
Compared to the time efficiency of kings of war, 40k is a dumpsterfire.
Summary – For all the gloom and doom, all told, I did have a good time playing 40k again with my friend. Units are interesting on the field, and making lists was a more intriguing process than with onepagerules. The cool unit abilities and options gave me motivation to paint up a bunch of old school storm troopers and sentinels. Playing the game, I did spot a lot of possible options with reserves, transports, stratagems etc.
I will try out 40k again, and can likely play this edition from time to time. However, it feels like I will only really enjoy 40k if I really lean into the competitive side, even when playing with friends. The power level in 10th is so ridiculous that you will just be pounded to submission if you do not bring a tuned list. The time issues and unit / stratagem complexity makes me hesitant to consider tourneys.
Final score for 10th edition after one game:
mandollies.com 