7th Edition Initial Thoughts on Changes

Well 7th is out and I have been perusing it and trying to find the changes and how it all seems to fit together.  Overall this is a good update and clarifies a lot of rules issues.  Still waiting for the FAQs though to see what other changes are going to be made in relation to armies.  There are a few notable changes that have not been mentioned and are important.

The big change with shooting now is that you fire by weapon type, hit, wound, remove casualties and then move on.  You get to choose which weapons to fire, but this is a good change and prevents people trying to get extra inches.  Another important thing to note for wound allocation is weapon range profiles.  Lets say you are firing a lasgun at rapid fire range, but kill all models within 12" but still have wounds to allocate, you continue to allocate wounds up to the weapons maximum range even if you fired at rapid fire range.  The logic behind it is that even though you fired at rapid fire, the shot is still effective up to its maximum range and can still cause wounds.  So even if you fire at rapid fire at 12", you can still allocate wounds up to 24".  This also affects Salvo weapons that fire and move, you can only elect to target and fire at units within that half range, but wounds can still be allocated up to the maximum.

Beams seem to have gotten better.  It does not appear that they lose a strength for each hit, at least I can find no mention of it.  So beams will stay at full power for each hit unless stated otherwise in the powers profile.  Beams though can only go as far  as the range in the profile, at least that is how I have read it.  Focused witchfires can target a specific model, but in order to do so you most roll more warpcharges than required to cast it.  So if it is WC2, you have to roll 3 WC to choose the model it goes on, other wise it is the closest model to the psyker.

Fortifications are now placed during the players deployment, not before terrain, which makes so much more sense.  I do not believe fortifications can be placed outside of your deployment zone anymore, which is a fair trade off. EDIT: Fortifications are deployed using same rules as for the rest of your army so they must be within your deployment zone.

The rules for setting up a battle though are actually much more fluid and basically state that these are guidelines, but you can do what you want.  Terrain is set up first and how you see fit, none of the terrain set up rules from the previous edition, you and your opponent place them until agreed upon.  Now though objectives are placed before deciding deployment zones.  They are placed the same way as before, but there is less guarantee that you will deploy on the objectives you want.  After terrain and objectives are placed, then you determine deployment sides, you roll off and the winner chooses who goes first or second, the person that goes first chooses sides.  So if you win the roll off and elect to go second, your opponent chooses which deployment zone he wants not you.  Otherwise the eternal war missions are the same, though for big guns and scouring, those respective units only give VPs if you kill them.  So fast give VP fore each one killed, same for heavy, but do not get bonuses for scoring or anything.

I have yet to really look in depth at the maelstrom missions, but you do start off with three cards and if you use one, you draw another at start of your turn till you have three objective cards.  Each mission has a set deployment type to follow and some special rules, overall they look like a lot of fun.

In regards to vehicles, one big change is that fast vehicles can fire two weapons at cruising speed.  Fast vehicles can def put out more firepower now, making the taurox primes even better as they can move 12 and fire both weapons as full BS.  Other wise the other change to vehicle shooting is that LoS and range are measured from the barrels.  No clarification on heavy and ordnance so it still is the same regarding snap shots for the other weapons.  FAQs are not out yet.  Dozer blades add one AV to the vehicle that is ramming, a nice bonus.  Also vehicles cannot go flat out if they move and a unit disembarks, so if you move up 6, a unit jumps out, you cannot then move flat out in front of that unit to protect it from return fire.  If the vehicle doesn't move before the unit disembarks, it can act normally.

There are a lot of little tweaks in here and its going to take some time to figure them all out, but a lot are for the better and I am liking this new edition, its looking to be better than the old and keep the good parts of 6th but refine them better.

GG