Since everyone is having a rant/review/analysis of 8th edition, it seems only fitting to have a couple of posts about how I'm trying to work that into building out the 5th Company. This isn't about the rules or strategy per se - just musings about how the changes affect a collector's project and a few notes on the experiences with GW in April/May on the way to the new edition.
Since I have been working on the Daemonbanes more as a display rather than gaming army, I had been putting off buying the rulebooks for a very long time - it was only after assembling 40 marines (4x 10 man squads) and starting work on a 15-man Death Company unit that I figured I needed a lot more info on how all of those cool special rules worked in-game.
While my army doesn't need to be tournament-winning, I wanted it to at least:
1. Reflect a battle-company structure
2. Be rules & codex-compliant
3. Loaded out to highlight the tactics of each unit, but without overkill
Anyway... point is I finally felt the need to understand how all the special rules mentioned in the codex play out on the board, and get a copy of the rules.
To set the scene... I need to have a (long) rant about my general luck & timing when it comes to product releases. Without fail, I seem to buy into something at the wrong time - I bought my first set of CNC gaming boards just as they went out of production (it took ~18 months on ebay to find the boards I was missing); I bought the BA codex about 3 weeks before Angel's Blade came out; I bought 1 sheet of BA transfers (40 company markings) only for it to go out of production before I could get enough for the whole company. Basically I'm the person who would have bought a Beta VCR rather than the VHS, just before they went out of production.
Which brings me to my timing on buying the 7th Edition rulebooks... I finally bought a copy on 19th April this year, after ~18 months of mucking around with blood angels minis. Literally 3 days before 8th edition was announced and 7th Ed was being taken off the shelves.
Crap.
Much to my (pleasant) surprise - the following week GW announced they were not only willing to refund the cost for anyone who had recently purchased the ruleset, but would allow you to keep the copy as well. I work with a bunch of retailers in my day job and it's pretty unheard of for a company to give you a refund AND let you keep the product just because they released a new version. The online guys were super helpful and set me up with a gift voucher for the full amount within about a week.
But what does that mean for fleshing out a battle company in the meantime?
The rules are upon us this week, but in April I was wondering whether I should just hold off assembling any more marines in case the rules or unit loadouts changed. Would the unit sizes or formation requirements would mean having to rethink the models to buy? Or worse; would a bunch of the minis or parts go out of production, like the update to 32mm bases or the much bigger deal in 1997 to roll out new marine sprues (turns out this last thought wasn't too far off the mark for what did happen in 8th ed...).
In continuing the rant series, I'll add a few notes on:
- Pre-ordering 8th Edition while I was in the UK (damn prices look different to regular Oz)
- Where some of my planned units will have to change (command unit & assault for starters)
- What the 5th company will have to look like (after fully digesting the new rules)
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