Dan: Hi, I'm Dan
Adam: fuck you Dan.
Dan: Thanks. Welcome to our new blog Two Awful people.
Adam: I also welcome you, but better than Dan. We've meant to do this for two years. The Delay is all Dan's fault. So going all yuppie, what's the mission statement of the blog?
Dan: Shut up. We're here to talk about gaming, 40k and tournamenting.
Adam: tournamenting is not a word Dan. But bearding is.
Dan: Sentences start with capital letters. In other news 7th Edition 40k has recently been released and we have been playing a game or two.
Adam: And despite being a naturally hateful person and fearing change, I love 7th so far. It rewards aggression and punishes reliance on last turn pixie tricks.
Dan: I like it because it rewards playing the mission and careful tactical thinking more than aggression, whilst encouraging mid table play and mobility.
Adam: They are also things. Close combat appears to exist again, rather than being a dimly recalled red memory.
Dan: These are effects that could have been achieved in 6th, however as everything we just mentions has been achieved with one change. The new mission structure. You may think that random objectives generated turn to turn would be a bad thing. I'll let Adam, who hates random tables and effects comment on why they aren't.
Adam: Yes random sucks. But half of objectives are take objective (X) so you can safely assume you'll be getting plenty of opportunity to take locations on the table. The other objectives are often simple, if not necessarily easy to achieve. Best part is if an objective is impossible you can discard it and get a new one (there may be some caveats attached).
Dan: Not just if they're impossible, you can discard any objective at the end of a turn in most missions (some have particular objectives that must be kept). So far the only objectives that really make me groan when I draw them are Demolition (as my opponent often has no buildings) and Dominate, which is only achievable if you have pretty much already won.
Adam: Or if you play Dark Eldar! or some thing equally fast.
Dan: Like Centurions!
Adam: with infiltrate?
Dan: And Gate.
Adam: probably excessive there. Eldar could do it, as could space marines using basic troops (that's bikes, Tacticals are just a sad joke that need putting out of their misery).
Dan: That's true, but I can't help but feel we are wandering a little off topic. Complementing the new objectives (which aren't as random as you think) is the new pregame sequence.
Adam: Off topic?! you don't own a hundred of the bastards, you'll never know my pain! But the pregame sequence is good. My farseer gets more powers now if he specialises and the warlord table seem a lot more useful at first glance.
Dan: I like the warlord tables and the psychic powers, but you are getting a bit ahead of yourself. Again. The really important thing is that objective markers are now placed prior to table side selection, and there are always the same number, six.
Adam: So no longer are all objective 6" away from the board edge in each corner and one buried in a ruin in the centre of my deployment zone.
Dan: It's not that we don't want to horribly game the objective system, its that the design actively prevents us from doing so. And that lets us have fun.
Adam: That's exactly what YOU want to do Dan. Yay! the rules say we can have fun at last. 17 years man, 17 years we've been playing this and now you tell me i'm lucky enough to be allowed to have fun.
Dan: You sound like a fluff gamer. What do you expect of me? Not exploiting rules loopholes?
Adam: That's not okay. you have to say f word.
Dan: Wah, wah my Tactical Marines are rubbish. *sob* the nasty tournament gamers are putting their objectives in good tactical positions. Sheesh.
Adam: I'll put my objective in your mums tactical position! Anyway, so objectives are better now. Balanced, quite literally since there done before deployment zones are decided so it's not just can I hold this objective, but can I take it?
Dan: We have been seeing a lot more mid table objectives, mostly the tactical aspect of placing objectives seems more focused on setting up board positions and distances between them suited to your army.
Adam: Creating what appears to be the triangle of death of central objectives to charge onto and some lonely ones near a board edge to take best advantage of fast attack and flankers. The style of how an army plays seems to become obvious when you look carefully at how your opponent has placed the objectives. But the best bit is they wont all be in their deployment zone.
Dan: We'll end the discussion there for now as we have already run on quite a bit. If you like what you're reading come back for more on no fixed schedule!
Adam: I can't think of a joke to end on. Rabbits. that is all.
