Righto! The fables tome is at last out. GW stores across the globe are filled with happy (or groaning) gamers, rattling dice and rustling pages. Even a giggley, "squee"-ing manageress in the case of my FLGS!
After months (years?) of rumours we finally have our hands on 6th Ed. and can get stuck in with a few games. I didn't even get chance to open the book other than to smell the newness before I was asked to take the honour of the first in store game. A simple 1000 point affair, Codex Space Marines vs. Codex Space Marines; Flyers and Skimmers vs. Massed Dreadnoughts, so an interesting mix.
Our game was frought with flicking back and forth searching for rules and making sure we were doing things 'the new way'. Inevitably, we realised we had done a few things wrong in previous turns, the game was massively slowed down (not the fault of the rules though, just us trying to understand) and we spent a good portion of our time answering questions from curious on-lookers and inquisitive staff who were trying to leach our on-table experience to help teach others.
So what did I discover? Well, the armies handled much as we expected them too. Despite more readilly availible cover saves for them, the vehicles were much more fragile than they had been. My Venerable Dreadnoughts were not the unstoppable behemoths they had once been (although my captain stubbornly refused to take wounds... again, nothign to do with the rules mechanics, simply a lot of lucky saves) and my Rhinos and my opponant's Land Speeders were quickly dealt with.
A noticabley higher number of shots were fired by both of us. Always being able to get shots off to 24" with Rapid Fire weapon's feels much more dangerous and not simple taking a vehicle out of action with a single glance stunning it really does make them feel like a very valid threat until they are destroyed, despite their fragility. Wound Allocation seemed complicated as we were reading it, but quickly became very intuitive. Hiding squad Sergeants at the back didn't really happen much, though I did lose my only Powerfist because I left him exposed. Holding them in the middle of a squad actually felt fairly reasonable (knowing roughly how many wounds we were likely to take) and didn't detract from the feel of the game at all.
As for combat... I'm afraid I can't say. Other than my Captain slicing two immobilised Land Speeders, each with a single Hull Point remaining after before the less than 2" charge, we didn't actually get any. Not because shooting was that effective, just that neither of us had overly combaty armies and didn't deploy to take the fight to the enemy.
So most importantly, my first impressions? Well, without having read the book first, it was a trial. A lot of page hunting and having to double back to correct myself from doing things like we had in 5th. But the actual rules seemed to play well. Once we get our collective heads around the changes, I think it will be every bit as fun as 5th, if not more so. Will it address the imbalances between the Codicies? I can't really say. Some of them yes, some of them I would expect to increase the dividing gulf, at least until the next round of Army Lists and new rules come out.
What are other people's actual experiences of gaming under 6th Ed? I don't want to hear what people think might happen having read the rules, or based on the rumours and "facts" we've read over the last few days.
Oh, and by the way... I won