Selecting a balanced army has in some circles been frowned upon. Many players in previous editions would load up on Troops or more commonly Heavy Support to try and put together a winning combination. The notion of selecting a balanced army - an army featuring selections from all branches of the Force Organiztion chart becomes a more attractive option for everyone with the release of sixth edition.

With the new Endless War missions, the focus is mostly on controlling objectives with only one mission which sees destroying enemy units as the main goal.

The notion of scoring units has also evolved, extending to other force organization selections from just the previous Troops. This also provides a new "tool in the toolbox" when it comes to scenario design for those looking to go beyond what's in the rulebook. Denial units have also evolved and some selections now cannot prevent an enemy from controlling an objective. Most notably, vehicles and swarms.

This shift in how objectives are controlled should now make selecting your army a bit more challenging. Mechanized armies lose a lot of capability for denying objectives, except for the 'Big Guns Never Tire' mission and in 'The Scouring' mission Fast Attack selections count as scoring units.

With a full third of games now played with a short table edge as a player's board edge the ability to maneuver, deep strike, or even outflank becomes a reason to reconsider the effectiveness of some units which may have been left on the shelf previously.
With the changes we are now seeing with how the game is going to be played, players will need to revisit how their army is composed.

This shift may see non-competitive armies closing the gap between the lists seen traditionally as more competitive ones. Keeping the more competitive nature of the game in-check will almost certainly lead to more fun for everyone - and more diverse armies on the tabletop.

Army Balance - Levelling the playing field.
7/20/2012 04:12:36 pm

Astro has always favoured more maneuverable armies, the more moving parts the better. Obviously some missions are exceptions... I'm stuck in limbo, but post new Chaos Codex I have some ideas. One thing I've always liked is Outflanking, much more than Deep Strike, though the Deep Strike rules are more forgiving as 40K has evolved and there are extra special rules/wargear that can help.

Some new PDF has been promised which will probably add those Flakk missiles to most armies at a cost. Someone pointed out that part of the time both FA and HS are scoring, so a gambler could still go heavy on one or the other and test their luck. Personally a lot of my favourite units (Chosen and Cult Marines) will probably slot into Elite in the new codex, Elites are rarely scoring. The Warlord trait that makes them scoring is also a bonus.

I still think there is incentive to gamble on army selection and hope your opponent/mission combination is favourable, I don't see tactical squads or there equivalent becoming mandatory though many basic guns and basic grunts appear to have gotten better in 6th Edition.

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4/29/2013 04:24:05 pm

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