I must admit that I'm a little torn about the 6th edition rules for power weapons and Feel No Pain (FNP). Although I've not yet got the new rules (and hence going by the rumours), it seems like power weapons are now AP3. This gives terminators a big buff, but on the other hand makes units like bloodletters and bloodcrushers a touch worse off.
On the other hand, feel no pain moving from 4+ to 5+ means that my plague marines are suddenly a lot weaker. No longer do they have an equivalent 2+ save -- it's a 2.33+ save equivalent. This makes me sad as small arms fire is going to bring them down more frequently. It feels like this change has been brought in to specifically tackle other armies (Blood Angels?). I hope that the new chaos and daemons codex makes plaguebearers and marines back to 4+ FNP -- their points value is now over costed.
On the other hand, they now have a FNP save against power weapons which they never had before! But then again, only a small subsample of opposing units have access to those weapons by the bucketful. So its not going to particularly balance the move to 5+ FNP I think. Maybe I'm wrong. Either way, it'll be good to finally get hold of the new rules when they come out and play a few games through. There's a number of game changers in there (allies, fortifications, etc.) that go above and beyond these considerations and we'll all be re-thinking our army lists as a result!
I agree that it may not be completely balanced out but they will get FNP against those low AP weapons that won't instant death them like plasma or things like wind or chaos/breath of chaos, etc.
ReplyDeleteThey could also leave their FNP at a 5+ but make Plague Marines base T5 and not the T4(5) crap. With instant death being the only way to bypass FNP that would mean they get FNP against damn near everything.
ReplyDeleteI think on the whole it will roughly balance out. Besides, there's no guarantee that pm will still have fnp in the next book anyways.
ReplyDeleteThe new rules will also probably force Dark Eldar armies away from the assault route and more down the shooty route. Especially since so many DE assault units rely on FNP from pain tokens due to their low armour saves.
ReplyDeleteA great pity actually, as I always thought (up to now) that the DE codex was 5th eds big triumph in terms of game balance.
I like the change from a certain standpoint simply because I like to throw a wall of PM's in front of dedicated assault troops and watch as the combo of blight grenades and T5+FNP tarpit them completely. Sadly that wasn't very useful in 5th, since they had to serve as melta delivery once everyone was in a friggin box, my hope is that in the new dex we'll get poisoned cc weapons back and make merry sport of the emperor's finest again.
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