Reecius here from Frontline Gaming to share some thoughts on this transition into a new edition of our favorite game.
Oddly, the usual sense of trepidation, anxiety and hopefulness associated with an edition change isn’t here for me that usually is. This strikes me as doubly odd as now owning a game store that earns my and my co-workers livelihood thanks in no small part thanks to GW games, I am strangely calm coming into this when the stakes are actually much higher for people in our position than others. Even the fact that we have already signed a contract committing to a large financial investment in the Las Vegas Open 2015 which features GW games hasn’t ruffled us.
Per usual we get tons of questions about this or that fact about the edition change and instead of speculating, cursing or praising rumored rules changes taken out of context, we are simply waiting for what will be.
I think with the turmoil and rapid change the game has gone through with the change from 5th to 6th, and especially since Christmas with the introduction of Escalation, Stronghold, Formations, Dataslates, etc. has really inured us and many others to change. Now, we all simply and calmly play the waiting game.
In the meantime, we play other games, too. I have been having an absolute blast playing Dropzone Commander and I have gotten in a number of games of Infinity and X-Wing, too! It’s been a nice opportunity to get a change of pace.
What anchors us here and keeps us from any hand wringing with this change is that no matter what may come, the community of gamers we are a part of is strong. Yes, there is a vocal minority of haters in our community (looking at you, BoLS Trolls, haha) and yes, there really are some of the elusive WAAC gamers so often spoken of, but so seldom actually encountered. In general though, we are a community of intelligent, nice people that share a common love of gaming, painting miniatures and going “pew pew!” with our toy soldiers.
If this edition is good or bad, the wheels will roll on and and we will continue to come together to enjoy the camaraderie of our hobby. We can make adjustments to any rules we truly don’t like, and we can alter how we play to accommodate. We can also just choose to play other games, too. The friendships we share with one another are what make table top games special, the actual games we are playing are really just window dressing.
So bring 7th ed on! I hope GW hits it out of the park and justifies this rapid change. I hope that we can settle into this edition and not have to go through all the crazy ups and downs this time around. Most of all, I hope we have many more years of fun in the Grim Dark.