Willow brings us a Guest Editorial on the GW First Draft FAQ:
As we all probably know by now, Games-Workshop dropped a huge 40k FAQ bomb on Facebook, asking fans to make sure the questions and answers are clear before they finalize. Since then they’ve been releasing codex specific FAQs in the same fashion. If you haven’t seen them yet, check it out in their mass of photos here.
The FAQ changes a ton, and really destroys a lot of current armies. Battle Brothers can’t begin the game embarked in friendly transports, so goodbye Flesh Tearer’s Rent-A-Pod service and my Dragonaiders. Jinking vehicles make passengers fire Snap Shots as well, meaning my poor Dark Reapers can’t use Venoms as protective firing platforms anymore. There’s so much more in the FAQ that changes how we play the game and will most certainly shake the Meta. But there are also many questions that simply clarify rules, like how vertical movement does not count for overall movement distance for jump pack and jet pack movements, Void Shields are affected by Grav and Gauss and Melta and Haywire, Super Heavy Flyers with Hover cannot Thunderblitz, units with grenades can only use one grenade for the unit in the Assault Phase, and more. These don’t change army list restrictions and just show GW’s original intent. However, as I play games with people, discuss rules, play in tournaments, everyone seems to say ‘Oh it’s just a draft, it isn’t official yet, we ignore those rules.” It has me scratching my head, because while I know it’s a draft and we shouldn’t necessarily adopt all the rules that suddenly ruin a vast majority of people’s army compositions, many of these little rules clarifications show GW’s true intent in regards to rules we’ve decided to interpret differently as a community. Now, I’m a fan of starting to run tournaments using the entire draft, but at minimum I beg of the community to let all the simple rules clarifications that don’t make army builds illegal to be incorporated into our tournaments. There’s no reason my Fire Dragons should each be able to attack with Melta Bombs any more, as GW has shown their intent that the ‘one grenade per unit’ rule is not limited to shooting, and was clearly their intent the whole time. Void Shields weren’t meant to be godlike like they are in our current ITC format. Move Through Cover wasn’t meant as an alternative to Assault Grenades. Etc. Etc.
Last weekend at Guardian Cup I had three or four separate occasions where my opponents and I used or tried to use rules as written in the GW Draft FAQ only to realize we’re supposed to be completely ignoring those rules. I took out a D-Thirster without taking a single wound, in close combat, with Fire Dragons and a couple characters, in two phases. It felt dirty to win that game when I know GW didn’t intend for my Fire Dragons to be better monstrous creature killers in assault then many other close combat units in the game. We’re all ready, we’re all thinking about them, preparing our new lists and strategies. Death from the Skies is already here and changing up the Meta. Change is coming, and I say there’s no better way to prepare than by playing the GW FAQ in our tournaments. Forcing players to adapt to new rules as rapidly as they arrive will bring variety in lists, less net listing, and emphasize the truly skilled players. Plus, who actually likes drop pod armies anyways?
Let us know in the comments section how you feel about the GW First Draft FAQ and using it before its finished?