I was around and did buy the first edition of Warhammer 40000 way back in 1987. I went with Orks mainly as I had an Orc army in Warhammer (the fantasy version) and since then they have been the mainstay of my 40K gaming.
The last edition of 40K I bought was the fifth edition back in 2008 and for many reasons I stopped playing 40K and moved onto other systems and games. That is quite normal for me, I think I bought the fourth and fifth editions, but didn’t bother with the second or third editions of 40K.
At the weekend, Simon came over for a game and we tried out the eighth edition rules.
For a change and I think the first time I had actually used them on the tabletop I got my Cadian Kasrkin out and played with them.
The Kasrkin are elite troops of the Imperial Guard and are dedicated to the security of the Fortress World of Cadia from which they hail. Because they are elite special forces troops drawn from the same world as the existing Cadian Shock Troops Regiments of the Imperial Guard, the Kasrkin are officially classified by the Departmento Munitorum as the type of Storm Troopers known as Grenadiers because of their heavy weapons and elite tactical training. Their name comes from the title of the fortress cities of Cadia, which are called “Kasrs” in the native Cadian dialect of Low Gothic.
I have ten of them, including a commander, a trooper with a Flamer and one with a Grenade Launcher.
For the game we treated them as Militarum Tempestus Scions, as the new Indexes (Indices) have conveniently forgotten the Kasrkin.
As for who they would be fighting, Simon came along with his new Necrons!
The game is very familiar to those who’ve played before. The main differences for me were the replacement of grids with a simpler table and the lack of templates. I like the abstract nature now of template weapons, it doesn’t change the impact of such lethal weaponry, but removes the fiddly placing of templates and potential cheesiness of moving figures around.
It’s a bit of an assumption that complicated rules means that the game is more “realistic”, as though las guns and robots are in anyway “realistic”.
Overall I really like this new version of the rules, they were simple enough to remember easily, and allowed for faster play, but also they provided for a fun game.