On the Horizon

Just a short update since it's been a while. I'm starting to slowly gear up to play more 40k again. My time off has been spent in the realm of video games like Mass Effect 1 and 2 back to back and Left 4 Dead 2. But as we know, Blood Angels are making their come back soon and also a new Dawn of War 2 expansion in March will help me stick to the 40k universe more. A friend of mine is thinking about offering himself up to the 40k gods and will learn the game as something to do with friends. He doesn't want to invest in an army or paint, but that's okay since I have two armies myself in the works, and my friend's Tau are sitting on my shelves. I'll teach him the basic rules and then get a feel for what sort of army he'd like (Shooty, assaulty, drop pod, etc) and have him play that with the other models as stand ins.
I also ran into the guy I mentioned before that has an army and would like to start playing again from a few year break. He gave me a quick run down, but basically it sounds like a foot-slogging Codex Marine list, built in 3rd or 4th edition. Lots of tacticals, sniper scouts, termies with land raiders, etc, but no Rhinos/Drop Pods to speak of. We'll try to get some games in soon I hope and the battle reports will start to flow again. I haven't taken on Marines before, except of the Chaos variety and I've only ever drawn against them. He is also interested in going to the local independent store for 40k Fridays each week, so that could open things up even more.

As for the latest BA Codex floating about, I dunno. I'm not terribly happy with it. Hoping a bunch of that stuff is debunked later on, but who knows. I'll miss the Furioso Venerable Death Company dreads and the Baal Pred is now 10 points more expensive and weaker with the new Over-charged engine rules I think. The new lander is meh. You have a dual-twin-linked Assault Cannon... but one shot and it's bye-bye. 16 capacity, but that means 5-man assault squad and an IC or odd number squads that don't get benefits like double special weapons or combat squads anyway. Can carry a dread, but no assault ramp so he still has to hide a turn before doing anything. All it would do is get around the drop pod rule that we'll get updated to. Anyway, hope some things get polished up more and we don't have so many "FAQ" incidents like the last couple new codexes.