How to build a 6th edition list with Percentages

Hey all, so there has been a lot of chatter around the web about the invasion of fantasy rules into 40k for 6^th edition. I understand all of the apprehension since I know a lot of the blogosphere surfers tend to not play fantasy. But I say fear not. It will be a bit weird for y’all at first but you might even like it…..although I will say a lot of WAAC players might get a bit Agro over this. What I am talking about is the rumored change that 40k is nixing the force org. chart for a fantasy percentages based system. Now I will at first say I like the fantasy system more since it tends to balance things out. So how will this work exactly if this come to fruition? Well some are obvious and some aren’t.

So fantasy works like this. You get certain point allowances for each of the unit types you are allowed to take. Just like 40k core(troops) are required so they have a minimum you must take percentage which is 25%....You get an allowance of max 25% spent of Lords (Generals/Main HQ), 25% max on heroes (lesser HQ’s), 50% max on special (elites/fast attack) and 25% max on Rare (kind of heavy support)…So since there is not a real obvious matchup from one force org slot to another between fantasy and 40k we have to speculate a little.

Well the first weird thing is that fantasy has technically 2 HQ force org types (Lords and heroes). A direct translation over to 40k would be a maximum of 25% of your points you could spend on HQ choices. Yet since it is double it could be anywhere from 25%-30%. So saying it is 25% in a 2000 point game you could spend a maximum of 500 points on HQ choices. But you can also take as many as you want. So if you have a HQ choice that costs only 100 points you could technically have 5 of them. So this allows you to take as many units in any allowance area as you wish which is pretty cool. It also allows you to spam psychers to help game the probable random psychic powers. (This is how you can game fantasy magic as you take a a couple high level or a few smaller level wizards to get as many spells as possible.) Also with the neutral spychic “lores” you can set up some awesome combos. The only caviat with this slot is you must have one HQ to be your general…..

So the probable most obvious slot set is the Troops section which is a direct translation from core meaning you must spend 25% of your points on troops units. This is what might make some players that play competitively a little angry. So in a 2000 point game you must take 500 points of troops. So the guy you know who spends 200 points on troops in that 2000 point army will not be able to do that anymore. Think about it? You would need to take five 5 man scout scouts with cloaks, rifles, and a missile launcher to be allowed to play a 2000 point game. Yet min/maxer’s can game this by having as many choices as possible in the troops spot. Yet with vehicles being weaker and assault troops becoming stronger a min maxer for a mech army will have a lot of trouble to come.

So next up we have the last obvious slot which is Heavy support. It is stretching it a little bit but they are most related to Rare choices which is also a maximum allowance of 25%. So in a 2000 point game you can spend a maximum of 500 points on heavy support. So this benefits cheap heavies like thunderfire cannons as you can now have I believe five in a 2000 point game (they are 100 points I believe) Yet you cannot spam out land raiders since the max you could take in a 2000 point game is 2 and even then that might not be possible….

Now the hardest slots to determine is elites and fast attack as they are both represented in the special category for fantasy…..so how will this play out? It is probable they would both get a 25%-35% max allotment slot with 30% being the most likely but I would not be surprised if they limit elite choices since they are technically suppose to be almost rare…..so a 25%/30% split might be possible….

Now before someone says it just because  you can spend 500 points doesnt mean you have to and it also doesn’t mean you can always spend that much since you still have a limit at say 2000 points….

So a radical change for 40k that some may not like but it allows a greater balance to the game and a new level of point spending creativity…It also extremely helps armies like DE that run out of force org slots too quickly…..yet we all have to wait till 6^th to find out the truth….more on this later….

Btw expect 6^th edition to be up for preorder last weekend in June with the release date being Friday the 13^th of July….