FAQ: Old News by Now

This is old news by now (three days) for the blogging community, so rather than talk too much about the heavy FAQ handed down from on high in detail, I'm going to talk generally what it means to the community and how it will be effecting my lists directly as I prepare for a 1850 in October.

First off let's talk about GW and their release of this FAQ.  The extent of clarification provided is astounding in two ways...

This is a complete turnaround of GW to recognize the validity of electronic rules update, by releasing an unprecedented series of corrections and clarification.  Not only were the rules that were addressed, exactly the ones that the online community has been mulling over since the release of 6e, but the
FAQ came in such a short time since the release.  A testament to the GW attentiveness to what is going on with the game competitively. 

The second astounding point is, why the heck was this even needed in the first place? There are two major changes that have completely changed global meta as a result of the FAQ.  1. How Look Out Sir works, and the redefining of Nobz and Paladins as characters.  I would like to point out that I agree with these changes because of the balance it provides and it helps to speed up the game.  The problem here is really, who, if anyone really tested these rules out?

I am sure that the rules were play tested, but I get the impression based on how every article on their site is written and the scenarios in the books are designed that it was done with the casual approach to the game from designers we are used to.  I get the impression that a bunch of fluffy lists with "cool" units were used and the rules were worked out that way.  I don't get the feeling that rules were really analyzed with the approach of, "How can I break the game with this?"  Working at a software company, believe me, this is critical in both the design and testing of a complicated system.  The bugs, if you will, need to be found by the designers and testers, not the customers!

At the end of the day, I am happy that the FAQ was released promptly and so much has been clarified.  I hope GW takes this as a lesson for the codexes going forward to the next release.  Also, hoping we do continue to see this kind of prompt attention to rules going forward, that at least has been quite refreshing!

So what does this mean for me?  It has the potential to completely change what I had planned to bring to my next tournament in Oct.  Grey Knights are all over the place where I play and I expected at least a handful of Draigowing. Orcs are always on the scene and I was expecting 2-3 Nob Biker list as well.  Because of these I was toying around last week with a Vindicator for the first time.   After how that first game went with it I was planning on adjusting to bring in a second one.  Now I'm less user about the second one.  With both of those lists completely hamstrung, I don't think I'm going to need quite that much Str 10.

From everything I have heard this weekend, people are swapping out the bikes and pallys for mobs, mobs, mobs of guard.  Vindicators take them out just fine as well, but there are so many other options at AP 4 or 5 that take out guard blobs just as well, if no better.  Regular old Flamers for example.  I'm toying with changing the honor guards plasma guns to flamers and sticking with the single Vindicator I am running already, instead of adding another vindicator.

Still struggling to balance fire power and scoring models in the list.  I can't image doing less than 30 scoring models, but am struggling to field the plasma, flamer and anti air elements in all of this at once.