Well Whaddayaknow? 7th Ed FAQ's and Errata up

They're Here  More after I've read and digested.

7th Edition By the Numbers -- Charging Through Terrain

I plan on math-hammering some of the changes in 7th Ed that I think are interesting to look at mathematically.  Here's the first:

One of the rumored changes is that when charging through terrain, instead of using the current method of rolling 3D6 and dropping the highest to determine the charge distance that instead it's a simple -2" to the charge distance (e.g. 2D6 - 2).   So what does that do really?

Below is  a graph of the probability of a particular charge distance being rolled for both methods:
Blue is the old method, Red is the new method.

 

 The obvious thing is that now it's possible to roll a 0" charge range -- and sit there holding your pickle (or whatever) after taking overwatch shots, and it's now impossible to roll anything over 10"; but, when you look at the odds of rolling an 11 or 12 with the old method, you odds were pretty remote anyway (1% and 0.5% respectively)

But really, the odds of rolling a given range are less important than the odds of  making a given charge (i.e. the odds of rolling that range or more)  I've plotted those odds below:

Looked at this way, the two methods are actually pretty close. 

But what about fleet?  Does re-rolling 3 dice vs 2 make a huge difference?  As it turns out, at 6", it's a difference of 7%, hardly  game-breaking.

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7th Ed -- What the FOC?

So the news has dropped that 7th Ed will allow for lists that ignore the FOC, and across the internet, people are declaring that THIS is the last straw... THIS is the end of 40K.... Really?  Damn, these folks must be a helluvalot smarter than me to reach this conclusion based on the vague text from White Dwarf.  Let us remember that the current FOC allows such fun things as Seer-Star, Screamer-Star, Centurion-Star, Demon Flying Circus.... um... you get the point.  The article also vaguely states that if you use a FOC list, you get bonuses in game, flipped around that means that non-FOC lists get penalties versus a FOC list.  So in any event, I plan to wait and see the full rules before I start planning the funeral.