Warhammer 40k - The dawn of a new era?

So for my first 40k post there is really only one place to start, 7th Edition. 

It was rumoured for a long time and now it's finally here and Games Workshop promise that it will change the way we play forever...

Ok so that's a bit over dramatic but they certainly are ringing the changes. 

Let's start with unbound and battle forged armies. Originally I was concerned with this as I could see lots of armies just spamming Riptides/Transcendant C'Tans/Wraithknights/<insert big scary unit here>... And perhaps they still will. But the fact that an unbound army can't contest objectives (at least as far as we've seen) should temper these over zealous lists. As a former (and future) Blood Angels player I have used a full death company army before and I know how difficult it can be to table an opponent. 

However, if everything can now score (as was rumoured) and armies can ally with themselves then there is still the opportunity for the system to be abused. 

Next up is the psychic phase. Fantasy magic phase step forward. Now I think this is a good move and an attempt to stop some of the death star builds that developed in 6th edition. Sure some silly things have come along with it (everyone has daemonology?) but the chance to dispell that re-rollable 2++ is something everyone will appreciate. I hope it will bring a bit more balance and strategy to 40k. 

Now for something I'm really looking forward to, variable objectives. Time to come out and play Mr Tau, you can't stay hidden behind that Aegis line all game any more. We've only seen a few of the objectives but there is enough there to give me hope. Kill the enemy general, grab that objective and hold... And once you achieve an objective you get to pick another at random. This should change the game up a bit and make every battle different.

Finally for the rumoured changes. 

Vehicle armour is no longer paper thin, now it's maybe a bit more cardboardy. It sounds like tanks can still be glanced to death but they should be harder to insta-kill. There is talk of an increase in hull points which isn't a bad thing, a squad of necrons with gauss shouldn't be able to glance a land raider to death in one turn. 

Consolidation into combat is back. Assault armies only have to deal with over watch once as long as another enemy unit is within range. To be honest this really makes sense and I think it will give some of the more assault focused armies a chance against the overly shooty armies from 6th. That puddle you see is the salty tears of Tau players. 

Over watch is BS-2 not only on a 6. There are also similar rumours regarding shooting at flyers. 

Interceptor/sky fire can only target ground or air, again I think this makes sense as long as it is in that turn and not for the whole game. 

On a closing note I would like to see Games Workshop advance the fluff a bit. I've seen mentions of the 13th Black Crusade in some of the videos that have been released and it would be nice to see some sort of outcome from that campaign influence this edition. 

7th edition will please some, upset others but hopefully we will all still have fun.