The BIG Picture

 Glorious 6th Edition is here in full force and its all the MURDER we could have dreamed it to be. Although the Naysayers hold and threaten large parts of the Galaxy, they are losing ground fast.

2nd Force Org Chart, Fortifications, The Eternal War Mission Set, Secondary Objectives, and Mysterious Terrain & Objectives are Vital Core portions of the game. Ignoring these sections and concepts vastly modifies the game on the tabletop and directly impacts "the metagame." The path to bizzaro 40k-land is paved with good intentions they say:

Apparently the chaotic upheaval is almost over and the stage is set. Now its time to settle in for WAR. Things like Terrain Placement will always be fresh but out of reach to the general competitive scene. 1500pts to 1999+1pts will be the common competitive list sizes. Mysterious Terrain and The Relic will be found under this rock or that one. Allies and Flyers are the new black.

The Fortress of Redemption is the Natural Enemy of the Necron Flyerwing. I think this business about it being unmanageable on the tabletop is nonsense. Remove a terrain piece, move some around, use terrain placement - all easy enough to implement on a small or large scale. Combined with certain powerful armybuilds the Fortress could easily force a shift in the current early 6e metagame. The main strength and benefit of the Fortress (and skyshield) IS its size and domination of the table/terrain.

Aegis Defense Lines have proven themselves to be of great value for basically the same reasons as the Fortress/Skyshield. They are super cheap and give any current army access to some Anti-Air weapons. They work well in the current "limited" competitive conditions where terrain placement is crazy talk and moving or replacing terrain is almost just as horrible a concept. Especially now in this early 6e time period we should be giving the same 'play-out' chance to the larger fortifications.

For mostly the same reasons as the fortifications, the 2nd Force Org chart at 2k and above is important! These types of list build rule restrictions impact the tabletop and metagame drastically.  Good and Bad Generals alike are able to ignore vast portions of the decision making matrix when building their list to be competitive or dominate on the competitive scene. 

At 2k this is the most important crossover army size. As the Allied Detachments, Fortifications and 2nd Force Org Chart all overlap to offer everyone and anyone ridiculous amounts of options. But they are just options at 2k as there are not enough points to get all the toys suddenly. Its a whole new age of 40k that is currently being written off and thrown out for the most part. Another natural enemy of the Obviously Broken and overpowered Flyers - pretty much completely ignored.

Now we have Flying things and more lasers and explosions then ever - the smell of ozone, napalm and death and the confusion of war is on us. This is How It Is Suppose To Be. Dodging and running for cover is what us small folk Should Be doing! We are even ignoring the vastness of options offered by the now legal and GW encouraged Apocalypse units. Even more shit should be blowing up that isent!

Fortifications and the 2nd Force Org Chart offer you options and affect how the flyer list has to be built to win the game reliably. Each of the Core Concepts under attack affect the game in drastic ways that are limiting your options and allowing the flyer list (and others) to use its strengths more dominantly. This is major mind-fuck-ville as the very reason these Core items are being banned and ignored is because They Might introduce options and builds that are too dominate!