My First Game of 40K 8th Edition

I played my first game of 40K 8th Edition this weekend at our semi-monthly game day, held at the Rocket Republic microbrewery.  I played a 3-player, free-for-all game with Jonathan and Clay.  I'm glad that Clay had a good grasp on the rules.  He patiently walked us through some things that had me tripped up, so a big thanks to him for taking a very objective view to the rules while still in the heat of battle!

I don't have any pictures from the actual game, unfortunately, so this Ork Warbuggy will have to suffice for eye-candy.
I purchased most of my currently usable Ork army, and I think the original owner did an awesome job capturing the character of the Orks.  I love this model!  And the Warbuggy was my MVP for the game.

IMO, the rules are a huge improvement over at least the last three editions.  They get across pretty much the same play experience without all of the confusion, complexity, and daunting-ness of the bloated mess of previous editions.  That said, I think that the game is still fundamentally trapped in a 30-year-old style of play.  The antiquated IGOUGO activation system; 3 waves of dice rolls to resolve combat; the lack of a reaction system (other than a token Overwatch step); and the lack of a suppression system.  Those drawbacks won't hinder me from playing the game or enjoying the game -- I just won't necessarily seek out the game.  On occasion, though, I foresee the wish to bring alive on the tabletop my Tau, Eldar, Orks, and AdMech, and it will be easier to do that in their native game system.

Jonathan won the game by quietly sitting on two objectives.  I had control of one, and Clay and I were wrestling over another one.  My Orks were one turn away from excising all the weedy Eldar from the second objective.  If we had rolled one more turn, I probably would have squeezed out a victory from Jonathan by 1 victory point, obtained from secondary objectives.  Just the kind of game I really enjoy -- a nail-biter until the very end.

Jonathan's Space Wolves' las-cannons sliced up Clay's Eldar Wraith-Knight like butter.  So that was interesting to see half of Clay's army get vaporized.  But it made sense, given the points that Jonathan spent on the las-cannons.  Tanks were very durable, which also made sense.  The Ork Warbuggy and Trukk were surprisingly durable and effective, which didn't make quite as much sense, but it certainly kept the game balanced.  I can justify the Warbuggy endurance by imagining it jinking and jiving and popping in the air to escape the fire directed at it.  Overall, everything felt right, which is probably a first, in my experience playing 40K, ha, ha.  So, yeah, there's another plus for the game experience.  I'll enjoy playing it again, I'm sure.