About to play first game in years!

[jasdow77]

Hey guys, I am about to play my first game in probably five years with a buddy of mine who has only played once or twice. I have been reading the rulebook over and over, but my question to you is are there any generally excepted changes or conventions that have been made since say 2005? I'm not looking for house rules, all though I would like to hear them later once I get the basics back. Anything or links there would be great. I'm very excited about my game. I have a little narrative and I will write it up after thd game. Thanks in advance for your help.

[MarcoSkoll]

By "generally accepted changes", most Conclave events use the V1.1 Ruleset in the Living Rulebook, but we've reached something of a consensus on how to fix "Lightning Reflexes" (which GW never finished up themselves). It's replaced by the following two abilities:

1) Lightning Reflexes
The character has astoundingly quick reflexes and can react to circumstances with blinding speed.
The character may, at any point once per round, attempt to take a "Reaction". This is always a single action which must be a 'reflex', reacting to the actions of another character or to an event – it may not simply be to run an extra 6 yards, make another attack in combat, or fire an extra shot.

Examples might include jumping aside as you see a gunman rear up from behind some crates, lunging  instinctively with your sword as the enemy charges in at you, or diving to catch a valuable object that has just been dropped. As ever, the GM is the final arbitrator over what can and cannot be done.

The player declares their reaction and rolls a D6. If the result is equal to or less than the character’s Speed, the Action is achieved (a roll of 1 always fails). Once the Action has been resolved the round continues as normal and the character whose turn was interrupted may continue his turn.

2) Lightning Wits
The character thinks on his feet with outstanding speed, able to assess a combat situation and come up with the best course of action in moments. If a character with Lightning Wits needs to Change his Actions as described on page 26 of the Rulebook, then he automatically passes the Initiative test to re-declare his actions.

Additionally, he may ignore his first compulsory Pause for Breath action per turn. (For example, when re-declaring his actions, or if he is in a close combat that ends while he still has actions left.) This does not apply to non-compulsory Pause for Breath actions declared by the player.

There's also the "official" FAQ, which you're probably already aware of, but which I will link anyway.

EDIT: Not exactly a rules change, but I developed the Economy Character sheet earlier this year, which has proven quite popular.
It aims to speed up games by putting up to four characters on just one sheet of paper. The result is less shuffling of character sheets (as it's not three or four pieces of paper - it's this side or the other of just one piece) and fewer sheets of paper cluttering up the table.

[InquisitorHeidfeld]

Can't remember when the "Errata" came out (it wasn't really an Errata but more a list of clarifications)...

But things like Power Knives not being effected by "Blademaster" were covered by that...

[Cortez]

The main changes that you might not have in your rulebook/know about are the changes to the lightning reflexes rule (should be in the living rulebook downloadable from the Games Workshop site). The other major change that I can recall is to always allow characters a minimum of one action each turn, even if you fail all your action rolls.

I can't remember any other official changes off hand, but you might want to check the conclave guidelines on character stats and abilities.

[jasdow77]

Fantastic!  Thanks for all the responses.  We play tomorrow, so I have time to go over these tonight.  I have he old annuals and broke them out, they have a couple things in the front too but I wanted to be sure I didn't miss anything big.  Again thanks and I will let you know how it goes.  Hopefully I can run a decent game and get my buddy hooked on =I= too! 

[RobSkib]

Above all else, document it! Take pictures and make notes of what happened and do a little write-up in the In The Field section on the forum. We love to see how other people play their games, and especially from a new player's perspective as well.

Have fun!

[jasdow77]

Yes I will do my best to photograph and document the game. I'm not the best writer but I will write up the storyline after the game.  Thanks for the encouragement.

[jasdow77]

Like the Character sheet there Marco.  I appreciate it.  Should keep things simple for the newbies...