i read it pretty thoroughly last night.
first thoughts: the game is far more brutal, certainly for infantry. close combat, being wiped out if you're fleeing and within 12 inches of an enemy unit, less cover saves. things like long fangs are severely hurt by this. If they want to fire, they stand still. if they stand still, their evasion goes down and your regular BS4 guy hits them on twos. can you say plasma cannon? (blasts rolling to hit is pretty horrific too).
Tanks. Yeah tanks. It's now easier to hit them. Much. Guardsmen will hit a stationary tank on a 2+ and a moving one on a 3+. marines on a 2+ even if it moved. HOWEVER, with the way the damage table works, its actually harder to kill them. glancing hits are the same, but anything with tank status gives another -1 on the table. AP1 weapons now only negate the -1 for tank status. so a melta penetrating hit is just a straight roll, rather than the 50/50 we have now. The mechanic they've included re: hull breach is very interesting. Plays into MSU armies as multiple stunned results from the same unit won't do anything, but a stunned result from 2 separate units will result in a weapon destroyed. so you can now kill a vehicle with massed glancing hits. as long as you have enough units. Tanks are still going to rule the roost in 40k 6th if these rules are true. Storm Ravens, Land Raiders and Vendettas in particular are going to be a nightmare. especially if the raven and vendetta get flyer status.
Variable movement rates is fantastic. Eldar banshees charging 16 inches is not (scarabs charging 21 inches ain't pretty either, nor is waaghing orcs out of a battlewagon - 28 inches on that bad boy). You can also perform an "engage" move, which lets you get into combat with your charge bonus but also shoot in the same phase if you manage to wipe the enemy out. More importantly, you can perform an engage move after disembarking from a dedicated transport. I go again to our banshee loving friends happily dancing in the corner with their 8 inch transport move, 2 inch disembark and 8 inch charge. Oh, and you can perform an engage move from deep strike. but if you're that close, your enemy will get to shoot you as you come down a la overwatch.
Strategic reserves - great change if it happens. Till the first Deathwing player, deepstrikes 6 DW units in the first turn in his opponents face. All marine drop pod armies are also going to LOVE this as it gives them some real flexibility.
Changes to KP and objectives - like them. Don't like the terribad scenarios in the book.
All in all, if it's true, I think it definately shakes things up. All foot armies get some great advantages against tanks but their survivability will be more limited. razorspam might be sweating a little (I know I am), but since you have to really focus fire to get rid of tanks, some of your transports will get through.
Flyers and Titan rules in the main rulebook and a rulebook scenario that advises 3000 points. Well, once you get your head round it the system isn't that complex and games will go much faster. which means bigger games, which means more toys. That's certainly GWs MO.
As for not alienating youngbloods - there is a disclaimer advising that you play some games with the simple rules first. Perhaps this is the starter set rulebook. It would make sense of GWs new "Core Club" graduating younguns from beginners to vet nights with an intermediate tier where they learn the advanced rules.
Every time i read a new rule i cursed selling my eldar army last year. They really do benefit from the new rules tremendously. so do Tau with the out of phase shooting and lack of cover. I see a return for plasma and flamers (flamer fired in the assault phase if you charge. epic) over melta, which is not so hot now. I see more MSU armies to take advantage of the vehicle damage table. I see less paladin armies and more tyranid armies (see that cleansing flame schtick for purfiers that upsets horde players so much? yeah. meet tyranid monstrous creatures).
The things that make me think its not legit -
1. it's badly written. grammar mistakes, typos, overly complex in many cases and it just isn't in the style of GW. now, if its a draft, grammer and typo is fine, but it is the style of the writing that makes me think its a hoax.
2. The bulk of the changes are ripped straight from what we have seen online over the last 6 months. Possibly because those rules are genuine, but also possibly because its a hoax (caveat: i hadn't seen or heard of rigid saves before i read the book - lending legitimacy).
3. It's a big change. in GWs top selling product. in a time of economic uncertainty. when they are bringing out a new game next year in the hobbit. With the changes it's a better system, no doubt. and a decent business decision (sell more models by making game more interesting to play), especially with warmahordes, malifaux, flames of war et al eating away at their customer base. But when do GW actually make good business decisions? history tells us they don't.
4. GW have cracked down so hard on leaks over the past year. Is it really feasible that they let something like this get out the door? rumours sure, but a whole document?
Things that make me think its legit:
1. GW try to squash the download. Hard. there's no copywright protection on the PDF so they'd be going through NDAs to do this.
2. while a lot of the changes make xenos racces stronger - a lot make marines stronger still ATSKNF ignoring the wipeout effect for fleeing units (being within 12 inches of an unengaged unit? ffs). relentless while in a transport is the biggie. cotez henchmen armies will be wetting their pants given the amount of jokaero and multimelta servitors they can fire out of a chimera.
3. the FAQ update that was leaked with it misses out black templars, necrons and sisters. templars are widely reported to be getting a 6th ed update early, necrons have just had a book so needed no changes (and things in the book made sense, like preferred enemy on destroyers and the weird deathmark deepstrike rule). and sisters....well.... ..they didn't make much effort for the sister last update, why should they FAQ it?
4. you can play bigger games quicker, so you need more toys. that's GWs MO all over.
5. big expensive models like land raiders, storm ravens and flyers are pretty damn good.
6. its a lot of effort to go for for a hoax. mocking up the cover of the nids codex is one thing, but someone has obviously taken some time over this and used GW terminology.
