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1) Half points for fleeing units at end of the game.
2) Characters and mounts award half points if half combined wounds were lost. (3 wound lord on 5 wound mount gives up half VP after loss of 4 wounds between the two).
3) Fleeing through enemy units is dangerous terrain, failed on a 1, 2 or 3.
4) Models with multiple parts (characters on chariots,monstrous mounts and so on, or steggadon) takes mutliple hits from cannons and stone throwers. 1 part randomly take the full strength hit, the rest take a half strength hit.
5) A unit flank or rear charged cannot use the generals leadership bubble or BSB for it's steadfast check. They test on the highest leadership in the unit. Stubborn units test with general/bsb, even if flank/rear fighting.
6) Items typed as "scroll" can be taken multiple times, but you are still limited to 1 arcane item per character (so you need more wizards to have more than 1 scroll).
7) Any effect that affects an entire unit allows Look Out rolls (dwellers/final transmutation/plague).
8) Unmodified test means the stat printed in you army book for that model.
9) Revamp the lores of magic (which is another whole thread...)
10) Revamp building rules. He's my take on buildings.
Building can hold 12 infantry/4 monstrous infantry per floor. In combat, defenders count as having as many models as would fit in the width of the side attacked (and supporting attacks behind them). Attackers use their frontage that touches the building width. Defenders count as defending an obstacle. If charged from more than one side, the defender chooses which is going to be his "Front" with the other sides of the building being his flanks and rear (opposite his front). Defender is not steadfast, and no side counts bonuses for ranks, charging, or standards. Flank/rear bonuses apply as normal.
If the defender flees, one attacking unit of infantry or monstrous infantry may occupy the building. All other units may reform. The fleeing unit cannot be pursued, but does take dangerous terrain tests for moving out of the building (see#3 above).

With the modified building rules, it balances models with multiple attacks as per normal combat (you don't get 10 in base to base automatically), and charging in 2 sides at once gives you a very good shot at clearing the building. Which is, the best way to clear a building.

-Matt

1. I'd be okay with this, though honestly I wish they'd have fleeing count as destoyed more.

2. Too complex, makes people even more shy to use monsters. I don't like this.

3. No real feelings about this.

4. Adds way too much complexity and rolling to the event. Plus it opens the floodgates to other confusion. What happens to a chariot if just the horses die? Do the pullers get the saves? Can it still fight? And I can go on.

5. I like the idea, but not this application.

6. No. Scroll spam was horrible last edition.

7. Agreed.

8. Not sure what this one even means.

9. Agreed.

10. Way too complex for this one. How would a building get a rear charge if it only has one entrance? I like the building rules for the most part as is. That said, I hate the Watchtower mission.

^Wow, I totally agree with Curan. But I'm going to type stuff anyway.

2. In general all the stuff he said is too complex is spot on. As realistic as it is, this is beer and pretzels and if a calculator comes into play it's probably bad.

4. This also puts limitations on models which are multi part more for fluffery sometimes. And I don't think any such weapons need a buff.

7. No, only thing I disagree with. Because if the entire unit is being checked, there is no one who is safe to take the hit. Theoretically, every single model could die on its own. And it is a bunker buster. That's one of the purposes of the everyone in the unit takes a test. Already there is pretty much zero reason to have a char outside a bunker. If they are also now immune to mega spells and such, there is literally zero reason. If anything there should be more reason to have solo characters.

9. I don't think the lores are that bad. I think the penalties aren't that bad. I like the idea of big risk big reward. But I don't get the sense it comes off that way now. At least not completely.

Honestly, the change I would make to 'bunker buster' spells (Dwellers, et al) would simply change the wording so that it simply causes a wound as opposed to deleting a model with no saves of any kind. That way, they can still crack open the big hordes with impunity, yet not quite delete characters.

1) Agreed, it would solve many last turn shenanigans.

2) I'm not sure this is needed. Maybe it's just the lack of mega-characters in my meta, or the changes in 8th that made troops more competitive against them, but

3) Seems more plausible than what we see now, where units flee through enemy units and lose remarkably few models. It'd also reward players for getting units into the rear of the enemy.

4) I like the simplified profiles for multi-part units. The old way was fine when chariots and monsters were rare, but since about fifth they're too common to have fiddly rules. I'd prefer the old randomising hits, roll a D6 and assign hits. That said I'd like the results to look like this - 1-4 monster/chariot hit, 5 character hit, 6 both hit.

5) I liked the idea a lot when I first heard it, though thinking about it more I'm not so enthused. I mean, you get the strange situation that a unit that is not steadfast can benefit from the General's leadership and BSB, but if it is steadfast it can't. I prefer the idea that steadfast allows you to ignore most combat mods, but not the mods for flanking and rear enemy's. So if flanked you test at -1, rear at -2, read and flank -3.

6) Really? I'm not that strong on this, but I can't say I've ever thought 'if only I could have three dispel scrolls'.

7) Yeah, good change. Those spells are lethal at thinning down the ranks of large units, they shouldn't be the best means of character sniping at the same time.

10) I'm not so sure about your building rules. I like the part about defenders being deemed as behind an obstacle (that just makes sense), but not much of the rest, particularly on the defender losing steadfast. Suddenly a building as a defensive point that missile troops can really be effective from just isn't true anymore, and that's a great shame. Especially as conventional missile troops perform so poorly in the current game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

DukeRustfield wrote:
2. In general all the stuff he said is too complex is spot on. As realistic as it is, this is beer and pretzels and if a calculator comes into play it's probably bad.

The game already expects triple digit addition. It seems strange to accept triple digit addition but worry about dividing by two.

7. No, only thing I disagree with. Because if the entire unit is being checked, there is no one who is safe to take the hit. Theoretically, every single model could die on its own. And it is a bunker buster. That's one of the purposes of the everyone in the unit takes a test. Already there is pretty much zero reason to have a char outside a bunker. If they are also now immune to mega spells and such, there is literally zero reason. If anything there should be more reason to have solo characters.

With your problem.. well that's true right now with template weapons. A unit can be entirely covered by a template weapon, or a unit with with one rank of seven hit by a cannon in the flank can potentially have the same problem. Yet this isn't a reason to can LOS for template weapons.

And these hard counters are just not a good way to establish balance. That's just paper rock scissors - you deploy rock, and try to cast paper before your rock reaches my unit of scissors. Boring. Instead, the game needs to look at why massive units are dominant and look at breaking those things down. And it's something we're seeing with the new army books - look at the shift in the new Chaos Warrior book to charging per model, not per unit for marks. By reducing the number of fixed price upgrades, especially on elite units, you cut down on mega units massively.

We already know this game is rock scissors paper. That's its entire balance scheme. Just like most games on earth with varying degree of totality. A gnoblar can still solo fight his way through 500,000 bloodletters. It's just very unlikely.

Miscasts are the rock to the scissors of mega spells to the paper of mega units. There's countless examples of this. You have to rewrite the entire game to change that, not even just the BRB but all the army books, which operate under the same principles. If you take out a few rocks you don't fix the game, you make it worse, because that's how it's balanced for good or ill.

A LoS is just that. If everyone is hit with a mortar, one guy pushing you to safety, is exactly what LoS is. But a spell that makes an army turn to mush, I just don't see it. And I think it's there for balance.

WoC had internal balance issues. But you're still going to bunker your heroes. There's just no decision process where you have to think whether to have your general on a dragon, alone, or sitting in a pile of troops. Those should all be viable options. Making LoS even better makes it really not worthwhile whatsoever to do the other two. It needs to be made worse.

HawaiiMatt wrote:
1) Half points for fleeing units at end of the game.

Solid part of ETC tournaments anyway.

2) Characters and mounts award half points if half combined wounds were lost. (3 wound lord on 5 wound mount gives up half VP after loss of 4 wounds between the two).

Nah. No need. Rather follow ETC rules and provide 50% VP for any enemy unit below 25% at the end of the game.

3) Fleeing through enemy units is dangerous terrain, failed on a 1, 2 or 3.

Hm. I'd rather give every model in the enemy unit a free attack, distributed as shooting, vs. the running unit.

5) A unit flank or rear charged cannot use the generals leadership bubble or BSB for it's steadfast check. They test on the highest leadership in the unit. Stubborn units test with general/bsb, even if flank/rear fighting.

No, makes no sense.

6) Items typed as "scroll" can be taken multiple times, but you are still limited to 1 arcane item per character (so you need more wizards to have more than 1 scroll).

No please, was horrible in 7th where everyone could have written an entire book on the battlefield.

7) Any effect that affects an entire unit allows Look Out rolls (dwellers/final transmutation/plague).

Already incorporated in ETC rules.

10) Revamp building rules. He's my take on buildings.

Buildings = impassable terrain on tournaments.

DukeRustfield wrote:
A gnoblar can still solo fight his way through 500,000 bloodletters.

No, he can't.

Of course he can. And he can even be unarmed and just a baby with undeveloped lungs. ASF, all 1 stats. He can literally wipe out all the denizens of the realm of chaos including the Ruinous Powers. Because every die roll, no matter how many modifiers, still has a chance for failure and success. It can make every hit, wound, pass every LD test, and the Daemons fail everything.

And then Glipdurdle, the Undercleaver, with all the godlike power at his disposal, will use it to make himself a full 2' tall and with a shiny dagger.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Of course he can. And he can even be unarmed and just a baby with undeveloped lungs. ASF, all 1 stats. He can literally wipe out all the denizens of the realm of chaos including the Ruinous Powers. Because every die roll, no matter how many modifiers, still has a chance for failure and success. It can make every hit, wound, pass every LD test, and the Daemons fail everything.

And then Glipdurdle, the Undercleaver, with all the godlike power at his disposal, will use it to make himself a full 2' tall and with a shiny dagger.

I can also shoot rainbows from my hands. Wait, it didn't work, let me try again. Damnit. Another try. DAMN. One more try. OH COME ON. ONE MORE TRY.

Saying that something is possible although it's actually impossible is a completely worthless point of argumentation. As soon as something becomes extremely unlikely to happen, it is considered impossible. Try rolling 1000 6s in a row. It will never, ever happen. Literally, never. Same as your example. In reality, it will never happen and thus it's impossible.

qed.

Someone doesn't know the Law of Large Numbers...

DukeRustfield wrote:
We already know this game is rock scissors paper. That's its entire balance scheme. Just like most games on earth with varying degree of totality. A gnoblar can still solo fight his way through 500,000 bloodletters. It's just very unlikely.

Miscasts are the rock to the scissors of mega spells to the paper of mega units. There's countless examples of this. You have to rewrite the entire game to change that, not even just the BRB but all the army books, which operate under the same principles. If you take out a few rocks you don't fix the game, you make it worse, because that's how it's balanced for good or ill.

A LoS is just that. If everyone is hit with a mortar, one guy pushing you to safety, is exactly what LoS is. But a spell that makes an army turn to mush, I just don't see it. And I think it's there for balance.

WoC had internal balance issues. But you're still going to bunker your heroes. There's just no decision process where you have to think whether to have your general on a dragon, alone, or sitting in a pile of troops. Those should all be viable options. Making LoS even better makes it really not worthwhile whatsoever to do the other two. It needs to be made worse.

Gnoblar kills 20 blood letters max in a game. In 11 turns of combat, he kills 1 each phase. Bottom of turn 6 leaves the blood letters with 9 models, (lost rank bonus) and they roll box cars losing the rest of the unit. Every combat up until then, they win or tie with rank bonus without swinging.
To kill more than that, he'd have to get a rear charge and kill 1 vs blood letters with no banner. That actually happens more often than killing 20 from the front, and that's 1:150,000+

LOS works if every model is hit. If I have 5 rank and file (knights) and a character and take a cannon down the flank, I take my look out, and you roll to wound my 5 rank and file 6 times. End result is a character standing alone. My idea of reworking the lores would give every lore a unit nuking spells, and most lores a sniper spell.
Gaining LoS vs unit murdering spells is just focusing the spell on what it's supposed to do, murder units. If you want to kill a character, drop his unit below LoS size, or cast a character murdering spell.

Here's another thought on buildings.
What if we have a few more spells that were more effective against buildings? I wouldn't be sad to see any vortex turn a building into a ruin, or at least have a chance to do that.

-Matt







Automatically Appended Next Post:

 curran12 wrote:
1. I'd be okay with this, though honestly I wish they'd have fleeing count as destoyed more.

2. Too complex, makes people even more shy to use monsters. I don't like this.

4. Adds way too much complexity and rolling to the event. Plus it opens the floodgates to other confusion. What happens to a chariot if just the horses die? Do the pullers get the saves? Can it still fight? And I can go on.

6. No. Scroll spam was horrible last edition.

8. Not sure what this one even means.

10. Way too complex for this one. How would a building get a rear charge if it only has one entrance? I like the building rules for the most part as is. That said, I hate the Watchtower mission.

2) It's basically half wounds equal half points. With #4 cutting down the shooting power against monstrous mounts. Harder to kill, with some points for hurting.
4) Chariots only have a single wound profile, they'd take a hit. A character riding it would take a hit. Randomize to see who gets hit hard and who gets grazed.
6) Scroll spam last edition could be done with 2 cheap wizards taking 4 scrolls. With only 1 item per character, it would take 4 wizards to try the same. 4 wizards is not longer cheap (300 to 400 points for most armies).
8) Currently, my three Ld7 necromancer with lore of death uses the Ld10 of the Vampire lord in his unit when casting Spirit Leech. Unmodified should be unmodified.
10) If a building only has one entrance, I'm not going to assault into it, I'm going to hold the door shut and set it on fire. If it is so fortified that it can't burn, it's not a building it's a keep, and we need siege rules. Those aren't the types of things randomly popping up on the battlefield, those are things that dictate where and when battles take place.
Also, if it only has one entrance, how do 10 models get in to fight, and how do so many guys shoot out. How do 30 models run so quickly into or out of the building, and how do you get in and out from any side?
The best way to deal with a building should be surround it and attack from all sides; or surround it and set it on fire. Rules should reflect that.
Maybe buildings should give shooters another advantage rather than making him impossible to kill. +1 to hit for elevated firing position would still make buildings useful, maybe a bit more range as well (+6"), but in general, buildings aren't castles. You'll be very hard pressed to find a situation where putting 30 guys with flails inside a farm house is a smart tactical move.
Watch Towers are watch towers, not fight towers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:

10) Revamp building rules. He's my take on buildings.

Buildings = impassable terrain on tournaments.

Which shows that many people agree building rules don't work.

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Which shows that many people agree building rules don't work.

Exactly! They are a massive strategic advantage to any sort of strong combat unit - and let's not talk about the infamous 360° wizard in a tower...

HawaiiMatt wrote:

Gaining LoS vs unit murdering spells is just focusing the spell on what it's supposed to do, murder units. If you want to kill a character, drop his unit below LoS size, or cast a character murdering spell.

Purple Sun is a character murdering spell. It's also a unit murdering spell. It's also a blow-up-my-caster spell. It's also a please-dispel-me spell. It's also a damn-now-it's-rolling-over-my-guys spell. There's a lot of internal balance there.

Your idea to have snipey spells and murdery spells is nice and all. (IMHO it makes the lores all the same and you might as well just have 1 lore.) But it's not the way it is now. And you've proposed this rule with the existing lores and rules. So without knowing what your grand entire reworking of every lore is, and presumably all the army book lores(?), I can only go by what I see.

I guess it sucks when your 600pt bunkered slann is killed. But it also sucks facing a 600pt bunkered slann that you can't touch until you "drop his unit below LoS size" i.e., on turn 5 or whatever which is rather late.

DukeRustfield wrote:
We already know this game is rock scissors paper. That's its entire balance scheme. Just like most games on earth with varying degree of totality.

That's right, degrees of totality. And when you argue purely for hard counters, as you constantly do in this forum, well then you're so far down the line that the game you argue for begins to look like a slighter dumber version of Pokemon.

Miscasts are the rock to the scissors of mega spells to the paper of mega units.

They are, but they don't have to be. That's the fething point of rules proposals - changing how the rules work.

You have to rewrite the entire game to change that, not even just the BRB but all the army books, which operate under the same principles.

This is a thread for 9th ed. That is rewriting the game.

If you take out a few rocks you don't fix the game, you make it worse, because that's how it's balanced for good or ill.

The point is that there are balances elsewhere. Changing up steadfast is a big deal, and brings fast flanking units in to the game. And we're already seeing adjustments to army books to discourage single uber units (the move to per model charges for upgrades over fixed price unit upgrades is a big deal).

A LoS is just that. If everyone is hit with a mortar, one guy pushing you to safety, is exactly what LoS is. But a spell that makes an army turn to mush, I just don't see it.

You can envision how a character might be pushed out of the way of a mortar explosion... but can't envision how arms reaching up from the ground to grab a hero might be headed off by a loyal soldier... Seriously?

WoC had internal balance issues. But you're still going to bunker your heroes. There's just no decision process where you have to think whether to have your general on a dragon, alone, or sitting in a pile of troops. Those should all be viable options. Making LoS even better makes it really not worthwhile whatsoever to do the other two. It needs to be made worse.

Concentrating killing power in a general on a monster, combined with mobility has obvious and clear advantages right now. That those advantages are offset by the overpowered monster hunting abilities of cannons means nothing in terms of character bunkers.

And there are plenty of ways of tackling a character bunker that are a lot more interesting than spamming high end spells.

What you are arguing for is simple stimulus and response gaming. He does bunker, I do Dwellers. It's dumber than Pokemon.

What if Steadfast just becomes, like... "Units that are steadfast and lose combat ignore leadership penalties caused by lost wounds"

text removed.

Reds8n

DukeRustfield wrote:

Warhammer doesn't even have hard counters. AV and vehicles in 40K are hard counters. Those are rocks/scissors.

Wraith is a hard counter for steam tank.
Banner of the World Dragon is the hard counter for dwellers.

-Matt

DukeRustfield wrote:
For some reason when you get on the OMG ROCK SCISSORS PAPER train, there's no stopping you. Literally every book, every model, every spell, every is geared around it. I don't know why you are here and commenting on this game if you really despise the rules, because it has to be painfully obvious they are rock scissors paper from the ground up.

Actually, I quite like the rule structure as it exists now. My 9th ed changes would be tinkering that'd probably be more mild than the stuff suggested in the OP by HawaiiMatt, and I've never said otherwise on this forum. I have no idea where you're getting that idea from.

And, as I said, every game is. Chess is rock scissors paper. Actually it's even moreso than Warhammer in a way. Because it is 100% deterministic. Chess can literally be solved. It's just the computers aren't quite fast enough. But they will in some years. And if you could have access to those gazillion calculations, chess would become a meaningless game. Not even a game, really.

So, make the Sebster game of non-counters. I'm extremely confident you can't. Because every game has counters.

Yes, most games have counters, units which have stronger and weaker match ups (chess isn't one of them, though). As I've said before, and as you said yourself said in your earlier, it's a sliding scale of how much counters are the core strategy compared to other elements (maneuver, resource management, terrain, combination effects etc). As such, your sudden declaration that I am somehow dismissing counters entirely just makes no sense. Especially when I'm one of the biggest fans of steadfast you'll find on this board, precisely because that rule gave WHFB the unique unit types (counters) that it needed to develop a genuinely interesting tactical game.

Instead, I'm talking about counters as one part of a greater strategy, one in which the other factors play at least as important a part as counter (especially maneuver). Ideally, the game should involve the identification of preferred match ups (counter) and then a process of movement and resource expenditure to get the best match ups possible, while your opponent attempts to do the same. By breaking the game down to 'mega-units are countered by mega-spells' and rejecting any other considerations you're just throwing away any consideration of other strategic elements. The process of 'he has a mega-unit so I will cast a mega-spell' has all the tactical thinking of saying 'he has a fire pokemon so I will use a water pokemon'.

And I am not just getting on the OMG ROCK PAPER SCISSORS train... or rather, I'm repeating myself because you are repeating yourself yet again. I'm explaining the shallow nature of 'we need mega-spells because there are mega-units' yet again... because you learned nothing from the last five times and just returned to repeating that same stuff all over again.

The reason everyone jumps to mega spells as a counter to mega units is that it's the only counter available to all armies, other than a more mega unit.

If someone runs 1200 points of white lions (about 75 or so with full command), you don't have a lot of options to take them out. 3+ armor vs shooting and -1 to be shot at makes them very durable to shooting. In melee, they'd have 30 S6 attacks, most likely re-rolling to hit on 3's. If something goes wrong, they are stubborn 10 (banner of discipline).

Tactically, you can try and redirect it, but if it picks up 8-10 redirecting units a game, it can win with that. (deploy eagles behind lion mob and force redirecting units to flee again).


I like steadfast a lot. But I've also seen it make for some really dull games. My first game of 8th edition I took my night goblin horde up against melee heavy dwarf. The battle lines hit each other, and combat went on to the end of the game. Fanatics got some kills, warmachines got some, but steadfast prevented anything from breaking. It took longer to pack up than to play turns 3 through 6.
He hit my generals bus in the flank, I simply didn't reform to face, or make way with my general and BSB. I was LD10 steadfast for the whole game, and it ended in a boring draw.

What I'd like to see is a half measure between all or nothing with steadfast. I don't think that run a bigger block of your own, or nuke them with a super spell are good enough.

-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:
He hit my generals bus in the flank, I simply didn't reform to face, or make way with my general and BSB. I was LD10 steadfast for the whole game, and it ended in a boring draw.

What I'd like to see is a half measure between all or nothing with steadfast. I don't think that run a bigger block of your own, or nuke them with a super spell are good enough.

-Matt

Yeah, I've had enough 2,400 points game end with a score line of 150 to 300 to know something needs to be done.

What did you think of the idea that flanking mods carry through to the leadership check? Or like Micky suggested; "Unit that are steadfast ignore leadership penalties caused by lost wounds"

HawaiiMatt wrote:



I like steadfast a lot. But I've also seen it make for some really dull games. My first game of 8th edition I took my night goblin horde up against melee heavy dwarf. The battle lines hit each other, and combat went on to the end of the game. Fanatics got some kills, warmachines got some, but steadfast prevented anything from breaking. It took longer to pack up than to play turns 3 through 6.


-Matt

The question being: where were your hammers? You got him tarpitted, time to hammer.

My main grudges with warhammer in 8th are the excessive reliability of warmachines (especially since they now allow you to pre-measure) and how stupidly easy it is to kill monsters.

As a side note I am very happy with all the 8th ed army books I've seen as they all have some strong builds

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
My main grudges with warhammer in 8th are the excessive reliability of warmachines (especially since they now allow you to pre-measure) and how stupidly easy it is to kill monsters.

As a side note I am very happy with all the 8th ed army books I've seen as they all have some strong builds

Ye my buddy :*

I'll add overpowered magic though.

 Sigvatr wrote:

HawaiiMatt wrote:



I like steadfast a lot. But I've also seen it make for some really dull games. My first game of 8th edition I took my night goblin horde up against melee heavy dwarf. The battle lines hit each other, and combat went on to the end of the game. Fanatics got some kills, warmachines got some, but steadfast prevented anything from breaking. It took longer to pack up than to play turns 3 through 6.


-Matt

The question being: where were your hammers? You got him tarpitted, time to hammer.

I was running a goblin army. We're a bit short on hammers. Had units broke, it would have opened up the battle lines for flank charges. Since I had a lot more units than he did, that was how they won in the past.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sigvatr wrote:

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
My main grudges with warhammer in 8th are the excessive reliability of warmachines (especially since they now allow you to pre-measure) and how stupidly easy it is to kill monsters.

As a side note I am very happy with all the 8th ed army books I've seen as they all have some strong builds

Ye my buddy :*

I'll add overpowered magic though.

In my experience, most direct damage, and all magic missiles aren't really an issue. It's the augments and hexes that are too good.
Some of the spells leave me scratching my head.
Boosted Soul Blight is a 24" RADIUS? Really? 12" would have been awesome, 24" is pretty much your opponents entire army.

-Matt

 Sigvatr wrote:
The question being: where were your hammers? You got him tarpitted, time to hammer.

Problem being the opponent exists, and in most cases isn't an idiot. This means he'll do what can to avoid your hammers (likely countering them with his own anvils). That doesn't always happen, but it happens plenty often enough, especially when both players have opted for the three big blocks of infantry and some chaff strategy that's really common right now.

My main grudges with warhammer in 8th are the excessive reliability of warmachines (especially since they now allow you to pre-measure) and how stupidly easy it is to kill monsters

In regards to the pre-measuring, I don't see that as a problem. With just a little bit of practice, you can pin-point a distance on a table down to a few mm. When dealing with inches its not hard to do the guess work and be nearly dead on.

All that rule change did was eliminate any potential arguments that might crop up about people waving tape measures over the table, attempting to use their arms in funny ways without you seeing and all other sorts of silly nonsense. It really didn't make it easier for war machines to hit. War machines were monster killers in 7th as much as they are in 8th, its just that you can't bring a bunch of monsters in 8th and expect to win, as you won't get through the large blocks of infantry.

I'm not so sure I want a return to the 7th style game, where its all about who brought the biggest baddest hero and infantry is meaningless.

As far as Matt's original points go

I love 1-4. All of them are solid changes that make sense.

I am not sure I understand 5. Why would a unit that is being charged in the rear not be able to benefit from the leadership of its general. I think the only thing that might keep such a unit from panicking is having a strong leadership presence nearby, which the LD bubble is supposed to represent.

I don't like 6 only because it will create a game where people will be forced into selecting multiple wizards for the sake of scrolls and you will see less variety from game to game.

I like the idea of giving a character protection from the big spells, but a LoS roll doesn't make sense in this regard. How would one jump in the way of your Lord turning into gold for example.

8 yes, agreed. If its unmodified its unmodified.

9 - I agree you need an entirely different thread. I also agree with Duke that if you are changing the spells you are fundamentally changing the game. I realize your short list is not exhaustive, but without seeing all your planned changes, touching such a massive part of the game would be dangerous.

10 - Building rules need a revamp as we ignore them for simplicity sake here too. I like the potential rules you have for buildings except the flank / rear bonuses applying as normal. I like the idea of a straight up fight in a building. No steadfast, no rank bonuses. Whoever wins, wins. I would also add though that it is NOT optional to take the building. Meaning if you charge a building with only 1 unit, and your unit wins that combat and the defending unit flees the building, your attacking unit now MUST occupy that building.

It would mean that putting weak CC units into buildings would have a drawback as they are likely to die as soon as they are charged by a good CC unit, regardless of steadfast. Doing so though would tie up one of the stronger CC units as they move into the building to make sure its clear.

Proof by conspiracy. The act of two or more people agreeing with each other's assertions and holding that up as unbiased proof.

I can't believe anyone wants to go back to no measuring. It is SO much cleaner. I think it just causes friction that doesn't need to be about a subject, guessing an arbitrary number of inches(!!!), that has nothing to do with the game, it's tactics or strategy. It'd be like if at the start of every winds of magic roll you had to guess the real life wind speed and direction at that moment. And if you got it right, you got your power dice. What's that have to do with WHFB?

DukeRustfield wrote:
Proof by conspiracy. The act of two or more people agreeing with each other's assertions and holding that up as unbiased proof.

I can't believe anyone wants to go back to no measuring. It is SO much cleaner. I think it just causes friction that doesn't need to be about a subject, guessing an arbitrary number of inches(!!!), that has nothing to do with the game, it's tactics or strategy. It'd be like if at the start of every winds of magic roll you had to guess the real life wind speed and direction at that moment. And if you got it right, you got your power dice. What's that have to do with WHFB?

That's well said.
Warmachines do pretty well against 8th edition monsters, but not as well as against 7th.
Empire has "steam tank" with 10 wounds to absorb warmachines, and can get lore of life to heal the tank.
O&G get the W8 spider, and giants. While giants are prone, they can get a 6+ward (better than nothing) and with stubborn 10, can operate alone and isolated making hiding them easier than most monsters.
Vampires get the terrorgeists, with flying being able to close range rapidly, and the army's option for buffing regen from their 6+ up to 5+ or even 4+.
Ogres got the stone horn that takes half wounds.
Tomb Kings picked up the necrotect for cheap 6+ regen on monsters and the army packs the ability to heal them.
Warriors of chaos has regenerating flying monsters, and daemon princes with ward saves who can heal themselves.

Compared to monsters of previous editions, 8th edition monsters are more survivable. Maybe not enough, but I'd rather have an 8th edition monster vs 8th edition warmachines than a 7th edition monster vs 7th edition warmachines. They might not be ultra competitive, but in well rounded lists, fighting well rounded lists, they are decent and fun. I'm ok with not all choices in an army being ideal for a tournament.

-Matt

The warmachines killing my big beasties annoys me more then it shouold due to the drastic points differential as well, whereas a dwarf 90 point cannon will reliably make more then its points back a game, my 275 point ghorgon can't be relied upon to withstand a unit of archers hitting it. I see the benefits of warmachines, purely on the basis of giving some armies a reliable way of killing monsters but surely there should be some counter balance for monsters to be able to weather the storm. I've seen people say its great that the new monsters (take sphinxes for instance) are T8 with 6 wounds but could you imagine how devastating that would have been in the last edition, a unit of zombies would beat him in combat let alone hold him for the game.

Rant over

Tiarna Fuilteach wrote:
The warmachines killing my big beasties annoys me more then it shouold due to the drastic points differential as well, whereas a dwarf 90 point cannon will reliably make more then its points back a game, my 275 point ghorgon can't be relied upon to withstand a unit of archers hitting it. I see the benefits of warmachines, purely on the basis of giving some armies a reliable way of killing monsters but surely there should be some counter balance for monsters to be able to weather the storm. I've seen people say its great that the new monsters (take sphinxes for instance) are T8 with 6 wounds but could you imagine how devastating that would have been in the last edition, a unit of zombies would beat him in combat let alone hold him for the game.

Rant over

Most dwarf cannons are closer to 140 points after runes, and target saturation overwhelms them (minobus, 2x monsters and goodly number of chariots).
2 cannons vs 1 monster always makes cannons look good.
Try 2 monsters + 1-2 other cannon bait units, and the limitation of 3 special slots start to show the balance.
And dude, take the dark rain. 4+ no cannon shooting for a turn is awesome.

-Matt