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 Spinner wrote:
No, no, if you think about it, the idea makes sense. You've got a human-centric world where magic is there, but mistrusted and feared because it can very easily lead to terrible things. You have an apocalyptic legend about Chaos almost overwhelming the world, only to be held back by mighty heroes and great sacrifice. It's more grounded in reality - maybe some oblique references to real-world cultures and kingdoms in the factions, but you've also got some magical weirdness with the other races. Dragons and such are hard to find, but terrifyingly powerful to face, and people aren't throwing around magic weapons like they're candy. Heck, maybe one or two of the crazier factions could be seen as semi-mythical in-universe, to help emphasize the low fantasy of the setting?

I quite like it, actually, I'd pick that up in a heartbeat -

Oh, wait.

By George, I think you're onto something there. Definitely enough of an idea for somebody to write a compelling story, continue into a series and drag it out for years.

WHFB's reborn.

 Spinner wrote:
No, no, if you think about it, the idea makes sense. You've got a human-centric world where magic is there, but mistrusted and feared because it can very easily lead to terrible things. You have an apocalyptic legend about Chaos almost overwhelming the world, only to be held back by mighty heroes and great sacrifice. It's more grounded in reality - maybe some oblique references to real-world cultures and kingdoms in the factions, but you've also got some magical weirdness with the other races. Dragons and such are hard to find, but terrifyingly powerful to face, and people aren't throwing around magic weapons like they're candy. Heck, maybe one or two of the crazier factions could be seen as semi-mythical in-universe, to help emphasize the low fantasy of the setting?

I quite like it, actually, I'd pick that up in a heartbeat -

Oh, wait.

Not sure if serious, because that's 40k to a T, from the Imperial POV.

It's also WHFB circa 6th-7th edition, which was the joke.

...doesn't seem to be the only thing I inadvertently described, though. Thankfully, Mr. Martin's likely to, if not give his characters dignified ends, at least keep them in tone with the setting. Hmmm...a Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game...

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

So, you want stone golems and a world with almost no magic at the same time?

Or maybe you secretly just want to play historicals.

Come to usss... we have elephants.

 Spinner wrote:

I quite like it, actually, I'd pick that up in a heartbeat -

Oh, wait.

 Spinner wrote:

...doesn't seem to be the only thing I inadvertently described, though. Thankfully, Mr. Martin's likely to, if not give his characters dignified ends, at least keep them in tone with the setting. Hmmm...a Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game...

People already play A Song of Ice and Fire miniatures games. Only they take a leaf out of Bob's book and use historical minis and rules, rather than wait around for someone to bring out a range with an 'OFFICIAL' sticker and a crippling price tag slapped on it.

(No stone golems. A few ice zombies and squashscatches, though.)

You know, I have been complaining about the state of Fantasy's rules for years, the stagnation of it's lore, fluff and armies (besides the big shiny new monster kits), there hasn't really been much to convince me to play again. Crap, I knew if I wanted to play Fantasy I could just go get some graph paper, trace out some unit blocks and get the same effect, minus the pride of ownership by putting a fully painted army on the table. Complained about pre-measuring and how it reduced the skill and finesse required to be really bring it to the old salts who could guess the distance with their guess range weapons down to half an inch, could guess if they could make a charge or if they would have enough to maneuver around terrain or how much movement their opponent has and how to effectively bait and trap them.

It was a daunting task at 12 years old, but it made my first win feel so special. I do agree that the cost to get into Fantasy is a bit ubsurd, and unlike 40k where a few boxes of Space Marines and a Rhino is enough to get you on the table and start slaying the enemies of the Imperium, in Fantasy having two core units, a hero and a warmachine just doesnt make for a very interesting game.

I am trying my hardest to keep positive over the new edition of Fantasy, because it really is in need of a refresher. At this point I am excited to see what happens with the game because I would like toand able to play it with people besides just my immediate group. Being able to walk into a store and just ask who plays 40k or Warmachine almost always find a game is what keeps me active in it. Heck, it is easier to find people to play Blood Bowl than Fantasy right now. At this point i see it as Fantasy can't be worse off than it is right now, Yea 8th edition rules arent the best, and if I could find somebody to reliably play the game with me I will use them. But in the areas I have lived in the last five years (New Hampshire, Georgia, North Carolina and now Colorado), I have only seen one game of Fantasy being played in any of the stores I have gone into, and most of them have stopped carrying Fantasy because there isn't an influx of new players or interest in it

Well, enough of my ramblings, I am just going to keep silent on nay saying the new edition until after I get my first peek at the new book. Even though some news or information from GW would be nice, over the last 13 years I have learned it isn't going to happen.

 Spinner wrote:
It's also WHFB circa 6th-7th edition, which was the joke.

...doesn't seem to be the only thing I inadvertently described, though.

Thankfully, Mr. Martin's likely to, if not give his characters dignified ends, at least keep them in tone with the setting. Hmmm...a Song of Ice and Fire miniatures game...

Sure, just that I wanted it to be not-Fantasy. WFB6-7 is good stuff, though. Pity GW's moved away from that. I may well go back to WFB6-7 using the Ravening Hordes lists.

FFG sells (sold?) Battles of Westeros, which is supposed to be GoT wargaming.

WHFB 6th / 7th was among the first WHFB iterations ever. Herohammer? NO thanks.

For the most part I liked the core rules of 6th/7th, they just needed to make crazy heroes less prevalent. 8th edition I dislike at its core.

 Sigvatr wrote:
WHFB 6th / 7th was among the first WHFB iterations ever. Herohammer? NO thanks.

No. 6th edition was the end of Herohammer, the editions that you're thinking about are 3rd, 4th and 5th edition.

7th had its issues. 8th fixed some of them but brought in issues of its own. I'm not here to argue one is better than the other, just that every edition has problems & there is no objective "best".

If you don't think 7th had issues just remember. My vampire kills your front rank, I outnumber you & cause fear, you now auto-break.

I think a blend of 7th and 8th could work nicely.

PhantomViper wrote:

 Sigvatr wrote:
WHFB 6th / 7th was among the first WHFB iterations ever. Herohammer? NO thanks.

No. 6th edition was the end of Herohammer, the editions that you're thinking about are 3rd, 4th and 5th edition.

I feel old D:

 Sigvatr wrote:
WHFB 6th / 7th was among the first WHFB iterations ever. Herohammer? NO thanks.

6th/7th was amongst the first? Wouldn't that be 1st/2nd?

...I meant..worst...sleep deprivation..kicking in :(

 Sigvatr wrote:
...I meant..worst...sleep deprivation..kicking in :(

OK, I am pretty sure you don't know what real Herohammer was. Go play a fluff list against a full-on 5E Herohammer list, and you'll see just how far 6E reined things in.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:
7th had its issues. 8th fixed some of them but brought in issues of its own. I'm not here to argue one is better than the other, just that every edition has problems & there is no objective "best".

If you don't think 7th had issues just remember. My vampire kills your front rank, I outnumber you & cause fear, you now auto-break.

I think a blend of 7th and 8th could work nicely.

7th was fine rules-wise, but was a problem list-wise. If you roll the Undead back to their 6E Ravening Hordes list under 7E rules, it's not a problem.

I agree with JohnHwangDD, the 6th and 7th editions were my favourites to play. Army size was about right for me, there were lots of interesting archetypes to play around with, and it was a fairly affordable time to play Fantasy. I remember playing some really awesome and memorable low point games and mini campaigns back then as well as participating in some really fun tournaments. It's a GW game so there were always lists and things that were out of order, and 7th went completely mental towards the end with Vampires, Daemons and Dark Elves just being horribly balanced compared to other lists, but I had lots of enjoyable games there.

I started playing in 5th, and while it always has that nostalgic charm for me, it was a horribly unbalanced game with absurd herohammer elements. Still fun but strictly "between friends" because of all the ways it could be broken.

8th wasn't the worst thing ever, but the time for set up increased due to the army size increases and then you ended up removing those units pretty quickly due to mega-spells that you couldn't dispel. It sorta killed my enthusiasm for the game because it made it seem like a pointless chore.

8E Magic is the worst, because the spell effects are so lacking internal balance. You get a good Purple Sun to go off, and that's game. Or, you get kinda useless junk, and wonder why you bothered dumping so many points into Magic.

JohnHwangDD wrote:8E Magic is the worst, because the spell effects are so lacking internal balance. You get a good Purple Sun to go off, and that's game. Or, you get kinda useless junk, and wonder why you bothered dumping so many points into Magic.

Da Boss wrote:8th wasn't the worst thing ever, but the time for set up increased due to the army size increases and then you ended up removing those units pretty quickly due to mega-spells that you couldn't dispel. It sorta killed my enthusiasm for the game because it made it seem like a pointless chore.

Once again, it is very clear that neither of you has played enough games of 8th edition to know what you're talking about.

Can you win a game with a well-placed Purple Sun? Absolutely....once. Once is how many times any general of a low-I army will give you a nice clean line to throw a sun down.

Not to mention that the worst abuses come from people misinterpreting the rule. As clarified in the FAQ, a magical vortex only affects those units it actually has enough movement to touch. Yes it will countinue to "bounce" through units until it finds somewhere to be placed more than 1" away from a unit or impassable terrain, but throughout that entire process no further models will be affected.

Thus in order to throw a sun down someone's entire line then, unless your opponent is an idiot, you must:

1) pay points for a flying or highly mobile caster

2) push that caster up to where a Sun can be thrown down your opponent's battle line, which is very likely in harm's way.

3) throw 6-dice at the spell, and either eat a miscast or pray your opponent has already used his dispel scroll

4) roll high enough for the vortex to cover more than one unit (misfire, 2, and 4 often aren't enough to justify the price tag)

5) pray that your opponent rolls high on those I tests.


Unless all of the above goes off without a hitch, all you've accomplished is putting your expensive wizard into harm's way and wasted an entire magic phase. There is a reason this is called a "tier zero" strategy. 6-dicing big spells was all the rage for about 8 months on the competitive scene, but now outside of brand new players most people have learned to do better things with their magic phases.


As for pre-measuring, that's pretty indicative of this entire discussion as a whole. Nerds hate change. It's basically one of the immutable laws of the universe. Removing guess ranges and adding pre-measuring wasn't an objective downgrade in the level of skill in the game...it was just a change. You removed the skill (or "skill") of precision distance guessing and exchanged it for the math-based approach of risk management and information.

As a player, pre-measuring gives you far more information to make decisions on. You know exactly how far you need to stay away to be out of range of a spell or shooting attack, before and after your opponent moves. You know exactly how far you need to roll for charge distances, and can calculate how much risk of a failed charge you are taking before you declare. You know whether spells are in range before you throw the dice.

If you liked the skill of needing to be a bloody carpenter to play WHFB at a high level, then of course you weren't going to like 8th edition. However for those playing 8th now, the additional information that measuring all relevant distances gives you adds an enormous layer of new decision making that really increases the strategic depth of the game.

Once again, somebody thinks he knows more than he actually does.

Purple Sun simply needs to hit a couple "good" units to break a battleline or negate a potential charge.

And the power level of the spell is way off, increasing the importance of randomness in dicing for spells, versus strategy in play.

8E is more random, and therefore, less skill-oriented than 6E/7E.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Purple Sun simply needs to hit a couple "good" units to break a battleline or negate a potential charge.

Oh exactly. I was playing undead Vs lizards and my opponent ran his templeguard into my unit of ghouls with my shadow vampire. In my movement phase I marched my death vampire out of the grave guard towards my shadow vampire.

I used smoke & mirrors to swap my death & shadow vampires & 6 diced large purple sun into his 40 TG with slann, angled it so it could hit tetto'ekko as well. It didn't reach tetto but it did kill 30 of his templeguard afterwhich my vampire RF/QB'd the templeguard & the ghouls ate the slann.

That was over 1/3 of his army gone in one cast. He positioned well & use some terradons & skinks to keep my death vampire away from his templeguard but march 12" plus 18" smoke & mirrors makes it difficult to avoid. Sure he could have dispelled the shadow spell but he was saving his dice to hopefully stop the big purple sun he knew was coming.

JohnHwangDD wrote:Once again, somebody thinks he knows more than he actually does.

Purple Sun simply needs to hit a couple "good" units to break a battleline or negate a potential charge.

And the power level of the spell is way off, increasing the importance of randomness in dicing for spells, versus strategy in play.

8E is more random, and therefore, less skill-oriented than 6E/7E.

...which it can only really do at point-blank range, and only against armies with low initiative targets.

Is the spell good for the game? No. Does it suck when your opponent rolls a 10 for an IF purple sun and cripples you before the game has barely started? Of course.

...however 9 times out of 10 that's not how it goes down. The variance on the spell's damage potential is enormous, and it has a strong potential to backfire. In order to cast the spell you need to bet the farm on it, and if it fails you are often in worse position than you started.

It's an incredibly powerful spell situationally, but more often than not your opponent will not let you get it off when it is capable of doing any appreciable amounts of damage. I say this as a player who has both played death and played one of the more vulnerable armies *to* death (Vampires), and I can quite honestly say it's not all its cracked up to be. You can ask the same of any tournament-level Ogres player, and they too will tell you that they've learned how to deal with it and aren't that concerned anymore. I have seen people purplesun their own demon prince off the board as often as I have had it lose me a game.

Note of course that I *DO* think the spell is bad for the game. People who run it tend to whine when it doesn't go off and kill half the opponent's army (which it usually will not), or gloat that they won a game on the back of a spell the odd time it does something glorious - a gakky way to lose for the opponent.

However with almost identical probability there are all manner of other things that can go poorly for the game, and all kinds of other spells / strategies that are AS effective but more subtley so, and therefore get none of the hate that the "big 6 spells" get. Harmonic Convergence, for instance, is one of the most amazing spells in the game...depending on your build. However often times opponents will LET IT GO because they don't understand just how significant it can be for three charging knight lances rerolling 1s to hit, wound, and on their 2+ armour save rolls.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Purple Sun simply needs to hit a couple "good" units to break a battleline or negate a potential charge.

Oh exactly. I was playing undead Vs lizards and my opponent ran his templeguard into my unit of ghouls with my shadow vampire. In my movement phase I marched my death vampire out of the grave guard towards my shadow vampire.

I used smoke & mirrors to swap my death & shadow vampires & 6 diced large purple sun into his 40 TG with slann, angled it so it could hit tetto'ekko as well. It didn't reach tetto but it did kill 30 of his templeguard afterwhich my vampire RF/QB'd the templeguard & the ghouls ate the slann.

That was over 1/3 of his army gone in one cast. He positioned well & use some terradons & skinks to keep my death vampire away from his templeguard but march 12" plus 18" smoke & mirrors makes it difficult to avoid. Sure he could have dispelled the shadow spell but he was saving his dice to hopefully stop the big purple sun he knew was coming.

You're talking about quite literally the best-case scenario for purple sun right there. Point-black to the face, against an I2 deathstar unit. That's like 6-dicing Dwellers against a 1,300 point BotWD dragon prince deathstar. Rock: meet scissors. Scissors: rock.

Every unit in warhammer has inherent weaknesses that can be countered. Sometimes those counters are a certain kids of units (fliers against gunlines, BS shooting against lightly armoured elves), other times it is certain spells. Spells are powerful because you can't counter them as easily with unit positioning and deployment as you can against an enemy unit. However you CAN build defenses into your list design.

Your opponent built a kajillion-point Templeguard deathstar, then was upset when it came up against something that was weak against it. Welcome to Warhammer. Hopefully he learned from this and stopped running such a foolishly large brick of TG. What was that, like a 1,200 point unit? There's a reason that his isn't the dominant build for LM.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

JohnHwangDD wrote:Once again, somebody thinks he knows more than he actually does.

Purple Sun simply needs to hit a couple "good" units to break a battleline or negate a potential charge.

And the power level of the spell is way off, increasing the importance of randomness in dicing for spells, versus strategy in play.

8E is more random, and therefore, less skill-oriented than 6E/7E.

...which it can only really do at point-blank range, and only against armies with low initiative targets.

Is the spell good for the game? No. Does it suck when your opponent rolls a 10 for an IF purple sun and cripples you before the game has barely started? Of course.

...however 9 times out of 10 that's not how it goes down. The variance on the spell's damage potential is enormous, and it has a strong potential to backfire. In order to cast the spell you need to bet the farm on it, and if it fails you are often in worse position than you started.

It's an incredibly powerful spell situationally, but more often than not your opponent will not let you get it off when it is capable of doing any appreciable amounts of damage. I say this as a player who has both played death and played one of the more vulnerable armies *to* death (Vampires), and I can quite honestly say it's not all its cracked up to be. You can ask the same of any tournament-level Ogres player, and they too will tell you that they've learned how to deal with it and aren't that concerned anymore. I have seen people purplesun their own demon prince off the board as often as I have had it lose me a game.

Note of course that I *DO* think the spell is bad for the game. People who run it tend to whine when it doesn't go off and kill half the opponent's army (which it usually will not), or gloat that they won a game on the back of a spell the odd time it does something glorious - a gakky way to lose for the opponent.

However with almost identical probability there are all manner of other things that can go poorly for the game, and all kinds of other spells / strategies that are AS effective but more subtley so, and therefore get none of the hate that the "big 6 spells" get. Harmonic Convergence, for instance, is one of the most amazing spells in the game...depending on your build. However often times opponents will LET IT GO because they don't understand just how significant it can be for three charging knight lances rerolling 1s to hit, wound, and on their 2+ armour save rolls.

Shas'O Dorian wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Purple Sun simply needs to hit a couple "good" units to break a battleline or negate a potential charge.

Oh exactly. I was playing undead Vs lizards and my opponent ran his templeguard into my unit of ghouls with my shadow vampire. In my movement phase I marched my death vampire out of the grave guard towards my shadow vampire.

I used smoke & mirrors to swap my death & shadow vampires & 6 diced large purple sun into his 40 TG with slann, angled it so it could hit tetto'ekko as well. It didn't reach tetto but it did kill 30 of his templeguard afterwhich my vampire RF/QB'd the templeguard & the ghouls ate the slann.

That was over 1/3 of his army gone in one cast. He positioned well & use some terradons & skinks to keep my death vampire away from his templeguard but march 12" plus 18" smoke & mirrors makes it difficult to avoid. Sure he could have dispelled the shadow spell but he was saving his dice to hopefully stop the big purple sun he knew was coming.

You're talking about quite literally the best-case scenario for purple sun right there. Point-black to the face, against an I2 deathstar unit. That's like 6-dicing Dwellers against a 1,300 point BotWD dragon prince deathstar. Rock: meet scissors. Scissors: rock.

Every unit in warhammer has inherent weaknesses that can be countered. Sometimes those counters are a certain kids of units (fliers against gunlines, BS shooting against lightly armoured elves), other times it is certain spells. Spells are powerful because you can't counter them as easily with unit positioning and deployment as you can against an enemy unit. However you CAN build defenses into your list design.

Your opponent built a kajillion-point Templeguard deathstar, then was upset when it came up against something that was weak against it. Welcome to Warhammer. Hopefully he learned from this and stopped running such a foolishly large brick of TG. What was that, like a 1,200 point unit? There's a reason that his isn't the dominant build for LM.

Almost his entire army is I2. it doesn't matter what I throw purple sun at either his dice roll beats mine, or he loses a huge chunk of any unit. It's not rock paper scissors units & tactics it's his whole army is paper & as long as I have access to shadow or death magic I become a rock. I could have done the same with pit of shades had he not been in combat. His options are run skink cloud or hope your opponent doesnt roll on shadow/death.

There's a reason most tournament lizardmen armies run skink clouds & very little saurus & that is bad design. Each option should be equally viable but because of pit/sun saurus are just not a good choice no matter what.

yes, you're right. Death is rock to Lizzies scissors. BotWD Elves is scissors to Demons of Chaos' paper. If you think WFB is anything else, you need to check over the rules again.

 Vulcan wrote:
yes, you're right. Death is rock to Lizzies scissors. BotWD Elves is scissors to Demons of Chaos' paper. If you think WFB is anything else, you need to check over the rules again.

I will admit I haven't played all that much 8th, but part of the thing I used to like about WHFB prior to 8th over 40k is that it didn't feel like an incredibly expensive and time consuming rock-paper-scissors. You could certainly create a bad army that would lose a lot, but for the most part it didn't feel like a game of hard counters like it does now.

 Vulcan wrote:
yes, you're right. Death is rock to Lizzies scissors. BotWD Elves is scissors to Demons of Chaos' paper. If you think WFB is anything else, you need to check over the rules again.

And that is a problem i have with 8th. From what i remember 7th wasnt as bad.

7E Magic wasn't as silly - LM and Dorfs were far more viable.

We can focus on Purple Sun as one small problem with the rules set or we can look at it's role as a symptom of the larger problems with the system.

Fantasy is in this weird place of being a mass battle game with very "individual model" focused rules. This means fiddling with individual models is unfortunately a part of the game. It's time consuming and makes the game feel like a chore - to me. I was more okay with it in 6th and 7th because armies were generally a bit smaller.

Added to this is the increase in influence of the random elements of the game. Like you say, Purple Sun is completely situational. This means the outcome of the entire battle becomes much more random. For those of us who are light on free time and want a satisfying game, losing even one game in 5 to random magic is a bit of a deal breaker.

That said, I am not saying 8th edition is awful in it's entirety. It did some good stuff, like making infantry blocks more reliable (I would argue it went a bit too far on that) making combat dwarves a little better, and the internal balance between armies and army books was much, much better than in the end phase of 7th (where the game shat itself).

I was frustrated by eighth because I bought in big for it with the hardcovers and other bits and pieces and it didn't provide the enjoyment I needed to justify my expenditure. When GW are competing with other companies that provide free rules and army lists, it's a bit hard to justify spending so much on their (usually entirely reprinted) rule books.

So I dunno. We'll wait and see. Maybe 9th will be decent, though I am not hopeful. In any case, I have Kings of War and it looks likely to get more popular with time, not less.

 Shas'O Dorian wrote:


Almost his entire army is I2. it doesn't matter what I throw purple sun at either his dice roll beats mine, or he loses a huge chunk of any unit. It's not rock paper scissors units & tactics it's his whole army is paper & as long as I have access to shadow or death magic I become a rock. I could have done the same with pit of shades had he not been in combat. His options are run skink cloud or hope your opponent doesnt roll on shadow/death.

There's a reason most tournament lizardmen armies run skink clouds & very little saurus & that is bad design. Each option should be equally viable but because of pit/sun saurus are just not a good choice no matter what.

Theres a lot more holding Saurus back than pit and sun. Skinks are the more viable option because saurus are trash. They need magic buffs to compete, and any strategy reliant on magic is not a good one. Skinks are more mobile, can dictate the movement phase, and their shooting is an answer to a lot of things LM might otherwise struggle with. Combat prowess is not to be found in core with that army. Was like that in 7th, and the 8th book didnt change all that much.

PirateRobotNinjaofDeath wrote:

Theres a lot more holding Saurus back than pit and sun. Skinks are the more viable option because saurus are trash. They need magic buffs to compete, and any strategy reliant on magic is not a good one. Skinks are more mobile, can dictate the movement phase, and their shooting is an answer to a lot of things LM might otherwise struggle with. Combat prowess is not to be found in core with that army. Was like that in 7th, and the 8th book didnt change all that much.

Waitaminnit, wasn't the gist of your argument that things were balanced and that tabletop tactics made up for stuff?

I think our resident 8E fanboy meant to say that 8E is perfect, except for the stupid spells and Dorfs and Lizardmen.