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I'll admit i like steadfast at times but i find myself thinking it's dumb when an enemy unit that's smaller and more agile flanks said unit and does quite a bit of damage and then because it has less ranks or none at all (skirmishers) the unit can win combat and steadfast on the losing enemy unit will just negate all the super awesome moves you just made esp. if a general and BSB are nearby. Then in the next turn the enemy can reform in combat and just kill off the unit that flanks it. I suppose it might expose it's flanks a bit but it takes away the big danger of flanks being exposed in 7th. That said with every edition there's always things i hate with things i love. So if this happens they'll probably introduce some stupid new rule i never wanted ever.

So what are your guys' opinions on this? I think steadfast is very needed for horde armies like my skaven but for a lot of armies it doesn't matter if you charge, flank and do more kills because in most cases all these boosts you give yourself and deny your enemy in combat resolution don't matter if steadfast is there anyway. I think steadfast is good but i don't think a flank or rear charge should allow steadfast in an enemy unit. It just takes away one of the bigger threats of the movement phase.

Well you have the idea that a massive block of men is still a massive block of men, no matter what way you slice it. A real life example is the Battle of Cannae, where even after being flanked and attacked in the rear, the massive roman army would not run away or break until the battle was well and truely a bloody one sided massacre. The same goes for a massive unit of Skaven or the like. Even being smashed on the flank, they are still going to believe that numbers will win the day, it's only when they realise that the battle is lost that they will break.

(ahh this old conundrum)
i think rather than removing steadfast entirely, which as you say would cripple some armies, they could do well with bringing back unit caps. its not horde skaven that people complain about, its the 100 rat blocks that never get shifted. so how about capping at 50? (just a number out my head, not an actual proposal figure.)
*insert obligatory "deal with them via dwellerz" quote*
*insert "magic is OP" quote*
*start "how to fix fantasy magic" thread*
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the cycle continues...

Caps arn't a good solution. 100 man units were common IRL, why should they be excluded from Fantesy?

There was a recent thread on this very subject and what we came up with was the following.


Monsters count as having 2 ranks.

Being flanked by a unit with 2 or more ranks imparts a -1 modifier on Break tests. A rear charge imparts -2 instead.

Well either way they should make it hard to reform on the enemy after being flanked. At the very least all the killing and confusion of being flanked should take a hit at morale or throw the unit into enough confusion so that they have to reform without steadfast.

This topic is, honestly, well and truly tired at this point.

Here's what the last dozen or so threads about this seemed to all point toward:

- as said above, monsters count as having 2 ranks. So monsters only need to kill you down to 14 or less models to negate Steadfast.
- your Ld is at a -1 if flanked, -2 if charged in the rear. That way, your Break test is unmodified, but your Ld is lower.

Anything more is too drastic. Anything less isn't really a change of what the rules currently are.