WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

Vorian wrote:
Did they have great weapons and shields as options for the miniatures?

Yes. From the box you can give them xbows, guns, shields or great axes. So since you get these in the sprue, I imagine it will be an option in the game. GW loves to be precise with box content and game options.

Not only that, bugmans rangers metal models came with greataxes and crossbows too. One of the more iconic units for dwarfs I'd argue.

I guess it would require playing, but I'd have thought the reason you wouldn't "go wide" is that it facilitates being charged by multiple units.

It also hinders your other units attempting to charge, plus unless you play on Planet Bowling Ball, one end or the other is going to get bogged down in something. 100” (no 20mm bases anymore, remember) is a lot of space. Heck, it’s wider than most entire gaming tables.

They borked it! Blackfang has the right link now.

Working link
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/12/04/old-world-almanack-how-magic-brings-a-sparkle-to-the-battlefield/

Seems okay. Certainly light years ahead of current 40k psychics.

Well the article did reveal one thing I was wondering, 40x60mm base for cavalry seems a little too big unless that's just for that particular model.

The unicorn is monstrous cavalry, not standard cavalry.

 bong264 wrote:
Well the article did reveal one thing I was wondering, 40x60mm base for cavalry seems a little too big unless that's just for that particular model.

It does say "Monstrous Cavalry", so maybe it's for that? Maybe we'll see more cavalry profiles in next week's article.

 bong264 wrote:
Well the article did reveal one thing I was wondering, 40x60mm base for cavalry seems a little too big unless that's just for that particular model.

That seems really weird considering the shown model looks like it’s on square base.

Each conjuration has a casting value appropriate to how complex it is, and spells are cast on 2d6, adding the skill level of the caster. It’s a quicker system than the previously used

Good! I like how some things are simplified.

Miscasts are also well thought.

Loving Magic Resistance (-X).

Also, monstrous mounts giving extra wounds!!!

Liking ToW TOO MUCH!!!!!

Vargheist wrote:

 bong264 wrote:
Well the article did reveal one thing I was wondering, 40x60mm base for cavalry seems a little too big unless that's just for that particular model.

That seems really weird considering the shown model looks like it’s on square base.

Probably a rules change made after an early model was printed up. Doesn't take much to change the base going into the box, but take a lot to change the base on the painted model.

It's just the angle shortening the long edge isn't it?

Even the old cavalry bases were 50mm long - that unicorn couldn't possibly fit on a 40mm long base.

Handmaiden has bunch of rules too but articles does give hint what does do.

She’s at her best when she’s joined by a unit, as her aura confers Magical Attacks and Magic Resistance (-2) to the brave men and women she leads, and her Shield of the Lady ability allows her to seek sanctuary in the back rank where she can cast her spells untroubled by the aggression of the foe.

Handmaiden also has Magical Attacks and MR listed but I think "Aura" and "Blessing" are the rules that confers them to the unit attached.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Working link
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/12/04/old-world-almanack-how-magic-brings-a-sparkle-to-the-battlefield/

Seems okay. Certainly light years ahead of current 40k psychics.

Huh. I joked about it earlier, but they really did bring back the 3rd edition magic lores (though significantly cut down in terms of the number of spells). That's a nice nostalgia hook.

Interesting approach to magic resistance (a penalty to the casting roll)


Glittering Robe is a hell of spell. Storm call is... nice... but is limited by the short range. You can disrupt units as they come into combat but slowing a unit down so they're out of position in the early turns is much more risky and hard to pull off.

Sorry everyone bad reading comprehension on my part lol. But now I'm wonder why the downgrade from 50x75mm? Unless that was just an 8th ed thing. As for the new magic I am excited to see it in action, here's hoping for a q1 release next year ?

Where did this 'the whole front row gets to attack' come from? Back in sixth it was just as many as were in base contact (though you could lap round if you won a round). Did it change for later editions (I stopped at 6th and went in to LoTR) or was there something in the warcom article?

Warcom article but we don’t have a ton of insight into caps on it, other rule interactions, etc.


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Magic is indeed the 2d6 system, suppose it fits the theme of not being game breaking and supplementary instead. See how it plays. I love the new magic resistance, it’s actually super useful now.

Lot of good things here - interesting to see elementalism back.

I see they have Necromancy in the core book but no Vampire Counts....Can Empire have it I wonder?

Hopefully you can dispel any spells remaining - not the invulnerable "remains in play nonsese of other editions

Personally I’m loving that if you mess up a dispel badly enough you miscast. Gives a much better “battle of wits and wills” feel to magic if you can outclass a dude so hard he literally explodes.

Yeah this all seems fine.

The most controversial thing for me is the 60 mm x 40 mm base size for the unicorn.

How is that going to rank up? Or maybe it isn't?

The big news here is combined profile for character and mount. Unicorn adds 1W to maiden. I can imagine a dragon will add 5W and maybe 1T to a character riding it.


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Also misscasting is kind of redundant/bad game design now. Before, your chances of a misscast would naturaly increase the more dice you rolled. Now you always roll 2 dice, giving you about 3% to roll snake eyes.

It is nice flavour but do wizards and even runesmiths dispeling need a 3% chance of catastrophic failure or even wiping out your unit?

 bong264 wrote:
Sorry everyone bad reading comprehension on my part lol. But now I'm wonder why the downgrade from 50x75mm? Unless that was just an 8th ed thing. As for the new magic I am excited to see it in action, here's hoping for a q1 release next year ?

Every model's unit entry specifies its base size. There's no reason why differently sized models in the same unit category have to have the same base size. I doubt Dragon Ogres go down in size, for instance, because they wouldn't fit on 40x60 bases if I recall correctly.

This way, at least theoretically, we have clarity on which base size a model is to use, and it can be tailored to the rest of the army without having to conform to a game-wide standard. No guarantees GW is going to make use of that, but the potential is there.

 Aesthete wrote:
Yeah this all seems fine.

The most controversial thing for me is the 60 mm x 40 mm base size for the unicorn.

How is that going to rank up? Or maybe it isn't?

If knights are on 30mm wide bases, the lance wedge has room for the sorceress in the third rank. Might look a little ungainly with gaps on both sides of her base or the flanks not being entirely straight, but I don't think there are any rules problems that can't be overcome with a sentence or two in the lance formation rule.

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:
I can imagine a dragon will add 5W and maybe 1T to a character riding it.

Unless it's like in the 8th edition where ridden monsters are separate from monstrous mounts.

Really love what they are doing with the whole thing so far, and magic looks quite interesting!

Love that dispel now has a risk, taking a chance to miscast while dispel doesn't makes it a no brainer to attempt, I like that! And the miscast table, on a first look, looks really good and balanced so far. Some harsh effects for the low numbers, while the higher one at a minimum stops you casting further (won't do much when it's your last spell cast in the turn tho, unless "the ability to cast" is also tied to dispel which would prevent the mage to dispel too, then it would be great).

Then there is this part that I am not sure: "What’s more, every spellcaster can attempt to dispel their opponents’ conjurations – provided they’re within 18” as first and second-level casters, or 24” at levels three and four". It could mean that every mage in range has the ability to dispel, but will still be limited to one dispel attempt per spell cast like before, or maybe you could try to dispel as many time as you have mages in range. And mages could be limited in dispel attempts themselves so maybe you burn them all one that one spell you want to stop.

Also, love that base size is specified on the unit info, hope that's how it's going to be for everything. But can we please get some TK info too, all we get is Bret this, Bret that!

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:
The big news here is combined profile for character and mount. Unicorn adds 1W to maiden. I can imagine a dragon will add 5W and maybe 1T to a character riding it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also misscasting is kind of redundant/bad game design now. Before, your chances of a misscast would naturaly increase the more dice you rolled. Now you always roll 2 dice, giving you about 3% to roll snake eyes.

It is nice flavour but do wizards and even runesmiths dispeling need a 3% chance of catastrophic failure or even wiping out your unit?

I mean your logic is probably what lead to miscasts being dropped from AoS and 40k, but miscasting was always a thing in WHFB, and The Old World does seem to be WHFB:Nostalgia Edition. So here it is.

It means there is still that risk of pumping loads of points into wizards. And that 3% will crop up if you’re intending on casting 5 or 6 spells per turn.

And it does give design space to have certain magic items and such to interact with it - forcing a miscast something other than snake eyes for example.

Wow, pretty elegant and simplified mafic system thats miles ahead of 40ks psychic system.

I like the range of dispell. 24 inches for greater wizarsds and 18 for lesser. Gives you some more battle of wits/placement to consider, though probably not super relevant depending on battleboard size.

MaxT wrote:

It means there is still that risk of pumping loads of points into wizards. And that 3% will crop up if you’re intending on casting 5 or 6 spells per turn.

And it does give design space to have certain magic items and such to interact with it - forcing a miscast something other than snake eyes for example.

Very good point on misscast giving you a bigger and bigger risk the more wizards you bring. There is a big question on how many dispells wizards can make. If the number is limited than players could be incentivised to overwhelm the enemy anti magic capabilities by bringing lots of wizards like in 7th. If one lv4 can dispell all spells in 24" radius than spamming wizards is less good of a strategy.

I like that all the magic lores seem to be in the core rule book. Also the fact that the magic phase is split up into the other phases of the game based on the type of spell. Its been a change i've wanted since 7th edition.

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

MaxT wrote:

It means there is still that risk of pumping loads of points into wizards. And that 3% will crop up if you’re intending on casting 5 or 6 spells per turn.

And it does give design space to have certain magic items and such to interact with it - forcing a miscast something other than snake eyes for example.

Very good point on misscast giving you a bigger and bigger risk the more wizards you bring. There is a big question on how many dispells wizards can make. If the number is limited than players could be incentivised to overwhelm the enemy anti magic capabilities by bringing lots of wizards like in 7th. If one lv4 can dispell all spells in 24" radius than spamming wizards is less good of a strategy.

The trouble with having your big wizard lord do all the dispels is you then run the risk of him exploding his own head and those of anyone nearby.

Also, the thing with assailments being cast in the combat phase means the number of times a miscast takes out a chunk of the enemy is going to go way up too…

 Mr_Rose wrote:

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

MaxT wrote:

It means there is still that risk of pumping loads of points into wizards. And that 3% will crop up if you’re intending on casting 5 or 6 spells per turn.

And it does give design space to have certain magic items and such to interact with it - forcing a miscast something other than snake eyes for example.

Very good point on misscast giving you a bigger and bigger risk the more wizards you bring. There is a big question on how many dispells wizards can make. If the number is limited than players could be incentivised to overwhelm the enemy anti magic capabilities by bringing lots of wizards like in 7th. If one lv4 can dispell all spells in 24" radius than spamming wizards is less good of a strategy.

The trouble with having your big wizard lord do all the dispels is you then run the risk of him exploding his own head and those of anyone nearby.

Also, the thing with assailments being cast in the combat phase means the number of times a miscast takes out a chunk of the enemy is going to go way up too…

Indeed. And the new miscast table seems a lot more brutal to those nearby: 1/6 chance of pie plating your unit as S10 AP-4 and 1/4 chance of a smaller template at S6 AP-2.

Imagine being in the middle of a lance formation and having the first happen - you’d pretty much wipe the unit out.

Well they do mention Fated Dispel in case you ran out of wizards/witches/sorceres/scammers.

If a player finds themselves unable to attempt a Wizardly dispel, they may make one Fated Dispel per turn – an unmodified 2D6 attempt. To offset this, certain units (notably Dwarfs) have an innate resistance to magic, making it harder for enemy wizards to cast spells upon them successfully. Yet even Dwarfs have some recourse to the arcane – Runesmiths are perfectly capable of making dispel attempts.

 bong264 wrote:
Sorry everyone bad reading comprehension on my part lol. But now I'm wonder why the downgrade from 50x75mm? Unless that was just an 8th ed thing. As for the new magic I am excited to see it in action, here's hoping for a q1 release next year ?

Early february is date short of LI level thing.


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 nathan2004 wrote:
Warcom article but we don’t have a ton of insight into caps on it, other rule interactions, etc.


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Magic is indeed the 2d6 system, suppose it fits the theme of not being game breaking and supplementary instead. See how it plays. I love the new magic resistance, it’s actually super useful now.

We know overlapping are 1 attack per model.

Seeing that Necromancy is now a main rule book lore I think that means that both Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts (the only two Undead factions) will use the same lore. Interesting development, as the two were previously very different.

 stonehorse wrote:
Seeing that Necromancy is now a main rule book lore I think that means that both Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts (the only two Undead factions) will use the same lore. Interesting development, as the two were previously very different.

That’s not to say that there aren’t lores – there are eight in the core rulebook alone

Implies there are also army book lores

 stonehorse wrote:
Seeing that Necromancy is now a main rule book lore I think that means that both Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts (the only two Undead factions) will use the same lore. Interesting development, as the two were previously very different.

Which would be a bit odd - or maybe they are allowing the independant wizards of the Empire to take it? There were magic schools/guilds in Middenheim and Talabheim but most dabled or were hedge wizards.

Having Tk's use it will be odd as they normally use magics assocaited with their gods and not that of Nagash.

If memory serves, TK had the lore of light from the main book last edition.

Anyway TK having their own lore would not contradict anything in the article.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
Seeing that Necromancy is now a main rule book lore I think that means that both Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts (the only two Undead factions) will use the same lore. Interesting development, as the two were previously very different.

That’s not to say that there aren’t lores – there are eight in the core rulebook alone

Implies there are also army book lores

While that is true, having the Elf, Greenskin and other lores in the main rules seems to suggest that any Lores we get in army books may be for the likes of anyone who's lore doesn't fit/can not be covered by the main books.

Necromancy seems to be a blanket lore, and one that I can imagine will cover both Undead.

Or maybe TK will go back to 6th edition and have their own system altogether.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Or maybe TK will go back to 6th edition and have their own system altogether.

I'd love TK to go back to RH 6th edition and use the Scrolls again. Those things were very thematic, and fit in perfectly with the way magic is done now. They weren't used in the Magic Phase, but rather different Scrolls were used in different phases, a bit like how magic is going to work in ToW.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
If memory serves, TK had the lore of light from the main book last edition.

Anyway TK having their own lore would not contradict anything in the article.

Light and Death.

Possibly ’Necromancy’ is a mixture of 4th/5th/6th Necromancy (aka LoV in 7th/8th) and Lore of Death

That would make more sense for TK to use (it seems in addition to their own lore), especially as TK includes Arkhan and a minority of other more Nagash aligned factions. VC would obviously use it, but they’re not Core.
It does say wizards get 2-3 lores, so TK could have Nehekhara, Necromancy and even one of the others (Battle or Illusion?).
Perhaps VC will get Necromancy and Dark like in 4th/5th?

Then perhaps some hedge wizard types could use Necromancy, or even perhaps Middenheim’s College (which had Dieter Hellsnitch as an alumnus in about the right period, albeit he was driven out for being a Necromancer).
Potentially Nurgle Chaos as well? They used Death in 8th and was marginally aligned with raising the dead in RoC.

Might have a delve into WFRP 1st Ed Realms of Sorcery, since the lores here align very much with what was presented there vs ‘contemporary’ WFB.

The magic system is the first part of the rules preview that seems to be a clear step down from 8th Edition.

There's no resource managment and no strategy -- just walk forward, roll dice, and hope you roll high. Furthermore, it makes Level 4 mages vastly better than any of the other options. L4s have always been much better than any of the other options, but in TOW they so totally outclass the alternatives there seems to be little reason in considering anything else. Even if restricted by points/hero slots/etc., a L4 looks to be the automatic choice.

A few things could change this. Magic items and upgrades could make cheaper options more enticing. The ability to cast spells outside dispell range could make cheap, rear echelon mages a viable tactic. But on raw numbers, the 2d6 curve greatly favors L4s and their bonuses.

 Saber wrote:
The magic system is the first part of the rules preview that seems to be a clear step down from 8th Edition.

There's no resource managment and no strategy -- just walk forward, roll dice, and hope you roll high. Furthermore, it makes Level 4 mages vastly better than any of the other options. L4s have always been much better than any of the other options, but in TOW they so totally outclass the alternatives there seems to be little reason in considering anything else. Even if restricted by points/hero slots/etc., a L4 looks to be the automatic choice.

A few things could change this. Magic items and upgrades could make cheaper options more enticing. The ability to cast spells outside dispell range could make cheap, rear echelon mages a viable tactic. But on raw numbers, the 2d6 curve greatly favors L4s and their bonuses.

L3-4 Wizards have always been much better than L1-2, and not just in raw number of spells.

In 6th-7th, each wizard generated their level in power dice (and half their level in dispel dice) and the number of dice you could use scaled with your level: Max 2 for L1 up to Max 5 for L4, a whole 3 extra dice is much more of a disparity than +3 to cast (though you did have to balance casting more spells vs better spells).

In 8th they also had the +Level to cast/dispel rolls, and while any wizard could throw 6 dice at a spell (which was also pretty brain dead), dispel dice were heavily restricted (so the L4’s +4 mattered much more) and the way spell generation worked meant taking a L4 practically guaranteed you got the spell you wanted.

I will miss the dice economy tbh, though it was a bit lopsided and the new rules will hopefully make taking a couple of wizards more viable to actually cast spells vs being a scroll caddy.

What will really matter I think is how often you can dispel. If a L4 can make 4 dispel roles then they will be a bit OP, but if they can only dispel once or twice then a couple of L2s becomes really viable IMO and makes interesting choices on which spells you dispel.
It then becomes a casting slot economy rather than a dice economy.


Edit: Also, on taking a L4, as auto, we don’t know what the character slot situation is like yet. If it’s like 6th-7th you only get 1 Lord at 2k, which means either you take a L4 wizard or a General with the best leadership value, which is massive given the new FBIGO rule.

Other than Chaos Dwarfs in 6th, even good Ld armies needed a combat Lord to get Ld10 and most armies needed a combat Lord to get Ld9, or even Ld8 in some cases (or 7 in the case of Skaven).

So it could be you have the difficult decision of a L4 wizard or massively increased staying power for a good chunk of your army (assuming the 12” radius bubble stays).

 Saber wrote:
The magic system is the first part of the rules preview that seems to be a clear step down from 8th Edition.

There's no resource managment and no strategy -- just walk forward, roll dice, and hope you roll high. Furthermore, it makes Level 4 mages vastly better than any of the other options. L4s have always been much better than any of the other options, but in TOW they so totally outclass the alternatives there seems to be little reason in considering anything else. Even if restricted by points/hero slots/etc., a L4 looks to be the automatic choice.

A few things could change this. Magic items and upgrades could make cheaper options more enticing. The ability to cast spells outside dispell range could make cheap, rear echelon mages a viable tactic. But on raw numbers, the 2d6 curve greatly favors L4s and their bonuses.

The problem with resource management in the Magic Phase often lead to players either taking lots of magic in hopes to overwhelm their opponent with dice or took none knowing that 1 wizard had nearly no ability to do anything at all.

Plus the Magic Phase took lots of time, at times to little effect.

I hated the dice pools, their imbalance had most events enforce limits that invariably killed TK's unique magic phase entirely.

We know from the "First Look at the Rules" article that TK have the Lore of Nehekhara.

It seems unlikely that GW are using that interchangeably as an alternative name for Necromancy.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 stonehorse wrote:
Seeing that Necromancy is now a main rule book lore I think that means that both Tomb Kings and Vampire Counts (the only two Undead factions) will use the same lore. Interesting development, as the two were previously very different.

That’s not to say that there aren’t lores – there are eight in the core rulebook alone

Implies there are also army book lores

At least going back to 5th (when I started) there were the 8 schools and then armies got additional ones in the books.

Again, the devil is in the details here. There is a long and ignoble GW tradition of creating a balanced rulebook and "get-you-by" lists and then screwing up the army books later on. We honestly won't know if this edition works until all the books have been published.

Yeah I’m pretty sure that the rule book “necromancy” lore is going to end up looking like a combination of death and shadow magic, with maybe a bit of celestial if GW remembers what necromancy actually means, and will be available to imperial wizards.

Remember this is before Teclis helped establish the Colleges so human wizards are still scraping together what knowledge they can, as they can, and end up mixing the Winds freestyle, rather than picking one exclusively or using all at once like High and Dark magic.

Also, I slightly suspect that imperial human wizards might get additional restrictions on where they can be placed, like not in the same unit as the general, on account of their legal status being a bit questionable and not wanting their heads chopped off by an over-zealous seneschal.

Lord Zarkov wrote:

L3-4 Wizards have always been much better than L1-2, and not just in raw number of spells.

In 6th-7th, each wizard generated their level in power dice (and half their level in dispel dice) and the number of dice you could use scaled with your level: Max 2 for L1 up to Max 5 for L4, a whole 3 extra dice is much more of a disparity than +3 to cast (though you did have to balance casting more spells vs better spells).

In 8th they also had the +Level to cast/dispel rolls, and while any wizard could throw 6 dice at a spell (which was also pretty brain dead), dispel dice were heavily restricted (so the L4’s +4 mattered much more) and the way spell generation worked meant taking a L4 practically guaranteed you got the spell you wanted.

I will miss the dice economy tbh, though it was a bit lopsided and the new rules will hopefully make taking a couple of wizards more viable to actually cast spells vs being a scroll caddy.

What will really matter I think is how often you can dispel. If a L4 can make 4 dispel roles then they will be a bit OP, but if they can only dispel once or twice then a couple of L2s becomes really viable IMO and makes interesting choices on which spells you dispel.
It then becomes a casting slot economy rather than a dice economy.


Edit: Also, on taking a L4, as auto, we don’t know what the character slot situation is like yet. If it’s like 6th-7th you only get 1 Lord at 2k, which means either you take a L4 wizard or a General with the best leadership value, which is massive given the new FBIGO rule.

Other than Chaos Dwarfs in 6th, even good Ld armies needed a combat Lord to get Ld10 and most armies needed a combat Lord to get Ld9, or even Ld8 in some cases (or 7 in the case of Skaven).

So it could be you have the difficult decision of a L4 wizard or massively increased staying power for a good chunk of your army (assuming the 12” radius bubble stays).

The issue is a +4 is substantially better than a +1 (or +2 or even +3) on 2d6, greatly increasing your odds of casting or dispelling. In 8th the difference between magic levels was smaller as the larger number of dice cancelled out the bonus to a degree. In 6th and 7th L4s were much better than other wizards, but the difference was slightly less noticable as there were fewer overwhelmingly power spells in those editions.

TOW is shaping up to more like 6th, which is a step backward from the relative parity of 8th. Of course, this analysis could change based on currently unknown factors, but based what we do know L4s are vastly superior to other wizards. If magic is good then you'll be heavily incentivized to take a L4 if you want to be able to cast or dispell.

 alextroy wrote:
The problem with resource management in the Magic Phase often lead to players either taking lots of magic in hopes to overwhelm their opponent with dice or took none knowing that 1 wizard had nearly no ability to do anything at all.

Plus the Magic Phase took lots of time, at times to little effect.

That was not my experience in 8th, when it was (and is, as I frequently still play 8th) possible to take just a L2 and still get a spell through by using six dice. The magic phase was very random, though, so quite often nothing would happen. This seemed broadly balanced to me, as wizards weren't that expensive and you could easily swing a game with the right spell at the right time. The only armies that really suffered from that system were those who relied heavily on magic, such as undead, who could be left high and dry by a couple of bad rolls.

They've gone for low chance of miscast with a weird distribution on the miscast table.

The probabilities go:

2-4 16.66%
5-6 24.99%
7 -- 16.66%
8-9 24.99%
10-12 16.66%

Which means you've got a substantially higher chance to get almost anything but careless conjuration.

I'm not sure what the point is. A 1 in 36 chance is so low as to be negligible yet they've put a really bad outcome there.

That kind of probability generating any additional affect is entirely for flavour and not game play as it won't be something people factor into their casting.

In a 4 round game you would need to cast and dispel 9 times per round to generate a single miscast.

in a 6 round game that reduces to 6 casts and dispel per round.

5 rounds is 7.2 cast/disp per.

On average i would say you'd be lucky to see one miscast all game, from either side.

It becomes a random environmental bomb that may sometimes explode the game, for the sake of flavour.

I think I'd prefer a higher chance to miscast with a lower chance to generate a catastrophic outcome.


Either make it an actual feature of the game or ignore it. far too much effort spent on something that will rarely ever happen.

One detail missing, same as with combat, is if there is a hardcap for bonus or not.

a lvl 4 is mandatory to cast and dispel unless there is a hardcap and a lvl 2 with magic items can reach that cap as well

yet it looks like we are going to see the return of the dispel wizard, were you only take them to counter magic
but this time it will be at least 2 because of range limitation

 Saber wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

L3-4 Wizards have always been much better than L1-2, and not just in raw number of spells.

In 6th-7th, each wizard generated their level in power dice (and half their level in dispel dice) and the number of dice you could use scaled with your level: Max 2 for L1 up to Max 5 for L4, a whole 3 extra dice is much more of a disparity than +3 to cast (though you did have to balance casting more spells vs better spells).

In 8th they also had the +Level to cast/dispel rolls, and while any wizard could throw 6 dice at a spell (which was also pretty brain dead), dispel dice were heavily restricted (so the L4’s +4 mattered much more) and the way spell generation worked meant taking a L4 practically guaranteed you got the spell you wanted.

I will miss the dice economy tbh, though it was a bit lopsided and the new rules will hopefully make taking a couple of wizards more viable to actually cast spells vs being a scroll caddy.

What will really matter I think is how often you can dispel. If a L4 can make 4 dispel roles then they will be a bit OP, but if they can only dispel once or twice then a couple of L2s becomes really viable IMO and makes interesting choices on which spells you dispel.
It then becomes a casting slot economy rather than a dice economy.


Edit: Also, on taking a L4, as auto, we don’t know what the character slot situation is like yet. If it’s like 6th-7th you only get 1 Lord at 2k, which means either you take a L4 wizard or a General with the best leadership value, which is massive given the new FBIGO rule.

Other than Chaos Dwarfs in 6th, even good Ld armies needed a combat Lord to get Ld10 and most armies needed a combat Lord to get Ld9, or even Ld8 in some cases (or 7 in the case of Skaven).

So it could be you have the difficult decision of a L4 wizard or massively increased staying power for a good chunk of your army (assuming the 12” radius bubble stays).

The issue is a +4 is substantially better than a +1 (or +2 or even +3) on 2d6, greatly increasing your odds of casting or dispelling. In 8th the difference between magic levels was smaller as the larger number of dice cancelled out the bonus to a degree. In 6th and 7th L4s were much better than other wizards, but the difference was slightly less noticable as there were fewer overwhelmingly power spells in those editions.

TOW is shaping up to more like 6th, which is a step backward from the relative parity of 8th. Of course, this analysis could change based on currently unknown factors, but based what we do know L4s are vastly superior to other wizards. If magic is good then you'll be heavily incentivized to take a L4 if you want to be able to cast or dispell.

 alextroy wrote:
The problem with resource management in the Magic Phase often lead to players either taking lots of magic in hopes to overwhelm their opponent with dice or took none knowing that 1 wizard had nearly no ability to do anything at all.

Plus the Magic Phase took lots of time, at times to little effect.

That was not my experience in 8th, when it was (and is, as I frequently still play 8th) possible to take just a L2 and still get a spell through by using six dice. The magic phase was very random, though, so quite often nothing would happen. This seemed broadly balanced to me, as wizards weren't that expensive and you could easily swing a game with the right spell at the right time. The only armies that really suffered from that system were those who relied heavily on magic, such as undead, who could be left high and dry by a couple of bad rolls.

I think removing chucking 6 dice at Uber spells and hoping for a IF is a deliberate design intent tbh. Frankly that was one of the worse features of 8th imo. The new system seems much less swingy (other than the miscast table), with somewhat more restrained spells in the vein of 6th-7th and hopefully a more consistent output.

Also, wrt your last sentence - given one of the headliners is TK, not having a system where Undead suffer due to the swinginess of magic is rather sensible!

I wonder if you stop casting if you roll 2-7 on the miscast table...Is the miscast table that swingy? I thought the 8th one was, game was over if your lvl 4 entered the Realm of Chaos and simliarly I hated rolling high and forgetting a spell. This seems a lot more forgiving provided you roll average or high.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Anyone else see Counter Charge on the Unicorn? I assumed that rule would be reserved for Empire Detachments like before but seems like other units beyond State Troops will get it. Interesting...

Finally had a chance to read the article. I'm once again fairly chuffed with how this rule set sounds. They said right at the start that they'd basically crafted this from the best bits of all the editions and added a few new things and fair play, it's exactly that.

Rulebook Magic Lores in the rulebook might simply just be the ones for the pdf factions

So everyone with a full book gets their own and those with pdf are stuck with the core ones

Looking at it with this small info, I kinda wish that the dice bonus was +1 lower wizard and +2 higher wizard, like dispel bonus worked in one of the older editions, and the extra magic level simply added a spell, I think that would make the choice to upgrade much less of a gimme then it has traditionally been.

 nathan2004 wrote:
Anyone else see Counter Charge on the Unicorn? I assumed that rule would be reserved for Empire Detachments like before but seems like other units beyond State Troops will get it. Interesting...

The movement article mentioned counter charge as part of the core movement (charge reaction) rules, so it seemed unlikely it would only apply to one faction.

*Edited

Level 4 wizards? Pah. I always used to take a level 25 wizard!

 Saber wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

L3-4 Wizards have always been much better than L1-2, and not just in raw number of spells.

In 6th-7th, each wizard generated their level in power dice (and half their level in dispel dice) and the number of dice you could use scaled with your level: Max 2 for L1 up to Max 5 for L4, a whole 3 extra dice is much more of a disparity than +3 to cast (though you did have to balance casting more spells vs better spells).

In 8th they also had the +Level to cast/dispel rolls, and while any wizard could throw 6 dice at a spell (which was also pretty brain dead), dispel dice were heavily restricted (so the L4’s +4 mattered much more) and the way spell generation worked meant taking a L4 practically guaranteed you got the spell you wanted.

I will miss the dice economy tbh, though it was a bit lopsided and the new rules will hopefully make taking a couple of wizards more viable to actually cast spells vs being a scroll caddy.

What will really matter I think is how often you can dispel. If a L4 can make 4 dispel roles then they will be a bit OP, but if they can only dispel once or twice then a couple of L2s becomes really viable IMO and makes interesting choices on which spells you dispel.
It then becomes a casting slot economy rather than a dice economy.


Edit: Also, on taking a L4, as auto, we don’t know what the character slot situation is like yet. If it’s like 6th-7th you only get 1 Lord at 2k, which means either you take a L4 wizard or a General with the best leadership value, which is massive given the new FBIGO rule.

Other than Chaos Dwarfs in 6th, even good Ld armies needed a combat Lord to get Ld10 and most armies needed a combat Lord to get Ld9, or even Ld8 in some cases (or 7 in the case of Skaven).

So it could be you have the difficult decision of a L4 wizard or massively increased staying power for a good chunk of your army (assuming the 12” radius bubble stays).

The issue is a +4 is substantially better than a +1 (or +2 or even +3) on 2d6, greatly increasing your odds of casting or dispelling. In 8th the difference between magic levels was smaller as the larger number of dice cancelled out the bonus to a degree. In 6th and 7th L4s were much better than other wizards, but the difference was slightly less noticable as there were fewer overwhelmingly power spells in those editions.

TOW is shaping up to more like 6th, which is a step backward from the relative parity of 8th. Of course, this analysis could change based on currently unknown factors, but based what we do know L4s are vastly superior to other wizards. If magic is good then you'll be heavily incentivized to take a L4 if you want to be able to cast or dispell.

Its not like a level 1 is useless. They still have 24% chance of casting a 7+ while a level 4 is dispelling.

You then also have to factor in coverage of the battlefield and how you can cover more *units* with the magic resistance (presuming that's a caster thing and not a damsel thing).

Two level 1s have certain advantages over a single level 4 so I don't think it's as simple as you make out.

Edit: For example a level 4 casting a 9+ with another level 4 trying to dispel succeeds 54.4% of the time.

A level 4 targeting a unit with a level 1 inside it, with the level 1 trying to dispel succeeds 50% of the time.

Elementalism!!! Wooo!!!

Ive not had an elementalist since 1st ed WHFRP.

Must say, while I'm a bit nonplussed about horus heresy, I'm getting really interested in TOW.

 kodos wrote:
Rulebook Magic Lores in the rulebook might simply just be the ones for the pdf factions

So everyone with a full book gets their own and those with pdf are stuck with the core ones

Hmmm that would make sense if we didn't know Greenskins were a main faction

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 kodos wrote:
Rulebook Magic Lores in the rulebook might simply just be the ones for the pdf factions

So everyone with a full book gets their own and those with pdf are stuck with the core ones

Hmmm that would make sense if we didn't know Greenskins were a main faction

Also Brets are a core faction and use 3 rulebook lores.

Waagh lore is the main outlier tbh - all the other rulebook lores could reasonably be used by multiple factions (both core and not)

On the one hand, the miscast table is much improved (insofar as the new system allows for).

On the other hand, GW have systematically removed all strategy and tactics from the magic phase. Now we're stuck with the garbage introduced in AoS.

Granted, it's still lightyears ahead of what 40k is currently stuck with but that's about as low as the bar can possibly get.

The old magic system had problems, don't get me wrong. However, it would have been nice to see GW make an effort to actually *fix* those problems, rather than just throwing the entire system in the bin in favour of the most low-effort fix possible.

As other posters have said, I don't think chucking 6 dice and hoping for a double 6 on Dwellers etc was remotely good.

I feel this system is simple - and sort of coherent.

But - and I feel this was more the case back in older editions - it feels like there's a high chance to just fail. I.E. I think (and this probability may be scuffed) a level 2 wizard casting Glittering Robe (8+) with a level 2 Wizard trying to dispel would only have a 48-50% chance to succeed (depending on how double 6 vs double 6 plays out).

So you are going to have games where you cast seemingly every spell - and others where you just fail. Which is definitely giving me flash backs to 5th or 6th edition - but I'm not sure will feel great. Maybe dispelling is capped somehow.

Back in the card-dealing days, a dispel card gave a 4+ chance to stop a spell, so a 50/50 success seems in line with that.

^ That's good to know, and 50/50 isn't bad - might feel more productive then some of my old 8th magic phases where I'm like "Well that was a waste of time" especially if you rolled low on winds of magic dice.

I wish they had used the strategy phase for magic dice generation but keeping track of those dice for casting spells throughout the remaining phases (including strategy) might have seemed clunky and designers went with the simpler version.

I'll play and decide myself if I'm a fan or not of course but we still don't have the full picture in terms of army rules and magic items. Imagine that will influence these 2d6 rolls pretty substantially.

As I noted before, IMO number of dispels per turn will be the big thing on how well it works.

IMO the best case would be if you got half as many dispels as you do casts (rounding up), like how in 6th/7th you got half as many dispel dice.

Then in the case of two matched wizards, you get two attempts to cast but they only get one to dispel, which makes it less often you’re going to do nothing at all, but also both balances more multiple L2s vs 1x L4 (e.g. 4 or 6 casts vs 2 dispels), as well as making just a level 1 useful as a cheap defensive option if you’re going magic light (vs always upgrading to L2).

Tyel wrote:
As other posters have said, I don't think chucking 6 dice and hoping for a double 6 on Dwellers etc was remotely good.

I feel this system is simple - and sort of coherent.

But - and I feel this was more the case back in older editions - it feels like there's a high chance to just fail. I.E. I think (and this probability may be scuffed) a level 2 wizard casting Glittering Robe (8+) with a level 2 Wizard trying to dispel would only have a 48-50% chance to succeed (depending on how double 6 vs double 6 plays out).

So you are going to have games where you cast seemingly every spell - and others where you just fail. Which is definitely giving me flash backs to 5th or 6th edition - but I'm not sure will feel great. Maybe dispelling is capped somehow.

50.5% I think, unless my maths are off. The article says double 6 to dispel stops the spell no matter what the casting roll was.

Edit: Also, I would imagine wizards can dispel any number of times, since you can always try a dispel of 2D6 +0 even without any wizard on the board.

The dispel thing without wizards on the board was only once per turn I thought so they did limit that.

Tyel wrote:
As other posters have said, I don't think chucking 6 dice and hoping for a double 6 on Dwellers etc was remotely good.

That was definitely an issue. But it was something you could solve without completely butchering the magic system. I mean, it would probably only take a couple of changes:

1) Tone down the big spells so that you're not throwing a literal Black Hole at the enemy army (e.g. have spells do damage to units, rather than just insta-killing them, regardless of wounds).

2) Make the Miscast table 1d6 + # of dice rolled in the casting, with the higher effects being more dangerous.

This would mean that throwing 6 dice at a spell would make it extremely likely that the wizard will be killed or crippled on a miscast (meaning the risk of trying this is much higher), whilst also reducing the value of auto-casting a single spell.

Only other thing I'd consider would be tweaking the number of dice generated so that it's harder for armies to dominate the magic phase by just spamming wizards.

 nathan2004 wrote:
The dispel thing without wizards on the board was only once per turn I thought so they did limit that.

Ah so it does. I didn't read that properly the first time round.

I guess that does suggest a limit on dispels per wizard per turn then.

I liked 3rd. A finite number of spell points usable per game. No dispel dice.

If I had 30 points to spend during the game I could choose to burn most of them in a few powerful spells, or try to get some cheap spells off and find creative ways for them to help.

The 40 point spells that completely exhausted a very powerful wizard were very destructive and often capable of winning a game outright.

The number of useless spells was large and it was a sound strategy to not take any wizard at all. I often played without one.

Another thing to note. It will be a lot easier to cast spells on first turn, when wizards will be further apart from each other. The player going first could potentialy cast without opposition on first turn.
Dispell range also means you cannot just hide your wizards in some remote forest on the edge of the board.

Dispel dice and dispelling in general give a way for the opponents of spells to participate in that part of the game versus just having things happen to them. Ask Dwarf players how fun it is just sitting back and having their opponent sling spells at them while they just take it lol.

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:
Another thing to note. It will be a lot easier to cast spells on first turn, when wizards will be further apart from each other. The player going first could potentialy cast without opposition on first turn.
Dispell range also means you cannot just hide your wizards in some remote forest on the edge of the board.

Yeah, the positional game is a lot more interesting now. 18" and 24" is not that far.

I am interested in the magic duelling aspect, but I think they could have done it more simultaneously with dice pools.

If they used an exploding 6 mechanic, even lower level mages have a chance.

All casters have a set of dice they get to use each battle round (so for dispel and cast), but the cast/dispel roll is a max of 2 dice, unless you roll a 6 to add dice.

What this does is allow higher level casters to do MORE without guaranteeing they will succeed on anything.

When an opponent within X" of a mage casts, the mage can choose to duel and dispel, and rolls their chosen dice, adding dice for 6s rolled. If the dispeller wins, the spell fails. You must beat the opponent's score.

But you choose when the spell is declared, not after it is cast. So players have to decide whether they wish to gamble their dice to shut the opponent down or not.

The current system is basically the same as One Page Rules

I was slightly disappointed about gw axing the dice pool management aspect of the magic phase.
But now I actually feel like it’s a good refresher, remembering my games of 8th and watching a lot of bat reps of 6th and 8th editions. Basically anything other than the most basic strategy was absent. Most spells would never end up being cast or even attempted to be cast in order to max dice the spell that you actually want.

Hopefully in the new Ed positioning will add a good depth to gameplay in terms of spellslinging and dispelling.

Btw, why is everybody fine with (free) dispel dice to counter magic while nobody is asking for „sabotage“ dice to counter artillery?
Let’s hope the potential of an effect is reflected in its point cost.

Seelenhaendler wrote:
Btw, why is everybody fine with (free) dispel dice to counter magic while nobody is asking for „sabotage“ dice to counter artillery?
Let’s hope the potential of an effect is reflected in its point cost.

Found the High Elf player!

Seelenhaendler wrote:
Btw, why is everybody fine with (free) dispel dice to counter magic while nobody is asking for „sabotage“ dice to counter artillery?
Let’s hope the potential of an effect is reflected in its point cost.

When has dispelling artillery EVER been a thing?!?!?!?!?

Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

One of the lead Devs is a big Dwarf fan. Just to warn you

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope they get rid of the misfire/chance to blow up. Why would you want a "balancing" factor of cataplut having a chance to blow up but not for bolt throwers or missile troops?

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope they get rid of the misfire/chance to blow up. Why would you want a "balancing" factor of cataplut having a chance to blow up but not for bolt throwers or missile troops?

The bigger the weapon, the more energy involved, and thus more dramatic results if things go wrong.

See I always think things like that are more fun when its either

1) A goblin type unit where you have a lot of them so it doesn't matter if a few blow up in their own face because you have others. It's thus a risk that lowers the power of the unit, but doesn't invalidate it entirely.

2) It's an optional super-powered hit. So basically you have your regular good attack and then a very good super attack that comes with the risk attached. That way you at least have some agency in choosing if it blows up and you can always play it safe the entire game and the units points are not "wasted" because it blew up the first time you used it.

Seelenhaendler wrote:
Btw, why is everybody fine with (free) dispel dice to counter magic while nobody is asking for „sabotage“ dice to counter artillery?

Lol, Why would I ask for something I don't want?

Seriously though, if ToW stays fairly accurate to its WHFB roots, then most Artillery will have its own built in counter effect. Some might use the misfire dice, Skaven stuff tends to blow up, etc etc etc.
So I don't need to ask for it as I'm just expecting it.

 Overread wrote:
See I always think things like that are more fun when its either

1) A goblin type unit where you have a lot of them so it doesn't matter if a few blow up in their own face because you have others. It's thus a risk that lowers the power of the unit, but doesn't invalidate it entirely.

2) It's an optional super-powered hit. So basically you have your regular good attack and then a very good super attack that comes with the risk attached. That way you at least have some agency in choosing if it blows up and you can always play it safe the entire game and the units points are not "wasted" because it blew up the first time you used it.

Weren't Goblin Spear Chunkas the only bolt throwers in 8th that misfired. Dwarf, Elf, etc didn't have that same problem.

think so yes, most of the O&G stuff had misfires, ditto Skaven but they lacked a bolt thrower

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope they get rid of the misfire/chance to blow up. Why would you want a "balancing" factor of cataplut having a chance to blow up but not for bolt throwers or missile troops?

As long as it results in higher price or reduced power fine.

Stone thrower "bit" more powerful than the ones you mentioned unless rules change dramatically after all.

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope they get rid of the misfire/chance to blow up. Why would you want a "balancing" factor of cataplut having a chance to blow up but not for bolt throwers or missile troops?

Because even now it's quite possible to blow up a cannon, and it happened in the past a lot more?

I am reading it right that a double six dispel overides a double six cast - if so thats good

I quite like the magical duel element and that the dispeller can also suffer if they roll double 1

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope artillery rolls to hit like everybody else.

Why archers roll to hit and stone thrower has to guess?

Why bolt throwers roll to hit and cannons use absurd artillery die?

I've liked everything so far, as I had designed it... but I'm wary about artillery...

SU-152 wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope artillery rolls to hit like everybody else.

Why archers roll to hit and stone thrower has to guess?

Why bolt throwers roll to hit and cannons use absurd artillery die?

I've liked everything so far, as I had designed it... but I'm wary about artillery...

Because those tend to be a lot less predictable in general. Cannons have, at the best of times, always been more of a “general direction” sort of weapon with a non-negligible chance of blowing up. Various catapults and other projectile siege weapons have also been tools of broad-strikes destruction rather than precision damage.

Meanwhile, even an unskilled formation or bowmen is going to get half a dozen volleys - if not more - out in the time it takes a cannon / ballista / mangonel equivalent to reload and fire again.

 Mr Morden wrote:
I am reading it right that a double six dispel overides a double six cast - if so thats good

I quite like the magical duel element and that the dispeller can also suffer if they roll double 1

Did you miss this? I’m pretty sure a Perfect Invocation will not all a dispel roll.

Magic is still very much a duel between opposing wizards. It’s still perfectly possible to Miscast should you roll a double 1, or to achieve a Perfect Invocation on a double 6.

And then later in the article

A double 6 counts as an Unbinding, dispelling no matter the casting roll

 alextroy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
I am reading it right that a double six dispel overides a double six cast - if so thats good

I quite like the magical duel element and that the dispeller can also suffer if they roll double 1

Did you miss this? I’m pretty sure a Perfect Invocation will not all a dispel roll.

Magic is still very much a duel between opposing wizards. It’s still perfectly possible to Miscast should you roll a double 1, or to achieve a Perfect Invocation on a double 6.

Not sure as it also says:

A double 6 counts as an Unbinding, dispelling no matter the casting roll,

Ninjaed!

 morganfreeman wrote:

SU-152 wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope artillery rolls to hit like everybody else.

Why archers roll to hit and stone thrower has to guess?

Why bolt throwers roll to hit and cannons use absurd artillery die?

I've liked everything so far, as I had designed it... but I'm wary about artillery...

Because those tend to be a lot less predictable in general. Cannons have, at the best of times, always been more of a “general direction” sort of weapon with a non-negligible chance of blowing up. Various catapults and other projectile siege weapons have also been tools of broad-strikes destruction rather than precision damage.

Meanwhile, even an unskilled formation or bowmen is going to get half a dozen volleys - if not more - out in the time it takes a cannon / ballista / mangonel equivalent to reload and fire again.

And yet artillery was effective enough to make all those more predictable missiles obsolete, so it can't be that big an issue.

I get the point of the 'sabotage' dice - mechanically magic acts like another form of artillery, but it can be interfered with while mundane artillery can't be.

but the artillery equivalent is the misfire, which in these new rules is probably going to have a higher likelyhood of happening than a miscast.

- 1/36 chance of a miscast while misfires were a 1 in 6.

So although artillery can't be dispelled it now has a 6x times higher likelyhood of 'miscasting' than magic does, unless they're going to change misfires in some way.

Artillery also tends to be slow moving, vulnerable, unable to move and fire...etc

misfire =/= miscast, they shouldn't have the same effects. Most misfires (weapon dependant) were simply not firing for a turn or two and maybe blowing itself up. Miscasts have a higher chance of blowing up yourself and also those around you, but simply being dispelled is much more common (the equivelant of not firing for a turn). It'll probably work out evenly enough, while not being the same mechanic.

I'm stoked for the magic changes, I always despised the magic dice minigame. Absolutely hated it. Hated trying to guess how many dice I should toss at a spell or trying to tease out dispel dice and scrolls in a particular order. Both my armies for 6th ed are magic heavy and you have to dump so much into it that it either does absolutely nothing all game or one side swings hard and gets steamrolled.

I really like everything I'm seeing for ToW, I may force my buddies to switch assuming the armybooks are any good

Vorian wrote:And then later in the article

A double 6 counts as an Unbinding, dispelling no matter the casting roll

Mr Morden wrote:

 alextroy wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
I am reading it right that a double six dispel overides a double six cast - if so thats good

I quite like the magical duel element and that the dispeller can also suffer if they roll double 1

Did you miss this? I’m pretty sure a Perfect Invocation will not all a dispel roll.

Magic is still very much a duel between opposing wizards. It’s still perfectly possible to Miscast should you roll a double 1, or to achieve a Perfect Invocation on a double 6.

Not sure as it also says:

A double 6 counts as an Unbinding, dispelling no matter the casting roll,

No contradiction. A Double 6 on the Dispel roll dispels regardless of the casting roll, but if Perfect Invocation prevents a dispel roll (like Irresistible Force did in early editions of WFB) then you can't stop it with Unbinding

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope they get rid of the misfire/chance to blow up. Why would you want a "balancing" factor of cataplut having a chance to blow up but not for bolt throwers or missile troops?

Skaven Jezzails had the special rule 'Reliable' - which meant they were almost safe and actually did have a chance to self-destruct in-game.

Also: Hellblaster Volley Guns.

 Hellebore wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

SU-152 wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope artillery rolls to hit like everybody else.

Why archers roll to hit and stone thrower has to guess?

Why bolt throwers roll to hit and cannons use absurd artillery die?

I've liked everything so far, as I had designed it... but I'm wary about artillery...

Because those tend to be a lot less predictable in general. Cannons have, at the best of times, always been more of a “general direction” sort of weapon with a non-negligible chance of blowing up. Various catapults and other projectile siege weapons have also been tools of broad-strikes destruction rather than precision damage.

Meanwhile, even an unskilled formation or bowmen is going to get half a dozen volleys - if not more - out in the time it takes a cannon / ballista / mangonel equivalent to reload and fire again.

And yet artillery was effective enough to make all those more predictable missiles obsolete, so it can't be that big an issue.

Wat

Artillery (at least the variations of it which exist in the warhammer setting) did not invalidate infantry portable ranged weaponry. It had vastly different use cases and roles than formations of bowmen and variations there of.

I have literally no idea why you would think that. Even modern artillery, which is immense more effective by any metric, hasn’t invalidated portable ranged weaponry.

 morganfreeman wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 morganfreeman wrote:

SU-152 wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope artillery rolls to hit like everybody else.

Why archers roll to hit and stone thrower has to guess?

Why bolt throwers roll to hit and cannons use absurd artillery die?

I've liked everything so far, as I had designed it... but I'm wary about artillery...

Because those tend to be a lot less predictable in general. Cannons have, at the best of times, always been more of a “general direction” sort of weapon with a non-negligible chance of blowing up. Various catapults and other projectile siege weapons have also been tools of broad-strikes destruction rather than precision damage.

Meanwhile, even an unskilled formation or bowmen is going to get half a dozen volleys - if not more - out in the time it takes a cannon / ballista / mangonel equivalent to reload and fire again.

And yet artillery was effective enough to make all those more predictable missiles obsolete, so it can't be that big an issue.

Wat

Artillery (at least the variations of it which exist in the warhammer setting) did not invalidate infantry portable ranged weaponry. It had vastly different use cases and roles than formations of bowmen and variations there of.

I have literally no idea why you would think that. Even modern artillery, which is immense more effective by any metric, hasn’t invalidated portable ranged weaponry.

cannons were effectively used against infantry for hundreds of years. If they were as temperamentally crap as you say, then it would have been far better to deploy gunners/crossbowmen instead. That militaries continued to deploy cannons against the same targets they deployed bowmen at proves otherwise.

Your argument required that they never do that because the bows were inherently superior.

Spoken like a dwarf player


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Okay I’m drunk and trolling

 Hellebore wrote:

cannons were effectively used against infantry for hundreds of years. If they were as temperamentally crap as you say, then it would have been far better to deploy gunners/crossbowmen instead. That militaries continued to deploy cannons against the same targets they deployed bowmen at proves otherwise.

Your argument required that they never do that because the bows were inherently superior.

Ah I see. You're misrepresenting my statements and assigning me non-sensical positions so you can subsequently strawman me and completely disregard your own wildly inaccurate claims.

Gotcha. I'll take this from the top and be snappy.

I never said hand-held ballistics (such as bows) were superior to artillery; I pointed out that historical artillery lacked precision and said hand-held ballistics functioned differently. Specifically that cannons were a point in the general direction" (guess range, roll artillery die, ect) vs hand-held implements. Now this does change as rifling and other developments evolved cannons into field artillery, but that's another can of worms.

Artillery (in this case, cannons) did not invalidate man-portable ranged weaponry.

TLDR: Cannons are historically dangerous to infantry in the same way that they are in fantasy and are also vulnerable in the same ways. They're also historically prone to breaking or blowing up due to improper use, weather conditions, wear and tear from age / use, and less controllable factors such as casting or powder quality. Not nearly at the rate we see on the table top, but balance and thematics are a thing. Technically two things.

The point: This is pointless as my original comment had nothing to do with historical superiority. I was chiming in about why ranged weapons such as bows would roll to hit, vs stone-throwers guessing range and cannons rolling the artillery die.

We (seem to) literally agree on this: Sabotage mechanics are silly and unneeded when canons have a whopping 1/6 chance of going wrong when magic has a 3%. All you're doing is being a piece of gak who's arguing for the sake of it.

I hope Helblasters will be be improved. In 8th edition an equal points in Handgunners outperformed them.

Do we expect artillery dice to come back? I would prefer cannons roll to hit with 1's being a misfire.

 Kalamadea wrote:


I'm stoked for the magic changes, I always despised the magic dice minigame. Absolutely hated it. Hated trying to guess how many dice I should toss at a spell or trying to tease out dispel dice and scrolls in a particular order. Both my armies for 6th ed are magic heavy and you have to dump so much into it that it either does absolutely nothing all game or one side swings hard and gets steamrolled.

"Guess"? WFB was a numbers based strategy game, you didn't "guess" how many dice you needed, you calculated. Calculated and then compared probabilities with priorities as befits a wargame.

I know that basic resource management mechanism isn't exactly the state-of-the-art solution when it comes to designing player driven mechanisms, but replacing all that decision space with a flat dice roll is just so sad.

The system could have been tweaked (shoud have, rather!) or replaced by something else that encouraged interaction (slowly deteriorating enemy magic defense that you mention, for example) and player agency but instead we get another instance of removing players from the equation and putting "uga-buga-random" where their decisions used to be.

The resource management of dice pools etc hasn’t been replaced by a flat dice roll, it’s been replaced by decisions of positioning. Yes that’s really different from 4th to 8th but that doesn’t make it sad or bad.

I agree, binding countermagic to positioning is a good choice. Still, doesn't make the magic itself more intellectually engaging.

Didn't 2nd Ed give each wizard a magic points pool that once they'd spent that was it, with different spells using more or less points up? A little surprised they didn't go with that, it would seem a good compromise to retain the resource magement.

It seemed implied in the article that spell generation is radom, which I guessi sn't surprising, but it's an aspect of magic I've never liked, and find it damages the vermilsitude.

SU-152 wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope artillery rolls to hit like everybody else.

Why archers roll to hit and stone thrower has to guess?

Why bolt throwers roll to hit and cannons use absurd artillery die?

I've liked everything so far, as I had designed it... but I'm wary about artillery...

Well "guess".

But I'm sure you are fine with entire shot going away if you fail your 4+ to hit? So no scattering only little and hitting enemies anyway,

Same for cannon. You either hit 1 model or entire ball vanishes.

tneva82 wrote:

SU-152 wrote:

 Sotahullu wrote:
Well there has been no mention of artillery rules, so far.

Hopefully dwarfs haven't lobbied too much!

I hope artillery rolls to hit like everybody else.

Why archers roll to hit and stone thrower has to guess?

Why bolt throwers roll to hit and cannons use absurd artillery die?

I've liked everything so far, as I had designed it... but I'm wary about artillery...

Well "guess".

But I'm sure you are fine with entire shot going away if you fail your 4+ to hit? So no scattering only little and hitting enemies anyway,

Same for cannon. You either hit 1 model or entire ball vanishes.

Same for archers.

Same for Bolt-throwers.

Why guess with artillery and not bows, crossbows, handguns etc?

Time it takes to adjust your aim, not to mention reload.

Your foe is on the move, so your range is constantly shifting. With handheld ranged weapons, that’s a matter of adjusting the angle your weapon is aimed at, and going for the broad general direction as your part of a wider volley.

Artillery? Left a bit…right a smidge. Up…no not that far….then shoot. It’s simply more involved, so you need to make a wider guess as to exactly where the enemy is going to be, using maths and angles and that.

 Baragash wrote:
Didn't 2nd Ed give each wizard a magic points pool that once they'd spent that was it, with different spells using more or less points up? A little surprised they didn't go with that, it would seem a good compromise to retain the resource magement.

It seemed implied in the article that spell generation is radom, which I guessi sn't surprising, but it's an aspect of magic I've never liked, and find it damages the vermilsitude.

Random spell gen is IMO a bad thing.

IIRc early edition had a pool of magic points to spend but once you got low I think you had to roll under the remaining points to cast it- or was that just WFRP??

Late editions did have way too much - hey look i cast this - I win - especially combined with total power which is why I hope that a double 6 dispel defeats a double 6 cast

I know for a good while GW messed with having powers and spells in sets of 6 in their games. The idea being that you "could" roll on a D6 for your powers for the game; or just flat out choose them.

IT was optional but as I recall most people just chose the spell they wanted like any pregame equipment.

Because some spells just work with certain kinds of army and some don't and some spells are so situational or just not really that good compared to others.


The whole "I cast this I win" is a hallmark of modern GW rules design and a symptom of their escalating lethality in games. Basically they solve most problems by making something perform better.

so long as we don't go back to 8th edition laser guided cannon balls that hit unless they managed to misfire when aiming at monsters, and at a stroke invalidated monsters entirely

leopard wrote:
so long as we don't go back to 8th edition laser guided cannon balls that hit unless they managed to misfire when aiming at monsters, and at a stroke invalidated monsters entirely

Yeah that is also bad! I'd be fine with the laser guided part, so long as they hit softer.
Sometimes I feel that a lot of issues like this would be solved if GW had different armour types within the game. So a cannonball could do "more" damage to a unit of infantry with light to medium armour; but not as much to something like a monster with ultra-armour. Meanwhile your spearmen can have a bonus against ultra armour models reflecting that they jab at the weak points in the thicker armour etc...

Ergo it lets you have something really powerful against X without then being super powerful against everything else.

A cannonball doesnt really care about the kind of armour you wear. If it doesn't just go right through the poor guy the momentum alone would probably crush him (if it had already moved through a bunch of other poor guys before him to "slow" it down).

Same with a monster. If it hit an arm or leg it should most likely be pulverized (if not then nothing else on the battlefield should be able to harm it either) no matter the size. Problem is more in that some of the artillery did d6 wounds and wounded on a 2+ so they had great odds of one shotting the monster if it hit.

Maybe a flat 3 Damage or d3 minimum 2 damage so if you get hit it it hurts but if you wound a larger monster it is assumed you didn't get a head shot but rather hit an arm or leg and severely wounded it but not outright killed it. The stuff with 3W or less should probably still be killed outright if hit even without hitting chest or head due to the force behind it unless they have regeneration or some ward save.

Another option would be a number of attacks based on number of targets. So 1 monster takes only 1 hit; but a unit of 20 infantry could take more.

There's certainly a few ways to adjust how they can work to build in some sense of variation between targets



Also I'd argue that there are monsters in AoS that would shrug off a cannonball; or things like a zombie dragon where it just flies right through and the dragon is "oh hey - another hole - like that's going to stop me!"

think the cannon issue is solved by having the thing roll to hit as any other ranged attack, then on a one roll 2d6 on a problem chart, with maybe 5-9 being "just a miss" or something

then allow the cannonball to hit the first rank, model dead? roll for the next rank and repeat with maybe -1S per rank or just keep going

problem with monsters was the size of the base meant the cannonball basically would never miss, the strength meant it would usually wound and then it did enough to outright kill the monster

the outright kill bit is probably fine, for a larger cannon, as is largely negating armour, the issue was the accuracy

While cannon accuracy has been an issue, I'd argue it's not the only one. I don't think the points cost of a monster reflects getting killed in a single shot before it ever contributes to the game, nor that the cost of a cannon is so high or its ideal targets so narrow that it becomes useless after taking out a monster. Compare this to Bolt Action where you can get an AT-cannon that is basically guaranteed to wreck anything it hits, but is costed very highly and quickly loses worthwhile targets. It's more of a choice you make with a plan in mind. As Empire or Dwarfs, there's precious little incentive not to throw some artillery in your army list because the points cost doesn't make it much of a commitment.

In my opinion the variance is just too great, just like with 8th ed nuke spells. The Old World would do well to put a cap on that somehow. Make cannons a worthwhile, contributing factor to bringing monsters down, but prevent one-shotting. It might even go that way considering combat doesn't result in wiped out units as easily anymore and there's a clear intent to curb lethality. Hopefully that gets seen through across the board.

Much simpler: give lone models a “spot the ball” dodge save. Ranked dudes obviously can’t do that but a guy on his own/with a mount? Sure. Maybe a 4+, -1 if mounted.

Edit: also, if we assume that all monstrous mounts work like the bretonninan unicorn, then your general’s Griffon or whatever is going to have the same ward save as its rider; no more punching the beastie out from under the boss.

Good luck with that, given how fast cannonballs move!

I’ve never found Cannons utterly deadly to my Monsters and Chariots. And I do favour my Monsters and Chariots.

Sure, it can squish my Dragon in a single shot. Except, even with being able to measure the range and choose exactly you want it to land? You still need to roll the first artillery die. Even if you avoid a Misfire (1 in 6), you risk rolling a 2 or a 4, and have to factor that in. Then the bounce - and it’s only once you’re rolling for the bounce that it starts doing damage. There you’ve again a 1 in 6 chance of it just stopping dead, or not travelling far enough to hit me, which is of course related to the initial overshoot roll.


And my Dragon (Dark Elf Black Dragon) doesn’t have a massive base, making it surprisingly tricky to hit.

Even if those two rolls are favourable? You’ve got to wound me first (2+, so admittedly likely) and then nobble me for all my wounds (6. My Dragon had six wounds).

Oh, and you first need to make sure you hit the Dragon and not the bloke riding it. Who unless you were insane had at some kind of Ward Save. Because riding a Dragon into battle tends to be a magnet for Horrible Things Trying To Murderise You.

In short? There’s far more to go wrong when trying to blat a high value target with a Cannon than folks seem to be appreciating.

And my Dragon (Dark Elf Black Dragon) doesn’t have a massive base, making it surprisingly tricky to hit.

Didnt*

Who knows in this brave new world?!

I don’t think I ever encountered anyone that didn’t put a cannon ball between the eyes of a dragon even with the randomness.

And with the points cost they often got an extra try or two.
The issue really is that even some of the big monsters couldn’t shrug off a cannon shot often enough.

I think they need to be a bit more thoughtful with things like wounds for the mot part, your potential 400+ model shouldn’t be one shot, but a few unlucky cannon balls should do it.

I also think big monsters like dragons should be on big bases, but have the wounds to take at least an equivalent to the elite units of their size.

Oh it was a risk, sure. But, shouldn’t everything face some kind of fairly reliable counter?

Facing a Dragon without Magic or Artillery was a very, very rough game. It wasn’t just good at killing stuff, but super resilient to attack, fast and manoeuvrable.

Depending on how fast your army could cross the board? I could be flank charging your units with my Dragon and Manticore from turn two. If you didn’t move at all, reliably turn three.

To complain that such powerful playing pieces faced risks of their own seems unjust to me. Artillery existing meant I couldn’t have it all my own way. And I had to box clever and accept the overall risk of concentrating so many points in them.

Sure, your artillery could always see those units (downside of being a Large Target, and indeed the main one), but if I could interpose some terrain between us? I could block your shot all the same.

Frankly, anyone lining up their Monsters and/or Chariots in a Conga Line of Intended Carnage doesn’t get to complain when a single Cannon Ball has a terrific shot and guts your army, no? Because that’s your own bloody stupid fault. Not the rules.

That’s kinda the problem, the risk/reward was a lot of monsters were useless against any opponent that had even the bare minimum understanding of the game.

Forests I think was about the only thing keeping them alive realistically.
As it was hard to hide them behind rocks or buildings against a smart opponent.

Better terrain rules probably a huge deal in balancing it out I suspect.

We already know they are reducing the damage potential of war machines. Screaming skull catapult used to do D6 wounds. Now it does D3+1.

1-6 damage range in 6th/7th/8th edition, 2-4 damage range in Old world. Or 3.5 vs 3 average damage.

Didn't is correct, almost certainly. Older edition dragons were on a 50x50, but the plastic DE Black Dragon came on a chariot base, just like the plastic HE dragon. With base sizes being explicitly stated in the unit entries, I'm sure that'll be standardized to 50x100 (or 60x120, if they change chariot bases)

Either way, if you're playing somebody that can accurately guess ranges then premeasuring doesn't change a whole lot for cannons, you're still left hoping for a misfire or bad bounce anyways.

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:
We already know they are reducing the damage potential of war machines. Screaming skull catapult used to do D6 wounds. Now it does D3+1.

1-6 damage range in 6th/7th/8th edition, 2-4 damage range in Old world. Or 3.5 vs 3 average damage.

I do wish we got the cannon as I think it’s better base for discussion, sorta a standard to work with.

leopard wrote:
think the cannon issue is solved by having the thing roll to hit as any other ranged attack, then on a one roll 2d6 on a problem chart, with maybe 5-9 being "just a miss" or something

then allow the cannonball to hit the first rank, model dead? roll for the next rank and repeat with maybe -1S per rank or just keep going

problem with monsters was the size of the base meant the cannonball basically would never miss, the strength meant it would usually wound and then it did enough to outright kill the monster

the outright kill bit is probably fine, for a larger cannon, as is largely negating armour, the issue was the accuracy

Just what a Warhammer game needs: more unnecessary random rolls. Bonus points as you'd have us roll a random roll to randomly determine the next random rolls.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
In short? There’s far more to go wrong when trying to blat a high value target with a Cannon than folks seem to be appreciating.

I think the issue is more the "all or nothing" nature of it.
To a degree this has often applied in GW games. But having a situation where a cannon (or two/three) will just one-shot a dragon in some games - and do exactly nothing in others - is a bit... unsatisfying for either side respectively.

I don't know how you fix that really. You can "nerf" cannons, rock lobbers, whatever if you just don't like them - but there has to be some sort of probability that works.

Or things like Dragons have to be much more vulnerable to chip damage (i.e. they get meaningfully weaker as they lose wounds - and they will usually lose some to cannons but its not all or nothing). But I've really not liked the tables in AoS or 40k to try and simulate that and I'm not another solution would be.

Hence my idea to have some kind of armour or save value that is dynamic based on the damage source. That allows a dragon to survive a cannonball to the chest, but take harm; whilst still allowing pikemen to take down the dragon.

It does add complexity to the game, but handled right it should be fairly simple to put into practice once people get used to the approach.


It lets you have artillery that are threatening to large infantry blocks; but not so powerful that they remove the viability of elite units; monsters and larger creatures.





Another idea that struck me is dynamic aiming. Against a Dragon or single/small unit its very inaccurate; whilst against a 10-20 man unit it becomes more accurate. Of course that approach is kind of still in that "all or nothing" but it would mean that you'd at least have some viability against one target type and not another.

You might need a stat modifier for armies like Ogors; eg "1 ogor = 2 regular infantry for the purposes of artillery shots." Just to prevent elite armies like that dominating the game and having an unfair advantage.

Tyel wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
In short? There’s far more to go wrong when trying to blat a high value target with a Cannon than folks seem to be appreciating.

I think the issue is more the "all or nothing" nature of it.
To a degree this has often applied in GW games. But having a situation where a cannon (or two/three) will just one-shot a dragon in some games - and do exactly nothing in others - is a bit... unsatisfying for either side respectively.

I don't know how you fix that really. You can "nerf" cannons, rock lobbers, whatever if you just don't like them - but there has to be some sort of probability that works.

Or things like Dragons have to be much more vulnerable to chip damage (i.e. they get meaningfully weaker as they lose wounds - and they will usually lose some to cannons but its not all or nothing). But I've really not liked the tables in AoS or 40k to try and simulate that and I'm not another solution would be.

The problem I think is single cannon value, if a dragon could always take a single shot. Needing a second then the the balance is a bit less of an issue.
Considering a dragon alone in combat was often very vulnerable, and you wanted to flank with them anyway to get their investment back.

A simple BS roll to hit single targets would be fine, make them more like a super bolt thrower when used to snipe dragons and chariots, but still roll the artillery dice to see if it misfires to offset the "super" part of super bolt thrower. Most shots will still need 3+ to hit (BS3 crew, large target), 4+ at long range. A 1/6 misfire chance makes it slightly less reliable than a bolt thrower but at a stronger hit if successful.

If they’re changing the cannon damage like they’re changing the stone throwers as someone pointed out up thread that’ll help.

2-4 damage rather than 1-6 means you’re no longer one shotting monsters, but have a pretty consistent 2-3 hits to kill.

leopard wrote:
so long as we don't go back to 8th edition laser guided cannon balls that hit unless they managed to misfire when aiming at monsters, and at a stroke invalidated monsters entirely

What if we were to go back to reload for all Gunpowder weapons, but kept the accuracy from 8th?

I’m just not gonna agree.

Large Target with Fly tend to (maybe exlcusively) come underneath a turbo nutter with useful Magic Items.

They’re a significant points sink. Yet, used well? Can punch above their weight.

And it really doesn’t take much practice to figure out how to make best horrific murderdeathkill out of them.

Why shouldn’t I have to factor in my opponent having a Death Switch for them?

Especially when you consider all of two armies has such a Death Switch. Specifically Empire and Ogres. Oh and Dwarfs I think, though there’s something niggling at my mind that Dwarf Cannon had a base D3 wounds.


Why should the rules not provide me with some level of risk?

And I’m pretty sure my nous with monsters and chariots will kick your head in 9 times out of 10, because I got my head round the existential threats and figured out ways round them.

You put your Big Bad. Front and and centre? You don’t get to moan if my potential Off Switch is pressed. Because the fault is entirely your own.

Depending on edition, anybody could take a Dogs of War cannon. In 6th, regular cannons were 48" D3 wounds, great cannons were 60" D6 wounds. I think Dwarves only had regular cannons, but they also have Engineers and runes that can be added to make them more effective.

And even without Dogs of War, those 2 "couple armies" are pretty much the only 2 I ever fight against, so neither my HE dragon nor my undead dragon ever really see the table.

Bringing it back to ToW, I hope dragons also simply add toughness/wounds/attacks to the base hero's profile just like the unicorn previewed. Needing a separate foot-model in case the mount gets shot out from underneath you stinks.

Still not a fault in the rules.

Galloper Guns were indeed D3 wounds. If memory serves.

 Kalamadea wrote:
Depending on edition, anybody could take a Dogs of War cannon. In 6th, regular cannons were 48" D3 wounds, great cannons were 60" D6 wounds. I think Dwarves only had regular cannons, but they also have Engineers and runes that can be added to make them more effective.

And even without Dogs of War, those 2 "couple armies" are pretty much the only 2 I ever fight against, so neither my HE dragon nor my undead dragon ever really see the table.

Bringing it back to ToW, I hope dragons also simply add toughness/wounds/attacks to the base hero's profile just like the unicorn previewed. Needing a separate foot-model in case the mount gets shot out from underneath you stinks.

The Dogs of War cannon was the smaller of the two types, so only D3 wounds. Only Empire got Great Cannons.

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Kalamadea wrote:
Depending on edition, anybody could take a Dogs of War cannon. In 6th, regular cannons were 48" D3 wounds, great cannons were 60" D6 wounds. I think Dwarves only had regular cannons, but they also have Engineers and runes that can be added to make them more effective.

And even without Dogs of War, those 2 "couple armies" are pretty much the only 2 I ever fight against, so neither my HE dragon nor my undead dragon ever really see the table.

Bringing it back to ToW, I hope dragons also simply add toughness/wounds/attacks to the base hero's profile just like the unicorn previewed. Needing a separate foot-model in case the mount gets shot out from underneath you stinks.

The Dogs of War cannon was the smaller of the two types, so only D3 wounds. Only Empire got Great Cannons.

The big problem that produced was that the Empire Great Cannons were a Special Choice, where as the Dogs of War was a Rare choice. The Empire one was better, D6 wounds, and a greater range... and is only a special choice.

Given that I have pretty large armies for both Empire and Dark Elves, I've been on both sides of this debate. Frankly, the Mad Doc is right.

The Empire was, in my view, the baseline for the whole system. They had the most dead-average troops in the game. And outside of cannons, the only things in the army that could wound a dragon on a 4+ were characters with great weapons, Inner Circle Knights on a charge, and a bloody tank. Cannons were equalizers. And bear in mind that even IF you manage to actually wound the dragon (far from guaranteed) you only have a 1/6 chance to kill it outright.

Make the most of it, because anyone with a dragon probably has a number of fast and/or shooty elements in their list - your artillery will be short-lived. My Dark Elves had Dwarves conceding as early as Top of 2 because I was already eating their war machine crews.

I agree that cannons have very high impact potential, but it's just that: potential. Just like everything else in the game.

 stonehorse wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Kalamadea wrote:
Depending on edition, anybody could take a Dogs of War cannon. In 6th, regular cannons were 48" D3 wounds, great cannons were 60" D6 wounds. I think Dwarves only had regular cannons, but they also have Engineers and runes that can be added to make them more effective.

And even without Dogs of War, those 2 "couple armies" are pretty much the only 2 I ever fight against, so neither my HE dragon nor my undead dragon ever really see the table.

Bringing it back to ToW, I hope dragons also simply add toughness/wounds/attacks to the base hero's profile just like the unicorn previewed. Needing a separate foot-model in case the mount gets shot out from underneath you stinks.

The Dogs of War cannon was the smaller of the two types, so only D3 wounds. Only Empire got Great Cannons.

The big problem that produced was that the Empire Great Cannons were a Special Choice, where as the Dogs of War was a Rare choice. The Empire one was better, D6 wounds, and a greater range... and is only a special choice.

True, but wasn't the rest of the Empire army (supposedly) balanced around that? Fighting for Special slots against Pistoliers or Greatswords or mortars, I don't remember seeing many Empire armies with more than 2 cannons in 6th or early 7th (can't speak for 8th), but I almost always saw at least one cannon and a Hellblaster Volleygun

I've thought about trying a DoW cannon in my VC army, but would need to give up a banshee for it. That's a really tough call and I feel like it should be a tough call. Hopefully the ToW lists have a lot of those tough choices, they make for more interesting armies and as much as I'm really liking all the base system previews, the armylists are going to make or break the game

trouble is cannons were not "equalizers", they were a near auto kill on any monster, and thus auto cripple on any army that needed them.

the only adjustment needed really was a normal roll to hit, and perhaps monsters having enough wounds they can take one hit, and be left with maybe a single wound.

cannons could have been an equalizer if more factions had access to them, I know my O&G got fed up with Empire lists created with the aim of a photocopier game after game

there was literally no downside to bringing cannons, steam tanks etc

Introduce Battlemasters' approach to the Imperial cannon - a card deck turning over one at a time to see how far it bounces before it stops.

 Shakalooloo wrote:
Introduce Battlemasters' approach to the Imperial cannon - a card deck turning over one at a time to see how far it bounces before it stops.

Have an exalt for bringing up Battle Masters.

Solution: give dragons a seventh wound.

leopard wrote:
so long as we don't go back to 8th edition laser guided cannon balls that hit unless they managed to misfire when aiming at monsters, and at a stroke invalidated monsters entirely

Laser-guided cannonballs that could shoot between the legs of a soldier without hitting the soldier, to boot!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Just Tony wrote:

leopard wrote:
think the cannon issue is solved by having the thing roll to hit as any other ranged attack, then on a one roll 2d6 on a problem chart, with maybe 5-9 being "just a miss" or something

then allow the cannonball to hit the first rank, model dead? roll for the next rank and repeat with maybe -1S per rank or just keep going

problem with monsters was the size of the base meant the cannonball basically would never miss, the strength meant it would usually wound and then it did enough to outright kill the monster

the outright kill bit is probably fine, for a larger cannon, as is largely negating armour, the issue was the accuracy

Just what a Warhammer game needs: more unnecessary random rolls. Bonus points as you'd have us roll a random roll to randomly determine the next random rolls.

But you're hard out due to random charge ranges. What do you care?

 Vulcan wrote:

leopard wrote:
so long as we don't go back to 8th edition laser guided cannon balls that hit unless they managed to misfire when aiming at monsters, and at a stroke invalidated monsters entirely

Laser-guided cannonballs that could shoot between the legs of a soldier without hitting the soldier, to boot!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Just Tony wrote:

leopard wrote:
think the cannon issue is solved by having the thing roll to hit as any other ranged attack, then on a one roll 2d6 on a problem chart, with maybe 5-9 being "just a miss" or something

then allow the cannonball to hit the first rank, model dead? roll for the next rank and repeat with maybe -1S per rank or just keep going

problem with monsters was the size of the base meant the cannonball basically would never miss, the strength meant it would usually wound and then it did enough to outright kill the monster

the outright kill bit is probably fine, for a larger cannon, as is largely negating armour, the issue was the accuracy

Just what a Warhammer game needs: more unnecessary random rolls. Bonus points as you'd have us roll a random roll to randomly determine the next random rolls.

But you're hard out due to random charge ranges. What do you care?

Crap ideas are crap ideas whether I play the system or not. And is that seriously the best trolling you can do?

Sigh that’s not a productive attitude for this discussion and asking why you care is valid since you’ve stated you’re out.

Wonder if they will do a preview article just on artillery?

If you were good with guessing ranges it was quite hard to miss with the cannon even with the bounce. You would aim X inches in front of the back of the targets base. Especially in 7th in which a few of the monsters jumped to chariot bases that were 100mm long.

So you would aim like 6,1-7,9" in front of the large monster/chariot. On a misfire you fail ofc, 2-6" land slightly in front and 8-10" a direct hit. So 1/3 without bounce to hit on a good guess. A 6" will hit on 5/6 bounce results, a 4" on 2/3 results and a 2" on 1/2. Direct hit + bounce will thus hit 2/3 of the time on a chariot base even if counting in misfires on a 50x100mm base if you can estimate within 2". 50mm monsters were of course harder to hit and you went from a 66% to hit to a still very respectable 55% to hit. If you add engineers and/or runes to the cannons you jump it up to 78% (100mm base) and 63% (50mm base) or more(dwarves can get a bit more accuracy depending on upgrades in 6th/7th).

A dwarf cannon with upgrades in a good players hand would be hitting on the equivalent of 2+ against 100mm bases and 3+ against 50mm bases.

Every time I come to this thread to see what's going on it's a discussion about whether guessing charge and cannon range is good or not.

Klickor wrote:
If you were good with guessing ranges it was quite hard to miss with the cannon even with the bounce. You would aim X inches in front of the back of the targets base. Especially in 7th in which a few of the monsters jumped to chariot bases that were 100mm long.

So you would aim like 6,1-7,9" in front of the large monster/chariot. On a misfire you fail ofc, 2-6" land slightly in front and 8-10" a direct hit. So 1/3 without bounce to hit on a good guess. A 6" will hit on 5/6 bounce results, a 4" on 2/3 results and a 2" on 1/2. Direct hit + bounce will thus hit 2/3 of the time on a chariot base even if counting in misfires on a 50x100mm base if you can estimate within 2". 50mm monsters were of course harder to hit and you went from a 66% to hit to a still very respectable 55% to hit. If you add engineers and/or runes to the cannons you jump it up to 78% (100mm base) and 63% (50mm base) or more(dwarves can get a bit more accuracy depending on upgrades in 6th/7th).

A dwarf cannon with upgrades in a good players hand would be hitting on the equivalent of 2+ against 100mm bases and 3+ against 50mm bases.

Close. The old trick was to aim 10" (9" would give similar result) from the back of the target. Targeting a 100mm chariot base (say 4") you would miss with the following:
Artillery Dice Bounce Dice How short of target
Misfire Any Infinite
2 Misfire 4"
2 2 2"
4 Misfire 2"

That is 9/36 chance of missing. Or 27/36 chance of hitting. 75%. Halfway between 2+ and 3+ to hit.

Since monsters are usually Large Targets, it is basically if you miss your BS roll by 1 you have a 4+ chance of hitting anyway.

"guess range" is something that sounds like a fun mechanic to play a game, and it can be fun, when both players are equally bad at it.

trouble is there are so many ways to abuse it

e.g. a cannon, you cannot fire into combat, but you can fire at something beyond it from an elevated position then "guess" the range and oh would you look where that landed, what are the chances eh?

it should have been noted as an "optional" rule and left at that


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:
Every time I come to this thread to see what's going on it's a discussion about whether guessing charge and cannon range is good or not.

possibly because it was one of the more contentious points of earlier editions? along with the various magic systems and some of the movement "tricks" designed to stop things fighting

Tygre wrote:


Close. The old trick was to aim 10" (9" would give similar result) from the back of the target. Targeting a 100mm chariot base (say 4") you would miss with the following:
Artillery Dice Bounce Dice How short of target
Misfire Any Infinite
2 Misfire 4"
2 2 2"
4 Misfire 2"

That is 9/36 chance of missing. Or 27/36 chance of hitting. 75%. Halfway between 2+ and 3+ to hit.

Since monsters are usually Large Targets, it is basically if you miss your BS roll by 1 you have a 4+ chance of hitting anyway.

You need to to aim exactly or slightly more than 10" away from the back of the targets base or a 10 on the artillery dice will just overshoot the target since 100mm is shorter than 4". So anything 9,9" or below is not far enough. Which is why I used 6,1"-7,9" from the front as a good targeting range. Which is 10-11,9" from the back. So a 10 on the artillery dice doesn't overshoot. You sadly can't have it so an artillery roll of 10 and an artillery roll + bounce roll equal to 6 hits the target. One is either short or the other overshoots.

Klickor wrote:

Tygre wrote:


Close. The old trick was to aim 10" (9" would give similar result) from the back of the target. Targeting a 100mm chariot base (say 4") you would miss with the following:
Artillery Dice Bounce Dice How short of target
Misfire Any Infinite
2 Misfire 4"
2 2 2"
4 Misfire 2"

That is 9/36 chance of missing. Or 27/36 chance of hitting. 75%. Halfway between 2+ and 3+ to hit.

Since monsters are usually Large Targets, it is basically if you miss your BS roll by 1 you have a 4+ chance of hitting anyway.

You need to to aim exactly or slightly more than 10" away from the back of the targets base or a 10 on the artillery dice will just overshoot the target since 100mm is shorter than 4". So anything 9,9" or below is not far enough. Which is why I used 6,1"-7,9" from the front as a good targeting range. Which is 10-11,9" from the back. So a 10 on the artillery dice doesn't overshoot. You sadly can't have it so an artillery roll of 10 and an artillery roll + bounce roll equal to 6 hits the target. One is either short or the other overshoots.

only if you are square on the front, a bit of an angle and "2 inch from the back of the base" works just fine

That is true ofc. Probably still a bit better to aim an inch further away than risk it being too close so you can possibly over shoot. Being 1" short on the initial guess is better odds of hitting than be 1" too long.

 nathan2004 wrote:
Sigh that’s not a productive attitude for this discussion and asking why you care is valid since you’ve stated you’re out.

Show me the rule on an open forum that says I have to commit to playing a game before commenting on it.


Go ahead, I'll wait.



I'm following solely to see what other bad rules are implemented and if houseruling "Charges are double move" would be enough to make the game playable. The more I see of the game, though, the more I find that dips into no-go territory. At this point it may be more pertinent to do what I was doing anyway without apparently asking for your permission to do so: see if there are brilliant rules ideas I can crib as a houserule for 6th. If that's okay with you, and the other posters who are passive-aggressively flinging poo at my posts. I wouldn't want to violate some rule where I need your approval to contribute...



Hopefully that does indeed justify my following of a thread, and kindly leave the gatekeeping at the door. It's not a good look.

please, you can't fight in here, this is the war room


/joke

 Just Tony wrote:
...

I do understand your frustration with these kinds of responses, but they are just taking the piss out of what seemed a knee-jerk reaction on your part back then. Trying to frame it as gatekeeping won't help the matter, just take it in stride and it will go away.

Why in HELL are you talking about range guessing when we already know it will never be a part of the Old World rules.

Let's rather talk about how 200+ points characters still only have 3 wounds. Meaning you have to make them unkillable via 1++/4+ saves. You can't nibble away at their wounds with bad attacks because they have none, so you have to make characters as tough as possible, where basic units have no way to hurt them.

7th was dominated by characters with 0+ AS, 1+ rerollable AS, 4+ ward save or 4+ regen. This makes the game all or nothing. Should have give them more wounds and limit the amout of armor they can take.

For what is worth, Canons should be exactly like Bolt-Throwers (add some Strength, and an extra wound, 1 to hit -> cannon takes 1 wound?).

We already know templates will be in the game, so Stone-Throwers and Mortars are already lost for me.

I wish artillery were like in AoS.

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:
Why in HELL are you talking about range guessing when we already know it will never be a part of the Old World rules.

Let's rather talk about how 200+ points characters still only have 3 wounds. Meaning you have to make them unkillable via 1++/4+ saves. You can't nibble away at their wounds with bad attacks because they have none, so you have to make characters as tough as possible, where basic units have no way to hurt them.

7th was dominated by characters with 0+ AS, 1+ rerollable AS, 4+ ward save or 4+ regen. This makes the game all or nothing. Should have give them more wounds and limit the amout of armor they can take.

its one thing AoS got right, upping the number of wounds for a bit of survivability

At some point can this thread be about news and rumours and not speculative arguments of the merits of 30 years of game system rules? Surely a discussion thread can be set up elsewhere for such things.

That's been tried multiple times. I think the mods just have up.

Or, instead of endless arguing about artillery, magic, and monsters, we speculate on things that are really important.

Like:

Will they bring back Goblin Green?

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
Or, instead of endless arguing about artillery, magic, and monsters, we speculate on things that are really important.

Like:

Will they bring back Goblin Green?

probably not as they can't trademark it

pity, its actually a really nice colour

leopard wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
Or, instead of endless arguing about artillery, magic, and monsters, we speculate on things that are really important.

Like:

Will they bring back Goblin Green?

probably not as they can't trademark it

pity, its actually a really nice colour

Just give us Grotbags Green in its place, then.

Any bets on what orcs infantry base sizes are gonna be judging by this photo?

Doesn’t look like they’ve changed at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Shakalooloo wrote:

leopard wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
Or, instead of endless arguing about artillery, magic, and monsters, we speculate on things that are really important.

Like:

Will they bring back Goblin Green?

probably not as they can't trademark it

pity, its actually a really nice colour

Just give us Grotbags Green in its place, then.

There’s somebody at the door! There’s somebody at the door!



Pretty sure Grotbags is already a trademark. Might’ve expired though.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:
Why in HELL are you talking about range guessing when we already know it will never be a part of the Old World rules.

Let's rather talk about how 200+ points characters still only have 3 wounds. Meaning you have to make them unkillable via 1++/4+ saves. You can't nibble away at their wounds with bad attacks because they have none, so you have to make characters as tough as possible, where basic units have no way to hurt them.

7th was dominated by characters with 0+ AS, 1+ rerollable AS, 4+ ward save or 4+ regen. This makes the game all or nothing. Should have give them more wounds and limit the amout of armor they can take.

Utter, utter cobblers.

Sure, character models relied on fancy saves and that? But from 6th-8th, Herohammer was kind of done. In a unit they’d prove potent. But not on their own. Typically their Attack value barely scratch Rank and Banner combat res. Even if it exceeded (which was rare), they’d need to roll really, really well to even break even.

In a unit? I’d see you coming. And being a half way decent opponent? I’d look to my own forces and consider my counter. Maybe I’d chuck two or three chariots in, and just lawnmower my way to your General’s demise. Because all those fancy saves don’t matter when I’m running your broken unit down. Maybe I’d do what I could to play a wee sub game of “keep away” and refuse to engage the character and their unit.

Am I the only one accurately recalling the trials and tribulations of playing WHFB reasonably well?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Am I the only one accurately recalling the trials and tribulations of playing WHFB reasonably well?

No, but there don't appear to be too many of us. People tend to forget that WHFB was usually won or lost in the movement phase. Just having the most guns and the killiest Death Star unit wasn't enough.

As much as I remember the ins and outs of the game quite well, having competed a lot in 6th and 7th, I also remember how important a skill was to be able to say at the right moment "Sorry, but what you are trying to do is illegal, it's clearly explained in an appendix to Gav Thorpe's article in White Dwarf from two months ago. Yeah, I know it invalidates what you were planning to achieve, but unfortunately..."

artu87 wrote:
Any bets on what orcs infantry base sizes are gonna be judging by this photo?

IF the imperial infantry are on 25x25, I guess orc infantry are on 30x30 (and boar riders on 30x60)....

I was guessing 32mm squares to match the 40k 25mm bases and 32mm bases

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Am I the only one accurately recalling the trials and tribulations of playing WHFB reasonably well?

No, but there don't appear to be too many of us. People tend to forget that WHFB was usually won or lost in the movement phase. Just having the most guns and the killiest Death Star unit wasn't enough.

Due to the breadth of options in the game, that's good as a rule of thumb but does not cover all fringe cases and match-ups that can come up in the game. My solution to 8th ed ginormous units was MSU with a virtually unkillable, virtually unbreakable Chaos Lord in a unit of Marauders. The Marauders would die easily during the first turn of combat, but after that the Chaos Lord would pretty consistently win combat by being beefed up beyond the boundaries of good taste and being able to shut down most attacks of the enemy unit. At the same time winning in the movement phase was pretty hard for my opponent because I often had more say in their movement than they did. Yeah, all of that is a Slaanesh thing, but it's in the game and something you can encounter. And most armies don't have an answer to that because the combination of capabilities is a bit out of whack, even if it's very thematic for the army.

I understand the concern that these things can crop up and the designers would do well to construct the rules right from the start to rein in such extremes. I don't necessarily agree that super buff characters shouldn't exist as long as there is a solution to them, even if that solution doesn't entail killing them. But GW should keep an eye out for unit and wargear combinations that exploit core rules to such an extent that they warp the game experience too much.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Utter, utter cobblers.

Sure, character models relied on fancy saves and that? But from 6th-8th, Herohammer was kind of done. In a unit they’d prove potent. But not on their own. Typically their Attack value barely scratch Rank and Banner combat res. Even if it exceeded (which was rare), they’d need to roll really, really well to even break even.

In a unit? I’d see you coming. And being a half way decent opponent? I’d look to my own forces and consider my counter. Maybe I’d chuck two or three chariots in, and just lawnmower my way to your General’s demise. Because all those fancy saves don’t matter when I’m running your broken unit down. Maybe I’d do what I could to play a wee sub game of “keep away” and refuse to engage the character and their unit.

Am I the only one accurately recalling the trials and tribulations of playing WHFB reasonably well?

Than you are not recalling Vampire lords with Red fury and Dread lance. 4 S7 attacks that hit automatically and for every wound you cause, you get to roll another attack. It seems you do not recall loosing 8 FREAKING dudes on a charge to single character.

You are not recalling Dark elf Assassins that took NO hero slots and had 6 WS10 ASF killing blow attacks.

You are not recalling Demon Bloodthirster with 0+ AS, 5+ WS, fly rule, terror rule and about 6 S7 hatred attacks.

You are not recalling High elf noble on a Star dragon single handedly won tournaments.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

No, but there don't appear to be too many of us. People tend to forget that WHFB was usually won or lost in the movement phase. Just having the most guns and the killiest Death Star unit wasn't enough.

Dark elf players taking a unit of 40 shades with great weapons and repeater crossbows and slamming all the characters in it was usualy enough to win. Or WoC players taking a unit of Chosen and slamming all the buffs on it was the meta. Or Empire taking 3 cannons, Hellblaster, 4 units of missle infantry and steam tank. Vampire counts with 15 power dice?

You can praise the movement phase all you want but what won the games, was the ability to remove enemy models from the board.

But you are talking the flawed 8th edition. I assume the comments about the importance of movement refer to the Golden Age of 6th-7th

None of the above ever proved especially problematic.

Take your 40 Shades. Whack all the characters in. Concentrating your points and oomph isn’t a particularly good idea. Not when you don’t get a rank bonus. Not when those 40 dudes wear no armour. Sure I got -1 to hit with ranged stuff, but they were still T3 W1 running about in their undies.

Lob a magic missile or two at them, and I’ll be forcing Panic test quite quickly. Wipe out the Shades? That’s a bunch of characters on their own. T3 Characters at that.

Vampire Lord? Good luck getting the charge. Because without the charge, that S value is greatly lessened. And unless he’s palling about with Blood Knights or Wight Cavalry? See above about lobbing a couple of Magic Missiles and ranged attacks at him.

Star Dragon? Again that’s a lot of points. I know how to use Dragons effectively. And I know how to counter them (artillery, swamp them in combat). Or, if I’m playing Gobbos? Fanatics can make super short work of big stuff.

Sure, I had to work for it. But then, I had to work for every game I ever won. Because there are no sure things.

Cyel wrote:
But you are talking the flawed 8th edition. I assume the comments about the importance of movement refer to the Golden Age of 6th-7th

The second half of 7th was decidedly not a golden age...

I don't remember "herohammer" being a major issue in 6th, 7th or 8th (compared with other egregious things) and certainly not compared with the excesses of 4th and 5th.

But 6th and 7th were defined I think by "choppy character in a cavalry bus" and cavalry in general. It is all about the movement phase - and having higher M=win.

I think its interesting that GW clearly have tried to cut down the all or nothing of combat resolution. You are I think going to see more fights go on, rather than I charge, I win by lots, you run, I catch, gg". But yes, characters are going to keep a few wounds is going to give you that strange all or nothing experience. They can have all these defences - but they can't stop "I rolled a few 6s, you rolled a few 1s, oh he's dead."

Oh, yes, the Daemons-Vampires-Dark Elves period of 7th is definitely something that started putting me off the game, and 8th sealed the deal.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
None of the above ever proved especially problematic.

Take your 40 Shades. Whack all the characters in. Concentrating your points and oomph isn’t a particularly good idea. Not when you don’t get a rank bonus. Not when those 40 dudes wear no armour. Sure I got -1 to hit with ranged stuff, but they were still T3 W1 running about in their undies.

Lob a magic missile or two at them, and I’ll be forcing Panic test quite quickly. Wipe out the Shades? That’s a bunch of characters on their own. T3 Characters at that.

Vampire Lord? Good luck getting the charge. Because without the charge, that S value is greatly lessened. And unless he’s palling about with Blood Knights or Wight Cavalry? See above about lobbing a couple of Magic Missiles and ranged attacks at him.

Star Dragon? Again that’s a lot of points. I know how to use Dragons effectively. And I know how to counter them (artillery, swamp them in combat). Or, if I’m playing Gobbos? Fanatics can make super short work of big stuff.

Sure, I had to work for it. But then, I had to work for every game I ever won. Because there are no sure things.

Holy gak, where were you when we needed you the most. 7th edition turned to crap because of insane power creep, but apparently you had the anwser to the cheeseiest of cheese to ever cheese the whole time! With gobbos nonetheless!

Of course Why did I not think of throwing a magic missile at a deathstar unit unleashing 80 bolts at me or bogging down a dragon with a 20 inch fly move

Not like you could stack magic items on that shade unit for magic resistance (15pts for each MR) and there were even an item that halved the BS of any unit shooting at the shade unit. Other items that could give always strike first, reroll to hit with shooting (quite good when those 40 models have 2 shots each), become immune to psychology or cause fear themselves or even give combat resolution bonuses if the killing power itself wasn't enough for you.

If you paid 600pts for the shades and a few hundred more for the characters I assume any reasonable player would also spend a bit on those magic items to make it so panic, most magic, most shooting and most melee options wouldn't work against it. Would be pretty stupid otherwise after spending 50% of the points on a single death star.

artu87 wrote:
Any bets on what orcs infantry base sizes are gonna be judging by this photo?

Ignore the bases and look at the size of those units. I count about 20 models in the infantry. Are the days of insane unit sizes gone?

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

Than you are not recalling Vampire lords with Red fury and Dread lance. 4 S7 attacks that hit automatically and for every wound you cause, you get to roll another attack. It seems you do not recall loosing 8 FREAKING dudes on a charge to single character.

You are not recalling Dark elf Assassins that took NO hero slots and had 6 WS10 ASF killing blow attacks.

You are not recalling Demon Bloodthirster with 0+ AS, 5+ WS, fly rule, terror rule and about 6 S7 hatred attacks.

Assasin and bloodthirster thus needed 100% kill rate to win by 1. Fail to hit or wound once and lost combat. Wopedoo.

Incidentally rolling one 1 from 6 is about 70% top of my head. So about 90% times you lose combat.

Hoffa76 wrote:
Ignore the bases and look at the size of those units. I count about 20 models in the infantry. Are the days of insane unit sizes gone?

I'm counting 30 in that Imperial unit in the middle.

And why isn't that Captain IN the unit?! (promo pic, I know)

SU-152 wrote:

artu87 wrote:
Any bets on what orcs infantry base sizes are gonna be judging by this photo?

IF the imperial infantry are on 25x25, I guess orc infantry are on 30x30 (and boar riders on 30x60)....

I think they said all infantry is 25x25

 Tastyfish wrote:

SU-152 wrote:

artu87 wrote:
Any bets on what orcs infantry base sizes are gonna be judging by this photo?

IF the imperial infantry are on 25x25, I guess orc infantry are on 30x30 (and boar riders on 30x60)....

I think they said all infantry is 25x25

The article on it said:

So now, all 20mm bases have been replaced with 25mm bases. Most (but not all) 25mm and 25×50 bases have been replaced with new-sized bases.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Hoffa76 wrote:
Ignore the bases and look at the size of those units. I count about 20 models in the infantry. Are the days of insane unit sizes gone?

I'm counting 30 in that Imperial unit in the middle.

And why isn't that Captain IN the unit?! (promo pic, I know)

I might have missed a rank, perhaps there are 3 complete ranks of 8 models but 30 is still sane compared to the 40-50 model empire core units of 8:th edition.

Guys, back on topic please, all older edition chatter can go elsewhere, getting a lot of reports here.

Not sure you can glean much from the promo shots.

I mean the studio armies were never remotely like how people actually built armies in 8th. I think this was in part why there seemed a clear disconnect between the rules writers and the lived experience. GW didn't have say 40 white lions/executioners/grave guard etc etc painted up under the same scheme. I don't think they could put down 18 ogres in one unit.

guessing orcs are on 30-32mm bases, at least shouldn't be too hard to rank them up now.

until they get replaced with larger models

A bombshell just hit the internet!

The first Old World novel is here:

www.fnac.com/livre-numerique/a19279544/Graham-McNeill-Lords-Of-The-Lance?fbclid=IwAR19wRmd563t-N9oH3TczJ9FVGO7qkBRBnwBsSxplZsWKEPbnCU7M5dlb18

Its available from the 24th of January 2024.

How many of us are fussed about rebasing? For friendlies I see no point in rebasing stuff.

Looks like it got taken down, so some poor web guy at "Fnac" is gonna lose his job, but the internet never forgets

There was a character list as well. And all six pegasus knights are women, which has rather amusingly set off a certain faction of..people.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
There was a character list as well. And all six pegasus knights are women, which has rather amusingly set off a certain faction of..people.

The Leia, Ripley and Sarah O'Connor fanclub?

Tyel wrote:
Not sure you can glean much from the promo shots.

I mean the studio armies were never remotely like how people actually built armies in 8th. I think this was in part why there seemed a clear disconnect between the rules writers and the lived experience. GW didn't have say 40 white lions/executioners/grave guard etc etc painted up under the same scheme. I don't think they could put down 18 ogres in one unit.

Not to mention all the terrain being shoved to the edges of the table so the armies can face each other across a featureless plain with no obstacles.

artu87 wrote:
Any bets on what orcs infantry base sizes are gonna be judging by this photo?

Spoiler:

Where is this image from? It looks like they used the old metal stone trolls instead of the rockgut AOS ones. I figured they'd fit well on big square bases


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also here’s the synopsis of the leaked book

This is from the website:
A Warhammer: The Old World Novel
The son of Baron Lothar Aquilena is taken captive in the Land of the Dead. Despite the bitter divide between Duke Carrard of Quenelles and the Baron, they form an uneasy alliance, mounting a treacherous expedition into the cursed realm.
READ IT BECAUSE
It’s a tale of chivalry coming before personal rivalries as noble knights attempt to rescue a nobleman's kidnapped son from the clutches of the undead.
THE STORY
When the son of Baron Lothar Aquilena of the Border Princes is taken captive, he calls in a debt of honour owed to him by Duke Carrard of Quenelles once his brother-in-arms and now his bitter rival.
This uneasy alliance of warrior knights mounts a dangerous expedition into the lifeless desolation beyond the badlands to a forgotten realm cursed to know neither water nor shade. The baron's son is held captive in the Land of the Dead, and the kings and queens of old do not rest easy in their tombs.

 Just Tony wrote:

Crap ideas are crap ideas whether I play the system or not. And is that seriously the best trolling you can do?

Not trolling. A serious question. You've said REPEATEDLY you're hard out because it has random charge ranges. Why do you lurk here and continue to comment if you already know you hate it? Why can't you let the rest of us consider things in peace?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Just Tony wrote:

Show me the rule on an open forum that says I have to commit to playing a game before commenting on it.


Go ahead, I'll wait.

It's not a rule, but it's generally considered polite to not troll people discussing a game you've already decided you hate.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Utter, utter cobblers.

Sure, character models relied on fancy saves and that? But from 6th-8th, Herohammer was kind of done. In a unit they’d prove potent. But not on their own. Typically their Attack value barely scratch Rank and Banner combat res. Even if it exceeded (which was rare), they’d need to roll really, really well to even break even.

In a unit? I’d see you coming. And being a half way decent opponent? I’d look to my own forces and consider my counter. Maybe I’d chuck two or three chariots in, and just lawnmower my way to your General’s demise. Because all those fancy saves don’t matter when I’m running your broken unit down. Maybe I’d do what I could to play a wee sub game of “keep away” and refuse to engage the character and their unit.

Am I the only one accurately recalling the trials and tribulations of playing WHFB reasonably well?

Than you are not recalling Vampire lords with Red fury and Dread lance. 4 S7 attacks that hit automatically and for every wound you cause, you get to roll another attack. It seems you do not recall loosing 8 FREAKING dudes on a charge to single character.

You are not recalling Dark elf Assassins that took NO hero slots and had 6 WS10 ASF killing blow attacks.

You are not recalling Demon Bloodthirster with 0+ AS, 5+ WS, fly rule, terror rule and about 6 S7 hatred attacks.

You are not recalling High elf noble on a Star dragon single handedly won tournaments.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

No, but there don't appear to be too many of us. People tend to forget that WHFB was usually won or lost in the movement phase. Just having the most guns and the killiest Death Star unit wasn't enough.

Dark elf players taking a unit of 40 shades with great weapons and repeater crossbows and slamming all the characters in it was usualy enough to win. Or WoC players taking a unit of Chosen and slamming all the buffs on it was the meta. Or Empire taking 3 cannons, Hellblaster, 4 units of missle infantry and steam tank. Vampire counts with 15 power dice?

You can praise the movement phase all you want but what won the games, was the ability to remove enemy models from the board.

HIlariously, I remember trying Shadestar and getting my butt kicked by superior maneuvering. I learned the tricks, and from there was able to defeat the other deathstars you bring up not by engaging them, but by pointedly NOT engaging them...

 RustyNumber wrote:
How many of us are fussed about rebasing? For friendlies I see no point in rebasing stuff.

I'm not.
Other than my Khorne Juggernauts*, i haven't bothered to re-base any of my WHFB forces to AoS rounds/ovals.
And I play AoS with them all just fine.
I've got zero plans to re-base anything in order to play OW.
He'll, I'm not even going to make them new movement trays.

*The only reason my Juggernauts are all on ovals?
Most of them I've picked up 2nd hand. This resulted in a huge variety of base sizes/shapes, basing styles, conditions, and even materials. It looked dreadful. Even worse than the myriad terrible paint jobs most sported. :(
So a few years ago when I got around to properly painting them up into units I standardized thier bases.
I'll just make them movement trays as needed for OW.

leopard wrote:
guessing orcs are on 30-32mm bases, at least shouldn't be too hard to rank them up now.

until they get replaced with larger models

The upside to the dreadful model support we can expect for The Old World is that we likely won't have to worry about getting models replaced.

 GaroRobe wrote:


Where is this image from? It looks like they used the old metal stone trolls instead of the rockgut AOS ones. I figured they'd fit well on big square bases

It's from this article GW posted in July:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/07/24/old-world-development-diary-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/

 RustyNumber wrote:
How many of us are fussed about rebasing? For friendlies I see no point in rebasing stuff.

No way in hell I'm rebasing ~100 skeletons and 50 Ghouls just because GW is utterly incapable of consistency.

 vipoid wrote:

 RustyNumber wrote:
How many of us are fussed about rebasing? For friendlies I see no point in rebasing stuff.

No way in hell I'm rebasing ~100 skeletons and 50 Ghouls just because GW is utterly incapable of consistency.

I'd already moved over to using more 25mm bases due to oathmark and war of the ring, but yeah there is no way in hell I'm rebasing skeletons. I use the warlord games ones and they would not survive being rebased unless I went through all the effort to cut the base into bits around the feet.

Not worth the effort for a game that:
a- that might not get adopted as the one-true fantasy rule set
b-Just as likely to go back on the base changes in a new edition in less than 3 years time
c- Very unlikely to be played in any 'official' capacity outside of a single tournament at warhammer world every year (and maybe in stores for the first week of release)

leaving out the rebasing or not stuff, but why everyone thinks that to actually do rebasing you need to remove the miniature from the old base?

Even if one does not use the original hollow GW bases but solid ones, you would alway simply just glue the old base with the miniature on it, onto a new base or plastic sheet

like if you have solid bases, get the renedra 25mm flat and add Greenstuff/Milliput to fill up the edge
or if you have hallow ones, remove the edge of the old base and glue it on the new one

just google the different re-basing stuff for 40k as Marine players have done this several times over the years and removing the miniature from the base was never part of that

That just sounds like rebasing with extra steps.

??

step 1: cutting of the miniature without damaging it
step 2: glue miniature on a new base
step 3: decoration/painting new base

or

step 1: glue old base on larger new flat base
step 2: fill the gabs
step 3: decoration/painting the new base

or

step 1: remove edge of old base
step 2: glue the flat old base on new larger base
step 3: decoration/painting of new base

I cannot see where there are the extra steps except that the risk for destroying your miniature is not there

 kodos wrote:
??

step 1: cutting of the miniature without damaging it
step 2: glue miniature on a new base
step 3: decoration/painting new base

or

step 1: glue old base on larger new flat base
step 2: fill the gabs
step 3: decoration/painting the new base

or

step 1: remove edge of old base
step 2: glue the flat old base on new larger base
step 3: decoration/painting of new base

I cannot see where there are the extra steps except that the risk for destroying your miniature is not there

Let's assume for a second that there are no extra steps.

There are still more steps than I am prepared to spend on ~200 infantry models (I remembered my Grave Guard as well). Especially when my only reward is to invalidate all my existing movement trays.

Isn't your reward being able to play TOW?

Not defending GW here, I think it's a bonehead move, but rebasing miniatures has always been a fact of life. We rebased for AoS, for Kings of War, for SAGA, etc. It is what it is.

Isn't it much easier to get something like this?



You also have the plus that you can go back playing whatever version of oldhammer you want in case you don't like TOW.

If they insist on rebasing I'm just skipping the whole thing. No worries.

GW have slowly driven me out of all of their games with this. I absolutely hate rebasing and have moved to games where base size is broadly irrelevant.

 vipoid wrote:

There are still more steps than I am prepared to spend on ~200 infantry models (I remembered my Grave Guard as well). Especially when my only reward is to invalidate all my existing movement trays.

people worldwide are happily rebasing their collections for months now to be able to play TOW the moment it is released, like there are no other option than rebasing or not playing at all

and I am not going to re-base anything just because one company is coming up with new "optional" stuff that people follow like laws even if they are never going to play with their collection

but, for the sake of the argument, removing the models from the old base to change it is not necessary and changing the base size not a problem (like doing this to make scenery bases to double in unit size without buying new models is a thing and you don't need to remove models from bases to do it)

 Da Boss wrote:
If they insist on rebasing I'm just skipping the whole thing. No worries.

Lmao nobody is "insisting" on you rebasing your models.

Christ's sake even the WarCom articles said this was optional and would only be required for sponsored or GW-run events.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Isn't your reward being able to play TOW?

Not defending GW here, I think it's a bonehead move, but rebasing miniatures has always been a fact of life. We rebased for AoS, for Kings of War, for SAGA, etc. It is what it is.

Not really. I've played AoS with my square based miniatures and the only issue I've ever come across is a couple of numpties on facebook groups crying about it. I game at home and see absolutely no good reason to play in a gw store, so I'm sure I can get away with playing TOW without any rebasing.

artu87 wrote:
Isn't it much easier to get something like this?



You also have the plus that you can go back playing whatever version of oldhammer you want in case you don't like TOW.

Or I can save my money and play TOW anyway. These are a good solution, but the problem shouldn't exist in the first place.

Now if you only intend to play at a GW sanctioned capacity, then rebasing is the cost of doing so.

The upsized bases is welcome news. The old miniatures were terribly designed when it came to being ranked up, so larger bases are needed in order to allow them to actually fit. I magnetised mine and the clashing models meant that several of them would never quite sit flush with the movement tray, which rendered the magnets pointless.

If I still had an old fantasy army I'd probably just use the base converters, but having said that, re-basing is weirdly one of my favourite things to do (don't know why, it's just so satisfying) so I'd be tempted to do that.

 Gert wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
If they insist on rebasing I'm just skipping the whole thing. No worries.

Lmao nobody is "insisting" on you rebasing your models.

Christ's sake even the WarCom articles said this was optional and would only be required for sponsored or GW-run events.

There are some practical considerations to keeping models on smaller base sizes. Unit footprint, and thus ability to block LOS and movement, become a target and maneuver through tight spaces are impacted. Combat may be impacted due to how models outside base contact have a limit on their attacks.

You have to consider that by putting the base size on the unit entry, GW very much expects you to use it the same as any other stat in the game. You don't strictly have to rebase. You can fiddle around with regimental bases or calculate the intended frontage/footprint where necessary. It can become impractical and isn't ideal as a long term solution.

Old World is a system in which base size is supposed to matter, and with that comes pressure to rebase or buy a whole new army specifically for the game. That's just the way it is.

Most people will be running legacy bases at the outset and I therefore doubt it will matter.

Flash forward 10 years to TOW 3rd edition or something, and rather more players will be using new models on new bases, and you may see growing hostility to older stuff. Just like some feel using ancient versions of models can start to move towards modelling for advantage.

But its equally possible TOW is dead on arrival and no one is playing it by 2026, so I wouldn't stress about it.

Given the days of having to number the undersides of my bases so they would fit (damn black orcs) I'm in favor of larger bases. It also allows for more of some of the dynamic builds from when models weren't nearly monopose to be used. Some models HAD to be built a specific way instead of thru many of the other options simply because of base size.

 Gert wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
If they insist on rebasing I'm just skipping the whole thing. No worries.

Lmao nobody is "insisting" on you rebasing your models.

Christ's sake even the WarCom articles said this was optional and would only be required for sponsored or GW-run events.

What is required for GW run events often becomes the standard in the general community. I had people say similar things to me when AoS first dropped about how it was gonna be fine to play with 20mm squares.

Well, it mostly isn't now.

But fine, they are saying it's optional while not making it optional at their own events. I mean, okay? It's always optional to do what GW says at non-GW events. Nice of them to say so I suppose.

I hate the scale creep and base size creep in GW games, and I really detest being told it's not really happening or it's no big deal.

How about:

 kodos wrote:
??
step 1: glue old base on larger new flat base

and just stop there.

 Geifer wrote:

 Gert wrote:

 Da Boss wrote:
If they insist on rebasing I'm just skipping the whole thing. No worries.

Lmao nobody is "insisting" on you rebasing your models.

Christ's sake even the WarCom articles said this was optional and would only be required for sponsored or GW-run events.

There are some practical considerations to keeping models on smaller base sizes. Unit footprint, and thus ability to block LOS and movement, become a target and maneuver through tight spaces are impacted. Combat may be impacted due to how models outside base contact have a limit on their attacks.

You have to consider that by putting the base size on the unit entry, GW very much expects you to use it the same as any other stat in the game. You don't strictly have to rebase. You can fiddle around with regimental bases or calculate the intended frontage/footprint where necessary. It can become impractical and isn't ideal as a long term solution.

Old World is a system in which base size is supposed to matter, and with that comes pressure to rebase or buy a whole new army specifically for the game. That's just the way it is.

Players might want to force rebase. Gw? Not so.

As always players are ones making additional rules and blame gw for it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Da Boss wrote:


Well, it mostly isn't now.
.

For which we have players to thank for.

Base size requirements been player driven. As far as gw concerned your marines on 25mm are still legal as well. It's players that went "no".

Why do you think the players changed from the old base sizes?
It's not because GW changed the bases the miniatures came on and then made it so that the base size impacts gameplay significantly? Players just decided randomly themselves to rebase their minis and enforce it as a community standard?

If GW wanted to support older base sizes they could have a) never changed the base sizes in the first place b) made the game rules so that base size does not matter (like Warlords of Erehwon does, or Hail Caesar). But they wanted to look like nice guys while knowing that they would make older collections obsolete and encourage players with old collections to buy new stuff to update it. And yeah, of course, that's fine, GW is a business and wants to make money from everyone. No worries. I don't have to like it though.

Gimme a break.

 Da Boss wrote:
What is required for GW run events often becomes the standard in the general community. I had people say similar things to me when AoS first dropped about how it was gonna be fine to play with 20mm squares.

And it was fine. In fact, you can still use square bases now if you really wanted. GW isn't sending enforcers to every single club to make every player use the base sizes mandated by WHW rules. I have yet to have a game refused to myself or refused a game with another player for not using the most current bases on a kit, not have I ever seen it done by others.

But fine, they are saying it's optional while not making it optional at their own events. I mean, okay? It's always optional to do what GW says at non-GW events. Nice of them to say so I suppose.

That's because people like you make up false claims about GW forcing people to rebase models when that has never been the case. GW events have those rules because GW events are another form of marketing.
The rules exist for WHW for the same reasons as not bringing non-GW models.

and I really detest being told it's not really happening or it's no big deal.

Then you need to grow a thicker skin or stop complaining about it.

Any human sized miniature and up look so much better on a 25mm base, just a shame they didn't do it several editions ago.

Aren't most people going to be using movement trays anyways?

The base thing becomes moot then. Build the slots on the trays to accommodate the "correct" size and then have filler in between. Voila, problem's solved.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Aren't most people going to be using movement trays anyways?

The base thing becomes moot then. Build the slots on the trays to accommodate the "correct" size and then have filler in between. Voila, problem's solved.

Hell, companies are already offering movement trays with the slots for adapting to the new base sizes with old bases.

My plan is to use small trays for 4 (models 2 by 2), that convert 20mm by 20mm to the correct size.

Will make reforming easy as I can just move the individual trays from the back/sides to be in the needed formation.

Personally I have no intention of rebasing my armies and not sure why others would either. It seems rather pointless when things like this exist:



Besides I really wouldn't care all that much about how others base their models. I'm a veteran enough gamer that I can make it work.

Yep, I'm just gonna drop a bunch of money on those.

 Platuan4th wrote:
Yep, I'm just gonna drop a bunch of money on those.

Just give them a burst of goblin green and your good to go!

easiest solution if you don't like something is not playing it

no one is forced to play TOW, and no one needs to adjust his collection to be compatible with rules they do not use anyway

if you don't like and don't want to change your army to match the rules of that game, just don't bother and play something else

Challenge accepted - I shall play TOW with whatever base size I and my opponent agree on, and it's up to kodos to hunt me down and physically stop me >: )

The rebasing thing is like the expansion of the rank bonus eligibility from 4 to 5 models.

It was an obvious, transparent, overt marketing ploy designed to sell more models, but people rose up to defend it because reasons.

I'm not at all surprised that there are conversion movement trays, which is nice, but once again we're at the "cost of compliance" undercutting interest in "getting current."

I find this whole thing fascinating because it could be a slam-dunk for GW to bring a bunch of disaffected gamers "home" while rejuvenating a market segment they've ignored for a long time.

At the same time, altering base sizes is one of those things that seems needlessly obnoxious. Yep, GW sculpted models that were difficult to rank up, and now hey, bigger bases will solve that. We've got them on discount!

It just seems like yet another way GW uses planned obsolescence to make money. Is there anyone here who would trust that GW wouldn't change them again at some point in the future if they thought they could make a few extra pounds?

The original 20 and 25mm base sizes were established when Warhammer was played with 25mm scale solid-based miniatures. The scale creep since then has been tremendous. I think it was a good opportunity to increase base sizes with this new edition.

 kodos wrote:
leaving out the rebasing or not stuff, but why everyone thinks that to actually do rebasing you need to remove the miniature from the old base?

Even if one does not use the original hollow GW bases but solid ones, you would alway simply just glue the old base with the miniature on it, onto a new base or plastic sheet

like if you have solid bases, get the renedra 25mm flat and add Greenstuff/Milliput to fill up the edge
or if you have hallow ones, remove the edge of the old base and glue it on the new one

just google the different re-basing stuff for 40k as Marine players have done this several times over the years and removing the miniature from the base was never part of that

Yeah, no.
Not wasting the time/effort/$ doing any of that.

My existing WHFB stuff will work just fine as is.

^^ this, I have stuff thats based, and based using paints no longer available, and also based such that its perfectly usable in other games

not rebasing

anything

my Skaven are on square desert theme bases, my Brets have muddy earth, heck my 40k orks are on 25mm round desert bases and all are staying on them

if that excludes me from some formal events I can live with it (event organisers get to decide what goes and does not go after all)

 Da Boss wrote:
Why do you think the players changed from the old base sizes?
It's not because GW changed the bases the miniatures came on and then made it so that the base size impacts gameplay significantly? Players just decided randomly themselves to rebase their minis and enforce it as a community standard?

If GW wanted to support older base sizes they could have a) never changed the base sizes in the first place b) made the game rules so that base size does not matter (like Warlords of Erehwon does, or Hail Caesar). But they wanted to look like nice guys while knowing that they would make older collections obsolete and encourage players with old collections to buy new stuff to update it. And yeah, of course, that's fine, GW is a business and wants to make money from everyone. No worries. I don't have to like it though.

Gimme a break.

Gw changea yes but didn't require rebasing so blaming gw for player created issue just shows you aren't looking for honest arqument but want to blame gw for everythlng.

Gw hasn't required rebase.

Not happy about rebases? Blame the stupid players inventing new rules.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
The rebasing thing is like the expansion of the rank bonus eligibility from 4 to 5 models.

It was an obvious, transparent, overt marketing ploy designed to sell more models, but people rose up to defend it because reasons.

Gw isn't forcing rebase so how does that make money?

Gw isn't counting you to rebase and indeed flat out says you can play your old models without rebase

You know, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that by up-sizing bases fewer models fit under templates.

Of course, I'm a little disappointed in myself for pointing it out...

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
You know, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that by up-sizing bases fewer models fit under templates.

Of course, I'm a little disappointed in myself for pointing it out...

Templates should not be in the game because they are a point of contention between players. Arguing who is under and who is not.

Something like D6+1 for each rank of 5 models hits for stone throwers/round template spells and D3+1 for each rank/row for breath template would be better imo.

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
You know, I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that by up-sizing bases fewer models fit under templates.

Of course, I'm a little disappointed in myself for pointing it out...

Templates should not be in the game because they are a point of contention between players. Arguing who is under and who is not.

Something like D6+1 for each rank of 5 models hits for stone throwers/round template spells and D3+1 for each rank/row for breath template would be better imo.

It is only if you play with children, I have never have that problem and if it was really a doubt we just throw a dice to decide.

USR article is up

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/12/11/old-world-almanack-living-saints-and-special-rules/

Interesting on Swiftstride not only adding +1d6 to your charge range, but increasing your "maximum charge range" by 3"

I don't think we've seen anything about maximum charge ranges before.

New article is up and ha! Guessed the new cavalry base size correctly! 30x60mm. Wonder if that means a 5mm bump up for the orcs/bigger models ? Minimum unit size is 3 bit that could just be the brets/cavalry. I also wonder what that means for minimum number for a complete front rank, I'm hoping it's 4 just for a bit of the older edition flavor lol.

WarCom wrote:This is a Universal Special Rule (USR), just one of about 75 in the game. This seems like a lot at first glance, but this new system simply collates a lot of special rules that once lived in several places – things like Psychology, unit coherence, or Monster rules.

If only the teams that wrote 40k's rules existed on the same dimensional plane as the one's doing TOW.

They could learn a thing or two about including a grand list of USRs, rather than a token list of USRs (in non-alphabetical order, and scattered across multiple sections of the book) and a 1000 bespoke rules across every unit in the game.

Each edition of each game is made in its own insular pocket dimension. Asking for anything more is simply impractical.

No complaints from me having had a quick glance through on my lunch break. I take it we will get a ravening hordes style book alongside the main rules that will have all the army book info in.

I mean negating rank bonus on the charge and being able to counter charge seems rough.
But we lack the full picture so will have to wait and see.

Wow what a power-up for Grail Knights, nice! but that's a lot of special rules...

And I also keep my good eyesight guessing cavalry was going to be 30x60

guessing unit size min three is back to Brets cavalry being three wide not four then five wide for some time

and yes I think this conforms 30mm square for orcs etc

nice they finally have a way to avoid "rubber lance syndrome" with re-rolling "1"s on the charge

still expect the horses to do more damage than the knights, for the sake of tradition

still, I have nine Grail knights, metal ones, ready to ride. they made a good distraction unit, wondering if now they may actually do a bit of damage?

Algo no more extra armour just from being mounted, so knights are not as resistant at 3+ instead of 2+. With more weapons with armour penetration they're going to suffer a little, but the rest of the rules seem to compensate (or I hope they do)

Darkial wrote:
Algo no more extra armour just from being mounted, so knights are not as resistant at 3+ instead of 2+. With more weapons with armour penetration their going to suffer a little, but the rest of the rules seem to compensate (or I hope they do)

looks like "charge and you should break your first target, if you choose wisely... so choose wisely for after your first charge you will be a spent force"

Gives hope to the resurrection of the long tradition of Grail Knights vs. Snotlings