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...and reread, and reread them.

I can confidently say that they're yet another GW rules failure.

You'd expect them to at least address all of the major issues in the previous version, or rather you'd expect a competent team to do so, but they did not.

Some key issues they failed to resolve:

1. The tactical wheel. The rules are ambiguous on if you can make more of a wheel than required

2. Clipping. Clipping is still perfectly legal. I expect there to be some completely unofficial "clipping is bad" article in the near future. I can't wait to see my sports score when I start doing it.

3. Flee paths. The rules for figuing out what path a unit will flee are written as if they wanted you to argue about them. And in these rules flee paths are crucial.

I'm not sure why I get excited about new rules from them, as they've clearly and repeatedly stated this is their target level of quality, but I do every time. And with GW's policy of "Who needs an FAQ?", I'm sure we'll have to live with this shameful mess for the foreseeable future.

It's a shame if the rules are as lacking as you say.

I grew bored with the previous version of Fantasy and was hoping the new version would fix the gimmicks and tricks that made the last version so tedious. If what you say is true, why bother?

Actually, I'm very much looking forward to playing. It's like a whole new game.

....where I'll be forced to argue more than needed, but still a whole new game.

Alot of the old tricks are gone. But new tricks will be out shortly.

Your second post is more encouraging than your first.

Wheeling in followups spoiled the previous version of Fantasy for me. The rules were silly, arbitrary, and static. A quarter inch difference in where a unit is positioned could prompt a flank attack on a follow-up. Chargeing in general became a tedious rules debate with some players. Charging, in general, could become bogged down with tedious rule debates.  

If they don't fix that (what you call clipping) ... if I play at all ... it will be with a T-square and plumb lines to make sure to avoid some of those silly rule abstractions.

I used to love Warhamme Fantasy. The tactical tricks (followed by whole armies designed to exploit them) made it unplayable for me.

And now a moment of silence for Tuomas Pirinen and his now-bastardized brainchild that was the 6th Ed. ruleset.

ahh the golden age of WFB .Tuomas Pirinen knew how to write rules. mordheim,6th edition WFB and the first few army books  like O&G,empire.

i can still recall his parting words to gav thorpe about finishing up the dark elf book "keep em nasty" he said.  unfortunately gav missed on that account and created the first real stinker of an army book. its just never recovered under Gavs leadership.

we miss you Tuomas Pirinen, where ever you are!!!

Thanks for mordheim dude...

anyway...on topic. I just hope that we won't have as many rules exploits in the future, or at least a reduction of no-brain army-styles, for example very magic-heavy lists. I have the feeling GW tried to bring the new magic system in line.

Greets
Schepp himself

Every edition suffers form the same criticism, especially when it comes to magic. I know all of your points are valid but I think people are a little hard on GW at times. (on their rules, i agree that the prices for minis suck!) I am just coming back to the hobby and am happy to see things havent changed amongst player discussion forums on the topic of GW rules. No offense to anyone here but if you guys wrote a rulebook and every one wanted to kill you because they keep losing it would get you down.

Am also pleased to see the Gav Thorpe still sucks lmao

That's the thing - I'm sure these guys who take the rules personally would be offended by criticism. GW isn't. See the problem?

To be honest, I don't think GW (or anyone for that matter) can write a comepletely airtight set of rules. If people are willing to look for loopholes and take advantage of them they will find them-- if only because English is not 100% precise language. Attempts at "tight" rulesets have been tried before-- DBM and Star Fleet Battles to name a few. To make a long story short, they don't work. All you've done is make a set of rules that are still exploitable, but are also written in incredibly techinal English to the point of being almost unreadable.

While I will agree that GW can do a better job then they are doing (Mostly by keeping a decent FAQ/Q&A policy, and moving a bit more towards rational play as opposed to RAW) I also think that if you are going to go out and try to find holes in a set of rules and then start exploiting them, you're now doing something that's neither particularly novel nor interesting.

Raymond

I played the Star Wars CCG that had a pocketbook (released with the special edition set) and a set of printable documents for tournament play. In total it was around 150 pages long, most in the pocketbook, but it contained clarifications for every single loophole imaginable. It's not that hard to carry around a pocketbook and printed errata/FAQs to tournaments. Just pack it in with the rest of your stuff. You don't have to read the entire thing (though I did, and memorized the whole thing front-to-back just so I couldn't get duped with loopholes) unless it came up during a game. So there's my background with errata. You don't need technical English, but the least you can do is clarify.

I'm perfectly fine to have a mini-codex carried around that had an index and glossary-type clarifications. Somehow, from all the anti-errata document comments I see around here, the notion of making one offends people. You don't need to carry it around. You can just play with whatever house rules you want. However, at least it gives those who want to play seriously a set of documents that says how things should be played. Fear of carrying a set of rules documents upsets people - why? Is it some sort of scarlet letter for a rules technician (frequently confused with a rules lawyer) to have such a thing? Funny enough, while a phobia against such documents upsets people, they aren't man enough to say so. They claim it's because you'll always find more loopholes (so...print more errata, maybe?) or similar jibberish.

I think you're mis eading what I'm saying if you think I don't want errata. A realistic FAQ/Q&A policy(effectivley the same thing, just a different name) is exactly what I mentioned as one of the things that GW could do better. However, I don't think degenerating the game down into a CCG style cut-throat environment is a good thing. And the attempts in the past to write wargame rules for these styles have failable miserably. Note that for ancients era wargaming, WAB (loosely written, based on 5th edition WFB) is bigger than DBx (tightly written) as far as I can tell (The big historical events in the US certainly have more WAB players than DBx players) The solution to the looseness of the rules is the typical wargamer attitude-- a bit of social pressure will usually get people to bring something in the normal range of armies (which is still quite large) People who start loopholing the rules are in general told to either stop or not come back. The worst of the problems (like skirmishers in melee and other small things) have been errata'd, but the systemic issues like clipping haven't been, since the main solution seems to be "It's wrong, don't do it". I see no reason why you can't be the same way with WFB.

Raymond

An errata pocket book sounds like a cool idea to me. Hope this is the way GW will go.

I really think GW should throw out their ruleset free of charge to the public. They have stated in the past that rules are of secondary or tertiary importance when it comes to the company.

This way, if we have a beef with the rules, we cant complain too much, as we getting the rules for free. We are already being charged an arm and a leg for the models already, the faulty ruleset we pay for is just salt in the wound. It would also open up the realm of people making house rules more prevalent, as people wouldnt take the rules we have now as canonical.

but that is straying far too off topic.

I am saddened by the news that a few very important parts of the game havent been addressed. Most importantly clipping. This has been a beardy practice for quite sometime, and a constant thorn in the side of many many players.

I think I will skip buying into WHFB 7th ed, much as I did with 6th.

That, on top of waiting and buying new army books, doesnt really cleanse the pallete from almost every other experience I have had with GW.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ed.

Posted By Hellfury on 09/19/2006 2:44 PM
I really think GW should throw out their ruleset free of charge to the public. They have stated in the past that rules are of secondary or tertiary importance when it comes to the company.

This way, if we have a beef with the rules, we cant complain too much, as we getting the rules for free. We are already being charged an arm and a leg for the models already, the faulty ruleset we pay for is just salt in the wound. It would also open up the realm of people making house rules more prevalent, as people wouldnt take the rules we have now as canonical.

but that is straying far too off topic.

I am saddened by the news that a few very important parts of the game havent been addressed. Most importantly clipping. This has been a beardy practice for quite sometime, and a constant thorn in the side of many many players.

I think I will skip buying into WHFB 7th ed, much as I did with 6th.

That, on top of waiting and buying new army books, doesnt really cleanse the pallete from almost every other experience I have had with GW.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Ed.

I'm glad that some folks are satisfied.

I will be sticking to Warmachine and Warlord, with some explorations of Mordheim. I'll probably pick up a copy of the BFSP rulebook on ebay for $10 at some point, but I'm in no rush.   

I for one will keep playing warhammer as I feel it is the best fantasy game available.It just mortaging my house to by an army that is pising me off.

"2. Clipping. Clipping is still perfectly legal."

While clipping is still legal, it will happen alot more rarely. On page 21 of the hardcover rules, it says that when a unit charges an enemy it must endeavour to bring the maximum number of models from both into combat (emphasis mine.)

So while clippping can still happen, if a player can wheel to get more models from both sides into combat, he or she must do so.

A classic example in 6th ed. was a Chaos Champ on steed who would charge my Ironguts but only do so by clipping me corner to corner unnesseccarily, merely to avoid touching an extra Irongut.

In 7th ed, if possible, that same Chaos Champ would have to hit at least two Ironguts.

Anyway, if I'm missing something, let me know. Good gaming!

 

I'm with Clarence on this one, with the rules now stating that models from both sides must be optimized, clipping would only be possible if the charging unit does not have enough movement to achieve this goal.

However, the charging unit is not allowed to squander movement (by for example, wheeling further than necessary) because it must strive to optimize the nr. of models in contact with each other.

Achieving a clipping charge now only seems possble when the one being charged allowed this to happen by (not) moving his troops so that the enemy can barely reach him.

I can't see any big problems with the new rules. Sure not all dirty tricks are covered but they have never been and never will be, and this isn't a problem. The only failure I could note is a much more general one: One of the goals of the new edition was to make infantry more attractive, but this didn't happen in any meaningful way. Because of the new crossfire rule, the fact that fleeing into any piece of impassable terrain destroys a unit, and the new redirect rules, terror causing large monsters and heavy cavalry are even more attractive than before. Like some other people have said it seems that the 'balancing act' will come in the form of new army books, and the new O&G book is indication that this is indeed true. Updating all the army books is painfully slow though.

The first large 7th edition GT tournament in Finland took place last weekend, and basically what armies had was cavalry, heroes, special characters, some more cavalry, guns, magic, and some more heroes. If you didn't have four wizards you had as many flying heroes as you can get or a broken special character (6 of the 7 Dwarf armies had Thorek), full guns and/or cavalry. The Knights of the Holy Cannonball took the overall victory.

I've played several games now with the 7th. ed. The feeling in my group is that this is really WHFB v.6.1, and shouldn't have been marketed as a new rules set. With so many basic rules changes, I'm not sure I agree... march-blocking of skirmishers and characters alone is a big change, as is the change in targeting single characters... but my main disappointment is the layout of the rulebook. It actually has an index, a wonderful idea! but the index is incomplete. Just try looking up 'swarms', for example. I am saddened that the core rules were not 'tightened up', and the 'balancing' is supposed to take place in the army books (especially after playing Warmachine, which I think is a great example of how to create a rules set) because 1) it takes forever to get the army books out (especially when you want to bundle the release with new models, for sound business reasons) and 2) in spite of the best intentions, the later an army comes out, the more powerful it is percieved to be (which as a company you want, in order to generate new sales).

As for your specifics, Mauleed, I feel that clipping has been adequately addressed, not only by being required to bring as many models into BtB as possible, but by giving the charging unit what amounts to extra free movement once the units are in contact, to align the chargers.

The fleeing rules are straighforward. The broken unit pivots on its center and moves directly away from the enemy with the highest unit strength. Since your unit is basically a square or rectangle, there is only one of four possible directions in which it will travel.

A concern I have is a few rules that we have been using for several editions, and 'we've always done it that way', so now we (us veteran gamers) have blind spots. The example I have in mind is magic dice. We have been playing such that at the end of the magic phase, unused power/dispell dice are discarded. But the latest edition makes no explicit mention of this, and a new player recently posted on the "You Make the Call' forum to ask if the dice accumulated from turn to turn. I told him no. The I went to look up chapter & verse- and do you know, nowhere does it mention that magic dice are discarded! So I could understand his confusion, but I also understand why the writers (Alessio) might have missed that one. It takes a beginner to ask the obvious questions.