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I haven't really gone into it yet. I dabbled in 7th, but never got really into it. From what I can tell, the armies have better magic balance. Magic can be extremely powerful, but at least you don't have only a few armies who just dominate everyone else in that region.(Being able to take 2 lv 4 wizards is helpful.)

I like the organization system now too. Overall, it has a few issues, but fixed some of the problems I had with the last edition. So thumbs up from me.

In 7th, you knew exactly how far every model always moved and knew how many dice each magic phase would have. You pretty much knew the outcome of most fights before the dice were rolled, too. In the new edition, there are many variables with wider ranges of probability, so you make manuevers based on the level of risk and plan for terrible luck. Blood bowl, to me, was a lot like this, where managing your luck swings was the primary strategic element.

Ogres were significantly buffed. This is all I asked, and I recieved.

Monstrous infantry getting all of their attacks in the second rank? Yesssss.

Endless amounts of power dice so I can one-dice cast spam? Yesssss.

Scraplaunchers being amazing now? Yesssss.

If they would have a few army books ready for the fall/winter of last year I think WHFB would have really grown.
60/40 overall on the changes.
Pros:
More armies have a chance to win now.
CC is better now that units can step up.
Shooting is better
steadfast for me
Cons
steadfast for my opponents.
Magic is still very powerful.
Flanks are less important.

The time and money involved in making an army with the new rules, combined with the lack of army books is killing the game.
I agree with the dice machine statement.

I really wonder if the big dichotomy of "I hate Warhammer" crowd and the "I love warhammer" crowd is mostly army dependent.

I've tried to be as clinical as possible in my on analysis, but It's been so frustrating to see all of the tools that I used to rely on to win get stripped away from me.

Several armies were made competitive again. (Ogres, Empire, Dwarfs, Goblins)

many armies went from enjoying a serious advantage to middling (Chaos, Lizardmen, DE/HE, Vampire Counts)

A few armies went from very competitive to LOLWUT (any high-movment high active res armies) TK, Brettonia, Beastmen (ok, they weren't good in the first place, but they got worse) Wood Elves...

A few more went from struggling to compete to middling too. (all the rest really)

A lot of the people I see doing the gnashing of teeth, and wailing at the walls are the ones who have personal anecdotal evidence in which their army got worse.
Same goes for people with anecdotal evidence (See Cerebrium) for the opposite.

Wut?

i thought Dwarves and Empire were always competitive?

Dwarves were lolbad if you made the choice to abuse angles so as to minimize the affect of their shooting. The fact that they can't guarantee a combat engagement in 7th ed movement paradigms meant if you ever had a sizeable lead, you could get out of dodge, and win because they couldn't come to you fast enough.

Empire gunlines suffered the same problem, though: They could try to put together a balanced list, but often found themselves at the mercy of their own mediocrity. The strongest aspects of their own list (parent/daughter unit mechanics) were game-able (kill/marginalize the daughter before you go after the parent) and overly expensive. If played as a straightforward list with no mechanics they could be sort-of competitive, but often found themseves having to out-play their opponent with the best of abilities. The trick is: Anyone capable of outplaying his opponent to such a high standard was going to win, no matter what flavor of army he was playing, because the top tier skill set was a very small and easily defineable skillset.

The dwarfs had no such mechanic.. Mediocre player vs Mediocre player, though, the empire was a poor list.

I think that's what griefs me the most about this edition it *FEELS* to me like they took the "who's the best player" out of the equation and made it "who's got the best army". I'm willing to admidt I'm wrong here, just because I haven't seen it, doesn't mean the skillset doesn't exist, and I haven't found it yet. But I sincerely doubt it.

I thought dwarf gunlines were the most overpowered thing in 7th.


so much dakka they didn't need to get into CC.


if anything, 8th made combat dwarves viable.

How to beat a Dwarf gunline:

Step 1 deploy all fast stuff to center outside of 30 inches from crossbowmen and 24 inches for thunderers..

Step 2 deploy all slow stuff on the flanks in such a way that they are either being shot at by only one unit, or by 0 units. A lot of times this causes a TON of ground to be covered, but you've got this... You're abusing angles.

Step 3, march the ousides in as fast as possible while leaving your middle where it is. Once your opponent figures out what you're doing, he'll attempt to maximize his shooting by moving the units to try to gain shooting access to your slow units. If you've played your cards right, when he re-arranges, to go after your slow units, he'll lose the firing solution on your fast units

Step 4, Fast units finally start engaging at warp 9. Kill the shooty units, kill the war-machines, stay the hell away from
block units. GG you win.

God help your dwarf opponent if you're better at shooting than him. WE's can abuse those same angles to take all of his thunderers/crossbowmen and then point and laugh as the stunties hoof it to combat and never get there.

Dwarf gunline was fearsome with Thorek, but in Europe at least he was widely banned. As a dwarf and orc player though, I still maintain my complaints about WFB 8th despite my armies getting better (or at least more varied).
The magic system would be good except for the stupid high level spells, and the emphasis on massive units is a bit boring.

Da Boss wrote:Dwarf gunline was fearsome with Thorek, but in Europe at least he was widely banned. As a dwarf and orc player though, I still maintain my complaints about WFB 8th despite my armies getting better (or at least more varied).
The magic system would be good except for the stupid high level spells, and the emphasis on massive units is a bit boring.

Getting massive units is still optional..I field just 30 man blocks in my empire army instead of huge hordes...these are more maneuverable in my opinion...and I get more output from them instead of the large blocks..and large blocks are more vulnerable to those said big spells...

Ragnar4 wrote:I really wonder if the big dichotomy of "I hate Warhammer" crowd and the "I love warhammer" crowd is mostly army dependent.

I've tried to be as clinical as possible in my on analysis, but It's been so frustrating to see all of the tools that I used to rely on to win get stripped away from me.

Several armies were made competitive again. (Ogres, Empire, Dwarfs, Goblins)

many armies went from enjoying a serious advantage to middling (Chaos, Lizardmen, DE/HE, Vampire Counts)

A few armies went from very competitive to LOLWUT (any high-movment high active res armies) TK, Brettonia, Beastmen (ok, they weren't good in the first place, but they got worse) Wood Elves...

A few more went from struggling to compete to middling too. (all the rest really)

A lot of the people I see doing the gnashing of teeth, and wailing at the walls are the ones who have personal anecdotal evidence in which their army got worse.
Same goes for people with anecdotal evidence (See Cerebrium) for the opposite.

How did WoC and Lizards drop? If anything they got better. (Or were you refering to just DoC?)

Both armies have solid blocks of core troops, great in this edition.
Both armies benefit from no march blocking and increased charge range.
Slaan got a lot more powerful, thanks to the change in magic rules and better spells.
Chosenstar is pretty good.

I dont think TK got worse this edition (well wont matter as the new book is almost here)

High points, low modelcount armies suffer because of TLOS, and oppressive magic. While their magic may also be nice, in an attrition based magic game, they are decidedly lacking

We've already sort of discussed this in the thread, but, both WoC and Lizzies used to be capable of creating a high movement, high first round of active combat res army. These armies were king in 7th ed.

WOC is mostly incapable of handling any sort of balanced attack, depending on deathstar type stupidity to attempt to win games. The problem with deathstars? If you have too many points in your deathstar, I'm going to kill the rest of your army around it, and then play keep away from your deathstar. GG. If you don't have enough points in your deathstar, my balanced attack has enough weight of numbers and attrition to win out after I pick off your periphreals. God help you if I have a deathstar capable of roffelpwning yours. (Brettonians Grail Star of 8 character dooooooooom)

I don't know what to think about your declaration about a book that relied on breaking units on the charge, or in battles of attrition praying that they won the combat by one, outnumbered, and ran their opponent off, didn't get worse...

Steadfast singlehandedly wrecked all but one TK build. That one TK build relies on firing somewhere north of 180 poison arrows per turn into the air to win the game... consistently. The irony here? Poisonspam Khalida can't deal with a deathstar before it's wrecking face in combat

freddieyu1 wrote:

Getting massive units is still optional..I field just 30 man blocks in my empire army instead of huge hordes...these are more maneuverable in my opinion...and I get more output from them instead of the large blocks..and large blocks are more vulnerable to those said big spells...

I'm sorry, but this made me laugh. I guess it's because I haven't played much 8th edition, but in my gaming group we rarely fielded units larger than this at all, and we had a friggin' O&G player. I mean no offense, but as a WE player and 7th ed lover, this sounds just... wrong. In my opinion, the true beauty of Warhammer, the movement and advantages that goes with it, was mostly removed when 8th edition arrived. Outflanking and MSU-armies are pretty useless, and the skirmisher rules are just... I just can't describe the disgust I feel. So I guess it boils down to whether you want a tactical game of brain and nerve, or a big, random slaughterhouse in the middle of the battlefield. But this is just ramblings from a person with a horrible grip on the rules, and who barely have any experience on the subject whatsoever. Congrats if you got anything meaningful out of it.

Ragnar4 wrote:High points, low modelcount armies suffer because of TLOS, and oppressive magic. While their magic may also be nice, in an attrition based magic game, they are decidedly lacking

We've already sort of discussed this in the thread, but, both WoC and Lizzies used to be capable of creating a high movement, high first round of active combat res army. These armies were king in 7th ed.

WOC is mostly incapable of handling any sort of balanced attack, depending on deathstar type stupidity to attempt to win games. The problem with deathstars? If you have too many points in your deathstar, I'm going to kill the rest of your army around it, and then play keep away from your deathstar. GG. If you don't have enough points in your deathstar, my balanced attack has enough weight of numbers and attrition to win out after I pick off your periphreals. God help you if I have a deathstar capable of roffelpwning yours. (Brettonians Grail Star of 8 character dooooooooom)

I don't know what to think about your declaration about a book that relied on breaking units on the charge, or in battles of attrition praying that they won the combat by one, outnumbered, and ran their opponent off, didn't get worse...

Steadfast singlehandedly wrecked all but one TK build. That one TK build relies on firing somewhere north of 180 poison arrows per turn into the air to win the game... consistently. The irony here? Poisonspam Khalida can't deal with a deathstar before it's wrecking face in combat

Khalidia's only save and grace against death stars is her damn magic item. 2d6 S4 attacks and if the unit takes a wound it cant move in the next turn. The best thing to do as tomb kings is roll double 1's for magic generation and laugh as your opponent watches you double tap all of your shooting that turn . Of course it all ends when they get you in combat and that was fun. GG!

Ziggy Stardust wrote:

freddieyu1 wrote:

Getting massive units is still optional..I field just 30 man blocks in my empire army instead of huge hordes...these are more maneuverable in my opinion...and I get more output from them instead of the large blocks..and large blocks are more vulnerable to those said big spells...

I'm sorry, but this made me laugh. I guess it's because I haven't played much 8th edition, but in my gaming group we rarely fielded units larger than this at all, and we had a friggin' O&G player. I mean no offense, but as a WE player and 7th ed lover, this sounds just... wrong. In my opinion, the true beauty of Warhammer, the movement and advantages that goes with it, was mostly removed when 8th edition arrived. Outflanking and MSU-armies are pretty useless, and the skirmisher rules are just... I just can't describe the disgust I feel. So I guess it boils down to whether you want a tactical game of brain and nerve, or a big, random slaughterhouse in the middle of the battlefield. But this is just ramblings from a person with a horrible grip on the rules, and who barely have any experience on the subject whatsoever. Congrats if you got anything meaningful out of it.

Dude, I've been playing competitive WH since 1998, very much so with 6th ed (I've won 2 GTs here with my empire army). So I think you better not judge me, since I do not ramble, am not a troll, and you can read some of my batreps here and on warseer. And I know the rules very well, most likely more than you.

If you can't adjust to 7th ed, of course you are free to speak about it,m and your inadequacy to do so. But do not judge me as arambling fool, when my intent was to give honest advice. Ok?

7th ed is gone, feel free to mourn. But don't spoil 8th ed for us who are refreshed by it.

However, I feel your pain as you are a WE player. My brother plays woodelf after all, and I agree they got the short end of the stick with the new rules. I hope this can be rectified with their new book without them having to be forced to rely on large infantry blocks..that would just not be "wood elfy"..in 6th ed I absolutely feared the "salad bowl" of doom" which was my brother's WE army..

@freddieyu1- I think he was saying he was rambling.

But yeah, 7th is over, adjust to change. I don't miss the shuffling back & forth just to get a charge.

Yah, pull in the aggro.

Daemons got a weaker. Their whole lord list became cannon-bait and they don't have infinite dice o magic anymore. But they're still good.

Despite what many detractors may say, with the advent of 8th I see people playing Fantasy again. 7E was practically killed off by two or three armies, primarily Daemons, that simply made it pointless to play unless you were one of those armies. I remember my last store used to have a rather robust fantasy group, and by the time I left the only two guys that still played came in on the off-days when nobody else can in to play their VC vs Daemon battles every week. With 8E, it's still not as popular as 40k, but people actually play it.

Yes, 8E definitely has its issues, but overall is a much better game than 7th. No longer do you need to argue over minute angles and fractions of an inch that in all honesty were small enough to be practically unnoticeable but all important in terms of the game result. No longer do you need to worry about being stuck in games with 3 or 4 dispell dice against 18 power dice. No longer will large blocks of troops never get a chance to strike a single blow or watch a single cavalry unit eat through an entire army. No more hamstringing entire armies simply through psychology and needing to do little else. No more auto-breaking simply through defeat by static combat resolution. Random charges means no longer sitting there watching two armies play chicken across the table daring one to advance into charge range first or stupid little inching back and forth games that has no place in a wargame.

I like the role the BSB plays in armies now. Steadfast I actually think is a great improvement as you can't spam heavy cav and expect to run down huge blocks of troops after one round of combat.


Now, yes there are some issues.

The "removes from play" spells either need a significantly higher casting value or need to simply cause 1 wound with no armor saves.

Miscast should probably be made a bit more dangerous, or reintroduce the "double 1's=failure" rule to give some sort of incentive not to simply toss 6 dice at an Über spell each turn.

Magic Resistance should function like it previously did, not simply as a ward save or a ward bonus for magical wounds, as its not useless against the majority of hostile spells.

"Look Out Sir" should be applicable to characters even of a different unit type (if nothing else, at least a 4+) and much of the stuff that does D6 wounds should be reduced to D3.

Cannons should have a chance to scatter left or right not simply bounce straight ahead to reduce their laser like accuracy. (e.g. place marker, then scatter left or right D6 inches, then measure bounce from that point). Hitting both Rider and Mount is a wee bit much. If this is to be the case, it should be like a Stone Thrower where one is hit at full strength and the other takes a lesser hit (say from being thrown from their saddle or something). It makes Dragons rather stupid to try and take.

Steadfast should probably be able to be negated or at least mitigated by Flank/Rear Disruption.

ASF *SHOULD NOT* grant rerolls to hit. WTF was Mat Ward thinking? Why on earth was this necessary?

Size limits should probably exist for some units (e.g. Skavenslaves, Marauders, etc)



Are some of these rather big issues that cause repeated arguments or tabletop weirdness? Sure. 8th edition is not perfect by any means.

However it's a lot more fun to play than 7th edition, and you can actually bring something other than Daemons, Vampire Counts, and Dark Elves to a tournament.

I like 8th edition, even if it makes my Beastmen even more susceptible to shooting and war machines.

But, I did get a gakky ass book written by Andy Hoare and Phil Kelly, so I still lose more often than not, on an overall record, because my book is overcosted up the ass.

If anyone says that all armies are competitive in this edition, you haven't played Beastmen or Wood Elves.

Karon wrote:If anyone says that all armies are competitive in this edition, you haven't played Beastmen or Wood Elves.

Ooook...
More armies are competitive this eddition.
Hows that?