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Not trying to be a buzzkill. But with 'your rules' your really just playing your own game and went on some other track other then warhammer fantasy.

A lot of these rules you made seem like at some point in your WHFB life, something went wrong and you wern't happy with it. Possibly losing your level 4 wizard to the magic damage table? or possibly losing your main block of infantry to a big AOE spell?

Again I'm trying my best not be an ass but I'm just pointing out a fact. I like house rules are 'OK' only when a rule REALLY needs it. Like Failing a leadership test while in a vehicle (40k).

Dok

Not just losing what was in fact 7 wounds, but also the opportunity cost of that magic phase put me in a hole I could not dig out of. Instead of buffing my unit for the charge, I neutered it and they got massacred by a unit 1/4 their points.

curran12 wrote:If your strategy falls apart on one good or bad spell/miscast...not to be too blunt, but your strategy needs work.

The rules aren't hidden. You're not going into a deep dark cave as a lvl 1 Muffin Baker only to be surprised by a lvl 50 Dragon that hates muffins.

You can still have a competitive game without using the high risk/high reward units. I've seen someone take a junky caster as basically a dispel bot. Leave him in the back with a scroll and get +2 to dispel for 50pts.

If you're getting decimated by enemy mega spells, don't mage such huge blocks. Or weird formations.

I'm not saying the rules are perfect, and if you like house rules then cool. But knowing your car catches on fire and then driving it and complaining that it caught on fire is your fault for driving it instead of taking the bus with the other homeless people.

I think you have some terrific ideas and they echo many of the reasons why our group has shelved Fantasy. I also like Matt's idea of rank subtraction.

@Duke: I agree, for the most part. I do think, though, that these house rules let players adopt some of the higher Risk/Reward tactics without utterly devoting themselves to them.

@Doklunggraba: Warhammer has been designed to be flexible. Games Workshop wants its players to come up with new ideas, and they say as much in the BRB. I see what you mean, but if a group of people wants to do something one way, I can't really see the harm in making it more fun.

I think the purpose of this thread is to point out potential problems in these said house rules. Arguing that these rules should or should not exist is isn't really valid. That said, there's got to be some kind of leeway. Posting stuff on a forum implies a desire for feedback, and usually a little more than "cool idea bro".

Eee, I can't agree with you on this. It seems like you tailored these "fixing" rules, just so you don't get in "disappointing situtions". The Warhammer Rules actually aren't really that broken. The biggest problem is the codex having way to many units that are just to bad to use limiting the selection of good lists.

I am sick of hearing the "Game is Broken, Magic is too strong" Whining.
Is the game really broken?

You want max 50 models in a Unit. Why?
I find Dwellers works perfectly V Horde Armies.
Oh but wait, magic is too powerful due it being able to take out massive amounts of horde armies units.
Erm..oh look...Whadda yeh know, they equalize each other.
All through the game there is things that counter other things and i personally think the only thing wrong with fantasy is the very noob pre measure rules.
Instead of whining about something why dont you go learn how to combat it instead.
I have no desire for fantasy to become Dumbed Down to the basics like 40K.

GBDarkAngel wrote:I am sick of hearing the "Game is Broken, Magic is too strong" Whining.
Is the game really broken?

I think most of the trouble in this thread came from the OP declaring the game is broken in his first paragraph, only to go about describing rules that are obviously gamestyle choices from GW, not actual broken mechanics.

I mean, does anyone think GW included really powerful spells and the possibility of killing your own troops with wild magic backlashes and didn't realise it would make magic a highly random, potentially game changer that included a lot of luck? No, it's just how they decided the game should play, favouring excitement and the theme of powerful, unpredictable magic over more rewards for player skill.

It's fine if you don't like that kind of play, but it's important to understand that doesn't make the game broken, it just makes it a different game from the one you want to play. I don't really have a problem with any of the proposed rules in and of themselves, other than I wouldn't really want to use them myself, because they'd make the game something that, to me, is less interesting.

That doesn't make them bad rules, I think the changes would still produce a functioning game that would suit a lot of people's playing style. In fact, the only one I'd have a problem with would be the loss of rank bonus and steadfast for any flanking manouvre, as it'd be too easy to bypass the core strength of infantry blocks with one flying monster. The game is not made stronger by stripping away the one thing that makes infantry a unique, valuable unit type.

That said, I'm not really happy with how ineffective flanking is right now, restricting the enemy to retaliating is nice, but not really enough (while the +1 combat resolution is pretty much laughable in the modern game). But the answer doesn't lie in making it so easy to strip out. I like the idea of flanking units denying enemy ranks dependant on how many ranks they themselves have, but as it stands that's a bit fiddly. A more elegant idea that did much the same thing would be wonderful.

Sebster, thank you. I think we can all get behind this. Some of us need to cool our jets here.

So...a more elegant mechanic for negating ranks when you're on the flank...well, the best I got is my above idea: you count as twice as many, versus subtracting your number of ranks from the enemy unit. It's a little easier (addition versus subtraction), and it would require that a fairly decent-sized unit get in the flank, instead of a smallish unit in the flank and a middle-sized unit in the front.
What else we got?

Warpsolution wrote:Sebster, thank you. I think we can all get behind this. Some of us need to cool our jets here.

So...a more elegant mechanic for negating ranks when you're on the flank...well, the best I got is my above idea: you count as twice as many, versus subtracting your number of ranks from the enemy unit. It's a little easier (addition versus subtraction), and it would require that a fairly decent-sized unit get in the flank, instead of a smallish unit in the flank and a middle-sized unit in the front.
What else we got?

That's a little simpler, and I like it. Only issue is if you're using a small unit, like two ranks of fast cavalry, to disrupt the enemy to give an advantage to your troops taking them on from the front. This kind of tactic wouldn't be helped at all by the rule.

What about just taking a leadership check when an enemy hits you in the flank, to see if you can hold formation? Fail and you count as zero ranks (thereby losing your rank bonus and the possibility of steadfast). The only issue here is that it's adding another leadership check to resolution, and so many armies are set up to hardly ever fail checks (close formation around gen & BSB).

Johnny-Crass wrote:A few problems
1. For some armies 50+ horde is almost vital
2. I kind of agree with the test or die spells but really with your other magic rule they are not that bad.
3. hills are normal 50% of the time and rivers should not be dominating most of your board.
4-5. If I wanted to play 7th I would buy a 7th book.

I fully agree with this. I disagree with all the points made by the original poster. I believe we are at this point down to just vocal minority who are still complaining about 8th ed. I know one person who rage quit Fantasy. Everyone has adapted and we have a stronger healthier community than we did in 7th ed.

8th ed is the best version of fantasy to come out in the last 10 years. It has intrinsic mechanics to fix all the issues of broken lists from 7th ed and people have problems with that?

Just because Brets and WE have outdated books, there is no reason to stop something that works.

Just adding in my thoughts for the whole "unit on the flank or rear denying Steadfast" issue.

I agree that just blanket denial of steadfast if you charge into the flank or rear would take us back to the Dark Age of minimum size cavalry units destroying units four or five times their size, and thus remove much of the benefit of taking large infantry blocks.

So, my idea would be this: for the purposes of working out if you deny Steadfast, you double your effective number of ranks if you flank, and triple it if you are fighting in the rear. I would also add that if you have two separate units each fighting on either side, they add their "effective ranks" together to determine whether they can deny Steadfast (if they both only have 1 rank, they count as having 2 for the purposes of denying Steadfast, and so on and so forth), this way, if you're coordinated enough to sandwich a big unit with flankers etc, there's a benefit, instead of there being...well nothing.

I actually really like this stuff, but I disagree with your statements about why this stuff is needed. Sure these changes are very similar to what you see on the ETC so they are not exactly original.

I disagree with your statement about 8th being broken. I usually here that from people who play 40k and dont like the randomness of the game(usually space wolf and grey knights player who dont understand how to actually enjoy a competitive game). The problem people usually get with 8th is that the play style they used to use in 7th simply doesnt work and they get frustrated. That or they think a 100 man chaos warrior unit would be awesome until it gets enfeebled and dwellered and then just get p***** off.

The gold out of these ideas is the change in the uber spells. But they shouldnt only cause one wound, that makes ogres very, very good. But they should definately allow a ward save. This would make magic res useful again and still only be a threatening as killing blow, which no one thinks is that broken.

praetorian_aak wrote:I usually here that from people who play 40k and dont like the randomness of the game(usually space wolf and grey knights player who dont understand how to actually enjoy a competitive game).

gotta get those digs in!

Seems to me that the 8th edition rulebook is not broken. The only thing kinda wierd is that the army books are imbalanced but it doesn't really bother me. If you play a GW game, you are fully understanding that the teams are not balanced. It doesn't make it any less fun even if you play one of the "bad" teams.
Getting rid of "Test-or-Die" is like getting rid of superweapons in Command and Conquer. Test-or-Die is the great god of balance. Why do people don't have 50+ units normally? Test-or-Die spells and other unit busters. In my opinion the magic system is fantastic don't you dare touch it. Lastly fleeing is not supposed to be a big part of the game. Steadfast and BSBs make sure of that.

I think Cathay may be an army soon. The Tamurkhan book lists about a half-dozen very specific units and a very descriptive several page battle.


My point being, they like super spells and they are very "cinematic." Without them, casters are primarily good for buffs and hexes. A magic missile is really paltry compared to a war machine or gunline. If you could choose between a combat lord and a spell caster lord who didn't have access to hexes/buffs/lvl6's what would you take--even if he could cast the same DD and magic missile over and over until he was out of power dice?

I don't amazingly like save or die. Especially vs. stuff like Ogres and ESPECIALLy with ways of protecting yourself from miscasts reliably. But it's better than not having them IMHO.

Is anyone still saying that the Test or Die spells are lame? Did anyone really voice such an opinion in the first place?

Dakka has spoken:
Spells like Dwellers/Pit/Sun doing only one wound is no good. Allowing a Ward save? I don't think that would make too huge a difference. I mean, against a TizLord with a 3+ Ward and S5/I7(or is it 8?), he'd be a ton more survivable, but that's not really the issue with these spells anyway. The issue is losing your Wizard Lord/Slann/Grey Seer, since these guys cost a lot and have not-so-good stats. Allowing Ward saves would help, and would make Magic Resistance better (which I am all for).
The other issue can be summarized as: Ogres versus Pit or Purple Sun. Taking away Irresistible Force would certainly solve that, but as Sebster said, it would change the tone of the game, and how it plays. Both would function, but differently. Warhammer wanted some high risk-reward aspects to the game. Magic is one of them; a trait in fantasy that hails from long, long ago, and I think it should be preserved. Again, the rules originally suggested (with a few tweaks) would work. But something closer to what currently exists would work just as well, including the rules as they are, with no changes at all.

So...
Is magic inherently awful and terrible and needs to be changed? How about big blocks of infantry? Steadfast? No. We've settled that, good and well. Are they perfect? Not quite, of course. Too bad GW doesn't give their BRB a little nudge now and again. Of course, they probably had to say "once it's printed, it's final" to stop themselves from constantly modifying it.

To be honest, if they just allowed ward saves against all spells, I'd be pretty happy.

Sure, there's spells that wreak horrific damage and swing a game, but I see that as a feature, not a bug.

The Prince of Excess wrote:So everyone who seriously plays Fantasy knows it is a pretty broken game, for many reasons. Some of these are just due to armies being VERY out of date (Brets, WE) but the majority of the problems are just being able to abuse rules or Magic being to strong.

My group and I worked on a set of rules during a league we did, I'd like for some people to check them out and give us feedback. We'd really like to refine these and start using them for tournies etc. Anyways, here's what we have.

1. No unit may be bigger than 50 models at the time of Army creation and no Army may contain more than 3 of the same Core unit.

This is intended to stop abuse from Horde armies like Skaven from just making blocks that are literally impossible to get through and laugh at you all day as they're Stubborn.

2. Any "Test or Die" Spell inflicts a maximum of one Wound.

This prevents Dwellers, Purple Sun etc. from taking out big units of Monstrous Infantry, Characters etc. These spells are allowed to eat blocks though because that is their purpose. They have high casting values and bad ranges so there is no need to make them worthless.

3. Rivers and Hills cannot be anything other than "ordinary".

Rivers and Hills decide way to many games for a piece of terrain. While the rest of the magical terrain is pretty low threat and adds fun flavor, these two types can absolutely lose a game. Not what the role of terrain should be.

4. Rolling a 2-4 on the MIscast Table is instead treated as a 5-6, Miscasts only happen on double or more 1's and Irresistible Force doesn't exist.

This is the most iffy one. Losing a Wizard is no fun and has happened to everyone, there's no reason to lose a 300-400 point investment on some bad dice. However, not being able to stop a spell from going off can be just as costly as losing a Wizard. For this reason we decided to keep Miscasts punishing but not game ending and remove Irresistible Force. We've also discussed having Irresistible Force add a d6 to the casting value instead or some other, small bonus.

5. Any Flank or Rear Charge negates Rank Bonus and Steadfast.

This is intended to make Cavalry, fighty Skirmishers and to a lesser extent Chariots more than completely useless. Blocks can laugh off anything that charges except a bigger block, which removes a lot of the positioning from the game.

1-Agree(ish) Steadfast is annoying, but I think the way to solve it is to say "Steadfast is negated if the unit recieves X% of casulties" or by saying monsters count as having a certain amount of ranks for this purpose

2-Disagree They, as you point out, have high casting values for a reason. Take Dispel Scrolls

3-Disagree This is just as bad news for your opponent (and can actually give you bonuses) and is a very fun part of the game

4-Disagree I think the magic system works just fine. Irresistable force is very balanced: on the plus side your spell cannot be stopped, which usually results in much destruction; on the negative side, your wizard will likely blow up/become less powerful etc

5-Er, this happens already, kinda See "Disruption" on Pg53. True, it should like you say, happen for everything. It doesn't negate Steadfast, but perhaps if you say that "steadfast is negated if your opponent has double your combat resolution" this'll probably enough if your opponent can't claim rank bonuses

sebster wrote:To be honest, if they just allowed ward saves against all spells, I'd be pretty happy.

Daemons would get so powerful. And a few other units like HE. And WoC Tzeentch Warriors. You'd see these gigantic blocks of Daemons getting buffed and there'd be nothing you could do about it except try and redirect them.

This may sound a tad bit dumb and a little bit sad as well. Me and my friends just totally ignore the disaster rules of any artillery. and if if we roll a one or a two on black powder weapons we just treat it as a 3-4 and same go's for non-black powder artillery. But when we practice for tournaments we use all the written rules word for word

Oh, but my organ gun can still blow up, cause of the special rules and all . If I can re-roll I can still EXPLODE!

Poppabear wrote:This may sound a tad bit dumb and a little bit sad as well. Me and my friends just totally ignore the disaster rules of any artillery. and if if we roll a one or a two on black powder weapons we just treat it as a 3-4 and same go's for non-black powder artillery. But when we practice for tournaments we use all the written rules word for word

Oh, but my organ gun can still blow up, cause of the special rules and all . If I can re-roll I can still EXPLODE!

Um...yeah...that's a really unbalanced house rule. Completely remove the risk associated with any war machines. Why? :|

If everyone likes cannons and nobody likes monsters, why not?

As for Daemons, yeah, they'd get better. They'd lose 30% less guys to the Big Spells. I think that's still pretty decent, though, considering the fact that every one of their models costs 12pts or more, and have at least one mediocre stat that leaves them vulnerable to one of the unit-sweepers.
Bloodletters would be the only real problems, there. S5 I5 with a 3+ save. Then again, they're still T3. You can just arrow them to death.
Pheonix Guard are supposed to be durable (since that's all they do, compared to their counterparts), and Tzeentch Warriors would lose 16% less guys. Since there's usually 15 to 18 of them and they cost over 15pts/model, I'm probably okay with that, too.

DukeRustfield wrote:Daemons would get so powerful. And a few other units like HE. And WoC Tzeentch Warriors. You'd see these gigantic blocks of Daemons getting buffed and there'd be nothing you could do about it except try and redirect them.

Daemons would get something of a boost, it's true. But then inherently magical creatures ought to be somewhat better at surviving magical attacks then equivalent non-magical troops. And yeah, I'd think Phoenix Guard ought to be better at surviving such an attack than Swordmasters.

I don't see Tzeentch Warriors doing that well. They wouldn't get the parry bonus, so they'd be just 16% more likely to survive. While that helps, troops don't go from being good to unstoppable because of a 16% boost to survivability against some more magic attacks.

Meanwhile, MR would actually mean something. Someone might even invest some points in it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Poppabear wrote:This may sound a tad bit dumb and a little bit sad as well. Me and my friends just totally ignore the disaster rules of any artillery. and if if we roll a one or a two on black powder weapons we just treat it as a 3-4 and same go's for non-black powder artillery. But when we practice for tournaments we use all the written rules word for word

Oh, but my organ gun can still blow up, cause of the special rules and all . If I can re-roll I can still EXPLODE!

If that's how you guys like playing, then fair enough.

I am a little surprised that a group would choose to increase the effectiveness of artillery, and reduce the downside of such weapons, most people are of the opinion that such weapons need a downgrade, not an improvement.

The Prince of Excess wrote:

1. No unit may be bigger than 50 models at the time of Army creation and no Army may contain more than 3 of the same Core unit.

This is intended to stop abuse from Horde armies like Skaven from just making blocks that are literally impossible to get through and laugh at you all day as they're Stubborn.

So you just want to make Horde armies unplayable? How am I supposed to make a Night Goblin army with these rule? 50 is too small to do anything other than hold up a unit for maybe a turn, it has no chance of doing anything against a horde of 50 anything else.

3 of each core unit? So my goblin spearmen, goblin archers, and goblin swordsmen are all the SAME unit. If I want to make a gun line army I typically want 5-6 units of goblin archers and 2-3 combat blocks. Im already to 7-9 of the same type of unit.
I hate a wolf rider army that runs 3 large combat blocks of wolf riders 2 medium flankers and 3 units of 5 man archers. 8 of the SAME unit. Maybe this rule makes sense for Chaos Warriors but it makes a lot of armies unplayable.


The game should devolve down to who has the best deathstar and removing a lot of magic and nerfing steadfast just makes it deathstar day every day.

Exergy wrote:

The Prince of Excess wrote:

1. No unit may be bigger than 50 models at the time of Army creation and no Army may contain more than 3 of the same Core unit.

This is intended to stop abuse from Horde armies like Skaven from just making blocks that are literally impossible to get through and laugh at you all day as they're Stubborn.

So you just want to make Horde armies unplayable? How am I supposed to make a Night Goblin army with these rule? 50 is too small to do anything other than hold up a unit for maybe a turn, it has no chance of doing anything against a horde of 50 anything else.

3 of each core unit? So my goblin spearmen, goblin archers, and goblin swordsmen are all the SAME unit. If I want to make a gun line army I typically want 5-6 units of goblin archers and 2-3 combat blocks. Im already to 7-9 of the same type of unit.
I hate a wolf rider army that runs 3 large combat blocks of wolf riders 2 medium flankers and 3 units of 5 man archers. 8 of the SAME unit. Maybe this rule makes sense for Chaos Warriors but it makes a lot of armies unplayable.


The game should devolve down to who has the best deathstar and removing a lot of magic and nerfing steadfast just makes it deathstar day every day.

Did you seriously bump a 4 month old thread just to whine about someone's house rules?

And the unit restriction would be no more than 3 goblin archers, 3 spearmen, 3 swordsmen and so on. Not only 3 units of goblins period. You need to step back and actually think about the point of the rule. It was designed with Skaven in mind so that people can't run 4 blocks of 100 slaves. Not to beat down your goblin list. Hell you aren't obligated to obey such rules, nor are you part of their gaming group, and if you are then you could explain how it breaks your army.

Goblins also may be the only case where it would be a bad rule, but honestly if I showed up to a non tourney game and you dropped 6 units of 20 archers, I'd probably decline to play.

I love seeing big blocks of infantry on the table it looks bloody ace.

Yeah it sucks to have to paint up 200 slaves but its totally worth it. One of the skaven players I game with alot puts it very simply "I took the time/money to paint/collect 300 rats and I will be fethed if some cheap bastard is going to stop me using them"

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