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 infinite_array wrote:
9th Age is a continuation of the ETC side of 8th Edition, so it's ultra-competitive.

This is true but I do not consider it a bad thing. they took a note from Warmachine. The devs cheese out so you dont have to. If the game is broken but balanced (yes it can be both) then the game can be both fun and fair. You can have powerful elements limited by correct pricing and unit limits.

 infinite_array wrote:

hey're developing the world and backstories of the factions, but it's still built on a system that I'm not a fan of - random charge distances, 40-man units and crazy magic.

Magic is less crazy than in 8th. There are still uber spells but there are also mitigations. The big death spells allow the first failed save to be ignored, so you test for important characters first. miscasts are dependant on number of power dice used, so if you do decide to five dice cast not-Dwellers you might well cause more damage to yourself than to the enemy. High dice miscasts are BRUTAL.
also there is no irresistable force, aka the opponent can dispel a miscast spell. but if they do so they save the opposing wizard from the fruits of their own miscast. So your opponent will get to choose if it is worth it or not to stop a miscast spell.

Large units are a thing, but I like that, its more like an army game. I disliked earlier editions of Warhammer where 20 models was a 'large regiment' tacked onto what was essentially a skirmish scale game with models represented 1:1. Yes there is a shadowy unit scale involved in Warhammer, which we see better in Total War Warhammer.
40 orcs feels like a company of orcs worthy of the name.

 infinite_array wrote:

I like the more grounded version of 6th, where it's not a super compeitive game, and your units are the most important part of the army, with characters and magic to help (unless you want to heavily invest in the magic phase at the expense of your other phases).

All editions of Warhammer are competitive. I will play and support 6th and 8th, so I am not a fanboi, but I do think 1.1 is superior. There are parts I do not like and the occasional misprint in the points costs, so far I have only found one definite one (Chosen costing 1pt less than Chaos Warriors) but there are one or two other units I would certainly price differently. Overall its very balanced, tones down a lot of the broken elements of the rules. Good examples are their Vampire Counts (Vampire Covenant) army book. GW never got that faction balanced, each edition had it own quirks from runaway magic (ironically prior to 8th) to Red Fury spam etc. 1.1 actually gets the faction right. Each unit has its own invocation value, there is a hard limit on zombie summons and clarity on which units can be raised above starting wounds by which casters. Editted points values and yet has all the magnificent models that 8th Vampires gave us. Red Fury is a thing, but you have to jump through hoops to make a blender vampire, cant make a mini-blender hero vamp at all, can't take the full package combo from 8th and must choose the Blood Dragon faction to do so, which gimps your magic similar to how that faction did. Necrarchs work and are balanced. you can do a lot with them, but can get carried away on costs. Lhamians make better sense than they ever had, you get characterful bonuses for unarmoured (i.e skanky) vampires. Strigoi come in many sizes, so you can have a Ghoul king who is a monsterous infantry model and hangs with the Crypt Horrors. Cairn Wraiths and Hexwraiths are the same unit, the horses are an upgrade. etc etc
It is very nicely done, allows a lot of build options but closes off avenues of abuse while still permitting some of the power tropes of Warhammer vampires.

For Warriors of Chaos (Warriors of the Dark Gods) the four gods are easily defined key powers are present but cannot be spammed, so you can see echoes of favourite builds operating in the traditional way, just no longer dialed up to eleven. Chaos Undivided is a thing again, with default benefits for the mark. You can have a Daemon Prince of Chaos Undivided, which is not strictly canon outside of special characters, but was legal in 6th. However you also have all the special units found in 8th. Chaos Spawn are finally fixed with a 3d6 move, something people were asking GW to include since forever. Chaos Marauder infantry can have throwing axes. Chaos Marauder heroes can unlock mongol horde abilities making a Marauder horse army a possibility. If your general is mounted on a chariot you can take extra chariots as core for another theme.

Bretonnians (Kingdom of Equitaine) finally have foot knights and bolt throwers allowing medium scale artillery and stiffened infantry. You can also give Knights of the Realm flails as an upgrade, flails in 1.1 grant +2S in all rounds of combat but enable the enemy to have +1 to hit them as they cant defend themselves well. I really like this as it is a different penalty to great weapons, characterful and something that requires deliberation on whether to include. KotR still technically have lances and have the Jousting rule as do all Bretonnian knights meaning they may always use lances if they have them, similar to the rules in 6th for Bretonnian characters. It take this to mean during the charge the opponent doesnt get the +1 to hit against flail attacks rather than model knights with both flails and lances. It makes sense come to think about it, the knight is only vulnerable while they are standing swirling their flails. This makes a big difference, knights had zero standing power except questing knights, not you can have continuous S6 core which does a lot for viability of knights but at a fair price +5pts for the flails and a 3+save and +1 to be hit penalty which means you have to think l;ong and hard as to whether you want the benefit. Lance formation was elegantly ruled for. They count as monsterous cavalry for combat and ranks purposes, simple and done.
Bretonnians now also have peasant hero options, with leadership upgrades for peasants heroes taken in a peasants revolt list with no knights - its a bit more involved than that with characterful exceptions that themselves make the story. I do not like how you have to take an Errantry list in order to unlock crossbowmen, I would have liked to have seen crossbows as standard, but they are there.

Dwarfs can take Zepellins and monsterous infantry golems, both are rare so they cannot overshadow the sdawi. Both are canon in Warhammer anyway but rarely seen.

High elves have a systerm of 'honours' for characters which replicate various subfactions. So there is a White Lion honour which unlocks Lion cloak (you cant take one otherwise) and gives bonuses to great weapons and monsterslaying. Dragon Mage, Loremasters, Shadow Warriors, Handmaidens, Sapheric Magi, Sea Guard Commanders, Dragon Princes (lords only) and Phoenix Guard all all honours with separate points values for heroes and lord level characters limited by fighter or mage class stypes. So you can have a hero level Loremaster fighter with cut down spell ability on the cheap, you could toolbox him further by making him your BSB as with any of the fighter hero builds above. You can also take a lord level Dragon Mage retaining th lore of Fire restrictions, access to dragon armour, on a Sun or Moon dragon and with more spells. It is a pick and mix system that works well and allows you to create the character you want, though you cannot stack honours on characters. Drain Magic becomes an exclusive extra spell for a Mage of Saphery, along with a range boost to all magicks. So between the extra spell, extra range and good lore access the superiority of High Elf Mages is evidenced without making them too overpowered.

Empire haven't changed much on the surface, but a lot has happened under the hood. The Inquisitor character which replaces the Witch Hunter includes three subtropes, of which the Witch hunter is one, but the others are Daemon Hunter and Vampire hunter. Each with separate characterful abilities that fit the theme well. War priests work well and are not unfair. Infantry has been clarified into light infantry (crossbowmen and handgunners) and heavy infantry (halberdiers, spearmen and swordsmen), archers are combined with Free Company and again are determined by option choices. You can have free company with extra hand weapons, bow or pistols. Skirmishing is also extra, so you can include the sword and pistol men seen in total War Warhammer Free Company. Outriders are an optional upgrade to pistoliers, which also means you can give pistoliers barding in separation like with 16th century heavy pistol cavalry.
Knights can be taken are core or special, but you need to buy back ability on coire knights to make them any good. This means that budget core knights are actually sergeant lancers or merchant cavalry when you look at them. With the exception of knights which are split between two unit types in core and special most of the army is in amalgamated unit slots. This mean you can spam them. The unit limit of four units of a type in core and three in special per entry applies in totality. So you cant cheese out in fast cavalry or artillery. You get three artillery slots and all four empire guns are suboptions in the one artillery entry, there is a further 0-2 restriction for all except mortars. This is common amongst other armies too, the change is most keenly felt in orc and Empire armies so for example no more spamming both a full contingent of doom divers and Rok lobbers. detachment of a type count towards the unit cap. Arrer boys and savage orcs come out of a single allowance for core orc infantry and goblins are handled the same way.
All this means you can take themed armies easily, but you cant cheese out.

With an Ogre Kingdom army you can convert the entire army to Chaos Ogres if you like, this restricts your unit options, but allows your ogres to take marks. I wished it added certain units from Warrior or Beasts of Chaos but it did not. Maneaters have multiple equipment and skill options and it possibly the most varied unit in the game. You can turn them into ogre pistol armed marksmen if you like, or halberd wielding heavy infantry with stubborn. Gnoblars got a boost and act more like goblins, and have equipment options for extra cost. So you can have gnoblar archers to support, or you can just keep them cheap and have them get in the way. Insignificant is a universal rule in 1.1 and certain units do not cause panic. Gnoblars and goblins count, slaves of any kind in any list, and some beast units in disciplined lists such as Dark Elf harpies and chaos warhounds.

A lot of thought went into this and the changes/improvements are very subtle and effective. i cannot say I agree with every rule decision or army book change. but none of us ever do, but I have far fewer concerns over 1.1 wording than any other version of Warhammer.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Gangland wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:


I agree entirely and while I collect 8th army books, and 6th as and when I build my armies primarily for T9A 1.1, with all the units renamed back. Though I do also play 8th and 6th, though 6th only for much smaller armies.
There are a number of people here on Dakka who have turned back the clock to 1.1, and a following is growing as the best post 8th project. This will continue as Age of Sigmar gains traction and the current T9A loses following which it is slowly doing.

It is not vocally accepted on the T9A forums to go back editions, but this is likely due to copyright fears, despite denials, 1.1 material is removed and it is stressed that it is not formally available (lengths which to me prove that this is actually over potential copyright), but if you ask for it it will be quietly provided to you.

Does this about cover it?
https://www.the-ninth-age.com/index.php?thread/20215-link-for-full-rule-pack-version-1-1/

Yep thats them. like i said you can find it on backpages by individual forum members. Just enough cover.
I have my own copies on my HDD and a hardcopy. The army books are well presented, they just have zero fluff which suits me fine. you have to retrofit the fluff to what is around the rules. It is entirely obvious what fits with what Warhammer subfaction. I printed out mine and placed thmer in permanent A4 folders as a stack of army books. i now readthem far more than my actual 8th army books. and my default lists to mark the boundaries of my collections are based on 1.1 not 8th.

Just incase they do have to disappear I suggest you download them all. the further it is disseminated the easier it will be to recover. If all else fails forum members can in the future get copies from us.

Yeah I downloaded them right after I found that. Figured it wouldn’t hurt to have them.

 Orlanth wrote:
A whole lotta info...

Cool, and thanks for the in-depth info. I'll definitely check out the provided link for the 1.1 ruleset.

I can't say why, but I was always fine with the scaling convention that made 20-25 model units "large." I guess I always thought of WHFB as more of a game about warbands than entire armies, which I would prefer to use smaller scale miniatures for. Unless it was something tiny like goblins, painting 30+ models for a single units, and being expected to bring 2-3 of those sized units to the table, feels prohibitive.

Did anyone ever come up with a correctly priced Chosen profile that could be edited in to the document?

 infinite_array wrote:

 Orlanth wrote:
A whole lotta info...

Cool, and thanks for the in-depth info. I'll definitely check out the provided link for the 1.1 ruleset.

Its well worth a shot. I recommend you add 1.1 to the list of available rules to play. I word it exactly that was. the only way to do it wrong is to be 8th only or 6th only. Sure have preferences but if you keep it open you will be ready for different games or scale of game. 3rd edition has excellent skirmish rules for instance, and is proably superior for that purpose.

 infinite_array wrote:

I can't say why, but I was always fine with the scaling convention that made 20-25 model units "large." I guess I always thought of WHFB as more of a game about warbands than entire armies, which I would prefer to use smaller scale miniatures for. Unless it was something tiny like goblins, painting 30+ models for a single units, and being expected to bring 2-3 of those sized units to the table, feels prohibitive.

One of the things you will notice is that every unit has a set unit value and a cost per model. The cost per model is used only for models over core unit size. GW later copied this mechanic back, but they still kept the old flat multiplier of cost x number of models, and the core price is just an unnecessary mathematical shortcut. In T9A the minimum unit cost is markedly different from the cost per model. As a general rule block infantry get a discount for the initial troops, this is because the meta favours big units, so small units are worth less, and partly as an incentive to buy multiple blocks of core infantry.

There is small tendency to deliberately underprice core infantry units of every faction. That discount is also displayed in the set minimum price.
So for example basic Empire heavy infantry (spearmen, swordsmen and halberdiers) cost 80pts for 20, plus up to 30 at 5pts each.
Notice the heavy discount for these troops. Meanwhile there is a different formula of light infantry, though the format is written as above just the same. Crossbowmen and halberdiers are 80pts for 10, plus up 10 10 at 7pts each. Note that the core here is slightly more expensive than the add ons, as small missile units are optimal.

As a general rule melee infantry get a discount in the base price, missile infantry and cavalry break even more or less, though the price is always rounded to a multiple of five as well, so there will be some discrepancy on cost if the base unit size is three models. Elite skirmishers and any skirmish or monsterous unit with an exceptionally low model count normally pays a premium for the base price.
A good example here are small unit skirmisher 'cats & dogs'. Dire Wolves cost 40pts for 5, plus up to 10 at 6pts each. Chaos Warhounds are 45pts for 5, plus up to 20 at 4pts each. Sabretusks are 40pts for one, plus up to 14 at 20pts each.

Note the premiums you have to pay, they also make sense, the standard minimum size 'wolf dart' is still a thing, and if that is what you want that is what you pay for. But for a few points more you can double the unit size. Points wasted or good investment, you decide and you can be right and wrong both ways. On this note any unit for which the minimum size is one model normally masses a heavy premium on that first model. But when you look at that it makes sense, that single model unit is often more valuable and more versatile.

Note also that every unit, not just Bretonnian knights has a maximum size. That is around 10 for monsterous units, often less, 15 for cavalry, 20 for missile infantry, 30 for elite infantry and 50 for basic infantry, with some local variation. Zombies, skeletons, goblins, clanrats and skavenslaves all max out at 60. This means the maximum possible number of zombies (or skeletons) in a summonhorde is 480, four units of 60 on the tabletop and up to double that to summon by Nehek. I still don't bother with more than as fraction of that number, and I have the tools to summonhorde if I really wanted to i.e options for both a maxed out Necromancer Cult list, or a Necrarch list.

If large units are a problem for you , new contrast paints might remove some of the problems. Also you can prioritize some factions for larger armies based on ease of painting. Lizardmen are very easy to paint, especially if you use a pastel technique, Nurgle and Khorne daemons, Warriors of Chaos (if warrior heavy), certain undead are also simple. Though normally difficult you can cheat with Skaven also by making painting them grimy and mimimalising detail. Just avoid Bretonnians if you want to make life easier.

 infinite_array wrote:

Did anyone ever come up with a correctly priced Chosen profile that could be edited in to the document?

No, the game moves on to 1.2 which was rushed to instill differences from WHFB. So 1.1 was never FAQed.
However don't let that bother you.
Chaos Warriors are 110pts for 10, plus up to 20 at 13pts each.
Chosen are 120pts for 10, plus up to 15 at 12pts each.
Initially more expensive, break even at 20 models and a whopping 5pts cheaper at maximum size. This s a jolly good deal as Chosen get +1Ws and +1I, however that only matters vs characters and elves and ias not so big a deal. Chosen dont pay off core tax, which is still a thing in 1.1 and the Marks Chosen get are better but do cost 1-2pts more per model dependent on what they are. As Chosen of Chaos undivided do not get any benefit from their mark above what Chaos Warriors get I do not consider the misprint to be a serious concern. Maybe they were worth 1pt more for two soft stats which were already high, as opposed to 1pt less. Overall you get a special misprint discount of about 30pts total with a maxed out unit of 25 Chosen, which cost 300pts before upgrades of any kind, its noticable but not a big deal. Consider that yet another gift of the dark gods, praise their unholy names and move on brother.

Most importantly though note that this is as bad as it gets. Technically by highlighting it I have been 'downplaying' the quality of 1.1 . Every edition of WHFB has its brainfarts, including legacy and AoS. 1.1 has remarkably few, i can mention a handlful of things I would do differently, and a few units that are likely underpriced or overpriced by a small amount, but only one definite error. Cheap chosen at 9% undercost for a full unit is as bad as it gets in a game that replicates the entirity of late edition WHFB. Thats not bad IMHO.

 infinite_array wrote:
I can't say why, but I was always fine with the scaling convention that made 20-25 model units "large." I guess I always thought of WHFB as more of a game about warbands than entire armies, which I would prefer to use smaller scale miniatures for. Unless it was something tiny like goblins, painting 30+ models for a single units, and being expected to bring 2-3 of those sized units to the table, feels prohibitive.

5th was about that layout. Granted, you'll have to deal with all the stuff in 5th that it is notorious for.

You could also try 1,000 point games. That may be the right "feel" for you, regardless of system you choose.

Here is a list of major changes in early 9th Age from WHFB 8th.

Sauce
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/The_9th_Age

My comments in italics.

The page is tastefully illustrated

8e to T9A
1.0 designed to be Warhammer Fantasy with all of the Tournament common sense balancing incorporated, as well as many of the long-running gripes resolved. Close as possible to 8e.

1. Battle Standard Bearers can take Magic Items, and have a total Magic Item allowance that any Magic Banner fits into. A BSB can take a Magic Banner of any point value, but it also sucks up your Magic Item allotment. For example taking a 50 point Banner will prevent the BSB from having any magic gear, taking a 50 point Magic Armor won't let you take a Magic Banner. If a theoretical 150 point Banner makes it into the game your BSB can still take it even though they have a 50 point limit on their magic items, but you won't be able to take anything else magic on top of it.
- The points listed above were doubled, something that happened in 1.2 to differentiate. I modified the numbers in the example above to the cap of 50pts of 1.1

2. Units now have two point values; the value of taking the bare minimum models of a Unit, and a number of points per additional model. This isn't always equivalent. For example an entry may be 100 points for 25 models but each additional model, to a maximum of 40 total per Unit, may cost 6 points each rather than 4. This is sometimes higher and sometimes lower.
- As a general rule block infantry gets a discount at start, skirmishers pay extra, everything else is in the middle.

3. Riders and Mounts share profiles, sort of like The End Times special characters. The book lays out when you mount a character on something on which model part attributes to use in certain situations (like using Toughness of the Mount when being attacked, or the Initiative of the rider on the offense) but as far as an opponent targeting goes the entire kit is treated as a single target (so no shooting a horse out from under a rider, no shooting a rider off a horse, the whole thing just dies). This is called a Combined Profile.
- This works very well, but does mean monster riders area dilemma. Most character mounts are Monsterous beast, including Griffon, Hippogryph, Manticore etc. the largest are monsters including Dragons, Arachnarok etc. Monsters do not share the defensive profile of the rider while Monsterous beasts do. So if you take a 4++ on your griffon rider the griffon gets 4++. If you put a 4++ on a dragon rider the save doesnt apply. Some magic items offer benefits to the model, which then works regardless of mount, but they are restrictive and expensive. I do agree that if you are a person atop a very large dragon the armour you are wearing and the warding you have means nothing if someone attacks the dragon, you are a small portion of the target the attacker ignores. In game terms you equip a dragon rider with armour for free, and dont pay for it. Make them look the part.
There is a mitigation here, only monsters get thunderstomp or Stomp (d6) and there is a gap between the monsterous beast T5 W4 and monster T6 W6 defence, and monsters have a 3+ or 2+ scaly skin in nearly all circumstances so they are not defenceless. Sun dragons are an exception, they are monsterous beasts but are nearly as powerful as a monster, and are a sweet spot for character builds. Still because of the benefits a Star Dragon is also popular.

4. Characters and Command all have the First In Rank rule, but you can divide them as you will rather than in a specific order. This is important because in 8e Characters joining a Unit would only have to reach the back of a horde and somehow teleport a full turns worth of Movement in order to reach the front of the Unit to join it, whereas now there are more places it can go and thus less distance it somehow travels (gets crowd-surfed?) in less than a second.
- No real changes from WHFB but the rule is clarified and avoids abuse.

5. In Deployment, both characters roll a die. The one who rolls higher chooses which one of the players chooses deployment sides. The other player chooses who starts to deploy first, and players can deploy as many Units as they want before allowing the other player to deploy Units. Whoever gets all their Units on the board first (other than those which deploy after this step) gets a bonus for however many Units their opponent hasn't deployed on a die roll to see who goes first (so if you put down your entire army at once, you automatically go first since your bonus goes beyond what your opponent can roll). This gives a tremendous strategic importance on deployment, allowing you to sacrifice whatever steps don't matter to you (which side of the board you start on, countering what your opponent deploys, and having the first turn) for what you do want.
- This works very well, and shows the frank superiority of early 9th Age. Yep some like 6th some like 8th, but early 9th Age was written by fans, not games Workshop, and thety had accumulated a long list of things fans wished Warhammer included by GW never did. 1.0 was an accumulation of all of these that the devs could find. Therefore while judging value iof game systems is subjective the large feedback loop on rules creation meant that the devs had an opportunity to get things right.

6. Rather than True Line Of Sight, models have a line of sight based on the type of Terrain between them and model size based on what kind of model it is, rather than just which model is physically taller (which was punishing for players who wanted to do fancy basing for their models or just use things like taller characters, or had random advantages when custom terrain was used).
- Like Warmachine 2.0 in a way. Though they used a standard size based silhouette and TLOS based on that silhouette. Which was clunky, having fixed size ratings and flat rules for what can see over what worked. I like the way Warmachine put it though, hence the analogy. Fixed sizes were introduced to not penalise gamers for conversions. So if you reposed a warcaster or warjack and put it on a rock to look impressive, you wouldnt get peanlised in the LOS rules. This is the same, and something GW never got right. The Orc wyvern model (not Azhag) was easy to hide, the Dark Elf dragon, roughly the same size was impossible to hide. Both are now category : large, and if you model them further for artistic benefit the rules will not punish you.

7. Units can March into Buildings. But no model can go more than triple their Movement to get into a building (so a long "bus" formation where most of the Unit can get into the building don't teleport those in the end into it).
- This works with any form of movement, not just into buildings. The triple movement limit applies and is a handbreak on movement shenanigans, especially placing a limt on wheel cheese from light cavalry.
Note there that dwarfs have triple move as standard for marching. So they get M9 while marching offsetting much of their prior immobility. This does in reality mean you have to be careful about wheeling and marching as dwarfs as anything other than straightv forwards march incurs distance penalties.

8. "Move Or Fire" has been replaced by Unwieldy, which adds an additional -1 To Hit if models move that turn.
- I agree with this. Why cant you fire a crossbow and move. As a general rule Move or Fire doesnt usually work. Move or Load made more sense, most slow to load weapons had a cocking mechanism that could be used at least for a short time, handguns especially. a penalty is a fair way of handling this, your handgunners will not be abnle to set up properly and it will effect accuracy. Normally a -1 on top of everything else will result in mimimal effectiveness.

9. Volley Fire ignores Cover provided by other Units, and the entire Unit can shoot rather than just the first two Ranks.
- IIRC 8th had multi rank firing through the unit, as did 5th for Bretonnians. however in both cases you needed to be still. 9th Age retains this and you only get all rank shooting if you do not move, and it doesnt apply to Stand and Shoot. This goes a long way to make S3 shooting viable.

10. "Look Out Sir!" is removed. If there is at least five Rank & File of the same Troop Type, they automatically get hit.
- Five members of the same unit includes command group, and the number calculated before casualties. You dont suddenly rabndomise mid volley if the number drops below 5.

11. Cannons use Ballistic Skill To Hit, then it becomes a line template. Do Ordinance Wounds, which is D3+1 (+1 additional if Target is Flying) instead of D6. Templates hit whatever they hit rather than just 1 model per Rank and File.
- Good in principle but as cannon are always at short range (technically they are not but the range is long enough most things will be in short range), and get +1 to hit vs large means that they are too deadly accurate. The less random damage is no benefit as its a minimum of 3 wounds vs a dragon, so no justing shooting a neat hole in its wing. you can buy a 5++ for a dragon, or a 4++ for a griffon or equivalent, but statistically it wont save them. Cannon are capped at 2 per army in most lists, but that wont save you. You need blocking terrain if you are to use monsters and cannon.

12. Flame Template is removed, whatever used it causes 2D6 Hits instead.

13. Spells in general are less powerful individually and won't automatically win or lose a game, less bonuses to casting, less Magic Dice obtained per turn, limit 5 Magic Dice to cast a spell, Overwhelming Power is not automatically cast or dispelled, Miscast is based on how many Magic Dice used to cast the spell.
- I mentioned high dice miscasts before. Now let me mention low dice miscasts. If you two dice a spell and roll boxcars you will take S4 hits, which are often survivable, there is 0% chance of losing magic levels and 0% of being eaten by Knorne. You begin to lose magic levels at 3 dice miscasts, and Khorne starts plucking wizards on 4 dice miscast.

14. Units with a Champion always get a minimum of a 4 result on the Charge.

15. If a Unit Flees a Charge, and its redirected into a second Unit that also Flees, in 8e both would count as a failed Charge; in T9A, the Charging player may default to a successful Charge against the first.
- This manes you can charge bait but can only go so far.

16. The Make Way rule lets a Character get into the front Rank to get into Combat, like in 8e, but ONLY into the front Rank unlike 8e. This means getting a Flank Charge won't put a blender lord into you until they perform a Combat Reform.
- Maneuver becomes more important. And yes blenders are still nasty, but you cant buy all the tools, so they have some weakness (not many).

17. Rank and File models always target Rank and File models, whereas in 8e some armies could fill the front Rank full of Characters which prevented the Rank and File from being able to attack the Unit.
- Bretonnian hero front, goblin big boss wall and rank of wraith characters no longer work. T9A got rid of most of the gamesmanship abuses while tooling down but retaining the character build abuses. The above is slightly misleading, Rank and File can attack rank and fire, they can choose to attack the character in B2B, your characters do not have this privilege, but may still target any model in base contact.

18. Always Strikes First replaced by Lightning Reflexes, which provides a +1 To Hit rather than a To Hit reroll.
- Elves do get this as standard, and the rules for great weapons and ASFeq are the same as in 8th.

19. Killing Blow replaced by Lethal Strike, so instead of automatically killing on a roll of a 6 the attack just ignores Armor Save and Regeneration rolls.
- But not ward saves, highlighting a difference between the two.

20. Models are not moved to be in a Challenge. You only get a maximum of 3 Overkill. Characters who refuse a Challenge do not move and cannot attack or use their Leadership benefits (like Hold Your Ground and +1 Combat Resolution, or BSB benefits if they were a BSB), and can still be attacked; in 8e a way to protect weak characters like Wizards was having them refuse a challenge and move to the back.
- Challange refusal is now a big thing. Always adda champion as a challenge buffer if you have any chance of adding a character.

21. No Insane Courage, automatic Break instead.

22. Standard Bearers don't die automatically if they Break, they just lose their Standard.
This applies to BSB's also, this becomes especially important for Slann, who dont autodie if they break.

23. No Post-Combat Reforms, only Pivots.

24. No army-wide Fear (like Undead and Daemons had).
- At last. Hated that zombie was so scary but a black orc wasnt.

25. Fear causes -1 Leadership to any models in Base Contact.
Fear is now a serious problem.

26. Fear-causing models take Terror Tests if Charged by Terror-causing models. In Close Combat, Fear-causing models do not take Terror Tests.

27. Parry means you cannot be hit by a 4+ To Hit, whereas in 8e it was a 6+ Ward Save.
For some models this doesnt matter, for others it matters a lot. Elves dont suffer from not having sword and board as they have high WS, low skilled modesl benefit most from parry. Which doesnt entirely make sense.

28. Spears provide Armor Piercing 1, Fight In Extra Ranks if you didn't Charge with them, and gives Lethal Strike against Cavalry, Monstrous Cavalry, and Chariots from the front Rank.
- Spears are worth having now and have a charge defence against cavalry they should benefit from. Points costs for spears are still low, and they dont get parry. Note that mounted models cannot have 'spears' anymore, but have 'light lances'. This is just for clarity, and everyone calls them spears.

29. Flails have +2 Strength as in 8e, but your opponent gets +1 To Hit against models with them.
- Flails become an interesting tactical dilemma, often you are better off with great weapons, flail units take casualties fast and are best for shock use. Send them in and get one good hit. This matches the way most flail troops are portrayed..

30. Paired Weapons have +1 Attack as in 8e, but also +1 Initiative.
- This can make a big difference for orcs.

31. Units Fleeing with 25% of their starting number or less Rally on half their Leadership rounded up, rather than 2 in 8e.

32. Flammable models being attacked by Flaming Attacks allows a reroll To Wound rather than causing double Wounds.
- Much needed improvement as fire can now hurts high toughness flammable creatures.

33. Flaming Attacks ignore Regeneration just for that specific attack rather than removing it for the entire phase.

34. Redirectors are no longer a possibility. Situations where one Unit creates a situation where neither can be made Base Contact with require the Units to be moved as little as possible for that to occur.
- Again gamesmanship is frowned upon and disenfranchised outside army creation, where it is merely taxed.

35. Nagash removed.

1.0 To 1.1
36. Minor bugfixes, rule clarifications.
- In green in the army books and rulebook.

Nagash removed.
- All special characters removed. Most people import them from 8th with their special rules as given where there is no equivalance. You can convert over most if not all characters from eaerlier editions. If given multiple entries choose the one closest to 8th.

A whistlestop look at the Army Books.

Cccasionally I might mark something as a change from 8th which isnt but I forget was included, so bear with me.

Beastmen.
Not a faction I know. Has most of the existing toys. Beastlords are fixed the army is better priced but not entirely fixed. you are getting goat headed greenskins and inferior performance to other chaos armies. Mass ambush is a thing, and doesnt require a special build, just a beastlord general.

Bretonnians (Kingdom of Equitaine)
Hippgryph Issues - No hero on Hippogryph option despite monsterous hero mounts in many army lists. This is partly offset by a reasonable price for lords, so multiple lords is not unreasonable.
The Blessing - You now get two blessings, both work similarly to WHFB for eligibility. Both offer a 6++, Blessing of the King: 5++ vs S5+, Blessing of the Grail: 5++ vs armour peircing
Better spells - Heaven, Life Beast or High Magic for every level of damsel. approve of High Magic for Brets, being a 'holy' faction when not in class oppression mode. the lack of fluff allows the user to channel his own idea about the faction and its medieval and Arthurian roots. Brutal oppressors or warriors of light. You choose.
Lance formation - uses monsterous cavalry rules, keeps it simple.
Peasant synergy - Peasants get +1 move if within 6" (leadership bonus range) of knights. This helps the army advance together.
Oaths - Questing Knights can stack shield and great weapon and questing characters cause double damage against monsterous units. Grail oaths are 0-1.
Knight characters - Can be taken dismounted without a virtue to do so.
New units - Peasant heroes with bonuses if no knights taken. Questing knights on foot, greatsword and shield armed. Bolt throwers included. Limited access to crossbowmen.
Green Knight - Taken as a rare choice. The only special character in 1.1



Chaos Dwarfs
Cannot compare them much. got very nice artillery, limited choices of dwarf infantry but what you get is very good. very shooty army with a limited selection of magic, though the lore of not-Hashut is brutal. Takes hobgoblins as normal. But can also take orcs as slaves, in core. You do need dwarfs to keep the orcs in line or they run away but it is intended to have cheap orcs as the majority of your lin backed up by chaos dwarf characters artilley and very expensive high powered hybrid melee/missile block infantry.


Daemons of Chaos
Cheese is dialed down from 11, to about 8.... Daemons are powerful, however the is no long a broken array of upgrades, the upgrade list is also very short now and most options are 0-1. If you do not take an army of a single god you get major penalties to your force org. This means armies above 2k are very samey for monocult, and more difficult past 3k due to chokepoints of army comp limits. Though you can get away with much via the character allowance.
Daemons do get benefits for having a monocult army, though you must pay for the benefits. Units have unchanged since 8th and the army roster is pretty much identical. This can cause a problem as new sculpts have left old base sizes behind. T9A doesnt allow non standard base sizes. Most players who use new sculpts ignore this rule if the replacement model is bigger. So this will only normally apply to tournament lists and 1.1 doesnt tournament anymore. The new Daemons army book (v2.0) includes new monsters of similar size to new greater daemon sculpts, though these are under new names so you can take an old or new model great unclean one and it is relevant to its base size and has different stats.


Dark elves
You can make the entire army Cult of Khaine or Cult of pleasure if your general is. All units in 8th present, no new units. Basic warriors, Dreadspears/Bleakswords can take heavy armour, Darkshards can take shields. Characters need to buy Beastmaster or Corsair affiliation in order to unlock special wargear. So no giving sea dragon cloaks to every characters. these affiliations are expensive and cover a lot of rules so you need to be frugal with them. assassins can choose one of two specialisations, close combat which unlocks 4++ in melee, or ranged which allows you to use all your abilities in short ranged shooting. The 'path of silent death' formally uses a throwing weapon, but you could model paired crossbow pistols with scopes as I did. evetyting about them is dripping poison, including a number of extra poisons you can buy which when you read them mostly do the same thing and while you can buy multiple, its enough to buy just one.
Units are as you would expect them. Witch elves are still core, they do get nastier with the cauldron, but never as broken as in 8th. Sisters of Slaughter are now cult of pleasure oriented , not Eldrazor. Cult of pleasure sorceresses can use lore of Slaanesh. Cold one Knights are better than ever because in 1.1 they gain the T4 of their cold ones. Harpies are 'insignificant', which means they dont cause panic. Warlock cavalry are toened down, more expensive and get their 4++ vs Slaanesh. Bolt Throwers buy the automatic fire mode as an upgrade, so you can buy older simpler models and use them as just bolt throwers.

Dwarfs
Only gain grudges if they take a dwarf lord. Gain +d3 is the lord is in a war throne. Shield bearers dont gain bonus. +1 if facing orcs or rats. Army functions as before but get 3 movement on the march, making them faster marching than humans and orcs. This is a big thing when it comes to making dwarfs a viable attacking army. Runes are included they are superior to off the shelf magic items and the points allowance is usually 125pts for a lord, 75pts for a hero. there are no custom magic items list and no access to common items except standards. Runes are better than any though and the combos get nasty quickly. Building a nasty dwarf via runes is not in any way prohibited, cheese out if you like, but everything has its price and before you know it half your points are gone. Rune weapons may choose the hand weapon or extra hand weapon option for free, so you can get a BOGOF of runic axes if you so choose.
Of special note are the bound spell runes,k which are available only to runelords and runsmiths. you buy runes of your choice and they operate as bound spells broadly each as powerful as a War Priest of Sigmars spells. There are six runes to choose from so technically you can say that dwarfs now have a lord of magic, though it works entirely through artifice. You can still take an anvil, which has its own runes to buy which include small selection of attack spells.
Core units are limited, you get warriors, longbeards and marksmen, marksmen include quarrelers and thunderers, so you cant take four units of each and MSU your list. You get four total. artillery is also amalgamated to prevent spam, with further limits if you also take different artillery in rare. All in all it is hard to include more than four artillery in a dwarf army and no more than two of any type and flame cannon are 0-1.
Elite dwarf infantry have not changed much an are tough as ever. You get all the special elite units likenot-Irondrakes. All copter units are in a single entry, again limiting you to three total or any type of copter. Now there are two additions to the unit roster both in rare. First there is a zepellin, not anything like as powerful as the zeppelin in the hardback 8th rulebook. You get a chariot sized zeppelin with a modest four shot S5 steam gun and a limited bombing capacity. The second unit are Hold Guardians which are monsterous infantry. They are only M5 and dont get triple march so they dont offer true mobility, but they do offer something more than just yet another dwarf block. they have a very high native S6 T5 W3 and Sv3+. The rules imply they are golems, but you could as easily have steampunk exo armour, warjacks, or slow cavalry. Some manufacturers have bear rider models to have a 'low tech' Hold Guardian unit.
https://www.momminiaturas.com/miniaturas-fantasia/ejercito-enanos/guardianes-rúnicos/ I used MOM Miniaturas golems.
Norba Miniatures has a zepellin model and bear cav.


Empire
Very close to 8th, including unique items like VonHorstmanns speculum being included. There is some extra colour and better balance but ultimately you get what you could get from Empire armies from 6th to 8th, plus the return of 5th edition Reikguard infantry with sword and shield. However the force org is heavily reorganised to prevent cheese. I have described Empire a lot already.


High Elves
Again you get everything in the 8th army book, plus the character versatility of 6th. Empire has a wider base of characters, but High elves get more options, and the options unlock both power and theme. All this comes at a price so you have to self police, there are simply too many good options and you cannot take more than fraction of what is available. Army is largely unchanged. Sun Dragons are not monsters but get Stomp (d3) and other halfway abilities, this makes them powerful models. Griffons are nice and cheap and can still be ridden by heroes. You CANNOT take a bolt thrower on a sky chariot with a character on it. Martial discipline means you reroll every leadership test except for break or panic tests.
High elf spearelves can get heavy armour. Basic bolt throwers can be bought without paying for repeater as per Dark Elves.


Lizardmen
Again very similar to 8th, with some changes. Carnsaurs come in two sizes monsrterous beast and monster. The Alpha Carnosaur monster upgrade (downgrade when you consider you lack the 4++) causes d3 wounds, the only monster to do so other than the Bloodthirster. Alpha Carnosaurs are lord mount only. Slann get special abilitiy upgrades as per normal. Including Wandering Deliberations some miscast mitigation, and boosts to magic dice. The latter being very expensive. If somehow you can afford more than one Slann the ability limit is per army not per Slann. Note that as Slann BSB doesnt die if he routs.
Lord level Skink Priests can take a palanquin, and can fit their palanquin at 40x40 or 50x50, one a few official options to rebase units. This uses the special character model, or a conversion but requires no special character. Skinks can take bows, or Kroxigor or becomes skirmishers but arent good at anything much. Special choice skinsks are much better are automatically skirmishers with poisoned javelins or blowpipes and can upgrade to Chameleon skinks. In fact its cheaper to buy Special skinks than to upgrade regular skinks, but this is not an error, but a way to limit gharasser lists made of skirmisher core.
Dinsaurs haven't changed much and have the usual options in the usual places. Cold one cavalry are overpriced at 35pt each and despite a large maximum unit size are really only effective in small single rank units. It might be hard to remember what dino is what unless you know your paleontology. The real life versions of GW dinos had mostly wierd names. Rhamphodon, Stygiosaur, Thyroscutus, you have to work them out by weapons and ability options unless you have an eight year old at hand to tell you what they are. Troglodon (Stygiosaur) has a spellcaster unit upgrade option which is different.


Ogre Kingdoms
Has some interesting special equipment options, including several magic ironfists, which get parry and extra hand weapon upgrades. I tend to use Ogre Kingdom cruiser models with two swords as these options, and consider one of the swords a parrying weapon. So longb as you are clear this should be ok. Ogres crossbows (S5 bolt throwers) can be taken by most characters, not just hunters. there is no Rhinox but you can put as Hunter on a Mournfang, though he cannot join any units if he does and is only marginally faster than on foot. because of this the upgrade is cheap at 40pts but allows a large boost to attack rate. Big Names exist and are effective choices with few stupid entries. The Hellfist Big Name on your general can be used to turn your whole army into Chaos Ogres, one of the few faction replacement army list options in 1.1 Butchers get a wider slection of spells, though Gut Magic is a natural draw as it plays to ogres strengths. Firebellies are an upgrade and can be paid for a slaughtermaster if you wish.
There are very few changes to the army. Ogres units are idemntical to 8th as far as I can tell, nothing added nothign taken away. Gnoblars are different though. You can have a Gnoblar character, but as an upgrade to a Gnoblar unit champion. he has the expected stats of a Gnoblar hero, but has a limited equipment upgrade list. Halbers of great weapon only. The stuff of Gnoblar legends and irrelevant except as background colour. No magic items as a Goblin equivalent big boss would be able to get. The Gnboars themselves are effectively goblins. They were already but what I mean is, any upgrade regular goblins could get Gnoblars can including armour and bows. the upgrades also stack so you can with them down with all sorts of stuff if you like, and can make a characterful if woefully ineffective for its cost unit. As you cannot genuinely stiffen them there is little point in the meta. Gnoblars come with only throwing weapons as standard, but lose thme when upgrade. Gnoblars top out at 65 models maximum, the highest model cap of any unit in the game. For what thats worth.
No other unit differs in any noticable way from 8th.


Orcs & Goblins
Tones down animosity, gives sensible prices to black orc characters, and lumps all orcs of a particular type in one unit. This can be problematic as all core orc infantry except big uns are listed as one single unit. So arrer boys and savage orcs are thesame, just different race or equipment upgrades. This does limit getting a good horde going, but orcs do well in large mobs. Maximum unit size is 50. Orcs get a bonus to panic checks if in horde formation. you are being channeled to larger fewer orc units and subtly channeled into taking a tribal approach. So you dont get a love in of savage orcs and night goblins and regular orcs all in the same army. Goblins are restricted the same way, you get one golbin entry, which covers and type of goblin infantry and you upgrade equipment and race. This does however mean that forest goblin infantry are a thing, and they can get special benefits for forest goblins which are relevant when on foot, such as poisoned attacks. MSU is very hard to pull off doe to the force org restrictions, but thematic lists are made easier to do. Want a 'savage' army of forest goblins and savage orcs only. You can do this. want a Nigh golbin army, it can be done. On that note while Night goblins do get -1LD this doesn't apply to Night Goblin lords, so you can take a Ld8 general, plus subordinate warbosses in a pure night goblin army. Most of the crazy stuff is correctly allocated to a specific greenskin subrace. So night goblins ride squigs and common goblins ride wolves.
To help things out the Idol of Gork is included, and is tough. Its holy enough you can consider it your BSB for +50pts if you like. As its a large target this is generally a good idea if not facing cannon.
Wyverns can be taken as hero mounts, and are more expensive when done so to compensate. There is a cap on wyverns, but it is not especially low so you can afford two in a 2000pt list if you like.


Skaven
Sorry don't know much about skaven to compare sorry.
....mainly because Skaven probably do not exist. Do not concern yourself citizen.


Tomb Kings
Don't know much about them either to compare.


Vampire Counts
This army book does a lot. For a start you have all the units in 8th, however you can take a vanilla army or one of any of the five Vampire clans. Blood Dragons get plate armour as standard, have gimped magic but can uniquely unlock Red Fury. They must accept challenges. Lahmains get -1 attack in return for Quickblood. They can use lore of light! Which makes sense from an Egyptian mysticism point of view. they can take armoured vampires but get a -1 pernalty to be hit if unarmoured (i.e seductively dressed). Von Carsteins can march their armies, like bats and wolves and can summon storms once per game as an upgrade. Most of their abilities are just background colour. Strigoi are just plain crude and nasty but have gimped magic, another way to get combat upgrades vamps without going the knightly route. necrarchs always max out their magic level and on top of that always receive +1 spell but must exchange one spell for Nehek. They have can take normal lore access, which manes Lord of Vampires, Shadows or Death, however the wording allows them to take lord of Death or Shadows and still swap one spell for Nehek. the wording also means you roll five spells first before doing this improving your choice. This in fact allows a huge variety of spells and means that you are always a valid spellcaster of lore of vampires (eligibility for general hasnt changed) even if you choose another lore via free Nehek. Necrarchs have -1A and -2Ws and have no weapon or armour upgrade options. However those penalties don't matter much when you still get S5 T5, can take a ++ talisman and a magi weapon if you desire.
Each bloodline has synergy with one unit and can unlock special buffs for that unit. So for example Blood Dragons unsurprisingly have synergy with Blood Knights unlocking armour upgrades and a stronger charge. Other upgrades are also characterful, and intended to be thermatic rather than just broken.
Now some broken options do exist. The sword from 7th that caused a unit to grow wounds with each kill is back. Standard equipment for a character leading Blood Knights. On this note Blood knights have W2 offsetting their still high price of 50pts each. Even so you cannot bakc it up with thev full panoply of special bonuses. Quickblood and Red Fury is never found on the same character.
Units are pretty much as they were in 8th, though skeletons can take halberds. Ghouls can have command groups, the Varghulf has an array of options for upgrade inlcuding fly is you want it. Wraiths and Hexwraiths are the same unit, with mounts being an upgrade. wraith infantry are properly prices and are worth having now. So much so that wraith characters are now considered the wasteful option, even though their price hasn't changed much. Morghasts are included as normal rare choices, with equipment options to differentiate the models. Nearly everything else is the same except for the Coven Throne. This can be taken as normal with rules copied from 8th, or it can be taken on its own as a special choice. If you do its cheaper and have thee handmaidens and no ward save. Not especially effective but worth having if you want to use them model but daren't use it for your general. Also there is synergy with Lhamians.
The other unit that has changed is the Corpse Cart. This now has an upgrade option for 10pts to place it on a 60x100 base, like a screaming Bell or Cauldron of Blood. It is then can be attached to a unit of zombies (only). This does protect the corpse cart as it cant be targeted as its a unit upgrade, so long as there are five or more zeds. but more than that it is very cool to have a corpse cart surrounded by a cloud of zeds, very thematic, and that is how I modelled mine. While on zeds the choice of whether zombies are superior to skeletons is rather more muted, no unit can be raised over double it's starting strength. This prvents most abuses in summonhorde, but doesnt restrict 'fair usage'. Double is still a fair amount.


Warriors of Chaos
Ok where to begin. A lot of changes here, more than most. Basically you get all the units in 8th including any unit formatted for models from 8th. So for example that Chaos Warshrine had rules that followed the 8th edition plastic kit. However there was extra. Furies didn't make the cut sadly and were added instead to daemons of chaos. Daemon Princes were included though, had a decent run of options and could be taken as Chaos Undivided. This was an oversight as Chaos Undivided daemon princes did not pay for the 'upgraded' mark, it was the default, but had the best mark upgrade. Chaos Undivided had the widest lore choice and made a daemon prince +1ld, i,.e Ld10. This made your general a no brainer. Other than that the character selections were fair. Gidfts are included but the list is very thin and hasd few decent options, and only one unique option per chaos god. Army specific Items have the similar flaw, so Khorne gets one unique gift and one unique banner to go for the whole army. That being said the character and unit mounts are done correctly and uyou had to be sure which unit was led by which leader if you wanted multi faith chaos.
I went undivided only for theme reasons and so I could make best use of the Slaves to Darkness models. I found myself restricting the daemon prince to occasional games because it was broken. The only bit of self policing in 1.1 I have had to do in all of eleven armies.
now for the units. Throwing weapons on marauders doesn't hurt the balance but allows some flavour missile shooting. In 1.1 all throwing weapons are the same: 12", multiple shots (2), S as user. You can stiffen marauders of any type with marauder heroes that unlock unit bonuses. This will never truly take away from the true strength, Chaos warriors, but adds a lot to flavour,

Warhounds are very cheap, but with a premium for a minimum unit. This forces a fair price on 'wolf darts' but offers a decent price for large packs of warhounds. 45pts for 5, 65pts for 10, 85pts for 15. You could take a unit of up to 35 if you want. I stop at 15, but have thirty in total in two or three units. This costs about 10% of a 2000pt list and adds a large amount to the footprint of said list. In 1.1 Chaos armies need not be small, but can have a horde theme. This is reinroced by taking cheap block s of marauder and basic chaos warriors with sword and board (just as the boxset offers). Chaos warriors cost 13pts minimum, and that is with sword and shield. I can deploy a 750-1000pt core of largeish blocks of warhounds, marauders, marauder cavalry and chaos warriors. Each block ended up the same size, 20x 25mm square bases or 10x cavalry bases. The result is a very points efficient core with presence on the tabletop. I always wanted my chaos army to be a chaos horde, not a character retinue. 1.12 delivers on this with tight points cost options if you are frugal with upgrades. Chaos warriors are still nasty while vanilla and the supporting bblocks add functionality where most chaos armies wouldn't have anything there. There is still room to add plenty of the horrible things that make chaos so brutal.
Lets discuss those next. Dragon Ogres are slightly cheaper, and also better. The price is questionable still but their resilience number of wounds and high speed maske them easy to use. Most other things are unchanfged from 8th. There is a new unit called 'once chosen' which are monsterous infantry chaos warriors. Now you can use these to represent chaos ogres, but plate armour is standard. You could use ironguts with hardened skin, but then you could use 'crypt horror' scale warriors. The formal lack of fluff measn you can add what you want that fits the unit entry.
Chaos spawn move 3d6 and are more reliable and viable as options. As normal you fire and forget them.


Wood Elves
Finally woodies. I don't know much about them but will say a few words on elves in general. The devs said it was their intention for all elves to be hard hitting mobile elite forces, however High Elves would specialise on protection, Dark Elves on damage dealing and Wood Elves on denial. While GW did this anyway there was a stronger extent to which this was done in 1.1. All had fast evasive units hard hitting units and resilient units, but there was a clear theme that ran through each army book. looking through the books this is still evident

 infinite_array wrote:
9th Age is a continuation of the ETC side of 8th Edition, so it's ultra-competitive. They're developing the world and backstories of the factions, but it's still built on a system that I'm not a fan of - random charge distances, 40-man units and crazy magic.

I like the more grounded version of 6th, where it's not a super compeitive game, and your units are the most important part of the army, with characters and magic to help (unless you want to heavily invest in the magic phase at the expense of your other phases). It's the same reason I like Warmaster so much.

Trust me, it´s possible to play 9th Age with regiments that consist of 10-20 models. And if you try hard enough to break a game, you will succeed irrespective of edition.

 Strg Alt wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
9th Age is a continuation of the ETC side of 8th Edition, so it's ultra-competitive. They're developing the world and backstories of the factions, but it's still built on a system that I'm not a fan of - random charge distances, 40-man units and crazy magic.

I like the more grounded version of 6th, where it's not a super compeitive game, and your units are the most important part of the army, with characters and magic to help (unless you want to heavily invest in the magic phase at the expense of your other phases). It's the same reason I like Warmaster so much.

Trust me, it´s possible to play 9th Age with regiments that consist of 10-20 models. And if you try hard enough to break a game, you will succeed irrespective of edition.

Very true of most games, but in addition to this all editions of WHFB were broken, they wre just broken different ways. Balance was not a priority of GW, in fact some GW insiders confided that balance was unwelcome as it would remove the requirement for new editions. Balance instead became the selling point of newer games as a means of getting their foot in the door. The insider I spoke to at the time saw this coming and did not agree with policy. WHFB and 40K should have had tighter rules, if so Warmachine would have been stillborn. balance could have been more or less achieved and still leave room for edition improvements.

 Orlanth wrote:

 Strg Alt wrote:

 infinite_array wrote:
9th Age is a continuation of the ETC side of 8th Edition, so it's ultra-competitive. They're developing the world and backstories of the factions, but it's still built on a system that I'm not a fan of - random charge distances, 40-man units and crazy magic.

I like the more grounded version of 6th, where it's not a super compeitive game, and your units are the most important part of the army, with characters and magic to help (unless you want to heavily invest in the magic phase at the expense of your other phases). It's the same reason I like Warmaster so much.

Trust me, it´s possible to play 9th Age with regiments that consist of 10-20 models. And if you try hard enough to break a game, you will succeed irrespective of edition.

Very true of most games, but in addition to this all editions of WHFB were broken, they wre just broken different ways. Balance was not a priority of GW, in fact some GW insiders confided that balance was unwelcome as it would remove the requirement for new editions. Balance instead became the selling point of newer games as a means of getting their foot in the door. The insider I spoke to at the time saw this coming and did not agree with policy. WHFB and 40K should have had tighter rules, if so Warmachine would have been stillborn. balance could have been more or less achieved and still leave room for edition improvements.

You don´t have to be an insider with special knowledge to get to that conclusion. Edition change is mandatory to get money from vets who have it all in order to get them to buy a new BRB and codex as a tax to keep playing the game. This is why I stopped chasing the dragon after 5th 40K. Just stick with your favourite edition and apply some house rules. Job done.

And why do I play 9th instead of WHFB? In a nutshell, the devs removed the sales driven ruleset mentality from the game. This alone was the selling point for me.

The funny thing is that you didn't need a revamp every few years to keep the vets. Solid ruleset simply means vets get more armies. In the halcyon days of 6th WFB and 3rd/4th 40k I could count the number of single army players on one hand. Now? Not even close.

 Just Tony wrote:
The funny thing is that you didn't need a revamp every few years to keep the vets. Solid ruleset simply means vets get more armies. In the halcyon days of 6th WFB and 3rd/4th 40k I could count the number of single army players on one hand. Now? Not even close.

Yup. Same is true of the "they had to cancel Specialist Games/dripfeed the new stuff or else people would just buy one box of models and nothing else ever ever again" nonsense - I think I met five people who were into SGs who had a single gang/warband/army. In twenty years. The "single purchase" group existed for sure, but the idea they would suddenly run off and and spend thousands on 40K/WHFB/AoS stuff if that smaller purchase wasn't an option is sheer farce.

Ironically my only single faction game in my collection is Age of Sigmar. i decided to round base my night goblins (from Skull Pass) because they didn't fit my orc army theme and I didn't know what else to do with them.

 Just Tony wrote:
The funny thing is that you didn't need a revamp every few years to keep the vets. Solid ruleset simply means vets get more armies. In the halcyon days of 6th WFB and 3rd/4th 40k I could count the number of single army players on one hand. Now? Not even close.

Hence why i have all the armies for 6th. Working on all the storm of chaos and appendix lists as well as special characters lol. I have daemonic Legion, slayers, cult of slaanesh, grimgor's 'ard boyz, and archaon's horde so far for sure, i'll have to check the others, pretty sure im close on them too


Killing skyre skaven for 9th ended any interest in that ruleset for me. They're drug crazed lunatics, mad scientists come with the territory.

 brr-icy wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
The funny thing is that you didn't need a revamp every few years to keep the vets. Solid ruleset simply means vets get more armies. In the halcyon days of 6th WFB and 3rd/4th 40k I could count the number of single army players on one hand. Now? Not even close.

Killing skyre skaven for 9th ended any interest in that ruleset for me. They're drug crazed lunatics, mad scientists come with the territory.

Decided to check this and got the 9th 1.1 file and WHFB 7th edition army book out and compared side by side, to see if Skryre was gone.

Now I remember having a lot of fun playing Skryre with a borrowed army, this was early last decade, so it was in 6th. Skryre was broken then, fun but horribly unbalanced to the point that you would really only see Skryre armies and then only see some of the weapons.

So from the top:

Special weapons and mounts: All the options from 7th are in 9.1.
Greater daemons: All the upgrades from 8th are in 9.1, but are mandatory so you cant take a 'vanilla' verminlord as per 7th and earlier.
Units: All options from 7th are in 9.1, as the Stormfiends from the End Times.

Army book comparison.

Characters:
Special characters - Sorry no special characters in 9.1, most players who want one ports them over from WHFB.
Warlords and Chieftains - 9.1 allows the your combat characters to take a warplock pistol, a big plus to making a Skryre army as its the sort of thing a Skryre lord would have.
Grey Seer - 9.1 allows you to take lore of Shadows instead of Ruin. While this is more to allow an Eshin sorcerer lord, the non-cult sorcery could be used to represent other clans also. However if you take Ruin there is a magic item the seer can carry which is a halberd and gives +2 hits to Warp Lightning. This allows a 'Skryre Sorcerer Lord' to look the part.
Warlock Engineers - These are not wizards unlike 7th but have bound spells, which is how I remember them from 6th. All the upgrades you expect to see on a mad science rat in 7th is in 9.1. The warp accumulators etc are not included, but their effects are built into the build with the bound spells. Rest assured to you get full flavour.
Sorcerers - Note that 9.1 does have mini-seer lvl1-2 rat wizards in separation to Warlock Engineers and Plague priests. Again this is to better represent Eshin, Moulder and warlord clan armies. Though again there is no reason why a Skryre army couldn't use one, though frankly a Skryre Sorcerer lord and multiple Warlock engineers serve you better as theme.
Plague Priests and Assassins - No notable change.

All in all 9.1 allows better clan representation, it doesnt force you to adhere to any clan to unlock any options, but there is a lot of overlap, evidently you choose the options that best fit the clan army of your theme.

Core:
Pretty much identical between 7th and 9.1. All the units are there, but there are differences under the hood. There is no mainstay rule as per 6th, but 9.1 does have a unit cap on core of four units, doubled for grand armies. This can be relevant to Skaven but isn't too big a deal and puts brakes on slave spam. More importantly the are unit size caps also so while steadfast is very much a thing you cannot abuse it. Ratties are cheap but you have no special privilege card that says you can take larger units then anyone else. Clanrats and salves cap at 60, similar to goblins and skeletons, Stormvermin at 50, similar to most basic infantry including humans elves and dwarves. Of ycourse you will be able to afford more rats and more units but wont get necessarily bigger units, noty to the extent that an opponent cannot push points into a maxed out unit of their own and prevent eternal steadfast.
The one major difference for Skryre is that Weapon Teams are no longer part of Core.

Special:
All the units in 7th are in 9.1 plus Weapon Teams. Most units work the same way between both lists, though Plague Censer Bearers rules have changed quite a bit. I wont cover them here as it doesnt effect a Skryre army much. Now weapon teams are independent, you are limited to the cap, which is three, so you do get less but no longer have to attach them. This helps a lot in smaller lists or if you play 3k and use grand army rules to take six. Weapons teams can auto-attach to nearby units giving them a 4++ vs shooting, they also do not cause panic if they flee. All weapon options from 7th are in 9.1 though the Warp Grinder and Doom Flayer are combined into the 'Meat Grinder' which has the properties of both. Their special rules are a mix of both [generally just a lot of impact hits and grinding attacks]. the difference between the two is if the weapon team is free roaming or inside a unit, you do need to base the weapon team on a 40x40 if you want to use it is Warp Grinder mode.

I must admit you get fewer weapons teams than a Skryre Army of Doom does, but then you do not have to spam units just to unlock them, they are purchased separately and you can brigade them around a key unit if you like. Though the versatility over the melee weapon teams is useful.

Rare:
There are detectable changes here. All the units are available, though 9.1 includes Stormfiends from End Times not included in the 7th edition print. The unit cap of two choices per selection groups is the same as in WHFB at the same points value, however Plague Catapults and Warp Cannon are both included in a single 'Verminous artillery' entry. This is a recurring theme in 9.1 to prevent unfair artillery spam, it hits Dwarves, Orcs and Empire also. However you still can take double Doomwheel and double Warp Lightning Cannon (with no plague catapults) for proper Skryre goodness, and add two units of Storm fiends on top of that.

All in all 9.1 can certainly Skryre, there are fewer opportunities to spam weapon teams, but more versatility on those you take. However two Warp Lightning Cannon three weapon teams and a unit of Stormfiend and a Doomwheel is enough SAD for anyone at 2k, and you don't need to spam clanrat tax to unlock this. When you add to this a pistol wielding warlord and BSB, a Clan Skryre 'Storm seer' with enchanted warp lighting halberd, three warlock engineers with all the gubbins. I see zero room to say Skryre is nerfed out of 9th.

Problem is 9.1 is gone. In whatever number they are on now it's roman rats, zero interest in that

 brr-icy wrote:
Problem is 9.1 is gone. In whatever number they are on now it's roman rats, zero interest in that

X2

I always saw Skaven as Nazis dice they were hopped up on warp dust (meth), worshipped a white god with white fur being venerated, they had non swastikas (triskelions are about as close as you can get with out people getting salty), everyone is just scheming against everyone else, procreation is solely to produce more fodder, bizarre medicine is not only allowed but encourage, and unreliable machines of war.

 brr-icy wrote:
Problem is 9.1 is gone. In whatever number they are on now it's roman rats, zero interest in that

So is 6th, that doesnt stop you. What is the problem?

 Orlanth wrote:

 brr-icy wrote:
Problem is 9.1 is gone. In whatever number they are on now it's roman rats, zero interest in that

So is 6th, that doesnt stop you. What is the problem?

Very true, but I think his point is that the ACTUAL version, who is usually considered as the Edition to be played by the general public (I am aware you have to stretch the term "general public" a lot to make it feasible for use in a discussion about a non-company supported game of plastic figurines ) , is not 9.1, so it is to be considered as a legacy ruleset as well

I agree but as current 9th has already broken all creative ties to its Warhammer roots you can take the comparisons no further than 1.2 anyway.

T9A1.1 is clearly a legacy ruleset and one not in any way officially supported, but one with a quiet following. Its not the authorised direction on the 9th Age forums, but available there.

I am happy to discuss 1.1 at any time here as there is no IP danger as we are all end users. besides I have lost my taste for the T9A forums due to shady dealings between the moderators team and dishonest miniatures manufacturers and associated nastiness. Which is a pity as there a lot of decent indie developers making an honest living on T9A compatible miniatures.