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Hey everyone!

Stormvermin come with halberds and a hand weapon, and can buy shields. With the 8th edition rules am I correct in assuming there is NO way for them to be able to use HW+Shield in close combat? I would like the option but IIRC the rule was that if a model has a special weapon he has to use it.

Yup they can't use the HW&Shield, not just that but their armor save is only better against shooting since halberds have the requires two hands USR.

Definitely a bummer, not sure why that rule even exists. Thanks for the answer!

It exsists for the sole reason of boning my tempe guard :(

And my stormvermin!

Do any of the rulebook writers talk to customers? Are any of them known for being on Twitter or anything like that? This would be a great one to ask "What were you thinking?"

At least stormverming have a choice TG have that set up by default.

Well, Stormvermin do too. They come with the halberds.

The idea in the BRB is that warriors who have "special weapons" have trained specifically with them, and that they are better than a regular hand weapon, so they never fight with them.

Of course, whether or not they are better is another matter entirely.
Honestly, though, the new parry save is generally much worse for elite infantry than the old additional armour. The parry save is better for cheap units you field in big ol' blocks; ones that will take enough wounds to make that 6+ come up often enough.

And another point: how many people fielded their elite infantry with something other than a hand weapon and shield if they had the option in 7th? I think they toned it down and forced this rule to vary the game and speed it up.

Warpsolution wrote:Well, Stormvermin do too. They come with the halberds.

The idea in the BRB is that warriors who have "special weapons" have trained specifically with them, and that they are better than a regular hand weapon, so they never fight with them.

Of course, whether or not they are better is another matter entirely.
Honestly, though, the new parry save is generally much worse for elite infantry than the old additional armour. The parry save is better for cheap units you field in big ol' blocks; ones that will take enough wounds to make that 6+ come up often enough.

And another point: how many people fielded their elite infantry with something other than a hand weapon and shield if they had the option in 7th? I think they toned it down and forced this rule to vary the game and speed it up.

When you look at a bunch of match ups, the +1 armor save of 7th edition is about the same as the parry of this edition. Sometimes parry has the edge, sometimes +1 armor save. Since you don't get parry against stomps, thunder stomps or impact hits, I'd say it is a wash.

As for elite infantry of the past, I ran chaos warriors with halberds and great weapons, and did very well. MSU warriors with great weapons did tons of damage. My dark elf army didn't have a shield in it. My saurus used spears. I'd say part of the problem is old storm vermin didn't come with shields, or a good way to convert shields, and chaos warriors don't come with options other than extra hand weapon or shield. Bits influence army design.

-Matt

If I had the option, I would pull out HW+S for the majority of S3 units that would be swinging at the 'vermin - you are cutting your received close combat wounds in half without losing much in the way of kills.

It's wierd though, it seems like a rule that alters the precedent so strongly, and contradicts several army book choices, would have come from some need to fix a very obvious problem or something like that. So far, all I can see is that they just kinda invented that rule for kicks.

Don't you still get +1 armor for a shield with a hand weapon in addition to the 6+ ward? Or am I just understanding you incorrectly?

Yea Wehr but not +2 in combat as in 7th. The dudes are discussing books written in 7th edition, hence we have to assume the +2 shield combo was what the writers had in mind. Now, it's just more obvious that we need some proper 8th edition books to sort a variety of things out.

- Salvage

True.

The old bonus allowed people to gear their units toward survivability. I've seen people run Chaos Warriors with GW or two hand weapons or whatever, but most people would look at 2A S6/3A S4 and a 4+ save vs. 2A S4 and 2+ save, and consider the extra offensive power too costly.
Like you say, Matt, there were plenty of exceptions. But I'm pretty sure the majority would prefer to use a shield.

Oh I see, they used to give +2 to armor, now just +1. So marauders with sword and board and light armor would be 5+/6+. Gotcha.

And MoT makes it 5+/5+

Warpsolution wrote:True.

The old bonus allowed people to gear their units toward survivability. I've seen people run Chaos Warriors with GW or two hand weapons or whatever, but most people would look at 2A S6/3A S4 and a 4+ save vs. 2A S4 and 2+ save, and consider the extra offensive power too costly.
Like you say, Matt, there were plenty of exceptions. But I'm pretty sure the majority would prefer to use a shield.

Actually, the other change is the lack of +1 for size in combat res. 7th edition chaos warriors had to beat a static combat res of 5. Taking a shield helps you not take wounds, but doesn't help you overcome the initial combat res difference.
In 7th edition, I went to halberds and great weapons, the combat outcome improved greatly.

At least with storm vermin and chaos warriors, you get a choice about buying a shield or not, so it's not like you're forced to take an item you can't use.


It is odd that the new must use rule got added, I never saw the choice of weapons being a problem before.
-Matt

HawaiiMatt wrote:At least with storm vermin and chaos warriors, you get a choice about buying a shield or not, so it's not like you're forced to take an item you can't use.

Which was my point about temple guard

Stormvermin with the shield still would get the +1 save to shooting if its worth anything.

I ran a unit of stormvermin in 7th, I always defaulted to hw/sh as the 3+ armor save in combat then was pretty sweet. Then when you combined. 3 ranks, banner, warbanner, bsb, d3 combat res for outnumber banner on the bsb, storm vermin with full ranks and 3+ save were really nasty and many GT armies did not want to take them head on as they'd usually stay, then you'd get flanked.

Now, that's gone. I dropped the shields from the stormvermin, they do ok with halbred's, their higher then normal initiative is nice, but its really questionable on them points wise as a tarpit unit of slaves 50+ is cheaper, clanrats with the light armor/shield + parry is more survivable and can tarpit also.

Sure. I don't think Stormvermin are supposed to be a tarpit, though. They're in that notorious middle-ground with dwarf warriors and orc boyz; they've got above-average stats and aren't too costly, but most people would prefer lots of crap or a few awesome guys.

The "must use" rule is kooky, but I'll say this: I NEVER saw ANYONE use halberds on their Stormvermin, or great weapons on their Hammerers. Maybe GW thought this was a good idea?

I actually like it, even though I'm still figuring out what the hell to do with my hammerers. I converted them at great length and expense- and made 'em all have shields since I could count on one hand the number of times I'd gone great weapon with them.

Now I need more, and I need shields.

It's kind of a kooky rule, but you used to only ever see hand weapon and shield busted out. Now there's more variety, and I would say that's a good thing.

Really the past couple comments just indicate that the other weapons were designed poorly. Eliminating the choice of using an option that might be superior just reduces the variety of units people will field in the long run.

I don't think GW's writing process leaves alot of room for making changes from previous editions based on some idea of what might be best for the game. Basically, they pay a guy (or two) to bang out some rules and those guys don't really go line-by-line through the old book to see what needed fixing, they just give the rules a good shake and there's your new edition. The "must use" rule probably exists because one of the guys thought it would be totally awesome to have his opportunity to write those stupid ''real world'' justifications they put in there sometimes into the rules.

Maybe less that the other weapons were designed poorly and more that ruleset didn't permit much flexibility under the previous edition. If you weren't getting the charge, or if you didn't have ASF, you were almost inevitably equipping for pure survivability.

As dwarfs, I wasn't ever going to charge and was usually on lower initiative. It meant the other side was often killing my front rank- so if I wasn't going to be swinging any way, I might as well reduce the number of wounds I lose over the top of that. I might be wrong, but I feel like I *can* see a little more call for flexibility in this edition. It'd be interesting to experiment with at least...

Hammerers in 8th are pretty sweet. Being forced to always str 6 and swinging last, makes you take bigger units which benefit from being stubborn with a likely re-roll. I always used my GW's in the past with Hammerers, mine never had shields anyway. Stubborn has always gone far.

I agree, the MUST USE, philosophy of 8th takes away from the versatility of army entries. Example is stormvermin, chaos warriors, and orc's with formerly dual choppa/ shields. Now you get mundane, boring, units that do 1 standard thing. I am hoping they look to change this in a errata or something.

Agreed.

I do think that great weapons are much better in 8th, though, considering what Red Zeke said. Since attacks back isn't a thing, you can swing with full-force.

Honestly, I can't imagine how T4 with a 5+ save ever worked in 7th, especially at, what, 12 points a model? With only five guys swinging, it seems like they'd all just die. Or one would get to attack, and probably (but not always) do a wound.

Still, the Hammerers are supposed to be the bodyguard of the Dwarf Lord...I just don't seem them as lasting long enough to qualify for that position, dwarf tendency and tactics considered.

T4 / 5+ save when combined with a 5+ ward with shooting was pretty survivable in 7th. When combined with stubborn and immune to fear / terror you really had a tarpit with stubborn. Yep 12 pts was price, but the number of times my unit of 30 hammerers in 7th ground out the game was significant in GT play.

In 8th, that's all a moot point now. Even Dwarves are fast now, I never thought i'd see the day you could march a 6 inch units, then anvil it in for 2d6 +3 -1, a really HUGE meta game change for he army.

I guess you just took a different approach. I simply used mine to keep my lord stubborn for as long as possible. They got to swing so rarely, especially with an effective frontage of 3 when the lord was in the unit on his shieldbearers, it always seemed better to keep them alive as long as possible instead...

Agreed.

And do dwarfs charge -1, or is it just flee and pursue?

Just for fleeing and pursuit (and not on the gyro).

Good. That's what I thought.

Yeah, that 5+ Ward is a pretty sweet rune, and I haven't seen it a whole lot (though once it saved a lot of Slayers, which was intensely frustrating).

And the Stubborn and immune to Fear and Terror ensured that they fought to the last man, but, again, with T4 and a 5+ armour save, that just seems like it would come up rather quickly. And it still does, which I find regrettable.

I guess I just wish I could see less war machines in certain armies, and maybe some units in the Dwarf and Empire books that can give AND take a beating.

Warpsolution wrote:Good. That's what I thought.

Yeah, that 5+ Ward is a pretty sweet rune, and I haven't seen it a whole lot (though once it saved a lot of Slayers, which was intensely frustrating).

And the Stubborn and immune to Fear and Terror ensured that they fought to the last man, but, again, with T4 and a 5+ armour save, that just seems like it would come up rather quickly. And it still does, which I find regrettable.

I guess I just wish I could see less war machines in certain armies, and maybe some units in the Dwarf and Empire books that can give AND take a beating.

Not many units can give and take beatings, you usually have to choose one or the other (or have no choice).

Hammerers are fine. I run 18 executioners and they do alright. Hammerers do about the same (WS5 S6 strikes last), but you end up with stubborn and T4 instead of hate and T3.
I think the Key to hammerers is maximizing who can swing. WS5 and S6 does a lot of damage, you just need as many swinging in the 1st round of combat as possible. Unless you take a really big unit, you can't wait for the reform, you want to start optimized.

Since fear no longer auto breaks, and terror only causes panic (which the BSB and long beards give re-rolls for), I don't think you need the lord in the hammerer unit.
But, you could also take ~10 hammerers (no command) and go 2 wide, with the shield bearer general leading the way. All attacks must go to the general, who is stubborn 10, and the hammerers give an extra 2 S6 attacks. Call it the hammerer torpedo.

-Matt

This was a nice tactic in 7th as well, essentially providing an "unkillable" lord with a stubborn check (and sometimes a +1 for outnumber). Now you have the added bonus of the support attacks and benefits from any banners in the unit.