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18 Saurus, 6 wide Rank of 3 with spear , and no charging.

Front rank gets 2 each, supporting ranks get 1 each.

Total of 24 attacks for 6 wide Saurus' with spears.

Lehnsherr wrote:Front rank gets 2 each, supporting ranks get 1 each.

Total of 24 attacks for 6 wide Saurus' with spears.

Aww...

so
6x2 for front rank
6 more for supprt
and 6 ( not 12? ) for spear?

I cant find the page where it says spear can only make 1 attack >.<

It is a bit of a chain. Spears give infantry the "Fight in extra rank" ability. So you flip back to pg 69 where the Fight in Extra Rank ability is, and it says you get supporting attacks for an extra rank if you didn't charge.

Since infantry can only make one supporting attack, those extra guys provide one attack. Theoretically, if some monstrous infantry could take spears, they would get up to 3 attacks per.

But yea, the Spear entry page 91, then the Fight in Extra Rank ability pg 69.

Oddly, a lot of weapons do slightly different things than you would expect like that. I just today learned that paired magic weapons like Fencer's Blades give the Extra Attack ability, not just count as additional hand weapons, and thus work if you are mounted. Very weird, but might be neat for a chaos hero with his Str5. Fun stuff.

Wehrkind wrote:It is a bit of a chain. Spears give infantry the "Fight in extra rank" ability. So you flip back to pg 69 where the Fight in Extra Rank ability is, and it says you get supporting attacks for an extra rank if you didn't charge.

Since infantry can only make one supporting attack, those extra guys provide one attack. Theoretically, if some monstrous infantry could take spears, they would get up to 3 attacks per.

But yea, the Spear entry page 91, then the Fight in Extra Rank ability pg 69.

Oddly, a lot of weapons do slightly different things than you would expect like that. I just today learned that paired magic weapons like Fencer's Blades give the Extra Attack ability, not just count as additional hand weapons, and thus work if you are mounted. Very weird, but might be neat for a chaos hero with his Str5. Fun stuff.

I guess thats the fun (and not fun) part of new edition.

Tinkering with the combos others havnt been used to yet xD

To be fair, Saurus have to pay a measly 1 point for those extra S4 attacks. They're not bad, by any means. They are, in fact, one of the best Core infantry choices.

If supporting attacks were all of them...well, sign me up for 50 Giant Rats with Death Frenzy and Bless with Filth. 120 Poisoned Attacks for 150pts? Yes, please.

Honestly, though, I'm sure that a lot of the weird stuff just comes from mistakes. Like the Fencer's Blades. They're obviously two hand weapons. The writer just forgot that "+1 Attack" and "Extra Hand Weapon" don't always amount to the same thing.

And I can't really blame him, whoever he is. This is a big game, with a lot of ways in which rules can interact with each other. I'd wager that the odd-ball mistakes like that one are all but impossible to avoid.

The Beastman book has a few weapons that do that too. I don't think WoC does though. Just something to keep in mind for making characters on chariots etc. slightly more killy.

Personally, I can blame them. You get paid to do a job like that, you ought to be a bit more careful. GW's games are not exactly rocket surgery, and most of the rules editions are straight builds on previous ones, not cut from whole cloth. They should get progressively better by removing issues, not creating more. (Though at least they have been better with the FAQs lately. I give them lots of credit for that.)

The game isn't hard to learn, but the possibilities for error when they're writing a book are huge, considering how rules can interact with each other in so many different ways.

I think a big problem comes from the actual writing and wording, rather than what they wanted the rules to be. And the exact wording does have to be conjured from scratch, with only the desired end result as a guide.
As an editor of game mechanics myself, I can understand where the problems lie. One wrong word or comma, and the whole rule technically means something else.

Yeah that and the WAAC have the "If you print it we will break it" mentallity....

Look at the stupidity that is the two warshrine chosen deathstar WoC list. I really dont think that was intentional.

Overall I like the 8th edition rules.. A LOT... The one thing I would like to see changed is steadfast... Dont think they were really thinking that rule all the way through.

Well, I sure think they were, um, thinking about it. Last edition was all about how hard you could make your units. Or rather, how many high WS and S attacks you could cram into a given space.

Now, taking big blocks of infantry is actually worthwhile.

More than that, though: goblins and, say, Skavenslaves, are bad. Terrible. In 7th, they couldn't hold their own in a fight (...pretty much ever), and then they ran away. Now, they can't hold their own in a fight, but stick around for a while.

The only real danger I see with Steadfast is the potential to be flanked by something that could actually stand a chance beating you. But your opponent is running the same risk. A unit of a few guys should be hesitant to charge into a huge regiment, even if they are far superior.

Beyond the flanking issue, though, Steadfast is totally fine. I mean, they don't break. But you're winning combat. And you'll keep winning.

...though a maximum unit size dependent on army point level would probably be a good idea, to avoid the 100-ghoul horde, hmmm?

I just think that steadfast would be a lot more balanced if it had a mass casualty rule or if you lose your rank bonus you lose steadfast.

Would make cavalry a lot more useful, would make guarding your flanks more important.

Warpsolution wrote:The game isn't hard to learn, but the possibilities for error when they're writing a book are huge, considering how rules can interact with each other in so many different ways.

I think a big problem comes from the actual writing and wording, rather than what they wanted the rules to be. And the exact wording does have to be conjured from scratch, with only the desired end result as a guide.
As an editor of game mechanics myself, I can understand where the problems lie. One wrong word or comma, and the whole rule technically means something else.

Only sort of. Most of the rules are already written, and just copied and pasted. And while I understand better than most just how much interaction of rules can be wildly different than you intended, the number of strange and silly interactions is just foolish. As evidence I put forth how early and often we players find the issues. Play testing goes a long way towards finding those issues that just thinking through a system misses. Yet reading the White Dwarf reports that are full of errors it is pretty obvious the developers don't really know the rule set well. Mostly it seems that they know about how they think the game works, and play that way, as opposed to what the rules actually do. Fine in a small group, but as soon as you play someone who has a different, but valid, perception of the rules things break down.

And Shivan, complaining about a WAAC attitude is silly. You play the rules, that's it. Just because you think the rules should work one way doesn't mean they do. You can agree with your friends to alter the rules a certain way, but blaming the players for how the game plays doesn't make much sense.

I wasnt complaining, I was simply stating that no matter how good the rules are written, powergamers will find loopholes and break the system.

There are quite a few ways they do this, and generally you know its legal WAR, but as far as RoI or the spirit of the game is concerened its a pretty lame ruling.

@Wehrkind: I see what you're saying. I'd blame most of that on GW's rather small development team (I was offered a potential position, the catch being I moved to Iceland).

@ShivanAngel: You mean taking advantage of certain combinations, right? The Chosenstar is, as far as I know, the best example of that sort of thing.
I couldn't really imagine someone bringing that to the table if they wanted to partake in creating a Warhammer Fantasy Battle, where mighty warriors and monstrous beasts clash in an epic battle on the blood-soaked plains. It's a mistake, and it skews things. And the WoC don't even need that kind of help.

Why can't the Wood Elves be the ones with the infinite combo?

" generally you know its legal WAR, but as far as RoI or the spirit of the game is concerened its a pretty lame ruling. "

That's just it, with GOOD rules those are one and the same. The rules define the theme and feel of the game, whether the rules writers want it to or not. Good writers make the game feel and play the way they want by writing rules that generate that feel. Bad writers intend one thing, and write another, leaving us all to squabble over how the rules work and how they are intended to work.

There is a great deal of artistry in rules writing, and GW lacks it for the most part. :( Compare to Fantasy Flight Games, for instance.

Edit: I should add too, that a good system means "power gaming" = "knowing the rules well" + "Exhibiting the behavior they suggest." In a good system the best players exemplify the behaviors the game designers wanted to create in the game. In bad systems the best players do something different because that is what the game rewards. Only in bad systems are power gamers regarded as somehow antisocial or having badwrongfun.
(Note that here I am talking about people that play to win against opponents using every trick in the game, not the people that roflstomp newbies in training games to make themselves feel better.)

Wehrkind wrote:The rules define the theme and feel of the game, whether the rules writers want it to or not. Good writers make the game feel and play the way they want by writing rules that generate that feel. Bad writers intend one thing, and write another, leaving us all to squabble over how the rules work and how they are intended to work.There is a great deal of artistry in rules writing

Do you mind terribly if I quote that?

I think it is succinct and needed.

Well, that's true to a large degree.

White Wolf Games, for example, has a very loose rules system, and is very easily abused. But they constantly say, amongst those rules, that if that's what you want to do, then their games aren't the ones for you, and they make you feel cool for not trying to do that.

Dungeons and Dragons has a similar thing, though that particular monster of a game is just so huge that interaction between the variant rules is bound to do something like that, and so they say (quite plainly, though not very often) that you should limit your game to a smaller section of those rules.

Really, I think that a lot of the stigma that comes from power-gaming is, more than the rules of any game, the conflict bound to ensue from people who are more or less competitive than others. Some people love to win. Some people love to play.

Your examples are almost perfectly in synch with why I asked about the quote.

I meant it with absolutely no mockery.

I have worked with games and systems for some time now and that sentiment is sadly lacking or ridiculously misunderstood.

Absolutely.

It's kind of depressing, really. I went to a 1000pt tournament and saw this Skaven player with a Grey Seer, a BSB, a Doomrocket Engineer, 20 Clanrats, 20 Stormvermin, 50 Slaves, 2 Warpfire Throwers, a Cannon, and a Doomwheel.
The whole thing was spray-painted blue, dry brushed white, and doused in some wash.

He honestly thought that his min-maxed army was (1) great, which...well, his Grey Seer never survived a game, and (2) fair. Now, it wasn't like he was taking advantage of any stupid loopholes, but he really felt like he was, and he was happy about it.

I've learned I just don't care to play with people who love winning stuff, if I can help it.

kirsanth wrote:

Wehrkind wrote:The rules define the theme and feel of the game, whether the rules writers want it to or not. Good writers make the game feel and play the way they want by writing rules that generate that feel. Bad writers intend one thing, and write another, leaving us all to squabble over how the rules work and how they are intended to work.There is a great deal of artistry in rules writing

Do you mind terribly if I quote that?

I think it is succinct and needed.

Go for it. It is mostly just a distillation of Sirlin's writings and thoughts about game design. I think of it a great deal as it applies to government and economic system design. (Something to think about next time your have to fill out some manner of form for a government license or just taxes: We purposefully buy books of rules to learn for games we will likely never play because reading them is FUN. When was the last time learning to do taxes correctly was fun?)

I do agree though that a part of the power gamer issue does come from people who expect a softer game but get a hard opponent. (Wow, that sounds bad, especially after seeing the local fire department's sign for "Adult Bingo" this afternoon.)
However, I think the larger part of the problem is many people wildly over estimate their own prowess at the game, and attribute their loss to someone "power gaming" or "playing it wrong". If you see someone go into a game without first saying "Hey, I am pretty new to this and/or my army isn't too good. Can you take it easy on me?" who then gets smashed and complains about the other player, that person expected a tough game, but underestimated their own skill and is unhappy about the outcome.

Now, I can understand it a bit more in RPG games. Those are collaborative not really competitive, so you end up only competing for the spot light if you must compete, and that's less fun. But for a competitive game like warhammer, there isn't a good excuse for it.


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Question for you Warpsolution, and I am seriously interested in the answer:

How do you play, if not to win? Do you see possibilities or tactics you should take, but decide not to? Or do you specifically take softer lists, but then play hard in the game?

I am just curious; my friends and I will often take fluffier or just sub-optimal lists when we are trying out new things or playing our "modeling opportunity" armies, but even then once the lads are on the table it is time for every clever trick to win. Do you play it differently?

Well, I suppose it comes to the idea that, in the minds of the designers, Warhammer isn't too far from a role-playing game.

There are a lot of lines dedicated to the excitement of creating a battle that would occur in the Warhammer world. They make it sound like the goal is to be swept away by the imagery that your games conjure, and to treasure those unlikely and theatric moments where dice and rules meet on unlikely ground above everything else.

That said, I build a list that I think will be good, and I play to the best of my ability, but I keep the above foremost in mind, I guess. So no, I don't play differently than you, by the sound of it.
The mistakes on the designer's part--the Chosenstar being the best example, once again--are ones I don't take in my lists. They feel like errors, and that feeling cheapens the game for me.
To a lesser extent, I tend to shy away from the items or units that everyone uses. At least, the ones that have a huge impact on the game. I don't give my Grey Seer a Power Scroll, for example.

Granted, those sorts of things are not necessarily better than others; a well-balanced list should, in theory, be as capable as one that pours everything it has into one phase/unit/gimmick. Even though that often doesn't seem to be the case.

And since, as I've said a hundred times on this forum, I don't like winning or losing fast and hard, I'm bound and determined to prove to those guys who act smug and superior because they're packing an UberSlann that my supposedly "softer" list--one that tries to keep the tone of the Warhammer world in tact--can compete with theirs.

Really, though, I think it comes to attitude, more than anytihng.

Thanks for answering, and rather completely. I hadn't really considered the angle of Warhammer as a pseudo-RPG. I will have to give that some thought.

I don't suppose you play historical games at all, do you? If not, you might want to give them a shot. A lot of games I have played at conventions like Cold Wars and Historicon have scenarios along the lines of "Ok, these guys are going to lose like they did in the past, but do your best." Makes for interesting games, and extra tea bagging goodness when you actually do manage to pull out a win But in general the goal is usually to recreate specific battles and such, which might be right up your alley.

Wehrkind - hard and firemen adult bingo?

Sounds like a winning combination

AS above: i play to try to win the game, as not doing so is cheating your opponent out of a decent game. However the way i approach fantasy and 40k is very different. For 40k my main army is bezerkers, so I do have a win big or lose big army - because that is how it seems like the army should play to me. Whereas with my lizards i try to play a slower more thoughtful game - not risking my goodSlaan (as distinct from uber ) having to wake up to find an arrow through his chest, for example.

I guess tha tmeans i fall into the mini-RP side of things

Hehe I dunno know Nos, this is hardly NYC here. The firemen are more likely to be squat and hairy than anything, though I suppose that might not be a bad thing to some. I tell you though, I have never given the option of attending bingo more though than after seeing that sign. Trying to process just what the addition of "adult" to the event really means leads to a lot of possibilities.
Plus I need something to giggle at since the fire department nearer to my house errata'd "Meat Drawing" to "Meat Raffle". For more than 4 years I got to imagine people going in, sketch pads and pencils in hand, to draw a side of ham and maybe a steak artfully arranged on a small table.

As to army play style, how well do you think the rules for the armies support your choices? Drawing on my own experience, I do play my Sisters army differently than my orks, the former trying to drive up, jump out and focus fire down one unit and then have a few heroic martyrdoms to buy the rest time, while the orks just throw their trucks headlong into as many enemy as possible. Of course, their rules really support this, the Sisters with their Faith points and the Orks with their trukks and monstrous combat ability.

With my WoC and IG, however, I don't really get a feeling that their rules matter a lot one way or the other. My WoC are sort of obligated to get into combat since they don't do much otherwise, which I suppose counts, but I don't really see them as being pushed away or towards certain builds that work. Likewise IG in chimeras I suppose works better than on foot, but I don't know that my army selection and play style has much to do with anything other than wanting a lot of tanks. I don't know that I would say that is good or bad though, as it does give a lot of opportunity for variety in builds and play styles, whereas I have lots of Repentia and Penitent Engines sitting on the shelf because they just don't fit their armies at all.

Perhaps those are bad examples though, since they are pretty one dimensional in a sense.

At any rate, I would argue that a good game encourages players to make the hardest lists for their armies, while writing the rules such that those hard lists play the way the army was meant to. I would argue that, but I am way too tired and have a mess or work to do now, so I can't put together a good cogent thought. Up too late at adult Bingo. You should have seen it when Gladys got up on the table...

I should not have seen it, I'm sure.

That's exactly what I'm getting at; a good game's hardest list would be something you'd expect to see on the battlefield, without any weird rules that just so happen to interact in some crazy way.

I'm all about giving my opponents a good game. Back in 7th, the old Skaven book against Vampires had... predictable results. I played all but one of my four games in a tournament against them, and lost terribly two out of the three times. But I never gave up!
Well...okay, in each game, my last unit on the table were 5 Night Runners, and I had them flee a charge. Mainly because (1) 5 Night runners are mathematically incapable putting a big enough dent in an army to swing the game, and (2) they're five ninjas getting swamped by undead hordes. Yeah they're gonna' run.

Nosferatu, I feel ya' on the all-or-nothing play style when that's the way the army works. Back in 7th, if you were playing Night Goblins, you'd better have a lot of fanatics. And if they didn't do well, you were done.

I personally tend to veer away from armies with that style, now (I suppose, from a realistic standpoint, that's not really the type of army I would choose to command), but I can support them.
It's 45 Stubborn Tzeentch Chosen that I have a problem with.

Also, I've looked into historical games, and I've sat in on a few battles. They were pretty cool to watch, and I liked the mood set by the game before the models hit the table. I just have a soft spot for fantasy.

Hehe that chosen-star is 830 points before command and warshrines for buffing. 1/2-1/3 the points in most games. Just saying

Also, I think that is a feasible unit for a WoC army, at least in my imagination. The dead hard chosen of the dark gods send to destroy all in their path. Maybe a bit too tough rules wise, but there are spells that stop it pretty well, and the rest of the army is going to be a little thin.

But I think we all agree that the main problem is GW lets slip rules interactions that break the way the game is meant to play and feel, and so the best players (those who win the most) tend to play in a different way than reading the fluff would imply. Bad rules = bad games. :(

Don't hate the playa...

Hate the game...designa'.

Oddly enough, I didnt think of THAT sort of meat when yu said "meat drawing"

Yep, some armies dont seem to play to a style that makes sense to the fluff, and annoyingly this happens with some of the best armies - SW dont play as SW "should", at the top tier. Too many missiles...

Instead of making a new thread , i'll ask here :'P

What do you think is good way to run Black Orcs?

size formation and weapon choices?