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 Some of these are just due to armies being VERY out of date (Brets, WE) but the majority of the problems are just being able to abuse rules or Magic being to strong.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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So that's our list, so far it has worked pretty well. We've found our games are a lot less "Smash into each other and see who breaks" and more about jockeying for position. Games don't end because of one spell either way and no one has to deal with "lewl 5 blocks of 100 Slaves/Goblins/Swordsmen/Zombies.

So please let me know what you think. We try to avoid going after specific Armies or making anything to narrow. Although some things can be annoying like Hero spam, Deathstars, Monster spam etc. these can be played around and beaten without inhibiting the games fun.

Hope to hear some constructive criticism/feedback!

Pretty sensible. I'd assumed flank attacks negated stubborn, apparently not though.

Only if the Flanking unit also has ranks.

MOAR BLOCKZ!

But that flanking unit would lose its rank if it itself was flanked (by a ranked unit)?

Yerp as the rules stand. You don't lose your ranks just your Rank Bonus to CR. Steadfast can never be lost because it goes off Ranks not the bonus, which is pretty OP.

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

Magic is too powerful. Nerf magic! But also nerf miscast!

Huh?

Which is it? You're either going to dance against death facing the miscast table or you're going to play it safe. Just think that if a Miscast happened on ANY roll of a double, not just 6's and they weren't IR, just Miscasts. Magic would be pretty crap. Because you'd be blowing yourself up all the time casting garbage spells. Guttstars need to be taken out just as much as chaostars. And they are also used against monsters, which some races don't have a great answer to.

I agree with Johnny in that some races are horde races. It's what they do. # of units is completely arbitrary across army books. I would instead say you can only have X number of points in a unit. Say 500 (or some % based on the pt game you're playing). This won't stop slaves. But it will stop the ____star armies. Or at least make them less, which lessens the need for mega 6th spells because they aren't point-refusal tactics and buff-one-unit cheese.

Whew. Sorry if this was blabbering, this is literally the first thing I did waking up other than brushing my teeth.

No army needs more than 50 models in a block at army creation to be competitive. Not even Skaven, 50 is completely fine. A lot of people don't even go that high and it has never caused any problems.

3 is just a precaution, they don't dominate the board. But they can have a larger effect on the game than a piece of terrain should.

That's fine these aren't for everyone but that's not constructive feedback.

Duke....yeah you're kinda all over. Nerfing Magic that hard doesn't make any sense it basically removes the Phase from the game. Were trying to make it a little more tactical and less feast/famine. Right now we just see the peaks as to high and the valleys as to narrow, either play can lose whole units on a few dice, right from the start. The rest of the Magic Phase is greatly improved over 7th imho, makes it so you can have Magic without going hard into it.

I don't quite get your second comment. 500 points in a unit means you can have 250 Slaves......that's not helpful. I know a lot of people don't like Deathstars but they aren't a big deal to beat, so we don't make a rule for them. Like I said, we don't want to tweak every little thing, just the things that cannot be gotten around AND effect the fun of players in a negative way more than a positive way.

Why would you say Deathstars need to be tweaked? Feel free to explain. :]

1) Unit Cap:
Slaves are great in large numbers to the front.
They are pretty horrible in any number on the flank.
If you want a unit cap, I'd do 60 models, soem units can really chew through things quick (like witch elves, ghouls, and chaos warriors of khorne).

2) Magic
I like the removal of IF.
Purple sun is a problem for ogres, but if you remove IF, much of the probelm goes away. You've always got a shot at dispelling, and you can always scroll it once.
The range isn't great, so scroll it once, then go kill yourself the wizard.

3) Channeling:
Wizard channel on a 5+, but only that wizard can use the channeled die. Gives you more use for multiple less powerful wizards.

4) Terrain:
I'm fine with removal of the river special rules, or just make all forests, hills and rivers normal on a 2+, that would make "special" terrain special, and not everyday.

5) Steadfast:
As for steadfast, complete negate on the flank/rear seems to cause more problems then it solves (from playtesting)
I don't want a return to 7th edition of single monsters raping whole battle lines.
A middle ground seems to work though. An opponent counts as having 1 less rank for each rank on its flank, and counts as having 2 less ranks for each enemy rank on it's rear.
So a 4 deep unit that hits a 6 deep enemy in the flank and wins combat would strip steadfast (as the 6 deep would only count as 2).

-Matt

I like that flank/rear idea. I think I will test that this week.

Channeling is so worthless as is, I don't know what could save it. Under your rule, if my Lvl2 Channeled when I am Dispelling, that dice is kinda wasted if I brought a Lvl 3+. It's just one of those fun quirks that's kind of w/e.

Deathstars are not a big deal to beat BECAUSE you have spells like Dwellers . Nerf those spells and try to take on the chosen star

Did Chosen get 2 wounds when I wasn't looking? I fail to see how the change would prevent any of those spells from hurting that unit.

Helpful.

Well when I can toss a D-Scroll at the one spell that can hurt my unit with no chance of failing I can see that spell fail. People may not like it but we do need those uber spells. And if you dont want to run em thats why you got the Sig

I don't really think of those spells as a good way to deal with most Deathstars, as they all have high Str and most have high Init.

Deathstars aren't really a problem to play around in my area so it's not worth throwing in another rule for. Trying to only adjust the biggest things.

You picked an arbitrary number of models irrespective of game size. That's a problem. 50 units in a 500 pt game is huge. In a 3500 pt game it is not. Saying no army needs 50+ is fine, but I simply don't see how it's game-breaking. Especially since you use slaves as the poster rat.

____Stars are uber powerful because they gain the benefits of "entire unit." Whether it's a beneficial spell or LD or Character buffs or whatever. They're also boring, IMHO.

There's point and counter-point in the game and risks vs. rewards. Having big units you can get steadfast, you can buff them easily. You can also get flushed down the toilet by one spell. That's balance.

Guttstars would become vastly more powerful because they still get all their goodies and get immunity from lvl 6 spells, but enemy Infantry mega blocks can still get wasted. So again, it's not models, it's points. You're never going to have 50 ogres in a block.

We don't play more than 2500.

Buffing a unit versus losing it isn't balance. Losing it or gaining a copy would be, logically. Especially since the buffs don't prevent the losing of the unit. Also a unit can still be killed by Test or Die, just not Characters and things. Not sure why some posters have thought otherwise.

Models can easily be changed to wounds. Just make a suggestion, not rail against what you see. Constructive criticism. :]

I'm not a fan of most of these, but I'll go through point by point what my thoughts are with each of your big points.

1. I don't like this. Especially since you name "armies like Skaven" as it comes across as a punishment for what is their best suit, hordes of hard-to-shift rats. There are ways to deal with blocks, I don't like using rules to simply make them disappear. I get the frustration, but I hate house rules like this.

2. I almost fully agree with this. I'd like something that makes it a little better against MI or multi wound models to justify their cost, but I like this a hell of a lot more than simple removal.

3. I don't play with river terrain ever (don't have it at my FLGS) but how do hills win or lose games? I'm trying to figure that one out. So I can't really speak to this one. But in general, I like the random magical terrain.

4. Hate this one, sorry. Magic should be a risk-vs-reward situation, and given how powerful spells are now, if you pull the teeth and threat out of any miscast, why wouldn't I spam magic? This one reeks of 'house rules catering to my playstyle, but it is TOTALLY balanced really!' to me.

5. Now I run lists with loads of fast, light cavalry (Dark Riders, COKs, Dragons to a lesser degree) and I don't agree with this at all. Coming from 7th edition, where 5 Shades ran down 30 Chaos Warriors because of a favorable flank charge, this rule is madness. This replaces one annoying thing with a far worse one, where a small unit with good attacks can obliterate units many times their size with ease. Scrap this, scrap it to the floor.

If you want to shift blocks of rats, get some mortars.

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:If you want to shift blocks of rats, get some mortars.

I can't find the mortars in my High Elf army book, what page are they on?

Joey wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:If you want to shift blocks of rats, get some mortars.

I can't find the mortars in my High Elf army book, what page are they on?

Damn it, that was what I was gonna say!

If you want to fix 8th edition, just remove steadfast. That is all that needs to be done. Everything else can be worked around without completely retooling your list. Steadfast cannot.

Joey wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:If you want to shift blocks of rats, get some mortars.

I can't find the mortars in my High Elf army book, what page are they on?

No but you can find the T-Man

Johnny-Crass wrote:

Joey wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:If you want to shift blocks of rats, get some mortars.

I can't find the mortars in my High Elf army book, what page are they on?

No but you can find the T-Man

who is worthless under these rules as there is no IF...

Okay, if you guys disagree that's fine. It doesn't affect that these rules will be being used. I'm after ways to make the rules better and that doesn't include removing them. We have tested all of these pretty hard and they work well with a few exceptions. Some people have suggested good changes that I will be using.

If you just want to yell at each other please don't do it in my thread.

Also none of these rules cater to me or anyone else. They're just what our group thinks is best and since they're group rules that is the goal. We don't like how Magic is at all because it isn't risk versus reward, it's who loses the game to Magic. That's a bit to wide for our comfort.

Also read the whole thread, it's obvious people aren't doing so.

Dude, calm down. You asked what people thought of the rules, and we told you what we thought. No need to get all defensive.

They're your house rules, if they work for you and your house, fine. I personally don't like them, but I don't play at your house, so it's rather moot. ;p

Aerethan wrote:

Johnny-Crass wrote:

Joey wrote:

Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote:If you want to shift blocks of rats, get some mortars.

I can't find the mortars in my High Elf army book, what page are they on?

No but you can find the T-Man

who is worthless under these rules as there is no IF...

He's also almost always banned from tournaments because he's "broken", despite being T2 without a save.

curran12 wrote:Dude, calm down. You asked what people thought of the rules, and we told you what we thought. No need to get all defensive.

++

As someone said above, I think some of these smack of, "this bothers my play style so we're going to house rule them out." There's different things I personally think are dull, but other people like. Furthermore, there's a sort of balance (no, really) between those things. I.e., Steadfast > Elites but Steadfast < LvL 6 but Miscast > Lvl 6, etc. When you start plucking a few of those components out, potentially a lot of things can get out of whack.

People complain about 8th a lot, but as far as the BRB goes and things just screaming THIS IS BROKEN, I don't see a tremendous amount. I see stuff in individual army books. And you see them show up again and again in competition lists.

But as time goes on, and the initial shock of things wears off and you see the numerous counters, I don't things are as bad as they seem. And I'm one who jumps to conclusions too and says ZOMG Steadfast is uber unbeatable.

But you know, whatever house rules you want to play, knock yourself out. But if you post them in proposed rules, they are no longer yours, they are the community's to bat around and, yes, potentially disagree with.

I like your magic house rules. Sometimes you win or lose the game on the first turn because of magic. Last 3 games I played, two of them were decided on the first turn by magic (the other was decided on the first turn by a failed charge but that's another story). First game I got off a dwellers on his big elite unit first turn, wiped them out, he had nothing left to stop my knights. Third game I IF'd a throne of vines, whups rolled a 4, lost 3 grail knights and a wound off three of my characters, and lost all my dice so I couldn't even regrowth them.

It's just lame when you spend about 2 hours doing set up before playing the game, and then the game is over in the first 5 minutes because of 1 bad roll and now you have to fight this hopeless battle just to see how badly you're going to lose.

I mean sometimes you just have to laugh at a bad roll and shake your head and move on, and that's cool, but it's happened 3 times in a row now and any rule that mitigates somewhat against the possibility of 1 bad roll ruining the whole game is a plus in my book.

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

Sucks to lose your big unit, absolutely. But you shouldn't put your eggs in one basket. And how can losing 3 Grail Knights and some character wounds completely sink you?

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

- This is a decent concept, but I do foresee some issue. The first is, as already stated, larger games where 50 models in one unit could become commonplace.
- The other is that, if I've got four blocks of 100 Skavenslaves, that's 800 points of my army. Sure, it's 800 points you'll probably get, at most, 200 out of, but it's also 800 points I can't do anything with. The cost of a defensive unit should offset its defensive ability. My suggestion? Change the price cost on Skavenslaves, Marauders, and...I think that's about it. Maybe Goblins. Maybe. That's why these units are so good; they're remarkably efficient for their cost, so we take lots of them. Change the cost, change the efficiency.

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

- How about d3 wounds/failed roll? That way, you probably won't lose your lvl4 wizard to one Dwellers, or 70% of your Bulls to a Sun, but there's still deadly potential. One wound just feels too extreme. Beyond Monstrous Infantry characters, are there any such models with more than 3 wounds?

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

- Personally, I think the whole "Mysterious Terrain" concept was neat, but its super random, gimmicky, and stupid. I've been playing games where me and my opponent just pick which thing is what. Often, we make up our own rules, like for underground rivers or abandoned shrines or whatever. Sometimes, we write up a table with more reasonable results (no Venom Thickets and Mushroom Forests, and more likely to be "just a forest", to keep some randomness in the game. But Boiling Flood? Scree Slope? I agree with you on a lot of that stuff.
- On a side note, I understand how you don't know what it is before you're in/on it, but if a hill is a Temple of Skulls, or a river is one of Blood or, gods forbid, Light, how exactly was that a mystery before I was surrounded by said terrain?

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

- I think this is mostly okay. Magic still is a Risk-Reward system. You pay a premium for lots of potential carnage, but you might blow up. I'd consider making the Miscasts on double 6's anyway though; losing lots of dudes and also not casting your spell is...painful. At least, if you kill some of the enemy, it might still be kinda' worth it.
- I do think that you should be at risk of insta-losing your wizard, though. Maybe 2-4 is as 5-6, but forces a Ld roll, and if failed, the caster loses all remaining wounds, poof?

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

Steadfast is essential to the 8th edition concept of getting big units to work. If we get rid of it, we're back to 7th, where five guys will almost always sent twenty packing. But a possible way to strip it? Okay. I like the idea that a rank in the flank is one less for you, and one in the rear counts as two. Perhaps an easier way to say it would be "a unit charging an enemy in the flank counts as having twice as many ranks for the purpose of Steadfast. A unit charging an enemy in the rear counts as having three times as many ranks for the purpose of Steadfast."
I'd only let this count on the charge, though. If the charge-ee somehow manages to stick around, I say kudos to them.
- Cavalry shouldn't be scattering big blocks of infantry all on their own, almost regardless of positioning. They're the deciding factor when two such units clash (which means Brettonia needs some retooling). But I think a means to negating Steadfast is...okay, I guess (<--Skaven player).