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Why is it that 2 Hand Weapons don't give you a party save?

I mean wouldn't it be better if having an additional hand weapon gave you a choice between being granted a 6+ parry save or giving you +1 attack? It wouldn't be broken but it would give your units a little better chance to survive. Shields would still be usefull do the +1 save

Because hammers aren't anvils and vice versa. You're generally spending points to build one kind of unit or the other. And +2 str is pretty goddamn awesome no matter what your starting point is.

I think he means two one-handed weapons, not a two handed weapons. And its not a bad idea, but Duke does have a point, maybe units should have to choose what they focus on, instead of being both a hammer and an anvil

Because soldiers are usually not master fencers. Using 2 hand weapons as a fencing art (with parries) is a rare form that is beyond the skill of basic soldiers.

A shield is just easier to parry with as long as you are not bogged down by a weapon (like a spear) that is not a hand weapon.

Yes Im saying for 2 one handed weapons

Again, this might make sense for a hero or lord who has special training (could be an optional ability for certain armies) but probably not for a rank and file soldier.

Perhaps make up a unit for them? Along the lines of those old vesparo vendetta models (spelt wrong I think) from the dogs of war line, or something similar. Fencers or assassins who operate in a small skirmish unit. Could even be a band of young nobles, rushing from the fencing academy into battle? I dunno, something like that could work.

Ya I guess your right, whenever I hear the word parry I think of 2 swords clanging against each other, not a sword hitting a shield. Woul just be nice for GW to call it blocking instead of parrying

If you do want to make up a proposed rule, you could always make up a unit like I mentioned before, with parry the way you imagine it. Think a band of noble sons, bored at home, have become involved with a cult (probably slaanesh or tzeentch) and end up joining the next chaos invasion. Or you could even make up a campaign around this band of friends and their efforts against the police and other rival gangs, before taking over the city of the empire they are a part of (starts with Warhammer skirmish games, ends up with a big one).

You don't have to be a master fencer to defend yourself when fighting with 2 weapons. It is pretty easy to defend yourself with two weapons, it is actually harder to attack with them. If you aren't good, you can leave yourself horribly exposed.

It does take a bit of space though, more than a shield. You usually aren't block an attack so much as deflecting it. And in a block of troops, that would mean you just smacked your buddy with the weapon that was going after you.

I think it would be fine for a unit of skirmishers, even after they have to rank up for a fight, since they would be used to it. I like this proposed rule.

The main reason I think it wouldn't work is it would really invalidate shields.

Sure, you get the +1 to your armor save, but most people are taking shields for parry. If 2 hand weapons gave parry, you'd have increased unit versatility with a marginal decrease in armor save.

Cryonicleech wrote:The main reason I think it wouldn't work is it would really invalidate shields.

Sure, you get the +1 to your armor save, but most people are taking shields for parry. If 2 hand weapons gave parry, you'd have increased unit versatility with a marginal decrease in armor save.

But if the option was +1 Attack or Parry save, it would balance out better. Shield always provide Parry and armor, while 2 weapons could be offensive or defensive.

2 swords isn't defence for 99.99999% of the people who use them unless they hold them up as a make-shift shield. And even then it's much worse than a shield.

Our off-hands are vastly clumsier than our main hands. Which is why you can stick a big huge board stapped to it and not be too worried about whether it is agile. Your power and finesse are in your main hand.

WHFB is roman, medieval and Napoleonic wars (with some smatterings of others). You have to equip a lot of fairly normal people and that's how they work.

You could have a unit army of ambidextrous people or master fencers who trained for decades, but that is a specific unit type to propose, not an overall strategy for the game.

There was an era where people fought with thin rapiers and parrying daggers in their offhands, but those were dinky little daggers. And they were in the offhand because they were lighter and easier for our clumsy hands to use. But an Orc swinging a choppa isn't going to be stopped by that dagger. Or even slowed to a measureable degree.

Well I am a chaos player so I don't really know where being a good fencer would come by for them. I guess make it to where one group of warriors can be upgraded from Core to Special, they can only be equipped with 2 Axes (since in my opinion it's easier to block with axes) and can buy a shield for 1pt. FC the same points and to upgrade them to the special slot would be maybe 2-3pts per model? And they can the choice between +1 attack or the 6+ party save?

The 6+ save is there to give people a reason to take hand weapon and shield instead of the other options.

Remember there was a time when all a hand weapon and shield gave you was the +1 armour save, and the result was people taking any other option available. GW have been trying to make it viable since then, but found grant +2 armour save in close combat was too powerful in some combinations (Chaos Warriors on foot with 2+ saves is scary). So now we have the 6+ ward save, which gives the same defensive bonus to every unit (ie 16% reduction in casualties).

We shouldn't be talking about the practicalities of deflecting attacks with weapons to decide this (most of that should be represented by the WS table)... the real issue is whether models with two hand weapons are underperforming, and not being taken compared to other options? Are two hand weapons not performing well enough right now?

2 Hand Weapons on Chaos Warriors are almost never used atleast thats the way i see it, everyone runs them either with shields or with halberds. To me they seem to need alittle boost

2 hand weapons are probably a bit underperforming because you only get 1 supporting attack. But you can always use more armor/ward or that supporting attack being smackdown powerful.

But then you don't want to encroach on spears. Which are admittedly much less common.

I think if they were like +1 (2??) WS instead of attacks it could be really interesting. Obviously some armies wouldn't care, but it would be very enticing to others.

Riddick40k wrote:2 Hand Weapons on Chaos Warriors are almost never used atleast thats the way i see it, everyone runs them either with shields or with halberds. To me they seem to need alittle boost

Extra hand weapons were always less common on Chaos Warriors, because they already had 2 attacks each, so increasing that by 50% wasn't often as high a priority as the extra strength of a halberd or the armour save of the shield (and now the parry save).

Instead, look at the armies with hammer units built around troops with one attack each. Orcs, for instance. I see plenty of orc units with extra handweapons.

sebster wrote:

Riddick40k wrote:2 Hand Weapons on Chaos Warriors are almost never used atleast thats the way i see it, everyone runs them either with shields or with halberds. To me they seem to need alittle boost

Extra hand weapons were always less common on Chaos Warriors, because they already had 2 attacks each, so increasing that by 50% wasn't often as high a priority as the extra strength of a halberd or the armour save of the shield (and now the parry save).

Instead, look at the armies with hammer units built around troops with one attack each. Orcs, for instance. I see plenty of orc units with extra handweapons.

If orcs had the option for halberd, you'd see a lot less extra hand weapons.

-Matt

Orcs with Halberds would be broken when combined with the Choppa rule.

HawaiiMatt wrote:If orcs had the option for halberd, you'd see a lot less extra hand weapons.

-Matt

Fair point.

Which I guess rasises a question of whether all weapons need to be balanced against all other weapons? Can we accept that some types of weapons are simply more effective weapons of war, but not all weapons are accessible to all units because they require training & discipline that unit isn't capable of?

Parrying gives the indication of deflecting an attack reducing it to a glance across your shield.

If they called it blocking it wouldn't work on the likes of a Minotaur were you would straight up block it and be crushed between the floor and your shield xD

Why isn't it that if you have high enough WS you can't parry with a hand weapon and no shield? And while we are at it the enemies should automatically take a hit from each successful parry to represent the high WS character's reposte!

Lol, but seriously... it's because the game isn't realistic...

To execute a parry, one strikes the opponent's sword's area near the tip of the blade, with the blade near the handle of the sword. This deflects the opponent's blade away from them, protecting them and placing them in a good position to strike back. You should be able to parry with pretty much anything. It's not as if a shield helps you to do that.

Why doesn't the chance of parry increase with higher WS?

Why does a ward save stop you from parrying?

Why don't chariots always get impact hits (aside from if they got flanked.) I mean it's not as if they actually stopped during the opponents turn.

Why do spears and lances give you extra strength on the charge? I assume it's from couched lance. Then why isn't it counted as impact hits? Why can you challenge someone on the first turn and hit them with your couched lance? lol

Why does an extra weapon give you +1 attack. Shouldn't it be situational based on how many attacks you started with? Additional hand weapons some how double the attack of someone with one attack base, and only minorly increase the attacks of someone with 5!

Why does a shield only increase your armour save by one? In actual combat, you shield could be more important to blocking attacks then your entire suit of armour!

Lol, I'm not making fun of the question, I'm just trying to make the point that Warhammer's in-game "fluff" doesn't make the slightest of sense... so they can do what ever the hell they want I guess.

With the big blocks of troops and if you try and picture it realistically though, now with 8th most units are about 20 big min, 4x 5 ranks with 4 ranks of guys behind your front rank running in you can't possibly try and parry with that many guys at your back rushing into the fight. And like you said you have to knock the tops of the blades away, what if its an axe. Or what if the guys in full plate and just threw his body into you before swinging.

The only possible way without making situational parry rules that are different depending on size of unit, units your fighting, whether you charged or not and a whole bunch of additional conditions is to simplify it to a shield because with a shield you needn't be so situational or precise. If a guy throws his body into you and then swings the shield is still there between you, if you have 4 ranks of guys rushing into combat behind you, pressing into your back the shield is still up in front of you.

And if you want the parry save in game terms why don't you just take the shield anyway o-O your sacrificing the extra attack for parry you might as well just have a shield?


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This idea would be better suited as a "Counts as" as opposed to an proposed rule I think.

I see what your saying but those wouldn't really be counted as "parries." That would be more well represented by an armour save.

This game is fun, but its antics hardly make sense. I suggest we all give up on attempting to understand it.

LordHamshire wrote:Why don't chariots always get impact hits (aside from if they got flanked.) I mean it's not as if they actually stopped during the opponents turn.

I think the idea is that the chariot did in fact stop, brought to a halt in the midst of the enemy unit. There really should be some way of breaking free though.

Why do spears and lances give you extra strength on the charge? I assume it's from couched lance. Then why isn't it counted as impact hits? Why can you challenge someone on the first turn and hit them with your couched lance? lol

And how does a guy on foot with a hand weapon manage to strike before the knight's lance, but the knight still gets the strength bonus from his charge? Exactly what just happened? The guy on foot jumped around the lance and whacked the knight, then ran back around in front of the knight and got impaled?

Why does an extra weapon give you +1 attack. Shouldn't it be situational based on how many attacks you started with? Additional hand weapons some how double the attack of someone with one attack base, and only minorly increase the attacks of someone with 5!

And what do attacks mean anyway? That a person with three attacks literally swings 3 times as often as a guy with one attack in the same amount of time? But then how does that work with iniative, surely models with more attacks are swinging faster, and would therefore swing first. Yet Lizardmen are so slow they're IN 1, but they attack twice for every attack the speedy Skaven make. What does any of it actually mean?


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Sasa0mg wrote:The only possible way without making situational parry rules that are different depending on size of unit, units your fighting, whether you charged or not and a whole bunch of additional conditions is to simplify it to a shield because with a shield you needn't be so situational or precise. If a guy throws his body into you and then swings the shield is still there between you, if you have 4 ranks of guys rushing into combat behind you, pressing into your back the shield is still up in front of you.

They could just re-do the WS chart so it means something. Back in first ed it was much like the To Wound chart is today, where an advantage of 2 meant you hit on a 2+, a disadvantage of 2 meant you hit on a 6+. They dumped this because the situations where high WS, high toughness, high armour save characters were only wounded on a 6, then a 6, then a 1 was too common and too silly. Rather than modify the stats of their characters, they made that first WS table less decisive.

And ever since then they've been looking for way to make high WS mean more than "I hit on 3+, you hit on 4+".

Basically, go back to something like the original table, and then making a low WS guy hit a high WS on a 6 would represent the chance of parrying, dodging and all that stuff. You could drop the special rules for ASF, hell you could even drop initiative altogether and just have mutual combat (with step up it barely matters anyway).

Units and their weapon choices are part of their inherent balance. Or supposedly.

There's a LOT of weaon definitions in the BRB. Every unit has access to only a tiny fraction of them. I suppose they could be balanced via point cost, but then they would also have to make moldings for every single permutation, and that's simply not going to happen.

So I like to think that a unit has access to weapons X and Y because they are what were deemed balanced choices for that unit.

I think you should receive a 6+ parry save with two hand weapons if your character/unit is WS 5 or above.

thephenomenalZ wrote:I think you should receive a 6+ parry save with two hand weapons if your character/unit is WS 5 or above.

Can anyone think of any units this would apply to?

There are no High Elf units with two hand weapons... do Chaos Warriors have an option for extra hand weapons?

Yes they do.