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As a 40k player, a new army update often means massive changes...so much that the army might even play differently or have a different "feel". I haven't been playing Fantasy for very long, but I was just wondering if it's the same in this system.

My personal dilemma is that I'm interested in starting a Warriors of Chaos army. I've also read that they're going to be updated this year. Is it a safe bet to assume that the army will still feel and play the same way? Warriors won't drop by 10 points and get human stats? Marks of chaos will stay relatively similar? I'm just worried about starting and collecting an army, only to have it completely change in 6 months.

Thanks!

I've only been playing for less than a year, so I've only been through a few updates. But from what I can tell, there's very little change in WHFB army updates. A couple or handful of units may get some minor stat, rules changes, and recently they've been adding a couple monsters/WMs to each army. But it's definitely nothing as drastic as the GK, Necrons, and DE in 40k...

From what I have seen (been palying a long time now) stats do not change, only points (by one or two) and play styles.

Johnny-Crass wrote:From what I have seen (been palying a long time now) stats do not change, only points (by one or two) and play styles.

right, i meant "stats" to cover any number, including pt value but yes, it's more pts values than characteristic profiles

For Warriors of Chaos in particular the marks of chaos are something I could see them changing up a bit. When they updated Lizardmen last time they completely removed our "marks".

As a general rule of thumb I'd say if you have a fairly balanced list with a range of units across the book, you're army list will not be significantly impacted. The people that experience the most changes are the ones that had the power lists (which usually get nerfed).

If your strategy hinges around a single or pair of very powerful units (Chosen-star, mortar spam, Grave Guard block with regen banner), then yeah, you're going to have a significant change of play style.

The old Marks in the Chaos Books before the WoC books marks were very different

The changes from edition to the edition only really drastically affect those armies that are built to exploit a particular rule or phase of the turn. Balanced armies tend not to be so badly affected.

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:I've only been playing for less than a year, so I've only been through a few updates. But from what I can tell, there's very little change in WHFB army updates. A couple or handful of units may get some minor stat, rules changes, and recently they've been adding a couple monsters/WMs to each army. But it's definitely nothing as drastic as the GK, Necrons, and DE in 40k...

Not true. Tomb Kings for one were "drastically" changed.

I would suggest looking over the previous books for those armies that have the new $40.00 hardcovers. You'll see just how much they've changed. Expect similar changes for future armies.

LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:I've only been playing for less than a year, so I've only been through a few updates. But from what I can tell, there's very little change in WHFB army updates. A couple or handful of units may get some minor stat, rules changes, and recently they've been adding a couple monsters/WMs to each army. But it's definitely nothing as drastic as the GK, Necrons, and DE in 40k...

Not true. Tomb Kings for one were "drastically" changed.

I would suggest looking over the previous books for those armies that have the new $40.00 hardcovers. You'll see just how much they've changed. Expect similar changes for future armies.

Still Unbreakable, still no-modified arrows, still cause Fear, still same BSB protection, still no marching. But a handful of stat changes, adding some monsters, improved Lore, and adding Unstable are drastic changes? Sounds just like a balanced update to me.

those 40k codex updates made those armies go from being nearly-unplayable to being nearly-unbeatable... Not quite the same thing as the TK update.

Warriors of Chaos seem to be seeing some major changes, especially the Marks.

Basic Warriors are losing a point of inititive and their Chaos Armor for a point decrease(Chaos Armor becomes a cheap upgrade)

the Eye of the Gods chart is also going away(as is the Chosen Star of doom)


Any armies that don't have really funky game mechanics can expect only minor changes. Tomb Kings had REALLY funky stuff in their previous army book so the changes were to be expected.

Units have changed quite a bit.
Beastmen back in the day had 2 wounds for rank and file.
Warriors of chaos used to have a single attack.
Warriors used to get marauder heroes and chariots.
Flagellants used to be T4.

Some things aren't going to change much; the basic human is always going to be 3's across on stats and Ld7.

Empire might see a loss of detachment stand and fire and counter charge rules.


As others have said, as long as you build a mainstream balanced list, you shouldn't worry about a new book.

-Matt

A big thing to keep in mind is how long of a span did the army go without an update. Grey Knights, Necrons and Dark Eldar were VERY old before the update. Hell, half of Dark Eldar references rules that haven't existed for a decade! So it was obvious that there was going to be some major changes. And yet, the funamental truths stayed the same (DE are still fast, glass cannons, Necrons are still durable, shooty focused with lots of weird tricks, and Grey Knights are still HEAVILY elite and was dominating)

Tomb Kings is an example of the same thing in Fantasy. They were one of the Oldest army books and had a lot of reworking. But as Dr. Cheesesteak (lol Epic name...) said, they still kept a LOT of their core ideas.

Warriors will still be the hulking destroyers of the North. They have Marauders for their human fodder. And the Marks will still keep the same CONCEPT, even if perhaps the implementations are different. Nurgle will buff you/debuff your enemy. Khorne will increase CC. Tzeentch will help magic and defense. Slaanesh will effect Psychology and/or speed. Keep that in mind and you'll be golden.

But other than minor point tweaks, not much will change for Warriors. They've been consistent in overall idea for QUITE a while now.

Beastmen were drastically changed for the better

Johnny-Crass wrote:Beastmen were drastically changed for the better

As were Ogres...

And VC was changed so that we could use more units than ghouls and GG

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote: But it's definitely nothing as drastic as the GK, Necrons, and DE in 40k...

Wood Elves would beg to differ. Went from being a fairly standard army(complete with Chariot and even a bolt thrower back in the day) backed by slightly more skirmishers than most armies to being a nearly entirely skirmish army backed by a block of infantry or two. It was a complete overhaul of the army.

Also, don't forget the "balance" pendulum swings such as the Ratling Gun: went from Move and Fire with no rolling to hit to Move OR Fire with rolling to hit plus a points increase. Points increase and one or the other would have been fine(preferably just needing to roll to hit), but this is GW we're talking about. Went from a must have to a bring only to add flavor and not get dinged on comp for only bringing Mortars.

marielle wrote:

Johnny-Crass wrote:Beastmen were drastically changed for the better

As were Ogres...

Maybe the standards for "drastic" are different in WHFB than they are in 40k. I guess I'm just thinking of more than just some fundamental changes - I'm thinking about changing the competitive spectrum. I don't think many WHFB players consider TK, Beastmen, or Ogres on the same level as Lizardmen, Skaven, or DoC. Their rules updates didn't catapult them from bottom-dwellers to tournament dominators, did they? I know OP seemed only interested in play style and stats, and I even acknowledged those do get changed. I only stated they weren't as drastic as 40k DE, Necrons, or GK. I don't consider getting a balanced update, even if it means significant stat and play changes, as "drastic" (to me, that's just a reasonable update). I consider changing the entire competitive identity of an army as "drastic".

flamingwalnut wrote:But as Dr. Cheesesteak (lol Epic name...)

same to you!

Ogres went from bottom to top with their book and as I have proven at the COC beastmen can be taken to the top, or atleast close to it

Johnny-Crass wrote:Ogres went from bottom to top with their book and as I have proven at the COC beastmen can be taken to the top, or atleast close to it

but that's your skill doing that We know the competitive balance in WHFB isnt' the same as 40k. 40k is cookie cutter, WHFB isn't.

As for Ogres - they're a top army now? I've only witnessed them barely win or easily lose. Even w/ a competitive list of cats, cavalry and Ironblasters. And I don't think I've seen them place high in any recent tourneys...

I view Ogres in the top 5 with the most generic list. But for the most part you are right we as a game do not get the huge swings that 40k suffers from.

Johnny-Crass wrote:I view Ogres in the top 5 with the most generic list. But for the most part you are right we as a game do not get the huge swings that 40k suffers from.

right. I suppose I just have a little of that 40k mindset still lingering in my head.

I can see now that even if an army goes from bottom-to-middle or bottom-to-top or top-to-middle or whatever, it is still significant in WHFB b/c the competitive spectrum is already so close thanks to 8th Ed. But in 40k, it's like a HUGE significant deal when one goes from bottom-to-top, b/c the competitive spectrum is so wide (or used to be at least...there's so much codex creep, now almost every army is "top-tier"). I'd love to see the sales %s of armies in 40k that just got updated compared to sales of armies in WHFB that get an update (granted, correlation =/= causation, so even if sales are widely different between 40k updates and WHFB updates, it may not be b/c of a giant competitive jump).

Ogres are still a High Skill army. They look easy to play but there is a heavy timing coordination that needs to be present to win with them.

I win quite often with my Ogres and the games are always really close. A knifes edge seperates between winning and losing, but the final victory points don't reflect this. I usually win by a solid 500-600 points but on the table the game was always really close.

Hence I think people overreact when they lose to Ogres, they arn't the army that will give you an easy win anymore They look at the final result and think they got steamrolled when actually the game was pretty close.

If you don't know what you are doing with them, you can lose pretty badly.

I have to agree with Grey Templar on that one. I've beaten Ogres quite often by similar margins on points... but usually with only a handful of models left in several units. A few more casualties, and Ogres would have totally turned it around.

I would have to say that the update defenitly depends on which army is being updated. Armies like Dwarves, Elves, Warriors of Chaos, Brettonia, they don't have much room to change much without drastically affecting what all of the previous customers had about them and you don't want to upset customers. Ogres is really the only one that comes to mind which changed for the better.

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:I've only been playing for less than a year, so I've only been through a few updates. But from what I can tell, there's very little change in WHFB army updates. A couple or handful of units may get some minor stat, rules changes, and recently they've been adding a couple monsters/WMs to each army. But it's definitely nothing as drastic as the GK, Necrons, and DE in 40k...

Not true. Tomb Kings for one were "drastically" changed.

I would suggest looking over the previous books for those armies that have the new $40.00 hardcovers. You'll see just how much they've changed. Expect similar changes for future armies.

Still Unbreakable, still no-modified arrows, still cause Fear, still same BSB protection, still no marching. But a handful of stat changes, adding some monsters, improved Lore, and adding Unstable are drastic changes? Sounds just like a balanced update to me. .

"Balanced", my eye. Fear? Virtually worthless in 8th edition. A "handful of stat changes"? Have you even READ them and compared them to the previous edition? "Improved Lore"? If by "improve" you mean, "destroy the entire magic system that drew players to TK in the first place and replace it with utter unreliability," then sure. Not to mention the rubbish that is MWBD and EBTS, depriving core skellies of magic banners, and a plethora of other CRUD-ace revisions. No, the so-called "balanced update" was a very drastic change.

It's been almost a year and I'm still trying to come up with a TK list I can stand looking at.

My impression of O&G, Ogres, VC and upcoming Empire is that changes of the same order of magnitude were made there as well.

So I maintain: drastic changes have been made, and will continue to be made.

LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:

LordOfTheSloths wrote:

Dr. Cheesesteak wrote:I've only been playing for less than a year, so I've only been through a few updates. But from what I can tell, there's very little change in WHFB army updates. A couple or handful of units may get some minor stat, rules changes, and recently they've been adding a couple monsters/WMs to each army. But it's definitely nothing as drastic as the GK, Necrons, and DE in 40k...

Not true. Tomb Kings for one were "drastically" changed.

I would suggest looking over the previous books for those armies that have the new $40.00 hardcovers. You'll see just how much they've changed. Expect similar changes for future armies.

Still Unbreakable, still no-modified arrows, still cause Fear, still same BSB protection, still no marching. But a handful of stat changes, adding some monsters, improved Lore, and adding Unstable are drastic changes? Sounds just like a balanced update to me. .

"Balanced", my eye. Fear? Virtually worthless in 8th edition. A "handful of stat changes"? Have you even READ them and compared them to the previous edition? "Improved Lore"? If by "improve" you mean, "destroy the entire magic system that drew players to TK in the first place and replace it with utter unreliability," then sure. Not to mention the rubbish that is MWBD and EBTS, depriving core skellies of magic banners, and a plethora of other CRUD-ace revisions. No, the so-called "balanced update" was a very drastic change.

It's been almost a year and I'm still trying to come up with a TK list I can stand looking at.

I don't know, man. May I suggest looking in to the 90-archer Khalida list that won Throne of Skulls? You may be able to stand looking at that... Not sure what else to say to a player who focuses on the negative, blows things out of proportion, and seems miserable when talking about their army. Maybe just quit?

In my experience, a rules change or new army book USED to mean a minor alteration in playing style. My VC went through two previous army books and really the only change was how I kitted out my vampires.

Now? Forget it. You're looking at 40K-level army re-builds. From new, never before seen units, to complete overhauls of existing units, WHFB has gone for the complete, top-down shakeup. My Beastmen are a case in point. I have a viable 2000 point army under the previous book. With the new book, I lost my mixed unit rule (gors and ungors are seperate units now) I lost my marks of Chaos (REALLY? A Chaos army with no marks? What fething sense does THAT make? Especially when the special characters were all obviously supposed to be marked) and I lost the pseudo-skirmish movement I used to get. Oh, and Ambush is still useless.

I gained a bunch of new character types, new unit types, a useless magic spell list (feth lore of the wild right in its ear) a bunch of big monsters they only recently made models for, and Primal Fury.

So Primal Fury was nice.

My VC got new rules for Vampires, new rules for necromantic magic, new spells, lost our movement spell, all new units, more allnew units, and our points went down on our basic units. Oh, and wolves got slavering cjharge back, so that was nice. But my VC army is undergoing a complete overhaul, as I now need more models to play.

The Tomb Kings got hit just as hard as the Beastmen in their re-write. Don't buy those Warrior of Chaos until AFTER the book comes out. You''ll save yourself a lot of hassle. At least, until the next time they get re-written.

I miss all the goodies beastmen could get (See trolls, Dragon Ogres, Ogres ect) but honestly our book did get better.

And VC got a book worth reading now IMO