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Tbh aye 100% agree.

I wasn't expecting this at all, couldn't imagine them going back to it for a second, but Avian had been murmering for the the last day or so there was one change from his sources he wasn't liking.

This it would seem is it.

I'm hoping his source is wrong as it is a really drastic change, as someone already pointed out, if rare is 25% expect to see three/four (not sure on the pts value) Hellblasters in 2K games.

well that kinda sucks, no more high point characters in games "Archaon comes to mind" and my WoC list would be hurting if at best i could only spend X pts on special choices...no more 2 units of knights with chosen.

hopefully this doesn't happen, as the high elf book is all about using the special units for your army backbone instead of core

Could be a special type of Force Organisation for specific Scenarios of course.

Well back in 4th edition armies had separate percentages. For instance with Orcs and Goblins it was:

25+ had to be "mobs"
0-50% was characters
0-25% was monsters
0-25% was allies
0-25% was war machines

Characters included everything ridden by characters and unit champions. All armies could take monsters out of the bestiary included with the main game box (which was pretty extensive). Mobs were pretty much everything else in the army list. Bretonnians were allowed 75% heroes if they wanted and I think Dwarves were allowed more war machines.

Obviously this resulted in some ridiculous lists (here's my Orc and Goblin army of all Boar Boys and a Bloodthirster) but I think the fundamental idea is sound. For instance with Orcs and Goblins now if you want enough war machines to actually do something (4 bolt throwers and a rock lobber) you can't take more than one unit of any special night goblins, boar boys, chariots, etc. Additionally you are limited to the same 4 heroes that Vampire Counts is and 4 goblins are not in any way equivalent to anything they can produce.

25% characters is way too low though so I'm hoping that's just some guy's estimate. At that point Vampires can take one lord and maybe a Necromancer which unless there are some fundamental changes that haven't been brought up yet is crippling to the army. I could see army dependent ratios again where Vampires and Bretonnians are allowed more heroes, High Elves are allowed more specials, Dwarves are allowed more war machines and so on.

25% characters is way too low though so I'm hoping that's just some guy's estimate. At that point Vampires can take one lord and maybe a Necromancer which unless there are some fundamental changes that haven't been brought up yet is crippling to the army. I could see army dependent ratios again where Vampires and Bretonnians are allowed more heroes, High Elves are allowed more specials, Dwarves are allowed more war machines and so on.

And thats one of the issues fantasy has.. Why bother making rules if every army can just ignore it? The better answer would be to write army books with limits in mind.. however, hard to think of GW doing that

25% does seem too low, but on the other hand people routinely spend close to 50% on characters currently (Or can )

Id love to see fantasy be more about actual movement tactics and heros in supporting roles rather than "March with big thing / super unit(s).. smash and laugh at armies that have to take weak foot troops"

GW sorta painted themselves into a corner just like in 40k by producing armies which have near useless core choices and then possibly changing missions to force people to use them

Just will skew results more in demons and vampires favor

I don't know about everyone else, but I play fantasy games for the mighty heros, powerful magic, and fearsome monsters.

There is a very vocal subsect of the Fantasy fanbase that wants to turn Fantasy into Warhammer:Ancients. I consider this a bad thing.

At first, I was disappointed at seeing Skaven and High Elves instead of my good 'ol Orcs, but now I'm actually quite excited. Great way for me to start both of those armies without having to buy a lot.

But onto 8th's changes. I'm not too excited about objectives in WHFB. 2,000 points can crowd up a 6x4 board and the game will devolve into a giant middle of the table brawlfest. Also not too psyched about the percentages for Army Organization

I'd also have to agree with Kirasu that most Core choices suck, which is a real shame. I mean, compare a Dark elf Spearmen to Black Guard. For 6 points more, A Black Guard has the same save (If the Spearmen uses his shield) is ItP, Stubborn, Re-rolls All rolls to hit, has a halberd, and has an additional Attack, Weapon Skill and Initiative.

They need to make it so that Special choices are slightly better, not OTT like they are now, IMHO.

You know, if some of these initial rumors are true, and 8th ED kicks off with some High Elf goodness, I think that might be just the prod I need to pick up WHFB. HE's are the only army that appeals to me aesthetically, and a new edition seems like the best time to start a new gaming system, IMO.

skyth wrote:I don't know about everyone else, but I play fantasy games for the mighty heros, powerful magic, and fearsome monsters.

There is a very vocal subsect of the Fantasy fanbase that wants to turn Fantasy into Warhammer:Ancients. I consider this a bad thing.

I do agree with you which is why I think the WPS comp system that Adepticon uses is so stupid. However on the flip side every competitive list I see now-a-days looks like it should be a Warmachine army with no more than 25-40 models and centers around a ridiculously overpowered hero/monster combo. I think they can curtail that a bit, make ranked infantry better (and not just super unit infantry) and still keep the fantastic elements of Fantasy present.

Kirasu wrote:

25% characters is way too low though so I'm hoping that's just some guy's estimate. At that point Vampires can take one lord and maybe a Necromancer which unless there are some fundamental changes that haven't been brought up yet is crippling to the army. I could see army dependent ratios again where Vampires and Bretonnians are allowed more heroes, High Elves are allowed more specials, Dwarves are allowed more war machines and so on.

And thats one of the issues fantasy has.. Why bother making rules if every army can just ignore it? The better answer would be to write army books with limits in mind.. however, hard to think of GW doing that

25% does seem too low, but on the other hand people routinely spend close to 50% on characters currently (Or can )

Id love to see fantasy be more about actual movement tactics and heros in supporting roles rather than "March with big thing / super unit(s).. smash and laugh at armies that have to take weak foot troops"

GW sorta painted themselves into a corner just like in 40k by producing armies which have near useless core choices and then possibly changing missions to force people to use them

Just will skew results more in demons and vampires favor

I dunno, I think that different ratios for armies depending on how integral certain parts are isn't bending rules. They try to do that now with special and rare slots (Empire and Brets have core heavy cavalry while most other armies have this as specials) but it doesn't work so well when everything gets cluttered into special slots like in the Orc book. I don't think it's unreasonable that Empire and Dwarves could be allowed more war machine percentages while High Elves get more of something else.

Agreed. And the more I think about it, the more a "let everybody fight, but infantry go at the same time, cav go before infantry but at the same time as other cav, and monsters go before everything but monsters" rule like in WOTR would go a LONG way towards doing that without nerfing people's ability to bring lots of big monsters.

Da Boss wrote:Agreed. And the more I think about it, the more a "let everybody fight, but infantry go at the same time, cav go before infantry but at the same time as other cav, and monsters go before everything but monsters" rule like in WOTR would go a LONG way towards doing that without nerfing people's ability to bring lots of big monsters.

I think that weapons and charging should give initiative bonuses to models (spears get a bonus, great weapons get a negative, etc) and everything goes in strict initiative order after modifiers but I think that would be more complex than the rumors for 8th have been indicating the game is going to be...

At the moment what makes infantry suck so hard is that they almost always get charged. Which tends to mean the front 5 are wiped, which means you're probably going to lose the combat automatically.

Well there's that. And the fact that bog standard infantry can't kill squat, including other bog standard infantry.

If the full 20 got to attack though, they'd pull some things down through weight of dice.

The problem is stuff like the super Graveguard, Shade or Blackguard units would get out of control and they are the last units that need help. I agree that they need to do something to make core infantry more desirable, but at the same time they can't let the deathstars get even more powerful.

reds8n wrote:Not a massive revamp of the system --it has to work with existing army books of course.

Epic Fail.

My apologies to those who view WHFB as the bees knees, but WHFB is a horrible system.

Other than the obvious money grab by GW, without a massive revamp of the rules, a new edition is utterly pointless.
I was really hoping for a revamp, but with this news giving the rationale that it has to work with current army books, this really is a failure to make the game actually good.

I was hoping for a revamp ala 3rd edition 40K where all the armt's rules would be included in the main rulebook to get you by until you got a dedicated armybook.

Again, epic fail. I am not going to fall for it.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Not convinced at all about the percentage thing. Bit of a radical change no?

It is suggested that the change from 7th to 8th will be more drastic than the change from 5th to 6th.

skyth wrote:I don't know about everyone else, but I play fantasy games for the mighty heros, powerful magic, and fearsome monsters.

That's completely fine but I'm sure you don't expect to autowin every game because of that. It is not farfetched at all to ask for regiments of foot soldiers to be *useful*. Not at all.

There is a very vocal subsect of the Fantasy fanbase that wants to turn Fantasy into Warhammer:Ancients. I consider this a bad thing.

Someone said the same in the Warseer rumours thread. It wasn't true there and it isn't true here. Some people want their Halberdiers (or any other State Troop for that matter) to be worth fielding for any reason besides aesthetics.

I can see and take your point Mr. Hellfury, but..that would be a bit unfair on those players who'd just forked out X£/$s on the recent army books would it not ?

That said with some of the rumours flying around -- especially the mooted return to a force % breakdown, I can see it causing a few issues -- isn't one of the High Elf abilities to ignore some of the normal force restrictions ? Goes someway too perhaps towards explaining the cheapness of the core units in the beastmen book too possibly.

I suppose we couldn't rule out a "Ravening Hordes" type army book however.

I don't understand. Is there something wrong with the 7th edition that needs to be changed so dramatically?

Yep. It's pretty badly broken, really. Mostly due to stupidly designed army books.

reds8n wrote: I can see and take your point Mr. Hellfury, but..that would be a bit unfair on those players who'd just forked out X£/$s on the recent army books would it not ?

*weighs the balance*

Recently bought rulebook works well in new edition in one hand

A competent rules system that is internally consistent in the other hand

Personally, I would buy 10 identical copies of the last army book made for 7th edition if it meant I had a playable game the next edition that made those 10 army books little better than toilet paper. GW isn't saving anyone money by allowing the current armybooks to be relevant. This is a logical fallacy based on false dilemma.

Sorry, to be frank and no offense meant, but that rationale you gave (and the one which I am certain GW shares) fails in the light of logic. But this is GW we are talking about here, so competent rules for their two biggest wargames will never happen. I realize this, but feel I must voice my displeasure at this obvious and long held trend.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Da Boss wrote:Yep. It's pretty badly broken, really. Mostly due to stupidly designed army books.

And that takes us to the heart of the matter.

Armybooks, or rather their oft broken design, are the main issue why 7th edition is busted. You have orcs and goblins on one side of the spectrum, and daemons on the other.

Add to that rules which used a dated turn structure of UGOIGO that is BORING for games that take roughly two hours to play with roughly 10 mins per player to resolve per turn, and you have the makings of something that needs to be seriously redone from the ground up.

So GW are remaking WHFB into its 8th edition because of the issues caused by army books.

This is similar to taking a car with a busted engine and transmission, who also happens to have bad brakes and fixing the engine without acknowledging the fact that the transmission and brakes need attention. But now that the engine is fixed, they work on the brakes but never changes or add new oil to the engine. So they then go and fix the transmission, but the engine is now failing and the brakes are going bad again.

This is exactly the cycle that GW uses to make their top two selling wargames, and like a car mechanic, they realize this order of operations stands to make them a lot of money over time. Instead of being a reputable mechanic and dealing with all issues so the whole machine runs smoothly, they opt for the spurious approach and tell you one thing is busted so that you will come back in a month to have something else fixed.

If you like that, good for you. But I really think it is high time people realize the wool GW are pulling over their eyes and look for something different if GW dont change their ways.

Lord Solar Plexus wrote:

skyth wrote:I don't know about everyone else, but I play fantasy games for the mighty heros, powerful magic, and fearsome monsters.

That's completely fine but I'm sure you don't expect to autowin every game because of that. It is not farfetched at all to ask for regiments of foot soldiers to be *useful*. Not at all.

There is a very vocal subsect of the Fantasy fanbase that wants to turn Fantasy into Warhammer:Ancients. I consider this a bad thing.

Someone said the same in the Warseer rumours thread. It wasn't true there and it isn't true here. Some people want their Halberdiers (or any other State Troop for that matter) to be worth fielding for any reason besides aesthetics.

I think THIS is on point. I want to see ranked units actually clash and actually have it matter. Magic, monsters, flying units, etc. should be there to add color...not be the focus.

And that segues into my next point, which is that I don't think GW can keep enough focus to have it matter anyway. They've tried to bring back ranks-and-flanks before, only to undo things by allowing stupid amounts of magic, skirmishers, cav, flying circuses, etc. in their army books.

This is why I have no interest in WFB in a competitive setting. As a beer-and-pretzels game, I'm fine with it.

Hellfury wrote:

reds8n wrote: I can see and take your point Mr. Hellfury, but..that would be a bit unfair on those players who'd just forked out X£/$s on the recent army books would it not ?

*weighs the balance*

Recently bought rulebook works well in new edition in one hand

A competent rules system that is internally consistent in the other hand

Personally, I would buy 10 identical copies of the last army book made for 7th edition if it meant I had a playable game the next edition that made those 10 army books little better than toilet paper. GW isn't saving anyone money by allowing the current armybooks to be relevant. This is a logical fallacy based on false dilemma.

Sorry, to be frank and no offense meant, but that rationale you gave (and the one which I am certain GW shares) fails in the light of logic. But this is GW we are talking about here, so competent rules for their two biggest wargames will never happen. I realize this, but feel I must voice my displeasure at this obvious and long held trend.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Da Boss wrote:Yep. It's pretty badly broken, really. Mostly due to stupidly designed army books.

And that takes us to the heart of the matter.

Armybooks, or rather their oft broken design, are the main issue why 7th edition is busted. You have orcs and goblins on one side of the spectrum, and daemons on the other.

Add to that rules which used a dated turn structure of UGOIGO that is BORING for games that take roughly two hours to play with roughly 10 mins per player to resolve per turn, and you have the makings of something that needs to be seriously redone from the ground up.

So GW are remaking WHFB into its 8th edition because of the issues caused by army books.

This is similar to taking a car with a busted engine and transmission, who also happens to have bad brakes and fixing the engine without acknowledging the fact that the transmission and brakes need attention. But now that the engine is fixed, they work on the brakes but never changes or add new oil to the engine. So they then go and fix the transmission, but the engine is now failing and the brakes are going bad again.

This is exactly the cycle that GW uses to make their top two selling wargames, and like a car mechanic, they realize this order of operations stands to make them a lot of money over time. Instead of being a reputable mechanic and dealing with all issues so the whole machine runs smoothly, they opt for the spurious approach and tell you one thing is busted so that you will come back in a month to have something else fixed.

If you like that, good for you. But I really think it is high time people realize the wool GW are pulling over their eyes and look for something different if GW dont change their ways.

I don`t think it`s that bad. It all depends on who you play. A couple of beers with the guys make almost anything enjoyable

Terje-Tubby wrote:It all depends on who you play. A couple of beers with the guys make almost anything enjoyable

True that. My expectations for paying so much money to GW over 15 years has just made me cynical and set myself up to be let down.

My apologies again to those who enjoy WHFB. Dont take it as a slight against you because I am dissing a game and a game company you enjoy as a slight against you through acquaintance. I just have strong opinions on GW faults. Bad on me because thats just far too easy to do.

reds8n wrote:

To clarify : I am hearing talk about the order in which actions are resolved altering. So... for example....a phase that is now say the 3rd or 4th action might jump the line and become the first phase. For example.

The Magic Phase moving to before the movement phase would make that one beastmen spell suddenly make sense. It would also make it possible to blast a unit with magic before charging it though, so I don't know if that would be good.

wildger wrote:I don't understand. Is there something wrong with the 7th edition that needs to be changed so dramatically?

Da Boss wrote:Yep. It's pretty badly broken, really. Mostly due to stupidly designed army books.

In that case don't change the core rules (which work fine IMO) but stop releasing OP army books like Dark Elf and Daemons. VC I guess are up there too but I manage to lose with them quite often. If every book was on par with Lizards, Skaven, Empire, High Elves, WOC and BOC, the rules themselves would work fine.

Yeah, I personally think the core rules are fine. Some need to be streamlined, some need to be tightened, but overall its a system that works well in a vacuum. Unfortunately, you add certain armies into the mix and the system collpases like a deck of cards, particularly those already mentioned. I would prefer that be the focus of 8th edition, making army books that are intelligently and sensibly written, not a revamp of the core rules.

So far we've only had comments on character selection being effected by %.

That doesn't mean the rest wouldn't be (as it was before), but it could only be characters?

A percentage limit on characters would royally screw Tomb Kings as they currently are.

A % limit on characters would intentionally screw over armies that are too reliant on characters as often these are the more powerful armies (daemons, VC).

Which the whole damn game system is anyway.

Sadly some armies which need characters but are fairly weak (TK) would be lost in the shuffle but their due for a new rulebook shortly anyway.