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Everyone else playing all this 6th has made me nostalgic so I have pulled out my armies and am getting them spruced up ready for war using the 6th edition books (well book as I have O+G and Dogs of War), the greenskin book has thrown up a couple of questions though.

I have a goblin boss on gigantic spider which was an option in ravening hordes and in later books but not the 6th book, I also really want to get the massive spider thing (Arachnoric?) but I am wondering how forward and backward compatible these would be? Do you think that using these things with there rules (where applicable) and points would be too unbalanced?

I see no problem at all using the ravening hordes rules for the gigantic spider as mount for a goblin boss.

For the arachnarok, I am not so sure if a translation from 8th ed rules would do your game any good.

You could use the CE (fanmade) rules in 6th edition games for the Arachnarok spider which are as follows:

Stats Arachnarok: M 7, WS 2, BS 0, S 5, T 5, W 8, I 2, A 8, LD 6,
Stats Goblins: Normal Goblins, 8 of them as crew, armed with short bows.
Total unit Strength 8
Spider has poison attacks. Scaly Skin 4+,AS, Immune to Psychology and causes Terror. No movement penalty by difficult terrain.
It is armed with a Webflinger, which can be fired in the shooting phase, but not if model marched. if spider moved, it can fire but ignore hit symbols. Range is 12-48", S 2, 5" Template. A unit that suffers a hit has -1 WS and -1 I until the end of the next shooting phase of the one firing the flinger. Misfire: Lose one wound.
Total point costs: 275.

Replace the Flinger with a Catchweb Spidershrine for +25 points: friendly wizards in 12" gain +1 on their casting roll.

I often play the arachnarok spider and usually it is fun to play. Two weeks ago it snacked an empire general's griffin.
The flinger is most of the time pretty useless, as you usually want to go FAST with your spider to put pressure on the enemy. The Shrine is also a nice-to-have and can be useful in some armies, but well... you dont' want to base positioning of the spider (somewhere close to the enemy) on where your wizards are (ideally far, far, away from the enemy ).

Looking at the 8th edition Arachnarok about the only stat I think is OP in 6th edition is the number of attacks. It has 8 base attacks and 8 goblin attacks (including bow attacks).

I would say for the points 4 base attacks is enough for 6th, the spider is immune to psychology which is amazing in 6th and 7th and is also stubborn but only Ld 6, which means you will have to be careful not to lose combat without the General nearby.

It all comes down to your opponents, honestly. If someone wanted to run a mix of books, and gave me advance warning, I'd mostly be okay with it unless it was one of THOSE books.

The deal about figuring out what can and can't port over comes down to what "feels" right. If a unit can wipe a regiment in one round of combat, it MAY be OP. If certain special rules have to be adjusted/dropped and the points aren't altered, it may be skewed against the using player. The only thing you can do is actually run it and see what happens, OR you can do some test runs against some units your opponents run. Assume frontage and roll the attacks and all that, see how consistently it behaves.

 StygianBeach wrote:
Looking at the 8th edition Arachnarok about the only stat I think is OP in 6th edition is the number of attacks. It has 8 base attacks and 8 goblin attacks (including bow attacks).

I would say for the points 4 base attacks is enough for 6th, the spider is immune to psychology which is amazing in 6th and 7th and is also stubborn but only Ld 6, which means you will have to be careful not to lose combat without the General nearby.

That isn't too big an issue when you look at its footprint. You get get a lot into base contact. Things on 100x150 bases are problematic unless they have a lot of attacks. Also half those attacks are goblins, which doesnt count for much.

 Orlanth wrote:

 StygianBeach wrote:
Looking at the 8th edition Arachnarok about the only stat I think is OP in 6th edition is the number of attacks. It has 8 base attacks and 8 goblin attacks (including bow attacks).

I would say for the points 4 base attacks is enough for 6th, the spider is immune to psychology which is amazing in 6th and 7th and is also stubborn but only Ld 6, which means you will have to be careful not to lose combat without the General nearby.

That isn't too big an issue when you look at its footprint. You get get a lot into base contact. Things on 100x150 bases are problematic unless they have a lot of attacks. Also half those attacks are goblins, which doesnt count for much.

I was thinking it could keep the 8 Goblin Attacks, it was only the Spider attacks that I think should be halved. So in 6th is should have 12 attacks (4 Spider and 8 Goblin).

That isnt so bad, as 8 gobbos can do some hurt to cheap tarpits thatget to swamp it.
But it wont cut it if you are foolish enough to let your spider get in base contact with a line of swordmasters or chosen.

Thanks for the responses so far it seems like it shouldn't be to bad (though I wasn't aware of the variants for the Arachnarok), how do people feel about the bound monsters from whatever supplement they came in being used in earlier editions? Is there anything that sticks out as being too OP if using the 6th ed. profiles for them?

8th army books are 'balanced' (if that word is applicable to WHFB) to include the new monsters.

If you want to play 6th with 8th edition content use the 8th edition army books but apply 6th edition rules. You will need to adjust some things but not as much.

You can work out for yourselves which ridden monsters take an extra hero slot, and can play about with bound spells not in 6th and swap in on a like for like basis.

 ingtaer wrote:
Thanks for the responses so far it seems like it shouldn't be to bad (though I wasn't aware of the variants for the Arachnarok), how do people feel about the bound monsters from whatever supplement they came in being used in earlier editions? Is there anything that sticks out as being too OP if using the 6th ed. profiles for them?

I think the back of the Big Rule Book in 7th edition had profiles for most monsters.
Perhaps you can use those instead of the profiles from 8th edition? Since they're closer to 6th they don't take into account (Thunder)Stomp attacks and such.

I'll have to check to see, but I was almost positive that the 6th Ed. book had stats like that in the back. I may be misremembering though.

There ARE several monster stat lines spread out the different books, though. High Elves book had some stats and points for some unridden monsters due to their scenario.

Yeah, a ton of them are in the high elf book

Cool, thanks for the heads up that seems to fit the bill very nicely.

If you want, i can upload them to the blog page for you?