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Salutations All,

My small game group has been playing a house rule version of Warhammer that combines 6th Edition Army Books and 7th Edition Rules with a handful of additional rules. I know that the Warhammer Fantasy players have splintered into using their favorite editions, changed game systems, or gone into AOS, and that no house rule system will unify the player base. Maybe Warhammer the Old World will be awesome and bring together old and new players into a great gaming system; I hope so, and have been watching the news releases with skeptical interest. But in the mean time, I have been using a house rule set refined over several years of play testing (admittedly with a small group). I would appreciate any feedback / thoughts on the rules from those who continue to play or liked 6th and 7th Editions.

10 Rules.

1. Movement - Units may march in terrain, including difficult and very difficult terrain.

2. Movement - Unit strength of five is required to march block.

3. Magic - All wizards automatically know the number one spell in their lore before rolling for selecting spells. If the number one spell is rolled, reroll the dice to select another spell

4. Shooting - Line of sight is drawn from the second rank. Missile weapons (and spells) may be fired from the second rank.

5. Combat - The to hit table is modified to include values from 2-6. If a combatant has more than double the opponents weapon skill they hit on a 2+, if the opponent has more than triple their weapon skill, the combatant hits on a 6+. A roll of a 6 always hits.

6. Combat - Long Weapons (lances, spears, halberds, and pikes) gain the step up rule from 8th edition.

7. Combat - Units require ranks be four models wide to gain a rank bonus (6th edition rule implemented for 7th edition).

8. Combat - Steady in the Ranks - units that lose combat but have more ranks than their opponent, remove a minus one combat resolution modifier to their break test (lose by one less) for each rank more than the enemy that they have, up to their normal leadership. This can in effect make a unit stubborn if they have more ranks than they lose combat by.

9. Unit Type Rule - Swarms are unbreakable (6th edition rule implemented for 7th edition).

10. Unit Type Rule - in addition to normal scout deployment rules they may be deployed in line of sight no closer than 18 inches away from the enemy, or no closer than 12 inches away in line of sight as long as they are deployed in terrain.


There are a handful of other rules that we experiment with: increased movement options, hills grant increased range, different defended obstacles rules, etc. but the ten rules above enabled us to play a familiar game with rules that enabled greater tactical flexibility. I would appreciate your thoughts and feedback on these rules, and can explain further why we have selected these versions.

Cheers!

But the whole "fight in two combats in 1 phase" thing is still in?


Don't get me wrong, I like a couple of your ideas, but most seem to bypass the natural downfalls of units and without changing their points cost I could see this being rather imbalancing.


My two cents.

I appreciate the feedback Tony. During play I have not experienced the fighting two combats in one phase overpowered as it requires a good set up to work, usually a flank attack. Have double combats been a major problem for you?

I prioritized rules that effect everyone so if an imbalance occurs, all armies have an opportunity to benefit from it. My group has play tested a number of versions of these rules, and we have toned down what we had first done, back closer to 6th / 7th edition base rules. We originally used 8th edition step up and steadfast, but found that those rules benefited tough infantry and horde armies too much. Cavalry and elves did not generally do well. The modifications to grant a limited steadfast and to give step up only to long weapons (spears and halberds) strengthened what had traditionally been some of the weakest weapon types in the game and allows almost every army to use this benefit, but not abuse it.


Six of us have played nine different armies for several years. This is a small sample size, but each of us has our own play style, which enabled us to find pros and cons from different house rules. We are still playing and evaluating, but have not found things overall imbalanced. We are competitive but not focused on it, so of course rules may be cheesed, but when we find something overpowered we tweak it back.