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I kind of agre about the Magic thing. However, if someone does go all out on Magic, in the vast majority of cases their army will lack the muscle combat characters bring to the table, and they will be punished heavily in the ensuing combats.

I think the biggest problem is the Dispel Scroll. I don't like the 'auto-stop' it represents. Why not change them to be akin to Power Stones, and instead grant bonus Dispel Dice?

Oddly, the Miscast/fire stuff of Fantasy is what I enjoy. It means you can have pretty filthy stuff on the field, with the risk of it blowing itself up at the most inopportune time. Take the Empire Artillery. For what it does, it is dirt, dirt cheap. Great Cannon can take a Dragon's head clean off in a single shot. Mortars and Helstorms can obliterate entire units of troops. The Misfire and general lack of real accuracy is their balancing factor. And although I don't like resorting to it, it's quite realistic. When packing the Powder down the barrel, even a small smoulder on the ram will see the loader losing his hands (see Perry Brothers) and the casting of old time cannons wasn't exactly precise.

Personally, I really don't feel Fantasy needs a great deal of work doing. A new Edition is a good opportunity to clear up confusions brought in with Army Books, tone things down (for example, Magic Weapons could be allowed to treat Ward Saves as mundane Saves, meaning Daemons are shaved a bit)

Killpoints I don't think are a great idea for Fantasy. For instance, in my Skaven army, I have an 840 point combination unit which is going to be very difficult to destroy, namely Grey Seer on a Bell, surrounded by 38 Stormvermin bearing the Battle Banner, with a Chieftain carrying the Standard Of Clan Superiority. Unbreakable, Ld 10 and even when Ranks are negated, brings between +5 and +7 combat resolution. All for 4 kill points. This unit will go through pretty much anything in the game like a hot knife through the proverbial. It will do naughty things, and it's cost reflects this. VP's far better reflect the effort of taking this monstrosity down!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I kind of agre about the Magic thing. However, if someone does go all out on Magic, in the vast majority of cases their army will lack the muscle combat characters bring to the table, and they will be punished heavily in the ensuing combats.

Yeah, its not really about overall balance. its about me wanting to take a single level two wizard sometimes. You can take a single librarian in 40k, with never worse than a 50/50 chance per psychic power of losing the power. If I had to take two librarians in order to get one power off. I'd just take none. that takes choice out of the game. your thoughts on the dispel scroll are mirrored by me and mine.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Oddly, the Miscast/fire stuff of Fantasy is what I enjoy. It means you can have pretty filthy stuff on the field, with the risk of it blowing itself up at the most inopportune time. Take the Empire Artillery. For what it does, it is dirt, dirt cheap. Great Cannon can take a Dragon's head clean off in a single shot. Mortars and Helstorms can obliterate entire units of troops. The Misfire and general lack of real accuracy is their balancing factor. And although I don't like resorting to it, it's quite realistic. When packing the Powder down the barrel, even a small smoulder on the ram will see the loader losing his hands (see Perry Brothers) and the casting of old time cannons wasn't exactly precise.

the added swinginess is what creates dangerous game imbalance. I never got to take my empire griffon, a model I truly adored, because there was every likelihood of said decapitation. On those same lines, when i took that griffon just for laughs, and your cannnon farted for 2 turns, I get to land a terror causing unit, break half of your army, flank charge whoever survived, and swing the game. Certain 'experimental' war machines should certainly have some consequences. But most 'realities' about war machines don't need to be incorporated into game rules. If you miss all game with a cannon, you can imagine it cracked its barrel on the first shot.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Killpoints I don't think are a great idea for Fantasy. For instance, in my Skaven army, I have an 840 point combination unit which is going to be very difficult to destroy, namely Grey Seer on a Bell, surrounded by 38 Stormvermin bearing the Battle Banner, with a Chieftain carrying the Standard Of Clan Superiority. Unbreakable, Ld 10 and even when Ranks are negated, brings between +5 and +7 combat resolution. All for 4 kill points. This unit will go through pretty much anything in the game like a hot knife through the proverbial. It will do naughty things, and it's cost reflects this. VP's far better reflect the effort of taking this monstrosity down!

This is the kind of thing that I, as an outsider, can't comment on. The game designers might have a plan for your big death star, but I don't


I apologize for taking this news thread an kinda turning it into a discussion thread. I just meant to hit on that first rumor you guys mentioned about scoring core, and it turned into a kind of manifesto. Anything else rumorish, confirmed or confirmed on 8th? Specifically details on how GW plans to buff the 8 lores of magic against the book specific lores?

Deathstar units all have the same achilles heel. In order to become Deathstars, I'm taking power from the rest of my line up.

Filthy as they are, they are the natural prey of most Artillery, which can ruin my day pretty quickly! Indeed, my Bell Pushers live in squeaky, mortal fear of meeting an Empire player who has discovered the joys of the Helstorm Rocket Battery. Or indeed a rival Skaven Engineer who saw fit to (quite rightly) select a Deathrocker (4D6" range, explodes at the end with a Large Template, S5. OUCH!).

But hey, this is a discussion thead. Started out as rumours, and has grown into somewhere to discuss hoped for changes etc.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:I think the biggest problem is the Dispel Scroll. I don't like the 'auto-stop' it represents. Why not change them to be akin to Power Stones, and instead grant bonus Dispel Dice?

Killpoints I don't think are a great idea for Fantasy. For instance, in my Skaven army, I have an 840 point combination unit which is going to be very difficult to destroy, namely Grey Seer on a Bell, surrounded by 38 Stormvermin bearing the Battle Banner, with a Chieftain carrying the Standard Of Clan Superiority. Unbreakable, Ld 10 and even when Ranks are negated, brings between +5 and +7 combat resolution. All for 4 kill points. This unit will go through pretty much anything in the game like a hot knife through the proverbial. It will do naughty things, and it's cost reflects this. VP's far better reflect the effort of taking this monstrosity down!

I'm pretty sure GW had considered the Dispel Scroll as a DD generator/modifier, and rejected it in favor of the auto-stop. If GW moved in this direction, I think it would only further ratchet games towards Magichammer.

In your example, with my modified KPs above, that would be:
12KP for 3 KP Lord x2 for PD x2 General
1 KP for Hero
2 KP for Stormvermin
= 15 KP

15 KP is a lot closer to it's actual value compared to the same points spent on units of Core Clanrats.

____

Shep wrote:The game designers might have a plan for your big death star, but I don't

Anything else rumorish, confirmed or confirmed on 8th?

One assumes the WFB designers are well aware of the issues with Death Stars, MagicHammer, Core, and blocks, and will do something about them.

GW hasn't released anything concrete, aside from confirming that 2010 will see 8th coming out. And we probably won't see it for another several months until we get within the 2-month marketing window.

JohnHwangDD wrote:
One assumes the WFB designers are well aware of the issues with Death Stars, MagicHammer, Core, and blocks,

Okay, maybe...

and will do something about them.

...but probably not the second part. Balance will be attempted, but if it's Alessio behind the (Doom)wheel, you're not going to see changes integrated well. It'll be patches on the status quo, not a major rework of any quality. Oh, and I'm usually not cavalier with accusations of favoritism by designers, but Alessio's demonstrated that he will favor the things he likes in his own lists (herohammer, cavalry, cheese) when he reworks the system. Stuff he doesn't like (realistic light infantry tactics, which got screwed by marchblocking skirmishers) he nerfs hammily and with poor consideration of balance. With no good interface, you end up with a system where authentic ancient tactics (blocks) are mutually exclusive from flavorful high-fantasy stuff (magical "artillery", heroes, and monsters, which skew things towards modern skirmish warfare). Ancient warfare just didn't have to deal with crazy force-multipliers like magical snipers or single troops that can take on whole units. Until someone figures out that conundrum (hopefully by making blocks stronger, not by hitting cool fantasy elements with Jervis's boring-stick, JohnHwangDD) the game will be awkward.

It would be nice to be pleasantly surprised. For now I (and probably many other defectors to 40K from WHFB) will hold off on returning to WHFB until a new system gets a thumbs-up review from the rest of you guys.

Careful with the Skirmishers thing. Before they could be marched blocked, they were a real pain when taken enmasse, as they danced around ranked blocks, and prevented my army from doing it's thing, and even when you did corner a unit of them, the points to effort payoff was miserably low.

I still don't see the big problem with Cavalry, as either I simply haven't run into it, or I've always been able to deal with it. Take your pic of the two, as I'm not about to blow my own trumpet.

PEople do complain about the power of Dragons and Lords. Well, when taken in combination in a 2,000 point game, that's typically over a quarter of my army in a single model very prone to botched attack rolls. You better believe it should be hard as nails.

But before commenting on my post, please do remember that I am not a Tournament Player, thus my experience is likely to be different from someone who regularly plays in them.

If Fantasy moves to Kill Points and Core only scoring, I won't be playing any more and GW will lose all the money I spend on mini's. *shrugs* I quit 40k when it went to that direction.

At least I would have money to spend on other things then.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Deathstar units all have the same achilles heel. In order to become Deathstars, I'm taking power from the rest of my line up.

Filthy as they are, they are the natural prey of most Artillery, which can ruin my day pretty quickly! Indeed, my Bell Pushers live in squeaky, mortal fear of meeting an Empire player who has discovered the joys of the Helstorm Rocket Battery. Or indeed a rival Skaven Engineer who saw fit to (quite rightly) select a Deathrocker (4D6" range, explodes at the end with a Large Template, S5. OUCH!).

But hey, this is a discussion thead. Started out as rumours, and has grown into somewhere to discuss hoped for changes etc.

Or a tzeench sorcerer gets lucky and the entire unit goes poof

Indeed. Or your Skaven opponent casts plague, and swiftly kills 2/3rds of your Stormvermin, as happened tonight

*runs off to sob quietly in the corner*

P.S. Plague Furnace is ROCKhard!

As long as they don´t touch my Tomb Kings Magic I´m cool with most changes. I started hating the rigidity of the hieratic order but now I love TKs being different.

M.

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Careful with the Skirmishers thing. Before they could be marched blocked, they were a real pain when taken enmasse, as they danced around ranked blocks, and prevented my army from doing it's thing, and even when you did corner a unit of them, the points to effort payoff was miserably low.

That's exactly the sort of annoyance skirmish infantry should cause though. Reference:

Battle of Lechaeum

wiki wrote:To stop this, the Spartan commander ordered some of his men to charge the Athenians, but the peltasts fell back, easily outrunning the hoplites, and then, when the Spartans turned to return to the regiment, the peltasts fell upon them, flinging spears at them as they fled, and inflicted casualties. This process was repeated several times, with similar results. Even when a group of Spartan cavalrymen arrived, the Spartan commander made the curious decision that they should keep pace with the hoplites in pursuit, instead of racing ahead to ride down the fleeing peltasts. Unable to drive off the peltasts, and suffering losses all the while, the Spartans were driven back to a hilltop overlooking Lechaeum.

Battle of Sphacteria

wiki wrote:The Spartans, under their commander Epitadas, attempted to come to grips with the Athenian hoplites and push their enemies back into the sea, but Demosthenes detailed his lightly armed troops, in companies of about 200 men, to occupy high points and harass the enemy with missile fire whenever they approached. When the Spartans rushed at their tormentors, the light troops, unencumbered by heavy hoplite armor, were easily able to run to safety; dust and ash from the recent fire, stirred up by the commotion, further contributed to the Spartans' predicament by obscuring their attackers from their sight. Unable to make any headway, the Spartans withdrew in some confusion to the northern end of the island, where they dug in behind their fortifications and hoped to hold out.

I agree with many of your other points though. The problem is balancing ancient-styled massed battles with high-fantasy force multipliers. Instead of using Roman/Greek warfare as a guideline, maybe we should be looking more carefully at Renaissance wars like the 30 Years War, which seemed to feature a mix of infantry, cavalry, firearms, and artillery and perhaps more closely models the wacky stuff in WHFB?

Without meaning to be rude, if you are after detailed and realistic unit interactions, WHFB isn't the right game for you.

WHFB is in deed about the wacky stuff. Had a whale of a time today unleashing two Hellpit Abominations in the really big game. Horrendous amounts of damage done with one of them (chewed up and spat out 10 Phoenix Guard, 10 Swordmasters, 20 Highelf Spears, 10 High Elf Archers, plus a unit of Stunties). It's a Fantasy game, and is indeed about the Fantastical.

As I said, Skirmishers become a pain in the arse when taken enmasse, ala Wood Elves and previous book Lizardmen, as they can dish out outrageous amounts of damage for relatively little risk. One or two small units is fine and dandy!

Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:Without meaning to be rude, if you are after detailed and realistic unit interactions, WHFB isn't the right game for you.

Detailed unit interactions? What does that even mean, and how did you conclude that it is what I'm after? I'm decently content with the current state of the WHFB core rules...

I was meaning about how Skirmishers work.