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Paul Sawyer doesn't worl for GW at all anymore, he's one of the founders of Warlord Games.

I'm upset at the rules and not a competitive player. I can work my army around pretty much any rule change, probably (I have 100 NG's, 50 Orcs with the same weapon, 50 BOrcs, 30 Spider Riders, 10 Wolf Riders, 8 Trolls, 4 Boar Bosses, gak knows how many infantry Bosses, 3 Shamans on foot, another mounted, and so on).

However, that doesn't mean I am tolerable of the changes any less. For instance, Terrain. This means a huge modification to how Terrain functions in the current game. For starters, it's no longer going to be a movement sucker for non-skirmishers. This removes some unit and banner special rules, or negates how much a bonus they really give. More often than not, the units that can go through the terrain sans penalty were either avoiding it (fliers going over), or weren't cheesy units anyways. To go on with it, D6+whatever pieces of terrain would imply a drastic change to LoS rules too. This in turn leads to chain reactions, such as mucking up Scout - will Scout become Infiltrate for WHFB, or - worse - outflank?

Rumors that, while at first seem to be "who cares", imply changes on a much larger scale. The increase of terrain pieces for instance brings questioning to LoS, Movement, Scouting, and so on.

One possible solution is they might implement the "loose formation" thing or whatever from the Lustria book. I doubt it, but it's possible. Now, if they did that it wouldn't modify LoS or Movement much. However, in this case Scouting - assuming no rule changes - just became much harder to counter. Scouts have been given a better playing field in this scenario.

Warhammer has needed a vastly superior terrain system for over a decade.. Whatever they do it has to be better than "line up in the middle, put terrain on the sides.. oh i get a hill"

since ihave gotten back into warhammer i am working on a few scenarios since the game really seems to be lacking those. Plan to post them once i get them a little more, complete.

Kirasu wrote:Warhammer has needed a vastly superior terrain system for over a decade.. Whatever they do it has to be better than "line up in the middle, put terrain on the sides.. oh i get a hill"

Yeah every game looks the same so if they make us take more terrain, but going into a forest doesn't remove you from the game since you're now trucking at 2" a turn it would be great.

Kirasu wrote:Warhammer has needed a vastly superior terrain system for over a decade.. Whatever they do it has to be better than "line up in the middle, put terrain on the sides.. oh i get a hill"

Or you could, I 'unno, set it up to deny a horde army from overrunning your flanks five seconds in?

Terrain isn't just a "set to side", at least in my shop. 'Course, some of the players might be dicks (Forest right in someone's deployment zone, for instance, when they're a horde all-regiment army), but for the most part terrain is used for more than making a table look pretty.

Furthermore, changing it from D3+2 to D6+4 is an easy +0 (assuming you rolled a 5 / 6 for the D3 and a 1 for the D6) to +7 more pieces of terrain. On average, 3.5 extra pieces of terrain are on the board. As stated, unless you are changing / implementing several new rules, this is going to make some hefty changes to the game. 5 pieces of terrain even if only 6" bubbles in diameter is pretty big in WHFB terms: 10 of them is just cruel.

Minsc wrote:Furthermore, changing it from D3+2 to D6+4
On average, 3.5 extra pieces of terrain are on the board.
5 pieces of terrain even if only 6" bubbles in diameter is pretty big in WHFB terms: 10 of them is just cruel.

Doubling from 5 to 10 pieces of Terrain means that players need to buy a total of 10 pieces of Terrain, at least 5 more pieces than what they currently own.

I suspect GW will have new Terrain kits available for purchase as part of the 8E release.

Is this a problem for competitions- I assume Tourneys supply terrain for the tables?

Making terrain is part of the fun for me- well, getting the bright idea to start yet another piece always seems like a good idea at the time- before it gets added to the "to do" pile

It is noticable that the old GW website had some good terrain building pages, but can't find them on the current site. Don't know why they were dropped.

If you look back at ancient and medieval battle most took place on a relatively flat field. Even the ones that did feature terrain prominently it wasn't really a complex setup. For example, Agincourt was on a field with forests on either side of the English lines (sound familiar?). Hastings was on a long hill slope, the battle of Stirling Bridge featured a river and a bridge (obviously), etc... I think these kind of battles are represented well by the current terrain rules. It's not like a 40k or modern game where both sides are trying to shoot at each other from cover.

Necros wrote:

Manfred von Drakken wrote:I don't think the problem is necessarily with the game - I think it's with the PLAYERS. I'm quite capable of playing a decent-sized game with blocks and a variety of troops - I do have an Empire army. But somewhere along the line the players took this uber-competitive mentality to win at all costs and stopped having fun. If you're not going to enjoy the game, why the hell are you playing?

QFT x27!

add me to this. I always imagined this game to be huge blocks of troops. Surely the easiest fix is just to bump up the core requirement and the troop size per unit. I also think every unit should have a standard and a champion - they shouldn't be options.

I liked how the previous 2 editions moved away from hero hammer where you would see an undead army with one block of skellies. This recent set of army books seems have made troops cheaper but heroes/ lords even more essential.

I think this game should be more like historicals but with a flavor of fantasy and magic - magic should be a fun element but an additional tactical use not a game winner if someone can be shut down in the magic phase.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kirasu wrote:Warhammer has needed a vastly superior terrain system for over a decade.. Whatever they do it has to be better than "line up in the middle, put terrain on the sides.. oh and btw i NEED a hill for my {insert range weapon}"

Changed it for you to make you imaginary conversation more realistic.

Updated the first post. Changes in green.

The absence of "chargers strike first" would be a massive change. Perhaps a shift towards a model similar to assault in which chargers gain additional attacks? That could explain the rumors of impact hits for chargers.

I've got high initiative models, so I'd love that one...

Still concerned about needing banner to capture objectives! I hope it's not so!

The percentages are what's intruiging me... I know I need to get a little bit more core, but the possibility of only 15% rare is interesting... although I'm somewhat doubting that as that is really rare! I do hope special is up to 50%... we need some flexibility...!

If there's still uncertainty about the begginer box, high elves and skaven were missing from the WW gallery today

The idea of combat going strictly in Initiative order sounds bad. Some units have little hope of ever doing much in combat unless they get the charge, and this is only going to make things worse.

Amusingly, the armies that get hosed the most by this are Orcs and Dwarfs, both of whom already tend to do badly.

You forget beastmen, who almost NEED the charge to survive, with no armour, they drop like flies to a strong breeze, T4 or no.

Initiative based first strike only makes sense if both armies are haring towards each other.

Which is fine in real time but turn based gaming am not so sure about.

If the premise of charging in WHFB is that one army attacks and the other defends, it is entirely counter-intuitive that defending troops bracing themselves for the impact of the onslaught should strike first.

If charges become initiative only and that actually is confirmed, my Orcs are done. I mean, done. Disregard "oh you're just whining" talk: They're I2, W1, T4, 6+ save models. For several armies, people's rank and fodder are striking faster than my Lords. The same goes for Beastmen and Ogres (the later of which would be better off than the former two, but is still in trouble).

This is very bad for those armed with Great Weapons too, as now they're always going last and - usually being sans the +2 they could get with HW&S - are going to be stuck with an inferior save as well as needing to hope they aren't gibbed on the charge before they can strike.

There is a way I could work my O&G army around this issue (Gunline, as I pointed out in the WHFB subforum), but purchasing over $150 of War Machines for Orcs and Goblins so that they can survive due to their shooting is wrong on several levels. It's worse for Beastmen, who can't even use the gunline trick to make up for this problem (what are they going to do, Ungors with bows and two Stone Throwing Giants?).

its certainly going to be interesting, thats for sure
depending on what happens, this might be the fix we need, or a massive hosing that calls for a total work around/revamp for the armies.

while % will certainly cut into the herohammer aspects, what about the older tomb kings? and high elves who are designed to play as an elite force?

its going to have to just sit and wait till the book comes out, see what happens adapt and move on

I think by now youd know who cares about tomb kings.. answer is "not GW".. I mean theyre already horrible now, i cant see them getting much worse! Thats a bright side

Until we see the full book its hard to say which army will be hurt

I fear for my Children of Chaos, Dice Gods(who run GW, if you didn't realize) as they seem to settle all decisions on a D6 of 4+.

Dwarves almost always struck last anyway. The overall changes are only going to help them. Making it harder to change armor will be huge since the basic dwarf is normally 3+. Add in that 2 ranks are fighting and Iron Breakers just got absolutely sick! Longbeards too. In fact to me it's looking like the rule changes might actually make dwarves playable

If the rumors about ASF not helping if you have great weapons, High Elves are really done now.

On the contrary, the rules for ASF are changing as well.

I don't know what yet, but I doubt they'd nerf half the HE army without a very good reason.

What's awesome is that a lot of these rumors help make demons even more great. Do you really want to charge into a unit of Deamonettes (the worst of the four core demon units) when they are going to be striking before the majority of the stuff in the game at I5 then hitting on 3+ with WS5 and 2 attacks in two ranks of models? It doesn't matter if they are S3 that's still pretty crazy.

It seems to me unless something comes out that we don't know yet (which I admit is likely) if you don't have either a high initiative or high armor save you have no business in combat.

Ok, regarding the green updates, specifically models with Great Weapons always strike last regardless of ASF, haven't Swordmasters suddenly become a bit rubbish?

Given that High Elves are highly rumored to be part of the starter kit, seems like they'd be pretty ahead in line for an 8th ed army book. If that is the case, pretty good chance at Swordmasters being altered.

Do you really want to charge into a unit of Deamonettes (the worst of the four core demon units) when they are going to be striking before the majority of the stuff in the game at I5 then hitting on 3+ with WS5 and 2 attacks in two ranks of models?

From the players around here, any of them who bothered to bring Daemonettes also had a Herald with them to grant ASF. Nothing new there, except the two ranks thing. It would certainly make Witch Elves much scarier, though!

Flashman wrote:Ok, regarding the green updates, specifically models with Great Weapons always strike last regardless of ASF, haven't Swordmasters suddenly become a bit rubbish?

Apparently ASF is being reworked. And HE will be getting some kind of rule bonus to make it worth their while.

I don't believe a lot of these rumors despite how reliable other people claim. A unit or a figure that is considered broken is usually due to their low point cost. Having a percentage cap simply aggravate the problem rather than mixing it. This is supposed to be a massive battle not a skirmish. Having too many terrains is ridiculous. This is same with having random distance made in having a charge. These changes simple carry on the existing problems rather than mixing it. There are many game companies and GW is one of the very few if there are anyone who can go ahead to make all these major changes without consulting with the players. A smart consumer should sell their existing armies and play something else. The cost of upgrade to become tournament legal is enough to get you another nice game system. I have been tell any newbie to have interested in WHFB to stay away from it. It is simply not worth it.

wildger wrote:I don't believe a lot of these rumors despite how reliable other people claim. A unit or a figure that is considered broken is usually due to their low point cost. Having a percentage cap simply aggravate the problem rather than mixing it. This is supposed to be a massive battle not a skirmish. Having too many terrains is ridiculous. This is same with having random distance made in having a charge. These changes simple carry on the existing problems rather than mixing it. There are many game companies and GW is one of the very few if there are anyone who can go ahead to make all these major changes without consulting with the players. A smart consumer should sell their existing armies and play something else. The cost of upgrade to become tournament legal is enough to get you another nice game system. I have been tell any newbie to have interested in WHFB to stay away from it. It is simply not worth it.

I'm not sure what part of your post I love best. Is it:

- Where you claim the rumors are unreliable?
- Where you warn potential players off from the game and tell people to get out of it because the (unreliable) rumors suggest changes you don't agree with?

Or is it the really terrible English?

These are rumors. Wait until July before doom and gloom time. If GW was promising a 50% price increase, I could understand. There is historical evidence to support a "sky is falling" mentality. But - somehow - after 8 editions, I doubt WHFB is going to implode as a game.