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 Peasant wrote:

 D6Damager wrote:
The only thing making 8th edition "bad" is the cost of entry for new players. Sure, WoC and Ogres can get in with less expensive armies at a comparable cost to 40K, but good luck if you are interested in Skaven, Orcs & Goblins, or Vampire Counts etc.

I really think the price to build an army is what is keeping new blood from taking the plunge and causing veterans to pass when their armies get redone or there is a new rule edition and they need to readjust and buy more variety.
The new Dark Elves drive this point home with the new Witch Elves box at $60 for 10 core troops. $180-$240 just to get 1 playable unit that is maybe 1/6th of your total army points is really pushing the wallet hard despite the fact they are fantastic models.

When you can start for less than $100-$150 armies in Warmachine, Hordes, Infinity, Dystopian Wars etc. Its not hard to see why younger gamers and college students are not playing this game like back in the day.

Fewer new people is what hits the hobby hardest.

I always disagree with this. the idea that the start up cost is too high.
Just play lower points to start with.
Most bttallion boxes will get you about 500pts. there are many ways to start at that same $150 price range
You as the player set the rules and how you play. Find someone interested and start small, the plastic crack will do the rest.
there is a thread around here that shows average cost for most armies and 2000pts runs about $300-$400US. You just have to invest if you want the fanciest of toys, but that applies to everything.
The other games...well no accounting for taste, but they aren't that much cheaper if at all.

Or Ebay. That usually works.

Or play with historical miniatures, only really works with Brets, Empire, (tall) Dwarfs really ... but very much worth it
Other than that, Ebay/friends' old armies indeed

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, historically speaking, the role of cavalry is often oversold. In reality, cavalry have traditionally only ever been good against other cavalry, and have been good at running down broken units and turning disorganized retreats into annihilating routs.

It's the speed of the cavalry (being able to apply just that little bit more pressure at the exact right spot - highly mobile way to achieve local force superiority), rather than the hard-hitting nature of cavalry that made them worth anything on the battlefield.

I mean, I think a unit of cavalry only ever broke a musket square like once in the entire Napoleonic war, and I bet you could count on one hand the number of times that cavalry managed to break open a well-formed tercio.

Not that that has anything to do with a fantasy game per se, but thought I'd chip that in. Cavalry are "supposed" to be much more like empire outriders than bretonnian knights, at least, as far as their battlefield role has traditionally been.

Not so. Just for an example - the Polish Hussars (or Winged Lancers) were most definitely used as line breakers. From Wikipedia:

With the Battle of Lubiszew in 1577 the 'Golden Age' of the husaria began. Between then and the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the hussars fought many actions against several enemies, most of which they won.
In the battles of Lubiszew in 1577, Byczyna (1588), Kokenhausen (1601), Kircholm (1605), Kłuszyn (1610), Chocim (1621), Martynów (1624), Trzciana (1629), Ochmatów (1644), Beresteczko (1651), Połonka (1660), Cudnów (1660), Chocim (1673), and Lwów (1675), Vienna (1683), Párkány (1683) the Polish-Lithuanian hussars proved to be the decisive factor often against overwhelming odds. For instance, in the Battle of Kluszyn during the Polish-Muscovite War the Russians outnumbered the Commonwealth army 5 to 1, yet were heavily defeated. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising (Battle of Zhovti Vody, 1648), the Polish army of 1500 and containing less than 200 hussars defended against 11000 man strong army of Khmelnytsky due to heroic defence work of the hussars.

Of course, with the invention and refinement of firearms the battlefield role of cavalry changed to more of a scouting role- as you say more like that of Empire Outriders - but Cavalry have definitely been used with great success as shock troops.
The Warhammer world is a little schizophrenic with regard to technology, with firearms, bows, trebuchets, bows and savage orcs hitting things with pointy rocks tied to sticks so it'd be hard to give cavalry a single definitive role in the game.
I think an elegant rule would be to make troops lose steadfast if they're charged in the flank/rear while already engaged with the foe- the sudden appearance of another foe could rattle anyone- no matter if they are numerically superior. This would play well to cavalry's maneuverability and still make a head on charge a bad idea.

You've also got your account of Hastings a bit mixed up, at least as far as I've read. Harold's shield wall was pretty much proof against archery. It was when the Normans adopted the tactics of feigning flight, which is to say pretending to runaway to draw the Saxons out of their shield wall, that they started having any real effect - the death of Harold being the turning point in the battle.


Az

Aben Zin wrote:

 Ailaros wrote:
Yeah, historically speaking, the role of cavalry is often oversold. In reality, cavalry have traditionally only ever been good against other cavalry, and have been good at running down broken units and turning disorganized retreats into annihilating routs.

It's the speed of the cavalry (being able to apply just that little bit more pressure at the exact right spot - highly mobile way to achieve local force superiority), rather than the hard-hitting nature of cavalry that made them worth anything on the battlefield.

I mean, I think a unit of cavalry only ever broke a musket square like once in the entire Napoleonic war, and I bet you could count on one hand the number of times that cavalry managed to break open a well-formed tercio.

Not that that has anything to do with a fantasy game per se, but thought I'd chip that in. Cavalry are "supposed" to be much more like empire outriders than bretonnian knights, at least, as far as their battlefield role has traditionally been.

Not so. Just for an example - the Polish Hussars (or Winged Lancers) were most definitely used as line breakers. From Wikipedia:

With the Battle of Lubiszew in 1577 the 'Golden Age' of the husaria began. Between then and the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the hussars fought many actions against several enemies, most of which they won.
In the battles of Lubiszew in 1577, Byczyna (1588), Kokenhausen (1601), Kircholm (1605), Kłuszyn (1610), Chocim (1621), Martynów (1624), Trzciana (1629), Ochmatów (1644), Beresteczko (1651), Połonka (1660), Cudnów (1660), Chocim (1673), and Lwów (1675), Vienna (1683), Párkány (1683) the Polish-Lithuanian hussars proved to be the decisive factor often against overwhelming odds. For instance, in the Battle of Kluszyn during the Polish-Muscovite War the Russians outnumbered the Commonwealth army 5 to 1, yet were heavily defeated. During the Khmelnytsky Uprising (Battle of Zhovti Vody, 1648), the Polish army of 1500 and containing less than 200 hussars defended against 11000 man strong army of Khmelnytsky due to heroic defence work of the hussars.

Of course, with the invention and refinement of firearms the battlefield role of cavalry changed to more of a scouting role- as you say more like that of Empire Outriders - but Cavalry have definitely been used with great success as shock troops.
The Warhammer world is a little schizophrenic with regard to technology, with firearms, bows, trebuchets, bows and savage orcs hitting things with pointy rocks tied to sticks so it'd be hard to give cavalry a single definitive role in the game.
I think an elegant rule would be to make troops lose steadfast if they're charged in the flank/rear while already engaged with the foe- the sudden appearance of another foe could rattle anyone- no matter if they are numerically superior. This would play well to cavalry's maneuverability and still make a head on charge a bad idea.

You've also got your account of Hastings a bit mixed up, at least as far as I've read. Harold's shield wall was pretty much proof against archery. It was when the Normans adopted the tactics of feigning flight, which is to say pretending to runaway to draw the Saxons out of their shield wall, that they started having any real effect - the death of Harold being the turning point in the battle.


Az

I knew I had it right...wasn't entirely sure though. It's been a while since I dabbled in medieval tactics.

I like the flanking idea. That sort of hammer and anvil tactic plays to cavalry's strength quite nicely.

Overall I really like 8th.


The few things about it that make me sigh are:

Spell 6 power level is a bit over the top.

I think Steadfast has some issues.

Cavalry really need a shot in the arm.

Army books going from many magic items, to 10-12 or so.


Other than that, great edition, lots of fun.

Yeah, be careful of what you read on wikipedia.

For example, the battle of Pitchen (Byczyna) was decided because infantry outflanked the austrians, and the multilingual nature of the austrian army caused chaos and the collapse of command. All the hussars did was (surprise surprise) launch pointless headlong charges against the infantry, and it wasn't until they decided to fight the other cavalry that they actually did anything. Then, once the enemy was retreating, the cavalry turned the retreat into a rout.

Not being good against mass infantry, but being useful against cavalry and turning retreats into routs being the exact thesis described above. Doing a quick skim of those other battles, none of them were decided by a giant pile of cavalry charging headlong into well-formed ranks of infantry*.

Because it just didn't work that way. Nor should it work that way in fantasy, for both game balance and realism reasons, I mean, if infantry were mowed down by cannons and wizards and massed stone throwers, and they couldn't even tarpit fast units, then there really wouldn't be any point to infantry in this game. Everything would beat them, and they would just die.

That situation exists in 40k, which is why most people spend the bare minimum on troops choices (unless they're one of the rare ones that's good in their own right), and that's in a game that's ostensibly about objectives.



* Even the battle of kircholm was caused by cavalry charging infantry on three flanks after they had already panicked, ironically, because friendly cavalry were charging through them in their haste to flee.