Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I wanted to get some opinions on the current state of WHFB. The following questions are just general, and you should feel free to fully elaborate and add in any other details that you want.

1) Is anything drastically overpowered or underpowered? This refers to individual units, entire armies, or specific strategies.

2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?

3) What don't you like about the current rules or metagame? What would you like to see functioning differently, and how?

4) Do you still really like the game and rules? Is there a previous edition of the game with aspects to its rules that you would prefer in some way? How would this affect balance, or how would the game be balanced around those rules changes/additions?

5) What armies do you see played a lot? What armies do you almost never see on the table?

6) What can be done to improve the game as a whole?

I wanted to get some opinions on the current state of WHFB. The following questions are just general, and you should feel free to fully elaborate and add in any other details that you want.

1) Is anything drastically overpowered or underpowered? This refers to individual units, entire armies, or specific strategies.

Yes there is. A lott of special characters are to overpriced. I think wood elves need a helping had or some new redesign for the current metagame.

In the TK book I would like to see the sucky units balanced more. Ushapti, Swarm, Scorpion, Horseman cost to mutch or are to bad. Also the TK special sword is very bad as its synergi is no longer posible with the new magic spells (in the old edition a lott of attacks on all in bace contact with one casting of the spell.) I would like to see tomb guard be cheaper then the better VK graveguards.

Ranged attacks are usualy very bad generaly in the game. Cannons are to good vs monsters.

All in all, for TK I think they are very good balanced, but some exstra plish would be nice.

2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?

The moast important aspect is synergi. This is good. Shooting is a bit bad, but that is OK as melee is mutch more interesting. Magic can be too god in the right armies.

3) What don't you like about the current rules or metagame? What would you like to see functioning differently, and how?

I do not like how dwarves are without option. They have no magic phace and they have little movement once the game starts. They have very few options once the game starts, witch I think is bad game design. I really like the game a whole lott, although I hate to meet the best list posible as this pushes the current metagame and theorycraft up up and up. GW games generally suffer under this as mutch of the other parts of the game gets pushed out of focus. Although this is mutch better in fantasy then in 40k.

4) Do you still really like the game and rules? Is there a previous edition of the game with aspects to its rules that you would prefer in some way? How would this affect balance, or how would the game be balanced around those rules changes/additions?

I like the current rules. I would like to see cannons nerfed to see more big monsters. Also, characters in big monsters is a bit of a waste so you rarly see them. I supose that is OK, but I miss the impresive models. Currently I feel fantasy is a lott about synergi between the units and movement etc. While this makes the learning curve steep it is healthy for the complexety of the game. A lott thanks to the steadfast rule.

5) What armies do you see played a lot? What armies do you almost never see on the table?

I do not feel I have mutch to contribute to this. I do not play all that often. But I thought I saw a lott of fluf inspiered armies. Personaly I play tomb kings, but I would also love to play vampier counts (not going to happen, no more skeleton painting for me) or possible ogres (fun and easy to convert into asian looking models.)

6) What can be done to improve the game as a whole?

Less focus on theorycrafting. Of course this would be helped by making more balanced armybooks. Both internaly and externaly balancing them. Although they are doing a pretty good job of it currently. I would supose if GW made it easier to recruit new players this would be healthy as you would not be up against the same good and competetive players all the time. It would also upon up for some fun new takes on the tacticks.

Also, if local arias aranged narative campains, this is very healthy for the game and it is one of the places where Warhammer really shines as a game.

1) Compared to 7th edition and 40k the game has good balanced overall. The "overpowered" books are all older books that havn't been toned down and due to the way their books were written can abuse the current rules system in some ways. So as more books get updated we will see the game get even more balanced.

But even with those advantages those books arn't autowin. Its still very much down to player skill.

2) the movement phase. This is where player skill comes in. Its very much like chess, but with more variables. Learn the movement phase, its what wins games.

3) Magic isn't the best it could. Many of the lores have a spell that can be an "I Win" button against certain armies. While they do have appropriate casting costs the ease of getting IF to autocast and the fact that there is nothing that can counter that it means that magic can be a little more powerful than it needs to be. Magic Resistance is also completely lame as it only works against spells that do damage and allow saves, which really only leaves spells that wouldn't do tons of damage anyway. This does screw older books that had MR costed for when it was actually pretty awsome.

4) I think the rules are awsome and the current metagame is quite balanced, certain outliers exist of course. Wood Elves in the new rules got shafted by the changes to terrain and skirmishing. Meaning previously awsome WE armies now can't fight their way out of a wet paper bag and the builds you can make with the book are still fairly weak. But this is the only army book with this problem, and they are due for an update.

5) I see a good mix of armies, I havn't played against Brettonia for several years. I think that is the only army I don't face with any sort of regularity.

6) Aside from magic being slightly toned down there isn't anything I would change besides the Terrain generator. The terrain generator is nice, but it can give you too many terrain pieces.

1) Is anything drastically overpowered or underpowered? This refers to individual units, entire armies, or specific strategies.
Special Chars are usually sucky. Very few are crazy good.

2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?
Phases are what you make them. If you take no wizards, magic is meh. If you have an entire gunline, shooting is huge.

3) What don't you like about the current rules or metagame? What would you like to see functioning differently, and how?
FAQ up more often. All the stuff that is clearly RAI should be FAQed.

4) Do you still really like the game and rules? Is there a previous edition of the game with aspects to its rules that you would prefer in some way? How would this affect balance, or how would the game be balanced around those rules changes/additions?
Updating armies.

5) What armies do you see played a lot? What armies do you almost never see on the table?
I see WoC a lot.

6) What can be done to improve the game as a whole?
I think it's pretty balanced for so many units.

DukeRustfield wrote:
Phases are what you make them. If you take no wizards, magic is meh. If you have an entire gunline, shooting is huge.

What I meant was... is there any specific phase of the game that you feel is very important the majority of the time, regardless of what army you play and the list you make? Meaning, is magic so powerful and important that taking no wizards is an almost auto-loss?

To answer my OP with my opinions... I think the magic phase is a little broken with the most powerful spells, especially considering how random the magic phase is. I'm OK with it being important, but I agree about IF, especially when applied to the best spells.

I would maybe like to see special characters be less powerful overall but MORE useful in a niche way. For instance, I'd like to see more special characters (maybe ALL special characters) be slightly weaker than a generic, self-built lord or hero, but change the composition of your army in subtle ways or add army-wide special rules, so that you can make themed lists a little easier and more often.

I'd also like to see older army books updated before army books that sell well, because even if not that many people play Brettonia (or whatever), the variety of WHFB is a large part of what attracts me to the game. Of course, this goes along with the FAQ thing, as well.

All-in-all, it seems fairly balanced to me.

 Tangent wrote:
What I meant was... is there any specific phase of the game that you feel is very important the majority of the time, regardless of what army you play and the list you make? Meaning, is magic so powerful and important that taking no wizards is an almost auto-loss?

To answer my OP with my opinions... I think the magic phase is a little broken with the most powerful spells, especially considering how random the magic phase is. I'm OK with it being important, but I agree about IF, especially when applied to the best spells.

The BRB lores definitely have broken spells, I don't think anyone is going to disagree.

However, if you look at the 8th edition army book lores, their 'big spells' are a lot tamer. Still good, but not, you know, Pit of Shades or Purple Sun. Which is good, because if 9th edition is more of a 'band aid' edition to the 8th edition rule set, it's a good direction to take the BRB lores.

The only time magic lores are broken is wheen a slaan kills a deathstar with creeper from bellow or purple sun get's cast through my own skeletons into my oponents with my last 2 powerdice and scroll of necrahem netting me some new powerdice long after my oponent is out of dispeldice and scrolls.

Magic is what you make it, and usualy it is to random. You often roll 7, but sometimes you roll nothing.

That's a good point about the army book's "big" spells - they're definitely not as crazy as the ones in the BRB.

And that's kinda what I mean about magic, Niiai. Basically, I don't think anything THAT random should be THAT good from a game design perspective. The game is probably better if it CAN'T be won with a single lucky roll (or two). I agree that things that are less likely should be more powerful, but only to a point, and I think the current magic lores from the BRB go beyond that point.

Tangent now you are moving onto obscure country of game design regarding luck vs non luck. If we are going to discus game design in depth we need to make another thread regarding that.

With that put aside I do not think that magic is the only thing random i fantasy battle. There is a LOTT that is random in warhammer fantasy battle, not just magic. You killed a unit of gnoblars with shooting and a big unit of ogres fail their leadership test and runn of? Though luck. The same for charge distance, wizard miscasts (now you lost your mage and your magic phase) leadership saves, over runn rolls, terain rolls etc. Warhammer Fantasy battle is so random it balances itself out. The sign of a good leader is to have a consistent plan or consistensy plans and knowing when a gamle is worth the risk.

True, you can pre-plan the magic phace like the old vampier book did where you cast an infenet amount of purple suns on raised zombies, but it will all blow up in the phace thanks to randomness.

 Tangent wrote:
I wanted to get some opinions on the current state of WHFB. The following questions are just general, and you should feel free to fully elaborate and add in any other details that you want.

1) Is anything drastically overpowered or underpowered? This refers to individual units, entire armies, or specific strategies.

Nothing in perfect, Teclis for example, but so far the 8th edition books look very well balanced to me. Some of the older books have overcosted and undercosted units but nothing game breaking that I have come across. At least in the last three tournies I have been to I haven't though 'oh here we go, so and so bout 4 units of X.

 Tangent wrote:
2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?

I find that shooting is probably the least important aspect, but then I don't play a shooty army. As it is I think each phase is equally important, Shooting a little less so since not every army needs it, but Movement, Magic and Melee are all necessary to win.

 Tangent wrote:
3) What don't you like about the current rules or metagame? What would you like to see functioning differently, and how?

I'd like to see dragons on the table. I got drawn to fantasy because monsters are cool but these days the only monsters you really see are hydras, because cannons are nasty.

 Tangent wrote:
4) Do you still really like the game and rules? Is there a previous edition of the game with aspects to its rules that you would prefer in some way? How would this affect balance, or how would the game be balanced around those rules changes/additions?

I LOVE the rules. I haven't played any previous editions of fantasy but the idea of set charge ranges, charges giving ASF and models being removed from the front makes 7th sound like to opponents would stand 1" out of charge range and wait. That sounds boring as hell.

 Tangent wrote:
5) What armies do you see played a lot? What armies do you almost never see on the table?

Played a lot: Ogres a little more than usual I guess, same with Warriors of chaos. Oh, and more than a couple of VCs.
Rarely played: Bretts and Wood elves. I do see them played but not as much.

 Tangent wrote:
6) What can be done to improve the game as a whole?

Update the older books in the same manner of the current 8th books. A lot of the older ones seem to be competitive but restrictive, Bretts and WEs need it but Dwarves, Warriors and the like could use it just so that there are more viable builds.

It is true that the shooting phase is probably the least important and powerful. Even an army that goes 100% shooting will find they don't do a ton of damage unless they have 3-5 warmachines.

Aside from cannons and stone throwers it simply isn't possable to do enough damage in the shooting phase to win the game.

Most shooting units are complete gak in melee, and the range on their weapons is short enough that they simply don't get enough chances to shoot before they get charged and slaughtered.

1. By and large, balance issues are down to older armybooks. Newer ones have by and large been balanced, except for Ogres who, frankly, GW dropped that ball on badly. An FAQ could bring them down in power level a bit but they'll likely rule the rpost until their next book. As a general rule though, monstrous cavalry is too cost-efficient and ballistic Skill shooting does less than it probably should, mainly due to armour running the metagame.

2. There are 2 most important things in gameplay I think. The first is list design (choosing the right army book and then the right list from that book), and then just not making any mistakes. You don't need to do anything spectacular, as long as your list and overall gameplay are without error you have the right tools to win.

3. A lot of armies that are meant to have low leadership really don't, mainly due to the Standard of Discipline and the Crown of Command. The former needs to be Faq'd to work in a sensible manner (doesn't add to general's LD) and the latter should just be removed outright from the game. There are various other parts of the rules that could do with cleaning up, such as the building rules and either a magic system that has less reward for extremely little skill investment or a miscast table that actually affects how many dice you want to roll. A 5 dice cap on magic would solve this to an extent I think.

4. Overall, I'm having more fun with the current rules than ever before but I do still get exasperated at losing games in the "purchase models" phase.

5. Ogres, Skaven and Lizards are played a lot (purely by coincidence, I'm sure, these are also the 3 strongest books in the game), Wood Elves not so much. You also don't see many people using Brets, which is in part down to people thinking they're a weak army which they really aren't.

6. Difficult to sum up in a short point, but I'd love to see an FAQ team that 1) made rulings that make sense and indicate they play the game, and 2) adapt to the changing game to maintain or create balance instead of a book being published and then left untouched until the next edition (for example, Mournfang are a proven problem in the game so an FAQ could move them to rare to adjust)

 Tangent wrote:


1) Is anything drastically overpowered or underpowered? This refers to individual units, entire armies, or specific strategies.

(Special)characters are often terribly balanced, either too costly or ridiculously, game-breaking overpowered like Teclis or stuff like 2 Slann.

2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?

Magic is the, by far, most overpowered aspect of the game. If you win the magic phase, you win the game. Some spells are game-breakingly overpowered and with a single lucky dice, you win the entire game in a single turn. If you want to win, stack magic. It lacks hard counters.

3) What don't you like about the current rules or metagame? What would you like to see functioning differently, and how?

The game has been dumbed-down a lot. Whereas in 7th, moving was a lot more important and vital to your success, a lot of it has been simplified. Magic is way too overpowered. A game should never be based on a single roll of dice.

4) Do you still really like the game and rules? Is there a previous edition of the game with aspects to its rules that you would prefer in some way? How would this affect balance, or how would the game be balanced around those rules changes/additions?

No. 8th killed WHFB for me and a huge part of the community. It's become a lot less played in the last few months / years and lost much of its appeal. Typical games in the local meta tend to be around 1.5k points because else, we'd not get enough people to play. Try playing with 7th rules , it's a better game.

5) What armies do you see played a lot? What armies do you almost never see on the table?

Lizardmen, Vampires, Dark Elves, WoC and DoC are spammed. Bretonnia and WE e.g. are never played because they are very outdated and their rules are inferior to other popular choices. GW decided to stop supporting unplayed armies and now releases new rules for the popular ones while ignoring older, underplayed factions.

6) What can be done to improve the game as a whole?

9th. There's no other way.

On another regard though: the actual 8th army books are pretty balanced and well-written.

As a general rule, you'll see multiple positive posts about 8th edition for every diehard 7th fan who hated the change. Overall, this should speak for itself with regards to the 2 editions.

I disagree that magic is over powered. It's to random and unreliable to be over powered. At my club there is four of us who play fantasy. When I play the lizard player he usually dominates the magic phase with the slann until he miscasts. But I usually win the game cos I smash him in melee

I agree, while it can win you the game, it can also do nothing. Remember that the average number of power dice is 7, you can only throw 6 dice at a spell, and you are less likely to get IF than not. Plus you will usually have one chance to get that game winning spell off, and if it fails the enemy is now safe in melee(where they will kill your wizard before he can cast again)

1) Is anything drastically overpowered or underpowered? This refers to individual units, entire armies, or specific strategies.

I am concerned about magic - I liked 8th ed alot when first came out but having played in adn watched a number of games where single casts of spells won the entire game put me off.
There seem to be alot of units that seem to be fun and luffy reads but which are poor or do nothing.

2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?
Magic seems to win or loose many games at our club.

3) What don't you like about the current rules or metagame? What would you like to see functioning differently, and how?
I don't like unit movements - much prefer 40k free movement but thats not going to change............
I really hate that there is a difference between spells that "remain in play" and hence can be dispelled and those that just stay in effect but you can do nothing about - fething stupid, especially since these are oftten the spells that cause the most problems.

4) Do you still really like the game and rules? Is there a previous edition of the game with aspects to its rules that you would prefer in some way? How would this affect balance, or how would the game be balanced around those rules changes/additions?
I liked it less and less as some of the above become obvious as did that often a single fight in the game would determine the games outcome. I do think its one of the better ediitons as it brought in pre-measuring, better movement and charge rules, better combat where more people fight and taking out the front rank does not mean no strike back. However I have now gone back to 40K and enjoy that alot more,especially since often even the smallest unit can still have an effect oin the game and are not there just to help in deployment,

5) What armies do you see played a lot? What armies do you almost never see on the table?
Quite a variety at our club, although the "latest" army seems to prodominate with the more serious competative players.
Our Dwarf player is pretty sick of the game now due to lack of options, have seen many "one spell wins the games".

6) What can be done to improve the game as a whole?
Always going to be subjective

Reduce power of magic would for me help as well as a proper review of all the armies - making all spells that either remain in play or effect be dispellable would be a step forward.
A shiny full colur "All Armies" udpate book .would be nice.
For me make the movement rules same as 40k but thats not going to happen!

1) Is anything drastically overpowered or underpowered? This refers to individual units, entire armies, or specific strategies.
Wood Elves and Beastmen tend to run around at the lower spectrum of the game. Skirmishers and monsters aren't as scary as they used to be.

2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?
I'd say. Movement > Magic > Melee > Shooting. But for some armies it can be a bit different, Empire Gunlines for example.

3) What don't you like about the current rules or metagame? What would you like to see functioning differently, and how?
I would like to see skirmishers negating ranks again, and monsterstoo.

4) Do you still really like the game and rules? Is there a previous edition of the game with aspects to its rules that you would prefer in some way? How would this affect balance, or how would the game be balanced around those rules changes/additions?
I've only played 7th and 8th edition. I'd say 8 beats 7 on most accounts.

5) What armies do you see played a lot? What armies do you almost never see on the table?
Chaos, Empire and Bretonnia strangely enough. We have 4 Bret players at our FLGS. Don't see many Wood Elves or Beastmen.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Tangent wrote:
What I meant was... is there any specific phase of the game that you feel is very important the majority of the time, regardless of what army you play and the list you make? Meaning, is magic so powerful and important that taking no wizards is an almost auto-loss?

To answer my OP with my opinions... I think the magic phase is a little broken with the most powerful spells, especially considering how random the magic phase is. I'm OK with it being important, but I agree about IF, especially when applied to the best spells.

The BRB lores definitely have broken spells, I don't think anyone is going to disagree.

However, if you look at the 8th edition army book lores, their 'big spells' are a lot tamer. Still good, but not, you know, Pit of Shades or Purple Sun. Which is good, because if 9th edition is more of a 'band aid' edition to the 8th edition rule set, it's a good direction to take the BRB lores.

Yeah some lores are dumb but so are some characters *erm* teclis *erm*.

I can understand the rulebook has some pretty dumb spells. I had one opponent in a game that was in a 'river of light'. Now that might not sound like a big deal but he was lizardmen so his guys were WS 10 and initiative 10. Those are two of the bigger weaknesses in the lizardmen army suddenly becoming the absolutely bestest stats they could ever be. The sad thing was this 'river of light' cast these spells each turn and he rolled a die to see what he got often augmenting his units as that's how those spells normally work. The other horrible thing is that these spells were automatically cast and couldn't be dispelled and lasted till the player's next magic phase. Me not knowing how good this 'river of light' can be and just wanting to fight ended up engaging him with his units wholly in the river. Let's just say i had no idea the weak version of a spell could be so strong. I honestly think 'rivers of light' are pretty stupid now. If you engage somebody outside of the river with shooting or magic then you'll be fine since all the spells they want are augment spells but at the time i didn't realize this. Guess it was dumb of me.

One of the only rules in 8th that i mind is 'steadfast'. It's a good rule but it needs work. I already made a post how i feel flanking should do more damage vs large units which would normally be steadfast in 8th. Movement is a big deal in some ways and flanking should be a big deal but steadfast to an extent ruins this aspect of the game. I say if you can't negate steadfast with flanking then at least do what other posters on this forum said about throwing out negative break tests modifiers that steadfast can't fix or my other suggestion of just making it harder to reform from being flanked so that a flanked unit can't just throw it's front rank at somebody that flanked them in an instant (this represents the confusion of being flanked and hacked apart while reforming against this flank).

@Niiai: That's why you don't throw all your eggs in one basket as the saying goes. It's usually good to have a plan B or at least something to lie back on should something not go well or as planned. If you rely on everything to go your way you will lose or at least most of the time. I find my luck above average if there is such a thing but part of this is what i take and how i plan it i'd think. I believe you are right when you say it balances itself out but i find that in small games luck can be significant. In a large game of 5-6 turns luck usually gets thrown around to a little of everybody's favor though.

The leadership tests can usually be fixed by a general and a BSB. Also depending on how your guys are positions or where you don't have to do with panic checks from units that flee or break. As long as a unit is more than 6" away from one that breaks in melee or otherwise and it's not in the path of said unit than they can watch as their allies run away and be a LD 5 unit for all they care.

Charging rolls are pretty random at times and that does annoy me sometimes.

Wizard miscasts do a lot but i feel it's needed considering the damage of some spells. At least there's a level of risk involved.

Terrain rolls are annoying sometimes and at times i try to avoid forests but i realize they are fantastic for skirmishers (stubborn and added cover to a unit already hard to shoot at). For the most part terrain isn't a big deal to me.

welshhoppo wrote:


2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?
I'd say. Movement > Magic > Melee > Shooting. But for some armies it can be a bit different, Empire Gunlines for example.

As an empire player I'll tell you the gunline doesn't work. BS based shooting sucks. Closest you can do is warmachine spam.

 Tangent wrote:
I wanted to get some opinions on the current state of WHFB. The following questions are just general, and you should feel free to fully elaborate and add in any other details that you want.

1) Is anything drastically overpowered or underpowered? This refers to individual units, entire armies, or specific strategies.

Overpowered:
Magic. The magic in 8th ed was a step in the right direction. The BRB Lores are nearly all useful, and few only situationally so. There are buffs, debuffs, nukes, snipes, and other spells that lead to variety and flexibility. The problem comes in that, when combined with other factors in the edition, some lores and spells will instantly remove entire units from existance. MR is a joke, as the number of spells that do damage are actually less cast than spells that force a test on a stat, and thus serves no purpose as opposed to when it gave you free DD against spells involving the unit/model with MR.

Steadfast: If you have more numbers of troops than your enemy, rerollable max LD until the end of time means that you can stay toe to toe until more potent flankers, characters, or spells kick in. With no reliable way to negate it (other than having more numbers yourself) and the fact that for many units, trying to flank the horde merely adds to the number of casualties you suffer thanks to step up Steadfast with some armies becomes a far greater benefit as it should be. Like Magic, however, I think the solution to steadfast would be simple if ranks could be cumulative. IE Your unit is 7 ranks deep, I have a unit 4 ranks deep engage you to the front and flank you with a unit four ranks deep, your SF is broken. There could be other solutions, but like many of the problems with 8th, many of the changes compound each other. Any 3 of the changes to the game from 7th to 8th would have been great, but all of them caused a problem.

Underpowered: The movement phase. In 6th and 7th, the movement phase was vital for leading certain units out of formation, slowing down elements of the enemy's force, and positioning for the charge. With march blocking only happening on a failed LD test and BSBs allowing rerolls on all LD tests, marchblocking just doesn't work anymore. Since charges are now variable in length, you MIGHT get a longer charge than before, or you MIGHT get less. With the randomness comes unreliability. With unreliability comes the inability to plan around it on the offense OR defense.

"But, isn't the magic phase just as unreliable?" you might ask. Yes. Yes it is. But march blocking and flanking did not immediately and with no protection destroy entire units (unless Fear was involved, but that was another kettle of fish all together) Magic is more potent. The risk is great, yes, but the reward is even greater. The risk in flanking and marchblocking units was the cost in taking finesse over direct power, which unfortunately, for some armies, was how they won.

Case in point: Wood Elves. Wood elves have gained alot in the MI rules for Treekin and Stomp, but their MI and monsters remain severely overcosted for their utility, and an even more important core mechanic was neutered entirely. For one, WE were better in woods than other armies because they could see through them where other armies could not. Forests used to block LOS. For two, WE relied on manuverability and flanking to piecemeal their enemy to death, striking only where it was most advantageous. This was a very rewarding way to play, but it took time, usually an entire game to accomplish. This - along with tourney structures rewarding blow out victories much more than a simple win - meant that WE were never major contenders at tournament, despite a very reliable play style for those who knew how to use them properly. Now with armor saves and large blocks of infantry with high numbers of attacks carrying the day (none of which WE have readily available) means that WE are at the bottom of the barrel when it comes to playability despite a lovely model range and cool fluff.

Also underpowered: Fear/Terror. Oh yes. It needed a hit. BELIEVE me, it needed a hit. But did it need that? Hmm... I don't think so.

2) What is the most valuable aspect of the gameplay? Meaning, do you think that any phase of a game is vastly more important (or less important) than others? Is magic, for instance, more important than anything else?

Magic is most important, followed by the close combat phase, then shooting phase. Movement matters almost not at all. So long as you know which units to hit with which spells when, magic is easy, plentiful, and rewarding. If you play an army with a high volume of attacks per frontage (WoC, Orcs, Ogres) the close combat phase will be your friend. Step up means that Initiative barely matters anymore, except to avoid the Purple Sun. Shooting is a means to try and soften units before they hit you. If you have warmachines, they try to kill monsters or soften up big blocks.

3) What don't you like about the current rules or metagame? What would you like to see functioning differently, and how?

Magic I think could be left alone if other aspects were restored to their previous prominance. It's not that big of a deal to lose an entire unit if there are more where that came from, but if your army is T3 with a 6+ and I5 then you will lose to those S5 A3 guys who are half your points, or the ones who are T4 with 3 wounds/3+ armor. Many armies don't care if they get the charge off or not. They just win when you hit them. It used to be that way with VC in 7th. Skeletons beat everyone else because without fighting in ranks, it was very hard to beat their Static Combat Res, if you failed to do that and they out number you, you lose. End of story. However, simply flanking the skellies denied them their static CR and added to your own. You win. In the 8th ed meta, there are many units who don't utilize static CR to win. They use active CR. And when those units are hard to kill, have high numbers of attacks, and use step up, manuver does not matter. There is no strategy there, just "throw more dice at it." The ones who can, win. The ones who can not, lose. The pendulum has swung the other direction, to be sure. I just wanted it to stop in the middle so that BOTH strategies were viable.

4) Do you still really like the game and rules? Is there a previous edition of the game with aspects to its rules that you would prefer in some way? How would this affect balance, or how would the game be balanced around those rules changes/additions?

I would be interested to see 8th ed army books in the 7th ed rules set. I seem to be a minority in this community who found less wrong with 7th ed than the army books that broke it. VC broke Fear and Magic, demons broke Terror, Magic and the save system (as well as the costing guidlines >.< ) and DE broke Magic. They TRIED to break monsters, but GW apparently thought that it wasn't hydras that were the problem so much as the fact that no one else brought hydras of their own.

I really liked 6th ed. Panic checks when you got hit in the flank? Yes please!

I miss Fear. I don't miss winning because of it, per se, but because it was the only edge I had in combat. If my opponant could beat me in the magic phase, I was in serious trouble. In all honesty the magic change from 8th added to the 7th ed rule set may have been enough to reign VC back in (I doubt it would have done anything to demons :sigh: ) Perhaps adding something to steadfast may have helped, or instead of the autobreak an auto WS1 unless you outnumber/rank them, and then a LD test every turn. Maybe you should base it on the rank bonus. If the fear causing unit has a greater rank bonus than you, they get the autobreak. This makes flanking and supporting your fear causers important. Having fear be a part of the point cost of a unit when high, rerollable leadership is universal is a foolish mechanic, almost as bad as, say, autobreaking.

Maybe 8th would be fine if movement, march blocking, and terrain had been left as is, and we got the improvements to magic, MI (MUCH needed and quite appreciated, IMO) and Steadfast. Also, while I get the rank denial aspects of needing at least 10 models in the flank, perhaps Cav should only need 5 models to do it, or 6 as MI does. As it stands, I'd love to see Brets get that added to Lance (6 models/two ranks counts for rank breaking on flanks) as it gives them good reason to take smaller units than just pain trains.

5) What armies do you see played a lot? What armies do you almost never see on the table?

WOC are on the table all the freakin time. DoC, too. I'd like to see more WE, Brets, and Dwarves, but that won't happen until they get new books, but following GW logic, the rest of the 7e books are sure to get makeovers first.

6) What can be done to improve the game as a whole?

A new General's Compendium for official campaign, siege, and mega battle rules. People may underestimate campaigns (GW obviously does) but they do more for the hobby as a whole than tournaments ever will, and are a much better center to balance around than tourneys or "Just put models on the table and throw dice." If I wanted that I'd put together airplanes and play Yahtzee.

Besides that, finish putting out all of the 8e books before moving on to 9th.

tmarichards wrote:
As a general rule, you'll see multiple positive posts about 8th edition for every diehard 7th fan who hated the change. Overall, this should speak for itself with regards to the 2 editions.

^this. If a "huge portion" of the community died, then that would be reflected in their statements as a publicly traded company. If you look at their 2 year avg. they have about doubled in value.

I also hope this isn't a long-winded way of trying to get people to say "nerf magic, magic sux!" Because there's no need to be passive aggressive, just ask. "Does this magic make my butt look big?"


But I love lines like, I hate it when one spell wipes out half my army. But without that spell you had half your army in a gigantic bunker and the person would have been posting here, I hate it when I can't attack half their army. Most of the mega spells are only mega if you make them so. There's a lot of valid reasons to do it, but if you get bit in the hand, you shouldn't complain as it was you who made it possible.

As for shooting, war machines are part of shooting. War machines are nasty. There are a number of specialized troops who are great at shooting, such as skinks and leadbelchers and (I hear) dark elves, but I don't know them.

Indeed. This is why Ogres can't be OP. As long as spells like Purple Sun and Pit of Shades exist the Ogre army book cannot be OP.

They really are a balance point to Everlasting Steadfast and unstoppable Ogre Hordes. Of course I am a savvy player and know how to counter those uberspells with proper positioning.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. This is why Ogres can't be OP. As long as spells like Purple Sun and Pit of Shades exist the Ogre army book cannot be OP.

They really are a balance point to Everlasting Steadfast and unstoppable Ogre Hordes. Of course I am a savvy player and know how to counter those uberspells with proper positioning.

Also nothing like a good warp lightning cannon shot into a whole pack of ogres (artillery dice strength, goes through armor and does d6 wounds). In most cases it'll do some pretty nasty damage, as will warpfire throwers and any sort of initiative test or die weapon. I wish aiming the small template on the warp lightning cannon was a little less random but then it'd probably be too good considering how good it can be already.

I have no idea what faction people think is best. I still hold that to a degree like in 40k some factions are better at fighting other factions without certain tactics or army lists. For instance i get the feeling gun-line empire or dwarfs could take out high elves and possibly dark elves. I still sort of stand by the idea that the only shooting worth your time is either non-BS shooting, shooting that is poisoned or shooting that disregards a lot of negative modifiers to BS. Even then the last of the 3 i mentioned might not do enough damage. An example of this is probably ratling guns in comparison to warpfire throwers or supposedly razordons in comparison to salamanders. The razordons do sound nasty for stand and shoot purposes (2 artillery dice per razordon holy crap!).

Also maybe it's just me but i think warriors of chaos are still really good for their points. They cost a lot but they're way better than some things of the same points cost. Then again i haven't fought em enough so my experience is limited. Their profile and armor is really good for core and then they get marks and banners and crap. You could say that you have magic but then when you think about it so do they and they can probably control their's much better unless you're VC or lizardmen or something (or have teclis because you're an *ss). I suppose one good thing is you still have war machines and shooting whereas warriors of chaos mostly don't (except the hell cannon). Also warriors are expensive so they're probably surrounded on all sides (i.e. flanked easily).

And even poisoned shooting tends to be more of an anti-monster thing than a viable way to kill RnF infantry.

 Grey Templar wrote:
And even poisoned shooting tends to be more of an anti-monster thing than a viable way to kill RnF infantry.

I find it's still somewhat useful against killing small units that can block your rank-and-file units' movement (like warhounds). Also it's great against small elite units even stuff like swordmasters because they have serious melee power and almost no armor. It's hard to say if a lot of poisoned shooting is even good vs monsters.

I'd still much rather just use 'bless with filth' (poisoned melee attacks) on a strength 5 unit or similar. I used to give that to my plague censers sometimes when i had to fight a monster. Imagine a str 5 unit (str 5 on its first turn of combat) with multiple attacks, hatred and poisoned attacks. Yeah it can get ugly (good ugly or at least good ugly for me ). That said it's a unit that would rely me hitting a monster which can probably outrun it and probably getting lucky with the poisoned attack spell in the first place (which only last till your next magic phase anyway). So in the end a doomwheel would do more damage and is a more reliable monster killer. I do suppose however that having plenty of anti-monster things everywhere prevents them from wanting to hit anything but then i'd spend too many points on that possibly.

Considering the price of gutter runners i usually just scout ahead with them and throw them in a forest where they're stubborn due to being skirmishers and it's negated for their enemies. If that wasn't enough they're harder to hit with BS shooting while in a forest considering it's soft cover and skirmishers throw another -1 to hit. In the end that's -2 to hit at the very least for BS shooting enemies and they're usually at long range or moving and shooting so it's usually at least -3 to hit. Elves hitting on 6's with shooting. Hahaha gotta love fantasy BS shooting.

That said i've had a HE player use regrowth on them to totally negate all the work i did. However he also used teclis and in our 2vs1 game and even other people insulted teclis. In short teclis is dumb. The guy threw him in a unit of archers and then put them in a tower with 360 degree LOS. Yeah it was bad. There's probably no way i could've gotten a skitterleap and cracks call into that building that game with a warlock or similar and if either one failed he'd die to 360 degree archer fire or some other small unit. That guy did such a d*ck move. We each got a terrain feature and he deployed the building in his deployment zone. That's how he was able to do that.

---------------------

So getting back to topic from what you were saying before i think poisoned shooting like skinks works best when you attack small units that are meant to tangle up your bigger units or against elite units with poor armor and possibly monsters.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Indeed. This is why Ogres can't be OP. As long as spells like Purple Sun and Pit of Shades exist the Ogre army book cannot be OP.

They really are a balance point to Everlasting Steadfast and unstoppable Ogre Hordes. Of course I am a savvy player and know how to counter those uberspells with proper positioning.

This isn't really a valid argument, as Ogres have some of the best magic defence in the game. Other than Purple Sun, there isn't really anything to worry them (anything else gets Runemawed away), and against that they have a turn 1 Dispel Scroll, turn 2 Hellheart and turn 3 into combat.

I suppose your next "point" would be that Mournfang are balanced because of lore of Metal?

If you think the HH gets popped on turn 2 you are mistaken and have only faced people that have no idea how to use it. The Hellheart is also random. You really need to be within 10" for it to be remotly close to reliable. It also costs 50 pts, I damn well better hope it does something nice.

You also assume that the Runemaw gets taken all the time, it doesn't.

Plus a Dispel Scroll is usually useless because those big spells are getting tossed with hope of an IF.

Mournfang are balanced because they are expensive and only good against infantry, and things that don't have Str4+. Once they start taking -1 or -2 to armor saves they go away quick. Plus being vulnerable to magic and warmachines.

I need to ask another question that I am wondering that does not become so apparent on all the posts:

Do you think 8th edition is a good edition?

I don't like the power dice cap at all, I think it should be 12+ the number of wizards you have, as the magic is more easily contained