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 DukeRustfield wrote:
There needs to be a LOT more magic banners. Even if they aren't uber. They have the potential to add a lot of strategic value because they affect so many units. And some (most) armies don't have good banner choices in their own books. Or any.

Agreed, many times over.

Beyond that though, Army book magic items being reduced was a horrid decision.

They are a great way to personalize models.
I have variously modeled Tomb Kings and Tomb Princes with different gear, but only 2 banners matter.

Honestly this is similar to the issue I have with random abilities too.
I cannot customize my wizard for the spells unless it is a Loremaster or I have dozens.
Not even touching the asinine issue of Warlord traits being random in 40k.
That sort of silliness would be horrid. Khalida may give +1WS instead. . .yea, that's why she brought all those archers.

 kirsanth wrote:

 DukeRustfield wrote:
There needs to be a LOT more magic banners. Even if they aren't uber. They have the potential to add a lot of strategic value because they affect so many units. And some (most) armies don't have good banner choices in their own books. Or any.

Agreed, many times over.

Beyond that though, Army book magic items being reduced was a horrid decision.

They are a great way to personalize models.
I have variously modeled Tomb Kings and Tomb Princes with different gear, but only 2 banners matter.

Honestly this is similar to the issue I have with random abilities too.
I cannot customize my wizard for the spells unless it is a Loremaster or I have dozens.
Not even touching the asinine issue of Warlord traits being random in 40k.
That sort of silliness would be horrid. Khalida may give +1WS instead. . .yea, that's why she brought all those archers.

Special characters in the new edition codices have specific non-random Warlord traits. It's if you roll with a generic warlord (or old codex) that you get the random ones.
But yeah, the random ones do tend to come out with crap, so if you're lucky enough to get something good, you're gonna have an advantage that game, because the other person likely won't have anything decent.
A very common house rule is to roll on all three tables, then pick one of the three results you got. In my group, if you have your own codex table, you get that and get to choose 2 more of the generic tables before the roll, so everyone has 3 results to choose from.

I understand and used Khalida because I literally built my TK army around her.

I built my Tyranids around my Hive Tyrant. Guess how that works?

edit to add:
A common house rule is not common, nor a rule.

Allies like in 40k that has ruined that game.
I cant really think of any major improvements in 8th they could make to make it better except allowing MR saves for characteristic tests.

 Purifier wrote:

 DarkWind wrote:
I see what your saying. However isn't guessing distance one of the skills of any artillery commander of old?

But not of the general. Trust your subordinates. You can't run from cannon to cannon, judging their distances for them. You have more important duties.

By the time cannons were widespread, they knew how to measure and use them pretty well. It was known for all ranged weapons through the extremely simple method of: practice. If they fired a cannon 100 times they knew where it would go pretty accurately. It's not like they grabbed random people and said, "hey, do something with that big metal tube over there."

That said, there are limitations to the accuracy of the weapons. They're round balls in non-rifled barrels. They most definitely go side-to-side.

 DukeRustfield wrote:

 Purifier wrote:

 DarkWind wrote:
I see what your saying. However isn't guessing distance one of the skills of any artillery commander of old?

But not of the general. Trust your subordinates. You can't run from cannon to cannon, judging their distances for them. You have more important duties.

By the time cannons were widespread, they knew how to measure and use them pretty well. It was known for all ranged weapons through the extremely simple method of: practice. If they fired a cannon 100 times they knew where it would go pretty accurately. It's not like they grabbed random people and said, "hey, do something with that big metal tube over there."

That said, there are limitations to the accuracy of the weapons. They're round balls in non-rifled barrels. They most definitely go side-to-side.

I agree with everyone but the issue is the game, not why the rules relate to the real world.

Cannons are too good at sniping and too good for killing things that everyone wants to survive.
Bad game design.

Huge hits but inaccurate would be fine but really, how many cannon shots have people actually witnesses missing?
Maybe it is just be, but it seems damn rare for the results of the shot.

Note that I play TK with a CoS in damn near every game and think it is a better WM in a general sense.
The specifics break the bank.

 DukeRustfield wrote:
Army books hang around for many years/cycles. They get grossly out of balance with one another and the BRB. It only makes sense they moved to a BRB-centric magic and item and special rule system.

The old HE and Lizardman and WoC and (currently) Skaven magic items were crazy broken. Because the game had changed around them.

Likewise the old Ogre and TK pseudo-magic didn't fit with the rest of the game. If you standardize it is easier to keep the whole game evolving without breaking.

Everyone wants to be unique snowflakes in their army but the problem is at version 1.01 you're not a snowflake anymore you're a rusty cog grinding away in the machine.

Whilst your absolutely right that those magic items became overpowered through time and rule changes the same can occur with any rule in an army book really. My main complaint isn't so much the lack of magic items now so much as a lack of good ones. If there is going to only be a few then i want them all to be useful ( the same issue is in the new nid dex as well actually). Take ogres for example out of there big names section i really only see the value in deathcheater, the +1 toughness and maybe 1 or 2 others in specific situations. The rest suck. The items fare much better but neither of the swords is worth looking at twice and the rest range from yay to meh rather than being consistently good, as they should be.

The older books had an excuse to be OP as they had just changed with age but even one new item being useless is pretty inexcusable as there are less to check and they fit in with the newest rule set.

I can totally see the need for most magic items to be in the BRB so that they can be updated through edition changes....

...so how about, just, giving us more? Say double the number of items in each category?

 Micky wrote:
I can totally see the need for most magic items to be in the BRB so that they can be updated through edition changes....

...so how about, just, giving us more? Say double the number of items in each category?

There's already quite a lot though.

My issue is that they're mostly very normal. +1S/A, +2S/A. 6+ Ward, 5+ Ward. I know it's best to save the exciting items for the books, but it'd be nice to have some variety in the rulebook items.

If all the items in the army books WERE exciting I'd see your point. When 80% of them are TRASH, I want to see some exciting magic items in the BRB.

Again, the big thing I want to see is banners.

But the problem with going BRB-centric is they have the difficult task of adding stuff everyone can use. You give Fencer's Blades to some guys and it's okay, you give it to some other builds and it's super uber. Because the armies are so different unless a magic item is just some boring +1 this or +1 that, they have totally different net values.

Crown of Command doesn't do much at all for some armies, but to others it's massive.

The simple solution is to make them all boring and limited in number (kind of current situation). That way it's easier to play test them all and keep a handle on them.

I agree that it seems like a huge chunk of the magic items in army books are almost like special characters. More fluff than actual use.

If allies are limited and done well. I bet it could be done well. Maybe they will bring back a 25% max of army is allies, maybe 25% max of army is monsters.

I think about what I would love to add to my TK, and a lvl 2 beasts with a small bunker(s4 shooting would be a solid fit) 19 Handgunners, champion with Long Rifle(can single target smiting on non Nehekara undead.)

I really like 8th ed over all. Steadfast needs adjusted, test or die needs to go to test or take a wound. Cannons vs monsters needs to be toned down to d3 wounds.

More magic items, especially banners, I'd like some diversity. I take none in my TK(granted no unit I roll with is eligible) One with my DoC (Flaming)

More useful magic items would be good.

As it is, each book tends to have 12ish magic items, of which 8-10 are super bad. Only the main rule book items see any common use.


Some sort of customizable magic item generator would be interesting.

Something like limit of 1 custom item per army(so no spamming a bunch of cheap identical items)

 Grey Templar wrote:
More useful magic items would be good.

As it is, each book tends to have 12ish magic items, of which 8-10 are super bad. Only the main rule book items see any common use.


Some sort of customizable magic item generator would be interesting.

Something like limit of 1 custom item per army(so no spamming a bunch of cheap identical items)

Although it would be cool for other armies to have access to this, that would be taking away the Dwarf's schtick of runic items.
And no, we ain't sharin'.