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I think it just depends on how your system works.

I.E. in older editions the charge was everything. This led to inevitably favouring cavalryhammer because of just how slow basic M4" infantry were.
But because it was everything, having it be a function of random chance seems to give luck a outsized impact in the outcome of games. I'd argue 40k still has this issue today. To compare in that game, if a unit has a bad shooting phase - it can be compensated by other units having a better than average shooting phase. If you have completely terrible shooting phase that's bad - but you could roll really hot next turn and suddenly its sort of back on point. You fail a charge with an assault unit however you are doing no damage and also are now in the wrong part of the table. Odds are in WHFB you are now getting charged yourself, which is a massive swing.

8th brought in random charges - which yes, did somewhat stop the whole "charge range dance". (Although not really imo, because you just swapped it for "charge range random dice roll dance"). But charging no longer meant you automatically attacked first. You no longer wiped out a front rank and then the opponent couldn't fight back at all. More ranks meant units took break tests on basic LD rather than modified etc).

Points had a hand to play in this too - but cavalryhammer was largely over. Conventional cavalry were out as the hammer unit of choice bricks of buffed up two-handed weapon infantry were in. (Some of the new monstrous Cav had a place, and small units of high I 2+ sav cav were occasionally useful - but things like Boar Boyz were kind of trash.)

I mean I'm not an 8th hater. I think a balance pass would have done the edition a world of good. But as said in the other thread, if you were to recreate 8th, I'd probably limit unit sizes so you don't see 40 man blocks of supposed elite infantry or 80-100 units of goblins or skaven slaves etc. Low initiative, low save units maybe needed a boost when charging so they didn't get insta-gibbed when running into anything.

its either find some way to limit the unit size (though out of the box the #6 spells were a decent disincentive, except for the overly cheap units), though instead of stuff like a hard cap I'd more favour a mix of making such units actually harder to use (not just harder to wheel which wider ones already are), perhaps slowing them a bit or something

and then also scaling the point value, I mean 5x20 goblins is in some ways worth less than 1x100 - accepting the five units can be in five places but you need some way to represent the 'can we even kill that many before breaking steadfast?' effect

could actually be useful if when GW write rules instead of leaving half unwritten because thats just the way they all play, they actually wrote the lot and put in the restrictions they played to when testing

It would shatter all the possible hype and good will that GW has established by announcing TOW by essentially making it AOS but pricier. You want round bases? You already HAVE round bases with AOS. You're taken care of. THIS GAME is going to be for the rank-and-file players. Period.

Next some smooth brain will come in postulating how it's going to be Warmaster AOS version despite having NO evidence to allude to it.



Now as far as a few other bits. I played all through 6th and 7th, and I saw this mythical 1/8" shuffle bs exactly once. One slack-jawed meta chaser did it to me in a casual game and I perforated the unit with 4 Repeater Bolt Thrower volleys in the first turn. You bet your ass he got moving after that. Don't take your meta as the worldwide state of the game at the time. Not to mention the other option you have:

Flee.

Did you miss that one? Just in case:

FLEE.

Your cav unit which you assuredly assured your assurances would get the charge at pretty much the max charge distance will be left with their thumbs up their posteriors ready to be countercharged by whatever saucy unit you have set up as a response. Neat. It's almost like maneuvering tactics are the whole point of that game...

Next, a question: Have you ever moved in a large formation with soldiers? Have you ever commanded a large formation of soldiers on the move? Have you done either under combat situations? You know, like riot control, for example?

I have.

It is NOT easy to get a unit to simply reform and run at the drop of a hat. This is why terrain was so pivotal at Thermopylae since it guarded the flanks of the Spartan phalanx. THAT is what is represented in WFB, and that is why being able to pivot and charge or having a 360 degree arc of sight is absolutely ridiculous.


Step up and steadfast were completely unnecessary until multiple root attack units became the soup du jour during the Ward/Thorpe arms race. Which gets me to the last point.



A cavalry unit with a 5 man front (assuming full command) does 6 rider attacks and 5 mount attacks. Being generous and assuming the Knights have a higher weapon skill you have 4 rider hits and 2.5 mount hits if you roll exactly per statistical likelihood. From there you have 3 wounds from the riders at -2 to your save unless they were root St. 4 to begin with, at which it'll be -3. Add 1.25 wounds from the mounts with a full save. Optimistically that's 4 wounds. That doesn't even clear the front rank regardless of what the unit is armed with. Spears? Now you have 6 attacks back, 7 if you didn't dedicatedly kill the unit champion. Now, if the unit was a full ranked up 20 man unit you would have to do 4 wounds to break absolute even in Combat Resolution assuming both of you have full commands. Anything other than completely unarmed and unarmored Goblins will either force a draw at this point or flat out win the combat by 1 or two for your troubles. The only way around this is running a nice, expensive 10 man ranked Knight unit.

NOW is where I expect you to move the goal post. "Bu... but what if I have a blender Lord in the Knight unit?" Neat. "Well, I have a tank Lord in mine." The problem is people conflate potential damage output with statistical damage output when they parrot things they read online like it was their actual experience. This runs opposite to the netlist rhetoric, and also why we went back to 6th when presented with a lack of official current rank-and-flank gaming that was worth a damn.

I try not to wedge into the absurdity on here too much when someone gets preference heavy instead of fact heavy, but I have to draw the line at absolute falsehoods.

leopard wrote:
its either find some way to limit the unit size (though out of the box the #6 spells were a decent disincentive, except for the overly cheap units), though instead of stuff like a hard cap I'd more favour a mix of making such units actually harder to use (not just harder to wheel which wider ones already are), perhaps slowing them a bit or something

and then also scaling the point value, I mean 5x20 goblins is in some ways worth less than 1x100 - accepting the five units can be in five places but you need some way to represent the 'can we even kill that many before breaking steadfast?' effect

could actually be useful if when GW write rules instead of leaving half unwritten because thats just the way they all play, they actually wrote the lot and put in the restrictions they played to when testing

I was thinking a zone control would do really great, if you need units across your whole line. A single mega unit loses a lot of its potential.
Even something simple like each foot along the board is a control zone, and it’s split down the middle. As you push forward and break the lines you gain momentum towards a victory.
Have a few extra victory mechanics that can be used like killing all the lords and heroes, or alternates for special missions.
It also pushes core units as important and gives players a subtle choice of how much they can use special units to get and advantage.
More expensive units give less board control automatically.
If the board widen as points added, then smaller games can be fun as well, maybe starting at 3 foot wide, up to 6. With a suggestion for a extra foot for every 1000 points passed 2000.

I think the flee option would have been much more attractive if you could retreat in good order rather than having to “waste” a turn recalling the unit that ran.
Maybe a Ld test for the fleeing troops, before they move, to see if they actually retreat or just break and run.

Cavalry should really cause fear in undiscplined units causing them to break before contact but those who can stand, especially if they have spears or similar should be more difficult to charge maybe requiring a LD test from the cav to do so for the latter. Probably add artillery units to those who are subject to fear from Cav

So:
Cavalry cause Fear in Ld 7 or below units but require a LD test to attack a unit with LD 8 or more and/or armed with spears/Halberd etc.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Cavalry should really cause fear in undiscplined units causing them to break before contact but those who can stand, especially if they have spears or similar should be more difficult to charge maybe requiring a LD test from the cav to do so for the latter. Probably add artillery units to those who are subject to fear from Cav

So:
Cavalry cause Fear in Ld 7 or below units but require a LD test to attack a unit with LD 8 or more and/or armed with spears/Halberd etc.

Way, way back in the day there were several stats that got later-on unified into LD - you had 'Cool', which was your resistance against stuff like Fear, getting broken in close combat and so on, Leadership, which was involved in doing more complicated maneuvres and such, and 'Willpower' which was used to recover from failed 'Cool' test, resisting magic and so on.

I'm not saying that reintroducing all of that to the game would be a solution, but i think it's a shame that Psychology got mostly neutered, and that a dual system of Leadership and 'Cool' could have merit if it were done right. For instance, it would allow to model undisciplined, but tenacious troops like e.g. Orks as well as cowardly, but cunning forces like Skaven better than the one-dimensional system that's solely based on LD.

Tsagualsa wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Cavalry should really cause fear in undiscplined units causing them to break before contact but those who can stand, especially if they have spears or similar should be more difficult to charge maybe requiring a LD test from the cav to do so for the latter. Probably add artillery units to those who are subject to fear from Cav

So:
Cavalry cause Fear in Ld 7 or below units but require a LD test to attack a unit with LD 8 or more and/or armed with spears/Halberd etc.

Way, way back in the day there were several stats that got later-on unified into LD - you had 'Cool', which was your resistance against stuff like Fear, getting broken in close combat and so on, Leadership, which was involved in doing more complicated maneuvres and such, and 'Willpower' which was used to recover from failed 'Cool' test, resisting magic and so on.

I'm not saying that reintroducing all of that to the game would be a solution, but i think it's a shame that Psychology got mostly neutered, and that a dual system of Leadership and 'Cool' could have merit if it were done right. For instance, it would allow to model undisciplined, but tenacious troops like e.g. Orks as well as cowardly, but cunning forces like Skaven better than the one-dimensional system that's solely based on LD.

Yeah I remember those days - a few key words and stuff like the above would work I think to bring some back

merging Ld, Int, Cl & WP certainly lost a fair bit

and the large blocks being hard to control should be a thing, and should be a thing where well drilled troops perform better - but you start getting into the game needing some sort of command and control mechanic is currently lacks

fear when charged by impact cavalry likely should be a thing

one thing from IIRC 3rd edition I really liked was the "free hack" combat mechanic

i.e. you lose combat, instead of a dice roll and "oh you are all dead as I caught you" the winning unit got a literal free hack at the loser, think they auto hit but roll to wound as normal

the net effect was a block of say 40 goblins losing to say 5 elite knights are not wiped but lose a few of their number, but equally the knights if they lose likely don't take any actual losses - same mechanic allows an orderly retreat from combat, you take the free hack but stops elite units being tarpitted by chaff, they can simply back out, with an element of risk attached

idea of deciding to flee and some leadership or cool check being used to see if it turns into a rout or remains withdrawal in good order is something I'd like, a skilled unit backing off and readying a counter charge while chaff.. isagonebyebye

well, for a realistic cavalry charge one side will run away
that those clash in melee is something that really only happens in very rare situations

the cavalry charges and either the infantry stands and the cavalry runs, or the infantry runs and the cavalry rides them down

cavalry hardly broke any infantry unit from the front, this is why "square" formations were so effective against them

there was a reason heavy cavalry switched from melee weapons to short ranged weapons during early modern times until artillery was good enough to make the mass formation not the universal solution in combat

Infantry standing in 90% the cases of a frontal attack against cavalry but is dead if charged from the side or rare
using an LD test if a unit stands or not just takes away the players control here

Thinkign laterally, what made WHFB what it was, apart from the back ground, what key things did it have?

for me you have:

- individual casualties, models removed, units getting gradually (or not so gradually) smaller
- block movement of rank and file units for the most part, some exceptions for skirmishers
- unit facing matters
- unit formation matters and changing formation takes time
- heros sometimes making those around them fight better but generally providing the combat punch directly themselves
- no real command and control mechanic
- not terribly good terrain rules
- lack of pregame strategic options (e.g. out scouting, picking your battlefield etc)

and love it or loathe it (and there will be a lot I've left out) the reboot more or less needs to keep that to keep the flavour of the game similar - e.g. no bringing in buff aura or 'stratagems and command points' etc.

you could create far better games with a reboot, but its then a different game, that will play differently and feel different.

for all my wishlisting to be honest something like the version that was Skull Pass, or the one before it, with the rulebook cleared up, reworded, FAQ & Errata baked in and then a single or small number of faction books (think how LotR has basically two, or HH has a handful) that can be released at the start so there is some internal balance to it.

then, and this bit matters, leave it alone for a while and see how it does, more models for published rules, re-releases or new ones but leave the rules alone for a while and see how well it does


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 kodos wrote:
well, for a realistic cavalry charge one side will run away
that those clash in melee is something that really only happens in very rare situations

the cavalry charges and either the infantry stands and the cavalry runs, or the infantry runs and the cavalry rides them down

cavalry hardly broke any infantry unit from the front, this is why "square" formations were so effective against them

there was a reason heavy cavalry switched from melee weapons to short ranged weapons during early modern times until artillery was good enough to make the mass formation not the universal solution in combat

Infantry standing in 90% the cases of a frontal attack against cavalry but is dead if charged from the side or rare
using an LD test if a unit stands or not just takes away the players control here

for me the Ld test is if the unit is ordered to flee to see if they stop fleeing quickly or keep going

your point is well made, cavalry win, or not, on the charge, bogged down in melee was usually fatal hence they tended to charge stuff they could break and charge towards but break off from stuff that didn't try and run or they would not punch right through.

a zone of control mechanic so units can be essentially pinned to allow an unprotected flank to be caught could be good, its not so much going to 'cavalryhammer' but its worth noting in decent going heavy impact cavalry were what they were for a reason, it worked

 kodos wrote:

Infantry standing in 90% the cases of a frontal attack against cavalry but is dead if charged from the side or rare
using an LD test if a unit stands or not just takes away the players control here

In a hypothetical scenario with both LD and CL you could have results other than 'runs away' and 'fights at full efficiency' - some sort of 'shaken' state for example, where you'd lose e.g. your rank bonus to combat resolution but can still fight, and need to pass a LD check in the subsequent turn to regain the bonus. That way, charging cavalry would have a good chance to break even comparatively large blocks of infantry on the charge, but if the infantry is disciplined enough to weather the initial attack and to regain their footing afterwards the tide can quickly turn in their favour. Flanking etc. could also involve that duality in some way, so that flank charges would not automatically be certain doom for very elite or highly disciplined or stoic troops.

but what is the point of that?

to allow the possibility for cavalry to break a unit from the front so the tactical movement to get into the flank or set up a combo charge is replaced with additional dice rolling?

if you want to charge infantry from the front you do with other infantry and use the speed of the cavalry to get the shooting stuff behind to keep the infantry save

 kodos wrote:
but what is the point of that?

to allow the possibility for cavalry to break a unit from the front so the tactical movement to get into the flank or set up a combo charge is replaced with additional dice rolling?

if you want to charge infantry from the front you do with other infantry and use the speed of the cavalry to get the shooting stuff behind to keep the infantry save

The point of it would imho be to make the game align a bit more with the 'Fantasy' part of Warhammer Fantasy Battles, where stuff like courage, the terror of fighting against demons, the literally inhuman tenacity of things like Orks or Dwarfes, the awesome power of stuff like Cold One cavalry, Chaos Knights etc. matter and make a difference, or at least can make a difference, and games are not that often already completely decided somewhere between list selection and deployment phase.

For the record, i totally agree with you on that stuff for real world military simulation / wargames, but Warhammer still is firmly a fantasy game and should be a little more on the epic/fantastic/story-game side and a bit less of an early-modern era pike&shot wargame with the occasional oddly efficient magic phase that shakes up stuff.

That's of course mainly a difference in taste and opinion, and i understand that other people view that differently.

for the fantasy layer of rules, we have stuff like fear and terror

so a unit reacts differently to a human opponent to something monstrous that causes fear

you don't need to change how the rock/paper/scissors/lizard/spock of infantry warfare works to add those things
you add them in addition so that a cavalry attack is still a cavalry attack of both sides are daemons or humans

one big problem of GWs rules writing is that thinking of the very special cases as the "standard" that need to be in the basic rules to catch the "epic" of the setting and than add special rules and layers to work around it as the "epic" is not that special any more


if Chaos Knights, because they are f***ing Chaos Knights, should break normal infantry from the front, it is that one unit that needs a Universal Special Rule to do it
And Elite Infantry that is used to fighting Chaos on a daily bases get a USR to take that charge

integrating this into basic combat is what we have seen in the rules development from 6th to 8th, and all of the problems that followed this to make the gameplay "epic" again

comes down to you, the player, may well want your ratmen to take that charge from the chaos knights, however the ratmen themselves may not

thats actually probably not that hard to do, have cavalry charging infantry cause fear or something on the turn they charge - though you do need a way to stop one cavalry unit declaring a charge, oh they ran, declare another, oh they ran too etc. redirect into a unit along the path of the charge yes (i.e. a skirmish screen that pegs it as such should then into the infantry block behind)

trouble is you put too much time into making it a "good" game and it stops feeling like warhammer

Smothering the main rule set was unnecessary special rules and out of the ordinary editions to the turn sequences is what got us into this position in the first place. What we need to do is streamline back. When they did ravening hordes with six addition they had a streamline all the way across. Whatever they do with this edition, they need to have that same basis for everyone. I'm not particularly fun of the obnoxious special rules from 8th, and several of them would be non-starters for me if there in the old world. If everything is balanced right off the bat that I might look overlook it.

 Just Tony wrote:
Now as far as a few other bits. I played all through 6th and 7th, and I saw this mythical 1/8" shuffle bs exactly once. One slack-jawed meta chaser did it to me in a casual game and I perforated the unit with 4 Repeater Bolt Thrower volleys in the first turn. You bet your ass he got moving after that. Don't take your meta as the worldwide state of the game at the time. Not to mention the other option you have:

Flee.

No, didn't miss that one.

Their turn: They charge. You flee.

Your turn: You rally in place and do nothing else.

Their turn: They charge. You flee. Wash. rinse, repeat. Sooner or later you run out of board. Or snake-eyes the flee roll and get run down.

Now MAYBE you've got other units set up who aren't also doing the charge-range-dance and can charge on your turn without subsequently getting charged by other units on HIS turn... but that's not a good bet.

Albion is alive...the mists have parted once more. Release the Giants, lets the winds and storms rule the battles. May the Gods of the Dark Ones have pity on your mortal souls. I know Albion for I have been there.

On the meta discussion, in 8th ours very much became the caricature of that edition: 2 giant deathstar blocks meet in the middle. If 1 wins, they win the game. Sometimes it might stalemate. But it was just a horrible, unfun meta.

It seemed like this was a fairly common meta experience, and obviously helps explain fantasy's decline. But the fix to stop this from being the common/dominant meta of the 8th ed ruleset seems so easy.

Hopefully, if they are building off it for the Old World, they recognize this!

For me WFB didn't end with the coming of AoS, it actually ended when 8th edition hit, for really one reason above all others - random charge ranges. I'd loved WFB in 5th, 6th and 7th, was an avid fan. I only played a couple of games of 8th and that's only because kids at my school asked me to.

I hope they won't do that again. Kill Team proves that they can.

 Vulcan wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Now as far as a few other bits. I played all through 6th and 7th, and I saw this mythical 1/8" shuffle bs exactly once. One slack-jawed meta chaser did it to me in a casual game and I perforated the unit with 4 Repeater Bolt Thrower volleys in the first turn. You bet your ass he got moving after that. Don't take your meta as the worldwide state of the game at the time. Not to mention the other option you have:

Flee.

No, didn't miss that one.

Their turn: They charge. You flee.

Your turn: You rally in place and do nothing else.

Their turn: They charge. You flee. Wash. rinse, repeat. Sooner or later you run out of board. Or snake-eyes the flee roll and get run down.

Now MAYBE you've got other units set up who aren't also doing the charge-range-dance and can charge on your turn without subsequently getting charged by other units on HIS turn... but that's not a good bet.

Wow. I keep forgetting how everyone in the universe played on planet bowling ball with only two units that would validate someone's misconception.




Now, let's try a more realistic scenario, shall we?


First, I don't spend my first turn nudging everything an 8th of an inch because I have enough testicular Mass to push my Army forward and goad the charge. After that, any unit that is not specifically designed to hold a charge will be either back of the line or in front of the line to draw out charges to flee from. Next, I counter charged with the units that are not hiding on the very back of the line, because once again, I have enough testicular Mass to not sit around like a chicken in the back field.


See? It's really not that difficult, and this is how most games that I've ever played with. There was only one exception where I had some dude who was too simpish to try to play the game aggressively.

And to be frank? Random charges don't mitigate the hiding in back nudging forward crap that you accuse of being stuck in one edition. All it does is guarantee that you're going to have more gun lines or you're going to have more steadfast units built up like 100 model whales.

 Just Tony wrote:
I have enough testicular Mass to not sit around like a chicken in the back field.

You're pushing little plastic toys around a kitchen table.

 Vermis wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
I have enough testicular Mass to not sit around like a chicken in the back field.

You're pushing little plastic toys around a kitchen table.

If you have masses on your testicles you should consult a doctor immediately.

https://www.testicularcancerawarenessfoundation.org/signs-and-symptoms

Cyel wrote:
For me WFB didn't end with the coming of AoS, it actually ended when 8th edition hit, for really one reason above all others - random charge ranges. I'd loved WFB in 5th, 6th and 7th, was an avid fan. I only played a couple of games of 8th and that's only because kids at my school asked me to.

I hope they won't do that again. Kill Team proves that they can.

What about random charge ranges was so bad that it ruined your experience?

I found it quite liberating, as my experience with fixed charge ranges was three to five turns of both sides dancing back and forth a quarter inch just out of charge range trying to bait the other side into charging, failing, and dying. Presuming both sides had the same movement rate, anyway; when one side had a clear movement advantage that side generally won unless the other side went wholesale gunline.

It gets boring and predictable without random charges, in my experience anyway.

It made planning impossible. Why plan combined charges if the result is random anyway. Taking away my agency just resulted in me not caring about the result plain and simple. "It's just random anyway so whatever".

I'll be sad if there's fixed charges, but then I'm a filthy peasant who started in 8th edition and LIKED it.

I do have to admit since learning a LOT more about pre-modern warfare (thanks to the ACOUP blog! check it out if you're interested in the "progress of technology/civilisation" discussion a few pages back!) the idea of having peasants charging monsters or being charged is a lot more challenging to my suspension of disbelief. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of system where all infantry are sorted into levy/regular/elite types to display more appropriate behaviour. But hey maybe that's just a bit too historical wargaming rather than fantasy.

Also I like Just Tonys spicy posts

Also wtf is this thread here instead of the WFB section?

 RustyNumber wrote:
I'll be sad if there's fixed charges, but then I'm a filthy peasant who started in 8th edition and LIKED it.

I do have to admit since learning a LOT more about pre-modern warfare (thanks to the ACOUP blog! check it out if you're interested in the "progress of technology/civilisation" discussion a few pages back!) the idea of having peasants charging monsters or being charged is a lot more challenging to my suspension of disbelief. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of system where all infantry are sorted into levy/regular/elite types to display more appropriate behaviour. But hey maybe that's just a bit too historical wargaming rather than fantasy.

Also I like Just Tonys spicy posts

Also wtf is this thread here instead of the WFB section?

Hah! I'll have to admit I liked 8th too, at least until the local death star blocks got so insane (and I, unfortunately, gave up some of my fluffy ways and tried to match them ). But random charges and steadfast seemed like such easy things to fix, and it would've made such a huge difference...

Every edition has issues, obviously, and part of the reason I liked 8th is that I started at the end of 7th, which was the most unbalanced (army book wise) state of any game system I've ever played.

I think this thread is here since the N&R thread needs some "Fantasy chat overflow" that isn't actually about news. Also shows how much interest there would be in GW's general target audience if they ever do launch the Old World again.

 RustyNumber wrote:
I'll be sad if there's fixed charges, but then I'm a filthy peasant who started in 8th edition and LIKED it.

I do have to admit since learning a LOT more about pre-modern warfare (thanks to the ACOUP blog! check it out if you're interested in the "progress of technology/civilisation" discussion a few pages back!) the idea of having peasants charging monsters or being charged is a lot more challenging to my suspension of disbelief. I wouldn't mind seeing some sort of system where all infantry are sorted into levy/regular/elite types to display more appropriate behaviour. But hey maybe that's just a bit too historical wargaming rather than fantasy.

Also I like Just Tonys spicy posts

Also wtf is this thread here instead of the WFB section?

Well Ld does reflect this a bit but better when it was all different stats like Ld, Cl, Wp etc - sometimes those peasents will be gripped by religious fervour etc as well.

Read an interesting article about how whilst veteran/elite units are often better fighters they may also less willing to die - they are survivors who are less keen on charging into danger.

So you might have Green/Eager and Elite/Cautious or Veteran/Reluctant.

 Vulcan wrote:

Cyel wrote:
For me WFB didn't end with the coming of AoS, it actually ended when 8th edition hit, for really one reason above all others - random charge ranges. I'd loved WFB in 5th, 6th and 7th, was an avid fan. I only played a couple of games of 8th and that's only because kids at my school asked me to.

I hope they won't do that again. Kill Team proves that they can.

What about random charge ranges was so bad that it ruined your experience?

I found it quite liberating, as my experience with fixed charge ranges was three to five turns of both sides dancing back and forth a quarter inch just out of charge range trying to bait the other side into charging, failing, and dying. Presuming both sides had the same movement rate, anyway; when one side had a clear movement advantage that side generally won unless the other side went wholesale gunline.

It gets boring and predictable without random charges, in my experience anyway.

So what about random charges motivated people to stop doing this mythical 1/8" dance? Hmmm? If you're even LESS likely to pop a charge off it strikes me that you'd be less likely to play to that weakness.