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Made in us
Grain of Sand




New York

Anybody on here take the leap and try the ninth age?!

   
Made in de
Charging Orc Boar Boy





Germany

Naaa, not for me, thank you.

Units renamed, basic mechanisms changed, kept those from 8th that I disliked (although they improved the system in terms of balance, granted!), so it is just not the system for me.

The best thing about 9th age is, it tries to build up an alternative product range for our hobby by supporting smaller companies / start ups willing to produce what the customer (square base 25-28mm grognards like me) wants. Which GW clearly didn't since forever.
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

There are a lot of threads about 9th Age on this sub-forum.
I did some lengthy faction write ups that explained the transition, let me dig some up to help.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/776329.page#10475828

And from another thread:
Spoiler:
I want to add to what Baldrick said with regards to 8th. It is a good system, however we are allowed to play favourite with our hobbies and if you prefer another edition so be it.
Maybe in 8th the spells are random and powerful, but I had a look at 6th magic recently and found that the damage output was pitiful, wizards are expensive, random in outlay and random in performance. You need to really invest to get the spells you want and even then you might not cast them. It's a balance between 'You might as well pack up because I lucked out and rolled Dwellers on my level 2" vs "I paid 300pts to get a viable wizard and his spells blow farts at the enemy and maybe kill a goblin or two." I look at 6th and fined the core magic lores lacklustre, others might look at 8th and find the same lores broken. Maybe both are right and wrong at the same time.
Maybe its 'infantry now matter' vs 'only infantry now matters'. Fixed charges vs random charges. etc.

Let me put in my two pence now. I have a favourite Warhammer system also, I will play others but this is the one I gravitate towards and collect for: 9th Age 1.1. I will go as far as to say that it fixes pretty much everything wrong with old warhammer. Though from a base perspective of using 8th as the foundation, so if you are against the mechanics of 8th on basic principle, it might still not be for you. However it rounds out the advantages of 8th compared to other warhammer, and also mitigates the disadvantages of 8th compared to prior systems; and above all gives a comprehensive rebalanced only otherwise seen in Ravening Hordes, but without the inherent disadvantage of Ravening Hordes' thinness.
Now I have not seen every other post 8th fan edition so I cannot comment on 8.5, 8.9 or various iterations of post Warhammer. Most are improvements as most offer fans what they wanted in fixes as they were written by fans. 9th Age 1.1 is the best known though, had a wider dev team and has the advantage of old Warhammer in that it is also 'dead', though I prefer to use the word 'finalised', so there will be no further iterations on what is already released. Current 9th Age is nothing like it, it's a totally separate game, like Kings of War is, just as the lawyers intended.

So what, in my opinion, makes 9th Age 1.1 so good? First I will say that I do not compare it to later editions of 9th Age or Kings of War or Age of Sigmar, as they are all successors to but not true relatives of WHFB. So even if one of those there was subjectively better it would'nt count as a better version of WHFB, just a better fantasy wargame, and that field is so wide that we have to include Malifaux, Frostgrave, Mordheim, Warmachine/Hordes and numerous other games to provide a comparative review and I will not attempt that here.
So first I will talk about what is bad about 9th Age 1.1. First its not official Warhammer, so it doesn't have official weight, and its passed by by its own development team, though if you read between the lines this was something they had no choice over as it was so clearly WHFB-fixed that legal troubles were inevitable. You can still get it and its legal to play, you are not infringing copyright by distributing 9th Age 1.1.
The second problem is that you may need to rename a few things, if you want to re-sink into the lore, most not-Warhammer names are easy to guess and many of the items and nearly all the units are directly replicated. if it looks like Van Horstmann's Speculum, acts like Van Horstmann's Speculum, and is an Empire only special item, then I don't need to call it Locket of Sunna. It takes no effort to look at a 1.1 army book and know what you are looking at in terms of Warhammer world references. Now special characters are gone, as in completely gone, but the game dovetails into WHFB as well as any other different edition, so it takes no more problem importing a Warhammer character to 1.1 as it would to import one from an older army book, such as Bretonnians. In fact I do not know of any special character you could not just port straight over. Some special rules change, but where a special rule has a different wording just treat it as an edition change, if the special character does something different port it over word for word, it will fit. I generally leave points costs alone, for special characters they are broken anyway. Alternately just replicate a special character via the vanilla rules.
That is about it for downsides, there are one or two points mismatches but way fewer than any other edition, including Ravening Hordes, which is a respectable feat allowing for how many units there are.
9th Age 1.1 is strict on base sizes, officially, but as its officially superceded I just ignore that. So if you want to use newer plastic kits that dont fit on old school base sizes just use a base that fits the model. My Nurgle army has a plastic Great Unclean One on a custom 100x100mm base. To fit him on a n official 50x50mm (official for WHFB too as the kit was only released in AoS era!) my big fatty daemon would need to hop on one leg.

Now for whats good. I have covered it in other threads but to reiterate here: It fixes 8th. This might not be enough if you prefer 6th or 5th, but if you like 8th you will like 9th Age 1.1, and if you are not sure which is the best edition but its a balance of 8th and any of the others a fixed 8th might tip the balance in its favour.
How does it fix 8th. Lets raise the problems and deal with them.
1. Nuke spells - Yes they exist, and they can destroy units. However if you decide to sacrifice a wizard to five dice cast a nuke spell there is some mitigation. First you can dispel irresistable force, you can scroll it if you wish, its just another spell. Irresistable force simply means the casting value auto-succeeds because of the double 6. Normally this wont matter unless you also roll a string of 1s. However if you do dispel it you also save the incautious wizard from his miscast. Second if it is a spell that forces a save or die on every model in a unit you automatically pass the first failed roll. So roll for your characters first in the order you prefer, at least once character will get an autopass and survive.
2. Miscasts - Sad that your vampire lord died because he rolled a double 6 two dicing Nehek on turn one. This cant happen anymore. You need a 5 dice miscast for an instant death result to be possible, and a 4 dice miscast for a 50/50 on instant death. With a two dice miscast you cannot lose caster levels, that kicks in at 3 dice, and any damage rolls are also based on number of dice. For this reason rolling double six on two dice is actually very good, and passable on three dice most of the time, a two dice miscast only tickles.
3. Deathstars - There is maximum unit size for every unit, just as Bretonnians had for knights. Core infantry caps out at 50 models, which is as large as it gets (there are one or two exceptions gnoblars cap at 55, but that is just flavour), anything better has a smaller size cap. No more deathstars, but you can still have a block of 30 elite infantry and you can character them up and make them very nasty. The eggs in one basket approach is not banned, as you can stack characters, but it is no longer quite so excessive and employs a higher degree of risk.
4. Steadfast - Yes steadfast is still in the game, but you can no longer stack 100 goblins keep them in range of the general and tarpit all day. You can have fifty goblins, and you might face fifty elves.
5. Monster profiles - All models are combine profile, like a non character chariot or the Glottkin. there are comprehensive rules as to how characters on mounts are combined, and they are by and large fair.

On balance. Have to mention balance twice as its important. As I said it had even fewer points of imbalance than Ravening Hordes, and Ravening hordes is still liked decades later for that reason. I can make most of the army tropes for warhammer editions from the 1.1 army books, each of which is a no-fluff 20 or so page document with a full range of models, special rules and items. Points balance is pretty tight, with few subjective errors. There also balance limitations a lot of the overpowered stuff is essentially 0-1 limited, and that limit is often dictated indirectly. So for example blender vampires are available, but you cant spam them. Some units are listed as 'One of a Kind' but a direct 0-1 reference this was is rare, normally it is handled elsewhere in the mechanics. I can see all the flavour with less of the cheese. Want a wall of skavenslaves or zombies, you can, but you cant go overboard. Want to double dragon, you can, but you have to jump through some hoops. Want an artillery park, or a mass of chariots you can, but there are direct and indirect limits on the number of said models you can field, and the limit is fairly softly bordered, you can have more than usual or lots more than usual with different degrees of tailoring for balance you have to put up with.
As for the lists themselves they are clearly viable in multiple ways. MSU is possible, cavalry only Greenskins, Elves or Empire is possible, Bretonnians can have a viable peasant wall, daemon armies can go monotheistic for extra bonuses, and warriors of chaos are viable as undivided. Dwarfs get viable options to do something other than just stand and resist. Chaos Dwarfs are fleshed out with varied things to field and Beastmen have a fair chance of actually winning the game.

That is about it for the main differences, its still basically 8th and the core mechanics are the same, hence lawyers. Its a subjective difference whether you Yes there are random charge ranges, so if you don't like that 6th will be subjectively better for you, maybe. There are minor tweaks to most things. For example the "ASF" equivalent is toned down, it negates ASL for great weapons or grants +1 to hit if your initiative is higher, you don't actually get ASF itself. Killing blow equivalent also tones it down. If you roll that 6 you bypass armour saves, but you don't instant kill anything. Conversely there is no Heroic Killing Blow, 'Lethal Strike' can be used against any target.
Yes there are things I don't like, you can one channel role for your army and your wizards contribute to the single roll. You dont get to roll for each wizard to channel for themselves. Armour piercing is messy, it's astreamlined so that each instance of 'ignores armour saves' is written as gains 'Armour Piercing (6'), i.e reduces armour value by six. I can see why they did that it amalgamates two rules into one while allowing multiple penalty armour piercing to be a thing. Its a better mechanic but I prefer the feel of having a simple ignores armour saves rule.

I am quite convinced by 9th Age 1.1 and suggest you give it a go. But each to their own, I think it is best to accommodate your opponents preferences, I will offer 1.1 if I play, but will also play 8th, and bought all the army books available for 8th, so 6th for Brets 7th for rats etc, even for armies I never collected collect, and have both Ravening hordes and am slowly collecting all the 6th army books too, whether or not I play that faction. it is good to have a lore library, and good to accommodate others. If I play 1.1 my opponents get the 1.1 army book printout and the copy other 8th army book, and if they want to port in any special characters they can at 8th costs, there is no need to port in units, 1.1 has all the 8th stuff stuff including many Forgeworld specials like Idol of Gork.
A lot of people simply dont wan to move to an unofficial system, and consider 1.1 as no different to house rules. I am forgiving of that even if I dont consider the argument fair. If they want to play 8th, we play 8th. There aren't any 6th grognards in my local play group, but I am getting 6th ready, actually I have been for a long while but I dont have *all* the material, yet.
One thing to note is that GW released a number of scenario packs, the vast majority for 5th with one or two for 8th and one book for 6th. I collect those also, though I port over the 5th edition stuff. I could collect 5th, but its an extra chore to collect yet more books. I will play 5th if someone wants to give it a go, or earlier, but it will be up to them to supply the game aids.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
Made in de
Longtime Dakkanaut





I play 9th Age though not the current edition. Great basic rules which will never be surpassed by any future GW writer trying to do a R&F game.
   
Made in gb
Highlord with a Blackstone Fortress






Adrift within the vortex of my imagination.

If you want to play a fixed and balanced version of Warhammer, try 9th Age 1.1

Link to all documents for 1.1

If you want a post warhammer game try the current edition, or King of War or another ruleset.

n'oublie jamais - It appears I now have to highlight this again.

It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. By the juice of the brew my thoughts aquire speed, my mind becomes strained, the strain becomes a warning. It is by tea alone I set my mind in motion. 
   
 
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