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Rihgu wrote:

Yes, the To Hit Chart is back and it’s as beardy as ever.

Did WarCom team just call us beardy grognards? To our face?

Well, I *have* been sporting a scruffy Van Dyke ever since the plague years...

2 things stand out, that no one has mentioned yet.

Pikes, it mentions Pikes, which has been a DoW exclusive weapon. As DoW are not going to be in TOW, could these mean Pikes are going to be given to Empire?

Battle Magic is mentioned, this is a large lore from 4th/5th edition, think it had 20spells originally. So no more 8 lores from the colleges of magic.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wonder how that will work with Chariots? They’re by their nature “alpha strike” living or dying on the charge.

If they’re at constant risk of being bogged down even with a decisive running over of the enemy unit, who in their right mind is going to use them? Especially if as speculated above, following up into a pushed back unit sparks another combat round, as if you don’t count as charging, it’ll be in, run off a few folks, then get tipped in the follow up, or sit there like a lemon and get counter charged anyway.



Another one for my list of “frustratingly vague” news.

I think you count as charging if you pursue into another round of combat, so you'd get another round of impact hits

Bobug wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wonder how that will work with Chariots? They’re by their nature “alpha strike” living or dying on the charge.

If they’re at constant risk of being bogged down even with a decisive running over of the enemy unit, who in their right mind is going to use them? Especially if as speculated above, following up into a pushed back unit sparks another combat round, as if you don’t count as charging, it’ll be in, run off a few folks, then get tipped in the follow up, or sit there like a lemon and get counter charged anyway.



Another one for my list of “frustratingly vague” news.

I think you count as charging if you pursue into another round of combat, so you'd get another round of impact hits

This is how it worked when I played TK a couple of decades ago, lol

I basically tried to get on the sides/flanks and then hope to cause my target to flee so I could follow-up run into/ clip another unit.

You want to go through the enemy army from the side and not the front to max your rundown/follow-up.

Wonderful looking break rules, the battlefield will be much more interesting with things happening other than "locked in place fighting" and "running away"! The sound of victory multi-charge sounds scary though! I suppose it makes sense, heavy cav smashing through a small ranged unit without even stopping then charging the next unit.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wonder how that will work with Chariots? They’re by their nature “alpha strike” living or dying on the charge.

If they’re at constant risk of being bogged down even with a decisive running over of the enemy unit, who in their right mind is going to use them? Especially if as speculated above, following up into a pushed back unit sparks another combat round, as if you don’t count as charging, it’ll be in, run off a few folks, then get tipped in the follow up, or sit there like a lemon and get counter charged anyway.


Another one for my list of “frustratingly vague” news.

There's a bit of warmaster/3rd sneaking in there, so the chariots might get a second turn of counting as having charged with a push back.

 Tastyfish wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wonder how that will work with Chariots? They’re by their nature “alpha strike” living or dying on the charge.

If they’re at constant risk of being bogged down even with a decisive running over of the enemy unit, who in their right mind is going to use them? Especially if as speculated above, following up into a pushed back unit sparks another combat round, as if you don’t count as charging, it’ll be in, run off a few folks, then get tipped in the follow up, or sit there like a lemon and get counter charged anyway.


Another one for my list of “frustratingly vague” news.

There's a bit of warmaster/3rd sneaking in there, so the chariots might get a second turn of counting as having charged with a push back.

It says that if you catch a unit falling back you get another round of counting as having charged.

It’s not clear whether catching falling back units gets you another round of having charged that turn or the next, but if the former chariots will be pretty brutal and able to cover quite some distance in a turn if you can keep doing it.

If the latter I guess the aim is to chase them far enough you’re out of charge arc from neighbouring units.

I suspect follow up on a push back doesn’t count as charging, but as that’s on a passed break test you’re no worse than previous editions where they wouldn’t have moved at all.

A number of these rules are from Warhammer Ancient Battles, the historical ruleset penned by Jervis and the Perry twins. Most notably Marching Columns, Counter-Charge and Fall Back in Good Order (FBiGO or "Fuh-bee-go" as we used to say).

I wonder if there will be other elements WAB incorporated into TOW. In particular, WAB had rule called "Drilled" that allowed well-trained troops to change formations quickly and even disengage from combat. Cavalry could also disengage when fighting infantry. Those would be good additions.

 Saber wrote:
A number of these rules are from Warhammer Ancient Battles, the historical ruleset penned by Jervis and the Perry twins. Most notably Marching Columns, Counter-Charge and Fall Back in Good Order (FBiGO or "Fuh-bee-go" as we used to say).

I wonder if there will be other elements WAB incorporated into TOW. In particular, WAB had rule called "Drilled" that allowed well-trained troops to change formations quickly and even disengage from combat. Cavalry could also disengage when fighting infantry. Those would be good additions.

Can you weigh in a bit more? Only there are some blanks in GW’s missives I’m hoping you might offer clarification on.

For instance, FBiGO. If I pressed my attack, was there a further round there and then, and if I drove you back off a charge, did I still count as charging in that subsequent round?

It's been nearly 20 years since i played WAB, but if i recall correctly, in WAB if you lost combat but outnumbered your opponent 2 to 1 instead of breaking you could FBIGO. It was a 2D6 flee like normal but you auto-rallied at the end of the move, before the pursuit move. If your opponent pursued and contacted you, they'd count as charging in the next combat phase.

Yeah I am in agreement about the issues around the combat resolution - it will now be harder to make high Ld armies flee AT ALL. I'm not sure I like that.

My main army has always been dwarfs and their Ld of 9 was great at keeping me in the fight, but enough of a combat loss and they would still be running and destroyed.

Now they will always only have a 16% chance of being routed (or 8% with a Ld10 character). That seems pretty crazy to me.


It seems like a mistake to only have routing possible on a naturally failed Ld roll.

 Hellebore wrote:
Yeah I am in agreement about the issues around the combat resolution - it will now be harder to make high Ld armies flee AT ALL. I'm not sure I like that.

My main army has always been dwarfs and their Ld of 9 was great at keeping me in the fight, but enough of a combat loss and they would still be running and destroyed.

Now they will always only have a 16% chance of being routed (or 8% with a Ld10 character). That seems pretty crazy to me.


It seems like a mistake to only have routing possible on a naturally failed Ld roll.

We don't know how psychology works yet, also there may be some spells that reduce Leadership/add dice to any Leadership checks.

Too early to say at the moment.

 Hellebore wrote:
It seems like a mistake to only have routing possible on a naturally failed Ld roll.

It seems to me that a normal fail (on modified Ld) just results in another round of combat with the winner counting as charging.

So when a genuinely stronger unit wins, it will just continue to grind the loser into paste, while if a weaker unit wins on a fluke, it only has a small chance of insta-wiping the enemy but more likely it will just bounce off them in the next bout.

So my interpretation is that this system reduces RNG and makes it more likely that the better unit wins in the long term.

I'd say it *feels* a lot more authentic to be able to have "elite" armies that do something other than "run away and possibly get hacked down" as a loss condition.

While that's potentially true, that's a pretty big departure from WFB, just to allow them to keep a static Ld test for routing.

So far there hasn't been any really big thematic changes to the game. I would argue that fixed routing limits is one such big change.

They mention combat being decisive, but I'm unsure how the inability to destroy Ld+ armies by routing them is going to reflect that.

Crappy units usually could only win by routing - they would use their resolution bonuses to pip the opponent and force tests. Now it will be virtually impossible for big blocks of skeletons, goblins etc to actually destroy their Ld+ opponents.


To me that's a very big change to the game, a change I don't think forcing horde armies to rely on spells to offset it is really feasible or interesting.

20 dwarf warriors vs 40 goblins would have previously seen the charge determine the likelyhood of victory for the goblins. Now, they will almost certainly do nothing whether they win or not.

Also note that given how many USRs we've seen in just the 2 or 3 ranged weapon profiles that have been previewed, there's bound to be a whole host of combat modifying abilities to game the break check.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
It seems like a mistake to only have routing possible on a naturally failed Ld roll.

It seems to me that a normal fail (on modified Ld) just results in another round of combat with the winner counting as charging.

So when a genuinely stronger unit wins, it will just continue to grind the loser into paste, while if a weaker unit wins on a fluke, it only has a small chance of insta-wiping the enemy but more likely it will just bounce off them in the next bout.

So my interpretation is that this system reduces RNG and makes it more likely that the better unit wins in the long term.

I don't see how 'worse statted units just don't get to win anymore in the long term' is a selling point....


Two equally sized regiments - one elite the other crap, facing off against each other, sure it makes sense.

But a horde of crap vs a smaller unit should be grinding them down with size and weight. This rule literally ignores the size of the unit and its ability to rout an enemy by outnumbering it, because the bonuses have no effect on the chance to rout.

Are elite 6x2 and 4x3 or 4x4 infantry units back in style, then?

Curious to see what psychology does next week. This might mitigate some of the high leadership armies.

Err, doesn't psychology usually only kinda hurt everyone except the high leadership armies? I've yet to see a system that harms or penalizes high ld forces more than those with low ld.

Fear used to wreck them. If outnumbered and beaten in combat by a Fear causing enemy, you auto broke.

Terror was a once per game test, but if charged or charging a Terror causing enemy, if you failed a Ld test, you ran away like a sizeable lady’s chemise.

Terror seems less useful, but it could and would save me the bother of beating you up in the first place.

Ouch. that dragon thing is not a good model.....

The updated WS means that elites vs scum will now be a bit bloodier. The old table meant that in a fight of WS 10 vs WS 1, 1/3 of the attacks still missed. Now we're at 1/6, so that's a significant improvement.

At the risk of transparently shameless self-promotion, I'm seeing something similar to what I did here - bloodier combats, intermediate morale states between "okay" and "routed."

Cyel wrote:
Not a fan. The opponent being unlucky with his unmodified Ld roll seems to have more impact than carefully setting up an overwhelming CR advantage. Flat randomness shouldn't be more effective than a well executed solid plan.

Unless it's charge range, in which case it's perfection in game design...





IF the inference is that they're bringing back 7th's loophole that allows a unit to fight in two separate combats a turn if you work it right? That would be a massive mistake in my mind.



It also seems they're cribbing from every system, INCLUDING Warmaster, except 6th.

Having panic tests be fall back in good order tests would be a good idea so that one failed rout doesn't decimate the whole army.

But psychology doesn't normally have any affect unless a unit possesses a rule like fear.

I will be very interested to see how they plan on goblins, skinks, gnoblars et al to function given they can't use weight of numbers to break an enemy now.

I'm not sure I like the image of 5 elves against 40 goblins being as likely to run as 5 against 5.

 Just Tony wrote:
It also seems they're cribbing from every system, INCLUDING Warmaster, except 6th.

They're cribbing the models from 6th.

 Platuan4th wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
It also seems they're cribbing from every system, INCLUDING Warmaster, except 6th.

They're cribbing the models from 6th.

haha good one.

I have a lot of 6th ed plastic dwarfs, never really got their newer plastics. Partly price, partly because I wasn't actually a fan of the design that much. I think it was the posing and the merging of the heads and beards into the models, rather than the separate parts on the previous version.

And despite the quarrelers having their crossbows over their shoulders, it made them easier to rank up...

The giant hands proportions of the old ones were a bit off, but I loved my great weapon warriors with their axes stowed on their shoulders, the looked regimented and marching forward.

The new ones had tiny faces though. I'm not sure, there was something off about them (not that the old ones were perfect).

 Just Tony wrote:
It also seems they're cribbing from every system, INCLUDING Warmaster, except 6th.

The 6th edition saw the substitution of dice for magic cards, so I think that's included. It also put limits on certain unit types and characters. This may seem like minor details, but at the time they were major changes, and very popular.

Damn those are some good looking models at least imo.

What if catching a unit that FBiGO(yay new acronym for my gaming lexicon) lets you get free attacks or wounds or something, maybe even based on what size your unit is? We just don't have all the rules right now to make fully informed opinions. Based on what we have seen I like it. Not perfect but looks like a solid start