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New article is up and ha! Guessed the new cavalry base size correctly! 30x60mm. Wonder if that means a 5mm bump up for the orcs/bigger models 🤔 Minimum unit size is 3 bit that could just be the brets/cavalry. I also wonder what that means for minimum number for a complete front rank, I'm hoping it's 4 just for a bit of the older edition flavor lol.

WarCom wrote:This is a Universal Special Rule (USR), just one of about 75 in the game. This seems like a lot at first glance, but this new system simply collates a lot of special rules that once lived in several places – things like Psychology, unit coherence, or Monster rules.

If only the teams that wrote 40k's rules existed on the same dimensional plane as the one's doing TOW.

They could learn a thing or two about including a grand list of USRs, rather than a token list of USRs (in non-alphabetical order, and scattered across multiple sections of the book) and a 1000 bespoke rules across every unit in the game.

Each edition of each game is made in its own insular pocket dimension. Asking for anything more is simply impractical.

No complaints from me having had a quick glance through on my lunch break. I take it we will get a ravening hordes style book alongside the main rules that will have all the army book info in.

I mean negating rank bonus on the charge and being able to counter charge seems rough.
But we lack the full picture so will have to wait and see.

Wow what a power-up for Grail Knights, nice! but that's a lot of special rules...

And I also keep my good eyesight guessing cavalry was going to be 30x60

guessing unit size min three is back to Brets cavalry being three wide not four then five wide for some time

and yes I think this conforms 30mm square for orcs etc

nice they finally have a way to avoid "rubber lance syndrome" with re-rolling "1"s on the charge

still expect the horses to do more damage than the knights, for the sake of tradition

still, I have nine Grail knights, metal ones, ready to ride. they made a good distraction unit, wondering if now they may actually do a bit of damage?

Algo no more extra armour just from being mounted, so knights are not as resistant at 3+ instead of 2+. With more weapons with armour penetration they're going to suffer a little, but the rest of the rules seem to compensate (or I hope they do)

Darkial wrote:
Algo no more extra armour just from being mounted, so knights are not as resistant at 3+ instead of 2+. With more weapons with armour penetration their going to suffer a little, but the rest of the rules seem to compensate (or I hope they do)

looks like "charge and you should break your first target, if you choose wisely... so choose wisely for after your first charge you will be a spent force"

Gives hope to the resurrection of the long tradition of Grail Knights vs. Snotlings

Armorbane (x) rule is a bad game design. Now you will have to make two seperate armor save rolls. Really annoying and time consuming. Could they not come up with a better rule than forcing you to roll separate dice pools.

Stuff like this or the 8th edition parry save is really bad and needlessly introduces extra dice rolling.

Also brettonian horses rule giving rerolls on the first charge of the game might be hard to remember across the board for all units.

Why does one unit need nine special rules? Good god

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Why does one unit need nine special rules? Good god

Quite a few are army rules or just core rule concepts. Not really that bad for their literal premier unit

I don't agree. When the rules are hitting near double figures for one unit, that's a problem.

WorldEdgePlayer wrote:
Armorbane (x) rule is a bad game design. Now you will have to make two seperate armor save rolls. Really annoying and time consuming. Could they not come up with a better rule than forcing you to roll separate dice pools.

Stuff like this or the 8th edition parry save is really bad and needlessly introduces extra dice rolling.

Also brettonian horses rule giving rerolls on the first charge of the game might be hard to remember across the board for all units.

The reroll is in all charges, it's the negating the ranks that is just the first charge. And I would say that it's not so difficult to follow during 6 turns, usually they will have tried to charge before 3rd turn. It's more difficult for me some times to remember who has the blessing.

I'm a huge fan of how they're handling it. I vastly prefer all USRs to be in one place so if my opponent says he has armor bane he has armor bane that I know and not the eldar version of armor bane which is twice as good as any other armor bane.

This is making me more and more excited. I like the base size. Tempted to paint up some cold one knights to have ready on the new bases

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't agree. When the rules are hitting near double figures for one unit, that's a problem.

I have the last Bretonnian army book sitting with me.

Living Saints, The Grail Vow(which has two USRs built into it; Immune to Psychology and Magical Attacks), and Purebreed Warhorses were all rules present on them.
Blessing of the Lady and Lance Formation were army specific rules, so not listed right under the unit entry.

These were effectively a unit of mini-heroes. They had rules in spades, even before now. Acting like it's a surprise to see so many USRs/keywords is a bit silly.

You don't need to remember the first charge - just make a note or use a token.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't agree. When the rules are hitting near double figures for one unit, that's a problem.

Looks to me that living saints and the Grail vow are the only Grail Knight specific USRs here?

BotL being an army wide one

Warhorses, counter charge, swiftstride, first charge and Lance being knight specific

Close order just means they rank up

Darkial wrote:
Algo no more extra armour just from being mounted, so knights are not as resistant at 3+ instead of 2+. With more weapons with armour penetration they're going to suffer a little, but the rest of the rules seem to compensate (or I hope they do)

I could be misunderstanding but it seems that AP is no longer tied to S, it's its own stat like in 40k. The Lance gives AP -2, whereas previously the knights would have been S6 and minused 3 from armour saves. There's no way they'd now be minusing 5, so I must be right. To my mind that means that although they're more vulnerable to weapons with no AP, hopefully they can tone AP down across the board (we can have S4 and S5 warriors with 0AP finally).

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't agree. When the rules are hitting near double figures for one unit, that's a problem.

depends how its done, better than having say three universal rules then say six specifically written out on the roster

Makes light troops even more important- make the Grail Knights burn their once per game rank deny on a unit of skirmishers or something before they barrel into a formed block of infantry

MaxT wrote:
Makes light troops even more important- make the Grail Knights burn their once per game rank deny on a unit of skirmishers or something before they barrel into a formed block of infantry

well and doubly so for the Brets to have light stuff to prevent it

its almost as if the game won't just be "who has the best deathstar" and somehow positioning, movement and timing may actually matter

this is probably some sort of Heresy

 Graphite wrote:
USR article is up

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/12/11/old-world-almanack-living-saints-and-special-rules/

Interesting on Swiftstride not only adding +1d6 to your charge range, but increasing your "maximum charge range" by 3"

I don't think we've seen anything about maximum charge ranges before.

Weirdly, the text of the article says +D6", but the image says +D3". I suspect the typo is in the text, but they should probably update the article.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't agree. When the rules are hitting near double figures for one unit, that's a problem.

I have the last Bretonnian army book sitting with me.

Living Saints, The Grail Vow(which has two USRs built into it; Immune to Psychology and Magical Attacks), and Purebreed Warhorses were all rules present on them.
Blessing of the Lady and Lance Formation were army specific rules, so not listed right under the unit entry.

These were effectively a unit of mini-heroes. They had rules in spades, even before now. Acting like it's a surprise to see so many USRs/keywords is a bit silly.

Am I correct in thinking that they are +1 WS, +1 T and +1 Ld now?

Twilight Pathways wrote:

Darkial wrote:
Algo no more extra armour just from being mounted, so knights are not as resistant at 3+ instead of 2+. With more weapons with armour penetration they're going to suffer a little, but the rest of the rules seem to compensate (or I hope they do)

I could be misunderstanding but it seems that AP is no longer tied to S, it's its own stat like in 40k. The Lance gives AP -2, whereas previously the knights would have been S6 and minused 3 from armour saves. There's no way they'd now be minusing 5, so I must be right. To my mind that means that although they're more vulnerable to weapons with no AP, hopefully they can tone AP down across the board (we can have S4 and S5 warriors with 0AP finally).

It is not tied but I don't know why I had in my mind that we have seen mostly profiles with more ap than before and with armour bane. Maybe it's just that seeing it written has make me think that it is more than when it was strength related.

Vorian wrote:


Am I correct in thinking that they are +1 WS, +1 T and +1 Ld now?

Looks like. Also, -1BS!

Given the last paragraph, I take it this was the last preview. At least as far as regular Monday previews are concerned. Shame if so.

 Geifer wrote:
Given the last paragraph, I take it this was the last preview. At least as far as regular Monday previews are concerned. Shame if so.

Well yeah, it’s December; the content is winding down for the holidays so everyone can come in fresh for the new year… which is when TOW is releasing.

There used to be a huge step from str3 to str4 lance armed cav, with both +1 to wound and -1 save being relevant most of the time. Now it seems that would only impact the to wound roll, with the lance providing a -2, sometimes -3 save. Hopefully this makes KOTR, regular empire knights etc more viable too.

Is this the first time we’ve seen pts too? 38 points per model, about the same as a Chosen Chaos Knight in 8th if I recall. So no wild change in points values.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Vorian wrote:


Am I correct in thinking that they are +1 WS, +1 T and +1 Ld now?

Looks like. Also, -1BS!

Outrageous nerf! The Old World is dead to me, I’ll never play it due to this, but still obsessively refresh this thread and moan /s