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It's a hard pass for me. I've played 3rd - 8th. 8th is still my favorite and that's what I'm sticking with. After watching plenty of preview videos and battle reports, I find the rules too similar to 5th & 6th, and that's a big pass for me. To each their own and for those that are looking forward to it, I wish them well, but it's not for me.

That's funny because I've watched the gameplay and, whales notwithstanding, it seems far more 8th than anything else. But I can admire you sticking with the edition you prefer as I am also doing.

 Just Tony wrote:
That's funny because I've watched the gameplay and, whales notwithstanding, it seems far more 8th than anything else. But I can admire you sticking with the edition you prefer as I am also doing.

The TOW rules seem to contain elements from most editions as well as new innovations, so tbh anyone who vehemently dislikes a particular edition is likely to find enough of that to complain.

Wrt 8 though, most of the big changes from that (the changes to the magic phase, steadfast, ‘step-up’, the removal of unit strength) have been excised. It’s only really pre-measuring and random charges that have stayed, and the latter have been substantially toned down.

And i just learnt that Chaos warriors have merely heavy armor... And basically all the hq can't Upgrade to full plate either...
Yeah no, all the dragon spam aside, nope, the army is called warriors of Chaos and not "dragonlord spam with marauder cheerleaders" and yet that is what this is likely to turn into...

Well, as I had mentioned in the past, I had heard from some *unreliable* sources that TOWs interpretation of warriors of chaos would be less heavily armored than in the past and more Norscan in vibe, to represent that prior to the rise of Asavar Kul full plate chaos armor was not yet a widely established thing as the chaos gods were not yet as powerful as they would be after the great War in terms of being able to bestow it unto their followers en masses and/or chaos dwarves were not actively in cahoots with the warriors in forging it (depending on which interpretation you go for).

I had thought maybe that meant they would just cut proper warriors/knights and chosen entirely and leave them in AoS and focus on a marauder army, instead they kept the units but downgraded the armor and limited the availability of chosen

I'm playing

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, as I had mentioned in the past, I had heard from some *unreliable* sources that TOWs interpretation of warriors of chaos would be less heavily armored than in the past and more Norscan in vibe, to represent that prior to the rise of Asavar Kul full plate chaos armor was not yet a widely established thing as the chaos gods were not yet as powerful as they would be after the great War in terms of being able to bestow it unto their followers en masses and/or chaos dwarves were not actively in cahoots with the warriors in forging it (depending on which interpretation you go for).

I had thought maybe that meant they would just cut proper warriors/knights and chosen entirely and leave them in AoS and focus on a marauder army, instead they kept the units but downgraded the armor and limited the availability of chosen

And also Cut an attack, and got more full plate in other armies and Made marks far worse and denied upgrades for full plate for hq.

Not Online!!! wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Well, as I had mentioned in the past, I had heard from some *unreliable* sources that TOWs interpretation of warriors of chaos would be less heavily armored than in the past and more Norscan in vibe, to represent that prior to the rise of Asavar Kul full plate chaos armor was not yet a widely established thing as the chaos gods were not yet as powerful as they would be after the great War in terms of being able to bestow it unto their followers en masses and/or chaos dwarves were not actively in cahoots with the warriors in forging it (depending on which interpretation you go for).

I had thought maybe that meant they would just cut proper warriors/knights and chosen entirely and leave them in AoS and focus on a marauder army, instead they kept the units but downgraded the armor and limited the availability of chosen

And also Cut an attack, and got more full plate in other armies and Made marks far worse and denied upgrades for full plate for hq.

For the actual warriors they’ve just dialled back the stat creep to how they were in 6th where normal warriors/knights had 1A and heavy armour and only chosen had 2A and full plate.

The lesser HQs not having full plate as an option is weird though.

Stat creep on a unit that more often got avoided than fielded even with the stat creep?
Because it drew very unfavourable ammounts of fire?

Fun Way to say that gw wants to sell lords and very little else.

It's only a stat creep if you take 6th as the reference point. The modern iteration of the rules (ie from the first starter box edition) had CW with higher stats, they've been messed with a lot whilst the core archetypes of most other armies still have the same stats from back then.

If the background justifications are true, weird that they would stick rigidly to the background there and retcon to allow more steam tanks elsewhere, no?

My main issue with this change is that the Chaos Warrior models are obviously wearing plate, and are more heavily armoured than most other models wearing heavy armour (thought Black Orcs give them a run for their money, but I always felt the newer plastics were a bit over-armoured.)

 Da Boss wrote:
If the background justifications are true, weird that they would stick rigidly to the background there and retcon to allow more steam tanks elsewhere, no?

My main issue with this change is that the Chaos Warrior models are obviously wearing plate, and are more heavily armoured than most other models wearing heavy armour (thought Black Orcs give them a run for their money, but I always felt the newer plastics were a bit over-armoured.)

Black orcs aren't the issue here, greatswordsmen with their helmetless 3/4 plate ( basically not a full Set of plate but Arms and tighs)counting as full plate are. Sorry not sorry but this is Grade A bs.


Edit: just looked up the greatswordsmen models.... Actually they are not even 3/4 they don't even have tigh protection...

Greatswords are modelled after their historical counterpart but got merged in the rules with the Reiksguard and therefore having models that don't fit the rules

something that always causes confusion, when the rules don't fit the background and both don't fit the models but background and models are used as justification why the rules must be in a certain way

so just accept that it does not fit together instead of trying to find ways to explain why model A having better armour saves than model B despite both models are identical in look (it is magic)

Good point on the Landsknecht Greatsword dudes, I had forgotten they were classified as full plate. Those puffy sleeves are hardier than they look!

The strength and AP on attacks has been lowered a lot though so T4 and 3+ is better than it used to be. Very few things that have AP better than 2. Most monsters, melee heroes and heavy cavalry units will still give a Chaos Warrior a 5+ save in the old world and quite a few models that used to have both high S and high T, like a lot of monsters and creatures, now have their S value lowered by 1. So a S6 model that would wound a Chaos Warrior on 2+ and have them save on 5+ now wounds on 3+ and have them save on 5+.

Klickor wrote:
The strength and AP on attacks has been lowered a lot though so T4 and 3+ is better than it used to be. Very few things that have AP better than 2. Most monsters, melee heroes and heavy cavalry units will still give a Chaos Warrior a 5+ save in the old world and quite a few models that used to have both high S and high T, like a lot of monsters and creatures, now have their S value lowered by 1. So a S6 model that would wound a Chaos Warrior on 2+ and have them save on 5+ now wounds on 3+ and have them save on 5+.

Or more realistically 6+ armor, because you Made the mistake of Building a squad without shields and or dared to go with halberds.

No matter how you slice it, Chaos warriors got shafted and you only get a single unit of them in the Form of chosen when you want the old statline back. Regardless of points of the game.....

I for one Look forward to people complaining about only seeing marauders and a dragonlord/ marauders of tzeentch with sorcerer spam from WoC.

Not Online!!! wrote:

Klickor wrote:
The strength and AP on attacks has been lowered a lot though so T4 and 3+ is better than it used to be. Very few things that have AP better than 2. Most monsters, melee heroes and heavy cavalry units will still give a Chaos Warrior a 5+ save in the old world and quite a few models that used to have both high S and high T, like a lot of monsters and creatures, now have their S value lowered by 1. So a S6 model that would wound a Chaos Warrior on 2+ and have them save on 5+ now wounds on 3+ and have them save on 5+.

Or more realistically 6+ armor, because you Made the mistake of Building a squad without shields and or dared to go with halberds.

No matter how you slice it, Chaos warriors got shafted and you only get a single unit of them in the Form of chosen when you want the old statline back. Regardless of points of the game.....

You got a 2+ save if you didn't take shields and took halberds/great weapons in earlier editions? I think I must have missed that. If that is the case I understand the cries about nerfs.

I used to have plenty of models with +1 saves, I could build almost an entire list of those with the models I have in my collection, but now 2+ is the best and some of those models are 3+ now. But I can see that Strenght and Armour Penetration have been nerfed in about the same amount so I am not upset just due to stat changes. I will have to play with them a couple of times and see what the meta will be before I declare that the game designers fethed up on this point.

No you had a 4+/
3+ against shooting with halberds and shield.

Now you got a 5+/
4+ against shooting because you don't have full plate anymore only heavy armor in Chaos warriors if you fork over points aswell for a shield and halberd.

At Max you get a 4+ armor in warriors now.

Which isn't a problem at all if you don't take more damage in the end and it might end up that they are equally survivable despite 1 worse save.

If they are equally survivable to 6-7th ed Warriors it just means terrible survivability for the points investment and a really bad unit. They needed significant improvement, not staying the same.

Ap was massively reduced across the entire game and so armour was also somewhat reduced.

Cav no longer gets mount bonus but strength does not impact armour at all so many many units will get saves when before they did not.

Not played yet but watching actual battle reports Chaos Warriors seem strong.

Asmodai wrote: let me see if the game has staying power.

You will be the reason that it fails, then.

Until you run into crossbows/ muskets at which point that "reduction" very much isn't felt.

I did run Warriors of Chaos before 8th ed, and I think they are good enough. 1 pip lower in armour but AP is also lower.

I wouldn't worry about crossbows, only 1 every 6 HITS has armourbane. Gunpowder weapons work similar but they have always been good against this kind of heavy infantry units.

I definitely want some re-released minis for various gaming projects but so far I am undecided if I want to play TOW.

Undecided. I read over the rules and I dunno if its just me but the game seems fiddlier than ever (lots of small things to keep track of like Heavy or Regular infantry, Close/Open Order, Warband, Horde etc). Not keen on Give Ground and Fall Back In Good Order as rules and I feel like they'll result in a lot of weird situations. Many, MANY rules result in just giving an extra AP or Armourbane (X) or rerolling 1s, which is something I didn't like in 8/9/10th 40k (a lack of variety in special rules). I dunno. It just feels very mechanically safe and armies feel kind of bland.

Then there's odd stuff that might get FAQ'd and might not and some odd stuff by design. Screaming Bells don't join units but just hover close by, no Verminlord or skavenslaves or poison wind globadiers, the giant magical lightning cannon doesn't have Magical attacks (neither does the Doomwheel), dwarf Runelords can't get the Rune Of Spellbreaking, khorne daemons can buy magical heavy armor that gives them a 5+ ward save for 40pts...

Maybe in time if TOW does well and they update the armies so they feel a bit more complete and revisit their decision to Legacy half the armies I'll have another look but for now I'm sticking with 8th.

 Sim-Life wrote:
Undecided. I read over the rules and I dunno if its just me but the game seems fiddlier than ever (lots of small things to keep track of like Heavy or Regular infantry, Close/Open Order, Warband, Horde etc). Not keen on Give Ground and Fall Back In Good Order as rules and I feel like they'll result in a lot of weird situations. Many, MANY rules result in just giving an extra AP or Armourbane (X) or rerolling 1s, which is something I didn't like in 8/9/10th 40k (a lack of variety in special rules). I dunno. It just feels very mechanically safe and armies feel kind of bland.

It's not you.

I think, without an ounce of snark or irony or whatever, that this is the single most difficult ruleset to penetrate that GW have published since I started playing in 1998. By a mile.

Sure these were some horridly fiddly/slow bits in the past (lapping around, killing 1 horse from a chariot, killing a dragon's rider, etc) but this is certainly an edition that tries to overwhelm with all the moving parts, nested rules, minor rules variations and a book that breaks all records in interdependent rules being completely disjointed and scattered across 250 pages with absolutely no regard for either the first time reader or a player trying to look something up during the game, and I dare say that most players will not in their lifetime play a single game to completion entirely according to the rules as written with no mistakes.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Undecided. I read over the rules and I dunno if its just me but the game seems fiddlier than ever (lots of small things to keep track of like Heavy or Regular infantry, Close/Open Order, Warband, Horde etc). Not keen on Give Ground and Fall Back In Good Order as rules and I feel like they'll result in a lot of weird situations. Many, MANY rules result in just giving an extra AP or Armourbane (X) or rerolling 1s, which is something I didn't like in 8/9/10th 40k (a lack of variety in special rules). I dunno. It just feels very mechanically safe and armies feel kind of bland.

It's not you.

I think, without an ounce of snark or irony or whatever, that this is the single most difficult ruleset to penetrate that GW have published since I started playing in 1998. By a mile.

Sure these were some horridly fiddly/slow bits in the past (lapping around, killing 1 horse from a chariot, killing a dragon's rider, etc) but this is certainly an edition that tries to overwhelm with all the moving parts, nested rules, minor rules variations and a book that breaks all records in interdependent rules being completely disjointed and scattered across 250 pages with absolutely no regard for either the first time reader or a player trying to look something up during the game, and I dare say that most players will not in their lifetime play a single game to completion entirely according to the rules as written with no mistakes.

That's an....interesting take on the rulebook. Seems pretty easy to navigate to me. It's even got the more recent better laid out examples that newer 40k and AoS have that make understanding easier. It's definitely a dense product but I found HH and LI much more complex and annoying. Having played from 5th-8th it's VERY familiar so I'm probably biased on the simplicity though. Where as I wanted LI to be laid out more like Epic:A

HH certainly has USRs scattered across like 7 sections and some... creative... alphabetizing (Melta bombs are under G, for grenade! Neutron Blasters are under Las weapons, which you have absolutely zero way of knowing unless you're a fluff pedant, but Lascutters aren't, they're under Exotic weapons...) but the core rules are much simpler just by the virtue of not having block movement, and the units are 80% the same statline with 2-3 USRs... ToW is pretty much all unique profiles with north of a dozen USRs on pretty basic units. Forthermore I find that ToW has a lot of issues with important exceptions not being mentioned at all in the main section dealing with that aspect of game resolution.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
A particularly blatant example are rules governing how slain models attack in melee. Firstly, that slain or stepping forward models can't attack isn't mentioned under the heading "Who Can Fight". That models that stepped forward into the Fighting Rank don't make attacks is stated under a separate heading two pages later "We Can't All Fight". You only find out that models that stepped into the supporting rank also can't make attacks another 4 pages later, under "Excess Casualties" which is definitely not a heading you'd examine if someone asked you to confirm how many attacks a block of spearmen gets. You would literally have to read in detail the entire combat section.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Sim-Life wrote:
Undecided. I read over the rules and I dunno if its just me but the game seems fiddlier than ever (lots of small things to keep track of like Heavy or Regular infantry, Close/Open Order, Warband, Horde etc). Not keen on Give Ground and Fall Back In Good Order as rules and I feel like they'll result in a lot of weird situations. Many, MANY rules result in just giving an extra AP or Armourbane (X) or rerolling 1s, which is something I didn't like in 8/9/10th 40k (a lack of variety in special rules). I dunno. It just feels very mechanically safe and armies feel kind of bland.

It's not you.

I think, without an ounce of snark or irony or whatever, that this is the single most difficult ruleset to penetrate that GW have published since I started playing in 1998. By a mile.

Sure these were some horridly fiddly/slow bits in the past (lapping around, killing 1 horse from a chariot, killing a dragon's rider, etc) but this is certainly an edition that tries to overwhelm with all the moving parts, nested rules, minor rules variations and a book that breaks all records in interdependent rules being completely disjointed and scattered across 250 pages with absolutely no regard for either the first time reader or a player trying to look something up during the game, and I dare say that most players will not in their lifetime play a single game to completion entirely according to the rules as written with no mistakes.

I didn't think the Darklands rules could ever meet their match, now I am really excited to crack open TOW on Thursday night.