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Yep, time for another link to another battle report...

http://www.classichammer.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=1347

And Mr. S. Baldrick? THIS is an example of what I was talking about during our Dwarfs 6.5 debate...

Yeah those panic tests were game defining.Thanks for the report!

 Just Tony wrote:
Yep, time for another link to another battle report...

http://www.classichammer.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=1347

And Mr. S. Baldrick? THIS is an example of what I was talking about during our Dwarfs 6.5 debate...

You're comparing apples to oranges in this one. A 6pt leadership 7 Gor unit is going to fail panic tests. An 8pt leadership 9 dwarf isn't going to fail too many. Longbeards being immune to panic isn't why you take them, you take them for the extra WS and strength. Being immune
to something you will hardly ever fail isn't that big of a deal. Basic dwarf warriors are leadership 9 and do not panic very often. In all my time of playing tournaments in 5th - 8th I can only recall maybe 3 times where a dwarf unit failed a panic test.

Stability is part of what you are paying for, dwarfs are generally a small elite army. Beastmen on the other hand is a horde army with lots of cheap low leadership troops.

In the games we played and documented there were SEVERAL times that high leadership units bailed out due to Panic. If you look at that specific Batrep you had two units panic that were running the Doombull's LD 9, which is Dwarf LD.



And you never ONCE mentioned any other stat line in the other argument, it was specifically that you said ITP wasn't game breaking being applied to over half an army as an upgrade. THAT is called moving the goalpost.

But you bring up a good point. In every other 6th Ed. book barring the cluster that is Chaos an upgrade to a unit like that in stats and especially Psychology rules would move those units from Core to Special at the very least and/or have the unit limited to 0-1. Dwarfs 6.5 blew all that apart.

 Just Tony wrote:
In the games we played and documented there were SEVERAL times that high leadership units bailed out due to Panic. If you look at that specific Batrep you had two units panic that were running the Doombull's LD 9, which is Dwarf LD.



And you never ONCE mentioned any other stat line in the other argument, it was specifically that you said ITP wasn't game breaking being applied to over half an army as an upgrade. THAT is called moving the goalpost.

But you bring up a good point. In every other 6th Ed. book barring the cluster that is Chaos an upgrade to a unit like that in stats and especially Psychology rules would move those units from Core to Special at the very least and/or have the unit limited to 0-1. Dwarfs 6.5 blew all that apart.

Um... this is the exact quote I had in the other thread

"Also Longbeards were not worth the extra investment, 11pts a model over the 8 for a Warrior is a big deal once you price up a whole unit. The extra to Strength was nice but hardly necessary, with Initiative 2 dwarf infantry was better off with great weapons. The extra to WS was pretty much meh. In the days that this book was out you usually only saw 1 large infantry block and several units of Thunderers. If you are going to spend 11pts per model you may as well go 12 for Hammerers and get Stubborn out of it. Otherwise if you are savings points Warriors will do everything Longbeards can do but cheaper."

I still stand by that. Unless you really needed strength 6 to crack some armour your points were better spent elsewhere because warriors were still the better option.

If you fail a leadership 9 panic test that is some bad rolling but is still not very common.

Also Chaos could put the mark of Sleneesh on just about anything and be immune to all psychology and no one really called it broken back in the day because you still pay a lot of points for it. A Longbeards with shield and great weapon was 12pts a model, that twice as many points a a Gor, so yeah you should get something for spending those points. A chaos warrior unit with 20 models and the Mark of Sleneesh is around 15pts.

I would still say in 6th that Hammerers are a better bet for the points because with leadership 9 you'll get more out of Stubborn than you will immune to panic.

And this is how the WHFB 6th Ed Legacy Community shatters... an argument about Dwarf Longbeards

Rihgu wrote:
And this is how the WHFB 6th Ed Legacy Community shatters... an argument about Dwarf Longbeards

Consider it more a lively discussion

Not to be all kumbaya and politician playing both sides about it but I'm seeing both sides of this argument here.

As a player with mostly Greenskin games, I can't tell you how frustrating it is to wimp out on a charge or lose a unit completely due to a failed psych test...

...However, if I wanted to pay the points for some Frenzied Boyz I could. I usually agree with most of your takes, Tony, but in this case I think Greenskins contradict your argument that Dwarfs 6.5 crossed the line by allowing all these Immune to Panic units in Core. Orcs with a weaker version of The Mark of Khorne (Frenzy but no extra dispel dice) have been around since at least the beginning of 6th. Savage Orcs are Core and start at 6 Pts/model (7 with Warpaint for the 6+ Ward Save). (NOTA BENE: While 6 or 7 points a model sounds pretty cheap please keep in mind this is a Horde Army like Beasts and also that it still represents a 20-40% cost increase over regular Boyz who start at only 5 pts/model.)

Psychology is HUGE in this game and I think I'm seeing room for the answer to be somewhere in the middle here. Maybe Dwarf Longbeards (and Dryads, while I have the soap box) should be a little more costly? And if Baldrick is correct in his assessment that Warriors do [mostly] everything Longbeards do but cheaper, maybe we raise their cost, too, to match the inflation% we just put on the Longbeards? (Basically I am suggesting that in Dwarfs 6.5 maybe they should have made Warriors cost 9 pts/model, pushing Longbeards to 12 or even 13 pts/model.)

I don't mind Hordes of Chaos because their Warriors start at 14 pts/model and their Knights start at 33. Chosen brings them to 20 and 45, respectively, and then putting a Mark on the Unit adds even more to the cost. I would have RATHERED they just made 3 separate Army Books for Chaos though, I do agree that that would have been better. There's 3 different Elf Books that don't use each other as Special Units and they work just fine, Games Workshop! But I digress...

Rolling 9 or less on 2D6 is an 83% success rate if I have my math right, which means you EXPECT to pass most of the time but failing twice in the same game CAN [and often WILL] happen. There was also a turn where the Beasts player Rallied every unit that was fleeing (so, 3 successful rolls in a row on LD 6 and 7, which are 42% and 58% success rates) so things did bounce the other way in an unlikely manner, too.

Immune to Panic/Immune to Psych makes it a SURE thing and that should be reflected in the points cost of a unit. Immune to Panic IS a big deal and this is where I disagree with Balderick. I'd bet anything the difference between an 83% pass rate and a 100% guarantee starts to really show up when the data set gets big enough to include thousands of games.


So, TL;DR: maybe you guys are both right. Maybe the Dwarfs 6.5 book gives a few things a point or two cheaper than they need to be but Immune to Panic units in Core are a legit thing that already existed. The Chaos player definitely DID have Psych options like Marks of Slaanesh, Marks of Khorne, Daemonic Units in a Special Slot, etc.

Mr. S Baldrick wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
In the games we played and documented there were SEVERAL times that high leadership units bailed out due to Panic. If you look at that specific Batrep you had two units panic that were running the Doombull's LD 9, which is Dwarf LD.



And you never ONCE mentioned any other stat line in the other argument, it was specifically that you said ITP wasn't game breaking being applied to over half an army as an upgrade. THAT is called moving the goalpost.

But you bring up a good point. In every other 6th Ed. book barring the cluster that is Chaos an upgrade to a unit like that in stats and especially Psychology rules would move those units from Core to Special at the very least and/or have the unit limited to 0-1. Dwarfs 6.5 blew all that apart.

Um... this is the exact quote I had in the other thread

"Also Longbeards were not worth the extra investment, 11pts a model over the 8 for a Warrior is a big deal once you price up a whole unit. The extra to Strength was nice but hardly necessary, with Initiative 2 dwarf infantry was better off with great weapons. The extra to WS was pretty much meh. In the days that this book was out you usually only saw 1 large infantry block and several units of Thunderers. If you are going to spend 11pts per model you may as well go 12 for Hammerers and get Stubborn out of it. Otherwise if you are savings points Warriors will do everything Longbeards can do but cheaper."

I still stand by that. Unless you really needed strength 6 to crack some armour your points were better spent elsewhere because warriors were still the better option.

If you fail a leadership 9 panic test that is some bad rolling but is still not very common.

Also Chaos could put the mark of Sleneesh on just about anything and be immune to all psychology and no one really called it broken back in the day because you still pay a lot of points for it. A Longbeards with shield and great weapon was 12pts a model, that twice as many points a a Gor, so yeah you should get something for spending those points. A chaos warrior unit with 20 models and the Mark of Sleneesh is around 15pts.

I would still say in 6th that Hammerers are a better bet for the points because with leadership 9 you'll get more out of Stubborn than you will immune to panic.

https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/765915.page

For those who want some context...

Hammerers are a better deal, you'd be right. I doubt you've checked it out but over at classichammer I did a dissection of the 6.5 book and everything that I disliked that they changed. Hammerers was on that list.

I've also railed against how Chaos can run/mark things as well. I'll admit I used those rules because that's what I had, but I've also started avoiding it specifically because of our more balanced sensibilities nowadays.

But the reason I brought this up in the first place is because you basically said that LD 9 Dwarfs don't fail tests very often at all and because of that ITP was not imbalanced because of how little it affected things. This was me showing how statistical anomaly rolls DO happen and why I have an issue with the Longbeard shuffle. I could also niggle now much they are also undercosted for getting two stat bumps and a Psych buff but I have a feeling you won't think it's undercosted at all...

Mr. S Baldrick wrote:

Rihgu wrote:
And this is how the WHFB 6th Ed Legacy Community shatters... an argument about Dwarf Longbeards

Consider it more a lively discussion

And this isn't even the most lively discussion we've had...

MattyFenby wrote:Not to be all kumbaya and politician playing both sides about it but I'm seeing both sides of this argument here.

As a player with mostly Greenskin games, I can't tell you how frustrating it is to wimp out on a charge or lose a unit completely due to a failed psych test...

...However, if I wanted to pay the points for some Frenzied Boyz I could. I usually agree with most of your takes, Tony, but in this case I think Greenskins contradict your argument that Dwarfs 6.5 crossed the line by allowing all these Immune to Panic units in Core. Orcs with a weaker version of The Mark of Khorne (Frenzy but no extra dispel dice) have been around since at least the beginning of 6th. Savage Orcs are Core and start at 6 Pts/model (7 with Warpaint for the 6+ Ward Save). (NOTA BENE: While 6 or 7 points a model sounds pretty cheap please keep in mind this is a Horde Army like Beasts and also that it still represents a 20-40% cost increase over regular Boyz who start at only 5 pts/model.)

Psychology is HUGE in this game and I think I'm seeing room for the answer to be somewhere in the middle here. Maybe Dwarf Longbeards (and Dryads, while I have the soap box) should be a little more costly? And if Baldrick is correct in his assessment that Warriors do [mostly] everything Longbeards do but cheaper, maybe we raise their cost, too, to match the inflation% we just put on the Longbeards? (Basically I am suggesting that in Dwarfs 6.5 maybe they should have made Warriors cost 9 pts/model, pushing Longbeards to 12 or even 13 pts/model.)

I don't mind Hordes of Chaos because their Warriors start at 14 pts/model and their Knights start at 33. Chosen brings them to 20 and 45, respectively, and then putting a Mark on the Unit adds even more to the cost. I would have RATHERED they just made 3 separate Army Books for Chaos though, I do agree that that would have been better. There's 3 different Elf Books that don't use each other as Special Units and they work just fine, Games Workshop! But I digress...

Rolling 9 or less on 2D6 is an 83% success rate if I have my math right, which means you EXPECT to pass most of the time but failing twice in the same game CAN [and often WILL] happen. There was also a turn where the Beasts player Rallied every unit that was fleeing (so, 3 successful rolls in a row on LD 6 and 7, which are 42% and 58% success rates) so things did bounce the other way in an unlikely manner, too.

Immune to Panic/Immune to Psych makes it a SURE thing and that should be reflected in the points cost of a unit. Immune to Panic IS a big deal and this is where I disagree with Balderick. I'd bet anything the difference between an 83% pass rate and a 100% guarantee starts to really show up when the data set gets big enough to include thousands of games.


So, TL;DR: maybe you guys are both right. Maybe the Dwarfs 6.5 book gives a few things a point or two cheaper than they need to be but Immune to Panic units in Core are a legit thing that already existed. The Chaos player definitely DID have Psych options like Marks of Slaanesh, Marks of Khorne, Daemonic Units in a Special Slot, etc.

Agreed with the point cost reflection. The part I DON'T agree with is using Frenzied troops as a comparable slot. Yeah, Frenzied Core troops are Immune to Psychology, but they also have built in weaknesses that can be fully exploited by something as small as a 50 point Great Eagle. Immune to Panic has no down side, that is why I think having that unit in Core as well as how cheap it is MULTIPLIED by the elimination of 0-1 culminated in why I don't like how 6.5 handled that. There's a ton more if people are interested in reading my rambling, I'll copy/pasta if requested to do so.


For the record, AGAIN, I also dislike the fact that Chaos can pull the same stunt. with their Marks.

Part of the beauty of playing a dead game is we can actually have this conversation. What edition works best for you and your group, what books in that edition are you ok with. When WHF was still being produced there were the occasional people that tried to stick with older editions but they would be quickly dog piled on and berated to play the "NEW SHINEY" from GW. Under the GW boot we didn't really have much of a say in how we played. Back then it was heaven forbid you had the old book the day after the new one hit Now no one cares they figure "oh it's just those Fantasy holdouts let them be on their own"

I remember back when the HQ Bunker used to be in my town (around 5th ed 40K days) there used to be a group of older guys who played 2nd ed 40k in the back corner the 3rd Saturday of the month. They stuck to themselves didn't bother anyone but at least two employees would come up to them and ask why they didn't trade up. Those guys stuck to their guns and played on. Those guys didn't bother anyone until BAM! new store manager and "sorry we can't let you take up gaming space for out dated stuff on our busiest day" It's the GW mentality NEW NEW NEW, SALE SALE SALE!

I still have friends to this day that will complain all the time about GW but when that "new shiney" comes out they line up to open their wallets. So whereas Tony and I may disagree on the worth of a particular book let's just be glad we can have the discussion. I have been on threads where the mods would shut people down and just say "it doesn't matter the new X is out anyway"