I also think that no spell should ignore ward saves. This would help with the uber spells as well as making magic resistance a worthy investment.
Expand more on these topics. I thought of the miscast table as being reasonable. Deathstar is a ..?.. unit so big there is no way to kill it in six turns?
I do not remember for certain. I remember games where it happened and seemed idiotic. Did they eliminate it in 8th?
One alteration I would suggest: Characters on flying mounts can join units of the same unit type (with maybe the exception being those riding Dragons). That way a skink chief on a terradon can join a unit of terradon riders.
I think end times had it partly right with compining characters on monsters but why not give them the same rules as monsterous cav, but add the wounds up. This would help with the issue of what cannons hit. It works perfectly for monsterous cav, but combined wounds shows its a monster, but both models still attack seperately. That was what was wrong with the end times characters, Deathclaw got to borrow Karl's hammer for its attacks. And i think nothing should have higher than multi wounds(D3)
Re Cannons - Fix the line of sight. Cannons like the ones in WH cannot shot through their own troops and they don't shot over them either. Cannons have to have clear firing lanes. This should make it easier to negate them even if the rest of it was kept the same - Use your oppos troops against him - They can be cover! If the cannon owning player choses to shot his own troops the usual rules apply. In this way a player is unlikely to shot through many ranks of his own troops, but might gamble if only one or two figures are in the way.
The kill-everything spells are the balance against deathstars. They are crowd control. It is dangerous to put all your points into a mega unit because a single spell could kill almost all of them. But, casting that same spell on a smaller unit might not be worth the risk/reward (ie, miscasting could cost you more than you gain from deleting a 200 point unit, but it might be worth it to kill a 600 point unit) The problem with the big spells is that they give you a 16% (or more) chance of killing characters, which is usually worth it (especially in a game with lots of practically unkillable characters) There are other ways to fix this same issue in the game that aren't some arbitrary "deathstars aren't allowed" rule and nerfing the #6 spells. You could allow Look Out Sir rolls to be given to characters that would otherwise by auto-killed by a spell. That gives all characters in a unit a 2+ ward vs them, which is pretty good protection. Also, characters nearby a similar unit get a 4+ ward, but characters riding monsters or going it alone put themselves in a dangerous spot. Also, the miscast table should be adjusted so that it is always more dangerous to cast the more expensive spells. The best suggestion I've seen for that is to reorganize the miscast chart so that all the really bad effects are at the top end and the low end are weaker. Then when you roll for miscast you roll 1d6 + X where X is the number of dice you used to cast the spell. So if you throw 6 dice at a spell you miscast will be between 7 and 12, but if you only throw 1 die at a spell, your miscast can only be between 2 and 7. Maybe the chart looks something like this: 2 wizard can't cast any more. 3-4 casting wizard takes s6 hit. 5 -6 s6 small template. d6 dice are lost. 7 all wizards take S6 hit. d6 dice are lost. 8 -9 s10 small template. d6 dice are lost. 10 - 11 Wizard loses d3 levels and can't cast any more. 12 Big template S10, wizard dies. Now, throwing 5 or 6 dice at a spell is really risky so it better be worth it to attempt a #6 spell. And the look-out-sir rule removes the viability of the #6 spell to work against characters. BUT, it also gives you the opportunity to trade your wizard (via bad miscast results) to try to kill that unkillable flying character that has a rerollable 1+ save and 3+ ward that rerolls 1's. The other issue with deathstars is character walls. These could be fixed a bit by allowing attacks against non-character models even if you are only in base contact with characters. basically, the targeting rule would change to something like "You can always attack the regular models in a unit you are in contact with, and you can choose to attack a character with any model in base contact with it." Also, the challenge rules need to be fixed a bit. A character on a dragon shouldn't be able to be "broken" because they completely decimated a champion in a challenge. Maybe having challenges only exist as long as both models are alive will fix that. So if a character kills the champion in the challenge at his initiative step, his dragon can still attack/thunderstomp the unit at it's initiative step (and the regular troops could still attack the character/dragon if their initiative step comes after there-is-only-one in the challenge) Or, maybe a unit's banner/ranks can't be used towards combat resolution if they don't actually fight (ie, if the only actual combat was in the challenge, then only combat resolution generated from the challenge counts towards who wins the combat) Or maybe, single characters that are in a challenge and win count as stubborn when rolling leadership. I'm not really bullish on a rewritten 8th/7th edition working in the long run. 8th really has a lot of issues (lots of them can be fixed, by making the radical change of "only 1 magic item per character" or "remove all the BRB magic items" ... but I don't think anyone is on the same page with me on that) But I think the balance between the #6 spells and hordes is pretty good, as long as the risk or magic is appropriate and the side effect of auto-killing characters is mitigated. I definitely don't like dictating that certain types of builds are "not allowed". I don't like playing against all shooty armies, but I don't think "you can't have more than x% models with a shooting attack" is a very good rule. So I don't think "you can't have a unit with more than X models in it, or more than X characters in it" is very good either. And my 2 cents on cannons: Keep everything about cannons the same, except it only deals d6 wounds on the spot that it lands, and anything that is hit by the bounce only gets 1 wound. That way it is still dangerous, but more random (10" from the back of the base is no longer a viable strategy). It still does the same amount of damage to a ranked unit it bounces through (Monstrous Infantry excepted). Also, having the cannon randomize when it hits a rider/mount would be good (however, if you're rewriting things just rewriting all the Monster Mounted units to a single profile would be a better choice)
My 2 cents. Less is more. The less we change to the core rules, the more likely people outside of Lustria-Online would accept them. Think 8.1 Edition, not 9th edition. If Troglodons "suck" don't change the Troglodon rules, lower the points cost until Troglodons seem reasonable. If cannons are too strong, don't make them weaker. Give the a points cost that reflects their true value. Especially the Skull Cannons. They have a ward save, move and fight and cost ten more points than the vanilla Empire cannon. What the Mahrlect is up with that! Most Monstrous Cavalry should go up in points. Most non-skirmishing BS based shooting units should go down in points. Every year, the community should reexamine points costs. If hypothetical we overcompensated on something or overlooked something we could adjust the points costs again in 8.2 The only place we need to make new rules is where the FAQs are silent, but I would endorse the following core rules changes. -Either give character ridden mounts the same wound profile or randomize template hits between mount and rider. I would endorse randomizing hits. I have a feeling a Carnosaur with a 1+ rerollable armor save backed by a 4+ Ward save would not be fair. To say nothing of a Tzeentch character on some kind of mount rerolling 1s on the ward save. -Give Purple Sun and Dwellers victims a ward save. Possibly other spells.
Precisely... A Tzeentch Chaos Lord on a Dragon with a 1+ 3++ rr1's would be unstoppable with a combined profile.
While I generally agree that there's an opportunity here to tweak it as we go along I also thing there should be definately also be some substantial changes to the core rules. We've played with the current rules for quite some time now and something new to freshen it up a bit would be quite nice. From there on I think it would definately be a good idea to go slow and tweak it. So basically like patching up a computer game after release haha,.
The ..closer.. the point of aim is the ..worse.. the accuracy would be if that was the rule. A mechanic is needed that turns that the other way round. That randomizing split seems correct for some monsters but incorrect for others. How big of a stone becomes a question. A cannon ball needs to be able to do D6 damage to dragons and giants. That seems right. One cannon shot could kill a giant just like one bullet could kill an elf. More contemplation needed.
I agree with some of your post, but the uber spells are still too powerful. It's true that they're used as a counter to big units, but a purple sun down our templeguards - regardless of whether the slann gets eaten or not - is devastating. I can accept being able to use magic resistance against stuff like purple sun because that would allow us to save 50% of our guys. magic resistance to work against uber spells + allow for LoS would definately change things quite a lot and would make people think twice before mindlessly picking those spells. In regards your example of miscast table it's exactly something like that I would love. In my last game this happened (no bullsh1t): Tetto'eko 2 dice iceshard = gets taken by dimensional cascade -.- Same magic phase slann use 2 dice on something, gets off an IF and rolls a 1 on throne of vines, but rolls well on the miscast table. It's amazing that I should be punished for spending two dice twice in a row. Spending big should be risky, but certainly not when you go safe. The more we can shift the magic phase to not be "herpa derp 6 dice dis!" the better.
@hdctambien came up with a good tweak to the miscast table for IF. deathstar being half your points or more dumped into a single units; white lion horde with banner of dragon and a bunch of characters, irongut hord with front full of charaters, dark knight bus with vamp lord and baby vamps etc. Bascially units that'll remove anything they hit. I realize there are answers to those; redirect and uber spells, but I think one could do more to promote more intersting play. With that said I'm likely not the most experienced player so people are free to disagree
I suppose you could roll the scatter after the artillery dice, but I think you would have to make it a d6 roll then. (or maybe d6 at long range and d3 at short range ?)
+1 to that. Cannons need fixing because the behavior of the mechanics do not suggest smoothbore muzzle-loaders firing spheres. (Added word per N810s suggestion...)
I'd like to see purple sun be a str/toughness test instead. Fix LOS. Kings of War has an amazingly simple ruleset for this. I'm tired of people shooting their cannons through their own units. distruption breaks steadfast monsters cause distruption when engaged in the flank or rear +4 ward save MAX for anyone (sorry WOC and HE) with the exception of wounds caused by fire for the dragonhelm or dragonbane gem More access to fiery weapons and items Make the magic phase less random, I enjoyed 7th edition until it was ruined by VC's one-dicing everything. Better rules for buildings and terrain, make use of these awesome scenery pieces we have. Some lizardmen changes razordon have either armor piercing or BS4 Ripperdactyls gain ASF against units that have blot toads Saurus are weaponskill 4 and bring back sacred spawnings! Regen 6 on skinks, 5 on saurus and 4 on kroxigors with a points increase for saurus and kroxigors. It'd take a lot of tweaking, but I feel like it'd be more flavorable. Whatever, sorry, I'm at work and tired so these are probably mostly dumb...
That seems like too much deflection when the deflection is denominated in inches. ETA: it's on the right track but it just amounts to moving the laser beam rather than representing a cannon ball screwballing its way across the battlefield. When did cannons start firing through (over ?) their own units? Apart from skaven, natural thing to do with skaven.
What if we were to change the miscast table so that it took into account how many power dice were used to cast the spell. The miscast table would still range from 2-12, but instead of rolling 2d6, the miscasting player would roll just a single d6 and add 1 for each power dice used to cast the spell. In addition, the table would be reshuffled so that the worst results would be found at the larger number values. I figure more power dice = more risk = worse consequences. It would definitely penalize those players 6 dicing spells!