GW News: BIG N' SMALL WAAAGH! COMIN'

I was most impressed with this article, it has pretty much everything I was asking for in a revised Warhammer Fantasy Movement Phase - the introduction of Closed Order vs Open Order, March Columns providing a new tactical choice, the correct Skirmisher and Failed Charge rules returning from pre-8th, random charge distances surviving from 8th but toned down slightly, Counter Charging as a new charge reaction.

The only downside is pre-measuring surviving but I'll just ignore that when playing at home (apart from the admittedly required use of it when determining when Frenzy units have to test to avoid going berserk), as I've always done when playing 8th.

Most exciting stuff!

What's more, it looks as if TOW articles are now going to become a weekly event (AT LAST!), which is most welcome. I look forward to next Monday's article on the Shooting Phase.

 

Another TOW preview coming, on the 17th November (or the 18th for non-North-and-South-Americans):



As all the Bretonnian stuff was previewed in the Warhammer Day preview, I wonder if it'll be Tomb King-related this time?

 

17th November, not October.

 

You know what I meant

 

The Closed Order and Open Order formations idea seems intriguing, as does the Counter Charging mechanic. The reduced charge ranges could go either way. On the flip side, I'm not really a fan of the March Columns as it would be a pain in the ass to physically reform your models and then have to reform them back. That could bog down the game.

 

Even banks moved away from this horrid design after realizing there's a ton of things that are awefull experiences on phones...
Is GW somehow even slower to adapt than banks?

In fairness it's either physically reform formations, or not have meaningfull formations at all. Honestly, it's not too bad if you just keep the units small enough.

What's the alternative? Forbidding people from measuring things at one specific moment during the game seems a bit odd. Plus, otherwise the previous phase will just take longer with people measuring charge ranges just before the movement phase officially begins.

Aside from that, I do like that a failed charge still results in movement. Makes a failed charge feel less pointless. Plus, it puts some risk on long-range charges.

 

That's true, the extent of the annoyance will be dependent on the width/size of the units in question. If you have a unit that is 5 wide and 4 deep, it is trivial. Oppositely, if you have a 10 wide by 5 deep horde unit, god help you.

It's true impact won't be known until we know the rest of the rules and how prevalent large and small units will be in the new game. It could be a minor inconvenience (like closing skirmisher ranks in 8th edition) to a major pain in the rear end.

 

The alternative is to just ban pre-measuring (apart from a very few exceptions where it's vital for getting rules like Frenzy to work). People shouldn't be pre-measuring distances to enemies for things like shooting and charging, because it has a good chance of influencing their decisions as to who their units will charge and shoot at in ways that wouldn't occur with real generals. In the Ancient and Medieval worlds of our own universe, a general couldn't just pre-measure the distance between a unit and their foe and say 'OK, I know these chaps are now in range because I used my magical god tape measure to verify as such, you can now fire'. They would have used their best estimates based upon their experience and knowledge, and if their troops happened to be out of range of the target, then that was a mistake resulting from the general's command decision. The same should be the case in Fantasy, in a setting where there are no targeting systems or anything that could give a commander the foresight that pre-measuring contributes. If you elect to charge a specific unit and fail your charge or lose a round of shooting because the target is out of range, then tough, that was a mistake on your part as the commander, better luck next time.

 

Sure, but a decent archer (or unit commander) is more than capable of roughly gauging distance to a target. And shooting at exact maximum range is rare, they'll shoot when they're pretty certain the target is at least within a range they can comfortably hit. E.g. maybe this archer can hit at 450 yards when he has a good day. But he knows that if he wants to reliably hit he needs to wait till 400-ish, so unless he's desperate he'll wait till the enemy is a bit closer than that 450 so as not to waste any arrows. And he's definitly not going to shoot at something more than say 460 yards away if he's capable.

More importantly though, I don't think it's practical to ban it. Too many people would struggle with gauging distances and get frustrated, and since you constantly need to measure distances anyway you'll probably end up seeing a lot of cheating (or "clever" use of mechanics and rules to allow people to measure things anyway, as some players would call it ).

So again, what exactly is the alternative to avoid needless frustration?

 

The thing is, though, every game requires the use of particular skills to become good at it - in the case of chess it's planning ahead, in the case of football it's running speed and agility, and with basketball it's being able to jump high and throw the ball through the hoop. Allowing all forms of pre-measuring to help people who aren't good at gauging distances in Warhammer would be like allowing people poor at planning ahead to make 2 chess moves a turn, forcing a football player to slow down to give a slower player a chance of reaching them or lowering the standard height of basketball hoops to give short people more of a chance of scoring a point. It gives the veneer of making a game more accessible, but in doing so it sacrifices some of the challenges associated with the game, and thus some of its quality.

Many other wargames made by other companies insist on no pre-measuring for the reason of realism I mentioned previously, and few people in the communities who play those games seem to have issues with that or demand for that to be changed, suggesting that by and large people have no problem with it.

With regards to cheating and gamesmanship in this area, that of course is down to the players themselves to discourage it and call out anyone who does try and pull a fast one on their opponent while gaming, as with any other form of cheating.

Simply encouraging those having difficulty to practice more by playing more games with their friends, or, if they really can't get the hang of it or can't stop being bugged about it, to just look for another game to use their models with. As an example I've never been a hugely fast runner or one with a lot of stamina, and thus I've been never any good at football, but I've just accepted that I'm not the footballing type and prefer to play other sports that I'm better at, like tennis, cricket and golf.


Perhaps I sound overly harsh or unaccommodating, but I just think that such a basic and fundamental core component of any wargame involving pre-modern technology shouldn't be sacrificed just because a subsect of the Warhammer Fantasy community have an issue with it.

 

Another Old World preview, this time - the Shooting Phase:
https://www.warhammer-community.com...arrels-shot-bolts-balls-and-screaming-skulls/

Most things look good there - the only real changes with shooting is that armour save modifiers are now dependent upon the weapon rather than the Strength (something carried over from 40K and particularly AoS, I can see why they've done that because it means the player can just refer to the weapon profile rather than having to look at the Strength/Modifier chart in the rulebook) and only the front rank can fire, a return to pre-8th again (not so fond of this particular change because it'll mean non-bow-armed missile units having to go back to deploying in ridiculously long lines to be able to maximise shots). Also, it looks like we're getting a lot more Special Rules, or at least renamed ones - Armour Bane, Bombardment and Cumbersome stand out here. Armour Bane could be just the renaming of Armour Piercing (though why have this rule now when the AP value of a longbow could just be listed as -1?) and Cumbersome could be the renaming of Slow-to-Fire.

The biggest thing though is, once again, magic. The two spells previewed make the Tomb King spell previewed earlier look particularly bad now which is sad, and it appears as though there are no more Eight Lores of Magic, and potentially just one Lore of Battle Magic (though Magic Lores could have more than six spells now to compensate). Similarly it's concerning that the Lore of Daemonology might mean there's no more God-Specific Chaos Lores. That's certainly going to take some fluff out of the game.

 

The main difference is that this is quite a difficult skill to expect of a beginner. Accuratly judging distances with an error that is at least below 1" without a measuring tap is not something people easily grasp. Or even of an expert really, especially considering that you don't really get consistent points of references unless you always use the same armies and the same terrain.

And I'm sure some people would enjoy it, I'm just sceptical it'd be a lot of people

There's one very important question to anwser here. How niche are these games? Again, I'm sure there's some people who enjoy it.

Also, out of curiousity, which ones? And what do they provide to help reduce the general frustration involved with this? Especially during the learning process, though even beyond that it's going to remain frustrating.

Alternativly, maybe all the players just like being frustrated. Wouldn't be the first genre of games where the audience has borderline masochistic expectations

The main issue is that it won't all necesarly be "official" cheating. A lot of it will be in that gray realm where RAW and RAI conflict, for example people measuring the "allowed" things at oppertune moments to improve their extimates for the next charge.

Did they state how many spells you get? Cuz if the average wizards gets 2-3 spells so he can do something in multiple phases it isn't terrible.
But if it's just 1 spell like in AoS then the difference is rather stark.

Also god I wish we got stuff like that Fireball in AoS. Stuff like this is so much easier to balance and make interesting than the endless stream of "do D3 mortal wounds" AoS keeps pumping out.

The change in lores seems odd though.

 

Grand Justice Gormayne.

I will enjoy saying "Objection overruled!" with accompanying *bonk* sound effect when he attacks.

I also am surprised by how much I am reminded of kruleboys clothing with his robes.

 

Honestly, the most surprising thing about this model is how long it took GW to start actually capitalizing on the theme FEC has going on and release something more interesting than variants of "deranged canibal monster with a large femur for a weapon"

 

Those two spells seem unbalanced to you? Fireball is a great spell, but in no way game breaking. The Vortex of Chaos doesn't even seem all that good. The dangerous terrain effect could be a useful nuisance, but the random movement of the template blunts its strategic impact.

Exactly what kind of magic system are you hoping for? I love magic in Warhammer but it would seem there are a few voices hoping to have it relegated to irrelevance. 8th edition magic was fantastic, save for a few problematic spells (purple sun, dwellers, etc.). The strategy should be to tone these spells down, while keeping all the good stuff.

 

To be honest it's still a deranged cannibal monster with a large femur as a weapon, simply that the cannibal monster thinks he's a judge rather than a knight and the femur's got a couple of skulls on it.

 

I'm not implying either of those two spells are unbalanced, indeed they look fine from a balance point of view. It's just that they make the Tomb King spell previewed earlier (re-rolling 1s to Hit in melee with roughly the same casting value) look rubbish in comparison, which is more than a little concerning for all those who want Tomb Kings to be good.

I was hoping that the magic system would be in the middle between 6th/7th and 8th - not relegated to irrelevance (otherwise what's the point in it?) but not the force of destruction it was in 8th. The Tomb King spell is more like something one would have seen in 6th/7th (probably even weaker), but these two newer spells are more what I was expecting.

The vortex spell is a budget-value version of the super-vortex spells from 8th, which is a good thing. Weren't those also dependent on the random movement of a template?

 

I must disagree (surprise! ). I actually like the TK spell better than either of those other two; based of course on 8th edition mechanics which may or may not hold in TOW. As such, as more TOW rules become known, that shift in context may shift my opinion as well.

So why do I like the TK spell better?

1. In my experience, generally speaking, Augments/Hexes are the most useful spells in the game. Magic Missiles have a lot more restrictions associated with them. Can't be cast on a unit engaged in CC. Can't be cast if the casting wizard's unit is engaged in CC. Line of sight and front arc requirements. I'm not saying that MM don't have extremely valuable uses, but at the end of the game when the key CC is going to decide the contest, Augments/Hexes are king. As for Magical Vortexes, I'll get to that later.
2. Unless I am missing a key piece of the rules, I don't see where the Cursed Blades incantation specifies that it is restricted to CC. The way I read the rules on the spell card, the spell is applicable to both shooting and close combat. I like spells that provide such flexibility.
3. I believe the Cursed Blades incantation might effect multiple units. It specifies that it effects "any friendly unit that has the Nehekharan Undead special rule and that is within the caster's Command range". It doesn't state any one unit. Personally I would have liked for it to be written more clearly; the inclusion of the words "all units" would have been helpful, but based on what little context we have, I'd say the RAW interpretation makes it a bubble spell (the rest of the TOW rules might clarify this in one direction or the other though). The constraint of the Nehekharan Undead rule is not much of an issue in a TK army. So it comes down to how big the command range is. If it is 12" for instance, that's quite a few units in that bubble. Even at a paltry 6", you can fit a few key units in there.

Aside from Purple Sun, which super-vortex spells are you referring to? Purple sun was a game changer, but most other vortex spells were typically considered to be the weaker spells in their magic lores. I can't think of any other Vortex spells besides Purple Sun that I was eager to have in my spell list.

Purple Sun had a lot of things going for it, but this new "budget-value version" has none of those....

• Purple Sun hit every model passed over by the template, while the Vortex of Chaos only does d6+1 wounds per unit.
• Purple Sun wounded on a failed initiative test, while the Vortex of Chaos needs to wound using it's meager S3
• Purple Sun allowed no saves of any kind, while the Vortex of Chaos allows all saving throws
• Purple Sun killed models outright regardless of wounds remaining, while the Vortex of Chaos only inflicts a single wound

A spell like Purple Sun in 8th edition did have random movement, as you suggest, but it did all of its damage at the time of casting, where the player still got to choose the direction of the template's travel. After that initial casting, it was much less threatening with its random movement, but usually it was already too late by then. The Vortex of Chaos will never be able to inflict such damage at the time of casting.

Was magic (outside of those select few uber spells) that overpowered in 8th?

I think we often suffer from a slightly distorted view of how effective it actually was. Could it win you the game... yes, sometimes. Could it be a complete point sink, doing little to nothing... also yes, sometimes. I think some of it comes down to recall bias that humans tend to suffer from. We tend to remember singular large effects more readily than more common smaller ones. So that one time that Purple Sun wipes out a Lizardmen or Orge army is for more readily recalled than the 20 other games where it had little, no or a moderate effect. And that's referring to one of the most broken spells in the game, which I agree should be toned down. Consider, there are only a handful of spells in the game that have that level of potential.

So to play devil's advocate against magic, consider the following:

• magic is typically expensive and usually quite squishy on the battlefield. A level 4 wizard is usually not cheap, quite soft and has a huge bulls-eye painted on its back. Those are valuable victory points for your opponent to capture, and also represents a significant points investment that could have bought you several more war machines or a truly potent close combat unit.
• the two most powerful armies in terms of the magic phase (the TK and the Beastmen) were both bottom tier in terms of competitiveness. Magic could not offset their weaknesses in the other phases. On the flip side, the Warriors of Chaos had very mediocre magic (and next to no shooting) but easily made up for this with Close Combat prowess and movement potential. Dwarfs have no magic (though they do have magic defense) and they are a very potent army. Shooting, close combat and magic defense easily make up for their lack of a magic phase.

I've seen games where magic punched above its weight, at its weight or well below its weight. Magic is fickle. Investing in the other phases offers far more reliability. But, the fickle nature of magic will mean that every once in a while it will have a highly memorable game-winning effect.

Lots of players invested a huge percentage of their points allowance on magic. It wasn't particularly uncommon to see a quarter of an army's points invested in wizards. So yeah, you'd expect 650 points of wizards to have a significant effect on the battlefield, but so can a pair of K'daai Destroyers for the same points cost.

I think the real issues were tied to those 5 or 6 really overpowered spells sprinkled across the entire game; of which Dweller's below and Purple Sun were the most famous examples. What made it particularly bad was that they unfairly disadvantaged certain armies in the game. Purple Sun could single handily defeat a Lizardmen or Ogre Kingdoms army. In fact, the Ogre Kingdoms could be every bit considered a top tier army alongside of the WoC, HE and DE armies if it wasn't for that one spell. Purple Sun is the one thing that kept them out of the very top echelon of armies. That was a bit of poor game design in my opinion, but even then it was never a sure thing.

 

I mean that they took advantage of the theming of the model and the various gross undead things have a clear parallel with the "proper" attributes of office a judge has. The model isn't just swinging around a random femur and calling it a hammer, he has an actual gavel. Sure it's made out of a femur and skulls, but it's clear that it's supposed to be a gavel. He also has the wig, a chain of office, a robe, and some legal books. It's much clearer what he's supposed to be than say crypt horrors who just have a random collection of bones.

Which is nice, it makes their theming much stronger. And it's something they've been doing with the newer FEC stuff, so that's good.