TOW THE OLD WORLD - Poll: Will TOW be a faithful successor to WFB 8th edition?

What Killer Angel said. In a normal 2K points game, which is the equivalent of our 2.4K games i would say, you start with 12 command points. They are finite, when you use them, they are gone. You also get one at the start of each turn. You can use them to purchase upgrades akin to Magic Items before the game starts. You can use them to get more slots, akin to being able to play more Rare units for example, or you can use them in game for bonusses. One example is that a strat gives an entire unit +1 to hit or +1 to wound, a strat like that often costs arounds 1 CP.

I would say that the main upside of strats is that they are skill testing and fun to use. Knowing which combat will swing a game, when it happens and knowing what strats will help you out in that one pivotal combat or shootout and saving your points for that is hard to do, but rewarding. It also gives GW a lots of knobs to twist and turn balance wise, and a lot of design space.

The main downside is that well, GW really extensively used that design space. It is important to know what strats the enemy can pull out of their hat so you know what their capabilities are, and with dozens of strats for the dozens of armies that are often unit or unit type specific, you can see how this is a barrier to entry. It also feels bad to not know a strat and be completely annihilated by it, strats have made it so there are more "Gotcha" moments in the game if you ask me. I do have to say that it helps that a good 70-80% of the strats are never to rarely used in a game, if you know the best 3-5 strats from your opponent you generally are good to go. Just asking your opponent what good strats they have if you are unaware before the game fixes a lot of issues, but it is still bloat on top of an already complex game.

Maybe the more interesting question is if incorporating a system like this into The Old World would bring it too far from 8th for people's tastes. I have been thinking about trying to incorporate it into 8th and just come up with some strats of my own with a friend that is also into 8th and 40K, would be interested how it works. I think it honestly would just layer on just fine.

 

I would actually hate to see this show up in Fantasy. Command Points and stratagems were just another thing I didn't like in 8th and they doubled down on them in 9th. I quit 40k over how much I disliked 8th, I did try it but it's not my cup of tea. Obviously there were other factors but the idea of a reroll pool of dice and, as you mentioned, 300 stratagems as GW can't do things simple made it so that I had to know the main book ones, my armies and the opps armies stratagems. Then on top of all that 80% of them were seldom used to it just felt like unnecessary bloat. It led to too many "gotcha" moments IMO. If others like this,obviously it's popular so they do, but for me it's just another thing that clutters the rules. They added Reactions to the HH and we will see if that is the same level of bloat, if done right it might be something great to add to the game and I'm not that much of a grumbler that I don't want to see new things.

 

I think the question that GW has is what will be the closest representation of the Total War game. Which is what I am pretty sure is driving the Old World project.

 

I'll cry if TOW has "floating" layers of rules like AoS and 9th has, tracking command points, 6 million stratagems from every codex and supplement, armies with abilities that change each turn of the game, as well as 700 different "marine chapters" for each force with their own modifiers. I also hate <KEYWORD> salad. As much as it's supposed to clarify things and make them easier to cross-check it ends up just annoying and confusing me. Oh and primary/secondary victory conditions that require constant tracking. Even with card-assisted tabletop games I often find it hard to keep everything in check turn-to-turn.

 

Sadly that will most likely be the case. GW seems to think that is what people want as every set of games they release has them. HH has some and while I can't judge them yet, haven't finished the rulebook yet, it's yet another thing to learn. As of now there are only a handful but as they have done in the past the likelihood of new ones in every supplement is high. Warmaster keeping reminding me how simple a game it is, while having so much depth of gameplay.

 

@PlasmaDavid do you still play 8th? We're always looking for more of the faithful on this thread.

 

Makes me want to stick with 8th even more.

I'll still take a look at TOW when it comes out, but I'm more and more convinced it will be a bizarre combination of AoS and WFB where they will try to have enough familiarity with AoS to attract that market into playing WFB.

 

I sure would if I didn't live in a rural area and had people to play with! Haven't played 8th for almost a decade

 

What keywords are there? I certainly can't see any on this example profile from the recent free scenario GW put up for download:


Indeed to me the Horus Heresy rules here look very much like 6th 40K which is reassuring, though it's interesting to see the Movement stat return with different Movement values (for those of you who don't know, in 40K Editions up to 7th all infantry moved at a fixed 6", so the Movement stat was dropped).

 

HH is based on 7th edition 40k mostly isn't it? Honestly I was only ever really involved in 5th edition, which I loved.

 

7th Edition was pretty much 6th with some pointless extras bolted onto it like Formations and Tactical Objectives, introduced two years too early probably because GW's finances were declining and they thought releasing another 40K Edition might help turn things around (which in the case of 7th failed miserably to do so because it just became a broken mess). If said pointless extras have remained then yes, I would agree that Horus Heresy has evolved from 7th, whereas if they are no more than I would say it looks more like it has gone back to 6th and ignored 7th entirely, which wouldn't be a bad thing at all.

5th was decent and I still have all my 5th Edition stuff, but I prefer 6th to this day because vehicles were easier to destroy (which as a Tyranid player I have always been a fan of), more special rules were introduced, melee weapons were given proper profiles like missile weapons and Psychic Powers were made more like Warhammer Fantasy magic to give it more structure.

 

Not trying to be dumb just wanting clarity of your comment, what exactly do you mean by keyword? Is that an 8th or 9th edition thing? From what I've read so far, just got the book two days ago, there is none of that. The psychic phase is different as some powers don't need to be tested for and if you want to take the test they can be enhanced. The reactions are the main thing I'm concerned with but I haven't played them yet so don't have an opinion on them one way or another. The concern is more bloated rules as we all know when GW releases the next supplement there will be more. As is there aren't that many and most are in the main rules so it feels like there will be less "gotcha" moments as I had in 8th, with command point nonsense. There are less rites of War and they all seem much clearer with less crippling cost. I hated the last edition had so many none of my friends or I would play due to the restrictions making them not worth taking. It'll be nice to use more than four. I also like that leadership is slightly worse, weird to like that bit wait for it, because then rules like fear and pinning should actually have a chance to work. Again this is from a quick read and not everything fully digested and no games yet. I have concerns but am hoping I'll be satisfied with the changes. On the topic of TOW I'm less happy as we know very, very little and who knows where they will go.

 

I was referring to what @PlasmaDavid described as a:

That has become a staple of AoS and 8th Edition onwards 40K.

Here's an example of what we both mean:


I agree with him in that it is rather pointless and feels dumbed-down, something I dislike about AoS and the more recent editions of 40K. I certainly couldn't see any of these though in the example HH unit profile I included above, so that's a good sign.

I'm not too worried about the new Reactions, they don't look nearly as bloated as Strategems and feel more like charge reactions in Warhammer Fantasy or Overwatch in its original form in 6th 40K.

Rites of War on the other hand... what are those?

 

Then my guess was correct and we have none of the keywords other than traitor or loyalist. As long as they don't keep adding reactions so it becomes bloat then they seem fine, I'm trying really hard to be positive as I enjoy HH.

Rites of War are options you can take that give you a benefit but have guidelines as to what units you can take to enjoy the benefits. Drop pods are very restricted on this game and usually you can't take them without using the deep strike rite of war. The restriction to it being all units must deep strike and that means most tanks, all fortification and some units can't be taken. It's what detachment should have been. You don't have to take them and the new ones seem far better written with much clearer rules. I haven't read them enough to be an authority but the old ones were either really good, meh or garbage
All the new one seem interesting.

 

My condolences for your loss, brother.

 

I'm concerned that, like Formations in 7th and Detachments in 8th and 9th, these Rites may become an auto-take and force you to play the game in a specific way if you want to win, but if the Deep Strike Rite, for example, forces your entire army to Deep Strike, then that does introduce a downside that makes it just as viable to go without as it is to take them, which is good.

In general though it sounds like Horus Heresy has got off pretty lightly and is still largely faithful to the older Editions of 40K, which certainly bodes well for TOW.

 

While some were better than other they all had downsides you had to play around. I liked them and only wanted a few of them to be better written as they were poorly balanced so seldom if ever taken. There are no Decurian style Rites and definitely no free vehicles or unbalanced things like that. I've played a lot without Rites as my Alpha Legion didn't need them, they help but aren't mandatory.

 

I do wonder, why? Keywords really do not impact play in any way, it is just something to consider when building lists. I love 8th like the next person, but i do think that 40K 9th is a lot clearer of a system than 8th ever could be. It is just a formalized way that defines what is what, and not something you have to track during the game, so i can't really see the issue? It is i would say unlike the tracking that secondaries and strats require, i can totally see people disliking that, even though i enjoy that aspect of the game.

I would love the idea of Reactions in TOW, they give a lot of depth to the game without having as much bloat as strats. It can be a bit boring if your opponent in 8th has a long turn, there are not that many game actions to take as the inactive player, Reactions might be a cool way to make the game better.

 

I personally think that that level of formalisation is unnecessary, given that in Fantasy, everyone knew what GW meant when they said 'Units of Terradon Riders get this buff' or 'All units within 12" of this dude get this", while these keywords just give me the impression that GW think we're stupid.

I agree here though, it would reduce the amount of I-go-U-go in Fantasy, which of course was one of the downsides of it as well as 5th and 6th 40K. It would certainly help keep players on their toes even when it's not their turn, and as long as it doesn't go the bloated way of Stratagems then it has potential.

 

You're right, it is a more thorough and adaptable way of tracking exactly what they want rules to apply to and so forth. It just looks like an ugly legal document or something to read, and I never cared about actually playing the game enough to sit down and thoroughly cross reference everything to see how quick they are to use with unfamiliar units. I'd rather the old days when things were written out "Special Rule X: The following units must be painted pink and get a 2+ invulnerable save: Space Marine Scouts, Imperial Guard Sentinels, Penitent Engines" Instead of "Applies to <CORE> <IMPERIAL> <BOOKUSDOOKUS>" I guess it's also easier to balance with a short sentence and also takes up less print space to use <KEYWORDS>

As for "reactions" I heard that in one edition the magic phase wasn't just CAST vs DISPELL, but both players could cast magic in each others phase. That would be cool to come back and provide more player involvement during the enemy turn.