7th Ed. 8th Edition hits

As the title explains, who will be taking the heaviest of hits in 8th?
And, accordingly, who will come out on top?

Personally, I think Skaven will become a top tier army.
Lots and lots of infantry (cheap!), destructive magic and potent shooting. Their main disadvantage is their unreliability.
HE benefit greatly (IMO), their infantry is pretty good. But the prolonged combats will get them, and these are inevitable in 8th.
VC and Daemons will take a hit. Since autobreaking is gone. But they will always be very dangerous.
Dwarves have very tough infantry, but aren't killy enough. And they cannot benefit from all the neat magic items in the main rulebook...that hurts! Small boost.
Wood Elves will take a big hit. Need ranks to take away flank, 'fixed' skirmishers, stepping up, Striking in Initiative order...all these things don't help WE, maybe the last one. BUt only marginally.
Empire can bring out their mortars again...and they will pretty much always remain balanced. Because it's the Empire!
Brets are going to take a hit, but not according to the rules; but to the enviroment. The whole game shifts towards infantry, and Brets...well, they don't have much infantry!
Beasts of Chaos, Honestly; I don't know. I know too little about them to give a reall opinion. But I guess they remain about the same; mediocre at best. Low Ld is murdering.
Warriors of Chaos, were pretty good and are still going to be pretty good. Solid infantry, potent magic and good supporting units. Too expensive though.
Ogres....they sucked before and will suck after.
DE, ruled before. And they will continue to be very dangerous after. Some of their units take a hit, but others (read: infantry) get a boost. Infantry-heavy lists will be the norm, BG+ASF=win.

And lizardmen....remain about the same. They were good before, and will remain good after. Only our Slann takes a pretty big boost and is likely to have a bit more alone time. Away from his TG.

So, that's how I see it. Let me know what you guys think,

The Hunted

 

I think that dwarves will benefit further from war machine upgrades (grudge throver)...

unfortunately DE were really strong before, and will further benefit from 8th, don't like that....

 

Skaven will definitely be a lot better, but their magic lores are not as good as the 8 basic ones. They can also take more of their big guys, 2 doomwheels + 2 warp lightning cannons. Or other combinations. The 18" LD on large target helps the scraming bell/plague furnace general alot. As does the steadfast rule.

Actually Ogres got a significant boost with the new monstrous infantry category(granted this may still leave them in the bottom tier armies, they are better than before and hopefully will get a new book soon). People have been running units of 18 bulls, to get the horde rule, and musicians for the free reforms etc,... and putting out a huge number of attacks. Even if only 3 ogres are in b2b contact they get 27 attacks(if they are a horde still). And gnoblars are cheap too for big blocks. And more dice for gut magic isn't a bad thing.

Wood Elves take a hit to traditional tactics. Tree spirit armies will still be ok, and they have access to the new lore of life and beasts, both of which got a huge boost.

Orcs and Goblins got a big boost. They can now take all those neat options they have for special slots. Lots more war machines firing at you and big hordes of goblins. Plus a ton of cheap heroes. Kamikaze goblin shamans running at you hoping for an irresistible force to blow up next to your units. And the new LD rules help them just as much as the skaven.

With Lizardmen our Slann got a monstrous boost compared due to rumination. And salamanders will have a field day with big blocks and no partials + march and shoot. Stegadons(particularly EOTG) took a hit, as did our calvary. Saurus spears took a small hit, but hw+shield got a boost like other infantry. Skinks got a boost. So overall I would say we got a boost.

(these are the only armies I have any significant knowledge on)

Overall though I think is a bit too early to really say who took the biggest hit and who got the biggest boost. But I don't think any army really took a massive hit. Some will have to alter tactics, but overall I think 8th will level the playing field quite a bit.

 

Monstrous infantry plus stomp rule will make ogres more competitive. Kroxigor too.

On an entirely unrelated topic, didn't they just increase the price of Kroxigor like 15% or more?

 

I was thinking about dwarves in 8th edition the other day, which was my first army... originally thinking they would suffer, missing out on all the new shiny stuff...

Then I thought.. holy crap, their average charge is 10 inches now (9 if the -1 "dwarf penalty" applies to charging). One of my favorite tricks in 7th ed dwarves was taking two units of 10 miners, then anvil charging them on the turn they arrive. I'll probably take a full on 15-20 with full command now, because the anvil charge will make about a 15" threat from any table edge, though if you roll well you could get even further in. Great weapons in two ranks will carve some stuff up! At the very least, it will greatly cut into enemy gunlines, shooting, and disrupt their advances. To avoid miners before, you only had to remain inside of about 10 inches from the table edge... now you'd really have to bunch up!

Then I thought about the little used unit, the dwarf rangers. 7th ed, you would laugh at a ranked unit the has the "scout" special rule.. Now scouting is anywhere 12" from the enemy, so basically pick your flank on which to deploy these. By turn 2 you could very well have ranked up dwarves with great weapons carving up your flanks. Then of course you have your cannons opening fire doing d6 wounds now, and a gyrocopter with a steam attack that puts down the flame template and is not a breath weapon, so can be re-used at will. It will also be happily using its "march" fly move since it is Ld 9 after all. High Ld is better than ever.

So yeah, I think dwarves will cook up some surprises. The big disadvantage of dwarves in 7th was being basically unable to move or capitalize on combat, because it took so long to get there. Now with all the free reforms after combats and such and long distance charges, I think dwarves will do pretty well.

 

Dwarfs like step up, especially with fighting in ranks. They like Stubborn when winning in ranks. They like random charge distance. The like shooting in ranks. They LOVE partial template hits hitting and auto-guess*. They love objectives they can walk onto. They like no autobreak from fear.

*Grudge Thrower with RoAccuracy and RoPenetration. 130 points. It gets a direct hit with a S5 template 46% of the time...

 

Contrary to popular opinion, I think any of the armies with their own lore (possibly short of beasts since it was 'designed' for 8th) will get a pretty decent boost. Ok, the lore is nowhere near as powerful as the new ones, but with the new rules of adding your magic level to the casting role, all of a sudden potentially devastating but hard to cast spells are really easy to throw around.

Example, a level 4 HE wizard can give a unit a 5+ ward save throwing a single dice needing a 1+ to cast! Fury of Khaine (2d6 s4 missile) requires a simple 4+! I can now throw the deadly flames of the phoenix on 7+, and destroy your magic items with Vaul's on only 8+.

Similarly, a well equiped vampire lord can raise a new unit on 1+ then danse it into combat on 3+, and follow up with using invocation to boost its numbers on 0+! And the still deadly wind of undeath (effects every enemy unit and raises spirit hosts!) simply needs an 8+ to cast from a level 4 vampire lord.

 

I am thinking the older army book lores will get increased casting values when the erratas come out. Otherwise they are indeed a boost. I also noticed the new basic lores don't have as many movement spells, maybe they were deemed too powerful? In any case the extra movement spells suddenly get a lot better, with charge ranges going skyward.

 

Yeah I guess it all really depends on how much of each of the current books they actually will change for balance issues. Remember, GW has a bit of a habit of clarifying things that no longer make sense between editions, but not fixing balance issues. Beastmen technically still ranked up 4 wide in 7th ed with their 6th book even though it meant they were essentially useless as they no longer had a rank bonus, just to give one example.

You need to remember that despite it being an information age, GW dislikes using the internet extensively for ANYTHING and they will cater for the small percentage of people that either won't visit their website or do not have the internet. I'm almost awaiting the erratas more eagerly than the book... Is that weird?

 

I vaguely remember reading something along the lines of "a roll of 3 or less is a failed roll" for casting or dispelling. If that is the case even when you need only +1 to cast you could still fail it.

 

Yeah I read that too... In fact, the rumours have made it sound like ANY 1 or 2 is spell fail, which would be pretty harsh. The best chance of getting a spell off would be 66%, but much less if oyu used more than 1 dice. If its just total roll less than 3, thats fine and makes sense.

I guess given opponents will be dispelling at magic level + xd6 as well, you will probably want to throw more than 1 dice at even easy spells or they will simply need to drop a dice with anything but a 1 (or 2?) to stop the spell.

 

Hehe, I'm with you on the erratas, I think it's because we already have a pretty good idea of what all is going to be in the 8th edition book. The hope I have for this particular set of erratas is that since they are all being done in the context of 8th edition, maybe they actually will be well thought out and keep things from getting too horribly imbalanced. Yes, I am the eternal optimist.

Regarding the casting roll... rolling a natural 1 or 2 total for casting is an automatic failure in 7th edition, that is not new. What IS new is that failing to cast a spell in 8th edition means that the caster can no longer cast spells in that phase. Which is brutal. Double 1's is still bad, because it means you will likely fail to cast and be shut out of the phase.

 

personally i think we are about the same the buff to sala and slaan really off set the nerf to skirm, TG's and saurus, EToG.

its that much of a buff it counters 5 other issues.


VC's got OWNED.
Empire got a slight buff
Bret got a slight nef
Chaos got neither
Skaven are Top teir
DE are still up there
HE took a Nerf but its not that bad.
Orcks and G took a slight little nerf but they will bounce back
Beast men MEH its ok for them
TK took a OUCH kicker.

over all Skaven and DE are gonna be number 1 still

 

How on earth do you think Orcs & Goblins took a nerf??? The percentage composition alone gave them a huge boost.

 

I beileve this because

most of their units are to slow against the avg Int.

yes they can bring a lot of models but they will be loseing a lot in the big blocks everyone else runs.

Their magic is ok but not amazing and with that in mind i believe they took a slight hit to the TOOF.

ive seen the Giant Spider block it did OK but failed to the Skaven Block o slaves and the Saurus block of spears. they fact they Cannot go first hurt them more than helped.

My personally Opionion.

 

I believe they can go before Saurus, can they not? And zombies...

So, Cold one cavarly. I heard they took a hit, no? If yes I'm sad, if no I'm thrilled.
I love my cold ones.

Cheers!

 

Pretty much all heavy Calvary took a bit of a hit. The steadfast rule for units with more ranks becoming stubborn, plus the initiative order of fighting means no more rolling through a line with a unit of 5 COC. They may be ok as flankers, but will die pretty fast if you attack the front of any unit. This hit along with stupidity means I very likely will not be taking any COC any more. They just wont be worth the points any more.

 

Well I guess it's up to me to try them out then. What a pity this. What did Cold ones ever do to GW? ):
Fair enough, they'll have to work together with something, like the stray carnosaur or normal steg I have running about.

Cheers!

 

I'm thinking heavy cav will still have a role, they just won't be able to charge frontally into ranked up infantry anymore. Where was the strategy in that anyway, I personally love the cav changes. The stepping up rule makes tons of sense to me.