I normally charged them into flanks already, steam roll over into a more important target if you know what I mean. Which means that this only hurts me, since I can't march, along with striking on I.(That was the rule for heavy cav and infantry, right?) I agree though, charging head-first into combat with cavalry doesn't seem very tactical. Especially not when you can exploit an opportunity to play mind games and put your cavalry on the flanks. Cheers!
Well when I play against skaven for example, I could charge the front of slaves or even clanrats, and stand a really good shot of wiping out the first rank so no attacks back so odds were they would pop/flee and I would overrun into the next unit. Granted the idea was to flank, but with the mass number of units a horde army could bring it was tough and I would have to charge the front sometimes. But now with the easier reforms combined with the initiative changes and supportive attacks, well my calvary stand a good chance of being killed outright in the front. And if you flank them you still need 2 ranks of calvary(10 COC are really expensive) to negate ranks, and they will still likely be steadfast. Personally I was always flip flopping on taking them anyway cause of stupidity causing bad things now and again. So with these new hits on them I don't think I will take them.
I'm in agreement on the CoC, it was always tough to justify them with stegadons available to do the same job. Now with stegadons getting an extra D6 hits in addition to what they already did, and the fact that there is no more "large target" rule so no +1 to shoot stegs, there isn't really much to tempt me into the CoC camp. Though who knows, maybe their ability to take a musician will give them some sort of advantage. There is also now a cool magic banner that gives +1 to leadership but can't use the general's leadership. This would really go a long way to prevent stupidity from being a factor, and would make sure that your CoC don't ever get march blocked. I am not writing heavy cav off just yet, but at this point stegadons seem to be the hammer of choice.
I used some CoC in my test games (5 with mus/standard, war banner, plus a scar vet with scimitar). They can still lay a hurting on people. You really have to use them as combo-chargers to get the best chance of winning, preferably with them in the flank to reduce attacks or with a handy skrox unit negating ranks of whoever they hit in the front. The change to fear really helps as well, especially if you get stuck in combat. 8th is really going to put an emphasis on combined arms tactics: use magic and shooting to soften up your target, combo charges to kill it. No more steamrolling with big nasties.
OH I just heard that "Stupid" units are geting some sort of immune to psycology type of bonus, I am not exactly sure what we would be immune to, but also beaing a fear causing unit, I suspect we would be immune to a lot of different things.