AoS Second Edition

Just caught wind of the 'no shooting out of combat' change. Thank Sotek for that one.

 

That's certainly a good change. That rule was pretty unrealistic.

 

does rise the question what they're going to do with that battalion though

 

Maybe with the new command system you could use the command ability of everyone, but you can only choose 1 each turn. Or maybe more, depending on command points or so.

 

meh, limiting it to one per turn wouldn't be much of an improvement for factions like ours that have a relative large amount of command abilities but none of em too powerfull. On the other hand stuff like the stormcast with their command ability to ignore battleshock on basicly everything might be a tad much if their entire army starts using command abilities.... I hope they move some of the comman abilities to just be "normal" abilities so they "weaker" ones can be stacked while the stronger ones don't become overwhelming.

 

As a general rule it's more than welcome, however I would not be surprised if certain units (e.g. monsters with mounted weapons, uber-skilled wood elf super-archers) have exemptions, in fact I'd fully welcome it.

If I was in charge I'd probably tie it in with the '3-inch rule' for melee combat engagement - have it so that any model within 3 inches of an enemy model (or maybe tie it with melee weapon range) cannot use any of it's ranged weapons unless explicitly stated otherwise on it's Warscroll. This makes the 3-inch distance a sort of 'zone of control', a distance within which any other model is assumed to be 'threatened' - if you're within this zone and you try and reload your clunky blackpowder weapon or nock an arrow, both actions that require your full attention and leave you with your guard down, the threatening guy is going to spot this and be able to respond quickly.

 

That's a good idea - missile units will be so busy focusing on loading and firing that they have no time to fight in melee as well.

 

That's still awkward for your behemoths and the units that are somewhere mid-way between ranged and melee like kairic acolytes or tzeentch horrors.

 

Well they would just have to choose between one or the other - whichever the owning player would feel is the most effective.

In any case I'm not here to discuss Disciples of Tzeentch. The very idea...

 

For simplicity of gameplay I'd flat say no ranged weapons at all if you're in melee.

 

Certainly in most situations it would be too close for comfort to use big ranged weapons like bows and handguns, but smaller weapons like throwing axes, pistols and throwing stars would be a lot more wieldy in melee. I think it should really go along the lines of Fantasy and say that normally you can't shoot in close combat but some weapons would have special rules that allow the unit to shoot in melee, but if they do they can't then attack in melee as well.

 

Fantastic idea, that would give some units an interesting slant. Say for the Empire militia, or whatever they're called now.

 

If only there was a rule set that already had that incorporated into it!

 

The issue would be that certain behemoths like our bastiladon have their firepower fairly neatly divided between melee and range (mostly cuz melee happens twice in the same time you can shoot once in this case..). Being forced to pick between one and the other would change it from a well rounded sturdy behemoth to a basicly a glorified meatshield that can't fight itself out of a tarpit cuz it just doesn't have any damage-output if it can only choose to use melee or ranged attacks each turn. Without a rework of their entire warscroll I'd say that'd be a terrible idea.

Still an important one to discuss for the sake of balance

Wouldn't it just be better to just completly seperate the two but simply state what the ranged weapon would do in melee as opposed to giving special rules for specific weapons? E.g. an arkanaut company hits people in melee with their gun butts, indicating what they do with their guns when stuck in melee. Similarly kairic acolytes could just also have their sorcerous bolts in their melee profile and a bastiladon could have a melee profile for its solar engine. It'd remove the need for special rules on half the stuff, while also avoiding the issue of gimping certain units that are supposed to get into melee.

 

I'm personally really looking forward to what they do with the magic system, at the moment it's a bit disappointing that fluff wise Slann are some of the most powerful magic users but in game their signature spell is pretty much pointless and they have no inherent buffs beyond getting 3 castings. I really hope they beef it up somewhat, I'd happily buy some of those new magic spell models they're teasing especially if there is a massive snake themed one!

 

But a good deal more realistic. This rule would give melee armies so much more of a chance against ranged ones. In addition, what is the plight of a single unit compared to that of several armies? If it stops a load of armies being retconned because they’re no good anymore at the price of perhaps one or two units becoming significantly worse than before, then I’d gladly have that rule in the book. And GW are planning to drop armies - they’ve said so on the Warhammer Legends Page.

But...but...special rules are Fantasy-esque! They’re more fun for a start!