GW News: SKAVEN VICTORY! #NewAoS

Go on then let’s hear it.

I personally got a little stab of excitement reading that.

 

Very little to go by.

 

Yeah its not exactly an informative article... Kind of a shame.

 

Still some interesting changes they've made:

• Removing the corner-to-corner rule and allowing all models in the unit's attacking ranks to attack (which is more realistic because when a unit would attack, everyone would just pile in, the troops on the flanks too far out to reach the enemy wouldn't just stand there and watch while their mates duke it out with the enemy)
• Potentially supporting attacks and step-up returning which is a good thing (they've "ensured that as many models as possible can fight in combat", which supporting attacks and step-up certainly helped to achieve in 8th)
• Units that don't fail morale and break are forced to retire backwards, and the victorious unit can follow up if it wishes (something I've seen in other systems and wanted to see applied to Fantasy)
• 8th Edition uber-spells will likely be a thing of the past, or at the very least much rarer
• Magic has been spread to different phases of the game, meaning either the Magic Phase has gone entirely or it has been reinvented as a command phase of some sort
• There was reference to Wizards having innately-crafted lores of magic, suggesting that they may be making different magic lores more unique with their own different quirks, like the old 7th Edition Greenskin Miscast Chart and 6th Edition Ogre and Tomb King magic, rather than every lore following the same standard rules
• It sounds like Wizards will need to be within a specific range of other Wizards in order to Dispel, meaning players will have to get their Wizards moving across the battlefield in order to use them effectively - I would say this is a good thing because previously players could just sit their Wizards back at a safe distance and sling magic all day long (apart from Miscasts of course).
• Some magnificent pictures of classic models that will be returning on glorious square bases!

Still no release date though or word of when the next article will come round... I wish GW would stop screwing around with pointless Legions Imperialis bullshit and focus on TOW, this is the 40th anniversary year of Warhammer Fantasy after all and this was meant to be the time it was to be released. Legions Imperialis can be released any time (plus nobody gives a toss about it apart from GW, HH has nowhere near the popularity of mainstream 40K, or even Warhammer Fantasy I'd wager).

 

Agreed - I couldn’t give the furry crack of a rats behind about legions imperialis and I don’t think there’s many people chomping at the bit for its release like they are a revival of fantasy.

I am reading the changes to magic as there being no specific magic phase anymore and spells being used more like command points are used in 40k, which leads to some scope for more interesting and less predictable plays.

Although light in detail I am liking what I am reading so far.

 

Have they ever stated why they chose the freaking horus heresy for its setting of all things?
Cuz I could imagine it being decently popular if it was "modern" 40K. But HH is just so absurdly limited in terms of factions for epic scale stuff.
Which makes the HH such an odd choice.

Honestly, magic being spread out over an entire game is so much better. If only because it allows for actually interesting spells as opposed to the basic nonsense you get in AoS.

 

HH is just red vs blue to me.

 

This does sound interesting. I know you don't play AoS @Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl, but I wonder if this should filter into AoS. It would change an aspect of the game that some of my friends don't like about it.

 

I'm pretty sure Wizards having to be in range to dispel was already a thing in AoS (unless they removed it from 3rd, I really couldn't care about 3rd after all its rules bureaucracy killed the small amount of interest I had accrued in AoS through 2nd Edition). As for magic being usable in any phase, they already did that with Command Abilities I believe, so it wouldn't be much of a stretch to do the same for magic and prayers.

 

Kind of like with Adeptus Titanicus, I wager that it's both ease of early model support and laziness on their part in the pursuit of profit. You've got a game in which 23 factions realistically pull models from 5-6 different ranges, of which 18 factions are supported by just one of them. As such, GW doesn't need to fabricate anywhere near as many casting dies to provide early model support when pumping out new product, and with space marines already being the posterboys of 40k and Horus Heresy as a whole it's a no-brainer for them to be pushing them as one of the introductory armies in NuEpic.

With that said, it still beats me as to why they haven't invested in expanding their manufacturing capability with their COVID booster shot.

 

So if I fielded a unit in a single rank that spanned the entire width of the battlefield... they would all be able to attack? Who needs a rank bonus at that point? Just field the inverse conga-line deathstar for the win.

 

Try marching all that through terrain.

 

Not to mention that probably the entire enemy army could charge your line at once and divide up its attacks between their units and thereby crush your unit.

 

Depending on the quantity and type of terrain, for sure. Also depends on who has the range advantage... if the opponent has to come to you because they are outranged, it doesn't really matter at all.

They better get their entire army into your army sized unit... even then it is still 50/50.


Of course there might exist a multitude of rules that negate such a strategy, but speaking from the CC tournament results, being able to utilize your entire front rank regardless of enemy unit width, would be a game changer. That is of course in the context of 8th edition though, this game might run completely differently.

I'm just speculating that if you're a person who hates the 8th edition horde rule, this could end up being the same thing but worse. People would throw gigantic numbers of models into a horde for an extra rank of supporting attacks (limited to 1 or 3 per model), now imagine a horde-like unit where the player can utilize their model's full compliment of attacks (if that happens to be the case in the new game).


Obviously, with what little we know of the rules, all of this is HIGHLY speculative.

 

I would wager there is almost certainly going to be a benefit to having more ranks than frontage as an offset to this.

 

That's entirely possible.

 

But if you have invested an army's worth of points into an army-sized unit, there would be so many models in the unit that I doubt you'd be able to have just a single rank lined across the table.

Take for example a unit of Dwarf Warriors - Dwarfs are 8 points per model, so if the game was 2000 points, for instance, the unit would be 250 Dwarfs strong, and if each was on a 20mm square base, those Dwarfs all lined up would reach a length of 5000mm, or 5m, which is certainly longer than most standard gaming tables are. That's not counting any scenery that may be in the way of the line horizontally, and that in TOW those Dwarfs will be on 25mm bases, making the line longer still. It would be pretty easy to get lots of standard non-Horde units into combat with this line, and the line would have its attacks divided between each of the enemy units engaged with it, allowing each enemy unit to take less of the flak while all the enemy units pour out their attacks on the same unit. Plus the enemy units will be able to rack up a huge combat resolution bonus for all the standards they will have, while the line will just have the one, and that it will only take one failed Break Test for the line and it's game over, whereas multiple enemy units can afford to break (and potentially rally and charge back into combat) while the rest still pour out their attacks on the line.

I don't fancy the line's chances, even if the Dwarf Warriors were replaced by a more powerful unit choice.

Ever hopeful that I will eschew TOW and stick to 8th I see, but as you've said yourself this is all speculation. There's a lot in what that article has told us that still gives TOW a great amount of appeal at this stage.

Indeed, I very much doubt they'd get rid of the rank bonus mechanic given that it has existed right through 6th-8th at least, and that, plus the ever-present ability to get multiple narrower units into combat with one wider unit and divide its attacks, would balance the width bonus out.

 

I have faith it will be balanced out somehow - something like a minimum number of ranks with a minimum rank width would work. Meaning you could go for a unit with a 20 model wide frontage, but you have to take x number of ranks at 20 models per rank.

I personally would hope to see an end to the horde meta.

 

you can still have a “horde” army represented by having more models on the field albeit in smaller units which brings its own advantages in terms of setting up flanks etc