8th Ed. House rules

[strewart]

Well, you know the house rule I use since we have been discussing it the past week or so. But for everyone else, we ignore/ban level 6 spells from the main rulebook since they are generally a bit more powerful than we want in a game.

Other thing we do is often just count terrain as basic terrain rather than all the special rules for it and determining type when a unit enters it. I find a couple of things about the terrain rules a bit silly. River of lava. Apparently, a man can't tell that he is stepping in lava and not a stream of water until he actually puts his foot into it. What the hell?? Tree/forest rules. There is only a 1/6 chance that the woods will be normal woods. Really? 83% of trees in the warhammer world are not normal trees and have weird and vicious effects or will simply walk away from you? I could see that in some parts of the world, but not all of it.

Thats about all we do consistently though. Occasionally bend the odd rule a little for the spirit of the game in a specific situation.

 

[Shaslain]

Other thing we do is often just count terrain as basic terrain rather than all the special rules for it and determining type when a unit enters it. I find a couple of things about the terrain rules a bit silly. River of lava. Apparently, a man can't tell that he is stepping in lava and not a stream of water until he actually puts his foot into it. What the hell?? Tree/forest rules. There is only a 1/6 chance that the woods will be normal woods. Really? 83% of trees in the warhammer world are not normal trees and have weird and vicious effects or will simply walk away from you? I could see that in some parts of the world, but not all of it.

Oh yes! I cannot stand the new terrain rules either! At my shop we don't even use them since everyone agrees they are stupid, and at other place I go to we start the game using them then forget about them halfway through. I would like to know why a treeman would be attacked by a forest... he IS a tree right??

 

[Danger Goat]

Yeah, I third the terrain rules. We will allow one or two of the terrain pieces to have special rules, just to mix things up. These are generally buildings/monuments though.

Also, my group has talked about counting fleeing units as wiped out at the end of the game.

 

[sazzer]

We've played a few games using Double 1 for Miscast and Double 6 for Irresistable Force, which adds an interesting, subtle twist to things. It doesn't change the odds of either happening, but does break the connection between the two, and means you can have a miscast spell that can be dispelled, or an irresistable force spell that doesn't nuke the caster...

 

[BEEGfrog]

Among friends we tend to use standard line of sight as used in most other wargames as we truly despise "true" LOS.

The big spells all get ward saves modifies by MR and even when ward saves don't appear applicable then MR still applies, e.g. even v hex spells the unit gets a MR save.

 

[liath]

We generally roll a 4+ to determine if a feature is magical - if it is then we'll roll on the terrain chart.

 

[SanDiegoSurrealist]

At my local, until recently, no special characters were allowed, Lore of Life was banned; could not have units valued above 400 points, and a bunch of other restricted stuff that nerfed LM; O&G and Daemons just destroyed everyone but that has since changed.

In the next league the gloves are off, unrestricted lists with a few exceptions. Special characters are allowed except Teclis,Tetto’eko, and the Daemon Special Characters. And now Cupped Hands and the Book of Hoeth are banned. Basically anyone/anything that allows casting with Irresistible Force and not suffer a miscast is banned. Which I don’t see how Thrown of Vines does not count in this but Cupped Hands does?

 

[Mister Blak]

Hello! Me again!
This is a new account, but I'm still the guy who wrote this thread.

Anyhoo...

Special characters are allowed except Teclis,Tetto’eko, and the Daemon Special Characters

Teclis is definitely scary, and I don't know much about Daemons, but why the astromancer? He doesn't seem any worse than any other hero. His special ability only lasts for one turn, otherwise he's just a slann with lore of heavens. Care to explain?


Oh, another of mine: if a proxy looks cool enough, then it's okay ( I play drake models instead of sallies, god I hate those sallie models, and a mumak for a chaos war mammoth in SoM, or at least I will.)

 

[SanDiegoSurrealist]

Teclis is definitely scary, and I don't know much about Daemons, but why the astromancer? He doesn't seem any worse than any other hero. His special ability only lasts for one turn, otherwise he's just a slann with lore of heavens. Care to explain?

Anything that allows a spell to be cast with IF and no repercussions to the caster is banned.

I agree that cupped hands and Tetto’ Eco are far from being as broken as Teclis or to warrant this, but there is a definite dislike of all things Lizardman at my local.

In fact I played in a tournament yesterday; and at the start of 2 of my 3 games I was told by my opponents, before the games even started!, that I was getting dinged on my Comp. Score just because I was playing Lizardmen. Beat them both (Empire and Ogres) and I know the Ogre Kingdoms player was not happy about losing to me at all, and hid his final score sheet from me.

Had 1 Major Victory vs Empire, 1 Loss (Massacred) vs. Vampire Counts (lost it in 1st turn. 100% did it to myself for details please see my other post "How to lose a tournament in turn 1" in the Battle Reports section), and 1 Minor Victory vs. Orge Kingdoms. Took 4th over all (Lame).

 

[Arli]

In fact I played in a tournament yesterday; and at the start of 2 of my 3 games I was told by my opponents, before the games even started!, that I was getting dinged on my Comp. Score just because I was playing Lizardmen. Beat them both (Empire and Ogres) and I know the Ogre Kingdoms player was not happy about losing to me at all, and hid his score sheet from me.

That seems like a douchebag move on their part.

 

[Danger Goat]

I've always heard stories like that, but never experienced it myself. Hiding the scoresheet from you? Really. Juvenile is an understatement.

 

[Mister Blak]

Can somebody post a house rule and drag this thread back on track?

 

[MI_Tiger]

We have a winter league with fairly extensive comp rules. Since we're used to that, we usually use league rules for non-league games also. Major "house" rules for the league are:

- No special characters
- No units costing more than 500 points or greater than 50 models (no huge deathstars)
- Multiple rares must cost 100 points or less. (no double hydras, tanks, HPAs, ancient stegs, ...)
- Max 4 war machines (limits Empire/Dwarf gun lines)
- Max 2 units with Thunderstomp and Strength 5+ (2 Stegs max)
- Max 12 Power Dice used per magic phase, regardless of source (can hurt the Slann)
- Power scroll banned
- Magic Resistance ward saves are allowed against spells that don't normally allow saves (like Dwellers)
- Look out Sir! is allowed against Dwellers

This seems like a lot, but the restrictions have served the purpose of ensuring fun, close games. With these rules, it is rare to win based on army composition alone - every army has a chance depending on the skill of the general (and the luck of the dice ).

 

[SanDiegoSurrealist]

- Max 12 Power Dice used per magic phase, regardless of source (can hurt the Slann)

Forgot about that one, that was a house rule at my local as well.

Choose 2 Lore at the begining of the league, and those are the Lores for the rest of the league.

Also you start the league with no double Specials or Rares, just to begin with, really hurts Elves and Dwarves. Every game played earns a territory and each territory was work ( X ). Sometimes ( X ) was 100 points in magic items, or 100 points in additional Rares, Additional Lore, etc.

New league is 2200 points and for every every win you lose 100 points on the next game, 1700 being the lowest point value.

 

[Mister Blak]

Another one:

Skeletons ( including cavalry) count as aquatic. Some othe things (such as animated constructs, and all monsters) are also aquatic, this is decided on a case-by-case basis.