I also won't believe it until its in print, but I still like a healthy discussion on the rumors(cause even though most will probably be false, some will most likely be true). But going into a panic over one particular rumor is not good. Especially since even if it is true it is completely out of context, and you don't see the overall picture yet.
I suspect the new system will substantially affect anyone using saurus in units of less that 20, salamanders TG, cold ones, anyone wanting to use kroxigor units but unable to under 7th ed, anyone using magic, or anyone fighting an opponant whose units change as a result. In short, I think the new edition is sweeping enough to potentially seriously reshape armies and tactics, not least if it becomes objective based instead of victory point. But as you say, these are all just rumours. Nothing is true until it is on the shelves, but that doesn't mean there isn't genuine info out there, and speculation is both fun for some existing generals and necessary for someone like me who is currently trying to decide what deserves their money! And right now, the money and points planned for TG might well turn into a unit of 6 Kroxigor, models I would dearly love to justify fielding in any number...
The Stubborn rule looks to be an addition to stubborn rather than a subtraction. That is to say, some units like our TG are innately stubborn regardless, wheras now ANY other troops are stubborn if they have more ranks than the opponent and are engaged to the front only. I'm thinking ranked skinks can charge in and pin things down now that would normally break them for sure. Pass a stubborn test or two while you get other things into play... who knows. As for the fighting in ranks with only 1 attack, that will hurt a bit, especially if saurus spears can't get 2 attacks from the second rank. Kind of defeats the purpose of adding spears. But since casualties are now removed from the back strictly, you will always get your full front rank dealing double attacks. They really needed to do this to keep 2 attack infantry from absolutely decimating everything else in the game. I think HW+SH saurus will come back into favor a good bit, for being a point cheaper and an armor save better. The initiative thing will hurt, but remember the magic phase rumors mentioned there will be more supporting spells, so I can see hordes of saurus being part of an army, getting buffs cast on them by a Slann/mage priest. 25% characters and mounts being confirmed... I guess it had to happen to bring the game back to big armies. I bet 2400 will be a popular point value. Would make it easy to figure out, since 25% = 600 points. Looks like my Slann and flying skink priest won't have scar-vet support anymore, but lots of regular saurus, stegadons, and kroxigors fighting in two ranks (oh my). Alas, kroxigors have great weapons... but I still think they'll rip some new ones outta people. As for the Slann being stuck into combat, I think what is going to happen is the FAQ will move him back to the third rank, since the whole idea was he wasn't supposed to be in combat. If halberds are getting armor piercing in addition to +1 strength, I can see 15 strength 5 -3 attacks being pretty effective. Will stink if they can't march though.
Having made the transition from a mostly missile-based DE army to LM recently, I'm often frustrated by the lack of shooting options with a bit of range. Don't get me wrong, poisoned blowpipes & javelins are great, but I'd feel much happier going into combat with something that can shoot out more than either flames or spines at range. And no, a stegadon with a giant bow is not good enough, because the whole idea is to charge it into combat ASAP, not have it hang back and throw bolts. Just a thought, but some more artillery options would be awesome. Can't see it happening, though, not with a race geared towards physical combat. Am I asking too much?
Ah, stubborn rule as an addition makes much more sense! That fixes that. Also works well to counterbalance the rumoured elimination of unit strength. Saurus will still be good, they just won't be able to mince horde troops like they could. I like anything that makes blocks effective so I like this, and if it makes a redundant unit valuable again, so much the better. Just because it works against one particular lizardmen unit doesn't mean its bad for the game overall. I haven't heard anything about halberds being AP - in fact, the rumours I've read talk about reducing armour modifiers, though I haven't seen anything even romotely specific. The rank thing raises questions about skrox units too; are our krox going in rank three now to maintain some sort of balance? Only FAQ updates will tell.
Another rumour that's become more specific lately is in regards to the multiple ranks attacking... which is that anything outside the front rank only has 1 attack. Which would hurt seeing as how I think we're one of the rare core units with 2 attacks?
Yep, spear Saurus require an extra intact rank in order to get to where they are now. Almost every other spear unit becomes 50% better than they were before. Hand weapon saurus do improve though, and the whole stepping forward thing offsets the low initiative - doesn't matter how many we lose before we strike now.
the newest rumor i saw is with skirmishers this is how it goes: i see it as the most stupid new rule that could happen. they will take twise table size then sauruses and will be lame. these formations will kill skirmishers... the power in them were flexibility but no of it will exist.... sorry but stupid stupid stupid.
Well it is going to make it easier to move them around, and their rules will become easier, plus it is said that they will still have good redirection rules... But yeh I liked them a bit more random too. Huge chance GW already have 'skirmisher movement trays' in the works for units. They already have them for LOTR.
it will be imposible to hide skirmishers in wood. idiotic. i bater take then plain skinks with jevelins and shoot in to rows then to have a unit that dies from cold wind and takes triple size on the table and are more expencier. as far as i see this will be a total dice game. no tactikal. heavy infantry with cavlary cant march. that means chaos warrior cant even reach oponents side in 6 turns.... i hope that GW will come to sence that we dont want 2 the same games (40k and fb) only with diferent miniatures. theres alot of dice now but when it will come tu 8ed... horde unit atacking with 3 ranks 40-50 dice.... apsurd.... i wouldint even call them skirmisher becouse skirmisher run chaoticly. i would call them stupidly ranked units.
If skirmishers still have some viable role, then I guess I don't mind... on plus side it will streamline rules and speed up gameplay considerably. Totally agree about them building skirmisher movement trays. My guess is they'll have them in time for the big launch.
omg. just read the new rumors in: http://www.warseer.com/forums/showpost.php?p=4565976&postcount=1 its an insanety..... what do they want 3 year olds to play? "measure distance any time" this will be a mess up set of rules that takes fun away. just pure power will win game becouse no strategy is needed. flyers mess up, no marchbloking any more, cool. so make game like, roll a dice ho strikes first and then fight in that order. irrisistable forse couse more devestating effect then miscast? Lol how in the world perfectly told spell can do damage to you? if these rules are true im going to ask my friends to play in 7 ed rules instead....
Well I'll give my reaction to some of these new rumors, and again, these are only rumors. This will allow some of the old character combos, so I think it is fine. As long as 25% core is still required. Cool. Now team battles will actually carry some fluff value. Using the other general's leadership is cool too. I approve. Oh no! The world is ending! Actually this isn't as bad as it seems. Remember that charge distance will have a random factor to it. As with many of the changes being made, the purpose seems to be to speed the game up a little bit. Flyers take a bit of a nerf, but they had it coming to be honest. Dragons may be not quite so common. Wow, fliers now must march to go 20". This is another nerf that will help reduce the dominance of flyers. Seems fair enough. Hmm, random march blocking? So march blocking won't always work. This will make march blocking more likely to happen against enemies far to the flank, who have no support from the general's leadership. I think this will de-emphasize march blocking as an effective strategy. This could make ranked units a bit more flexible. This is in keeping with the direction the game is heading. This is an interesting change, and should prevent magic spam. It also puts a cap on the Focused Rumination. Roll up a 12 for your power dice and the Focused Rumination does nothing. But your magic phase is maxed out in that case. Roll up a 10 instead and you can still max out your magic phase if the Slann casts 2 spells. "Capping" your magic phase with Focused Rumination is actually better than rolling up 12 on your initial 2d6... since your opponent will be less likely to have 6 dispel dice. Not bad, this will be the new advantage to using a high level caster. Fewer dice to produce a higher casting value. I could see the same rule applying to mages trying to dispel enemy magic. Looks like Becalming Cogitation gets left at home now. I'd rather the enemy get blitzed by a miscast and suffer the effects of the irresistable spell. Also it raises a question about Cupped Hands of the Old Ones... Does this mean the spell goes off but the miscast is transferred? Or does the miscast effect the enemy wizard who then gets to cast his own spell? The Lizardmen errata will need to clear this up. How would this effect the Jag Charm on a saurus? Maybe it'll go back to just being something that always works and isn't actually a spell? This should clear up spells a whole lot, breaking them up into discrete categories. Reminds me a lot of when I did the magic review... maybe they stole the idea? Fire will be good for wiping out single big units, and this may be something you see more of in 8th edition.. Empire hordes perhaps? So skirmish screens will now just reduce the effectiveness of shooting against what they are screening. It also completely changes the game in a ton of ways. Will the "Large Target" rule even still exist? Maybe all "monsters" will be +1 to shoot at. I think GW is cooking up a scheme to sell more laser pointers. I don't like this rumor, as I think the sight rules are simple enough with the square bases. The great weapon thing is not bad, won't hurt LM at all. Kroxigors are monstrous infantry, so it won't hit them. The 1 rank to flank or rear will be really good for us if it is true. This will let our skrox units have a big impact on the game, and will be better for flanking the big blocks. Now we just need to move the kroxigors back to the third rank so two ranks of skinks get to attack on the charge. It also seems to confirm that spear saurus will be getting only 1 attack from the second rank. I will be modeling up some HW+SH guys it seems! Hmm, well I guess Nurgle Daemons with regen and their 5+ ward will be hit by this. Other than that, saves seem to be as normal. It prevents things from stacking ward with regen, so I guess it tones down powergaming a little bit. Ancient Stegadons seem really good, D6 extra str 6 attacks! This seems like a way to compensate monsters a little bit for losing their ability to deny ranks. So magic resistance can only help defend against damaging spells now. This is not bad, and seems to be in keeping with capping power/dispel dice. The slann regeneration seems kind of pointless if you now can't combine it with your ward save... I guess regeneration is just becoming another kind of ward save. Lots and lots of changes coming. True line of sight is the one that bothers me.. I think it will actually slow the game down rather than expedite things. It will also create needless arguments and force us to buy laser pointers. Everything else sounds fine to me.
It works fine in 40k right now. I'm not bothered by it and would be surprised if it isn't in the new book. Cheers!
Wow.. Thats a lot of updates over the weekend. By the older rumours, some people should have seen the book by now since it was going to hit GW stores early-mid may, which means some of the rumours now should be pretty close to 100% despite what they about 'reliable sources' being 100%. This latest round of rumours looks grim to me, I don't really like it, but I really feel with the amount of changes flying around that so many will be false, and there will be so many more unrevealed until the book is out that I cannot properly judge it until I have played a game with the new rules. Adapting and remembering all the new stuff is going to be tough... Also, for ages people have been hinting at 25% lords, 25% heroes, I still think that is false. It would mean basically no difference from now except the very rare things like 3-4 engines will no longer be viable. Every time it comes up on warseer it is shut down. One thing I thought of about the new skirmisher formation... What happens to units of fliers like terradons? They need to line up in the spaced block as well? It cuts their flexibility a little bit.
I am with strewart, the number of rumors starting to fly around leads me to believe alot of them are false. It was pointed out a little while ago that some people thought they were taking some rulles from their LOTR game. And then what happens, we get a bunch of new rumors of rules being brought in from their LOTR game. At this point I am just gonna wait till till July and try and ignore the rumors (doubtful, but I will try) And is GW LOTR really that popular, that they would want to bring those rules to fantasy?
i think lotr isnt that populer but if Fantasys rules are simillar more people could jump to lotr. thats what they want i guess if the rumours are true