The rule I mentioned above is only for Spears (plain boring mounted spears). Magical Weapons are different. It is a magical weapon that is a Spear but is not just a Spear. So no you wouldnt have to swap to a hand weapon and probably no you wouldnt be allowed to swap to any other weapon once the combat started if you went in with the Pokos pigstikka.
The rulebook says that a character that has a magic close combat weapon cannot use any other close combat weapons. So as far as I can tell it does not switch, so they would use the spear for the entire close combat. And this is coming from someone who bought the rulebook yesterday.
The spear thing is correct (I have a book). Someone said this to me the other day - I laughed. If you slann is breaking and running from combat then the lizard player is doing something wrong. I never rated running him in temple guard anyway and no you can gain a LoSir by joining a skirmish unit (check the actual rules before telling me it cant be done ;-) ) there really isnt a reason to be in a temple guard unit unless you fancy it. (although I have been liking mine with the stubborn crown). Warbanner equivalent, etheral on the charge means you are beating some units by 3 if you really fancy the odd charge as well (Hydras ) D
seriously how have you people got the rulebook? I'm sat on top of GW headquarters and i can't get it until next saturday
Regarding the magic spear, the only difference in subsequent rounds would be that your attacks are magical or not, as I understand you stilll get the +1 armour save from the shield (but not the parry bonus). IN later rounds, then the spear is pretty much a hand weapon. @Polaris: I think that shields still give you +1 armour save on cavalry without the parry save, exactly as it was in last edition. Shields will only be useless on our mighty oldbloods on cold ones, as we can only ever have a maximum save of 1+ in the new rules, which you can get without a shield or magic armour.
I hope the shields will give the +1 because if they do not then there are going to be a lot of cavelry that get screwed. Likely It will be the +1 though because if they did not then all Cavelry would become medium cav. by their definition. Either the shields, or there will be some new armor that they all get that is exactly like chaos plate. Maybe something like heavy barding over normal.
Shields still give +1 AS. The only change in this edition is that the Parry rule now exists in replace of the extra +1AS a shield used to give in 7th Edition.
Parry bonus can't be used by Frenzied or mounted units. One unit that might see a comeback is the Skink cohort. Maybe 30 strong could work well as a flanking unit vs weak hordy type units. My theory is that there are saurus up front, skinks on flank. The enemy would probably have more ranks than the saurus but hopefully not more than the skinks therefore giving the skinks steadfast (stubborn) bonus rather than the enemy. Initiative 4 is pretty good so they may be able to kill some guys first. They also have the 6+ ward parry save. Skrox may also be a similar option and give your enemy a tough decision on who to attack. Battlefield testing will prove whether I'm right but I'm willing to give it a go.
The skink cohorts are a good idea. However, with the step up rule there is no question about what to attack in the skink/krox mix units. Unless you kill all of the skinks, models step up and they still get to attack. However, a model that has stepped up only gets one attack. Ergo, the skinks having their one attack each will not change. The krox however are unlikely to be in any great numbers, lets say two rows of 3 per unit, and if you kill the front row they only get 3 attacks, instead of nine, and the skinks would still get two ranks of attacks unless you wipe them all out.
I ordered the Collecters edition from GW and get it tomorrow, but hey, thats Canada post for you (insert mandatory Canadian Eh).
Polaris - Please point me to the page in the BRB where it says that stepping up models only get one attack. Perhaps you're getting confused with Supporting Attacks? I don't mind being wrong if this is the case.
That may be the case. Like I have said, I'm only going based on what I have heard from people that have the rule book. I'm picking up my copy tomorrow and will be able to finaly figure what I have said was right or not. I had thought that the second rank attacks and stepup attacks only allowed for 1 attack for the both of them. Stay tuned for tomorrow.
Well, I think with magic now the Slann is basically an irresistable option, however, the carnosaur is pretty sweet too. Thunderstomp? It looks like wounds from that will turn into d3 wounds as well as per the carnosaur special rule. Again, not useful against basic troops, but good against anything big that survived, multiwound units and challenges.
sadly (thunder)stomp can only be used against infantry, war beasts or swarms. so unlikely your going to hit much that is multiwound . and i was all ready to paste monsters into the ground with it too...
may have been covered/talked about but does any one else feel like Saurus got raped this eddtion? I know we are going to need more ranked out units and we are going to see more so they are a more viable option. but with only a single support attack from the second and third ranks we in effect do not gain any attacks of 7th, when every other unit gains attacks. Hardly seems fair. Although the step up rule does help us immensly!
HW+SH saurus got better, and it seems most people are switching to those. Think about this... say you have 2 ranks of 6 saurus like in 7th ed. HW+SH is BETTER and 12 points cheaper. Same attacks as spearmen, with a ward save on top!