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I'd like to see 6th ed as the basis, with modern sensibilities added in. The core rules of 6th were pretty sound and it's where I had the most fun playing WFB.

I'd prefer some kind of alternation or more indepth reaction system than just stand and shoot or run away.

Also, simplified movement mechanics. Wheeling and turning are important for the game to retain its tactical regimental feel, but they need to be easy to use and simple to explain, but not too reduced in detail either.

Hopefully they remove ASF as a standard rule, and only have it as a charging ability.

And especially not having the elves use it for an army wide rule...

 Hellebore wrote:
And especially not having the elves use it for an army wide rule...

They need to address the imbalance in WS vs S/T in the mechanics. ASF Elves was another (the 3rd at least) pass at dealing with the fact that Elves being costed as elite models but dying like Goblins doesn't work out on the tabletop.

Dudeface wrote:Well yes, if you know how far apart forces are at the start, track how far every unit moves, track out the angles and whack out the pythagoran theories and a scientific calculator then yes, you can get within 0.5" easily on your 2nd game.

Come on. It's not hard to get it to the point your opponent has to gamble on a 2" window of inaccuracy.

I do carpentry in my spare time and spent half a decade in a previous job identifying parts with lengths between 6" and 20" by sight. I am no savant but I can reliably guess sub-24" ranges on the tabletop down to about half an inch. I'm far from the only person who can do that.

At an old hobby shop, the owner had made some really awesome fantasy tables out of interlocking foam tiles. Problem was, each tile was exactly one foot across and it was impossible to hide the borders. Guess how often the Empire and Dwarf guys missed with their cannons.

It's really not fun for anyone involved when a skill so irrelevant to wargame generalship- and so easy to cheat, even just through sequencing- can win or lose a game. I consider it a wargaming atavism on the level of using a pellet gun and ship silhouettes to resolve your naval wargame impact locations, and would much rather see a game system address the problem of overly deterministic positioning through some other means.

Fortunately, there are quite a few alternatives that achieve friction/uncertainty through game mechanics rather than obfuscating distances.

Baragash wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
And especially not having the elves use it for an army wide rule...

They need to address the imbalance in WS vs S/T in the mechanics. ASF Elves was another (the 3rd at least) pass at dealing with the fact that Elves being costed as elite models but dying like Goblins doesn't work out on the tabletop.

Horus Heresy 2.0 revised the ancient WS table to have a much stronger effect, so I think there's a distinct possibility that they'll do the same for TOW.

At an old hobby shop, the owner had made some really awesome fantasy tables out of interlocking foam tiles. Problem was, each tile was exactly one foot across and it was impossible to hide the borders. Guess how often the Empire and Dwarf guys missed with their cannons.

That kind of table was really common everywhere I played, and I wandered a lot during that period. 'Guess' weapons were precision tools that could only be stopped by misfires.

And especially not having the elves use it for an army wide rule...

It was really fun when the high elves first got it and dark elves... didn't. They got the cut and paste point changes instead and some units dropped to stupid cheap values, but could be cheesed out with massive numbers of attacks (for the time- nothing compared to more recent editions). It was one of huge tipping points for a lot of people that GW really didn't have a clue about the impact of their design decisions.

Always strike first on High Elves were the beginning of the end for me. 2 out of 6 of my most frequent opponents played HE while I played Wood Elves. So I pay like 18pts for 1 wound t3 models with at best a 6+ ward save that needs to make its value back in melee. "Oh nice! An entire faction that kills my best melee units before they ever get to fight. Their archers kills my Wardancers in melee. GREAT!!!".

Didn't help that each army after that were even stronger than the High Elves. Dark Elf death stars you couldn't do anything about. Massive fearless undead units you couldn't break before they were back at previous size due to magic and then the Demons.

Sure I could play pure Tree spirits or 100% archers to help in some of the matchups but both of those play styles were really boring. I still have like 40 Glade Guards that are like 60% painted that I never finished when I quit WFB. Not fun to paint so many and when I realised I would have even less fun playing with them it dawned upon me that WFB wasn't my game anymore.

ASL and ASF are such weird rules, especially when that just straight up overrides initiative most of the time. All Elves were already initiative 5 at minimum, is that ASF even that significant? I mean I guess if you have a character at I5 going up against a block of Elf spearmen it'd be pretty big, otherwise it just seem like army-wide tax to me.

Would if changing Great Weapons to -2 I instead would have been better than ASL. The mean Initiative is already 3 so that'd make it the same as ASL, while the Elves still strikes at the average I3.

Dudeface wrote:
Come on. It's not hard to get it to the point your opponent has to gamble on a 2" window of inaccuracy.

2"? You can't be off by 2" when shooting a stone thrower 5 feet diagonally across the table. The margin of error when setting up 12" charges was around the thickness of a piece of paper for experienced players.

 lcmiracle wrote:
ASL and ASF are such weird rules, especially when that just straight up overrides initiative most of the time. All Elves were already initiative 5 at minimum, is that ASF even that significant? I mean I guess if you have a character at I5 going up against a block of Elf spearmen it'd be pretty big, otherwise it just seem like army-wide tax to me.

Would if changing Great Weapons to -2 I instead would have been better than ASL. The mean Initiative is already 3 so that'd make it the same as ASL, while the Elves still strikes at the average I3.

I can't see people paying elite points (eg 15-16pts) for an I3 T3 Sv5+ Elf, they'll just take Phoenix Guard.

 lcmiracle wrote:
ASL and ASF are such weird rules, especially when that just straight up overrides initiative most of the time. All Elves were already initiative 5 at minimum, is that ASF even that significant? I mean I guess if you have a character at I5 going up against a block of Elf spearmen it'd be pretty big, otherwise it just seem like army-wide tax to me.

Would if changing Great Weapons to -2 I instead would have been better than ASL. The mean Initiative is already 3 so that'd make it the same as ASL, while the Elves still strikes at the average I3.

It was absolutely significant, since they were swinging before charging units. High Elves could generally out-maneuver their foes (which was frequently critical in WHFB), but since it didn't matter if they got charged or not, who cares? Charging Swordmasters with anything less than heavy cavalry was virtually-guaranteed suicide, and even the heavy cavalry had about a 50/50 shot.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Come on. It's not hard to get it to the point your opponent has to gamble on a 2" window of inaccuracy.

2"? You can't be off by 2" when shooting a stone thrower 5 feet diagonally across the table. The margin of error when setting up 12" charges was around the thickness of a piece of paper for experienced players.

OK, so clearly you're in favour of premeasuring and I assume random charges?

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 lcmiracle wrote:
ASL and ASF are such weird rules, especially when that just straight up overrides initiative most of the time. All Elves were already initiative 5 at minimum, is that ASF even that significant? I mean I guess if you have a character at I5 going up against a block of Elf spearmen it'd be pretty big, otherwise it just seem like army-wide tax to me.

Would if changing Great Weapons to -2 I instead would have been better than ASL. The mean Initiative is already 3 so that'd make it the same as ASL, while the Elves still strikes at the average I3.

It was absolutely significant, since they were swinging before charging units. High Elves could generally out-maneuver their foes (which was frequently critical in WHFB), but since it didn't matter if they got charged or not, who cares? Charging Swordmasters with anything less than heavy cavalry was virtually-guaranteed suicide, and even the heavy cavalry had about a 50/50 shot.

If I recall at least in 8th ed Always Strike First provided re-rolls to hit if your initiative was higher than the enemy's. That went down well with everyone who didn't play High Elves. That stuff was introduced around the time when the current 40k and AoS designers took over.

This is probably one of those things to dread when looking at what modern flavor The Old World rules might include. GW has misstepped a lot in the last decade with re-roll orgies and dumping initiative for strike first/normal/last systems. If the Old World designers are into that kind of nonsense even to a fraction of the main studio guys, there'll be precious little hope for the rule set.

Hopefully it won't be long until the next article and they don't draw out the four phases over the next three months.

chaos0xomega wrote:

This is debatable.

I agree with you on that basis - but I'm not really talking competitive as businesses. I'm talking competitive as in "you walk into a FLGS and see people playing it." You see communities flourishing - and attracting people to start playing (and collecting) X rather than a GW game. I feel the period around 2010-2017 was different in that respect with what came before - or after. But clearly its subjective, and may just be my experience rather than universal.

Anyway, its ancient history.

I feel the ASF stuff runs into a wider problem of "my guys are more elite than your guys". To a degree this applies to every GW game, but I think it was especially acute in WHFB because the stats are sort of one-dimensional. Stuff chops or gets chopped. I'm not sure how they resolve that (or even if they try) in TOW - but I feel it was the cause of a lot of army book creep, and as said player dissatisfaction.

Its arguably the same issue of fixed charges. Sure, positioning my high elves in 9"~ of your M4" units, so I can simultaneously execute 3 charges in my next turn and destroy most of your army feels very good "for me". But it probably feels kind of lame and awful "for you".

Dudeface wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Come on. It's not hard to get it to the point your opponent has to gamble on a 2" window of inaccuracy.

2"? You can't be off by 2" when shooting a stone thrower 5 feet diagonally across the table. The margin of error when setting up 12" charges was around the thickness of a piece of paper for experienced players.

OK, so clearly you're in favour of premeasuring and I assume random charges?

I liked it both ways, actually, but I agree with folks saying guessing range is a skill with a steep, frustrating learning curve for beginners while not really having anything to do with tactical ability. I have derived great satisfaction from declaring 36.5" and hitting the enemy unit champion right between the eyes with a stone thrower, but that probably doesn't justify the extreme barrier to winning for new folks, or folks with some sort of spacial thinking impairment.

And probably an overwhelming majority of non-GW games in the market currently have premeasuring with fixed charge ranges, so I don't think premeasuring is intrinsically tied to random ranges.

I'm ok with random charges. When I played the older editions and charging was just twice your movement, I never failed a charge at all. I'm ok with the random charges a la 8th edition. I liked the guess weapons but I also think you need an element of randomness in there as well - d6 and add that distance to your number with a 6 being a misfire. Ensures there is some variability such as wind or something else. That or go the 40k route. Roll 2d6 and the scatter, the shot scatters the distance rolled less your BS. Then it always scatters unless you roll a hit.

I generally liked 8th edition - the changes I would have made revolved around unit sizes. I think the requirements for units should have been min 5 models per rank but you cannot be deeper than your frontage. That would have stopped the shananigans skaven and gobbos where they had 5 models on the front but were 10 ranks deep and nigh unbreakable. Want 10 ranks, have a unit that has a frontage of 10.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:
Come on. It's not hard to get it to the point your opponent has to gamble on a 2" window of inaccuracy.

2"? You can't be off by 2" when shooting a stone thrower 5 feet diagonally across the table. The margin of error when setting up 12" charges was around the thickness of a piece of paper for experienced players.

OK, so clearly you're in favour of premeasuring and I assume random charges?

I liked it both ways, actually, but I agree with folks saying guessing range is a skill with a steep, frustrating learning curve for beginners while not really having anything to do with tactical ability. I have derived great satisfaction from declaring 36.5" and hitting the enemy unit champion right between the eyes with a stone thrower, but that probably doesn't justify the extreme barrier to winning for new folks, or folks with some sort of spacial thinking impairment.

And probably an overwhelming majority of non-GW games in the market currently have premeasuring with fixed charge ranges, so I don't think premeasuring is intrinsically tied to random ranges.

How would you introduce a disincentive for a charge Mexican stand off? As the rules for fantasy were, the boon from charging was generally enough to ensure you want to be the one getting it off. To have premeasuring and fixed charges they need to shift that ratio of risk/reward so that either charges are less relevant or there's sufficient reward for being the person who knows they're going to take the charge.

Easy, tone lethality down or increase passive boni so that charging the front won't break a block in a single turn in a 1 vs 1.

so either get in the flanks to remove passive boni or get multiple units in and the risky part is to get those off without being charged yourself

Dudeface wrote:

How would you introduce a disincentive for a charge Mexican stand off? As the rules for fantasy were, the boon from charging was generally enough to ensure you want to be the one getting it off. To have premeasuring and fixed charges they need to shift that ratio of risk/reward so that either charges are less relevant or there's sufficient reward for being the person who knows they're going to take the charge.

Well, like I said, pretty much every game that exists today has fixed ranges with premeasuring. This includes Kings of War and Conquest, as far as I know, both highly tournament-oriented rulesets, one vanilla IGOUGO, one semi-random alternating. I've not detected any claims that their charging mechanics are broken. And as far as I know, in all regiment systems, including WHFB regardless of edition, most of the time you wanted to be the one getting (frontally) charged.

Good mission design and mechanics for in combat movement forward and backwards.
Yolo charging to get first charges off isn’t great for the game.

If you also have units with scouting and forward positioning in traditional slower army’s you also create some balance to movement there.
And also utilising counter charging tactics and ability’s.
It’s such a important part of the game that it should get the extra time.

Dudeface wrote:


How would you introduce a disincentive for a charge Mexican stand off? As the rules for fantasy were, the boon from charging was generally enough to ensure you want to be the one getting it off. To have premeasuring and fixed charges they need to shift that ratio of risk/reward so that either charges are less relevant or there's sufficient reward for being the person who knows they're going to take the charge.

This (erroneous) notion appears so often that I don't even need to write an answer again, I can just copy and paste it:


My main wargame is Warmachine and there threat ranges are static, but the game gives players a deep toolbox of things they can do to lessen the impact of the opponent having a few inches of threat range advantage. Baiting, jamming, sacrificing, redirecting, screening, using terrain, buffing/debuffing, clever scenario play ... all depending on players' decisions and choices. In my opinion it makes for a much more engaging game than a one where you just generate a random number to arbitrarily tell you whether what you are attempting to do makes any sense or not.

And even with Warmachine having both premeasuring and fixed ranges it is not my experience that threat range means everything, there are so many ways to counter that, despite the all or nothing nature of WM alpha strike (target destroyed on the charge is the default result) and the importance of scenario.


http://momentofclarity.eu/constance1-vs-asphyxious3-polish-team-championship-round-4/

I like this report as an example. Despite oppressive threat ranges and going first the Cryx player has his army carefully corralled, contained and taken apart by a much slower enemy. He loses because tactics, not because he didn't roll enough for his charges.


My first fix for this in WFB would be to reduce differences between Mv of units. If in 6th Bretonnians could fail their charge due to not guessing range correctly and still be safe from an infantry countercharge something is just off.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

How would you introduce a disincentive for a charge Mexican stand off? As the rules for fantasy were, the boon from charging was generally enough to ensure you want to be the one getting it off. To have premeasuring and fixed charges they need to shift that ratio of risk/reward so that either charges are less relevant or there's sufficient reward for being the person who knows they're going to take the charge.

Well, like I said, pretty much every game that exists today has fixed ranges with premeasuring. This includes Kings of War and Conquest, as far as I know, both highly tournament-oriented rulesets, one vanilla IGOUGO, one semi-random alternating. I've not detected any claims that their charging mechanics are broken. And as far as I know, in all regiment systems, including WHFB regardless of edition, most of the time you wanted to be the one getting (frontally) charged.

KoW has a small amount of poorly implemented random charging.

 Baragash wrote:

KoW has a small amount of poorly implemented random charging.

+D3" for "berserker" units, which is about 1 per faction

Here we go again with random charges vs fixed charges.

The good point is we'll get GW's final answer for TOW in a few more articles.

Whatever they decide, people really interested in TOW will play as the rules say - the others will just go back to their perfect game system, convinced their view is the only right one.

Sarouan wrote:
Here we go again with random charges vs fixed charges.

The good point is we'll get GW's final answer for TOW in a few more articles.

Whatever they decide, people really interested in TOW will play as the rules say - the others will just go back to their perfect game system, convinced their view is the only right one.

We already said, this is not the place. Start another thread for range guessing and charges. I know there's no real news but that's OK let this thread lie fallow for a bit and debate rules philosophies in the Fantasy Forum.

 Astmeister wrote:
I agree with you on most of your list @Tyel.
However I think infantry was not quite so useless in 6th and 7th because a 20 man squad could hold its ground unless a breaker (at least 6 knights with warbanner or more) hit them.
They were good for board control and fighting other board controlers or light units off.

Also one problem about 8th: 40+ man squads of super expensive stuff. Who wanted to start a dwarfs army knowing he had to buy 40 hammerers for 160 euros alone?

Someone who knew about the existence of Mantic Dwarves.

I'll grant you, many people don't like the aesthetic, but they ARE cheap enough to buy in volume.

Why is compulsory movement after charges and movement? Shouldnt you be fleeing at the end of the turn or at the least at the beginning?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/10/30/old-world-almanack-your-first-look-at-the-rules/

 triplegrim wrote:
Why is compulsory movement after charges and movement? Shouldnt you be fleeing at the end of the turn or at the least at the beginning?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/10/30/old-world-almanack-your-first-look-at-the-rules/

Regular movement is after compulsory movement. This is how it's worked as far as I've played.

First you declare charges, then you do flee movements/other compulsory stuff, then you get to pick your remaining movements. Now they've added some spells to the very last bit of it.

 triplegrim wrote:
Will TOW use percentagea for army comp?

This is another unknown. Though GW has stated they are opting for a more complex system, I have a hunch they'll avoid army percentages and establish mins and maxes for heroes and core some other way. I just can't see them going back after their other systems are as simple as "pick one hero aaand... that's it you're good." (slight exaggeration)

I think the fact that they have a two-tier morale mechanic, with the worse tier triggering after the unit is reduced to 25% of its starting size, is a good indication that they aren't afraid of a little complexity with % math.

That being said, % army comp is unnecessary, they can just cut out the middle-man and provide you with the point minima and maxima that can be spent on each category of units for a given game size. Why tell people that they can spend a max of 25% of their points on special units in a 2000 point game, when you can just tell them that they can spend a maximum of 500pts? Realistically the game is balanced around a narrow range of point values, probably from 1500-2500 points. Going above or below that threshold can and will cause balance issues and a subpar experience. So that being the case, the likely solution is that GW will provide a "small", "medium", and "large" size format - say 1500pts, 2000pts, and 2500pts, and just tell you what the min/max amount of points spent on each category is.

Thats already basically what Horus Heresy does with regards to Lords of War, I expect it will be the same approach for WHFB.

 triplegrim wrote:
Why is compulsory movement after charges and movement? Shouldnt you be fleeing at the end of the turn or at the least at the beginning?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/10/30/old-world-almanack-your-first-look-at-the-rules/

To prevent a double fleeing move in case of being charged or too close to an enemy in the same phase, I guess.

We'll know more in the next article about movement phase.

 triplegrim wrote:
Why is compulsory movement after charges and movement? Shouldnt you be fleeing at the end of the turn or at the least at the beginning?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/10/30/old-world-almanack-your-first-look-at-the-rules/

Because sometimes compulsory moves can get in the way of other things.