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Mozzamanx wrote:
I'm pretty sure we've already seen a photo proving that they they are. The article with some gameplay photos still has Orcs and Goblins on visibly different bases, even of they haven't said what size the Orcs are getting.

I tried looking for some pictures related to TOW and orcs but I could find none

I decided to paint some orcs to kill some TOW hype but I'm fought between just sticking to 25mm (which however we know almost certainly won't be the base size for orcs) or take a gamble with a "new size" base. If you guys had to bet what do you think is gonna be the size for regular orc troops? 30mm? maybe even 32mm square?

artu87 wrote:

I tried looking for some pictures related to TOW and orcs but I could find none

From this article: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/07/24/old-world-development-diary-the-more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same/

It’s so beautiful

tneva82 wrote:
Yea. Troops always start the charge run precisely at right distance. Never ever too early. Humans are infallible after all carrying laser pointers in middle ages after all.

Show me the battle where this happened.

I'm not talking about troops falling out on a grueling road march, nor am I talking about heavy fire breaking up the advance, I mean troopers who sing the pean, lower spears and then just slow down 40 yards short of the Athenians, or Romans who hurl their spears and then realize they guessed wrong and sit there, waiting for the Gauls to take their turn.

Confederates give the rebel yell, surge forward and then, whew, that field is longer than we thought!

It's a game mechanic that only exists in the GW universe.

A failed charge in a turn based game is reflective of time and nothing more.

It says that the regiment in the abstract subjective time increment they are being measured in, couldn't get to the target in time.

This doesn't matter if it's a fixed charge mechanic or a random one and in fact neither mechanic is better in reflecting it.

Well there have been plenty of battles throughout the ages where one side timed a charge right and caught the other unaware

a fair few where the victims got ready in time

and a few where the victims buggered off in time

if you think of a "failed charge" as didn't make contact quick enough for the otherside not to make contact you have that

you then also have the "Agincourt" type situation where one side was trying to make contact but was exhausted by the time they did

it happened, however most stuff, cavalry especially, generally had a pretty good idea of at what point to break into the full pelt to be at full speed at the time they needed to be.

Largely because it wasn't the army commander some distance away giving the order, but a local commander who, in general, more or less knew what they were doing

in the same way "guess range" is rubbish as its not the general doing it, but the various war machine crews who when told to fire on a target got on with the job.

what oftne happened with charges was a unit arrived slightly before, or slightly after the optimum time so wasn't as effective when they got there as they either didn't have the momentum, or were starting to lose it.

its likely best modelled by a slight mix of random distances for the "optimum", but then a unit going past that at hitting for less effect, plus targets getting to react but only when more than say the basic distance away as they need some time to react.

and then having a minimum charge distance for a charge to get any bonuses..

comes down to "how complicated v how abstract?"

It seems the new rule where you move the full distance of your Charge Roll for a failed charge does a good job of reflecting those times when a charge is begun far enough away for the enemy to get far more reaction time than desired. The Charge Roll itself reflects a combination of ground conditions and how efficiently the unit gets their charge moving in a timely and organized manner.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yea. Troops always start the charge run precisely at right distance. Never ever too early. Humans are infallible after all carrying laser pointers in middle ages after all.

Show me the battle where this happened.

I'm not talking about troops falling out on a grueling road march, nor am I talking about heavy fire breaking up the advance, I mean troopers who sing the pean, lower spears and then just slow down 40 yards short of the Athenians, or Romans who hurl their spears and then realize they guessed wrong and sit there, waiting for the Gauls to take their turn.

Confederates give the rebel yell, surge forward and then, whew, that field is longer than we thought!

It's a game mechanic that only exists in the GW universe.

Seriously you are going to get this thread locked we have been told MUTILPLE times to stay on topic

I assume the almanac tonight will be the shooting phase? They seem to be going in phase order.

 alextroy wrote:
It seems the new rule where you move the full distance of your Charge Roll for a failed charge does a good job of reflecting those times when a charge is begun far enough away for the enemy to get far more reaction time than desired. The Charge Roll itself reflects a combination of ground conditions and how efficiently the unit gets their charge moving in a timely and organized manner.

I agree, also means there is no long zero risk to maximum distance charges where even if you fail you are outside the enemies charge range, now fall short and inch and it may hurt a bit

 Hellebore wrote:
A failed charge in a turn based game is reflective of time and nothing more.

It says that the regiment in the abstract subjective time increment they are being measured in, couldn't get to the target in time.

This doesn't matter if it's a fixed charge mechanic or a random one and in fact neither mechanic is better in reflecting it.

Right, but we don't do random movement, just random charges, or the weird guessing thing.

It's a mechanic no other system uses for good reason. Animosity is flavorful and give the orcs their unique character. Including rules for an otherwise successful charge to fail due to dice is a waste of rulebook space.

 Hellebore wrote:
I assume the almanac tonight will be the shooting phase? They seem to be going in phase order.

WarCom wrote:
Here at Warhammer Community, we’re gearing up for a spectacular double-header of live events as the World Championships of Warhammer and the Grand Narrative Finale begin on Thursday 16th November. We’ll have live coverage of the weekend’s action to go with four days of livestreams from the Warhammer Twitch channel, including another exciting Preview Online packed with reveals.

That’s not all – the Old World Almanack returns with a look at the Shooting Phase, we dig into more of the rules from Warhammer: The Horus Heresy – Legions Imperialis, and a very special reveal makes this an unbeatable week for Warhammer fans. We’ll see you there!

Yup, shooting is next

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

tneva82 wrote:
Yea. Troops always start the charge run precisely at right distance. Never ever too early. Humans are infallible after all carrying laser pointers in middle ages after all.

Show me the battle where this happened.

I'm not talking about troops falling out on a grueling road march, nor am I talking about heavy fire breaking up the advance, I mean troopers who sing the pean, lower spears and then just slow down 40 yards short of the Athenians, or Romans who hurl their spears and then realize they guessed wrong and sit there, waiting for the Gauls to take their turn.

Confederates give the rebel yell, surge forward and then, whew, that field is longer than we thought!

It's a game mechanic that only exists in the GW universe.

While the GW rule is an abstraction, this is almost literally what happened in ancient and medieval combat. Indeed, it was probably the defining feature of pre-1870 combat: one group musters the courage to charge and they move forward, yelling and throwing things. If they enemy lose their nerve and flees, the attackers pursue. If the enemy holds the attacker may press the charge, or, more likely, they'll slow down and regroup, throwing missiles and curses while one side builds up the nerve to charge again (or flees in panic).

The clearest example of one side pausing to regroup mid-charge is Caesar's assault on Pompey at Pharsalus. See also the retreat of the Swiss at Cerignola, the Roman's counter-charge against Boudica, or the assault of the French II corps at Bussaco.

Troops consistently lose their nerve, or lose the intiative to the enemy. I'm not completely sold on random charges as a game mechanic, but it does a decent job at modeling battelfield confusion and the fog of war.

 Saber wrote:
While the GW rule is an abstraction, this is almost literally what happened in ancient and medieval combat. Indeed, it was probably the defining feature of pre-1870 combat: one group musters the courage to charge and they move forward, yelling and throwing things. If they enemy lose their nerve and flees, the attackers pursue. If the enemy holds the attacker may press the charge, or, more likely, they'll slow down and regroup, throwing missiles and curses while one side builds up the nerve to charge again (or flees in panic).

What you are talking about is a function of morale, not guessing distance or a random die roll. If it was pegged to morale, I'd be fine with it, but it's not.

There are lots of ways to handle charges, from testing to make them to testing to receive them. No one but GW does a "flip a coin and see if the troops can cover the requisite amount of ground before the shot clock expires."

its ironic that he gave confederates as an example too, as they have one of the most notable examples of a charge faltering during the ACW - Picketts Charge. Less than a third of the men who charged ever actually reached Union lines, several thousand men reached a depression along Emmitsburg road which offered them shelter for the incoming fire, just 300-400 yards from Union lines, and refused to advance any further and remained in the ditch for the rest of the battle, eventually surrendering to Union forces.

Charges fail sometimes, period, it's a complex movement of involving a mass of men, end of story. Now move on and don't feed the troll.

As for actual TOW-related topics, I'm surprised that they haven't even gone into the new base sizes yet. Infantry got moved up to 25mm minimum base size but Cavalry, juding from the photos, remains the same 25x50mm. So now Cavalry units won't be in base contact with as many infantry models as in WHFB. Honestly seems like buff to cavs to me.

Wonder if there will be a new 30/35mm square base for CW sized miniatures -- I made a 20-to-25 mm square base extender (well rather in 2 parts, files on cults 3D: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/20mm-to-25mm-base-extender-in-two-pieces) in blender and 3D printed them. So far working decently well and I've finished most of my Empire infantry. 25mm bases IIRC are of the same height as the 20MM ones, but 40mm is slightly taller, so I can't just scale up and have to redo the mesh -- not a lot of work but wanna get started nonetheless.

chaos0xomega wrote:
its ironic that he gave confederates as an example too, as they have one of the most notable examples of a charge faltering during the ACW - Picketts Charge. Less than a third of the men who charged ever actually reached Union lines, several thousand men reached a depression along Emmitsburg road which offered them shelter for the incoming fire, just 300-400 yards from Union lines, and refused to advance any further and remained in the ditch for the rest of the battle, eventually surrendering to Union forces.

That wasn't a random die roll, that was the result of deadly converging fire. In Warhammer terms, they charged and got hammered in the resulting "Stand and Shoot." It wasn't because Pickett's regimental commanders started running too soon and ran out of Gatorade.

IIRC Stand & Shoot mechanics in WHFB didn't cause the charge to fail (unless you killed everyone), they only caused casualties prior to the charging unit making contact with its target. You would still need a random charge roll to represent the charge faltering as it advanced under fire.

chaos0xomega wrote:
IIRC Stand & Shoot mechanics in WHFB didn't cause the charge to fail (unless you killed everyone), they only caused casualties prior to the charging unit making contact with its target. You would still need a random charge roll to represent the charge faltering as it advanced under fire.

A unit that took 25% casualties had to make a morale test.

Of course, WHFB didn't feature muzzle-loading rifles, so it's not a great example.

And a panic test resulting from stand and shoot would result in them fleeing, correct? Because thats a different outcome than faltering or hunkering down and holding instead of completing the maneuver. Ergo, the random dice roll still would serve a purpose in terms of delineating an outcome other than "success" or "abysmal failure and rout".

chaos0xomega wrote:
And a panic test resulting from stand and shoot would result in them fleeing, correct? Because thats a different outcome than faltering or hunkering down and holding instead of completing the maneuver. Ergo, the random dice roll still would serve a purpose in terms of delineating an outcome other than "success" or "abysmal failure and rout".

It depends on the version. WHFB had troops flee off the field, but the contemporaneous version of 40k had them flee into cover.

Either way, the failed charge is the result of positive action by the defender, not a random die roll that exists independent of the morale, leadership and troop quality of the attacker. It's a silly mechanic and no other system uses anything like it.

edit: This post was originally written with what I now believe to be a misinterpretation of what was meant by the word 'system'. Ignore.

Ultimately I didn't like random charge distances because of how it made the game play. Too many times it was just frustrating rather than characterful when a typically slow moving unit teleported across the battlefield with a high charge roll, or a typically fast and reliable unit tripped over their shoelaces and failed an easy charge.

It just wasn't fun for me or the people I played with.

I think a system where "getting the charge" isn't the be all and end all of the game, and the rules are written so offensive type melee units want to move towards the enemy regardless of whether they get the charge in their turn or not and defensive type units get benefits for bracing a charge rather than charging themselves, etc.

 lcmiracle wrote:
Charges fail sometimes, period, it's a complex movement of involving a mass of men, end of story. Now move on and don't feed the troll.

As for actual TOW-related topics, I'm surprised that they haven't even gone into the new base sizes yet. Infantry got moved up to 25mm minimum base size but Cavalry, juding from the photos, remains the same 25x50mm. So now Cavalry units won't be in base contact with as many infantry models as in WHFB. Honestly seems like buff to cavs to me.

Wonder if there will be a new 30/35mm square base for CW sized miniatures -- I made a 20-to-25 mm square base extender (well rather in 2 parts, files on cults 3D: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/20mm-to-25mm-base-extender-in-two-pieces) in blender and 3D printed them. So far working decently well and I've finished most of my Empire infantry. 25mm bases IIRC are of the same height as the 20MM ones, but 40mm is slightly taller, so I can't just scale up and have to redo the mesh -- not a lot of work but wanna get started nonetheless.

Check this article: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/04/14/old-world-development-diary-on-bases-and-the-barons-of-bretonnia/

I don’t think those Calvary units are on their old base sizes.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Saber wrote:
While the GW rule is an abstraction, this is almost literally what happened in ancient and medieval combat. Indeed, it was probably the defining feature of pre-1870 combat: one group musters the courage to charge and they move forward, yelling and throwing things. If they enemy lose their nerve and flees, the attackers pursue. If the enemy holds the attacker may press the charge, or, more likely, they'll slow down and regroup, throwing missiles and curses while one side builds up the nerve to charge again (or flees in panic).

What you are talking about is a function of morale, not guessing distance or a random die roll. If it was pegged to morale, I'd be fine with it, but it's not.

There are lots of ways to handle charges, from testing to make them to testing to receive them. No one but GW does a "flip a coin and see if the troops can cover the requisite amount of ground before the shot clock expires."

Yes, I understand what you're saying but I wanted to be pedantic. What you describe is literally what happened at Pharsalus: Caesar's troops started to charge. When they saw Pompey's troops weren't advancing to meet them, they halted to redress their ranks and save their breath. Then they charged again.

And other games I play have random charges; A Song of Ice and Fire, for one. Still others have fixed charge distances. I think both systems work.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
IIRC Stand & Shoot mechanics in WHFB didn't cause the charge to fail (unless you killed everyone), they only caused casualties prior to the charging unit making contact with its target. You would still need a random charge roll to represent the charge faltering as it advanced under fire.

A unit that took 25% casualties had to make a morale test.

Of course, WHFB didn't feature muzzle-loading rifles, so it's not a great example.

Empire Handgunners* would like to have a word with you

* While technically muzzle-loaded muskets, it doesn't make that much difference to you when under fire from them.

I don’t think those Calvary units are on their old base sizes.

All of the Images they have shown look like 25x50 to me.

Justyn wrote:

I don’t think those Calvary units are on their old base sizes.

All of the Images they have shown look like 25x50 to me.

All of the cavalry shown so far comes on bases larger than 25x50 though. Check this article for general comments on bases in TOW. Comparing the Bretonnian Knights on those bases to older images the base size increase is obvious. In articles like this you can also see cavalry on bigger bases than infantry (which is no smaller than 25mm).

This is not to say that there might not be (cavalry) units remaining on their previous 25x50 bases, but we have seen none of them so far.

chaos0xomega wrote:IIRC Stand & Shoot mechanics in WHFB didn't cause the charge to fail (unless you killed everyone), they only caused casualties prior to the charging unit making contact with its target. You would still need a random charge roll to represent the charge faltering as it advanced under fire.

Or that's the reason for a poor combat roll. It's already simulated without the frustration of having to roll for a basic move.
Troops hiding in a ditch for the rest of the battle are effectively casualties and removing those models simulates that.

Saber wrote:Yes, I understand what you're saying but I wanted to be pedantic. What you describe is literally what happened at Pharsalus: Caesar's troops started to charge. When they saw Pompey's troops weren't advancing to meet them, they halted to redress their ranks and save their breath. Then they charged again.

Would that not be an advance in game terms? Perhaps moving into charge range and then deciding not to?

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
There are lots of ways to handle charges, from testing to make them to testing to receive them. No one but GW does a "flip a coin and see if the troops can cover the requisite amount of ground before the shot clock expires."

Set movement plus random movement with a reasonably good chance of doubling your movement plus prior opportunity to maneuver into a favorable position is not a coin flip. A little less hyperbole, please.

M + 2d6 pick highest adds a little variance to charge distance. It prevents the larger variance of 8th ed charges and allows cavalry, beasts and other fast movers to retain a large part of their ability to dictate charges.

What it doesn't do is let you line up your M5 elves and charge the humans with their pitiful M4 every single time. An inch of extra movement is still an advantage, but with this charge rule you no longer have binary outcomes between infantry of different races. It's an equalizing factor that makes infantry on infantry clashes a less one-sided affair (and different kinds of other units as well that happen to have similar but not identical movement values). You are now forced to either keep your elves at 10" or 11" to stay safe from being charged by dwarfs and accept that your charge only has a 50% chance to succeed or whatever, or you accept the risk of moving into their threat radius and get charged before you can make the charge. Conversely, by retaining a better charge probability you can try to set up your elf regiments to bait the dwarfs into a low success charge that leaves some units stranded and others isolated in combat and open to counter-charge in the flanks. You can no longer make sure that your entire infantry line is lined up correctly just outside enemy charge range for an all out devastating charge, so if you are inclined to try that, you can but accept the risk that the exact same thing happens to you.

You can throw around questions of realism all you want, and you are of course free to dislike random charges to your heart's content, but the game mechanic itself has tangible value. Small variance and blurring the exact movement capability of units allows for more dynamism during the game and opens a number of tactical considerations that are not present with fixed charges. It isn't the only way to write charge rules, but no less valid than other solutions.