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Hellebore wrote:
The point was that outnumbering won't matter, because it will only increase the chance the combat moves backward 2D6".

If the scenarios are about whoever can stand on circles the longest, pushing a combat back will matter quite a bit.

 Altruizine wrote:

Hellebore wrote:
The point was that outnumbering won't matter, because it will only increase the chance the combat moves backward 2D6".

If the scenarios are about whoever can stand on circles the longest, pushing a combat back will matter quite a bit.

Routing the unit accomplishes the same thing.

 Hellebore wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:

Hellebore wrote:
The point was that outnumbering won't matter, because it will only increase the chance the combat moves backward 2D6".

If the scenarios are about whoever can stand on circles the longest, pushing a combat back will matter quite a bit.

Routing the unit accomplishes the same thing.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

If you're playing a scenario that requires you to slow the other guy own, being pushed back instead of being routed can still be a win.

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:

Hellebore wrote:
The point was that outnumbering won't matter, because it will only increase the chance the combat moves backward 2D6".

If the scenarios are about whoever can stand on circles the longest, pushing a combat back will matter quite a bit.

Routing the unit accomplishes the same thing.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

If you're playing a scenario that requires you to slow the other guy own, being pushed back instead of being routed can still be a win.

True and old Fantasy had plenty of scenarios where you had to do exactly that as a defender, particularly with games where you had less points than the attacking force. That's one thing I've not seen talked about, I'm keen to see what else they release beside the rules. A 'Crusade' equivalent with narrative campaign packs would be very welcome.

Eumerin wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:

Hellebore wrote:
The point was that outnumbering won't matter, because it will only increase the chance the combat moves backward 2D6".

If the scenarios are about whoever can stand on circles the longest, pushing a combat back will matter quite a bit.

Routing the unit accomplishes the same thing.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

If you're playing a scenario that requires you to slow the other guy own, being pushed back instead of being routed can still be a win.

You're just describing routing with extra steps.

There isn't really any scenarios where driving the enemy away and either killing them as they run or watching them flee isn't just as effective as pushing them back, except one drags out your engagement and the other doesn't.

They even acknowledge this by putting the rout higher up on the table, because it's the most valuable. And now it's only within reach of elite units fighting chaff.

It's not only available for elite units though, nor does it only work vs chaff.

Ld6 flees 58.3% of the time
Ld7 flees 41.7% of the time
Ld8 flees 27.8% of the time

None of these are all the time, nor are they never.

Vorian wrote:
It's not only available for elite units though, nor does it only work vs chaff.

Ld6 flees 58.3% of the time
Ld7 flees 41.7% of the time
Ld8 flees 27.8% of the time

None of these are all the time, nor are they never.

Within reach is what I said. Before you get to that test you have to win combat.

There is a strong correlation between high ld and ws stats (with dwarfs mostly being the exception to also having good initiative as well as ld and ws), and the wrap around attack rule encourages smaller elite units to deploy wide front ranks to offset their lack of rank bonuses through extra potential kills.

So the outcome will be that not only will ld8+ units not rout very often, they are unlikely to lose the combat against low ld units in the first place for it to be necessary.

So you have situations where no matter how big the chaff unit is, it will have a low likelyhood of winning, and even if it does, a low likelyhood of routing, while the opposing elite will more often win and require fewer combat victories to generate a route.

Like I said previously, these rules don't just uplift elites, they push down chaff even more, creating a more extreme environment.

Wait a sec, outnumbering without ranks is useless for CR...

 Hellebore wrote:

Vorian wrote:
It's not only available for elite units though, nor does it only work vs chaff.

Ld6 flees 58.3% of the time
Ld7 flees 41.7% of the time
Ld8 flees 27.8% of the time

None of these are all the time, nor are they never.

Within reach is what I said. Before you get to that test you have to win combat.

There is a strong correlation between high ld and ws stats (with dwarfs mostly being the exception to also having good initiative as well as ld and ws), and the wrap around attack rule encourages smaller elite units to deploy wide front ranks to offset their lack of rank bonuses through extra potential kills.

So the outcome will be that not only will ld8+ units not rout very often, they are unlikely to lose the combat against low ld units in the first place for it to be necessary.

So you have situations where no matter how big the chaff unit is, it will have a low likelyhood of winning, and even if it does, a low likelyhood of routing, while the opposing elite will more often win and require fewer combat victories to generate a route.

Like I said previously, these rules don't just uplift elites, they push down chaff even more, creating a more extreme environment.

We don't know how magic nor "command abilities" work, both of which could potentially make the chaff horde exponentially deadlier/more efficient.

For example, a "chaff" army like goblins could afford to have a shaman/boss in every block, whereas high elves probably couldn't.

We also don't know how psychology works, that could also potentially play a factor here (for example, does being flanked by a block with 2+ ranks also infer morale penalties?).

Furthermore, I think you're looking at his in a vacuum; not only is the "chaff" army going to have more models per unit, but will probably also have more units overall, meaning it will have an easier time flanking an elite unit that's been pushing back a chaff horde block, while disabling the elite army's general to do the same by feeding his army's flankers with, well, chaff.

With all that in mind, I don't have a problem with an elite unit going to pound town with a horde block if they pull off/if the opponent is careless enough to allow a scenario where it's just one-on-one

SU-152 wrote:
Wait a sec, outnumbering without ranks is useless for CR...

Yeah, hence why wide frontages to get as many attacks as possible to convert to kills will be the more effective way to get your CR bonuses.

You can waste your (20 strong regiment) 3 extra ranks of 5 guys behind your battle rank to get +3, or you can run them 10 wide and get +1 for a rank and 2x the potential attacks and kills you would have otherwise gotten, giving you (if your ws and I are good...) Up to +11 CR, vs the standard block at +8 max.

The 'its hard to manoeuvre wide units' argument is weak. If its a powerful tactic then it will be pursued with vigor.

I used to use a 20 wide rank of dwarf crossbows and only reformed them when the enemy was close. I built my army around it.


Btw, unless they have a limit on your front rank wrap around, a 20 wide rank gets 20 attacks on an enemy that could physically be 6"+ away from some models.


Hopefully they have something like 'as many wrap around as the target is deep'. So a 20 man unit in 4 ranks could get a max of 5 at the front and 4 on either side. Which is still a lot.

On an infinitely wide board you may have a point, but on a regular board, footprint and power at a point really matters. Your 20 wide unit is vulnerable to be charged by 3 or 4 opposing units that cover the same frontage. Then everyone gets similar numbers of attacks but the opponent has static combat res and you don’t.

I think when we've got to 20 inch wide units of single attack elite units being the death of chaff units, we've taken an odd turn somewhere.

Chaff is going to be fine, they just aren't going to be 50 strong units that are going to be winning combats on their own.

I mean there’s so much we don’t know yet either, gobbos and such could have a USR called “swarming” that prevents FBIGO for example.

Probably not worth throwing out all your regular movement trays and buying 20 wide ones just yet.

Whta happens in the case of a flanked unit being pushed back? Does the flanking unit also follow-up? What about a unit that has been charged both from the front and the rear?

 Hellebore wrote:


Within reach is what I said. Before you get to that test you have to win combat.

There is a strong correlation between high ld and ws stats (with dwarfs mostly being the exception to also having good initiative as well as ld and ws), and the wrap around attack rule encourages smaller elite units to deploy wide front ranks to offset their lack of rank bonuses through extra potential kills.

Ah yes. Fighting against front and flank enemies obviously doesn't have ANY impact whatsoever. Chaff can't uise their LOWER POINT COST to field up MORE UNITS to OUTNUMBER the enemy and OUTFLANK them to use their SUPERIOR NUMBERS thanks to their CHEAPER POINT COST to win.

Oh no. Elite units OBVIOUSLY cost just as much or every chaff player is so bad player that tries to fight 1 on 1 ignoring superior numbers.

Yep yep.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:

SU-152 wrote:
Wait a sec, outnumbering without ranks is useless for CR...

Yeah, hence why wide frontages to get as many attacks as possible to convert to kills will be the more effective way to get your CR bonuses.

Groovy. Elite unit puts up units in single rank. I'll charge your flank. You get 1 model attack, I get ranks, flank bonus. Easy win.

Have fun.

Oh boy do my games get boring if my opponents try that. Easy wins. Easy wins. It's like I won't even have to TRY to win as my opponent just gives up in deployment

tneva82 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


Within reach is what I said. Before you get to that test you have to win combat.

There is a strong correlation between high ld and ws stats (with dwarfs mostly being the exception to also having good initiative as well as ld and ws), and the wrap around attack rule encourages smaller elite units to deploy wide front ranks to offset their lack of rank bonuses through extra potential kills.

Ah yes. Fighting against front and flank enemies obviously doesn't have ANY impact whatsoever. Chaff can't uise their LOWER POINT COST to field up MORE UNITS to OUTNUMBER the enemy and OUTFLANK them to use their SUPERIOR NUMBERS thanks to their CHEAPER POINT COST to win.

Oh no. Elite units OBVIOUSLY cost just as much or every chaff player is so bad player that tries to fight 1 on 1 ignoring superior numbers.

Yep yep.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:

SU-152 wrote:
Wait a sec, outnumbering without ranks is useless for CR...

Yeah, hence why wide frontages to get as many attacks as possible to convert to kills will be the more effective way to get your CR bonuses.

Groovy. Elite unit puts up units in single rank. I'll charge your flank. You get 1 model attack, I get ranks, flank bonus. Easy win.

Have fun.

Oh boy do my games get boring if my opponents try that. Easy wins. Easy wins. It's like I won't even have to TRY to win as my opponent just gives up in deployment

You do know both players get to move and charge right? Or do your opponents just sit single line elite units out there with massive gaps between them for you to spend a couple of turns marching and reforming with chaff to get to their flanks?

I feel this debate is impossible to have without actual concrete examples.

I don't think its an issue that say a line of 10 Swordmasters costing 130 points will chop up a small brick of 20 goblins costing 50-60. Will it be an issue when 3 goblin wolf chariots (150 points?) charge the 10-man line of Swordmasters and potentially kill all them with impact hits?

Yea I'm just gonna be cautiously optimistic for now, like I always am.

Dudeface wrote:
You do know both players get to move and charge right? Or do your opponents just sit single line elite units out there with massive gaps between them for you to spend a couple of turns marching and reforming with chaff to get to their flanks?

Yes, one reason why you would extend your front is to make the flanks harder to reach, particularly for large, unwieldy blocks of chaff.

There's also the fact that elite armies tend to have very elite flanking units who can dodge and weave, and bog down far larger forces by denying them march moves.

I like the new 'to hit' table and rules that reward extended fronts for this reason. This creates space for historically viable tactics that simply were not possible in WHFB.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Yea I'm just gonna be cautiously optimistic for now, like I always am.

Wise move.

But I can´t help but stop to be cautios, because I like too much what I see so far about ToW. It is checking all but one point of my wishlist!!!

One thing I'm noticing is that the combat article simply says +1 combat res per rank. No mention of a cap, no mention of only using one unit's ranks.

The requirement of having to be wider than deep imposes an exponential cost on the number of ranks one unit can have, but if I charge an enemy unit with 2 blocks of infantry, each with 3 ranks, do I get +6 rank bonus? That would be an interesting development if so. I always found lower quality units to be problematic in the old WHFB because ranks were capped at a maximum of +3. It often meant that charging multiple units into an elite enemy gave little or no benefit in static combat res and just ended up giving them more attacks back, meaning ganging up was often actively detrimental to you.

Counting all ranks would certainly be a power boost to chaf hordes. Of course, we can't expect a war com fluff piece to be comprehensive, so they may just have not mentioned the caps.

Yeah, we'll have to see if the actual rules have a cap. The preview aren't necessarily complete on any given point. But going only by what's in the article, I think adding ranks from multiple regiments without cap doesn't sound like a bad idea. Especially if insane courage is still in the rules and provides a chance for a unit to stand its ground no matter how stacked against it combat resolution is.

I'd hope the rank bonus is capped at the maximum of several units, not the sum of them

2x20 goblins should not hit harder than 1x40 goblins when both are four ranks deep

leopard wrote:
I'd hope the rank bonus is capped at the maximum of several units, not the sum of them

2x20 goblins should not hit harder than 1x40 goblins when both are four ranks deep

Given decades of experience with GW, I'm reasonably certain that there will be poor phrasing in the rule which will be exploited, and rather than correct the deficiency, GW will not only defend it, but will parse it further leading to even weirder combinations.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

leopard wrote:
I'd hope the rank bonus is capped at the maximum of several units, not the sum of them

2x20 goblins should not hit harder than 1x40 goblins when both are four ranks deep

Given decades of experience with GW, I'm reasonably certain that there will be poor phrasing in the rule which will be exploited, and rather than correct the deficiency, GW will not only defend it, but will parse it further leading to even weirder combinations.

there is a significant chance of you being correct here

still the argument phase of the game tends to at least be interactive

tneva82 wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:


Within reach is what I said. Before you get to that test you have to win combat.

There is a strong correlation between high ld and ws stats (with dwarfs mostly being the exception to also having good initiative as well as ld and ws), and the wrap around attack rule encourages smaller elite units to deploy wide front ranks to offset their lack of rank bonuses through extra potential kills.

Ah yes. Fighting against front and flank enemies obviously doesn't have ANY impact whatsoever. Chaff can't uise their LOWER POINT COST to field up MORE UNITS to OUTNUMBER the enemy and OUTFLANK them to use their SUPERIOR NUMBERS thanks to their CHEAPER POINT COST to win.

Oh no. Elite units OBVIOUSLY cost just as much or every chaff player is so bad player that tries to fight 1 on 1 ignoring superior numbers.

Yep yep.

If I deploy 200 points of chaff vs 200 points of elite, the game should allow for either to win. That's what points balance is for. Currently these rules mean that 200 points of elites are going to be disproportionately better at fighting than an equal number of points of chaff.

Your argument is, the game now doesn't reflect the power of large hordes of chaff smashing into the foe, so deploy as MSU instead. Which is the behaviour of elite armies, not horde ones.

If the only way to fight with a horde of chaff is to play MSU, then there is a problem.

tneva82 wrote:

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hellebore wrote:

SU-152 wrote:
Wait a sec, outnumbering without ranks is useless for CR...

Yeah, hence why wide frontages to get as many attacks as possible to convert to kills will be the more effective way to get your CR bonuses.

Groovy. Elite unit puts up units in single rank. I'll charge your flank. You get 1 model attack, I get ranks, flank bonus. Easy win.

Have fun.

Oh boy do my games get boring if my opponents try that. Easy wins. Easy wins. It's like I won't even have to TRY to win as my opponent just gives up in deployment

And because their LD is static, you won't rout the elites, you'll just push them a little. If you think it's absolutely fine and thematic flanking a single rank of 5 models with 40 goblins and just pushing them because your CR doesn't affect their Ld, then we're really just arguing on completely different planes.

100 goblins in the front, flank or rear of 5 ironbreakers/chaos warriors, generates no difference - they will just get pushed no matter which direction you're coming from.

That is a poor rule resolution.

Given that next week’s article is about Morale, Breaking, and Psychology there are almost certainly more to the process than the simple picture drawn so far.

 Hellebore wrote:
If I deploy 200 points of chaff vs 200 points of elite

The elites should win more often than not, because the chaff models have superior board control. You didn't take Goblins or Gnoblars or Skavenslaves because they were good troops- not even for the points- you took them because they were just as good as elites when it came to blocking off flanks, interrupting marches, and opportunistically flanking to provide rank bonus.

This is not the sort of brainless game where 200pts of anything has equal odds against 200pts of anything else. Every unit type has natural counters, and every unit type contributes soft factors beyond raw killing power.

 catbarf wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
If I deploy 200 points of chaff vs 200 points of elite

The elites should win more often than not, because the chaff models have superior board control. You didn't take Goblins or Gnoblars or Skavenslaves because they were good troops- not even for the points- you took them because they were just as good as elites when it came to blocking off flanks, interrupting marches, and opportunistically flanking to provide rank bonus.

This is not the sort of brainless game where 200pts of anything has equal odds against 200pts of anything else. Every unit type has natural counters, and every unit type contributes soft factors beyond raw killing power.

I'd be interested to see what you consider a capable goblin or skaven army if you don't think chaff units should be effective at killing things. nothing but goblins and trolls, skaven and ratogres?

Board control means less if you can't kill off your enemy and flank charges no longer devastate the enemy because of these rules.


You could charge a 10 man unit of sword masters with 20 goblins in the front and 20 to either side and they would react exactly the same as if they'd been charged by 1 goblin. Your board control and cheeky flank charges don't mean much when they will lose the combat and rout themselves by foolishly charging an enemy they can't hit, won't strike first against, will lose CR against and with low Ld rout and be run down by.

In this environment I'd be MSUing my dwarfs (10 models per unit depending on their minimums), and placing them all over to either charge, or take charges, safe in the knowledge that no matter how outnumbered they are, they won't be breaking and will hold enemy units up for ages.

I'd put multiple rows of them one behind the other, rather than having 20 man blocks, 2 separate 10 man ones in two lines one behind the other. That gives you flank charges on flankers. No down sides. A flank charge means nothing unless it comes from another elite/heavy hitting unit.

This will work really well with ironbreakers who have 2+ saves against chaff units with no ASM. Goblins hit ironbreakers on 5+ and wound on 5+, and now the return attacks are 2+, wounding on 3+. 10 goblins striking 1 ironbreaker will do 1 damage, while 1 ironbreaker striking 10 goblins will also do 1 damage, but the gobbo will probably not save while the ironbreaker most definitely will.

Flank charges done with a front charge actually become more vulnerable because the front will take casualties, whether the flank does or not and if they're a combined combat then the flank will rout.

So I see very little to support your assertion that 'board control' with chaff actually matters. They'll lose whether charged or charging, and if they're in the way then they'll be charged and suffer the most from the low Ld rout.

I think there's probably a tactic in there somewhere which doesn't involve feeding increasing numbers of the worst infantry into some of the best.