McNathanson

Just to give you an idea of how little I know about the game, I had to call Joel and Micah to even know how to tell what models go with which factions (the little icons on the sides were not visible on the store shelf!), I've not even looked at the rules, or watched the game being played, or anything really except looking at pictures on the Wyrd site of the box sets, and looking at models at Guardian Games. But looking at the models in stock at Guardian Games, I really liked all three of the box sets from the Guild faction that have cool looking women leaders: the samrai one, the gunslinger, and the flaming sword witchhunter girl. Also really like the flaming sword girl's minions (the ones with two broken swords) and the casket guys, and the gunslinger's family looks like a lot of fun to paint. SO, just wondering: if I pick one of those three, will I be limited in which OTHER models I can add (I know they have to be from Guild)? How do tournaments work from a model selection PoV? Do I pick a faction going into the tournament, and use whatever Master from that faction I want? Or do I pick a Master for the whole tourney, and just adjust the minions? Are any of those above 3 horrible play-wise, or can I just go with whichever ones I feel like painting and still have a tough and interesting team? Also I can't find anywhere to look at the minion models (the ones not in a crew box) on the Wyrd website... am I missing something? See, told you I was even n00bier than orkdork :)

Sad but true... part of our demographic's all-too-common social illiteracy :)

Sometimes I wonder how we ever got wives.

Awesome. Go Swedish people!

I don't know what is happening there, I tried to reply again and all it did was re-post my original, which I then edited to this post! Demonic possession?? :) Sorry!!

I'm also in agreement with dkieft, in that odd-looking formations meant to manipulate game mechanics are a very obnoxious form of tactics. The aesthetics of the game are important to me, which is why I play a game with painstakingly painted minis and carefully crafted terrain! I remember what a huge turn off it was when my opponent started creating wacky looking formations in 40k to make 2 units provide cover for each other simultaneously, or to control pile in so that combats would last an extra round, allowing him to avoid counter fire from my Tau. Yes, its clever, like Ender's Game. And no, this isn't a fight for the survival of human kind(*), so it isn't worth flying around butt first shooting between our knees ☺

DELETED duplicate... what is wrong with my browser?!

DP: I totally agree, I generally dislike any die rolls where an unlikely outcome has disastrous consequences. That's why Micah and I made Look Out Sir an auto-pass in our 8th revisions draft. I think that in this particular case though, 6 wounds is going to kill pretty much anything anyway, so the more prominent effect of that change is to reduce the average (while still allowing a potential one shot on a Dragon). So the odds of a character surviving a cannon shot get much better (e.g. 3 wound Lord survives on a 1-4 roll for wounds, instead of just 1-2, minus of course the 1-in-6 to wound HKB roll) So this instance of HKB actually has a counterintuitive effect of reducing the odds of a one-shot Lord kill, because of the accompanying change from d6 to d3 wounds. EDIT: removed erroneous Ward save stuff, of course HKB is a single roll as is a multi-wound hit!

I saw a neat suggestion on the 9th age thread: cannons do d3 wounds, but have HKB. I think that might be a great change... reducing the average wounds but leaving the chance for a one-shot kill on big monsters. I especially like that it would make cannon sniping characters much less effective.

Fo-sho. I sincerely hope 9th age is good enough in the areas we think are clunky that we can just play that! If you're interested in collaborating on 9th age you could help us both by doing the legwork to find out how to participate! I personally have no interest in doing the tedious heavy lifting of re-costing, re-comping, etc... all that game balance stuff that isn't about clever or elegant rules, but is about sitting down and spending lots of time... blech :) But definitely would love to contribute to fixes for the core mechanics that make game play less rewarding than it could be (IMO of course)!

Some of the movement stuff is just about cleaning up things that everyone fudges already. I can't tell you how many times I've seen people reform units that literally cannot reform except to turn exactly 180 degrees. And is it fun to not be able to move your army because the tails of you units are hitting the building you're next to? So some of it is fixing stuff that's clumsy and that people just "cheat" constantly because it's clumsy. For the diverter/base-to-base/character stuff, it's not that there aren't counters. I realize that of course magic missiles can shoot sabretusks. But that's not a reason to allow something, just because there are counters. Rather it should be about whether it's fun. Sure, different people have different definitions of fun. But I believe most people would prefer if battles were about strategic positioning, and visually satisfying tactics like outflanking, holding a battle line, and generally doing things that make a little more intuitive sense. Right now, outside of the obvious math (e.g. skullcrushers > knights of the realm) it's about diverter count (I have more diverters than you have ways to deal with them), base to base tricks (I challenge with my champ, in the middle, have a character on one corner, and half your models can't attack), characters (I put my 1+ reroll character on the flank of my infantry block and you can barely scratch me), and awkward unit positioning (you're in my flank but can't charge my flank, so you can't charge me). Some people think that's fun, sure. And we can do it with the best of them, believe me. But I just don't believe most folks find that to be a satisfying set of determining factors to decide the outcome of combats. For the record I've heard a lot of people complain about challenges leaving models out of contact; about not being able to charge a unit that they clearly can contact; about a single wolf rider goblin leading a unit of elite infantry around by the nose. When it comes to using tiny rules minutiae to decide the outcome of a combat, I don't really believe that "a lot of people like them".

Well okay, rudra I should have clarified: I know "just make up SC values" is possible :) The trick is coming up with reasonably close values. I've seen several attempts, and I haven't seen anything close to a reasonable version of actual Comp numbers for End Times armies. I've spent some time looking at how to Comp score ET stuff. The issue is that, because of the huge size of the lists, and the combination of army-wide rules, the interplay between the units and special rules makes Comping them very very difficult. So a suggestion on how to actually come up with reasonable Comp scores, is what I meant! Like for example, "Throw out the new army lists, throw out the named characters, and just score the new units, dropping them into Army Books that already exist." But that seems like a lot of work just to be able to use ET rules for models that you can use existing Army Book rules for. But something like that? @valourunbound: I don't think we've affected balance enough to discard SC. Most of the rules are cleanup for terrain, movement, charging, and base-to-base stuff that affects everyone and fixes broken mechanics like reforms and clipping. There are a few that affect balance, true. Making steadfast disruptable affects balance (hordes are a little worse) as does changing miscast (game breaking spells are a little worse), and diverter changes (units like single sabretusks are a little worse). But I'm not convinced that any of these adjustments will make SC unusable. If so, we'd want to revisit those changes, as SC is a necessity at this point IMO. Maybe we should mark which rules have a substantial affect on unit-to-unit balance, so that those rules can be optional in a Comp'd event? Hmmm...

I feel you on losing End Times units. I built and bought an entire army based on Legions rules. However that doesn't do anything to address the issue of how to apply Swedish Comp values to End Times. Without Comp values for those lists and units, it's a choice between Swedish Comp and End Times, pick one or the other. I personally think SC does far, far more to improve the game than ET does. So to me a choice between the two is easy. Any suggestions? PS: don't forget those models can almost all be used as other units! We're not bound to GW's definition of "WYSIWYG" because hey, GW canceled WFB!

I'm thinking maybe "Whenever Skaven attempt to cast Curse of the Horned Rat, roll D6. On a 2+, remove all enemy models from play, with no saves of any kind." 2+ might be a bit off, I'll have to run a simulation. It might be that 3+ is a better number. TBD. What do you think?

So I'm wondering whether anyone has other "top issues" that we haven't addressed? It's interesting to me what different players find most "broken" with the current edition. I know we've discussed this in other threads, but given the items we've hit with BroHammer, I'm curious if there are one or two more things we could address to get other Ordites more excited to play this version!

I think what Orkdork is saying is that they did a great job on what they addressed, but that they didn't address some of the bigger issues. I wonder whether many of the people thinking about rules updates for 8th have really explored and experienced the shenanigans and abuse that is possible with the current charge/movement/b2b combat rules. I think if a person has really seen first hand what is possible under the current rules, then those particular rules will move near the top of the list of things that need to be fixed! So when I don't see them included in a revision, in the back of my mind I'm wondering if the writers are as intimately familiar with the nuances of the rules as rules writers should be!

Thanks Scott, great feedback! Alright that's two against keeping characters with units. I'll take that out for now and we can play with it separately to see what we think. I also wasn't happy with the directing attacks against characters rules, but we haven't thought of an elegant way yet to attack characters without base-to-base considerations (which we're trying to remove). Another idea (which I changed it to, see document) is that up to two models, and two supporting attacks, can go against each character. This is a happy middle between three models that could theoretically go against a model in b2b, and one (which might be the case if the model is tucked into a corner). Wizards can still be protected, but at a slight cost in attacks (the wizard still occupies his spot in the fighting right, but doesn't get to swing). Do you like that approach better? We went back and forth on war machines, and I tend to agree about the dwarf machines point, so I'll just remove that change for now in the interest of fewer non-essential changes. Thanks! Yes, the miscast table goes away, you just lose the spell (as I agree: one IF casting per game is plenty) and the wizard has a good chance of dying if lots of dice were thrown. Dangerous and Difficult Terrain still disrupts steadfast, provides cover, and Woods give stubborn to Skirmishers. I just think that 1 in 6 Knights that charge over rough ground dies is terrible and doesn't add much. In general unlikely rolls with stupid results are bad mechanics. This is the logic behind misfire as well, but it seems more ingrained to me. I'll leave the DT changes as is for now but would like to hear from more people: does Dangerous Terrain add or subtract to the game for you? I know my OFCC opponents and I almost universally agreed to remove the special terrain rules, as there is plenty of playing to do with just normal terrain :) Thanks again Scott, let me know your thoughts!

Thanks for the feedback! I'll get right to it :) Redirectors are alive and well! The only thing you can't do is use a unit of less than 5 models to change the overrun direction. You can still, for example, sacrifice two sabretusks for the same result (the deathstar gets just one overrun). Or you could use a unit of 5 fast cav. We thought about making the limit 3+ models, to just eliminate single and 2-model units... do you think that would be better, so that a FC unit of 5 could take a few casualties, and still redirect? Bear in mind that this doesn't clean up the silly "single file fast cav charge gate" thing, while the 1-rank minimum helps a lot with that issue. Characters sticking in units is meant to be experimental... we'll see if we think it is worth the cost in flexibility. There's a good chance we'll remove it, especially if folks don't like it, as "super characters" are one of the lesser evils :) 50% characters could also go back in... I'm not attached to either way on that one as I can argue for either case. I'll put it back for now, in the interest of making fewer changes! I kindly disagree on the combined stats profile. If you formerly had a 3W, 1++/5++ Lord, riding a 5W, 4+/-- Manticore, I don't think you should get a 5++ ward for all 8W on the combined profile! You paid for 5++ Ward on 3 Wounds... you are getting a bargain really by getting a 6++ Ward on 8 Wounds! Regarding miscast penalty, it does get worse with the number of dice thrown, did you note that in addition to losing the spell, you roll d6 for each power die rolled and take a wound on a 4+? So with 6 dice you're probably taking 3 Wounds! As noted in the comments, we might change this to a 5+, need to do some math first and see the distribution tables for 2d6 - 6d6. Deathstars got worse by virtue of 3 character max and disruptable steadfast. The only thing that makes them slightly better is the single-model redirector going away, and the miscast table going away (which makes it safer to cast from within a unit... but still much more deadly to the wizard). Thoughts? Keep 'em coming! Thanks!

Nope, all models get to fight! However RnF can also gang up on a character who is not in a challenge, unless that character goes into hiding. We are trying to remove all the implications of b2b contact, so that there is no real reason to worry about it other than cosmetic. It may prove too dangerous to characters, we'll have to see. We want to start with the simplest and most flexible mechanic and see how it plays.

Just wanted to make sure you saw that all front rank models (and their supporters) always get to attack. This means that against a typical 5-model frontage, where a horde used to get A*7 attacks + 14 supporting attacks, a horde now gets A*10 + 10 supporting attacks! It's really only against similarly-wide units of 8+ frontage that the horde loses substantial hitting power (going from A*10 + 20, to A*10 + 10)

Definitely would love to get your help and input, especially if you've done some play testing on the core rules changes (since those will predicate the army book changes) Bear in mind that we'll want to keep unit to unit "power level" as close to current levels as we can, in order to keep current Swedish Comp values more or less accurate. So "give and take" changes are the best. That said, point adjustments are the easiest to make, as we could scale Swedish Comp penalty accordingly, to keep Point-to-Comp ratio the same.

I know, it hurts some armies more than others. We'd definitely love to get your help with a BoC army book revision. My Brets rely on a lot of the same tricks, so I feel your pain. It helps some that we will always be using Swedish Comp handicapping (possibly with minor addendum) with these rules, FWIW :)

Hey folks, Micah and I have spent some time and thought writing up a set of rules changes to make 8th more playable and fun. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hv3JhuXB2PIkHgZCZjuWRKwt1uaW-zWGUm2D5GIPYLA/edit?usp=sharing Note that this is a living document so bear in mind that some things are still work in progress. We'll put a version number on it when we've got our first "ready for playtesting" version done, but I wanted to get your feedback sooner rather than later. Anyone who would like to comment directly in the google doc, PM me your email address and I'll give you permissions (please comment after putting some thought into it, as we've already put quite a bit of thought into the rules as they stand!) The intro text, to give you an idea what we address: Please take a look and let us know what you think. At some point after these rules are finished, solidified and sufficiently play-tested, we may host a tournament using these rules, so get to know them and help us improve them! Thanks, Nathan and Micah (a.k.a. orkdork)

Like I've said in other threads, the places I would start (I think) are: 1) Fixing base-to-base combat so that stupid situations don't happen where alignment issues, clipping, and challenges decide a combat outcome. 2) Cleaning up single model play so that small chaff like sabretusks and goblin heroes don't control the battlefield so much. 3) Maybe everting to a lower % of points into characters (maybe). 4) Eventually taking a stab at better magic system which disincentivizes throwing 6 dice at a super spell. I think that would be a good enough place to start for now, honestly. Any other places to fix broken/clumsy rules come to mind (other than steadfast)?

QFT