Linehammer

[Peanut]

Has anyone seen this?

This guy has got a few games and makes a case that, with this edition, there are very few reasons to rank up. I'm wondering if anyone who has got a game has noticed this. His review of the game is really good too. I'll reserve judgement until I get a few games myself.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Well if you use terrain and chaff units a long line is going to be hard to get its value back. It will block your own units and since pivoting counts towards your movement in many cases its range will make it a static unit. 
 

Play testing will be needed but this seems too simple of thinking and if you’re just about finding a way to game the system then everyone will build lists to counter it and start placing terrain in the beginning to prevent long units from being deployed in key areas. Everything can be made to sound awesome on paper but it seems to fail many times on the table. But again, we’ll see with more play testing. 
 

Also if that unit gets charged by three different units at once it won’t get all those supporting attacks on one unit and it won’t get much support from its own unit. It will really mostly on kills for combat resolution and units with Horde rules will most likely just win the combat in a multiple unit charge. MSU armies will be its bane. 
 
But interesting theory.

[Duckman]

First observation he is a known internet personality for the game and uses a lot of sarcasm to get his point across.  Take *nothing* in that video without a grain of salt...  I mean,  his last comment is about the Conga-dogs who march and charge in the same move...  It's sensationalism.

Second, linehammer is not all it is cracked up to be.  First, you present a huge target.  Second, you can't wheel because it would be measured from the end, 20" away and that means the best you would do with a 4" move is a little less than 30 degrees (with no forward motion).  Terrain would be your bane as you could not move into or through it without consequece and you would not be able to change formation (ever) as maneuvers do not allow a model to move more than Mv*2 so no changing facing or anything like that.  You can barely redress the ranks at that point and only because you can take the end model to the end of the second rank instead of the middle.

While it is tongue-in-cheek there is an equally sarcastic response to the skirmishing line variant which is "no model can move more than their basic Mv (not even Mv*2) so if they fail to make contact they are out of formation and that means dead (well, fled, but same thing) per RAW."

 

The big win is that range is not checked for stand and shoot which means that it makes much more sense from the defensive gunline perspective but it still has the multicharge problem that Murphy'sLawyer points out.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Watched the video and he proved it would be easy to manipulate that unit with chaff because while closing the door doesn’t count for movement if it were to get in a bad position from a chaff unit it wouldn’t be able to get back into a good position easily at all. 
 

in that scenario there are Chaos warriors over a foot long. (When placing terrain you have to place them 12” apart but that would be more than enough to block that Unit in its deployment zone.) one unit of Wolf Riders (that are almost a must in O&G lists.) they would be able to toy with that unit with their Feigned Flight rule because with a failed charge they would be most likely not facing straight forward at any other unit if done right making any further charges impossible their next turn. Making that unit essentially out of the fight and why not just avoid a large unit of Chaos Warriors and go for more squishy targets. Win for O&G army by out maneuvering your opponent. And in the set up make sure to put terrain by the deployment zone 12” apart in the center forcing that unit to have to deploy on the flank where moving them into combat would be extremely hard and take them several turns before they could get in towards the center? Pivoting is going to be the bane of that unit. 
 

Terrain is going to play a big part of the game now, don’t ignore it. 

[scottshoemaker]

Plus if someone pulls that kind of Rules as Written shennagins on me it's a guarantee I don't play them a second time.

Or I just counter deploy with my Chaos Dwarf bluderbusses and dare them to charge.

 

[Brother Glacius]

Not that I would take it to the same degree as that guy did, but I already pointed out that wider units were going to be a thing because of fighting rank rules. Between the reduction of rank bonus and casualty removal, units that have a decent shot of doing damage would benefit of going wider before getting charged. Going to make Drilled decently important for some units too.

[MexicanNinja]

Skirmishing cavalry could have fun with this unit since wheeling during a charge isn't free.  One vortex will ruin this tactic and make the unit pretty much useless.