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Ordo 8th edition


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I think 8th is a fairly solid rule set. But there are aspects of it that I don't like. So I'm going to invite my fellow ordo's to list their biggest issues with 8th edition, and a possible solution. I'll compile them and then present them back.

 

Here are mine:

 

Magic Phase issues:

1) No save of any kind. I really don't like that. However, perhaps if you allowed MR saves to be taken vs them. Not ward save, but just MR save. So lets say a unit has a character with a 4+ ward save. That unit also has MR(1) and is hit by a "no save" spell. Each model would get a 6+ MR save vs the spell. The character also would only get the 6+ as opposed to a combined ward + MR.  If that same unit is hit by a direct damage spell, then each model gets a 6+ and the character would get a 3+. So basically add the wording to Magic Resistance that it always allows a save vs wounds caused by spells, even those that say no save of any kind allowed.

 

2) Spam casting. Basically I think there is too little risk in tossing 6 dice at a spell that is important to you. So I have a few thoughts on how to address this.

 a) if you roll over your caster level in power dice and cause a miscast, you roll on the miscast table an extra time for each die over your level. So if your level 4 wizard rolls 6 dice and causes a miscast, then they have to roll 3 times on the miscast table.

or

 b) Change the miscast rules. If you rolled under the caster level, roll 3d6, you pick which two dice to use. If you rolled your caster level, roll 2d6. If you rolled over your caster level, roll 3d6 and your opponent picks which two dice to use.

 

I really like option b. Simple and makes it interesting in choosing your dice. Increases the risk of something really bad happening to your caster if you roll over.

 

 

Steadfast:

1) The most important part that needs to be fixed is that steadfast should go away if your ranks are disrupted.

2) Perhaps change it so that steadfast unit may only use the highest leadership value inside the unit. Basically if a general is outside of the unit, they can't use the general's Ld, only their own. But if the general is inside the unit, then they could use his leadership. Same thing applies if a character is in the unit with a higher leadership, the unit could use that character's Ld.

 

Redirecting:

Perhaps change this so that if the unit does not have a rank, then it aligns to the charger, otherwise the charger aligns to the unit.

 

 

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I'd say scaling magic to the game size would be a huge bonus. If you are playing a 1000 game vs a 3000 point game the dice available for spells should be altered. maybe 2d3 for a small game, 3D6 for a big game... something like that. On the flip side, I would not be sad if the magic phase went away and spells got tossed into the relevant phase (shooting for magic missiles, etc).

 

To your thoughts:

1) No ward saves... lets just remove that from most things... Ward saves are supposed to be that super neat "I live to fight another day" thing. I can see having a few things ignore them, but the big spells doing so is just lame. You might need to fiddle with a few models point value to compensate, but mostly things would not need further alterations.

 

2) Spam casting. I do not see this as a big deal. It is a bit exploitable, but I rarely play some one who has piles of low mages for this tactic, or really plans it ahead of time. (Its usually a "I need this" tactic for most people I fight).

 

3) Steadfast does need some fixing... but interestingly here we have two rules attempting to do the same thing. Account for numbers and alter the chance to flee.

a) Rank Bonus. More dudes = better chance to win

b) Steadfast. More Dudes = better chance to hold.

It seems like a revamp of combat res rules should be able to combined these things together some how. If Ranks were counted deeper than 3 you would lose less, but this would really hurt small elite units... Honestly a complete revamp of all combat results might be the way to go. Get all the factors in there, but make ties a little more frequent, make larger units hold better in the face of losses, etc.

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Well, if you're just looking for minor tweaks, take the current FAQs and fix the stupid bs answers they gave (unmodified leadership).

or the answers they never gave.  like how many faqs have been released in the past 3 years?  now ill never know how deathblow actually works and if i can stand and shoot with my copter ;)

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for steadfast you could just say that if you loose you get to add your total number of ranks to the roll instead of just being stubborn.

 

if you loose by 8, but have 6 ranks, your on LD -2.  would promote real ranks instead of 5 deep hordes, still let you be broken by a bad enough combat, but give a clear advantage to small cheap rank and file.  no more questing for those last 2 wounds to break steadfast, just pummel face and let the dice roll.  also if your ranked deep then you are tough to break no matter if the other person is ranked deeper.

 

also a benefit to any house rules and game repairs is that it only changes 1 rule.  its best to avoid changing multiple rules or it gets cluttered real fast.

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Let's actually take the cannons and tone those things down. I think cannons fire like normal but on the bounce they should role the artillery and directional dice. All cannons should be D3 wounds unless you have a rune or something that adds +1 to wounding.

Says the guy with lots of large monsters.

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Let's actually take the cannons and tone those things down. I think cannons fire like normal but on the bounce they should role the artillery and directional dice. All cannons should be D3 wounds unless you have a rune or something that adds +1 to wounding.

 

Directional dice?  So that they could shoot around corners or "bounce" back directly towards the cannon and such? 

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So cannons are generally 120+ points. And you want to make them worse than 50 point bolt throwers? D3 directional from aim point seems most logical to me. Then follow from the adjusted aim point and other things as usual. That will make character sniping very unlikely yet still can hit larger tgings(which makes sense) decently. Obvious pick as well is randomized hits not hitting both like template. Then that decreases the odds enough but not too much...

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For cannons I think just having the initial point of impact scatter is the only fix needed to make them not laser printers. I also think it should go back to randomizing between mount on rider on riden monsters. I think having the initial impact scatter d6 inches is perfect. Artillery dice would be too much of a scatter. To clarify here is thebprocces for shooting a cannon.

 

1) pick a point on the table

2) scatter d6 inches

3) bounce the cannon ball

4) roll the cannon ball

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I like these solutions but prefer D3" scatter.  Enough to miss a character but not a barn.

 

Again though, you could hit a target that you don't have LOS to (point of impact scattering around the corner of a building to hit a wizard hiding there), so there's going to be some suspension of disbelief needed.  Rare, but possible.

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What about lowering the strength of cannons in general, as a simpler fix? Make them S6 in general instead of S10? Engineer (Empire or Dwarf) within 6" makes it S7, Dwarf Rune of Something makes it S8? I think that, along with randomizing hits between monsters / riders would go a long way to keeping cannons good, but not "too good."

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For cannons I think just having the initial point of impact scatter is the only fix needed to make them not laser printers. I also think it should go back to randomizing between mount on rider on riden monsters. I think having the initial impact scatter d6 inches is perfect. Artillery dice would be too much of a scatter. To clarify here is thebprocces for shooting a cannon.

 

1) pick a point on the table

2) scatter d6 inches

3) bounce the cannon ball

4) roll the cannon ball

 

The idea of scattering to make the shot be off target is neat, but I think it is a bit odd that the angle of error would be smaller for a distant shot. To illustrate the oddity, imagine a point picked 3" out. You could end up with a 180 degree error. Or more reasonably, imagine I pick a spot 6" out and it deviates 6" to the side. I'm now shooting 45 degrees off!

 

Personally, I think cannons simply should not hit non-monstrous/monster characters.

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I think S8 would be a good move, regardless. Then no real need to modify based on engineer. Dwarfs could rune the Str up if they wanted. I like the D3" scatter idea, but in order to keep the chance for misfire, how about roll arty and scatter die. If scatter, then half the distance on the arty die. Then draw a line from the cannon through that point for your new bounce line.

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Proposed Cannon changes:

Strength reduced to 8. Dwarfs may add strength rune.

1. pick initial impact point

2. roll scatter and arty dice. If scatter, move the impact point half the distance on the arty die. If an engineer is aiding the cannon, then subtract their BS from the arty die result, then half to find the distance of scatter.

3. roll the arty die for the bounce distance

 

you take away the reroll for engineers which I like, but helps keep the cannon on target. There is always a 1in6 that the bounce misfires and goes nowhere.

 

And as for the "more scatter the closer the target" I like to think that closer targets means a more rushed shot, so more chance of error. :)

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Proposed Cannon changes:

Strength reduced to 8. Dwarfs may add strength rune.

1. pick initial impact point

2. roll scatter and arty dice. If scatter, move the impact point half the distance on the arty die. If an engineer is aiding the cannon, then subtract their BS from the arty die result, then half to find the distance of scatter.

3. roll the arty die for the bounce distance

 

you take away the reroll for engineers which I like, but helps keep the cannon on target. There is always a 1in6 that the bounce misfires and goes nowhere.

 

And as for the "more scatter the closer the target" I like to think that closer targets means a more rushed shot, so more chance of error. :)

At S8, is that really don't anything to help keep monsters safe from cannons though? Correct me if I'm wrong, but there are hardly any monsters that are T7 or above, outside of Storm of Magic? Warsphinx comes to mind at T8, but with most things being T6 or T5, S8 is still going to be a 2+ to wound. Only thing it really does is allow 1+ Armor to still matter (albeit at a 6+). Again, unless I'm missing something here, I think S7 base would be the max you could put a cannon if we are talking about helping out big stompy monsters.

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so lets mathhammer it cause i think people need to know the #s behind it rather than the 'i got my 6W dino one shot'd and am basing it off that' rationale(guys this happens <10% of the time).  

-cannons are generally between 90(if you're a cheater rat) and what 170 for the ogre chariot?  so generally speaking they are ~half the cost of a monster.  here are things to consider about cannons:

-so generally it takes at least 2 turns until things crash in.  so lets just assume that, even though ive had plenty of times where ive only had 1 shooting phase, especially if you have a monster cause they can scoot pretty fast across the board

-cannons have ~50(60 if RoF or ogre cannon)% chance of hitting a 25mm model and 67-74% chance to hit a monster if lined up straight from the back with a perfect shot and 'wtf were you doing placing your monster like that?'.  D6 wounds averaged is 3.5.  so they do basically 2 wounds a shot to regular things and 3 to monsters. 

-you bring cannons for really singular purposes: to shoot off monsters and other big point things.  they serve no combat assistance, they are war machines!

-they are useless on 1 of 6 and they give you free points on 1 of 18 chance( or 1 of 4 rolls when nate rolls it...).

-monsters have dynamic purposes(at least the good ones anyways..)

-many armies have very few ways to deal with monsters without cannon/stone throwers.

 

 

look i hate how laser beam they are but neutering them is even more stupid...  scattering d6 makes them less accurate than stone throwers because they have to roll another arty dice!  you have to scale things to points if you are going to make edits.  otherwise whats the point? 

 

oh, *cough* can we please make skull cannons the cost of what they should be? that's literally the only edit in the game i ask for lol.  whenever someone puts it on the table i just think '135 points, %^&* you matt ward' and want to smash it.......

 

ALSO: seems we have this 'i hate cannons' discussion about the same rate as 'i hate GW's prices' lol

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so lets mathhammer it cause i think people need to know the #s behind it rather than the 'i got my 6W dino one shot'd and am basing it off that' rationale(guys this happens <10% of the time).  

-cannons are generally between 90(if you're a cheater rat) and what 170 for the ogre chariot?  so generally speaking they are ~half the cost of a monster.  here are things to consider about cannons:

-so generally it takes at least 2 turns until things crash in.  so lets just assume that, even though ive had plenty of times where ive only had 1 shooting phase, especially if you have a monster cause they can scoot pretty fast across the board

-cannons have ~50(60 if RoF or ogre cannon)% chance of hitting a 25mm model and 67-74% chance to hit a monster if lined up straight from the back with a perfect shot and 'wtf were you doing placing your monster like that?'.  D6 wounds averaged is 3.5.  so they do basically 2 wounds a shot to regular things and 3 to monsters. 

-you bring cannons for really singular purposes: to shoot off monsters and other big point things.  they serve no combat assistance, they are war machines!

-they are useless on 1 of 6 and they give you free points on 1 of 18 chance( or 1 of 4 rolls when nate rolls it...).

-monsters have dynamic purposes(at least the good ones anyways..)

-many armies have very few ways to deal with monsters without cannon/stone throwers.

 

 

look i hate how laser beam they are but neutering them is even more stupid...  scattering d6 makes them less accurate than stone throwers because they have to roll another arty dice!  you have to scale things to points if you are going to make edits.  otherwise whats the point? 

 

oh, *cough* can we please make skull cannons the cost of what they should be? that's literally the only edit in the game i ask for lol.  whenever someone puts it on the table i just think '135 points, %^&* you matt ward' and want to smash it.......

Maybe I'm a bit biased by how well my my Ironblaster did at OFCC, heh. I think I managed to take off:

 

A Dwarf Cannon

A Grudethrower

A Gyrocopter

2-3? Peg Knights

2 Empire Cannons

A War Altar

An Elf Mage of some kind

+ some assorted troops.

 

He also ground out a unit of High Elf cav over a few turns of combat. Don't think I lost him in any of my games, as I was able to duck and weave away from other cannons and take them out before they got me.

 

But I see what you are saying Nate. I think raising the cost on cannons might be a way to go. If nothing else, the Ironblaster needs to be way more expensive, heh.

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