That's exactly what I keep running into. Every idea that sounds good at first suddenly has a conflict with a component in our army. Usually making it to strong and able to tarpit to easily. Our crumble can ruin our elite units and characters who get in combat on their own, but we become over powered quickly when it's fiddled with.
Crumble, pro or con and dealing with it tactically
- Thread starter najo
- Start date
-
The masquerade of murder returns! A new game of Vampires Amongst Us has begun. Unmask the killers, trust no one, and try to survive the night. Find out more and sign up now!
The most simple solution I think is to remove Unstable from all units with the Vampiric rule. Let them take break tests like normal. Then you can charge your Vargs or your Blood Knights into a joint combat with your Zombies or Skeletons, and if the Zombies lose, you can still run and live to fight another day instead of just falling over dead out of sympathy for the poor Zombies! This also gives us more utility from our BSB and our general's Inspiring Presence. It's not what I'd call a perfect solution, but I think we all have different definitions of what our perfect solution would be, but it is a SIMPLE solution that I think goes a long way to evening things out.
Archamedius
Grave Guard
If zombies are really the only thing affected by this, take away the extra d6 from IoN they get, that would reduce their tarpit capacity quite a bit.
Ethereal is another thing, but I cannot think of an army that doesn't have some sort of access to a magic missile or magical attacks, which reduce our ethereal troops to so much trash anyways.
Skittelz1981
Varghulf
well, on the ethereal issue....
Ive always felt it weird and uncomprehensible how 5 hexwraiths could lose combat and crumble from a unit that has 3 ranks and a banner but cant attack them.....
As if suddenly they would get scared of a few ranks more and a banner even though they cannot be hurt in any way by attacks.
Obviously this would make our ethereals so insanely dangerous and strong that it would be unfair but still.... a unit that cant be hit by its opponent is extremely unlikely to run away or crumble to death just because theyre outnumbered and outflagged.
Ive always felt it weird and uncomprehensible how 5 hexwraiths could lose combat and crumble from a unit that has 3 ranks and a banner but cant attack them.....
As if suddenly they would get scared of a few ranks more and a banner even though they cannot be hurt in any way by attacks.
Obviously this would make our ethereals so insanely dangerous and strong that it would be unfair but still.... a unit that cant be hit by its opponent is extremely unlikely to run away or crumble to death just because theyre outnumbered and outflagged.
Archamedius
Grave Guard
You could always just make it so ethereals do not benefit from this rule, perhaps with the exception of being inside inspiring presence range, or maybe not even that.
What I like about the current rule:
1) it's simple- crumble what you lose combat by
2) it affects the whole army equally and makes everything feel united
3) it's not random, it's formulaic and can be planned around
4) it can be mitigated with tactics
So, any ideas that fit these four criteria and are fair I'm interested in seeing.
1) it's simple- crumble what you lose combat by
2) it affects the whole army equally and makes everything feel united
3) it's not random, it's formulaic and can be planned around
4) it can be mitigated with tactics
So, any ideas that fit these four criteria and are fair I'm interested in seeing.
Archamedius
Grave Guard
Incidentally, I am curious what tactics you use to mitigate crumble, aside from narrow, deep units with a banner? As has been stated before, zombie units are pretty much guaranteed combat resolution for your opponent, and that means in a multi unit fight you are starting out in the hole just by having the zombies present.
Skittelz1981
Varghulf
2) it shouldnt affect the whole army equally, since none of the units are equal.
When a terrible Varghulf or lord flankcharges an enemy that has been tarpitted by mindless zombies, they shouldnt have to worry about CR and crumbling, since its the point of zombies to be losing lots of models and then regain them with spells (that is our game).
Yet denying this simple and otherwise common tactic from us feels completely wrong and pretty much disallows any combo-charge which is imo unfair.
All our units tend to suck in cc if you just look at basic statlines. Everything is low ini, low ws, low strength or has very questionable static CR. Most other armies have better value/better statistics. So in many cases we are losing the combats but we win the grinds. Crumble on the other hand kills the grind, especially if your magic fails.
What if it goes like this:
Zombies are in a combocharge with a lord.
zombies lose 14 models but do 1 wound in return
lord gets no wounds but does 6 wounds
ranks and banner are equal, VC has a flank bonus from lord
CR would be 14-8=6
This would make the Zombies crumble another 6, just like now
but the lord would be safe from Crumble because he did 6 wounds himself. Had he caused only 5 wounds the CR would be 7 and he would Crumble by 2. The difference between CR and the kills made by a Vampiric unit being the factor to take into account.
If we look at what is Vampiric in our army:
Vampires (Vampires do not Crumble, period. Its the most ridiculous situation to encounter an Unstable vampire that loses wounds due to a round of combat that is lost
Black coach (very crap abilities to cause wounds, especially in static battles after chargeround or when charged)
Varghulf (Crumble pretty much forces this Monster to always fight on its own, doing him no good. One of the reasons he is undervalued. Now if combocharge was available because there would be no crumble, this would be a nice pick in many lists)
Vargheists (naked low initiative that usually take alot of hits before they dish out any themselves)
Bloodknights (with relatively low toughness and high vulnerability to warmachine shooting and only 1 wound with IoN not really working on them i feel Unstable/Crumble shouldnt be in their profile, especially not with their cost and the auto-include 75pts banner)
When a terrible Varghulf or lord flankcharges an enemy that has been tarpitted by mindless zombies, they shouldnt have to worry about CR and crumbling, since its the point of zombies to be losing lots of models and then regain them with spells (that is our game).
Yet denying this simple and otherwise common tactic from us feels completely wrong and pretty much disallows any combo-charge which is imo unfair.
All our units tend to suck in cc if you just look at basic statlines. Everything is low ini, low ws, low strength or has very questionable static CR. Most other armies have better value/better statistics. So in many cases we are losing the combats but we win the grinds. Crumble on the other hand kills the grind, especially if your magic fails.
What if it goes like this:
Zombies are in a combocharge with a lord.
zombies lose 14 models but do 1 wound in return
lord gets no wounds but does 6 wounds
ranks and banner are equal, VC has a flank bonus from lord
CR would be 14-8=6
This would make the Zombies crumble another 6, just like now
but the lord would be safe from Crumble because he did 6 wounds himself. Had he caused only 5 wounds the CR would be 7 and he would Crumble by 2. The difference between CR and the kills made by a Vampiric unit being the factor to take into account.
If we look at what is Vampiric in our army:
Vampires (Vampires do not Crumble, period. Its the most ridiculous situation to encounter an Unstable vampire that loses wounds due to a round of combat that is lost
Black coach (very crap abilities to cause wounds, especially in static battles after chargeround or when charged)
Varghulf (Crumble pretty much forces this Monster to always fight on its own, doing him no good. One of the reasons he is undervalued. Now if combocharge was available because there would be no crumble, this would be a nice pick in many lists)
Vargheists (naked low initiative that usually take alot of hits before they dish out any themselves)
Bloodknights (with relatively low toughness and high vulnerability to warmachine shooting and only 1 wound with IoN not really working on them i feel Unstable/Crumble shouldnt be in their profile, especially not with their cost and the auto-include 75pts banner)
Last edited:
Another idea I just thought of. Vampiric units do not crumble but any unit that has a character with the lore of vampire in it counts as having this rule for crumbling. We could protect our elite units with certain characters and be able to multicharge units if we play it right. Then our opponents would also have more of a reason to go after our characters rather than just the undead troops which to me seems like it would be more in line with the fluff.
So the problem with vampires not being affected by crumble is with how easy infantry is to raise, I could tie you down in combat with a tar pit and then make all my vampires unbreakable. Our vampire lords would be like WoC daemon princes. And right now, the wounds we cause are added in to the CR so vampires would be getting that bonus twice.
@Skittelz1981 what I meant by affect equally was what ever the rule is, it works for both tar pits, elites and characters without having to make exceptions for one of them but still allows for combo charging.
@Skittelz1981 what I meant by affect equally was what ever the rule is, it works for both tar pits, elites and characters without having to make exceptions for one of them but still allows for combo charging.
Well, ironically that was why I started this thread was to see what other players are doing. It's turned into a discussion on changing the rule. I have no problem sharing my tactics, I just like other vampire generals who know tricks I don't to come in and add to what I post.
First, and this isn't bragging, this comment is meant to put crumble in perspective. I've been playing undead since 3rd ed before there was VC and TK. I've played every edition and version of undead since. I've dealt with crumble this whole time. Undead are an advanced army, playing them well requires really knowing the game, but in return we get control freak level of reliability for our troops. Every time you make a LD check, that is a chance of a piece of your army failing. We virtually have no fail points like that, our fail points are small little things like improperly timed spells, a miscast, misjudging CR and over crumbling etc. We mitigate these with redundancy (2 units of hexwrauths, TG or ME are and exasmple) and alternative options (raise dead, dire wolves and a spirit host).
Now, I consider myself an advance player (I've been playing for 25 yes). My competition is good and I play in tournaments. I've had games against armies that our handicap (WoC being recent) where I lose very little, heal most of my stuff and take my opponent. Not all my games are like that, but when tracking my games this last year, I've won 70% of them. My point in saying this is if crumble were less harsh or IoN any more effective, I would of been unstoppable. Our army would be to strong.
Now, I realize that our army can go the other direction and badly. I've had those games that stuff crumble everywhere and you have terrible magic phases etc. And every time an edition or army book changes I go through a losing streak for a good 3 months before I can get comfortable with the adjustments to our army. So, losing streaks with undead is part of the learning curve. You won't win with them consistently till you master what makes them different and crumble is part of that.
So here are my tactics:
1) math hammer the battlefield. Know the SCR and odds every where.
2) run a BSB, the +1 combat result and -1 crumble radius is worth 25pts.
3) get really good at hoping characters from unit to unit. Move the general in ways that max marching and move BSB in ways that max his bonus and effect.
4) seek to at least equal the CR. We win the war of attrition.
5) avoid charging elites and characters into fights with tarpits, only do it if your enemy can't deal slot of damage to the tarpit.
6) never combo charge with lone characters and another unit.
7) shove units up into 1" of a unit and have your character join it instead of charging, then let them charge you. We do better in combat when we get charged as our healing is 1 round away instead of 2.
8) always put characters into delivery buses before charging units that the character can't easily tackle.
9) never accept challenges with characters other than WK. Always have your blender attacking the rank and file to maximize CR.
10) build your units deep, we can outlast and heal. They can't. Crumble will be less and less each turn if you can get pass the first couple rounds of combat. We win the war of attrition.
11) use your redirectors to keep units that have high SCR and will be hard for use to generate CR from out of combat. We have dire wolves, fell bats, spirit hosts and raise dead. All amazing redirection options. You should have two of those in your army and multiples of at least one of them and then know how to really use them. With proper redirection you control CR all day long.
12) support combats with proper hexes and augments. If running death, their soulblight and D&D in there to get that edge or make fear trigger. If running LoV, VHDM and HV at the right time is huge. A wall of 8 CH with VHDM shoved 1" in front of your opponents unit makes him make poor choices.
13) get really good at movement and preventing movement. This is why I use dire wolves, hex wraiths and 3 LoV casters + book of arkhan in most of my armies. Raise dead and VHDM control movement. Controlling movement wins games.
14) as stated above, use 5 wide buses with command to minimize crumble and go wise when maximizing attacks. Know when to use reform properly and when you should be defensive. and when you should be offensive.
15) build vampires that blend well. Focus on wound generation. Put them in soft spots to kill as many models as possible. Characters die when the unit breaks and you run it down. You don't need your vampires to be heroic. Have champions accept challenges, dire and then get healed in your magic phase and accept the challenge again.
That's all off the top of my head. I've got to bounce but if I think of more I'll post it. If any one has questions or anything to add I love to hear it. Let me know if anything helps.
Steadfast is based on the reasoning that troops feel more confident when they outnumber the enemy. Zombies and most undead things are mindless there fore steadfast doing nothing makes sense fluff wise and keeps undead hordes in check game wise. I think the best suggestion so far is that vampires necromancers and maybe a few other characters take break tests as normal as they are not capable of fear. I also wish that undead meant you didn't have to take any leadership tests of any kind so your mindless zombies don't stop marching when the enemy is to close. This infuriates me fluff and game wise.
Thanks Sunny!
@everyone else, let's put some attention on working with the crumble we have instead of wish listing. What tactics and suggestions do you guys have that can amend or add to my list?
Side note on steadfast. We do get a benefit from steadfast, we break theirs. Since we don't run, if we hold out long enough (using the suggestions I gave above) they eventually break and then they lose unmodified break tests and run.
Which brings up another stratagem. This applies to all armies but ours benefits the most due to our crumble and psychology rules. In warhammer, the more you great your opponent to have to take panic, break and other checks like march or reform.. Sooner or later he will fall. You want to maximize how many tests he is taking and minimize yours. We do this better than any army since we only test for less critical checks and can force checks with fear and terror, or raising zombies within 8" etc.
Any rate, psychology and troop morale is a part of warhammer that isn't discussed much and it helps chip away at our enemies. Learn to exploit it.
Problem with forcing Ld tests is that with 8th they have become too reliable. Take Fear for instance, this was once our biggest strength (auto-breaking enemies... ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?) but are now just icing on the cake since the effect is not game changing (nor should it be) and Coldblooded, ItP, High Ld, Stand your ground and unbreakable makes the check a shot in the dark. Thankfully we have ways to remedy this (to some extent) and I don't think is being said enough: Aura of Dark Majesty, Iceshard Blizzard and Doom and Darkness are good! People always focus on screams when discussing these three, but fact of the matter is that they work well on their own. Continuing on najo's point I think it is important that we "work the goal keeper" (meaning that the more checks you force, the bigger chance that the enemy fails a check) and if you get one of aforementioned spells or abilities through even more so.
To add to what Sunny mentioned about how easy it is to pass leadership checks, that is in part because of the generals but even more so because of BSBs. Fortunately, BSBs are almost exclusively heroes with 2 wounds. So, either Death snipe, Varghiest hunt, spirit host slam, varghulf shred, or wight killing blow the nagash out of that sucker and then push for every leadership check in the book.
Archamedius
Grave Guard
So why only accept challenges with a Wight King (I understand you want your red fury vampires to be attacking rank and file for combat res, but what about the wight king makes him good in a challenge)? Should you make him your BSB? What about if your unit gets solo charged by a nurgle demon prince (who will most certainly issue a challenge)?
How do you handle a Flying Circus list (all chariots and monsters (Immune to fear thanks to terror) or things immune to psychology and no rank and file models to build CR off with your blender lord).
Is Lore of Death mandatory? Can you win competitive games with just LoV?
How do you handle a Flying Circus list (all chariots and monsters (Immune to fear thanks to terror) or things immune to psychology and no rank and file models to build CR off with your blender lord).
Is Lore of Death mandatory? Can you win competitive games with just LoV?
You should be accepting challenges with unit champions first, then non vampires and then vampires if the vampire can win the challenge. Wight kings make good bodyguards because of T5, W3 and good armor. Mind you there is no hard rule here, other than maximize CR and keep your general alive.
In the case of big nasty things charging into your units, it's better to soften or divert them before they b-line to your blenders. With that said, it is possible to craft Vampire Lords with high strength, high armor and 4++. You can build your lord to kill these beasts. OTS, ogre blade or great weapons, red fury, quick blood, beguile. Depending on your meta and play style, build your vampire for maximum damage and survivability.
Your BSB should be a character who will be in the best position to maximize the BSBs bonuses. I throw my BSB on my mini blender vampire actually, since he is always in support positions.
As for death magic being required. Again depends on play style and meta. I play almost exclusively Lore of Vampires and I play very competitively. I also play foot slogging (all infantry - except two units of hex wraiths) and very aggressively (in combat by turn 2-3, vampires in combat). So my army really benefits from LoV and making sure I have specific spells. Aside from multiple copies of IoN, I want 1) VHDM 2) raise dead 3) Curse of Years 4) Gaze of nagash. This gives me maximum control over movement, softens enemy units and keeps my units and characters healed. With that said, death works best with a defensive play style where you can maximize your snipes, keep enemy units tied up with your tar pits and cast death's hexes on units to let our mediocre units grind enemy down. Then of course purple sun to break a unit's spine at the right time.
What players should really understand about magic and this might clear up the death/vampire lore debate too (and when to include which in your army). You want to have control over which spells you get and your casting rolls, and you want the majority of your spells to be available at a given time. You want synergy between your spells and your army / strategies too. Vampire lore is diverting units, moving your units, rerolling to-hit and to-wound, suppressing their units, and clearing chaff. The lore attribute keeps our multi wound models up, healing quickly. LoV favors a close combat army (which we are) and requires closing the early game gap quickly and getting your units into the best fights. LoD on the other hand forces your opponent to come to you. It threatens with sniping. In these games, your characters play keep away, still divert with chaff, but the game is about keeping the engagements controlled, choosing where to fight and where to create distance. Since the snipes are direct damage spells, they can't be used in close combat. Purple sun needs to be used carefully to. Doom and darkness synergizes with fear and screams. If your army doesn't play to using these properly, them it should be running primarily Lore of Vampires. If your army can exploit death's spells, then likely a death master necro is a good idea. Death can also be splashed in with a Level 1 or 2 caster thrown into the VL's unit just to get a Ld10 soul leech into play to.
Something else that players should consider. Depending on your units, VHDM & HV can equate to having soulblight in most situations. Both lores will improve your odds in combat. So, really the other aspects of the lores (sniping, D&D,PSoX) vs. (IoN, RD, CoY, GoN) and which effects synergize best with your play style and meta are what determines which lore you need most. I'd also add that the movement from VHDM is very advantageous, so even if you don't use much vampire lore, consider bringing the Book of Arkhan. For vampire lore users who want access to death's hexes but can't utilize the sniping because your hitting combat to quickly (like I have happen with my play style) consider bringing the cursed book as all the hexes are helpful for us.
Finally, flying circus. First, this is one of the reasons deathstar armies are bad. You need multiple units to control positions and force your opponent into and out of positions. Second, having characters that can charge out of units and having some quick support units that can jump on their MSUs and monsters/chariots helps manage these fights. Wraiths, banshees, hexwraiths and varghiests plus vampires on helsteeds or with flight go along way to countering these armies. Crypt horrors grind monsters and chariots down easily. Oh, and of course the terrorgeists
Give all vampiric units stubborn and ld10. Pseudo unbrrakable, still allows them to save them selves/run etc. Gives use to the bsb and make up some handwavium rule called "The host's master" that allows a vampire character to join a unit with unstable and if he does he then gains that trait until he leaves.
Thoughts?
Thoughts?
That's a new approach and interesting. You still need a rule for not running, as vampires running from unbreakable units gets messy and is potentially broken. They could escape out the backs of units. Also vampires being killed by being ran down is undignified and not very vampire-like IMO. Personally, I prefer not making tests and having a fixed crumble I can reliably build tactics around. With that said, all of these ideas and valid points you guys raise has been stewing in my brain and I think I have a solution.
Undead units stay as they are. They still crumble and its bad to combo your black knights, hexwraiths and spirit hosts in with your zombies. But add on to the Vampiric rule something like this:
When a vampiric unit loses combat they do not lose wounds from Unstable as normal. Instead, they first make a special kind of Break test. Reduce the Vampiric unit's leadership by the amount of Wounds they wound normally lose and roll 2d6. If they pass the test, they don't lose any Wounds. Otherwise, for every point by which the 2d6 roll exceeds this modified Leadership value, the unit suffers one additional Wound, with no saves of any kind allowed, up to the amount of Wounds they would have lost from Unstable.
For example: A vampire with a unit of 5 zombies loses combat by 6. The five zombies crumble, and the vampire makes a break test at -1. If he passes, he loses no wounds. If he fails, he loses 1 wound. A unit of Varghiest (Ld7) is in the same combat with the zombies and vampire. They have to roll snake-eyes to not suffer any Wounds, they roll an 9 and suffer the maximum of 6 wounds (the amount they lost combat by).
The BSB could allow these tests to re-roll, which is interesting. Necromancers should have this rule (letting them march and not suffer lose when the General dies), so the name vampiric should be changed.
Any issues this causes I'm not immediately seeing? Since IoN barely affects vampires, it isn't like vampires are out of control being healed. It doesn't change a lot for players who manage crumble well and gives a safety net when things go really south. The cap on the wound lose keeps the crumble in the same realm as it is now for those of us who want static numbers to work with. All this does is take vampiric units and necromancers and gives them a buffer between them and death from a combat result that goes south. I think it works.
Sidenote: BSBs do matter for undead armies currently. Players need to stop spreading that myth. +25 points is worth reducing crumble, rerolling march, reform and general death checks and increasing CR by 1.
Last edited:
Good thoughts mate.
The part Input in about "hosts master" should remedy the issue with running from a unstable block.
Also I can see vampires legging it if shit gets crazy. If they're going to die a vampire would happily run and let his minions die for him. With the getting run down it gets a bit messy. Hmmm maybe give them swiftstride as they'd turn into a bat/wolf to get the hell outta dodge
The part Input in about "hosts master" should remedy the issue with running from a unstable block
.Also I can see vampires legging it if shit gets crazy. If they're going to die a vampire would happily run and let his minions die for him. With the getting run down it gets a bit messy. Hmmm maybe give them swiftstride as they'd turn into a bat/wolf to get the hell outta dodge
I disagree with Vampires and Necromancer's suffering wounds from crumbling. I disagree with Necs having the undead rule actually, fluff wise, to me Necromancers are persons that have extended their lives through dark and unnatural means, as opposed to become undead themselves, which in my mind would make the Liches.
The combo charge CR crumble also peeves me and is counter strategic/counter intuitive to strategy.
Najo's tactica up there is brilliant, as a budding VC player, super helpful.
The only objective PRO I can think of for crumble is that models coming off the tabletop mean you won't run out of models to IoN/Raise Dead back on to the tabletop that quickly. In a standard friendly environment this isn't really a problem as most people will let you proxy models or there might be another VC player in the store who will lend you models. However, under more strict tournament conditions, you never want to be running out of models to raise... Raise dead a turn across the tabletop then doing a turn 3/4 18" IoN is becoming a signature move it seems, done it in the last two battles.
With regard to Najo's "Wanting to have control over the magic you cast" I absolutely agree. For this reason I have begun including Mannfred in my lists, even though he is anti-fluff towards my army background. He has loremaster on LoV, and at larger pts, Big Manny has loremaster over LoV AND LoD. With Manny I can ensure I have all the spells I want even if my other LoV caster rolls for spells which I find less useful (I don't use gaze of nagash or winds of death that much).
For some reason unit hopping a character has never occurred to me... gah!
The combo charge CR crumble also peeves me and is counter strategic/counter intuitive to strategy.
Najo's tactica up there is brilliant, as a budding VC player, super helpful.
The only objective PRO I can think of for crumble is that models coming off the tabletop mean you won't run out of models to IoN/Raise Dead back on to the tabletop that quickly. In a standard friendly environment this isn't really a problem as most people will let you proxy models or there might be another VC player in the store who will lend you models. However, under more strict tournament conditions, you never want to be running out of models to raise... Raise dead a turn across the tabletop then doing a turn 3/4 18" IoN is becoming a signature move it seems, done it in the last two battles.
With regard to Najo's "Wanting to have control over the magic you cast" I absolutely agree. For this reason I have begun including Mannfred in my lists, even though he is anti-fluff towards my army background. He has loremaster on LoV, and at larger pts, Big Manny has loremaster over LoV AND LoD. With Manny I can ensure I have all the spells I want even if my other LoV caster rolls for spells which I find less useful (I don't use gaze of nagash or winds of death that much).
For some reason unit hopping a character has never occurred to me... gah!
It's about a million times more vampire-like than taking wounds out of sympathy for slain zombies.
"Ah, the mental anguish I suffer at the loss of my zombies is so great! I die from it!"
Just no.
I've said it before, but I see no problems with removing Unstable from Vampiric units. Keep them immune to psych, add a caveat that Vampiric models may join regular undead units (and in those cases will become unbreakable) and call it a day. Vampires can flee from combat rather than stay and be destroyed, it gives Blood Knights a boost (which they need) and it allows you to play a bit more fast and loose with your vampiric units, like we SHOULD be able to.
It's not my perfect solution, but it's quick, easy, intuitive and fair.
Did you see my suggestion above? I'm surprised you haven't commented on it. I'll repost it separate from my wall of text:
But add on to the Vampiric rule something like this:
When a vampiric unit loses combat they do not lose wounds from Unstable as normal. Instead, they first make a special kind of Break test. Reduce the Vampiric unit's leadership by the amount of Wounds they wound normally lose and roll 2d6. If they pass the test, they don't lose any Wounds. Otherwise, for every point by which the 2d6 roll exceeds this modified Leadership value, the unit suffers one additional Wound, with no saves of any kind allowed, up to the amount of Wounds they would have lost from Unstable.
Yeah, I saw it but I don't like it very much. Firstly it's an added layer of complication on top of the normal combat resolution process, and secondly it doesn't address what I consider to be one of the the biggest problems, which is Vampires and Vampiric creatures taking wounds out of sympathy for lesser undead units. A Vampire should be able to flee imminent destruction, rather than having to stand there and crumble to dust.