Crumble, pro or con and dealing with it tactically

[najo]

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.

lol, fair enough. Ok, so is there something that doesn't have them fleeing (and getting ran down and destroyed like wimps) and isn't unbreakable (which is to strong)?

 

[Blutsauger]

lol, fair enough. Ok, so is there something that doesn't have them fleeing (and getting ran down and destroyed like wimps) and isn't unbreakable (which is to strong)?

lol, probably not!

 

[Banat]

I think part of it is the way you frame it; "sympathy wounds for lesser undead units"... No, that's not very vampiric... but if say, a swathe of beings that are tied to your being through magic are suddenly wrenched from your control, would that not potentially have consequences? Especially if they're in such close proximity? Like a kind of magical feedback I guess for necromancy.

 

[Blutsauger]

I think part of it is the way you frame it; "sympathy wounds for lesser undead units"... No, that's not very vampiric... but if say, a swathe of beings that are tied to your being through magic are suddenly wrenched from your control, would that not potentially have consequences? Especially if they're in such close proximity? Like a kind of magical feedback I guess for necromancy.

I shouldn't think so. There's too many holes in it for it to make any kind of consistent sense. He (my Vampire Lord) might take ten losses, and lose the combat so his unit crumbles and he dies. Or he might take 20 losses, but he wins the combat so, despite having taken higher losses, he doesn't crumble. Or he might be inside the unit, as opposed to standing next to it, and suddenly it doesn't matter how much the unit loses combat by, he won't crumble. Or he might have half the unit destroyed through shooting or magic, but still no crumble. But if he gets into a combat with other Vampiric units (who specifically are NOT tied to him by magic in the same way Zombies or Skeletons are) and loses, then he still takes wounds. And if he happens to be near to a combat that his minions lose, but is not actually a part of that combat, then despite his minions being wrenched from his control he doesn't take any wounds.

It's just a neat and tidy gaming mechanic to balance out the fact that Undead units don't take LD tests, and can raise their troops back from the dead. It doesn't have any kind of background justification.

 

[najo]

Well, there is a connection between the general and his army. The whole army is fueled by dark energy that flows between the characters/wizards of the army and the army itself. Their control of the dark arts and the wins of magic connect them with the animating forces. Damage to one hand the other. As the binds that hold these undead creatures defies the natural order, so does disrupting those binds, fighting against them make them lose their potency to.

 

[Archamedius]

What about just changing vampiric units to ignore negative combat resolution provided by other units and only crumble based on wounds suffered by themselves?

For example:

A unit of zombies is in combat with a unit of empire swordsmen. On the vampire player's turn he charges a unit of varghiests into the flank of the swordsmen. The swordsmen do 10 wounds to the zombies and the zombies cause 1 wound back. The Vargheists do an additional 4 wounds but suffer 2 in return from the swordsmen.

Swordsmen End with this for combat res: 3 ranks+ banner+ 12 wounds = 16 Combat res.

The vampire player normally would have the following: 3 ranks (zombies) + banner +1 wound from zombies + 4 wounds from vargheists + charge + flank. Normally vampires lose by 6, lose 6 zombies and have 1 wound left on 1 vargheist.

With the proposed change:

Empire combat res against the zombies = same, lose 6 zombies

Empire combat res vs. Vargheists: 3 ranks+banner+2 wounds = 6 combat res. Vargheists do not suffer wounds. It would be important to note, that the vampire player still loses combat and the only change is that vampiric units suffer wounds only based on how poorly they did individually in combat, and not based on how bad other parts of the army did. Since the entire army is unbreakable, its not as if this is preventing a unit from pursuing a fleeing unit so the only thing that is gained (as I see it) is muting the damage done to elite units in the army. It might also make sense to extend this to grave guard, black knights and other more elite type units.

 

[najo]

What about just changing vampiric units to ignore negative combat resolution provided by other units and only crumble based on wounds suffered by themselves?

For example:

A unit of zombies is in combat with a unit of empire swordsmen. On the vampire player's turn he charges a unit of varghiests into the flank of the swordsmen. The swordsmen do 10 wounds to the zombies and the zombies cause 1 wound back. The Vargheists do an additional 4 wounds but suffer 2 in return from the swordsmen.

Swordsmen End with this for combat res: 3 ranks+ banner+ 12 wounds = 16 Combat res.

The vampire player normally would have the following: 3 ranks (zombies) + banner +1 wound from zombies + 4 wounds from vargheists + charge + flank. Normally vampires lose by 6, lose 6 zombies and have 1 wound left on 1 vargheist.

With the proposed change:

Empire combat res against the zombies = same, lose 6 zombies

Empire combat res vs. Vargheists: 3 ranks+banner+2 wounds = 6 combat res. Vargheists do not suffer wounds. It would be important to note, that the vampire player still loses combat and the only change is that vampiric units suffer wounds only based on how poorly they did individually in combat, and not based on how bad other parts of the army did. Since the entire army is unbreakable, its not as if this is preventing a unit from pursuing a fleeing unit so the only thing that is gained (as I see it) is muting the damage done to elite units in the army. It might also make sense to extend this to grave guard, black knights and other more elite type units.

I like where you are going. My concern is having to track multiple CR is messy and time consuming. You need to just count the sides up as early add possible, especially with multiple combats that get complicated. Honestly, crumble should have some risks in it. Giving all our troops to much protection from it defeats the point of using our army effectively. If tarpits are the only units that really suffer from crumble, we become unbeatable really fast.

 

[Ohn]

I have a question about Crumble.

If i have 20 zombies and loose 10 of them and 10 again in CR. Does it prevent Overcharge? Since they died in CR and aren't Wiped out. If yes, it can be handy to play with that. This let an ennemy cavalry charging our zombies, let them all dying, prevent overcharging and let OUR cavalry charge them after. Or with Raise dead you can force the opponent unit to only move of 1'' each turn by putting a new zombie unit.

 

[najo]

There was a short time that in the FAQ it worked that way. Technically by the subphases for combat and when crumble (unstable) occurs it SHOULD work that way. But to many players found the crumbling being after the casualty removal but before crumble to be confusing. So the that rule was reFAQed to crumble being before overrun. The result is we remove crumble and if there are no models left, they get to overrun. We had some cool tricks there for a bit.

 

[Ohn]

Oh, you're unfortunatly right.

 

[Dark Lord Sariel]

Every good codex needs a weakness in my opinion. Crumble is our apparent weakness and is cool fluffwise.

 

[Patrunkenphat7]

I don't understand why crumble is a weakness. Many times in Warhammer I have seen a 300+ point unit lose combat by 1, run away, and be annihilated. Heck, my Spirit Hosts have run down way too many units that are almost 10x their cost. With crumble if we get crushed, then we definitely get crushed. If we barely lose, then we still just barely lose a little more. Crumble is more reliable in what you can expect as an outcome, and I prefer to use an army with crumble over the traditional leadership test armies.

That being said, there are two problems I see with the current crumble rules:
1) Your good units can never be in combats with soft/bad units. Bat Swarms are worthless because of crumble for example. Multiple combats make WFB very interesting tactically, and it would be nice if the nuttiest unit alive didn't get easily decimated because there is a group of zombies on your opponent's flank. Also fluff-wise I don't understand a unit sharing crumble in a multiple combat.
2) The opponent can overrun crumble. This doesn't make any sense to me and definitely needs to change. If their only concern is balance, I can confidently say that Vampire Counts are no longer one of the most "broken" armies on the competitive scene, so a tactical boost like this is fine. We're likely still suffering some unnecessary rules hate from the 7th edition dominance.

 

[najo]

I agree that crumble is an advantage. I laid out 13 points on how to use it as one. The weakness of elites engaged with soft is mitigated by flanking with soft or putting blenders in them to counter the damage caused by their softness with damage out put off our own.

 

[Skittelz1981]

A vampire should be able to flee by turning into a mist that cant be hit and rolls 5d6 on flee but can pick the direction and distance himself :tongue:


Obviously im trolling




But like i stated before. Crumble is not perse the problem. Especially not on our regular undead units.
Its a problem and overly exaggerated penalty on Vampirics.

Like Patrunkenphat also laid out: Overruns after a crumble?? How is it that they get to overrun... they didnt slay all my models, they simply crumbled out of retardedness after CR and combat was over. This is absolutely one of the most imbalanced part of the rule working in our disadvantage that is out of place and should be adressed.


But i do think that 12 witchelves that tear through 60 zombies in two rounds is abit exaggerated. Crumble really does too much damage in situations like that.

 

[Archamedius]

A vampire should be able to flee by turning into a mist that cant be hit and rolls 5d6 on flee but can pick the direction and distance himself :tongue:


Obviously im trolling




But like i stated before. Crumble is not perse the problem. Especially not on our regular undead units.
Its a problem and overly exaggerated penalty on Vampirics.

Like Patrunkenphat also laid out: Overruns after a crumble?? How is it that they get to overrun... they didnt slay all my models, they simply crumbled out of retardedness after CR and combat was over. This is absolutely one of the most imbalanced part of the rule working in our disadvantage that is out of place and should be adressed.


But i do think that 12 witchelves that tear through 60 zombies in two rounds is abit exaggerated. Crumble really does too much damage in situations like that.

So I always imagined it that crumble worked like this:

Undead troops are naturally not as good as living ones, and so the extra damage caused by crumble was not bodies just randomly falling down but rather the impetus of the living units fighting that much harder against the horde of undead. So if a living unit and a zombie unit fight, and the zombie unit loses by 12, then those extra 12 didn't just randomly fall down, that was the zeal of the living unit slicing through an additional 12 zombies. Everyone who has ever seen a zombie movie knows when you are fighting for your life against hordes of undead monstrosities, you are able to go to new heights of fighting prowess.

As for the 12 witch elves slaughtering 60 zombies in two turns, the math actually supports it. I did a quick spreadsheet on it (I can share if anyone likes) but based strictly on math hammer, 14 witch elves (approximately the same points value as 60 zombies) should cause 16 wounds, should win combat by 12 and kill 28. The following round the zombies lose enough to not get rank bonus and have 3.7 remaining. Any dice swing in your opponents favor and the zombies are gone in the second round of fighting.

What is interesting is I also (for funzies) did the math if the zombies have regen from 1 and 2 mortis engines. 2 Mortis Engines actually reduced the # of models lost on turn 1 by 11.

So if you have mortis engines to back up the zombies, you get the following:

Zombies Remaining after 2 combat rounds with 14 witch elves:

No Regen 6+ Regen 5+ Regen
3.740 15.172 25.604

That's a huge swing. The zombies will still lose as they cannot start cutting down significantly on the # of witch elf attacks until the 6th combat turn and by then the zombies will be gone without magic to res them back, but the mortis engine actually buys you time to get off IoN where as without it, they would almost certainly be gone.

Its also worth noting about the griping regarding overrun, that overrun can only happen on the turn a unit charges. Since our units never flee, as long as you can make it through a single round of combat and survive with one model left, your opponent can only ever reform after combat.

As a player of frenzied units (witch elves) I have had that thrown at me many times in tournaments. So I think as long as you ensure your units have enough models to survive a round of fighting, overrun should never be an issue.

 

[Skittelz1981]

So humans fighting against darkelves can never have that much zeal as when they fight undeads?

I dont agree with your pov.... if i were a bretonnian i would fight alot harder against that despicable elven race than i would against a few raised skeletons

 

[najo]

I've always seen the unstable/crumble rule as a disruption of the dark magic animating those units and it's back-lashing into the characters holding it together. Mastery of it takes great skill and arcane knowledge, which makes playing the army difficult like mastering the dark energies themselves. Improper use of these energies can lead to the destruction of those trying to master it.

This is why I like the challenge inside of using crumble to our advantage and how it can punish missteps. It's abstractly like using the dark art as the vampire.

 

[TheTrans]

Then I do this and say:

Why do vamps crumble then as :

"Though vampires thrive on dark magic, they are powerful beings not easily manipulated by necromatic spells and are able to exist independently of the animating will of a General"

As much as I bitch about it its just laziness on GWs behalf..instead of bothering giving vampires they're own special rule they just lumped them in with the undead blanket (same as necros and ghouls..) and added a slight addendum with Vampiric...

 

[najo]

I don't think its laziness. If you read through all of our exercises above, whatever you do to change it makes vampires able to avoid crumble easily, becoming essentially unbreakable. Vampires then become the next WoC daemon prince in an army of healing, unbreakable troops. Honestly, I think GW is trying to keep undead streamlined and balanced. If you can come up with something that is simple, plugs in with undead without throwing their balance off and tones crumble down for vampires and still puts them at risk, we are all ears to hear it.

Also, I took into account the vampires with my description. Vampires don't require dark magic to function (thus their description) but when back lash occurs through the winds of magic and necromancy animating the army, such as loosing massive numbers of animating force from their troops, the vampires do suffer damage from the volatile forces being unleashed.

 

[TheTrans]

Ah but then by that logic they should crumble when the general dies due to the backlash of dark magic . Vamp rules are easy.

The cunning dead. All units with this special rule automatically pass any Fear, Terror and Panic tests. If this unit loses combat, they always take a break test as if they had a leadership of 10, this is unmodifiable.

The Hosts' Master: Any model with this special rule may join an undead unit, but while it remains in the unit it loses The Cunning Dead and replaces it with the Undead special rule.

So this allows vamp characters to join normal undead and then you need to worry about crumble (tough luck). But also allows vamps to flee if needed as they'd save thier own arse. Giving them the rule for the stubborn 10 (but not giving them 10 for frenzy checks death snipes etc) not only gives them a small but possible chance of breaking but makes taking a bsb well worth it. Also to note that the frenzied units would stay similar and still be testing on a 7...

Thoughts?

 

[Dakaar]

I think 1 simple change would fix crumble. A unit cannot lose more models through crumble than casualties inflicted on it,

That would mean less crumbliing so costing may need some fine tuning, but it allows us to do supported attacks.

EG a unit of skeletons attacks a strong unit, and at the same time a second unit of skeletons attacks in the flank.
The defender unit kills 8 skeletons in the front and 2 from the side unit, and wins combat by 6 overall.

Current rules bpth units lose another 6 from crumble, rule above front unit still loses 6 from crumble(as its lower than the casualties inflicted), but side unit only loses 2 more from crumble (as thats its crumble limit due to casualties).

In other words, only wounds casued against a unti lead to it crumbling, another unit nearby that happens to be weakened doesnt cause 'sympathetic' crumbling on other units.

 

[najo]

Ah but then by that logic they should crumble when the general dies due to the backlash of dark magic . Vamp rules are easy.

The cunning dead. All units with this special rule automatically pass any Fear, Terror and Panic tests. If this unit loses combat, they always take a break test as if they had a leadership of 10, this is unmodifiable.

The Hosts' Master: Any model with this special rule may join an undead unit, but while it remains in the unit it loses The Cunning Dead and replaces it with the Undead special rule.

So this allows vamp characters to join normal undead and then you need to worry about crumble (tough luck). But also allows vamps to flee if needed as they'd save thier own arse. Giving them the rule for the stubborn 10 (but not giving them 10 for frenzy checks death snipes etc) not only gives them a small but possible chance of breaking but makes taking a bsb well worth it. Also to note that the frenzied units would stay similar and still be testing on a 7...

Thoughts?

Ironically what some players hate about crumble, is what other players love. Because I know I don't want to make leadership test to break. I like that my undead are unbreakable temporarily. We just have to know how to protect our vampires and go into combat cautiously. That is part of the challenge.

With that said, the crumble up to what you suffered in wounds OR the even distribute wounds across undead units engaged both work ok.

 

[Quinten]

I think crumble is great as it is. Only complaint is why the heck do my undead have to leadership check if they want to march when an enemy unit is nearby.

 

[Emicrania]

I was so certain that we didn't needed any LD test that i have been aways chasing and never tried the musican free reform untill 2 weeks ago...
doesn't make sense to me

 

[snakezenn]

I like the whole crumbling up to the number of wounds received because I do not think that it would be too strong with what we have currently and allows us to combo charge units like other armies do.