If you could change just one thing....

[Tomfoolery]

about a rule of Warhammer what would it be?

The game is pretty good honestly and despite needing frequent errata it keeps itself in check for the most part. This is more of a creative musings thread. Nothing ground breaking for a characters, units, items or army selection just subtle yet what would be dramatic changes to the game itself.

My own pick would be Power/Dispel scrolls. I believe we are long past the age of "no you don't" with the DS. Equally the Power Scroll is almost worthless now. I think they should function as such. If you burn the scroll you should roll a d6 for additional dice of their type for that phase only. The extra generated dice cannot be stored, saved, transferred and are lost after the magic phase.

Go.

 

[Aedin]

Unstable...


I would have thought that if a unit takes 5 wounds then it can suffer up to 5 wounds worth from CR not 5 plus 12 more because the zombies cant fight their way out of a wet paper bag.

 

[excessiveswagger]

Units that are disrupted cannot be steadfast. An easy solution to the unbreakable skaven slave/night goblin tarpits.

Lances and cavalry spears should give asf when charging as well while infantry Spears should give asf when charged

 

[Seneschal]

Spears give +1 strength against charging units when hit in the front.

 

[Swaiper]

Spears give +1 strength against charging units when hit in the front.

This, this and THIS!!!
Either that or ASF first round against charging units. Maybe both against charging cavalry?

 

[Mad 'At]

True Line of Sight.

 

[Blutsauger]

The biggest issue, IMO, is being steadfast while disrupted. If they changed that, it would be a much more sensible game, imo.

Spears... meh. The models armed with spears aren't generally long enough to represent any kind of long, bristling wall of speartips. If anything, there should be an upgrade for long spears, something in between pikes and regular spears. The type of spear short enough that you can wield it with one hand while holding a shield in the other is really too short to offer enough of an advantage that it'd be worth granting a +1 strength bonus.

Cavalry armed with lances is a different matter, for two reasons. Firstly, cavalry lost a lot of punch in this edition so they need something to bring them back up to par. And secondly lances are significantly longer than almost every infantry held weapon, and would definitely warrant a boost to initiative or ASF on the turn they charge.

As it is, cavalry is almost as effective whether it charges or is charged. Some units are exactly as effective. That's not a good design move, imo. The impetus and impact of a cavalry charge is something that should be valued, and critical to the success of the unit, not just a "nice to have" extra.

If I could make one change for Vampire Counts specifically, I would say that every infantry unit in the game got a boost from the Steadfast rules, except for unbreakable units. Which includes all undead units. To reduce that gap, I would suggest that, after combat resolution has been calculated and the wounds generated for it as per CR crumble, you should take the highest rank bonus of any Undead unit in the combat, and reduce the crumble amount by that much. Maybe. I haven't really thought that through.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

Unstable one mentioned above certainly. We should be able to combo units without the more expensive suffering horribly because of the weaker ones.

Skirmishing has always been an annoying thing for me - I think they should go back to previous versions of the rules for them.

 

[bigbadbat]

Steadfast is a pain in the butt. But more so when it comes to reforming amid defeat.
If I had the tactical acumen to get a juicy flank charge on a large unit with some heavy cav or even a few chariots. It just doesn't seem right that after they lose combat by 7, that they pass a leadership test and then reform to face me and maximize attacks back the following round. Steadfast should not apply to reforming amid defeat.
Also, many may not know of this, but it needs to change. If a unit successfully makes a charge roll, it may move any distance to engage. The total of the dice and movement doesn't matter. This becomes especially crucial in flank charges. If im declaring a flank charge on a unit and prior to charging the distance needed plus dice is 16", I can move my charging unit as far as I want provides im still in it's flank and maximizing contact.
There is some serious rules abuse possible here in certain occasions.

 

[Lord Klobuk]

Uh zombies should fly and their stats raised too ws 10,s10,t10 and drop in points .... just kidding ofcorse.

Personaly i would like to see that dwellers,purple sun,final transmutation allow ward saves and/or magic resistance.

 

[NoisyAssassin]

My biggest would also be disruption negating steadfast.

 

[Tomfoolery]

I would also bring back the "Shambling Horde" rule (the one where they lap around automatically on flanks) or whatever it was called for Zombies. There is absolutely no reason that Zombies should have a blocked column and line formation. They were never soldiers, they have no business holding a line and staying in a formation. Horde up and start lapping!

 

[Drakhaol Von Carstein]

Well Tom, I would argue ( having read a few of the Sigmar and Nagash books from the warhammer series) that zombies often were soldiers. More specifically they were likely the enemy soldiers that your forces managed to defeat and now your all-powerful necromancing lord has risen to swell his ranks. Many of the battles recounted in the books speak of the mixed forces of living and undead hordes fighting the living forces of the enemy with the Nagash (or his minion vamps) just raising all the dead (friend and foe) to keep fighting.

 

[Vampire Ron]

Disruption breaking steadfast is a biggy. I'd also like to see magic have some kind of scaling as it just doesn't scale right in bigger and smaller games.

 

[Vipoid]

I'd remove ASF and ASL.

ASF is a throwback, which ceasd to serve any purpose in 8th - we have initiative to see who strikes first. In addition, it's current form competes with hatred, in a poor attempt to make it worthwhile. Just remove it.

If something needs to strike first, give it high initiative - don't make a perfectly good sliding scale, then ignore it.

ASL could easily be replaced with 'strikes at I1', or an initiative penalty of some kind.

 

[Lord Klobuk]

ASF is a throwback, which ceasd to serve any purpose in 8th - we have initiative to see who strikes first. In addition, it's current form competes with hatred, in a poor attempt to make it worthwhile. Just remove it.

Intresting i understand your point,I feel that ASF is there to describe creatures that are blazing fast but rulewise(for sequence of striking) it works like initiative 11 you go before who has 1-10 and if you go against someone who also has it its like you have the same initiative.As for the re-rolls it situationly provides I find them much better then hatred since they are not only for the first round and inf. hatred is rare among armies.Though all in all a rather "wierd" rule.

But what would you do about High elves ASF is kinda their tradmark?

 

[Blutsauger]

But what would you do about High elves ASF is kinda their tradmark?

Only for a couple of editions. Before that it was simply high initiative, lots of magic, and lots of fast units.

 

[Vipoid]

Intresting i understand your point,I feel that ASF is there to describe creatures that are blazing fast but rulewise(for sequence of striking) it works like initiative 11 you go before who has 1-10 and if you go against someone who also has it its like you have the same initiative.

If they're meant to be *that* fast, why not just give them I10? They go before all other units - except those with I10.

Or, God forbid, make use of the initiative scale.

As for the re-rolls it situationly provides I find them much better then hatred since they are not only for the first round and inf. hatred is rare among armies.Though all in all a rather "wierd" rule.

But that's the point - ASF should have been eliminated in 8th, or changed simply to 'strikes at I10' or somesuch. Instead, they made it Hatred+1, which is a terrible idea and just bad-design.

But what would you do about High elves ASF is kinda their tradmark?

It was their trademark for 1-2 books, and could easily have been replaced in their new one with Martial Prowess or the like.


See, ASF used to exist as a defensive rule for when chargers always struck first, regardless of initiative. It allowed units a chance at striking when they got charged. Also, this was when casualties were taken from the front, and most charges just broke units outright. Essentially, high initiative rarely mattered because chargers had ASF, and combat rarely lasted till round 2.

Now though, combat is always resolved at initiative, rather than chargers striking first. In addition, thanks to rerolls, ASF has become purely offensive, rather than purely defensive.

 

[Disciple of Nagash]

I agree with Vipoid about the initiative thing. It would make things a helluva lot clearer with everyone fighting at initiative value, and then designing rules that work with said value instead of just ignoring it, thus needing further explanations.

Like with some of the above, you could save that all cavalry models double their initiative on the charge, rounding up. Nice and simple, gives cav a decent boost but also works with fluff (so heavy / cumbersome / stupid cav is slower that prancing HE cav for example).

Likewise you could give a similar rule to spears, such as spearmen gain +2(or 3/4 etc, need to playtest) to their initiative in the first round of combat when they are charged, front arc only, if not already in combat. This then gives them a realistic edge when the enemy runs into a unit that looks like a porcupine, but again for those enemies that are really fast, they can still possibly be faster.

Anyone interested in playtesting something like:

ASF is replaced by I10
~Possibly have addition to this that any to-hit rolls of 6 made at I10 generate another attack (can only generate attack from initial attacks). Represents to extreme speed and opportunity. Could work well with the cav rule to create a powerful charge.
ASL is replaced by I1
Charging units get +1 to base Initiative
Cav units double I in the first round of combat in which they charge (rounding up)
Spear units gain +2I in the first round of combat when charged in the front only, not applicable if already in combat

I think this would work pretty well.

 

[Tomfoolery]

Disruption breaking steadfast is a biggy. I'd also like to see magic have some kind of scaling as it just doesn't scale right in bigger and smaller games.

That one would be a toughy. You could add more dice to the pool if the armies got over a certain size or subtract them if under but anything else could get hairy. I agree though that magic is very devastating in games around 1500.

A big problem with setting up scaling systems like this (and others they and others have done, ETC comp for example) is that you begin regulating something already regulated. This really confines players with what they can do with an army and stifles creative play imo.

Not disagreeing with you though. Magic is probably one of the most unfactorable phases in the game.

 

[excessiveswagger]

I don't think the magic scaling thing is such a big problem. The way I see it is that since spells like dwellers and vortexes will tend to hit more guys at higher point games due to larger units they are already scaling. The same can be said for buffs and hexes, mind razor is twice as good on 40 spearmen than 20. The only real loser at higher games are magic missiles (you could try actual scaling here perhaps like giving extra hits on units above a certain size)

 

[Oppenheimer]

I'd say more dice in the winds of magic or something to that effect. Magic is very unreliable. I get dispelled 80% of the time and when I don't it's because I blew up my mage with an irresistible casting. SoM doesn't really fix this because the arcane fulcrums are just kind of annoying. Dueling a mage 1:1 who has a 3+ ward save? Brings the combat grinding to a halt.

One thing that might help with this is if bound spells couldn't be dispelled or something like that.

Not really sure how to fix it but magic seems broken.

 

[Vipoid]

I'd say more dice in the winds of magic or something to that effect. Magic is very unreliable. I get dispelled 80% of the time and when I don't it's because I blew up my mage with an irresistible casting.

This.

Oh my I know this one.

I think 2d6 is just a terrible idea in general. Ok, magic should be a little unreliable (because, obviously, randomly determining spells and casting with random dice with a random chance of IF whilst being dispelled by random dice also with a random chance of IF obviously isn't random enough...), but not when:

a) Magic is ludicrously strong. I've seen many games won on the back of a good WoM roll, and many others lost because the person rolled double-1. It's just too much of a swing for an entire phase of the game.

b) Some armies are more reliant on magic than others. It's just not a good idea to make it completely random when it's a core part of their strategy.

 

[Hanblack Nagash]

They should put the guess range back in for war machines.

 

[Oppenheimer]

The Organ gun is pretty overpowered now. Automatic hits to any unit in range unless you roll a misfire is gross.