Invent a Rule!

[IcedCrow]

Spears -> strike first on the first turn they are charged into (but not when they themselves are charging)
Cavalry - mounts do an impact hit at the strength of the mount on the turn that they charge in lieu of their normal attack characteristic per wound that they possess. Horses would do 1 impact hit per on the turn they charge. Large creatures like dragons would do 5 or 6 or whatever their wounds were to represent their bulk, but would not get their normal attacks in addition to.

[The bearded one]

Large creatures like dragons would do 5 or 6 or whatever their wounds were to represent their bulk, but would not get their normal attacks in addition to.

that's thunderstomp

[IcedCrow]

Right but thunderstomp is in addition to attacks. This would basically be thunderstomp and that's it on the turn mounts charge in.

[The bearded one]

Right but thunderstomp is in addition to attacks. This would basically be thunderstomp and that's it on the turn mounts charge in.

I meant, for large creatures it's a bit of a duplication of thunderstomp.

[Athlan na Dyr]

After the decline of the greek phalanx, after the romans started conquering the mediterranean area, sword and shield infantery demonited the nature of warfare. the lack of spears and the possibility to breed larger stronger horses then gave rie to the eastern horse tribes. Who because rome didnt use cavalery and not alot fo spears broke the roman empire.

I'm terribly sorry, but this has ignited a pet peeve of mine.
First of all, the Romans used cavalry. Hell, they even used ELEPHANTS after defeating Carthage.
Look at the battles against Hannibal, all of them had a roman cavalry contingent or allied cavalry (Zama had ~9000 Roman cavalry, some from Numidia).
However, the roman Legion was by far the more common sight on the battlefield by virtue of being cheaper to equip and the relative scarcity of horses.

Also what eventually killed the (Western) Romans was not the eastern horse tribes, but the barbarians to the north of rome that the horse tribes drove out, who came down into the Roman Empire and sacked Rome. This is also what caused the Saxons to settle in British Isles.

On a sub note, I'd like for monsters (including monstrous infantry, monstrous beasts and monstrous cavalry) to cause fear (or terror) in Cavalry and War Beasts.

Finally, the problem with steadfast is hardly the rule itself but the abuse of it. Easy solution to that is changing the VP system back to partials and changing skaven slaves.
I think the partial VP's would also do a lot to remedy the 'blob' problem, especially if >75% destroyed constituted full points.

[The bearded one]

I'm terribly sorry, but this has ignited a pet peeve of mine.
First of all, the Romans used cavalry. Hell, they even used ELEPHANTS after defeating Carthage.
Look at the battles against Hannibal, all of them had a roman cavalry contingent or allied cavalry (Zama had ~9000 Roman cavalry, some from Numidia).
However, the roman Legion was by far the more common sight on the battlefield by virtue of being cheaper to equip and the relative scarcity of horses.

What I recall from reading, is that roman cavalry wasn't terrible impressive. They lacked stirrups as well. I'm guessing they had large mercenary/allied cavalry contingents.

On a sub note, I'd like for monsters (including monstrous infantry, monstrous beasts and monstrous cavalry) to cause fear (or terror) in Cavalry and War Beasts.

they generally do by virtue of simply causing fear and the cavalry/warbeast not.

Easy solution to that is changing the VP system back to partials and changing skaven slaves.
I think the partial VP's would also do a lot to remedy the 'blob' problem, especially if >75% destroyed constituted full points.

I definately want those partial VPs back. The all or nothing approach is quite ridiculous.

[Flash Felix]

I thought I might chime in with another couple of rules I'd like to see;

1. Make cannon shots reliant on BS somehow. Maybe a d6 scatter of the bounce point, minus the BS of the shooter. So an empire or dwarf crew without an engineer would have a 50% chance of scattering their shot by 1-3 inches, and a 33% chance with an enginer by 1-2 inches. Adjust cannon points to suit (or not, they are pretty good for their points at the moment). This also applies to Ironblasters as well. This will make cannon shooting one step longer, and therefore slightly more complex, but it will introduce the crew element into the game which is currently missing.

2. Laser guided warbeasts annoy me; why would that pack of hounds know to place themselves exactly at the right spot at the right angle, without any sort of supervision? Warbeasts should require handlers move with them, or otherwise limit their ability to angle their base. Maybe they have to align parallel to the nearest enemy unit if they can't reach them. Intelligent beasts or those clearly guided by an intelligent will (undead) might not be subject to this rule.

3. Reintroduce the lap-round rule. This will eliminate the hated conga-line tactic, but also represents the advantage of a wider frontage; troops won't ignore an enemy's flanks just because it disturbs the nice alignment of their front rank. We might then see multiple units of 30 wide frenzied Chaos Warrior units and the like, but I'm guessing that such units will be very vulnerable to multi-charges, and with no Step Up, vulnerable to return casualties rapidly shortening their formation. I didn't play 6th edition, so if anyone remembers any great problems with this rule, please tell me.

[grumbaki]

For the Empire: Pikes!

8 points a model, light armor and pike. Basic human stats. +1 point for heavy armor.

* Fight in +3 ranks
* Enemy lose charge bonus when attacking the front, as long as the pike unit has 3+ ranks
* Unit has ASF
* All bonuses lost when flanked by a unit with at least a full rank

Cheap enough that you could reasonably go large with them, expensive enough that they are not a no-brainer (especially as you'd need large numbers of them). Basically, I just want to see pikes again.

[boli]

changing skaven slaves....

It still annoys me everyone always goes back to "change skavenslaves" but imho you will ruin the very essence of a skaven army if you

a> remove them
b> drastically increase the points

Skaven by its very nature work in numbers... sacrificial and expendable numbers; if you are going to change skavenslaves I would recomend:

- Skavenslaves loose 1D3 models a turn who either run away, are whipped to death, trampled or run away; this increases to 1D6 in combat.
- Skavenslaves need at least 1 packmaster for every 20 models; if at any time the number of packmasters is less than that the surplus slaves escape.


although saying that *any* spell which hits all of the models in a unit pretty much devastates skavenslaves... as I have been finding out to my cost.

[Snake1311]

It still annoys me everyone always goes back to "change skavenslaves" but imho you will ruin the very essence of a skaven army if you

a> remove them
b> drastically increase the points

Skaven by its very nature work in numbers... sacrificial and expendable numbers; if you are going to change skavenslaves I would recomend:

- Skavenslaves loose 1D3 models a turn who either run away, are whipped to death, trampled or run away; this increases to 1D6 in combat.
- Skavenslaves need at least 1 packmaster for every 20 models; if at any time the number of packmasters is less than that the surplus slaves escape.


although saying that *any* spell which hits all of the models in a unit pretty much devastates skavenslaves... as I have been finding out to my cost.

No one has any problem with their numbers OR their cost; what they have a problem with is near-eternal steadfast on rerollable 10 for a core unit which costs peanuts.

Possible solutions involve disallowing use of general's Ld / inspiring presence (likely a bit too harsh), or making the bastards unstable so you can kill them in some sort of reasonable timeframe.

No one gives a crap that some spells 'devastate units' of slaves, because a big unit cost 100 pts, and the spell won't even fully wipe them. Thats almost on par with scrolling the damn thing.

[TheDungen]

Viking spears wasnt used for close combat they were throwing spears. Mostly used when landing on a beach or mboardign another vessel (they say Styrbjörn was able to sink a longship with his throwing spear). the fact that odin's spear Gungnir was thrown and always returned to his hand tells you how the vikings saw spears. A viking genrally fought with a large shield and either a sword (if he was rich) or an axe or hammer (most cases not much diffrent from the ones used for blacksmithing or woodcutting). I've never heard of vikings fighting in a schiltrom.

A spearmen might have had a dagger, but spearmen were usually drafted from the peasant population so no one would waste real weapons on them.

and as for middle age armies were thousands of men yeah i know that but we cant paint that many minatures you'll have to think that each minature represents more then oien man in a real battle. and makign massive deep units doesbnt make it more battlefield like unles syou can cover the battlefield form one side to the other with those. Horde might be a accptable fromation if the battles were really that large but then you have to make sure its only usefull in those kind of battles (like it would've been in real life).

Also not all battles were thousands of men, you have to remember that the population of the world wa smuch smaller back then. While fantasy movies and books love showing armies of hundreds of thousands of men the largest battles in those times were not more than half of that.

Many ofthe most blody wars was fought in much smaler battles, over a longer period of time. The hundred years war and the thirty years war for an example.

True they were alot bigge rthan warhamemr battles but if you want that many soldiers play warmaster. Warhammers scale simply doesnt support real life size battles. (you'd need to paint forever and a huge room with a huge board)

[TheDungen]

I'm terribly sorry, but this has ignited a pet peeve of mine.
First of all, the Romans used cavalry. Hell, they even used ELEPHANTS after defeating Carthage.
Look at the battles against Hannibal, all of them had a roman cavalry contingent or allied cavalry (Zama had ~9000 Roman cavalry, some from Numidia).
However, the roman Legion was by far the more common sight on the battlefield by virtue of being cheaper to equip and the relative scarcity of horses.

Also what eventually killed the (Western) Romans was not the eastern horse tribes, but the barbarians to the north of rome that the horse tribes drove out, who came down into the Roman Empire and sacked Rome. This is also what caused the Saxons to settle in British Isles.

On a sub note, I'd like for monsters (including monstrous infantry, monstrous beasts and monstrous cavalry) to cause fear (or terror) in Cavalry and War Beasts.

Finally, the problem with steadfast is hardly the rule itself but the abuse of it. Easy solution to that is changing the VP system back to partials and changing skaven slaves.
I think the partial VP's would also do a lot to remedy the 'blob' problem, especially if >75% destroyed constituted full points.

Roman cavalery following the military reforms of Constantine the great were alost exclusivly auxillaries. Even the generals kept auxilarry bodyguards. And even then west rome never had any effective heavy cavalery, east rome eventually managed to train catrapactii (again drafted from the horse tribes mostly Sarmatians and scythians dislocated when the huns overan campus Saramatae/scythii). Numidian cavalery was light cavalery thats something diffrent and again auxillaries.

and The horse tribes didnt defeat rome? Attilla marched up to the gates of rome and the turks are a horsetribe and they toppled Byzantium. Also the romans didnt really get beaten by the northern barbarians, the northern barbarians were taken in as auxillaries and then the auxillaries grew in power until they basically held all the power in rome.


and why did they grow in power? Under a growing military threat from the horse tribes rome began to fall apart, the outlyaing provinces were swarmed with refugees from your northern barabarians and when rome abandoned them they took power from the roman establishments. or rebbelled for other reasons. rome fell to infighting but it was because the momentum of their military expansion slowed down, halted and then turned agaisnt them.

[Athlan na Dyr]

It still annoys me everyone always goes back to "change skavenslaves"

That should be your first clue that something is wrong with them... Namely the following

No one has any problem with their numbers OR their cost; what they have a problem with is near-eternal steadfast on rerollable 10 for a core unit which costs peanuts.

This in turn is probably the most cited reason that steadfast is bad (as well as the lack of unit cap and the Skaven Army) . Remove this sort of abuse, bring back partial VP's and then there isn't really anything wrong with the Steadfast mechanic. It helps infantry units immensely and makes a fight an actual fight as opposed to some nancy manouevuring and 1 phase deletion of units.

you will ruin the very essence of a skaven army if you

a> remove them
b> drastically increase the points

Skaven by its very nature work in numbers... sacrificial and expendable numbers; if you are going to change skavenslaves I would recomend:
- Skavenslaves loose 1D3 models a turn who either run away, are whipped to death, trampled or run away; this increases to 1D6 in combat.
- Skavenslaves need at least 1 packmaster for every 20 models; if at any time the number of packmasters is less than that the surplus slaves escape.

I agree that they are a vital part of the skaven army (both in fluff and mechanics) and would never consider getting rid of them (the idea of shooting at your expendable troops does... appeal to me I assure you I'm not evil. You can keep the straightjacket.)

But... 1D3? 36 points a game, 72pts in combat. Hardly a great investment...

As for packmasters, I do like the idea behind it. But, if hits are resolved in the same way as night goblin squig herders, then your slaves are going to be heading for the hills very quickly indeed. So, one idea is too little (to my mind) and the other is too much.

Something along the lines of not being able to benefit from Inspiring Presence (with a LD boost) would go a long way, but would be difficult to implement and again, probably too much.

@TheDungen: Auxilaries are still part of the Roman Army, therefore they used cavalry.

Attila the Hun never conquered Rome. He never sacked Rome. The Ostrogoths, the Visigoths and the Vandals walked through the front gates and trashed the place, with the Ostrogoths depopulating the city in 546AD.

To cut a long story short, the first of these barbarian were forced out of their lands by pressure from the Huns and other horse tribes (not Attila), tried to find some places in the northern parts of the Roman Empire, got fed up of high taxes and attacked the capital. This was the Visigoths in 410 (the first sack of Rome).

Then Attila attacked, (after other Hun invasions against the Eastern Roman Empire) because he believed the Emperor's daughter had proposed to him (and promised half the Western Roman Empire). He trashed some places and got hammered at the Battle of the Catalunian Plains/ Chalons sur Marne.
Came back in 452, eventually halted at the River Po due to starvation and other Roman troops invading parts of his Empire.
Attila died in 453 (supposedly because of a nosebleed - would be the worst death ever if he hadn't been completely drunk and marrying yet another woman. What a legend )

At this time, Rome is perfectly fine, though declining.

Then in 455, it gets sacked by another group of Germanic Barbarians (the Vandals) because of a(nother) broken marriage agreement.
This is generally held to be the end of the Western Roman Empire, if any single event is used.

finally, depopulated in 546

[theunwantedbeing]

It still annoys me everyone always goes back to "change skavenslaves" but imho you will ruin the very essence of a skaven army if you

a> remove them

I can't recall anyone ever sugguesting to get rid of them.

b> drastically increase the points

The issue here is that people often see even a single point increase as "dramatically increasing the points" as percentage wise, it's a full 50% extra per model.
Now, these aren't 20pt cavalry suddenly jumping to 30pts each, they're 2pt fodder that are easily Ld10 with a re-roll designed to tarpit the enemy and sit there getting shot at by the skaven side. Something other armies don't get to do beyond using vortex spells.

A 3pt slave is not a bad choice at all, and is less abusable.

[Texhnolyze]

All warmachines have a 90 degree LoS and can only shoot at targets within that arc.

[IcedCrow]

3 point skaven slaves doesn't fix the issue that people have with them though. You could still run a pair of 100 for 600 points, and you still have what amounts to a rerollable 10 leadership stubborn for the game.

Another thing you could do is prevent skaven slaves from getting the + to leadership via ranks. That means they'd be eternally steadfast on a 7 if the general was nearby. A re-rollable 7 is a big big difference from a re-rollable 10...

[theunwantedbeing]

3 point skaven slaves doesn't fix the issue that people have with them though. You could still run a pair of 100 for 600 points, and you still have what amounts to a rerollable 10 leadership stubborn for the game.

Another thing you could do is prevent skaven slaves from getting the + to leadership via ranks. That means they'd be eternally steadfast on a 7 if the general was nearby. A re-rollable 7 is a big big difference from a re-rollable 10...

Yeah not letting them benefit from inspiring presence is a better way to solve the issues that tweaking points or adding in additional special rules.

[IcedCrow]

Letting them benefit from the general makes positioning important. Otherwise if they can't then the skaven player will just throw them wherever and the general's position to them is meaningless. (that's why i'd be more fore them not getting the rank bonus to leadership as opposed to ignoring the general's leadership which both basically make the same scenario happen)

[boli]

Yeah not letting them benefit from inspiring presence is a better way to solve the issues that tweaking points or adding in additional special rules.

No Inspiring presence will give SS LD 2(+3) = 5
No Strength in numbers will give SS LD 2 - but could use General's 7(or 8) if in range.

In order to get the second one to work you'll have to make it so *no* characters join the unit; otherwise you'll just dump a 15 point warlock in there.

-=-=-=-=-

Personally I would love it if Skavenslaves were actually cheaper but died, got trampled and generally ran amok unless kept in line by packmasters.

Although simply adding a "crumble-like" effect into skavenslaves would hasten their destruction - so if you hack 18 slaves to death another 18 are generally trampled to death and run away; effectively halving the time they can act as a tarpit.

[The bearded one]

Then in 455, it gets sacked by another group of Germanic Barbarians (the Vandals) because of a(nother) broken marriage agreement.
This is generally held to be the end of the Western Roman Empire, if any single event is used.

Not 476?

All warmachines have a 90 degree LoS and can only shoot at targets within that arc.

I instantly loathe you!