Invent a Rule!

[The Odor]

Not the statline drop but the fact that we would just trade big units for BIG units. It wold still be "Shuffle-to-get-charge-and-then-roll-dice". Capping warrior units sound okay BUT in the end quite pointless since I hardly know anyone who takes 'em in units bigger then 20-24. Beyond me that is. The limit Amount of Chars per unit would be nice...


Oh and does the meta still suggest Chosenstars??? Over at the local one here very few take it since it generally ends up being 30 pretty warriors noone attacks during the game and just spam magic at it until the game ends...

[The bearded one]

Typically, my army is as follows:
1 warboss on wolf, 1 BSB (sometimes on wolf, sometimes not), 1 lvl 2 shaman
the big horde (used to be night goblins, but I have enough common gobs now, so they're out), the 100 of them (some may go if I put the BSB on foot in there)
2 units of 5 wolf riders with bows and musicians
4 river trolls.
Which leaves me about 1100 pts (in a 2k game) to put whatever else I fancy, depending on if I want to go full common gobs (chariots, warmachines, more goblin units, more wolf riders, more trolls, etc), or wanna include night goblins or forest goblins to the force. My army looks like a real army, and it still has the big horde. I hope you understand I'm not very keen on the necessity of nerfing that unit, my army is built around it, and I'm quite happy it's now a viable option, and not just a "it's cool but it sucks" addition.

I guess you would have to ask yourself the following:

In your regular games, with the regular 8th edition ruleset, do your big blocks often get flanked by enemies with 2 or more ranks?

If the answer is no, then it shouldn't really be that big of a deal for your army, you obviously cover your flanks.
If the answer is yes, then yeah, you might suffer under it unless you prevent enemies from flanking that enormous units and force them to hit the front as is intended.

And in the end, 100 gobins is still only a 300pts unit, My 24 saurus cost the same. The destruction of that unit is not the only goal of the entire game.

[Urgat]

I guess you would have to ask yourself the following:

In your regular games, with the regular 8th edition ruleset, do your big blocks often get flanked by enemies with 2 or more ranks?

If the answer is no, then it shouldn't really be that big of a deal for your army, you obviously cover your flanks.
If the answer is yes, then yeah, you might suffer under it unless you prevent enemies from flanking that enormous units and force them to hit the front as is intended.

The answer is no (because the first game I played with the 8th ed rules, I got flanked -I didn't let it happen on purpose, but animosity sometimes does that to you, so it won't be the last time either-, I did think "it's fine, I got steadfast, BSB, general" and oh, behold, I failed the Ld test twice. It does make you circumspect) so I guard my flanks just as much as I did in the previous editions, but I try to think of other people, not only me (those who don't have access to a whole army of cheap troops to put in the way). Well, I also think of me, for when animosity does kick my horde forward on its own while the troops supposedly protecting its flanks are too busy throwing junk at each other.
edit: oh, and my gobs are not naked, they have bows and shields, they're 400pts, not 300 (460 actually, with command and sneaky skewers). But yeah, granted, even if they're gone, it certainly doesn't mean I've lost. Which means they're fine and nobody's gonna nerf them (I'm good at going in circles).

[The bearded one]

I think a fundemental part of the issue is also that we're used to steadfast the way it now is, and find it hard to think of it less than it is. But what if we had never known it in its current form? What if, the very first time you read the 8th edition rulebook, it was presented with "disruption cancels steadfast", do you think you would have been on a thread like this saying "I think disruption shouldn't cancel steadfast", or would you have never thought it should ever have been different?

[Urgat]

I think a fundemental part of the issue is also that we're used to steadfast the way it now is, and find it hard to think of it less than it is. But what if we had never known it in its current form? What if, the very first time you read the 8th edition rulebook, it was presented with "disruption cancels steadfast", do you think you would have been on a thread like this saying "I think disruption shouldn't cancel steadfast", or would you have never thought it should ever have been different?

Obviously not. But what I do know is that up until 8th ed, 5 marauders flanking that unit of 100 gobs would have a fair chance at sending them flying. I'm fine with a little pampering after 3 editions of that. And it's not like the tables have been turned, they've only been leveled. But however interesting that kind of loophole is, it cannot be used to support your opinion, as it's only conjecture. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

[IcedCrow]

Not the statline drop but the fact that we would just trade big units for BIG units. It wold still be "Shuffle-to-get-charge-and-then-roll-dice". Capping warrior units sound okay BUT in the end quite pointless since I hardly know anyone who takes 'em in units bigger then 20-24. Beyond me that is. The limit Amount of Chars per unit would be nice...


Oh and does the meta still suggest Chosenstars??? Over at the local one here very few take it since it generally ends up being 30 pretty warriors noone attacks during the game and just spam magic at it until the game ends...

Well we'd go from one or two blobs to three or four large units due to marauders being cheaper. While its still blobs and the mindset is still the same, at least the game woudln't hinge on the one big unit being the keystone anymore so it would be a step in the right direction for me.

Not many people play chaos in my area. When 8th came out a lot of the hardcore guys quit because they didn't like the new edition and many of them played daemons or warriors of chaos. The ones that do play chaos have a mixture of styles but predominantly it is either the troll guy special character build or the chosenstar with dual warshrines build. There are a few guys on the fringe that do different things, and when I play chaos I intentionally stay away from popular builds because I don't like that style of play (see my list above).

The chosenstar tactic is to hide until you get the 3+ ward save from the warshrines and then move forward and engage the whatever main unit the enemy has. Against armies that are not composed of a blob or two, some of the players get a little undecided in what they should do (and smart players actively avoid the chosenstar and try to win the game based off of killing the ancillary units and then running ala wood elf tactics).

[The bearded one]

Obviously not. But what I do know is that up until 8th ed, 5 marauders flanking that unit of 100 gobs would have a fair chance at sending them flying. I'm fine with a little pampering after 3 editions of that. And it's not like the tables have been turned, they've only been leveled. But however interesting that kind of loophole is, it cannot be used to support your opinion, as it's only conjecture. If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.

I definately know that when I first read the rule, and it became clear among people that flanking removes ranks, but not steadfast, my first thought was that it'd have been more natural for flanking to remove steadfast.

But heck, who knows; maybe in a future edition units of a unitsize, like 100+, become unbreakable to represent how hard it is to rout such a large mass of people. And then they'll be thinking.. "ha, I remember back in 8th edition, when 1 model could theoretically destroy a unit of 100 models. Pha, those days were stupid."

I would suggest we start a thread specifically about disruption cancelling steadfast, because this one started halfway into a thread so we only have 4-5 people really discussing it. Fresh blood we need, yes-yes!

[IcedCrow]

That's the warseer way lmao I appreciate discussions like this though.

[boli]

Every time someone moves a unit - take a shot


oh wait... warhammer rules :P

[Azazel]

Whenever I lose roll a D6. On a 2+ it was my plan all along and I count as winning instead.

[Duke Ramulots]

The answer is to play with unit model, and more importantly, point caps.

Have to disagree

Elite units were never meant to benefit from the horde rules by design anyway.

How do you figure that? The horde formation has nothing to due with the quallity of the troops and rewards you for making armies that would try to fight like real armies

I would be nice if GW incorporated this into their design, but avoiding uncomped games fixes a crapload of problems.

Like not knowing how to play...

So, on topic: my rule is a maximum unit size, which is equal to 200 + 10% of the game size in points, and a model cap = 10% of the unit point limit.

So at 2500 points you want goblins to only be able to be 45 but Dwarf warriors to be 45 as well, sounds like you didnt think that one through. Like most comp.

[TheDungen]

Well people seem to think the way 8th edition does theings are more realistic, let me voice a disagrement. Ranked units in large deep units is very uncommon histrorically, the only example i can think of is the phalanx. and that is a quite unique formation. Otherwise you wanted yoru army deplayed deep enough to not be broken through imideatly by a cavalry charge and then as wide as possible.
Why? Cause you wanted to avoid getting surrounded. I think we can call it flanking. Also the emphisation on infantery in this edition is vey unlike real warefare. in reality cavalery units were the ultimate masters of the battlefields through large eras of history.

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.

Then have cavalery totaly dominates the battlefield during the middleages. The invention (or reinvention actually) of the pike and its combination with the gunline finally makes armoured cavalery less usefull. did that mean the end of cavalry? No. They just changed their tactics. Cavalery remained one of the most usefull tools or war until the tank was invented. Far more usefull than heavy infantery which is left behind much earlier. And shifted away from being nobles and wealthy people to being expendable assets that it didnt matter if they died iof they could punch a hole in the pikeline first.

But my point is this, a cavalery charge is suposed to break anything. It takes spearmen to defeat cavalry in real life its that simple, speamren or tanks. This is the reason that most armies used the spear as its main weapon. Its easy to train a person to use and its cheaper to make than a sword or halebard but mostly its because of cavalry.

Heavy infantery is mostly used to break up spear formations (and pike formations but that would mean hevay casualites). They're better armoured and trained than spearmen because of they get charged by cavalery they need to be able to hold until they can be supported by spearmen.

Its rock paper scizors. Cavalery > heavy infantery > Spearmen > Cavalery.

I recomend playing the total war games. They take alot of this into account.

[TheDungen]

My point is that cavalery needs to be stronger and spears need to be better against them. and only armies with no possiblility for spear infantery (Which are these? Chaos, OK and Dwarfs?) should have heavy infantery kick-ass enough to go toe to toe with enemy heavy cavarly. Which is fitting since races that cant use spears seems to be more proud warrior race guys.

The emphisation of warhammer needs to be moved back to the movement phase (or further back to the movement phase) cause that how warfare works, you win by how you use your troops. What you attack with what and how you counter the weaknesses of your troops. But a well timed flank charge can save the day, think of one cavalery unit hitting the front a of a spear unit and another hitting them in the flank while the first one holds them in place.

[Duke Ramulots]

You got your ">" backwords in that last post.

[TheDungen]

No i dont, > means greater/better then. 2>1 for an example

[Sexiest_hero]

Real life armies were often thousands of men. And while 8th is an abstraction it's better than any before it (5 guys fight 90 guys watch) or hero hammer. I also stand by my onsters dodging or catching cannon balls.

[The bearded one]

I also stand by my onsters dodging or catching cannon balls.

To be fair, a normal human doesn't dodge or catch a bullet.. except Neo.

[Mr Ogre]

You've kind of got that already. After a fashion. Ish.

Nothing makes me smirk like a front rank Ogre taking a cannon ball to his tender bits, and only taking a single wound, stopping it dead in it's tracks! (this happens a helluva lot to me! I'm just a spawny git!)

[Sunner]

Not sure its been said, but being able to parry with spears provided the unit hasn't charged that turn.

[Mr Ogre]

Not really how spears work though. They were the plebs weapon of choice as standing there prodding and thrusting was a lot easier than the more precise application required of swords, and yes even clubs. And they were far, far easier to make, requiring less iron/steel! Historically, your quite right, the front rank would typically carry short swords and shields (well, vikings anyway) and were there to form a literal wall of shields, allowing the rear rankers to thrust over the shoulder into the enemy. Those with the spears generally didn't have shields themselves.

Sorry. I've rambled.