Strategic Arms Limitation Talks?? No mega Nuclear spells

[IcedCrow]

A unit of 9 knights errant would be the bane of huge blocks of infantry everywhere. Being able to take three casualties before loosing disruption size they would rule an Icecrow world.

No. Not hardly. Killing three models is hardly an issue.

I personally think the game would have been a lot more tactical if disruption cancelled steadfast and I can well believe that people would adapt quickly to potentially dangerous flankers. It is a house rule I'd love to try especially in a competitive setting.

I highly recommend trying it. Compare the game with that house rule to "pure" warhammer. I find it IMO to be much more tactical and it does a good job at shaking things up enough where it's not "meet in the middle and lets throw down" every game.

[Duke Ramulots]

No. Not hardly. Killing three models is hardly an issue.



.

Killing three bret knights isnt the easiest thing to do when you dont even have supporting attacks. The post was made in jest though, just pointing out their value would go up dramaticly.

[Duke Ramulots]

Because steadfast is the only thing standing between 9-strong units of knights errant and complete game domination! There would be no other possible counter!

I personally think the game would have been a lot more tactical if disruption cancelled steadfast and I can well believe that people would adapt quickly to potentially dangerous flankers. It is a house rule I'd love to try especially in a competitive setting.

But that's really a subject of another thread. Many others, actually.

I actually like the idea of that as well, or at least steadfast being on total ranks like my boy DR proposed.

[IcedCrow]

Killing three bret knights isnt the easiest thing to do when you dont even have supporting attacks. The post was made in jest though, just pointing out their value would go up dramaticly.

True their value would go up. That's part of the appeal though. Right now cavalry seems fairly dead which to me is a contradiction again to that era of warfare (and I understand why cavalry is dead, it's a lot easier to horde out and get steadfast than it is to mess with cav which costs more and does less)

I am a big fan of diversity.

[Mercules]

As a comparisen one of the whole reasons fear was loathed throughout the last edition was that unless you were already immune to it , it screwed you over way to easily with very little defence, the same principle holds here.

Except it wouldn't screw you over if you OUTNUMBERED your opponent. The issue was not Fear alone, it was Fear in the Metagame. The Metagame of the time was small units, since it was very easy to win combat on a charge and wipe them out without their numbers coming into play. So why add more numbers when you could get another unit on the field and have one more chance.

Now the opposite is true in that these spells often cripple Hordes that don't have a built in defense. Why are they worse against Hordes? Because it only takes ONE casting to do that massive damage while Dwellers needs to be cast 3 times to have the same affect on 3 smaller sized units. Since you can often scroll one casting, barring IF, that means 2 or 4 castings. With only 6 chances to cast those spells, which army is going to take more damage from the spell in general?

Once again the Metagame is screwing people over. This time they are taking very few large units instead of many small units. Yeah, you don't have a Horde, but you still have 2-3 key units and you need them all. If you break that down into 4-5 units and use some flanking and combo charges to overcome bigger units losing a single unit literally has less impact on your army.

[Scammel]

On a slightly off-topic note, I hate this thread. It's wonderful excuse to just trawl around on the web when I should be revising for my Cold War exam.

[Haravikk]

As it is now, there is little penalty for moving like a cretin and not caring about your flanks, which totally removes what this era of warfare was all about.

Without Steadfast remaining when flanked we will have nothing to represent defensive formations, which would totally remove what this era of warfare was all about. If the game had more specific formations to choose from then we wouldn't need Steadfast, but then we'd spend the majority of the game trying to reform our units, this is why I like Steadfast as it is as it represents more than just strength in numbers, but also a unit's ability to defend itself instead of just ignoring threats and happily letting themselves be massacred.

Flanking is already a powerful tool against Steadfast units, as they can't do anywhere near the same damage to units on their sides; a unit locked at the front with something on their side will suffer damage very quickly and lose Steadfast soon enough, especially since disruption gets rid of their rank bonus, so they'll more easily be forced to take Break tests every turn. The problem cases are units that are very cheap but remain Steadfast for an inordinate amount of time, usually as a result of a combination of general's leadership and battle standard re-rolls, these are the things which need to be negated as Steadfast doesn't mean squat if you're Break testing every turn on terrible leadership.

The other problem case, as mentioned, are deathstar units, but as I've said fixing them by taking away Steadfast just hurts everyone, and mega spells don't really help as Deathstar units are some of the best at resisting their effects. The real problem with deathstars isn't just their combat effectiveness (since they're easy enough to tar-pit), it's the fact that if you don't wipe them out you don't get any Victory Points.

These are the edge cases; for more typical units, particular 8th edition lists, Steadfast works just fine.

[IcedCrow]

If by just fine you mean supporting a system where players are encouraged to take two or three giant units and meet in the middle of the table, then yes... it's awesome at that.

Defensive formations would not have held from a flank charge by heavy cavalry unless they were in a swiss formation. It would be nice if they had formations like they do in ancients. Sadly... for whatever reason they deem that these are too complicated.

I like steadfast for what it is. I hate it for the player metagame that followed. Flanking does very little for the amount of effort it takes to set up. It does grant bonuses but it's more worth someone's time to just blob out and hope the dice are on your side then it is to expend effort trying to build a battle plan around flanking, because it will largely not make that much of a difference. That's a lot of where my problem with steadfast lies.

Once you flank charge, you may indeed win (barring characters "making way" and tipping the tide) but even then you're going to often be dealing with re-rollable stubborn break check and then a reform and your flank is gone, unless you have pinned with another unit, but again considering you're often dealing with units crammed with characters, this forces the arms race. You can't deal with a unit crammed full of characters without your own.

Your last paragraph is very accurate though (hence our other houserules). We give half VPs for half strength units. In the end, without having as many benefits to blob out, our meta is more reasonable with units in the 30-40 model range for chaffe and 25-30 for elite. Without the houserule, you see the 60 chosen unit, the gutstar, etc... because those are the easiest to use and the best and quickest way to win.

If the meta was more diverse I'd have less of a problem with it but the fact that these "armies" composed of two or three units maxed out on model count, little to no cavalry presence, and the mandatory level 4 slinging the #6 spell by tossing six dice is so common is very telling. That leads to no diversity. To me, you might as well just show up wtih dice and have a dice off.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

What exactly is a Swiss formation supposed to be?

Recently had a game where a purple sun killed most of my core and a couple of special units generating an additional magic phase for my opponant.

Listen to Urgat, that's all your fault for making lists that actually depend on having units in them! Only ever take stuff that you could fight without. Ignore the pressing question why you would take such units to start with...

a single close combat attack will not necessarily kill a model at the end of your formula, and uberspell certainly will

Very few models are autokilled even by the biggest and baddest spells. I think Gateway and 13th do that, both are not the BRB baddies which seem to cause the most shaking of heads. Otherwise, models that are autokilled would fare no better in combat (warmachines vs ini tests for example).

where are the ward and armour save and regeneration steps? Where are the single wounds caused?

Not all #6 spells disallow saves. In fact, very few really do that, at least the PoS is high risk, and I get a 6+ AS against Mindrazored Spearelves. On the flip side, not all close combat attacks allow saves. Granted, it's a bit hard to deny ward saves en masse but there's probably a lot more that completely cancels armour and/or regeneration.

[Urgat]

Listen to Urgat, that's all your fault for making lists that actually depend on having units in them! Only ever take stuff that you could fight without. Ignore the pressing question why you would take such units to start with...

I once got my entire army flee because one unit was destroyed. We should remove psychology, it's obviously a stupid, overpowered rule.
There are a lot of things that are unfair, will be superpowerful against your army while it seems it does nothing to your opponent. Pretty much everything seems like that to my gobs. I should cry myself a river because the world is so unfair, heh? There's a mage that flanks me and then he nukes me! It's unfair! There is absolutely nothing I can do to prevent him from doing so! Mummy!
That topic is pathetic and I haven't posted in it for a while, so leave me out of it and let me enjoy the show as a spectator, thank you. It beats reality shows, you see.

[IcedCrow]

What exactly is a Swiss formation supposed to be?

The square. Where the pikemen faced out on all sides as opposed to all facing the same direction. I'm sure it also has other names they just elude me at the moment.

[Lord Solar Plexus]

I once got my entire army flee because one unit was destroyed. We should remove psychology, it's obviously a stupid, overpowered rule.
There are a lot of things that are unfair, will be superpowerful against your army while it seems it does nothing to your opponent. Pretty much everything seems like that to my gobs. I should cry myself a river because the world is so unfair, heh? There's a mage that flanks me and then he nukes me! It's unfair! There is absolutely nothing I can do to prevent him from doing so! Mummy!
That topic is pathetic and I haven't posted in it for a while, so leave me out of it and let me enjoy the show as a spectator, thank you. It beats reality shows, you see.

If you don't want to post stupid things in stupid threads, don't, I'm certainly not forcing you. If you do, brace yourself, as it will inevitably be picked up, albeit a little late. You really, really do not have to play quivering lips and act as if that was somehow creative or decisive, especially when the OP's group has apparently decided to give new members a little breathing room. Who's crying any rivers here? I've said it before and I will say it again, you're mostly making this stuff up, which is extremely annoying. Complaint paranoia...

It's an absolute crap game when an army runs off the table early on, and yes, it has indeed been addressed. It doesn't happen often enough these days to be relevant. It did happen much more frequently before 8th, and that was frustrating.

[Urgat]

If you don't want to post stupid things in stupid threads, don't, I'm certainly not forcing you. If you do, brace yourself, as it will inevitably be picked up, albeit a little late. You really, really do not have to play quivering lips and act as if that was somehow creative or decisive, especially when the OP's group has apparently decided to give new members a little breathing room. Who's crying any rivers here? I've said it before and I will say it again, you're mostly making this stuff up, which is extremely annoying. Complaint paranoia...

It's an absolute crap game when an army runs off the table early on, and yes, it has indeed been addressed. It doesn't happen often enough these days to be relevant. It did happen much more frequently before 8th, and that was frustrating.

You can't take a hint, can you? And yes, if I've stopped arguing in a topic, I expect you leave me alone. So do that.

[Mercules]

You can't take a hint, can you? And yes, if I've stopped arguing in a topic, I expect you leave me alone. So do that.

If you changed the word "arguing" to "posting" you might have a case.

[Urgat]

Well I posted once or twice, before I judged the topic to get out of hand (first page out of 5...), my other posts were a point of fluff, and I don't remember what else... sorry for getting involved in the points I thought were interesting beyond the nuke argument

[Haravikk]

If by just fine you mean supporting a system where players are encouraged to take two or three giant units and meet in the middle of the table, then yes... it's awesome at that.

Not my point; I meant the rule works fine at making infantry blocks viable against heavy-cavalry/super-elites, effectively eliminating the 7th edition trend of infantry just being free victory points for cavalry. I do agree that more diversity would be nicer, but getting rid of Steadfast through disruption isn't really the way forward, as it's a nice simply implementation of the notion of tactical formations, minus the complexity and the disruption "fix" would undo a lot of the good that it did.

The ideal IMO is for games where cheap infantry form a solid horde or deep formation, with smaller units supporting. I've been playing house-rules for a while in which a unit loses Inspiring Presence and Stand Your Ground if Disrupted and the relevant models aren't in the unit itself. This is a fairly effective counter to over-reliance on huge units, as cheap infantry lose the Leadership and re-rolls they need to stay put, at which point they break in short order with or without Steadfast. It means you have to have the characters in such units if you want them to hold all on their own, which brings some value back to leading units with characters to ensure access to decent Leadership.

In effect this means that an army built from two anvil units and two smaller hammer units will fairly consistently beat an army formed from two big units only as the anvils only need to hold for a turn while the hammers get to work.

Once you flank charge, you may indeed win (barring characters "making way" and tipping the tide)

I'm not advocating a flank charge on its own; characters can only Make Way! if they're not already engaged in combat, so once a unit is locked in place to the front you can flank charge with impunity. Flank charges are useless on their own anyway as a unit can just reform if you aren't threatening other sides. I play fairly regularly with the aim of using two units in tandem rather than a big unit of them own. There's nothing like a unit led by a Battle Standard on Oath Stone as a flank charger, as if you're in danger of being counter-charged the Oath Stone lets you eliminate your own flanks, which is always fun

[IcedCrow]

Your solution would hammer the skaven slave issue but things like the chosenstar and the gutstar would still be running rampant. So not bad, but not fixing the entire problem of games that revolve around a blob as certain armies would still be able to blob out (since gutstars and chosen stars often have their front rank filled with characters, to include the BSB and general).

Armies like skaven and goblins and other armies that have cheap infantry would be less inclined to take giant blobs (good) but it would be rather unfair to them (or seem unfair to the players that played those armies) because whereas the ogres and chaos and other elite armies function awesomely with the one blob, the cheap trash armies rely on a handful of blobs.

I still like the idea of unit caps myself but oh well. If wishes were fishes.

[Haravikk]

Your solution would hammer the skaven slave issue but things like the chosenstar and the gutstar would still be running rampant.

I should have reiterated that it's only effective in conjunction with half Victory Points (I typically house-rule with half, then 75% Victory Points myself), my first post about my preferred solution got buried somewhere earlier

It doesn't completely solve the Chosen deathstar, but they're hopefully going to become Rare like they should be, or at the very least marks will be more unit-size dependent and they'll no longer have access to a practically guaranteed 3+ Ward Save. The point really is that these things should be solved by smaller changes; I mean, Victory Points should never have become how they are in 8th, and is partly to blame for deathstars, and once that's fixed the need to nerf Steadfast isn't quite so great.

[Lord Inquisitor]

Killing three bret knights isnt the easiest thing to do when you dont even have supporting attacks. The post was made in jest though, just pointing out their value would go up dramaticly.

I'm not sure. Cavalry hasn't really gotten much cheaper in 8th despite how much better cav was in general in 7th. Bret cav is also the only cav that can really get enough ranks to break steadfast anyway. Why bother with trying to get units of 9 around the flanks when you can just run a unit of 15 right into their face? I think it makes cavalry flankers a lot better but I'm not sure they don't need that boost anyway just to get to the point of being worthwhile as is.

I actually like the idea of that as well, or at least steadfast being on total ranks like my boy DR proposed.

Yeah, I like the ranks aggregate idea. Right from the release of 8th I couldn't understand why you wouldn't add up all ranks involved in the combat.

[Duke Ramulots]

[COLOR="#EE82EE"]Yeah, I like the ranks aggregate idea. Right from the release of 8th I couldn't understand why you wouldn't add up all ranks involved in the combat.

When I first read that rule I thought thats how it worked. Then I re-read it and realized they kinda missed the mark