How to Win a game of Warhammer

[Whaagnomore]

Yes artillery etc is still ok, but note you don't really mention BS based normal shooting especially from the 8th Ed books as the trend certainly seems for it to be priced way too high for it to be effective. Only very specialised units are taken much in my experience these days such as shades, chameleon skinks, gutter runners or template based attacks some of the 7th ed books can get away with it due to undercosted units by 8th standards such as Dark elf repeater xbow men and flamers.

And that's why I only mentioned the still viable stuff, it doesn't really matter that normal BS shooting has gotten worse, most armies can replace the normal BS shooting with specialized shooting and artillery. When the normal BS part of shooting got edition-nerfed it only seemed natural for me to focus more on the parts that were still viable.

[Oogie boogie boss]

I don't think BS shooting has gotten nerves, but the increase in unit sizes means that to be effective it either has to be supported with artillery or be used en masse. The odd handgunner or archer unit won't cut it, but massed firepower, especially when concentrated on particular units, can still win games.
Take, for example, large units of NG archers with fanatics, with Gift of the Spider God cast on them. Enough shots make that a scary unit.

[Djekar]

Even if that were true, you were greatly overstating the case when you listed shooting as a core element of the game, while leaving out close combat.

I believe that you are mistakenly attributing someone else's words to me, sir. I was only responding to the assertion of GodlessM that shooting was generally inconsequential. I have not attempted to list the core elements of the game.

[Valaraukar]

And that's why I only mentioned the still viable stuff, it doesn't really matter that normal BS shooting has gotten worse, most armies can replace the normal BS shooting with specialized shooting and artillery. When the normal BS part of shooting got edition-nerfed it only seemed natural for me to focus more on the parts that were still viable.

Fair enough then I think we're in agreement, I just think that GodlessM has a point most normal shooting is not very effective now without being buffed by magic or a special character etc. which is sad really as that makes for a lot of useless units.

[Capt._Jaelinek]

What does eveyone mean by 'normal shooting'? Are we talking about S3 bows and the like or does this include handgunners, heavy crossbows and other S4 or better (non-artillery)? Playing against handgunners, hochland long rifles, heavy crossbows, and outriders can be brutal with a T3 army! Some of this is certainly unfavorable matchups between armies (for example a DE gunline will likely lose to a dwarf or empire gunline). But match up a DE/HE army against a WoC army, especially mauraders and good luck getting those mauraders across the field.

While I agree that the additional negative modifiers to hit has reduced shooting effectiveness, it's still an important part of the game. Hey, they have an entire phase dedicated to it! Some armies can capitalize on it more than others and you don't need it to win games (WoC and DoC) but it's another tool in the tactics book. It's also far more predictable than the magic phase. Your opponent can't dispel an arrow, so mathhammer has it's uses here. I have seen shooting win games, but it's pretty rare. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have it's place or isn't critical to winning. Some armies need it to counter-balance low toughness. GW also compensated by allowing a 6 to always wound, regardless of toughness. I've taken down giants and other monsters with massed S3 shooting, more out of desperation, but hey it can work.

I play DE, and have had combat units whittled down by xbow fire before hitting my ranks. Then they lose half or more to close combat and though my unit is wiped out their major combat unit is trashed. My opponents say, "What just happened?! How did you kill so many guys?!" To which I reply, "Hey, they are still elves!"

I've seen gobo archers used to good effect also (i.e. target saturation), but I could see how some units might be nerfed. Just not familar with enough of the new army books to know. But they all still wound on 6's!

[RanaldLoec]

Disagree with shooting; the majority of most non-war machine shooting will have little impact on the game bar maybe killing some chaff.

When facing a demon list with flamers or ogres with leadbelchers and sniper manhunters or a poison arrow tomb king list I would have to strongly disagree.

But what you say is true for nearly every other army.

[Jezbot]

I believe that you are mistakenly attributing someone else's words to me, sir. I was only responding to the assertion of GodlessM that shooting was generally inconsequential. I have not attempted to list the core elements of the game.

My mistake. russellmoo started this little side conversation by listing what he believed were the core elements of the game. I had assumed that was you, defending your original point. My apologies.

What does eveyone mean by 'normal shooting'? Are we talking about S3 bows and the like or does this include handgunners, heavy crossbows and other S4 or better (non-artillery)? Playing against handgunners, hochland long rifles, heavy crossbows, and outriders can be brutal with a T3 army! Some of this is certainly unfavorable matchups between armies (for example a DE gunline will likely lose to a dwarf or empire gunline). But match up a DE/HE army against a WoC army, especially mauraders and good luck getting those mauraders across the field.

Well that's kind of the thing, the new Empire book has basically been designed to make a gunline army no longer viable. They upped the price of cannons and mortars, dropped the strength of the mortar to 2, and increased the price of handgunners and crossbowmen.

Gunline is a pretty boring style of play so I didn't really have a problem with new army books making it a fairly weak army design, but unfortunately to achieve that they've made just having a unit or two of supporting ranged troops fairly sub-optimal.

And yeah, ranged troops can still do very well against T3, low armour troops, as long as they're pricey like Elves. But against most anything else it'll either have enough protection that you're unlikely to inflict many kills, or they're so cheap that all the kills you inflict don't add up to anything meaningful.

[Memnos]

To the OP: You have inspired me. All this talk of BS shooting being no good and of going for tons of rerolls and augmentation, I am going to try to win games while ignoring all of your advice completely. I will be starting a new thread in dedication to this most noble goal: Testing a hypothesis online!

[Djekar]

@Memnos - I'm curious to see how your experiment gets on. I'll be following.

[Memnos]

I just made an army list under the title: "Oh no! He broke the internet: 1500 points tournament Wood Elves, no magic"

Feel free to take a look at it. Most likely it'll be next week the models come in as I have to order them, but I hope to have it all painted by July 21st.

[DeathlessDraich]

@Memnos - I'm curious to see how your experiment gets on. I'll be following.

I just made an army list under the title: "Oh no! He broke the internet: 1500 points tournament Wood Elves, no magic"

Feel free to take a look at it. Most likely it'll be next week the models come in as I have to order them, but I hope to have it all painted by July 21st.

Thought I would have stopped after my last post but you keep drawing me back . Will try to reply to those who commented on my previous posts at a later time.
I have mathematically tested shooting quite thoroughly using 6 different units to be exposed to nearly all forms of shooting - Swordsmen, Bloodletters, Dwarf warriors, Knights of the Realm, Savage Orcs and Ogre Bulls.

To cut a long story short -
1) Shooting alone does not win against all-comers/tournament lists - hence gunlines do not actually work!
2) Dark Elves is the best possible shooting army - with the right list of course.
3) Wood Elves Glade Guard are very slightly weaker than Dark elf Xbows per point overall
4) Others? - Skinks, Thunderers, Outriders, Skaven shooting, etc etc - there are better alternatives than an outright gunline army list. NG - defintely better options.

[Capt._Jaelinek]

Guess I'm in the minority since I play Dark Elves. I'll keep my shades and xbows firing away at you foot sloggers

I hadn't realized the new Empire book nerfed shooting. How about dwarves?

Really it's too bad that many armies have gone this way. If you look at war historically archers and musketeers had an important battle role, but it still came to close combat until cannons and other black powder weapons could fire multiple times in rapid succession.

IMO that's how shooting should be, critical to overall strategy but not exclusive to winning.

Oh well maybe 9th edition.

[Jezbot]

Really it's too bad that many armies have gone this way. If you look at war historically archers and musketeers had an important battle role, but it still came to close combat until cannons and other black powder weapons could fire multiple times in rapid succession.

IMO that's how shooting should be, critical to overall strategy but not exclusive to winning.

Definitely. The problem is that if you price missile troops low enough that it's worthwhile taking one unit, it's a very fine line until you've priced them so low that people can't just take missile troops only and then you've got gunline.

The balance historically, came from the fact that much of the value of missile troops came from things other than straight up kills - disruption, morale sapping, forcing the enemy to act... Outside of panic checks, which aren't really the same thing, the first two elements aren't really considered in Warhammer, which leaves only the last one, and given the Warhammer rules there is little advantage to holding a defensive position.

It would be possible to create a ruleset that factored those elements in, but I'm not sure how many more rules need to be shoved into this game. It's a tough problem.

[Capt._Jaelinek]

Good points. I have seen people change tactics due to a large gunline staring at them. If they looked at mathhammer they wouldn't be too worried, but there is still the psychological factor. It's not a game rule or mechanic but is certainly a part of the game.

It's obvious to me that GW didn't playtest 8th very much. And I'm not sure if they playtest army books much either. It's sad really if you think about it. You think somebody whipped up monopoly in a few days and started selling it? Speaks to lack of quality to me. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the game, but 8th seems to have so many more FAQs than 7th.

Is it too much to ask to play test every current army at least 3 times during a BRB release and 12 or more for an army book? You know people are going to try and find the most broken combos and capitalize on them. Why not find them during play testing and make adjustments?

[Jezbot]

It's obvious to me that GW didn't playtest 8th very much. And I'm not sure if they playtest army books much either. It's sad really if you think about it. You think somebody whipped up monopoly in a few days and started selling it? Speaks to lack of quality to me. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoy the game, but 8th seems to have so many more FAQs than 7th.

Funnily enough Monopoly really was written in the shortest time, by one lady, and was designed more as a political commentary than as a game. That's kind of why it sucks

I'm fairly certain GW spent a whole lot of time playtesting the game. You can kind of see evidence of it, with how their tactical advice doesn't always line up with the actual rules. For instance, the Bretonian tactical advice bit on their website tells you to flank enemy units with your knights, cancelling their ranks and stopping them using steadfast - except flanking doesn't cancel steadfast. It points to a development period in which all kinds of rules were tried and adjusted (and to fairly sloppy editorial control in their strategy guides).

I think the issue is more that the culture at GW doesn't line up with the culture in many gaming clubs, and certainly not with the competitive tournament set. This leads them to write a rulesets intended for their own gaming culture, where they use plain language to communicate rules with an expectation that the reader is looking for the most reasonable, fair conclusion, and not trying to read the rules as literally as possible to gain some kind of advantage. Apart from the odd terribly written rule (like detachments and steadfast in the new book) my gaming group has had few problems with the rules, but that's likely because we game much like GW does.

This isn't to say GW is right in doing this. For the longest time they've been quite obstinate in insisting that that's how their games ought to be played, and ignoring the simple fact that the way their games ought to be played is how their audience wants to play them, and there is a large tournament set out there wanting concise, highly balanced rules.

Is it too much to ask to play test every current army at least 3 times during a BRB release and 12 or more for an army book? You know people are going to try and find the most broken combos and capitalize on them. Why not find them during play testing and make adjustments?

The issue is that broken units, to a large extent, simply have to exist. If you have two units that do more or less the same thing, then the optimum option will always be to take only that thing and take as much of it as you possibly can. In games like Warhammer, which for simplicity's sake drop concepts like disruption and suppression, you basically can look at a unit's ability to kill, and consider it's points cost. Anything that, point for point, kills better than other units, even if the advantage is very minor, should be taken in the maximum number. It's amazing that it's taken until 8th edition to actually bring in genuinely effective anvil units, thanks to the steadfast rule. Now at least we've got a tactical environment that consists of two unique unit types, with hammers and anvils, and it's been a huge help in producing interesting games.

Combos are largely an inevitable product of having a large number of diverse items, there will always be clever ways in which to make them interact. GW has looked to put a limit on this by reducing the number of items available, and reducing the variation in how they work. It's done a fair bit to reduce overpowered combos, but is fairly unpopular overall (some miss the diversity, and others miss being able to take broken combos).

[thrawn]

I completely disagree.

I, and other good players i know, are never "lining our best unit up against our opponents best unit."

If you are doing that you aren't playing tactically. Might as well line up the two units opposite each other in the deployment zones and walk straight foward and be in Combat Turn 2.

A decent Warhammer battlefield has a decent amount of terrain placed in a decent formation to provide a tactical challenge and opportunities to the smarter/better player.

I strongly believe 90% of where the game is won is in the MOVEMENT phase.

All the best players i know are able to outmanoeuvre their enemy via planning well ahead and using the whole battlefield and terrain they are presented with.... and it is THAT outmanoeuvreing which means they win the "crucial" combat...regardless of bad dice rolls, or having to use agument gimmicks .... "which means they win or lose the game" as your post describes.

this is hilarious.

i have noticed, that everyone who disagrees with me, that their entire arguement is based on the fact that they are smart, and their opponent is an idiot. yes that is exactly what you are saying don't bother arguing.

i mean have you guys read what some people are saying here?!?!?!?!

"the subtly of the movement phase . . ."

"the importance of deployment . . . "

Hello? is your opponent a neanthrathal?!?!? what do you think he's doing? everyone here seems to think that they're alexander the great or napoleon!! it's hilarious!!

sorry guys, i cannot agree. why? because my entire argument is based on the fact that your opponent is as skilled, or more skilled then yourself. therefore, your "subtle" moves and "ingenious" deployment is the same with him. he has a game plan, and as your deploying and moving he's doing the samething!! why is it that he won that combat and you didn't? you rolled bad! that's why! and a good player always thinks of ways to minimise this.

wow, there are a lot of egos on warseer!

so i was just thinking of something.

i don't want to come across to mean or agressive. this is an all ages forum and i don't want to offend anyone. so how about i "paint a picture" of what i mean.

2 players are playing, the empire is trying to stop a horde of undead from getting into their town, this horde is lead by a fearsome vampire lord on a terrible zombie dragon! (owww, scary! )

it's turn 3.

a unit of demigryphs has done a good job of breaking through and is now in a good position to outflank the vampire counts army. the empire general is happy, he is using his "subtle" genious to "outmanouvre" his opponent.

is the vampire counts player an idiot? well according to more then half the people on this forum he should be. imagine your the empire general, and you used your tactical brillinace to outmanuover your opponent. your the best, your so smart.

now imagine your the vampire general. will you let a unit of demigryphs ruin your plans? of course not. your the brilliant general, not your opponent. you fly your vampire count on his dragon in a flanking position. your so smart! now you can flank his expensive monstrous cavalry unit!! but, you want to make sure he doesn't move them out of the way. your opponent might eat more then grass, so now you have to be like alexander the great. you raise a unit of zombies infront of his demigryphs!!! hahahahaha, your so smart!! the sublties of this game are at your command! you understand the nuances of this game better than anyone!!! hahahahaha!!!

now imagine your the empire general. oh no! he's going to trap my expensive and beautifully painted demigryphs! gasp! maybe he also eats more then grass. time to use my dispell dice. i need to make sure this gets dispelled!!! the vampire count uses 3 power dice. rolls 12. pretty good roll. "i better make sure i get this dispelled," you think, so you use 5 dispel dice . . . and roll an 11!!!!!!!

what?!??!?!?! you, the brilliant empire general, who understands how to manuvoure your army, indeed you are so brilliant, you got a hard hitting unit like demigryphs in his armies flank, is now going to get trapped by some zombies and then flanked by a vampire lord on a zombie dragon?!?!?! but how?!?!?! your so smart, and understand all of the different turns of this complex and sophisticad game!!! how did this happen?

very simple, you rolled bad on your dispel dice! take a dispel scroll and you could have just won this game!

my point exactly! you and your opponent are lining up your units into positions that will win, what lets you down? random chance! minimize random chance and you'll have a lot more success on the battlefield.

@ b4z

please read the post above, it is mostly directed to you, as you had the nerve to say "us smart players" and thus implying the rest of us are idiots.

[Memnos]

Guess I'm in the minority since I play Dark Elves. I'll keep my shades and xbows firing away at you foot sloggers

I hadn't realized the new Empire book nerfed shooting. How about dwarves?

Really it's too bad that many armies have gone this way. If you look at war historically archers and musketeers had an important battle role, but it still came to close combat until cannons and other black powder weapons could fire multiple times in rapid succession.

Depending on the army, that's true. I'm not going to mention the more minor powers that specialized in ranged combat as a means of winning battles. Of the major players - the Romans, The Greeks, the Mongolians - Only the Mongolians specialized in archery, and that was due to their unprecedented mobility.

[IcedCrow]

so i was just thinking of something.

i don't want to come across to mean or agressive. this is an all ages forum and i don't want to offend anyone. so how about i "paint a picture" of what i mean.

2 players are playing, the empire is trying to stop a horde of undead from getting into their town, this horde is lead by a fearsome vampire lord on a terrible zombie dragon! (owww, scary! )

it's turn 3.

a unit of demigryphs has done a good job of breaking through and is now in a good position to outflank the vampire counts army. the empire general is happy, he is using his "subtle" genious to "outmanouvre" his opponent.

is the vampire counts player an idiot? well according to more then half the people on this forum he should be. imagine your the empire general, and you used your tactical brillinace to outmanuover your opponent. your the best, your so smart.

now imagine your the vampire general. will you let a unit of demigryphs ruin your plans? of course not. your the brilliant general, not your opponent. you fly your vampire count on his dragon in a flanking position. your so smart! now you can flank his expensive monstrous cavalry unit!! but, you want to make sure he doesn't move them out of the way. your opponent might eat more then grass, so now you have to be like alexander the great. you raise a unit of zombies infront of his demigryphs!!! hahahahaha, your so smart!! the sublties of this game are at your command! you understand the nuances of this game better than anyone!!! hahahahaha!!!

now imagine your the empire general. oh no! he's going to trap my expensive and beautifully painted demigryphs! gasp! maybe he also eats more then grass. time to use my dispell dice. i need to make sure this gets dispelled!!! the vampire count uses 3 power dice. rolls 12. pretty good roll. "i better make sure i get this dispelled," you think, so you use 5 dispel dice . . . and roll an 11!!!!!!!

what?!??!?!?! you, the brilliant empire general, who understands how to manuvoure your army, indeed you are so brilliant, you got a hard hitting unit like demigryphs in his armies flank, is now going to get trapped by some zombies and then flanked by a vampire lord on a zombie dragon?!?!?! but how?!?!?! your so smart, and understand all of the different turns of this complex and sophisticad game!!! how did this happen?

very simple, you rolled bad on your dispel dice! take a dispel scroll and you could have just won this game!

my point exactly! you and your opponent are lining up your units into positions that will win, what lets you down? random chance! minimize random chance and you'll have a lot more success on the battlefield.

I agree. After about fifteen years of this game, it took me the first year to learn the tricks and how to exploit it. I have my own wall of trophies and plaques that show me that exploiting warhammer is not that difficult, because I'm not a genius.

Most players are average. Take ten random warhammer players. Eight of them will be average. One of them will be the guy that can never win a game, and the other will be a very good player who can win with just about anything you give him.

Take those same ten players and five of them will think that they are very good players and that there is a lot of skill to warhammer.

There is some skill but it is not really that much. It is about learning the handful of tricks in the game and then learning how to use them. Two competent players coming at each other will have an intrinsic difficulty level based off of trick #1 - their army list.

If you take the sum of each army list and cross join it to a combat matrix against the other you will get a base % difficulty (this involves math but you can basically numerically rate the hard value of each list in a vaccum). What does that mean? That means if I have 30 halberds and 30 spearmen in my army against 20 chaos warriors and 30 marauders, I can find the % chance of the 30 halberds vs the warriors, then the 30 halberds vs the marauders and do the same with my spearmen and come up with which side has the advantage based on lists alone in combat in a vaccum. If I have missile troops I can assign a value based on the % of kills they can pull off against each unit and plug that into the formula. In a perfect game, both lists would be 50/50. Reality says that that rarely if ever happens.

After that its largely about how you deploy (which will modify that hard value above) and then the rest is largely luck because two players of average competence (the vast majority of us) know about flanking, spell casting, and dispel priorities... the dice have to cooperate.

Power gamers (not used in a derrogatory sense so relax) will max Trick 1 by taking hard as nails armies. Two competent players, a power gamer, and a non power gamer, will have largely the same result (the power gamer winning most of the time) because his list is numerically superior based on combat statistics and predictions on the cross join above, giving the illusion that he is a great player and the other guy is a schmuck. If power gamer is taking a net list of power units, he may have as high as an 85 or a 90 (out of 100) based on the cross join above, which means that even though both players know the game and tricks and maneuvers and target priority, the power gamer is going to have a vastly easier time because his army list is power gamed and min/maxed and the other guy's is not (you can then argue that a good player will know how to max his list but that is a debate for another time)

A good game to me is where both power levels are the same. It prevents routes etc

What are the other tricks to winning?

Trick 2 - knowing how to deploy
Trick 3 - understanding a hammer and an anvil and a support role
Trick 4 - understanding how to assign the above roles correctly and sticking to your plan
Trick 5 - target priority
Trick 6 - not losing touch of the win conditions of the scenario you are playing

These are not difficult things to master. Warhammer is not a difficult game to master. Winning at warhammer will come down to power level of the army lists and how many of the above tricks you have mastered vs your opponent and then the luck of the dice will make up the rest.

[thrawn]

I agree. After about fifteen years of this game, it took me the first year to learn the tricks and how to exploit it. I have my own wall of trophies and plaques that show me that exploiting warhammer is not that difficult, because I'm not a genius.

Most players are average. Take ten random warhammer players. Eight of them will be average. One of them will be the guy that can never win a game, and the other will be a very good player who can win with just about anything you give him.

Take those same ten players and five of them will think that they are very good players and that there is a lot of skill to warhammer.

There is some skill but it is not really that much. It is about learning the handful of tricks in the game and then learning how to use them. Two competent players coming at each other will have an intrinsic difficulty level based off of trick #1 - their army list.

If you take the sum of each army list and cross join it to a combat matrix against the other you will get a base % difficulty (this involves math but you can basically numerically rate the hard value of each list in a vaccum). What does that mean? That means if I have 30 halberds and 30 spearmen in my army against 20 chaos warriors and 30 marauders, I can find the % chance of the 30 halberds vs the warriors, then the 30 halberds vs the marauders and do the same with my spearmen and come up with which side has the advantage based on lists alone in combat in a vaccum. If I have missile troops I can assign a value based on the % of kills they can pull off against each unit and plug that into the formula. In a perfect game, both lists would be 50/50. Reality says that that rarely if ever happens.

After that its largely about how you deploy (which will modify that hard value above) and then the rest is largely luck because two players of average competence (the vast majority of us) know about flanking, spell casting, and dispel priorities... the dice have to cooperate.

Power gamers (not used in a derrogatory sense so relax) will max Trick 1 by taking hard as nails armies. Two competent players, a power gamer, and a non power gamer, will have largely the same result (the power gamer winning most of the time) because his list is numerically superior based on combat statistics and predictions on the cross join above, giving the illusion that he is a great player and the other guy is a schmuck. If power gamer is taking a net list of power units, he may have as high as an 85 or a 90 (out of 100) based on the cross join above, which means that even though both players know the game and tricks and maneuvers and target priority, the power gamer is going to have a vastly easier time because his army list is power gamed and min/maxed and the other guy's is not (you can then argue that a good player will know how to max his list but that is a debate for another time)

A good game to me is where both power levels are the same. It prevents routes etc

What are the other tricks to winning?

Trick 2 - knowing how to deploy
Trick 3 - understanding a hammer and an anvil and a support role
Trick 4 - understanding how to assign the above roles correctly and sticking to your plan
Trick 5 - target priority
Trick 6 - not losing touch of the win conditions of the scenario you are playing

These are not difficult things to master. Warhammer is not a difficult game to master. Winning at warhammer will come down to power level of the army lists and how many of the above tricks you have mastered vs your opponent and then the luck of the dice will make up the rest.

that's a well thought out post! you must be a math major? or stats?

anyways, glad to see at least some people here agree with me and aren't caught up in this, "no there is so much strategy in warhammer! if you can win at warhammer you're practically a 4 star general" nonsense.

[IcedCrow]

I am a software developer. I have a degree in a math field yes. I was also in the army and have been involved with training courses on leadership and combat tactics / strategies. The type of wargames where your army list is a bunch of normal grunts and some armor with some air support taking on an enemy army composed of a bunch of normal grunts with some anti-armor and anti-air batteries and you have to figure out how to win with minimal casualties.

In those games you don't get to go through an army list and field an army of spammed Abrahms tanks with extra armor and a tactical nuclear payload on a fleet of apaches lol. You actually have to learn how to fight battles with chaffe and come out on top.

My favorite type of warhammer games are the "B" list games. Those being the lists that contain chaffe and a couple star units as opposed to an army of star units, which to me is unrealistic. Though we are talking about elves and orcs and dragons...