# 8th Edition WTF Rules?



## Jezlad (Oct 14, 2006)

Now the book is out has anyone found any rules that simply make no sense?

Something like los in 5th edition and being able to see one guy means you can shoot everyone in the squad... even though they're behind a building and the justification of tlos in the first place was to make the game feel real?


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## Whizzwang (Dec 31, 2008)

Played a 4000pt game yesterday and so far I'm impressed. It feels like they've sat down and said "right, what have we screwed up, over complicated, or just completely failed at".... "Ok, here's how we fix it"

The new charging rules take a bit of getting used to, keep looking at my units and thinking "Ooo this charges 12, this 8" when in fact it's 8-18 or 6-16. any slow moving stuff seems to charge the same distance as before, if not further. Dwarves for example are on average going to charge 10.

The magic system is FANTASTIC! so many things are cool with it I don't even know where to begin. 

I'd imagine anything that'll make me go WTF will be some of the tiny changes that you don't notice at first. 

Only thing that concerns me so far is the terrain set-up. Too many "weird" terrains for my liking and they guys in my local GW insist on rolling for everything on the tables so we had the anvil of vaul hill, a mystery wood, the wyrding pool AND an idol of gork on the table. This can be solved by just not using those rules though, or slapping your opponent until he capitulates to "no sillyness"


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## Dave T Hobbit (Dec 3, 2009)

Whizzwang said:


> Too many "weird" terrains for my liking and they guys in my local GW insist on rolling for everything on the tables so we had the anvil of vaul hill, a mystery wood, the wyrding pool AND an idol of gork on the table. This can be solved by just not using those rules though, or slapping your opponent until he capitulates to "no sillyness"


I am hoping that the "everything could be really spooky so it is really spooky" effect will go away after a while.

I have not played with funky scenery yet. Assuming that not all the scenery is special, do the special rules for scenery work?


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## Whizzwang (Dec 31, 2008)

they're not bad.

Anvil of Vaul is either "oo moderately funky yet somewhat useless" or "WOW I JUST OWNED YOUR ASS!"

Magical Flaming attacks for anything within 6" of a specific hill.

Thery certainly add a cool element to games, yet too many of them is just pointless. They make for excellent focus points on a table, fantastic for campaign games for specific missions. However they're a bit pointless for one off games.


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## Khorothis (May 12, 2009)

Jezlad said:


> Now the book is out has anyone found any rules that simply make no sense?
> 
> Something like los in 5th edition and being able to see one guy means you can shoot everyone in the squad... even though they're behind a building and the justification of tlos in the first place was to make the game feel real?


While it doesn't make sense indeed, I don't think its as much of a problem here as it is in 40K. Here there are tons of shooting modifiers that can screw up your shooting phase no problem, in fact, you're rarely going to use your base BS, which happens to have an average of 3, meaning that anything that wants to hit you and doesn't fire templates starts from a 4+, which can escalate to 5+/6+ without too much trouble (for instance I'm behind a forest and beyond your 50% range). The only time you're going to use your original BS is the second turn where your opponent is just about to charge. After that your archers are supposed to thin the ranks of those who couldn't make it into CC.

Whereas in 40K if I can see your finger I can hit you on a 3+ with my Land Raider that just moved 12". Most likely it is a twin-linked weapon (assault cannon most probably) and I can re-roll anything that managed to miss with. I think WHFB has the better version.


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## boreas (Dec 4, 2007)

I'm fairly harsh towards GW's rules, but I must say that I'm very impressed with the WFB 8th ed. book. the rules are explained in a very easy to read way. The humor is very aprreciated also. While I haven't any WTF moment for now, I'm sure there will be a problem or two. After all GW games are very "opened" to unusual situation as opposed, say, to chess.

I must say that we've discussed the random terrain rules and I insisted to used them. Terrain has a lot of influence on the game depending on your army. As a lizardmen player, I always used to get those "Yeah, nice try" when adding water features. So now, it's up to the random table! 

Phil


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

Steadfast is a bit too hard to take away in some instances I think, and the new terrain system can lead to some quite retarded things, but these can easily be fixed in friendly games. Terrain in particular, I know that we'll just start picking pieces after awhile. One thing that makes me scratch my head though, is the lack of giving Devastating Charge to cavalry. That would have made a lot of sense, and would balance out the nerfiness handed to them in 8th.


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## AAAAAAAAARRRGGHH (Apr 17, 2009)

Masked Jackal said:


> Steadfast is a bit too hard to take away in some instances I think, and the new terrain system can lead to some quite retarded things, but these can easily be fixed in friendly games. Terrain in particular, I know that we'll just start picking pieces after awhile. One thing that makes me scratch my head though, is the lack of giving Devastating Charge to cavalry. That would have made a lot of sense, and would balance out the nerfiness handed to them in 8th.


QFT!

And Jez is right on one thing. TLoS I have always disliked. I have yet to play with all that mysterious terrain mumbojumbo but it seems pretty weird. It could be fun as long as both parties are bent on making it silly as hell.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Pretty much the only thing I've disliked so far is the terrain effects. Nice idea... but they're just too randomly silly and can over complicate a game.


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## CaptainBudget (Jun 14, 2010)

Having read through the entire rules section nothing really stands out as WTF-ish.

OK, the scenary generator is a bit too silly, but as others have said, people will get bored and we'll all go back to the classic "one hill in each deployment zone and a wood or two in the middle," maybe occasionally throwing in something random to make things exciting. 

After reading the first passage of breath weapons I thought "one use only? WTF?" but that is entierly justified when you realise that it can be used in combat now. I've yet to play against my mate' War hydra and I'm already scared. The already formidable monster now has a Thunderstomp (D6 s5 automatic hits) AND the potential to add a further 2D6 S4 hits if it wants. uke:

Everything else just really works, and it's nice to see the obtuse and irritating charge movements have been simplified with regards to determining whether you're in range (it's now "measure the closest point of your unit to the closest point of the target, if you get the score with charge range you're in." This makes so much sense as it takes a lot of the frustration out of measuring charge ranges and should leave a little less bad feeling when key charges fail by a whisker.


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## Masked Jackal (Dec 16, 2009)

CaptainBudget said:


> After reading the first passage of breath weapons I thought "one use only? WTF?" but that is entierly justified when you realise that it can be used in combat now. I've yet to play against my mate' War hydra and I'm already scared. The already formidable monster now has a Thunderstomp (D6 s5 automatic hits) AND the potential to add a further 2D6 S4 hits if it wants. uke:


Nah, it's even worse, it's S5 so long as you don't lose a wound.


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## KhainiteAssassin (Mar 18, 2009)

I like the random Terrain Idea too. I played a game of my Khorne WoC vs Skaven last week, and I won, though Id have said it was a close game. Effectively, the terrain being random is a nice touch, since A. no one who can use woods or hills or water hazards to their advantage can make sure they are there. At the same time, with the funky special rules, my Marauders got Frenzy and riped through some rat slaves. so i like the new rules.


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## Durzod (Nov 24, 2009)

WTF#1: Terrain effects. Formed infantry can charge through a woods at the same speed as across an open field, or even a paved plaza? And nobody trips over a root or brains himself on a low-hanging branch? And keep perfect formation with all the other guys?

WTF#2: Random weird terrain. Ah, we're back to the good old days when the Tyranids could win a game before it started, only now it's any army.


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## CaptainBudget (Jun 14, 2010)

Durzod said:


> WTF#1: Terrain effects. Formed infantry can charge through a woods at the same speed as across an open field, or even a paved plaza? And nobody trips over a root or brains himself on a low-hanging branch? And keep perfect formation with all the other guys?


Re-read the rules mate. Charging, marching, fleeing, pursuing and overrunning through woods causes a dangerous terrain test. If you just move you're fine.



> Nah, it's even worse, it's S5 so long as you don't lose a wound.


Yeah sorry, Typo. Though by that stage the thing's usually lost a wound anyway. I may have to drop a Screaming skull catapault on it now (D6 wounds an no regen, take that!)


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

CaptainBudget said:


> Re-read the rules mate. Charging, marching, fleeing, pursuing and overrunning through woods causes a dangerous terrain test. If you just move you're fine.


Yup, except woods are only dangerous to cav, monstrous cav and monsters (or something of that sort)... so infantry can charge through a wood with no penalty, while cavalry need to move at their base movement rate in order to not take dangerous terrain... I do agree that they should all be slowed at least slightly from terrain though.


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## the-graven (Apr 26, 2010)

Tim/Steve said:


> Yup, except woods are only dangerous to cav, monstrous cav and monsters (or something of that sort)... so infantry can charge through a wood with no penalty, while cavalry need to move at their base movement rate in order to not take dangerous terrain... I do agree that they should all be slowed at least slightly from terrain though.


yeah, perhaps something like -D3 movement.


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## CaptainBudget (Jun 14, 2010)

I stand corrected, sorry. I now realise I confused the "dangerous terrain" paragraph with "woodland."

Infantry are however penalised in woods in another way, If you charge them whilst they are even partially in the woods they receive NO rank bonus and cannot be steadfast. Skirmishers and lone models however become stubborn. It does explain how they aren't penalised by movement, in that the unit is now in a more loose formation and therefore cannot pack together to for solid ranks and force themselves forwards (hence no ranks or steadfast). 

Cavalry therefore have acquired a new role: attacking units emerging from woodland as they will almost certainly win the combat given the enemy has no ranks, and should break them as they are no longer stubborn.


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## Whizzwang (Dec 31, 2008)

just because your units are nicely formed rank and file on the table, doesn't mean that's how they move ALL the time. I can see infantry running through a wod fairly easily, and yeah, they get no rank bonus, which shows you that they'll be scattered about while doing it so makes perfect sense really.


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## The Wraithlord (Jan 1, 2007)

A wtf for me is the fact that if you take a magic weapon or shield you will never get the parry save, even if they are both magical, one isn't, etc. That makes no sense to me as a weapon is still a weapon regardless of magic properties to me. That sword of steel or the sword with the poison edge are still both swords so why can't I parry with the poisoned one?


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## mynameisgrax (Sep 25, 2009)

I always took the 'hand weapon and shield only, in order to get the 6+ ward save' as a sign that the unit is using a phalanx type formation, with their shields high and their weapons jabbing over them. In other words, they're not fighting normally, and would not be able to use fancy or strange weapons effectively that way.

Despite what we see in movies, shields aren't very useful in personal combat. They were only really used in phalanx formations, jousting, and to protect against arrows. If the combat became man to man, shields were usually dropped, so you could attack more effectively.

I like the random terrain chart because it keeps people from having arguments if someone wants an odd terrain piece, like a river. Anything that keeps arguments to a minimum, and the game moving is alright in my book.

My only complaint with the new edition is the fact that cavalry don't really have a way to negate steadfast bonuses without the cav unit being absolutely huge (and thus very expensive). Cavalry can still inflict a lot of casualties, especially if they have a higher initiative than their opponent, but with enemy blocks of troops having steadfast, and very likely a BSB nearby, breaking them is nearly impossible on their own.

All in all, cavalry is now mainly for warmachine hunting and for tipping 'infantry vs infantry' close combats in your favor, and if that's the case, you might as well use chariots instead, for the impact hits.


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## Shadow Hawk (Apr 26, 2009)

Talking about poison; How can undead be poisoned. Ok, I see zombies getting poisoned but skeletons? It makes no sense.


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## Durzod (Nov 24, 2009)

Whizzwang said:


> just because your units are nicely formed rank and file on the table, doesn't mean that's how they move ALL the time. I can see infantry running through a wod fairly easily, and yeah, they get no rank bonus, which shows you that they'll be scattered about while doing it so makes perfect sense really.


 Sure, units can break ranks to move through a wood and reform on the other side, but that reforming takes time while everyone gets back into their proper place. Why else do you think units can't move after rallying? Or why you can't march after a "rapid reform"? 
Everyone seems to focus on the "Fantasy" part of the title "Warhammer Fantasy Battles" and ignore the "Battles" part. Battles have certain aspects that are (for the most part) addressed well in the game. When you all of a sudden toss some basic concepts out the window for no apparent reason, I gotta say,"WTF?"


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## kain1989 (Dec 1, 2009)

The weirdest rule for me is that you're minus 1 to hit a skirmishing unit with missile weapons, but your not minus 1 to hit lone characters on small bases, on foot. true they get look out sir near units, but still. i'm hoping i'm just overlooking the rule


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## karlhunt (Mar 24, 2009)

My vote is macig resistance. All those spells that ignore saves mean that MR is completely usless.


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## Whizzwang (Dec 31, 2008)

Very few spells ignore ward saves, so MR is actually quite useful.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

Whizzwang said:


> Very few spells ignore ward saves, so MR is actually quite useful.


Yeah, I think its just final trasmutation, pit of shades and purple sun that ignore ward saves... whereas before any spell not aimed at the unit ignored MR, so purple sun would have ignored MR anyway since it isnt targetted at a single unit.


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## Alex (Jan 19, 2008)

Dwellers below ignores ward saves as well. A friend decided to put 150 warriors in his dwarf list with his characters inside. He was not best pleased when the characters were slain along with half his unit, and although I had cast it with irresistible force, I'd cast Throne of Vines before it, so dodged that miscast on a 2+. I was shocked how fun magic can be for lore of life now.


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## olderplayer (Dec 11, 2009)

There are a limited number of issues I and other have found to date:

1. They put out a longer and new list of common magic items but then put on page 500 and in the FAQs comments that are difficult to interpret and effectively say, if taken literally, that the old points for the common magic items in 7th edition still aplply for every army that has the common magic items listed with points in the army book. This has led to a number of debates among experience players as to whether that makes any sense. The enchanted shield is now much lower cost in 8th edition but the army books still list its old 7th edition cost, so, for now, people are saying you have to use the old cost given the FAQs and BRB. Similarly, they increases the costs of most of the other 7th edition common magic items and deleted one of the items and, yet, the army books list the old 7th edition costs and the FAQs say follow the army book costs where listed. Does that mean I can't use the item not listed in the 8th edition book or not? Do I pay the new price or the old price for the common magic items? This needs an FAQ to be clarified. 

That being said, I like the larger list of common magic items in 8th edition, it just should be the case that the new common magic item points costs rule unless the magic item appears in the army-specific (race specific) lists for magic weapons, armour, arcane, talismen, enchanted items. 

2. The rule for stupidity is poorly written and can be seriously misread, leading to arguments about whether a model subject to stupidity tests is always ITP or only ITP if it fails the stupidity test. This needs an FAQ to be clarified. 

3. The random charge distance is kind of interesting but they way they implemented it wrong (swiftstride is goofy and not much of a benefit). Effectively, rolling 2D6 gives an average flee or pursuit of 7", while a model with swiftstride will average 7.9". So, being swifter means only a slight benefit. You're telling me my 10M flyer and 9M fast cav can only flee an average of 8" while the infantry charger on foot gets a charge of M + 2D6", which is an average of 12" for elves. Also, a M4 infantry can charge an average of 11" as compared with 8" before, whereas a flyer now charges an average of 18" as compared with 20" before. I'd have liked to see GW be more creative, like vary the random charge, pursuit and flee distance in some way based on the M. 

4. The new BRB specifically required 2 crew members alive to shoot a bolt thrower, but RBTs for High Elves and Dark Elves only come with 2 crew members. The FAQ and rule in 7the edition that allowed RBTs to be shot with 1 crew member needs to be fixed. I kind of like the change to reactions to failed panic but would have preferred that they retained the old randomization rule, rather than a combined profile for warmachines. Now, a lucky shot on an RBT that kills one crew member will disable it. So, the RBT has 3 wounds on it, but only two crew, so it effectively can be disabled with one wound, instead of 2 wounds. 

5. The new FAQs have lots of goofy changes and good changes, especially with respect to certain items. 
Now, a lifetaker is now properly a magic weapon, 
but then they made a steam tank T10 but made it more vulnerable to magic. The problem is that an army must have specific spells in specific lores, specific types of attacks, cannons or stone thrower direct hits to have a hope of wounding the thing. Expect to see double stanks in empire armies. 
On the other hand, they did not use the new rules to limit the LOS of the Hellpit Abomination to match the new BRB rules or classify it as unqiue and, instead, made it even better by giving it thunderstomp. 
The FAQs also did not have to make Anvils for Dwarves and Cauldrons for Dark Elves war machines (given the unique category) and then force the profiles to fit a combined war machine profile. Why not just say that the Anvil and Cauldron have T10 and all magic and shooting hit the object and must roll a 6 unless a cannon or direct hit by a stone to wound a crew member? Furthermore, the FAQ for the cauldron was initially wrong and had to be revised and now apparently does not allow hags and death hags with a cauldron to have poisoned attacks. How do witches not have poison? 

6. A lot of the players in my area at the regional Indy GT circuit are older, like me, (except my son who plays older than his age) and sportsmanship and fair play enters into scoring. Also, people respect interesting and creative modeling and that is scored at many tourneys. We did not want and did not ask for true line of sight. Now, we will have the jerks arguing about whether they can see under you dragon to the model hiding behind it and shoot or cast at it because they can see its feet. The last thing we want is someone trotting out a undersized daemon price as a bloodthirster or lord of change, so it can hide behind a building, and a short mage as a lvl 4 so it can't be seen behind a unit while someone that put a lot of time and effort into building and modeling a creative model gets penalized for have extra bells and whistles and height or width. Also, the degree of abstraction with respect to forests made perfect sense and was uniformly understood. Now, every model behind a forest has no real protection from magic and limited soft cover protection (except a large target) from shooting with BS. 

7. The new random terrain rules are over-the-top. Fortunately, 2D6 chart is optional and players can, instead, just roll for the number of items of terrain and then alternate placing terrain of their choice up to the 4+D6 number. I like more terrain but having to remember of consider all kinds of strange terrain items, including mysterious terrain will slow down the game. 

8. The victory conditions in the book as written are not well-thought out and contradictory. In one place, a victory is as simple as earning more points than the opponent; in another place it is "recommended" to b e 2 times to Vps of the opponent; then an insert says 100 VP difference is a minor victory and 2 times opponent is a crushing victory (but one could have a crushing victory and yet not a minor victory in a very boring game where only a few characters and small units die). 

9. The all-or-nothing rule for victory points is annoying. Killing half or more than half of a unit ought to count for something. Now, we'll have depleted units with one or a few odels running around trying to hide at the end of the game. 

10. Unit size and size should matter. Steadfast should be based on unit size, not ranks. Also, I should be able to disrupt rank bonuses by hitting a unit with a large monster or five knights. Similarly, a monsterous beast as a mount should confer more protection to its rider than a simple steed. Now, Juggernauts, pegs, and daemonic mounts don't pay off and take away look out sir benefits. Additionally, a character on a monstrous beast counts as one model as compared with a 20mm rank and file model for determining the 25% panic rule and such. 



Good things:
1. Step up rule and striking based on ASF, iniitative and ASL makes logical sense and balances the game. 
2. The percentage army allocation rules work well as long as one is playing games of 2400 to 2500 points (below that some standard lords get nerfed). It really balanced out the armies and took away or reduced the benefits of some of the broken strategies
3. The horde rules are interesting. 
4. Allowing 40"mm and larger infantry and cav to rank on 3 models makes sense and is very interesting and more fair. I would have even liked to see something like a rank is 100mm wide (4 models of 25MM, 5 models of 20mm, 3 models of 40mm). 
5. The supporting attack concept is interesting, including the ability to shoot in two ranks. 
6. Steadfast for ranks is interesting. 
7. Reducing captured banners (not Battle Standards) count only 25 points VPs, which is more fair and interesting. 
8. Removing table quarters from victory points makes sense.
9. The new battle scenarios are interesting and often fun, but the watchtower scenario is too all or nothing and does not provide for stratified victory conditions needed for empires campaigns. 
10. Now fear and terror are no longer so overpowered and force fewer LD tests than before and the tests kind of make sense. 
11. The new magic rules work really well and balance out the game a lot but makes magic a bit too random. 
12. Really like the new BSB and general rules. 
13. Really like no guess range.


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## Cheese meister (Jun 5, 2010)

with regards to magic items the new rulebook supercedes the old army books


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## Azkaellon (Jun 23, 2009)

Best wtf rule.

non-monster fliers can join non-flying units, Yet they can't join flying units. Think about that one for a while.


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

@Olderplayer

1- you use the army book price if you have one. I think its silly for the reduced price items like the enchanted shield which is in every book that can take common items except ogres (because they couldnt take shields), but now with teh new rules they can have an enchanted shield thats cheaper then anyone else's anywhere... weird. But on something like the warbanner which has gone up by 10pts, anyone who couldnt previously have it (though I kinda doubt there is anyone out there that didnt but can take the new one) now can but pay more for it.
Odd, doesnt really make sense but I guess it'll be better as army books get redone to align to the 8th ed book.

5- I hate the changes to steam tanks. Instead of being able to take them down with great weapons or monsters its now either cannons and I tests or stonethrowers as a last resort... any army that doesnt have access to those is screwed if they face a steam tank. Masses low S attacks will bounce off the armour, massed high S attacks dont exist (at least not in the numbers to kill a steam tank- 120 S6 attacks to kill a steam tank on average). Its sad but my ogres and my WE have only got 1 thing each that can even begin to deal with a steank- ogres get a S2 magic missile ignoring armour saves, while WE have the machine gun lord (bow of loren, arcane bodkin, 5A)... both of which might do 1W a turn if Im lucky, and if they arent killed/dispelled first.

6- sad I know, just revel in that nice glowy feeling of superiority you get from not being a tool

7- cant say Ive stuck to that one much... few pieces of whatever interesting terrain we have available, set up with some sort of 'story' in mind is all I need. Making it totally random is just odd- who wants a shrine of sigmar (or whatever it is called) in the middle of a game of VC vs daemons (as I saw on tuesday).

8- GW yet again fluffing one of the most important parts of the game. I would have thought that they would have learnt after the problems with 40k's KPs that end game conditions will always be the most scutinised area of the rules, since those are the ones that tell us who's won (and we havent got a game to carry on with so the arguments can happen right then and there)... have to say I'm going with the insert and ignoring the whole section as a bad job.

9- yeah, agree with that. I killed 28/30 warriors of chaos with my WE and got nothing from it... I mean come on... I did it with WOOD ELVES FFS, I should have got a 3ft golden trophy for managing that, not nothing at all... I managed to just pull a win in that game even though the WoC player had 3 models left on the table and I had only lost about 1/4 of my army.

10- I agree that the 'must have a rank' thing is iffy when it comes to monsters and cavalry, but then I also recon that infantry should get a free reform if charged by a large target (and not alread in combat)- its not like a dragon can sneak up and suddenly catch you off guard facing the other way... you are going to turn to face it and people with spears are going to jab it, no matter what direction they were facing when it started charging. Personally though its more the steadfast vs disruption that annoys me- I would think 8th was the best thing ever, even wth the inevitable flaws that it does have, if only disruption killed steadfast (I just keep getting visions of units of 75 goblins... *shudder*)


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