# 8th Edition: How have the new rules affected each of the fantasy armies?



## geneticdeviant

With the eagerly awaited 8th edition rulebook release just round the corner i'm wondering as to how the rules affect the different army options.

Does any army in particular benefit from the new rules? Is any army nerfed by the new rules like Necrons (40k) in 5th edition?

Maybe we can use this thread to list the armies and affects of new rules for each of the phases.

Your comments please


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## bhollenb

*Tomb Kings and 8th Edition*

Relatively new Tomb Kings player but I played my first game with the 8th edition rules last night. 750pts so needless to say I lost very quickly and very badly. I'll keep this quick.

-Tomb Kings cannot create a legal army of less than 680pts. 

-You must field a Tomb King between 680-860pts. Tomb Prince cannot be used in less than 860pts. (This is due to 25% restriction on Lords and Heroes and the requirement of a Liche Priest.)

-You can field a chariot army at 750pts! :biggrin: 

-The random charge range adds strategy to the movement phase. Big improvement overall.

-Tomb Kings can dominate the magic phase now. Opponents will normally have no more than 6 dispel dice and usually less. With tons of bound spells and incantations they can't possibly dispel them all!

-Got rid of the partial hits under templates! :clapping:

-Only played one game so I'm trying to take this in stride but...Tomb Kings players need to develop a new strategy for melee because none of our old tricks work. Our Core units are literally the worst in the game for close combat.

To sum up:

Magic good!
Close Combat very very very bad!

Also FIRE BAD!


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## Sethis

Dark Elves haven't really changed all that much, from what I can see. Even their tournament armies were fairly balanced in terms of units and characters. You might have to drop a hero choice or two or a rank off your Black Guard in order to have more repeater crossbows/spearmen, but that's not a gigantic change.

The major thing for me is that I will no longer be taking Dark Magic unless given a very good reason to. The Lores in the Core Rulebook outstrip codex lores in almost every way - especially considering you cannot have multiples of the same spell.


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## Farseer Darvaleth

Hold on, you can have lords in 800pts games? Or is a Tomb King not a lord? (I know little about Tomb Kings; IT'S ALL ABOUT VAMPIRES!) :biggrin:


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## Settra

see im liking and disliking the new rules: tomb kings is an od one, alo of rules aee contradictory and very confusing now: acording to head office, tomb kings roll for the 2d6 power dice like everyone else, they dont us etheir 2d6 and 3d6 dice for each guy anymore, they use the power dice :/ of course we still cant miscast or fail to cast  but are wizards also dont have levels, so no extra for are casting and are books says so nicly, liche priests cast ONE spell and high priests can cast TWO spells, so we are still very limited in the magic phase 

tzentch deamons are now rubbish!!!!  since they are limite dby dice and spells it aint looking good for them  

vampires and dark elves )depending on what they do to Khemri) will be the major magic uses, since you have the ability to get more dice  

teclis now suffers badly  every double is and irristable force/miscats :O

Yes farseer, 800pts games  the restriction is just 25% on lords  hmmmm i wonder how many goblin shamans with magic musrooms you can get in 3K with the 25% restriction???? 

moster armies are now more viable, ogres are now a VERY good army, they get ranks and fight in ranks


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## geneticdeviant

well lets hope the new tomb kings codex will be with us very soon then, they sound broken under the new rules.

How do Warriors of Chaos fare with the new rules? Heavy destructive magic users that they are.


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

Right. So 25% restriction on Characters. Hence my TWO characters (one will be the High ELf Lord on Griffon in the starter set, the other being a mage) will only be able to be played at 2500 (They come to 625 exactly)? I was hoping to make a 2250 list, but it'll have to more up to 2500 now.


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## Blue Liger

I found the random movement charge is balanced by the ability to strike in initiative order though HE abuse this with ASF, they have lost alot of specilaied units elsewherre such as running 2 dragons and another mage in 2250pt lists.

The new magic phase looks very much in favour for my WE as it stops alot of magic abusing armies such as Tzeentch armies, Lizardmen, DE and Daemons.
Also by the sounds of things alot of armies magic is no longer going to be used due to better common magic lores so to speak, though I have found with new ally rules the WE magic is still a great help and even by itself.

Combat I'm still not sure of due to using an army not heavy in block infantry.

I havent read fast cav stuff yet but hope it hasnt stuffed there movement style around


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## neilbatte

Its actually a 50% cap on characters lords 25% heros 25% a 25%minimum for core 50%max special and 25% max rare so you can play your Helfs happilly at 2k.
The only rule I really don't like is that special weapons like spears, halberds etc have to be used so no more turtling up with hwp and sheild when you get charged by something scary although this will stop the chaos warrior armies choosing the best weapon for the job, How this affects Ogres iron fists and Black orcs armed to da teef is as yet unclear.


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## Creon

We don't know what the FAQs will do, so some of the issues may well be addressed there. I'm thinking my OK army will be being dusted off and put back into the rotation, due to STOMP. And I'm pretty sure if OK magic isn't redone, then it'll be really effective. Cause right now, no mage knows any spells. They just cast from "Gut Magic" and the difficulty is how many times it's already been cast in that phase.


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## asianavatar

I think the new rules will be interesting...

Some general thoughts

Cav are no longer amazing, a unit of 5 Chaos knights won't destroy any unit because, units with more ranks are stubborn.

Magic has been toned down a lot. Not being allowed to have multiples of the same spell in an army list changes things too.

Skirmishers seem like they will be harder to use and won't be able to hid as easily or get out of charge arcs, also no 360 sight. May march and shoot

Since combat goes by initiative even with charges, its going to hurt some units that have two handed weapons.

HW shield gets you a 6+ ward saves, seems like if you have a better ward save your HW+shield bonus is useless.

Specifically for lizardmen:

Slann will be expensive, but if you can get one in a game, they should do well with the ability to roll an average of 11 at the cost of one power dice.

Saurus no longer break due to fear so they should last longer in combat.

Krox and skink units might be useful as they can break ranks.


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## the-graven

About Lizzie's, should I arm them with spears and shields or HW+SH


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## Arli

I have given my saurus the spears and mounted the hand weapons/shields on their sides/backs in order to have access to both as I need them. 

As far as 8th edition goes, I think I will be using spears. This is because the way I understand it, Saurus with spears will get 2x attacks on the first 2 ranks with 1x attack on the supporting rank (third rank). And that would furthermore mean that if I take a monstrous 40-50 saurus, that I could get the horde bonus (for rank of 10) on the 4th rank as well. That would total the attacks at 60 (1st and 2nd rank 40 + the two supporting 10 attacks).

I could be reading that rule incorrectly though. If so, that would still be 40 attacks in a rank 10 wide (20 for the front rank, the the 2nd and 3rd rank get supporting attacks).


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## Creon

I'm going to do what I do in 7th. 1 Squadron Spears x 20, 1 smaller squadron sword/Shield x 12. I am liking the 6+ ward for HW/Shield as opposed to +1 Armor.


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## Settra

as for the whole fighting in ranks, no matter what rank it is except the first one, they only give you one extra attack, so a secound rank of sauras gives you an extra 5 attacks. in the case of ogres,, trolls and ushabti, we get ranks of three  are supporting ranks get 3 attacks each  and we get stomp attacks  i played a game of 8th edition today, a block of 8 ushabti 24 str6 attacks, 4 str6 stomp attacks  bye bye  

oh and the new common magic items are sweet  espescialy for the older books  hhehe magic sword +3 attacks  armour -1 to hit  a talismen that give su a 6+ regen save  i used all of these on my tomb king  one hard cookie he was


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## Creon

Barring the FAQ changing that rule book standard, you are right Settra. But until the FAQs hit, we won't know the exact numbers. For example, since the Hellpit abomination removes all ranks from those fighting it, does that mean no extra rank fighting? Could be! Megastomp and only your front rank! FTW! Possibly. We'll see how it all works out, I'm pleasantly impressed so far. But my OK are waking up and looking quite eager to be out and about. 50 Gnoblar horde with a 6+ ward in HTH and 30 attacks is looking nice. A Scraplauncher that you can premeasure! SCHWEEET!


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## neilbatte

The new rules combined with the old army books can make for some seriously hard units at the moment.
I watched a game demo today and a large block of skellie spearmen under the influence of a vampire with the item that shares out his WS was game winning where before it was just annoying, 
I don't see any real issues with the character cap although gobbo's, Skaven and Empire get a boost especially with the extra magic items.
Slings get a big boost as does gnoblar sharp stuff and I'm not looking forward to facing big units of darkelf xbows.
Overall I think most of the armies will need to play differently and the army building phase will be less pick the minimum core, cut and paste characters then max out on the shiny stuff which can only be a good thing.


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## Blue Liger

If they have chnaged skirmishers to be more useless in this game and boosted block armies then they have killed Wood Elves right there and then we win by having to gang up and use skirmish units to move around flanks to get charge etc if we are harder to hide it's going to be a pain in the but, though it will mean 80 glade guard won't be off the books


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## maddermax

Bretonnians will have a hard time of it, I think. I've been looking at the new rules, and while I think they're pretty good generally, they're not going to be too kind to Bretonnians. In 6th ed. Brets were the most over-powered army in the game. Now, two editions out of date, they might become one of the weakest armies. Though, I still feel confident against Ogre Kingdoms .

*The Blessing:*
The Ward Save granted to Bretonnian Knights has frustrated many of my opponents. If the new version only allows either a ward save OR an armour save (as rumored, anyone know for sure?), then it might be an idea not to pray at all against some enemies, but take the chance to go first instead. This change will hurt, as it's the only thing keeping me alive against some opponents.

*Charging:*
With random charge ranges, it becomes less certain if you will get a charge in, which is absolutely essential for Bretonnian Knights. To get a 90% certainty of charging a group of infantry, we have to be within 14". A unit of M4 infantry will be able to charge that far 10% of the time. This means that we'll usually have at least a 10% - 20% chance of charge failure at the best of times, and much higher chance of being charged before they get the chance. The Virtue of the Impetuous Knight just became far better, with the ability to charge an extra D6", which would make the average charge range 22".

Being able to march even if within 8" of an enemy will help us get into better flank positions though, so that's very handy.

*
Magic:*
The magic phase might be an interesting change. I'll have to check it out, but all I can say is that it might make Bretonnian magic occasionally effective. I'll wait to see what the new magic lores look like. I don't know how it might affect Brets otherwise, though defensively it can't be that much worse than it is now. The option to take a dispel scroll, and another item which works like a dispel scroll, will give us a bit more anti-magic than some other armies can muster. I also need to find out how Magic Resistance works, because that will be key to how well Brets will survive 8th Ed. magic.

*Shooting:*
The Trebuchet might become slightly more effective, and might be worth taking more often. Archers will be lined up two deep, which will make them easier to fit into a battle line. Both of these changes are pretty minor though, as Bretonnian shooting is never that crash hot.

However, being shot at has become significantly worse. Going against a shooty army will now become a knightmare (see what I did there?), with even more shots coming in, and no blessing save. Handgunners, crossbows and the like will be even more horrible to take on. Generally, the prognosis is not good for taking on more shooty armies...

*Combat:*
Pros - 
The lance formation keeps us as the most effective knights in the game. We'll still have a lot of decent strength hits on the charge.

Cons -
Bretonnians currently rely on the charge to do serious damage to an enemy. On the charge, knights are awesome, off the charge, they're very weak. We usually try to break enemies on the charge, and if we fail to do that, we'll have a very hard fight. Two things are going to interfere with this a lot. Firstly, chargers don't always strike first, which means against some enemies, we might be beaten to a pulp before we get to even use those attacks.

Secondly, Brets have quite a bit of trouble against Stubborn or Unbreakable enemies. With the new more ranks= stubborn rule, We'll probably be bouncing off solid walls of infantry a lot more. Our lance formation will help somewhat, but we'll still usually be out-ranked by fully ranked units. I'll expect to use a lot more large (12 knight) units, but still, when you lose a few, you'll be outranked, the enemy stubborn, and next turn it'll become a slog fest, with your flanks being very exposed. 

We still have more manoeuvrability than other enemies though, so we might have an easier time getting into opponents flanks, but it's going to be tough going.

*Units:*
I'll be interested to see how Knights Errant work out in the new edition. Currently, they're the cheapest knight, and they have ItP on the charge, which has made them invaluable to most bret players. However, they're only WS/I 3, so a lot of enemies will decimate them through strength or number of attacks, before they get to strike back. They are also required to charge, if able, and they fail a LD test. How this works with random charge ranges, I have no idea, but I'm assuming it would work the same as with frenzy.

Questing knights become a better option, as apparently you now get +2str for great weapons while mounted (instead of the +1 str. currently). It will make them a very handy unit again, especially when you consider that combat will usually take longer against stubborn opponents, so I'll probably be picking up a few.

Our brave, yet crappy, infantry (Men-At-Arms) will probably become a more viable option in the new edition. Fully ranked units will be far better now, but they're still rather poor compared to infantry from other armies. They'll be much more valuable with the new edition altogether.
*
Overall:*
Not great, the blessing, lack of charge certainty, enemies being able to strike first on the charge, more shooting and more stubborn opponents will make life very difficult for Bretonnians. Our knights have certainly become overpriced for what you get now. It's not all bad though, our weaker magic might become somewhat effective, Questing knights are going to be far more valuable, and Bretonnians will still be one of the most manoeuvrable armies in the game, which will help to overcome some of the downsides. I'll have to try a few games, and see how we go


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

neilbatte said:


> Its actually a 50% cap on characters lords 25% heros 25% a 25%minimum for core 50%max special and 25% max rare so you can play your Helfs happilly at 2k.
> The only rule I really don't like is that special weapons like spears, halberds etc have to be used so no more turtling up with hwp and sheild when you get charged by something scary although this will stop the chaos warrior armies choosing the best weapon for the job, How this affects Ogres iron fists and Black orcs armed to da teef is as yet unclear.


My friend you made my day 

That I can use both my characters, combined with 50% max special (I was dreading 25%) I should be actually able to make a very nice list. Now just to see whats in the starter.


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## LukeValantine

Any thoughts on VC? All I can say is the new rules seem worakable with VC, since I can counter balance the some of the new magic targeting heroes, by taking a vampire lord, or wight king as my general (?). As for the changes in CC it really doesn't affect my army build, since I more or less just used 3X25 bricks of spear skellies supported by 2 corpse charts anyways.


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## KarlFranz40k

Have they lifted the restrictions on the number of heroes you can take? Is the only limit points now? If that's the case I could try spamming cheap heroes. Empire captain with full plate and a great weapon comes to 62 points I think, so you could fit 4 of those in a 1000 point battle.

Not too sure if its competitive or not, although having them each babysit a large block of swords or spears could be a viable tactic.


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## Blue Liger

KF40k it would mean high LD all round if that rule hasn't changed


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## Cheese meister

you get both ward saves and i fear the norm in 8th will be big units of monsters and as with tomb king magic you will all have 2 wait 4 an errata as they are bound spells and you have 2 meet the value 4 bound spells now so wait and see


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## Sethis

I've just built a Dark Elf list that looks like this -

Level 4 Sorceress (+1 Dispel Dice, +1 Spell known, Familiar)
Level 2 Sorceress (+1 Power Dice, Scroll)
24 Crossbowmen - Command
19 Spearmen - Command, Banner of +1 Combat Res
10 Cold One Knights - Command, Banner of Armor Piercing, Magic Resistence (1)
2 Bolt Throwers

1498 points, and legal in terms of percentages. Also the Cheesiest army I've written in a very long time. Not sure if having seperate percentages for lords and heroes, and having no points limit for Lords was a bad move on GW's part. I guess we'll see.

No idea if this will do well or not, I have yet to play any games with the new ruleset, but I figure + Power and Dispel dice is the way forwards with Magic.


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## mynameisgrax

You can take both armor and ward saves, but only the best ward save applies, so you don't have a reason to take a shield if they can get the save from somewhere else. Also, you can't take both a ward save and a regeneration save. It's one or the other.

You aren't restricted by slots, but you can only have up to 3 of the same unit of special choices (or 6 if the game is 3000+ points), and 2 of the same unit of rare choices (or 4 if the game is 3000+ points). 

Particular armies didn't lose out as much as particular unit types and strategies lost out. The armies that probably lost the most were Vampire Counts, Chaos Daemons, Lizardmen, and Wood Elves, but each of them gained enough of something else to still be more than competitive.

The big changes are:

1. The maximum number of power dice and dispel dice is more limited, although casters now add their level to the casting/dispelling rolls, so you're better off taking less, but more powerful spellcasters, rather than spamming them. Also, you're limited to 1 dispel scroll per list.

2. Cavalry doesn't work as well, since in order to negate your opponent's rank bonus, you need to have a full 2 ranks AFTER the close combat is finished. That means you either have to have about 12-15 models in the cavalry unit, or just use them to hunt war machines and small units.

3. Skirmishers got really powered down. You have to keep them in a set formation, with about a half inch gap between each model, and enemies rank up to them, not the other way around. They still get bonuses to shooting and moving through terrain though.

4. If a unit has more ranks then its opponent in close combat, they are stubborn. If what I've heard is correct, they can't lose this, even if their rank bonus is denied by a flanking enemy unit. Despite some early rumors, the stubborn rule is the same.

5. Getting the assault is more random, but not as important. I think this has pretty much been covered already.

6. Fear/Terror isn't nearly the threat it used to be, and as an indirect result, immunity to fear/panic isn't that important either. Fear only affects WS in close combat, and although Terror still allows you to potentially panic units you charge, it probably won't matter because...

7. The BSB allows all allied units within 12in to re-roll ALL leadership checks. This makes fear/panic completely useless when you assault the core of your opponent's army. I'm pretty sure the BSB is going to become mandatory in most armies now.

8. Standards are far more important. This is because most, if not all the missions revolve around them. Only units with standards can claim objectives, making them the 'troops' of warhammer fantasy. As a result, units that can't take standards are now far less useful. On a side note, capturing an enemy standard is now only worth 25 points, although the BSB is still worth 100.


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## edd_thereaper

may I just add that units with ranks 10 wide get the horde rule(I think thats what its called) and that give the unti bonuses and i think it allows more people to attack

cheers

edd


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## Settra

fera dosent auto break you anymore but you have to take leadership tests every player turn for ws1  flaming attacks are now much more effective  as wel as affecting flamable units, they make you cause fear to enemt caveraly, chariots and beats (chaos hounds etc) also when assulating/shooting at a unit in a building models with flamming attacks can reroll to wound 

brets ar estill a good army with high armour and ward (since pracicly every standard block of infantr has lost an armour and gained a 6+ ward) brets havent realy suffered at all  

i can predict that their will be more armies centered around one BIG wizard (empire players, balsthagelt is now dirty  i know ALL the spells for lore of metal and get +6 to cast!!! yay  their will also be more units of monsters and ranked up ogres, and less blocks of ten caverly to take on all comers, 

big blocks of infantry are effective but the classic block of 20-25 is still very effective 

and the new common magic items are great  make my tk lords xo much more harder, 7 str5 attacks every turn  and for one turn 7 str8 attacks 

for tk's we will have to wait untill errtta explains how teh magic will work for us, it is unclear in teh book, oh and ogres are now a GOOD army


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## Skartooth

Only army I can really comment on is the greenskins as they are the only army that I play. I definately think that they will change for the better. Large units of Night Goblins will cause tons of damage. The new % means will will finally be able to field large numbers of chariots and war machines. We will also be able to field lots of cheap hero's for more Ld and extra damage:so_happy:

Skar


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## neilbatte

My old out of date chaos dwarfs get a big boost from this edition, Accurate artillery solid infantry blocks, Hordes of hobgoblins. even the hobgob cavalry get better. The only unit that takes a hit is the Bullcentaurs (And I never could afford them on ebay anyway.)
I even get some magic items now so I can equip my cheap ld 10 heros a lot better.


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## Captain Stillios

Now with all of the magic improvements if you take Teclis with lore of fire then a lvl 2 fire wizard, Fire wizard casts first, Fire feeds fire makes fire easier to cast, Teclis then magic rapes your opponents army.


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## Tim/Steve

Ogres- at first glance they have a huge boost from having ranks on units 3 wide, stomp attacks and 3 attacks from the 2nd ranks, the big *but* here is that charges no longer negate initiative... so ogres are almost always going to get hit first, and the plain fact is that against so many armies/units just do too much damage for them. Flank charges get rid of that but MSU flank charges dont matter and it'll be easier to manouver to stop flankers... especially if we start playing larger games (when your own units protect your flanks).

Wood Elves- Im not really sure how they'll be affected since I havent really played an 8th ed game with them... but tree singing is now almost useless (true line of sight, anyone can march through terrain)- still good for tree surfing and might cause a few extra wounds but it wont slow the enemy down. Fast cav is out so I dont know if glade riders are going to do anything, and march blocking isnt going to work.. meaning everyone else is going to be moving far quicker.


High Elves- I haven't used my HE in 8th, and I dont intend to unless the other person really deserves it. Teclis is now the single most broken lord in the game (he can pretty much get 2 auto-casts a turn, every turn without worrying about enemy magical defences or miscasts). Hoard units of spearmen and LSG are almost beond evil (50+ attacks at WS4 I5 ASF... meaning that they hit most things first, hit on a 4+ and then have a reroll... sure they are only S3 but they have enough attacks to kill almost everything (and then have high Ld and stubborn vs most enemies)... then you have the 50% of the army in the special selections that'll bring a smile to the face of any HE player.


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## the-graven

I agree that Teclis is getting a little bit broken, but well warhammer was never *completely* balanced


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## Lord Sinkoran

right just one question.

is my warrior of chaos cavelry army gunna be effective?


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## neilbatte

Lord Sinkoran said:


> right just one question.
> 
> is my warrior of chaos cavelry army gunna be effective?


In one word no.
it may still work as the knights still have good stats and armour but they will be a lot slower and less likely to break through the big units.
Added to this the marauders and hounds all suffer under the new rules so will not be as effective.


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## Lord Sinkoran

neilbatte said:


> In one word no.
> it may still work as the knights still have good stats and armour but they will be a lot slower and less likely to break through the big units.
> Added to this the marauders and hounds all suffer under the new rules so will not be as effective.


sigh. how about a warrior infantry army?


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord

As I understand it my VC are completely fucked, though I haven't read the rulebook, it's just what I've been told.

So how have VC been affected?


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## Shadow Hawk

Magic mainly I think. If the lord, the main caster miscasts then they have to roll on the new miscast table which is horrible, S6 hit on every caster is the kindest roll. Losing the lord is bad for VC, they rely on their general a lot.

Although ,the lore of death has gotten better, it is possible to keep casting because for every 1 wound caused by magic, you get 1 power die back and with the new rules it is possible to cast as much as you can (feel free to correct me on this, I only had a quick look in store).


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## Tim/Steve

Double 6 on casting is irrisistable (sp.. sigh) force but also miscast (no 1,1 auto-fail+miscast now)... and miscasts are lethal.
The biggest problem for VC is that if you roll a natural 1 or 2 total (so 1, 2 or 1+1) that wizard is done for the phase- means VC spamming will need a lot of vampires to pull off (you can still spam but 1 in every 3 casts will stop that vamp from casting).

If VC do manage to spam cast raise spells (personally I would just go for raise undead hoard) then you'll have many big units, pumping out huge numbers of attacks regardless of the damage they've taken, and if they do ever win a fight then you'll have the ranks to negate any enemy's stubborn ability (which will hurt a lot of cavalry or elite armies).


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## Skartooth

> Wood Elves- Im not really sure how they'll be affected since I havent really played an 8th ed game with them... but tree singing is now almost useless (true line of sight, anyone can march through terrain)- still good for tree surfing and might cause a few extra wounds but it wont slow the enemy down. Fast cav is out so I dont know if glade riders are going to do anything, and march blocking isnt going to work.. meaning everyone else is going to be moving far quicker.


That is such a shame. I was seriously considering starting them as an army. All those aspects you stated above are all the reaons I like the army. Without them I think there ain't much point. Ach well I shall stick to the greenskins:laugh:

Skar


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord

Hmm the new rules sound pretty cool. Dare I enter my local GW and have a glance?


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## Settra

vampires have "changed" in my opinion, not suffered, they have master of the black arts for one meaning they will be one of the few armies that will get guarente dice  also teh miscats chart is nasty, to wizards in units, double one doesnt automaticly kill the wizard now i beleive, its a 50/50 chance  also vampire lord, take the lore of death, master of the black arts, cause wounds get dice use two dice for raising  most armies still wont be able to counter that much raising. so in my opinion they have changed, not suffered


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## Khorothis

Whoa, I just read a page earlier that WoC-cav just got useless. Any alternatives so far? I'm asking because I won't be going to our LGS anytime soon (exams, duh), so I can't talk it over with my more learned friends there.


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## The Wraithlord

Yeah I am not overly happy with that idea either as my WoC army is all cav backed up by 2 units of Warriors.


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## Khorothis

I just thought of this: if I remember correctly, the shield+CCW combo gives you a ward save, rather than upgrading your armour save like it used to. Now if I give them MoT, would that mean that increase said ward save?

EDIT: another thing. With the increased usefulness of infantry, will the Chosen become the new Knights?


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## Tim/Steve

Knights didnt lose their usefulness... but they arent good with lances anymore. The knights will kill a huge number of most enemies and then be hard to kill, but they are going to get stuck in combat far more so lances arent as good. Basically you are looking at cutting down any enemy unit down to less then 5 models in additional ranks before they are going to start breaking with any reliability.

The shield ward save doesnt add onto any other ward save... except the MoT which increases the ward save of a model by +1. So a MoT warrior with shield will have 3+/5++ save in combat.
Im not sure that shields work the same way on mounted models...


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## Cheese meister

teclis will die horribly in the new rules and no you are still effected by terrain in regards to wood elves the thing is eternal gaurd are now better


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## Cheese meister

2 dice are not needed for raising either just sensible if you get 2 your last caster


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## Tim/Steve

Cheese meister said:


> teclis will die horribly in the new rules and no you are still effected by terrain in regards to wood elves the thing is eternal gaurd are now better


Teclis is going to laugh at everyone, but might die depending on if you can use feedback scrolls on irrisistable forces. If not then I would just roll 6 dice at 2 spells a turn (with teclis and probably banner of sorcery you should have 12 dice) almost certainly giving you an irrisistable force (using tecli's rules of any non 1 double being irrisistable). Nothing says those are miscast (need to double check but I think the BRB says only double 6s cause miscast) and if you do get 66 then Teclis will ignore the first result anyway. So to take damage you need to roll 66 on the first cast and then risk and get a 66 on teh second cast too...

Terrain is less important- everyone can march through terrain without movement rate penalties. So before if I put a forest in front of some men they could only move 2" through it, now they can move 8", get out the other side and since tree singing stops the forest 1" away from the unit I cant move it back in front. TLoS means that unless you have exceptionally thick (and low) foliage on your forests that you'll be able to see through it- remember that only 1 model in the unit needs to be able to see the target.



Cheese meister said:


> 2 dice are not needed for raising either just sensible if you get 2 your last caster


Yup, if you have multiple vampires then roll 1 dice, it'll either cast of end the vampire for a turn... with 4 vampires yous should still get to roll 12 dice before they all finish. The but there is that is on average and sometimes you'll roll 4 successive 1s and do nothing (hell I've managed an ogre magic phase with 8PD casting everything on a 3+ and still failed to cast a single one... my opponent didnt even need his DD).
Mostly I would just split my dice into 2-3 piles and roll them at raise undead hoard... little bit of luck could see you healing vamps and getting a big unit or 2 of zombies every single turn


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## LukeValantine

I was under the impression that miscast and irresistible go hand in hand in 8th (Mind you they will probably errata stuff like irresistible from items when 8th comes out). If so then yes he would die fairly fast, mind you the few spells he would get off would be unstoppable.


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

How would he die fast? He ignores the first Miscast each turn, so even if his double-anything is miscast, you just throw 6 Dice, cast a big spell, and then use smaller mages to cast the rest of your PD. One ultimate spell per turn is deadly enough.


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## Settra

he dies because the wording is that when an irristable force is cast, you suffer a miscast, so if teclis gets an doubles he miscasts and irristable forces, yes he ignores the first one but then he is at serious risk to himself and any unit he is in  and since the most freindly result is a str6 hit and D6 dice lost from teh pool, the chart is very nasty . and yeah i cast one BIG speel a turn, for my 475 point wizard??? even the 6th spell on lore of beasts isnt worth that


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## Draenus

Yes teclis ignores the 1st miscast every turn so cast an upgraded spell like comet of cassandora ?spelling.If u miscast so what u cause damage and ignore the miscast and u do that every turn he will be sick lol.


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## Tim/Steve

There are still ways round that for the HE- so Teclis can almost certainly get 1 highest level spell off every turn without worry, but then you could do things like take a mage with the staff of solidity if you want to use a lot of dice for a second spell... or just laugh at magical ramifications by taking a BSB with banner of the world dragon, miscasting and then ignoring any and all effects of it regardless of Teclis's normal resistances (not to mention the effects if another mage miscasts and causes wounds to all friendly mages).


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## stevenhassell

> Now with all of the magic improvements if you take Teclis with lore of fire then a lvl 2 fire wizard, Fire wizard casts first, Fire feeds fire makes fire easier to cast, Teclis then magic rapes your opponents army


from what i understand teclis is the worst guy to take... any dobles go off as I.F. which means he has to roll on the misshap chart... I.F. is not all ways a good thing any more


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## Tim/Steve

The "from what I understand" part there is what you are missing. Teclis needs to roll on the mishap table if he rolls any double other then 1, but he ignores the first result rolled (once for each turn of teh game). On the old mishap table if he rolled a double 1 (after miscasting) then his protections were ignored and he blew himself to pieces... but I dont think there is anything in there anymore that ignores protections.

The bonus items that I mentioned have other helpful abilities- the Staff of Solidity ignores the first miscast (and since you would have it on a normal mage it means you dont roll on the miscast table until your second double 6 of the game) and the Banner of teh World Dragon which makes the unit the BSB is in (and all characters joined to it) totally immune to the affects of all spells, regardless of the source. Since the miscast is an affect of the spell any mage's in the WOrld Dragon's unit would miscast but wouldn't take any of the penalties- downside of the world dragon is that it must be taken on a BSB and is quite expensive so really the unit must reach combat (or at least have the BSB boost units in combat) to be properly helpful... additionally taking it means you dont have teh battle banner, which is my favourate choice (although HE BSB's are going to be horribly vulnerable in the new rules- I might have to finish converting and painting my mounted BSB).


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

Settra said:


> he dies because the wording is that when an irristable force is cast, you suffer a miscast, so if teclis gets an doubles he miscasts and irristable forces, yes he ignores the first one but then he is at serious risk to himself and any unit he is in  and since the most freindly result is a str6 hit and D6 dice lost from teh pool, the chart is very nasty . and yeah i cast one BIG speel a turn, for my 475 point wizard??? even the 6th spell on lore of beasts isnt worth that


He adds D3 Extra dice for dispel and Power Dice as well.


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## stevenhassell

you guys realise that there is no miscast really any more... its more like explosive succsess but with negitive effects. so now dble 1 mean nothing. if you cast IF you have to roll on the IF table and it can have advers effects. so teclis who cast IF on any dbl roll will be making alot of rolls on that chart, its not a misscast so its not ignored untill clarifiyed... and its not worded in the book you roll on the IF table when you roll dbl 6 it says rolling dbl 6 cause IF, when you cast IF roll on the IF table. but then agien i dont have the new book in hand yet... just read through it at the local store.teclis was a descussion me and my friends borught up and thought to answer when we had book in hand. but we all concluded that it must be fixed when the errata for the high elves comes out cause it really broke him with the new magic. i got both types of books pre ordered, and they will be with me every were i go for the first month..lol.


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## Cheese meister

no the wording in the english copy is you suffer the effects of irrisistable force and a miscast and double 1 effects teclis 2 looking at the book now but why not a basic archmage at level 4 with +1 to cast dispel and choose spells


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## Styro-J

Well, does the miscast damage count as magic damage? So a unit with magic resistance would get a ward save from it? So how about Phoenix Guard led by their respective Hero Character? Wouldn't they effectively get a 2+ (since 1's always fail) Ward save from spill over magic damage?


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## Tim/Steve

Its certainly a spell effect... and I would think its magical damage to boot.


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## Sethis

I'd be very disinclined to count Miscasts as a spell effect, with all the protection that you can get against it.

That said, I am going into town today so I can read the Rulebook and the High Elf codex and find out for myself.


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## Cheese meister

nope but to be honest as some people have already said take a caster stick him in a unit with the world banner and stomp on faces


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## Khorothis

Ah well, the rest of us will just have to slaughter you pointy-ears and stack up on DDs, so we can actually get that far.  Though truth to be told, I'd really like to see an errata regarding this, because if it is magical damage then everyone will go for ward saves like theres no tomorrow and getting a miscast will often have no consequences. On the other hand, if it is pure "fuck you" damage, then you won't see too many casters on the board and we'll enjoy Conan-style battles 'till 9th. Which might not be a problem for me but I imagine VoC would raise an eyebrow at the very least. So yeah, lets wait for that errata methinks.


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## Tim/Steve

Ward saves arent going to help against some of the damage- the low results kill the mage outright on a 4+ (as well as having a S10 large blast). Its only really those units that have ward saves as well as magic resistance that'll really enjoy magic immunity- a 4++ ward from MR3 is nice but still 50% dead... while a flesh hound or caradryan phoenix guard unit's 2++ means they are likely to almost ignore any direct damage magic


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## Sethis

Khorothis said:


> Ah well, the rest of us will just have to slaughter you pointy-ears and stack up on DDs, so we can actually get that far.  Though truth to be told, I'd really like to see an errata regarding this, because if it is magical damage then everyone will go for ward saves like theres no tomorrow and getting a miscast will often have no consequences. On the other hand, if it is pure "fuck you" damage, then you won't see too many casters on the board and we'll enjoy Conan-style battles 'till 9th. Which might not be a problem for me but I imagine VoC would raise an eyebrow at the very least. So yeah, lets wait for that errata methinks.


Nope, it just means that casters will be less inclined to stand in the front rank of combat units, and more likely to hide behind said units or ride around on a mount by themselves.

Although it does lead to hysterical "Wizard Bombs" where you put a minimum level wizard in the front rank of your disposable unit and the turn he gets into combat go for a 6-power dice spell hoping for the miscast to turn his shiny combat unit (and your own, rather less shiny, combat unit) into geography.

/starts plotting goblin/skaven army list based around this tactic... :laugh:


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## effigy22

Sethis said:


> Nope, it just means that casters will be less inclined to stand in the front rank of combat units, and more likely to hide behind said units or ride around on a mount by themselves.
> 
> Although it does lead to hysterical "Wizard Bombs" where you put a minimum level wizard in the front rank of your disposable unit and the turn he gets into combat go for a 6-power dice spell hoping for the miscast to turn his shiny combat unit (and your own, rather less shiny, combat unit) into geography.
> 
> /starts plotting goblin/skaven army list based around this tactic... :laugh:


Considering this, how many wizards are you now going to see converted to have dynamite strapped to their chest's? Suicide wizard bomber!!


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## Sethis

Played my first game of the new edition today, 1500pt DE vs 1500pt Dwarf. Thoughts:

- Dark Elf Magic is still very good. The auto-failing on a natural 1 or 2 is aggravating for trying to use Power of Darkness, you basically have to spend 2 dice on it or risk a 1/3 chance of that wizard not doing anything else that turn. When you roll snake eyes for the winds, that's not good.

- Not sure mathematically, but the +2 to Dispel from Dwarves seems less powerful than the +2 Dice they used to have.

- Spells are random, and silly, and totally devestating when they work. I managed to hit a unit of Ironbreakers with Purple Sun (small blast, Initiative check or die) and Black Horror (Large blast, Strength check or die). That was fun. On the other hand my level 4 failed at a critical juncture by rolling snake eyes for her Power of Darkness as her first spell of the turn, which prevented me from doing anything meaningful at all that turn. I also rolled a lot of 6s and 1s, leaving the Dwarf player with 6 Dispel dice.

- Some things never change. I lost the game simply because of my 8 Cold Ones failing their stupidity check on the turn they should have charged. It's nice to know that things like this still happen.

- Getting a reform even if you lose the combat (with a successful leadership test) and being stubborn if you have more ranks is very good now. My unit of 24 Crossbowmen with full command held for a turn against 4 Ironbreakers, Lord and unit of Dwarf Warriors, when previously they would have been broken from the Lords kills alone. Expect to see units of 25+ Missile troops with commands reforming and supporting spearmen/swordsmen blocks with flank charges if they don't have a good shooting target.

Overall, it seems to be a large improvement on previous editions. Play is smoother, and the game was more enjoyable than most. Less nit-picking about rules and more about having fun (even with my terrible luck).

On the Teclis thing, the rulebook says that entries that say you Miscast or Irrisistable Force under certain circumstances will not cause the other as well. Teclis will not miscast on any double apart from 6s, he'll just be Irresistable. Ring of Hotek will not make spells Irrisistable on any double, you just miscast in addition to the spell.

Also, things like the Banner of the World Dragon and Magic Resistance specifically say "Spells and Spell effects". Miscasts are not Spells, and are not Spell Effects, so neither will protect you from the S10 hits of doom.


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## Tim/Steve

A miscast is the effect of rolling 6,6 for a spell... its an effectof casting the spell, but regardless if Teclis/book of hoeth only miscast on double 6s then it doenst matter too much at all.


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## Sethis

Tim/Steve said:


> A miscast is the effect of rolling 6,6 for a spell... its an effectof casting the spell, but regardless if Teclis/book of hoeth only miscast on double 6s then it doenst matter too much at all.


Nope, sorry.

Spell effect = What is written in the Spell Description after you successfully cast it.

If I miscast while casting Fireball, the Spell Effect is that I cause X hits on Target Unit. The effect of rolling 2 or more sixes means that I roll on the Miscast table

A Miscast (and the damage arising as a result) is an effect of rolling too many sixes, not the Fireball spell itself.

Hopefully it'll get FAQed when the book is actually released.


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

Teclis will be a beast! All doubles are irresistible, no double 1 auto-fail (Unless your only rolling 2D6) and if you roll double 6 you ignore the first miscast.


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord

Nice to hear the game's faster with less rule arguments. I'm actually hearing lots of good things about this edition.


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## Tim/Steve

Its faster and good fun, but I it relies much more upon writing a good list and luck rather then actual on-table skill... manouvering to get a flank charge is now almost impossible unless you isolate enemy units and surround them (ok setup is also important) and teh charger matters much much less in this edition so you'll get a lot of beardy units that can just march up to the enemy and laugh as they cannot manouver their way out of a fight.

I think the real skill will be in judging the size of units for the game you are playing- at 2k my friend is currently running a unit of 30 (10*3) WoC with shields, halberds mark of slaanesh (dunno why not nurgle, probably cost). That unit will kill anything I've heard of in front-front combat since it puts out 41 WS5 S5 I5 attacks and then has T4 4+AS (it beat 2 empire units by +24CR in the last game I saw)... now this is an awesome unit, but its misbalanced since its a very large portion of his army. My WE just abused the auto-challenge rule of WoC with a treeman ancient but Im really looking forward to playing it with my ogres- I'll have 4 units that are running round the board, none of which can take that unit head on, but all of which will shread it if they get into the flank, and since its so massively expensive the rest of the army is of little import and is almost unable to compete with my units (except his tzeentch sorcerers).
- finding the balance between numbers of units and strength of unit is going to be tricky, but a bit of playtesting will help it through (I'm just thinking about a unit of 18+ ogres currently- my 3k has 2 unit of 9 bulls, but if I join them together I save 30pts on command and then put out 54 S4 AP attacks plus S6 impacts and S4 stomps against anyone that is 160mm wide or more... but I'll need to keep buffs on it as much as possible and guard the flanks, and at 3k it leaves me with only a few units (660pt unit).


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## Creon

Since they've promised FAQs for all races on release day, I don't see the issue. We'll find out fine details then.


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## boreas

Tim/Steve said:


> ...you'll get a lot of beardy units that can just march up to the enemy and laugh as they cannot manouver their way out of a fight.
> 
> I think the real skill will be in judging the size of units for the game you are playing- at 2k my friend is currently running a unit of 30 (10*3) WoC with shields, halberds mark of slaanesh (dunno why not nurgle, probably cost). That unit will kill anything I've heard of in front-front combat since it puts out 41 WS5 S5 I5 attacks and then has T4 4+AS (it beat 2 empire units by +24CR in the last game I saw)... now this is an awesome unit, but its misbalanced since its a very large portion of his army.


I haven't played WFB in 4-5 years (only 40k), but the new edition seems promising. I wonder though, don't objective-base missions make it a bad choice to take a uber-unit? After all, your 30 WoC won't be able to catch my 3 units of skink cohorts while the go camp 3 objectives? Mind you, I haven't seen the book (ordered it, though)...

Phil


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## stevenhassell

> it relies much more upon writing a good list and luck rather then actual on-table skill


IM so screwed...lol My maine tacttic has always been table skill... my frinds sweat bulits when i feild empire with guns cause of my calibrated eyes and never miss charge range guessing...lol guess i need to think more on army construction.. but i blame army builder for my lack of skill in that


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## Sethis

stevenhassell said:


> IM so screwed...lol My maine tacttic has always been table skill... my frinds sweat bulits when i feild empire with guns cause of my calibrated eyes and never miss charge range guessing...lol guess i need to think more on army construction.. but i blame army builder for my lack of skill in that


Given that there is now no such thing as guessing ranges (you can premeasure everything), I think you'll have to work on other areas to dominate in! :laugh:


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## Blue Liger

Like the all important 8th edition beauty pageant phase!


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## Cheese meister

i absolutley hate the no guess range that rule made sense so we have said we will keep it and don't like the siphoning dice either a lv4 will do this much easier than a lv1 imo and you cannot premeasure still


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## jigplums

i dont know why people find the cant cast on roll of 1 or 2, as that was already a rule previously.
although now that does stop you casting any more spells that turn.

and i agree with the sentiment that vc have changed. Its interesting now that you actually start the game with a proper army rather than some characters and 3 minimum sized units.

Blocks of ghouls can actually dish out some nasty damage, so i think starting with say 20, raising up to 30/40 and reforming to a hoard could be a valid tactic. There an article in this months wd about building a VC army. wonder if they put that in because the dynamics of the army have changed so much?


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord

With the changes to fear, ghouls are much 'bang-for-their-buck' than skellies, cause they don't need to rely on fear autobreak. The extra point of initiative will also even the playing field a bit against other I3's.


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## neilbatte

Having seen the rules and tested the Empire there are a few things I've noticed.
Plenty of cheap characters adds a bit of resilience to a solid troop force.
Swordsmen are still better than the other state troops unless your fighting low initiative armies.
Hochland longrifles when taken in bulk can seriously upset magic reliant armies as it's easier to kill the wizards or at least the ones that have the important spells.
Mortars and hellstorm rocket batteries can now hit and kill loads more making them worth taking.
Cavalry is less effective although outriders can still be used as artillery protection.
Still no reason to take archers as skirmish and LOS (screening) less important.
The volleygun is still crap.
Flaggellants less of a speedbump as more attacks against = dead flaggies.
Greatswords are almost a default choice now as they are the only mainstay unit that can survive getting hit first.
Unless your happy with detachments of 20 I can't see a real future for them as they won't do enough against the bigger units to make a difference and with wider units and random charge range it's a lot harder to hit the flanks.


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## Tim/Steve

ChaosRedCorsairLord said:


> With the changes to fear, ghouls are much 'bang-for-their-buck' than skellies, cause they don't need to rely on fear autobreak. The extra point of initiative will also even the playing field a bit against other I3's.


The new fear rules see the end of the auto-break but enemies do test every combat phase, and failing a fear test now makes you WS1 rather then hitting on 6s... I know that at first glance that looks pretty bad for fear causers but I was finding that hitting enemies on a 3+ is really very helpful, and in prolonged combats its great (and if everyone uses as many units with stupid numbers of ranks like the guy I played the other day then there will be a lot of long combats).


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord

Tim/Steve said:


> The new fear rules see the end of the auto-break but enemies do test every combat phase, and failing a fear test now makes you WS1 rather then hitting on 6s... I know that at first glance that looks pretty bad for fear causers but I was finding that hitting enemies on a 3+ is really very helpful, and in prolonged combats its great (and if everyone uses as many units with stupid numbers of ranks like the guy I played the other day then there will be a lot of long combats).


Your absolutely right. I was commenting that ghouls, are poised to take greater advantage of this change.


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## Sethis

Fear changes basically mean that you can no longer expect to kill enemy units with Skeletons or Zombies, best you can do is either lock them until you get a good charge or speedbump enemy units.

I know everyone's going to say "But Zombies never killed anything anyway!!" but if you charged 20+ Fear causing models with 4 ranks and Standard into a smaller unit, you had at least a chance of them fluffing their attacks, losing by 1 or so and breaking. Now if they lose by one, they don't care, and you spend the next 4 turns losing every round of combat because you're the worst infantry in the game. I see Ghouls becoming the new staple, easily.

I would run Empire detachments of 15, as this lets them take 5 casualties and still deny rank bonuses, as well as contributing a full rank to your main unit for the purposes of determining Stubborn.

Also bear in mind that against flank charges, you do not get the 6+ Ward from hand weapon and shield, nor do you get to fight in multiple ranks, so if you can lodge 10-15 halberdiers (or whatever) into their side, they might feasibly help your combat res more than the big unit you have at the front.


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## Settra

Monsters can now assulat buildings , so can caverly now, but they get no charging bounesses as in 7th edition and they dont get their armour save for being mounted :/ including barding


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## geneticdeviant

How have the new rules affected Lizardmen? Are they now viable?


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## Masked Jackal

They were already viable as I recall, but with the new edition, their magic is going to be seriously nerfed apparently.


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord

stead of shadow + engine of the gods = alot of hurt.


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## Tim/Steve

Engine of the gods with an arabyan carpet (flying).... march 20" and then pop burbing alignment, every single turn.

I dont think that lizards magic has got weaker at all- an average round of magic should see teh lizards with about 8PD and the opposition with about 4DD, now the lizard can use all those dice for a slaan and roll 2 dice at 4 different spells... getting a free PD for each one so each spell roles an average of 14.5 for each. Add that to the new, nastier lores of magic (of which the slaan can pick any he pleases) and you have a lot of damage being done (just dont cast purple sun from death out of a unit of temple guard unless yu want to kill 2-4 of your own guys).


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

What is this "Purple Sun" I keep hearing about? 6th spell from Death no doubt?


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## the-graven

Yeah I thought so, it's some sort of vortex(i guess you'll use a template), it will scatter an amount equal to artillery die x 3, and everything it passes over will take serious damage, I don't have rulebook, but I heared it has great potential to kill a lot of models and you'll get PD back cuz of death lore special(when you kill a model roll a die on 5+ you get a PD), I could very well be wrong, so someone with the BRB plz correct me


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## deathbringer

I'm a bit out of date as I haven't gone to my LGS in a while but are we now talking facts or are we still talking in rumours.

I thought the release date was the 10th of July?

Also anyone else thinking 45 quid for the rulebook is a bit extreme?


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord

deathbringer said:


> Also anyone else thinking 45 quid for the rulebook is a bit extreme?


Yes, it's ridiculously extreme.


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## Blueberrypop

I played a game with my ogres yesterday and all I can say is GG...


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## Sethis

Most of it is fact by now.

Purple Sun is the 6th Lore of Death Spell.

Cast on a 15+, you place the Small Blast in base-to-base contact with the caster (in their front arc) and pick a direction. The template travels triple the number rolled on the artillery dice in that direction. It remains in play, and moves by rolling the scatter and artillery dice in the second and subsequent turns. If you roll a misfire on the turn you cast, the template is instead put on the head of the caster and then scatters D6". Any model touched by the template takes an Initiative test or dies, with no saves of any kind allowed (including Ward, Magic Resistance etc). You can turn this spell into the Large Blast template, and then it becomes 25+ to cast.

Basically Azarnipal's Black Horror on steroids. As a passive ability for all Lore of Death Spells, you roll 1D6 for every wound you cause (in the case of Purple Sun, every wound on their profile) and every 5+ you roll grants you another power dice. It's the Lore of choice for my Level 4 Sorceress now. Synergises exceptionally well with the Lore of Shadow, whose signature spell (cast on a 5+ with a 48" range) reduces a units Initiative by D3 (to minimum of 1). Lore of Shadow also has a version of Purple Sun, but it doesn't move around, it's just like a Mortar hit (but same effect).


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## ChaosRedCorsairLord

I'm goin with death & shadow for my VC too. They're just both so useful.


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## mynameisgrax

A lot of people have been worrying about all cavalry WoC, and I agree, they are going to have a lot of trouble. The main problem is they can't roll through armies nearly as well as they used to. Fear has been nerfed, and most units they attack will be stubborn, possibly even with a re-roll to leadership, making them nearly unbreakable.

WoC cavalry still have their place, as they can do a ton of damage and knights can also soak it up very well, but their main targets are now warmachines and smaller hard to reach units. In order to beat blocks of infantry, you need to have 2-4 of your units gang up and simultaneously hit the same unit from multiple sides, and literally whittle them down to the last man.

Personally, I now think Ogres are a very viable choice, since two full rows with great weapons will get 18 attacks with S6, and then 3 attacks that auto-hit with S4. Add on an extra Ogre or two, to bring them up to 7-8 strong, and you've got a really viable unit.


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## Muffinman

Personally I really like 8th edition. I've played 3 games so far with my lizzies and they have all been pretty amusing, especially when you turn Tenhenhuain into a Fire Dragon. I really think that the carnosaur has become alot more viable now because of the new thunderstomp rule, when you can get 6 auto-hit s7 attacks stuff just starts dying. The Slaan is also fairly good too, I took the lore of Death and just kept spam casting the Purple Sun and the higher level and never rolled a miscast (I know I was lucky there). I think that Saurus with hand weapon sheild have become alot more viable because of the ward save instead of +1 to your save, also Skink Skirmishers definetly aren't as good as they were before. My favourite part of 8th ed though would definetly have to be the way terrain works now, I especially like all the different types of terrain with special rules, I think they make the game alot more fun and interesting.


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## Tim/Steve

Im not sure about much of that- why wont my new rulebook arrive already.

I still dont know the difference between a "monster", which would get thunderstomp, and monstrous cavalry, which only gets a stomp. Its pretty obvious that a juggernaut or a great eagle are monsterous cav while something like a steg or a dragon are monsters... but where they draw the line I do not know. It would be wasy to say that its 'large target', but that doesnt really exist anymore...

Skink skirmishers might just have got better- its much much much much more annoying to move them (however came up with those rules should be forced to play an all-skirmish army for life), but they can now get rank bonus, can reform as many times as they like (and reform move no longer counts to total) and can march and shoot... sounds like a bonus to me.


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## Sethis

Tim/Steve said:


> I still dont know the difference between a "monster", which would get thunderstomp, and monstrous cavalry, which only gets a stomp. Its pretty obvious that a juggernaut or a great eagle are monsterous cav while something like a steg or a dragon are monsters... but where they draw the line I do not know. It would be wasy to say that its 'large target', but that doesnt really exist anymore...


Our general rule of thumb for our gaming group is anything on a 40mm base is "Monstrous Cavalry/Infantry" and anything bigger is "Monster". Unless it's obviously bigger, e.g. an old dragon on a smaller base.


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## MidnightSun

Any Irresistable Force cast is also a Miscast, and miscasts are now much nastier. Spells can't be duplicated, as mentioned somewhere above, except for Signature Spells (Fireball for Lore of Fire, Rule of Burning Iron for Lore of Metal etc.). Instead of generating set power dice you roll 2D6 and that's how many the army gets, total. Magic items can change this, but now Level 1 Wizards can cast with 6 power dice. Ogre Magic is now pretty powerful and any race with a seperate Miscast Chart also gets a bit of a magic boost (OnG, for example).

Midnight


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## dougan_2

I don't know if this is right or what-not, but with this thunderstomp (is it?) rule and the attacking in two ranks I see ogre's getting a boost... Any other thoughts?


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## Tim/Steve

Sethis said:


> Our general rule of thumb for our gaming group is anything on a 40mm base is "Monstrous Cavalry/Infantry" and anything bigger is "Monster". Unless it's obviously bigger, e.g. an old dragon on a smaller base.


Rules of thumb are great... but surely there must be something in the new book to spell out the difference, seems a little odd if there isnt (since stomp/thunderstomp is a big difference).



MidnightSun said:


> Any Irresistable Force cast is also a Miscast, and miscasts are now much nastier. Spells can't be duplicated, as mentioned somewhere above, except for Signature Spells (Fireball for Lore of Fire, Rule of Burning Iron for Lore of Metal etc.). Instead of generating set power dice you roll 2D6 and that's how many the army gets, total. Magic items can change this, but now Level 1 Wizards can cast with 6 power dice. Ogre Magic is now pretty powerful and any race with a seperate Miscast Chart also gets a bit of a magic boost (OnG, for example).
> 
> Midnight


Nope, a 6,6 causes irrisistable force and a miscast... its the 6,6 causing them. In fact there is even a little phrase thrown into that section to say that irrisistable force and miscasts can happen independantly of each other (eg ring of hotek and teclis).
Didnt know you could spam sig spells... if so thats really cool. The lore's of magic are pretty much the only bit of the book I havent at least skimmed, mainly because I read snatches to know how to build my armies for 8th... and only my HEs use the magic (and wow are they overpowered so far- its the cupboard for them).

I wouldnt push the ogre miscast table as a preferable alternative to the new table... I would still say that the ogre table is worse (and if the enemy have an infernal puppet then just forget the magic phase). A quick summation of the ogre table:
1= dead, probably going to kill all your other butchers too.
2= not a mage, mebbe dead
3= probably dead
4= lose that spell for ALL butchers
5= nothing much
6= frenzy, yay
So 1/2 the results dont matter too much but its the 1in3 results that are a guarenteed end to being a mage (as well as the no1 result potentially killing all your mages simaltaneously) that really make miscasts very scary for ogres- there are many times when a large blast S10 is preferable (even with a 50-50 instant death chance).


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## Sethis

The new rulebook is actually pretty vague with it's definitions. Things that get the "Stomp" attack are described kind of as "These monsters, while not earth shaking monstrosities, are still far larger than an average soldier" and the "Thunderstop" entitled ones are written like "This catagory includes the biggest types of monster, such as Dragons and ..."

Since the definitions are so unspecific, I'm guessing that a major part of the errata/FAQ to be released at the same time as the rulebook will be a catagorisation of every type of unit in each codex (where the unit is anything but obviously infantry).


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## Khorothis

I'm not so sure about the Magic phase being as powerful as it used to be, since you can never, ever have more power dice than 12 to distribute among your wizards. Another thing that weakens it is the new point limit system, resulting in a very limited amount of wizards (at least compared to the Sorcerer-spam we had ). Also, because wizards can cast multiple spells in a row (unless shit hits the fan), there is also less point in investing into too many of them. For instance, I'm pretty sure that I won't be fielding more than two Sorcerer Lords or 3 simple Sorcerers; theres just no point. Not to mention that your wizards are Achmed in disguise and with an attitude, they can potentially blow away your troops better than the opponents.  So I'd be careful with wizard-spamming in any army. For now. 

About the categorisation of units, theres a section at the end of the new rulebook that has the stats of every unit (heroes included) of every army with their new type. Archaon counts as Monstrous Cavalry for instance... :laugh:


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## maddermax

Khorothis said:


> I'm not so sure about the Magic phase being as powerful as it used to be, since you can never, ever have more power dice than 12 to distribute among your wizards. Another thing that weakens it is the new point limit system, resulting in a very limited amount of wizards (at least compared to the Sorcerer-spam we had ). Also, because wizards can cast multiple spells in a row (unless shit hits the fan), there is also less point in investing into too many of them. For instance, I'm pretty sure that I won't be fielding more than two Sorcerer Lords or 3 simple Sorcerers; theres just no point. Not to mention that your wizards are Achmed in disguise and with an attitude, they can potentially blow away your troops better than the opponents.  So I'd be careful with wizard-spamming in any army. For now.
> 
> About the categorisation of units, theres a section at the end of the new rulebook that has the stats of every unit (heroes included) of every army with their new type. Archaon counts as Monstrous Cavalry for instance... :laugh:


Ah, so the unit categorisation is at least all sorted out, thanks for letting us know 

As for magic, I really agree with you on that. It's going to be better to have a single lvl. 4 caster, with maybe a lvl. 2 offsider, at most, instead of spamming 4 wizards. I do think that some of the special rules for casters in the various army books will now be somewhat broken, Teclis was mentioned earlier, but there are other casters who can get benefits to casting, number of dice and/or ignoring miscasts who will be amazingly good with the new lores and magic rules. 

In general though, I really like the rules, and the way they work. Low magic armies now have an actual chance to do well at casting, instead of what it is now, where you either spam wizards, or only take a scroll caddy, nothing in between. I might even take a lvl. 2 Damsel now, because the new beast and Life laws are actually pretty awesome. If worst comes to worst, I can just throw 6 dice at something, as long as my wizard isn't in the middle of a unit. Hell, if it comes to it at the end of the game, I'd probably throw her next to an enemy unit, roll 6 dice and hope for a miscast with a blast :grin:

I like it a lot really, but I still worry about balance with a lot of the current items and special characters around who might become unbalanced...

[Edit: for those who haven't seen the new magic rules, you can find a long post with all the rules, miscast tables and new Lore spells here.]


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## Tim/Steve

The maximum dice at any time is 12... but not for the whole phase. So DE can cast a spell or 2 and then use power of darkness to up the PD pool back to 12, or a Slaan could cast Death spells with his free power dice for each spell, and then get extra PD back from the casualities he causes- get a little lucky and he could well leave the PD pool just as full as when he started casting (diadem of power might well be vital to most 8th lizards).


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## Khorothis

Tim/Steve said:


> The maximum dice at any time is 12... but not for the whole phase. So DE can cast a spell or 2 and then use power of darkness to up the PD pool back to 12, or a Slaan could cast Death spells with his free power dice for each spell, and then get extra PD back from the casualities he causes- get a little lucky and he could well leave the PD pool just as full as when he started casting (diadem of power might well be vital to most 8th lizards).


Hmm... Vilitch the Curseling comes to mind... Hell, you don't even need another Sorcerer Lord there, he can just keep casting all the six spells 'till he runs out of power dice or foes. For 1750+ only, though, but then he'll have a Sorcerer friend with Infernal Puppet and thats all you need to screw up someone's magic phase. :so_happy: Pandemonium+Infernal Puppet=Suicide Bomber Wizards :laugh: Add to that the Infernal Gateway and you're sending half the opposing army to Chaos. :biggrin:

I'll go and make plans for converting a Curseling model now.


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## maddermax

Tim/Steve said:


> The maximum dice at any time is 12... but not for the whole phase. So DE can cast a spell or 2 and then use power of darkness to up the PD pool back to 12, or a Slaan could cast Death spells with his free power dice for each spell, and then get extra PD back from the casualities he causes- get a little lucky and he could well leave the PD pool just as full as when he started casting (diadem of power might well be vital to most 8th lizards).


For slaan, the extra power dice will be useful certainly, however the upgrade that allows you to ignore the effects of miscasts on a 2+ would be absolutely essential. Quite simply, most of the miscast results would wipe out most of whatever unit he's hiding in at the time. when in a unit of temple guard or even saurus, he'll be in contact with most of the unit, and could wipe them out with a single miscast. The interesting thing now is that you couldn't take both a Slaan and an Engine of the Gods in a standard 2000 points, so a choice will have to be made by magic heavy Lizzies now, one or the other...

For Bretonnians, I actually want to see how the Fey Enchantress plays out now. An automatically cast random Lore of Heavens spell, an extra +2 to casting lore of life spells (so a total +6 for her), an extra power and dispel dice, not having to pray for the blessing, getting a unit of Grail knights which don't count for your 25% rare limit and the rest of her awesome rules will make her a more than viable option, though you'll need at least a 2500 point game to take her (assuming there isn't a different limit for Bretonnian characters, like there was in the past). The only down side (and it's a big downside) is that on a miscast, she'll kill a few grail knights... ah well, no guts no glory


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

Here's how I'd run a Slann:

Slann w/ Focus of Mystery, The Focused Ruination, Curse-charm of Tepok and Cupped Hands of the Old One. Cost? 390 points.

Rolls an extra dice for each spell, knows all the spells from a single law, has a once-use item to bounce a miscast onto an enemy on a 2+ and another one-use item that can force an opponent to re-roll a roll on the miscast table.


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## Arli

After blowing up an enemy mage with that, the 390 pts will be well worth it.


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## Tim/Steve

maddermax said:


> For slaan, the extra power dice will be useful certainly, however the upgrade that allows you to ignore the effects of miscasts on a 2+ would be absolutely essential. Quite simply, most of the miscast results would wipe out most of whatever unit he's hiding in at the time. when in a unit of temple guard or even saurus, he'll be in contact with most of the unit, and could wipe them out with a single miscast. The interesting thing now is that you couldn't take both a Slaan and an Engine of the Gods in a standard 2000 points, so a choice will have to be made by magic heavy Lizzies now, one or the other...


Hey, thats what I tend to face at 2k already... so its no great issue 
Cupped hands is certainly very useful now- sure its only 1 miscast, but it could well change a S10 blast from killing most of a unit of temple guard and sending your slaan into the warp to instead killing most of the enemies nastiest unit and potentially killing their strongest mage... well worth its cost (well worth double or treble its cost).


@Arli- yup, sure is, because after you blow up his mage you still have one of the best Lv4 mages in the game.


Villich has only 2 troubles now- first is that its reasomably easy to deal with him, just roll an extra dice or 2 at everything you try to cast (not getting the casting limit hasnt been an issue for us so far in practice 8th games) and just let a few spells through without trying to dispel... but if you are a little stupid then his second problem comes into play- he has a limit to the number of spells he knows (he doesnt have 14 like Kairos does).


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## Sethis

Something I missed on my first read-through: If you have "Always strike first" and your initiative is higher than the person you're fighting _anyway_, you reroll all misses. Scary scary blocks of Elven spearmen...


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## Cheese meister

@ tim/steve there is a bestiary at the back of the book saying what everything is


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## maddermax

Sethis said:


> Something I missed on my first read-through: If you have "Always strike first" and your initiative is higher than the person you're fighting _anyway_, you reroll all misses. Scary scary blocks of Elven spearmen...


Yep. So now a normal unit of HE spearmen has an extra rank of attacks, all rerolling to hit and striking first. It has essentially more than doubled their wounds output against most enemies. But, what I want to know is if Great Weapons will affect that at all. Otherwise Swordmasters will absolutely own anything that comes near, even more than they currently do...


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## Styro-J

Great Weapons give ASL which cancels out with ASF, so Swordmasters will just go at Init. order.


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## Tim/Steve

Yup, swordmasters and white lions are I5, pheonix guard are I6 ASF, spearmen are I5 ASF... things like princes and Tyrion are now pretty nasty- ASF I8-10 means that they essentially just got super-hatred with none of the downsides (add that to Tyrions 1 use breathe weapon- now like all breath weapons- and I might finally be able to kill something with him).

Blocks of 50 spearmen have already been used in store (51 re-rolling WS4 attacks at S3 is nasty... if you combine that with a shadow lore teclis its almost unbeatable- you can up them to S8 with a simple spell). Im planning to put units of 30 archers into my army, so thats 25 shots a turn and still 30 attacks (same as spearmen), with stand and shoot thats a unit that should stand up to most things. I would do 10 wide pheonix guard too, but I simply dont have the models to do it.


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## Sethis

Tim/Steve said:


> Blocks of 50 spearmen have already been used in store (51 re-rolling WS4 attacks at S3 is nasty... if you combine that with a shadow lore teclis its almost unbeatable- you can up them to S8 with a simple spell).


I do like the synergy that the Lores now have. I get my level 2 to reduce an enemy units Initiative by D3, and then my Level 4 gives everything within 24" -1 S and T and then throws Purple Sun at them. And then I shoot them with 48 Repeater Crossbow shots and 12 Bolt Thrower shots. Wounding stuff on 3s with Repeater Crossbows is just sick and wrong... And so is my unit of frenzied Corsairs with 50 Attacks...


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## neilbatte

I tried a new tactic with my gunline ogres today a 5 man unit of leadbelchers with BSB using the banner that gives flaming attacks (mainly because I was playing against woodelves) I think that from now on thats how I'll run the belchers as the damage they threw out was enormous.
The most amusing was when his treeman ancient declared a charge against them forgetting that I'd just spent a turn reloading needless to say there was a smouldering pile of kindling laying in front of the unit and the 1 missfire I rolled all game caused 2 wds.
Next time I think I'll use 6 as the base number for all 3 units although only 1 will have a character.
Gnoblars can now be used to target smaller infantry units (as long as they don't skirmish) as with all 24 firing 2 shots twice if you stand and shoot can really make for a bad day even with elite infantry.


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## mynameisgrax

On second thought, after reviewing the rules a bit, I think Orc and Goblin armies definitely improved with 8th edition, but mainly for the goblins. 

Goblins certainly get the most out of the horde rules, as they can fill out their ranks cheaply and without taking up too much space. Also, the new rules help compensate their weaknesses, as a general with leadership 7-8 and a BSB would make large units of goblins pretty solid. This also takes some of the risk away from fanatics, since they're less likely to panic their own side.

Goblin artillery also got a boost. Rock lobbas and doom divers are now amazing for their cost.

On that note, does anyone know how the 'no more than 3 of the same special unit and 2 of the same rare unit' rule affects units that can be taken 2 for 1 slot, like pump wagons and spear chukkas?


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## Cheese meister

at our store we have said 2 would count as 1 duplicate so 6 special if 2-1 and 4 rare


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## Khorothis

mynameisgrax said:


> On that note, does anyone know how the 'no more than 3 of the same special unit and 2 of the same rare unit' rule affects units that can be taken 2 for 1 slot, like pump wagons and spear chukkas?


O_O Could you tell me where can I find that rule in the rulebook, if you happen to have one? Not that it sounds bad for me (with your numbers at least), but I'm curious.

EDIT: Never mind, I found it, its on page 135 for others who are interested.

EDIT2: On a completely different note, what do you think, how will the Tomb Kings fare in 8th? Just out of curiosity.


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## Yilmar

Though I dont recall whre I have read it I am sure that the rules states that 2 for one slot counts as two. This also is quite logical if you consider that the cap on the amount of units has been removed by the percentage rule. Meaning that the 2 for one slot rule has been made redundant.

:victory:


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## Khorothis

Yilmar said:


> Though I dont recall whre I have read it I am sure that the rules states that 2 for one slot counts as two. This also is quite logical if you consider that the cap on the amount of units has been removed by the percentage rule. Meaning that the 2 for one slot rule has been made redundant.
> 
> :victory:


Its a new rule; it says you can't have more than 3/2 of one type of special/rare units. So while you can have 3 Knights and 3 Chariots, you can't have 4 Chosen. This number can be boosted up to 6/4 if you say your game is a "grand game" or whatever they call it.


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## Styro-J

Darn, and here I was planning a Great Eagle spam...


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## Settra

in teh case of tomb kings it all comes down to how they FAQ their magic, it needs to be FAQ anoyingly :/ if they FAQ so that it is like their current magic then they will do great in my opinion, since dispeling is more limited in a way and the khemri dice are guarenteed, so they will never have a bad "magic phase" so too speak  if they rule it that they use power dice, then they wil not fare well :/ apart from the magic, the units are better  ushabti are now even better  and ssc are now dirty :/ hope this helps


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## Dave T Hobbit

Yilmar said:


> Though I dont recall whre I have read it I am sure that the rules states that 2 for one slot counts as two. This also is quite logical if you consider that the cap on the amount of units has been removed by the percentage rule. Meaning that the 2 for one slot rule has been made redundant.


From browsing the new book, I remember it the other way round: units like spawn and DE bolt-throwers that use to have up to X per slot now have up to X count as one Special/Rare.

I think the GW website specifically mentions Great Eagle spam; although they do not call it that.


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## Yilmar

Khorothis said:


> Its a new rule; it says you can't have more than 3/2 of one type of special/rare units.


I know about that rule and my comment was complemetary to that one. :wink:



Dave T Hobbit said:


> From browsing the new book, I remember it the other way round: units like spawn and DE bolt-throwers that use to have up to X per slot now have up to X count as one Special/Rare.
> 
> I think the GW website specifically mentions Great Eagle spam; although they do not call it that.


Just read up on a High Elf armylist of 2,500pts in the call to arms section in the new White Dwarf. They used three repeater bolt throwers in their list. So I'm confused now as HE repeater bolt throwers didnt have a cap so they should only be allowed two of the same rare slot, right?

The duplicates rule as stated in the White Dwarf:
_" 1-2999 points no more than 3 duplicate special choices and 2 duplicate rare choices
3000+ points no more than 6 duplicate special choices and 4 duplicate rare choices "_

:victory:


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

High Elves can take extra Rare choices currently, maybe an errata extends that to the rare duplication cap? 

Of course, it's not unheard of for WD to be wrong


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## CaptainBudget

I've just looked at the new magic lores, there's quite a few I'd save that one dispel scroll for (though there's every chance the little turd casting it and the unit he's hiding in will turn into a mushroom cloud :sarcastichand.

Yeah, Tomb kings really do need an FAQ, as their bound spells have no casting value (well they do, but they roll 2 dice to work out what it is). Arguably therefore you roll two dice to find out what you need to roll to cast, and then cast it with power dice; which is silly, long winded and rubbish.

I am looking forward to the FAQ, just hope it's released on time or I won't be able to play games any time soon.


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## Dave T Hobbit

Yilmar said:


> They used three repeater bolt throwers in their list. So I'm confused now as HE repeater bolt throwers didnt have a cap so they should only be allowed two of the same rare slot, right?
> 
> The duplicates rule as stated in the White Dwarf:
> _" 1-2999 points no more than.... 2 duplicate rare choices...._


_

I do not have a HE Army Book here so not sure if it is that same; however, if it is same as DE, they get up to 2 Bolt throwers per Rare slot currently so 3 Bolt Throwers would be 2 rare if they are keeping the rule about allowing several of something to count as one choice._


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## Creon

Repeater bolt throwers for HE are 2/1 slot, so they only had 2 of the "same" slot. One with 2, one with only 1.


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## Barnster

From what i heard different armies were given tweeks to make them different, and High elves get something like "elite Army" which allow them to ignore the number limitations. I can't comfirm it but thats what a guy in store said


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## Tim/Steve

Creon said:


> Repeater bolt throwers for HE are 2/1 slot, so they only had 2 of the "same" slot. One with 2, one with only 1.


No, they really arent. The DE ones are 2 for 1, but the HE just have 2 extra rare slots then any other armies (-1 core, +2 special, +2 rare... I think, and I think that it affects the initial 1k army, not the increments)... but since we ignore that section of the book it doesnt currently help the HEs at all. What I think will happen is that in the FAQ that comes out at the release (pray god those rumours arent wrong) the HE caps will be adjusted (eg 15-20% core, 60% special, 30-35% rare with 4/8 specials and 3/6 rare instead of 3/6 and 2/4).
Until then HEs can only ever use 4 bolt throwers and only 2 at <3k (damn dark elves with their cunning ways)... but until then just use Teclis, Caradryan and lots of ASF to make yourself smile instead


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## Cheese meister

really don't lyk teclis he's a 475 point character that can cast 1 spell a turn wahoo 1 uber spell a turn is it going 2 pay for him to be their


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## Wolf_Lord_Skoll

Cheese meister said:


> Really don't like teclis, he's a 475 point character that can cast 1 spell a turn. Wahoo 1 uber spell a turn, is it going too pay for him to be there?


He can easily cast more than one spell a turn. Only a double 6 is a miscast, the others are just IF. The extra D3 dice combined with D3 from the Banner of Sorcery mean you'll commonly be running with max PD, while D3 extra Dispel dice also pushes you towards maxing out. The fact he ignores the first miscast just makes him even safer to run.


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## karlhunt

Wolf_Lord_Skoll said:


> He can easily cast more than one spell a turn. Only a double 6 is a miscast, the others are just IF. The extra D3 dice combined with D3 from the Banner of Sorcery mean you'll commonly be running with max PD, while D3 extra Dispel dice also pushes you towards maxing out. The fact he ignores the first miscast just makes him even safer to run.


True story, page 34 clearly states that if an item or ability specifies miscast or iresistable force than that is the only thing generated/ ignored. Teclis is a god!


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## Cheese meister

not sure about that will check the rules when i'm down my local store later


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