Thursday 16 July 2015

To tweak or not to tweak


As soon as it started to become clear that Age of Sigmar was going to be a completely different game from previous editions of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, people started talking about sticking with 8th edition. In the same breath, they also talked about making changes to the 8th edition rules. People have always had things they wanted to change about the 8th edition rules, but the presence of an "official" ruleset and a largely unified tournament community that used that ruleset was enough to repel any serious attempts to implement these changes. The "death" of 8th edition as an officially supported game seems to have removed these barriers, and now talk is rife of making Warhammer 9th edition, or 8.5, or whatever you care to call it.

Over time I have thought of numerous things that I would change about 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The important thing to remember here is that the game still works very well in its "official" form. I would question the wisdom of making use of the later End Times developments in every game you played, but they do add an extra point of interest if you want to recreate some of the situations from the "period" and shake things up a bit. At its core, 8th edition remains to my mind the best that Games Workshop produced, and as such any tweaking should be kept to a relative minimum.

Anyway, just in case people are interested in what I would change about 8th edition (I have been asked a few times), that is what this post is about. I have targeted the things that I think would make the biggest difference, and serve to address some of the things that I perceive as the largest issues with 8th edition "out of the box". 


True Line of Sight
I understand the desire for simplicity that must have driven the addition of True Line of Sight in 8th edition, but I have always felt the rule was a weakness of the system. It undermined the relevance of the terrain that gamers were using, and it gave significant power boosts in places where they may not have been required. I would replace the True Line of Sight rules with some sort of hybrid between those used in previous versions of Warhammer, and those you can find in Kings of War 2nd edition (Simple Line of Sight as has been used in the ETC is also similar). In summary, those would be something like:

  • Units and terrain have a Height or Scale value (eg Infantry 1, Monstrous Infantry and Cavalry 2, Monstrous Cavalry 3, Monsters 4)
  • Units and terrain block line of sight between things of a similar or smaller height. Anything marginally taller would be able to see, but would suffer cover modifiers to shooting.
  • Hills add to the height of a unit upon them.
  • If either the height of the shooter or the target, exceeds all intervening terrain and units by 1 level, it can be seen with cover modifiers. If it exceeds it by 2 levels or more, no cover would be afforded.
  • Forests block line of sight to things on the other side.
  • Line of sight is dictated by bases rather than the models upon them.

That's obviously not detailed, but it's a summary of the way I would do it. It negates any of the "modelling for advantage" nonsense we've probably all heard about (although I've never really seen it done). It makes terrain more relevant again as it has a real impact upon lines of sight. And it will significantly weaken some of the key units that help contribute to complaints in the game, such as Trueflight Arrows and Cannons. It becomes much easier to hide a unit, and these shooting units still need to see before they can start ignoring modifiers to hit etc.

Mysterious Terrain
Don't get me wrong, Mysterious Terrain can be a bit of a laugh. But having to roll up random, sometimes absurd results for every forest and river you encounter feels ridiculous. The main effect of these sorts of terrain should not be decided by a dice roll. I have no problem with the Mysterious Terrain tables still being there, but I don't think they should affect every element of that type on the table. 

In their place however, there might need to be slightly more basic rules. As per my previous point, forests would already be a lot more important because they could block line of sight. I might also consider blocking March moves through them. Not halving the movement of the units would prevent them from being the quagmire they were in previous editions (especially for chargers), but it would make players pay them a little more respect.

Attack Allocation/character positioning
The careful positioning of characters in units and in particular the use of the Make Way rule by armies like Ogres has (in my opinion) become something of a blight upon the game. It adds a level of micromanagement to character movement and placement that leads to some very artificial results during combat. 

I was initially putting together a set of suggestions to make character positioning within a unit almost entirely irrelevant, but I think that might be a bit far removed from the way Warhammer has always worked. Instead, I would suggest a simple change:

  • Models may allocate attacks to any enemy model in base contact, or to the regular troops in the enemy unit in base contact.

Steadfast
This was one of the major additions to 8th edition, and has divided people ever since it arrived. In principle I like what the rule does, but I don't like how difficult it is to negate it. Simply outnumbering your enemy is really not a viable option in some match-ups. Instead I would propose the following:

  • A unit which is "disrupted" loses Steadfast

So basically, if you cop something that is significant enough to negate your rank bonus (like a ranked up unit in your flank), you will lose your safety in numbers too. I see people championing the idea that Monster could also disrupt the unit, but that shifts things back in favour of the big gribblies, and I'm not sure the game needs a push in that direction.

Cannons
These cause a lot of angst in 8th edition. There are a few reasons for this: 

  • Removing estimation in 8th edition meant they became far more accurate
  • Unlike stone throwers, they hit every part of a multi-part model
  • True Line of Sight meant it became impossible to hide

There are a lot of people suggesting that Cannons should have to roll to hit, but I don't know that I like this. Instead I would propose the following:

  • Cannons have to randomise what part of a multi-part model they hit, much like the high-strength hit from a stone thrower. There is no reason why the cannonball would hit every part if the stone would not.
  • The change from True Line of Sight mentioned earlier would make it far easier to hide valuable targets, either behind units or terrain.
  • I would also make it clear that the Cannon needs to be able to see the target; not the point on the ground where the initial shot will deviate from. Such arguments are unnecessary and leave a sour taste in the mouth.

Unstable
A lot of people have been complaining about the existing Unstable rule, and in part I have to agree with them. Undead armies have felt like their Core troops in particular are completely useless in combat. Fear took a severe hit from previous versions of the game when we moved into 8th edition and although grunt Undead troops like Skeletons got a lot cheaper when the 8th edition books were released, it is still not enough to make people want to use them. The "core tax" still exists, particularly in the Vampire Counts book where you can't just use the points to load up on Arrows of the Asp. 

The heart of the problem is that regular Undead troops like Skeletons and Zombies are rubbish. That's OK in itself, but they disappear at twice the speed because of Unstable. You'd think that never running away or panicking would compensate for this, but in practice it doesn't seem to balance right. Here is what I would propose:

  • Unstable troops that lose combat take a break test, exactly like any other unit. Factors like the general's leadership and Steadfast are still taken into account as normal. Only if the unit fails this break test does it then take the damage for being Unstable. 
This should serve to make the army significantly better in a couple of key areas. Tough, dangerous small units with solid Leadership like lone Vampires will be a good chance to shrug off a combat that they only marginally lost rather than being ground down by Unstable. More importantly however, big blocks of Skeletons and Zombies are likely to be Steadfast, and they will therefore be likely to take no damage at all from losing combat until they drop below the size of the enemy, or the general moves out of range of his Inspiring Presence.

Look Out, Sir!
Of all the solutions to the "power spells" like The Dwellers Below and Final Transmutation, I think this might be the most elegant that I have seen. I still believe the spells are there specifically to discourage "death star" units, and they are also a threat to individual, high-powered models. Granting victims things like Ward Saves is one option (although it becomes a bit easy for some units to then become immune). I think I prefer the following changes to Look Out, Sir:

  • Characters may take a Look Out, Sir! test against spells that hit every model in a unit, just as they would for a template.
  • Only a single character in a given unit may take a Look Out, Sir! test for a given source of damage (spell, template weapon etc).

The second part of this change means that you get protection for a single character, but anything beyond that may mean you have a decision to make about who to protect and who to expose to these dangerous effects. In short, you can protect the most important character in the unit, but the rest will have to take their chances. If you don't like that, spread your characters out in other units.

50% Characters
Some people were excited when the limit on Lords and Heroes were increased to 50% each, but many others were dismayed. The simplest solution seems to be to combine the two categories. So you would have total 50% to spend on Lords and Heroes, divided however you wished. It gives you the flexibility to field a lord that is a bit over 25% of your army size, but it stops the silly "character spam" that could otherwise be unleashed with the End Times change.

Flee Direction
In general I think the directive of fleeing from "centre to centre" from the source of your fleeing is an elegant rule. But when applied to combats, I think it causes a lot of confusion and trouble. You get units shooting off in strange directions, and you get pursuers tangling each other up as soon as they go to chase. Two units chasing a single unit side-by-side will by definition collide immediately. Instead, I would make the following change:

  • When a unit flees from combat, it turns and flees directly away from the line of combat with the enemy unit with the most ranks. 
  • Pursuing units move directly forward (or sideways or backwards, if that was the direction in which they were engaged).

I think some people were playing the game this way anyway, but it's not how the rules are written. It is more in line with how it worked in previous editions, however.

2D6
This is not a rule, but it a neat summation of what a lot of people dislike about 8th edition, and why a great many people left. Each time you see 2D6 rolled, it tends to have a major impact upon the game. In particular, a lot of people disliked the addition of random charge distances. The other big one is rolling for the Winds of Magic. Games can indeed be won and lost due to freak rolls in these areas. A massive or terrible roll on a make-or-break charge. A massive magic phase or a tiny one, resulting in a phase that determines the direction of the battle. It can certainly happen.

Unfortunately, I am yet to come up with a good solution to those complaints. I think random charge distances are important to 8th edition, and any efforts to reduce the randomness of them change the fundamental balance of the game. Likewise, any other method of generating power dice (short of doing something bizarre like dragging things closer to average by rolling 4D3) will advantage certain army builds dramatically.

The one thing that occurs to me that is probably the best solution to these freak events is re-rolls, or as I have seen implemented occasionally at tournaments, the "Lucky 7". The concept behind the Lucky 7 was that each player had a card up their sleeve that could be used once per game to change a 2D6 roll to an average roll of a 7 (presumably a 4 and 3 in terms of magic). Back when I used it, it only really affected Leadership tests. Nowadays it is obviously more powerful. But it would give each player the ability to curb a particularly nasty result that threatens to throw the game out of whack.

If people felt an arbitrary Lucky 7 was a bit much, the other option would be to let players buy an upgrade for their general, which gave them a single 7 in a particular field, reflecting their specific field (or a player's fear of one particular phase):

  • Master of Magic
  • Master of Movement
  • Master of Morale
It's just a thought.

Anyway, I think that is enough. There are a few particular small things that I think could do with a look as well, but they're not core rule changes. Such as:
  • Banner of Discipline should not bolster the general's Leadership
  • Doomfire Warlocks are at least 15 pts per model under-costed
  • The Banner of the World Dragon is an abomination in terms of game balance
  • Certain spells like Ash Storm need a look
Everyone has their own list of gripes, which makes me fear that communities are unlikely to ever settle on an "ideal" set. But you never know. It's early days.

33 comments:

  1. Some good points and mostly commonsensical.

    I'd be more inclined to suggest "Unstable" work like Daemonic Instability though?

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    1. The net effect would be similar, but there are things I don't think fit all that well with the current Daemonic Instability rules - mainly the double 1 and double 6 results. To me those things *maybe* make sense to daemonic beings from another realm of existence, but it feels a bit bizarre happening to undead. Still, either would probably work in terms of leveling things a bit, and they both bring steadfast into play (which I think is key to making the terriible undead grunts of some value).

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  2. TWEAK! That is the answer, this is the perfect opportunity to take the game away from GW so they can become the model supplier they always wanted and we can have the game we always wanted :)

    I play a lot against Tomb Kings and without the unstable rule the tarpits would become near invincible, especially with several powerful necromancers. I don't think Undead characters should suffer from unstable though, and I have never played it like that. Khemrian warspinx would be also be near invincible without the unstable rule, it has toughness 8 I think. I guess we can always bring cannons, but more than one cannon in an army is a drag imo. I prefer to mix it up with one cannon and one helblaster or organ gun if I go for cannon capable armies.

    Did one game without the unstable rule and the tarpits were impossible to get through. Tomb Kings are not weak as many like to complain if you play right with them. But a leadership test to take unstable wounds or not would be a very good compromise.

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    1. You certainly can't remove Unstable entirely. Undead troops might be poor, but they never take psychology tests and never break from combat, and the crumbling is a form of compensation for this immense reliability. Taking it away without some other downside would indeed make things much too good for their points.

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    2. Some units suffer a lot from unstable, such as horse archers, chariots and sepulchral stalkers, if they have one bad round it usually means the end of them. A leadership test for them and let them have l6-7 would be great and let the zombies, skeleton warriors etc have low leadership like l4 or something.

      Because the tarpits man, last tournament game I went through I had 8 IC FC, 1 Templar grand master and 1 warrior priest on horse using soulfire they used 4 turns to obliterate a unit of 60 skeletons vampire count army... Without unstable they would have been stuck there for the entire match as the raise dead usually cancel out the unstable losses or more.

      Where do you recommend reading tweaked 8th edition rules? ETC, Swedish comp or something else? Or do you think it's best to wait and see where it goes?

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    3. I've always loathed how if I multi charged blood knights and zombies into a block (only did it once...in my first game), they put all the attacks into the zombies. the blood knights cop no wounds...but then all crumble to death due to the zombies bleeding cr...

      There was a few options I thought (VC only atm, don't know enough about TK to comment).

      1. You can only crumble the amount of wounds taken in the combat..so in the above case the blood knights wouldn't crumble any wounds due to not receiving any.

      2. Make all 'vampiric' units Immune to Psych, Fear Causing, Stubborn units, that have a special rule allowing them to join unstable units and vice versa. This allows the vamp lord to use his LD for things other than march tests and death magic...will stop him crumbling in a multi combat(and vargs, bloodies, 'ghulf, coach), and will also make VC more inclined (and get fair usage of) a BSB.

      Thoughts?

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    4. @Metabaron: There are tweaked versions of 8th edition appearing all over the place at the moment. Realistically, the one that is likely to gain the most traction world-wide is whatever the Swedes come up with and/or what the ETC look at using. Everything else will at best be adopted in small local groups, or just be restricted to being used as house rules. If there is every any sort of universally accepted set of rules, it will be driven by a large competitive environment like the ETC. Because outside of tournaments, do people even really care if they're using the same rules as everyone else?

      @Nick: I understand what can happen when you send in an elite unit alongside rubbish troops, but then that is not actually different to what would happen with any other army. In their case the elite unit would have its Ld value crushed and would flee; the Blood Knights crumbling is just the Undead equivalent of the same effect. I think a strong unit being exposed by going in alongside a weak one is part of the game, and players can avoid it (although it might mean letting the weaker unit take one for the team).

      As for the "vampiric" units losing crumble... Way back in the day, Undead used to be split between units that crumbled, units that fled, etc. And you would end up with weird things like characters bottling and evacuating a block of unbreakable skeletons whilst the grunt troops fought on. It made for some pretty weird dynamics, and I can see why GW decided in 6th edition to get rid of that and make everything properly undead. I'd be hesitant to reintroduce the extra confusion, and would sooner recommend a blanket rule like the thing I suggested, or a variant of Daemonic Instability.

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  3. Double saves are my big bug bear. The 40K system of using only the best one (with occasional special item or spell exceptions) works much better imho - makes characters less invulnerable, in particular.

    I wondered about changing Winds of Magic back to an MP system like there was back in the day. Like, each wizard has a set pool to draw on, with high end guys getting more points. You'd still get some random points each turn, maybe only a d6, but you'd have to use your pool to get the majority of jobs done. Makes it less random, but maybe you also lose some of the unpredictability and fun too?

    I totally agree about mysterious terrain. It's fun now and again, but I'd rather know in advance, or have a better chance of 'normal' terrain on an expanded chart. Rivers especially - no wonder the Old World collapsed, their water table was a mix of Light Magic, toxic sludge and boiling poison. Also Line of Sight - yes! All the modern RTS computer games introduce it, and it improves everything.

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    1. I agree that it can feel pretty harsh to be confronted by a character with a great armour save and then a solid ward save behind it. I think it becomes less important if you don't let characters block attacks to regular troops, though. When they took double saves and multiple wounds away back in 3rd edition 40K and added Instant Death, I fully expected to see the next edition of Fantasy follow suit.

      Any sort of a magic pool that is driven by the level and number of wizards in an army tends to have an impact upon army construction. It also gives magic-reliant armies a means of guaranteeing a supply of power dice. I think GW deliberately shied away from that with this edition, so I'm hesitant to suggest it as the way forward. It;s possible there is a compromise that would offer a bit of both worlds, but I'm not sure how you'd do it.

      I do think some extra basic rules need to be introduced if you're taking away Mysterious Terrain. Things like forests really have little impact at the moment if you roll a 0.

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    2. I like the double saves on heroes, if you spend too much point on gear the enemy can swarm you rather easily as the last campaign I did proved all 3 matches. That some units like phoenix guard, dragonprinces with world banner and the blood vampire knights thingies are some of the few units that have ward save makes them rather unique. Maybe they should have cost increase to reflect the ward save better.

      Am I the only one that likes the magic in 8th edition? I don't purple sun, transmutation whatever or dwellers below but having lots of spells, interesting magic system where need to play a mini dispel poker game is one of the things I love in 8th. Mystic shield and arcane bold 2d6 to cast 2d6 to dispel.. now that's boring..

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    3. Oh, I do think having so many different spells and stuff is a strength of Warhammer. They toned it down in 5th edition when they pushed the Colleges of Magic out of the way in favour of a far more generic "Battle Magic" deck. And the game was definitely the poorer for it. I suspect I am not the only one who thought so, given the Colleges reappeared in the next edition.

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  4. Good list.
    What about 2D6-->D12 (re-roll 1)

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    1. I would give you an assessment of your suggestion, but frankly I don't understand it. Maybe use more words and fewer arrows?»»»?

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  5. Apologies- too much teacher short hand. My poor students!
    I was suggesting replacing all reference to "2D6" with "D12" (re-roll "1" results). You get the same range of outcomes, but extreme results are as freakish. You're more likely to work extreme results into your plans if you though they were more likely to happen.

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    1. Despite you missing certain key words like "not", this explanation makes more sense than the short hand version.

      It would certainly make for a different dynamic, but I think the bell curve nature of the existing 2D6 rule would probably be preferable for most people over one where a 2 or a 12 is just as likely as a 7. Never mind factoring things into your plans - I don't think you could really plan at all!

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  6. Huzzah! Hippos the world over await the release of 1st edition GregHammer with bated breath!

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    1. If hippos the world over start dying of suffocation, I will deny all knowledge.

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  7. I agree with everything apart from the 2d6 thing (failure can be planned for) and the undead crumbling. This is balanced by the ability to summon more - how much fun would it be if Skaven Slaves could be summoned/added to?

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    1. By summoning more do you mean as in regards to new units, or replenishment?

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    2. @Nick: I think he's talking about replenishing existing units.

      @Chris: The replenishment is a factor, but I'm yet to see a game in 8th edition where that ability ever really comes close to compensating for the beating the undead units can take in combat (even without crumbling, in the case of Zombies and Skeletons). A more worrying thought for me is things like Crypt Horrors backed by a Mortis Engine. A lot of units could pretty much bounce off these guys, and if you get nothing for your troubles every time you beat them by a couple of points in combat, they might become a real headache. For me action is really needed to help out those poor grunt troops. Whether that can be done without making the elites and characters too resilient, I'm not sure. Unless the whole change revolved around steadfast...

      As for the 2D6 thing, it's not something I would have considered myself. But then I, like you, have been playing 8th edition happily throughout its existence. This was prompted more by discussions with people who gave up 8th edition somewhere along the way. It was invariably their least favourite thing about the game. What I've suggested here was really just a way to address this without fundamentally changing the way the game plays.

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    3. Ah ok. Aside really from Crupt horrors, most other elite and hitty units don't get back up at anything like a decent rate (vamps only get up 1 at a time, same as vargs and any 'large' targets).

      Maybe they could allow unstable some benefit from steadfast/stubborn. Maybe if steadfast or stubborn the unit only crumbles CR-LD (would actually give us a reason to have the Lord around...). This would benefit the scrubs due to their massive numbers, but wouldn't really over power the elites due to being smaller units.

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    4. Yeah, that might work. Although it would make the Crown of Command outrageously powerful for a Vampire on a Zombie Dragon. Hard to get these things right, isn't it?

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    5. Hmm, although at 35 points I'm either giving up my 4+ ward or the ogre blade (or in my case the night shroud), as well as blanking out the OTS. This would also allow the vamp to go into things and not worry about crumbling to death because he got challenged out and flank attacked... Although the stubborn still isn't as powerful as it can be in a giant halberdier block etc :P... That and the stubborn had should be 55pts IMHO, to stop it going on some scrub to boost a unit massively.

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    6. I don't think I *want* to protect a Vampire from being challenged out and flanked. I think if he gets himself into that situation he's been out-played and *deserves* to crumble...

      If the points were being increased it would be less of a problem. But you can't tell me you wouldn't spend 35pts to make a Vampire Lord Unbreakable. Which at Ld 10 is effectively what you would be doing. Nobody can beat a Vampire Lord by himself by that much. It would be a complete no-brainer for a Lord on a Zombie Dragon.

      Of course some people want the Crown of Command removed entirely. That would certainly address the problem...

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    7. Oh I concur to the above, dragon-lord should have himself in only good positions. Hmmm, no 4+ ward really reduces the 3 wound model toughness significantly, and S5 really limits him against any heavy armour. I feel you'd be paying points for indirect surviavability, while either giving up direct survivability or damage out put.

      Better yet, as you said, remove the Crutch of Command and allow naturaly stubborn units their time in the sun. I think that would fix both issues, no stubborn Vampragon, while still allowing scrubs to tarpit effectively. Still doesn't fix multi charging though :/...

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    8. I haven't really seen the Crown of Command used all that often, but I suspect that's because comp scoring largely kept it in check in tournaments.

      As I've said, the multi-charging thing is a problem for other races too. I don't think it's something that needs to change. Sometimes the tarpit just has to be left to its fate whilst the elites find some more appropriate way to spend their time elsewhere. At least with changes like we're discussing here, the tarpit might hold up a bit longer without you attempting an ill-fated rescue.

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    9. Ah in my local meta, every bastard runs the thing, so that may be why...and is supremely frustrating... Trying to move a block of stubborn Saurus, within BSB range of the +1 LD banner, Slann BSB is nigh on impossible...

      Aye it would stop the (lets not beat around the bush here) over the top bleed of models. While VC can get them up pretty quickly (only if zombies, you really can't keep a skelly block going if it gets hit with anything moderately dangerous), but poor old TK really don't have access to an excellent replenishment spell, so would help them a tonne also I reckon.

      I hear my mates always going on about how broken getting guys up is, but when the zombies lose combat, they cock an eyebrow about why I removed an extra 15 models for nothing, and I explain crumble, generally their replies are "well thats crap!".

      Hmm, maybe I'll stop bleating about blood knights if they gave them 2 wounds or just drop them down to like 42-45 points haha...

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  8. Hi Greg!

    Very interesting ideas, you should have sent them to the design studio earlier :)

    I wonder if you considered anything about formations. I admit I am influenced by KoW rules at the moment (haven't played the game yet) but I like how they have fixed foot print of their formations. I always hated these silly conga lines.

    Cheers!

    Pawel

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    1. I think the Warhammer rules for formations generally work. I still like the greater flexibility over the very structured approach in KoW. Apart from conga lines, the formations in Warhammer don't tend to be a big problem. I'm not 100% sure what to do about those, although at least allowing units to reach past whatever is blocking up the front row alleviates this behaviour a little.

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  10. Hi,
    once more great Job with blog... keep it up. Your thoughts are really interesting. You got much more experience than me but after playing big battles like 10k+I came to conclusion that big blocks of infantry are to easy to redirect with units of 5 models or flyers. Those are my 2 suggestions.

    - you can redirect more then 1 time. Puting 2 units of 5 archers in front of big unit and fleeing with them as charge reaction so they will get behind big unit is super frustrating and leave everyone with failed charge.

    - If unit is charging other unit that have less then half models of charging unit (base sizes should meter in this case) it may force opponent to "close the door" to your unit. It would stop blocking 100 models unit with 1 pegasus or 5 archers.

    Hope you understand my thought ... english is my second language.

    P.s. I still can't believe there will be no 9th ed WFB. They got so many licences based on old "Old World" sold to other companies (board games to FFG, Total Warhammer to Creative Assembly...), that may not earn money from WFB but other business around must give them big profit.

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    1. You're correct that large units can be manipulated by small ones. In a normal game I think this is actually a good thing; it adds a tactical element to the game and prevents people making armies of just 3 huge blocks of troops and nothing else, which is a bit boring. In really big games where the competitive element might not be as important, the small units really can be annoying. I would suggest you double minimum unit sizes in really large games. If they're going to throw a unit of Wolf Riders under the bus, at least make it big enough that people can see it...

      Your first suggestion I have heard before, and I don't really have a problem with it. So long as the unit has to test for each redirect, I think it's OK. You'd probably have to add the rule that redirecting onto something you already charged at once does not allow it to make a second charge reaction. Otherwise you would still never catch any of the fleeing units. They would just flee faster.

      I'm not sure about the second point. In a normal, potentially competitive game, I'm not sure it's right to give this extra protection to the huge power units. Redirecting and diverting are a part of the game, and less of an impact in 8th edition now that you can reform after wiping out an annoying enemy, rather than being forced to continue facing on a bad angle.

      Some of those third party licenses are pretty confusing with the destruction of traditional Warhammer. Total Warhammer in particular feels odd. It's a really big, exciting development. And by the time it arrives, the product's fan base may have largely moved on. I hope Creative Assembly don't get burned by that.

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    2. I feel with the double flee thing, maybe it should be if you contact anything you have declared (at some point) a charge on in that phase it still is a charge. Would stop the double flee crap with light cav/eagles...

      As to Total Warhammer. I think, this, more than anything shows how much of a smash and grab the End Times was.

      One would think Total Warhammer has probably been in the works for say 2-3 years, meaning, with the end times only coming out this time-ish last year, that it was a pretty quick, knee jerk thing, other wise CA would of known about it earlier and not pushed through with the 'Old Hammer' (god it pains me to say that) setting... if that makes sense?

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