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.