Tale of Four Gamers

[Berserker]

Love it! =)

[MorGrendel]

Ouu, I have another idea, a great plague rat. But since I've sworn off Clan Pestilence, it will have to be an evil Skyre invention. Namely, I'm thinking a Empire Cav Statute thats been torn open and runs on warp stone. Hehehe

Need to find another 40X40.

Sorry, Chris, I think I'm still motivated to play with little plastic men.

[MorGrendel]

Work has begun on a Skaven Zepplin . . . It doesn't need to have a fancy name, like my DoomWay, because its a freaking Zepplin.

Also, per the few conversations I've had lately about WH, this is from the Fields of Blood blog (http://thefieldsofblood.blogspot.com/):

In the aftermath of Dogcon there seems to be increased acceptance in Australia of modifying the core rules.
At the event they used a system that required three “sixes” to get an Irresistible Force on a spell and by all accounts that was widely welcomed. A roll of two “sixes” was still a Loss of Control requiring a roll on the misfire table. . .

(concerns about auto-win troops and big-magic)

. . . Do you go down the road that the organisers of the UK’s South Coast GT have, where they are playing six games of Battleline? To me this indicative of people not wanting to adapt to the new rules. Scenarios are a part of it. Big Magic is a part of it. Death Stars are a part of it. I think the recent UK Masters showed that when taken as a whole the core rules worked. The event was won by a player with a “balanced” army that was effective in the rules, across all scenarios and against all opponents.

Those that tried to be “clever” with their extreme or limited dimension builds weren’t as effective as they hoped. Rather than start fiddling with the rules people should follow his lead and be able to adapt to various situations. I’ll happily predict that the removal of the magic threat if widely adopted in Australia will lead to events being dominated by the combat armies. We’ll then see a backlash and further rules “adjustments”.

Couple thoughts:
Have we used magic to the fullest? Mind you I can't take the big magic (BRB), and 13th doesn't work on Ogres, but has anyone tried a heavy magic build? Lots of wizards, with lots of boom. I might have to try one. You would have to sack CC and Shooting, but can a magical army work? I think the chart scares people away, but if anyone can weaponize it, it would be the skaven, Muhahahaah!

I've always thought that scenarios are what wargames are about. The challenge is adapting to your (troops) surroundings, not rolling dice. Any idiot can roll dice well, actually dice like idiots and challenge those that can handle it. I think I'm actually worst at Battleline, because I tend to overthink it. Whereas in the other scenarios, you in the @#$% to worry about what might be.

[MorGrendel]

Continue:

Anyway, It appears Deathstars still exist. Serban you are not alone. However, I must say your's may be the nasties I've ever seen at 4 wide (Impact hits + 32 Str 6 or better attacks + 8 stomps). And if you can shrug off a indirect spell, it may be ney unstoppable. And as we discussed yesterday, you were a reform away from a Horde. Jason, here is the fight you want great swords (Buffed with Tough) for. However, a balanced army seemed to take the day, and that is good. Not that I have anything against unbalanced armies; Actually I like theme armies like all shooting or all cav, I just don't like them when they exploit a loophole in the rules or target a specific opponet.

I really like scenarios. Here are some I think WH should add.
Additional scenarios:
1- High Ground – Take the highest point to observe future troop movements.
2- Sacred Ground – Take and Hold Spot, game ends on turn 4 on a 6+, turn 5 on a 4+, turn 6 on a 2+, or on the 7th turn.
3 - Loot – Loot is strewn about the board, set values. Loot markers = 2d6. Value rolled at placement. Can kill units to take their loot. Fleeing or dead units drop loot.
4- Multiple Objectives #1 – Place an objective somewhere in the center of the board (Scatter + 2 Art) then place a objective in the opponent’s deployment zone. (3 total)
5 – Burn – One side defends settlement from attackers. Attackers gain one point for each building destroyed, defenders gain points for each unit destroyed.
6- Traitor – Both sides receive a wizard (FW) of equal value. At the beginning of each player turn (before anything else), they must test to see if the FW changes to their side. The FW will change sides on a 5+. If the FW is in a unit, the unit (including any characters) also changes sides. If the FW is killed before changing sides, the owner loses VP(now the army sees you as the traitor for bumping him off). Dead traitors count for VP for the player that they left and to not penalize that player in any way.

I really like the idea of random game lengths. I think it keeps you playing the scenarion, and not just for VP.

Final thought:
Back to magic. I've seen us pull out magic and focus on CC. I think that is a real shame in a fantasy game.

[Titus]

I take magic in every one of my armies. But I think the problem with magic is the table. Well the table, and the Irresistable Force being a miscast.

First reason for my thinking this is the viscious cycle of the miscast having the potential to take out your whole unit. Well, take him out of the unit you say? Yes, he does still get a 'Look out, Sir!' roll but it is only a 4+ not a 2+. This doubly hurts since they took away the negatives for shooting a single model.

This elemental change also made a huge impact on alot of magic items. I know for Bretonnians and Lizardmen you can make some killer magic/magic item combos. This is beyond what the items were originally designed to do. Yes they will update the army books, but at the rate they do, about half the books won't even get redone before the next edition.

THe last issue I have with magic is the miscast damage is not magic. Too me that is wrong, so you have a resistance to magic, but magic resistance doesn't protect you from raw magic? Yeah, sure. On top of that, if you have a spell that doesn't allow saves, you don't get a ward, normal or magic resistance boosted ward. Both of which I think is wrong. I like the route they went with Magic Resistance but it doesn't work if you can't have a save. Wrong answer.

I think the easiest way to fix magic is to put the miscasts back on to 1's and to let ward saves be the ward saves we have grown to love.

I see a ton of things that I do not like with the current edition, but what can we do? If we don't play the new edition our games will become stagnant and our armies will have no growth with new models and units and we all love new models and units.

[MorGrendel]

True nuff, new rules equal new ideas and discussions. I don't mind ultimate force and miscast being the same thing, I imagine its like knocking the cap off a magical hydrant. However, I'd like it better if it was 3 6's instead. Also, I think we will need to institute the house rule that Wards protect from miscasts, and forests block line of sight.

Speaking of new ideas . . . I wrote this magic heavy list. Thoughts?
Grey Seer + power stone
3 Engineers, all with warp tokens, doom rocket, death globe
Cheiftain BSB
Warlord Warlitter (BTW its +1 not 1+, whoops)
2 20xSlaves sh, Slings
40xSlaves sh
34xClanrats
2 20xNight Runners
2xRat swarm
2 3xJazzels
2 WL Cannons

Lots of Zap, Crack, Boom . . . Flee.

[Berserker]

3 dice for miscast, or 3 dice for irresistible force, or 3 dice for both? Note that regular wizards in my army are not allowed to use more then 2 dice on a cast, so what will that do to my army? Either that's going to be overpowered (if miscast on 3 dice), or underpowered (if irresistible force on 3 dice).

Also, some armies can get really high ward saves on their characters. Won't that make a wizard overpowered? I think it would if they can say "heck, i don't care if I miscast, I have 50% to save it). I would be opposed to allowing ward saves to work on miscasts.

I am totally for having forests block line of sight however. If it's a forest, then you can't see through it. The "it only has 5 trees in it" excuse doesn't work, because a forest of 5 trees is not a forest. If we call it a forest, then it's a forest with trees, bushes, etc. In fact, if a forest doesn't have grass, it's because the sun cannot penetrate. If the sun can't get in it, why whould a person see through it? =)

[MorGrendel]

That is a lucid, intelligent, well thought-out arguement . . . I wonder where you got it from.

[Titus]

With the new common magic items in the book, everyone has access to a 4+, 5+, and a 6+ ward save. FYI, Serban.

[Berserker]

Well, I would still think that wards against miscasts make wizards overpowered. I thought the point of having miscasts is to have fear that stuff can go wrong and force you to build a more balanced army and not rely on a wall of wizards. Otherwise, what is there to stop a wizard from rolling his max number of dice hoping for an irresistible cast on his most badass spell (such as the purple sun of xereus -- pass initiative or be slain, large template, remains in play and moves around; or the Dwellers Below - all in unit pass strengh test or die, no saves of any kind), knowing that he'll be able to avoid any damage to the wizard on a 4+? That's abuse in my opinion. There should be a risk involved with trying tricks like this (e.g. the wizard blows up as he gives his life away to destroy the enemy unit).

I heard (and I may be wrong) that before this edition there were some really heavy magic armies that were very effective, and perhaps this prompted this change in the magic rules?

[Titus]

I just don't agree that with a miscast that you still get your spell off. To me, when something goes wrong, it goes wrong. The spell should not still go off to me, hence double 1's. A 40 point 4+ ward, is a lot of points. So using it to protect yourself from a miscast should be worth it. The exploding spell would still hit everyone around you, so miscasts would still be expensive to protect all your mages/troops from them. But you could protect a few of them.

[MorGrendel]

And another thing, Skaven magic is already dangerous enough, and may still not work at ultimate force; WL hits me on a roll of 1, Cloud of Corruption only works on enemy units on a 2+, Plague can spread to my units, Vermintide and Crack are random distance, Dreaded 13th only works on infantry etc...

I don't hate my magic, just wish I had my own Miscast table.

[boagrius]

Here's a great site for models to go along with alot of armies.
http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,index.php

[Berserker]

Ahahahah, i love the valentines dwarfs!

[Titus]

Here's a great site for models to go along with alot of armies.
http://sciborminiatures.com/en_,index.php

Yeah, but alot of his models lack character, or just seem to be missing that umph, that most of GW's have. They just seem to lack spirit. He does make alot of conversion bits that are pretty cool though. Now if you want a great site, Avatars of War. Now these are some great hero models. I tend to put the links to cool stuff in the "Awesome Things for Fritz" Post, FYI. There are a couple of cool sites already in there.

But on a side not, Scibor is coming out with some Custodes Models.