Hero Hammer?

When we used to play Warhammer back in the 1995 edition, it was a broken, broken game. You could tool up your heroes to the point where troops were of little to no value. I remember one game where we were playing a 3-way battle. I tooled up a Bretonnian Lord on a dragon. After the first turn, the other two players, neither of whom had anything of the sort, ganged up on me. 

IF my Grail Knights did even a single casualty it was a minor miracle. Instead, the dragon/champion rampaged across the field leaving in his wake carnage unmatched. Not too long after that we stopped playing. It was broken, broken, broken.

We moved on to a collectible card game called Raw Deal. Great game, a lot of fun, but it suffered from power escalation until it reached a breaking point. Along the way, it suffered from some curious rules interpretations and decisions that were, well...illogical at best, downright stupid at worst. 

Finally, that game did a complete reset, basically a start over, but it was too late and within 3 sets it died. This side-trip will make sense in a little while.

Not too long ago, we started painting again. Since I had the Battle for Skull Pass set, I painted up the Dwarf and Goblin armies from it and we started goofing around, playing games here and there.

Quickly it began to appear that the "Herohammer" phase might be gone. No longer were characters game breakers. 

Well...okay, so in the second game, I had this to say:

"In close combat, Norri again slew a Spider Rider while taking no wounds yet again lost the battle to their superior numbers and Standard. Being unbreakable, unhittable, and unwoundable by the Spider Riders, he laughed it off, took a big drink from his hip flask, and settled in to deal more damage when his own turn arrived."

Other than the Unbreakable, unwoundable slayer, though, Characters were very balanced. They could do damage...but we also saw a Thane fall to a Goblin Boss, a Troll fall to Thunderers, an Unbreakable Slayer fall to the lowly Night Goblin archers, a pointless unit if I ever saw one.

The game made sense. TROOPS would be the key to the 7th edition of Warhammer. That was a good thing. Battles would be won or lost by maneuver, putting the proper troops in the proper places, and so forth rather than just by who tooled up their character the best.

We saw that early on when those who used skirmish screens to protect their close combat troops won. Those who put valuable troops alone and let them get shot up lost. Every time. Line troops and tactics were deciding the outcomes.

We moved on to new armies. The Wood Elf army showed up. Their characters are...well...not exactly awe-inspiring. They have a decent stat line but were still able to be wounded by line troops.

The Dark Elves showed up. Their Assassins caused mass fear but, to this point, have yet to be game-breaking. Actually, I have yet to see them even in a combat. In fact, the games I have seen them in were decided by the near-broken 2 million shot per turn Repeater Cross-bow/mass Repeater Bolt Thrower arrow lines of death. Of course, I also did not see anyone use skirmish lines against him and the result was arrow carnage of death.

The point remains, no hero was dominating games. Occasionally they would tip the balance of a battle but they were not determining games on their own. In fact, other than the unbreakable Slayer, any character who rumbled around on his own died.

But then the power escalation started. One of our guys decided to go with the Ogres. They were an army we had initially planned to not use, along with Bretonnia and Chaos as they were "hard" armies...tough to kill. But we had a change of heart and decided all the armies were more or less balanced, or so it seemed from the outside.

And so it has more or less proved. Actually, the Ogres have been a decided dissapointment. One of our big fears was that they would be like the Slayer; untouchable, unkillable for S3 units like the Dark Elf gun lines.  

Instead, they have had a surprisingly poor record despite Kev setting them up about as well as he can, moving them well...they are just A) massively overcosted and B) the WS of 3 is what makes them overcosted. Well, that and the fact they have no discernible saves since anything that wounds a T4 model obliterates heavy armor saves anyway.

Against the Dark Elf army the Ogres have suffered a Massacre of epic proportions and been on the wrong end of a Substantial Victory.

Surprisingly, it is the Vampire Counts and Dark Elf armies that have seemed overpowered. The Dark Elf army is the only one that has not lost a game (other than Warbands which don't count since the Warbands system blows mighty chunks of steaming orangutang warbles). The only game the Vampire Counts have lost was to the Dark Elf army...which brings us to the point.

In that game, line troops did...well...nothing. That was largely because the VC general wisely put Ethereal units out as a skirmish screen. As a result, all the damage had to be done by magic. So sorcery and Malus wiped out those ethereal and then rampaged through the skeletons he had left over. 

It was the first sign of a developing problem. Since I was not partof that game, I was not privy to what was going on.

The beat went on when a dragon rampaged over the Ogres.  Again, a hero was tooled up to be so strong it was untouchable and was able to almost single-handedly win via a massacre against one of the tougher armies we have.

Then last Saturday it was really brought home. I had Galrauch, the first dragon, and next to me was another dragon.

In the game, Galrauch took 2 wounds. One was when he Miscast. Bound to happen when you miscast FOUR times. One was when he failed his Leadership test and attacked himself.

He shrugged off a volley of 30 peasants where I think 28 of them hit. He did not even need to make a save. Meanwhile, he saw off a Grail Reliquae, a Trebuchet, 30 peasant bowmen, did something like 5 casualties in one combat, and in yet another he single-handed killed a Bret hero with no real danger to himself.

Hero hammer.

Next to me another dragon was rampaging back and forth killing ogres at will. 

Hero hammer.

Now, to be fair, there was some line troop action; my Chaos Knights slew  4 or 5 units, his Grail Knights and Knights Errant killed my Chaos Warriors who, along with my Chaos Knights, have been compared by one guy to being heroes themselves.

Basic, core line troops did...well...nothing. 

I don't know what they did in the game next to us. I did see Gnoblars win a combat. Bwoohahaha. Against a line unit. SO there is that. But otherwise, line units have been casualties. Mostly to heroes.

I do know both games were more or less decided by what ended up being massively overpowered heroes who could barely be wounded, much less harmed seriously. 

I actually felt somewhat bad about what Galrauch did. Liam is new to the game and simply had nothing capable of dealing with a monster with a stat line of 6s across the board (except LD which is 9). 

So I started thinking about it. What changed? Why did what was initially a pretty well-balanced game where heroes were a nice touch but units were superior become something where units are a nice touch but characters determine who wins?

I think I figured it out. 

The problem started when we started using Lord level characters. 

Suddenly, the characters no longer are vulnerable to line units. Not even to good line units. They can set out  on their own at will, safe from all harm and easily able to dispatch enough enemies to overcome starting combat resolutions scores of -5, -6 or more. 

Back to Raw Deal; I am wondering if going to the Lord level characters is the power escalation point that brings us back to broken? 

It is funny. When we talk, each of us seems to see the strong points in every one elses' army while primarily seeing the weak points of our own army.

Case in point;

I see my Chaos Knights and absolutely love them.  At the same time, I know they are scarily fragile. As one guy said about his dragon with mounted sorcerer on why he wasn't using it, "It was too may points to risk." Of course, once he started using it, he crushed his opponent but his point is well taken.

When I lost a combat with my Chaos Warriors, I gave up almost 1000 points between unit cost, attached heroes, banner being captured and him receiving a second bonus for capturing a banner. That can be very, very difficult to overcome. I gave up 40% of my starting points in that one unit.

I see the same problem with my Chaos Knights. A basic unit costs well over 200 points. I will start most combat resolutions behind by several points. If I roll poorly or they roll well, I am risking a lot of points. I cannot roll "average", I MUST do 4 - 5 casualties or more to have any chance of winning most combats. 

So far, I have been able to do so, and that is what everyone BUT me sees. I see the risk, they see what has been happening, which is a lot of fortuitous rolls.

By the same token, when I look at other armies, I see what they can do to me...I know that just one round of shooting that slips in 2 casualties can essentially remove my knights as a factor. I know that one well-placed cannon ball or one good Organ Fun volley can take out a good percentage of my army in just one phase. I have watched magic devastate me (though I have yet to devastate anyone with it. Magic so far has been a very, very miserable experience for me. I have taken a lot of damage and dealt very, very little in return.)

I have been trying to compensate for the "over powered" nature of the Warriors of Chaos by taking armies that are worse than what I want to take: I have only once used a screening unit (this past game when I put in the Warhounds) and even there, it was just because I planned to go get his archers with them. 

In other words,  am deliberately playing the army somewhat wrong. I don't use screens, I use my Knights like block infantry instead of as flanking units, and so forth. But I also see how fragile it is. I have gotten by with some very fortuitous close combat rolls and tactical mistakes by my opponents.

Example A) When Fullur put skinks in front of me, I was able to do a whopping 7 casualties in just 12 attacks while he did none in about 12  attacks. He should have hit me about 4 times and, if it was a Kroxigor that hit me, wounded with me having a 50% chance of wounding which I would then have about 50% chance of saving. So him NOT wounding me was not a huge shock (though it is pointing out a flaw in the Lizardman army design; they force you to put skinks in a unit that has to be in hand to hand to be effective. Skinks in close combat are better known as "casualties". )

By him giving me all 5 front line guys attacking to go with the 1 flanked guy, I was able to overcome what would have been a GUARANTEED break test for me. He had the flank charge, he outnumbered me, he had a standard, a 2 rank bonus: he had a +5 combat resolution score and I would have had only 4 attacks back. There is f course no guarantee I would have failed it...but not having to take the test was a break for me.

Example B) Liam flank charged me with Knights Errant, had a 3 rank bonus in front of me, outnumbered me. He started with a +5 to the combat. He had 4 guys hitting me, one a champ; 5 attacks, 1 -2 should hit, wound on 2+ thanks to his Lance, my save reduced to 50%...he had a good chance of killing a Knight. Instead I put a hurt on his peasants in front of me doing something like 9 casualties to him when I should have done about 6 or 7. He broke.

So I had slightly better results than I should average, he had slightly worse. Made all the difference. 

Well, that and never having to face his Grail Knights. That battle would probably come down to who got the charge since our stat lines are almost identical except I have T4 to his T3 and he has a Lance giving him S6 on the charge; we should hit each other 50% of the time, if he has the charge, he wounds 83% of the time to my 66% and with a -3 to my save, I save "only" 50% of the time while he is saving 66% of the time. Between the near-parity of our troops (if he does NOT get the charge I get a slight advantage as he then wounds only 50% of the time and I save 67% of the time) and the combat resolution bonus he gets, the battles between our Knight units will truly be titanic sights to behold. 

Anyway, the point is the combination of fortuitous dice rolls, better maneuvering and tactics has hidden my weaknesses. 

At the same time, my limited exposure to some armies has hidden their shortcomings from me.

And in all cases, the overwhelming devastation wreaked by all but invulnerable characters in all disproportion to their points cost kind of minimizes the point of tactics anyway. If all I have to do to keep my line troops out of danger is fly Superman up on a character to crush into helpless jelly any unit that threatens my beloved Knights then the game is broken.

This is only exacerbated by bizarre rulings such as FAQs saying Magic Resistance doesn't work against area effects spells, then saying in the White Dwarf magazine that it does (November 2008 issue). Does it or does it not?

Or how about the ruling that a cannon ball does no harm if it is flaming? I can see where the flaming part would be obliterated by something like a Phoenix Cloak...but you still got smashed by a cannon ball.

So the question is; how is the mix of overpowered heroes and imbalanced armies affecting your enjoyment of Warhammer?

What tweaks do we need to make? I have considered things such as taking no Lord level characters (and dismissed it; my hero level characters would then have a marked advantage as they are arguably better than my Wood Elf Lord-level characters, for example).

I have considered taking points deficits, but not knowing if I would be facing a Dragon means I don't dare do that myself and neither can anyone else.

So how do we keep Warhammer from becoming Hero Hammer? Let's be proactive on this one. thoughts? Opinions? Ideas?