Further thoughts on 8th Edition

When I went into the first game (report still pending...getting ready for the move has made it tough to get the pictures downloaded), I did something I seldom do. Not that I couldn't...in 7th edition, it was easy to do.

I made a battle plan before ever seeing the field.

The plan revolved around my infantry blocks. I would put them more or less in the center with the plan of advancing full speed and protecting/attacking the flanks with my Knights. I would use my single Cannon to take out any nasty blocks of shooting he might have.


So the plan was a general advance designed to ensure not getting flank-charged and thus allowing my core troops to have a chance to inflict some carnage on the opposition with 20 - 30 S5 and another 25ish S4 attacks. I should be almost wide enough to cover the entire width of the field, so this tactic would more or less force the enemy to deal with my entire army at one time.




On a one-to-one basis, I like the chances of my guys against most opponents; pretty good WS, S, T, I and save in comparison.

Meanwhile, the Knights would either defend the flanks or, if my battle-line extended further than his, attack his flanks while my Wizards went around brutalizing everyone with big, deadly spells.

But then, on the very first turn, something strange happened.

First, a mis-remembering of the rules. For some reason I thought the charge was double movement + 2d6. Not that it would have mattered...I needed to roll all of a 5 to get the charge.

See, I turned my Marauder Horsemen from Fast Cavalry into Light/Medium Cavalry with a 4+ save and a couple attacks apiece.

So when the battle was set up, I saw a way to use them as medium cavalry was actually used...to punch a hole in the opponents line which I could then break through and exploit.

I was perfectly set up to over-run his men-at arms 5 man unit and follow through into his Trebuchet/war machine park (I was facing 2 trebuchets, a couple skaven cannons of some sort or other, all told about 5 or 6 war machines clustered on or around a hill.)

This would allow the big block of Knights I had supported my center with to fill the gap, my line to surge forward and put pressure on his entire right flank. Meanwhile, my big block of Marauders, Shaggoth and a small unit of Knights would try to hold off the Skaven line on my left long enough to let my superior force deal with the Bretonnians.

In other words, I was trying the classic "defeat him in detail" maneuver; blocking forces, maneuver, blunt force trauma at the point of contact, and choosing which fights would occur and when they would happen. I was in tactical maneuver heaven.

Until my Marauder horsemen, needing a "6" to complete the charge...rolling 3 dice and dropping the lowest...managed to roll a 4. This meant I could either A) hold back my battle line to keep from supplying him with several flank charges with Knights of the Realm/Grail Knight Blocks or B) advance everyone else beyond the whopping 2" move the Marauder Horsemen made and destroy my own battle line.

Meanwhile, in the shooting phase, I dropped the S5 template on the head of his 5 Jezzails on the left flank. It would minimize his shooting and give my Knights/Marauder Horde the ability to hold off his Doomwheel/Plague Wheel/Abomination machines while my strong flank did the work.

And the S10 center of the hole killed one. But then...needing 2s...I rolled 4 ones, doing not one single wound to the rest of his shooters.

So there you have it; in turn one, my entire battle plan was in ruins based on 2 pathetic rolls.

The super low roll for the horsemen slowed my right flank advance to a crawl and my complete whiff with shooting meant the plan formed WHEN I BUILT MY ARMY failed 2 minuted into the game.

Why do I bring all this up?

I keep reading people talking about how 8th edition is not a tactical game. It is just build your strong list and push forward, roll dice, and see what happens.

I call shenanigans. Lazy thinking.

8th is extremely tactical, far more so than 7th ever was.

Whereas in 7th you pretty much knew you would break your opponent on the charge without them ever getting to even attack back, in 8th you not only have to consider what happens if you win or lose...you have to consider how to deal with the attacks that come back at you.

That means things like flank charges are, if anything, MORE important than in 7th. Minimizing the attacks from support is huge. Minimizing stuff like the 6+ parry ward save pays huge dividends.

It means debating when and where to allow holes to develop in your battle line matter. And develop they will...with shooting and magic far deadlier than they were, you will see even your most elite units disappear from time to time.

It means things like blocking forces actually have a real, meaningful use, unlike in 7th where my Marauder Horde was begging to get flank charged by a weak skaven unit that would wipe out the 5 models on the flank (no attacks back), over-run into my Knights and fight a second time...basically rolling up my flank in one turn and rendering the blocking forces pointless.

Sure, it still matters how good your troops are...actually, it matters MORE now.

On the surface, getting 35 attacks from Goblin Spearmen sounds good. At the end of the day, though, they are hitting on 4s or 5s, so 12 - 18 hit, and of those, half or less will wound so 3 - 6 wounds if they get that many attacks, and of those a few are likely to be saved.

It still takes a troop with decent chance to hit and wound to take advantage of the new rules...but it now means those troops are worth taking.

It is now worth the time and effort to find a place to get my Chaos Warriors into action. Even if I have to withstand a charge from Grail Knights...I still get to fight them instead of just take off models.

Which means I should invest some time and thought into how to get them into action because Chaos Warriors are going to do damage.

This is not to say 8th is not also including a heavy dose of luck. You will have fluffed rolls and epic successes. But that luck factor requires MORE tactical acumen, not less.

Now, in our game, it altered my plan...but I was able to adjust my tactics. I set up my flanking Knights so after he charged my Chaos Warriors (who, with 6 ranks, the Banner of Chaos nearby, had a re-rollable 8 on stubborn to still be there the next turn) with his Grail Knights, I would charge the Grail Knights the following turn with 5 Knights of my own.

Grail Knights mired in combat < Grail Knights roaming around charging in to break opponents mired in combat.

With a little better luck, it would not have been necessary to alter my tactics. I would have had my big block of Chaos Knights set up to flank-charge his Grail Knights after they charged my Chaos Warriors head on, and my steadfast Warriors + Knights would happily grind him to dust as his Knights of the Realm would have had to take massive Dangerous Terrain tests in roaming through the forest...only to be met by more Chaos Knights.

I would have wiped out almost all his Jezzails on the left and thus not had to worry about his shooting...only on how best to hold up that half of the army while I concentrated on the other side of the field. (Though admittedly the wound whiff had nothing to do with it being 8th as opposed to 7th...but is illustrative of how luck-based results can have huge impacts.)

In 7th edition, it would have been predetermined how the game would go. I could have forced him to charge/overrun where I wanted and when I wanted, I could have more often than not kept him from attacking those who I did not want him to attack...

In 7th edition, more often than not the old truism that "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy" was completely false.

It was a failing of 7th that battle plans in fact could be nearly ironclad...the vagaries of chance were not enough to offset the weaknesses of the rules and thus meant it had more strategic impact than tactical...

You COULD design armies around specific battle plans and know they had a high chance of going off just as you drew them up.

This, contrary to popular opinion, MINIMIZES the tactics involved.

Corrections to the rules like allowing supporting attacks, everyone to fight, and so forth means those events so common in war...inferior troops outperforming expectations, elite troops not performing, inexplicable charges and failed charges that break battle lines...these things now are well represented in the game.

And it is in those situations where your perfect battle plan breaks down due to something unforeseen that show whether you can truly perform in a tactical manner.

Yes, there will be times the vagaries of chance will result in a brilliant, well-executed plan going awry...then again, there is a reason Napoleon famously said he would rather have a lucky general than a good one.

Not that Warhammer in any way, shape or form reflects true warfare...but when discussing tactics, you are reflecting the same things often found in war, and as such, yes, there should be those unforeseen events that disrupt plans.

These events are more reflective of true tactical challenge than simply knowing if you do a + b the result will be c.

Now, somewhere out there is someone saying, "Ha! GW fanboy who thinks everything they do is right".

Not so much. I think failed charges should go their entire distance, find many elements of TLOS outstandingly ridiculous and game-breaking, think there are some other notable flaws in the game design...I could go on, but why?

But the accusations that the game "has no tactics" are wildly off base and wrong. It has more opportunity and need for tactics than ever before.

On 8th Edition

I enjoy playing the 7th edition of Warhammer.

Partially this is because of the group I play with. Very relaxed, easy going, with the process (that is, the playing of the game) meaning a great deal more than the outcome.

Not that the outcome doesn't matter...if it did not, then we would not tally up points at the end.

But I think all of us would vastly prefer a tightly contested game with many wild swings of fortune than a game that is predetermined.

Now, there are exceptions; whether it is in my head or somewhere else, I really believe I have no chance against the Dark Elf army when using the Warriors of Chaos. I have yet to even give them a game. It has reached the point where even when building my list, I know the game is lost.

Conversely, when playing the Empire (pre-Steam Tank acquisition) I just assume a win. They do not match well with the Warriors of Chaos.

Most of the time, however, when going into a game, I look forward to the process...the unexpected Foot of Gork taking out 60% of the Dragon Princes on turn one, having 3 of 5 Chaos Knights fail a 2+ armor save, and so forth.

Working to get a positional advantage or to overcome the vagaries of misfortune that turned a brilliant battle plan into a desperate situation.

Not to say there were not flaws...the books are FAR from balanced and, more importantly to me, there are key troops in every army purely not worth taking.

For example, when building a Lizardman list, I pure and simple cannot see myself ever taking Saurus Warriors.

This is partially predicated on how I play the game. I assume my opponent is at least as skilled as I am and will no more make a mistake than I would.

The Saurus are so slow they will only ever get into close combat in unfavorable circumstances. They are not rugged enough to withstand a charge from any real cavalry, so they become nothing but "free" points for the opponent as they never, ever, ever get to even attack back. Doing 5 casualties to Saurus is not hard.

This, by the way, is why with the Warriors of Chaos I very seldom take Warriors of Chaos. The only time they have gotten into combat has been when I was charged by Cold One Knights (I did not get to attack back), by Grail Knights (I did not get to attack back), and when I was able to pin an opponent with my Knights.

In short, there are certain troops that at any cost over zero are priced too high for what they do. Note; not what they are CAPABLE of, but what they DO.

I also, as part of my love of fantasy, want to have magic and dragons.

Magic, to put it mildly, has been ineffective for me. I have had 12 levels of magic shut down by 3, for example.

None of this is to say I am crying for infantry to play some huge role or for the game to degenerate into Wizard v. Wizard with everyone else irrelevant.

But in reading over the 8th edition changes now that they are confirmed, I am starting to really get excited.

First off, I love epic combats. Although the outcome was a foregone conclusion, (largely because in something like 8 rounds of combat his 'elite" Temple Guard got to attack me like once), perhaps my all-time favorite game moment was a Shaggoth v. Temple Guard v. Chaos Knights and Dragon Ogres v. Terradons v. Saurus v Chaos Marauders.

It was such a memorable moment I still have it as a picture on my phone (though the Brandon Roy dunk of the year remains my screen saver).

Second, I do not mind losing models...in fact, perhaps my biggest complaint has been that games are heavily weighted in favor of whoever can get off a charge, and any unit not engaged in setting up and executing the charge is just filler.

It certainly appears to me that this specific issue has been addressed in 8th. With the return to the "step-up" rule and the addition of the "steadfast" rule, the idea of my "filler" actually getting to fight instead of having the giant "we are free vp with almost no risk" stamp is in an iron lung breathing its last.

Instead, I actually see a real use for Marauders and Chaos Warriors.

I have to laugh about the complaints that "true line of sight means no more screening units " as the ridiculous "people on a hill have no targeting restrictions" rule meant I was able to actually screen maybe twice. Ever. So there is really very little change.

When it comes to the charge, at first I hated the random add. But the more I think about it, the more I like it.

I have had several games, particularly with the Ogre Kingdoms and Bretonnians, where a bulk of the game was playing chicken to see who would first either maneuver their opponent into being forced to receive a charge or else giving up and allowing the opponent to charge.

At the same time, armies faster than my own (Wood Elf, Skinks, Dark Elfs) were all but un-touchable for me as they were able to elude me through wise use of skirmishing and/or the ability to force me to either give them the charge (which I could not stand up to) or die without responding under missile fire. (though the Skinks, wisely, have yet to charge me)

The ability to reach further than a static distance alters every one of those scenarios. In the ones where I held the advantage, I still do but now, between random charge distance and the altered importance of the charge (striking in I order rule), it is not an unbeatable advantage.

Conversely, when I am at a disadvantage, I am still at a disadvantage, but now it is not un-overcomable.

Whereas before if the Grail Knights charged me I typically would lose anywhere from 3 to all 5 Knights without a chance to attack back, now I have a chance to at least fight, for example.

So overall, although my favorite army elements (the Knights, Shaggoth, Dragon Ogres) got weakened in some respects, the prospect of some massive, epic combats with units I regularly took, but only to weaken my army, like Marauders and Chaos Warriors, makes me excited.

Moving on to magic, I like the limit of scrolls (and hope they eliminate stuff like the High Elf item that makes any double an auto-miscast...at 100 points, it is far too strong for the points, especially with the new mis-cast table) and the way being a higher level actually means you are stronger than a lower level.

Not sure how I feel about some of the super-powered spells, but love that you should get some stuff off...no more total wall of shut-down.

Basically, 90% of what I heard are rules adjustments I really, really like.

The main downside? Until they release the box set with the small rulebook...I will be playing 7th.