Episode 59 - A Response - Top 5 Things That Need Changing in TOW
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ย. 2024
- We loved the Square Based discussion last week about the Top 5 things that need changing in Warhammer TOW. We run through our reactions and responses and throw in a few of our own as well
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[02:55] - Shoutouts
[05:49] - Patreon Questions for the Show
[37:07] - Hobby
[1:08:55] - Top 5 things that need changing in TOW
[2:08:14] - Outros
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For sure, We need to take close order away from everything that is not an infantry unit.
To make ranked infantry relevant again, need to incentivise rank bonus more and make it harder to get outcharged by cavalry/monsters. Some ideas:
1. Regular infantry max RB +3 (so hordes can get +4)
2. RB stacks for combat res (max 3 units, max +2RB for second and third units)
3. Units get supporting attacks from the rear ranks equal to twice RB
4. Spear or halberd infantry units cause “impact hits” when charged by cavalry, chariot or monsters. (Equal to RB for halberds, and twice RB for spears.)
5. Swiftstride on the charge only gives +D6 if target flees, otherwise just +1
6. When charging, flying units must follow movement restrictions as if moving on the ground (I.e. they still use their Fly move characteristic but they can’t charge over other troops)
7. A unit which restrains in opponent’s turn may not declare a charge in their next turn.
8. Only US1 skirmishers get 360 charge arc - others still have 90 arc. When a skirmish unit charges, only models that have target within their arc can be placed in the fighting rank - others must go in a rear rank.
9. Units in skirmish formation get -1Ld
In general, make RB better so that there is a real upside to ranked formations and a real downside to skirmishing, and give infantry more of a chance to actually do some damage back when they are charged. Cavalry should be risking something when they charge into a ranked block of spear or halberd infantry (they might be able to break through but they should expect to take losses even if they do, rather than just tear through them completely unscathed).
Also, let missile units shoot in two ranks as standard and Volley Fire just allows every model to shoot.
Especially love #1 and #3. Also, let's bring back +1 combat res for Outnumbering.
I think changes need to be subtle and not too arbitrary. Right now the rules reward width over depth and small units over the large bricks that a lot of us veterans of the game really miss. So changes need to incentivize going deeper. With your rule #3 suggestion I'd actually just scratch the current Fighting Rank rule altogether. Good stuff!
I just listened as podcast but came here to comment. Great chat as always chaps, thank you for the video shout out Gommo, hope you get on well with the airbrush.
improving armour of infantry is another option that could help them in general . for instance more access to full plate or improving things like shields and cloaks to give better AC. the more infantry survive getting hit, the more get to fight back.
Monsterous inf probably needs plus 2 combat res per a rank. It's too expensive other wise for a rank bonus. If you run ogres in two min ranks you're paying 150 per a rank.
Compared with reg infantry it's min like 25 pts for orcs or other cheap inf
This is what I posted on the Square Based episode:
We are homebrewing two ranks and three for spears. Extra ranks are support attacks.
We don't do step up cause that hurts Elves, who rely on hitting first to counter their lower Toughness.
Maximum width we use is double the unit strength for rank, so Heavy Infantry need 4, maximum equal 8.
In regards to shooting, we were toying with +1 to hit large, but also +1 if the target has more than 1 rank, to show how easy it is to hit big units.
I think there was a fair bit of influence from historical gaming in designing TOW. Sure in, say, 6th ed, the “look” of WHF was smaller blocks of 16-20 blocks of infantry in 4 ranks. But in actual historical combat, units tended to be much wider than they were deep.
Dispelling : add range extender to dispell scrolls. 12 inches ? the small range is a huge disadvantage for lower level wizards.
I think step up is awful. It helps sloppy gameplay. It dumbs down the game even more. the best answer by far is bring back plus one for outnumbering and add an additional plus one for ranks. allow ranks to be gained by only four wide, allow +3 combat Rez normally for infantry, +4 for infantry hordes and make more units hordes.
static combat res is zzzzz. IMO big blocks of infantry should always be the main actor in warhammer old world/fantasy doing the heavy work. Toning done heroes/monsters/cav is necessary just as much as buffing inf.
@@envaya9838 "static combat res is zzzzz"
Couple of things on this. Firstly it's the easiest thing to change without major reworking of the rules so in the short term has to be the best way to move things in the right direction (i.e. in favour of infantry). Secondly in and of itself I get that improving it doesn't get the infantry rolling any dice in a turn in which they've been charged. However, if it means they have a better chance of only giving ground rather than FBIGO (or even them winning combat if the chargers roll poorly) in that first turn then surely it can mean that they get to make attacks that they otherwise wouldn't have in the next turn when their opponents don't have their charge bonus and special rules.
"Toning down heroes/monsters/cav is necessary just as much as buffing inf"
Totally agree - and one of the things that should be done on that front is taking the close order bonus off monsters, chariots (at least single ones which is pretty much all of them) and possibly cavalry, as suggested by the guys in the video. Their ideas on wound totals for monstrous mounts and using the mount's save seem pretty good to me too and more significant, but the combat res thing would still help as well.
@@ClydeMillerWynant Yea no you're absolutely right. Let's hope that it wont take them years until they address this.
I’m with this guy! Defo sloppy game play.
@@envaya9838 If you are going to copy opinions then find some one smarter than Val, mate. Combat rez is no more boring than rolling dice. WHFB isn't about infantry or any other troops type, it's about movement and rewarding people who are good at it. And only 8th had big blocks, it's absolutely not a core component of any good edition of this game.
Also it's flat out bizarre to be complaining about static rez then saying big blocks are important. What the fuck do you think makes big blocks good???
I really think the answer is give one more plus one for ranks than there is now. bring back outnumbering, take close order away from anything that’s not a ranked up block. And do a thorough points adjustment because there’s a lot of infantry that’s too expensive. Use the men at arms points for reference. They are pointed perfectly for what they do.
Are infantry too expensive or are cavakry to cheap?
@@eskhaphey2873 Both but not universal to every unit, more of a trend. Some infantry is priced fine and some are over priced/ fine.
One thing I would like to see is to have more of a reason to have combat characters on foot, obviously tied to making infantry better. Idea that would make sense to me is that any character riding a monster would be status penalties, such as -1 to initiative and weapon skill or maybe missing out on initiative bonus on charge and such. Reasoning is that they're not fighting as well while also controlling a massive beast in battle.
39:00 you can bend them to a certain extent, but it will start stretching the resin/plastic and you need to be careful not to tear it. Plus depending on the pose you obviously can't change it overly much because the excess material simply wont be there.
Yeah ill need to do some testing I recon. See how it goes. Cheers for the info.
I think the big disconnect on step up is that monsters, characters, and monstrous units don't lose any attacks back when they get hit first unless they die. If you do 3 wounds to a chaos lord on dragon, so what? He still hits you with all of his attacks.
So multiwound models have fewer reasons not to take great weapons which makes them even stronger. Really, to be fair, either add step up for infantry OR maybe multiwound models should lose 1 attack per wound lost that phase. So you do 2 wounds to a dragon ogre and now it only gets 1 attack back
Infantry definately need a buff, but not just a boring extra combat res for existing. My suggestion is to look at why infantry are so underpowered to that of monsters and cavalry, since they already have a rediculously good combat res, buffing that isnt gking to solve anything. The issue is infantry is to suseptable to cavalry charges (which they should be) but they get killed to fast to be able to attack back, so simple add that the first two ranks count as the fighting rank. Since in reality it would be a chaotic melee rather than perfectly flush battlelines trying to poke each other without stepping over the line between the units.
The absurdity of linehammer can easily be fixed by saying a unit cannot be wider than 10 models, nice and simple.
Level 4 wizards are basically an auto include if you want any magic. Tomb kings and vampires are a semi exception since their main gimmick of raising the dead arexabilities that are based on the caster wizarding level. Each new level gives exponential increase to the power of that wizard. You're either a lvl 1 that can cast 1 spell with a +1, a lvl 2 that can cast 2 spells with a +2 to each spell, a lvl 3 with 3 spells at +3 each, or a lvl 4 with 4 spells at +4... a level 4 is rediculously over powered even compared to a level 3. And even then you can getca level 4 wizard who has all 4 spells cast in the command phasey thing, now thats some stupid ass fast casting... simply limit wizards to casting one spell per phase, that way it treats higher level wizards as having more option rather than turbo powerhouses.
Characters on monsters should not be able to issue or accept challenges since the best thing a smll block of basic infantry can do is challenge out the character forcing him to max out his overkill for a combat res of 6, against my tomb guard thats an auto draw resulting in a win for me with my musician.
Infantry, linehammer, wizards, and challenges.
Golf is a sport and definitely a hobby. Watching football, especially if you’re actually going to games and tailgating is surely a hobby.
yep, golf definitely ticks the 'huge money sink' box!
If they did do step up, maybe add a further spin to it. Like any model that was not in fight or support rank and stepped up hits back at -1 penalty?
It would penalize not completely kill the chance striking back.
Great discussion!!
I'm definitely in the "no Step-Up" camp. In every edition of Warhammer (except for 8th) the game was fundamentally about clever maneuvering, screening and avoiding getting charged. Step-Up sort of sucked that out of the game. Made it less consequential. I suppose to make it more forgiving and appeal to younger players, I don't know. But I'm very happy it's not in TOW. Initative and superior maneuvering _should_ matter a lot in Warhammer.
I do like the idea of allowing Infantry support attacks equal to their Rank Bonus, or twice their ranks or whatever. Something that's unique for just infantry. And yes, let's bump up the Rank Bonus to +3 and bring back Outnumbering as well.
How about letting infantry do supporting attacks from the flanks somehow? Then you'd get two supporting attacks for each additional rank you add and only one extra supporting attack for every file you add. I think the problem is the value proposition. Ranks are more expensive than files and gives less value in combat, at least after reaching the maximum rank bonus. Maybe making Disrupted remove a number of rank bonus instead of all of it could help, then you could protect your rank bonus more by adding more ranks
Been playing centre of unit to closest of event unit charges almost since 8th ed was released - works so much better to bring back some of the tactical positioning of older editions.
We also played step up to front rank only. So striking first matters (attacks reduced by casualties from supporting ranks only).
First. About Swiftstride. Removing it from Heavy Cav and most flying monsters would in a way buff infantry. Now they ALWAYS get charged. But if huge parts of the units would fail and/or be unable to do as many charges?
My own thoughts. Off the top of my head my changes would be:
My first one might be controversial. Im not sure myself. But... an annual patch/update. Should NOT be as large as what 40K gets. But if you know that at the same point each year they will do some tweaks to gameplay that arent just FAQs/erratas it would be nice. Just some gentle prodding of points here. A "this spell is now +1 difficulty to cast" there.
Somehow buff ranked infantry.
Make lvl4 mages less mandatory. Why even bring anything else? Here I see a simple points tweak as a possibility. Since that would make us have to bring less other stuff AND it makes the mage even more valuable if it gets killed.
Tone down the buffs you get from monstermounts.
Why take a lord on a horse? You pay the same points for your magic items and such as a dragonlord...
Small tweaks to the lores of magic. Many spells are fine.
Some are OP (we all know which exact one I am thinking of). Some are as close as useless as you can get. Like that Dark Elf spell.
As per heavy cav, Rob basically has a big feel bad about chaos chosen knights. He feels like these guys are terrible for their points because so many things kill them super quickly. Specifically I'm thinking viletide, plague of rust + shooting, fanatics, and thunderstomps. Basically there's so much ap2 in the game that a 2+ save isn't a 2+ save almost ever
I think it was also Grail Knights.
I am intrigued by his point tho. Make them beefier but slower.
Make Light Cav the Swiftstride option.
Part of the problem with infantry is survivablity. There’s just so much AP1 and AP2 now that most infantry doesn’t even get an armor save at all. My sad problem, I guess, is that I just wanted 6th ed back. 😜
But 6th ed had tons of AP as well. I mean.... everything with S4 had AP1. S5 AP2. Etc
Or am I missremebering? 😅
22:30 Running - It's a discipline! So hard to keep motivation up to run regularly and once you start slipping out of the routine its even harder to get back into it :-(
100%. I’ve also always worked on my feet and played sport, and at this point I don’t reckon my knees and ankles can cop the impact all the time. Used to enjoy running tho
Fix infantry? Look back to 6th Ed and figure out what made it work.
6th ed infantry Didnt work.. It worked in 8th ed !
@@TheFGS It worked no better in 8th than in 6th. All those comp packs restricting monstrous cav weren't just for laughs.
It worked too well in 8th and tended to dominate. 5th... Herohammer, characters and monsters ruled. 6th, characters and monsters nerfed but cavalry was seen as too weak. 7th, cavalry buffed and became dominant, infantry suffered. 8th, infantry buffed up, probably too much, infantry dominated the game... especially huge units. People were really starting to complain that GW were just swinging the rules back and forth to drive model sales.
@@earnestwanderer2471 I Mostly agree about 5th and 6th ed. However I think that 8th ed infantry worked excactly as it should. The fact that people couldnt afford or "wouldnt paint" 200+ models was what made people "not like that edition". Ruleswise I think its close to perfection, and 8th ed is the "best looking ed" of all, because of the huge beautyfull infantry units on the table, and the estetics, it gives of a "proper army", marching on the battlefield! If you are talking about "elite infantry - deathstars", then YES, there was such a thing in 8th, however there was so many possibilities to counter such units. -Redirecting, magicing, avoidance-list etc etc, or many 8th ed tournaments would create extra restrictions/houserules to balance such things out. (just like there was in any edition")
Infantry having different rules like "horde rule", "Steadfast", "Step up -Support attacks", "parry", "Stubborn", Took the game away from hero-hammer, or monster-hammer,- to a much more realistic and fluid game, where you could bring more units to the table and therefore enjoy more of your models!
Now, the Real problem I hear most people talk about regarding 8th ed, have always been the "Nuke-spells", and the "Warmachine Meta", and on "How it killed of herohammer/monsters". But that is a whole other rant, that I also dont 100% agree on :)
1:16:57 I think the designers were really wary of the complaint that 8th ended up being huge steadfast hordes and over corrected a bit in terms of reducing rank bonuses and such
1:06:33 I actually enjoy having Josh’s random 6th ed corner in the middle of the main show! But more content is good too lol. could call the new series “older world fanatics” 😅
Now the campaign is in full swing it definitely can fill a 45-60 min segment by itself! I did consider 'really old world fanatics' but went a slightly different way to avoid the confusion of 'old world' being in the title at all. Watch this space - first ep will be out in a couple of days! Josh
1:34:00 ooooh that could be interesting. I mean the only characters challenging while you are lower than that are absolute beat stick super dukes and the like
Yeah, right? It's a small change but I'd argue it fits the fluff better (why would the whole unit sit back unless it was their own character that issued the challenge), and gives slightly more control for units over lone chars - Josh
People talking like step up is some core part of WHFB is like saying George Clooney is the most iconic Batman. You can understand why someone can feel that way but it's just not true.
Thanks for the idea Josh. I’ve tried fixing the Challenges problem before but I’m going to try this,
A model cannot issue a Challenge unless they are part of a unit with 5 or more rank & file models (or 3 models if Monstrous).
A model can always accept a challenge even if in a smaller unit or alone.
I wanna bring back split characters and monster profiles
A high elf with his stupid armour saves is still T3 or 4
I don’t like the idea of giving Calvary 2 wounds & taking away swift stride. They’d feel less like real Calvary if that happened. Calvary are supposed to function as mobile shock units that don’t have the ability to last very long in a prolonged combat.
I recon the Avatars of war goblins would make great hob goblins.
A hobby is anything you do in your spare time for fun.