WFB 9th Edition Rumor Roundup

[flipchuck]

For me, I too have been hearing the rumors about round bases in fantasy. Even to the point of having the War of the Rings movement trays (made to put rounds bases to line up in a square formation). And for me, if the round base became optional, then that's fine. But making it as a part of the rule where you must have round bases wouldn't make sense to me. Where as the new movement trays for the rounds bases lines up the models for a square block. But my square base models on the old movement tray does that too. And I find that having either a square base or round base for skimrish type of games don't make that much of a difference since I have played both necomunda and mordheim. The movement in and around terrain and base to base contact with models hasn't really changed much based on the type of base.

And I still believe that GW moving along the fluff, killing characters and such was pretty cool and needed until they destroyed the whole world.

With the whole bubblehammer rumor happening, if it ends up being chunks of the old world floating around in the Choas warp, then that would be ok because it's still parts of the warhammer world. So you could still have your old battle grounds and old cities like before. The only different is mainly the sky isn't blue anymore, with float chunks of land in the distant sky. It could work.

But I still perfer they didn't destory the warhammer world though.

[Wildeybeast]

Probably "couldn't" is accurate. Our local manager seems to be stuck relying on rumor websites most of the time to have an idea of what's coming up (or spotting new SKUs in the system). Which seems like a really poor way of handling things for GW.

If that's the time the new WFB drops, it'd be, well... kind of stupid. I know a few people who've already dropped some solid cash on the new cases they just released, and multiple folks wanting to build an AdMech army which will soak a good bit of money out of them. And then hot on the heels of that, a new edition of Warhammer? At that point they'll probably skip it and stick with 8th for a while, because they can't afford it after spending money on the cases and AdMech. And even just the hint of that release time frame makes me want to leave the cases alone for now, cements my decision not to jump on the AdMech bandwagon at this time (the walkers kind of killed my interest already, until I see a more reasonable armored unit), and has me feeling like I only want to pick up maybe an extra box or two for my Khorne army and otherwise not spend any money on GW stuff lest I'm stuck unable to get a key purchase.

At some point this secrecy is going to seriously backfire...

The guys in my local store told me they basically find out what is coming when they get the latest WD in stores each Wed/Thurs, so they basically know as much as we do in terms of new releases. Though I did find out that all LotR/Hobbit stuff will be disappearing from stores and going online only, freeing up shelf space for something, though they have no idea what.

[Mr Mystery]

Dunno about other stores, but my local GW only has a tiddly section for Hobbit Of The Ring - could be a new single box game.

Which could fit.....

Currently, we have Skitarii coming out. First week is now, and perhaps two more, taking us up to 13 April. May be a four week release, depending on how large the release is, so possibly 20th April. That leaves a single slot before Managers aren't allowed to book annual leave for a fortnight period.....

[Erik Setzer]

Dunno about other stores, but my local GW only has a tiddly section for Hobbit Of The Ring - could be a new single box game.

The one here had enough space to hold a decent selection of LOTR boxes (mainly because most of them are squad-size boxes) and a bunch of blisters, but it's since been shrank down a lot, and a good bit of its space converted into more space for new releases (since it was toward the front of the store). The space that's left is big enough for something like Horus Heresy, even with squad boxes, some vehicle boxes, and multiple blisters.

But it was actually selling okay at times here (when people actually played it, they enjoyed it... but finding games wasn't as easy as 40K/WFB), so it might have had more space allocated than normal.

[Mr Mystery]

It's a surprisingly popular system, it's just never really caught on in a tournament setting. Which is daft, as having played it, it's by far the tightest rules set GW have ever produced. Heroes are very much force multipliers, but you need to be crafty in order to bag a win, as they're very well pointed compared to Mooks. Just like the movies, all they're winning their fight, they're safe as houses, but whiff just one batch, and it's 'GOT YOUR LEGS' time for them.

[Erik Setzer]

Had a game with Elves against Goblins, 300 points, my opponent brought two Goblin Scribes, and he just kept summoning Goblins. When the Elves were surrounded, they could be brought down, but once they fought their way out of a mountain of Goblin corpses and started firing their bows again and took out the Scribes, it was just a massacre. It felt pretty thematic but also reasonably well balanced.

I honestly wouldn't mind WFB9 having that kind of feeling, where the lowliest troops can actually bring down a hero if they surround him.

[Mr Mystery]

Happens already thanks to combat - you just need to disrupt your opponent's line and expose his flanks, which is a large part of the game.

I still don't see the whole game going round base. Tweak the rules so smaller units have advantage beyond being cheaper in points, and do something about Steadfast - it's a great rule, and has changed the game, but it's open to daft levels of abuse with proper chaff units.

Perhaps have a differing threshold for steadfast - maybe even a new stat. Just before I started playing, you had Willpower, Leadership and Cool. Let's bring back Cool as an example....

Cool can be added to your break test whenever you have more ranks. Highly disciplined races such as Elves of all stripes and Stunties would have a high Cool rating. Men as ever, middling. Gobbos and Skaven lower ones.

Keeps chaff units around in tight combats, but not when they've been horribly, horribly Roflstomped - for instance that time my Ogres literally mashed 36 or so Skaven Slaves in combat, only to have them stick around thanks to still having 5 ranks, and their Warlord kicking about.

Changes the dynamic of the game somewhat, and a lot more thought as to assigned Values!

Other way? Cool represents a 'back up' Leadership, akin to a Ward Save. You can either use your standard Ld, or the immutable minimum offered by Cool. This would be easier to assign. Men? Cool 4. Dwarfs? Cool 6. Elves? Cool 5. Skaven and Gobbos? Cool 3. Characters can perhaps boost this, but by no more than a single point. Keep it related to Banners, and once you've legged it once, NO MORE COOL FOR YOU!

That'd be..................cool

[Kirsten]

if they are worried about needing too many models to play, they could always go back to the old four wide for a rank bonus, that would bring unit sizes down simply enough.

[Erik Setzer]

if they are worried about needing too many models to play, they could always go back to the old four wide for a rank bonus, that would bring unit sizes down simply enough.

Well, Horde formation actually is the bigger culprit, IMO. I get that it was meant to help the cheap units of lesser troops like Empire state troops, Orcs, Goblins, Skaven, etc. have a better chance against elite units, but then everyone started doing Horde formations of Chaos Warriors, Witch Elves, Swordmasters, White Lions, Phoenix Guard, etc.

Ironically, that led to the cheaper units forming up in thinner ranks so they could get more ranks and thus be stubborn longer and hold up the enemy unit.

Back during 4th and 5th edition, there was an article by Rick Priestley in White Dwarf talking about the "crazy" idea of using 50 Goblins in a unit, because such a huge unit would surely be a surprise to the enemy (if a bit unwieldy)! Now, it seems like 50 is the minimum for a unit of Goblins, and you see units that size all over the place. In 6th edition, I knew a guy who made a large Dwarf unit that was his "death star" unit (not really uber-powerful, the name was a joke, but it *was* pretty tough to kill). That was most of his army, easily. It was something very different and threw people off. It's now considered a moderate sized unit.

The game got to where people could and would field large units of elite troops, and that meant people needed very large units of chaff troops to combat them, and along the way GW never bothered re-doing the rules for Warbands (200-500 point games) or Skirmish, so they were actively encouraging people to go with larger games. Much like they're doing the same with the newer 40K codices, using formations of formations rather than normal detachments (in a 2000 point Daemonkin army, I can only get a practically minimal Slaughtercult and Daemon formation and the "command" Bloodthirster... no other options, so either I leave out the Daemons to be able to take some stuff, or I have to play at least 3K or higher to feel like the army has flexibility). I get that larger armies theoretically means more sales, but when people look at how big the armies are (heck, people don't even want to play 40K below 2K now, they prefer 2500 or higher!), and then add up that cost, it turns them off. It happened to WFB, and we're all thinking they might do something to fix that... but they're following in the same style with their flagship game, so I'm not sure if we can really expect that.

Guess we'll see in a few months. All the rumors so far are conflicting like mad.

[silashand]

It's a surprisingly popular system, it's just never really caught on in a tournament setting. Which is daft, as having played it, it's by far the tightest rules set GW have ever produced.

LotR is a good game to be sure, but I think their Specialist Games (Warmaster notably) were actually the best rules they ever released. JMO though. It's a shame LotR never caught on as well, though when they want $45 for Elrond on horse and foot (and in Finecrap as well) it makes perfect sense why people won't play it. Their idiotic pricing pretty much killed it too around where I am at, though admittedly you needed fewer models to play.

WotR was also good, but unfortunately cost *way* too much to play the big games and there were some version 1.0 issues with it that should have been corrected, but never were. Ah well...