Old World Almanack – Your First Look at the Rules

[Morgen]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... the-rules/

Looks like we've got a Turn Sequence for the Old World now. Looks pretty reasonably familiar just with magic moving into relevant phases based upon the type of spell. Certainly seems like it'll be exciting to see for high elves as they'll likely have access to a fair amount of magic to play with I'd imagine.

[Minion X]

And it seems that both players will be able to cast spells in at least the Strategic Phase. However, as they've made clear and the description for Cursed Blades indicates, casting and dispelling will be more localized to the vicinity of each respective wizard, so having a single powerful wizard may be less efficient. Since High Elves typically have a high points cost per model, this may put them at a slight disadvantage to, say, Orcs & Goblins with cheap goblin shamans.

[TyrrenAzureblade]

I'm really looking forward to seeing what the rules are like for Archmages and Mages. I like that magic has been unshackled from one single phase of the game. And it's far too early to assume we're going to be at a disadvantage based on what other editions are like. I could imagine a world where Archmages may be costlier than the average wizard, but have an unlimited dispel range, or other special rules to make a single mage as powerful and as versatile as a handful of other wizards.

I'm glad the phases and sub-phases are looking familiar and seeing that, I'm far more interested in seeing what they have in store for morale since they've said they've added complexity there.

[DrSlam]

Movement phase info is out: https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... &utm_term=

Looks good, though I will miss just measuring the closest distance between units for charges - looks like we will have to accounting for wheeling. Nonetheless there are some fun new rules around marching columns and what not. Skirmishers will also be able to do "hit-and-fade flank charges" somehow which would be fun. And there's something called counter charging... fascinating.

[Aerendar Valandil]

Marching and countercharging seem to come directly form Warhammer Ancient Battles. Interesting.

[TyrrenAzureblade]

I do kind of wish they had kept the charge rules for 8th as it concerns wheeling. But since a failed charge moves the whole distance rolled, it'll still be neater and faster than having to move only half their charge range like in 7th. It was always a slow arduous pain to have to miss the charge, then move things back.

[DrSlam]

Shooting rules have appeared:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... ng-skulls/

Some familiar mechanics (long bows keep their range), though some changes too.

Modifications to armour saves - are they no longer directly linked to strength? Not sure.

"It’s a familiar process: compare the Armour Penetration of the weapon with the armour value of the model it’s hitting."

That language sounds 40k to me - I would have expected 'modify' the armour value of the model by the Armour Penetration of the weapon?

There is also now a separate category of armour penetration for weapon characteristics. I hope that armour penetration is still linked to strength though, as I like the Seredain and others model of bringing a high strength can opening hero to take out heavily armoured enemies and high toughness heroes...

On strength, lower level strength also is capped again, similar to (4th? 5th?) ed, so that it can't hurt the biggest and baddest monsters. Make sure you bring your own beasties, or heroes armed with high strength weapons, if you think you'll face high toughness enemies... I read somewhere though that chaos demons will be rare/not existent for the warriors of chaos army in this game, so I think this more relevant to monsters.

High BS shooting can reroll misses too, which sounds fun (surely high magic will have a spell that can augment shooting).

There's also going to be some fun special rules. "Fire and flee" will hopefully be available to Ellyrian reavers. Long bows will have something called armour bane.

Finally there is something called 'battle magic' as a lore of magic. Does that mean human wizards from the colleges of magic have worked out how to use spells from each college? Without more details on how magic works, this is just speculation though from me.

[Aerendar Valandil]

Nothing spectacular, and I find that good.

[Morgen]

I really like the idea of formations and things in the movement phase with the different formations. I like that there's a lot of crunch to what they're previewing. Rerolls for people with a high BS, rules for hitting when you need a 7+, etc.

[Giladis]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... bat-phase/

The close combat looks like the best features of 6th and 8th put together with a bit of influence from WAB and 3rd.

While conceptually the changes to breaking are interesting I have low confidence GW will able to write the rules in a way that will not require multiple pages of FAQs dealing with the fallout from the rule.


In HE related news Swordmasters are Initiative 6 and Leadership 8.

[Aesthete]

Against my better judgement I'm getting pretty hyped about TOW.

I've been done with GW's rules churn and codex creep basically since AoS hit the scene... but this is getting my attention again. I even started painting a few of my half-finished Ellyrion Reavers the other day. And, of course, I just logged in here for the first time in years (I mostly lurked back then anyhow).

I expect to get a few games in at my local game store on release. There are a bunch of old GW store ex-staff there, so I'm sure they'll support it. I don't know how deep I'll get... we'll see.

I do like what I've seen of the rules sp far. The new melee phase seem to make cheap but massive tarpit units less viable on first look - since as long as the other unit wins, it can keep fighting until the tarpit is finished off.

[Modessa]

Excitingly I managed to recover my old account (a little over 100 posts vs about 4), so I'll be using that now.

Back when 8th edition was about to drop (or maybe the HE Army Book) one of the guys at my FLGS was talking about how Lothern Sea Guard were going to be great, with spears and bow, able to be threat in multiple phases and so on. I was convinced, and to get ready I bought some boxes of spears and assembled them as Sea Guard.

In actual practice they turned out to be pretty underwhelming as a core troop choice - at least I never got them to seem worth their weight in points. Since they were (mostly) painted, I didn't want to take the bows off of them, and I'd be damned if I painted a whole other chunk of spear elves... so since then as I've dabbled in other fantasy sets I've always been on the lookout for rules where spear armed elven archers were decent to field. So far, I've had no real luck.

What I'm trying to say is my fondest wish for The Old World is that Lothern Sea Guard are not clearly suboptimal to include in an army.

[Prince of Spires]

It feels like Warhammer. I like it. Yes, it's a different edition of warhammer, but it's familiar enough to feel like what the game is supposed to be. It's hard to say anything specific about the rules, since a lot depends on how stuff interacts and the small details everywhere. But I think it will be balanced and fun enough for my casual gaming

GW has figured out how to build hype, that's for sure. Do we have an idea of when they want to release it? The rules published look like snapshots from an actual rulebook pdf file. Which suggests they're quite far in getting it ready for launch.

[Giladis]

Word on the grapewine is the February-March release window and I know from testers that the rulebook had been finished early this year. The testing of the lists had continued some time after that.

Psychology Rules revealed today > https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... sychology/

Things look pretty familiar.

Oh and unit strength is back!

[Morgen]

I'm very happy to see unit strength return. Especially for things like fear.

[Giladis]

In the last 7 days we got magic and some special rules

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... ttlefield/

So far looks interesting, especially the dispeling/casting interaction.

I wonder what rules High Elves and Lizardmen will get to completely break the system



https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... ial-rules/

The biggest info from the article is that cavalry is on 30x60 bases and that Charging units once again strike first.

[TyrrenAzureblade]

I really do hope High Elves get something to empower their magical abilities. It wouldn't do to have some of the most potent magic casters of the era slum it with the rest of those untrained rabble. I'm going to guess the army book magic items will help with that.

The official GW Twitter account confirmed that not all cavalry will share the same base size, so don't go basing all of your cavalry just yet.

And charging units don't strike first automatically, they get a bonus to initiative for charging, and a bigger bonus for charging into the flanks or rear.

[SpellArcher]

It wouldn't do to have some of the most potent magic casters of the era slum it with the rest of those untrained rabble.

That's the spirit!

[TyrrenAzureblade]

I really hope we don't wind up where we were with 6th edition, where our best bet at an all-comers list was heavy, if not exclusively cavalry focused. I honestly hope we do get army-wide Always Strikes First/Speed of Asuryan rule, but going by the blurb about Swordmasters fighting Trolls in one of the articles, I can probably bet on that not being something we'll get (unless ASF and ASL are back). It really made the army feel actually elite. Now that there's a +2 to hit on the To-Hit chart, I wonder if we're going to see High Elf WS shoot up instead of having Always Strikes First. I'll laugh if we just have army-wide WS10. I noticed the Swordmasters went back up to I6, which is also welcome in lieu of no ASF.

While exciting to see what goodies the Bretts are getting (it's been a looooong time coming), I can't help but imagine what it all means for our Army special rules.

[Giladis]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/202 ... bretonnia/

Another mixed-bag update for me.

A 2000 pts force is supposed to be around 100 models which should be comparable to the army sizes from 8th ed and what we have currently in T9A at that point limit. If units end up being smaller that would result in more units on the battlefield. I was hoping that the pendulum would swing a bit more but I'll conserve my final judgement until I play a couple of games and see how lists are built.

I like that hard thematic limitations to army lists are back as opposed to 8th ed.

I like there are both % and slot limitations to army building.

I dislike the inclusion of Mercenaries and Allies from a balance point of view because an already hard to balance system will be made so much harder due to introduction of so many more variables. At the same time I like it from the story telling perspective.

I honestly don't know what to think about the Lords of Bretonnia. All those options are great from a storytelling pov but some of the stats feel a bit overwhelming considering majority of units will fight in only one rank meaning the proportional impact of character stats on units in CC will be way higher than in either 8th ed WHFB or T9A.

Combined stats for the monstrous mounts are a good thing in my book though I do wonder why they have a separate armour stat compared to the character.

Men-at-arms are the same old Bretonnian trash which is a shame in my opinion but looking at the fact Knight of the Realm on foot are a Core choice one can wonder what would be the exact purpose of bringing the unit. Sure they have the crutch upgrades and rules that allow them to stop enemies. While there is insufficient evidence so far to make a definitive conclusion the existence of those rules makes me wonder if GW dev team failed to strike a proper balance between Cavalry and Infantry through basic rules.

We got a preview of Stubborn and Shieldwall USRs giving me a hunch crucial Dwarfen units will be unbreakable on the charge. Not sure how I feel about that.

The final paragraph I dread the most as I am getting a 40K vibe of many subfactions having their own army lists. Once again great from a miniaturist hobby pov of providing a framework for ones imagination and creativity but an absolute headache for achieving any kind of game balance.

Looking at those limits for units I wonder if Swordmasters, Phoenix Guard or White Lions will be limits once again or whether "citizen levy" units will be obligatory in the army.

[Morgen]

I'd actually like to see that army wide always strikes first rule dropped hard and it looks like it might be. It was some protection for the high elves when there wasn't any kind of step up and fight rule but once that came into play the elves should have gotten rid of it as an army rule. I'd rather seem at least a tiny bit of durability work into the army. Maybe...gasp a T4 elf may be created!

It looks like folks are interested in what GW is producing.

[DrSlam]

For what it's worth, this game doesn't look like it focuses on balance. It looks (to me, delightfully) fluffy.

The future "armies of infamy" for example sound creative and hopefully will draw on the inspiration of those cool customised army lists of 6th ed (I'm thinking of the pirates of Sartosa etc). For example, a sea elf style marine expeditionary force could be created with mist mage style support and some fluffy special rules. There looks like A LOT of special rules incoming to customise units.

Given this fluff focus I think it is unavoidable that we will be bringing citizen levy core units in our normal army list. Let's see if silver helms remain core or not. Fluff wise, it might be rare for coastal Elven colonies in the old world to have silver helm detachments.

Re mercs, I agree with a previous poster that they are always controversial from a balance angle but allow for expanded story telling. And if the border princes are a mercenary option that allows for heavy artillery, maybe they could also allow for... mechanically flying crossbow skirmishers? I appreciate that this time period can't allow for the previous regiments of renown but it's fun to dream about proxies for those units existing in the border princes realms.

[Morgen]

I'd just like the game rules to function and for everyone to have their own fun stuff than to worry too much about balance. It's a games workshop game after all, focusing too much over balancing things usually makes the games less interesting. Too a point obviously.

[Prince of Spires]

I dislike the inclusion of Mercenaries and Allies from a balance point of view because an already hard to balance system will be made so much harder due to introduction of so many more variables. At the same time I like it from the story telling perspective.

I think this very much depends on both how they're framed but also on how the community views them and uses them. 8th edition had rules for using models from other army books, and they were rarely, if ever, used.

I'd just like the game rules to function and for everyone to have their own fun stuff than to worry too much about balance. It's a games workshop game after all, focusing too much over balancing things usually makes the games less interesting. Too a point obviously.

I'm not too worried about getting a balanced game. What I do want is a game that's playable. I want to bring an army and not feel like I'm fighting a completely uphill battle. I want most options to have some place in an army, even if they're not the most cutthroat option out there.