Played my 1st game of TOW today after a 3 year break from square hammer (mostly T9A). Felt great to roll some dice although my opponent and I spent most of our day buried in the RB & our army books. I took the crazy looking High Elf list that someone posted on the tourney results thread with the lvl 4 illusion and Reaver Bow Loremaster Prince on foot, 12 reavers, 10 SG, 15 PG list (for no other reason than it looked wild and had a low body count thus easy setup…) and my brother brought the gunline Bretonnians. After a fun back and forth battle, we came away with some questions and some thoughts.
Questions:
1. Skirmishes can charge 360 LOS, but single models cannot? This one’s tough to wrap my head around if true. Conceptually. I’m certainly not trying to further buff herohammer.
2. Do low walls/fences serve as cover from shooting? Or only benefit in cc?
3. Can you target a character with a stomp attack or must it be directed towards ‘the unit’?
4. Am I correct in assuming duels can be issued and accepted across multiple combats (when both armies have multiple units facing the same direction/same fighting rank facing)?
Thoughts:
1. We were baffled at the bottom of turn 2 when we realized he couldn’t charge with his 2 blocks of infantry because they were deeper than wide because characters had joined them at deployment.
2. With the wrap around rule in cc and the lack of shooting from the 2nd rank, line hammer seems more effective than blocks, which is odd, and further seems to weaken infantry which is already too weak. I don’t miss giant steadfast blocks that mostly forced you to play avoidance but I thought there would be some clever new mechanic albeit give ground and FBIGO are interesting.
3. Mixed feelings on having no magic phase. Sure, it could take forever, but it really was its own fun little mini-game. I’m open to a more streamlined approach though, and having to include more wizards to dispel is a cool concept. Miscasting on a dispel attempt is diabolical.
4. Range of spells are mostly short range. The game becomes a lot about exposure of casters. Luckily our mages can wear armor and still cast but it’s still much different than 8th or T9A. Perhaps this is a nod towards an earlier edition I’m not aware of?
5. How active is the tournament scene for TOW in the US? Did most of T9A clubs stick with it or did they make the switch to TOW? I enjoyed my game today and look forward to better understanding the rules so I can take less than 7 hours for a 2k list battle.
If I took more pics I would make a battle report. But let’s just say 12 scouting skirmished reavers (out of CORE) is no joke… the lad who whipped up this list sneakily knew what he was doing! Chalk up yet another W for the good guys.
Back to the hobby. Reflections after 1 game.
Re: Back to the hobby. Reflections after 1 game.
"Skirmishes can charge 360 LOS, but single models cannot?"
Infantry or Cavalry models that are lone characters are in skirmish format, including 360o charge (p206)
"Do low walls/fences serve as cover from shooting? Or only benefit in cc?"
Yeah they give cover. Technically how much depends on the height of the terrain and model, but I've always just played them as partial cover.
P103: If up to half of the other model or unit is obscured, they are in partial cover.
"Can you target a character with a stomp attack or must it be directed towards ‘the unit’?"
P209 covers this: only if the unit with Stomp attacks is in base contact AND the unit is under 5 rank and file models
"Am I correct in assuming duels can be issued and accepted across multiple combats (when both armies have multiple units facing the same direction/same fighting rank facing)?"
A "combat" is all of the units in a single mess of base to base contact. Ie if they have a front and flank charge on your unit then another of your unit charges one of theirs in the rear , that is all one combat. You can only have one active challenge per combat in this definition.
If you have another set of units fighting it out and they aren't connected, they can have a separate challenge going on.
Infantry or Cavalry models that are lone characters are in skirmish format, including 360o charge (p206)
"Do low walls/fences serve as cover from shooting? Or only benefit in cc?"
Yeah they give cover. Technically how much depends on the height of the terrain and model, but I've always just played them as partial cover.
P103: If up to half of the other model or unit is obscured, they are in partial cover.
"Can you target a character with a stomp attack or must it be directed towards ‘the unit’?"
P209 covers this: only if the unit with Stomp attacks is in base contact AND the unit is under 5 rank and file models
"Am I correct in assuming duels can be issued and accepted across multiple combats (when both armies have multiple units facing the same direction/same fighting rank facing)?"
A "combat" is all of the units in a single mess of base to base contact. Ie if they have a front and flank charge on your unit then another of your unit charges one of theirs in the rear , that is all one combat. You can only have one active challenge per combat in this definition.
If you have another set of units fighting it out and they aren't connected, they can have a separate challenge going on.
Re: Back to the hobby. Reflections after 1 game.
Some thoughts on your thoughts too:
Line Hammer is less effective when you factor in static combat resolution from the rank bonus. Against even moderately armoured opponents you will be more likely to win a combat from the added rank than the added attacks, and i have found that once you get more than about 8 wide maneuvering takes up too much of your movement, making it easy to mess with wide units with redirectors or avoidance tactics.
Drilled let's you manage this well, as well as making marching order effective (as you CAN charge in the situation you described if the unit has Drilled) by allowing you to change frontage to whatever you need whenever the unit moves, including combat movement. I will never not take drilled on a unit if it's an option.
Re 4: illusion is the shortest range lore. This is its main drawback, as otherwise it's an absolutely amazing lore with tons of options. I dismissed several lores early on but have since come to appreciate that they are all great in their roles but just have different roles.
Unfortunately despite the rule allowing you to wear armour and cast, most wizards can't takr armour because they have no option to add it (except if you take blood of Caledor honour). One trick to keep wizards safe is our common magic items: opal amulets and seeds of rebirth. I spam Opal Amulets on anything under 4 wounds (ie not mounted) and take seeds of rebirth for anything mounted, as basically an auto include. A foot mage with warden of Saphery, illusion and a couple of opal Amulets is surprisingly tough- good initiative and if you can get a Spectral Doppelganger off with the s5, ap-2 killing blow hits you will usually kill more than enough that they don't need to worry about attacks coming at them in combat. Lore Familiar and 3x opal Amulets adds a lot of punch to a unit and will usually stick around to the end.
Line Hammer is less effective when you factor in static combat resolution from the rank bonus. Against even moderately armoured opponents you will be more likely to win a combat from the added rank than the added attacks, and i have found that once you get more than about 8 wide maneuvering takes up too much of your movement, making it easy to mess with wide units with redirectors or avoidance tactics.
Drilled let's you manage this well, as well as making marching order effective (as you CAN charge in the situation you described if the unit has Drilled) by allowing you to change frontage to whatever you need whenever the unit moves, including combat movement. I will never not take drilled on a unit if it's an option.
Re 4: illusion is the shortest range lore. This is its main drawback, as otherwise it's an absolutely amazing lore with tons of options. I dismissed several lores early on but have since come to appreciate that they are all great in their roles but just have different roles.
Unfortunately despite the rule allowing you to wear armour and cast, most wizards can't takr armour because they have no option to add it (except if you take blood of Caledor honour). One trick to keep wizards safe is our common magic items: opal amulets and seeds of rebirth. I spam Opal Amulets on anything under 4 wounds (ie not mounted) and take seeds of rebirth for anything mounted, as basically an auto include. A foot mage with warden of Saphery, illusion and a couple of opal Amulets is surprisingly tough- good initiative and if you can get a Spectral Doppelganger off with the s5, ap-2 killing blow hits you will usually kill more than enough that they don't need to worry about attacks coming at them in combat. Lore Familiar and 3x opal Amulets adds a lot of punch to a unit and will usually stick around to the end.
Re: Back to the hobby. Reflections after 1 game.
"Skirmishes can charge 360 LOS, but single models cannot?"
Infantry or Cavalry models that are lone characters are in skirmish format, including 360o charge (p206)
Appreciate your responses! Forgive me though, I can’t find on p.206 where it says that. My RB says “Any character whose troop type is ‘infantry’ of ‘cavalry’ and that has not joined a unit is considered to be a ‘Lone character’.
A Lone character benefits from the following rules:
Evade
Targeting Lone Characters
Neither say anything about being skirmished/ a 360 degree charge arc?
Infantry or Cavalry models that are lone characters are in skirmish format, including 360o charge (p206)
Appreciate your responses! Forgive me though, I can’t find on p.206 where it says that. My RB says “Any character whose troop type is ‘infantry’ of ‘cavalry’ and that has not joined a unit is considered to be a ‘Lone character’.
A Lone character benefits from the following rules:
Evade
Targeting Lone Characters
Neither say anything about being skirmished/ a 360 degree charge arc?
Re: Back to the hobby. Reflections after 1 game.
Sorry 206 is the definition of lone characters, p205 says that lone characters are in skirmish formation (2nd last bullet on the page), and the 360o vision and charging is inherited from the skirmish formation section on p184.
Things are often dotted around the book in weird places it definitely took me a few read throughs to start getting it.
Things are often dotted around the book in weird places it definitely took me a few read throughs to start getting it.
Re: Back to the hobby. Reflections after 1 game.
Thanks!! Yes, I’m know what you mean. Things are definitely sprinkled throughout, making it near impossible to just jump in and look up rules as ya go. Lesson learned!
Re: Back to the hobby. Reflections after 1 game.
There are still some T9A tournaments in the US. Northern California (Davis/Sac area in particular) largely stuck with T9A. I haven't been keeping up with it too closely given i moved to Ontario (Canada version) and T9A is dead here in Toronto, so I've fully switched over to Old World.