AA County House Rules for WFB v8

[MorGrendel]

Let's codify our house rules: (everything up for debate)

LOS:
Forests and non-skirmish units block line of site, in that you can not see through them. For example: under elbows and through legs. Banners, weapons, wings STILL do not block LOS.
Flyers begin and end their turn on the groud, so LOS is drawn from a landed position.
Gorgers are dumb models and are out of LOS, if all you can see is the arm sticking up in the air.
Non-Standard modeled characters should be clarified before the game.

Swiftstide:
If you move a random distance, 3D6 persay, swiftstride does not add a die to this. Use the Swiftstride rule as written.

Terrain:
Issue: Rivers are mysterious, but the marsh they are connected to is not.
Solution: All Marshes, Rivers, Forests are either mysterious or they are determined before deployment.

Units:
We assume the back rank will get into the fight as possible. So troops will slide over to make supporting attacks, or will slide to a flank to fight a flanker. We accept gaps in the rear rank.

Let's attempt to avoid these situations:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id ... w1s-RneOt8

This is a good FAQ, but I have not read the entire thing:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id ... pyuGooTk84

[Titus]

Who added a D6 to their random movement, that is not even in the rules?

[MorGrendel]

I thought you tried to get a 4D6 roll for your Squig Hoppers' pursuit. If I am incorrect, I apologize.

[MorGrendel]

I've been checking out the ETC rules, and was particularly interest in their Comp rules. Now I've never been a fan of Comp, but with WE and Brets going so long without a book, I thought I'd see how they balance the competitive world.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic ... 8&t=100748

I have to say I'm surprised by some things: like the limits on core, unit size min/max, that HE get an extra +100 points, limited to only 2 extra dice in Magic phase, Shadow and death magic are limited to only 4 dice for casting (hurray!), and all the restrictions for Skaven and Lizardmen (I think a little heavy handed). For the last part, I don't know much about all the other list, so their plays may find them easilily as heavy handed. I think it is crazy how much they have to do to buff Beastmen.

Anyway, just thought it was interesting and relevant.

[Titus]

I thought you tried to get a 4D6 roll for your Squig Hoppers' pursuit. If I am incorrect, I apologize.

No, I was arguing that they are cavalry, so they get the 3d6, pick the highest swiftstride pursuit, not just 2d6, and you kept getting hung up on them being random movement 3d6.

[Fritz]

I've been checking out the ETC rules, and was particularly interest in their Comp rules. Now I've never been a fan of Comp, but with WE and Brets going so long without a book, I thought I'd see how they balance the competitive world.

http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic ... 8&t=100748

I have to say I'm surprised by some things: like the limits on core, unit size min/max, that HE get an extra +100 points, limited to only 2 extra dice in Magic phase, Shadow and death magic are limited to only 4 dice for casting (hurray!), and all the restrictions for Skaven and Lizardmen (I think a little heavy handed). For the last part, I don't know much about all the other list, so their plays may find them easilily as heavy handed. I think it is crazy how much they have to do to buff Beastmen.

Anyway, just thought it was interesting and relevant.

ETC is dumb. I hate it with a burning passion. It is extremely heavy handed and is based on a lot of flawed internet wisdom. I feel sorry for those in continental Europe where this crap is huge. They "fix" supposed problems, such as the super mega killy spells, but create a whole new set of them. Namely, deathstars are very predominant in ETC right now, but only certain races can pull it off. So instead of Skaven being the top dog, Ogres begin to dominate because they can make one of the best death stars. You know what stops deathstars from running all over things? The super mega killy spells that deter you from putting all your eggs in one basket. All that ETC accomplishes is bring magic back down to 7th edition effectiveness and make armies with high natural strength and toughness better. It's a dumb system that you should thank God hasn't taken root over in the States.

[Fritz]

Actually, there is something I wouldn't mind settling for our group. I doubt Serban has used this, but there is something known as "Deathfisting" that is all the rage for Ogres players. How it works is you put the Greedy Fist on a Slaughtermaster with Lore of Death. The Greedy Fist causes any wizard hit with an attack from model wielding the weapon to lose a magic level per hit. This was FAQed to include "ranged attacks."

Well apparently the Ogre community has decided "ranged attacks" include hits caused by magic. Therefore, the "Deathfisting" Slaughtermaster can pick out an enemy caster with a number of Lore of Death spells, fail to cause a single wound, but still strip every single magic level from the caster. To me, a ranged attack is something caused by a physical ranged weapon and this use is a gross misuse of the item. However, the internet community, in it's infinite wisdom, has decided this is a legit use of the item. Thoughts?

[MorGrendel]

Is Greedy Fist a weapon? If it is a hand weapon then I would definately agree it can only be used in HTH as it it the weapon not the person with the ability.

Also, I always accepted that shooting attacks made in the Shooting phase were "ranged attack". It was just a word to keep from having to say shooting over and over.

And hits not wounds! Misprint! :)

[Fritz]

Is Greedy Fist a weapon? If it is a hand weapon then I would definately agree it can only be used in HTH as it it the weapon not the person with the ability.

Also, I always accepted that shooting attacks made in the Shooting phase were "ranged attack". It was just a word to keep from having to say shooting over and over.

And hits not wounds! Misprint! :)

I think it's an Ironfist, but you'd have to as Serban to be sure. I just know that the FAQ for it explicitly allows the wizard level reduction to apply to "ranged attacks." What I dispute is whether or not "ranged attacks" includes magic.

[Berserker]

Am I hearing Fritz complain about ogres? ;)

That item is actually very seldom used as it is very situational and quite expensive (not just the item, but the points you put into the minimum of two wizards required). If you go through the lists of armies used in tournaments, almost none of them use that item. However, it is fun to play once in a while to keep Teclis or Kairos in check (or those pit of shades annoying magic users). I look at it as bringing some wine for the cheese ;)

It is not a weapon, nor is it armor, it is a talisman.

As for the argument of what "ranged attacks" means, here's the thread with the arguments:
http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/ind ... ic=22883.0
http://www.ogrestronghold.com/forum/ind ... ic=22532.0

I feel based on those arguments that ranged includes magic. You may call me biased, but I find those arguments very sound. I don't see any good counter arguments. But I must raise a middle finger to the creators of warhammer for making unclear rules, and then FAQing them to remain unclear. How hard would it have been to add a line to clarify this? I mean really!!

[Fritz]

Good arguments. It seems ridiculous that Ogres can sap the magic levels from wizard without actually causing any harm, but the logic is sound.

As for Ogres needing a counter for Pit of Shades, what the hell else is an Elf to do against Ogres?! 2 of my damned White Lions cost THE SAME AS A FREAKIN OGRE. It's your damned army that has me constantly re-thinking my lists. Why? Because I don't want to use Shadow, but it's hard not to. It's often the only way I stand a chance. Go have a look at the Ulthuan forums. It seems like at least once a week an Elf player is asking how in hell to deal with the dreaded Ogrestar with the banner of magic-bounces-the-hell-off-us. People usually offer the token advise of "kite the hell out of it" or "redirect with Eagles," but the honest truth is we don't have an answer for it. Our units and character just can't stand up to large blocks of Ogres without magical help.

As a side note, you should hate Purple Sun more than Pit of Shades. Purple Sun ignores that silly banner since it isn't cast directly on a unit.

[Berserker]

I do hate the purple sun more. =)

I've always feared your strike first and repeat your misses, as well as your magic phase. Generally, I tend to advise my over-eager ogres not to fight white lions one on one, but stay back while the cannons and butchers whittle them down instead. Two may cost as much as an ogre, but they are hitting on 3s first, re-rolling their misses, and wounding on 4s (and they have armor which makes them hard to kill). That makes for some very hard hitting units. I guess our fear of eachother is mutual ;)

But yes, gutstars are hard to kill. I think any army stars are hard to kill. I generally don't play gutstars as it's too much of putting all your eggs in one basket. Downside of stars is that they have little else to cover their flanks, so if you are able to get it in the flank, even a star becomes cake. Also, it's one big unit that can only fight one other unit at a time, so if you throw chaff at it, it will spend the entire game killing little and never making its points back. It is really hard to maneuver such big units. Area spells also are bad news.

[Fritz]

Gah, I had a nice long response that I just closed by accident and lost it all. Here's the short version:

I'm pretty sure you're thinking of Phoenix Guard. Phoenix Guard have a 4+ ward save and have strength 4 in combat thanks to halberd. They're considered the tanks of our elite infantry. White Lions have a 3+ armor save against shooting and a 5+ in combat. Unlike normal elves, they're base strength 4 and also have a great weapon, making them a very nasty strength 6. They're considered the monster hunters of our elite infantry.

I crunched the numbers and realized that White Lions don't have nearly as much to fear from Ogres in close combat as I originally thought. It's not a cake walk, but a 7 wide unit of White Lions should walk away from an equally pointed unit of Ogres.

In other news, I think I finally came up with a magic combination that I might like better than Shadow. In the games against Jeff I had been running Shadow on the Archmage with the token Level 1 wizard with the base spell from High Magic. My latest and greatest combo puts High Magic on the Archmage and Light on a level 2. Just about every spell in High Magic is useful, if not overtly powerful. With the level 2 I'm taking the seerstaff. This allows him to choose his spells, and therefore guarantee Pha's Protection and Speed of Light, the main spells that absolutely rock for Elves. This gives me some nice solid magic without having to delve into the cheese that is Shadow.

[MorGrendel]

What does it say that a basic rule book lore is considered cheese?
Mayhaps a solution could be meted out, such as Dispel scrolls are unlimted or MR adds to casting value?

[Titus]

Nevermind, I am just staying out of it. I read those forums you linked and one side is saying rules as written but keeps quoting "ranged attack" which is not written in the rulebook at all, and the other side is pointing that out. So GW needs to clarify it but it would take upwards of a year to get that clarified beacuse it takes that long to publish a PDF from them.