[MidnightSun]

So, with the rumours of the sky falling in the Age of Sigmar, the fanbase might need to get together (shock!) and take the rules into their own hands (horror!)

What are we going to write into Warhammer Fantasy Edition 8.5, gentlemen? With the 'balance' of 8th ed, some books are going to need relatively minor tweaks (Vampire Counts), some are going to need to be rewritten almost entirely (Dwarves, Tomb Kings). Some fundamental, core rules are going to need to change (how often have you seen heavy cavalry in Steadfast Edition, and how often have you seen a list without a Level 4?).

What are we going to do?

 

[Vaz]

Start from the ground up.

Things that need addresing as a priority;

playing with your collection, at whatever level. Ranging from playing a lone dragon/monster against a band of heroes, to a full army on army combat. You shouldn't be forced to have a 1500pt army (often 50+ models) to simply use your centrepiece dragon you got for xmas.

Similarly, such creatures shouldn't be paper weak.

Magic shoudn't be binary. Armies which are noted as being excessively good at magic should be capable at it, but i'd rather it turned into giving someone a more powerful spell. There is little different between level 1 and 2 or 3 and 4, respectively, so remove those. Have level 1 and 2, with level 3 reserved for your monstrously powerful spellcasters like Nagash, Kairos etc.

Allies, Scrolls of Binding and Summoning spells are all fantatic.

3 dimensional combat, by introducing flying deployment/warp breaches or summons, removing the overpowered nature of combat without turning shooting into a gunline extravaganza (dwarf, elf and empire gunlines being incredibly boring to play both with and against).

Steadfast was a neat idea, just poorly handled. Infantry fucking sucked before. Now, they were roughly capable. Early 8th edition, it wasn't so bad; orcs, skeletons , empire spears, and overpriced ghouls with the oddblack orc, tomb guard greatsword, or wight block for damage resulted in rough baalnce.

Then, daemons, warriors of chaos, lizardmen, elves of all variants, whose resultant abilities and stats just made lightly roughtly balanced units completely worthless in result of white lions, halberd warriors and eternal guard.

 

[Einherjar667]

Are there any home brew rulebooks that include fan based ideas like Vaz has stated? I've stated I am optimistic about Age of Sigmar but I always preferred WFB's current-ish feel, kind of liking going back and playing Warcraft 2 or something. It would be really cool for fans to take the chance to design an entire core rule system but actually use the WFB world, characters, etc.

 

[Tha Tall One]

I've written a hybridization of 6th / 7th edtion rules myself. Never thought 8th was any good.

 

[Sworn Radical]

First things first: Good idea about the thread in regards to the 'future' (pun intended) of WHFB 8th edition.
Personally, I'm under the impression that quite a few tournament organizing teams and / or wargaming clubs had allready taken up the endeavour to smoothen out the rules of 8th ed. a bit, or rather have tried to balance them or revamp them for their purpose. ETC and other comp systems have tried (and are still trying, sheesh) this for example.
Well, to be honest, I like none of the comp systems, but that's just a matter of personal taste. Also, in my humble opinion, no game system will ever achieve true balance, nor is there such a thing. The power of your respective list will ALWAYS be match-up dependant. Sure, there are certain lists (I kinda hate the term 'builds') that'll bring greater power to the gaming table, but always playing the latest 'netlist' is as rewarding as having some serious diarrhea.

.. some books are going to need relatively minor tweaks (Vampire Counts), ...

Just out of curiosity, what would these tweaks be ? The Vampire Counts book always struck me as one of the 8th ed. books with very good internal balance.

... some are going to need to be rewritten almost entirely (Dwarves, ...

Again, purely out of curiosity and because we obviously come from very different gaming metas / scenes / whatever: What is it that makes you believe that Dwarves would need a complete overhaul ?
I can sure see certain issues with the TK book (even though they are capable of some excellent lists), but Dwarves ?

... (how often have you seen heavy cavalry in Steadfast Edition, and how often have you seen a list without a Level 4?).

Heavy Cav .... quite often.
Lists without a level four magician ? Not quite so often, but it is actually perfectly possible to play without one. I have run dozens of lists (with various armies) that did forego magic altogether (difficult, I admit), or only had a level two caster in the hero slot (perfectly viable actually).

Personally, the first thing I'd adress in the 8th ed. rulebook would be the rules for Fast Cav. If there has ever been one unit type that would be to powerful, it'd be Fast Cav.

 

[MidnightSun]

I'm on my phone so I can't address individual points, but:

Dwarves - fucking boring book with horrendous internal balance. You only ever see a couple of Runes, because a couple are obviously good. 12" bubble of Stubborn does not a fun game make.

Tomb Kings - make them functional. At the moment they're a fragile, slow army with weak shooting, weak melee and a crap mandatory Lore with very few redeeming units.

Vampires - it's mostly pretty fine, but some things in there need some improvements to make them viable compared to alternatives - Bat Swarms and Coven Thrones spring to mind.

I agree with a lot of what Vaz said (particularly condensing Wizard Levels down) but not Allies. Allies are a silly addition to the game that lets you cover the weaknesses of your faction comically easily by just porting the good units across from another book rather than playing around a legit weakness. It's bad for 40k, it's be bad for Fantasy.

 

[Sworn Radical]

... Dwarves - f*****g boring book ...

Didn't find it boring at all, and actually an improvement over its predecessor.
But of course the viewpoint whether something is boring or not is highly subjective.

You only ever see a couple of Runes, because a couple are obviously good.

So what ?
You only ever see a handful of magic items from the BRB either, don't you ?
At least in tournament lists or those that claim to be.
And Dwarves got a LOT more potential magic items than all other races with 8th ed. army books.

12" bubble of Stubborn does not a fun game make.

I can have a fun game anyway.
Yeah, a 12'' stubborn bubble is a tough nut, depending on your own list, but honestly, there's 'worse' things in 8th.
But like I mentioned in my first post, most of these things are ENTIRELY match-up dependant.

Tomb Kings - make them functional. At the moment they're a fragile, slow army with weak shooting, weak melee and a crap mandatory Lore with very few redeeming units.

Tomb kings are functional.
Sure, not one of the most powerful books around, but who cares.
- Fragile ? Granted. But so are other T3 W1 models.
- Weak shooting ? Whut ? Tomb Kings have exceptional shooting capabilities. Of course the point is kinda moot when you try to compare a 6 pt. Skeleton Archer to a 15 or 16 pt. Glade Guard. Or a 90 pt. Skull Catapult to a 210 pt. Hellcannon. Yes, TK are not a shooting army, but shooting is not essential to a working 8th ed. list either. Heck, my latest Wood Elf list includes exactly zero bows.
- Weak melee ? Yup, TK won't see a victory without some finesse and the right combinations. Obviously, there's armies that are easier to play. But in my book, things get boring when everything just plays equal.
- The Lore of Nehekara is pretty versatile actually. The only thing which I'd change is the highest level requirement for the Hierophant. Nehekara would be ace if it could be run on a level 2, whilst your level 3 / 4 liche high priest would run Death or something else.
On a sidenote, TK won the 2015 US Masters.

Vampires - it's mostly pretty fine, but some things in there need some improvements to make them viable compared to alternatives - Bat Swarms and Coven Thrones spring to mind.

Bat Swarms are actually useful in the right lists, but you'd have to build around them, which many people don't like.
Coven Thrones .... yeah, could be improved in one aspect ... they needed to be cheaper.

 

[MidnightSun]

Didn't find it boring at all, and actually an improvement over its predecessor.
But of course the viewpoint whether something is boring or not is highly subjective.



So what ?
You only ever see a handful of magic items from the BRB either, don't you ?
At least in tournament lists or those that claim to be.
And Dwarves got a LOT more potential magic items than all other races with 8th ed. army books.



I can have a fun game anyway.
Yeah, a 12'' stubborn bubble is a tough nut, depending on your own list, but honestly, there's 'worse' things in 8th.
But like I mentioned in my first post, most of these things are ENTIRELY match-up dependant.

Fair point on the subjectivity, but nobody I've ever met other than Dwarf players like Dwarves or want to fight Dwarves.

Incidentally, against what list is the 12 bubble of Stubborn not an amazing buy?

Because Dwarves pull this bullshit all the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvti1MyfFo4

Tomb kings are functional.
Sure, not one of the most powerful books around, but who cares.
- Fragile ? Granted. But so are other T3 W1 models.
- Weak shooting ? Whut ? Tomb Kings have exceptional shooting capabilities. Of course the point is kinda moot when you try to compare a 6 pt. Skeleton Archer to a 15 or 16 pt. Glade Guard. Or a 90 pt. Skull Catapult to a 210 pt. Hellcannon. Yes, TK are not a shooting army, but shooting is not essential to a working 8th ed. list either. Heck, my latest Wood Elf list includes exactly zero bows.
- Weak melee ? Yup, TK won't see a victory without some finesse and the right combinations. Obviously, there's armies that are easier to play. But in my book, things get boring when everything just plays equal.
- The Lore of Nehekara is pretty versatile actually. The only thing which I'd change is the highest level requirement for the Hierophant. Nehekara would be ace if it could be run on a level 2, whilst your level 3 / 4 liche high priest would run Death or something else.
On a sidenote, TK won the 2015 US Masters.

Fragile dudes, fragile characters because they have shit armour or easily bypassable defences, they start dying randomly when your Level 4 bites it, fragile monsters because monsters are fragile (and the monsters don't have good damage output at all), and the general lack of armour at all exacerbates the T3 (Dark Elves are T3 W1, but given that their characters can get a 2+ save comically easily, without any magic armour, kind of nullifies that, and they can kill you before you even attack so who needs toughness? 30 Grave Guard with GWs and Banner of the Barrows have the strength and attacks and weapons to kill 30 Executioners, but not when the Executioners are killing more than 2/3 of the unit before they swing). The Screaming Skull catapult is okay for the leadership tests, but Str 3 shooting? It's total ass and I've never seen it do appreciable damage in any army I've played. You go Black Powder or you go home. Weak melee speaks for itself - low WS/S/I/A on slow guys. Lore of Nehekhara ain't got shit on Death, Life, Light, Slaanesh, Vampires or Shadows.

Bat Swarms are actually useful in the right lists, but you'd have to build around them, which many people don't like.
Coven Thrones .... yeah, could be improved in one aspect ... they needed to be cheaper.

Their rules support using them with other units (conferring ASL, but T2 no-save Swarms bleed combat res like nothing else in the history of ever and you lose combat by vast amounts by sending them into combat, in my experience. Coven Throne is too fragile and low Leadership to have a meaningful effect on most battles.

 

[Sworn Radical]

Let's agree to not agree on the general battle capability of Tomb Kings then.
I find that with the right list they can smash face, and they also bring unusual shooting, but heh, can't compare apples to pears and not two armies are alike.
Lore of Nehekara IS of course weaker than Death / Vampires / Slaanesh, but that's why I pointed out it'd prefer it to be a support lore.
But nevermind.

Because Dwarves pull this bullshit all the time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kvti1MyfFo4

I was in severe pain watching this video. Then I had a good laugh.
Not because of 12'' Stubborn bubbles, but because these two don't even manage to adhere to the basic rules of movement, lol.

But seriously, not much in that chaos list capable of breaking a stubborn block.
Then again, apart from army-wide stubborn, that was one hilariously weak dwarf list.