Warhammer - The Old World

[Sception]

Looks good to me.  I like the marching column distinction, mostly in that it prevents you from going deeper than you are wide as a combat formation.  Prevents things like the sometimes-seen practice of stacking up huge blocks of skeletons or zombies with narrow frontages entirely displaced by powerful vampires or ethereal wraith heroes.  If you want to outnumber, you'll probably have to expose some actual troops to enemy attacks.

[Jator]

8 minutes ago, Sception said:

Looks good to me.  I like the marching column distinction, mostly in that it prevents you from going deeper than you are wide as a combat formation.  Prevents things like the sometimes-seen practice of stacking up huge blocks of skeletons or zombies with narrow frontages entirely displaced by powerful vampires or ethereal wraith heroes.  If you want to outnumber, you'll probably have to expose some actual troops to enemy attacks.

Yep, gone are the days of 12+ ranks of skaven slaves. This sounds good for the game.

Edited November 6, 2023 by Jator

[Beliman]

Seems fine to me. A bit "too much rules" compared to other rank&file games, but I think that's exactly what TOW wants to be: A love letter to 80-90s board games. 

It will be a bit weird to switch from Conquest/Asoiaf to TOW, but pretty sure that it will be less make crazy plays and more about trying something and see if it works.

Can't wait to see more!

Edited November 9, 2023 by Beliman

[Clan's Cynic]

Shooting Phase rules preview.

[Beliman]

I expected all the oldschool weirdness like templates, upper stats that give rerolls and even an AP stat, and it seems that TOW has all of them.  Pretty sure that we are going to see more "reactions" (aka, abilities that you use on your oponent turn) appart from the usual ones that we already had for Charges.

For whatever reason, it reminds me about the Age of Darkness becoming the "updated" version of an oldschool game.

[Bolfrig Bearhide]

Generally liking the shooting phase. Kind of wish they’d done away with having to hit on a 7+ and that, and making it so that a 6 always hit but I can live with it. Including an AP value in fine with, speeds up having to do the maths in your head. Not keen on only the front rank being able to shoot, however. Does make me feel like my little 10 man units of thunderers are actually just 5 guys where the first casualty has 6 wounds. 

[Sception]

7 minutes ago, Bolfrig Bearhide said:

Generally liking the shooting phase. Kind of wish they’d done away with having to hit on a 7+ and that, and making it so that a 6 always hit but I can live with it. Including an AP value in fine with, speeds up having to do the maths in your head. Not keen on only the front rank being able to shoot, however. Does make me feel like my little 10 man units of thunderers are actually just 5 guys where the first casualty has 6 wounds. 

I mean, you could spread them out 10 long, or put them on a hill.

[michu]

Or maybe they will have Volley Fire

[Bolfrig Bearhide]

Both good points, I guess I’ll wait and see the full picture before passing judgement. 

[Tonhel]

I like it! Love the layout / art style of the rule snippets.

[Mutton]

As someone who played Fantasy in the old days, Ballistic Skill is a terrible game design concept. It's an arbitrary number that forces you to remember/reference the ACTUAL number you need to roll to hit. It's the epitome of complexity for complexity's sake.

It should just be (n)+ to hit. We learned this long ago. Obviously, it's not a huge deal, but to me it just screams of leaning harder on the nostalgia bait rather than trying to reinvent a better game out of a ragged, mediocre one. Don't even get me started on the "rerolling higher BS" ******.

[The Red King]

11 minutes ago, Mutton said:

As someone who played Fantasy in the old days, Ballistic Skill is a terrible game design concept. It's an arbitrary number that forces you to remember/reference the ACTUAL number you need to roll to hit. It's the epitome of complexity for complexity's sake.

It should just be (n)+ to hit. We learned this long ago. Obviously, it's not a huge deal, but to me it just screams of leaning harder on the nostalgia bait rather than trying to reinvent a better game out of a ragged, mediocre one. Don't even get me started on the "rerolling higher BS" ******.

I've always preferred these tables. Hitting a goblin and hitting a master swordsman should absolutely not be equally likely. Same for wounding a person versus a giant stone troll or what have you. 

 

Maybe that's just D&D talking idk.

[Beliman]

1 minute ago, The Red King said:

I've always preferred these tables. Hitting a goblin and hitting a master swordsman should absolutely not be equally likely. Same for wounding a person versus a giant stone troll or what have you. 

 

Maybe that's just D&D talking idk.

To be honest, it doesn't matter.

All of this mechanics are just to know how many "damage" your units do. Using a Strength vs Thougness to make a rock-pape-scissors game is good if you design all units with that in mind, but sometimes you can even add another filter like having WS vs WS because you enjoy the narrative behind this dice rolls. But that doesn't mean that you can remove all of this and just go for a flat numbers to push for synergies and micro-plays.

But we are talking about selling Nostalgia, and that alone should be enough to understand why TOW is going for templates, WS vs WS (or BS rerolls), wheeling units from vertex points, etc... and that's fine to me.

Maybe AoS 4.0 will be the game that give us Alternative Activations, 1 attack roll vs 1 defensive rolls, narrative campaigns for competitive plays, etc... but The Old World was never mean to be that type of game.

[Mutton]

17 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I've always preferred these tables. Hitting a goblin and hitting a master swordsman should absolutely not be equally likely. Same for wounding a person versus a giant stone troll or what have you. 

 

Maybe that's just D&D talking idk.

That's a different discussion. Ballistic Skill isn't a stat that you compare with your opponent. It's literally "to hit" but with a reference number.

 

2 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Maybe AoS 4.0 will be the game that give us Alternative Activations

Man I wish. That's never going to happen unless they go through another cataclysmic revamp of one of their systems. 10th edition 40k was a huge shift, and they stood their ground on the "I-go, you-go" design. I think it's too intrinsic to how Warhammer has always been played, and GW has always been a bit stubborn with their rules writing. Maybe in 5-10 years?

[JackStreicher]

Oh I've forgotten.

 

Some free stls I made for you guys. It's 25mm round Regiment Bases in 2x5 | 4x5 etc.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PqjkqrGp5LRAwMoGw8K_EZlxUdASfbNW?usp=drive_link

[Noserenda]

Yeah that was my first thought, BS is a terrible mechanic and a red flag that they are choosing bad design to appeal to misty eyed nostalgia, (See also, templates) you can modify 3+ just as easily as 4, its just a worthless extra step for new players.

Id also argue (from experience) in a massed melee its absolutely not much harder to hit a master swordsman or a goblin, just stab them when they arent looking at you, its the basics of fighting in lines Not very relevant to the shooting phase ofc

The plethora of special rules isnt ideal either having spent half the weekend swearing at the abysmal special rule layout of Heresy second ed, im hoping they have learned from those mistakes though! 

[RyantheFett]

45 minutes ago, Mutton said:

52 minutes ago, Beliman said:

Maybe AoS 4.0 will be the game that give us Alternative Activations

Man I wish. That's never going to happen unless they go through another cataclysmic revamp of one of their systems. 10th edition 40k was a huge shift, and they stood their ground on the "I-go, you-go" design. I think it's too intrinsic to how Warhammer has always been played, and GW has always been a bit stubborn with their rules writing. Maybe in 5-10 years?

40k 10th was them copying all the best aspects of AoS 3.0. Will be very interesting to see if they just repeat the process or if AoS is the game where they like to try to experiment with the rules. My guess it will be more of the former with the biggest change being towards getting rid of the spell phase.

Would be cool if they did try changing up activation, but ya can't see it happening.

[Jator]

I'm really not a fan of templates, it just drags the game. I don't think it's a big deal, but I was liking everything so far*...

 

 

*Barring the lack of skaven as a main faction.

[EntMan]

7 minutes ago, Jator said:

*Barring the lack of skaven as a main faction.

Skaven? No such thing mate, you've been listening to conspiracy theories again!

[Twisted Firaun]

I'm just here for the new Tomb Kings, I care not how clunky the movement is (actually plays into my factions favor lore wise, since their all undead from an ever shifting desert) and since I never actually got the chance to play fantasy before the End Times I have no general biases.... bring on the reveals GW! you know you want too!

[The Red King]

9 hours ago, Mutton said:

That's a different discussion. Ballistic Skill isn't a stat that you compare with your opponent. It's literally "to hit" but with a reference number.

Fair. I also don't really care for 7+ to hit tables but I was just kind of lumping them together. The more complexity there is the more granularity IS possible whether they make use of it or not.

 

9 hours ago, Noserenda said:

Id also argue (from experience) in a massed melee its absolutely not much harder to hit a master swordsman or a goblin, just stab them when they arent looking at you, its the basics of fighting in lines Not very relevant to the shooting phase ofc

Well sure but swordmasters of hoeth (or whatever you want) are also fighting in a line and presumably better at it than you or I so again I would expect to have a harder time hitting one of them than a goblin all things equal. 

That said I'm more thinking about things like character duels and the like. Maybe it's far too complicated to use tables only for challenges and use flat numbers for the larger combats (actually that seems doable) but if I have to pick one or the other I'd take more tables over less.

 

I will never defend templates though.  Oh so fun to have an extra gizmo I guess? And then argue endlessly over how many models slivers of base are under it 🙄

[Tonhel]

11 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

Oh I've forgotten.

 

Some free stls I made for you guys. It's 25mm round Regiment Bases in 2x5 | 4x5 etc.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1PqjkqrGp5LRAwMoGw8K_EZlxUdASfbNW?usp=drive_link

Cool, thank you. When I open it in chitubox it is extremely small, almost invisible. I can fix it by rescaling, but I have noticed this befere with your stls. Why is it and how can I solve it?

[JackStreicher]

57 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

Cool, thank you. When I open it in chitubox it is extremely small, almost invisible. I can fix it by rescaling, but I have noticed this befere with your stls. Why is it and how can I solve it?

I honestly don‘t know (import-settings of your chitubox?) , the stls open at the correct scale on my laptop and pc.

some values for scaling:

width of 5 wide should be 12,5cm -> 125mm

width of 4 wide should be 10cm -> 100mm

 and so forth.

[Beliman]

It seems that GW is looking for a Spanish translator. I think that it could be because the massive spam from spanish people to see TOW in their language.

If that's the case, everybody wins. Warhammer Fantasy is one of the most beloved games in spain and pretty sure that the community will be bigger if they release the game in spanish.

[Ejecutor]

1 minute ago, Beliman said:

It seems that GW is looking for a Spanish translator. I think that it could be because the massive spam from spanish people to see TOW in their language.

If that's the case, everybody wins. Warhammer Fantasy is one of the most beloved games in spain and pretty sure that the community will be bigger if they release the game in spanish.

Wow! Thayt's pretty good news! Do you have the source?