Warhammer - The Old World

[Twisted Firaun]

On 11/18/2023 at 5:20 AM, KingKull said:

The person who apparently designed the only part of the new TK model I like confirmed a lot of my feelings about it.

I'm going to be the odd one out here and say that I genuinely love 99% of this kit, as well as the concept surrounding it. Yes, Tomb Kings may have had dragons back in the old days when my dad was a teenager and my uncle still had hair on top of his head(I'm not making fun of anyone but my family here, I promise), and the artist himself isn't the most impressed with his work.... it's still the first fully plastic kit for Tomb Kings since 8th edition and is therefore worthy of respect and joy!

My favorite part of the kit has to be the howdah, since it appears to be the most customizable part of the kit barring the king/priest (who both look absoutely stunning). My favorite bit has to be the face on the priest's version... which is a shame as I intend to use it in a kit bash unless I buy two of these things (and with the way GW prices are going, that isn't likely). My one complaint is that the dragon doesn't have any flesh on him: for something that was apparently tended to by the mortuary cult, it doesn't look like they really gave a damn. TLDR: If this thing has the Flying keyword I'm gonna laugh my skeletal booty off as my enemies watch my dynasty take to the skies.

[KingKull]

18 minutes ago, Twisted Firaun said:

I'm going to be the odd one out here and say that I genuinely love 99% of this kit, as well as the concept surrounding it. Yes, Tomb Kings may have had dragons back in the old days when my dad was a teenager and my uncle still had hair on top of his head(I'm not making fun of anyone but my family here, I promise), and the artist himself isn't the most impressed with his work.... it's still the first fully plastic kit for Tomb Kings since 8th edition and is therefore worthy of respect and joy!

My favorite part of the kit has to be the howdah, since it appears to be the most customizable part of the kit barring the king/priest (who both look absoutely stunning). My favorite bit has to be the face on the priest's version... which is a shame as I intend to use it in a kit bash unless I buy two of these things (and with the way GW prices are going, that isn't likely). My one complaint is that the dragon doesn't have any flesh on him: for something that was apparently tended to by the mortuary cult, it doesn't look like they really gave a damn. TLDR: If this thing has the Flying keyword I'm gonna laugh my skeletal booty off as my enemies watch my dynasty take to the skies.

No lie detected! I'm still excited for everything coming, and will still buy a TK army for myself as well. This one probably hit me because the Beeronnians were impeccable (imho), and I love TK more than I love Brets. Still, fun times ahead!

[Noserenda]

I dont think liking most of it is an unusual position I just wish you could see it better, especially how the skeleton and howdah actually connect...

[Lavieth]

15 hours ago, Sathrut said:

Here you go:

Pharaoh's Legacy

Absolutely stunning minis, with multiple options for various units (look at the skeleton cavalry!). Honestly think they've nailed the TK aesthetic better than GW themselves (exceptions being Ushabti, Casket of Souls, Settra, Khalida, the original metal Tomb King). Getting strong "The Mummy 1999" vibes from some of the infantry which is the film that made me fall in love with TK in the first place over 20 years ago (I can feel myself aging having typed that).

Thank you for sharing that link. Those were excellent looking sculpts. I was also to contact the designer and was able to do a late pledge. 

[Clan's Cynic]

It's that time of the week again. Combat Phase preview.

[Noserenda]

Combat at least looks fine, mostly the combat results, the rest is vaguely as expected but a more realistic set of results from the leadership test is excellent.

[Jator]

Sounds interesting. Of course we'll have to see the full ruleset, but I think they're doing a good job generating interest and even hope for this new iteration.🤞

[Beliman]

It's a bit hard to understand if you never played warhammer. I need a few games to make a solid argument about this rules.

Edited November 20, 2023 by Beliman

[Tonhel]

For lower LD armies it will not change much, but for higher LD armies this is very interesting. I have to say, I really like how this is turning out. Without knowing the whole picture. It already looks more interesting than all previous editions of Warhammer and I love how the layout is done of the rule snippets. It just oozes nostalgy.

[Tonhel]

I just saw this on facebook. It seems that inspiration is taken from Warhammer Ancient Battles edition 2. WAB was a well liked historical ruleset.

I am so looking forward to this! We will still play AoS ofcourse, even if it's just for those beautiful mini's, but I am so looking forward to play again a ranked mass battle game set in the Warhammer world.

 

Edited November 20, 2023 by Tonhel

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I have been reading some of the discussions on WHFB forums and it seems like a lot of people like what they are seeing from the new rules. Which is nice! I am happy to finally see people express their excitement about playing The Old World rather than grumbling about how it will be a soulless cash grab and Xth edition (the one from when I started as a kid) was better anyway.

But man, as someone who has never really deeply engaged with the rules of old Warhammer, these rules seem pretty daunting. I find it very hard to get my head around them. Those huge to-hit and to-wound tables are certainly not making things easier. There is a lot of simulationist design here, like Initative and Strength/Toughness, which I know some people love and want in their games. My personal experience with games has made me pretty sceptical of this kind of complexity, though.

I think I will definitely have to watch some battle reports when the game comes out to even understand how it is supposed to play.

[Marcvs]

13 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I have been reading some of the discussions on WHFB forums and it seems like a lot of people like what they are seeing from the new rules. Which is nice! I am happy to finally see people express their excitement about playing The Old World rather than grumbling about how it will be a soulless cash grab and Xth edition (the one from when I started as a kid) was better anyway.

But man, as someone who has never really deeply engaged with the rules of old Warhammer, these rules seem pretty daunting. I find it very hard to get my head around them. Those huge to-hit and to-wound tables are certainly not making things easier. There is a lot of simulationist design here, like Initative and Strength/Toughness, which I know some people love and want in their games. My personal experience with games has made me pretty sceptical of this kind of complexity, though.

I think I will definitely have to watch some battle reports when the game comes out to even understand how it is supposed to play.

Yeah, I have similar feelings. I know I will be playing this game, because all my fantasy-oriented clubmates are excited about it (right demographic and all that) but boy this last rules article has me worried about the complexity and the length of a game.

This is not a critique of the game itself, more like why I don't think it's the right game for me. It feels a lot like it's not a game you can enjoy as a "secondary" game, because you need familiarity with all these charts and sub-phases to make it go smoothly-ish. The very idea of doing the accounting for every single combat to see who won, and then go through the post-combat stuff is not appealing, when I know that my clubmates already need 4 hours to finish an AoS game.

[MattT]

The tables are just splash outs of a simple matrix.

From Even WS up to 2x opponent WS: hit on 4+ (E.g. you are WS3 means enemy WS 3 to WS6 is 4+.)
Opponent having more than 2x your WS hit on 5+

Reverse the process for being better than opponent.

Basically it makes a lot more sense since the interaction with the foes WS matter. It´s totally weird to have a a system where you always hit your foes at the same rate whatever skill they have. This was the norm in GW up until a few years ago. I like it better 👍

Edited November 21, 2023 by MattT

[Marcvs]

6 minutes ago, MattT said:

Basically it makes a lot more sense since the interaction with the foes WS matter. It´s totally weird to have a a system where you always hit your foes at the same rate whatever skill they have. This was the norm in GW up until a few years ago. I like it better 👍

It's of course a matter of personal preferences. I am ready to compromise more on the "simulation" side in order to have a smoother and faster play experience: always hitting on the same number means I don't need information from my opponent every time I make a roll.

[silverstu]

Have to say I'm liking these rules- the combat resolution looks great with the addition of pushback rather than just breaking the opponent. Means you can make gains and adds extra granularity.

On those being a bit daunted by those to-hit and to-wound tables, you get your head around it very quickly and pretty soon you can play without checking the tables  in most cases.

Finally getting back to the reveal of the bone dragon- I love that kit. It looks like a John Blanche concept and I love all the options and extras on it. Looking forward to seeing what they do for dwarfs when they get round to them. Also hoping I might get my old gaming buddy into this [or my current 40k mates]. Looks like fun!

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

20 minutes ago, MattT said:

The tables are just splash outs of a simple matrix.

From Even WS up to 2x opponent WS: hit on 4+ (E.g. you are WS3 means enemy WS 3 to WS6 is 4+.)
Opponent having more than 2x your WS hit on 5+

Reverse the process for being better than opponent.

Basically it makes a lot more sense since the interaction with the foes WS matter. It´s totally weird to have a a system where you always hit your foes at the same rate whatever skill they have. This was the norm in GW up until a few years ago. I like it better 👍

I understand that there is always a function that gives you the chart in question, of course. But the reason that there is a table is that determining the result of the function at the gaming table is a bit of a stumbling block for most people. I still see this in AoS all the time. Battleshock is just Casualties+d6-Bravery=Losses, but whenever it happens at the table, it still interrupts the flow. And I believe the math is more simple in that case (just addition and subtraction as opposed to logic operations).

What you wrote about it being weird that a unit's to-hit value is always the same regardless of the opponent is a good example of why I called the to-hit table a simulationist mechanic. People who like that kind of thing are fine with taking on extra complexity because it "makes sense", because it simulates what is happening in the fiction more closely. That's more or less just a preference. I personally prefer to sacrifice this kind of realism (up to a point) for a game that plays faster and more smoothly.

A lot of this comes from my personal experience with games with very detailed mechanics: For a long time I though that I really wanted this kind of high granualrity in my games, but after playing a bunch of games that don't have it, I never found that I was missing it at the table.

It's definitely good that TOW is doing something that you like, though! It's good if TOW and AoS have different niches for different player bases to enjoy.

[MattT]

It´s of course up to opinion, but the calculation you need to sort out the number to roll in this case is miniscule and, as mentioned before, was the norm in GW for maybe 20 years without being considered an issue. It was rather a bit of a surprise when they changed it into set to hit #.

But it´s a thing of personal preference for sure.

[Jefferson Skarsnik]

I didn't think the hit and wound requirements were that hard to internalise, but I guess I maybe just learned them in 1995 and it's been stuck for a long time compared to what a curious newcomer coming from a modernish game like AOS or whatever would experience.

They've actually changed from what I was used to, when anything above your WS was 5+ to hit and more than double was 6+

 

[Flippy]

1 hour ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I understand that there is always a function that gives you the chart in question, of course. But the reason that there is a table is that determining the result of the function at the gaming table is a bit of a stumbling block for most people. I still see this in AoS all the time. Battleshock is just Casualties+d6-Bravery=Losses, but whenever it happens at the table, it still interrupts the flow. And I believe the math is more simple in that case (just addition and subtraction as opposed to logic operations).

What you wrote about it being weird that a unit's to-hit value is always the same regardless of the opponent is a good example of why I called the to-hit table a simulationist mechanic. People who like that kind of thing are fine with taking on extra complexity because it "makes sense", because it simulates what is happening in the fiction more closely. That's more or less just a preference. I personally prefer to sacrifice this kind of realism (up to a point) for a game that plays faster and more smoothly.

A lot of this comes from my personal experience with games with very detailed mechanics: For a long time I though that I really wanted this kind of high granualrity in my games, but after playing a bunch of games that don't have it, I never found that I was missing it at the table.

It's definitely good that TOW is doing something that you like, though! It's good if TOW and AoS have different niches for different player bases to enjoy.

These tables are super easy to internalise, you learn the logic behind them in no time - so the costs here is minimal. And the added statistics (Weapon Skill, Initiative) give you far more options to differentiate the units. In the universal (aka rumour) thread this exact issue was recently discussed - how to make a Vampire / Chaos Lord substantially different from a Goblin or a Human General. This discussion emerges from time to time because people remember that WHFB never had problem with that; with so many RPG-based characteristics and a wide pool of traits / artefacts you were able to see all the differences clearly just by reading the books.

[Marcvs]

25 minutes ago, Flippy said:

These tables are super easy to internalise, you learn the logic behind them in no time - so the costs here is minimal. And the added statistics (Weapon Skill, Initiative) give you far more options to differentiate the units. In the universal (aka rumour) thread this exact issue was recently discussed - how to make a Vampire / Chaos Lord substantially different from a Goblin or a Human General. This discussion emerges from time to time because people remember that WHFB never had problem with that; with so many RPG-based characteristics and a wide pool of traits / artefacts you were able to see all the differences clearly just by reading the books.

personally, my concern is much more about the resolution of combat / determining the winner (more calculations) / post combat sequence. Multiplied across multiple combats I feel it will make for very long combat phases and games.

And sure, you will internalise the tables if you play often enough (which is not the case for the vast majority of players, as we know), but even then, unless you know everything by heart, you will need information from yor opponent or to consult their profiles every time you roll. So I don't think this can just be brushed away as a minimal cost. Then again, I agree it has some value. As I have said before, it's just a matter of personal preferences between more granularity and a quicker/more streamlined experience.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Marcvs

[Beliman]

I think that I have something that could help in this conversation:

A few weeks ago, I played Doom II with my nephew, and even if the game is easier to play than Warzone or any new one, he didn't have any fun with it. The locked Y axis was too much for him.

Unless that type of gameplay suits your tastes, it will be hard to enjoy unless you "break" that mental barrier.

Edited November 21, 2023 by Beliman

[MattT]

2 hours ago, Marcvs said:

personally, my concern is much more about the resolution of combat / determining the winner (more calculations) / post combat sequence. Multiplied across multiple combats I feel it will make for very long combat phases and games.

Rather I find current GW combat cumbersome since it´s buckets and buckets of dice which takes ages to roll and resolve. It´s annoying when each and every model has three attacks and you have to fiddle about a big heap of skirmishing models where you want to place them so as many as possible get to swing.

In this system it´s (normally) the front rank. End. Much easier imo. 

[Jymmy]

As a person playing Middle Earth, I found very easy to internalize the wound chart, there is always some moments where you have go back to the rulebook but most of the time is not difficult at all!

[GhostShark]

I played older GW games that use charts like this. I never internalized any of it. That not how my brain works. Instead I'd refer to the charts every single time. It never actually slowed the game down. It takes like 5 seconds. Yes, you have to ask your opponent what their unit's stat is. That's part of the 5 seconds. In my experience at least its really, really not something that slows down the game.

[Jator]

9 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I have been reading some of the discussions on WHFB forums and it seems like a lot of people like what they are seeing from the new rules. Which is nice! I am happy to finally see people express their excitement about playing The Old World rather than grumbling about how it will be a soulless cash grab and Xth edition (the one from when I started as a kid) was better anyway.

But man, as someone who has never really deeply engaged with the rules of old Warhammer, these rules seem pretty daunting. I find it very hard to get my head around them. Those huge to-hit and to-wound tables are certainly not making things easier. There is a lot of simulationist design here, like Initative and Strength/Toughness, which I know some people love and want in their games. My personal experience with games has made me pretty sceptical of this kind of complexity, though.

I think I will definitely have to watch some battle reports when the game comes out to even understand how it is supposed to play.

Don't worry, it's normal to feel all those tables as cumbersome. If I wasn't familiar, I'd be probably see them as daunting too. In fact that was the case when I was a newby. (And now it goes against the current market trends).

But as others have said, after some practice it barely slow down the game (removing casualties thou....sorry, I'm a traumatized skaven player). It may still not be your thing, of course, but I'd encourage you to give it a try. After all, LONG LOST NEHEKHRA is not going to conquer the world on their own.