"Back to the past: WFB" Topic

In the last year I have heard a lot of complaints from old hands about the last iteration of Warhammer Fantasy rules. Usually, they complain about the huge investment in money and time that 8th edition requires.

A couple of months ago a small group of gamers decided to have a trip to the past,ignoring 8th edition altogether. What they are doing is using 6th edition rules and army books, tweaking them here and there to adapt the new stuff released by GW since 8th ed hit the shelves. Locally, they are starting to have a certain following, with even some shops supporting the initiative with small tournaments and campaigns.

Has anyone noticed this trend in their area? Or is it something completely local?

We discussed doing just this a few weeks ago. WFB is practically dead at our club since 8th came out.

In my local club in Athens (Kaissa Peristeri) people play 8th. I have not heard of any deviations from 8th generally at other places. From what I have heard people generally like it. I should note I also play 8th now.

Not sure how things in the local store in the US

I've only ever used 1st edition

I think 6th ed is good, the best you'll find? no but still a good game

I liked 7th a lot. 6th was good but still had that lapping around thing going (if I remember right).

The army books is where the game seems to fall apart. Early in an edition's life cycle, the first books seem to be reasonably balanced. At some point, something (or several somethings) become a game breaker.

Kings of War is a decent-ish rule set that we've been using to play with our WFB and any other models we feel like fielding. I like that it is simpler (so far) and includes all the army lists in one book.

I have not played WFB since 8th came out and after watching a very large 8th Edition Tournament at a convention last year I have little interest in going to 8th. I really liked 6th as I thought it was near perfect for the kind of fantasy game I wanted to play. Most of the folks I would play WFB with either have the 6th or 7th ed rules as well as army books; and I think that is where we are going to stay given the infrequency of WFB games among us.

Of course, that is our area and not indicative of what may being going on in general. Every Spring Fever convention there is a large turn out to play the 8th ed. WFB tourney. 8th is just not the game I originally fell in love with and enjoyed for many years. Fact is I play more Warhammer Ancient Battles (the origninal version with updates) than I do fantasy. Given that Warhammer Ancients is based more on even earlier versions of WFB you might understand why 8th ed. does not work for me.

Another factor is that GW finally priced themselves out of my market. I am glad I have collected what I have for so long and that I have all the figures I need to play games of WFB. In fact one of my armies is obsolete under the current game.

Another factor is that GW finally priced themselves out of my market.

Most of the complaints I've heard about 8th is precisely the amount of money you need to invest to field a reasonable sized army. With 30+ strong figure units being the norm, it requires a lot of money to build them.

Problem with using former editions, though, is that there are not support for them from GW (which is logical, on the other hand) and trying to translate the stats for new units (Monstrous cavalry, for example) to previous editions is not that easy.

I play and like 8th, and for the large units, I just make unit fillers

Points values did not drop between 6th and 8th, so if you already have a points-compliant 6th army, it should also work for at or near the same points level. If you had built reasonable 6th edition armies, they should work under 8th too. Case in point, I did not have to buy a single figure from the change over.

BTW, horde formations are not a universal given, and do not work with all units.

Damon.

Locally 8th Ed. seems to be nearly universal in the game stores and local WFB tournaments. As whitemanticore mentioned, at Spring Fever in the past the current edition of WFB is very popular. I understand that starting this April, the Brawler Bash WFB players are no longer going to participate in Spring Fever and their tournament has moved to a local game store.

I would welcome some sort of fan e-publication of how to modify play of WFB 6 or 7 with some of the rule improvements of WFB 8 without purchasing all the newest army books.

Like the OFM has stated on many a thread, I have never really bought into the "not supported" argument. If you have the figures and the books you have all you need as long as you have even one other player. As to converting new models to the old rules that is not a difficult proposition if you have reasonable players.

Basil I have to disagree with your statement about the not needing to buy additional models. I have always played balanced armies in WFB. I regularly tried to field 25 to 30 man units which many thought too big for 6th and 7th. From what I have seen you now need to field 40 figure units and lots of monsters and special units in order to play tournaments with any hope of being competitive. Just not my cup of tea anymore.

Under the heading of serendipity I just came back from a trip to my local gaming store and ran into some of the old time WFB players there. And the topic of conversation was to start up a group that played 6th edition WFB. I will take it as a sign.

@Religon, I hope the Brawler group leaving does not have a negative impact on Spring Fever. I am curious as to why they made the move as Ed as always been very accommodating of of the tournaments with both Southern Front and Spring Fever. Sadly I am going to miss Spring Fever this year as it comes at the same time when I am going to be on the road taking my oldest son to interview at colleges up the East Coast.

From what I have seen you now need to field 40 figure units and lots of monsters and special units in order to play tournaments with any hope of being competitive. Just not my cup of tea anymore.

Yep. Maybe that's the problem. There is a ingrained conviction between most players that in order to field a WFB army it should be 'tournament competitive'. I've tried to convince people to focus on non-tournament lists as a cheaper and less work-intensive alternative, but without any success, to be truthful.

To my mind, the one thing WFB has going for it is that it's what the majority play.
I don't think it's ever been particularly well designed.
My suggestion would be to try a different game rather than switching back to 6th.

whitemantincore wrote…

I hope the Brawler group leaving does not have a negative impact on Spring Fever.

I think head count will go down slightly, but table space will free up. Perhaps more games will be offered on Saturday and it improves an already outstanding convention.

I'm sure Ed has offered every consideration. I am not privy to the inner conversations within the NC Brawler Bash group, but I do occasionally game with some organizers. They do not seem hostile to Spring Fever. The organizers are very loyal to the local gaming store. The decision seems driven by that loyalty.

My speculation of what the WFB 8 players were thinking…

1) We don't participate in the other offerings of Spring Fever anyway.
2) The store in Durham has relocated with a very spacious gaming area the equal of the Raleigh Hilton.
3) Money. It will save WFB gamers $5. USD In the past they have paid the convention fee ($20) plus the WFB tournament fee. In the new model, all the money ($35) goes to the tournament organizers and/or the hosting game store.

If nothing else, this serves as an interesting case study in the difficulties among gamers to find common ground. Perhaps the OP's idea of going back to the past has too many barriers, both real and perceived.

Basil I should add that I have not been interested in playing tournament games in Warhammer Fantasy for some time, much less any other tournament style play. Regardless,(and I think we are both pretty much stating the same) the majority of players I meet do seem to gravitate toward the tournament style of play. I have a small but devoted group I game with that are more into having a good time and enjoying the game.

@AONeil, while I agree that the current edition of may be badly designed, Warhammer over all is a well designed game and I have yet to find an alternative that is as well fleshed out and presented. I have looked at Armies of Arcana, HOTT, and a few others and they just do not seem to work for me. Plus trying to get folks to try something different is difficult when most people collect and play WFB. I have considered designing my own set of rules (don't we all) but again there is something about the fantasy genre that just does not invite experimentation like other periods and genres do. For example it is easy to get gamers in my group to try different WW II game rules, Pulp, Science Fiction, Victorian Science Fiction, ACW, Western, and most any historical period, but try and move them away from Warhammer Fantasy and it just is not worth the effort.

I think the reason for this is that no other fantasy set of game rules has gone to such a great an extent to flesh out a game world to battle in. It may be something that is very intrinsic to the genre perhaps. As an example it is easy to find players for the Lord of Rings game also by GW and for Warmaster.

@Religion, good points all and I hope the changes do not impact the convention in a negative a way. I agree it will allow for more tables for other games which has always been somewhat tight at Spring Fever.

8th Edition has caused me to pretty well drop Warhammer after playing for 20 years. Most of the guys I have played with over the years agree and have gone on to other systems.

More suprising my son and his teen age friends feel the same way. They dislike 8th edition and have largely stopped playing.

With both old and young WH players bailing, local tournaments seem to have dried up.

Not sure going back an edition would help though old Bretonian army books are much better than the current ones (same for figures). At this point anything would help.

Have introduced the younger set to both Hordes of the Things (using DBA3.0 rules) and Armies of Arcana which they all like much better than Warhammer 8th.

I've been playing for many years and can say without hesitation that 8th is the least balanced most tedious version ever produced. (Though they did finally get the missile rules to work better).

TomT

Everything I've heard online is about 8th Edition being a good ruleset. Personally, I quit the modern stuff and play WFB 3rd Edition ("Oldhammer"). In that game you have 30 models in an ARMY, not a unit ; )

I wonder if adapting SAGA to WFB would work… Probably,I should try!

FWIW my plans involve using parts of Maurice.
Cards command control mechanism works very well.
4 elements per unit.
Each element would probably be 2" by 2" if you're using WFB figures but ranges are element widths. Or some unit of measure near base widths.

I think it best if you aim for similar flavour for your armies rather than trying to directly translate from WFB to your new system.

I've gone and built up a Bretonnian army(5th Ed models, Perrys huzzah) through ebay, if/when it gets around to seeing the table top it will be under either the 6th Ed WFB, or (more likely) KoW.

My buddy and I just started gaming WHFB 6th again. A third buddy is playing but not painting or collecting since he's gotten his sons into 40K and Mordheim. Currently we are going to play Warhammer Warbands as a build-up to WHFB. Also in the queue is WHFB3rd. Awaiting arrival of the book. I played 6th back in the day and when 7th came out something just didn't click for me. Played KOW, Mighty Armies(big A+ here), a lot of historicals and Basic Impetus. All good games but I'm going to stick to 3rd and 7th, using MA for the quick games. 8th is a no go after a few unsatisfactory games.

Oh and locally there is a sizeable group playing 8th at The Battle Standard in Manchester, CT. Good bunch of guys who play competitively yet are a friendly, encouraging group. I encourage anyone in the Connecticut area to check them and The Time Machine.

The flaws of the 6th edition are out there, however they are dwarfed by the problems in the 7th and 8th. Making a long story short, the army books destroyed the 7th edtion which was not a bad edition concerning the core rules. It is my opinion that the 8th edition was put together in part to fix the underlying problems that the army books made in the 7th, and partially to mimic 40K for easier transition from one system to the next.

I am of the opinion that taking some of the rule mechanics from Warhammer Ancien Battle would have done a lot to fix the inequities that we had, specifically "Give Ground," as opposed to what we have now.

I would much rather play 6th edition any time compared to what is out there now any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

You can always play 8th at 1000 points. That fixes the need for huge units problems and you get a nice 2 hour game.

Two hours for a 1K game? Not helping the argument for 8th edition IMHO. That size of a game would take us around an hour in previous editions.

Well 2 hours with preparation etc

I recently put together a forum for people who prefer to play earlier versions of Warhammer or OOP print GW games. Feel free to sign up and add a 6th ed presence :)

link