"What is the problem with 8th?" Topic

I see lots of posts about people not liking 8th. I was just wondering what the differences were that causes the "8th hate"?

What were the big rule changes? I know some complain about the huge armies needed, but other than that, I really don't see a difference. Admittedly I play infrequently so I'm not a rules expert.

Just wondering, Xin

Most armies will want a lot of troops in a few big units. Cavalry is mostly not worth the points. Spellcasting is unpredictable, but it can have a big effect if you get the right spells in play. Terrain generation rules are kind of wacky.
I personally think the new edition is a big improvement balance-wise. If you're willing to shell out the dough for enough troops, just about every army has a chance to win. But the game is more about attrition now, big units grinding away at each other.

The Huge Armies effect is at the base of it because is affects armies that did not need large numbers before.

The switch to removal of casualties from the back of a unit neuters the "rank clearers" with high initiative, requiring those armies (High Elves and Dark Elves, specifically) to follow the rest into huge infantry blocks.

The removal of Model Weight forces cavalry to either bulk up or be benched.

Skirmishers were nerfed hard, benching most Wood Elf armies as a side effect of making the Skink Screen Lizardman armies slightly less effective.

Random but long charge ranges took the early maneuver element out of the game almost completely.

Each rule alone might have been acceptable. As a group, they turned 8th into the edition where you need to buy more of everything to play a less intelligent game.

No problem here. This edition has revitalized the game for us and boosted numbers at our game store. Warhammer Fantasy has always needed more figs than 40K, but there's no reason you can't play smaller games. I think you have a biased premise baked into your topic. I dislike these sort of titles as they inadvertently advertise that there is, in fact, some sort of problem when maybe there really isn't. How about "what's the difference between 7th and 8th and do you like the changes?" instead.

they turned 8th into the edition where you need to buy more of everything to play a less intelligent game

Yep, that sums it up nicely

Each rule alone might have been acceptable. As a group, they turned 8th into the edition where you need to buy more of everything to play a less intelligent game.

I've had discussions with people who used to work for GW, the gist of which was that GW has always considered themselves a minis company, and not a game company.

That is, the game exists to drive sales of the minis. For GW, 8th edition is great.

This seems backwards to gamers, who think that the minis exist to support playing the game.

As someone said above, play at lower point levels.

As a non-GW gamer who recently just entered into Warhammer, I don't agree with the point of view of those who lament some of these changes. In historical games, it is an accepted norm that cavalry don't charge into the front of spear-armed infantry, nor do shock infantry wipe out a front line and then never fight the rear ranks. We have also had problems throughout the history of WRG and especially DBx of super-powerful or annoying skirmishers, so I am not sure about these criticisms of nerfing skirmishers in 8th edition.

While these changes in 8th edition certainly increase the need for more infantry models, IMHO they also bring the rules more into line with traditional wargame rules. Or at least are a good step.

Yep. Of course, I'm holding out for 9th edition.

I really don't have a problem with magic or charge ranges in this edition. If you play off the law of averages, this makes calculating what you need in order to pull something off easy. And I play a magic heavy army (Dark Elfs).

Damon.

It's a matter of interpretation as to whether you would consider it a problem or not, but WFB 8th Edition does make units more lethal than before (particularly the rules for fighting in extra ranks, attackers wading through casualties, and defenders moving forward to fill gaps in melee). To compare, an 6x3 unit of spearmen with light armour and a shield will cause 3x the number of casualties to a similar enemy than their 3rd Edition counterparts.

Additionally, the rules for breaking from combat are harsher in 8th Edition. Losing combat by 3 resolution points means that the above unit has only a 17% chance to hold their ground, and a greater than 50% chance to be entirely wiped out in the rout (losing all 18 models). That is to say, losing combat by 3 points gives somewhere around a 50% chance that the entire unit will both rout and vanish.

In comparison to 3rd Edition, no break test would even be taken until the unit had lost 5 models to melee (which takes at least several rounds of combat in 3rd Edition). At that point, they would test to break on an unmodified Leadership 7 (successfully holding the majority of the time). Even then, a rout would typically cause only 3 casualties (and another 3 if the routed unit was pursued further).

The result is that 8th Edition encourages you to have big units (to survive the outright melee strikes of the enemy) yet is set up so the entire unit could evaporate with a bad (or even fairly average) leadership roll. It's a different style of game that some are used to. Whether that is a bad thing is up to your own expectations and tastes.

It's been a while since I played WH. The whole indestructable heroes thing put me off – each side having a couple of uber characters which decided the battle while the rest of the figures where just there for decoration. By the sounds of the comments above, the changes make the game more attractive to me. Skirmishers shouldn't be game winners- more of an annoyance- though there should be racial advantages. Wood Elf archers should be better than other races be several degrees in accordance to most fluff, so if they aren't, then that needs fixing. I can't think of many historical battles where units recovered from being pursued in a rout – I'm sure there were some, but not often. Usually they just melt away and cease to exist as a fighting force – just compare the disparity between casualties of the winners and losers in most actual Ancient battles. It also makes complete sense that a minatures company sould sell rules that maximise the number of figures. I have never heard the same complaints about Warlord games and Hail Caeser – both of which are held in high regard. I was looking at Mantic's Kings of war rules for a more balanced game, but these are worth a look now, to me at least.

I have never heard the same complaints about Warlord games and Hail Caeser – both of which are held in high regard.

Apples and oranges. Historical games can be played with models from any company, while GW's games are played with GW's models. When GW says you have to buy a certain number of models to play, they're expecting you to buy their models. When Warlord tells you how many models you need, they're still competing against other miniatures companies for your money.

Sure, it might be convenient to get the models from the same source -- and that's how Flames of War makes as much money as they do -- but if you charge too much, then cost trumps convenience.

Sounds good, to me Fantasy Battles involve huge armies rather than a few little units having a bit of a skirmish, might have a look at 8th,

Tally Ho!

"to me Fantasy Battles involve huge armies rather than a few little units having a bit of a skirmish"

This is the representation trap. GW used to admit that the game was not 1-to-1 but more a case of relative strengths. Each base in a unit could represent one, four, 25 or a hundred. They don't say this any more, so the uncorrected assumption by the reader is 1-to-1.

Apples and oranges. Historical games can be played with models from any company, while GW's games are played with GW's models. When GW says you have to buy a certain number of models to play, they're expecting you to buy their models. When Warlord tells you how many models you need, they're still competing against other miniatures companies for your money.

GW games are only played with GW models in their stores or comps that they run. My Bretonnian army has GW, Front Rank, Perry, Crusader, Gamezone and so forth in it.

My Orc army has GW, Gamezone, Old Glory and others. etc

Depends where you play. I don't play in their stores on 4x4 tables so their stupid figure rules don't affect me.

Depends where you play. I don't play in their stores on 4x4 tables so their stupid figure rules don't affect me.

And more power to you -- but that doesn't really have anything to do with the question asked, does it?

People hate on GW because you're expected to play in their stores, with their models, and because what you do is considered abnormal. On the other hand, what you do is currently normal for Warlord, etc.

See the difference?

Its impossible to summerize all of 8th Editions problems in a brief post but I'll try anyway. I've been playing Warhammer since before the hardback days and have run and won many tournaments, leagues etc. My son and his friends also play (until recently) and between us we have lots of armies.

The essential problem comes from over correcting for a couple of small problems and way overplaying their hand for crass commercial reasons.

They have installed a variety of rules to make bloated foot units overpowered making every game a grinding (and boring) grudge match between two virtually unbreakable "death star" units. While this may sell a lot of models it reduces (near terminates) manver and army variety.

The rule change has nothing to do with history and is not at all an accurate reflection of real world capabilties. No advantage is given to anti-mounted weapons like Spears/Pikes but simply mass. A large unit of rabble, an excellent historical target for knights, is now virutually unkillable by knight units (which also unhistorically must now be also big and cumbersome to have any chance at all).

Added to this is dead weight problem, the new magic system is overpowering unless your opponent luck runs out. Basically you just sit and hope they roll badly.

Warmachines, gimick troops and characters remain overpowered – nothing has changed here except that a few of the gimick and warmachines are the only remedy for the bloated foot units and so more important than ever. Warmachines like magic are just luck devices – devestating and impossible to outmanuver untill your opponent (or you) rolls a mishap.

Conversley the archery rules have improved but this small step forward has been swamped by a sea of silliness.

Though many here are propsing fewer points as a solution bear in mind that the company has raised the point totals for tournaments from 2000 to 2500 and many people like to play at tournament levels (understandably) to stay in practice even for pick up games. The company has done exactly the opposite of the "solution" – good for them bad for us.

The sitution is bad enough that many experienced players are quiting (or seeking alternatives).

One ray of hope – the overwhelming negative reaction has lead to some rumors that the company may consider some sort of fix. If so, I think we should hold our barbs about GW greed etc., as this fix may cost something but for once would represent some concern for the consumer of thier products.

For now continuing to express (in calm terms) disastifaction (and why) in hopes of some action seems the only useful course.

TomT

I had wondered about the lack of bonuses or even mention of pikes, only spears, but then remembered that many pike-armed figures were Dogs of War figures now unofficial.

This is all very interesting and useful to me, thanks guys.

I started playing WFB 2.0 and played actively through to 5th. I bought a copy of 6th but never played it, haven't had the figures out for years and have skipped 7th and 8th. Used to do Campaigns with Mighty Empires, naval actions with Man O' War, used Siege – both editions, the whole shooting match.

Recently took my 9 year old to see The Hobbit and he got all enthusiastic about medieval fantasy so we got out all the old troops (High Elves, Wood Elves, Skaven, Dwarves, Empire, Brettonia, Orcs and Chaos), repaired some figures, started a Campaign with Mighty Empires and are planning to use Kings of War that will allow us to use our historical human armies as well. It seems a more straightforward, cleaner rules set and didn't cost a bomb!

I did consider WFB 8th but they now want how much just for the Rulebook!!! Haven't ruled WFB out and threads like this contribute to our thinking and decisions.

Thanks, Nick

Personally I don't think anything's wrong with 8th edition other than army lists which I can't speak to. I'm just using the main rulebook and making changes to taste. Most rules don't give a good feel for the period/universe as a natural consequence of following the rules as written.

I think the 8th edition rulebook on it's own makes a good not quite all-in-one fantasy set if you're willing to work without army lists. Which I realize most people aren't.

Meiczyslaw-" On the other hand, what you do is currently normal for Warlord, etc.

See the difference?"

When Warlord has a natural virtual monopoly on the historical scene let me know, until then they realize they can't do ancients alone (yet anyway) and so don't even try. And quite frankly GW doesn't do that either. They just don't mention other companies and shouldn't be expected to do so. Just like Privateer Press, Urban Mammoth, Catalyst Games, Spartan Games, and so on and so forth into infinity or the miniature version thereof.

Quite frankly nothing they do is out of line with the rest of the industry. It's just that they're the big guy and have a long history, parts of which some people prefer. They developed a business model that works, and don't exist to please longtime players. If they did GW would've been out of business long ago.

I am another long time player of WFB. I started with the second edition hardbound book waaaaay back in the early 1990's. Over the years the game has gone through many changes but still managed to keep its core mechanics. I thought with 6th edition they had finally balanced things out pretty well as 5th had become about uber characters and had many problems. 7th was not bad but did away with lapping around and panic tests for being charged in your flank and rear if already engaged to the front. I thought that was a bad decision and made the game less about rewarding good tactics and maneuver.

Base upon what I have read above I am now even less inclined to purchase 8th edition. I will also add that I watched a very large Warhammer 8th tournament at a convention and it appeared to me that much of what has been stated in this thread confirms my observations. In other words each army would field a couple of HUGE blocks of infantry with supporting monsters and very hard characters. There appeared to be little in the way of maneuver or tactics. Just rush up and hope the math and dice worked in your favor and magic did not screw you.

Much as I have loved this game for years I have begun to look at other systems to play with the vast amount of miniatures and armies that I have. I have a small core group of players who still want to just game with the 6th or 7th edition rules and that is fine.

If you hold out for 11th edition, everything will be perfect.

I've been playing WHFB since 5th. 8th is definitely skewed towards big blocks of infantry. I haven't played many games but the winning player usually had 1 or 2 "deathstar" units. I can't figure out what to do with cavalry in this edition.

The models have gotten steadily better. Yes they are pricey, but I still have so many unpainted unassembled in boxes that I only buy new ones occasionally so I don't notice so much.

Re block/Death Star units, I would think the solution would be area-effect war machines or damage spells. Every edition of ancients games I have played created super-units, but eventually tactics were devised to trump them.

In the abstract, big big blocks of infantry resemble the age of phalanxes or Swiss pike, so I am not so sure that the negative labels are fair when applied to Warhammer. To me, fantasy rules should mirror historical rules, but with interesting integration of magic and heroes.

I am now wondering if I should try 7th edition with a couple of 8th edition rules added on?

Re block/Death Star units, I would think the solution would be area-effect war machines or damage spells.

I'm thinking cannons might actually be worthwhile in this edition. Mortars should rock.

Assuming they didn't change the rules for them too much.

In the abstract, big big blocks of infantry resemble the age of phalanxes or Swiss pike, so I am not so sure that the negative labels are fair when applied to Warhammer.

Oh, yeah. If you were starting a brand-new game, I'm not sure there'd be as many complaints. Part of the problem with Warhammer is that 6th edition needed fewer models to a unit, and that 7th raised that number, and it sounds like 8th has raised it again. That is where the gripes come from.

(That, and it sounds like cavalry got nerfed, which left players with units that aren't worth playing with any more.)

I think the best rule changes to 8th is the change to "who strikes first". Striking first is a huge advantage.

I believe it was the unit that charged strikes first, so you had to play movement games, like who was going to move into range first, the other got to charge you.

Now the rule is units strike in Initiative order. Now add in, even if your whole front rank gets wiped out, the back ranks "step up" and fight so you don't lose attacks (as long as you have ranks).

This for me removes some of the gamey play that went on when closing for combat.

Cheers, Xin

The thing with 8th Edition is that they brought back the unit killing spells and with the way they still do magic you can roll the Total Force with ease.

All it takes is to just have two 6's.

Also yes melee combat is quite deadly and gone are the days where you could charge a unit of with a small hard hitting unit and break far bigger units.

I.E. kill off most of the front rank and have no attacks back at you.

Those guys who step up from the back ranks will get to fight and a small unit will not last long.

Cavalry for the most part is almost non-existence since they are only good for flank charges or going after units that have broken.

Charge that unit of ten cavalry into the front of a 30 men unit of spearmen and you will kill some but you will also lose some.

The thing is most players (I.E. WAACer's) will have a large Deathstar unit that is armed with two handed weapons. Sure they will go last but because of there size they will crew through most other units.

There was a tournament done after 8th came out and the winner was a Tomb King player who took a unit of 90 archers who had a special character in it that made the shots poison. Plus a few other units.

He knew that most other players would have the one Deathstar unit that they would be counting on winning them games.

So he would target that unit and with 90 archers with poison weapons well those Deathstar units dead fast.

I follow a different mode of battle, no Deathstar but many small units for my Orks & Goblins. By the way a unit of 20 is a small unit when you are using Orks & Goblins.

GW really needs to put in a minimum and maximum size of units.

Like for most human size infantry units the minimum should be 10 the and the maximum be 25-30. The same for Orks & Elves & Dwarves.

For Goblins size units the minimum should be 20 and the maximum should be 35-40.

But in 8th Edition I have seen units of 50 Witch Elves or like units like that Tomb King unit that had 90 in it.

GW just does not think when they write the rules. They really think that players will do build units like they put in their their overcost magazine.

But the players don't and will follow their WAACer way.

Mithmee, I believe all units already do have minimum sizes. Typically infantry are 10 (Goblins are 20), most cavalry are 5, and I believe monstrous infantry 1 or 3 depending on the army book.

Not maximum though. I agree a maximum would somewhat mitigate the deathstar problem, if the maximum was low enough.

Simple to house rule, simple for tournament organizers to impose.

What would you suggest? Max of 5 deep? (25 for 5-wide units, 50 for 10-wide hordes).

Hmm, we use a similar maximum unit size house rule for our games (in 3rd edition). We limit it to 160 points per unit, which typically comes out to 12 Elves, 16-18 humans and about 30 Goblins. The result is quite nice: lots of smaller units make it feel like a true fantasy skirmish game (which has been a real sweet spot for us). More expensive units, like Giants and Dragons, are scenario units only.

"What would you suggest? Max of 5 deep? (25 for 5-wide units, 50 for 10-wide hordes)."

I would limit the number of models in a unit to just 25-30 for most units and for Goblin units 40 max models.

Though Achtung has another way of doing it.

Plus I would allow every model in the unit to fight.

This will limit those who are using small units of very nasty fighters (I.E. Chaos Warriors) from chewing through units.

Example a unit of six Chaos Warriors charges into a unit of 30 Goblins Swordsmen. Well even with stepping up the Goblins will lose. But if all of them can fight instead of just a few they will have a better chance of winning that fight or at least hurting the Warrior unit so that it can't continue fighting.

GW has stated that it main mission is to sell miniatures and not a set of rules.

But their rules take the reverse approach of this.

So what you have in 8th Edition are armies that have few units with 1-2 that are the big Deathstar units.

Oh and these armies have 1-2 characters that in some cases are Deathstars themselves.

So 8th Edition Warhammer has gone the way of 40K small armies of mostly Elites or Special units and very few Common troops.

I hear 12th edition will be the golden standard of fantasy wargaming(TM).

But weren't "Deathstar" characters the mainstay of the grand'ole 3rd/4th edition Herohammer days of yore?

and of course, DBA version 3.2 will be the best yet, better than DBMM 3.0/DBM 3.1 or Warrior 2nd edition which replaced WRG 7th edition.

I like it, actually. It gives me an excuse to paint all of the extra figures I bought perviously, and to buy more on eBay!

@Rwphillipsstl, that was basically true for 4th/5th edition. In 3rd edition, no matter how killer your character was, he could only kill the models he was touching in base-to-base contact (so like 1 or 2 models each turn, maybe 3 if he had a wider base).

The killer character issue was the big reason I had originally never wanted to play Warhammer. I had looked at system back then and said no thank you--but didn't remember the edition.

One huge step forward would be to get rid of the "Horde" rule that encourages mega "units" (really an army in one unit).

And yes DBA 3.0 will be the best yet (2.2 held up for about a decade).

TomT

On a (somewhat) more serious note, how much surface area of the table can be covered with massive units/miniatures before suspension of disbelief is completely lost… kinda like the tread to tread tanks in 40K. If the figures represent one soldier each, the larger units make more sense than chunks of 25 warriors elbow to elbow. The scale of WFB always seemed more suited to loose formations and/or skirmishing than massed units, but that is probably influenced by my aversion to painting 300 miniatures in similar poses/colours. Anyway, If I were going to play WFB, it would be 3rd edition, warts and all… it's the players that make or break a rule set.

You guys may think the big units sounds like a good idea, but it was the combination of big grinding units and stupidly powerful magic that made me stop playing. I _love_ 6th edition, and I _hate_ 8th edition.

Let me put it this way: how many times has an 8th edition player lost the game in the first round due to one of the new spells destroying over a quarter of his army from one roll of the dice? It happened during the first few months of 8th in the tournament scene. No tactics, just picking the spell that has a giant template that moves across the board and kills any model it touches on a 2+.

This is why all of the 8th tournaments have pages and pages of house rules and what is allowed and what isn't allowed, all in attempts to fix a game that is horribly broken at it's core.

Well, my problems with the 8th edition is on many fronts. Feel free to read my blog post on the topic that I did almost two years ago about what I quit playing WFB:

link

Yes bringing back the unit killing spells with no way to stop them was not good.

Back when most of these spells were around we had the card system and there was only one Total Power Card.

But today with the dice well you could roll several Total Power in one magic phase.

Having more figures fight in combat is good but they did not do anything about Cavalry.

It is rare to ever see Cavalry in most armies today because
if you did field them they are likely to end up like the English Heavy Cavalry from the movie Braveheart.

Very, Very dead.

Tiny Legions:

Read the blog and must agree that it started with the 7th edition Army Lists. 6th Edition Bretonian list was rather good (for GW) but 7th was terrible. I assume some personnel transition occured to explain the sudden onset of quite bad and poorly playtested ideas.

To summerize the magic, warmachine and "horde" foot rules are easily the worst in any edition (and amongest the worst in gaming in general).

They did improve the bow shooting rules…

TomT

But seriously, 16th edition will be flawless….
Reserve your Finecast bound copy today!

The people who dislike 8th sound to me like the people who put me off playing editions 3-7th all those years. They were the reason why Warhammer was restricted to about 6 people in the local area, and each time someone new got an army and started playing, they quickly regretted it and stopped.

With 8th edition, it seems that everything I disliked has been corrected, and although it's not perfect I find it much more fun. Cavalry I'll agree gets a rough deal, but then formed infantry should always be a tough proposition to be charged frontally. Attrition counts for something now. I really like the magic rules compared to previously.

The irony is, I'm a 40K player since Rogue trader, played all the editions, but really HATE the latest version! That said, I wouldn't try to persuade others not to have fun with it.

Leigh

The thing is all GW is doing is going down the MC route or large monster model.

They brought back the unit killing spells but unlike before where you were limited due to the number of cards that is not the case today.

So what happens at events they are comp out.

Also GW still has done nothing about Deathstar units and nearly every WAACer has one.

8th Edition did do some things better like the new step up rule and going back to percentages.

But it is still not a game that I would go back and play.

"With 8th edition, it seems that everything I disliked has been corrected, and although it's not perfect I find it much more fun. Cavalry I'll agree gets a rough deal, but then formed infantry should always be a tough proposition to be charged frontally. Attrition counts for something now. I really like the magic rules compared to previously."

Actually attrition does not count for much. With both sides fielding giant death star units you are not going to get rid of them by attrition in a 6 turn game.

Magic will do the job but generally in one Big Bang. Roll lots of d6 – get double 6's: WHAM! (Warmachines help a lot too making it more an artillery duel game than an attritional battle.)

TomT

I'll agree that mahoosive units are fairly common, but no-one in our area takes these exclusively. If a unit does break and defeat another, my experience of 8th is that it has more damage to show for it's efforts than previously.

Two massive deathstar units grinding each other for a game, whilst not dynamic, benefits neither side and doesn't strike me as unrealistic. I've never seen a combat go on for quite that long though myself. Maybe we aren't fielding sufficiently giant units!

I think the magic is great now. The limit to 12 dice maximum helps to prevent too much from being cast, and sure if you really want a spell cast, then chuck 6 dice at it. Making irresistable force also a miscast was a genius move in my opinion, and the miscast results can be so brutal I think it balances out the benefit of the spell.

Leigh

I like 8th edition quite a bit. They took a lot of the house rules I used to tinker with and made them official.

It has a different feel and one that makes more sense from a battle perspective but less "gamey".

When 2 blocks go into each other it is a bloody mess. In the previous edition the charger went first and the other guy broke and ran. Cavalry was really good at this and would trot about hitting units and never even getting a dice rolled back at them in return, as they broke and ran down foe after foe. Now charging in to a pile of infantry is going to get your tunic a little soiled for sure.

I vastly prefer the "feel" of the game as more of a simulation and less of a game.

Magic is hit or miss. I do not really use the terrain rules and the scenario with the watchtower is not too good.

Overall it has re-animated my long dormant armies. I might even paint some more now if my paints are still liquid.

Also, avoid army books and special rules like the plague. Get a copy of Ravening Hordes or the Warhammer Armies or something. The special rules are absurd and sure to cause grief.