"Warhammer Bretonnians versus Empire" Topic

My chum and I played a game in our Warhammer campaign

My report is here:
link
His report is here:
link

A good-looking game!

You don't see its like very often these days.

I thought GWs fun-police rules changes had killed off Bretonnia?

Good Show!

They are not yet dead, just lost some cities like the empire. Remember that Leoncoeur just leads a fragment of the realm's knights to Altdorf.

We have an army book for them and Stephen has a large collection of painted models.
So unless GW are going to dispatch people round to his house to confiscate and destroy them I think we'll probably just carry on playing our games.
:)

Great looking battle, a shame that a big chunk of the empire army ran off, but it gave me a laugh.

Yeah, I don't think I realised at the time just how much of my army had gone.
I think I thought – oh, down a unit of spearmen.
Never mind.
But as we were only playing 1200 points those spears plus the mortar and wizard was over a third of my points!

Rule #1

Magic Users are on their own unless you only want them for the dispell ability.

Far too easy to roll double six's when throwing 4-5 dice.

Rule #2

I don't play any of the current rules of WFB because GW brought the unit killing spells (I.E. Dwellers etc…) without anyway to stop them.

If #2 is true, how do you know that #1 is right?
:)

Personally I find that the best place for a wizard is on the corner of a unit. The chances of him doing what mine did are actually pretty small, so I'm fine with that.

As for the unit killing spells there is something to stop them.
He didn't roll double 6 either time he cast it I just failed my miscast (partly because my wizard was dead) and hadn't bought a dispel scroll. Dwellers is nasty, but only if it gets off – he was fortunate (and I managed my dispels badly) to get it away twice.

how do you know that #1 is right?

The proof is in the above battle report.

It is far to easy to blow up your Spell Casters.

The guy lost a 3rd of his army due to his Wizard inability to control the Winds of Magic.

I haven't like the WFB magic system since they started using dice, which was a very long time ago.

Ahem, I *am* the guy who lost a third of his (my) army.
:)

That battle report's not really "proof" though, is it? Its a single, anecdotal example.
:)

There are, for example, significantly more reports on my blog where I don't miscast and have a huge chunk of my force flee on turn one.

Generally I'm more worried about my wizards being shot/hunted down on their own than I am about them blowing up, so I think I'll carry on putting them in units – but maybe smaller, less important, ones in future.
But I don't claim to be an expert, so maybe your rule #1 is right for some people.

6th edition was the change to dice I think – so that's fifteen years ago now – almost half the lifetime of the game.

A few points: Bretoninan armies are broken due to Steadfast/Horde rule that make large foot blocks unbreakable.

Proper place for Magic User is on the corner. Magic broken because of mass die rolling getting lots of unstoppable double 6 spells (your only hope is that opponent will kill own wizard with bad luck – in short magic/winning just down to die rolling).

War machines so dominate it takes entire medieval feel out of game.

All mostly 8th edition problems (rumors suggest 9th will just blow up entire system as 8th edition has caused interest and spending on Fantasy to plummit).

One of many former players.

TomT

Yeah it is looking like 9th is going to hosed over everthing.

There will only be Elves instead of High Elves, Dark Elves and Wood Elves.

Thing is it is looking like Dark Elves are going to be the main force here. But that would be expected since GW is Evil.

It is also looking like Empire, Bretonian & possibly Dwarves will end up together as well.

Undead is being cutdown to just Undead instead of Tomb Kings (silly looking models) and Vampire Counts.

Oh and many of the current long time name characters are going to be killed off.

From what I have seen from other forums is a wholesale mass slaughter of named characters.

Thank heavens for the internet.
It used to be really hard to get unsolicited opinions about how poor your gaming experiences were from people who didn't actually play the game.
Thanks for sharing TomT
:)

One of many Contented Current Players
TomWD

We'll see about 9th – I plan to give it a shot. As I did with 8th TWD6968, I played lots 8th several tournaments and lots of pick up games. I helped run the Warhammer League for many years and have been playing since 2nd edition. So my comments come from actual play and reports from many friends who have hacked through 8th. As I have lots of figures (and my son even more) – I'm hoping for good things with 9th though rumors are not very positive.

TomT

Funny how two people can play the same game and get two completely different experiences.
I have to say that I've not found Bretonnians, magic or war machines to be "broken", to use your word, in the ways that you describe and am really enjoying my games of 8th edition.

As for 9th I'm far more concerned about the changes to the background and the moving on of the timeline (if either of those is true) than I am with any rule changes. The rules have changed with every edition – it's the Warhammer World that I like (or, am "invested in", to use modern marketing parlance) and I'm not sure how I'll feel if that alters significantly.

Tom WD

It depends on what types of units your opponent uses. Some self-censorship has reduced some of 8th excesses. Weakness of Bretonnians has caused sales to plummit (and use in tournaments). May lead to extinction (though I hope not).

Magic and warmachines (including Bret Trebuchet) can make game just an artillery duel. Large blocks of foot can now be made virtually unbreakable (at least to Bret knights). Less balance between armies (always an issue – now more pronounced) is also an 8th issue. Its quite possible to play a "normal" game of 8th by not exploiting some aspects.

Problems have lead company to consider radical revision. My own feeling is that though reform is needed it does not need to be radical (archery for instance works better in 8th then prior editions).

TomT

You're just repeating your opinions form a previous post. Albeit you've gone from "broken" to "can dominate".
Do you have anything other than personal anecdotal evidence to support this, because it still isn't true of my games, no matter how often you repeat it?

Also the suggestions of "self-censorship" and "not exploiting" imply I'm doing something wrong, or not playing "properly". When actually I'm maybe just not playing the same way you play.

I think what you're actually trying to say is that you don't *like* the rules for magic, war machines and big blocks of infantry. That you preferred them the way they were. That's fine. It'd be boring if we all liked the same things.
However a personal dislike for something doesn't mean that it is "broken".
I personally didn't like how charging cavalry dominated infantry in 7th edition, or that some skirmishing units were (IMO) disproportionately powerful – that didn't make 7th edition (or cavalry, or skirmishers) broken. It also didn't stop me playing.

My own best guess is that any radical changes to the rules are not driven by dislike of 8th edition, but by pricing. People who are very concerned about rules (tournament players and older gamers) make up only a tiny proportion of the GW customer base. Warhammer is far more expensive to play than 40K and the financial barrier to entry is very high. It's economics driving a move to a skirmish/lower model count game, not the rules for the existing game. But that's just my guess.
I don't suppose you have any actual numbers to back up your Bretonnian "sales plummit" do you?

TomWD

Well, Bretonnians haven't received anything new since their army book last came out in what, 2007? So in many ways I would expect sales to have dropped off steeply – however I would also have expected sales to go up significantly had they released a new army book with some new minis; witness the similarly old Wood Elves, they got a new book and some new minis and most of them blew out of the door extremely quickly to the point where they (along with most of the rest of the army) were listed as 'out of stock' on the GW site for *months*. Not bad for a 'dead' army!

Anyway, I agree with you TWD, my group have played far more 8th Ed than any previous edition and we had a total blast doing so! However the 9th Ed rumors did a lot to kill interest since GW refuses to acknowledge or address them, and much of the End Times stuff although awesome fluffwise and modelwise has turned games into even crazier dice-fests than they already were. My Dark Elves were already unbeatable at my local club, I daren't even joke about playing them as an army from ET: Khaine. The end result has been most club members putting their Fantasy armies into hibernation until 9th comes out, although there is the occasional flicker of interest in playing again. It usually just dies out though.

The pricing issue you mention is also huge; GW seem to fail (and pretty much always have done) to realize that the larger size of your typical army in Fantasy necessitates buying more basic figures, and when those figures are $60 USD for 10 for a CORE troop type (DE Witch Elves) it's not surprising that sales go down. They could leave all the specialty characters and monsters priced as they are, just reduce the cost of core troop choices to no more than $25 USD-$30 for 10 figures (which still considerably more than other nicely detailed historicals – I recently bought some Warlord Greek Hoplites; 42 multipart plastic figures *with* decals for $30 USD retail) and they would see sales rise significantly. But they won't, instead (if the rumors are to be believed) they would rather destroy a beloved setting and turn the game into Fantasy 40K.