Topic: Random rule combinations to share

[Warlord]

Thought I would share some random rule combinations I have just figured out. Maybe you all already knew these. Regardless, maybe share some of your own random rule combinations you have discovered here in this thread.

- Putting our characters on Demigryphs makes them immune to Killing Blow. Handy.

- Charmed Shield gives a 1 use Ward Save. You cannot combine it or roll twice with other Ward Save items like Talisman of Protection. If you are already paying for a ward save, don't bother.

- Greatsword detachment points come out of Core. This was never all that clear to me in the past - rather I thought they came out of Special. Maybe it used to be like this? Greatswords also confer stubborn to their detachments.

- Skrimishers don't cause panic when they flee through units from panic or as a flee reaction, but DO cause panic if they flee from a break test.
- Levy do cause panic if they flee through units from panic or as a flee reaction, but DON'T cause panic if they flee from a break test.
(I knew the levy one, didn't know the skirmisher one until I read it in the other thread).

- Skirmisher cavalry behave like the old school skirmisher cavalry of old - snake formations, etc. I thought skirmisher cavalry would still look like open order, but no, they can be 1 inch apart from each other.

- Archers (and scouts) have Vanguard - they get a free move at the start of the game. So our scouts get to deploy 12 inches away, and make a free move.

- Pistoliers don't get Vanguard, but Outriders do. Instead Pistoliers need to pay for it...WHY? Pistoliers are kinda actually completely terrible now.


OTHER ARMY OBSERVATIONS:
- Orc Boar Boyz can have Heavy armour now.
- There is no Savage Orc on Boar with 2 hand weapon unit anymore (the 2 weapon option has been removed)
- Orcs can also have 1 unit of Orc Skirmishers - no limitation to whatever other equipment or rules they have - e.g. savage big'un skirmishers
- 0-1 per 1000 points of Goblins can also be skirmishers. Combined with Nasty Skulkers, can also hit surprisingly hard.
- Goblin units size is now down to minimum of 10.
- Fanatics can't be triggered by the enemy amymore. The player chooses when to release them. This is a MASSIVE change to how they work. They also can't be charged or shot at - at all. Only Templates can potentially kill them.
- River trolls have 4 wounds now, and trolls generally can take weapon options (additional hand weapon or great weapon).
- Savage Orcs can now ride a chariot too
- Pump wagons can now be a unit

[Warlord]

Reading the 'Positioning Characters' rule, I see this line:

If there is no room for a character within a unit’s front rank, it is placed in the rear rank.

Which to me is odd. Why the rear rank? If you can't fit characters up front, they have to go to the back of the unit?

[Athiuen]

- Putting our characters on Demigryphs makes them immune to Killing Blow. Handy.

I don't think this is true. I think they still die to killing blow, just not to cleaving blow (or whatever that rule is - which is now much more common than killing blow).

[Warlord]

Killing Blow
If a model with this special rule rolls a natural 6 when making a roll To Wound for an attack made in combat, it has struck a ‘Killing Blow’. Enemy models whose troop type is ‘infantry’ or ‘cavalry’ are not permitted an armour or Regeneration save (see page 176) against a Killing Blow (Ward saves can be attempted as normal). If an enemy model whose troop type is ‘infantry’ or ‘cavalry’ suffers an unsaved wound from a Killing Blow, it loses all of its remaining Wounds.

Cavalry
The term cavalry refers to any riders mounted on war beasts – commonly warhorses or similar creatures. It can also include war beasts on their own as packs of animals which will often function in a manner more similar to cavalry than infantry. Cavalry is split into foursub-categories:
Light Cavalry, Heavy Cavalry, Monstrous Cavalry and War Beasts

You are correct.

[Count James]

Reading the 'Positioning Characters' rule, I see this line:

If there is no room for a character within a unit’s front rank, it is placed in the rear rank.

Which to me is odd. Why the rear rank? If you can't fit characters up front, they have to go to the back of the unit?

I can think of a few reasons for this...

It would stop any weird combinations or issues when stepping up
So the character isn't completely unkillable hidden within the ranks of a unit
And to stop people from stuffing too many characters in some kind of death-bunker unit


It's almost like sending them to the back is a polite way of saying 'just don't, please'

[pathstrider]

Good idea for a thread!

- Skirmisher cavalry behave like the old school skirmisher cavalry of old - snake formations, etc. I thought skirmisher cavalry would still look like open order, but no, they can be 1 inch apart from each other.

I think it's worth adding that skirmishers only get the -1 to hit from enemy fire if they're foot.

[Truesight]

Drilled allows you to March 3x your speed in Marching Column, then declare a charge next turn and use your Drilled rule to redress ranks and complete it.

Empire gets a lot of drilled units, which gives us a lot of nice mobility if we want to pay the points for it.

Parent units confer Stubborn, Frenzy and Hatred to their detachments, which means buffing a Greatsword unit with 2 melee detachments with the Dark Lore buff "Battle Lust" means you effectively cast the spell 3 times.

Lots of units rely on the Warband rule now for leadership stability, and all of our knights have "First Charge", taking these rank bonuses and thus leadership away from them.

Big nasty characters on Dragons etc can only get a maximum of 7 Combat Resolution if you challenge them with a unit champion (1 wound, 5 overkill, close order).   If you can passively generate 8 CR with a unit, they cannot win the first round of combat, ever.  A state troops unit with detachments counter charging can produce 11: 2 ranks, close order, standard, Griffon Standard, BSB, Warbanner, 2 Detachments counter charge +2 close order, +1  flank charge.

Empire can make it particularly hard for enemy mages to cast spells, by stacking a -2 for casting rolls from the War Altar with a +1 on top of our mages dispel with our Arcane items.  Making an Arch Lector your general will push this -2  casting radius to 18''.

Stubborn units can choose to auto fall back in good order, which will give a free reform.  If your Greatswords just got hit by enemy cavalry and lost, they can take the fall back and suddenly use the reform to go really wide, and present a lot of great weapon attacks next turn if the enemy follows up, and if they don't you can simply charge them.

If you take Laurels strongly consider a Multiple Wounds magic weapon, in the same example of a unit champion accepting a challenge, one of our characters could potentially double the typical CR output if 3 hits with a Sword of Justice/Giant Blade get through, being +2 for wounds, +10 for overkill.

[Warlord]

Agree with that last one.
Laurels, Giant Blade and White Cloak i think is our go-to all comets fighting Lord Combo (GM or Griffon General).

I didn’t consider that greatsword reform. I like.

[PowerSeries]

Re: Drilled, I think that's RAI you can charge out of a marching column as you are explicitly allowed to declare but not make a charge move in a marching column, but I would definitely like that clarified for RAW.

In particular, "as long as you are fleeing, before you move, you may" allows pursuit moves to have redress the ranks too, which can result in some super weird situations where you intentionally clip other stuff as you chase a unit falling back in good order or fleeing or overrunning.

[PowerSeries]

Just note, a 4 man knight squad has to lose MORE than 25% to cause a panic, so you'd have to lose half the unit to shooting.  4 Knight unit is viable from that perspective.

[Sir Falo]

Re: Drilled, I think that's RAI you can charge out of a marching column as you are explicitly allowed to declare but not make a charge move in a marching column, but I would definitely like that clarified for RAW.

In particular, "as long as you are fleeing, before you move, you may" allows pursuit moves to have redress the ranks too, which can result in some super weird situations where you intentionally clip other stuff as you chase a unit falling back in good order or fleeing or overrunning.

You can charge with drilled in marching column because how the charge sequence work. You declare a charge, drilled makes you redress ranks BEFORE you move, then you make a charge move as normal. So there is realy no question that it works. 

Edit. Where did you quote from? I only see "Unless it is fleeing, a Drilled unit may perform a free redress the ranks manoeuvre immediately before moving. Once this manoeuvre is complete, the unit moves as normal." But I agree that pursuit moves are quite bad and needs a FAQ.

[king ink]

Re: Drilled, I think that's RAI you can charge out of a marching column as you are explicitly allowed to declare but not make a charge move in a marching column, but I would definitely like that clarified for RAW.

In particular, "as long as you are fleeing, before you move, you may" allows pursuit moves to have redress the ranks too, which can result in some super weird situations where you intentionally clip other stuff as you chase a unit falling back in good order or fleeing or overrunning.

You can charge with drilled in marching column because how the charge sequence work. You declare a charge, drilled makes you redress ranks BEFORE you move, then you make a charge move as normal. So there is realy no question that it works. 

Edit. Where did you quote from? I only see "Unless it is fleeing, a Drilled unit may perform a free redress the ranks manoeuvre immediately before moving. Once this manoeuvre is complete, the unit moves as normal." But I agree that pursuit moves are quite bad and needs a FAQ.

I'm not sure about it.
At page 126 you can find "Unless stated otherwise, a charging unit cannot perform a turn, move backwards, move sideways, redress the ranks or reform manoeuvre during its charge move".

But i don't understand why at page 119 is written  "Units that are in Marching Column can declare a charge, but cannot make a charge move".

[Clymer]

@Powerseries, thanks for that call out! I was so focused on "25%" that I missed the words, "more than". That's a huge win in our favor. Nice call!

[Calimehter]

Yeah, the "magic number" unit sizes changed more with this edition than most others, I think, especially due to some rules using the "more than" phrasing and some not using it.

For instance, if you fail a panic check you will flee (instead of the usually-preferred FBIGO) if you are -at- half or fewer of your starting models.  So for purposes of that rule, you might still want the odd numbers for the starting unit size.  For example, A unit of 4 Outriders might need 2 models shot out to force a panic check, just the same as a unit of 5 would  . . . but if the check is failed, a unit of 5 Outriders will only FBIGO rather than fleeing if they take the same two casualties, whereas the unit of 4 will flee outright instead.

[PowerSeries]

Yeah, but I think this is a case of "specific beats general", where the universal special use overrides the normal rules for charging.  Or at least that's the intent, but something might have missed in editing and it definitely deserves an FAQ.

[Sir Falo]

Re: Drilled, I think that's RAI you can charge out of a marching column as you are explicitly allowed to declare but not make a charge move in a marching column, but I would definitely like that clarified for RAW.

In particular, "as long as you are fleeing, before you move, you may" allows pursuit moves to have redress the ranks too, which can result in some super weird situations where you intentionally clip other stuff as you chase a unit falling back in good order or fleeing or overrunning.

You can charge with drilled in marching column because how the charge sequence work. You declare a charge, drilled makes you redress ranks BEFORE you move, then you make a charge move as normal. So there is realy no question that it works. 

Edit. Where did you quote from? I only see "Unless it is fleeing, a Drilled unit may perform a free redress the ranks manoeuvre immediately before moving. Once this manoeuvre is complete, the unit moves as normal." But I agree that pursuit moves are quite bad and needs a FAQ.

I'm not sure about it.
At page 126 you can find "Unless stated otherwise, a charging unit cannot perform a turn, move backwards, move sideways, redress the ranks or reform manoeuvre during its charge move".

But i don't understand why at page 119 is written  "Units that are in Marching Column can declare a charge, but cannot make a charge move".

Yes you cant redress the ranks during a charge, but drilled does it BEFORE a charge, so the rule do not aply. And Drilled says that the unit moves "as normal" after the redress the ranks. So it clearly works.
"Unless it is fleeing, a Drilled unit may perform a free redress the ranks manoeuvre immediately before moving. Once this manoeuvre is complete, the unit moves as normal." So its not at the same tile as the rule, and have an exception because you do the charge move as normal.

According to rumour, Mountain miniatures asked if it works to GW and they said it did, but it was left in by mistake. But thats a rumour. And I have writen GW:s FAQ mail about it but have not get an answer.

[The Peacemaker]

4 years development and left in by mistake?

[Kippers]

Re: Drilled, I think that's RAI you can charge out of a marching column as you are explicitly allowed to declare but not make a charge move in a marching column, but I would definitely like that clarified for RAW.

In particular, "as long as you are fleeing, before you move, you may" allows pursuit moves to have redress the ranks too, which can result in some super weird situations where you intentionally clip other stuff as you chase a unit falling back in good order or fleeing or overrunning.

You can charge with drilled in marching column because how the charge sequence work. You declare a charge, drilled makes you redress ranks BEFORE you move, then you make a charge move as normal. So there is realy no question that it works. 

Edit. Where did you quote from? I only see "Unless it is fleeing, a Drilled unit may perform a free redress the ranks manoeuvre immediately before moving. Once this manoeuvre is complete, the unit moves as normal." But I agree that pursuit moves are quite bad and needs a FAQ.

I'm not sure about it.
At page 126 you can find "Unless stated otherwise, a charging unit cannot perform a turn, move backwards, move sideways, redress the ranks or reform manoeuvre during its charge move".

But i don't understand why at page 119 is written  "Units that are in Marching Column can declare a charge, but cannot make a charge move".

Yes you cant redress the ranks during a charge, but drilled does it BEFORE a charge, so the rule do not aply. And Drilled says that the unit moves "as normal" after the redress the ranks. So it clearly works.
"Unless it is fleeing, a Drilled unit may perform a free redress the ranks manoeuvre immediately before moving. Once this manoeuvre is complete, the unit moves as normal." So its not at the same tile as the rule, and have an exception because you do the charge move as normal.

According to rumour, Mountain miniatures asked if it works to GW and they said it did, but it was left in by mistake. But thats a rumour. And I have writen GW:s FAQ mail about it but have not get an answer.

Doesn’t redress happen in phase 4 of the movement phase, which is after charges and compulsory moves. Even if it is free?

[Dazgrim]

If you take Laurels strongly consider a Multiple Wounds magic weapon, in the same example of a unit champion accepting a challenge, one of our characters could potentially double the typical CR output if 3 hits with a Sword of Justice/Giant Blade get through, being +2 for wounds, +10 for overkill.

I'm not sure this works. I think you are still capped at +5 for overkill.

[Sir Falo]

Re: Drilled, I think that's RAI you can charge out of a marching column as you are explicitly allowed to declare but not make a charge move in a marching column, but I would definitely like that clarified for RAW.

In particular, "as long as you are fleeing, before you move, you may" allows pursuit moves to have redress the ranks too, which can result in some super weird situations where you intentionally clip other stuff as you chase a unit falling back in good order or fleeing or overrunning.

You can charge with drilled in marching column because how the charge sequence work. You declare a charge, drilled makes you redress ranks BEFORE you move, then you make a charge move as normal. So there is realy no question that it works. 

Edit. Where did you quote from? I only see "Unless it is fleeing, a Drilled unit may perform a free redress the ranks manoeuvre immediately before moving. Once this manoeuvre is complete, the unit moves as normal." But I agree that pursuit moves are quite bad and needs a FAQ.

I'm not sure about it.
At page 126 you can find "Unless stated otherwise, a charging unit cannot perform a turn, move backwards, move sideways, redress the ranks or reform manoeuvre during its charge move".

But i don't understand why at page 119 is written  "Units that are in Marching Column can declare a charge, but cannot make a charge move".

Yes you cant redress the ranks during a charge, but drilled does it BEFORE a charge, so the rule do not aply. And Drilled says that the unit moves "as normal" after the redress the ranks. So it clearly works.
"Unless it is fleeing, a Drilled unit may perform a free redress the ranks manoeuvre immediately before moving. Once this manoeuvre is complete, the unit moves as normal." So its not at the same tile as the rule, and have an exception because you do the charge move as normal.

According to rumour, Mountain miniatures asked if it works to GW and they said it did, but it was left in by mistake. But thats a rumour. And I have writen GW:s FAQ mail about it but have not get an answer.

Doesn’t redress happen in phase 4 of the movement phase, which is after charges and compulsory moves. Even if it is free?

Normally yes. But in Drilleds works before a unit moves, not just in a remaining move. Manoeuvres are by them selves not only remaining moves, like the Wheel. Its specificity stated that its only if the unit is fleeing (which you normally cant redress ether). So as it stands it works fine. In the cases of charges its not that strange, in pursuit move its gets strange. So it should be erratad/FAQ.

But until then Inner circle knights are amazing! And veteran state troops with Halbeards may be great.

[Sir Falo]

4 years development and left in by mistake?

Yea... Apparently is was desired that it should be removed last minute. But I don´t trust rumours and it sounds strange.

[Rodman49]

The rule seems awfully powerful - but it makes sense from a lore standpoint - regular military units greatest strength is that they train together often . . . I am warming to this rules interpretation (drilled is free and happens before charges) over time.

I was shocked that everyone was playing this way however.

[Sir Falo]

Wizards hat on an Inner circle champion. He is Ld 9 so the stupidity is not that bad. As I understand it you can still change for the signature spell (correct me if I am wrong). Chose battle magic. If you dont get Oken shield take Hammerhand. The Hammerhand counts in combat resolution.

[Zygmund]

Intersting thread, thanks for bringing all this out! It's actually really helpful when someone reads the rules out and speculates.

- Archers (and scouts) have Vanguard - they get a free move at the start of the game. So our scouts get to deploy 12 inches away, and make a free move.

The errata states that units that choose to scout cannot do vanguard movement. So you only do one or the other.

I actually think scouts are excellent because you can deploy them normally and then make the vanguard, thus pushing your archer screen forward before the game actually starts. Although the scout rule is also strong now that you don't have to be in cover, but can be in full sight of the enemy.

- Fanatics can't be triggered by the enemy anymore. The player chooses when to release them. This is a MASSIVE change to how they work. They also can't be charged or shot at - at all. Only Templates can potentially kill them.

Fanatics are broken in this ed. They are super nasty, super controlled, and untouchable for the common fighter. We need to carefully tiptoe around NG units now, with expendable units. NG units now can march forward with little to fear, as the fear of the fanatics keeps sensible players away.

The fanatic rule actually goes against the basic miniature games philosophy: models on the table can interact. Fanatics are like some ethereals, not really there, but still able to attack.

Yeah, had a very nasty encounter with fanatics in one game. Maybe I overreact? 

-Z

[Warlord]

The errata states that units that choose to scout cannot do vanguard movement. So you only do one or the other.

I actually think scouts are excellent because you can deploy them normally and then make the vanguard, thus pushing your archer screen forward before the game actually starts. Although the scout rule is also strong now that you don't have to be in cover, but can be in full sight of the enemy.

Good callout. I wasn't aware it had been errata'd, but still super cool and flexible unit for only 40 points now.

Fanatics are broken in this ed. They are super nasty, super controlled, and untouchable for the common fighter. We need to carefully tiptoe around NG units now, with expendable units. NG units now can march forward with little to fear, as the fear of the fanatics keeps sensible players away.

The fanatic rule actually goes against the basic miniature games philosophy: models on the table can interact. Fanatics are like some ethereals, not really there, but still able to attack.

Agree.
And Night Goblins only need 10 to a unit, so investment is at an all time low. O&G just need to scatter night goblin units in the front of their lines, push out fanatics early and then the orc boyz can mop up the rest. Fanatics feel like O&G's cheat code (similar to how Demigryphs are ours but in a different way)

I think perhaps consider fanatics more like magic vortexes that we cannot dispel. I guess Mortars have a very useful place in our army when fighting O&G - both because templates can kill them, but also those S3 pie plates can take out the night goblins before they can release them.