Topic: NAC - North American Comp Revised 8th Edition Rules

[The Peacemaker]

As some may have noticed over the pass few months I have been working on a comp package for a revised 8th edition.

The goal was not to re-write the game but to simple address issues that have come up over the last 5 years of playing the game. 5 years with thousands of people playing equals alot of play testing. So its not like these changes will come as a surprise. Also, don't expect any sweeping new rules because adding new rules means it becomes a new game entirely.
The biggest changes are in the points values for the armies. As that is where the real balance comes from. You can add almost any rules you like but its how much it costs compared to everything else that make it balanced or not.


These rules are still in the Alpha stage.
The core rules I did not change magic very much as almost any change basically bumps the rules from Revised to a New Edition.

For the army books I only have Empire finished and I wouldn't mind some feedback on it. I'll be posting many of the other armies shortly.

This is the Core rules
https://www.dropbox.com/s/8rfbzq7uh1w9tns/Revised%208th%20Edition%20NAC.odt?dl=0

This is for Empire
https://www.dropbox.com/s/3crxlh0kibk12xx/The%20Empire%20NAC%20Revised%208th%20Edition.odt?dl=0

I also copy pasted the rules in the next 2 posts for those who don't know how to download but I didn't color code them so read carefully.


I'll post this on Bugmans Brewery as well since this site and that site were the only ones to show interest or give any feedback months ago.

[The Peacemaker]

NAC – North American Composition

Revised 8th Edition rules
To be used with Warhammer Fantasy 8th edition rulebook and their FAQ.
Sections in red are describing the rules as it is intended to be used. This can be used to resolve any disputes or consistences in rules and/or the reasoning behind the change. Writing a “lawyer proof” rules set is actually quite time consuming to get the exact wording and since this is done for free its just not feasible to do that. I hope the Rules as Intended section should solve most issues people have anyway.

Draft #3
The purpose of this work is not to rewrite warhammer fantasy but simply to correct some balance issues and inconsistencies that the player base has discovered over the past 5 years of playing.  Emphasis is placed on: 1) does this add interesting tactics to the game? 2) keep it as simple as possible without sacrificing strategy and tactics.

P. 24 Rally Fleeing Units 5th paragraph, 2nd sentance: Errata
If the fleeing unit has been reduced in size to less than 25% of the number of models it began the game with, etc...
Apparently there are 2 sections in the rulebook that give contradictory info. So lets just make it less than 25% across the board.


P. 53 Extra Ranks
Ignore 'behind the fighting rank'. This means any unit with 5 models has 1 rank.

This is just to simplify calculation of ranks. The rules have different methods of calculating this for different situations such as being steadfast, combat res for ranks, disruption, etc...
So to simplify everything just consider every rank of 5 models as being 1 rank.

P. 53, 59 Flank Attack
You get +1 combat rez for each enemy flank you have engaged.  So if both side flanks are engaged you will get +2 combat result.
The book is ambiguous when it comes to this. It reads as if you only ever get 1 flank bonus. Also it places a bit more emphasis on static combat res instead of killing.

P. 53 The High Ground
You get +1 combat result if you are clearly on top of a hill or a similar higher ground terrain and your opponent is clearly on the lower ground.

This is just logic. If you hold the high ground your in a better position.

P. 54 Steadfast
A disrupted unit negates steadfast. Units with 2 or more ranks can disrupt. Monsters are able to disrupt as well.
This adds a significant amount of strategy to the game. You can still have hard to break units but you must protect their flanks. It also enhances units that are innately stubborn.

P. 61 No more foes
If a unit is out of combat because of casualties removal and cannot be nudged back into combat it is considered out of combat and may do a reform.
The basic rules state that they a unit will just sit there when killed models are removed. Many situations arise where your unit clips the enemy, kills stuff in base contact and then sits there.

Special Rules

P. 66 Always Strikes First 2nd paragraph
Units with ASF get to re-roll their attacks every combat if their initiative beats who they are fighting against. If both combatants have ASF then they cancel each other and you resolve initiative order normally.
This keeps the feel of what always strikes first does for the armies that utilize it. Requiring a model to beat initiative instead of simply match it creates a strategic and tactical shift in how a general use the units in his army. This also allows other armies the ability to actually counter this special rule by perhaps using elite units in their army that match intiative or use other methods such as spells to affect initiative.

P. 68 Fast Cavalry – Characters
Change to: characters on non-barded normal steeds gain the fast cav rule.
This rule makes sense, adds more choice and tactics to the game and its already in the wood elf book.

P. 70
Fly and Flying Cavalry.
Characters that have the fly special rule may join units of flying cavalry.
So a Bretonnian lord on a pegasus can now join his Pegasus knights.
Honestly I don't even want to bother re-wording this section because GW made it so overly complicated. Just go with logic on this one, if your on a Pegasus you can join a unit of Pegasi and count as the same type for targeting and such.. Then apply this to any other similar situation.

P. 72 Magic Resistance
Magic resist gives ward save vs effects from the miscast table. And it gives ward save for spells that allow no saves of any kind.
Magic resistance can be used against things that disallow save of any kind. You get a Magic Resist Save. The intent is to have magic resist be the 'catch all' against magic.  things like Characteristic tests, miscast table, etc...

Weapons

P. 91 Spear(foot)
Add  +1 to hit vs cavalry, monstrous cavalry, and ridden monsters.

P. 107 The General
Inspiring presence
Add:  When a general is slain, each friendly unengaged unit within its inspiring presence range must take an immediate panic check.
This is a balance tweak since the generals inspiring presence rule is quite powerful it should have some kind of negative. And it encourages the proper selection of a general rather than just taking a naked level 2 wizard to lead your force.

Warmachines
Missfire chart: Instead of blowing up, warmachines will instead lose 1 crew member and not be able to fire.
Cannons
Change D6 multiple wounds to D3+1 multiple wounds.

After much debate and thinking this seems to be the most simplest change. Its nerfs the damage of a cannon but it ups their minimum damage. To balance this nerf, since a cannon doesn't do as much damage it will no longer blow up and giver free victory points. When cannons were designed for this game they were supposed to be high risk/high reward.

p. 127 Buildings and shooting
A building can shoot 5 models per level(same as in the rulebook)
If a building has a parapet or other similar defense than that level is consider to allow 10 models to shoot.
Example: the citadel watchtower has 3 levels. The first 2 just have some windows while the top is a defensive parapet. So the number of models that can shoot per level would be 5/5/10 for a total of 20 shots.


P. 127 Building garrison limit.
Each building can hold up to 10models per level.
Example: the citadel watchtower has 3 levels so the number of models that can occupy the building are 10/10/10 for a total of 30models.

Fighting a warhammer Battle

Scenarios like blood & glory and watchtower are key in list balancing. If all you do is play battleline it is very easy to min/max lists. The core rules and units are balanced points wise for general gameplay. The scenarios is what is used to make various units useful and have different roles depending on the situation.

Having various scenarios is key to keeping the game interesting and fresh. It encourages tactics and thinking which is really where the competition is. 

 P. 141  Random Victory conditions for each scenario.
After you have chosen what type of pitched battle to play. You may add Furthur victory conditions using the following chart:
D6 Extra Victory conditions
1  no extra conditions
2 Add d6+1 objective markers on the battlefield worth 50pts each
3 Add d3 watchtowers to the battlefield worth 100pts each
4 Breaking fortitude first gives 150pts, breaking it second gives 50pts
5 Controlling table quarters gives 100 victory points.
6 You get 50pts for killing Hero level characters and 100pts for Lord level characteres.

I basically borrowed these ideas from various editions of fantasy and 40k. They outline the rules for how to place the objectives and what units can hold objectives and such. We can add those rules later.

Remember that on page 382 of the BRB there are more scenarios to play with.

I intend this chart to be an easy way to give some variety to the scenarios as across the warhammer community there is a clamouring for well written scenarios and to have ones with objectives.


P. 142 The Battlefield.
Sometimes you may not have time to use the random terrain chart or perhaps are setting up a theme board. For every battlefield we do recommend that you have at least 1 building, 1 forest, and 2 obstacles for balance purposes

[The Peacemaker]

NAC – North American Composition

Revised 8th Edition
Army Book: The Empire

To be used in conjunction with NAC Revised 8th Edition rules.

The purpose of this is to balance the army book primarily through the points values and to fix or address any inconsistency or oddly written rules.
Sections in red are describing the rules as it is intended to be used and/or the reasoning behind the change. This can be used to resolve any disputes or consistences in rules.

P. 30 Detachments
Add: A detachment counts its parent units ranks for purposes of determining if it is steadfast or not. Note that it must still be within 3” of the parent unit.

I made this is made simpler than in the official FAQ. So it does not matter if the parent unit is in combat, in the same combat or different combat. All that matters is the 3” range.
Its just simpler.

P. 36 Warrior Priest Prayers
Hammer of Sigmar add: “and shooting”

P. 41 Flagellants
The End is Night: instead of D6 strngth 3 hits change to D3 wounds. In the special rules chart to 1, 2, 3 respectively.

This change makes it very easy and quick to carry out this special rule. The reason losing wounds is mandatory and not an option is because this unit is not meant to be tactically reliable. They are meant to be hard hitting but easy to bait.

P. 49
Hellstorm Rocket Battery
Change the D3 for rockets fired in the salvo to a static 3.

P. 58 Markus Wulfhart
Add monstrous beast and monstrous cavalry to the Monster Hunter special rule.

Basically anything that is monster should be on this guys kill list.


Magic Items
The mace of Helsturm
Change to Multiple Wounds (D6)

Helm of hte SkavenSlayer
Add: The wearer also gains hatred against Skaven.

Griffon Banner   50pts

Lords
Kurt Helborg   300pts

Volkmar the Grim  130pts

Grandmaster: may be mounted on a Demi-Gryphon for +60 points

Heroes
Markus Wulfheart 120pts

Captain of the Empire
Change it so that the captain may be armed with any of the weapons – no longer limited to just one.

Many models were released that allowed the captain to be equipped with various weapons.
Core Units

Spearmen: Shields are free
Swordsmen: 6pts each
Crossbowmen: 8pts each
Handgunners: 8pts each
Free Company: 5pts each

Special Units

Greatwords:  10pts each
Demigryph Knights: 70pts each
Pistoliers: 17pts each
Outriders:  barding is free but you will lose fast cav rule.
Flagellents: 10pts each

Rare Units:

Steam Tank: 270pts  the Hochland long rifle is now standard equipment instead of optional.

From the testing I've done these points are fairly balanced. The Demigryphs should actually be about 75pts each but I factored in army synergy which brings them down a little. Steam tank should actually be about 300pts but the army as a whole needs it slightly cheaper.
The artillery points were not adjusted because in the revised 8th edition core rules artillery no longer blows up and gives away points. 
The core infantry are cheaper because they honestly do not perform that well on their own. Adding characters greatly buffs them but you pay for that in the cost of the character.
Greatswords are innately stubborn so are minimum 10pts. Along with changes to steadfast they feel balanced at 10pts.
Flagelants are a hard hitting unit but easily baitable and killable. They also take up points in special so need to be a decent price.

[jaggedjimmyj]

Not bad, but I think that letting magic res protect against any result on the misscast table is a bad move with all the uber spells out there.
I'd rather see a rewrite of the miscast table with D6+ no of dice used to cast to punish six dicing rather than making it even more viable through magic res.

[Fidelis von Sigmaringen]

I do not have the time now to look at the details but

- Regarding page 24, that had already been addressed:

BRB Official Update Version 1.9, p.1:
Page 24 – Compulsory Moves, Rally Fleeing Units.
Change the third sentence of the first paragraph to “A unit that has 25% or less of its starting models left can only rally on a roll of double 1.”

- Regarding Extra Ranks: I do not really think it is an issue (not anymore, at least), but if you include the first rank, perhaps you should increase the maximum bonus to 4? And perhaps single model units like chariots and monsters should be considered to have a single rank too?

- Regarding Flank Attack: the BRB is not ambiguous.

BRB p. 59: "Flank and Rear Bonuses for flank and rear attacks can only be earned once per unit attacked in the flank or rear - having multiple units attacking the same unit does not grant additional bonuses."

[CarolineWellwater]

(( The Peacemaker,

A couple of quick thoughts about your proposal.

1) For the Hellstorm Rocket Battery, 3 Rockets is huge!  When we tried D3+1, D6, or 3, the D3+1 gave the right "feel" to it.  The D6 and flat-out-3 gave the Rocket Cart too much power during the shooting phase.  Not to mention, you can get the Cart a bit more reliable with the Crew or Engineer reducing scatter by up to 4".  And, smart selection of initial target-point, can basically nullify the effect of a 2", 4" or 6" scatter, as well (despite the potential 360 degree scatter arc.)

At D3+1 (2 - 4 rockets per turn).  It was still unreliable in it's volley, but, for the 120 points, it at least was in the same price-range as a catapult... as we were equating the price of the Rocket Cart is reflected in the number of Rockets you get from it.  If you get 3 Rockets, you're basically saying one Rocket is worth 40 points.

1-A) Something else we were playing with was the idea of "Walking" rockets.  That is, after your first Rocket scatters, any other rocket templates can be placed next to the scatter of the first... which ends up giving a "walking" effect.

2) No love for the Empire General?  You mention the Empire Captain, but don't give any new options or bonus' to the Empire General.

2-A) The most predominate suggestion I've seen, that's simple to apply, is just give the Empire General - Elector Count, the option of allowing one of your units a Magic Banner.

Anyway, just some input.  I'll take a bigger look at it laters. ))

[Fidelis von Sigmaringen]

- Regarding p.61 No more foes: you seem to suffer here from the recurring mix-up between Shrinking Units and No More Foes.

In the case of No More Foes, the enemy unit(s) that your unit was in contact with has been completely destroyed. There is no combat anymore, and there is nothing left to nudge your unit in contact with. As such, your unit can move normally from then on, which implies it can make an Overrun move (or Restrain & Reform after a Ld test).

This is different from Shrinking Units: your unit is still in combat, just not in contact with the enemy unit(s). That is why you nudge them into contact again with the unit(s) you are in combat with. If your unit has clipped an enemy unit and killed the models in btb, you nudge the units into contact again by moving either unit. There will be only few cases (usually because of terrain constraints) where this will not be possible, although your unit may end up clipping again.

- p. 70: Fly. I always found it odd that when a flying unit is down to a single model, it loses the Skirmisher rule.

- p. 72 MR: I would not allow MR against miscasts, for the reasons jaggedjimmyj indicated. But if there is to be a change, I would allow MR against any enemy spell (including hexes) - with the exception of things like the Comet of Casandora.

- To add p. 10: Unmodified leadership. When a unit as a whole needs to take an unmodified Ld test, it tests on the highest Leadership characteristic on the profile in the unit. If individual models need to take an unmodified Ld test (even if it is each model in a unit), they test on their individual Ld characteristic on the profile. And on the profile means on the profile, i.e. as written in the AB.

[Fidelis von Sigmaringen]

Regarding war machines: there is, of course, no "war machine misfire chart". I assume you are really talking about cannons. Just randomise hits between rider and mount on ridden monsters, that is the simplest way and more than sufficient to "fix" cannons.

[The Peacemaker]

I just wanted to update you guys. Went to a tourny toady and will be busy Sunday but I should have more updates on Monday.

Regarding the MR for miscast: I actually forgot to delete that from my early draft.
For magic I will not be changing anything except MR against the uber spells. The magic phase can literally have any set of rules and it will be interesting and fun. And many people have lots of ideas and different views. So I plan to make a few sets of optional magic rules that people can chose to use.


War machine chart - I'm not too concerned about the wording at this stage but I was referring to the black powder missfire chart and the stone thrower chart.

The hellstorm getting D3+1 is great idea. ..im surprised I didn't just copy that from my cannon change.

[Jomppexx]

I kind of like that you can use MR against any spells.
Gives much more value to the magic resistance items.