Topic: The 9th Age

[Minsc]

As of the last Sonnstahl update 11.1 heavy artillery (cannons) do D6 damage not D3+1 anymore.

Best,
Anubis

Where do you read this? I'm reading the 0.11.1 pdf right now and the cannon deals "multiple wounds (ordnance)".

[Anubis]

Sorry, you are correct. I was mistaking "As a Cannon (D6) Artillery Weapon" the (D6) as damage not bounce distance.

Best,
Anubis

[Minsc]

Fair enough.

[The Black Knight]

Thanks for the kind words gents and sorry about the mistakes, I will edit my original posts to fix them so that nobody gets confused while reading. Thanks Minsc!

Just one observation - I've always had the feeling that other races never liked cannons. Despite all the other Empire weaknesses of weak troops aiming at some sort of balance, a cannon that got lucky and bounced along a rank of cavalry, or took out a treeman would never be forgotten.

Am I wrong in getting the feeling that Empire troops have been boosted and artillery nerfed because of this?

I would say this is generally speaking correct. Only I think this is a positive thing. If I can deal with the big threats with other stuff than artillery, while still using an army that plays like an Empire army, then I am all for it. Cannons were too accurate, period. GW should've revised their rules, when they introduced  pre-measuring to the game, but they didn't. Guessing ranges was a whole different game and cannons were reasonable back then, but since they got more widespread (Empire, Dwarfs, Ogres, Demons getting access to them), they started to impact the game too heavily and I think a nerf to them is a solid idea. Provided we get boosted in other areas to compensate this and I think we did (S6 greatswords, more hitty flagellants, 2A reiksguard, BS based shooting got a boost, orders etc). We can generate quite a lot of high S attacks across our army and I think it works.

But yeah I really think that the guns shoud still cause D6 wounds.

When I started in Fantasy the joy was that there were distinct differences between races - weak humans, slow tough dwarfs, fast fragile elves etc etc.
GW started the rot by trying to give every race the same sort of options - Rat Ogres / Kroxigors / Minotaurs  and then Monstrous Cavalry, and then things on wheels.
I was never sure why we got Demigryphs - other races had those things because we had artillery

I think this is an interesting issue and perhaps worth a separate discussion. I agree about needless adding of options to armies, monstrous infantry everywhere, buff wagons etc. If things have proceeded in this vein, we'd end up with elvish artillery, dwarf wizards and chaos crossbowmen. Which could be done of course, but all the other unit options and heroes would need to be revised to reflect this. GW would never do this properly, as they were just interested in shoving the latest, biggest models down our throats, without a single glance on how it affects the game in general. This was also reflected in numerous units which really had no purpouse in the grand scheme of things and a lot of units, which were just spiced up variations of stuff that was already there. This expanded the ranges needlesly, generated more costs than it was worth (pure speculation here) and dragged the whole thing down in every possible way.

I wonder how balanced it is compared to the other lists.
Is there a summary like this for other armies?

I dunno as I've only wrote this one. Have a look through the army specific forums, perhaps there are more Black Knights out there ? Like I said, I think we are a "middle ground" army, which I think is good, given they can bring everything else to the same power level roughly.

I am against S6 Greatswords. They didn't need it IMO, 10 points was fine, and a variety of magic banners could have done it. Everyone will just be taking Rieksguard foot now instead. Mark my words.

Like I said, I think we need as many high strength things as we can, now that cannons are not reliable anyway. I think they aren't  overpovered.
And foot reiksguard are a very different choice than greatswords. They are superb anvils but they have no punch. So a pretty different function on the battlfield.

3) Detatchments, sadly, can't be of any size. There are limitations.

Apart from the normal unit size cap I don't see anything in the book that would prevent me from taking a 50 strong adetachment to a 20 strong parent unit. Am I missing something?

[Minsc]

Apart from the normal unit size cap I don't see anything in the book that would prevent me from taking a 50 strong adetachment to a 20 strong parent unit. Am I missing something?

Light Infantry (Handgunners/Crossbowmen) have the "support unit" special rule regardless of the units size, but they are limited to 20 models anyway.

Heavy Infantry (Swordmen, Spearmen, Halberdiers) have the "support unit special rule (20 or less models)" and have the "parent unit special rule (21 or more models)".

State Millitia (Free Company/Archers) have the "support unit special rule (20 or less models)", and loose this if you buy a bigger unit. They don't have the parent unit special rule.

Imperial Guard (Greatswords) have the "parent unit" special rule, regardless of the units size.

It's all clearly laid out in the units special rules.
You can't take a 50 strong unit of Light Infantry as a "detatchment" because they are limited to 10-20 models in a unit.
You can't take a 50 strong unit of Heavy Infantry as a "detatchment", because they loose the support unit-rule and gain the parent unit-rule if the unit is larger than 20 models.
You can't take a 50 storng unit of State Millitia as as "detatchment", because they loose the support unit-rule if the unit is larger than 20 models.

You can however, have 20 Crossbows supporting 21 Heavy Infantry if you would like that.

Also worth mentioning, is that you don't purchase support-units (detatchment) to specific parent-units anymore.
A support-unit within 6" of a parent-unit simply makes supporting actions now.

What this means, is that if you have a support-unit of 20 Crossbowmen, within 6" of a parent unit of Spearmen, and within 6" of a unit of Greatswords, they can choose to stand and shoot (or counter charge) if something charges the spearmen, and if something charges the gratswords in the next turn (assuming the crossbows and greatswords are still within 6" of eachother), the crossbowmen are free to stand and shoot or countercharge whatever's charging the Greatswords as well.

Peviously, said unit of Crossbowmen would've only been able to help either the Spearmen or the Greatswords (depending on what you unit you bought them with.)

Support-units also count towards the core minimum (but perhaps it also did in 8th Ed? I can't remember.)

So if youre bat crap crazy and field 5x20 Crossbowmen, and manage to keep at least one model from each unit within 6" of a parent unit, all 100 crossbows get to fire if the parent unit is charged!

 

[Padre]

.... If things have proceeded in this vein, we'd end up with elvish artillery, dwarf wizards and chaos crossbowmen.

Elvish Artillery:


Dwarf Wizard:


ChaosOrc Crossbowmen (close enough?):


(I had a chaos crossbowman but I seem to have converted him into a standard bearer.)

Next ...

[grimgorgoroth]

Here in Chile most of us have changed to 9th.

Last tournament we had Undying Dynasties (Tomb Kings) win first place! Ogre Khans second and Infernal Dwarves (Chaos Dwarves) third place.
Empire didn't win cause I had to organize 

I recomend you give it a try. For me it's the best

[warhammerlord_soth]

Empire didn't win cause I had to organize 

feeble excuses....

[grimgorgoroth]

Don't worry we are playing the Tamurkhan campaign and soon the Dark Dwarf League both with 9th Age rules, where I'll do my best to make the empire proud