So I had my 1st game of 8th, I don't have a battlefield generator or I'd do a proper report for you. Instead I'll mention the lists and various pros and cons we discovered with 8th.
Now both my mate and I have read the book cover to cover but we'd forgotten most of it, I had printed out the magic items, magic lists and summery sheets so we had something.
His list:
Lord on foot with new common sword granting ASF, potion of strength, MoT and something else..
BSB on foot
Lv4 mage - Fire - Signature, fireblast small template thing, burning head, flaming sword of ruin
Lv2 mage - MOT Gateway and d6hits, d6 str one, on disc.
Lv1 mage - MoT some ld ship one.
3x30 marauders, 5x6 formation, shields
2x10 warriors, halberds, MoK
4 ogres - greatweapons
Helcannon
My list:
Lv4 mage - black amulet, tome of furion (shadow)
Lv2 mage - sacrificial dagger, channeling amulet (+1 to channel, so 5+ to get 1 extra PD or DD) (metal)
Lv2 mage - dispel scroll (no rules for multiple scrolls I've seen so that means you can only get 1DS to my current knowledge) Stability sceptre (lets you ad 1d6 to a dispell attempt once a game). (metal)
BSB - Pendant, Amulet of foolhardieness (counts as devastating charge and immune to psych, 1 use only) halberd, all armour on Cold one
6 dark riders - muso
15 spearmen - full command banner of murder (armour piercing)
20 Corsairs - full command sea serpent banner (frenzy) in 3x6 +1 formation
2x10 bowmen
14 black guard - full command, Razor banner (common banner- counts as Armour piercing)
1 Cold one Chariot
2 bolt throwers
2 Hydras
1st off the game was a lot of fun. It's nice to see infantry pounding infantry. From my point of view, even more so Delves have become a DPS army and very very fragile. There were multiple times (Black guard, BSB in Dark riders, etc.) that I took out a swath of marauders (I got 14 wounds with my BG 1st round of combat only for my mate to pass 10 - 5+ ward saves....wtf) but the fact that I was being hit by 10 attacks back each turn, while only Str3 still hurt my units and it really became a guess of if I could break his unit sizes down fast enough before I broke.
Usually I broke, the BSB and DRiders, spearmen, hydras. Only the Blackguard performed consistently well (once they made combat) but then they lost 1/2 the unit doing it.
The Hydra's were beasts 2d6 str5 breath weapon, d6 str 5 megastomp, 7 str5, 6 str3 AP attacks on the turn they charge. 1 was in combat against a warrior block eating 5-6 guys a turn when the Lord, BSB and 1 warrior unit hit my flank. With stomp etc. I was able to kill enough to win combat although the lord eventually sliced me to shreds.
Also combat by I was very interesting. I was charged by ogres with greatweapons and flaming sword of ruin on them - which should have scared my hydra to bits. But with ASL on the greatweapons I got my handlers (who killed 1 ogre) breathweapon (which killed 1 ogre) and hydra attacks which killed a 3rd ogre and stomp took out the last ogre.
Magic was fun with it ebbing and flowing. Sometimes we were at the heights of 10PD and 6DD to 3PD and 2DD which made it interesting. We did have some trouble adjusting to the new style of magic. No long can you really throw out little low level magic missiles to get DD out as there is so much and with items and lv4's dispelling they can dispell these things with little trouble.
The broken concentration rule is annoying as hell both for Dispelling and casting but adds some flavour, so does choosing your lore before you play, tbh it would have been MILES better if you got to choose before the game. The idea that mages learn X or Y and they go out into the world makes it alot cooler. Sure you may go for the big spells but casting them while easier can still be difficult while random generation still has all the regular pitfalls.
That said magically not much really happened, I got pit of shades off on a 21, he dispelled on a 22, he got gateway off on 18 I dispelled on a 20...
Sure fireball and Signature metal got cast a few times but they're still the same as 7th ed so hardly too much to worry about.
New march blocking was annoying ld test and you ignore... well he entire army is ld8 so it's really a 50/50 if he'll ever get march blocked.
Same with charging at one point his ogres could see the heads of my hydra TLOS sucks... there was this big impassable rock between them that while he could charge he would need to wheel around and so on which in 7th would have taken him 10-11" So bordering fail charge range.
Now he rolled a 3 on his 2d6 so charge of 9". We weren't able to check but he sounded convincing on that now you draw a line and if the units are within the charge range you can move'em even though wheeling etc. may mean a failed charge. So he measured OVER the impassable terrain, I was within 9" as the bird flies and he got to move into range.
I'm yet to check this but it seemed odd - not that it mattered as I gobbled his entire unit anyway.
Actually we have a list of rules that we need to check such as do you get parry bonus to breathweapons used in combat, same in relation to stomp, range for out of unit Look Out Sir! and more importantly if I'm in short range of a character who passes his look out sir! when solo but within range of a unit does that mean I need to check my range against the unit before shooting (and possible be out of range or in long-range) or do I still shoot at short range but all hits go to the unit.
Eitherway warriors ended up winning as I just couldn't break his marauder units, each one only had between 8-15 guys left (well I did break one with my BG) but the attrition battle was won by my opponent.
Things for next time.
DRAGON!
Ring of Hotek will be ridiculous and I'm sticking it in my list with maybe a lv2 caddy/stability wizard for extra defence
BSB shouldn't be in combat unless really well protected a BSB that hangs behind the lines giving his boost is the way go to, going to stick mine on a death-hag/cauldron
Corsairs still suck
