Morale & Psychology Preview ...

[Gankom]

Morale and Psychology preview day!

A battlefield �" no matter what the average Bestigor might claim �" is not a happy place to be in the Old World. What with marauding bands of bickering Orcs, frenzied Chaos Warriors bearing the gifts of the gods, and terrifying dragons, both living and dead, all rampaging around the domains of Man, this is not a good place to be a lowly Imperial trooper waggling a halberd.

So today, we’re going to buckle up our most ergonomic sabatons and make a break for freedom, on our way to discuss how Morale and Psychology work in Warhammer: The Old World.

Morale
Last week, we discussed the nitty-gritty of combat, seeing what happens once that spittle-flecked Chaos Warrior crashes into that ever-so-slightly quivering spear you’re holding. As we saw, it’s quite rare for a round of melee to end in a draw �" and where there’s a loser, there are consequences.

The first of these is the Break Test �" a Leadership roll modified by how badly you lost the combat with three outcomes: Break and Flee, Fall Back in Good Order, and Give Ground.

In the first case, the losing unit turns and runs in the opposite direction from whatever caused it to flee (and whichever enemy unit had the stronger unit strength if it was a multiple combat). They run 2D6”, pivoting only to avoid impassable terrain, and if any part of the fleeing unit crosses a battlefield edge, it is destroyed.* If the enemy gives chase and rolls high enough on 2D6 to make contact, the fleeing unit is destroyed. If they run through another enemy unit, they take additional wounds as they go. If they run through a friendly unit, however, they’re safe �" but that unit may now bear the brunt of the pursuers’ charge. In short: try not to break and flee.

On the other hand, a unit that falls back in good order is still beating a hasty retreat, but they’ve not yet lost that fighting spirit. They can discard the lower of the two dice when they flee, and they automatically rally and reform at the end, ready to receive the charge of their pursuer �" or to hit back in the next turn.

Giving ground is the best result when losing combat. The loser simply steps back 2” (terrain permitting), attempting to put some much needed space between them and the foe �" unless, of course, the winner chooses to follow up and press their advantage, in which case combat continues next turn.

Running away isn’t the only thing on the minds of the rank and file of the Old World. There’s also a whole world of Psychology.

Psychology
All the classic psychological effects are back �" Fear, Terror, Stupidity, Animosity, Frenzy, Unbreakable, Stubborn and Hatred. While in previous games, Psychology was separate from the rest of the Universal Special Rules, it’s all now found in one place in the Core Rulebook. We’ll be looking at other USRs in a future Almanack, but there’s time this week to see how a few of these work.

Units causing Fear, for instance, will have enemies quaking in their boots. If an enemy with lower Unit Strength wishes to charge a Fear-causing unit, it must first take a Leadership test, or its charge will fail. Already in combat with a scary regiment of Skeleton Warriors? Take a Leadership test each round or suffer -1 to hit!

Terror is even worse. If you’re charged by a beast with this effect, you have to take a Leadership test just to be able to declare a charge reaction �" if you fail, you flee. And that’s before any dice are rolled to see if the charge succeeds. Terror also applies an extra -1 penalty to opposing units’ Leadership characteristic when taking Break Tests �" making a break and flee outcome that much more likely.

Finally, we can touch on Frenzy �" this gives models in a unit an extra Attack, and also immunity from Fear and Terror. A Frenzied unit, however, must always charge if able to and can never choose to Flee from a charge.

Next week we’ll click our fingers, and an entire article on Magic will miraculously appear before your eyes. And while the arcane arts no longer have their own phase, you’ll discover that spells are still as impactful on the battlefields of the Old World as ever…

[Zygmund]

Again, this is an excellent take on these rules, within that design space.

Like the distances rolled for the various Break test results. Exactly what I hoped to see.

Bye bye 6th ed Fear autobreak or later blanket hitting on 6's only. -1 is still frustrating for ordinary and poor fighters, but better fighters keep on benefiting from their skill.

What were the stats for Shaggots before? Can we read something about the design ideas from that template?

But I don't know what to make out of that sample spell, Battle Lust.

That Battle Lust would be a hideous spell in the oldhammer/middlehammer context. I like that it plays with normal special rules, Frenzy and Hatred, but in a game where only the first rank fights and where most figurines have only one attack, that combo roughly triples their hits. Yeah, that's not killy alone, but I can imagine players want to cast this spell on hard-hitting units. Like Chaos Warriors with 2H weaons.

The existence of this spell and the position of the mage & the units builds up quite a tensity. In a rather down-toned circumstances this is strong as hell. I can imagine the advancing and counters played in anticipation of this spell. Who gets the charge & gets to try out this spell?

Then again I like that it's not bolts from the blue, but the guys fighting. But effectively, this is a damage multiplier spell in the style of the 8th ed. Maybe downtoned, but still nasty. Or how do you see this?

Now, we don't know which casting levels are easy and which are hard. 9+ might be very hard to get trough. Then the previous Fire spell at 8+ wouldn't be that easy either. Really makes me gnaw my knuckles waiting for some insight into how Magic works in this edition.

-Z

[SaintofM]

So fear will have some rules based on older editions. Terror is as strong as ever. I am assuming Armor Bane is like Armor peiricng and that the 2 value means it will  go through 2 layers?

Looks like we have an idea how stomp will work.

[Dazgrim]

Interesting to see there are two sets of modifiers to break tests, the combat result and then things like Terror that reduce the leadership of the impacted unit.

[GamesPoet]

That break test roll seems a good bit different than prior process.

[commandant]

More involved which makes sense

[GamesPoet]

Seems like an upgrade from previous system(s).