Topic: The Halberd

[Derek Contyre]

Reduce their cost by 1 point.  Job done. 

There, fixed for you. 

[borgar]

How about this, a special rule for the general

Generals finest:

Being recruited to the generals favorite regiment is among the highest honours a lowly statesman can achieve bar the impossible feat of being found worthy of the Greatswords.
Valiant soldiers of pride and skill seek constantly to prove themselves and hopefully distinguish themselves further

standard halberds with hatred (maybe banner option but the general has that already)

no major change but the reroll could help,i guess it wont help if the front rank is wiped from a charging foe, but if that is the case you'll need to rely on a countercharge to last to your next anyway hopefully you can bring some knights into the flank or rear


Changing the rules for halberds seems like a bad idea to me, maybe heavy armor but that would make the other troops look like clanrats and the halberds look like stormvermin to my eyes

Stubborn is also way over the top, we pay 10 points per stubborn soldier, now its suddenly 5? not a good idea..


I like halberd but i only use them for detachments, as they just don't last like swordsmen.
the fluff may state that helberders are standard and numerous, but i can live with using the troops at my disposal to what they are good at.

I.E. 3x3 detachments supporting my resilient Swordsmen

[Warlord]

Stubborn is also way over the top, we pay 10 points per stubborn soldier, now its suddenly 5? not a good idea..

I like halberd but i only use them for detachments, as they just don't last like swordsmen.
the fluff may state that helberders are standard and numerous, but i can live with using the troops at my disposal to what they are good at.

I.E. 3x3 detachments supporting my resilient Swordsmen

Those 10pt stuborn troopers also get higher WS, Ld, I, armour and a great weapon. Its really not comparable. Stubborn on Ld7 WS3 Light armoured troops works well actually. They die easily, but they don't run so easy. Very Empire.

And I have said it before, and I will say it again - 3x3 is only of benefit to swordsmen. 3x3 equipped with anything else is less effective than 5x2 of the same type. I don't care about the 'deployment space' reason, 3x3 is not effective not using swords.

[Derek Contyre]

Greatswordsmen have I3. . . hate to break it to you.

[Fandir Nightshade]

Still their 10 points don´t come from stubborn, 6 points for stubborn halberdiers would be decent especially if you compare them to the "unbreakable" swarms, ok today they get wounds if they loose but still T3 with 6+ AS is nothing to brag about. Perhaps one should only make the main regiments stubborn and not detachments.

[Northern Storm]

The weapon rules themselves are fine. It's a great half-way point between a hand weapon and great weapon. I think there needs to be such a weapon in the rules.

The problem is Empire Halberdiers.

That problem would be immediately solved with a Heavy Armour option. They don't have to look like Bretonnians. It just means less pantaloons and more chainmail.

No fancy whizzbangs needed. Heavy Armour will put them on the equal footing with Spearmen and Swordsmen.

[scarletsquig]

Reduce their cost by 1/2 a point.  Job done. 

they did it in the skaven book...

Agreed! Not by 1 point... swarms of 4 point halberdiers would make them too powerful compared to swords and spears.

1/2 point is perfect, though.

[Antimodes]

Hello to all and thanks for this great site.

I think Halberdiers shall be better than the rest but not special like great swords.

8 pts for each, heavy armor, immune to panic.

They aren't veterans like greatswords thouh they shall be the best trained of the state troops.

[Justnorth]

The problem isn't with the Halberd rules, it is the fact that Empire Halberdiers don't survive long enough to make their return attacks when charged.

I agree, the not surviving part is the problem indeed, but it's not a problem with the halberdiers alone, it's a problem for many core troop types across the board.
One of the fundamental problems with Warhammer is the I go you go format.
Everything is hinged on who goes first.
Make a sweeping change that fits in with basic physics; if a defender is charged and the defending unit is wielding weapons ilonger than the charging unit then the defender gets to fight simultaneously with the attacker in the initial round of combat.
Seems fair to me.
Sure they might get wasted but they are also going to get some attacks in as well.
Pikes, billhooks, spears and halberds get a little boost and none of the stats need to be altered.

[Zarkdon]

I posted an idea for balance using percentages and spliting Core / Special / Rare into Infantry / Cavalry / Missile Troops / War machines / Characters.

Or something like that. I know went into a bit of detail on the Hammer and Anvil website.

When I play with my gaming group we use the following formula.

All current mins/max for core/secial/rare are used in addition too:

35% MAX in Heroes/Lords

25% MIN for core

% of special must outnumber % in rare.

This concept in the great game equilizer.

However, as to the topic above if you got rid of the shield option for Halbeirders and gave them full plate (since historically they were atleast partially plated which is what the greatswords models looks like anyway) they would be str 4 with a 4+ AS

This would leave all troops usefull. Swordsmen hit more often and strike faster.
Spearmen get more attacks but have a lesser AS and str
Greatswords have a higher str better WS and stubborn but they strike last.

[Grutch]

A simple fix which was tested in my San Diego gaming club for months...

Empire halberdiers fight in 2 ranks just like spearmen and they got +1 Str.  No shield option.
Yes they did better than spearmen so to balance it out we gave free shields to the spearmen.

This tried and tested house rule put Halberdiers into play without being over the top.  Nobody had any complaints and They have been running it since I left over a year ago.

I floated the idea that if one takes a General of the Empire as General,  he could nominate one unit of halberdiers as the Provincial halberdiers written in the fluff and they were stubborn.  In addition he could bestow a core infantry unit with a banner. 

Greatswords could take a magic banner again too.  WTF was Graham McNeil thinking on that one?  I would suggest he just forgot about it when the book went to print.

A game designer should avoid choking players too much with restrictive min/max core/special/rare rules.  Or making things complicated.  KISS.  (keep it Simple Stupid!)

-Grutch

[Justnorth]

Grutch, are you a Pacific Marauder by any chance?

[Helborg]

Battle of Hel Fenn where the halberdiers hold the line till the knights of the Reiksguard saved the day with a glorious flank charge. I bet you would see at least two large blocks of halberdiers in each empire army just because of the stubborn, they would even get the occasional S4 attack in subsequent rounds.

But remember, Hel Fenn was a show of unnatrual courage... the halberdiers fighting fought more bravely than they were expected to and were rewarded and celebrated for it... it wasnt a representation of your every day halberdier....


Sanj

[Joelatron]

I'm a big fan of empire halberds fight in two ranks and spears become pikes (with a 0-1 limit to stop hordes of pikes hehe)

why? because Pikes are too cool to allow to slip away with the slow demise of the DoW army, and with 2 ranks the halberds can actually fight.

or even better also add ws4 to them and make them 6 points butremove shield option.

swordman not redundant as they get the 4+ save while halberds only get 6+ but more s4 attacks
and the pikes mean that spear men will still have a really useful role.

[Batu]

Fighting in two ranks for the weapon rule would not work.  Imagine Chaos Warriors or Temple Guard or Ph. Guard with Hals fighting in 2 ranks each with multiple attacks.   You have to look at the rules outside of just the Empire Army list.

Problem with Hals is they do not survive due to AS of only 5+.  Give them Plate.  Then they have a lower WS then swordsmen, lower str then GS but can still attack on init and there is a reason to take spears (2 ranks) and Hals would save with a 4+.

They will never make the Empre troops the same level as other "elite" armies and allowing hals to fight in 2 ranks would be very very bad. 

Hello everyone

    We all agree that halberdiers cannot compete effectively against their state troop homologues. In the rule book, it's said that halberds can be used both as spears or as axes, so I think the most sensible change to it would to make it an "attack in two ranks" weapon, the +1 strength modifier applying only for the first rank. It would of course remain a two-handed weapon, and lose the extra rank when charging.
     The guys in front use its axe side and the ones in the back jab, using it as a spear. This rule would correspond to the description in the rulebook, to all the illustrations and to the models. (It's even more flagrant with the phoenix guards, with their halberds twice as tall as they are).  This new rule could represent the double-use of the halberd, the reason why they were so popular among infantry, both historically and fluff-wise.

      While I'm at it, concerning the new army book, I think our army is good as it is, concerning fluff and competitivity ( with the exception maybe of the engineer creations, the creator was probably high when he designed, I can see no other reasonable explanation for bomb dropping pidgeons or a robotic horse that would unrealistic even for modern-day technology). We should perhaps have the engineer as an upgrade for warmachines, since the only two 7th edition engineers ever seen on a warhammer battlefield was in the white dwarf battle-report and a dead one used as decoration on a dragon's base.
     I have been reading crazy suggestions making us humans inhumanly skilled warriors, remember that we rely on tactics to win.

     Sorry about that, that was kind of off-subject, please let me know what your thoughts are on this new halberd.

[TommySix]

Whilst I can see and even accept the logic behind the analysis that within the confines of the game itself, Halberds are not the problem, it is EMPIRE Halberdiers that are, I still prefer to stick with a more conceptually sound remedy as Halberds are meant to be dual purpose weapons as a whole, although historically the length of the weapon varied quite a bit between different periods and users. With this in mind, I don't see why you can't have an 'Empire Halberd' that gives you greater tactical flexibility as opposed to the rest of the armies which would make them too powerful (Chaos Warriors come to mind as have been suggested before)

Or better yet, a special rule on Imperial Halberd Drill that lets them fight in two ranks and have the front rank gain the +1 strength as proposed in the OP. I also support the option of heavy armour and get rid of the shield option as the shield is useless, its a long heavy two handed weapon!

As for this invalidating spearmen, well lets look at spearmen, they just don't belong in an Empire army full stop. They're a poor man's pikeman. So why not update spearmen to pikemen? It fights with the theme of the army as well as the time period. Fight in 3 ranks like a phalanx! Existing spearmen users can leave their models as is or convert, but their unit just got better. Although a trade off would be no shields and add heavy armour instead.

I'm sure that we can reimagine how spearmen are used (skirmishers? throw them!) as a light infantry unit that is cheap with no detachments or only as detachments (skirmishing detachments? hmmm would that work?)

Just some thoughts

[Chambo]

How about halberdiers in the second rank can fight, if the model to their front was killed. Being a pole arm the halberd has the length to strike from the second rank over their dead comrades.  That means in essence the whole front rank can strike back even if in has taken casualties. Could be an empire only rule so it doesn't nuff up the core game rules.

[badpixie]

Templars have not been around since 1314, except in the minds of conspiracy theorists... (historical correction).

[Smythen]

According to the rumors about 8th edition
The entire rank is going to fight even if it is killed.
That will level out the disadvantage of the halbard to the spear and sword and board.
(but is the rumor reliable? Effectively removing initiative from the game, well they did it with the High Elves.)

[Wolfsgaum]

Templars have not been around since 1314, except in the minds of conspiracy theorists... (historical correction).

Sure they have. The survivors just got folded into the Knights Hospitallers. Those guys are still around today. Christopher Lee is one. 

[badpixie]

Knights Templar: when they were banned in 1314 some of their assets were handed to the Hospitallers, who are and remain a distinct order as do the Teutonic Knights. There is little doubt that many of the former Templars of lesser rank, (especially in England where the King didn't feel obliged to persucute the Templars overmuch in the french king's interests) found new homes within the Hospitallers.

However, the Knights Templar have been extinct as an Order since 1314, except in the minds of conspiracy theorists (and wannabes no doubt eg some masonic orders).