Posts tagged Eighth
King of the Gnoblars 2011
Mar 11th
King of the Gnoblars 2011
The King of the Gnoblars 2011 is a Warhammer Fantasy Battle tournament being held in University College Cork, Ireland,
during Paddy’s weekend in March 2011. All Warhammer Fantasy players of age 18 or older are invited to come and compete for the grand title of King of the Gnoblars. Do you have what it takes to be crowned King? Probably not, but come anyway!
Time/venue: UCC , Cork, 19-20th March. Registration will begin at 10.00am on Saturday, with round one from 10.30-13.00, round 2 from 13.30-16.00 and round 3 from 16.30-19.00. On Sunday, round 4 will be from 10.00-12.30, round 5 from 13.00-15.30, and awards at 16.15.
Full details – http://w-ired.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=1051
Warhammer… what has happened?
Dec 3rd
Its been a good few months now since eighth has been released and well whats been happening with Warhammer? Seemingly nothing much! No new books have been released at which I am suprised, especially considering that there has been a huge amount of High Elves models relased. It would have in my opinion been a perfect time to release a High Elf book. I was quite suprised not to see it. With an expected release of Skaven models in January there won’t be a book to accompany them. GW’s laissez-faire attitude is strange as after the release of the new edition you would have thought the euphoria of the changes would have made for a buying frenzy. If this is a deliberate scheme it could be a good thing. For one GW may have let the initial changes sink in and then looked at the feedback. Having done this is should be easier to create army books that the players actually want. This would involve a rather large overhaul of the current books with a lot of options being adjusted. It would also allow for a faster release schedule in 2011 maybe with four books being released rather than just two. In essence the rules would be in an open beta now if this was the case and in my opinion its good. While the core rules won’t change the application of them easily could with points being adjusted heavily against magic armies. For instance adding fifty points to a level three wizard and having the fourth level cost another fifty would soon make magic heavy armies harder to field. The same could be true of warmachines with the more effect template weapons getting a higher cost. A few small adjustments like these over the next few army books would quickly balance out a lot of the complaints that have been levelled at the game.
Orcs and Goblins are rumoured to be next book released as are the Tomb Kings. The Tomb Kings really do need to get an update as they are almost imcompatible with the current edition though if you continue along this line of thinking Wood Elves, Brettonians and Ogres would be due for an update soon. The Orcs while not a powerhouse have benefitted immensly from the new rule changes. The other armies mentioned really need radical changes to compete. The problem being that the more powerful armies currently are the ones that need changing the most. Taking the current Orcs and Goblins as a bench mark it would be nice if all armies were levelled out at their power level. I can’t ever see this happening but I would like it to. The most likely course of action is continuing as before with a slow power creep in the army books. At the beginning this wouldn’t be such a problem in general as this would bring the armies being released on a par with the current powerhouses of Lizards, Deamons and Undead. However as before another book would quickly be released that unbalances all that came before.
Know Your Lores – Lore of Fire
Nov 5th
Let’s be honest. There’s a little bit of a pyromaniac in all of us and we’ve all, at some point, dreamed of sending magical fireballs at our foes. Or, maybe that’s just me. In either case, the Lore of Fire is probably the most famous Lore of them all and the easiest to master. Without further ado, I’ll run through the new spells in the book.
The Lore of Fire
Lore Attribute
Firstly, it’s important to note that the Lore of Fire has the Kindelflame Attribute. This means that it becomes easier to cast direct damage or magic missiles at a unit that has already been hit by one. Clearly, there’s an opportunity here to stack attacks onto a unit with wizards using the damaging Fire spells to attempt multiple castings against a single target. Each further attempt gains +d3 to the casting roll – which isn’t a huge boost, but may be enough to get one over the line. Finally, all spells from this Lore are Flaming Attacks – handy against buildings, flammable creatures and those regenerating nasties.
Signature Spell – Fireball (5+; magic missile)
It had to be, didn’t it! What could be more fun than zapping that nasty unit with D6 S4 attacks from 24″ away? Well why not go all out with the general’s edition (that would be 2D6 S4 and 36″) or the deluxe collectors editon (a stonking 3d6 S4 from 48″). Ok, you have to increase the casting from 5+ to 10+ and 18+ respectively, but this flexibility is welcome. I’m sure we’ll see a lot of wizards going with the Fire signature spell as a result.
Cascading Fire Cloak (5+; remains in play; augment)
With a very short range – the caster and his unit – this spell hits every enemy in base contact with 2d6 S4 hits. Very handy if your wizard bunker gets into combat and will force the opponent to use dispel dice. One thing – this hits at the end of every magic phase…that’s yours and your opponent’s. As I said – this is a “must dispel” spell or the casualties will soon mount up.
Flaming Sword of Rhuin (8+; augment)
Pick a unit within 24″ and they get +1 to wound and magical flaming attacks (or within 48″ on 11+). Don’t underestimate this spell – +1 to wound is a lot better than +1 strength. Combined with the new “To Wound” chart and any troop type will be wounding on 5+ at worst. Dragons, Hydras and so on will definitely fear Spear troops with this spell in effect. With the extended range, it could really cause surprising problems.
The Burning Head (10+; direct damage)
This is one spell that appears a little overcosted at present. Draw an 18″ line (or 36″ on 13+) and everything under takes a S4 hit. Any unit wounded takes a panic check. At the start of the game, it may not be so effective, given the boost that BSBs now confer, but it may be very handy against light flanking units or in the late game. Overcosted in comparison to other spells in the Lore though.
Piercing Bolts of Burning (10+; magic missile)
Faced with a nasty horde? Then this is the spell for you. At 24″ (or 48″ on 13+) you inflict D3 S4 hits per rank in the target unit. So, against a five rank unit, you could happily expect to cause 10 S4 hits with a minimum of 5 guaranteed. Essentially, this is a better value and more reliable version of the top Fireball spell (18+) against large units. Depending on what you face, this spell could be a “must take”.
Fulminating Flame Cage (11+; hex)
Pick a unit within 24″ (or 48″ on 14+) and they take D6 S4 hits. If they move for any reason up to the start of the caster’s next magic phase, each model in the unit takes a S4 hit. Nasty. Especially if the inital damage forces a panic check on things like Shades, Shadow Warriors or Gutter Runners. Possibly the best use here is preventing the opponent from moving for fear of the damage it may take. Bear in mind that this is not a remains in play spell either.
Flame Storm (13+; direct damage)
Pick a spot within 30″ and scatter the small template d6″. Everything touched takes a S4 hit. Or go wild on a 16+ and use the big template (scattering 2d6). This is really going to hurt large units – and it doesn’t require line of sight. And it’s only cast on 13+ (a level four wizard could chuck three dice at it quite happily). Not bad, eh?
Tactics & Strategy
If you decide to bring a Bright Wizard to the table, you’re going to have a pretty offensive magic phase. This Lore is all about creating damage and hurting the opponent – ideal if you basically want a ranged attack wizard. It seems to have a strong focus at dealing with larger units – particularly those who are lightly armoured. It still has enough power to damage monsters and tough nasties, but that’s not where this Lore’s strength is.
It’s worth considering the Fulminating Flame Cage. While it’s not going to kill many troops, it will certainly discourage large units from moving for a turn – which could just be enough to get that crucial round of shooting in.
Overall, the spells have a relatively low casting value with lots of options to upgrade when required. There are no game-changing spells here, but when used in conjunction with a good shooting phase the casualties can certainly mount up. I’d suggest that this Lore is perfect for armies with a strong shooting phase who expect to face horde-style armies, using the wizard as a boost to missile damage.
Next up – Lore of Beasts…
If you’ve any thoughts or comments on this article, feel free to post them in the forum!
Nigel is a High Elf player who occasionally goes to the dark side and is really liking what he’s read so far of eighth edition. He’s a social gamer with the North Wexford Gamers but often finds time for more competitive events.
To Cheese or not to Cheese?
Oct 26th
With the madness of the ETC over for another year and 8th edition Warhammer just released, now seems to be a good time to review my gaming priorities. For one thing, I’m glad I’m finished with Dwarfs under 7th edition, I am absolutely sick of them, they had gotten very boring to play with. The new rules seem to hold some hope for them however, as you no longer need to be afraid to actually bring the fight to the enemy, rather than sitting tight and watching your flanks.
Now I have some choices to make. I’ve settled on High Elves for my new army which I will be assembling and painting alongside the Road to Glory tournaments (for further information on this try here : http://www.w-ired.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=720). As the tournament organiser I won’t be playing competitively in the events but I’ll need an army on hand in case an uneven number of players show up, as well as being the sort of excuse I need to get a new army finished (every army I’ve ever finished has been to a tournament deadline). However, this leads me to the next question – To Cheese or not to Cheese?
Under sixth and seventh edition rules I’ve played in many tournaments, some with random armies and some with more especially tailored armies. I’ve never done badly no matter what I show up with but it’s only in recent times I’ve been anywhere close to winning and that has required more extreme and competitive army building. As such, my armies have had several units prepared and painted that have been abandoned as less than ideal choices, and plenty of things I’ve bought have gone unused for the same reason.
Looking through the figures I already have for the High Elves, there’s a large number of Silver Helms among them. Now, most people would ask why you would bother with Silver Helms, when you could just take the far superior Dragon Princes instead? Which is a fair point. There may be a niche for Silver Helms under 8th edition, only experience will tell if that’s true. Still, I might build and paint some anyhow, even if they don’t make it into competitive army lists for tournaments.
Therefore, I’ve decided that my goal for 8th edition is to find the middle ground with my armies. I’d like to have a hard enough army to be competitive at tournaments (without venturing into arsehole territory) while also having a wide variety of different units so that I can mix up army composition for friendly games and campaigns and use some of the lesser seen units. This may result in needing to build and paint armies of four to five thousand points overall. This will allow for enough variety to keep games interesting and will look fantastic when viewed en masse, even though at the rate I paint figures, won’t be ready for about six years or so.
Fortitude and why we should use it!
Oct 16th
Speaking about composition and all such matter recently I have been thinking about ways of implementing a system of composition for tournament play simply dealing with the meta game. I really think that the Fortitude mechanism is quite an elegant fix as it combines a number of factors and gives a nice risk versus reward mechanism. Fortitude if I remember correctly is basically a score taken from the number of banners within your army. It is only used in one of the scenarios and I propose extending it to all tournament battles. I think this could be trialed by a few players even in just designing lists rather than having to fight actual battles. There will obviously be a few holes here and there but I don’t currently see any that are glaringly obvious.
Firstly there should be a basic Fortitude number each army should have, lets take seven as an example. An army therefore has to have seven banners within it to count as a tournament legal army. This causes a number of things to happen. Essentially characters, warmachines and monsters can’t contribute to this number. There are exceptions but at the moment this doesn’t pose a problem. So infantry and cavalry are the main contributors to this number therefore a certain section of the army has to be dedicated to fulfilling the requirement. This can come from any section and not just core so the restriction is not too severe. This will eat into the points available for the more exotic selections and characters, hopefully reducing the spend on magic and warmachines or at least forcing more of a choice between the two.
Secondly victory conditions should be set on reducing your opponents Fortitude number below a set level. Using seven as above the level should be four. Reducing the number below this first means your opponent loses. Reducing both below this in the same turn results in a draw. A margin of victory can be established by comparing what one player has left versus the losing player. These victory conditions can replace victory points and still provide as accurate a system.
The result of this could be good. It isn’t tested but it might be worth doing. The player takes a risk by not investing in more Fortitude. If they invest more heavily in Fortitude they are unable to invest in game breaking elements as easily. It is easier to win and lose by not investing in Fortitude is essence. The player needs to balance the risk versus the reward. It is also not as easy to score a massive margin of victory as the player doesn’t have enough Fortitude to create a big difference. Against this the player that invests in Fortitude has an easier time in holding their points and staying above the level needed for a loss. They also have a better chance of scoring a high margin of victory as they have more points and so can create a bigger margin.
This should balance across the armies easily. Expensive armies have regiments that are harder to defeat and hold their fortitude more easily. Cheap armies are the opposite and can more easily invest in Fortitude but would expect to lose it more quickly. If they invest in banners on poor units they are more quickly lost. On shooting regiments while effective are more likely to give up their banners and as such also present a risk in taking them in large numbers.
With this system gunlines should be reduced or at least if not reduced more easily defeated. The same goes for very magic heavy armies. The less spent on Fortitude the more likely you will lose. Also the gunlines won’t be able to score a big margin of victory as their Fortitude will have been too low to start! So any thoughts?
Part 2 Round Based Man, Square Based World
Oct 11th
Hi folks
So week 2 and another game played with my beloved Lizardmen, this time at 2,500 points which I’m reliably informed is widely championed as the new default tournament level. I played Gabhann and his Warriors of Chaos and being a 7th ed tournament veteran and all round good guy I expected a quality game. Once again a huge number of things learned…and shockingly a similarity discovered with 40k which is probably a good place to start.
People have started in Fantasy to construct what are described in 40k terms “deathstar units”. These deathstars are big units, often 50 or so strong and are designed to march up the field and act as something virtually unkillable to enemy units under regular circumstances (often deployed in horded units with spears for maximum kill potential) In my case its a unit of 50 sauras waddling up the field to beat the crap out anything they come near(which they did very well last night thank you very much) Another one I’ve heard of is the giant night goblin unit of 120 or so guys, or the big unit or lothern sea guard. That should be interesting and somewhat similar to the diversified nob squads of doom from 40k (At least in application if not composition)
Secondly shooting is all well and good, BUT (yes its a big but) its not the game winner that it tends to be in the 41st millennium. My current 2,500 list had 4 units of blowpipe toting skinks which I’ll not lie did not set the world alight with their performance. This view of course might have something to do with going up against an army of high toughness high armour save chaos warriors (not to mention the every annoying mark or nurgle) but I still think 2 units of 10 skinks with blowpipes might suit me better and allow for more bells and whistle on other units.
An exception to this thinking on shooting are my Salamanders who were an absolute revelation. I’ll be keeping my unit of 3 of them as they seem to work regardless of occasion 
I might even consider a second unit of these incredibly useful beasts
Last but by no means least of this weeks lessons is that magic is not all about blowing the crap out of stuff. Game 1 saw me go all out with a super destructive Lore of Death toting Slann trying to zap units left and right with the already infamous “Purple Sun”. This week saw me going for a little more tree hugging hemp trouser wearing Slann using the Lore of Life. It too has its uber killy spell in the form of the excellent “Dwellers Below” (str test or die) but the buff, debuff and counter nature of the rest of the lore really appeals to me (of particular note being Thrown of Vines which lets you throw around the dice “goodoh” without any major worries miscasting while improving all the buff spells in the lore). In fact I didn’t once find occasion where I didn’t have at least 2 things I wanted to cast. I may try it in my game next week too, or have a crack at the lore of light. Who wouldn’t want an Int and WS 10 stegadon eh
Anyway guys comments would be most welcome as I’m pretty much flying blind here on the list building.
Until next week
Mandragoran
Dominicon of Steel Wargames
Oct 8th
Hi guys,
I’d just like to let people know about NUI Maynooth Games Societys annual convention, Dominicon. It’s on this year on the 12th – 14th of November in the Hume building, NUI Maynooth, Kildare.
Entry to the con is just €10, for the weekend and tournament entry is €2 each.
We’ll be hosting 3 main events, on Saturdy the 13th we’ll have our 1750 point 40k Tournament, while on the Sunday we’ll be running both a 2200 point Warhammer Fantasy and a 25 point Warmachine/Hordes tournament. Both 40k and Fantasy will run for 3 games while Warmachine/Hordes will run for 4 games.
Rules Packs can be Downloaded here:
40k Rulespack
Warhammer 40k Rulespack
Fantasy Rulespack
Warhammer Fantasy Rulespack
Warmachine/Hordes
Warmachines Rulespack is slightly delayed but it will be added as soon as possible.
However, format is:
Four 25 point games with the Kill Box Scenario
You can also check out our website at:
Dominicon of Steel Website
I’m Getting Octimised!
Sep 22nd
Eighth edition has been out for long enough now that we’ve had a decent chance to see it in action, argue over the new rules and shake out all of those Seventh edition holdovers that we kept for a while – I can’t be the only one who said ‘I’m sure it’s a rule, let me just look for it’ when adjusting to the new system. So now I’m looking at my collection of miniatures and figuring out how to convert my Seventh edition armies built around Seventh edition restrictions and taking advantage of Seventh edition rules into shiny and new Eighth edition forces… I’m Octimising.
I have three armies (well, two and a half if I’m honest); my Dwarfs which were my welcome back to the hobby after a break, my Daemons which I built specifically for the 2009 ETC and my Chaos Warriors which are in the process of being finished for the autumn tournament season. Three very different armies that have been affected in very different ways by the new rules. Because I almost exclusively play in tournaments I have to build them as all-comers lists, not for me the luxury of being able to tune the armies for a particular set of opponents! Let’s take a look at how I’m modifying these three forces to bring them up to date.
Road to Glory I
Sep 14th
Hey all,
The first event of the Road to Glory is coming up on October 3rd in Gamers World on Jervis St, Dublin. Entry €10.
Road to Glory I requires a 750 point army. Players will battle it out over four games using scenarios from the Warhammer 8th edition rulebook. Points are available for battle scores, painted armies and presubmitting army lists.
For full rulespack and up-to-date entrant list – http://w-ired.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=776
For further information on the Road to Glory series – http://w-ired.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=720
Hope to see you all there!
Terrain – we need more!
Sep 7th
Its not so long ago since I was sitting in Dublin complaining about the poxy sandwiches. That wasn’t the only complaint of the day however. I remember being annoyed with the terrain selection we had as a club then. This has been improved at least in quantity via stuff being prepared for the tournament scene. However Eighth Edition seems to have rendered a lot of this useless. Well useless isn’t quite correct. Its a lot less effective in the game and in a certain way that is great. However what we are left with is a strong need to update our terrain collections around the country with more stuff that pertains to eight edition. Looking in my local game shop in Hamburg at the weekend there were both games of 40k and fantasy going on. The 40k I was really shocked by. There seemed to be four pieces of terrain on the board in total. With fantasy there were five. In my opinion it is generally terrain that makes the battle tactical. While armies are somewhat evenly matched the difference often comes then in what effect the board has upon you, your deploymetn and similarly to your opponent. Sadly there have been a fair few games I have lost by attempting to swing one flank around a forest meaning they never got to the battle at all. This won’t be as much of a factor now as forests and the general terrain we have in our collection is almost ignored by infantry. There should be an effort to start creating impassible terrain to make the battle a little more tactical again. Buildings would also be a benefit. I know one of the games I enjoyed most was where we had a small settlement cobbled together from the collections of a few players in Portlaoise in the centre of the board. This was back in the very early days of fourth edition. However now the rules would support a battle like this much more.
120 pieces would be the average needed in a thirty player tournament now. Thats an average of two extra pieces per table. Thats a lot of wiggle room where new terrain types can be introduced. I suspect that there will be a slow evolution of terrain in this edition. Tournaments will have to embrace this and the sooner the better. Comp is effected very strongly by factors such as terrain. Certain army builds favozur a certain type of battlefield and having a good variance in the terrain set ensures that certain builds don’t get an advantage. As an example the massive forests of the Grand Tournament colletion in Ireland have been the bane of my tournament career. I don’t know how many times I have had to play Wood Elves there and have them move two or three of those giant forests around until the entire centre of the board is suddenly a forest extending 36″ across. At least that won’t have such an annoying effect now… hopefully. I suggest at least on building per table with a decent foot print at least 5″ x 5″. I hate the little shacks with twenty warriors somehow squeezed inside. Ido hope that GW will follow along the same lines as they have with 40k and provide some really good terrain for fantasy in the form of buildings. The cities of death and the few buildings that followed after were really great. Another good move in my opinion is making hills a lot larger. By making them larger it is a lot easier to make them higher and keep a slope on them that doesn’t force troops to be balanced on dice towers. Most hills are about 10″ x 5″ now but it should be possible to easily double this. That immediately gives you an extra inch in height at least meaning in most cases that warmachines andarhers won’t be able to fire indiscriminately over the hill except at the largest of targets. Styrofoam isn’t that expensive either so tournament organisers should be able to manage this. Plonking a hill like that in the centre of the battle field will really ruin a gunlines day and having a few like that within a boards of a tournament should really help balance out the people who take the gunlines from those that don’t. Of course putting a hill like that in a deployment zone is a different story…
The fantasic terrain types I think are also pretty important in balancing things out. These would have been played with while the game was play tested and hence would have an effect on game balance. AT least you would hope that they were played with though it is GW… Adding a little risk or benefit for such thigs makes them much more of an objective during the game. A wood that can heal some of your characters really would be something in the late game o try to get a character or two into. A burning barricade is quite evocative and there are many cool possibilities for such things on the battlefield. I think these should be brought into tournaments also. Ofc ourse they have to be looked at in depth as it is possible that they favour certain armies a little too much. Having the variability on the table can only be a good thing and add to the games rather than subtract.
