wallacer:
The Warhammer The Ninth Age (i.e. 9th edition) project on the Warhammer forum has a section available for Chaos Dwarf suggestions:
http://warhammer.org.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=98&t=130105
GodHead:
Play War of Kings.
It’s everything you wished Warhammer was.
They are doing official rules for every GW 8th edition army, and their second edition is out next month.
Free rules (hosted by Mantic, the company making the game):
http://manticblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2…7/KoW-rules.pdf
Most of the armies:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q5H…#gid=1642606802
Some of the new WHFB ones they’re working on:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1XgQ…1#gid=644257362
Grimstonefire:
@wallacer
Is this 8th ed army books or rules book update? Or both. Apologies for not just reading myself.
Baggronor:
It's everything you wished Warhammer was.Not really. Its Warhammer-lite.
Nice to see the Swedes are being inclusive of CDs.
cornixt:
Switching to another system leaves you at the mercy of a new company. At least with a fan-made version of the game, updates are more thoroughly tested and as often as they need to be. Changes won’t be big, new armies can be added. You could even get it all printed (even the army lists) in a single self-published book for less than the cost of the 8th ed rulebook or just print it at home. The only problem is possible threats from GW, even if it is done completely legally.
The biggest issue right now is that there are at least three other movements to do the same thing.
Thommy H:
And there’s no particular reason they’ll do a better job than GW did either.
GodHead:
Not really. Its Warhammer-lite.It doesn't have a lot of the flavour stuff, true. Customization is somewhat diminshed. But I would say that the game is deeper than Warhammer on the table.
Baggronor
All the rules are already available.
Game rules here:
http://www.manticgames.com/games/kings-of-war/Free-Rules.html
Full army lists and magic items:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q5H0hVReBN_NMPkUwgUjcKOOf3kGo9iN9_SvxoJMo7M/
Those rules and the army lists in that google doc (which is Maintained by Mantic in order to playtest) will be available in a single volume next month. ~$50 for a hardcover with all the fluff, ~$25 for the softcover with just the rules and armies.
A second batch of armies is coming out shortly after with rules for all major WHFB 8th edition armies. Some of the playtest rules are available from Mantic here:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Q5H0hVReBN_NMPkUwgUjcKOOf3kGo9iN9_SvxoJMo7M/
Thommy H:
I actually like Kings of War as a system - the Nerve roll is clever, especially because it’s so counter-intuitive that damage and morale are handled as a single mechanic, but it works.
What I don’t like is the way that, along with 8th Edition, everyone’s treating it like it’s some sort of masterpiece of strategy gaming. You’re still rolling dice to see what happens at the end of the day.
GodHead:
It’s not perfect, but it’s the only major, supported, official rank and spank massed battle game system in the world now that GW has lost their mind.
I’ve always liked Alessio when he’s been reigned in. KoW is him at his most reigned in.
If you think that the following is anything close to true, you are in for a very rude surprise:
At least with a fan-made version of the game, updates are more thoroughly tested and as often as they need to be.Have you ever heard of the phrase ‘herding cats’? Or design by committee? I am willing to bet that 9th edition will quickly become a fractured mess of bruised egos that won’t outlast the year.
cornixt
I feel that any effort spent on it is wasted.
Thommy H:
Actually there are hundreds of massed battle systems out there! What do you think historical gamers have been playing all this time?
GodHead:
Not fantasy ones that support the tens of thousands of dollars of miniatures that we have invested, which is what I figured was under discussion.
That Avatars of War one coming online looks to be another possibility, but the rules are too clunky and inelegant to make a major impact, I think.
Thommy H:
Well, even if KoW has Warhammer armies with the serial numbers filed off, they’re obviously trying to create their own setting and ideas - I don’t think the transition from one game to the other is going to be seamless forever. There’s always going to be a bit of work in making your models fit a different game, even if it’s just tweaking unit sizes (I’ve said elsewhere that I’ve never gone too far experimenting with KoW because my units aren’t all in the increments of 5 models that KoW requires).
I’m not saying don’t play KoW, or “9th Edition” or whatever, just that every solution requires a bit of work. I guess it all comes down to whether you think AoS takes more work than that or not.
Grimstonefire:
The AoW rules is the only part of that company that’s semi reliable, I’m not sure how that works internally, but I know Felix plays a big part. We only got an English version because of a persistent fan offering to do it freelance.
cornixt:
Have you ever heard of the phrase 'herding cats'? Or design by committee? I am willing to bet that 9th edition will quickly become a fractured mess of bruised egos that won't outlast the year.Blood Bowl did pretty well when off the leash of GW, in fact the ground support of one group brought it back for a while. ETC manages to come up with something new every year. All it takes is a few reasonable people at the helm who have the last say with an iron fist. I'm sure some of the 8th ed+ groups will fall by the wayside but there is a good chance that one of them will work.
GodHead
Baggronor:
I'm not saying don't play KoW, or "9th Edition" or whatever, just that every solution requires a bit of work. I guess it all comes down to whether you think AoS takes more work than that or not.I honestly don't know what to do or where to go with my Warhammering. I tried really hard to like AoS but found I was just indifferent to the outcome of every single game - I didn't even hate it, I just didn't care and that was using Vampire Counts, my favourite army, who got a whole lot more functional than they are in 8th.
I get that KoW is a decent enough game but it feels bland compared to Warhammer - it lacks the extremes, which, while they were often the source of complaints were also a big part of the flavour of 8th. Mantic are just so brazen about it as well, which is a big turn-off for me.
I actually like some of the ideas in WarThrone, particularly the rules for the different formations, but it looks clunky as hell. It'll also take them about a thousand years to release the full range of books and stuff.
I really hope Swedish 9th takes off and becomes a thing, but realistically I think it'll be hard for it to be accepted outside of its own clique, much like ETC.
Bitterman:
That Avatars of War one coming online looks to be another possibility, but the rules are too clunky and inelegant to make a major impact, I think.Sadly, yeah. "If you're unit has more ranks than files it's a rectangle UNLESS it's twice as many when it's a line BUT if there's only three files then it's a column AND you can have a square (which doesn't have to be a square) OR it can be a ram...", and that's not even considering mob or loose, and they all have different rules for shooting, combat and morale... I pretty much checked out at that point. Clunky is the word.
GodHead
What's wrong with just having ranks and files, and letting the behaviour arise naturally? Wide units get lots of shots if they have missile weapons, but are fragile in combat and slow to manoeuvre. Deep units are more resilient but put out fewer attacks. Really simple, and you don't need umpteen different formation rules to handle it.
BTW, for me, KoW goes far too far in the opposite direction... formation doesn't matter at all (in fact you can't change formation during the game, formation is part of the unit stat). Warhammer Lite is a very good description of it. Does not appeal to me at all.
Warhammer hit the right balance - not that it was ever perfect, and I didn't much like 8th; but it hit the sweet spot between so simple it wasn't worth playing, and so clunky you'd never finish a game you started. Because I didn't much like 8th, I've not played it in ages, and I really hoped a 9th edition would get it to where it had the potential to be. (I don't have any faith in a community version, either... most of the remaining community like 8th, because that's what Warhammer has been for the last six years, so the chance of them making a game I'd like is slim). Unfortunately we'll never get a proper 9th Ed, with GW delivering AoS instead. The less said about that mess, the better.
Sad times. Oh well - there are other games to play. But it looks like my Warhammer models will be staying in their boxes.
Aequitas :
How about instead of saying this and this is better then the 9th age project we make a list of changes needed to balance the Chaos Dwarves army and make all our choices competative that way we can help make the 9th age version of chaos dwarves great fun for the people who want to stick with a game closer to 8th edition fantasy then moving to another system completely.
There aren’t a lot of vocal people at the 9th age forum coming forth with suggestions to balance our army. I myself am very new to Chaos Dwarves so some help from veterans here would be really appreciated.
The temporary fixes they went for right now are terrible (moving all warmachines to rare for example) so please help out with suggesting proper changes.
cornixt:
They have made so many changes that it seems they have already lost sight of what they set out to do.
Thommy H:
It’s almost like the online community don’t know better than GW…but that can’t be right, can it?!
Grimstonefire:
Many moons ago I worked on a project for a number of months to try to bring internal balance to a number of 7th ed armies (DoC, WoC, VC, DE) but we failed as a team because of a lack of tournament level players giving it proper playtesting.
This will go nowhere unless they can get those sort of people to playtest.
The other big problem was convincing everyone to have a very strict set of parameters to work within. Not adding or taking away any units or special rules. Only working within what already existed.
As to improving LoA, sounds like the best ‘improvement’ they could come up with for us would be to leave us exactly the same!