Da Crusha:
Not quite. The biggest issue, at the moment, is that Blunderbusses simply don't make any sense the way that GW has written them. Five models, regardless of what they are, should never be able to potentially hit every model in a 50 man High Elf Spearman unit. At least dealing with frontage would require larger units of Blunderbuss to get the most out of them - like every other ranged unit in the game under 8th edition rules.
khedyarl
umm we're talking about dwarfs of chaos indy GT list right?
I'm not sure how any unit can 'easily' stay out of a fifteen inch threat zone.
khedyarl
long bows have a 30" range, regular bows have 24" range, handguns have 24" range, crossbows have 30 " range, the list goes on and on. fast cav with bows against Blunderbuss equals dead BB unit, the fast cav unit can easily stay out of range the entire game.
mattbird:
Any direct feedback from actual games using annihilators as written would be very helpful. While certainly very powerful in the right situations, I am not convinced that their rules need changing. There are now plenty of things in the game that are totally insane, and the Annihilators as written certainly have big weaknesses.
khedyarl:
The direct feedback comes from my six games at the OotB tournament last saturday and sunday. What I found is that I had to explain very thoroughly the rules for the Annihilators before the game, and even then, people were beginning to get upset when their unit of {in order} Chaos Warriors, Dwarf Warriors, Empire Spearmen, Clanrats, and Dark Elf Witches were cut in half from a single unit’s shooting phase. That said, equivilent points value of Empire Handgunners might be able to do as much damage {although, they would have a far larger frontage, and be more difficult to bring to bear}. I won’t argue that they are overpowered, because I don’t think they are. They are fairly expensive as far as ranged units go, with a relatively small range. But the unit is so far outside the paradigm for any ranged unit in the game, that it seems to make people very twitchy when they go up against them - something I would certainly rather avoid whilst using an Army List that isn’t really official.
What people end up seeing, is a unit that only has to be five wide, three deep, to be able to do ludicrous amounts of damage. Of course, a lot of the time we will have more, in order to soak up casualties, but it seems very wrong that we get zero use out of Annihilators over fifteen models, or over fifteen models wide, especially with the way ranged units are treated in 8th edition.
I suppose the reason I’ve been pushing so hard for the change, is that tournament. People absolutely loved the army. They loved the Lamassu, the Inferno Golems, the Eruption Gun, all the weird things, the Annihilators stopped them cold. Every discussion I had at the pub saturday night revolved around Annihilators, and how they needed to be changed.
Five out of six games at the tournament, they were very unhappy with how the Annihilators worked {one guy demanded to see the rulebook, figured I was misusing them I guess}. The sixth game, they were terror-bombed off of the table, so I didn’t get any evidence out of that game.
elrodogg:
We’ll need to put together a chart of what unit types every entry is. Bullcentaurs should be cavalry, just like their centigor cousins. Everything else is fairly explanatory.
Blunderbusses - don’t need a change. they are fantastic if played correctly. I can’t wait to see them shoot at a unit 80 goblins. if played poorly they get charged by something that will either shrug off their fire or force them to flee.
Magic Items:
-Banner of demonic tides - needs a new spell - there aren’t really any movement spells around, perhaps windwall? Or just give it the effects of the old unseen lurker without the name.
-Demon Bane - the spell it casts had it’s name changed from Burning Gaze to “Shem’s Burning Gaze”
-Icon of dark brotherhood - should be changed to reflect new wording in 8th ed - Hatred (Dwarfs)
-Holocaust cloak - just change it to a straight +1 to casting
FAQ Questions
Does a mounted character with the shard of obsidian make his mount immune to spells?
elrodogg:
But the unit is so far outside the paradigm for any ranged unit in the game, that it seems to make people very twitchy when they go up against them - something I would certainly rather avoid whilst using an Army List that isn't really official.
khedyarl
I don't feel that is the case in 8th edition. There are now so many untis that either from shooting or from magic that hit entire units or virtually entire units that people's perception will change. There are several spells where every model in a unit suffers a strenght test or initiative test or what have you. Large templates with no partials also do something similar.
I guess my point is that people's opinion of that unit will change as they learn the new edition and the army as well.
mattbird:
re: annihilators, my gut is to bring them in line with 8th ed, something like so:
str 4
18" range
Volley
Move or Fire
+1 to hit (or make annihilators BS 4)
and just call it a day at that.
I am not really concerned with whether they are too good or not, as most of 8th edition is pretty out of balance as it is. But I would like to clean things up if possible, and avoid situations like the above where people have a negative view of the (admittedly) oddball rules…
thoughts?
Thommy H:
Yeah, multiple ranks (which is what I assume Volley is?) is the way to go with blunderbusses.
mattbird:
yeah, past the 2nd rank, half the models per rank (rounding up) may fire as normal. So a 5x4 unit would have 16 shots.
Grimstonefire:
I think you should be careful of making them +1 to hit, because no other unit with handguns (which is effectively what this is) can volley fire at all.
Keeping the rules as close to a handgun as possible is the simplest way though in principle, I agree.
mattbird:
Wood Elf longbows are similar, and much much better than what I posted above, which is definitely a downgrade from where they are currently.
Note that the +1 to hit would replace the “no to hit penalties” that they currently have, so the net result is similar to the current rules?
elrodogg:
If you are going to change it, then I would recomend the following:
18" range
s3(+1/rank max +2)
armor piercing
no penalties for long range
volley fire
10pts each (keep their BS at the regular dwarf level of 3). You want them to be hitting a target in the open on a 4+, but cover should be taken into account (afterall hiding behind a tree helps one against a wall of lead). bs3 with no long range penalty is fine.
One thing I would steer clear of is move or fire. That’s a mechanic which ony works on long range weapons, not on medium or short range ones.
richard barby:
i think thy need to be kept as they are maybe even getting rid of the -1 to hit on the charge
there one of the games best cases of a rock paper sissors army being rock they have setter sissors to shoot at but paper( knight gaints flyers still makes a big mess of them)
blunderbusses are one of the games more unique units please keep them unique and every army has something small that can draw its fire to save the blocks if you use it right
clarifcation on min core does it have to be all choas dwarfs or just some choas dwarfs with hobgoblins counting as min core. what i feel would work is min core can be mixxed but half must be choas dwarfs ie 2400 game 600 points in core you have to spend 300 on choas dwarfs at least and make up any shortfall with gobbos. its give you more freedom when building an army you may only want 2 units of choas dwarfs and to make up the rest in wolf riders or you amy want 4 massive blocks of warriors
choas dwarves and dwarves should hate each other. hate should of been a rules since 3rd ed when choas dwarves come out
Shakhorth:
I rather like the blunderbuss rules as they are. After playing some games with them it’s obvious what their strength and weakness is. Yes you got the power of wiping big units, but the smaller the unit the less effective they become. What I like the most is their ability to move with the troops and ‘suppress’ the area before your troops charge in. Plus they are still dwarves and can easily hold their own in a fight. Should you really want to change anything about them, it would be a slight increase in range. Not much, perhaps only 2 to 4 inch. But don’t make them into another rifle/bow unit. It’s a rather unique unit with some ‘strange’ features. It would be a shame to see them lose their individuality.
Now what we really need is the troop types. This needs to be clear cut. So we can implement the special troop type rules from the 8th edition. Mostly thinking about the bull centaurs and the inferno golems.
Also the thing that bothered me with the indy list, was the daemon engine quality on the earthshaker and death rocket. I agree it should be on the other warmachine, but the death rocket and earthshaker always seemed more like normal warmachine then daemon engines.
wizuriel:
I kind of like the fluff that Chaos Dwarfs use demonic engines. Regular Dwarves have runes and really stable machines, humans have crazy explosive but innovative technology, Skaven just have very deadly but very unstable machines, it is unique that Chaos Dwarfs have deomic engines. Plus going be the books that seems part of their fluff (forgot which book it was, but it mentioned that both earthshakers and doomrockets were demonic warmachines).
edit: I kind of like blunderbusses always hitting on a 4+. They are a fire and forget type weapon. If your hiding behind a tree most of the shards of metal might hit the tree, but some might hit an arm hanging out or something still doing damage. Likewise would being a skrimisher really help avoid being shoot by a blunderbuss? RAI it seems they are meant to be some kind of hybird template weapon, so would use the same modifiers that effect stuff like breath weapons.
khedyarl:
re: annihilators, my gut is to bring them in line with 8th ed, something like so:
str 4
18" range
Volley
Move or Fire
+1 to hit (or make annihilators BS 4)
and just call it a day at that.
I am not really concerned with whether they are too good or not, as most of 8th edition is pretty out of balance as it is. But I would like to clean things up if possible, and avoid situations like the above where people have a negative view of the (admittedly) oddball rules...
thoughts?
mattbird
I think that retaining the flat-out 4+ to hit with Annihilators keeps some of the 'hail of fire' theme that the Blunderbuss has.
Would they be armour piercing, or simply leave them at S4, and let AP be the realm of rifles, and similiar?
I'm liking what I'm seeing, so far. I never did see Blunderbusses being able to move and shoot their enormous weapons.
Unzul:
I rather like the blunderbuss rules as they are. They are unique, don’t make them into another rifle/bow unit, yhey are great now… they are very strong with the horde, but against cavalery or other things they aren’t very good…
Malkyr:
Very minor, but you will need to errata the Sorcerous Exhalation ability of the Lammasu (p. 42) to mention that the negative effects of a miscast are ignored but the spell still goes off with irresistible force (assuming thats your intent).
maelzch:
At some point I’ll read through the book for the 8th rules and make a full set of suggestions, as I’ve been playing 8th for a couple of months now (my club got an early book).
One suggestion that I’d have, is how about giving the blunderbusses the ‘volley fire’ rule?
Thommy H:
One suggestion that I'd have, is how about giving the blunderbusses the 'volley fire' rule?
And it's such a good one that it's come up at least twice in this thread alone...
maelzch:
sorry, i must have just missed it when I skimmed over the thread (a little hungover today!)
I don’t know about others, but my logic for the volley fire thing is that is one less unusual rule to explain to someone when you start a game, which would make it easier for people to play against the CDs.
If my head clears up, I may even sit down with the indy gt book and the rulebook this afternoon to have a look what stuff needs changes for 8th