Monday, February 14, 2011

YATIMI8ED: Order of striking and Initiative in combat

In 8th ed the charging unit no longer strikes first (as it did in 7th ed, well, as long as they weren't carrying great weapons).

In 8th ed, the order of striking happens like so:
  1. Always Strikes First (p66 of rulebook) [ASF] Don't forget that Always Strike First gives a unit the ability to re-roll failed misses (to hit rolls) if that unit has a higher initiative (traitorous High Elves). The re-rolls can be used every turn of the combat!
  2. Initiative
  3. Always Strikes Last (p66 of rulebook) (i.e. Great Weapons[GWs]) [ASL]
There are a few more situations where this changes:
  1. If both units Initiative is the same, then striking is simultaneous
    i.e. both sides roll to hit and take wounds at the same time
  2. If both units have ASF then striking is simultaneous and neither side benefits from the re-rolls ASF normally provides.
  3. If both sides have ASL (i.e. GWs) then striking is simultaneous
  4. If a unit has both ASF, and ASL, then the abilities cancel each other out and that units hits based solely based on it's Initiative.

What did I miss? Well I didn't know about the re-roll stuff for ASF. That's a biggie, I'd assume High Elves are pretty kick ass now. To be honest it sounds a tad overpowered to me, working every round the way it does. I think it might not be as powerful as it sounds. With wounds being taken from the back (that'll be another YATIMI8ED sooner or later) striking first doesn't help that much against a large block. There'll still be plenty of models to hit you back. So to make up for that the ASF units get the re-rolls every turn (if they have the higher initiative). That kinda makes sense to me.

I thought for a while about taking a Master Rune of Swiftness on a character to get these re-rolls, but Dwarven characters all have pretty low Initiative. A Thane has an Initiative of 3, and a Lord has 4 so I'd say it's unlikely you're going to meet many units or characters which have lower Initiative. No re-rolling to hit for us Dwarves. Maybe rarely.

I had also missed the GW on GW action. When playing against the Dawi Zharr this happened, and we played it based on Initiative rather than the straight up simultaneous hits.

6 comments:

  1. It is a good rule to remember, not that it is likely to apply to dwarfs that often. Damn those prancy elves...

    That said, taking the MRoSwiftness isn't a bad idea being as it will stop them (High Elves, or anyone else with ASF and higher I) from getting the re-roll against you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ooo, good point. I hadn't thought of it like that. MRoS is what, 40 or 50 points? Still a tad expensive to never get those re-rolls but yeah, the fact that it'll cancel the re-rolls against you makes it better than nothing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Half that dude. MRoSwiftness only costs 25pts. A bargain, and against basic humans or saurus you'll be striking first.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wow! I stand corrected on both the cost and usefulness of the MRoS.

    ReplyDelete
  5. It is a nice little rune. Last edition it became the staple rune for a thane, which earned him the nick; 'Thane of Pain':

    MRoSwiftness, RoCleaving, RoStone, Shield.

    ASF, +1S, 2+ save in combat. You could even add the RoFury for an extra attack.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yeah I think I used to take MRoS, RoC and Rune of Fury.

    I'll have to check for 8th ed, but definitely for 7th if you take a rune weapon you can no longer get an extra bonus for "hand weapon and shield" in combat.
    (IIRC 7th Ed had the +1 for taking a shield, and another +1 for front facing combat with a hand weapon and shield).

    There's another YATIMI8ED article for me, go read up on shields!

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...