Rule Monger: Cannon vs Mounted Characters

I love how the closest cannon crew member is
looking the wrong way. "They're behind you Doofus!"

This should probably be titled with the YATIMI8ED tag, but I didn't miss this. Everyone who ends up on the business end of a cannon seems to have though. Quite a few times now my opponent's disbelief has led to trawling the rule book for the tiny little sentence which covers what happens when cannons shoot at a monster with a rider.

In summary:
Cannon's are template weapons, they hit everything under the template, both the rider and the mount are hit simultaneously.

A Closer Look:

YATIMI8ED: Forests

When I started into 8th ed, I didn't really pay much attention to forests. I'm a Dwarf, I don't belong in them.
These points are what I took to the table *first*:
- With true line of sight in 8th edition, forests are not as effective at blocking line of sight.
- Infantry blocks do not suffer movement penalties through forests.

Which is fine, it's different from 7th. In 7th forests hindered your movement something awful. They had big 'stay away' signs on them for Dwarf blocks. Now you can trundle through forests with your infantry block.

In 7th you took it for granted forests block line of sight, in 8th they generally don't as it's true line of sight(LoS). Hooray for shooting at things through forests, it's now easier.

What? What's the point of forests now then? They don't hinder movement, they don't block LoS. Just what do they do?
Move into one and find out. Be warned 'bad things' might happen. And by bad things read: the forest might kick your ass.
This way forests are still terrain pieces you may want to avoid, and so still have a big effect on gameplay.

In most games I've played in 8th people avoid forests like the plague.
"No no, it's scary and it'll kill my unit".

I've had the same attitude, until I was forced to move into a forest.

I had two blocks just behind and to the right of the forest: Hammerers and Warriors with GWs. If I had ignored the forest and marched straight ahead, turning to face the Empire spearmen block, it would have taken too long and the SteamTank would have flanked me. I probably would have set my GW unit up for a flank charge from the spearmen while trying to avoid the forest.

Instead, I moved into the forest and reformed to face the steam tank the next turn. At the same time I sent the Hammerers after the spearmen. I was hoping that the SteamTank would have issues with difficult terrain and that the forest would not do terrible things to the GWs.

If you go down to the woods today, you're in for a big surprise...

The GW unit bravely went into the forest, and I rolled the Fungus Forest.  My unit is now stupid, but as a result is also Immune to Psychology.

Woo! All I wanted to do was stand there and wait for the steam tank anyway, and now I don't even have to roll for the terror test (SteamTanks cause terror).

Except that: a unit in a forest is never steadfast (unless it has stubborn).

Darn, it turns out we played that scenario wrong. I lasted longer than I should have against the steam tank because I was counting ranks for steadfast.

What's the worst that could have happened?
Let's check.
p119 Forests:
[paraphrasing...]
1 ordinary forest
2 Abyssal Wood - your unit causes fear
3 Blood Forest - spells by or at a unit in the forest make the unit suffer D6 S4 hits
4 Fungus Forest - unit is stupid
5 Venom Thicket - unit has poisoned attacks, but must make dangerous terrain test to move
6 Wildwood - at end of movement phase, 4+ = D6 S4 hits

2 forests are good results - ordinary & abyssal
2 are potentially good & bad - fungus & venom
2 are bad - wildwood and blood

What's the full list of forest affects:

• cavalry, monstrous cavalry & chariots make Dangerous Terrain tests
• soft cover against shooting
• a unit in a forest is never steadfast (unless it has stubborn)
• skirmishers gain stubborn

As a Dwarf player, what does all this mean to me?
I would say:

• don't move into forests you expect to fight in, you won't have steadfast
• you will have rank bonus
• this might not matter as much if you're expecting to win via GWs & wounds anyway
• don't be afraid to setup warmachines in a forest
• no difficult terrain test as long as they don't move
• soft cover is good (it potentially removes ranged poison attacks, if they need 7 to hit poison doesn't count)
• they'll be afraid to come to you (difficult terrain, plus possible forest effects)
• pretty much every forest except for the wildwood is good for you. Fungus might not be so great. Blood forest might not be, but only if the enemy wizard is targetting your warmachine in the magic phase.
• with true line of sight in 8th edition, forests are not as effective at blocking line of sight
• infantry blocks do not suffer movement penalties through forests

YATIMI8ED: Magic Resistance

Armour of +1 Magic Resistance

I totally haven't been paying attention to Magic Resistance.
In 7th ed it used to give you bonus dice to dispel spells targeted at the unit with the Magic Resistance.

Completely different in 8th Ed, and unfortunately less powerful as now it only helps against spells which deal damage and not against all spells. No help against de-buffs such as Lore of Shadow 'Withering' spell which reduces a stat to 1.
EDIT (22/03/11 16:35): 
It would help with spells like Lore of Shadow's 'Pit of Shades' which states that it is a direct damage spell.
PoShades explicitly states that no saves of any kind are allowed. Bad example. MR only helps with anything that causes hits or wounds on your models.

Magic Resistance p72
[paraphrasing] gives a ward save to the model against damage caused by spells. 
MR1 = 6+ ward save
MR2 = 5+ ward save
etc.
This is cumulative with any ward save the model already has, but only against damage caused by spells.
If a character with MR joins a unit, the unit benefits from the MR.

As a Dwarf player, how do you give a unit MR?
I think Oath Stones and Runes are the only way (assuming no named characters).

• Oath Stones give you an MR(1)
• Runic Standards: Rune of Sanctuary (15pts) give you an MR(1)
• Runic Talismans: Rune of Warding (15pts) gives you an MR(1)

All of these are cumulative, though you won't be able to combine the Oath Stone and the Rune of Warding (see Oath Stone gotchas).

Do any of you build Magic Resistance into your army list?
If so do you find it useful? Worth the points?

YATIMI8ED: Casualties are taken from the back

When looking into order of striking recently I realised I hadn't covered the whole 'casualties are taken from the back' thing in 8th ed just yet.

Removing Casualties (p5)
...casualties are taken from the back of the unit

Sounds simple.

Nurgle core troops are
hard bastards.

For example, a unit is charged, it has Great Weapon's so it strikes last. Then chargers kill the ENTIRE front
two ranks - normally by 7th ed rules the GW unit DOES NOT get any hits back - not any more.

IF that GW unit has enough figures left, and they are in contact with the chargers then they get to roll to hit.

If have 5 ranks, and the entire 2 front ranks die in the first round of combat, you still have 3 ranks and they all get to attack.

This means the weaker horde units (Skaven Slaves) will be able to hit back in any given round of combat - assuming they have some actual models left.

It also means a horde of weaker troops can withstand and possibly beat (with steadfast) elite troops, when numbers are on their side. Gone are the days when elite troops could wipe out the majority of the weaker units front rank thereby denying them returning attacks.

Also gone are the days of the heavy cavalry charge - it may indeed wipe out the front rank of your unit, but the front two ranks? Unlikely. Even if it does, you should have more ranks waiting to wade in and do some damage.

All the more reason to carry a horde or two to any given battle.

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.

YATIMI8ED: Steadfast & Disruption

I was hesitant about naming this a 'Yet Another Thing I Missed In 8th Edition' because I didn't miss Steadfast. Honest.
I may have skimmed over Disruption though...

Steadfast
p54 Steadfast:
[paraphrasing] ...If a unit has more ranks than it's enemy, it takes its Break test on it's unmodified Leadership.

You can use your nearby General's leadership for this roll too. I really feel this rule has changed Warhammer quite a bit from 7th Edition, 8th is now leaning heavily in the direction of the large infantry blocks.

Oh gawd, all that unpainted silver hurts mine eyes

...so does the 7 ranks of Skeletons right in the middle there.

One example is large blocks of Skaven Slave units...

Volley : Firing in ranks > 2

In any shooting unit, the front two ranks can fire, so straight away that means gunlines are more compact.
It also means those nicely based up units of mine, which are one rank deep by 5 models wide have annoyingly become non-ideal. Time for some new unit bases.

So, Volley.

At this rate I'm going to start tagging these with : YATIMI8ED
(Yet Another Thing I Missed In 8th Ed.)

p78: Volley

Charging in 8th Edition

When reading warhammer the 8th edition rules for charging, I pretty much said:

"Yeah yeah this is the same as 7th ed, except for the dice rolls determining my charge distance".

Did you too make this mistake?

(uh oh, if I glossed over this when reading the rules, how many other parts did I gloss over?)

Of course, it may well have been just me and the usual suspects I play with which missed the following. I have a feeling a lot of said usual suspects were waiting for someone else within the group to read the rules and explain them...

There are two main things I missed. The charge order and the free wheel.

Fleeing units do not count for victory points

Up until now (this includes 7th ed) when counting for victory points we've always awarded points to the opposition for any units that are:

• less than half strength, 
• fleeing
• dead or fled

I spotted this the other day.  So, let's look a little closer at the rules...

Dwarf Hordes in 8th Ed

So far in 8th Edition Warhammer I've been happily playing with units 20 big. This post is me thinking out loud about using larger blocks to take advantage of the Horde rules, rather than talking from experience. i.e. I'm talking outta my arse.