8TH EDITION

[oglethorp]

i think most everyone is aware that 8th ed is coming this summer.

here are some rumors floating around regarding it. some of them suck...

http://www.warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=245869

[HiredgoonThug]

Orcs and Goblins in May.  Prepare to sell me your Greenskins again!

[Sergio]

im really tempted to take all the money im making on my dwarfs and go just drop it on 2-3000pts of dark elves.... but i think i need to wait to see how the magic system (and character slots/percentages) works out, if they're really revamping it as much as everyone thinks

but the percentages really doesn't sound that bad, since it looks like it might just put a ceiling on tooled up characters of death.

[oglethorp]

just buy a warmachine army

[HiredgoonThug]

I don't believe the percentages...  I hated that system, so it has to be what I want.

[DrunkenViking]

But O&G isn't that old, is it?

[HiredgoonThug]

It was the first book out in this edition.

[Sergio]

i would seriously shocked if it went back to percentages

GW has never struck me as the company that says 'well the old system sucked dick, but that was way back when, maybe it'll work this time'

[HiredgoonThug]

It also means we may have very odd sized units...  since I want 5 units of this I can only afford to make them units of 13!  Plus, most people suck at math.

[oglethorp]

and that would make it even harder for tournaments when you have to go over lists

[HiredgoonThug]

Won't this also hurt the HE book with the extra special and rare options?

I'd think if they wanted to fine-tune composition they'd just alter point values of units, or simply change the number each army can take, the amount of magic items characters can have, etc.

Probably a hundred better ways.

[oglethorp]

ON THE HORIZON
taken from warseer

8th Ed is to be released this year, however the rules are still be whipped around and changed, if such events continue, 8th ed is in danger of being pushed back in the timeline just like Ogres.

8th Ed Starter Set: Will contain High Elves and Skaven (From Steppingonyou, Harry and Nightsword)
Contents Known so far;
Plastic Griffon
New Plastic High Elf Spearmen
Plastic Silver Helms
Plastic Weapon's team of some sort for Skaven
Warpstone pile!!! its a objective marker. paint it green. No spiderweb wrapped slayer though.
Somesort of terrain is to be included in the starter.

Kits/ Army Books that are on the cards soon;
Wood elves and Brets not being redone anytime soon (saddly)
Tomb Kings are also on the horizon (with new minis)
New Orc Boys are coming (molds spotted being cut)
New Orc Book is on the horizon
New Orc Boar Boys
Splash Release Jungle Swarms(Buy enough and they'll get re-released, like the the 40k Laser thing)
New plastic squig herds
Plastic Savage Orc Boyz

Rules Changes


It has been said that army construction is moving back to percentages.

There have been not been strong rumours yet to support a specific % for each slot. However most people seem to believe it will be limited to 25& for Special and Rare choices, with armies always having to take 25% min core.

It is currently disputed wether the Slot System will be dropped.

Categories for core/special/rare are remaining.

40mm models moving to 3 model-wide ranks.


Magic

No longer are power dice generated by the number of spellcasters. The pool is now decided by 2D6. All Magic users add their magic level to the score rolled.

All Wizards have a chance to generate more power dice. - Avian

Irrestiable force will ahve a downside (Maye forgeting the spell for example)

If a wizard fails to cast spells (not counting dispels) in subsequent attempts he/she miscasts

Miscasts will be harder to have but much more devastating.

Dispel scroll will noe only add dispel dice (+2 dice to the dispel dice pool once per game). (This may be possibly just speculation)

Somepeople have said you may be albe to, "carry" over power dice, but holding too many power dice could have drawbacks.

All the book Lores will have more supportive spells than they have now, and will all be getting a major remake to fit in with the new edition. Each magic lore will get a SUPER speel like Curse of The Horned Rat for example.

Dispel attempts will be made by independent wizards, kind of like a magic duel.

There will be a higher chance of miscast if you multiple casters.

If a wizard fails to cast a spell, he cannot cast any more spells for the rest of the magic phase.

Giving irresistible force a downside

Double 6 = a miscast

Making miscasts much more devastating.

Something rumoured is carrying over power dice, but holding too many could lead to a ‘magic backlash’. Wizard will recieve wounds or hits if he didn't use the excess power-dice (than originally allocated) at end of the turn.

All the book Lores will have more supportive spells than they have now, and will all be getting a major overhaul. Each lore to get a mega spell.

Spells can be chosen, not rolled for.

Close Combat

There are 2 new rules to be introduced here; What I have named 'Stepping up', and a 'Horde' rule. - Harry.

What is 100% clear is that models in the second rank will have some role to play in most combats

Stepping Up Rule- Harry/ Avian

Basically how this works is that the second rank get to fight only if the guy in front is killed. But they only get a single attack regardless of what their profile attacks are, or what weapons they are carrying.

It is not yet clear whether special rules can be used in addition to this to this or not. (frenzy, hatred and killing blow etc).

No word has come on how spears will work in the new Edition.

In other news, cavalry will still only fight in 1 rank.

Eg; You have a unit of 20 guys, 5x4, 5 of which are in base contact with the enemy and 15 are not. The enemy strikes first and kills 6 of your guys. As you now have 14 models you have sufficient numbers to step up and replace casualties.

Because the front 2 ranks consists of 10 models overall, 6 of which are now dead, you still get to fight back with 4 models. In the next round of combat, the ranks are reset, so 5 models are in base contact, 5 in the second rank (capable of ‘stepping up’) and 4 in the third (remember, you still have 14 models). This time the enemy kills a further 8 models, leaving you with 2 models that get to fight back and a unit of 6. - "Grimstonefire"

"Horde" special rule
Fight in 3 ranks if 10+ wide (4 with spears). - Avian

Ony one save may be used against an attack now, just like in 40k. Youmust choose wether to use your ward save/ armour save.

Crush them! Special Rule
Creatures like Minos, Ogres and Trolls etc; will have a
dditional stomp/crush attacks. This is to represent there sheer size and them trampling smaller/lesser races underfoot. The bigger the creature the better the attack. These are not like impact hits.

There will be fewer armour save modifiers.

Shooting
Not much is known about the shooting phase but here we go!

Armour save modifiers will also be fewer here.

Archers will fire in two ranks, not just High Elves- Harry

Somebody suggested the removal of guess range from warmachines. (If this was you PM me!)

Psychology

Fear and Terror
When in combat, units or monsters will gain additional points to their combat res. As normal this will be added to the number of wounds caused by the Fear/Terror model/unit, as well as ranks, banners, etc. These bonuses may be cumulative between fear/terror causing things attacking a unit.
Autobreaking from fear or terror is gone. (And it's about time!- Deff)

[COLOUR="blue"]Missions[/COLOUR]
For guidelines on how these missions might look, check the GW Grand/Doubles tournament sceanarios.

There will be around 15 missions in the new rulebook. About 8 or 9 of the missions need Core units to capture objective, in addition to this units will require banners to capture objectives. Several missions had multiple objectives.

Victory conditions have been mentioned rather than "victory points".

Terrain: Difficult terrain may be merged with very difficult and envelop more things. Many presume more than affecting just movement, perhaps shooting or magic casting.

[COLOUR="blue"]Army Selection[/COLOUR]

* Army construction is moving back to percentages.
This is looking more like 25% max characters, 25% min core, 25% max special and 25% max rare (anonymous source, but trustworthy ) The 25% characters includes mounts.
* Slot system will not be dropped
* Categories for core/special/rare are remaining.
* There *may* be something to prevent spamming...
* There will be a system wide errata to clear up issues for each army.

Rumours that have discredited

Fight-until-someone-breaks
Lapping around
Weapons using the flame template or large or small blast templates automatically hit any model in contact rather than cause partial hits.

[HiredgoonThug]

A lot of confusing or weird rules speculations.

I don't know if there will be a new Orc book.  They are pushing the old book a lot online, in the mag, etc.  A lot of people will be pissed if they buy the old one and a new one is released soon.

[High Loremaster]

Regardless of what's true and what's false, it looks like 8th is going to be a pretty decent jump in playstyle.  Not quite the 5th to 6th jump but more than 6th to 7th.

It kind of confuses me, really, since I thought the 7th ed. core rules were actually pretty good, save a few things like magic.  It was the army books that screwed everything up.

And for those of you worried about Fantasy being dumbed down - GW themselves said the new rulebook will be 528 pages; about twice the size of the current book.  So either it either has a metric fuckton of fluff, art, and useless crap, or the rules haven't been simplified.

EDIT: Oh, and the best rumor?  Percentage-based armies, especially the 25% points cap on characters.  I'd rather fight a skeleton army than a Vampire Lord and his Hero posse.

[von Griff]

It kind of confuses me, really, since I thought the 7th ed. core rules were actually pretty good, save a few things like magic.  It was the army books that screwed everything up.

Couldn't agree more. Some of the army books did break the game, so now they have to release a new rules set to fix their screw-ups. I think they should release a game-wide update for each army, like a much more in-depth Ravening Hordes rule-set.  They really need to restore some balance, and this would be about the only way it seems that they could pull this off. Going by the rumors though, 8th ed. will be a good step in the right direction. I'm a vampire player, and I even agree, they desperately need to be toned down, along with daemons and dark elves. Then other armies need to be brought up to speed (O&G, Empire, TK, OK, Brets, Woodies).  At least down in here in Florida, the fantasy following has died off tremendously... If this edition doesn't fix the rules, they're gonna run the franchise into the ground...