8th Ed. Only the 8th...

[shattershell]

Hello all! I've made a post in the Introduction section.

But essentially my gaming group in Sydney, Australia was based primarily around Horus Heresy narrative events. Over the years we've branched out a bit into Adeptus Titanicus and dabbled with Necromunda.

But over the last year many of us have started collecting 8th edition armies. We had a small series of relaxed events with 1000, 1600, 2000, and 2400 point games. I've enjoyed building up my lizards so much I now consider it my primary focus. And I never even played 8th until 2021!

Here's a sneak peek at my army- the council of characters leading my 1600 point force:

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Hello all! I've made a post in the Introduction section.

But essentially my gaming group in Sydney, Australia was based primarily around Horus Heresy narrative events. Over the years we've branched out a bit into Adeptus Titanicus and dabbled with Necromunda.

But over the last year many of us have started collecting 8th edition armies. We had a small series of relaxed events with 1000, 1600, 2000, and 2400 point games. I've enjoyed building up my lizards so much I now consider it my primary focus. And I never even played 8th until 2021!

Here's a sneak peek at my army- the council of characters leading my 1600 point force:

View attachment 114055

Fantastic paint job and great choice of gaming system!

Take a look at the first page of this thread and tell me where I should slot you into knighthood!

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Just added @Padre as a Knight!

Nice one matey!

 

[Padre]

Thanks for the invite! I still love 8th and play it when I get a chance.

 

[BrotherSutek]

A recent post by Nightbringer got me wondering.

Who only plays 8th Edition on this site?

(Anyone from the Eighth Edition for Life thread is welcome to weigh in! )

SO FAR:

1. Sacred Knights of the Divine Order (Those playing exclusively WFB 8th)

Myself, @NIGHTBRINGER, @The Great White Lizard, @Knoffles

2. Inner Circle Knights (Those whose primary game is WFB 8th but play other games as well)

@ASSASSIN_NR_1 @Explodingzeb

3. Questing Knights (Those who play 8th edition equally among many other games)

@Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl, @Neersh @Lord-Marcus

4. Knights (Those who only dabble in 8th edition)

@Erta Wanderer @Padre

I would humbly request entrance to the order. My main game is 8th although to my shame I must confess a love of 7th edition Fantasy, Horus Heresy and Mordheim. The poorly written Tomb Kings book is the main reason I don't play more 8th, that and a serious lack of opponents. Inner Circle Knight is the goal of my quest.

 

[Lizards of Renown]

I would humbly request entrance to the order. My main game is 8th although to my shame I must confess a love of 7th edition Fantasy, Horus Heresy and Mordheim. The poorly written Tomb Kings book is the main reason I don't play more 8th, that and a serious lack of opponents. Inner Circle Knight is the goal of my quest.

But of course! Welcome brother to the Inner Circle of the Knights of Eight!



I totally understand the point on the Tomb Kings book. They're such awesome models with fantastic fluff, but are let down by their rules. But.. Being able to have an army of non-bad guy, Egyptian undead?!?! Yes please!

 

[BrotherSutek]

But of course! Welcome brother to the Inner Circle of the Knights of Eight!



I totally understand the point on the Tomb Kings book. They're such awesome models with fantastic fluff, but are let down by their rules. But.. Being able to have an army of non-bad guy, Egyptian undead?!?! Yes please!

They are what got me into fantasy. I loved the 6th edition book and as I say constantly, they are IMO the most balanced book GW ever released. Thanks to that book being so poorly done they were shelved for most of 8th and my Empire, Greenskins, Skaven and Dogs of War were my mostly used armies. High Elves were too easy as were my Dark Elves while Beastmen were fun but hurting as an army by this point. Amusingly that's why I sold my Dark Elves and Beastmen and am in the process of selling my High Elves. Dwarves and Lizardmen are also fun. Can you tell I had more money before marriage? Well that and building and painting armies fir others and being paid in models lol!

 

[Warden]

Hello all! I've made a post in the Introduction section.

But essentially my gaming group in Sydney, Australia was based primarily around Horus Heresy narrative events. Over the years we've branched out a bit into Adeptus Titanicus and dabbled with Necromunda.

But over the last year many of us have started collecting 8th edition armies. We had a small series of relaxed events with 1000, 1600, 2000, and 2400 point games. I've enjoyed building up my lizards so much I now consider it my primary focus. And I never even played 8th until 2021!

Here's a sneak peek at my army- the council of characters leading my 1600 point force:

View attachment 114055

Those look great!

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

I would humbly request entrance to the order. My main game is 8th although to my shame I must confess a love of 7th edition Fantasy, Horus Heresy and Mordheim. Inner Circle Knight is the goal of my quest.

You should feel no shame toward appreciating 7th Edition Fantasy, if it wasn't for certain overpowered army books the Edition would have been fine (but then the same can be said for 8th ), and if 6th Edition books are used with it it's fine anyway. On the contrary, I'm pleased there are still some other appreciators of the 2006-2010 edition out there. I set up a thread to discuss non-8th Editions of Fantasy here if you're interested in some 7th chat. It's in need of some additional contribution!

Also there's nothing wrong with Mordheim at all, the original Fantasy skirmish ruleset is something I should consider looking into - as I have the models for it and @Warden's Mordheim batreps look so appealing, it's a no-brainer!

The poorly written Tomb Kings book is the main reason I don't play more 8th,

I am in the process of completing an erratum for the 8th Tomb Kings book that gives it a power-up to compete with the armies that had later and more favourable book releases. I'll tag you when it's done and I'd be most interested to hear your views on it.

They are what got me into fantasy. I loved the 6th edition book and as I say constantly, they are IMO the most balanced book GW ever released. Thanks to that book being so poorly done they were shelved for most of 8th and my Empire, Greenskins, Skaven and Dogs of War were my mostly used armies. High Elves were too easy as were my Dark Elves while Beastmen were fun but hurting as an army by this point. Amusingly that's why I sold my Dark Elves and Beastmen and am in the process of selling my High Elves. Dwarves and Lizardmen are also fun. Can you tell I had more money before marriage? Well that and building and painting armies fir others and being paid in models lol!

Sad to hear you sold your Beastmen and threw away your chance for membership in the Coven of Lustrian Beastlords .

I could have helped you there too with my exploration of different ways to play the True Children of Chaos - as well as the 7th book with Marks from Glottkin I am planning a list using the 6th Edition Beasts of Chaos book with an erratum written by EEFL's own KevinC, and a full-on 8th Edition book for Beastmen is in the pipelines. As you're still a Beastman fan even though you've sold your army, I'll still tag you when I have completed it, if you'd like to provide your own feedback.

 

[BrotherSutek]

You should feel no shame toward appreciating 7th Edition Fantasy, if it wasn't for certain overpowered army books the Edition would have been fine (but then the same can be said for 8th ), and if 6th Edition books are used with it it's fine anyway. On the contrary, I'm pleased there are still some other appreciators of the 2006-2010 edition out there. I set up a thread to discuss non-8th Editions of Fantasy here if you're interested in some 7th chat. It's in need of some additional contribution!

Also there's nothing wrong with Mordheim at all, the original Fantasy skirmish ruleset is something I should consider looking into - as I have the models for it and @Warden's Mordheim batreps look so appealing, it's a no-brainer!

I am in the process of completing an erratum for the 8th Tomb Kings book that gives it a power-up to compete with the armies that had later and more favourable book releases. I'll tag you when it's done and I'd be most interested to hear your views on it.



Sad to hear you sold your Beastmen and threw away your chance for membership in the Coven of Lustrian Beastlords .

I could have helped you there too with my exploration of different ways to play the True Children of Chaos - as well as the 7th book with Marks from Glottkin I am planning a list using the 6th Edition Beasts of Chaos book with an erratum written by EEFL's own KevinC, and a full-on 8th Edition book for Beastmen is in the pipelines. As you're still a Beastman fan even though you've sold your army, I'll still tag you when I have completed it, if you'd like to provide your own feedback.

Thank you! The irony of 7th edition for my was that the main armies I ended up playing at the time were the Tomb KIngs and Wood elves, both obviously were 6th ed books! The selling of armies was mostly due to the death of the game in my area, I had been so close to having every army as a playable force and then they blew up the world. Beastmen went to a friend who still plays them, Dark Elves went to ebay as did the Chaos Dwarves and Ogres. Chaos Daemons and Chaos Mortals sit on a shelf and wait for me to get motivated to paint them, sadly the Daemons are on borrowed time.

Tomb Kings are what got me into the games as I previously mentioned and as an experiment my group and I used the 8th book in a 7th ed game, only the no charge with magic and tunneling was changed to 7th ed standard. I still missed the old magic however the monsters were amazing! a sphinx that str 3 can't hurt! I had so much more fun and the army could hold it's own and then some. Not DoC level strong but it was really fun. I look forward to you errata. One big issue I always had in 8th was that the Tomb Heralds and Necrotect were practically useless. The necrotect in particular was annoying as it was a cool idea but as it was usually killed before it's benefits came into play I stopped even looking at it as a choice. I am a dual casket user and would like to hear your perspective on the working of the light of death. By rules it can only affect a unit once per turn however this seems like sloppy writing IMO as it looks to be intended to stop the individual casket from double hitting a unit and not a separate one. In my group they allowed the second casket to work but outside of us we went with only once as people thought it was overpowered...usually VC armies .

 

[Blastoize]

@shattershell Wow I love that colour scheme! I wish my priest looked half as good xD

For the thread itself: Even when I played I only played a little. Had a friend group whom I played with (around 3-4 ppl) and had a tournament here and there. But mainly we played for fun. Started around 6th ed and followed the rules from there. Needless to say we gravitated to 8th ed. at the end and stuck with it for a long time. (6th and 7th I played only few games in total and I played Skaven at that). I picked up LM at the end of 7th, start of 8th and couldn't complain.
When 9th age came around, we tried to swap, but internally played only few games. I also attended 2 or 3 tourneys of 9th (as people locally only play AoS, 40k and 9th age).
So you could say I like 8th the best, but feel like 9th is more balanced and competitive but less fun and homogenized to the core (every army feels the same).

Lets do 50/50 between 8th and 9th then .)

We haven't played for a year or two, but just last month we discussed a possibility of playing a tourney among our group, rules yet to be determined .) (8th, 7th, possibly 6th? Would mean a LOT of rule-checking though)

 

[Lizards of Renown]

@shattershell Wow I love that colour scheme! I wish my priest looked half as good xD

For the thread itself: Even when I played I only played a little. Had a friend group whom I played with (around 3-4 ppl) and had a tournament here and there. But mainly we played for fun. Started around 6th ed and followed the rules from there. Needless to say we gravitated to 8th ed. at the end and stuck with it for a long time. (6th and 7th I played only few games in total and I played Skaven at that). I picked up LM at the end of 7th, start of 8th and couldn't complain.
When 9th age came around, we tried to swap, but internally played only few games. I also attended 2 or 3 tourneys of 9th (as people locally only play AoS, 40k and 9th age).
So you could say I like 8th the best, but feel like 9th is more balanced and competitive but less fun and homogenized to the core (every army feels the same).

Lets do 50/50 between 8th and 9th then .)

We haven't played for a year or two, but just last month we discussed a possibility of playing a tourney among our group, rules yet to be determined .) (8th, 7th, possibly 6th? Would mean a LOT of rule-checking though)

Fantastic!

Welcome to the Knights of Eight as a Questing Knight!

 

[Lizards of Renown]

And so the Order grows...

 

[NIGHTBRINGER]

And so the Order grows...

And it isn't even an exhaustive list. There are a couple of forum members who we know to dabble in 8th edition but who have not put their name down.

 

[Warden]

Actually went through and finally read this thread (a bit late of course )

I have a selection I posted on EEFL a while back, with added recommended fixes:

• Personally, I really dislike the Horde rule, principally because from what I could see it was simply a money-grabbing scheme employed by GW to prompt players to feel forced to buy lots more models to bulk their units out just so that their armies can remain competitive. I can understand it if the rule was explicitly only given to 'light' infantry units like Goblins, Skaven and State Troopers, as it gives them a way to overcome their poor quality, but it looks particularly ridiculous when used in elite units like Chaos Warriors and Hammerers, because if so many models in those units can be mustered, they no longer then represent the 'elite' compared to their ordinary brethren (aside from profile differences of course). Also hordes gave rise to the near-unbeatable infantry deathstars. I always liked the maximum viable unit size of 25 infantry, maybe 30 if you're pushing it, in 7th Edition, and my units remain at those sizes largely for that reason, but 8th works equally well for these too which is a relief Recommended Fix: Disallow the Horde bonus. I do this anyway when playing 8th and it works fine.
• The fact they sacrificed the viability of non-Monstrous Cavalry in favour of infantry sucks. They should have given some decent mechanic to cavalry as well to balance out the two troop types, instead it's been a history of never getting that balance quite right. Recommended Fix: Giving all cavalry Impact Hits (1) would make a whole lot of sense if anybody's played the Total War games. Gives them a bit more hitting power with little risk of making units broken.
• I don't like premeasuring, other than for essential situations like checking when rules like Frenzy and triggering Fanatics occur. Recommended Fix: Not premeasuring unless it's required to do so! I do this anyway when playing 8th and it works fine.
• The balance isn't bad in friendly gameplay for the most part, but the competitive scene really shows the dark side of this edition, in particular the idea that some armies have real trouble beating others, and it's unbelievable GW didn't suspect there was something wrong (Warriors of Chaos, I'm looking at you again, and Dak Elves too). The fact that GW conveniently chose to avoid giving Beastmen and Bretonnia 8th Edition releases, yet Dark Elves and Warriors of Chaos both got two (one with the book and another with additional models), and to give Tomb Kings their 8th book early on as a guinea pig so they could revise the undead magic for their Vampire Counts book later rather whiffs of faction bias (alongside the fact they gave Vampires a 7th Edition book yet didn't for Tomb Kings). Not to mention the clear absence of support for Chaos Dwarfs bar a piddly Forge World micro-list. Fortunately given the game has now passed into the hands of us fans, it means we can provide erratas and even updated books for armies that are suffering to fix some of the worst mistakes GW made, but the fact that we seem to be doing a better job of it than GW ever did shows they need to work on that part of their games development business (though very recently they've started releasing free PDFs that actively balance factions that have developed an OP streak in 40K and AoS, meaning maybe they've finally cracked it). Recommended Fix: I assume by 'gimping' you mean nerfing? Because if so I will keep nerfing to a minimum, because I wouldn't be best pleased if any of my armies were nerfed for no good reason and don't want to provoke that feeling in anyone else. However I will not stand for Beastmen, Bretonnia and Skaven to go without 8th Edition books so am writing my own (because I CAN), and Greenskins and Tomb Kings are also struggling so deserve a little boost to level the playing field a bit more, and will be given an erratum each. All other factions will be left pretty much as they are.
• Personally I thought changing magic items so that they were mostly generic and each race only had a few unique items was a step backwards, boring and less thematic. At least I can still make unique runic items for my Dwarfs, but all other factions that got an 8th Ed book suffer from this. Recommended Fix: Using the Magic Item lists from the complete set of 7th/6th Edition books and the 7th Edition rulebook before the first 8th army book was published, suitably errata'd, except for Dwarfs whose Runic Item mechanic was preserved? Certainly I think that would be less risky than devising new replacement sets of rulebook and army book magic items.
• A more recent one I've thought of is the fact that 8th made casting magic uniform for all the factions, compared to 6th, and to a lesser extent 7th, where some factions had different ways of casting magic (Tomb Kings had entirely Bound Spells, Ogres knew all their spells but the casting value of a spell doubled each time it was cast, Greenskins having their own Miscast chart in 7th e.t.c). Again I think this was a step backwards and sacrificed some of the fun nuances about the different factions. Recommended Fix: I've been thinking about how this could be done for a while, using 8th Ed magic rules but spicing up things like Magic Dice generation, Channelling, Miscast charts, e.t.c for different races to make the gaming experience for each race more unique. For instance, I like the idea of races where casters are always trying to outdo each other (Warriors of Chaos, Skaven) each rolling 1D6, (1D3 when dispelling) to generate their own pool and only being able to use dice from their own pool to cast and dispel, with Skaven wizards being able to scoff Warpstone Tokens to boost their casting values (at the risk of getting a more entertaining result on the Miscast Table if they get Irresistible Force) and Chaos Sorcerers getting casting bonuses from their own Eye of the Gods table if they please the gods by doing well, and penalties on an Ire of the Gods table if they mess it up. Tomb Kings getting all bound spells again and Ogres knowing all their spells but doubling the casting value of a spell each time it is cast are also fun things from 6th Edition that would be great to bring back. Well, with all my talk of balancing units I have to do something else to make my revised edition of the game fun and stop it going a la 9th Age.
• Bound spells were made pretty much pointless other than giving you a bit more choice on what to cast. Recommended Fix: Return the Bound Spell rules from 7th Edition.
• I'm in two minds about the re-roll to failed hit rolls granted by ASF. On one hand it helps to balance regular Elven units who have to put up with Strength 3 and poor armour in return, but on the other elite units like Witch Elves and Black Guard and characters like the Vampire 'Blender lord' abuse this mechanic to high heaven. I wouldn't shed many tears if this was removed. Recommended Fix: Ditch that part of the rule, and replace the High Elves' current Martial Prowess rule with being able to re-roll failed hit rolls in combat if the opponent's initiative is less than that of the High Elf unit. Dark Elves have units that can spam attacks so they don't need the re-roll to be effective, and Wood Elves shouldn't be in combat anyway.
• Cannons were too strong. Recommended Fix: Using the 7th Edition Rules, but keeping the Multiple Wounds value as D6. I do this anyway when playing 8th and it works fine.
• Skirmishing wasn't Skirmishing but Open Order in this edition, which made little sense. Recommended Fix: Use the 7th Edition rules for Skirmishers. I do this anyway when playing 8th and it works fine.
• Not getting anything for charging except a measly +1 combat resolution gives you much less reason to charge except if you inflict Impact Hits. Recommended Fix: Allowing chargers to strike first again on the turn they reach combat, as per 7th Edition.
• Chariots not being able to march is pretty darn stupid given in actual history they could move at a walk and a gallop as per normal cavalry. I understand taking the weight of the chariot into account, but to nerf them that much is going too far. Recommended Fix: Allowing Chariots to march, but at a -1 penalty to the steeds' Movement to represent the weight of the cab. I do this anyway when playing 8th and it works fine.
• Actual Miscasts being wiped from the game completely and the 'Miscast Table' only being used to determine the after-effects of Irresistible Force irk my sense of perfectionism no end. Recommended Fix: Changing the name of 'Miscast Table' to something like 'Unlimited Power' table, any name that has more to do with irresistible magical power rather than bungling your spell. The alternative would be to bring Miscasts back, use the Miscast Table for it and do something else with Irresistible Force, but that would change the game too much. Let's face it, my previous changes have already changed the game enough...
• One nerf I would make is to return Leadbelchers to their 6th Edition shooting rules, because it makes very little sense that Ogres who have stolen other races' cannons can never misfire, yet even Dwarf artillery can. I noticed the 6th Edition rules get them to roll an artillery dice each, which makes more sense and gives added comedy whenever one of them inflicts D6 Strength 4 hits on their own unit as a result of misfiring. I don't think they should suffer Panic tests as a result of such casualties, as an addendum, because I imagine they would have realised by now that such wounds are an occupational hazard with mucking about with guns made by other races. Sorry @Lizards of Renown to bring such a nerf up buddy, but I'm concerned at just how lethal Leadbelchers are at shooting in 8th. A bit too lethal for my liking.

I enjoyed your post! I never cared for hordes (except for maybe skaven and orcs), I like several medium-ish units of saurus moving up the field instead of one massive blob.



Personally I grew up on 6th edition WFB and super loved that game. Played tons of games vs my brothers Wood Elves and Beastmen. Mostly with my Lizardmen of course, as I didn't truly start getting into my Bretonnians until just as the Old World ended We played many games of 7th and 8th before the world truly ended but never made the jump into AOS.

If my brother and I were ever to play a mass-battle Warhammer game again (haven't in years since we don't live near each other anymore), we would certainly play 8th so he can try out the updated Wood Elf rules that we never had a chance to play with, so he can bring his four Treemen onto the battlefield






.....THAT BEING SAID MORDHEIM IS AWESOME!



...and surprisingly so is Blitz Bowl!



Likely we will probably limit ourselves to more skirmish level games? They are fun, easy to re-learn on the fly, don't take four hours to play, and you don't need to transport a whole army to get games in. I see us playing these games more often in the future than 8th due to this convenience.

We are still very interested though, and plan to have a game with all his treemen and cavalry vs my Council of Slann someday too


....so I guess put me down as a Questing Knight?

 

[Lizards of Renown]

Actually went through and finally read this thread (a bit late of course )



I enjoyed your post! I never cared for hordes (except for maybe skaven and orcs), I like several medium-ish units of saurus moving up the field instead of one massive blob.



Personally I grew up on 6th edition WFB and super loved that game. Played tons of games vs my brothers Wood Elves and Beastmen. Mostly with my Lizardmen of course, as I didn't truly start getting into my Bretonnians until just as the Old World ended We played many games of 7th and 8th before the world truly ended but never made the jump into AOS.

If my brother and I were ever to play a mass-battle Warhammer game again (haven't in years since we don't live near each other anymore), we would certainly play 8th so he can try out the updated Wood Elf rules that we never had a chance to play with, so he can bring his four Treemen onto the battlefield






.....THAT BEING SAID MORDHEIM IS AWESOME!

View attachment 115777

...and surprisingly so is Blitz Bowl!

View attachment 115778

Likely we will probably limit ourselves to more skirmish level games? They are fun, easy to re-learn on the fly, don't take four hours to play, and you don't need to transport a whole army to get games in. I see us playing these games more often in the future than 8th due to this convenience.

We are still very interested though, and plan to have a game with all his treemen and cavalry vs my Council of Slann someday too


....so I guess put me down as a Questing Knight?

DONE!!!!

Welcome, brother, to the Knights of Eight!!!

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

@shattershell Wow I love that colour scheme! I wish my priest looked half as good xD

For the thread itself: Even when I played I only played a little. Had a friend group whom I played with (around 3-4 ppl) and had a tournament here and there. But mainly we played for fun. Started around 6th ed and followed the rules from there. Needless to say we gravitated to 8th ed. at the end and stuck with it for a long time. (6th and 7th I played only few games in total and I played Skaven at that). I picked up LM at the end of 7th, start of 8th and couldn't complain.
When 9th age came around, we tried to swap, but internally played only few games. I also attended 2 or 3 tourneys of 9th (as people locally only play AoS, 40k and 9th age).
So you could say I like 8th the best, but feel like 9th is more balanced and competitive but less fun and homogenized to the core (every army feels the same).

I find this interesting, because 8th feels more competitive and homogenised compared to 6th and 7th, where some races had unique ways of casting spells and resolving Miscasts and all had mostly race-specific Magic Items. Indeed it's rather ironic that 9th Age continued the trend that 8th started. I hope that TOW may reverse this and make each race more different and exciting to play compared to the others.

 

[shattershell]

I find this interesting, because 8th feels more competitive and homogenised compared to 6th and 7th, where some races had unique ways of casting spells and resolving Miscasts and all had mostly race-specific Magic Items. Indeed it's rather ironic that 9th Age continued the trend that 8th started. I hope that TOW may reverse this and make each race more different and exciting to play compared to the others.

As someone new to 8th over the last year, I'm finding it really enjoyable and flavoursome. It's not perfect, though. I do miss the delightful number of factional magic items I remember from playing 6th as a teenager. But that's more than balanced by the extra cool units now available. There were no Bastiladons or Troglodons in 6th!

8th might be more "competitive" in some ways... But I'm not sure. I play with a good group of friends who value modelling, painting, terrain, and narrative/theme. We enjoy discussing tactics, item combos, and list building, but aren't actually competitive. We also organise non-tournament friendly events where we encourage other attendees to prioritise making lists that will be fun for people to play against. These events also have a compulsory fully painted requirement. We tend to attract people who recognise that devising some brutally efficient list isn't particularly challenging or rewarding. Especially compared to having the spectacle of high standard armies on glorious terrain, having good banter with a chill opponent who isn't arguing over everything every rules interpretation dilemma!

I do agree that pursuit of "gameplay balance" can make a game feel a bit bloodless. From what I hear 9th Age is a little like that. Not sure. I hope The Old World doesn't go in that direction.

But ultimately I think it's most important what the attitude of your gaming community is. So far in my area we've managed to cultivate a nice vibe (originally in the 30k Horus Heresy system, but expanding to other games such as 8th). If any of your happen to be based in Sydney Australia, join us! Google Mournival Events!

Sorry for the little ramble there, but I just find this talk of different editions very interesting. Not sure if I have a typical 8th ed experience starting in 2021 with a friendly narrative/hobby focused group!!

 

[Lord Agragax of Lunaxoatl]

As someone new to 8th over the last year, I'm finding it really enjoyable and flavoursome. It's not perfect, though. I do miss the delightful number of factional magic items I remember from playing 6th as a teenager. But that's more than balanced by the extra cool units now available. There were no Bastiladons or Troglodons in 6th!

Without a doubt the additional units are the best thing about 8th, but I do think it's a shame that GW sacrificed some of the discrepancies in magic and most of the race-unique magic items in order to achieve that, to me that feels a little lazy, as if their intention with those moves was purely to speed up army book development at the cost of some of the fun.

8th might be more "competitive" in some ways... But I'm not sure. I play with a good group of friends who value modelling, painting, terrain, and narrative/theme. We enjoy discussing tactics, item combos, and list building, but aren't actually competitive. We also organise non-tournament friendly events where we encourage other attendees to prioritise making lists that will be fun for people to play against. These events also have a compulsory fully painted requirement. We tend to attract people who recognise that devising some brutally efficient list isn't particularly challenging or rewarding. Especially compared to having the spectacle of high standard armies on glorious terrain, having good banter with a chill opponent who isn't arguing over everything every rules interpretation dilemma!

I do agree that pursuit of "gameplay balance" can make a game feel a bit bloodless. From what I hear 9th Age is a little like that. Not sure. I hope The Old World doesn't go in that direction.

But ultimately I think it's most important what the attitude of your gaming community is. So far in my area we've managed to cultivate a nice vibe (originally in the 30k Horus Heresy system, but expanding to other games such as 8th). If any of your happen to be based in Sydney Australia, join us! Google Mournival Events!

I agree that if everyone just focuses on having fun and building armies that feel right with regards to the lore, 8th does work out to be balanced, and I applaud you and your group for adopting this approach, though from my perspective at least, having played 8th since not long after it came out, it looks as though 8th is the most easily abused by powergamers, with infantry horde deathstars, Monstrous Cavalry, 'laser-guided' Cannons, nuke spells, some particularly powerful Magic Items and characters and the movement of some Special units to Core being particularly exploitable. Ideally I would like TOW to enforce some additional limits to discourage this kind of behaviour, but of course nothing too drastic because, as you and others have rightly said, we don't want all the fun and faction uniqueness to be sucked from the game.

 

[shattershell]

I agree that if everyone just focuses on having fun and building armies that feel right with regards to the lore, 8th does work out to be balanced, and I applaud you and your group for adopting this approach, though from my perspective at least, having played 8th since not long after it came out, it looks as though 8th is the most easily abused by powergamers, with infantry horde deathstars, Monstrous Cavalry, 'laser-guided' Cannons, nuke spells, some particularly powerful Magic Items and characters and the movement of some Special units to Core being particularly exploitable. Ideally I would like TOW to enforce some additional limits to discourage this kind of behaviour, but of course nothing too drastic because, as you and others have rightly said, we don't want all the fun and faction uniqueness to be sucked from the game.

I'm not very experienced with 8th, but I'm pretty certain you're right that 8th is particularly prone to being abused by power gamers for the reasons you stated.

Now I think of it I did have a 2000 point game earlier this year with against Dark Elves. The guy running the Delves is a generally lovely guy, a really friendly and cheerful presence with good hobby skills when it comes to getting cool painted armies on the table. However he doesn't quite *get* the vibe of our events!

The game was basically his hyper-efficient Pegasus-mounted Sorceress devastating my two big Saurus blocks with Purple Sun of Xereus over and over. Adding in some bolt thrower and crossbow shots, all my poor lizards were wiped out at the end of turn 3 in exchange for less than a dozen Dark Riders....

( ._.)

It was an interesting and thankfully brief window into the crazy competitive 8th edition meta people discuss as being prevalent around 2014. I didn't mind it too much at the time. But if ALL my games were like that, I might not have such a rosy vision of 8th edition as a fun sandbox for themed armies and narrative battles!