08: The Absolute Necessity of Restricted Composition, and Beyond, in The Old World

I've not had any big picture topics that strike me as worth writing about lately so things have been a bit quiet on that front. Over the last two weeks I have seen some simmering arguments about Composition/The Rule of 3 with regards to The Old World and been in a few myself despite my best efforts. In light of that I've actually pulled back from a lot of online discussion boards regarding the game, such as Reddit and larger Discords, because there is a ton of toxicity surrounding the game and I don't need any of that in my life. Instead of wading into the muck, I'd like to discuss why Composition of some type is 100% required to play The Old World and why the Rule of 3 is a good starting point.

The Old World - Vanilla

Before I dive into Composition, let's look at The Old World just as it stands with official materials. There are some limitations built into the game itself, this is usually in the form of either "0-X per 1000 Points played" or a Unit/Character being tied to another selection, such as Black Orcs and a Black Orc Character. It's clear that the writer/s knew that spam would be an issue in some description: I won't dive into my opinion on how good of a job they did with this as it's not important. My main point is that Composition is baked into the game itself, it's not an outside or foreign concept.

Of course the other limiting factor is how many points you can bring from Characters/Core/Special/Rare. These are very soft limits, with only Rare being something you'd run up against, although Armies of Infamy are a bit different as well. This limits spam in a way but a very hands off way, you can still make absolute filth within these restraints. Here is a popular online example:

• Engineer w/ Great Weapon (General)
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• 5 Thunderers
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Gyrocopter w/ Clatterguns
• Organ Gun
• Organ Gun
• Organ Gun
• Gyrobomber w/ Clatterguns

Under only the official rules, that list is 100% legal. It's also 100% impossible to beat, nothing in the game even has a chance against it. Now, you might be saying to yourself "Well, I'd simply refuse to play against anyone using that type of army!" and you'd be right to do so. It's an extreme example, the most extreme in fact, to hyperbolically prove a point. My retort to that reasonable statement would be "Alright, where is the line then?"

This is where the official army composition rules fall apart: where is the line? If the line is official rules only, then I can bring the above list to any Tournament or Event. If you participate in the same event, you are forced to play against it whether you want to or not, at best you instantly concede and are cheated part of the experience you paid for. While people often roll their eyes at "Tournaments", they're actually a very popular form of play even for casual or semi-serious players. Large events like the Las Vegas Open, Adepticon, and many more are hobbyist destinations, do we want those participants having to run up against extreme spam armies in the early rounds? Are they just sacrificial sheep for the competitive wolves, or would a more balanced approach narrow that gap?

Composition

Enter the term composition. This has been around for decades in wargaming, including older Editions of Warhammer Fantasy which use forms of it to this day. As a group, players and community leaders decided that the official rules didn't go far enough when it comes to restricting what a player can bring to the table. Some games still don't use any comp, and they suffer for it, such as Age of Sigmar, where spam lists often dominate the top tables. The renaissance of Warhammer 40K Tournaments came about largely because of comp, going all the way back to 7th Edition, and many rule sets simply bake some sort of tougher comp in these days.

A complain about comp is typically "But I can't bring my thematic list!" and that's a valid criticism. If a player wants to take nothing but, say, Glade Riders for Wood Elves that's not a competitive problem and is probably a very weak army overall. So why are they disallowed? Well, the simple answer is that there's no way to make a rule set that only targets the problematic Units/Models without digging into extreme and subjective detail. Maybe some players do think loads of Glade Riders is a problem while others don't, what does a Tournament Organizer do? No rule set will please everyone, but equal treatment across the board usually results in less grumbling, in my anecdotal experience and the experience of other TOs.

The goal of comp is to balance the game, not by changing units or rules but by forcing variety. There have always been, and will always be, units that are simply better than their Points Values indicate and TOW is rife with these. Necrosphinxes, Gyrocopters, Night Goblins, Dragon Ogres: it's a lengthy list. Bring those in line is the job of the publisher, Games Workshop, and I have always been against changing Points Values and so on because it ruins how people are used to their units working. If you play 20+ games where Dragon Ogres are Strength 5, and an event says now they're Strength 4, that's going to play with your head quite a bit.

This is why I'm in favor of comp that simply seeks to restrict or limit spam. If you're unfamiliar with the term, spam is when an army takes an out-sized amount of a specific unit, often with the exact same wargear. The list above is a dictionary example of spam, it's identified a "too good" unit and will cram them down the opponent's throat. My position has always been that even non-powerful spam is boring to play against, even if someone takes endless 10 man blocks of Goblins and I run through them that's not a fun gaming experience. I think detractors of comp glaze over this part of the argument in their mind and only focus on the tournament side of things, comp is just as at home on your kitchen table as the top table of a massive event. It's about enforcing a common rule set to better all versions of the game, while acknowledging that what two players do amongst themselves in a private game is up to them.

The Rule of 3 - Ups and Downs

While comp comes in many flavors, an easy to implement one over the years has been the Rule of 3 (Ro3). All this says is you cannot bring more than three of something, for any reason, ever. So for TOW, if you're playing Tomb Kings, you can't bring more than three units of Tomb Guard, Skeleton Warriors, etc. etc. While not perfect, the Ro3 is easy to understand and makes for a good starting point.

Let's look back at the Dwarf list above, how does the Rule of 3 change that army? Well, not much when you really get down to it. The Dwarf Player simply has to put the Gyrocopters into two units of five and one unit of four, they have just as many. That same is done with the Thunderers, they form bigger units but the number doesn't change. Now, those minor changes WOULD weaken such an army because it's easier to tie them up and plan where they can go, but I think a vast majority of players would still be unhappy to see it across from them.

There are several ways to handle this issue. My favorite is to simply have a Sportsmanship score for any organized play events. Sportsmanship is something that's sadly fallen by the wayside in recent years as competitive players often complain that they shouldn't be tied to a subjective rating when it comes to placement. I disagree and find that argument to be a smokescreen for bad behavior, over my anecdotal decades of tournament play I've never had a single opponent complain when I took a powerful army that was at least interactive and not spammy. People understand that some are there to play to win and some are there to just play.

Other methods either have to get into details of individual units, such as saying "No more than 3 Gyrocopter models are allowed per Army." This gets very subjective most of the time, for me, and rarely has there been a unit so powerful that this is required in most any game. I'm more a fan of attaching Points Spent or Unit Types taken to other slots, although that's still imperfect. I've found that TOW is a very difficult game to apply "fair" comp to because some models may form larger units, like Gyrocopters to continue the example.

One other idea that's struck me is tying multiples of a unit/model to the other points spent for that slot. Here's an example using Tomb Kings: 

• The Tomb Kings player wants to create an Army List with two units of Necropolis Knights. To do so, they must spend a number of points equal to the most expensive unit of Necropolis Knights, from other units in the Special Slot.
  
• If the player then wants a third unit of Necropolis Knights, they'd have to spend points equal to the two most expensive units of Necroplis Knights first, and so on.
  

This would allow players to run multiples of what they like, as long as they're mitigating it with variety. The downside is this is more complicated to explain and check for when it comes to running events, each Army has to be inspected in some detail compared to quickly scanning it and checking there's not four of anything. Ro3 flourishes in its simplicity but does well in games like Warhammer 40K where Monsters and Tanks aren't taken in units for the most part.

Final Thoughts

In my opinion, TOW is not a fun game to play in a competitive manner with the rules that are available. Before you snicker and say "Good, competitive players ruin x, y, z!" please note that wanting a serious, tactical play experience is not wrong and fracturing an already niche community with such comments is unwise. No one has ever insisted that private, casual games abide by any particular rules (official or otherwise), it merely helps to know what to expect when going to an event or scheduling a game with another competitive player.

Another counter-argument I hear is "The game is brand new, you don't know what's powerful yet!", I can only sigh at that. Many, many people have been playing these games for years and can instantly identify what is powerful and what isn't upon the release of the rules. If you aren't one of those people that's fine, but don't say a skill doesn't exist simply because you don't possess it. If anything, with the changes to TOW for topics like pre-measuring, a lot of skill has been funneled into creating army lists because there's less to practice. I'm not decrying that, it's just a fact of the game.

No matter what method is used, the rules we have right now are not up to the task of covering every style of play. Even community comp won't address all of it, nor should anyone go chasing down that infinite rabbit hole in search of perfection. Let me provide another list as an example:

• Archmage w/ Lvl 4, Talisman of Protection, Seed of Rebirth, Silvery Wand, Pure Heart, Moon Dragon
• Prince w/ Armor of Destiny, Seed of Rebirth, Lance, Star Dragon
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers
• 5 Ellyrian Reavers
• Lothern Skycutter
• Lothern Skycutter
• Lothern Skycutter
• Lothern Skycutter

Under Ro3, not much changes about this. The Reavers block up into some units of 10 and you drop 1 Chariot, probably just taking a Tiranoc or something instead. Clearly the main source of power comes from the two nigh-unkillable Dragons and nothing I've discussed would invalidate those. This is an instance where I favor Sportsmanship. Do you, as a player, think this list is fun to play against even with the Ro3? Would you welcome the challenge, or would it be boring and non-interactive? You'd get to decide, which will force competitive players like me to self-moderate and err on the side of caution if we want to aim for Best General or similar. Can that have drawbacks and might the TO need to step in if there's an off-score? Absolutely, but the community also needs to police that and very serious competitive play is not a wide circle, people are easily black-listed.

So that's my take on comp, why it's needed, and how it can be implemented. I'm always happy to hear other systems as nothing is perfect. My hope is that over time there is a competitive supplement for TOW, perhaps similar to what AoS and 40K get with new Scenarios and so on. If not, I'll be happy to 3D Print the Dwarf list from the start of the article and win events with it until a change has to be made. The best way to fix something is to show why it's broken, people rarely argue with results.

07: Marching Towards Proper Battle Reports (Beastmen vs. O&G - Pitched Battle - 1000 Points)

While the delays in shipping from Tennessee have prevented almost anyone in my State from getting their product, a fair few of us already have armies and have been pushing 1000 Point games to learn the rules. I was able to get another two of those matches in today, thank goodness I didn't stay home and watch the stupid Chiefs go to another Super Bowl. This time I was able to play against Orcs & Goblins, again, as well as Bretonnians.I'm only going to detail the O&G game as I forgot to take pictures through the Bretonnian one.

Beastmen

Wargor w/ Shield, HA, BSB

Bray-Shaman w/ Lvl 2

22 Ungors w/ Shortbows

25 Gors w/ AHW, Standard, True-horn w/ GW

25 Gors w/ AHW, Standard, True-horn w/ GW

5 Harpies

3 Dragon Ogres w/ HA, GWs

 

Orcs & Goblins - From Memory

Night Goblin Oddgit

Night Goblin Bigboss w/ GW, BSB, Armor of Meteoric Iron, Talisman of Protection

Goblin Warboss w/ Duelist's Blades, Armor of Silvered Steel

4 Snotling Mobs

10 Goblin Mob w/ Shortbows, Skirmishers

30 Goblin Mob w/ Full Command, Thrusting Spears

30 Night Goblin Mob w/ Shortbows, Full Command, 2 Fanatics

1 River Troll

Goblin Bolt Throwa

Goblin Bolt Throwa

Setup and Deployment

Before the game we setup the table, each placing two pieces of Terrain. This resulted in a Forest on my left, both near and far, a Hill to my right, and then some Dangerous Terrain on the far center-left. I won the dice off for Table Side and stayed where I was out of laziness, also having the Orcs deploy first. My Spells this game were Doombolt and Phantasmagoria while the Shaman took the Signature Spell Itchy Nuisance.

With everything said and done I had my Dragon Ogres on the right, hoping to roll up a flank thanks to the Terrain forcing the Goblins there to be a bit on their own. My Chariot went beside, eager to support or go left. The bulk of my army went on the center-left, some hiding behind the Ungors. Normally I would screen more but as this was a teaching/demo game, I don't like to play quite so seriously.

Across from me were the Goblins on my right along with a Bolt Throwers, the Shaman on his own, a single Troll in the center next to the Night Goblins, the Snotlings and another Bolt Throwers on the center-left, and then the Skirmishing Goblins on the left flank. Finally, I put my Harpies on the extreme right to go after the Bolt Thrower and avoid the enemy Bows. Having won the roll off, I take first turn and away we go!

Beastmen Turn 1

Knowing that I'm better in a fight, I moved forward aggressively without much re-positioning. Everything but the Ungors and the Gors behind them Marched, my goal is to keep a wedge between the left flank and the Goblins on the right, kill them, and then turn around to deal with the now BSB-less army. My Harpies hopped over the lines with a March, eyeing the Bolt Thrower next Turn or potentially the Shaman.

 In Shooting I failed to cast Doombolt but did cast Phantasmagoria, placing it in front of the Snotlings and hoping to make the Night Goblins Impetuous (which they somehow lack?) My bows do a few Wounds to the Snotlings as I want to soften up that tarpit. With that I end my Turn, having no Combats.

Orcs & Goblins Turn 1

Looking to delay and get some shooting done, the Goblins send forward the Snotlings, Troll, and Skirmishers while the bigger blocks hang back and watch the action. The Shaman fails to cast his Spell earlier (Dispelling mine) but the greenskin shooting was extremely effective. I lost 4 Ungors to Bows and Throwing Weapons while the Bolt Throwers pierced a total of 6 Gors! The dice were certainly with the Goblins when it came to ranged attacks, I needed to try my luck in melee. Fortunately the Gors didn't Panic or I'd have been in real trouble.

Beastmen Turn 2

Time for some Charges! I put the Ungors into the Snotlings, losing none from Stand & Shoot. I figure they'll be tied up together quite a bit, but I should usually win the Combat which means if I can Restrain going into my Turn, I can use my Shortbows again plus Stand & Shoot thanks to Quick Fire. Unfortunately I'd joined my Shaman to the unit, which means he wouldn't be able to do much magically. Next I hurled the Dragon Ogres into the Goblins, this was my ideal target since it meant no Fanatics to worry about and I can hopefully scoop up the BSB.

Next, my Harpies prepared to tear into the rightmost Bolt Thrower, hopefully they'd remain on the table and harass the Goblin Shaman or act as a Charge screen. Lastly, the shot up Gors and Chariot both Charged the River Troll. I realize now this was illegal spacing on my part, I needed to split the River Troll 50/50 as best I can between the two units, so apologies for that.

With no Shooting Phase due to me wasting my Shaman, we head right into Combat. I resolve the Harpies first, who easily eat the Bolt Thrower crew but unfortunately fail their Restrain roll and carry off the table. My Dragon Ogres likewise brutalize the Goblins, killing 10, but suffering 2 Wounds back thanks in part to the BSB. Thanks to Warband the unit Gives Ground, hopefully next Turn I can thin the ranks more.

Moving over to the Snotlings, I do a few more Wounds but don't kill a base and lose an Ungor or two in return. This is probably going to be a long Combat, I should have used the Gors for this job instead because of their increased Attacks, I'm just afraid of a Flank Charge from the Night Goblins. The poor River Troll is killed on my final attack, from the True-horn. I'm able to Restrain with both and avoid a nice counter-Charge, although that's still a lot of bows.....

Orcs & Goblins Turn 2

Having suffered a few losses, the Night Goblins decide to push their Fanatics out and aim for my Gors/Tuskgor Chariot. Once again the Goblin Shaman fails to cast, fortunate since I only have a Fated Dispel now. During Movement the Skirmish Goblins swing around the forest, intent to harass me, while the Shaman enters the Deadly Terrain but doesn't suffer for it. The Fanatics get their push and one pops through my Gors, killing 3, while the other stops short of the Chariot but is annoyingly blocking me.

Shooting is far less effective this time around as the Bolt Thrower goes wide and I only lose a single Gor from the remaining Bows. In Combat my Ungors get a little punchy and finish a Snotling while heavily wounding another, this causes them to Give Ground and I'm able to Restrain, now I can get a bit more done in my Turn with that unit. Goblins continue to go squish under the Dragon Ogres as I kill another 7-8 and only suffer a single Wound back. This causes the Goblins to Fall Back In Good Order (FBIGO)but I Pursue, giving me the Initiative advantage next Turn.

Beastmen Turn 3

Feeling like I'm in a strong position, I want to see if I can break the enemies back in this Turn. My Chariot has a long Charge to the Goblin Shaman and since the Terrain can't kill it instantly, I opt to take it. This would also let me Wheel and escape the Fanatic block the Chariot from the Night Goblins. My Gors Charge there, finally tired of being shot. I think the Night Goblins have the advantage because of numbers and their General but if I can soften them up then I can finish them with something else. Both Charges are made and I lose no Gors from Stand & Shoot.

For their part, the Fanatics move and one heads for the Hill on my side while the other moves back towards my Gors. If it hits me it'll pop through and hit the Night Goblins too but I'd prefer that not happen. Finishing my moves, the Harpies come back on and move up a bit while my other Gors March to threaten the Skirmish Goblins.

 

My Bray-Shaman casts Doombolt and is able to kill two of the Skirmish Goblins, my only target. Phantasmagoria fails to go off, but I pour more Wounds into the Snotlings and strip another base with the third barely hanging on. Combats go well for me but I make a mistake, resolving the Dragon Ogres first. They batter the Goblins down to just five models, including the BSB, but I finally lose a model in return. Once again the Goblins FBIGO, nearly off the table.

Next, my Chariot smashes the Goblin Shaman into the ground just with Impact Attacks, Overrunning into the Goblins. If I'd swapped the order of the Combats I likely would have killed the remaining Rank and File, forcing the BSB to Break instead from being outnumbered. New Edition, new rules, new things to remember. Lastly, my Gors kill 5 Night Goblins and I only lose 2 Gors although the unit only Gives Ground. My BSB is in a Challenge with the Goblin General, but both of us flub and no damage is done.

Orcs & Goblins Turn 3

While looking dire, the game is far from over. Straight into Movement, the Snotlings Charge back into my Ungors and my Stand & Shoot does maybe a Wound. I also forgot to detach the Bray-Shaman, again, but at least the unit is almost dead. After looking at what they can do, the Skirmish Goblins just walk backwards as they can't get out of my Charge Arc, even when Marching, which they also fail to do. One Fanatic does bounce through both my Gors and the Night Goblins, I only lose a model but 4 greenskins are crushed by the ball and chain. The other spins into Terrain and dies.

With absolutely no visible targets for the Bolt Thrower we go back to Combat. My Dragon Ogres and Chariot finally finish the Goblins but I don't get to run down the Banners. My Chariot Pursues off the table while the Dragon Ogres are able to Reform and start heading to the left.

In the big fight, once again the Challenge is a slap fest but my dice let me down and I do almost nothing with the Gors. In the end I lose the fight for not having a Musician, and fail both my Break Tests on an 11! I was then cut down, losing my BSB and allowing the Night Goblins away from my Dragon Ogres. Lastly I bring the Snotlings down to their last, wounded, base but fail my Restrain and have to follow up.

Beastmen Turn 4

Despite some set-backs I'm still in a good position and can hopefully mop up this Turn. The remaining Gors Charge the Skirmish Goblins, who kill 1 from Stand & Shoot, but I make it in. My Chariot comes back on and angles to threaten the Night Goblins while the Harpies ready to Charge the remaining Bolt Thrower next Turn. Likewise, the Dragon Ogres enter the Dangerous Terrain safely and ready to Charge or pursue. The last Fanatic kills itself with a doubles.

Combat is short and sweet, my Gors gain Frenzy from their Primal Fury and go berserk, hitting every single Attack and butchering the Goblins where they stand and Reforming to enter the Forest. Unfortunately they can't have done that, because of their Frenzy, but at least this mistake had no impact on the game. I'm finally able to kill the last Snotling base, Overrunning out of the Night Goblins Charge Arc, and we call the game there. I agree with this since in Turn 5 the Night Goblins are doing to eat four Charges or March to minimize that, in which case I do it in Turn 6 instead.

Post-Game

I'm upset with my couple of rules mistakes, it's only game two for me but I put a lot of time into reading the rules and if I'm helping others with their first few games I need to give them correct information. If there's anything else I didn't catch, from the images or descriptions, please let me know.

Otherwise I really enjoyed this game and it was nice to see more theories being played out as practical application. The one that jumps out at me is how long it took the Dragon Ogres to eat through the Goblins, yes they did have a BSB with them but I got bogged down. The Character and unit actually cost more points than mine, but it's a severe mismatch in my favor that took several Turns to resolve. In a larger game, if there was a Counter-Charge unit nearby, sending the Dragon Ogres in would be a poor idea.

Surprisingly to me, I really didn't like Magic with the Lvl 1-2 Wizards. They just feel so weedy: it's hard to cast spells, and you have so few options. I didn't want to take a Lvl 4 Wizard in someone's first game where they have no defense and I'm glad I didn't, but Hero Wizards are not it for me. Nice to have that one reinforced as I've been all about Lvl 4 Wizards since I read the core rules.

Putting the Bray-Shaman in with the Ungors was stupid, that's a hold over habit from 6th Edition Warhammer Fantasy that I will break. He can be near them, but not in them, because tying up a Wizard removes so much of its power. Dropping a Doombolt or two into the Night Goblins could have really changed the game for me and Phantasmagoria was useful defense against Fanatics.

I don't really talk about my opponent's play in terms of mistakes, I do think some choices ended up working against him though. The Dangerous Terrain splitting the Goblins apart made it easier to handle them piece-meal, otherwise I'd have to send the Dragon Ogres in a bit later which means more time they're exposed to Bolt Throwers. Pushing the Troll and the Snotlings so far forward also gave me some outs for shooting by blocking the Bolt Thrower at times and also let me get up-table faster with Charges.

Performance wise my army did as I hoped it would, Gors are great against other lighter Infantry and Dragon Ogres are good into almost everything. Prolonged fights with Initiative 1 is concerning but my hope is I can get enough FBIGO to maintain the Charge and also rely on their 3+ Armor Save, pairing a Chariot instead of having a third Dragon Ogre might be the play. My Ungors are likely going to move to smaller units, I liked the idea of one big one for various buffs that are available but as I found in my second game, having a wide screen has some serious drawbacks.

Moving forward I want to practice using the Ungors to screen from shooting more effectively, moving my Wizard around to avoid being shot at and tied down, and working on more supportive charges instead of one to one's. I'm hopeful that I can play a 2000 Point game by next weekend, I have almost all the models I need and would really love to see a fuller game play out, especially with the normal 6x4' table. So far The Old World is holding up as I'd hoped and the few rules questions we had were easily solved. I've heard almost nothing but positives from other locals as well, so hopefully many more Battle Reports to come.

06: First Games and Initial Thoughts

Today was the first time I was able to play The Old World: even with the delays in US Shipping both myself and my opponent (Matt) already had existing armies. The full ePubs went up for sale today as well, which means they were shot all over the Internet, and we were able to reference them during play with clear text and presentation. Very happy Games Workshop is selling PDFs for the Arcane Journals and so on, that way I don't to pay for them. Never pay for rules dear reader, never pay for rules.

Matt and I decided to play 1000 Point and we did two matches, since they were quick paced, although we used the same lists in both. I'm not going to go into detail on the army lists as this isn't a Battle Report, but here are the basics:

Beastmen

• Lvl 4 Great Bray-Shaman
• Wargor w/ BSB
• 25 Gors w/ Champion, Standard, AHW
• 25 Gors w/ Champion, Standard, AHW
• 15 Ungors w/ Short Bows
• Tuskgor Chariot
• 2x Dragon Ogres w/ GWs

Orcs and Goblins

• Lvl 4 Night Goblin Wizard
• Night Goblin Hero with a Magic Weapon (forget what it did)
• 30 Night Goblins w/ Full Command, Nets, 2 Fanatics, Spears
• 30 Night Goblins w/ Full Command, Nets, 2 Fanatics, Spears
• 10 Squig Herd
• 10 Wolf Riders w/ Full Command and Cav Spears

  

We played a simple Pitched Battle on a 4x4' Table, using some Terrain that we moved around between games. I'm not going to break down the games but instead highlight what we learned and some opinions I either formed, or feel differently about now. Once I'm playing proper games I'll do Battle Reports and break down everything.

You Absolutely Need the Level 4 Wizard

True to my article on Magic, the Lvl 4 Wizard felt totally necessary and I saw no point in playing with another Wizard. Magic didn't feel OP, which is a relief, but it was very impactful on the game. I used Dark Magic and Matt used Waagh! Magic, both of our Hexes were particularly impactful. My Spell to reduce Strength and Toughness by -1 was brutal on lighter things like the Squigs, allowing me to shoot them to pieces. Likewise, Matt had some nasty Spells and the Foot of Gork/Mork was particularly brutal, thanks to some luck as well.

The only thing I'm changing is that I think the Lvl 4 Wizard needs to have the Lore Familiar. Randomly rolling is too risky as there are quite a few Spells that simply don't matter in the game at hand. For example, in our second match I rolled Word of Pain, Stream of Corruption, Infernal Gateway, and Soul Eater. I swapped Soul Eater for Doombolt but was still left with a Conveyance Spell I didn't want and an Assailment that needs me to get into combat. This means I had two Spells I couldn't really do anything with, not ideal. The same happened to Matt, so our expensive Wizards were a bit less effective.

Marching Column is Semi-Useless

This is something I already felt like was true but Marching Column is not that useful and can actively be a draw-back at times. In my first game, I was able to Charge with a Chariot into one of the Night Goblin Units while they were in a Marching Column. This meant I easily won the Combat, only needing to overcome the Standard and Combat Order. Without the Ranks the Goblins also had poor Leadership, so they broke and were run down!

The reason I don't see Marching Column being useful is just simple math. To move back into Close Order, you have to Reform, which takes your entire movement. So if I have a Movement 4 unit, Turn 1 they March 12". Turn 2 they have to Reform, and can't move, so you move nothing. Turn 3 you can either March normally again, or Charge, or do whatever. Compare that to just Marching Turn 1 (8") and then either making a Normal Move or another March. At worst you get the same amount of movement, at worst you get more and have more options.

Marching Column is more of a situational rule for things coming in from Reserve or if the unit has gotten far away but wins a Combat and Restrains for the free Reform. Also, the math for Marching Columns get better the faster your unit is, which is a bit backwards since it seems intended to help slow units. So maybe if you're using a big unit of Fast Cavalry or similar you can run up a flank, then Reform and start shooting? Not sure, but it's a niche rule at best.

Edit: I was forgetful/ignorant of Marching Column not being a Formation, it's just how a units models are arranged. That means you can Marching Column up 1.5x your normal Movement, then Redress the Ranks and be in Close/Open Order. This makes Marching Column useful as a situational way to deploy a unit, although it's still risky when taking Turn 1 against an army with Fly or Cavalry/Chariots.

Marching Column on Turn 1 for a Movement 4 unit (average) means they move 12" Turn 1, and 6" Turn 2. Simply Marching twice, normally, would move the unit 8" in both Turns, so Marching Column nets you an extra 2", this gets better the faster the unit is by 0.5" per point of Movement. Since units are deployed before Turn Order is decided on I still find Marching Column to be too risky and largely useless.

Goblins Are Not as Scary as Expected, Fanatics Are

I was very worried that Goblins were going to take the game over simply because of how cheap they are, how good Anvils are, and their high Leadership thanks to Horde and Warband. In practice I don't think there's as much risk of that, even with Netters they just die in droves. Against a very similar opponent Night Goblins can get the job done, but even Empire State Troops and so on will still hit them on a 3+ and probably have better Armor Saves. In a 2000 Point list the units will have more staying power than my games at 1000 but they'll die just as much and are reliant on Spells going off.

Night Goblin Fanatics on the other hand are insanely hard to handle. I'm hoping it's a typo that they can be released in ANY Start of Turn sub-phase, since if you do then you will release them in the opponent's Turn and the Night Goblins are simply un-Chargeable. Are you going to take 3d5 S5, AP 3 Hits to resolve a Charge? No.

There is also absolutely no way to kill or otherwise effect the Fanatics once they're out. Scattering onto them is pure luck and not an option all armies even have, so the only other thing is them moving doubles or hitting Terrain, which is also luck. I find that to be extremely unhealthy for the game because numerous types of armies are completely invalidated by Fanatics: Cavalry, Monstrous Infantry/Cavalry, Chariots, etc. just can't really do anything against them. This means you can make an all Night Goblin Army, with a ton of Fanatics, and just take Short Bows. Your opponent can deal with endless Volley Fire, or come in and take a ton of damage from Fanatics before getting to see if they can then punch through and win. That's a problem anyway you slice it.

I think the Developers intended the limitation on Night Goblins, being tied to Chiefs/Shamans, to keep this in check. However you can easily just take a cheap as hell Night Goblin Bigboss (hilariously enough there is no such thing as a Night Goblin Chieftain, FAQ when?) which makes the unit even better and lifts the restriction. Competitive play is going to absolutely require further restrictions than the game's rules provide, which I was of the opinion of from the get go.

Rule of Three is a Must

I'm not only speaking for competitive play but casual as well: The Rule of 3 from other Games Workshop titles needs to be brought to The Old World. Anyone who plays GW titles knows that they are not balanced, never have been and never will be, and spam is a big part of that. As is, competitive play will boil down to identifying the best unit for its cost and taking as much of it as humanly possible. Do you want to see 1000 Points of Gyrocopters on the table?

If it were up to me I'd go significantly past a Rule of Three and have a Rule of 1 for Rare, Rule of 2 for Special and Characters, and then a Rule of 3 for Core, but I am not the king of this game. Fortunately, most people are likely to play with opponents they know and who can work out these kind of restrictions, using any or not, for themselves. It really threatens competitive play and the game is DOA in that respect without the community stepping in.

While I try not to complain, as much as I can, this is a huge oversight on GW's part. The Rule of 3 is already core to both Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar, why was it not ported into The Old World? I don't expect to ever see a "General's Handbook" equivalent for TOW, or at least not for a long time, so I hope the community steps up.

The Rules are Tight but Strange

Compared to 6th Edition and 8th Edition Warhammer Fantasy, which is what I'm familiar with, TOW has a very tight rule set. Things are explained clearly with pictures for the most part, rules aren't put into weird sections, and reminders are common. That said, there is a lot of weirdness that is either intentional and needs to be stated as such, or something was forgotten.

My main example is an enemy unit being wiped out in Combat. As far as the rules read, you can either still make a Pursuit Move as if they'd fled, or you have to try and restrain. In the past it was common that in this situation you only got to Reform, and didn't have to test to do so, with Pursuit only being possible if the enemy fled. Now I'm not saying this is ambiguous, it's not and the rules are clear, but it doesn't make sense or feel right. The game itself is an abstraction but why am I thundering forth if I killed everyone, why do I need to test Leadership when there's nothing left? At worst, just give the player the choice between the two without rolling.

Again, my complaint isn't that the rules are bad or unclear but just that they don't "feel" right. That could just be me being used to older versions of the game, or it could be legitimate clunkiness in areas. Another example would be Marching Column, why not allow the player to either move at triple speed OR make a Leadership Test to move double but Reform at the end? Then Marching Column would be a useful, main-line rule. As it is, it's under-baked and extremely niche.

Any other these "problems" could be solved with an FAQ or Errata but I don't think they will be. None of these break or ruin the game for me, far from it, it will just agitate my Rules OCD. If you're a new player, you will probably never notice or care, and that's for the best.

Worries About Game Length Will Turn Out to be Overblown

I've seen a lot of discussion online, particularly by influencers who got early access to the rules, about how the game takes a long time to play even after you know the rules well. In every instance I can verify, this is because the players are treating The Old World as if it's just like 6th or 8th Edition Fantasy. It's not. When this game is played that way, Combats drag on endlessly because it's very rare to actually Flee. As I've talked about in an article, Mixed Arms are going to be the key and once people understand and adopt that then the speed of play will pick up.

I imagine that players will very quickly figure this out, especially if it's used against them. TOW is not a game of Hammers, it's a game of Anvils, and I adore that. I expect most armies will spend twice as many points on boring blocks of Infantry compared to Cavalry, Monsters, and so on. There are always exceptions, if you have Monsters that are tough to bring down and put out a ton of Attacks plus Thunderstomps then they can get the job done, to provide an example.

In my mind, I'm going to try and pair an Anvil with a cheap Hammer. I'll be very interested to see how this evolves as the game matures: with smaller/cheaper Hammers you run the risk of them dying before they can do their job. On the other hand, with expensive Hammers you have smaller or fewer Anvils and the two might get separated. I'm going to try and operate with cheap Hammers and then my more expensive units need to be able to stand on their own in either role.

Pre-Measuring is Amazing

This is something people are very passionate about, including me, and I fall on the "always allow pre-measuring no matter what" side of the argument. First of all, pre-measuring leads to much more tactical play and you really feel it as someone who comes from 6th Edition most recently. Yes, eye-balling a distance is undeniably a skill but it's a boring skill that only serves to raise the skill floor. When both players know where everything is you can eliminate arguments by agreeing on a measurement before-hand and everyone is on the same footing. Personally, I've never seen a good argument for forcing everyone to play by eye-balling the table and I think that's reflected in the fact that the mechanic has been widely abandoned in modernity.

I felt like I was able to use Movement, the best Phase of the game, to my advantage much more than I could when playing 6th Edition. For example, I set a unit of Gors 9" away from a unit of Night Goblins. This meant that they needed a 5+ to Charge me while I needed a 4+ to Charge and had a re-roll thanks to Warband. Clearly, this is my advantage BUT the Night Goblins weren't hopeless. In 6th Edition, if I was good at eye-balling distances, I'd simply make it impossible for the Night Goblins to Charge and that's always felt too powerful to me. Wargames are at their peak when you're making decisions to tilt the odds in your favor, at least to me, at Pre-Measuring makes that so much more possible.

Anyone serious about growing The Old World should make peace with this, at worst, because players in 2024 do not want to feel like they're back in the 90's with respect to the rule set. There are plenty of boutique games to play if that's your thing, or you can house rule between friends, but the main product needs to be as welcoming as it can be.

Wrap Up

Reading the rules it was clear to me that The Old World would be the best version of the game that has existed, and I'm including fan-made versions too. It's more than I could have expected given GW's track record, every complaint I have is minor except for the Rule of Three. Everything from 8th was dropped except the necessary bits to allow for pre-measuring, which is a great choice as someone who played both. Much of the grumbling is from people who have old rules in their head and won't let go of them, but time will heal that.

I'd be very surprised if TOW doesn't become a massive hit, especially with how mediocre Age of Sigmar and 40K have felt over the last year or two. GW has become too involved in the competitive side of the game without understanding it or letting prominent TO's and community figures take control. That has poisoned the well for many casual players, who don't want those competitive elements injected into their play experience. I hope they don't repeat the same mistakes for this product, and I also hope we don't see stupid Campaign Books with rules you NEED to have, although they continue to crank those out. If you're looking to get into The Old World on the more casual side, I see absolutely no red flags.

To anyone learning the game, start small. We referenced the Rulebook quite a lot and I've spent a ton of my time watching Battle Reports and reading the blurry screen grabs so I was more prepared than most. At 2000 Points there's going to be so many synergies, little rules to recall, and a lot happening on the table that it would be a maelstrom in your mind. I'm glad all the Battalion Boxes shown thus far are centered around that point level and focus on basic, Core units for the most part. On the other hand 500 might be a bit too small, 750-1000 feels ideal if I was going to give someone a demo.

What I want to see now is how the game evolves as people have access to it. Will the solid launch continue on? Will people be willing to jump to a new title with an old history? How will events look, and we still don't even have the Legacy Armies! The picture is slowing becoming clear, but there's a long journey ahead. I'm excited for it.

05: Exploring Some Do's and Don'ts of List Building (Competitive)

With the rules for The Old World being out and about for awhile now, and with a fantastic community Army Builder available, it's not surprising that players are feeling out army lists. For me, building lists is one of the most fun parts of the hobby and can let a player's personality or approach shine through. This isn't always the case of course, you get net-lists in every game just like net-decks in all CCGs, but for the most part people tend to bring "their" army to a game.

I've noticed in several groups, including my own local meta, that people are all over the ball field when it comes to creating what I'd call a cohesive and serious army list. I'm not saying that everyone needs to show up with a competitive force, even semi-competitive play is not for everyone. Over my time with wargaming I've certainly seen that, anecdotally, most players like to at least try to put some effort in and bring units that will help them win. That's what I'd like to touch on in this article: some things to avoid and some things to make sure of when building your own army. I'm going to approach this with the assumption that 2000 Points is being played as that's the standard and things get very wonky at higher and lower totals.

Do: Bring a Level 4 Wizard (If Possible)

I've discussed this when I approached the topic of Magic but it bears repeating. A Level 4 Wizard is one of my must-have's, unless you're playing Dwarves of course. Magic is a strong factor in tilting the game in a player's advantage, if you don't have a Level 4 and your opponent does then they start with a reliable edge that can be exploited all game long. This seems to be somewhat baked into the game as all these Casters are within a fair point range of each other, across all the core armies. In older Editions the points value of a Level 4 Wizard varied widely, essentially pricing some factions out of taking them, among other concerns.

Slotting in this Character means you have a strong defense against Spells and can threaten your own as well. It also gives you either a decent General, for most armies, or a strong leader for a unit should you need one. For a Lore, pick this last as what Spells you want access to will depend heavily on your overall composition: if you have very little Shooting then aiming for Magic Missiles/Vortexes can be a good idea, as an example. Experimenting with different Lores is also a great idea as an option that looked weak on paper might surprise you in-game.

Don't: Load Up on Magic Items

A trap that many new, and not new, players fall into is taking a lot of Magic Items. A new wrinkle for The Old World is that many Unit Champions can take 25pts in Magic Items and you also have things like expanded allowances for Battle Standard Bearers (BSB). These items can be very strong but they're no substitute for bodies on the table: even in older Editions it wasn't often a good idea to take more than 100-150pts of special wargear.

My advice is to not add Magic Items to a list at all until you're at least 1500pts in, meaning you've spent that much on units and heroes of whatever description. There are exceptions to this rule, perhaps you're basing a unit or even an army around a specific item so it's core to what you want to build. If that's the case, add the absolutely necessities only and then leave it alone until the roster is more filled out.

Another consideration is where are the Magic Items going? Slapping more points onto a single Wound Champion is asking for trouble since that model can easily die, Magic Standards are the same with small units like Heavy Cavalry. If you're going to invest points in items, you want to get a return on that investment. How much deadlier does this choice make the bearer, how much more resilient? Will the cost be justified over the course of a game, or are you getting distracted by a risky plan? That's why I prefer to fill in the last hundred of so points of a roster with items, instead of letting them lead my army choice by the nose.

Do: Take a BSB

Nearly every army should take a BSB with the same level of necessity as a Level 4 Wizard. Re-rolls are hard to come by in The Old World, thankfully, so the one choice you can make to guarantee access to some is an easy one. Panic, Rally, and of course Break Tests decide entire games, it's downright foolish not to give yourself as many do-overs on those rolls as possible. Right now the exception to this is Tomb Kings, and likely Vampire Counts as well, because of their army-wide Unbreakable and Immune to Psychology. From what I can see of Tomb Kings, I'd still opt for a BSB in numerous army builds because it helps keep your models alive from Combat Resolution and Tomb Kings love attrition.

Echoing the above Don't, I'm not a big fan of expensive Magic Standards. While BSBs have never been more survivable, it's still a 2 Wound Character with access to 50pts in Magic Items: tough to turn the model into a tank. Paying 25pts for re-rolls, and a +1 Combat Resolution, is good enough for me. Instead I'd rather spend on keeping the BSB around, rather than making his flag do more until he gets skewered. You also want to have a plan for your BSB as to what unit he will go in. Generally this model should be in the center, or near center, of your army so that the benefits it provides go far and wide. That often means needing a unit that can hold the center, if the unit gets beaten up and/or run down then you're in a bad spot.

Don't: Overspecialize

This is another classic trap many players fall into, and with good reason. Overspecialization, or a skew list as I call it, is an army that does one or two things extremely well but suffers at nearly everything else. An example would be an army that spends as many points as possible on War Machines, or only takes units with high Toughness values. These are (sadly) viable strategies in many wargames, but The Old World doesn't appear to be one.

The reason that you want to avoid building a skew list is because while it will flatten certain opponents, you will also get beaten just as badly by other opponents. Take our War Machine example. Against an opponent with lots of Multi-Wound models, or slow Infantry units, such an army would likely do very well. On the other hand, against someone with a lot of Skirmishers, a very fast army, or simply a lot of answers to War Machines, there's nothing to fall back on. You can't pivot your tactics or plan because there's nothing to work with, all your points were spent on this one thing.

By instead taking an army where you focus on a couple of strengths, but also shore up various weaknesses, you always give yourself a chance to win (a chip and a chair as I heard it called long ago). Some games will be uphill battles but you won't feel like there's nothing you can do but throw in the towel and you'll become a better player much more quickly. I always recommend a diverse army to newcomers because that's how you learn what your army can and can't do, that leads to revisions of your army list and it becomes better over time. If all the eggs go in one basket there's very little learning to be had and many matches will feel outright boring.

Do: Learn to Love the "Boring" Units

More than many other games, a humble unit of Infantry is a bedrock of The Old World. It's easy to gloss over Core choices and other "un-sexy" units in favor of Behemoths, Heavy Cavalry, Characters, and so on. All of those choices certainly matter and have their place, but many games are won and lost off the back of your standard, basic unit. Every army has these in some form or fashion and the game helps encourage you to take them with the requirement of 25% Core (at least for Grand Armies). I often take quite a bit more than 25% of my army as Core because I want reliability and redundancy over flash.

Taking Core units is easy as they normally don't have a lot of different options for wargear and other upgrades, even when they do it can be wise to avoid those. Remember, your Core is there to be a main part of your battle line and will see a lot of combat, which means they tend to die off. The more you invest in these units, the more that stings. There's not right or wrong way to approach this, using myself as an example I almost never take Musicians and am often only fifty/fifty on Champions. Paying even more points for Special Rules and so on has to really transform a unit in my eyes, otherwise it's just fluff.

While all armies are a bit different, two or three sizeable units of Core are what I love to put on the table. My current Beastmen list has a unit of 30 Gors, a unit of 30 Ungors, and a unit of 25 Gors. These are meaty units that can take damage without crumbling and allow me to have reliable homes for Characters. Keep your boring units cheap and to the point, they'll rarely let you down.

Don't: Play HeroHammer or Deathstars

Throughout the history of the game there have been many times where players invest in "HeroHammer", extremely expensive Characters who are supposed to win games on their own, or Deathstars, much the same but in unit form and usually packing two or more Characters as well. For various reasons these were at worst viable strategies but much of that has changed with The Old World. Starting with Characters, it's very difficult to create one that can't be killed by an opponent. Even your Chaos Lord on Dragon with all the bells and whistles will fall over to a few unlucky cannonballs or can be severely hampered by a Spell. These souped up heroes can easily cost a quarter of your army which almost always means a loss if they don't deliver.

Deathstars are a little more versatile but just as committal. Typically, a Deathstar requires a few Characters to really cook as well as some Magic Items. Even if they're Cavalry, units heavily telegraph where they want to go and what they want to do while an expensive Character has more freedom of movement. Spells also have a more severe effect on Deathstars, on average, because they can have an important characteristic stripped away in addition to other methods of countering them.

These kinds of threats are very effective against less experienced players because they don't have the game-knowledge to defeat them, a veteran player will. I won't detail every possible way to beat these monstrosities but it usually involves feeding them a cheap unit while beating up on the rest of the army, taking them out of their element with Magic, Items, or Special Rules, forcing them to navigate terrain, and so on. Just as overspecializing can come back to bite you, playing against someone who knows the way around your centerpiece can do just the same. Playing with a diverse number of threats instead allows you to control more of the battlefield and vary your options which is usually more powerful in the long-run.

Do: Ask Yourself Hard Questions

Our last Do is a little more advanced but can be quickly picked up on as you learn the game. Asking yourself hard questions is something to be done when your roster is all finished and ready to hit the table, it's your final step before theory meets opposition. I have a pretty simple list of questions but everyone has their own:

• Can my Army kill or neutralize a Behemoth? What about two?
• Can my Army kill or neutralize several War Machines or other heavy Shooting?
• Can my Army force a unit to Flee from combat in a single Turn? How reliable is this?
• Can my Army kill or neutralize Skirmishers or fast lone models? How is this done?
• Can my Army overcome the loss of any single unit or do I need redundancy?
• Can my Army play any of the Core Rulebook Scenarios reasonably well?

I think of these questions as a final reminder to myself for checking if anything important is missing. While making my Beastmen list, I realized I had very little answers for Behemoths and would struggle against an army that leaned on the unit type. This caused me to move some things around and make sure I had adequate answers, otherwise I risk not having the right tool for the job at hand. My questions are by no means exhaustive or the final word in this manner, they just work for me and how I like to play. You'll likely have some of your own which may relate to a theme you've chosen or maybe just something you loathe losing to.

If I were to recommend porting over anything from my assortment of questions, I'd always go with the final one. Scenarios in The Old World are quite varied, which is good because even with the same two armies you can have a very different game. Take a look at the Deployment types, you might be fantastic at Meeting Engagement with your slow melee force but struggle with the same army in Flank Attack because you can't reposition. While Victory Points are the common denominator for Scenarios, you can't earn those VPs if your army can't overcome what's asked of it.

Don't: Make Hasty Changes to your Army

As my final recommendation, don't scurry home from a bad loss and change up the army you worked so hard to build. The Old World is a game and in all games, losses happen. It's human to want to immediately fix perceived deficiencies when you just got smacked in the mouth (hopefully figuratively) but those moments are when we don't engage critical thinking skills. It's very likely that reconfiguring your list because of a loss, even a few losses, will lead to an over-correction and dig a deeper hole. Instead, try to reflect on the game and what actually happened, don't lie to yourself. Were some critical dice rolls to blame? If so, that's luck, and you can't do much about that. Did you make a mistake that you can learn from? Take that knowledge and do better next time, don't blame your plastic soldiers.

Evaluating losses is a skill that's difficult to acquire: wargames are often a battle of wits and when we feel outsmarted it's hard to accept. Consider giving yourself a day to distance yourself from feeling sad or angry about the outcome of a game, then try to think it over and figure out where everything went wrong. Some armies, even units or models, have a high learning curve. If you don't get what you want out of them, give it another try or two before considering a change. If you constantly swap your composition around it's harder to get a feel for your army and how it functions, you'll be back at square one over and over.

Iteration, not revolution, is usually friendly to a wargaming general. Perhaps that combination of Magic Items isn't working out for your Characters, but that's no reason to overhaul everything. Small, focused changes will yield better rewards in the long-run and you'll be able to spend more time considering how to get the most out of what you have, rather than obsessing about how to get everything perfect. The player and their familiarity or mindset with their army at hand, rather than the army itself, wins more games than you might expect.

Closing

Those are a few of my tips or recommendations to any player, new or old, and hopefully it wasn't too long-winded. I'm always curious to hear how other players approach these and other topics: do you strongly disagree or agree with anything I've said? Why? There's no one right or wrong way to approach The Old World, even if you're competitively minded, and being open to new ways of thinking is often a strength.

While many of the bones of The Old World are old and known, this is still a new game with new ideas and strategies to explore. Try to approach your army with an open mind, be willing to try new ideas, and don't get discouraged. I hope you enjoyed reading, back to the Army Builder for me!

04: Discussing Magic in The Old World (Competitive)

Magic has been one of the more discussed topics, both by many community members and by Games Workshop themselves, when comparing The Old World (TOW) to older Editions of Warhammer Fantasy. This article is not intended to address all those differences: if you're a new player you don't care about the history lesson and if you're an old salt then you already know what I'm talking about. Instead, I'd like to discuss the application of Magic in TOW as well as some realistically necessary approaches to Magic. Let's dig in!

You're a Level 4 Wizard, Harry

I'll start with a "hot take": when playing at a standard point level (2000) there is no reason to take anything but a single Level 4 Wizard, for any army that's been shown yet. I won't speak for the Legacy/PDF Armies as they may have some weird rules, but all the main Factions are united in this principle. So why is only a Level 4 Wizard useful?

First, your Wizard Level is the most common modifier that you'll have for both Casting and Dispelling Spells. Even taking a Level 3 Wizard puts you at a disadvantage in this arena, your Spells are less likely to go off and you're less likely to successfully Dispel. No matter what you're interested in, offense or defense, the modifier is king. So a Level 4 vs. a Level 2 Wizard will favor the Level 4 at a permanent +2 modifier, which over the course of a full game will impact quite a few rolls.

Next, a Wizard can Dispel as many Spells as they please unless something (usually a Miscast) prevents them from doing so. This means bringing extra Wizards as Dispel insurance is usually a waste of points, and they will suffer from the modifier we just discussed. As every army gets a "Fated Dispel", which is made at Level 0 effectively, you'll always have a backup prayer at stopping a Spell even if your Wizard is temporarily out of commission.

Lastly, Level 1-2 Wizards have an 18" range on their Dispels, where as Level 3-4 has a 24" range. This means that a Lord Wizard (to use some old terms) could be cagey and stay outside of the enemies Dispel range while keeping them in theirs, pretty devastating. There's also the diminished amount of Magic Items that lower Wizards can take and so on, but the modifier and range are the biggest deals.

My reason for stating that you should take a Level 4 is that the upgrade is not very expensive while providing numerous benefits that we've discussed and an extra Spell. Most armies seem to be paying ~30pts for the Level upgrade, which is very little all things considered. Another weird wrinkle is that most Lord Wizards have the same Leadership as a non-Wizard Lord, making them competent Generals. There are exceptions for some armies, like Orcs and Goblins, but it's still fairly common.

Adding a Level 4 Wizard is the way I start all my army lists, for every Faction that can take one. If I run into an army that's done the same then we are even and that's the best I can do barring Magic Items or other rules. If I run into a lower Wizard, or even none, then I can have much more magical supremacy and exploit that part of the game to my benefit.

Miss Me With Those Miscasts

As I touched on, Magic is quite a bit more permissive and "even" than versions past. The balancing factor is Miscasts, which apply to both Casting and Dispelling. In my opinion, TOW's Miscasts are the least punishing that have ever existed as even the very bad results can be heavily mitigated. I'm speaking about the bottom results which place a Template (either 3" or 5") on the Wizard and of course any unit they happen to have joined.

Fortunately, perhaps, these Templates are easy to get around by simply not putting the Wizard into a unit until you need to. Being a solo model is quite handy for Wizards since it gives them 360 degree Line of Sight (LoS): very useful for Magic Missiles and the like. The rules for targeting a solo Character are also very easy to work around: simply keep the Wizard within 3" of a unit that's the same Unit Type as them and make sure they aren't closer than the unit is. Easy! This will stop targeting from both Shooting and Magic, meaning very few things can try to snipe out your robed figure. If you are up against something that can get to the Character then just jump into the unit and enjoy your Look Out Sir! and all that.

Another option, for some armies, is to use Skirmishers in conjunction with your Wizard. This allows you to space out and put the Wizard on the unit's flank where a Template will only hit a couple models at worst. While Skirmishers were once a rare Special Rule, lots of armies have access to it now in some form or fashion. Things like Peasant Bowmen and Orc Boyz have the option to become Skirmishers and make a nice little home for your caster.

For this reason I prefer keeping a Wizard on foot versus putting them on a mount. Cavalry units have less models than Infantry so there's less bodies to keep your Character safe and a mounted Character cannot use Infantry to prevent being targeted (vice versa as well). While the additional speed is very useful, I don't foresee many builds where you're putting enough Cavalry on the table to allow the Wizard to operate on his own, and the bad Miscasts REALLY hurt these more expensive models.

Lastly, one of my favorite Magic Items in the game is the Earthing Rod. This is only 5pts and available to all armies but it lets you re-roll a Miscast Result once per game. If you have a few extra points in your army I like putting this on my Wizard just as a bit of extra insurance, or perhaps to even fish for a Template if my Character is in Combat or something.

The Weakness of Bound Spells

Relating to Magic, Bound Spells are very unimpressive in TOW for the most part. The reason for this is Bound Spells use their Bound Level as the modifier, even if the Bound Spell is from something, such as an Item, on a Wizard it does not use their Wizard Level. You can never get Perfect Invocation on a Bound Spell, so the opponent can always try to stop it, and when Dispelling a Bound Spell there's no risk of a Miscast (double 1's is just a bad roll instead).

There are some exceptions to this, such as the Casket of Souls which improves the modifier of Bound Spells by +1, but in general there's little reason to waste points on these. Look at the Ruby Ring of Ruin for example, a popular Magic Item in early Battle Reports. It's Bound 2, so a Level 4 Wizard is at a +2 over it. On top of that, the Spell itself only goes off on an 8 so you have a 55% chance to even cast it, not ideal for 30pts.

Even if a Bound Spell has a powerful or unique effect, I don't favor them because you'll be facing an uphill battle to get it off. I'm hopeful there will be more ways to "buff" Bound Spells or perhaps make better use of them, such as a Bound Spell with no range that you can flee away from enemy Wizards with.

Dwarves: The Worst at Magic

One quirk of TOW is that some armies who used to specialize in anti-Magic are now terrible at it. Dwarves are the primary example in my mind: not only are they a bad Casting army (via the Anvil of Doom) but they're the worst Dispelling army. There are other examples, such as an all Khorne Warriors of Chaos force, but at least there are options to just bring a Level 4 Wizard there if the player so desires.

Dwarves are unique in how they interact with Magic. All their units have Magic Resistance -1, which means anything targeting them suffers a -1 to the Casting Roll. While that's good, there are many Spells that don't target enemy units and Magic Resistance is useless against those. Even with the -1, not having Dispel attempts is going to see most Spells go off against the stunties.

Fortunately all isn't lost and Dwarf Rune-Characters (Anvil of Doom, Runelord, Runesmith) may Dispel as if they were a Wizard. The downside to this is substantial though: an Avil is a Level 3 Wizard, the Runelord a Level 2, and the Smith a Level 1. As discussed, being a low level is quite bad and the 18" range on a Runelord/Smith is very impactful for a slow army like Dwarves. The opponent can just stand far enough away and ignore the Dispels, wasting valuable points for an expensive faction.

Another disadvantage is that Dwarven Dispelling is NOT immune to Miscasts, putting the severely expensive bricks of Infantry that Dwarves are known for at some risk. You can still keep the Character out of a unit but with Movement 3 that's riskier than it is for other armies. This makes the Anvil of Doom an attractive choice at first glance: it's the highest Wizard the army can take and has some handy Spells of its own. On the other hand, these Spells are Bound Level 3 and the Anvil is costly.

Where Dwarves actually interact with Spells is via Runes, such as the Master Rune of Balance, and I expect those to be common sights in many Dwarf armies. Sadly, that just adds more points to the army and doesn't help with the Dispel Range. This makes me very worried for Dwarf players because they can't make strong use of Magic, nor can they count on easily stopping it.

 

In Summation

In my opinion, Magic will end up being one of the simplest parts of the game while still impactful. Serious players will take a Level 4 Wizard to make sure they're on even footing with their opponent, at worst, and both will spend most of the game in Dispel range of each other because of Spell Ranges. I don't foresee any "mind games" with choosing to Dispel or not in certain instances: I'll risk the 1/36 result of the Miscast almost no matter what.

While losing some tactical play from the game is to be lamented, I think TOW already plays quite a bit slower than other versions of Warhammer Fantasy to removing some complexity might not be bad. With Combats lasting so much longer, on average, another phase of resource management would be a slog. My only wrinkle is preferring Enchantments and other Spells that don't need to be in range of an enemy because you can pull back, Cast them freely, and then Dispel as your opponent closes to cast their Hexes/Magic Missiles.

Hopefully I've shown that there are some options with Wizards and Magic, not as many as there used to be but still plenty. Good players will make use of any slight advantage they can find, which I think will come down to ranges as well as the position of Wizards with regards to other units. I like this take on Magic, I just wish there was more of a role for lower level Wizards and I hope some armies, like Tomb Kings, can add more things for them to do. Thanks for reading.

03: The Application and Necessity of Mixed Arms for Breaking Units

Let's dive into some proper theory-crafting for The Old World itself, nothing specific to a single army, shall we? This time I'd like to look at the concept of Mixed Arms, what it is and why it is, as well as how it helps actually break units. I'm going to go a fair bit into detail on these two topics so let's actually get in and explore.

What is Mixed Arms?

Mixed Arms is an idea or application in warfare of using more than one type of armament, unit, etc. for a single attack or job, at least that's a rough enough explanation for our purposes. Within war-gaming, I've always thought of it as being able to perform different kinds of offense actions while applying them to a common target with reliability. A classic example is making Ranged Attacks against a unit before it reaches combat with you, thereby weakening it and giving your army better odds at coming out on top.

Being able to access different kinds of offense also allows you to have different and better answers at hand for whatever you may face on the tabletop. If you bring a force made up of things that can only excel against Light Infantry, and your opponent brings several Behemoths to the game, you're in real trouble. Dealing with diverse threats is not the only application of Mixed Arms, but it's an important and graspable starting point. Fortunately, every Faction (shown thus far) is more than capable of diversifying their units and offense so that they'll never truly be without options.

For this reason, we want to avoid putting all our eggs in one basket. That's a basic tip, I know, but I want to cover this concept from top to bottom. When we think about Mixed Arms, let's first think about it as what types of offense our army can make. Even similar looking attacks can fulfill different roles. Take a Warbow and a single Strength 3 model with a Hand Weapon. Both are pretty similar, they make a single, low Strength Attack, that is best for dealing with lighter Infantry and similar. On the other hand, the Warbow can make attacks from far away whereas the model with the Hand Weapon has to be in melee. How do those differ, what advantages and disadvantages can you assign to each?

Now, let's extend our definition out a bit. Instead of just attacks, Mixed Arms can also refer to types of units and how they interact. Chariots are an easy example: most Chariots excel at dealing with lighter units thanks to their auto-hits but they lose momentum and power if they can't charge. Compare that to a block of infantry, which might excel at almost nothing except having Ranks and a Standard. The Old World is a game, an abstraction, so units themselves have roles which can be independent of their weapons at times.

 

Unit Roles

Now that we have a starting point of Mixed Arms, let's break it down further within The Old World. While we discussed the types of different attacks and ways to make offense, units themselves have diverse roles which can either combine into more than the sum of their parts, work against each other, or somewhere between. You've likely heard some of these popular terms: Tarpit, Anvil, Hammer, Deathstar, there are quite a few to go around. This is just a short-hand way to communicate what a unit is supposed to do.

When discussing unit roles, we also have to understand the objective of making attacks in The Old World. Of course attacks are designed to remove enemy models, that's an easy answer, but removing models isn't typically going to happen fast enough to win the game alone. Even if you have many, many Handguns, it's going to take more than 6 Turns to shoot enough models to win! Our actual goal when making attacks is to setup favorable combats, and ultimately force enemies to flee through Break Tests. Some people may be saying "But wait, you can cause Panic Tests, or simply run away while slowly causing attritional damage." and that is correct. Those are very specific, and often unsuccessful, ways to win though and in almost all games the victor will be decided through hand to hand combat.

How do we win combats then? Well the main way is by forcing Break Tests and ultimately the opponent failing one. This used to be quite simple in older versions of the game, but in The Old World Break Tests are a lot less scary than they once were. This is because the rules have created a grey area between fleeing and hanging tough (Giving Ground), which is Fall Back in Good Order (FBiGO). FbiGO is the most likely "positive" outcome for the attacker as it pushes the enemy back a random amount (possible off the table) and allows them to count as Charging yet again, if they follow up.

Pushing a unit back is well and good, but it's not without risk. The further you push a foe, the closer you get to their lines, which can expose your own Flank or put other enemies in range of you. That's why breaking and fleeing is the best result, you generally get to go further (2d6") compared to a FBiGO which can keep your triumphant unit out of Line of Sight. Of course you can also run down the entire enemy unit in the process, and even if you don't they'll have to rally and stay out of the action for a Turn.

Having wasted paragraphs now, I think it's agreeable that the ideal outcome in a combat is to break the enemy unit. While that can and does happen over time, with each wearing the other down until the pivotal moment, it can also happen much faster. This is where tying all the concepts we've discussed into a neat package: using Mixed Arms to reliably break the opponent. So how is this actually done? The answer, usually, is going to be numbers.

In The Old World, there is a single way to break something that can be relied on: outnumbering them two to one. If a unit manages to FBiGO, but is outnumbered as mentioned, it instead flees from the weight of the opposition. Here we are at the crux of the issue, it's not enough to win a fight or simply have a lot of bodies but doing both of those things at once will get us the result we want.

Putting It Together

Just based off what we've discussed, you may be formulating some ideas in your mind. We now know that we need to win a combat, which requires more Combat Resolution than the foe, and also to meaningfully outnumber them. At first glance this should make some sense: using Mixed Arms gives us more attacks, more attack diversity, and more Unit Strength, all of which combines to break the opponent. If only it were that simple.

As mentioned, many units have quite cemented roles within The Old World and the better a unit is, the more it costs. Anyone can send two expensive, powerful units into a lowly opponent and see them off. Instead, we want to do more with less and not throw all our best at the opponent's worst as otherwise we can run into issues with positioning, traps, and many other things that are beyond the scope of this discussion. So let's explore Combat Resolution (CR).

CR is how the winner of a fight is determined and many things contribute to it. Of course Wounds add up quickly in combat, providing +1 CR each, but a wise general takes all the CR they can get. There is what I call Static CR: things you can rely on working for you such as Rank Bonus or Standards. These sources of CR don't require rolling dice, allowing you to win a fight even without inflicting a single kill to the opponent at the best of times. Most units are either good at providing Static CR, or dealing Wounds, but not both. Even those who can do both won't be able to handle certain opponents, perhaps they lack the Strength to deal with high Toughness or the AP to overcome armor.

If you throw a unit with good Static CR in by itself, you might lose when the dice don't go your way and a lot of Wounds are dealt. Conversely, your favored butchers might botch a round of attacks and lose to the opposing Static CR, typically a disaster. When we combine both these things, that's when we start to get somewhere! This is what Mixed Arms is all about, to me, making use of both Static CR and dealing damage so that you stack the odds in your favor to the best of your ability.

Let's look at a very simple example featuring two units: Bretonnian Men-at-Arms and Knights of the Realm. Men-at-Arms are very cheap but not so good at fighting or surviving, we want to rely on them for Static CR. With a Standard, 3 Ranks (thanks to Horde), and Close Order they enter most combats with a CR of +5, assuming their Ranks are intact of course. Knights of the Realm are just the opposite: while they can have a Standard and the Lance Formation they usually lack Ranks and need to rely on their powerful charge to even the odds. The Knights also have a lower Unit Strength, typically, since they cost many times what a single peasant does.

Putting these together, we get the best of both worlds. An enemy in a melee with this pairing of units is looking at a Static CR of 6 (Men-at-Arms plus Lance Formation), already a tall mountain to climb. The Men-at-Arms give us the bodies to outnumber our foe, provided we can kill some which they would normally struggle with. Fortunately our Knights are good at fighting and can provide much needed Wounds to further add to our CR while denying enemy attacks (thanks to Step Up). With everything added up, we have a good chance at breaking our foe by forcing a harsh Break Test, thanks to our CR, and then making them flee, thanks to outnumbering. Mixed Arms!

 

The Devil in the Details

Sadly, the scenario I've presented is not all there is to it. If combo'ing to units that do different things always got the desired result, the game would be a bit boring to play. First of all, you need to understand what options are available to you for both Static CR and for dealing Wounds, as well as how much you have to commit to each. Our Men-at-Arms aren't going to be able to provide as many Ranks against an enemy who can scythe light infantry apart, and our Knights of the Realm will struggle to get involved against an enemy who can hide in Terrain, just to give two examples. You have to know how the units you've chosen for these roles work and what they simply can't do.

Just as importantly, you need to know the odds and situation for causing the break. Do you need to do this in one Turn or risk a massive counter-charge? What are your odds of inflicting enough casualties, do you need to kill a bunch of models in order to outnumber? Just shoving things forth without knowing what's across from them is a recipe for a reversal of fortune. This is where having different types of units is beneficial, if you rely on a single type of offense then you have nothing to do when you meet its counter.

First off, the more CR you can rely on the better. Engineering a charge to the opposing Flank, for example, not only gives you another +1 but can remove the Ranks from the enemy which is a far bigger swing. Putting sufficient models in your Static CR units also helps with this, otherwise they can lose Ranks and so on as models get picked off. This is why cheap units are so great at Static CR: I'll take 30+ Men-at-Arms without blinking but the same number of Warriors of Chaos would break the bank.

There are many, many other things to take into account, more than I can detail. How fast are the units you've chosen, will they outpace each other? Is one unit likely to be shot to death before making it to their melee, if so you may need a backup unit or more bodies. What kind of enemy would your damage dealers struggle with, can you bring in something to take their role against those threats? Being able to apply Mixed Arms is a simple idea, but requires a lot of game knowledge to consistently execute.

Fortunately, every army has "starter" combinations that you can use to get a feel for this without much risk. Static CR units are easy, simply pick your cheapest unit that can have a good amount of Ranks, a Standard, and ideally Close Order. Goblins, Men-at-Arms, Ungors, Skeleton Warriors, and so on are all excellent examples of this role. Some may be cheaper while others might have better defense but the role is the same.

Picking your damage dealers is more complicated and I recommend starting with Cavalry or a Chariot if you can. The reason for this is Cavalry/Chariots are more maneuverable, allowing them to get to the Flank, but can also function on their own perfectly reasonable. Getting two infantry units into the same combat can be tricky without setting up for a Turn or more so keep it simple on yourself when exploring this concept. If you don't have a mounted option, you probably have something else with high Movement or a tricky way to get into position such as Ambushers.

Why Does This Matter?

Mixed Arms application is certainly not a requirement to play The Old World, but it is a requirement to be successful and consistent. Without overwhelming force to break the enemy you're stuck in a lot of "samey" combats with like fighting like. This leaves outcomes to the dice rolls, which you can't control, and renders many of your decisions moot. That's fine for chucking dice around with a friend or a Narrative game but if you're trying to improve and see better results from your matches, you want to keep Mixed Arms in mind.

As you get better at applying this idea, you can also improve as disguising it. One of my favorite little packages for my army, Beastmen, is a pair of Minotaurs and a Gorebull with Berserker Blade. At first glance this is just a powerful little pack of Monstrous Infantry and can do many things, not just combo with my more numerous blocks. However, the Character can separate from the Minotaurs and create two threats, possibly allowing for a Charge that my opponent didn't see coming or giving me two damage dealers where there was previously only one. Little wrinkles like that just make your plan that much more versatile and unpredictable.

Pulling off tactical maneuvers and swinging the odds in your favor are what wargames are all about for me and pulling off even a simple double Charge can feel incredibly good. Next time you play, see ifyou can spot opportunities to exploit this maneuver and then take stock of the result. Did it work, if not, why not? Were you not able to hit hard enough, did the enemy have a powerful defensive ability you couldn't handle? Asking yourself questions and learning from failures is how we grow, and even the most perfect plan never survives contact with dice. Similarly, as you get more used to Mixed Arms you'll be able to recognize it in your opponent's army and hopefully deny them their own plans.

That's all for this time, once I have Battle Reports posted I'll do my best to point out opportunities and executions of Mixed Arms. Until then, hope you enjoyed.