Hi everyone,
I’ve had some games now of the new 8th ED and I like many of you; we are in the early stages of formulating our opinions about it. The article here is about being positive on 8th ED and talking about how to make it play well in tournaments.
There are concerns at present that the game boils down to large units running at each other and smashing heads. There is now a lot less manoeuvre, paradoxically after we have been given more freedom to move. Small units have lost out, and have very little impact if any on the game. Or so it would seem at this early stage. Everything now has to be large, large, large, to sell more, more, more for GW. When small units give up points and large units don’t, then the SUCCESSFUL game will revolve around large uber death stars. !. Am I wrong?
[Running across the board with big units to go smash the other guy’s big units would get boring, pretty quick. It's called the law of diminishing returns]
I've seen it in LoTR, FoW that reward that style of army build and we'll see it here in WHFB. From little Johnny at GW stores to incompetent Ugly Bob at the next tourniment you go to. Death stars work because they deny points and are very effective vs. all comers. You can load them up with Heros and anti magic etc... etc... , and again they become more points cost effective. So why wouldn't you take one, two or three even?
Now that may be fine for many people, but I suspect many others, like nail bitting games that go on and on with lots of interesting things happening all over the battle field till the final turn. Having a game that works on paper is a good start but what the "intelligent people" at GW have forgotten is that how you determine who wins the game and the goals set to do so are even more important. After all playing chess and not having the objective to kill the king would kinda make it pointless! Am I wrong?
BASIC VICTORY POINTS
So if you want to discourage boring games, and encourage good fun, tactically challenging close games. I think you'll have to change up how battles are scored/ won and lost. That’s the point of this article after all, is to get you to look at how you win and play, “IF” the current system fails you. Here are some of the parameters I’ve come up with.
1. Having a system that encourages all types of units being played.
2. Making it fun. That’s open to interpretation, so if you like running across the board and smashing heads, I say go for it.
3. Fit it into a 20-0 system OR any system you want to use.
4. Having more then one way to win
5. Anything else you can think of.
So to begin lets assume that the current Battle Points way to calculate winners and losers in WHFB 8th ED is flawed, how the heck do you change up to fit the above criteria.
So the first step I took to work out a scoring system was to make all units valuable. So I decided to ditch all points you get for destroying units. Interesting start, huh. There are no battle points used to determine winners and losers. What does that do, well means that killing my dragon is not going to lose me the game, or for that matter losing any other unit?
The trick now is to find another way to determine the winner, and it left me with an idea to use Victory Points. Now to encourage small units and to make large units less optimal some VP’s would be made from capturing objective, and not one or two but seven.
MINUTUARE AND DETAILS
Deploying objectives, what are the tricks, well there are many but here is an example. Let’s start by placing 3 objectives across the centre line. One in the centre worth 3pts, two others on the centre line as well set 24" from the centre and worth 4 pts each, giving you a total of 11pts.
The other 4 objectives are divided and two placed in each player deployment zone. How you do it doesn’t matter, but players place them or opponents place one or both, with a set distance between them of 24’ or even 36”-48”. Whatever works for you?
Now each of these HOMEBASE objectives would be worth less to you then your opponent so a value of 1 VP each for your own two and say 5 VPs each if you capture your opponents HOMEBASES. Mind I wouldn’t make it to easy to capture a HOMEBASE and having a unit with 3 figures and a standard to succeed doing so, would be a good idea.
[Now you could here have another way to win come into play and say IF you control all 4 HOMEBASES you’ve made a HOMERUN J and win the game 20-0. Again there are a myriad of ways to tweak things, in any endeavour you choose. As well I digress. ]
How do you capture the objectives, well the KISS approach works for me? [KEEP IT SIMPLE $TUP1D] Move onto them with a unit of say 3 figures minimum. The capturing of the three centre objectives by units need not have a banner, just for the enemies HOMEBASE. Now once you have moved onto the objective it's yours and you are allowed to move off it in the following turn. Objectives on/in impassable terrain can be captured by moving within 3" of it. Enemy units cannot contest an objective if within 3" unless it's in impassable terrain. Then no one gets it :).
So, units don't have to tie themselves down to an objective once they have captured it. They can move away and still retain the points given up from the objective; after all we want a dynamic game. Alas if an enemy unit recaptures/moves onto the objective they then take those points, and you lose them.
Now that’s the bases of the VP system I’d suggest, but there is more, simple little things that can be done. As they say the devil is in the detail. These are ideas to consider and indeed improve on when you think of something smarter.
TWEAKS
Banners have always been important way of getting points in WHFB, so I would also include into my 0-20 points system the following. At the end of the game both players add up all their banners captured and those still in the hands of their parent units. So if you have 2 units left with banners and have captured 3 then your score is 5. The player with the higher number subtracts the lower score, and the difference is his bonus points and added to any other VP’S from objectives.
Also if you have killed the opponents general its a bonus point, as well if you kill the BSB it's an additional point.[So if you capture the BSB you in effect gain two points one for the banner one for the BSB] On the flip side if you're BSB or general dies then you lose a point for each one. That, for me is enough tweaking, and after all that, cap the maximum loss at 20-0.
Now the fun part is afterwards add up all you points AND THE PLAYER WITH THE HIGHER NUMBER WINS. J The winner’s score is the base line for the 20-0 score line. So if he won with 19 pts the opponent would only get 1 point. If the winner got 12 points and the loser 11 or 4 points it would be an 12-8 win / loss. If neither player gets more then 10 points it’s a draw, and both players get 10-10.
Again it’s a suggestion on how to do things, not an absolute must.
So there is one idea and a demonstration on how to do a 20-0 system for tournaments. It's not for me to judge, but to suggest that in the future "IF" the WHFB 8th ED is a little stale for you, try working on how to win the game with similair systems. After all it works for chess.
SUMMARY
Capture of central objective 3pt
Capture of either flank objective 4pts each
Capture of enemy HOMEBASE with a unit 3 figures carrying a banner [even a captured banner] 5pts
Retaining your HOMEBASE 1pt each ( you always start the game holding your own HB]
Killed opponents BSB for a bonus point
Killed opponents General for a bonus point
Lost your BSB minus one point
Lost your general minus one point
Person with highest points wins. In a 0-20 table cap points for winner at 20
I really like the rules GW have come up with for 8th, it has a lot of catch 22 feel about things which makes it interesting. The thing though about determining the winner currently in the BRB is there is no catch 22 about it. You pretty much have to try and destroy your opponent to win. No “if “ or “buts” , and in any great games I’ve played, the more ways to win makes for a more entertaining game. Tell me I’m wrong, I’d be pleased to know why.
So I hope I haven’t wasted your time and that this has given your creative juices a charge. Until next time
Nasher
Sean Davis.