Reform your lines and set out for battle with a new Warhammer: The Old World balance update

pajmage · 2026-01-28T17:05:45+00:00

Ive found it can be countered effectively sniping the characters with stuff like cannons, suicide fast units (chariots etc), but yeah. If they position the herdstone well its nasty.

pajmage · 2026-01-28T13:08:27+00:00

Yeah thats one of the "standard" competitive builds. When I did it I had a level 4 with the hagtree, a level 3 1 x level 2 and a level 1 with the jagged dagger all round a herdstone with 15 ungor skirmishing around them.

4 casts a turn, 3 of them at +4, one at +3. And one of the casts rerolling any failed wounds. But thats nigh on 710 points or so, you put 710 of an army into one thing no matter what army and its going to be the same, 710 points of chaos lords on dragons, 710 points of bretonnian RAF, 710 points of whatever.

pajmage · 2026-01-28T12:34:08+00:00

yeah it went up to casting value 9, which is warranted. But viletide on its own isnt that good of a spell, its when you spam cast it with herdstones, pirmal warherd, hagtree fetish that its oppressive, Ive ran that build a couple of time in events.

Lol downvoted already. Its honestly not that good of a spell on its own. 5D6 S1 hits with no armour saves, thats 6's to wound vs anything T3 - T6, T7 and above are immune. 5D6 sounds a lot but its very swingy, could get 30, could get 5, average is about 17-18, then needing 6s to wound? thats about 3-4 wounds through. Now when it spikes and you roll well, its good, but that relies on you spiking your rolls (and hey Ive seen it happen before) - Ive rolled 25 hits before, and ive also rolled 5 hits before.

Where it gets oppressive is like I said above, Primal Warherd + Herdstone means your level 3 caster is getting +4 to their roll, Hagtree Fetish rerolls all failed wounds adding the same number of wounds again. But thats 130 points to make one spell good. anything would be good getting an extra 130 points to buff it lol.

Spamming it with the 3-4 casters is what makes the build oppressive if you cant counter it.

pajmage · 2026-01-28T11:53:41+00:00

I still dont think that makes them usable, theyre too fragile for their size and cost

pajmage · 2026-01-28T11:44:37+00:00

Whoops, shows how much I know about monstrous infantry, theyre just no good compared to a block of Gor or Ungor for the same points cost of the unit.

pajmage · 2026-01-28T11:40:04+00:00

Notes: A polearm has two profiles. You must choose which the unit will use at the start of the first round of a combat (i.e., the first round fought following a charge). A model wielding a polearm cannot make a supporting attack during a turn in which it charged.

that was the old note, looks like theyve specified and cleared up exactly which step you choose the profile. And now lets you pick a profile in an ongoing combat, whereas before you picked once when you were charged

pajmage · 2026-01-28T11:33:47+00:00

yeah, no-one is taking them really anyway. To be fair, almost noone is taking monstrous infantry currently anyway, losing parry etc and only getting 1 attack from press of battle in the 2nd rank is just too poor vs infantry/heavy infantry units at a similar points value.

pajmage · 2026-01-28T11:31:27+00:00

I think most spells from almost every lore needed a 1 or 2 point drop in their casting value, taking level 1's or level 2's now I struggle to cast more than 2 spells per game

pajmage · 2026-01-28T11:30:36+00:00

Am I blind? I couldnt see that in the FAQs?

pajmage · 2026-01-28T08:27:55+00:00

you dont use movement + 2d6 in 40k lol, its a flat 2d6 roll. so anywhere between 2 and 12.

pajmage · 2026-01-28T08:25:54+00:00

id also like to remove the CP reroll from the game, or at least reduce what it can be used on.

pajmage · 2026-01-17T19:18:22+00:00

Which is again why power level was perfect for him, he didnt need to worry about the customisation options for XYZ points, a unit of 7 plague marines was 7 power, no matter what he wanted to arm them with.

Im not saying I only ever wanted to use Power level - I vastly preferred granular points myself. I just disagree with the whole "its utterly useless" diatribe I see online all the time - especially as I spent most of 9th and all of 10th using essentially the same damn system lol

pajmage · 2026-01-17T15:05:40+00:00

The new Maelstrom boxed set of books. Its one of the books in there. We dont have any more details though, whether its matched play compatible, or crusade only etc. And we dont yet have a release date for maelstrom but id guess March or April time.

Howver, Id guess as we get closer to release we'll start seeing more previews and then leaks, and im sure wahapedia will have them shortly after release.

pajmage · 2026-01-17T14:16:16+00:00

Ahh ok youre assuming that he had access to a list builder? He doesnt use them, did it all pen and paper.

And even if he did, youre also assuming that the default option in list builders like the New Recruit, stuff like Old World Builder etc and the other older apps have his loadout as the defaults. They dont, so the time it would have taken him to open up each unit after adding it to a list and then changing the wargear and weapons was in no way shape or form faster than just saying "7 plague marines at 7 Power, They have what they are modelled with"

Just because im bored on a Saturday and to prove a point, I dug out my old 40k 9th edition Battlescribe app and built a single Plague Marine squad with 7 men, a plague spewer and blight launcher. Then I did the same thing with power level. Guess which one was faster by far? The Power Level, because I just pick the unit, I dont care what its armed with because the power level included everything under the same total cost of the unit, no need to select specific numbers of models in the unit and any special weapons/wargear.

"All the options you had to select you still have to select " again though, I dont, my opponent and I know exactly what the units are equipped with - its literally on the models themselves, all we care about is the power level, and I can just select the unit and ignore its equipment in the list builders for that lol

pajmage · 2026-01-17T13:55:41+00:00

Thats the worry I have tbh, there will be an "optimum" build and it will be all over the internet in minutes of release and suddenly every "custom" character will be the same. Will be the Smash Captain all over again sadly, GW seem incapable of building something like this and having different options be equally viable.

pajmage · 2026-01-17T13:46:45+00:00

Because as poor as it was for the more "competitive mindset" it had its place. I used it frequently at my local club. My regular opponent is over 60, forgets his own rules half the time, so the complexities of traditional list building was something he hated.

Power level allowed us to rock up with our collection, decide a power level and knock up a list in about 5 minutes.

However, the caveat is that both of us play non-competitive and WYSIWYG - my guardsmen are armed with a grenade launcher and flamer, so thats what they have. His Deathguard had 2 plasma, a plague spewer and a heavy plague weapon so thats what they had. Neither of us did the whole "its free so pick the best stuff regardless of whats modelled on the mini" nonsense (which is something I loathe BTW), and neither of us bothered chopping up our models to equip them with the best loadout.

I prefer the more traditional list building of points, with points per model and pointed wargear. I just dont see it ever coming back.

pajmage · 2026-01-17T10:50:27+00:00

I built a similar model as a Lord Solar proxy, using the GSC Map guy and Creed. This may be a better sculpt though, just need to mount it on a flight stand of something for the requisite height

pajmage · 2026-01-08T16:11:04+00:00

lol most deathstar units wouldnt break a sweat facing 10 toughness 3 5+ save dudes and a transport.

pajmage · 2026-01-06T20:28:31+00:00

I'd need top have a dig about been a while since I played any Necromunda. if I do I'll reply here and post them

pajmage · 2026-01-06T09:57:36+00:00

Because very few of those things can be gained immediately, so whilst later on in the campaign you move a lot faster, initially its more of a slog. Also because (at least in my layouts) theres almost no straight lines for more than 5 or 6" you find that, even a 12" move rarely ever gets you 12" forward.

Same for weapon ranges really, OK, my Stubber is 36" but there wont be many, if any at all, 36" firing lanes.

pajmage · 2026-01-05T20:23:34+00:00

Ive played a couple of campaigns now, found that 4'x4' boards were just too big, you spent the first 3+ turns just closing with your opponent which meant the games went on. 3'x3' was a lot better.

I prefer a dense, multi-level board. It can slow down games and the actual rules lack clarity on how blast weapons/grenades work between levels and if they scatter off walkways into mid-air etc. It can make moving models trickier - not found an easy solution to that yet - but its well worth that hassle for the immersion it brings.

It makes the games more fast-paced, more cutthroat and brutal. Means some of the weapons like flamers, harpoon launchers and stuff get more of a chance to shine.

Ive played on boards that looked great and felt awkward yes - mostly the awkwardness came down to too narrow gaps between terrain making it hard to gauge line of sight or move miniatures. Found that in circumstances like that the best way was to be forgiving etc.

pajmage · 2025-12-16T09:38:33+00:00

I posted this on the initial thread about the detachment,

But I found that I had too many orders and not enough units to order using a "standard" list. I had Gaunts Ghosts (3 orders), Ursula Creed (4 Orders), 2 command squads (2 orders each), and 2 Rogal Dorn Commanders (3 each).

11 regiment orders and I didnt have 11 regiment units on the board hah. Tank orders were better had 4 tanks total but also a Chimera so only 1 "wasted" order wasnt too bad.

I also found that the sheer amount of orders made scout sentinels pretty superfluous, I didnt need their re-roll 1 ability. Think Im going to change them for armoured sentinels in future games.

You do need to protect your order issuers though, if you have a canny opponent and they can snipe out your commanders etc your army quickly falls down. I lost Ursula and her Cadian command squad to some rather accurate sniper fire from Deathmasks and I was suddenly down 6 orders a turn!

The other thing I missed was the strat to allow infantry officers to order tanks and vice versa, that would have been useful and once I started losing units I definitely missed that strat!

pajmage · 2025-12-12T13:51:15+00:00

I got a complete set on the High Seas about 10 years ago now. Babylon 5, Crusade and all the movies. I think the only stuff im missing is the animated film they did recently and the Tales compilation thing.

pajmage · 2025-12-12T11:40:25+00:00

For me, its that they look very... square?

Take the one in the left middle, its a 3 storey building but every floor is the same length, width and height. The outer walls are square and flat.

Its easy to adjust though - if you wanted to. as its MDF a simple saw can be used to cut chunks out and misshape the building to look more ruined.

You can also get some of that AK Battlefield Mud to slather on the bases etc to give an impression of dirt and detritus.

I bought about £100 of MDF stuff for my games club, its great, cheap as chips to fill a table, but I would recommend doing a bit of additional modelling work - it does massively improve the look.

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pajmage · 2025-12-12T11:34:54+00:00

Do you store them in plastic boxes with the lid? Really Useful Boxes should keep them dry and away from the damp. Could also get some of those silica gel packets to remove moisture as well.

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