Same procedure as last time.

1) Strongly disagree, and another one of my ‘most hated’. Warhammer had more than enough random factors already, and as such was already too much of a dice game – i.e., the dice have a large amount of power over the outcome of many things. Any element of movement should never have been subject to that, and certainly not charging. Complaints about how estimating distances was a minor skill add no strength to the argument, because at least guessing a distance was a skill that the player needed; however minimal, it’s still more of a skill than rolling dice and hoping for the best, or knowing probabilities. And that doesn’t even cover the ludicrous notion of infantry managing cavalry-standard charge distances – it should just never be allowed to happen. In my eyes, adding yet another dice-controlled factor is reducing the game further towards the level of Snakes and Ladders, or its ilk – i.e. reducing the impact of the player on their in-game performance. It’s the straw that breaks the camels back, in terms of random game elements.

2) Strongly disagree. This is another change that I feel is making the game more forgiving, needlessly so. Making march blocking so easily avoidable (for some armies more than others, granted) is effectively taking it out of the game. For anything with halfway decent Ld (8 or above), march blocking will be far less effective a tactic, to the point where it won’t really be worth bothering with it in favour of just spending the points you would’ve used for a flying or fast cavalry unit on more dull infantry blocks.

3) Disagree, and I didn’t know about this one before. It’s another example of indecisive design, since that rule was brought in in 7th ed, and is now gone again. It made absolutely perfect sense that if you fled into the clutches of an enemy unit, you were destroyed, so why take it out? It’s as Warren says: it encouraged the setting up of traps, and was a great way to deal with powerful combat units with high Ld who would most likely rally if you failed to catch them – I’m glad to see that one of you finally agrees with me about something!

4) Disagree. I fail to see how a piddly little hand weapon and shield would ever be able to deflect the blow of a Great Weapon in the hands of a Shaggoth, for example. ‘Possibilities’ is one thing, but stupid, nonsensical possibilities are just annoying. There were plenty of unlikelihoods in the game already that made for great little stories (like rolling 3 6’s on a trot for saves, or having little Gnoblars kill anything, for example) – adding more doesn’t really make the game any better. It does encourage the use of other weapon combinations, perhaps, but since a unit that has a weapon other than a Hand Weapon is forced to use it anyway, I fail to see any point. Another example of change for change’s sake.

5) I do actually like this one. What I don’t like, though, is the execution in tandem with the charge rules. I’ve actually been clamouring for Initiative to play a bigger part for years (High Elves in 6th ed were my first army), so I’m all for combat being fought in I order. However, charging should have given you a bonus to Initiative, if for no other reason than to make charging still a worthwhile choice. As it stands, unless you’re cavalry and want a spear/lance bonus, or a chariot, there’s no good reason to charge anything. It means the stats of the units plays more of a part than the players decision. Additionally, since striking first is essentially menaingless what with the ‘remove casualties from the back’ rule, the whole ‘strike in I order’ thing has been vastly undermined, and so isn’t the great change that it should have been. It’s a further example of GW taking one step forward, and then two steps back, as they frequently do.

6)Disagree, and I didn’t know about this one either. Charging the flank or rear was a good way to deal with uber-characters who you might not otherwise be able to handle – take Goblins against Chaos characters, for example. Charging in such a way allowed them to have a chance – represented a sneaky trick that might be very characterful of them – and gave them a shot rules-wise. Additionally, it punished players for not positioning their characters in units properly. Its yet another ‘safety net’ change, which is quickly becoming noticeable as an overall theme of the rules. I am of the opinion that if a player makes a mistake, they should be punished for it; they should suffer negative consequences. The rules shouldn’t allow you to ‘get away’ with such things.

7) I unfortunately see this as yet another reason to not use the challenge rule as it was likely intended, with unit champions always being the ones to accept them, so I have to disagree here as well.

8 ) This rule has in fact always been there, it’s not new. Therefore I have no real issue either way with it. If you’re in BTB with different model types, then by all means you should be able to allocate attacks as you want, so long as you don’t split the attacks of a single model – I disagree with that notion because it doesn’t really follow for me that a model could split its attention thusly. Again, it feels like a ‘safety net’ change – instead of having to decide (and risk) who to direct a characters’ wrath onto, you can just have a pop at them all. It will make wizards in units a lot less viable as there will be no drawback for attacking them – the enemy can still rack up CR from the unit as well.

9) Since it ties back to the idea of powering up all the book lores to match the (somewhat insane) level that some of the army book lores have reached, I disagree again. Plus, that business about ‘not being able to stay out of range’ is wrong because the opponent would most likely just stay out of the ‘upgraded’ range instead.

The ‘cheese on a stick’ arose from 7ths later army books that broke what was otherwise a perfectly acceptable set of core rules, so blaming 7th ed as a whole for shoddy army book design is flawed logic. A complete rewrite like this was never neccesary to ‘give all armies a chance’ – Australian tournament composition rules meant that armies like Orcs and Ogres could have a decent shot at it, if the player was good enough, and their attitude in general towards cheese seems so much better than over here – I envy them for that.
I find Warrens reaction particularly interesting; you probably feel the same way about it as you might have when you were 12, because thats about the age range the new game has been targeted at – a reduction in complexity, and a massive increase in ‘randomness’ and forgiving, ‘safety-net’ rules that allow players to make mistakes and not suffer appropriately for them, all rounded off with a massive push to sell infantry models.
In short, it doesn’t really feel like a tactical wargame any more, and for me, that makes it not Warhammer any more. You can gush all you want to about ‘possibilities’, but the whole thing just reeks of dumbing down in order to sell to new players, since the veterans are so jaded by poor design choices and overall business practice for the last few years.
I’m thoroughly disappointed that BoW and I have such polar opposite views on the game, as it’s going to mean my enjoyment of your videos decreases considerably.

Guess I should probably stick to the 40K ones, eh? That’s going to mean rather a long time away until the gushing blows over…