Dogs of War

I'll check the rulebook when I see it on Thursday if there is any fluff on Tilea or Dogs Of War.

While I'm happy to hear Chaos Dwarfs get some fluff, and hope that is a sign they'll at the very worst stay in their current limbo, I am a little saddened to see Dogs of War fading.

Still, for casual games I'll happily be on either side of the table from Dogs of War. Plus some of our events and such will allow them.

Things that I think will be good for Dogs of War are there...

If pistols are going to 12" and all that could make pistol armed duelists will do better, and I would use them something akin to a detachment. Plus that makes Long Drong that much nastier!

Crossbows will be a popular ranged unit, as will be the halflings I suspect.

Dwarfs I could see becoming the new mainstay unit for Dogs of War. I don't think the parry change is a nerf, as a 6+ ward isn't horrible either. Plus if there are any spells that let you reroll saves, having two saves could be quite handy in fact.

Fighting in two ranks and not losing attacks until you actually lose attackers isn't all that horrible either for Dogs of War. Great Weapons, especially as Dwarfs, will still get a lot of attacks. With wider units out there, deploy wider. Deploy 10 wide and you'll get that extra rank. 50 Pikes might be expensive (though a lot of units these days will be more expensive), but 50 attacks will be a very imposing thing for any opponent to face. Especially since they go first. One of the armies that might be the deadliest, Dark Elves, will tread cautiously as they don't have the armor or toughness to combat that. Even assuming average rolls on, say Corsairs, they're taking quite a bit of damage!

I haven't tinkered much with the Regiments of Renown, so I can't comment a whole lot. Though I am feeling my Hobgoblin Khan could be more ferocious... First turn charges with spears and medium cav level armor on a soft target, and high pursuit? Might be a dead unit!

Ogres might be more important for Dogs of War armies, considering they're getting helped quite a bit with the new base rules.

I reckon ogres will become better, but with the ability to fight in two ranks and the % limitations, maneaters will be too expensive.

50 WS3 S3 attacks is roughly equal to 25 WS4 S4 attacks - go WoC & Saurus!

Then compare with WS4 Knights on Cav...

For 500 pts, go ahead and take those Pike.

This just in!, list of magic items in the BRB.

Finally, some items we can kit out our characters with. Maybe we don't quite have hte fancy stuff available to others, but we've got some flexibility now. Might make Mercenary Generals a bit more useful (especially since there's no lord slot's to worry about anymore). Also gives our Paymaster a bit more survivability, although a horse is almost a must for him now (Depending on how look out sir changes I suppose).

I thought a horse was pretty much a must already.

And yeah, a greater magic items list will be, well, great!

I am sure the game is going to change a great deal, but honestly, Dogs of War are perhaps one of the most versatile armies there are, so I am sure we will be able to roll with it and come out just fine.

Can't see your link, I'm no member on Warseer. :/
But from the rumour summary magic items I can say, that I'll consider giving the paymaster a Wizard's Hat, so he can at least cast something...

Only list I know of is here - http://www.ulthuan.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=32236

I think the list may have been deleted from Warseer due to it containing points values. The Warseer post had some items translated, the Ulthuan one seems to have them all in German.

The Paymaster can't get the Wizards hat as it costs 100 points.

Yep, just saw the Ulthuan list. Nevertheless some very interesting Items in there, abit too much defensive stuff for my taste... (Me ork, me want bigger club, no weedy armor!)
Some of by favourites are:
- the Rückkopplung (feedback?) Scroll, can be devastating!
- the movement increasing standard, it's cheap and great for all things green!
- the 4+ wardsave talisman plus the 5 point enchanted shield = great protection for poor paymaster!

Another positive change are the cheap items, there are more of them, which I like alot, it adds more flexibility!

Since we already have this rather strong post on the coming edition going, I thought it would be better to post this here as opposed to making a new thread.

Special Characters in 8th Edition

Dogs of War have access to several special characters, mostly collected in the 2003 Warhammer Annual. I have been considering how a new edition may effect them.

First off, few people make use of our special characters, due to the fact that, as with most of their 6th edition comrades, almost all of them use up an additional hero slot. Lord Level characters such as Lorenzo Lupo, Borgio the Besieger, and Lucrezzia Belladona each take up a hero slot as well as a lord, whereas Mydas the Mean takes up a Special as well as his Hero. However, in the coming edition, if there are indeed no caps on choices (1-3 hero choices, ect), and only on total points values, the main negative of these characters may disappear!

Where would that put these characters, and what exactly makes them important?

Well, several are rather interesting, such as Lucrezzia and Ghazak Khan. Others boost your army in some way, such as Borgio, Lorenzo, and Mydas.

With the coming of a great deal more common magic items, the draw of using under equiped or limited equipment special characters may be strong, but two of these characters have a specific bonus that currently does effectively nothing, but could be of great help soon.

Both Borgio and Lorenzo possess the 'Magic Banner' rule, which allows you to equip one unit of Pikemen or Heavy Cavalry with a Magic Banner worth up to 50 pts. Currently, there is only a single banner available (War Banner), and so this ability rarely sees any use (my Warbanner is ALWAYS on my Paymasters Guard). However, with several new banners on the way which we can choose from, this would allow Dogs of War the ability to actually make use of them, as the only way to currently field a Magic Banner is in the (above) Paymasters Guard.

Thoughts? Could these changes cause a rise in sightings of great Dogs of War heroes of the past?

I'm still wondering how they will solve heroes like Makai's goblin hewer or the truthsayer and dark emissary which take up a rare and a hero slot at the moment.

How 'they' will solve them? If by 'they' you mean GW, and by 'solve' you mean put any interest or effort into Dogs of War, I feel rather sure in telling you that 'they' will not. Hopefully a ruling will occur for a similar unit in another army, which we can use as a base. More likely, it's just going to be a group consensus/whatever you decide kind of thing.

GW won't say much about DoWs, but since they say the 8th ed rulebook overrides any given armybook rules (usually it's the other way round) I would interpret that midas, the hewer etc. can be used as long as you keep your percentage values... GW's tendency was to step away from this multiple slot units, besides dragons there aren't many of them in newer armybooks, and the percentage rules just ends what GW started a few years ago.

Well the one thing you can look at is the Tomb Kings Casket of souls. The Casket itself used the rare slot, and the character a character slot. So not sure if the points will be divided or what.

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see the rulings made on multiple slot characters. Whether they are just errated to take up the one slot, or split evenly across both.

For Dogs of War, I don't think there'll be any consensus until something like the ETC go out of their way to have their say.

But yes, I thought our special characters are also somewhat interesting if the slots are dropped and they only come from one percentage area (Makes sense just to make them all regular lords).

Overall, it's times like these that it's really frustrating that Games Workshop don't support the Dogs of War by just at the very least updating the pdf every edition. It would take very little effort on their part to do so.

It would take almost NO effort to update it edition to edition, like, literally five minutes of some guys day. But no, not gonna happen.

Link to a tournament in which I play that has already received the 8th ed book.

http://www.marauders-inc.com/forum/viewt...?f=4&t=861

From what I read a horde of Pikes will fight with 6 ranks.

Okay. This stomp attack. Is that on top of the Impact hits a Ogre already gets? Seems like it. And the 2nd rank getting a full attack rather than just 1 makes the Ogres look safe to keep rocking in 8th. And the fear test every round of combat also is a boon.

Stomp attacks work like impact hits, but they always strike last. Ogre sized creatures get one hit, dragons and the like get d6 hits as far as I know. So Ogres have Impact Hits, 3 attacks from the second rank plus their stomp...time to get some ironguts!

I expect the Ogre Kingdoms to do away with the impact hits come their new book, replaced by the universal stomp attack.

As for Multiple Slot choices...

A lord on a dragon will most likely be the cost of the lord from the lord selection, and then, since the dragon uses up a hero, the cost of the dragon from the hero. Same as the casket, you pay X points for the Liche from the hero section, then Y for the casket from the rare.

Single characters, who are bought together and have no seperated points cost, are a different story. I am going to go with the same reasoning I have always used, which is that if a model uses up a Hero AND a rare, it comes from the Hero category, whereas a Special AND a hero, comes from the special.

I could see myself fielding Lucrezzia, because her rules are very interesting.

From that link, looks like Beorg Bearmen take another hit as due to Frenzy, they can't use the Parry ward save. Beorg may be good, the banner may be good... but I'm starting to feel they may not be the must have choice anymore compared to regular Norsemen.

I'm not hurt by our 'must have' choices getting a little bit of a downgrade, as long as our basic choices come away a bit stronger. Basic Norse having Frenzy, combined with a Ld of 8 (I believe) makes them actually fairly controllable, and with a Ld 9 general around, they are not such the risk to have un-shielded in the lines.

And yeah, Belladona is a really interesting choice. From her ability to boost a models stats (can potentially turn a champion into a hero) with her potion, to the killing blow, she can have a great effect. And the potential to remove wounds from enemy characters before the game is spectacular when it works! Tell a Skaven player his Warlock Engineer starts the game with only one wound, and watch as his whiskers droop!

Additionally, the 'always strike at initiative' rule can potentially be great. RoR leaders like Beorg can no potentially remove models before an enemy even gets to attack.

That's actually one of the reasons I keep coming back to Lorenzo Lupo. Without the 'extra hero' negative, and with the new changes, he could be extremely good. He was always rather iffy, because of his lack of armour and fighting on foot, but if he always strikes at his initiative of 6, while ignoring armour (and potentially at S5), he could offer a lot to a unit.

I had a game using 8th ed rules and a CD army on Tues. And here are my thoughts with no particular order:

a. Army selection has changed dramatically. You can now select a lord regardless of points value, provided you keep to the "Not more than 25% of the total points value of the army" restriction. This will allow the armies with cheap lords (O&G, Empire, and us as examples) to field Lords at even minimal points levels (for example you could take an Empire General with full plate, shield and a minor magic weapon in a 500 pt game, as it would fall under the 125pt cap for lord characters). Big units of core troops are really viable and can be surprisingly tough, and the requirement to have at least three units is not onerous.
b. Charging - My initial thoughts on the variable charge distance were not complementary, but they did add a different level of tactical thinking to planning charges;
c. Magic - like the new spells and the way power dice are generated. Haven't seen how this will affect my Cult of Ulric army with more bound spells/prayers, but it should be interesting. The spell effects can be nasty, and the abilty to pump up the power or range of a spell by increasing the difficulty to cast is neat;
d. Combat - Elite combat units are really nasty with the additional attack from the second rank, and the potential number of attacks from spear/pike armed hordes is quite impressive (throw enough stuff at a wall...). The strike in intiative order definitely causes a rethink for low I units to charge or not, but may cause the number of GW armed units with low I to make a comeback, especially with the loss of the parry rule for using hand weapon and shield (I'm looking at you Dwarfs, and CDs). Not too happy about the "Great Weapons always strike last" rule coming back as it means that units like Bull Centaurs, Knights of the White Wolf and Questing Knights are really delicate and need a fair bit of thought before committing them, as you can take enough casualties to seriously impair combat effectiveness before getting to hit in HTH, BCs with their low(ish) armour save really took it in the shorts here;
e. Shooting - War machines got a buff with the removal of guessing ranges, and the changes to templates - looks like a two Earthshaker cannon army will be coming out of Zharr Naggrund. The rules for regular shooting are nice for shooting in two ranks and the supporting volley fire, looks like non-skirmished Peasant bowmen are a really viable unit now. I may have to see how a unit of 50 work (thirty five long bow shots a shooting phase);

There are other things I noted (like flanking) that have changed, but didn't figure out completely. I'll have to get back next week to get another look at the rulebook and check out some other effects.

Initially, I was quite miffed to notice that two of my armies didn't even warrant a mention in the book (CDs and Dogs of War), but the store folk indicated that it is their understanding that all armies with valid lists for 7th ed are still valid until superceded, so the unsupported armies (CDs, Dogs of War, Kislev) are still there, just in a bit of a limbo, but if no one's objecting keep playing.