Hey All! The day has come! After over a year of waiting, we’ve got a new, updated FAQ along with the errata and new, updated FAR. In this article, I will cover a few key takeaways from those three documents. The game has had a handful of quite important areas that were begging for some clarification (even more after the reveal of some of the new rule changes). Has the new FAQ explained it all? Will we keep chopping in the Harrowdeep?
The contents of those three main documents are very broad, so I’m not going to go through every little change. But I feel there are a few key points to highlight. I’ll present them and share with you what are my feelings about those changes. So, to not waste anyone’s time - let’s jump into the changes!
New Championship rules (usually known as the FAR list)
Let’s start with the document that is not very large, but quite crucial - new, updated Championship Format rules. There are a few things to notice here:
14 different boards are legal. To be honest I’m not sure if that is not a few too many. Not a huge deal though.
No new cards were added to the FAR list.
Bo3 board roll-off change for round 2.
The number of boards is pretty high, it is not a huge issue, but I’ve been hoping we will trim that a bit more. I guess having more options doesn’t hurt, but it does feel a bit bloated in that department though. What is a big deal about boards though is the change to how we’re rolling off in the Bo3 match. In the second game of the match, it is assumed that the player who lost the first roll-off has won the roll and he gets to decide who gets the board priority. The third game resumes standard rolling off. I have to say that I love this change. It’s super good and helps evening out the odds for all players. I think this is a major win over the unnecessary randomness I’ve been complaining about a while back (and a second one after changing how the do-overs work!). With this change, Bo3 matches will feel fairer and there will be fewer situations where a player felt bad because he has lost boards in both games. Big thumbs up from me!
FAr list changes - or rather lack of those… here I’m not 100% happy. With the rotation officially kicking in we’re left with 7 universal cards being restricted. That’s not a huge number. I feel that at least one or two cards should make their way onto that list *coughpunchingupcoughcoughpartialressurectioncough*.
I’m still thinking that a few faction cards could use being taken off that list - like Harness the Storm, which feels like it is there mostly because of its history, not because of a current impact on the game. Overall this is not a bad starting point, but it could’ve been better. Hopefully, this list will see more frequent updates going forward. On the funny side - there’s Cover ground still present on the FAR list. I wish it was still legal, but it is clearly some print goblin’s trick…
Overall - very good changes in the rules coupled with a bit disappointing FAR. Still, I will take it! The game should be better now.
Official Errata
Errata has introduced a few very important changes to the game. First of all - we’ve got a list of fighters from pre-Harrowsdeep warbands and the new traits that do apply for them. This might feel like mostly a bookkeeping change, it is very important.
Flying - Errata does state that the trait rules do replace existing rules on the card if they are similar, it means that any fighter who could’ve passed through the occupied and lethal hexes without any issues now falls under the Flying ruling. And this does mean that those fighters can be damaged by lethal hexes if you would push them into one. So you can hit and drive back a ghost into a lethal hex to get a kill. I love it! It has been so frustrating that any ghost warband was completely immune to those hexes… Now their players will have to be wary of those like the rest of the world! Big kudos to whoever made this change!
Grand Alliances and Chaos Gods - this one is simply an official confirmation of what we’ve already known. It is interesting to see that some warbands did get a chaos god associated with them, while the ones that follow the undivided chaos or other entities (like Horned Rat) were left behind. I would’ve expected them to be pulled under Chaos Undivided, but I guess it is not important.
Drepur Wraithcreepers nerf - this one is pretty big! What happens is that the Patrician can no longer push other wraiths all the time. Those can be pushed only if they’re in friendly territory. To sweeten up the blow he can now push one more fighter at the same time. This is still super handy to inspire them quickly, but wraithcreepers ability to zip through the entire battlefield for free has been severely limited. You can still do it a lot if your opponent will be pressuring you and invading your territory, but if you would like to go aggressive you’ll have to use those move and charge actions. We might see a wraithcreeper with a charge token now!
Khagra’s Ravagers Inspiration - beta rule went official now. It doesn’t change a lot, it is still slow and bad. Even worse in Harrowsdeep. I wonder what did they do to make Archaon curse them so badly… Have they hidden Sigmar’s picture under the pillow or something?
Varclaw nerf - Varclav’s action has got another restriction to it - now you can push your chainrasps only towards the nearest enemy fighter. This means you’ll have to place your feature tokens more carefully if you want to claim them with Varclaw’s action. It also means that you can’t run away with chainrasps using Varclaw anymore. This is a very important change and could be abused by an aggressive opponent to limit Thorn’s ability to get on the feature tokens. Simply put your fighter in such a position that rasps will not be able to close in on the tokes.
It is also a necessary step to open up the hold objective play a bit more. Thorns are the warband that does abuse it very well. With this change, they’ll remain strong but will be a bit more in line with the others.
Godsworn Hunt - all the two Godsworn Hunt loyalists in the world were excited with the prospect of a free and easy inspiration thanks to Illusion upgrades. Well, they cannot be excited about it anymore - this opportunity has vanished before anyone got to even use it. To be fair - this is a good change, or those guys would inspire a bit too easily. Guys, go join the cool gang of Rippa Snarlfangs - they still can inspire off illusions. Why? I don’t know, maybe because we’re animal lovers.
Designer’s Commentary (FAQ)
Now let’s get to the largest document of the lot. FAQ has been long overdue and that’s a fact. Let’s take a look at the most important changes it brought.
Primacy - what we’ve got are almost two pages full of Primacy related topics. That’s a lot! The most important question has been answered: the exact timing of when we acquire the Primacy token! Now we know that this does happen after reactions to the end of activation have been resolved. This is good news, as this means you can kill an enemy fighter, get the Primacy token, and score a surge from it.
What I don’t like about those clarifications is the scenario where one of the players has the Primacy, but both of the players meet the requirements to gain the token. In such a case the player without the Primacy gets it. While this might sound logical… it simply feels bad. I would rather roll off in such a case… I’m not a huge fan of this ruling. but since it is quite nicely laid out and feels fairly streamlined I’m willing to not hate it a lot.
Another important clarification is that you cannot resolve the ploys that grant you the token if you already have one. I would assume the same rule applies to things like a reaction from Dominant Defender, but this has not been specified in the rules, which is an oversight in my opinion. Ploy ruling does set a good foundation for the assumption that you cannot resolve an effect giving you the primacy if you already have the token, but still… it would’ve been beneficial to have this clarified in the rules.
Apart from those major points, we’ve got some more details on the timing of Primacy-related things and some of the scenarios using various cards were explained. A much needed entry, but I’ve been surprised to see how much text Primacy has generated!
Card and Ability resolution rules - this is another very big thing. This rule means that any card played, any ability, or action has to be able to be fully resolved or it cannot be played. While this is something many of us have been expecting from the beginning, it is super important that this has been clarified.
This rule adds up to the aforementioned Primacy scenarios, like the Dominant Defender. Another important change is the fact that now a Bloodthirsty vampire cannot make Guard actions anymore. Something I’ve always found to be very shady and I was opposed to allowing them to take those actions. So I’m glad this has been officially ruled out now!
In addition, we’ve got a few scenarios explaining how the heal(X) ploys work - no, you cannot heal a healthy fighter! There’s also an interesting tidbit that probably extends to the ploys in general: in the case where the card has been played, but circumstances have changed during its resolution not allowing it to be fully resolved, it is discarded without effect instead. I would assume that this effect extends beyond the heal cards, but again - this would be cool if it was explicitly stated.
Overall I like those rulings. I think they’re good. Some extra clarifications could be added so we’re very explicit about those rules, but it is certainly a step in a good direction.
Surge Scoring Clarifications - there’s one clarification that I really like - if you’ve met a condition to score the surge during activation, but those conditions are not met anymore before the surge scoring step (because of some reactions for example), you can still score that surge. It might be a little thing, but it is a good one.
Spinefin and out of action stuff - I don’t like the fact that Spinefin counts as if it was out of action if a player has chosen to not deploy it. It might be a crazy corner case, but still… it does count towards some objectives that count out of action fighters and this is a bit silly. At the same time Otapatl, while under the effect of Invisible Hunter, is not treated as out of action… but at the same time, he’s not treated as surviving fighter either. I get that the team is trying to simplify certain phrases and rules, but this is causing some illogical situations. A fighter that was never taken out of action, because he did not enter the game yet, does count against kill-objectives, but a fighter who is not out of action, but is… somewhere in limbo… doesn’t count as a surviving fighter even though he clearly is not out of action. While this is not something that will be causing issues very often… it just feels super clunky and I hate it. Just introduce another status, that is allowing to order this mess up.
Thorns of the Briar Queen inspiration - oh boy, this is a big one! This change is massive for those ghosts, but its implications are far wider. For Thorns, this change does mean that you cannot push them closer to an enemy during the power step to have them inspire and attack with better stats during their activation. This is very big and will hurt their offensive power a lot! While any day when Death warbands eat a nerf is a good day, this change being clarified in the FAQ means that the current rules regarding the inspiration are standing… and this is very bad news for many warbands. Thorns, Drepur, Crimson Court, Soulraid, Farstriders, Skaeth are especially hurt. Especially the Soulraid is screwed - they’re getting 4 activations to make use of their inspired stats… unless an opponent has asked the fish elves player to go first. In such a case, Elathain and the crew will not be inspired yet and will get their boosts after their first activation. A good way to screw Elathain over… was that intended? I don’t think so.
My only consolation is the fact that those documents are usually prepared ahead of time and hopefully this will be amended soon once the dev team has noticed what kind of a mammoth mistake they’ve done. But until then… some of the warbands will have a rough time with an extra nerf.
Closing Thoughts
So this is it - my extract from the changes and clarifications. What’s my opinion on those documents? They’re full of very good changes and clarifications. There’s no doubt about it. I like the direction taken in case of things like roll-offs, cards, or action resolutions, etc. I think that some of the explanations could use some additional explicit re-phrasing, as certain things could be concluded from other clarifications mentioned in the document, but there is room for more persistent players to argue against those interpretations. It could be easily fixed and hopefully, that will happen later on.
Overall the game should be more clear and better thanks to those changes, but there’s one very big elephant in GW’s room. The inspiration change. The current FAQ seems to reinforce the changes from the new rulebook and that is… very disappointing. Frankly speaking, it is damaging to the game. I’m hoping that we will see the new iteration of that document very soon - one that does fix the inspiration because right now it is a pile of crap.
All the changes to the game do come in cycles, so I’m hopeful that the development team will realize their mistake seeing the amount of negative feedback on the subject, and will release a fix soon. I’d like to think they’re already working on one, or there’s one ready, but waiting for its turn to be released. For the sake of our fun let’s hope it’s going to go that way.
As always - what are your thoughts on this subject? I’m always keen to read your comments, so feel free to drop them!
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