I'm not really a fan of the feinting rules. Not only is it underpowered compared to the other special strikes (never mind axes, which are over the top), as several people pointed out, goblins will be feinting all the time, so they basically *always* re-roll 1s. Goblins have F2, they probably don't even know what feinting is!

Here's an alternative for feinting: you can only feint if you have a higher Fight, the rationale being only a lower-Fight model will be fooled by your trickery. Your Fight is reduced to 1/2 rounded up, or 3, whichever is less. If you win, you get +1 to wound.

If you think that's overpowered, then make it a re-roll of 1s.
If you think that's underpowered, then reduce the Fight to the lowest value in the Duel (in most cases, making them tied).
...or both...

This does a couple things: it removes the extra dice rolling, and it preserves the benefit of the elven blade, which has a slightly better chance of winning a tied Duel.

On a different note, I'm thinking of starting a thread for "diceless" special strikes. All that extra dice rolling makes me want to ditch that whole section for our home games.

That's a good point about the goblins, but I think feinting is ok as is. It shouldn't be too powerful because almost every warrior can take a feint capable weapon, and if we did do it your way, i could see some of my opponents getting upset about more elven"shenanigans".

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Fight! Fight to the last man!

If this was to be our end then I would have them make SUCH AN END as to be worthy of remembrance

Honestly... I only play home games, and these new attacks are basically just the same as shielding. I never use shielding. Not because it's not useful (though it rarely is), but because it's a lot to keep track of who has what weapon and who's doing a regular strike vs a special strike and what dice mean what and how do we figure out who wins this fight again?

The game is great without the special strikes, and I don't mean to introduce them now. It's unnecessary complexity (though I expect plenty of axes if I go play at my FLGS at some point).

I wouldn't say that, shielding is just adding a die to the existing Duel pool, you don't have to track anything separately. It's as simple as it gets, never mind that shielding can be a huge tactical part of the game. Certainly makes wood elves viable.

The new strikes on the other hand require extra dice that must be separated and accounted for then added or subtracted from whatever they affect...tedious.

My issue with feint (in addition to goblins essentially getting poisoned weapons for free) is that I think modifying the Fight Value is not a good mechanic for a special strike, because magnitude of difference in FV is relatively unimportant. It doesn't matter how much higher or lower you are than your opponent, only if you are higher or lower.



I do like your idea to restrict it to the model with the higher Fight Value in principle, but in practice it ends up having kind of the opposite effect to the complaint that goblins benefit more than everyone else - with only higher FV models allowed to feint good armies are disproportionately benefited. Above-average FV armies like dwarves and elves will obviously get a fair amount of use out of feint, and even average FV armies will benefit from it when fighting goblins (who are a fairly common evil army). Conversely, only uruk-hai stand out as an above-average FV evil force to benefit from feint, while average FV evil forces comprised primarily of orcs and men will almost never get a chance to use feint as the one below-average FV good army, hobbits, are rarely fielded as a stand-alone force.
I feel like a special strike that costs nothing in points it should affect all models as evenly as possible.

That said, I think it's a much better alternative to feint as it's written, so this is probably what I'll be doing in the meantime anyways!



Of your options, I like "re-rolling 1's to wound at the cost of counting as tied FV" the best. Halving your FV but gaining +1 to wound is IMO overpowered, because it sounds better than a two-handed weapon, and free.


I'd be on board with this. Axes are an easy fix, just change the +/- D3 to a flat +/- X and be done with it!

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Well, that's my 2 cents.

I wasn't sure when I wrote it out, but I agree. +1 to wound is overkill, especially if they have a blade and are using it 2-handed.

What I will be doing when I get the books is ignore the new strikes, (they make the game convoluted and from what I've been reading they aren't exactly balanced. I'll also possibly ignore the -1 penalty to moving and shooting.

Regarding shielding, I find it extremely useful.

I agree that shielding is a simple and very important mechanic. It's not hard to identify because for the most part models have shields or not, and there are only a few exceptions (the WE spear is the only that comes immediately to mind).

I hope after the first of the year we can get a group copy of the new book and try out the new rules. The simplicity of the SBG mechanics while maintaining a lot of in-game tactical options has always been a major plus. I like have new options added but really won't be able to speak to how they change the game until I've played using them enough where I'm not having to look them up much. If it's just too hard to get to that point then they're probably not working well...

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

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