Dust off the Tomes! Fantasy Tactics #1
by Revenant
If you’re a fantasy player and haven’t been living under a rock, you should know that 8th edition is a big restart button on the fantasy rules. With the preview copies floating around stores across the world and the book going on sale in early July, you need to stay ahead of the pack.
There are a plethora of items and units that were swept under the rug during seventh edition. Whether the point cost was too great, it was not as good as others in its category, or it was just useless a whole bunch of items and troops never saw the field. With the new rules, though these items and units will need to be reexamined and revisited upon the battlefield to see where their new place should be in our armylists.
Underappreciated Items
Dispel Scrolls are now 0-1 in the new rules. That means armies that have access to their own dispel scroll items that act similarly will appear more. Tomb Kings: Broach of the Great Desert, Bretonians: Silver Mirror, Empire: Seal of Destruction are just a few examples of items that might be coming up for some fresh air.
Massive units of cheap effective troops will soon be quite popular. Any method to make these units better should be utilized. Bretonians: Icon of Qunelles gives the blessing to a unit. Skaven have a cool unit buff with Skavenbrew that can make a unit of 50+ slaves quite scary. The goblin Spider banner could provide hilarious results in a big unit of night goblins with short bows.
Magic items aren’t the only thing that you need to take a look at. While skimming the pages of your favorite army book look at some of those units that you haven’t fielded in seventh. With the supporting attack rule and the focus on initiative, a lot of old junk units might be the new who’s who on the fantasy tabletops.
Units to Reconsider
Warriors of Chaos: Foot Chaos Warriors and foot Marauders have great initiative and access to some hard hitting close combat weapons. These guys weren’t that great in seventh, but, I feel they could really bring the pain in eighth. 50 Khorne Marauders with great weapons fielded 10 wide can put out 40 strength 5 attacks at a reasonable cost of 300 points with command.
High Elves: Spear-men are a great core unit for High Elves in eighth. Under eighth rules if you have ASF and higher initiative then your opponent, you can re-roll misses. Combine that with high elves extra spear attack rules and you have a massive amount of strength 3 attacks coming your way. 20 Spear-men 5×4 will be able to swing with every model and most likely will be re-rolling misses.
Trolls: With the new supporting attack rules and the ability to re-roll all leadership test next to a battle standard bearer, trolls are a pretty scary unit to face. Trolls initiative is not so hot, but, they make up for it with regeneration and an affordable point cost. 6 trolls fielded 3 wide will have all 18 attacks and additionally a rank bonus to boot.
I urge you to open up that army book and see if you can find some new destruction to bring to the Fantasy tabletops. Have any good ideas folks? Please post your comments.
