Warhammer: The Old World – Special Rules For Special Units Previews
Games Workshop showcases a few Special Rules and unit stats for a few special units. Get ready to dive into this Old World rules preview!
Today we’re getting a closer look at the virtuous Grail Knights and their stat block from The Old World. Additionally, we’re also getting a look at a bunch of various Universal Special Rules and how those function. If you seeing things like Armour Bane (X) or Lance well get ready to confirm your suspicions.
Universal Special Rules Overview
“As you can see, with a Weapon Skill of 6, 5 Initiative, and 2 Attacks, this band of brothers are a truly terrifying proposition – but their stats aren’t the full story. With heavy armour, shields, and barded Bretonnian Warhorses, they have a save of 3+, while the lances give them +2 Strength on the turn they charged, and Armour Bane (1). “
The Grail Knights are still the mounted brick of a unit you’d expect from them. They also have a TON of Special Rules to cover. We won’t get to all of them but GW did touch on quite a few.
Armour Bane (X) is just one of about 75 Universal Special Rules (USR) in the game. While 75 is not a small number of rules, many of these are just consolidations from other parts of previous versions of Warhammer. Things like Psychology, unit coherence, or even Monster rules.
Personally, I think this will eventually help to make things play faster as everyone is using the same terminology for the same rules across all the units. I’m sure certain units will have additional rules, but having all the USRs in one spot (aka the Core Rule Book) should make things easier eventually.
Two examples of this shift were provided by GW. They mentioned Close Order as tweak to units that weren’t skirmisher or fast cavalry. They also called out Stomp — now if a monster has this USR it can make a Stomp and if a Monster doesn’t, well, then it can’t! Simple and specific.
Grail Knight Special Rules
Using Grail Knights as an example, GW touches on quite a few of their USRs and other army specific rules. First up, we have Blessings of the Lady. This is an army-wide special rule. What’s interesting is that it requires the Bretonnian army to forgo the roll to see who goes first. Instead, the army kneels and prays “for protection of the Lady of the Lake.”
This gives them all a 6+ Ward Save against wounds suffered or a 5+ Ward Save against attacks that are Strength 5 or higher. That’s a good trade considering the Bretonnian player now knows exactly when it’s going to go on turn one. This blessing can be lost if a unit flees. Or a character declines a challenge — which seems unlikely for a Bretonnian Character.
Close Order applies to non-skirmishers or fast cavalry units. So it makes sense that the Grail Knights have that. Counter Charge is basically exactly what it sounds like:
“…if our Grail Knights are charged by units such as [Monsters, Cavalry, and Chariots] from a longer distance than their attacker’s Movement characteristic, they can spur their horses D3+1” in response — both parties count as charging, and Initiative then comes into play.”
This is an interesting gamble for the Grail Knights. Basically, it’s going to help ensure the charge but it also allows for the Knights to get their charge bonuses. It will then come down to Initiative to see who swings first. With an Initiative of 5 base, that’s not bad at all for the Grail Knights.
Next up we have some nice Bretonnian-only rules:
“Finest Warhorses is another Bretonnian-only rule – such is the quality of these noble steeds, you may reroll any 1s when you Charge, Flee, or Pursue before discarding any dice. If their First Charge of the game makes contact, the target unit loses its rank bonus until the next round of combat. Lance Formation allows Bretonnian Knights to form their signature devastating charge formation – offering them a choice between this and Close Order.”
If you had any doubt that Grail Knights are going to be bad news on the charge those rules should put those ideas to bed. They are going to hurt if you’re on the receiving end of their charge! And like a bad infomercial, “But wait, there’s more!”
Yeah…I think Grail Knights are going to be a strong unit. Considering they are clocking in at 38 points a model and at a minimum of 3 in a unit, yeah…seems likely to see them pop-up here and there.
Oh and did you know you could also give them additional wargear and gifts? Magic Items, a Knightly Virtue for the Grail Guardian, or a Magic Banner are all available from them. Above are a few examples of those fancy toys.
There’s tons more USRs in the Core Rules. Just about every unit will have a few as mentioned above. What’s your take on them? Are you glad to see the concept return or are 75 of them just too many?
Grail Knights: Even if you charged them, they could charge you!
