Warhammer: The Old World – Orc & Goblin Tribes Arcane Journal Brings New Life To Old Rules
We are getting the first teaser of the rules from the Orc and Goblin Tribes’ new Arcane Journal. These old rules are back from the dead.
If you haven’t played Orc and Goblin Tribes in Warhammer: Fantasy Battles and you’re only experience with them is Age of Sigmar, get ready for some frustration coming your way. The Old World is bringing back a few “random” checks to the army that can really mess-up your well laid plans. Get ready for the Stupidity, Impetuous, and Animosity* checks to ruin your day.
“Orcs and Goblins! And some Trolls… As we saw with the previous two Arcane Journals, there’s expanded background on what the Orcs and Goblins are up to during this time period. We’re seeing two new special characters, and two bespoke Armies of Infamy which use familiar miniatures in a new way to give existing players something fresh to run with. We’ve also got new Magic Items, a narrative scenario that follows on from the story in the book, and a new lore of magic focused on the sorcerous abilities of the Troll Hags, who conjure up swamp magic!”
Trolls and Stupidity
Trolls are stupid. And in The Old World there’s rules for that, too.
All Troll units have this rule and even if you attach a character to a unit they still suffer from it. This forces the unit to move during the Compulsory Move sub-phase and they have to move straight ahead — no manoeuvres allowed. Additionally, they can’t march or declare a charge.
According to Games Workshop:
“From a game design perspective, Stupidity is a force equaliser. What stops Trolls from being one of the best units in the game is that sometimes they stand around instead of charging when you want them to. Even the Troll Hag has stupidity, because she’s still a Troll. She is excellent – if she were able to operate freely, she’d be too excellent for her points. We try to make all of our rules thematic but balanced, and things like this even it up.”
There’s also a new option to take an entire Troll Army if you want. Well, almost entirely Troll army. Then new Army is the Troll Horde but we don’t have the full rules on that just yet.
Orcs And Goblins – Impetuous and Animosity
Both Impetuous and Animosity checks are back as well. We don’t have the entire rules spelled out for either of them unfortunately. But we can gather that Impetuous is a check that is going to force your units (like Goblin Wolf Riders) to charge a unit that you maybe didn’t want them to go after. And the Animosity checks are probably going to be like their Warhammer Fantasy rules of yesteryear. Animosity checks basically forced the unit to roll on the Animosity Table that had a range of effects. They might hit themselves for example. Or they might get a random charge or do nothing in the move phase. It was rather random.
*Edit: Impetuous has replaced the Animosity checks. That’s probably for the best!
Fun or Frustrating?
The Orc and Goblin Tribes randomness was always a quark of the army. These rules have been long gone in Age of Sigmar and they honestly play a lot better for it. I get that GW uses these rules as a “Force Equalizer” and that’s reflected in the points of these units. But I think that’s a horrible trade-off. It’s funny the first time a unit “goes stupid” and doesn’t do what you need it to. But your 10th game in when you really need them to behave and they don’t…well, that’s a sign this army isn’t for you. Personally, I’d rather just pay regular points and have these units behave normally.
This isn’t an army for me. I still remember seeing these rules in action in WFB and it wasn’t a good experience. I know there are OG Orc and Goblin players out there who have fond memories of their army. And more power to you — have fun with this army. And when it stabs you in the back and breaks your heart again, don’t come crying to me.
You know what’s another good “Force Equalizer” for an army? Make them cost the appropriate points without rules to hold them back.
