‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – Can Missions Fix Infantry?
Let’s take a look at how we can use missions to help out infantry in Warhammer: The Old World.
It’s not really a secret that infantry are in a bit of a bind in TOW. It’s often high on lists of the biggest issues the game is facing, rules wise. The fact is that infantry, in particular, ranked up infantry, just isn’t good or relevant to the game right now. Now, I’m sure to some of you, this isn’t an issue, and everything is working fine. If so, there is no need to continue on!
But I think most players would agree that it’s not ideal. While there are some exceptions, Unbreakable infantry can be good, Skirmishing infantry is useful and some ranged infantry is OK, most ranked up infantry just doesn’t have a place. That’s pretty tragic in a rank-and-flank game as it removes most of the ranking and lot of the flanking. So today lets take a look at if we could use missions to fix them.
Why Use Missions?
But why use missions? Why not fix the rules? That’s a fair questions, but I think real rule’s fixes need to come from GW and be pretty comprehensive. I’ve seen some events and players try some minors fixes and I’d argue they didn’t really work. The kind of major changes to the core rules likely needed really need to to come from GW and be worked into the game. But missions are an easy way to effect change in events and causal play that wants them. They are easy to implement and don’t effect core rules. They are also easy to tailor or change. You can have some missions where infantry is good, and others where it’s… normal. So how can we do it?
Objectives
I think the easiest and most impactful way of using missions to make infantry matter is to use objectives. You can always have some bonus points that work around infantry, but those rarely decide games and often get ignored or don’t have enough impact. But objectives that either completely decide the winner or contribute a major amount of victory points. Now some events have tried this. But in general they only make it so that infantry have an easier time of scoring objectives. I’d argue this doesn’t really do a lot. It doesn’t mean you need to bring infantry to score, just kill the enemies and that’s pretty easy. So I think you need to actually make it so ONLY infantry can score. There is precedent in GW games for this.
What Does That Look Like?
So lets take a look at an example. You could have a mission like this with three objectives. At a very simply level it plays like a normal game. However at the end of the game each player scores 500 VP for each objective they control. To control an objective you must have the highest combined unit strength in units of infantry in Close or Open Order on the objective. That’s a pretty simple mission, but it instantly gives infantry a super important role. 500 pts an objective doesn’t mean that controlling one, or even two is an auto win, but it’s really going to push you there. And not being able to control any will hurt you.
You can also switch it up a bit while keeping things easy. Have it be the most points in close and open order infantry unit (not counting characters) that determines control. This pushes you more towards elite infantry. Have it be the largest single unit- this pushes you more towards a big blocks then MSU. You can tailor it how you want, or use them all in an event to have different missions give different effects. If you want to go more complex you can score VPs or battle points or whatever each turn. The key here is that you need it to only be scorable by infantry and it has to be really impactful. An extra 100 or 200 vp won’t change a blow out game.
What About Armies With No Infantry?
Well what about armies that don’t have any infantry? Aren’t they kind of screwed by this? That’s a fair question and there are two parts to that. Some armies have the option to take infantry but don’t. In that case… well that’s one them. They have the option, they know the missions, they’ve chosen to ignore it. I mean the whole point is to make infantry relevant and have people take them. You’ve got to have some teeth there and… make them do it.
Ok, fair, but what about the armies that have no option to take infantry. And this is a bit more of a sticky issue. Now currently I think there are a whole two of these in the entire game, and they are both Armies of Infamy and not super popular. So one answer is just… yeah, they are screwed. Don’t play that variation at this event if you want to win all the missions. Arguably you aren’t playing it to be competitive anyway. But that is being pretty harsh. So you can always write in rules that specifically target armies that have 0 option for ranked up infantry. Simply let them designate some small number of units as “scoring units” that can claim objectives like infantry. It lets them play the mission but they will still be at a disadvantage due to their army choice. But that happens all the time anyway!
So, What’s The End Effect?
So what’s the end effect of this? Does it “fix” infantry. Well, to a degree no. It doesn’t make them better. It won’t suddenly make State Troopers more deadly or anything. But it does give them, and similar units, a role in the game. A part to play. You need to have some of them and they need to partake in the battle. It’s an important role for them. And it has a snowball effect. The more infantry everyone takes, the more infantry there is for yours to fight. The more the game has a space for infantry to go at it and be a rank and flank game. But to get there you might have to be a little harsh.
Let us know what missions you’d use to help infantry, down in the comments!
