‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – Five Small Rules Changes With Big Impacts

Take a look at a few small rules changes I’d make in the Warhammer: The Old World, that would have a BIG impact.

The last year and a half-ish of the Old World have been a ton of fun. I really really love the game and many of it’s aspects. But that isn’t to say that the game is flawless or that there aren’t some changes we’d all make. So today I want to look at a few I’d consider doing if I was put in charge of the game. What I’m looking at is some minor changes that keep the overall rules with just smallish tweaks. I’m not looking to change it to a shared turn kind of game (unneeded) or to rework skirmish rules (needed). These are just some kind of smallish things I think could improve the game. And maybe if anyone is listing they might get some ideas!

5. No Turn 1 Charging For Player One

Now various other games, and even editions of WFB have had similar rules to this. The idea is that the player who goes first cannot declare any charges. This prevents the often overpowered, and pretty much always feels bad, first turn charge without the enemy having a chance to avoid it. By limiting it to the first player you can pretty much remove the chance of a first turn charge outside of the first player being really aggressive, and in the case it feels pretty OK!

In 8th Edition WFB this rule applied to Vanguard units, but TOW dropped it, which has been abused a bit. Now you could bring it back just for Vanguard, but I think making it a blanket rule helps with some missions that have a closer set up. Either way you word it, stopping crazy first turn Vanguard charges feels like a good thing for the game.

4. Have Fewer Missions Give +1 To Go First

This one is a really easy change as it’s not a core rule at all, but just one tied to the missions. Normally the player that finishes deploying first gets a +1 on the roll to go first. While not every mission has this, most of the popular ones do and most events have copied it. I think fewer missions should have it! Going first is normally a big advantage and if you look at a lot of top tourney lists you will see that they want to go first and also build small compact armies that don’t use scouts to try to get the +1.

This has had an effect on constraining list building a bit. Likewise, a few army builds do want to go 2nd, but they can also build towards this to lose the +1, though this is much less common. Either way I think it would be a bit freeing to have fewer missions use the +1 to go first and just be a straight up random roll, forcing players to build more balanced lists that can react to both options.

3. Change How GW Define “Move”

There are a number of things in the game that trigger whenever a unit moves. The most common example is drilled, but there are a few others. In the FAQ GW has moved as anytime the physical models move, allowing them to trigger these effects a whole ton. I kind of wish they would roll this back, or at least limit the free actions when/after/before a move to being done during the controlling players movement phase. It feels like the very liberal allowance of when you can do these things allows for a lot of abuse and just dirty movement tricks that are rarely very fun.

2. A Fix For Ambushers

Ambush is a pretty common rules these days. Some entire armies, especially Armies of Infamy are built around it. However it’s… not a very good rule at all. While there are corner cases for it, a lot of the time it’s actually a downside to use and you are better off not using it. Ambushing means keeping part of your army off the table, and while it can’t be damaged, it also can’t contribute to the game at all. To arrive it has to wait at least 1 turn. It then has to randomly roll to come on. Once it arrives it has limited deployment options. It can’t charge and can’t move very far.

Outside of a few shooting units this means the enemy will always be able to react before your ambushers can do something. They can turn to face you, meaning it’s not a big help in pulling off flank/rear charges.  They could shoot you. The enemy might just move away. In the worst cases they will charge you. Now in a game that is mostly slow moving infantry blocks and some support they might have a role. But TOW is pretty fast. With lots of a cavalry and movement enhancing spells.

At best an ambushing unit can charge on Turn 3.This isn’t really any better than just what other units can do, for a lot of big downsides and uncertainty. Both Scouting and Vanguarding are far better options. I’m not really sure what the fix should be, but it needs to be something. At least let them March! (Also skirmishers having to set up every model touching the table edge is extra bad, making what should be the best ambushers into the worst. Let them set up with their movement.)

1. Adjust Unit Sizes

Lastly I think there should be some changes made to unit sizes. Again this isn’t so much a rule as unit profiles so pretty easy to fix. The vast majority of units in the game have no maximum size. I think this is straight up a mistake. It has lead to some very abusable builds to take advantage of it. We’ve seen some very large archer blocks, normally with poison, be abused. We’ve also seen big blocks of undead use it to effectively never give up points. Early on we saw it abused with things like Linehammer and Dwarf Rangers. Now not all of these builds are game breaking, but they are rarely fun. In fact there isn’t a ton of incentive to take really big units outside of trying to abuse them somehow.

With that being said I do think most, if not all, units should get capped at a max unit size to help prevent crazy deathstar builds and abuse. I’m not saying they need to be small. 40-50 seems pretty reasonable and still able to make good builds with. But over that feels like it should be reigned in a bit. Likewise I think the other end of the spectrum should also be reigned in. I’m not a big fan of 5 man skirmisher units, especially ones that can be spammed. I think most infantry, especially in core, should be brought up to a 10 model min, rather than the more common 5. I think these changes would help you see more mid-sized blocks on the table and less abuse. But that’s just me!

Let us know what small changes you’d make, down in the comments! 

Author: Abe Apfel

Abe is that rare thing, an Austin local born and raised here. Though he keeps on moving around, DC, Japan, ETC., he always seems to find his way back eventually. Abe has decades of experience with a wide range of tabletop and RPG games, from historicals, to Star Wars to D&D and 40K. He has been contributing to BOLS since almost the start, back when he worked at and then owned a local gaming store. He used to be big into the competitive Warhammer tournament scene but age has mellowed him and he now appreciates a good casual match. He currently covers 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.