‘Warhammer: The Old World’- The Five Most Overrated Special Rules
Not all special rules in Warhammer: The Old World are really worth it. These are the overrated ones you may want to avoid.
One of the key things you need to know to build an effective army in TOW, or any wargame, is how good each unit you can take is. This is also very useful when playing a game and trying to pick out what to attack. Now we’ve spent a fair bit going over what I think are the best units in various categories, like infantry, heavy cavalry, etc. It is, however, also very important to know how to identify what units are good beyond such simple lists.
Now, there are a lot of things that go into making a unit good or bad, but one of the key things, and one that is very easy to look at, is what Special Rules they have. We’ve taken a look at which rules I think are the best. However, it’s also important to know which ones aren’t very good.
Now, the outright bad ones are pretty easy to spot, but some seem like they might be good; they might even cost you more points, without being worth it. So today, let’s take a look at some special rules I think are way overrated.
Note: This list is only looking at rules from the big rule book that all armies share, faction, and unit, specific rules are not being considered.
5. Rallying Cry
Rallying Cry is a bit of a strange one, because on paper, it should be a good rule. A number of characters, normally the “commander type,” have it. It simply lets a fleeing unit within command range during the command sub-phase make an attempt to rally. Even if they fail, they can try again later. So, no real downside. But for all that, I think I’ve seen these rules come up maybe once or twice in a couple of 100 games of The Old World. It’s a rule that just doesn’t match what TOW really is.
If you are running a bunch of infantry blocks and some support you might have a enough fleeing units for this to make sense. But that’s not really what the game is, and the truth is with FBIGO, especially how it works for panic, you just don’t tend to get a lot of fleeing units. Luckily you don’t really pay extra for this rule, but it’s just one that doesn’t come up much at all.
4. Furious Charge
Let’s be clear, Furious Charge CAN be a good rule. But it’s also often overrated, and just seeing it on a unit does not make that unit good. The rule seems amazing at first glance, if you charge 3 inches or more, you get +1 attack. Wow! That’s amazing. But whether it’s good or not really depends on what it has. See if this rule is on infantry, as it often is, it’s… just not very useful.
The way TOW has worked out in practice, it’s very rare for infantry to actually get to charge. They are almost always at the mercy of something faster and getting hit. Having Furious Charge also makes you an even bigger target to get charged!
Now, if this rule is on something fast, then it is a pretty solid rule, and you’ve got a nice chance of it going off. However, the need to charge at least 3 inches means that, in rounds after the first, you’ve got a decent chance of seeing a drop off in attacks, even if you count as charging. So while this can be a good rule, it’s not always a useful rule, and far different from getting +1 attack in combat. Infantry will rarely benefit from it, cavalry will more, but not every turn.
3. Flaming Attacks
Flaming Attacks is out next, an overrated rule, and one that can, in some situations, be straight up bad. This rule does two things. The first is to give the unit flaming attacks, as one might have guessed. The second is to make it cause fear in swarms and war beasts. Now this 2nd part is pretty useless. Swarms and war beasts are the two rarest unit types in TOW. On top of that, most Swarms are immune to psychology, meaning it has no effect on them (though it can make a unit immune to the swarm’s fear, if it has it.) So this really isn’t something that’s going to come up much, and on top of that, fear is overrated, as we will see later.
So the second part is to give you flaming attacks. But here is the thing. Flaming attacks have no effect on their own. They do absolutely nothing. Now, there are a few rules that interact with them. Flammable units can’t make reg saves vs flaming attacks, while Dry As Dust units have a chance of taking extra wounds. Both these rules are pretty rare and mainly found in Tomb Kings.
So this is a rule that really only benefits you in a few very rare situations. On the other hand, there are a number of units that actually get better saves, normally ward saves, vs flaming attacks. This means that this rule has about as much chance of buffing the enemy as hurting them. And you often have to pay for it! Unless you know what army you are fighting, I’d avoid it.
2. Fear
Fear is another rule that sounds good on paper, and at the very least has no downside. However, it’s also just one that doesn’t have a huge effect on the game most of the time. It has two main effects. 1. You have to make an LD test to charge a unit with fear. 2. You have to make an LD test in combat with a unit with fear; if you fail, you take a -1 to hit that unit. These both look good on paper.
However, there are a couple of issues. Both of these effects only work if the unit with fear has a higher US than the other unit (it’s also per unit, so multiple fear causes don’t add up for this). In addition, if the enemy has fear themselves or is immune to psychology, they don’t have to take these tests.
Now, in general, TOW units have very high LD and lots of ways of getting re-rolls. So, making an LD test isn’t all that huge a deal. Those units that have a lot of LD tend to be cheap and often big (which also often gives them high LD through Warband) and are unlikely to be outnumbered.
Seeing fear on things likes monsters or monstrous infantry tends to be pretty useless as they are very unlikely to ever outnumber the enemy. Bigger units might force the test, but its just not something you can count on at all to have an effect.
1. Ambushers
GW is trying so hard to make Ambushers a thing when it’s just a bad rule. They’ve given it to a lot of units. They’ve based several armies of infamy around it. And it’s still just… kind of bad. The rule lets you hold units in reserve. Stating on turn 2 they have a 50% chance of arriving. When they arrive, they come in as reinforcements on any board edge, outside of 8″ of an enemy model. They will automatically come in on turn 5.
Now, on its face, keeping a unit off the table so it comes in later in an advantageous place, and thus avoiding shooting and magic, seems very good. But this rule has a huge number of downsides. The first is its random nature.
The unit only comes in on a 4+, meaning you can never count on them arriving when you need them or want them to. Instead, you are just losing parts of your army for an unknown number of turns. Now, some armies have a way of modifying some or all of these rolls, which makes it a little better, but it’s still not a sure thing.
And let’s talk about when they do come in. When they arrive, they have to arrive touching the board edge. In the case of Skirmishers, this means every model must touch the edge. On arrival, they can’t charge or march, just make a normal move. Even in ideal situations, this means they can’t really do much, outside of maybe shoot/some magic until at least turn 3, which isn’t really any faster than them being on the table. It also lets the enemy react to them, such as turning to face them, shooting them first, or in the worst cases, getting off a charge. Vs a slower ambusher, they can also sometimes just move away.
So, the ideal of a unit coming in from an ambush and charging an enemy unit in the flank isn’t something that really happens. You are also often faced with the choice of having weak units ambush, which, with the enemy having a chance to react, won’t do much, or losing some of your best units for an unknown part of the game.
Neither choice is amazing. A canny player can also limit where their units can come in. This makes them even more limited in what they can do. This is really a rule that I’d almost always skip. While a few units, normally those with extra rules, can make use of it, most can’t.
Let us know what special rules you think are over rated, down in the comments!
