‘Warhammer: The Old World’ – How You Can Abuse The New FAQ

A few rules in the new Warhammer: The Old World FAQ can be abused – I’m sure you want details…

The other week we got a new decent sized FAQ. Overall it had some decent changes in it. However the FAQ also made a few changes that I’m not really a fan of, some of these things really didn’t need to be changed. With these changes there is some room for abuse. So today I wanted to look at a couple of cases where you can really abuse the FAQ changes. I want to be clear, I’m not saying you should, that’s up to each person and how far they are willing to go.

In fact I what I’m really hoping for is that GW will alter these rules to prevent the kind of abuse I’m going to point out. I think these are loopholes that need to be closed. That is why I’m pointing to them, and also so you can be aware of them if they are going to be used. So with that said, lets take a look at what we are talking about here.

Blocking With Baggage Trains

The first FAQ change I want to talk about is to Baggage Trains. Prior to this baggage trains counted as dangerous terrain, slowing you down but allowing things to move over it. Now they block movement but are still placed by players. I don’t think it takes a ton of see how this can be abused. You can easily place them in such as way as to protect shooting units from ever being charged. 

So for instance you can see its pretty trivial to place a cannon behind a baggage train in such a way as to make it extremely hard to charge it from the front or sides. Since it doesn’t block LOS, the cannon, or other unit, behind it can still shoot just fine.

Fitting two cannons behind it is also not all that hard. And sure this does make your baggage train more vulnerable. But destroying it would also mean the enemy parking a unit in front of your lines at point blank range for a while. It also leaves them open to countercharges. Overall I think its a huge mistake let players place impassible terrain like this. There are more ways to use and abuse it than this. It seems best to have just kept it as dangerous terrain.

Raising Hell With Skimishers

The other big change I want to talk about is this one. GW has ruled that you can resurrect models into a unit of Skirmishers. Instead of following the normal rules for placing resurrected models you just place them in coherency with the rest of the unit. Now personally I think this is a mistake, as there are a lot of ways to abuse this. So lets take a look at a few examples of how to do that. For these examples lets assume I have a big unit of Ghouls that have taken some decent losses over the game. 

Lets start off with something very easy. At the start of my turn my unit of Ghouls is 11 inches away from the other unit and can’t charge.

In my command phase I raise some models in the Ghouls and put them closer to the target. Now when its time to charge I’m only 8 inches away and can make the charge. Nice! I could also do this is I was already in charge range to make the charge shorter. 

Lets look at another option. My Ghouls start off the turn in the front arc of the enemy spearmen.

A raise later and now the majority of my models are in the flank arc. This allows me to pull off a flank charge for advantage.

Likewise we can one again start in the front arc.

With a bit more raising we can now end up in the rear arc of the unit. This does just allow you to get flank/rear charges, it also allows you to control the direction of the fight (and possible flight of the enemy).

You can also use this to charge units you wouldn’t have been able to normally see. Lets say the enemy has hidden their wizard behind their unit like this.

Well a bit of raising later and now I can charge that wizard behind the enemy unit, or some other unit back there. By raising properly I’ve gotten oodles of  inches of free movement. Moreover the enemy has very little counter play to this.

Advance Abuse

Lets take a look at a couple more “out there” options. Now it’s important to note that you can raise models within 1 inch of enemy units. In fact you have to be able to do this to raise models in combat. The FAQ also allows skirmishers to override the normally rules for placing raised models. So lets say we have a unit of skirmishing ghouls in combat. When they charged in based on what models could reach the enemy they ranked up like above.

Now we’ve raised a few more. Rather than being placed into the rear like like normal, the FAQ allows me to place then anywhere within coherency. In this case I’ve used them to expand the front/fighting rank, giving me a wider frontage and more attacks. 

What about raising skirmishers to get the unit directly into combat and skip charging? Can I take a unit like above into combat?

The answer to that is probably not. You likely can’t just raise a unit from being out of combat to now into combat with that wizard.  This likely violates the 1 inch rule: “There is one rule of movement that applies throughout the game – the 1″ rule. Quite simply, with the exception of units engaged in combat, no unit can end its movement within 1″ of an enemy unit.” Placing models on to the table does seem to meet the definition of a move and you can’t end that move within 1 inch. So it seems like you can’t just do that. (There is some debate over if just placing the model into base-to-base now counts them as engaged and makes it legal). But what if your unit is already engaged?

Lets take this example. Here the Ghouls are already engaged in combat, they meet the definition of a unit engaged.

Now I’ve raised models into that unit and placed them into combat with the nearby wizard. I am fulfilling all the rules. The skirmishers are placed within coherency of the rest of the unit. The unit was engaged so can end within an inch. It’s also now, theoretically, engaging the wizard, drawing them into the combat.

Now I fully admit that these last few examples are a little more borderline. It would be easy for an event or group to agree that they aren’t legal. However even without them I think its clear that there are plenty of ways to get advantage out of raising skirmishers and abuse the ability to get free movement. I’d personally like to see this reined in, but we shall see.

Let us know what you think about these changes, and how they can be abused, 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 Warhammer: The Old World, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe mourned over loss of WFB for its entire hiatus, but has been reborn like a gaming phoenix with Warhammer: The Old World.