Welcome to part 2 of the massive Old World Faq and Errata review. This one will cover what we have all been asking for. Changes to combat. Will it be enough? Let’s dive right in.
The biggest one is changes to infantry and heavy infantry with the Press of Battle rule. This allows infantry to have the second rank be a fighting rank. The stipulations with this are you cannot have charged that turn and you have to be in combat order. This is accompanied by another change that models have to be within their movement to be able to fight so no more linehammer. They have also changed supporting attacks with things such as spears to reflect this and support from behind a fighting rank so you can now fight in 3 ranks with spears. Note that the second rank is not in base to base so you still only get 1 attack even if it is considered a fighting rank. This brings up another question for another faq though. Can you now remove slain models from the second rank since it is a fighting rank? While it may not be relevant to many units, if you can take casualties from the second rank, models with 2 or more attacks can kill off their second rank that would be only getting 1 attack to still get their full attacks from the front rank. Whether or not you can this is definitely a great improvement to infantry.
They also made some improvements to the survivability of infantry and heavy infantry. You can now get the parry rule of old 7th edition. When fighting with a hand weapon and shield, you can no get +1 to your armor save. This does, however, have a cap of max 3+ armor so something like chosen chaos warriors with shield will still only get a 3+. Things with light armor and shield now get a very respectable 4+ armor save now. You can also now change weapons when combat is chosen so you can do things like take spears and shields and use hand weapon and shields on the charge for a better save and switch to spears the next round for 3 ranks of attacks. Conversely, there is a max of 2+ armor save for infantry while chariots, monsters, and war machines can now only max out at a 3+ armor save.
The Errata made other big changes to combat resolution. To start, close order only gives you the bonus if you are unit strength 10 now. No more spamming small close order units for combat res. Another rule of old Warhammer I never knew why they did away with was the outnumber bonus. You can get +1 combat res for outnumbering and I have been asking for this since day 1! Another rule change that has huge implications to combat res is that now mounts in challenges do not get attacks against dead models. When a dragon is in a challenge now, the rider may kill a unit champ if it has higher initiative and only their wounds will count for overkill. The dragon will not get it’s attacks and stomp to rack up a ton of overkill resolution. Impact hits did get a bit of a glow up because they will hit the unit before being drawn into a challenge.
These all seem to be really good changes for the game of Old World and especially infantry in general. Will this change the Meta? It is too early to say. I think we will definitely still see dragons and maybe even 2 in a lot of uber competitive lists, especially with magic getting toned down and a nerf to poison I will discuss in the next part. Both were great counters to monsters, so monsters got a little tougher to deal with now. Infantry at least does not feel like a bad option anymore like it used to and in a casual game it can be significantly more fun to play with. With the Matched Play Guide coming it may also tip the scales of infantry to being a staple in armies rather than a feels bad to take unit.
How are you getting Chosen to 2+ if the cap is 3+?
You are correct. I mistyped meaning to say 3+ and will change it. I said they could only get 3+ then said they only get 2+ a few words later contradicting myself lol. Thanks for the catch.