Welcome to Tuesday everyone! Well, unless you're reading this at another time.
No idea why this popped into my head but it did, so I thought I would share; Waaagh! sucks at the moment.
Back when Codex Orks was release, Waaagh! gave you a one shot chance to make your tide of Orks noticeably quicker, increasing their threat range by D6". Of course, there was a 1 in 6 chance your boys would hurt themselves, but that was a small price to pay. 6th Ed changed all that. Suddenly, everyone had a charge range equivalent to Orks on the Waaagh! Orks themselves were barely faster, with Fleet only granting a reroll of the dice for running or charging. Admittedly, that isn't to be sniffed at, but it lacked the dramatic feel of the Orks getting an unholy surge of energy and speed that made them truly dangerous. Don't get me wrong, I know Orks are still competitive and regularly reach the top tables in tournaments the world over. They also got a nice boost to their Waaagh! with the Dakkajet and its Waaagh!plane special rule, drastically increasing its shooting output. But to me it still doesn't feel right.
In my eyes, even throughout 5th Ed, the Waaagh! never quite matched up to the fluff either; rules were an automatic thing, where as the background depicted the power of the Orks growing with the number of bodies involved until the pot boiled over and unleashed the wrath of Gork, or possibly Mork.
It is one thing to complain, but without a viable, balanced solution I'd be no better than the kids in store you hear complaining that their Space Marines can't reliably kill a hundred Guardsmen each every game. So how would I change the Waaagh?! Just a few simple points;
1) Make it numbers dependent
Match the rules to the fluff; rather than automatically declaring the whole army will Waaagh! at an arbitrary point in the game, each unit can attempt to Waaagh! individually. At the start of any of your own shooting phases (apart from the first) take a test on 3D6; if it is less than or equal to the number of wounds in the unit, they are under the power of the Waaagh! until the start of your next shooting phase. If the test is failed, they can try again in any of your subsequent shooting phases, but with a +1 modifier to the dice roll for each time they failed to Waaagh! as they waste more and more energy. Once a unit has Waaagh!'d, they cannot attempt to Waaagh! again during that game.
Note I said wounds; essentially it makes big mobs of Ork Boyz far more likely to Waaagh! than small mobs such as Bikers or Deffkoptas (and therefore be potentially more dangerous) but multi-wound units like Nobs and Flash Gitz are still reasonably capable of passing the test. After all, they should be able to lead by example!
Obviously, if the maximum possibly total of the dice is less than the unit, they would still need to take it, for reasons (see below)!
2) Make Characters matter
Give Warbosses, Nobs, Big Meks and Special Characters an additional rule; Yoo'z Kall Dat a Waaagh!? Basically, if any model in the unit has this special rule, the unit can re-roll it's Waaagh! test (3D6 to be equal to/under the unit's wounds).
Warbosses (and possibly Big Meks, but I'm not entirely sure) also get Leadaz of Da Waaagh! which allows you to roll one fewer dice when making the Waaagh! test. I'd also make this stack, so one warboss in the unit would mean you roll 2D6, two would make you roll 1D6. Now, if you were playing an Apocalypse game, using a double FOC or there was a non-HQ character with this rule, then it would be possible to roll zero dice. There are two options to go with here; auto pass or auto fail. I kinda favour the idea of it being an auto fail, and here's why...
Any unit with three such characters in it is going to be extremely dangerous anyway, so they shouldn't really need a boost in speed. I also really like the idea of the squabbling over who is in charge, to the point they forget to charge the enemy.
3) Bring back the Peril
Now that Fleet allows you to re-roll your run and charge dice, the odds of rolling a 1 are pretty small, meaning you really aren't likely to cause a wound on your boyz. To bring back squabbling, I'd suggest that rolling any double on your Waaagh! test would cause a wound, with all normal saves allowed, but wouldn't stop the unit from Waaagh!ing. Just to make things really interesting, a triple would cause the wound on a random character in the unit (if there is one) as another Ork tries to assert its dominance! Most of the time it won't actually kill off a Nob, Warboss or Big Mek, but it would be interesting to see how many players would be dissuaded from attempting to call a Waaagh! for a unit with a wounded leader on that 1 in 36 chance... This is also why units over 18 wounds would need to test for their Waaagh!, injecting a slice of jeopardy to utilising quite a powerful tool.
4) Change the effects
Well, change them back! Allow Ork Mobs that have passed their Waaagh! test to Run and Charge in the same player turn. Maybe even stop them from being allowed to shoot at all on the turn they successfully Waaagh! I would also give them Counter-attack until the start of their next shooting phase; If they do fail their effective 3D6" charge, they are still going to be pretty dangerous!
There are certainly some downsides to this approach. There will be quite a lot of book keeping, keeping track of which units have attempted to Waaagh! how many times, which ones have succeeded etc, but it's no more than Pain Tokens for Dark Eldar. There is also an issue of Independent Characters potentially getting multiple Waaagh!s as they jump from unit to unit. I can kinda see sense in that though, at least from a background point of view. A Warboss would be pretty inspiring for Boyz, a Big Mek, Bad Doc or Weirdboy would make them run harder and faster... Just make it that they cannot attempt to Waaagh! unless they are attached to another unit. It could even be part of Yoo'z Kall Dat a Waaagh!?
But there are other parts to the Waaagh! too; As I mentioned, Dakkajets get a benefit from it, and Weirdboyz have a power that induces more Waaagh!s, so how do you deal with them?
For the Dakkajet, and all Waaagh!planes, change the rule to adding an additional shot to each Shoota, Big Shoota and Supa-Shoota for every unit within 12" that passes their Waaagh! test. Most of the time, it will make the Dakkajet less good than simply doubling it's shots, but there will be games (particularly with very good players) where it might be able to add 3 or 4 extra shots to each of it's weapons several times throughout the game. Yes, that could be extremely powerful, but it would require a lot of luck, careful planning and incredible timing on the Ork players part, so it shouldn't really be an issue.
Weirdboyz are possibly even simpler. Their powers must be cast before the unit they are attached to attempts to Waaagh! However, replace their current Waaagh! Power with the following; The unit they are attached to can run after casting the power (which they can't at the moment) and count as attempting to Waaagh! for the first time, discounting any modifiers for previously failed Waaagh! tests and can even attempt to Waaagh! if they have all ready successfully done so in the game.
I think that is it from me for today. What do you think? I'd love to have a few games using this version of Waaagh! to see how it actually handles. As with any ruleset, the more playtesters you have, the better your feedback will be! So grab your dice, call your Green Tide to war and give them a go; just don't forget to let me know how you got on!
Matt
P.s. As of Monday, Ex instinctu Imperator reached 1000 views. Thanks for the support, here's to the next 1000!
No idea why this popped into my head but it did, so I thought I would share; Waaagh! sucks at the moment.
Back when Codex Orks was release, Waaagh! gave you a one shot chance to make your tide of Orks noticeably quicker, increasing their threat range by D6". Of course, there was a 1 in 6 chance your boys would hurt themselves, but that was a small price to pay. 6th Ed changed all that. Suddenly, everyone had a charge range equivalent to Orks on the Waaagh! Orks themselves were barely faster, with Fleet only granting a reroll of the dice for running or charging. Admittedly, that isn't to be sniffed at, but it lacked the dramatic feel of the Orks getting an unholy surge of energy and speed that made them truly dangerous. Don't get me wrong, I know Orks are still competitive and regularly reach the top tables in tournaments the world over. They also got a nice boost to their Waaagh! with the Dakkajet and its Waaagh!plane special rule, drastically increasing its shooting output. But to me it still doesn't feel right.
In my eyes, even throughout 5th Ed, the Waaagh! never quite matched up to the fluff either; rules were an automatic thing, where as the background depicted the power of the Orks growing with the number of bodies involved until the pot boiled over and unleashed the wrath of Gork, or possibly Mork.
It is one thing to complain, but without a viable, balanced solution I'd be no better than the kids in store you hear complaining that their Space Marines can't reliably kill a hundred Guardsmen each every game. So how would I change the Waaagh?! Just a few simple points;
1) Make it numbers dependent
Match the rules to the fluff; rather than automatically declaring the whole army will Waaagh! at an arbitrary point in the game, each unit can attempt to Waaagh! individually. At the start of any of your own shooting phases (apart from the first) take a test on 3D6; if it is less than or equal to the number of wounds in the unit, they are under the power of the Waaagh! until the start of your next shooting phase. If the test is failed, they can try again in any of your subsequent shooting phases, but with a +1 modifier to the dice roll for each time they failed to Waaagh! as they waste more and more energy. Once a unit has Waaagh!'d, they cannot attempt to Waaagh! again during that game.
Note I said wounds; essentially it makes big mobs of Ork Boyz far more likely to Waaagh! than small mobs such as Bikers or Deffkoptas (and therefore be potentially more dangerous) but multi-wound units like Nobs and Flash Gitz are still reasonably capable of passing the test. After all, they should be able to lead by example!
Obviously, if the maximum possibly total of the dice is less than the unit, they would still need to take it, for reasons (see below)!
2) Make Characters matter
Give Warbosses, Nobs, Big Meks and Special Characters an additional rule; Yoo'z Kall Dat a Waaagh!? Basically, if any model in the unit has this special rule, the unit can re-roll it's Waaagh! test (3D6 to be equal to/under the unit's wounds).
Warbosses (and possibly Big Meks, but I'm not entirely sure) also get Leadaz of Da Waaagh! which allows you to roll one fewer dice when making the Waaagh! test. I'd also make this stack, so one warboss in the unit would mean you roll 2D6, two would make you roll 1D6. Now, if you were playing an Apocalypse game, using a double FOC or there was a non-HQ character with this rule, then it would be possible to roll zero dice. There are two options to go with here; auto pass or auto fail. I kinda favour the idea of it being an auto fail, and here's why...
Any unit with three such characters in it is going to be extremely dangerous anyway, so they shouldn't really need a boost in speed. I also really like the idea of the squabbling over who is in charge, to the point they forget to charge the enemy.
3) Bring back the Peril
Now that Fleet allows you to re-roll your run and charge dice, the odds of rolling a 1 are pretty small, meaning you really aren't likely to cause a wound on your boyz. To bring back squabbling, I'd suggest that rolling any double on your Waaagh! test would cause a wound, with all normal saves allowed, but wouldn't stop the unit from Waaagh!ing. Just to make things really interesting, a triple would cause the wound on a random character in the unit (if there is one) as another Ork tries to assert its dominance! Most of the time it won't actually kill off a Nob, Warboss or Big Mek, but it would be interesting to see how many players would be dissuaded from attempting to call a Waaagh! for a unit with a wounded leader on that 1 in 36 chance... This is also why units over 18 wounds would need to test for their Waaagh!, injecting a slice of jeopardy to utilising quite a powerful tool.
4) Change the effects
Well, change them back! Allow Ork Mobs that have passed their Waaagh! test to Run and Charge in the same player turn. Maybe even stop them from being allowed to shoot at all on the turn they successfully Waaagh! I would also give them Counter-attack until the start of their next shooting phase; If they do fail their effective 3D6" charge, they are still going to be pretty dangerous!
There are certainly some downsides to this approach. There will be quite a lot of book keeping, keeping track of which units have attempted to Waaagh! how many times, which ones have succeeded etc, but it's no more than Pain Tokens for Dark Eldar. There is also an issue of Independent Characters potentially getting multiple Waaagh!s as they jump from unit to unit. I can kinda see sense in that though, at least from a background point of view. A Warboss would be pretty inspiring for Boyz, a Big Mek, Bad Doc or Weirdboy would make them run harder and faster... Just make it that they cannot attempt to Waaagh! unless they are attached to another unit. It could even be part of Yoo'z Kall Dat a Waaagh!?
But there are other parts to the Waaagh! too; As I mentioned, Dakkajets get a benefit from it, and Weirdboyz have a power that induces more Waaagh!s, so how do you deal with them?
For the Dakkajet, and all Waaagh!planes, change the rule to adding an additional shot to each Shoota, Big Shoota and Supa-Shoota for every unit within 12" that passes their Waaagh! test. Most of the time, it will make the Dakkajet less good than simply doubling it's shots, but there will be games (particularly with very good players) where it might be able to add 3 or 4 extra shots to each of it's weapons several times throughout the game. Yes, that could be extremely powerful, but it would require a lot of luck, careful planning and incredible timing on the Ork players part, so it shouldn't really be an issue.
Weirdboyz are possibly even simpler. Their powers must be cast before the unit they are attached to attempts to Waaagh! However, replace their current Waaagh! Power with the following; The unit they are attached to can run after casting the power (which they can't at the moment) and count as attempting to Waaagh! for the first time, discounting any modifiers for previously failed Waaagh! tests and can even attempt to Waaagh! if they have all ready successfully done so in the game.
I think that is it from me for today. What do you think? I'd love to have a few games using this version of Waaagh! to see how it actually handles. As with any ruleset, the more playtesters you have, the better your feedback will be! So grab your dice, call your Green Tide to war and give them a go; just don't forget to let me know how you got on!
Matt
P.s. As of Monday, Ex instinctu Imperator reached 1000 views. Thanks for the support, here's to the next 1000!
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