7th Ed Rule Change of the Week

This week I want to talk about the new rule for no wrapping around. I have to say OUCH on this one. Wrapping around was my bread and butter for Skaven. Any unit that relied a lot more on static combat res than actual kills will be hurt.

Though it will also hurt those infantry units that relied on actual kills and liked to wrap to get more and more kills. Slaanesh and Khorne daemons come to mind as do Dwarf Hammerers, Dark Elf witches, Saurus blocks, etc..

Units that it will help the most, 40 mm based units, cavalry, chariots, monsters and lone characters. Any unit that is not relying on static combat res to win. Where one bad round of dice rolling can cost you, because then your opponent wraps and now you can't win because of the flank and rear bonuses. And those units that have no models to wrap around anyway.

Due to the days of '4 wide to get a rank bonus' are gone. Units of Ogres, Minotaurs, and other 40 mm units will rarely have more than 4 models in them. So they will not be missing out of the lapping fun because they will have no models to wrap with.

You might still see a few units of 10 cavalry that get a rank bonus and wouldn't mind wrapping. But gone are the days of the small units of 8. So most cavalry players will use units of 5 or 6. 6 works now because since it takes 5 wide to get a rank, the smallest any ranked unit will be is 100 mm wide. Which means 6 cavalry wide, will always get everyone into combat.

Bretonians are the exception. The Lance remains unchanged, and I have seen many a Brett player wrap in the past, if they did not break their enemy on the charge. So this will hurt them some but not a lot.

I think it does help unbreakable units and stubborn units that you often have to kill to the man. It makes it much more difficult to get the wounds necessary without being able to get more models into combat.

Armies this hurts the most:
Skaven (at least they can't wrap to get more models into base with my swarms)
Dwarfs (though stubborn warmachine crews are probably helped here.)
Orc & Goblin infantry
Daemonic Legion infantry. (mainly slaanesh and Khorne)
Infantry based Empire army.
Are you seeing a patern here??

Armies it helps the most:
Ogre Kingdoms!! I see this rule helping them more than any other army.
All Cavalry & chariot High Elf armies
All Cav Dark Elf Armies
Heavy Cav Empire Army.
Heavy Cav & chariot Chaos Mortal armies.
Undead armies.

Overall, I don't think I care for this rule change. For me it was the idea that you are piling more and more people/rats into combat as it drug on. Even though both sides must maximize, I still can see a lot of combats really bogging down after a round and no one breaks. And in the extra BSBs around and things could slow to a crawl. The wrapping kind of sped things up and allowed players that option to expand if it would help or not. I didn't see it as confusing or a problem.

We will just have to wait and see how it plays out.

NOTE: I am closing on my new house and beginning the move tomorrow. So Posting will be spotty this weekend at best. Don't think I've forgotten you, I'll be back strong on Monday at the latest.