SpellArcher wrote:elendor_f wrote:Lion Standard for 25p for any unit and make it inmune to Fear and Terror too.
I used to swear by Standard of Balance in late 7th/early 8th. Not sure how good this was in 6th as I was mainly playing Wood Elves then.
elendor_f wrote:Unseen Lurker spell, it's an extra 8 inches that you can use to charge
They considered this so powerful that they removed it in 8th.
Prince of Spires wrote:And the HE book really started it off.
Lord Anathir always held that it started with the WE book at the end of 6th, though HE 7th was obviously a step up. Though I guess we can look back to the big problems the Skaven book caused in 6th and perhaps even earlier.
Standard of Balance was fine but 45p is on the expensive side, although removing Frenzy, Hatred and Stubborn in base contact is great. I guess those rules are slightly less common in 6th than in 7th, but overall a good choice.
I can understand why, Unseen Lurker, Blinding Light (reduce enemy unit M to half, WS and BS to 1 until next wizard's magic phase) and Howling Wind (no shooting of S4 or less within 12 in of the wizard, all enemy units move half in this area) were probably the best spells from the 8 basic lores in 6th. Unfortunately Lore of Light was bad so few people used Blinding Light
I agree that the Skaven book marked a significant deviation from the first 6th ed books which were designed more or less with the same pattern (Empire, Orcs, Vampire Counts, Dwarves, Dark Elves, High Elves), and not surprisingly the armies considered low-end were mostly from this period (Dwarves, Dark Elves). Only VC were considered a top tier army from this group, but VC are quite a special army
Skaven, Chaos and Lizardmen broke many of the design patterns that GW used at the start of 6th and came out on top, and indeed Wood Elves was another step up in the power scale, although the level of imbalance in 6th remained bearable (compared to the domination of VC, DE and Daemons in 7th).
In the mean time they also released some experimental armies like Tomb Kings and Ogres.
Now that I think about it, the first armies I mentioned were infantry based and since ranked infantry became outclassed by the new toys, that's probably the main reason they suffered and had to evolve into different playstyles like full cavalry + shooting (Empire, High Elves), full magic (Orcs and Goblins), MSU (Dark Elves) and Dwarves didn't find anything really fitting outside of gunline.
Skaven's infantry was an excuse to get more ratling guns, Chaos could completely ignore ranked infantry, Lizardmen was guerrilla-tactics with the skink clouds and the monsters, and Bretonnia could destroy most units on the charge so ranked infantry had to be very careful. Wood Elves could play like Lizardmen but more efficiently.
This is a rough generalization, but thinking about it I can undersand why GW introduced random charge ranges (infantry could actually charge once in a while, and their threat range was extended) and Steadfast to bring infantry back into the game without pushing the reset bottom for power level like from 5th to 6th.