These are the units and models that have the biggest impact on Warhammer: The Old World in the last year.
2024 is wrapping up. It’s a our first year exploring the Old World, and luckily we’ve have pretty much a full year to play and enjoy the game. As we wrap up our first year it’s time to look back on what has happened. Now it’s been a heck of a year, with a brand new game we’ve had people learning the game and the meta has been all over the place. As the game has settled down we’ve seen a lot of fads pass us by. So today I want to take a look back at what the most important units, both for game play and for the game as a whole. So lets dig in.
5. Tomb King on Dragon
Remember this Tomb Kings guy? Of course you do, he’s still tearing up the tabletop. However the Tomb King on Dragon doesn’t make the list here for any of it’s table top prowess. Rather it’s important as the big new launch model. This was one of the model that came with the launch and it was the first brand new unit we got for ToW (coming out a bit before foot knights). It showed off that ToW wasn’t only going to be re-releases and that yes we would get some brand new models, and yes some of them would be huge and not really fit on their base. They might also be a pain to build. But this was the BIG model of ToW’s launch (the Pegasus heroes are also amazing, but not as big and were not new units.) Now some might say it set expectations a bit too high. We haven’t really gotten anything new on this scale since then, indeed most new armies are lucky to get a new character or two. But it did open up the game with a bone rattle.
4. Infantry/Linehammer
OK, so this one isn’t a single unit, but kind of class. Back at the start of the game a lot of people were really worried about Linehammer. The theory was you could break the game by fielding giant single rows of infantry. These would all get to attack in combat and net you like 50+ attacks. The most iconic of these units was likely Dwarf Rangers or Quarrelers. Being able to stand and shoot for a ton of shots and then lay into the enemy with great weapons seemed amazing. Maybe infantry would dominate the game! But, lol, no. Infantry suck. Linehammer, like a lot of meme’s kind of fizzled out and was just never a real issue. Here and there people still worry about, and some events have made rules to prevent it, but it just wasn’t the threat we all thought it might be.
3. Gyrocopters
Dwarfs again? What where they doing in early ToW? They certainly scared a lot of people for an army that has turned out to be pretty subpar. This was another meme-list that showed up in the early months of ToW. People pretty quickly noticed you could do some crazy things with spam. Suddenly you saw lists going around with 16+ Gyrocopters in annoying formations. Now these never really panned out, they were not the terror we were led to the think they might be. Certainly few people actually wanted to run them. But I think the meme lists we saw did push people pretty hard towards allowing extra composition restrictions, such as the rule of three to come into play. They weren’t the only unit doing this, Dragon Ogre spam for instance, but I think they were the first to really scare people and actively led to the game changing.
2. Chaos Dragons!
Much of the middle of the year was dominated by the fear of powerful characters riding large monsters such as Dragons. While you could expand this entry to include all of them, I think the Warriors of Chaos Chaos Lord is really the Ur-Example. These Lords dish out a ton of damage and can kill most things they run into. They can also be built to be nigh-on unkillable themselves. With high toughness, tons of wound and multiple stacking saves makes them the most survivable things around. Sure GW may be technically correct that two or three cannons (from Great Cannons) shots can bring one down, but the math suggests you’d actually need more like 30. These units have dominated the game and twisted it, even if their glory might be fading a bit.
1. Pegasus Knights/Lord
Pegasus Knights are the latest boogey man of ToW. They, and the Bretonnian characters that join them, have I think manage to eclipse even Dragons as the thing people are worried about and fear. Since the mid point of the year they have started taking over, to the point the Bretonnians are the top winning army in the game. And yes, I am part of the problem I know, winning NOVA with a Peg Knight heavy list. Sorry. However they aren’t just making this list because they might be the best unit in the game. They are also pretty core to the games biggest promises and it’s biggest failures.
Pegasus characters were one of the first new models we got for the game. Unlike the Bone Dragon, this wasn’t a brand new unit. Instead it was a really amazing update of some old character models. In that sense they are some of the best parts of the game. However Pegasus Knight also embody some of the games big issues. The dominance of cavalry and powerful heroes. How flyers are really, really good right now. And of course, Skirmish, maybe the most powerful and poorly written rules in the game. I really don’t think any unit sums up the first year of ToW as well as Pegasus Knight do.
Let us know what you think the most important units of the year have been, down in the comments!
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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 40K tactics and lore, as well as all things Star Wars, with occasional dabbling in other topics. Abe remains in mourning over the loss of WFB to this day.
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