For me, it will certainly make things more fun, but I think it may upset the competitive play types a bit.

for my blood angels, being able to give opposing characters a good Mephiston seems perfectly in keeping with the whole ethos of the army.

Very cinematic as long as you maintain the racial stereotypes, Someone challenges a chaos character, the chaos character accepts – the challenger steps forward and is riddled by bolter fire from the chaos squad (terribly treacherous these chaos players) ….. Mephiston challenges a tyrannid and is swamped by an en masse charge from the entire horde ….. etc etc

Not so much a big thing for the most part, seeing as force charts only allow one or two HQs… unless Force Org Charts are out, and it’s % back in (like Warhammer …) < which is one of the rumours out there 😛

Challenging is all fine and dandy if you play Space Marines or Orks but most armies out there don’t want their HQ’s getting lolstomped by Lysander, Logan, Mephiston etc. I think currently it’s fine, you want to have a heroic 1 on 1 you can due to the movement system of a skirmish game, alternatively if you want to avoid CC you can hide your hero in the middle of a squad etc.

I dont care for the fantasy style rumours floating around.

Also sounds like some form of defence to stop other characters from smacking your unit, for instance a space marine captain challenging abaddon, even though the captain will get smoked but it will stop abaddon from killing your unit.

I think that this sounds like Jervis Johnson. Great concept guy, horrible rules guy. Challenges would just be one more bump added to slow the game down. Having lived through 2nd edition, going back to that style of game-play would not be a good thing. The challenge system is broken in WHFB and wouldn’t be any less broken for 40k. My vote is no. I’ve already been there and done that and it was crap then.

Suddenly, Imotekh’s weird “if he beats an IC in combat” rule makes more sense…

… orcs will suck. i mean when i chalenge the mob power claw guy and club him down with a tau battle siute. aftter two 6+ saves hes dead and i park my develfisches in front of them.

OK, I like this rule I think it brings some balance since the last rule we saw was deffinetly geared to hurt assaulty armies this way once your assaulty army lets say tyranids for example has finally gotten through the horrid shootin for an extr turn because due to the last turn the front line was taken down and took them out of assault range is finally able to get into assault with some tau battle suites with a commander in your character can issue that challenge and really destroy them, and if they turn it down I wonder if… Read more »

Close combat challenges wouldn’t suit my armies but the rules about wound allocation definately would and at the same time help reduce the risk of getting into combats not of my choosing.
So the two proposed rule changes so far have struck a good balance.

Ignoring the fact that two of those guys were Warbosses, and not Mega-armoured Nobz at all…

It sounds enormously out-of-character for quite a lot of 40K races. Sure, Orks and Marines care about honour, but Eldar and Necrons have nothing but distain for most of their opponents. It also encourages IG Lord Commissars to be downright cowardly, as a Lord Commissar hiding at the back of the unit avoids being squished, while continuing to confer his awesome leadership bonuses (which were why you bought him in the first place).

i think it will be fun as you`ll no longer be able to hide you Hq at the back of a group so it can stand the first wave of combat..

i love these ideas…like warren said it makes for more cinematic games, and as darrel pointed out, less cheese…so far these new additions to the game will be to it’s benefit….i hope that they’re going to make it in the final product. imagine the possibilities!

As a Tau player I find the prospect of challenges scary, though to be honest any close combat is scary!!
I do like the concept though. It would give games more of those “epic moments”. Just like the wound allocation on shooting would when facing down a charge. It’ll add more dynamics on a tactical as well as visual and cinematic level.

To me it fits in with the fluff. Most armies have a leader or spec. character that leads from the front and doesn’t hide behind the girls.

Ok I can see how some forces might not benefit as much as others, but hey there are already various rules which benefit certain armies more than others. For instance losing a CC based on wounds and then subtratcing the diff from your leadership role does not help horde armies but benefts small strong units. So why not add a rule which can possibly give same benefit back ?

Have a cheap HQ and challenge/accept a challenge from an expensive combat womble (Gaz). All of Gaz’s attacks are on on the HQ. Sure he will win but no overkill wounds will hit the unit just the HQ.

Putt all the wounds on Gaz’s unit and hope to win overall combat. Just beat his unit in combat. (of course you better hope he has Warrged! already else he and his unit will become fearless). I hope GW has thought about this already. i.e. IC wins = Win of combat resolution

It is a very cool rule.

Personally I’m not sure that 40k will go as close to fantasy as BoW suggests but, GW are unpredictable.