How To Speak Warhammer (Warhammer Dictionary)

[Saintofm]

Since We all come up with terms we use alot but amny players may not understand, I thought I come up with a dictionary of sorts.

SO Here are things I can Think of on the top of my head. If anyone wants to add anything, post below and I will add with a date added.


Numbers:
2HW: Two Hand Weapons

40K: Warhammer Fourty Thousand.
A.

*AoD: Armor of Destiny

*Anvil Units: Units that do to high armor, ward save, toughness, regeneration, or a combination of such are highly resilient to enemy attacks. Like an anvil they can take a hit, but in doing so may have sarificed some of their more offencive capabilites. Dwarf Iron Breakers, Warriors of Chaos with Mark of Nugle and sheilds, and Pheonix Guard are some of the better excamples.

B

*BG: Black Guard

*Battle Cows: 6th Edd Cold ones. They were fatter and less streamline then the previous edditions or currently used ones since 7th edition update which are now a mix between lizard and velocoraptor.

Blender: A unit that puts out a high volume of attacks and can destroy or greatly reduce many other units in close combat. A horde of witch elves fits this description. Not to be confused with Blender Lord (a term for a specific vampire build).

Bus: A unit that is deeper than it is wide, so 3 or more full ranks of 5 wide cavalry, or 6+ ranks of 5 wide infantry.

C

CC: Close Combat

Chaff: Weak units that tend to be there as distractions or be used as human sheilds by moving infront of a more impiortant unit. Can sometimes hold their own, but usually in a way so they focus on other units that tend to be weak in close combat such as war machines or shooty units. Chaos Warhounds, Dark Elf Harpies, and Vampire Count Zombies take the cake here.

CoT: CLoak of Twilight

Curse of the Green Skin: When taking out, setting up, and putting away your army feels like its taking longer then to play the game. Usually referring to Orcs and Goblins and their Cousins Space Orks as they are the original come in mass armies, but can also refer to any hoard army in either Fantasy or 40k such as with Skaven or Tyranids.

D

Death Star: A fairly subjective term, but if its a unit that most of the points, starting with half and ending with what hasn't been spent on the 2 other units and a charecter and core requirements, in any given game have been spent on are here, and most of the army and characters within it seem to be there only to support it, you probably have it. Advantage: If done well, its incredibly powerful and can be intimidating to look at. On the other hand its one of those all your eggs in one basket, and it takes just one Skywalker to make this Mechanical Terror go boom.

DR: Dark Riders

Double Flee: A maneuver employed as a charge reaction, that results in no legal charge targets and a failed charge. When a charging unit C declares a charge, unit (A) flees through another unit (B). When the charging unit reditects into B, unit B declares a flee reaction and flees through A. After the flee, unit A will be between C and B - since C is no longer charging A however, it cannot successfully complete a charge and fails.


E

F

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions (the usually lacking clarification of the above issues)

FC: Full Comand

*Fluff: Background information on the setting. Usually referring to one of four things: Official fluff, which is what the current rule books say word for word until the next update; Army Fluff which is you're army's background/backstory; Fanfiction which is often interchangeable with the former; The Black Library which is Games Workshops division dedicated to all thing fiction that takes place in the Warhammer Fantasy and 40,000 settings. Basically PAID fan fiction. Usualy Offical has the highest level of importance as fan fiction and Black Library may be written in far older editions so changes have been made.

G

*Glass Cannon: an incredibly powerful unit that is also incredibly low on defense. A Sub Category of Hammer Unit (see below), this unit forgoes armor either nearly or completely for an all out assault.

H

Hammer Units: Units that due to strength, equipment, abilities, number of attacks, or a combination of such will hit hard. Because of how focused they are on bludgioning their foes, they may not have focues enough on Defence. Dark Elf Witch Elves, Warriors of Khorn with 2 Hand Weapons, or Dwarf Slayers.

*Hoard Army: An army that relies not on a few elite units, they are armies that believe Quantity has its own Quality and send out units in mass. Typically armed with low armor values, weak or average states, namely leadership, they make up for the lack of powerful units or units with a real power to it with the fact they will alwasy outnumber you. Skaven armies, Skink or Goblin heavy armies, and some Empire army builds relish on this. Also to an extent, Beastmen. Hoard is sometimes misspelled horde which is meant for hording things not a vast horde of barbarians descend upon us!


Hoard Formation: Normal sized Units with ranks (such as Empire Halberders, Orc and Goblin Black Orcs, Beastmen Chaos Warhounds, or High Elf Dragon Princes) at least ten minis wide or Monsterous Sized Units (such As Ogre Kingdome man eaters, Warriors of Chaos Spawn of Chaos, or Bretonian Pegasus Knights) at least six minies wide. The advantage of such formations is that units may fight 3 ranks deep, and allows a horde army to have the most bang for their buck. The disadvantages is it takes up alot of minies, and therefor points and money, and unless you have a ton of minies in it, you may not always outrank enemies. There is also the fact you will not be a bigger target at the front.

I

J

K

L

M

*MSU: MUltiple Small Units. This is a Playlist that follows the strategy of having many smaller units instead of a few larger units. The main resons for this is many units, namly a number of elites, work better in smaller units and not massive blocks. This also allows you to not have all your eggs in one basket so if one unit is killed off the others can still fight for you.

Shooting units typically go here, knights and other heavy cavalry can go here as well, and other elite units may be found here as well.

N

O

P

Pop: When a unit is completely destroyed either through damage or overrun in close combat.

Power Army: An Army that relies less on lots of weaker units and more on a few heavy hitting units. The units themselves coast more point wise, but you generally do not need to take many and the ones you do and can generally out match most other units. The advantages are each unit tends to be very powerful, either in offence or defense, while the weaknesses is you will almost always be out numbered. Warriors of Chaos, Dwarves, and Ogre Kingdoms fit this description best.

Q

R

RAI - Rules As Intended (the intention of the game designer that could possibly have been worded clearer when written)

RAW: Rules As Written (the black and white text in the rulebook and FAQ that word for word tells you what to do)

RBT: Reaper Bolt Thrower

RXB: Repeater Crossbow

S

SDC: Sea Dragon Cloak

SS: Supreme Sorceress

Shooty Army: An army that predominently uses range weapons such as bows, crossbows, guns, cannons, stone throwers, bolt throwers, and so on. The advantage is that this is death from afar, killing units outright or causing panic. Their main disadvantage is the troops tend to coast more, and tend to also suck in close combat.

Shooty Unit: A unit that relies on range attacks. While this means they do not need to be in close combat to cause damage, they tend to not have the equipment needed to survive close combat.

T

Two Towers (Twin Towers): An army list that includes both a Cauldron of Blood and a Bloodwrack shrine. The archtypical list as popularized by Dalamar includes a large unit of witch elves and a large unit of executioners.
U

V

W

WYSIWYG - model reflects the equipment the character or unit has as per the rules, army roster and army book entry. What you see, is what you get.

X

Y


Z

[strategem]

Some that come to mind are:

AoD Armour of Destiny
SDC Sea dragon Cloak
SS Supreme Sorceress
CoT Cloak of Twilight
RBT reaper bolt thrower
RXB reapeter crossbows
FC full command

[Calisson]

I suggest you mentioned that "Hoard" is a common mispelling of "horde".

[Amboadine]

WYSIWYG
Fluff
Glass hammer
##star units

[CitizenKhaine]

A good definition of a death star would be good, I have a rough idea what they look like but not entirely sure. Are they a unit with only characters in the front rank?

[MangoPunch]

A good definition of a death star would be good, I have a rough idea what they look like but not entirely sure. Are they a unit with only characters in the front rank?

A Death Star is somewhat subjective, but is typically viewed as a unit that is very very hard to get points from, and compiles a large portion of an armies points (~50% or more). The unit will typically have all or nearly all of the armies characters and is strong offensively as well. Think warlock bus with a dread lord, supreme sorceress and 3+ masters! Or a massive unit of Phoenix Guard with life sorceress and lots of other stuff.

[Saintofm]

Updated it so far.

What is a "Star unit?"

What would be a good definition of Bus?

ANd what would a good definition of Cheese be? This one particularly as the first thing to pops into my mind is something that lets the SPirit of Khorn that takes over your body, and you wake up later with blood all over you and half the city on fire.

[Payce]

Should definitely add the Bus and Two Towers to the list, those terms are thrown around very freely and even with search function it does take a bit of digging to understand what it actually means. And perhaps a mod could move it from Off-toping to Army Discussion?

Also, two more from competitive 40k that I'm sure also applies to fantasy games in some shape or form;

RAW - Rules As Written (the black and white text in the rulebook and FAQ that word for word tells you what to do)
RAI - Rules As Intended (the intention of the game designer that could possibly have been worded clearer when written)
FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions (the usually lacking clarification of the above issues)

[MangoPunch]

Should definitely add the Bus and Two Towers to the list, those terms are thrown around very freely and even with search function it does take a bit of digging to understand what it actually means. And perhaps a mod could move it from Off-toping to Army Discussion?

Bus: A unit that is deeper than it is wide, so 3 or more full ranks of 5 wide cavalry, or 6+ ranks of 5 wide infantry.

Dart: A unit that employs a very narrow front rank (typically one or two models wide), usually to limit the attacks recieved back. Most common darts in dark elves are black gaurd due to being stubborn.

Two Towers (Twin Towers): An army list that includes both a Cauldron of Blood and a Bloodwrack shrine. The archtypical list as popularized by Dalamar includes a large unit of witch elves and a large unit of executioners.

Blender: A unit that puts out a high volume of attacks and can destroy or greatly reduce many other units in close combat. A horde of witch elves fits this description. Not to be confused with Blender Lord (a term for a specific vampire build).

Pop: When a unit is completely destroyed either through damage or overrun in close combat.

Double Flee: A maneuver employed as a charge reaction, that results in no legal charge targets and a failed charge. When a charging unit C declares a charge, unit (A) flees through another unit (B). When the charging unit reditects into B, unit B declares a flee reaction and flees through A. After the flee, unit A will be between C and B - since C is no longer charging A however, it cannot successfully complete a charge and fails.

[Saintofm]

Thank you Payce and MangoPunch.

THey have been added.

I also added the curse of the Green Skin and 2HW, and 40k in there as well.

Still need a definition on Star Units and WYSIWYG

[Amboadine]

WYSIWYG - model reflects the equipment the character or unit has as per the rules, army roster and army book entry. What you see, is what you get.

I think mango summed up ##star units. (Deathstar, gutstar etc) fairly well a couple of posts up.