Welcome to another round of rules breakdown from your friendly neighborhood plastic addict. Today we are going to get laser focused on the most orderly and disciplined special rule in the old world: Drilled.
What Is Drilled?
In the Old World, some units are disciplined, so disciplined that they can perform rapid reactions while maintaining a strong battle formation to face down their enemies and create the optimal unit structure to take down their foe. Whether it be a stubborn and particularly battle-hardened dwarf, or a legendary group of ancient vampire knights, this battle acumen can be utilized to great effect when fighting opposing forces and adding flexibility to otherwise static fighting blocks. On the tabletop, this style of combat and expertise is represented by one of my favorite special rules in the game: Drilled.
Drilled is one of those special rules that seems incredibly simple on the surface but gets significantly more complicated as you apply it. To start with lets see the rulebook definition of drilled:
“Unless it is fleeing, a drilled unit may perform a free ‘redress the ranks’ maneuver immediately before moving. Once this maneuver is complete, the unit may move as normal. In addition, a Drilled unit can march while within 8” of an enemy unit without first having to make a Leadership test.” – Warhammer the Old World Rulebook, page 167
Some key things to note here:
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- Drilled units cannot be drilled when they are fleeing. This means that if a drilled unit flees for any reason (even FBIGO, which is a flee move) they cannot use this rule.
- Drilled unit can perform this special maneuver before any movement. This means (outside of a flee) ANY and all movement the unit performs can be preceded by a drilled ‘redress the ranks’ maneuver.
- This applies to forced movement. Effects that would “push” the unit or otherwise move it outside of its own will, like wind blast.
- This can be used in tandem with other maneuvers, like turning, moving backwards, sideways, or even when marching.
What is a move? Let’s look at Games Workshop Warhammer the Old World FAQ.
Q: What constitutes a ‘move’?
A: Quite simply, if you touch a model or unit and change its position in any way, it has moved. There are some exceptions to this, a war machine that pivots does not count as having moved, for example, but in the vast majority of cases, the term ‘move’ follows the broadest definition; if a model or unit shifts its position or changes its location, it has moved. – Warhammer the Old World FAQ, page 4
No model can move more than twice its movement: Many players get this wrong with multiple aspects of the game. But it is important to keep this in mind with drilled. Luckily Games Workshop opened some leeway into this restriction for drilled specifically:
“Note also that, when a unit is permitted a free maneuver before or after moving, this is free in that it does not count towards the move itself, but the limitation that no model can move more than twice its Movement characteristic applies within the maneuver.” – Warhammer the Old World FAQ, page 4
Notice that this restriction applies “within the maneuver.” That means the model can move up to double while making its redress and then still move up to double for its movement after the redress from drilled.
It also means a unit that is drilled to redress into a marching column can still go triple its movement despite the redress it makes.
Finally, another major feature of this rule is that the unit can ignore the leadership test. requirement for marching within 8” of enemy units. This makes them very reliable and hard to pin down with chaff.
What Is a Redress the Ranks?
In order to understand the nuance of drilled, you have to understand what a redress the ranks is.
“Units can redress the ranks by moving models to or from their rear ranks to decrease or increase the number of models in their front rank. A unit may use half of its Movement characteristic in order to deduct up to five models from its front rank or add up to five models to its front rank. The Models in the remaining ranks are rearranged to match the number of models in the front rank and maintain a correct formation. Remember, there must be the same number of models in each rank. Only the rear rank may have fewer models.” – Warhammer the Old World Rulebook, page 125
So let’s break this gigantic mess of a paragraph down:
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- You can only ever move models located within the rear or the front ranks.
- You can only ever move models from either the rear or the front rank
- You must rearrange the middle ranks (that is the ranks between the original rear and front ranks before the maneuver was performed) to match the new frontage.
- The new rear rank may have fewer models than the front rank
- You may only ever move five models as part of this redress maneuver
- Remember, models may never move more than twice their movement when performing this maneuver.
The rulebook pictures they have to support this do not adequately show the true ramifications of this. Effectively its like showing a student 2+2 and then asking them to find the solution to a calculus question. I have placed some examples below to try and help flesh out understanding of this.
Moving from Back to Front
Moving from Front to Back
Now to really grasp the full power of drilled let’s dig into it as part of the normal game.
Drilled in Action
Drilled is up there with skirmish and having “Dragon” in your name as one of the best words to have associated with your models. It’s powerful because it is flexible. Letting you reactively and proactively develop in game strategy with your normally static units to outmaneuver your opponent. There are 7 main ways that it will come up in the game which I have outlined below:
Normal movement, maneuvers, and marching. Ah yes, the bog standard movement. Sometimes you just have to truffle shuffle your base movement, back up, or shuffle sideways. Some of the best ways to leverage drilled here:
- Change frontage to prepare for a charge or shuffle outside of a charge arc:
- Redress into marching column to get extra movement:
- Redress out of marching column to have more flexibility. Remember you can still perform another maneuver after using drilled, so you could redress out of the marching column, and back up, or move sideways, or turn.
You will not always need to use drilled in the above situations but there may be niche circumstances where it can be the difference between sweet victory and bitter defeat.
Charging. Drilled is most commonly used on the charge and for good reason! Much of the power in the ability is revealed when the swords start a swingin’! But there is nuance here as well!
From marching column into a charge. Sometimes you want to leverage marching column to set up a later turn charge and the drilled solves that little problem where you cannot charge while in marching column! Thanks to Warhammer the Old World FAQ on Page 5 we have clarity that yes, you can declare while in marching column, and that means you can use drilled to redress back to “normal” to enable you to make a charge move!
Create wider frontage to increase offensive output: This one is pretty obvious, more models in the fighting rank means more better hitting right? Pure value!
Create smaller frontage to clear gaps or make it into tight spaces. This one is more niche but also really potent! You can use drilled to create a smaller frontage before a charge move to clear battlefield obstructions or other units!
Side Step
Thread the Needle
These are just some of the more common approaches but the great thing is, drilled really rewards creative play and the more creative you are the more value you can get from it!
Give ground/follow up. Giving ground and following up are both a type of move! You can use drilled before giving ground to increase your frontage or give yourself extra ranks! A great way to be flexible in combat.
Pursuit. Drilled can be incredibly powerful when pursuing enemy units. Maybe you need to go wide to ensure you win that next combat! Perhaps you need to get a little creative with your frontage to avoid making contact with a screening unit! The world is your (very disciplined) oyster!
Avoidance
Place/teleport effects. As stated in the FAQ blurb above in What is a move? ANY movement of a model is movement…even teleportation! One of the most common teleportation spells is Travel Mystical Pathway which has some serious potency with a drilled unit. The way this works is you would trigger the redress the ranks before the unit is placed. Then keep that unit shape/form when you place it down.
Extra movement effects. Finally, drilled has no limit on how many times it can be used in a turn. This means if you have an ability, spell, or situation where you get an extra move (even in the same phase) you can use drilled each time a move is initiated.
Common Unit Types
The most common units that have and use drilled are infantry and Cavalry. These units als tend to get the most value out of the ability because they tend to struggle into the deadlier units in the game. Drilled gives them an edge that can help them really shine in what would normally be a bad match up.
Infantry: Infantry tends to use drilled when fighting in very large blocks or small redirector units. The most common use of drilled here is either to enable additional movement with a marching column, or to allow them a lot of flexibility in reforming and maneuvering after taking a charge.
Cavalry: These units are the most aggressive with drilled. Where infantry is usually reactive, cavalry is very proactive. They use drilled in a similar manner to infantry but tend to never set themselves up to be charged and follow their ABC’s (Always Be Charging). An ideal unit size for Cav is either a minimum size unit of 4-5 or a larger unit of 10-16 models. This allows them to best leverage the rule.
Wonky Interactions
Like all rules in the Old World, Drilled is going to have a lot of very silly and unintended interactions. While I cannot cover every possibility, here are the ones I have seen come up the most:
Charge Arcs: Some people want to say that you can use drilled to modify your charge arc, line of sight, or get a better angle (maybe see a flank more than the front to get a flank charge). But this is not how charge rules work. Remember, a charge is declared before any movement happens! You cannot use drilled until after the charge is declared, arc and distance are determined, and the dice are rolled.
Charge Distance: You can however use drilled to make charges easier. One of the best ways to do this is to use drilled to make a more direct path to the charge target, avoid terrain, or even reduce the distance needed to wheel by making your frontage smaller.
More Direct Path (Shorten Distance)
Avoiding Terrain
Overrun/Pursuit/Follow Up: Drilled units can do a lot of really cool things when they pursue and follow up. You can change your frontage to avoid contacting a unit “in the way” of your pursuit target. You can increase your frontage to contact a unit that was original out of your route of contact.
Follow up and the “free turn maneuver:” Okay so this is likely not intended at all, but it’s absolutely hilarious. Let’s say you are following up to a unit giving ground, but you want to change your facing to turn what would be a catastrophic flank charge into an front charge. Well, rules-as-written you get to do the following:
- Make a free turn maneuver
- Follow Up
The above means you an drilled before each of these movements. That means you can increase your frontage by 10 models (Drilled [5 models] -> Free Turn -> Drilled [5 models] -> Follow Up) and change facing as part of a follow up!
Frenzy/Impetuous/Forced charges: Some circumstances result in a charge being required. This is what GW has to say about it:
Q: If a Drilled unit in Marching Column has to declare a charge due to being Frenzied or Impetuous, can it choose not to use Drilled to redress the ranks and adopt combat order?
A: If it is able to redress the ranks (i.e., if there is space for it to do so), no. A unit that is obliged to charge must endeavor to make use of any special rules it has in order to charge. – Warhammer the Old World FAQ, page 5
Random movement: Very rarely will a unit have both drilled and random movement. If this ever is the case the unit cannot perform any maneuvers per the random movement special rule. As written units with random movement cannot use drilled as they cannot perform a redress the ranks maneuver.
Countercharge: You can use drilled before countercharging. This means you can adjust your frontage before making our countercharge movement. There are lots of ways to get significant mileage with this! You can make the charge more difficult for a different unit that wanted to charge your flank, or you can make a wider frontage to further punish the fools who had the audacity to challenge you!
Larger Frontage
Increasing Charge Distance/Changing Arc
An Old World of Possibilities
Drilled is one of the most versatile and powerful rules in the game. In fact, I wish the game was as technically well done as this one special rule. Seriously whoever came up with this needs a pay raise and a round at Bugmans from all the design team. The rule is both simple enough to learn quickly, and deep enough to give experienced and technical players a lot to chew on in crunchy strategic gameplay. I also love how thematic it is. It really creates this awesome image of disciplined and experienced soldiers using their significant battlefield prowess to one up enemies, react to bad situations, or just look plan old awesome while kicking peoples teeth in.
I hope you can get some experience using and playing against this powerful special rule in your games. May your elite soldiers continue to create cinematic moments with their incredible discipline!
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