Your views on Monsters

[Guthwine]

Another idea would be that enemy units (infantry/cav/machines) are not allowed to charge monsters on initiative but have to pass an order (like a leadership check) to charge.

Which would call for a special category for huge monsters like monsterous creatures to prevent flyers from benefiting from this rule.

[Geep]

I like that idea

You could make it part of the rules for Fear/ Terror in Warmaster- that limits it to big monsters and also reflects the normal Warhammer rules a bit (I like continuity). That may make it too powerful for characters mounted on monsters though?

[captPiett]

Ok - the discussion has unfortunately veered off towards costing alternatives on another thread... a worthy topic I'm sure, but one that makes my eyes glaze over.

So here's what I want to know... how would you go about play testing these ideas about monsters? For simplicity's sake, let's take the two big ones (or maybe they're just the last ones, I don't know), in general form:
1. Monsters can enter/attack into woods
2. Some sort of restriction against charging monsters

I'm fairly experienced at playtesting in Epic (usually as Dave's punching bag for Hivefleet Unfairness), but I've never done a WM playtest. So, what are some general guidelines to playtesting WM, and what specific game characteristics would need to be incorporated to pose a good test for these house rules?

Right off the bat, I would assume that a tourney scenario would be the most appropriate, followed in importance by strictly defining the house rule to be tested (e.g. "monsters can enter woods both in the initiative and orders phases," or "terrains X, Y, and Z are no longer impassable to single-based monsters", etc.).

In other words, how would you go about finding out whether or not a rule modification was workable?

[Lex]

WM playtesting ....

in general ... 

Define situation in current rules, set up (small scale if appropriate) and reproduce said scenario a couple of time, in general I would use "basic"  units at first.

Set up the same situation and perform the same number of test with the new rules.

Rinse and repeat af infinitum, start to vary size first and other gaming situation when you feel comfy with current and expected rule.

Report back to the playtest coordinator (me) for your next assignment