Cutting heroes down to size

Many people think that characters are to powerful in Warhammer, and would have
them removed altogether.  Others think that magic is too powerful, and would 
remove it (or at least reduce it so much that it might as well be removed).
I think that characters can be over-powerful when given certain magic items - 
and usually these items have to be used in combination with certain others.

Now, as long as heroes are used to fight battles, with a unit tacked on for
protection against missiles and to add rank bonuses, then of course there will
be complaints - heroes should not be able to win battles.  They should be used
as an addition to a unit to toughen it up, nothing more.  They should be tacked
onto the unit, not the other way around.

Still, no matter how things should be, we have to deal with how things are.  So,
given that heroes are going to be used in this manner, what should we do about
it?  How about we try to have the best of both worlds - allow people to play
with world-shaking heroes, but at the same time make them somewhat more fragile,
so that while they can still have an effect, they should not control the game
unless you are silly enough to let them...

My idea is this - change the rules which determine who can attack a hero.  Leave
them unchanged for dealing with rank and file and champions, but, for any other
characters, allow those normally eligible to attack (any in base contact, and
any immediately behind those if equipped with spears) AND all those behind them
to do so.  Not just in the rank behind the first, but all the way back to the
last rank of the unit.  So in the situation below:

 mmmmm
 mmmmm     m - man
 mmmmH     H - hero
ggggggg    g - goblin  
ggggggg
ggggggg
ggggggg
ggggggg

Instead of just one or two Goblins being able to attack the hero (depending on
how the units are aligned on the charge), all those behind the front models who
can attack the hero (some 5 or 10), can pile onto the hero.

My reasoning and justification for this?

Well, heroes made damned good targets in real combat.  They generally stood
out, and made certain to announce themselves.  Every ambitious warrior in search
of glory and honour would head for him, in order to claim his head, and 
occasionally a reward would be offered by a commander to his men for killing a
certain enemy soldier of great repute.  So there would be every reason for a 
hero to get more than his fair share of attention in combat.  I think that this
should help curb some of the heroic excesses seen now, while at the same time
making you think about just what you are going to do with your heroes.  Right
now, by virtue of the damned good armour saves heroes can usually have, there
is little chance of them being harmed by anything other than a similarly
equipped (and overpowered) hero - this increases the chances of the rank and 
file of denting him a little.  Added to this is that such changes to the rules
would almost certainly force heroes to spend on armour of some sort - the
suicide assassin might not appear so frequently...

I'm not at all sure if this should be applied to wizards.  Yes, some wizard 
lords could certainly do with a bit of trimming, but I think that this would
be massively unfair to lower level wizards, particularly because of their lack
of armour.  But then again, I don't really think that wizards should see 
combat - they should be more of an artillery piece.

Of course, this still doesn't make it any easier to face a hero with a huge
armour save (chaos, anyone?).  And it could well be unfair to the lesser heroes
such as goblins, humans, and maybe even skaven - and those who already play
heroes as a unit booster, not a battle winner.

Comments?