Eldarsif wrote: Not sure if anybody else has their spidey-sense tingling, but the fact that gutbusters didn't get any point adjustments kinda feels like they might be seeing a tome soon.
I dunno, last time I had spidey sense my damn anaraknarok bit me.
I agree though, def something happening there. Gutbusters and BCR need to be combined, same with Ironjawz and Bonesplittas in my opinion. Or maybe they'll expand upon the Ogre Firebelly and go with that cool tribal volcano worshipping look.
auticus wrote: They still have so many factions that need updated.
They appear to be chipping slowly at it. If they release Gutbusters it would be an update of an old existing faction that hasn't received any love in a long time. They don't even have a tome currently for example.
Yeah. We need slaves to darkness, the ogre update, a proper orc update, high elf update, dark elf update, wood elf update and a normal people update, a dwarf update, and the kharadron overlords are sharing garbage time with slaves to darkness so I'd like to see them get a real book.
I would greatly appreciate if they would touch on one of those instead of releasing a fourth stormcast or a third khorne or whatever. Those armies being ignored for so long is not excusable IMO.
Eldarsif wrote: Not sure if anybody else has their spidey-sense tingling, but the fact that gutbusters didn't get any point adjustments kinda feels like they might be seeing a tome soon.
Gutbusters are a faction I hope gets more than tome, terrain and spells. A plastic multi-part kit or two like the trolls would do them fantastically well for rounding out their army with replacements for some of their metal models. Then again if they dont' get that they'll be like skaven with a lot of metal legacy models kicking around for a bit longer.
auticus wrote: Yeah. We need slaves to darkness, the ogre update, a proper orc update, high elf update, dark elf update, wood elf update and a normal people update, a dwarf update, and the kharadron overlords are sharing garbage time with slaves to darkness so I'd like to see them get a real book.
I would greatly appreciate if they would touch on one of those instead of releasing a fourth stormcast or a third khorne or whatever. Those armies being ignored for so long is not excusable IMO.
But Gutbusters is an ogre faction(Ogor to be correct) and therefore would be them touching an unreleased faction. Also, we are not going to get High or Dark Elf. We'll get the sub-factions as their own factions(which are probably around 7-8 in their current version), and we'll see a part of the wood elf faction(Sylvaneth) soon enough.
Personally I don't think we'll see Privateers or Covens until they find a way to fill them out properly in their new lore(why they didn't combine Privateers with Idoneth is beyond me). Also, one of the Rumor engines did look a bit like a Wanderer item so we might see some of them inn the near future. Slaves to Darkness seems to be on a hold until they release Warcry.
Eldarsif wrote: Not sure if anybody else has their spidey-sense tingling, but the fact that gutbusters didn't get any point adjustments kinda feels like they might be seeing a tome soon.
Gutbusters are a faction I hope gets more than tome, terrain and spells. A plastic multi-part kit or two like the trolls would do them fantastically well for rounding out their army with replacements for some of their metal models. Then again if they dont' get that they'll be like skaven with a lot of metal legacy models kicking around for a bit longer.
They are also a bit spread thin with Gargants and Maneaters belonging to different factions(despite all being under Gutbusters on the site). I kinda hope they consolidate some of it and create "Battletome: [Noun] of Ogor" as they did with Nagash.
And, I hate having to say it again, but Privateers aren't with Idoneth because the Idoneth don't like coming to the surface.
That is a lore issue though. Now, after the tome is released I agree they do not fit together and it is too late to do anything about them. They could have intertwined them though before if they had wanted.
And, I hate having to say it again, but Privateers aren't with Idoneth because the Idoneth don't like coming to the surface.
That is a lore issue though. Now, after the tome is released I agree they do not fit together and it is too late to do anything about them. They could have intertwined them though before if they had wanted.
It's not even a lore issue though, the Idoneth and Scourge could easily ally together formally to the point where forces combine both. The Scourge being the Idoneth's eyes and ears on the surface world; more trusted than the mysterious Idoneth and able to blend in (they don't have to move with fishes swimming around them in a magical bubble). So now the Scourge can scout ahead into those ports and towns before the Idoneth strike. Heck since the Scourge sail the high seas in large ships and even larger city ships atop the backs of kracken they are either natural best friends or worst enemies.
It's not even a lore issue though, the Idoneth and Scourge could easily ally together formally to the point where forces combine both. The Scourge being the Idoneth's eyes and ears on the surface world; more trusted than the mysterious Idoneth and able to blend in (they don't have to move with fishes swimming around them in a magical bubble). So now the Scourge can scout ahead into those ports and towns before the Idoneth strike. Heck since the Scourge sail the high seas in large ships and even larger city ships atop the backs of kracken they are either natural best friends or worst enemies.
Basically like how Drukhari are separated into various factions serving different purposes.
About Ogors; I could see them creating a big combined book similar to Skaven, BoC and Gloomspite, with Beastclaw Raiders and the whole everwinter thing being merely one way to play them (firebelly tribes and maneater companies being two other potential options).
Future War Cultist wrote: About Ogors; I could see them creating a big combined book similar to Skaven, BoC and Gloomspite, with Beastclaw Raiders and the whole everwinter thing being merely one way to play them (firebelly tribes and maneater companies being two other potential options).
I agree.
If they(GW) don't have any set plans for the faction I think it will be more likely to see consolidation. It is also easier to consolidate and release a faction and then expand it later when inspiration strikes.
I will be very surprised if they don't combine Beastclaws and Gutbusters into a single faction like they did for Gloomspite and skaven.
It just makes a lot of sense, esp as Beastclaw are basically relying heavily on 1 single larger kit for their whole faction pretty much. So combine them with gutbusters and they can pick and choose from each other with alliance abilities; then also likely run a pure beastclaw raiders army within it.
It's not even a lore issue though, the Idoneth and Scourge could easily ally together formally to the point where forces combine both. The Scourge being the Idoneth's eyes and ears on the surface world; more trusted than the mysterious Idoneth and able to blend in (they don't have to move with fishes swimming around them in a magical bubble). So now the Scourge can scout ahead into those ports and towns before the Idoneth strike. Heck since the Scourge sail the high seas in large ships and even larger city ships atop the backs of kracken they are either natural best friends or worst enemies.
Basically like how Drukhari are separated into various factions serving different purposes.
Read the Idoneth fluff. The Idoneth are already "separated into various factions".
The Akhelians are the knights, protectors, and strategists of the Idoneth--alongside of being one part of the nobility ruling the Deepkin, sharing power with the Isharann.
The Isharann are the mages, scholars, and priests. They also manage the Chorilleums where souls of slain Idoneth are kept. The only Isharann we haven't seen on the tabletop so far are the Embailors(masters of mind-magics, the "beast-tamers" who broke the creatures of the deep with pain)...and I wouldn't be shocked to see them coming at some point down the road.
The Namarti are the half-souled anchor around the neck of the Idoneth. They're the shame of the Deepkin and are treated accordingly--albeit with some being given "honored" positions such as Beaststalkers alongside the Embailors.
They don't need the Scourge Privateers or anyone else.
The Soulscryers are the ones who find the places for the Idoneth to raid...assuming they're going after somewhere new to them and not just waiting to hit the same place again after the populace has had time to recover. The Soulscryers and Tidecasters are also the ones who know how for the Idoneth to get to where they need to go via the Whirlways and Realmgates.
The Akhelians are their warleaders, many of whom are familiar with the areas that they've raided over the years.
Namarti just go where told to.
And it's worth mentioning as well that part of the reason for the Ethersea is it brings the silence and darkness of the deeps with them. The whole reason the Deepkin are there is to isolate themselves.
Highly suggest reading the trio of short stories in "Myths & Revenants" on them. All three are great looks at the Idoneth, and the only one that shouldn't be considered "canon"-canon is apparently "The Sea Taketh" as it was written in advance of the finalized lore.
Lore wise it falls a bit flat since the Gutbusters who were BCR likely died because they couldn't outrun the storm.
I almost want Gutbusters to be a "professional" mercenary army. We had that in the old lore where they'd sell their skills and then bring new skills back to the tribe, so making it an army trait would fit pretty well.
Got to try the Army Generator from new GH. It's a fun way to organize a fight and can make for some interesting matchups. Might need to do some tweaking/redraw if your collection isn't super extensive to even it up but not a big deal. Going to try the Regiments of Renown next time and the Terrain Generator
I like the idea of the army generator. The snag I ran into with my community is that a lot of people just buy 2000 points and stop there so they don't have the options and don't want to deviate from their 2000 points.
auticus wrote: I like the idea of the army generator. The snag I ran into with my community is that a lot of people just buy 2000 points and stop there so they don't have the options and don't want to deviate from their 2000 points.
I find this is a common thing in both AOS and 40k It's very rare someone buys more than their "2k list" and rarer still once they have it that they don't want to always use the same list because it's what they know; god forbid they have to change it!
The hobby isn't cheap. I can see why a lot of people try to keep their spendings as trim as possible. Then there is time required to assemble and optionally for most people lol - painting.
Especially if they are primarily tournament players. They are going to be churning and burning.
I understand if people want to keep their collection to a minimum. It takes space, costs money, and very often you have models that are subpar for many editions.
I have about 2500 of stormcast and found I was spoiled for choice at the 15 FP level. I'd have some meaningful choices to make at 20 but I think at 25+ I'd start playing most of my stuff.
So at Warhammer day yesterday, I made a joke about hoping the new Sisters of Battle book didn't get delayed like the sylvaneth book did. The store manager went on this very short tirade about company politics and hoping a delay like this never happened again. I was like "Didn't the Sylvaneth book just get stuck in customs?" and he said "Short answer, No. Official Company stance? Sure."
So uh, that was weird. Anyone else hear any rumors that said the sylvaneth delay wasn't actually customs based?
balmong7 wrote: So at Warhammer day yesterday, I made a joke about hoping the new Sisters of Battle book didn't get delayed like the sylvaneth book did. The store manager went on this very short tirade about company politics and hoping a delay like this never happened again. I was like "Didn't the Sylvaneth book just get stuck in customs?" and he said "Short answer, No. Official Company stance? Sure."
So uh, that was weird. Anyone else hear any rumors that said the sylvaneth delay wasn't actually customs based?
It would be strange since we've not heard anything about it like that from other staffers, so either GW is on super lockdown or the trade issue could be the result of someone in the office messing up the form. So it is a trade issue, but the result of someone in the office making a mistake. Though I'd be surprised if it was political within the company, then again staffers in GW stores are often not much more informed than gamers so it could be that the staffers are doing guesswork etc... Without confirmed information its hard to be certain.
balmong7 wrote: So at Warhammer day yesterday, I made a joke about hoping the new Sisters of Battle book didn't get delayed like the sylvaneth book did. The store manager went on this very short tirade about company politics and hoping a delay like this never happened again. I was like "Didn't the Sylvaneth book just get stuck in customs?" and he said "Short answer, No. Official Company stance? Sure."
So uh, that was weird. Anyone else hear any rumors that said the sylvaneth delay wasn't actually customs based?
It would be strange since we've not heard anything about it like that from other staffers, so either GW is on super lockdown or the trade issue could be the result of someone in the office messing up the form. So it is a trade issue, but the result of someone in the office making a mistake. Though I'd be surprised if it was political within the company, then again staffers in GW stores are often not much more informed than gamers so it could be that the staffers are doing guesswork etc... Without confirmed information its hard to be certain.
He seemed genuinely surprised when I was like "the video they put out implied customs issues..." so I figured he's talking out his ass. Hard to believe an internal politics issue would leak to store managers on the other side of the globe. Even if this stores staff recently went to corporate for a big training thing.
I got the impression that there was some issue on the China end but no elaboration as to what. Could have just been a machine broke down at the printing factory and set their schedule back for all I know.
Fast forward and I have heard reasonably reliable information that the new Sylvaneth stuff is already at distributors right now, but GW is waiting for a release slot in the schedule to open up.
If the stock is already at distributors do they need a big release window? Just couple it with something else for a weekend surely. They could easily pair it with something like Chaos Knights or the like. Then again they might be trying to avoid it stealing the thunder of Warcry - even though we know that whilst Warcry is going to be big it is very Chaos focused - and whilst GW said there'd be rules for all the other armies at launch we don't know the full details and its only chaos who are getting new kits.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I got the impression that there was some issue on the China end but no elaboration as to what. Could have just been a machine broke down at the printing factory and set their schedule back for all I know.
Fast forward and I have heard reasonably reliable information that the new Sylvaneth stuff is already at distributors right now, but GW is waiting for a release slot in the schedule to open up.
Its the China tariffs, most game companies are having a hard time right now. Not all GW paper goes through them tho, but i believe new releases on all books do for fast turn around, then they go to the GW work sites after.
Anyone know how mercenary companies work in Skirmish? They're on the warscroll builder under, so presumably they can be used, but do you have to take the "mandatory" units listed in the GHB, like the necromancer in the Sons of the Lichemaster, etc?
nurgle5 wrote: Anyone know how mercenary companies work in Skirmish? They're on the warscroll builder under, so presumably they can be used, but do you have to take the "mandatory" units listed in the GHB, like the necromancer in the Sons of the Lichemaster, etc?
Without an Errata for Skirmish, I think they don't work at all.
Honestly GW is just ticking Skirmish over in the background at present. I think they are basically stuck waiting for the Battletomes to be out for all/most armies in AoS because they can really devote resources to Skirmish in a big way.
Then again we also have Warcry coming out this summer which is set to have rules/ways to use other armies than just the chaos factions. So we don't yet know if Warcry is one of those "big summer wonders that vanishes by Christmas" or if its going to be the AoS "kill team"
Hanskrampf wrote:
Without an Errata for Skirmish, I think they don't work at all.
Shame, I was hoping someone would have a clear cut answer for this!
It's not quite the same thing as Skirmish, but my group is about to start a Hinterlands campaign, and we are wondering what would be the best way to include the mercenaries from GHB (or if we should at all).
Overread wrote:Honestly GW is just ticking Skirmish over in the background at present. I think they are basically stuck waiting for the Battletomes to be out for all/most armies in AoS because they can really devote resources to Skirmish in a big way.
Then again we also have Warcry coming out this summer which is set to have rules/ways to use other armies than just the chaos factions. So we don't yet know if Warcry is one of those "big summer wonders that vanishes by Christmas" or if its going to be the AoS "kill team"
Hopefully the latter!
The current incarnation of Skirmish is just so bizarre to me, not just the lack of support when Kill Team has been so successful, but I also just don't understand why they didn't get the guy who wrote the Hinterlands ruleset to write it (who they had already hired!). It just makes it feel so half-hearted, some of the scenarios were ported over and the warband selection is somewhat similar, but a lot of issues that continue to plague it were generally "fixed" in Hinterlands.
Skirmish is currently half-hearted because its marketed to the current customers. That's why it was slipped into White Dwarf rather than its own product. GW still has around half of the AoS armies without a 2.0 battletome, of which some of those forces have never had one at all. So right now its not the best time to have a "kill team" style product that encourages and gets loads of people into the game fresh because a lot of the armies they might start have no army book to buy and thus no progression into the core game of AoS.
So yeah right now its a bit of a back-burner even Warcry, if it turns out, is being pushed "more" as a Chaos thing at present and its own separate product rather than as the AoS answer to Killteam.
I fully expect GW to push an AoS Killteam product but not until Christmas or after when they should have a good chunk of the AoS armies with a Battletome.
Baring in mind that with things like Aelves the army situation is a real mess and we could still surprise lose things (like we lost Gitz and Greenskins)
I'm not expecting to see Aelves lose anything big. It really shouldn't have shocked anyone to see Gitz and Greenskins vanish since they didn't really vibe with Gloomspites or Ironjawz/Savages.
I could see Swifthawk Agents really getting hit or just plain dropped though. They've screwed the pooch so badly with that faction with no foot hero despite there literally being one in the Skycutter kit.
Greenskins was a shock because in the white dwarf that month their getting started set was advertised as part of skirmish and they did have some fairly new plastic models (boar riders). The other shock was that both them and the Gitz could have been absorbed into one of the other factions.
Wolf riders and wolf chariots would easily have fit into Gloomspite Gitz as a wolf-golbin focused force just like they've got one focused on spiders. Just perhaps with nothing new.
Greenskins were in an odd spot as the Ork line did have a fair bit of repetition of themes, but again they could easily have been rolled into Ironjawz or Boncrushers.
So Aelves have loads of "bits" that could easily get taken to the chop. We also have no idea what GW is going to do for the two new aelf forces, though its sounding increasingly like they were originally going to be two hole armies on their own and now the light aelves at least, are sounding like its going to be closer to an alliance of aelves with a few angelic aelves thrown in to help keep things in order. But this is only going on hints in the lore.
We've really no idea what GW's plans are and I suspect they have changed considerably over time.
I don't think even GW knows what they are going to do on any medium to long term basis. I think they kick things out to chase the short term with little eye on the long term.
auticus wrote: I don't think even GW knows what they are going to do on any medium to long term basis. I think they kick things out to chase the short term with little eye on the long term.
Really, you think this, despite all the podcasts with designers like John Blanche saying they started with stormcast designs well over 5 years ago, along with most of these model lines taking 3-4 years from design to "on shelf"? Amazing...
The miniature and lore designers very much know what will happen years in advance. It's just the rules team that is one of the last stages... The model designers dictate what the rule guys do, not the other way around.
I think this based off of a long decades pattern of releases that contradict themselves year after year or change direction so wildly year after year. They have a long storied past of not finishing an edition completely before moving to the next one. This was true in 5th edition. 6th edition. 7th edition. 8th edition. AOS Pre GHB. AOS 1.0. Now we're on AOS 2.0 with many factions still haven't even have received a single update since the 2015 killing of WHFB, many factions that had a 1.0 book but not a 2.0 book, and factions that have received 3 or 4 books since then. And even in the 2.0 sphere their direction has changed. Compare nurgle's battletome, a "2.0 like" release and how different the direction is today from it.
And I'm discussing their games. Their rules. Their game direction. Not their model designs. They have proven over 20 years that they lack either the capacity or will to finish off an edition in a way to keep things consistent before jumping onto another direction that they decided on either through choice or through throwing a dart or spinning the wheel of fortune they keep next to their office water cooler.
Future War Cultist wrote: Sometimes I wonder if the rule designing team should be the ones leading the process rather than the mini designers.
I somewhat agree, I do get the feeling that sometimes the whole "mini design leads the way" results in some armies getting way too much attention and others being ignored for way too long. But then again we don't really know how GW works internally and we've often heard how the mini-designers run things ,but not really how much that is true and how much its exaggeration from the truth. Clearly some armies get ignored for too long and clearly management/marketing sends down orders to give specific armies attention to rectify the issue.
I think the real issue is that GW has always treated army updates in a very ad-hock basis. Unless you're marines you don't get regular slots, so its very easy for an army to get ignored and ignored for a very very long time. Under the old scheme where most new models appeared only with a big rules up date in a big block this was a symtom of that system. Today I think that GW's new approaches mean that they have more ability to roll out smaller updates here and there to various armies without needing a huge bulk release. I'd really like to see them embrace that more so with a more spread out release pattern. So instead of 10 new Chaos models, roll out one or two for 5-10 armies over the same span of time. That way a larger percentage of players gets to have new things and a new interest and whilst, over the long term, the number of models coming out is the same; it means that you don't end up with Tyranids being left 5 years for anything new whilst the other armies get their stuff first. Instead Tyranids and everyone else gets something every half a year or year or so in little bits.
I think we are slowly starting to see this, but its not a clear pattern, just a mishmash of releases here and there.
Kanluwen wrote: I could see Swifthawk Agents really getting hit or just plain dropped though. They've screwed the pooch so badly with that faction with no foot hero despite there literally being one in the Skycutter kit.
This applies to any highborn faction, they've been mentioned multiple times in the background and hence I'm leaning towards the thought that they're not going to get dropped any time soon. I do hope light elves include the older elves, shadow warrior kit is really neat and it'd be simply such missed opportunity to not somehow use the older resources.
I have a hard time believing that the artists control the entire direction, mostly because it means that the game designers have no agency of their own and nobody wants to work in an agency-less game development.
If it is anything like other game companies then teams can pitch ideas, make some concepts, and then make a case for their idea and, if it is approved, move forward with it. Sometimes it is a standalone unit/model, and sometimes it is a campaign/theme.
Also, if it were the mini-designers controlling the entire narrative I can promise you that they would not be going trigger happy on making endless marines and stormcast. So my guess is that there is more collaboration between different teams and professions than people are willing to give them credit.
What is more likely to happen is that we have moneymakers willing to fund projects. Then teams pitch ideas that management must approve. Then production starts and the money people make projections regarding sales and growth. If something sells well and there are other similar ideas those ideas will be funded as well. If projections are not met then there will be a push to go towards something that might meet projections and estimations. It is in those pushes where you might see GW steer away from one direction to another and/or leave something unfinished.
Now, here is the kicker regarding some armies not getting any attention. Let's take Grey Knights as an example and make up some fictional data about them. Let us say we have Grey Knights and they are the worst selling line in the history of GW, that they haven't sold except a unit or two for several years due to disinterest in them from the customer. In these cases it would be very hard for any team/designers to justify spending resources on making new things for them. The GW money people would look at the pitch and go: "We can't spend a million dollar and get maybe a few thousand back. We need better ideas."
Then contrast this with Space Marines that have always sold well enough. The money people will look at most SM pitches as a good bet even if a bit uninspired.
Now, occasionally a team might come with an inspired pitch and somehow revive a dead weight. In fact, I think the codex/tome releases are often a gateway in revitalizing a line if done well and potentially open up a bigger release later due to better sales. Then you have an artist or a designer pitch a low-hanging fruit like a solo model that might sell enough to make up for its cost(good example is the Arch-Regent). The Primaris Lt. are probably the lowest hanging fruits as they can reuse Space Marine 3D files and just make changes(which is why they can make one off Primaris Lt models for all those occasions), which is also a reason why they release new SM stuff more frequently: it is simply cheaper to design and make due to all the basic armor stuff and weapon already existing in a 3D format just waiting to be assembled.
Mind you that GW has only twice queried their customer base properly so for the most part of their history they've only had sales numbers as their primary metric. Forum and blog info is incredibly unreliable.
At the same time we've seen time and again armies that got ignored, eg Dark Eldar, to the point where they were almost forgotten; or armies with very few models (Necrons) turn around in a massive way when they got investment.
So yes its try a poor selling army is harder to justify investing in because of poor sales; however at the same time ignoring an army results in continual dwindling sales and attention (investment) can reinvigorate the market significantly.
Furthermore its easier to update armies now and then rather than in one big go. Why let an army go 3 editions without new models or a rules update and then "have" to spend a massive fortune in one big go to bring it back to life. Far easier to keep it drip-fed over time - the investment total might be the same, but its spread out and much smoother and an army that remains popular has a greater chance of selling more volume over a longer period of time rather than in one bit fit.
I do wonder if that's another management change at GW. I wonder if the older system was set not just to enable but to encourage those massive swings on investment - big investment followed by a big release and big return. Today we see a lot more of the smaller style releases and updates which might not always be as "big" but I think they keep hype up higher and keep people interested longer and might well be generating more trickling sales over time. That works for GW really well because their product doesn't de-value. So unlike, say, a movie or computer game which has to make big sales in the early days; GW can let products have those big sale periods, but they can also make significant continued income off trickling sales.
To be fair the Drukhari and Necron were more of an exception than the rule. A lot of other lines suffered without new stuff for a long time. I don't remember if Craftworlds got anything between 4th and 6th edition. I will also point out that the Kirby era was a bit bonkers and I wouldn't be surprised if all the weird claims about GW were made when he was at his height as he had completely different idea about how the company should be run.
So yes its try a poor selling army is harder to justify investing in because of poor sales; however at the same time ignoring an army results in continual dwindling sales and attention (investment) can reinvigorate the market significantly.
It can, but it's a risk which is why you see it done less often. I think the Drukhari and Necrons were a better sell as they were probably somewhat popular but had such an aging line that it was more likely to result in a net win rather than a loss. The models were fugly enough that a case could be made that the line had to be sorted out start to finish. Then you have something like Grey Knights that has a lot of decent models but isn't selling well enough and requires a codex rewrite. In case of GK I could imagine seeing another GK sooner rather than later as it will be easier to make a case for that than new models(even if I would expect single models to follow). Worst case they might absorb GK into a larger faction book.
With the newer system I have noticed a few things. They want to sell boxes(Tooth and Claw, Carrion Empire, Wake the Dead) and they use that to push forward low-hanging fruits(new command model like a Spiritseer). This way they can keep the overall overhead low but still make it enticing for increased sales. After all they are just repackaging old models with one or two new ones.
What I've also noticed is that they are investing more into campaign ideas such as Soul Wars, Vigilus, and what not. These are good ways to keep things interesting, progress the story somewhat, and make bespoke models.
The third method they use occasionally is to test a board game and sell it as its own thing while at the same time trying to have specific models made for it. This helps them diversify their portfolio while at the same time allowing for new units to be made that can be used cross-product.
Ultimately their AoS line is a bit of a problem child as it is a scattered line where they are not sure what to do with it or how to solve the problem of having so many old and scattered models. However, I foresee unification of factions more than not and that they will use the Nagash/Skaven model to shepherd those lines.
Future War Cultist wrote: Sometimes I wonder if the rule designing team should be the ones leading the process rather than the mini designers.
I believe that did happen for a while. It didn't achieve different results. I'll point to the Orc and Gobbo army book that Matt Ward didn't want to do, didn't offer much new and was generally pretty terrible. And we still had long spans of time where armies were untouched, largely because the designers didn't have any ideas for the army. (O&G was just too popular to leave without a book for a long period). This notably affected Brets, TK and Wood Elves.
I'm pretty convinced that was what happened with wood elves, by the way. Most elf ideas were eaten by the Highs and Darks, and Woods just weren't compelling. Then suddenly, new model designs kicked the army over and transformed it utterly. That's the first one I can really point to where the mini designers were calling the shots. I guess the TK also, since it finally diverged from the common undead army they unfortunately split up back in the day, but the snake surfers and generally weirdness didn't help overcome the TK problem, especially since they left the ancient and terrible core army alone.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I am certain that Greenskinz and Gitmob will be back, and with new miniatures.
I'm in this camp as well. People forget that while some of the stuff was new, there was a lot of old in there too.
This popped up on Facebook today when someone asked why they can't use Snotling Pump Wagons and Wolf Chariots in Pitched Battles anymore:
Warhammer Age of Sigmar wrote:We have had a few questions about the Gitmob Grots in relation to the new Generals Handbook. We have passed these questions on so we should have some more information soon.
NinthMusketeer wrote: I am certain that Greenskinz and Gitmob will be back, and with new miniatures.
I'm in this camp as well. People forget that while some of the stuff was new, there was a lot of old in there too.
I’m in the opposite camp*.
I think GW recognizes that generic 28mm Orcs and Goblins is a race to the bottom. Mantic and at least two other companies produce a similar product at cheaper prices. GW has the strength to walk out of that race that they’ve really already won (some O&G kits are older than Mantic) and has the creativity to take the O+G archetype and make something unique(Gloomspite Gits and Bonesplittas) or at a bigger scale (Ironjawz). And there are the consistent mentions and rumors of Grotbag Scuttlers in the lore, so they may be in the works as well. Plenty of options for those with the O+G itch that needs scratching.
Sure, some of the O+G product was new, but that was true of the Tomb Kings as well.
*I’d love to be wrong, but the unceremonious dropping of O+G kits just seems like a ‘put out to pasture’ move, rather than a “be back later” move
There's no such thing as a race to the bottom for GW when it comes to 3rd parties. Raging Heroes is about to release their own sisters of battle style models.
GW can make the most unique, iconic perfectly copyrighted designs for any model and any 3rd party can take that core concept and create their own perfectly legal, just as protected designs that are inspired by it.
There's nothing "new" that GW makes which is protected - griff hounds? Just griffins without wings; melusai - just medusa with a different spelling; demons of slaanesh, just hermapheraite demons with claw arms etc...
Overread wrote: There's no such thing as a race to the bottom for GW when it comes to 3rd parties. Raging Heroes is about to release their own sisters of battle style models.
GW can make the most unique, iconic perfectly copyrighted designs for any model and any 3rd party can take that core concept and create their own perfectly legal, just as protected designs that are inspired by it.
There's nothing "new" that GW makes which is protected - griff hounds? Just griffins without wings; melusai - just medusa with a different spelling; demons of slaanesh, just hermapheraite demons with claw arms etc...
Hell, Gloomspite and Ironjawz are just goblins and orcs.
The issue with their design approach is it's backwards. If a line isn't selling, the proper question is to find out why and try to fix that (usually due to poor rules). Instead, GWs approach is to say this army isn't selling, let's not invest in it so it stays poor and continues to not sell and push more of what does sell. There seems to be little or no actually trying to make a line better so it will sell rather than keep it languishing.
That's the complete opposite of what should happen.
Wayniac wrote: The issue with their design approach is it's backwards. If a line isn't selling, the proper question is to find out why and try to fix that (usually due to poor rules). Instead, GWs approach is to say this army isn't selling, let's not invest in it so it stays poor and continues to not sell and push more of what does sell. There seems to be little or no actually trying to make a line better so it will sell rather than keep it languishing.
That's the complete opposite of what should happen.
True, but the problem is that companies like these will put up teams that are trying to fix these things, but sometimes fixing those things is easier said than done and man power must be rotated between other projects. Again, taking GK as an example, I can assure you that there is very likely a developer or two working on finding out how to fix them, but fixing them, playtesting them, and considering the constraints of the army, can be things that are hindering a release. In the meantime it would be easier to do a guaranteed release of something that sells(like Space Marines or Stormcast). Add on that that while GK is being "fixed" they also need to fix, maintain, and evolve existing lines.
Then all of these things must fit into release windows, financial projections, and you have a very slow moving cycle to work around.
Honestly? My *actual* hope is Destruction gets a Legion of Nagash-esqe treatment with something alongside Braggoths Beasthammer.
Orruks (Greenskins), Gitmobs, BCR and Ogors all in one tome (With the giant there for... Reasons!) all rampaging in one big waagh. I'd also like to add Ironjawz into it, but I honestly see Bonesplittas and IJ getting rolled together)
Or some awesome fusion with new models... Like that BS shaman wyvern we've seen in the art *drools*
Destruction and Death could use new Grand Alliance rules. Both are simply poor sets of allegiance abilities in terms of effectiveness, and the latter is completely overshadowed by the (IMO) bland decision to let Legions take almost everything and ally in the rest. I don't think there is a single model that can't be in a 2000 point LoN army short of the GK on dragon, so what is the point of Death allegiance even being there? It's a situation that is frustrating to me from a conceptual standpoint.
Citadel Wood kit has just gone "no longer available" on the GW website, as has the sylvanath wildwood set (which was 3 wood kits). No "last chance" its just straight into the no longer category.
If you want them chances are stores and 3rd parties will still have them for a while, but not forever and likely not for long.
However this bodes well as this might mean that the new sets are appearing on the market any time soon!!
Overread wrote: Citadel Wood kit has just gone "no longer available" on the GW website, as has the sylvanath wildwood set (which was 3 wood kits). No "last chance" its just straight into the no longer category.
If you want them chances are stores and 3rd parties will still have them for a while, but not forever and likely not for long.
However this bodes well as this might mean that the new sets are appearing on the market any time soon!!
Just managed to get 2 of those pieces for the price of one1. Glad I did.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Destruction and Death could use new Grand Alliance rules. Both are simply poor sets of allegiance abilities in terms of effectiveness, and the latter is completely overshadowed by the (IMO) bland decision to let Legions take almost everything and ally in the rest. I don't think there is a single model that can't be in a 2000 point LoN army short of the GK on dragon, so what is the point of Death allegiance even being there? It's a situation that is frustrating to me from a conceptual standpoint.
As someone just getting into AoS, the way armies are spread across Grand Allegiances really confused me in general. I found it weird that there's a Legions of Nagash book but not, for instance, a Tusks of Gorkamorka or Everchosen of Archaon book.
Order is a veritable shambles because the Aelves are split about 10 different ways on top of an already large GA.
Chaos is a bit bloated but easily grokkable.
Destruction could easily be three books (Ogors, Orruk and Gits) and I have no idea why not.
Death has LoN, NighthauntLoN, FEC...and that's it.
Tbh, if I didn't have a friend basically walking me through the mess of factions, I don't think I'd have enough confidence to start an army and know I wasn't throwing money away.
Phaeron that's the big issue AoS has at present, but it is getting better quickly this year and likely early into next.
I very much agree Destruction could be easily made into 3 forces and 3 battletomes; thus far only Gloomspite has a Battletome for 2.0.
Chaos is actually pretty neat all told, though the GW store could remove the "Creatures of Chaos" tab once they update Slaves (since otherwise everything is either in Beastmen or Slaves/Everchosen). Otherwise whilst its large every army is pretty much sorted out.
Death is complete with battletomes whilst order is indeed an utter mess, esp for the Aelves. It's something many of us really hope GW resolves soon because it does hold people back from getting involved and leaves many involved with big worries about their collections or certain armies.
PS you might find this thread of help: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/773473.page though I've not yet updated it with anything from the 2019 Generals Handbook (but honestly barring point changes I don't think its shifted much around at all) .
Thanks for the explanation. In my case, I just gave my friend some pre-Contrast prerequisites ("Death" and "I love my Necrons but if I have to batch-paint any more infantry I'm going to go insane") and eventually blundered into Gristlegore FEC, so I think i'll be fine .
My second choice was Dark Elves, but as you said, the lack of a coherent ruleset and the general army bloat non-book factions have were all massive turn-offs.
If you ever lean back toward Dark Elves dont' forget Daughters of Khaine are a safe army - one of the first with a 2.0 battletome and with some awesome winged models and the mighty Morathi!
The nice thing about Order and Chaos is that while the allegiance abilities are mediocre the ability to mix & match whatever you want does actually make up for it. Order in particular has Free City rules it can benefit from and a good number of models that support others quite well regardless of faction. Chaos has the Everchosen battalions which are extremely powerful if built around correctly.
I sort of hope GW doesn't address the grand alliances specifically or leaves them to be a more open play feature. I like how AoS has really worked well at avoiding the army soup problems that plague 40K with some forces (Imperials....).
Overread wrote: Citadel Wood kit has just gone "no longer available" on the GW website, as has the sylvanath wildwood set (which was 3 wood kits). No "last chance" its just straight into the no longer category.
If you want them chances are stores and 3rd parties will still have them for a while, but not forever and likely not for long.
However this bodes well as this might mean that the new sets are appearing on the market any time soon!!
Overread wrote: If you ever lean back toward Dark Elves dont' forget Daughters of Khaine are a safe army - one of the first with a 2.0 battletome and with some awesome winged models and the mighty Morathi!
Darkling Covens are pretty safe as well, what with now having 2 books worth of being in General's Handbook with Allegiance Abilities--and they ally in nicely with DoK.
Overread wrote: If you ever lean back toward Dark Elves dont' forget Daughters of Khaine are a safe army - one of the first with a 2.0 battletome and with some awesome winged models and the mighty Morathi!
Darkling Covens are pretty safe as well, what with now having 2 books worth of being in General's Handbook with Allegiance Abilities--and they ally in nicely with DoK.
Honestly I'm still not sure about Darklings and some of the others in the GHB. My worry is that they are just reprinting those segments from the last book with a few addendums but not really fleshing them out into a full army. Gw have still not fully played their hand with Aelves. They've a lot of options but we've really no idea what their final choice(s) are. Sadly we likely won't know until around this time next year (by which point I would assume all currently release armies/models will have 2.0 Battletomes).
Overread wrote: Citadel Wood kit has just gone "no longer available" on the GW website, as has the sylvanath wildwood set (which was 3 wood kits). No "last chance" its just straight into the no longer category.
If you want them chances are stores and 3rd parties will still have them for a while, but not forever and likely not for long.
However this bodes well as this might mean that the new sets are appearing on the market any time soon!!
Most likely reboxing honestly
Possibly, but I think the new tree design (three trees that form a circle) is intended to replace the old kit when the Sylvaneth finally get their new tome. Hopefully the old kits being removed from the store means that the delay is almost over.
Overread wrote: Citadel Wood kit has just gone "no longer available" on the GW website, as has the sylvanath wildwood set (which was 3 wood kits). No "last chance" its just straight into the no longer category.
If you want them chances are stores and 3rd parties will still have them for a while, but not forever and likely not for long.
However this bodes well as this might mean that the new sets are appearing on the market any time soon!!
Most likely reboxing honestly
Possibly, but I think the new tree design (three trees that form a circle) is intended to replace the old kit when the Sylvaneth finally get their new tome. Hopefully the old kits being removed from the store means that the delay is almost over.
Both the citadel wood and the Slyvaneth 3 pack are still on the Irish version of the website
Also are the new Slyvaneth woods replacing Citadel wood kit? I would've assumed the old kit would stay on as generic terrain.
nurgle5 wrote: Also are the new Slyvaneth woods replacing Citadel wood kit? I would've assumed the old kit would stay on as generic terrain.
Yes, the new kit is replacing the old version. The GH actually lists the the Citadel Woods under its terrain section, so it will be available as a generic piece of terrain.
Yep, AoS needs to retain more of its generic terrain, even if they are horrible casts. I can't imagine playing on a table that only has faction terrain.
Related question - before the advent of totally-not-faction-models-terrain, how much GW terrain did people buy, as opposed to using cheaper 3rd party terrain?
Phaeron Gukk wrote: Genuine question - before the advent of totally-not-faction-models-terrain, how much GW terrain did people buy, as opposed to using cheaper 3rd party terrain?
Not as much as they do now. Basically GW has found faction terrain actually sells, whilst terrain features they made were just as nice, but were always optional. Heck I recall many a game where you had shoeboxes and sheets over books to represent hills and mountains etc... And home made terrain has always been a big thing, heck GW has published at least one or two books on the subject over the years.
With the faction terrain GW has found a means to sell terrain features to gamers. It's a big reason why many of them have no points cost so that GW can almost ensure a sale per player of a specific army. The bonus is that GW can build on this idea or even retire it without harming gamers because its "terrain" so if your sylvanath wildwood no longer works you can still just use it as a regular wood in games.
Phaeron Gukk wrote: Related question - before the advent of totally-not-faction-models-terrain, how much GW terrain did people buy, as opposed to using cheaper 3rd party terrain?
I am one of those people that buys terrain. Have boxes and boxes of 40k terrain. The problem is that the AoS terrain has been expensive from the start, made cheaply, barely fits together, and is generally just unpleasant to work with. I would have loved to get my hands on Dreadhold stuff, but I didn't start playing AoS much until they discontinued that line for the most part, plus the Dreadhold kits were outrageously expensive considering the fact that they were simple kits where pieces barely fit together.
GW has a weird problem with their terrain kit. They make some of their own with numbered pieces and fit together brilliantly. The Sector Munitorum crates and such are a good example of such kits. Then you have the kits that are made cheaply in China and are just atrocious, with no numbering on pieces, and pieces have to be greenstuffed together for a fit. Numinous Occulum is a good example of that. The problem is that they charge similar premium for both types of kit when truth be told, one should be charged a premium and the other one should be closer to dollar store prices.
Depends on the location, ours we can fit 6 larger pieces and easily 6 smaller pieces on 12 tables.
We always played with 6 pieces tho as it was a recommendation from many places (tournaments, events, even GW people in the past). With that said, we still did narrative tables, like all grey terrain, all ice, all death and it was more fun to do that.
We are lucky and had some terrain builders, some wood, pink foam, foam board, and glue all put together in a sturdy way has let them be handle recklessly and still good terrain for many years.
If you are struggling with terrain, for about $30 and 5 hours of work you can fill a table full easily, with 2-3 people working on it, it'll takes only an hour or 2.
auticus wrote: The warcry stuff is nice. Yay new models. I like that.
However not being able to really use a competent army in AOS and having to resort to other factions still sucks.
They aren't another faction; they are StD. I think I get what you mean though. However think of it this way; you can convert marauders to create large units utilizing the Warcry warscrolls. Total War has marauder champions (basically marauders with heavy armor); one could create a unit like that using the Iron Golems warscroll. 280 points for a 40-wound unit with rerollable 4+ armor is a major asset even if it isn't battleline.
I don't think the warcry additions to the StD army makes them really viable when your opponent is rocking the tournament cheese. They are nice models but the core of the army is still putrid and they need better rules all around.
They do, but you should know better than most that saying an army is non-viable against tourney cheese means next to nothing. It's like saying "this hero is non-viable in a 1v1 fight against Archaon". The point is that the new warcry stuff being added to StD isn't much but it is something, and does contain useful tools to improve the army's prospects when utilized.
The core of army is also not nearly as putrid as the core of Nurgle, where their main battleline unit has "putrid" right in the name!
Looking at the warcry stuff, if I wanted to run slaves to darkness, I don't see how I would still not be playing very hard mode, even against our campaign players armies (khorne, fyre slayers, iron jaws, seraphon, legion of nagash, flesh eater court, and skaven).
The only army of our group I wouldn't feel like it was a perpetual uphill battle against would be the tzeentch player.
We need a decent set of allegiance abilities, something to keep up with the summoning flaming garbage, and something that gives the force some offense.
The only really decent unit in the slaves to darkness faction are chaos warriors... and thats for defense which seems inane to me.
Well the first mistake is using the StD allegiance abilities; unless you need the knight/horsemen/chariot battleline go with generic Chaos instead. If enough is marked the same to grab the khorne/tzeentch/nurgle everchosen battalion you can do that too.
The point was that there might be an Apocalypse like version of AoS and the overall direction leads there rules wise or that big monsters will be the focus. Nothing certain from a single picture, but it is the expected route to go.
CoreCommander wrote: The point was that there might be an Apocalypse like version of AoS and the overall direction leads there rules wise or that big monsters will be the focus. Nothing certain from a single picture, but it is the expected route to go.
I disagree about what the point was supposed to be when homeboy posted that pic from twitter to this board, but I do think an Apocalypse like version of AoS would be cool.
Is the point that a member of the company made an army to compete in an event?
Yeah, it's cheese. Oh noes. Worth mentioning that he's not "the lead designer" of anything. He's the product development lead, specifically for boxed games.
Can we perhaps clarify the point so that we are all on the same page? Cause right now I think we might have several different viewpoints on the same image.
What I'm getting, is that a product designer and boxed game designer is taking a Slaanesh cheese list to a tournament. Some people are taking that as someone who, at first glance of their job title is not involved in writing rules for base AoS, believes that tournament cheese is how AoS is meant to be played.
Rather than just them taking a competitive list to a competition.
Overread wrote: Can we perhaps clarify the point so that we are all on the same page? Cause right now I think we might have several different viewpoints on the same image.
The point is that the image of a quad-keeper army is what an ideal Slaanesh army looks like. It isn't 'oh no a developer brought cheese!' It's that GW finds an army design where a good list is four greater daemons and a handful of infantry as not only acceptable but something to be proud of. Auticus is raising it as a single piece of evidence in an overall trend. The response to Auticus' post was to paint it as overreacting as a means of ignoring the matter he was addressing. It is something I have seen the individuals involved do before, thus my comment that they are well aware of what he actually means.
Thadin wrote: What I'm getting, is that a product designer and boxed game designer is taking a Slaanesh cheese list to a tournament. Some people are taking that as someone who, at first glance of their job title is not involved in writing rules for base AoS, believes that tournament cheese is how AoS is meant to be played.
Rather than just them taking a competitive list to a competition.
Here, his message can be understood by "buy lots of Keepers of Secrets for cheesing up your army". And indeed, with the current rules and points they cost, they do.
On the other hand, since he's a big competitive player, I do believe his first intent here was indeed to be proud of his army list for the event with a three colors basis to still have a good result on the board.
Thadin wrote: What I'm getting, is that a product designer and boxed game designer is taking a Slaanesh cheese list to a tournament. Some people are taking that as someone who, at first glance of their job title is not involved in writing rules for base AoS, believes that tournament cheese is how AoS is meant to be played.
Rather than just them taking a competitive list to a competition.
Some people like competitive, that doesnt mean thats the RIGHT way to play it. Its just his way.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Well the first mistake is using the StD allegiance abilities; unless you need the knight/horsemen/chariot battleline go with generic Chaos instead. If enough is marked the same to grab the khorne/tzeentch/nurgle everchosen battalion you can do that too.
The Khorne battalion doesn't help much, since it only works with units that have multiples of 8 if I remember correctly
Thadin wrote: What I'm getting, is that a product designer and boxed game designer is taking a Slaanesh cheese list to a tournament. Some people are taking that as someone who, at first glance of their job title is not involved in writing rules for base AoS, believes that tournament cheese is how AoS is meant to be played.
Rather than just them taking a competitive list to a competition.
Some people like competitive, that doesnt mean thats the RIGHT way to play it. Its just his way.
Yeppers, I have no qualms about people running competitive lists, in a tournament setting or a game between friends. Casual, competitive, somewhere inbetween, every sort of list has it's place in GW Games.
There's no wholly correct way to play the game, and that's why GW gives us a bunch of structures to play inside of.
Guy takes super competitive list to tournament. Which is what competitive lists were made for. *Yawn*. Honestly, 4 Keepers actually seems like a bad idea; I’d rather take 3 and make sure there’s room for a contorted epitome and Cogs. I’d say THAT’S more worthwhile than 4 keepers. You’re likely to summon a few more keepers at that point anyway. So he COULD be making something worse. Or is it just cuz he works at GW that panties are getting all twisted up in knots?
Thadin wrote: What I'm getting, is that a product designer and boxed game designer is taking a Slaanesh cheese list to a tournament. Some people are taking that as someone who, at first glance of their job title is not involved in writing rules for base AoS, believes that tournament cheese is how AoS is meant to be played.
Rather than just them taking a competitive list to a competition.
Some people like competitive, that doesnt mean thats the RIGHT way to play it. Its just his way.
Yeppers, I have no qualms about people running competitive lists, in a tournament setting or a game between friends. Casual, competitive, somewhere inbetween, every sort of list has it's place in GW Games.
There's no wholly correct way to play the game, and that's why GW gives us a bunch of structures to play inside of.
Which is 100% not the matter Auticus or I are referring to.
I don't get it either and I usually agree with auticus. Ben Johnson is a known tournament player. But he's also equally stated that he enjoys the other aspects of the game. So what's wrong with him putting on the competitive hat when going to a tournament and bringing a cheese list? Isn't that what you would expect a tournament player to do at a tournament?
I just wish people would be more explicit about what their problems were with this so we could avoid pages of people guessing what one person means and that person saying "nope, that's not what I meant."
Communication is key, otherwise people are going to make up your minds for you regardless of how many times you say "That's not what I meant".
I think his problem is that the structure of the Battletome tome means that the way the army is designed is that its made to push gamers toward using lots of leaders and very few troops - almost taking only the minimum in troops (ergo 3 deamonettes) and pushing the rest into high cost leaders.
Basically summarising that the Battletome is built around the one-trick pony that is the depravity point generation system and that one of the best ways to generate it is to take big multiwound models that can deal out multiple attacks - ergo Keepers of Secrets.
Personally I do see it as a weakness with the book; its not that other options are not possible; just that right now the way depravity is generated its really built around taking a leader-heavy force and just summoning more leaders to the table for more depravity through the game. It underplays the troops which is an issue as it means that you're ont encouraged to take blocks of infantry; nor cavalry; whilst lots of chariots is not really there either. In addition it pushes some models like fiends out of many army lists. It's not that they are bad for their points; its that once you've paid for 3 you could have paid for a leader and thus had more depravity generation potential to summon more to the game.
And that's the issue; GW has tried to limit depravity to leaders to curtail it, but all its resulted in is that the top end competitive armies are all built around that mechanic.
Personally I feel that they need to add depravity generation to regular troops (some or all) and at the same time either reduce how much is generated or increase the costs of things to summon. I also proposed the concept of capping the total amount that could be generated "per turn" which whilst that would really push people to hit the limit; would at least make it more practical to cost out the models to summon because then the army has a known maximum value. If that value were then made quite easy to achieve it makes it a reliable value without the army having to be built around it.
Eg if you could only, at best, generate 20 over the whole army generating it from wounds given/taken then you can cost up that a Keeper could be 35 points. Now you know you'll, at best, only get to summon 2 in most games (the 3rd would only appear in the last turn if you chose to summon then) and also that you don't need to always load up on only leaders to hit that 20 limit per turn.
Overread wrote: I think his problem is that the structure of the Battletome tome means that the way the army is designed is that its made to push gamers toward using lots of leaders and very few troops - almost taking only the minimum in troops (ergo 3 deamonettes) and pushing the rest into high cost leaders.
Basically summarising that the Battletome is built around the one-trick pony that is the depravity point generation system and that one of the best ways to generate it is to take big multiwound models that can deal out multiple attacks - ergo Keepers of Secrets.
Personally I do see it as a weakness with the book; its not that other options are not possible; just that right now the way depravity is generated its really built around taking a leader-heavy force and just summoning more leaders to the table for more depravity through the game. It underplays the troops which is an issue as it means that you're ont encouraged to take blocks of infantry; nor cavalry; whilst lots of chariots is not really there either. In addition it pushes some models like fiends out of many army lists. It's not that they are bad for their points; its that once you've paid for 3 you could have paid for a leader and thus had more depravity generation potential to summon more to the game.
And that's the issue; GW has tried to limit depravity to leaders to curtail it, but all its resulted in is that the top end competitive armies are all built around that mechanic.
Personally I feel that they need to add depravity generation to regular troops (some or all) and at the same time either reduce how much is generated or increase the costs of things to summon. I also proposed the concept of capping the total amount that could be generated "per turn" which whilst that would really push people to hit the limit; would at least make it more practical to cost out the models to summon because then the army has a known maximum value. If that value were then made quite easy to achieve it makes it a reliable value without the army having to be built around it.
Eg if you could only, at best, generate 20 over the whole army generating it from wounds given/taken then you can cost up that a Keeper could be 35 points. Now you know you'll, at best, only get to summon 2 in most games (the 3rd would only appear in the last turn if you chose to summon then) and also that you don't need to always load up on only leaders to hit that 20 limit per turn.
I do believe the book is meant to be character heavy, and honestly thats not a bad thing, many other armies are not character heavy, having a few that are Preist/character heavy as well. HoS is monster hero heavy, sure thats fine, nothing wrong with that. But funny enough, i'm seeing a good number of BoC battalions with 60 Ungors (40, 10, 10) Beastlord and 2 Shamans with 2-3 HoS heroes, they are completely forgoing HoS troops (BL's are really good they are 6 attacks -1 rend with re-roll 1's and re-roll all wounds vs heroes for 90pts with 5 wounds, so they give you 4 points and they can take up to 6 points.)
I would have like to see DP also on all other units, at least 1 per unit killed or something, but i dont agree that you "Dont want to" load up on heroes If they indented the army to be a hero army. I'm ok with it being hero heavy.
To be fair I've always felt AoS to be much more hero heavy than 40k for example. I would almost argue that that was the intended design originally considering how many heroes were available to starting armies like Stormcast and Blades. Hell, they made an extra boardgame just to sell more heroes(Gorechosen).
Eldarsif wrote: To be fair I've always felt AoS to be much more hero heavy than 40k for example. I would almost argue that that was the intended design originally considering how many heroes were available to starting armies like Stormcast and Blades. Hell, they made an extra boardgame just to sell more heroes(Gorechosen).
I think that was more the original feel that AOS was larger-than-warband level, but not 40k full army level. So you had a lot of heroes and their followers and it's just grown from that. Which honestly I feel would have been better if they kept AOS smaller scale than what it became (but not unexpected). Like 30-50 models max.
Eldarsif wrote: To be fair I've always felt AoS to be much more hero heavy than 40k for example. I would almost argue that that was the intended design originally considering how many heroes were available to starting armies like Stormcast and Blades. Hell, they made an extra boardgame just to sell more heroes(Gorechosen).
I think that was more the original feel that AOS was larger-than-warband level, but not 40k full army level. So you had a lot of heroes and their followers and it's just grown from that. Which honestly I feel would have been better if they kept AOS smaller scale than what it became (but not unexpected). Like 30-50 models max.
Honestly if many of the Behemoths got better you would see less models ont he table, I would love to play my Leviathan more often (I have 2) but for 350pts when 2 units of eels out damages, can get cover, has more wounds, are just better why take that model? Same for BoC, why take Ghorgons? 200pts for a 5+sv 14 wound guy that does 7 wound son average, and there are at least 20 more like that.
I would rather have the ability to have 200 models like we do now, but also have the ability to take 10-50 models as well. We have the tools, just not the balance.
I think there's a difference between being hero heavy and having a reason to take heroes and having an army where not taking lots of heroic leaders is a significant detriment to one of the army's core mechanics.
In the first instance the army can go heavy heavy, but they can also vary things up and still be viable with other approaches; in the latter the army pretty much has to play the hero game to function within their core mechanics. This puts less pressure on troops and more on heroes and twists how and what viable army combinations there are.
I feel like GW did indeed want to encourage a hero heavy army (and not just because all the new models were heroes - save for fiends); but went just a touch too far with the depravity. I think if they can tone depravity back a bit it can make other combinations more viable and increase the versatility of the army. More versatility is a good thing - giving players more options to load up with loads of chariots or seekers or infantry etc...
Well, the more i think about it, the more i like it, the purpose so Slaanesh is to be greedy, what better way than having a lot of Heroes trying to get all the kills?
Overread pretty much nailed it: it isn't that competitive armies exist, it's that running a Slaanesh army as an army is handicapping yourself--an effective Slaanesh 'army' is 75% of your points spent on heroes and actual troops kept to a minimum. That is not good for the game.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Amishprn86 wrote: Well, the more i think about it, the more i like it, the purpose so Slaanesh is to be greedy, what better way than having a lot of Heroes trying to get all the kills?
Well, look at what Slaanesh armies are in the fluff, in the art, in the images, in the sample armies. Four KoS and a handful of daemonettes are not it.
I don't have a problem with tournament player playing tournament games with tournament lists.
My problem is watching the game every year continue to push the big models over and over until now we're starting to see Infinity / Kill-team-like armies in a regular AOS game.
And indeed if behemoths were better, there would be far fewer "armies" running around. For a variety of reasons discussed in numerous threads over the years that topic "how i wish warhammer would let me play with 20 models or less".
Things have been starting to swing in that direction for some time, and every year ups the ante.
Remember also ... in my area... and I'm sure that its not just my area... dudes see Ben Johnson post that army on twitter, and go out and emulate it. So I'm going to see **** like that outside of a tournament too.
I have no issue with them indirectly dropping the size of the game by encouraging a bunch of big monsters/beefy infantry over hordes and hordes. I hate that some armies still need like 100 models or close to that.
Other than Slaanesh, what armies can play hardcore monster mash/herohammer? Let's say, 50% of points or more in Heroes/Behemoths and the list being effective, tournament ready or what have you.
Flesh Eater Courts for certain fit that bill, but I'm having trouble thinking of other ones, hoping for others to fill in.
The armies I play and often times play against, with the before mentioned Flesh-Eaters being an exception, the heroes are buff-pieces or handy beatsticks, not entire armies on their own. Skaven are pretty bonkers without relying behemoths, Idoneth minimal beasts all cav, Sylvaneth Treelords, Kurnoth Hunters are most often the better choices.
Slaanesh, Flesh-Eaters and Beastclaw Raiders stick out as the behemoth/hero hammer armies, while most others are a nice balance between big cool models and armies of small dudes, with builds included in the rest of the armies that do allow for monster mash, to varying degrees of success.
Personally, I don't see the hero hammer style being too prevalent outside of a few armies.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Overread pretty much nailed it: it isn't that competitive armies exist, it's that running a Slaanesh army as an army is handicapping yourself--an effective Slaanesh 'army' is 75% of your points spent on heroes and actual troops kept to a minimum. That is not good for the game.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Amishprn86 wrote: Well, the more i think about it, the more i like it, the purpose so Slaanesh is to be greedy, what better way than having a lot of Heroes trying to get all the kills?
Well, look at what Slaanesh armies are in the fluff, in the art, in the images, in the sample armies. Four KoS and a handful of daemonettes are not it.
If anything multiple Greater Demons is actually against most of the lore. In general they tend to backstab each other and prefer to work alone unless going against some major opponent. Even then it often takes a weight of defeats before they'll team up.
For me I don't mind that GW has pushed for smaller model counts, if you compare demon prices in points between AoS and 40K you can see that the AoS are generally on the higher side. The way I see it is whilst it has a long legacy there are also a LOT of new gamers. So GW is taking things back a few steps (but not a vast number) to cut down the model count to get more people into the hobby. I'm sure as the game matures we'll see the counts increase up once again as people get bigger collections and want to use more models. Fantasy's main weakness is that it doesn't have as many army divisions at present as 40K. Ergo in 40K you've got fliers, super heavies, heavies, troops, anti tank etc.... There's a lot of broken down divisions of troops with specific roles to answer specific questions so armies have to be on the larger side to fit in enough potential answers.
In AoS this is somewhat muted and could be an area we see GW develop in the future.
Like I said, and others, its not that we hate the idea of a Keeper heavy army, its a fantastic thing, the keeper model looks outstanding. What the issue is, is that at present Keeper heavy is about the best army by a noticeable margin. Even if you don't go for Keepers the way the army works it wants you to take more leaders and to summon more leaders - all to feed depravity. The Tome needs some change there so that troops can become viable again. I want to be able to put down 6 fiends and blocks of infantry or take a rolling circus of chariots without them all being exalted with heralds atop (if just because if I have to clean THAT many blades I'll go nuts).
At present its almost as if the best way to build a troop heavy Slaanesh list is to build a Slaves to Darkness with a Slaanesh twist.
I would prefer them using points to chain model count. But because people are slaves to 2000 pts they had to go the other way and make 2000 pts equal 20 models.
And Ben is neon sign highlighting how you should play slaanesh if you dont want your face rubbed in another army’s crotch.
TBH, the reason why Keepers of Secrets are so good is because of the difference of fiability to force enemy units to strike last in combat phase. They are indeed great depravity points engines, but striking first to destroy opponents and keep your units alive (especially those squishy daemonettes) is even more crucial.
About the number of miniatures dropping, I believe the fact that in tournaments, time is short and moving huge horde units is always a hassle that can't be always solved with movement bases (especially when tournament players are very, VERY picky with measures from standard bases) are also big factors in favor of armies not having a high number of miniatures. Especially with GW focus on the "warrior code of honor" and how playing the clock is considered dirty.
The way AoS is working in combat phase is not friendly to movement bases, on the opposite with 40k. Measuring melee range in inches rather than working on bases like 40k has a huge impact here.
True, I do indeed restraint myself with my army lists because I feel like it won't be much fun to lose time with too many miniatures to move around. Easier to deploy and carry as well, TBH.
Thadin wrote: Other than Slaanesh, what armies can play hardcore monster mash/herohammer? Let's say, 50% of points or more in Heroes/Behemoths and the list being effective, tournament ready or what have you.
Flesh Eater Courts for certain fit that bill, but I'm having trouble thinking of other ones, hoping for others to fill in.
The armies I play and often times play against, with the before mentioned Flesh-Eaters being an exception, the heroes are buff-pieces or handy beatsticks, not entire armies on their own. Skaven are pretty bonkers without relying behemoths, Idoneth minimal beasts all cav, Sylvaneth Treelords, Kurnoth Hunters are most often the better choices.
Slaanesh, Flesh-Eaters and Beastclaw Raiders stick out as the behemoth/hero hammer armies, while most others are a nice balance between big cool models and armies of small dudes, with builds included in the rest of the armies that do allow for monster mash, to varying degrees of success.
Personally, I don't see the hero hammer style being too prevalent outside of a few armies.
I agree, and I feel this is fortunate. I hope it doesn't change.
Sarouan wrote: True, I do indeed restraint myself with my army lists because I feel like it won't be much fun to lose time with too many miniatures to move around. Easier to deploy and carry as well, TBH.
Yes and easier to paint up a whole army when its 15-20 models.
I totally understand the appeal.
That still doesn't salve my soul when I lament the loss of nearly everything that pulled me into wargaming long long ago lol.
auticus wrote: Things have been starting to swing in that direction for some time, and every year ups the ante.
Not really seeing it when you look big picture. Thadin had a good breakdown on how that isn’t the case, so we’ll leave it at that.
And its worth mentioning that Ben Johnson kind of has a thing for Max Behemoth/Min Battleline, and has since AoS infancy (5 or 6 Stardrakes and Celestinant Prime at SCGT16 for example.) Recently he’s gone with 4 Thirsters and maybe a dozen Hounds at a few tourneys, as well as running a Squigalanche list. Its just this time, he’s chosen a thoroughly broken army.
And through the years, he’s also built and played some fairly traditional sized armies(his SCE and NH for example are largely by the numbers and in some opinions, not all that optimal) while doing the Monstermash lists. I don’t think his choice in occasional listbuilding has any or even has had any bearing on the direction of the game. If it did, my recently sold BoC Warherd army would have been running the tables.
The way AoS is working in combat phase is not friendly to movement bases, on the opposite with 40k. Measuring melee range in inches rather than working on bases like 40k has a huge impact here.
Umm how 40k is friendly for movenent trays(I assume you refer to those)? You declare charge. You move each model individually. You move yet another time for pile in. You measure 1" from your base to enemy base or 1" to your model that is already within 1". If you keep models in movement tray you will be losing # of guys that gets to attack.
I kinda like being able to run low model counts. Sure, I have gone big on model count(Morgaunt ghoul en masse and Witch Aelves, two army cores I run), but there is that delightful chill about just bringing a few models and still being able to do something. It makes it easier to travel with your army, and a game can be a bit quicker as you don't have to move 100 models or so(or throw gazillion dice for Crypt Ghoul attacks). Also, the army can be a nice shelf decoration when you get home if you are a good painter..
I personally think players should be able to do either: Go many or go big, and still do decently. In this case the Slaanesh tome is just problematic so it will always feel skewed.
It is also good to keep in mind that for tourneys you need to travel to fewer models are easier to transport than 100+ models. My friend plays IG here locally, but runs Ultramarines/Deathwatch when he travels to the UK/US for tourneys as it is much easier to transport.
The way AoS is working in combat phase is not friendly to movement bases, on the opposite with 40k. Measuring melee range in inches rather than working on bases like 40k has a huge impact here.
Umm how 40k is friendly for movenent trays(I assume you refer to those)? You declare charge. You move each model individually. You move yet another time for pile in. You measure 1" from your base to enemy base or 1" to your model that is already within 1". If you keep models in movement tray you will be losing # of guys that gets to attack.
B.c movement trays has some spaces, in AOS that could mean a full row of guys that cant attack, in 40k you can be a 1" within an 1" of another guy and be fine. There has been many times in 40k that the movement trays worked great, everytime i use them for AoS i have to get them off for combat or i lose attacks.
The way AoS is working in combat phase is not friendly to movement bases, on the opposite with 40k. Measuring melee range in inches rather than working on bases like 40k has a huge impact here.
Umm how 40k is friendly for movenent trays(I assume you refer to those)? You declare charge. You move each model individually. You move yet another time for pile in. You measure 1" from your base to enemy base or 1" to your model that is already within 1". If you keep models in movement tray you will be losing # of guys that gets to attack.
Yes, but much less than in AoS. It's actually doable with movement trays (sorry, used the wrong word). Because the movement trays from Apocalypse do have less than 1 inch away from each base. In AoS, there is no such thing as counting bases 1'' to the enemy base or friend base already within 1'' - it's all individual measures depending on melee range. So you do lose way more miniatures fighting on movement trays than in 40k because of that difference.
It is also good to keep in mind that for tourneys you need to travel to fewer models are easier to transport than 100+ models. My friend plays IG here locally, but runs Ultramarines/Deathwatch when he travels to the UK/US for tourneys as it is much easier to transport.
Depends on models though. Big models also take up tons of space and have plenty of empty space within itself thus taking up huge amount of space from packing content. And big models often enough have lots of extensions to worry about breaking compared to human model.
My 40k orks goes more annoying to transport when I add vehicles. Infantry is easy peacy. It's the larger vehicles that are pain to transport.
The way AoS is working in combat phase is not friendly to movement bases, on the opposite with 40k. Measuring melee range in inches rather than working on bases like 40k has a huge impact here.
Umm how 40k is friendly for movenent trays(I assume you refer to those)? You declare charge. You move each model individually. You move yet another time for pile in. You measure 1" from your base to enemy base or 1" to your model that is already within 1". If you keep models in movement tray you will be losing # of guys that gets to attack.
B.c movement trays has some spaces, in AOS that could mean a full row of guys that cant attack, in 40k you can be a 1" within an 1" of another guy and be fine. There has been many times in 40k that the movement trays worked great, everytime i use them for AoS i have to get them off for combat or i lose attacks.
My orks find in that case then not being able to attack with every model. Especially if opponent is any smart. In practice the moment close combat begins either I don't even try to get all into combat or I forget the movement trays as they will simply cost me attacks.
The other issue is if the game board has a lot of terrain the movement trays don't work all that well getting around the terrain itself.
Trays are ideally suited to things like formation games where terrain is lighter and where units fight in organised formations; or in games like Apoc where its more terrain light again and where its more about the visual appearance of the battle.
40K/AoS are sort of stuck in the middel - enough models in some forces to make trays attractive, but the mechanics of the game mean that you might only actually use the tray in the first turn or two; thereafter having to move everything off the tray.
Yeah playing games by yourself defeats the purpose. At that point i can just throw my collection in the trash and play total warhammer for the rest of my days.
Really interesting look to them, wood elves but not. I wonder if this means they'll appear in AoS proper as an army or if GW will now use Underworld for these mini-factions. Giving them a handful of models, but not developing them into full fledged factions of their own for the proper AoS (though they will likely get some generic basic "grand alliance" compatible rules to use for Aos)
That centaur on the left reminds me of my wood elf army from when AoS launched - it consisted a mounted spellsinger and a load of wild riders and sisters of the thorn, all converted to be centaurs, topped off with a kitbashed Orion and a ton of hounds for summoning shenanigans.
Eldarsif wrote: I kinda like being able to run low model counts. Sure, I have gone big on model count(Morgaunt ghoul en masse and Witch Aelves, two army cores I run), but there is that delightful chill about just bringing a few models and still being able to do something. It makes it easier to travel with your army, and a game can be a bit quicker as you don't have to move 100 models or so(or throw gazillion dice for Crypt Ghoul attacks). Also, the army can be a nice shelf decoration when you get home if you are a good painter..
I personally think players should be able to do either: Go many or go big, and still do decently. In this case the Slaanesh tome is just problematic so it will always feel skewed.
It is also good to keep in mind that for tourneys you need to travel to fewer models are easier to transport than 100+ models. My friend plays IG here locally, but runs Ultramarines/Deathwatch when he travels to the UK/US for tourneys as it is much easier to transport.
I am on the same page here, especially with players being able to do either or in-between and have it work.
I feel like the Slaanesh situation is analogous to, say, the best Ogor build being gnoblar-spam with a handful of casters. It's just... Lame.
I'd say Order, as Kurnoth was alive and well until the Age of Chaos, according to the new Sylvaneth tome. He died defending his region, but a dryad was able to recover what remained of him. Maybe the Kurnothi were Alarielle's attempt to bring him back.
I'd say Order, as Kurnoth was alive and well until the Age of Chaos, according to the new Sylvaneth tome. He died defending his region, but a dryad was able to recover what remained of him. Maybe the Kurnothi were Alarielle's attempt to bring him back.
It's worth mentioning that the same fluff bit talks about Kurnoth's warriors of the Great Hunt.
Currently I'm working off the assumption that the Kurnothi are those warriors. There's supposed to be a Realmgate in Kurnotheal(the continent/hunting preserve for Kurnoth in Ghyran) that links up with Ghur, which is why the place was full of beasts for him to hunt while there. I'd be surprised if all of the Kurnothi would have been killed in that last stand, and it was the Heartwood Grove that launched a punitive expedition to recover his remains and armament to give to Alarielle.
I'd say Order, as Kurnoth was alive and well until the Age of Chaos, according to the new Sylvaneth tome. He died defending his region, but a dryad was able to recover what remained of him. Maybe the Kurnothi were Alarielle's attempt to bring him back.
It's worth mentioning that the same fluff bit talks about Kurnoth's warriors of the Great Hunt.
Currently I'm working off the assumption that the Kurnothi are those warriors. There's supposed to be a Realmgate in Kurnotheal(the continent/hunting preserve for Kurnoth in Ghyran) that links up with Ghur, which is why the place was full of beasts for him to hunt while there. I'd be surprised if all of the Kurnothi would have been killed in that last stand, and it was the Heartwood Grove that launched a punitive expedition to recover his remains and armament to give to Alarielle.
Speaking of the Sylvaneth battletome, was there a distinct lack of any sort of mention of the Wanderers? I could've swore they were mentioned a few times in the previous tome, but this new tome doesn't have a single mention.
I don't have the previous one to compare it to, but there was very little. I wonder if it's because some of that lore is in the Age of Sigmar Core Book now?
The Apoc movement trays are useless for Age of Sigmar unless you are running a shooty army. I personally just use pile-in trays I bought off ebay and they've done a better job for me. They have their own problems, but not glaring ones like the Apoc ones.
Interestingly enough, when I first played Daughters of Khaine I just used some old WHFB movement trays just fine, at least up until they had to charge into combat.
Kanluwen wrote: I don't have the previous one to compare it to, but there was very little. I wonder if it's because some of that lore is in the Age of Sigmar Core Book now?
Well, went through the old tome, and there was nothing about the Wanderers there either. I could’ve sworn there was some lore in the book about them and a “betrayal” that severed them from the Realm of Life and sent them ... uh, wandering. Grand Alliance : Order book perhaps.
Kanluwen wrote: I don't have the previous one to compare it to, but there was very little. I wonder if it's because some of that lore is in the Age of Sigmar Core Book now?
Well, went through the old tome, and there was nothing about the Wanderers there either. I could’ve sworn there was some lore in the book about them and a “betrayal” that severed them from the Realm of Life and sent them ... uh, wandering. Grand Alliance : Order book perhaps.
It was something that showed up much later. It's in the Core book right now. GA: Order didn't really have too much fluff for any of the factions.
Eldarsif wrote: The Apoc movement trays are useless for Age of Sigmar unless you are running a shooty army. I personally just use pile-in trays I bought off ebay and they've done a better job for me. They have their own problems, but not glaring ones like the Apoc ones.
Interestingly enough, when I first played Daughters of Khaine I just used some old WHFB movement trays just fine, at least up until they had to charge into combat.
You just use the movement trays during initial setup & movement, then move the models off the trays when they charge. That's usually how it's done from what I've seen.
Yep, I use movement trays for my Clan Rats and Stormvermin, and once they're being charged, or are doing a charge I pull them off the tray. Trying to stubbornly use movement trays while piling in and charging leads to a lot of inaccuracy and movements far beyond 3" for pile in and kind of grind my gears when people don't get how much extra they're moving...
The difference is that with pile-in movement trays(created by many online) it is easier to get your units back on the trays and forward(5 slot trays that is). It's not a luxury I get from the GWApoc Trays.
Unfortunately, I'm still going to take a "wait and see" approach.
People seem to forget that "Last Chance to Buy" also applies to items that are getting repackaged into different numbers or when the SKU is going away, period.
I guess that a lot of similar units will indeed be more likely to disappear...why would you have human archers when you can take way better aelf ones ? Or maybe they're going to specialize much more the different races in Cities of Sigmar, which would make sense.
Either way, disappearing stuff will always be missed...
Sarouan wrote: I guess that a lot of similar units will indeed be more likely to disappear...why would you have human archers when you can take way better aelf ones ? Or maybe they're going to specialize much more the different races in Cities of Sigmar, which would make sense.
It's weird though...because Glade Guard, Freeguild Archers, and Dispossessed Thunderers/Quarellers are on the list. There's not even a "why have human archers if the aelf ones are there?"...because the Aelf ones are gone.
Man, my theories on whats getting axed (assuming they don’t get reboxed) from the ‘Current State of AoS” thread was pretty spot on. Didn’t expect so much Freeguild stuff though.
Not that alot of it wasn’t obvious to many folks. Also, gonna claim I took heat for my theories as well!
It's weird though...because Glade Guard, Freeguild Archers, and Dispossessed Thunderers/Quarellers are on the list. There's not even a "why have human archers if the aelf ones are there?"...because the Aelf ones are gone.
They kept the sisters of the watch / shadow warriors as archers. I bet they will be the main "archer" force in the future book.
I'm not surprised Glade Guard and old dwarves going away. Old kit of 16 miniatures for a lower price than what GW wants to charge now...it's a thing of the past, clearly.
I also expect the militia profile from Freeguild guards to disappear as well.
Wanderers are dead now. Shame. Nomad Prince, Wild Riders/Sisters of the Thorn, and Sisters of the Watch are all that remains of a fantastically unique army and playstyle.
Kanluwen wrote: Wanderers are dead now. Shame. Nomad Prince, Wild Riders/Sisters of the Thorn, and Sisters of the Watch are all that remains of a fantastically unique army and playstyle.
This is the first time I've legitimately been pissed off. It was frustrating when AoS dropped and my Waywatchers went from being units of 5-10 to individual heroes--making my 15 of them plus two Waystalkers(the hero version) ridiculously cumbersome to utilize. But I adapted and I've slowly been selling the excess ones off locally to people as they get into Wanderers and want a Waywatcher "like the one from Vermintide"(or more recently, Chaosbane). It funded me getting a few Skorpius for my Skitarii in fact.
But now...basically everything I own ceases to exist and I'm likely going to be stuck figuring out a new way to run the army. It was hard enough to make use of my Wild Riders as is, now I'm just no longer interested and will be shelving things to focus on my Idoneth even further. Most obnoxious part is I just bought another Wayfinder and Waywatcher to use for conversions(Wayfinder was going to get the gloved arm with crow from the Corvus Cabal kit and Waywatcher was going to get a fancy bow out of the Sisters of the Thorn bits) right before the Free Cities announcement. Some of the promo stuff had Waywatchers in it so I figured I'd be okay.
Kanluwen wrote: . Some of the promo stuff had Waywatchers in it so I figured I'd be okay.
This is something GW shouldn't let happen, but I figure whoever is in marketing and the photography departments just got told to make some spreads and didn't tell them what was going and what was staying. Since the book printing takes a long while then we must assume what remains is known well in advance so why that information cannot filter down to the other levels is beyond me. It's likely a still a result of GW's sometimes insane leak prevention and data restriction within their own company. A system that I suspect also gets messed around with with internal power struggles and such between departments.
GW shouldn't have shown promo material for a new book with models that were not going to make it -they had no reason too it just builds bad associations for the people they are directly marketing too.
While undoubtedly sucky, one upside is they can become counts-as with minimum conversion (or even nothing, given a friendly community). Counts-as what? Well that's where you've gained something; you can reasonably pass them off as a number of different units so get flexibility as to what warscroll those models use.
But it is still a small comfort to losing an entire army option.
Kanluwen wrote: . Some of the promo stuff had Waywatchers in it so I figured I'd be okay.
This is something GW shouldn't let happen, but I figure whoever is in marketing and the photography departments just got told to make some spreads and didn't tell them what was going and what was staying. Since the book printing takes a long while then we must assume what remains is known well in advance so why that information cannot filter down to the other levels is beyond me. It's likely a still a result of GW's sometimes insane leak prevention and data restriction within their own company. A system that I suspect also gets messed around with with internal power struggles and such between departments.
GW shouldn't have shown promo material for a new book with models that were not going to make it -they had no reason too it just builds bad associations for the people they are directly marketing too.
Frankly, what shouldn't have happened was the Wanderers Allegiance Abilities in 2019's General Handbook. Same with the units. That's the part that pisses me off the most. So many of these units should have just been left out then and there, with the Free Cities book revealed then rather than now.
What are the chances that the Waywatchers are getting a plastic kit to rebrand? Or can you stick a few on a bigger base and count them as Kurnoth Hunters? I realize it’s not the same, but maybe it’s something?
Heck, I know the writing is on the wall for anything plastic that disappeared. But if it’s resin or metal, maybe there’s a chance it’s LCTB in order to make plastic versions?
Maybe it’s unfair to dangle a rope of hope (a hope-rope??) for such a thing, but we don’t know much. We only know that GW seeks to kill anything metal/resin in AoS.
At this point, I'm just going to put them all back in a drawer and wait. If they change their minds down the road and there's actually going to be a dedicated Wanderers force(as this Free Cities feels like it's an attempt to just get something out there for the Old World stuff rather than continuing the GHB route)? Maybe they'll get to see the light of day again.
Who knows - we might well see many concepts return under a new form and I can certainly agree that GW might well be panic reacting with Free Cities in getting AoS cleaned up as best they can. There's no denying that a huge barrier to entry was GW having loads of "armies without tomes or rules" which confused newbies looking to get into the game because some of the armies looked cool but didn't have any follow-through to actually making an army.
The real pain is that GW drew this release and removal out over such a long period of time. That said this weekend should mark a big turning point for AoS in terms of removal VS replacement/new ideas/releases.
Though Skaven and Ogers still have a lot of metal/finecast, but many are likely to get resculpts given time.
My hopes are that where many factions ended up are a potential home, and can be expanded still. Perhaps when a different Grungi-based dwarf force comes out, the surviving dispossesed can be used as well. Perhaps wanderers will get put with the Kurnothi, and we will get a more Orion based army.
Carnith wrote: Perhaps wanderers will get put with the Kurnothi, and we will get a more Orion based army.
This doesn't even work out well though.
The only Wanderers stuff tied to Kurnoth is the Wild Riders. The Sisters of the Thorn are more of a 'witch in the wilds' idea...and tied closer to Isha/Alarielle than Kurnoth.
Waywatchers were tied to Kurnoth, being huntsmen who purposely separated themselves from society and venerating the hunt.
And right now we know nothing about the Kurnothi. They might end up being a more Idoneth styled 'they're good-ish...but they eat people and aren't exactly friendly to outsiders' bit.
AduroT wrote: Who/what exactly is Kurnoth by the way?
So, Kurnoth was the Aelven hunter god. He didn't really make himself known to the High Elves or the Dark Elves(although in Elf fashion, the High Elves would pay tribute to him. "The Sundering" trilogy's second book, "Shadow King" went into detail about these various shrines built in the wilds by huntsmen and wanderers that would have salts, meat, cloaks, traps--things a hunter might need in a survival situation) but he did make himself very known to the Wood Elves.
To the point that his physical avatar was venerated by them as the Hunter King Orion. Orion was the name that they gave to the 'avatar' version of Kurnoth, which was an elf sacrificed after winter's end to bring Kurnoth back into the world to serve as their King in the Forest and as the Consort of Ariel, the living embodiment of Isha.
They made a conscious shift to referring to him as 'Kurnoth' in AoS(likely because Orion, the host to his spirit, was slain--the Cloak of Thorns, his Spear, and the Hawk's Talon bow were all recovered alongside the Hunting Horn--during the End Times)--but the story of him being Alarielle's Consort and the Wild Hunter remained.
Wild Riders were his priests and would 'hunt' the Aelf who would be host to his spirit during the Spring, Summer, and Fall. The steeds they ride now are his gift to them apparently--and were actually gifted to them during the Orion Trilogy(previously both in-game and lore they rode Elven steeds) at the behest of a spirit being in Athel Loren that Kurnoth slew. Waywatchers tended to have a connection to him as they venerated him for the hunting aspect of things. They'd dedicated their kills to him and made a point of having a ritualized way that they would slay even outside interlopers in Athel Loren. The everyday Wood Elf would pay homage to him in the same way most people might bless their meals at big holiday events.
TLDR: Elf hunter god. More Wood Elf oriented than anything else. Also goes by Orion. He's Alarielle's boytoy.
Future War Cultist wrote: I’ve suddenly had some ideas for the future of both the Wanderers and the Sylvaneth.
I think that if we were going to see a future for Wanderers, they wouldn't be in the Free Cities book.
That said, there have been a lot of references to Kurnoth recently in the Sylvaneth lore. I have a feeling that we're going to see the Kurnothi as their own faction with a reborn Kurnoth.
I think the big question is on if GW wants to make Underworld warbands main components of AoS armies.
With Warcry GW has clearly made the new warbands quite functional in a Slaves to Darkness army; whilst at present most of them are meh to ok we don't have the Slaves 2.0 rules nor do we know how the cultist keyword will function.
Otherwise the warbands function almost exactly like regular troops for the game.
Plus the fact that Warcry works with all the regular AoS armies as well (some pending rules release of course), and the fact GW refere to it as the "killteam of AoS" means that they intend to make those warbands into a springboard into core AoS armies.
Whilst Underworlds warbands, whilst not bad, are more complex and not built the same. They are closer to character packs and add some unique flavour, but are clearly designed to be more their own game or a side product rather than a continuation or expansion product.
As a result I'm still not totally convinced all the Underworlds Warbands will get their own armies; many might just slot into other forces without ever being fleshed out fully.
auticus wrote: Likely sharing the aesthetic of the new beast elf models that are coming out for underworlds.
Considering the Underworld ones are literally called the Kurnothi, I figured that part would be obvious.
Some people are still holding out for pure elf models.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I don't think underworlds warbands will get their own army. However the aesthetic I think is directly transferable.
And if the warcry model rules are any indication of slaves to darkness book, my soul will continue to weep. Those rules range from "C" in a couple places to mostly D and F. I'd almost never take most of those in a game of AOS unless they were free.
auticus wrote: Likely sharing the aesthetic of the new beast elf models that are coming out for underworlds.
Considering the Underworld ones are literally called the Kurnothi, I figured that part would be obvious.
Some people are still holding out for pure elf models.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I don't think underworlds warbands will get their own army. However the aesthetic I think is directly transferable.
And if the warcry model rules are any indication of slaves to darkness book, my soul will continue to weep. Those rules range from "C" in a couple places to mostly D and F. I'd almost never take most of those in a game of AOS unless they were free.
I think it all depends on how they scale up. Don't forget allegiance abilities can make a big difference to how an army functions and the cultist word might tie into specific buffs or bonuses; it might even be GW reworking how they do "marks of chaos" by having a Slaves army able to be a "cult" to one of the four gods or just a general cult. Which also mechanically leaves them open to adding other chaos gods in the future or allowing minor gods a chance to get a foot in the door.
auticus wrote: I don't think underworlds warbands will get their own army. However the aesthetic I think is directly transferable.
I don't know, auticus. If I was going to release an army called "The Kurnothi", I might consider using the Underworlds warband as a starting point, them being called "The Kurnothi" and all.
auticus wrote: Likely sharing the aesthetic of the new beast elf models that are coming out for underworlds.
Considering the Underworld ones are literally called the Kurnothi, I figured that part would be obvious.
Some people are still holding out for pure elf models.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I don't think underworlds warbands will get their own army. However the aesthetic I think is directly transferable.
And if the warcry model rules are any indication of slaves to darkness book, my soul will continue to weep. Those rules range from "C" in a couple places to mostly D and F. I'd almost never take most of those in a game of AOS unless they were free.
I think it all depends on how they scale up. Don't forget allegiance abilities can make a big difference to how an army functions and the cultist word might tie into specific buffs or bonuses; it might even be GW reworking how they do "marks of chaos" by having a Slaves army able to be a "cult" to one of the four gods or just a general cult. Which also mechanically leaves them open to adding other chaos gods in the future or allowing minor gods a chance to get a foot in the door.
They'd have to have some serious allegiance buffs then. Because most of those warcry units have next to no save and do next to no damage in AOS. The iron golems could be useful at holding objectives because they have a 4+ save. But chaos warriors can do that better, though they cost a little more so its a tossup.
auticus wrote: Thats not what I meant. I'm pretty sure they'll be called "The Kurnothi".
Yes, because that's what they flatout stated at GenCon the faction/race in Underworlds is called. The warband is "Skaeth's Wild Hunt".
Meanwhile, Skaeth’s Wild Hunt offers us new insights into the Mortal Realms with our first look at the Kurnothi – aelf-like creatures with a savage style of their own. Offering a fast and highly specialised group of fighters, they’re a deadly and flexible warband capable of cutting down enemies at any range.
And if the warcry model rules are any indication of slaves to darkness book, my soul will continue to weep. Those rules range from "C" in a couple places to mostly D and F. I'd almost never take most of those in a game of AOS unless they were free.
You're forgetting that right now the big issue is that it's combining things that would, in a full book release, likely be individual units/heroes into one entry with no variation for rules.
I don't see how they would be rated as pretty useful.
Iron Golems were the only ones that I thought could remotely stand on a table without getting blasted away right off the bat and that was due to their save and their role would be to hold objectives.
I would rate that as fairly useful because there are other units in the StD range that do the same role, only a little better for more points.
The rest... 6+ save and 1 attack 4+/4+ no rend 1 damage is just par for the StD course of not being able to hurt anything, which is their biggest problem. They have no damage dealers. They all have rubber weapons. The fang models do a mortal on 6 to hit, which is moderately ok but low dice output means you''re not getting much out of that.
In comparison to the common min/max creations running amuk that is. In a game for funsies where you are playing something liike kharadron overlords or something they would probably make for a mildly fun game, but the StD faction overall needs a whole lot of work to bring them even up to "C" gloomspite gitz level.
Which makes sense considering that they don't yet have a book and KO basically don't have a book (they got an early one which was mostly just warscroll cards in a book format)
The only issue that I can see is that Slaves still have 2 confirmed and 2 heavily rumoured battletomes to go before they get close to having theirs unless they are the army pitted against Ogres.
Seraphon and KO are also attractive armies to update as well. That said provided GW doesn't throw a curve ball of yet another new faction or redoes one of the existing 2.0 tomes then I can see Slaves appearing either before or after Christmas.
(That's Free Cities and Orruks followed by the rumoured Death Battletome and Ogres Battletome as suggested by them getting a new model likely released in a duel army box)
Then again GW has done two army books at once, they could do that a couple of times again and get AoS done this year. We can dream and hope!
auticus wrote: I don't see how they would be rated as pretty useful.
Iron Golems were the only ones that I thought could remotely stand on a table without getting blasted away right off the bat and that was due to their save and their role would be to hold objectives.
I would rate that as fairly useful because there are other units in the StD range that do the same role, only a little better for more points.
The rest... 6+ save and 1 attack 4+/4+ no rend 1 damage is just par for the StD course of not being able to hurt anything, which is their biggest problem. They have no damage dealers. They all have rubber weapons. The fang models do a mortal on 6 to hit, which is moderately ok but low dice output means you''re not getting much out of that.
In comparison to the common min/max creations running amuk that is. In a game for funsies where you are playing something liike kharadron overlords or something they would probably make for a mildly fun game, but the StD faction overall needs a whole lot of work to bring them even up to "C" gloomspite gitz level.
If they are blasting your 70-point unit off the table that's a win. Some of them are bad, but not all of them. Cypher lords do a hit penalty, fang units can heal 2w/turn and do mortals, beasts are just fast, all of those are useful as support/objective snaggers. The units should be evaluated against other units without allegiance taken into account; just because an allegiance is bad does not mean the units within it are. That is the trap GW fell into with Skaven; the units themselves were actually good and simply lacked a set of allegiance abilities that properly supported them. They got that allegiance but the units were also buffed all over the place to make up for them being 'bad'.
Imagine the warcry units not in StD allegiance but as allies for mono-god forces; suddenly they seem a ton better.
auticus wrote: I don't see how they would be rated as pretty useful.
Alot of the Warcry units have useful abilities that are outside of their damage/weapon profile. The Unmade are good to lock a unit down, The Untamed Beasts are crazy fast, Cypher Lords can dampen an enemies offensive output(slightly), Splintered Fang have decent tarpit potential with the regeneration coupled with Mortal Wounds, and the Iron Golems are the tankiest of the warbands.
I can agree with all that. They can have useful abilities. And used as "allies". The problem is that the StD as I said above lack real tank units other than warriors of chaos and have practically zero damage dealing units.
So those useful abilities that the warcry units could bring to the table aren't as useful when there's nothing they can combo off of because the slaves army has no hammers.
timetowaste85 wrote: There’s a conversion of Orion floating around online where they used the Daemon Primarch Magnus to make him. It honestly looks REALLY good.
A few of them actually, and they’re pretty good indeed. Counts-As Alarielle.
Ossiarch Bonereapers! An entirely new sub-faction for Death, likely to fall under Legion's of Nagash collective and with it's own separate special rules if taken separately like the Legion of Sacrament and so on.
They look like they'll be heavily armored, elite, almost Stormcast-esque in their behavior even? Potentially with the usual hallmarks of death, the 6+ FNP, regenerating bodies and respawning.
The teased lore for them even looks like that rumor that floated around for a little while, that Nagash was creating his own Stormcast, the Deathcast, if you would. Constructs of bone and malice, inhabited by souls of mighty warriors and heroes.
The models teased thus far look good to me, but I bet they'll have a lot of the weird janky bits smoothed out by a non Heavy Metal paint job. Some armies just look weird in their studio style, like the 8th Ed Death Guard release for 40k looking cartoony and kind of lame.
Thadin wrote: Ossiarch Bonereapers! An entirely new sub-faction for Death, likely to fall under Legion's of Nagash collective and with it's own separate special rules if taken separately like the Legion of Sacrament and so on.
They look like they'll be heavily armored, elite, almost Stormcast-esque in their behavior even? Potentially with the usual hallmarks of death, the 6+ FNP, regenerating bodies and respawning.
The teased lore for them even looks like that rumor that floated around for a little while, that Nagash was creating his own Stormcast, the Deathcast, if you would. Constructs of bone and malice, inhabited by souls of mighty warriors and heroes.
The models teased thus far look good to me, but I bet they'll have a lot of the weird janky bits smoothed out by a non Heavy Metal paint job. Some armies just look weird in their studio style, like the 8th Ed Death Guard release for 40k looking cartoony and kind of lame.
Where can one go to read aggregated AoS lore on the web that is reliable?
I wouldn't know specifically, since I haven't dug too deep beyond my own faction books, but this was the first link that came up when I gave a quick search.
Edit: Scratch that, that website sucks. Little content, annoying to navigate.
Another option is the not-so-reliable 1d4chan lore pages. They're good at aggregating lore, but you have to pick out the truth from the gakposting and either endure or enjoy their particular style of humour.
Thadin wrote: Ossiarch Bonereapers! An entirely new sub-faction for Death, likely to fall under Legion's of Nagash collective and with it's own separate special rules if taken separately like the Legion of Sacrament and so on.
They look like they'll be heavily armored, elite, almost Stormcast-esque in their behavior even? Potentially with the usual hallmarks of death, the 6+ FNP, regenerating bodies and respawning.
The teased lore for them even looks like that rumor that floated around for a little while, that Nagash was creating his own Stormcast, the Deathcast, if you would. Constructs of bone and malice, inhabited by souls of mighty warriors and heroes.
The models teased thus far look good to me, but I bet they'll have a lot of the weird janky bits smoothed out by a non Heavy Metal paint job. Some armies just look weird in their studio style, like the 8th Ed Death Guard release for 40k looking cartoony and kind of lame.
Where can one go to read aggregated AoS lore on the web that is reliable?
We have/are spent/spending quite a lot of time putting up the AOS lore here:
Ossiarch Bonereapers! An entirely new sub-faction for Death, likely to fall under Legion's of Nagash collective and with it's own separate special rules if taken separately like the Legion of Sacrament and so on.
Do we have any reason to believe that? I think they'll want to keep them separate if only to avoid possibility of turning LoN into just another GA: Death book.
Ossiarch Bonereapers! An entirely new sub-faction for Death, likely to fall under Legion's of Nagash collective and with it's own separate special rules if taken separately like the Legion of Sacrament and so on.
Do we have any reason to believe that? I think they'll want to keep them separate if only to avoid possibility of turning LoN into just another GA: Death book.
They were created by Nagash. I very much doubt Nagash wouldn't put his own fancy new creation to use in his own armies. They were mentioned in the same breath as Legions of Nagash and Nighthaunt, all which are available under Legions of Nagash. There's nothing that suggests you won't be able to take Ossiarchs with Legions of Nagash, just like how you can with Nighthaunt, who also have their own separate rules if they're taken as just Nighthaunt.
At least the new faction is a better resolution of the "Evil Stormcast" than just making them Chaos Marines versus Imperial Marines.
It's actually more natural to imagine Nagash making these guys in the first place as opposed to Sigmar creating Stormcast in the same way, considering the typical "death magic and soul manipulation" pairing in most fantasy. We already have the ghasts of dead convicts tormenting the realms; armies of former warriors seem like a natural way to build an army, and these guys have bodies that seem much more warfare-capable than simple skeletons wearing old tatters of armor.
Hordes of skeletons felt natural in the gothic Old World, but with the way that the AoS setting has taken form (for better or worse, depending on taste), they're a bit pedestrian when going up against Stormcast, larger-than-ever Orruks, and armies of Dryads+1 . These look more like the next step in an arms race where every deity wants their own version of Immortal super-warriors, which is kinda cool, even though I am still one of the guys that wants to see more of the "working class" level of the Realms, rather than ENDLESS WAR BETWEEN DEMIGODS!!11!.
-Modular Rohan buildings(LotR scale , but could have a place in AoS due to modularity possibly)
-3 year plan of releases for Warcry
-not just Chaos monsters in the new supplement
-finally have a use for the Warqueen
-NOVA hotel is haunted!
-Mortarch has a unique Skarbrand style damage/attacks profile. If you attack him, scroll dude dies first, then bird guy, then standard bearer then Samurai Jack, then when they are dead, the Mortarch deigns to fight you and it gets bonkers.
-The Ossiarch Bonereaper range is bigger than what was shown.
-Not in preview article:
~Cities of Sigmar/Orruk tomes will not have faction specific Endless Spells or a terrain feature.
~Will have unique rules to counteract their absence.
~Both coming so soon that they didn’t bother with a preview at the seminar or in the article
At the end: expect an imminent announcement coming about how FW works, what it produces and how it will interact with GW going forward. Big changes. Attendees were told its a positive change and the seminar guys were excited about it, but who knows...
Given the Index/Legends for eternity move maybe finally just putting the Forge World stuff in 40k books. The 40k team is already doing the rules anyway.
He's over 500 points, but can be added to any Order force regardless of the allies point limit, but he's the only ally they can take. In addition he can attack twice, once normally and once at the end of the attack phase and his hits do 3 wounds each with rending.
He also has a 3+ mortal and regular wound ability save and a standard 4+ save. Ontop of that attacks done to him can only cause 1 wound and "slays outright" abilities can only cause 1 mortal wound to him.
On the downsides for him he's only got a 4 inch movement and only has 8 wounds. So whilst he will hit like a slayer in combat he's got to get there. Plus whilst he's got a lot of save mechanics he still only has a modest wound pool for a major character.
Also note the ability to attack again at the end of the combat phase clearly makes him an ideal one-on-one killer; esp for ay multi-wound models. But against a team of opponent he'd take a lot of potential damage before he could retaliate.
Overall he seems very strong, but as few weaknesses too. The 4 inch movement being particularly bad for him as you could in theory just treat him like the white rabbit - RUN AWAY - and stay out of his range. Concentrated ranged fire would also be his bane.
A 4+ combined with a 3+ save. He may be slow but there are endless spells that will get him in your face in turn 1 and good luck killing him until late game after you have sunk a ton of attacks into him.
Offhand it looks like 520 is a good price for him.
Don't forget he "cannot be setup again" even during the battle. So that negates quite a few spells and endless spells that allow to remove and "setup" models on the table.
I can see formats like Meeting Engagement being skewed grossly with models like this as well. But morathi has already been tea bagging that scene, and when the barn door is already open...
So in non-CoS news, I think Orruks are pulling a Skaven in a manner of speaking. In that they were released alongside another battletome, the discussion is focused on that other battletome, and they are sneaking in under the radar with some really strong stuff. Pile in & attack in the hero phase is good, doing it for free every round is crazy. Megabosses getting another wound & attack for just killing one or more models in a combat phase. Warchanter buff being stupid crazy strong. And other fun bits.
There was a fairly long twitter thread this weekend about someone complaining about people calling new orc players bandwagon players and how that was gatekeeping that Ben Johnson was involved in.
It would appear that a lot of people have noticed something very powerful in the book to be jumping ship to it.
NinthMusketeer wrote: So in non-CoS news, I think Orruks are pulling a Skaven in a manner of speaking. In that they were released alongside another battletome, the discussion is focused on that other battletome, and they are sneaking in under the radar with some really strong stuff. Pile in & attack in the hero phase is good, doing it for free every round is crazy. Megabosses getting another wound & attack for just killing one or more models in a combat phase. Warchanter buff being stupid crazy strong. And other fun bits.
Yeah, the scope of the Cities of Sigmar book with all its various play style and options, as well as the controversy from the “hand full” of models being discontinued meant Ironjawz were going to fly under the radar.
I’ve been positive about Ironjawz since GHB19 and I had a feeling they were going to get buffed again with the battletome. Not gonna jump on the bandwagon though. Keeping the faith with my Fyreslayers for the time being.
auticus wrote: There was a fairly long twitter thread this weekend about someone complaining about people calling new orc players bandwagon players and how that was gatekeeping that Ben Johnson was involved in.
It would appear that a lot of people have noticed something very powerful in the book to be jumping ship to it.
The double depravity 12 inch bubble around Syll'Esske is worrisome. Depravity is already considered generally broken and that goes and doubles it! Yes its within a limited range but its still able to cover two keepers very nicely.
It might have been better if it was only damage taken and thus kind of could be mitigated or at least worked around. And it would have evened the playing field a little against 1 wound armies over multiwound; but with it activating on damage taken and given it just means any multiwound generates even more depravity than before.
If it were accepted in tournaments I could see it being the only Tome used alongside 3 keepers and the minimum for battleline. All the slaves units would be mostly ignored (a shame as clearly GW wanted that to be part of the focus and drive).
Again I really wish GW would address depravity. I WANT to take lots of mortals and lots of demons and fiends and chariots. I want to build an army that works well that isn't broken and doesn't have to be just keepers. Plus the keeper is a fantastic model, I don't need rules being broken to encourage me to own more than one.
By doubling down on it and their whole summoning desire.
But not to worry, I'm told the game is just fine and everything is pretty well balanced for the most part, you just have to socially engineer your group or be careful what games you choose to play in.
Got to read through the new WD. The double depravity is busted on top of an already broken mechanic, which is a shame. The rest, however, is really cool. First off any Slaanesh army can take it, unlike the previous Stormcast content that was specific to certain sub-factions. Extra CP generation for having a split of mortal/daemon units is a nice way to encourage thematic builds while giving people flexibility. The new battalions are decent without being too strong and are limited to using this host (immediately eliminates potential for cross-content exploits), and even more importantly are completely new rather than being revised versions of existing battalions. Overall I really like the content and for players wanting to mix StDs with their Slaanesh I would highly recommend it (just agree to ignore the double depravity mechanic, you don't need it anyways).
NinthMusketeer wrote: Got to read through the new WD. The double depravity is busted on top of an already broken mechanic, which is a shame. The rest, however, is really cool. First off any Slaanesh army can take it, unlike the previous Stormcast content that was specific to certain sub-factions. Extra CP generation for having a split of mortal/daemon units is a nice way to encourage thematic builds while giving people flexibility. The new battalions are decent without being too strong and are limited to using this host (immediately eliminates potential for cross-content exploits), and even more importantly are completely new rather than being revised versions of existing battalions. Overall I really like the content and for players wanting to mix StDs with their Slaanesh I would highly recommend it (just agree to ignore the double depravity mechanic, you don't need it anyways).
Agreed. I really like it as well for blending the Slaves content into the army and just wish GW would stop trying to force us to just buy keepers. We get its an amazing and expensive model for them to produce but darn it its amazing enough without throwing more and more depravity at it.
To move the discussion slightly away from balance I have to say the expanded background on Syll'Esske is pretty awesome, a love story between a mortal and daemon. I think this has given much-needed layers to Slaanesh daemons.
Most romantic characters in Warhammer so far. And yeah I also really enjoyed the expanded background. Loved the part where they down three bloodthirsters, the throne rooms falls silent, save for the slow clap of Slaanesh*.
*Who of course could have obliterated the 'thirsters with a flick but would then be forced to admit Khorne made him defend his throne room in person and such embarrassment could not be allowed to happen.
NinthMusketeer wrote: Most romantic characters in Warhammer so far. And yeah I also really enjoyed the expanded background. Loved the part where they down three bloodthirsters, the throne rooms falls silent, save for the slow clap of Slaanesh*.
*Who of course could have obliterated the 'thirsters with a flick but would then be forced to admit Khorne made him defend his throne room in person and such embarrassment could not be allowed to happen.
Yeah, the love story was pretty believable. What was also funny was after they defeated the Bloodthirsters all Slaanesh could think of is how he could gloat to Khorne that a battered and blind mortal along with a disgraced lesser daemon defeated Khorne's main attack force.
AoS is really pushing the demon worshippers lore in a new and far more interesting direction on all fronts. Inferno 4 has some great stories where chaos worshippers are shown as thinking, fairly sane characters with motivations beyond "me chaos me kill". Without them having to be great lords or heroes of the realms.
Nurgle's worshippers get displayed as knights of their order. Yes they are full of rot and putrid decay. Yes they are spreading disease and they bound along with their bellies torn and filled with maggots; but they have a sane approach - you can see the logic and character even as its twisted by chaos.
It makes them far more interesting as characters in their own stories not just as the big bad enemies in stories of other. Some of them even have near noble causes and concepts, just twisted and warped by chaos.
And it seems not just Daemons are getting somewhat nuanced (for Warhammer lore) to expand them beyond mindless, slavering hordes of murdermonsters.
For those not keeping up on the Ossiarch Bonereaper releases and lore tidbits, they're more than just purpose-constructed War Skeletons, their favored method of achieving their goal of collecting bones, and perhaps deadliest weapon, is diplomacy. Strike a deal with a city or town to grant them a tithe of bones, and if they refuse the terms or cannot meet them, then it's time for war.
Thadin wrote: And it seems not just Daemons are getting somewhat nuanced (for Warhammer lore) to expand them beyond mindless, slavering hordes of murdermonsters.
For those not keeping up on the Ossiarch Bonereaper releases and lore tidbits, they're more than just purpose-constructed War Skeletons, their favored method of achieving their goal of collecting bones, and perhaps deadliest weapon, is diplomacy. Strike a deal with a city or town to grant them a tithe of bones, and if they refuse the terms or cannot meet them, then it's time for war.
Honestly, my favorite part is that they will keep the tithe going on for generations until a city has outlived its usefulness, then they increase the tithe to a point where it can't possibly be paid in order to force a war.
I think GW has learned that making factions more as characters and less as agents of a theme; makes them far easier for people to get involved with the faction and for GW to write (and thus sell) lore about them.
The way its going soon only Tyranids won't be personable and hopefully that remains the way they stay as they've a long legacy and it honestly works for them to be that way.
AoS wise I'm enjoying things like the stories in Inferno which are showing more intelligent demons and thinking worshippers of Chaos without them having to be notable great warlords.
Also interesting mention in the latest White Dwarf is 40facts of AoS and one is that the Slaves to Darkness are the most numerous human population in the realms. Even if many don't realise that they worship the great Gods of Chaos.
It reinforces that 500 years of Chaos had soaked the realms and in blood and corrupted so many peoples and nations. It also shows how on a knife edge the faithful of sigmar are and how, for all their grand cities, they are still an island in an ocean of Chaos.
Thadin wrote: And it seems not just Daemons are getting somewhat nuanced (for Warhammer lore) to expand them beyond mindless, slavering hordes of murdermonsters.
For those not keeping up on the Ossiarch Bonereaper releases and lore tidbits, they're more than just purpose-constructed War Skeletons, their favored method of achieving their goal of collecting bones, and perhaps deadliest weapon, is diplomacy. Strike a deal with a city or town to grant them a tithe of bones, and if they refuse the terms or cannot meet them, then it's time for war.
Honestly, my favorite part is that they will keep the tithe going on for generations until a city has outlived its usefulness, then they increase the tithe to a point where it can't possibly be paid in order to force a war.
It also gives some answers as to what Nagash's plan for the Mortal Realms is. Wiping out all of the living creatures means no bones to reanimate. Enslave/farm the living for bones gives sustainable soldiers to carry on wars against... Sigmar and the Chaos Gods I suppose.
Thadin wrote: And it seems not just Daemons are getting somewhat nuanced (for Warhammer lore) to expand them beyond mindless, slavering hordes of murdermonsters.
For those not keeping up on the Ossiarch Bonereaper releases and lore tidbits, they're more than just purpose-constructed War Skeletons, their favored method of achieving their goal of collecting bones, and perhaps deadliest weapon, is diplomacy. Strike a deal with a city or town to grant them a tithe of bones, and if they refuse the terms or cannot meet them, then it's time for war.
Honestly, my favorite part is that they will keep the tithe going on for generations until a city has outlived its usefulness, then they increase the tithe to a point where it can't possibly be paid in order to force a war.
It also gives some answers as to what Nagash's plan for the Mortal Realms is. Wiping out all of the living creatures means no bones to reanimate. Enslave/farm the living for bones gives sustainable soldiers to carry on wars against... Sigmar and the Chaos Gods I suppose.
Generally speaking Nagash's plan is to kill everything, raise everything, and rule eternally. His arrogance is such that he believes he could beat back Chaos himself in such a circumstance. Of course we the players know that isn't the case, but Nagash doesn't have much of a relationship with humility. And in poetic irony one of the most comically evil factions (Skaven) keeps saving the world from him, so it won't occur anyways.
Thadin wrote: And it seems not just Daemons are getting somewhat nuanced (for Warhammer lore) to expand them beyond mindless, slavering hordes of murdermonsters.
For those not keeping up on the Ossiarch Bonereaper releases and lore tidbits, they're more than just purpose-constructed War Skeletons, their favored method of achieving their goal of collecting bones, and perhaps deadliest weapon, is diplomacy. Strike a deal with a city or town to grant them a tithe of bones, and if they refuse the terms or cannot meet them, then it's time for war.
Honestly, my favorite part is that they will keep the tithe going on for generations until a city has outlived its usefulness, then they increase the tithe to a point where it can't possibly be paid in order to force a war.
It also gives some answers as to what Nagash's plan for the Mortal Realms is. Wiping out all of the living creatures means no bones to reanimate. Enslave/farm the living for bones gives sustainable soldiers to carry on wars against... Sigmar and the Chaos Gods I suppose.
Generally speaking Nagash's plan is to kill everything, raise everything, and rule eternally. His arrogance is such that he believes he could beat back Chaos himself in such a circumstance. Of course we the players know that isn't the case, but Nagash doesn't have much of a relationship with humility. And in poetic irony one of the most comically evil factions (Skaven) keeps saving the world from him, so it won't occur anyways.
Oh of course, Nagash's end game is to end all life across the Mortal Realms, but to get to that end point, he intends to keep settlements to create more bones around.
"The Tithe of Bone
The Ossiarch Bonereapers already possess massive armies, having carefully waited out the apocalyptic devastation of the Age of Chaos. However, Nagash’s ambitions of conquering the Mortal Realms require even more warriors, and for that, he needs a lot of bone.
Sure, he could just send his armies out to slaughter every living thing they found, but that would be unsustainable, not to mention pretty messy! Instead, the Ossiarch Bonereapers first seek the most deadly of weapons to accomplish their goals – diplomacy."
I don't know if his arrogance is so grand that he would wipe out ALL life before 'defeating' Chaos, if such a thing is even possible.
It's basically a tipping point strategy. The legion comes over and over to take the tithe, with the design built into it that it will eventually be too much for a settlement to pay. By which point the reapers have enough of your bone and outnumber you and thus steamroll over and take it all; using it to help build new fortresses and fortifications and then pushing their borders out further.
Done right it means that the army ever grows and, as it passes over the lands, it reinforces itself without overstretching its front lines and destroying its supply lines. Which has lost many a general not just a battle but a whole campaign of war.
It also creates a built-in mechanism for punishing/rewarding the loyalty of settlements. It is actually rather genius, to the point that I am surprised it isn't a fantasy staple because it seems so dam plausible.
Indeed and the stormcast podcast talk today highlights further how they are very honourable. So if you keep your word they will honour theirs. Even if they might set you an impossible to meet task, if you managed the impossible they'd honour it.
They are not nice, but they hold a sense of mechanical deathly honour in their own warped dead way.
And now the hard part, my regular, almost weekly gaming partner is also buying Bonereapers... Gotta' come up with a reason why they would fight amongst eachother
Thadin wrote: And now the hard part, my regular, almost weekly gaming partner is also buying Bonereapers... Gotta' come up with a reason why they would fight amongst eachother
One city's residents skipped out on their tithe payments and fled to another city, which was slated to be tithed by another group of Bonereapers. Hilarity and hijinks ensue.
Which now has me thinking about how the Bonereapers work amongst themselves. Do they get yearly bonuses for going above their tithe quota? Punished if they are below their quota? A Glengary/Glennross scene pops into my head, but with Bonereapers.
I'm not sure how new souls work in the Mortal Realms, but would Nagash ever really want to extinguish all life?
Doesn't no new life mean no new souls? You would have thought he'd want as large a breeding population as possible, even after defeating Chaos. The issue is that right Sigmar is taking most of the best souls for himself!
Thadin wrote: And now the hard part, my regular, almost weekly gaming partner is also buying Bonereapers... Gotta' come up with a reason why they would fight amongst eachother
Training obviously. Only the living need fancy illusions or non-lethal training weapons; the dead just get back up!
Thadin wrote: And now the hard part, my regular, almost weekly gaming partner is also buying Bonereapers... Gotta' come up with a reason why they would fight amongst eachother
Training obviously. Only the living need fancy illusions or non-lethal training weapons; the dead just get back up!
Maybe it's like Tyranids?
Two warbands find each other, they fight, the superior warband claims all the bone to add to their army.
The expanded Syll'Esske story was a good read - love (or maybe blind total obsession) wins out even in the Realm of Chaos
The Bonereapers will be interesting - hoping to read how they interact with the Nighthaunts, the Soulblight Empires who rely on the living for subjects and sustinance and also the more traditional Necromatic/Zombie or Tomb King empires. I can see some clashing of Mortarchs, heads and souls
The WC article also told us that some of the "honourable" Bonereapers are not and twist the demands to make them impossible so they can destroy empires. Another is infected with beastial impusles in battle due to being constructed of animal (and maybe Beastmen) bones.
I wonder if you can pay off one legion to fight off another - bound to be rivalries between some of them as they have personalities!
I'm really enjoying how GW is adapting chaos into the Mortal Realms. Making demons a bit more characterful and detailed whilst also fleshing out the mortal followers. It's really giving a greater sense of why so many people would willingly or unwittingly follow Chaos and it gives Chaos a sense of relation into the realms. It also makes it far more sinister because you can see the good intentions that pave the road to ruin. You can see someone twist and turn and burn and soon become consumed by choices that they cannot turn back from as the Dark Gods lure them in and embrace them.
It's very different to the Old World stories where most of the Chaos legions were simply nameless and faceless barbarians from the northern chaos wastes. Where only the top heroes might have some semblance of character and where most of those you see corrupted tend to be for the power of the corruption and what it gave them. Which always gave the impression that evil people were turned far more readily.
In AoS you see nobles and those who should fight against Chaos corrupted through their actions; you see the innocent turned dark.
NinthMusketeer wrote: It also creates a built-in mechanism for punishing/rewarding the loyalty of settlements. It is actually rather genius, to the point that I am surprised it isn't a fantasy staple because it seems so dam plausible.
Thinking on it some more it is actually quite a common mechanic in fantasy stories. However its normally in the form of "abusive local lord tyrant" or "raiders" who are more stealing and demanding a tithe. Then along comes the Magnificent Seven or whoever is the local hero of the story to rid the village of their evildoers.
Kanluwen wrote: Sylvaneth, despite being a new book, still suffer from shoddy warscroll battalions and very "meh" subfaction rules.
Great example is the one that features 3 units of Kurnoth Hunters and a Son of Durthu...yet doesn't allow for an Arch-Revenant.
I an agree with the battalions being pretty meh, I only take the Outcasts once since I use Spites as my battleline anyway.
I disagree about the subfaction rules, Sylvaneth have some pretty good ones. It's just that several require build arounds and generally are not as easy to use. Good examples are Heartwood and Dreadwood. Even then, we still have Winterleaf which is both powerful and easy to use.
That being said, several of our units really do seem a bit over pointed, and I will expect some points drops next round. The good news is I feel our issue is much more aligned with our points, rather than our rules (Ala Nighthaunt).
It's startling to read here and there about how Nighthaunts are not really good, be it in tournaments or just regularly. I've started playing them recently and won most of the time at 1000 pts at least. Lost once against FEC but he played 1050 pts after checking it so not really a defeat.
Do Nighthaunts suffer from a early codex ? Seraphons look to be one of the earliest too but look really strong with all their free summoning and such. How long does it usually take before a book is updated ?
Aaranis wrote: It's startling to read here and there about how Nighthaunts are not really good, be it in tournaments or just regularly. I've started playing them recently and won most of the time at 1000 pts at least. Lost once against FEC but he played 1050 pts after checking it so not really a defeat.
Do Nighthaunts suffer from a early codex ? Seraphons look to be one of the earliest too but look really strong with all their free summoning and such. How long does it usually take before a book is updated ?
Release schedule is really unpredictable. Sometimes there'll be an update after a year, sometimes it will be several. And it's not always buff either, sometimes it makes your army worse (though the general trend of power is usually upwards across the game as a whole).
Aaranis wrote: It's startling to read here and there about how Nighthaunts are not really good, be it in tournaments or just regularly. I've started playing them recently and won most of the time at 1000 pts at least. Lost once against FEC but he played 1050 pts after checking it so not really a defeat.
Do Nighthaunts suffer from a early codex ? Seraphons look to be one of the earliest too but look really strong with all their free summoning and such. How long does it usually take before a book is updated ?
Keep in mind those stats are for tournaments; for average day-to-day play they may not be totally analogous. Or in simple terms take with a grain of salt. At a tournament a solid 2/3 of listbuilding options are more or less nonexistent and only the top 1/3 in effectiveness are actually used. A strictly average unit/army would show up and get crushed, which then causes many people (and not infrequently, GW themselves) to conclude that the unit/army is bad despite that not making logical sense; when compared to what's on the top everything else will naturally come up short. In a setting where people are just playing for fun many of the options reappear and the dynamic of which armies are good, bad, or average changes.
To create a theoretical example, faction "Alpha" has a few really overpowered units but most of its roster is sub-par. Faction "Beta" has units that are above-average but not incredibly overpowered. In an average setting with people running a healthy mix of options, faction Beta will tend to do better because most of its units are good compared to most of Alpha's units that are bad. But at a tournament, Alpha would have better stats because only those few overpowered options are being used. This could make it look like Beta is bad or that Alpha is better overall, when really the situation is more complex.
I'm having trouble thinking of how to explain it, does the above make sense?
Yep thats why I don't like when those stats get touted around. They are only really relevant to the balance as it pertains to tournament scale games. It totally doesn't have anything to do with pick up games or narrative games or anything that is not hyper optimization of lists. So when my local scene has a couple guys rolling a tournament list, even a tournament list that may only be midling in the tournament meta, and its dominating the casual games and then people just line up to say "the balance is fine the stats show that your book is doing better (when it only is dealing with the alpha builds)", it can get fairly frustrating fairly quickly.
auticus wrote: Yep thats why I don't like when those stats get touted around. They are only really relevant to the balance as it pertains to tournament scale games. It totally doesn't have anything to do with pick up games or narrative games or anything that is not hyper optimization of lists. So when my local scene has a couple guys rolling a tournament list, even a tournament list that may only be midling in the tournament meta, and its dominating the casual games and then people just line up to say "the balance is fine the stats show that your book is doing better (when it only is dealing with the alpha builds)", it can get fairly frustrating fairly quickly.
Sure, but the same happens in every other game that has a meaningful competitive scene. See KoW and the 3rd edition - the changes are great for competitive players, but not so much for the narrative / casual gamers who just enjoy to build their theme army. They lost a lot of freedom in that field for no good reason for them. The race for balance is more hurting than you may think.
I'm not questioning or doubting that the same happens in any game with a competitive scene.
I'm saying it to keep people mindful that when others are trying to tout those competitive level stats as if they are meaningful to the entire community, that they are grossly mistaken and out of context.
Aaranis wrote: It's startling to read here and there about how Nighthaunts are not really good, be it in tournaments or just regularly. I've started playing them recently and won most of the time at 1000 pts at least. Lost once against FEC but he played 1050 pts after checking it so not really a defeat.
Do Nighthaunts suffer from a early codex ? Seraphons look to be one of the earliest too but look really strong with all their free summoning and such. How long does it usually take before a book is updated ?
Keep in mind those stats are for tournaments; for average day-to-day play they may not be totally analogous. Or in simple terms take with a grain of salt. At a tournament a solid 2/3 of listbuilding options are more or less nonexistent and only the top 1/3 in effectiveness are actually used. A strictly average unit/army would show up and get crushed, which then causes many people (and not infrequently, GW themselves) to conclude that the unit/army is bad despite that not making logical sense; when compared to what's on the top everything else will naturally come up short. In a setting where people are just playing for fun many of the options reappear and the dynamic of which armies are good, bad, or average changes.
To create a theoretical example, faction "Alpha" has a few really overpowered units but most of its roster is sub-par. Faction "Beta" has units that are above-average but not incredibly overpowered. In an average setting with people running a healthy mix of options, faction Beta will tend to do better because most of its units are good compared to most of Alpha's units that are bad. But at a tournament, Alpha would have better stats because only those few overpowered options are being used. This could make it look like Beta is bad or that Alpha is better overall, when really the situation is more complex.
I'm having trouble thinking of how to explain it, does the above make sense?
I understand, don't worry ! I see what you mean. Still, I see it when facing most recent codices, Nighthaunts lack sub-faction rules with their specific artifacts, command traits and such. Facing Fireslayers the other day I was really surprised by the amount of damage that army did compared to mine (he played 2 heroes on Magmadroths and 2x10 Berzerkers), I basically killed my units hitting his. Then there's the FEC and their "fight twice for free every round with a single unit" which is obviously more powerful on a big unit of Flayers then on 10 Ghouls. I won my games mostly because of manoeuvring, clever placement and lucky 10" charges from my Blendergheists, and while I like to earn my victories like that I wouldn't be against a little more customisation.
Aaranis wrote: It's startling to read here and there about how Nighthaunts are not really good, be it in tournaments or just regularly. I've started playing them recently and won most of the time at 1000 pts at least. Lost once against FEC but he played 1050 pts after checking it so not really a defeat.
Do Nighthaunts suffer from a early codex ? Seraphons look to be one of the earliest too but look really strong with all their free summoning and such. How long does it usually take before a book is updated ?
Keep in mind those stats are for tournaments; for average day-to-day play they may not be totally analogous. Or in simple terms take with a grain of salt. At a tournament a solid 2/3 of listbuilding options are more or less nonexistent and only the top 1/3 in effectiveness are actually used. A strictly average unit/army would show up and get crushed, which then causes many people (and not infrequently, GW themselves) to conclude that the unit/army is bad despite that not making logical sense; when compared to what's on the top everything else will naturally come up short. In a setting where people are just playing for fun many of the options reappear and the dynamic of which armies are good, bad, or average changes.
To create a theoretical example, faction "Alpha" has a few really overpowered units but most of its roster is sub-par. Faction "Beta" has units that are above-average but not incredibly overpowered. In an average setting with people running a healthy mix of options, faction Beta will tend to do better because most of its units are good compared to most of Alpha's units that are bad. But at a tournament, Alpha would have better stats because only those few overpowered options are being used. This could make it look like Beta is bad or that Alpha is better overall, when really the situation is more complex.
I'm having trouble thinking of how to explain it, does the above make sense?
We also need to be honest about the army itself though. I play Nighthaunt, and it was my first army in AOS. They are not in a good spot right now. The army has a litany of issues and is one of the armies that got hit the most by the power creep in 2.0. They are currently either the worst or second worst 2.0 Battletome in my opinion.
auticus wrote: I'm not questioning or doubting that the same happens in any game with a competitive scene.
I'm saying it to keep people mindful that when others are trying to tout those competitive level stats as if they are meaningful to the entire community, that they are grossly mistaken and out of context.
Yeah. You often see these stats peddled out of context to show "See? Game's fine look at all the balance!" when it only deals with the most optimized builds. So a faction might be "fine" in a tournament where it's single "meta" build is all you ever see, but relatively weak if you're using anything other than that one build (which most people likely are). So, in this case, the stats become meaningless since they are dealing with what is essentially a fringe case that isn't indicative of the majority but is often the most visible (and often vocal) part.
Aaranis wrote: It's startling to read here and there about how Nighthaunts are not really good, be it in tournaments or just regularly. I've started playing them recently and won most of the time at 1000 pts at least. Lost once against FEC but he played 1050 pts after checking it so not really a defeat.
Do Nighthaunts suffer from a early codex ? Seraphons look to be one of the earliest too but look really strong with all their free summoning and such. How long does it usually take before a book is updated ?
Keep in mind those stats are for tournaments; for average day-to-day play they may not be totally analogous. Or in simple terms take with a grain of salt. At a tournament a solid 2/3 of listbuilding options are more or less nonexistent and only the top 1/3 in effectiveness are actually used. A strictly average unit/army would show up and get crushed, which then causes many people (and not infrequently, GW themselves) to conclude that the unit/army is bad despite that not making logical sense; when compared to what's on the top everything else will naturally come up short. In a setting where people are just playing for fun many of the options reappear and the dynamic of which armies are good, bad, or average changes.
To create a theoretical example, faction "Alpha" has a few really overpowered units but most of its roster is sub-par. Faction "Beta" has units that are above-average but not incredibly overpowered. In an average setting with people running a healthy mix of options, faction Beta will tend to do better because most of its units are good compared to most of Alpha's units that are bad. But at a tournament, Alpha would have better stats because only those few overpowered options are being used. This could make it look like Beta is bad or that Alpha is better overall, when really the situation is more complex.
I'm having trouble thinking of how to explain it, does the above make sense?
We also need to be honest about the army itself though. I play Nighthaunt, and it was my first army in AOS. They are not in a good spot right now. The army has a litany of issues and is one of the armies that got hit the most by the power creep in 2.0. They are currently either the worst or second worst 2.0 Battletome in my opinion.
That is true; among 2.0 armies Nighthaunt are rather low. Part of it, imo, is that being etherial and flying requires an appropriate point cost, but those things may not be all that useful depending on context. A legions army can take a handful of Nighthaunt units and specifically use them against elements of the opposing army where that will be useful, but an all-Nighthaunt list doesn't have the masses of cheap skeletons to back them up. The allegiance also has a lot of bravery-reducing mechanics which are simply non-viable due to how easy it is to gain battleshock immunity. Meanwhile their 10+ charge mechanic is potentially very powerful but extremely inconsistent and largely outside the player's control.
Well the leak suggested StDs in December, and I would expect them to be doing previews because that is a rather significant army--it is in essence the original 'bad guy' faction of not only WHFB but Warhammer as a whole.
I was brainstorming some pure wishlisting ideas that it would be fun if they were a dark mirror to the CoS book, with Chaos Bastions having their own artifacts/traits/abilities with limited access to the big 4 Chaos Books, like the Free Cities have.
Could really bring Chaos to life, even further than they have been.
In the recent Reapers podcast (Stormcast) it was said that Slaves to Darkness mortals make up the majority of humans in the Realms in a big way with the Free Peoples being a minority in comparison (and keeping in mind they are made up of human, dwarf and elf).
So Slaves aren't just the big evil; they aren't just the ones who conquered most of the mortal realms for 500 years but they are the big and major population. It's a reversal of the way things were in the Old World.
Though I think this has yet to really come through in the stories and general lore. Likely because we always see the Slaves as remnants of great armies smashed by Stormcast or isolated wild-peoples. So they appear fewer in number against the powerful cities and fortresses of the Free Peoples.
I think we'll see some nice changes. GW has - at least through Black Library - really been pushing more barbarian/free/wild peoples angles through the lore. I think more modern Slaves are going to be split into those clearly fully in the thrall of the Chaos Gods and those who are what we might consider the equivalent to the Barbarians who fought the Roman Empire (With Rome being Sigmar).
Creating a fantastic grey area where there are "wild" peoples who are worshiping all kinds of gods; and who might be somewhat barbaric, but are not pure "evil" as such (save for perhaps their religious leaders/those more in thrall of the gods). I think it will set the scene for a lot more grey story telling and also gives a real idea how Chaos can corrupt whole peoples to its cause without them all having to become mutants.
Overread wrote: In the recent Reapers podcast (Stormcast) it was said that Slaves to Darkness mortals make up the majority of humans in the Realms in a big way with the Free Peoples being a minority in comparison (and keeping in mind they are made up of human, dwarf and elf).
So Slaves aren't just the big evil; they aren't just the ones who conquered most of the mortal realms for 500 years but they are the big and major population. It's a reversal of the way things were in the Old World.
Though I think this has yet to really come through in the stories and general lore. Likely because we always see the Slaves as remnants of great armies smashed by Stormcast or isolated wild-peoples. So they appear fewer in number against the powerful cities and fortresses of the Free Peoples.
A lot like Renegades & Heretics/Lost and Damned in 40k then. They're by far the most populous part of Chaos' armies, but you wouldn't know that looking at the tabletop and most non-Black Library fluff.
Stahp, GW! My wallet hurts! I can’t take new Chaos Warriors and Knights *pained groans* *hugs battered wallet* *looks up at unpainted Archaon alone on the shelf* *weeps*
auticus wrote: I'm not questioning or doubting that the same happens in any game with a competitive scene.
I'm saying it to keep people mindful that when others are trying to tout those competitive level stats as if they are meaningful to the entire community, that they are grossly mistaken and out of context.
Yeah. You often see these stats peddled out of context to show "See? Game's fine look at all the balance!" when it only deals with the most optimized builds. So a faction might be "fine" in a tournament where it's single "meta" build is all you ever see, but relatively weak if you're using anything other than that one build (which most people likely are). So, in this case, the stats become meaningless since they are dealing with what is essentially a fringe case that isn't indicative of the majority but is often the most visible (and often vocal) part.
Alternatively, you can use these stats as part of the picture. I am by no means touting these as the ultimate measuring stick, but they do illuminate some issues. Just because they don't paint the entire picture, does not make them meaningless either. There is still plenty of good information you can derive from this, if you choose to.
auticus wrote: I'm not questioning or doubting that the same happens in any game with a competitive scene.
I'm saying it to keep people mindful that when others are trying to tout those competitive level stats as if they are meaningful to the entire community, that they are grossly mistaken and out of context.
Yeah. You often see these stats peddled out of context to show "See? Game's fine look at all the balance!" when it only deals with the most optimized builds. So a faction might be "fine" in a tournament where it's single "meta" build is all you ever see, but relatively weak if you're using anything other than that one build (which most people likely are). So, in this case, the stats become meaningless since they are dealing with what is essentially a fringe case that isn't indicative of the majority but is often the most visible (and often vocal) part.
Alternatively, you can use these stats as part of the picture. I am by no means touting these as the ultimate measuring stick, but they do illuminate some issues. Just because they don't paint the entire picture, does not make them meaningless either. There is still plenty of good information you can derive from this, if you choose to.
auticus wrote: I'm not questioning or doubting that the same happens in any game with a competitive scene.
I'm saying it to keep people mindful that when others are trying to tout those competitive level stats as if they are meaningful to the entire community, that they are grossly mistaken and out of context.
Yeah. You often see these stats peddled out of context to show "See? Game's fine look at all the balance!" when it only deals with the most optimized builds. So a faction might be "fine" in a tournament where it's single "meta" build is all you ever see, but relatively weak if you're using anything other than that one build (which most people likely are). So, in this case, the stats become meaningless since they are dealing with what is essentially a fringe case that isn't indicative of the majority but is often the most visible (and often vocal) part.
Alternatively, you can use these stats as part of the picture. I am by no means touting these as the ultimate measuring stick, but they do illuminate some issues. Just because they don't paint the entire picture, does not make them meaningless either. There is still plenty of good information you can derive from this, if you choose to.
Not saying they are meaningless. They show the game at the level where everyone is trying to break the game. I am saying that people, a great many people, use these stats as the be all end all of the game's overall balance and health, which is essentially ignoring the vast swathe of people that aren't playing the game to break the game or who made the mistake of picking up models that looked cool, but then get destroyed because of the issues in the system.
For every good nugget of information that can be gleaned from those stats, there are 10 complaints about the unhinged balance in the casual scene that are flat out dismissed because the "stats show the game is in a great place at the tournament level". Thats what needs addressed and rectified unless one only cares about the tournament level (which I find most of those statements are coming from people that only really care about the tournament level, and the two contexts can never meet)
Gotta agree even in casual games I had no real answer the other day against a Fyreslayer list, there's just so much mortal wounds dealt for fun to my Nighthaunts I can't keep up in durability. I don't like the inconsistency between datasheets that deal mortal wounds on 6s to Hit (mine) and those that add mortal wounds on 6s to Hit (Fyreslayers).
There is more or less nothing Nighthaunt can do against a properly built Fyreslayers list. The army does not have the tools to beat a hearthguard-spam list, save hoping luck or the opponent's mistakes give you an opportunity. If you are playing in Hysh banishment screws them, so there's that.
NinthMusketeer wrote: There is more or less nothing Nighthaunt can do against a properly built Fyreslayers list. The army does not have the tools to beat a hearthguard-spam list, save hoping luck or the opponent's mistakes give you an opportunity. If you are playing in Hysh banishment screws them, so there's that.
This is sadly very true. Nighthaunt have a lot of problems, but things get a lot worse when they face armies that have better durability then them, which is supposed to be their schtick. Fyreslayers have both this durability and extremely potent offense, and can deal both mass mortal wounds and mass amounts of regular wounds.
Nighthaunt aren't alone in that, with the vs Fyrelsayers matchup or others. A mediocre LoN list is something many armies are left with 'well I hope my opponent screws up.' And LoN isn't even top tier (anymore).
I try to stay positive but the current state of AoS has left me totally disillusioned with Matched Play. I feel like things have backslid over the course of 2019 and we are at a notably worse place now than we were.
Still, compared to 40k I'm having way more fun in AoS even with the balance problem, because 40k is a clustertruck of problems. At least in AoS the whole game is fun and I almost always have twists in my games that make it more interesting and most of the time make me win (like rolling three 10" charges that devastate the enemy before the Fight phase even begins).
Eventually there's going to be a new battletome and things may even out. Right now I'm looking at Bonereapers with growing concern, I've read Cities of Sigmar were kinda busted too (but complicated) but there's no players for the faction here, whereas everyone wants to start a Bonereaper army and they look very powerful too.
Honestly so far I don't think there are too many "dud" armies and the problem armies in AoS don't seem to be AS much a problem as they are in 40K. There seems to be less of a swinging divide in general, esp if you take Slaanesh's depravity out of the equation.
To me that suggests a game that can potentially balance itself up through Generals Handbooks and updates more reliably.
Granted I think a bit boon for AoS is how GW has handled armies in terms of balance of composition. In 40K Marines/Imperials want to make these huge monster soup things; in AoS its almost the other way around for most Grand Alliances - which I thin is far more fun to have individual armies standing strong.
I really like the new warriors and knights. They retained their old look in a more modern sculpt. I will be picking some up to put into my kings of war chaos warriors list.
The new StDs look fantastic, I can't wait to have them!
On the balance topic, yeah, at least AoS isn't 40k levels of bad.
On a different note, the Bonereaper battalion in the starter allows for 1 slain model to be brought back each turn... To any one unit within 8" of Vokmortian. So yeah, bring a morghast back every turn. 120 point battalion. THAT is why balance is terrible. Not the pace of releases, not changes in design philosophy, but because for whatever reason no one says 'hm, maybe a battalion that can recover 110 points of model a turn should cost more than 120."
When I say staggered releases are the cause of the issues its because they design armies out of context of each other in a staggered format.
So you get some armies that are busted and some that are trash and the rest in the middle somewhere.
And thats always been the case since a couple of years after Ravening Hordes 2000.
Last year it was what... FEC and skaven or whatever. And then a few months pass and then its slaanesh. ANd now its the masters of the universe undead with broken elements. It will always be something. And 9 times out of 10 its something so busted that we figure out in 5 minutes is busted that you have no idea how a professional rules design team would produce such a thing, but thats always the case time after time.
Its not like something you have to spend a month or two finding through rigorous playing. Its literally 5 minutes into opening the rules section of the book you say "where's waldo".... "oh there he is!"
Hmm, interestingly they never mentioned that these units will be purchasable outside of the start collecting though. It seems like an incredible move, but could they be snap fit without options and stuck in this star collecting box? Hopefully I’m wrong and this is pure speculation, just a small concern.
auticus wrote: When I say staggered releases are the cause of the issues its because they design armies out of context of each other in a staggered format.
So you get some armies that are busted and some that are trash and the rest in the middle somewhere.
And thats always been the case since a couple of years after Ravening Hordes 2000.
Last year it was what... FEC and skaven or whatever. And then a few months pass and then its slaanesh. ANd now its the masters of the universe undead with broken elements. It will always be something. And 9 times out of 10 its something so busted that we figure out in 5 minutes is busted that you have no idea how a professional rules design team would produce such a thing, but thats always the case time after time.
Its not like something you have to spend a month or two finding through rigorous playing. Its literally 5 minutes into opening the rules section of the book you say "where's waldo".... "oh there he is!"
Except the Ogors are notably less powerful than the Bonereapers. And before that the Orruk battletome is notably stronger overall than Free Cities. And within Free Cities the balance between different ones is abysmal--a change in context can't explain poor balancing between elements in the same battletome.
auticus wrote: When I say staggered releases are the cause of the issues its because they design armies out of context of each other in a staggered format.
So you get some armies that are busted and some that are trash and the rest in the middle somewhere.
And thats always been the case since a couple of years after Ravening Hordes 2000.
Last year it was what... FEC and skaven or whatever. And then a few months pass and then its slaanesh. ANd now its the masters of the universe undead with broken elements. It will always be something. And 9 times out of 10 its something so busted that we figure out in 5 minutes is busted that you have no idea how a professional rules design team would produce such a thing, but thats always the case time after time.
Its not like something you have to spend a month or two finding through rigorous playing. Its literally 5 minutes into opening the rules section of the book you say "where's waldo".... "oh there he is!"
Except the Ogors are notably less powerful than the Bonereapers. And before that the Orruk battletome is notably stronger overall than Free Cities. And within Free Cities the balance between different ones is abysmal--a change in context can't explain poor balancing between elements in the same battletome.
I think its a mix of both. Remember they don't just have staggered releases. They also have a couple different writing teams. So you've got a team that is pushing the envelope of what rules can do, and a team that is trying to keep the baseline balance the same over time. They don't talk to each other so they don't realize that the other team isn't doing the same they are, and then you get two releases in quick succession where one is wildly powerful and the other more in line with what every battletome should be.
Or at least that's how I think of it because I would rather not just assume ineptitude.
On the balance topic, yeah, at least AoS isn't 40k levels of bad.
On a different note, the Bonereaper battalion in the starter allows for 1 slain model to be brought back each turn... To any one unit within 8" of Vokmortian. So yeah, bring a morghast back every turn. 120 point battalion. THAT is why balance is terrible. Not the pace of releases, not changes in design philosophy, but because for whatever reason no one says 'hm, maybe a battalion that can recover 110 points of model a turn should cost more than 120."
Thankfully isn't that battalion (like most of the other battle box ones) only limited to that box itself.
auticus wrote: When I say staggered releases are the cause of the issues its because they design armies out of context of each other in a staggered format.
So you get some armies that are busted and some that are trash and the rest in the middle somewhere.
And thats always been the case since a couple of years after Ravening Hordes 2000.
Last year it was what... FEC and skaven or whatever. And then a few months pass and then its slaanesh. ANd now its the masters of the universe undead with broken elements. It will always be something. And 9 times out of 10 its something so busted that we figure out in 5 minutes is busted that you have no idea how a professional rules design team would produce such a thing, but thats always the case time after time.
Its not like something you have to spend a month or two finding through rigorous playing. Its literally 5 minutes into opening the rules section of the book you say "where's waldo".... "oh there he is!"
Except the Ogors are notably less powerful than the Bonereapers. And before that the Orruk battletome is notably stronger overall than Free Cities. And within Free Cities the balance between different ones is abysmal--a change in context can't explain poor balancing between elements in the same battletome.
Thats why i said you get some armies that are busted and some that are trash and the rest languishing in the middle somewhere.
Its always a roller coaster. Goblins come out ok. Then fec and skaven busted. Then slaanesh busted. Then free cities are ok. Then masters of the universe appear busted while ogors are probably ok.
Why would anyone actively encourage and support years of that?
Who knows what slaves to darkness will be. Based on the pattern, probably ok. They certainly cant be worse than their current rules. But just ok means bad games against the busted.
