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 Thadin wrote:

balmong7 wrote:

 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.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Thadin wrote:

balmong7 wrote:

 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.

Edit: Quote Source - https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/19/what-is-the-tithegw-homepage-post-3/

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!

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 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.

Lots of good stuff in the lore at the moment

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.

There wasn't any sudden turnabout in quality of story telling or writing, I can't agree with your assessment.

I mean a trope specifically of undead levying a corpse-tax. Obviously the more realistic analogue is something that's shown up plenty.

AOS Stats are back!

https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-stats-21st-october-2019/

Nothing too shocking here. Slaanesh is clearly far and ahead the top winning army. Followed by the usual suspects of Skaven, FEC and DoK.

EDIT:
Most other armies are faring pretty decent, despite this. The usual suspects like Nighthaunt are still at a pretty low winrate.

Sylvaneth are doing a bit worse than I thought after re-reviewing the stats.

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.

 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).

Oh no, it definitely builds around the rules too.

Just the rules, mostly, for the WSBs.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Most romantic characters in Warhammer so far.

Even more so than Vlad and Isabella? I find that hard to believe.

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.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 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.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 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.

 Sasori wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 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.

Any guesses on what AoS goodness will be previewed at Blood and Glory?

Dude on twitter saying new Chaos Warriors and Knights have been sighted, but take that with a heavy dose of salt.

https://twitter.com/carrionking87/status/1189418567906648065?s=21