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Now hang on just a minute- every faction that has a long sword or greatsword on the end of pole isn't marching to war with a "spear"- they are over fantastical monstrosities.

I mead good grief when the Chaos knights are the most realistic cavalry around, there is an issue.

Agreed, imo Overread is comparing the "mundane" elements of AoS with with the more fantastical elements of other benchmark fantasy realms, and even then the AoS baseline is whatever the other universe is, +2. (not that I would characterise this as a problem though, as I say I can appreciate it for what it is).

Well, I certainly didnt expect these four tomes, and was instead expecting a tome of champions for 2020. I wonder if we will get that now?

I actually like this idea, at least in theory. Mostly because I was looking at the mess of sorting through three different tomes for campaign rules, warband profiles, merc profiles, etc. and was conetemplating just consolidating the entirety into a new document that has been reformatted as a much easier to reference and to read tome.

I do think the announced books carry with them some expectations. Such as tweaking some warband abilities and profiles for balance sake, adding in some more profiles (which allows us to use more of our collections and allows GW to sell more models).

Since each tome has "Rules for using monsters", one would hope there are more available than the one or two monsters each alliance had in the Monsters and Mercs book.

And because of that, new challenge battles to fight such beasties.

What I dont understand is fated quests and their role in the alliance books. Fated quests arent associated with a faction runemark, so the reason they would now be included in the alliance books is unclear to speculate upon with any degree of certainty, since their very nature is counterintuitive to include in specific roles, as they are meant to be broadly accomodating.

Either way, I hope each alliance has new challenge battles that are unique to each tome.

They mention that each tome contains 'profiles and fighter cards". Perhaps they now have cards we can photocopy from the books to use?

Say what you will about the cards and how GW distributed them, but if this is the case, then they are finally doing it right. Because: A) Youre not spending $10 for the incomplete rules for each warband (Mercs cards, etc) and B) they are tied to the reference book that you use for your games as needed. C) less SKU's for retailers to be forced to keep track of is always welcomed by them.

The cost to collect them all is gonna push around $25-$30 per tome, so thats gonna be pain in the wallet.

Despite that cost, I still hope we get a tome of champions for the year of nurgle's dominance. There is a lot of design space to explore for the game that isnt faction specific stuff.

Maybe what is included in the Catacombs set will fill that role? I guess we will find out sometime today.

 Overread wrote:
And yet it you look at many armies they aren't that fantastical.

Ossiarchs go to war with spears and swords; Flesheaters are just ghouls who often have nothing but a bone club for a weapon; Lumineth are spears and hammers;


Orks had super thick armour in the Old World, heck its staple that your average ork is either almost naked save for scraps or is head to toe a mountain of metal. Dwarves are much the same.


All the free cities need is some enchanted +10 weapons to survive. Heck the vast multitude of Chaos warriors are going to war with your most basic of standard weapons (granted armies like the Unmade graft them to their very hands with barbed wire wrapping)

I agree with you that the bulk of AOS armies are still low fantasy troops. That has always been a core aesthetic in WFB and AOS but now the monsters are really monstrous, Chaos is really chaotic and the Fey are really fantastical. What still discourages me from jumping into AOS is that GW's box contents and pricing never seem to match up with the game they seem to want me to play.

For example I have always enjoyed this WFB artwork:


Human soldiers of the Empire battling monstrous River Trolls with their powers of regeneration and acid vomit. A trio of trolls versus a company of human soldiers would be a fun little skirmish in my opinion, Unfortunately GW doesn't sell companies of AOS humans, they sell boxes of 10 for $30. Humans are always going to be the baseline stats for a game like WFB or AOS, they should always be overmatched by the monsters but should be able to overwhelm monsters by outnumbering them and using sound tactics and discipline. A box of 3 River Trolls for $47 is OK with me, not the best deal but certainly far from the worst. If I wanted to fight that skirmish in AOS I'd have to spend $90 on 3 boxes of the weird looking heroic scale human troops to battle the one unit of monsters that cost half as much. What makes it really frustrating is that GW is happy to sell me a box of 24 Warriors of Rohan/Gondor for $42. While that's not as good a deal as historical boxes from a company like Gripping Beast, it's still good enough to make me happy. A box of nicely proportioned, plastic human warriors for MESBG gives me 8 with spear/shield, 8 with sword/shield and 8 archers, that's a nice little company that gives me tactical flexibility and a good number of troops. I would enjoy taking those 24 human troops (and maybe a generic leader) and fight a skirmish against a unit of trolls or other monsters. It strikes a balance for me, two units that should be roughly equal in points, tabletop performance and price. I don't understand why GW doesn't want to market AOS to gamers in that way.
It doesn't make any sense to sell humans for AOS in boxes of 10. No matter how good the sculpts are 10 humans are never going to be worth much on the tabletop unless the game becomes HeroHammer and each of the humans has special magical gear and/or abilities. That kind of RPG, adventure party, dungeon crawl kind of game can be a lot of fun too but that doesn't seem to be what GW wants AOS to be either. It's a problem with AOS and it was a problem with WFB, you need the basic core troops on the table to make the heroes heroic and the monsters monstrous but GW's pricing and rules really don't make the mix work well.

Compiling the currently fragmented rules is good thing. But with Warcry chasing the tail of the "main" AoS releases how long will it be until one of these books needs supplementary material or outright replacing?

Prestor - thing is you can say the same for most armies. Skaven in boxes of 20 when in reality chances are you'd want boxes of hundreds. Same for Tyranids in 40K - you'd want hundreds of gaunts or even Imperial Guard just to counter one or two Space Marines or Chaos Warriors.


The tabletop game has always had a degree of imbalance in unit representation and honestly it always will. Even computer games have to take liberties - even the fantastic Total War series games still have only a tiny number of actual troops on the map. You can really feel this in siege games where your army can't even attack nor really defend multiple wall segments and you couldn't envision an army surrounding a settlement or at least blocking off exit/entry from it. Even in Warhammer TW games which limit you to one wall segment you still really feel the limited number of troops.

could we maybe talk about warcry in this thread?

Yes, let's stay on topic please.

Next weeks Warcry preorders including new warband sets for AoS factions

If the warband boxes stay £30 there's some good savings - Brutes alone are $32.50 plus you get 5 Ardboyz about £12 worth

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/10/18/sunday-preview-warcry-goes-underground/

Catacombs



Catacombs supplementary board pack

Just remember those other faction starter sets are generic models already out for those armies not new sculpts. They do have cards and such inside so they'll be a good buy in if you don't collect those armies already, but with the new books and the card packs chances are if you've already got those models they'll be easier to use other supplements with existing models.

They are good to see as perhaps not every faction will get their own Warcry warband and even if they do it will take a while to get them all out; so these packs are really bringing the other armies in in that "One pack and go" approach that makes Warcry work as the "intro game" for AoS at the small scale. A welcome addition for newbies.

Gesas what a huge week.

lol a bit at old Rat Ogres making a comeback!

Damn, was really hoping the Shadowstalkers and Scions would have been seperate initially as well.

lord_blackfang wrote:Gesas what a huge week.

lol a bit at old Rat Ogres making a comeback!

They never went away They are still on sale and some of the oldest plastics.

Inquisitor Gideon wrote:Damn, was really hoping the Shadowstalkers and Scions would have been seperate initially as well.

I think the last time we did this dance the warcry core packs took a few weeks/month or so to come on sale on their own. It wasn't a vast amount of time.


Interestingly looking at it again my gut feeling is this pack "should" be cheaper or at least equal in price. The last pack had a lot of terrain, two full warbands and wild beasts within it. This set appears to have a bit less terrain and no wild beasts.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Gesas what a huge week.

lol a bit at old Rat Ogres making a comeback!

even GW are acknowledging the double Rat Ogre, Giant Rat spam list

I might get the FEC set the 10 Ghouls are effectively "free" if it costs £30.

Other nice part about these boxes is that they do act as 'mixed' boxes in some cases. They're not shying away from putting half-sets or the like in them.

I really hope there's more to come.

So it looks like the warbands are

Ironjawz - 5 Brutes 5 Ardboyz total separate cost £44.17
FEC - 3 Crypt Horrors/Courtiers 10 Ghouls total separate cost £42.50
Skaven - 2 Rat Ogres 3 Packmasters 6 Giant Rats 10 Clanrats? (hard to tell) total separate cost £37.50
Kharadron Overlords - 5 Thunderers 3 Endrinriggers - total separate cost £55

Oof. I would have hoped they would have replaced the rat ogres and friend by now. Those are fairly wretched models by current standards. They could have reissued the isle of blood rat ogres...


Those scions... I want to convert them. They've got a lot of potential, but the flames sort of let the rest of the models down. Individually they look like really great cultists and RPG minis.

The elves are impressive, but I want some close ups. Can't quite decide if they're too fiddly for me.

Voss wrote:
Oof. I would have hoped they would have replaced the rat ogres and friend by now. Those are fairly wretched models by current standards. They could have reissued the isle of blood rat ogres...

Isle of Blood had lots of great sculpts - stuck on joint moulds with another army. It was a great set of new things; a disaster in terms of part sales.

Skaven do need a big update to their range, but we have to wait and see; a lot of AoS armies need similar updates (eg lizardmen) or they need a massive addition of models to add diversity.

More warcry miniature boxes is great, for warcry itself and for people building AoS armies given they offer a discount. Pretty happy to see those. The new dungeon boards look interesting too, nice to see theme diversity there. Now we just need a set of warcry dungeon walls & doors! Though in the meantime there are plenty of D&D options.

 Overread wrote:
Skaven do need a big update to their range, but we have to wait and see; a lot of AoS armies need similar updates (eg lizardmen) or they need a massive addition of models to add diversity.

I'd be all over a plastic Clan Skryre release

Skaven are overdue for a release. They've got:
*An Underworld team
*A engineer with a doom rocket
*And an assassin from silver tower
*Oh, and endless spells/terrain

Though, admittedly, they've got one of the nice rangers. Plague monks and rat ogres are dated, but most of their plastic models are great

Im guessing right now tnis will be the same price. The buildings and barricades take up 4 sprues, and im sure those doors and scatter terrain take up another 2-3 sprues, equalling what came in the original starter.

And true to gw second round starters, they always come with less than the original starter contained.

So removing the chaotic beasts the oiginal had, and keep the price the same or slightly higher, and yo7 have the cost of catacombs. $170 or higher.

I do see a catacombs book along side the core rules, so we at least know there are more rules in store for this set and the game as a whole

The Board Pack looks like the images were designed for a square board originally and stretched to fit a rectangle.
The lava canal board in the main set looks good.

 Ghaz wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Skaven do need a big update to their range, but we have to wait and see; a lot of AoS armies need similar updates (eg lizardmen) or they need a massive addition of models to add diversity.

I'd be all over a plastic Clan Skryre release

Love to see a army based around the new Ikrit / Ikit Klaw =- he was great in the Hamilcar novel and once again he has upgraded

https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ikrit

Fun stuff like:

Cogwork shock-vermin: Stormvermin clad in bronze armour, armed with shock halbards and able to execute devastating pre-programmed combat routines.
Micro-constructs: He has been able to create tiny machines that look like flecks of dust to the naked eye, these he can insert into a subject to examine its internal biological workings.
Realm Travelling Burrow: His stronghold-burrow-laboratory is able to travel through the Mortal Realms.
Warsuits: Giant suits of powered armour piloted by engineer

.

 GaroRobe wrote:
Skaven are overdue for a release. They've got:
*An Underworld team
*A engineer with a doom rocket
*And an assassin from silver tower
*Oh, and endless spells/terrain

Though, admittedly, they've got one of the nice rangers. Plague monks and rat ogres are dated, but most of their plastic models are great

Night Runners are fairly antique too; but the main issues they have are the metal/resin figures still in the range.

Anyway, that Skaven box sure makes it difficult to tell what the contents are. I know the little rat-men like to live in the shadows, but jeez, that's not a great picture. I think the box would have to include a full set of 20 clanrats though if the picture is supposed to be accurate: the shields and hand weapons (both of which are shown) are on separate sprues, each alongside 10 bodies. Depending on the price, it might be a decent purchase, even if the Rat Ogres are fairly hideous (and not in a good way). Ah, if only the Island of Blood Ogres were indeed available separately...

 Gimgamgoo wrote:
The Board Pack looks like the images were designed for a square board originally and stretched to fit a rectangle.
The lava canal board in the main set looks good.

Oh damn you're right. That's some Mantic-level mehgoodenoughism.

Ouch. The square tiles in the blister on the left photo look fine though, hopefully they just messed it up for the promo pic.

Ironjawz might be a bang for the buck. The brutez kit is fun to build.

Whoever decided it was OK to put those Rat Ogres in a box in the year of our lord 2020 should be ashamed of themselves.

Those have go to be like, 25 years old at this point? And they look like poo. Is going to absolutely tank the sales of the Skaven box.

Looking at the picture of the Catacombs starter set, I notice there are no visual of the cards for generating randomly deployment zones, victory conditions, terrains and random events. So good chances they'll be not included.

Guess that will be replaced by the Catacomb book next to the core rules.