Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

They might be trying to get as much diversity out before 9th edition to try and keep other markets happy. Since July-August is going to be heavily dominated by 9th edition releases that GW can't shift around.

Also with cities now going into lockdown in the UK, GW likely wants 9th edition out on time without fail because of the risk of Nottingham getting a selective lockdown. 9thed is likely their biggest warehouse storage and shipment of the year (until Christmas) so they likely don't want to end up sitting on all that stock unsold.

At the same time they likely can't push the model releases faster because their back-end is still slowed up through safety measures. We might see this improve, who knows GW might be looking to put up temp outdoor covers or move rooms/offices/machines around to try and allow for a greater number of warehouse packers to work safely at the same time.

It'll be interesting to see if there are Sons of Behemat references in this.

Yeah well it was already pretty much stated by GW rest of elves would follow later.

 Niiai wrote:
What in that table is point adjustements and the removal of realm magic items (etherial amulet)? Asking for an ogor player.

Points are released in a separate booklet that is packaged with the GHB.

 mokoshkana wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
What in that table is point adjustements and the removal of realm magic items (etherial amulet)? Asking for an ogor player.

Points are released in a separate booklet that is packaged with the GHB.

Yep. From the Sunday Preview article...

 lare2 wrote:
It'll be interesting to see if there are Sons of Behemat references in this.

There are; preview from the other day for team games showed a force-alliance matrix and they were on it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Niiai wrote:
What in that table is point adjustements and the removal of realm magic items (etherial amulet)? Asking for an ogor player.

I do not know about removal of realm items (those charts sure could use some work though) but I see pages for updated realm rules which I am extremely excited to see.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Niiai wrote:
What in that table is point adjustements and the removal of realm magic items (etherial amulet)? Asking for an ogor player.

I do not know about removal of realm items (those charts sure could use some work though) but I see pages for updated realm rules which I am extremely excited to see.

I have never used the realm rules as they are quite silly in my opinion. They open up a level of combos that should not exist (mostly due to the fact that when creating battletomes, the writers do not account for the power of various realm relics). Also, when tournaments use realm rules stating that a battle takes place in realm X, it cant unfairly help/hurt people depending on how they build their lists. All of these things should ABSOLUTELY be available in Narrative/Open play. They don't belong in matched play.

They do exist in matched play as they are part of the core rules, omitting them is a house rule. Albeit a common one, for reasons you described quite well.

Several years back I began making a conscious effort in resetting my expectations for matched play to a level... more appropriate for GW. I highly recommend it.

I'm a fan of realm rules, but treat them as an optional thing. Like, I'll ask my opponent ahead of time if they wish to play a specific realm, or roll for one, ahead of time while we're planning the game.

Speaking of... I wish GW would re-release their Realm spinner thing that was in WHFB at one point. That was cool.

If they're going to write their books all over the map in power level it would have been nice to keep one of the things helping the crap books hang in there.

 Eldarain wrote:
If they're going to write their books all over the map in power level it would have been nice to keep one of the things helping the crap books hang in there.

What?

 mokoshkana wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
If they're going to write their books all over the map in power level it would have been nice to keep one of the things helping the crap books hang in there.

What?

The Realm Artifacts were one of the few ways for the terrible books to compete.

You contend they don't account for the power of realm relics when writing Battletomes. I contend they don't account for the power of the other Battletomes when writing them so cutting out the Artifacts is unwise.

 Eldarain wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
If they're going to write their books all over the map in power level it would have been nice to keep one of the things helping the crap books hang in there.

What?

The Realm Artifacts were one of the few ways for the terrible books to compete.

You contend they don't account for the power of realm relics when writing Battletomes. I contend they don't account for the power of the other Battletomes when writing them so cutting out the Artifacts is unwise.

This would be great if the broken battletomes did not get to also use the broken relics.

So... am I missing the part where the custom character creation rules are? I can't seem to find it in the table of contents you listed...

leerm02 wrote:

So... am I missing the part where the custom character creation rules are? I can't seem to find it in the table of contents you listed...

Page 56.

Ah, I had no idea it was called that. Thanks mate! Looks like we get 10 whole pages on it, which is more than I expected. Could it actually be fleshed out? Do we dare hope?

Hoping for some nerfs to bonereapers. Okay maybe i'm overreacting but in 3 games never felt i had any chance. Not even today list tailoring vs them.

Don't mind if some fec units gets nerfbat in return. Especially if some of their weaker ones would get buff helping internal balance

leerm02 wrote:
Ah, I had no idea it was called that. Thanks mate! Looks like we get 10 whole pages on it, which is more than I expected. Could it actually be fleshed out? Do we dare hope?

They talked about it in the short video, albeit briefly. And since it is not Matched Play, you can pretty much do what you want anyway.

tneva82 wrote:
Hoping for some nerfs to bonereapers. Okay maybe i'm overreacting but in 3 games never felt i had any chance. Not even today list tailoring vs them.

Don't mind if some fec units gets nerfbat in return. Especially if some of their weaker ones would get buff helping internal balance

Bonereapers will be difficult to handle correctly because so much of their excess is down to sub-faction and not the units themselves. Further, where units are the problem it's more due to rules integration than being straight-up too powerful. I expect that enough problem areas will be missed that they can still be min-maxxed to create an overpowered list, but it will take a bit of work.

Yeah that's my fear. 3+ save with easy reroll is hard to balance with points because then you nerf other less obnoxious subfactions. And pointing multiple buffs is hard. Rend2, explodes on 5+, hitting on 2"s and rr1 is not bad on itself but put all 3 to same tough unit...

Katakros going up in points (and Vokmortian going down) would be the main, if not only, points adjustments they need. Petrifax needs an errata to nerf it heavily. They would still be a viable sub-faction if the +1 to save buff was the only thing they got. Or if they got everything else but not the +1 to save buff. The artifact is fantastic, the command trait is a great combo with it, and the command ability is downright broken because it can be used at any time (seriously, you can wait until your enemy rolls saves THEN use it).

Not to mention the catapults and harvesters which both have serious issues in rule design that make for seriously unfun gameplay.

Blightkings going down in points was not what I expected. Petrifex should be ignore rend 1. Watching those annoying bastards get a 5+ rerolled save against the heaviest hitters is awful.

Uggg nerfing the Realm rules is going to suck. I kinda of rely on them for my Cities of Sigmar army.

Lovely

Considering the realm rules are the most commonly bemoaned thing I read about from the tournament crowd, this does not surprise me.

From https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/07/02/generals-handbook-matched-play/

"some favourites may now take up a bigger slot in your list, while other options have gone down in points (looking at you Liberators and Putrid Blightkings)"

Oh look. Some people just realised Liberators were overpriced. How perceptive. Ha-ha.
I hope the same people also realise points nerf on key SCE units(evocators, ballistas) in 2019 was a mistake during the heyday of HoS, Skaven, FeC.

Do be honest, I believe simple points reduction can only do so much for SCE units with AoS 1.0 warscrolls.
They also need fundamental revamp on their warscrolls.
And even some of the latest Sacrosanct chamber units need rework desperately.
Castigators and Lord-Exorcist for example.

The sorry state of current SCE battletome, along with the spread of COVID19, is what stopped me from buying AoS products for the last 4 months.

Blightkings weren't underperforming, if anything they were Nurgle's crutch. I am thoroughly disappointed GW felt that unit of Nurgle's lineup needed a points drop.

Anyways, happy to see realm rules getting reworked and condensed. One of my biggest complaints has been how bloated they are, so I am very happy to see GW addressing that.

If you’ve not tried Meeting Engagement yet, you’re missing out.

I'm not sure what drugs GW was on when they decided meeting engagements are anything resembling a functional wargame. But if it lets them enjoy that mess of a ruleset I definitely want some.

Ehh Liberators are fine, they just aren't made to kill stuff. They are suppose to hold the line. A unit of 10 backed up with a Lord Castellant can have a 3+ save and re-roll 1's. They can be hard to shift which is the point of them.

The only problem is that Sequitors are just so much better for only slightly more in points.

There is a reason why many competitive SCE lists take 3 units of min-sized liberators as mandatory battelines.

True, they are not killy at all. And they are not that hard to shift at all, too.
4+ save for re-rolling 1's and 2 wounds per model is far from durable in my opinion.
Other armies with more recent battletome have battleline units which have either more wounds per point or better rend, attacks or special rules.
For the same points value, I would rather have Cities of Sigmar freeguilds than liberators. The former has more number of wounds, and their save can be improved to 4+ if they have swords and shields. The only saving grace of liberators in this case would be the special weapon held by liberator-prime, which unfortunately has either 3+/4+ or 4+/3+ stats.

If someone actually took 10 or more liberators for a single unit, then congratulations.
That is 100 or more points not spent on evocators or Vanguard-Raptors with Longstrike Raptors which are some of the few saving graces of current SCE, albeit being far from most optimal choices in the entire AoS. I am quite sure sure anyone having trouble removing 5+ liberators is playing the most casual games or is relatively new to this game.
There are many, many factions in this game that would eat such unit for breakfast even if there were support from Lord-Castellant.

And I am not even mentioning some of the best armies' batteline choices. HoS battlelince choices or the dreaded Petrix Mortek guards.
Even Ironjaw and Khorne have battleline choices which are no less durable than liberators, and they are far more lethal than the liberators.
Or even chaos warriors with shields from Slaves of Darkness battletome.
And these factions are reputedly not as egregious as HoS, Ossiarchs or Seraphon.
I personally struggle to find battleline choices which are actually worse than liberators. Maybe I can find ones from nighthaunt or Beasts of Chaos, which also seem to be suffering as underling factions.

Sequitors indeed are better. But that is all. We are not living in summer 2018 where sequitors and evocators were one of the most cost effective units in AoS.
HoS, Skaven, FeC, Fyreslayers, Tzeentch, Ossiarchs, and even Lumineths have battleline choices with excellent rules which are no less inferior to sequitors.
In fact, I would rather rate theirs having more impact in the meta than the sequitors as of now.
Sould Shields' re-rolls seem nice at first glance, until you realise they can only re-roll "failed" save rolls which makes them highly vulnerable to attacks with even moderate rend values.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

If you’ve not tried Meeting Engagement yet, you’re missing out.

I'm not sure what drugs GW was on when they decided meeting engagements are anything resembling a functional wargame. But if it lets them enjoy that mess of a ruleset I definitely want some.

Meeting engagements are an amazing way to play the game. My FLGS community prefers it to the traditional 2k games for tournaments because they are quicker and more importantly they curb all kinds of stupidly broken combos due to warscroll and points restrictions.

Wait, lower point games take less time? Who'd have thought.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/07/03/the-generals-handbook-2020-building-your-heroes/

Custom hero building rules in here, using a system called Destiny Points. Wonder how robust it is. GW made a note, recommending to multiply the "Destiny points" used by 10, if you wanted to use the hero in Matched Play. I doubt it'll be allowed for most tournaments, but I hope it'll be cool.