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Right, just got the new book and have read through it, rather quickly. (Why quickly you say? Well read on and find out.)

Overall, not impressed at all. This seems more like a padded reprint of the last edition army book with some minor tweeks than a new release.

Background:
Largely recycled word for word from previous editions. To me, who has been playing O&G for 3 editions now, this was an absolute snoozefest. A new player would probably enjoy it more.

Bestiary:
Reasonably good for new entries and stuff, but again, mostly recycled. The new additions to the army are alright, and give some extra flavour at least. Rules seemed pretty clear, mostly- but no base size for Mangler Squigs is annoying, and most units have nearly exactly the same rules.

Army Pictures section: Well. Uh. It's a bunch of pictures? Pretty okay for new players I suppose but again, bored me near to death. Probably 2 conversions in the whole lot too, and no significant kitbashing. Some entries didn't even get pictures.

Army List:
The thing that will hit you (because by this time it's happened in every section) is how little innovation there is in this section. A couple of things moved around, some new entries, but largely, everything just went down in points. The magic item section is a complete joke.

Overall: I think after all the fanfare, this is an extremely poor effort by GW. There is some nice new artwork in there, but on the whole the sheer amount of recycled material is shocking, and offputting to vets. At the same time, the army manages to be offputting to new players by dint of being stupidly expensive now. 10 orcs per box? Cheaper units for just about everything? Higher points for the games?
I am also very disappointed by the lack of any kind of hobby section. I don't feel this was worth the amount of money I paid for it.

My opinion also. I looked at the store copy and thought it a thin book to be a hard back. But still, those new savage Orcs are awfully appealing. I just may be hooked.

PLEASE DON'T ADVOCATE PIRACY ON DAKKA.

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KID KYOTO

To be fair, O&G just need some tweaks to bring them up to par with 8th. That's no excuse for shoddy work, of course, but I've been happy playing with it so far.

I'm just really afraid that GW won't stick with the trends they are setting with O&G(few magic items, for example) in later books and O&G will once again be hailed as the unfortunate armybook that was the first released of an edition.

The lack of innovation in GW books is disappointing, but...

...no vet wants to see his/her existing army become null and void, because some of the unit entries got dropped. Realistically, GW can only add so much more new stuff each time an army book is redone and to be fair the Arachnarok is a pretty cool unit...

...on the other hand, the Arachnarok and the Mangler Squigs are about it for new units if I'm not mistaken. Skaven on the other hand got a veritable whole book's worth of new stuff...

...the hobby section has been done away with for some time and damned if I understand why. Fair enough, the painting articles have been picked up on the web, but no how to guides whatsoever in the army books is a shame.

Cheers for the review Boss

I have a collection of older army books and codices sitting on my shelf, and I take a look at them from time to time. The recycling of older material - especially artwork and fluff - is nothing new. I keep meaning to do a book-by-book and page-by-page analysis of what changes there are from edition to edition, but then I get bored just thinking about it.

Nowadays, all I do flip straight to the special rules sections and the army lists. The other 92 pages are pretty much wasted on me.

Flashman wrote:The lack of innovation in GW books is disappointing, but...

...no vet wants to see his/her existing army become null and void, because some of the unit entries got dropped. Realistically, GW can only add so much more new stuff each time an army book is redone and to be fair the Arachnarok is a pretty cool unit...

...on the other hand, the Arachnarok and the Mangler Squigs are about it for new units if I'm not mistaken. Skaven on the other hand got a veritable whole book's worth of new stuff...

...the hobby section has been done away with for some time and damned if I understand why. Fair enough, the painting articles have been picked up on the web, but no how to guides whatsoever in the army books is a shame.

Cheers for the review Boss

Well, looking back at what Skaven WERE, they did need a total overhaul.

Oh yeah, I know GW recycles tonnes of stuff. My review was from the perspective that the new book was more exspensive than the old, so I would be looking for more value. To me, the extra pages are all useless padding, with a more verbose style being used for all the fluff sections to pad the length of the book without any real new content. Many hoped for a section on different orc tribes or some new stuff, to justify the cost, and I am informing them that they do not recieve that. They're going to get pretty much the same army book in a hardback, colour package. I think this is a poor show from GW.

What? No section on extra fluff? Especially for the different orc tribes?

I really wish I hadnt pre-ordered the book. From the sounds of the review, I feel like Im gonna be just as dissappointed from a fluff/background standpoint.

There are a few lines on different tribes, but no pictures or artwork. The new characters also don't get their own artwork.

Not even the new characters? Damn. One of the reasons why I like picking up new codex and army books is that fluff and artwork are a huge part of the hobby for me.
I still have the old O&G armybook as well, and if there isnt much new artbook... then that's really dissappointing.
Hell, they dont even get much in the way of new units, right? Really, only the mangla squigs and arachnarok? Which to me, seems to really cater to the goblins side of the book (which is fine for those who likes goblins), but I was hoping there'd be something new for the orcs side as well.

Orcs got:
-New unit upgrade (big stabba)
-Improved bosses
-Return of a Special Character

Goblins got:
-New unit upgrade (skulkers)
-2 New characters (spider rider dude and wolf rider dude)
-Mangla Squigs
-Arachnarok spider

I don't have any big complaints rules wise, 'cept for the magic item thing. Most of the units look pretty good, and the points costs are more reasonable. Animosity is much more playable now.

Yeah, the fluff/background kind of disappointed me, not even any new stories for the new special characters, to actually give them some history and... character. That part seemed like a straight up copy/paste. Hopefully they come out with a heraldry book for the various orc and gobbo clans to add some more personality and flavor.

For the Magic Items, I think what they may be going for (for 8th) is having a handful of iconic, fluffy, race-specific items in the army book, and keeping the meat and potatoes magic items in the BRB, for ease of reference. Thats the only thing I could think of for it being so bare bones, given that Jeremy's last army book (Skaven) had eleventy billion magic items/wargear. Given GWs history, I (cynically) expect this trend to continue for 2 more army books before they switch back to 5 pages of magic items per army book.

If its any consolation to O+G players, as a beastmen player, I can tell you that our magic item selection could easily be trimmed down to O+G size, as a good amount of the magic items in our army book are kind of bad.

I personally dig the new format of hardback.

NELS1031 wrote: . . .Hopefully they come out with a heraldry book for the various orc and gobbo clans to add some more personality and flavor.

Personally I wish that that kind of attention would be put into an army book, not an extra book I have to pay for.


I think the OP's review is spot on. For myself:

The Good:
The book is really well done, great pictures and art and in full color. Production wise, this is a win.
The binding looks like it will hold out, and I can get it to lay flat.

The Bad:
The rules were tweaked so slightly in many cases buying a new book is superfluous.
Price increase over past army books.
No hobby section.

The Ugly:
Copy-paste was very evident.
No base size for mangler squigs? WTF?
It took GW this long after the release of 8th to publish, yet so little seems to have been done (hopefully they're spending all their time on TK).

I was expecting more of an "update for 8th edition" rather than complete rewrite so I'm kinda happy with it, if they can churn the rest out in good time rather than 1-2 a year it would make me extremely happy though

NELS1031 wrote:I (cynically) expect this trend to continue for 2 more army books before they switch back to 5 pages of magic items per army book.

Yes, maybe O&G will turn out to be the DA of Fantasy.

EDIT - Regarding recycling of fluff, it is a massive irrirtation to see a cut and paste job done for half the book, but I know I'd b disappointed if some of the major stuff wasn't covered e.g. In the case of skaven, I need to see the cool origin myth and I would cry foul if their battle with Nagash didn't get a mention. However, a) there's no reason the stories can't be retold in a different manner, adding more details here and there and fleshing out the characters of those involved and b) as the success of the heraldry books shows, gamers like to know more about the various different factions within their chosen race. 8 pages with a tribe/clan/principality/temple city etc on each is not too much to ask.

I also expect that by the third book at least there will be more magic items available, and for a more reasonable price. Out of all the ones in the book, the only reasonably priced one is the shrunken head.

Strelka wrote:I have a collection of older army books and codices sitting on my shelf, and I take a look at them from time to time. The recycling of older material - especially artwork and fluff - is nothing new. I keep meaning to do a book-by-book and page-by-page analysis of what changes there are from edition to edition, but then I get bored just thinking about it.

Nowadays, all I do flip straight to the special rules sections and the army lists. The other 92 pages are pretty much wasted on me.

Just wanna say we pretty much all expected this when it was announced they were going up to $40.

My fun game is spot the oldest bit of artwork in the book.

My friend and I went through the book today when we picked it up. There is some nasty stuff in there that will give a tooled out Skaven army a run for its money. If you aren't finding the nasty stuff, you aren't looking in the right place. This book is phenomenal on paper. Squig herds are worth their weight in gold now, and the pump wagons are 100x better than before. I got bored with 7th edition orcs, but this feels brand new and amazing. However, it also appears to be PERFECTLY balanced. It has awesome synergy and the models work well together, rather than just being a shambling horde like before. Color me impressed


PS. Mangler squig is not a large target but has multiple goblins with chains attached to it. Not a large target screams 40mm base to me. Seems pretty cut and dried (I'm ignoring nay-sayers who claim it isn't, btw-not gonna argue it)

I got the book and I like the rules changes.

35 point Trolls. Trolls are able to vomit in supporting ranks! They are now Special. With River and Stone being Rare (2 different listings also). That's a lot of Trolls. And Trolls are our friends.

Redone magic that's good.

200 point giants with tats.

Laser-targeted doom divers.

Animosity even animositier

Nice characters

New units with lots of silly.


I think it's a good upgrade and gives the race a whole lot of really solid builds.

I wouldn't necessarily mind the recycling of material since I have only recently returned to Fantasy after an extremely long hiatus so it is effectively all new fluff to me.

However the deal breaker for me is the price. I am the sort of person who will buy any and all codexes and army books purely to read them, see the rules and perhaps get some inspiration to maybe start a new army if so inclined. I won't be doing that with the new WHFB army books, at their new price (and one suspects 40k will follow suit too).

I could forgive the seemingly lack of new content and general 'meh' effect but I am not going to accept a price rise to wash it all down. I really do wish GW would stop treating their customers like mugs.

Is it me or did new Fantasy books just start going downhill starting with Beastmen?

I disagree entirely. I think the latest O&G book is the most balanced GW has done in a long time. The main reason behind this is the nurfing of the magic items, and the reorg of some of the units. Plus it's full-color, which is quickly becoming an industry standard these days. If the rest of the army books are like this, I think Warhammer 8th is going to be a really solid game.

Balance wise, I'm not sure I agree with you. I think it is reasonably balanced, but not the most balanced book they've done. It's still got a lot of inherent randomness and big splodey things, and I think that lends itself to a bit of an imbalance.
As I said, it's not a BAD book, rules wise, but with the price increase and the long wait I was expecting a lot more than recycled art, recycled fluff, and minor changes to the army list.

I also think you are going to be disappointed if you think GW will stick to a consistent design philosophy RE magic items- the Design Studio seems to lack any sort of discipline in this regard. Sadly.