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What I was getting at is that if you look at Cities of Sigmar?

Huge chunks of the 'elite' shooting was cut out. Waywatchers, Deepwood Scouts, Glade Guard, Glade Riders from Wood Elves.
Thunderers, Crossbowmen, and Rangers from Dwarfs.
Empire lost their Huntsmen/Archers.
Dark Elves fared okay in that they kept their Crossbowmen but lost their Shades(their 'elite' shooters).
High Elves basically ceased to exist or their stuff was shifted elsewhere.

Yes, Destruction isn't touting a lot of shooting options...but they never really have. Which is why I said what I did: that their ranged options tend to be incidental to the units in question. Troll vomit isn't really a new concept, and while it's not something that people take them for...it's a thing that is added on to the profile and an option.

See, you're coming off as disingenous again when you say "huge chunks of elite shooting was cut out" yet you bring up Huntsmen and Archers (skirmishers at best, they were never an elite unit even back in 8th ed in Fantasy). Similarly, Thunderers and Crossbowmen for Dwarves (firepower is inferior or near identical to the same handgunners/crossbowmen for Freeguild, while you conveniently seem to forget their elite shooting unit is ACTUALLY Firedrakes, which still exists). This repeats again for Wood Elves, where the majority of your units besides Waywatchers are the bog standard archer units with a a 4+ to hit and wound bow profile (hardly elite IMO) with Glade Guard just getting a once per game gimmick. Even if we were to count them as elite, then you have Sisters of the Watch as your elite archer unit that still exists.

The majority of what they did was streamlining units that didn't need repetition in Cities of Sigmar, hence why stuff like the organ gun got sent to legends, since the HBVG basically does the same thing. Hell, even with the cuts they did there's still have a lot of stuff that overlaps (all the elite 4+ race equivalents, with greatswords, hammerers, black guard and wildwood rangers). Could you imagine how much more bloated the cities book would be if they kept all the stuff you mentioned?

The fact that they were able to cut all this stuff out and still have all the shooting, not only for all the baseline races in the book, but have options for mobile shooting with gyrocopters and steam tanks, and then actual artillery pieces? I mean if you still can't see the disparity there I don't know what to say.

Also, I question you when it comes to destruction not having shooting options. Up until the grand alliances got quashed, destruction at the very least had dedicated long-range shooting units in the form of spear chukkas, rokk lobbas, and doom divers. On the non-warmachine side, Grot Wolf Riders were actually a decent mobile shooting choice that were one of the few decently armoured gobbo units that didn't have to worry about the bow's typical short range. Even basic Gitmob Grot units were actually surprisingly decent at shooting compared to their Gloomspite compatriots since they combo'ed well with the Gitmob Grot Shaman's spell to give them -1 Rend, whose bows also hit on 3's.

At the end of the day, GW has to make a stronger decision regarding what they want to do with Destruction in terms of both the narrative and their concept as a whole. I feel like they're missing an opportunity to do something that embraces more with the primal aspect of what "destruction" is, like elementals of some sort.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I have wondered why GW is so against undead having conventional ranged weapons. The last miniature release with 'normal' ranged was... ushabti with bows I think. Before that it was basic skeleton archers & chariots afaik. I would count the catapult(s) except they don't fire normal ammo. IMO missed opportunity with the OBR one to do multiple warscrolls based on what ammunition it brought; a cheap version firing normal ammo and higher point elite versions with the magic stuff.

What you class as normal ammo? They shoot ones with no special rules. Nasty ones too if you have bad armour save as lack of rend is only weakness.

 Kanluwen wrote:
Yes, Destruction isn't touting a lot of shooting options...but they never really have. Which is why I said what I did: that their ranged options tend to be incidental to the units in question. Troll vomit isn't really a new concept, and while it's not something that people take them for...it's a thing that is added on to the profile and an option.

Not really true that they never really have. Goblin Archers, Arrer Boys, Wolf Chariots, Spear Chukka, Doom Diver Catapult (the only "guided" ranged weapon in the game), and Leadbelchers all were brought over from the Old World, and that doesn't include units that could upgrade to being ranged like the Wolf Riders and Spider Riders or their artillery.

That's a pretty extensive collection when you look at how much each group in there had. A lot of other armies had jack squat in such departments, especially the Vampires and Chaos Mortals.

tneva82 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I have wondered why GW is so against undead having conventional ranged weapons. The last miniature release with 'normal' ranged was... ushabti with bows I think. Before that it was basic skeleton archers & chariots afaik. I would count the catapult(s) except they don't fire normal ammo. IMO missed opportunity with the OBR one to do multiple warscrolls based on what ammunition it brought; a cheap version firing normal ammo and higher point elite versions with the magic stuff.

What you class as normal ammo? They shoot ones with no special rules. Nasty ones too if you have bad armour save as lack of rend is only weakness.

'Normal' is a rather vague term in this case, you got me there. As a rule of thumb I would call 'normal ammo' as being something that would work even without any magic. The necrotic skulls are both visually and fluff-wise quite magical. I would have liked to see a cheaper mundane catapult throwing junk bone or even just rocks (seriously, nothing wrong with lobbing a bunch of rocks at the enemy). As for its actual rules... I see that warscroll as a major failure in design; it is extremely unfun.

How are Idoneth doing now? I bought a couple boxes a year ago because I love those miniatures and (because of life stuff) never got the opportunity of building and playing with them.
Are they still just ¡¡¡EELS!!! or can you play with other stuff and still win sometimes?
I've got the big battleforce, the start collecting and Volturnos.

 Denegaar wrote:
How are Idoneth doing now? I bought a couple boxes a year ago because I love those miniatures and (because of life stuff) never got the opportunity of building and playing with them.
Are they still just ¡¡¡EELS!!! or can you play with other stuff and still win sometimes?
I've got the big battleforce, the start collecting and Volturnos.

Idoneth suffer from having a very old book by AoS standards. I think it's now the oldest 'designed with 2.0 in mind' Battletome? Regardless, they appear to be featuring in the Morathi book coming up, so it's a reasonable assumption they're either due a new book soon, or they'll receive their update in there.

IDK are just fine still a very strong army and now with point changes a couple more models are playable. But it is still mostly Eels. I have won small (20man) events with a Leviadon, but I was still using 15 Eels. At least you can play with Allopex's now and not feel bad, a unit or 2 of Thralls is still fine as well as they did get a little cheaper and are still heavy hitters.

Are there any weak underperforming factions at the moment? The KO seemed to have gotten out of that sump with their book.

I believe that Nighthaunt are somewhat underpowered compared to many others.

In general the extreme underpowered issues that we had are pretty much all gone because now every faction does have a 2.0 Battletome. There are some, like Idoneth, which are reliant on somewhat limited options to get power; whilst some like Slaanesh still break things with multiple keepers.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Are there any weak underperforming factions at the moment? The KO seemed to have gotten out of that sump with their book.

Nighthaunt, Beastmen, Sylvaneth, Maggotkin (WotE helped) are probably in the worst shape. Idoneth has terrible internal balance and Legions of Nagash is starting to show it's age.

NH, Gobs, and Sylvaneth are the worst. Many think Maggotkin and BoC are bad but they honestly are not. MoN actually is alawys doing "well" though never top 5 but alwayspunching in the upper part of events and mid tables. Many top BoC players are going 4-1 at majors (I have before too) and any one able to go 4-1 shows the book is capable. Also MoN has the most units in the game to work with, its more about finding the right combo which many players don't want to do with that army b.c its not the normal point and click army.

BH and Sylvaneth really needs a change though, I would like BoC to get updated even though they are working its only 1/3 of their book that works. But Sylvaneth needs help right now.

 Arbitrator wrote:

 Denegaar wrote:
How are Idoneth doing now? I bought a couple boxes a year ago because I love those miniatures and (because of life stuff) never got the opportunity of building and playing with them.
Are they still just ¡¡¡EELS!!! or can you play with other stuff and still win sometimes?
I've got the big battleforce, the start collecting and Volturnos.

Idoneth suffer from having a very old book by AoS standards. I think it's now the oldest 'designed with 2.0 in mind' Battletome? Regardless, they appear to be featuring in the Morathi book coming up, so it's a reasonable assumption they're either due a new book soon, or they'll receive their update in there.

Oldest would be Nurgle, but GW gave us a boost in Wrath of the Everchosen via 'sub-factions' that are basically a flat buff to the faction. Anyways, I would say that while Idoneth have a relatively old book it was designed extremely well and its problems have been noticeably reduced via subsequent points adjustments. Eels remain the only tournament-viable option but the rest of the book (save perhaps Allopex) is perfectly playable in all but the most cutthroat of metas.


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 Arbitrator wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Are there any weak underperforming factions at the moment? The KO seemed to have gotten out of that sump with their book.

Nighthaunt, Beastmen, Sylvaneth, Maggotkin (WotE helped) are probably in the worst shape. Idoneth has terrible internal balance and Legions of Nagash is starting to show it's age.

As always, it is difficult to summarize/generalize the situation into a short form; to really communicate the picture would require some detail on what is good within each faction as internal balance can be anywhere from solid to just terrible. However Aritrator does a good job summing it up about as well as it can be. Though I disagree that Idoneth have terrible internal balance; I feel that points adjustments have pushed them to above average in that respect. Which as I type I realize is not mutually exclusive with "terrible" in AoS' case because having plainly awful internal balance is pretty much the norm. So I refine my statement to '"Idoneth do not struggle particularly more than most factions when it comes to internal balance."

Worth noting that the Luminoth boxed set (with the models, tokens and battletome) is going to be removed from sale at the end of this week. So if you want to start them I'd grab that box now!

I always felt that Stormcast Eternals was one of the factions that desperately need rework.
This became even more pronounced after the release of ossiarchs, tzeentch, seraphon and lumineth overlords.

Large number of warscrolls are from AoS "1.0" when points system did not even exist.
Most of the battlelines choices, paladins, dracothian guards, for example.
And despite the constant price drop via GHB, many of these units are still considered to be subpar.
Allegiance ability also pales in comparison to post-2019 battletomes.
And even the new GHB missions(Total Commitment, Better Part of Valour, Focal Points, Shifting Objectives) put Stormcasts at disadvantage mostly.

Nowadays it seems remotely-competitive stormcasts rely heavily on Seraphon Kroak.
The rest of the lists is more or less relegated to supporting tools for Kroak to survive and blast enemies with his own magic.
Even then Stormcasts seem to barely go 3-2 on tournaments, let alone 4-1 or 5-0.

I think they need to ditch the name "age of sigmar" and call it what it really is: "Age of occasionally kind of good elves fighting bad, bad humans while a couple of others watch"

We get one stretch of a story arc centered around Elves and all of a sudden it's now the Age of Elves?

Huh. So when was it Age of Chaos?

 Kanluwen wrote:
We get one stretch of a story arc centered around Elves and all of a sudden it's now the Age of Elves?

Huh. So when was it Age of Chaos?

Age of Mythology - the setup for the whole Mortal Realms that had most factions of Order, Death and Destruction allied together at one time or another and generally saw the growth of every nation across the Realms. Godbeasts walk the lands; Gods walk the lands.

Age of Chaos - Chaos invades en-mass and sparks a massive war. Gods are defeated and driven into hiding; Sigmar closes the Realmgates; Chaos destroys most nations and shatters them over 500 years of steady corruption.

Age of Sigmar - Sigmar returns and smashes into the Chaos invasion forces with his Stormcast. Rallying the remains of the other races and gods; pulling all together; restoring order and generally kicking chaos back. Then Nagash unleashes his Necroquake. Basically the current age of the setting; Far as anyone can tell its a ffew hundred years along already (thus allowing for the establishment of restored cities and generations of shorter lived creatures like humans to have grown up behind the enemy lines so that the Age of Chaos is a dark story - even though the lands are stil mostly owned by barbarian and wild tribes and nations who worship chaos.

Aelves have several active gods - each with their own Realm and one wannabee Goddess.
Duardin have at least one and sorta a couple of others.

Humans have just the one.

Morathi is working her schemes everywhere - even Gotrek is running around with a hot Aelf gal - who alos happens to worship Khaine.

Sarcasm gets missed sometimes, I think.

I know we actually had an Age of Chaos--but if someone's going to snarkily refer to the game as "Age of Elves" when we've gotten a whopping three Elf armies(Lumineth, Idoneth, Daughters of Khaine) and one Elf adjacent army(Sylvaneth)?

I'll dang well call the game Age of Chaos, because we've had just as much there if not more!

Yeah I know, but some might not spot the sarcasm so I put the description in for the confused

 Mr Morden wrote:

Humans have just the one.

Arguably Humans have Nagash too, since you can get a more cozy gig in the afterlife if you do.

Yeah, Nagash is a human god but has also broken the racial borders to be the god of death overall, with his own grand alliance to boot! And this is all after, way back when, he took Dark Elf magic and invented necromancy. Clearly Aelves are just scrubs who have been outdone by a human! Get on Nagash's level, scrubs!

 Kanluwen wrote:
We get one stretch of a story arc centered around Elves and all of a sudden it's now the Age of Elves?

Huh. So when was it Age of Chaos?

That seems like being obtuse just for the sake of it

But even you can't deny, there are 3 distinct elven factions, the promise of one more in the future (shadow elves) and two factions with elf flavor (the Aleriells home and garden center, and the free cities which have a healthy Aelven component.)

This of.course means Humans, true humans have half a faction; storm casts are something other than human, and at least in the early days, if I recall correctly were said to have elves and dwarves in their number. You're a lore.giy, Kan, so I reckon you would know if that still technically stands lore wise or not.

and then of course the free cities are partially human, being a hodgepodge of left.over kits bound together through a lore explanation.

Which leaves us with the obvious~ humans are primarily represented by chaos.

order is primarily represented by elves.

Humans feature fairly well in the lore, however the human factions dno't really appear on tabletop. The humans in the lore - or at least the free cities - are fully steam-punk.

It's a model line revision we've not yet seen but is likely to be a massive change for the range once it comes. The debate will be on if GW changes the current Cities or introduces steam punk humans as a separate line of models.

By your logic, Order is actually primarily represented by Duardin. Seeing as how they have:
Chunks of Ironweld Arsenal
Dispossessed
Fyreslayers
Kharadron Overlords

The 'early days' of Stormcast are weird. I don't think we'll ever get to know where they wanted to go with things. But that said?
There's four Elven factions, a faction with an Elf lady(Sylvaneth) and forest spirits plus the Free Cities having a mishmash of the refugees of the Elf race in there. Because it's a disjointed mess.

'True Humans' have more representation within the Cities of Sigmar than you're claiming they do though. Freeguild are a mercenary grouping of humans fighting across the Realms. Devoted of Sigmar are the Flagellants and Witch Hunters(still in the lore, just not in the book) who are reblessing the corrupted Realms in Sigmar's name.
Colleges of Magic are literally humans only. Dwarves can't do magic and Elves don't need to be instructed the same way humans do.

I'm actually not complaining- my least favorite.part.of.the setting is actually sigmar, the storm casts and how the free cities are.represented.

I'd be much happier if the free humans of the realms had just as much variation as their chaos brethren rather than what we'll probably get which is gun toting imperial guard.proxies to.go along the space marine proxies.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kanluwen wrote:
By your logic, Order is actually primarily represented by Duardin. Seeing as how they have:
Chunks of Ironweld Arsenal
Dispossessed
Fyreslayers
Kharadron Overlords

The 'early days' of Stormcast are weird. I don't think we'll ever get to know where they wanted to go with things. But that said?
There's four Elven factions, a faction with an Elf lady(Sylvaneth) and forest spirits plus the Free Cities having a mishmash of the refugees of the Elf race in there. Because it's a disjointed mess.

'True Humans' have more representation within the Cities of Sigmar than you're claiming they do though. Freeguild are a mercenary grouping of humans fighting across the Realms. Devoted of Sigmar are the Flagellants and Witch Hunters(still in the lore, just not in the book) who are reblessing the corrupted Realms in Sigmar's name.
Colleges of Magic are literally humans only. Dwarves can't do magic and Elves don't need to be instructed the same way humans do.

Nah, by my logic.its.still.elves as two of your four factions are within free cities, if I remember right, essentially making them just part of one, and then two other fleshed out, interesting concepts.

And again, humans might be in free.cities, but its.not even a faction all their own, and is just a hodge.podge of old kits.

when humans start getting new non.storm cast releases with a range.of variety of faction.as the elves get I'll change my.tune happily!

See, here's the problem with that logic:

Humans are the ones primarily making up Azyr's forces. The Cities of Sigmar are primarily human. There's no cities that are primarily Elven or Duardin.

 Kanluwen wrote:
See, here's the problem with that logic:

Humans are the ones primarily making up Azyr's forces. The Cities of Sigmar are primarily human. There's no cities that are primarily Elven or Duardin.

Until its on the tabletop, what does.it matter?

 Kanluwen wrote:
See, here's the problem with that logic:

Humans are the ones primarily making up Azyr's forces. The Cities of Sigmar are primarily human. There's no cities that are primarily Elven or Duardin.

Do we know that?