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.

Things of note:

Pitched Battle profiles will be a seperate booklet and a free digital download. This will let them update profiles for books that were released after GH2019 was finished (BoK, Gloomspite, FEC and Fireslayers were mentioned specifically).

Focus is on 'games that can be played on a dining room table'.
1000 point games.
City fight rules.
Rules for stringing a campaign together using the smaller games above. "Play a campaign in a day".

Nothing we hadn't heard about before I don't think, just more confirmation.

zamerion wrote:
A lot of salt

Possible changes of points

Pretty sure this was quickly debunked as 4chan wishlisting.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 timetowaste85 wrote:
I’d say there’s about a 0.000001% chance of anything Slaanesh related being point adjusted. GHB was already at the printers before HoS came out. So...I’m good

There's no mention of Slaanesh in the leaked picture--which is what the hubbub is about since Fyreslayers are in there.

Leaked picture was confirmed to be a wishlist from reddit shared around with no context.

Biggest surprise is Darkling Covens and Wanderers considering that the store still lists both under the aelf block. Then again inclusion in the GHB confirms nothing about their future just that GW hasn't forgotten them. What will be interesting is to see if any other forces join up with them. Eg Order Draconis joining with Darklings.

Free Peoples being in the book is also curious, perhaps this is a hint that their book is much further off than we might have hoped and thus GW are giving a bit of a hold over.

Darkling Covens, Wanderers, and Free Peoples were in the previous two GHBs.

Brayherd were in GHB3 and got a battletome, what... 4 months after?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Brayherd were in GHB3 and got a battletome, what... 4 months after?

I would guess 6 months or so as the rough target GW has aimed for (that takes it up to around Christmas - big selling period) in terms of if factions got a battletome in that bracket they'd not be in the GHB. 4 months is closer, but not a bad time either, certainly more than enough time to get use and value out of the GHB before getting a full faction update.

That said there's still a good number of battletome waiting factions that aren't mentioned as being in the GHB so we've got that to mull over; however thus far we've actually got very little to go on for battletomes after the delayed sylvanath

 His Master's Voice wrote:
Whether they should be gone is up for debate, but there's just no way GW will let WFB characters rot in the attic. You don't throw away a solid chunk of recognizable, unique content just because your previous management suffered from early onset of dementia.

Well said.

Look how fast DC retreated from their New 52

GW put up the first preview article for the General's Handbook, mercenary companies:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/10/the-generals-handbook-2019-mercenary-companiesgw-homepage-post-2/

Things that caught my attention:

1. The idea is put forth that the rules are mainly but not only for narrative play, citing pitched battles. I'm not that versed in the current terminology. Is that equivalent to matched play, or something different?

2. The Chaos Marauder company with a Darkoath character as leader is introduced as Darkoath as a whole. Is this new? They're all Slaves to Darkness, but I wasn't aware that the Marauders had the Darkoath keyword as well as this may suggest.

Pitched battles are the type of matched play that uses points, battleline minimums, hero, behemoth and artillery maximums, allies points, and uses specific scenarios/battleplans.

I don't think it's clear yet what the keywords will be for darkoath or slaves to darkness going forward. If marauders gain the darkoath keyword I imagine that'd happen when a battletome eventually comes out. The mercenary companies likely spell out the particular units and don't care about keywords.

I am thrilled that there are now two differnt books with two different sets of rules for mercenaries.

 Geifer wrote:
GW put up the first preview article for the General's Handbook, mercenary companies:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/10/the-generals-handbook-2019-mercenary-companiesgw-homepage-post-2/

Things that caught my attention:

1. The idea is put forth that the rules are mainly but not only for narrative play, citing pitched battles. I'm not that versed in the current terminology. Is that equivalent to matched play, or something different?

2. The Chaos Marauder company with a Darkoath character as leader is introduced as Darkoath as a whole. Is this new? They're all Slaves to Darkness, but I wasn't aware that the Marauders had the Darkoath keyword as well as this may suggest.

The translation is that it is not automatically matched play legal (so TFG can't just show up with merc cheese every battle) but is completely compatible for those who want to use it. In simple terms it means "this is for theme armies and not min-maxxing." IMO that is perfect and completely as it should be.

Darkoath is the term for marauders and associated units. They are Slaves to Darkness, but the beefier armored StDs are not Darkoath.

Right. Thanks, guys. Keeps the door open for me as if I play Age of Sigmar again, I'll likely only get Matched Play games but would still like a combined living/not so living Shyish army.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
I am thrilled that there are now two differnt books with two different sets of rules for mercenaries.

You did read the Warhammer Community article?

The General’s Handbook 2019 contains rules for 10 mercenary companies, including the Greyfyrd Lodge Fyreslayers and the Tenebrous Court Flesh-eater Courts from Forbidden Power.

Anyone know if the book will contain any updates for the FW lists? In particular the chaos dwarfs

gilljoy wrote:
Anyone know if the book will contain any updates for the FW lists? In particular the chaos dwarfs

I believe FW comes out with their own downloadable points list, independent of GHB.

Yeah chaos dwarfs aren't going to be in a GW book unfortunately.

The General's Handbook: Meeting Engagements on Warhammer Community.

Nifty and fun for casual use. But they are pushing it for tournaments, which is going to make me much more critical. Maybe there are some additional rules not mentioned in the article which address the massive balance issues.

How do Blood Knights stack up compared to Chaos Knights? Right now my Order of the Fly list has two units of CKs, one being full knights of the Order, the other mounted, armourded sergeants-at-arms. And Varanguards for truly exceptional individuals. The "knight" knights could become Blood Knights to have a different profile compared to the unwashed armsmen.

(Yeah, I'll probably never get to play a game, anyway, but *IF* I did it might be cool )

Blood Knights are 260 points for 5 and they fight like it.

Why not melee-geared marauder horsemen for the sergeants?

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Nifty and fun for casual use. But they are pushing it for tournaments, which is a joke. Maybe there are some additional rules not mentioned in the article which actually address the massive balance issues.

Maybe wait for the rules to release...

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Blood Knights are 260 points for 5 and they fight like it.

Why not melee-geared marauder horsemen for the sergeants?

Short answer: I have another unit for mere Marauder Horsemen.


Long answer: Because I wanted several units of heavy horse, but building full knights out of the CK kit, Stormcast bits, Death Guard bits, many small bits from whatever fit, self made lances, sculpted cloth barding for the plastic CK horsies, elaborate helmet ornaments for each one's coat of arms, shields, even an old Archaon on a Dorghar with it's flesh skinned in stripes to look like barding was wayyy too much work to plan on another unit like it So I made up a system of three tiers for the professional commoner soldiers of the Order, first they form light mounted regiments (so marauder horsemen), second step is heavy infantry (Chaos Warriors, whereas the full knights are Blightkings when dismounted) and if they get promoted from that they keep the armour and gain a horse and identical shields and helmets to form a unit of heavy horse (The Locust). Much easier to build with everyone getting the fly shield from the Lord of Blights (thanks, silicone mould!) and a insectoid helmet once I cut that one robed Blightlord helmet free and resculpt and copy it. Peasant levy = regular Marauders.

The meeting engagement rules sound good to me. Though they'll be a bit tougher on slower armies. I also wonder how it works with deploying into the grave or in the heavens or whatever.

Umbros wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Nifty and fun for casual use. But they are pushing it for tournaments, which is a joke. Maybe there are some additional rules not mentioned in the article which actually address the massive balance issues.

Maybe wait for the rules to release...

Yeah I was a bit hyperbolic there.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Nifty and fun for casual use. But they are pushing it for tournaments, which is going to make me much more critical. Maybe there are some additional rules not mentioned in the article which address the massive balance issues.

Based on your initial impressions, what do you consider to be the issues?

Looks like the sort of product you get when you task an intern to fill 20 pages in one day.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Looks like the sort of product you get when you task an intern to fill 20 pages in one day.

Nope, seems like a great idea. maybe it will be bad in practice - time and the rules will tell - but the idea of providing a framework for smaller game sizes is great - many of the scenarios used in matched play do not scale well.

There are already quite a few restrictions/mecanisms shown on Warhammer Community that make it different from the usual optimization, so I'm not too concerned about these so called massive balance issues.

You can't take more than two units of the same warscroll, unless they're part of a battalion - given the price of those at such a small scale game, it's likely to be a double edged sword. Also, you can only take minimum size units, or double the minimum size for battleline, reducing a lot of potential for warscrolls having advantage with a higher number of models.

Also, the way you build the list (separation of your army in three bodies - spearhead, main body and rearguard) definitely plays a role in battleplans, since it determines which units start on the board and which turn the others come.

So it plays differently. Interesting tactics and strategies coming up with that new format.

Of course, the usual people will keep saying it's a bad idea/badly written, but I don't see why we should keep listening to them anyway. They clearly don't know what they're talking about at this point.

The idea is interesting as a 1000 points with more limited unit choices could be a good thing for competitive play

problem is that is not really balanced by default and will favour different armies as those who need to spam their good units will suffer

Advantage is that with smaller space used and smaller armies mean less play time, one day tournaments can fit more people in the usually smaller location and play more games a day