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I agree with Overread. Since 40k books are done - along with the revenues they brought - it would be a good time to work on the AoS books to keep that money ticking in. Especially since they can now work in 2.0 versions of those books after Soul Wars was released.

It is my hope that they do in fact bring all of the other factions up to speed this year.

I’d rather they ‘tidy up’ as many existing factions as they can before making new new stuff. Could create a lot more confidence in the game. Wanderers, Dispossessed, Gutbusters, Fyreslayers, Bonesplittaz, Ironjawz, all those types of forces.

auticus wrote:
It is my hope that they do in fact bring all of the other factions up to speed this year.

Fingers crossed! Though I would say the greater importance is updating factions without a Battletome. At least factions that have a tome have a solid future with AoS and players can expect new content and updates. Those factions/subfactions without one are still in the grey areas where their players don't know if they are going to get a new tome or if they are going to be combined up or squatted or whatever. Those are the factions to "fix" first so that new players can leap on in with them. Though yes alongside updated tomes are important too - esp since as time goes on new players will discourage new gamers from getting the "soon to be updated" tomes (esp since they are just collections of Warscrolls that GW makes free access of right now)

I feel that regardless of battletome or not, that factions that are left down in the lower tier of play harms the community as a whole because it drives off people that don't want to play jobber to someone else based on the army that they happen to love having subpar rules while the army that the other guy has happens to be an adepticon / lvo dream.

I'm betting Ironjawz will get wrapped together with Greenskinz for a generic Orruk battletome. Bonesplittaz not so sure because they already have a pretty well fleshed allegiance that works fine.


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auticus wrote:
I feel that regardless of battletome or not, that factions that are left down in the lower tier of play harms the community as a whole because it drives off people that don't want to play jobber to someone else based on the army that they happen to love having subpar rules while the army that the other guy has happens to be an adepticon / lvo dream.

This. People like to have their army at least be viable. I completely feel that some of the allegiances with really limited selection should be given very strong allegiance abilities to compensate. Like the Soulblight allegiance; what if they let invocation heal blood knights and vargheists? It's strong, but it's letting them use an ability that is otherwise neutered by the selection of targets within allegiance (fell bats and bat swarms). Maybe give d3 healing from the hunger too. It makes their soulblight characters really strong but that's all they have and it hurts them.

auticus wrote:
I feel that regardless of battletome or not, that factions that are left down in the lower tier of play harms the community as a whole because it drives off people that don't want to play jobber to someone else based on the army that they happen to love having subpar rules while the army that the other guy has happens to be an adepticon / lvo dream.

As a KO player, I feel like a jobber a lot of the time. Ironjawz probably feel the same way. So again, they should really sort out what already exists first before making anything new.

Getting Battletomes out for the GHB books should be relatively easy. Take the Dispossessed for example. Using what they’ve done before as a standard, give them a book, a terrain feature, a new character model (in lieu of endless spells), return all their artillery and war machines to them, and rebox the warriors/thunderers to have 20 models and hey presto, the benchmark duardin are safely secured in the game for good. The GHB rules are perfectly fine, just add a few extra artefacts, and this army would be 100% plastic and have 18 different unit options when you factor in the wargear options.

You KNOW they would get 'endless runes' don't even try to wriggle out of that one.

Sidenote: Would 100% jump on a Duardin fortification terrain piece. Don't even care if it's becoming an overused gimmick at this point.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
You KNOW they would get 'endless runes' don't even try to wriggle out of that one.

I wouldn’t be mad if they dropped the whole ‘Dawrves don’t do magic’ trope that was a staple of WHFB Dwarves, barring the Chaos types and gave Fyreslayers a wizard. Its a brave new world, change things up, GW!

Make the Runemaster a wizard, he’s probably the biggest gak character on the roster. The Battlesmith and Runesmiter can be the priests.

Do you guys think Free Peoples would get a tome and a terrain piece? Or do you reckon they’ll be rounded up in this year’s GHB again, just with the steam tank and mages and such?

Mini cogfort model that can be assembled as a walking tower unit or just a tower terrain and a walking platform unit. Right after Battletome: Firebellies.

/Wishlisting

 Tiberius501 wrote:
Do you guys think Free Peoples would get a tome and a terrain piece? Or do you reckon they’ll be rounded up in this year’s GHB again, just with the steam tank and mages and such?

It's impossible to say really.

We know that Slaanesh has a release later this year at some point and its very likely that Dark Oath/Slaves to Darkness will get one as well as GW has teased that faction for quite a long while now. Free Peoples might well be on the cards this year, I just feel that GW is at present cleaning up Grand Alliances which are not just Order.

I would just love it if they would finish releasing battletomes for all the stuff they are going to keep supporting and consolidate what they can. I think Age of Sigmar is in a nice place that just requires fixing some of the existing battletomes and then cleaning up the model line in regards to rules.

Agreed and once that is done AoS will likely gain quite a lot in popularity. The Christmas clean up of the webstore has been a big help on its own in cleaning things up and making most forces look far more sensible. The only outlier is the Aelves block in Order.

Making certain what is going and what is staying will only improve things; drawing back more old players and getting newer ones into the game much more easily because they'll be able to easily see how to field an army. Right now even those armies that have rules in the Generals handbook don't have it displayed in their store segment.


I really think this year is going to be a big one for new and updated Battletomes for AoS.

Here is hoping for an amazing AoS year.

I am writing a Kingmaker expansion for AOS for our fall event this year. We have right now 28 players stating their intention to play. It is my hope that the power level is more evenly balanced by then and that I don't have to use as many house rules to keep some of the listbuilding I-Win buttons out.

However with 28 people expressing interest in playing, that means that those rules like the sudden death victory condition we gave for excessive mortal wounds or excessive summoning were positively received.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
You KNOW they would get 'endless runes' don't even try to wriggle out of that one.

Sidenote: Would 100% jump on a Duardin fortification terrain piece. Don't even care if it's becoming an overused gimmick at this point.

During the last round of them asking for suggestions, I submitted that Kharadron Overlords should be able to use the Ironclad and Frigate with the "garrison" rules for embarked models.

Fingers crossed they go with that...


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 Eldarsif wrote:
I agree with Overread. Since 40k books are done - along with the revenues they brought - it would be a good time to work on the AoS books to keep that money ticking in. Especially since they can now work in 2.0 versions of those books after Soul Wars was released.

As much as I want to say that "AoS needs ALL THE BOOKS!!11!" I think it's important to note that 40k suffers from a similar issue as AoS has:
Older books are at a fairly large disadvantage in terms of smallish things relating to the design philosophies shifting.

Which is, and has always been for decades, the biggest downfall of their release cycle.

You really need to release all factions at once and upgrade all factions at once if you care at all about balance.

I just came back from a two day AoS event, and it was great fun, but it definitely proved to me that the game is not balanced. At all. If you don’t have massive mortal wound output, a mortal wound cancelling save, summoning and automatic healing, don’t bother playing. Which is a shame really.

Thats what I have been saying for the past 3 years.

Which is why if I want to have events I have to plug in components that limit mortal wound spam, summoning spam, and alpha strike.

Otherwise don't bother showing up if you aren't going to be doing those things. It can certainly be fun but really no one enjoys jobbing out to their peers by virtue of loving models that have bad rules.

The first preview for Carrion Empire is up on Warhammer community. FEC looking to be pretty strong, the Ghoul Emperor has a spell that can give d3 attacks to a unit and his summon is your choice of a courtier, knights (horrors/flayers) or serfs (ghouls). Which means if Majestic Horror remains the same you could double summon that.

I still wish for some more variety, FEC has like 3 main units and that's it, the rest are heroes or monsters, but this does seem to be making them pretty strong in a horde meta. Depending on what changes that means ghouls could get up to 6 attacks (2 base, +1 for having 20+ models, +1-3 for Ferocious Hunger) and maybe even more (if the Ghoul King on foot's spell still exists that's another +1, and if the Crypt Ghast courtier kills something that's another +1)

nels1031 wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
You KNOW they would get 'endless runes' don't even try to wriggle out of that one.

I wouldn’t be mad if they dropped the whole ‘Dawrves don’t do magic’ trope that was a staple of WHFB Dwarves, barring the Chaos types and gave Fyreslayers a wizard. Its a brave new world, change things up, GW!

Make the Runemaster a wizard, he’s probably the biggest gak character on the roster. The Battlesmith and Runesmiter can be the priests.

Naw, WHFB Dwarves have been distinctly anti-magic since forever, and I would be surprised it GW steered away from that.

Now, alchemy, science, and an archimedes type character who throws out contraptions that function in the same way? Yea boi!

The rat hero speaks to me and I respond in kind.

Wish he'd be more accurate or there'd be something that allows a re-roll, otherwise, I presume he'll be cheap.

At that profile and with the ability to boost to 2d6 damage, on the bell curve of all units he is worth between 130 and 160 points to keep him in line.

Giviing him re-rolls and/or making him cheap would both be as bad as the current evocator issue, among others. It would provide an obvious spam-bot that you'd take as many as you could to do heinous amounts of damage, with the ability to say "well yeah but if i roll a 1 i'll lose one of my spam bots"

auticus wrote:
Thats what I have been saying for the past 3 years.

Which is why if I want to have events I have to plug in components that limit mortal wound spam, summoning spam, and alpha strike.

Otherwise don't bother showing up if you aren't going to be doing those things. It can certainly be fun but really no one enjoys jobbing out to their peers by virtue of loving models that have bad rules.

Damn straight. As a KO player, I've been nothing but a jobber for over a year now.

auticus wrote:
Giviing him re-rolls and/or making him cheap would both be as bad as the current evocator issue, among others. It would provide an obvious spam-bot that you'd take as many as you could to do heinous amounts of damage, with the ability to say "well yeah but if i roll a 1 i'll lose one of my spam bots"

To clarify, I didn't mean that the should have a re-roll as a default ability. I am perfectly (spoiled) fine as having another hero or spell that would allow a re-roll, similar to Knight Azyros which I love taking in my SCE army. I do hope there is something like that in the new Skaven book, GG have a seemingly scary amount of debuff abilities.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

auticus wrote:
Thats what I have been saying for the past 3 years.

Which is why if I want to have events I have to plug in components that limit mortal wound spam, summoning spam, and alpha strike.

Otherwise don't bother showing up if you aren't going to be doing those things. It can certainly be fun but really no one enjoys jobbing out to their peers by virtue of loving models that have bad rules.

Damn straight. As a KO player, I've been nothing but a jobber for over a year now.

Yeah KO have been taking it on the chin pretty much the entire time.

 Da Boss wrote:
And what is realmstone? Is it just the rock that realms are made out of?

Chaos blessed Vibranium!

No, seriously; hidden empire that everyone would think is technologically inferior, but has insanely powerful tech due to the powerful weird rock they harvest. Totally the same thing!

 Knight wrote:

auticus wrote:
Giviing him re-rolls and/or making him cheap would both be as bad as the current evocator issue, among others. It would provide an obvious spam-bot that you'd take as many as you could to do heinous amounts of damage, with the ability to say "well yeah but if i roll a 1 i'll lose one of my spam bots"

To clarify, I didn't mean that the should have a re-roll as a default ability. I am perfectly (spoiled) fine as having another hero or spell that would allow a re-roll, similar to Knight Azyros which I love taking in my SCE army. I do hope there is something like that in the new Skaven book, GG have a seemingly scary amount of debuff abilities.

Well if warp sparks are still in you can use those to re-roll a hit roll. With little-no drawback.


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 Kanluwen wrote:
As much as I want to say that "AoS needs ALL THE BOOKS!!11!" I think it's important to note that 40k suffers from a similar issue as AoS has:
Older books are at a fairly large disadvantage in terms of smallish things relating to the design philosophies shifting.

40k I do not know well enough to say, but I disagree this is a thing in AoS. Kharadron is probably one of the worst battletome armies out there and they are barely a year old. Seraphon kick ass and have one of the oldest battletomes. Beasts of Chaos and Gloomspite are some of the best balanced (if not the best balanced) battletomes GW has released, which notably includes being weaker than several older battletomes. LoN and DoK are both stronger than anything which came after by a good margin. There is little resembling a 'newer is better' trend in AoS.

Not to say the balance is good overall; it varies between tolerable and laughable. But battletome creep is not the source.


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 Future War Cultist wrote:
I just came back from a two day AoS event, and it was great fun, but it definitely proved to me that the game is not balanced. At all. If you don’t have massive mortal wound output, a mortal wound cancelling save, summoning and automatic healing, don’t bother playing. Which is a shame really.

I was recently listening to an AoS player who went to his first tournament. He was describing how frustrating and ridiculous it was, feeling like he was "just sitting there and picking up my models". Worst part is it was a small tournament and the harder players even brought lists that were tournament viable but more 'fun lists' than the highly optimized stuff we normally show up with.

 Future War Cultist wrote:

auticus wrote:
Thats what I have been saying for the past 3 years.

Which is why if I want to have events I have to plug in components that limit mortal wound spam, summoning spam, and alpha strike.

Otherwise don't bother showing up if you aren't going to be doing those things. It can certainly be fun but really no one enjoys jobbing out to their peers by virtue of loving models that have bad rules.

Damn straight. As a KO player, I've been nothing but a jobber for over a year now.

KO seem to be one of the groups having issues, no question. But did you see the KO player on table 1 game 6 of a 196 player turnament at Cancon?

Seem to be 2-3 Legions of Nagash / Daughters of Khaine in top 5 of any turnament. Which is to strong, but on the other hand half the top 10 varies a lot. Which kinda says there is some amount of balance.

The Top 20 at CanCon:

4 Stormcast Eternals
2 Grand Hosts of Nagash
1 Daughters of Khaine
1 Kharadron Overlords
1 Legion of Azgorh
1 Legion of Blood
1 Legion of Night
1 Blades of Khorne
1 Beasts of Chaos
1 Destruction
1 Gloomspite Gitz
1 Chaos
1 Nighthaunt
1 Sylvaneth
1 Maggotkin of Nurgle
1 Idoneth Deepkin

So not like there are only 3-4 allegiances who can do well. Way more options than people like to pretend on the internet. Watched a little of TheHonestWargamers Twitch channel during CanCon and was fun to see stuff like Swifthawk Agent list going 3-0 day 1.

Not saying there are not problems. Some armies can't compete at all, others good players might build a single list that can do ok, but in regular local play you are fethed.

1 of my regular opponents bitches about his Sylvaneth a lot. Looking at the overall meta Sylvaneth probably stronger than most of his normal opponents, but not the kind of lists he choses to play. So he complains. That kind of stuff makes it very hard to balance stuff. You need both a overall balance and internal balance in each battletome. Can have a Battletome do good in turnaments at the same time people lose with different lists in regular games.It will never be perfect.