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I disagree with the severity, but agree with the problem. Fundamentally it is going to reduce fun overall when some players get free stuff and others do not. This can be turned around into a fun element but must be managed properly to do so. GW seems to miss that fundamental at times and approach summons as something that can be added in as a fun side-system when for those put up against it the opposite is true.


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Unrelated note, has anyone else seen the paint job on the chimera in the battletome? Not a fan of the model but hot dam that is some nice paint work.

Auticus, so now you want a unit to screen your sacrificial lamb? I mean, yeah that's a viable tactic but now you're using yet again more points. I think your comment about the pissant unit doing nothing but being a goat is invalidated. Especially if using Warhounds! A unit that fast deserves a flanking role or interception. The idea that Beastmen are going to be comparable to 7th Ed demons is quite frankly laughable. On a unit by unit comparison Demons win hands down almost every time. Saying Beastmen are OP because of summoning is ludicrous. I get that you are opposed to summoning, but to draw such parallels is just plain wrong. And even now you say that summoning armies with mortal wound spam are OP whereas not that long ago it was just summoning armies period, no need for MW spam. So is it summoning that is OP or is it summoning + MW spam?

At any rate I think it's way too early to tell if a week old codex is OP or not. As it stands, summoning is now a part of the game whether we like it or not and there is little to do about it. For that matter I have to question the validity of your position on summoning being auto-take since Beasts of Chaos can literally Brayherd Ambush almost every unit in the book. Do I really need to worry about summoning when I can Ambush Dragon Ogors at will?

10 man unit to stab - 60 pts, battleline you needed anyway
10 man unit to screen - 60 pts, battleline you needed anyway
Objective you put the herdstone next to - Needed a cheap unit on it anyway
Wizard doing the stabbing - Still casts support spells he would have anyway

Note the trend of "would be there anyway" it is not that there is no cost at all, it is that the cost is trivial next to the benefits.

You are misinterpreting what he said about daemons entirely.

He is saying summoning is OP, and mortal wound spam is OP. He has been very consistent on the former since AoS 2nd edition hit, and has been consistent on the latter since before the first General's Handbook.

 darkcloak wrote:
Do I really need to worry about summoning when I can Ambush Dragon Ogors at will?

Those are two different mechanics that happen to share the same deployment. Your statement translates to "do I really need to worry about my opponent getting free units when I can deploy units I paid points for from reserve?"

The tournament powergamer lists all over the twitterverse and other places nearly always max out on summoning or take a lot of it if they can.

The alpha strike ambushing crutch is also very popular. For obvious reasons. Why bother having to have a movement phase when you don't need one and can draw your unit card from its deck and tap it to do damage to your opponent immediately?

As to screening, all armies have to screen against certain builds. So summoning armies having to do it aren't at some disadvantage that other armies are not. If you are going against an alpha strike army you have to screen the elements you care about regardless of if that element is summoning or if that element is a buff point.

I don't think that the beastmen codex is OP. I think that the game has gone down a route that is doubling down on mechanics that are OP unless they are consistently spread across the game... which they are not, and will not be for years to come.

Which enforces lists that make themselves for you and additionally which means if you live in any kind of competitive meta, which it would seem most internet posters tend to, then you will only see the same few armies.

Summoning (the ability to get free stuff) is fine... up to a point. That point is easily crossed by most of the armies that summon if you are playing someone that is not summoning.

Mortal wounds are fine. Up to a point. That point is always broken by optimization and is especially visible against armies that are not spamming mortal wounds.

Ambush / alpha strike is fine. If a unit or so can do it. When the entire army can do it you are forcing your opponent to play a certain way or else don't bother playing. While in this case there is a counter (screening) as opposed to summon crutch and mortal wound crutch which just happen and nothing can be done to stop it, it removes the aspect of maneuver from the game and is more akin to the CCG warhammer :invasion.

The goal of the beastmen list, like the stormcast list, or the seraphon list, or the nagash list, or a few otther tournament style lists, is to have the list win before turn 1 starts. It centers heavily along the free stuff plus remove maneuver goals of Age of Sigmar. Ideally... you are building a list that removes any interaction from the game out and that dictates and drives the match to its conclusion with minimal chance for your opponent to decide or maneuver at all.

Not all of the new army books have been like this. Khadron overlords, Idoneth Deepkin for example have some fun elements but are not built around removing interaction from the game by forcing certain matchups every time.

Blades of Khorne has some ssummoning elements in it and the capacity to do some mortal wounds (the ever popular bloodletter bomb) but is typically a fairly fun match up.

I have found what is and is not "OP" will depend on what your goals are. For me, a competent beastmen player should rarely lose to the above armies or any army that doesn't have a current gen book because they get a high level of free stuff plus play the ambush alpha strike game. Both of those are big fun killers for a large chunk of the armies that are supposed to be in the game.

(so the answer is don't play a large chunk of the armies that can't spam summons, or spam mortal wounds)

Note the trend of "would be there anyway" it is not that there is no cost at all, it is that the cost is trivial next to the benefits.

This exactly.

Then there's also the issue of battalion balance. We have had a lot of books release with mostly meh battalions and now the beastmen have what is seemingly (based on the power listers I'm reading) a must take battalion that also drives them to get the sweet sweet one-drop army. I think that this is mostly a relic of trying to do books one at a time spread out over years. You'll never achieve a consistent game balance with that approach.

Sorry, I'm just trying to get a sense for what is bothering Aut without having to wade through pages of thread. I'm new to AoS so a lot of this is stuff I haven't experienced and I can only theorize based on what I'm reading in my army book. Not trying to tear down the argument just shed more light on it.

You see, I started out with 6th Ed 40k playing Raven Guard. If anyone remembers they had a very similar mechanic where you could outflank units with the Scout rule and RG CT gave your units that rule. My army could be in threat range turn 1 with some serious firepower coming in off board edges on turn 2. It was a super fluffy list and worked quite well. 7th dropped and invalidated that list and I was quite disappointed with that. Along comes Beastmen who can do virtually the same thing and I'm really excited to play that style of list again. But now I read into it and it sounds like that's going to be a very negative experience. My old RG weren't a power list by any means but they performed well and that's all I'd really like to emulate.

So that's where I'm coming from.

But back to Beastmen, can you really achieve a game breaking list with Ambush? 9" is not a reliable charge range, however there are tricks to mitigate that. But those tricks have their own stipulations. For example, the add 1 to charge rolls only works when within range of a Hero. Wholly within too I believe. So unless you're Ambushing a Hero along with your dudes it would be hard to achieve that. If you want a powerful Ambush half your army must be on the table. So I wonder how effective that can really be when there is so many other costs involved. It does certainly seem possible, but I'm just not sold on how game breaking it could be. Especially since a canny player will simply occupy the board edge to minimize the amount of units you can place forcing you to ambush closer to your own lines or risk losing units due to not enough room.

And forgive me but it did seem like Aut was making a direct comparison to Demons in the way people tried to defend them.

Also, I think we are all forgetting that this discussion takes place from a purely competitive standpoint. Auticus decries the powergamer but in reality most of us are probably playing with friends or at a club. If someone were to say to me, Darkcloak your Beastmen are going to wipe my army by turn 2 please don't go crazy with Ambush, then I would respect that in the spirit of playing a fun game for both of us.

I am definitely coming at it from a general powergaming standpoint because my environment is pretty much this, so to have a good game of AOS one must also be powergaming or find something else to do.

This is true in any game somewhat, but I find the gulf of power discrepancy to be very wide in GW games.

As I noted above, ambush by itself is not game breaking. Its a serious negative play component however because if you can ambush a great amount of units, your opponent is forced to play a certain way or get soundly spanked.

Essentially you are taking a wargame with many tactical applications and distilling it down to one way of having to approach the game to counter, which does not have a long shelf life in keeping interest high.

Alpha strike and ambush style ARMIES tend to not be enjoyable play experiences because you have to play a certain way, which is a form of YOU deciding the playstyle of the game and removing interaction from your opponent.

Some alpha strike / ambush would be fun. Lists that can do it en masse... not so much.

My comment about demons was simply in 7th edition whfb, everyone knew they were the most busted thing probably ever created, and their designer went in an interview and stated he designed them busted on purpose because "they were demons of course they were supposed to be OP" but their fan base tried to downplay them as not being that bad.

The point of that being that no matter how strong, OP, or not fun something is, fans of the codex/army that utilize it will always downplay its importance and application as not being that bad.

Side note. I don't get to play a whole lot, of either game, any games really. So for me this sort of debating is fun and allows me to engage in the hobby in a way that is informative and fun. Mudslinging aside of course! Unfortunately for Auticus he is the devil's advocate and arguing with someone who is on your side of the debate isn't as fun.


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In response to your last post Aut, I really hope that isn't going to be the case going forward with Beastmen. I have an Eldar army that sees no table time because the stigma of 7th Ed Eldar still weighs heavy in most shops. Whenever I've given opponents a choice of what they face the answer is always 'NOT ELDAR!!!!'. Which is a damn shame because I painted them quite well and they're probably the least troublesome of the Craftworlds, Biel Tan. I would hate for that to be the case with my new AoS army.

Some have questioned your presence here because of your attitude towards AoS, but to me it seems like you're driving debate so... I dunno, keep doing that.


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Alas, we have gotten off topic again. To bring it back around, Auticus how would you build a Beastmen army then?

I'm thinking Darkwalkers are probably going to provide a high level of variance between games thanks to the freedom afforded to the army in unit selection for the purpose of Ambush, as well as being able to split your Ambush between two turns. Also, the command ability seems pretty good for movement shenanigans but also looks to be something of a skill play. Using that ability at the wrong time could be disastrous.

A lot of people don't like to hear negative comments period. We as a culture have evolved greatly over the last 5 or so years. It used to be so long as you weren't attacking people or using bad language, debate was fine. Now, you can get banned.

On beastmen, I think if you are playing with competitive people who are building tournament level lists, that you won't hear any complaints about what you build from a beastman perspective.

However if you are playing people for fun or casual, you'll definitely want to watch how much free summoning and alpha striking you are doing, because those are two red flag areas that can cause people to throw up their arms and leave over.

When I build lists for campaign day, we have rules in place to curb the shenanigans out of the gate. We provide sudden death rules if you summon more than 20% of your army or do more than 20 mortal wounds in a turn. This has actually worked very well and without houseruling anything other than alternate scenario victory conditions. Sudden death victory conditions are a part of the official game after all. It doesn't tell someone "no you can't do that" but it makes it so there is now actually a risk to choosing the easiest method of listbuilding available.

WHen I am building general lists I usually know who I am playing. Against our tournament powergamers, all bets are off and I can build whatever I want because they are going to be building something they saw at Adepticon or LVO that is designed to crush me before the game starts.

If I am playing my casual friends for fun and I know they don't like breaking the game, then I back off.

I ran beastmen in 7th edition for a while. I like the dragon ogres and the idea of a horde of goatmen running at you.

I'd probably have a unit of dragon ogres in ambush and then I'd have a wall of goatmen running up the table backed by some heroes and a shaman.

If I summoned, I'd keep the point value coming in under 400 pts in a 2000 point game unless my opponent was trying to overwhelm me with summons like our seraphon and nagash players love to do.

 darkcloak wrote:

But back to Beastmen, can you really achieve a game breaking list with Ambush? 9" is not a reliable charge range, however there are tricks to mitigate that.

If you summon a chimera, they have +2" charge. Running Chronomantic Cogs adds 2" for everyone.

But those tricks have their own stipulations. For example, the add 1 to charge rolls only works when within range of a Hero. Wholly within too I believe. So unless you're Ambushing a Hero along with your dudes it would be hard to achieve that.

Why would you not ambush a hero in with whatever units you're sending at the foe? Even just a beastlord - they're cheap for an ambushing hero to give that ability in a bubble (smaller aura than other models though). However, due to your next point, it would mean you have to have another unit start on the table - but how big a downside is that, really? Another shaman to hang out and cast spells, maybe?

If you want a powerful Ambush half your army must be on the table. So I wonder how effective that can really be when there is so many other costs involved. It does certainly seem possible, but I'm just not sold on how game breaking it could be. Especially since a canny player will simply occupy the board edge to minimize the amount of units you can place forcing you to ambush closer to your own lines or risk losing units due to not enough room.

Even if an opponent makes me ambush closer to my own lines, I got further from my lines for free on turn 1. In most scenarios (I think, I'm still pretty new myself but jumping into beasts) them deploying closer to the edge rather than objectives is a net positive for me.

I'm not saying you're totally wrong, I'm just not seeing things you're putting down as "cons" to the ambushing rules as very negative to the point where my opponent can do something about it that really hurts me in a huge way.

edits: some slight additions to wording.

The simple reality is that how a battletome will be theoretically run in GWs eyes is quite often not how it will actually be run in practice. That is where the discrepancy between balance as intended and balance on the table comes from. GW has shown themselves to be a poor judge of how a codex/battletome will be run by the larger masses. Their playtesting is limited at best, and I have heard through the grapevine (so to speak) that there is a big issue where playtesters will report problems and GW does not listen.

To put this into Beastmen terms: theoretically some scattered units of the army will outflank but have a limited ability to charge due to the 9" range needed. In reality it will be a hero with one or two powerful units (generally a huge blob of elite infantry) that will be +2" from cogs and have a re-roll available from command points such that the unit needs to fail getting a 7+ on 2d6 twice in order to NOT make it into combat.

Or Beasts summoning, where theoretically a player will opt for the tactical cost of having a hero & unit hang back to net themselves an average of 3 summon points a turn. In reality those units were already present in the army and positioning as such anyways 80% of the time plus optimization meaning 4.5 summon points a turn with nearly no downside at all.

I think for Beasts of Chaos the intent vs reality is particularly easy to see, but this is a trend repeated across a large number of armies. The imbalance bugs me but just as much I dislike that it directly overshadows the good elements of battletomes and reduces if not eliminates more balanced options from battletomes for being a clearly worse choice.

The problem that I have is that Ben, Bottle, etc... are all tournament players of allegedly high caliber. For them to let this kind of nonsense run rampant accidentally like its a good idea is kind of hard for me to believe.

I firmly believe this type of design is intentional from a marketing standpoint.

For all the cost you are putting into getting that "free" chimera on turn 2-3, you could just start with 1 on the table and pick something more relevant like Dark Walkers imo.

I honestly think its a trap and that the non-summoning focused builds will wind up stronger.

Learning new things! Lol. Malign Sorcery. Gotcha.

Chronomatic Cogs is a WC 7 spell! See? More cost. You'd need that to go off on the turn you ambush and yeah, it's pretty reliable. But it's still possible to fail and if it does, well how exactly do Beastmen shore up their magic game? The Bray Shaman seems like he just casts and unbinds spell?

I'm sure I would try Ambushing in a Beastlord or something like that. I'll give you that. But still, in order to generate effective tournament level summoning with Beastmen seems like a specific build. What that is I'm not sure. Yes, this falls into Auticus's forced builds argument, but really... Is that why we are playing AoS? I think the Why/Why Not threads reveal that a lot of people enjoy AoS as a far more casual game than its predecessor.

So let those tournament guys find the meta build. The rest of us can maybe just build cool armies?

Back to Beastmen. How about this?

Using Ambush to toss a Bray Shaman alongside the opponent and then using that Wildfire Taurus spell to wreck stuff?

Yes, this falls into Auticus's forced builds argument, but really... Is that why we are playing AoS? I think the Why/Why Not threads reveal that a lot of people enjoy AoS as a far more casual game than its predecessor.

That will depend wholly on your local community.

For a lot of my community - yes thats why they play AOS.

AverageBoss wrote:
For all the cost you are putting into getting that "free" chimera on turn 2-3, you could just start with 1 on the table and pick something more relevant like Dark Walkers imo.

I honestly think its a trap and that the non-summoning focused builds will wind up stronger.

Is this sarcasm? Honest question.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

AverageBoss wrote:
For all the cost you are putting into getting that "free" chimera on turn 2-3, you could just start with 1 on the table and pick something more relevant like Dark Walkers imo.

I honestly think its a trap and that the non-summoning focused builds will wind up stronger.

Is this sarcasm? Honest question.

Not at all. By not buying a 150-200 point battalion, just so you can speed up your point generation with your extra artifact (potentially), you can just start with said monster on the table, and summon another one anyways a single turn later on average. I honestly believe allherd will be the weakest of the greatfrays. The other 2 simply bring far more to the table imo.

If I played the army I would use the chapter tactic that turns my dead heroes into chaos spawn, I don't give a gak which is strongest.

I think Beastmen are going to be pretty defining. You can fit a one drop army with 90 Gors, 30 Bestigors, 60 Ungor Raiders, 2 Bray Shamans, Doombull & Cygor in and still have enough to start on 3 CPS.

The army will pose questions to oppenents, for sure.

AverageBoss wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

AverageBoss wrote:
For all the cost you are putting into getting that "free" chimera on turn 2-3, you could just start with 1 on the table and pick something more relevant like Dark Walkers imo.

I honestly think its a trap and that the non-summoning focused builds will wind up stronger.

Is this sarcasm? Honest question.

Not at all. By not buying a 150-200 point battalion, just so you can speed up your point generation with your extra artifact (potentially), you can just start with said monster on the table, and summon another one anyways a single turn later on average. I honestly believe allherd will be the weakest of the greatfrays. The other 2 simply bring far more to the table imo.

The battalion also offers its own beneits, less deployment drops (easy one-drop deployment to secure turn choice), and an extra cp from the start. An optimized list is going to want everything in one battalion regardless of greatfray, so that is not actually a cost.

The allherd benefits are decent--the battleshock benefit is nice when coming in from reserve and thus being outside of herdstone range, especially considering that one will want to avoid spending CP for battleshock immunity. The artifact is not bad, and the command trait is the only real dud since the general will want to be hidden to stay alive. The darkwalkers have the worst artifact & command trait, the command ability is extremely situational, and the ability to arrive from ambush in the second movement phase is similarly so. What they have going for them is ambushing bullgors, which is flat-out awesome (thunderscorn too, but they are worse for outflank than brayherd units anyways). Gavespawn are the fun one with a nifty spawnification ability, a command ability that works well if there are spawn around, and a really nice artifact, but runs into the issue that spawn are decidedly 'meh' in performance and the artifact is either going on a beastlord who will die quickly or a doombull/shaggoth that do not benefit nearly as much thanks to their already high-damage weapons.

It boils down to is allherd getting the battleshock benefit and a 10-point summon on round 2 the majority of games with easily 20+ points of summons over the whole game vs outflanking bullgors but a 10-point summon only coming in round 3 if you roll above average. At the end of the day if these two were to go up against each other the allherd would be favored. Go out and test it yourself; make two beasts lists identical except for the different greatfray and pit them against each other. Play a few matches then see what has the edge.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Go out and test it yourself; make two beasts lists identical except for the different greatfray and pit them against each other. Play a few matches then see what has the edge.

I see where you're coming from but this my issue is with the bolded. Great Fray's are meant to build built around their strengths. So Bullgor don't got in a Allherd but do in a Darkwalker. Spawn go in the spawn herd but not in Darkwalker and so on. So telling people to practice with the exact same lists but with benefits favoring one side doesn't help your argument and makes it seem shallow.

Personally I don't agree that everything you're bringing for summoning you'd normally bring in a list. My Allherd has ungor and my Darkwalker/Spawn lists don't. I don't bring a screening unit in armies that aren't Allherd because summoning isn't the point. Additionally given deployment I think the units on the stone are contributing far less that is being assumed. For example holding an object but supposedly also casting support spells. The speed of a beastman list will likely result in your hitting units being outside of support range after turn 1 if you put the stone on objectives. Cogs isn't in my standard list. Running and charging kinda defeats the point and I'd rather have more bodies and a 50% chance to cast a spell isn't worth the cost without boosting abilities.

Here is my base cost to keep summon and keep said units safe against the new books;

Shaman - 100
20 Ungor Raiders - 160
40 Ungor - 200 (I personally prefer 30 gor)

Total: 460pts

I don't count the battalion as I think everyone is bringing a battalion since ours are pretty good and are in no way an incurred cost to get that extra 4+ artifact.

This is how I see it. Considering the raiders can shoot every turn but are still being murdered and are stagnant so I'd take half their value out of that so now 380pts. The Shaman can dispel a spell a turn (half his normal value) so we'll feed 50pts back in for 330pts. The screen should be able given it's size to grab an objective and screen and in some games might actually be useful for something else so we'll even give it half it's value back (I think this is high) for a total 230pts spent to keep summoning up and running. In exchange I average 4.5pts per turn (80) for a total of 22.5 or 450pts per game on average. Subtract that 230 and you're looking on average at adding 120pts to your army per game.

I'm not going to deny it's a good toolbox thing. But I think people are pretty heavily over estimating it's impact especially given how the units appear on the field. Also, it's not like the shaman is the most resilient of characters.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
The simple reality is that how a battletome will be theoretically run in GWs eyes is quite often not how it will actually be run in practice. That is where the discrepancy between balance as intended and balance on the table comes from. GW has shown themselves to be a poor judge of how a codex/battletome will be run by the larger masses. Their playtesting is limited at best, and I have heard through the grapevine (so to speak) that there is a big issue where playtesters will report problems and GW does not listen.

Funny, because I've heard a few say that there's a big issue where there have been playtesters who aren't reporting things with the intention of running it for tournaments. They know they'll get a limited timeframe of using it but they'll move right on to the next army afterwards.

We have all heard what the Allherd can do but I believe that the Darkwalkers and the Gavespawn bring enough that can match it on the table.

If you have a lot of Warherd, Darkwalkers can really help get the beef across the table. Though I think Brayherd can best take advantage of there Command Trait. Their Command Ability can also be great for grabbing and uncontested objective. There only real dud is their Artefact, especially with 2 other examples in the book with the same effect but better.

My favorite though has to be the Gavespawn. Being able to give a hoard army plus one attack can be down right brutal. Then they have my favorite artefact, it make a 90pt model swing way above its weight class. I find there base ability to only be so so but it does play off there Command Ability, and their Command Trait is kind of lame but still useful.

About my only problem is I don't see why you wouldn't take one of the Greatfrays. If there is a specific artifact you want, you can always take a Battalion to unlock it. And with exception to maybe 1 or 2 from the Warherd, I didn't find any of the Command Traits worth giving up what the Greatfrays offer. Although I suppose if you want to tone down your list for an opponent who might have a more struggling army, not taking a Greatfray is a good place to start.

 Hulksmash wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Go out and test it yourself; make two beasts lists identical except for the different greatfray and pit them against each other. Play a few matches then see what has the edge.

I see where you're coming from but this my issue is with the bolded. Great Fray's are meant to build built around their strengths. So Bullgor don't got in a Allherd but do in a Darkwalker. Spawn go in the spawn herd but not in Darkwalker and so on. So telling people to practice with the exact same lists but with benefits favoring one side doesn't help your argument and makes it seem shallow.

Personally I don't agree that everything you're bringing for summoning you'd normally bring in a list. My Allherd has ungor and my Darkwalker/Spawn lists don't. I don't bring a screening unit in armies that aren't Allherd because summoning isn't the point. Additionally given deployment I think the units on the stone are contributing far less that is being assumed. For example holding an object but supposedly also casting support spells. The speed of a beastman list will likely result in your hitting units being outside of support range after turn 1 if you put the stone on objectives. Cogs isn't in my standard list. Running and charging kinda defeats the point and I'd rather have more bodies and a 50% chance to cast a spell isn't worth the cost without boosting abilities.

Agreed. If you want to see is other build better you need to select units to _that_ build and then play against wide variety of lists(doesn't matter much if you can bring in good anti-X list if you then suck vs others). Are you winning more against wide variety of foes(the ones you generally face) with X or Y? That tells more than can X beat Y regardless of others and even more so does identical list Y with different free rules beat each other.

Here's the ultimate test.

Play a series of games with summoning.
Play a series of games with the same list without summoning.

Observe the difficulty level of your game increasing noticeably.

I know here anyway that it makes a sizable difference. If you are up against an army summoning and your beastman army is not summoning then they better be pushing northward of 40 mortal wounds a turn.

Better one: Play series of games with summoning buillds. Play series of games with non-summoning builds. As you have different free rules obviously it's going to alter units that you use.

Then observe which one does better.

If your battallion/whatever gives rules X obviously it's going to affect what units works best with that so you change the build. You don't switch h2h boosting stats to shooting boosts and expect h2h army to perform equally well do you?

Possibly because I don't see "summoning builds" as being grossly different from normal builds whereas putting shooting buffs on hand to hand units is using an entirely different set of stats.

Legion of Nagash, any of the chaos demons, seraphon, their summoning is on top of normal builds. Seraphon it may be argued they wouldn't normally take an astrolith bearer. So they are giving up the cost of the astrolith bearer to bring in around 1000 points of seraphon monsters.

I know that nurgle builds do't have summoning builds. Neither do khorne or tzeentch. They do the things they'd normally do anyway. Kill stuff or cast a ton of spells.

auticus wrote:
Here's the ultimate test.

Play a series of games with summoning.
Play a series of games with the same list without summoning.

Observe the difficulty level of your game increasing noticeably.

I know here anyway that it makes a sizable difference. If you are up against an army summoning and your beastman army is not summoning then they better be pushing northward of 40 mortal wounds a turn.

Beast of Chaos have a lot of ways to reduce armor that I don't think they need mortal wounds to be competitive.

If thats true then they'll be the first faction to not need to spam mortal wounds and be viable at the tournament hall. As they can summon around 500 points or so reliably and play the "i don't need a movement phase I show up where I want and remove your ability to do anything about that" game, there is probably a grain of truth in that.

I think they are not topping summons or mortal wound output but have enough of each to do reasonably well. LoN and Seraphon are still stronger though, Beasts are not going to be the new fotm imo.


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 Venerable Ironclad wrote:

auticus wrote:
Here's the ultimate test.

Play a series of games with summoning.
Play a series of games with the same list without summoning.

Observe the difficulty level of your game increasing noticeably.

I know here anyway that it makes a sizable difference. If you are up against an army summoning and your beastman army is not summoning then they better be pushing northward of 40 mortal wounds a turn.

Beast of Chaos have a lot of ways to reduce armor that I don't think they need mortal wounds to be competitive.

That is a big part of it, the other is that while MWs generally have some sort of 'hit' mechanic they bypass needing wound rolls. This means the damage output is quite high compared to many attacks even before armor, for the most part.

So i got my order in the other day (Codex, Herdstone, endless spells, Cards etc). I had to wait awhile cause the cards where out of stock. My first order for AoS. I must say I was impressed with the book (not the rules, had seen most of them and think they look good) more the presentation and the actual book (seemed a bit more than 40k though similar styling for same money). The herdstone is a good model and was cheap as. The cards are fine (prob never use but maybe). The endless spells seem fine for cost. I might buy a start collecting box as well (I have a lot of old models but purley to get the Gorgon for my hungering warheard). The release seems a ++ from me. Made me order AoS (and I have like every special character and massive fantasy armies from the dwarves and Vampire counts from the 90's/early 00's and never been interested before) so is a ++.