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The GKoTG being hit with only a 20p increase is not as much as I would have thought.

That being said, the 40p on an archregent and another 20 on a regular GK does take care of some of the stacking, as that baseline combo that I always ran in competitive builds, is now hit with +80p. I guess the bigger picture applies, as the stacking was mostly the problem.

And with Grisstlegore getting a hit through the savage strike nerf, it al least makes the GG AGKoTG killable by armies without shooting that aren't Slaanesh.






Now all that is left, is cutting down multi KoS Slaanesh cheese lists. But I couldn't see that update, as I kept getting an asian version (looks Japanese, but no expert).

 Elmir wrote:
The GKoTG being hit with only a 20p increase is not as much as I would have thought.

That being said, the 40p on an archregent and another 20 on a regular GK does take care of some of the stacking, as that baseline combo that I always ran in competitive builds, is now hit with +80p. I guess the bigger picture applies, as the stacking was mostly the problem.

And with Grisstlegore getting a hit through the savage strike nerf, it al least makes the GG AGKoTG killable by armies without shooting that aren't Slaanesh.

Agreed on all points.

I like the boat change. That made things how I'd expect it to work.

I want quotes from Auticus' competitive community. Since I have no local competitive WAAC guys I feed upon the tears of his ones by proxy.

They have mostly hopped off of our main fb group and have set up their own chat group for their tournaments and leagues that they are running and they don't mess with powerbombing the narratives any longer.

I have not heard anything and probably won't hear anything from them for a while. We have some players that play in both my campaigns and their tournaments, so I figure by late August or so I'll hear something. A lot of them are also heavy 40k tournament players (may and june there were six tournaments for example... two weeks out of eight that there was not a tournament running ) and have been more involved in the ATC tournament and prepping for that.

I'm anxious to see what they do. I have seen the DoK armies sold now . Slaanesh is now very popular I'm hearing.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
My Slaanesh stuff is still awesome though.

So are my Hearthzerkers! Until next update....

Slaanesh multikeeper may be top tier now, by virtue of nerfs to other factions. Overall I'm happy to see the changes they made. I don't think it is enough, but it is a huge step up from nothing. And I generally prefer changes that are too small over being too big.

I generally prefer changes that are too small over being too big.

I agree. It is easy to want huge nerfs on something and overshoot the target. Smaller nerfs means you can make things better without invalidating a whole faction.

 Eldarsif wrote:

I generally prefer changes that are too small over being too big.

I agree. It is easy to want huge nerfs on something and overshoot the target. Smaller nerfs means you can make things better without invalidating a whole faction.

I fully agree, i just wish my BoC monsters had any love

Today was an interesting discussion during the honest wargamer twitch stream.


Somebody made a great point: the points changes aren't so much about single units, but about what builds can do.

Some popular builds will now have to make do with a hero less, with a key endless spell less, with a unit less etc. Sometimes, that's just enough to bring them in line.

My 1000p grisstlegore list that took home a doubles tournament (with a gutbusters buddy of mine, so nothing OP) was previously:

GKoTG 400 --> 420
Archregent: 200 -->240
Ghoul king: 140 --> 160
Chalice of ushoran: 40 --> 50
2x10 ghouls: 200

That insane powerbuild is now 90p more, not only knocking the endless spell out, but also forcing one of the heroes out because I can't drop an already fully barebones force...

So it's going to have to be the ghoul king (with the additional 10 free summoned ghouls and one fewer attack on the general overall), that gets the cut. That is a hefty overall nerf to something that was previously incredibly hard to stop at 1000p.

Dont forget about IDK, Scryers up 30pts and Eels are but 10pts, some lists had 2 scryers (+60pts) and +90-120pts on Eels making the Eel/King/Scryer spam up 150-180pts if not more. SO that list is almost dead now too, also b.c they played 50pts down for a CP (they need) and triumph, it was actually 60pts down i think

It was one type of Eel that saw a price bump, not both. Scryers are also a big thing because the alternatives(Soulrender and Tidecaster) are extremely niche.

Tidecasters require:
a) Them to be your General for their special ability to reverse the Tides of Death to be in play
b) Not to be of an Enclave that mandates a specific spell(Mor'phann, for example, forbids you from their Lore and you have to take Freezing Mists)

There's a reason why the Aspect of the Sea was making an appearance in Mor'phann Namarti lists as he could cast spells out of the Lore and didn't require him to be the General.

Soulrender only works on Namarti.

 Kanluwen wrote:
It was one type of Eel that saw a price bump, not both. Scryers are also a big thing because the alternatives(Soulrender and Tidecaster) are extremely niche.

Tidecasters require:
a) Them to be your General for their special ability to reverse the Tides of Death to be in play
b) Not to be of an Enclave that mandates a specific spell(Mor'phann, for example, forbids you from their Lore and you have to take Freezing Mists)

There's a reason why the Aspect of the Sea was making an appearance in Mor'phann Namarti lists as he could cast spells out of the Lore and didn't require him to be the General.

Soulrender only works on Namarti.

Yes, but he said "lists were nerf " and i showed that Morrsarr Scryer spam was one of those lists that s targeted, i never said both types were nerfed.

Somebody made a great point: the points changes aren't so much about single units, but about what builds can do.

Some popular builds will now have to make do with a hero less, with a key endless spell less, with a unit less etc. Sometimes, that's just enough to bring them in line.

This is a very good point. Since I run mass ghoul(Morghaunt) my list has probably been nerfed the least. Had to drop 10 ghouls from a squad of 40. However, with the power builds out there I imagine - as you mentioned - that those lists are being hit quite harder. Also, a lot of lists were running two Arch-Regents. Just that is an 80 point increase for those armies and then you add the price increase of Ghoul Kings and Kingheists and I wouldn't be surprised to see that some of the more tryhard competitive armies have increased by 10% in cost.

I wouldn't be surprised to see quite a few FEC armies for sale on ebay after this.

 auticus wrote:

Though slaanesh indeed had NO points changes from their battletome. So the Keeper of Busted remains busted for a year.

Rejoice and celebrate my min/max brethren.

Just wanted to remind everyone that GW does make points adjustment between GHBs and FAQs. We get two big balance passes per year, and if an issue is bad enough, they sometimes make "hot fixes". Just because something didn't get nerfed in these PDFs, it doesn't mean it'll be safe from nerfs until next summer.

They are moving to points updates twice a year for AoS, one of the reasons the points booklet is seperate from the GHB.

We shall see. We shall see.

Current management of GW seems more inclined to tone things down where needed. They've already done a job on the 40k meta with the latest FAQ and Ynnari re-release. Wouldn't be surprised if they do more to AoS balance-wise before the year is over.

I don't know. the pattern seems to be to amp up new releases. Its literally a dart board right now.

Some releases are fun. Some releases have an obvious OP build. Some releases have several OP builds.

In all cases what they have shown is no desire or ability to step away from the listbuilding dominance and keeping the game stale with the same type of lists being played without severe social engineering or negotiations.

The only saving grace right now is that 40k has exploded even bigger than before so a lot of the min/max guys are in 40k land and AOS still has a more for-fun mentality unless you're doing tournaments specifically. My group has been humming right along with the campaign pack that I wrote and where the nasty nasty balance issues resolve themselves with sudden death victory conditions.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They are moving to points updates twice a year for AoS, one of the reasons the points booklet is seperate from the GHB.

Man, now I am even more confused. So if I buy the battletome, I do not get the points. I thought then I was forced to buy a General's Handbook each year to get the points for that year, due to the incompetence of the GW game designers.

Is there a separate document I can get (for free hopefully, rather than being charged a yearly GW incompetence tax) with the points in it, up to date? I know the Warscroll Builder has the points, but I would like something from GW to print out.

I went away from GW a few years ago and came back with everyone accepting this completely bonkers way of maintaining the rules sets as totally normal and it blows my mind how everyone accepted this. It is stupidly complicated to figure out what you need to play a game of Age of Sigmar or 40K these days.

I don't know. the pattern seems to be to amp up new releases. Its literally a dart board right now.

I would say that is an exaggeration. Personally I would say that they are currently working at a breakneck pace with releases with books for 40k and AoS being released at considerable speed. Add to that they are also working on other specialist games alongside and I would say that the state of the game is a miracle considering how much they are releasing at the moment. Compare this to years ago when you'd at best get a handful of book per edition and those were truly dart board books.


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Is there a separate document I can get (for free hopefully, rather than being charged a yearly GW incompetence tax) with the points in it, up to date? I know the Warscroll Builder has the points, but I would like something from GW to print out.

Only Warscroll Builder and the GHB addon. To be fair they could just release the points for free at this point as all of this stuff is already in the Builder. Wouldn't be surprised if that happens sooner rather than later.

I'm using the term dartboard to describe the power levels of the releases this year.

They have ranged from fun to all out broken. Sure they are releasing things at a breakneck speed. Thats great. But the balance has been all over the place.

They are clearly incapable of balancing stuff. They also make money from releasing unbalanced stuff by charging for the fixes on an annual basis.

Mental. They probably think their customer base are a bunch of mugs.

Which is why I will daily lament the death of the fan comp systems.

 Da Boss wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
They are moving to points updates twice a year for AoS, one of the reasons the points booklet is seperate from the GHB.

Man, now I am even more confused. So if I buy the battletome, I do not get the points. I thought then I was forced to buy a General's Handbook each year to get the points for that year, due to the incompetence of the GW game designers.

Is there a separate document I can get (for free hopefully, rather than being charged a yearly GW incompetence tax) with the points in it, up to date? I know the Warscroll Builder has the points, but I would like something from GW to print out.

I went away from GW a few years ago and came back with everyone accepting this completely bonkers way of maintaining the rules sets as totally normal and it blows my mind how everyone accepted this. It is stupidly complicated to figure out what you need to play a game of Age of Sigmar or 40K these days.

Battletome - Allegiance abilities, subarmies (some factions have these some don't - its mostly a spilt on some unit selection and allegiance abilities); all faction warscrolls for models released at that point in time (including faction terrain and endless spells); all spell lores, equipment lists and any additional army rules; all current points for the game accurate at the time of printing. You also get painting guides, lots of lore (over half of most books), artwork, showcase models.

Generals Handbook - new battleplans, new game rule features (eg mercenaries), new concepts of play for the 3 modes.
Points update booklet - sold as part of the Generals Handbook - contains updated points for all armies across the whole game.

The system in 2018 was that the generals handbook also had the points within it, however because those go out of date GW chose to split it into two publications sold with each other. That way the gamer gets the handbook which has a long term value and lasts beyond the points updates; and a booklet they can put to one side when the points are updated.




It should be noted that the Warscroll builder has all the points whilst the GW store has all the Warscrolls. So if you don't wan't the GHB you can get away easily without it. Heck considering most armies only get tweaks not wholesale changes you can easily read the store copy or a friends copy and get the updated info.

Thank you for that explanation.

No worries

It was only the first year that GW did the generals handbook where you needed it for the points because back then it was a panic reaction to tanking sales and popularity and the battletomes back then I don't think even had points (I think they mostly just had warscrolls and that was it - not even alliance abiltiies or much of them).

Now the GHB is more of a rules expansion, battleplan addition and points clean-up/update.

The first battletomes indeed were nothing more than a collection of fluff and warscrolls. Allegiance / alliance abilities were not a thing in the first release of AOS. It was purely warscrolls and no one near me touched the battletomes because the warscrolls were free and no one cared about what fluff GW was trying to pedal. Once battletomes started having allegiance abilities (the first sylvaneth book), there was a collective annoyed groan that people would have to begin buying books again but they grudgingly did. This was still the era of fan point systems.

And then GHB 2016 came out with official points, based mostly on the SCGT point system (which did things like purposely undercost monsters so that people would take them, because AOS should have lots of large monsters) but which surprisingly used the non granular point system of Azyr (my comp, not the army builder that came out with the same name to bury the comp from searches lol) and a couple others that were not granular points-per-model but points per a selection of X models (I was shocked at that one, I didn't think that would fly) and the rest is history.

Battalions were the reason invoked to buy the first battletomes, if I remember well. The first books were the big ones detailing the war of the gates and Sigmar's first strike against Chaos. But yes, it was clearly directed to narrative players at that time. I still have those at home.

I think the main reason AoS's point system got accepted that way is mostly because the community at that time still has a core of narrative players and what was brought at that time was looked as what it really was : a tool to get things ready for a game without having to spend much time. It finally gets the work like this. So the community got used to it and when new players came to the game, they naturally were taught with it.

You can see it's completely not the same with 40k, which never let the point per model go and thus the community was always the same.

I agree to a point. The extreme competitive crowd in AOS is fairly minor and low in count compared to 40k's. But it grows monthly...

Yes, it grows, and it is also thanks to the shift in AoS's design studio towards the competitive scene (Ben Johnson is one of those actors).

Though I admit I sometimes miss the times where we had MongooseMatt still playing and supporting AoS. A lot of the narrative stuff has been replaced by debates about balance, powerbuilds and how stupid you are not to play that unit instead of that other one.

But I do agree with you, AoS's competitive scene is still nothing in comparison to 40k levels. On a funny note, Power Level in 40k was clearly made with AoS's point system in mind - and I found the AoS players I know going to 40k are usually the ones not having a problem by using it instead of points system, while 40k competitive players can't even think about this possibility.

Since we're in nostalgia mode I'll add my lament for the fan point systems next to Auticus'. For the first year and a half (or 2 if I remember correctly) GW were focused more on their narrative, campaign books etc. and not at all with balancing the game. Which one would one prefer: a game with a lot of people dedicated to balancing a set of arbitrary rules released along campaign books and miniatures or a game with a game balanced merely by interest by a group of 4 people which also have to write the rules, story etc (oh and minus the campaign books because they don't do that any more)? I know it was probably a selling decision, but still compared to what PPC and Azyr did in the past with their regular updates and statistics the GHB seems like a half - hearted job.
The moment that AoS became GHB and nothing else (probably at the turn of 2017-2018) was the moment I lost my interest as up until then I was reading all that there was to read (even as bad as most of it was), collected the books and models, gathered fan made missions and warscrolls (there were many shining example in the beginning - Mengel miniatures scrolls and missions, hivefleetcharybdis' scrolls etc). It felt like a wide enough experience compared to "here are points and several standart, but you know - you can play however you want" which is the exact opposite of what I want from AoS.