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You could have some outside the battalion with a different bonus, and each unit in the battalion can have a different bonus from one another.

Because the middling books can't have nice things. Pick an army that has a biased writer. Professionalism is for the weak.

Only explanation for how the disparity in books in both flagship games can continue year after year.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
You could have some outside the battalion with a different bonus, and each unit in the battalion can have a different bonus from one another.

So you have to pay for something they probably should have had, in the first place?

What exactly was wrong with just getting 2 Circles.

I'm convinced at this point that GW doesn't understand what balance is or why it is important.


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 VictorVonTzeentch wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
You could have some outside the battalion with a different bonus, and each unit in the battalion can have a different bonus from one another.

So you have to pay for something they probably should have had, in the first place?

What exactly was wrong with just getting 2 Circles.

I also think it is rather lame that each unit couldn't each get their own pick by default.

From the Errata (emphasis added):

‘When you select this battalion to be part of your army, for each unit from this battalion, you can replace the keyword you chose from the list in the Eight Circles of the Varanguard battle trait with a different keyword from the same list.’

My reading is that each unit of Varanguard can have a different keyword (i.e., if you have six Varanguard units in the battalion, they could each have a different CIRCLE keyword).

Wow, those gimp changes on Varanguard are bs. They better drop the points to 280 at least.

 timetowaste85 wrote:
Wow, those gimp changes on Varanguard are bs. They better drop the points to 280 at least.

It's not like Varanguard were dominating the scene or anything.

They made some really odd choices with this FAQ.

I know. Dumb changes for no reason.

Why did they even nerf that batallion? I mean. Wow! Varanguard with two circles! So OP!

It wasn't something confusing or an error. It was clear that their intent was for varanguard to have two circles...

Let me tell you, they have changed this probably because some people complained that by fluff a Varanguard couldnt be of more than one circle.

I wonder if enough of us complain they’ll put it back? Could be worth a try. Also, Varanguard can’t mix weapons anymore. They’ve been able to since they were created. Removing that is ridiculous as well. A unit of essentially heroes can’t pick which weapon they ride to battle with? This FAQ feels like a huge knee-jerk. If it came with discounted costs I could see it, but Varanguard are already expensive and you have to plan your army around them if going in on them. The nerf without a reasonable price drop is insane.

I’ll still run them, but that 120pts is getting me a wizard (and upgrading the sphynx to a second wizard).

 Eldarain wrote:
Because the middling books can't have nice things. Pick an army that has a biased writer. Professionalism is for the weak.

Only explanation for how the disparity in books in both flagship games can continue year after year.

Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
Just look at KO, GW is so sure they're the one ranged army that'd utterly break the game if left unchecked, but anvils of heldenhammer shootcast and other ranged monstrosities are perfectly fine.

Cronch wrote:

 Eldarain wrote:
Because the middling books can't have nice things. Pick an army that has a biased writer. Professionalism is for the weak.

Only explanation for how the disparity in books in both flagship games can continue year after year.

Don't attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence.
Just look at KO, GW is so sure they're the one ranged army that'd utterly break the game if left unchecked, but anvils of heldenhammer shootcast and other ranged monstrosities are perfectly fine.

You can thank the wonderful whiners who insisted that Stormcast be a unified book for that. We likely would have gotten different traits for each Chamber, seeing as how we have different warband tables.

And while we're at it, this is also the design team that thinks that the Lord-Aquilor is overpowered for Path to Glory/Skirmish.

You can thank the wonderful whiners who insisted that Stormcast be a unified book for that.

Yeah, no. 4 books for stormcast would be patently absurd. It's just garbage balancing like usual, nothing specifically wrong with stormcast, just like 3 KoS lists are result of bad balancing, not because Slaanesh wasn't split into 5 books one for each demon unit.

Because Sacrosanct totally would have ended up as its own book, rather than bundled up with the Warrior Chamber amirite?
Because that's what Sacrosanct are. A Warrior Chamber reskin.


Frankly though, the Anvils shootcast is built around cheese...that is immediately hard countered with reasonable terrain placement.

Well, if an "army" of one big dragon and one small dragon can be it's own book (as Extremis was, and you advocate for it to be again), why shouldn't the sacrosanct not get their own book?

Honestly I think GW is going the path of more variety in armies and races with AoS rather than having 10 Stormcast armies built around different themes. Whilst that works for Marines it also creates a very odd situation and ideally a lot of marine players want games against things other than other marines.

Honestly the marine situation for 40K isn't actually all that healthy for the game. It's healthy in terms of sales don't get me wrong; and I don't disilke the themed marine forces. But I far rather prefer the AoS path that its going down with having way more different armies.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I think GW is going the path of more variety in armies and races with AoS

Tell that to Cities of Sigmar, which royally screwed over exactly what you're arguing. Wanderers weren't part of the Cities in the lore...yet got rolled in. Because reasons, I guess.

rather than having 10 Stormcast armies built around different themes.

We'd be at 4 right now, assuming Sacrosanct and Extremis got their own books and weren't rolled in with the Warrior Chamber(which lacked mounted units). The remaining Chambers we have are, from what the lore has suggested, something that would be more in line with us having characters added into the existing books.

Whilst that works for Marines it also creates a very odd situation and ideally a lot of marine players want games against things other than other marines.

Yeah, well one of the problems with that is people have to be willing to actually play the damn game and find what they like.

Unfortunately, that's not the case these days. You can thank the ease of netlists for that.

Honestly the marine situation for 40K isn't actually all that healthy for the game. It's healthy in terms of sales don't get me wrong; and I don't disilke the themed marine forces. But I far rather prefer the AoS path that its going down with having way more different armies.

Vanguard Stormcast, if they'd been allowed to actually be an individual army, would have been vastly different to the standard stuff. But nope, they didn't get that chance thanks to the incessant whining about "Sigmarines" and the audacity for there to be (gasp!) two whole books for two vastly different forces that got released with a chunk of time between them.

It's also worth noting that we're not really "having way more different armies". We're seeing extremely similar armies coming out, just for different Grand Alliances. We're seeing a "subfaction" in the book which is themed around making Behemoths Battleline, a subfaction that's better at fightin', a subfaction that's better with magic, etc.

 Overread wrote:
Honestly I think GW is going the path of more variety in armies and races with AoS rather than having 10 Stormcast armies built around different themes. Whilst that works for Marines it also creates a very odd situation and ideally a lot of marine players want games against things other than other marines.

Honestly the marine situation for 40K isn't actually all that healthy for the game. It's healthy in terms of sales don't get me wrong; and I don't disilke the themed marine forces. But I far rather prefer the AoS path that its going down with having way more different armies.

I agree with this, and I’m a Blood Angels player haha. Marines are bloated beyond a reasonable amount. At some stage, when they flush all the old units away and it’s all just the new Primaris line, it’ll at least settle a bit. But even so, having 6 different books, all devoted to different flavours of marines is just unwieldy.

I’m much more in favour of how Sigmar is handling it atm.

But nope, they didn't get that chance thanks to the incessant whining about "Sigmarines" and the audacity for there to be (gasp!) two whole books for two vastly different forces that got released with a chunk of time between them.

Some of us aren't marine players and don't enjoy buying two books just to field one army.
Or are you seriously suggesting liberators without shields but with a short-ranged attack somehow are "vastly different"?

My problem with the Varenguard weapon options nerf is that I can't foresee a time when I will ever take more than two units. You do not get options on the builds, so you have to have one Deamonblade, one Ensorcelled blade, and one Felspear for $100. I will either have to hope my opponent lets me count all of those weapons as "counts as" for one type, or I would have to buy and paint up another box, and then have 3 extra Varenguard that I don't use.

That’s not true; you get three of each type. You get three spears, a bloodletter sword, Plaguebearer sword, and tzeentch scepter for the daemon weapons, then a hammer, axe and blade for the enscorcelled weapons. I currently have multiple kits. Trust me on this one...

 timetowaste85 wrote:
That’s not true; you get three of each type. You get three spears, a bloodletter sword, Plaguebearer sword, and tzeentch scepter for the daemon weapons, then a hammer, axe and blade for the enscorcelled weapons. I currently have multiple kits. Trust me on this one...

This.
You literally get a multitude of weapons.
That’s part of why there’s so many of them on eBay.

They could add more options for rhe weapons, for cystomization tbh... For what they charge...
I use then on my khorne with demonic weapobns and gave then Ensorcelled weapons painted with red glow.

 Galas wrote:
They could add more options for rhe weapons, for cystomization tbh... For what they charge...
I use then on my khorne with demonic weapobns and gave then Ensorcelled weapons painted with red glow.

Not going to argue about the price as it is insanely high.
Weapon wise though they get more options per model than most kits GW make.

I do feel that varanguard should have kept the ability to mix weapons.

All the other units it was, IMO, GW fixing a typo that was copy-pasted across multiple units. Typos happen and that one would be easy to miss for someone who knows the weapon choice is supposed to be unit-wide, not gonna blame GW on that front.

Cronch wrote:

But nope, they didn't get that chance thanks to the incessant whining about "Sigmarines" and the audacity for there to be (gasp!) two whole books for two vastly different forces that got released with a chunk of time between them.

Some of us aren't marine players and don't enjoy buying two books just to field one army.
Or are you seriously suggesting liberators without shields but with a short-ranged attack somehow are "vastly different"?

Seconded. The last thing I want is for stormcast to completly take on the space marine mantle in fantasy, and fantasy becomiing 80% stormcast releases, and be thankful for anything else you get!

If stormcast never get another major release I'll be fine with it. Give us as many variations on order Humans as the elves get...

Honestly as they are besides a few more characters and perhaps some other large monstrous creatures (which tend to be limited in how many you can practically field at once); Stormcast already do pretty much everything with variety on the table too. They don't need anything more and having had a fully modern build there isn't really room to add huge lots of models to them nor reason to update existing sculpts either.

IT means they've had a fantastic start, but I'd hope that it means they won't see much in a way of major new releases for a long while. There are plenty of other AoS armies in need of bulking up on choices or updating of old sculpts. Plus AoS would honestly need new niches for Stormcast to get things that won't be tripping over the heels of what they've got already.

By all means if GW finds a new trick like Endless Spells was; then give them to stormcast too; but otherwise leave the production slots open for other races. With all the promotional setup (start collecting sets, marketing, lore, the freaking name of the game and also things like Conquest ) Stormcast will always sell well so long as AoS does well.

Honestly besides the initial setting, the attention Sigmarines got was a major turnoff for AoS, at least for me. First box set? Fine. But that first year was just Sigmarines, Blood Blooders and a lot of nothing beyond phoned-in lizards (that maybe got new box art out of the deal?)

And then another chamber and then underworlds sets and yet another chamber in another box set and it was just too much focus on them and too much wasted space that wasn't getting filled.

They really need to spend the next few years on the other Realms and other armies.


Edit: and that they're they've got the biggest unit selection in the entire range (60 entries on their store page, just pipping past the combined Cities of Sigmar) speaks volumes about the excessive overabundance of support they've had. Many AoS armies don't break 20 entries, and all but Cities, Legions of Nagash and Slaves to Darkness (all of which are legacy ranges) cap in the 30s.

Voss wrote:
Honestly besides the initial setting, the attention Sigmarines got was a major turnoff for AoS, at least for me. First box set? Fine. But that first year was just Sigmarines, Blood Blooders and a lot of nothing beyond phoned-in lizards (that maybe got new box art out of the deal?)

And then another chamber and then underworlds sets and yet another chamber in another box set and it was just too much focus on them and too much wasted space that wasn't getting filled.

They really need to spend the next few years on the other Realms and other armies.

Agreed a 100%

While some sigmarines miniatures are sublimes, most of them are bad and the overabondance of them made AOS stale and boring.

Thankfully, they seemed to have stopped shoving them down everyone throats recently, and are giving us much more diverse release (even though I find them to be very hit and miss)

are giving us much more diverse release

No, it's just more boring chaos and death, while destruction might as well not exist. Slaves to darkness could've easily been cut out and the few remaining units shoved into the god-themed books. But nope, Chaos has to have two books a year.