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So having skimmed through GH2017, here are some of my thoughts on it:

First, while not technically part of GH2017 they are mentioned, and the Open War cards seem great. I plan to make great use of them as my go-to for AOS games. Draw a deployment zone, draw an objective, possibly a twist, possibly give each player a ruse, and let that drive the narrative. Amazing idea.

I really like the changes to Coalition of Death and Triumph and Treachery to make them more interesting, although I doubt you'll see many people bother with the optional rules for limiting communication (too much of a hassle for most people to do). Triumph & Treachery in particular seems really good with the concept of "neutral" armies that you can't interact with unless they are your chosen enemy, and the "Treachery Points" mechanic seems really fun. The Siege rules I'll be honest I skipped as I'm not really interested in that, but from a quick glance they seem fairly solid. Not for me though, so I can't really comment more on them.

The Realmgate Wars battleplans seem pretty good for when you don't want an asymmetrical approach using the Pitched Battles, but as I said above I think Open War will be my go-to for most games. Speaking of the Pitched Battles, they definitely seem to be an improvement over the IMHO rather bland ones from the previous General's Handbook and should provide a lot of tactical flexibility and depth during the game.

The points and abilities changes have been discussed elsewhere so I won't get into them, but I will say that some I like, some I think weren't enough (especially for Death) but overall they are better than getting nothing.

The Time of War rules I found to be a bit disappointing however, I had expected more generic rules simply for playing in a particular realm, rather than a specific segment of said realm. Some of the abilities are cool, some can be over the top and make them unsuitable for even a rough balance approach (the beast one where you each get a free MONSTER, or the Metal one where you might have to roll a save for each model in a unit that's not in cover, and if they fail the save the unit takes a mortal wound, the Death one that can instantly slay models on a 6 while providing bonuses for DEATH units). These are still unsuitable IMHO without extra work to strip out the crazy effects but leave some of the more thematic ones in place. The bonus wizard spells are very cool and at the least I could see those being in play to provide a "feel" to each realm, but most of the special things can be too unbalanced to make them worth using, which is a shame as I was really looking forward to being able to make use of different realms in games to give the game a different feel.

Overall, despite my disliking some of the points and abilities changes, this is a solid book. Everything really seems improved from before, and with the Open War cards there's a lot of variety that can be done in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar games.

Thanks for the review. I made a post in thinking what to get, and was almost about not to get the cards. Now after reading this, I will get the cards.

Nice review greatly appreciate the time and effort.

Davor

Same, great review.

I liked the cards very much.

My GHB 2017 opinion:
++ Open War Cards - awesome

++ Triumph and Treachery getting more fleshed out

+ New Open format with Death cards

+ Making batallions cost more for the most part. I'm not a fan of free abilities. Some may have gotten hit harder than others but thats what we get for choosing the points we did and discarding the ones that would have gotten deeper into each formation.

+ New abilities for armies not getting a bone for a while. They looked well done for the most part.

- Removing legacy models synergies. I understand why, and I get that they are a business and that people squatting on models from 2003 and not wanting to buy any more models aren't their customer base anymore. Its not a rage point for me, but at the same time I'm annoyed that they won't start fleshing the other part of the game out.

-- Points. After spending a good chunk of time updating azyr comp's formula with the new warscrolls and new point values, lets just say all they did was shift goal posts like usual and that there is a wealth of powergaming min/maxing that will be had same as GHB 2016. Thankfully I already own a bunch of skeleton models so I may actually get to play tournaments again with an OP list.

-- Sieges. This was something I was looking forward to the most. The section on sieges in the GHB is lacking. Thats being polite. Especially when compared to the Siege supplement that was part of the game 20 years ago.

So a mixed bag for me.