Will you use Malign portents?

[Tiger]

Now that I have the book in hands, the portents seem like a fun elements in the game. They seem similar to 40k stratagems but unlike to 40k the resource generators and triggers are tied to other means. In AoS the resource generators are D6, priests and wizards, heralds, citadel, realm of Shyish while the triggering points are focused on friendly heroes. Fighting heroes aren't less desirable, although they won't be adding to the resource generation. It's a small boon for models with a priest keyword (Cauldron of Blood, priests of Duardin,  Relictors and so on) that I've always felt were a bit lacking compared to wizards.

For those not in the known the stratagems are something of an interrupt ability, allowing you to influence the game, usually inflicting penalty, negative modifiers or re-rolls on various situations that happen during the game. There are other abilities such as bringing slain models or even negating enemy's rend.

There are six different types of portents with the heralds having access to their own. The portents are generic enough to be used in any realm, although GW decided to give some of them Shyish flavor.

I'm left wondering, are you going to give it a go? 

I am bit saddened Annointed of the Phoenix doesn't have a Priest keyword. It'd be really thematic, unless GW plans to roll Priests of the Phoenix, when they decide to work on Phoenix Temple.

[Ahriman]

I'm yet to play test it but from looking at it I can't see me playing a non-portent game ever again.

It adds so much tactical and thematic depth to the game I might as well, and anything that means you have to make in game decisions rather than decisions at home, alone, while writing an army list is a good thing from me.

That will all fall done if they prove too overpowered, but time will tell!

[Killax]

Im missing the options sometimes. But as I see this as a close maby, I voted maby...

It seems like a lot of fun to add and offers something I want to see in AoS to begin with, Stratagems, preferably by thaking Battalion abilities and ditching the whole current Battalion rules.

[Greyshadow]

I hope so - I really love the the all I have seen so far. I tend to have my projects planned pretty far in advance, easily enough hobby to take me to next year. I have a Silver Tower play through on the go at the moment though so I am not sure I'll get time to play much Age of Sigmar until the later half of the year if I am lucky. At least Malign Portents has been spread over a couple of months now - often these campaigns feel a bit blink-and-you-will-miss-it to me.

[Lucio]

I'm liking what I'm seeing so far, and it combines well with the Open War cards to generate a campaign.

Think it'd go well with Skirmish mode as well for a thematic venture into the Realm of Shyish

[angrycontra]

I voted maybe mainly because while my group will surely use these portent mechanics in some games, sometimes it's just fun to play relaxing game with no extra rule hassle. 

[Captain Marius]

I voted maybe. I wont use these rules in regular games as i prefer to keep the bolt-on rules to a minimum, however if the global campaign is interesting enough that might motivate me enough to use them in games as part of that.

[Infeston]

I will definitely use them. Some Portents really help to fight some of the problems some armies have at the moment. Especially the "Black Void" portent has many special things for Destruction players who struggle with movement or shooting. The Black Void has abilities like the reduction of shooting range (which cause some shooting units to move so close that they are close enough to be charged by certain Destruction units) or the ability to retreat and charge (which works very well with BCR, because they have many abilities that can cause mortal wounds if they charge something). 

And I hope they will also find their way into regular matched play or tournament play. The generation of prophecy points also works different in matched play. You get 3 Prophecy points for each every 500 matched play points (for example if you play a 1000 matched play point battle you will get 6 prophecy points  and if you play a 2000 points matched play battle you will get 12 prophecy points every battle round). 

I hope the rules will find their way into regular matched play battles, because it offers so much for different armies to compete better against other armies. 

[PJetski]

Malign Portents adds a "spell lore" type of system but it's for every army and I think it's great. AOS needed more customization options.

[The Doctor Of War]

I'll be giving the new rules a go tomorrow evening, and hopefully will be making use of them throughout the upcoming campaign.

[SeanMaguire1991]

I just wanna see how they hold up in Matched play

[someone2040]

I voted maybe, but 'no' probably would've been a more realistic answer.

I kinda see this book as being very 'flavour of the month', in that everyone will be very excited to play these kinda games while the Malign Portents campaign is happening, in particular if you're playing in store where you can submit your games. But once it's over, people will go do their own thing again, whether that's regular matched play games or their own little narratives.

My group mainly just wants to play pretty standard matched play games anyway, and the few that are kinda interested in doing whatever are about to start a Path to Glory in our own setting. And I don't think we're the kinda group to say 6 months later "Hey, let's play a Malign Portents game", I'm sure there'll be something new and interesting that'll be the centre of attention at that time as well.

 

The rules look fun, but I just don't really see it being the right timing for our group to pick them up and use them. I might pick up the book just because it's cheap and has some additional Skirmish rules in it (and I kinda like the idea of running a more 'themed' skirmish day or something).

 

[erasercrumbs]

I've watched battle reports that featured MP content, and I dunno, it seemed kind of, well, fiddly.  Too much stuff to remember.

[Kamose]

I've actually played  my first game with MP and I have to say I really enjoyed the Portents mechanic.  It added stratagems to the game; something I really enjoy from 40k.  I even feel it improved on the idea.  Instead of a couple dozen stratagems to remember (difficult even with the cards as reminders) you have at most 12 (usually 6) Portents.  There is definitely less resource management since Prophecy Points are replenished every turn.  This encourages both players to use the Portents frequently and promotes interaction. 

There are fewer opportunities to abuse the system and list-tailor to max out PP since the amount of PP you get is largely based on a die roll or some characteristic (bringing a Harbinger, playing in Shyish, etc.) that benefits both players.  There's no chance to 'spam' detachments like in 40k in order to farm command points and the closest you could get to abusing the mechanic is to spam wizards or priests for 1 extra PP per turn.

I intend to use MP as often as I can in my games!   

[Envyus]

7 hours ago, SeanMaguire1991 said:

I just wanna see how they hold up in Matched play

Well from the book the Matched play version is different. 

 

Instead of it being a D6 you get 3 points per 500 points of units. (So 15 in a 2500 point game. ) And Harbingers don't generate an extra 3 points except in certain scenarios. And both players if they own them can include a Harbinger in their army for free.

[Kramer]

Although I do like these kind of things I don't play enough to feel I really need the extra depth/layer on my current gaming. There is so much left to explore for my gaming group. So I will probably pick it up, just to see what it's about and for the lore. 

I still have firestorm, a genuine path to glory and a dozen smaller things left to explore. Still think these releases are amazing though! 

Question for the people that have already read it. Does it in anyway contain a 'Albion' style campaign where two or more players follow their herald?

[Burf]

4 hours ago, Envyus said:

Well from the book the Matched play version is different. 

 

Instead of it being a D6 you get 3 points per 500 points of units. (So 15 in a 2500 point game. ) And Harbingers don't generate an extra 3 points except in certain scenarios. And both players if they own them can include a Harbinger in their army for free.

So I don't actually have the book, but it raises red flags all over the place for me.

Does the bonus points for priests/wizards carry over to the matched play version? If so then the system artificially inflates the value of already very powerful wizard/priest models (relictor, any death wizards, 90% of Chaos, some of the Khorne priests, hurricanum) without changing their cost. 

The Harbingers being free is silly. There's such a massive difference between the value of the different harbingers, the majority of people just wouldn't bother competitively. Chaos will almost never bring theirs, Destructions is basically just a slightly upgraded grot shaman, the knight of shrouds is a sitting duck against some armys but great against things like Ironjawz, but the biggest offender is the lord Ordinatus. The Ordinatus in most Order armies is a 4+ save paperweight, but in armies that have good warmachines he's completely busted. I would never risk letting a freeguild player have a free ordinatus to take ANY of the Harbingers.

Having universal strategems is worrying. GW is notoriously bad at planning for how buffs interact with buffs. I haven't yet seen all of them but the one I HAVE seen let's skyfires shoot EVEN MORE MORTAL WOUNDS so this is already sounding super dumb. The worst part about things like this is that while they often help shore up the weaknesses of the lower tier armies some, they tend to make already competitive armies exponentially stronger.

[ledha]

1 hour ago, Burf said:

So I don't actually have the book, but it raises red flags all over the place for me.

Does the bonus points for priests/wizards carry over to the matched play version? If so then the system artificially inflates the value of already very powerful wizard/priest models (relictor, any death wizards, 90% of Chaos, some of the Khorne priests, hurricanum) without changing their cost. 

The Harbingers being free is silly. There's such a massive difference between the value of the different harbingers, the majority of people just wouldn't bother competitively. Chaos will almost never bring theirs, Destructions is basically just a slightly upgraded grot shaman, the knight of shrouds is a sitting duck against some armys but great against things like Ironjawz, but the biggest offender is the lord Ordinatus. The Ordinatus in most Order armies is a 4+ save paperweight, but in armies that have good warmachines he's completely busted. I would never risk letting a freeguild player have a free ordinatus to take ANY of the Harbingers.

Having universal strategems is worrying. GW is notoriously bad at planning for how buffs interact with buffs. I haven't yet seen all of them but the one I HAVE seen let's skyfires shoot EVEN MORE MORTAL WOUNDS so this is already sounding super dumb. The worst part about things like this is that while they often help shore up the weaknesses of the lower tier armies some, they tend to make already competitive armies exponentially stronger.

You should take the book before worrying.

In matched play, the amount of PP is fixed. 3 for 500 pts. 12 for 2000. Nothing more. Priest, wizards and co don't give you anything more. As well for the harbringer.

However if BOTH of you and your opponent don't have an harbringer, you can have one for free (if you paid for a harbringer and your opponent didn't, he doesn't gain anything). And in this case, the goblin and the warqueen, to compensante their lower point cost, give 3 more prophecy point per turn. And the personnal potents of the goblin are absurdly bonker. There isn't any good reason to not bring him when playing destruction.

So all your worries are answered. And it's up to the players to agree about the "free harbringer if none of us have one"

Concerning the potent which give +1 to hit in the shooting phase : it's the most expensive (5pp), and force the unit to be whollyn within the hero, so it break a bit their moblity, or make them previsible. Meanwhile, you can have +1 to hit in combat phase for 3 pp, -6 to all shooting weapon range on the board for not much more, and lot of very, very, very good things that buff the movement and charge phase (like run+charge and other very good thingsà

[Burf]

5 minutes ago, ledha said:

You should take the book before worrying.

In matched play, the amount of PP is fixed. 3 for 500 pts. 12 for 2000. Nothing more. Priest, wizards and co don't give you anything more. As well for the harbringer.

However if BOTH of you and your opponent don't have an harbringer, you can have one for free (if you paid for a harbringer and your opponent didn't, he doesn't gain anything). And in this case, the goblin and the warqueen, to compesante their lower point cost, give 3 more prophecy point per turn.

So all your worries are answered.

Except they aren't. I knew the part about the Harbingers being free if you both took them. My point was that the rules is irrelevent and silly because of the incredibly dramatic power gap between the harbingers. You will only ever see the Ordinator and the MAYBE the Knight of Shrouds regardless.

Also, do you get bonuses for the Harbingers or don't you? You said both within a paragraph of each other. And let's say for example, that you get 3 extra points for the Darkoath and Shaman. So? The darkoath is still really bad, the goblin shaman is still a cheap, fragile gimmick and the Lord Ordinator still makes warmachines CRAZY. All the 3 extra prophecy points do is make the Knighy of shrouds a worse option relatively speaking.

And none of that addresses the fact that some armies will benefit significantly more from the stratagems than others and some armies will be punished more harshly than others by defensive stratagems.

An example using just the 2 strategems people have talked about here. The +1 to hit shooting stratagem is a massive benefit to both skyfires and Vanguard Longstrikes, it benefits the skyfires MORE than the the longstrikes but they're fairly close overall.

The black void is MASSIVELY better against Longstrikes than it is against skyfires. A skyfire loses very very little to having it's shooting range reduced thanks to it's incredible 16" movement. Meanwhile Vanguard Longstrikes become almost cripplingly worse. In fact, Blackvoid; meant to reduce the strength of shooting, actually makes the best shooting unit in the game BETTER by crowding out things skyfires USED to be threatened by.

[ledha]

39 minutes ago, Burf said:

Except they aren't. I knew the part about the Harbingers being free if you both took them. My point was that the rules is irrelevent and silly because of the incredibly dramatic power gap between the harbingers. You will only ever see the Ordinator and the MAYBE the Knight of Shrouds regardless.

Also, do you get bonuses for the Harbingers or don't you? You said both within a paragraph of each other. And let's say for example, that you get 3 extra points for the Darkoath and Shaman. So? The darkoath is still really bad, the goblin shaman is still a cheap, fragile gimmick and the Lord Ordinator still makes warmachines CRAZY. All the 3 extra prophecy points do is make the Knighy of shrouds a worse option relatively speaking.

And none of that addresses the fact that some armies will benefit significantly more from the stratagems than others and some armies will be punished more harshly than others by defensive stratagems.

An example using just the 2 strategems people have talked about here. The +1 to hit shooting stratagem is a massive benefit to both skyfires and Vanguard Longstrikes, it benefits the skyfires MORE than the the longstrikes but they're fairly close overall.

The black void is MASSIVELY better against Longstrikes than it is against skyfires. A skyfire loses very very little to having it's shooting range reduced thanks to it's incredible 16" movement. Meanwhile Vanguard Longstrikes become almost cripplingly worse. In fact, Blackvoid; meant to reduce the strength of shooting, actually makes the best shooting unit in the game BETTER by crowding out things skyfires USED to be threatened by.

Having 15 pts is way better than 12. And as i said, the goblin personnal portent are absolutely hilariously powerful. With them, he can use his one-per-game ability every turn (this only make him extremely strong.  80 pts for a easy-to-hide caster who can use two spells per turn with full reroll, while having a 5+ invulnerable save and giving -1 to hit to the ennemy makng him harder to snipe ? and being able to take items ? YES PLEASE), can make a unit run and charge, and give bonus to move, run and charge rolls. He is completely tailored to a destruction list.

Concerning the skyfire, because the potent is at the shooting phase, they will need to be fully within to their hero during it, while being in range of their foe. It make it a bit harder then "buff in hero phase, do what you want after".  It make their job (sniping backline heroes) way harder, and your opponent may not want to go to close fight when potent giving better move+fly and no retreat mean they can be charged quite fast and unable to escape melee against buffed units.

concerning the lord ordinator, he is VERY GOOD with a VERY SPECIFIC list. He improve the strong point of those list (artillery train) but doesn't cover it's horrible weakness. It will smash list it was strong against, and will continue to be trashed by lists who could snipe and kill the crew without any difficulty. So in a competitive setting, no one care because it won't change anything at all.

And if someone bring a lord-ordinator with full artillery train in a friendly match against someone who don't have a list able to answer to it, he is just a ******.

For the knight of Shroud, he give to nighthaunts something they really needed before. This plus the units coming for them will be very appreciated.

[Infeston]

6 minutes ago, ledha said:

Having 15 pts is way better than 12. And as i said, the golbin personnal portent are asbolutely hilariously powerful. He can use his one-per-game ability every turn (this only make hims extremely strong.  80 pts for a easy-to-hide caster who can use two spells per turn with full reroll, while having a 5+ invulnerable save and giving -1 to hit to the ennemy ? and being able to take items ? YES PLEASE), can make a unit run and charge, and give bonus to move, run and charge rolls. He is completely tailored to a destruction list.

I tend to agree. The new Portents especially give Destruction new possibilities to compete with other armies, because they get very useful tools.

 

45 minutes ago, Burf said:

An example using just the 2 strategems people have talked about here. The +1 to hit shooting stratagem is a massive benefit to both skyfires and Vanguard Longstrikes, it benefits the skyfires MORE than the the longstrikes but they're fairly close overall.

The black void is MASSIVELY better against Longstrikes than it is against skyfires. A skyfire loses very very little to having it's shooting range reduced thanks to it's incredible 16" movement. Meanwhile Vanguard Longstrikes become almost cripplingly worse. In fact, Blackvoid; meant to reduce the strength of shooting, actually makes the best shooting unit in the game BETTER by crowding out things skyfires USED to be threatened by.

You also have to choose which portent you follow at the begin of the battle. And there are always portents that can counter the other portents in a certain way. The portents give a lot of flexbility for everyone. The Black Void is mostly for utility. Other portents allow you to do D3 damage or make units unable to move or to ignore rend values when you make a save.

And the strong ones often cost 4-5 points, so you have to decide which one you use. Also each portent can only be used once per turn. There are certain limitations which don't make them to overpowered. I would advise you to read the book and you will understand better in which way they work.

[Twitch of Izalith]

I am really looking forward to getting my first game with these rules next weekend. Unfortunately none of my fledgling Death army is even assembled yet as I'm still busy with other projects. We'll probably use the matched play rules to work out Prophecy Points - it just seems more straight forward and even.  

I'm glad I got the card deck because after reading through the book it seems almost essential for keeping track during a game.

I'm not sure how the rules will work out for competitive/tournament play - no doubt something will be too powerful and cause a lot of moaning  - but for friendly matched play games they look great. 

 

 

[Burf]

24 minutes ago, ledha said:

Having 15 pts is way better than 12. And as i said, the goblin personnal portent are absolutely hilariously powerful. With them, he can use his one-per-game ability every turn (this only make him extremely strong.  80 pts for a easy-to-hide caster who can use two spells per turn with full reroll, while having a 5+ invulnerable save and giving -1 to hit to the ennemy makng him harder to snipe ? and being able to take items ? YES PLEASE), can make a unit run and charge, and give bonus to move, run and charge rolls. He is completely tailored to a destruction list.

Concerning the skyfire, because the potent is at the shooting phase, they will need to be fully within to their hero during it, while being in range of their foe. It make it a bit harder then "buff in hero phase, do what you want after".  It make their job (sniping backline heroes) way harder, and your opponent may not want to go to close fight when potent giving better move+fly and no retreat mean they can be charged quite fast and unable to escape melee against buffed units.

concerning the lord ordinator, he is VERY GOOD with a VERY SPECIFIC list. He improve the strong point of those list (artillery train) but doesn't cover it's horrible weakness. It will smash list it was strong against, and will continue to be trashed by lists who could snipe and kill the crew without any difficulty. So in a competitive setting, no one care because it won't change anything at all.

And if someone bring a lord-ordinator with full artillery train in a friendly match against someone who don't have a list able to answer to it, he is just a ******.

For the knight of Shroud, he give to nighthaunts something they really needed before. This plus the units coming for them will be very appreciated.

The lord ordinator doesn't NEED to cover any weakness. If your army is dead, there's no need to worry about melee. Sniping the crew is a good option, hope you don't play ironjawz though. And why are you talking about casual play? It's irrelevant. 

Have you ever played with skyfires? They camp with a Shaman 100% of the time. It makes 0 difference. And skyfires job isn't 'sniping backline heroes' as much as it is 'dealing hilarious amounts of damage to your army'. They're not even super likely to be charged because they're not totally terrible in combat and Tzeentch has screens for DAYS.

[Clan's Cynic]

I don't see anybody here using it. These spin-off additional rules have never been popular for more than a store-organised event to herald in their release. It's been like that as far back as Cityfight for 40k's 3th Edition. About the only thing that I think will see use are, of course, the Harbringers on account of being new models.

Not that I'd be opposed to using them of course but I know the realities.

[ledha]

10 minutes ago, Burf said:

The lord ordinator does NEED to cover any weakness. If your army is dead, there's no need to worry about melee. Sniping the crew is a good option, hope you don't play ironjawz though. And why are you talking about casual play? It's irrelevant. 

Have you ever played with skyfires? They camp with a Shaman 100% of the time. It makes 0 difference. And skyfires job isn't 'sniping backline heroes' as much as it is 'dealing hilarious amounts of damage to your army'. They're not even super likely to be charged because they're not totally terrible in combat and Tzeentch has screens for DAYS.

Yeah, if you play ironjaw, you are screwed against an artillery army with lord-ordinator. However, the artillery army doesn't need the lord ordinator at all to smack you so it doesn't really change anything for you (Ironjaw still suxx hard in any competitive setting).

In my local meta, no one play artillery, because the one who did were destroyed again and again, mostly because all of our lists can counter it with ease.  Giving them a lord-ordinator won't change anything for them. We'll just snipe everything turn 1/2 and good bye ! As i said, the inclusion of the lord ordinator won't change anything. The army will be overkill against list it was already able to table out, and will still be shutdown by list who could counter it.

As for skyfire, yes, i played against them too many time for my sanity back then (the glorious days of the 18 skyfires army !) , but i prefer to face a 12 skyfire unit with +2 to hit than the ****** the Changehost can throw at you or the Fyreslayers. Especially because with the new portent, i have me too some really good tools in my box.