Age of Sigmar: Second Edition

[Infeston]

New faction focus is up: Flash-eater Courts

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/05/27/27th-may-faction-focus-flesh-eater-courtsgw-homepage-post-3/

[GeneralZero]

with several goul kings you get several big units for free... lol

Where are we going with AoS 2? this is a big mystery to me

[AlphaKennyThing]

Well, the Flesh Eater Courts look decent. Need to utilise command points to get those extra units in, so that limits what you can do with other stuff if you want to spam summons.

 

[Aelfric]

I'm beginning to like command points more and more.  They are offering lots of great things to do, but they all require a command point.  So long as the number of command points is restricted or requires some sacrifice elsewhere, then it becomes a question of choices and these choices are in our own hands to make.  Ah, choices, choices......

[Aelfric]

So, focus on shooting tomorrow.  That will be interesting.

[blueshirtman]

1 hour ago, AlphaKennyThing said:

Well, the Flesh Eater Courts look decent. Need to utilise command points to get those extra units in, so that limits what you can do with other stuff if you want to spam summons.

 

a CP is worth 50pts. So you could run a battalion, 50-100pts less and have 4 CP at the end of turn one. Now I have no idea how powerful this combo will be, no one here plays flesh court. But it seems a lot of free units.

[Elmir]

46 minutes ago, Aelfric said:

I'm beginning to like command points more and more.  They are offering lots of great things to do, but they all require a command point.  So long as the number of command points is restricted or requires some sacrifice elsewhere, then it becomes a question of choices and these choices are in our own hands to make.  Ah, choices, choices......

This... I'm shooting myself in the foot with my FEC faction, but IF they don't tweak majestic horror/attendants at court/royal family AND don't limit the 50p gets you 1CP, the FEC really can turn things into a shitshow really quickly... Those battalions are essentially free because of what you can summon with them anyway (ghoul patrol will be nasty too)
 

[Rogue Explorator]

43 minutes ago, Elmir said:

This... I'm shooting myself in the foot with my FEC faction, but IF they don't tweak majestic horror/attendants at court/royal family AND don't limit the 50p gets you 1CP, the FEC really can turn things into a shitshow really quickly... Those battalions are essentially free because of what you can summon with them anyway (ghoul patrol will be nasty too)
 

The way I read the faction fokus, it implies Ghoul Kings are the only ones who can still summon new units to the battlefield (and that only once per game each). Looks like Courtiers will be limited to restocking  existing units.

To quote:

"These abilities now cost no reinforcement points and have been tweaked so they work once per Ghoul King. In short, this means that every Ghoul King essentially comes with a free unit, while your Courtiers will ensure they stay in the fight "

Could also mean everyone keeps their summoning abilities as is, but get to summon only one unit per game for each Ghoul King you have.

Either way, with Ghoul Kings likely going up in points to account for their "free" units, FEC will hardly be swamping the battlefield,no matter how many CP they boast.

Still, their abilities to replenish units with command abilities alone is pretty good and worth looking for extra CP. However, LoN gets to replenish their units as well and do so without CP cost. FeC might see themselves boosted a bit, but they will hardly be the new OP army.

[Elmir]

Only using it once per game would be kind of lame, seeing how FEC only have command abilities to summon units... There would be no  other command abilities to use your CP on except for the generic ones.  Let's just hope they bolt an extra command ability on stuff here and there if that's the case. 

If the tweak is that each GK can only use it once per game, it would definitely tone down the spiral of summoning madness... Although the same article mentions FEC being able to "grow" their units. If they mean going above their starting point, it's really going to be a tough army if you can summon a Vargulf courtier and a unit of horrors/flayers somewhere and they are left to "balloon" out of proportion over the course of a game

[erasercrumbs]

11 hours ago, Aryann said:

After all this year releases and those not yet released (which are depending on rumours still four factions remaining. Four!) it is a bit unfair to expect GW to cover everything. This year is just amazing. With all those releases it is hard to decide which army to add to our collections, there is just so much getting out this year. Enough attractions if we don't want to take loans to buy all those minis. 

Well, it's not like I was demanding or any news about Skaven, just hoping for something like a teaser that read, "Who knows what's around the corner for Skaven in 2019?"  

I get that AOS has suffered a lot of unfair criticisms over the years, but not every bit of unmet optimism warrants a defense of the franchise.  

 

[AthlorianStoners]

Damnnnn this looks very cool for FEC. 

Obviously without seeing anything else there could be other changes, but from what we’ve seen you could very much maximise your list potential. 

My current list is 

ABK on ZD 

T-Gheist 

3x Units Of Ghouls 

1x Horrors 

1x Flayers 

2x Ghast Courtiers

1x Varghulf 

Ghoul Patrol

If I relied on using the summoning to bring in the Horrors and Flayers, that frees me up to add another Terrorgheist to my list, or the other Courtiers if I wanted. Very excited for this!

 

 

[Clan's Cynic]

4 hours ago, GeneralZero said:

Where are we going with AoS 2? this is a big mystery to me

"Buy more models, nerds. It's uh, for forging a narrative or something."

[GeneralZero]

11 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

4 hours ago, GeneralZero said:

Where are we going with AoS 2? this is a big mystery to me

"Buy more models, nerds. It's uh, for forging a narrative or something."

this, I already know, I am this nerd....for almost 3 decades 

[Riavan]

1 hour ago, Clan's Cynic said:

"Buy more models, nerds. It's uh, for forging a narrative or something."

I'm actually concerned about this. Its just making armies bigger and harder to balance.

It's also throwing in a ton of deepstrikeability right after gw has tried cutting it back from 40k.

[AverageBoss]

There are more ways to balance points free summoning than just points costs. Army traits and abilities, lack of strength and/or presence in different phases of the game, and opportunity cost are some such ways.

We have 4 books written for the new edition in mind: Maggotkin, DoK, LoN, and IDK. Everyone else is going to be tweaked in some manner to be brought into line.

If we are going to give armies points penalties because one of their traits allows them to summon the occasional unit (which is less worth its points the later in the game it arrives), should we not also charge armies for being able to do things like determine how their opponents shooting phase is going to go down?

 

[Skreech Verminking]

9 hours ago, erasercrumbs said:

Well, it's not like I was demanding or any news about Skaven, just hoping for something like a teaser that read, "Who knows what's around the corner for Skaven in 2019?"  

I get that AOS has suffered a lot of unfair criticisms over the years, but not every bit of unmet optimism warrants a defense of the franchise.  

 

Well Gw did give as some kind of hint preferring to something happening in the future, where skaven are probably a big part of it:

 

In short, there are good times ahead for the skaven – if you’re looking to start your army, why not grab a Verminlord? 

So there still is a possibility, that they where hinting on some kind of battletome coming out sooner or later.

(at least this is something I’m hoping for)

[Riavan]

3 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

There are more ways to balance points free summoning than just points costs. Army traits and abilities, lack of strength and/or presence in different phases of the game, and opportunity cost are some such ways.

We have 4 books written for the new edition in mind: Maggotkin, DoK, LoN, and IDK. Everyone else is going to be tweaked in some manner to be brought into line.

If we are going to give armies points penalties because one of their traits allows them to summon the occasional unit (which is less worth its points the later in the game it arrives), should we not also charge armies for being able to do things like determine how their opponents shooting phase is going to go down?

 

Of course. It's still making them bigger though. Higher price to buy in. 

Also it's not like the game was balanced without summoning so yeah... I don't have great faith.

[tea_wild_owl]

just a few comments from my point of view about the free summoning stuff for LoN and FEC:

Reviving a dead unit (LoN):

it seems that some people are thinking when a block of 40 skelettons gets revived, it will be immediately back to fight you in the next turn. But you have to consider that there must be a graveyard with enough space to hold a block of 40 skeletons more than 9" away from any enemy model. this means most of the time that it's a backyard graveyard in my territory, with a long way to March back into action. Furthermore, you have to spend a command point, which might be needed for a buff somewhere else, and the general needs to be near the graveyard to ressurect your unit. it COULD be devastating if there is a free graveyard near the front, but there are several ways to block these options. The only big benefit would be for fast units such as wolves and riders, or for late game objective grabbers. Once the general is dead, you won't have the option to resurrect, so as for most armies you should go for the head.

Summoning new units for FEC:

getting (free) new units is great for the faction itself, and might bring them to an advantage against some enemies, but you have to consider the limitations, as well. for the current rules, the newly summoned units are set up within 3" of a border, 9" away from enemy, and possibly out of range for deathly minions save. so except for lucky 9+" charges, the will be easy targets for the enemy in the next round (if you don't get the double turn). Furthermore, the units we are talking about are quite small: 10 ghouls, 3 horrors or 3 flayers. the nastiest thing are the courtiers, which can bring you above the hero cap and refill your armies, but with restrictions to the battlefield border it will be hard to buff your troops in the centre.

 

Of course these free summonings will be a benefit for these armies (what are dead if not limitless hordes swarming you?), and I'm looking forward to see how it will effect the game.

but on the other hand, I am looking forward for tosee and find counter strategies, as well

 

[GeneralZero]

I'm not worrying about summoning.

But magic on the other hand....

[Killax]

29 minutes ago, GeneralZero said:

I'm not worrying about summoning.

But magic on the other hand....

Well I think the beauty of why I really like where this Magic is going comes from the fact everybody will have acces to it. It's allready quite easy to imagne that in itself balancing itself out because the Realm spells and Artefacts will be the same cross faction. This same-same often leads to a rather balanced effect on the metagame.

Summonning on the other hand isn't available to all and Warscrolls for units differ enough that I'd say it's a very slippery slope. Especially for factions who allready have strong summonning in a metagame where you do have to pay some points for it. E.g. Legions of Nagash (Summonable) and Desciples of Tzeentch (Horrors) in particular.... On top of that some of the summonning things that are fleshed out and don't really work too well can still be found in armies that allready have an impressive tally of tournament results. E.g. Maggotkin of Nurgle and Blades of Khorne, these two hardly need free GUO's or free Archaon... 

So yeah, I don't fear the Magic because it's largely the same cross faction. Certain factions can cast the spells better offcourse but they can allready do that quite well right now without completely thaking over the game through Magic. 

Long story short, we'll still have to wait and see how it all unfolds. My fear is more towards free units because they differ A LOT.

[Sigwarus]

21 minutes ago, Killax said:

Well I think the beauty of why I really like where this Magic is going comes from the fact everybody will have acces to it. It's allready quite easy to imagne that in itself balancing itself out because the Realm spells and Artefacts will be the same cross faction. This same-same often leads to a rather balanced effect on the metagame.

Summonning on the other hand isn't available to all and Warscrolls for units differ enough that I'd say it's a very slippery slope. Especially for factions who allready have strong summonning in a metagame where you do have to pay some points for it. E.g. Legions of Nagash (Summonable) and Desciples of Tzeentch (Horrors) in particular.... On top of that some of the summonning things that are fleshed out and don't really work too well can still be found in armies that allready have an impressive tally of tournament results. E.g. Maggotkin of Nurgle and Blades of Khorne, these two hardly need free GUO's or free Archaon... 

So yeah, I don't fear the Magic because it's largely the same cross faction. Certain factions can cast the spells better offcourse but they can allready do that quite well right now without completely thaking over the game through Magic. 

Long story short, we'll still have to wait and see how it all unfolds. My fear is more towards free units because they differ A LOT.

Well that everyone gets access to it (not khorne) is not in itself a guarantee for balance. The problem is that the casters are not equally good. LOC and Nagash will always be better at casting and can therefore capitalize more on better magic. This can of course be moderated with the pricing of said magicians. Hopefully that have been addressed. 

[DanielFM]

38 minutes ago, Killax said:

Well I think the beauty of why I really like where this Magic is going comes from the fact everybody will have acces to it. It's allready quite easy to imagne that in itself balancing itself out because the Realm spells and Artefacts will be the same cross faction. This same-same often leads to a rather balanced effect on the metagame.

Summonning on the other hand isn't available to all and Warscrolls for units differ enough that I'd say it's a very slippery slope. Especially for factions who allready have strong summonning in a metagame where you do have to pay some points for it. E.g. Legions of Nagash (Summonable) and Desciples of Tzeentch (Horrors) in particular.... On top of that some of the summonning things that are fleshed out and don't really work too well can still be found in armies that allready have an impressive tally of tournament results. E.g. Maggotkin of Nurgle and Blades of Khorne, these two hardly need free GUO's or free Archaon... 

So yeah, I don't fear the Magic because it's largely the same cross faction. Certain factions can cast the spells better offcourse but they can allready do that quite well right now without completely thaking over the game through Magic. 

Long story short, we'll still have to wait and see how it all unfolds. My fear is more towards free units because they differ A LOT.

But that's not true. Fyreslayers, Kharadron, Dispossessed and quite a few smaller factions get 0 access to wizards. You can say they can get access to wizards via allies of the same faction, but summoning is the same. Every faction (except Destruction?) has summoners.

[CaptainNippon]

13 minutes ago, Sigwarus said:

Well that everyone gets access to it (not khorne) is not in itself a guarantee for balance. The problem is that the casters are not equally good. LOC and Nagash will always be better at casting and can therefore capitalize more on better magic. This can of course be moderated with the pricing of said magicians. Hopefully that have been addressed. 

Nagash is already 800 points in Matched Play, though. I don't know it you want him to be even more costly than that, A model that expensive should perform accordingly on the battlefield. 

I guess only time and testing will tell...

[Jamopower]

It's also bit boring and restrictive, if you have to have a Wizard to not be in a voluntary disadvantage. It's nothing new in Warhammer, but I don't think it's optimal either.

 

It seems though that the customer base wants to have epic spells in the game. It has happened in all "Warhammers" that I have played. In the beginning there has been quite tame magic system (40k 3rd edition, FB 6th edition, AoS 1st edition), which has been continuously tinkered to be more and more powerful, until it has become game breaking in the past two instances (the other, 5th Edition WHFB was already there when I started). Let's hope that AoS is not going the same route.

[Sigwarus]

17 minutes ago, CaptainNippon said:

Nagash is already 800 points in Matched Play, though. I don't know it you want him to be even more costly than that, A model that expensive should perform accordingly on the battlefield. 

I guess only time and testing will tell...

Have you played a game against Nagash since the LoN book? If not I can tell you that he more than pays for his costs. Imagen said wizard being able to reroll al saves or cast his 8 spells at 3+ to cast trough a magic portal. That should imply a point raise.