How does your Allegiance now stand with AoS 2

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4 minutes ago, AaronWIlson said:

In what sense sorry?

Nagash and seraphon dominate every magic phase. They are the only armies I see shutting Tzeentch down.

[blueshirtman]

5 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

I expect this will happen with a number of others as they start rewriting battletomes.  And since battletomes now come with points inside I expect that as books release they will replace the values in GHB18.

Every single rules edition of a GW game comes along with book rewrites for the majority of the game.  It is easy money so I highly doubt that AoS 2 will be an different in that regard.

LoL If they start new battle tomes by nerfing the old stuff, what I understand is painful for people with already good armies, I wonder what they are going to do with BCR. I mean they could make them worse, but they are already bad

[Skabnoze]

1 minute ago, blueshirtman said:

LoL If they start new battle tomes by nerfing the old stuff, what I understand is painful for people with already good armies, I wonder what they are going to do with BCR. I mean they could make them worse, but they are already bad

I did not say that they would nerf everything old.  That did not happen with Stormcast.  The Vanguard Wing was an obvious target for getting knocked down a peg.  It was something that I expect almost everyone saw coming.

Who knows what they will do with Beastclaw Raiders, but my suspicion is that whenever the book is reworked that they will end up adding more units to it.  Given that there are Ogor wizards I think it is a safe bet that they will add some sort of mounted Wizard into the faction.  The main reason that Beastclaw currently do not have any wizards is simply that when they split up the Ogre kingdom ranges there were no mounted wizard models to move into Beastclaw.  I don't think it was meant to be a theme for the army and more a fact that they did not create any new Ogor kits when they initially broke apart the Ogre Kingdom range.  They will probably add some endless spells as well.

[MightyMetro]

6 hours ago, HollowHills said:

My point isn't that Sylvaneth should be nerfed or Deepkin buffed, just that the design seems inconsistent between armies.   

I agree with you here to some extent.  Concepts of consistency  and balance can be reassuring.  I guess thats why i often check points values when they are strictly speaking unnecessarily.  However,  as a counter argument, we do have to allow for the game to evolve and grow, and acknowledge that some degree powercreep may arise as a result.

I remember reading that the LON and Deepkin battletombs were designed for 2nd edition. I wonder whether this was the case with DOK too.  However, i was under the impression that the whole Nurgle release was significantly delayed due to production line issues.  I wonder whether the book was originally going to arrive with Blightwar.

i havent seen the Nurgle book for comparision. So, i wasnt aware of design differences mentioned above.  Perhaps, the books are evolving again.  It was easy to see changes back when artifacts etc were introduced. Perhaps some of these new design cues are more subtle. Would you say the books are improving, @HollowHills?

It seems to be widely agreed that some of the oldest books could do with a refresh, but thats not going to happen any time soon for Nurgle. Nurgle players may just be unlucky to have had their release delayed during the significant period of 2017 where there were few AOS releases, but as we now know a lot of changes were going on in the background.  Nurgle may be the last of an older generation of books. 

[Ravinsild]

2 minutes ago, MightyMetro said:

I agree with you here to some extent.  Concepts of consistency  and balance can be reassuring.  I guess thats why i often check points values when they are strictly speaking unnecessarily.  However,  as a counter argument, we do have to allow for the game to evolve and grow, and acknowledge that some degree powercreep may arise as a result.

I remember reading that the LON and Deepkin battletombs were designed for 2nd edition. I wonder whether this was the case with DOK too.  However, i was under the impression that the whole Nurgle release was significantly delayed due to production line issues.  I wonder whether the book was originally going to arrive with Blightwar.

i havent seen the Nurgle book for comparision. So, i wasnt aware of design differences mentioned above.  Perhaps, the books are evolving again.  It was easy to see changes back when artifacts etc were introduced. Perhaps some of these new design cues are more subtle. Would you say the books are improving, @HollowHills?

It seems to be widely agreed that some of the oldest books could do with a refresh, but thats not going to happen any time soon for Nurgle. These players may just be unlucky to have had their release delayed during the significant period of 2017 where there were few AOS releases, but as we now know a lot of changes were going on in the background.  Nurgle may be the last of an older generation of books. 

My Ironjawz Battletome doesn't even have points. It's 99% lore, with 3 Ironjawz mission maps that seem very fun and i want to try them out, and then there's the 8 Warscrolls and that's it. Hopefully we get a new one soon that bakes in the Allegiance Ability, our Artefacts and our points costs and maybe 2-3 new models and warscrolls or something. 

[Jamopower]

If they start to redo the existing battletomes (other than stormcast naturally) it'll be very sad times for the game as there is so much content still missing. The battletomes in the beginning were much lighter in content and allowed them to pursuit much more niche themes (such as Beastclaws, Ironjawz or Sylvaneth) than the current "full armies" such as Kharadron or Idoneth, which need a lot more content.

Hard to see how for example the beastclaw raiders or ironjawz would be expanded kreping to the theme and creating actually new units that won't just be more of the same. Maybe ironjawz could have a war chariot and the beastclaws some sort of icestorm shaman, but that's about that. 

My guess, based on the past releases, is that we'll get one or two actually new forces per year and few expansions to existing ranges, like skaven, Slaanesh, Darkoath or grots. For some time now. 

What they could (should?) do, is to use the General's handbook to provide new content for the older factions. The newest one was very light on content as most of the good stuff was put to the rulebook and the allegiances were more or less just reprints with minor tweaks. I already hoped that they would had released some batallions for armies such as wanderers in this year's book. 

 

What comes to my own allegiances in terms of the topic.  I think that Slaanesh and my limited take of mixed order in the form of city allegiance are now better than before, but still quite bad in the grand scheme of things. While my Lizardfolk and Undead are clearly some of the top dogs currently. 

[HollowHills]

11 hours ago, MightyMetro said:

I agree with you here to some extent.  Concepts of consistency  and balance can be reassuring.  I guess thats why i often check points values when they are strictly speaking unnecessarily.  However,  as a counter argument, we do have to allow for the game to evolve and grow, and acknowledge that some degree powercreep may arise as a result.

I remember reading that the LON and Deepkin battletombs were designed for 2nd edition. I wonder whether this was the case with DOK too.  However, i was under the impression that the whole Nurgle release was significantly delayed due to production line issues.  I wonder whether the book was originally going to arrive with Blightwar.

i havent seen the Nurgle book for comparision. So, i wasnt aware of design differences mentioned above.  Perhaps, the books are evolving again.  It was easy to see changes back when artifacts etc were introduced. Perhaps some of these new design cues are more subtle. Would you say the books are improving, @HollowHills?

It seems to be widely agreed that some of the oldest books could do with a refresh, but thats not going to happen any time soon for Nurgle. Nurgle players may just be unlucky to have had their release delayed during the significant period of 2017 where there were few AOS releases, but as we now know a lot of changes were going on in the background.  Nurgle may be the last of an older generation of books. 

Do I think battletomes are improving? It's a tricky question. I think that a lot of the stuff that goes into a battletome has nothing to do with matched play, for instance all the story, background, path to glory and narrative scenarios. 

I think it's fair to say that the background aspect of all the story has improved greatly as Age of Sigmar has progressed. If you take Stormcast as an example, in the first book we got told there were different storm hosts but it didn't mean much beyond colour schemes. In the newest material it's very clear that the Hammers of Sigmar are drastically different to the Knights Excelsior. Both have a distinct identity in the story and they are making rules to support that as well. 

In terms of the rules themselves it's hard to say. In many ways I felt that the Malign Portents book was a really positive leap forwards and the prophecy point system was potentially more engaging than the command point one we've ended up with now. There was a much greater variety of options that had a lot more impact on the game. After that I was hoping we might see something like 40k strategems coming into Sigmar. 

One thing I believe has hampered all the recent battletomes is the release of realm artefacts. These are often dramatically better than artefacts which come in the battletomes themselves. For instance I have been using ghyrstrike on my akhelian King for a flat plus 1 to both hit and wound on my spear. The deepkin book has a potion that does the exact same thing except only for one turn. Why would I ever choose the potion? 

As for battalions I was much in favour of the way they seemed to be going with DoK and Deepkin, but then I noticed in the new nighthaunt battletome a few very tasty and easy to assemble battalions. And why oh why does a storm host get a unique command ability that does the same thing my king can only do on turn 3?perhaps I'm biased in thinking my army has been unfairly disadvantaged. 

Overall though I would still say that I'm uncertain of what the aim of battletomes is meant to be. 

 

[stratigo]

As a KO player, my battletome has faired poorly, both in balance and consistency. It feels like half the rules in the army have an FAQ modifying them.

[Skabnoze]

11 hours ago, Jamopower said:

If they start to redo the existing battletomes (other than stormcast naturally) it'll be very sad times for the game as there is so much content still missing. The battletomes in the beginning were much lighter in content and allowed them to pursuit much more niche themes (such as Beastclaws, Ironjawz or Sylvaneth) than the current "full armies" such as Kharadron or Idoneth, which need a lot more content.

Hard to see how for example the beastclaw raiders or ironjawz would be expanded kreping to the theme and creating actually new units that won't just be more of the same. Maybe ironjawz could have a war chariot and the beastclaws some sort of icestorm shaman, but that's about that. 

Deepkin have a handfull of regular units.  They have 2 variations of Namarti, 2 variations of the eel cavalry, and the shark.  Daughters of Khaine only have 6 different regular units - which are variations on 3 concepts.  There are the 2 variations of witch elves, 2 variations of naga medium infantry, and 2 variations of harpies.  The naga & harpy units have no weapon options and instead turned the weapon variants into separate units.  The rest of those armies are mainly heroes and monsters.

They could easily bulk out Beastclaw & Ironjawz in the same manner.  Ironjaw Brutes could be separated into 2 different types of units simply by splitting the main weapon options into different units and tacking on a different price & special ability.  Same could be done for Gore Gruntas & Ardboys if they wanted.  Or they could add another unit or two.  Then they could add some more heroes. 

I would say honestly that heroes & dedicated spell lores are some of the biggest holes in both Ironjawz and Beastclaw.  While I doubt either of those forces would ever be high on subtlety, there is a distinct lack of synergy options in those forces and ultimately that is what hurts them.  A small model kit release wave, a reshuffling & altering of the units, and a new book with all of the common Battletome inclusions would go a very long way.

[Jamopower]

The problem just is that gore gruntas and ardboyz don't have two options in the kit. The spells and heroes could be added easily in the GHB. 

And what I meant with that Idoneth need more than armies such as the Daughters is purely model oriented. For daughters, there are three new kits and three old kits. Thus that kind of armies are much "lighter" to produce as they don't have to generate everything from fluff all the way to concept sketches while doing them. 

[Skabnoze]

55 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

The problem just is that gore gruntas and ardboyz don't have two options in the kit. The spells and heroes could be added easily in the GHB. 

GW has only rarely ever added new units to their games through a supplement like the GHB.  In the past they did add a new model or two in releases such as the original Storm of Chaos campaign, but those have very much been rarities.  They pretty much settled on the concept of rereleasing army books.  And honestly, why should they not rewrite army books?  They are a very easy sale and net them more money.  One of the primary reasons that GW does so many iterations of the same thing, from rules to model resculpts, is to sell people the same thing again.  It is also a great opportunity to try new things with the rules, fix issues, and evolve armies, but don't be fooled into thinking that one of their primary motivations is not profit-based.  You cannot endlessly expand a game - eventually they collapse under too much bloat.

As for Gore Gruntas and Ardboyz - yes they do both have alterate options in the kits.  The fact that you never see those options is probably fairly telling about how great they are.  Gore Gruntas have 2 different primary weapon configurations.  You only ever see one because the spear-variant, the jagged gore-hacka, is pretty awful.  There is zero reason that GW could not split the unit into 2 different book options, adjust the terrible weapon profile, and give the units a slightly different special ability.  In fact, Gore Gruntas are popular enough with Ironjawz players that I bet most of them would be very happy if there was a reason to use both weapon options in the kit.

Ardboys have 3 different weapon variations with a 2-handed choppa, a pair of choppas, and a choppa & shield.  The difference with Ardboys compared to most units is that they are allowed to mix all 3 weapon types in their unit in any way that you wish.  Most units have to pick a core weapon option for the whole unit and Ardboys can mix & match.  But there is no reason that GW could not split the unit into 3 different warscroll choices with locked-down weapon choices.  I am not sure if that would be an improvement or not, but it would line up with what you see in other armies and would be an easy way for them to pad out more warscrolls without releasing more models if they so chose.  Note that when GW created the Bonesplitterz they split a single box of Savage Orcs into 3 separate units (not counting the Big Stabba) simply by locking the weapon options to different warscrolls - the same thing is possible with Ironjawz.

[MacDuff]

Part of the problem, as stated before, is that some armies just don't have enough model kits to create truly diverse forces, forcing constrained styles of play and tactical limitations. But perhaps the inadvertent releasing of the magic of Nagash could give GW a way out, short term. For example, why couldn't Ironjaws get units with magically infused weapons, armor, or boars? This could be accomplished with the existing kits, with only a glowing paint job and the addition of a few bits if desired. Suddenly your force has twice as many options that let them play in radically different ways. This could be accomplished by simply adding a few new magical unit Warscroll cards in with a unique Endless Spells box for armies they won't update for a while. This is almost what they did with Stormcast, but they did make new sculpts because, you know, they're flagship.

[Beliman]

At this moment, I lost 5 games and won 1, but all of them were so close that anyone could won. 

I play KO, and I find that our main problems are the same that we had in the previous edition: 1 battleline unit, list building options (only one usefull battalion that cost more than 1400 points), Command Abilitites (2), meh heroes (only two are used, and one of them because he brings protection to magic-lists/new meta) and ships that are not well developed.

Our tricks are still the same (well, they are a bit worst with grapnel launcher nerfs), and our main strategy is the same (clown-car, but I want to mention that Urbaz is fighting to be a new competitive skyport), with less options for our balloon boys (+20p for skywardens), so we are more straightforward army with less tricks and tools, and it's just the oposite of what an Sky-Pirates Steampunk Dwarfs army should be. 

[Jamopower]

But is an orruk bashing enemies with a magic weapon any different from an orruk without a magic weapon? The ironjawz theme is about elite melee orcs. Adding more different kind of elite melee orcs will just result to the same situation where the most points efficient of them will be fielded.

While on the other hand, adding other stuff will lose the focus. For example if ironjawz got a crossbow armed unit that would be good (as if it wouldn’t be, no one would play it anyways) could easily result the ironjawz army being all about that shooting unit supported by a token unit of orcs and a mawkrusha. I have played Infinity a lot and there is a good example about this. My main faction are the Hassassins, that are in a bad spot of the game mechanism in such way, that the best hassassin list actually has only few token hassassins and the real stregth of the list are the expendable chaff. 

Coming back to AoS. Most of the factions in the game are very focused on what they are meant to do on the table, which looks to be a core design principle in the game. Wvich is ukderstandable as there are the grand alliances. If you want different kind of strategies, it's easy to stretch out to different factions as you can first ally up few units and then get the whole force. It also makes sense from a business point of view as instead of revising a battletome and selling it and few extra units to the players, the players are more likely to buy a whole new force when new faction of their niche is released. In this case if they release "The Kunnin' Orruks" plenty of Ironjawz players will be tempted to get them. 

[Ravinsild]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

1 hour ago, Jamopower said:

But is an orruk bashing enemies with a magic weapon any different from an orruk without a magic weapon? The ironjawz theme is about elite melee orcs. Adding more different kind of elite melee orcs will just result to the same situation where the most points efficient of them will be fielded.

While on the other hand, adding other stuff will lose the focus. For example if ironjawz got a crossbow armed unit that would be good (as if it wouldn’t be, no one would play it anyways) could easily result the ironjawz army being all about that shooting unit supported by a token unit of orcs and a mawkrusha. I have played Infinity a lot and there is a good example about this. My main faction are the Hassassins, that are in a bad spot of the game mechanism in such way, that the best hassassin list actually has only few token hassassins and the real stregth of the list are the expendable chaff. 

Coming back to AoS. Most of the factions in the game are very focused on what they are meant to do on the table, which looks to be a core design principle in the game. Wvich is ukderstandable as there are the grand alliances. If you want different kind of strategies, it's easy to stretch out to different factions as you can first ally up few units and then get the whole force. It also makes sense from a business point of view as instead of revising a battletome and selling it and few extra units to the players, the players are more likely to buy a whole new force when new faction of their niche is released. In this case if they release "The Kunnin' Orruks" plenty of Ironjawz players will be tempted to get them. 

 

I don't know man, why is the Orks range from 40k so large? Maybe we can't have Ironjawz with jetpacks on their back, or in planes, or in Helicopters, but we can probably draw some bronze age/high fantasy inspiration from at least some of the units.

Why not something like Captain Badrukk and the Flash Gitz. They look like pirates: Okay, so they're Ironjawz with Heavy Choppas and Flintlocks with terrible shooting and great melee and they can attack units that can fly, or ignore vertical distances when charging because they're pirates and they've always got grappling hooks on them. 

Ork Kommandos can be some sort of elite stealthy unit that can be set up off-board and come in at any point before the third turn 3" from any board edge and more than 9" away from enemy units, like a deepstrike, but for Ironjawz. This helps with their mobility issues. 

Something Similar to Tank Bustas could be a unit of all Brute Bosses with the Klaw + Smasha, and then some other very heavy duty weapons which each have high rend and high damage and they're meant for really getting killy on giant tough things. 

If Gore-Gruntas = Bikers, then we can have something like Stormboyz, but instead of rockets on their back maybe they got even bigger, meaner monsters, which isn't as big and mean as a maw-krusha, but is bigger and meaner than a gore-grunta they ride on, like a Beastclaw Raider and it's a giant lizard or something, that goes fast but it's tankier and doesn't do as much damage as Gore-Gruntas. 

Maybe instead of killa-kans or whatever we just have one super ****** turbo giant Ork that's the biggest boss of all bosses ever called an Ultraboss who is like 50 feet tall and is the equivalent of Archaeon and Alariel and the Celestant Prime or whatever. Godzillorruk. 

I feel like with some re-imagining and creativity we can stay melee orks who do melee good but also add some more flavor to our line. 

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

 

[Jamopower]

7 hours ago, Ravinsild said:

I don't know man, why is the Orks range from 40k so large? Maybe we can't have Ironjawz with jetpacks on their back, or in planes, or in Helicopters, but we can probably draw some bronze age/high fantasy inspiration from at least some of the units.

 

Because the space orks are more equal to the old orcs and goblins as an army while ironjawz would be just the nobz and ardboyz. 

[MOMUS]

I play khorne mortals. 

I feel like they got the sharp end of the stick this edition, the book feels outdated. So I'm hoping for a mini update as alluded to in the faction focus.

Magic heavy edition is difficult for a force with no magic users.

[Gotrek]

1 hour ago, MOMUS said:

I play khorne mortals. 

I feel like they got the sharp end of the stick this edition, the book feels outdated. So I'm hoping for a mini update as alluded to in the faction focus.

Magic heavy edition is difficult for a force with no magic users.

-Bloodsecrator: reroll successful casts (drops the chance of a successful mystic shield, roll of 6+ from about 70% to about 50%) this will mess with all but tzeentch and nagash/arkhan. Plus, you're bringing this guy anyway for the +1 attack and battleshock immunity.

-slaughterpriests: unbind and again, you're bringing them anyway as they are our most reliable mortal wound output and they are also a bloodtithe engine (or get a second unbind, +1 to hit buff, +1 save buff, or heals your multi wound models. Speaking of multi wound models...)

-skullcrushers: conditional battleline and have a 4+ shrug vs damage from magic

-mighty lord of khorne: puppy gets to unbind. Hes so cute when he munches on wizards /pets flesh hound

- brazen rune: artifact that gives its wearer a 2+ shrug vs magic damage and once per game can auto unbind

Thats all i can think of for MORTAL options. Demons have a bit more (flesh hounds, karanak, wrath of khorne bloodthirster) 

Of course you can just ally in wizards from slaves to darkness and everchosen (there are khornate warlords who keep wizards as slaves in the lore). Basically, you arent as helpless as you believe.

 

[MOMUS]

10 hours ago, Gotrek said:

Basically, you arent as helpless as you believe.

 

This is a common misconception, BoK does have some access to anti magic but it's far surpassed by the buffs magic users have access to.

Also things in the core rules like arcane scenery, mission 5 and 6 give a bias towards wizards which BoK and KO have no answer for.

[Ravinsild]

10 hours ago, Gotrek said:

-Bloodsecrator: reroll successful casts (drops the chance of a successful mystic shield, roll of 6+ from about 70% to about 50%) this will mess with all but tzeentch and nagash/arkhan. Plus, you're bringing this guy anyway for the +1 attack and battleshock immunity.

-slaughterpriests: unbind and again, you're bringing them anyway as they are our most reliable mortal wound output and they are also a bloodtithe engine (or get a second unbind, +1 to hit buff, +1 save buff, or heals your multi wound models. Speaking of multi wound models...)

-skullcrushers: conditional battleline and have a 4+ shrug vs damage from magic

-mighty lord of khorne: puppy gets to unbind. Hes so cute when he munches on wizards /pets flesh hound

- brazen rune: artifact that gives its wearer a 2+ shrug vs magic damage and once per game can auto unbind

Thats all i can think of for MORTAL options. Demons have a bit more (flesh hounds, karanak, wrath of khorne bloodthirster) 

Of course you can just ally in wizards from slaves to darkness and everchosen (there are khornate warlords who keep wizards as slaves in the lore). Basically, you arent as helpless as you believe.

 

Similarly, basically in pure Khorne Bloodbound, or even Daemons, run straight by the book and using only that model range there's an entire supplemental book that we straight up get 0 benefit from. Malign Sorcery and Endless spells by default are completely off-limits, unless we ally in a separate wizard from another model range. So if an endless spell is actually cast, we have no way of dispelling it. 

[Gotrek]

1 hour ago, Ravinsild said:

Similarly, basically in pure Khorne Bloodbound, or even Daemons, run straight by the book and using only that model range there's an entire supplemental book that we straight up get 0 benefit from. Malign Sorcery and Endless spells by default are completely off-limits, unless we ally in a separate wizard from another model range. So if an endless spell is actually cast, we have no way of dispelling it. 

Verdant mantle from ghyran allows you to dispel endless spells in your hero phase as if you were a wizard. 

[Gotrek]

1 hour ago, MOMUS said:

This is a common misconception, BoK does have some access to anti magic but it's far surpassed by the buffs magic users have access to.

Also things in the core rules like arcane scenery, mission 5 and 6 give a bias towards wizards which BoK and KO have no answer for.

Im assuming you mean the missions where wizards count as 20 models for holding objectives? That also applies to any hero with an artifact. As for "some anti-magic" youre selling khorne short. Flesh hounds are BATTLELINE and can unbind. Also they are summonable. Karanak is 90 points, unbinds AND summons a squad of flesh hounds who can also unbind. So 90 points gets you 2 unbinds and if karanak is successful, he deals mortal wounds to the caster.

Seriously, unless youre fighting nagash, double slann, or tzeentch its not hard to have more unbind attempts than they have casting attempts just by happenstace.

[Skabnoze]

1 hour ago, Ravinsild said:

Similarly, basically in pure Khorne Bloodbound, or even Daemons, run straight by the book and using only that model range there's an entire supplemental book that we straight up get 0 benefit from. Malign Sorcery and Endless spells by default are completely off-limits, unless we ally in a separate wizard from another model range. So if an endless spell is actually cast, we have no way of dispelling it. 

You can't make use of the artifacts in the book?

[Ravinsild]

4 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

You can't make use of the artifacts in the book?

We can use the realm rules and artefacts but not what the majority of the book is dedicated to: endless spells. 

[Gotrek]

19 minutes ago, Ravinsild said:

We can use the realm rules and artefacts but not what the majority of the book is dedicated to: endless spells. 

1 page.  ONE page. That's how many pages are dedicated to endless spell rules. They didn't even bother to put the warscrolls in the book. There's more text devoted to the artifacts than there is for the spells, endless and realm combined.