HiddenElephant

This is very cool. My only disappointment was yesterday I realized that pop-culture witches have green skin, like everyone's favorite fungus, so I thought it'd be really cool if the newest greenskinz faction was led by child-napping swamp-dwelling honest-to-goodness witches who go about doing evil things and flying about on brooms n' whatnot, but tbh, that was a longshot.

This topic is too far and vast by far. I guess I'll try and keep it simple and short. More Snake-Ladies. I like Snake-Ladies (a bit too much, mebbe), but I incidentally don't like the over-arching feel of the Daughters of Kaine. Something about chainmail bikinis. I dunno, this is probably something for another miniatures company to address. More Troggoths. I really like GW's Trolls, but wish there were simply more of them. Not just the Troggoth Hag, but more specialized hero options, delving into the weird possibilities and mutations the regenerative Troggs can have. More Giants. I like big monsters and I cannot lie, and Giants are the OG Fantasy Monster, next to dragons. Someone in the Rumor Thread stated something like Half-Gargants, which would be cool if they were at a similar level to the Morghasts, two sizeable lads for 60 bucks that fill out a cheaper troop role, maybe like Gargant Teens or Youngsters. I also want a revamped Mancrusher kit, with modern detailing access and multi-kit possibilities with access to a dedicated Aleguzzler variant and maybe another variation, but keeping a similar level of customization as the old kit. That's a pipe dream! Lastly, I'd love it if there were another Leader kit, give the Sons their big boss, King Brodd. It may seem like a pipe dream, but hey, look at the Lumineth. It is possible to receive a major update to a barely-year-old-faction. Dragons as their own faction. Unfortunately, definitely a pipe dream. I think they'd be too similar to the Sons of Behemat, in the idea of it's this super-heavy faction that is about a half-dozen big models of doom. Not to mention they'd be a hard squeeze grand alliance-wise. Either you put them in Destruction, a logical place for Dragons, and make similarities to Gargants even more similar, or somehow you manage to wedge them into some other faction. I'd lean towards Order over all others; Order has the most dragons and dragon-like creatures. Death is right out for obvious regions; it's too much of a leap to have the Dragons serve Nagash if they're all still alive. Chaos isn't out, but I think it'd be more of a leap lore-wise to have an entire faction of Dragons serve the Dark Gods than to have an entire faction of Dragons interested in creating a system of Order or agree to allegiances with the Gods of Order.

Ogor Maneaters. I mean, we already have them, but they're like the best thing conceptually. Ogors that go to interesting places, meet interesting people, and eat interesting things, each with a distinctive look about them inspired by their biggest customers. We all could imagine what a Fyreslayer Maneater would look like, but what about a Deepkin Maneater? Arcanites Maneater? Ossiarch Maneater? Gloomspite Maneater? But GW's not gonna do this one, despite how cool it'd be, because every time they come out with a new model it's got to have all-new rules to it (or at least, that's how it feels.)

Not sure he's either. He's a big lad, that's for sure, but he's standing next to a dwarf. His shoulder pad is cool, but kinda strange for an Ogor or Orruk. It looks specific and well-made, with a detailed grumpy face with a single horn. The ogors and orruks are not known for that kind of specific artistry. I'm thinking it's either a buff-as-heck human, or member of a new, rare species of mortal, perhaps tangentially related to the formorids or chaos' ogroids.

Well, you ever see them tiny deers what with the fangs?

So, sounds like it's the Vamps and the Zombies together as a faction. .... Darn. I wanted an all-vampire-all-the-time faction and a faction of zombies by themselves. As for what you are seeing!: Vampire Lord has a shield in a bat-wing shape with a dragon on its front, and a honking huge mace. Vampire has long red hair that is being held aloft by bats to avoid getting in their eyes. Reads as female to me, I could be wrong. Also, those Kangaroo riders may just be the best thing ever. GW continues to impress.

Okay, someone let me in on the joke, what's "Critters and Keys"?

I dunno..... they got opportunities. The Warstomper is a pretty basic giant with almost no glitziness about him aside from a theme of defeating the champions of others, while the Gatebreaker carries executioner themes and ruins of civlization, and the Krakeneater is more of a coastal or sea giant. Those are pretty disparate themes, with nothing in common, which means that giants could be anything. You could have a type of giant known for traveling the realms far and wide, with like bits of caravans for details, or a giant with some sort of plant theme, like a giant bean stalk, or have a storm-based giant with the ability to throw lightning, or a type of giant that hunts really large monsters, and is festooned with their hides, or a giant artisan who carves massive boulders into monuments of giant-kind. The possibilities are vast. Although the thing I want to see the most is an upgraded base Gargant kit. It's showing its age, standing next to the big boys. Maybe a three-variant kit, with the basic Mancrusher (stompy), the Aleguzzler (very swingy), and a Boulder-lobber (chucks rocks more), with appropriate details. Like, better clubs and more armor for the Mancrusher, lots of booze barrels for the Aleguzzler, and a sack of rocks for the Boulder-lobber.

You don't buy a pack of dice, you'd only get a single die. Also, it can't be rolled on the table because it'd break someone's minis.

Well, I haven't been around for all that long, but yes.

You know what I'd like to see? I'm not sure if we've talked about this before, but I'd like to see the model-removing ability "Stuff 'em in me bag" combined with a kind of ranged attack. Like, if it hits and kills the model, the giant can throw the hapless victim at something else. It'd be pretty cool, but I'm not sure if we'd actually see it. I kinda think that the Gatecrusher will have it, or something similar, if the Gatecrusher is a living War Engine. I'm also of the opinion that the Kraken-chewer is going to be more of a straight-up monster, and that net of stuff is a weapon with a large number of attacks. And, just to round things off, I'd guess that the Warstomper is the closest to a hero option in the list, if not out-right a hero option with a command ability and everything.

Favourite Model: Gate Breaker. Big "Bragg the Gutsman" energy. Favourite Detail: Kraken Eater's big pruny feet.

At this point, GW is showing off what they can do with models, given a model is literally hollow armor that isn't even complete, just to show off how good they can make it.

Update from the Front Lines: I have (more or less) fixed the cards issue by deckbuilding each of the Beastgrave Starter Factions. We have played 2 games since, and we played the same factions as last time. I won the first, and my father won the second, each for very blatant reasons: Dice Luck. My father has terrible luck with the dice. In the first game, he had terrible luck. He lost by a mile. In the 2nd game, it turned around, and he built an unstoppable Super-centaur with the upgrades i had put into his deck. To give you an idea of his luck, he took the attack dice and called out a side for 14 rolls, either hammers or swords, and only succeeded 4 times, counting criticals. (By the way, the criticals aren't so annoying now). He is still evidently willing to play the game again, because he wants to try my side, the Despoilers, because the difference between me whooping his butt and him whooping my butt was astronomical, which makes me think I flubbed balancing the Despoilers or don't know how to play them.

Okay, so I've just gotten the Beastgrave starter set, put it together, and played a game with my father. The goal I had in mind when I bought it was a quick, hour-long skirmish or skirmish-like wargame that we could both enjoy. We had some fun, it was a full game wit the starter decks, I was Despoilers and he was Wild Hunt, and he won, but it definitely was a shaky start. While he'd play it again, he has some serious problems with the game that, if they are too prevalent, will mean he won't play again, and I'm in much the same boat. The big one, in his opinion, is the inability to plan out and be tactical due to cards. For instance, I had a hand that was mostly upgrades turn one and couldn't do jack with them because I wasn't getting any victory points. For him, he got upgrade cards for the Wild Hunt's Trumpeter and Swordsman, but only after I had put them out of action. Getting rid of these cards is, as far as we can tell, clunky as heck, and it's very much up to luck of the draw. I had objectives I struggled to score, he had objectives he struggled to score, and it didn't really get better. Secondly, and this is more my opinion, the critical mechanism... doesn't really seem good. The odds are fine for determining start player and all, but when it comes to rolling, it just seemed to be baloney. My father rolled an attack with 3 dice, and had 2 successes, 1 from Hammers, 1 from being Supported. I rolled a single die for defense, and it comes up Critical. I know that it can be a clutch save, but it feels overly random and the number of crits we rolled at key moments actually made the dice feel weighted. Criticals superseding everything just doesn't feel right to us. Side detail: We were charging pretty much every activation, and I made a major boo-boo by sending in the Despoiler's Axe-goat to get killed (he slayed one instantly, but got a javelin through him in return). We went through so many guys so fast, it actually shocked my father and he was wary about how fragile each fighter was, which doesn't help his opinion of the game. So, I'm looking to you, the forum for help. I know I missed out on a few rules, like pushing back and getting glory for kills (it didn't matter too much), but what I really want is advice or help on dealing with our problems. Some can't be dealt with. Some probably can. If there are better starting deck constructions that make for better games, or if there's tricks or tips that should absolutely be known before we try the game again, I'd love to know them. This is actually pretty serious, as although I love the minis, it won't matter if I think the game isn't anywhere near as good and I won't end up buying more and playing more.

So, I got some thoughts on that teaser. It could go 1 of 3 ways. Either: A: There is a faction of Giants coming, and they're from Hysh. (think like Cloud Giants and Storm Giants from DnD). B: There is a faction of Hysh Elves coming, but their twist on the elf formula is that they are giant and tall. See: It's actually 2 factions announced, as a versus thing. Giants versus Light Elves, with Light Elves being the new High Elves. I kinda want it to be any of these 3 things, but I think I'm wrong.

The more I learn about Beastgrave, the more I think it's going to show fighters and warriors from smaller tribes that don't muster realm-shaking forces. Weren't the Wolf Riders just flat-out squatted?

Still want that Ogor warband. Either a hunter with 2 cats, or a pair of Maneaters. Editation: Also, because I don't want to go and double-post, I just had a realization: Underworlds could give us models from races in the mortal realms that are too small, too insignificant, or too impractical to be given a full-fledged faction force. Imagine all the off-mentions that could form unique warbands! (Imagine a halfling warband!)

By gum, the Squig Mangeler and the Boingrots really can fly.... I thought someone was hallucinating it.

What image was the centipede again? I took a look back at the book at two that may have been it; one was the new Mangler Squigs and the other actually was the Dankhold Troll, and because of way it had been blurred out, looked like it was curled like a centipede monster.

I just figured out that the big troggoth isn't the Troggboss - he's just a regular, non-hero Trogg, and the Troggboss is a different, as-of-yet-unrevealed model. Sorry, boys, looks like the Sourbreath Troggoths are getting squatted.

This is all so fantastic, and I love those Troggoths.

I've got a very, very important question for discussion here: ...Are Beastclaw Raiders Terrible On Purpose? Like, think about it like this: BCR are the cheapest army in all of AoS. I don't think it's even a contest. They are so ridiculously cheap, it's ridiculous. So, that's attractive to new players. Few models, big modern models, big stompy monsters, plus they have one of these 'battletome' thingies that every fancy modern army has, so it's a good choice, right? So they buy in, get in a few games, and keep. On. Losing. BCR don't work right for them. They ideally choose another army, ideally the hot new thing with the this and the that, which comes out to a lot more expensive than BCR. They do better, and their BCR lay forgotten, used as a hook to lead new players onto more expensive things. TLDR: Are Beastclaw Raiders hobbled by GW because they are so cheap and GW could peddle more product in other factions?