MrZakalwe

Weirdly I think they functionally have OK variety in units compared to most factions just because of how radically different they are - you have a specialist defensive infantry, a fast shock cav unit that excels against hordes, a more offensive heavy infantry, and archers. Most factions have quite a bit of repetition leading to units that are 'x but better' or 'like x but worse'. I must admit I'm quite disappointed at the lack of a generic warrior hero, though, or a bolt thrower. Here's hoping it's not a typo - I quite like the idea of not being able to just ally in Stormcast to fill weaknesses.

Does this make them the first Order army that can't take Stormcast as allies?

Not when you get used to the rules. Infinity starts slow but it gets much quicker.

If the Skaventide book is anything to go by the units included in the Cities tome will be balanced around the allegiance abilities in there so will be pretty useless outside of it so we'll have to wait and see. In AoS they do have a fondness for making anything not currently being sold absolute trash. I sincerely hope I'm wrong on this one.

So this thread has aged well.

I would be surprised if we see significant changes to the phoenix warscrolls tbh.

Playing different armies and setups I've found it to be an interesting mechanic when it's two melee armies facing off against one another but rather poor if either side is shooting heavy. Alternating combat activations can somewhat rob it of it's sting but getting two back to back magic and shooting phases with a 9 Jezzail, caster heavy, Skaven list means I've won. I'd prefer it wasn't there as winning or losing like that off one dice roll really doesn't feel great (even winning feels like ****** when you opponent has obviously had a very bad time).

It's not- I'm not doing the maths for what it would cost to deck out a tournament hall like that but I think you'd need a similar mortgage to my house.

Problem for me with the realm rules is that they don't tend to create a novel tactical situation, they just tend to give one side or the other a massive buff. When they dropped we tested them for a while but didn't have positive results - including one game against Ironjawz with my ranged heavy Mixed Order force where we got a certain Ulgu result which was no fun for either player - so we dropped them. Realm spells and artefacts are nice, though. Random terrain rules were a similar experience - one side getting a bit of magical terrain at the front of their deployment while the other gets a big block of deadly just messed with a game that already has a shed load of RNG in it. I think if the random terrain was done symmetrically it could be awesome because they both players are trying to cope with something similar but that's a fair bit of bother during setup and AoS games already take longer than 40k with current bloat. Edit: but yeah at this stage you would have to ply realm spells and artefacts from our cold, dead hands.

Nothing exciting this time but finished another unit of spearmen (sans shields) so 750 points of painted Highborn are going to war today. Magnetic Storage is our lord and saviour.

My win condition is to keep the archers going for a couple of turns- at that points level if they don't get shut down quickly the other guy runs out of models. Though it's not optimal the logic on the third unit of spearmen was as follows: 1) Nastier stuff will explode a unit of 10 pretty much instantly but aside from double turns I should get a chance to nuke the thing that killed them (30 archers with Stand Your Ground + Storm of Arrows + Seadrake Pennant put out more than 45 no rend wounds on average in one shooting phase so it's pretty much just Morathi and Stormcast Invulnerodrakes that aren't affraid of them) - three units gives me three chances to block things. 2) Later in the slowgrow I'll need three battleline units so I may as well get the little buggers painted now 3) I didn't really have anything else that fit neatly into the 90 point hole they leave. I'm trying to go pure Aelves with the exception of the Ballistas because there's quite a few nurgle players and losing three Eagleclaw crews to an allegiance ability at the start of battleround one, once was enough (really frustrating, as I'm sure you can imagine). As long as the crew can be separately targeted cannons/boltthrowers/organ guns are pretty much useless.

Necromunda is love, Necromunda is life but it requires a really good group to make it work Tried KT arena and it was quite fun (though I got slaughtered as my KT wasn't optimised for the close confines of an arena battlezone) - will be playing more of it - Shadespire lost me with the card mechanic and how you go about remaining competitive (seems to combine the worst aspects of a CCG with a miniature game). There's some good stuff there but Infinity is just head and shoulders above them. 40k/AoS sort out my larger scale games and to stay on topic I have a Meeting Engagements list I want to try that has two War Hydras in it- unless people bring a serious heavy hitter I think the Hydra will present quite a challenge in ME. Will report back.

I think that's because the vast majority of them weren't a problem. Before the horde bonuses there was only a couple of units in the game that you took in non-minimum sized units . The massive unit reduction as a general system is decent in that it means you sometimes see big units - rather than MSU all day every day like before - but that doesn't mean they didn't mess up with the costs on some units. The Verminlord Warpseer had it's cost increased at least as much as any Massive Regiment (and for good reason, at 260 it was gross while at 300 it's probably still undercosted).

Infinity for me and it's pretty big in my area- my skirmish itch is easy to scratch around here and when you've got used to Infinity other skirmish games tend to feel like poorly balanced messes. It's worth growing in your area if you can.

That alpha strike with a DoK swarm to take and hold objectives sounds like a pretty good combo tbh. Order Draconis is a one trick pony but rather good at that trick. Starting a slow grow tomorrow with my Highborn at 750 - not a great list but I think it's about the best I can do with Highborn. Lack of unbinds is going to sting. Seawarden on foot (with flag), 10 Highborn Spearmen 10 Highborn Spearmen 10 Highborn Spearmen 30 Highborn Archers. 1 Celestar Ballista