General's Handbook 2017 Announced

[someone2040]

2 minutes ago, rokapoke said:

-1 to hit when shooting into or out of combat?

Yeah, that's also a good one.

Both feel a bit strange though to me, they feel a bit different to the other rules of 1. The other rules of 1 don't quite outright add rules into the game, they just modify how existing rules work.

Which is why I don't get the fixation on the 'rules of 1'. It's just a name for a few rules that add an extra layer of balance into the game. In the same way that no cover for monsters does. Or summoning is restricted to reinforcement points does.

Anyway, I guess we'll see how it goes! I'll be sorely disappointed though if the fix to the shooting phase is to make shooting more expensive. I'd like to see some tactical nuances in the phase.

[Iradekhorne]

As mortal Chaos player. And more, as khorne bloodbound player im very dissapointed on your vision of shooting. When I played vs 16 skyfyres I simply push them out, I have a 180 wound army in 2000 points, they HAVENT suficient shooting power to drop me away from points and I usually push them out at the limits of the boards, they kill me a lot of stuff on second turn, but if I get the double turn I blow up half of his skyfires, anyway sometimes I cant get double turn, in this cases I die on the limit areas of the colntrol points, and I usually won the games with points, the only problem was the melé tzaangors, but I usually focus on them, as blade of khorbe player my units diying isnt a disatvantaje bcausr if I lose one point ibuse my pool to moove another unit to the point.

 

I played like 5 games doing this and the tzeentch player was literally overwhelmed because the lack of melee, yes he kill me at tons but he have only his shooting phase, I have the control of the board all times cause he cant get in, a simple 10 bloodrravers with wrathmobger buffs or bloodsecrstor or aspiring deathbringer can kill 3 skyfires easy.

I dont feel any fear to shooting armies, only silcaneth caused problems to me cause they can shoot and stay in the poibt cause their kurnoth hunters are really strong. But his damage was low, I fear a lot more the kurnoth hunters with scytches xd.

[armisael]

If shooting is restricted, so their point should be decreased. as well as fast melee unit's point (ironjawz, BCR) should be increase.

[WoollyMammoth]

4 hours ago, Trout said:

Those should all be solved by unit design. Units with strong shooting should be squishy; that's their drawback, they die easily.

Unless you are playing in wide open fields or a tiny play area, I can't imagine how you table someone in two turns with shooting alone. Is that the problem? Are people playing in empty fields?

Nice theories. Unfortunately,  the best shooting units are not squishy (never have been), and cowering behind terrain will never win you any games.

@Iradekhorne
To clarify, are you a khorne player, a bloodbound player, or another slave to SAYL? Trick question - I already know the answer. There is only one way for Khorne to compete against a barrage of unrestricted shooting, and that's to load your best unit into a SAYL cannon, shoot them across the board to land the first shot. 


 

[someone2040]

2 hours ago, Iradekhorne said:

As mortal Chaos player. And more, as khorne bloodbound player im very dissapointed on your vision of shooting. When I played vs 16 skyfyres I simply push them out, I have a 180 wound army in 2000 points, they HAVENT suficient shooting power to drop me away from points and I usually push them out at the limits of the boards, they kill me a lot of stuff on second turn, but if I get the double turn I blow up half of his skyfires, anyway sometimes I cant get double turn, in this cases I die on the limit areas of the colntrol points, and I usually won the games with points, the only problem was the melé tzaangors, but I usually focus on them, as blade of khorbe player my units diying isnt a disatvantaje bcausr if I lose one point ibuse my pool to moove another unit to the point.

 

I played like 5 games doing this and the tzeentch player was literally overwhelmed because the lack of melee, yes he kill me at tons but he have only his shooting phase, I have the control of the board all times cause he cant get in, a simple 10 bloodrravers with wrathmobger buffs or bloodsecrstor or aspiring deathbringer can kill 3 skyfires easy.

I dont feel any fear to shooting armies, only silcaneth caused problems to me cause they can shoot and stay in the poibt cause their kurnoth hunters are really strong. But his damage was low, I fear a lot more the kurnoth hunters with scytches xd.

I'll refrain from dragging this topic too far down into this path, as it's been discussed a million times in other topics also.

So all I'll say is, I am not suggesting that Skyfires or heavy shooting armies cannot be beaten. Just that there is a lack of meaningful choices in the game that a player can do to reduce the impact of an enemies shooting units.

Combat has many intricacies which aren't obvious from just reading the rules. You can block enemy units with your own, you can retreat from a bad combat and force the enemy to re-charge or counter-charge with your own.

The Shooting Phase basically boils down to "Am I in range" as the more important question of "Can I see it" is generally a no-question due to the line of sight rules, or lack thereof. it lacks a certain degree of realism when enemy heroes are being plucked right out of the middle of a horde of Bloodreavers, or savage orruks are shooting at enemies 18" away from them when they're being chopped up by axes right in front of them.

And perhaps, the game can be won in the list building phase (Which I believe, your example is a case of), but I also think, just like combat, a player should be rewarded for making good and sound tactical decisions against a shooting army in the game.

[Bademeister]

i am really interestet in the new allegiance abilities.

Even some battalion sowuld be nice.

[awcamawn]

They do seem a bit zeroed in on the Rules of One (tm) catchphrase and it might be limiting their imagination a bit on what they can do with the matched play rules in the GHB. We'll just have to wait and see what they've come up with, and judging by what the first GHB seemed to do for the game I think there's good reason to be optimistic.

As far as new allegiance abilities go they mentioned 4 factions directly (including two of the armies with battletomes but no allegiance abilities) plus 'over a dozen others' by which I'm going assume they mean 13. If 3 of those thirteen are the other old battletomes without allegiance abilities that leaves 10 left for the other 44 factions (not including the confirmed nighthaunt and slanesh but counting the factions like firebellies and lion rangers that have only 1-2 models) listed on their webstore. The way they've set up all these tiny subfactions has put them in a corner; how are they going to handle the eleven aelf factions? Will we see allegiance abilities based on a keyword, like aelf, grot, human, or skaven for the first time? Or maybe handle the aelf factions by giving abilities based on the highborn/exile/wanderer keywords? I know it's unlikely as it would be a pretty big change in direction by GW, perhaps instead we'll see them focus on the factions from the skirmish book that have lots of plastic models. In any case they way they handle it and which factions are selected should be a clue to their future plans. Does this mean no more battletome releases for existing factions?

[someone2040]

I think the following factions have enough models and identity to substantiate getting Allegiance Abilities:

Order (9): Seraphon, Fyreslayers, Free Peoples, Dispossessed, Wanderers, Darkling Covens, Daughters of Khaine, Devoted of Sigmar, Phoenix Temple

Chaos (9): Everchosen, Slaves to Darkness, Hosts of Slaanesh, Clans Pestilence, Clans Verminus, Clans Skyre, Nurgle Rotbringers, Brayherd, Warherd

Destruction (6): Ironjawz, Gitmob Grots, Moonclan Grots, Spiderfang Grots, Greenskinz, Gutbuster

Death (4): Flesh-eater Courts (Do they already have one?), Deathrattle, Nighthaunt, Soulblight

Italics are those with battletomes, bold are those confirmed.

Which is a total of 30. They've indicated that we should at least get 17  which actually isn't too far off that list (Lets say get it down to 20) if you combine a few or chop a few. I reckon if you combined a few (Clans Pestilens + Nurgle Rotbringers, Brayherd + Warherd?, Ironjawz + Greenskinz?) You actually wouldn't be far off the mark.

Personally I feel even though Everchosen have a book, they're not really a large enough faction IMO to have their own ability. Even if you can run Archaon and a bunch of Varanguard.

You could also possibly chop a few. Any of the factions that have only one 'plain' unit could possibly be left for later (Spiderfang, Devoted, Phoenix Temple, Warherd). I included them because thematicly, I think they have enough of an identity and purpose to craft an interesting allegiance ability around.

As for the rest. I think they're in obvious need of extra models to expand those factions. While I think there is some merit to racial allegiance abilities, I think it goes against the grain of separating out the races into different factions and purposes. The reason a Firebelly is in a different faction to the Gutbusters, is because in theory, those particular kinds of Ogors act differently than the Gutbuster ones.

[shadowgra]

My thoughts about these news alla together:

Regarding shooting is disappointing that they won't change the rules, it could lead to so much better balance. And for instance, what are they gonna do with KO? They can't increase the cost of everything and their shooting is way too strong if they get a double turn.

Rules of 1 imho is for prayers and abilities, so happy about that.

Lastly about allegiance i think that they'll update recent books like ironjawz, pestilens, FEC. And then they 'll start to combine factions like with BOK and DOT. Aldo because there is no reason for not doing it.

[RuneBrush]

I was pretty enthused about this before the announcement - really quite excited now!  Siege rules sound like great fun and I'm really looking forward to expanded multiplayer rules - I play quite a few 3-way games so keeping fingers crossed the updated rules add some new interest into those games (normally one of the three players is at a disadvantage).  Looking forward to seeing what allegiance abilities are on offer and for who - will there be different options for armies who have a new battletome?

I'm really surprised that people thought we would get rules changes or an "advanced" set of rules for matched play, it was always suggested we'd be getting bigger and better ghb16 rather than rules changes.  No harm in hoping, but lets not that overshadow the sheer amount of awesome that ghb17 is going to contain

Edit: Have you seen the scenery?  Guessing it's kitbash, but still pretty amazing

 

[Gotrek]

3 hours ago, WoollyMammoth said:

Nice theories. Unfortunately,  the best shooting units are not squishy (never have been), and cowering behind terrain will never win you any games.

@Iradekhorne
To clarify, are you a khorne player, a bloodbound player, or another slave to SAYL? Trick question - I already know the answer. There is only one way for Khorne to compete against a barrage of unrestricted shooting, and that's to load your best unit into a SAYL cannon, shoot them across the board to land the first shot. 


 

He specifically mentioned using his "pool" to move units, which says hes using bloodtithe, so he's not using sayl. Contrary to your belief, you can close with skyfires without sayl. Fires have a range of 24" crushers have a threat range of 21" + movement shenanigans. 

[Kirjava13]

This whole 'let's break up all our iconic races into dozens of tiny factions' was one of the things that irked, and continues to irk, me about AoS. Who was absolutely coked off their face when they suggested that? "Let's make Dwarven artillery, like, it's own thing." " Let's put Pestilens in their own book, with their whole two different infantry units." Any move away from that, be it re-consolidating factions or fleshing them out substantially, is a fine piece of warp-cheese, yes-yes.

[EMMachine]

1 hour ago, someone2040 said:

think the following factions have enough models and identity to substantiate getting Allegiance Abilities:

Order (9): Seraphon, Fyreslayers, Free Peoples, Dispossessed, Wanderers, Darkling Covens, Daughters of Khaine, Devoted of Sigmar, Phoenix Temple

Chaos (7): Everchosen, Slaves to Darkness, Hosts of Slaanesh, Clans Moulder, Nurgle Rotbringers, Brayherd, Warherd

Destruction (6): Ironjawz, Gitmob Grots, Moonclan Grots, Spiderfang Grots, Greenskinz, Gutbuster

Death (4): Flesh-eater Courts (Do they already have one?), Deathrattle, Nighthaunt, Soulblight

Italics are those with battletomes, bold are those confirmed.

Which is a total of 28. They've indicated that we should at least get 17, which actually isn't too far off that list if you combine a few or chop a few. I reckon if you combined a few (Clans Moulder + Nurgle Rotbringers, Brayherd + Warherd?, Ironjawz + Greenskinz?) You actually wouldn't be far off the mark.

You missed out Clan Pestilence, Clan Skryre und Clan Verminius (think Clan Echin and Masterclan could be a little small for the moment). And Clan Moulder has nothing to do with Nurgle. (When we look at it Clan Verminius is mosttimes a backbone of a Clan).

In fact a Allegiance Abilitiy for Skaven could be possible (after they made something like that with the Tzeentch and Khorne Allegiance) and Clan Pestilence could have the choice to take nurgle instead (which would also cover Mortal Nurgle, Rotbringers and Daemons of Nurgle).

Edit:

6 hours ago, rokapoke said:

-1 to hit when shooting into or out of combat?

For some reason it would help if units in close combat could only shoot at those. In some cases the quoted rule would be a little redundant because some units could only use abilities to buff shooting (hit Bonus, more shots etc) if they aren't in 3" of an enemy). And it would feel a little strange if weapons like Throwing Axes that only have 8" Range would get nerved too.

The other point, what to do with units shooting into combat, I don't know what the best would be.

[someone2040]

52 minutes ago, Kirjava13 said:

This whole 'let's break up all our iconic races into dozens of tiny factions' was one of the things that irked, and continues to irk, me about AoS. Who was absolutely coked off their face when they suggested that? "Let's make Dwarven artillery, like, it's own thing." " Let's put Pestilens in their own book, with their whole two different infantry units." Any move away from that, be it re-consolidating factions or fleshing them out substantially, is a fine piece of warp-cheese, yes-yes.

I think splitting the idea of splitting up the faction into these smaller more interesting factions is a good and interesting idea in theory, but the execution has just been poor. It goes to show if anything, that the Grand Alliance books were both a blessing and a curse. They bought all these factions, and a bit of life into the mortal realms, but for some of these factions, it was too soon to be bought to life.

The problem is, GW hasn't supported any of these factions with model releases. So we've got these two dozen factions sitting around with the skeleton of an idea and faction, but no meat on the bones.

1 hour ago, RuneBrush said:

 

I wonder if those skulls are the old platform skulls for the Magewrath Throne. I have one of those, and put it aside after how frustrating it was trying to get the skulls to fit together! Think GW did themselves a favour by only including the Throne part of that kit when they re-released it.

 

11 minutes ago, EMMachine said:

You missed out Clan Pestilence, Clan Skryre und Clan Verminius (think Clan Echin and Masterclan could be a little small for the moment). And Clan Moulder has nothing to do with Nurgle. (When we look at it Clan Verminius is mosttimes a backbone of a Clan).

In fact a Allegiance Abilitiy for Skaven could be possible (after they made something like that with the Tzeentch and Khorne Allegiance) and Clan Pestilence could have the choice to take nurgle instead (which would also cover Mortal Nurgle, Rotbringers and Daemons of Nurgle).

My bad, I confused Moulder and Pestlins, and somehow missed Verminus and Skyre. I've added them into my topic now. I think the difference between Khorne/Tzeentch and making a 'Skaven' allegiance, is that the different clans of Skaven do actually work quite differently. An Eshin force would most certainly have a different Allegiance Ability to Pestilens IMO, which is why I don't quite follow the idea of 'racial' Allegiance Abilities. Cuts against the grain as I mentioned.

[EMMachine]

5 minutes ago, someone2040 said:

I think splitting the idea of splitting up the faction into these smaller more interesting factions is a good and interesting idea in theory, but the execution has just been poor. It goes to show if anything, that the Grand Alliance books were both a blessing and a curse. They bought all these factions, and a bit of life into the mortal realms, but for some of these factions, it was too soon to be bought to life.

The problem is, GW hasn't supported any of these factions with model releases. So we've got these two dozen factions sitting around with the skeleton of an idea and faction, but no meat on the bones.

Yeah, thats true, on one side they didn't want to take these fractions out of order, but didn't got to the point where some of those fractions really feel like a real fraction, and even some with a battletome are quite small and perhaps only made a battletome because they where used in the realmgate Wars. (Everchosen could be one of the most disappointing once, but I have to read the background in that book to get to my final statement. Don't know why they didn't made a mix Everchosen and Slaves of Darkness so perhaps all Slaves of Darkness Players had bought it).

6 minutes ago, someone2040 said:

I wonder if those skulls are the old platform skulls for the Magewrath Throne. I have one of those, and put it aside after how frustrating it was trying to get the skulls to fit together! Think GW did themselves a favour by only including the Throne part of that kit when they re-released it.

The Skullwall in the back should be a mix of the Skulls of the Magewrath Throne, a Baleful Realmgate and many topparts of Arcane Ruins with some branches of Sylvaneth Wyldwood. And that Throne on the left was shown in Allgates (if I remember correctly, if not it should be Godbeast ).

The wall is nice, but perhaps a little unpractical for the game.

And I'm with your opinion about the chance of the Magewrath Throne. Building the skullpart is really a pain in the a**.

6 minutes ago, someone2040 said:

My bad, I confused Moulder and Pestlins, and somehow missed Verminus and Skyre. I've added them into my topic now. I think the difference between Khorne/Tzeentch and making a 'Skaven' allegiance, is that the different clans of Skaven do actually work quite differently. An Eshin force would most certainly have a different Allegiance Ability to Pestilens IMO, which is why I don't quite follow the idea of 'racial' Allegiance Abilities. Cuts against the grain as I mentioned.

Okay thats true, but some times I thought the same for the Chaos Allegiance when I was reading in my generals Handbook to find fitting Command Abilities and Artefacts for my Skaven Warlord or Arch-Warlock. Really hope to get some Allegiance that fit them better.

[Jamopower]

I could bet money that a proper Skaven battletome will eventually come out, as they are one of the most iconic and especially Warhammer specific races in the game. Thus a common Skaven allegiance abilities as a stop gap solution would be fine and would save space for other factions.

[Nico]

Quote

I do have high hopes for Allegiance Abilities and Items. They were VERY poorly balanced initially, which is to be expected with the data they had. More than one viable option for competitive play, let's go!

I don't think this is true. They were pro-balance in the sense that Death and Destruction (with the smallest selection of units) had the better Command Traits and Artefacts; and Order had garbage command traits to match their overpowered Stormcast 1.0 alpha strike and Hurricanum funlines.

Trying to make all 6 of the choices equally good is a tall order if that's what you mean - you're almost inevitably going to be picking one out of the top two for most armies.

[Kosmion]

Pleeease let there be abillities for skaven and deathrattle??? hoping for some clarification and updates on the corerules as well

[Kramer]

46 minutes ago, Nico said:

Trying to make all 6 of the choices equally good is a tall order if that's what you mean - you're almost inevitably going to be picking one out of the top two for most armies.

Very true, but nevertheless I would be very happy of the choice for every faction became: do I stick with a faction (with all it's drawbacks and advantages) or do I choose a alliance (to negate the drawbacks). And the alliance abilities etc are key in that. That would finally complete the alliance faction set up in my mind. 

And of course that's a crazy difficult thing to balance. But lets be honest, the wargaming setup does not allow perfect balance and diverse playstyles to be exist hand in hand. 

[Kirjava13]

1 hour ago, someone2040 said:

I think splitting the idea of splitting up the faction into these smaller more interesting factions is a good and interesting idea in theory, but the execution has just been poor. It goes to show if anything, that the Grand Alliance books were both a blessing and a curse. They bought all these factions, and a bit of life into the mortal realms, but for some of these factions, it was too soon to be bought to life.

The problem is, GW hasn't supported any of these factions with model releases. So we've got these two dozen factions sitting around with the skeleton of an idea and faction, but no meat on the bones.

Certainly the blueprints of a good idea are there. An all-Pestilens Skaven army clearly has legs, as does the notion of a super-mechanical Dwarf army, or a tribe-feel greenskin army ala Savage Orcs. But releasing these armies in the state they were released- or maybe "presented" is a better word- was a major blunder, especially combined with the wholesale partition to the point of ridiculousness of many races (don't most High Elf factions have, like, two or three units? In whose head was that ever a good idea?).

I like the direction of things now though, Kharadron Overlords-style. An army large enough and with enough options to give the player choices, but not so large as to be overwhelming. If we could see a Skaven Skryre army like that, why I'd be most happy-pleased, yes-yes.

 

[Nico]

Quote

Very true, but nevertheless I would be very happy of the choice for every faction became: do I stick with a faction (with all it's drawbacks and advantages) or do I choose a alliance (to negate the drawbacks). And the alliance abilities etc are key in that. That would finally complete the alliance faction set up in my mind. 

And of course that's a crazy difficult thing to balance. But lets be honest, the wargaming setup does not allow perfect balance and diverse playstyles to be exist hand in hand. 

All I meant was that if you have a set of 6 artefacts or 6 traits, it's very difficult to balance them against each other.

I'm very excited about the GH v2.0 - especially for Fyreslayers and Seraphon, where the only way is up over the existing Order Traits.

[Ratatatata]

Please, please don´t make this another whiny thread about how much better 40K is (not directed at recent posters). This forum used to be so positive but nowdays all I see is bitching about shooting out of combat.

[Jamopower]

58 minutes ago, Kirjava13 said:

Certainly the blueprints of a good idea are there. An all-Pestilens Skaven army clearly has legs, as does the notion of a super-mechanical Dwarf army, or a tribe-feel greenskin army ala Savage Orcs. But releasing these armies in the state they were released- or maybe "presented" is a better word- was a major blunder, especially combined with the wholesale partition to the point of ridiculousness of many races (don't most High Elf factions have, like, two or three units? In whose head was that ever a good idea?).

 

 

On the toher hand, the Lion rangers etc. leave a door open for interesting small factions that need only few releases to make them proper. For example, Lion rangers would be nice force with a box of lighter skirmishing unit with possibility for axes or bows, some lion cavalry and some characters, of which one could be a griffon riding noble. There wouldn't be many units, but looking at FEC, Fyreslayers, etc., neither do they.

[Kirjava13]

32 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

On the toher hand, the Lion rangers etc. leave a door open for interesting small factions that need only few releases to make them proper. For example, Lion rangers would be nice force with a box of lighter skirmishing unit with possibility for axes or bows, some lion cavalry and some characters, of which one could be a griffon riding noble. There wouldn't be many units, but looking at FEC, Fyreslayers, etc., neither do they.

Fyreslayers are just crying out for some mad ginger dorfs riding magma beasts as monstrous cavalry. Oh, and more than two infantry choices...

 

Dammit now I'm imagining lion cavalry and it doesn't exist. I'm sad.

[chord]

48 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Which indicates that there is a large portion of the playerbase that is annoyed with how that rules works.

or a small group of very vocal players. 

¯\_(ツ)_/¯