new death battletome announced!

[RoyalDachshund]

I still don't see too much of a help vs current meta.

You dig/rise from a grave your block on points, you stay there. Without buffs from heroes (that you probably don't want to have too close to a fight so they won't go down) they just sit there, trade blows, come back. Meanwhile, if your opponent is not a tool, he'll circle around, go for heroes, cripple your healing (still, a 5+ from terrain is not that much) and swipe standing blocks off points.

Don't get me wrong, those changes are surprisingly good, and for local games, Death won't be struggling for last places.

But I still don't see (yet) them doing any good in high-end competitive play. It's still an army without much of a reliable MW/shooting.

Immortal Nagash + Morghasts are still a half of your points in three models. 

But we will see what tomorrow (and future in general) brings

[Sception]

17 minutes ago, Teuchter said:

@Sception seeing you type happy thoughts has made me happy. thank you GW! You made the impossible, possible! 

hope I don't set you off with my lack of wit here 

I always said my posts would be positive when I saw details to be positive about. 

11 minutes ago, RoyalDachshund said:

still, a 5+ from terrain is not that much

The 5+ is for Nagash Legion's auto heal.  The terrain healing mechanics aren't fully clear, but from the article it read to me like terrain healing was automatic.

[Dracothjay]

Also, ossific diadem giving us another 6+ death save. Awesome! 

[Jamopower]

38 minutes ago, RoyalDachshund said:

But I still don't see (yet) them doing any good in high-end competitive play. It's still an army without much of a reliable MW/shooting.

 

High end competitive play seems to require quite special and powerful gimmicks nowadays, so for one, the whole book needs to be available to see what it's worth in that sense, and even then, I don't know how good for the game overall it would be if you had something equal to changehost here...

[Cargo Cult]

Wowzers!!!

This looks highly interesting. My previous optimism, based on not much more than hope to be honest, is now turning into (slightly) fact based joy. We can work with this. We can pose questions that will be hard to answer. We can start to mess with our opponents heads .

Hooray.

i propose that every year we celebrate 30 January as “Sception Was Happy Day”

[Sception]

After seeing the LVO results, I've given up on high end competitive play.  Fully half the top 10 running essectially the same tzeentch list?  That's an entirely unsustainable scene.  Trying to bringbeverything else up to that level is madness.

Other armies don't need to be given that kind of power, that's not a workable fix.  The armies that have it need to have it taken away instead.

[RoyalDachshund]

*sigh* Lucky you.

I've played (since I've taken a break from it for a while or two) in two clubs, both in different countries. Here, on spot, I have a BCR army and playtested couple other ones, in CZR I have death. Almost my entire collection, about 8-9k points that I'm lending to the club as a part of a display. Both clubs have around 12-14+ members on small local tournaments, bigger ones, with prizes bigger than part of entry fee, around 30 players. I've met 7 DoT, 4 Seraphons, 2 Vanguard Wings and 2 Kharadrons. Almost each of guys playing those armies is riding across the country playing in other tournaments. Even on smaller points battle, it's a bloodsport. I can't escape the high-end meta. So I'm whinin and bitchin

[Jamopower]

Ouch. As I have said earlier, a lot of things in this game are really dependent on what kind of local meta you have. We had similar elements in our 40k group back in the day. It was an experience playing apocalypse games with friends whose collections of hundreds of models were the accumulation of the toughest tournament builds for past years, when I had (and still have) a collection that made the average list from the White dwarf battle reports look powerful

[Sception]

The competitive scene is definitely here, but thankfully its not the only scene, and I can simply refuse to play against vanguard wing or tzeentch lists and still arrange games.

The down side is that i do have to arrange games, because AoS does not see enough traffic for reliable pick up games of any sort, and it's a half hour drive (or more with traffic) to either of the 'local' hobby stops, which is a big disincentive to me trying to play anything at all.

[Malakithe]

Just from these tiny previews so far im willing to bet that Death can break the meta apart. 

All Tzeentch lists are generally the same yes but with nearly endless fodder plus Deaths on spells...throw out MW and spells all day if you want but they skellies keep coming and spells will now get unbound a lot.

New Death...destroying the meta by attrition 

[Elmir]

That might be a bit optimistic... Vanguard got a slap on the wrist in the new FAQ, but I'm  not quite sure how the FAQ affected DoT (if at all). 

I don't think it'll be a healthy game if GW has to give all armies the powerlevel of current DoT... That kind of balancing doesn't sound very good in the long term either.

[Lemon Knuckles]

It will be interesting to see how the ruling is worded for Nagash's ability to allocate wounds to Morghasts.  And the interaction with Deathless Minions.  The most extreme possibility is that a mortal wound thrown at Nagash would have to survive a 4+, 6+, 5+, 6+ sequence of saves, which seems bananas.

 

[Malakithe]

Just saw a post from my GW store manager on the store FB group. He said LoN, MP, and the Harbingers go on preorder this sat. That makes the rumors of Feb 10th true

[Undeadly]

1 hour ago, Malakithe said:

Just from these tiny previews so far im willing to bet that Death can break the meta apart. 

All Tzeentch lists are generally the same yes but with nearly endless fodder plus Deaths on spells...throw out MW and spells all day if you want but they skellies keep coming and spells will now get unbound a lot.

New Death...destroying the meta by attrition 

Eh, I think your missing the points that make Death vulnerable to armies like Vanguard amd DoT; that being our Heros, which now have gotten even MORE important. It is a simple task for them to straight up murder all our cheaper heros in one good turn or two of shooting and magic, which cripples our DI super hard, and than blasting our hordes off the table. Admitably, the Graveyard mechanics might make a difference since it shortens the time it takes to reach combat with our hordes.

Now where it REALLY hurts are armies that lack shooting. Ironjawz and Fyre Slayers will be totally swamped down in bodies.

[Lemon Knuckles]

18 minutes ago, Lemon Knuckles said:

It will be interesting to see how the ruling is worded for Nagash's ability to allocate wounds to Morghasts.  And the interaction with Deathless Minions.  The most extreme possibility is that a mortal wound thrown at Nagash would have to survive a 4+, 6+, 5+, 6+ sequence of saves, which seems bananas.

 

Nevermind.   Doesn't work.  Need to allocate before rolling the ward save.  Bananas indeed.

 

[Ashtyn]

Hey guys

The new 'summonable' keyword means that spirit hosts now have access to vanhels? 

If so that makes them a lot more hitty

[WillofNagash]

I think we can all agree that the biggest news today was Sception being happy. I was beginning to think we were going to see a sweet youtube video of someone burning their minis again.

I think with AoS its all about faith guys. I have faith that GW will do the right thing. They always eventually do.

Since AoS started i have been pumped for all the cool things that have come out. There has been far more positive things in this hobby than negative.

All I'm saying is don't lose faith in GW and especially don't lose faith in NAGASH. For he is the answer to chaos, he is true order.  

[ogmaadn]

Really great news for us today, guys 

And the best proof this is so great is seeing Scepticon happy and joyful 

So excited to see what's up with the Legion of Sacrament tomorrow...

[Malakithe]

33 minutes ago, Undeadly said:

Eh, I think your missing the points that make Death vulnerable to armies like Vanguard amd DoT; that being our Heros, which now have gotten even MORE important. It is a simple task for them to straight up murder all our cheaper heros in one good turn or two of shooting and magic, which cripples our DI super hard, and than blasting our hordes off the table. Admitably, the Graveyard mechanics might make a difference since it shortens the time it takes to reach combat with our hordes.

Now where it REALLY hurts are armies that lack shooting. Ironjawz and Fyre Slayers will be totally swamped down in bodies.

I think you missed the preview where Nagash flips them the bird and laughs as he casts 10 spells on his own and shrugs everything off or gives it to someone else...

As far as relying on heroes sure but my normal lists involved Arkhan and a VLoZD so not exactly a quick snipe. Their range on the DI heal is way better then the foot guys. But this was just the first preview. Maybe our heroes will gain survivability from battalions, traits, and items, and spells...at this point im thinking yes

[5kaven5lave]

Defo going Arkhan, Mortis Engine and Necromancers with a Wight King or two and loads of ghosts and Skellies then. 

[5kaven5lave]

That turning dead enemy units into your own on a 4+ is sexy AF. 

[TheKingInYellow]

If you are 'returning' a unit in matched play does that cost reserve pool points?

[RuneBrush]

3 minutes ago, TheKingInYellow said:

If you are 'returning' a unit in matched play does that cost reserve pool points?

According to the GHb if you return any destroyed unit it should cost you points.  There's a chance that they might have a special matched play rule that negates this though.  For me, the ability sounds amazing, but I'd be concerned that it's reliant on your opponent not being crafty when they remove models, if you measure from the middle of the gravesite as has been said, it won't be too much of a challenge to ensure the last model removed is outside of the 6".

[Sception]

It's really not amazing at all, because again, you are not going to pay double the price of one of your units, just for the off chance it might maybe possibly come back in game, not when you could have just taken two of the same unit from the get go.  This is objectively worse than using those same points on more up front units, or even for using those points to summon from gravesites in the normal way, whatever that turns out to be.  Like, you can already hold those same points in reserve, use them to bring on that same unit in the same way from a grave site, only without having to:

1. Have another identical unit in the army
2. Have that unit completely removed
3. Have one or more enemy units camping one of your gravesites
4. Successfully clear all enemy units from your gravesite
5. Roll a 4+

That's five separate hasslesome tasks you need to perform to do something that, from the description of gravesites previously, you already could have done simply by doing item number 4 alone.

If this ability costs reserve points, and from the wording it does, then it's entirely a non-ability.

..............

Now, Legion of Sacrament seems to get a lot of other nice things, I'm not saying the legion itself is bad as a result, I'm seriously considering running it vs. the grand host.  But this particular ability, as is, is completely worthless, and that does kind of sour my excitement about the other stuff previewed in the article.

[Jamopower]

Yeah, the ability to raise the opponents units seems to be more of a nice fluffy rule, that might every now and then something awesome, that you'll remember forever. That said, at least I will probably never run the Legions without reinforcement points. Summoning some zombies to an objective and even the threat of being able to do that is too good to pass.