Thoughts on the new rule leaks?

[bonzai]

There was a leak of warscrolls from the upcoming Nagash book here: http://runebrush.pa-sy.com/2018/01/legions-of-nagash-warscroll-leaks/

If these are true, then there are some major changes coming to the death faction. The biggest thing I see are changes to battle standards, in that they no longer give unit regen. Instead, it is now done by heroes. I wont lie, my first impression is that I dont like it. Death was already vulnerable to hero sniping, and this puts a bigger bullseye on them. I will admit that it is thematic and fluffy, but i already see how flesh eater courts suffer under a similar mechanic. Hopefully there are new battalions/allegience/etc that can help with this.

Knight of shrouds is a huge blessing for night haunts. He has a great command ability that was very much needed, and synergizes well with spirit hosts. Ethereal got a slight nerf, as they now cant benefit from mystic shield, but I think the faction gained more than it lost.

Soulblight got some new units (but old models), which is interesting. I didnt see the coven throne, which would be a shame if they lost it. Blood knights lost their regen, and now have to rely on heroes rolling a 5+ to get a model back. Unless there is an artifact or other ability to boost this, this will hurt. 

So far this has been a mixed bag. I'm excited for night haunt players, but a little concerned for other death factions. What are your thoughts on this?

 

[Humanities]

I think we have to wait for book , 

but no more summon for wraith , Morghast  and no more reg for blood knight,  it's hurt

[AverageBoss]

2 hours ago, bonzai said:

Blood knights lost their regen, and now have to rely on heroes rolling a 5+ to get a model back. Unless there is an artifact or other ability to boost this, this will hurt.

Actually, they don't have the summonable keyword. The only healing they have is from The Hunger.

[Mikeymajq]

We definitly have to wait for the book to see the whole picture. I made a longer post about the pros and cons of Deathly invocations in another thread. Long story short I think there pros outweigh the cons but a big con is that we (might) be more vulnerable to hero sniping now. But wr have control over ressing units now and with multiple heroes it is actually a lot stronger too.

[Sception]

The major nerf is character based healing instead of banner based.  Opponents already targeted our heros first due to our units releance of buffs.  If the heroes die first, the army now has no recursion at all.  We already see this in FEC, which have similar character based healing mechanics that likewise might as well not exist, and they're not as character dependent to begin with.

Apart from that, several small but cumulative nerfs rub salt in the wound.

Vulnerability to sniping is exacerbated by nerfs to the survivability of various support heroes.

Necromancers 'look out sir' rule no longer blocks mortal wounds, and only redirects to 'sumonable' units, so doesnt work with morghasts, any TK, any FEC, etc.  Vanhels is limited to the same targets, so necromancers no longer support TK or FEC at all.

Wight Kings with Black Axes no longer halve mortal wounds suffered, and no longer reduce damage suffered from single damage attacks at all, since their armor only works on a 'per attack' basis, even though that isn't even how wounds are allocated in AoS.  Also, their axe only has damage 1 now.  The whole unit might as well have been removed.

Speaking of removed options, regular wight kings no longer have their bsb option, so no extra layer of defence there.

All ethereals, including ethereal heroes, no longer benefit from cover or mystic shield.

Blood knights lost regen apart from the hunger.

Morghasts lost their summon spell - well, everything did, but morghasts are one of the only units that were worth using the spells with, so it actually hurts them, and can't be healed by the new system, so even if new spell lores introduce new spells to summon 'summonable' units, morghasts won't get them.

 

On the up side... um... oh, yeah, black knights got another attack and a better to hit, so they're not /as bad/, but the new healing mechanics are very awkward for them, and they still have no rend, so they'll still hit like pillows against anything with a halfway decent saves.

.....

Again, the whole thing turns completely around if AoS gets a 40k style 'cant shoot the heroes' rule, but unless and until that happens we're still looking at a lot of nerfs in our warscroll changes.  Fingers crossed that the allegiance rules pick up some of the slack, but since artefacts, command traits, and spell lores are all hero based, I'm not hopeful that allegiance rules will offer much help.

The changes seen so far seem like they were written by and for non death players annoyed at playing against us rather than by or for death players ourselves.  Like, I get that a lot of our previous strengths, gimmicky combos and unstoppable recursion and wound shrugging mechanics, while not necessarily broken, were frustrating to play against.  But these scroll changes just feel like a continuation of the treatment we saw under GH'17 and the compendium updates, pulling crutches out from under us and breaking up inter-subfaction synergies, without stopping to ask if the underlying rules were at all capable of sustaining themselves without such shenanigans.

As it is, we're looking at an alliance defined to a far greater degree by our weaknesses than our strengths.  Even if they're fluffy weaknesses, that still hurts.

[Sleboda]

7 hours ago, Sception said:

The changes seen so far seem like they were written by and for non death players annoyed at playing against us

Did Robin Cruddace write it?  That's how the old TK book felt - like it was written by someone who had heard a rumor that TK were good and wanted to crush them with no actual knowledge of the army. 

[Sception]

more like they were written by the same guy who wrote GH17 and the compendium updates.

A non death player who had lost games to death, and they were always frustrating, because death's strengths were gimmicky combos or frustrating wound shrugging recursion mechanics.

The same writer who thought ruler of the knight and sphynx wound halving was too frustrating applying that same reasoning to black axe kings and necromancers.

The same writer who thought wight kings buffing necropolis knights was too much interfaction combo cheese applying that same reasoning to necromancers buffing tomb kings or FEC units.

The same writer who thought a double attacking dragon lord was too cheesy a combo applying the same reasoning to mystic shield cast on spirit hosts.

The same writer who removed all the summon spells from tomb kings doing the same for the rest of death (though this at least is likely to see some mitigation/reversal in spell lores).

And there have been complaints about our banners being too good / too frustrating to play against (since there's so little you can do as an opponent to stop them) / too hard to work a fair points balance for since before the first general's handbook, so now we get a new system, replacing summoning as well, which moves that stuff from untargetable banners to snipeable characters.

A book that directly addresses most of the complaints others have made about playing against the undead, but few of the complaints that undead players have made about playing with them, in the last few months especially.

But how could this book ever have addressed those recent complaints?  Again, it was likely written and done and off to the printers before GH17 was even released, much less before feedback started rolling in, so the real unreasonable thing was expecting the book to address our faction's current failings at all.  When this book was written, Settra & necroknight cheese was still one of the more unfairly powerful armies around, and RotN recursion hordes were, while far less powerful in terms of actually winning games, if anything even more frustrating to face at the table.

It's a book written in response to a world that has been so utterly destroyed that it's hard now to believe it only died a few short months ago.  It already feels like a lost, mythic age.

 

[xspire]

As far as my thoughts: I can appreciate the shift towards a more hero-centric army. Unfortunately I've been trying to make hero spam lists work for the past 12 months, and where in other GA's it can be amazing (Order), Death in it's current state just can't pull it off.  Yes, you can win, and you can smash some people - but vs a cookie-cutter top 20 internet list you're getting crushed unless you get over the odds on your dice. The warscroll's are definitely a move towards 'hero spam', however as everyone else has brought to light - these hero's are going to be comically vulnerable. I'm not against this change, something needs to change, and we have to accept it won't all be a one way trip to buff city.

HOWEVER! I do agree with Sception that everything leaked seems to be very out of date, or at least it would be fair to say - out of touch.  Ultimately it's impossible to say from the warscrolls what state Death might be in, we need the allegiance abilities to be leaked / teased to get a more well-rounded picture.  I can't see any traits or artefacts having an impact on their own, it's definitely going to come down to allegiance rules. The other major factor is going to be GH:18. If the GH this year reworks a lot of points values, that could also be a good platform for Death going forward.

At the moment I'm feeling slightly underwhelmed, especially considering the awesome tease of DoK. I mean, did that feel like a huge slap in the face to anyone else? They seem to hit the nail on the head with most releases, fresh lore, developing lore, interesting models and a niche / unique feel: but I haven't felt anything like that with what I've heard / speculated in regards to the new LoN book. I've only ever played Death in all the time I've been collecting WHFB and AoS, I enjoy the theme but if there's nothing new to come, I can't see the reward or enjoyment in staying with (and continuing to invest in) the alliance.  If I don't straight up swap to starting a DoK army, it looks like I'll be trying to convert some of their models into whatever the new Soulblight ends up being (if it's remotely playable).

[bonzai]

Yeah... lets hope that we are not seeing the full picture, and that there are other rules at play that balance things out. Hero sniping is a huge problem already, and this will exasperate things further. Tzeentch, Overlords, Bonesplitterz, and other armies can take out a handful of 5 wound models by turn 2.

Deathrattle lacked punch, and ground out wins. Now they cant weather attrition as well, and its one good formation is neutered. Once the wight kings are sniped, its going to be a losing battle. 

Soulblight leaned heavy on the over powered blood knights. Now they are nerfed. Hopefully there is something else to help prop them up, other than spamming zombie dragon lords.

Night Haunt is the only faction that might have come out ahead as the knight of shrouds is good, but at the cost of being able to benefit from mystic shield or cover saves. 

Funny how this was supposed to bring Death in line with the other factions, but so far it seems like it is pushing it further behind the curve. Lets hope the the rest of the book gives something back.

[Sception]

KoS is just a nighthaunt wight king.  Good buff, but you'll hardly ever get to use it in competitive games because the model is comically vulnerable to ranged mortal spam, And you can't even double up for redundancy because the buff is a command ability.  And if the model isn't your general, then its personal melee ability probably isn't enough to make it worth taking.  Formations might make it worth while as a tax, but I wouldn't expect to see too many ghostly formations in this book, since Nighthaunt allegiance isn't in there, likely held back for a future battle tome.

[Aginor]

I have said most stuff I wanted to say in the other thread.

Some of that stuff can turn out to be good in the end but...  right now judging by only what we have seen yet... doesn't look that promising to me.

[mhsellwood]

The problem we have with how judging the leaks are is that they are so many unknowns that we should all unpack our panties.

By that I mean, we know that there will be four ways of running your Death Army. Each of these could provide interesting ways to provide some overall buff to your army that both makes it more thematic as well as answering some of the issues voiced.

As a thought experiment, how could we make an army that has a focus on grinding attrition, while not breaking any core rules (note I am not saying this is what will happen but given the negative tone in this thread I am simply proposing a possible alternative that I would like)

• Legion of Sacrament (Arkhan)
• Specific battalion that is mainly death rattle, necromancers and Morghasts, special rule: All units in this battalion receive the Summonable key word (so now you can heal / raise Morghasts and heal characters), plus Deathly Invocation becomes D3 +1 wounds
• Unique General Trait: Deathly Invocation gets +6" and can target 1 extra unit (can hide more effectively, and support more units)
• Unique Artefact: Helm of Commandment - rather than attacking in the combat phase you may give a unit within 12" +1 to hit and +1 to wound (makes support characters even more helpful)
• Battle Trait: Deathless Minions, and all Summonable Units regain 1 wound every Hero Phase.

Is this what we will see? Don't know. Is this any more or less likely than the doomsaying? Don't know. My point is that they are setting the base up for lots of potential changes and improvements on the current state of play, and at this point all we have are a couple of data points that tell us something will change, but no idea of exactly how or in what direction.

Finally, I think it is a bit sad that the regen banner is gone, but the Deathly Invocation approach opens up a lot of interesting design space.

[Undeadly]

Like I said in the other thread, the actual ability for Death to be a viable competative force, with the current rules provided, boils down to how well our heros can perform, which can be further simplified to a single question: Will the book provide us with ways to protect our Heros? 

Whether it be an Artifact, a WL trait, Allegiance ability or a Battalion benefit, it really doesn't matter. So long as we have a way to keep our Heros alive, we can keep our units alive. I know I've said this before, that DI is superior to the Banner in many ways when. Depending on point costs, you can certainly bring back more units than a banner ever could, along with guaranteeing that we get a certain amount back. Getting 6d3 Skeletons back sounds pretty awesome, but getting 6d3 Grave Guard? Or, once fully healed, getting more Spirit hosts or Black Knights back? That sounds wonderful. 

But if it doesn't have ways to protect our Heros? Than it absolutely destroys any Death armies based around Hordes, with Deathrattle being the hardest hit. It will mean that we also will see nothing but a continuation of the competative armies we already see of Death; Soul Blight and Night Haunt, although both will now underperfom than prior due to their nerfs, although WL traits, Relics, etc. might make up for it.

I'd also like to mourn the loss of Summoning; Morghasts were the biggest losers, seeing as how they lost their Deepstrike. But the loss of tactical flexibility was just as bad; no longer can we summon a Zombie Dragon, or bring out units like Banshees for ranged support.

Although, once again, I reserve final judgement until we get the book. 

[Thostos]

Assuming the leaked scrolls are real(probably are) theres a few things I would be looking for in the new book,mainly in the spell lore.
 Things like a spell that makes a model not targetable in the shooting phase,,"ghostly visage" or something like that.If summoning has been totally revamped then I wouldnt be surprised to see a replacement similar to what Nurgle got..or perhaps a spell available to all death wizards that allows 1,d3 ,d6 or even 2d6 models to be added to an existing unit,,beyond its starting size in certain cases(zombies or skellies perhaps).

 Other spells or abilities added either with warscroll updates or artifacts that possibly add a shooting debuff to a unit or units,posibly even a bubble ability like this.I would also think that we could see a spell that could bring back the 5+ deathly minions effect to one unit.

[Ahn-ket]

Hi fellow members of the dead i'm new and from Germany so my english is not the best

What If wenn can combine legion abilities and faction abilities 

Like you take Manfred to get Legion of shadows and made it pure soulblight and get both 

What so you think 

[Dave Fraser]

OMG THEY'VE NERFED DEATH FURTHER.

what if the points come out and are significantly cheaper across the board, what if the bits we haven't seen swing the army to be amazing in a different way.  What if they get a nurgleesque summon ability, what if, what if...

 

Perhaps we should look at the more recent books which have come out Stormcasts, Tz, KO, Nurgle.  None of them have been significant misses in my eyes (ok KO playstyle forces them to be a bit dull and Tz are possibly a little bit too good in some areas).

Maybe, these guys are trying to come up with a solution for death which is thematic & fun & competitive all at the same time and their intent isn't just to run the whole faction into the ground.

[Cargo Cult]

Why don’t we read the book, play a few games and THEN decide?

[Sharrankar]

I get the feeling that we may still get summonable Morghasts - it's just that their lack of "summonable" keyword is here to prevent them from being healed. 

I just can't imagine Death without being able to summon Morghasts

[Jamopower]

Looking at the LVO results,the hope for death to be competitive seems to be if they'll get a batallion that has over the top movement ability and mortal wounds flying out from every creek.

[Gaz Taylor]

Just casting my Gaze of Nagash at people like @Sception to try and wither some of the Negativity. 

I'm not too sure what everybody is moaning about. The book isn't out and all we are seeing are some leaks of some of the Warscrolls without the wrapping of Army Abilities, spells, Magic Items, or Battalions (oh and points). Until we see any of that, nobody is in a position to moan about anything really and as everybody knows, we don't like moaning on TGA. 

I have nothing wrong with constructive criticism about anything but until we have all the facts, can everybody just think twice if it's something we should be moaning about? 

I'm fully expecting the Legions of Nagash to be a good battletome with plenty of options and I think most players will be happy.

[RoyalDachshund]

Battletome will be a good and fun way to play Death. Everything is better then GH2017 section of Death

But the competitive/matched play side is what worries people, due to leaked scrolls and a hint of hero-depending army theme. On this front things are looking mediocre at best. Death already struggled with hero dependence and ccccombo buffing troopers. Now, on top of that, their healing will also be depending on those unlucky dudes. Last campaign I've played, due to some shenanigans etc, 1800 points of Death vs 1100 DoT army. Still got blown away due to hero sniping and lack of overall mobility. So a major points drop is not a solution. And so far warscrolls are not addressing this issue, even more, they deepen the problem. Hard to say what kind of traits and artifacts could help with this problem. Only thing I can imagine is "Watch out sir!" rule for every death hero but... this, on the other hand, seems a lill bit too powerful ;P

Time will tell, problem is, after sitting for two years on a (costly) pile of plastic death soldiers it's hard to be optimistic and believe that THIS time, a box will fix things.

[Cargo Cult]

18 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Just casting my Gaze of Nagash at people like @Sception to try and wither some of the Negativity. 

I'm not too sure what everybody is moaning about. The book isn't out and all we are seeing are some leaks of some of the Warscrolls without the wrapping of Army Abilities, spells, Magic Items, or Battalions (oh and points). Until we see any of that, nobody is in a position to moan about anything really and as everybody knows, we don't like moaning on TGA. 

I have nothing wrong with constructive criticism about anything but until we have all the facts, can everybody just think twice if it's something we should be moaning about? 

I'm fully expecting the Legions of Nagash to be a good battletome with plenty of options and I think most players will be happy.

Yup. Couldn’t agree more.

[CoffeeGrunt]

48 minutes ago, Cargo Cult said:

Why don’t we read the book, play a few games and THEN decide?

Because then I'd have to potentially waste money on a book only to find out it was as bad as expected. There's a lot coming out, plus older stuff I aim to buy, so buying one thing precludes another. That's not even considering things outside the hobby.

Also unless your plan is to close down the Death subforum until release, this is all we have to talk about. There's literally no other source of discussion that hasn't been resurrected over and over ad nauseum. The fact that it looks bad has naturally coloured said discussion.

I mean we're the first major AoS release since the new format Battletomes began that has zero new models for starters - KoS doesn't count because that's a Malign Portents thing and everyone gets one - and now we're seeing that this book purely being sold on the basis of rules might have really bad rules.

I mean we can pretend it's all wonderful, happy and good but it clearly isn't. I'm not going to applaud a ****** for the pleasant yellow of its sweetcorn.

[Ahn-ket]

I'm not moaning 

I only think about some possible ways to make the legions more unique unit wise because every legions has the same units apart from the mortarch's or Nagash 

I don't think that the tome make us signafictly weaker then now but i'm new to death ans aos in general only played three games and have win two of them

[Towenaar]

I like the banner change, makes more sense for Necromancers to be summoning the dead among the ranks. I wouldn't worry about hero sniping, necromancers already have a 'look out sir!' rule, I expect there will be an additional spell similar to the one in the Tzeentch battletome, I forget the name but you make a bond with a unit and transfer damage to them. I'd be surprised if they don't get something similar.