The Rumour Thread

[PrimeElectrid]

So... Finest Hour is triggered in the hero phase and lasts until the end of the turn. That means that it applies to shooting attacks too.

Knight-Venator big stonks

But wait! Didn’t GW just preview another SCE shooting character, the Knight-Justiciar.

Big stonks 

[Yoid]

1 hour ago, Scurvydog said:

1. So far we have seen shooting rules and some new hero rules, none of these help out the suffering low wound support heroes on foot. I thought the new heroic abilities might be some incentive to bring more of the smaller cheaper heroes, with general getting more range and unit champion issuing commands, the smaller heroes got even less reason to be there. The few armies like Ironjawz relying so much on 5-6 wound foot slogging heroes seem to still be in trouble in the MW sniping meta.

MW spam is still a problem, but to be fair, you can declare Finest Hour in the opponent hero phase to have a +1 save in your important foot hero. Then if he survives you can use Heroic Recovery in your hero phase to heal the wounds you suffered. That is a nice defensive tool added to the new edition. And we still got to see the reactive CAs.

[Gunvor]

2 hours ago, Beliman said:

 

I hope so! maybe not a Montser, but something with the same interactions!

It gets better!

4 abilities each turn (1 charge phase for turn)! That means 8 abilities from your monsters alone in 1 round! 
imagine what will happen if the enemy has 4 other Big Dudes? 16 abilities each round!

LET THEM FIGHT!!!

 

I think there is a mistake here, as far as i understood the rules is that the 4 choices a monster can do on a rampage are exclusive. So lets say you have 4 monsters in your army, monster 1 performs an ability, monster 2 cannot perform the same ability in the same phase as it has been exhausted.

"If you have more than four monsters, you’ll have to be strategic about which of your vast horde you send on a monstrous rampage, as you can only carry out each ability once per phase."

[zilberfrid]

3 minutes ago, Yoid said:

MW spam is still a problem, but to be fair, you can declare Finest Hour in the opponent hero phase to have a +1 save in your important foot hero. Then if he survives you can use Heroic Recovery in your hero phase to heal the wounds you suffered. That is a nice defensive tool added to the new edition. And we still got to see the reactive CAs.

If +1 save (or -1 to hit) would matter for MW on -number- to hit, that would be a useful feature.

[Scurvydog]

I can already see it.

Archaon: This is my finest hour! Also ROAR you cant use command abilities!

Everybody else:

[OkayestDM]

56 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

I've heard the Lumineth has a pachyderm unit, I'd love for the Elephant of AOS to go to Mawtribes but I would love to see the wacky spin on it the Lumineth would have. First Roos and now elephants!?

Oh gosh, what would those helmets look like . . .

[Yoid]

27 minutes ago, Gunvor said:

I think there is a mistake here, as far as i understood the rules is that the 4 choices a monster can do on a rampage are exclusive. So lets say you have 4 monsters in your army, monster 1 performs an ability, monster 2 cannot perform the same ability in the same phase as it has been exhausted.

"If you have more than four monsters, you’ll have to be strategic about which of your vast horde you send on a monstrous rampage, as you can only carry out each ability once per phase."

He is talking about rounds. A round is two turns (yours and your opponent) That's why he refers to 8 abilities (the four in your turn and the four in the enemy turn) and up to 16 if your opponent got 4 monsters too (you both play the monster abilities in each charge phase).

Technically this would be extremely difficult, as you need an enemy monster nearby to perfom Titanic Duel and a piece of terrain nearby to perform Smash To Rubble. Roar and Stomp would work most of the time.

[Benkei]

1 hour ago, DarrinTheOccult said:

Finally my Ogroid Thaumaturge (hero+monster) will be relevant and useful 😭

If it were a monster

Edited June 3, 2021 by Benkei

[Benkei]

1 hour ago, Scurvydog said:

I can already see it.

Archaon: This is my finest hour! Also ROAR you cant use command abilities!

Everybody else:

Can still use the Hero phase ones and the heroic abilities tho

Edited June 3, 2021 by Benkei

[Charleston]

I like the hero rules but to be honest the monster rules look like a huge load of additional actions going on each turn. Having to get 1 per turn instead of all 4 would be more than enough. Still, this is so far only my first impression and the first games will show how well it works out

[decker_cky]

7 hours ago, DarrinTheOccult said:

Finally my Ogroid Thaumaturge (hero+monster) will be relevant and useful 😭

Think you might want to recheck those warscroll keywords.

Shaggoths are looking mighty spiffy though...

 

[Beliman]

5 hours ago, Charleston said:

I like the hero rules but to be honest the monster rules look like a huge load of additional actions going on each turn. Having to get 1 per turn instead of all 4 would be more than enough. Still, this is so far only my first impression and the first games will show how well it works out

I don't think that it will be teddious or take so much time.

At least, you need to target something within 3" and you will usually only do two of this Monstruous Rampage.

And this abilities are more about giving a token to X unit than anything (3 rolls in total for an entire turn, nothing big).

Btw, I'm more afraid of 60 models moving, chargind, Pile In and then throwing 80 or 90 dice... and reroll all of them!! 

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Beliman

[CarkFish]

20 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Dead giveaway of a trustworthy source!

Trustworthy sauce 😜

[Chikout]

3 hours ago, Beliman said:

I don't think that it will be teddious or take so much time.

At least, you need to target something within 3" and you will usually only do two of this Monstruous Rampage.

And this abilities are more about giving a token to X unit than anything (3 rolls in total for an entire turn, nothing big).

Btw, I'm more afraid of 60 models moving, chargind, Pile In and then throwing 80 or 90 dice... and reroll all of them!! 

 

With the rumoured increase of points, more monsters,  smaller tables meaning combats happen earlier and the removal of horde discounts, there's a good chance 3rd edition games will actually go faster. 

[Laststand]

2 hours ago, Chikout said:

With the rumoured increase of points, more monsters,  smaller tables meaning combats happen earlier and the removal of horde discounts, there's a good chance 3rd edition games will actually go faster. 

If points jump and horde discounts disappear you do potentially get smaller faster games but isnt the flip side lower model sales? If i cant field 120 clan rats, an army of 5 stonehorn/thundertusks or 12 eels I won't buy them. The increased focus on points efficiency will also rule out many units from making the board at all.  I wonder if there is an apocalypse type format in the works to compensate. 

[pixieproxy]

Just now, Laststand said:

If points jump and horde discounts disappear you do potentially get smaller faster games but isnt the flip side lower model sales? If i cant field 120 clan rats, an army of 5 stonehorn/thundertusks or 12 eels I won't buy them. The increased focus on points efficiency will also rule out many units from making the board at all.  I wonder if there is an apocalypse type format in the works to compensate. 

I mean, this is exactly what they just did in 40k. Generally speaking most people are going to have more than they need, how many people get to 2k points in an army and then stop collecting that army? Sure they might stop getting specific models but people like variety

[zilberfrid]

13 minutes ago, Laststand said:

If points jump and horde discounts disappear you do potentially get smaller faster games but isnt the flip side lower model sales? If i cant field 120 clan rats, an army of 5 stonehorn/thundertusks or 12 eels I won't buy them. The increased focus on points efficiency will also rule out many units from making the board at all.  I wonder if there is an apocalypse type format in the works to compensate. 

Lower model sales also lower the barrier of entry for new players, which is a good thing.

[Malakithe]

16 minutes ago, pixieproxy said:

I mean, this is exactly what they just did in 40k. Generally speaking most people are going to have more than they need, how many people get to 2k points in an army and then stop collecting that army? Sure they might stop getting specific models but people like variety

The points increase didnt last long for 40k. They did a general increase when 9th first came out and made the board smaller but as each codex was updated points generally dropped and hordes returned in full force. Its why they made blast weapons.

Look at the new AdMech...its now encouraged to bring 3x20 Vanguard instead of just the bare minimum. Sister are also a potential horde army. Orks are going to encourage hordes again when their new book drops too. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 hours ago, Chikout said:

With the rumoured increase of points, more monsters,  smaller tables meaning combats happen earlier and the removal of horde discounts, there's a good chance 3rd edition games will actually go faster. 

Hard to say, though, how much of a difference the removal of horde discounts will make. I ran a horde army in Legions of Nagash. Gravelords have had all of their horde discounts removed, and that list is now 2100 instead of 2000 points. Bringing it down to 2000 would require me to drop all of 5 models, bringing the total down to 103 models, down from 108.

Of course, the effect might be bigger for other lists, particularly those that run multiple max-size blocks. But I believe horde discounts are usually half-off for the last size increment. So, for a unit of 40 taken in 10s, a discount of 12,5%. And that's probably not on every unit in your list.

I think that the point increases for monsters might have a bigger impact, though, if the BR: Kragnos updates and Nagash now sitting at 975 are any indication. You will definitely want to include a monster or two in the coming edition.

[Yoid]

I think this edition have a bigger focus on Open Play and Narrative Play with faction battalions now being narrative and the rework of Path to Glory. So having an army of 2000+ points is not going to be an issue as you can play other formats. People that passionately collect an army usually have more than 2000 points anyway because they want to have variety and different builds. Only meta-chasers gonna be worried about their list being now 2100-2200 pts instead of 2000, and they are gonna jump into the next meta thing anyway the moment they can, so they gonna keep selling their armies to buy new armies, is not something that hurt GW sales too much.

To me this new heroic actions and monstrous rampages feel like elements of emergent narrative. The table is gonna feel more cinematic, and this dosn't seem aimed to competitive players, is more like a trick to make competitive and narrative players to meet in the mid of both styles. Of course you have the core battalions that focus on matched play, but i feel like this editions is gonna have the same attention to narrative than to competitive (a thing they already said with path to glory) instead of the usual focus on competitive and narrative/open being secondary.

Edited June 4, 2021 by Yoid

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

35 minutes ago, Yoid said:

o me this new heroic actions and monstrous rampages feel like elements of emergent narrative. The table is gonna feel more cinematic, and this dosn't seem aimed to competitive players, is more like a trick to make competitive and narrative players to meet in the mid of both styles.

I actually felt that these changes were also aimed at competitive players, since they make a lot of mechanical sense. For the majority of AoS 2, attaching the MONSTER keyword to a unit mostly just made it worse, since it blocked it from benefitting from stuff like Look Out, Sir. Yet, monsters were frequently pointed as if being a monster was an upside. The introduction of monster-specific mechanical payoff, such as scoring extra points on certain battleplans and now rampages, seems to be to be at least partially an effort to make the game more interesting purely on a mechanical level. Low-level heroes without lots of synergy are sort of in the same boat.

Making sure that all players get to make active decision during all phases also seems to be a mechanics-driven decision to me. Although in all these cases there is also a nice narrative payoff, bringing the game closer to the fiction. So maybe it's just all-round good design.

 

[OkayestDM]

10 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

The introduction of monster-specific mechanical payoff, such as scoring extra points on certain battleplans . . .

That one got me thinking . . .

I don't recall if it's just a rumor or if it has been confirmed (there so much floating around now!) that armies will be getting tertiary objectives baked into their respective battletomes that can be chosen after the player has learned the battleplan. If this is true, I wonder if things like heroes, battleline, and monsters scoring extra VP on objectives will be moved out of battleplans and into tertiaries?

I obviously hope that we get more thematic and unique tertiaries than that for each army, but it might be a good layer of cushioning to help thematic lists be more competitive.

Edited June 4, 2021 by OkayestDM

[King Under the Mountain]

51 minutes ago, Yoid said:

I think this edition have a bigger focus on Open Play and Narrative Play with faction battalions now being narrative and the rework of Path to Glory. So having an army of 2000+ points is not going to be an issue as you can play other formats. People that passionately collect an army usually have more than 2000 points anyway because they want to have variety and different builds. Only meta-chasers gonna be worried about their list being now 2100-2200 pts instead of 2000, and they are gonna jump into the next meta thing anyway the moment they can, so they gonna keep selling their armies to buy new armies, is not something that hurt GW sales too much.

To me this new heroic actions and monstrous rampages feel like elements of emergent narrative. The table is gonna feel more cinematic, and this dosn't seem aimed to competitive players, is more like a trick to make competitive and narrative players to meet in the mid of both styles. Of course you have the core battalions that focus on matched play, but i feel like this editions is gonna have the same attention to narrative than to competitive (a thing they already said with path to glory) instead of the usual focus on competitive and narrative/open being secondary.

Honestly, this pleases me.  I don't really play to win but to have fun and tell a compelling story.  Narrative play has always appealed to me. I am excited for the Path to Glory changes as the old system was heavily lacking and hoping that whatever Crusade system comes out will be popular and enjoyable. 

[Scurvydog]

In the interview it was pointed out how specifically he (sorry forgot the designers name) was most looking forward to revealing the new matched play rules and also that the 2021 GHB would have some interesting new stuff, so I certainly do not think this is just going to be the "narrative edition" far from it. It is great though that there seems to simply be more for everyone, as Crusade is really fun for 40k and having that kind of system for AoS is a bonus for everyone.

13 hours ago, Benkei said:

Can still use the Hero phase ones and the heroic abilities tho

Sure, my point was basically that these new rules really benefit the heroes on monsters or who are monsters. These were typically also the best before and while I think it will be fun and cool, it seems to leave the other types of heroes more in the dust, as you can only do 1 heroic action on 1 hero per turn, there is no real upside to bringing multiple smaller heroes, like Stormcast knight questors or something like that. I actually thought these heroic actions would be something for these small guys to do and bring value. Sort of like OBR at least gets 1 discipline point per hero per turn. If the heroic actions were like the rampages where you could use every one of them, but only 1 time per phase, there was still value in bringing support instead of just 1 archaon (for example).

[Neverchosen]

22 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

 It is great though that there seems to simply be more for everyone, as Crusade is really fun for 40k and having that kind of system for AoS is a bonus for everyone.

So I am pretty unfamiliar with crusade is it essentially a progression based army builder like Path to Glory and what makes it more narrative? I have heard really, really good things and I did look it up once but I remember none of the details. I guess I am curious at how easily adapted the rules would be for AOS as there seems to be more unit customization in 40k. 

Edited June 4, 2021 by Neverchosen