The Rumour Thread

[Matrindur]

12 minutes ago, Snarff said:

It feels like Incarnates were going to be this BIG thing, but nothing really happened after. I think it's inevitable that at least one more will release, hopefully more for other realms as well. They make great display/terrain pieces if nothing else.

I felt the same way about the endless spells. In the first half every faction got theirs but in the latter half that kinda fell off. I wonder if GW started designing the Incarnates at that time and because the Endless spells didn't go as they wanted they also stopped designing more Incarnates?

[Satyrical Sophist]

5 minutes ago, Matrindur said:

I felt the same way about the endless spells. In the first half every faction got theirs but in the latter half that kinda fell off. I wonder if GW started designing the Incarnates at that time and because the Endless spells didn't go as they wanted they also stopped designing more Incarnates?

They've been pretty actively balancing and changing the endless spells. I think they might have just decided that they had enough? I think the incarnate turns out to be too powerful for what they were intending and it made them cautious about new ones.

[Daylight Sneak]

I don't quite understand the adamant obsession with racial unifications across the board, especially when they make little sense apart from maybe cutting down the amount of battletomes. In my opinion that is just ruination of identity for the entire premise of the setting from the GA: Order's point of view. There was talk about Duardin unification and souping a some years ago and now it's the same about the Aelves. To me it looks more or less like people just can't accept that Age of Sigmar isn't Warhammer Fantasy anymore.

[CommissarRotke]

On 9/13/2023 at 6:51 AM, Clan's Cynic said:

A Blacktalon novel. My only surprise is it took them this long.

Does anyone know this author? Liane Merciel?

[EonChao]

12 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Does anyone know this author? Liane Merciel?

She wrote one of the short stories in the Covens of Blood Daughters of Khaine anthology. I couldn't tell you which one off the top of my head but I do remember enjoying the audiobook in general. She's also done some written Dragon Age and Pathfinder novels

[MitGas]

14 minutes ago, Daylight Sneak said:

I don't quite understand the adamant obsession with racial unifications across the board, especially when they make little sense apart from maybe cutting down the amount of battletomes. In my opinion that is just ruination of identity for the entire premise of the setting from the GA: Order's point of view. There was talk about Duardin unification and souping a some years ago and now it's the same about the Aelves. To me it looks more or less like people just can't accept that Age of Sigmar isn't Warhammer Fantasy anymore.

Might be down to people that like a certain race wanting to have armies/units exclusively made up of them, also there‘s the reality of producing the kits themselves - if you create a mixed unit, it would be quite restrictive and probably be more single-pose like a Warcry warband than typical AoS units as different heights and proportions make it difficult to mix and match. I like Chaos because there lots of choice - humans, beastmen, demons, creatures, I love that. But others prefer a more cohesive look as it looks more militaristic from what I‘ve read online.

It would‘ve been cool to have more races in the new Cities stuff but I understand why they didn‘t go that route - and I disagree on it ruining the premise of GA:O. A) it‘s called order and b) the premise is that these factions have a somewhat comparable outlook on society (or even having one that isn‘t shaped by power and chance and war-mongering all the time).
 

I doubt Aelfs will get souped, the 4 forces are too distinct at this point. I believe Malerion could be part of DoK though but I don‘t see how Idoneth could be souped with any of the others.

[Satyrical Sophist]

25 minutes ago, Daylight Sneak said:

I don't quite understand the adamant obsession with racial unifications across the board, especially when they make little sense apart from maybe cutting down the amount of battletomes. In my opinion that is just ruination of identity for the entire premise of the setting from the GA: Order's point of view. There was talk about Duardin unification and souping a some years ago and now it's the same about the Aelves. To me it looks more or less like people just can't accept that Age of Sigmar isn't Warhammer Fantasy anymore.

I think some of it is that it can turn limited factions into more indepth factions.

Take Gloomspite Gits. If you want to go trog heavy you can, and there are rewards, but if you end up getting bored of just trolls you can branch out, get some squigs, or goblins or spiders. You don't need to start w completely new army. I suspect a lot of primarily trog players wouldn't have started if they knew the army could only ever be trogs. 

[Daylight Sneak]

17 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

Does anyone know this author? Liane Merciel?

 

3 minutes ago, EonChao said:

She wrote one of the short stories in the Covens of Blood Daughters of Khaine anthology. I couldn't tell you which one off the top of my head but I do remember enjoying the audiobook in general. She's also done some written Dragon Age and Pathfinder novels

I think there was another standalone story about Broken Realms Morathi too. She also wrote Eyeless Mask, the latest Blacktalon story. It was a fun one, so the full novel looks promising.

[Ganigumo]

Not sure they hit OBR hard enough TBH, but zombies at 150 finally feels somewhere near right.
Nurgle changes seem really nice, blightkings have been overcosted since that book came out, and lowering blightlords without changing blightkings was a questionable decision.

Destruction is completely untouched, seems like another nail in the coffin for bonesplitterz, and kruleboyz have been trending back down slowly over this season, so I imagine they'll be in a rough spot pretty soon.

The lack of internal balance adjustments is very disappointing overall though, plenty of stuff really would've appreciated it, like gutbusters.

[CommissarRotke]

23 hours ago, Swamp Trogg said:

Morathi and Malerion are more akin to Teclis and Tyrion than swamp dwelling Kruleboyz to heavy armored Ironjaws. 

they're KIN but i'm not so sure we can say they're "akin" when we've no real idea what Malerion's been doing.

I'd argue all of these examples work together though; we're just not sure which side Malerion falls onto.

Ironjawz and Tyrion are the martial (brutal) side

Teclis and KB are the cunning side

Malerion could be cunning with his shadow daemon pacts, but Morathi also has her cults and the Shadowstalkers (as well as the whole lying about Khaine thing)

Morathi could be martial with her melusai and gladiatrix, but Malerion *from TOW* was a warrior king with his Blackguard.

IMO it feels like the Khaine ruse would have to fall for DOK to truly get souped with Malerion.

[RyantheFett]

27 minutes ago, Daylight Sneak said:

I don't quite understand the adamant obsession with racial unifications across the board, especially when they make little sense apart from maybe cutting down the amount of battletomes. In my opinion that is just ruination of identity for the entire premise of the setting from the GA: Order's point of view. There was talk about Duardin unification and souping a some years ago and now it's the same about the Aelves. To me it looks more or less like people just can't accept that Age of Sigmar isn't Warhammer Fantasy anymore.

The most simple answer for GW doing this is that is how 40k works. 40k has strict factions separated by races and that has worked for years, and they just repeated that practice here. Makes no sense lore wise, but players have gotten over that with time.

Shame really since Cities was such a cool and different faction, but will most likely continue down the road of being Imperial Guard 2.0.

Glad that most websites and youtube/podcast called them out on this (expect 1), and hopefully GW will change their mind in the future.

[Snarff]

19 minutes ago, Satyrical Sophist said:

I think some of it is that it can turn limited factions into more indepth factions.

Take Gloomspite Gits. If you want to go trog heavy you can, and there are rewards, but if you end up getting bored of just trolls you can branch out, get some squigs, or goblins or spiders. You don't need to start w completely new army. I suspect a lot of primarily trog players wouldn't have started if they knew the army could only ever be trogs. 

It kind of does the opposite. Bonesplitterz was quite limited, and it's become increasingly limited ever since it was souped. Less lore, less rules, worse rules, etc.

Meanwhile FeC was once part of vampire courts and now has entirely new lore and has its own wave of models coming.

[JackStreicher]

Wow, just wow.

They changed the most fun spell in the game to be utter rubbish. (Spiritgale)

I hate such no sensical updates.

 

How about they stop making the army worse for everyone so some too tables can level the win rate, and instead change the Subfactions Abilities which are problematic. This update really ruined my evening, it’s absurd.

Edited September 14, 2023 by JackStreicher

[Daylight Sneak]

26 minutes ago, MitGas said:

It would‘ve been cool to have more races in the new Cities stuff but I understand why they didn‘t go that route - and I disagree on it ruining the premise of GA:O. A) it‘s called order and b) the premise is that these factions have a somewhat comparable outlook on society (or even having one that isn‘t shaped by power and chance and war-mongering all the time).

As far as I have understood the premise is that the Mortal Realms are such apocalyptic hellholes that you simply cannot afford to cherry pick your allies, let alone consider doing it by race. You go out there solo, you get destroyed sooner or later. Better work together with what you have at hand to even have a chance of surviving another day, no matter the differences in your race, heritage, cultures or customs. That is one hell of a cool premise. So I heavily disagree with any kind of racial unifications, because I firmly believe such a turn of events would most likely cause heavy-handed divergences and perception changes in meta-sense and thus undermine the epicness of keeping up the unlikely alliances.

Just my 2 cents. Been lurking here for a year or two, but I absolutely had to join the forum to give out my opinion on the matter. 😁

[RyantheFett]

1 minute ago, JackStreicher said:

Wow, just wow.

They changed the most fun spell in the game to be utter rubbish. (Spiritgale)

I hate such no sensical updates.

Pretty sure that is a joke, but I still need to rant about this spell one last time lol!

My bros favorite faction in the game is SBGL and plays that faction all the time. So I have seen that spell way to much.......

That spell was one of the most toxic and uninteractive rules I have seen in the game. He would just hide the wizard in the corner and just drop 50 to 60 mortal wounds a game.

Oh and you would think getting 9s would be rare, but nooooooooo. And don't get me started on zombies!!!!!

They could not have nurfed that spell or faction hard enough.........

[MitGas]

3 minutes ago, Daylight Sneak said:

As far as I have understood the premise is that the Mortal Realms are such apocalyptic hellholes that you simply cannot afford to cherry pick your allies, let alone consider doing it by race. You go out there solo, you get destroyed sooner or later. Better work together with what you have at hand to even have a chance of surviving another day, no matter the differences in your race, heritage, cultures or customs. That is one hell of a cool premise. So I heavily disagree with any kind of racial unifications, because I firmly believe such a turn of events would most likely cause heavy-handed divergences and perception changes in meta-sense and thus undermine the epicness of keeping up the unlikely alliances.

Just my 2 cents. Been lurking here for a year or two, but I absolutely had to join the forum to give out my opinion on the matter. 😁

Welcome to the boards then! Let Chaos do you a solid and unite your guys at least in death then, Nagash is all for it too! 🤙

I get where you're coming from and frankly I've raised a similar point in the past (but not for racial reasons (I'm a horrible, horrible racist when it comes to Lumineth (unless they're hawt Aelf chicks, I'm a proud hypocrite as well) and I don't feel bad for it, in fact I'm proud of it!) but gameplay ones) - I'd prefer to be able to mix and match units from a grand alliance in a more feasible way so that you could play with units outside their battletome and not feel like you're making it just harder for yourself.

[ScionOfOssia]

43 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

Not sure they hit OBR hard enough TBH, but zombies at 150 finally feels somewhere near right.
Nurgle changes seem really nice, blightkings have been overcosted since that book came out, and lowering blightlords without changing blightkings was a questionable decision.

Destruction is completely untouched, seems like another nail in the coffin for bonesplitterz, and kruleboyz have been trending back down slowly over this season, so I imagine they'll be in a rough spot pretty soon.

The lack of internal balance adjustments is very disappointing overall though, plenty of stuff really would've appreciated it, like gutbusters.

The OBR weren’t hit super hard by the points changes, but the change to our recursion for our Immortis/Stalkers was the real meat of it. It now means that you can bring back (Assuming Arkhan, Katakros, and a Boneshaper with Artisan’s Key) at max 2 Immortis Guard per turn, with the 2nd only having 1 wound. This is a huge nerf when previously you could return 4+ at full wounds. 
 

The points drops on the Mortek units and Gothizzar are nice, but they fundamentally fail to address why the Harvester isn’t being taken: Its ability just isn’t good and it’s not particularly durable either. I do suspect we could see some Crawlers showing up though, because I figure 180 is about their upper threshold for being usable. 

[Ganigumo]

24 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Wow, just wow.

They changed the most fun spell in the game to be utter rubbish. (Spiritgale)

I hate such no sensical updates.

 

How about they stop making the army worse for everyone so some too tables can level the win rate, and instead change the Subfactions Abilities which are problematic. This update really ruined my evening, it’s absurd.

I played against nagash soulblight a few weeks back at an event with Big Waaagh!
Spirit Gale ended up causing so much damage over the course of the game, and between spirit gale, Maelstrom, & A teleporting vampire lord with blizzard my whole army was basically tabled by t3. I'm not really exaggerating either, I had a gnashtoof and like 1 ardboy left and I had positioned and zoned out his units so he couldn't really use any of his other units effectively.

Maybe its just the price I play for being destruction though, I'm sure theres a really strong balance argument for why destruction needs to have a crippling weakness to aoe damage in the form of losing extra casualties to battleshock but I'm too bone-headed to understand it.

[Doko]

i think who makes the balance havent idea about the meta.

this is the actual data of the tournaments with 5 rounds since this gheneral handbook.

so we have as the top to vampires and bonereapers with same stats,what make gw? huge nerfs to vampired with across the board increases in almost entire book and some jokes as 30+ to zombis,delete one spell doing it useless,also kill the legion of nigth teleport blizarf, but meanwhile bonereapers get more buffs than nerfs in points and only a direct nerf to one unit.

in general bonerepeaers get a sligth nerf  while vampires have been deleted.

 

then we have khorne in 3th position and get 0! nerfs but many indirect buffs.

other top 10 armys as slaves or nurgles get many buffs.

then we have the botton armys: fyreslayers who are the botton get 0 buffs,then orcs also get 0 buffs.

 

this balance dont make any sense,only make bigger the gap betwen the top armys and botton,the top got buffed and only vampires have been deleted while the botton got 0 buffs and the middle tier as idoneths got huge buffs

[Ganigumo]

7 minutes ago, Doko said:

i think who makes the balance havent idea about the meta.

this is the actual data of the tournaments with 5 rounds since this gheneral handbook.

so we have as the top to vampires and bonereapers with same stats,what make gw? huge nerfs to vampired with across the board increases in almost entire book and some jokes as 30+ to zombis,delete one spell doing it useless,also kill the legion of nigth teleport blizarf, but meanwhile bonereapers get more buffs than nerfs in points and only a direct nerf to one unit.

in general bonerepeaers get a sligth nerf  while vampires have been deleted.

 

then we have khorne in 3th position and get 0! nerfs but many indirect buffs.

other top 10 armys as slaves or nurgles get many buffs.

then we have the botton armys: fyreslayers who are the botton get 0 buffs,then orcs also get 0 buffs.

 

this balance dont make any sense,only make bigger the gap betwen the top armys and botton,the top got buffed and only vampires have been deleted while the botton got 0 buffs and the middle tier as idoneths got huge buffs

The bonereapers buffs were to units they weren't using in the best lists, basically nobody played those units anymore but I agree it might have been too light on stuff like immortis and stalkers.
Vampire nerfs are entirely justified.
Bonesplitterz look like they're going to get squatted soon, which is why they're being ignored I think.
Kruleboyz are gonna be in a rough spot again soon I think
Ironjawz are getting a big release which is why they didn't get any changes, it'll shake their meta up a lot.
I think we're due for a fyreslayers release in one of the two next dawnbringers books, but its just my speculation, I think the heralds were hints to who was getting stuff.

I agree this balance update didn't touch enough armies though.

[Doko]

2 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

we're due for a fyreslayers release in one of the two next dawnbringers books

i wish,but i think we only gonna have this warcry band as new unit after 8 years with nothing.

the rumours about new units for fyreslayers have been going since almost two years ago but so far we got only this small band and that it is,only more foot units.

we need something that break the visual style,some cavalry,fly unit or big unit as golems but not more foot units

[Satyrical Sophist]

37 minutes ago, Doko said:

i think who makes the balance havent idea about the meta.

this is the actual data of the tournaments with 5 rounds since this gheneral handbook.

so we have as the top to vampires and bonereapers with same stats,what make gw? huge nerfs to vampired with across the board increases in almost entire book and some jokes as 30+ to zombis,delete one spell doing it useless,also kill the legion of nigth teleport blizarf, but meanwhile bonereapers get more buffs than nerfs in points and only a direct nerf to one unit.

in general bonerepeaers get a sligth nerf  while vampires have been deleted.

 

then we have khorne in 3th position and get 0! nerfs but many indirect buffs.

other top 10 armys as slaves or nurgles get many buffs.

then we have the botton armys: fyreslayers who are the botton get 0 buffs,then orcs also get 0 buffs.

 

this balance dont make any sense,only make bigger the gap betwen the top armys and botton,the top got buffed and only vampires have been deleted while the botton got 0 buffs and the middle tier as idoneths got huge buffs

I don't think there is anyway I'd put Nurgle as top tier right now, and the lists that are performing well are mostly very blightlord based, opening up other options is good. Your table there doesn't seem much like there like other meta results based lists I've seen and looks very focused only on 5-0 and 4-1..that's not all GW (and a lot of players) care about. An army that always goes 3-2 won't win any tournaments but isn't ideal to have with a 60% win rate.

1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

Wow, just wow.

They changed the most fun spell in the game to be utter rubbish. (Spiritgale)

I hate such no sensical updates.

 

How about they stop making the army worse for everyone so some too tables can level the win rate, and instead change the Subfactions Abilities which are problematic. This update really ruined my evening, it’s absurd.

My understanding is that at least half of the vampire subfactions are doing well, with quite different builds? Seems like vampires might just be overall a bit too good, in which case a 10 to 15% point bump seems reasonable. I hope they don't plummet down the table rankings, but I don't think they will. One problem with spirit gale is just that it effects armies so wildly differently. Some armies are barely effected, other armies are going to be messed up by it. It's also very interactive.

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, RyantheFett said:

They could not have nurfed that spell or faction hard enough.........

So due to one Nagash combo and someone who spikes Spirit Gale everything had to be kicked into the dust. I hate it.

The VloZD was questionable at his first point value, only LoB abused it a lot. Awesome he‘s now even worse fir every other faction.

the same goes for zombies - simply prohibit two reinforcements.

It‘s such a big pile of bs, every single change.

I don’t care about too tables or netlisters I care due to this nonsense making my fun games way less enjoyable.

 

[Satyrical Sophist]

10 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

So due to one Nagash combo and someone who spikes Spirit Gale everything had to be kicked into the dust. I hate it.

The VloZD was questionable at his first point value, only LoB abused it a lot. Awesome he‘s now even worse fir every other faction.

the same goes for zombies - simply prohibit two reinforcements.

It‘s such a big pile of bs, every single change.

I don’t care about too tables or netlisters I care due to this nonsense making my fun games way less enjoyable.

 

What is your fun list Jack? How many points did you go up? 

[Chikout]

49 minutes ago, Doko said:

i think who makes the balance havent idea about the meta.

this is the actual data of the tournaments with 5 rounds since this gheneral handbook.

so we have as the top to vampires and bonereapers with same stats,what make gw? huge nerfs to vampired with across the board increases in almost entire book and some jokes as 30+ to zombis,delete one spell doing it useless,also kill the legion of nigth teleport blizarf, but meanwhile bonereapers get more buffs than nerfs in points and only a direct nerf to one unit.

in general bonerepeaers get a sligth nerf  while vampires have been deleted.

 

then we have khorne in 3th position and get 0! nerfs but many indirect buffs.

other top 10 armys as slaves or nurgles get many buffs.

then we have the botton armys: fyreslayers who are the botton get 0 buffs,then orcs also get 0 buffs.

 

this balance dont make any sense,only make bigger the gap betwen the top armys and botton,the top got buffed and only vampires have been deleted while the botton got 0 buffs and the middle tier as idoneths got huge buffs

Why are you using this data? It says July at the top of the page and it lists number of wins not percentage of wins. The faction with the most 5-0s is not necessarily the best faction. According to Woehammer who seem to have the most up to date stats, Khorne are currently at a perfectly reasonable 52% Win rate. That's pretty close to perfect. Soulblight are on their second round of nerds after round one didn't do enough which is probably why we are seeing a bigger change this time. OBR have seen their strongest build hit but we'll have to see how that turns out. 

Generally I think this is a solid update. It hits some shenanigans like the incarnate and teleporting blizzards but that might not prove to be enough. 

The most common complaint I'm seeing is that Seraphon escaped without any changes though that seems to be more of an NPE problem than a power problem.