Winter FAQs & Errata - 2019

[Forrix]

3 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

I think the key here is pumping your rend via runes and dealing with them all at once. Or pinning them with magmadroth. 

With the rend rune, reroll 1s command ability, and reroll wounds prayer on the HBG with broadaxes you're looking at 18 to 30 damage, most likely 22-26 using druchii dice calculator,  before deathless saves and a Harvester save if there is one. On average 20 dead guard after deathless saves, 10 with Harvester. If you're charging with a lords of the lodge battalion and attacking first with Hermdar then yes, you should be able to wipe the unit before they can activate assuming there is no Harvester (very popular in my group but not universally taken and killable for Fyreslayers).  

Its a lot of work but it is a possible counter.

 

[whispersofblood]

4 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

A big unit of 40 is definitely where its at, my biggest concern is making sure you get the timing right on the -2 rend crash (also I forgot to factor in deathless minion saves above so it reduces to 26 dead) . It may still be the right answer but it just feels like a bad grind, especially if they get one of the catapults off on a character early. 

IMO 40s will age out of the meta before, GE hits them with a point increase. Also are you keeping in mind the Vorstag fight before Motrek Guard can use their CMD ability in their turn?

But I think you need to keep in mind this is a S tier faction and most armies will struggle to kill more than 10 at a time. Even two KoS only kill about 18-20 after fighting twice assuming they take no dmg themselves. 

[SwampHeart]

2 minutes ago, whispersofblood said:

IMO 40s will age out of the meta before, GE hits them with a point increase. Also are you keeping in mind the Vorstag fight before Motrek Guard can use their CMD ability in their turn?

 

That's entirely fair - my main notion is that I'm not sure about the verdict on poleaxes not being the right answer. If Petrifex stays the dominant build I think getting as deep into MW generation as you can is the right answer. 

Edited December 18, 2019 by SwampHeart

[Forrix]

6 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

It may still be the right answer but it just feels like a bad grind, especially if they get one of the catapults off on a character early. 

My big fear playing Fyreslayers against is losing my battlesmiths. Battlesmiths normally have a 3+ save but need a hero phase to turn on their buff bubble. Unbuffed a Battlesmith with look out sir dies to a complete unbuffed Mortek Crawler 53% of the time. If the Crawler is at +1 hit and reroll 1s (I know that's possible but I'm not sure how realistic that is turn 1) then it jumps to 68%.

[SwampHeart]

1 minute ago, Forrix said:

My big fear playing Fyreslayers against is losing my battlesmiths. Battlesmiths normally have a 3+ save but need a hero phase to turn on their buff bubble. Unbuffed a Battlesmith with look out sir dies to a complete unbuffed Mortek Crawler 53% of the time. If the Crawler is at +1 hit and reroll 1s (I know that's possible but I'm not sure how realistic that is turn 1) then it jumps to 68%.

Yeah I agree - that's the major concern (and this has gone way off topic anyway) for me when regarding weapon selection. Feels like poleaxes need less support to get their damage in? 

[Dolomyte]

2 minutes ago, Forrix said:

My big fear playing Fyreslayers against is losing my battlesmiths. Battlesmiths normally have a 3+ save but need a hero phase to turn on their buff bubble. Unbuffed a Battlesmith with look out sir dies to a complete unbuffed Mortek Crawler 53% of the time. If the Crawler is at +1 hit and reroll 1s (I know that's possible but I'm not sure how realistic that is turn 1) then it jumps to 68%.

This is every armies issue with crawlers at the moment, your going to need to entirely screen heroes. Fyrewall should be auto include in lists now and you need to get it off. 
 

the typical OBR lists I’m seeing are 5 drops. So you want to be under that to make sure you go first 

[whispersofblood]

12 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

That's entirely fair - my main notion is that I'm not sure about the verdict on poleaxes not being the right answer. If Petrifex stays the dominant build I think getting as deep into MW generation as you can is the right answer. 

Sure. But I suppose to me it's always a question of how much dmg is actually done, not the difficulty of doing that dmg. 

Vorstag battleaxes completely bypass or significant bypass most of OB rules.

Poleaxes, even at full frontage do about 8 mw and about  6 more wounds before death saves. So let's say 12

Battle axes do About 9 before and say 14 afterwards.

But at +1 rend your free tool for this situation the dmg is around PA 15 : BA 20.

 

 

Edited December 18, 2019 by whispersofblood
Forgot something

[SwampHeart]

1 minute ago, whispersofblood said:

But at +1 rend your free tool for this situation the dmg is around PA 12 : BA 20.

That's my whole hang up (and I'm going to stop belaboring the point after this) - specifically against OBR you aren't anywhere as close to knowing you're going to have access to that prayer when it counts because of Crawlers.  

[whispersofblood]

3 minutes ago, SwampHeart said:

That's my whole hang up (and I'm going to stop belaboring the point after this) - specifically against OBR you aren't anywhere as close to knowing you're going to have access to that prayer when it counts because of Crawlers.  

Yeah that's fair OBR are a very complete faction. Possibly the most complete faction we have had in awhile.

[Forrix]

To clarify some points about Fyreslayers:

Hermdar is the fight first lodge (comes with -1 wound command trait too). This is the way.

+1 rend is an allegiance ability that is used once per game in your hero phase and lasts until your next hero phase

Reroll wounds is the warscroll prayer for Auric Runesmiters. These guys suffer critical existence failure in the presence of crawlers (5 wounds, 5+ save) but can be mounted on a Magmadroth for a significant increase in durability and cost.

This is more Fyreslayer tactics discussion than has occurred in the actual Fyreslayer thread for months.

[whispersofblood]

2 minutes ago, Forrix said:

To clarify some points about Fyreslayers:

Hermdar is the fight first lodge (comes with -1 wound command trait too). This is the way.

+1 rend is an allegiance ability that is used once per game in your hero phase and lasts until your next hero phase

Reroll wounds is the warscroll prayer for Auric Runesmiters. These guys suffer critical existence failure in the presence of crawlers (5 wounds, 5+ save) but can be mounted on a Magmadroth for a significant increase in durability and cost.

This is more Fyreslayer tactics discussion than has occurred in the actual Fyreslayer thread for months.

Yeah , I knew I should have refreshed my memory, thanks for the lodge name info.

[Celestantpants]

13 hours ago, readercolin said:

And how exactly did the one viable list get nerfed?  The only changes were that evocator's celestial lightning arc only triggers once in combat (which since there is no fight twice in the stormcast tome, only really nerfs the evocators when taken as allies/cities of sigmar) and then points got reduced for 3 different models.  While I agree that the stardrakes still aren't particularly great at their new point totals, I found the evokitties decent at their previous point total, and great at the new one.

As for previous lists, the only really competitive list prior to this was anvils + longstrikes shootcast, with gavbomb and ballista spam getting honorable mentions (though neither of those were better than 3-2 lists).  None of these lists are affected by the changes, except that some may consider running kitties rather than foot evocators now.

The raptors range is now set at 24 inches in the herophase when using anvilguard ability as opposed to what it used to be because they don't count as having not moved any longer.  It's right there in the errata.  It's a nerf that wasn't needed.  Stormcast don't need ANY nerfs at this point.  They are straight trash for the most part.  Gav bomb is not viable anymore, and hasn't been for awhile.  Ballista spam doesn't get the job done either anymore.  The one list that worked was anvilguard with raptors, and even that wasn't doing so hot anymore, although better than the rest.  Now that is nerfed slightly with nothing to show for it barring dracolines dropping a bit cuz gw wants to sell battle boxes.  So yeah, I'm disappointed.  Stormcast got shafted.  AGAIN.

[SwampHeart]

9 minutes ago, Celestantpants said:

The raptors range is now set at 24 inches in the herophase when using anvilguard ability as opposed to what it used to be because they don't count as having not moved any longer.  It's right there in the errata.  It's a nerf that wasn't needed.

Its not a nerf, it just makes you play the rule correctly as it was written. 

[mikethefish]

So I get that Facebook Groups are toxic sometimes.  However...

The whining by Skaven players over the new Plague Monks is so shrill and absurd, that it's driven away any sense of rationality and sympathy I may have had for them.  Certainly it's petty of me, but the whining is just that obnoxious.

I officially hope the warscroll is completely unusable, and that the entire lot of them have wasted untold amounts of time and money of a pile of now competitively useless miniatures.

Edited December 18, 2019 by mikethefish

[michu]

2 minutes ago, mikethefish said:

So I get that Facebook Groups are toxic sometimes.  However...

The whining by Skaven players over the new Plague Monks is so shrill and absurd, that it's driven away any sense of rationality and sympathy I may have had for them.  

I officially hope the warscroll is completely unusable, and that the entire lot of them have wasted untold amounts of time and money of a pile of now competitively useless miniatures.

Thankfully there are skaven players who are not sad because of that nerf (only a bit). Now there is less bookkeeping and it's still nice warscroll. I'm still going to use them in my army. But I understand you - on reddit many comments that disagree with "they ruined plague monks" are quickly downvoted.

[MisterJoshua]

1 hour ago, mikethefish said:

So I get that Facebook Groups are toxic sometimes.  However...

The whining by Skaven players over the new Plague Monks is so shrill and absurd, that it's driven away any sense of rationality and sympathy I may have had for them.  Certainly it's petty of me, but the whining is just that obnoxious.

I officially hope the warscroll is completely unusable, and that the entire lot of them have wasted untold amounts of time and money of a pile of now competitively useless miniatures.

For contrast, if you check the Skaventide thread on here it’s received strong support. I don’t go anywhere else for AoS discussion

 

[mikethefish]

53 minutes ago, MisterJoshua said:

For contrast, if you check the Skaventide thread on here it’s received strong support. I don’t go anywhere else for AoS discussion

 

Oh yeah, these forums are definitely better than social media.

In other news, water is wet 😉

[TheCovenLord]

The change is more streamlined and the scroll is still very, very powerful. Not only was it a nice nerf without dumpstering the monks it sets a precedent for GW, a positive one, of actually being willing to alter warscrolls that are outliers (hopefully both too powerful as well as too weak) without waiting for a new battletome. I am very happy with this compared to dark ages GW.

[Dolomyte]

As someone who plays rats I agree. It’s nice to not have to let my opponent go get lunch while I divide the four different kinds of armor saves he will need to make 

[Landohammer]

2 minutes ago, Dolomyte said:

As someone who plays rats I agree. It’s nice to not have to let my opponent go get lunch while I divide the four different kinds of armor saves he will need to make 

Tzaangors have the same exact issue on a slightly smaller scale. They typically have four different attack profiles. 

I always get annoyed at models  with excessive attack profiles, especially infantry. It slows down the game terribly. 

Its particularly terrible when playing vs unfamiliar armies. I find myself constantly asking "any more attacks" and "may I swing now?" 

 

[Kasper]

4 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Tzaangors have the same exact issue on a slightly smaller scale. They typically have four different attack profiles. 

I always get annoyed at models  with excessive attack profiles, especially infantry. It slows down the game terribly. 

Its particularly terrible when playing vs unfamiliar armies. I find myself constantly asking "any more attacks" and "may I swing now?" 

 

Orruks Warclans had multiple units previously with multiple attack profiles. They were all condensed. I'm guessing this is the trend going forward and Tzaangors will likely receive the same treatment when the new Tzeentch book comes around.

[Inquisitorsz]

So, this has been discussed a few times recently. 
The wording for unit weapons on all the new Slaves to Darkness stuff seems to heavily imply that all those units can select mixed weapons.... 
Which means you get this extra bookkeeping problem.  
I fully expect the updated Tzaangor (and Kairic Acolyte) warscrolls to be updated with the same wording. Or perhaps they get condensed like the Orruks did.  
Jury is still out on the interpretation, but hopefully we'll get a S2D FAQ soon. 
As far as I can tell, those 2 warscrolls are the only ones with mixed weapons right now, and the plague monks effectively had the same problem due to the multiple banner/musician effects modifying attack rolls. 

As for the Plague Monks. I like the change. They lost all the super annoying abilities that made rolling 40+ dice an absolute chore. The baseline stats got buffed (including woe staves). 
Overall, my maths shows it's a slight nerf to Foetid Blades (probably around 15-20% wound output), but they probably needed it anyway as they were by far the best battleline unit in the game (till Mortek Guard), and pretty much a must take in any skaven army. 
On the other hand, Staves got a significant buff, picking up an extra attack and better "to wound". They're still weaker than blades, but that's expected due to the reach.
I think staves are the way to go now. 
 

Edited December 18, 2019 by Inquisitorsz

[Fairbanks]

OH MY GOD THE WORLD IS ENDING!!!!!

 

 

 

Just kidding! (probably)

[Sagittarii Orientalis]

A bit out of topic, but how much is GW's decision making affected by reactions from facebook and reddit?

I know one case from 40K where they quickly nerfed an OP faction after complaints flooded from reddit.

Granted, some of the nerfs touched on trivial issues rather than the key element of the faction. I suppose it is because  many complaints were crying OP without carefully analysing exactly which faction rules made that faction truly OP.

Whatever the truth is, I hope GW rules designers do not spend too much time looking through facebook or reddit. Most of these medias provide plenty of impromptu and "knee jerking" responses, with little depth.

Edited December 19, 2019 by Sagittarii Orientalis

[Dolomyte]

47 minutes ago, Sagittarii Orientalis said:

A bit out of topic, but how mich is GW's decision making affected by reactions from facebook and reddit?

It’s not at all. People were losing their minds about slaanesh but they let it play out and now only did a few minor adjustments. People have been yelling frantically about OBR and they seem to be letting them go till June update. I think unless it’s an obvious interaction that’s broken they will wait and see if something seem overpowered or underpowered.