AoS 3 - how does your army fare?

[Scurvydog]

5 minutes ago, Eternalis said:

But I'm losing things. No more 4+ save aelves (thanks GW, all my models were with a Buckler...) as you may only have +1 in save. Which makes the new CA to gain +1 save pointless 

In most cases you will often get hit by some kind of rend, you can only end up with +1 to your save for the modified roll, but if you get hit with rend 1, using the +1 sv CA will still help with that and you get a 5+ save where you normally would have had a 6+ due to the rend.

Of course things like bucklers adding +1 save effects does put some limits up instead of outright changing the save value of a warscroll, so it prevents stacking up mystic shied and all out defence too much, but it can still be worthwhile if you are facing attacks with rend 1 or more.

If anything the far easier access to +1 save, also from mystic shield, can make it harder to hit home with even high rend units.

[Mcthew]

1 hour ago, Scurvydog said:

That is what the RAW says at least, might be some FAQ to clear it up later.

From the core rules:

25.1 FACTION
Pitched battle profiles are organised into tables, each of which contains
the Pitched Battle profiles for one faction (see 1.1).

27.0 ALLEGIANCE ABILITIES
If all of the units in your army are from a single faction, then you can use
that faction’s allegiance abilities.

Sidebar:

An army that is made up of
two or more factions (not
including allies) cannot use
allegiance abilities, unless
noted otherwise

 

The kicker is the "unless noted otherwise", but still, if Archaon is only present on the S2D table, that is his faction and only possible source of allegiance abilities. They might do an FAQ or they might include some units on multiple tables, I do not have the GHB2021 to know that unfortunately, but going by this information alone, all the mark of chaos soups are probably gone.

I hope this is cleared up! Otherwise I'll be holding off buying Archaon. All my allied points will be going on Chaos Warrior units. 

GW fail again...

[Eternalis]

8 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

In most cases you will often get hit by some kind of rend

Of course. That's where the cauldron buff comes-in. Let's be honest, not everyone has rend 2.

[Scurvydog]

6 minutes ago, Mcthew said:

I hope this is cleared up! Otherwise I'll be holding off buying Archaon. All my allied points will be going on Chaos Warrior units. 

GW fail again...

Also on topic here is that Archaon in at least Khorne will be gutted. We saw a lot of Khorne Archaon lists due to the fight twice and pile in 6" combo possible there. This combo will no longer be possible, as they both are issued in the combat phase. This means if he wants to fight twice with the reapers of vengeance CA, then he needs to charge as normal. This then also gives him problems with monsters that might prevent him from fighting twice with Roar on a 3+ roll.

Combine this with his rumored point increase to around 950 pts, then I would expect these Archaon lists to be pretty much dead and buried for competitive play. Tzeentch Archaon relies less on stacking CA's, but if there are no FAQ or exception, this is of course all not legal to do anyway. End result is that it will either not be legal for matched play and if it is, especially the Khorne list will be gutted.

[Painbringer]

37 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

So in an extreme scenario unit A has exploding hits AND mw on 6s- Unit B reflects a mw when hit on a 6, but also has a spell that forces rerolls of 6s to hit against them.

Unit A has the turn and rolls 10 dice with 2 6s. They then have to choose if those are explodes or MW. Then Unit B needs to choose if those 6s need to be rerolled, or if they should reflect 1 MW. Right? 

If It is the player of Unit B that has the turn, yet Unit A attacks first, it is then the controller of Unit B that decides first if they wish to trigger rerolls or reflects. Lets say they choose rerolls and Unit A ends up having 1 roll of a 6 after that, they then choose if that 6 is going to be an explode or mw correct?

In that example, I would say that it works like you described - despite the other player's unit fighting first, the abilities are resolved starting with the player whose turn it is.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Painbringer

[Mcthew]

1 minute ago, Scurvydog said:

Also on topic here is that Archaon in at least Khorne will be gutted. We saw a lot of Khorne Archaon lists due to the fight twice and pile in 6" combo possible there. This combo will no longer be possible, as they both are issued in the combat phase. This means if he wants to fight twice with the reapers of vengeance CA, then he needs to charge as normal. This then also gives him problems with monsters that might prevent him from fighting twice with Roar on a 3+ roll.

Combine this with his rumored point increase to around 950 pts, then I would expect these Archaon lists to be pretty much dead and buried for competitive play. Tzeentch Archaon relies less on stacking CA's, but if there are no FAQ or exception, this is of course all not legal to do anyway. End result is that it will either not be legal for matched play and if it is, especially the Khorne list will be gutted.

It's an odd one. I guess like everything else here, in the absence of the GHB and the new battletomes we're making assumptions about StD units.

But if this is the case, then one of the cash-cows of Games Workshop has been sadly nerfed. Chaos god players will move away from investing in StD units (and big monsters like Archaon) that give them variety. While StD players won't bother investing in any other faction than StD. There really is little point giving them the Chaos keyword other than a flaky nod to the StD allegiance ability, which again seems weak when comparing them to the main faction allegiances. Sure, arguably you can add an allied unit or two of StD units to a Chaos faction, but outside marauders and warriors, who will bother when you've got a limit of around 400 points?

Lore wise, it doesn't make much sense either. AoS 3.0 has become very restrictive and disheartening, and that's even when you're not playing OBR, BoC, Fyreslayers, Gitz, Khorne, etc. I do wonder if GW are actively trying to kill the tourney scene for everyone without deep pockets?

I guess the answer is 'yes.'

Not good for kids trying to start off playing competitive games though, is it? My eldest is hoping to play in school tournaments as part of the Warhammer School Clubs. Yet everything I've seen in AoS 3.0 is a disincentive to that, and that's even if restrictions are lifted to allow it to happen.

[JonnyTheKing]

Honestly Khorne is in such a poor state without Slaves units I don’t think it could get much worse, the Battletome is severely showing it’s age so all the little changes are welcome IMO for them

For my Orruks I think things are looking great 

[Jymmy]

21 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

In most cases you will often get hit by some kind of rend, you can only end up with +1 to your save for the modified roll, but if you get hit with rend 1, using the +1 sv CA will still help with that and you get a 5+ save where you normally would have had a 6+ due to the rend.

Of course things like bucklers adding +1 save effects does put some limits up instead of outright changing the save value of a warscroll, so it prevents stacking up mystic shied and all out defence too much, but it can still be worthwhile if you are facing attacks with rend 1 or more.

If anything the far easier access to +1 save, also from mystic shield, can make it harder to hit home with even high rend units.

So if you have 5+ (4+ with shields) you can only use the CA when something has at least -1 rend, but what if you are fighting some liberators where only one guy has rend and the rest doesnt? You would benefit from the +2 save agaisnt ALL atacks both with and without rend? 
 

I’m not totally sure that it works thar way, as I find it a bit confusing...

[Scurvydog]

1 minute ago, Jymmy said:

So if you have 5+ (4+ with shields) you can only use the CA when something has at least -1 rend, but what if you are fighting some liberators where only one guy has rend and the rest doesnt? You would benefit from the +2 save agaisnt ALL atacks both with and without rend? 
 

I’m not totally sure that it works thar way, as I find it a bit confusing...

You can stack as many modifiers you want, you are not "not allowed" to do it, a saving throw can just not end up being better than a total of +1 in the end. So if you get those guys with 5+ saves, but +1 from shields, they can not get better saves than a 4+ at any point, however if hit by Liberators with some rend 1 weapons, they could still use the all out of defence,, it just wont do anything against the attacks from the 0 rend weapons, but it will even out with the rend attacks, so you still end up with the 4+ save against those.

[Sleboda]

32 minutes ago, Mcthew said:

AoS 3.0 has become very restrictive and disheartening

Only if you're restricting yourself to Matched Play. Even then, I'm actually looking forward to tournaments where the win is not found in creating the trickiest min/Max gadget list, but rather in fielding something that looks like an army and has to function as one to win.

[RuneBrush]

+++ MOD HAT +++

Reading quite a few "the sky is falling" comments in this thread.  Just want to point out that it's highly likely we'll get some kind of FAQ/errata/update document when the game lands on the 3rd which will hopefully resolve some of the bits that don't appear to work as we think they should be.  A follow-up FAQ once the full rules and handbook appear wouldn't surprise me either.  In short it's too soon to start burning those models

So let's try and stick to some objective posts about how your own armies fare rather than how X, Y, Z is rubbish please.

[Leemer]

IDK is getting some nerfs but nothing gamebreaking.

Coherency means big eel units are much less likely to see play and so will probably return to a more 3-man MSU style.

Namarti thralls and reavers with big bases and 1" reach are even less useful now.

As our only behemoth the leviadon gets some new monster abilities which is nice.

Two big impacts from the no more stacking rules. (1) With the king/volturnos limited to a single lord of tides ability, we'll no longer have the +3 attack fights first eels. (2) no save stack means no more 2+ unrendable eels. Admittedly these combos were pretty OP but it's not like IDK have a lot of competitive alternatives atm.

The tome is pretty old so hopefully we get a new book fairly soon that'll open up some new units and playstyles.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

13 hours ago, Dankboss said:

Smaller board size will also help my infantry elements, and assuming nothing is stopping it, Handgunners can shoot twice in the charge phase. My army is also not affected by the new coherency nor reinforcement limits (aside from 25mm infantry being closer together) since my main list consists of 30 greatswords, 20 gunners and the rest MSU knights and guard.

I think Cities shooting seems a lot better now. Unleash Hell helps mid-range shooting more than it helps long-range shooting, and Cities has access to a lot of good mid-range shooting units. The danger of your shooting units simply being charged off the table is certainly lower now that they get to shoot back at least once before it happens, twice in the case of Handgunners and Sisters of the Watch. Cities also has easy access to +1 to hit from a few different sources, so negating the -1 to hit penalty of Unleash Hell is fairly easy. You can even Unleash Hell at +1 in many cases.

Cities also has a lot of good options for smal heroes that can go into the Sub-Commander slot of battalions. If you high drops, you can easily get two Warlord battalions in your list, so two enhancements and command points potentially. Just fill up empty slots with assassins, witch hunters, battlemages or, if you really don't care and just want to save points, black ark fleetmasters.

[peasant]

3 hours ago, Painbringer said:

You should be still able to use the ability under the new rules. In this particular case, this will cause simultaneus triggered effects (sections 1.6.2 and 1.6.4 in the core rules). Which means that first your opponent will have to chose one of his effects if he rolls 6s to hit, and then you will have to choose one of your effects that trigger on other player gettng 6s to hit.

Here is the quote from the section 1.6.2: "if the effects of two or more abilities would be applied at the same time in a turn, the player whose turn is taking place applies the effects of their abilities first, one at a time, in the order they desire. Their opponent then does the same."
The section 1.6.4 (triggered effects) only describes what happens in the situation when multiple effects are triggered by the die roll - but still you manage yours and your opponent does the same. I'm pretty sure that your opponent cannot bypass your ability by choosing it not to trigger.

Here's an example:

• Opponent hits you and scores several 6s
• Let's say that two of his abilities trigger on 6s to hit. He now has to choose one of them and apply the effect.
• However, let's also say that you have two abilities that trigger if your opponent rolls 6s to hit. Now you also have to choose one of them and apply the effect.

Too bad I cant give you more praises

[Andalf]

The big changes really shift each of my armies around the same way.  Mostly it’s just figuring out how to get the units I generally like using to fit inside the new core battalions and struggling to find actually useful combinations.  I’m really happy to see that it’s the giant spammy buffed to oblivion stuff getting squeezed out, none of my armies were every put together that way.  Shooting remaining as strong as ever is the change I really didn’t expect.

Lumineth without Auralan Legions are a lot more fun to play against.  I personally didn’t like the lore for Cathaller’s at all and am glad I don’t NEED one to play comp anymore.  Changes to monsters makes the choice between Avalenor or his buddy a tad more interesting, My Ymetrica army loves all the command points and new ways to spend them, and having a solid brace of characters in the 100-160 point range with good endless spells.  I’ve still never won with Lumineth but they are a fun technical challenge.

My Sacrosanct looks better than ever.  With 3 lord arcanums + 2 other characters normally I fill battalions nice and easy and have plenty of helpful synergies to help keep models alive/on the table.  None of the battalions were doing me any favours, I play Anvils and only really had the one use for CP.  With units getting smaller token shooting squads are more effective which is all Ballista/Castigators/Judicators are good for.  Board size helps my all infantry and I use the heck out of all three of my main endless spells, and may  get into more damage dealers looking ahead.

Soulblight are a really well balanced battle tome and the build I invested in is very Skeleton Cursed City + Belladamma Wolf and it does well with each of the changes.  Vengorians have a really nice combination of abilities that is super characterful I think.  I think the new artifacts fill a few gaps in, and if the points changes affect others more than they do the Gravelords I think they will be a solid B+/A tier in competent hands.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Andalf

[Mcthew]

So this weekend I'm playing my first AoS 3.0 battle. My Nighthaunt vs Kharadron. 1500 points at the moment as we've just moved house and we can't get a 2000pt table.

But... Should get a better idea how NH work and what also works/nerfs KO. Expecting the hit on triumphs to have some impacts but Unleash Hell will be problematic. Just wish I had Kurdoss in my collection to steal pesky CPs from my opponent!

[stratigo]

I think people are underestimating how strong hero monsters are right now. Like, they are now immune to chip damage. You kill/cripple one a turn, or you don't kill them at all. They're all healing an average of 4 wounds a turn without bespoke healing, which a bunch already have.

[stratigo]

2 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I think Cities shooting seems a lot better now. Unleash Hell helps mid-range shooting more than it helps long-range shooting, and Cities has access to a lot of good mid-range shooting units. The danger of your shooting units simply being charged off the table is certainly lower now that they get to shoot back at least once before it happens, twice in the case of Handgunners and Sisters of the Watch. Cities also has easy access to +1 to hit from a few different sources, so negating the -1 to hit penalty of Unleash Hell is fairly easy. You can even Unleash Hell at +1 in many cases.

Cities also has a lot of good options for smal heroes that can go into the Sub-Commander slot of battalions. If you high drops, you can easily get two Warlord battalions in your list, so two enhancements and command points potentially. Just fill up empty slots with assassins, witch hunters, battlemages or, if you really don't care and just want to save points, black ark fleetmasters.

Cities shooting lived on the mass stacking of buffs. Which is no longer a thing. It's gotten worse for most cities units.

[peasant]

15 hours ago, Ganigumo said:

yes

In the end there is no MW inmunity, Lucky me!

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

12 minutes ago, stratigo said:

Cities shooting lived on the mass stacking of buffs. Which is no longer a thing. It's gotten worse for most cities units.

I invite you to do some calculations, because the units I have looked at come out only marginally worse or better. Artillery is the exceptions, those units are pretty clearly worse than before, but then again they were not actually very good to begin with.

One big block of battleline shooting is looking very good to me now. Unleash Hell is a huge boost to the viability of midrange shooting, and the buff stacking limits mostly just mean you miss out on one +1 to hit overall.

[Clan's Cynic]

Fyreslayers I feel are now much weaker overall, particularly at a tournament level:

• Stacking saves was one of the Fyreslayer's gimmicks. With the limitations, it's a clear nerf.
• Competitive Fyreslayers relied on Lords of the Lodge and that Battalion is now gone.
• Other than Vulkites, both our other units are taken in 5's, meaning the principle list building of stacking 15-20 Hearthguard and Aurics is hurt even at a casual level. 
• Coherency will be an issue because the smallest Fyreslayer bases are 32mm.
• Fyreslayer Priests didn't have to worry about miscasts before.

There are some upsides:

• Fyreslayers are very Hero heavy, both in list building and models. Running multiple Core Battalions is going to be quite easy short of massive points increases. The only downside is that 2 of those Heroes aren't leaders.
• Monster buffs improve Magmadroths and the mounted Runefather was already a staple.
• The existence of the Linebreaker Battalion is an obvious buff to Lofnir.
• Lords of the Lodge going away means you don't have to force a Runemaster in to hit the Battalion requirement.
• If Monsters become more prominent, Aurics may see more use. Unleash Hell is probably going to be a waste of CP on them due to hitting on 5+'s though.
• Smaller table sizes is better for such a melee-centric army, particularly when Vostarg already had good alpha strike potential.

Overall I don't think the pluses come close to balancing out the obvious nerfs but with that said, the impact will largely be on the tournament scene - almost none playing casually/narratively was buying £200 worth of Hearthguard just for one Battalion. Whilst I could see Fyreslayers vanish from the tournament scene, the nerfs probably aren't enough to make them unplayable at a casual level where Vulkites and Magmadroths were the staple before anyway.

Edited June 16, 2021 by Clan's Cynic

[Bayul]

Legion of Grief is a clear winner! It got a massive buff with access to free core battalions and enhancements in matched play.

The army probably won't survive the next GHB though.

[Televiper11]

I don’t agree with people who think BoC are gonna be pure trash like usual. I see some real potential in the Monster rules, especially for Ghorgons & Cygors & Cockatrices. Also the Dragon Ogor Shaggoth as a Hero/Wizard/Monster is gonna be awesome.

[Reuben Parker]

Out of interest anyone seen a leak of Khorne pitched battle profiles?

I see people saying they can’t take StD which hurts but if those units are listed under Khorne new profiles then they still can. 
 

so is it a case of people assuming and extrapolation based on AoS2 profiles combined with new allegiance rules for AoS3 or have people seen evidence in the AoS3 profiles?

[Enoby]

7 minutes ago, Reuben Parker said:

Out of interest anyone seen a leak of Khorne pitched battle profiles?

I see people saying they can’t take StD which hurts but if those units are listed under Khorne new profiles then they still can. 

Any idea why people would say this is the case? I thought S2D could be taken because it gained the keyword from the Warscroll, unless there's now an additional restriction?