Nullius

When the players are roughly equally skilled that is true, but not when they are unequally skilled.

Definitely do NOT want them to remove the double turn. That would turn AoS into a fairly elementary game like 40k where the most important determinant of outcome is the list you run. rather I would suggest that the real problem with the double turn is shooting. best way to fix shooting is to simply have one shooting phase at the beginning of each battle round. Starting with the player going second (like endless spells), players would alternate firing with each Shooting unit on the table until they’ve all fired. This way the shooting abilities of units would never be influenced by the double turn in either way. Every unit would still fire once per round. Furthermore you have to actually be tactical with shooting units and plan to position them during the previous turn so that they will be able to take their shots in the next shooting phase.

I would try sort of pin-washing the glaze directly into the recesses

Quite striking! I would consider a glaze of a contrasting cooler brighter color on the reds, like nihilakoxide and lahmian medium that will sink into the crevices. And sort of reverse-highlight them.

Trying to get a very balanced OBR list that feels like what I imagine the composition of the legions is, built around the shield corps and the death lance. It’s a four drop list and I intend for it to be semi competitive: Allegiance: Ossiarch Bonereapers- Legion: Petrifex EliteMortal Realm: ShyishLeadersLiege-Kavalos (200)- General- Command Trait: Mighty Archaeossian - Artefact: Godbone Armour Mortisan Boneshaper (130)- Artefact: Artisan’s Key - Lore of Mortisans: Arcane CommandMortisan Soulmason (140)- Artefact: Gothizzar Cartouche - Lore of Mortisans: Empower Nadirite WeaponsBattleline40 x Mortek Guard (440)- Nadirite Spear and Shield10 x Mortek Guard (130)- Nadirite Blade and Shield10 x Mortek Guard (130)- Nadirite Blade and Shield5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)- Nadirite Blade and Shield5 x Kavalos Deathriders (180)- Nadirite Blade and ShieldArtilleryMortek Crawler (200)BattalionsMortek Shield-corps (120)Kavalos Lance (120)Endless Spells / Terrain / CPsBone-tithe Shrieker (30)Total: 2000 / 2000Extra Command Points: 2Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 120 what do you guys think? Is two expensive battalions a waste of points that would be better spent on more BoneReapers? Or is it worth it for the powerful artifacts, low drops, and copious rdp?

You could be right. I suppose I’ll have to play against it a few times to see how it goes. I think I, myself, can (narrowly) stay in the fight with OBR by building (and painting!) a list specifically toward that end. I think the whole destruction grand alliance will have a very hard time. 24 mortal wounds starting at 30 inches away with no line of sight is not just another cheesy shooting list. I just worry It has potential to become kind of a gatekeeper list, like Tzeentch was is that ugly chapter a couple years ago. On the other hand it’s a pretty static gun line with screens and it won’t do great at some scenarios. So I guess we’ll see. If definitely seen some horror show bat reps online against this list. Not such a great showcase for AOS. But with so few games being played you might be right.

I’m afraid if the only way to counter the unit is by shooting it, or getting lucky with an unbind, then lots of armies will essentially auto-lose to this build. Realistically the only ways I see to counter it are good shooting (Double Mortek crawler for me), or somehow outflanking and getting a long bomb charge into them before they start firing.

It’s not so much the relative strength of the unit, so much as it is that there is no way to prevent the damage or interact with it really in any way. Each unit of 20 will average 11-12 MW at 30 inches, or 48 MW on a double turn for total output from both units. There is no way to stop it from happening if you happen to be in range. Might as well pack the models away unless you have an army that can get into the archers by the bottom Of turn 1. I don’t think this mess will go for long before getting fixed. It’s pretty egregious.

Tzeentch and Kharadron are bad on the double Turn too, but at least you can get an armor save and debuff the firing unit, or just out range them. Sentinels are hard to counter if you can’t get to them in one turn. Maybe third edition will make some fundamental changes to the shooting phase and these will only feel like negative play experiences until then.

Unless there is an obvious weakness I’m missing...Is there?

All you need is for somebody to cast the reroll hits spell (or, marker lights as I call it), followed by hitting a casting roll of six with the option to buff it with allegiance abilities and aetherquartz. Worse still, the marker lights spell marks the target for ALL of your shooting units and has an 18 inch range. You can give it to you Calvary units, use a bonus to cast, and the annihilate anything from Archaeon to skink priests. Look out sir does nothing. Concealing terrain does nothing. Debuffs to hit do nothing. Your units are removed more or less automatically on a double turn with no interaction.

Does anyone feel that perhaps the mortal-wound potential In this army is a bit too high? With all this talk of a potential new army book I think one might actually be necessary before people start actually playing games again. A simple combination of spells has units of 20 archers pumping out over ten mortal wounds at 30 inches away. We used to complain about the famed “Dirty Snowball” on the Thundertusk for its 6 mortal wound potential at 18 inches. (Which was eventually merged) This unit is easily doing 12 mortal wounds at 18 inches with no line of sight (and 6 or 7 at 30 inches!). It’s almost comical. Two units of 20 ensure that a game is effectively pointless if lumineth get a single double turn and ALL enemy heroes, mounted or otherwise, will be dead by the start of round 3 with no way to prevent it. Look out Sir and shooting debuffs do nothing to delay their inevitable deaths because the mortals happen on an unmodified 5+. (So even shots that “miss” will still do mortal wounds if you manage tons of penalties to hit as a defense) and it seems they are preparing to add MORE shooting units! Lol this seems either like a total hot-mess of an army book, OR there are major changes to shooting in Third Edition... which is it I wonder.

Pretty sure the climax of Wrath of the Everchosen takes place near a sprawling factory city in the eight points with a Chaos Dwarf sounding name.

Admittedly I’m new to OBR and haven’t had much chance to play with the pandemic and all, but it seems pretty light on units for 2000 points. Are you dead set on having both Arkhan and Katakros in there? Seems like a whole mess of points in two models -one barely mobile and the other very fragile. If somebody steals a March on you and charges arkhan with his defenses down, or If you face a shooting army, you might lose him quick. Then again, I suppose Arkhan and Katakros can heal each other, so that’s a cool feature.

I suspect those lumineth models might be from the 3rd edition starter box.

I feel like I remember Sylvaneth Beetle riders being mentioned in one of the timeline sections somewhere. and on the subject of Sylvaneth, I expect there are a bunch of kurnothi units out there based on other sylvan mythological archetypes (pixies, centaurs, Fauns, etc like the underworlds models), and presumably a Big Kurnoth model as well.

Ah I see. Since there is some parallel between Elementari and martial arts forms, (or aspect warriors for that matter) we can imagine the final form of the lumineth allegiance will have a set of forms, some general and some specific to certain elements, and each Elementiri unit can be set to an available form at the start of the turn. “This unit is in Illumination form, and this unit is in Zephyr form...” and so on and so forth, with the wizards will be able to help them switch forms mid term and stuff. That seems like a very likely reason for the peculiar wording.

Hey folks, sorry if this is off-topic, but can anyone explain the Alarith “Enduring as Rock,” battle trait to me? It seems like an ability you just leave active for the entire game with no downside, so why would anyone bother declaring it? Or do you simply declare it each hero phase? Was there supposed to be a downside to this ability? Is this a typo? What is the consensus? It seems like there is a critical sentence missing here.

Oh wow idk how I never noticed that. Yeah I use tightly packed tesselating 5 man movement trays that I 3-d printed. They usually end up charging or piling in off of them by turn 2 or 3 but help with movement in 1 and 2. It lets you move 5 at once and keep your lines orderly till the battle starts in earnest. I do the same for sixty man zombie units.

I guess what I’m saying is that more models in engagement that can attack (eg spears), the more efficient the +1 attack ability is. With, say, 20 models in attack range it nets you an additional 20 attacks, with 30 models in range it nets you an additional 30 attacks, for a 50% increase in bonus attacks. All that said, assuming a 4+ armor save as a rough average (and discounting the hit and wound rolls, which are symmetrical for both weapons anyway), we get 90 attacks out of the spears discounting half of that damage for 45 (again discounting the hit and wound rolls), or 60 attacks from the swords after +1 attack with Rend -1 for 40 potential damage on average against our 4+ enemy. granted this is a very artificial set of parameters, and certainly any buff to the 4+ save (even re-rolling 1’s) will swing it back to the swords. Against 5+ or worse, the spears should perform better with 60 versus 50 for the swords etc etc, and a more predictable damage output because of volume of dice (but less of a chance of a stroke of good luck as well). of course the petrifex ability starts to take the swords into insane territory, but that’s another discussion. what do you use for movement trays for your 40 man block? Do you find the 40 block is competitive or do you just do it for rule of cool?

Seems like a good analysis when it comes to two ten-wide units hitting each other head on. I suppose the other consideration is the attack buffing command ability and the fact that when it comes to a large round base (like a monster, that third ‘rank’ will have more more models attacking than than the first rank, (although in regressing down to a simple third rank the larger the radius of the unit surrounded is) so the Spears have a bit more efficiency of buffing (with that third rank adding an additional 30 attacks after the command ability), and a greater efficiency against large base units and elite non-horde units that can be easily surrounded in a semi-circular fashion. Perhaps not worth the loss of rend -1. have you ever ran 40 man blocks? Seems tough to keep them all within six of the hekatos without movement trays.

Haha well this sort of grumble is an honored tradition as old as the hobby itself! In any event I’m off to work. Have a nice one brother and merry Christmas in advance! Stay safe out there.

And they paid their entire US staff through the lockdowns with no US federal government policy of any kind on the offer to defray those costs, nor any tax incentives to continue employing their entire staff to stay home with full benefits for the employees and their families. Precisely what I was trying to explain to this fellow. The relentlessly profitable history of Games Workshop has mostly to do with excellent cash flow, a firm belief in avoiding corporate debt, a lack of advertising expenditure (marketing done entirely in house and by the web team), and an extremely lean and cheap management structure overseeing a large sales operation with a bare minimum of oversight. Indeed! Well I suppose we are behaving like ordinary gentlemen and not hurling profanities at each other, so good for us! Haha I am a previous employee of GW, with a fairly detailed knowledge of the company’s operations, the parameters of its business model, and it’s philosophy towards its employees. It was, along with the US Marine Corps, one of the leanest, most rational, and best run organizations I’ve had experience with. I have taken a great deal of GW’s best practices and philosophy into management of my own businesses.

How much luck have you all had with running a max-sized brick of Mortek Guard with Spears? I built it because it looks impressive and thematic, but I was wondering if anyone had any experience running it and could offer any advice.

I can understand that, but it’s also worth mentioning that excesses of annual profit are not reinvested or rendered as massive bonuses to the company’s officers, but rather are given back to the employees of the company in a totally even split (something unthinkable to an American publicly traded company). Additionally, the company takes steps to keep the lion’s share of its manufacturing in the UK and pays its employees a living wage with excellent benefits. I understand that doesn’t necessarily effect you as a consumer, but certainly if the company were intensely fixated on profit margins and made all their decisions from that position, then working for the company would be much more akin to working for GameStop or Bestbuy or whatever (miserable and without benefits to speak of), and they would cut quality and manufacture overseas where labor laws are weak and the pound goes further. competition is a good thing, but IP theft is something else entirely. A pet peeve of mine, frankly. I find it’s effect on the hobby objectionable. The silly naming conventions of Warhammer for example, or the overly baroque models, - and in this particular case the disappearance of large models from Forge World- are common objections to the current line, and they all have their genesis in defense against IP theft. It feels like the need to avoid this cost of doing business impacts the design and direction of the hobby, and constrains the artists. I find this frustrating. The cost of the models impacts me less, personally, but I understand this is a major concern for many. I suppose there is not really any hint to be done about recasters, but I always feel a need to point out how recasting ultimately negatively impacts the hobby as a whole.