Forrix

I'll add in that with Skeleton/Grimghast blocks you should be able to take and hold objectives quite easily against Blightkings. Nurgle plays an attrition game but is noticeably worse at it then Legions.

I feel like there are a lot of euphemisms in that sentence... For the record, I think the title of this thread is hyperbolic but I am concerned about how this army will turn out. If anything the extreme power granted by some of the subfaction (i.e. + 1 save army wide) makes balance extremely difficult as the value of the units changes so much between the subfactions and especially vs no sub-faction. Also, if in 6 months, this faction is sitting at a sub 50% win rate (barring major FAQ changes) I will eat my own shoes. A 3+ save, rerolling saves, battleshock immune unit for 130 points per 10 is incredibly strong even before factoring in another buffs and model recursion.

The models in there are don't make a very cohesive force. The fanatics don't work with anything else in the box (no matter how you build them other than blocking los with the sporesplatter) and the Loonboss can't use his command ability on anything other the fanatics. The troggoths likewise don't benefit from anything else in the box. The Squig Hoppers are the only battleline in the box and require the Manger Squigs to built as a Loonboss on Mangler squigs and be your general (not a bad idea). Basically its an incoherent mish-mash of miniatures but they're all useful in various lists and its goods savings (probably, depending the price). I'd recommend picking it up if you want to dive into Gloomspite but you'll need to get other stuff to really build a coherent army.

On a hobby related note, anyone have any cool Butcher/Slaughtermaster conversions? I'm not really feeling the finecast models.

I'm toying with the idea of a list with 2 Huskards on Thundertusks and a Frost Lord on Stonehorn with a Butcher to man the pot. Frost Lord has ethereal amulet, reroll wounds command trait, and +1 hit mount trait. Throw mystic shield on him shoot him into your opponents face. 3+ rerolling 1s unrendable save with a 5++ makes him pretty much unkillable while he still has damage to threaten most units. Thundertusks can snowball horde units to help with objective control and heal up the Frost Lord. Butcher can use the pot to heal everyone up when need be. Remaining points can be filled with gnoblars/gluttons for screening/counter screening as needed. Not sure how viable this will be as you'll be putting A LOT of points into those 3 big boys but I think the Might Makes Right rule gives this some legs. My main fear would be something somehow gacking the Frost Lord early on or the Thundertusks getting brought down due to lack of screening.

Its goes to +3, so if you're very lucky you'll kill a maw-crusher and on average rolls a 10 wound or less hero. That said, I don't think it will be taken much in serious lists expect maybe to clear out hordes. The biggest weakness I see with Bonereapers is screening as they don't really have a cheap chaff option and their Mortek Guard will be busy sitting on objectives. The Crawler can keep up with Guard though (4inch move + 3 for Discipline point for a 7 inch move and shoot) so it might accompany them to the objective. But its base is huge and you'll also want to be shielding some support characters/Harvesters too.

As in tournaments or events may not always allow realm artifacts.

I'm not sure on Tier yet but I'm thinking in the 40 to 50% win rate area. Frost Lord on Stonehorn with Etheral Amulet is going to be something that some armies just can't deal with, especially with him being worth 10 models for objective capping now. So that might push us up. That said, it depends on a realm artifact (so not always available) and other armies can do it about as well as we can.

Anyone know if there is a way to boost the to wound roll of the Scraplauncher? I feel like its got potential but that 4+ to wound is rough.

If Nurgle had a way of actually getting that reliably then yes, Nurgle would be taking over tournaments. As it is that requires hard casting a 7 spell that only comes on a 420 point character, another character using a command ability (I'm assuming you meant a 5+ armor save and a 5+ after save with another 6+ after save), a warshrine, an artifact, and the cycle of corruption being on a particular buff.

For utility no, I don't think he's that good though maybe for gnoblars. I suspect gnoblar screens will become a thing in a lot of MawTribes lists. He does look like a pretty good beatstick for 160 points though, especially since you can build him to be really fast, tanky, or killy depending on the Big Name, Command Trait, and Artifact.

Having played as Fyreslayers in a few tournaments my concern is anything with good ranged character killing ability (Cities I think is a very strong counter to Fyreslayers). Hermder HGB in Lords of the Lodge are crazy but if you can just kill the heroes (who are squishy when not on a magmadroth and don't fit into 60 HGB lists on magmadroths) it falls apart. Bonereapers might not be good against Fyreslayers (I don't know what their spells are) but then Cities will be so you wind up with a rock-paper-scissors situation. Good for win-loss balance but not good for compelling gameplay. I feel like information silos are a big issue with GW. It wouldn't surprise if the team who worked on Bonereapers never even saw the Mawtribes book until it was released and visa-versa.

I haven't sat down and really drilled into Bonereapers so I'm not claiming the sky is failing yet but I have some concerns and thoughts based off what I've gathered so far. I suspect the craziness will come in (if it does) with their relentless discipline point generation. Instead of being a scare resource to be managed they get flooded and all their special abilities are on all the time. Kind of like Slaanesh summoning. Yes a unit of Mortek Guard is expensive but what in this game can take an objective from a unit of 40 models with a 3+ save (buffable to 2+) with reroll saves and a 6++ and model resurrection and is immune to battleshock. The weakness seems to be their reliance on heroes but they don't look terribly weak (decent saves for backfield casters that have healing and I think the ability to pass off wounds to nearby units?). I'm pretty assuming everyone is going to take the 1+ save subfaction for competitive play. I think it might be like DoK where they're a strong if okay army but one subfaction pushes them into crazy town due to being so much better than the others.

Holy hell they didnt change the Gargant Hacker profile.... Looks like clubs and iron fist (the opposite of how mine are built...) are definitely the better option.

The proper term is Bone Daddies.

Anyone got the Mournfang warscroll?

One of their subfaction rules is +1 save to all units. Hard to judge it when we don't know the points efficiency of their wounds to start with but I can see why I rule like that is worrying.

The subfactions are clearly Gutbuster or Beastclaw but their general bonuses don't seem tied specifically to those groups. I.e. Ogor Gluttons in the Wintermaw Tribe would still get the - 1 to be hit. I think we'll see a lot of mixed armies though they do tend to push you one way or the other so the mixed armies will probably be mostly Gutbusters or mostly Beastclaw. It will be interesting to see the battlions. Hopefully at least one of them combines the two.

Honestly, when a battletome is busted level OP its been pretty clear to me just from the rules. A fast monster that kills anything it touches (pretty much) and always attacks before anything else? Yup, RIP armies that don't fight first or have good shooting. A glass cannon army that's actually made out of steel due to a lodge-equivalent ability or crazy summoning? Yeah, that's gonna be winning more than a few tournaments. With Bonereapers my concern is how much power is in their allegiance/sub faction rules and will they account for that power appropriately when assigning them points cost. If its apparent they just went off of the base warscroll when pointing things then I'll start waving my arms around.

I'd say its more like the ingredients are all there for the most OP battletome we have ever seen but we just don't know yet. An army wide +1 save in an army that is already 4+ for the most part is extremely potent. Depending on point cost and model recursion ability I got see Mortek Guard being beyond disgusting. We will know very soon but I'm confident enough to predict they'll at least be a strong army. I'm going give GW the benefit of the doubt and hold off on hitting the OP button until I've watched the battletome reviews tomorrow.

I would say it confirms mount traits because it specifically mentions them and gives a page number which would be nonsensical if they didn't have mount traits.

The Thunderbellies tribe looks lackluster to me unless Mournfang wind up extremely good. That artifact is just sad. The other two look good though so far. Undergut has me very interested in how Ironblasters turnout (and points cost for leadbelchers). I could see myself going that direction. 18 inches means the leadbelchers might actually be able to shoot something without moving though I hope there's a way to boost their to hit. I'm also wondering about battleline now.

We can argue whether Cities and Orruk Warclans were rushed or not but regardless they didn't involve any work on the part of the miniature design time as there were no new sculpts. They might have been the victims (or beneficiaries) of GW deciding to just get battletomes done to bring up armies to a 2.0 standard instead of handcuffing book releases to miniature releases. In the future we might see new models come out for armies without them also getting a new battletome. It might make it easier to get things out the door more quickly, especially when no battletome armies are just about unplayable right now. It could also explain with MawTribes why they didn't cut the finecrap Butcher/Slaughtermaster/Firebelly as they are planning on releasing plastic sculpts for them its just going to be awhile until the miniature design team can get around to it.

The streams have been notoriously inaccurate in the past. I wouldn't blame you for wanting to see it in writing first.

Total speculation on my part but given recent battletomes I'm 99% percent sure Butchers will get either the ability to damage themselves for bonuses to cast, bonuses to cast for killing stuff, or bonuses to cast for being next to a full cookpot. The Butcher dragging the cookpot (now Slaughtermaster?) might get treated as a mini cookpot too. That said, having played Nurgle, trying to get a critical spell off with hard dice looking for a 7 is a terrible strategy. I wonder if these spell/prayer lores are 3 spells or 6?