Forrix

To be fair, AoS 1E dropped on nuke on my local area and effectively killed the scene for a couple years and wasn't even talked about except to be used as an example of a gaming company committing suicide. Hell, I remember seeing 1E starter sets going for $70 on Amazon and not selling. The GHB rekindled people's interest but it still took quite some time for it to take root. It wasn't until after 2nd Edition dropped that my local scene started to take off. I think GW only survived the launch of AoS due to 40k at the time and having more resources than most other gaming companies. They then poured resources into AoS and managed to turn it around by abandoning most of the design philosophy initially present in AoS's launch.

Put a Kairic Acolyte or Bloodreaver next to a Guardsman if you want to see some real scale creep :P.

I'm out of the loop on Warmahordes but this might be an example of the risks of marketing a game primarily on competitive play. When they ****** up a new release people just drop in an instant. With focusing more on hobby people have a deeper connection to their armies and are less likely to jump ship when the rules go bad. Obviously, they still get mad (and rightfully so) but it gives GW more time to fix the issue and makes their playerbase less likely to leave at the drop of a hat. Part of why I prefer miniature games over card games like Netrunner and Magic is the hobby aspect and having nice models for display when I'm not playing. I tried warmahordes but absolutely hated their resin and am not a fan of metal miniatures either. The models don't seem particularly well sculpted compared to other miniature companies too. Conceptually though I find their models to be 2nd only to GW in terms of style.

Ironically, my original post is that GW might actually be trying to take a more active hand in balancing things now. GW nerfed Bloated Blessings hard in the 2 (ish) week FAQ when normally they avoid balancing or changing how something works no matter how obviously broken it is until the next Big FAQ. Its possible GW has heard the message and is trying harder to nip issues in the bud (though they definetly overshot the mark in this case). For what its worth I've specifically mentioned balance in both of the Big Surveys I've filled out. I'm typically against players writing rules for balancing though (reading homebrew rules often makes me appreciate the GW rules team more).

Man, that's a lot to think about it. I might come back and edit this later but for now... Best- Cities of Sigmar. I like the allegiance ability approach with the different cities. It always bugs me when the book gives you a bunch of command traits that you'll never use because of the more standard subfaction format. There are definitely some garbage warscrolls and builds but I've built A LOT of very different lists using most of the different cities even if Tempest Eye and Hallowheart are typically the top choices for my lists. The only real drawback I've found is that this army is very intensive in both hobby time and money for someone who didn't have whole 8th edition armies sitting around. Worst-Hard to say. I want to say Maggotkin but that's 2018 :P. I think I will say Bonereapers as though its both fairly new and I don't play it I've seen a lot of it in my local scene and everyone is running the same list with just a few variations in tournaments. It seems to be a victim of the worse of the subfaction format were one subfaction is so much better than the others that it basically becomes the battletome. The external balance seems pretty badly out of whack too and rife with NPE.

Looks like a rotbringer sorcerer to me. Might be what pushes me over the edge and into breaking out my Maggotkin again. I've got a unit of blightkings I've been meaning to paint up anyways.

I really like Barak Zon for Skywardens and the +2 attack artifact on the Endrinmaster or Admiral. Its definitely a more niche port though.

I was aware of everything you stated when I wrote my post and I'll continue to stand by it. I'm glad you find this book to be perfect and why I agree this book is not all doom and gloom I am not going to blindly proclaim everything to be awesome because this is these is some obscure niche it could be semi-useful in. Hell, if you want to state that something is fine because maybe the core rules will change in the future then literally everything in this game and everything that could ever be added to this game is fine.

I definitely agree that it is a major missed opportunity not to have the Order of Azyr represented on table top (or new models/a main faction for regular humans but that's kinda a tangent). I think that the success of Cities of Secrets took them off guard though. They seem to have taken note of it so hopefully we get a proper Order of Azyr/Devoted of Sigmar battletome in the next year or two. I know there's a major delay between an idea being conceived and new models actually released.

True but they could put it in the artifact text. It seems weird writing warscroll abilities that are only relevant when taken with a specific artifact (or command trait).

Barak-Zon since I like Skywardens and the idea of +2 attacks on my Edrinmasters' chainsword :P. I'll play around with them though.

What's wrong with making it +1 to hit? Or just write in the artifact that it also allows him to use the Volley Fire CA on the skyvessel he's garrisoned on for free thus saving space on his already bloated warscroll? I suppose its possible it was +1 hit and they actually playtested it and found it too powerful but even feeling that KO shooting is stronger than it appears I'm not sure +1 hit via a character using his CA is that unbalancing even on an Ironclad. As it is, I will say they writing a redundant command ability on a models warscroll because the player might take a specific artifact with him is poor rules design.

I watched it to and while I don't share their negative outlook overall either I also can't really find fault with most of their criticisms of the book. There is definitely an overabundance of reroll 1s to hit and anti-synergies. The aether-kemist issue is a pain (I also hadn't realized he can't buff ships, my bad) and stuff like the Navigator granting ships reroll run rolls when both the Frigate and Ironclad have that ability on their warscroll (not to mention fly high) is just annoying. The two things I felt WW weren't fully appreciating is that while KO damage is on the weak side, point for point, the ability to bring it to bear on select targets via range and mobility is a major force multiplier for it. The other thing is they seemed to dismiss Aethergold which I found to be a majorly impactful tool. As I stated in an earlier post, I've only played one game against KO so far but I was surprised by them even having read through the book and been writing my own lists. I do plan on emailing in some FAQ/Errata questions about the point of the Navigator reroll runs/charges (why not +1 or 2 to runs/charges?) and the Arkanaut Admiral's ability to grant a skyvessel he's garrisoned on reroll 1s to hit in the shooting phase (literally just a more restricted version of a generic command ability).

I have tried getting into AoS books and have ran into 3 problems. 1.) Here in the US at least, Black Library books have gotten more expensive. All of the new books get released in this quasi hardback fashion and are $16 compared to the usual 8ish for a regular soft back. 2.) They're hard to find. I've seen them at my GW store but I don't go there often (there's a FLGS, I usually go to) and the selection at the Barnes and Noble next to my house is lacking and are usually the aforementioned $16 variety. I've tried getting them on audible too since I've got free credits but there doesn't seem to be much. I did find the Silver Shard novel on there though and liked it. 3.) Kinda a dead horse but yeah, not a fan of the realmgate wars and Stormcast focus. Which means most of the early AoS books are a no go for me. City of Secrets and Soul Wars (better(ish) written Stormcast and the Nighthaunt parts were really good) were the first AoS novels I found that I thought were pretty good.

I'm not saying Chaos Warriors couldn't use help (I haven't played with or against the new ones yet) but I am saying that all the world's Stormcast players would fly to Nottinghham and stone the rules design team to death with their Liberator models if that happened.

You ignore the normal rules for getting a triumph because the Aethergold is what gives you access to it. So you just pick one of the list and use it. Also, it doesn't specify start of the phase or anything so you can wait for your opponent to roll attacks before deciding if you want to use a gold to reroll saves. Not sure if that 2nd part will get FAQ'd.

Got a game in against KO with my Tempest Eye last night for some dwarf on dwarf action. Wasn't a super serious game and both of us were getting our feet wet with our armies but thought I'd share my initial thoughts as in short, KO was much stronger than I thought they would be though I wouldn't call them high tier still. Again, these are hot takes from a single game so something to think about but I wouldn't read into it too much. Looking forward to playing with/against more. 1.) Aethergold really matters. He was running the skyport with extra aethergold and had a command trait to get more (sorry, at work and can't remember what these are called). Using it at the right time could make a unit near impossible to kill or really up the damage. Once per phase use does limit it but with good positioning and target prioritizing but its still really good and didn't feel like he ran out of it super quick (though its not OBR, aethergold does need to managed). 2.) The double turn is an even bigger deal with KO. He got the Battleround 1 to 2 double turn and brutalized me pretty bad with it. Killed my Hurricanum, Runelord, a battlemage, Anointed on Frost Phoenix (this guy ate up his entire 1st turn of shooting), and 10+ Irondrakes (who were -1 to hit) with it. The ability to do significant damage without reprisal and direct that damage at support elements is big deal. 3.) Bodies are definitely something to think about. Ultimately, I eeked out a victory in our game despite him having a clear advantage in firepower simply by piling bodies onto objectives. I don't think this one is a surprise to anyone but KO does seem to struggle in the objective game. 4.) Thunders are kinda useless. We both had a unit of 5 and mine didn't get in range of anything until turn 4 (12 inch range sucks) and did jack with their shooting when they did. His were shooting at my Longbeards and Irondrakes and also did almost zilch in terms of damage. We were both running the special weapon guys. I feel like all rifles is definitely the way to go. 5.) The Ironclad is scarier than I thought. It did the bulk of the shooting damage and once all my support characters were dead (i.e. turn 2) it was pretty much impossible to kill, especially with Edrinriggers available to heal it and aethergold to reroll saves if I put anything big into it. 6.) Following up on previous points, KO felt very durable not just because of aethergold and better saves but since they easily took out my support characters my synergies got wrecked and my damage tanked.

Infinity is fairly popular in my area but I really dislike metal miniatures. Malifaux is pretty good having played it and I like the miniatures about as much as GW ones. There's just not much of a scene (by which I mean any). The Other Side looks interesting to me but it doesn't seem to have caught on either. Its one I'm keeping an eye on though since the minis look nice and its a mass combat game too.

The correct answer is the Great Unclean One. I can't believe this topic is on page 3 without a mention of Nurgle.

They could take down that old statue of Admiral Nelson and replace it with a Stormcast Eternal while they're at it.

This. Some people don't seem to be picking up (including a Mod) that I'm not upset that an OP ability was reigned in but rather scratching my head as to why this particular OP ability was reigned in so fast (and to be frank, with overkill) while other armies are left with just as OP or even more OP abilities for the better part of year or longer even.

Having finished American Horror Story Apocalypse last night I can't help but imagine Rules Guy Two as one of the coked out dude-bro silicon valley guys.

Felt like sharing this since I laughed pretty hard back when I read it and we now know, that sadly, we got the chill guy instead of the coked out one.

I would have made it so they couldn't stack so no multiple d3 mortal wounds per 6 and, if necessary, just 1 mortal wound per 6. The point being to keep it as a good command ability that really punishes units that pump out high volumes of attacks while loosing effectiveness against units that rely on a low volume of high quality attacks..

For those that haven't read the STD errata that came out today the Nurgle bloated blessings command ability got nerfed into the ground. I won't claim that its original incarnation wasn't over the top but I'm shocked at how fast and how hard they hit it compared to other overpowered things this year. With FEC, Gristlegore got a slight but significant change in the Summer FAQ despite it wrecking the tournament for months and its strength being apparent at release. Slaanesh again lasted until the next FAQ and even then got a relatively mild nerf. Petrifix Elite has yet to be touched. Why STD? Why this particular command ability? Is this a sign of GW changing design philosophies again?