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Skabnoze

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Everything posted by Skabnoze

  1. So, after looking at what the teaser video showed I think we can start drawing some ideas about the types of themes that GW is exploring with this army. If you look back across Age of Sigmar since it began there is a huge theme that most stuff is not quite totally new and is often based on some concepts from older editions of Warhammer that they decide to run with when designing a new force. Sometimes the inspiration is blatantly obvious such as how the Fyreslayers are the Old World Dwarf Slayers turned into a complete dwarf faction and then tweaked to fit into the new setting. Ironjawz are a further exploration of the old concept of Black Orcs as bigger & meaner orcs. And then sometimes the influences are more subtle like Idoneth having ties to the old elf god Mathlan or leaning into the old Dark Elf medusa & harpies and expanding those into the Daughters of Khaine along with more greek influences such as the Naga (melusai). I think we can glean more by looking at what Giants have historically been in Warhammer and what the new pictures & model names tell us. Currently the Aleguzzler giant has a number of different attacks on his profile and he can famously sometimes fail a charge and fall down. The various attacks and abilities that the Aleguzzler currently has are all variations on his old attacks or abilities. Throughout 4th-8th editions of Warhammer Fantasy the Giant had 2 things that set him apart from most other models in the game. First, he has always had the ability to fall over and smash things. Generally this would happen if he died or sometimes it could happen from other situations such as if he trips while trying to flee or jump up & down on a unit. This has been on every version of the giant, including the Aleguzzler (who arguably has the most tactically restricting fall-down rule) and I honestly see this as something they are going to keep - although hopefully they rework the current Aleguzzler fall-down rule and make it something more fun to all players. I always found the fall-down rules to be characterful and fun on the whole in Warhammer Fantasy, but I will agree with most that I don't care for the version of fall-down that the Ale Guzzler currently has. There are ways to make the rule interesting but not totally awful. Second, the Giant never had normal attacks like most models in the game. Instead the Giant had a selection of different attacks and he would choose one of those attacks to make for a given combat phase. In 4th/5th you got to choose what attack he made. In subsequent editions those attacks were put into two randomized charts that you rolled on depending on the size of the target. Those attacks were always a variation of: yell and bawl, thump single target with club, swing club at multiple targets, stomp a single model, jump up & down on a unit, headbutt (which stunned big enemies along with inflicting damage), or pick up a single small model and do something with it. When the giant would pick people up it generally involved another chart to see what he did and the results were usually to smash or eat the model and kill it, stuff it into his bag or down his pants (effectively killed it - but sometimes you could kill the giant and free them), or throw the model either into the unit he was fighting or across the table at a different unit. If we look at what they teased in the video then it stands out to me that each of the type of giants appears to be themed around the various attack types of the old world giant. There is the Kraken Eater - which seems based on the giants old ability to eat enemies (and this is generally what giants do in folklore anyways). Then there is the Warstomper that seems based on the old stomp & jump up & down abilities. And then they showed the Gate Crasher which seems to lean into the swing & thump with club attacks. I would not be surprised to see GW play with other giant attacks either as standard shared abilities (headbutt could be a shared attack similar to Ogor & Seraphon bite attacks), or for more distinct unit types such as Giants that can throw enemy units at each other, or even possibly as hero abilities. I suspect we will see other stuff brought back such as Yell and Bawl. That could become a type of common ranged attack (think of the Mawkrusha), a command ability, or some type of generic ability. The Giant was never the best monster in Warhammer - but he was such a characterful and interesting model. He was also generally cheap enough to bring along for fun and he would either do terrible or fantastic - but in my experience he was usually the most memorable model on the table. His abilities and attacks always did a good job of making him feel like a huge stumbling oaf with a giant club just smashing and knocking stuff all over the place. I really feel that they will lean more into this and we will probably see weird stuff like giants smashing terrain, kicking objectives or models out of their way, and just acting like how you would expect belligerent 50-foot tall goons would be. I really hope they add some interesting mechanics into this army. For instance, imagine a unit is formed up to protect an objective that is a treasure chest with an important item of power and then some foul loud-mouthed giant charges into that unit and simply boots the treasure chest 50-feet into the distance. Not only is that a hilarious mental image, but the gameplay implications of something like that could be really interesting and unique. The Fomoroid Crusher can already damage units near terrain by smashing the terrain and that is another ability that seems like it would fit giants quite well. I can imagine them collapsing ruins onto units, knocking trees in the forest onto people, or just knocking boulders down a hill. I just hope that this army is as interesting and fun regarding the rules as the models are going to be.
  2. Despite my great distaste for Elves - GW almost had me with Idoneth and all of the crazy sea creatures. But they did not go far enough with that theme for me to fully pull the trigger. But if they added stuff like huge abyssal Angler Fish, Octopus/Squid - and most importantly giant Crabs then I would have gone all-in. Titan Forge has a line of alternate Pirate Ogor models and not too long ago they expanded it with their "Raid on the Temple of Serpents" kick-starter. One of the ogor models was what looks like an alternate stone horn as a huge crab ridden by pirate ogors. As soon as they release that model for general sale outside of the kickstarter I will probably end up buying like 4 of them. I am also hopeful that one day GW makes a faction that is more insect themed and has big huge bugs. Spiderfang has that covered with big huge spiders, and Sylvaneth do have the giant Wardroth Beetle that Alarielle rides, but I would really like a faction that primarily emphasized a bunch of big weird bugs.
  3. Very nicely done. I really like how you handled the issue of Night Haunt's individually excellent models blending together too much as a full army by using different ghostly color accents. Your army still looks cohesive, but units and heroes still stand out from each other. I have a Night Haunt army that I need to complete one of these days and I will probably copy some of your ideas here. Well done! Congratulations on finally finishing an army as well.
  4. I enjoy all of my Orruk Warclans armies (I play all 3 allegiances) and it is a good example of where the subfactions all came out fairly well balanced - both for Ironjawz and for Bonesplitterz. They all add something interesting, useful, and unique, but they come at the cost of some very good core command abilities. But this book is very much in the minority. I think the subfactions are a good concept but poorly implemented most of the time. There is a tendency to make some of them absurdly good and with hardly any downside, and to make the majority of them just plain bad for the most part. I also think GW currently has an issue with trying to make too many choices for things like subfactions, command abilities, artifacts, mount traits, spells, etc. They often seem to feel the need to have to stuff 6-12 choices into a chart (occasionally they go with just 3) because that means you could roll a dice to randomly pick (what a stupid metric to feel constrained to) despite almost nobody ever using random generation. The end result is that they only have a couple truly good choices, a couple more decent ones, and then a ton of forgettable garbage that almost never gets used by anyone. Malign Sorcery has over 80 items and I bet that only about 8-10 get any serious use - with probably about 4-5 of them being the majority chosen options. They would do better trying to use more controlled design and stick to the more interesting & good choices. I would be perfectly fine if most tables only had about 3-4 options in them, but those options were well thought out and synergized with the army. Honestly, I am hoping that GW is starting a trend with how they are handling allegiance abilities with the Slaves to Darkness & Seraphon books having layered allegiances and if they continue with that trend then I really hope that the recent Seraphon book is the new template for how many armies are designed in regards to how allegiances & subfactions work together. I think they struck an excellent balance in designing interesting abilities & bonuses that chain in such a way that you don't have to balance out getting access to stuff that is not useful for how your army is generally built. Everything in the Seraphon book flows down from the slimmed down core faction allegiance, to the 2 specific sub-allegiances, and then to the subfactions which require you to have chosen a specific sub-allegiance in order to gain access. And then those subfactions sometimes warp the army construction rules - such as making Stegadons battleline. They worked the battalions in a similar manner and so what you get with just about any of your choices is a set of rules that does not have much dead-weight in it most of the time and feels very focused. I thought it was very well designed and I feel like a lot of armies could benefit both in terms of rules-effectiveness but also with expanded character & theme by moving towards a similar format whenever their books are reworked. For example, I think Gloomspite Gitz, Beasts of Chaos, Legions of Nagash, and Skaven would all end up improved if they used the allegiance-ability design from the Seraphon whenever they update those books. It lets the designers make a big-tent type of book while also making the specific niche build ideas have effective and characterful rules associated with them.
  5. I think most kits will be more than dual-kits. I expect that we will probably see roughly 3-5 new box kits and most of those will probably build at least 3 distinct unit types. I don't think GW is going to repeat the issue they have with the Fyreslayers where the army does not have enough variety in the model silhouettes and so the whole thing blends together visually on the table. I always found that to be a big shame as individually the Fyreslayer models all look terrific - but once you get a bunch on the table it is quite difficult to really tell what is what aside from adding visual distinction using paint-schemes. Even their Magmadroth models do not have enough pose variety and blend together (even though the kit has 2 different heads). Night Haunt also has a similar issue and really could have benefitted from alternating the size of the models in units a bit. From what I have seen GW seems to pay more attention to the visual variety and silhouettes of the units in armies now. I think they are well aware of the issue with the armies that lack visual variety and I expect they will make a concerted effort not to repeat that with this army. This army stands to be quite unique, and potentially very impressive, visually on the table as it will be comprised of a smaller number of big huge goons stomping about the table. One of the simplest ways to solve that would be to vary the size of the giants, which a lot of people are currently asking for, and I think we will see probably 3 basic sizes. I think we will see the core base troops as the smallest and the same size as the current Aleguzzler (including that kit if they intend to keep it). Those guys come on 90mm ovals - although I would not be surprised to see them rebased onto roughly a 60mm circle. I also think these will be able to form units. From there I expect that we will see the next size as about an 1-1.5 inches taller and standing on an 80mm base. This will probably be elite models and also be roughly the size for most of the hero choices. And the final size I expect will be very big and possibly the same size or larger than the Bonegrinder. This will most likely be double as a huge monster and probably also include a hero version in addition to some sort of special named character leader. I expect this kit will be on at least a 120mm oval base or possibly a 160mm if it is really big. If all of the gargant models in this army end up the same size (aside from including the Forgeworld Bonegrinder) then I feel that the army will begin to blend together. Varying the size is such an easy and obvious thing to do that I am sure GW has already done so.
  6. I have 2 of the Marauder giants (one painted and one still unpainted - lol), and I agree with you. The instant I saw that model in Fantasy I knew I had to get one and play the army it was for. Luckily for me it was in the Orc & Goblin army - which was an easy choice since I already had an Ork army in 40k that I had played since Rogue Trader. I put up a picture of my painted Marauder giant, Olaf the Red, on page 2 or 3 of this thread. To this day he is still one of my favorite models to put onto the table (even with the current Aleguzzler's less than stellar rules). A full all-giant army was something that I never really realized I wanted until I began to see the possibility in AoS with some of the armies that can take behemoths as battleline. Once it was possible for at least one army to do that I immediately felt that GW really should create a full army from Gargants. It is just such a cool potential theme and I think everyone from the rules writers, miniature designers, artists, and players could all have a whole lot of fun with this army. I honestly feel utterly spoiled by GW for Age of Sigmar. I was on the hate-train with a lot of people when they ended Warhammer Fantasy and started Age of Sigmar. But over time they have turned this into my favorite miniature game of all time. And GW has given me all of the things that I have REALLY wanted in Warhammer Fantasy since the 90s. I started Warhammer Fantasy with undead - back when all undead were combined into a single army book. The stuff that I really liked in the book was Nagash, Wights, Skeletons, Necromancers, Wraiths, and Ghosts. I am still waiting for Death Rattle to get expanded, but they brought back Nagash in a cool but not game-breaking way and with an amazing model. Then they created the all-etherial ghostly army that I wanted to play when I first began with the Night Haunt. I have probably around 100 Black Orc models from the Storm of Chaos campaign book days when you could play an all Black Orc army led by Grimgor. That concept was retired in the next edition and you could no longer run an army of all Black Orcs. But then in Age of Sigmar GW took that army concept and fully fleshed it out into the Iron Jawz army along with truly fantastic orc miniatures. Shortly after I started playing Warhammer Fantasy in the early 90s I found myself often playing more Goblins than Orcs in my army - to the point that I started playing all-goblins most of the time and have done so ever since. I love goblins in all sizes, but there is just something about Night Goblins that I really just love. GW then went and took what was a generally bad and highly-niche army built from a corner of a much larger book and spun it into a full blown stand-alone army. I still can't believe that Goblins are now their own separate army from the Orcs and I absolutely love it. Not only that, but they kept Spiderfang as their own force despite the previous 20 years of slowly removing Forest Goblins from the game. I have a ton of Trolls that I have collected over the years for my various Orc & Goblin forces and they made that a fully playable army as well. And then to top it all off they released a full line of the plastic squigs, squig hoppers, and manglers that I have always wanted them to make. I purchased the limited edition army book simply as a thank-you gesture to GW for making all of this. They also made the Savage Orcs their own force and gave them a really fun back-story where previously they were basically just a bunch of tribal idiots. I mean they still pretty much are tribal idiots but at least they are much more interesting tribal idiots. I have always gravitated towards the weirder armies in the margins of the game, or even the margins of a book. I had just about every permutation of full 2000pt army you could make from the Orc & Goblin army over the last ~25 years - with the exception of the all giant force you could make in 4-5th. I played it a few times by borrowing Giants from a few other local players and proxying some figures, but I did not have enough money to buy that many giants back then. And after those editions you could no longer field more than a couple. I really enjoy themed armies in just about any game and I really like it when the miniatures & abilities of an army make it a coherent themed whole. GW really has leaned into embracing themed armies in AoS. Not only do they now make very strong central themes for all of the armies, but they often also use interesting army-construction rules to encourage and aid people to have fun with going all-in on themed and interesting corners of books (like play an all Stegadon army). Now they are making an army of all giants and I really have no idea how I can be so lucky that GW has pretty much answered all of my wishes for Warhammer. The only other thing I can think of would be an all insect army with a bunch of big giant monster bugs.
  7. That announcement was everything I was hoping for with Sons of Behemat. It confirmed the army is all about gargants, the army is entirely composed of gargants, the army is for destruction, and the pictures showed that the model aesthetic is going to be an evolution to the current & older Giant models rather than some sort of civilized giants or something. I am thrilled. Back in the days of 4th & 5th ed Warhammer the Giant was purchased out of regiment points for the army (when army construction involved point-percentages) and so aside from the requirement to field a hero as a general you could play a whole army of giants. So if you wanted to you could field an army of 9 giants for 1800 points and then stick a hero like a Goblin shaman as your general. It was not generally a good army - but it was oh so much fun to play. I decided early on in Age of Sigmar that I really like how this game handles big stompy monsters and the one type of army that I want, but have not yet found, is an army of all big stompy monsters. There are a few out there that you can play such as Ogors, Flesh Eaters, and now Seraphon - but none of those all-monster options really appealed to me that much. The Seraphon all-monster army came close since it is all dinosaurs - but it was just not quite what I would want. But an army of all Giants (my all time favorite big Warhammer Monster) - sign me up for that! Everything about this army is now a day-1 purchase for me.
  8. I am hoping they are mindful of the impacts of putting too much damage reduction back into the game. It was the worst part about AoS v1. Stuff should die in a game like this and very few things should be ultra-durable. That said, I don't particularly mind the way this specific case is handled since it turns off once you force a few wounds through. So having a model where you are incentivized to whittle down with some spells/mortal-wounds before you commit an armor-cracking unit into melee is not a bad thing to have in the game. If this ability was active as long as the model is on the board then it would be very poor design in my opinion. In my experience the further you go into a particular edition of a miniature game the more rule-interactions like this you run into as they try to keep things fresh and explore design space. Eventually you start to reach a tipping point where a new edition is the best way to clean things up.
  9. I agree. However this seems very much like an overlooked case of how the core rules were written. Most likely they decided that the simplest route to go was to explicitly allow this mechanic in the errata instead of rewriting this part of the core rules. In an ideal world I think the core rules should not include this weird mechanic loop-hole based on a specific value of a core stat. Every value of a stat like armor-save should behave the same in the core rules. And then a mechanic like this should exist as a warscroll rule that can then potentially be turned off based on the behemoth damage chart (similar to how Kharadron Overlord ships lose access to some rules based on damage). This ruling feels a lot like something that was expedient and simple. I would not be surprised to see the core rules for armor saves & rend changed slightly whenever they write AoS 3.0 to eliminate this rules exception.
  10. I love it! If the whole army was designed to look like that then I would be much more interested in it.
  11. I typically hate elves of all kinds - especially traditional elves like Old World Warhammer Elves. That said, for the most part I like what they have done with elves in AoS for the most part (except the generic stuff in Cities). Sylvaneth were converted in fae nature demons. Daughters of Khaine took Witch Elves and leaned heavy into Greek mythology & aesthetic. Idoneth went in on crazy Aquaman-ish sea monsters (although I wish they had gone deeper with that theme). But, this is the first full AoS aelf faction that misses the mark for me - and that is because they are not leaning hard enough into the Yak/Cow theme. I love the giant Cow monsters, I love that they are pulling in more of an eastern visual theme, but to me they did not go far enough with that theme. The models all have good detail and are sculpted well. It is a nice blend of old high-elves and the new aesthetic. But I generally just don't like the old High Elf visual theme in the first place - so I would have liked less of that and more of crazy mountain-yak elves. But I also have enough armies currently and so if a new one misses the mark thematically/visually for my tastes then it's ok. I am sure others will like it and that is just fine. The only army that I would really like at this point in time is a true monster-mash army designed from the ground up for running a bunch of giant monsters (hopefully Sons of Behemat fills that niche for me).
  12. I remember a lot of people used various things like this in my area back when I played more Warmachine. Most people that I know picked up appropriately sized metal rings that they could lay on the table to define an area rather than a big flat marker. You can often find them in craft stores and they are pretty cheap. Here is a quick amazon search for some: https://www.amazon.com/Sntieecr-Macrame-Wedding-Catcher-Hanging/dp/B07Y87FPLH/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=12"+metal+ring&qid=1585081821&sr=8-4
  13. If hoarding a stupid amount of miniature kits for decades is wrong then I don't want to be right!
  14. What will I do without a constant and regular injection of new plastic kits? Don't tell me I am going to have to start digging into the model-kit reserves that I have been hoarding in my garage for the past ~30 years...
  15. I am ok with Gordrakk’s invasion being fended off by just about anyone - except elves. Especially elves fronted by Teclis - the most incompetent buffoon in both the old and new world. Seriously. Anyone but elves.
  16. What mixed list would you like to run if you had the models?
  17. Yeah, there are arms for each of the torsos and a few extra in the kit. However, the torsos for these models is a bit weird in that most of them have at least one arm on the body and then the weapon options are hand replacements. That said, this kit has a ton of parts in it and you will end up with spare heads, weapons, and arms for days. You won’t have a shortage of pieces to convert with. In addition, if you want to convert some extra big stabbas you should google big stabbas conversions. There are a lot out there and they are not hard. I have seen the banner/totem in the kit turned into a big stabba conversion and it can work pretty well depending on your skill. I made some extra ones myself and I bought a bag of like 100 random real shark teeth off ebay for a couple dollars (maybe $5) and they made great alternate spear-heads. So the conversion is pretty simple.
  18. I’m only disappointed because I was hoping for some new Bonesplitterz models - preferably an alternate hero sculpt (wardok please!). The entire bonesplitter range is from Warhammer fantasy 8th edition or older. The current wardok is one of the oldest sculpts that GW sells. He is from 6th edition Warhammer fantasy (possibly older). It is still a decent model, but wardoks are now a hero you are likely to use more than one of and I was hoping for an updated model. That said, it is easy to convert wardoks from the plastic savage Orruk kit so it’s not a big deal. These Ironjawz look great to me - so I am happy to have them.
  19. I agree. These guys all look great and to me the shirtless one with the bird skull mask is quite a stand-out. I’ll probably buy a couple of sets of these and convert some of them into alternate warchanters or weirdnobs.
  20. A single box currently contains 20 torsos and then enough bits to create 2 bosses, 2 musicians, and 2 standard bearers. In addition, you can also create 2 big stabbas but those use 2 torsos each. So if you build all of the stabbas from the box you can then also build 16 infantry of whatever type. So every 2 boxes gives you a unit of 30, 4 big stabbas, and 2 extra bodies you can do whatever with - such as convert them into heros like Wardoks. It is also possible to get the individual torsos on eBay for relatively cheap sometimes and use those to make the stabbas.
  21. I really like these models. I’m happy to get more Brute models. Having said that, I too was hoping for a Bonesplitterz warband and I am disappointed there is not one. My reason is that these Underworlds warbands usually have a hero model in them and I would really like a new plastic Bonesplitterz hero sculpt - preferably a Wardok. But alternate Brute models in more dynamic poses is great also. And each of these guys looks like they could work well for fun Warchanter conversions.
  22. I think that is pretty much what White Dwarf battalions are generally meant to be. I don’t think they usually intend for these to be top tier competitive and when they do end up that way it is probably wholly unintentional. I think these types of battalions are meant to be fairly narrative, explore a concept, and lean towards fun. In that regard I think this one is fine. At the least it is not bad in terms of the bonuses it gives. I would be pretty happy with this if it was about 150 points. But even at the current cost I think there are some interesting, and probably fun, army builds with the battalion. It’s obviously not the top tier choice around - but you can have fun games with this. I’m honestly considering modeling up a second Footboss to play with this.
  23. No. Because a normal move cannot end within 3” of an enemy model.
  24. You don’t have to fit the whole army into the single battalion.
  25. The more I look at Bossfist the more it seems to me that the intention should be to lean into and embrace the use of the bosses. That should be self-evident by the name, but it strikes me that a lot of our discussion about “what it should have been” are somewhat off base because we are looking at the footbosses as a tax rather than a center design of the battalion. Now, it could very well be the case that the battalion could be designed in a different way to make footbosses a more attractive option, but removing them does not seem like the right way to view the battalion. In addition, it could well be the case that the battalion as it stands is just not great - which would be a shame but is probably the case for over half the battalions in the game. I still contend that the base cost of the battalion is overly high - but I think that leaning into the footbosses as relatively cheap units with high offensive potential might be somewhat decent. If you can get artifacts on those heroes you could turn them into pretty decent blenders.
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