Skabnoze

It might be worth it at this point for GW to consider splitting Stormcast into a few smaller allegiances based on Chambers - like space marines and chapters. I am sure some will disagree, but I really like the smaller type of themed allegiances that GW has been making (the ones with battletomes so far) such as Sylvaneth, Kharadron Overlords, Daughters is Khaine, etc. They are small enough that you collect most or all of the faction easily but large enough that you can make a few different types of armies. They also seem to have a bit more space for expansion of a few models but they really don’t need much more (a few could use a bit more choices - like more Ironjawz heros). But with what it would take to collect the majority of a faction in 40k you could collect a few allegiances in Age or Sigmar and I like that. I don’t really care for the huge monolithic factions.

Buy a giant Spiderfang army next. Help us @bsharitt, you are our only hope...

I think that is part of it, but I also think that Arcane Shield was simply too good of an ability for a generic spell. It was fine in the majority of cases, but there are a number of interactions where that spell is just over the top. It was probably distorting some of the design space. Flat armor boost abilities should be targeted in regards to what they can interact with and who gets them in my opinion. I think the Mystic Shield change is a good one.

This was my thought as well. The only two factions that already exist, or did in Warhammer Fantasy, that this would visually fit in with would be Goblins or Skaven. It looks too well crafted and also too slim for anything Orc - so I would rule out Ironjawz and Greenskinz. It does look like it could be for Moonclan since it is fairly similar to the Warboss on Giant Squig's sword. If this is Moonclan then it is an interesting shift in design though - since so far they have not had the same oddly faceted blades that Orcs have started to get.

I think GW trying to broaden their audience and expand their reach is a good thing. It means expansion of the player-base, which means more people to play against. Sure, in this case they may be young kids and we may not always want to play games against young kids. But kids get older and if this means that further down the road there is a larger group of players for me to play against then I am all for it. And a bigger pool of young players means they have more options to play games against people their own age - and as a parent I approve of this as well. As an example, the other day I played in an event at my local GW store that had us bring a single monster and play in a silly free-for-all monster battle. It was horribly unbalanced (hello Archaon) but still fun. I chose to bring a Giant (never get used to calling them Aleguzzler Gargants). I brought the old metal Marauder Giant model. I painted that thing in 1997. My model was painted when some of the other players in the event were infants (one player was barely one year older). The point is that if you play long enough those kids may grow up into regular opponents.

Looking at the rules previews so far, nothing is really a big change to the game. GW made a lot of noise with the initial announcement about making all sorts of changes across the game to make this the greatest mostest amazingest bestest ever game, but we should remember that this is a product and it is their job to market it. I think a lot of us, myself included, got the mindset that there was going to be some big shake-ups, but the reality is that it is starting to look like any changes to the core rules are much closer to a small iterative evolution than a big refactor. While this is billed as Age of Sigmar v2.0 I am getting the feeling that we are looking at something closer to Age of Sigmar v1.2 - which is fine. So far all of the changes I have seen have been improvements - they were just smaller than I expected. I think we can temper expectations for anything else earth-shattering in the core rules. We will see some small tweaks to the way things work now and thats probably it. Having said that, small changes can sometimes have a very large impact. But in terms of big changes I think the new magic will be a bigger change than most anything and that system will probably be an optional module (although most likely a standard part of matched play). I would expect that the new point rebalancing & allegiance abilities in the next GHB will end up having just as much of an impact on the player landscape as any of the changes to the core rules. So, for those who really like the edition exactly as it is - it feels like you are probably just fine because core rules are not going to change this to really look different than it currently is. And if you are in the camp where you like the game but dislike certain parts of it, those parts won't go away but they may get tweaked to be a bit more palatable for you.

You are correct in that it is more flexible and reactive. That is a positive. But you get less of the effect since it only lasts for that phase rather than the whole round for what is essentially the same cost. I’m not saying it is bad. I can’t say whether it is better or not without actually playing games with the full system and we don’t have the full rules picture. It could end up better, or worse, or just a side-grade. But I am a bit worried about the new command point system for armies that lack any battalions. Hopefully they put in something to balance that out and we just have not seen it.

I would hope so, because this move really hurts those armies that do not have battle tomes. As a grot player I have no real access to extra command points unless they add in some battalions or some other method to get more. Also, the change to inspiring presence means that you basically get half of the effect that you currently do (it only works for a single battleshock phase and not the whole round), but you do gain the ability to trigger it exactly when you will need it rather than having to guess ahead of time. A more granular strategy for Inspiring Presence is nice, but we will have to see if that balances out getting less of it.

Honestly, we are doing the math wrong in regards to the chance to win the priority roll. This is not an actual 16% increase. True, there is a ~16% chance to encounter a tie, but with the current rules each player has a 50% chance to win that tie as you demonstrate in the math lesson above. Approximate math is close enough for this discussion (again, as you displayed) and so currently everyone has a 18/36 chance to win any turn roll off. That has now shifted so that the player who went first in the previous battle round has a 21/36 chance to win (~58.3%) and the player who just had a turn has a 15/36 chance to win (~41.6%). So this is really an 8% shift in practical results. 8% more is still more, and something is better than nothing. That said, this sort of rule is the kind of thing that is a small footnote in rules sections and most of the time forgotten. This is a lot of noise being made about something that is still pretty trival in the grand scheme of the game. The rule that says you add +1 to bravery for every 10 models in a unit has more impact on a game and I find that most of the players I meet forget that rule even exists. I'll take it, but I am a bit disappointed because I was hoping for a more interesting and meaningful change.

Thats not really true, since your first result assumes that you lose in the case of ties - which is not the case and you simply reroll. If you simply napkin math the reroll as a 50% chance to win then you have 18/36 vs 21/36 - which goes right back to the 16% increased success chance. I'll take anything that makes the chance of double turns lessened, but this particular rule mechanic change is so small I can't really get excited about it. That said, it's better than the current rule so I'll take it - I'm just not doing backflips over it. I was hoping for something that had a bit more thought and tactics to it.

Correct. My brain failed me and I treated the events as linked when the roll off is effectively a distinct pair. It is still a rare enough event that it will impact the odd game here or there but on the whole not really make a difference in the grand scheme of things. In regards to tactics, it is only worth considering on the rare occasions when it pops up. It's like the 40k roll a 6 and seize the initiative thing. It happens, but not enough to care one way or the other most of the time.

I was a bit disappointed by this to be honest. They made it sound like there was some more tactical depth to this, but the chance of a tie on priority roll is very low (roughly 16%). Our brains tend to prioritize outlier results and we all have anecdotes and memories of these sorts of ties (sure, they do happen), but in actuality this rule change is extremely trivial. It reminds me of all of the "roll a double on charge" rules that litter the various goblin warscrolls and are effectively worthless abilities since they will trigger so infrequently unless there was some way to adjust dice rolls - which does not exist for these units.

I agree with your other points, but personally I would loudly cheer the death of I-go-you-go. Everyone has their own opinion on this, but after having played many many tabletop games since the late 80s - I really just don't like I-go-you-go much anymore. I greatly prefer alternate-activation style systems (which Age of Sigmar already does in the combat phase), and even more I prefer interesting takes on the turn system like how X-wing or now Star Wars Legion handles it. Your mileage may vary.

It is the new 40k Keeper of Secrets...

They could add it, but I don't want a full combat phase overhaul. Comparing the close combat phases of both games, the one feature that stands out that I like the most is how in Age of Sigmar anyone within 3" can pile in and make attacks - even if it is not their own turn. That one single thing is huge and really means that you have a lot of tactical depth for combat due to how you position units to support one another. I think that 40k would benefit from gaining that mechanic and I do not want to see it removed from Age of Sigmar.

That was my thought as well. I was starting to wonder if GW was going to phase out artillery since to my knowledge all of the artillery units have been carry-overs from WFB and nothing has specifically been made for Age of Sigmar.

Shadespire is not the only place you get scenic bases. While they don’t always make them, there are a number of cases where they have. For example, a bunch of the big Deepkin models have scenic underwater coral reef bases. Both versions of Morathi have a scenic base. Also they have made scenic bases in starter sets before. Some of th models from the Battle For Skulls Pass starter set years ago had scenic bases. The Troll in that box had his own scenic base and so did the Spider Riders - who had a webbed-forest sculpted on their cavalry bases. It works well with push-fit mono-pose models as can be seen with Shadespire also.

Darkoath seems very much like an Age of Sigmar version of the Norse Marauders from the old world. It strikes me as very fitting direction for the non-Everchosen Slaves of Darkness. There has not been much Darkoath yet, but what there is feels very much like it is borrowing hard from Frank Frazetta and Conan - which I think is great and fits the setting very well.

That only happened for the last couple of editions. Historically the starter sets have contained the full book. Now the core rules for both games are only a couple of pages so I expect that the Age of Sigmar starter will have a full book. The fluff that GW has added to Age of Sigmar actually makes it a pretty interesting setting but way too much of it is locked in highly expensive campaign books. They really need to compile the main parts of the background into a new core book and I suspect that they will do that with this new starter.

Now you have me wanting actual Hippos in the game! Seriously. If GW was to add something like the giant Hippo beastman from Mierce Miniatures then I would dump tons of money on it!

The bases look too plain for that to be a Shadespire Warband.

that Stormcast hero mount looks like he has been hanging out with Alex the Lion...

40k core rules are only about 8 pages if you do not include the various army construction & scenario rules. I doubt that Age of Sigmar would go much beyond that.