[Clarity on Ironjawz Mad as Hell]

Context means a lot.  In English, and many language, words and phrases derive part of their definition via context. 

Lets try another example.  Person A is convicted of a crime and part of their sentence is: “Person A must remain at least 100 feet from any schools or playgrounds”

Could this person now go onto school grounds or onto a playground and claim they are following the restriction because there is a different school or playground 10 miles away?

[Sons of Behemat Discussion 👣]

On 2/3/2020 at 1:30 AM, Kaleb Daark said:

that mantic giant is a thing of beauty..

The Mantic Giant is quite good.  I am also quite partial to the Heresy Giant - Mucklegeet:

https://heresyminiatures.com/shop/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_109&products_id=389
 

Giants have always been my favorite Warhammer monster and if there is a decent way to build a full giant army then it is a fantastic excuse to buy so many of the great 3rd party giants on the market - in addition to whatever fantastic models GW produces for this force.

[Sons of Behemat Discussion 👣]

This is very exciting!  Ever since this rumor came out old Olaf The Red has been bugging me non-stop for a fancy new round base.

[AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion]

@Malakree That list is not bad.  It would certainly be better with a second warchanter, but I might give it a go as is.  Although it is certainly not the best list to put together for dual Mawkrusha.

The more that I think about Da Boss Fist the more I am thinking that it might be good to lean into the 2 footbosses by trying to get artifacts on both of them and use them as cheap & offensive, albeit slow, units.  

I wonder if there is room to drop the second Mawkrusha and try to fit in an Ironfist.  You could also potentially drop one of the units of Brutes or just move it over to the Ironfist.  That would let you give an artifact to all 3 of the mega bosses and a free source of Mighty Deatroyers.

[AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion]

18 minutes ago, Kasper said:

I know you should never expect much from White Dwarf, but I was really hoping to finally play something else than Ironfist. The tax for this otherwise great batallion is just ughhh. 

It will be hard for anything to top, or even come close really, to the Ironfist simply due to what that battalion is.  It lets you fit just about all of the units in your army (regardless of type) and then effectively guarantees a free command every turn in an army designed around strong command abilities and starved for points.

You basically net between 2-5 free command points (not counting the one you get for including a battalion) and the only downside is that you have to use them to trigger Mighty Destoyers.  But that is easily the best command ability in the army and one you want to trigger every turn if you can anyways, so it is really not a negative at all.

On top of that the Ironfist lets you get access to Mighty Destroyers outside of the Ironjawz allegiance.  It would really be tough for GW to design another battalion that would compete with Ironfist.  
 

That said, at least all of the Ironjawz battalions are useful.  None are particularly bad - even these.  Ironjawz are pretty spoiled for battalions compared to many other armies  (including Bonesplitterz in the same book).

[AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion]

That would certainly be more interesting, but I don’t really mind the footbosses.  To me the prohibitive thing is requiring 2 footbosses AND a huge battalion cost.  
 

This battalion seems like a potentially fun way to run Brutes and also include some heroes in the battalion - which normally you can’t do.  This currently just does not seem like more than a 150 point battalion to me given the need to run 2 footbosses.

I may still give it a try since it does look fun to me.

[AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion]

I quite like Da Bossfist battalion.  I would easily use that one except for the cost.  It seems very overpriced.  It already has somewhat of a tax in the 2 Footbosses.  I could make that work since footbosses are quite decent apart from being slow, but 220 is just an absurd cost.

[AoS 2 - Bonesplitterz Discussion]

So has anyone had any experience with the new Bonesplitterz army and fighting against Ossiarch Bone Reapers?  A friend of mine from the days of Warhammer Fantasy has finally decided to come around to AoS and he picked up the new Bone Reapers army because he thought the models look cool (I can't ever argue with that line of thinking).  So far I have only played a quick & dirty 1000pt battle with him to show him the rules.  I did not bring a very optimized force and we only played the basic kill each other starter scenario - but it did not go well for Bonesplitterz.  Does anyone have experience playing against OBR with Bonesplitterz?  Our overall lack of rend seems like in general this is just going to be a pretty unpleasant match-up.

[The Rumour Thread]

34 minutes ago, mikethefish said:

Indeed, I kinda wish they were similar to Gloomspite, where instead of being combined with Troggs and Spiders, the Deepkin instead have like giant crabs, or Fishmen as allied subfactions

Sold!!

[AoS 2 - Spiderfang Grots Discussion]

So I was reading through the various errata that they put out the other day and the general rule about battleline behemoths not counting toward behemoth limits in general got me thinking about Spiderfang a bit more (along with the point adjustments).

What would people think about having the non-character Arachnarok options becoming conditional battleline options with a Spiderfang general?  I don’t know if it would necessarily be good - but it seems like it could be a lot of fun.  Anyone else have thoughts on that?

[AoS 2 - Orruk Warclans Discussion]

2 hours ago, Malakree said:

Except they don't actually say that. They say the damage doesn't count towards the 3 damage taken in the first players turn.

Again leaving ambiguity.

Yeah I am with you about the rules ambiguity being an issue.  There is a lot of crusty spots like that in the rules.  For instance the whole activation wars thing is problematic given that they did not design the combat phase with clearly identified sub phases that rules could key off of. Hopefully they rework that whenever AoS 3 comes along.

But on a positive note I would say that with AoS GW is doing a better job with crafting an altogether well designed rule-set than they did in the past.  Hopefully they look at how other companies build rule systems and take some of the better ideas.  

[AoS 2 - Orruk Warclans Discussion]

I like the new Ardfist much better.  It’s obviously not going to be for everyone, but I like it.  To me this battalion feels like it supports a heavy Ardboyz army better than the original.  I like that it allows potential recycling of units of every size rather than just bringing back 10 each time.

And it was obvious that GW was going to hit this with an errata simply due to fielding units of 5 and then recycling them back onto the board as units of 10.

My only complaint is that I would have preferred  it if they made the roll to recycle easier for smaller units or allow multiple attempts in the case of failures.  Or simply remove the roll entirely since you already use a command point and have to have the Warchanter still alive.  I see nothing wrong with this just working like a mini grave-site from LoN.

But at the end of the day I still prefer this version to what was printed in the book - and that obviously slipped through playtesting.

[The Rumour Thread]

18 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

I hope he actually conquers the varanguard and Archaon must flee to chamon. This way the narrative would not be stuck again (I hate when they only ever have MCGuffin wars that change nothing, more courage GW!)

I would bet on a MCGuffin war sort of plot narrative in this case.  If they make a Death invasion of Allpoints the narrative for the next major expansion then my money is on the end state of that invasion being a stalemate.  I would expect GW to end it with Katakros conquering a portion of the Allpoints and establishing a foothold, maybe controlling a few gates, and building some large fortifications.

But he would not be able to conquer and push chaos out and the same goes for Archaon and chaos fighting off the worst of the onslaught but in the end having to concede some amount of ground.

The end state will be chaos no longer fully controlling the Allpoints and Death establishing a foothold.  From there the narrative will be positioned with Chaos weakened in the Allpoints just enough that other alliances can start pushing in and they can use that as the next major location for all out combat between all the factions.

And I would not be surprised if the narrative reason that neither Katakros or Archaon could fully win the battle for the Allpoints ends up being a massive invasion of Destruction forces shows up spoiling for a good fight and crashes the party.  That would tie together most of the new books that just released.

[AoS 2 - Bonesplitterz Discussion]

1 hour ago, Neomaxim said:

Dude... Big Waaagh is awesome in Big Waaagh.  I'm not disagreeing with you, more doubling down on how crazy good I think that Allegiance is going to be over time, period!  🙂

I feel that all 3 allegiances are good and have their selling points.  It depends upon what you want to do with an army list as to which allegiance in the book you will choose.  In regards to purely bonesplitterz I feel that both the Big Waaagh and the Bonesplitterz allegiance offer good tools and allow for more diverse army builds - which is a good thing.

[AoS 2 - Bonesplitterz Discussion]

On 11/8/2019 at 4:43 PM, GriinWan said:

@Zappgrot Idol has both Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz keywords now.

I was always a bit lukewarm on the Rogue Idol previously.  I love all big stompy things and the Rogue Idol was never a bad monster - but he just fit oddly into any army I previously had for his cost.  That said, I love the concept behind the Idol.

He changed very little aside from gaining the orruk, ironjaw, and bonesplitterz keywords but those allegiances changed in a number of significant ways and now the Idol is fully a part of every allegiance in the Warclans book.  That has a significant impact on him.  It goes to show you the simple power of keywords in the way that AoS is now designed.

I don’t think the Idol is the best unit available to Warclans but he is now by far my favorite.  Stand alone units that don’t have much need or ability to get outside boosts or alterations are fine, but I personally enjoy units that can be altered or changed by army construction and outside abilities and the Rogue Idol is the single unit available to Warclans that can both give and receive abilities from all parts of the book and even from allies.

There is a lot of very interesting and fun stuff to do with him no matter what portion of the Warclans book you are using and so I find myself constantly thinking about including him now - and often in multiples.

[AoS 2 - Bonesplitterz Discussion]

19 hours ago, thediceabide said:

So if someone were crazy enough to start Bonesplitterz today, what advice would you have for them?

It seems like the Kunnin’ Rukk is still pretty popular, but I’ve heard of people doing quite well with the Icebone warclan. It seems like 2 boxes of boys (making 30 boys, 4 big stabbas, and 2 Wardokks) , two boxes of pigs (maniaks), plus a handful of characters might be an economical start to a decent list.  

For a small force like that I would build the boyz as Morboyz with 2 weapons.  I think that is probably the safest equipment option for a hypothetical new book.  Morboyz are already a decent unit within Bonesplitterz and it seems very likely that they will remain so.  I think a commonly held opinion is that it is likely that a new book will move Bonesplitterz back to being a rather melee heavy horde army.  It is hard to say how good Arrer Boyz will be or if they will even remain as a battleline option.  It is also hard to say what GW will do with the standard Savage Orruk unit (the ones with shields) as that unit needs a rewrite to be useful.  They might nail it, or they might end up as niche as they currently are.  Morboyz are sort of a middle-ground unit right now and I expect that if the book makes melee builds more prominent for this army that Morboyz will be a big part of that.  Arrer boyz are the better unit right now, and the Kunnin Rukk is the strongest current build, but we don't at all know how viable those things would be in a new book.  They could be amazing, or they could completely remove the Kunnin Rukk.  If you look at the current version of the Kunnin Rukk it has half of it's abilities dedicated to movement and it could very well be the case that they keep the battalion but reduce/remove the shooting bonuses and make it more about movement shenanigans.  Honestly we just don't know.

I think your safest bet is to not go too fully into building a specific niche force and rather just pick up a small "sampler platter" style force.  That will most likely minimize the impact that a drastic change to how the army works would potentially have on your force.

[AoS 2 - Ironjawz Discussion]

Looks like I will need to get some more Ard Boyz then.  I only have about 120ish right now.

[AoS 2 - Gloomspite Gitz Discussion]

2 minutes ago, novakai said:

well sadly, early preview suggests that Dispossessed allegiance abilities are just a copy paste from last year. from what I can tell only Ironjawz and Seraphon got updates like Spell lore and reworked battalions.

Well not a big deal then.  The only real use for a Dwarf is to scalp their beards to make belts or capes anyways.  And to feed the rest to the squigs of course.

[AoS 2 - Bonesplitterz Discussion]

On 6/14/2019 at 12:08 PM, novakai said:

I am not sure if that comment felt a bit snarky but i am optimistic that no change mean that Bonesplitterz or Ogors tome maybe coming before the end of the year or within the coming  months

I called it before that Bonesplitterz is the next Destruction book and that we would probably also see either a combined ogor or just a Gutbusters book as well this year.  I think this article about the GHB nailed down this rumor/suspicion.

Unless GW just wants to troll players there is no realistic reason to not adjust the points of Bonesplitterz and Gutbusters as those allegiances are down around the bottom of the pack.  Not adjusting the points for any of the units only makes sense if they are dropping a new book and making some big changes.  I expect warscroll changes.

[AoS 2 - Bonesplitterz Discussion]

On 5/30/2019 at 12:06 PM, Requizen said:

Bonesplitterz don't have any Priests, so Prayers don't make sense. Unless they make Wardokks into Priests, but then would they stop being Wizards? I think that's pretty unlikely. 

Priest is simply a keyword that a few things interact with.  Prayers are simply a mechanic framework for a different way to give non-spell buffs.  Some armies have priests that use prayers, but not all armies that use the prayer mechanic use priests.  For example the Gobbapalooza non-wizard models all use the same rules as prayers for their special buff abilities.  They simply named them gobbapalooza-know-wotz rather than a prayer.  But if you look at the basic mechanic it is the same.

So there is no reason that they could not use the same mechanic for a “Ju-Ju” dance buff ability.  And there is no reason that a wizard model cannot have another ability.

[AoS 2 - Gloomspite Gitz Discussion]

They may have seriously overhauled the dispossessed allegiance in the book and that may warrant the slight increase.  I am pretty sure that Dispossessed was listed as one of the couple allegiances with a large allegiance overhaul in a previous community article.  The point adjustment article is just a teaser.  We will have the full picture next Saturday when the book releases.

[Alternative for Ardboyz]

37 minutes ago, NeoA said:

Wow, thank you so much, that's exactly what I was looking for. 

Sure thing.  I have bought Orc/Ork parts from just about every 3rd party manufacturer out there - so I have a fair bit of experience with the different sizes, styles, and quality.  One thing to note about Spellcrow is that the products that are named "bulky" are basically designed for a 40k Ork Nob.  I am sure you could get away with using them on Ardboyz as they are a bit bulkier than standard orcs, but those heads are probably somewhere in between the size of a standard unhelmeted Ardboy and a Brute.  They may be a bit closer in size to the Brute.  So suffice to say, they use the term bulky for a reason.  I am sure they would work fine but I just wanted to point that out before you purchase just in case.

In regards to quality, I have a lot of heads from different manufacturers and Spellcrow are one of the best ones in terms of quality.  There is usually not much clean-up required and miscast parts are rare in my experience.  So they get a thumbs up from me in terms of quality.  Kromlech and MaxMini have some really great sculpts (both of them make really excellent alternative tribal heads that work great with Bonesplitterz), but they can sometimes have more flash and clean-up.  I still recommend either of those manufacturers as well if you like any of the styles they offer.

[Shifting Model Number Bonuses]

14 minutes ago, Vextol said:

Oh I agree you wouldn't want it to be every unit.  Too messy.  But I feel like we definitely need to have more "situationally good" unit quantities that aren't based solely around the idea of "more is probably better but I can't afford it". 

I also like the concept that a unit might not just get strictly worse as it takes casualties but may gain some abilities and potentially shift roles.  For instance, a unit that has increased combat bonuses for larger size might gain some speed and maneuverability as it gets smaller and so maybe early on a unit like this is better used to attack the enemy or hold a critical position, but after sustaining casualties it becomes better suited to quickly hunting down other small units or running off to secure distant objectives.  This reminds me a bit of the concept used for the Mangler Squig where his degradation chart is the worst in the middle but then goes back up the closer to death he gets as he begins to frenzy.  There seems like a lot of interesting ways to use an idea like this.

[Shifting Model Number Bonuses]

This is a pretty interesting idea I have to say.  I don't think it could or should apply to every unit, and you would probably want to make sure that adding benefits like this makes for compelling choices rather than simply becoming the default/preferred/best choice.  But on the whole I think you have a pretty good idea on your hands here.

[The Rumour Thread]

2 hours ago, Kramer said:

Oh I care! Only two people left to go  

That’s great forgot about the city stuff. I not only am building a ruined city for Skirmish but also have this campaign idea where we start big with a siege, go smaller inside and end up with a skirmish game. (Matching the decline of concentration and speed of playing during a day, inspired by a podcast that I can’t remember the name of)

The arcane objectives might give some nice inspiration but I can’t see myself using them with regular battle plans and then roll. Just like realmscape features it adds so much more to deal with. 

The regiments of renown is great. I currently look at the path to glory rules but this would ease that up immensely for some factions. And great for linked battles. 

Edit: This might actually be the reason to get it hard copy instead of digital. 

Edit 2: oh man the city thing could be amazing with city rules. Vanguard moving in scouting, second wave following up calling in the heavies in the third wave where needed. 😍

The things they mentioned in this article all sound like fun additions to the game.  I am looking forward to trying a number of these out.