relic456

It's all relative I guess, depends which army you love. Which army do you play @rosa? Can talk about this more in that army's thread. You have to do what you think is right, but I would just add that FEC was a blip and was nerfed to sorta obscurity (highest placement was 33rd at the most recent Facehammer GT) , Slaanesh is an outlier if anything, and we don't have much info on Reapers yet! Spell eater seems super good, Maelstrom is only 10 points, easy to cast and easy to eat for a free heal/buff

Definitely should at least hang around until we see the points! We have so little info right now.

In the podcast/developer diary they mentioned one of the "Bonehosts" gives army wide +1 Save.

That'd be interesting! The article specifically says they generate Relentless Discipline rather than Command Points. Of course they may have a rule that says they're allowed to use Relentless Discipline points on abilities that normally require CPs. Notably the unit abilities they previewed said that they are still command abilities.

Yeah this analysis totally ignores the variance in the results, so if you don't actually need maximum damage but rather a consistent output (like in the situations you mentioned or on low health units), the rerolls might be the right choice.

@Skelebags The numbers might be off a bit, I did it pretty quick and dirty using the output from http://tools.druchii.net/index.php and may have fat-fingered something. I'll probably run through a Mystic Shield scenario too but I don't think it'll change much. Honestly, it might be a closer competition if it was +1 Damage OR +1 Rend or something. Edit: I assumed that the Stalkers are a three model unit, with one model wielding the Dread Falchion and the other two wielding the Spirit Blades

Any examples in mind? Or do you mean like say against a FNP save? I just ran the averages for when the Stalkers have -1 hit and -1 wound and +1 Damage/+1 Rend still blows the other options out of the water

Just did some quick napkin math but in what situations would you ever choose rerolling hits/wounds on the Stalkers when +1 Damage/+1 Rend is an option? I'll run it through assuming the Stalkers have a -1 hit or -1 wound to see if it makes a difference but I'm not sure it will, the lead is tremendous.

Also need to see what those sweet sweet point values will be!

Hot dang, that's some neat rules we just saw. Being able to keep your 6+ FNP without being locked to your heroes is a big deal isn't it? The Relentless Discipline points seem cool, though I'd want to know more about how they are generated before making any judgment calls. And it looks like the army (except the cavalry maybe) move pretty slow, 4" on the battleline troops. The Necropolis Stalkers choice of re-rolls ability seems really strong, taking the +1 save "stormhost" that's been teased that means you can have a 3+ reroll all anvil or go the offense route and have a hammer unit that has either 5 attacks 3/3/-2/2 or 5 attacks 3/3/-1/1 that rerolls all hits or wounds!

Not at all! Just a good ol' healthy discussion. And I probably wasn't clear, Slaanesh counts each wound that they do or that their hero receives as a Depravity point except for the wound that kills the model. So if they kill a 5 wound model in one hit, they gain 4 Depravity points if that makes sense. I haven't played against much IJ myself either so maybe after getting a few games in I'll come around to your line of thinking. Yeah I'm generally with you on RAW, I guess in this case it's just agree to disagree!

Whether their heroes or their target have taken any wounds (except the last one), which actually I think is easier in a "count down" world compared to "count up". You know you don't count the last pip as a Depravity point, no additional math or resources required. It's just an extra step, it feels inefficient. When you count down, you know just by looking at the dice how much damage you have to do. When you count up, you have to look at the number on the dice and then subtract it from the model's Wound characteristic, which if you haven't memorized means requiring an additional step of checking the warscroll on the app or asking your opponent. I agree for 2 and 3 wound units it's not that big of a deal, but when you're fighting multiple monsters and heroes it can be annoying, especially in a tournament where you're facing different armies back to back. Does that Bloodstoker have 5 wounds or 6? Does the Ghoul King have 14 or 12? Is Arkhan 13 wounds or 14? Maybe I'm overstating the issue (it is relatively minor) but it just seems so much easier to read the dice and know what you want to know, but that's just me!

It's funny because I usually land on being a RAW purist myself, so me flipping the script in this instance is interesting. Good call on the Orruk stuff, maybe if they become prevalent enough you'll see a shift in thinking? Though I think we both agree as long as you and your opponent are on the same page then it shouldn't matter too much.

Are those things happening more or less often than how I often I'm thinking about how much damage to do to a monster? I'm guessing not but it's early and haven't finished my first coffee so I could be forgetting something obvious beyond damage tables haha

Likewise, counting down tells me how much more damage I need to do at a glance, counting up means I have to memorize the units Wound characteristic (or constantly check the app) and then subtract the number I see from that.

I can't do both? 😉

My only experience has mostly been with Nighthaunt which just aren't hanging competitively at all. Legion of Grief makes an appearance here and there but straight Nighthaunt isn't even showing up anymore. NH and LoG didn't even make it on the top 65 at the Warhammer World GT, and at the most recent Facehammer GT the highest Nighthaunt was 67th and highest LoG was 9th (2nd highest was 76th). I'm more thinking about where the army will be 3-6 months from now, when people have time to iterate on lists, it'll be too difficult to discern how well the named hero fits in the competitive Ossiarch lists in just one night, unless he's super obviously bad/good but I think the balancing is more subtle than that these days.

The eternal struggle; preorder a box to guarantee you get the named hero but risk the army being awful rules wise (and stuck with half a box of Ogors 🤢) or hold off to see how the rules settle and risk that model being a must have and trying to trawl one up from eBay. Decisions, decisions.

Social contracts can be pretty subjective from LGS to LGS, you need to impose structure if you want to at least start having a conversation about competitive gaming. Looking at balance, I just wish that once all the armies are updated to the same edition there is less of "haves vs have nots". Remember when we thought Nighthaunt was a 2.0 battletome? Looking at things now it certainly feels closer to a 1.0 tome. I'm not sure how GW does their rule design but I would have hoped that they had ideas like activation wars, faction specific terrain and endless spells, and Stormhosts (hallmarks of 2.0 AoS) brewing for awhile, so why do we have such a huge gap? To be clear, I'm not saying that every AoS 2.0 army needs to check all of those boxes, but it'd be nice for each army to check a few! Especially when it comes to powerful abilities like modifying combat order. Instead it feels more like each army is designed only looking backwards, instead of forwards. As an example regarding activation wars we started with Idoneth (everyone fights first once per game-ish), to Nighthaunt (a unit can fight first if they get an unmodified 10 to charge), to FEC (activation wars with command abilities) and Slaanesh (passive abilities to force enemies to fight last). I'm also a salty NH player so take it all with a grain of salt.

Still a better run than NH got 🤣

Here's hoping! I too made the same mistake, picked up NH as my first army last Christmas after they had a solid showing in their initial tournament appearances. I know better now and will wait for the meta to settle to see if the rules make this army worth buying. I love Death, but it's pretty bleak these days. Doesn't hurt that these guys look a little less spindly too

Sadly no longer legal in Matched Play 😭

Blegh, no kidding! I was happy with them at 20, but it's only 100 points to bump them to 30 and I feel like that's better than some of the other options I was considering: -Another 10 Chainrasps -Another 5 Bladegheists -More endless spells (Purple Sun, Gravetide, Shackles) I could be way off though!

Agreed, my theory was that as long as the Dreadblade never winds up within 3" of an enemy unit, he can always bail them out from a unnecessary combat. That being said, I haven't had time to actually test that strategy so not sure how it holds up in reality.

My vote is also for the Pedant, movement is always a good thing. I'm considering signing up for a casual tournament in August and bringing a list like this: Allegiance: NighthauntMortal Realm: Hysh Dreadblade Harrow (90)- General- Trait: Ruler of the Spirit Hosts - Artefact: Aetherquartz Brooch Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lantern (140)- Artefact: Pendant of the Fell Wind - Lore of the Underworlds: Soul CageKnight of Shrouds (100)Kurdoss Valentian, the Craven King (200)Reikenor the Grimhailer (170)- Lore of the Underworlds: Soul CageSpirit Torment (120) 10 x Chainrasp Horde (80)10 x Chainrasp Horde (80)30 x Grimghast Reapers (420) 5 x Bladegheist Revenants (90)5 x Bladegheist Revenants (90)5 x Bladegheist Revenants (90)2 x Chainghasts (70) Shroudguard (110) Chronomantic Cogs (80)Malevolent Maelstrom (10)Total: 1990 / 2000Extra Command Points: 2Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 103 The idea is to generate as much CPs as possible to maximize charge rerolls and get WoT. I know Deathriders would be technically a better fit, but I'm not really sold on Hexwraiths and the Black Coach and don't feel like dropping the cash on them just yet. Any thoughts, comments, or criticisms? It's only 3 rounds and my goal is to win at least one, since it'll be my first tournament.