Inquisitorsz

No worries. I'm a bit of a rules lawyer so I enjoy these debates a bit too much.... though I'd usually err on the side of RAW.... but GW does RAW so badly that I find a 50/50 mix of RAW/RAI works best lol. I'd say most big event TOs would be aware of these kind of issues but I agree Tzeentch players should seek clarification. At the end of the day it doesn't really matter one way or the other, as long as all players know which way to play it. The problems stem from confusion and arguments not from the rule being either A or B.

My interpretation is mainly based on how badly GW often writes rules. They don't write in absolutes. So just because they specify something as "unmodified" except X,Y,Z... that doesn't automatically mean that X,Y,Z are modified by default. Logically I agree that's how it seems, but in most games and rules I've seen (even outside GW), you always have to go by what is EXPLICITLY written, not what is implied or omitted. The die has to be modified by something. The act of replacing a roll with a destiny dice isn't a modification in and of itself. For example, if the rule said: "In addition, any rolls that have been replaced (with the exception of save rolls and battleshock tests which count as modified) count as unmodified rolls and cannot be re-rolled or modified further" Then I would 100% agree with you as it's explicitly stated. That's also why they specifically say that destiny dice cannot be re-reolled. The core rules already say that rerolled dice cannot be rerolled again. They could have said that a replaced dice counts as being rerolled. But instead they chose to word it in such a way that it doesn't count as rerolled, but can't be rerolled either. The wording was updated in such a way to allow battleshock and save roles to be modified after the replacement, while the other rolls can't be. I think they simply forgot that the Icon Bearer referred specifically to "unmodified". That's common problem when a normal descriptive word like "modified" is also used as a keyword. It can easily get mixed into the wrong places or pop up in the wrong part of a sentence. I also often look at how else the rule could be worded and if that changes the intent or not. For example, if the rule said "In addition, any rolls that have been replaced count as unmodified rolls and cannot be re-rolled or modified further (with the exception of save rolls and battleshock tests)." Where the brackets are now at the end of the sentence instead of in the middle.... which then leads directly into the next sentence detailing how battleshock and save rolls are different, you could easily argue that the "except" part refers to the "modified further" part of the sentence in this case. I actually think that's how the rule should be worded. The existence of the next sentences is also important. It's not really necessary, but it further clarifies exactly HOW save and battleshock tests can be further modified. It says: "If you spend a Destiny Dice to replace a save roll, the result of that Destiny Dice is modified by the Rend characteristic of the attack as normal. If you spend a Destiny Dice to replace a battleshock test, the result of that Destiny Dice is modified by the number of models slain from that unit as normal." So going by that... if you replace a battleshock test, it can be modified by the number of casualties... but it can't be modified by any other abilities (like add 1 to the battleshock roll of enemies within X) and can't be rerolled. Similarly, a save roll can be modified by the rend of a weapon, but not by being in cover or a spell/prayer etc.... Having that extra sentence explicitly states what can modify the destiny dice. Ergo.... only specific things can do it and thus I'd argue it doesn't count as a normal modified or unmodified dice, at least until something actually modifies it. Whether or not that's intended is up to GW to clarify. But really we're getting very deep into semantics and grammar here. It seems like the GW Facebook responses went one way then got deleted so we'll probably have to wait for an official FAQ update. Like I said, I agree the FAQ wording was poorly written. I am basing the Icon Bearer rule on the fact that a destiny dice of 1 has always returned models in the past (and what I wrote above). It's pretty much the only thing that makes destiny dice of 1s useful. But I'm happy to be 100% wrong too.

The FAQ says: "In addition, any rolls that have been replaced (with the exception of save rolls and battleshock tests) count as unmodified rolls and cannot be re-rolled or modified further." and "If you spend a Destiny Dice to replace a battleshock test, the result of that Destiny Dice is modified by the number of models slain from that unit as normal.’" The Pink Horror Icon Bearer says: "If the unmodified roll for a battleshock test for this unit while it includes any Pink Horror Icon Bearers is 1, you can return D6 slain Horrors of Tzeentch models to this unit, and no models from this unit will flee in that battleshock phase. " So using a destiny dice of 1 is still "unmodified" and triggers the Pink Horror banner, which then stops the rest of the battleshock calculation. The part in the brackets just means there's further clarification for those specific cases. They should have worded it differently, to avoid using the words "with the exception of" but GW has never been overly clear with their wording. I can see how it's confusing, perhaps GW needs to clarify the wording, but i believe the intent is for destiny dice of 1 to still work with the icon bearer.

Yeah I agree, but I think it's more likely that other "unmodifed" stuff will cause similar issues in the future, rather than the other way around. In theory, wording the base rules correctly should always be better than creating a bunch of exceptions every time a problem pops up. That way you're not just adding to a list of exceptions every new book that comes out. Maybe this is rare enough that it doesn't matter.... but I see lot of potential in the future for similar issues. I guess changing the core rules for Rend, may effect how Ethereal works.... since that specifically calls out "modifiers" to save rolls.... I'd have to look into it further. Perhaps it would break more than it solves.

Well that's why I asked the question because maybe we've always been doing it wrong.... but seeing as it happened to me in every single game at Cancon recently, I just assumed that was normal. I'll go hunting for the rules in a minute and see what I dig up. Well... I looked through the core rules, GHB2019 and all the relevant errata/FAQ. I can't find anywhere that says Battalions can be dropped as a single deployment... and therefore can't find whether or not the units within can be split out during deployment. Can anyone point me to the relevant rule? I think maybe this was something in AOS1.0 that people just carried over without realizing it's gone now? Maybe? EDIT: Disregard, @Kirjava13 quoted the rule above (Page 240 btw). I'm not sure why my first search through the book didn't find the whole section on warscroll battalions lol. Seems pretty clear - "You can set up SOME or all of the units for a battalion at the same time. So my original point stands... if you're getting to pick first turn regardless, the opponent should at least get to counter-deploy properly.

Because the problem isn't in the DoT book wording... The problem is the core rules using the very specific word "modified" for battleshock and rend. It's actually pretty easy for rules writers and play testers to overlook simple interactions like that when it's a basic rule you've known off by heart for years. You simply don't (and can't) re-read every single word of rules text to make sure your one new sentence doesn't break something. Like if you're writing code, you can run the program and test every line and every interaction, and yet bugs still exist in software because of the huge number of potential interactions. You can't easily test every line of AoS rules every time there's a new line added.... at least not with limited GW and playtest man power. What you can do is release it, and see if any of the 10,000+ users find a problem. Which we did. And fix it. I'm usually the first to attack sloppy rules writing. But in this case, it's pretty evident that it was an easy to miss interaction. Especially if you're play testing it as the writer, knowing full well what the intent was. I'm actually surprised they put 2 special exceptions in the DD wording, instead of just updating the core rules to not count battleshock and rend as modifiers. As for why, changehost was deemed ok with 2 free teleports initially... I dunno... that's the sloppy kind of writing or lazy play testing. It's likely they probably just don't do enough of it. There are after all 7 subfactions and like 10+ battalions on top of the 20+ units in just this one book. That being said, it was pretty clear even on paper after a quick read through the book how strong that ability was. I don't have an answer for that.

Slightly off topic - My only issue with 1 drop armies is that you get full flexibility. You ask your opponent how many drops they have, then just match that -1 So you might end up doing 7 alternating drops, then put down your last 2 units at once and still finish deploying first. I really hate that. If you're getting the advantage of choosing first turn, you're going to have to put down your whole army and let me counter-deploy properly. I'm not even sure if that's how deploying battalions works (I'm usually the guy with 9+ drops). But that's how everyone I've played against does it. Back on topic I'm happy with the Tzeentch changes. I would have perhaps preferred Changehost to cost a CP as most other armies that have a wide open teleport like that have to pay for it. I guess it is a 180pt battalion so maybe that's cost enough? Time will tell I guess. I'm just glad Destiny Dice make sense now.

Eidolon head and weapon swap was my default thought. Not too sure what to do about the water cape, could potentially fill all the watery parts and turn it into a big flat cloak. It would be a pain to paint nicely but you could do some crazy freehand on it. Perhaps you could blend the cloak/wave thing into the sphinx's wing? you could probably get away with just replacing Teclis' legs and reposing the arms. The pants seem to be one of the worst aspects of the miniature. I'd have to read the lore on the monster a bit to make a decision there, but could probably get away with literally any other monster head. Stormcast Tauralon could make a good sphinx replacement or maybe the Lord Aquila hypogryph. Perhaps maybe slap some wings on the chaos Sphiranx. Or maybe just put the Sphiranx head on Teclis's kitty. Depends on the size a bit. That being said, converting these large models get's pretty expensive if you need to buy 2 or more $100+ kits to make it happen.

I think you'll find most artifacts specify "model" not "unit" so even if you give the unit an item, it's effect will probably only work on 1 of the 3 Varanguard. And weapons say things like "pick one of the bearer's melee weapons", so again I think this would refer to a single model and a single weapon profile not the whole unit. The text also implies that there's a special 'bespoke" artifact table, so maybe they'll only be allowed items from there, Which may be worded differently.

I wrote a quick summary on the previous page but I can do a more detailed write up later today if you like. EDIT: Here's a quickly wall of text dump of a write up for you. Little bit of background first. I finished painting my base army at 3am the night before Cancon. This meant that I didn’t have any extra summoned units. No dryads, no hunters, no extra forests. I had 2 old custom citadel woods and that’s all I used throughout the tournament. Turns out having a 4 month old at home really eats into your hobby time. So with that, I wasn’t expecting too much. I was just happy to actually get an army onto the table. This would also be my first ever games with Sylvaneth… I think they last time I played an AoS game was at another tournament back in March 2019 with my Nighthaunt…. I don’t get to play much lol. This was the list. Keep in mind that the whole tournament was played in Ghyran, so we had access to the whole spell lore. The damage spells there are pretty terrible, but Mirrorpool and Flesh to Stone are great for Alarielle and Drycha. That was the main reason I chose Drycha over Durthu. If not for the realm, the list would have been a bit different. That being said, Drycha was probably my MVP. Allegiance: Sylvaneth - Glade: Winterleaf Alarielle the Everqueen (600) - Deepwood Spell : Throne of Vines Drycha Hamadreth (320) - Deepwood Spell : Regrowth Branchwraith (80) - Deepwood Spell : Verdurous Harmony Arch-Revenant (100) - General - Command Trait : My Heart Is Ice - Artefact : Frozen Kernel 6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400) - Scythes 3 x Kurnoth Hunters (200) - Greatswords 5 x Spite-Revenants (60) 5 x Spite-Revenants (60) 5 x Tree-Revenants (80) Spiteswarm Hive (50) Extra Command Point (50) Game 1: Started off playing Alex and his Hallowheart army. Unfortunately for him I was rocking 5 unbinds. I think I was given the first turn. The battleplan was border war. So I moved some things up to the objectives and Alarielle threw her spear. The magic phase was uneventful as I either failed to cast anything or had it unbound. The spear however did work. It hit and outright killed the hallowheart general. After the game we realised we had played the Cities of Sigmar bodyguard rule incorrectly (we rolled one 4+ to shrug off the whole hit, not each individual wound that was allocated). This was a learning experience for Alex. Know your army guys! With the general dead, he lost his big battleshock bubble and a big chunk of his spellcasting. In his turn, he charged some spite revs and Drycha with spearmen and the 6 hunter unit with a huge block of greatswords. He didn’t roll particularly well in that combat and killed 1.5 hunters. When they fought back they took down something like 11 greatswords. On the other flank Drycha got to attack before the spearmen…. And that hurt the elves A LOT. I think she accounted for about 10 by herself with pretty average rolling. I believe the rest of that unit suffered from battleshock (being over extended). Alex, like most opponents throughout the weekend severely underestimated Dyrcha’s damage output. The middle of my battle line was Alarielle with her screen and the 3 sword hunters. They came up against a block of black guard, but the results were similar. Alarielle’s beetle making pretty short work of large blocks of units. Alex’s first magic phase was as uneventful as mine, and we pretty much called it during Turn 2. At this point I was pretty impressed with the Hunters and Drycha but Alex was pretty unlucky in key moments and the incorrect death of his general certainly didn’t help. That being said, between the spear, Drycha’s shooting and spells, I think it would have been difficult to keep her alive much longer anyway. Major Win Game 2: Tzeentch eternal conflagration changehost piloted by Jarred. Here we go time to mix it up with the big boys. I’m a little bit familiar with Tzeentch so I at least know some of their tricks. We both chose the “kill all behemoths” secondary objective so I set myself an early goal of killing the Lord of Change. I got the first turn again as I’m rocking 9 drops. I summoned a new forest quite deep into his territory, got the endless spell off and set up a great alpha strike with the large hunter unit. Unfortunately Drycha didn’t get mirrorpool off so she couldn’t join the party. However, I failed the charge roll even with +2, so now my hunters were sitting in front of a LOC and 20 pink horrors ready to receive a beating. My opponent however opted to run away. He teleported the pink horrors away and the LOC also took to the skies and flew away, leaving some small brimstone screens in front of my hunters. His magic phase was fairly uneventful, I got some good unbinds off. With all his combined shooting he killed the 3 sword hunters on the other flank, as well as some of my spite screens and did a fair bit of damage to Drycha. My tree revs teleported around attempting to hunt his heroes. They didn’t achieve much damage but did force some reactions which was good. Since I don’t have extra hunters to summon, Alarielle used the freshly killed ones instead. I brought those guys back on, almost mopped up the brimstone screens, and started laying into the LOC. There was just enough room for my hunters to charge through a gap and get a few in combat with him. They did some good damage and he then used the teleport to escape getting mauled further. As the battleplan was Starstrike the first objective came down this turn, slightly to my left flank and that’s where 20 pink horrors ended up. I decided to mainly ignore those guys as there was no way I was going to get through 100 wounds quick enough. Especially with how destiny dice work and results of 1 bringing models back on. I went first again in turn 3 and the two new objectives popped up on my right flank which was currently clear of demons. My large hunter unit continued to roll around the left flank, this time hitting his changling and one unit of flamers. They also pulled the horrors into combat too. A few solid rolls later and I wiped out the flamer unit and changling completely. Alarielle’s spear again did good work and left the LOC on 1 wound (I needed 3 damage to kill him and rolled a 2). The LOC teleported again to get out of the way of the rampaging hunter unit, the remaining flamers shot at Alarielle doing a few wounds, the exalted flamer and herald finished off Drycha who was wasting her time killing brimestones. The big pink horror units teleported back to the right flank and spread themselves out to try and tag both objectives. Thankfully my branchwraith and sword hunters were in the way and they could only grab 1 of them. However this left his exalted flamer and herald exposed. The Scythe hunters continued their rampage and ripped through both heroes. Alarielle finished off the LOC with an arcane bolt I mopped up the last 2 brimstones which annoyingly kept holding the first objective. But now, Jarred only had the large pink horror unit left and no heroes. I had lost all my small battleline, 1 unit of sword hunters (who came back on) and Drycha. After that it was just a case of grabbing the objectives and mopping up the pink horror unit, which Alarielle and the 3 sword hunters were doing fairly well. We called the game at this point as I was too far ahead on objective points but had we played one more turn I would have probably wiped him out. Major Win. Feeling pretty good about myself now, even without extra dryads or forests. Game 3: This time it’s Blood And Glory against Sean’s shooty and teleporting stormcast. He had 3 units of hunters, a big block of sequitors backed up by some buffing heroes, 20 castigators and a ballista. He had all the mobility, surprise and bodies to make this objective game very difficult. This was bad match up for me. Without my extra summons I wouldn’t be able to have a big enough board presence and without the extra forests my mobility is minimal. In any case the game started pretty well. He went first, castled up in the middle with a big fully buffed sequitor bubble. I dropped a forest and smashed the 6 hunters into him…. They killed 1. He then gave me the first turn in round 2 and I popped the frozen kernel and +1 attack from the arch rev. 3 combat rounds later and I had killed about 5 sequitors…. This was going to be a nightmare to get through. Turns out 3+ rerollable saves and rerolling 6s to hit makes that 40 wound unit bloody tough. Even against -2 rend scythes. Admittedly he did roll very well on those 5+ saves all game, but still. My sword hunters were kind of out of position most of the game with was a mistake. I should have set them up in the realmroots in hindsight. On turn 3 he dropped the rest of his army. The 20 castigators deleted Alarielle and grabbed my rear left objective. I failed to cast the endless spell which meant my sword hunters had to run, to get close enough to a wildwood to teleport. So they lost a turn getting to the castigators. Drycha was slowly working her way through sequitors along with the hunters when she was finally gunned down by the deepstriking castigators. Once the sword hunters hit in turn 4 they did pretty well, but by that point I was a bit low on bodies to hold objectives. Sean used his command abilities to teleport his general and hunters around to try and grab the last 2 objectives. He failed one charge but managed to shoot down the last tree rev, which gave him his 3rd objective. In hindsight we played that wrong, an objective 12” away from the table edge shouldn’t be in range of something teleporting within 6” of a table edge, but that’s how the TO ruled it. We ran out of time here, so Sean got a minor win by having 3 objectives, but even without that 3rd objective he would have still won on kill points. Annoyingly there was 1 sequitor left so I didn’t get that 400pts. One more turn would have probably seen me clean up the rest of the castigators and the sequitor unit but it’s unlikely I would have gotten 2 objectives and if I lost the priority role Sean would instantly claim 4 and get a major win. All in all, it was a pretty close game and I made a few mistakes. Not having the extra summons hurt a bit. Good learning experience and I was pretty happy with a close game considering the tough match up. Minor Loss So after Day 1 I was feeling pretty good. I thought I could walk away with 3-3 or 4-2 which would be great considering the handicap and lack of any Sylvaneth gaming experience. Then Day 2 happened…. Game 4: This was going to be an interesting bloodbath. A 6 stonehorn mawtribes (actually 4 stonehorns and2 thundertusks) list played by a very experienced player… and one who used to play a lot of Sylvaneth too. Turns out he didn’t really need that knowledge. He took the first turn and his frostlord hit Alarielle’s screen, killed them all with impact hits and proceeded to 6” pile in and one shot the big girl herself. I underestimated the threat range of that guy a bit, but with a 12” move + 3” from a prayer + 2” from hunger with a rerollable charge, I’m not sure I could have hid her anywhere since the diagonal deployment limits positioning a bit. I can’t remember if he can run and charge as well maybe? Drycha was dropped to like 3 wounds remaining from the winter chill shooting and 5 blood vulture shots. My turn consisted of 3 sword hunters doing a grand total of 1 wound to the frostlord (should be about 7 on average but he saved four 5+ wounds). They were butchered with easy in return. Drycha shot him for another 2 wounds, which he healed next turn anyway. She also failed to cast regrowth. My Branchwraith and Arch Rev ran up to grab the both flank objectives but at this stage I knew the game was over. The ogors went first in turn 2 and easily dispatched my remaining 5 wound heroes. Since the scenario was Places of Arcane Power I had no hope of scoring any more points and called the game there. Took about 40min including set up. I knew I was not experienced enough and didn’t have enough chaff to properly contest this game, but I had hoped to put up a bit more of a fight. It was a bit embarrassing. Major Loss. 2-2 at this point, still not bad, I should get some easier games now having dropped to the middle of the field. Game 5: Nope…. It’s Slaanesh commanded by Ken. I actually started this game off pretty well. It was Escalation so all our behemoths started way at the back. I used mirrorpool to get Drycha up the right flank. Dropped a forest near the middle objective, got the endless spell off, but rolled a 1 for the 6 hunter unit, so they didn’t get the buff. I still moved them into the centre forest with a Shield of Thorns. That’s now a 3+ rerollable save that gives out mortal wounds to enemies charging it, sitting in a wyldwood. Come get me. Tree revs also teleported up the right flank to grab an objective and act as bait. Alarielle’s spear did some good damage to one of the chariot heroes as the keepers were out of range. The big demonette unit on the flank took the bait, charged the tree revs and drycha… Between her attacks and battleshock the unit was wiped out. The other demonette unit in the middle saw what happened and didn’t take the hunter bait. They sat on the objective instead. I lost the left objective to some seekers with another chariot and keeper not far behind. Without some dryad summons I knew I wasn’t going to hold that flank, but I did take a commanding lead on the other side of the board. In my next turn, Drycha finished off the chariot hero on that side of the battlefield but was just out of range to shoot the keeper in the middle. Alarielle however did some good damage with her spell and spear. Unfortunately, this is where I made my game losing mistake. Instead of holding back and hammering the keepers with shooting and magic, I got over confident and charged the scythe hunters into the big demonette unit with a keeper close behind. I knew I was likely going to strike last, but thought I could weather the storm well enough, and if he failed the locus roll, I was going to spill a lot of demon blood. Well, he didn’t fail it, and between the keeper and double pile in for the demonettes, the hunters were easily wiped out. And with that, the centre of my battle line collapsed. In his turn, the second keeper on the flank, swung up through the middle, now in range to charge Alarielle, while the wounded keeper in the middle turned to face the incoming Drycha. Again in this game I used my sword hunters poorly and they were essentially out of the fight for most of the game. But I’m not sure they would have made much difference, maybe they could have slowed down the second keeper? In any case, this turn I lost both my big girls, and with only a handful for chaff and 3 sword hunters left, I conceded. Ken had something like 51 summoning points at this stage due to the tasty 5 wound hunters, so even killing the wounded keeper would have been a hollow victory. Major Loss. I feel like it was mainly my lack of experience here that cost me the game. Had I used the sword hunters better and left the 6 scythes in the forest till one keeper was dead, I could have held out much longer and Drycha could have continued to munch through demonettes from the flank. I think that would have made it a very close game. Some dryads to summon on the left flank would have helped a lot to slow down his army and help contest that objective. Disappointing loss but a good learning experience. Game 6: This one was just rubbing salt in the wound. It was a Nurgle list with a Glottkin, 15 knights a few heroes, a warshrine and some small units of warriors. It was obvious the knights were the lynchpin of the army but I wasn’t familiar enough Nurgle to know what buffs and tricks were coming. I deployed fairly conservatively with the spite screens up and scythe hunters ready to forest teleport. Mike took the first turn and proceeded to get every single buff spell and prayer off onto the knights. I failed to unbind all 4 spells. So here’s the deal. Chaos Knights have 3 attacks each, 3+/3+/-1. The horses get 2 attacks. The glottkin gives them both +1 attack. The Lord on demonic mount gives them reroll charges and +1 to hit, the sorcerer gives them reroll all hits and wounds. The Glottkin then casts Blades of Putrefaction…. Which makes 6+ to hit = mortal wounds. Since this is an old book, that’s not unmodified 6s, and it’s in addition to normal damage. So now the knights have 4 attacks + 3 from the horses, doing mortal wounds on 5+ to hit in addition to normal damage, with full rerolls. So a unit of 15 knights is looking at an average of over 30 mortal wounds before rerolls and normal damage. Did I mention they can run and charge (due to the Nurgle tree in the middle of the board), with a charge reroll? Well they can. So he pops a command point to run 6. He’s now moved up 16” and rolls a 10 to charge. The knight unit is so large/long that he can tag half may army and warp around all my screens. I’ll let you guess how that combat round went. Once the dust settled, I had 1 scythe hunter, Drycha on 3 wounds left. Alarielle, arch rev, 5 spites and 5 tree revs were unengaged so they avoided the slaughter for now. But he was about 5 wounds away from killing 1000pts in one combat round. On my turn failed to cast a few spells, charged Alarielle in, brought back 3 sword hunters and charged them in too. That went about as you’d expect too. All the buffs still remain, I chose to attack with the hunters first as Alarielle was only going to fight 2 knights and I figured she could survive that. Did I mention that the knights have 3+ rerollable saves and 6s to wound bounce back mortal wounds? Yeah…. I didn’t kill many. I think he even failed to cast his +1 wound spell which would have added more insult to injury. The knights then attacked again and killed the sword hunters again. Finished off Drycha and the two knights fighting Alarielle did a whopping 14 wounds to her. She then proceeded to kill herself when she rolled two 6s to wound. At this point the game was well and truly over. I had almost nothing left and I’d killed about 3 or 4 knights. Mike did roll extremely well for his 5+ mortal wounds all game (and his armour saves) and I was unlucky to not unbind all his buffs, but it was still an absolute stomping. His army did exactly what it was supposed to, and I’m not too sure what I could have done differently save for having a big horde unit to screen better, but still, I didn’t enjoy the game at all. Mike was a great bloke though, it was probably the overall disappointment of losing all my games on turn 2 the whole day that finally took it’s toll. I was quite annoyed after day 2, but in hindsight it wasn’t really that bad. The nurgle stuff does need some rewording to bring it in line with all the other “unmodified” and “wholly within” abilities. The stonehorn list was always going to be difficult for me, and the other 2 losses were certainly winnable had I been a bit more experience and had more summons/forests painted. Now a week later, I’m feeling much better about the whole event. It was tough. It was hot and I dragged my wife and 4 month old up there too which added to the stress and cost of the trip, but overall it was a good weekend and I learned a lot. I know, now with a kid, I won’t be rushing to finish new armies each year like I have in the past. It’s nice to have a hobby deadline, but it’s just not very practical anymore. I’ll probably focus on finishing up this army now and having some proper games with it, hopefully at a few other events throughout the year.

Absolutely agree about Drycha. She was probably my MVP during cancon. Even the games where she was killed early, she was a great distraction piece (usually after doing some good shooting damage). As for winterleaf hunters.... Certainly strong but I'll tell you this... There's heaps that can withstand 6 hunters. Admittedly I was running 6 scythes 3 swords,... But in game 3 I hit a block of 20 sequitors. they had +1 save buff, rerolling saves, and a buff that forced me to reroll 6s (I was using winterleaf). First combat I killed 1 guy. Next turn I popped +1 attack and Frozen Kernel. After 3 rounds of combat I had kill 5 sequitors. Admittedly they didn't hit back very hard (they were very spread out, being used as a screen so didn't get many attacks). But it took me all game to get through them. Then I also hit 15 chaos knights with +1 save and rerolls... same story (although they outright killed me before I got much of an attack back). And my 3 sword hunters did 1 damage to a Frostlord on a Stonehorn when they should do about 7 on average (he passed a lot of 5+ saves). Then against slaanesh, got hit with the strike last locus, keeper ate them for breakfast, the demonette's cleaned up the last few wounds. But with double pile ins and a greater deamon back up, it was always going to hurt. Sylvaneth are a "fair" army. They have tricks and strong units, but many other top factions just have far more stronger units and better tricks. Moral of the story, don't fall into the trap of thinking that 6 Hunters are invincible or can kill anything.... they can still get stuck or killed.

I think the problem can go deeper though.... For example, if changehost required a CP (like most other army's teleport abilities), then having to spend CPs to save horrors from battleshock starts to become a bigger decision. I agree that horrors are a terribly designed unit (in every aspect) but the destiny dice modification thing is also annoying and unintuitive. Plus you still want to use 1s for battleshock anyway so they get their models back. I could probably go either way on the rend thing, just because passing 1 save every now and then is rarely of huge consequence (though I did have it used against me like that vs Alarielle's -2 Rend D6 damage spear, and that sucked.) but at least it uses up those 4+ dice that you'd otherwise use for charges I think they did it this way so that 2s, 3s and to some extent 4s, were still useful in the destiny dice pool. But I think they should mostly be there to combine with 5s and 6s for charges and cast rolls, while the 1s get used for horror battleshocks. In any case, something needs to change, whether it's horrors or DD or both I'm not sure.

Yeah this is a good point. AOS tends to lean a bit more towards a rock/paper/scissors system rather than a full/equal balance system. Which is why GW seem fine with having a few super strong armies and a few weak ones.

All the lists are here https://aosshorts.com/cancon-2020-lists/ You can cross reference the results here https://downunderpairings.com/Tournament.php?TournamentID=776&Panel1=Leaderboard

Bit more context for cancon Tzeentch lists The winning list had 6 flamers 10 pinks, 1 gaunt. Plenty more pinks and flamers in the bottom half of the field. 6th had archaon, 5th was mortals top 3 were all different sub factions. after that you have a 24th and 38th which is a 5-1 and 4-2, Then the rest are probably more like 3-3. Skaven did quite poorly at Cancon, only 3 out of 13 lists cracked top 100 Slaanesh still had the most consistent results, having all but 2 of 9 lists in the top 50 OBR were all over the place. There were Nagash + 60 Mortek lists with only 1 win.... and quite a few OBR went 2-4

I've heard rumors that the destiny dice stuff won't be changed in the FAQ anyway, so you probably don't have to worry about it. I play Tzeentch too and even I find it a bit on the nose. You can still use 2,3,4,5 results for hits or D6 and D3 damage results or as that second dice on casting/charge roll. I think that's what they should be used for. You can still mitigate failing a short charge buy using two 3s or something like that. Those middle dice still have plenty of uses. My problem with using those dice on battleshock tests for pink horrors is more to do with pink horrors being a terribly designed unit rather than the destiny dice rules themselves.

I'm not a huge AoS gamer.... I probably go to 1-2 events per year and have a bit of a laugh. But I do play other games competitively. I'll say this... there's certainly a skill to AOS. However, I do think that armies above the power curve greatly inflate a good player's winrate. And a good player will still struggle against an average player with a strong army. A bad player will lose no matter what. That being said.... I feel like most of the "skill" in AoS comes more from experience than anything else. Not some sort of tactical or strategic genius but simply from knowing your army and knowing your opponent's ones. There's so much in AOS that's either strong combos or "gotcha" moments. Experienced players may be able to avoid those better than less experienced players (eg. me). If I had to put some numbers to it, I think I'd break it down like this 30% luck, 20% list building, 35% experience, 15% skill There's still a massive element of luck, be it dice, or match ups. I had one game where I failed to unbind all 4 of a Nurgle army massive buffs and got hit by the worlds strongest 15 man chaos knight unit. Those guys were generating something like 35 mortal wounds on average, in addition to normal damage BEFORE rerolling all hits and wounds, after running and charging (with rerolls), and having a 3+ rerollable armor save. Sometimes you just get screwed on luck no matter what you do.

huh? I'm just saying that while everyone is crying over Eternal Conflag Changehost, other version of Tzeentch lists obviously work well too. Either because it's a strong, experienced player, or because something else is the problem (like the various destiny dice arguments).

Dunno about LVO but at Cancon we didn't do very well at all. Top Sylvaneth was 47th, (4 - 2) https://downunderpairings.com/ArmyList.php?ArmyID=15754 I only managed to go 2-4 despite a strong start. I started well, had 2 good wins early, 1 minor loss in a tough match up against shooty stormcast, and then got smashed on day 2. That was 4 stonehorns + 2 thundertusks, slaanesh and a nurgle buffed knights bomb. The ogors and nurgle games I don't think I could have won no matter what. The slaanesh game i could have won if I had more experience and knew slaanesh better. I fell into some silly traps and should have played much more defensively. I came out strong in the first turn and threw it all away later as I got overconfident. The shooty stormcast game was very close and I think I could have won that if I wasn't playing with a massive handicap. I only finished painting my base army 3am the night before. So I had no models to summon, no extra dryads no extra anything for Alarielle. I had 2 old forests that I used, but no extra ones. So I feel like most games I was playing 300-400 pts down. That being said, I don't think that would have made a difference against ogors or nurgle. Might have had a small impact vs slaanesh. Didn't matter at all in my first 2 wins. I plan on trying my army again in the future ... properly this time lol.

That's the 8th place one run by Tim Neal. Allegiance: Cities of Sigmar - Mortal Realm: Aqshy - City: Anvilgard - Illicit Dealing: Black Market Bounty LEADERS Dreadlord on Black Dragon (300) - General - Command Trait : Blackfang Crimelord (Dabling in Sorcery) - Exile Blade & Shield - Artefact : Venomfang Blade - Drakeblood Curse : Jutting Bones Dreadlord on Black Dragon (300) - Lance of Spite & Shield - Drakeblood Curse : Acidic Blood Sorceress on Black Dragon (300) - Witch Rod - Artefact : Drakescale Cloak - Spell : Lore of Dark Sorcerey - Vitriolic Spray (Anvilgard Wizard) Knight-Azyros (100) UNITS 1 x Drakespawn Chariot (80) 1 x Drakespawn Chariot (80) 1 x Drakespawn Chariot (80) 15 x Drakespawn Knights (450) 3 x Scourgerunner Chariots (150) x Scourgerunner Chariots (150) ENDLESS SPELLS / COMMAND POINTS Malevolent Maelstrom (10) Total: 2000/2000

For those of you asking, here are the links to the lists and results https://aosshorts.com/cancon-2020-lists/ There's a link to a video there as well which goes into more detailed analysis. https://downunderpairings.com/Tournament.php?TournamentID=776&Panel1=Leaderboard There were certainly people who were clearly less experienced with Tzeentch as well as those who did well. Taking a strong list on paper doesn't automatically mean you get to place top 20. I almost tabled a changehost in the second round with Sylvaneth. He only had a half blue half brimstone unit left on the board. Also, the winner was the current NZ master.... so yeah, strong new army, but also a very good and experienced player. From what I've seen, from the event, reading the book myself, and playing against them once, I think there's a few fairly minor things that need tweaks. If the battleshock casualties can modify destiny dice, then I think the Host Duplicitous no retreat thing isn't so bad. Destiny dice should probably also not ignore rend. Admittedly that makes results of 2-5 less useful but destiny dice are already strong enough imo. Horror units are dumb. Mainly because it's just a terrible unit to buy/build/paint and play with. It goes from 10 models to 20. You need to buy and paint 3 boxes worth of stuff (50) to use the unit properly. And the 240 pt, 2 spell casting Gaunt Summoner gives you a unit for free as well. It's just a stupidly expensive battleline unit that no one likes playing against. that being said, if they couldn't ignore battleshock so easily, you can cut through them fairly easily. The other thing is simply that they are brand new and people haven't learned to play against them yet. The 5th player overall at Cancon took guild of summoners with arcanite cabal and mostly mortal tzeentch. So it's not just changehost teleporting and -1 rend shooting that's too strong. As for OBR, I know at least 1 high end player (the current AUS master) who won masters with OBR took something different to Canon. He won Masters with OBR having like 2 practice games. Up till the last game he'd lost 10 mortek guard and 1 hero all tournament lol. He ended up 18th at Cancon with Nighthaunt of all things.... goes to show that being a good, experienced players makes a significant impact. It's not all about taking the currently most broken army. Honestly, the flamer teleport spam doesn't bother me that much simply because other armies have similar tricks. Like stormcast who deepstrike the ballistas or castigators. I was on the receiving end of 20 castigators teleporting in and killing Alarielle in one round of shooting. I'm sure other armies have their own tricks like that. Sure maybe the can't teleport around each turn , but there's lots of Alpha strike type lists. It's a wider problem with AoS in general and I don't think it's unique to Tzeentch or flamers.

Did they? I've never heard of that am I'm usually pretty up to date on GW related news. I guess you're referring to the gaming book. I didn't know that existed. It does cost as much as the GHB alone so it's pretty expensive just for some convenience. Coz you'd need to own malign sorcery anyway. Maybe match play gamers can buy that instead of the GHB? I'm not sure. Still, lugging around multiple books to every event and gaming session has been an issue forever with GW games. Now in the digital age, it really shouldn't be anymore. And while you could technically buy all the books on the app, paying twice for the same product bothers me. But realistically that's probably the only way to do it officially. Even then, you'd have to jump around multiple documents and I can't seem to find all the errata and FAQ on the app. In any case, I'm talking more about all the different sources and things that need to be updated... The gaming book above is just another document to keep updated (or replace every year in this case)

In a similar vein, I'd like to see cumulative point values - eg.... if you take 6 eels, the next 3 cost a bit more, and the next 3 after that cost more again. So you get diminishing returns for spamming "the best unit in the book", like a few armies do right now. The other big thing I think we need is to do wounds instead of models for objective control (or something similar) because the high prevalence of horde units/armies and summoning is annoying. Both on and off the table. I know some people like big battles with hundreds of models.... but I'm on quicker, smaller games side of the fence. Perhaps I should focus more on warcry/kill team etc instead of AoS... that's a fair point. But at the same time, having games push 2.5-3 hours does place artificial limits on larger tournaments because we can't all go and play AoS for 3 days straight. I'd also rather have 4 different armies of 50 models each instead of having to paint 200 clanrats.... Maybe that's just me. While I don't mind the current sub-faction set up, I think battalions need to be better. There's some that are just way too strong or way too cheap. And some that are complete garbage.... or others that are like a minimum of 1500+ pts and rarely get used in normal matched play.

I think after perhaps another 1-2 new armies (the rumored light and dark elves) things will slow down a bit. There's still lots of room for expansion eg Kurnothi, Grot SkyPirates, rumored Vampire Sea Pirates, rumored Gargant faction etc.... The beauty of the new setting is they can literally make up any new faction (eg Deepkin) and slot it in pretty easily. Of course there's still lots to expand in existing factions. Skaven can be split into multiple major factions (and get refreshed kits for all that super old stuff. Eshin and Moulder could do with more fleshing out). Most factions, but especially the smaller ones could do with a new sub-faction (like Legion of Grief) or an extra unit or two (perhaps a new type of Troggoth) or like those new characters in the dual faction boxes. So I don't think we'll see much of a slow down in terms of releases. GW has shown for quite a few years that they can keep up with a weekly release schedule (admittedly across all their product lines, but still). Personally I think that's a crazy pace but they seem to be pulling it off pretty well for quite a while now. Apart from maybe the Sylvaneth book release hiccup? Here's the problem though. While warscrolls are free, the majority of the army rules are hidden in battletomes. And GW's stubborn reliance on expensive, slow to develop, print and ship physical books is going to hurt them eventually. We're already seeing rules bloat. For even the most basic matched play game you need the Core Rules, GHB 2019, Malign Sorcery book, whichever Battletome and that number again in FAQ and errata. I think GW desperately needs to move to an online living document for the various rules. Do away with separate FAQ and errata..... just keep one document updated to the latest version. One for core rules, one for each battletome etc.... Just like Legion and X-wing do. like why on earth is the Underworlds rulebook not available online? There's a learn to play video, I can look through the whole card library including every warband card.... but I can't read the actual game rules? They're only in each starter box.... Which technically isn't even necessary if you don't want those warbands or game boards. Or how the Legion of Grief rules don't seem to be available online anywhere (officially) so if you didn't happen to buy that WD a few months ago, you're going to have a hard time finding those rules. Same goes for those battalion warscrolls locked in the limited edition dual faction boxes. It's stuff like that which makes getting into these games annoying for new players. For those who like nice pretty hardcover battletomes, perhaps they can still make faction books. Just focus more on painting guides, hobby guides, lore, maps, background etc.... and keep the rules online. Almost every book released this year had multiple erratas straight away. Incorrect weapon load outs on units, incorrect damage table numbers, wrong printed points values. We already have an app and a website based builder. Why do you even need to print points in a battletome or GHB at all? This way we just end up with multiple sources and multiple documents floating around. It's my biggest pet peeve about GW in general right now (followed closely by the prevalence of horde units/armies in AOS and summoning). Back on topic.... if we had these living online battletomes, GW would be free to add new units and heroes and sub factions to any army (like those found in my examples above). You could easily do that without breaking armies, without having to wait for some big battletome re-release, or a new AOS edition or whatever. The WD extra subfactions are a good start, but as mentioned before, they have their own issues. It also lets you react to balance issues, errata or FAQs in a more timely manner. Half yearly isn't too bad for a big FAQ update.... but doing maybe 2-3 monthly smaller ones is probably better imo.

Bit off topic but I'm more impressed with Sylvaneth getting 6th with Triple Durthu + Alarielle (no hunters).