Inquisitorsz

I think the only caveat to the great variety we're seeing is that there are still a lot of negative play experiences. It's highly subjective of course, but I think most people don't enjoy being shot off the table turn 1 by skaven or tarpitted by 130 fyreslayers or destroyed by Slaanesh striking first all the time. I do agree that only slight tweaks would be required to bring those top 2-3 armies down.... bringing the bottom 4-5 up is harder imo. Sylvaneth, Nighthaunt, Nurgle, Seraphon, BoC really need help. Sylvaneth has had an OK showing recently, but it's been 1 guy at 3 tournaments with pretty much the same list each time. Side note: I wish more tournaments would use Tabletop.TO and upload lists. So bloody hard to find lists for stuff that runs on BCP or pen/paper If one of the big community blogs don't do a report, there's practically no way to find out what stuff is doing well.... Like how did that Ironjaws army win an 80 player event. What's in that 4th Sylvaneth list at Dragonfall What's in that winning Order army at Michigan GT

So first impression after reading the warscrolls and checking out points... The mortek guard are strong. 130 for 10 isn't cheap, but it's not expensive considering what you get. They're probably a little bit above the curve. They could be 140-150 and still be solid. Stalkers are the stand out bargain for 200pts. They compete with stuff like pre-nerf evocators and kurnoth hunters in that point bracket. Bit less survivable but pack a much bigger punch. command ability to reroll charges is huge too. I was really hoping these guys would be more like 220-230 points. The command point system seems strong. In 2000pts without the Mortarch, you're probably getting 4-6 points. And you get that every turn, and they don't carry over, so you're going to be burning them every turn. Some of the battalions let you use abilities for free so you're getting double value there... free ability and an extra discipline point. Which is the other problem.... their battalions are quite good and very cheap compared to other similar ones with other armies. There's not many armies that get 80pt battalions.... even 100pt battalions are rare. There's like 6 battalions in all the chaos armies combined that cost 100 or less. There's plenty of factions that don't have battalions under 120 where as bonereapers have all of their battalions 120 or less. The cavalry seem pretty expensive, but maybe that's ok with 3 wounds and a 4+ save. They don't hit very hard so it looks like they'll have to really rely on buffs. Their terrain piece is by far the strongest one of all that have come out so far. And it's free as usual. Hard to say how they'll go on the tabletop but I imagine a solid horde of mortek guard backed up by various heroes and lots of stalkers should be a pretty strong and pretty easy army. Especially in an objective game... dislodging that much mortek guard is going to be difficult.

so the prices in that spreadsheet image.... What's up with those? Red painting handle $67.50 Spray stick $18 Paint Pot holder $48 5 pack of black painting handles $40 Considering a painting handle now is $10 (I'm assuming everything is USD here). Why on earth is the red one over 6 times more expensive? the 5 pack price seems fine. The spray stick seems a bit expensive but depends how big it is.... The paint pot holder for $48 seems absurd too.... $48 for a bit of plastic with 3 recessed circles? I don't usually complain about pricing but who the hell is going to buy a red painting handle at a 675% mark up? That's literally more than a unit of 20 Mortek Guard....

I think overall AOS is in a pretty good spot. The community seems to be continuously growing. The army diversity at events is getting better, there's even a few new armies out in this edition. It's still not in a great place competitively. There's still some balance issues... and some "negative play experience" issues, some power creep issues. There's issues with slow updates and FAQs too. But these issues aren't so terrible that they're negatively affecting the overall hobby. Which is good. Players seem to genuinely have fun at events and aren't too stressed like they can be in other games. I'd like to see a bit more consistency on the admin side of things. More regular balance updates, better distribution of rules... if you're giving every army terrain+3 spells.... then do it and don't skip some randomly. It's clear some battletomes are a bit of an afterthought and not supported as well as others. The barrier to entry for some armies like Sylvaneth is a bit dumb too.... having to buy multiple forests makes it one of the most expensive armies to buy. Also should have updated some of the horribly old models like skaven acolytes, jezzails, saurus warriors etc... Bonereapers don't really do it for me visually but I'm looking forward to what the future holds for aelfs. Overall, I think the following describes AOS currently pretty well: "Doing well but there's always room for improvement"

@Mayple You're right.... you'd have to ask the statistician. I'd say it's like because they changed the way they gathered/displayed the data since last time. We'd have to look at the previous data. It's likely what @l1censetochill said that the sample sizes are much bigger now which normalizes the results more. Or that Daughters was generally used less, which can inflate that win rate by reducing the chance of mirror matches (that's why there are 3 outlier factions above 60%). They had good results but so few games that it's not really statistically relevant. That's why they sort the list by number of wins because that kind of also includes the meta% or popularity to an extent. If you look at the June 13 data on the website, there were only 3 factions above 60% - FEC (64%), DoK (64%) and Slaanesh (62%). FEC obviously above everyone else at the time. But DOK was above Slaanesh too... except both DOK and FEC had over double the number of matches that Slaanesh did. So you can potentially argue that those two factions had double the chance of hitting mirror matches at the top tables, which bring their winrate down. Also at that point Slaanesh had only been out for roughly a month. I think they released start of May. I can't see the data further back than that so check the the 80% win rates. It's possible simply, that when people talked about DOK win rates in the past, they were already removing the mirror matches. I dunno. We'd have to find that data and check. All I could find was some data talking about 70.9% which is worse but not that much above the 67.7% we see now with slaanesh. There's also other outside factors too.... If the GHB2019 strengthened some other armies compared to last year, that can bring the win rate of other stuff down across the board. Especially if the popularity and spread of armies has increased. For example Legion of Nagash fell from 10% popularity to 2% The faction split in general was quite different with the previous data. If you look at this table comparing Dec 2018 with June 2019, you can see that prior to this latest data, DOK dropped 6.7% when FEC, Slaanesh and Skaven started winning things. Basically the newer power creep armies showed up. Ignore Phoenix table and greenskins.... they are outliers with very low data points. Legions of Nagash dropped 3% in popularity and in win rates. It's dropped heaps more in the latest data too. (I think there might be an error in the new data too because Legion of Nagash and Grand Host of Nagash are listed separately... I think that's the same thing isn't it?) In any case it might also be something like that.... Say for example Nagash was a favorable match up for DoK... So if less people are playing much less Nagash now, then DoK have a slightly harder time. Especially because LoN was the most popular army back then (13.1%) even more so than stormcast. If you look at just those 2.1 win rates, DOK were simply well above anyone else... the next highest being deepkin at 61%. Where as the current top 3 are much closer (with 2% of each other). But DOK popularity relative to other factions was lower.... like LoN was 13.1%. Back then DOK were the 6th most popular... while LON and SCE made up for 25% combined. Now, Slaanesh is 5th (so quite similar)... but the gap is smaller because the most popular SCE and Skaven are 10% and 9%. So I'd argue that it's more likely for Slaanesh to hit mirror matches today than it was for DOK to hit mirror matches back then. Of course... that's probably not the case in round 5 or 6 at the top table... but it will have an impact on round 3 and 4 match ups. that might be enough to explain that difference between the previous DOK 70.9% win rate and Slaanesh's current 67.7%.

Side note: Does any one know of any good alternative heads for Alarielle since she's a fair bit bigger than a normal scale human/elf. Does anyone have any cool images? I'd like to try to avoid having to sculpt anything. I mostly hate her hat.

It matters statistically. If an army is beating other factions at 80% and ends up at the top tables more often than not... it's going to face a lot of mirror matches. At least statistically more than other factions would. Therefore, you could say for example that if half of the Slaanesh games are mirror matches, then those wins also count as losses (for the other player), since there's always one winner and one loser. So half the Slaanesh game results wouldn't affect the win/loss percentage as both columns would get 1 result. So all that does is increase the games played by that faction, which dilutes the results pool and makes the overall winrate lower. If there was say a 3rd army that had win rates and popularity numbers similar to Slaanesh and Skaven, you would see more variety at the top table, thus less mirror matches, thus a different overall winrate. Of course, the overall win rate is the important one, mirror matches included... but you just have to bare in mind what assumptions and conditions account for those percentages. When we talk about balance and the strength of various armies, we almost always compare different factions, thus naturally ignoring mirror matches. If Slaanesh beats Slaanesh... that's a net effect of zero. If Slaanesh beats all other factions at a rate of 80%... that's a balance problem. In term of good players moving around, that certainly does have an impact. But you'll also so not so good players jumping on the latest "strong army" bandwagon and they can drag down the average as much as good players boost it. I think across 7000+ games and almost 100 Slaanesh tournament entries, that's enough data to statistically show how strong they are right now.

Ah... that's interesting too.... I'd like to see the stat list with mirror matches removed. I haven't watched the video yet (at work).

I'm convinced that faction dice are an internal GW competition about who can design the worst and most impractical dice. There's some really horrible ones. It's truly amazing.

Now that some new stats are in: https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-stats-21st-october-2019/ Seems like I was mistaken about Sylvaneth being under represented. Must have just been the last few big events I looked at. That being said, we're sitting at a 43.5% win rate which is likely boosted a bit by Laurie's couple of high placements recently. Out of about 67 tournament entries, we've only had two 5+ win results which were both his. So we're not as under represented as I though, but our win rate is pretty horrible. Out of the main armies, we're sitting down the bottom with Seraphon, Nighthaunt, BoC and Nurgle.

really? Statistically they are WAY above the curve. 67% win rate is massive. Ideal balance for a game should probably be 50%+/-5... I don't recall if those other ones hit 80 or not... but 67 is till very bad. Some other interesting bits.... Skaven and Stormcast are the most used armies.... but Skaven have a 10% higher win rate. Gotta be careful with stats because something being strong, makes it popular, and then that skews the results. The link above has some more stats and different lists. 5 Rather large main armies are sitting below 45% win rate (Seraphon, Nighthaunt, Nurgle, Sylvaneth and BOC). If everyone is at 50+/-5 that's not too bad.... but when your top few armies are sitting above 60% then disparity is huge. apart from a few outliers with a small sample size (LoN, Order Draconis, Devoted of Sigmar), the top end actually isn't that bad. DOK and FEC are still a bit high and Slaanesh obviously... But I think the bigger problem is the lower end of the scale. There will always be a few strong armies at the top, but I think GW should do more to pull up all those mid 40% armies closer to 50%.

As someone just starting to build a Sylvaneth army for a tournament next year, I've been doing a fair bit of reading. Seems like the book is generally pretty good and there's a few different viable options.... HOWEVER.... they all still seem to be on the lower end of the power curve. One dreadwood list run by Laurie has done well at 2 big recent tournaments. (minimal heroes, 15 hunters, minimal outcasts battalion and some dryads). But other than that, Sylvaneth seem to be horribly under represented at large events for some reason. Sydney GT just had 94 players and not a single Sylvaneth list. Make of that what you will. Could be a variety of reasons but for such a large event to have more brettonians and tomb kings than a fairly new 2.0 battletome seems a bit weird huh?Facehammer GT had 2 Sylvaneth lists out of 80 players. They came 5th and 71st.AOS Grand Tournament had 3. Placed 3rd, 42nd, 46th out of 65 players. Laurie was the guy who placed 5th and 3rd at those events. So clearly he's a good player and uses mass hunters well.

I say this with zero actual experience so take it with a grain of salt.... While I agree treelord stomps are a good counter to all the strike first stuff.... having lots of high wound monsters just feeds them a ton more depravity points. That seem to be the big issue with Slaanesh... not so much their combat power but their summoning being super strong.

Not painted yet obviously

That's pretty cool. I did something very similar. Built Tree-Revs as normal, then used the spare Spite Rev arms (left and right) and heads combined with Dryad bodies to make Spite Revs. Basically the same as yours but I have Spite Rev heads on mine.

What other heroes do people usually run Alarielle with? I'm struggling to fit her into a list. I really like Durthu and/or Drycha but that get's really expensive with Alarielle. Am I basically stuck with a Branchwraith and Arch Rev?

That was just a super quick example off the top of my head. I think in regards to "physical manifestations of Nagash's twisted mind".... that could have still been done in a more cohesive way. Firstly, nagash presumabily also created Nighthaunt. One could argue that those guys are prehaps a bit TOO cohesive, and have too many units that look too similar. Perhaps they were trying to avoid that here. I think they went too far. Secondly, there's plenty of other "twisted" stuff out there like Slaanesh and Tzeentch which are generally much better miniatures. Even though I'm not personally a huge fan of Tzeentch demons or most of the new Slaanesh stuff... I "get" it. The army looks great visiually. It makes sense even though pink horrors have tounges coming out of their hands. There's lots of crazy, cooky and "ungrounded" goblins, skaven and nurgle too. Of course you have have fun with miniature design. You should. But these just seem wrong. And not in a "that makes me uncomfortable" chaos way. Just in a "bad" way. And like I mentioned before... it's not just the overall aestheic. It's also stuff that just doesn't make sense. One of the cataput crew is holding some sort of cog gear thing despite most of the construct not being mechanical. I have no idea how a construct with 2 arms on each side is supposed to swing those two 2-handed weapons. They had the beginings of a great samuri style going, and then mixed in random tyranid and necron bits. It looks like an army cobbled together from rejected designs they had lying around the office. One one hand you can have a rather awesome look mounted lord that's an evil deathly shadow of a stormcast hero. On the other hand you have an incredibly top heavy corpse cart with a monster head, metal arms, tiny chicken legs and a face for a crotch. I understand it's supposed to be "thrown together" from random body parts... but it still has to walk properly. It still has to be able to swing it's weapons or somehow harvest bodies as it's name suggests. All these construct designs just look like they wouldn't actuall work lol. Maybe that's it? We can look past some minor scale problems with Space Marine armour or the interior space of a rhino, or how the bricks that are Space Marine aircraft are supposed to fly... but the suspension of disbelief can only stretch so far. I think that's what happened here. It's just gone a bit too far and crossed over into WTF territory. Obviously that's just my opinion. I don't really have a horse in this race. I was highly unlikely to collect another death army, and I have next to no nostalgia for tomb kings. I was just expressing my thoughts on the new designs. Really, we probably shouldn't be derailing the rumor thread (sorry). I'm glad you like them. I'm glad GW is pushing the boundaries of design. But I do think that we perhaps a slight nod to TK or a more cohesive construct army, or a samuri themed faction would have made a lot more sense (yes I know GW needs brand new IP not anything based on real world, hard to copywrite themes).

I just wish they'd stuck to a more reasonable Morghast aesthetic with Bonereapers. I feel they've taken that style (similar armor etc) and dialed it up to 12. Skeletons just look plain weird with noses and grins. And all the other stuff with multiple random limbs of different body types etc just looks more like tyranids than morghasts to me. They were very close with some of the normal samurai looking guys, and the mortarch then said... "nah, that's too normal, lets make a catapult with 15 legs, a hamster wheel and a guy holding a gear, with no real mechanical components in sight." Some of the heroes look fantastic, and then you have the fat corpse cart on chicken legs with a crotch face.... it feels so disjointed. I feel like this could have been achieved in a better way though. Maybe have them hold onto precious items they once possessed... or clothing or something. I would have preferred a whole army based around morghasts than this "bone soup".

Don't get me wrong. I like battletomes for the lore and hobby parts. I just think printed rules and especially points values are a relic of the past. Especially with AOS where you can even have 5 different versions of warscrolls (app, website, battletome, warscroll card, GHB update). There should be one central point for that stuff. Keep the cool artwork, lore, maps, painting guides etc in a book... that's fine. Put the functional stuff in one place that's easy to access and update. I agree that warscroll cards are great, though they need a better design imo... some of the double fold out ones are just annoying. Cards like that.... even in some easy to print format would be amazing. A lot of other games use unit cards for quick rules access.... Carrying around 3+ books to use your army has always been a pet hate of mine. Ultimately, GW's rule distribution methods still feel disjointed. Yes the core rules are free online, and yes you can download warscroll cards... but then you really use your army you need the battletome for the items, spells, allegiance abilities and battalions. Then you need another book for some more items, then another book for scenarios, then another book for endless spells etc... It's very confusing and daunting for new players. As for Brexit... it's hard to tell. I imagine the pound will fall a bit and prices will self adjust. Unfortunately GW has been terrible at adjusting regional pricing due to fluctuating currencies in the past, so I wouldn't expect a local pricing change if the pound did fall. We'll all just grey import more instead lol.

Since when does an Orc. especially one as big, strong and brutal as Grimgor show mercy? The Grimgor miniature is literally holding a severed human head.... and you're telling me it's not lame that he didn't claim Archaon's head given the chance? It was just a terrible example of plot armor and poor writing.

Late to the party, but here's my 2c anyway. What is balance? It's such a broad term and everyone understands it differently. I don't believe anyone is expecting Chess level of balance. That's a game which is 100% pure skill.... and while the game itself is balanced, if you're playing a better opponent, you're going to lose every time. Is that balanced? Luck and randomness add an element of fairness because even the weakest army/player can get some lucky rolls and make a game of it. Ultimately I see balance as having most (if not all) factions sitting between 45-55% win rates. This is probably the metric that GW use, if they even track these things, and it's similar to what video game developers use to balance heroes in games like Dota and LoL. Sometimes the range might be tighter, sometimes not. Unfortunately we don't have those numbers outside of what the community collects via tournaments, and those stats vary wildly with different metas and different list. Let's call this "external" balance. This can be difficult to achieve, especially when different factions are disproportionately represented in the community... sometimes it's simply because more people like Stormcasts, sometimes it's for other reasons (which I'll mention later). So that's overall win rates. Then you have to consider individual units or specific army lists. 3 Keepers, double blood thirster, Nagash, 2x30 reapers etc.... If you have a specific combo or specific unit that's over represented, then you have balance issues. Those could be considered "internal" balance. This is something GW can greatly improve on. I don't think it's enough to tweak points once per year in a separate book that we have to buy. I'd like to see more of an FFG approach. Free online pdf rule and point updates. Reviews carried out maybe once per quarter? We have multiple official online army building tools now. Use those tools. Ultimately it's something that only affects the "matched play" side of the game anyway. The open and narrative players won't care much. The final thing to consider is power creep. Whether intentional or not, sometimes things get released that are just too strong. FEC was like that, Skaven have some stand outs but don't seem to win as much as people expected. Now it's Slaanesh due all the extra summons and striking first. There have also been some releases recently which appear to have been weak by comparison.... namely Gloomspite and Sylvaneth. We'll have to see how the Cities/Orruks and Bonereapers perform soon to get a better idea how much power creep there is. I suspect Cities will be very difficult to balance with all the different possible combos coming out of that soup. GW often takes the approach of fixing overpowered factions/units by making the next release stronger or counter it in some way. Sometimes this works, sometimes it makes the problem worse and causes a snowballing effect. To their credit, GW have been pretty good at releasing FAQs and GHB point updates to fix broken things. To me, the first thing you have to do when fixing balance is to remove the Negative Play Experiences. No one likes to turn up, set up a game and get shot/magic/alpha striked off the table in turn 1. That's the kind of stuff that makes players not turn up to another event, shelve their army, go play another game or even another hobby. Unfortunately, the nature of these games, especially on their competitive side, is that people often spam the strongest, most efficient units and this creates a very skewed gaming experience. Now, having said all that, Aos (and 40k for that matter) won't ever be properly balanced. I don't believe the fundamental rule system is built in such a way to allow good balance. There's simply too much variation and too much possibility of blow out in a "you go, I go" system, especially in one with a priority roll/double turn mechanic. You can still have big blow outs in more competitive/balanced games like Underworlds for example.... but then you can play a best of 3 because one round takes 35min not 3 hours. I think this will become even more of an issue when AoS gets more shooting (eg with Cities, or future aelf armies). The combat phase already has alternating activation. That can work pretty well most of the time. But it's devastating when your magic/gun line gets to do it's thing twice in a row. But I don't want to derail this with another "double turn" discussion. My point is, the current rule system is fundamentally unbalanced. On paper, the variance should even out, but it does so in an extreme way, and certain armies will always have advantages in these cases. I believe games with alternating activations (or some other system) can achieve much higher levels of balance, because the core rules are more accommodating to a fair gaming experience.

Interesting about the spites.... only really did 20 because of the discount, but yeah I forgot they're on larger bases. Originally I was just gonna do the 3x5+outcasts but it felt a bit light. Perhaps in the Alarielle version I can pump out enough dryads that it won't matter. In terms of wyldwoods, I'm certainly thinking more about movement/alpha striking and dryad summoning rather than damage. I never really played Sylvaneth with the old rules (had lots of stuff in boxes but not built). I am planning on magnetizing all my hunters (already have 3 done), so I should be able to test bows vs melee a bit.... depending on how many practice games I can squeeze in. Wasn't the problem with shooting always that the woods block LOS? I was trying to avoid having to buy more hunters, but sounds like 12 is a good spot (and then the extra ones from Alarielle potentially).

Image doesn't seem to load for me? Is there an external link to view it? I couldn't find anything recent on the Honest Wargamer website?

Having been around GW on and off for a couple decades now it's clear they're making some great progress. The biggest turning points have been moving away from the "we don't do market research" position. It's abundantly clear these days that GW isn't relying on their past. They aren't sitting on their laurels. They got huge back in the 90s because there really wasn't much in the way of competition. Even about 6 or 8 years ago I remember reading a financial report which included what GW thought were it's market competition.... It was incredibly short sighted. They only looked at direct completion in their specific market/industry. The bigger picture is that as people, we all have limited finances, resources and time to spend on hobbies and luxury items. So you're not just competing with X-wing or Warmahordes. You're also competing with video games, TV shows, board games, CCGs, LCGs, reading, painting, glass blowing etc.... You're competing with almost every other hobby. Of course, there might not be a lot of overlap between warhammer players and glass blowers. That's an extreme example. But there's certainly significant overlap with pretty much anything that can be considered "gaming". Be that digital, or tabletop or card or boardgame. While maybe not many video gamers partake in the warhammer hobby, I feel like quite lot of warhammer hobbyists partake in a lot of other hobbies. And I don't think it takes much for a tabletop gamer to go check out another game for a while, especially when they're burnt out painting the 150th clanrat. The recent Community Surveys have been excellent and I'd like to see more of that... even on a smaller individual level. I felt the last survey didn't provide enough opportunity to give open feedback... not every section had an open comment option. About a decade ago, GW jumped into video games a bit. They had some smash hits, they had some utter failures. I think sometimes they were a bit too loose with their IP, but overall it's been a big step forward. In recent years, it has perplexed me that a lot of fantasy games were (and still are) set in the old world. I don't understand why GW is still pushing a discontinued product in the digital world. Why not set Warhammer Total War in the AOS realms? Realistically apart from a different map, it would make little difference to the overall gameplay. These days, GW is far more in tune with the market. They can see that people are becoming more and more time poor. I think it's been pretty clear in recent years that the rise of skirmish size wargames proves that people don't have time anymore to play 4 hour long battles that take 1 hour to set up. Now we can smash out 4+ games of warcry or underworlds or kill team in an evening. It makes running events easier. It makes getting new players interested easier. Having smaller teams/armies makes the barrier to entry easier/cheaper (for the most part). You can still have 10 hour long 10,000pt Apoc battles if you like... but I think the market for that is much smaller. I've been very impressed with GW that they've been able to innovate so much in recent years, and keep up with a weekly release schedule. To be honest, I'm surprised it's worked so well. I don't think it's sustainable. Monthly releases that only did 1 faction or something for 1 game meant people would wait 6 months for something new that related to their armies/game. There's a lot more variety now. On the other hand, flooding the market with 50 Primaris Lieutenants or the 15th "boxed game" like Aeronautica Imperials or the Speed Freaks box just seems unnecessary. I don't think anyone really asked for Aeronautica, and I don't think GW really needs to compete with X-wing (if that's what they were trying to do). What people have been asking for is a remake of Mordheim and BFG. Warcry kind of scratches that itch I guess? The breakneck speed of Kill Team releases (expansions) kind of put me off a bit. I hope the same doesn't happen with warcry. It makes sense for Underworlds because it's a different kind of game, but they still have to be careful to not drive players away. I think eventually GW will move to a fortnightly release schedule, but perhaps cover more things..... like spread the purchases out a bit, but have something for AOS and 40K each fortnight? In terms of the future. I think there's still LOTS of room for improvement. I think army books/codex/battletomes are a relic of ancient times. I think big rule books are the same. AoS has shown that you can release a basic rules PDF and get people on board. It's probably personal preference, but I really like concise rules, in a regularly updated document (preferably for free). The game should be good enough to sell the miniatures. Right now, it's still the other way round. The miniatures are excellent and people still buy them despite the games (at least the main ones, being somewhat average). They're continuing to make the barrier to entry smaller, which is excellent, but there's still constant little missteps that are really frustrating. For example.... Why not include the extra little tokens in the Beastgrave starter box? It's only a bit of extra cardboard.... they aren't really even that necessary, and yet cost an extra $20 or something as a separate item. Why force people to buy multiple underworlds warbands they'll never use just for a few neutral cards? Why not release those neutral cards as separate packs and keep only faction cards in warband boxes. Why do I have to buy access to the digital battletome if I already own the physical book, just to view things on the app (which already has it's own subscription cost)? Why do these army/rule books have so many errors....? A $70 book shouldn't be obsolete in a few weeks after release. Why lock new character models in expensive, extremely limited multi-faction boxes, and not release them solo for 6+months? Why have big multi-faction boxes at all.... the latest 40k one is $390AUD. They rely so heavily on people splitting boxes or selling half after market. GW doesn't get the benefit of those extra sales, surely it's better to simply package each half separately as a new "start collecting" box or something? There's lots they can be doing better.... and they're getting close to FFG level of "spreading yourself too thin". I think they're getting close to just throwing too much at the wall to see what sticks. It might be time soon to take a step back, see what's working, see what needs proper ongoing support, and focus on those product lines. They're increase in organised play support has been great too, although for some reason the communication and regularity/reliability of it has been flaky. TLDR: GW is in a good place right now. It will be very interesting to see what happens when their new factory is up and running. I hope they don't over-saturate the market and focus more on existing product line. People want continuity of product. They want safety and security for their expensive purchases. There's still a lot of room for GW to improve, so I think they'll continue to see good growth for the next 5 or so years, but I don't think their current strategy is sustainable long term.

Hi Everyone. I need some help selecting an army for a large tournament in January. I have 2 main options that I'm leaning towards but very keen on some feedback. OPTION 1: Big stuff Last 90 points can be more spites or another branchwraith Or can drop a few spites and squeeze in a treelord Or can drop spites to minimum and swap the Arch Rev for a Treelord Ancient Allegiance: Sylvaneth- Glade: WinterleafSpirit of Durthu (340)- General- Trait: My Heart Is Ice- Artefact: Frozen KernelBranchwraith (80) - Artefact: Spiritsong Stave- Deepwood Spell: Throne of VinesArch-Revenant (100)Drycha Hamadreth (320)- Deepwood Spell: Regrowth20 x Spite-Revenants (200)5 x Spite-Revenants (60)5 x Spite-Revenants (60)6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400)- Scythes3 x Kurnoth Hunters (200)- GreatswordsOutcasts (100)Spiteswarm Hive (50)Total: 1910 / 2000Extra Command Points: 1Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 107 I feel like it's fairly flexible. Has a bit of punch and the treelords potentially help with all the slaanesh strike first stuff i'm also flexible on the glade, Dreadwood would work well here too. OPTION 2: Alarielle Again, the last 50pts are flexible... could be more endless spells or could drop some spites for more heroes etc... Also flexible on the Glade. Allegiance: Sylvaneth- Glade: WinterleafAlarielle the Everqueen (660)- Deepwood Spell: RegrowthBranchwraith (80)- Artefact: Spiritsong Stave- Deepwood Spell: Throne of VinesArch-Revenant (100)- General- Trait: My Heart Is Ice- Artefact: Frozen Kernel20 x Spite-Revenants (200)5 x Spite-Revenants (60)5 x Spite-Revenants (60)6 x Kurnoth Hunters (400)- Scythes3 x Kurnoth Hunters (200)- GreatswordsOutcasts (100)Spiteswarm Hive (50) Balewind Vortex (40)Total: 1950 / 2000Extra Command Points: 1Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 101 I feel like the Alarielle one is a bit stronger. Though I'm not looking forward to having to paint an additional 800+ points for a 2000pt army (Dryad summons and Alarielle's extra unit). Her summon is very flexible but requires lots more painting. But the army doesn't have as much to deal with strike first slaanesh? I'm not sure how heavily we rely on the Wyldwoods now. I keep thinking the TLA's free auto forest is important? Any advice would be super useful. I won't get much time to play test any of this as I need to get stuck into assembly right now and start painting very soon.