Spears

Maybe worth explaining the logic for that: https://twitter.com/N3RD28/status/1223728997164556290 Also warscroll for the Wurmspat is up, not sure I had seen it before. I don't think they bring much as allies sadly. https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/AoS_Warscrolls//aos_the_wurmspat_en.pdf

If malign sorcery isn't in play you don't actually get an artefact or command trait whilst being sixth circle anyway. The benefits of projecting their own Aura of chaos, being able to spend command points on the generic abilities and gaining lookout sir are pretty big buffs on their own though. I guess we need to see how subfaction selection works. Edit: Sadly warscroll builder has Fist of the everchosen as their own allegiance entirely.

To be fair I dont think Op was looking to compare the actual gameplay.

I recently Took a bunch of screenshots to try and demonstrate just how good the Infinity Tournament System is. By tying in the ITS login to the army builder and tournament organiser its possible to track not only win rates of the faction, but who was playing them and against whom all the way down to unit level. (not all of this is directly available through the portal). Now I'm not saying its flawless and I'm not sure Cb always get their balancing right but it does make attending a GW event feel slightly quaint with TTO etc. Edit: how on earth do i paste in a tweet like that above? First up is Infinity Army a free army builder that links straight to the rules wiki. From here you can submit your lists straight to the tournament manager used for pairing on the day. Results effect your global elo and gaming style achievements. All that data is then used to monitor the performance and popularity of armies and missions.

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Ah I have jumped around the core rules, my mistake.

Are you sure about this bit? You allocate wounds one at a time to a unit, you then make the saving throw before moving onto the next wound until the model is slain. In many cases this is largely irrelevant so all the saves are thrown at once but in this example you would roll saves until you fail 10, you don't make save rolls for the remaining 190.

Mercenary giants would certainly appear to work with the two different faction giants that have been suggested by the rumour mill.

Varanguard outside of std lose the option to take a circle, so generally they are fairly down on damage. The batallion isn't legal outside of slaves to darkness as you need host of the everchosen varanguard to build it. Just go for whichever look coolest.

I think if you are going to invest in the hexwraith batallion you really need bigger bricks of hexwraiths. That said even in the batallion they are godawful for damage.

I found similar issues when I started my nighthaunt army but here are some of the lessons I learned along the way: White is a bit finicky to airbrush, you can see in the attached photo that if you zoom in enough the white specks are visible through the later glazes. Consider this whilst planning your scheme and try to go back over it rather than using white as the last highlight. Some of the vallejo paints can be a bit erratic from pot to pot so dont be afraid to experiment with colours you might not actually want to put on a model to get the technique down. I found that using flow improver as thinner gave subpar results, adding a smidgen of flow improver with airbrush thinner does seem to prevent it drying on the needle though. I don't see it mentioned often but airbrushing is super temperature sensitive, I initially had the setup in my garage but found this cause me issues due to the low temperature. Whilst I agree with the above that you should mark your 'Standard' psi I disagree that you should use the same all the time, different paints have different requirements so don't be afraid to experiment. That said not knowing the psi seems unusual, are you using a nail art compressor? Half of airbrushing is the cleaning. In fact probably more than half. Grab a cheapo cleaning kit and make sure its not clogged up. Glaze medium is not necessarily your friend. The more things you have going on the harder its going to be to work out where you are going wrong, start with paint and water/thinner. Angel Giraldez is imo one of the best airbrush mini painters doing non patreon tutorials, do note that best doesnt always mean easiest, however he does have some videos aimed at entry level stuff so go have a nosey.

Its a minimal drop reduction and you can only actually use the second artefact if realm artefacts are in play and you are running two characters other than Archaon. So realistically that probably looks like: Archaon 800 Varanguard * 3 900 sorcerer lord 110 lord 110 Total 1920 leaving a whopping 80 points to spend elsewhere and still being 4 drops. Like I say its certainly not likely to break anything.

I think it could legitimately be 0 points without breaking anything.

Doesn't it require host of the everchosen Varanguard to even buy the battalion though?

Oof doesn't seem like any of the clarifications went in our favour.

Looking good, would you happen to have a link for those shields at all?

Got a test game in yesterday with the following list Archaon 3 Varanguard - Fellspears 3 Varanguard - Enscorccled weapons 10 Warriors 20 Marauders 18 Untamed beasts Sorcerer lord Took mark of Nurgle on everything and got merrily smashed by Ogors. Takeaways from the game though: Fesllpear Varanguard do some work, that said they really want to have some sort of buff, the archaon reroll meant they annihilated a stonetusk thing but they then piled into a second unit without the re-rolls and were considerably less impressive. Pushing through damage 4 hits with the nurgle mark is tasty. They really dont like mortal wounds though, its a shame the shields aren't a mw shrug. So much of the power of Varanguard is locked into them charging that a decent screen really felt mandatory, the untamed beasts are an auto take in my opinion. I might split them into two units in future as I think they would be better at screening/scoring but going up to 8 drops is a downside. The sorcerer lord flubbed his rolls and snake eyed every casting roll, whispers of chaos from Archaon then failed to give any 6s. Which as annoying as it was did highlight how good the no risk oracular vision buff is. I couldn't decide between the sorcer or a chaos lord but I think keeping any of the hammer units in range of the lord's command ability will hamper the list. I got over excited about the prospect of putting an ethereal stone horn into the slayer of kings, that didn't end well for Archaon. When attacking something without his re-roll he still wasn't as consistent as I would have liked. The warriors are the units most likely to change in future. The warriors hit like a wet flannel and whilst they are tough a brick of Iron golems would have save rerolls for longer whilst working out a whopping 60 points cheaper for an equivalent number of wounds. I'm loathe to drop them as I like the aesthetic mix, Knights might be an alternative though, fewer wounds but with a clearer purpose as objective grabbers. I'm not 100 percent convinced by the marauders, as a screen iron golems would probably be better again, that said the threat of a 20 man unit who is almost guaranteed a charge after being teleported exerts some real board presence and gives your opponent something to keep in mind. Overall i'm happy with the list but am still torn on the mark to use, Khorne would give some consistency that felt a bit lacking whereas the Nurgle mark is likely to feel a bit subpar until you run into a shooting heavy army.

Just a heads up for any STD players who don't want to lob some glue in their bits box for a chaos spawn, the issue of 40k Conquest out later this month looks to have two chaos spawn on it for around 8 quid.

The dreadwardens have an alternative build if you want them to use them as a normal dude. I made the mistake of gluing mine but it should be easy enough to just push together whichever you need at the time.

Without having played it yet I reckon 6 is probably the sweet spot of keeping that theme whilst maintaining effectiveness. So much of the Varanguard power is locked into them charging that having a decent screen seems fairly key. Even a couple of units of untamed beasts to help stop them getting tagged might be worthwhile.

I've gone for a fairly retro meadow thing, trying to make it look like the army is on a day out rather than chilling at home in the chaos wastes. Not sure it quite works yet though.

Yes but this base fits in the paint holder, the scenic bases on my finished models throw out the height.

Scale for anybody who needs it. New chaos warrior vs blood warrior with a chaos warrior head on. Actual result might be slightly shorter due to bluetac. New knight vs varanguard.

Is the Exalted hero there for something in particular? Maybe swap him out for more warriors.

It seems that the right answer is ensorcelled weapons. I've excluded Daemon blades from the below as they are almost always the worst option in a positive scenario. The below assumes you have Archaon on the field, he has marked your target and you charged with 6th circle damage. It seems that Khorne is the highest damage mark, Nurgle the worst and Slaanesh in the middle (this doesn't really reflect the potential to roll hot with slaanesh though). The further you stray from this best case scenario the better the Khorne mark gets. If for some reason you decide not to take 6th circle Fellspears are considerably stronger than ensorcelled on the charge. So my take away is ensorcelled all the time whilst the mark is a meta call, if you expect much shooting it is probably sensible to take Nurgle. Edit: After a bit more playing around, the maximum damage is Slaanesh ensorcelled weapons with a sorcerers full reroll spell on.