chosen_of_khaine

The bottom two rows of tokens all correspond to units we already know, as far as I can tell. Celennar, Teclis, Wardens, Eltharion Stoneguard, Spirit of the Mountain, Dawnriders, Sentinels *Why* there are tokens corresponding to specific units is a more interesting question...

I didn't catch those figures, this is pretty interesting. My first thought is that they are two other manifestations of elemental spirits (like the bull is to the mountain), the one on the left being a dragon and on the right a (winged?) antelope. My second thought is that the wings on the "dragon" look awfully similar to the crest on the Light of Eltharion's helmet. Time for some speculation: The dragon is the manifestation of Zenith, and the antelope is the manifestation of Wind. We learned of a subfaction/discipline called Zaitrec in the video showing the cards today, which given the spell is "Overwhelming Heat", we can guess that Zaitrec is the name for the Zenith faction. The Eltharion's helmet looks like the "zenith dragon"s wings because he is closely affiliated with Zaitrec for whatever reason (maybe they brought him back?).

The fact that there are spell cards probably doesn't mean any models in the box are wizards, it probably includes all the spells in the battletome.

From the video of the cards, it looks like "Zaitrec" is another Elementari temple, probably Zenith given the spell is "Overwhelming Heat", like Alarith is for the Mountain temple.

More details can be seen if you search "White Dwarf" on the GW website:

New rumour engine is 100% OBR, with the cartouche of the Emissarian caste. Probably a named Soulreaper for underworlds?

I'm guessing we'll get one more, then save the other two for a future release alongside Tyrion. Lumineth have 8 kits so far including these if I haven't missed any, and Ossiarch got 11 IIRC, so one more element with mage + squad + monster would be a reasonable, if large, release. Also, the wording in the article that we had "dipped our toes" so far, and this reveal was "a bit more" implies there's at least a few more kits to be revealed.

I'm seeing "river" runes on her robe, but her headdress looks like the upper part of the mandala, "zenith". Notably no mountain iconography, so she's either generic or from one of the other elements.

The long hair with bands on it is also from the new Shadowsun model, and the "brackets with flame" has been seen in Scions of the Flame art. This was a pretty lazy article...

The list that got 2nd at CanCon this weekend was surprising! Nagash Liege-Kavalos 5x Deathriders 5x Deathriders 15x Deathriders Bone-Tithe Shrieker Emerald Lifeswarm

Not only that, but there were only 2 OBR in top 20 of CanCon (2nd and 12th place) and only one OBR currently in Top 8 of LVO, despite being by far the most popular army at both events.

That's a fair criticism, though I find unit option balance MUCH more important than sub-faction options (which could honestly not exist at all for any faction and barely make a difference). Unit choices are responsible for much more of the variability between games than getting an extra command ability or artifact. And just glancing through the CanCon lists, every single unit from the OBR tome is present at the tournament besides Vokmortian and the Soulreaper. That's pretty incredible. You have lists with an all-deathrider battleline, lists with minimum squads of mortek, Nagash, Katakros, and Arkhan lists, and lists with no named characters whatsoever. That sounds like a battletome with great internal balance to me!

I don't know what people are talking about when they say the OBR tome has bad internal balance. Besides two useless heroes (Soulreaper and Vokmortian), you can bring literally anything in the book and not feel like you're intentionally handicapping yourself. I understand this is a function of having the generic battleline (and the faction as a whole) be powerful, but literally every unit has a role that it can play, with only some minor mismatches (Morgast vs Stalkers). I should note, however, that my other primary AoS army is Idoneth, so basically any semblance of internal balance looks good to me...

Had my first game with a Nagash list the other day, and did not expect him to do as well as he did. In addition to shutting down casting, he's just so much more resilient AND deadly in OBR - between Petrifex, Protection of Nagash, and healing 3 each turn defensively, coupled with +1 to hit from Shrieker, additional -1 rend from Petrifex CA, +1 attack from Liege, and his own CA rerolling 1s, he is MUCH more of a presence in combat than in LoN. Not to mention the +3 move you can give him to get him where you need him to be much easier. None of this is even "magical christmas land", you can reliably do all this and have 2-3 RDP left over for Shieldwall and whatnot. For reference, my list was: Petrifex Elite Nagash Liege Kavalos (general) 20 Mortek 20 Mortek 10 Deathriders Bone-Tithe Shrieker I didn't feel as starved for RDP as I expected, and this list was really fun to play. As the only one who plays OBR at my store, I'm getting the sense the other players are definitely of the mind that OBR (or at least Petrifex) is a bit OP, and I can't say I disagree. Haven't even come close to losing a game with them yet!

Maybe I missed something, but has it been clarified when exactly "during a combat phase" CAs can be used? IE, can I wait until after wound rolls to activate the Petrifex CA "Bludgeon"? (If I wanted to be particularly gamey)

It's interesting people are finding OBR as getting "exceptions to core rules", whereas I've found the opposite to be true in terms of actual gameplay - they fight completely traditional combat, just extremely efficiently (which makes sense fluff wise). They have no fight first / force enemy to fight last abilities, no pile in / fight twice abilities (barring very limited Immortis shield attacks), no deep strike / teleport, no exceptional mortal wound output, no summoning, etc. High CP generation and battleshock immunity are not unique to OBR, or to many 2.0 tomes.

This seems correct given the Designer's Commentary regarding the SCE rule Cycle of the Storm, in that the wounds are allocated one at a time, and a model is considered "slain" while other wounds have yet to be allocated. I kind of wish it weren't this way, because in practice it functions like an additional 4+++ in most cases, since you can just keep returning the slain model right back to where it was, then "slay" it again with the next wound allocated, etc et

This is honestly such a relief for me. I love the model, but the conveniently placed stones that the hooves stand on is just dumb, and I want to fit that spirit on the base. The rearing pose is so much better, but I can't see myself ever running Zandtos.

Regarding swords vs spears on the Mortek Guard in squads of 20, if anyone is curious on the math, 15 sword guard do the equivalent of 20 spears, so spears only edge out if you can't get 15 swords in to combat (which shouldn't be too hard fighting in two ranks).

It was confirmed on Facebook that they are in boxes of 20 too, awesome!

Unfortunately, yes. "When you generate your relentless discipline points at the start of the battle round, any that you had left over from the previous battle round are lost." Straight from the book. He misread it, it only affects mortal wounds. You can look at it yourself if you zoom in. And yes, all save-after-save rolls stack in the way you described.

The google doc is missing the fact that Reinforced Battle Shields also affects anything with normal Shields as well, so this also affects Mortek and Kavalos. However, it also ONLY affects Mortal Wounds.

I'm doing the math right now and I'm not finding any combination of abilities that gets them near what Stalkers in Precision Aspect can do damage-wise.

There are lots of neat units I want to try out, like one or two Crawlers, a Harvester, squad of six Stalkers, etc., but does anyone have any thoughts on a good battleline at 2k? I want to include a unit of Deathriders, so I'm thinking: 20 Mortek w/ Spears 20 Mortek w/ Spears 10 Kavalos w/ Spears Which comes out to 880. I could drop one of the Mortek to 10 and switch to swords, but even with 3+ w/ rerolls, anything with decent rend will smash them off the table. I've thought about maybe a unit of 40, but that seems like overkill (or is it?)

And half of his Supreme Lord command ability only affects Praetorians IIRC