Reuben Parker

I pre ordered to my house so I will have to be even more patient

Ignore it’s already been addressed and can’t see delete post option.

Not so sure about that. impact hits and pickup attacks aren’t bothered. Then the only mega who hits on 4+ and thus gets the largest % damage loss is the gatebreaker who has a tribe that allows him to get +1 to hit vs certain units. for mega attacks on 3+ your losing 25% output but you still have 75% conventional damage and then impact and pickups so quite easily still going to get around 13 - 15 damage through a 4+ on the charge.

Hadn’t even thought of that but actually quite interesting. Could do a cheap battalion as well like a Skal for screening and objectives capping. Then have two mega with items and either the +1 wound or +1 hit traits for the general are both very nice.

As always time will tell but I really don’t feel this army won’t be competitive because of faction rules or warscrolls. When broken down the damage output and hardness to kill actually seems pretty fine. The main gameplay issue will be lack of chaff as chaff play is a core concept of competitive play. We can get around it to some degree with solo gargant units and ranged / impact hits to clear out chaff but it will make matchups vs heavy hitters sitting behind multiple chaff screens very tough. gameplay wise the only big tweak I can see is a points adjustment to gargants 15 ppw on 5+ is steep even with pretty good damage output. This and FAQ in regards to casting / dispel and walk over endless spells. I see people asking for “fun” rules but how much fun do you have when you roll a double on a charge for an Aleguzzler? The giants have pickup and throw attacks, crushing impacts, timber etc for their fluff. let’s get some games in and see what can be done with the book as is. I think people maybe surprised as a couple of Mega setups allow for very good damage output even down to 1 wound. As such you can win games that maybe look like lost causes.

I’m hopeful for the weekend after release for a game or two but I have the pre order coming to my house so it kind of depends when it arrives as to if I have time to build them or not. I find sometimes pre orders to home can come in midweek.

Breaker Tribe breakdown. I thought I would do a little write up on the breaker tribe as I see on this forum and other sources them being rated often as the worst tribe. I have them second behind stomper but with being more consistent as stomper may have lists where no units of 10+ models exist. +1 damage vs units in cover. People will rightly say that this will never kick in and that’s correct as your opponent won’t let it. In essence the rule reads opponents don’t get the benefit of cover to their save and that’s pretty strong as a passive buff. A number of heroes and also re roll save units love to sit in cover. The smaller giants destroying terrain is meh as the gatebreaker does it so much easier anyway and it’s not going to be super common. +1 to hit should be taken vs either heroes and wizards or command models as this will cover the most units. heroes is Normally a smaller % of your opponents army but a lot of lists fall apart without buff heroes. It also works well with gatebreaker very powerful ranged attacks. 2 gatebreaker with a blob of 3 giants throwing rocks will kill a support hero a turn on average. general upgrades my go to will be +2 attacks trait and 6+++ shrug. Although I could see going shrug and +5 wounds as then it takes on average 48 wounds to kill him. Running breakers you get to run the mega with the most native damage output and is the only sub faction that buffs the damage of its mega. Going from 4+ to 3+ on the flail will be a 33% damage increase. I would run a double gatebreaker 3x1 1x3 setup and I think it will be a strong build for SoB. Giving strong character sniping a tough to kill general and very high -3 rend output.

Yeah I’m going to run the army as is but also planning to fit the chaos merc into my chaos dwarves. They lack a high rend beat stick and his -1 stomp aura will combine nicely with the -1 trait on the general. army has ranged and great chaff killing 12 fireborn average 40 damage but all at rend 0 so his high rend will definitely come in handy.

These are good points my take : wait for faq on longshanks for endless spells and Also casting them see if it gets added or not. the 1 big 9 small does seem good, personally I haven’t gone that route mainly as it makes leader role scoring missions a real uphill struggle. Then in terms of rule of cool I want a couple of Mega. forbidden power is interesting with the merc companies do you have to take a leader role or could you say take 2 grimwrath berserkers? I was wondering if longshanks wouldn’t make it over a base due to the huge pie plate so nice to see someone math it. The rule still has applications either clipping a base or coming within 3” as part of a move somewhere. ——— I agree the army is going to have its issues maybe FAQ and some slight tweaks to points may solve it to a degree. All that aside an army with zero screening will always have a relatively low ceiling in competitive play. However for me I really enjoy using and trying to make work armies that are weaker and non meta. I would love to see a minimal points tweak to allow 3 gatebreaker and 3x1 Mancrusher or evening slightly larger points tweaks to allow 2 mega 2x3 Mancrusher 1 Mancrusher.

FLoSH are seen as competitive and they’re 13/14 wounds on 3+ 5+++ shrug (Equivalent to roughly 21 wounds)so considerably less tanky per point than a mega especially vs mortals. If your worried about hordes then that’s where stomper tribe excels or breaker taking +1 to hit vs command models. stomper tribe has a re roll saves item and breaker has 6+++ shrug item. against shooting / magic SoB are going to be 140 odd wounds however it’s built and fast with some ok ranged sniping. Apart from things like endless spell locking which may well get FAQ for longshanks they’re not really anymore vulnerable to it than other melee armies. Also it’s easy for SoB to space out so spells don’t hit multiple units and they can take advantage of shrug terrain better than any other army. Their offence and defence when broken down seems actually perfectly fine. It’s more screening etc where they’re at a huge disadvantage. maybe some points tweaks may happen (180 for a maneater seems high) but at most I expect SoB to be able to fit in one extra maneater.

Wait for FAQ as I saw a few pages back it was discussed and someone posted a screenshot of the designer saying that they can cast endless spells with the lantern. Dispelling wasn’t addressed from what I saw in the chat. I would imagine though that would be intended as well but again see if an FAQ drops. If that happens it does give takers a niche as dispelling an endless spell would be a big boon.

That’s my plan either to play a stomper plus gatebreaker Stompers list or a double gatebreaker breakers list. I see a lot of love online for the takers but their damage output doesn’t seem on par to me. Fancy rules are fine but in sigmar you need to be able to delete your opponents threatening units.

My plan is a 2 mega 1x3 3x1 man eater build. Push the 3 solo ones to take objectives vs melee armies. Your opponent can’t shift them with chaff and will have to send one of their damage dealers and hopefully allow for a counter attack from your mega or blob of 3. The army will struggle against lists that can make an insane deathstar as we can’t screen it. also I don’t see us beating elite melee armies that make us fight last like Fyreslayers or slaanesh. Our only hope would be lucky shooting to snipe heroes or impact hits if they position poorly.

I can’t refute lack of customization or lack of warscrolls. I’ve said several times my main gripe is lack of artifacts / traits for each Mega I personally feel they should all get one. however I will push back on saying they hit like wet noodles. On page 42 someone has done a breakdown of their expected damage vs 4+ saves. In summary kraken 9.27 stomper 12.3 breaker 13.34 maneater 5.03 and they compared to FLoSH (a feared hero on monster and sees competitive play) 12.82 so they are around the FLoSH level before you factor in their special attacks and their shooting (both have good impact hits). Also what gets lost in the shuffle is they actually don’t degrade that badly. Even at 1 wound a stomper still can get 10 attacks with his club. A breaker with the +2 attacks trait at 1 wound has 7 flail attacks still. Also the couple of rr1s are not included but don’t make a huge difference. the kraken also gets a huge boost if you give him the jaws and sandals artifacts (although he and takers are my least fav). then stomper tribe can massively up the damage output of man eaters. Whilst breaker tribe +1 to hit is huge for the mega and his 4+ to hit flail either go heroes wizards or command models would be my choices. So you have models that actually have good damage output that are consistent all the way to death. The competitive issue is more around screening and zoning but that’s a product of AoS itself not SoB.

What don’t you like about the rules? The only thing I feel was missing was either a artifact/trait per mega Gargant or a cheap battalion to achieve the same end. apart from that I like the 3 mega Gargants rules and the faction main and sub faction rules seem solid to me.

I see what your saying. maybe be a day one faq we already need one for the lantern to be in line with the designers comments. I guess the only other defence would be to have multiple bases together touching to stop the triangle point pinning.

They are models with less than 10 wounds as they don’t have a wound stat at all. Logically longshanks should still work as they have 0 wounds Which is equal to or less than 10. Longshanks to not work would have to be worded a model with a wounds stat 1 to 10.

It’s expensive all round maybe Aus is worse. However it’s still around how much you would pay for any other army. 1100 odd Canadian got me 2 mega, 6 Gargants, tome and cards today which is about standard for a 2k army. I know pricing seems to be a big deal for a lot of people as it’s more than an imperial knight. I never worry too much on that side of things I more think about how much the entire army costs rather than individual box set prices.

I’m leaning towards stomper but probably run a gatebreaker as a second mega in it for his utility destroying terrain and making opponents not want to get cover saves whilst adding another nice snipe attack.

So now people have seen all the allegiance videos etc what are people’s fav tribe? for me it’s probably the stomper still running d3 command points and re roll saves on general then probably a Gatebreaker 3x1 and 1x3 Gargants. however the breaker tribe I also really like for the +1 hit vs command models and a general on 40 wounds with 6+ shrug although for breaker I kinda feel you just focus on multiple gatebreaker and Gargants so they all get the +1 hit. seems there’s a lot of love for kraken but I feel the shift in counts as won’t make a huge difference going 10-15 and 20-30 and the kicking objectives as others have broken down is quite limited by needing to be controlling it and within an inch.

It’s 4” terrain features models can be 20 feet high as long as less than 10 wounds

Indeed a more nuanced approach is generally better. However the re roll saves does seem the best of the bunch we’ve seen. I would also love a shrug even if it’s only a 6+. Even if the lantern does allow all a wizards actions it is still going to be on the weaker end once you factor in most armies bringing some form of anti magic. Magic in general is best as an overload stratagey.

I think your underestimating the jaws. The re rolls will be very useful with things like the death grip attack and also makes his shooting a bit more consistent. Then a single save re roll not so much but still at times it may help to shave some damage off. lantern I agree isn’t fantastic but I think it’s main use will be actually if you want the opportunity to dispel endless spells in your hero phase rather than using it for casting. cestus though as you say is best of the bunch. I hope they have a rule where every mega gargant gets an artifact.

I’m thinking about maybe 4xspears, 4xarchers 2xcav as a core at only 1300 still leaves plenty for characters / elite stuff and is already a whole bunch of spells. I think Lumineth can make for a very interesting MSU army (which I’m a fan of).

Not sure about you but my spear has 3” reach. I actually think this army even with limited choices will have quite a few possible builds as everything seems playable. I’m not the biggest fan of Teclis (I don’t like huge point sinks in general) but still there will be lists with him that can be competitive for sure.