Pombar

My experience with 10 boarboyz is that they rarely all get to make their attacks due to space. Dunno if 15 would be as efficient as maths suggests in many actual games for that reason. I bring the non-maniak boarboyz for the 2” spears that also get the charge bonus (so can roll them together with tusks & hooves at 2/2 hit/wound on turn 2), and extra survivability after that charge - they’re also a prime candidate for save-buffing and make an excellent and cheap tarpit. Also usefully a tarpit that sits BEHIND the opponent, often blocking them from their own deployment zone’s objective and sometimes trapping them between boars and regular boyz while arrows plink away at them.

If the Wanderers/Phoenix Temple/Darkling Coven/etc (ie CoS Elves without a patron deity) were descended from Araloth’s people it would neatly tie up that quandary, but I’d still be super down to see Araloth + daughter re-emerge since they took The Lady of the Lake’s place as a god as Endtimes happened, and also whatever happened to the Grail Knights (knightly folk for CoS!).

Brets being entirely absent feels like such a waste when they had a story hook for bringing them back - Araloth and his daughter with The Lady of the Lake going with the Grail Knights and some Wood Elves through a portal to a hidden mortal realm not yet touched by Chaos to avoid the Endtimes. Later they said “oh when Chaos ravaged other worlds before AoS but after Endtimes, they wiped out those hiding neo-Brets”, but that’s an incredible waste of a good story hook. They just need to say “oh Chaos thought they had wiped them out but actually they used their new fay Green Knight-like talents to provide that illusion as they escaped yet again, and now in their latest jump between dimensions these ethereal half-elven chivalrous dimensional nomadic knights have arrived in the Mortal Realms”. But I guess Lumineth now fill a lot of that knightly slot, alas. As for Soulblight - yes please, asap.

Obviously this is all down to personal preference - though for me a big part of Warhammer is the narrative immersion, so I do like mechanics to more faithfully recreate what the minis seem to be doing. If a wound roll with a range of S and T values is too much busywork, I’d be fine with a simpler mechanic that represents the same - make a roll or universal modifier based on each unit’s Infantry, Monster, Hero, etc keyword perhaps (infantry wound each other fine but find it harder to wound monsters, etc).

I kinda feel like the “you have to stop to compare stats!” point is overblown. The attacker already had to look at their To Hit, and the defender already has to look at their Save - SvT just means both look at once rather than only switching who’s looking later. Also not convinced by the simulation vagueness argument. The hit roll is obviously accuracy, the wound roll is about force vs resilience/physical toughness, and the save roll is about piercing vs armour. My issue is more that the wound roll’s job is very overlappy with the job of damage/wounds. Maybe the number of wounds is meant to represent size and bulk, rather than toughness or resilience, but they’re pretty close. As for using a different die like a D20, that would reduce the number of rolls but make the game massively less accessible - and GW isn’t streamlining for no reason, the ultimate priority is accessibility. Everyone has or can easily get a D6, and understands it well enough. A D20 is a barrier for casual and new players, both in terms of “they won’t have one and may not know where to buy one” (and GW pushing D20s is going to look like they only used D20 to take more money from them) and in terms of intimidation and unfamiliarity.

I mostly would prefer SvsT over To Wound because right now it just feels repetitive - the To Wound roll is identical in the way it functions to the To Hit roll. It’s just lowering the chance of success by making you roll a second To Hit style roll. This seemingly “adds nothing” repetition makes the “just make Hit and Wound a single roll” argument come up a lot more, IMO. I prefer it when each roll has its own dynamic and feel to it. Putting aside modifiers (including Rend) as any roll can have those, To Hit is a roll based on the attacker’s stats, SvsT is a roll based on a comparison between attacker and defender’s stats, and Save is a roll based on the defender’s stats. There’s a satisfying symmetry to that and no roll feels the same or feels redundant.

My hope is they cool it on new factions for a while (with Sons of Behemat, AoS is up to 24 book factions by my count - same as 40k if you don’t count every SM supplement), and flesh out the ones we already have. Fyreslayers are probably the worst offender that comes to mind for just being basically variations on a single model’s theme, but many factions could do with a second wave to make their range wider and deeper.

Thanks so much for the long and considered reply! Yeah, for me I find the Rogue Idol just doesn’t perform as well as I’d like for the points. Maybe that would change after adding a Warchanter and such to slap IJ buffs on him too - that was my original thinking behind him! But in my games he tends to do next to no damage (or literally no damage, as in my last game against Khorne - my fault for guessing target priority wrong, I suppose), and while he stops a few enemy units moving forward for a turn while they take him out, he does go down (even with his 2+ rerollable save and 5+ wound shrug) fast and then leaves a 420 hole in my list. Maybe I’m pointing him at the wrong things, though. As for motivation behind adding more IJ, it’s a few things. Partly just looking to expand my collection and add options, since I enjoy list building but only really have one way to run my collection right now. The goal would be to move towards a collection that could also support a “mostly IJs” Big Waaagh later on, and this more 50-50 list is just a stepping stone to get there, that also will help be get more familiar with IJ units and how they work. Good to know I’m not barking up the wrong tree playing a bit more defensively while charging up the Waaagh points, then! Typically my gameplan has been to throw the Idol at something juicy or use it to tie up some of the more dangerous threats turn 1, while the rest of the list moves closer but still a safe distance from the enemy if possible (and grabbing objectives if they can safely do so). Then rush forward once I hit 20 Waaagh points turn 2.

Heya, moving from pure Bonesplitterz to Big Waaagh lately, and wondering about how the army plays and the Ironjawz portions should be used. I own one of each Bonesplitterz Leader, 20 arrowboyz, 20 savage orruks, 10 moreboyz, 10 boarboys (spears and shield), a rogue idol, and now some Brutes. Probably looking to add a Start Collecting Ironjawz to that, and don’t have shelf space for a mawkrusha so going to avoid that. Previously I’d been running a Kunning Rukk to spam double-shoot each turn while I screened them with savage orruks, flung a flying 2xMove buffed up (2+ Save with rerolling 1s) Rogue Idol into the enemy lines first turn, and sent boar boys to grab a distant objective with some big stabbas aiming to lay down some hurt where needed. So I was thinking of dropping the rogue idol for the Start Collecting box, and dropping the Wurrgog Prophet also, since I wasn’t gonna do the first turn buffs on the idol anymore - just focus on the Bonesplitters side buffing the Rukk’s shooting. What’s the gameplan for Waaagh points? I am pretty reliably hitting 20 on turn 2, but worry a little about losing models before that (when they haven’t had a chance to get stuck in with the +1 to hit and wound, to make their value back). Is it ill-advised to hang back a bit first turn with the melee stuff?