Satyrical Sophist

I do like playing with battle tactics, yes. I think they add to the game. Ideally you should be thinking about them ahead of time and working out how to score them. I think there are some that are better than others, not a huge fan of the ones that force you to remain in combat, I much prefer the wording of “all units have fought” for that, since it still has risk (first unit might wipe out the target), but is one you can plan for much more. I think it’s good when the game rewards you for planning these things out, and allows the option of playing more cagily until you properly commit. I don’t much care for the “let’s all line up and mash armies into each other” type of game.

The risk of not having them is that you can get into situations where it is too easy to build a list that can just sit on the majority of objectives and not budge the entire game. That’s not possible on every battle plan, but it is a problem for a reasonable number of them.

Late in the game you might not be able to score a battle tactic either. With only 8 total possible battle tactics you might have a harder time getting 5 of them. If you have something like Gotrek stood directly in the middle of the board then you can’t really score seize the centre, the enemy general’s regiment might be unkillable, or already wiped out meaning you can’t score Slay the Entourage, and your army might not be able to reach the flanks that turn for take the flanks. In that case it might be better to take the double now, knowing you couldn’t score anyway. I’m curious as to whether people might be incentivised to build their generals regiment differently due to this. You definitely don’t want to have a screen or something in your generals regiment, but I could also see some armies deliberately taking an extra drop in order to deny it.

My first thought was that cities would find those really easy. Stuff like chariots, gyrocopters etc are very good for scoring the “be in a place” tactics. It’s gonna be interesting playing around the new reactive command abilities though. Don’t want to move too close to a unit and let them stop you scoring a battle tactic with a counter charge or shoot.

There already are men in sisters of battle. The priest stuff is mixed gender already. If you mean as in making the core sororitas mixed gender, there would have been a backlash yes. Gender is a core part of the faction, since sisters have always had a strong Joan of Arc/nun theme. Many players were drawn to them because of that theme. Like space marines have a strong warrior monk theme, with chapter monasteries and the like. Custodes have never had that gendered theme. People have dug out references to “men” and “sons” and the like. Sure. We also refer to “mankind” and use man pretty much to refer to humans in general. Given each one is meant to be individually sculpted into something that barely resembles a human, gender hardly matters. I do have sympathy for the custodes fan who got into them entirely due to the fantasy of being surrounded entirely by incredibly buff, oiled beautiful men though. I feel many people complaining wouldn’t list that as a reason though.

I think it’s real interesting that a lot of people suddenly care super hard about changes to the lore pretty much entirely when it involves anything getting less straight, white and male. The custodes thing has been very handy for finding out which content creators can happily go on the block list.

Just because you don’t like something doesn’t mean it is lazy design. They have shown what, 3 heroes, none of which are combat heroes? I am I missing something here? The slaughter priest is a priest, the weird nob is a wizard and the Skaven is a sniper. We have seen relatively few war scrolls just in general, but of those it looks like there have been some significant changes. I really like the design change of the vindictors, that anti charging rule is very cool, and separates them out from other choices. Kroxigor now look like they match their big imposing models. I was gonna quote myself from the other thread, but it’s easier just to retype. There are issues with having small foot heroes be massive blenders. They have an absolutely tiny footprint and are easy to miss on the battle field. Yes, you can have absolute blender units like Gotrek and Eltharion, but those are fairly specific units and are very distinctive. You don’t risk mistaking them for anything else. Chaos Lords get mentioned a lot, but frankly they do not stand out on the battlefield. I think you’ll get a lot more bad feelings from people not realising that that chaos armour wearing caped looking guy fights as hard as a unit, whereas the other one is a buffing piece. I once played a game with maggotkin where I accidentally including a lord of plagues with a unit of blight kings and only realised that the unit champ and the hero had switched at the end of the game. I think it must have happened turn 2. Do I think they could do more for differentiating heroes? Sure, I’m just waiting to see if they do, rather than getting annoyed preemptively that they might not. Personally I think there is more room for using the universal special rules and custom special rules to represent the power of the combat heroes. Give doomseekers anti monster buffs, give a hero the ability to stop pile ins if he kills an enemy. Just cranking the numbers up feels like a much more lazy way.

Aren't felwaters and rockguts still troggoths? Why do you assume it has to be the biggest troggoth. If the chaos lord has a fighting chance against a dank hold or other equivalent then it would have to be really very expensive. It would also be a lot of force on a tiny base. There are some blenders that size, but I can really only think of Gotrek and Light of Eltharion, and those are much easier to notice. People already complain about how deadly they are, and having just some not particularly distinctive heroes be super deadly is a minefield. Oh no, I didn't realise it was the chaos lord, I thought it was the aspiring champion. One of them is a fully capable of murdering 200 points of combat unit and the other is chip damage. Both are caped chaos warriors in heavy plate. Even before you get into people with converted models for it.

Also, unless I am missing it, not a wizard

It says that they want heroes to be buff pieces rather than murder machines?

6 is to let you deploy either a pair of threes or a 5 in a single line. I do get your point about it perhaps being a bit awkward to have to double line 10 25mm bases, but equally if you allow other stuff that coherency rule. It’s not too much of a problem letting a unit of steel helms stretch out like that, they could make a line of about 14 inches. By the same rule, 10 liberators cover 20 inches and 10 dire wolves cover 28 inches.

I wonder if that’s why they tightened up coherency. I think it might be just about possible, if tricker to pin units in position. Remember the holding unit can pull causalities from close to the enemy unit, as long as they keep within 3. I can see how it would speed up pile ins considerably though. You just need to make sure one model is within 3, and move all the others. Rather than the super awkward checking each model and piling in appropriately. Who knows how to will play out. It feels like it’s easier to explain at least.

You can’t leave combat by piling in towards another unit. It says you need to remain within combat range of any units you are already in combat range of, so you could pull away and make it harder for the enemy to get in range with the full unit, but you can’t escape combat.

I really love the burgundy set, Royal Cloak and Swordhilt Burgundy in particular.

Sure? They probably do like that people have to rebuy the paint more often. I think you think I’m defending them, I’m not. It is what it is. Those reasons are from the former product designer who was interviewed by the Painting Phase. (Think that’s right). I’m not a big fan of going straight for the most cynical take one can think of. Sure, it’s often a factor, but it’s pretty limiting to just stick to that and only that. I didn’t say I liked the pots. I said I liked them for contrasts and washes, which do get used straight from the pot fairly often. Not all the time, but fairly often, particularly for a quick base coat.

GW doesn't change their pots for a few key reasons. Brand recognition, they are super recognisable, which is a surprisingly big thing. It helps particularly with the assumption that a significant amount of GW stuff is bought for people. Straight from the pot. When it comes to basic, super beginner painting, its a lot easier. You don't need a pallet, you can stir it with a stick inside the pot etc. Dropper bottles basically require a palette, whether its wet or dry. Should you be painting straight from the pot? Not particularly, but it makes it a lot easier for beginners. When it comes to the contrast/xpress/speedpaints I actually prefer the bottles, since straight from the pot is a reasonable approach. They have a giant machine that makes those pots. I have far too many paints, a habit I picked up during lockdown when I had no hobby time. There are various paints I like a lot in most ranges, but it feels like by far the most consistent paint I've used and basically my main paint line now is Duncan Rhode's Two Thin Coats. A bit more expensive than I'd like, but enjoyable to use. To answer your Vallejo question, to the best of my ability. Vallejo have a few different paint ranges with different properties and those paint ranges have old and new versions for some of them. Vallejo Model Colour (which has serial numbers in the 70.001 to 70.999 or so) is a range that was made for painting model kits like airplanes. It has names like French Mirage Blue, Intermediate Blue. Pale Grey Blue and Blue Grey Pale are two different colours. It used to be known as a really good paint range, but time has moved on since then. They have been reformulating the range and changing their bottle design. The new range seems to be slowly filtering to the UK (at least where I am), but I haven't tried a huge number of them out. Given the good things I've heard and seen myself about the similar redesign of Vallejo Game Colour, I'm optimistic. They tend to be pretty muted colours. Vallejo Game Colour ( has serial numbers in the 72 range) is the fantasy range for Vallejo. The (unverified) story is that when Citadel wanted to change their paint line they talked to Vallejo but the deal fell through and a while later Vallejo came out with some paints that looked very like the old citadel paints with similar names. So they have paints like Goblin Green, Tinny Tin, Squid Pink. The original game colours don't have the best reputation, partly due to their age and lack of consistency paint to paint. The new range has been getting good reviews though and the ones I've used I've really liked. They tend to be a bit matter. A lot of people use the model air and game air colours from Vallejo. In particular the metallics have an absolutely great reputation, with Vallejo Model Air Silver (71.065) having a particularly stellar reputation, with either a brush or an airbrush. Vallejo also have Vallejo Metal Colours, a frankly silly number of wonderful to use silvers, designed for an airbrush but coating really well with a brush. I generally default to Duraluminum, but just pick what you like the look of. AK Interactive 3rd Gen. This is a full fairly broad range. You didn't ask about them, but they are very similar to Vallejo. They both come from the same area of spain and the founder has the surname Vallejo, so I think there is some history. They have a range of colours I'd say is a mix of VMC and VGC. I've got a number of them, but have yet to test them out really. A lot of people swear by them, particularly their pastels. There are a lot of different ranges with different properties. Some have really colours, or types of colours and mediocre or even bad other colours. Some are kind of just weird. Scale 75's normal paints are actually gel based, and produce some of the most matt finishes. They definitely feel different to use. I mostly use them when I have a specific look in mind (The main non metallic ones I find myself returning to are a set of them I use for leather, since the matt finish lets it stand out against cloth) and I don't think I'd ever base coat with them. The metallics on the other hand feel lovely to use, and have some lovely seldom seen colours. I particularly like the alchemy colours, which are very bright metallic colours designed to fit as the brightest part of gold, brass, copper etc. Quite often the final highlight of a non silver colour ends up completely silver and can wash away the general look. Are there any other paint ranges you would like to know about? I feel I might have spent too long typing about paint.

I might be wrong, but didn't they say that the dawnbringers stuff is being brought forward into AoS 4?

There are whole faction/sub factions where counter charging is a massive draw. The glottkin (whose ability is in movement admittedly) has a huge part of its cost in having a counter charge command. It’s a very very powerful ability. Unleash hell is sometimes very good, but this edition is limited reinforcement sizes of units and we actually haven’t seen any real shooting profiles yet.

If you are interested in keeping on playing SCE, then the best I can think of off the top of my head is. Sequitors as liberators. 5 Castigators as EITHER Judicators (If they are coming back with new models), OR Vigilors OR two sets of crossbow Vanguard Raptors. Mounted Lord Arcanum as Mounted Aquilor or the new chocobo mounted Ruination Chamber lord. The knight incantor can be a knight arcanum. The Knight venator and the ballista are currently without easy proxying. I think there is a non zero chance we get an updated winged stormcast hero. I'm less sure of the ballista, but its possible. I had a go eyeballing how many points of units I lost, and its kind of eye watering. I have a fair chunk of soul wars and mortal realms stuff, and have a full beasts of chaos army. I think it works out as about 5k of stormcast and 5k of BoC (might be a bit under, but counting the war cry stuff, definitely over 5k). It's been an emotional time. Thematically for beasts I'm currently thinking of seeing about running them as Khorne maybe. Comparisons are a bit vaguer, but I THINK that it could work. (Bestigor as Blood Warriors, Gor as reavers, maybe even minotaur as mighty skull crushers).

I’m kind of assuming that horde and non elite options are going to have a degrade option like Nagash losing power when he has taken a certain number of wounds. Something like “this unit has 0 control when below half strength” achieves quite a bit.

SCE are a little bit stuck as one of the starter factions. I think they want one of the factions to be an easy beginner option hobbywise. I’d argue that overall SCE are actually pretty medium to paint WELL, but petty easy to get painted acceptable. Back in the day, just basecoating ret gold and doing a wash of flesh shade for all the gold, then some simple block colours makes a playable paint job. I think there is a real risk when starter sets don’t have an easy paint/play option. My understanding is that isle of blood (which I own and am painting now) was a really lovely looking set containing two popular factions that underperformed at least in part due to both of them being hard to paint and not the most beginner friendly. i feel if you don’t have SCE as one of the starter options you might want to have something similar, like slaves to darkness, or iron jaws.

One thing with the double turn that I’d be interested in seeing/testing resolving would everything coming down to one dice roll, and one that isn’t really interacted with. I wonder whether it would make a difference if it was like warcry. Short summary is that in warcry you roll 6 dice, and separate out singles, doubles, triples and quadruples. The doubles, trips and quads can be spent on abilities. The player with the most singles gets to choose priority. You also get a wild dice each turn to either save or modify your roll. So you could add a single to try and get priority, or turn a single into a double to get an ability (but be less likely to go first). I really think something like this would feel better, and it also opens up design space for you to interact with it. For example, a hero could add a wild dice, or count as an additional single for example. If you wanted to have an in game representation you could even have stuff like “unit wiped out, add a single to the next priority roll “ or something like that, to represent losses forcing a general to react to stuff. What bonuses you would give for doubles, trips etc would need to be decided. i don’t know if this would help, but I feel it might? It feels more significant than “well, this single dice had a huge impact”.

I was playing a game last week where my opponent asked me about if I cared about terrain and was surprised when I said yes. I was then surprised when he started rolling for mysterious terrain because I had straight up forgotten it was a thing. I meant terrain placement in general. I was playing nurgle and my grand strat was blessed desecration which cares about whether terrain is fully in enemy deployment.

I’ve played a fair number of games in my life thanks, in warhammer I’ve played warhammer fantasy back in the day, and I’ve played 40K 3rd to 5th, then 8th and 9th (not played any 10th yet) Mordheim, Warcry, Blood Bowl etc. Outside of GW stuff I’ve played a lot of board games over the years, and played a ton of magic the gathering, mainly legacy. I haven’t really played much in the way of historical war games, or warmahordes but I’d say I have a reasonable spread of games. The article said “choose” to take the double, which would imply that you only lose the battle tactic if you win the roll and take the double, not have it given to you. It is WarCom though, and they can be a bit slapdash. I do like the double, and I think the game needs the uncertainty. I think the game would be worse without it. Are there potentially better ways of doing it? Sure, but mostly they would require some fairly substantial rewrites. Honestly I think it would be interesting if they tested some of those ways in variant game modes, maybe that’s something that will be easier to do in the module based system. It’s not my intent to tell people to “git gud” but I can defend liking the way the double turn plays.

I think they mention that they only included results if there were at least some number of them. Bonesplitters just aren’t played in large numbers. https://woehammer.com/2024/03/10/aos-meta-stats-w-ending-3rd-march-2024-battlescroll-nullstone-cache/?amp=1