Satyrical Sophist

Assuming that there are indices could be a lot of changes. I’m hopeful there won’t be, I quite like AoS as it is.

Anything focusing on copters is going to kill them, so I think single is probably the best to go for. Battlescroll changes in for us. Some pretty heavy hits really and the points decreases don’t jump out as massively significant. Thalia going down 40 is a fairly big one. The rules change of the warforger leaves me very unsure of fusiliers. Access to return fire and suppressing fire is still big game, but I’m not sure if there still is a gun line CoS list to build. I’m gonna have a look at expected output again after the changes. LVO winner list went up 40 points but was 1960 and is I think barely effected by the rules changes? The steam tank runner up goes up 150 and loses flaming weapons on steam tanks though. Fair to say that one was hit much harder.

That’s pretty brutal news for fusiliers. Bile piper rule change is a big deal for nurgle as well

I think the gyro copters suffer from being in the same book as scourge runner chariots. There is always a use for small fast moving pieces that are relatively cheap though.

I always forget what a big ol' bird boi the Griffon is. I need to work out how I'm basing mine to use for both OW and AoS.

One thing I think is worth bearing in mind is that GW has different ways of refreshing ranges and whether you would be happy for beasts of chaos to get each differing refresh. I say this as someone whose first complete AoS army was BoC (I started out with a small tzaangor based Tzeentch). Take high elves. I think you can make a solid argument they got refreshed into Lumineth. They kept no models from the old high elves into Lumineth, but kept a lot of their themes and look. If you had a high elf army before, did you have a lumineth army afterwords? Kind of? Maybe? If you had silverhelms you could use them as dawnriders , if you had spearmen you could use them as wardens, same for archers and sentinels. You'd need to rebase though. Otherwise, phoenix guard? Maybe as the cow hat guys? That'd be about it. It did get better with later releases for bolt throwers and swordsmasters. If beasts of chaos were in a similar situation, would you be happy? I think I would, accepting that a fair amount of my models wouldn't have a perfect match, but the theme would be executed well and refined. High elves are generic, lumineth arguably less so. If this happens then arguably beasts of chaos would leave AoS, but the Gribblescreech Hordes would still be there, continuing the Morghur story and the like. Another refresh approach would be like gloomspite gits, seraphon and soulblight. Take an army that has a good theme already but needs hefty up to date refreshing. The amount that remains behind can vary considerably, for the moon clan part of gloomspite more or less only the basic line infantry was untouched, and troll/ggs got hefty updates and spiderfang is there. For seraphon they lost a fairly significant set of models, but got more replacements. Soulblight I think mainly got old out of date models replaced, can't recall them losing much. If that happens then it would be hard to argue that beasts of chaos left AoS, the same way its hard to argue that Legions of Nagash left, just because they became soulblight. I think this is the least likely option, because beasts of chaos lacks a hook that isn't shared with something else. They are animal chaos people...like skaven. They want to cause the downfall of civilisation!....like destruction. I could see them being rebranded with more of the WEIRD chaos feel. Tzeentch does weird chaos, but I'd argue its a primarily magic weird and not the more primal weird. There is also less of a solid model range to lean on.

Glad to have helped! As someone who has far too many armies as well I feel for you. Returning to the rumour/speculation focus, does anyone remember/know how they link the data slate to the battle scroll historically? Data slate was last week (unusually on a Tuesday) but I have a vague itchy feeling in my hind brain that there is usually two weeks between the pair of them?

If I remember right Bonesplitters come from all kind of orruks, just need to have something in their head go spoons and get overwhelmed by waaagh energy and run off.

What are you talking about? Do you own enough of each of those armies to play them as the main part of the force, with the rest filled with allies? You don't need the book to use allies in your main force. If you have at least 800 (or probably at least 1600) of 10 different armies then that is indeed a lot of books to be able to play each as a main force, but that is already a really heavy investment in warhammer models. The way you are talking about stuff it really doesn't sound like you are playing matched play at all, so the book cycle doesn't really matter to you does it? Chaos Dwarfs started out as warhammer legends didn't they? It sounds like right now if you wanted to run your models the most likely option would be ending up with 4 books. Probably Cities of Sigmar, Soulblight or Nighthaunt, Slaves to Darkness and Gloomspite. Those would let you play the most of what you have. If you end up with a full army of say, Kharadrons then you might want to get the kharadron book, but if you have a few units there really is no need. All you need for allies is in the app for free. On an unrelated note, weren't we expecting a battlescroll today?

Rat ogor sized hellpit abominations seem like a possibility.

Doing all of those changes would be insane. A fair few of them would probably be too powerful just on their own. You could probably do the warden king one and the magic ignore. I think all the others would be problematic?

Cities really haven’t been out very long. The main release was only beginning of November, they also aren’t the easiest to paint, that time included Christmas and it’s a book with a lot of different units . I’m not surprised it’s taking awhile for results to come through. Do they need a nerf? I don’t think so, but a I said, some stuff is concerning. I can definitely see them errata’ing the command corps heal given the lists that did well at LVO were already using that nerf. I’d like some dwarf buffs, but I don’t think they need to be as big as I think you do.

If fusiliers lost alchemist spell then they don’t compare well to iron drakes. Unbuffed moving irondrakes outperform fortified fusiliers. Fusiliers take the lead if they have the command trait and both have AoA. Non moving irondrakes win pretty hard even vs the command trait. interesting thing is that the LVO winning list would be knocked down 140 points there, but other than that pretty unaffected. Drops the underworlds band or the other witch hunters probably. The runner up would be hit by what, close to 300? Armies have been hit by that much before (Nurgle fly spam or soulblight dead walker spam got hit like that) but it’s relatively rare. I don’t know what they do for cities, because I do feel that a big problem with some of the cities stuff is that it feels like it can be pretty rough to play against, particularly at a more casual level. It doesn’t seem like fusiliers are too much of a problem on the high end, but low end I can see them being just unpleasant to play vs. The ability to counter fire is very strong. Steam tanks being able to pretty trivially have a 0+ save, so needing rend three to drop down to a 3+ save? That’s a bad feeling, particularly when it can be very easily healed up. The command corps stopping command abilities and healing troops is another thing that can be unpleasant to play against, particularly the command abilities part. Separate the the feelings part it really does feel like they might just be too good. It’s hard to tell what they can do for some of these things. I particularly have no idea what to do with the fusiliers. I’d probably lean towards changing the alchemist to being a target and not an aura. Maybe even let you target in each phase (to allow a shooting unit and a combat unit). That should hopefully let you use the combo, but stop spam.

It’s a 90 point unit though, there are limits to what you can expect. I’d run it where you are thrilled if you manage to get it off, but aren’t depending on it. I think the best way to take advantage is in a heavy aelf list, where the fleetmaster is there primarily to buff scourgerunners and it’s an opportunistic thing. As for megargants, I could see cavaliers being pretty good vs them. A charging min sized unit with engage the foe and AoA will do an expected 17 or 20+ wounds (17 if AoD). It falls off if the gargant is slamming down mystic shields and finest hours, but you are probably better off focussing on a different gargant.

If you are fine with them being night goblins then squig hopper/bounders are goblins holding on to something with one hand. It doesn't seem too difficult to add fur to the bit of squig they are holding on to.

It feels like it’d be pretty harsh to make a unit unique when it wasn’t before, anyone who had multiple are gonna be left with pretty useless models. I’d much rather it be 0-1 with 1 additional per Freeguild marshal on foot, or just 1 per freeguild marshal on foot. I understand penalising people who absolutely spam a unit, but two copies (when most of the models have two build options) is a bit of a low bar. This is from someone who owns one command corps.

The meta watch article says “soon” and next month for the battle scroll and also mentions factoring in LVO results…which is probably not amazing news for command corps stonks.

Hexbane's Hunters are really pretty dang efficient vs one target, where they get bonus damage on them. If you cut the cost down the middle you end up with a 90 point unit with 10 wounds, a 5+ and a 5++ and a 90 point 5 wound hero with a 5+ and 5++ The Ven Densts are cheap heroes (who only take one leadership spot between them) who each can give an order and are solo operatives. Both of them do double damage to wizards and daemons. Without that buff Galen is a pretty reasonable fighter and is pretty tough 5 wounds 4+ save and 5+ ward. Doralia is just as tough and 25% less good in combat, but her crossbow is a good profile normally and 2 damage 4 rend 2 shots vs wizards and daemons. The list ran the full allotment of leaders, giving a total of 7 orders each turn, with a bonus one once per game from the griffon. From what I've read about the list one thing he used the individual characters for was blocking lanes. It sounds like the tournament allowed player placed terrain, and a single hero on foot can block a 7 and a bit inch gap between two pieces of impassable terrain, needing to be charged to get past. One thing to note is that LVO was playing the Sawbones ability as requiring different units to be targeted. Errata: Change the Freeguild Command Corp Sawbones ability to be "you can pick up to 3 different friendly Cities of Sigmar Human units...". This prevents healing the same unit more than once per Sawbone per turn. https://bestcoastpairings.com/event/87QQLXGK2M?active_tab=overview So that fix was already in effect for the tournament.

I do like the idea of 40K leaders, where they can join units. I think you would want more line operatives than in 40K though. I think that would help differentiate between classes of leader as well. I like the idea of weight kings being able to join and buff death rattle units, maybe keeping vampires as lone operatives.

I’ve not played as much as I’d like this year but have thoroughly enjoyed what I did play. I really like third edition. I think moving into fourth I’d like things to be more honed rather than a radical change. Thaaaat said, if we were looking for changes I do have some things I’d be interested in seeing. I’m going to include some changes I think would be interesting first, then do a Good/Bad/More specific what I’d change. General Changes. More Tags I know some people want universal rules for a lot of things, and I can see it working, but I would really like units to get more keywords. We currently have stuff like Andtoran Locus, or Galletian Veteran, or Galletian hero. I would love to see these roles and more added onto units. Rather than having to define the terms for each time a GHB wants to care about them have them already in place. If they don’t do anything, fine, but it means if you ever want to do something to interact with all priests under 10 wounds who aren’t mounted it’s a lot easier. I imagine they would use fancy words for them, but RABBLE, LIGHT INFANTRY, HEAVY INFANTRY, LIGHT CAVALRY etc would let them refer to whole groups much easier. Does it run the risk of bloat? Maybe, but I think information can be included at the bottom in the tags much easier, and it’s only relevant if something wants to refer to it. Priority roll. I don’t have a problem with the priority roll myself but I know a lot of people do. One thing I do think is a big part of that is how much comes down to one single dice roll. Now, this idea might not work but I love the way warcry does priority. A short explanation is this. Each player rolls 6 dice and sorts them into singles, doubles, triples and quadruples. (so if you rolled 1 2 2 3 4 4 then you would have 2 singles (1 and 3) and 2 doubles.) The player with the most singles gets to choose who goes first, but doubles, triples and quadruples can all be spent on abilities. In warcry you also get a wild die each turn that you can either save for later turns, or add to your rolled dice. So you could choose to add another Single to try to take priority, or turn a double into a triple etc. I really like the system as a way for determining priority because the player who doesn’t get to choose priority tends to have access to more powerful abilities. What those abilities do would need to be determined but it has a lot of scope for being tuned. Something like a double might be worth a command point, but something like a quad probably wants to be quite a big thing. Allowing triples and quads to have out of sequence activations would be interesting, something like allowing a movement in your opponents turn, or a shooting action for example. Heroic Actions. The good. I know heroic actions are somewhat rules bloat, but I do enjoy the way they prevent spam. I particularly like when they tie rules to them. Thematically the Free Guild Cavalier Marshal having a bonus effect when doing Finest Hour is a lovely piece of rules design to me. I like it. Heroic Actions. The bad. Some factions just don’t have much to do with them, and that can feel pretty bad. Heroic Actions. What I’d like changing. If you added in the tags then heroic actions are a really easy thing to have interact with them. Let a small foot hero who has the HEIROPHANT keyword (meaning a small priest say) do a heroic action that gives them +1 to prayer rolls. Give the ADJUTANT keyword a 2+ to generate a command point, something like that. If you used a warcry style priority this is also a good point to interact with that system. Let heroic actions be some way of generating new wild dice, let another one count your ability nice as one higher than it is. I have a lot more, but I should probably think them through more and type it up when I have more time.

I suspect people are baking in a single unit of dread spears entirely as sorcerer fodder, without considering it as other elves. It’s a pretty minimal investment that gives a battle line and screen, if you are going for two sorceresses then it’s not a lot of points each. It might also be that if you are taking anklet for the extra range on blizzard, though a battlemage might be better for that. Executioners are higher damage than hammerers unless the target has a 5+ save, in which case hammerers are the same (executioners better vs 6+) as well. Hammerers are more efficient points wise against some targets, since they are 20 points cheaper. Specifically Hammerers edge out Executioners in efficiency unless the target has a 2+ or better save. Executioners are amazingly efficient vs insane save stacking, since so much of their output is MW based. If you put tenebrael blades on them the output is insane even on a per point basis, expecting to put out 26 unsaved wound for 10 elves. That said, if you are putting TB on a unit, that unit is going to do nutty things. Black Guard are a bit behind (they have the same profile without the mortal wounds, which aren’t as good with TB) with about 23, are 30 points cheaper, have 2 inch range and are very likely to have a 4+ ward.

Hammerers do not have mortal wounds, they just have the -2 rend by default. Executioners are -1 but have 6s turn to mortal wounds (and attack sequence ends). I’ve only seen executioners in lists, but I suspect that’s due to them being elf based lists. I was gonna give you the damage numbers for executioners in comparison but I noticed that I’ve accidentally given them MW on 6s to wound in my calculation, so I’ll have to fix that in the morning. I need to do some updates anyhow. I want to see what the command corps expected melee output is. I think it might be higher than I expected.

Is there a reason you use apostrophes for decimal places by the way? I've of commas being used in spanish, but I keep thinking you mean feet and inches. On an extremely petty note, by that standard it should be 8.9, since its 8.8 recurring. On a less petty note, that damage number is wrong unless you are choosing not to take the champion weapon. Under that, you get 9.8 damage at at least AP 1, ( Its 8 at rend 1 and 1.8 at rend 2), so 10% higher damage . Not moving its obviously half that. Blissbarbs have a 6+ save by the way, that is a LOT more fragile. I do think that Dwarfs need some help, I just think its way less than one might expect. Hammerer damage is already kind of nutty (Its actually pretty much the highest in the book, the only things rivalling it are Engage the Foe Cavaliers and Engage the Foe Relic Griffons, and those have less damage at the high rend numbers). Its weirdly easy to get rend -4 hammerers (counter charge and runelord do it). Cities as a whole has a 49% win rate by Woehammer's combined winrates, same for its RTT/Casual, and 50% for its GT winrate. We kind of look like we are doing OK. Honest Wargamer has a lot of cities good results this week by the way. Reasonably varied, some aelf focused, some more human focused. Lot of Griffons and even a Black dragon showing up. Duarden didn't make any appearances that I saw

I’m pretty sure the AoS rules team aren’t going to take your feedback on that, despite your passion. Cities have been out in full for about 11 weeks, which included Christmas and stuff, and are an army that isn’t the fastest to paint. I’m not surprised that they aren’t winning a bunch of tournaments, though I have seen a number of 4-1s. I’d honestly be a bit worried if they had won a bunch. I do agree that I have they were relatively conservatively pointed, and feel they could use a helping hand, but I think you have an inaccurate view of how much help they need. On the iron drakes, I’ve seen you post the 8’8 rend 1 damage thing on multiple forums and still have no idea what you mean by that. It also ignores that the grudgehammer is rend 2. The iron drakes damage output is already competitive with most stuff in the game. I agree that the no movement thing is a major downside, but you let the march order benefit them then they end up being move 7, high damage shooting with a pretty good armour save. I really like iron drakes, but I think you might need to increase points if you gave them that. Personally it might be a bit too specific, but allowing Iron Drakes to choose between counting as stationary for the order OR getting 3” movement might be enough? They’d still be slow, but able to move somewhat. You already can’t try to use multiple whisperblades on the same command, that’s not a rule change it’s just the rule. I think in terms of rules changes I wouldn’t mind a change to Warforger spell, making it either target or maybe even only effect melee. If you made the spell melee only I think it would open up a potential big points drop to fusiliers. Otherwise I think general minor points drops would be nice, potentially bigger ones to our monsters. A big overall concern is shooting getting too good, we don’t want leaf blower lists. It’s not fun, it’s not good for balance and it gets you nerfed hard.

I would wait a little bit, with an expected balance slate so soon. The command corps are probably too cheap with what they do. I think ideally points overall come down for CoS, but Corps feel a bit too good in comparison to some other options. Speaking of the balance data slate, what are people hoping for? It feels like we could do with something, but it might not need too big a change for it to become problematic. I kind of wanted Iron Drakes to get the benefit from march and count as remain stationary, but that might make them too efficient too easily.