Satyrical Sophist

If Skaven are the focus for the next expansion then it kind of makes sense not to focus on them now. I imagine if they release lovely new…plague monks?… after buffing the old ones then people might get a bit annoyed I’ve been struggling to keep track myself, it’s tricky because a like on a list could mean the whole list, could also mean that just part of it. I wonder how much information rumour mongers have access to as well. If you just knew what units were coming for FEC for example, you might think the new crypt guard unit were a replacement for ghouls, not a new unit.

It does feel like fusiliers are over costed without access to flaming weapons, but I could definitely see a place as an unscreened unit if the cost fell a bit. What is sort of funny now is that 10 fusiliers have 22 4/4/-1/1 shots at 170 while 20 corsairs with hand bows have 40 shots at 4/4/-/1 at 180, jumping to 60 shots with all out attack. Nowhere near the same range, but that’s a lot of dice.

That list does look nicely thematic at least. I’ve got 20 fusiliers at the moment, working on painting them at some point so I’ll give them a try. I do wonder whether access to suppressing fire and return fire might make them worth trying a bit. Mainly painting elves at the moment though.

My hopeful expectation is that they get removed when/if a new cities wave with elves and dwarfs comes in, meaning proxies are possible

Even if there are indices coming that doesn’t mean elves and dwarfs are being removed. I don’t even mean that they are necessarily staying, the space marine index had a lot of stuff in it that got removed in the codex shortly afterwards. If you have some kind of confirmation that indices are coming can you share it, otherwise can you add some kind of “assuming 4th has indices” or “if 4th is a refresh”.

I think Wildercorps deserve looking at more, assuming they ever get a release on their own. It feels like it’s been an age since the vs box was out. I’m not surprised on the elves and dwarfs honestly, I’m really curious to see if we see more of them popping up now the flaming weapons change has happened.

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.