Mark Williams

I don't think they should require anything. They aren't monsters or cavalry or something. For that matter I don't think hunters should require something special either, but maybe that's just me.

I use skavenblight singe primer.

The spell doesn't convey the Ethereal keyword though, it just says "ignore rend".

I thought if it doesn't have rend, they get +1 to their save. (ie. 5+).

Don’t know if this has been asked, but if Neferata casts dark mist on a unit of skeletons, do they get a 5+ save with their shields even if attacked by something with tens?

Thinking of building/using this list. Does this look good? Allegiance: Legion of BloodMortal Realm: ShyishLeadersNeferata Mortarch of Blood (340)- GeneralVampire Lord (140)- Mount: NightmareNecromancer (130)Battleline5 x Dire Wolves (70)5 x Dire Wolves (70)20 x Skeleton Warriors (160)- Ancient BladesUnits10 x Black Knights (240)10 x Blood Knights (400)3 x Vargheists (150)3 x Vargheists (150)Endless Spells / Terrain / CPsShards of Valagharr (40)Extra Command Point (50)Horrorghast (60)Total: 2000 / 2000Extra Command Points: 1Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 135

I'll move to electronic when the navigation system of the rules gets to the point that I can: 1) Go to an index of the main rules set, and quickly jump to any section I want without scrolling or searching. 2) Go to an index of the battle tome for the arm I'm playing, and quickly jump to any section I want without scrolling or searching. 3) Create an army list and have all of the warscrolls for the army I'm playing easy to jump to with minimum of about 3 finger presses, and no scrolling or searching. 4) Have all of the rules and battle tomes and warscrolls updated dynamically any time an FAQ or new rule changes anything. Additionally, easy access to the FAQ within the index search for the battletome and rules sets from #1 and #2 above. Right now, to my knowledge, the digital books are basically just a PDF that I have to scroll through, just like if I was flipping pages in a book, except unlike with a real book I can't put book marks or turn the corners of the pages and just flip straight to the section I want. And I can't take out all the warscroll cards for the units I'm using before a game and have them all within quick reach while I'm playing. It needs to be easy and convenient and extremely fast. If they can do that, I'd pay just about any monthly price for it. Until then, no thanks, I'll stick with physical books.

I don't keep up with 40k community much mostly because there's nothing like TGA on that side of the game that I know of. However, I'm a long-time player of Salamanders, ever since they appeared in the Armageddon book in 3rd ed. I was ecstatic last year when they brought out that supplement, and I've enjoyed it a lot. For me personally, I loved it and I don't want them to take my book away again. I didn't realize there were people who were angry about it. Just finished this guy a few weeks ago and love the model.

I agree that the SCE stormhosts could be adapted to their own books very easily, and that the parallel to what's been done with SMs applies equally. As a Hammers of Sigmar player, all you'd have to do to make me "happy" is to give some bonuses to redeemer units and dracoths and dragons. Maybe a special dracoth assault unit or a special redeemer unit with some extra rules etc.... You could even give the army some extra arm-wide rules. Yes, it would probably not be fair to the other stormhosts, but gosh darnet we already have more special characters than most space marine chapters get several times over. Vandus, Gavriel, Aventis, Astrea, neave blacktalon... sheesh that's enough right there to get our own supplement.

It's a shame you can't see army lists and opponents in that list. Yes apart from the one SCE player near the top. the showing is pretty poor for the army as a whole. I'd be willing to bet if you threw out the shootcast armies it would look even worse.

Tournament Report from ValleyCon NZ This is a tournament report from ValleyCon in NZ, which I attenched a couple of weeks ago. This is the army that I took. Army List This is the list I've been running for a while now. I'll comment how I might change it in the Summary at the bottom, but this is essentially just a variation of my previous tournament list with Gotrek swapped out with my Celestant Prime and Everblaze Comet. Game 1: Battle for the Pass Opponent: Idoneth Deepkin I didn't get any other photos of this game except for board. He Had 12 of the shield eels and 2x6 of the attack eels, a large group of shadow hunter elves, and 2 scryers. His strategy was to come onto the board edge and point at a unit with 2 of the scryers and get +6" to charge, rerolling. This was the person who came in 2nd in the tournament, losing only to the person who won. Round 1: He won the drops and forced me to go first. I cast Dias Arcanum and used the range from my Knight Incantor and Gryph Hound plus a CP to run 6" to capture the 2 side objectives, then ended my round with no more moves for 5 points. He countered with bringing all of his eels and elves into my back line. He pointed 1 unit of eels at my home base, charged in and killed most of a unit of liberators and captured the objective for 5 points. Round 2: I won the roll-off and dropped my evocators near his home objetive. Spent 2 CP with Gavriel to charge + 6 inches, and rolled double 1s to fail the charge... In my home base, I countered with gotrek and killed a unit of eels to recapture my home base for 5 more points. I also dropped all my shooting onto the left object to help clear the eels. He countered by killing most of my evocators with Volturnos and the shield eels, and all of my shooting on the left side, for 3 points total. The Evocators took several wounds off of volturnos. Round 3: I won the roll-off and moved a unit of birds onto his back field objective while he was working on killing my evocators. I cast Quicksilver swords but Volturnos ignored it. I charged my Knight Incantor into Volturnos and popped all flasks and killed him (lucky!). Gotrek killed the last unit of 6 evocators. Got 7 points. He countered by retreating from the knight incantor on the back field and retaking his home objective. His shadow elves charged my home base and took it again for 7 points total. Round 4: I won the roll-off. He used the Quicksilver Swords to kill my Knight Incantor. I moved the birds back to the left objective to retake it. Gotrek killed the elves to retake the back objective. Ended with 5 points. He moved his Soulscryers up, pointed at my birds, then made a high charge roll and spread his eels out to capture both side objectives for 5 points. (killed the birds). Round 5: Gotrek killed the 2 soulscryers, but I couldn't reach anything else. 1 point. He sat still and got 5 more points. Game ended with 23 points to 25. Major loss. Game 2: Starstrike Opponent: Skaven I haven't played Skaven much and didn't really know what this army did. However, I won the roll to pick board sides, and saw an opportunity to deploy my entire army onto terrain that was Overgrown (blocks LOS). I effectively got a completely NULL deployment. Round 1: He chose to take first turn, but didn't seem to be familiar with how Overgrown terrain worked, so wasted a turn unable to see or shoot my army. He teleported some stuff through a hole onto the left side of the board and moved some united towards the center of the board, but otherwise did nothing else. In my turn I cast Dias Arcanum, then Gav-bombed his big rats and killed almost all of them on the charge. On the left flank I charged the big gun machine with my liberators and managed to kill it. Round 2: I won the roll off and got a double turn. I killed one of his heroes on the left side with my liberators and the evocators charged and killed a large unit of rats and a hero. At this point I'd knocked out almost half of his army and taken very few casualties. It was looking like a complete route... I captured the star that fell in the center of the table. In his turn he countered and killed all of my evocators with what was left of his army. Round 3: I won the roll off for turn. Captured the star on my side of the board, while his star dropped in the center of his army. I killed more rats and had gotrek within charging range of his army. In his phase he was running out of units. Did a few wounds to my liberators. Round 4: He won the roll off and shot at me some more. In my turn Gotrek finally got into combat and I killed everything left except his general. I captured his star at this point to seal the win. Round 5: I won the roll off and charged and killed his general to win the game with a wipe and major victory. Game 3: Scorched Earth Opponent: Fyreslayers This was an army that I had faced in the last tournament and lost against due to him not knowing his rules well. Deployment was weird as this was a short edge board deployment (board split down the short center). We had 4 objectives in each of our territories to cover and my army was very small. I deployed a unit of liberators on the left and right forward objectives, with my general on the left and gotrek on the right. The knight incantor was on the back right, and I set up the gryph hound from the lord castellant pointed backwards to go grab the back left objective. He deployed all of his army as far forward as possible, with nothing on the back objectives. Round 1: He gave me first turn. I dropped a unit of birds on his back left objective to capture it, and the entire rest of my army on his back right corner. I charged my evocators into one of his troops units to capture that objective. 7 points captured. Picture below: In In his turn, he counter charged the evocators with the rest of his troops and a fire lizard and killed them all to retake the front right objetive. He charged the birds with his other magmadroth on the left, but falled to kill the last one (1 wound left). They passed their bravery test and I held that objective. He scored 2 points. Round 2: I won the roll off and just moved my models a bit but otherwise didn't do much. I burned his back 2 objectives for I think 3 points. 7 points total. In his turn he charged gotrek on my right side, and my liberators on the left side to capture both objectives. He burned my front right objective and held onto the front left objective. I think he got around 5 points this round. Round 3: Cannot remember who won priority, but Gotrek finished off his troops on my right, while my Lord Castellant tanked his heavy assault unit on my left. He charged my judicators on his back right and killed them. Round 4: My Hurricane Raptors did a pretty long charge on his back right and captured his front right objective. I moved Gotrek, my Knight Incantor, and the last bird onto his front left objective. Captured and burned for 5 points and got 7 total. Round 5: At this point I think I was so far ahead he could not possibly win, due to poor movement and my Catellant tying up his main assault unit. We finished the game out just slugging it out with each other. Gotrek took out one of his Magmadroths. Major Victory. Game 4: Knife to the Heart Opponent: Stormcast Eternals (Anvils Shootcast) Always a really bad matchup and I've fought this person a few times in local tournaments. We were both pretty well placed in the tournament at this point (4th and 3rd, me and him respectively). I have no pictures of this battle as he didn't set his army out during the display period and I forgot to take pictures. His army comp was: Lord Arcanum, Knight Azyros, 2x Lord Relictor, 2x5 Sequitors, 5 Judicators, 5 Vanguard Hunters, 3x3 Aetherwings, 9 Longstrike Raptors, 6 stabby Deepkin Eels. Round 1: I outdropped him and agonized over whether or not to take first turn. He had put his raptors and most of the aetherwings in the sky, and I felt that due to the mission (knife to the heart) that if I gave him first turn he was going to push everything forward and basically zone me out of the board to the point that the entire game was going to take place in a small corner of my table. I didn't want to play that game because I know how quickly I'll lose my army to the ratpors shooting twice. Because of this I felt that I was forced to take first turn and go completely aggressive and try to make the fight happen on his side of the table. I dropped everything but my aetherwings (because I forgot about them....) on his side of the table. Shot half some sequitors and 1 unit of his aetherwings off the table with my shooting, then charged his sequitors and piled into his eels with my evocators (very good charge roll with Gavriel). I killed all of his sequitors and most of his eels, and captured his home objective. In his turn he dropped on his side of the table and shot most of my evocators off the board, I killed all but 1 eel with my last evocator, and he failed battleshock and it ran away. Round 2: He won the roll of for turn priority and double turned me. Shot all of my shooting units off the board and basically started pushing me back into my corner of the board. I cast Quicksilver Swords with my Knight Incantor and killed 2 Longstrike Raptors with it. Gavriel charged his raptors and died to the warning cry shots. I ran Gotrek forward but he was pretty far back and wouldn't likely get across the table in time. Round 3: He won priority again. I moved the Quicksilver Swords again and killed 2 more Longstrike Raptors with it. He dispelled the spell, then killed my Knight Incantor and started putting wounds on Gotrek. I brought the birds down on my objective and turtled up on it so that he would have to fight through them if he wanted a Major Victory. Round 4 & 5: Basically just him shooting at Gotrek trying to take him down and me getting stuffed by Aetherwings trying to charge him. Gotrek survived the game with 1 wound left, and the game ended with a Minor Loss to me due to having viewer kill points. Game 5: Border War Opponent: Ossiarch Bonereapers, Petrifex Elite I don't have a good picture of his army, but it was basically a hastily made OBR army primed grey and washed with Nulin Oil, with a few details picked out. His army comp was 2 heroes, a bone collector monster, 2 artillery, and 2x40 mortrek guard and 1x10 guard, with a battalion. Round 1: He gave me first turn. I cast Dias Arcanum. Moved my wizard up to get the left objective and summoned my shooting to grab the right objective. I shot about half of the 10 m. Guard off the table, but in his turn he brought them all back alive, then counter charged my shooting and killed them all and took that objective. On the left side of the table, one of his artillery 1-shot my knight incantor off the table with an instant kill ability. Then he captured that objective. Round 2: He won priority (double turn), and proceded to push forward on the left and right flanks while holding his center. Killed a unit of liberators on the right and charged gotrek and my lord castellant on the left with 40 m. Guard. Gotrek killed over half of his guard but took 4 wounds. In my turn I summoned the evocators and charged into one of the artillery. Huge mistake on my part. I went with the evocators first. Killed the war machine. Then he killed Gotrek. (lost the game at this point due to stupidity on my part). Round 3, 4, & 5: Hitting a brick wall with my evocators and doing no damage while watching them die. I finished the game with 1 gryph hound on the board and nothing else. Major Loss. Final Thoughts and Conclusions The winner of the tournament was a weird Cities of Sigmar list that was about half Kharadron Overlords (Phoenix city). He got 5 wins. In his 4th game he faced the eel player. The eel player started with his entire army off the board, and the cities player zoned him out of the board on turn 1 so that he was unable to come onto the board, thus automatically winning the game without having to play. In round 5, he beat the Anvils Shootcast list that i played in round 4, to win the tournament (from what I heard, he basically beat the Shootcast at his own game (ie better shooting). Here's a picture of the winning army. If I could have beaten the shootcast army somehow, I would've been playing this army for 2nd place. But alas the Gav bomb is a bit of an inferior list to that and I rightly lost, although I think that if I'd played a bit better, maybe... I had a chance to win that first game against the eels... I think my list has the potential to win a tournament at this point, if the stars align perfectly and I get some luck and good matchups... but it's definitely an uphill climb and I seem to have several armies that are paper to my rock. I don't really have any major changes to my "tournament list" at this point. I'd like to have 5 of the 10 evocators with swords instead of staves to get some more rend into my list, but other than that at this point I'm basically just waiting for points drops or total army overhauls. Gotrek is insane and basically paid for himself in every game. Any other unit I could think of replacing him with would've died several times over and not held a line nor broken it. I can't think of a reason to ever not take him in a competitive list at this point. I admit he has some flaws, but he's unfortunately the best thing I have and he covers a major weakness that my army previously had before. Anywho... although I did worse in terms of ranking than most of my previous tournaments recently, I actually feel like this list was stronger and that I performed my best ever. Rather I think the competition in my area is just getting better and better and stronger and stronger, and my army is starting to get outshined by the newer, better armies. The power creep is quite real unfortunately.... After this tournament, I did have an some idea for my next non-gotrek list that I feel inspired to play with my local hobby group, which is this: The point of this list is just to provide a counter to the longstrike lists that I keep facing, as I feel that I should be able to do enough damage with the long range bombardment to effectively neutralize the longstrike raptors. Starting on the board would be: 3 liberators, castellant, Knight incantor (6 drops), and off the board would be: Gavriel, Fulminators, 4 ballistas (6 drops). With the Prime in the sky for free. If someone deploys stupidly and I can easily win by sniping a specific target, I might drop the ballistas at 18" and try my luck, but otherwise, they would probably land in my back field on turn 1 and just focus down priority, while looking for opportunities to use the prime as either a bombardment hero or a late game gav bomb mega charge (20-30" charge). I don't think it's stronger than my "tournament" list, but running Gotrek constantly in casual games is frankly just rude.... Thank you for reading.