SorryLizard

Well, I'm done, just in time for AoS3.0. Old School Slaves to Darkness army. Was 1kpts, now...who knows! The newest models are from 1996 Lots of eBay diving and raiding friend's storage boxes.

I'm a wargamer not a warhammer player so, to a degree, I am insulated from much of the pressure from GWs marketing and weekly release train becaue I can pivot to be hyped for a new historical time period or a new rule set to reuse my existing figures completely divorced from any sales cycle. A 6mm Roman is broadly the same regardless of which manufacturer I choose to buy from and those products are on the market all over the place. The back catalog of Infinity models is huge and the Corvus Belli method of delivering rules means barrier to entry on following a passing whim or interest is incredibly low. I can just sit down and play games with what I have or jump onto a new thread of my own personal hype train rather than be tied to years long release cycles while waiting for something that excites me about 'my faction'. I still play AoS every now and then, it's just such a big community that it's easy to get games practically anywhere rather than having to build a community locally for something less well known. And they do still produce some nice models, nice art and good emotional hooks to get you invested in a faction. There's tons of games and just stuff of different scales and focuses and genre and historicity and fantasy and whatever out there to be engaged and excited by to follow your own hobby whims. I hope you have a great time indulging on those whims

I'm just surprised they're called VanquishOrs (and spelling be damned!) for the naming convention...

Until we see the GHB points update I'd not worry too much about that. But losing out on more prayers is a big deal, especially as we don't have native casters to make use of the magic phase. IIRC can still chant a prayer AND summon an invocation though. Runic Fyrewall still incredibly useful. Unit sizes I think is going to be the big meta unknown. If everyone brings smaller units then smaller units on our side won't matter as much as it all sort of vaguely aligns. But if people still bring big units to do most of their fighting then we're in trouble. Thing is that, on paper, with the buffs available, big Vulkite units are still good and 30 of them is a lot for most armies to deal with. Suffer from the coherency changes though.

At least on your turn you can spend the CP to +1 hit their shooting.

The main concern is that the cap on bonuses to save means no more stacking the Battlesmith and Prayer of Ash etc. to get excellent saves. But 4+ is pretty easy to achieve basically for the entire army. I think Runeson goes up in appeal because his CA is +1 Wound and targets himself to grant an aura to every fyreslayer around him. Which means you can still stack multiple buff auras (of different types) on your units. +1 Wound from Runeson. -1 to be Wounded from the Hermdar Trait aura, immune to battleshock in Hermdar (as you cannot repeatedly use Inspiring Presence this matters more), +1 to hit from the Karl in a unit using the All Out Attack CA, +1 save from battlesmith/prayer of ash, etc. Bladed Slingshields won't stack with other buffs to save though as they modify the 5+ save. Can still use them to hero snipe while you charge though by throwing them at something within 8 of the charge. Vulkites with Fyresteel Handaxes go up in value as their built in reroll to hit combined with the easy +1 to hit from CAs AND their fight on death is a nice positive. The Curse prayer needs you to be close to the enemy but Fyreslayer priests often get close anyway just to keep their units inside their 12 inch auras. And that lets all 6s to hit deal mortals on the target unit and between throwing axes and rerolling twin handaxes and fighting on death you could really pile on some hurt by just rolling so many dice with a big chunk of vulkites to trigger the mortals on 6s enough times to be scary. Hearthguard with big 2 handed axes also probably more appealing. 2MWs on 6s is still excellent but the easy +1 to hit from CAs helps the big axes more. Wonder what they'll do with the minimum unit size 5 of Hearthguard/Aurics and how that interacts with Reinforcement? Plus, of course, conditional battleline and Reinforcement.

Anyone know what happens if you're part way up a terrain piece? E.g.: want to climb to the top of a wall that is 6 inches tall but only have a 5 inch move? E.g.: deployed at the top of a wall that is 6 inches tall but only have 5 inch move?

Which makes sense. If I've just had a literal near-death experience I'm likely to look for a way out of that situation.

It's worth checking out Oathmark as well if PtG appeals. Might be some ideas you can lift and share between them.

Also that 15% points increase will degrade as the edition goes along and later armies are released and GHBs update points. After a year or two it'll be the equivalent of no points increases.

Will it be like the romans? Various heavy infantry in blocks with some skirmishers? Sarmatians or Parthians where it's all skirmisher cavalry with one hammer blow shock unit? Greeks with dense heavy infantry and some skirmishers? Or more like Carthage with a plethora of different troops and nationalities in a riotous mix?

Liberators, Judicators, Chaos Warriors, etc. all come in boxes of 10 so at a guess any unit that comes in boxes of 10 will be minimum 10.

Chaos warriors exist to carry a runeshield and stand on a point. They don't deal enough damage to justify losing that 5+ MW save and their role as brick walls/objective holders is valuable enough. Liberators make great 5 model screens for fairly low points.

On the plus side, if my Sotrmcast suck right out of the gate it makes it easy to play games with anyone and not feel bad about bringing an optimised list. Means I get to have the enjoyment of tweaking and planning and optimising whilst not also making my opponent have a bad time at the table.

Starting from a baseline and tweaking up or down to fit your desired experince is much easier and much more accessible than free form free for alls. Just see how well AoS1.0 release went down.