Kadeton

I always find it really difficult to build lists like yours which try to go in several directions - you've got basically nothing you can flex to adjust your list. Heck, I'd be tempted to drop the Huskard entirely, replace him with another 8 Leadbelchers and swap to Underguts instead, just keeping the ethereal Frostlord as your "splash" into BCR. To get the most out of Boulderhead, you're basically looking at a completely different list. (Start with two Frostlords and a Eurlbad, go from there.) That said, play the army that you want to play!

This is fair, but model count will also be interesting. The current Aleguzzler is only 160 points, but has fairly crippling rules. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see it get a buff and a corresponding points increase. I doubt we'll see SoB lists running 10+ Aleguzzlers. And then the larger giants... I'm just not quite sure where they will fit in the points range. If they were ~400 points they'd be on par with a Bonegrinder, which I'd guess is probably about right. You're probably looking at 4-6 models for your whole army. To me, that begs the question of how they're going to do any battalions for the Sons. With so few models to work with, there's not much room for the variety of requirements that distinguish battalions in other forces. I guess they could just have requirements like "2-4 SONS OF BEHEMAT GARGANTS" and leave it completely up to the player. My secret hope is that all three (or four?) of the new Gargants come in a single super-versatile kit, along the same lines as the Baneblade 8-way multi-kit. Just a box with a big ol' mess of gargant bits to throw together however you want.

Yeah, I wonder about this too. If you wanted to run a super-low-model-count army, Destruction was already the alliance of choice. This seems a lot like doubling down on the Stonehorn playstyle, and presumably cleaves pretty closely to its "run forward and smash everything" tactical playbook. It would almost be a given that the Gargants will have similar objective-control rules too. Very curious to see what they've come up with to give the Gargants their own distinct style on the table.

Still looks like concept art, but given the names fit the AoS style I'd say that's definitely going to translate into models and warscrolls. Kraken-eater is a really good name, and Gate-breaker's not bad either. I like that he seems to be actually wearing a portcullis as a loincloth. Definitely clears up a lot of those mystery Rumour Engines. I'm mostly just happy because I know how much @KingBrodd wanted this news and their enthusiasm is infectious.

I think you're right about the Underguts elements making the BCR force weaker overall - it's not just the extra 560 points, but all the benefits of the Boulderhead tribe that you're missing out on. The shooting elements would have to be pulling a lot of weight to make up for that, and I doubt they would compare favourably to a FLoSH. You do end up with a more well-rounded force, though, and you'd have something to do during the shooting phase (other than vulch people) which might be nice. That aside, all I really wanted to say is that peas with mashed potatoes is one of my favourites and they're both substantially improved by the combination, so your analogy is DEEPLY FLAWED. >:|

To be fair, if any Duardin players feel you need godly representation, you can just put Gotrek on the table. Refer to him as "Grungni" or whatever if you like. He'll easily beat (up, down and sideways) any of the other gods in the game. Getting dwarf women back in the game is a good call, though!

I like things being messy, to be honest. Life is a complicated, messy thing, and generally resists simple categorisation. There are always contexts and circumstances where the "normal" order of things is switched up, flipped, twisted, etc. That should be as true of the Mortal Realms as anywhere, if not more so. "Natural" allies won't always be on the same side, nor will "natural" enemies always be opposed. Besides, it's still kind of a hot mess anyway. As someone who was sort of a new player not that long ago, I personally found the Alliances really confusing. I initially liked the look of the Deepkin, and was told they were like soul-pirates who plundered and pillaged, killing people and stealing their life force to extend their own. But when I went to the website to learn more, I couldn't find anything about them... because I was naturally looking under "Destruction", and it turns out the Deepkin are actually "bold defenders of Order". You actually need a grounding in the lore and background to understand why certain forces are in particular categories. The groupings only make sense once they're explained, not at an intuitive level. Well, not all different factions. Just a certain set of factions, which is really my point. If I want to play a force of Beastmen and Wanderers, banding together in a fragile temporary union to defend their forest against rapacious lumberjacks, then the Alliance rules don't do anything for me. If on the other hand I just want to throw together a bunch of random Death units, I can do that with Legions of Nagash and I don't need the Death Allegiance. Similarly for Order units and the Cities of Sigmar. I fully support people who want to play with whatever units they like, I just don't see how Alliances help them do that in any meaningful way. Allies are a better mechanic for surfacing the links between factions in gameplay. Yeah, "viable" is purely a Matched Play concern. But... so are Grand Alliances, by and large. In Narrative and Open Play games your models aren't required to share an Alliance, they just add "flavour" if you choose to. But you could equally go "****** that, it makes more sense for my general to use this trait from the Allegiance rules" and that would also be fine even though you don't technically "qualify" for them. Perhaps this is just symptomatic of the "Matched Play is the default / only way to play" attitude that's prevalent in the community, but people who want to play narrative games already have a proper outlet where they can do whatever supports the story. A Grand Alliance army is still going to get their teeth kicked in every game at a tournament. I'm not convinced that's worth supporting. Good discussion, no need to abandon your soapbox. This is what these forums are for!

You've fundamentally misunderstood what "narrowly defined" means in this context.

Oh man, if you thought the backlash against the bull heads was bad, wait until the River models come out and they're all hippopotamus themed.

This is the problem with the Grand Alliances. Death, Chaos and even Destruction are narrowly defined - you have to meet very specific criteria in order to "fit", e.g. worshipping specific gods. Order, by contrast, is broadly defined as "anything that doesn't fit into the other Alliances". Any attempt to narrow the definition of Order to a more specific ideology will leave several armies without an Alliance. GW should just do away with Grand Alliances altogether at this point. They were a necessary crutch while the game was limping along with an incomplete set of Allegiances, but now they're restrictive and irrelevant. It doesn't actually matter if Malerion's aelves are Order, Chaos, whatever... the only meaningful consideration is who they can ally with, because Grand Alliance armies are non-viable.

All the helmet-edits that drop the bull-heads down make me want to build a force of Mountain Realm-Lords that can also be proxied as a warband of sophisticated, high-fashion Brayherd.

I'd see the garrison rules as in addition to, not a replacement for, any normal restrictions on where you can place your units. AoS doesn't have a "deployment zone", there's simply no such thing for them to reference. All you have is a territory, and additional restrictions per the battleplan, e.g. "Units must be set up wholly within their own territory, more than 12" from enemy territory." So I would assume that the allowance to "set up as a garrison at the start of a battle if the terrain is wholly within the unit's territory" doesn't preclude you from also have to adhere to any other restrictions, such as having to be more than 12" from enemy territory. You're still only allowed to deploy where you're instructed to, but if there's a garrison within that area you can put units into it. The rule is basically just saying that you don't have to deploy on the board and then move into the garrison. (This is simply opinion, there are no rules or designer's commentary that gives a more explicit ruling on this as far as I can tell.)

In fairness, Chaos provides the contrast. If someone's going to sell their soul and be eternally damned, they'd better hope they're getting some sick magical powers in exchange, otherwise it seems like a terrible idea. Chaos is in essence the "easy path" to greatness that comes at a terrible cost. Any normal human who had some connection to magical power (however slight!) without having to sell out to Chaos for it was a Seriously Big Deal in the Old World, one in a million. The Ice Queen herself being an ice mage - yep, that's awesome and makes sense. There being enough ice mages available for her to recruit entire units of them, not to mention assuring their loyalty when their magical gifts would be worth a Queen's ransom? That... seems like a stretch. Doesn't mean it's impossible, but they're going to have to do a lot more work to make it believable versus just making them exceptionally hardy and well-trained but mundane humans.

I think this is quite a clever compromise of design, personally. To me, it suggests that the Hyshian Aelves were trying to broaden their horizons. Aelves are traditionally lithe, graceful, elegant, skilful... but they're also delicate, fragile. Some of them no doubt chose to focus on their strengths, but the Mountain aelves tried to shore up their weaknesses instead. Of course, being aelves, they still couldn't stop themselves from bringing some of that elegant grace to the forms they made for their mountain spirits, but in return they incorporated some of the mountain's robustness into themselves. I like that their aesthetic suggests a cultural history of adaptation and overcoming their weaknesses, rather than "choosing a more catlike animal" as their totem. You could punch one of these aelves right in their smug face, and break your hand on their perfect nose.

"If a rule allows you to re-roll a result that was made by adding several dice together (e.g. 2D6, 3D6 etc.) then, unless otherwise stated, you must roll all of those dice again." - Core Rules, p. 226

Yeah they really shot themselves in the foot with this bizarre choice of warscroll construction. There should have just been a separate warscroll for "Skink Chief (on Stegadon)" which would have prevented all this confusion. Given that the Pitched Battle Profiles table has separate entries for "Stegadon" and "Stegadon with Skink Chief", I think the safest option is just to assume that the Thunderquake Starhost requires one Stegadon with Skink Chief and the other Stegadons were intended to be without - if you stick to that, nobody can argue with it. But lacking a proper clarification, I can't see any rules preventing you from taking Chiefs on the other Stegadons, though your opponents and TOs might have different opinions. "It doesn't say I can't" is rarely a good foundation for making a case. The Stegadon with Skink Chief General with the Prime Warbeast trait is just GW tying themselves in knots for similar reasons. If Skink Chief on Stegadon was a separate warscroll, the rule limiting traits to the Chief's attacks wouldn't need to exist and everything would just work as intended. But they've screwed it up, and now there's definitely an argument to be made that Prime Warbeast does nothing in that instance. At least they fixed it for the Engine of the Gods, I guess?

Yeah, that Errata makes things much more sensible. As a bonus, the Prime Warbeast trait now applies to all the Stegadon's attacks and the crew's javelins.

They were well sneaky with that silhouette, I would never have picked the fourth panel to be an AoS thing. All the Lumineth reveals have been very Mountain-heavy, no? Quite curious to see some of the other elemental spirits or aspects. At this point, I'm very interested to see if you can make an army out of Teclis plus four Elemental Spirits to form a "Completed Mandala" army.

Ooh, that's a particularly weird one, and I'm not entirely sure. The restriction is: "A Thunder Lizard general with a Monster mount must have this command trait instead of one listed..." I think you could make a strong argument that the Engine of the Gods is itself a monster, and the crew of Skinks are not Monsters, so if you have the Engine as your general it won't be forced to take this trait. However, as far as I know, no models actually specify whether they or their mount are individually Monsters - it's always the model as a whole that has the keyword. That's where it gets a bit funky, and you'd have to apply some kind of "common sense" or wait for an FAQ. If you did choose to take Prime Warbeast as your Engine's command trait, though, the +1 Attack would definitely only apply to the crew. I'd recommend choosing a different model as your General.

My only concern with this is that it brings back all the old "GW vs Forgeworld" divisions within the community. Either the Old World armies get terrible rules/pricing and are only for die-hard fans in "funsies" games (don't Brettonians and Tomb Kings already have that?) or they continue Forgeworld's tradition of malformed and game-breaking rules and every community gets to fracture over whether or not "pay-to-win" should be allowed in their tournaments. Maybe that's the old cynic in me, and FW can actually step up and make balanced, playable armies that integrate nicely with the AoS core. But going on past performance, I wouldn't be pinning my hopes on it.

"For rules purposes, the crew are treated in the same manner as a mount." Artefacts and command traits are definitely rules, so for their purposes the Engine model (including the Stegadon, since there is no rule to differentiate it from the Engine) is the Hero, and the crew is the Mount. The Engine lacks any rules that would otherwise limit how artefacts and traits apply (compare to the Stegadon with its Skink Chief rule). You would be unable to apply any benefits from artefacts or traits to the Meteoric Javelins, but all other attacks are fair game.

There's definitely some internet wisdom floating around in favour of both minimum units and units of four. The main benefit of fours is obviously getting the standard and musician. In the previous version of the book this was a much better deal (e.g. 3d6 take the highest for charging), but those unit upgrades were severely weakened with this release and now it's not as much of a concern. The benefits of twos are not just the extra pistols and battleline choices, but also simply the ability to make twice as many charge rolls for extra trampling. In a low-model-count army, it can also be handy to be able to be in two places at once. I haven't seen anyone advocating for units of more than four.

Ah, triple Frostlords, truly living the dream. What role do you see the Ironguts playing in your battle plan? I feel like you've got more than enough hammers already. (I must admit, I'd be sorely tempted to drop them for a fourth Frostlord and another couple of Sabres!)

I think if you want to build your army towards the Winterbite theme, go for it. You do so with the understanding that it won't be as "optimised" for competitive play, but that doesn't mean you won't have a bunch of fun playing it. The main issues I see with that style of list would be: Thundertusks are awful compared to Stonehorns. Worse, the battalion designed for them (Torrbad) sucks hard due to requiring 3+ Beastriders. The only Thundertusks you'll want in your list are Huskards, and you'll probably want three of those (or at least two) to buff each other's prayer rolls. A 1+ (automatic) to bring back a Yhetee, 2+ to give a unit +1 to wound, and 2+ to heal D3 wounds... it's still not amazing, but it's at least some synergy. The Yhetees unfortunately aren't Ogors, so they're bad at holding objectives, don't get Trampling Charge, aren't Ravenous Brutes, etc. Their attack stats are also well below par, so you've really got to leverage that 6" pile-in for maximum value as it's the only thing special about them. They seem like a real finesse option - it will take you a fair few games to figure out how to make them effective. Sad to say you'd probably have a much easier time taking Gluttons... but once you go down the path of taking the better options you'll just end up at the standard Bloodgullet, Underguts or Boulderhead lists, so stick to the plan! Icebrow Hunters and Frost Sabres are pulling a lot of weight - they're your mobility element (for attacking the enemy backline, or forcing them to hold stuff back to prevent this) but they're also your objective grabbers, and might have to pull some duty as screens for your Thundertusks. Maybe something like this, as a starting point? Huskard on Thundertusk (340) Huskard on Thundertusk (340) Huskard on Thundertusk (340) Icebrow Hunter (120) 3 x Icefall Yhetees (110) 3 x Icefall Yhetees (110) 3 x Icefall Yhetees (110) 3 x Icefall Yhetees (110) 12 x Frost Sabres (240) 2 x Frost Sabres (40) 2 x Frost Sabres (40) Skal (100) Best of luck!

Seems like a cool build. Sacrifices some of the hitting power of the usual BCR list for some tricksy objective-grabbing, magic, and extra Command Points. I'd be a bit worried about giving up the second FLoSH for that stuff, but there's no doubt it's a more well-rounded list as a result.