JPjr

looking at the Boingrot Bounderz warscroll and I was wondering something about their movement (2D6) Just thinking about unit cohesion, I'm assuming with units like this you roll once each turn for the whole unit not for each individual model (hilarious as that could be)?

But what if I’ve already burned all my other battletomes, rule books and models in protest?

I’m fully expecting something like that as a scenery piece when they do unleash the new Aelf factions.

If this policy means that one day we’ll get a ginormous Forge World cosmic Slaanesh in Aelf bondage model then I for one heartily approve.

After I painted the Eyes of the Nine I really got the urge to create a small Skirmish sized Tzeentch warband. The idea being they’d be led by the grand vizier, Fluxus Kaa’Pah’Sitor, of a city state who had fallen to chaos and corrupted a close circle of the ruling elite and their personal guard. The plan was to try and create a campaign based on small city street battles as they reveal themselves and try to claim the city. One idea I’d had for them as a quirky, thematic ability was ‘Just as Planned’, before the game the Tzeentch player gets to make their turn priority dice rolls for every round, make a note of and then hide the results. They cant modify the results or affect their opponents but they will know in advance whether they have high or low scores and can plan accordingly. I did think maybe they could swap a couple of the results around but wasn’t sure if that could be overpowering.

@Ekrund Oath Splitters it seems pretty clear here the Rockgut & Dankhold Troggoth kits are different. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/12/30/30th-dec-next-weeks-pre-orders-gloomspite-gitz/

or (and apologies again for quacking on), rather than incremental turn-based bonuses that automatically build up instead what I'd actually love to see are ones that they kick in or have more of an effect on the side with the least points at the end of each turn. I can only imagine the wailing and gnashing from tournament players at the idea, but I've been looking a lot of game design recently and one of the things I do like about more Euro/German style games is how they often include a levelling feature so you either get some kind of bonus if you're losing to keep it competitive or in the final stages there's something that allows you to pull off a win even if you're deep in the ******, so both players still have skin in the game, and hopefully enjoy themselves, for longer. Objectives in theory could help in that regard if they were more interesting than generally just guarding a marker with masses of troops (which just makes it more likely the winning player will pick up more points). You can probably play a good few games of MarioKart in the time it takes to set up a single game of AoS yet Nintendo still realise that it's more fun, and keeps people interested, to make it so the players at the back still some chance of winning every game. And as I say that's a short game, considering what a miserable experience it can be to get screwed in turn 1 or 2 and then have to push plastic around a table in a desultory fashion for another hour or two it makes even more sense to have a smilier mechanic available (though of course not by any means mandatory) in AoS. You could have so much fun with those kind of rules too. Khorne army almost totally tabled, just one last model left facing insurmountable odds, oh you better belief he's going out fighting as a whirlpool of blood and fire opens in the sky, the last ****** standing spasms and buckles as his flesh rips apart and he's reborn as a Bloodthirster for the 5th turn. Etc etc.

OK, this is all just some free-form ideas so I reserve the right to be hilariously wrong, change my mind at any moment and waffle on for too long, but... To me just giving anti-magic properties to armies without magic in the name of 'balance' is like all things regarding AoS and 'balance' inevitably going to be problematic. I think you have to be very careful, it might on first glance seem obvious but in theory they should have already been compensated in some other way that ties into their nature. So let's take the platonic ideal of 2 (Khorne & Tzeentch) armies and ignoring what they actually do, look at what it makes sense for them to do (I say that because I play neither and dont know the intricacies of them/their play styles that well). Khorne, no magic but should be rampaging murder machines whether that's with axe wielding psychopaths with comedy muscles or access to actual murder machines. Tzeentch, bunch of book reading turkey twizzlers. Can turn you into a writhing mass of jelly and tentacles from 50 paces but punches like someone whose idea of arm day is carrying a few grimoires to their desk. Now if just from the start of the game Khorne just cancels out the Tzeentch armies magic, then you end up with a fight that looks like the school football team waiting outside the DnD society after hours to give the nerds a good shoeing. It's not like as their magic gets cancelled out the bird boys start growing muscles. Personally if you do want to go that route my preference (and in fact this is something I think could be great for all/most armies) is to have some kind of thematic faction mechanic that amps up over the course of the battle. Kind of a mixture of how Idoneth Deepkin gain certain abilities as the tide (turns) change and the current summoning rules. So for someone like a Khornate army the longer the battle goes on, the more fighting and death there is then the more influence their god has on the material world and so the magic gets progressively harder to cast. Could work well as an interesting buff for destruction armies, each turn as there's more fighting more Waaagh energy builds up giving them a buff. Sure you could figure out something similar for most factions (I mean I know they dont need any more help right now but you'd think a battle that's been raging for 5 turns would be a pretty decent place to be if you're a necromancer), or even just those that are lacking something. Start gently so for the first turn or 2 it has limited effect and can be countered or factored in by good players but gets more powerful in the end game phases, making for more dramatic and potentially conclusive finishes to games.

also, and this is 100% pure and personal head-canon and only of any interest/relevance if you both favour the narrative elements of the game and are flexible enough to not need everything 100% proscribed by GW but my take on most of the factions is the official info we get contains a kernel of truth about them, BUT filtered though propaganda, myths, lies and deception on the part of both the factions themselves and their enemies. gives you a lot more freedom and makes it a much, much more interesting world. otherwise you end up with just another fantasy universe where humans can be multi-faceted individuals and every other sentient creature you encounter is just a tick list of racial traits with little nuance or individuality. never really got the interest in fantasy eugenics myself. anyway going hilariously off-topic here so I'll shut my trap. apologies if any previous posts have come across as salty here, everyone is entitled to play the game and build their armies in their own way. 1st day back at work and trying to type this on my phone isn't exactly a recipe for temperate, clear, discourse.

I have almost zero interest in what’s competitive personally, but if that’s all that matters then you’ll do what you need to do to win anyway, whether that’s running smashface netlists or using all the options available (or more likely just playing DoK). and if it’s the lore that interests you then you can’t really complain about having no access to magic if you’re deliberately choosing an army that, say Khorne for instance, is and has always been canonically anti-magic and then refusing to use the available options, allies or whatever, and a sprinkling of your own story telling magic to make it make sense. now sure you might say they should be in some way compensated for that, and I’m sure others (myself included) would agree but then in theory you are in certain ways whether that’s being better at melee combat of having big flying battleships. But we’re only 6 months into the Magic focused era of AoS, I’m sure whenever there’s a course correction like this a few factions will always lag until they, hopefully, get round to putting them on an even keel in some way. Some factions get things others don’t. That’s just how it will always be, i’d quite like a ghostly flying ship myself, and could knock one up for a laugh/narrative games (and actually now I think about it I might have to try that this year), but my army doesn’t officially get them. And as I said, for me, from a purely story telling perspective, the idea of some human mage on the lam from polite spell casting society having to shack up with a load of dwarves who don’t like or trust him, and have to pretend to hate magic but secretly need it and just practise their own secret Dwarven kind disguised as technology strikes me as a rich narrative seam to mine. It’s your classic mismatched buddy cop story. but if you 100% want an all KO army and want magic then you’ll have to wait (or go without) though I suspect you probably won’t have to wait for too long for a fix of some kind.

I say that any significantly advanced form of magic is indistinguishable from technology. Duardin Rune-Tech is just that and Aethermatics is just the stunted little sods attempt at obscuring what they’re up to.

Personally as soon as I saw there was a KO warband in Nightvault I assumed this would be the initial route in to getting magic users into a KO force and get them some endless spell love. Seeing as every warband in this ‘season’ has or will be led by a magic user it seemed significant they’d slotted a KO one in there. Figured the leader will have to have some magic/Rune-Tech ability (or at least a strong anti-magic one). Anyway I think they should have let KO ally with Collegiate Arcane, if a mercantile, pragmatic race can’t, for some hand wavey reason, use magic (rather than say actively hate it like Khorne) then, to me. it makes in-universe sense they’d probably hire a wizard errant or 2, strap them to the prow of their sky ships and have them around to combat unforeseen arcane aerial threats. If you’re all about the lore/narrative, then it could make a great bit of fluff for your army having a couple of down on their luck, disgraced human battle mages who having left one of the great cities after some sorcerous scandal now have to ply their trade on Duardin ships to make ends meet, with all the hilarious, banging head on low beams, odd-couple hi-jinx that would entail.

These are amazing models. I’ve gone from thinking I could just quietly covet these grotz into definitely grabbing a load. god I feel sorry for them having to deal with people leaking pics though. Someone will be getting righteously booted of the advance media list.

Just pop down your local head shop, I'm sure amongst all the bongs, dreamcatchers and incense you'll find a vast range of little mushroom and toadstool statues to re-purpose.

Some more info, ‘Designer’s Insights’ in the Grotz. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/12/27/27th-dec-designer-insights-gloomspite-gitzgw-homepage-post-1/

Skaven/Grotz as hardcore environmentalists boarding and sabotaging a cogfort that is busy destroying acres of forested land whilst burning fossil fuels and extracting realmstone would be an extraordinary twist worthy of several chef’s kisses.

2020 will be the Chinese year of the rat, not that I’m expecting GW to base their marketing strategies around zodiacal signs but would be a surreptitious time to drop a Skaven BT (though obviously that’s not much succour if you’re desperate for one now).

For some weird reason I’ve always really liked dead/injured models and before the grot casualty appeared had been looking with interest at those made to order Imperial (Russian) Guardsmen, up at the moment, that feature a couple (and incidentally could be great base for a Slavic themed Free Peoples force facing off against BCR). I could definitely imagine, with the spore fanatics especially, that an out of action fungus laden grot could still do some damage to anyone that gets too close, I hope there is some rule like that.

Is this bro new?

Well after several pretty good efforts they've finally managed to take faction dice to new un-thought of levels of form over function.

Actually I take it back. I want one of everything, and then a few more.

oh man, even if I don't buy anything else I want those Endless Spells just for the models

In terms of timing I guess that could make sense. The Vigilus campaign ends around the start of March too (I think, they started the 80 day countdown mid December I think), I'd have thought they might have a breather in between but then maybe best to strike whilst the squigbrand is hot.

yeah it would seem like a wasted opportunity to launch the Grotz tome and introduce a new major character like the Loon King, who clearly sees himself on some kind of religious crusade, without using that as the basis for a campaign (and in turn help sell a load of new models).

More I think about it, and the less actual evidence I have, I’m now 2000% sure Underworlds Season 3 will launch in autumn with a Slaanesh warband, and then the full army release will follow in Jan 2020 tied into a Vigilus style mega campaign that leads up to the god escaping and a war in Ulgu and the release of Malerion’s faction. Utterly convinced and I won’t be swayed at least until I read some other spurious rumour somewhere about Clockwork Dwarves, Crystal Golems or Sylvaneth allied Water Spirits and completely deny all knowledge of the above.