Scurvydog

Going to a tournament in a couple of weeks and bringing out the sons. The last 2 times I got the best performing destruction army (although that did not say much in the meta) and going for a hattrick! I have so far been running a Stomper tribe in 2nd edition, with 1 Stomper general, GB, 2x3 mancrushers, however with all the new rules that favor heroes, the new command abilities and added value of staying power, I think I will be moving to a taker tribe. I think I will go with the setup discussed earlier here, with 1 Kraken Eater general, 1 GB, 1 Stomper and 3 individual mancrushers. I really liked the 3 man units of mancrushers, as they just hit really hard, but I think the new battleplans and taker tribe really favors them running solo as cappers, freeing up the megas more to do what they need to do. I will be running an amulet of destiny on the gatebreaker, he is the heavy hitter and will most likely be in the thick of it, so my only real choice is the command trait. I am torn between 2 options currently, which is the intimidating trait with -1 to hit in combat, or acquisitive in order to grab a glowy lantern. -1 to be hit is always useful, however a lantern provides and unbind/dispell (to better get rid of annoying stuff like soulsnare shackles etc) it also provides the chance to either mystic shield or flaming weapon, which are really great to put on a mega gargant. The likelyhood of casting these successfully drops fast against Tzeentch/Lumineth/Seraphon, but there are also a lot of army builds with little to no magic as well. So I guess it comes down to a reliable choice or a potentially more powerful and flexible choice, but also risks being completely worthless in some cases. What do you guys think for competitive play?

I think Wizards got a place in all lists, however if your gameplan relies on magic, you are in a bad spot if not playing Teclis/Kroak and maybe Nagash. Even in my Sons of Behemat list I like making one a wizard, if I get a mystic shield or flaming weapon cast, that is just great and very powerful. If I face any casters with + to unbind it is less likely to do anything, however my primary reason to ensure having a wizard is access to dispell endless spells. Endless spells got set cast values, often not that high, so even your most lowly wizard can sacirfice their cast which probably would not work anyway against good casters, in order to get rid of that endless spell which could ruin your gameplan. Something like the new shackles can really cause issues for combat armies and at least having a chance to remove them is a big deal. I have experienced some armies really hurting though, which are those who rely somewhat on their good spells to be competitive, but lack the power to ensure these go through. Imagine Flesh Eater courts, they rely a lot on their powerful spells to do damage, like their arch regents +d3 attacks spell or the chalice, but it is about hopeless for them to cast these and vs Teclic (who pops up a lot in cometitive lately) he can just save his auto unbind. Not to mention Teclis alone basically shuts down all FeC can do, but that is another discussion. So the answer is that a Wizard or possibly 2 at a low investment is great, if nothing else than to have a few unbinds at hand and to remove endless spells, if no endless spells are present, a mystic shield etc is always nice. At the other end of the scale if you got Kroak or Teclis or Nagash, you can play the magic game, but for anything in between you might have a lot of issues if you face any of those big guys, as they will more likely than not cancel your still rather heavy investment and gameplan. Either invest lightly or go all in, but never in between.

Even as a Thunderlizards player I am OK with this, but obvously biased as I also got an extremis Stormcast army, but dragons would not really fit the Seraphon that well. I have a feeling the Seraphon are in for a larger release at some point, at least in the scope of something like the Soulblight Gravelords got, with the resin stuff and possibly Saurus stuff getting redone.

FeC is one of the most interesting factions of AoS, having a new centerpiece model would be great for them, probably going to be a named character, a powerful wizard bringing the FeC more into the big boy leagues of magic perhaps. Those insane boys could use some love.

I don't think the ogors will get anything new for quite a while except a plastic butcher and possibly some endless spells, Some new maneaters, gorgers or yetis would be cool though to bolster that line of the Ogors, the gutbusters and the beastclaw stuff is pretty good with nice plastic kits that still hold up I think, even if a little bit static. I would really like to see what modern day GW could do with yetis and gorgers...

Also Disciples of Tzeentch is the same for the other keywords, so it seems Archaon is out of all these tomes in one fell swoop

True that, OBR does seem very boring now considering how much interesting play commands does for other armies, it will be extremely limited in options and flexibility. At least Petrifex Elite got buffed to reduce rend by 1 now :s Catapults will be really poor with their 0 rend and everyone getting access to all out defense.

They are present in the new FAQs for the armies that can take them.

Nothing scares me more than Orruks in Crocs. Or anything in Crocs really. That said I really really hope for FAQs today!

Doubt we will see much overlapping, possibly for Old World but AoS is moving further away from the old world look each time a faction gets refreshed. It also sounds like the Old World game will be exploring a different era than the old warhammer fantasy, so I would expect that to look quite different as well.

I'd like the warhammer animation team to get on this, seeing these two crybabies weeping the loudest at each other would be hilarious. Remember tissues and icecream. But yea the ability from Kragnos A would certianly also trigger a roll from Kragnos B if he is wounded. Already lost both Brutes and Warchanters to this ability, I dislike it so darn much...

Hello there!

Maybe I am looking at it wrong but that does not look much bigger or different from the dominion doggo.

It is a bit ironic as the lack of reveals is a reason that keeps popping up for people to not get the box. People would probably be way more eager to buy it, if they saw new books on the way. They seem to only be shooting themselves in the foot being so tight lipped about this, so customers simply choose to not buy into the unknown or at least wait for more information. There is probably also a lot of people awaiting FAQs to inform them what they wish to buy into for 3.0. Perhaps the short time the beasts of chaos FAQ was suddenly listed as 02/07 is an indication of what we might be able to expect for the planned FAQ release, one can hope.

Well it is almost the same model, but if I had to rank them, I'd say Warstomper being the easiest and Gatebreaker, with the Kraken eater having the most details, such as the front of a ship on his back with a corpse danlging from it., tentacles hanging from the belt and so on.

About as likely as a surprise Chaos Dwarf army appearing for preorder with a new tome, as well as a second print of Cursed City boxes going out at half price

Old FAQs are back up on the community site. Only odd thing is a Beasts of Chaos FAQ listed as 02/07 however the content in it is from October 2018

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment

The curse of being the first tomes, Stormcast and Nighthaunt aged very poorly very fast in 2nd, they were basically by the wayside as the early 2nd books such as Slaanesh, FeC, Skaven and Fyreslayers (IDK included here) came out, which blew those books out of the water. Just look at 40k which is why Marines always gets 2 books, because the 1st of the edition is always cool for a hot 6 months time, then gets massively outdated, to then have a strong new wave+book in the last half of the edition. Stormcast are not marines though and do not get that treatment, so remained bad outside a few gimmick builds. At least the new tome wont waste around 15 pages on useless battalions

Been getting in some more games now with 3.0 and this ability really goes great with some armies where the ranged units were not all that crazy before, but gets a bit more to do, like a unit of 6 kurnoths with bows or a unit of 22 blissbarb archers, this adds to their utility and forces hard decisions. The only real problem I think is with the super powerful ranged dominant armies and units, especially those with MW on hit who do not care about the -1 to hit modifier. This also creates more of a role for those small fast skirmisher units, if you really need to charge that blob of archers, then they either use unleash hell to kill that chaff, and then cant use it for the "real" unit charging them, if they don't they get engaged with your chaff and then they still cant unleash hell, as they are now within 3" of something already. Thinking units such as fel bats, aetherwings etc, you leave your opponent with the option to use a CP to maybe kill that chaff, or not to do anything at all. Reposition is a true game changer, swingy, but can really mess with decision making, betting on 1 unit getting within 5" with a move to make a charge i suddenly far from a safe bet if the opponent moves d6 directly away, forcing plans on both sides to take this into account. So far my gaming group is positive, there is a lot going on, a lot more decisions with hero phase choices for both players, monsters rampaging, battle tactics to be considered etc etc. We all feel the game is more engaging overall, less safe moves makes for more rng in games, which can be a lot of fun, although it can be frustrating, there is plenty to use CP on regardless of the armylist you are using. Somehow I also initially missed the general generated 1 CP in each hero phase and not just your own besides the battleround CP, which means a bare minimum of 3 CP to use per battle round if the general is on the table. Enough to do a lot of fun stuff for everyone. Obviously FAQs are still needed though, anxiously awaiting those tome FAQs now!

Somehow though I feel it is quite strange that it should be deemed a point of failure if a product is not entirely sold out forever during the first week og a two week preorder period. Like it is a terrible thing that there is enough stock for the box to actually end up on the store shelves for "regular" customers to see, who are not sitting ready to preorder everything and just casually browse their shop from time to time. I often find it increasingly frustrating to shop for Warhammer miniatures and hobby gear, especially as someone living outside the UK, even spraycans are never in stock anywhere. Webshops will hardly have anything in stock and need to order from GW to get anything, which takes a lot of time these days. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find any shop selling Warhammer stuff where you can actually end up going home with the items you set out to get, due to the large range of products, but very limited stock of retailers. Outside directly from GW you will have to visit 10+ shops to buy a complete Cities army these days. I'd love for there to be less FOMO, more stock and then let things sell over time as happened all through history. Imagine that in supermarket, that it was somehow a failure if all the fresh vegetables were not sold out within 3 hours of opening the shop. Do people go concerned about their local supermarket if that did not happen? Imagine people writing on the stores facebook stuff like "I came into the store during the evening and you still had bananas left on the shelves! Does that mean you are closing soon?? Will you stop selling bananas!?". It is completely ridiculous. Cursed City had people all up in arms due to limited availability. Remember at the dominion reveal how the chat was just red hot with remarks about how you would probably not be able to get a hold of one? Negativity about scalpers etc. Well now GW provided plenty, but then people prophecise about the doom of the company and AoS being unpopular. What could GW do to win here?

Yea not really feeling them either unfortunately and the box contains 20 of the critters. Again this might change if the greater plan for the faction. The game is sort of in a limbo especially as a SCE and Warclans player, as we are waiting for both all the FAQs and also for more info about the upcoming tomes. I think others feel the same and might hold off on a semi expensive VS box where there are so many unanswered questions about the viability of plans for the product it contains.

I preordered a box, but that is also because I play both Stormcast and Warclans and also keep up with all the rumors and chatter going on about upcoming tomes etc. For many people, the sparse information from GW means they basically see a box with new models for a woefully outdated book, where they are not sure how these models will work. Then they also see the new orruks, however Gw has done a terrible job at communicating what their plan is for this faction and how they fit into any book, except for assumptions mostly. Even then, looking at the content I doubt I will end up using a lot of it, the hobgrots look like poor fodder and the boss on foot and their banner bearers only look like something that might be used in games for laughs. So who is this box for? People who just enjoy the models of course, but I think the pool of players wanting this VS box right now is somewhat low. If GW had done a better job with marketing the factions, perhaps also revealing the upcoming tomes, so people could get excited about going all in on these armies, but as usual GW wants to play coy, not stay anything and hope for the best. It absolutely baffles me the way they make these decisions.

Maw Krushas be like "Dey Durk-a-Derrr!!!" So we got sleek dragons and big and wide dragons speculation, I'd say that is back to square one!

The Stormcast codex points shown in the how to play videos said Updated July, all other tomes were released the same month as the updated month, so right now there is no reason to believe that tome wont be released in July. GW obviously knew that would be shown.