Scurvydog

This is true and entire GWs fault with how they write rules. The winning comps is often a result of multiple "layers" of rules, first the allegiance rules, then often a sub faction of some kind, then the available battalions at times and finally the warscrolls for each unit. In many top comps all the first layers almost completely dictates the warscrolls part, leaving no room to breathe. Things become very specific very quickly, even Seraphon with a big book and many units, end up feeling very small, as types of units have no synergy and subfactions and battalions favor very specific builds. There is no reason at all to combine skinks and saurus, their heroes also only benefit the same keywords, they might as well not even be in the same battletome. The best Khorne battalion is 3-8 Bloodthirsters, come on GW really, and then the sub faction layer makes that even worse with demons fight twice, making the blades of khorne into demons of khorne and random chaff dudes. Books that avoid this are usually more fun and also not really present much on the meta list... StD, Gitz, Sylvaneth and BoC for example all gives a lot of options and does not limit too much in unit choices based on any sub factions or must pick battalions. Their lack of wombo combos also means they can't compete with meta lists, which is an entirely different way of playing warhammer. The top meta lists work more like MTG deck building and play than wargaming at times.

The problem is not just the output, but in most cases the things that go from good to disgusting is some specific combos. At times these combos is the only thing making a book viable at all as well, although with niche builds. KO is powerful without question, the base rules are good, but what takes it overboard is the spell in a bottle and then partly Barak Ziflin. This combo ensures you can basically get the army precisely where you want it to be turn 1, with no risk of being hit first and no risk of failing this or even getting the most powerful spell in the game set exactly where you want. That combo is just bonkers and removing that would fix a lot of things. A simple nerf to spell in a bottle, like a limit for a 50 pts endless spell maximum and perhaps a minor change to the Ziflin rule as well, could take things from bonkers to just very good I think. Another combo from a far weaker book as an example is the Bloodthirster squad from Khorne, all the power in the book is centered on that alone, as they gave all the good stuff to one type of unit, fight twice to demons, engage and pile in 6" and manipulate the fight order (all BTs fighting at the same time). This combo is the only really tournament viable BoK list (ignoring Archaon variants). I can't help but think if the playtesters either are not being listened to or something is just falling through the cracks entirely when books are made. It takes 15 minutes from rules are known to people funding gaping holes and clear problems with power balancing, even internally in books. Like Khorne again, they create 1 sub faction, in a book centered entirely around melee combat, which allows units to fight twice, that is just bound to be best at any time! FeC did this better by making that core rule apply to the entire allegiances, opening up far mere diverse builds at least (better internal balance). Maybe playtesters for KO only had access to the Silver Swords, burning head, jaws and other meh endless spells to not realise how crazy powerful some endless spells are with a guaranteed application without any counterplay. Shooting in general is also a FAR greater problem in a game with double turns. If any potential 3rd edition does away with the double turn mechanic, then shooting will already spike less one way or the other, but right now if for example a Tzeentch or KO list, with the great battalions, forces you to go first and sets themselves up for a double turn, the game can easily be over by the top of BR2.

The shooting problem is not that easy to nail down. They made a monster with the KO in the AoS setting, as the common weakness of shooting heavy armies should probably have are just about completely mitigated, such as mobility and durability, instead we have the most mobile army in the game, sitting in hyper mobile bunkers, so even if engaged they can take a beating. If we look at warhammer fantasy, access to shooting was more limited and units like handgunners, archers, catapults etc. all had clear exploitable weaknesses, often with the most powerful shooting either getting penalties to hit or completely unable to fire if moving at all. Balancing shooting in this game is very hard and ranged units will have a fine line between overpowering and too weak. Sylvaneth can make shooty lists, but nobody complains about those, but they can win games, just does not go 5/5 at tournaments for sure, yet they might be hitting a better balance level than KO or Tzeentch or even Seraphon, because it is not that oppressive relentless bombardment and a bit more of a game.

Perhaps this is not even as thought out by GW as we might think, but it does make sense in that context. Also creations of the Aelven gods, but Morathi is not part of the pantheon, so her children does not get the "eth" part. Even if the idoneth were cast aside, they were originally creations of Teclis. It will be interesting to see what happens with Malerions Aelves, I hope they are more monsters than Aelves, almost in a manner like Tree revenants from the Sylvaneth, twisted and warped horrors, but you can still see the Aelven core of them. If they are "just" like the shadowstalkers, dark elfs with black goo clouds around them, I would be sort of disappointed. What we really need is more Orruks and not even more pancy aelves though.

If Broken Realms: Morathi is a November release, we might begin to hear new stuff from that soon. The preview was very vague and it will be interesting to see how much content these books will have, as that book might just set a very clear expectation on what to expect the following year for AoS. If only 2 factions are represented in each book with 1-2 models every 3 months, then it will be a very long year(s) indeed for AoS players. But yea would really appreciate expansion and improvement of current factions instead of too many new ones at this point. They could for example easily redo the entire beasts of chaos book and include an entire wave of releases without coming up with an entirely new faction. I think at best we will see some sub faction tweaks, in line with the recent squig and troggoth allegiances seen in white dwarf, just for other factions.

Skarbrand is the truest glass cannon in the game, but it seems your opponent is quite competitive and also knows how to use proper screening, so to compete with this, you will need to be rather sneaky as well, you wont beat that with any old beer and pretzels list. The artifact only activates on a 4+ and allows the wearer to fight, this can then snowball in the tyrants battalion allowing other bloodthirsters to fight one after the other. Keep in mind here it is only 50/50 and the Thirster with the artifact also needs to be able to fight, so if you can engage Skarbrand alone, all you got to do is put 14 wounds on a 4+ save model, possibly 3+ if he got the bronzed flesh of on him. You do not mention any of your lists, but at least a stonehorn with frostlord can be able to deal that kind of damage, especially with any kind of support ranged damage, like blood vultures or snowballs etc. For Ogors you could also consider a huskard on thundertusk with the mount trait that forces the opponent to fight last, that could really create some issues for his plans. You could also try a shooting build with the tyrant and artifact for +1 hit aura to ironblasters and leadbelchers. Saying you play death is also rather broad to give any specific advice, but if you play LoN or LoG you can always feed the bloodthirsters with chaff, or put a big block of reapers or skeletons in there and hold the line, if they die, summon them back at a grave. If you play FeC you can basically do the same thing with Terrorgheists, especially if fighting twice you should easily kill a Bloodthirster on average and you got better screens than he does. If you play Blisterskin you can fight first and cancel out his artifact too. If you play pure nighthaunt it can get tricky,the best thing to do is screen as well and counter attack. Also remember Skarbrand can't fly and is slower than the others, I have played against him quite a bit and only really have issues when the Khorne player gets a good double turn, otherwise you know the exact threat range of Skarbrand and you might be able to exploit this with the far greater mobility of a nighthaunt army and engage where it suits you best.

I would agree if: 1. The other warbands were useless too, but they are actually quite interesting for DoK. 2. Cultists are an integrated part of the StD battletome and showcased everywhere as they are cool models, but they are absolute trash in game. If you put rules, warscrolls, images etc in a battletome for AoS, there is not excuse that they should be useless junk because they were originally made for a spinoff game, that makes no sense at all. The rules are so poor it seems spiteful actually, they must be aware that they are releasing the weakest warscrolls in the game for models people are quite hyped about.

Another useless cultist warband. 6+ saves, still 4+/4+, they are only good at making Grots look like regular heroes in comparison. DoK gets a teleporting unit with -1 to being hit, mortal wounds on a ranged attack and a unit champion with a hero attack profile...

Like this guy, he has 1 attack with 4+/4+... The new Scion ultra cool flame samurai also has a staggering 2 attacks with 4+/4+... The DoK leader has 3 attacks with d3 damage, why couldn't chaos get that?

Like with the underworld DoK warband, DoK gets a cool unique unit that actually does something useful the army couldn't do, they got the Haq bodyguard unit then and now gets a teleporting unit with some decent attacks and built in surviveability. StD gets another completely useless cultist warband, for some reason GW seems to have some marathon going on how to make as many cool new units absolutely trash in AoS. Only the untamed beats being used for no other purpose than pre game movement to die to alpha strikers. I would really like same kind of explanation on why all the cultist units needs to be so incredibly poor, they do not even have marks of chaos to benefit from the armies allegiance ability at all!

A Major issues with bravery is both that it is wildly inconsistent across armies, but also that it causes entire models to flee, making it just about impossible to balance. I play a lot of armies, but really have issues with bravery in my brute heavy ironjawz with their pitiful 6 bravery. Same goes for Stormcast with just 7, even the elite paladins and dracothian guards only got 7, so if they face even a unit of skeleton horsemen with a -1 bravery banner, losing 1 model already puts them at risk of en entire 120 points concussor running! In the same scenario not even a clanrat would flee due to all the modifiers. Multiple wounds harder to kill models are really hard to balance like this, if a bunch of rockgut troggoths lack a hero and CP nearby, killing 2 of a 6 man unit and having a -1 bravery banner, could see a couple more of the unit running away, which snowballs far more than the killing 8 clanrats from a similar costed unit. All in all this makes for a bad mechanic, it is not balanced at all between unit types or battletomes and the inspiring presence also completely messes up this balance, if you also consider how easy some armies generate CP while others have to make very hard decisions with very few CP. As has sort of been suggested, changing this to some sort of battle attrition might work better, where damage is used instead of models, which could even bleed into monsters to represent them being overwhelmed and dragged down etc. Monsters and elites should then have a "bravery" that was high enough to take this into account, while infantry could start out lower but then benefit from command groups and numbers, as a result a zombie dragon would be roughly as prone to taking additional damage as a 30 man unit of skeletons taking the same amount of damage. I hope this aspect of the game receives a major review for any potential 3rd edition at least, and either makes it important for most units, having those crazy brave things truly be special, or entirely get rid of it, potentially for something entirely different, to represent the units grit, exhaustion and will to fight.

Funny how these things get through, or if the playtesters are all youtubers too busy with figuring out themes for videos than reading the rules in depth, I don't know. This book provided questions the second you look at the rules, especially longshanks looked like a problem the moment I first read it. would it have been so bad to just say it counted as having fly when doing a normal move, that seems less open to interpretation and that one time you walk over 2 stonehorns would that break the game more? The point about going for the mancrushers when playing against SoB sounds about right, with no screening or fight first mechanic, they can easily be taken out by competent combat units, like for example ambushing eels or a teleported unit of souped up ardboyz or marauders, which they will have no screen or defense against. They are not the only army suffering from this, but they are very squishy and will take a huge amount of damage. Will be interesting to see how peopel will deal with alpha striking armies like this, maybe having 1-2 solo mancrushers just as speedbumps will be a requirement in matched play, it is just very expensive and fragile speedbumps for the point tag.

The skull looks interesting. Does not really look like a human skull, the brow is very low and stocky, might be a duardin skull... or just a funny design who knows. The scale also looks like it is rather large whatever it is, the texture looks organic though and not like a sail and much more like wing membranes.

Playing against OBR should be ok as Sons, it is a very straightforward army with few surprises and the high rend on mega gargants will do a number on them. You can also grab out Hekatos models to prevent them using their commands and 6++ saves at all. They will also very rarely be able to outscore you anywhere, as few lists will have more than 1 unit of 30 or more morteks. If no Katakros they will not even get armor saves at all against Gatebreakers, so I think the matchup is good for the Gargants actually.

Nobody seems to be talking about the gargant toes, it is all over the place, the Whale Biter has 3 toes, while the others got 4? bizarre! Also not many talking about the Stomper tribes throw rocks and getting stuck in rule, as it says nothing about melee attacks only. Hitting 20+ size units with d3+2 dmg rocks is pretty alright.

Losing out on mightier makes rightier and expending 1 CP does not seem worth the mercenary effects. The only decent mercenary effect is the warstomper one, but I still think the cons are way too severe to do this, in a sons army you need that model count, that is a primary strength. The merc abilities are just consolation prizes for armies adding them as mercs for both the CP cost and lack of other allegiance abilities.

I think I'd go 1 Warstomper general, 1 Kraken Eater, 3 man crusher unit and then possibly units of 2 and 1 mancrushers. The solo mancrusher will be the one to grab those objectives sitting outside the main action, having this piece seems important in many scenarios, as dedicating a mega or even multiple mancrushers will be too many points "wasted" on an outlaying objective or blocking a backline from ambushing armies etc. The Megas really lose a lot of value without traits and artifacts and then they do not even get the mercenary gargant benefit rule, so the most versatile "vanilla" gargant seems to be the kraken eater so you can kick an objective around, stuff models into a bag and throw some debris. I think the army will still struggle a lot against the top meta armies, but of course all but top meta armies suffer there, just like Ironjawz smash lesser combat lists but fall over to Tzeentch shooting and screening or KOs etc. I don't think the sons can really deal with a Fyreslayer castle either, 20 hearthguards could quite easily take out a mega in a round of combat, with hardly enough threat of taking damage in the process. I wonder if we will be seeing any sons show up at tournaments and if they might bring a ghoul king mercenary with them. I don't really like the theme of mixing in an arch regent, but it is the only way to add both chaff and screening as well as a cheaper hero+wizard. I could see that work in a stomper tribe with a single warstomper, mancrushers and then an arch regent with ghoul support. I saw some talk about using the hafling Blood Bowl team to convert this in a silly way. It could be a fun project if you could make a gargant worshipping cult with a shaman of some sort as count as arch regent and ghouls. Did anyone else notice how the Warstomper mercenary special rule also provides reroll 1s to hit for jump up and down? A bit strange considering it already gets this for anything but monsters, so I guess that is all this rule adds in addition, although the -1 to hit for all enemies within 6" after a jump attack is pretty good by itself and the best of the mercenaries I think.

Just play cow dudes in their own sub faction. Ignore rend 1 and 2, reroll saves. Just sit on objectives and not dying and push the enemy away or simply kill them with the big cows. Or use the big named and non named cow to stack -2 to hit for fun times and use that critical aetherquartz when ARchaon fights you to have 2+ reroll saves ignoring rend 1 and 2 and see Archaon do 2 damage to you and cry.

Broken Realms wishful thinking time! This would probably a great deal more than we will get, but that is what wishful thinking is about after all. If we follow the psychic awakening format and amount of books: Morathi DoK Snake lady hero Slaanesh Pointy shoes dude hero Nagash LoN Soulblight general Soulblight court guards Bloodknights Fyreslayers Magmadroth youngblood riders Allarielle Sylvaneth Revenant Bee riders (yeesssss plbzzz) Revenant archers Mawtribes Butcher Gorgers Archaon - Stars and Tribes StD New Chaos marauders Real kits for the Start collect warriors, knights and Karkadrak Seraphon New Kroxigors Kroxigor hero Sigmar Cities of Sigmar Freeguild general on warhorse Freeguild knights Nighthaunt Reaper lord hero (Mourngul size monster hero) Tyrion Lumineth Tyrion Anything but cow hat aelves Maggotkin Carcass trebuchet The Carrion king - Chivalry is dead Flesh Eaters The Carrion king! New ghoul kit Bonereapers Mortek arbalests Lord Screetch - Vermintide Skaven Stormvermin New rat ogres Idoneth Akhelian myrmidons (elite infantry) Gordrakk Ironjawz Brute wreckers (monstrous infantry) Megaboss on Gore grunta Stormcast Probably something with terrible rules Gitz Doomdiver!

The Mancrushers are already the most efficient part, I'd like to see the megas actually being dangerous, but that can't happen without warscroll changes unfortunately. The discussion going on how Lotanns squid with a club also has reach 3" and 2 dmg, same as a Warstompers Titanic Boulderclub. While a warscroll change really is a requirement for viable territory, leaving that out considering GW hates updating warscrolls, what could be within the line of reason is maybe a little errata and possibly a new tribe in a tome celestial down the line. For these I'd like to see disruptive presence removed from the mega gargant mercenaries, at the very least for destruction armies, they should just ally in like Gotrek does, he can already pretty handily solo kill 2 mega gargants as is, so the additional penalty to mega gargants just seem out of line and not fun at all (you get to use even less iteresting abilties... yawn). I am still a firm believer that all monsters should count as more than 1 model, but in this case the count as 20 should be a given for all Mega Gargants, mercs included. For a SoB army I'd like to see some new overall allegiance rules, perhaps one representing a second in command mega gargant wanting to take over, the tome talks about this with the structure of these gargant tribes already. Something like "The Biggest of Rivals" - Add +1 attack to all melee weapons for each Mega-Gargant on the table besides the general, add +2 if both a Kraken-eater, Warstomper and Gatebreaker Mega-Gargant are on the table at the same time. I'd also like to see them have tough skin, reducing rend from incoming attacks by 1 or something similar, they really need some help on that front. I feel their weakness to magic is alright, but they should at least be better at tanking physical damage to a degree and that rule would be less disruptive against some armies than for examples seraphons scaly skin, which is just plain unfun for some armies like Ogors to face.

Well it was the same guy who wrote the Warclans book and I have still not forgiven him for that hot mess, also known as the "Warchanter book". That book suffers from many of the same issues of bland warscrolls, an inability to internally balance as few as a handful of warscrolls and a bare minimum of artifacts and sub factions that does nothing unique or interesting for the overall playstyle. The review from HWG is pretty much spot on I think and while Rob is being rough with the book, I think it is largely deserved. It seems like the rules are an afterthought and as they state as well, this is not just about the book being a competitive banger, most did not expect this anyway, but that it clearly lacks FUN. The mercenary rules are some of the closest to this, which originally hyped me a bit, like Whalebiters fight last but reroll to hit sounded thematic and gave some kind of interesting choice to make. This was the only such rules besides the kraken eaters kick objectives rule, everything else is just bland. Yes the flavor text can be pretty fun, but the actual rules are not. Just because you make an entire table of funny sounding grudges, they are still just bland +1 to hit buffs, it is all the same! At least being so bad I can bring the Warstomper in my StD armies to play friendly club games, it will be a cool looking thematic handicap, so very handy to tone down lists for casual play or playing against new players.

This is probably less competetive than using more varanguards + battalion, but once I get my Warstomper this weekend, I will try this for my next Chaos horde. 40 points up in the air, but a triumph is probably better than any endless spells as the sorc will want to fail his casts on teleports or reroll hit/wounds: Allegiance: Slaves to Darkness- Damned Legion: Knights of the Empty ThroneKnights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 3 (280)- General- Command Trait: Wall of Cursed Iron- Artefact: Grasping Plate- Mark of Chaos: KhorneKnights of the Empty Throne Varanguard x 3 (280)- Mark of Chaos: KhorneChaos Sorcerer Lord (110)- Mark of Chaos: Tzeentch- Spell: Mask of Darkness5 x Chaos Knights (160)- Ensorcelled Weapons- Mark of Chaos: Khorne5 x Chaos Knights (160)- Ensorcelled Weapons- Mark of Chaos: Khorne15 x Chaos Warriors (270)- Hand Weapon & Shield- Mark of Chaos: KhorneWarstomper Mega-Gargant (480)Chaos Warshrine (170)- Mark of Chaos: KhorneExtra Command Point (50)Total: 1960 / 2000Extra Command Points: 1Wounds: 142

You can roll to ignore a spell on a 4+, if that fails and the spell deals any mortal wounds to Archaon, you would be able to try to ignore those as well on a 4+, reflecting back on 6s. StD does suffer a lot from this in general though, such as those mortal wounds ignore, like Archaons 4+ or the 5+ from chaos runeshields on warriors and knights do not stack with either chaos undivided or the warshrine aura.

I have a hard time believing they will make a full AoS faction for any insect race, perhaps it can be a branch of sylvaneth as that faction already has a lot of bugs.

From what I have seen the Warstomper seems to be the more fighty and versatile choice overall, both in a SoB army and as a merc. The merc edition -1 to be hit after jump and down is rather nice and can be really annoying if you get it stuck in somewhere good, as it reduces the hit chance of enemy units, rather than just being the gargant that is harder to hit. For a SoB army the reroll saves artifact seems to be the highest survivability value, combined with the d3 command points trait, as the gargants are incredibly starved for this and the stomper tribe makes them better. The Stomper tribe +1/+2 damage against large units can also nearly triple the output of mancrushers and will be mandatory to stand a chance dealing with a large amount of army types, anything from Clanrats and grots to Mortek guard and Phoenix guard, without this extra damage they will not punch hard enough. Would you rather kill 30 clanrats with 3 mancrushers and grab that objective, or kill 10 and grab it due to scoring with taker tribe? I'd prefer just to kill them and in turn reduce incoming damage as well. With Stomper tribe commands you can also pull of some tricks, like auto 6 to run on multiple units, and they can run+charge, or have a bunch of mancrushers throw rocks if you really need to get that dude dead. The Gatebreaker gargant and tribe seems to be the worst by far, although it will be very annoying for Sylvaneth players to play against, but even if the possible +1 to hit is nice, they just got far less options and utility and also the worst traits and artifacts. The merc also has the worst ability. Common for all the SoB armies is that running a second mega gargant seems less impressive, the trait and artifact combo seems important for them to be worth their points, and the special abilities from the mercs just barely makes up for anything as is. Running only 1 hero is very risky though. My preferred build if I expand to a full SoB army instead of just a merc, would probably be a Stomper tribe with of course a stomper general, then a kraken eater to punt objectives and be annoying and probably 1x3 mancrushers and a 2 man crusher and 1 lone crusher. The lone guys job will be to zone out deepstrikers, hold a backline objective or simply stand in front of something more important. It does puzzle me that they did not add much more customization though, I thought that would have been given considering the few models. Sticking to 3 artifacts for 2 of the tribes is just ridiculous, at least that should have been a small point to customize. But considering Ben wrote the book that does not surprise me, I have not forgiven him for the Warclans book yet. On a positive note the lore is really cool and will probably please most gargant fans.