Scurvydog

Well I don't really agree with this, however they currently have a problem with Ardboyz and Brutes being samey in game, even though they only have 3 units to choose from! There is so much you could do with big nasty Orruks who likes to beat both beasts and armor plates into submission. With Gordrakk laying siege, adding a warmachine to Ironjawz would be awesome, anyone who played WoW and saw warmachines from the Iron Horde would have an idea here, like a broken and whipped mawkrusha like beast having a crude mega shotgun strapped to its back basically, or a Megaboss in a grunta chariot, to fill that gap between foot hero and Behemoth. The current Warclans book was a great disappointment to me, none of the factions got anything new, not even terrain, and sacrificed a more diverse offering of sub factions for both IJ and BS to get a combo allegiance which is still not good for combining these armies, as every single spell, ability and warscroll has no synergy with the other faction. To make things worse they even overlapped in function. Orruks and foot with shields, Orruks on boars with hand weapons or spears... No despite the rules being decently strong, orruks as a race is in a dire spot compared to the rest of destruction. The theme of both Ogors and their hunger+everwinter is so much stronger, and gitz with their musrooms and bad moon binds it all together. Orruk warclans feel like someone took a very limited range and an old range with just enough life in to not scrap with the other greenskinz and then taped them together and slapped som vague lore on top. I don't even play them, but I was really entertained by the lore of the gitz, while the warclans is just so generic it hurts, with barely anything interesting going on in an overall narrative. Argh tore up that wound again, time to patch it up and drown the sorrows. At least the new underworlds warband of brutes look sweet, altthough 3 brutes cant possibly be useful in AoS, they are hopefully a sign of things to come...

Even though I play stormcast (along with 4 other armies, yes I have a problem) then I think it would be the best thing for Stormcast to get as few models as possible right now, that is the last thing they need. I would argues as well that for most players the new chambers is not adding to the army, they are basically new armies, if I wanted to play with vanguard I would be better of playing only vanguard, or sacrosanct, usually I would choose to have fun with a new army instead. As long as the various chambers do not have any synergy at all, this problem persist, and more chambers in this format would just make a mess of a battletome, Gloomspite and Ogors do a better job of combining their sub factions. I don't think AoS needs a 3rd edition, the core rules are quite solid I think, and I don't know many who has major issues with how the core game functions, with only the double turn really being a dividing factor in my experience. I would be surprised by any new Aelf faction just yet, we do not even have Lumineth out yet, but with them, Deepkin, DoK and the hodge podge in cities, I think the setting has a wide serving of aelves available. I strongly believe anything in the cities book will disappear or change at least, I can't see a cities V2 book come out, I would be very very surprised if that happens. I would love to see something similar to Psychic Awakening for AoS, with small but varied releases and new/improved rules for factions within some narrative focus, and I can't imagine GW not expanding on that format somehow. The Wrath of the Everchosen book was a bit of a thin release, but I think books with goodies to a few mmore factions and a model/kit or two would be really nice. Imagine a book with some extra rules for fyreslayers vs bonesplitterz for example, with some new sub factions and warscrolls, like skirmishing juvenile magmadroth riders for fyreslayers and wyvern riders for bonesplitterz or something. I think such a format could really boozt sales for multiple factions at once and keep excitement going for the game.

The short stories about Gordrakk preparing for a Siege sounds interesting and also mentiones him being in the company of Gargants and Ogors. It would make perfect sense for the Sons of Behemat to be an extention of Gordrakks siege forces and then build on that with the siege foundations from Wrath of the Everchosen. Then we few new kits for Ironjawz and maybe Bonesplitterz and things would begin to look up for destruction. The Sons will most likely be absolutely terrible in matched play as a stand alone army, as whispers indicate they got nothing similar to might makes right from Ogors, making them horrible for objectives, but boy will they look fun mucking about I think Malerions faction is a fair distance into the future still, I think we might be seeing some more stuff added to DoK before that at least, the new warband of assassins are also aligned with Khaine, so maybe Morathi is being more inclusive and PC with those khainite shadowstalkers. Those models go all in on the Ulgu theme, so if DoK adpots that, maybe Malerions faction will be something different entirely.

Maybe they feel pity knowing Teclis is coming for him? Or the random loonbosses and hag queens who will shut down his casts if near any terrain in Shyish giving Nullifying A regular Slann is ok but way less effective for the points, especially when it comes to handling similar pressure, where Kroaks 4+ wound ignore really allows him to better survive a mirror strategy or ranged alpha. Without celestial deliverance the Slann also drastically drops in potential output to support the Starcast strategy I think.

Ah yes but eh.. he did not make the cut to the list, he even have to be in the fight himself which is bonkers, SC rules at their finest Now my worry for my upcoming tournament using a starcast list is Lord Kroak getting some FAQ or points so I cant fit him in anymore. My alternative to Kroak on balewind was a Knight incantor, lord exorcist and everblaze comet combo, clocking in at 310 and thena CP. This combo is far less powerful than Kroak in my tests. Unfortunately I am 10 pts short of being able to shorehorn in a Tauralon with comet instead, which might have been better than the 2 wizards on foot, but I do not want to downgrade the concussors, so I guess I can only wait to see if the FAQ might ruin my list just in time for the tournament...

Looking forward to them as well, at least to get 1 big guy for my StD army, they even show that in the new GHB on images, however no info on how they fit in as allies/mercs yet, I need to know! I can see a problem with people wanting to get into the army as a whole, unless GW pulls some kind of stunt, it looks like their stunted factories will have major issues with enough of the small gargant kits, they are already sold out as is everywhere. We can only hope they make some kind of 3 gargant Sons kit and surprise everyone with that and a decent value, that would be sweet

Yes but just having +1 hit overall really is nice as we do not have access to that otherwise and Kroak rains CP on the army anyway

That is true, this is as much a problem as before for anything but the drake with ignax, we do not have that now, but unless they can remove all 16 wounds of the dragon with nearly MW on 6s alone, then all you need is the buff from the castellan and get into combat with anything but rend 2 or better and just let them heal you with their hits This relies a lot on the castellan of course, but if the opponent wants to dedicate a LOT of firepower getting him down with a 2+ save within staunch range, then I guess he did his job in death and saved others by tanking. I am not sure this makes up for Ignax, but it does make it much more viable to charge in with the dragon against a great many things in the game, with the castellan buff alone you can still carefree charge into untis with rend 1, which are far far more common, which would be dangerous with ignax or ethereal amulet even, as you will have that sweet 2+ reroll 1 save. Kroak also like the bleeding edge battleplan, all objectives are relatively close, with 6 all close to the center line of the table, his celestial deliverance will usually have some solid targets. Some pretty impactful realms as well, at a glance it does not look like much, but chamon is massive with +1 save spell and the command is only used when charging, but it gives +1 to hit until the next hero phase, so for me it was a big deal on 4 concussors! I also see stuff like Shyish where ALL terrain is nullifying, which makes casting spam much more difficult, which can be either a blessing ora curse, Nagash will probably not want to fight in his own domain

Had my first ghb20 game today with a starcast list, celestant on drake, kroak, prime, castellant, 4 concussors and libs. We rolled instead of choosing a realm and got chamon. I had taken the chamon artifact as well on the drake. I played a squig list, double mangles and huge boingrot units and 6 rockgut trolls and some chaff and fungoid. Let me say that the chamon artifact was a big deal, the stardrake is immortal to anything but rend 2 or MWs. If you take damage, all you do is use the castellant buff on the drake, and make sure rend 1 stuff or worse hits it to simply heal on 6+ saves, goes to 5 with staunch and funny enough 4+ with the chamon spell... The save spell from chamon is massive to starcast stacking saves as is. With kroak on a balewind even better and easier to use. The +1 to hit on charges and until next hero phase was scary and made my concussors outright kill 5 rockgut trolls on the charge. Everything just exploded around my guys, losing only 2 units of 5 liberators and tabling my opponent turn 4. Scenario was the new bleeding edge which was actually super fun and one of my favourites now already.

It is tough, because they can choose to reroll hits or saves at will, even 5 guys is still 4+ reroll 1s with 2 shields, and 3 maces with 1 on the prime is also 7 attacks with rend 1 and 2 damage. Do reroll to hit and you get 7 damage average vs a 4+ save, that is only 1 damage short of a unit of retributors. Even more damage is probably not the best fix for them, maybe making them wizards as well or some other utility value is a better route for sacrosanct to not just be improved warrior chamber 2.0

While having complete respect for the situation, it is frankly not a real excuse to leave paying customers in the dark. There are delays everywhere and most should be ready to accept these conditions, however it does not excuse simple lack of basic communication and expectation management. We are excusing them for not providing the complete product we paid for, while they provide this for a preorder product not even released. Imagine this, going to a restaurant you walk in, get a seat at a table and make your order, a simple steak and some soda. You wait more than usual, but respect the staff is busy. In comes a party of people, probably some company event, they order the 3 course meal and the whole deal. You have now waited an hour for your food and getting impatient, nobody even stopped by your table to at least let you know it is coming. The party of poeple already finished their first dish and is now getting the main dish served, while you still wait. Is this ok? This is obviously just business and no matter the excuses it is still catering to the higher paying customer base. Obviously they are able to release something, they put out FAQs and changes ahead of time for 1 customer base, while those who already paid for a product is still waiting for the exact same service. That is what is not acceptable. Like the restaurant, the excuse of being busy is simply not viable when the table next to you are getting everything, simply because they might pay more in the end. Of course it makes business sense, it is just bad form and at least requires an apology and an ETA of some kind better than "near future".

Hmm.... The situation is even more dire than you know my friend!

Sequitors are in this strange spot where they are vastly superior to liberators, yet point costs is a thing and SC in general suffer from too many similar units. Evocators do what sequitors do but much better, so filling the batteline tax cheaper and getting more evocators is better. Then we can keep going this route and consider if evocators on dracolines do not just do the same job but better... So Sequitors allows you to take less of the meh unit, but also less of the really good units. I think it is a big problem for Stormcast in general that they made sequitors, another battline with the exact same type of armaments as liberators, same base profile... To make this work at all in future books they need to create better niches for these units entirely, like Liberators being 3+ saves and Sequitors having 5+ MW save instead, making some witch hunters, others frontline infantry... or something like that.

It does not seem like anything but the stuff from the book has been changed, looking at STD, Orruks and OBR at least. If the rest of the changes were incoming shortly I'd almost assume they would do the builder in one big update, now with only the older books updated, I fear it might be some time before we see the FAQs and rest of the point changes.

Super annoying having to wait for point updates after purchasing the new GHB. 40k 9th is not even really out yet, but they already got FAQs and new points (at least man reads book style) for everyone despite edition not even being officially started before the 25th. For AoS they were happy to be paid for the GHB yet not point updates or FAQs yet, no update to warscroll builder or the app either, as they all work on the all important 40k stuff. As a paying customer that is rather disappointing and very frustrating as I am attending a tournament the 1st of august and right now I don't know if my list is even playable or if I need to speed paint anything. GWs only statement is "the near future". Why are they so against anything resembling ETA's... I know it is easier to under promise and over deliver, but being so vague or saying nothing is beyond "under promise" it is just poor form.

I feel there might be some merit to the chamon artifact. Basically ignoring rend 1 attacks, as a very common, allows for more favorable engagements, a celestant will be nearly impossible to shift unless you got a lot of mw output or rend 2. It also synergies well with the castellant, so you could get more chances to easily heal up lost wounds.

This covers access journalism in general, which is now much more important than, well, actual journalism. Everything moves so fast, that who has it first gets the views, attention and as such revenue. Few people stop to think if the media showcasing a product first, will in doing so also sacrifice the time and effort needed for any kind of true critical analysis. I can't even claim to not be part of the problem, as I eagerly await the next "man reads book" and becoming annoyed this is not happening now for the GHB2020, which really showcases the difference of GW supporting this or not. Not a single of the regulars have been showcasing the book on youtube or similar, while everyone seems to have indomitus boxes which are not even up for preorder yet and even longer to release. Hopefully GW can keep their nose clean and not become what we are seeing now from Sony and Naughty Dog in relation to TloU 2 reviews, what an absolute dumpsterfire that is, and a travesty really, as companies can by extention be holding peoples revenuestream hostage and begin enforcing strict prerelease NDAs for reviews and worse things. It is very rare to see any fans doing reviews like 2/10 do not buy for new GW miniatures for example, and I also have no reason to believe GW is intentionally doing their prereleases with nefarious intentions. I do think it is a universal problem though and dillutes proper journalism, criticism and thoroughness and very few can get away with not riding the access wagan. I can mostly name people from the gaming world, such as Angry Joe, where people still give him a lot of traffic, even though a game might have been out a week or more before his content is available. It does however require far to achieve this and probably almost impossible to start out like that for any content creator. Separating access journalism and leaks for a second, I do also just find leak hunting "fun", it can for sure cause issues (for those who cant cope with things being out of context), but for anyone else it can be fun to look at and wonder.

While the idea behind this list is cool (I doubt I will ever own it as a starcast player though, as buying that is basically just buying a new army with no model overlap), the Vanguard list possible now has small MSU units and the heavy hitters are 6 wound units. Seraphon and LRL and even other starcasts or KO will simply delete the msu raptors, 6 wounds is so easy to remove for these ranged threats and will take all bite away from that list. Who else benefits much from that 1 attack? The hunters and paladors become slightly less crappy, but still nowhere near being potent enough to handle anything or pose a threat to anything. The heroes gain nothing and are also equally toothless, aside from the arrow of ultimate whif from the Venator, they flap about doing maybe 1 wound here or there. I think it is great fun to play though, and is surely cool against some matchups, but will die to a stiff breeze against ranged potential and has no business ever picking a fight with any dedicated combat unit.

Gav still forces Hammers of Sigmar though, that is a big ask. Getting that charge is also fine and all, but SC can't really go and brawl in a lot of cases, only something really beefy can make a dent, and will still be murdred by any army with the ability to strike first. This also goes for Skyborne slayers which is cool, but brining a bunch of paladins into the lines of many types of lists is not that dangerous to begin with. I don't have any great alternatives though, SC does not have the tools to consistently deal with the heaviest hitters in the meta currently no matter what you bring. Though as much as some lists will hard counter SC and the comet (Teclis auto unbind each turn anyone?), some lists really hates it, like the support characters from DoK, Orruks and Khorne for example.

The inquisition has already dispatched an agent. Speaking ill of the imperium of man will not be tolerated. The Emperor protects. Wait this i an AoS forum... I am still not 100% convinced GW is not somehow at least planning for these leaks, if not encouraging them, at least the warhammer community have been playing into the whole leak culture pretty heavily and with humour. Either they react super fast to leaks by often releasing polished preview and material just after, or the leaks are just often timed very conveniently.

The Prime is a difficult model. I am still learning to use him and sometimes he wins me the game and others he just goes splat like a fly in a windshield. Sometimes I have been too aggressive with him I think, he has some good value in his shooting and at 24" range and 12" move he can point almost anywhere and guarantee some nasty output with his special ability, such as 6" radius doing d3 mortal wounds, or simeply d6 radius but for sure 3 MW, which could really be a major factor in securing kills potentially weakened by magic or the stardrake. The Stardrake is unreliable, but for example it might manage to put 2 wounds on a bloodsecrator, then it has immense value if you can 100% guarantee with the Prime to simply shoot 3MW of the guy, no more +1 attack aura. You could simply deploy him turn 1 and just maximise the shooting output during the game, or wait for turn 2 where his melee output is decently potent, and have him as a support piece. Charging him in alone is rarely super great, but he CAN do it and before he does, your opponent needs to deal with knowing this guy can drop down and guarantee the charge if he wants to. This gives you that psychological edge that might change a game entirely in the first turns. At least for 300 it is more reasonable than before, I will say though he is one of the most interesting and fun models in the game, both as a miniature and to play in the game. If only he was a tad tougher he would be seen way more I think.

After testing the leaked points with a gracious opponent for fun, I have come up with 2 lists I will probably use a lot and bring either one to an upcoming tournament, depending on any changes to Kroak to be one or the other. No Kroak: Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals Lord-Celestant on Stardrake (500) - Celestine Hammer Celestant-Prime (300) Lord-Castellant (120) Lord- Exorcist (90) Knight Incantor (120) 5 x Liberators (90) - Warhammer & Shield 5 x Liberators (90) - Warhammer & Shield 5 x Judicators (140) 4 x Concussors (440) Everblaze comet (100) With Kroak: Allegiance: Stormcast Eternals Lord-Celestant on Stardrake (500) - Celestine Hammer Celestant-Prime (300) Lord-Castellant (120) Lord Kroak (320) - Allies 5 x Liberators (90) - Warhammer & Shield 5 x Liberators (90) - Warhammer & Shield 5 x Liberators (90) - Warhammer & Shield 4 x Concussors (440) Balewind Vortex (40)

Yea it wont be allowed in any serious play. The system is horrible in favor of very focused characters and mounts are very overpriced, not just in base cost, but because of the cost to upgrade the insanely poor profiles as well. A mount has 1 bite with d3 damage and 2 claw attacks with 5+/5+ base, it would be like 40 points to just turn that profile into a basic gore grunta 4 attacks 4+/4+ tusks and hooves which is ridiculous. On the other hand buffing 1 single weapon is far more efficient, like making an archer with 5 shots with 3+/2+/rend 2 and 5 damage.

GW designers should just focus on making cool stuff. Keep agendas and politics out of it, don't want to have GW become the next Wizards of the Coast with their recent Orc debacle. Everywhere you look in media these days it is pushing this and that agenda, the fantasy universes should be some escapism for all that. The great thing about fantasy is in the name, people are free to come up with their own as well. Nobody wants chubby balding men in a DoK army in chainmail bikinis, or at least the market for that will be somewhat niche I am sure, sisters of battle is just that, Greenskins are not improved by being blue. The second we start to limit designers, force agendas and political views, we end up with Marvel comics, they have not dared release their "snowflake" and "safespace" characters, you just can't even make up stuff like that. The negative feedback was massive from the fans, but sure the twitter crowd loved it, even though they only read about comics, but do not actually buy them. I do not want every sprue in a new 40k guardsman box to be with 500 head options to represent everything or having 1 of each of every real world race/culture represented in the fantasy world. If The Old World ends up doing Nippon, I want to see those with asian features and not a mix of all kinds of things, then in the end everything will be watered down, no culture, no distinctives features or differences, all just one big androgynous blob. Let fantasy worlds be fantasy worlds, let the designers keep their freedom to create, allow factions to be distinct, both racially and culturally, but make as many cool factions as possible! If some faction design could have all kinds of mixed peoples fighting under their banner, sure mix it up if it fits! It is quite obvious GW is already mixing it up far more where it makes sense, like Warcry and Underworlds warbands got a lot of varied warbands, many with female leaders and mixed looks, just look at Godsworn hunt, how should GW have even made it more diverse? There is even a dog in there! Spire Tyrants got a goat man, a dwarf, a couple of really cool looking female sculpts. The upcoming Scions of the flame are also as diverse as it gets. It is very clear to anyone taking a look at new GW kits they care, they are so far taking reasonable steps, trying out things and so far I think everything is being done in a tasteful way. If they do a new marauder kit like the spire tyrants in style, I will buy that in a heartbeat for my StD army. The second I suspect things are done for only political reasons at the cost of the fantasy though, I will take my money elsewhere. Looking at TLoU2 perhaps as to how sacrificing the universe and lore for agendas completely divides people instead of brinding people together.

GW is doing fine, the problem lies in the headline "pushing" they should not "push" they should make cool stuff, fun armies and I think they are. They are digging into all kinds of stuff. Some of the most impressive models in the game are female, like Allarielle and Morathi as counterparts to Nagash and soon Teclis as the original pantheon "gods" we got models for. Sylvaneth is largely either female looking or androgynous besides some of their revenants, which are already mixed. Allerielle, Drycha, Arch Revenants, all new models made for AoS and female in form. Same goes for DoK, besides the old doomfire warlocks all models are very purposefully female, which is cool and fits, this is even established from old lore and mixed neatly into the new, no pushing needed. Even the nighthaunt got all kinds of female ghosts and their Mortarch is also a new character, which is very cool and makes sense and does not push any agenda, despite her husband being completely silenced it sounds more fun and interesting than forced narrative (although some hardcore feminists should really love Olynder!). Stormcast, especially after 2.0 are completely a mixed bag, their stories really drives home how different they all are, like the realmslayer stories for example or just look at the new models and coverart from novels. They are certainly no longer a "white dudes" army. Flesh eaters' new warband got female ghouls! FW made some female blood bowl ogors! Daemons are Daemons, would bloodletters with a more feminine form make sense? I think that would be forcing it, it serves no purpose for them to even consider. Slaanesh it makes sense for, but they go both ways in more than one sense I really do think GW is doing a great job just making cool stuff and all in all hitting a lot of different areas, amalgamations of real world and fantasy cultures all in one big pot and something for everyone, I just don't think GW should worry too much about including 75 heads in their liberator kit 2.0 to account for everything in 1 faction for example. It is OK factions are different, just like people really, they don't need to all be the same or all be a completely balanced mix of real world related demographics,