Frowny

True, but his list doesn't actually have any of those buffs- there is the generic RR1's command ability, and belladona's exploding 6's. Not a ton really. The other buffs available in his list are AOE, like the rousing commander thing. For AOE buffs, its actually easier to fit in 2x smaller units - you could always fit them together, but it also gives you the option that at least half get the buff Unrelatedly, I think people are still sleeping on Mannfred as an brokenly good model. His command ability is solid, but more importantly, the retreat from combat thing is outrageously powerful. He will either be in literally every competitive list or nerfed.

I think with 1inch reach and the big cavalry bases, you will really struggle to get 10 blood knights into combat. You also don't have any command abilities that actually buff them in a targeted way so there is basically no downside to splitting them up. At minimum I would go 4x5 knights instead. But moreso, I would probably drop 5 and get even more chaff. You may want to have a smaller, more elite army, but I think even more wolves or some zombies will do you every well.

I am surprised at how much doom and gloom there was earlier. This seems like a very strong battletome, although with slightly different strong units. Some interesting Combos: Coven Throne + Pack Alpha. Best command ability, using it for free is awesome. Note that pack alpha can also use one during the enemy turn as well, so even though you can't use the main CP ability, so it will likely be at least rerolling 1's to save for increased durability Coven throne + Blood Knights- They really like all aspects of the ability, not just some. 2+ sv blood knights are comparable to mortek guard w/ a 4+ rerollable in terms of survivability per point. Coven throne+ VLZOD- again, benefits from all aspects of the ability Vengorian Lord + Coven Throne- again benefits from both aspects, giving a 2+ save that ignores rend 1, and can heal for an easy d3+d6 per turn. Will be a nightmare to take down. VZLOD/Mannfred/Vengorian Lord + Pinions spell- I think this will be a sleeper strong combination for turn 1. +6 inches gives you excellent odds of a turn 1 charge on anything with 12-16 inch movement, like all of the above. All of the above can also get easy access to a 2+ save, or have other annoying survivability boosts. Pinning an enemy in their deployment and forcing them to spend serious effort to get out makes it easy to get way ahead on objectives. Mobility is strong More stand alone pieces- Mannfred- near unkillable by himself anyway, generally useful in a lot of lists, even if he doesn't benefit from the allegiance abilities for a different subfaction Dire Wolves- Fast, quite sturdy for their cost, don't really benefit much from offensive buffs since with such big bases its hard to get many into CC or defensive buffs. +1 sv isn best when you have a baseline 4+ or 3+. Excellent to run up and take objectives, excellent to resurrect later with high mv to take uncontested objectives, high durability to hold them. 5 likely have enough damage output to contest a late game objective held by a lone wizard or small unit. Skeletons- Contrary to what seems like consensus belief here, seems like they are a sturdy objective camper. I like them for that role. If that is what you want, an anvil to maneuver around mid or back field, I think they will be better than zombies. After all, zombies really want to activate early to use their pile in before too many die, while skellies are better on a later activation, leaving you to use your early activations on stronger units. Radukar- Buffs most other things, but doesn't really himself require support. Dire wolves as a summon are great, and + attack goes well on lots of different things, from zombie dragons with multiple high damage profiles to grave guard to zombies.

This sounds like an incredibly strong and powerful core. Manfred with pinions provides a ton of tactical power and you have many hard hitting units to use. I would round it out with 2x dogs, 1x zombies and maybe 1 unit of bats. What you want is cheap screens and things that can hold objectives for you. Then when they come to you to take your objectives you can guarantee yourself the charge with blood knights held slightly further back and not have sacrificed much to do so. That many blood knights might actually be too much to protect, so you might even want to drop oneore and get evenore chaff. The coven throne also does seem powerful, but hard to fit with everything else and you probably won't actually have enough co for it all. Also I'm noticing with his crazy movement and if needed, pinions, mannfred can reliably T1 charge and kill a screen for the sweet future +2 to charge, while being safe from all retaliation at least against several armies. A bit broken really.

There is a lot of negativity here but from what is see there are a ton of awesome units. Almost everything seems playavle to good. Fell bats seem useful as cheap screens and pawns to trade for objectives, and can fly on super annoying if not killed fully. Dire wolves are very sturdy. 20 wounds at a 5+ save for 120 is incredible value. These will be a staple. VLoZD and vordrai both hit very hard. Amethystine pinions makes for some very easy T1 charges. Radukar and the centaur vamos are also both strong, durable and have strong army boosters. Blood knights seem very very strong if they can retreat and charge, which seems likely. Zombies are interesting and seem to have a role. Don't underestimate 6inch pile ins. If they survive the opposing charge they will be horrible to get rid of between piling in to make good engagements and several ways to heal models. Grave guard also have a lot of options. They can even get to a 2+save with a coven throne in the legion of night. Coven throne command ability is bonkers. Even just the +1 save is amazing, but with the rest it's out of control. 2+save VLoZD will be brutal. Mannfred seems as broken as i was worried, with a moderate combat ability, ok Casting and a useful command ability perched on a model that is literally unkillable to maybe 1/3rd of armies and incredivly hard to remove against another 1/3. I expect him to be nerfed to only use his ability on your turn, as otherwise he will be hugely problematic. This wil be a very strong release with multiple viable armies and builds.

Can someone PM me the leaks? or where I might find them?

Yes, but not all lists run those things. Further, forcing players even harder into running those things from a list building side probably also isn't good for the game-they themselves are often npl.... But, we'll wait and see and know more in a week. Exciting times.

I agree. Waiting to see is clearly correct. My worry is that even if it's fixable with points overall, it will still make for swingy and negative experiences. An ability that is worth 0 points against kharadron overlords and 400 points against fyreslayers either leaves the Soulblight player feeling bad or their opponent.

Really not liking the new Manfred hiding ability. While it is true that almost all battletomes in theory have answers for many actual lists he will be quite unkillable. The 'just go for objectives thing' is also not fair-his ability is also incredible for controlling objectives. For example, put him 3 inches infront of enemy battlelines to severely shorten their movement, only to fall back into an objective. Or charge a corner of an enemy to pin them, knowing if you are charged you are safe. Or even teleporting onto an enemy backline objective. And all without any way to stop him at all. Also, with likely easy access to at least some healing, even chip damage from incidental mortals/a few spells won't do it at all. Armies with almost no counterplay to him- Sylvaneth (low damage spells, bow hunters are terrible) Nighthaunt (easily dispelled low damage magic, only 2 ranged spells, 10+ charges are unreliable at best) Fyreslayers (i guess auric hearth guard? A few prayers will never get it done consistently) FEC (buff magic, no shooting) Iron jaws (low damage magic, no ranged units) Thorne (prayers would take prohibitively long and good luck to manage, the cannons are terrible) Nurgle (some magic bit can likely be healed through or dispelled and certainly can't get rid of him in a timely manner) There are also interesting played lists for most armies that can't deal with him-while the battletomes as a whole has answers, it's perfectly possible to see an idoneth list with a single turtle for shooting, slaanesh with no archers, DOK with no snake archers or many other fun fluffy lists that simply will never kill him. That ability alone on a 10w/4+ save model is worth like 200pts. The LRL foxes actually have a worse version of this abilitythan his and are pretty usable, and cost 250/300 pts. Remember, even if he isn't an amazing combatant, he will still be solid, at least a 2 cast wizard and some sort of command ability. I like that they removed some of the other npl in the 1cp resurrections, but I certainly hope there are other limits on that ability than we've seen because from what we know now this is likely to be another one.

Things I'd want to see 1) Change first turn from lowest drops to a roll-off, with +1 for the lowest drops. Would take a lot of wind out of the race to the bottom for more drops, and I think ultimately balance turns a lot- if you weren't SURE you'd get top of T1 (or bottom of T1), you couldn't deploy to maximize it as much. This would indirectly nerf the early double turn as well. 2) Better Scenery rules. 40k has some reasonable ones. Lets just take those (or something similar). Rolling for everything is seldom meaningful and takes way longer than deciding that big walls are impassible and woods are obscuring, for example. 3) Better Pile in rules. Again 40k does well here. Its a lot less fiddly, dependent on b2b with a model in b2b rather than trying to maximize the number of models within 1', which is fiddly and slows down the game. 4) 40k style coherency rules. Pretty easy to understand. I think they add something and minimize conga lines. 5) Balancing of faction/warscroll points and rules. The game is in a pretty great place overall, I think. Most of the changes I think are more warscroll/faction problems rather than game rules per say. Even some problems overall like bravery being pointless is more a problem with individual factions just ignoring it rather than the AOS rules themselves. Stop making grots fearless. OBR is already LD10. You didn't need to ALSO make them fearless too. Thats a faction problem though, not an AOS rules problem. I hope they DON'T overcomplicate it and try to change fundamental rules instead of fixing their own writing. Things I DONT want to see 1) No removal of double turn- I like it, it adds a ton of tactical depth. I think the game would be more broken in favor of shooting without it. While the double with a shooting army is incredibly strong, without the possibility of getting a double against them, you'd never do real damage to their gunline, instead of fighting endless screens 2) Not much more complexity- AOS is pretty clean and simple right now. Add too much and it will be far less fun and playable. 3) No major changes to CP. The 40k system is WAY more complicated. Its kinda interesting, but comes at significant cost and lots of gotcha moments for newer players. Keeping command abilities on warscrolls seems reasonable to me. Indeed removing some of the gratiutus 4) The missions- They are great. Little fiddles and a few new ones/changes are great, but the overall style of holding points is way way better than in other games I've played. This is a good area to mix-it-up while keeping to the current excellent formula. For example, scorched earth would be still excellent with 6 or 10 objectives instead of 8. 5) Fix things that aren't broken. I really like the game now. If anything it mostly needs a mix-it-up slightly and definitely not a big rewrite. I hope they don't do too much here.

Yes, that is an excellent start to a variety of ogors lists. I would heartily recommend just trying some games, deciding what you like and going from there. If you wanted the full experience, a butcher or slaughter master would be a good step to see if you enjoy magic and get the hang of that.

Have people given up on thralls? Most of these lists above give them a tasty +1/+1/+1 save. They are killer and sturdier per point than everything else in the list except the 2+ save stuff. 20 would slot in to a lot of the above lists instead of 2 sharks or a unit of eels. Also, these lists seem to lack bodies. For some of the high drop lists the khainite shadowstallers seem valuable as well

In general, I would default to shadowstalkers, as I think they are one of the strongest units in the game point-for-point, but I think its dependent on your city and rest of your list. On-board deep-strike is substantially better than off board, as they can hold your own backfield or act as a screen while simultaneously threatening an opponents backfield. Shadow warriors would require 2 units to do the same. Stalkers are also sturdier and fight better if not in cover. However, times I can see the warriors being better are In living city, where you can reliably deep-strike charge if desired with fire-and-fade. Note that this is only better if you know you'll actually have enough CP to do so, and aren't The arrival shooting is important. Its not a ton, and can't really kill a strong hero on its own, even if they get the bonus from cover. Ironically, here, living city is worse, as they have other good deepstrike shooting options If you go hog-wild and make the warriors battleline. This is pretty uncommon though,

Yeah. There is space for a ton of cool mixed demon things, but they never really went there. A battalion for 1 of each greater demon (lots of options, even just rerolling 1's like with the thricefold befilement would be fun) A battalion for 1 unit of each lesser demon Battalion encompassing pairs of Gods (if a slaanesh unit is within 12 inches of a khorne unit it can do something unique etc....) I would have loved if belakor had a god-agnostic command ability. Or maybe one that affected units based on what god they were. Something like the warshrine or demon princes abilities would have been a characterful addition. Or something more dark-mastery about messing with stuff. I feel like he just needed 1 more thing to make him awesome. Instead he's exactly the same but bigger, which feels like a let down? A bigger letdown...

With the dolorous guard battalion+ emerald host allegience, you can make some relatively killy hexwraiths. Also pretty doable to fit in Lady Orlynder still, to capitalize on her synergy with them. For example: KoS on steed (general) Lady Orlynder 15x hexwraiths 10x hexwraiths 10x hexwraiths 5x hexwraiths 5 x Harridans 12x bansheees 4x banshees Black Coach Doloros Guard New battalion. I think just fits in 2k points (or you could adjust the numbers of hexwraiths to make it fit). 5 attacks on the charge on the hexwraiths makes them decently killy, and Lady O+ the black coach to resurrect them makes them relatively sturdy. This list might not work but something conceptually similar might be worth trying.

Neat game final game against DoK. Super interesting. He could have won if he'd gotten the turn at the right moment, and was still in it until he failed some shorter charges. It is still obvious to me the power level difference between the two armies though. Comparing shadowstalkers (9 models, start on board teleport, 100 points) to the hunter (120 points, 2 models) makes his play seem even more impressive. He had problems with exactly some of the same problems I did with yetis- they Just don't do quite enough damage sometimes. 110 points of yetis totally failing to kill just 5 heartrenders (5 wounds, 5+ save) is definitely consistent with that. Doing 0 damage to Morathi (who only has 4+ save) and therefore allowing her to live on 1 wound one turn is also totally in-form for them when I was playing. Just slig If I were to trial his list Id go FLOSH Huskard on Thundertusk (general) Icebrow Hunter Yetis x3 Yetis x3 Yetis x3 Yetis x3 Yetis x3 Ironguts x8 Frost Sabres x2 Frost Sabres x2 Skaal In effect, trading his CP, triumph bid, 2 dogs, 3 yetis, and the firebelly for the big beefy ironguts unit. Gives the list another hard hitting puncher that must be answered at some point, and might help with the lower damage of the yetis. Alternatively, could do another FLOSH + CP or dogs instead, I think a second big killer would help. Another possibility is to drop the Huskard. with 300 points you could get 2 more dogs (and make the Hunter the general to satisfy battleline, and get 3x 2 more yetis. Ironically, even in an all-yeti army, I'm not sure you really want a thundertusk. But then, who am I to judge? An awesome guy with a cool list did way better than I would have at such a tourney. My hat is off to him,

@Deadrixc I think a bit model light- you will struggle on objectives. I might cut one of the battalions. You'll still be pretty low drop. I'd also try to get at least one unit of 10-20 stalkers to use with Morathi's command ability. I might also go for a 15-5 split for the sisters to take better advantage of some of your command abilities. Something like: Morathi x2, Bloodwrack Shrine, Melusi, 15x sisters, 5x sisters, 15 x stalkers, Vyperic guard, Bloodwrack viper. Not completely sure these fit for the points, and even with these changes, it still seems a little too glass cannon-y to me, even for DoK. I might try to fit in the khainite shadowstalkers for some screens or something.

I too have been intrigued by this new all-yeti lists. I believe the strategy is a combination of flexibility and deathstar. For the deathstar, the winterbite command ability is the key factor, allowing yetis to fight first for 1 CP. Firebelly + winterbite army trait + yeti's natural -1 to be hit makes you -2 against most attacks. I can imagine that being very hard to assault into. For the flexibility, lots of little units give you options for objective and to pick off weaker foes, the stonehorn makes an awesome fast bully, objective taker or cruise missile, and the hunter+sabres pin them in their deployment zone protecting their own objectives by threatening deepstrikes or allow yetis to attack unmolested by charging units, dying, and then allowing yetis to pile in from 6 inches the kill after the unit has fought. Skaal is just for the extra artifact, mount trait and CP. Your whole army perpetually fighting first is brutal. 6 inch pile-ins are also amazing. My thoughts on this in particular 1) Looks hard to pilot- lots of options make for lots of chances to mess it up 2) I'm not sure I like the firebelly. a single cast wizard who needs an 8 cast to do anything seems not worth his points. I might drop it. In a strong showing of poor game design, a lot of the armies with the best shooting also have the best casting to shut it down anyway, or just don't care (lumineth, hallowheart, seraphon, tzeentch) 3) Triumph bid seems a bit excessive. 4) I've found yeti's a bit pillowfisted, but maybe with stiking first they'd be better, and maybe a critical mass is necessary. I tried 9 a few times and they just didn't do enough, but it probably is unfair of me to expect 110 points of yetis to take on 200 point units by themselves. 5) I love sneaky armies. This is making me really want to try this list or something. I might need to make some more yetis. 6) Who am I to judge, they did amazing with an off-meta list. Certainly looks fun.

Not sure I like the Bel'akor changes. He got slightly stronger and slightly killier, but they also upped his points by 160. Given his role was principally supporting with his awesome ability, 160 points is quite rough. They didn't make him strong enough to be a true beatstick on his own either.... Compare his ~20 damage maximum to a frostlord on stonehorns at ~46, who is also more durable (3+ 5++, 13 wounds is substantially better than (4+, 6++ 14 wounds). True he is a caster and his ability will remain amazing, but I'm not sure its actually for his best. I think he'll still be OK here if he can shrug things off onto cheap demons, but he'll be used a lot less as an ally. Now that I'm writing this, I think he probably still has play, but we'll see. Still super annoying that Belakor must be the general to use the interesting ability to resurrect demons Still didn't do the one thing I wish most for- making furies battleline in some way. I would love love love a fast mobile hit-and-run army with some harder hitters to back it up. Alas.

I too am a little disappointed. There are a ton of missed opportunity. Even the new support hero is quite a miss. Good support heroes have ~50 pts/ unit of support (prayer, spell, command ability etc.). Like the fungoid cave shaman (spell + CP), hag queen (prayer + witchbrew). He just doesn't offer enough for 110 points, just like almost all of nighthaunt support type heroes. A ton of units needed some love and didn't get it.. Even the harridans with their new scroll remain redundant, and may or may not be the strongest but it won't really fix the problem of their being a single best option and a lot of redundant picks for 1 wound medium infantry. Glavewraith stalkers could really have used a new warscroll to make them at all usable. Still some thoughts/observations 1) Emerald Host is mostly a straight buff- no longer needing to buy all the battalions gives you ~200 pts to work with in those lists. I'm unsure if it can be stacked with the actual battalion but that could be good, getting 4 attacks on the charge with both weapons. 2) The only really worthwhile command abilities are on Knights of Shrouds or Orlynder. to make use of the emerald host command trait for a free CP, you either need to then take the lackluster artifact on the knight of shrouds or miss your artifact entirely on Orlyander. A little annoying 3) the +6 move in chainrasps is interesting. 6 base + 6 CP +3 pendent =15 inches before doing anything else. Excellent t1 charge odds on a 18 inch start board, and make a solid attempt at it on a 24 inch board. Either run them to block in your opponent and neuter their first turn or hope for a long charge. They would kill most screens and then be a screen themselves, allowing you to set up stronger charges or take objectives. 4) chainrasps with rerolling hits and +1 wound from a guardian of souls and spirit torment and an attempt at resurrecting 2d3+d6 seem both pretty killy and pretty sturdy. Quite a few points though. And then why not just play legions of Nagash and do that to some skeletons which you can wholesale resurrect. Overall, I think a buff for the army, but doesn't fix the fundamental problem of not knowing what its doing.

1) Amazing for a few games to get your feet wet or try something out, but but not great for a long time, as it does give for some wonky advantages and disadvantages (based on being able to squeeze more models in to B2b) 2) No Idea 3) He plays quite well. I've posted this before, but in general, deepstrikes are already quite useful for pinning enemies on their home objectives. Relative to a standard hunter, he is pretty cost effective, taking a few more points, but comes with the 3 gnoblars who are great at sitting on a home objective. He is definitely usable, but people often prefer the flexibility of the normal hunter, who can take a general trait if you want the frost sabres to be battleline or can take a bigger squad of sabres if desired. But if you just want the hunter, I think he is almost a strict upgrade.

Ironjaws! Smashing and bashing really rewards taking lots of fights, and they are fast enough to get there. Lots of options, all aggressive. No pesky ranged tools that might make you want to stand back. Nope. Its all krumpin! Another idea-Gristlegore FEC. Gotta be charging to get the best out of it, and fewer bodies means defense or holding objectives is hard. Honestly, there are quite a few options out there though.

The battalion boosting the luminark to a 5+ seems pretty solid. It puts a lot of units on near phoenix guard durability, for potentially cheaper. If I were doing this city, I'd look to use the battalion along with freeguild greatswords for the 5++ on them. They already have top-tier output, and with the extra save, also have near top tier durability as well. The 5++ on the luminark and huricanum helps fix a little bit of their squishiness. A big 30 block of the lumineth spears also seems possible, although whether this whole thing is better than Just using Tecils in a lumineth list for similar buffs and a lot more external support. I agree that the spirt of the mountain or avenlor seem like the best Lumineth units to use.

They are pretty different. Shadow Warriors compete more with things like tree trevenants or khainite shadowstalkers. Handguns compete more with other line infantry- either melee infantry (relying on their stand & shoot) or crossbows/irondrakes/sisters of the watch based on their ranged output. On a personal level, I think handguns are great value- they fill battleline while competing competently in all phases for a cheap price point. They hold backfield objectives while projecting power forward reasonably well.

The Khainite shadowstalkers also start on the board, so thats a moot point. Relative to Tree Revenants, they have + 6 wounds, +4 bodies, a short ranged shooting attack, -1 to be hit, and nearly double the damage output in melee, all for only 20 points. A bit underpointed really, but they blow Tree Revenants away. Shadow warriors also hae some play, with the ability to deepstrike and the fade into melee. I think the time of tree revenants is done, unfortunately.