Myrdin

Jabberslythe has been hit hard by the nerf bat when BoC book came out. No point in lamenting that anymore. Enough tears have been shed. I always wanted to run 2 simply because I love that bloody stupidly named thing. I converted my own from the FailCast jabber, tyranid bits and completely different wings. Was always looking forward doing a second one but.... hell the one I have under-performs no matter what role I put him so badly I just couldn't justify putting enough energy and resources into such a project when I have bunch of other ones, actually useful in game once done going on. With all the negatives you described and the fact it has only Damage 1 weapon, I eventually even phased out the one I was playing at that time out of my lists. And with 160pts Gorghon I dont see him returning anytime soon. Jabber needs to either have its damage buffed, or his abilities buffed. That requires a Warscroll rework regardless, so the best he could get was a price drop to around 130-ish range. It didnt happen. Only thing addressed in our book was the Warherd, leaving Shaggoths, Tzaan Shaman, Skyfires, FCKNG WARHOUNDS and Gargants still way to pricey for what they bring to the table. (All of those I named could easily take a -20pts drop without anyone really batting an eye or question such a decision.) Sidenote: The new STD Marauders put Gors and Centigors to shame. So even those could possibly justify a small 10 pts points drop. Honestly the meta has shifted so much with the insane power creep GW performed in the last few releases that with how the warscroll are done, bunch of our stuff now feels incredibly overpriced.

Hey if you know of any others, by all means share an example for another army out there, that is not considered broken (cough cough Osirairch) that has such a unit. There are some I can think of that are similar in design but none come at 100 points Battleline (even if optional) and 2W 3+ Save, so if you know of some please do share.

I was always of the oppinion these guys should be heavy cavalry. And by heavy I mean HEAVY. Tough as nails and hard hitting. Not a Monster Cav like Demygryphs which is a step up, but strong enough to be like a Tier 2 unit on a 3 Tier list. Riders should be 2A each, and the Drakes should have 3+/3+/-1/1. Keep them around 150 points. This way they would have both strong charge, while at the same time fairly dependable staying power and durability. And at the same time they would not compete with the other two options > the light shock cav in Wild Riders or the even tougher and stronger Monster Cav in Demys. They would essentially be the middle ground in between those two. As they are now, they are neither. Some things cant be fixed with just adjusting Point values. As someone who has BoC as his main army I know this, especially with the recent price adjustments to all Minotaur creatures in the army. Those things dont feel as if they should be something cheap, especially to what they represent and the design that lies behind their ruleset, but for that to be what its supposed to be it requires a warscroll update.... I guess we can be thankful that GW at least tries to address the things with points adjustments since they clearly cant be bothered to review the occasional warscroll or two here and there.

I am not picking a fight. "Makes no sense" is literally what it means, so no need to go trying to find a deeper meaning behind it. I personally am not keen on using allies in general. And as such I would never play a Grand Alliance army regardless of Faction which is basically an amalgamation of random allies with no actual rules to tie it in together. If I want something thats not fitting as an ally unit, I will convert the model to make it fit (example a Beastmen Demon prince I converted to go along with my "pure" Beastmen, though it does use the Allies rules), so this has never been an issue. Hey if thats how you enjoy running your army more power to you. Not gonna hear me complain.

Ok lest be honest here. In army per army comparison you cant have a 100pts 2W 3+ save cavalry. I mean thats just a no. It would also to horrible things to the internal balance of the units in the same price brackets. 120 I can see being a reasonable price for a brick that doesnt kill much but stays at a spot for decent amount of time.

Whats the point of going "Mixed Order" when this book by its very nature integrates mixed order and has rules and allegiances built in to support it in better way than the GBA Order book ever had ? Considering you can encompass SCE, S, and KO into your army and ally with everybody else, NOT playing COS but still wanting to play Mixed Order makes no sense to me.

I am sorry to say that but no, no real wombo combo worth speaking off. No super hidden synergy that blows your mind, no nothing. The unit is a disappointment with pretty horrible warscrol for an exorbitant price. You could maybe pull a combo of some sort, by investing a ton into lot of support cast, however that support cast usually can work with other units to even better degree. Its not really about the support for the Drakespawn, its about their Warscroll being less then subpar. Play them if you like them, especially if you have lot of them and like the unit, but always be sure to know that its on your own risk, and it might cost you dearly , otherwise do not bother. A shame honestly. I really wanted to run these, and so did many people both here and IRL whom I know that play CoS. Unfortunately this is one of the 2-3 lackluster units in this book, that is an actuall disappointment. All it took was give the drake -1 rend, and 2A for the rider, to get some staying power for the elite heavy cav this unit is supposed to be. Are they playable ? Yes, but are they actually good enough to be considering worth taking instead of other options in the book and without you handicapping yourself ? Unfortunately the answer is no : ( *They are pretty much what the Bullgor Minotaurs were for Beast of Chaos up till the latest points change, to bring them close to Ogors. A subpar unit that can work to a degree if you really commit to it, but is no way worth the investment and bears many risks alongside. (And lets be honest the minos are still not good even at -20pts. They need a warscroll buff to be what they were meant to be, not a cheap price drop.)

I will abstain of using swear words. But this is one of the instances where I would usually use them plenty. THIS outlook is beyond spiteful, and just throws unnecessary hate on the army, and spits into the face of anyone who actually likes it for what it is. How did you even arrive at the conclusion that the book is the worst of all others ? Have you even played any other faction, that are not the top 3 Tournament contenders ? you so vehemently declaring something like this bids the to question whether you did because there is stuff MUCH worse than this army. CoS is a Swiss knife army that can tackle pretty much anything due to the deep pool of units it can draw from. Should one choose to NOT use the tools presented to them, then they by themselves are responsible for their loss. Especially in situations where one or two units of the right choice would do all the difference in such a game. Srsly, I dont care if you dislike the army to the degree that you present it as, but if thats how you wanna go around doing things then be of such courtesy as to not spew this nihilistic toxicity in a CoS sub-forum where people gather to constructively discuss and enjoy the army and what it brings to bear, rather than lament, spit poison and shake their fist in the air with"oh just how horrible" the battletome and all the units, and all the models and everything about it is. You hate this army that much ? Well good for you because guess what, nobody is forcing you to play this "horrible piece of xxxx army". Feel free to pick a different one more to your liking and let people like what their like without throwing shade on it. Wow...just wow....

@dekay Love your take on it, and the opening post is perfect. Take this like good sir ! Just wanted to say that On a bit more serious note tho, you are spot on. I`ve seeen bunch of veteran players shelving their old WFB armies that simply because they either still harbor dislike to AoS and call it dumbed down mass skirmish game, or B desperately cling to the way their army used to be. I for one, while understanding of the strong tinge of nostalgia their beloved army has around it, cant really empathize with this outlook. I started building my Empire army shortly before WFB died, and resurrected it only after AoS 2.0 turned out to be > for me at least < a really fun format to play. And once Cities tome came out I was extremely happy how it turned out. So many options, sure some beloved miniatures and units are gone (Warrior priest of Sigmar, the most bad as* priest there is! May his shiny bald head for ever blind the enemies of Sigmar :3 ...or the Witch Hunters. These two units are super Iconic and been part of Warhammer since ages past ), but still so many cool combinations can be done. The people who embrace the book for what it is, will do well in competitive scene. I am sure of it. Those who wish to keep playing with the scraps that were left over after the "great squat" will keep on wondering why it is that they keep on loosing when they willingly play with both hands tied behind their back and a blindfold over their eyes, while also stepping on a piece of Lego stuck in their boot

@Rune I like your take on it, but I think if you are choosing to go with Handgunner you might consider Outriders as well . Depending on the D3 roll you deal at worst same amount of shots, at best you just tripled that amount. Granted their worse Hit chance does require a FG General in addition to Hurricanum, but if you are running mass handgunners I suppose one or both of those are already in the list anyway.

I am going with a fully Nippon-Cathay (Catpon in short :3 ) themed army. Using miniatures from Titanforge, Kingdom Death, Malifaux and some others. Had I already not done this, I would most likely go full Byzantine/Ancient Greece/Roman legion themed army. Many nice miniatures out there for this, and even more different bits like heads, shields, weapons etc etc. The biggest Issue for me was getting good replacement for Gyrocopters, since they are fun and also pretty strong I wanted a few of those. Didnt figure anything out until I took a look at the new Malifaux Ten Thunders Fire breathing Dragons. Put on a flying stand they will do just great. For steam tank I wanna use a huge turtle statue, usually sold as a good luck charm. With some bitz and the right paintjob there is my mighty Terracota Turtle construct steam tank (slow, and heavily armored ? check!) I also saw some very good looking Vikings with bunch of mythological monsters as a Kickstarter and such (normal looking vikings fit fairly well, unlike the Chaos Marauders and their kin). Would do well if your City people choose to view Sigmar as Odin the All-father ^^

Thanks for the feedback. Going through the warscrolls I did find plenty of mistakes (wording, missing keyword, missing text, Warlock lacking Vicious Bite, etc) that I made while making these. I think I`ll pick this project back up, fix the things I found, adjust others, maybe add couple of additional units and prepare a Points table. Heck, if I feel frisky enough I just might go and make Alliegance sheet with Abilities, traits and artifacts. Maybe a battalion or two, to make this complete. But since Holidays are around the corner it might wait until new year has passed. Regarding the DB > honestly I dont see a flaw in its design per say. Its a can opener. For me the issue with the MW generation lies in the fact that it triggers on To Wound rolls, on a platform that does not support that many attacks and is 4+ To Hit without any actual way of improving this to begin with. What I would do with Bullgors in general is this:

So just out of curiosity on what people think, here are some of the Gnoll warscroll designes. They were strongly inspired with the at that time fairly new and well balanced BoC battletome, so most of the stats and special rules are quite tame in comparison to what we have seen after, with the other releases. They were never fully finished as a real army as they werent supposed to be a proper full fledged army, mostly a narrative campaign adversary, and I eventually dropped the project so there are no Heroes other than a single spellcaster and a Leader combat lord. Though I think I might pick it back up and finish them. If you want to kill some time please take a look and let me know what you think. There are no assigned point costs for them atm, due to explanation above, so it might be hard to say if this or that unit is strong or weak, but feel free to comment in general terms. Tier 1 (basic battleline) Tier 2 (basic elite) Tier 2/3 (elite) Tier 3 (Monsters) Heroes Other The concept was built around what I was hoping for BoC = synergy. Most of the units can work in vacuum, but are not exactly amazing, however they start to excel when there is multiple of them engaged in a single combat, while heroes add additional layer of benefits as long as they are alive and around where the action is.

Yeah and this has plagued Beastmen since what... 6th edition ? It was always one of the early new edition releases, that introduced a horrible mesh of ideas and design mechanics that already didnt properly work from the get go, and got worse as more and more armies got released through out the editions life span. Was hoping that with AoS release BoC will finally break free from this vicous cycle and actually be a really strong army, fun army. While they are fun, the strength aspect has been once more left in the dust by the crazy power creep. I`ve made several rewrite-update of our book. Both in just plain Word.doc, but also in Warscroll editor. Many times when I find my mind wandering I think about how to improve of the BoC ruleset, how to tie things more together, add some synergies and make some of the units which had a clear design idea but horrible translation to rules actually work that way. Also new units with rich flavor. This army is ripe with opportunity for new crazy Beasts and humanoid monstrosities just waiting to be brought into the light, yet not a single new critter is ever added. Hell even those that are (FW Preyton and Skin Wolves, and Warcry Raptoryx ) are never given the BoC keyword thus making them available to us. Warscroll editor helped me kill some time when I had a creative spark and was stuck in the office and such with nothing else to do. Also did a fanfic Gnoll/Werewolf themed faction as well as an Rhun-Harad iteration of the LotR ruleset with bunch of thematically fitting made up units (Serpent riders for Harad, and Cave dragon with two Rhun soldiers on its back for example.) In the end I always scrape and delete these after all of them are done simply because in the end it amounts to nothing else then creative release and some fun time killing. Nobody will use them, or even bother taking a look at them anyway (well we did think about using the Gnoll ones for a custom scenario) so... you know... kinda no point in it beyond that.

Thats not what I meant. If you think how Ogres always used to be, you can see what I mean by power creep. Ogres always used to be 4+ to hit on most of their units, now most of their units are 3+ To Hit, and also got a Ogre chomp attack. Meanwhile look at our Bullgors..... SIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGHHHHHHH (and Dragon Ogors to a degree) > < A friend of mine who plays Ogres had a game where his hero on Mammoth dealt 60 dmg in a single round.... I mean.... sure it requires some buffs and good rolls but still.... 60 dmg from a model that is less than 500 pts. I am not even sure if there is anything in that price range that can compare to that. BoC were really good for a while when they launched, as they didnt up the general power curve and were on a solid level in regards to other battletomes at that time, but GW upped the bloody power creep soo much once more, that I feel like the army is again back where it once was (at the bottom of the barrel). I wonder how the now updated STD perform in the long term. Sorry for venting, Its just .... frustrating... is all. I am not even gonna start with the Osiriarchs, those are a completely different league on their own and they can go shake hands with Slaanesh.

Seems the points changes for next GHB update are up. So far its not confirmed but the people who are more knowledgeable about these things and have better sources than I said that pretty much all of it is sure to be in the final print. Warherds discounts (finally). So far nothing else (so no Jabber). But this might be just part of it. Lets be honest > after Ogres dropped, and all of their stuff in the same price range as our Minotaurs are better due to the crazy buffs (3+ to hit for them is huge), this was to be expected. Still wish instead of price changes we`d see a warscroll update, but I get it. Thats not something GHB updates address. Still take this with a pinch of salt, until its fully and officially confirmed. But if its true, Cheaper Cygor and Gorghon do seem even more attractive, especially since monster get offed fairly quickly. Still... for friendly games ? Two Cygors for 280 will be a lot of fun! On a different note: Bloodstalkers finally getting to the points range they should have always been. Maybe now the nice looking Melusai archers will finally see some table from DoK players. I know I wanted to field them for a long time now. Avatar still not worth it since a priestess has to tag along as a additional price tag. EDIT: UPDATE - OK SO ITS LEGIT. GW just updated the Battletome FAQ, and the point drop is as written here. With the current power creep of Ogors and Necro...err Osiriarchs, this doest change much honestly, as that would require a global -10/20 pts drop on all of our stuff to compete, but its still great for people who want to run Warherds. Cygor is super cheap now, and Gortach for 160 is a very very solid deal.

In that case I would suggest fishing the internet for the ever so amazing Warrior Priest of Sigmar There is only few more iconic miniatures as this mighty warrior, that ooze the Warhammer Aesthetics (same with the even more Iconic Witch Hunter.... both miniatures oddly and incomprehensibly removed just before the release of CoS Battletome...)

Now this might be a long shot, but I believe it might be worthwhile taking a look at Privateers Press games Warmachine/Hordes. They have several human factions, of which there are plenty nice looking female models to choose from < especially their characters like the Warcasters. I myself, due to my love for all that is drunk, covered in fur and horny (....as in "has horns on its head" .... though granted the first meaning also applies... Baaaaah! *insert random goat noises*), got bunch of different Cryx Satyxis to use as my warband for Frostgrave, simply because I like the idea of horned humans, and crafted a whole lore background explaining why my warband is that way. But I digress. In short: You might wanna check out some Warmachine/Hordes stuff, might be something useful in there for you (be warned though, their miniatures are 95% metal if that bothers you).

I use Frostgrave gnolls as Beastmen Ungors. For units that require lot of models FG kits are perfect point per buck deal. They are nowhere near the level of detail of most major miniature manufacturers but they are not horrible, and with the right paintjob can do just well on the table for half the price you would pay in GW goods (Box of 20 gnolls, with plenty of left over bits to fit out another whole unit came up to some 22$. I bought 3 of those boxes and am considering more, thats how good of a deal it is. The FG humans, both male and female are also pretty good looking sculpts and have a different flavor to the typical Empire/HE aesthetics)

Adding cloaks to miniatures: +1 to elitness At one point in time I had been adding cloaks and half cloaks to pretty much anything lol. Even for my 40K Tau. Pathfinders got fully body cloaks with capes (hand crafted from greenstuff), firewariors got only half cloaks covering only part of the model >< Heck I even got one Beastmen Gor Hornblower who got a cloak and a strap of cloth over his face, and it doesnt look as horrible as one might think ^^ Anyway > different shields, and cloaks will go a long way. If you dont want to break away from the human aesthetics, just use different human heads. you can find some interesting one also in the old Bretonian kits. Though admittedly armored human head aint exactly a scarce thing to find. Bunch of nice looking ones from other companies as well (for example crusaders heads ). If you really want to go fancy pants you can snip the tip of the spears as well and replace them with.... well... more fancy looking ones ! (duh) Though I would cautions on how you do that, and choose your material carefully. Ideally you want plastic on plastic action using plastic meld type of glue to avoid them breaking off in the future as much as possible.

So you mean to say the Khorne altar doesnt have to be within the territory of the Khorne player ? This is the wording for Herdstone: After territories have been chosen but before players begin to set up their armies, you can set up one HERDSTONE (pg 103) wholly within your territory, more than 12" from enemy territory and more than 1" from any other terrain features. If both players can set up a terrain feature in this manner, each player rolls a dice, rolling again in the case of a tie, and whoever rolls higher can choose the order in which the terrain features are set up. The problem with this is that it has to be withing our territory. And with how slow the aura expands, I found it often times useless in most of my games.... granted > to be completely honest I havent played BoC since the changes to Territories in the last big Rules update, since I was focused on getting my CoS ready, so that might have changed. Having a Herdstone that actually does things start Turn 2 when its most needed would actually make that rock somewhat useful.

The guard is paying for its -1 Rend halberd. Meanwhile the Corsairs while rendles offer better option when fighting unmodified save roll units like Nighthauts and such, because instead of a useless rend the price factors in a secondary close combat attack. Now I will say this > I agree with the fact that the warscroll should include both the weapon options in a singular build. Meaning you get the lame 9" xbow and the two combat weapons. If that was the case the unit would be much better off, and less people would be on the fence about it. The hand xbow unit is completely pointless. CoS has so many contenders for your shooters, heck even darkshards are better than corsairs with xbow, at comparable price. And then of course we get to the juicy stuff like Outriders, Shadow Warriors and Sisters of the Watch. And to counter the argument of "more expensive" before it even crops up. sure, but all of these units actually pull their weight and tend to earn double the points via killing stuff than what was their initial cost. All that due to the virtue of them being Specialized for range combat. Corsairs are not, for them the hand xbow is just a gimmick, that did have some use in WFB (as they could have both 2 CCW and the xbow), but didnt translate well into AoS. There is not even a reason to think about the ranged option. The two melee attacks is all where it is for this unit. Personally I find the xbow to be too pathetic to even factor in. If it was 12" range which is the basic compulsory charge range, then yes, that would change my opinion on it for the better. But currently as it is setup, I think they should just remove it entirely and add +1 save for the unit. So you would get a pretty good cheap combat battle-line that can take decent amount of punishment but also punch back with good amount of non rending attacks, especially when buffs come into play. But thats just wishful thinking. We have what we have, could have been better, but could have been worse.

I plan on running them for certain lists that do not include dismounted freeguild general. Nice, cheap, and unbuffed better than Freeguild guard. With buffs they get up there. Lot of people hated on them in the beginning days of CoS, but honestly I dont think they are that bad, and unless you are planning of going to tournaments who cares anyway. The cheap stuff is for chaff back line objective camping. Its the expensive hard hitters that are going to be deciding just how powerful your list really is.

Honestly you might want to take a look at the Aqshy and Ghyran Realm relics, depending on which City you go with. Those can be found freely on Wiki. Fast and easy to google the list so you can see what would work for you. TE is Aqshy, so I would take a look at those, since for this army the 3 TE relics aint as great. I mean sure the 4+ roll for a free CP is not bad, but then again you wont have much to burn them on to begin with.

Of course it is. I mean.... Its a Hurricanum! One of the best, most universally useful support unit in the entire book. You loose some chariots, but you get so much more mileage with the remaining ones. suddenly hitting on +1. Its not only Storm of Shemtek for 3D3 MW, its a +1 to hit for EVERYTHING that is COS, no specific keyword required. In addition you get a pick between two MW spells in addition to the one from the City. And as multiple people already said > you want at least one more wizard to go along the army. And that guys gets a +1 to cast from the Hurricanum. And dont forget about the Endless spells which are always empowered when playing CoS. Its way to much utility to forego a wizard, especially in a mono themed one trick pony army like this. But then again, I mean all of this is pointless talk unless you have chosen which City to play. As mentioned above, if you run purely chariots, there is a high chance you wont be able to deploy them all simply due to the sheer amount of space they take. And unless you run Living city, that means you cant basically play this army if you cant deploy it. In which case loosing 6 of them in exchange for Hurricanum is one of the better trade offs that have to be made.