Myrdin

Ok so the Chimera wouldn't get a cover bonus. But still what about the part where you would use a different monster like Gorghon for example to cover the LoS ? I mean if bigger part of the model was obscured than visible by a different monster sized model, would that apply ? How do you guys deal with these things in your groups ? For us its fairly gentlemanly most of the times so usually the opponents can decide whether this or that are acceptable. In this case depending on the angle from which the LoS would be drawn, if only some parts of it were to be seen (wings, tail and such) I think most of the players here would agree that sure, its not a clear LoS.

Also thank you for being frank here. I do appreciate that. However as far as my perspective goes, the conversation is still civil. If I name possibilities and you choose to associate with one or more of them, and choose to be insulted, then maybe there was some merit behind such an assumption. The reason I stated how long I`ve been around is to play an open hand. Its been long enough to see the game shift and evolve quite a lot, but its not like I`ve been around it since forever. I will absolutely admit that there are people > you included > who have several decades of Warhammer experience under the belt. However the changes in this last decade were off considerably bigger magnitude. Just the shift from WFB to AoS was one that shook the community to its core, and being around that does give me a decent idea and look on how things progress and turn out in the end. From what you wrote its clear that you do not see the power creep since there is an agenda. Clearly you have been affiliated with GW, meaning your agenda is covering for the company. Why you would do that I do not know nor does it matter, as no one is attacking GW here. But as I said, its like trying to persuade someone that something thats been clearly observed to happen is not happening. As for your experience > while I do not devalue them, it is experience and opinion of one person. I myself know people who played armies like Beastmen and Bretonia when they were the bottom of the barrel, and did win tournaments with them, and they will freely admit that the armies were garbage when compared to the current new releases, and they took them just to see how far they can bring them facing of the "new hot stuff". Your experience is not devalued by the experience of others, but nor does it devalue theirs. However when a majority of the people who are all experienced and have insight come to a mutual consensus It means there is a merit to what is being said and we can draw a pretty decent conclusion from it. I will leave it at that as I do not wish to partake in this conversation anymore to avoid unintended escalation (I will read and acknowledge your response should you choose to write one though). No direct offense was meant against your person, and if you interpreted it that way I do offer my apology. I have no desire insulting other fellow hobbyist for his opinion, despite inadvertently wording my response in a more crude way. I will however not back down on my reasoning, seeing how things always ended up with both 40K, WFB and now AoS armies so far from what could have been observed over the years.

If you dont mind me to ask... How long you`ve been around this hobby ? If you`ve been with it longer then me (about 10+ years) and need "actual fact to back it up" then you are either blind, ignorant or have an agenda to push. Two examples right out of my head: *7th ed Demons *Matt Ward Grey Knights Nuff said.... Not looking for an argument, but that comment of yours is a factually dishonest. I am sure people will be able to count more examples, heck even trying out Googling this stuff will yield plenty of results then the two I have provided. There is no "authority figure" in 40/WFB/AoS wargaming to tell you "this and that is OP" with undeniable absolute assurance. As such going by the mutual consensus of the community on the most agreed upon points is the best indication. ETC and other large tournament event placing restrictions on certain units/combinations and such is also a very solid indication. The burden of proof does not lie with me on this one. EDIT: Just to clarify myself, because people love to get offended easily these days. I am not attacking you, I am challenging your opinion from a personal experience perspective. Been there, seen that, done that. I dont have beef with you but, telling me GW books dont have power creep in them after 10 years in this hobby is like trying to persuade me that the blue sky isnt actually blue, and an apple is not actually an apple, its a tuna sandwich. I might be a crazy goat person, but I am not that crazy (BAAAAH ?)....yet

Seems to me that you are in dire need of some Beastmen allies my friend How about 80 ungor archers with Blades of Putrification on them. Watch them murder everything and anything as they empty insane amount of shots into the big gribbles and with blades turn them into rotting mincemeat! Or maybe you`d fancy bunch of Bestigors with a shaman in tow. Again buff them a little and watch them pay double their points in gory offerings. Its funny how BoC allied via the God batallions to have the God keyword and not use Ally limit are so much better with the other God armies than within their own.... Khorne BoC are crazy, and I wont even start about Slaanesh with BoC in their armies... And meanwhile BoC cant take anything else the StD allies for their own. Makes my furry heart weep manly (goatly) tears +++ MOD EDIT +++ Removed profanity - watch your language, this is a family friendly forum

So talking about Chimeras.... Can a monster benefit from cover via friendly model, when its another monster ? eg> you stuff you Chimera behind a Gorghon, making it hard to target with LoS shooting and spells. Would that work ? Also very interesting idea with the Cogs. I dont like using endless spells thus never really thought of using them in conjunction with the Chimera for a cumulative +4 to charge (didnt think of it as a stacking bonus). Will have to try this out when I get back to playing (been indulging in some smaller games like Warcry lately 😛 so my AoS is on the back burner for the moment. Want to get back to it once CoS launches though) my Beasts again.

It is a very nice model indeed. I got her for a female Beastlord conversion project, because at one point I decided that it would be cool to have 4-5 different looking custom built Beastlords (One typical goat made from a chaos chosen champion, one female one from the warqueen, one from a tzaangor and the last one another typical goat type but with different distinct look...), since the old metal one does not do it for me... instead turned him into BSB back in the WFB times. Maybe one day I might run a unit of 4-5 Beastlords, just for the lols ^__^ If you are also enjoying the hobby part, not just the gaming one, I would recommend getting one of these for yourself. Works great in vacuum but also offers great conversion material for some nice kitbashing

The Phoenicium buff would be great for Beastmen > . < The way I look at it, its a pretty decent ability if you run MSU lists. Now it depends on how it works in conjunction with the City itself and which unit are part of this ability. If ANY CoS unit can proc this, and make us of it great. If ANY CoS unit can proc this but only Phoenicium units can make use of it.... still pretty great, as can run chaff units indended as sacrifice with your main damage blocks/monsters/heroes. If ONLY Phoenicium unit can proc this and only Phoenicium units can make use of it then yeah.... its not a good ability due to the restriction (unless Phoenicium gets some cheap chaff like pegasus riders or something. Which we know is most likely not the case from the unit preview).

Oh I remember that one. And right after them came the HE, who one upped them immediately with a banner that gave them 2+ ward save against demons, and with bunch of crazy units.

GW is known for their Rulebooks having Power Creep or regular basis. Sometimes they are more able to keep it in check, sometimes they are not able to do so. Lets just hope we wont see much more of it before AoS 3.0

Survive.... Endure..... Overcome! *Conan the Barbarian theme starts playing* We Survived the End Times We Endured the shattering of realms and dawn of AoS 1.0 We Overcame it all, to once more stand gloriously on the field of Battle. Not as slaves to demons, not as thundering demigods clad in gold, but as Mortals of the Realms! For the Emperor and for Sigmar !

Dude..... I am not sure if laughing or crying reading this Id` laugh because laughter is better I suppose but darn thats some bad luck. Personally I miss TK a LOT. Such a nice range of miniatures with distinct cool look. Unlike these Bonereaper.... Skeletors or wtf is their name. Only one out of those I really like are the "General Kenoby" meme ones (4armed). Meanwhile with TK most of those units were cool. Such a shame for that faction to bite the bullet.

@Double Misfire Good and fun article. I especially enjoyed the snarky part where you asked the reader to wait a sec before closing the site and making a mental note to never visit your blog again Its good to see humor mixed in with the usual informative nature of blogs like these. Makes the whole thing a bit lighter to consume en mass. Keep up the good work!

Exchange market was a thing through out all of human history Good example: Lets go to Western-ish Europe, in the year of around 650, where the kingdom of Frank merchant Samo existed, who lived during the Slav - Avar period where the Slavic tribes were constantly battling the aggressive Avar invaders. They used metal spikes called "hrivna" that represented a certain set value and were first sparsely used as a supplemental currency to the usual goods trade, later taking full fledged role of a proper currency, before the minted coins were later introduced. The value of something is not set, the value of goods and services is altered depending on the market. Demand and supply. Thats how the first civilization used to barter. I value this, you dont. You however value something else, which I dont. I want your stuff, you want mine. We both know the other person values that particular item to a certain degree, though we dont know to what exact degree that is. Thus the business discussion opens, and we start haggling and bartering to both find out how much the other person values that thing, how much they value their own thing, and what would the ideal exchange rate of these things for me / you be, and trying to meet somewhere along that path. Model scenario: You are a merchant caravan owner. You make a half year long trip from the City where you have your base, to few remote villages on the outskirts. You bring stuff like cloth, salt, soap, etc, mostly daily necessities... easy to get in a big city but that much more valuable in some developing remote region. You bring them to that village and exchange them for the local products... lets say, one village has abundance of honey > precious delicious liquid gold highly sought after in the city with all the nobles and rich merchants wanting to sweeten up their lives, or shops and bakeries wanting to buy it to make pastries. In another village that is a mining village you might get cheap coal and metals, which again can be sold for high in the city. Now I know I know... the instant realm gate teleport mumbo jumbo does throw a wrench in the whole "its precious because its hard to get and takes long to deliver", but then again, I doubt every person can use the gates at any given time, whenever and without any fee. Put simply > normal people most likely dont get to use them that often, plus some of the realm gates are "out there" meaning you need to get to them first, so there still is some travel period. But I am digressing. The point I wanted to address is that Value is not constant, it is not set. One mans junk is another mans treasure, and that holds true even more so in a barter goods exchange economy. As you eluded to: People from the Realm of Metal, might not care much for iron copper and gold, but they would climb over themselves to get some good quality lean meat, and grains from Realm of the beast. Meaning they would pay in what one realm might see as premium price, to them being worth no more then some pebbles on the road they can literally pick anywhere. We are so used to everything having fixed values these days, living in modern society, we tend to forget that people used to haggle and barter for goods on daily basis, heck not even that long ago. Plus there are also countries where open street markets and haggling is a everyday occurrence. But unlike our world, in AoS instead with money they would pay with goods, and haggle with each other about the value of those goods, each trying to strike the best deal possible. I think depiste the human/elf/dwarf Realms (most of them) being fairly advanced, they would more likely than not resort to this style of commerce rather than trying to form some sort of universal currency.... at least as long as we are not introduced to some. Like lets say "magic crystals" which are universally coveted by all realms, thus making a great basis for a currency as an example. Or something like that But I believe this is really not the thread suited for a discussion on economics, realms and such none of these are Rumours after all, though it is fairly enjoyable having and reading spontaneous discussion like these whenever they pop up ^__^

Just to remind you there are armies who get no bonuses to Casting rolls at all. None. Teaches one to appreciate even gimmicks like this. I`d rather have the gimmick and make occasional use of it when needed. Then need it once in a blue moon and not have it all.

Flagellants or Dragon Ogors are what came to my mind seeing that weapon. Dont see a new release for DO, but the Shaggoth is an ancient ultra sh*tty model, so maybe a new actually nice looking Dragon Ogre Shaggoth ? ....We all know its not gonna be that, but just sharing the general feel I got from seeing that thing.

Yeah pretty much. I mean I am a BoC player and when I see this, the play style I envision being used with this City is pretty much that of Beastmen horde surging forward in waves turn 1, spreading through out the whole table to capping objectives and perform zone denial. Sure the meat shield units will fall, but thats their job. Afterwards its your turn to return the punch in kind. Only difference is BoC maintain their speed through out the game, but are far more squishier. That +1 to Armor is a huge deal. But I dont see a problem adjusting to this being just a 1st turn ability, as the book in general seems to pack a lot of firepower due to how you can cherry pick specific combinations of the vast roster to fit specific needs (not even talking about min maxing here). Darn, wish we didnt get to see these snippets. Each additional leaked info from the book makes me wanna see more. I was fairly patient up till now, but this drop feeding is making the wait worse than it was

Must say Tempest Eye looks really good. Being only first turn ability is not a big deal. You push aggressively forward with stuff like knights for that extra move and sweet sweet bonus armor point. Not allowing your opponent to spread wide and surround you. With extra armor your line should hold more or less with ease since we are talking two or more units of 10 heavy knights each, that are 3+ re-roll 1s armor saves at the very least, backed up by squishy dps units ready to counter charge come turn 2 in case the wall in front of them gets wiped out. I have a feeling the building shown on the picture has the Japanese pagoda styled temple aesthetics. Nice

Here are some pictures I managed to dig out. Now most of these have been painted by a friend of mine who has about the same level of skill as me due to me not having the time and mood for painting mass infantry (I did that once or twice in my life.... 40 gors speed paint challenge.... gives me nightmares even till this day Wish we had contrast colors back then, maybe I would have not lost as many sanity points as I did XD) Only downside is I will have to rebase them to circular bases.... hacking them off the squares is a pain, but I mostly regret loosing the nice water spring base, as the dragon cav are supposed to be used as Demigryphs (barely fits on those bases but it does.... wont be able to make one as nice as the one on the picture due to less surface space a shame really) I also included some unpainted minis that have been the "frozen" part of the project. But with the book close to release I need to get onto these, figure out how to magnetize and base em. Especially the big dragon is extremely heavy due to it being literally a chunk of resin rather than a hollowed out "glue togather" cast. As for the foxes.... not sure what I will be able to use them as.. if anything at all. Will see once I have a read through the unit section. Infantry > Swords and Halberdiers/Spearmen Dragon Cav. (Demigryphs) Foxes big and small Lord on Dragon (or Gryphon) and a Wizard on Gryphon (or maybe Sorceress on Black Dragon) There is some more stuff, but mostly un-assembled and unpainted and I know nobody is interested in that (and I dont wanna spam to much. Hope nobody minds but just in case put them under the spoiler tabs). I already have good idea for the lore of my city. It involves the Dragon Emperor of Cathay and the Kami of Celestial Heavens coming to Sigmar with huge anime puppy eyes and.... Sigmar sighing heavily, face palming himself and eventually waving them off to one of his realms to "make a city or something" just to let him be

So reading the last 10+ or so pages of catching up, I must say I am looking forward to this. Though admittedly this time it might be worth investing into the data cards, seeing just how many units will be viable to choose from. Seems like Its finally time to unfreeze my Nippon-Cathay (Niphay ? Catpon ? ) Empire project. Finally after all those years (I started the project just before WFB died, leaving me with a bunch of unusable miniatures) I can bring them out on the table, and with how the game setting for CoS is currently being presented I can justify all of them having distinctly different looks, by making my own City! Sigmar be praised ! The God Emperor protects !

Nice to see we finally get our first named character, thats actually somewhat useful ! Still a long way to go but its more than we had before his release. 7+ cast is...slightly more difficult than I`d like, but that +1 to Hit effects does wonders for our army that has no real other internal combat buffs to speak off. Now it depends how it all shakes down... can yo take him instead of a Bray Shaman, and still fill the Battalion requirements, or cant you ? Does the Allherd impede you from using him in non Allherd army ? Personally I dont think so, I believe if you take him in the other 2 greatfrays, he gets their respective keyword and but has his Allherd one as an extra (even if it should do nothing), rather then him being Allherd exclusive. A quick GW FAQ addressing this would be nice though. Would be great to see more "expansions" for our army in this way, from other specialists games. For example a Warcry BoC Warband added, that also has a good solid Warscroll for us to make use of. Would love to see Wargor standard Bearers make a glorious return together with their even more glorious +1 To Hit for all friendly BoC units within X.

^ Pretty much this. The Cabal can take any ally you feel like taking without sacrificing much in return, and they do not require any to be effective. Personally though, I am kinda sad there is no regular non caster Tzaangor viable, but I think I`ll try to incorporate at least the Shaman for my guys and see how it does. Should it work out, I might wanna get another one and paint him in the Cabal colors :3

Snippet from the Book: WARHERD and THUNDERSCORN units in a DARKWALKERS army are considered to have the BRAYHERD keyword for the purposes of the Brayherd Ambush battle trait (pg 61). In addition, up to half (rounding up) of the reserve units that are set up in ambush can arrive in your second movement phase instead of your first movement phase. So you would be correct on that you cannot Ambush a Chimera, thus why I am a stern fan of Ambush Gorghons ^^ Best thing is, after few games, your opponents will get used to this and keep part of their army in the back to counter the big nom nom bull monsters, only for them to meet a unit of ungors archers face to face, while your Gorghons are deployed on the table turn one. Taken from the strategy Tyranid players book: "Schroedinger Carnifex" and appropriated to Schroedinger Gorghons

Now thats a scary thought. Hmm... although I dont see it being an impossibility. Should GW ever want to expand the FEC faction, they could go the Genestealer Cults route, where each subsequent generation while retaining the monstrous strength draws ever so slightly closer to more human appearance as well as their minds gaining a bit more twisted clarity rather then just chaotical madness. The Strigoi Vampires strain comes to mind from the old Vampire Counts. The ghouls and Genestealers share similar postures and the sculpts for the miniatures is also quite close to each other for people even use them for conversions of the other. I wouldn't deem it impossible them (GW) going down this route. Though it wouldn't be exactly original since it would be a fantasy version copy paste of GSC, it would be a possible angle of expansion for a faction that has....what... 5 units ? (Ghouls, big Ghouls, Big Bat Ghouls, Big screaching bat dragon, and one or two characters)

@JPjr I have no such intentions. I like things be friendly and fun for all if possible. I will wholeheartedly agree with the open mindset of the setting for this universe, There arent that many fictions with a degree of inclusivity as high as Warhammer (Fantasy or 40K) has. It is a universe with many different religions, races, types of creatures and subtypes of said races, philosophical streams of though, and much more. I merely wish to steer away from some more fringe elements this train of though brings (just like any other train of thoughts when taken to the extreme) and keep the fun discussion going. I also wish not to bring up politics of real life into this. Taking your lead I shall speak on this no more, rather I`d love to continue talking about reproductive habits of magical snake wome and walking trees *** In regards to Morathi... we KNOW for a fact that she goes for anything if she fancies them enough or sees them usefull in one way or another. Men, women, mutants, and demons alike. Heck there is a reason Slaanesh he/she/itself hand picked and chased her soul down after the big bang happened. She has a reputation for a reason. If someone likes Morathi (and I do consider myself a fan), they like her for who she is as a character, with all aspects of her personality being part of that character. She is fairly egoistical and power hungry, and has ever "loved" only two people in her entire life. At least from what I`ve read about her. One of them being the first dragonlord or something... sorry my memory on this is not the best, and the second being her son Malekith. With her mind, body and soul being one big clusterf* I think we would be hard pressed to find anyone (man, woman, tzeentchian tentacle monstrosity) able to get a little spot in her heart. I think warm emotions like love is not something the current Morathi is truly capable of (going by what we can read on her). Squeezing a little bit of compassion might be about the maximum you could get. *** As for the Ghouls thing.... I didnt read the FEC book, but unless they changed how Ghouls came to be, they should be able to reproduce just like humans. Though them being twisted mutants in their own right, might lead to some members of the species becoming sterile. Its not uncommon for a unexpected strain of life, that came via breeding to be sterile. Example I can think of are Ligers > Lion+Tiger offsprings. Most of them if not all of those few that exist are unable to further procreate as far as I know. I might be wrong on this though so dont quote me on it.

Now now. Personally I didnt see him eluding to something like this. This way of looking at it is rather extreme and has the stank of SJW interpretation there friend.... not accusing you of anything, but maybe lets not go that rabbit hole please ? @Overread Morathi doesn't really have a hate on for males in general, actually in the DoK books its pretty nicely explained why she does things the way she does. Its about power and control, which for her is easier to excercise over other women, especially since her own son told her to shove off after what she did.... never mention Nagash literally pimp slapping her, when she tried to honey up to him and give him a bone err..... get it ? Nagash....a bone err (believe it or not, this word is censored here)...... riiiiiiiiight, please dont release those man eating ferrets, I`ll be good now >__< Anyway, she pretty much decided to not rely on anyone else but her own, and instead of going for the seducer type she used to be back in the old world chose to go the angry snake vixen route. Her crippling the male souls is mostly out of fear of rebellion, and then turning on/away from her, just like Malekith (Malarion ?) did after all that fun Slaaneshi stuff happened.... and lets be honest here, Morathi aint no saint. She is as far from one as a Greater Unclean one is to use cleanex to wipe his hand after a days work of washing the floor with Mr. Clean. Her being overly paranoid and unstable is also a thing thats written. When she gets irritated she looses control and turns into her giant snake demon form, and cant turn back on will, only after calming down. Plus she is batsh*t insane from all the things Slaanesh did to her. Add to that her former nature and a millennia or two of spite and you got one psycho of faction leader right there. And thats kinda her current charm, and a source for great possible venues to take both her and her Factions story. Now does it make sense to weaken part of your population, in a society based on Darwinism and survival of the fittest like that of DoK? Absolutely not, and shows how the author didnt think things through. Strong male + strong female = strong child with good genes, and possibility to transcend both its parents. For a faction based on warfare and nonstop combat > kinda like Spartans of our own world, it makes very little sense to use individuals you would normally see at the bottom of the genepool (lets extrapolate that > Weaker souls in this fantasy setting would have negative effect on ones physical body as well, which is directly tied to genetics) to be the fathers of such a society. Honestly I would not be surprised at all for the more doubtful and more free willed DoK to seek mates from the other Aelf races, rather than copulate with their own men. I do like to comparison to a ticking time bomb society, where eventually someone somewhere will start asking questions, and if enough people do so you cant silence all of them secretly anymore. Again though - it all depends on the writers ability to work the story around. Personally I dont need for Morathi to "be put into her place" by Khain or anyone, but I would like to see some internal divide and her own subjects starting to doubt her teachings. She is a demigod trying to siphon Khains power to fully ascend and join the Pantheon, but still I hope things get bit more fleshed out and shaken up a bit. It would be interesting to see some alternative units spring out of it, embracing a different mentality and combat doctrines stemming from it. Its possible Doomfire Warlocks which is a dual kit, will be gone in the next battle-tome update. In such a case some new cool miniatures with a bit more unique identity and theme can be introduced. I would love a bigger emphasis on the whole Serpent thing. Hmmm serpent riders could be very cool (this being DoK think TK serpent riders but more dynamic and sleek).