Mutton

I sent an FAQ question to their team about this. I can't believe this was intentional, absolutely no one was complaining about -2 rend on a god's weapon. I encourage everyone to do the same if we potentially want to see that reverted.

Or it's that hippopotamus everyone is on about.

She's keyworded to Hagg Narr, so she can't use other temples' abilities. She also can't have an artifact because she's a named character. Also everyone remember to send in your FAQ questions now that the book is out!

I'd like to point out how absolutely massive Belakor's wings are. Look at his arm for reference. You can't even get a single wing into one frame.

Played a game with new DoK vs. Skaven. My list was Khelt Nar. 1x Morathi-Khaine/Shadowqueen - Mindrazor 1x Hag Queen on foot - Blood Sigil - Catachism+Blessing 1x Bloodwrack Shrine (general) - Temple artifact - MirrorDance 1x Avatar on foot 10x Blood Sisters 10x Blood Stalkers 10x Sisters of Slaughter 5x Doomfire 5x Lifetakers Vyperic Guard battalion Played Gift from the Heavens. It was a tough game all the way through. Start of the game my doomfires were immediately wiped out at range. Mirror Dance was excellent for teleporting both Morathi's into the enemy on round 1, leaving the enemy with few options other than to engage her. But shooting and magic still tear through our units like tissue paper, and round 2 saw the Avatar and all but three snake sisters shot to pieces. Stalkers were excellent for precision targeting, and I used them to double-tap and kill off a unit of 20 stormvermin. The Skaven used Lightning Vortex in the center of my army, which meant a lot of damage and kept my general stranded for a bit. Morathi carried me through the game, doing her best to kill a unit of stormfiends, mostly just tying them up and keeping them from my objective. The enemy charged a big unit of stormvermin into Morathi, and the Khelt Nar command ability did 7 mortals back to them, which was neat. Eventually the stormvermin almost all died, Morathi was killed, and hardly anything was left. I used Mirror Dance again to teleport my general and a hag queen away from danger and onto/nearby objectives---this won me the game with the shrine, as it was able to sit on the enemy point and agonize the remaining rats off the board. Won on the last battle round by scoring both objectives. Quick thoughts: -Stalkers aren't quite as good without the free rerolls on round 3, but still awesome for power projection and the double-tap if you have CP. -Khelt Nar free Khinerai are great. If you're not running huge blocks of witches, you really need all the bodies you can get. They were an excellent backup unit when things started going wrong and I needed someone to defend my objective. -Lifetakers were fine? Hard to judge, half of them were killed by magic and then some dice shenanigans on both sides meant they kind of just stood there doing nothing. I think the outcry around them is exaggerated when they're on 40mm's with 1" range, and still die to a stiff breeze. All I hear is "they do 150 damage!"...yeah that probably ain't gonna happen with the current shooting/magic meta. Three of them couldn't kill 2 stormvermin on the charge so... -Is Mindrazor worth taking? Didn't cast it the entire game, even with Morathi's +1. Twice I rolled 7's, but that 8---it's rough. I wouldn't ever go into a game expecting to get this thing off. Again, all this mathhammer talk about giving dudes -2 or -3 rend with +1 damage omg!...this spell is so difficult to get off. -Avatar +1 prayer certainly helped my priest for the first round he was alive. He died immediately after that so I don't know if he was worth the 130. -Morathi's -1 rend loss is huge. People think this is a joke, but it makes a universe of difference to her output. Attacking a unit with a basic 4+ save (not even rerolling) meant there was a solid amount of damage being negated every combat round (usually 6 or more damage). I still really hope this was a typo from Broken Realms. That said, Morathi still helped tank a couple units for long enough to bring me back in the game. -Hag queens are still vital for those wound rerolls and prayer buffs. My three snakes still managed to do some damage while stacked with goodies.

What if some magical chicanery happens and Nagash gets blasted into a bunch of fragments, each going to a Mortarch, and the Nagash model in the game becomes an "Avatar of Nagash." As much as I like him, I honestly think Nagash existing is the main reason we struggle to have interesting characters in Death---everyone has to bow down and be a yes-man/woman.

Just about everything in the book is good---makes list building a treat.

I encourage people who are skeptical about the changes to watch HWG's look at the thing. It's a great, balanced book that we should be excited about.

Avatar improves the roll from a 4+ to a 3+ to keep the invocation around at the end, but not the initial invocation roll. And Iron Circlet doesn't work because it's not a prayer roll, it's and invocation roll. So we're talking about a 66% chance to cast in a battle round, with a 50% chance (66% if there's an Avatar within 6") to disappear at the end of the round. Those aren't particularly good odds. And again, it doesn't protect against abilities or spells, only attacks. I still say 80 points is too much.

After delving into everything, there are only three things I'm discontent with: 1) Morathi rend nerf is big. It may not seem significant, but there are A LOT of traits/abilities/artifacts/etc. that flat ignore -1 rend or reduce it. Not only that, but all of the high armor units in the game (most models coming out nowadays) have 3+ or 2+ saves, often rerolling. There are many units she'll simply bounce off of with only -1 on her primary weapon. No way she'll be able to fight any Idoneth sea creatures, or any Fyreslayers, or KO with gold, or Seraphon dinos, or Lumineth with quartz...hell, even a unit of Sequitors would give her trouble! And the list goes on. I'm still not convinced this isn't an error...so everybody email them about it! 2) Avatar has an actual useful ability now to increase prayer rolls---but he's still too expensive. Knock him down to 100 and we might have something here. 3) Heart of Fury is probably too expensive for how unreliable it is. 3+ to invocate (no way to improve the roll), with a 50% chance to disappear after each battle round. Reducing damage by 1 is cool, but it's only for attacks---not spells or abilities---so it's still limited. 50-60 points would be more reasonable to fit in. Aside from this stuff, I think the book is great.

What was the email address for that stuff again? I have to believe it's a mistake---everything else from Broken Realms is the same.

Warscrolls are on GW's new zealand site now. Not happy about this. An unnecessary change that now means she's far less effective against a plethora of enemies that ignore -1 rend.

It's the first ability on the left of the warscroll. And I checked, the cauldron versions don't have this ability---it's only the Avatar on foot.

Oh wait, f- me. I just realized Avatars increase nearby prayer rolls by 1. So if priestesses are near any avatars, they can't stab themselves anymore.

Small things I noticed, Too bad Kraith's ability only affects SoS. I love everything about the slot machine aspect of that temple, but I use mostly snakes. Warlocks' spellcasting is worse. Doomfire is 12" down from 18" and they can ONLY cast mystic, bolt, and doomfire. Still, for 120 points...I dunno... Blood Rites only affect melee now, so no more rerolling 1's for stalkers, unfortunately. Lifetakers are better---when charging they add 1 to damage AND rend. We have a ton of great artifacts. Thousand and One Blessings 5+ ward, iron circlet, blood sigil...(though shadowstone is only +1 cast now : ( ) Khelt Nar's global ability to retreat and charge might alone be worth using that temple. Plus, free Khinerai! Mirror Dance is kind of amazing now. You can zap 2 heroes from anywhere TO anywhere.

Blood Stalker battleline and Bloodwrack Shrine at 160 make me so happy.

The point drops make sense if the warscrolls are staying largely the same. I'm very excited to try out new builds now.

Man, they're still going with this "animated" bollocks huh? Is the Avatar himself at least any better?

When one of your weekly opponents exclusively plays Idoneth, you can bet this spell will be useful.

This please. Avatars are one of the worst units in the game, mostly because they have a chance to do literally nothing in the first 2 rounds.

Curious that there aren't any warscroll cards for the new book.

I don't think I've ever seen GW lower the price of something. This day shall be remembered forever.

I'm cool with DoK losing some of their defenses in exchange for more killing power. But also remember we need SOME protection against the magic/shooting nonsense. A glass canon is useless if it gets disintegrated halfway up the board. As far as what I really want to see in the new book? -Make Bloodwrack Shrines/Medusae awesome so they don't feel like a hero tax. -Make Avatars of Khaine on foot a real thing. Currently they're just an imaginary joke. -Do something with Doomfire Warlocks. A lv 1 wizard unit without any bonuses (unless you spend nearly 300 points on them) is impractical. Everything they try to do is going to get slapped away by better, cheaper, enemy casters. -Khinerai should be elite units with a warscroll that reflects that. I want bat-winged Valkyries---not a bunch of dandelions floating in the breeze.

I don't collect Stormcast, but still think they're cool. Instead of releasing another chamber of models they should consider reevaluating the current line. Think about how many warscrolls these guys have that are straight up bad. A liberator should be a wrecking ball. A Knight-Questor should be a true force to be reckoned with.

1) Reduce the number of battleline needed for 2k to 2. Battleline are just tax annoyances for some armies or complete freebies for others, just let us build our armies more freely. 2) Do away with the entire "drops" mechanic AND/OR reduce the efficiency of battalions. Battalions offer too much for books with better options. 3) Maximum of -1 to hit/wound on any roll. No more -2 or -3 to hit NPE bollocks. 4) All named characters count as owning artifacts. Also, keep the double turn. The double turn is one of the really interesting parts of the game. Going back to a monotonous 40k priority system would only make the game highly predictable and liable to end earlier due to "mathing out" the rest of a match. What GW needs to do is investigate more game mechanics that offer genuine incentives to pass off the double-turn.