Mutton

How do you know that? They give us a Winter FAQ with points adjustments for free (excluding this year due to a number of things). You can't possibly know that we wouldn't get balance updates without a GHB. The fact of the matter is the GHB is an excellent profit revenue as a yearly content boost to those already invested; but POINTS have nothing to do with what you're paying for. Look, if you're not going to use the extra battleplans or matchmaking rules, rewritten warscrolls, or any of that, then sure, it makes sense you wouldn't buy it. But saying that the GHB is garbage because the points aren't to your liking is totally ridiculous. They're two completely separate things that just happen to be bundled together. The points end up online anyway with warscroll builder and online reference forums. I say again, people need to get it out of their heads that the GHB is about points--never has been. Points updates just coincide with it because it's a good marketing strategy.

I agree the points should just be put up digitally. But I also don't know who's buying the GHB for points? I buy the GHB for the battle plans and access to a convenient rules reference. If you're buying the GHB for points values then you might as well throw your money into the nearest dumpster. There's way better content in the GHB than unit points.

Their points are the same, they lost Look Out Sir, Cover, and can't hide behind obscuring terrain because of their Wounds. They're also not monsters. They're pretty bad. I wish it wasn't true, I have two of them, but such is the way of it.

Dankholds continue to languish because some nutter at GW thinks they're fine.

Leadbelchers still too expensive. Gluttons are going to have a rough time doing anything in an edition where everyone can routinely get +1 save. Having rend or mortal wound output is vital. Gnoblars at 120 why? We probably got lucky with the Frostlord. The thought of running 18 gluttons is funny though.

Except Medusa Stalkers. 30 points, woof. Meanwhile Sentinels...and skinks...

I anticipate people still complaining about Morathi being 660. But she has to lift the entire army by herself now with how few models you're going to have on the board. Also, Stalkers up by 30 but Lumineth Sentinels squeek away with a 10 point jump? Crimes against common decency right here.

I mean, I don't know about you but I lost 200 points from my previous list. Fitting any models into this army is a nightmare now.

Because they don't need to, it's codified in the core rules now what a ward save is. When you're writing the description for an ability like the Praetor, you're writing the sequence of possible events of a die roll. The Praetor's have a Ward, but it also has other conditions attached to it, like rolling low enough that the wound isn't passed to them at all. You wouldn't say: "on a 1-2 the hero takes the wound, on a 3-4 the Praetors take the wound, on a 5+ they have a ward and negate the wound." It's just awkward and overly long. For this particular unit, their ability is more complex than simply "5+ ward"

This isn't true. Anything that negates wounds is now considered a Ward save. "Some abilities allow you to roll a dice to negate a wound before it is allocated to a model. Abilities of this type are referred to as wards, and the dice roll is referred to as a ward roll." As for the Praetors, it would be considered a Ward because it is an ability that can negate wounds. So if you had them near Yndrasta, you'd have to choose whether to use her 4+ ward, or to use their Guardian ability, since you only get one chance to negate an incoming wound. So you could not roll Yn's 4+ ward, then pass it off to the Praetors. No doubling up. They didn't do away with 5+++ saves only to bring them back with Wards. Not how it works.

They're the worst unit we've seen since Slaangors. Probably even worse.

The biggest problem with Kragnos is that at best the rampant increase in errant mortal wounds in every phase of the game means he's going to drown in them quite quickly. At worst, he gets nuked from across the table by mortal shooting. Heroic healing can mitigate a tiny bit of that, but then that also means you're not rolling for extra CP, so it's a trade-off.

Query: Do all wizards in your army by default get to pick two spells from lores they know? One spell via the enhancement and one spell via the battletome?

I can always appreciate trying to find a silver lining, but there's no question that, straight out of the box with no book, these warscrolls are mostly horrible. Like, some of the worst we've seen in awhile. The only real winners I think are the Swampcaller and maybe Killa boss on foot. Murknob is fine, I guess--at least he's cheap. The Gutrippas are worse grot Stabbas. Same amount of wounds, more expensive, a less reliable and overly complicated -1 to hit ability. Less objective strength. Less protection against missiles, less mobility. The only thing they have is the mortals on 6's. How that'll play out on a unit that's going to die in droves? I don't know. It doesn't work well for Spiderfang. Currently, I don't even know why Hobgrots exist. They're my favorite models out of the lot, but 10 wounds with a 6+ save for almost 100 points is a dreadful price for a unit meant to be chaffe. Point-for-wound and survivability they're actually worse at being chaffe than the Gutrippas. They have no other redeeming qualities, since they can't proc mortals and their attacks are a joke. Without a battletome with some synergies or some other battle traits for Hobgrots specifically, these guys are completely worthless, unless you happen to have 95 points left over and don't know what else to use with it. All of that said, I am hopeful a proper tome will bring all this stuff together in ways we can't see yet.

They're probably one of the worst point-to-wound chaffe you could get. 100 points for 10 wounds on a 6+? I sure hope there are battletome synergies for them we're missing, because by themselves, they're shockingly dreadful. How do they wound on 5+'s when regular grots wound on 4+s? HOW? Ooof is all I have to say so far.

It's technically a rule, but people tend to ignore it because it's ridiculous. Or send them to me and I'll post them. I fear not the reaper.

Bring on the rules rumor-brethren!

The initial lore has ALWAYS been about colonialism. Sigmar and his crew spent thousands of years clearing the lands of its previous peoples so they could resettle. Inevitably this backfired and reinvited Chaos back into the realms, who summarily retook everything. At this point it's not about manifest destiny over poor native cultures, it's about pushing back the tide of evil and wanton destruction that's plagued the realms for an age. There's nothing "problematic" about this new direction. It's just the natural progression of the narrative in a fantasy game about gods and monsters punching each other really hard. Not that this has anything to do with rumors.

I actually love that the Kruel lads specialize in mortals. Destruction as a whole grievously lacks mortal wound output compared to other factions. It makes sense the sneaky swamp orruks would use toxins to maximum effect. I want to see those hobgrot warscrolls!

They did the impossible and made 25mm infantry even more valuable than they are now--and every other base size lament their existence.

On regular rounds it still means 1/3 of your unit has to stay out of range to be within range of 2 friendlies.

This is really going to suck for larger base-sized units. They're essentially losing half of the attacks of a unit because they have to sit in a second rank behind the front. My ogors are crying.

The new priest rules don't feel particular useful for DoK. They're still stuck only chanting one prayer, and Bless is redundant for the allegiance. Actually now it seems easier for an enemy priest to plink our hags down (since hags already love to stab themselves).

I see they've finally gone back to using "ward" for their save terminology. Maybe now we can stop wasting text space with "roll a dice if they suffer a wound or mortal wound, on a X+ it is negated."

There are always plenty of people willing to trumpet their lack of insight.