Mutton

Interesting. I assume this is a reliable source? Someone recently showed off the Australian prices and it looked like the boxes were going to go for $230. Perhaps they saw how upset people were about the 230 and decided to notch it down a tad.

We could answer those questions based on how they currently work; but since a new book is arriving, we have no idea yet how everything will shape up. I'd stay tuned for the community previews.

In the video they show the back of the physical box, and it shows 6 Ogor Gluttons and 2 Leadbelchers. I'm willing to bet Leadbelchers are down to units of 2, much like how we can see Ironguts are now units of 4 from the warscroll peek.

The unit sizes are almost certainly changing. The Ironguts warscroll now says 1 in every 4 Ironguts can use a banner, which would make them units of 4 instead of the old 3 (which makes sense since their boxes give you 4 models). I'm guessing Leadbelchers will be in units of 2, because the FoB gives you two, and it'd be ridiculous for them to give you a couple models you couldn't use...especially since the Soul Wars fiasco.

All of my dreams have come true.

I can imagine a lot of things GW would do without publicly saying anything.

A lot of hero options for this army. It'll be interesting to see what each of their individual roles will be. Any guesses?

So it's like a team soul-suicide pact. Rather blow themselves up than let someone else nab their souls.

Assuming the crawlers are any good. I don't have much faith in GW making decent artillery rules. Let's hope it's not another 4+/3+ -2 D6 damage throwaway model.

I'm still of the opinion that there are very very rarely any real "leaks." I believe most of the grainy, potato photographs we get of models or books are fully orchestrated by GW themselves to induce hype or fill a longing void the community has.

Maybe people will finally stop incessantly complaining about Daughters...Oh who am I kidding...

This is always my fear. There will always be affluent hobbyists to toss money around at anything that gets released; and I worry it's this sub-section of people that GW will only further target. I know we go round and round on the "Is the cost worth it?" debate, but eventually there'll be customers that simply cannot keep up with the prices---regardless of the reasoning behind the increases. You need to keep a middle ground somewhere, and these types of boxes (along with SC boxes) used to be great for people wanting to jump into the hobby at a respectable entry fee. I'd hate to see a world where $230 boxes are the norm, and no one at the shops can afford them except for the particularly well off. And as mentioned above, you're only just barely saving any money, and that's if you even want both armies. We're slowly whittling away at the idea of "savings" and heading toward those hokey online pre-order deals that bundle everything at full retail price. Anyway, that's enough worrymongering. We always see trends between AoS and 40k, which is why I bothered to say anything. Maybe this is a one-time thing and nothing will come of it; but if it isn't, it shouldn't be slid by us without an utterance of disdain.

What the hell. I can tell you now that I hope AoS doesn't head in this direction for its dual boxes. That's an insane price hike, even if you're planning to split it. I don't even know if you're saving any money at that point.

What I meant was from a game design space you don't want to give already tough units like Maw Krushas the opportunity to heal a lot of damage, because that leads to unfun situations where a unit is nigh unkillable. From a player perspective, yes, healing an already durable unit is the ideal.

It might be too much. I'd only ever go max 10. Ten can usually do the smashing job you need done, plus, any more than that and you might have trouble deploying them wholly within 3", outside of 3" of enemy units. I'd also pose that Fanatics have had their market value continually decrease as more new battletomes include "always strikes first" "strikes last" and "impact damage" units---meaning those units of bloodcrushers, gore gruntas, terrorgheists, every Slaanesh hero, or whatever will be able to annihilate your little dudes before they even get a chance to swing, or force you to delay their deployment, which nullifies a lot of their initial value. The biggest thing about Fanatics is they're all or nothing. They can interrupt a big charge, wipe out a big scary unit, and laugh all the way to the bank. But just as often, they'll be countered by some ability or smart movement by the opponent...and that's 140-280 points that ended up doing nothing. Even if everything goes perfectly, you might just roll poorly on their attacks, leaving them helpless. To be honest, I really think Loonsmashas should be more like 120 and Sporesplattas 100.

I'm not a tournament player, but if you want to run an optimized Temple Nest battalion, you probably want at least 1 unit of x20 Blood Sisters. Go with as few Stalkers as possible (so two units of x5)---they're going to be your unit tax for the battalion as they're the worst unit in the roster, and one of the worst in the game, frankly. You'll need a Medusae general for the Melusai battleline of course, and it's up to you whether you want to include Morathi. Some say she's amazing at being an indomitable wall and holding up any enemy unit, others say she isn't worth the hefty price tag of 480 points. It's probably more efficient to take x20 snakes in her place, but I use Morathi just because it's a cool model. Every DoK army should also include 1-2 units of Heartrenders for mobile objective capping, at least one Hag Queen, and the Cauldron of Blood with your pick of priestess. You may consider looking up tournament lists that specifically use lots of snakes, because all of this is theoretical based on my experience playing the army since it released. But again, I don't use an optimized build, hell, I don't even have a Cauldron in my army, which is basically heresy.

Think Sigmar will show up to defend his own realm? Eventually we should probably have a model for the guy the game is named after. But why bother getting out of his chair when he can just open a dozen storm chambers.

Pretty sure the app is unreliable at the moment. The battletome at least says that Cities can ally with just about every Order faction.

Any other Cities units catch peoples' eyes for allies? Ghur battlemage for +2 run & charge seems good. Maybe 10-20 Pheonix Guard to protect the cauldron? Sisters of the Watch for ranged support (since our bow snakes are worthless)?

I definitely think GW overvalues healing. Restoring D3 wounds is basically nothing, unless it's a free ability that's going off every round. In the modern AoS world, where units can easily dish out boatloads of wounds or mortal wounds in a single round, a couple of points of healing means nothing. Take Lifeswarm for example---nobody gave it a second look until the new Cities book offered it reliably in empowered form (for D6 healing/models returned). That said, the key is warscroll acumen when doling out healing abilities. You don't generally want to give healing to units that are already nearly impossible to kill (this leads to the immovable object), but you can give it to units that are otherwise vulnerable to damage. It's all relative to the models it's used on.

For anyone who hasn't watched this week's WarhammerWeekly, they showed a shipment log from one of GW's factories in China that contained "Mawtribes Great Mawpot" and the Ossiarch endless spells and terrain. So this stuff is on its way! In relation to previous shipments and product release times, we'll probably see Ossiarchs (and maybe Mawtribes) at the end of Oct to early November. My guess is preorders will go up for Ossiarchs in the last week of October.

From the flavor text we also know the name of the DoK warband's leader: Morgwaeth the Bloodied.

By the way, I think this model might be related to this rumor engine: I think it's the Fomoroid's back. Similar hair style, two straps across the chest that would stretch all the way around the body, the metal bolts are similar, and the little bumps on either side fit the same skin boils and blemishes the model has.

A giant one-eyed Chaos dude who throws rocks eh? I think he's got a long-lost brother out there.

I think Warcry swept in to crush any chance Meeting Engagements had of being the "quick, in-between AoS game." That said, I also find the delayed deployment style really hurts specific factions enough that I'd rather just play a regular 1k match.