Dr Ben

If malign portents and/or the back oak were models for future narratives then they shouldn't need to lean so heavily on the results in future..... Just maybe fixing games on warhammer TV 😜 I would be very surprised if sigmar himself turned up. You never know, but I'd be very surprised. Especially with the whole psychic awakening thing in 40k also going on. A non hammers of sigmar named Stormcast to duel Gordrakk on the other hand, that I wouldn't be surprised to see. That and a Skaven gnaw hole popping up in Azyr at a convenient moment in the plot.

Yes to both. But I don't think it was an accident. Its not like very powerful and highly mobile monsters/monstrous cavalry aren't already a thing in several factions. At face value a very buff star drake or unit of dracoths coming in from a board edge doesn't really seem much worse than a unit of 9 eels.... I don't play sylvaneth but doesn't durthu need wildwoods to get the extra attacks and post deployment mobility? Otherwise it does sound pretty tanky.

I'm wondering if it possible to get double bombs from using the command ability on a unit of gyro bombers. fly over the enemy, shoot and then fly back. The warscroll says 'normal move' which seems to be the same as the command ability. It might be difficult to actually do because of move 12 and needing to be 9 away. Wildform and/cogs would probably be needed. But it would be fun to pull off occasionally if the rules allow.

That's a nice little play. I think with no deep strike its going to be tricky to include the airships outside of purely fun lists. Although the gun haulers strike last bombs might be a useful trick. A big unit of Endrinriggers with khemist buff and the +1 attack spell looks tasty as a counter attack once the enemy has hit your chaff screen. Or can't go wrong with classic arkco skyhooks and khemist. @dekay good argument,but I'm sticking with (mostly) short bearded folk nonetheless.

I think you are both right in a way. Sisters of the thorn will be value in Hallowheart. Only targeting wanderers is no problem if you are using eternal guard as your front line troops in a Hallowheart list. It is a bit limiting otherwise, but you can use them for casting endless spells or mystic shield. One of the reasons I don't have them in my list is simply I don't own any sisters or eternal guard and I already have a major painting backlog. That may be the same for others. There are also just lots of other good things you want to fit in the list.

Good point. With Nomad prince command ability or hurricanum in range and spell on the charge you would have 2 attacks 2+, 3+, -2, d2 for each rider + reindeer attacks. Effectively makes them into better endrinriggers, but you have to work a bit harder for the combo. So that seems like it could work pretty well. The +1 attack spell from tempests eye would also work as long as you could keep up with them. For that reason maybe better to use the hurricanum than the nomad prince for the +1 hit and to cast the spells. Before the book I was originally thinking about tempests eye because I have some KO, but Hallowheart looks very fun. Although I will need to find the hobby budget for the luminark/hurricanum…... I'm thinking of a list something like: Celestial Hurricanum w/ Battlemage – 280 Luminark w/ Battlemage – 270 Lord Arcanum on Gryph Charger – 220 Knight Incantor – General - 140 Battlemage Chamon – adjucant - 90 Whitefire retinue 140 Longbeards – retinue - (10) 110 Longbeards (10) 110 Longbeards (10) 110 Hammerers (30) 360 Aethervoid pendulum - 50 Everblaze comet – 100 Suffocating gravetide - 20 2000 Spells and artefacts to be decided. I have mostly duardin infantry. So the big block of Hammerers is just what I have already, at least they are a bit better than before and then can be hitting and wounding on 2+ in the right situation. Phoenix guard would be a more optimal competitive choice I'm sure. Might need to swap out the luminark for a warden king and more dwarven bodies. Gravetide is just using up the last 20 points! The Longbeards are in the list as 2 frontline chaff and 1 retinue battleline choices. They are also a tech choice because they can dispel the comet and pendulum with 'there's too much magic flying about these days'. Then you can re-cast the endless spell without wasting an actual cast from a wizard. The Lord Arcanum on gryph charger can take the d6 mortal wounds from the command ability and then use their warscroll spell to immediately heal the damage to themselves. Might give them ignax scales to help with that too. What do you think?

Sorry guys, too many chaos stars all over for him to be anything else. Although the model looks like it might go nicely with bits from various troggoth or ogor kits for conversions, depending on its size.

Doesn't it say "3-6 hallowheart hero wizard" in the battalion? That's give you a lot of options really. 90 point double cast battlemages are a steal. If you have any Stormcast wizards seem a lot more attractive when they've got +1 spell from the allegiance, +1 cast/unbind from the battalion (+command ability + hurricanum/luminark if you want) and a spell from the hallowheart lore. A humble knight incantor as general with retinue will be 4+ pass wounds to retinue, -1 hit from lookout sir, 3+ base armour save and 5+ ignore spells from hallowheart. That seems like a pretty tanky 5W double-casting wizard. Might even give a Grey Seer a run for its money. Comet is still a good spell, especially when you have bonus to cast and so many other sources of d3 mortal wounds spam in a hallowheart army to combine it with. With the hallowheart list I wouldn't run the handgunners personally. Your wizards are going to do enough ranged damage, your problem will be getting run over and murdered before they can cast enough spells. I would suggest either taking more guard/bleakswords to save a few points for endless spells. Or maybe some longbeards with shields to make your front line just a little bit more resilient. The much maligned sorceress on black dragon could be easily +4 cast with 2 spells in hallowheart battalion with a hurricanum (up to potential +10 with the hallowheart command ability). That definitely out-casts verminlords if you build around it. Also her new spell is easy to cast and has a good chance to one-shot many support heroes. Alternatively, she can use her flying fast move to get in range for some of the really powerful but short ranged spells like the anvilgard armour saves of '-' or hallowheart mortal wounds to a horde unit on a 4+. I'm not saying she's amazing by any means. But I think you could definitely find a use for her in a 'fat middle' list.

So.... much.... info. Thanks everyone. Quick first ideas.... Starting with the battlemage I see 3 combos immediately: ulgu and chamon to cripple a key enemy units movement, ghur and hysh to buff a key melee unit and azyr with luminark to splash mortal wounds. Also using a luminark to shoot your own flagellants seems like it would work to proc their +1A

I can join the list of folks with more ideas than time/willpower to follow through. I was thinking of going with the betrayal storyline. There are many details to fill in and conveniently timed events for 'plot reasons' which would need actual reasons for happening. But anyway the basic sketch of the plot was: A woman fleeing chaos/stormcast conflict gets taken in by a village. She makes a new life and friends in the village but something isn't quite right. Turns out the fertility God the village worships is actually Nurgle. One of her village friends becomes pregnant with a baby which is going to fulfil a prophecy about a blessed 'messiah' who will bring Nurgle's true 'blessing' to the land. Horrified, she secretly contacts the stormcasts, but the woman goes into labour before they arrive. She is attending the birth and gets handed the baby (who does appear very 'blessed' by nurgle, the whole thing would probably be pretty gross). This presents her with the moral dilemma of killing her friends baby or risking the deaths of thousands, or even millions, if the prophecy is fulfilled and the baby grows into a great champion of Nurgle. She raises a knife to kill the baby but can't go through with it and runs away. As she is pursued by the angry villagers, she finds the stormcasts answering her call. The chase reverses as she and the stormcasts try to hunt down the nurgle cultists from the village, including her friends and the baby. It reaches a point where the stormcast can't find the cultists, but she knows where they will be. Knowing the stormcast will kill the child and her friends if they find them, she is faced with the same dilemma all over again. And...... then I hadn't decided how it would end. Maybe the protagonist betrays her friends and then gets killed by the stormcast herself because of her exposure to chaos. That would definitely be the miserable but tidy way to go. Also doubling up on the whole betrayal theme. Maybe she decides baby killing isn't the way to go, and lures the stormcast into a trap before falling to the worship of nurgle.

In the community post it definitely shows that all the dwarf infantry including irondrakes can be battleline (its in that picture bit). They didn't specify which will be universal battleline and which will be battleline if. We'll find out soon, but I expect longbeards and ironbreakers universal, hammerers with warden king general and irondrakes with cogsmith general. In the worst case scenario you can probably use the bodies from the warden king and cogsmith to make alternative unit leaders for the ironbreakers/drakes with a bit of repositioning. Ironjawz and bonesplitterz exist as special types of bigger/crazier orks without any normal orks having battletome representations. In comparison the lack of non veteran dwarves doesn't seem to be a major issue!

Bloods knights is a classic option. You can still run them as drakespawn knights, just cross out the name on the warscroll and replace it with 'aelven heavy cavalry'. For those on this forum who clearly like exact 1:1 it won't do, but for those who don't mind a little more flexibility it would be fine. I agree. As above, some folks clearly like 1:1 and are really bothered by this issue. That is their choice to make. But it isn't a choice they or anyone else has to make. I will be using my little bearded dudes as freeguild also. And now we can also have a phoenix with a cogsmith. Nothing better to keep your Bugmans XXXXX cold than a frostheart phoenix. Also maybe a griffon ridden by a cogsmith, I'm going to need someone to order those warriors and thunderers around...….. all of a sudden the GW marketing seems to make more and more sense and I have an idea for what I might do with those spare cogsmiths from the start collecting.

I agree the start collecting look great. I've been looking for a way to get some more ironbreakers and gyrocopters affordably. Hopefully they won't be at the £60 price mark i.e no discount if all you want are the unit and gyro. Two characters is great in your first box (which I know is the point of a start collecting box), but there are only so many cogsmiths and warden kings a person needs. Who knows, maybe I'll find an excuse for a hydra or two to turn up in my free city. I've lost the reference in the mists of time now, but I think it was previously either confirmed or at least heavily implied that SCE will be available in all the cities. I guess we won't have long to wait to find out..... They don't have a monopoly on blue and white! Look at the number of football teams with those colours. Naturally the book will have the proper painting guide, but it seems like 'eavy metal hammerhal on the box is pretty much primary blue, plain white and gold (either the shade of yellow or metallic). So you still have plenty of options without abandoning blue and white. You could desaturate to sky blue, shift slightly towards ivory and a blueish violet (or go the other way around the colour wheel) and/or replace the gold with black or steel.

Fun list. I am hoping that with the CoS book a similar but dwarf&mage rather than freeguild&mage based list will be possible. Might as well make 1 list that I can actually put an emerald lifeswarm into! Skinks, lots and lots of skinks

A faction spun out from goblin wolf riders makes a lot of sense now we've seen the beastgrave warband. Many of the Aos factions have been taking the coolest thing from an old world faction (slayers, witch elves, tree people, depraved chaos cultists, cairn wraiths etc etc) and expanding that into a full faction. So (hob) goblin wolf riders would fit that pattern. Thinking along those lines, are there any other very cool old world units which could still be made into their own faction? (other than the light/dark elf thing) A Knight-like giant army would be fun (giants festooned with cannons anyone?). But Beastclaw already kind of fill that niche. Several other armies can legally go <20 model count if you want (not necessarily very good, but possible) . So I'd be a bit surprised if they went that way myself.

The recent forbidden power short story certainly showed that destruction are up to something.... Also in this thread people have talked about 'barbarians' a lot. From the context I think that means naked northern european/conan/old world norscan aesthetic and culture. For GA Order or destruction barbarians there are plenty of other 'barbarian' groups from which influences could be drawn like moari, Polynesian, many different North american groups, lots of people who bordered China for a couple of thousand years etc. etc. I know what madmac means about the current destruction factions. But we have living humans in all the other grand alliances and worshipping all the other God's. All the books tying up the old factions since legions of nagash are soon to be more or less done. So it doesnt semm that unlikely to me that we'd get a group of gorkamorka worshipping humans at some point. You would have differentiate them from the orks somehow. Maybe have them more politically motivated anarchist s or something along those lines. Just to be clear, I mean 'barbarian' from the perspective of various historical empires hence the '' . I'm not denigrating anyone's culture or history.

I like the clones idea, no idea how you would implement it, but it would be interesting for sure. To add my own tin foil hat speculation to potential warbands with a couple of seraphon options (also going with the underworlds warband to replace old finecast/metal idea as suggested for ogors) - new chameleon skinks which totally break the deployment rules - a kroxigor and skink buddies (who they might be able to throw around the board or have the skink jump on and off the kroxigor or something). (Another totally uninformed idea......) Given that a nurgle warbands seems relatively likey, how about a nurgle 'suicide bomber' - when inspired explodes corrosive pus over everyone in adjacent hexes healing the rest of the nurgle warband or doing substantial damage to anyone else. I would also like this (although I don't have that many yhetees)

Same initial thoughts. Though classic bugman's was XXXXX! Grots pirates is an idea. But we know Ogors are coming and the ogor kits (like the ironblaster especially) have plenty of planks and bits scavenged from the Empire. So part of a new ogor kit is my bet.

It's based on a comment from the battletome reveal at the AoS open day. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/07/20/the-warhammer-age-of-sigmar-open-day-2019-live-bloggw-homepage-post-1/ Sam Pearson (rules writer) said "Contained within you will find allegiance abilities for whichever of the great cities your army hails from,from the mighty Hammerhal all the way to the Living City of Ghyran, as well as over-arching abilities such as picking a retinue and personal advisor to accompany your general." (my emphasis) No info on how that will be implemented but lots of people (myself included) are looking forward to finding out. For me (and I think for some other people) the idea reminds them of space marine command squads with the commander, sergeant, apothecary, techmarine etc. etc. which I would quite like personally. On the other hand it could turn out like the whole 'packs of magmadroths' thing where most people seemed to be expecting a magmadroth battalion, but it turned out to be Lofnir lodge being able to take 1 extra magmadroth. Anyhow, there's been some discussion over in the CoS thread if you're interested.

Liking the ghost on the back. It's a great little reveal when you turn the mini around.

If you've got a phoenix in your elves and plan to have the slann actually casting spells, you can buff that phoenix save for a great mobile anvil. Plus durable phoenix guard to hold objectives and protect the slann. Or if you have some order draconis and they have rippers then you could go with a shadowstrike battalion seraphon list and make a great alpha strike list.

You're right that is one possible future. Depending on how the stormcast are included it's not too hard to envisage a half decent shootcast list with some cheap chaff screens being possible in the CoS book. I guess that might be the sort of thing you had in mind? But the stormcast have their own perfectly fine allegiance abilities, etc. It seems very unlikely that all other builds will be weak though. Several of the existing CoS units are already strong, phoenix temple have gone 4:1 in tournaments without any book or GHB support. It does seem unlikely that all options will be highly competitive. My dwarves will still have 4' movement. So, unless there are serious movement shenanigans new in CoS, a heavily dispossessed focussed force is unlikely to be ever be top tier because they will always struggle to play the objective game to some degree. Depending on whether tempests eye is any good, I would guess its more likely KO players might want to experiment with the CoS rules (until there is an updated KO book) .

Thanks for the comment Gaz. That is a good response.

Priesthood is a term of office which can apply to the holders of that office male, female, or otherwise. A common example of this contemporary use is in the Anglican/Episcopal church. A few others had made similar assumptions that a priest is a male, so I thought I would highlight some minor casual sexism whilst participating in the thread discussion.

Secret weapon miniatures do Oni mask bits in 28mm scale. No way of knowing if they fit exactly, but if they do they should give you the look you are going for. In an unrelated comment does anyone think the priest will be an actual in-game priest with prayers to Nagash? I can't remember GA Death having any but I don't play any current death factions so my knowledge it patchy.