Charleston

@Troll.exe This sounds quite familiar to what I play /what my models allow me to play. Can you tell me a bit more about how you utilize you units? Especially Skullcrushers seems hard to field for me @MOMUS Yeah I am afraid so. I actually prefer mortals due to their aesthethic, and the price spot for 3 Bloodthirster is not low for me but I guess I will have to look into them to keep up~ I will get a kit of Skullreapers/Wrathmongers today. I already have 1 of each and therefore with the new kit I can either play the Bloodforged or the Skulltake and Slaughterborn. Which of them is better in your opinion? ->Bloodforged seems like a nice way to get the maximum out of Wrathmongers, spamming a ton of -1 Rend attacks twice. Also two units of Wrathmongers mean a bigger radius of the +1A bubble ->Skulltake seems a bit....lackluster. I mean, yes, I find Khorne lacks multiwound damage, but a random +1 Damage is really not spicy in my eyes. Or do I overlook something? ->Slaughterborn on the other side looks fantastic to me. Two Skullreaper Units reap twice the skulls, and having them a better save against Rend is really something usefull 😮

Haha yeah, I guess you are right.

Maybe GW should expand Chaos at this point? Currently we have exactly 4 Flavors of Chaos, whoch are War and Bloodshed, Excess, Pus, and Nerds and Trearchery. We really lack the good old nameless Chaos. GW really forgott the Spice of unnamed Daemons and the awesomeness of Black Armours. Currently the Realm of Chaos are exactly 4 Deities and their offsprings. We really do not have the general Chaos Daemons in any kind in the tabletop. Althrough I highly doubt it, GW could use the Darkoath book for this. Make Marks of Chaos a sidenote, a generic rule all Darkoath/Slaves to Darkness Units can get to be allied into other armies. But then focus within the book on unique dark powers. Give us a Spell Lore that taints the whole battlefield in black magic! Give us a General Trait which makes our General so possesed by nameless daemonic beeings that he literarely explodes when he´s dead! Give us artifacts that are so full of unholy and dark power, that even skaven would call us mad for using thoose!

Well, and that is why I see the Aelf Factions (+Sylvaneth) as an issue. They don´t fit an "good guys" theme anymore as the lore is too grimdark for it. Some (the old ones and IDK) Aelven factions fight for survival. Other for their own purposes, like the DoK. Having Aelfs as an own Grand Alligience would be a good expansion of the world. It would also add a lot of potential thematics like f.e. racism, when Aelfs prefer to help each other and dislike alliances with humans, dwarfs or SCE. On the other side, it would help to clearly define Order as Lawfull Good. Althrough the same could be done with the Duardin~

Exactly: Because GW choose to have them as "protagonist" Main Faction of the Game. It´s like a self fullfilling prophecy: GW creates a higher demand on SCE or SM by adding them into each starter set. A huge ammount of new players will be therefore more likely SCE players. Bigger Playerbase means more potential buyers and therefore a better profit from releases that affect that faction, as there are simply more customers than to an army like Free People. I wouldn´t expect gw to do anything to stop this, as it is easier for them to write a narrative with a protagonist faction and they can sell the product easier as these faction get a higher rate of recognition among not-players as there may be a good chance that people see thoose. Also, both are more or less "typical 40k/AoS" and therefore a good starting point to diversify from generic Fantasy. WHFB did it in another way, which was cool, but I guess gw won´t do it again as they might fear it to be a worse business strategy

From my understanding of the game, there is a lot about interactions between units and rules. In general, each faction brings it´s ruleset to the board and then the players try to match their strengths against the enemies weakness on the board to get the advantage that wins the game (-> tactic). This interaction is the funny part of the game, which also most often decides what local group metas look like as they are defined by what units are played. It is a Rock-Scissors-Paper game where your faction decides whenever you are one of the three, and your tactic allows you to shift you choice so you may nevertheless win the game. Khorne is really good at this stage of the game. We have a ton of diverse units and rules. Our strengths are MW´s, the Ability to shut down a lot of Magic and a lot of units which can get into different roles. But in such a big and complex game, there are also rulesets that allow you to skip the interaction between units. Fighting for example is all balanced around activations from both players (->interaction). Also there are a lot of other factors which actually balance the overall punch of meele damage in the game, like the fact that you can´t activate units more than once. Often you are in a spot whenever the right pattern of activations can really do a lot for your board. Now we have more and more rules that allow your units to fight earlier than the enemy. If this is for one model, it can already be a pretty neat advantage that can decide whenever an importan model can survive or not. In cases where there are several units that fight first, like the IDK, this gets twisted even more, as the IDK Player has the strategical advantage of fightning first, so maybe his opponents won´t be able to fight back anymore. Such rules, that allow to skip interactions, simply also skip the natural balancing that was established within the game mechanics before. On a small scale, this is what actually every single special rule do, and it is great as it prevents the game from beeing dull. But as soon as an certain threshold is reached, thoose rules are more and more an balancing issue. That also defines the current meta: Armies that can do their stuff without giving the enemy an chance to stop them. Or just skipping their defences to wreck havoc like DoK do. Or denying the enemy parts of the board, like Skaven Warpstorm does. AA and A Tier is also defined by armies that have a way to skip such interactions. Althrough this is not the only factor, as mobility and defensive capabilities are also quite important. And this is what points out the issues with Khorne and reflects why our strong units are focused around daemons: Daemons can fight first and twice and are fast. Mortals simply lack these important capabilities that are required to break the game, or at least distort it so you can win the game without risking the enemy to do something big against it. As a player who dislikes to build an army around power and who prefers units by fluff or sympathy, I am really concerned about the current state of the game~

If you like daemons and already have GUOS, Plague Drones can be pushed to a pretty high ammount of attacks. I would also concider Rotbringers in your position: With the Blight Cyst you get a Battalion that gives the tons of rolls from the Blightklings also a nice rend of -1, which makes them a pretty decent lawnmower. Also you gain better shooting, allowing you to pick out enemies heroes.

Well, I played Khorne Mortals: Allegiance: Khorne - Slaughterhost: The Goretide Mortal Realm: Ulgu Bloodsecrator (120) - Artefact: Thronebreaker's Torc Bloodstoker (80) Slaughterpriest (100) - Blood Blessing: Blood Sacrifice Slaughterpriest (100) - Blood Blessing: Bronzed Flesh Daemon Prince of Khorne (160) - General - Trait: Hew the Foe - Artefact: Sword of Judgement Mighty Lord of Khorne (140) 10 x Blood Warriors (200) - Goreaxe & Gorefist - 1x Goreglaives 10 x Bloodreavers (70) - Reaver Blades 10 x Bloodreavers (70) - Reaver Blades 6 x Mighty Skullcrushers (360) - Ensorcelled Axes 5 x Wrathmongers (140) 5 x Skullreapers (180) - Goreslick Blades Gore Pilgrims (140) Wrath-Axe (60) Bleeding Icon (40) Total: 1960 / 2000 Extra Command Points: 1 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 136 The opponent was a Fyreslayer Vostarg List with 2 Magmadroth-Heroes, 2 on foot, 2x10 or 3x10 Vulkites with different weapons and 10 Heartguards. They were sided by a Idoneth/Sylvaneth mix with an Akhelian core (2x offensive Eels, 1x defensive, Volturnos, Drycha, 1 Leviadon, 3 Kurnoths with greatswords, some Reavers and some heroes to teleport them). Well, mistakes were made as my Skullcrushers charged the Hearguard and a Magmadroth and were slayed outright. Also, after turn 1 the Akelians were 6-7" away from my army and got the double turn, which forced me to waste Bloodtithe onto a charge so I could at least bind them so they were not able to charge my core units. He just withdraw in his movement so I was not able to charge him and he could go full in during turn 3 with max buffed units. All in all we were forced to go full in in the attempt to weaken their deathstars and were stomped by thoose nevertheless. I was forced due to the ammount of terrain to move in a pretty bad way. I couldn´t position the Skullcrushers were I needed them because of the Idoneth Terrain, and I couldn´t charge as there were a rock in the middle of out starting zone that costed me several inches of movement. Yeah, the ammount of salt was high afterwards~ Althrough there were some nice situations in the game, too. Blood Warriors vs 3 Units of Vulkites in an Turn 1 Charge were a highlight as due to the Berserker Ability of the Vulkites there were units fighting in death on both sides, killing more and more of the enemy.

Shadespire did not get any Chaos Daemon Warbands yet. Also, a lot of thoose warbands were acomanied by a new tome also.

Just came back from a huge 4k vs 4k tag team game. Was teamed with NH and played against Fyreslayers and Idoneth. Well, long story short: We ended the game end of turn 3 as there was nothing we could do beside getting tabled. While talking after the game we compared some units and rules and gosh, I am just buffed how overcosted Might Skullcrushers are compared to Akhelian units. The MW output can be simply denied by an countercharge, there is no aftersave, no charge bonus on rend and we are forced to play huge units that are a pain to play as any ammount of terrain ends in a quite suboptimal move or charge. Meanwhile, IDK have almost double to speed, fly, have smaller bases, have access to several huge buffs etc. etc.....man, I just feel bad for my army. I really didn´t wanted to agree that the Blades of Khorne are a bad book but compared to other tomes it is really a joke. Also the whole Bloodtithe-System again. I was forced to charge the enemy on their turn due to a double turn that would have ended in a huge strategic disadvantage. That set me back from 6 to 0 BT so I can at least have a chance to compete for another round. For this evening, I really hate that battletome.

I really like the idea to be honest. Lorewise we already have a huge selfish motif behind the Daughters and the Idoneth which in general are so fixed on their own goals, that people are unhappy to call them an order faction. This fits quite well to the fact that there is a certain touch of chaos to them. They are like a hybrid faction. They fight for themself, not for order. A huge ammount of Aelfes is tainted by Slaanesh, the God who earns most of their hatred. They are an destructive force that often can be compared to a force of nature or something similar. Also they deny Death, some Aelfs even steal a part of Nagash´s Soultithe. An Great Alliance of Aelfes would be a nice addition to the game lorewise, would clean up some loose threads, would set again a new design perspective and theirfore differ from generic fantasy, and would also keep the playerbase happy as their is again something new in the releases + a cleaned up mess which remains from AoS 1.0 Armybuilding. Althrough it would require a better name. Great Alliance of Arrogance maybe?

My guess: GW shows us what happened to Brettonians

To quote myself from the StD Thread: All in all this would fix a good ammount of issues, keep the theme and allow yet to have a versatile army.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/07/07/coming-soon-something-for-everyone/ The Sylvaneth come

Well, I like that argumentation, but on the other side having custom warbands for each factions for the game that get a release over time seems also like a possible way to go. To be honest I am a bit concerned how the other factions are going to be included lorewise. Imagine, alpeaks, Archaon finaly standing up from his Throne, shouting at the next Gaunt Summoner: "Hell yeah! That is the Idea! I will make a Team-Deathmatch-tournament to find new Champions! All this "best of the best" stuff for my Varanguard was boring all along! Who can we invite?" -"Well, the Goretide, Skullfiend Tribe, the Rotbringers..." "Yeah, all these boring dudes are at all my parties anyway. Anyone interesting?" -"Um...there are several Tribes of highly specialised Tribesmen spread across the realms, who fight every day for survival in the harsh conditions of their realms" "Nice, whom else?" -"Well....these are all the different Factions of Followers of the Dark Gods" "I want one of these green things!" -"An Orruk? I am not quite sure if an Orruk qould leave Gork and Mork behind, althrough they would be great servants to Kho.." "No! Not these. The small Stabby ones!" -"Gits?!" "Yeah! They are awesome, fightning all along on shrooms! Oh and I want the Shark-Dudes!" -"I am not sure if the Idone.." "AND NAKED DWARFS! These guys are insane, I love them!" -"Archaon, my Lord, I am worried abou.." "Can we invite Nagash? I want the nerd to see my awesome "Who´s gonna be the next worth Champion"-Party! But don´t allow him to compete, his magic tricks are boring. Now you´re alive, now you are dust...Nerd, thinks that this is funny" -"..." "Oh and invite Sigmar, too! Last time we partied that guy got so drunk that he throwed his hammer at me and lost it! Heard that he reforged a whole chamber only to make them forget this story. Looove him!"

...wait? What? I was quite sure you were long enough into the hobby to know that the next Marine Release is always near Jokes aside, with the release of Shadowspear and the Chaos Codex 2.0it was kind of foreseeable that gw will rework marines like they did with chaos. I am rather curious if the next Dex will be a "Codex Space Marines 2.0" or an "Codex Primaris Marines"

I´m sold on this one

My guess would be also that it is something aelvish. Propably a model from the shadespire team? A new Shadespire Team could be a first tease on a new faction to come later. Like Zarbagz Gitz It could be also a Chewbacca in an aelv-cosplay with all this fur/hair

They look like a decent way of playing chaos knights.The charge gives some mortal wounds that slaves lack in general. The downside is, that it is hard to pull of as the ability is once per game if I recall correctly, during your charge, and we also lost one of the better support heroes (Lord on Slaanesh Mount) to support Chaos Knights

Thoose price increases are weird. A lot of older Sprues and a lot of Sculpts from the new Mercenaries among them. Lets wait if thoose really come or if gw gives us a note about these increases like last year

We have plently of Darkoath Teasers and hints written between the lines. And as it would be pointless for GW to set all of the following up only to establish new lore withour a release. Darkoath Warqueen as Malign Portents Harbringer. Every single other Harbringer had their faction reworked New Darkoath Fluff, for example in the Novella about the Warqueen (which btw is another Warqueen than the one that got a Modell) Shadespire Darkoath Warband which can be seen as a hint for more Darkoath Modells like Zarbagz Gitz were Warcry is an narrative Stepstone for a new Chaos related story ark. With Archaon calling to the best to Gather in the Allpeaks Basically all Warcry Subfactions are realm-related variations of Darkoath (Chaos Pledged Tribes). Also we know from the Shop-Merge and Faction summarization page that Slaves to Darkness and Everchosen are likely about to be put together and Darkoath seems to be fleshed out soon, to be more than a mere subfuctions within the StD. Btw the Christmas-Battleforce Box is also seen as a corellation, maybe to hook already some players into the faction before a bigger release.

Slaves to Darkness: I love the grim "bad guy" flair of the old Chaos Warriors. Faceless brutes, clad in heavy metal plates, marching relentlessly toward the enemy. They bring death and havoc to their enemies in exchange for power and glory from the gods. The cost for power they pay is high and only the mightiest of them, who have accumulated enough power, seem to have something like a personality. Yet they are all exchangeble. If one Lord fails the Gods, the next one will take his place. Come on, this is epic and althrough gameplaywise the army makes my heart bleed because it is so bad, the lore and fluff is just amazing. Also I get goosebumps from most of their artworks from old whfb times! The Everchosen as the next logical step are also awesome and cool Stormcasts Eternal - Hammers of Sigmar: Well, I have to admit it: I started SCE as a cheap and easy to play army to have something to cheer me up from the loses I´ve had with StD. As it was never supposed to be any big project, I went for Hammers of Sigmar, because I like having Matching Stuff and when most Art depicts an Army in the same colors as yours, there is some satisfaction behind it. While the project started as a quite "loveless" one, I started to like them more and more with every single model painted and every single game played. It´s just a nice thing to play the good guys, with the new lore that shows how Stormcasts pay a high price for beeing reforged the army turned from a bunch of prince charmings with golden fetish masks into an army of individuals that one can greatly empithize with. Also Gameplay-wise I am really a player for defensive armies that can take a beating. I really dislike removing models too fast and Hammers of Sigmar are great for this due to 6+++ sheningans and "Return a unit of Sequitors or Liberators on a Roll of 5+" CA´s. I have not finished painting them due to exams but boy, I am eager to swing the brush as soon as the time allows it! Khorne: Well, what started as some buff-heroes and was never intended to be an own army became a quite nice sice project. I like to play Khorne even when I don´t do so with a lot of sucess in my local group. It is an army that does an great job at beeing the bad guys and even when they loose, it feels like the army contributed a lot to the narrative feeling of the game. Also Khorne allows some nice variations in listbuilding and has a lot of "hidden" Warscrolls that can be used, like Slaughterbrutes or Soul Grinders. Even when not beeing very competetive, such units are always a nice to thing on the table as they are rather rare and nice to play with/against.

Thanks! Didn´t knew (or at least forgott) that there were potatoe cam picks involved

Yeah, I somehow fear it. But a lot of our range is still plastic and should remain untouched. I am currently in a weird mood about the Darkoath Tome. Chaos was always a main enemy and Slaves/Warriors were an iconic enemy in the World that was. I love the idea of mortals gaining unholy strength and power from dark gods. And the loss of identity that follows up. My biggest fear is that they leave a wide part of the Slaves to Darkness untouched. This would be the worst case scenario: Imagine cool new Darkoath/Everchosen Units and then Chaos Warriors remaining the same trash profile they are right now. The Darkoath/Slaves Tome will be a different thing for gw as they have to buff the faction a lot to get them out of the current miserable position they are in right now. This could lead straightforward to gw keeping it conservative and releasing one of the weakest AoS 2.0 tomes so far.

Lets face the following: We had a great start into the year with a nice focus on AoS. We´ve got some new tomes in a fast pace that felt aequivalent to the Codex Releases for 40k last year. Althrough it was communicated by gw between the lines that we can expect a lot of tomes for 2.0, along with terrain and endless spells, gw stayed reserved and only gave us the statement "Each Grand Alliance will see another new tome this year". We don´t have a "you will get all armies updated within a year" policy like 40k had. Nevertheless we had with Gloomspites a fully fledged rework of an iconic warhammer faction, a smaller revamp for Slaanesh which still gave us several new sculpts, Skaven were finally tidied up and are no longer a bloody mess of subfactions and Fyreslayers, Khorne and FEC received Spells/Invications/Judgements, new Lodges/Hosts and were lifted into 2.0 rulewise. So the first months were fantastic time for the hobby. We had also 2 2 Faction Boxes that were hot on sales, we have a lot of new tomes since january and also a campaign book. Also GHB18 arrived on time and intruduced again a lot of new missions and rules to make the game more exciting. We know that gw is likely to release a lot for chaos related stuff along Warcry this summer, also the campaign book seems to be the first part of an new narrative arc surrounding the Stormvaults. We also know that GW has some issues that led us to a drought of releases on the new tome front since may. I understand any players who want to finally start their new Sylvaneth Force and simply can´t as there is no point in buying a tome that will get dated within a brief ammount of time (well, except if you are a SCE player where is became somehow normal). Also we can discuss about what if gw would have continued their release pace: Would we have some more Tomes out already then? Nevertheless GW has to time their logistics and also can´t influence anything in their favor. We can only assume that they will make logical decisions like @Austin have described in his post! They are interested in the hype beeing there and also in releasing in a way that maximizes profits. This leads to something that somehow buggs me a lot: Why did GW teased the Sylvaneth in the first place? Its pretty out of character, keeping in mind that they usually really do not give us any hints, teaser or releases when there is no known date for release. They could´ve simply remain silent and no one would assume that there are any issues. People would just think that the release shedule is full and more focused on GHB and Apocalypse right now and that there is a break in Tomes and Spells.