Charleston

@Kaleb Daark I really enjoyed reading your opinion on that matter! I agree that not every single faction should have *all* the options and that those differences make up the charm of the game! WHFB had some sort of a base frame and you could easier put models in to different categories. AoS factions seem to lack this common frame, or at least it is overshadowed in my opinion by the different Warscrolls that all try to be different and new and end up feeling noisy. Which is why I miss thoose clearly defined roles in AoS and dislike that weird, pushed individuality of models. AoS 1.0 had the same rule for all Banners, Musicians and Leaders across a faction which somehow had this "common frame" theme. If you were about to learn your faction, you mostly had to memorize those once and it made your army feel more coherent. All Dwarves Musicians had their ability to march instead of running to mention an example. Current design trend leads to more and more "unique" patterns. But like in society: When everyone tries to be unique, no one really is. That is why I prefered the frame of "boring" repeating patterns: Because minor deviations were enough to stand out and make units exciting. F.e. by making the elite infantery better and by not including a ranged unit you can easily create perks that make a faction feel unique, like the example of Chaos Warriors you mentioned. That is also why the current allegiance system is a blade with two edges: While it allows you to adjust the gameplay of your army way better it also makes the traits of the faction as a whole less defined. Archetypes are no longer tied to factions. You can play Skaven as Horde or Elite army, SCE can field either 40-50 redeemer units or just 10 dragons and so on.

Most GW games that are not core games are not worth getting into. The half life of thoose products is so short and GW seems to actively cripple releases to stretch them out into some add on books as seen with Necromunda, Blood Bowl and so on. While the games as game suffer from gw's policy, the models remain awesome tough. Still most rule sets remain really painfully bad written. MESBG remains the best ruleset by GW currently has to offer While I think WHFB was not the superior game compared to AoS, I really hate the lack of armies with a classic army style rooster. In WHFB each army had variations of troops with different loadouts: Ranged, Sword and Shield, Spears as well as a good overall vibe for footslogging heroes. AoS lacks this in most armies. LRL are the first army since ages that have "classical" roles with Spears, Bows, Warmachines and Cavallery (which are even of Horses), which is awesome. Despite them only CoS come to my mind fullfilling this sheme. Deviating from this, I wish we had the option to merge little footslogging heroes into other units. This would make playing some little cheap supporters and beatsticks more viable and fun by boosting durability.

I'm sorry to tell you but assume that people mostly just say Whale instead of Whalefish in German is simply because it is shorter. While science may have started the change, it mostly adapted due to people being lazy.

Coalition in Terms of 3.0 Coalition rules? Would make sense. Lorewise Morathi forged a suprisingly strong alliance with Volturnos if I recall correctly. Volturnos even aided her to raid Anvilgard and make it Har Kuron. Althrough I am not sure how they went from Volturnos raiding her Ascension Ritual to kill her to the current friendship. As for IDK and DoK becoming one faction I really am not sure if we will see this happen. Althrough it might be that GW pushes for more Warclan style books my guts say this is rather unlikely

I am curious how current lack of fuel in the uk will affect cargo and therefore GW releases

I'd love to repeat once again my point of: Dire need for a new Battletome does not equal higher likeliness of a new tome. GW designs stuff a long time prior to any releases and reasons like popularity within sales top over bad balance in current meta. Thus being said we only know that Nurgle, Khorne, Slaanesh, Tzeentch, S2D, BoC and Skaven are in the inner bracket for a new tome. The Tome Celestial in the WD is not confirmed to be related to Tome release shedule, thus a S2D release is still on a table although less likely. Also we have 2-3 Rumor Engines of S2D looking Models around if I recall correctly. Considering how Tome 1-3 are each from a different Allegiance, assuming that Death will be the 4th book sounds reasonable. We have also a lot of Death themed rumor engines which would make a release paired with new models arguable. FEC, Nighthaunt and Soulblight seem potential candidates. The current Soulblight Tome is written for 2.0 which is clear since the first 3.0 books were released. Looking at LRL a second Soulblight Wave isn't that unlikely at all. The only thing that can be argued against SBGL is the fact that new kits would require a repackaging for 3.0, but this is a weak argument as the new boxes have to be printed anyway. What will follow is unclear. GW most likely won't follow a pattern of Allegiance after Allegiance, so assuming Order/Destruction afterwards is a very weak guess. Maybe GW will step up the release pace like we saw it in 2.0. If we interpreted @Whitefang correctly there may be a new double faction box which maybe is tied to new battletomes (like with Skaven & FEC, Ogors & OBR althrough I am not sure if Sylvaneth & GSG match the pattern).

Some more details spotted. Bottom part is the most interesting one: The cut of is artificial and cuts over the painted highlights. I assume that there will be either another part of the model or a part of an scenic base, which would mean that this is no floaty boaty. Also, the triskele seems oddly familiar. Wasn't this exact motif used on some models already? I mean, I know it is quite a common motif but still.

This or an Boat. When you look between the ribs you can clearly see some wood texture/wooden planks. In the upper right corner is a pease that looks like metal.

Thanks for explaining! Although I have to say that this doesn't convince me. The oldest book never meant much to GW, in fact we have seen with Slaanesh and LRL that GW has no problems with providing new books to factions regardless of older publications. As for the AoS App I would assume it is rather just an issue with the App rather than a secret hint. Althrough I would be glad for Maggotkin players if it came true.

What is the source on Maggotkin? Didn't hear any rumours on that and I'd be curious.

Nah, GW is just balancing SCE by not releasing the most broken units. It's all for the matter of a good game experience

Had just a nice Game with Khorne vs Orruks (Big Waagh). The game was a lot of fun and we used it to talk about some of the newer GW rule design patterns. While it ended in a crushing victory for the green-skins I still had some cool moments. Either Invocations/Judgements are really rock solid now as they do no longer disappear on their own, or we still didn't get the rules right for them. At current understanding they stay until another player dispels them with a priest or until they disappear through a rule on their Warscroll. Especially the Hexgorger Skulls are solid this way as they remain a reliable -2 to cast. I already look forward for GW to rewrite our tome. There is so much potential with the new design approach. I hope for Wrathmongers and Skullreapers as Conditional Battleline, which looking at Palladin Battleline isn't that much to be desired. Also currently most Suballigiences just feel like useless jank you take for this one or another ability. Give us a bit of the Stormcast Treatment and we are fine. I am especially happy to see the bloat of artifacts and traits to be gone. No longer reading through 18 Artifacts which all suck somehow to take Gorecleaver anyway. 3 Weapons, 3 Trinkets and 3 Armour options and here we go. It would be nice for 3.0 to address minor hero options in some way. All those melee heroes in different factions see little to no play, even if there are some options around. Some sort of detachment that extends the amount of hero slots for heroes with less than 6 wounds would work great, although I think that those also really need very aggressive points costs to see more exalted deathbringers, anvil swinging guys and so on around. Or the possibility to attach a hero to a squad maybe? I mean, having a Herald of Khorne as an upgrade to a Bloodletter unit sounds valid. I hope the differentiation between Mortals and Deamons get softened up. Currently it is really sad to have to decide as no allegiance offers good support for a mixed army. SCE have more cross-interaction with COS than we have within our faction between Mortals and Deamons We desperately need some new stuff. And some more Lore. Some pitches: Valkyries. A unit similar to Khinerai but in heavy plate armor that is basically a unit of Valkias. Alternate build option with a Bow so we finally have a good shooty unit. Revamp Valkia. She is the most flavorfull character in the faction and basically hand picked deamon prince. Please make her slightly bigger and give her a plastic kit. Lorewise she could start some sort of hunt for new trophies which would throw Khorne back into the active story. Or make Khorne mimic and mock the Dawnbringer Crusades in an attempt of gaining more ground. Khorgoraths. Sell them in Units of 1-2, provide the Kit with an alternative build option as...dunno. Blood Spewer? Or heavy armoured hulklike abdomination? Non-nudist-Bloodletters. We know Demons no longer disappear after battle but start up to become more and more autonomous. Having a Skullreaper counterpart for Bloodletters would be awesome. Some crude demonic armor, bigger Hellblades and here we are! Btw would this allow rulewise a distinction similar to coalesced and starborne Seraphon, or Stormkeeps and Scions of the Storm. Having either Veterans who are all about survival and hard hitting, or mindless hordes that throw themself at the opponent like a reckless tide of gore. The new design for 3.0 books allows also way faster and easier homebrewing.

Insensate Rage. D6 Damage and if you get the Axe Ability to proc at a higher bracket you really do some havoc. Wrath of Khorne seems play, too. It has some solid anti magic and the flail can be fun at max wounds dealing 6 dmg

Well, S2D is about all the different clans and peoples falling to chaos. The main connection between their lore and gameplay is not in the heavy chaoswarriors of old WHFB times but more in the fact that you have a lot of variation between units, suballigiences and buffs. S2D can be an elitist hort of Varanguard with Archaon at it's helm, but it can be also the Deamonprince-Monster-Army of Despoilers, a Cabalite Coven or just loads of Fanatics or Marauders. But yes, it is a shame that Chaos Warriors and Knights, who are the most recognized Chaos Units, are luckluster compared to other factions and also have no subfaction on their own, making lore and gameplay feel contradicting. Khorne is in a similar spot: Lore is all about reckless combat which is the one thing you really can not afford the way the book is written.

If it was the german underground it would explain why they are 3 editions late...

I couldn't help but to jump into SCE with the new tome and Dominion. Current goal for 2k is to play the Dominion content + new Knight Judicator + 6 Longstrikes. I really like to have a shooty options available and also dominion looks like a good start. I wonder a bit about the community not talking the Vigilors. Despite the models I think they look like a fine option providing a nice +1 to hit buff and have a solid profile in ranged and meele. Only downside I see is the lack of the redeemer keyword and the taxing high point cost for ranged units. Also, what are the toughts on Vanquishers? With the musician and a load of attacks I imagine them as nice blender against durable horde units.

Ok boy, now you have me triggered! So, considering armies that can be build at a lower budget we should maybe have a first glance at thoose who bring a SC! box: Seraphon have access to SC! Skins and SC! Seraphon. Both are valid, bring together around 900-1000 points with some valid units but also some that are more meh (Warriors and Knights). Solid for the price point Gloomspite bring some Trogs and Squigs. Well, not the powerpicks but if you play GSG for power you are doing it wrong anyway. Comes at 380pts for a SC! Price. Considering GSG need tons of models and have rather pricey kits I suggest we stop talking about thoose lovely fun and great models at this point Daughters of Khaine...well, hard to say. The boy brings whopping 720pts when build the recommended way, but it does so with only 1 battleline. You still could go 3 SC! Boxes and play 3x5 sneks withs 3 Shrines and some support heroes but this would be really mediocre and you want to play Morathi anyway which brings you +100€. DoK are and will remain one of the more expensive forces. S2D: Great box, neat start as it brings 2 Battlelines and a hero. You can easily expand from here and even consider a second box. If you want to go for the meta you propably will have some Varanguards and Archaon in the shopping cart which kills the "Cheap and solid army" deal. Upside is that Deamon Princes can be converted from anything which makes them cheap for a spammy despoilers list. Hedonites: Many different and new kits, also only deamons in the SC! Box. This puts them in a rather higher entry cost, especially as you can count a great deamon in for sure as it is just an awesome sculpt, rising costs again. Meanwhile you can start Slaanesh for cheap considering 2nd market (I've seen really a lot of Slaanesh models offered there the last years, although this is very anechdotial) Beastclaws: Great SC! Box with whooping 650-750 for a single box. Getting 2-3 will give you a 2000pts army which is ok to play casually but will become lackluster in meta games as mournfangs are...well, the name fits their position in the meta. At least with AOA they became better in 3.0. I highly recommend to build the rather unfavored Husskard on Stonehorn as his buff for Mournfangs makes sense when you are about to play 8-12 of them Flesheater: Beside BCR they are the other great "Just buy 2-3 SC! Boxes Dude" army. which is mainly due to their lackluster pool of units. You can build almost each.possible.model.the.army.has.access.to. Yes it is depressing but who cares when you have 3 giant bats that will eat the face off your opponents face Turn 1? Skaven: Well, Similar to GSG you will end up in an army focused around horde, with many different options that you will desire to play on the long term. At least heir great Deamon units are not so obligator as the 4 gods ones. SC! brings you solid 575 pts points of clan pestilence or 705 points when you go for the warp cannon and the bell. So theoretically you could start an Pestilence army with 1375 pts for 2 SC boxes which isn't so far away from BCR Kharadron: The SCE was trash until the Battletome update which made it ok. I cannot say much about it as I am not into Dwarfs SC! Greywater Fastness: I SAID I AM NOT INTO DWARFS! SC! Fyreslayers: GOD DAMMIT! SC! Sylvaneth: Well, the boy is okay but nothing to buy too often, although big trees are okay and bushes are nice for summoning. Still I have heard about a load of people really enjoying the Sylvaneth as modeling project because of their beautiful models Khorne Bloodbound: Well, it contains most of Khornes good buff heroes and some chaff reavers. Keep in mind you can't use 5 Bloodwarriors for matched play any longer but I can only recommend to use them with the bits of a Wrathmonger kit to build some Skullreapers for cheap. Considering how depressing it is to play Khorne right now I do not recommend to start the army right now. If masochism is your king feel free to visit the Slaanesh Thread....aehm I meant Khorne Thread! SC Stormcast was once with the Khorne part the AoS 1.0 Starterset. It comes at solid 675 points including Vandus Hammerhang who you can easily use as Celestial Lord on Dracoth. And this prior to the Battletome which will rise the points further up. The box also includes a awkward unit of understrength 3 retributors I didn't sum into the point value of the box. It is a solid start for a Redeemer/Palladin list but consider that you could just but more draconis knights instead. Khorne Deamon SC is nothing to write home about. 2/3s are dead picks and the remaining 1/3 are bloodletters who are not really a lovechild of the Khorne battletome. If you want to play Deamons you have to buy into 1-3 or more Bloodthirsters which are about 100€ for ~300pts. So no price for value here. But as Khorne does not mind where the blood comes from you could also play another army. He will be ok! IDK: Well, the Box is really okay but to be honest you could buy 2 boxes of Eels for the same price tag and Eels will be propably the thing you want to play anyway. Nurgle: I like this one actually. Both, Mortals and Deamons, look like solid picks. Of course you have the urge to get a Great Deamon to buff your little fellas but it is an awesome centerpiece and opposing to khorne you do not have to spam them. The Rotbringers Kits are great, have a lot of details and can be painted quite nice even by beginners. Beasts of Chaos: While the army is not really high power it has many fans due to the Warhammer Fantasy feel. The SC! is a solid deal with ~450 pts and can be bought 2-3 times without many issues. SC! Ironjaws: Well, the main selling point for the box is that it is cheaper than buying the pigs on their own. SC! Anvilgard: Beside the Hydra Kit the Box is rather a dead pick. The Pirates do not see many play in Cities beside some fun narrative play or in combination with Anvilgards/HarKurons AcidSpray Spell. It brings you very few points and I really see many players want to replace thoose models in their lists fast. I cannot find the Tzeentch Box on GW's store but I imagine it could be a solid starting point as well. Well, beside the BCR and FEC SC! Box there are not really Armies that can be built from the box only. The general advice is to hop in if you find a faction you like to be included in one of the two-army deals. Also GW's Christmas Boxes are always a good deal and worth checking out, although they are limited. For other armies than can be build fast/with few kits I can recommend checking out Phoenix Temple in CoS (3 Phoenixes and 3 Units of Phoenix Guard should be a solid core) and also a Vampire-Centric SBGL List.

I belive that currently there is no better deal money-to-points-wise than the SCE part of Dominion. Even when you pay the full price for it it is whooping 1400 pts for ~150€ including a full rulebook and some Orruks you can sell off or use as basing material. We talk about solid 1400 points, not dead picks.

You perfectly describe the main issues of S2D right now: Issues with internal balance and some discrepancy between lore and warscrolls. S2D can be competetive minded but this mostly due to Archaon beeing a big god model, Belakor beeing a good controll piece and the ammount of buffs we have. For some weird reasons Marauders were also the most hitting unit ever. Meanwhile the other units are lackluster, especially when compared to other factions. Due to this the overall haptic of the book suffers. It feels like each choice in listbuilding could be a potential trap. There is little to no incent to try new units outside of thoose which are working fine. Having marauders hit harder than warriors feel unintuitive and bad as well. Also the buffs feel sometime like a minefield of potential traps: Some units are not affected by some buffs because they lack this or that keyword, in other cases potential synnergies turn into downsides. Also during listbuilding our hosts are quite limiting. But I really look forward to the 3.0 tome because the SCE and Cruleboyz one already showed that gw is about fixing thoose weird restrictions.

Streamlining old overdesigned units is actually fine as long as there is some balance to the new stuff. Actually the internal balance of the book would be ok if Dragons wouldn't be so damn cheap. You could get 3 Longstrikes or for 50 pts more 2 dragons. You could get a big dragon but you could also get 4 small ones in a unit that could rally, could be used for move+shoot in the hero phase before moving and shooting again with some CA's. Thoose are hard hitters who are durable, fast, resistant to magic, can autoslay models surpassing their durability, have bonus actions and if you ask them nicely they will do your tax refund for you. As yourself: Would you play that unit of 2 if it was 100pts more expensive? Yes, most people still would. Edit: With 2.0 and Sancrosanct Sequitors and Evocators were also just strictly better picks. This is something normal for gw. But actually from the new units I feel like people ignore most new stuff beside the Dragon Knights and Vindictors. The new Sword Guys and new Bow guys see little to no mention anywhere, the new Knight Judicator seems also not viable beside beeing a solid ranged unit.

I just noticed that 2 of 3 SCE Start Collecting Boxes are gone. Also I wonder a bit why hunters are Angelos and not Redeemer as they fill the "Basic troop" trope for Vanguard Chambers.

Yeah I got confused with the SCE Thread, please don't mind that

Seeing the new Battletomes for SCE and Orruks I belive that we propably will see a major overhaul of alligience abilities and bloodtithe going away

From my first impression the book is nice. I really like the option to choose either Stormkeep or Scions of the Storm. Basically it is a new Alligience Ability to pick from. I like also that we have less Enchancements compared to 2.0 book. They removed all the cloggy useless stuff noone picked anyway. As for Warscrolls: I agree on many heroes beeing pointess picks due to internal balance suffering too many choices. Still I see them played outside of competetive minded groups. In general it feels like most Warscrolls bring something usefull or even unique. I like how versatile the army is and how mixed it can be played. I think I will go for some sort of shooty list with the new bow guys (markerlights), some longstrikes and maybe Paladors.

But I could imagine squeezing customers with more draconic design works well, too. I am quite sure there are some experienced economists/management guys at GW who know how to alter between free candy and some greedy choices so the community remains interested enough into buying the product while increasing margins. Until there is no competition big enough they have nothing to be afraid of. And in worst case, they still can buy up their competitors.