dekay

It seems like a distinction between wanderers and kurnothi continues to blur (after a mention of hooves happening among wanderers and being seen as a blessing, in Beastgrave). That might be a good sign.

Words can't properly convey how great it would be as a new Destruction faction.

Depends if they mean new as in 'you've never seen them before' or new as in 'they weren't in the previous battletome.' If it's the second case, than the lord of pain and dread pageant bump it up to 11.

The thing I would want to see the most, honestly, is reducing the scale of the game. Just make every single unit more expensive, just like the 9th edition of 40k did. Or even more. There's a limit how much you can reduce the cost of units before the game stops working, and I worry we're reaching this point, and given that tweaking costs is the balancing mechanism AoS seems to be going with, periodic increase of the costs is necessary. We're slowly running out of non-horde factions as it is, and a reset is in order. And there's A LOT of space for the cost increase while the game remains reasonable size. Fun fact, Chaos Knights, that are now 160 per 5 used to cost 80 per 1 (and they were a single wound unit back then) in 5th edition WFB and no one claimed it was a skirmish game.

Don't disrespect Jagathra. She only has a pointy stick, but she's also the kind of a person who goes to the fight equipped only with a pointy stick. Jagathra's got this. It's the warrior that should be afraid.

As could have been expected, some are bad, some are not really useful, some are good and some are literal godsend ; ) Wyldwood for instance might best thing to happen to painting since Devlan Mud - all those annoying pouches, hilts, straps and so on that are the only leather object on the entire model and you never had a patience to paint them properly (or shoes that will be only half visible through the grass)? Done in one stroke. Apothecary white might be the first quick way of painting white that actually works (you'll need to dilute it a bit, otherwise it can look a bit too grey). The black works marvels on textured surfaces and with a bit more of a careful application, on the smooth ones as well. I've personally noticed that if you pint the important colors reasonably well, the base can be just done with contrasts and it will look absolutely fine. ^ For instance, if you look at my not-gyrocopters, the birds themselves are basically apothecary white and wyldwood on a white base (and a bit of blue glaze near the lightning effects) However, anyone who had a bright idea to promote contrast yellow as an alternative to gold deserves some sort of punishment, because it looks ugly as hell and should never be done.

Various human military units pop up in the novels (mostly in the background) all the time if there's ever a city involved. Plus, there are many humans depicted in art, even in the core rulebook. Soulbound RPG is also a fine source of both art and description for various human. So, maybe, to wish for a single unit, I would pay money for a proper cavalry unit of these guys: (i know it's an easy conversion, that's not the point! :D)

Basically any of the Order aligned human units that pop up in the lore. Be it beetle-riders, alarielle worshiping nature knights, repeater crossbow skull-helmet infantry, dudes with armor made from spider silk, any of the wizard-like types from the rulebook illustrations in the realm descriptions... We have seen literally 2 non chaos humans designed specifically for AoS by now (a warpriest and the new vampire hunter) and both could easily find their place in the Old World. I'd like to see any of the wirdness that's often described.

Honestly, if they removed racial keywords (they do nothing except when unlocking flagellants and irondrakes as battleline) and mentioned in the fluff that many local variants of the units exist, while making some scrolls more generic, and not making it so subfaction dependant, they could've given discontinued units a solid place, while removing some of the army list bloat. I can easily imagine the flavour being added via battalions instead. Say, 'Phoenix Guard' battalion: Phoenix hero, 2-4 halberd-elite elves. Everyone gets 4+ ignore wounds (that would be one expensive battalion though :D) Sorceress + 2-4 halberd-elite-elves? They can be blood sacrificed and she can make them run and charge. And so on. Would be a fun experiment to redesign CoS that way.

True, forgot about that. Than, yeah, would be nice to see the option of fielding them together. I wouldn't be so sure. It might have been purely, 'logistics' issue. CoS has a lot of warscrolls. More than any other army, stormcast included (especially considering they can use stormcast units) and I think the designer explicitly said he was forced to cut a lot of options, more than he wanted to, due to army list's size. High and Dark elf units are, and always were, basicaly duplicates in most cases so sadly, this looks like an obvious place to remove things. So yeah, many old things were kept, but here it seems like something must have been removed. And out of the two, HE were safer to delete. Sadly.

Is there any real link between Lumineth and Phoenicium that doesn't involve the Old World, though? Even the Phoenix Temple are now azyrite aelves who worship the Ur-Phoenix, no real link to Teclis-created Hysh people. I do agree that leaving old High Elf line in CoS would be more lore-neutral. Covens are a pretty specific thing and not always make sense fluffwise in the city armies. I honestly think that the main reason Dark Elves won the position of City-Aelf line was the fact that they had up to date basic infantry. Both HE spearmen and archers were old and ugly, while seaguard, while much better looking, existed only in easy to build variant and there was no command models availible outside shared sprues of Dawnspire. Similar thing with cavalry - Dark Riders basicaly *had* to be kept, as the other half of 'modern' AoS kit. Dragon Princes were pretty, yes, but so were the Cold Ones, and the Dark Riders compete with (again) shared sprue reavers or ancient and ugly silver helms. I'm assuming they kept as many warscrolls as they possibly could/were allowed to (and, with things like skycutters explicitly mentioned in the lore, I assume some reductions were done pretty much last minute) and I'm honestly not sure if it could have been done better (without completele restructuring the faction, that is )

This is not unlikely, that's how Genestealer Cult update began in 40k few years back. And If I recall correctly, Silver tower was a first outing of both tzaangors and kairic acolytes.

Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.

This is correct, they're so bad I literally forgot they exist :D. So, yeah, bats as well. They're not a terrible *model* but without context, no one would guess they're supposed to be wolves and not some random zombie-construct-monsters. A bit fresher looking update would be nice.

Out of all the old undead range, zombies, dire wolves and blood knights are probably the only units that really need the update. Everything else still looks great.

Soulblight Gravelords are a cool name and I'm glad that apparently blood dragon aesthetic is here to stay. The name suggests that skeletons and zombies might be rolled in to the faction as well. Wouldn't complain (and I probably decided on my next army project :D).

Shame we were not making bets, I don't think *anyone* was expecting kangaroos...

Lore seems to describe cogforts as being in all shapes and sizes, so the idea of a smaller one would work perfectly here i think. Something on a level of KO Ironclad with no flying, half the speed and capable of transporting all CoS infantry. Basically a perfect centerpiece unit for the faction.

Most Necromunda kits seem to be made with the old level of customisation AND current level of quality. Some great design work on those (Delaque seem a bit more restrictive, but that's mostly a matter of pretty static poses, they're still very much customisable). They shine especially when compared to the newer, similar in design and much more restrictive Banshees - despite similar poses and needing less options than Harlequins, they're basically on Namarti level of poseability. Plus, they jump off rocks. ; ) Another very flexible and dynamic unit with lots of options (while both jumping off the rocks and not looking stupid doing so) are the Drukhari Scourges. Similar era as Harlequins. Good times.

That might be a part of the problem maybe? SM Commander box + combat squad gave you 6 characters for the price of 2 if you weren't picky about their loadouts (and WFB was always less strict on WYSIWYG on characters)

There are photos of this sprue floating around the internet, so it certainly existed at some point. There were rumours of the steel mould breaking, and deemed not to be financially viable to remake. Edit: Found it!

Interesting concept, honestly. Use the extra speed to make sure you're in range of whatever you want, make sure you include gunhaulers as, arguably, better artillery units than native CoS guns... An interesting concept. Might work. You can make your helstorms 2+ (re-roll 1's) / 2+ no problem. Just bear in mind that handgunners are, point for point, much more effective when it comes to damage dealt. The advantage you have is range, so you must capitalise on that to make it worthwhile. Without gunhaulers you're likely better off with Greywater, but it's still worth trying out.

Serious question: Where does this 'pirate vampires' rumour originate? Is there anything more to this than 'they were popular in Total War', "There was a rumour engine with a gun, that, in retrospect, probably belonged to the vampire *hunter* from preview" and 'We saw a boat in rumour engine once but it turned out to be a Gargant"? Because apart from that we've mostly seen weapons pretty much the same as the current vampire aestethic and the not particularly pirate-like vampire silhouette from Underworlds. And possibly some rat/crow critters, a fell bat fragment and a werewolf-ish leg. Is the rest just wishful thinking or was there something I might have missed?

Limiting it to 'basic' endless spells only (ones that any WIZARD can cast) would make it much easier to balance it. Because now, spell in a bottle is one of those bad rules that grow more powerful any time any faction gets an update. It's basically impossible to balance it, because since KO battletome came out, every single faction locked endless spell should have been balanced taking KO using it into account. And that's impossible to do well, really. If it was locked to basic spells only, the problem is gone. They're (in theory) designed with multiple factions in mind, KO don't make that much of a difference. What's the strongest thing they could've used now if we're limiting ourselves to malign sorcery and forbidden power only?

I, personally, look at the Phoenicium's problem from a slightly different perspective. Yeah, the theme is not as well defined as some of the other cities (but the same can be said about Tempest's Eye - with Swifthawks gone, they lost a bit of their flavour as well), but it's there. Phoenicium stands for death and rebirth, and their rules don't do a bad job of reflecting that. Phoenix theme is there, bonuses for dead units (a bit similar to the Ynnari in 40k) work fine with that, it's all cool. Phoenix, a living symbol of rebirth, and actual avatar of the city's god(beast) (don't let the 'of Sigmar' fool you, it's the city of Ur-Phoenix ;)) accompanied by its chosen that don't die because it's not their time yet, surrounded by the adoring mob throwing their lives away for them - this is all cool to the point of me getting ideas for the next army project. The problem lies, entirely, withing the quality of the rules. Let's talk about the rules: First,: Blood of the Phoenix is good. No drawback. Your birds are better. Solid. Vengeful Revenants: +1 to hit and wound if any of your units had been destroyed in the same phase. So basically, this is an MSU faction using a lot of sacrificial units. Because as far as your combat buffs go, this is it. Nothing in the artifacts, spells or command traits will buff your units combat ability. You NEED your troops to die if you want to match what other cities offer. Also, if you want it to trigger on your turn, you need methods of killing your own dudes. This is not impossible, but requires a lot of forward planning with endless spells and luminarks. Command ability (Living Idol): whatever dies around your phoenix hero can fight one more time. A good rule, honestly. Skaven have a less reliable version and it's said to be good. Again, you need a phoenix temple hero for this, reinforcing the theme. However, you need your troops to die for it to work. Again. Combos with Vengeful Revenants, sort of. Whatever died to trigger Revenants can be made to attack again. So far, so good. I mean, rules requiring your models to die are, well, controversial, because regardless of how well it goes, if they trigger, it means that enemy has killed something. But let's continue: Command traits. Seeker of Vengeance: More attacks for your hero if something died. Actually solid for this anointed you're using to trigger Living Idol. He's tanky enough to survive until he can attack. You will likely be taking this one, because, well... let's see: Aura of Serenity: units around your general don't take battleshock. It's not bad. In any other city, I'd cal it great. However, you want things to die. If your chaff unit gets a few losses from shoting and few more from the battleshock, they're guaranteed to die whenever they charge something. And you want that to happen. So, you need to be careful with aura, because sometimes it WILL work against you. Sometimes it won't. But compared to the previous trait, it requires you to process a lot of data to not make life harder for yourself. And finally, One with fire and ice: either your general can cast a spell, or knows the entre lore (if wizard). How to properly convey it... You won't bee needing this one. Likely ever. Because... Spells: Golden Mist: Good for healing your birds. This is the one your wizards will be taking. All of your wizards. I don't care that only one can attempt to cast it any given round, the rest will cast their warscroll spells instead. Because the rest of the lore is bad. Like, real bad. Amber Tide: This is Cage of Thorns from the Living City, but worse. It's Transmutation of Lead (that you CAN take!) but worse. Yeah it's easier to cast, but if you want your movement debuffs easy to cast, use Mistyfying Miasma instead. Phoenix Cries: This here might be the worst spell in the game, period. -1 bravery aura. That you need to succesfully cast, wasting a casting attempt. To put things into perspective, if you take a griffon, or dark riders, or kharybdiss, you get the same debuff for free, as a passive aura that can't be countered. There's not a single warscroll spell that is less useful than this. You won't be casting Phoenix Cries if you know what's good for you. So, yeah, we arrived to the other serious problem with phoenicium: they don't have a spell lore, they have a spell. The other two are just for decoration. Artifacts, then: Amber Armour: Make your phoenix tankier! Solid. Phoenix Pinion: Make your phoenix faster! Solid. Pyre Ashes: Make your phoenix tankier again! I'm genuinely not complaining. How-Ever! All three work only for the character you put them on. The city has zero support artifacts. As I said before: you need vengeful revenants to trigger, because this is ALL you're getting. +1 to hit and wound is solid, but your entire battleplan must rely on maximising its availibility. And, finally, Phoenix Flight battalion: Why not, honestly? Makes your birds even tankier, gives you extra command point that you need for the Living Idol, gives you another artifact to make them even better, And you ARE taking enough phoenixes to have it. I'd take it. So, conclusion time You have a city , rules wise, that requires you to use chaff units, use them well, and be really good at mindgames, forcing your opponent to make hard choices what to attack first - if something gets killed, you get buffs. If it gets killed in a right place, it will attack anyway. This is a tricky city, but compared to Tempest's Eye and Living City, with their movement and placement based trickyness, Phoenixium relies on activation order tricks. Which is kind of fun, but gives the control to your opponent. Unless you are REALLY good at creating choices without good outcomes, you can't count on things going optimally. And, as mentioned, you get ZERO support skills apart from that. No spell, artifact or command trait will make your dudes better at fighting. Honestly, it looks like a fun city to play, but, as far as strength goes, a ruleset operating solely on your opponents mistakes is just not reliable enough to be attractive.