Nasrod

I think part of the reason this book has a lot of negativity is that complaints from the previous book weren't acknowledged. Look at how improved Hedonites is while maintaining the idea of the warscrolls; even if it ends up being a weak book, the models do what they feel like they should do. Skeletons, Zombies, and Dire Wolves all now play radically different roles. And the idea that Zombies having a 6" pile in was too strong becomes really frustrating when it's stapled on to another unit in the book. Vyrkos Dynasty is nothing at all what it used to be; so many things were given completely new identities, for seemingly no reason, while the Vampire Heroes were ignored. Change is cool, but this amount of change for what is a technical horde army is going to frustrate many players and hobbiests alike.

How is no one talking about Torgilius? He casts, he has an 18" range missile attack, and for no command points extends a 5+ ward to summonables. Sure, wholly within 12 is tough, but 135 points for this guy is ludicrous.

I return to these forums after a long hiatus. The board's rules about negativity while posting made it so that I would legitimately be banned if I had stayed. You can call that petulant childishness, but the disappointment and frustration I felt from our last book was unreal. The new book has my brain burning. I was sick all week so no chances to play, but I plan on attempting a game this Thursday. ---- Pretenders - Battle Regiment (2 drops) The Masque - 140 Glutos - 480 [General, Phantasmagoria] Shardspeaker - 125 [Tome, Born of Damnation] Daemonettes x 20 - 250 [Reinforced x 1] Blissbarb Archers x 11 - 150 Blissbarb Archers x 11 - 150 Myrmidesh Painbringers x 10 - 290 [Reinforced x 1] Slickblade Seekers x 5 - 200 Blissbarb Archers x 5 - 200 [Outside of Battle Regiment] ----- The plan here is the most obvious one in the book. Rush depravity using The Masque, Sharsapeaker with Tome and Born of Damnation; the reduction of attacks spell is really juicy here as we hit 12 depravity along with Gluttos, and making sure we get a spell for the ward+4 is great. And since our Shardspeaker isn't our General, the Claws unlocked on cast make it a great back up option for Euphoric+Gorge on Excess. Painbringers and Gluttos form your anvil, with Blissbarb Seekers and Archers harassing from behind. Phantasmagoria goes on enemies to give our Euphoric Killers selections of Slickblade Seekers or 20 Daemonettes the freedom to charge the closest thing trying to interfere with our center and fall back with no opportunity to get clapped back. The opponent then has to choose between allocating shooting or a charge to the stranded unit to put it down, or ignore it and try to break the Painbringers and Glutos. By turn 2, Glutos unlocks his advance and charge, allowing him to likely dig in against something if the 6 wound heal isn't going to save him. This list is sacrificing a lot of our risky but powerful gimmicks and as such, it almost certainly can be improved. But until I have some games under my belt, Glutos will be my Pretender general.

Few model releases, slow Battletome rollouts, slower changes made in response to dominant meta armies... the entire group moved to 40k in my community and even with me actively painting my Daughters of Khaine at the shop and getting compliments, there's just no interest anymore. I personally love a lot of what the Gallatian Veterans changes did for the game, too. Every game I convince people to play, it's much closer and they seem far more engaged than in the beginning of 3rd when people were jamming heroes with 5+ ward and Heroic Recovery into an endless tarpit.

Practice game tonight. Drycha Lady Durthu - Crown, Ethereal trait Dryads x 10 Revenants x 5 Bownothi x 3 Scythenothi x 3 Gossamids x 5 Not a fan of the Bownothi. Tried them because I love the way they look, but they accomplished nothing; thankfully opponent allowed me to build their torsos and leave arms+heads off to see what I think. Will be building another 3 Scythes for sure. Rest of the list is pretty fun. Not WAAC, but pretty spikey and unforgiving to opponent due to the Unleash Hell Mortal Wound threats.

I definitely like the look of Scythes more, but msu Greatswords with casters that can heal and revive seem better to pad out the battleline requirements and encourage the enemy to over commit. All the units in the book are really expensive, so the idea of running 6 Kurnoth reinforced is becoming less appealing to me when that is 25% of the army.

Ran a 2100 point game (I miscalced by glancing at a table and later finding out I was at 2070 points; opponent went to 2100 as well, was all good). List was Drycha, Lady, Ancient, Durthu, 10 Dryads, 3 Scythes, 5 Revenants, 5 Gossamid Archers. Vs 10 Judicators, Chariot, 10 Vindictors, Knight Jud, pack of Griff Hounds for chaffe, 3 Annihilators, the + to charge out of deep strike hero, Praetors, and 10 Sword Guys (Think there was something else, but forgetting it due to info overload) Long story short, the entire army castle up, survived the Annihilator deep strike + Jud shots turn one onto my Kurnoth Hunters by exactly 1 wound. Drycha unleashed hell into the Annihilators when they charged and then piled in to them to finish them off. Proceeded to heal the Kurnoth by 1, resolve the healing spell to return 3 wounds, then resolved the return a model spell to bring back hunter 2. The Gossamids flew up the right flank to mulch a flanking Chariot and Griff Hound pack along with Drycha, Durthu, and Ancient all plodding along. Lady of Vines cast her 5+ ward and advanced to keep up with the group. Turn 2 went to SCE, he made a desperate bid to kill the Kurnoth Hunters and another one died with 2 wounds allocated to the champion. Heal from terrain, heal spell for 1, res a 2nd Kurnoth. Lady failed her 5+ ward. Archers and Revs moved along the far right flank to begin harassing Vindictors on the home objective while I castled up on mid and opponent conceded. Was by no means a competitive list but the book feels absurdly good, in that all the warscrolls are usable. Enjoy your book tree bros, because it is fantastic imo.

Because they are now a 4+ base save. All out defense putting them to 3+ is pretty crazy, considering they can teleport onto any objective and be sticky as all get out to enemy ranged, and the opponent has to get through an unleash hell to charge them. I'm optimistic for them.

I strongly disagree with the Goonhammer breakdown. They seem to have completely missed the change to Blood Sisters' "Turned to Crystal," implying it still triggers at the end of the combat phase. That is the case for the heroes still, so maybe they assumed it was the same due to being the same ability name. Throwing weight behind Elves and dismissing the snakes with a single "Eh probably bad" comment in a world where they acknowledge Zainthar as a strong faction is also weird to me.

Vyperic Guard* (Extra enhancement) Morathi* Ironscale* (Crown of Woe; Prevents Inspiring Presence in a 9" bubble around her; if she slays any model the bubble grows to 15" permanently) Hag Queen (Khainite Pendant; 1/game guaranteed prayer, Trait: Zealous Orator, allows Rally commands from this General to succeed on 4+ instead of 6+, absolutely insane; prayer Sacrament of Blood, add 1 to the Blood Rites table, stacks with her sippy cup ability) Blood Stalkers x 15* Blood Sisters x 5* Blood Sisters x 5* Khinerai Heartrender x 5 Khinerai Heartrender x 5 Heart of Fury 1950/2000 I lied. Too excited to sleep, lol. Morathi + 15 Bow snakes is obnoxious but good for a reason. With the new Rally 4+ trait it is going to become far more obnoxious... The Hag Queen artifact guarantees your Heart of Fury goes out, or guarantees the Sacrament of Blood goes out. On turn 2 this means she is buffing something of her choice to be on Blood Rites 4, gaining the bonus to hit and wound. There is a tactic that involves having 2 Khinerai units make their bonus move in the same turn. 180 points to guarantee an on demand tactic score on turn 2 or 3 is fantastic. The fact they fly and move 14" afterwards to harass objectives is just straight bonus. The heroes have some absurd traits and artifacts that provide fantastic support to the army. The 5 man Blood Sister units can become 6 attacks each hitting on 2s wounding on 2s rending 2 damage 2 with the ability to advance and charge if the Melusai has killed a model; if you roll a 6 on Heart of Fury, which is admittedly magical Christmas land, they become 7 attacks. If you took the Ironscale exclusive artifact, once per game it can be popped for another attack bonus to become 8 attacks each. And after they fight, you average 5 mortal wounds if the target is still alive thanks to Turn to Crystal. This isn't practical by any means, but the sheer fact you can threaten this with a 140 point unit that moves 8 and advances and charges...then fights again even if something survives and fights back? This is going to be a ton of fun. EDIT Shadowstalkers are a base 4+ save now and battleline in Khailebron. Cauldron making these a 3+armor save/6+ ward that teleports in place of movement? No way this won't make waves.

Stormcast are allies again. The lore has an explanation which I will not spoil. Heart of Fury is now roll a D6; 1 through 5, you minus 1 for incoming damage wholly within 12. On a 6, it also adds an extra attack to your units and fades away at end of turn. The Vyper Endless spell has a cool gimmick that lets it Stomp or Destroy Terrain, as does the Avatar of Khaine, but they are explicitly not monsters for the purpose of categorization. That is all from me as I have to sleep; by and large the book is very very similar to the old book. But the new stuff we got is silly.

They don't, I imagine; Crystal Touch says when the unit makes its first attack. The Zainthar Kai ability is "Slain models may fight when they are removed." Since Crystal touch specifies "when the unit fights", I would say that is not eligible to be the same as "slain models." That said, Touch triggering at end of attacks again instead of at the end of the combat phase is huge.

I don't know if this is common knowledge, but while most Temples are the same, Zainthar Kai says "Each time a model in a friendly Zainthar Kai Melusai unit is slain, that model can fight before it is removed from play." This being an always on static effect that does not have the stipulation of "Choose a unit that has not already fought" seems absolutely mental to me. Turned to Crystal also got a huge glow up: "After this unit has fought for the first time in a phase and all its attacks have been resolved, you can pick 1 enemy unit within 3" of this unit. Roll 1 dice for each model in this unit. For each 2+, that enemy unit suffers 1 mortal wound." At 140 points and battle line in Zainthar... I have no complaints from this book. It took 4 years but we can finally run Morathi as General with Battleline Melusai!

...huh? Sororitas Bloody Rose, Daemon Monster Mash (Keepers), Eradicator Marine Spam, Necron Silver Tide, and Harlequins were the early boogie men of 9E. In no way were Orks bad but I don't recall them being labeled trash only to present some dominant force on the scene. Goonhammer does have problems but I don't recall this being the case at all. Certainly not for years. Played a casual game at 1k against a newer player. List was Synessa + Syll'esske Blissbarb Archers + Hellstriders Blissbarb Seekers vs Eidolon + Akhelian King 3 Morsarr + 10 Thralls Allopex Went 2nd. Positioned carefully so that he would need massive charge and advance rolls in turn 2 if double failed. I did get the double. Moced forward and Pavane + the Blissbarbs murdered the Eidolon. Opponent felt really dejected by this but I assured him to keep playing. He doubled in response and tore through the entire army minus Syll'esske. Killed the Thralls and 1 Eel in the fight back but infamous turn 3 double for Idoneth was my doom. Closest thing to fun I have had. If I had the chance to take a turn I cold have retreated and screened out Synessa with Daemonettes. But due to the gargantuan threat range of his run and charge on turn 2, I wasn't able to even attempt to play the objective. Idoneth feels like a really powerful match up as they are faster than us thanks to flight letting them take shortcuts. 1000 is also agonizing as we don't have any hope of taking something like Gluttos, Keeper, or Bel'akor to help anchor us early game. Casual 1000 point game so I shouldn't be sweaty. Opponent had a lot of fun and learned a lesson about playing "on the backfoot," lol... Edit: Gluttos and Blissbarb Archers are overcosted. That doesn't mean they need a drastic change. They are still mandatory inclusions because they offer invaluable unique options for our army. 15 points off Gluttos and 10 off Blissbarbs would put them into a healthy catgegory. Same as the Exalted Seekers that need a 5 or 10 point reduction, same as Twinsouls and Painbringers that need 5 point reductions. The fact that Keepers, Shalaxi, Daemonettes, Fiends, Contorted Epitome (I'll die on this hill; beinf nearly the cost of Sigvald is appalling) and Slangors are so grossly overcosted that people are recoiling at the idea of "I get some use out of these units, why would we nerf their points?" Is genuinely a fantastic example of how sadly warped and overskewed our points costs are. That said, thanks Enoby for the work of cataloging all the data.

All Heroic and Monstrous abilities should have the "Their Finest Hour" clause. Heroic Recovery slogfests ruin lower point games and warp 2000 point meta lists. I don't have a lot of other complaints for the edition because I feel like I need more experience, but this one seems real obvious.