GDD

In WHFB the dwarfs didn't use magic directly because of how volatile and dangerous it was(read: unreliable elf ******), but still studied it and "wielded" it through runes, which is basically what Fyreslayers do -with the addition of their religion to it as you said. There was also dwarf wizard in the earlier editions of WHFB, but those are retconned completely. I noticed something interesting in our new battletome though. It seems like there might have been something called "Aethermancers" in Chamon before the KO took to the skies! They don't specify whether these were men or dwarfs, but they speak of them in the same breath as they talk about the old dwarf empires.

What ho, Admiral! Might you cast us a spell? Ho ho ho ho, of course young Arkanaut! I CAST SKYCANNON

I don't like this idea just because it would be locking a whole new faction mechanic behind a terrain piece. Some factions sort of already do similar things, but I don't really like the "forced" terrain pieces in armies. Some of them are sweet looking, and some of them are just stupid imo. The board can end up being covered in things that don't look like they would be next to each-other. But yeah, I agree that it wouldn't hurt to let us participate more with magic or prayers. Probably not "magic", but you get what I mean.

I like the "runic invocation" type prayers you see on Fyreslayers and Dispossessed, but that narrative doesn't really work for KO. I wouldn't mind having some more abilities like the Navigator has -were he or the Khemist could cause some sort of "Aethermatic Reactions/Phenomena" though. The army already sort of plays on that idea with the aethergold-shares and the Navigators ability.

Even internally when reading the OBR tome I just did a full stop when reading Petrifex. It made me think that the team had a sit down to come up with cool themes for sub-factions, and then one of them "snuck" in his dream sub-faction that just HAD to have a universal 1+ save ability AND a rend ability because it made sooo much sense. I know that makes me a cynical ******, but in a book of great rules it's just clearly THE best one.

Yeah if I'm going Barak-Thryng this is definitely where my eyes go first. But it starts to get really expensive with deepstriking Hearthguard for non-local objectives when you also want to take boats, thunderers etc. I think a list with 30 Arkanauts for local objectives and 20 Vulkites for non-local ones might be a nice budget option to make this work. (I tried to make one but I ended up with 20 Arkanauts... Toys are expensive) This is 1980pts. HEROS Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit 220 General Alchemical Chain Runesmiter 120 SHIPS Frigate 250 Frigate 250 UNITS 10x Grundstock Thunderers 240 10x Grundstock Thunderers 240 3x Endrinriggers 100 3x Endrinriggers 100 20x Arkanauts 180 20x Vulkite Berzerkers 280

I've heard this so many times(not just in this thread) and I've yet to find a source on this. I don't know if this is something that's been echoed around so much everyone takes it for granted, but I'm suspecting this is a myth. If anyone has a source for it I'd love to read it. I remember reading about Nagash having avatars and "aspects" of himself all over the shop in the books, but that's not really concrete evidence that this is "definitely" what is happening on the table top. It could be a reasonable explanation for what is going on from a narrative sense, but let's not forget that Nagash has already "died" several times in the AoS lore and he just keeps rezzing himself -courtesy of being the god of (un)death. Same with Alarielle being reborn as different aspects of herself. I think another likely explanation is just that all our table top games aren't "canon" in the lore

Hey I rarely ever play with special characters myself, but I'll admit that I wanna see a Grungni model more than any other god. And besides Barak-Thryng is a thing.

When you compare the mortarchs and Morathi being demigods versus Alarielle and Nagash I think it makes a point of how the AoS gods are gods not because they are invincible in combat -but because of the things they have wrought OUTSIDE the battlefield. Every time one of the gods makes a move the whole setting changes to a degree. I think the fact that great heroes, monsters and demigods could kill them makes AoS feel more personal and grounded. The gods aren't outside the setting, they are a vital part of it. It gives AoS a parallel to norse and greek mythology which I really like personally.

By having a runesmiter in your army. Running any kind of hearthguard is amazing with one.

I completely agree. I mean it's a nice head, but the OG Endrinmaster looks much more grand. I also don't like his dangling legs. It sort of looks like he's kicking or trying to find something to stand on.

Goddammit, stop it you ******! You are actually making me regret ordering the aether war box. I like both of yours better than the official guy....

Huh, that's really interesting. A while back when the competitive AoS community compared win rates and meta they found out that KO was preforming much better in Japan compared to the rest of the world. My first thought upon hearing this was that there's was probably a translation error in the Japanese tome/FAQ that no one was noticing because the English proficiency rate over there is pretty low. This sort of lends credence to that thought.

Alchemical Chain - Malign Sorcery It's an artifact from Chamon

I honestly think I might prefer your conversion the the exclusive box hero. The pose is really good, instead of those dangling legs on the official guy. Are those shoulder arms 40k bitz? I might be approaching KO the wrong way, but my head is programmed to want objective holders in AoS More riggers is more fun though.

That was the whole plan if the opponent is scary enough, yes. You have no reason to set-up the Frigates anywhere but the board edge, but ofc there are opponents that can reach them -once you are in range of your shooting. Alternatively you could try to tank it out, heal , disengage and shoot. If you at some point get so low on wounds that you can't disengage you also have the footnote to do it once anyway.

This is almost exactly the list I wanted to play initially, but I feel like you really need arkanauts to grab and hold at least one objective? Unless you plan on flying the frigates together and unload 20 thunderers somewhere. I haven't played or even started KO yet though, so I bow to anyone's two cents and experience. This is what my list looks like now if anyone has some feedback to share. I think it looks like it could be fun? CUSTOM SKYPORT: Settle The Grudges(Deploy Frigates, kill scary thing) Always Take What You're Owed(Aethergold for the Endrinriggers) There's No Trading With Some People HEROS Endrinmaster with Dirigible Suit 220 General Endrinprofessor(re roll command ability) Navigator 100 Voidstone Orb(auto unbind/dispel) SHIPS Frigate 250 Frigate 250 UNITS 10x Grundstock Thunderers 240 10x Grundstock Thunderers 240 6x Endrinriggers 200 6x Endrinriggers 200 30x Arkanauts 270

@Nick907 If you don't mind me asking, how did you do that beautiful blue hull and the endrin-engine? It looks like it's either metallics or gloss involved?

Yeah don't get me wrong -the Ironclad certainly isn't bad, it just seems to me that two Frigates will out preform/compete it ever so slightly. Completely agree. If we go first we could seriously hurt some armies who rely on their heroes. However if we go second we can hide our ships in a corner and have a better chance at killing those heroes/monsters in case of a double turn.

Until the Ironclad goes down in points(IF it goes down) I'd say two Frigates. Unless you want to run the Iron Sky command battalion for whatever reason. Two Frigates gives you more board presence, two distraction carnifexes, you don't put all your eggs in one basket, more total wounds, and they out-shoot the Ironclad on average. Their downside is a lot more army-drops(but you were likely going second versus most armies anyway), and that their random damage/shooting can and WILL under-preform at some point because this is a dice game. The Ironclad has the benefits of reliable shooting, better endrin-works, and slightly less drops(if you take the battalion you might have a chance of going first if you wanted to). And of course it's also one of the best models in the whole damn game, but that does not give it a strategical advantage sadly.

I'm 100% with you here. This is exactly where I'm at in my list building phase. At first I was going with 3 Endrinriggers, 30 Arkanauts & 9 Skywardens for my battleline, but I think taking another 30 Arkanauts instead of the wardens might be the right decision here. The issue I have with it is footslogging both those units around with 4" movement. Still going to try and run two Frigates with 10 Thunderers each though. I'm not sure if I'm missing something obvious here, but the New Endrinrigger profile is: Ranged: 12" 3A 3+/4+ -1 1Damage Melee: 1" 1A 3+/2+ -2 1D3 Damage

That sounds like the type of work I'd be super interested in reading, but too lazy to do myself. I'd be very interested in your results if you're willing to share.

Well I tried my mathhammer and I got pretty much the same answer. The prospect of killing one so easily got me excited for running two Frigates, which will do the job -though at that point cost they damn well should.

It removed him in a single phase, and still gets to do stuff in the rest of the game though. Meanwhile you've removed the scariest thing in an S tier army, and if you're lucky you get to do it again the next turn. Sounds like it's plenty worth it.

@Emissary @firtahl @XReN @Scurvydog Thanks for your thoughts. I actually sat down and measured cav-bases & pile-ins, and mathammered combats. And yeah, the swords just seem like they are better vs anything that isn't a 6+ save. It's also reassuring to hear people agreeing with healing not being a mandatory tool in OBR. I'm still quite inexperienced in AoS, but this army does not look like it needs healing as much as LoN or Nighthaunt does.