[The great big Generals Handbook 2019 Discussion Topic]

1 hour ago, Dead Scribe said:

Unfortunately whenever spirit of the rules is a topic of debate, it becomes a touchy subject.  I and others like me get criticized daily across social media or other forums for playing the game competitively as if its an abomination to play to win and is akin to "clubbing baby seals and enjoying it".

Weirdly enough I did not really encounter this type of stance until I started tabletop gaming.  Card gaming it was accepted by pretty much everyone. 

I don't think there's anything weird about resenting the increasingly competitive nature of the AoS scene at all. Matched is but one of the three ways to play, after all. It's a definition GW felt a need to formalize precisely to help keep the different playerbases out of each other's noses. Some people just don't like tryharding, and feel a need to voice their concerns about where they feel the scene they love is headed,  and that's totally fine. 

Consider this other fella's point:

2 hours ago, Overread said:

I'd rather see a game where you can't perform vast actions within a single turn, esp the early turns. You should not be able to wipe out half an enemy army or their characters in the first couple of turns. The games should have a system whereby the first two are getting into combat; the middle are a grind then the last is where you might get to ping off combos and wipe out larger numbers as a resolution. With a few tricky abilities that might spark earlier in the game.  

 This is how a good competitive focused wargame *should* work. This *isn't* how AoS works. At least not yet.

We're seeing some interesting changes in GW at large that seem to be setting down the foundations of a more robust competitive scene (Nightvault, KT Arena, Apocalypse), and I think they're doing that with AoS as well especially with what I've seen of the new GHB. Meeting Engagements in particular seems to me like its taking everything I don't like about the system and jostling it around. Will it work? Who knows! At least they're actively going for it in the first place.

[What % of the armies you regularly field are painted?]

Various stages. My gloomspite army is currently sitting at about 80% of 2000 points done. I started playing early this year with exactly two grots painted.

Back when I started around 2011 it was pretty commonplace to tease or reprimand people who hadn't done up their armies yet. As time passed I increasingly found this behavior to be unpleasant and gatekeepy.

These days you could field 2000 points of empty bases with the units names written on top of em and I wouldn't mind. Heck, I personally think that's the most ergonomic way to play AoS.

[How do you hold a tournament?]

Clarify use (or nonuse) Realm Rules in particular. Last thing you want is people getting into an argument right before anything happens because one refuses to run realm rules.

If doing realm rules, consider doing preset and pre-themed tables, and possibly cherry picking what realm effects are in play. It may be vastly entertaining to suddenly roll Ghur and have Monstrous Beasts in play, but a lot of hardcore tourneyheads will get an aneurysm from it.   

I personally play with realm rules on as much as possible because it adds a lot of randomness to an otherwise entirely too predictable meta. But some people will not appreciate rolling Ulgu and having their entire list kneecapped because everything now works at 8" tops.



 

[Speculation time - how much would it take for (example) Gutbusters Tome to be successful]

I would have been confident in a best case scenario, Gloomspite-But-Its-Ogors tome + model line, since the ogre lore and aesthetic is fairly unique and something I think GW would try and push to further diversify Destruction.

But then the skaven book dropped to practically no new models. Skaven are easily AoS's and GW's  most unique and iconic fantasy race, and I was surprised we didn't get even just a new rat ogre kit. Now they might have something up their sleeve for the year of the rat, but that remains to be seen.

I think the Firebelly and Maneaters getting shunted into a mercenary role pretty much confirms we're not seeing them redone in plastic anytime in the future.

These days I think the most we'll see for Ogors is a skaven style consolidation of the footsloggers and the cavalry monsters, with maybe one new plastic tyrant to help push sales and definitely some endless spells and terrain. 

   

[What advice would you give when playing AGAINST your own faction?]

Gloomspite:

Don't let yourself get stuck in with battleline blobs (grots or squigs) as 98% of the time that's exactly what the gloomspite player wants you to do.

If our horde battleline units (grots, squigs, spiders) aren't covered by battleshock immunity, they're likely to run away in droves after a solid nuke.

Tied to the battleshock bit, target our heroes. They may force you to roll sixes to hit or have a 4+ FnP, but they don't have a lot of wounds total. Once they're gone, you've either removed a massive buff vector, a source of a key spell, a source of free CP,  AND a source of battleshock immunity. A list sporting Skragrott in particular is likely to have tied most of their synergies to the Loonking's spellcasting and moon control. Same goes for a loonboss on mangler squig, which can make squig units in a massive bubble all wound on 2+'s.

The Loonshrine has a 50/50 chance of bringing back grot blobs, it can do so wholly within 12" of it, and can spawn the grots just 3" out of enemy units. Don't be afraid of this ability, as in don't try and swamp the shrine to try and deny it. You're likely wasting precious turns doing so, and half the time it won't even go off.  If you're at the point where you have to worry about a big blob of grots coming back, you've likely whupped the gloomspite player enough for it to not be an issue.

If the loonshrine is parked near an objective, don't bother with it unless you utterly table the gloomspite player. It's likely to be buried in grots for most of the battle.

And if all else fails, run Tzeentch or ally in a gaunt summoner and do the spell that wipes out half a grot blob from an entire map away.

[So, what do we think of the new Contrast paints?]

As someone who painted blacks with multiple coats of nuln oil, Black Templar is a godsend.  Minimum 1.5 hours drying time for 3 coats of nuln oil on my grots' robes, down to one pass of black templar for a near identical and smoother finish.

Snakebite Leather is also invaluable for saving time picking out tiny pouches and belts when batchpainting. It's both a very powerful pigment and quite transparent, it can go over pure black or pure white and still end up making the finish a shade of brown. If it goes on white, it's almost exactly the same shade as my old crystal pot of acrylic Snakebite Leather.

Blood Angels Red is great for dotting out red grot eyes in one clean go. Flesh Tearer red imo makes for better blood/gore than blood for the blood god.

Apothecary White is interesting, the finish isn't the smoothest in the world but I quite like the resulting shaded white it gives. With a bit of cleanup it could really help with a predominantly white paint scheme, even on a model with lots of flat panels.

[Meeting Engagements]

4 hours ago, angrycontra said:

I think one way to somewhat balance this mode would be to introduce (house) rule that no unit in the army can exceed 400 or more points. I feel that 400+ is a "magic" point value where things get too broken for 1k games (thanquol, fec gristlegore general, morathi, vlord on z.dragon, 10 evocators, 6 stormfiends etc.). It would limit army building but then again, I don't see much fun in steamrolling opponents with op units.

I get a feeling they'll try to curb this with the battleplans meant to go with the mode. It'll probably be very objective holding heavy, based more on positioning and holding ground with a very limited amount of units, as opposed to the efficiency in murder approach we see in most meta lists. I'm also hoping they do a static turn limit of 4, as opposed to the standard 5 for matched play. Give any of the faction wrecking balls 2 turns and they'll easily mop up most of what can be brought in at 1k, especially if they come in fresh at the start of turn 3.

There was a comparison to Kill Team in the very first post in the thread, and I'd like to make that as well. But I'm making mine to Kill Team Arena  specifically, especially in terms of the rigid design. KT Arena (not counting the elites option) is IMO GW's most balanced system. It has a heavy focus on positioning, holding ground, stalling your opponent, and squeezing every last drop of utility from each and every model you bring onto those 22x30'' boards. It's like 40k chess, which I absolutely adore.

Don't get me wrong, I still very much like the current meta and how AoS behaves at 2k, but man I'd love to see something as tactically robust as KT Arena, but with my Gitz and at a more impressive scale. 

[Meeting Engagements]

3 hours ago, Frowny said:

Big winners: 

Beastclaw raiders, Stormcast. Anybody who can use the Other 0-2 to put down  a lot of value will be quite effective. For example 4-600 points of evocators on or off dracolines will murder most other small units easily, and you can follow up with a bunch of judicators to contribute immediately after arriving (without having to walk) 

Great points, this in particular. First thing that came to mind after I mulled over the article was how nasty certain options could become as a turn 1 choice. Troggoths for example could spend turn 1 moving into position relatively unthreatened, with a trogboss (not a behemoth!) and 3x2 of the rockguts/felwaters. There's a very select group of min size units that can confidently deal with that many trogs.

Summoning might be curbed by tying it to the mode's set rules.

For example, if you summon some ghouls with your archregent you'll only get 10 of them, and you won't be able to call them in if you already have two units of ghouls elsewhere on the list. The archregent could hold off and summon them turn 2, therefore getting the full 20 stack.

Alarielle could come in as a behemoth choice in turn 2, but she wouldn't be able to call in a free treelord on that turn. If she comes in turn 3, she wouldn't be able to summon a treelord at all.

[AoS 2 - Flesh-eater Courts Discussion]

Hey all! I'm looking for good alternative models for the vhargulf and other courtiers in particular, for obvious reasons. I'd rather not convert, and I'm just having a really rough time finding things that fit into the bipedal, hunched over, bat monster aesthetic.

Thanks!

[AoS 2 - Maggotkin of Nurgle Discussion]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys.

12 hours ago, Dreadmund said:

What size games are you looking to play at first?

At least 1k for painting goals, maybe 1.5k for playing with actual options. I've considered big blobs of plaguebearers, and at least 30 or so of em is looking pretty achievable after gunning for 100+ grots for my gloomspite army. I do feel the AoS side of nurgle could have benefitted a bit from nurglings as battleline, as in 40k.

 

12 hours ago, Dreadmund said:

IMO you should have no less than 2, ideally 3 or more. You start with one for free and will regularly summon them even without horticulous slimux. They're very useful.

 

11 hours ago, Darkfine said:

I’d just do one Gnarlmaw unless you want to grab a Slimux then I’d own three.  You’d want to own 6-7 if you want to run a menagerie.  I also wouldn’t run a menagerie. 

Gotcha. Horticulous is definitely high on the list to get, I dig the model and on paper he seems super useful and tanky. Menagerie is honestly hilarious on paper, and if I had a lot more disposable funds I'd probably build an army around it for fun.
 

2 hours ago, extermina said:

You said you want to be able to stay on objectives forever? Take a look at the Tallyband of Nurgle. I think it would fit your playstyle well and gives you some guidance on what to buy.

... that's actually perfect! I tend to glaze over a bit for the warscroll battalions bit when I go over new books, but Tallyband is super achievable and the rules are quite nice, thanks!

 

[AoS 2 - Maggotkin of Nurgle Discussion]

Hey all! I'm currently scoping out Maggotkin as my second army.

Here's the caveat: I want to do pure daemons, and I want to be able to field the list in 40k.

Would 2 of the start collecting boxes + a GUO do me right? I don't need the army to be particularly competitive, and from what I've seen of maggotkin in action I'd be perfectly alright with being good at just staying on the board and playing objectives.

Also what's a good amount of gnarlmaws to own?

Cheers.

 

[AoS 2 - Gloomspite Gitz Discussion]

9 hours ago, Aelfric said:

I haven't used them, but have you tried "Hand of gork"ing them into position? 

I haven't! But I'm sure in my meta people would argue against it. Unit isn't allowed to move, so now at the start of the movement phase it can't 'sacrifice' its move to do the ability. I'd love to be wrong about this tho!

If someone did let me do it, I'd be unlikely to sacrifice a cast of hand of gork onto the snufflers, since hand of gork is a red hot spell nobody likes to see go off and people will ALWAYS save a dispel for it! I've found I'm more likely to NOT get HoG off, so I'm probably gonna cast it on a considerable flanking move instead of onto reposition on a support unit.

[AoS 2 - Gloomspite Gitz Discussion]

Hey all. Got into AoS (and wargaming in general) via the gloomspite release this year and have been having a blast so far. This thread's been a huge help wrapping my head around the army so far, Looncurse has pushed me to work on a hordey squig list as an alternative to my grotspam.

This has got me back to eyeballing the Sneaky Snufflers as a support unit choice. I adore the models , but just can't can't seem to work with them. Needing to freeze in the movement phase to get their buff off makes it very difficult to plan ahead for them. It feels like they can only really get one good buff in before they're either bursted off the board or are left behind by the rest of the army. All this makes it really hard to bring them when I could just grab 5 more squigs.

Has anyone had success using the Snufflers as more than just a once a game buff/ rear objective goalkeep?