Landohammer

So something that hit the army in a really personal way is Spite revs staying at 5 model squads. This effectively kills the unit. Its now a max squad size of 15 and is a big waste of reinforcement points that are just better spent on Hunters or Dryads. Also, Tree Revenants points staying the same is another nail in their coffin. Kinda wish I didn't own 50 lol of them lol. Durthu and Drycha looking good though. May try to take both. I think RAW, Unique characters don't get allegiance spells anymore though. Hopefully thats gets clarified.

Correct, but he is A) extremely overcosted for what he does and B) a constantly out of stock FW model thus making many of us believe he is perpetually in danger of being dumped to Legends. I'm hoping he sticks around with a healthy points drop, but i wouldn't recommend anyone buy the model anytime soon lol.

So i have read through the rules real quick. Here are some tid bits that haven't been covered here yet. 1) First turn is a roll off. Tie goes to whoever finished dropping first. So you no longer know if you will have first turn while deploying. 2) Engagement range is still 3" and Redeploy doesn't work if your are outside 9". Our deepstrikes will still be quite useful. 3) Command abilities are once per phase and once per unit. This makes Unleash Hell a bit easier to swallow. Since you won't be hit with it multiple times in the same phase. 4) Flyers cannot land on buildings that can be garrisoned. Also Flyers no longer ignore forests for the purposes of LOS. So we can hide in forests now! Those were the big ones that stood out to me.

I don't necessarily disagree, but the current system wasn't working, or at least it wasn't working fairly. And TBH, those detachments are pretty flexible. My existing armies could easily fit into these battallions and as a NH and Sylvaneth player I appreciate finally having access to an affordable 1 drop list. This is definitely going to ruffle the feathers of armies who are use to having powerful low-drop battalions at their disposal, but this is a huge buff for lower performing codexes. It may limit list building to some degree, but I would prefer GW err on the side of balance over open-ness, at least in matched play. AOS 2nd edition is in pretty rough shape at the competitive level, and this is a step in the right direction IMHO.

So if we look to 40K, every unit in your army must be a in a detachment. So thats probably going to hold true for battalions. It helps to regulate, for better or worse, wacky or spammy army lists. In most cases a player would put the majority of their army in a Battle Regiment or Vanguard, and then add additional supplemental units in one of the other more specialized battallions. Its essentially putting a "leader" tax on spamming monsters and artillery. It actually is a really good system for curbing lists into a somewhat realistic form, but unfortunately many of the "batteline unlock" factions can continue to use their elite units to fill their troop tax. I'm secretly hoping battleline unlocks go away, but given they are in Soulblight, I doubt they will.

The critical issue with the Grimghast Reapers is the same as the Harridans. They are just too expensive. Reapers were hiked because of LoN abuse, but remain at the cost even after LoN is gone. Also Harridans price increase was mind boggling. They essentially traded double damage 6's to wound for exploding 6's (a lateral change for the most part) but got a 29% point hike. They weren't exactly A tier at 14pts. So at 18pts they are competitively DoA (no pun intended) Also the rumor thread indicates that armies will only be able to expand 4 units beyond starting size. If true this absolutely crushes chainrasps, since now upgrading a unit to 30 will burn half your reinforcement points, and 40 man squads are gone. I hate to be a naysayer, but NH aren't looking to be a in a great place when 3rd hits, at least based on current leaks.

You may be right, it was definitely vague. But inspiring presence is functionally the same in both games, and so it would be strange to see them nerf it into the ground in 40k but leave it largely intact in AoS. Not only is it once per battle in 40k, its also 2CP. And it was a lot less powerful in 40k since squads are generally smaller. But GW is far from consistent in its rules writing. So who knows lol.

@PopisdeadSomebody in the rumor thread pointed out that the new Stormcast warscrolls are fairly visible in the twitch stream, and they did in fact have melee ranges on their weapon profiles. So I guess that idea is toast. However todays preview revealed a "Grand Strategy" which is functionally a secondary objectives. Thats pretty huge, since it effectively swings a big portion of the game away from armies just belly flopping at objectives. And this particular one is super useful for Tree Revs or Dryads.

Yea I think we will adopt the 40k bravery method, and today's preview mentioned that "Inspiring Presence can only benefit one unit:" which I interpret to be mean "one unit per game" similar to 40k. So maybe bravery will matter again. But with so much immunity out there its hard to say. With the unit coherency rules the way they are, we could see range go away in favor of "ranks". The coherency rule just doesn't work well with pile ins, unless a "consolidation" move is added. Cavalry are going to have a really rough time of it, since their bases are huge and their ranges are usually quite short. 9 man squads of Kurnoth are gonna be quite risky. Yea please let the Branchwych get the Priest Keyword so we have a reason to use her finally lol. I wouldn't hold your breath about the Warsong Revenant. I think that is her warscroll for 3rd :/. But hey, at least she is better than a 740pt combat model with 4 attacks 🤷‍♂️

Tourney update! List was: Olynder, KoS, ST, 30 Hexwraith, 20 bladeghasts, Coach, 10 chain rasps, dolorous guard and emerald host. Note: tourney used realm rules but did not announce all battleplans ahead of time. I will keep this short, so this isn't too long of a novel. Game 1. Scorched Earth. vs Lumineth I out dropped him and cursed his battle cattle. He goes first and plinks off some models with balistas and sentinels. Very mild turn for LRL so I push up hard and send the coach into his battle cattle to try and shut off his -2 to hit aura. Coach rolled Wave of terror, does decent damage but dies to return swings. I deepstrike Olynder into his backfield and she screams some wounds off of sentinels, wardens, and balistas, and actually makes a WOT charge into a ballista. (wow!). I score the double, finish off the battle cattle with hexwraiths, and charge pretty much every unit in my army into his sentinels, dawnriders, ballistas and an exposed Cathilar. Long story short, he didn't prepare for the double turn and I pushed on him hard for a brutal win. Nighthaunt win 34-8 Game 2. Better Part of Valor vs Seraphon This was interesting. The scenario only allowed battleline to hold objectives, and you don't keep them if you leave. So my 900pts of hexwraiths were basically stuck babysitting objectives. Thank goodness I brought a 10 man squad of chainrasps. However my opponent only had skinks for battleline. I outdrop him, he does some heavydamage with double firing bastiliadons and kroak, but I hold on and push the coach into a skink squad killing 9 out of 10 skinks on one objective. (he autopasses though). I score the double, and clean up the skink, and double charge a unit of 20 skinks with hexwraiths and revenants, wiping them out. He is able to keep his last unit of skinks alive for a turn, but once I reach them, he can no longer score. We play it out for fun and Nighthaunt win 24-2 Game 3. Blades Edge vs Soulblight Gravelords The double turn giveth, and the double turn taketh. My opponent outdrops me and capitalizes on his double turn to clean up half my army. I send some fairly solid units into his blood knights, but he pops an item that gives them a 5+FNP and he has lots of -1 to hit all around. So I just keep bouncing off his units and am unable to kill anything meaningful. I hold on to objectives with all I have, and its a close game in terms of VPs, but he tables me on turn 4 and scores big his last turn. Soulblight win 14-8 So I ended up placing 4th out of 22 players with 66 VPs. I actually had the 2nd most amount of VPs at the event and ended winning best painted. I was very happy with how the list performed and had a great time. Takeaways: The new Soulblight Gravelords are really strong. Especially with all Blood Knight Battleline. Those guys do insane amounts of damage and can take a lot of punishment. Also, any army with reliable -1 to hit hurts us bad. I was really impressed with how the Coach performed, as he was crucial in all of my wins. He never did much damage, but he could threaten units on turn 1 and tie up resources. Olynder was fantastic. Her spells were always "must-stops" and her scream probably did 20+ mortal wounds over the course of the entire event. I think deepstriking her solo is a sneaky way to use her and it really paid off.

I am pretty excited. She is the best monster in our book and she just got flat out better. I worry she will get a points increase though. I am optimistic that bravery will be more important than ever so I'm hoping Spites (and thus her synnergy with spites) will actually become significant. You are clearly achieving success with Sylvaneth that no one else is so we are just never going to agree. I occasionally eek out a positive record at events but winning real events with pure Sylvaneth is usually out of the question, at least for me. And every data tracking metric agrees with me on that. Maybe you are just an outlier? Do you have some of your event data you can show us? But I did want to address this point: Most LRL players use spellportal to extend their ranges, and in fact probably 80% of my games vs LRL they have brought that spell specifically for that reason. But here is the real kicker. Alarielle is a huge investment. I don't have the resources to screen her and hide her in my backfield where she isn't doing anything. And what units are fast enough to keep up with her to properly screen her? The real reason she gets shot/charged/killed is because she is usually flying around causing havoc and doing her job. If I need to baby sit her, then why bring her at all? Excellent question. Here are some similar special characters we can draw inspiration from: Exalted Demons: 16 wounds casters with a good pool of wounds, saves, some abilities and some fighting: ~390 Kairos: 3 Cast monster wizard with fly: 400 Teclis: God tier flier/caster with lots going on: 660 She is essentially a greater demon on steroids in terms of overall performance. So I would probably place her higher than an exalted demon but less than Teclis. The summoning is not super material since greater/exalted demons have the capacity to generate summoning and are not taxed for that ability. So I say we meet in the middle and place her firmly at 530pts with her old warscroll, and probably around 600pts with her new warscroll. Though of course the new monster abilities revealed yesterday are hard to properly cost since I haven't seen their impact in game yet. Lets all remember there are characters in the game, such as Eltharion, Skarbrand, mounted terrorgeists, Son of Behemot and keeper of secrets that can perform at the same level as Alarielle in combat, for 200-300pts less.

Exactly! Durthu could be on 2+/2+ vs a monster and a 2+ save. I am also kind of excited for vanilla treelords. Getting a +1 to vs hit something like a bloodthirster or terrorgeist could really make them punch above their weight. And the stomps could be nice for doing some solid damage, even if they are bracketed.

@Mirage8112 you are coming off as a bit aggressive mate. Lets all take a minute to cool down. Maybe we should just agree to disagree eh? I am playing 7 warhammer games this week ( a practice game tonight and 2 two one day tourneys this weekend) and while I am far from a pro player, the meta I currently play in would have NO trouble vs an Alarielle list. But maybe your meta and experience is different? To cherry pick a few pieces of your post, I did want to point out that it would not take 50 sentinels to kill Alarielle. Most LRL players in my experience use lambent light on expensive characters, and that can end up putting out about 4-5 mortals per unit + normal damage. I have personally lost Alarielle on turn 1 MULTIPLE times. Once vs Deepkin, once vs FEC, twice vs Slaanesh, and once vs Orruks. She dies in completive games. I have picked up the model myself enough times to know! The rest of your posts seems to be asking us to provide lists that win without Alarielle, but I don't understand your point because Sylvaneth is not winning events at all regardless of whether she is in the list or not. So I'm confused at your point there. I will happily eat my words if new Alarielle comes in and saves the entire faction in 3rd but its not going to happen. Not in a game that is won by objectives.

Yea there is no precedent for that. Points/battleplans for AOS and 40k have always been segregated into companion booklets. At least for the last few years. I don't see that changing in 3rd. And if you haven't noticed, GW has no issue requiring you to buy multiple books to play. Just ask Lumineth or Space Marine players lol.

I am gonna go out on a limb and generously guestimate that Thunderstomp will be d6 mortals in the charge phase to models with 1-2 wounds (infantry). Second General is just to extend basic command ability ranges. (Though in 40k named characters get command traits so that would be cool if we got that. Could be huge) That still doesn't justify her cost. Not even close. Her ONLY saving grace would be if there is a universal points increase by 15-20% like 40k saw. That would at least bring the rest of the game into the same solar system as her cost. And even then she wouldn't even be C tier material, she would just no longer be competitively toxic. With that being said, I have a soft spot for underdogs (I play Sylvaneth and NH after all) and I definitely plan on building a list around her once 3rd hits. It probably involves spamming spites or dryads just to try and get bodies on the board, and I don't expect to win: But if she can punch teclis or archaon in the face a few times it would be worth it.

@Mirage8112 So another caveat of being "worth her points" is the liability of tying up 740pts in only 16 wounds. Most dedicated combat units (and many shooting armies) can dish out enough attacks to reliably kill her in a single phase. Make no mistake. Alarielle is bad. Like really bad. My suggestions about tactics for fielding Alarielle are "devils advocate" arguments, and are me trying to find a way to field her. She will never be competitive or good in the game as it currently exists.

If I had to use her, I would use her like this: Fling her forward towards the scariest thing in the opponents list. Use her shooting attack, magic, impact hits and melee against that target if possible and nuke it off the table. Extra points if you can get the frozen kernel close enough to activate on her and/or make the charge with the 3 kurnoth hunters you summoned. Force your opponent to have to scramble to deal with her in their deployment zone. They will have to overcommit resources to make sure she dies, because even at one wound left she is still a moderate threat, and can potentially heal herself up. The healing potential of 2d6 plus d6 for regrowth is pretty annoying. The tragedy of her is that she brings a desperately needed "fast hammer" to the army, but she is just so overcosted she will almost never score her points back. An allied unit of 6 eels does the same job for less than half her cost.

Why do you assume the GHB would be for 2nd edition? The new edition will come out alongside a new GHB. The GHB 2021 will likely modify points to accommodate changes in 3rd.

The core of the issue is that her cost is clearly inflated to include the free unit she summons: ~200pts. However that kind of tax is not uniformly applied across the rest of the factions. For example, lord Kroak will on average contribute 5-7 CPs to a game, but he isn't taxed 250pts for that. But lets be honest, nobody bothered fielding her at 600pts. She was costed the same as 45 wounds of Kurnoth Hunters, and now she is closer to 60 wounds worth. I eagerly await the GHB 21 points costs and thunderstomp changes, but outside of sweeping game wide point increases, she is DOA competitively.

My two cents: Wildwood changes: Good. Probably our biggest pickup in BR. I am ready for the new LOS rules right now! Also makes me want to take that floating tree endless spell that does d6 mortals when near a forest so the forest becomes quite scary to be near. Warsong Revenant: Overall pretty meh, but they are better than the TLA for the points. I'm hoping bravery plays a larger part in 3.0 and so maybe taking them with spites could help nuke bravery. I like the idea of putting her on a balewind for a highly versatile support unit with a lot of spell options. Alarielle: Guys. She is bad. Like really bad. Compare her to Morathi or Teclis and she just absolutely falls apart. She gained more reliable damage output, retreat and charge, and 2d6, but her Talon was nerfed into the ground. All of this for a 23% increase in cost. This hurts my soul because she is my favorite model. My only hope is that the "stomping and shouting" buff given to monsters mentioned in the preview will be the return of thunderstomp, and perhaps that plus a universal incoming point hike (like we saw in 40k) will justify her cost increase. But right now i just don't see it.

Final practice game before the tournament. Nighthaunt vs Nurgle I continued on with my 30 hexwraith +20 revenant+coach dolorous guard/emerald host cheese. My opponent had approx 100 plaguebearers, two new BR characters, and Glottkin. Battleplan: Focal Points He outdrops me but takes turn 1, and uses a nurgle tree to run/charges a unit of 30 plaguebearers into my screen. He doesn't do much damage but now he is on 4 of the 6 objectives on the top of 1. I get aggressive and charge glottkin with coach and revenants, and charge two units of 20 plaguebearers with hexwraiths. I beat up the Glottkin pretty hard, but his new BR characters makes my own 6's do mortals back to me, and so the coach takes half of its own wounds . Hexwraiths REALLY hurt from the -1 to hit, but manage to kill about 20 plaguebearers off the board after battleshock. I score a few points but am now locked in combat with pretty much every unit. On his turn he kills the coach with the Gottkin shooting attack but is so bracketed he can't do much else. He buffs his block of 30 plaguebearers with several CA and spells and wrecks my 10 revenants and guardian of souls. Elsewhere the hexwraiths have lost their momentum and are in a grind vs plaguebearers (never a good place to be). On my turn I finish off the wounded Glottkin with a lucky arcane bolt and retreat with my hexwraiths, doing about 9 mortals between all three units with my flyover attack. I put him into a position to stay on objectives or charge me. He doesn't take the bait and keeps scoring. His allegiance let him heal d3 plaguebearers a turn and he occasionally rolls a lucky 1 battleshock to get d6 back. He also manages to summon 20 more plaguebearers somewhere around turn 3-4. I do some counter charges and kill a few but I just cannot keep up with ever growing number of plague bearers, and the -1 just absolutely hamstrings my hexwraiths damage out put. Nurgle win 25-17 This was a grindy game and I really missed my chainrasp blocks, but overall I think I did as well as could be expected. Plaguebearers are a really good counter for NH, since our army is almost universally hitting on 4+ and the new characters bouncing mortals on 6's to hit REALLY hurt when you are throwing 100 attacks with a hexwraith charge or 31 attacks rerolled with Revenants. I think I am gonna drop the Guardian of Souls and Chainghasts for Olynder. I know she is a bit of a glass cannon, but I'm hoping she can help put out some mortals if it comes to a grind, and her Grief Stricken spell could have really helped out with all the -1 to hit running around.

Based on my experience in 9th edition: Its hard to quantify the overall impact since 40k had sizeable point increases to coincide with the decrease in size as well as significant rule changes (most notably secondary objectives). But I did note a sharp drop in castling armies and more focus on units that could both shoot and fight, (rather than dedicated shooting units). Terrain became even more important since it would often times be your only defense against faster units. Games definitely see combat faster since there is just simply less square footage to avoid it. From a practical standpoint its good IMHO, since it allows more room for more tables at events and makes home games a lot easier to manage. Its also pretty close in size to the Blasted Hallowheart and Moonbase Klassius "board in a box" sets and I find those super convenient. Note, when if first came out a lot of people on the internet screamed that "its just the MINIMUM table size, not the official table size" but I have seen the smaller table pretty much unanimously adopted by all events I have witnessed or attended. So I wouldn't expect a sizeable part of the community to stick to the old size. The smaller table WILL be the status quo going forward.

Command ability looks the same. Talon nerfed pretty hard. Now if you successfully wound with it, you roll a dice. On a 6+ it auto kills the model, if you roll a 1-5 the wound is negated. Ouch. She doesn't run and charge, but she can retreat and charge.

Warsong Revenant warscroll has leaked. Its a 4+ FNP. But everything else leaked seems correct. Combat is 3" range, 5 Attacks at 3+/3+/-1/2d Also gets +1 to cast while within 9" of any Awakened Wildwood.

Warsong Revenant has leaked. Its a 4+ FNP. But everything else leaked seems correct. Combat is 3" range, 5 Attacks at 3+/3+/-1/2d Also gets +1 to cast while within 9" of any Awakened Wildwood.