NinthMusketeer

Daughters of Khaine (just replace every instance of the word "pain" with "Khaine" XD);

Even the metal weapon teams aren't the worst; they at least cost less than $1 per point -.-

While the recent campaign book shows off updated Triumph & Treachery rules the core setup of that system has been around for years, unfortunately one me and my friends found to be not all that much fun. This prompted a rewrite that doesn't orbit around the 'choose a single enemy' concept. That, in turn, prompted alternate-by-phase rules as a response to individual players spending long segments waiting during larger FFA matches. We've used these for several years now in my local community, benefiting from refinements along the way including most recently rules for integrating the Ploys from Dawnbringers IV. They are not a perfect replication of normal AoS dynamics, but we definitely have enjoyed them! Worth noting that while associated with Road to Renown the FFA and Alternate by Phase rules are written to be system-neutral (as is the scenario generator, for the most part); FFA and AbP rules: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6m25vzk4ylhjlwtjt55w5/FFA-and-Alternate-by-Phase-Rules-v3.1.0-print-friendly.docx?rlkey=gw2qqhnvey1976z7qyh5fn0qw&dl=0 Scenario Generator (Matched is relatively restrained, Narrative gets into more eccentric stuff): https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/g0b9sgtm920st0fm5uai6/7-Scenarios-v3.0.2-print-friendly.docx?dl=0&web_open_id=web_open_id-f1bbbcdbe7179d95

Agreed, though I would caveat that (IMO) Josh Reynolds' version of Nagash is a far superior character to what we have gotten since he left GW. Reynolds' Nagash has a great deal of nuance whereas GWs Nagash seems to be not a whole lot more than 'competent Skeletor'.

To add a couple critical points to the Ghyran-side spoilers from page 1; -Some of the Crusaders do survive to leave Summercourt, after Gormayne calls a truce and says that for their aid in purging the Nulahmian agents legal precedent gives them leniency (albeit limited). Additionally only a small portion of the overall Crusade went in originally, and some of those who didn't also survive. -While certainly not sane Ushoran is far more self-aware than other characters realized; in addition to intentionally playing the fool to Sekhar's manipulations he *allows* himself to be shot and acts as if the wound is more significant than it really is for the purpose of his followers. This is elaborated on with the recent short story on WarCom, heavily implying that he is also aware Gormayne was a conspirator. -As a sidenote to the above, at least one of his personalities seems to believe he is in control of the delusion ("I control this" the only line where he refers to himself as "I" instead of "we") though how much control remains to be seen. Speaking on the Aqshy side; -Zenestra was sketchy from the start, but that is pushed to a new order of magnitude in this book. It is all but explicitly stated that she has power outside of Sigmar ("Eyes aglow with amethyst flame, Zenestra rumbled intonations that had never darkened an Azyrheim cathedral; they were akin to a funeral chant, symbolically reversed as if to reverse the aqualith's macabre polarity in turn.") Personal theory atm is that she is a former death god that escaped absolute destruction by Nagash, though that's speculation on my part. On epilogue notes; -Khul is called out as a threat but not much detail is given other than wanting a showdown with Vandus. -In attempting to loot knowledge from Arkhan's holdings while the liche is gone, Mannfred encounters signs of Skaven though like the above it doesn't get into details. -Katakros has "sensed something and chose not to share" and issued an empire-wide commandment that the Ossiarchs are to halt all advance and shore up defenses.

The FFA and Alternate-By-Phase document has now been updated to add Triumph & Treachery integration (essentially rules for adding ploys, since most of the base T&T is already superseded). Direct link to that document: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6m25vzk4ylhjlwtjt55w5/FFA-and-Alternate-by-Phase-Rules-v3.1.0-print-friendly.docx?rlkey=gw2qqhnvey1976z7qyh5fn0qw&dl=0

I'm sure the handful of people who actually use this outside my local community will be excited to hear the latest update is now up on the Dropbox! Changelog: -Added a rule for selecting quest terrain when no pieces meet the criteria (opponent selects a piece anywhere on the battlefield instead) -Rewards; clarified wording for Stalking units (Kruleboyz and Eshin rewards) -Quests; added Galletian Veterans and Wizard-Finders of Andtor to the available battalions -Updated for the new Flesh Eater Courts battletome -Some changes to Cities of Sigmar warband tables based on feedback; ‘trap’ options removed from retinue, irondrakes moved to elite, basic hurricanum & luminark moved to exalted, 1-per-army restriction removed from Warforgers, expanded selection for gyrocopter & bomber -Small adjustments to the Soulblight retinue table for balance and to enable the Scions of Nulahmia army of renown; Zombies reduced to 10 and swapped rows with Skeletons, Black Knights reduced to 3 and swapped rows with Fell Bats. -All terrorgheist entries have been removed; The Gaping Maw ability is too prone to cause negative play experiences. -Scenarios; for tiebreaking results with even VP models are now counted as if contesting an objective, the Blood Fields objective had the rule regarding battleshock removed -Scenarios and FFA/AbP; General cleanup of typos and wording to increase clarity. -Still being worked on: The FFA/AbP document has not yet been updated, as I am still finishing the integration of the new Triumph and Treachery rules.

All I want to toss out there is a hope the clanrats kit stays the same. I feel of GWs whole line it is one of the only kits I would say is perfect; if it had more detail, options, or multi-pose that would add to both the price and the effort needed to assemble them; for a unit that lives and dies in such great numbers that would be a big downside.

Its always fun to take those paragraph-long lore snippets and build the army from them, excited to see what you come up with!

A good question. Several reasons I would say. One is consistency; the max sizes before seemed very arbitrary with little to no correlation to the mechanics of the unit in question, which both caused problems when layered with other factors and made that part of the game *look* arbitrary and chaotic to newcomers. This may seem superficial but first impressions matter and we wargamers absolutely love to get hung up on details! Another reason is listbuilding, or rather, newcomers planning out armies. I would see people looking at their tome and asking if they should be planning to field things like 20-man blightking units or 30-man tree revenants (in an era where these were a terrible idea). There were a lot of sizes that amounted to completely non-viable choices that simply should not be in the game without some purpose to serve. Finally, there is an element of narrative and overall look & feel of armies on the tabletop. Being able to bulk put battleline units more than specialists makes I intuitive sense and has done wonders for AoS armies looking like an army from a fantasy setting more than an army from a board game, if that makes sense.

TBF it got several excellent expansions in White Dwarf. Then the Thonida supplement happened. The Anvil of Apotheosis contained within was, in my eyes, a betrayal of what it was. Not only did it not contain (good) updates to its core mechanics from the WD articles but the changes it made were actually regressive and made the whole thing worse than the original. IMO that book has value, but all the rules pages could be torn out without reducing said value (the lore is fantastic, though!).

Let's be honest the biggest obstacle to new players building effective lists has, for *decades*, been the truly awful balance that Warhammer has. It says so much that AoS' current balance is regarded as good/improved, when some half the options in the game are solidly in always or never take status, for example. EDIT: To add important context; the balance HAS improved, tremendously so, and I laud the past & continued efforts of the dev team to do better on this front. It is simply a very large pit to fill, so to speak!

I like almost all of the concepts introduced with 3rd, like many most of my issues are with specific instances where they were executed poorly. Amulet of Destiny, Unleash Hell, and Heroic Recovery were all causing issues at launch and have been modified since, I'm pretty happy with where they've ended up. Unleash Hell may be a bit strong but I am OK with that since the utility of shooting was nerfed with the change to Look Put Sir (and I really like that change). Arcane Tome and Rally became burdens to gameplay but have also been moved to a pretty good place IMO. The initial year of GHB content was a bit of a crapshow in my eyes, especially the era when Bounty Hunters made the units that were supposed to be the focus of the season a liability (that most had to take anyways). 6 month seasons were a bad idea and fortunately GW picked up on that pretty quickly. I feel the general idea of making a subset of the game a focus via thematic bonuses while also providing extra counter-play is a great concept when executed competantly, with the experience of the team increasingly showing over time. I enjoy battle tactics, but I can also see why others don't. Personally I feel there is a bit of an over-focus on the part of players (the scenario itself pretty much always provides greater VP sums after all) but that may just be my local community. The biggest place where I see battle tactics falling apart is when an army gets to essentially skip that part of the game via extremely easy ones from allegiance (LOOKING AT YOU TZEENTCH). Grand Strategies I don't see as having been realized to their full potential, I'd like to see more weight towards them over BTs with an incremental element added. Core Battalions I liked better at launch, before the FAQ that the free command ones didn't allow one to double-up. I've barely seen those used at all since then, with the entire Core Battalion system mostly reduced to a measure of how much a player favors extra enhancements over low deployment drops. Enhancements though, fantastic development there. Going from the freeform style of 2nd to having a defined structure was a big improvement to me and has remained such through the edition. A concept I have not liked at all is the reinforcement limits. The standardized unit sizes are great and were absolutely needed in my eyes, but the reinforcement limits I see as being there to counteract the max unit discount which 3rd (wisely) got rid of. It leaves certain armies out to dry while barely affecting others and I think the game would be better for dropping them entirely. But the biggest disappointment for me was the revamped Path to Glory. I've gone into detail elsewhere but suffice it to say I find it incredibly unfun and uninteresting compared to 40k's Crusade. The more recent narrative-but-matched-compatible content from Regiments & Armies of Renown is a vastly superior way to execute that idea IMO. I could go on and on, so to keep this concise I'll cut myself off here XD. Final verdict from me is that I was among those rolling their eyes when 3rd launched to claims of 'best edition ever!' And dev claims of 'we are going to do better' but looking back now? It is, and they did.

Just finished with a broad but relatively minor update (Aelf, Chaos, Death, and Destruction warband docs were only changed with an updated core quest, the tables remain the same). Changelog: -Glory renamed to Campaign Victory Points, both to reduce the number of terms and for being more intuitive -Armies of Renown from the Dawnbringers III campaign book added -Castellant and Veritant added to Stormcast hero followers, Imperitant added to exalted followers along with some small adjustments -The Defined Enhancement quest has seen a small rework, focusing more on the questing unit -Tiebreaker rules expanded to better cover possible game results -Updates to several scenario generator options; Edge Points minimum distance between deployment points reduced to 24”, Artillery Drop simplified by removing the second move of deployment points, Consolidation had its placement & removal timing of objectives altered slightly, Destructive Fonts units no longer need to remain on objectives to keep control, Scatter adjusted objective movement -Alternate by Phase rules; changed how the designation is done for combat & battleshock phases as friendly or enemy

Meeting engagements flopped hard, so could be a useful resource for what NOT to do.