Kaptinskaggy

I hope that's true but wouldn't they have stated that during the preview? I don't remember if they did so when they announced Gobbsprak or not. I'd love for a version of that model without the gigantic wooden framework behind her.

Great model. Hopefully the presence of ogors indicates that GW is open to having more non-humans in the Cities roster.

Minor thing, but is that Stormcast warband the first time that a mixed-gender unit of troops is majority female? Is GW breaking new ground here?

Never thought I'd see sculpted emo bangs on a stylized full-face helmet. These are the kinds of advancements in fashion only Sigmar's chosen can bring to the table. Incredible how something can be laughably ridiculous but also rad as hell at the same time.

I don't think they changed the points of the Knight-Judicator. I don't think they touched Stormcast points values at all - maybe it'll be FAQ'd or addressed in the near future? They really should just stop printing points values on paper at this point.

I think these changes make sequitors and vanquishers better, as well as the 5-man non-protector paladin squads (I think Decimators could potentially be insane?), though I'll be curious to see how they mess with the points. Vindictors definitely become less good though. Liberators I think might be less useful as well because they don't really gain much utility from being reinforced. Maybe Vandus Hammerhand will become good for buffing redeemer Veterans? This definitely creates a "should I bother looking into vanquishers if they're just gonna go back to being useless in a year" conundrum. If only there were a way to make evocators battleline...

This is definitely a tough balancing act on GW's part, because you really cannot reconcile the desires of the fans. I'm personally of the opinion that AOS doesn't really need an overarching "narrative" that's constantly moving forward with big changes over who kills who or what place gets destroyed. It doesn't interest me, I don't see the value in it, and I think it can take away from the best part of AOS, which is in creating and exploring a myriad of smaller stories and weird locales, really inspiring players to get creative imagining how "their guys" fit into a broader setting without having to worry about some lore shakeup invalidating their ideas. I think GW should focus on creating the setting baseline and expanding it with new areas and ideas, without changing up the political situation. Obviously from other comments here not everyone feels this way, which is why it's such a tricky situation. Stories like Broken Realms can make changes to the setting which I think are needlessly disruptive (like the DOK going rogue, Arkhan getting "destroyed" or whatever), but at the same time don't go far enough to satisfy people who want more narrative juice (Excelsis should be completely destroyed, Morathi should be her own faction, all Stormcast should permanently lose the ability to return to the heavens, and so on. Stuff I would totally hate to see). There's just not much room for compromise here I don't think. Best they can do is just kinda disappoint everyone equally.

I feel like we should probably hold out on declaring that the sky is falling until the overall balance pass comes out in December. The fact that they're showing a willingness to "patch" the game is promising, even if the results and messaging are muddled in that characteristic GW style we all know and love. Maybe the balance pass will make Vanquishers good or something.

Potentially punchy but very vulnerable to mortal wounds and slow - not a lot of models/wounds and the 7" deep strike can only happen once a turn (assuming you bring an imperatant and not some other leader) so you'll have to deploy a fair number of the annihilators you bring on the ground from the get-go and watch them trundle up the board 4" a turn. It could be a cool list in a more casual setting for sure if you like the models but the competitive strength of Stormcast is in versatility and fielding a variety of threats.

I'm not convinced that this is the case yet when half the new Stormcast range seems to be DOA - Vanquishers, Vigilors, Knight Arcanum, Knight Relictor, Mr. Banner guy - and a bunch more are decent but not OP like Yndrasta, chariot, Vindictors, Bastian, and maybe the Knight Judicator? Annihilator/Imperatant and drakes look good for sure, but it seems like the staple of Stormcast lists thus far are all old models - Libs, Longstrikes, Lord Relictors, and perhaps Dracoths. Obviously it's too early to be sure of anything yet since most of the range isn't out yet, but if GW was so intent on using power creep to push us to buy new stuff they'd make all the new stuff good, wouldn't they? Or at least most of it? Because a lot of thunderstrike stuff seems like hot garbage.

Ultimately I think frustration with all of this has less to do with the changes themselves (though I'm sure they're annoying to many!) and more to do with how much of a black box GW is when it comes to their balancing. We just don't know what metrics they're looking at or what processes they use to come to their decisions (vanquishers lol), especially when we have our own community theorycrafters and thinkers who kind of guide the way we view the game. We're basically grasping at straws, and that leads to people coming up with their own explanations for why things are the way they are (sin guy/bin guy, GW designer favoritism, etc.). Kind of like primitive humans trying to explain why the crops suck this year, it's kind of funny. GW should really take a page from *good* competitive videogame developers and start being more transparent - explaining their balance changes, talking through their design philosophy for factions, stuff like that. They should really be publicly playtesting their battletomes and soliciting feedback before release but that seems like a bridge too far for a company this opaque. Maybe they could be convinced to put stuff like that behind the Warhammer + paywall. I'm sure people would be willing to pay for early access to faction rules. … Sorry if I just spoke that into existence.

Yeah I think it's neat to finally have a group of Stormcast that actually fit the "band of heroes" fantasy that Underworlds warbands (and Stormcast in general) are supposed to have.

I know we're all suffering from the fallout of the FAQ, but what do people think about the warscroll for Xandire's Truthseekers? (It's on the app) Looks like 265 pts for 15 wounds and a fairly diverse loadout of weapon profiles - including a rend 3 grandhammer - and a grab-bag of other stormcast abilities - MWs on 6's for the bow, slightly buffed lay low the tyrant for Mr. grandhammer, and a +1 to hit on an enemy unit in the combat phase. Hammers keyword, of course, which is always a drag, and not a leader.

Definitely a case of "so far, so mediocre" for the Stormcast and Orruks, but there are still a lot of rules and warscrolls to be revealed. We'll have a better idea soon enough when youtubers start doing previews of the battletomes. I don't remember if those typically happen when preorders go live, or when they release for real.

I kind of wish that the new Knight was a woman. They came out strong with Yndrasta and less strong with the Knight-Arcanum but unless I'm misremembering all the heroes revealed since have been dudes. The models are awesome though, definitely the highlight of an already incredibly good-looking wave. Did they specify somewhere whether the Knight-Draconis was built out of the same kit as the guard? I don't see anything about it but it seems likely. Really hoping that the minimum unit size is one if that's the case, would really suck if you had to have an odd-man out.

I can see why old hands might be annoyed with the direction that the new models are taking, but for new(er) people like me who came in with AOS 2.0 these new models are a godsend. That original wave of Stormcast never appealed to me so I'm looking forward to getting better looking (imo) troops that fill similar niches to compliment my Sacrosanct. The vigilors in particular I think are a tremendous improvement over the old judicators, and the vanquishers just look absolutely sick. Keeping the robes will really help tie them together with the Sacrosanct as well, which I appreciate. One caveat I think I'm seeing with these Thunderstrike Stormcast is that they don't seem to have any special weapons interspersed within their units like the older ones do. I think that consideration might have to be made for the extra striking power that liberators and sequitors have with their grandhammers and greatmaces or judicators have with the special prime weapons. Guess we'll see with the new battletome how they all fit together.

No way to know until the battletome comes out, though I suspect that it might be difficult to fit 12 raptors into a list given the new reinforcement and coherency rules. Could be wrong though, we'll need to see.