Marcvs

no idea if the picture will be connected to the story but the environment looks like a twisted throne room/treasure vault, so maybe Astreia Solbright will find the Summer King in the next Dawnbringers book -and then try to kill him?

leaving aside the accounting, from the rules preview it seems that GA:Death is getting their first PRIEST! (at least, I don't think they have one currently)

Tbh, and just as a point of feedback, I also felt your answer conveyed the message "this is a big brain game for big brain players". The double mention of someone supposedly "demanding" rules to be dumbed down and the implicit assumption that those playing TOW/WHFB are the "black belts" of toy soldiers surely reinforced that impression. Then again, maybe that wasn't your intention at all. Since now I am writing, my fear is that by sticking to complexity for nostalgia sake the risk is that the game only appeals to a small niche of players insufficient for it to survive (again). There are simpler games, sure, but this can be reversed as well: if you're looking for complexity all the old WHFB games are still out there to be played.

Yes, so +4 attacks in turn 3

personally, my concern is much more about the resolution of combat / determining the winner (more calculations) / post combat sequence. Multiplied across multiple combats I feel it will make for very long combat phases and games. And sure, you will internalise the tables if you play often enough (which is not the case for the vast majority of players, as we know), but even then, unless you know everything by heart, you will need information from yor opponent or to consult their profiles every time you roll. So I don't think this can just be brushed away as a minimal cost. Then again, I agree it has some value. As I have said before, it's just a matter of personal preferences between more granularity and a quicker/more streamlined experience.

It's of course a matter of personal preferences. I am ready to compromise more on the "simulation" side in order to have a smoother and faster play experience: always hitting on the same number means I don't need information from my opponent every time I make a roll.

Yeah, I have similar feelings. I know I will be playing this game, because all my fantasy-oriented clubmates are excited about it (right demographic and all that) but boy this last rules article has me worried about the complexity and the length of a game. This is not a critique of the game itself, more like why I don't think it's the right game for me. It feels a lot like it's not a game you can enjoy as a "secondary" game, because you need familiarity with all these charts and sub-phases to make it go smoothly-ish. The very idea of doing the accounting for every single combat to see who won, and then go through the post-combat stuff is not appealing, when I know that my clubmates already need 4 hours to finish an AoS game.

and, while I am sure it gets easy with practice, the whole thing to determine who wins feels a lot like the Accounting Sub-Phase

my latin years are long gone, but something like "quis fabricat ipsum fabrum" (who forges the blacksmith himself) sounds plausible enough

Which is really ironic because Wood Elves are one of the factions which is (lore- and fighting style-wise) the least adapted to rank and flank style. They are going back to square bases just to then need exceptions for skirmish formation

That's why I am loving playing Astral Templars with 3*5 Hunters as battlelines and high drops. With the three movement-based battle tactics (2 generic + the new SCE one) easily achievable and Magical Dominance doable by counter-deploying (unless Seraphon...), I generally have 4 tactics in the bag and I just need an opening for the 5th (Draconith Destruction if available, for which I am bringing the usual suspects 4 Tempestors). Mind you, I am not saying it's good, but at least it covers the battle tactics side

Plenty of 3.0 stuff sees a lot of play. Out of the top of my head, and I am surely missing something: Annihilators + Lord Imperatant, Soulsworn Questors, Stormstrike Chariots, Knight Relictor, Karazai + Praetors.

In most of the *Order controlled* realms, which is probably around 10% of the Mortal Realms? I don't know if we know much of the economies of the Chaos dominated parts -i.e. most of the Mortal Realms.

Well, at minimum there will be rules to use them as normal unit(s) outside the Regiment of Renown. Otherwise we would have the weird situation where the Blacktalons cannot be played in a Stormcast army.

well, as for most people, it all tends to be a bit blurry. I have picked "competitive" basically because the gaming side is my main motivation in AoS and I do play in 4/5 tournaments every year. Still: - I only play one army (Stormcast) because I like their look and lore. I have created a lore and a colour scheme for my army (the Flamescar Stormkeep of Edassa), plus a full table of terrain to match their "environment" (the Outskirts of Edassa). - Because I like to be able to swap lists around (outside of the tournaments I play at my club which is much more "casual", so I need to be able to build non-optimised lists) and to quickly adapt to new GHBs/seasons, I have collected a bit more than 20k points of stormcast and have all the units in the book bar 1 (Vigilors, poor fellas) in my collection. Around 16k is painted, although I am repainting a lot of stuff because I found "my" colour scheme only after two/three years. The only thing I would not check is "casual". As I said, I play a lot of "casual" games (basically, all my games outside of tournaments are), meaning non-optimised lists and so on BUT I really dislike AoS in a casual setting: the constant rules checking by my opponents who, legitimately, do not have them all by heart like me, the time taken for taking decisions over things like battle tactics, the amount of games where we only play 2 or 3 rounds because, as one of the many wargaming dads, my time is limited and I also want to spend my free time with my family, always leave me frustrated with the game. So, in the end I prefer to play AoS (as opposed to other systems) in a tournament setting.

well he can't take the generic prayers in 3rd edition (Curse and the like), so he has access to Smite and Bless which are not exactly great.

they even work on the assumption that a lot of people will just impulse buy their product and possibly/probably never do anything with it

he looks really interesting in Lethis (he gets the City prayer if I am not mistaken) and even his appearence feels very thematic for the city 👍

I mean, if you take the incredibly overpriced single foot heroes as a baseline, everything else is cheap. I don't see where are the 5 heroes in blacktalons. Which hero on a 40mm base has a 2h hammer? which one (on a 40mm) has a crossbow? which one has a sword and axe? So 2 heroes at best even by that logic. And if the answer is: who cares about wysiwyg just use them as other stormcast heroes, well then why is the box of Soulsworn Questors less expensive since it gives you 6 "heroes"? (also, said soulsworn questors are new minis and they have 2 heroes as well: a castellant and a knight relictor, and still cost 45€). Again, I'd say that the honest explanation is: GW believes that the link with the series and with one of the very few developed AoS characters means people will buy this box at 60€.

Tbf, not buying their (or these specific) products AND then complaining "publicly" (as public as a forum populated by other hobbyists is) about it is potentially/infinitesimally more effective than just not buying them in perfect silence, and it costs very little, so it's an efficient strategy just as for GW to keep increasing their prices as long as theresult is more money for them. If their behaviour is justified by them "just behaving as a company", people complaining is them "just behaving as dissatisfied customers". Well, people make this argument here because we're talking about AoS/Warhammer/GW products. Maybe they also complain about these other companies, or maybe they don't because it's not their hobby of choice or the way in which they connect with their local community and so on.

Ionus is also missing keywords (he's not a LORD or KNIGHT in Stormcast, so his prayers have no range), wonder if that's going to be fixed

Of course, by definition, a new player might not be aware of the last part, but that's another discussion. The problem with the reasoning is that: ok it's not for new players, it's for players who already have a full dragon army. But then, the main character is bundled with... two more dragons.

yeah but there's plenty of counter-examples to that theory (which is a good one, mind you). The scourgerunner chariot at 42.5€ per 100pts comes to mind I'd say in this case it's the single characters explanation: it's the kind of box of which you'll only ever buy one

yeah was hoping for 45€ like the questors (6 new stormcast minis). for me it's going into the "maybe one day" pile, and if their rules end up being good I'll just assemble them with proxies (old zephyros, a castigator with a bird on top, 2 questors and a random wizard with cape will do)

Ionus seems ok for 3 dragons, but agree on the other two. 60€ for the 5 minis of the blacktalons is hard to justify (for me/to myself) for something I would buy "because they're cool"