Jaskier

What's weird is they've shown a clear willingness to redesign and diversify army rules where needed, i.e. with Maggotkin and Nighthaunt in particular which both feel so much nicer to play than they used to with lots more flavourful and thematic rules, then you get the odd lame duck like Tzeentch that has few real changes from the previous book and actually loses some of its old flavour. I can only guess that the designers were happy with Tzeentch in its current incarnation and saw little need to really turn the wheel on them, mostly just removing clutter/superfluous rules and giving lesser seen units a bit of love. For what it's worth, I'm happier with the book on a second look than after my first. The lack of changes is the most disappointing aspect, but as someone that likes diversity in builds, I'm reasonably happy with both the daemonic and mortal sides of the book so I can't really complain. I do feel like the endless spell manipulation and extra deployment tools available to the army will make for some more interesting games at least.

Yeah no points changes that I saw. It makes writing lists easy at least as there's no new units so the current list building tools work for everything except the new enhancements.

I mean Flamers have always been a glass cannon that folds to enemy shooting so that's not something new 😅 At the very least you can boost them to a 3+ save. I'm not sure they are worth it either but they should do better than they did, they certainly have more potential, they can always get points drops later on if need be. They are a prime target to hide in a Gaunt Summoners' silver tower to try and avoid enemy shooting if you want to go that route. I haven't seen much chatter about our cavalry. Enlightened are the same as in the box set but at 180 for 3 which is a big drop. Skyfires lost their combat re-rolls as expected but now ignore positive save modifiers for their own attacks and ignore negative modifiers when making those attacks. It's certainly a cool new rule, though I dunno just how strong it is given their actual stats. It's a shame they aren't Mortals and so don't count for that 18"+ battle tactic as they'd be perfect for it. Just as an aside, I know that the Goonhammer AoS reviews generally aren't great as they miss lots of key details, but wow their Tzeentch one is terrible.

I was going to disagree as the Lord of Change basically only got buffs (except the free dispel being gone) but looking at them again, now that Kairos has that +1 ability and they share the same spell, yeah there's actually nothing it does for you that Kairos doesn't also do now, especially as both share the "know an entire lore" gimmick. The main differences are access to enhancements, and I think the mortals have the better command traits by far so that's a wash. The Nine Eyed Tome is pretty good, but otherwise an extra cast from the Arcane Tome seems the best bet. Hmm. I'll still run both but yeah I think if you just want one it definitely should just be Kairos even moreso than before. Edit - some extra thoughts; Screamers look very nice now. They lost the conditional D3 Damage / mortals versus monsters and wizards respectively but their base melee stats and their Slashing Fins both got buffed quite significantly. +1 to-hit and +1 Rend means they aren't a joke in combat anymore. Slashing Fins triggers on a 4+ instead of a 5+ AND it triggers on runs, charges and retreats! I'm very happy with that. Flamers also got a few buffs, namely +1 to-hit against units of 5+ instead of 10+ (this is nice as 5 is standard size for many armies) and an extra shot instead of a stacked hit buff when near any Exalted Flamers/Burning Chariots. The key thing to note here is their hit and wound scores swapped (which is odd as Exalteds' didn't) so now it's possible and very easy for them to hit on 2s but they wound on 4s - it's a good thing the Fatemaster provides +1 to-wound for free now huh. The 4+ save is cool too, though I will miss their exploding in combat gimmick. For comparison to before with their shooting when buffed, the old style was 3+ re-rolling to-hit for 1CP and 3+ to-wound versus getting 2+ to-hit and 3+ to-wound with no CP needed and access to an additional shot per model. The latter obviously has more potential but it is spendy - nicely enough the points for all units in question did not change so the combo won't cost anymore than it did prior. Rend -1 at best in Eternal Conflagration is still not great but honestly we now have even more ways to nuke save rolls via spell debuffs so that's not as big a concern I feel.

Yeah, this book is disappointing not in a competitive sense but just in terms of reinvigorating my interest in the army. There's a fair share of small changes, usually to do with spell effects, and I like that a lot of the bad changes in Arcane Cataclysm like the Kairic nerfs got reverted, but it's just sad to see they put so much effort into Maggotkin (who did need more of a rework than Tzeentch, mind) and did so little for this book. Kairos and Lords of Change are still great, maybe even better, though I note the loss of Hosts Duplicitous' command trait (a replacement exists for just one model) and the Blue Scribes' buff aura spell. I guess it gives the Tome of Eyes a bit more of a purpose now. There's some cool changes to things like Chaos Spawn and other units that make them at least a bit more interesting. The Guild of Summoners also has an easier time summoning subsequent Lords of Change after the second which is funny. A lot of heroes getting +1 save is quite nice too. There's already a few things I wonder if they'll get errata'd, one namely being that per the rules Kairos/LoCs' +1 to cast, dispel and unbind stack as they say within range of this unit and not within range of any units with this ability. My usual Hosts list using the two of them will definitely be changing but I'm not sure what direction I'll go in. If it's intended that the birds' ability does stack, that's really nasty. Also, the endless spell steal does work as I thought, though notably it does mean the big birds lose their free auto dispel.

So, Brodd looks mighty interesting! 40 Wounds with access to prayers (given that he's a Priest) with one of the shared ones for all Priests being a 6+ ward is pretty hefty. His Stomp and Death Grip are largely the same as the Kraken Eater/Gatebreaker save that the Death Grip is now only Rend -2. Having run the numbers on his big club, he hits harder on average than a Kraken Eater or Warstomper, but isn't quite as nasty as a Gatebreaker (especially given Gatebreakers can take traits/artifacts.) It'll be interesting to see if it's possible to fit him into a 4 Mega list, I'm not the biggest fan of running Mancrushers (for aesthetic reasons) so here's hoping.

Happy to see a Purple Sun nerf; it's still good, just not quite so bad to play against if you're running big models without auto-kill protection. Funnily enough, the new Purple Sun is actually worse for models with both 10+ wounds and auto-kill protection like Kragnos and Mega Gargants, because instead of just suffering D6 mortal wounds they now suffer D6+6 mortals instead 😅

Yeah, I didn't think Sons'd get anything beyond Brodd either. Guess I'm getting two new Megas!

I saw some rule leaks on Discord (from someone who correctly said Lumineth wouldn't be up for pre-order this week) and they are; Kairos loses his dice manipulation and instead gives you a fate dice every turn. Flamers are apparently a lot stronger. Lords of Change/Kairos can "steal" endless spells. The buff to Flamers is expected, 3.0's removal of stacking to-hit buffs and the increase in saves / save-stacking really hurt them. Kairos has been a meta choice since what feels like the dawn of AoS with his die change rule, so I'm not surprised that's going - an extra fate dice per turn is a nice if weaker replacement. The bit about "stealing" endless spells is interesting as the big birds can already auto-dispel them, so I can only assume it means that they get to take control of predatory endless spells from enemy wizards - in the current meta, that's going to be super good against all the Purple Suns being thrown around.

I do like the idea of the -1 to be hit being transferred to ranged attacks, it'd be a bit less useful but still show the vulnerability of Tzeentch Daemons to melee. I think the only thing in Tzeentch that's more durable than what Nurgle can bring is Horrors and only because of their splitting and effective battleshock immunity until they're down to Brimstones; outside of Horrors, Tzeentch units tend to be quite frail. Horrors are just by their nature very difficult to balance thanks to their splitting so it'll be interesting to see how the new book handles them, I don't think there's any warscroll in the history of the game that's had as much attention and rewrites as Horrors.

The thing is that Tzeentch's identity in both Warhammer Fantasy and 40k is tied to improved ward / invulnerable saves. They've always been at least the second tankiest god, and the new 40k Chaos Daemon book continues that trend. It's not really a thematic mismatch or mistake that Tzeentch is like that in AoS. I do think they perhaps could tune up the ranged output of the army a bit as Flamers especially just weren't designed for 3rd edition.

I feel like they will get a big boost in the battletome, much like how Sylvaneth units got multiple rewrites in a span of a few months. At least I hope so anyway! Good thing about the books is we only have to wait to pre-order day at the latest to see the whole book, so even without leaks we don't have too long to wait to see the full rules assuming the books are up for pre-order next weekend.

Well, the Great Unclean One got an enormous facelift into a 500 point profile. The big question for a while has been whether the other greater daemons would get the same treatment, and at first glance making the LoC's command ability now just an always active ability that also confers it an entire spell lore is a pretty big indicator that will be the case. I fully expect a more expensive but even more dominant caster with improved combat stats, and I'm all for it.

Guess we all need the Tzeentch Endless Spells now huh 😅

Hopefully Lumineth/Tzeentch will be next week's pre-orders, not long until we get an answer!

I wonder if a quad Mega list with Brodd will be possible at 2K. It's unlikely but if he costs around the same as a Gatebreaker it will be doable. I like Mancrushers but it just isn't the same as plonking four of the bigger 'uns down. This is hopium by the way, I fully expect Brodd to be ~600 points. The Priest bit alone is a huge deal as it is. Still, I guess we will have a whole new battletome to sift through with him, so I'm sure a lot will change.

The new art for Tzeentch and Lumineth is fantastic. Hopefully the battletomes are good (and I expect they will be!) I'm ok with Ogors and Gargants being kept seperate, but feel bad for Gitz players who still have to wait for a long needed new book. King Brodd and Horus were the easy highlights for me, Brodd is a day one purchase. Cool to hear that he's a Priest, the generic heal and 6+ ward prayers are all quite good for them, but I do wonder if they'll get their own set.

As a Sons of Behemat player, I wouldn't mind a Warclans style update for them and Ogors depending on how they do it. I would welcome the diversity of lists it may unlock, especially as I've eyed up Beastclaw stuff for ages. We'll see. Given there's two Destruction tomes coming, this would mean Gloomspite are getting theirs too, meaning all three Destruction books in need of an update would be getting one by way of two of them getting combined. I think that's pretty cool if that ends up being the case, but it's just a rumor and Rob doesn't have a 100% track record so, again, we'll see.

If it's not an Arcane Tome toadie (a Relictor usually) then it's either an Incantor or Aventis/a Tauralon.

Yeah I know what you mean, it's just...looking at their profiles and comparing them to more modern ones and the contrast with the Rend and mortal output is so sad, Skarbrand being the big exception of course. Khorne and to a lesser extent Slaanesh should absolutely have higher Rend across the board at minimum and less swingy profiles. It's a sad day when I'm envious of Nurgle combat profiles. I too expect we won't be getting a Battletome for at least a year. Outside of the ones that are getting updated this year, I'd say there's gonna be at least one more Destruction tome, Khorne, likely the revamped Cities faction, Kharadrons and Ossiarchs at minimum before we get ours.

The biggest probem I find with most pre-3.0 books is the lack of high Rend or mortal wounds (notable exceptions being Beasts and Tzeentch) meaning they just feel very pillow-fisted, and they usually have worse saves and less synergies/combos to boot. Our book is at least held up by the ease with which we summon and some real hard hitters like Sigvald and the very synergistic Krondspine, looking at something like Khorne is just depressing.

Incorrect, they've had it since they came out according to my battletome and the app. They don't have the Gor keyword though so they don't get much in the way of support.

Yeah they've still got the keyword so you can field them, buuuut....they're Slaangors 🥴

The Sentinel change is pretty expected, opponents will now have counter-play to them with 6" less threat range and no ignoring line-of-sight, now they'll act more as area denial for those kinds of heroes because even just 20 Sentinels with the 5+ mortals will kill your average small hero pretty easily. I'm expecting a double-whammy nerf when the battletome comes around; the removal of re-rolls throughout the game is a signal Lambent Light will likely change to something else, maybe just a flat +1 to-hit against the target or something of that nature. The Shining Company change is a nice buff, Dawnriders going up 20 points likely reflects on them actually getting to use it for a change. Not restricting runs/charges/pile-ins is so good for them, Bladelords and Wardens (and cool for Sentinels but obviously not as relevant.) Bladelords still seem to be in a bit of a weird spot where they aren't bad but outside of protecting a hero they don't feel like they do too much. The Enlightener is good, it suffers from not being a Cathaller but it's quite cheap for a two cast wizard with a potential double-trigger of a lore spell (will have to see the updated spell lore to judge how strong this is, but at face value it's a good ability.) The auto-cast thing (which every Scinari hero will obviously get) is very intriguing, you don't get to do it multiple times anymore but you don't have to wait a turn to use it.

I thought unique characters can't take the core book spells? They don't get enhancements without exemptions and I don't think there's one for those three core book spells. It'd be nice but I think he's stuck with the Vampires' spell lore.