Nico

Making global rules changes for the sake of balance is very likely to have unintended consequences. Nudging up the cost of certain pew pew units is a much. -1 to hit for pew pew is absolutely massive - 1/3 damage reduction for many units (even Kurnoth Hunters other than the Champion only hit on 4+). That's a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Even the most exceptional pew pew in the game (Husktusks and Kunning Rukk Arrer Boyz) while plainly still top tier strong is not looking as undercosted if we assume that Destruction don't get any new toys for the next 6 months whereas Chaos and especially Stormcast (and possibly Duardin?) are about to get a massive shot in the arm. It may be that we look back in a few months and think that Battle Brew, Destruction Move (Rampaging Destroyers) and Husktusks are the crutch that kept Destruction competitive (just as the Ward Save kept Grand Alliance Death (i.e. non-TK) competitive despite having fewer units than Order have Battalions).

Agreed.

Generally agree with your post, but within reason, I don't see this as being too bad.

It's epic. Check out the Community Champion Thread for reasons why.

To be fair, if you look at things on a Grand Alliance level (as is the ethos of the game), they have done a good job of balancing the game with the GH. While there are now loose tiers of armies (Nurgle and Pestilens are near the bottom for example, while Mixed Destruction, Stormcast Eternals, Tomb Kings, Mixed Order, Sylvaneth and Skaven/Sayl Chaos are probably the top tier, it remains the case that off the wall lists can surprise people* and almost everything is hard to beat if you've never seen it before and haven't read the Warscrolls at all, particularly because of the variety of Battleplans. The mixture of armies at the top of Heat One illustrates this well. They solved the problem of how to make Death competitive in the interim by giving them the best allegiance pack as a crutch (which was easier than writing an elaborate lore for Nagash and buddies or a Soulblight Battletome). It has the downside of making them the new and faster Nurgle - they frustrate the opponent army and grind them down. Destruction were by far the weakest in December 2015 when the Everchosen Battletome came out (remember when Varanguard seemed hot stuff - obviously great models). They responded with multiple shots in the arm, so much so that the Monstrous Arcanum (extra monsters for Destruction alone of which at least 3 are epic) has almost been forgotten in a haze of Battlebrew and improbable Arrer Boyz. Thye older Destruction stuff got nerfed, which toned them down to parity with Order in December. Now it looks like Chaos will have their time in the Pink Fire Sun and Battlebrew and Death are left waiting in the cold now and exposed to losing their best stuff if compendium scrolls are phased out (Sword of Damocles style - which makes it very hard to plan to play Death in confidence with a view to independent events in particular - since we don't know when they might get reinforced). However, it would only take some new Deathlords allegiance pack or Soulblight (female Neferata-led army would be ideal with lots of new models) to bring them back out of their graves. Wait a minute - Mannderp+Neferata+Arkhan = 3 - surely a Battletome Deathlords DoT style with 3 Allegiance Packs (maybe something instead of Command Traits since the named characters prevent that - 2 Lore spells each perhaps a spell and a passive buff or something that the named characters can take. Nagash unifies everything but costs 900 points in exchange. The recent change to Escalation has the dual virtues of punishing Warrior Brotherhood a tad (and Skryre quite a lot) and also giving a downside to monsters - even Mixed Destruction. Try getting value out of the Mourngul when it's stuck in the back, has no pew pew and is not able to fly forward many inches a turn like a Stonelord. Also makes the Dread Maw or Magma Dragon a bit more useful. *Beastmen had the best combat synergy in the entire game on the release date and yet no-one in the UK at least bothered to check until it was too late and infinite loops were comped. Little Archaon plus a few Doombulls plus Bullgors = -2 rend 3 damage to infinity - they also charge miles with Sayl and banner. Still very good today except against pure gunline bunkers.

11 games in 15 days (not counting today) - that's spectacular. January has not had enough hobby for me.

Chanters of Change box - seems to be a double (40) box of Acolytes. Up on NZ website. Could be a Battalion? Also PDFs for the new/renamed stuff.

I've amended my post to make it clearer. I'm aware that Tzeentch is the unifying allegiance keyword. Big Archaon is coming out of his box in excitement.

Any "free" points from summoning are just unnecessary and hurt balance with the benefit of hindsight. Summoning isn't weak, as I'm guessing we'll see in about a week's time from DoT. It's Deathlords and Seraphon that are on the weak side. Here's a prediction - people will be complaining about summoning under the current rules being utterly broken in a few months time (probably because they haven't played sufficient games vs DoT to understand their weakspots).

Or you could solve this by having the Disciples of Tzeentch style - one Allegiance (Tzeentch/Free Cities), with other mixed keywords (Daemon and Arcanite etc..) with one Battle Trait (Destiny Dice in DoT, something new for Free Cities), but command abilities and trait depend on the choice of general (Ironweld Arsenal, Fyreslayers and Devoted of Sigmar). Anything that gives Fyreslayers a leg up would be welcome! Given your spectacular wishlisting/call on the Swifthawk Faction being revitalised, I wouldn't want to wager against you being right again!

Yup. Not to mention Sylvaneth! I like Protectors as good all rounders. That's true. Anywhere they can use the drip feed a unit at a time to score while keeping the hammer blow in reserve is also useful. I don't mean to say that it's a shoe in. I would just say that Sedge is my pick to win it.

I haven't seen it in action, but I suspect not. The Kunning Rukk bonuses are just gravy on top of the real problem which is 40 models with 80 wounds and 120 attacks that they can pile buffs onto. Unless the WB gets a double turn (which is admittedly 50% of the time), I cannot see them killing the heroes the first turn with pew pew and grinding through another 80 odd wounds of Savage Orruks and Moonclan, before they can even touch the Orruk Archers. As soon as he fires back (likely with the Damned Terrain buff and frankly his general should be one of the Arrer Boyz with Bellowing Shout and maybe mystical terrain if he fancies a gamble, everything in range will die, especially 4+ save Paladins. I haven't had the time until now to check which model is the general, I've now looked and he has actually made the champion of his 5 model, 15 wound pig unit the general, which is probably genius, since it's the lowest priority in terms of damage output. Take a bow! Very Kunning! They will likely be sitting in the middle of a donut of Arrerboyz, - never going to die from pew pew fast enough to take out the Bellowing Shout. This means that the Arrer Boyz will be hitting on 4+, or 3+ with one damned terrain or 2+ with two damned terrain. Rerolling ones to hit, unless you kill the Maniak as well. Once the WB have committed enough models, the pen of cheap bodies guarding the Stonelord and stopping Protectors from reaching it with 3" range will open (which is not that far off full damage output even with a significant number of wounds shot off) and it will delete several units in response. The WB isn't immune to Battleshock either. The only query I have is why a Hunter instead of a cheap Shaman - if he casts mystic shield on the Stonelord successfully that will often be game changing - perhaps the Hunter is to deal with enemy artillery crew? I think this is called effective Target Saturation. The WB can play the battleplan well and try to outscore the enemy on some Battleplans, but they simply don't have the damage output to deal with a horde (let alone a horde with a Stonelord and all the other fun things in the list).

Sedge should win it. No-one seems to have a hard counter to his Arrer Boyz (the Arrer Boyz by themselves can delete virtually anything that isn't on a 35/36 save within range even without attacking twice, epecially thanks to the wonders of Damned Terrain. Apparently he has some other fun stuff in his list as well.

Exactly. There's no reason to buff summoning. On the other hand, attempts to remove the primary function of summoning (creating a mini-sideboard with potentially all your summonable models to hand) should not be nerfed by TOs (at least not until some months have passed since DoT drops). It should be a safe bet that DoT will be able to summon any other Daemons as normal and that this will preserve their Tzeentch allegiance (as is currently the case with summoning). It will be interesting to see how many of the synergies in DoT are keyword dependent - probably most or all of them. For example, it would be odd if Destiny Dice could be used on a summoned Khorne Daemon for example (i'm guessing that they cannot be). Even Deathlords with a new Lore could make summoning a force to be reckoned with again - since Nagash could actually cast most/all of his spells each turn.

Epic! That's capped a great day of AoS! Looks sensational. Played a great game against @Bowlzee. True gent as always.

Where did this come from? Bear in mind that he has been nerfed already - no longer +2 to cast. This video seems like an (extended?) version of the one from the end of the Warhammer TV reveal. Is the image of the "Bird" / "LoC" new? If so - seems to have no arms and only one head. Sounds exciting whatever it is!

Beat me to the draw. Is Mazaral the Butcher an AoS model? Happy New Year all!

As long as DoT still have the spell of the GS with Buddies I'm happy. Every hard counter to Kunning Rukk is vital.

One obvious area for the Disciples of Tzeentch approach would be Battletome Grots in multiple flavours.

Hi James. Anyone is welcome. Sounds like you're in the area, so please also feel free to head down to the South London Legion on Wednesdays (with or without your friend) - even tomorrow if that works for you at short notice. Details are here: http://www.tga.community/forums/forum/95-south-london-legion/ Send me a message or one to Tom Loyn if you would like to discuss further. We should have a good number of people down tomorrow playing AoS and getting overly excited about Tzeentch!

Dusting off that Fatesworn Warband and removing most of the models from the Jaws of @Thanatos Ares 's four Flappies (Flesh Eater Courts' monsters). Hopefully add all the existing stuff to the new stuff. Excited!

Game 5 - the Grot Off - come see Gordrakk in action against Darran Palmer @Darran and his 160 Grots in Take & Hold.

This sounds awesome.