Beer & Pretzels Gamer

Co’axe’ial felt increasingly disconnected. He missed the good old days in Aqshy when you couldn’t swing a skink by the tail without hitting a Bloodreaver or three. With all the action now elsewhere (boy was it annoying talking to those Galletian Vets & Champs these days…) his frustration grew at being stuck patrolling a land of dust & lava. It had been so long since one of his foot patrols had turned up more than a roving band of Maneaters… The paradox of Aqshy was regular eruption meant everything changed whilst little of importance ever did. So month after month as Co’axe’ial patrolled the wastelands the landmarks might change but the sense of monotony never did. Hence, at first he dismissed his own curiosity when the horizon didn’t match his expectations. As he got closer though he had to admit this… this was new. Or actually this was very old, yet hadn’t been here the last time the patrol had come through, nor had there been any hint of it during any of the dozens of patrols he had made past this area before. Co’axe’ial knew from intelligence reports that nothing good came from one of Sigmar’s old vaults being unearthed given his annoy8ng tendency of hiding nasty things in them (Slann knows why the Seraphon continued to support him…). Ax’iom, his skink star priest companion, who would know more about these things than an old warrior such as himself, proposed the most important thing was to determine if the vault seal remained intact… Co’axe’ial should’ve known better but boredom must have dulled his edge in the face of this new novelty. One should never let their guard down in Aqshy. Distracted by their investigation it was only after they were surrounded by Troggoths that they realized the danger they were in. This was a ~500 pt narrative game to get myself and @Televiper11 back into the swing of playing. The major victory condition was for the Seraphon to control the ruins at the end of five rounds. The minor victory condition was for at least one Seraphon unit to survive and escape to warn future patrols of what had happened. Turned into a very back and forth battle. Some bad saves and worse Battleshock saw the first unit of Rockguts fall to the Saugus Warriors who in turn got wiped by the second unit of Rotguts. Eventually it came down to a one-to-one battle between the Sunblood & the Troggboss with the Starpriest strategically retreating (just in case). Good saves & timely healing saw the Sunblood through as the Troggboss failed his regeneration attempts and after wiping a unit of Saurus Guard with a couple swings of his club struggled to get more than 2-3 damage in a turn against the Sunblood. After a long time since we last played over Zoom tons of fun to roll dice again. The narrative will continue as we up it to 750ish points and add in a Monster each.

As I noted in another thread I will defer to @Skreech Verminking’s expertise and experience but honestly as a player new to Skaven it actually got me incredibly excited to try and play them. I can’t speak to every point of SK’s critique having not been as familiar with the old tome. For one several people warned me off it. For another every time I did start looking into it I’d get hung up on the list building rules that made it feel less like a faction with a lot of options but rather several one-off sub-factions each with a very narrow set of unit options. Which I think is the crux of my differing perspective as while maybe to SK’s points this isn’t raising the roof for expert Skaven players (just take your old list and add Thanquol) I do think it lowers the barrier to new players taking up the faction. The take a clan leader get a clan bonus and a battleline unit (take 3x leaders get an upgrade bonus) is a major list building improvement. Making all the centerpiece models in Thanquol and the Verminlords truly viable options to build around. The w/in 3” rule making getting your larger units into combat effectively easier. All of this really appeals to me as someone who’d been interested in the faction but unwilling to take the leap. Money where my mouth is, with their being back in stock just ordered my Master Moulder and Gnawholes.

Lol. I will of course defer to @Skreech Verminking re:any and all things Skaven but actually came looking for this thread after reading the new Skaven tome. One of the things I’d enjoyed doing in 2.0 was breaking down and debating Tomes with @Televiper11. Hadn’t really had a chance/been inspired to yet in 3.0 (SCE too big, Orruks too fragmented, burned out on Nurgle, etc.) but the combination of the Skaven tome and the new Thondia season got the old juices flowing. And I found myself really intrigued by the new Tome as, to me at least, it really seemed to solve some of the list building problems that had lead to me being repeatedly warned off the old tome. Really liked they way you unlock battleline and allegiance abilities with Heroes, for example. But, particularly with Thondia giving roles to some different units that had felt sub-optimal before I was getting really drawn in by the different options available for creative list building. Absent a lot of opportunities to play lately this got me really excited to get back to AoS gaming.

I just keep coming back to the Grand Alliance stagnation. Morathi’s heel turn structurally can’t fit into such narrow brackets. Some variant on D&D’s alignment system (which is occasionally hinted at in things like the coalition grid a year or two ago…) could do wonders here. So maybe DoK still aligns with Sylvaneth & IDK (maybe even KO as long as the $$$ is good 🤷‍♂️) who maybe are closer to Order Neutral or even Order Evil but no longer with Order Good factions like SCE?

Yeah the Rockguts are great and the foundation the list is built upon. Bringing some back with the Loonshrine can really back foot an opponent who has extended themselves to take out a unit. But getting the dice when you need them for the Mangler Squigs can certainly swing things.

This a variation on my just for fun list which I’ve actually had some success with. The resilience of the Troggs and the speed of the Mangler Squigs are complimentary while the Shamans throw out some nice wild cards. It’s fun to play and I’m told fun to play against. Doesn’t win a lot of rematches as once people see what it can do the counters are clear. But first impressions tend to discount capabilities allowing for some sneaky but non-gotcha wins. Army Faction: Gloomspite Gitz - Army Subfaction: Glogg's Megamob - Grand Strategy: Hold the Line LEADER Dankhold Troggboss (240)* - General - Command Traits: Shepherd of Idiotic Destruction - Artefacts: Aetherquartz-studded Hide Madcap Shamans (80)* - Artefacts: Moonface Mommet - Spells: Itchy Nuisance Fungoid Cave-Shaman (95)* - Spells: The Hand of Gork Loonboss on Mangler Squigs (290)** - Artefacts: Amulet of Destiny Loonboss on Giant Cave Squig (110)** Loonboss (75)** BATTLELINE Fellwater Troggoths (155) 1 x Rockgut Troggoths (290)*** Rockgut Troggoths (145)*** Rockgut Troggoths (145)*** BEHEMOTH Mangler Squigs (275) TERRAIN Bad Moon Loonshrine (0) OTHER Rippa's Snarlfangs (70) CORE BATTALIONS: *Command Entourage **Command Entourage ***Hunters of the Heartlands TOTAL POINTS: (1970/2000)

This! Forcing a Chaos Grand Alliance seems to have intentionally or unintentionally flattened the creative space for Chaos. After Destruction Chaos my go to but in part that’s because Chaos is incredibly diversified. You want the Chaos of civilization look to the mortals of Tzeentch or Slaanesh. You want the Chaos of destruction I give you Khorne and the Warherds. The Chaos of nature? How about Brayherds and Nurgle? And we haven’t even gotten to @Skreech Verminking’s Skaven and all the uniqueness they bring to Chaos. Or the daemons even. There is so much dimensionality to Chaos in AoS that even trying to say it’s not one umbrella but four or five (one for each god and another for undivided?) still sells it short. Ive gotten in trouble for saying I think Beasts of Chaos would fit better in Destruction as currently structured but it’s NOT because I want to break their link to Chaos but because I feel like it could unlock more of their potential than being stuck as the 4th or 5th narrative option for Chaos.

On the very interesting issue of AoS’s lack of a central theme with all the love and respect for the chosen name of this community I think a big part of the issue is The Grand Alliance structure. While my biggest issue with 40K that as presented (incompetent, corrupt, infighting, etc.) the Imperium wouldn’t have lasted a decade, nonetheless multiple millennia you can understand what role each component serves. The bulk troops of the Astra Militarum vs the more elite Astartes, for example. You can even understand a lot of the differences between sub-factions such as the xenos-centric Deathwatch vs the daemon driven Grey Knights. In 40k the roles of Chaos, both via the traitor legionnaires and the daemons also fill distinct roles, not simply serving as generic interchangeable bad guys. And each of the Xenos races represents a distinct challenge to the designs of both the Imperium and Chaos as well as a larger ecosystem role. In contrast I’ve felt the Grand Alliances, with the exception of Nagash-centric and relatively clearly specialized and/or distinctive factions of Death, to feel forced. Sure, Chaos borrows a lot from 40k meta-structurally but in practice, for me personally while it is the next best after Death in this context it still feels less than cohesive. Destruction, the Grand Alliance I’ve come to appreciate play why the most is also the most honest in saying at best it’s a marriage of convenience and really, this isn’t one big happy Waaagh!!! But Order…. Especially as they’re so central to the narrative… it just never adds up to me to anything close to the sum being greater than the parts. And I do think there are some great parts. But beyond the fantasy convention of humans, dwarves & elves (in this case super humans, Duardin, and Aelves) aligning to face a common enemy the sheer diversity works against a thematic through line. Add to this that the diversity doesn’t create significant complimentary differentiation (e.g. it’s not like order keeps those soul stealing IDK around because they’re the “Navy” for the Alliance…) as there is massive overlap in factional competencies. Cities tried to reconcile some of this and maybe Dawnbringer Crusade gets them over the hump but with Order serving as the central pivot I wholeheartedly agree it’s hard to create a simple “hook” thematically the way 40k does.

My basic sense is that for AoS “the lore is here, it’s just not evenly distributed yet.” GW has several mediums of lore distribution between codexes, “event” books, Black Library, etc. When I read the comments above I do really get the sense that if your AoS appetite is omnivorous re:context and omnivoracious across all these mediums you’re getting a pretty satisfactory experience. But either the narrower the focus of WHAT you are looking for and WHERE you’re looking the less likely you are to be satisfied. From reading across both I think 40k/HH is more evenly distributed (arguably to the point of repetition) than AoS reducing that issue.

They’ve been mentioned a few times but for me the criteria is simple. It needs to be on a big enough scale and not have a ridiculous amount of fine details. I’m not a great painter and as the scale decreases and detail increases my stress when painting increases on an exponential curve. Rockgut Trolls one of the few times I’ve genuinely had fun painting up a dozen miniatures or more. They’re a bit of the platonic ideal for me with plenty of variation and appropriately scaled details. Mega Gargants weren’t as fun just given the sheer amount of time each took ( especially as I was trying the 4-5 layer skin tones from GW videos) but despite needing to go back and get a few oof their finer details cleaned up it’s the army I get the most aesthetic compliments on by far. The extras in the kit allowing me to make “juniors” of all the Megas certainly helps there. Not done with them yet (got distracted by 40k painting) but Mangler Squigs a middle ground so far. For a surprise choice I’ll put out the Icebrow Hunter. For me personally it holds the title of best ratio of time spent to quality of outcome as it lent itself very well to my early learning curve with Contrast paints As far as all the love for Putrud Blightkings… scale okay but darn I still have nightmares about all the little details trying to get 20x painted up for a friend for a tournament even with the simplest scheme I could think of. If you live em you can have em because I’ve had enough of them! 😉

Ahh well. Thoughts on max Stormfiends plus Thanquol? Obviously needs a Doomwheel or three!

Again, I’ve been focused on 40k for a while but reading this thread and a few others along similar veins but then looking at this weekend’s tournament results guess I was surprised to see 15 factions piloted to 4-1 or better records: StD 1x (a 1st nonetheless) KO 2x (inc a win) SoB 2x (inc a win) SCE 5x Seraphon 4x (inc a win) Nurgle 2x LofFP 2x SBGL 2x BoC 3x DoK Skaventide @Skreech Verminking was that you? FEC CoS Orruks LRL Fine. Just one weekend and 4 tournaments but I guess I would’ve expected far narrower representation after returning to threads like this. (And obviously battle scroll not in play yet.)

I’m mixed on the massive investment models (outside of Sons where it’s kind of their thing). As a change of pace I think it can be fun to have an “epic” throw down with or against a Nagash, Archaon, Bel’akor, etc. Similalrly for something completely different it can be fun to put a big Horde out on the table. Most of the time though I prefer something in the middle. Again, my biggest curiosity is whether once we move on from Ghyran where the battle tactics have favored Monsters with bonus VP if they’ll reward some other model archetype (e.g. bonuses for battleline? Bonuses for completing tasks where Wound Value less than 5?) that will create different incentives? If that was combo’d with something like priority targets would that see more list changes (i.e. you no longer gain bonus VP for Monsters but can still give them up?) could that see an evolution? With a lot of game flexibility AND a gaming community where the social contract is still strong though I’ll admit it is probably easier for me to be cautiously optimistic.

My Kruleboyz still being built but my understanding is they aren’t exactly the top tier list lower tiers are struggling with. That said within Warclans there’s still plenty to explore if you’re Orruk, not just KB so in theory you could explore KB models in Big Waaagh! But hey, exceptions like sub-factions of sub-factions gonna happen in as big a game as this. BS plus Kragnos took down a tournament recently I believe (or at least a top placement). But I feel ya as I’ve got Blades of Khorne and agree it’s hard to get the Mortals on the table. Hard, but not impossible. One of my favorite lists to play is Trogs plus Squigs list. Not above .500 with it but not 0.000 either.

It was admittedly 2.0 but that just meant Fyreslayers were stronger but we ran an ultimate bragging rights tournament. Each player submitted a list. Played a round robin with it. Then you turned around and played the same battleplan using your opponents list. One player went 0-3 with Bonesplitterz with their worst loss against my Fyreslayers. In the rematch I dominated with the Bonesplitterz list. That’s an N=1 example fine but the bigger point I’d actually like to address is the idea of building an intentionally bad list vs the idea of exploration. A simple example would be every codex seems to have a clear “best sub-faction” but myself at least I always see one or two that look like a lot of fun but that maybe I’d never take to a tournament. But if I was playing somebody looking for a more casual game why not explore one of those and see what I can do with it? To me at least that type of exploration (optimizing a different sub-faction) is very different from making a junkyard list.

As I noted in a similar thread I’ve been away from AoS for a little bit learning 40k. Currently I’m enrolled in the Vanguard Tactics Academy and a big reason why is the founder’s “40k the right way” ethos. There is a huge emphasis on the social contract aspect of the game. Making sure that there is a discussion pre-game about what the players are trying to get out of it and that goals are aligned. Making sure throughout the game that both players are having a positive experience. What is remarkable to me is that all of this is coming from some of the most competitive players in the world. The VT team regularly posts top-faction and top ITC rankings. They take down tournaments on a regular basis. All while emphasizing the quality of the gaming experience. If “40k the right way” can gain traction than maybe “No BS AoS” has a chance too? I know from the AoS community I built it is possible on a small scale. I do think even without close social ties it would be possible too.

Having been focused on the 40k side for a bit this was actually my exact response to the battle scroll. My first Ork (not Orruk) list struggled in part because even though I wasn’t running the optimized Freebooterz list I still gave up max secondary points on Bring it Down (VP for killing vehicles). As my vehicles were the prime targets for my opponents thus rewarded them for doing what they wanted to do anyway. Been taking the Vanguard Tactics Academy course and my newer lists both reduce the points I give up to Bring it Down AND reduce my opponent’s incentive to kill those vehicles both by creating higher priority targets and reducing their value as targets after R1&2. So now I look at my Orruk (not Ork) options and I ask myself whether IJ double cabbage makes the most sense (even before this update I was very aware from playing Sons of the VP opportunity for my opponent’s for killing my units) or maybe I want to switch to Big Waaagh or run a single cabbage and something else? To be clear. I don’t think this first draft will be nearly as effective in balancing risk & reward in AoS as the still imperfect secondaries have in 40k. But it felt familiar enough that I can see where they may be going with it, particularly after the new GHB mixes things up again (e.g. if we move on from Ghyran and no VP are being awarded for Monsters any more).

Lol because while very true I was the opposite. I was playing a lot of historical in my late 20s and 30s (with those 40+s you mention fair enough) and just around 40 got so fed up with it I switched to AoS. Historical really is its own thing.

Am I ever going to need a Murknob with Belcha-Banner? Planning on using the banner from the one I got in my Dominion set to kitbash a Beastboss on Squiagasaur as I’ll be playing my Orks sooner than my Kruleboyz. But they’re going cheap on eBay right now so would be easy to replace so if I’m gonna regret not having one later seems like now’s the time to lock in the replacement.

Thanks. From reading several other threads on the site though you start to get the impression that if you sign up for W+ you’ve somehow betrayed the AoS team by crossing the picket line. And I do fully understand without the 40k app the equation looks different. As regards the free model I get it not everyone benefits but there are plenty of ways to recoup that cost by selling them. What I don’t understand is the idea that everyone who is only in AoS and not interested in 40k holding out for more AoS content is a viable strategy. Spent way too much time around algorithms to have any doubt that if the AoS content they have put out isn’t getting clicks the solution next budget cycle will NOT be to double down on more AoS content. Won’t argue with those who want to wait for whatever reason but if what you want is more AoS content good old Lord Algo dictates that you want as many other AoS fans signed up and clicking on AoS content.

Warhammer+ is the best deal GW has offered in the time I’ve been involved with AoS and the Warhammer TV content is nicely proportioned. I paid $59.99 up front for Warhammer and I have already received an used the $16 voucher they sent me after my first month, reducing my cost to $43.99. I was already paying $0.99 a month for Azyr so I net out both the new app and that $11.88 cost as regardless of what they offered I would’ve continued to use and pay for an AoS list building app. So now I’m down to $32.11. After failing to get into a local AoS tournament decided to try my hand at the 40K side of it and thus had started paying the $2.99 for the 40K app. So again, net that $35.88 out in both directions and… GW is paying me $3.77 to watch Warhammer TV. But wait… I own a Warclans army in AoS and I am playing Orks in 40K which means that I’ll get a nice Megaboss/Beastboss on foot to play with (ideal for either Crusade or PtG I’m thinking). They currently go for $40. So even if we assume that they cancel the “free” model deal in year two AND raise the price by $10 that means over two years I will have paid $26.22. That averages out to $0.25 a week (apologies if any math errors but doing this all in my head at moment). Am I getting $0.25 worth of content each week? Absolutely. I get the idea that Warhammer TV’s offering is pretty sparse for now. But so is my free time. Netflix’s millions of hours of movies and TV doesn’t do me a damn bit of good since I’ll never be able to watch it all. The real question with Netflix is whether, when I have time to watch, does it have something I want to watch? And unsurprisingly it does for many people. That same question applies to Warhammer TV and after several weeks what I have consistently experienced is that by the time I’ve found time to consume the week’s offerings… it’s Wednesday again and another round of shows is served up for me. Understand that the AoS content is light and there’s a lot of frustration in how it has gone down but monetarily W+ has been an absolute bargain and content wise I have zero substantive complaints so far.

So much nodding of the head I’m worried I’ll get whiplash. Thank you @Marc Wilson for the original insight. Just went to a tournament that was a bit of a drive for me and required a hotel and meal purchases. While Kings of War was the focus the AoS side was by no means underserved. What showed through was the passion of the TO’s who clearly take a lot of pride in hosting a great event. You’re right though that the cost of the event was a small fraction of the cost of the weekend for me and I would’ve happily gone a bit lower cost on my meals to shuffle more of the budget towards the event itself. @ArkanautDadmiral it’s not just punk. So many “scenes”, whether music, sports, hobbies, heck even volunteering rely too heavily on passionate organizers who are not just willing to give of themselves but often take on financial risks to keep programs going through lean times or, as you described, painful growth spurts. All too often you’re right that the “free riders” feel not only like you should just be happy to get to do what you’re doing but that they can give you as much grief as they feel like about what you’re doing. Then they are “SHOCKED” when the organizers burn out and leave, seeing it as a flaw in the organizer not the way they’ve allowed the program to (d)evolve. I’m with @PlasticCraic and others on this thread who would love to see wargaming culture grow to where TO’s are properly compensated so that both the quantity and quality of events could improve. That this would happen by doing the right thing all the better. It seems the best way to get to that healthy mix of small, medium & large events people on this thread seem to want and which I agree is ideal. And thank you @Lucky Snake Eyes for a reminder that not all compensation need be monetary. I ran Zoom League for over a year, making a not insignificant monetary investment to enable it, and an even greater commitment in time to operate it. I didn’t expect any “compensation” for it but can’t say how much it meant to me when an Archaon was delivered to me as a gift in gratitude from the other players. Archaon a great model but this was truly a case where it was the thought behind the gift that mattered most. And to me all of this gets to a broader issue. While I see plenty of criticism on these threads and others about practices by GW that people perceive as being “unsustainable” (bad for the long-term health of the hobby) I see less about the unsustainable conscious or subconscious actions of the players that are wholly outside of GW’s purview and wholly within that player’s control, such as ensuring that TO’s are properly compensated for their time (whatever the preferred form of compensation) but just as importantly properly respected. Hard to imagine many things worse than taking all that is described above for a community and then have that community not just take all that work for granted but actively be disrespectful to you because they feel it’s their right for having bought a ticket… While AoS is riding high at the moment and I would love to see it continue to grow I’ve been around long enough to know how cyclical these th8ngs can be and how fast and hard the crash can be after a peak. Thanks again to all of the people above for highlighting ways we can work against that by making our local gaming tournament communities more resilient.

So on Friday should finally be able to pick up my Warclans Tome (took awhile to ship and than my store was closed last week for operator’s vacation). Excited for all the options available but particularly excited to start a Kruelboyz centered Path to Glory. Hoping to use it to build into a full 2K Kruelboyz list. Any recommendations on which boss varieties to focus on? Believe we’re starting at smallest PtG size.

After my first tournament I’m feeling I have a much better grasp of what 3.0 is trying to get to and while I think there are still a few wrinkles to be ironed out I’m a lot more positive on both that destination AND the probability that it will get there. That it could “arrive” as early as GH2022 is exciting. Like @Kadeton mentions I’m finding the new tactical focus and list building challenges enjoyable. And I should finally be able to pick up my new Warclans Tome Friday, allowing me to start preparing a plan for my new Kruelboyz to start on the Path to Glory. So while I’ve gotten off to a slow and uncertain start with 3.0 it has been nice over last couple of weeks to feel the momentum build.

Agree that both have virtues. From my experience above I would note that outside of the mirror matches I found a lot of utility in being able to move solo Mancrushers around the table independently. Being able to leave just one on an objective to prevent my opponent from stealing it by moving something into range while being able to throw other two forward was nice. As was being able to pin both sides of certain larger units.