Ganigumo

I've never been happier to have 6 month seasons than after gallet season 1.

Recently (and for the second time) Bank of america has released a statement saying that Hasbro (WoTC parent company) has been destroying magic by overmonetizing it, and it has even started affecting their stock. For the past few years WoTC (mostly off the back of MTG) has been pretty much the only profitable part of Hasbro, and hasbro has been all but directly lying on their financial reports saying things are going great, because the only reason they're turning a profit is because they're essentially strip mining MTG as a brand. MTG has been pushing a lot of FOMO releases, pushing power creep to sell cards (in a game where cards rotate out), etc. A lot of it came to a head when they released the anniversary collection. 4 booster packs, of not legal cards (aka proxies, they have different backs) for 1000$USD. So far we all know the fomo box stuff will see solo releases if we wait though, and 6 month seasons are hopefully going away but I'm not sure that borders on the overmonetization of the game. GW would need to start doing stuff like power creeping every release, frequent squatting of old models (to make you buy new ones), tons of limited run miniatures etc. I know they ruined their goodwill back in the 2000's so I think GW is wise enough to not go back down that path.

Mortals are fine but a bunch of the stuff that gets them can be excessive. Without strength/toughness/WS its useful to have something to differentiate attack profiles, mass attacks, rend, and mortals create 3 different offense types. mass attacks for low saves rend for medium mortals for very good saves. I find it funny that when an army gets mortals as a mechanic, it tends to be carefully limited and balanced (spiderfang, kruleboyz), but then they just slap it on random warscrolls where it becomes ridiculous (squigboss, splintered fang, zombies). Not sure where lumineth fit though, nobody in my playgroup plays them.

We shouldn't be comparing GW raising prices, to what WoTC is doing. WoTC is guilty of overmonetizing MTG, and is looking to do the same with D&D. WoTC is in hot water because they've been releasing way too many products too quickly, many of which are limited time fomo style releases, in an effort to squeeze as much money as possible out of the existing playerbase. Its basically what many video games have been doing as well, with the excessive microtransactions. Its to the point where they print balance warping cards to try to get eternal format players to buy standard sets. Their monetization is burning customer goodwill and actually hurting the game as a whole. You can go back on a price increase if your sales drop and generally win back the customer goodwill, especially if you overcorrect a little, but trying to go back on the stuff WoTC has been doing will take years of work to build back support.

I know people think of gitz as "goofy haha" and slaanesh as "sex, drugs & rock'n'roll" but both have plenty of nightmare fuel, body horror in particular. There was even a story in the gitz battletome about gitz feigning defeat to lure a slaaneshi warband into their mushroom farm, only for the entire slaaneshi force to start having a bad trip letting the gitz ambush them.

Honestly I don't think this is a problem with it being soup, and more just that they really botched the warclans book in general. Bonesplitterz were oversimplified and Kruleboyz were half baked and the rules reek of being scared they'd be too strong.

Kruleboyz are Greenskinz though. You still have most of the same units, gutrippaz are boyz, boltboyz are arrer boyz, vulcha's are wyverns, etc. with a few extra toys. Only boarboyz and boar chariots don't have replacements. The army even has grot assistants all over the place. The problem is that the narrative surrounding them is about being cruel and sneaky. So the reimagined version of an army that pushed massed infantry forward is an army that by the narrative should be a tricky finesse army. The models actually match the greenskinz playstyle far better too, they pretty much have exclusively infantry and heroes, and the way the army "wants" to play is by slowly pushing forward with gutrippaz, and supporting them with your heroes and some shooting, which still plays a lot like greenskinz (or more accurately O&G). Its a bit weird that a sneaky army is so reliant on massed infantry too, as its about the least sneaky of all the unit types. Its almost like they decided to push the sneaky part after all the models were finished, maybe to avoid the orruk armies all playing too similarly.

They could push arkanaut into that corsair role, they've all got melee weapons and pistols, and it would give them something to excel at, but maybe they'd be too cool then. You could let them charge out of boats with a bonus, or be the only unit that can get out after the boat moves.

How do we feel about Zarbag? His retreat spell seems pretty useful for abusing 4+ rally. Positioning could be a problem, but we could use things like spellportal or lauchon to get him close enough.

It certainly doesn't help that KB are the weakest army in the game now that Gitz got updated.

The anti-pile in spell is good with Ghorgons, you might not be able to split a unit since it happens before attacks, and you might end up killing the other half of the unit anyways, but it lets you hit the side of a unit and not take much damage in retaliation.

I think bestigor are pretty awful now. They barely benchmark above 10 paired weapon Gor fighting (I know coherency is an issue for gor, but they're half the cost so if you reinforced it the Gor would outdamage them), and they don't even average 10 damage against any kind of save, which means they struggle to even kill screens without buffs, so even if Gor get nerfed their damage isn't any good. Their warscroll ability for +1 attack against all out defense sounds good, but its actually a "Gotcha!" rule, because using all out defense makes them do way more damage overall, therefore using all out defense against bestigor is just a mistake. Its not like they're anvils either, 20W on a 4+ is quite a bit of meat to chew through, but won't be hard for most hammers, and again, 20 shield gor have the same defensive profile and probably similar damage alongside the fights last utility and better support through things like allherd. Even ignoring Gor the other hammers do so much more, Bullgor pack the mortals, Slaangor are cheap tech pieces with fights last, enlightened on Disk are super mobile, and Tzaangor, despite lack of rend, outdamage bestigor even against 2+ saves, and do nearly double against higher saves with the same number of wounds at a cheaper cost. Plus both tzaangor and Slaangor have the brayherd keyword, so they get all the same buffs. Its just another case of GW overvaluing raw wounds. Bestigor didn't get much of an increase in their output (arguably it went down since +1 attack on the charge was easy to trigger) but got a huge point increase because they're 2W now. Its pretty much the same thing as Gutrippaz and Savage Orruks (and tzaangor for most of aos2), where they have the same offensive profile as a 1W model, but cost nearly double because of the second wound. Although maybe GW was just playing some points roulette with this book, as some of the points are just insane. Bray shaman at 95 and Tzaangor shaman at 115 seem insanely low, meanwhile Bestigor at 220, Shaggoth at 275, and foot enlightened at 165 are ludicrous. Like seriously, foot enlightened are 90 points in Tzeentch and nobody takes them, how on earth did they get a nearly 80% increase.

Would Coatl trip over Ripperdactl/Terradons if they were monstrous Cav instead of a centerpiece? So something more like Blightlords or Stormdrakes.

Seraphon was confirmed to be the summer Order release in the last reveal show, not the spring one. I know they've used spring/summer a bit interchangably, but that probably pegs the seraphon release in May. If anything they'll probably sandwich the 40k 10th release in between the seraphon launch box and the full release, like they did with lumineth. so launch box in late may, full book in late june. Personally I'd bet on KO in Feb as well, Khorne and slaanesh in march, and OBR/FeC in april. On a somewhat tangential note this editions launch order is the absolute worst for me personally. I've got all the destruction armies, Tzeentch, BoC, StD, and KO. In the whole first year the only one of my armies that got updated was warclans, and its probably the biggest loser of the edition. then they're releasing literally all the armies I play over like 6-8 months, and they released two absolute banger tomes in Gitz and BoC when I'm in the middle of moving. Although now that all my armies are updated I get to vibe and wait for the end of edition spice unless the dinos pull me in.

The whole attack sequence doesn't make a ton of narrative sense anyways. If you wanted to to reflect the narrative better you would do hit roll/armor save/wound roll/ward save. That makes gameplay messier though.

Rippas are basically for when you wanted snarlfangs but don't have enough points. They should probably come down a bit more though.

I wouldnt be surprised either. Mostly because what they NEED is better defenses, and what would make them not bad offensively is an extra attack. Although putting a point of rend only on the hackas makes them a bit more balanced.

The hardest part about the new book is figuring out what to play, its all good (except spiderfang). Big units of hoppers can abuse 4+ rally while being fast Big units of boingrots can do the same but have less wounds on a 4+ save and a more elite attack profile with reach on the spears but you really want to be charging with them Squigs have tons of wounds and attacks without reach issues(25mm bases), and splash mortals when they flee (9" range on it now!) They all seem really playable.

Herds can't receive commands, but theres a lot less keyword bingo. Gobbapalooza can give +1 rend, sporesplattas can give +1 attack, snufflers can give a 5+ ward, then the squigboss only works on squig units but can give mortals on 6s to hit, +1 attack, or +3 move, plus he can let a squig herd do a hero phase move once per game. None of those are commands either so it works on your herds. Then to top it off whenever the loonboss on foot issues all out attack to a moonclan unit (including squigs, but herds can't receive commands) the unit deals mortals on 6s to wound. So plenty of options for buffs depending on how you want to play.

I doubt Gorkamorka will ever get a model, nor do I think he should. A big part of destruction lore is about the clearly absurd stuff gorkamorka does, like biting moons and drinking oceans. In my eyes he's actually on the same level as the chaos gods. Its also worth considering if Gorkamorka ever actually existed at all (in a physical sense). The forces of destruction aren't exactly known for accurate record keeping, and its possible many of gorkamorka's triumphs were actually the triumphs of large numbers of united destruction forces. As in all those God-beasts he killed were killed by ogors, grots and orruks, and the story was exaggerated and changed over time into a labor of Gorkamorka. Its a bit of a theme that stuff they can't explain or remember gets attributed to gorkamorka, like the everwinter, bad moon, and spider god. It would be cool to see an avatar of Mork though, Gordrakk is a stand-in for Gork so it would be nice to see mork better represented. Its honestly what I was hoping kragnos would be. Some sort of hyper powerful WAAAGH!!! spirit that moves around and possesses Destruction shamans seemingly at random to shift battles (and often ends up exploding the shaman). The model itself could be some kind of entranced shaman surrounded by a bunch of magical energy, possibly in the shape of something nasty, and you could have a grot, ogor or orruk inside of it. Ruleswise it would've given destruction something it doesn't have much of, a sort of super support caster. Then as a good plot hook for kruleboyz maybe Gobsprakk could've been the first to have been possessed by the spirit at the battle of excelsis, but managed to survive the ordeal. That said I am 1000% percent down for god-beasts on the table. Bring on the spider god!

With the new gitz scrolls a few things are looking pretty juicy as allies. Skragrott is of course great, +1 double wizard with a pretty good scroll spell and a free command every turn and is only 160 points. I've been using spider riders as allied screens for a while now, and they're still an option. They got slightly better since units of 5 can now have banners and musicians. Fungoids got much better for us too, since they traded in the 4+ ward to be unseeable outside 12" you can take them in grinnin blades without them asking to get blown off the table. Snarlfangs are really tempting, their damage isn't fantastic but they're fast screens with utility which is something KB really want in a unit. 135 points is a bit awkward since 3 units are 405 points, and 1 unit + rippas + skragrott is also 405. Lastly everyone is talking about fellwaters, and I can see why, but I'm not sure how well they fit into a kruleboyz army. You can hide them behind a screen and unleash hell, and try to use them to bump up the rend of stuff like boltboyz but I'm not sure how effective it is for kruleboyz because of our reliance of VEW. I'm most looking forward to running some snarlfangs alongside my kruleboyz.

Well he can still issue all out attack to them but only Moonclan get the mortals on 6's to wound so Troggs can't get it.

I think with the glowup the marshcrawla is much less appealing, they probably won't bother to change the scroll until a new warclans book either as gitz are the only army with access to it as an ally anyways. The +1 to hit aura is still good, but there are so many other good support pieces in gitz now that you might struggle to find the points to fit it in, plus its a bit of a nonbo with the troggboss and loonboss all out attack buffs. A heavy squig herd build probably loves it though.

Yes. Based on the wording it says "...If you do so you can pick 1 friendly spider riders unit wholly within 12" of this unit. This unit and the unit you picked can retreat..." Can means its optional. Of course the scuttleboss needs to survive combat, which he might actually be able to do with the new headdress.

As long as we have a 3 year edition cycle, and army updates that are done through physical media there's a pretty hard barrier to the number of factions that can exist in the game without souping.