Ganigumo

Ok so even if Tzaangors aren't great in a fight you can do some mortal wound cheese with them. If you lean into it I think getting 2 LoC as GoS is pretty easy, if you're just throwing GoS into an arcanite list it might be a stretch. In a list with 11 units of Kairics I wouldn't be surprised to see 3, although the last one wouldn't be that useful except to score the BT.

For arcanites its gotta be hosts arcanum or guild of summoners. Transient form is bad and I don't think pyrofane makes kairics good enough, but maybe theres gas if they don't FAQ stacking the spell. If you have a heavy tzaangor build maybe you could make hosts duplicitous work? Seems like a stretch though. Guild might end up being pretty good though. You turn a tough BT into an easy one and it encourages MSU kairics which seems to be the best way to run them. I heard mumbling about ornate totems on tzaangor getting reverted to count allied wizards as well again and that would be good in GoS, although I can't find a readable copy of the warscroll to verify.

I feel like you'd get more mileage out of sniping heroes with spells but maybe I'm underestimating them. They really don't compare favorably with other good shooting units. 4+/3+/-1/d3 ignoring modifiers is pretty close to 3+/3+/-2/d3. with a 40" threat range and 4 attacks for 190 points. Longstrikes are 3+/2+/-2/2 with a 36" threat range and 6 attacks for 240 points. Here's the math, and even if the enemy AoD, and is on a -1 to hit the longstrikes still win. 3 Tzaangor skyfires are going to struggle to kill even weak support heroes unless you're using DD or buffing them pretty heavily. They're better at it than flamers for sure, but I don't think they're good enough at it to be worth taking. Maybe if they ignored ward/bodyguard rolls they'd be worth the 190?

Thoughts on the new skyfires? They look like trash to me but I've seen some hot takes saying they're good and I just don't see it. You needed to use them primarily as a melee unit before, by abusing their rerolls, in addition to making use of the shooting for them to be any good. The new scroll gutted their melee output and let them ignore penalties on the shooting attacks, but 4 attacks with d3 damage for 190 points just seems incredibly low. You can cheese with Destiny dice but even that isn't very consistent because of the variable damage. Am I missing something?

WhAtZ MoAr SnEEky aN KuNnIn DaN A GiT WiD a CrOsSbOw? Or A BiG GiT oN A LoUD StiNKY BeAsTIE? Or FiSTS WOrF A GiTZ Wid ShiNY ShEELDZ. HiDIN, CREEPIN AN RUNNIN ABOUT'Z GROT BizNeZZ

If they really loved kruleboys they wouldn't have written the rules they did 😅 They could get a warcry warband, but I doubt they'll see an underworlds one since they had one last season.

Yeah squig herds seem solid on paper (for gitz), 25mm bases, pretty good attack profile, and the wounds are cheap (at least for us right now). Between rallying on a 4+ under the moon and returning half the unit with the shrine they have the potential to stick around for a bit. Feels like they're a bit tricky to get the most out of though because its so easy to lose an entire unit to combat + battleshock.

The warscroll changes are largely inconsequential outside of a few exceptions. Biggest winner is the changecaster, its new spell is -1 to save and thats fantastic. Imo other winners are: Kairos, LoC, gaunt summoner, kairics & tzaangors (because of reversions but I don't think they're any better than in the last book). I think kairos is a winner since an extra destiny die every turn is probably better than his old once per game ability, at least for tzeentch armies. Losers are: changeling, fatemaster, blue scribes, burning sigil? Fatemaster traded the CA for a +1 to wound aura, so he's still playable but its weaker than hit rerolls, scribes lost their spell but still have the once per game cast on a 2+ so they might show up still. Everything else that changed was pretty minor or inconsequential and I doubt will shift things much. The subfaction abilities are generally weaker, but still very playable outside of Transient form and maybe pyrofane cult. We got a really good set of battle tactics though, and a couple GS that are in the running.

Yeah the coalition rules are unchanged from the looks of it.

After saying that though they have some pretty easy to complete BTs, and a GS which is also guaranteed if you use fate dice sparingly.

I can't believe they just kind of left cult of the transient form as-is. At least its not paired with the worst artefact & command trait in the book anymore but yeesh. Its one of my favorite subfactions from a narrative and conceptual standpoint but that rule is just awful and always has been. Like if you have 60 acolytes in your list you get to fight on death with a bunch of dudes that do no damage, and still need to spend points on another infantry unit to only get an extra 6 models worth like 100 points. Would it have really been too much to let them add enlightened or skyfires? Or just add the tzaangor models to the kairic unit so we don't need to buy extra units and try to position to get anything out of it?

I can't believe they just kind of left cult of the transient form as-is. At least its not paired with the worst artefact & command trait in the book anymore but yeesh. Its one of my favorite subfactions from a narrative and conceptual standpoint but that rule is just awful and always has been. I havent gotten through everything yet but my overall impression so far is that its weaker, but I don't have the sense that the book is too weak.

Gargants are really popular aren't they? They're pretty much THE timmy army in terms of aesthetic. Also I really hope they don't tie the subfactions to the general again. Even in the current book its barely justified since the benefits tend to focus on the mancrushers as much or more than the megas.

I don't know if anything is meta with gitz, but I think Squignos and Trogg lists were doing the best. At a local event with like 60 people a gitz player came in 12th with a boingrot bounder spam list. Here's a woehammer link that has the army list near the bottom of the article.

Maneaters are all but confirmed in some form or another, but other than that I doubt we'll see anything. Probably through a warcry warband. Maneaters are one of the few units in the game where the vastly different equipment/outfits for each model makes sense when translated to AoS' larger scale.

I'm so glad they didn't just do Brodd when taking the time to do an upgrade on the mega gargant kit. Now I'm hopeful we might see a shaman/shooting variant. Seems like they understand Gargants are the timmy army now too. One 5d6 damage hit isn't that much better than 3 5 damage hits, but its fun to roll the dice and go for that big hit.

Personally I really loved secret agendas, and found them a better fit narratively than fate dice. The reason they cut down on fate dice manipulation is probably because of how powerful the rule is. If we can generate more or manupulate them more we should expect the actual units in the army to get way worse/more expensive to compensate. Another interesting way to take secret agendas would be to let the Tzeentch player note down their battle tactic in secret, only revealing it at the end of the turn when it is scored or failed.

Ironjawz, IDK, and DoK were pointed pretty aggressively werent they? Clanrats definitely were too. We got gamewide increases at the start of 3rd but they're just as inconsistent as ever with points. Heck even the initial point increases for third were way out of line in a lot of cases, since stuff literally nobody played went up. Although I agree that the LoC will probably sit in the 450-500 point range with a few buffs to compensate.

We can get 4 battletomes on one day, and then absolutely nothing until the STD box at the end of the year. Negative Play Experience has a pretty subjective definition. Some people can have a blast getting smashed on the table, and other people are salty that their 70 point chaff unit dies when they ran it into a hammer. When it comes to rules an abilities, NPE generally translates into "non-interactive" and/or "stops me from playing the game" (or as close to a shared definition as you can get). Some good examples are: Total Eclipse in Lumineth: mapwide area of effect, lumineth has some good wizards, and many armies don't have a lot of CP to work with. It can essentially prevent the other player from using command abilities without counterplay options. Ogors are a good example of an army this hurts badly. Poor CP generation and bad wizards. Sentinels: Shooting is often said to be NPE, as its non-interactive, but Sentinels definitely cross the line as they ignore almost every tool at a player's disposal to protect things from shooting. Mortals mean all out defense does nothing, long range makes positioning away from them a nightmare, and ignoring line of sight means you can't hide behind terrain. Wind spirits being unchargeable. If you don't have shooting you can't kill them. Khorne Daemon Prince: You can't stop a Command ability, and it shuts down aggression super hard. It can be shot but the armies that are hit hardest aren't using shooting in the first place. The Gaunt summoner ability probably doesn't fall into NPE. Just because the gaunt summoner is a 5-6 wound hero on a 6+ save. If you're throwing something that can't kill it at it I think this ability is the least of your concerns. The ability is cool but really bad. Yeah I'm even incredibly skeptical of the bonesplitterz stats in relation to their power level. I've got a feeling they're just being pushed around by a handful of super skilled players that are just abusing the pre-game move and armywide 4+ ward, but I haven't looked into it too deeply. The playrate for bonesplitterz is one of the lowest in the entire game.

The only thing I don't like about that direction is the narrative consequences of it, I don't think its a bad direction for balance though. Some units get wards just because, like Tzaangor shields. Other units get wards because it reflects the narrative, like Bonesplitterz getting their warpaint faith save.

Kruleboyz already have it, and look how they're faring. Nearly Gitz tier.

Honestly the strategy of releasing 2 battletomes at the same time is a bad one IMO. I preferred the aos2 strategy of ~1 per month. It made the wait between releases shorter and that made it feel like the game was better supported. Even if we had the same number of battletomes, but they had been released 1 at a time, I think we all would've been in a better mood about the support. The new release dynamic is like, 2 tomes every few months released whenever we feel like it. It feels so haphazard and unplanned.

Not surprising that the monsters all have their own pages, the allegiance abilities being 2 is a bit interesting. Maybe you get a different set depending on whether your general is a gutbuster or beastclaw, would be a neat direction to take it since they could play up the everwinter a bit more.

If we're speculating I'd bet on Obr either releasing alongside STD or immediately after. They need a rules rewrite but being a range of newer models I don't imagine they'll get much this edition. An infantry warrior hero would be a good fit for a single kit too. The ranges I think are most likely to see updates before the end of next year are Gitz, BoC & FeC. We might get Dawnbringer crusades but I'm not too convinced, I think it will be one of the last books for the edition. So my prediction/wishlist looks like: Obr in december/january, Gitz vs KO in Q1 with a spiderfang expansion, BoC vs Seraphon with a BoC refresh in Q2, FeC vs Khorne with a small sylvaneth style expansion for FeC in Q3, then Soulblight and Chaos dwarves in Q4. Thats 8-9 books and we'd only be missing cities/dawnbringers and slaanesh which would fit nicely into early 2024. We will probably see a narrative campaign start up sometime in late 2022-mid 2023 to prep us for 4e. I don't see us getting any new more new armies after chaos dwarves this edition. Although I would love to see gitmob return. 4e starter box could actually be dawnbringers though, narratively BoC would be a fantastic counterpart but I'd put my bets on elves. specifically Lumineth vs "Umbraneth" which would explain why they dropped the lumineth tome so early (can't have them wait out a whole edition for a new book). Plus we'd complete the circle and get an Order vs Order starter box.

The warclans book is 3 armies stapled together, with a single page that lets you play them together. Each clan has its own completely separate and exclusive allegiance abilities, artefacts, command traits, battle tactics, grand strategies and playstyle. Going into big Waaagh! has you trade most of the allegiance abilities of the 3 factions (you get to keep Venom Encrusted weapons, Mighty Destroyers, and warpaint). For a new one that gives buffs as you gather Waaagh! points. Big Waaagh! primarily benefits Ironjawz the most, as they lose the least so most Big Waaagh! lists are just Ironjawz lists that borrow a unit or two from Kruleboyz/Bonesplitterz. Its not really a soup book in the traditional sense (like cities of sigmar or Mawtribes). In fact after you read through the Warclans book you can't help but wonder if it was written by 3 different people because the quality of rules varies so vastly between them. Ironjawz are perfect and somehow improved from their 2e book which was a tall order. The rules are simple but engaging and have depth, plus the units are costed appropriately aggressively for an army with no healing/summoning. Honestly one of the best armies for beginners to get into. Kruleboyz rules are needlessly complex, there's dissonance between the rules, narrative, and model range, and despite the complexity the rules aren't very engaging or interesting. Stuff feels like it was pointed by playing darts at the pub, and the army is super restricted in listbuilding. Kruleboyz needing some heavy editing and changes to get anywhere near where Ironjawz landed. Bonesplitterz are basically 2e bonesplitterz with less rules. There's some changes like the Waaagh! being an armywide 4+ ward, but it felt like they didn't want to bother writing rules for bonesplitterz.