Ganigumo

I'd like to imagine both the GHB battalions are limited to 1 per army like hunters was, and if the +1 damage is only a single unit it might not be too much. A lot of the top tier armies have overkill damage anyways.

The new GHB lets battleline infantry fight in two ranks, I crunched some numbers on Tzaangors.... These are all with the +1 to wound from an arcanite hero, and +1 to hit (mostly for my sanity since half the unit has it baseline).

Overwhelming Assault? More like Underwhelming Assault 🤣 Like seriously you need to target a unit with 4 or less wounds with less than 6 models and roll the die. Most valid targets for this won't be a threat, and the for few that are it will still be a gamble. I'm sure there will be situations where you use it, and it pays off, but I'm not a fan of this. It does work most of the time against grot heroes though. Also lets all take a moment to thank GW for finally addressing the coherency issue. I really like the change, there are a few units that might fall through the cracks, or be a bit weird since its only battleline, but this is a really positive change for the game.

But is it better than battle regiment?

If they did it as an errata/FAQ to the core rules its an admission they screwed up with coherency rules. If they put it in a GHB battlepack focusing on infantry it looks more like a planned feature of the season, not a lack of thought or playtesting.

The switch from unit size 3 to 6 hurt gluttons in a big way too. Sure 12-18 gluttons are a ridiculous number of wounds and own objectives well but its hard to listbuild around. A lot of units got nerfed through the size changes now that I think about it.

So back in January/February I finally painted up a mawtribes list: I haven't gotten any games in with it yet, haven't gotten any in at all really, but with Krondspine out I was wondering if the list would be better or worse with him included. The basic strat is to shove the leadbelchers through the bridge, shoot with d6 shots, 3d6 charge with kragnos, and hopefully mop up whatever's in the way. I could run the same artefacts/CT in either list. Krondspine adds another big threat and an extra bonus to cast to force bridge on t1, but you lose out on the extra 8 leadbelchers. Its possible to run the lists in underguts but you don't really get much out of it. Unfortunately its really hard to fit a unit of 12 leadbelchers into a list with kragnos, and impossible to do it with kragnos and krondspine. you also can't fit 12x leadbelchers and 8x leadbelchers in the same list with kragnos, which is why I opted for 2x8 in the first list. Anyone have any thoughts or suggestions?

I painted up a leadbelcher heavy kragnos alpha list that would get a huge boost from this. Its kragnos + soulscream bridge + big units of leadbelchers, where the strat is to bridge out the leadbelchers, shoot with the extra shots, 3d6 charge for impact hits, then clean up whats left in melee. Its probably got some consistency issues because of bridge being inconsistent with ogors but I haven't gotten it on the table yet. The list: I've been meaning to go back and make changes to possibly add kronspine, some variant of this could be pretty interesting if they fight in two ranks.

In general I find just using a gloss varnish on top creates a similar effect. Even GW's 'ardcoat should do the trick. I tend to spray my models with a matte varnish when I'm done painting, so if I want something to appear slick I'll go back and put the gloss varnish over those parts.

I really like these changes for the most part. Some battalions that give BR a run for its money, and fixing the coherency issue (for infantry at least). If worded correctly the fight in 2 ranks won't be a buff to 25mm models too. Feels like wishlisting to me though.

The strat was basically "screen spam" where you spam a bunch of MSU junk and die slowly while working to score BT. Its what BoC have been doing for ages. It plays pretty well into a meta that can't spread damage well, kruleboys can stack some anti-ranged as too, although these kinds of lists tend to pair up well into shooting if they're not reliant on a specific piece that can be shot.

Strength in numbers is the rule we could've used a year ago to fix the coherency problems for models on 32mm bases. As far as the new paints go I like kroxigor scales, aeldari emerald stormfiend, leviathan purple, sigvald burgundy and briar queen chill. Kroxigor scales, aeldari emeraly and stormfiend give us different scales of blue-green/teal which is something the line was lacking (I ended up mixing my own in the past). The purples they had previously felt lacking as well. Briar Queen chill is a nice alternative to Aethermatic blue. I just finished painting a sludgeraker where I felt like the aethermatic blue was too strong a colour, even after thinning it with medium. (I think it still turned out fine, but I would've liked a more muted blue)

Despite getting squatted Gitmob have also been showing up, in underworlds through rippas snarlfangs and they were mentioned several times during broken realms stories. Could be hints at new armies or just leaving their options open. I for one really want gitmob to be back, especially after how great the rippas snarlfangs models are.

I still feel like the destruction god should've been something like the "avatar of mork", it's a unique character but is essentially a supercharged shaman who is possessed by mork (or a fragment of his power). The spirit wanders the lands empowering gorkamorka's followers in the heat of battle to turn the tides, but in a way that is hard to predict or understand. The model would be a big base with a supercharged shaman, with options for an orruk, grot, or ogor in the center. Plenty of physical manifestations of the power would be visible and would take a spectral shape. It would be like a ghost monster made of waaagh! energy. From a lore perspective it could've been birthed by the massive congregation of Gordrakk's WAAAGH!!! As in a narrative sense that energy gets stronger the more the forces of destruction gather, it would also be a nice counterpoint to Gordrakk (who is the fist of Gork) as even in the broken realms stories he was directed to embrace mork more. It could also provide an interesting entry point for Gobsprakk, as maybe he was the first shaman to be possessed by the spirit and it left him a bit changed. From a mechanical perspective it would've been a better fit. Kragnos basically just does what destruction does anyways (hit things hard, and the armies have no lack of things that do that), where a supercaster support piece is something the entire allegiance is lacking in.

Warclans had lores and artefact tables with only 4 in it as well.

This is a result of the modular design direction of aos3. Pretty much every book so far went for a modular design (where every piece in the army is good on its own, pieces are interchangeable, aka modular). By going for modular design you need to give up on linear synergies and weaken combos because the individual pieces are already worth taking without them. Its not bad design, but not every book should be using it, stormcast in particular shouldn't because modular design is harder for new players to wrap their heads around, and because they have too many warscrolls to create a niche for every unit. KB can probably reach mid tier with points adjustments, but they need a second pass at the rules to clean up stuff like the shaman, gobsprakk, skareshields, subfactions, and the allegiance abilities. They really should have tricks that buffs their retreating, or give ambush options reliably to really push the cunning part of the army. I don't think souping is what held kruleboyz back, because they aren't really souped as the book provides an avenue for kruleboyz specific rules. It would've been pretty easy to give them a CA for retreat and charge, or an out of sequence retreat, or a rule that lets them deploy from the board edge, etc. Given that bonesplitterz basically just had rules stripped, and feel like alpha rules I think they just didn't put enough time into the book, maybe thats a souping problem, but its possible to put extra work in to make a book like that not feel rushed. Big agree on the CAs. Its a step back designwise and I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to strip heroes of the thing that makes them unique. pretty much all wizards and priests still get unique spells, why don't non-wizard/priests heroes get unique command abilities?

We've seen some results from it recently, but I'm not sure what KB bring to the table that other armies with similar strats available to them don't. You can play similar lists in Gitz, BoC, fyreslayers, Bonesplitterz, Ironjawz (non-pig non-krusha ironjawz builds have a ridiculous number of wounds), etc. These kinds of MSU screen spam lists are good against armies that overinvest in big hammers, because if you play correctly the 500 point hammer won't ever have anything but chaff in front of it while you focus on objectives. They can be good against shooting as well (with KB getting extra anti shooting) but anything that isn't chaff will just be picked off the table in the first couple of turns so if you're really reliant on those heroes the army can start to fall apart. These lists have typically been pretty weak in aos3 and I'm pretty sure its because of how hard it is to score Battle tactics with an army like that. The game really tends to reward overkill damage on highly mobile or long range pieces to guarantee stuff like broken ranks or bring it down. This is the real reason horde armies flatlined once aos3 started, because objective control isn't enough to win games anymore.

The real thing driving big units over small ones isn't aos 2 habits, its battle regiment. There are only 5 troop slots in a battle regiment, so if you're trying to do something like MSU boltboyz you end up losing priority.

I don't think most people consider the different warclans the same army, I imagine even GW doesn't given how the rules are written and how vastly different the model ranges are (even stuff like lumineth share some design elements across the entire army, with orruks the only thing they share is being green). It would be nice to see them flex stuff like warcry for other alliances and range updates as well. Spiderfang only needs like 2 kits to be in a good spot (spider riders and a pusgoyle/dragonrider style dual kit for scuttleboss/monstrous cav). Both updated spider riders and updated maneaters would be great fits for warcry now that its moving to ghur. As cool as the cultist models are I'm getting a little worn out on different outfits of chaos marauders at this point.

FW has a bad track record in terms of business decisions though, so I don't trust them not to ****** it up. A perfect example is the fantasy/aos line of models that was nearly completely scrapped. Of the models that stayed, all of them had faction keywords. Of the ones that were removed most (possibly all) didn't have a faction keyword. It astounds me that they couldn't be bothered to just slap a faction keyword on those warscrolls, it was literally leaving money on the table.

I think that plan would be really bad from a business perspective. IMO the best way to make money out of it is to sell as much to both groups as possible. What I think would be best from a business perspective: All TOW kits get aos warscrolls, and subfaction rules where appropriate. (i.e "not kislev" could be a city of sigmar in the southern tundras of ghur, and Greenskinz could make a comeback in big waaagh!) Recycle as many plastic kits as possible (both currently in production for aos and ones that were taken out of production). No need to redesign kits that don't need it, and you can generally get factions in a releasable spot faster, speeding up development time. Its also better for their pockets if they release less stuff aos players already own since they can sell to both playerbases. (Recycled out of production kits like boar boyz and a lot of the 8th ed tomb kings stuff, that still holds up pretty well.) When it comes to dawnbringer crusades I'm pretty sure they're not going to touch any of the non-human stuff from cities of sigmar, but all they showed us so far were bits and doodads. I wouldn't be surprised if the release ends up being a bunch of completely new kits, alongside upgrade sprues similar to what we've seen in 40k a few times like with the cadians. That way the old empire kits can do double duty. Alternatively it wouldn't be a stretch for them to be completely revamped kits with Old World upgrade sprues. I think we're well past anything in aos getting squatted or shifted to another system, and GW would be fools to not try to sell old world models to aos players.

In terms of building big stabbas 2 boxes of the infantry will make 4 big stabbas and 30 infantry with 2 left over which isn't too bad.

Definitely bad, but 40k has done it in the past, and it was especially egregious. I've got 2 ork codexes (7th & 8th) with the same picture of an ork, but the books are also very visually similar. At least with the aos 3 ones the bindings are red (even if I preferred the white aos2 ones) so its easy to tell the difference.

The new sylvaneth models are cool, although I found the flying archers to be a bit boring? Like I get that it makes sense, and flying archers are objectively a useful thing in-narrative (in rules I suspect they'll either be chaff or competing directly with kurnoth hunters), but I tend to prefer when they get a bit weirder like with the bug cavalry. I'm a bit disappointed that sylvaneth are getting the update though, Skaven are in desperate need of a refresh (among other armies).

The warscrolls are still available for free in the official aos app, but the army rules require the code. Also the boltboy "banner" model is the unit captain based on the instructions in the kit, but its not part of his equipment or anything, it just makes him stand out.