Ganigumo

Cockatrice is a bit of a meme, they're dirt cheap now, but they only have 10" range on the MW ability that does d6 on a 4+, so they're not really sniping any important pieces, and the damage is super unreliable. Are knight judicators broken when spammed though? I mean you'd have enough shots to gun down support heroes, and I guess you could do a bunch of the mortal wound splashes, but spamming a 205 point 5 wound foot hero seems like it has some pretty significant drawbacks that make it more of a cheese strat than OP.

Name a single unit with balanced rules that is problematic when spammed. You won't be able to, because there aren't any. A unit doesn't just mysteriously become broken when somebody runs more of it, what actually happens is that the unit was already broken and tough to deal with, but a small number of them is manageable to beat because you can either ignore it, or commit way more resources than that unit costed to deal with it. That's not balance, and to enforce limited numbers of units is a bandaid fix that does nothing but obscure the problem. I don't expect it either, but we shouldn't cry out for mediocrity (even if we've been conditioned to expect it). GW really needs to just get in the habit of rewriting warscrolls during balance updates. Also limits on spamming stuff is a bit hard to implement in aos with some ranges as small as they are. We don't talk about it as much, but just as many armies spam the only solid-average scroll or two in the book as armies spamming the broken scrolls in the book.

As far as I'm concerned spam isn't a problem. literally nobody is upset at the guy running a silly 80 squig hopper list. It becomes a balance issue when the scroll being spammed is broken. So the obvious solution is just to not make broken warscrolls that do everything (speed, durability, power) and/or cost those units at a premium to encourage diversity. We shouldn't be asking for a bandaid fix when the obvious problem is just poorly balanced/tested warscrolls that are overtuned. We should be asking GW to actually fix the problem and rewrite the warscroll or point them appropriately

Please no. 40k does this and I hate it. It doesn't even stop the problem, all it does is limit the amount of your army which is allowed to be broken or OP (when it should be none of it.) Lets just balance the scrolls and stop making units that do everything (fast anvil-hammers with shooting). Spamming isn't a problem if the unit being spammed isn't broken.

When are we expecting the ogor warband's warscroll to drop?

Models I like and an actual build around them (even if it isn't strong).

Acolytes are 32mm bases with 1" reach as well. I'm not sold on cult of the transient form, its just way too jank, and doesn't provide much benefit, even though I like it the most narratively. AOS 3 changed the ability to only trigger in the combat phase so we can't even get tzaangors off of shooting/magic casualties like we used to, and the tzaangors need to be within 9" of the slain model not within 9" of the unit the model was from, which kind of wierdly translates to wholly within if you want to be able to benefit from any 6's. Doesn't help that the subfaction has the worst artefact, Command ability, and command trait of all the subfactions. Something to keep in mind if you want to try Cult of a Thousand eyes is that Tzaangors don't actually have the Mortal keyword, so they don't benefit from the abilities. Which is a shame because we really needed a subfaction to raise Tzaangors up a bit. I think mortals are a bit overcosted but there's definitely some gas in an arcanite focused playstyle, even if its not as competitive as the daemon builds, but I think Pyrofane cult, guild of summoners, or hosts arcanum are the way to go for it.

You can't directly compare the Warchanter buff and this. Ironjawz entire damage output is HIGHLY dependent on the warchanter buff, and the units are balanced around having that buff. Most ironjawz units without a warchanter hit like a wet blanket. This is obviously a situational ability that will push fyreslayer units into overdrive when you do get it off, not something the entire army depends on for its output. Also the hero is still a priest who can chant prayers, they've got some value outside of this ability,

Theoretically this new Fyreslayers hero is ALSO a priest right? So yeah, this is a bit tougher to get off, with more powerful effects but the hero can fall back on chanting prayers. I agree with this, BoC being pushed back almost guarantees it to be getting a range refresh of some sort.

Its not a command, so unless the ability explicitly says a unit can only benefit from one of them at a time it stacks. They might have omitted the text in the preview, but it looks like the full ability was shown.

RR1's is pretty close to exploding 6's if they can get down to hitting on 2's (3+ base), plus this doesn't seem to be exclusive. If you had 2 of these guys you could give a unit both. If this is anything to go by there might be some serious buff stacking potential in the new IDK book (despite them trying to clamp down on it in the core rules).

After systematically eliminating reroll 1s from the core rules and the first 3 battletomes its already back in by the fourth.

I think this year will be pretty light on AOS releases. IDK (no new models outside of the battlebox hero) Nighthaunt (with a foot hero, and possibly some cursed city tie ins) Combined dwarf book with 1-2 extra kits on top of the fyreslayer battlebox hero (grugni stand-in and maybe one extra kit) Then in no particular order Gitz book with one kit Khorne book with one kit FEC book with one kit A new army (chaos dwarves) or an army revamp (skaven or BoC) near the end of the year

Not sure about a gorger kit, but I could definitely see plastic frost sabres, yhetees, and maneaters.

Tzaangors don't even have a bad warscroll, they just don't have access to much support in the book and are overcosted.

All spiderfang needs to be fully updated in my eyes is a stormdrake/blightlord style scuttleboss kit and updated spider riders. That said ogors are the destruction faction most in need of an update, there's still quite a few resin kits in that line.

He got a 6+ ward and makes nearby destruction units (including himself) charge 3d6 and can declare charges against things within 18". Not sure if it makes him "good", 6+ ward only adds around 3 wounds to his bulk, but he's certainly a lot more interesting to play with now, as 3d6 charges are a pretty powerful tool, especially for mawtribes who get their ogor charge buffed by it.

I've got a KO army and am all for a combined dwarf book, I was also quite happy with warclans in 2e (Which I also play.) I don't consider these soup books though, since they still retain their unique allegiances and playstyles. Cities of sigmar is a soup book, and so is ogor mawtribes. Just because armies share a book doesn't necessarily mean they have less options, or less effort put into the book. If that's the case (like with bonesplitterz in the 3e warclans book) it's not because the book was "souped" but because the developers/designers failed. A book like that obviously requires more playtest work than a book with a single allegiance, and not adapting to those needs is a failure on GWs part, not a result of it being a soup book.

I think kragnos is fine with leadbelchers, cheapest way for gutbusters to get up to 8 models for the better ogor charge at the moment, and when combining shooting, mortals on the charge, and combat leadbelchers can get some respectable damage, especially if you combo it with bridge so they get their d6 shots. You should be able to pretty easily clear a screen to charge whatever is behind it too. Here are some numbers: Notes: All out attack was used for the shooting on leadbelchers and I only put 5/8 & 7/12 models fighting in melee. Ironguts got AOA on their melee and are here for comparison So on top of this you would have the mortals from the ogor charge but you would need bridge to really pull this off as an alpha since otherwise you would only be on d3 shots. You're definitely losing some damage here, but having the ability to clear screens and project power has its utility.

The book was mostly fine in terms of internal balance when it released (although spiders were bad), but the coherency rules, and unit size changes hurt us. Hoppers in particular would probably still be fine if we could take them in 5s

Picked up kragnos after the new change and it has me hyped to actually paint that ogor army on the shelf. I was thinking about a silly leadbelcher/kragnos combo list, but i'm struggling to decide which I should go for. Version 1: Allegiance: Ogor Mawtribes- Mawtribe: None- Grand Strategy:- Triumphs:Icebrow Hunter (125)*- General- Command Trait: Winter Ranger- Artefact: Kattanak BrowplateSlaughtermaster (140)*Kragnos, The End of Empires (720)*4 x Frost Sabres (110)*- Reinforced x 12 x Frost Sabres (55)*2 x Frost Sabres (55)*8 x Leadbelchers (360)*- Reinforced x 18 x Leadbelchers (360)*- Reinforced x 1Soulscream Bridge (70)*Battle RegimentTotal: 1995 / 2000Reinforced Units: 3 / 4Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 112Drops: 1 Version 2: Allegiance: Ogor Mawtribes- Mawtribe: Underguts- Grand Strategy:- Triumphs:LeadersSlaughtermaster (140)*- General- Command Trait: Mass of Scars- Artefact: Gnoblar Blast Keg- Lore of Gutmagic: RibcrackerKragnos, The End of Empires (720)*Battleline12 x Leadbelchers (540)*- Reinforced x 26 x Ogor Gluttons (260)*- Clubs or Blades with Iron Fists4 x Ironguts (245)*Endless Spells & InvocationsSoulscream Bridge (70)Core Battalions*Battle RegimentTotal: 1975 / 2000Reinforced Units: 2 / 4Allies: 0 / 400Wounds: 113Drops: 1 Version 1 has a strong cp engine in winter ranger, which enables powerful unleash ****** and all out attacks, but the leadbelchers are only in 8s so even one casualty turns off the good ogor charge, version 2 has a 12 model unit and the 18" range but less cp. Version 1 seems more powerful to me but i'm not sure.

I don't think diversity in all lists is something the game should aim for. Mixed arms forces exist in the game and fulfill this role, not every army needs to be built that way, and enforcing that makes armies feel and play too similarly to each other. Not having all units be viable in armies as small as OBR and especially fyreslayers has nothing to do with trying to get things perfectly balanced, and everything to do with bad design. You should run into that problem when you have big bloated armies like stormcast and skaven, not with small ones like OBR and fyreslayers. There really isn't an excuse balancewise for mortek being more durable than immortis and do more damage than stalkers. Its a complete failure. It would be extremely easy to design roles for these units that they perform well at, giving you a reason to take them. Sure you might not see them in every list (and that's fine) but the problem here (and with fyreslayers) is the internal balance and design is so bad with regards to these units that they're never better than the alternative. Immortis should be the anvil, Stalkers the hammer, and mortek are for board control, wounds, and securing objectives. Non hero monsters are still largely bad. None of the new monster rules can save stuff like arachnaroks and Gorgons. It also added more complexity to the game, sure its not much, but it adds up over time. The design of the book should be enough to make you want to take the basic troops, some books do this super well too. Gitz are a good example, grots are great at board control, and are easily the most buffable piece in the army. Also "basic troop" is pretty open to interpretation anyways especially with how diverse the armies are in aos, like obviously it covers stuff like grots and gluttons, but what about mournfang and spider riders, which both serve a similar "role" in their respective armies. The new nurgle book is an example of a modular book done right (at least in terms of internal warscroll balance, its got a few other design issues). Books in AOS fall into one of two categories, linear design or modular design. Linear design is when you use stacking incentives to guide the player through the book/list from a single decision. This tends to lead to more spammy lists because of how the book handles incentives. "This subfaction buffs <x> unit, this hero makes that unit battleline and buffs them, this support piece buffs them etc....". The end result often ends up looking spammy because the build heavily incentivizes that unit, but theres usually many different builds in the army (i.e seraphon with monster, skink, and saurus builds, or gitz with trogg, grot, squig and spider builds). Alternatively there's modular design, where each piece (or a pair of pieces like a unit with a hero to buff them) operate separately as their own entities. Mixed arms forces tend to fall into this category, and its this kind of book that usually struggles with dead weight warscrolls and units because there's usually a "best version" of the unit (like phoenix guard/irondrakes). Armies like cities of sigmar fall into this category. These kinds of armies are usually very flexible though, and there can be a lot of diversity within a list because of how the pieces are largely independent. There's nothing wrong with either of these designs, both have their pros and cons, and having both makes the game appeal to more people.

Nobody is upset by the guy running 100 squig hoppers, just the guy running 50 sentinels or 70 horrors. So the problem comes down to one of two things: The unit itself is broken The book is awful and its the only good thing in the entire book Both of which are failures in balance that should be addressed DIRECTLY, not by adding more complexity to listbuilding that are just a bandaid. Putting in hard rules against spam (like 40k's rule of 3, which wasn't even enough as shown by the extra limits they had to place on fliers and ork buggies) do nothing except hide and diminish the effect of horrible balance by creating a "bottleneck". (side note, I despise 40k's army composition rules. Complex, but shallow with a ton of limitations to attempt to reign in broken builds that still show up which also heavily punish bad silly lists.) The purpose of "battleline" units in my opinion is to guide listbuilding, not tax armies or create more "realistic" armies (aos is high fantasy where basically anything goes). From a purely mechanical standpoint I wouldn't be against getting rid of battleline in its entirety, but I think providing some structure to listbuilding is a net positive, especially for newer players.

The problem is that the changes arent really meaningful at all. Dankhold troggoths are still overcosted, but less so at least. Each one is about as useful as 3 rockguts so they're finally getting to where they should be. The buff to the dankhold troggboss and loon boss on mangler is nice I guess, but 10-20 points in a list is basically nothing, and we were already running them before. skitterstrand buff makes spamming them more doable? But they still suffer pretty heavily from their warscroll and base size. Fanatics going down doesn't help the core issue with them, which is that unleash hell just erases the unit, even on things with bad shooting profiles. Gitz really needed decreases on things that we take in multiples like squig herds/hoppers/bounderz, rockguts/fellwaters, spider riders, and stabbas/shootas.

The kragnos, AoD, unleash hell, and heroic recoveru changes were good. I think the archaon and nagash ones are fine at first glance? The point changes are just disappointing. Gutrippaz unchanged All of bonesplitterz unchanged Despite being the weakest faction gitz didn't get a single meaningful point drop. There just don't seem to be many changes that are actually meaningful. The only two that jumped out at me were dragin ogors down 25, and tzeentch tzaangors down 20 (but thats what they costed in BoC)