Ganigumo

even throwing ghouls on the back of the knights could work, since it would at least be visibly cavalry then.

The stabbas cover more space than 10 hobgrots too, and are cheaper than the 20 hobgrots you'd need to cover the same space. Sometimes the stabbas fit into battalions better too so you aren't wasting as many points.

Unless its one of those new tome release boxes I think there'll be too much. Ardboyz, ardboy boss, and big pig at least. with the rumors of two other kits. although maybe a box with everything except big pig is possible?

I'm happy as long as I don't need to care about 2/5 shields anymore. Played an event over the weekend with 30 ardboyz, and making sure each unit had the right number of shields, needing to pick out the dudes with shields to allocate wounds to, making sure to keep the shield dudes in the back, and actually rolling the 6+ ward saves 1-2 at a time to make sure I didn't roll any extras was a massive PITA. brutes canonically do it bare handed (p29 of the warclans tome). Its always all new models in those boxes and kroxigor got a refresh. if it was seraphon it would pretty much have to be skinks.

This dude and the new ardboyz will probably still be 32mm bases, so visibly smaller. Shouldn't be tough tough to tell. In terms of the armor, and the look I am a fan of this guy. But Ironjawz forge their weapons and armor by smashing metal into the right shapes and sizes. Its incredibly crude. Something that would have been good for new ardboyz would've been mostly scavenged armor instead. So instead of having the same armor as the brutes, they'd have scavenged armor that tries to mimic the style. With the narrative reason being the ardboyz aren't strong enough to smash the thick metal into shape nearly as well as brutes.

Just strength and toughness don't actually do this, you also need to block damage spillover. Its just always better to have more strength, and a list built to take all comers just needs to take what is most efficient against everything. Unless that s3 hammer is balanced around wounding on 5's you're better off just taking the higher strength option. In contrast Lack of damage spillover does the job of making those elite heavy attacks super inefficient against infantry, lowering damage by as much as 80% in some cases, which forces you to take those low strength options. Without strength and toughness but with damage spillover 1 damage attacks are just the best, since they're never effected by damage spillover. So if you make those damage 1 attacks low strength they become bad against elite stuff. So you need both things to make it work. I'm not sure it would be a good fit for AoS though, as it seems like it would be less rock-paper-scissors and more "fighting fire with fire". Monsters would be bad against infantry, because multi damage attacks would be terrible against them, infantry would be terrible against monsters because of low strength. So you'd need to bring monsters just to fight other monsters, and infantry to fight infantry.

To each their own. From my perspective nearly the entire sections on aircraft, USRs, and strategic reserves are bloat. Like I get why they exist, but I'm not sure they add enough to bother with being in the rules. The charging rules are pretty needlessly bloated too, needing to declare a charge target doesn't add much, but I'm fine with it. The multiple targets part is nearly pointless though, through clever positioning, and since engagement range is 1" but pile in is 3", you can just sit models 1" away from the second target and pile into them. There are also generic stratagems that probably just shouldn't exist like grenades, and ones that seem made for specific armies like smoke. Then I have more issues with the general layout, consistency, and writing of the rules in 40k than in aos. Stuff like important rules being in sidebars, instead of using them just for more detailed explanations or examples, shooting weapons being all the ones you're equipped with, but melee weapons not being that, pistols having a lot of complexity for one of the weakest weapon options, and the USRs interrupting the flow of the core rules, planting themselves at the end of the shooting phase, instead of just going to the next phase, which means you'll need to flip backwards anyways when you get to the combat phase. Thats not to say aos doesn't have bloat, as I think most of the stuff added going from 2nd to 3rd constitutes bloat, but personally I find the 40k rules to be written at a lower quality (not necessarily the quality of the game, just the rules writing). I'm probably biased though, but I do find the 10th rules to be leagues better than the 9th rules. Heroes being in units and giving buffs is nice, since it makes units more independent, but we can have that to an extent in AoS. It mostly comes down to book and army design. Cities of sigmar humans are very much a castle build, so it makes sense that they have a lot of aura buffs, but then theres stuff like ironjawz, or ogors, or even gitz that just work without buffs, or with buffs that apply and stick with them after they move. Heroes joining units helps alot with the issue of keeping the hero close to the unit though, as they'll get the benefit of many of the movement buffs and can charge with the unit, for the armies that care about those kinds of power pairs.

Monstrous actions, and to a lesser extent heroic actions, seemed to be a bandaid to fix all those terrible monsters and foot heroes, but buffed hero monsters the most, when all they needed to do was write good monster scrolls and/or point them correctly. Are they 'ardboyz? They look exactly like brutes to me, and they look like they're the same size as the guy on top who's presumably also a brute. I figure new ardboyz would look more like ironskullz boyz. Weirdbrutes sound like a bonesplitter unit to me honestly.

The problem with index rules is that even less time is spent developing and balancing it. The last batch of tomes we had felt really rushed in the balance department, as did the warclan tome in the development department. Indexes mean they have to write 25 armies worth of rules in the time it usually takes them to write a few battletomes, and its unlikely they'd double or triple the size of the team just to get them right. 40k is the flagship and the indexes were full of errors and poorly balanced, although possibly more balanced than the mess that came before it. There's basically no chance aos would be more balanced after an index treatment. You basically give the bonesplitterz treatment to every army in the game, where you strip most of the rules because you need something you can roughly balance without testing much. Yes it will shuffle the balance of the armies around, and different armies might end up on top, but I doubt it will change that much. The top down design the AoS studio uses tends to lead to certain armies being created "greater" than others, as those concepts lead to more powerful allegiance abilities, and its often harder to point something abstract like an allegiance ability, than it is to point a statline. Its a big reason why certain armies fall through the floor too, often their allegiance abilities are often nearly worthless. Now that we can't shoot heroes when they're near units, and so many heroes trigger units to fight anyways it wouldn't be a big stretch to just have them join units either.

Do you know what they don't like about 3rd? Anecdotally most of the complaints I've heard have been around things that don't need a complete rules rewrite. Mostly around secondary objectives, coherency, balance (forever a pain point but tighter than it used to be), and general complexity. Most of those things feel like they were just tacked on to the game though, and we could lose or replace them without too much hassle. Personally I'd be fine dropping heroic actions, monstrous rampages, grand strategies and battle tactics for a start. I will say I've hated the release schedule for this entire edition though. Slow to start, releasing multiple tomes every couple months, with a mad dash at the end, and at the moment it feels like things have slowed down a bit again. Its always been overwhelming or underwhelming. I think the 1 book per month cadence they kept up for a lot of aos2 felt like the right pace.

They're bad and don't have interesting lists because most of the warscrolls are trash, nothing but the wurgogg has an interesting ability, and they're pointed terribly. Most of those were complaints when the battletome came out, but some good players figured out that a big stabba spam list was pretty cheeky when you can ignore ward saves and nurgle was dominant, but it got promptly nerfed into the ground and got nothing in return. Bonesplitterz aren't a popular army at the best of times, but combine that with abysmal rules, and no signs that things will get better and it isn't surprising no one is playing them. They somehow also ate nerfs in the winter update, and everything except pig spam is awful without gally vets.

I really hope this isn't the case. Things aren't nearly bad enough balancewise to justify it, and honestly things are more balanced now than they have been for most of aos. At the start of 3rd we had like 4 armies with 60% and a handful of armies that had fallen way below like gitz and BoC. Plus the actual core rules are good, and players tend to agree, with the only sore points being coherency, core battalions, and secondary objectives. All of which are pretty fixable with minor changes. The last handful of battletomes were overcooked a bit, but they're getting reined in based on stats, and at this point Gitz might even be underperforming again. They just need to make a bigger effort to make balance changes, instead of just looking at the stats 2 weeks before the battlescroll and taking random shots at armies. Like I know they addressed one of the zombie warscroll issues, but who in their right mind thinks those things are remotely appropriately pointed, even with the change. They also tend to just throw crumbs to low performing armies in the 45-48% range, when they should be a little aggressive, especially since even if they go higher than intended they probably won't break the 55% mark.

The first battlescroll of the edition did that too. Remember "the hunt"?

Clearly they're finally fixed and don't need any more help, and there is no way this could be skewed by a few recent results. 😃 Also I don't really know where they pull their stats from. I expected KB higher because they did have a few good recent results and not many overall results. Ironjawz seem higher than they actually are, and BW seem way lower than I expected based on other stats. Gitz are also considerably higher than other stats show, and poor bonesplitterz don't show up at all. Feels like someone at GW was personally traumatized by BS being playable at the start of the edition and has it out for them.

They probably drank all the blood and are out getting more.

looks like a bray shaman robe too, or gargant patchwork. I'd love if its gitmob though.

Its basically a new isabella von carstein model. Female vampire with a sword and a chalice of blood.

The second pic looks like blood bowl to me, although it could maybe be an armored troll? 4 & 6 could be on almost anything, as its just pictures of a base. they could even be the same model. wouldn't be out of place on a kruleboyz model, or just as terrain. 3 & 7 could be FEC or bonesplitterz I think. 5 looks like it might be FEC to me, mostly because of the candles, although it looks a bit like a bird foot so it could maybe be tzeentch? the first image looks like a kruleboy arm to me, but its got a spike through it so I've got no idea.

I guess it is only melee I missed that part, they still hit and wound on 3s and I did the math for them with no buffs so it doesn't really change anything. They bench pretty similarly to boltboyz, and have nearly the same offensive profile as blissbarbs and reavers for around the same points. They still have a role in dwarf builds, but don't have the same kind of buff stacking the fusiliers have access to. The problem with the dwarf stuff in the book (and elf stuff to a lesser extent) isn't so much the points as the lack of support. I'm not saying some of the stuff didn't get worse, just that the points don't feel off for most of the units. You can't fix bad allegiance abilities or incentives through points, and we have examples of this in stuff like kruleboyz and old BoC, spiderfang come to mind as well. These changes really do solidify irondrakes as the dwarf shooting unit, since it matches their playstyle. The old buff and teleport strat was just something you threw irondrakes into any cities list to do. The armies around units have a big effect on their usefulness, and you really feel it sometimes. Marshcrawla sloggoth is a perfect example, absolutely useless in warclans, but tons of armies would kill for a big aura of +1 to hit, and dropping the points down to 90 or whatever to try to get kruleboyz to take it is bad for the game. You can't just point irondrakes at 120 because the dwarves can't buff as well as the humans, because then you just end up spamming them because of the raw warscroll efficiency, and they start warping the entire army around them. There have been a few times in the games' history when this has happened and it is always a disaster.

130 points for 10 1 wound models on a 3+ is fine, and the potential for the 4+ ward is really good at those points. 100 points for 10 dudes on a 4+ is pretty standard for dudes who get in the way and stand on objectives, and you pay a little extra for the higher save and potential ward. Sure you need a hero to stand near them, but thats how the army works, and you don't need to give orders to your ranged dwarves since they are both melee focused. Its only during the enemies turn, but during your turn you control combat priority, and the army has a bunch of fights first/last, and you can just retreat if you need to, so you don't really need it on your turn. Irondrakes are still on 3+/3+/-1/1. The runelord still has a +1 rend prayer, it just chants on a 4 now instead of a 2 for some reason, and there are tons of ways for dwarves to get +1 to hit. The loss of the teleport shenanigans sucks, but they seem to be making an effort to kill that game-wide with the changes to bridge and lauchon, so while they're worse if you play them the way you used to, the book pushes dwarves into a playstyle where you support durable dwarf units with irondrakes and blast anything that comes near you, and if they don't you advance slowly, and I think the warscroll works for that. They're pretty comparable to 6 boltboyz actually. 6 boltboyz using hasty shot do roughly the same damage as 10 irondrakes with 2 attacks, the boltboyz do a little more but cost 80 more points. 1 shot irondrakes do about half the damage of those 6 boltboyz using aimed shot. 20 Irondrakes cost the same as 9 boltboyz and do more damage with the 2 attacks, and only slightly less with the 1 attack. Fusiliers are on 4+/4+ vs reavers and blissbarbs on 3+/3+. But with the command trait your all out attack also gives +1 to wound, so if you're building into fusiliers they'll be on 3+/3+, which is slightly worse than blissbarbs and reavers who can get AoA to be on 2+/3+. That said fusiliers have a much better threat range, 24", with an order to get +3 move and still be fortified, giving a threat range of 32", which is further than blissbarbs running 6", and there are 2 ways to increase the shooting range on top of that, and they can shoot back in the enemy shooting phase if something gets shot, or apply strikes last (maybe). Also if you really want the damage you can take the dirt cheap alchemite warforger who you'll be bringing in multiples anyway to hand out orders and +1 save auras and try to cast his spell for mortals on 6's, which pumps a unit of 10 fusiliers up to 10 damage, or 30 up to like 30 damage. So they do slightly less damage, with better range for less points than blissbarbs, plus they actually have a frontline to protect them. Thats not to say blissbarbs aren't too powerful either, which they are, in large part due to the allegiance abilities letting them spam CA, the bonus mortals from temptations, and the blissbarb seekers shredding armor for them. So fusiliers are like Reavers+ in an army that better supports a gunline strategy.

Yeah I'm still having nightmares about how broken those kruleboyz were when they came out. I hugely disagree with this assessment. Units aren't just pointed for the warscroll, but also for their potential. Ironbreakers are 130 for 10 wounds with a 3+/4++, sure they only get the 4+ ward half the combat phases, but they're also 40 points cheaper than phoenix guard with a better armor save. Irondrakes are 10 points cheaper than they used to be, and only lost 1" range, and they saw plenty of play The dreadlord on dragon can be built to slap, but also has a 14" flying move and access to an ability that makes units attacking it take a mortal wound for every missed attack. There are units that will just immediately die when they attack that thing, and its fast enough to get into those fights. The human stuff is probably almost entirely undercosted too. The foot marshal is 90 points for a free command on each of your turns, which seems pretty fair, and you need heroes for the armies' orders. The kruleboyz killaboss is 90 points and he only helps with battleshock on paper thin units. Savage Big boss is 80 points, and does literally nothing but carry a command trait he doesn't need to survive to use. Megaboss on foot is probably a closer comparison, having similar CP efficiency, but is 140 points and slaps harder. The Command squad is overcosted, but you're bringing it for the battle tactic I think, so its a tax on the BT. Its bad design but it is what it is. Steelhelms are appropriately costed for 10 1 wound models on a 4+, but have access to a 5+ ward and a ton of save stacking potential. Fusiliers are fantastic, and you can triple all out attack them, and get +1 to wound, with a mid game reroll ability. some of the points you're suggesting would be gamebreaking. Although I do agree that some of the older elf/dwarf stuff doesn't do much, and the warhulk seems pretty bad.

The average damage of the pontifex (d3 mortals on a 3+) is 1.33. That's ignoring the fact that it hits multiple targets, and can easily spike damage, or that you can bring other long range effects that don't target, so you can finish things off if you do spike. Also this is in addition to an 18" 5+ ward aura, which is the primary reason you bring it, and the pontifex would still be undercosted if that is the only thing the prayer could do. A prayer on a 3+ is more reliable than a spell on a 7. Mystical terrain can bump her up to chanting on a 2+. Sentinels are a different kind of unit. This ability is more akin to comets call from seraphon. The core rules were basically changed so sentinels can't shoot heroes anymore, and sentinels are kind of good against everything. Warforger is ridiculous. Just compare him to the Swampcalla shaman. Warforger is cheaper, has AOE STACKING mystic shield, and a spell for mortals on 6s in addition that works on ranged weapons, meanwhile swampcalla hands out mystic shield, but the unit can't be in combat, and neither can the swampcalla, it doesn't stack, even with the offensive buff option, and the warscroll spell is much worse. I think pontifex might be better than skragrott if you don't take points into consideration at all. Skragrott just has the unique effect of being a bad moon aura, so if you want to reliably have allegiance abilities you basically need to bring him. Pontifex can still chant in your opponents territory. You get to pick 2 of the 3 effects if she's within your opponents territory, but only 1 if she's in your territory

The pontifex is absolutely cracked, and the points only make her more so. Mass aoe mortal wounds are great, and the fact it targets many of those little support heroes is great too. The ward will usually be the best option, but she can pick 2 of them depending on position, and some armies run a lot of small wizards, and/or have wizard units, like lumineth. If you combine it with any other amount of splash mortal wounds, like the stormcast with the banner, you can snipe a ton of little important heroes. The problem is that the prayer multi-target, and has no range or sight restrictions. Merciless blizzard requires you to get within 12", so outside of a few gimmick strategies like hero phase moves or teleports, means you can position to be out of range. Even when combine with things like hero phase moves and teleports you can do a lot to avoid it on a valuable piece. With this prayer there is no avoiding it, and most of the targets have 5 wounds.

exciting, hopefully there's more than just ironjawz, I'd love for bonesplitterz and/or kruleboyz to get a little love too. Although I'd be fine if KB got some rules updates and no new models. No clue what to expect from new IJ units though, they aren't really lacking for anything. Maybe a named foot megaboss? Then da Choppaz can get the foot boss, and bloodtoofs can have a unique big pig variant.

Gnashtoof is still pretty divisive. I'm definitely not sold on it, but other than that yeah thats pretty much the list. Minus the gnashtoof you have about 400 points of wiggle room. If you can get one of those swamp lurkers boxes thats most of what you need. Gnashtoof is definitely undercosted at the current points, but it brings your drops up and it still doesn't do a lot other than exist efficiently, and this is an army that wants to be low drop I think. If you don't care about drops I could see running multiple gnashtoofs.