JackOfBlades

I agree that forced traits and artefacts are restrictive and unnecessary. Thinking about it, this is how I would solve it: - Subfactions are eliminated rules wise, only remaining narratively. - The battle traits, command traits, command abilities and artefacts from subfactions are put into common pools of those things. - Your army gets to pick 1 command trait, 1 battle trait and 1 command ability for free. Then either 1) You can then buy more of any one of them for X/Y/Z points, like you can with command points, or 2) You can buy more command traits but not more battle traits or command abilities. Imo it should be structured like the custom Drukhari obsessions/Tyranid hive fleets.

While I appreciate the addition of subfactions in of themselves, and I'm not against forced command traits per se, I think it's bad that they 100% lock you out of using the other command traits that could be interesting. Want Dark Acolyte on your Varghulf courtier? the only way to get it is if you penalize yourself by not choosing a subfaction. This is a waste in my opinion, why should players in practice be railroaded into only using a fraction of the available traits? So how about leaving subfactions with forced command traits as they are, but: 1) Your army has 1 command trait per points 1000 point bracket (1-1000 = 1, 1001 - 2000 = 2, 2001 - 3000 = 3 and so on) And/or 2) You can buy additional command traits for X points, like you can with command points And/or 3) A combination of 1 and 2: for each 1000 point bracket, you gain the option of buying an additional command trait What do you guys think?

And I've already searched through this thread for discussion on fiends, but I still want to ask: What is the point of this unit supposed to be? For example you could include a keeper instead that will actually generate depravity points, doesn't have the -1 to enemy wizards' casting aura but instead does unbind and cast two spells a turn including the excellent Song of Secrets and Progeny of Damnation spells and the realm spells, isn't exactly a slouch with its own damage output, has a 4+ save to the fiends' 5+ which somewhat makes up for the fiends' defensive bonuses (saying that, the fiends' defense bonuses are very good against units that want to roll 6+ to hit or wound in melee). On top of that the keeper costs 60 points less than the unit size for the fiends' bonus which could be the difference between being able to include something else or not. And both fiends and keepers are expensive non-battleline units, so you could say they are competing for points and thus the comparison is valid, it's not like you can slap in as many of both as you want. I would want to include them, but it seems very hard to justify because of their anti-synergistic role with the rest of the army, being built for exactly what you don't want a non-HERO unit like them to be doing. Does this unit need to be fixed in an update? or is there a role for them that I'm missing to see, as I desperately want the case to be? (perhaps it's the "good against units that want to roll 6+ in melee" thing? anything!)

Looking at Slaanesh and I am taking a fancy to hellstriders, but while going over the Hosts options it struck me that even though they are technically battleline, no host really seems like a fit for them. - Invaders are supposed to be based on Epicurean Revellers, not Seeker Cavalcades, even though you aren't penalized for not adhering to this. - Pretenders' battle brait only applies to units with 10 or more models, which means your army effectively won't have it unless you take units of 15+ hellstriders. Those units may not necessarily be bad in themselves, but you are put into a straitjacket in terms of spending points that will heavily alter what you could include in the rest of your list. Doesn't seem like a fit. - Godseekers are supposed to fill out their battleline with seeker chariots so they can generate depravity with retreat and charge, not hellstriders. So even though you would assume this would be the best fit, in actuality it is likely the worst. Ironically it seems that Invaders is actually the best fit for hellstriders. Hellstriders can reach the enemy territory faster than daemonettes can if needed, and other than a battalion you may not take anyway, there is no inherent penalty for them (Pretenders) or superfluous overlap (Godseekers). What do you guys think? Any other perspectives?

Eyeing Age of Sigmar's Slaves to Darkness a little, a question struck me. Why can't sorcerers feasibly roll on the Eye of the Gods table? For one: You would think that pleasing the gods with their sorcerous powers is how they'd gain favor in the first place, right? For two: Particularly for Tzeentch, being the Chaos god of magic and underhandedness, you would think at least its sorcerers would have access to the Eye of the Gods table in some manner other than behaving like a worshiper of Khorne. I have a couple of suggested ruling additions to solve this: - Add to the Eye of the Gods rule: "Sorcerers can both roll on the Eye of the Gods table as normal, and if they destroy a HERO or MONSTER with a spell." - Add to the Call to Glory spell: "In addition, this WIZARD may choose to swindle targets that roll on the Eye of the Gods table while affected by this spell, snatching the roll for itself instead. The target was merely a puppet. This must be declared before an effect is rolled for." There you go, two simple rules that don't add any Mark complexity and that don't really mess with the power level of the sorcerer, but just add and functionalize flavor for it. What do you guys think? Would you be fine playing against these rules?