Ghoooouls

It also states on the side of the spell enhancement bit, underlined and bolded EVERY wizard in the army knows an additional spell. Unique characters are a wizard in the army, so this could also be 'otherwise stated'

Yep i mentioned it a bit further back, will find the page. 'Unmodified' rolls such as 'unmodified hit rolls of a 6' are after any rerolls. So archaons takes precedence. Core rules page 4, 1.5.5

Actually the rules state save rolls cannot be modified by more than +1. If you have two abilities that both give a +1 modifier to save rolls, you still cap at +1, because a save roll cannot be modified by more than +1. Even if you get hit with rend 2, that gives -2 to your save roll, you then have a +1 modifier from mystic shield. This still counts as a +1 to your save roll, even though you are now rolling at a total of -1. Edit. I may be wrong here lol.

All the lore etc. In previous editions I think there were some battleplans, path to glory and other bits. Plus all the core rules (but you can download them for free). So you can quite easily just get the generals handbook and download the core book rules.

I'm just at work and very tired so it slipped my mind, but yes obviously ignoring modifiers also ignores positive modifiers. You heal 2d3 from heroic actions each battle round, have access to automatic ethereal spell so 4+ ignoring modifiers, 5+ ward etc etc as I've already stated above, he's definitely not squishy. And casting certain spells aren't wasted, he's a huge buffing piece that even if he does no spells at all he's giving almost army-wide spell immunity on a 4+ and dishing out mortals in return. Him purely casting spells isn't all he does. The ethereal spell is definitely not wasted on him, if he's coming in a 2k a battle, he's the priority target especially for things like ironclads and heavy shooting lists. With ethereal he's saving 50% of shots on him even if they are rend 2 or higher (cannon shots at rend 2 making him need to roll a 6 vs needing to roll a 4 is massive), then also has a 5+ ward on top of that and the free hero phase heals. Moreover he doesn't only give himself the ward, he gives it to his massive bubble. On top of 4+ spell immunity baked in. Makes the whole army tougher, and keeping him ethereal means the whole army will be tougher for longer. All he really needs to do is sit back and cast ethereal, protection, his seering storm through a spell portal and you're golden. And you still have one spell left over if you put the portal up with someone else. Anyway, this is going very off topic. My point is that all the big guys (teclis definitely included) are now VERY hard to kill, 2d3 heals per round can be crazy good, on top of potential heals elsewhere and wards etc. AND the new heroic actions and monstrous actions, make large heroes incredibly good now, and I think not taking one is just gimping yourself now. Not just picking on the elves here too. I play soulblight and can see this being very troublesome- mannfred can now heal 4d3 per battle round, ignoring the first wound in each phase and teleporting out of combat if he wants. On top of this, he can cast arcane bolt, charge into combat, do the monstrous stomp for d3 mortals, unleash arcane bolt for d3 mortals, then teleport away anywhere on the map. Neferata can now heal 2d6+2d3 per battleround and can be 2+ ethereal relatively easily.

Yea this depends entirely on faqs and updates as the soulblight 'ethereal' spell only ignores negative modifiers, but still ethereal 4+ with 5+ ward, a 4+ immunity to magic and auto dispelling a spell + healing 2d3 is definitely not squishy.

Doesn't he also have an ethereal spell? So 3+ ignoring red with a 5+ ward, healing 2d3 each battle round. Pretty crazy, but I think all the big boys will be a lot better.

I'd say the reroll happens first. Core rules page 4 1.5.5 modifiers - states that anything that refers to an 'unmodified' roll, is referring to the dice AFTER rerolls. So if you have an ability that does mortal wounds on unmodified 6s to hit, archaons ability makes you reroll 6s to hit, and an 'unmodified' roll is after rerolls, so you reroll the 6 first, then check for unmodified 6s.

Yep, under new core rules the praetors would not be used in addition to ynastras inbuilt ward. I'm interested to know how previous 'shrugs' work now, is it the same? Just compare it to Belladama from soulblight. Her 'wound shrug' is *before* allocating a wound or mortal wound to her. So she gets her armour save, then if that fails, before allocation of damage she gets the 3+ shrug onto wolves, then after that, when allocation of damage happens would she get her deathless minions 6++? As in the tome deathless minions is still *when* allocating damage, not before allocating. Or do core rules trump this now and deathless minions is a ward?

Remember zombies cap is 40 now, not 60 too. But yeah it's an interesting point, if I took 20 could they go over 20...

I haven't seen anything about the hand of dust range extension, so assume it's the same as it has always been (unless the portal changes in 3.0)

My understanding is that the 'enhancements' are what is in the battletome - spell lores, artefacts, traits etc. So it is no different to before. The only difference is if yoj include a core battalion and pick another enhancement, you can pick a spell enhancement and all your wizards then get to pick a second spell.

Well yeah obviously, who spends 2k on ineffective units? Warriors are a fairly decent and cheap unit. Even if they are 10 min, if their points stay the same (or go down slightly like zombies and dire wolves did), then they will remain a fairly decent and cheap unit. I just think wait until the book is out and the new GHB is out before worrying over what could be nothing.

Depends, 10 wounds of warriors is easy to smash off an objective, 20 wounds much less so. A lot of stronger units don't benefit that much from reinforcing compared to just taking 2x the amount in aos 2. As a lot won't be able to attack as easily without breaking coherency. There are pros and cons to smaller and larger 'elite' units. Also, they aren't just 2x the cost, they're also 2x the models. Either way I wouldn't fret too much based off rumours.

Yea now I think about it there are a lot lol.

If he saves them, you can just not charge him and that's 7 spells wasted. I think that bonereaper teleport might only be if he takes a wound as well. I might be wrong... He will likely be a bit of a beast, but I'd hope so at 970 + likely always wanting the spell portal so over 1k

You can deploy them base to base in 2 ranks and just have the 2nd rank inbetween the gaps of the 1st rank. They will easily still all get to attack. Min10 means they will likely be better at holding objectives too, and 1 reinforcement point to bring 20 is great. Tbh I can't see it being true. Skeletons are min10. Why would 2 wound warriors be the same.

Also my main man Mannfred, ping off wind of death on a unit, then set up an arcane bolt, charge in and do the d3 mortals at the start of combat, the d3 mortals mortals the stomp (is this start of combat too? I can't remember), then just teleport away hahaha

Blood knights are going to be absolutely brilliant and I just can't wait. Easy access to 2+ save, constantly able to charge even if they're already in combat. Also, with endless spells moving in each players turn - I think lifeswarm is a great option now to follow around a unit of blood knights. 2x chances to return a model in each battle round.

Apparently you can't spend more than half your points on one unit, so if you took 2 or 3 of the same gargant in a 2k game, maybe you can't now?

'Invulnerable' saves already exist. They're just called ethereal or similar like from items where you ignore modifiers. Ward saves in fantasy were the 'after saves/wound negation' we currently have, so I assume they will just have the term 'Ward save' now.

Yes I'm assuming that article is based off new 3.0 'normal move' rules. But if they're correct, blood knights just became even better. Love it.

Yea I may be jumping the gun as we have only seen small amounts of info. It just seems very immersion-breaking for me. I can now have zombies drag enemies down and tear them apart, then turn them into zombies. Then the opponents commander can shout at the dead guy that is now a zombie and he somehow spawns into a second body and gets back up to fight himself as a zombie... just seems silly. Bloodthirsters of insenate rage smashing people into explosions of gore.... but wait the general is shouting at us lads! Quick rebuild your bodies, find your organs and fight as if nothing happened! Vampires and ghouls feasting on dead bodies.... but wait no! Come on lads get back up! Fight!

A little worried about these snippets of into we've seen. Predominantly the heal d3 heroic ability. This seems to be able to be done in each hero phase. So some heroes are going to be impossibly hard to kill. Cast a spell on a hero and do d3 mortals? Oh well he can now heal those d3 mortals and then on his turn heal another d3 mortals. So an average of healing 4 wounds each battle round. Imagine that on something like kragnos etc. or even our own heroes like mannfred, average healing 4 wounds on top of d3 from killing and negating 1 wound each phase? I feel like a lot of these commands/heroic actions should be once per battle. I guess we are yet to see a lot of rules, but some of them just seem silly.

From my experience 20 zombies have been more effective for cost than the games I've had units of 40. Our battle line were never scary or leaned on before... I think from my experience zombies are great now because they can actually pose a threat, on top of being chaff that can be resurrected. This means the enemy has a means to kill them rather than just solely target support heroes. Same with stuff like GG. GG were okay before, but now they're actually downright scary (if they can get in) so the enemy has to deal with them in one way or another, meaning less is targeting your heroes. Skeletons I've barely used, but if im honest I'd rather just pay a little more for 20 zombies that can fulfil the same role and more. Dire wolves are still great, fast chaff that can clean up weak targets and pester. The only unit I've found to be utter useless is the black knights, which is a shame. Theyre 15 points less than dire wolves. You're trading 10 inch move for 12 inches, worse attacks on the charge and 10 less wounds than a unit of 10 dogs. I just think every single time I'd spend the 15 extra points for 10 more wounds and 5 extra models to attack.