Neil Arthur Hotep

Pretty nice! I think this new approach to battle tactics addresses a few of the weaknesses brought up in this thread. If the new system is a base of 6 generic battle tactics and 2 Grand Alliance specific seasonal ones, that seems much easier to handle. Both in terms of mental load and balancing. If they stick with this system and don't add battle tactics back into Battletomes, I think that's an improvement. The generic tactics seem to focus on movement and fighting (so far), which is good because it makes the game more dynamic. They are tactics you can realistically consider during list building, both for your list and in terms of counter play. They also seem neither completely free nor impossible. I also like how the GA specific tactics allow the writers to express the flavour of the different alliances. It's cool that belonging to a GA will have an effect on how an army can win games.

This actually looks pretty good. I like the idea of Grand Alliance battle tactics. I think they are a good compromise between army-specific and generic tactics.. They allow the rules writers to emphasize what the alliances are all about, but are easier to balance because there are a lot fewer of them.

Bringing battle tactics more closely into alignment with the fiction would definitely help. Or victory points in general. I have a fairly easy time understanding how controlling territory could mean that you win a battle in AoS. I can understand how that might be the aim of the mission. But it is harder to rationalize how something like this can be the "aim" of the battle for my army:

I hope today's article on Battle Tactics is good. I can't say that I really enjoy Battle Tactics in their current form, but it's not like I have never had fun moments with them. I still like the idea of having some kind of secondary system. Anything that can encourage movement on the board and make the game less static (although AoS already does a good job with that). I recently played a Core Rules only game, and was reminded how much battle tactics have changed since the start of AoS 3rd. Cities of Sigmar have a tactic where you need to destroy 3 units in the shooting phase, which is so difficult that I have never managed to do it even though I play a shooting list. In contrast, the core book basically has "just go destroy a unit, idk". All the tactics were so easy that you literally could not fail to get them every turn. I hope 4th manages to strike a balance. I think ideally, we get a few tactics that are not impossible, but also not guaranteed and encourage players to make use of the whole playing field. I don't mind faction specific battle tactics, they could be a great tool to reinforce the flavour of a faction. But there needs to be much tighter balancing on them. No more free "just move two units up the board I guess" tactics like Daughters of Khaine get.

I started Warhammer by painting a unit of Tomb Kings skeletons and it was so difficult for me that I didn't paint another model for 10 years.

The new Skaven hero only has Crit(Auto-Wound), which is much better. One of my number 1 wishes is that we don't see units with 4 barely different shooting profiles anymore. I can get behind one profile for a big main gun and one for all the small guns, but having to also roll for the pistol that one guy on the model happens to be carrying is super tedious.

A more concrete idea of what reduced shooting range means would be nice. I would like to see if there are specific abilities on shooting attacks other than "shoot in combat", as well. Would be cool to see them say something like "there are no more mortal wounds on hit for shooting attacks" or "the line-of-sight system has been reworked" if those changes are in the game.

If the recent article is telling us all there is to know about seasonal rules, I am OK with how they are now. Everyone getting a honour guard unit with one of three traits for a few months seems fine, IMO. I strongly disliked the recent Andtor rules, too, but mostly because of how much they push faction list building towards generic options, how intrusive the seasonal mechanics were and how the GHB battle tactics just don't feel fun. If new seasons don't have these kinds of generic must-takes, intrusive mechanics and battle tactics, I am fine with getting a different little gimmick every year.

I don't know which of our experiences is the atypical one, but I have heard a lot of complaints of games going over 3 hours online, especially with the seasonal GHB rules. I don't think games going longer than 3 hours is that weird. That's why I am pretty excited about the changes in 4th. The game looks like it will play a lot faster.

Yeah, I think that's accurate. I have been playing games with a timer recently, and 3 hours usually gets us to mid to late round 3. I get a whole game done in 3 hours occasionally, but only against opponents who are really familiar with their lists. AoS just takes really long. Especially for synergy armies.

Personally I find that the first two turns of the game take 3 hours and the last 3 take 1.5 hours combined, so I am not so sure going to 4 turns will save that much time. By turn 5 I usually have, like, three units left on the table

Neat twist, I look forward to forgetting it the second I step up to the table.

Put that one down more to a purge of Finecast rather than Spiderfang. So I would also stay hopeful that Spiderfang as a concept stick around.

Yeah, this is interesting and we will have to see how the news of 4th ed develop. It kind of feels to me like there has to be some way to get extra toys (artefacts, traits, spell lores). In 3rd, foot heroes are kind of underwhelming on their own, as a rule, but if you kit them out they can be pretty scary. I think the big problem is that your return on investment for traits and artefacts is generally bigger if you put them on a better base unit. Why would I put my +1 rend and damage artefact on a foot slogger who can't get anywhere if I could put it on a 14" flying move guy on a monster mount?

There is an idea in game design that players will tend to optimize the fun out of a game. I think that is also a danger when it comes to painting miniatures. Especially if you paint them with the intention of using them to play, because then you start to think in terms of points per painted model and efficiently getting units on the table. For me, batch painting a unit I don't love, but which is good in game absolutely turns painting into a chore. Conversely, I have never regretted painting a one-off model that I just liked the look of. Even if it never ends up hitting the able at all. But of course, if you want to have a fully painted army eventually, you will have to sit down and work through the less exciting parts of that at some point.