Neil Arthur Hotep

I've not had problems with spray primer even in cold conditions as long as the spray can itself is warm enough. Since priming a few models only takes a few minutes, warming my spray primer up in warm water before stepping outside works fine. The paint dries normally even in cold temperatures. Or just get an airbrush and prime inside if you have the space.

I understand. But I believe that change would not actually weaken alpha strike builds, just front load the randomness a bit. I also don't like the change if other people suggest it I don't play 40k, but it's hard to deny that going first is a significant advantage in most games. There are plenty of armies in AoS that can charge or shoot you turn 1, so how much shooting there is in 40k compared to AoS is neither here nor there. Early losses also have a snowball effect in terms of the disadvantage they bring, due to Lancaster's Law. I don't want to say that rolling for turn 1 is necessarily a bad idea. But I don't really think removing the one aspect of control we have in regard to turn order (which is hugely significant in AoS, since a single turn is very impactful) is the way I'd like to see the game go. If anything, I would like turn order to be more controlable in general in some way, where you can take in-game actions to control initiative or deny it to your opponent. For what it's worth, I would not be against removing the drop advantage battalions currently give. I think that would make going low drops a bit more of a strategic choice with actual downsides (even if it incentivizes huge blobs of models).

Just before Cities launched there was a rumor that the old Empire Watchtower kit would be repurposed as faction terrain. That was clearly not the case, though.

I'll 100% believe that. There was a thread on here about people's habits in regard to collecting miniatures, and there were definitely a lot of posts of people who don't play at all. A lot of people also just buy one of every kit of an army they collect, which means that even if they do play regularly with their armies, the rules don't influence their buying habits. And this is on a AoS-specific forum, where I'd expect people to be more into the game than the average GW customer. On the other hand, I don't think that GW would be in the position that they are now if there were no games attached to their model lines. It seems like the presence of a game in some way adds to the perceived value, even for people who don't play (much). Not to say that you are wrong to want this, but those are just about the changes I would least like to see. More point reductions would mean a higher barrier of entry to playing, especially for horde factions that already frequently put 100+ models on the table. Like it or not, one function the double turn fulfills is to mitigate the advantage of going first. This makes alpha strike lists less effective. By removing it and also removing the ability to control who gets first turn, I think what we would effectively be doing is to encourage a metagame full of alpha strike lists, where the game is decided (or at least severely influenced) by a die roll before the first move is even made. I'd really not want the game to move in that direction, personally.

Good breakdown. I mostly agree. I think it's worth noting though, regarding Aura of Serenity, all your combat buffs from units dying work only for the phase in which a unit is destroyed or are only triggerable in the combat phase. Since you can't fight in the battleshock phase, a unit dying to battleshock is not something you want, either way. I think what really makes this a kind of bad option is that if you do go into the direction of a tanky Phoenicium build, the natural go-to unit would be Phoenix Guard, which are already battleshock immune if they are near an Annointed. And Annointed on Phoenix are pretty much the only unit that receives a heavy payoff from the Phonicium rules. In any case, Seeker of Vengeance is probably just better in most situations.

You already got responses from @Marcvs and @Kramer on this point, but this conflation of competitive play with play in general. and anything that deviates from playing the hardest lists 100% of the time with house ruling is exactly why I think we need more awareness of the social contract of play. It seems to me that the AoS rules care about a certain type of balance, which is balance in the middle of the curve, not primarily at the top end. In general, the rules of AoS allow you to build a lot of different lists, diverse ones as well as spammy ones. And in the mid field, those lists can mostly go up against each other and have a game where anyone has a chance to win. Chances are, the average casual play group plays closer to that level than at the top end of the competitiveness. And I think that being aware of that would make people enjoy the game more. Setting an expectation with your group that you want to play lists at a 7 to 8 out of 10 power level, where you can forgo the occasional synergy and are able to put some pet choices into your list increases the number of viable lists and armies by a lot. You don't need to house rule anything here. Your group just commits to a certain default level, with the expectation that if someone wants to play their tournament list, they at least ask you if you are up for that today. The same expectation exists in very competitive groups, by the way, where you should ask your opponent if they are up for playing against your 10 Steam Tank meme list and not waste their time if they are looking for a hard game. Everyone going for the strongest tournament-level lists need not be the default. With the large component of self-expression that the hobby side of the game brings into the mix, most play groups would probably be better served by dialing back the power level a little. I'm not going to go into whether or not that list you describe can be competitively viable. This is because I don't think that the competitive viability of any one pre-conceived fluffy list idea is pertinent to the discussion. There are plenty of competitively viable lists with a wide variety of units across a number of armies. I'm not going to lend credence to this meme that all AoS armies need to spam to be competitively viable. It's sucks for you that you are playing Gloomspite, which have a badly written book and many bad warscrolls. I hope this and other battletomes with internal balance problems get reworked down the line. But they don't represent the state of the game as a whole. Frankly, I find the idea that playstyles need to be competitively viable to be viable in any sense absurd. Not getting into what "competitively viable" even means (Able to go 3-2? Able to go 5-0? Sometimes? Most of the time? Always?), the requirement this puts on rules design is ludicrous. A playstyle can only be considered supported if it's able to succeed competitively? And presumably, we want every army to be able to support as many playstyles as possible? That's an insane standard for success in rules design. There is literally no game I am aware of where this is the case. Competitively, it does not take much for an option to be outclassed. If you have two identical warscrolls, but warscroll A has 1 more point of bravery than warscroll B, there is literally no point taking warscroll B from a competitive perspective. But this tells us nothing about how much of an advantage the better warscroll provides. The gap between the two might be (and in this example probably is) minute. While warscroll B is not competitively viable, it's very likely still quite viable by a different, less strict standard. Of course what is good in the rules shapes the game. I already expressed my support for increasing the viability of balanced lists. The rules matching the fluff is desirable. But I don't believe that it's at all reasonable to only accept the rules to succeed in this regard if those lists are tournament viable, and for any given army at that (which I take you to want due to your focus on Gloomspite, regardless of the fact that plenty armies can already field balanced lists in tournaments). Currently, most armies can't play monster mash lists competitively, either, but I still consider that playstyle supported.

There are a lot of points that could be made here. I think I could agree that Nagash and 2x5 wolves at 1000 is pushing the boundaries of what an acceptable list should look like. But it's important to note that this list is not exactly mechanically encouraged. It really sucks at playing the objective game, and everything in the LoN book encourages taking a few big units over multiple small ones. The appeal of that list (I suspect, I came back to the game just after LoN was dominant) is probably more that you can play it after painting just 11 models, as opposed to the usual 50 or so you need for a 1000 point LoN list. Arguably, what's wrong with this list is more that Direwolves are unconditional battleline than anything else. As for Treelord spam, I think it's important to enableTimmys (players who like big, stompy monsters and doing flashy stuff on the table) to play the game in the way they want to. Again, it's not like those lists are mechanically any more encouraged than lists with a lot of different units. They are generally quite bad, as the rules stand at the moment. Finally, I think that this is a good example for the point I was making earlier about awareness of the social contract of the game. One aspect of that is that in casual games, you should try to ensure that your opponent has a good time, too. I think that would definitely include not bringing these types of lists all the time, if you are able to. Although as a very enfrenchised player with a large model collection it's easy to forget how significant of a barrier putting a fully painted, diverse list on the table really is.

First off: I agree that the rules could do more to encourage more internally diverse list. In theory, those lists should have the advantage of being able to take a mix of all the best warscrolls have tools available for any situation. But in practice having more tools available is just not as good as having a few very focussed tools that allow you to do one thing very well. Plus, battalions are just really good deals at the moment. I'd go so far as to say that a battalion that does nothing but give you an extra command point and artefact and bring your drops down would still often be worth it for, like, 150 points (provided it lets you take units you already want). But if we get some mechanics that encourage more internally diverse lists, I would want it to happen through positive reinforcement, not additional restrictions. By restrictions I mean something like the old Warhammer Fantasy allotments of certain percentages of core, elite, rare and command units. I am quite happy that AoS at the moment does a lot to allow you to build whatever list you want (10 Steam Tanks? Sure, go for it!). I'd hate to see that go away. I would also not want the pendulum to swing too far the other way where we end up with mostly soup list on the table and everyone starts complainin that themed armies are unviable. I said in another thread that the introduction of subfactions or battalions that require you not to repeat warscrolls (too much) would probably be a good way to tackle this problem with the tools that are currently available. Finally, I don't think we should put too much weight on what the best lists look at the top level of play. Those are a good indicator if what the rules encourage you to build, but they are not a good indivator of what lists are viable in the average game. If we want to compare AoS to a game like Magic, I believe that the average player should view their list more like a Commander deck than a Standard deck: In list building, the main goal should not necessarily be building the strongest thing you can, but making whatever janky choice you build around work as well as possible. In that vein, I think we should encourage more awareness of the social contract of our casual games (don't bring your hardest list if your opponent brings a fun list, try to match power levels). Because a lot more lists become viable in lower powered games. Still, I support more mechanical support and sign posting of internally diverse lists.

I'm just wishlisting, that's a problem for the rules writers to solve 😎 Seriously though, I recognized that problem, too, but I think it's solvable. Maybe that faction would just get one RDP per turn in addition to normal command points.

I'd like the new book to be an update or replacement for Legions of Nagash. For me that means: Existing Legions of Nagash playstyles are somewhat preserved No more sharing kits with Nighthaunt. They are separate now. LoN subfactions are built out to the point where they can stand on their own (this would mean 2-3 new kits each for Deathrattle, Deadwalkers and Soulblight) "Vampirates" are added as a shooty faction The book gets organized according to the Cities of Sigmar model: Some shared general allegiance abilites (Deathless Minions, Locus of Shyish) plus a choice of "city" which encourages building in a certain way. Some example cities: Neo Vampire Counts: Vampires and their minions (creatures of the night, thralls...). Aggressive playstyle with a melee focus. Get bonuses for or heal by killing/wounding. Bloodlines mechanics. The Bone Zone: Deathrattle focussed. Can take 1 in 4 OBR. Retains something like Endless Legions, where they can bring back completely destroyed units. Fairly fast, lots of suicide charges. Zombietown: Deadwalkers. Endless horde. Grindy playstyle. Could maybe do something like summon a free unit from the board edge every turn. Wraithfleet v2: The vampirate faction. Shooty. Interacts with objectives somehow to convey that they are pirates stealing your treasure. The Monster Mash: Generalist faction which gives some bonuses to everything for those that want to mix it up. Necromancers: Magic bonuses. Summoning. Probably Deathmages heroes in control of Deathrattle and Deadwalker troops. 1 in 4 Nighthaunt? I'd like an update to Nagash and Arkhan so they stay playable in the faction, too. Nagash should probably play more like he does in OBR, getting to heal himself and knowing the whole spell lore. Arkhan is just off-brand Nagash, so whatever. Maybe he gets an interesting home in the new book where he can bring a few of his new Null Myriad toys in.

Just selling them off to players who want them and already have the army. I fully expect the models to be essentially "last chance to buy" at this point, where when they are gone, they are gone. I might be wrong, though. I don't know how Forgeworld usually phases their stuff out. Someone told me that they only have tw different labels when their supply runs out, essentially "being restocked" and "gone for good", and don't usually do the whole "last chance to buy" thing. If that's true, I expect the other chorf kits to only be available as long as supply lasts.

Fyreslayers showing up in tournaments frequently is probably more indicative of their mechanical strength than their popularity, though. They are a very strong army in that regard. Probably the best defensive army in the game. This is the gameplay poll, isn't it? We should pull up a screenshot from the aesthetics poll. Anyway, the poll in this tread has only yes/no because you are supposed to comment with your reasoning. Looking through the thread, you get to see what exactly people like and dislike about FS, so that's there if you want the details. I wish the opening poll was a rating from 1 to 5, though. Because that would allow us to get another interesting statistic: How many people really love or really hate the army. For those of you that don't know: Many designers consider a design more successful if it get lots of very high and very low scores, and less successful if it has a lot of middling scores. It's fine if some people really dislike something if there are also people who really like it. I think Lumineth are lke that, where they are really polarizing. However, looking through this thread, I see a lot of "I don't hate them" posts.

Chaos Dwarves have been name dropped in the lore every now and then, haven't they? I think it might be a possibility eventually. I don't believe they have made that effort for other kits, where a small keyword change would have kept them from languishing in obscurity. So I doubt we will see this.

RIP in peace, Chorfs. Hope you get a proper AoS release next time. Seriously, though: Stuff like this makes is so incredibly unattractive to buy into forgeworld factions. It's like a vicious circle: You don't want to buy in in case they are not popular and get discontinued, and they get discontinued because they are not popular enough toblockquotelockquote widget

I don't think most people are talking about sales here. In the other thread the question of Fyreslayers popularity came up in reference to the Warhammer Weekly aesthetics and gameplay surveys. Fyreslayers were the least popular army in the aesthetics survey as well as the least picked main army in the gameplay survey. You could make an argument that people not having them as their main army is due to price, but aesthetics has nothing to do with that.

I voted dislike. But that's not necessarily surprising, because I am unexcited about dwarves at the best of times. However, I think I can still weigh in with an interesting opinion. I believe if Fyreslayers appeal to anyone, it's people who are already into dwarves. In that respect, they are, to me, dfferent from Kharadron Overlords. From my perspective, there is no way I can see that I will ever start collecting Fyreslayers. They just have nothing that makes them more appealing than regular dwarves to me. KO, though, have a lot that sets them apart with their technology, airships and mercantile aspects. At the same time, I can see how all that plays off of established dwarf tropes, which I can appreciate. In order of appeal to me, KO are at the top (might collect at some point), Dispossessed in the middle (not excited about them, but don't mind them either) and Fyreslayers on the bottom (would avoid them even if it hurts my list). And because I am a sucker for ancient civilizations, if chaos dwarves ever come back with babylonian aesthetic, those would be pretty high up, too. tl;dr: If being a dwarf is a drawback for you as it is for me, I think Fyreslayers have very little to offer to help overcome that drawback.

If we are getting new zombies, I highly suspect it will be these bird house guys:

Now we just have to dodge the second bullet called Warhammer Quest.

Whatever caused them to switch to the slower release in Q1 is presumably stopping them from getting AoS out as fast as they originally planned (presumably the bottle neck is their factory not running at full capacity). But I think Hedonites in February after Death Guard are out of the way is a pretty safe bet.

Plus, Indomitus sold better than expected, to the point they got tied up prducing it Made to Order for a while.

The Warhammer Weekly podcast speculated about this. I would not call this a rumour, though. They have no inside info or anything like that. It was more like: With the delays we know are happening due to Covid and Brexit, like the slowed-down release schedule of Q1, and since the release of a new edition would need to be tied to the narrative of Broken Realms, a delay of the next edition to 2022 would make sense. They can't rush the narrative, those books are likely partially printed already. And they have been significantly delayed: The first rumour engines featuring new Hedonites are from March of last year. Since GW's fiscal year starts in June (I think?), they like to do their big releases around that time. They can't do AoS 3.0 this June, so doing it next year would make sense.I EDIT: Forgot to say, this is all in no way indicative of neglect of AoS. It's just regular corporate scheduling stuff.

I was wondering if that's the paw of a "long legged riding beast", like in that piece of Lumineth fluff some people have quoted. Interestingly, the Critters and Keys raven and rat are standing on ruins similar to the ones in this picture. Would be quite a twist if they were from Lumineth models.

The small guy with the archers is called a "Blissbarb Homunculus", which is a real word that refers to small humans (by literal translation) and artificially created people (historically). So this guy might not be a halfling, dwarf or anything we have previously seen.

After successfully calling the Vampire Hunter from the advent rumour engines, I'm going to double down on my other prediction: Vampires (Legions of Nagash) vs. Vampire Hunter (Cities of Sigmar) duel box in March. We have seen this exact thing with the new Hedonites: Put out two foot heroes in a duel box, telegraph the release with an Underworlds warband, full release of the army three months later. In this case, Cities will only get the Vampire Hunter, Legions will get their big release.

I knew it! Vampire hunters confirmed baybee 😎 I can't even express how hyped I am about this one!