Neil Arthur Hotep

Increasing a save is provides more benefits the higher your base save is, so +1 to save for a save '-' is not a big bonus, but for a save 3+ unit is insanely good. Going from a 4+ save to 3+ like Liberators do is huge. It increases your effective wounds by a third against no rend. You go from a 2x effective wound multiplier to 3x. Also, rerolling 1s to save gets better if your save is better, because the reroll will be more likely to be successful. Thirty Liberators at 3+ rerolling have 270 effective wounds against no rend. They are point for point more tanky than Mortek Guard, except they are also in your face turn 0. Way too many wounds to just mortal wound your way through. And you can buff their save even more if I'm not mistaken. This is an insane battalion. The +1 to hit is just adding insult to injury at this point.

I don't have a lot of nostalgia for many of the old Warhammer Fantasy characters. I feel like the two mortarchs we got that are new to AoS (Katakros and Lady Olynder) have been super cool additions, much more exciting that Kemmler or Krell (at least if they don't get reimagined). Besides, Arkhan is already the Necromancer Mortarch. I would not say no to a Deathrattle Mortarch, though.

I was just going to post something similar. The hand is in a really unnatural position if it belongs to the warrior.

Since we know that Broken Realms contains warscroll updates, what do you think are the chances of LoN getting some of those in the short term? I think if we don't get any Death-related news in the next preview, it's not out of the question. Especially since the clearest teaser we got about what will likely be the next Death faction/update (Johann running away from a scarecrow looking thing) does not look obviously vampire or skeleton related. A lot about LoN could definitely be fixed by warscroll rewrites. A lot of the basic tricks the faction has are still pretty good. My personal wishlist would include skeletons getting a new mechanic so you don't have to roll 200 dice when they attack and Black Knights getting rend -1 on their lances.

The word Decay and the green colour of the letters definitely suggest Nurgle, but there's some reason to think we might get something Death related instead or additionally. If you look through the rumour engine pictures, there are a lot of teases for stuff that could be Slaanesh. There's the chalice, the punch dagger, the crab claw maybe and the rapier. There's also a lot of Death looking stuff the crow with the key, the halberd, the pitted sword, the bone flute, the hand holding the skull and the hook. Plus the teaser image with Johann runnning from some kind of zombie or scarecrow or something. But there are comparatively few images that could be Nurgle stuff. If we are getting a big Nurgle release soon, it's at least strange that the rumour engines don't reflect this.

That's a meta shift nobody could have predicted. RIP in peace, skeletons.

Here's the list I am currently working with. Not very original, credit should go to @ianob, who to my knowledge pioneered this list. Allegiance: Legion of Sacrament LEADERS Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (440) General Command Trait: Mastery of Death Vampiric Sword & Shield & Chalice Artefact: Wristbands of Black Gold Lore of the Vampires: Vile Transference Wight King with Baleful Tomb Blade (120) Steed Artefact: Azyrbane Standard Necromancer (130) Lore of the Deathmages: Overwhelming Dread UNITS 40 x Skeleton Warriors (280) Ancient Spears 10 x Skeleton Warriors (80) Ancient Blades 10 x Skeleton Warriors (80) Ancient Blades 30 x Grave Guard (360) Great Wight Blades 15 x Black Knights (360) BATTALIONS Deathmarch (150) TOTAL: 2000/2000 WOUNDS: 144 Three drops minimum. --- Explanation: Gotta go fast! This is a pretty standard Deathmarch list. The general gameplan is to charge your opponent turn 1 with your Black Knights and tarpit (or even kill) a good portion of their army, while you move your skeletons onto enough points to hopefully win the game. The Deathmarch battalion gives you a 4" move in the hero phase for units wholly within 12" of the Wight King (and some incidental healing). The command trait Mastery of Death from LoS gives you a further 3" move in the hero phase within 6" of your general. Putting it on a VLoZD gives you a pretty wide area for this effect. The combination of both abilites gives you unexpected mobility on your Deathrattle units: 11" for Warriors and Grave Guard, 19" on Black Knights. Combined with the guaranteed 6" charge that's enough to alpha strike with your Black Knights on all battleplans unless the opponent backboards ( in which case you just give them turn 1). VLoZD general gives you good range on Mastery of Death, as already mentioned, and provides you with a durable General for resurrection purposes. Wristbands make him more likely to survive shooting alpha strikes. The Wight King will usually go with the Black Knights to support them. You should expect him to die early. Azybane Standard increases the Black Knights ability to tarpit. The Necromancer is there as an extra hero and for a chance to cast Vanhel's Danse Macabre or one of the Deathmages lore spells. I go with one big block of skeletons and two small. I feel that a big block of skeletons is enought of a threat to demand some attention by your opponent and if they sit on a point it will take some effort to take away from you. Min-size skeletons are just chaff. The Grave Guard are a serious offensive threat, especially when buffed. They do very good damage in melee and are definitely worth it for their price at 30. Another big threat. The Black Knights are the star players of this list. They look pretty awful on paper, but they are good on the charge and you can potentially buff them with an extra attack, reroll failed hits and fight twice on the first turn for their big, guaranteed charge. Bringing 15 might look like a waste since they are hard to all fit into combat, but if you charge several units at once that's not a problem. Also, since part of their job is to tarpit, the extra bodies are good even if they don't get to fight. They lack rend, but in my experience can overwhelm anything not on a 2+ save by sheer number of wounds if buffed up completely. Options: VLoZD: You could give the VLoZD the Shroud of Darkness instead of the Wristbands, but since you ideally want to move him up into the opponent's face turn 1 and the Shroud loses effectiveness when you are close to the enemy, I think the Wristbands are better. Vile Transference is there to keep you topped up, and I think it's better than Pinions, because you already move 17" with Mastery of Death. Wight King and Necromancer: You could give the Shroud to one of them, but they are honestly not important enough overall. The Azyrbane Standard actively helps your gameplan instead of passively hindering the opponent, so I prefer it. The Necromancer has Overwhelming Dread because it's the easiest to cast. Pick whichever spell you like. You'll mostly cast Vanhel's anyway. Skeletons: Everyone has opinions about swords vs. spears. I just went with the conventional wisdom. Honestly, it hardly matters. Grave Guard: Great Blades do significantly better damage and the +1 save from Crypt Shields is too unreliable. There's just too much rend out there to make it worthwhile. Overall list composition: You could run three min size units of skeletons. That allows you to take 5 more Black Knights and a command point, which is honestly arguably better. You could also try to fit some other units in there, but any non-deathmarch unit you add will take you to 4 drops, which is not a trade off that I think is worth it. --- This list is kind of unexciting because I feel it's "solved". There is very little variation since Deathmarch is so restrictive and you really want to keep your drops low. You can't add a Mortarch since you need the command trait for everything to work.

I agree for the chalice, but disagree for the punch dagger. That still looks very Idoneth to me, although I don't know how they would release a new model for them, given they just had their chance in BR: Morathi and didn't take it.

I feel that sword is probably part of the new Death army, because the weird hand looks like it could belong to one of whatever Johann has been running away from recently.

If any model range has an excuse to stay kind of grounded in it's look it's the Freeguild. I think a new Guard and Handgunner kit made to modern standards and with female build options would be good. That would give GW the opportunity to add in some new Mortal Realms specific imagery into their aesthetic and go a bit more phantastical with it.

I actually think the Landsknecht look of the Freeguild is pretty distinctive for a fantasy game. I always felt it made them stand out among other fantasy humans. I'd be in favour of keeping it and going a bit more wild with it.

Getting rid of Cities now, by which I mean retiring the models, would definitely be a huge blunder and I can't see them doing it. The "worst" I can realisically see is cities getting unsouped again, which might leave people with illegal armies. I don't see models being retired without replacements after the battletome. I find it more likely that GW will do more cross faction unit mixing after the 1 in 4 model. As per their own statements, GW has the course of AoS planned out for several years in advance. While I don't think this plan is set in stone, I would be pretty surprised if it contained the splitting up of Dark Elves into several distinct factions with their own battletomes only to re-soup them again later as some people are predicting.

The only thing that makes me skeptical is that (correct me if I'm wrong) the Newborn is described as pretty monstrous, while this arm seems to belong to a regular human dude. I don't think they will go for a shape change gimmick again after they just did away with it for Morathi.

I'm sorry, I don't get what you are trying to say here.

I feel like that could be a real possibility! It's certainly one of the best fits for that rumour engine that I have seen. If I remember correctly, at the time people were speculating that it could be a vampire or elf thing, but the elf releases have come and gone with no rapier in sight, and the sword does not look super deathy to me.

It's not uncontroversial, that's for sure, and I know that a lot of people who are in favour of keeping it are also in favour of reworking it.

The second point would only make shooting worse. It would just mean that shooting armies get to shoot you twice a turn. Also, in all polls on this topic I have seen people prefer the double turn over I-go-you-go. The double turn has a crucial function: Mitigating the advantage of going first. If you remove it, we'll quickly shift into an alpha strike meta. The real answer is to make the double turn more interactive so that you can play to get it or deny it to your opponent.

Would be nice, but do you think GW would see updaing the three year old Judicator kit as a good move when *guestures broadly at Seraphon*?

Those look very similar to the arrows of the Knight Venator to me. I'd honestly be surprised if this is not a stormcast unit.

The Spirit Torment is an interesting option I had not considered. What role do you see for the Spirit Torment? Is he just there to give the Reapers or Spirit Hosts reroll ones to hit? Am I interpreting this list right, that your main means of dealing damage will be to buff the Reapers and attack with them? I'm still not sure I like Arkhan in Legion of Sacrament. I think he's way better if he does not have to be the general. This is not really directly in response to your list, but I have recently been asking myself if it's right to keep bringing Necromancers in my lists. One of their main payoffs is Vanhel's, which can be tricky to cast if your opponent expects it and saves their unbinds. Vampire Lords are only 10 points more, but they have a better Invocation, are way more mobile and survivable and get a command ability on top of that.

"Lord Nagash, you can't solve all your problems by building black pyramids!" "THE HELL I CAN'T!" *slaps "build a pyramid" button*

One thing I appreciate about Broken Realms is that GW are not afraid to change the status quo. I think if we want to avoid the narrative getting stale, then we should be accepting of some things being removed and new things being introduced, such as the fall of Anvilguard and Har Kuron. Even in the worst case for Anvilguard players where the Anvilguard rules are removed completely at the start of the next edition, by telegraphing this change now at least there will be time to prepare. In any case, for the time being Anvilguard rules are still around and Misthavn seems like a good replacement if they go eventually. I think for the health of the game we should accept that it's not feasible to indefinitely support all armies, allegiances or models. If we can get GW to provide a statement such as "Everything with a battletome will be around for at least one more edition" or "If something is removed in the narrative, that means it won't be in the next edition", I think we'd be in a good place. I'm also going to throw out a few predicitons for fun: Ven Brecht was rescured by one of Mannfred von Carsteins agents and we will see a new Death army over the course of Broken Realms that answers to Mannfred. Slaanesh will not get a significant range expansion during Broken Realms beyond what they already got, but will at the start of AoS 3.0. The Newborn will be a new god model on par with Nagash and friends. Cities of Sigmar will not be done away with over the course of Broken Realms. If anything, we will get extra cities. Orruk Warclans will get a range expansion similar to what DoK got: A new hero and at least one unit. Gorkamorka will not get a model.

Definitely. I maybe should have said "Kurnothi were more clearly just a one-off in the short term."

I agree with what you are saying, but want to quickly comment on why I think the Slaaneshi mortals are a different case from the underworlds Kurnothi and Rippa's Snarlfangs. Basically two things: The Daughter of Khaine stuff has shown that GW do multiple simultaneus model releases through through different avenues (Warcry, Underworlds, Duel Box...) as part of their updates with Broken Realms. So getting both an Underworlds warband and new hero in the duel box, as well as the little shoutout with the arrow on the giant, indicates that Slaanesh will get more than a few new rules in Broken Realms to me. The Kurnothi were more clearly just a one-off. In addition to that, everything narratively really points towards Slaanesh breaking free being a major plot point in BR. Now with Lumineth released, it's definitely the right time to focus on Slaanesh again.