Neil Arthur Hotep

Agreed, of course. Although I also don't understand the non-competitive appeal of running a bunch of Vampire Lords as battleline, though. I guess we will have to wait until we see the actual rules, maybe something is still missing. EDIT: Something was missing, you get a bunch of extra rules, actually. Most notably, plots. Which are sort of like mini battle tactics that level up your heroes and give them bonuses for the rest of the game.

Sprues and Brews has infos on the new Regiments of Renown: https://spruesandbrews.com/2024/02/03/dawnbringers-4-the-mad-king-rises-review-and-model-unboxings-warhammer-age-of-sigmar/ --- Nefarata’s includes her, 5 Black Nights and 2 units of 10 Skeletons and allows her to change the battle tactic once per game at the end of the battleshock phase, and in addition turn off ward saves for a chosen unit within 12″ of her each turn Usharan’s is very nice consisting of him, a unit of 10 Cryptgaurd and a unit of Morburg Knights, he gives all models within 12″ of him +1 attack each, and can replace each slain unit in this regiment once per game. Manfred gets a unit of Grave guard and 2 units of Fell bats, and allows a unit near him to teleport outside of 6″ of the enemy (And that unit gets +1 attack) – a unit of Graveguard teleporting into your face is pretty scary! Arkhan gets 2 of each Morghast and gives all models in his regiment a 2+ spell ignore ability. Katakros gets 2 units of Immortis Guard, and gives them all an ability to stop nearby units from contesting objectives And finally Lady Olynder gets 2 units of banshees and a unit of Haradins who can all stop nearby units from receiving commands, as well as getting strike first then when they charge over 8″ and can fall back and still charge --- Also, Sekhars Army of Renown apparently prevents you from taking skeletons and zombies, but makes Vampire Lords battleline. I don't get this one. I don't understand why that is good.

Regarding Cog-Forts: The Steam Tank is on a 120mm oval. But GW makes a 170mm oval. The path foreward seems obvious to me.

Every war has its hammer. - John Warhammer

Does not seem believable, IMO. Even though Cities won LVO they are not doing that well in tournaments. Still around 50% win rate I believe. I expect some kind of rules change to the command squad and +20 points or so on both Steam Tank variants, and that's it. Definitely not both extensive rules changes and huge points increases to everything at the same time, though.

Seems like too much at once to be plausible.

A list so skewed that you can't even run it in AoS!

Ulgu confirmed.

I for one welcome Order being the ones to build a big doomsday weapon for once. Can't wait for Skaven to blow it up eventually.

I, too, joined AoS to late to experience it, but Gavriel Sureheart was pretty infamous for a while as part of the "Gav Bomb", which involved spamming his warscroll command ability (they were not limited to once per phase at that point) to give Stormcast ridiculous movement and a turn 1 charge. That tower is super interesting, though, I agree. Especially since apparently Cities and Stormcast are the ones collaborating on it. It being related to Ionus somehow makes the most sense. I can only thing of it being anti-Death somehow, otherwise, with the mention of Lethis. But Death does not seem like a major threat in the current narrative.

Wow I wonder who that could be!

They are completely fine as a 90 point screen. Good even, with their damage reflection. It's specifically using them as the recipient of Tenebrael Blades that I don't like. Here's why. Corsair combo: Requires a fleetmaster and sorceress Requires a Darkling Covens unit to sacrifice 1" range Can't take a punch 20 Corsairs + Fleetmaster + Sorceress = 370 points Black Guard combo: Requires only the sorceress Can sacrifice the Black Guards themselves 2" range Can take a punch like a champ 4+ wards for everyone! 20 Black Guard + Sorceress = 380 points And their damage output is basically the same. I agree, though, that if you are already running the combo and Scourgerunner shooting, you might as well bring a few Corsairs as screens just on the off chance that it's helpful.

So, the Warscroll for Sekhar is out: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/02/01/fangs-of-the-blood-queen-how-neferatas-top-lieutenant-wages-war/ First impressions: Good spellcasting Benefits from Legion of Blood allegiance abilities, so cast 2, unbind 2 both at +1. That's very solid. Her warscoll spell seems like some nice anti-ranged tech, too. Sadly, only anti targeted ranged, not mortal wound bombs. Too bad the Vampire lore is still sucks, though. Bad stats 7 wounds, 4+ save is low for a hero. 6" move no fly is slow. Melee stats are good, but can you and do you really want to get her into combat? Serpentine agility is bad, actually Controversial take, I think: Serpentine agility at most reduces damage by 3/5ths if the opponent hits on 2s. More likely, it reduces damage by 1/2 if they hit on 3s. But against worse profiles, it can actually end up doing nothing. And it doesn't protect you from auto-hits (spells and abilities) at all. I'd rather have a 5+ ward and The Hunger. Time Swallower is also bad, actually You need to get her up close to the enemy to use it (hard for Sekhar) and it's the best against slow units (probably not what you need to mortal down). This ability is very likely to do nothing even against 6" move dumb-dumbs. And it turns off your defensive ability. --- My impression is that she is a good caster for Legion of Blood that will be hard to take down at range, between her spell, Look Out Sir, and Serpentine Agility. I view her as a support piece that helps protect you against shooting while providing magic support. In that context, even Time Swallower is pretty good, because you can use it to punish an enemy charge. Or at least that might be worth doing once Merciless Blizzard leaves play. Until then, just cast that. Overall, I think she is good for what she is. I don't think she will become a fixture in every Soulblight tournament list, even though her abilities read as powerful at first glance.

I saw one video claiming that skirmishers, dragons and long lines of missile troops seemed strong. I don't know how accurate that will be, but if this turns out to be the tournament meta, then it will probably look pretty different from "normal" TOW.

That's why I didn't really like it that much from the start. The damage output is obviously insane, but for melee units you always need to have either a delivery mechanism for them (high mobility, deep strike, teleport) or be able to take a hit and counter-punch. Corsairs have neither, and as an extra mark against them, their damage output falls apart if they don't get their spell.

The Steam Tank list would probably do fine against giants. It has good power projection and access to the counter-fire order, which is always super nice against shooting lists. In general, I think if you are running Freeguild you should be able to figure out a path to victory. Dwarf and Elf lists, especially those focused on slow infantry units, will have a much harder time, however.

"Are you sure we should be using that chariot? Kinda looks like a vain edifice of the civilized weaklings to me, and you know how I feel about those."

It's hard to say. Soulblight also has its Deathrattle and Vampire subfactions, and some things key off of that distinction, but you can still give Grave Guard +1 attack from a Vampire Lord no problem. I don't think there is a line that says "No synergies between different races" in the AoS master design document.

Personally, I am interested to see how The Old World will develop in a tournament setting, though. Just because I have a hunch that tournament play will look pretty unrecognizable to casual players. I want to see some of the absurd stuff that's going to get cooked up.

I would expect Ironjawz and Kruleboyz to stick around as subfaction keywords, but with fewer restrictions on what you can mix in a list and just one common set of allegiance abilities. You know, like every other battletome.

GW still lists Big Waaagh, Ironjawz and Kruleboyz as separate armies (for example on their Meta Watch articles), even though they share a book. Orruk Warclans is a weird edge case at the moment.

Yeah, having "normal person" versions of dwarves, elves and humans is necessary for believability. We already have humans and elves (kinda). Time for dorfs next.

I mean, they forgot to give Hammerers their command models in the Cities of Sigmar book... I agree though it was probably intentional. It's just weird. Not really even convinced that her defensive ability is that much better than The Hunger in the first place.

Weird that she doesn't have The Hunger.