Neil Arthur Hotep

Even if the don't get their own faction, we could always see them in Cities of Sigmar (where they honestly belong).

It's way too early for tier lists for a game as complex as TOW.

From an AoS point of view, there is probably room for enough resculpts (Skaven, Beasts, Ogors, early AoS stuff), second waves (Fyreslayers, OBR, Deepkin, Kharadron, Cities of Sigmar, Tyrion Lumineth) and new armies (AoS Dark Elves, Chaos Dwarves, Grungni Dwarves, Frazzlegits, Silent People) to last us at least a few more editions.

I don't know how others see it, but I find that since compared to the earlier AoS models, newer ones are a lot more restrained when it comes to detail. Or rather, I should say, ornamentation and texture. Detail, as in the resolution of the miniature and crispness of its shapes, has stayed more or less the same. Anyway, you can compare units like the Lord Castellant to any new Stormcast hero to see what I mean: I think GW sculptors understand that adding more random skulls and disparate elements all over the model is not the way of the future, even though I am sure that kind of stuff was really exciting when they were first doing it to Archaon during the End Times.

So, Gotrek is just going to end up gotwrecking everyone, right?

I think what you are saying is absolutely true for End Times and AoS 1 stuff (in general, some models have of course aged better than others). Models that are being released now are noticably better than models from that time. I think, thought, that is because GW sculptors have, in general, become better at digital miniature sculpting and I don't know if the trend will continue. I would definitely guess that we will not see a similar jump in quality from now to 2035 as we saw from ~2015 to now.

I agree. I absolutely think the meta will need time to mature before any substantial judgements about game balance can be made. I know "the meta will adjust" is kind of the "the market will self-regulate" of competitive games, but it is definitely true in this case. My post is more about pointing out a few pitfalls that TWO will still have to navigate in the near future. If you are at all familiar with new game/edition launches, you have to be aware that enthusiasm is generally higher at launch than a few months in. Especially for games without content updates. To be clear, I hope TOW does well and builds its own enthusiastic and lively community.

I have actually become less skittish about it and have been priming even while it was raining and snowing this winter. As long as the models don't get wet it actually works out OK! Just need to make sure the spray can itself is warm so that there is enough pressure.

Is there any good reason or historical precedent that 1999 might be the standard game size? Or is it just to depower lists that want to run two "0-1 per 1000 points" units?

I would absolutely predict that the TOW honeymoon period will be over a lot sooner than a year from now, when the meta solidifes a bit and some of the first dominant strategies are discovered. In addition to people realizing they don't actually like doing combat resolution math and wheeling.

The launch of TOW was great, but the game still has to prove that it can sustain community interest. At the moment everyone loves it, but I wonder if the same will be the case in 6 months once people are familiar enough with the new rule set to have balance (or other rules design) complaints and the first new hobbyists start dropping the game again after they realize they actually don't enjoy painting. Personally, I don't think TOW will get equivalent balance updates to AoS Battlescrolls. Given the expectations of gamers around balance adjustments nowadays, I think that will be a deal breaker to some people. I already see people online complaining about how Wood Elves are impossible to beat and not fun to play against. And the game has not even been out for a week.

This is a really good point to mention. There were a bunch of unbalanced options in early AoS 3, especially in the general enhancement section. But all of them have been reined in over time. That in itself is a thing worth appreciating, as it has certainly not been the standard for GW games in the past. To be honest, I get why a lot of people want to ditch battle tactics at this point. Especially army-specific ones. But I think there is some potential for Grand Strategies to play a valuabel role, army-specific grand strats in particular. I think they have the potential to signal to players what kinds of things their army should want to do. They should reward players for engaging with their faction's core mechancis. Admittedly, that is not at all what they currently do, however. They actually quite frequently discourage you from playing your faction like it is supposed to (hoard summoning points instead of spending them, for example), or just tell you to do random things unrelated to the normal flow of the game (get in each quarter of the battlefield).

I put down "weekly", because normally I only really get time to paint on the weekend between work and family obligations. However, I find that I paint a lot more in summer than in winter, when daylight hours are longer and the weather is more conducive to priming with a rattle can. I think I paint at a pretty good speed, though, given the standard I am aiming for. I already have the majority of my armies consist of painted and based models, and in my mind it is only a matter of time until they are all finished.

Hopefully the rollout of the other TOW factions will be swift. Thoroughly looking forward to the second hand miniature market crashing.

I certainly hope that having both TOW and AoS allows the two systems to really develop their own, distinctive styles. Both in terms of models and rules. I hope that TOW becomes a great game for classic models and design paradigms, while AoS doubles down on focussing on ease of play and game flow. That would be my ideal outcome.

Awful. Literally no identifying marks on that thing except that coffee stain in the upper right. Anyway, coffee obviously implies that Araby is coming to the Old World next.

I think that rumour was going around in the days of early AoS, but since Hedonites got two waves of release since then I think we can pretty safely call it debunked.

Fun to see Steam Tanks doing so well now, considering how much of a meme unit they were in 2nd edition. I find it interesting that a list with 5 Steam Tanks managed to do this well at LVO, considering Steam Tanks can't capture for beans. I guess objective play just doesn't matter that much at high levels? Makes sense, given that battle tactics and grand strats are nearly half the points and out-capping the opponent is only one point per round. I am not super worried about Steam Tanks being nerfed, though. They don't do anything special, they are just really efficient packages of stats. So they will probably see their points raised at worst. In my own experience with Steam Tanks, they are definitely not unkillable. They get exploded by mortal wounds or even high rend pretty easily. If the opponent has the ability to sprinkle some mortals around, that also makes their overpressure ability a lot more risky and hurts their damage output pretty significantly. I think the meta definitely contains enough tools to adapt to Steam Tank spam lists. Unlike the double command corps, which probably requires some kind of errata.

If anyone has the other Cities list from the LVO finals, I'd love to see it, by the way.

Honestly, I read their statement of "these factions are not supported, we won't make rules or models for them" as "these factions don't yet in the current 3 year project plan" from the start. There is no way they won't add them to the game later if it does way well enough.

Dogs of War are not real and can't hurt you.

I still think the Fusilier block is good. But it does lock you into running a Master of Ballistics Alchemite and a city with a casting bonus (probably Hallowheart). Otherwise, it is definitely too inconsistent and expensive for top level tournament play. I think the Fusiliers might be a bit of a noob stomper, though. If you get extra shots through your opponent carelessly triggering counter-fire, then they absolutely wreck stuff. But you can't expect that at top tables. Making the command corps unique would be my favourite way to nerf them. I feel like one unit of them is managable, it only gets excessive when you run multiple.

I think @Ejecutor means scenery overall, not just faction terrain. Faction terrain could absolutely disappear next edition or whenever. But it is unlikely that GW is planning to stop selling terrain overall, even with their current apparent problems with their chinese supply chain. From all the interviews I have seen recently with former GW business people, they really seem to want to be able to sell players everything they need for a game of Warhammer in their own stores.

Does anyone know if the results and/or lists from LVO are available anywhere? I have been hearing some interesting stuff, but have not been able to find any write ups.