Neil Arthur Hotep

I had another game with my Hallowheart list from the previous page. This time against Ossiarch Bonereapers Null Myriad. My opponent brought: Katakros, Boneshaper, Soulreaper, 20 Mortek, 6 Stalkers, 5 Deathriders, Harvester, Crawler TL;DR: My opponent surprisingly gave me first turn, I got all my buffs up and he could not crack my castle. He ended up more or less tabled after turn 2. Deployment: Big fan of weak flank/strong flank with this list: The two Tank Commanders and Hurricanum form the strong flank and try to advance, while the Steelhelms form the weak flank and just try not to die. So, this game I got first turn. I managed to just get my battlemage with pall of doom to within 24" of Katakros and shut down his commands before he could get them which is huge. Since Katakros is locked to Mortis Praetorian, he doesn't get the 2+ spell ignore. I kept him from using command the whole game. My game plan was to focus fire individual units and not spread my damage around too much in order to deny OBR their healing, which somewhat worked, but not as well as I thought. OBR troops are really tanky and I probably would have needed to get all my shooting into the same unit to remove them, which was not possible with my deployment. At one point the harvester broke through a gap in my screens, which was pretty scary. But the Steelhelms really impressed me this game. With their 10 wounds, 4+ save I fully expected them to just die. But they ended up frequently being 3+ (spreading all-out defense to other Steelhelms with their ability), 5++ (Zenestra ward) instead, tanking pretty solidly. And then they would frequently hit back with mortals on 6s from the Alchemite because they were screening for my Fusilier block. All in all, they make for surprisingly spikey castle walls. Running 6 heroes for again was really good in this list. I got several Return Fire orders off even against a list with limited shooting like this, just because I always had enough heroes to trigger them. When you have the alchemite spell up, that's a lot of added damage. End of round 2, I had destroyed the Mortek Guard, Deathriders, Stalkers, Harvester and Boneshaper without losing any units. Next, I would have been able to put all my Fusilier shots with mortals and rerolls into Katakros, plus 3d3 mortals from the Hurricanum, so we just called it. Hallowheart continues to perform well for me. Getting the really important spells like Pall of Doom and Blazing Weapons out reliably in your first turns just wins games.

I am hard at work painting Fusiliers, but slipped in a quick Whisperblade to break up all the boring batch painting:

I don't think there are a lot of actual Chaos Dwarf players left at this point. Personally, I would hope for a reimagining that keeps the core elements (babylonian influences, industrial age), but is as different from the old models as the Freeguild is from the Empire.

People wanted Kragnos to be a BoC model from the start. He is a big centaur monster after all. But GW's plan for him really seems to be that he is the god character of GA: Destruction. BoC are very firmly a chaos faction, so I think chances are slim that they and Kragnos get together in the future. BTW, I don't believe the Beasts of Chaos squatting rumours. Most they will get is a redesign, name change and resin model purge. Like Legions of Nagash did. Or Cities or FEC (without the name change).

I am really glad to see that the initial demand for Old World is high. If you look through this thread, you can frequently find me expressing doubt that there would be enough interest in a Bretonnia/Tomb Kings launch and a revival of old WHFB models. So I am happy to have been wrong on that and I like that people are really getting hyped about the game. Let's hope it results in sustained interest!

Did he give a source for any of this? Because while I like Honest Wargamer Rob, he has a tendency to repeat Internet speculation as if it was fact.

The Cities release also had 0 rumour engines. It doesn't necessarily mean anything if a faction doesn't appear in them.

I added this little guy to my Tank Commander before the battle for good luck. I fully credit him with my victory Yeah, it's pretty neat. A Tank army could definitely work well in Misthavn, Greywater, Lethis or Living City, as too. I had a situation in my last game where retreat sn shoot would have come on really handy, too, which kind of makes me want to try Tempest's Eye with a few Gunhauler allies now. I kinda wish I didn't have to deal with all the Andtor magic stuff. I definitely think Hallowheart will benefit from the season being over. My experience with the Hurricanum really makes me value it. On paper it doesn't look that good, but the constant +1 is just so nice. You might think "I will just go Greywater and use All Out Attack a bunch", but you get that Hurrocanum +1 in so many situations that it really pays for itself. During Return Fire, during Unleash Hell, in Melee... It really makes a huge difference. Quickly adds a lot more damage than another Tank would. And that's not even getting into the extra utility from having another Order and cast available. The Storm of Shemtek is also pretty great. Within 18" is a big bubble and I found it consistently helps me remove problematic pieces that managed to hang on with a few wounds early game and just absolutely destroy stuff late game. I really rate the old buff wagon highly.

Had a game against Seraphon recently with this list: Hallowheart Leaders Steam Tank Commander (270) Battlemage on Celestial Hurricanum (260) Alchemite Warforger (110) - General Pontifex Zenestra (180) Steam Tank Commander (270) Battlemage (100) Battleline 10 x Freeguild Steelhelms (100) 10 x Freeguild Steelhelms (100) 10 x Freeguild Steelhelms (100) Units 20 x Freeguild Fusiliers (340) - Reinforced x 1 6 x Freeguild Command Corps (170) Total: 2000 / 2000 Reinforced Units: 1 / 4 Allies: 0 / 400 Wounds: 119 Drops: 11 --- My opponent was running a Kroak Starborn list (but testing it out for the first time). Off the top of my head: Kroak, Slann, Skink Mage, Skink on Troglodon, Bastilladon with Solar Engine, 3x10 Skinks, Terradon Riders, Stormcast Ballista ally, Farstriders allies. TL;DR: We played until the end of round 2. I took out basically all the small units, the Skink mage and Bastilladon. At that point I would have got the double turn and we called it, because his Troglodon was on its last legs and I would have taken off at least the Slann and controlled all objectives on the board by the end of the turn. Some things I noticed: Hallowheart can definitely stand up against high magic armies in the casting phase. I easily got my important spells out every time by being tactical with my use of primal dice. The Battlemage with Pall of Doom is a unit that I really like in this list. Shutting off all commands for a unit at 24" is a big force multiplier for the Fusiliers. It also allows me to basically always have both Counter Fire and Advance in Formation up for them, which really helps with their threat range. Speaking of Counter Fire, it's an absolute MVP order against shooting lists. Both the Steam Tanks and Fusiliers make great use of it. Two Tank Commanders feels better than running one Commander and a regular tank. I recommend it, being a hero does a lot for a Tank and the extra attacks are nice. The Hurricanum is also worth it, even post nerf IMO. The +1 to hit adds more damage than another Tank on average, and the Storm of Shemtek still has really good utility for sniping annoying stuff. Zenestra and the Command Squad are as good as they look. The surgeon healed so many Steam Tank and Hallowheart overcasting wounds for me. I backboarded them a bit too much this time, I think having them closer to the front is better. The Command Squad is a prime target for ranged attacks, so making sure you can counter-fire off of that is a good idea. Battle tactics were hard. I have to really sit down and work out a game plan for them next time. Banners Held High was easy, though. Deployment: End of round 2:

I got to paint Angron because a friend bought him. He is a cool model deserving top place contention, so I feel that is a fair pick. However, no doubt being a Primarch massively helped his case. Space Marine players just have a stranglehold on 40k. Dann those spoiler candidates! Tahlia Vedra is truly the Ralph Nader of Age of Sigmar (this joke is for boomers only).

First Fusilier (and a few Gargoylians): Fusiliers are easier and quicker to paint than Steelhelms. They paint pretty well without sub-assemblies.

One of the reasons why I like AoS is that we can be pretty confident that every army will get its turn eventually. Some of the long neglected armies like Seraphon, Soulblight and Cities of Sigmar are now among thr best ranges. I have no doubt dwarves will get a similar amount of attention down the line.

I was thinking these are temporary boxes because of all the extra stuff in them. You certainly don't see core rule books bundled into Vanguard or Combat Patrol boxes.

They don't look like AoS sculpts to me.I think the bright paint jobs are confusing people.

Painted a Nexus Syphon: This one is syphoning Azyr magic.

That's unfortunate. We will probably see a lot of Karl Franz based conversions in the future.

That's good to hear. The warhammer fantasy subreddit was pretty bad. But at least the worst takes were pretty consistently downvoted.

Witnessing that reaction kind of put me off of interacting with the existing Old World communities. Really hoping they become more welcoming when the game actually launches and new players start coming in.

New Arkhan model, yes or no?

I like her. I might pick up this box, I don't have any Fell Bats yet. We might get another guy for Manfred as well, plus maybe a new Underworlds warband soon. Exciting.

I'm up to 20 Steelhelms now. Doing some terrain next as a palate cleanser.

Kurnothi confirmed, I guess.

I was having a similar problem with sculpting fossils until I found out that you can actually just buy real fossils for cheap. Maybe the solution is to just buy some Bismuth crystals. Or grow them yourself from pepto bismol for the hobby cred.

The Cleansing Aqualith would look dope with a gold waterfall.

I doubt it, but also that seems like the worst of both worlds: First rerelease the old kits, and then obsolete them right after.