Neil Arthur Hotep

Some Steelhelm progress: They are pretty far along now, mostly just needing some highlights and Black lining. I keep thinking about the gameplay potential of a Steelhelm horde army. I might end up painting 30 of these guys, which I would never have expected before actually getting my hand on them.

I think Nagash was a priest for a bit before that keyword did anything. Just like him to have to be the first even though it helps no one.

For those of you who are worried about tracking heroic deed points, here is a cute little hobby solution that Nurgle players use for their disease point trackers that you can adapt:

I currently feel like big units of Steelhelms are being underrated. If they ever catch on, the Marshall will see a lot more play for the 5 free command points alone.

Excuse the triple post, guys, but I have been re-reading the Steelhelms warscroll and realized something I was genuinely not aware of until now: We all know that Steelhelms can get a 6+ ward when they are contesting an objective, right? But that's actually not 100% right. In reality, they have the ability to give themselves and friendly units that 6+ ward. Of course it comes with a bunch of hoops to jump through, but at the very least it means that if you use a unit of Steelhelms to screen for your Fusiliers, they are probably getting that 6+ ward, too (as well as any buff heroes nearby). In my opinion, that's a pretty nice upside for a screen.

Trying to decide between two lists after the recent FAQ: List A List B Basically, the difference between the two is that List A has a Steam Tank Commander and two regular tanks, and List B has two Tank Commanders, and Battlemage and 100 points left over (currently filled with a unit of Steelhelms, but open to suggestions). List A has the advantage of allowing me to field all the Steam Tanks I have currently painted, anyway. List B has more bodies, more heroes for Orders, and a significant extra cast/spell from the Battlemage (probably Pall of Doom). I find it hard to decide between the two right now. I don't know if I like how much of a death star the Tanks are in List A. Besides them, only the Fusiliers are a real threat, but overall the shooting ability of the list is higher than List B. List B is a little more flexible, and harder to disrupt because it runs two Commanders. I also like the added Battlemage, because both Pall of Doom is super nice in a shooting list and having several good spells in a list makes it much harder for my opponent to just throw all their Primal Dice into unbinding the Alchemite warscroll spell every time. Potentially, this list casts 5 spells per hero phase (with Arcane Tome on one of the Commanders). I think reinforcing one of the Steelhelm units might actually be kind of nice, too. 10 Steelhelms don't really do anything, but 20 of them with a 5+ ward, Alchemite spell, +1 to saves... I think that's a more significant obstacle. I also like the extra bodies in general.

It would have to be painted in a different colour scheme from the standard blue-green if so:

I understand that there is always a function that gives you the chart in question, of course. But the reason that there is a table is that determining the result of the function at the gaming table is a bit of a stumbling block for most people. I still see this in AoS all the time. Battleshock is just Casualties+d6-Bravery=Losses, but whenever it happens at the table, it still interrupts the flow. And I believe the math is more simple in that case (just addition and subtraction as opposed to logic operations). What you wrote about it being weird that a unit's to-hit value is always the same regardless of the opponent is a good example of why I called the to-hit table a simulationist mechanic. People who like that kind of thing are fine with taking on extra complexity because it "makes sense", because it simulates what is happening in the fiction more closely. That's more or less just a preference. I personally prefer to sacrifice this kind of realism (up to a point) for a game that plays faster and more smoothly. A lot of this comes from my personal experience with games with very detailed mechanics: For a long time I though that I really wanted this kind of high granualrity in my games, but after playing a bunch of games that don't have it, I never found that I was missing it at the table. It's definitely good that TOW is doing something that you like, though! It's good if TOW and AoS have different niches for different player bases to enjoy.

In that case, good luck!

It's that old-school charts-based design. Some people love it, but there are also good reasons why games have moved away from it over time.

I have been reading some of the discussions on WHFB forums and it seems like a lot of people like what they are seeing from the new rules. Which is nice! I am happy to finally see people express their excitement about playing The Old World rather than grumbling about how it will be a soulless cash grab and Xth edition (the one from when I started as a kid) was better anyway. But man, as someone who has never really deeply engaged with the rules of old Warhammer, these rules seem pretty daunting. I find it very hard to get my head around them. Those huge to-hit and to-wound tables are certainly not making things easier. There is a lot of simulationist design here, like Initative and Strength/Toughness, which I know some people love and want in their games. My personal experience with games has made me pretty sceptical of this kind of complexity, though. I think I will definitely have to watch some battle reports when the game comes out to even understand how it is supposed to play.

A bit late to comment, but I would not replace the command corps. I think it generally does too much to leave at home. Replacing Tahlia with a Marshall on Griffon seems like a valid choice, though. I'm curious to hear how your game went and whether her rally ability had a strong impact.

I agree with this. The question is: What barrier to entry are we trying to lower? The barrier to playing the game with a painted army, or the barrier to engage with the hobby as a whole (building, painting, collecting, lore, playing)? Pre-paints would make it easier to play the game with a painted army, but would probably also make it so that a significant portion of new players never start painting miniatures at all. If the artistic side of the hobby is important to what Warhammer is as a whole, then I would also say pre-paints are a bad move. I think contrast paints are a much better way to lower the barrier to entry for Warhammer than pre-prints, because they actually help a lot with removing the fear of picking up a paint brush for new hobbyists.

I have seen this kind of thing in DnD miniatures before. I personally don't think clear plastic alone sells the effect of a ghostly being very well, mostly because of the clashing art style (if you can call it that). A clear plastic model next to a hand painted one just looks unfinished, not incorporeal. I am not sure if using clear plastic for multi part models is even a possibility. Surely glue seams would mess up the intended effect.

An interesting choice, but doesn't this seem kind of gimmicky? Like the green plastic rods on the old Necrons. I hope they can get this clear plastic more bubble free than their flight stands.

It seems like a pretty tricky problem to solve. On the one hand, a Chaos Lord should be a more formidable fighter than a Freeguild Marshall. On the other hand, I think S2D players would not feel excited to pay 200 points for a slow melee beatstick as their basic hero option. Those types of heroes have historcially been pretty bad and have not been widely played. Personally, I don't really want the old Fantasy level of character customization to return to AoS (if anything I think we should be removing complexity from the game). Maybe a rework of what characters do in AoS and how they interact with troops is necessary. There is a lot less reason to bring small heroes now that unit champions can use command abilities.

I think recently more people have been learning how the double turn plays in AoS: Going second is the stronger option unless you can alpha strike. Put screens in your list. Only take a double turn if it wins you the game. Once you get those basics down, I personally like what the double turn does for the game in regard to list building and in-game decision making.

I would still buy the Cavalier-Marshal and Fusilisers, even if it makes you go over 1000 and just be more flexible with points values when playing with friends. 1000 point games are not really very balanced, anyway.

GW tends to sculpt the riders on monsters and vehicles slightly undersized, anyway, in order to make the beasts look bigger 🤫, It's sometimes good from an artistic standpoint not to have everything be 100% in scale.

I think that howdah would go real nice on a Gutripper Vultcha. Would be an expensive conversion, but if you are a Tomb Kings Enjoyer in the current year, you probably have to have pretty deep pockets, right?

The Crimson Court was pretty sweet, but I wonder how they will do vampires again without just redoing them. Maybe with the Vyrkos bat and wolf theme?

100% There were so many great AoS models this year that people probably won't even be able to agree which one was the best for the model of the year poll. Wait, was Lion El'Johnson this year? In that case Big Space Marine will probably win, anyway.

I'm pretty sure we won't see coalition rules again in the future. GW seems to be really against cross play now. Even Cities of Sigmar, who used to be able to coalition basically every order army, now just get "You can ally some guys in and they benefit from one very specific subfaction ability". Not even an exception for Stormcast.

TK shields on that 2008 kit look a lot better than the original kit, as well:

Not necessarily, GW frequently leaves models for the monday after a preview show. I think there is still a chance that we will see another model (matching the Morghast rumour engine). We could be seeing armies of renown for Ushoran, Morghasts, and something for Soulblight (Vengorians? Mortarchs?).