Neil Arthur Hotep

I personally suspect Cities will see something like "Spell Lore: Light and Shadow", containing Pha's Protection, Mystifying Miasma and Tenebrael Blades, which will then all still be locked to HUMAN and AELF in the individual spell rules.

Would make sense given how we have been moving away from cross faction models over the course of 3rd.

That quote just says endless spells don't cost points anymore, not really anything about mixing them with regular spells. I would assume that since Spell Lores and Manifestation Lords are different categories, they don't make you choose which type you want. I wonder if the enhancement system is still around, because that would be one way to limit access that they could use.

It does not say this in the article. I would assume you get one each of spell, prayer and manifestation by default.

Also, I would expect KO to get shoot in combat from their small ship guns, but not the big ones. I think the overall design intent this edition is to get shooting to be more of support strategy for melee rather than the main game plan of a list. I think the supposedly reduced shooting range is evidence for that. Also, the new commands help melee units (counter-charge, power through) and encourage players to bring limited shooting (covering fire). I hope that the warscrolls of ranged units are as good at defining unit rolls as the ones for melee units we have seen so far. "Ranged damage" should not be the extent of their niches.

It's an interesting idea, but what would a faction being cross alliance even mean at this point? Just ally choices? It's not like GAs even have mechanics attached right now.

Actually insane that they decided to squeeze another battlescroll in. Even though this one is mostly points changes. I barely played any games with the last one.

I suspect the model refresh might have just been in the pipeline for so long that those Empire models were actually still current when the artwork was made. There is some more evidence for that in the Warhammer+ short where Gunnar and his Darkoath guys come from, which also freatures non-Dawnbringer Freeguild.

I think they just want units to be in base-to-base contact, honestly. Which is fine with me. I don't dislike that at all. With 3" combat range, that sounds super managable.

I have already done a test paint that I am pretty happy with, which is also just a drybrush of my favourite bronze paint over dark brown. I want this Stormcast project to be low-stress. The hard part will be the verdigris. Trying to avoid the trap of "paint this whole thing bronze, then paint the whole thing green" trap. I'll need go out and take a bunch of reference photos of old statues, to get it right, I think.

Personally, I frequently have low-intensity periods of hobbying that last a few months. This is fine, I have other hobbies as well. During 3rd ed, there was an about a year long gap where I didn't really do anything substantial in terms of hobby, for a few reasons. I had just recently moved, I had a young child, but most importantly, there were just no releases for the armies I played. In the case of Cities, it was even worse, because they were telegraphed to get their update way in advance, which made me shelf my existing Cities project for over a year while I was waiting for their new models and rules. In that time, I mostly painted terrain and which ever models I felt like painting. Mostly heroes for role playing games and stuff. There really is not a problem with taking a break from non-stop hobbying if you are just not feeling things for a while.

I am thinking of a bronze colour scheme for those ancient civilization vibes, with Ruination units getting that extra verdigris to show their age.

Interesting. It seems so much more approachable to me than the huge blocks of text we had before. No more digging through the rules text for activation timing, casting values, your phase vs. any phase etc. But what I am really excited about is the Anti-KEYWORD stuff. I'm super excited to see what new roles all those redundant units from past editions get. Really exited about Ruination, too. I am already finding myself planning out colour schemes.

I don't know about you guys, but I am super excited to play 4th edition. Can't wait to see the warscrolls for my factions. What they have been doing for Stormcast is so good!

I use them on for Steelhelms and they are a huge time saver. Since I magnetize for transport anyway, they are very convenient. Highly recommend them.

For my rarely-used Citadel paints, I always had minor spills and the last bit of paint usually dries up or separates.

My first thought was that they intended the shorter coherency distance to close the loophole where miniatures on 25mm bases, but nobody else, can deploy in a long line. Based on my personal experience, this change won't affect me a lot. I already have my 25mm base dudes in base-to-base contact all of the time, and now with 3" combat ranger there will be even less reason to ever take them off their movement trays. I wish, though, that we had gone back to "within" instead of "wholly within" on measurements, since the conga lines that originally necessitated that change are now completely impossible.

Boo. More rend, fewer mortals. They want to address save stacking, but it sounds like they didn't fix it structurally (by making rend apply after save bonuses are calculated) but by limiting access to save bonuses. So potentially, some factions can still save stack or the mechanic will make a return as battletomes are released. Really happy with unit roles. The game will benefit a lot from a stronger rock/paper/scissors and better functional signposting like the Anti-Charge ability on Vindictors. 25mm base supremacy is a thing of the past. I don't really get why they want to discourage retreating. If anything, I think the game would benefit from players retreating more often.

There are a few instances where I suspect an old WHFB kit is internally just treated as a regular AoS kit. Blightkings are an obvious one. But also something like the Hurricanum/Luminark, which played a pivotal role in Broken Realms and has appeared in official AoS art, such as here illustrating the Realm of Azyr. I would bet that this kit stays in AoS unless it gets replaced, and that it doesn't get replaced for another 5 years or so at least. Which is pretty funny, considering it literally says "Emperor Karl Franz" on it. I think several 8th Ed/End Times kits are in that category.

I have been thinking about this whole "battle formations" thing, too. Like others, I don't really see it as a super big improvement. Even though you were never required to paint your models a certain way to get access to subfaction rules, I suppose it is somewhat nice for people who do feel a strong compulsion to do this kind of thing, but would like to paint their guys differently/use a different subfaction's fluff. I was recently thinking about how I never used Living City even though I think ambushing is pretty fun. Mostly it was because I have a tech-heavy cities army, so I think I kind of just mentally skipped over the nature subfaction. I might have considered them more seriously without the fluff mismatch. But I am not really convinced this kind of benefit necessitates a restructuring of the whole subfaction system.

I honestly don't think it's any deeper than "When did this kit come out? 8th ed? Let it ride for a few more years.". Although Grave Guard definitely deserve better.

It's not like gold/blue is a bad colour scheme, but I think anything that is mostly painted gold is hard to make look good. I like the colour scheme change because it illustrated the change in the characterization of Stormcast. When they were the big heroes retaking the realms, they were painted in gleaming gold. Now that they are tragic characters ravaged by their past, they get painted in more down to earth, more natural steel and leather colours.

Didn't they say combat phase rules as well as magic and prayers are this week?

I can't view these images, could you reupload them?

They just get strapped into a little baby carrier beforehand.