Neil Arthur Hotep

If Kruleboyz also get new models in Dawnbringers, I think it is possible that those two will get separate battletomes next edition and be the two remaining AoS Orruk factions. Although things could go completely differently, as well, if we get new Bonesplittaz instead. They are like, what? Two unit kits and three heroes? That's within the realm of possibility for a complete refresh.

They might look nice, but now that the Gorgers are no longer ballin', what are the Mawtribes going to do when Sigmar proclaims the start of the Space Jam in the next edition? I just don't thnk these new Gorgers can really bring it on the court against a Stormcast Lord-Slammer or even a Soulblight Blocklord, tbh.

Short opinion: Finally, it feels like the Era of the Beast. This Ironjawz wave in particular. I hope they set the pattern for how the remaining micro-factions are handled in the future. But the new giant Troggoth and Gorgers are also amazing additions to the Destruction GA. Also, how nice is it that after the Cities release, normal humans are finally allowed to participate in the setting?

A unit of Fusiliers and a few Steam Tanks are a good use for Greywater. I think it's a very justifiable route to go. But I find it important to keep in mind that there are other ways to get +1 to hit. Most obviously, the Hurricanum is an extra wizard hero that gives out a +1 attack aura (and not just in the shooting phase) and also dumps out mortal wounds in both hero phases (FAQ pending) which are not affected by "Look Out, Sir!". The Stormcast Lord-Ordinator is another option. 110 points for a +1 to hit aura for all ORDER WARMACHINES. And in my opinion that needs to be weighed against other city abilites that are not as easily repicated, like cast bonuses or the Misthavn movement buff.

I wonder if the Thondia box sold that badly. I have recently picked up most of the terrain from it separately (apart from the out-of-scale dino skeleton), and it's actually all really nice. But the box itself always felt a bit too expensive to justify, and I had no real interest in running the Incarnate because it felt weirdly pay-to-win for casual games. Which is a bad feeling for a thing from a narrative box to evoke.

Sounds like a fun experiment for a casual game, running the old Pistolier/Outrider warscroll in the new book. Personally, I think those guys or equivalents might come back in a later wave. Same with Greatswords. The lack of a human melee elite unit is pretty glaring (although we can fill that gap with Stormcast or Dispossessed, of course).

I find the different cities to be very close from an optimized-but-non-competitive perspective. Almost all of them have at least one specific, good list they enable. Hammerhal Aqsha: The base-line to beat. Double orders is strong and makes flexible play much easier. It just looks kinda weak because the advantage is hard to put into numbers. Maybe Aventis Firestrike will be good at some point, too. Currently, I don't see him used, though. Tempest's Eye: Probably the weakest city, mostly because nothing in Cities particularly wants to retreat and shoot. Still casually playable if you want to skirmish with a few Gunhaulers or something. Hallowheart: My prefered casting city. Even though you will kill your own wizards with it, it virtually guarantees that your spells will go off for the first three or so turns. Very useful if you game plan hinges on the Alchemite giving everyone mortals on hit. The Cities spell lores are both really solid, too. Hammerhal Ghyra: Lets you play a Freeguild horde army. Our troops are pretty cheap, and Steelhelms can become very durable threats with Zenestra and the Alchemite supporting. Living City: Ambushing is generally strong and it is nice that Sylvaneth are allowed to do it, too. If there is an area in which Cities struggles, it is probably movement shennenigans, so this city shores up that weakness. Run that double Luminark meme build and live the dream of lasering down all of the opponent's front line. Greywater: Nobody ever complained about free command points, but in my opinion the interest in this city will fall off as people gain more experience with the book. In many lists, you don't actually need the ability to All-Out Attack three times in the shooting phase. If your shooting mostly consists of one big, buffed block of Fusiliers, the most important component to their performance is the Alchemite spell. Since the cannon and warhulk are both currently kinda sub-par, what else are you buffing? Lethis: Turning off wards is situationally a very strong ability. But on top of that, turning a Steam Tank or Marshall on Griffon into a priest to deliver Curse to the front lines seems pretty solid. Potentially, you get a lot of priests out of this subfaction choice if you set up your list for it, and they all still get a prayer from the generic lore. Vindicarum: Rally into combat has been a problematically strong a few times already in 3rd edition. Not sure about Flagellants: At first glance they read a bit like Zombies, but they are a lot more expensive. Overall, I don't think they have quite the same potential. Excelsis: Even though the temptation is to think of Cavaliers purely as charging units, they can actually grind reasonably well with their 3+ save. And save stacking/wards for humans are easy to come by. So mortals at the end of combat might be more impactful than they look if you gear your list for it. I would not consider Excelsis outside of cav spam, but I think that list is potentially strong. Settler's Gain: +1 to cast is nice, but on its own I don't know if it is nice enough to pick over Hallowheart in cities that really want to power out specific spells. Maybe for Tenebrael Blade, because the Sorceress can already get +2 to cast without problems. You can run Ellania and Ellathor in this city and get a bunch of free command points. Misthavn: Mobility is the most important stat in the game. This one makes the first turn charge with cavaliers pretty reliable, allowing you to potentially pin in the opponent with them. For Steam Tank enjoyers, the Tank Commander is also mounted and thus gets that 2d6 movement bonus, as well. Delivering a self-buffing 2+ save guy to the front lines turn 1 seems pretty decent. Plus, you get to move into combat without charging, another historically often problematically strong ability.

I'm going to bet this will turn out to be a commemorative/limited edition Necron model of some kind. This guy is really weird, though. I thought @Whitefang more or less confirmed it to be another upcoming Incarnate. I really wonder what happened with Incarnates in general. Almost seems like they abandoned that idea mid-way.

In general, allies don't get to benefit from allegiance abilities unless otherwise stated. In the case of Greywater, though, it's not the units that get free commands. You, the player, get the ability to use All-Out Attack three times in the shooting phase, and you can use it on whatever units you like, including allies. EDIT: Was a bit quick: You get to use All-Out Attack three times regardless of ally or not, but you only get to do it without spending command points if you use it on GREYWATER units the first two times. So command your allies last, I guess, or just pay extra.

Rally in combat is super strong. Soulblight has been on top of the meta since the new book came out in part because their healing can be done in combat. Vindicarum is just currently flying under the radar for non-competitive players because dealing big damage is and casting at +4 is more immediately exciting. The same applies to Tahlia Vedra, I think.

Good post! I am still wrapping my mind around the exact mechanics of orders, what they can do and who they affect. Just a few things I have thought about in this context, with no particular point: Orders are not Command Abilities, so there is no limit on how many orders a unit can be affected by at once. You don't have to choose. And you can also command them on top of that. The unit that benefits from an order can be identical to the hero that uses it, as well. Counter charge allows for some shennenigans. A Freeguild Cavalier-Marshall can counter-charge, gain strikes first, and give a nearby unit of Cavaliers strikes first as well, potentially majorly swinging a combat out of nowhere. Flying units like the Marshall on Griffon have the potential to order themselves to counter-charge over a screen. Especially the Griffon-Marshall, who gets double orders, and can be kitted out into a pretty devestating melee guy. The Steam Tank Commander can pull a bunch of fun tricks with order, like giving itself strikes-first with Suppressing Fire, letting itself counter-charge and deal mortals, or responding to Unleash Hell with Return Fire. Personally, I find that kind of flexibility pretty valuable, and it justifies the hybrid shooting/melee profiles for me (which would ordinarily be a downside).

120mm is definitely too large. I would guess 105 x 70mm.

Or could we be close enough to see a teaser for FEC? If their book is about two months away (November) they might want to start the hype machine soon. Although it probably makes more sense to show us the models for Dawnbringers II with a tease for III instead.

Since we have access to the full book it feels like the faction is out, but it it's important to remember that we are actually still in the pre-pre-release periode.

A Morghast hero for OBR would be a neat mini to release as part of Dawnbringers.

Hoping for FEC, but this could be a 40k thing as well.

I have one Gyrocopter and have been thinking about what to do with it. I still like it at base line: A cheap fast, flying unit that shoots a bit and does d3 mortals once per game. I think that's a fairly useful model for 80 points. Absorb an Unleash Hell, ping a hero that is out of position, grab a point out of nowhere... All useful jobs. It's kinda too bad that it got slower and doesn't get a champion if you run it as a single. For a unit of 3, I am kind of less in love with it. 240 is a sizable investment that I am not sure I would want to make. I'd probably just ally in a Gunhauler at that point. The Gyrobomber is an interesting unit. It might be worth trying to spam it (if it were not for the price of the kit). I think the full Gyrobomber meme list would definitly be a headache to play against, but I think a single Gyrobomber is harder to fit into list than a Gyrocopter.

It seems there really was an appetite for an army of regular dudes. Narratively, I always felt that it was an element that was missing from the Mortal Realms, but I was not sure if it would translate into sales/people actually picking up the faction. Glad to see that it does, though, I hope it translates to more Freeguild stuff and hopefully also bespoke Cities elves and dwarves.

Hey, welcome back to the hobby. Just a few opinions: Greywater is a solid subfaction. You could do a lot worse as a base line than to get a bunch of free command points in your shooting phase. Going with one of the magic subfactions is not bad, either. Settler's Gain is the boring, but dependable +1 to cast option. I would say it's worth thinking about a Lumineth hero ally if you go with it. Hallowheart is the other option. +1d6 to cast is a massive bonus, but your mages will burn themselves out in this subfaction. About 2/3 chance to take 1d3 mortals on every cast. It makes casting extremely dependable, though, especially if you factor in enemy unbinds. Your is diverse enough that you don't 100% have to get the Alchemite spell off, though, so the choice is really up to you. Whether you have to worry about the current magic meta depends on what everyone around you plays. In a vacuum, I would say don't list build around seasonal rules too much. Chances are, we will be out of the wizard season before you really get all your list together and painted, anyway. I have previously said in this thread that I think a Steam Tank + Commander pair is pretty good. They are definitely very playable in casual games (not sure if they are good enough to make top cut in competitive, but the 2+ save alone is worth seriously considering). I used to run a bunch of Steam Tanks in the old book. The Commander was solid even then, and it only got better in almost every way this book. Just make sure you don't play them only as mobile artilery, they need to get into combat and tank if you want them to be worth their points

Best I can do is a Soulreaper and a Mortek Crawler again.

Also Soulblight the year before that.

It's the post Lumineth Sentinel bias, where shooting castles were (for a while) actually the best lists. I don't think they are in this book, though.

I meant to write that in my big post earlier today, but I think that this is by design to push players into mixed arms lists. A lot of the power pairs in this book rely on spells or heroic actions: Stuff that you can only do once on your turn and can't spam. You can get easily get a unit of Fusiliers at near-peak performance with just the Alchemite buff and All-Out Attack. But if you want to do another Fusilier unit that does the same thing again, the work and resources that go into that are much larger. You need to go Greywater if you want to buff two units in the shooting phase. And you need to fit both Fusilier blocks into the same 12" alchemite bubble, which buries a lot of your list's points in the same 12" circle, probably in your back line. You can't have the two blocks sit on different objectives. Same with Cavaliers: You can do that cool once-per-game charge order, +3 to charge, strikes first combo with just 5 Cavaliers and the Marshall. But you need to use Finest Hour on the Marshal to do it, which means at most one of your Cavalier units is doing it turn one. If you bring more Cavalier units, that's not necessarily bad because they can also do other stuff. But it makes it so that the completely brain dead alpha strike list is not possible. That's why I think mixed arms is so good. You can have several of the really potent combos in the same list no problem. Run that cavalier combo, and the Fusiliers, and 30 Steelhelms plus Marshall, and a Steam Tank plus Tank Commander. They are all still basically at nearly full potential. But if you include a second Fusilier block that either leads to questionable list building (shooting death star) or the second unit strongly underperforms because it doesn't get its most crucial buffs.

I could see myself using him if he had +6" shooting range, but not d6". His Crack Shot ability by itself is just not good enough. I'd rather run a Freeguild Marshall right now for the free command points if I need an extra hero next to a Fusilier block for some reason. I think the old book was dominated by its coalition mechanics and running mostly Cities of Sigmar units was rarely the best choice, which is why I prefer the current book. Also, hard disagree with units being overcosted or unreliable. There are a few duds (Warhulk and Wildercorps are two units that I agree are not really worth it), but the majority of the book is really solid. I don't know. The guy doesn't want to get into melee, so you can just run him every turn, and his bubbles are 12" wholly within. Running him up with a bunch of steam tanks or cavaliers seems doable to me. I think 60 Fusiliers are a total trap. Not even close to the best list. The book reads like 60 shooty bois would be good at first glance, but if you go that route then that's something like a 1200 point investment at least, plus your command trait and subfaction and it all hinges on a 6 wound buff hero getting their spell off. Better hope your opponent is not good at unbinding or taking out small heroes at range. Having 20-30 fusiliers as just one threat among many is way more consistent (and more fun for everyone involved) in my opinion. I used to feel like that, but thinking of the handcannons as actual miniature cannons that the Fusiliers place on their portable battlements has brought me around on them. It's not that the cities can't make matchlock rifles anymore, they have just gone all-in on that slightly ridiculous walking castle idea. Yeah, it doesn't really make sense in reality, but I can excuse unrealistic swords and axes in fantasy contexts, so personally I am willing to do the same with guns.

The more shooting you have, the higher the chance that you will get to shoot 3 units off the table in one of the later rounds. Both Lumineth and Kharadron allies can help a lot here, in my opinion. I think the cannon and Warhulk will probably go down in points eventually. Right now they are not worth it from a pure efficiency standpoint, I think. The cannon is kinda just worse shooting that the fusiliers, and the warhulk just doesn't bring anything super good to the table. If they both drop a bit, though, then taking them in the Castellite Formation becomes more attractive. The Warhulk can come down quite a bit, in my opinion. I think the GW point algorithm kinda screws him over, because it makes you overpay for that Ogor body and melee profile you never want to use. Also his buff is not that good. His 1d6" attack range increase is just not good enough at 150 points if you could get Zenestra instead.