Neil Arthur Hotep

I liked the upgraded generic units from Broken Realms, like Kaiser ven Brecht and Arcobalde Lazerne. Too bad they settled on warscroll battalions as the way to give those guys rules over their generic counterparts. Although maybe non-matched play is where these guys should live. I think it would be nice to see more named examples of generic heroes and units. But I don't really know how they should be implemented mechanically. If they get good matched play rules, you will end up seeing lists composed of mostly named characters in some cases. That can't really be avoided. And as fun as named characters are, I personally would like the game to favour "your dudes" lists.

Here's the thing: Ignoring cover is not even a strong ability. It is worse than dealing most of your damage in mortal wounds, which all the other good shooting units do. Because those mortals usually trigger on unmodified 6s to hit, they ignore the -1 to hit from cover (and Look Out, Sir!). And because they ignore saves, they ignore the +1 to saves from cover. But they also ignore saves period, so they are just better. Make no mistake: A two attacks, 4+/4+/-1/1 shooting profile is dismal on a unit of 5 that may not even be able to reinforce beyond 10. 2.5 wounds worth of rend -1 damage per shooting phase doesn't even scare chaff units like skeletons. It's chip damage. The question is: What could in theory make these guys worth using? I don't think these guys will be tanky. They look like they will probably be 1 wound, 8" move, 4+ ethereal, bravery 10. They also don't look like they will have a good melee profile. But even if they are both tanky and fighty: There exists a unit that is almost exactly like this in the game right now, Stormcast Vanguard-Hunters. Same shooting profile, but fighty and tanky. They even have the ability to deepstrike and ambush every turn. 125 points for 5 and nobody takes them. If they get serious offensive buffs somehow, their damage might become good. But it would probably require access to +1 damage (so literally doubling their damage output) because even +1 to hit and wound only brings them up to parity with 100 point chaff like Freeguild Crossbows and Handgunners. But then again those units also have a lot of buff potential and higher range, so it would be playing a game of catch up with units that are not even that good. The best case scenario I see is that Craventhrone Guard are cheap (sub 90 points) and get the ability to bodyguard for any nearby heroes. That would help protect all those small foot heroes Nighthaunt are forced to rely on. It would be a sad use for these models, because then you are basically taking them to just be a bag of wounds. But unless there is some kind of completely out of left field allegiance ability, it's how I see this one probably playing out.

Thanks for bringing this to my attention. I have been waiting for a sale or bundle like this! After skimming some of the books, I can confidently say that they are worth getting. Really gave me a newfound appreciation of the setting. I always liked the mythical feel AoS had, but never really appreciated that it is also a post-apocalyptic, western-like frontier setting before. The Soulbound books have made it a lot clearer to me how to tell stories in this setting. The books themselves are also very well made as far as role-playing rulebooks go. The core book alone probably gives you more help in GMing a game than any DnD book ever has. Soulbound is looking like a great candidate for that city building game I have been planning to run for a while now. The system does a lot of smart things, in my opinion. I particularly like how being Soulbound makes concrete the concept of being an adventuring party both narratively and mechanically. I also like how the system handles the risk of injury and death. Particularly the option to cheat death by spending the party's Soulfire resource and the option to have a last stand. It gives the players a lot of agency over when and how they want their characters to die, but does not completely remove the threat of death from the game. This is definitely some smart, innovative stuff that a lot of other RPGs would do well to copy.

Since it's the Realm of Beasts, in Ghur, the continents act like predators and constantly try to eat each other. Thondia is one of the largest and most dangerous continents, which makes it an "alpha". That's where that term comes from.

I think it makes sense that the terrain for this edition is Dawnbringer stuff, though. The Destruction factions are narratively set up to be the ones on the offensive, so it makes more sense that battles would take place at the strongholds of Order that those armies would be attacking. If you mean that you would have rather seen new Destruction models instead of more short-lived terrain stuff, however, I can understand that perspective. There really has not been that much Destruction yet in the Era of the Beast. But I guess fleshing out the setting for this edition is worthwhile, too.

I find it hard to predict what Awlrach will do on the table, actually. The most natural rules for a boat would be enabling ambush deployment like Gutrot Spume does in Nurgle or acting as a transport like the Kharadron boats. But none of these are particularly valuable for Nighthaunt. I think if this guy was just a mobile, hard-hitting bruiser, that would actually be pretty welcome. So watch him be some kind of weird buff wagon with his lantern instead.

This is actually one of the more positive developments for me recently: Broken Realms has shown that armies can get the occasional new or refreshed kit outside of getting a new battletome, and the Nighthaunt release has shown that battletome updates are not exclusively either one hero or a dozen new kits with no in-between. Full disclosure: I am most interested in the warband for use in role playing games, where I think the escalation from fights against Deadwalker zombies to Arcwalker zombies as you get closer to the mad scientist behind it all seems pretty nice and thematic. And in that context, I can always supplement the warband with a 3rd or kitbashed party big boy Frankenstein. Plus I figure it will be a cool point of entry for Underworlds for me, and maybe their AoS rules will actually be good. But yeah, I think this warband could have been a lot cooler than it is.

Throw in a weapon team kit that can be built into a Warp Grinder, Warpfire Thrower or Ratling Gun Team, as well. They all have the same structure of one rat holding a big generator or fuel tank and another operating the weapon. I was honestly surprised that they are not a multi-build kit, but three separate metal models.

I think doing a Skaven update justice would require it to be about the size of the Soulblight Gravelords release. GW would probably want to take the opportunity to remove all metal and resin from the range, which would mean redoing a lot of characters, the weapons teams and the Skryre Acolytes. Then, they would probably want to refresh the Night Runners sculpt at a minimum, maybe Clan Rats or Plague Monks as well. It sounds like a lot, but Soulblight had five unit refreshes, four small characters, two medium characters and a monster. I think it's within the realm of possibility that the Skaven range could be completel refreshed with enough room for a few new Eshin kits. If the Skaven update is on budget mode, I would expect something like Nighthaunt is getting: A few heroes and a new unit. So Eshin skirmishing infantry, an assassin hero and one more thing. It's not what Skaven need, but it is possible. For Sylvaneth, their model range is not too bad. I would much rather see them get the smaller update rather than Skaven. It would definitely be possible to establish an insect or Kurnothi subfaction within Sylvaneth with just a few kits. But I fear it will be the other way around: Skaven get the minimum and Sylvaneth get the equivalent of Lumineth wave 2. Just a hunch, though.

I still like it for what it is, but I agree that one medieval looking Zombie is pretty out of place. He is kinda dressed like the new skeletons and appears to be the personal zombie of the Necromancer's apprentice (who is not part of the warband?). It's confusing.

The title says it all. If you have any of these kits lying around in your pile of shame, I'd love to put them to good use! I would prefer unbuilt kits, but can live with any state of assembly as well as painted/unpainted.

I just caught up with the reveals. Some hot takes: The Exiled Dead: They are OK. I think they manage to sell the mad scientists theme just fine and are fun models. I like the Necromancer boss, although I don't quite know whey he had to be a Vampire. I will probably pick up this warband. My only gripe is that there is no buff big boy bruiser zombie. I kind of expected there to be a Frankenstein. Awlrach the Drowner: So the Nighthaunt boat was real after all! Good news for our Nighthaunt friends. They are certainly taking the "creative" names to a new level this time around, with this fancyful spelling of Ulrich (although I suppose it's also a boat pun). I hope this guy has some juice, the model is certainly very fun. The biggest question I have right now is what this means for DoK. Are they really only getting the Gladiatrix? If so, this has to be one of the least motivated battletome releases ever. Season of War - Thondia: First of all, Krondspine Incarnate looks dope! I like that we are seeing a new thematic take on endless spells for the era of the beast. I hope this guy will eventually become available outside of this terrain bundle, though. Speaking of terrain, I am still kinda of two minds on the Dawnbringer terrain. I like that it has a distinct aesthetic and I think that having it be under construction instead of destroyed is a fun twist. However, it feels a little bit too Stormcasty to me. It doesn't look like something Cities guys would be living in, if that makes any sense. I like the new pieces, though. The big skeleton and waterfall are cool and work better for me than the Nexus Syphon from the last kit. I am currently looking to buy more terrain, and I will have to seriously consider whether to go all-in on the Dawnbringer terrain. Right now, I am still trying to score some of the old Empire terrain kits (the Fortified Manor, Chapel and Watchtower), which in my mind represent the Cities of Sigmar better. If anyone here is selling any of those, hit me up, by the way. Finally, Season of War: Thondia. As far as I understand this is a setting book. Might buy it if it has fun stuff in it, but currently don't know what to make of it. The other stuff: Ash Wastes looks good. If I was in the market for a sci-fi box game, I would probably give this one a go. I like the rag-covered desert bug nomad look. I could not care less about Imperial and Chaos Knights. I know some people love them and I am happy for them. But I just kinda think 40k mechs don't look that cool. The Norse Blood Bowl team are a competent take on vikings, but not special enough for me to get excited about as someone who does not play blood bowl. The pigs are cute, though. I have not read a Horus Heresy book in my life and have no nostalgia for beaky marines, so that announcement is also not for me. A 40k Chaos release might impact AoS if there are new daemon units coming out, but I think the focus looks to be on Chaos Marines. --- Overall, I think this was a nice preview. We got what we expected and some extra scenery/setting stuff. There was also a lot of cool looking stuff for 40k players. So I feel positive about these reveals.

If we get a third (fourth?) faction with army-wide mortals on 6s I will fly to Nottingham and fight James Workshop, I swear on me mum.

These guys have some pretty awful stats. Under 2 damage against a 4+ save is bad no matter how you slice it. Are they going go be like what? 70 points? Even taking the Nightbaunt deepstrike into account, 12" range on a pure shooting unit is difficult, since you open yourself up to a counter-charge by basically anything.

Nurgle has struck a pretty good balance, in my opinion. If you don't focus on summoning, you will probably get a min-size unit of Plaguebearers turn 2, which is relevant, and something else turn 4/5, which is probably not. But you don't need to rely on your summoning to play the game. If you want to lean hard into summoning, you can do that, too. And you will get some good stuff on the board pretty flexibly that way. But it's not nearly as overtuned as old Slaanesh's one Keeper of Secrets per turn that high-end lists could pump out. I think the margin of error for summoning mechanics is really razor thin. Larger or smaller numbers on one side reach a tipping point really quickly. For Slaanesh currently that point is on the side of the line where you don't start with enough bodies and risk getting steam rolled, sadly. And there is the added downside that you can neither play pure mortals (because you have to summon demons to be successful) nor pure demons (because they are overcosted to compensate for summoning). There are case studies available in AoS for instances where nerfing a summoning mechanic made the army better and more fun. The most recent example is Legions of Nagash/Soulblight. The general of a Legions of Nagash army used to be able to resurrect full-sized units for a command point. That encouraged huge blocks of units, hoarding command points (because nothing else came close in value to resurrecting something like 30 Grimghast Reapers) and building death stars (because the general had to stay alive at all costs). Now in Soulblight Gravelords, only half-sized units get resurrected, and it happens on a die roll in the battleshock phase. That means the army is now free to run smaller units, spend command points freely and spread out around the board, resulting in much more diverse lists and more dynamic games. You can't as easily strategize around your summoning, but it is still free value and likely contributes in each game. Having an upper limit on summoning is nice, too, since each unit can only get resurrected once. Gravelords are also allowed stronger warscrolls and better allegiance abilities as a result, because not everything is warped by the overwhleming power of their summoning. I really hope GW eventually cracks the nut of how to make Slaaneshi summoning work. Before they figure that out, I think Slaanesh will always be either over- or underpowered.

To the town of Vindicarum rode a stranger one fine day Hardly spoke to folks around him, didn't have too much to say No one dared to ask his business, no one dared to make a slip For the stranger there among them had a Leadbelcher on his hip Leadbelcher on his hip I really need to get started with Soulbound sometime soon. All the fluff in those books seems amazing.

I think those two are good candidates for new armies, as well, since they can go be the Kruleboyz of Lumineth and Daughters of Khaine, respectively. Although it looks more like Malerion will get his own book, unless we get news tomorrow that actually, he will be part of the upcoming Daughters tome. That would at least be a good reason to do DoK again so soon.

I maintain that AoS is a better and richer setting for containing both the completely original high-fantasy Ossiarch Bonereapers and the more grounded, familiar Soulblight Gravelords. They lend themselves to different narratives. you couldn't as easily have had that mythical clash between Teclis and Nagash with regular skeletons and vampires, and you couldn't make Cursed City work with Bonereapers. It's nice in my opinion that the setting can support both. A big strength of AoS is that, although I don't care about all factions or like all the different aesthetics equally, I still think every faction that exists enhances the world of the Mortal Realms overall.

Wait what? Are they showing us rumour engines of models that are already out now? I know the flow of time is convoluted when it comes to rumour engines, but I didn't expect this.

Last time we saw such an eclectic collection of bits from random faction was the Mega-Gargants. So for me Sons of Behemat and Mawtribes are the factions that most come to mind. I hope this one works out for you @KingBrodd!

This part really hits home for me. Age of Sigmar is still saddled with a lot of baggage from Warhammer Fantasy and some half-realized ideas from first edition. There are definitely some armies around that need to properly be brought into the mortal realms. Since the game is in 3rd edition now, I think we can't use the excuse that we are in the "just starting out" period anymore. I hope that the recent range refresh of Soulblight Gravelords has done well enough to signal to GW that these kinds of updates are worthwhile and that they don't need to constantly rely on releasing more and more micro-factions to keep profits up. They certainly seem to have been a big hit if online buzz and tournament representation are anything to go by.

It might be interesting to look at the Cursed City models once more, since that game is getting re-released soon: Radukar the Wolf is pretty good. He has the same 18" +1 attacks bubble that big Radukar has, but he is only 150 points and also a wizard (rerolling casts in Vyrkos). He could conceivably cast Amethystine Pinions on himself and be decently fast. His buff is notably good because it affects multiple units and non-SUMMONABLE, unlike the standard Vampire Lord. Since he is a Vampire Lord, he can also make SUMMONABLE units fight right after him with Deadly Coordination. I think this guy might be a bit underplayed in Vyrkos lists, he has some fun stuff to offer. Torgilius is the cheapest wizards with the DEATHMAGES keyword at 115 points. He trades the Necromancer's bodyguard ability for a 4+ ward. He also generates extra command points in your hero phase if he is near Radukar. His warscroll spell is a big step down from the Necromancer, however, just giving you another way to get -1 to hit on an enemy unit. I think this guy is overall a step down from the generic Necromancer (who is already not that great). Being a named character without access to Arcane Tome really hurts him. He might be worth it in a full Cursed City Vyrkos list for the command points, though. We all know that Gorslav is good. He is dirt cheap (75 points) and can resurrect Zombies and Wolves on demand. Not really much more to say about him. He can go in any list of any subfaction without support and probably still make his points back. Of the four Cursed City heroes, Halgrim is the worst. He is not worth it for his stats at 80 points, and his command ability doesn't do anything useful. It allows up to 3 DEATHRATTLE units to auto-run 4". Even if you have a large DEATHRATTLE presence in your list, that just doesn't seem like something you would want to do very often. There are also three troop choices in Cursed City. The Vargskyr has already been discussed a bit. His 3d6" charge and high wounds with a 5+ ward are cool, but his damage is kind of lacking. I genuinely think that you are probably better off running Black Knights, who also have a huge threat range (12" move and auto-charge 6"), deal mortals on the charge and have better keywords (SUMMONABLE and DEATHRATTLE). They are also 15 points cheaper than the Vargskyr's 115. Kosargi Nightguard are an interesting choice that you don't see a lot. They come in at 95 points for 2. They are decently tanky at 4 wounds, 5+ save, 5+ ward, but their damage output is usually low. However, if paired with Radukar the Wolf, they get +1 attack on their warscroll, plus another potential +1 from Radukar's command ability, which would double their damage output. Radukar benefits from bringing them along, too, since he has the ability to pass off wounds to the Nightguard on a 2+. I think a unit of 4 could be pretty decent if paired with the Wolf, but they probably don't do enough on their own. Lastly, there are the Vyrkos Bloodborn. Their niche is probably as a fast harrassment unit. They are on very small 25mm bases, so you could reinforce them to 6 without having to worry about coherency. Their damage output seems fine, but they only have rend -1 and no mortals, so they won't break through high saves. They look frail at first glance, but actually have pretty decent "meat point" at 3 wounds per model with a 5+ ward. These guys probably won't replace Blood Knights in your list, which are just better warscrolls with more synergy within the army, but I think they are playable as a unit of solo operators.125 points for 3.

A big problem is that the Vargskyr does very little damage. He's fast and has some pretty good durability, but his output is low to the point that Black Knights do comparable damage: Save Vargskyr Black Knights 2+ 1.74 0.97 3+ 2.52 1.94 4+ 3.3 2.92 5+ 4.07 3.89 6+ 4.67 4.86 - 4.67 5.83 And this is without the mortal wounds on the charge.

I could live with a Lumineth-style Sylvaneth focus for a bit, if that's what is being implied here. And Sylvaneth are not even in my top 5 of Order armies. But maybe they lean into the insect theme with the new book and it turns out the Silent People were an Order army all along.

I was thinking the same thing. If there are really no releases after Slyvaneth/Skaven this year, then that must be because of global shipping and production issues. There is no way that GW wants to release just 6 battletomes this year. They want to move models. But if it happens, then the prospect of rushing into 4th edition in 2024 is not especially enticing. It's not exactly like the potential of 3rd edition has really been unlocked yet.