Neil Arthur Hotep

If it actually pans out like that, it will probably become a big point of contention. People are already kind of negative on the Incarnate because it's only available in a terrain bundle (for now). If you can also finagle its supposed downsides into upsides, I suspect that will be viewed less as clever tactical nuance and more as a pay-to-win model with a rules exploit.

I believe that's a Path to Glory thing that allows you to reroll hits with one gun on skyship once per battle.

I wonder what future incarnates will be like. If they are all ~400 points models on huge bases, whey will probably have to be sold individually. In that case, I would probably expect one Incarnate per Realmscape box they do. The other option would be an Incarnates of the Realms box, like the Endless Spell packs we currently have. That would be what I'd prefer: Quickly getting an Incarnate for every realm out there so that anybody can feel good about including them in their army no matter what realm they are from.

The Krondspine Incarnate definitely seems like a pretty punchy combat monster, and with some nice buff auras, too. Worth noting, I think it's currently not clear whether named characters can bond to Incarnates, since they appear to be classified as enhancements. Your sample lists don't have a problem with this, but you might not be able to bind an Incarnate to Nagash or whoever. Still though, the Incarnate seems kinda tailor-made for Nighthaunt, being a big, punchy and hard to kill monster. It seems thoroughly worth its 400 points.

Now that we know that the Incarnates doesn't need to be in range of the hero it is bound to to be an anti-magic combat monster and that it takes hits better than most models, I don't really see anything that speaks against making it hold one of your flanks on its own. In that case, it can even go wild with little trouble. I suppose if you want to make more use of its synergies you will have to keep it close to the rest of your army, which might result in your own models getting attacked every once in a while, but it honestly seem like the downsides of this model are very managable. I am going to guess that it will shake up the meta quite a bit.

Maybe I am misremembering, but didn't the points of some of the Kruleboyz units go down from Dominion to their Battletome?

I give you that Bladegheists are currently probably not viable (and I even said as much in my hot takes a few posts above), but they do have retreat and charge which is a powerhouse ability. In my opinion, they are only a point drop away from bein viable as a harrassment unit taken in 10s, and if they get a bonus to damage on the charge from an allegiance ability they might easily become good.

Everyone loves allies when they are an optional thing, but when the best way to play your faction becomes allying units from other factions it's kinda not as fun. See Cities and Stormcast right now. Or the opposite case: When the models of your own faction are best used ina completely different army, like with Legion of Grief for a while. I base feel like Nighthaunt are still hurt today by changes that were made to get Nighthaunt models under control in Legions of Nagash when that was the way to run the army competitvely. That said, I don't see much of a reason why Nighthaunt should not be able to ally with Soulblight and FEC in the next tome. It seems like that's the way things are headed in Death: Everyone is friends except OBR. So far there are only really two dud warcrolls, which are sadly the two new ones: The Craventhrone Guard and Scriptor. The former don't have a well-defined role, the latter just seems a bit too swingy to be really good. Everything else, I think, could easily be good with the right allegiance abilities or point drops. Plus, nothing is even known about the majority of the warscrolls in the army. Maybe Grimghasts are super good now, who knows?

Kinda looks to me like the Incarnate base is two Yndrasta bases wide, which would put it at 130mm.

Complete Skaven wishlist:

I could see them being Flesh Eater Courts related.

This is something that I find really annoying. I guess that it's caused by their publishing model and WarCom's role as a promotional outlet. It was really apparent in the case of the Craventhrone Guard. WarCom can only hype the stuff that's in the actual box, which is their basic warscroll. So they present their shooting ability as a huge boon, and as basically the reason to get excited about the unit. When in reality, it's really just not very good. It could well be that there is something in the Battletome that makes them worthwhile. But WarCom can't give us that info, because they are in the Arena of Shades hype phase, and the Nighthaunt Battletome hype phase is not due for another month. I really wish GW would be a bit more flexible with their marketing. Their recent tomes have had exciting rules in them, so I don't understand why we have to go through a cycle of "this doesn't seem very good" and "oh, it was fine after all" with every release.

Personally, I'd say that the Greywater Fastness battle traits are not really that useful anymore. Both the prayer and command are +1 to hit, which is already abundant in Cities. Steam Tanks get it from the commander, Freeguild Handgunners from their warscroll and the Hurricanum exists, as well. Maybe Volley Fire is useful for Irondrakes, but they can just use All-Out Attack instead. The Runelord will have better prayers to use most of the time, now that he's limited to praying only once per hero phase. The range increase on Ironweld units is probably the best ability the city gets. It's good on Gyrocopters and Steam Tanks. But Steam Tanks want to get in close anyway, so I don't know if this is enough to choose Greywater over any other city. On the plus side, Greywater has pretty good artefacts and command traits, and the spell lore is OK, too. If you want to play rules-as-written, the Steam Tank is not a mount, so you get that movement buff from Steam-Piston Plate Mail. I think the big thing that counts against Greywater as the city to use in an Ironweld-heavy list is that the Tempest's Eye bonuses are just more overall useful. +1 to wound from Hawk Eyed, extra movement and saves turn 1, run and shoot as a command ability... I think that's overall just better than what Greywater offers. I think it currently looks like the Dawnbringe Crusades will probably focus on the human side of Cities. Which is good, in my opinion, because there is currently no "normal humans" Order faction made specifically for AoS. The old Empire models are kinda embarrassing at this point. I don't think that means Cities elves and dwarves are likely to be obsoleted, anytime soon, though. I would just expect them to get their updates later than humans. Anyway, it's not like we have a lot of Dawnbringer art right now. I think there are only two art pieces, and on one of them you can't really tell what's going on.

The Thondia terrain pack is really not super appealing right now if you don't want that floating island or the Incarnate. It's so easy to pick up the domicile shells and statue second hand right now because of Dominion. The Seasons of War book might be cool, though. I will personally wait until we know more about its contents, but then it might be worth buying (although the price increase makes it harder to justify than it has to be).

It looks like Nighthaunt are going to live in the jank zone for a few weeks until the battletome comes out. That kinda sucks, I was hoping for a bit of a power boost to tide everyone over. I guess the Nighthaunt release follows the pattern of the previous 3rd edition battletomes: Everything gets weaker on the warscroll, and then the book drops and the allegiance abilities lift everything up again. I think that is definitely in the pipeline for Nighthaunt. Getting subfactions alone should be a substantial boost. Seriously, if you have been following the Fyreslayers and Idoneth releases, there were posters in those threads who would do calculations for every new leaked warscroll and mechanic, "proving" how every change was a nerf. In the end, both of those books got better. What is happening with Nighthaunt right now is just another instance of that pattern. Not that this makes it any less nail biting, though. As for the actual changes, here are some mildly hot takes: Spirit Torment: Losing reroll 1s was to be expected. But if you can only have one buff, then +1 to hit is better, anyway. Even taking mortal wounds into account (in most cases). The reason being, reroll 1s gives you a chance at another hit in 1/6 of cases, while +1 to hit just gives you a hit with the same odds. The extra 1/36 chance of getting a mortal wound is not worth crying about. The only thing that sucks is not being able to stack both buffs anymore, but hopefully there will be more impactful buffs in the Battletome. I like the healing, though: Kill one thing, heal 3 wounds is really nice. I think you can have multiple Spirit Torments, as well, for extra heals? That's potentially quite strong. Chainghasts: Kinda a mixed bag, but not necessarily a bad one. +1 to hit aura is good and potentially makes stacking +1 to hit and another command ability possible. Fairly fragile, though. These plus a Torment are probably meant to pair up with a larger unit of melee fighters in the new book. There, they would provide some healing, hit bonuses and incidental damage. If they and the Torment get the ability to activate out-of-sequence like Soulblight vampires, they are a good buff piece. Myrmourn Banshees: A cool little anti-magic unit that doesn't take up a hero slot. I view units like this one and Chainghasts as "upgrade" units for your real power blocks. If you have an important unit that you want to guard against magic and Endless Spells, bring a bunch of Banshees along with it. Not sure how good that particular niche will be most of the time, but you could do a lot worse for 75 points. I think if they get close they can also stop the opponent from casting buff spells on their own units? Their melee profile is good, too. Bladegheist Revenants: Currently bad and overcosted. Since these guys are drowned spirits, my prediciton is that the boat guy gets a subfaction that turns them back on. Retreat and charge is still good, but not enough with their current damage output and for their current points. Scriptor Mortis: I still kinda like him. 150 points is steep, though. The bodyguard ability is kinda weak, it only really protects you against chip damage. If your opponent can shoot 6 wounds off the table reliably, they can probably manage 7, as well. Craventhrone Guard: Currently bad. Their shooting profile and defensive stats are just too weak. But if there is something like Kurdoss subfaction that lets them bodyguard for heroes they could still be good. 95 points is a bit steep, but managable for a bodyguard unit. Overall: It might be fun to speculate about the intended playstyle for Nighthaunt in the new tome, given what we now know. Let's remember that the last Battlescroll proves the designers know that Nighthaunt are underpowered. Because of this, for all nerfs in Arena of Shades, I would predict that buffs in other areas will follow. As an example, I would predict some kind of change to ethereal. Since saves are dropping on a few units, I think Ethereal is probably getting a buff in some way. It looks like Nighthaunt will want to play high drops, high synergy lists. There seems to be the potential in the army to buff any kind of unit by giving them a small supporting entourage of stuff like Myrmourn Banshees or a Spirit Torment/Chainghast. There are a bunch of units that act as denial or pressure pieces, as well: Your opponent chooses whether to cast spells into Myrmount Banshees or not, but their presence makes it a lot less attractive. Your opponent chooses whether to snipe the Scriptor, but if they don't they have to expect 2d6 mortal out of nowhere at any time. If there are more pieces like this in the final tome, Nighthaunt can probably play a "tide of trash" strategy, where you flood the board with low-value pieces and make target priority really hard for your opponent because nothing is individually worth focussing on, but with everything at once the synergy adds up. This is not a bad playstyle at all, Soulblight Gravelords do basically the same thing a lot of the time. I think that could make Nighthaunt a good off-meta army that capitalizes on everyone currently bringing very high-quality, low damage units to break high saves, while Nighthaunt is most vulnerable to low quality, high damage.

I finally finished painting my Hurricanum. My choice in this case was not to magnetize anything and I will base all the crew separately. I figure it will always be obvious from my list whether or not the Hurricanum has a Battlemage on it. The crew can just walk around next to it like with the Helstorm.

After a few months of only little hobby progress I am calling this guy definitively finished: DesertedBrilliantIbadanmalimbe-mobile.mp4 For this month, it's Helstorm Rocket batteries. I have already started on some of the crew.

Nurgle has that juicy 5+ ward save on everything. I would say that still leaves room for a 6+ on only demons in other Chaos armies. If even a dumb skeleton can get a 6+ ward, I don't think we should be too precious about handing them out to "supernatural" entities.

It reads in the article like it will probably be worded something like "If the hero to which the Krondspine Incarnate is bound issues the All-Out Attack command, it can issue it to all fiendly units within domination range instead of a single unit" . If this is right, then it is predicated on being able to issue the command in the first place. I would expect OBR not to be able to benefit.

The article says that Incarnates have a "domination range", which will affect their abilities. How I understand the All-Out Attack aura to function is that the character bonded to the Incarnate issues the command, and then every unit within the domination range receives it. The domination range apparently changes based on the state the Incarnate is in, so presumably it the range of the command bounce goes up if it's empowered. The article does not specify, but I assume the character to which the Incarnate is bonded needs to stay within the domination range, as well (to dominate it; that makes sense, right?). If so, that's definitely another wrinkle to the whole thing. I previously had it in my head that you just need to be within 18" of the Incarnate with your hero (no idea where I got that from), but I think it looks likely that the Domination range will be significantly shorter most of the time. In any case, All-Out Attack is only a +1 to hit, as you say. Given that unconditional +1 to hit auras already exist in a bunch of armies, I think that part of the warscroll is unlikely to be game breaking.

I don't know, it feels like attaching the Incarnate to a small foot hero could be worth it if they are resilient enough. Especially if you are OK with parking them behind line-of-sigh blocking terrain for most of the game. If they are a wizard they could probably still contribute in that situation. I also have a suspicion that the Seasons of War: Thondia book or GHB will come with reworked terrain rules. People have been asking for those for ages. If so, maybe the threat of mortal wound shooting will diminish a bit in the near future. The biggest hurdle I see for the Incarnates is the whole state change mechanic. If they are not strong as a base line but need to be empowered to be worth it, I think that might just be one hoop too many to jump through in most cases. Depending on how hard it is to get them empowered, of course. Yeah, but the article goes into a lot of very concrete detail. That makes it fairly believable in my mind. Of course, we won't know until anything is officially confirmed.

I suspect that betwee the price tag, making it impossible to take allies, the potential to go wild and the Incarnates' inability to benefit from allegiance abilities, they will probably not replace native monster options for armies that have access to good ones.

I overall like the model and suspect it will look better in person and without the standard 'eavy Metal paint job. But I won't deny that it reminds me of the worst part of the Celestant Prime: the Trash Hurricane Orrery of Celestial Fates. I don't 100% know why GW went for this type of support either. They have done floating models way better before. The Lumineth foxes and a bunch of Nighthaunt models like the new boat guy, for example.

Soulblight Gravelords gained an extra rule that gave all VAMPIRE LORDs the option to make a SUMMONABLE unit fight immediately after they fight in combat. Other than that, there were targeted buffs for Legion of Blood, which was previously probably the worst subfaction. They are playable, perhaps even good, now. Gravelords also gained two forgettable mount traits. The Grand Strategies and Battle Tactics were bad to situational. Cities of Sigmar gained two mount traits, one for griffins and one for black dragons. The griffin trait is actually good. They also got one good battle tactic out of the update. I think that was it? Both this update and the one for Gravelords felt appropriate to me. Neither of these factions were struggling and they just got some minor goodies/quality of life stuff. II think that only leaves Seraphon, who got a scenery-based allegiance ability and two mount traits (one of which is a special monstrous action). I think they got a usable battle tactic or two, as well.

Bell of Lost Souls appears to have a scoop on the rules for the newly revealed Krondspine Incarnate: https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2022/03/age-of-sigmar-the-thunda-in-thondia-how-the-incarnates-work.html In brief: Incarnates are a new type of enhancement. Incarnates cost points. Incarnates can rampage like monsters. Incarnates prevent you from bringing allies, but can exceed your ally point allowance. Incarnates are bound to one of the heroes in your army. If the hero dies, they run wild and are considered hostile to all armies on the field. Incarnates work kinda like monsters with a damage table, but the table contains "states". The article mentions "empowered", "destroyed", and a "normal" state in which they start the game. It is unclear whether being "wild" is a state. Incarnates don't have regular wounds like other models do. They instead move to higher and lower states when they get hurt. They need to take a "special 3d6 Battleshock test" to determine whether they move to a lower state. The Krondspine Incarnate is considered to have a wounds characteristic of 18 for rules purposes, however. Incarnates are relevant to new Grand Strategies from the Thondia book. Krondspine stats: Can deal up to 38 wounds at max, has a special monstrous rampage that allows it to eat Endless Spells, gives +1 to cast to a wizard bound to it if they are close and -1 to cast to enemy wizards, can "broadcast" All-Out Attack to mutliple nearby units. 400 points. --- First impressions? Incarnates seem to be a mix between Endless Spells and generic monsters that all armies have access to. I think the introduction of a generic monster options seems like a pretty good move. It certainly levels the playing field a bit for armies without access to monsters, like Nighthaunt and KO. The Kronspine Incarnate seems to come with a good amount of upsides, too. +1/-1 to cast and an All-Out Attack aura are quite nice by themselves. Since it also functions like a beat stick, it seems very usable if its unknown stats hold up. If you have access to a defensive hero, losing control of the Incarnate does not seem like too much of a worry. It remains an open question whether Incarnates will become a permanent part of the game moving foreward. If so, there is certainly a bit of rules bloat happening right now, since Incarnates seem to work on their own special subsystem. I would have definitely expected them to be closer to Endless Spells. It seems the complexity creep is real: 3rd edition already has more going on rules-wise than 2nd, and this is another separate mechanical system to remember. The state-based system, however, might be a sneak peek at the future of AoS. GW's rules designers really seem to love it since they came up with "empowered" for Underworlds, and I would not be surprised if we saw it on regular units eventually.