yukishiro1

And that's all fine and good for people who think the way you do; those of us who play Cities obviously feel differently about the interest of the concept or, well, we wouldn't play it now would we? Nobody's saying they're against Dawnbringers in addition, it's the instead of that people are rightly afraid of.

That's exactly what many of us love about it. You can build a coherent army if you want from the subfactions, or you can play the last alliance of dwarves, humans and elves if that's your jam, or you can do anywhere on that spectrum. I don't care if they want to vastly flesh out the human side, and I'm all for it - just as long as it doesn't involve removing support for all those other fun models in their nice rag-tag army. I.e. if they want to do an orruk warclans style tome that has both Dawnbringer Crusade as one allegiance and Cities as another, that's totally fine with me. But if they cut out Cities or otherwise squat my elves and dwarves I and many others are going to be extremely unhappy campers. GW having released a Cities tome for AOS (in 2019 no less, only 3 years ago), we were entitled to think the faction concept would stay supported, and GW shouldn't renege on that expectation.

Seems a bit like tomato tomato TBH, but that'd be new too, wouldn't it? I'm pretty sure there have been a few units here and there that got cut out of subsequent tomes, but again to my knowledge they've never done anything like what it'd be to cut out all (or most) of the units currently in the CoS book.

They wouldn't be totally removed, they'd be put into Legends - but that's effectively the same thing for practical purposes. IIRC(someone who knows more about early AOS can correct me if I'm wrong) if they do squat CoS as part of the revamp it'd be the first time in AOS' 6 year history that they'd be squatting an army that had battletome support. Brets and Tomb Kings and a bunch of old WHFB units from various factions got squatted in the long, messy transition from WHFB to AOS as a game with actual developed rules, but they never had a tome. That doesn't mean it won't happen, but it'd be a major kick in the teeth of the sort that even GW would surely think very carefully before doing.

I don't mind them redoing the humans as long as it doesn't coincide with the squatting of the rest of CoS. That they weren't willing to answer all the questions on that front with a clear answer bothers me a lot. My CoS army is 100% elf - if that entire army gets squatted I think I would seriously consider whether I wanted to keep playing AOS, even though it isn't my main army. It would just be such a kick in the balls. The renders they put up were seriously underwhelming but the fact that they are so underwhelming means they can't possibly be going to be what stuff actually looks like so I'm not too worried about that.

Really not a fan of their non-committal answer on what is happening to the non-human Cities units. It was easy to anticipate that the #1 question when you say "we're doing a new human-focused Cities revamp" would be "what happens to my old models" and the fact that they didn't have an answer they were willing to give out is troubling.

It's the same kit.

Yeah, they showed off the derpiest of the heads by far in the leak. Those other ones look pretty good, and the body looks really customizable as well. Looks like a great kit with one dud head.

Yeah but it wouldn't be a Daemon Prince kit if it wasn't super fugly. In a way they are keeping up the tradition.

Yeah, Monstrous Takeover unambiguously doesn't work because at the time you select it there's no possible way for the unit to be a MONSTER, because you can only cast the spell to make it one after you select, and it wears off before you select. So the question never comes up in the first place. The other battle tactics, the ones that give a bonus point, you can definitely get the bonus point with a Metamorphosized HERO. But the wording on those is admittedly slightly different - it first says "starting unit," then "if that unit is a MONSTER, you get a bonus." It seems unlikely to me they meant for there to be a rules distinction between "starting unit from your army that is a MONSTER" and "MONSTER from your starting army" but I suppose it's possible.

If the question is whether you have to issue it from a hero - this is sort-of addressed in the FAQ to the core rules. There's a long section on command abilities where it breaks them down into different categories, but this is the only one that seems to fit: So I think the answer here is that you don't need anything on the field to do this except the unit itself - which weirdly in this case uses the CA when it is destroyed, so technically the unit using the CA isn't even on the table any more itself.

The rule you quoted doesn't say that, though, or say anything about keywords needing to be there before the game starts. That's a gloss you added. All that rule talks about is what counts as a starting unit from your army. It distinguishes between units that are in your starting army and units that are not, not between units with keywords before the game starts vs those that gain them later. Is it from your starting army? Yes, that's what the rule confirms. Is it a MONSTER? Yes, that's what the core rules and the spell say. So doesn't that mean it's quite literally a (1) MONSTER (2) from your starting army? I mean like do you really think the answer would change if the wording was: "if there are any units from your starting army on the battlefield that are MONSTERS?" I guess it's possible. Maybe the answer is that there is no real answer because both readings are plausible and it just needs a FAQ.

It's a rule in the battlepack in the base rules, but not in the GHB2021 battlepack.

The spell lasts "until your next hero phase," which to me means it ends before your next hero phase starts. So the model dies before the hero phase starts, i.e. before it can be healed by the rule. The note in the battletome that the spell expiring can result in the death of the model would also be redundant otherwise - the model would always heal and therefore would never die - which seems like another clue that that is what is intended.

That's an interesting point re: units that are WIZARDS conditionally. I do think we'd all agree that if it isn't a WIZARD any more at the end of the game because it no longer meets the requirements, it can't be used to score Prized Sorcery. I'm not sure that necessarily means the opposite is true - that it is ok that it isn't a MONSTER at the start as long as it is at the end - but it certainly seems to suggest that to me as well. FWIW I also took another careful look at both Metamorphosis and the MONSTER section of the Core Rules. 21.0 says: "A unit with the MONSTER keyword on its warscroll is a MONSTER." And Metamorphosis says: "That HERO gains the MONSTER keyword until your next hero phase." Again while not conclusive, to me this makes it seem like there is no real rules distinction between a "real" MONSTER and a HERO that's been turned into one later - the HERO isn't just "treated" as a MONSTER or can act "as if" it was a MONSTER, it actually has the keyword added to its warscroll.

Well, I guess that's the question - it's a MONSTER at the time the check happens, and it's a unit from your starting army. Is that enough to make it a "MONSTER from your starting army" or does it have to have the MONSTER keyword before the game starts to qualify for that? I see your point but I also see the point that it's a unit from your starting army and it's a MONSTER.

Beast Master says you score it if "there are any MONSTERS from your starting army on the battlefield." If you have a wizard cast Metamorphosis on turn 5 to turn itself (or another hero) into a MONSTER, and that unit survives the battle, do you score Beast Master if that unit is your only MONSTER? It's a starting unit from your army, and it's a MONSTER at the time the game ends, so that would seem to qualify? (Yes, I know that in most cases it'd be better to just pick Prized Sorcery instead - but there are certain lists where Beast Master would be the better choice if this works b/c you're taking other MONSTERS.) The definition of "starting armies" doesn't seem to really help here. Just checking to see if this was answered somewhere I couldn't find, or what peoples' thoughts are?

Well, I mean, yes and no. If you're a player with a large AoS collection of the faction in question sure, you can cobble together some feeble counts-as warband. But suppose you're a new underworlds player without any existing model collection. In the past you could just pick up the reasonably-priced (for GW) box and be ready to go - yes, you might have had to print out some cards if you wanted to use a really old one, but that's not exactly a major barrier compared to sourcing minis. Now you'd have to buy a $50 set of khorne dogs just to get the single fleshhound you need, to use your example, or again go to ebay. If you didn't want to ebay you'd be looking at well over $100 just for the stuff to make a lot of these warbands, for an inferior result. Now if you're a new player maybe you just take the hint and pick a new warband. But it definitely cuts down options in a significant way.

I guess I shouldn't project. I wouldn't find it fun to play a game with someone with that attitude. And it doesn't seem even remotely like playing against someone with cardboard minis to me. But if you feel differently and you have a group of people who feel the same way you do, knock yourself out. If you don't care about range rotation that's fine too, it's up to you. I think it's a bad move both for the consumer and in the long run for GW itself, but then they obviously don't ask me.

Yeah, but that's hardly difficult. Not having the miniatures is a much bigger barrier than having to print out some cards. The old warbands are still legal in the common Underworlds formats. People gripe about the cards but honestly if you play with people who are like "you don't have the original cards? then you can't play!" you probably aren't having much fun anyway.

Legends is Legends. If they had current matched play rules for e.x. Tomb Kings it'd be a total mess if you couldn't buy them. If they want to move those warbands to Legends that's fine I guess, if still lame. But it's a bad idea to have parts of the range you can't buy except from scalpers. In 40k they started with "just" a bunch of old space marine named heroes nobody used. Now they're "rotating" like a third of the Drukhari codex. And while it may not be a huge deal for AOS, it's a big deal for Underworlds. What if you get into the game and want to play one of those warbands? Again, Ebay scalpers is your only solution. It's just not good for the consumer no matter how you cut it.

It's a terrible idea to have rules for models you can no longer buy. It's one thing to have rules for units that never had models; it's something else to have rules for units that used to have models but no longer do unless you pay an ebay scalper. It's especially odd from modern GW given how much they have tried to move the hobby away from kitbashed conversions. And it's especially, especially bad with stuff like these warbands where each model may have different weapons, different rules, and different base sizes, as it makes it especially difficult to kitbash them in a way that is WISYWIG and doesn't confuse your opponent. These units are frankly already confusing to use and to face in a lot of cases, and this just makes it worse. Range rotation has zero upsides for the consumer. It's another short-sighted decision aimed at boosting their margins ever so slightly more.

Just keep it free (and updated), that's honestly all I care about.

Yeah GW's problem tends to be ruining things in the second half of an edition, not the first half. The real test will be the books we start getting around December of this year.

Nobody knows. The text is ambiguous. It's not clear whether it "procs" once and then follows units if they move away and doesn't effect anyone moving into the area later, or whether the mist sits there until your next hero phase debuffing anyone who comes within range, but not anyone who moves out of range.