yukishiro1

Oh sure, I just meant from a rules point of view, I assumed that's what the question was directed at.

Oh, yeah, you're right, they screwed up Tempest's Eye too. Yes re: whether they count as the 1 in 4, it's just a question of whether they count as allies, coalition, or actual cities. I.e. in these armies you actually only need 1 in 4 to be pure cities - you could in say Tempest's eye 1 unit of cities, 1 unit of sylvaneth as allies, 1 unit of Kharadon as coalition, and then 1 unit of Stormcast. And each would fit the 1 in 4 requirement.

There's nothing in the core rulebook that you need for matched play - there are 3 matched play missions, but nobody is going to run those, so whatever. The only thing in the core rulebook you might want is the path to glory rules if you're into that. Otherwise, there is no reason to buy it.

Yep, it's something GW has always struggled to appreciate. The idea that GW is seriously telling you that you are doing something wrong that you need to "ask permission for" by playing a GW game with painted GW brand miniatures because they're painted the "wrong" color...it shows such a tremendous taking for granted of the customer. GW should be thrilled if you are playing a GW game with painted GW miniatures. That should be the Holy Grail, not something to judge people for because of the combination of colors and rules they want to play with.

The motivation (for the paint scheme stuff, the actual proxying is just because they want you spending money on GW minis, not other stuff) is that some people in 40k have multiple space marines armies of the same models they have bought over and over again, painted in different colors. Which is 100% fine if that's what they want to do from a hobby point of view, of course - but it has sent the message to GW that there is the potential to tap people to buy the same models multiple times to paint different colors. So they try to support that income stream with rules design by telling you you have to have your models painted the right color. Luckily everybody seems to ignore it. It's probably good this issue gets dredged up now and then when a new FAQ comes out, just to remind us to continue to be vigilant not to let GW get away with it.

Well, to be fair to GW, they have this weird position where if your paint scheme doesn't match any of the "official" ones, then it can be anything. But this produces the perverse result that you're actually encouraged to make sure your paint scheme doesn't match any of the official ones. And is very problematic in a game that keeps coming up with new paint schemes for new sub-factions. I don't want to wake up one day and find my Cities of Sigmar army I run as Tempest's Eye has suddenly become Arglebargle's Armpit because they introduced that new city in the new Double Broken Realms: This Time For Real supplement that happens to share most of the same colors. And I don't want to be fighting off people telling me I have to run it as Arglebargle's Armpit by pointing out that in fact some of the pouches on my army are blue green, whereas in the Arglebargle's Armpit army, they are simply blue. What color your army is painted shouldn't have any impact on what rules you can utilize in AOS. To the extent that the rule says otherwise, all it does is empower gate-keepers and bad faith rules abusers. If they were really caring about clarity, they would just say: "make sure to tell your opponent before the game what sub-faction your army is from, especially if it deviates from the standard paint scheme."

I don't see what using potatoes to proxy things has to do with my doubt regarding trying to mandate subfaction paint schemes in AOS and whether anyone even knows what those schemes are in the first place. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe some people do look at a Seraphon army and are like "blue, green blue, and bluish white! That's clearly Fangs of Sotek, don't you try to be pulling a fast one and telling me those are Thunderlizards!" I've just never met one, and you not answering the question makes me think I still haven't. Proxies and paint schemes strike me (and, judging from the thread, a lot of other people) as two completely different things, such that putting them in the same rules section is inappropriate and confusing. If the purpose of the rule is clarity, conflating the two actively undermines the purpose of the rule IMO. What color you choose to paint your models isn't equivalent to using a potato to represent a Mawcrusher (everyone knows a cabbage is the only acceptable proxy there).

The Cities FAQ managed to mess up Living City too, now it only gives Sylvaneth coalition units LIVING CITY, but not CITIES OF SIGMAR (lol). Making it unlike every other faction in the book, which give their coalition units both CITIES OF SIGMAR and the sub-faction keyword. Pretty obviously a typo given how everything else works, but just thought I'd point it out. The thing in GHB2021 is a little confusing IMO as to what it actually means re: coalition and battleline. It says coalition and allied units "don't count as battleline" in the section on army-building for the purpose of meeting the requirements, but that leaders, behemoths, etc still do. It seems unclear from this whether they mean that coalition and allied units that have battleline lose that attribute for all purposes, i.e. for the missions that give a battleline bonus, grand strategies, etc, or only don't count for meeting the 3 battleline minimum. Needs a FAQ imo. Here's the exact wording: So I guess I would read that as saying that they don't count as battleline for purposes of list-building...but I'm not sure if they'd still count for the missions that give battleline a bonus. It doesn't say they aren't batteline, it just says they don't count towards the number of such units in your army, which seems to imply they still are batteline. Weird.

Do you even know what the colors of any AOS subfaction are, such that you would be confused if someone brought an army painted that way and told you they were something other than what you were expecting them to be? If so, I think you're ahead of 95% or more of us. This isn't even 40k where you can mix detachments of different subfactions, so there's not that potential confusion during the game as to which is which. I'm not trying to be rude here, it just never even occurred to me that anyone in AOS pays any attention to what colors someone's army is and assumes things based on the painting scheme as to what sub-faction they are. I thought everyone was like everyone I know and told their opponent before the game (and on their list) what their subfaction is and what bonuses it provides. I've never had anyone show up at a table and be like "well as you can see, my wobbleworfs are all puce, magenta and chartruse, so we all know what that means, right? Roll-off time!"

I can see why they take the stance they do on proxies, they're a miniatures company, they're not going to encourage you to use competitors' products. This recent attempt to shoehorn everyone into using the "official" paint scheme is a complete joke, however. As in I literally snorted when I read it. There is no way this possibly catches on, and they're only making themselves look foolish for trying. I don't even know what the "official" paint schemes for most of my armies are, and I guarantee you nobody else does either. More generally, I am really disappointed by GW's recent attempt to grind the hobby out of the hobby. Conversions have gone from encouraged to barely tolerated and only if you use 100% GW or scratch-built bits, they now demand your armies be painted in the "correct" color schemes...what is the point of having a hobby game where you are discouraged from hobbying? What's next - no more 3rd party bases either? Nothing but 100% GW plastic bases with 100% GW texture paint is acceptable? What happens when they come out with a new sub-faction with a color scheme that happens to be very similar to one of my schemes - there's only so many color schemes out there, after all, this is bound to happen for some people at some point. Do I now have to repaint my whole army if I don't want to use that sub-faction? It sorta kinda almost makes sense in 40k to say that Space Marines obviously painted as Ultramarines can't be Blood Angels because those are so iconic that it really is like using proxied Space Marines for Stormcast or something like that in terms of how disruptive it is to the game aesthetic. It makes absolutely no sense to try to shoehorn that level of compliance into a game without iconic color schemes or iconic factions like AOS. Most people don't even know what their sub-factions supposed color scheme even is, much less what anybody else's are.

Why do you think it isn't intended what they did to them? I mean yes, it makes no sense. But that doesn't mean GW didn't mean to do it. GW does things that doesn't make sense all the time. Kroak was 320 points for a whole year and they refused to change it 6 months in because "they didn't have enough data." I can't see any way it wasn't intended. This wasn't some weird interaction that slipped through the cracks, this was a deliberate change to make these units worse at overwatch at the same time that they made everyone else better (because previously they couldn't do it at all). I feel for you having your unit made terrible for no reason. But I unfortunately wouldn't expect a fix any time soon, if ever. Slaangors were terrible and a literal joke in the community...and they got their points cost bumped up in GBH 2021. GW doesn't rewrite scrolls, and they don't change points except every 6 months. You're looking at December before you get a "fix," and it'll probably be just becoming 10 points cheaper or something.

I mean, maybe...but it's something they could have fixed in 2 minutes. Pretty irresponsible to leave it broken on the theory that a future book will fix it. And it's not like they didn't release updated Stormcast and Orruks points on that same theory, so it would also be inconsistent. They also fixed the Stormcast prayers, so it's not like there was a blanket decision not to fix any PRIEST-related issues in the SCE and Orruk books because new ones were coming out.

Ooph, yeah, Fyreslayers got done dirty in their FAQ, just like they have been in 3.0 generally. Some guys just can't catch a break.

Yeah, they bungled the whole PRIEST thing pretty comprehensively, unfortunately. No real rhyme or reason as to why certain priests had their abilities become prayers and others did not. Wardokk is 85 points, gets to be a wizard, a priest, and a dancer...battlemage is 115 points, is only a wizard, with the same stat line. 30 points more for essentially 1/3 the functionality. Runelords had their abilities become prayers so you have to choose one or the other while going up 10 points, Wardokks didn't have their abilities become prayers, and only went up by 5 points, because...<reasons>?

Wardokks are also PRIESTS and WIZARDS, but didn't have their abilities turned into prayers, so they can (1) cast a spell, (2) do a dance, and (3) use a generic prayer every turn...all for 85 points. Pretty silly.

Wouldn't be the first instance of the supposed expert who supposedly wrote the article in question being objectively wrong about the claims they're making. So hard to say whether this is a case of the puff piece being inaccurate or the FAQ being screwed up.

Ah, you're right, that's an error in Battlescribe I guess.

Rules as written, if it doesn't have the PRIEST keyword, it's not a priest, no matter what the flavor or other rules text says. Neither the Skink Priest nor the Skink Starpriest got the PRIEST keyword either, so apparently Skink Priests not actually being PRIESTs is a thing. That or they just fouled up the Seraphon FAQ totally.

They still receive the command ability, which means that particular unit definitely can't use that command ability (or any other) in that phase. Whether you can use Unleash Hell on a different unit on the same phase is ambiguous, IMO. Does a command ability count as being "used" if it isn't issued? Who knows, the rules don't define what "using" a command ability actually is. It seems like the intent is that you can't, but who really knows? We know from experience that trying to figure out GW's intent when it comes to AOS rules is an impossible task.

On the plus side, at least Twinstones got nerfed. A small something, but it is something. LRL casting is going to be a bit less reliable now, between the Teclis points nerf, miscasts, and losing the effective +2 across the army.

Well, now we know why OBR points didn't go up much at all, I guess: the FAQ basically does nothing to make them viable in the new system. RDP is essentially unchanged, you just get an extra RDP if you go second, and battalions got nerfed to only give you the extra once per game. Still can't use any of the new command abilities. RDP went from something that was better than having CP to something that's almost always worse because it is so much more limiting. Feels like a bit of a bait and switch, honestly. They get you into this army with the cool RDP system that's fundamentally different from CP and better in almost all cases, only to replace it in 3.0 with a system that's basically just like the new CP system, except worse because you don't get any of the cool new stuff everybody else does. edit: I can't even figure out from the FAQ whether they're intending to let you use the same RDP ability more than once per phase or not: Does this mean the once per phase limitation on command abilities applies because the command is issued "in the same manner as command points," or does it not apply because that's just about how you issue, not about how many times you can issue? If I had to guess, the limitation on command abilities still applies and you can only use RDP command abilities once per phase as well since they're still command abilities, they just use a different currency - which is another massive nerf to RDP. But then it says this: Which is literally nonsensical unless you can use RDP abilities more than once per phase. So this makes it sound like RDP is an exception to the normal rule and you can use them more than once per phase. How totally confusing, and it would have been so easy to clear it up by just saying so explicitly.

A couple more games played, feel ever more confident in saying grand strategies and battle tactics are not particularly well designed, it's too hard not to succeed at them with a well-built list. They also significant increase the importance of good list-building, which I am not convinced is a great change. In a lot of ways, these mechanics seem to serve more as traps for the unwary or noobs than something that actually adds a lot to game strategy. IMO grand strategies should just go away completely - they promote skew in your list-building, which is precisely the opposite of what secondary objectives are supposed to do in a game, and also punish bad list-builders for no real apparent reason. They just don't actually add anything that I can see, and the skew promotion is actively toxic towards incentivizing TAC lists. Battle tactics are more solid conceptually, they just need to be more interesting and less auto-succeed. Maybe even give your opponent some ability to influence your choices, i.e. once per game, they can veto the choice you make, forcing you to take a different one that round (with the one you didn't choose going back into the pool so you can choose it next turn if you want). It doesn't seem brilliant right now to have a situation where a well-built list will almost always score 10 out of 10 unless it gets tabled, and where scoring any less than that feels like a catastrophic loss. I am also a little concerned about how powerful tabling your opponent now is with the interaction with grand strategies and to a lesser extent battle tactics. With the new objective scoring, you really can't get so far ahead on the primary that you can survive being tabled, aside from maybe being tabled on the bottom of T5. If you get tabled any time before that, even the bottom of T4 or top of T5 when you're going second, it's very unlikely you are going to have any chance of winning, unless your opponent has been playing extraordinarily badly while also tabling you. Interestingly, unleash hell hasn't so far been a big issue in any of the games I've played.

Yep. Cloud coherency fixes things, it's the easy no-brainer solution most other games systems use. GW of course doesn't use that because that's too simple and easy and if everyone does it that must mean it's inferior, instead they come up with this bizarre w/in X of 2 other models thing that results in terribly gamey formations that you absolutely have to use to play the best game you can play. They've somehow managed to hit on the one system that is worse than both ranked base-to-base and skirmish. It has most of the disadvantages of both, and few of the advantages of either.

The smaller board is the biggest change, it means that it's rare that you aren't hitting your opponent with most of your army T1, or T2 at the very latest if you go first with a slow army. I dislike this personally, I really like the cagey feel that 40k has in the first turn, but in a game with essentially zero terrain rules I guess it's probably unavoidable unless you want to make the haves even more dominant of the have-nots. But it does feel a bit stupid to have armies starting within such easy striking distance of one another - what have they been doing on the approach? Does everyone in every AOS game suddenly get summoned into a battle arena or something? I like the idea of battle tactics, but the current balance on them is atrocious. Too many battle tactics are auto-succeeds, in the three games I've played each player has only failed in maybe 1 turn out of 5 each time. In practice, this feature makes list building even more important; the outcome of many games will be determined before any dice is rolled because a list engineered to be able to do the battle tactics effortlessly will crush one that isn't engineered that way. Grand strategies feel pointless, and I'm not sure it's just a question of them being badly balanced. I just don't see what they really add to the game, they encourage you to build gimmick lists instead of TACs, and that's the opposite of what a mechanic like this should be rewarding. Overall, the game experience is better than 2.0, but it feels like three steps forward, two steps back in terms of a lot of the new mechanics not quite getting there. edit: And that 5+ ward artefact is deeply stupid, it is literally twice as good as it should be, with the result that you feel like you're gimping yourself for not taking it unless you have access to one of the absolutely top tier artefacts in the game (e.g. cloud of midnight), which is a total shame because it completely destroys diversity. Everyone just takes the 5+ ward because it's almost always the best choice. The only way this makes any sense at all is if for some reason GW has decided that artefacts need to be roughly twice as powerful as they are, and included this as a placeholder so existing tomes don't get left behind while they roll out the new super artefacts. We'll know as soon as the first 3.0 tome comes out whether this is the case. But it feels like a tremendous shame right now.

Yeah, especially now that bridge is nerfed, there's really no excuse for getting blown up by irondrakes. They are an example of a strong but fair ranged unit, as compared to something like Sentinels that's just a disaster from a design perspective.