Ferban

As someone (relatively) new to the hobby, I think the idea of pre-painted miniatures would be a net negative. I think it would help sell some starter sets. For sure. But then I think it would be a barrier to the next step. Novice painters aren't going to want to try their hand at painting minis if they are going to look like junk next to the pre-painted stuff they've already bought. And most new painters are going to produce a few ugly minis (I know I did!). And I think a lot of people are scared to put paint on their minis at all at first. And having a standard to compare it to would probably be daunting. Maybe if the prepainted stuff was relatively low quality (a few basecoats), then people could achieve that level easily and expand with washes, drybrushes, and other beginner friendly techniques. But I think GW would get a lot of criticism for selling what might be considered low quality paint jobs. I say they keep it gray (or colored plastic maybe?) and leave the painting to the players.

The warscroll says, "If your army has an Order general but is not a Stormcast Eternals army, you can include these warscrolls in your army as a special type of ally called The Blacktalons regiment of renown." I think it's unlikely they are counting it that way. But technically, that makes this group of models for every Order faction.

Well, isn't it a regiment of renown? Doesn't that mean it's something for every Order faction? Boom! Just like that we're already at 12+

I'm in the U.S. and have been somewhat interested in Stormbringer. I like most of the minis, but I gotta say, it's disappointing to start with the dominion box. I already have it. And while I would like more Gutrippas or Boltboyz, the Dominion ones come without banners and musicians, if I recall correctly. For those that have already subscribed, have you found it to be worth it?

Oh man. If I hadn't bought the Army box for Seraphon I would be super tempted by this battleforce. But I'm not really in need of another Slann and I already have the Hunters of Huanchi. Same is sorta true for SBG. Some really cool stuff in there, but a few too many duplicates to make it worth my while. Oh well. I'm sure these will be great for some players. I'll continue to get my models the old fashioned way.

I'd love a Seraphon box, especially if it has a lot of the new units in it. But I don't need another Kroak. If they include him, it'll probably be a pass for me.

I also pay annually, but I'm sad to hear about this price increase. For the past two years, I've felt that the price is on the line between being "worth it" or not. If it was a little cheaper, or if there was more content, I'd be much more satisfied. But as it is, I think it (barely) provides enough to make it worth the cost. But if the price increases, I'm not sure that's the case anymore. What I'd really like to see is W+ give you access to all rules (battle traits, artefacts, etc.) in the app. And then have battle tomes be more focused on lore, art, and advancing the narrative. I feel like that would make W+ worth the cost and I know I'd still buy tomes (at least for the armies I liked).

I think this was a common sentiment. Even though the game was fairly well received and had a relatively strong player base, the fact that nearly every warband was for Chaos was generally considered a negative. I remember when rumors first started swirling of non-chaos warbands that might be coming in the Gnarlwood season. That was really well received. And recently when they announced that most of the upcoming releases would be Destruction/Order/Death based, there was a lot of cheering. I think it's fair to say that having only chaos representation (and slaves to darkness only rather than the four chaos gods) was a frequent detraction. To say that it was never considered a negative is, I think, a bit revisionist.

Got it. Thanks so much!

Thanks so much for replying! But on the Battlescroll, the only errata I see is for 1.3.3 (Unit Coherency), 7.2 (Rally), 10.1.2 (Look Out Sir!), and 27.5.2 (Arcane Tome). After that, it goes into the Grand Alliance Updates and then the points. I feel like an idiot that I'm not getting it. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place?

I watched the MetaWatch video and they talk about Fight on Death changes. But I'm not seeing it in the Battlescroll that I downloaded from Warhammer Community. Am I missing it?

There's also a command trait that can turn the Troggboss into a Monster.

I'm sure there are many people who agree, but I just wanted to provide a quick counterpoint. In 40k, the tagline is about it being "only war." Its dark and there aren't really any good guys. I know people for whom that is a big turnoff. But AoS is more hopeful. Yes, most lands have been blighted by chaos and there are many, many bad guys (even much of the Order pantheon is filled with what should be considered bad guys). But the Stormcast have thrown off some of the tyranny of Chaos and the Cities are actually attempting to expand. It's far more hopeful. It's blood and war now, but the fight is to secure prosperity and peace. I think rising to a nobler ideal is going to call out to some gamers more than grimdarkness will.

Yeah, I liked that one a lot. I've only read one C&T short story, so I assumed a lot of the background had been covered in other stories. But I would love to see them show up as returning characters. Hammer & Bolter goes all over, but maybe we see them once or twice a year as an ongoing or recurring Hammer and Bolter episode. I wouldn't say no to their own series, though.

So long Lord of Hubris and Phantasmagoria combo. We hardly knew ye.

I don't think soup tomes are necessarily a bad thing. I think Orruk Warclans suffers from: (1) being the first tome of the new edition - before they really got a handle on things like unique heroic actions and monstrous rampages; and (2) trying to push/hype Kruleboyz as the new model range. If a new tome came out now, I think we'd see much more flavor and more equal attention paid to each faction. That said, I'd really like to see Big Waugh! amended to incorporate all destruction factions. In the lore, you see grots, Ogors, and gargants along for the ride. I'd love to see that in a rules form (whether contained in the OW tome or some other book) that allowed much freer ally options. Maybe the general has to be an orruk, but then 1 in 4 units could be ogors, 1 in 4 gloomspite, and 1 in ... 6? gargants. Or something like that. You'd probably have to tweak the abilities and Waugh! energy so it didn't get too overpowered, but being able to field a multi-faction Waugh! like in the stories would be great.

I got WH+ the first year and, while it probably didn't quite deliver for the price, I overall thought it was fine. There were lots of animations, and several series. At first it was weekly, then they went to an every-other-week format for animations. However, this year has been relatively poor. Many long stretches with no animations. I get that they need to build up a library (it's not Netflix or Disney+). But when nothing is coming out other than Loremasters, Masterclass, or battle reports, it's hard to stay invested. I'm not a huge fan of battle reports to begin with and the WH+ ones aren't anything special. Masterclass is neat, but my painting ability isn't really high enough to make use of most of the tips. And Loremaster used to be really good. They'd take a character (like Abaddon or Nagash) and go through his life - something that would take bits from many different sources. More recently, they've just been taking a faction and describing it - the exact sort of thing you already get from a battletome. So either they are re-hashing a tome I've already read, or describing some faction I'm less interested in. I'm hopeful that Blacktalon will be good and we'll see more animations in the coming months. But I'm going to have a real hard time staying subscribed in August (I bought the year) if things don't start picking up substantially.

I kinda like the idea for AOS. I'm not a huge fan of constantly measuring (for moves, charges, and pile-ins) to make sure my units stay in various bubbles. If it just applied to the given unit always, it would be a nice quality of life upgrade. I also think it would dis-incentivize castle builds since there will be fewer auras. Which is probably good? I know Warhammer seems the most fun when you have lots of units clashing all over the board. Less fun when there's just one death-star blob. The article also hints that some shooting or other abilities may be able to target leaders even within a unit. So I'll defer final judgment until we see what that looks like.

My knowledge of 40k is extremely limited. So maybe I'm just naive. But when I read that I just assumed that "Detachment" was the new name for "subfaction." They seem to be filling a similar role. Or am I totally misunderstanding?

Awesome. Also looks like the KO FAQ went up as well. Pre-release! Just one change to an Aether-Khemist ability. We'll see if it gets a fuller update in a few weeks.

Same with the Lord of Afflictions and Pusgoyle Blightlords. But both are units of two.

So I have accumulated a few models that are New on Sprue that came in various Vanguards or Start Collectings that I need to pass along. I figured I could go the Ebay route, but is there a different site or method that people have found more success with? When it comes to the FOMO boxes, I know there's lots of talk about buying it and then selling the side you don't care for. What's the popular way to do that? Any insight would be appreciated.

Not responding to you in particular, just using this as a jumping off point re BGG. BGG has lots of titles beyond strict board games. But it is primarily a board game site. It caters to boardgamers and reflects their opinions. And not just boardgamers in general, but the kind of gamer that also spends time on BGG. I've been on BGG since ... 2006ish? It's a great site and offers a lot of utility. But there are already big divides within the community itself. As an easy example, you can look at the BGG top 100. Euro-style games with low conflict and low RNG are quite overrepresented. That doesn't mean those games are "better" necessarily. Just that the kind of person who likes and uses BGG tends to prefer that kind of game. It's not surprising, then, that the further you go from that genre, the lower the ranking is going to be. And, in my experience, there does tend to be a small (though vocal) group of individuals who really dislike GW as a company and downrate many of their games. Two other minor points. First, there is no enforced criteria in BGG rankings. It's not uncommon for a game to have several high (or low) ratings before it even comes out. And many users rank games without a single play. Hopefully, that all comes out in the wash as statistical noise, but it shows the problematic nature of using the aggregated scoring for any definitive purpose. Second, when a game is first created in the database, BGG "weights" it by giving it something like 500 dummy votes at 5.5. Or maybe its more votes (1000?), I can't recall. But the purpose is to prevent a game with one or two ratings from shooting to the top of the BGG list. You need enough plays to overcome those dummy scores and see the game move. Since my guess is that relatively few BGG players are highly involved in miniature wargaming, it would also be unsurprising to see those games with lower scores due to the initial weighting. Which is a long way of saying that I think the BGG ranking is a fuzzy tool at best, and probably not worth much at all when looking at miniature wargaming.

Speaking only for myself (and I am a very casual player), having only three units in the box isn't super enticing. Especially since I'm not sold on the Raptordons and won't be until I know their rules. But if there is a wider variety in the box, well that starts to get more tempting. If Raptordons are sort of the "extra" or "bonus" models in an otherwise good box, then I'm much more likely to pick it up. But if I feel like I'm paying a lot for models I may never use? Then I'm more likely to wait and pick up individual units later.

I think the tome updates should, more or less, be evolutionary rather than revolutionary. It should update the rules to comport better with 3.0. It could add in some heroic actions or monstrous rampages when warranted. And it should align with the new philosophy that choosing a sub faction no longer locks you into an artefact or command trait. I think the meta shakeup is mostly seen with the GHBs. And I'm OK with that. If you want a highly evolving game where good units become bad and bad units become good, I think the GHB battlepacks seem to do much of that. But if you are just playing with your mates and having a good time with your army, you probably want some level of consistency. Seeing the squig movement change is a great quality of life improvement. That's the kind of thing I want from new tomes. That, and making the army feel like the lore. Not every 3.0 battletome has been a banger, but the majority have been improvements in those terms (even if they aren't giving significant power improvements).