TechnoVampire

I like the idea of unit upgrades. I used to play WFB way back when, but I’ve very little desire to return to rank and file. AOS strikes a good balance for me.

Spearhead won’t be for me. The joy of a table top war-game (for me), is playing my list that I’ve put (too many) hours of thought and craft into, against someone else’s. I’m not interested in playing a pre-made list, but I hope there’s something for other people to get excited about.

I feel the same. No one will not take a lore if they a free, and I think most lists will have some opportunity for casting them. T1 being out of range of a damage spell or not having any significant buffs, attempting to bring an additional unit that can fight, move block, do mortals or any number of other things could be a big advantage. I think there’s potentially much more incentive to play with them now than before when there was a cost attached. As a result I think there will be much more pressure on players to buy them, even out of FOMO.

It was krondspine that made me think of it, but you’re right and I’ll reserve judgement until we know more. Regardless it wouldn’t be very fun to see nearly every army spamming the same endless spells. Hopefully there’s enough of a spread of power and themes that there’s a real choice. If the different lores lend themselves to a particular playstyle then that will make them much more interesting.

That’s definitely one of my concerns; if they’re not well balanced we may end up seeing the same few lores in every list and it becomes almost a necessity to get certain spells off to win.

Interesting changes and like @Neil Arthur Hotep said, impossible to evaluate without testing, or the complete set of rules. Im assuming they will be much more ubiquitous than before, being free to every faction, but those with less casting potential might suffer. I wasn’t a particularly big fan of endless spells before, as they kind of just felt like additional stuff to keep track of. I’m not sure if I’ll prefer this system, but I’ll definitely feel more obliged to play with them. The fact that they’re more interactive is probably a positive.

Amen to this. I absolutely hated book tactics being used as a balancing measure for the same reasons. I’ll be very glad to see that become a thing of the past.

Completely agree. Mortal wounds should be given as specialist cases where they make sense and not as the standard form of dealing damage. leaning into other forms of damage (as you suggested) opens up more specialised units and interesting interactions on the table which I’m all for.

I agree, though with rend 2 that’s likely to cause damage. I’m ok with that as a specialised unit though. What I really don’t want to see is another iteration of 30 sentinels doing mortals from 30” and ignoring line of sight, or 12 bolt boyz doing 2 mortals on a 5 to hit or 3 on a 6.

I pray that there is little to no mortal wounds on hit for shooting attacks 🙏 and would generally like to see a reduction in mortal wounds across the board.

I get your point about certain units being able to be used to cover a lot of area in 10’s. I have thought about it, hence the reason that I don’t think that a blanket rule for coherency works particularly well. Having to use 10 x 25mm infantry in 2 ranks isn’t the end of the world, but it feels at odds with what they’re designed for, and makes them less valuable. It’s something I was hoping they would have cleaned up in the next edition, but ultimately not a massive deal.

Additionally I do find a coherency number of 6 very strange when a lot of infantry units come in 10’s. Having to use a minimum size infantry unit on 25mm bases in 2 ranks feels particularly unintuitive and also overly harsh considering the new coherency range is 1/2”. I think they could have safely made the maximum number of models in one rank 10.

I find I end up mostly playing in base contact to make sure I’m getting the maximum into range for combat. It’s really screening that’s going to be affected. I do wonder how that’s going to pan out. Personally I’d have maybe liked to see coherency be a stat that makes sense for each specific unit. Having one blanket rule just doesn’t make sense for all (IMO)... Like small skirmishing units could be used in 10’s designed specifically as a screen, while other units such as those with spears and shields are designed to be used in tightly packed in ranks. Maybe that would add to mental load/ bloat but I think there will always be winners and losers with one rule and different base and unit sizes. The standardised weapon range should help a lot with that though.

I meant to reply to this message with my last 😅

The last article got me excited and gave me a lot of hope. I felt a little uneasy after the subfactions preview that some aspects of the game might be getting oversimplified, but the combat phase looks to be cleaner and also more interesting than before. I’m a big fan of the weapon specific abilities and more clearly defined roles that units seem to be given, such as infantry killers, objective holders etc. For me this adds an additional layer of tactics and makes things feel more flavourful and in keeping with the actual identity of the units on the table. Like you I’m excited to see specific warscrolls and rules for my faction! (SBGL).

I had the same reaction. It felt like a rebranding of the current system, minus the narrative intrigue. The new subfactions (“battle formations”) appear to have all the same kind of restrictions as before (relating only to specific unit types), however now there’s is no lore… which apparently allows us to paint them however we like for the first time. I’m also concerned that there might only be a single trait for each battle formation, which to me would feel like dumbing down faction rules, while keeping numerous core rules I’d happily have seen stripped away. That’s the oposite of the kind of “streamlining” I’d like to see, but hopefully it’s not the case 🤞

@Leshoyadut I like your second list (LOB with vengorian lord). I’m similarly attached to blood knights, despite the fact they’re not considered overly competitive and run 5 in my list. I find them versatile and pretty tanky. My list is similar to yours but still using VLOZD. This is what I’m going to try out post points increases: Army Faction: Soulblight Gravelords - Army Type: Legion of Blood - Grand Strategy: Lust for Domination - Triumphs: Inspired LEADER 1 x Neferata (400) - Spells: Waste Away 1 x Vampire Lord (140)* - Spells: Hoarfrost 1 x Vampire Lord on Zombie Dragon (460)* - General - Command Traits: Doomed Minions - Deathlance - Artefacts: Cloak of Mists and Shadows - Spells: Vile Transference BATTLELINE 20 x Deadwalker Zombies (120)* 10 x Deathrattle Skeletons (100)* - Skeleton Champion - Standard Bearer 10 x Dire Wolves (140)* - Doom Wolf OTHER 5 x Blood Knights (230)* - Kastellan - Standard Bearer - Templar Lance 20 x Grave Guard (150)* - Seneschal - 2 x Standard Bearer - 2 x Hornblower - Great Wight Blade CORE BATTALIONS: *Battle Regiment TOTAL POINTS: (1890/2000) I think the points add up. I also might try switching out the zombies for a second unit of dire wolves.

I feel like part of the issue with our book is how easy our book tactics are to achieve. They pretty much guarantee 2 VP every turn on top of our healing and resurrecting, which makes our attrition game even stronger. Personally I dislike book tactics. They seem to make the game harder to balance and have too much impact on overall performance. The fact that GW uses them as a balancing method, giving out easy to achieve tactics to struggling factions, I think just perpetuates the problem. Conversely I think having points increased on warscrolls to balance overly strong tactics feels backwards and not great. Id like to see how we’re doing now with the points changes. I like our rules, but maybe some of them still need tweaked (reduction in hunger possibly, and more conditional resurrection sound feasable). I’m not a fan of running hordes so I would be sad to see the faction focus only on that and I appreciate the current diversity in lists and play-styles available.

I agree. I watched the metawatch article and thought that the lead designer (forget his name) was misrepresenting when he claimed that all the sub faction are performing well, in order to justify the widespread points increases. They know that’s not true, but to address the real issues would take too much work/ rewriting rules and warscrolls, which they basically only ever do with the release of a new book. LON and vyrkros will still be strong. LOB feels pretty tight writing lists now, but probably still do well in certain matchups. The other two will continue to struggle. They should have at least reduced the costs of blood knights to help Kastelai. They don’t even see tournament play, and have seen nothing but points increases. I think our book has a lot of well functioning units, but the idea that generally everything over-performs is a myth.

I’m just checking back in here after a while away. Hope everyone’s hobby is going well. The battle scroll increases didn’t surprise me much, but I do think they weren’t well targeted. Everything “good” saw an increase because a variety of lists/ subfactions have been over performing, but from what I can tell, that’s partly due to quite specific reasons (zombies, battle tactics are too easy, the hunger is really strong in certain cases). Despite that I think we’ll still be a strong faction with lots of builds, and hopefully now the meta win rate will be reasonable enough that we can make lists and have them last more than a couple of months. I do find it odd that we’re supposed to be a horde faction and there’s basically no cheap chaff battle line option anymore. Fingers crossed these are the last nerfs we’ll see for a while… I didn’t enjoy being the top peroeming faction. It draws too much attention 😉

I don’t do number crunching, but the Trueblades (particularly in Kastelai) look like they could be a pretty choice recipient for the new GHB spell? Ps I’m also part of the AOS coach SBGL discord server and it’s very active. I would recommend: https://discord.com/channels/615105941079326721/828937779109953548

Wow… you are thorough 🤣 I agree with a lot of what @MotherGoosesaid generally about blood knights, but also appreciate your thorough input on the topic (I think we’re mostly all in agreement tbf). I didn’t take your tone as stubborn, you presented your data very reasonably and it’s helpful. Similarly I don’t want anyone to think I’m trying to claim blood knights are a trash unit now, or anything similar… I mostly just think the are in a bit of a weird place relative to the sub-factions and how they function. I think they seem to work great in LOB, but in order for Kastelai to be a bit more competitive they probably should come down a bit in points, maybe enough to allow another cheap chaff unit if you are playing multiple units of blood knights. I do maintain that the new riders of ruin ability is quite poor. It only affects units with 3 or less wounds and with the movement and base size of blood knights the chances of being able to move over another unit, or doing mortal wounds on a normal move are quite slim. They’ve kept elements of the old rule, but removed the core mechanic, which allowed them to move out of combat, so now it’s not nearly as relevant.

Kudos for the thorough numbers break down. I definitely hadn’t gone that far, and based my opinion on overall warscroll; minimum 5” charge, 5+ mortal wound ward, attacking in 2 ranks, versatility of marks vs the hunger and 6+ ward. (You could add StD banners and Kastelai buffs in but they are quite situational) The 4+ to hit on CK’s is a big disadvantage though for sure… you can’t argue with numbers and yours show that the blood knights do more damage on average. I think the CK’s win on versatility, but I’ll probably have to revise my opinion that they are flat out better.

… Regardless I do feel blood knights were overpriced before the nerf, and are more-so now. As far as I’m aware their positive performance has mostly been in LOB as a 10 in combination with Neferata, but outside of that I think they cost too much for what they bring. Riders of ruin is a really average ability now and basically reads: deal D3 mortal wounds to a unit with 3 or less wounds after charging. Compared to the old warscroll which cost 200 points with retreat and charge I think they are worse, despite the extra rend and reach, and they weren’t exactly breaking the meta before.

Fair points. I’d add that with the lances they attack in 2 ranks which is pretty big, and with banners and mark of chaos they can be made more mobile, harder hitting or more survivable in any combination. Banners are a finite resource, so that’s probably not fair to include. On reflection “objectively better” is maybe misrepresentative when the warscrolls are read RAW, but within the army, they can be made into a power house unit that point for point I subjectively think are noticeably better than blood knights 😉