KnowAnyThryng

Played my first game using new tome Used fyreslayers as coalition in Kharadron Overlords list,so really only can speak to warscrolls only and not allegiance stuff. Hgbz are still great - mvp of the match. Poleaxes rolled cold but still did alot. Runefather foot with hgbz -bodyguard rules are awesome. Tanked an absurd amount of damage. Save stacking on him is outstanding. Really the centerpiece of our army I feel. Solo Runesmiter on magma was not great.magmas really need a 5 plus ward to be able to stay on the table against tough opponents. Battlesmith allowed this one turn but once 5plus gone he died fast. 340 points is steep for how vulnerable he is. Plus 1 to wound on himself combined with flaming weapons means this guy can hit really hard now. Tail swipe is now much better - able to tail swipe stormdrake guard 66 percent of the time... problem is durability. Magmas are really reliant on allegiance abilities and lofnir I think. Ranged attack is solid - able to be used against smaller units is really nice. Just hard to justify 340 points with such reduced durability. Again need lofnir, mount traits and allegiance abilities to make these guys viable I think. Battlesmith was really solid. Due to totem he sat 18 inches from hgbz, behind terrain if possible. Opponent only had 12 inch and 18 shooting so he stayed alive long enough to rally 7 hgbz and pay for himself easily. Gave ward save to magma to help his durability This guy is heavily matchup dependent. So from an allies perspective I can see 10hgbz plus runeson for 400pts being a really decent choice where a mortal wound resistant anvil is needed.

Absolutely agree with you here. That list seems the most interesting and fun list style I've been thinking about. Stacking charge range bonuses really helps the vulkites too... they come with 1 via horn, can get 1 from general and can get run/charge from priest chant. Put all of this together with 70-80 vulkites and you will get charges off for sure. The awesome thing about this list is it gets BETTER the deadlier the opponent is. You charged Archaon and he is going to kill your entire unit after you swing? Awesome, your 10 vulkites now get 82 attacks against him if you triggered runefather ability. that is a lot of 2+ armor saves to make... if you add in rend urgold or mortal wound urgold you have a chance at flat out killing a lot of the god characters out there. This doesn't even include the flamekeeper plus 1 damage... add one of those buffs to the vulkites and you WILL kill god characters on the charge. Just throw so many dice that their save doesn't matter. Even if you don't get a charge you are still at 62 attacks (with runefather ability if needed) if the super unit kills your whole unit - still able to be buffed via urgold or flamekeeper damage. With new ability you can strike first before superunit, then again on death. If you take 4 flamekeepers odds are 1 will survive to buff your vulkites and they are only 90 points each. If you prefer survivability you can take multiple battlesmiths for coverage and rally redundancy. On top of it all, you end up with nearly 200 wounds in your army... that is a ALOT of wounds to chew through. Especially when you add the 6+ or 5+ ward saves, and rally on 4+, into the mix. As an old world 6th, 7th and 8th edition fantasy player this makes me happy as it is a deathseeking ball of duardin fury that scales up against the super gods and monsters of the game.

I just crunched some numbers on warscrolls that changed between 2.0 and 3.0 (in cost or abilities/stats). This excludes support heroes as their abilities are hard to quantify. Note that this is damage in combat only and defensive abilities only look at wound per cost change (as the saves are basically the same across the board) Efficiency is total point cost divided by total damage output in 1 combat phase based wholly on their warscroll. Lower is better, differential was calculated comparing old vs new efficiency. This does not include ranged damage... so expect a minor increase in efficiency (maybe 1-3% increase) across the board due to throwing axe buff for new 3.0 warscrolls. Runeson Magma 26% increase Offensive pt efficiency 14% decrease Defensive pt efficiency 12% net increase in efficiency Runefather Magma 15% increase pt efficiency in combat output (31% for 1 turn when using +1 atk ability) 10% decrease in pt efficiency in defensive ability 5% net increase in effiency (21% for 1 turn) Runefather foot 6% increase O efficiency (31% for 1 turn) 20% decrease in D efficiency -14% net efficency (+11% for 1 turn) Runeson foot 65% increase in O efficiency Same D efficency +65% net efficency HGBZ 16% reduce in O efficiency 16% reduce in D efficiency 16% reduction in total pt efficency (do note that it is MUCH easier to keep runseon/father on foot alive to keep ward going, but harder due to wholy within so I call that a wash) Vulkite axe 30% reduce in O efficency (4% increase on charge) 6% reduction in D efficiency 36% reduction in total Vulkite Shield 48% reduction in O efficiency 10% increase in D efficiency 58% reduction in total efficiency Auric Hearthguard 5-10% increase in efficiency against armored targets (close combat only). Minor range debuff has utility that I couldn't figure out how to calculate. 50% decrease in efficiency against monsters Hard to calculate how much reduction, but given their role was pretty much ONLY to kill monsters lets say they've reduced in efficiency by 40% (maybe 30% if you see any value in movement debuff) Based on the above, we can see a huge trend reducing defensive efficiency and increasing offensive efficiency for almost all FS heroes. We also see nerfs in overall efficiency across the board for non-hero FS warscrolls. The unit hit least hard by this was hearthguard berzerkers - which are still our most points efficient unit by far both offensively and defensively assuming you keep a hero in range. Keep this with a big grain of salt as this is JUST warscrolls. Allegiance abilities overall are better in my mind, ur-gold is definitely better and lofnir is better for sure. Hermdar was almost certainly a bit better for HGBZ heavy builds. in 2.0 however. Magic items are better across the board. Support abilities from heroes are better offensively and worse defensively. For example, factoring in Lofnir the defensive efficiency of magmas becomes the same instead of a reduction from 2.0 to 3.0. Factoring in Vostarg and offensive efficiency on the charge of vulkites with axes becomes 39% better than vulkites on the charge in 2.0. If you add in additional offensive capabilities not present in 2.0, such as +1 attack from runefather or the +1 damage from flamekeeper, magic item combos we are looking at damage potential that simply was not possible in 2.0 tome. Defensively the army took a significant hit, in particular against regular damage. However, there is now a plethora of ways to get a 5+ or 6+ wardsave... plus an amazing way to keep foot sons and foot fathers alive. Overall I'd say our defensive ability against mortal wounds went up and all other damage went down. Battlesmith is a great defensive hero and flamekeeper great offensive hero if you can keep them alive (which you won't be able to against 90% of competitive lists). Haven't played any games yet, but I think the 3.0 tome encourages a bit more variety in gameplay styles. From what I can see we have an ultra aggressive charge list (vostarg), defensive focused list (HGBZ and foot heroes, Greyfyrd), monster list (lofnir), or combined arms list (grefyrd or vostarg). In 2.0 I don't think we had an aggressive charge list so that is a new playstyle overall that we didn't really have before - I could see a 70 vulkite axe list backed up by several flamekeepers being worth testing out.

Deepkin book review is on YouTube. It looks like minor change to sharks between fury of the deep and battletome (moving from 10 wounds to 8). This gives me a glimmer of hope that shield vulkites get an attack back. Fingers crossed.

If you all out attack (which you are almost guaranteed to do with 15 HGBZ) this equates to 4.4 mortal wounds on average. With broadaxes this is almost 50% more damage against a 2+ save unit (which, lets face it, is the meta with the save stacking) With poleaxes this is again about and extra 4.4 mortal wounds extra - which is roughly 40-45% more mortal wound output. This ur-gold rune is amazing against the high save meta where you need mortal wound output. Remember this lasts until your next hero phase, meaning potentially 3 combat phases of 40-50% increased output against high save units. this also works on throwing axes too... so your unit of 15 HGBZ also do an extra 1.25 mortal wound in shooting (every bit helps against those 2+ save beasts out there). The nerf to HGBZ were warranted in my opinion - especially when you want more internal balance in the book. When in the ideal situation the HGBZ are just as good as they ever were , however they are harder to put in the ideal position when they are being aggressive. To be frank I think they were undercosted before - probably the best heavy infantry in the game in my opinion. The warscroll changes actually buff vulkites on the charge slightly (and nerfs them when not charging by a decent margin), and when you look at the potential ur gold abilities plus the potential of stacking flamekeeper buffs, a 160 point unit of vulkites are freaking terrifying on the charge. There was no where close to any way to making them as scary in the old book. With 2 flamekeepers buffing their damage they can take a mega gargant out on their on on the charge (with fight on death enabled). The equivalent damage with HGBZ costs over double with the same buffs enabled. Regarding flamekeepers, easy way to trigger their buff turn 1 is to take arcane tome/ally in mage with flaming head endless spell. Use it to break cohesion on a unit of vulkites so they lose 5 models, then proceed to heal them back up using rally over a few phases. Flamekeepers buff on an exponential curve and discourage enemies from killing your units. Yes they can be sniped, but at 80 points each it actually isn't too terrible if your enemy is shooting them instead of your units and they actually have our best character DPS output per cost aside from maybe berzerker. Overall I am cautiously optimistic. The warscroll changes better define roles in the army, with HGBZ now being much better in an anvil role due to the 9" bubble nerf, the vulkites are much better in a hammer role due to the 50% additional attacks on the charge, +1 to charge horn and the additional ways to buff their damage. And this doesn't even look at any allegiance abilities outside of the preview. Still want new units though...