CJPT

Hi all! I've just been building the new warriors, and the major difference from the old warriors is the heads - they're quite a lot smaller, which makes the model as a whole look bulkier and more imposing even though it's about the same size. Here's a side-by-side comparison (forgive the bad photo, part-primed bits, and messy desk!) However, the new warrior sprue has 17 heads on it when you factor in all of the bare head variants. Swapping in one of the new heads onto an old body seems to help tie them fit in among the new sculpts.

Been thinking about this, and while it's a strong combo I think people might be underestimating how difficult it'll be to usefully combine teleport + fight twice. The Chaos Lord's CA is used at the start of the combat phase, and requires the unit be wholly within 12". The Lord will need to run to catch up to the teleported unit, and can only move a max of 11" himself without buffs. This massively limits the area you can teleport to and still benefit from the fight twice CA. Unless I'm missing something, obviously!

Stormcast have had a couple of Start Collecting boxes, and the original one was effectively replaced by the box that comes with the Stormcast half of the old AoS core set. So there's precedent for SC re-releases/updates. I'd be surprised to see new models make their debut in a SC, but it's not impossible. If I had to guess, I suspect they might do a box that comes with a warqueen, a bunch of Warcry folks, and something bigger like knights, a chariot, or maybe a warshrine. Alternatively, I could picture a SC! box that had the manticore hero kit in it as both the big model and the leader. Varanguard in a SC! box strikes me as really unlikely - unless the SC! box was unusually expensive.

Totally agree. It's gotten stronger and stronger as a setting, the models are great, and GW's decision to provide lots of accessible entry points seems to be paying off. While price rises sting a bit (though have to be understood in the context of 4-5 prior years without dramatic hikes), it's so much easier to get into fantasy Warhammer now than it used to be. I've got a couple of friends who have dipped their toes in the water with Underworlds (and now Warcry) and started building AoS armies from there. Easy-build models and (relatively) cheap starter sets are also much appreciated. Honestly, my only real concerns at the moment are more about the tenor of the community than anything GW are doing. I think there's a danger - as there is with any gaming community - associated with treating matched play as either the only way to play, or the only way that really 'matters'. That leads to balance frustrations (which are inevitable in any continually-updated, asymmetrical game) and the potential for negative experiences when people with different attitudes to the game collide (either across the tabletop or on forums like this.) While the concerns of competitive players are often completely valid, negativity has a tendency to drown out other perspectives and can make the community as a whole seem hostile or offputting. GW seem to be working hard to combat this with the community site, and the hobby/narrative/open play side of AoS is healthy and visible enough that it's not a critical issue yet, but I've definitely noticed a change in the 'feel' of the online AoS community since the competitive side of the game got really bedded in. That's not really a complaint - it's just another reason to be grateful for narrative event runners and everyone else who works to promote the variety of other things you can do with the ruleset.

Not sure about this. We know the price of Morghast Archai (£36) so that leaves guesses for the other stuff: Necropolis Stalkers - let's say £25, like Tzaangor Enlightened. Mortek Guard - probably £22.50-£25 for 10. Vokmortian - large hero, so probably £22.50 That would bring the Ossiarch half to about £106.

Hi Chris, just sent you an email with the details but unfortunately due to a last minute work trip I'm having to cancel. Very sorry about this, hope you can fill the spot.

I agree with this assessment of Underworlds! Also, I would add that I had total tactical decision paralysis in my first game of Warcry in a way that happens a bunch in Underlords and doesn't happen as often in AoS.

What you're describing is precisely a 'curbing' of the campaign snowball problem, not an outright solution to it. A 30% points advantage (ish) is a vastly more even proposition than the power differentials that can arise in Kill Team, Necromunda, or even Blood Bowl. It's probably going to be tough to win if you're behind, but: If you're describing a situation where one player has 1300 points and the other has 1000, then we're probably talking about a campaign veteran vs. a campaign newcomer, which is only one situation out of many possible ones. The twists and other special rules throw up a lot of weird situations. If you have loads of extra models to activate, you might end up giving me the opportunity to activate loads more neutral chaos beasts. This won't come up in every match, but it'll come up eventually. Underworlds doesn't have wildcard factors like this. Is it still uneven? Yes. But the potential for uneven matches is part of the appeal of a campaign format, rather than a tournament format. People like playing as the underdog sometimes, which is why Blood Bowl has halflings in it. Perfect balance is a quality that a game designer has the option to shoot for, but doesn't *have* to - it's not an absolute good. In fact, having a bit of measured imbalance is precisely how you avoid games becoming boring/repetitive.

I think this is mostly right, but there are a few things that aren't being factored in here: Characters act twice, and can perform actions in any order (i.e, everyone can effectively retreat and move/charge.) The initiative roll activates special abilities and lots of them are useful for opening up situations like this. Some situational examples: You tie up my Golems with chaff. One of them is the chain whip person. I've been saving up my wild dice in case you tried to do this, give myself a quad 6, and do flat 6 damage to every enemy around the chain whip, wiping out the screen and getting ahead. You might see this coming, however, and try to force me to use my dice in other ways, refuse to engage the whip, etc. You tie up my Untamed Beasts heavy-hitters with chaff. I disengage with the big cat and then use its leap ability to circumvent the blockers. Then the beastmaster character then gives it a bonus action, letting it do whatever it wants. The counterplay here would be to kill the beastmaster, but that means you're splitting your focus, etc, etc.

I came away with a good impression from the demo game I played in store this weekend. Figured it might be helpful to lay out some thoughts. The core game has a lot of Jervis Johnson to it. It's very much about movement and dice maths, with most of the complexity/skill coming from being able to recognise and capitalise on opportunities within a limited number of activations. Other than that, it's relatively rules-light compared to Necromunda or even Kill Team. It actually reminds me of Blood Bowl more than Mordheim in some ways. Warbands have particular tricks and strengths, but they all fit on a single card and they're fairly easy for both you and your opponent to wrap your head around. Very few 'actually, I've got this special rule'-type surprises. The really important thing is understanding how to create an opening, exploit it, and defend your advantage - that might feel a little abstract, but fighting to claim and hold an objective in three turns of Warcry felt a lot like breaking open a defense and making a run to the endzone in BB. The initiative dice system and the wild dice are the standout bits of design, for me. They introduce lots of mindgames and make rolling for initiative a really interactive moment where neither player really 'wins', just tries to build an advantage across a few different axes. You can cede the initiative but stock up on doubles/triples/quads for big ability combos. You can do the opposite and play for the first activation. Neither is abstractly better - it's all situational and a judgement call, which is great. Way better than 'going first is always best'. A few other subtle rules are really important too - the 'disengage' action, for example, limits you to a 3" move ending more than 1" from any enemy models. This is a really big deal because it introduces the idea that all characters are equal when disengaging. It doesn't matter quite so much how speedy your Untamed Beasts are after I've tagged you with an Iron Legionnaire - I'm going to slow you down, at least for your first action in that activation. This encourages you to create traps and chokepoints, rather than just stand on the objective and wait for opponents to come piling in - again, similar to Blood Bowl. The 'wait' action is also cool. You effectively give up an action, but being able to shunt a fighter to the end of the activation queue while leaving your other options open denies your opponent information and can lead to some tense moments. One thing I'd add is that the various scenario generation cards and extra features seem absolutely essential. I suspect a lot of players will be tempted to ignore the terrain layout suggestions, weird deployment positions/timings, and Chaos Beasts - don't. The game seems to be at its best when there's a bunch of factors in play that neither player has total control over. My game involved deployment from every board edge, hidden objectives, including characters coming in later in the game, and a massive Raptoryx with 30 health rampaging around in the backfield. Extra mechanics like this are how you avoid the 'run into the middle and fight' issue. I suspect that some players will bore themselves by deciding to avoid what feel like 'optional' rules, but are actually essential. I can't feed back on the campaign side, obviously, save to say that I kinda appreciate that they're not going too deep on gear or character progression. I definitely miss some of the sense of customisation that you get from Necromunda or Mordheim, but I suspect that Warcry has a stronger cure rules that work because listbuilding is less of a factor in who wins. Likewise, this is probably how you get a lot of people interested in playing skirmish games - it's way more accessible, the penalties for losing or falling behind are less severe, and you're not constantly having to add to or replace models as loadouts shift. Sorry for the essay! Overall, a very positive first impression.

I'd strongly recommend looking into movement trays. The new Apocalypse ones are very good, albeit pricey.

This used to be the case but was changed in Beasts of Chaos. Tzaangor now get +1 attack as long as the unit has 9 models or more, not +1 attack for every 9. They no longer scale quite as high in terms of possible attacks (though they still have plenty) but the buff is harder to remove. Also, yeah, as others have pointed out, they're 2 wound models with a 5+ save and 6+ ignore as long as the unit still has a model with a shield. Buffed-up Skullreapers are a pretty good counter, that being said, and their bravery isn't great so Khorgoraths could also be a decent option. Ideally both!

Elixia shows up in the early Realmgate Wars novels, I believe, and there's a silver banshee who aids the Stormcast. I think the important part is 'breathtaking and lifelike silver statuary' which is (a) new and (b) fits with rumours of a construct-based new Death faction. The next big thing is clearly coming from Chamon, one way or another. Everything revolved around Shyish in the long run-up to AoS 2.0, and something similar has been happening with the Realm of Metal all year - Carrion Empire and Looncurse are both set there, and it's constantly coming up in White Dwarf. Happy I've spent a year and a half building a 6'x4' Chamon board!

Great - I'm on the list now. Ta!

It's more likely that there was an issue with the specific shipment that the Sylvaneth stuff was in - something similar happened to Fantasy Flight Games back in 2016 or 2017 I believe. When these disputes flare up it doesn't necessary mean that every single container gets stopped, but it does increase the likelihood that goods get caught in customs limbo.

I suspect they probably wouldn't be allowed to release the book early even if they wanted to. If they put the digital version out months ahead of time, they would be actively undercutting independent stores that don't have the option to distribute it in that way. Aren't GW bound to release new products day-and-date with independent stores? I believe that's why they tend not to release new books/models early at events.

Hey Chris, just wanted to check - I sent money via PayPal on June 2nd, not worried but if you could confirm if I've got a spot either way that'd be ace!

According to the letter of the law, no - they're not listed in the Pitched Battle profiles booklet. However, they're still in the app - hence my confusion.

This also applies to the Gaunt Summoner with Chaos Familiars, who is not listed in the GHB 19 booklet but is still present under Matched Play in the app.

Might be worth pointing out that the stock issue isn't absolute - the big bundle is no longer available because certain colours (Black, White, Talassar Blue, Darkoath Flesh, Warp Lightning Green at the time of writing) have sold out their preorder allocation. Individual stores will still be getting all of these in next Saturday, and the rest of the range is available in the meantime.

I don't have an airbrush, but my trick was this: prime them with Leadbelcher spray. I appreciate that this sounds nuts, but a metallic basecoat tackles lots of the small details (chains, tricky angles on weapons, charms, chainmail, etc) and lets you concentrate on much easier areas of the miniature. Also, thinned down gold paint goes over silver very easily, making it relatively painless to pick out all that gold trim. Here's my block of 30 Tzaangor, Enlightened, and Skyfires, all done with this method: Here are the steps I took: Spray Leadbelcher Guilliman blue over metal areas (but not the weapon) Blue/Purple/Green shade in metal recesses (different shades for different batches to create variety in the unit) Contrasting Blue/Purple/Green shade on weapon Drybrush Necron compound over whole model Ulthuan Grey over skin (two coats - but it covers nicely) Guilliman blue over skin Contrasting Blue/Green/Purple shade in skin recesses Drybrush Fenrisian grey over skin Pallid Wych Flesh highlight on skin, teeth (optional) Rakarth Flesh basecoat over claws, skulls, beak and horns (covers nicely, even over metals) Retributor Armour basecoat over gold details (one coat, thin) Seraphim Sepia wash over gold and bone, including teeth Stormhost Silver highlight over metal/gold Agrax Earthshade over larger bone areas Ushabti Bone highlight over bone White Scar over eyes (including eyes on jewelry) Yellow wash over actual eyes, green wash over 'magic' eyes Incubi Darkness pupils Paint loincloth in same base colour as weapon shade (Green/Blue/Purple) Paint hair/feathers in contrasting colour to weapon/loincloth shade Shade feather roots in same base colour as weapon shade You could skip a bunch of these steps and end up with a solid result, I think. The key to this method is keeping each individual step as painless as possible to maintain momentum across large batches (I did all 30 Tzaangor as a single batch!)

Skatchnik's Warpcoven (140 points) 1 Warlock Bombardier 1 Warp Lightning Cannon 1 Doomwheel 1 unit of 3 Stormfiends In the first battle round, roll a dice each time a wound or a mortal wound is allocated to a model from this battalion. On a 5+ that wound or mortal wound is negated.

I do think a lot of the confusion stems from people referring to clans as 'allegiances', when that simply isn't the case any more. An allegiance in AoS grants you special rules, spell lores, command traits, and artifacts. All of that comes from Skaventide. The clans themselves are more like those 'Battleline if your general is...' rules, with a bunch of additional (admittedly complicated) factors. There is nothing stopping you creating a predominantly Skryre army with clanrats as your battleline: it just means that your Stormfiends won't count towards your battleline requirement. I think this is actually a pretty cool solution, because it provides a clear bonus to mono-clan armies while allowing for interesting mixed lists. You can break 'pure' Skryre allegiance, still take advantage of all of the Skryre artifacts and spells and command traits (but not the battalion), and in return gain access to every other Skaven unit without any other limits or penalties. If they'd instead written the clans as individual allegiances, the only way to achieve something similar would be to give them interlinking ally tables - and the balance there is incredibly hard to strike. If the list were restrictive, it doesn't fit the fiction and it'd heavily limit builds. If it were more open - if the clans could all ally with each other - then individual allegiances lose their identity and you'd probably never see a mixed Skaventide list.

Short version: yes. It's causing a lot of confusion that people have been referring to 'Skryre allegiance' when that doesn't actually exist - or at least, it doesn't work in the same sense that any other 'allegiance' in AoS works. There's only one Skaven allegiance - Skaventide. By default, Skaventide battleline options are Clan Rats and Stormvermin. Clan abilities - sparks, traits and artifacts for Skryre, in this case - are accessed by having Skryre heroes in a Skaventide army. NOT by having an all-Skryre army. If you have an all-Skryre army, you gain access to Stormfiends and Acolytes as battleline. You can also do this if your general is Masterclan, as long as every other unit in the army in Skryre. So the only choice to make is 'which set of battleline options do I want', because you can't mix and match them. You can make a 'Skryre' army by combining Skryre heroes with either clanrats/Stormvermin or Stormfiends/Acolytes. The strength of the former is that you've got a lot of versatility. The strength of the latter is that you can focus on the Skryre units (many of which benefit from synergies) and build towards the Skryre batallion (which doesn't include any non-Skryre units.) Hope that helps!

It could work like Tzaangor - the 40K kit has a small additional sprue with bolt pistols and chainswords, but is otherwise basically just the AoS kit. The same would easily work for plastic squigs.