Requizen

Well, you can use the ability to pile in, but a pile in move is only 3" and must go towards the closest enemy model. So if you are 12" away from a target, yes you can pile in, but you move 3", and attack with all viable weapons (which are none). Basically it just gives you a 3" move for a Command Point, which is not worthwhile... most of the time. "A unit can make a pile-in move if it is within 3" of an enemy unit or has made a charge move in the same turn. If this is the case, you can move each model in the unit up to 3". Each model must finish its pile-in move at least as close to the nearest enemy model as it was at the start of the move." The first sentence tells you what unit is eligible to make the pile in move. The second and third sentences tell you how to make a pile in move. The Command Ability essentially overrides the first sentence by expressly giving permission to make the move, so you don't need to check, you just make it as told in sentences 2 and 3. As for your "Ability to charge a unit that ran", always remember this - Specific trumps General. If there was an ability that, for some reason, said 'Use this Command Ability in the Shooting Phase. A friendly unit within 6" can make a Charge Move', then it wouldn't matter if you Ran, because it's telling you to make the action.

Neither requirements are needed to use the Anvils CA. The "within 3 inches" and "made a charge move" requirments are for selecting a unit to Pile In in the Combat Phase, telling you which ones are eligible. The Command Ability tells you to make the Pile In move and Attack, full stop.

You could already do this with existing sets, however. Previous sets came with 10 Faction Upgrades, 10 Faction Gambits, 9 Faction Objectives, 10 Universal Upgrades, 10 Universal Gambits, and 11 Universal Objectives. You could purchase, say, Mollog's Mob, take all the faction cards, pick 3 Universal Objectives from the box, and have a legal setup. The only change is now you can have a full set of Faction-Specific Objectives instead of a mix.

This sort of pile in shenanigan is still doable, it's the base rule of how pile-ins work. The Gristlegore rule changed, however, so it's no longer necessary as they don't strike first always anymore.

The leader and one of the bros have ranged weapons, so them charging on 1 is pretty easy. The melee guys, a bit more difficult without getting too risky. Remember, there might also be Ploys that place Charge tokens. Perhaps something like Sprint that gives a huge boost but places a Charge Token at the end, but we'll have to wait and see.

As for Hold Objective decks, it will depend on how easy flipping those Objectives is. There are already ways to remove objectives from the board (at least one spell and ploy, some other Faction-specific), but it's not common and requires setup. The removal of a lot of the anti-Objective cards such as Earthquake, Mischevious Spirits, Shifting Objectives, Distraction, etc helps Hold Objective decks as well (pending reprints, of course). I think Objective Thorns and Gitz have some interest right now, but we'll see once we know more of the Universal cards in the core set.

The quickest way to know legality is to look at the logo on the packaging and/or looking at the set symbol on the card. If the box logo says "Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire" and has the Shadespire/Leaders icon, and it's a Universal card, it's rotating out (reprinted cards nonwithstanding). If the box says "Warhammer Underworlds: Nightvault" and has the Nightvault/Power Unbound icon, it's still in play. While Garrek and Steelheart were initially printed during Shadespire, their standalone boxes are Nightvault boxes and are therefore still legal. Hope this helps!

This is my feeling too. The Spire Stalkers are good, but the Shrike is basically a straight upgrade. The weakness is losing the utility of Swift Climb, which is actually super useful overall for a double. Especially on clustered maps where Stalkers can just move however they want, while the Talon has to climb and jump.

Looks like 25mm for the linemen

To an extent, local meta dependent. If your area wants to use it, then it's in play. And if the options therein are strong enough that you're gimped by not using it... it's no longer optional. That said, I have a good amount of faith in Specialist Games, and Warcry is very good so far. I'm not all gloom and doom, but I am just cautious.

I'm a bit leery. Game isn't old enough to need an expansion yet, and tbh it feels quite balanced and nice with the current rules. I hope the stuff in M&M is optional or at least mostly focused on Narrative/Open. We've quite been enjoying Matched right now and I don't want people to get annoyed with bloat.

Assuming these guys are going to be allies with LoN, I can see bringing in some blobs of Skellies/Zombies/Chainrasps. They're not the best without the 6+ or Gravesites, but it's still cheap bodies which will work well with this army I bet (if nothing else just to blob down for the Catapult to shoot or Mortarch to sweep in).

I've had some great games with the Cabal so far, but I'm thinking of a second box for another Shrike Talon and more Spear Cabalists. I feel that these guys are quite good out of the box, but I might optimize to something like: Shadow Piercer Shrike Talon Shrike Talon Spire Stalker Cabalist with Familiar Cabalist with Spear Cabalist with Spear Cabalist with Spear Lose out on one model comparatively, but gain mobility and positional flexibility, which I think is worthwhile. Could even drop another Cabalist and Stalker for a third Talon, but that might be going too Elite for my tastes.

I'm curious how these guys fit on the Elite <-> Horde scale. The linemen don't look like you'll be running 100 of them on the table at once (though someone will try it), to me they look like they'll be relatively elite, with the shield bros seeming fairly equivalent to Liberators and only having shown off elite units so far. I'm also prepared for the Horsemen to be terrible, which sucks because those models are pretty great. There's only like, ~5 truly viable cavalry units in the game from my experience, so I'm ready for these ones to be underwhelming too. Or, broken, but likely not anywhere between.

Accidentally glued the "optional" bits on the Statue Head and Bell Tower... Sad times Thanks for the link to the ruins, though!

Worth consideration, but I was also balancing the defensive nature of Protectors as well. Being a bit harder for shooters to kill is a big deal. I think if I was going Desolators, the Astral Templar Ballista build would be much more appealing.

There's a lot of places in the States that don't adopt it either, for one reason or another. It's much more prominent in 40k, however. I've honestly started looking at Protectors to replace Evocators in my Anvilstrike. 80 points is a big difference, and while the damage output is lower overall (though super nice vs Monsters), I find a lot of my worst matchups are ones with shooting attacks that can hit my Evos/Longstrikes before they can do their thing. It's not super common, but there are awkward matchups vs SCE Ballistas, mass Arkanaut Skyhooks, Mixed Order Artillery, or Skyfires. Having a bit of a boost against that is potentially useful, especially if they become more common to face against FEC and Slaanesh.

It's especially great for Stormcast, now we can put shooting into the Arch-Regent and then countercharge the AGKoTG, which can give more flexibility on how to approach the matchup. My Anvilstrike feels much more comfortable in the matchup, as well as with shutting down Warp Lightning Vortex.

I would wait until after the FAQ to worry too much about FEC and Skaven.

Anyone playing with Ruinbringers? I'm interested in nice fast armies, and a Knight, Marauder Horsemen, and Chariot based army sounds pretty cool.

Very disagree with this. I could easily make a Slaanesh army from their book that a beginner might make and lose 9/10 games with it. Are the overall Allegiance Abilities for some armies just stronger? Perhaps, though I believe it would be more correct to think that certain Allegiance Abilities are more conducive to the obvious or popular playstyle. More streamlined, for lack of a better word, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are "better". I don't think it's bad for some armies to be easier to pick up and play than others, though of course it would be preferable if all armies had Allegiance Abilities that were designed to work together as nicely. Every army in the game is going to have "good builds" and "bad builds". That's why list building (or for many, netlisting) is an important part of the game that separates players as much as in game decision making. For some armies, this is very straightforward - it's easy to look at Gristlegore's command ability, then look at the AGoTG, and then look at Feeding Frenzy, and put two and two together. For something like Anvilstrike or Astral Templars, the idea of mixing and matching chambers with Heroes that aren't necessarily "intuitive" to put together might require a few more steps of logic. This statement in particular I'm not fond of. While it can be frustrating to see someone who is not thinking their game through as much as you perform better, due to an army that is easier to pilot or perhaps one that they just intuit a bit easier, that does not to me indicate a weak army. As I said above, I don't think there's anything wrong with certain armies being easier to pick up and play, and by the same logic there's nothing wrong with armies being more difficult to achieve victory with. It's a bit crude to say "git gud" when talking about this point, but it's not far off base. The thing with these conversations is that it's very easy to conflate "regular AoS" with "competitive AoS". If you're Timmy, buying Stormcast because they're cool and you don't pilot them well and lose, that's one thing. But that's not a good argument when it comes to someone who buys the army with the intent to compete - if one is playing with that mindset, they should do some research and playtesting to see if they like the army or mesh well enough with the playstyle, rather than wanting it to change to suit their own desires. Though that is mostly my opinion, as I've seen people buy and sell many armies for that very reason, and have done so myself more than once. An army needing to play well to achieve similar results doesn't mean that army is bad. That's simply the way some armies are. I know there's some shaky ground when comparing to video games, but there are plenty of instances in games like LoL, DOTA, Starcraft, etc, where things that are more difficult to play are still utilized because people enjoy the playstyle or challenge, even if the results are similar to less mechanically difficult alternatives. I don't think we should have to hold Warhammer to a different standard.

Not my list, I only saw the Desolators and the Ballistas.

The +1 from the Tauralon is great in practice but usually pretty hard to pull off as you need to fly over the unit. Tbh I've been thinking of ways to get the new Celestial Hurricanum without Wizard into one of these lists, it's just so good for 300 points.

Held a one day tourney, had a couple SCE players show up (I was ringing with Bonesplitterz). Two with Gav, one with Astral Templars. All of them went 2-1, but the Astral Templars list in particular raised a lot of eyebrows. 6 Desolators and 4 Ballistas is pretty messy against anything that doesn't have mass blocking or MW output. I think that's a reasonable build going forward, though with some testing and tweaking. Desolators just feel straight up better than Dracovators for the points, especially now that Places of Arcane Power doesn't do Wizard scoring anymore (unless they use the 2018 version). Though the extra dispel and cheeky MW output is, of course, always quite powerful.

It is bad when forced to fight last, but in armies that have such mechanics it isn't ubiquitous, other than Turn 3 Idoneth. Gristlegore is only on the one Hero, and you'll shoot him. Slaanesh is only when Heroes do the Locus, and maybe some other mechanics, but overall you should not necessarily be charging combat Heroes who can force you to go last. Gitz have the spell, but that should be able to be shot or outranged, depending on situation. If more and more come out, I might agree, but the things that do activation wars right now can be dodged or shot before they can do their things