Requizen

Imagine Duardin getting Legions of Nagash style Battletome where there's 4 separate Allegiances, each with their own Artifacts/Traits - one for mixed, one for each subgroup. And each one is somehow viable. What? A man can dream

Now the question is: Battletome Fyreslayers or Battletome Duardin Soup?

There's already precedent for units being available across Allegiances. Chaos specifically - Pestilens are usable as both Nurgle and Skaventide allegiance, Mortals are usable in Slaves as well as any God-Allegiance, and Beasts have Battaltions to go into God-Allegiance armies. Death has overlap between Nighthaunt and Legions as well. They could easily add Keywords to certain Order units to make them available in other Allegiances. Maybe Dispossessed, Free Peoples, and some Aelves (probably not Wanderers or Dark Aelves, but at least some High Aelves) could be used in a "Free Cities" Tome and then there could be a separate Tome for Dispossessed-only or Duardin-only.

Usually after in a single post, GAMA was different since they had reveals throughout the whole event. Badge Pickup opens at 7, the Preview Panel is slated to start at 8 per the event site, so likely the whole thing will take about an hour and then post everything on Community. Can't wait, so close! And then a whole 4 days of gaming...

I don't think the previous WD Battalions had points, so they're not usable in Matched anyways.

Well now that's a rumor right there

Being able to enjoy a losing game is a skill to cultivate, but also winning with grace and giving your opponent a good time is also a trick that many people lack, so it's good that he's that type of player. It's easy to just play out and stomp your opponent with no recompense, especially if your list is more honed than theirs, but being a likable winner is I think a skill that most Warhammer players could stand to learn.

Isn't Stormvault that SCE board game that they showed off at GAMA?

Well I don't count pre-GHB Battletomes. Ironjawz, Fyreslayers, etc don't have Allegiance Abilities, Artifacts, Command Traits, Spells, or subfactions, so they're basically just books for Battalions. Aelves, Free Peoples, Dispossessed, Fyreslayers, Seraphon, Slaanesh, Slaves to Darkness/Everchosen, Ironjawz, Gutbusters have either no Allegiance Abiliites/Artifacts/etc, or only half-versions from GHB.

I'll be there but will be playing more than roaming. I would live-post from the preview panel but it'll all be on the Community site a few minutes later I actually try to leave the GW guys alone at these types of events. You can tell they're happy to chat, but also running from panel to panel and being harangued every step of the way has to be tiring for them, so I try to give them space. Duncan especially literally can't leave a room without people wanting selfies and autographs, it's like being a Hollywood celebrity for a weekend.

I would go so far as to say any Battletome prediction this year is something like a ~90% of being right. Last year they promised to get all 40k Codices up to date. They got 11 out the door over the course of the year, while also dropping AoS2 and various other things. There's 9 factions with no Battletome, and 5 with pre-AoS2 Battletomes. I think they could get most or even all of them done before 2020, maybe Q1 2020 at the latest.

Yep, you remember right: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/06/03/3rd-june-faction-focus-grotsgw-homepage-post-3/ Beasts were also shown off as combined. Gutbusters and Beastclaw are separate articles from the AoS2 preview stuff, so I'm guessing they stay separate: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/06/05/faction-focus-index/ The Gutbuster article doesn't show any combined units, but does list a lot of units that are no longer available... I wonder if we'll see new models for them.

I think this time of year they don't post much online because so many conventions/tournaments with reveal nights are happening. LVO, GAMA, Adepticon, etc - they want to save the big things for those preview panels so it's a bit slow.

Were they listed separately on the ageofsigmar website or just on the web store? After the site update with AoS2, they've not changed those 25 factions afaik.

I very much agree. Grots/Trolls also didn't have Allegiance Abilities prior to Gloomspite, so maybe they're in for as big of an overhaul as Gitz were, though I'm not sure how much they can really change the rules without adding new models or at least updating some of the metal/resin ones that nobody wants.

Assuming that the Black Label AoS Battletomes are considered "up to date", aka built with AoS2 in mind or after AoS2, that would be everything Nurgle and forward. Here's a list of Factions that aren't considered "up to date", per the Faction list on AoS website. Factions that have no rules: Gutbusters (ouch) Factions that have pre-GHB Battletomes and/or GHB Allegiance Abiliites: Aelves*, Free Peoples, Dispossessed, Fyreslayers, Seraphon, Slaanesh, Slaves to Darkness/Everchosen, Ironjawz Factions that have pre-Black Label Battletomes: Kharadron Overlords, Sylvaneth, Tzeentch, Bonesplitterz, Beastclaw Raiders I would assume they want to push the second category the hardest, considering that's what happened with Nighthaunt, FEC, Skaven, Beasts of Chaos. Those are factions they obviously want to push as "AoS Factions", and Fyreslayers/Ironjawz/Seraphon are lines that they love to show off. Gutbusters... I would not be surprised if they got absorbed into Beastclaw, but they're still technically listed as their own Faction, so who knows. The last category on one hand feels like it doesn't need to be updated, but at the same time those are flagship Factions (or at least very popular ones), and updating the Tomes is an easy win for GW to bring everything in line. That's already what happened with SCE and Blades of Khorne, so a quick reprint of Sylvaneth or Tzeentch with Endless Spells would be a safe bet. It sucks a lot for KO because they were released right before the new direction and it really shows. They have some of the new stuff (Skyports giving out free rules with restrictions like Stormhosts/etc), but a lot of the older stuff as well and the design feels a bit of a mess. I would not be surprised to see them get a new Tome, but it must be super annoying for people who bought it not even 2 years ago now. So, not necessarily a rumor, but just an interesting note of how things look now in the Faction-to-Battletome setting. *Aelves have a couple different Allegiance Abilities in GHB, but so did Skaven and they got Soup'd, so I would assume the same thing for Aelves in their eventual Tome.

Murderhost doesn't do that anymore, and there are various changes that will make the matchup quite different. Ballistas, Hurricane Raptors, and Evos/Paladins are excellent at clearing hordes of 'letters. What you want to do against fast killy melee like that is create multiple lines of conflict. Sacrificing less important models (Libs, Aetherwings, Allies, even Judis) so the important stuff in your army can get more shooting or get an effective countercharge is the tactic to use. If they charge in and kill 5 Libs but you countercharge with 10 Protectors and wipe the unit, that's the ticket right there.

Must be nice to have figured out the game to such a point that nothing matters anymore. Confidence is key, especially when you're not actually right.

Preview is 8 PM CST, which is 1 AM in UK (dunno other Euro time zones). Might just want to wake up to the community post

Best 50 point unit in the game. I'm gonna start bringing my Vanguard Justicar Hurricane list and making people forget all about Gavriel Sureheart.

Mine are probably better at winning, but I assume they're much worse at making friends I do like the idea of double Ballista at 1k, in fact I think that Sacrosanct list with the Sequitors is probably quite solid overall.

I mean, just put a Stormcast with a Boltstorm Crossbow on one of the Seraphons crazy starships and it's basically the same thing

I'm a very high win percentage with my Stardrake 1000 point list. Lord Celestant on Stardrake (Smouldering Helm or Ignax's Scales) Lord Castellant Knight-Incantor (Azyrite Halo) or Lord-Relictor (Translocation) Liberators Liberators Smouldering Helm + Incantor gives a bunch of reflecting mortal wounds, Relictor + Scales gives more durability. Either way, most things in the game can't deal with a Stardrake at 1000 points, though I guess if you hit double Thundertusk you might have a bad day. You could also do something really mean like: Gavriel Sureheart Castellant Knight Vexillor Liberators Liberators 20x Sequitors Hunting Hound (lol 20 points) 940/1000 (+1 CP) Guess what stands up to 20 auto-charging Sequitors at 1k? Nothing. Or swap the Sequitors for 10 Evocators, get much of the same effect but potentially lose more friends.

That's the way it's always worked, but it's good they've laid it out for people who were still confused.

Crossbow Judicators and Hurricane Raptors are two of our best damage options for shooting point for point. However, it's the range that really gets them. Judis needing to be within 12" is extremely dangerous, since they'll usually explode in combat. Hurricanes with 18" is better, since they're relatively safe from most counter-charges (especially if they drop with Aetherwings), but it's still quite risky and the dice rolls for that unit can be quite swingy. Both are really solid if you have ways to support them, either with other close drops (Gav or Skyborne) or with super fast units coming up to support them (Stardrake, Dracovators). Castigators... are interesting. They're extremely efficient against Daemons and Nighthaunt, which are both relatively popular in the meta at the moment, but are fairly lacking against everything else. The Rend-2 shooting is pretty interesting to bring for occasional Hero hunting as well, if you can drop near a smaller Hero with 6-12 of them you can usually light it up a fair amount. They're not... bad, but they're definitely not significantly better at any other shooting unit for the points. Basically I think of our shooting units like this: Bow Judis: Good generalists for camping objectives while shooting at longer range, also fill out Battleline slots. XBow Judis: Very solid damage output but suffer from low range. A really good option within Skyborne Slayers, where you can drop them behind a big wall of dudes and shoot away. Hurricane Raptors: Good for damage output, safer than XBow Judis but riskier than Longstrikes. Good for hunting smaller units or annoying melee units. Drop in the middle of the board with Aetherwings for maximum annoyance. Longstrike Raptors: Hero and Monster Hunters. Range and MWs are the main thing - they're not good at clearing units but they will cripple the important units in your opponent's army. Range makes them really frustrating for some opponents to deal with. Much better in Anvils than not. Ballistas: Good if you commit. One or two is meh, three or four with an Ordinator makes your opponent weep. Reliant on getting to close range, but enemies also usually come towards you anyways. Castigators: Don't really do anything better than above units. Not heavy damage dealers like Crossbows or Ballistas, not long ranged threat like Longstrikes or Bows, no debuffing or other shenanigans. Their best use is as an MSU unit, bringing 3 or 4 units of three to scatter about and force your opponent to spread... but that's kind of it.