swarmofseals

@Fred1245 you are absolutely correct that this book is a nerf, but beyond that I think you are way off base. I've been playing DoK almost exclusively against top tier lists for the last couple months, and the optimal pre-book DoK lists were utterly overpowered. The hero phase teleport basically made the faction a better version of KO, and don't get me started on the Lauchon/Mirror Dance/Morathi ******. That stuff absolutely needed to be taken out of the game. Once I realized how broken those builds were I focused on playing lower tier DoK lists that I thought were realistic representations of how the faction would play once these obviously overpowered abilities got nerfed. I was playing lots of tough opponents: lots of Fangs of Sotek Kroak lists, Teclis lists, Archaon/Kairos Tzeentch lists, Changehost, KO, and some oddball lists that are surprisingly decent like the Archaon/Katakros list that's been floating around. The only top tier army that I didn't really get much chance to test against was Idoneth. What I found is that the faction played absolutely fine and was competitive in most of these matchups. I think that all of your concerns have some basic validity to them, but they can be adapted to. If you just keep playing DoK the way you did before you are going to have a bad time, but I think if you take the time to learn the new rules you will find that DoK are still very competitive and might even still have some S tier builds.

Possibly. Depends quite a bit on the spell lore. With Bloodwrack Medusa/Shrine coming down so much though it'll be a hard sell.

It's not two separate dice rolls. The ability only has you roll a dice once. The "in addition" clause still applies to the original dice roll. If it was a second roll it would read "in addition, roll another dice..." Definitely a big nerf to Hag Queens regardless. Witch Aelf change isn't too big. With double knives and no witchbrew the average damage is the same. With bucklers or witchbrew damage is down by about 10%.

This isn't nearly as bad as hand of dust. Instantly killing a 5 wound hero is not that amazing. There are so many things that kill small heroes easily, and I don't see this appreciably increasing that. Hand of Dust is a terrible mechanic because it has a 50% chance of killing, say, Archaon. If your 5 wound hero gets killed it doesn't basically decide the game on the spot.

Gotta wait until we have all the info, but I'm definitely a bit concerned that DoK will be too good with these point changes.

Khailebron and Hagg Narr both seem like obvious choices but Khelt Nar seems like it could be sneaky good. Retreat and charge is super powerful, especially with Morathi.

that Mindrazor buff is massive. Catechism nerf not so big imo. Avatar already animates on t3 right?

I don't think "endless prayers" can typically be moved by the opponent, but I suppose never say never until we get the full rules!

@Chumphammer keep in mind that the heart sounds like it will be a prayer given that it is described that way in the flavor text. That makes it a LOT more viable as it should be both more reliable and also doesn't have the opportunity cost of giving up a spell cast (unless our priests get much better warscroll prayers, of course) EDIT: obviously a lot depends on what the other parameters are, but assuming this is really all the heart does and it summons on a reasonable prayer value I think at 10-40 points it will be in all of my lists, at 50-80 points it'll probably make most of my lists and at 90+ points I'll probably have to think about it pretty hard. The 12" range is restrictive, certainly, but I think if you set it up centrally it will work quite well. It'll also work fabulously in Morathi/Stalkers lists where they pretty much have to come at your big stalker block or lose.

@JackStreicher Khinerai would be way too good at their current cost if they had 2w each. ___________ As always the usefulness of these endless spells and/or prayers will depend on their cost, range, casting value etc. That said the heart looks VERY strong to me. You will occasionally have matchups where it doesn't do much, but nearly all opponents have at least some multi damage sources. And against some armies it will be flat-out game winning. I suspect it will be something like 1/3 of matches it will be game-defining, 1/3 it will be useful, and 1/3 it will be pretty bad. I suspect that unless it's super expensive it'll be worth including.

I think that of the three rules previewed the heart is by far the best. Of course it will come down to cost, casting values, and ranges as well. If the sword one has a short range it won't be very good. D3 MW is nothing special, and removing cover is pretty niche. The snake one is pretty strong, although it will again depend on cost and range. It's basically straight 3 MW against 1 wound troops and gets much better against 2-4 wound troops, putting out an average of 5-6 MW against those wound characteristics. Also keep in mind that it's a slay effect and not actual MW, so it will bypass ward saves and other damage prevention methods. EDIT: also, I love the new Kurnothi model. If a future Kurnothi faction has a lot of models with this kind of design as opposed to the mohawk design I'll be a very happy camper

I'm honestly not sure what changes I'd want to Khinerai to make me want to use them currently. Battleline would clearly be nice as it would allow cheaper battleline tax for lists that don't want to run three units of our regular offerings, but aside from that it's tricky trying to turn them into a main battle unit. It's very tough to make a super fast, core building block type unit that's also balanced. If it's efficient enough to be the backbone of your army, there's a good chance that speed will make it OP. But if it's balanced for its speed it probably isn't efficient enough to be the backbone. Eels are a great example of this.

Please no XD the last thing we need is more Hand of Dust type mechanics.

Voted agnostic, but I think I'd generally prefer the 10-30% range. That being said I want to point out that the poll choice descriptions create a false dichotomy between "objectives" play and "annihilation" play. The two are mutually supporting in the way the game is constructed now. Just because I like a high casualty rate (10-30%) doesn't mean I want a game focused on killing -- rather I think that the most exciting games are the ones where both sides are in tatters by the end, and this tends to lend itself to a close finish even in objectives based play. Similarly, a super low attrition rate is actually HORRIBLE for objectives play, because the game then devolves into whomever gets onto the objectives first wins. For objective play to work you have to be able to dislodge the opponent from objectives quickly enough to swing the score back in your favor, and in a low-kill design that does not work well unless it is supported by other means of pushing enemy units around the table (which is very rare in AOS). I think a low model count, low attrition design would work well if there are significant mechanics to push enemy units around. If there was a morale system akin to a cross between Kings of War and WHFB that could work nicely -- units might have a morale bar, and attacks might inflict casualties, morale damage, or a mix of the two. The lower a unit's morale gets the more likely it is to break. You might be able to heal morale by winning combats, using hero abilities and the like. If you want to make it really crunchy you can push it into a Darklands type morale system where units can actually get too confident, causing them to become bloodthirsty and charge forward. I think this would make for an absolutely fantastic system if it was well developed, but it would be a hugely different game than the way AOS is now.

With current warscrolls and current points values, Witch Aelves/Sisters of Slaughter and Blood Sisters are nearly identical in terms of defensive efficiency. I don't think changes to the FNP (if there are any) will change the viability of one approach without changing the viability of the other.

Yes, if I ever pull the trigger on this concept I am going to be going through a lot of Molotow Liquid Chrome. Yeah, the Seekers and Mymidesh are rough. I really hate the 5 model elite infantry pricing trend. Seekers are a bit pricey but if current currency conversion trends continue they will be only $5 more than Dawnriders which doesn't seem too bad to me. The rest of the prices seem really quite nice though. Archers look to translate to $50 per 10 which is pretty in line with units like Shadow Warriors/Sisters of the Watch, and the Slaangors are comparable to Immortis Guard/Necropolis Stalkers. Glutos is hard to tell, but I'm guessing he will be $115-120 which is what I was hoping for. Was afraid that he'd be another $170 model like Teclis. Sigvald and the heroes look very reasonable as well. I agree with your conclusion, too. I really love the seekers, but if they are $65 per box I'll probably try to get them on the secondary market if a full mounted army is viable. But Glutos and Sigvald are priced nicely enough that I'll probably pick them up even if I don't get the army.

A couple of years back I wanted to start a Mad Max: Fury Road inspired Slaanesh army with mostly seeker riders and chariots and possibly a war mammoth centerpiece. But then the tome came out and focused so much on heroes that I abandoned the idea. Now with even more mounted Slaanesh kits and an absolutely perfect Immortan Joe stand-in it's like GW is taunting me XD

@Overread, yeah I was looking at that and decided that I couldn't conclusively tell one way or the other, but I suspect that you are correct. It's VERY rare (never?) to see GW kits with duplicated torsos and legs. I expect that these won't fit cleanly on existing seekers, but it may be possible with a little effort. If the riders can't be duplicated, however, then I'm not really sure why you'd want to.

One thing I'm wondering is what the sprues for the Seekers look like. It's hard to tell from the pics, but it looks like the riders might not share too many parts, which might allow you to kitbash both builds using old steeds from spare daemonette seekers or hellstriders. I kinda doubt that this will be possible, but it would be an interesting value option to explore if you're on a budget.

I'm wondering this as well

I'm a little surprised that people think of the medusae as a hero tax. They aren't as brutally efficient as Hag Queens, perhaps, but I've had them do pretty good work. With the artefact they are a bit more reliable at casting Mindrazor than Morathi is and the gaze attack is no joke.

I have a couple of different takes on this. If we assume that the game stays largely the same in other aspects (eg: the way battleplans work, number of models on the table), then I think I favor early focused losses, although perhaps with the peak coming in turns 2 and 3 instead of turns 1 and 2. The reason for this are twofold. With the current battleplan model, if you are behind on VP you really need to start tipping the scale no later than turn 3. If the losses are backweighted or even it will mean that games are likely to be decided VPwise before much of the action happens, and the big swings will all be movement related rather than combat related. The second factor is time. Early attrition helps the later turns go more quickly, which is very important especially in tournament settings with current model counts. The game would be a huge drag if both players were pushing around most of their armies for 3 full turns before starting to take real losses. If we assume that the game overall is adapted to accommodate the pace of attrition then I'd like to see a more even pace such that the key turns tend to happen in 3/4/5. I think games like this are more exciting, but like I said above the rest of the way the game is designed just wouldn't work well with this model.

It's 2d6 added together, but at the double makes the result of the whole thing 6. I think the part that you are missing is that at the double "treats the run roll as a 6". Whenever the result of a "roll" is referenced in AOS it's talking about the total sum of the dice in that roll. So the result of a casting roll is generally the sum of 2d6. Most of the time the result of a run roll is only 1d6 but in the case of the Ironscale ability the "run roll" is the sum of 2d6. So in this specific case At the Double treats the run roll (the sum of 2d6) as 6. If At The Double said "change the result of any dice used in the run roll to 6" then indeed it would make the run roll a 12.

No, it would be a 6 inch run not a 12. "The run roll" refers to the entire roll, not each die individually. So if you roll <6 you can still use at the double to make it a 6. But you can't make it an auto 12.

The person that I was responding to was claiming that smaller points increments couldn't possibly help improve game balance. I provided a counter-argument. I'm not trying to make any particular case about how much of the balance problem is due to rounding vs other issues. If you're committed to being fatalistic and assuming that no progress is possible -- that GW is totally inept and incapable of improvement -- then I apologize if those of us who have been working to provide constructive and systematic feedback don't take you very seriously. No, fixing rounding problems will not have a huge impact on game balance as it stands currently. I do think it would have some impact, but not a big one. However, in the context of other improvements, reducing rounding error will be an important part of improving and maintaining good balance. EDIT: apologies to @Overread, was typing this when you posted your message!