swarmofseals

@MetaphoricDragon welcome! I think the biggest and most immediate question is what you your goals are. Do you want to be competitive, or are you just trying to come up with a workable configuration given what you have?

@spenson I've just started trying out more defensively oriented Hallowheart lists -- different from what you posted but in the same ballpark. Still working on various configurations but I think the idea has real legs.

I asked this a bit upthread, or maybe it was in the OWC thread. Long story short there aren't many 3rd party options, but some of the OOP gw orc shamans are decent, and kitbashes can be great. I love @skinko's work above!

@Overread -- great breakdown! I just want to expand on a few things: Secondhand is incredible if you are patient, but it won't help much if you need to buy/sell quickly. Some corollaries below: Avoid hobby ADHD and understand what drives it. New releases are built on hype, and that hype tends to cause people to pick up parts of a new army at release time. Many of those people end up never completing the army and it either ends up rotting away in a pile of shame or ends up for sale for a fraction of what the seller originally paid. Avoid ever buying an army at release unless you are absolutely certain you want to commit to it. Instead, wait a while and see if the army is what you expect it to be -- and then pick up your stuff at a discount from someone who bought in early and abandoned the project. If you are entirely a hobbyist and don't care about playing the game, then just don't let unbuilt or unpainted models accumulate ever. I know that is easier said than done, but aside from limited edition and OOP stuff the older something is the easier it is to pick up secondhand for cheap. There is no need to buy something now for more $$$ when you can get the same thing later when you are actually ready to build and paint it (and likely at a discount). If you like to actually play the game, GET TABLETOP SIMULATOR NOW. I can't stress this enough. It is slightly awkward to use at first but after even just a few hours of practice you'll probably find that it plays about as well as the actual game. Some aspects are slower and more awkward (movement, particularly over terrain) while others are enormously faster (dice rolling). In fact, dice rolling is so much better on TTS that when I start playing in person again I will likely fire up TTS and use it to roll the dice for my actual physical games. Anyway, it's a $20 purchase, so basically the cost of a single cheap finecast hero. It very likely will not replace tabletop gaming for you (nor am I advocating that), but what it will do is allow you to try out new factions and new builds extensively before you purchase. This will save you a lot of time and money in the long run. You can make a purchase with the confidence of knowing that you enjoy playing the army and that the build you settle on plays the way you expect it to. No longer will you buy, build, and paint a big unit (or worse yet, an army) only to find that it doesn't work the way you hoped. If you follow these guidelines, you will be able to get the most out of the secondary market and rarely end up with purchases that just sit in a closet collecting dust. No matter if you are buying GW stuff, 3rd party models, or 3d printing the secondary market can be a great way to stretch your budget. EDIT: A few people have suggested starting with a smaller game type like Warcry, Skirmish, or Underworlds. I think if you are inherently interested in these games then absolutely yes do this. But if you really want to play AOS as a complete game, I strongly recommend against it. Instead, get TTS like I suggested above. That will allow you to start learning, building your skill level, and narrowing down what you actually want to buy as opposed to buying models/rules for one system that you might not even use in the system you actually want to play.

I wouldn't really ascribe motivation to the way the data is presented. It's MUCH more likely that whomever wrote the article just made an arbitrary cutoff and ran with it. While I generally like articles like this (and am hopeful that their quality will improve over time), I think your friend's reaction does highlight the downside. I think a lot of gamers aren't really honest with themselves about their motivations. There are loads of casual or semi-competitive players who will convince themselves that they should care about the high level competitive metagame when they'd be much happier if they didn't stress about it. If your friend is playing Sylvaneth and had some notion that they might be anything other than low tier at the moment then I have a hard time imagining that he's really a serious competitive player. If he were playing competitively he would already know that Sylvaneth aren't in a great place right now. If he's not playing competitively, then why is he worried about 5 round tournament results? If he does well enough with Sylv for this article to upend his personal impressions, then what is there to worry about? Clearly Sylvaneth is fine in the context of the games he actually plays.

I'll also note that top 5 is a super arbitrary cutoff for a 5 round event. At 32 players top 5 includes 4 4-1s and leaves 1 4-1 out. At 64 players it leaves out 7 4-1s while including 3. It's just not a sensible metric to make any kind of real judgment about success.

Back to obvious trolling, I see. Tzeentch is top tier, OBR is still very solid, and Orruk Warclans have many good builds. And over the past few years the most complained about armies have been DoK, Idoneth, FeC, Tzeentch, OBR, and Slaanesh.

The sample size is far too small for the data to be particularly meaningful especially without data reflecting how frequently each faction was played. Like, does anyone think that DoK is bottom tier? It may not be at the tip top of the pile anymore but it's far from the bottom. If this particular sample of tournaments only had a handful of DoK players then it could easily seem to be a bad army based on this metric. Also, top 5 finishes is a really strange metric. Even at a relatively low size of 32 players (for a 5 round event) "top 5" is generally going to cut off 1 of the 4-1 players arbitrarily. At 64 players top 5 probably captures 2 5-0s and 3 out of 10 4-1s. Depending on the size of these events the arbitrary cutoff of "top 5" could dramatically skew the data.

@Tezia99 @Jackroks981 I agree with Tezia99's sentiments. Big Waaagh seems like a better option, and the Wurrgog Prophet's spell (with the casting bonuses available in Big Waaagh) can take out large chunks of Mortek Guard in one go. Like Tez said, arrowboys give you an answer to Gothizzar Harvesters if your opponent brings those. They aren't very good at taking out Mortek though (at least in Katakros lists). Even regular Savage Orruks can do good work tarpitting Mortek Guard. They can be buffed up as high as a 3+ save in melee with 2 wounds apiece and a 6+ shrug, so while they won't really do much damage to the Mortek Guard they can at least hold the line for a while. Another thing worth considering is a Rogue Idol. While the Megaboss on Maw Krusha with the -3 rend artefact is going to do more damage, the Rogue Idol can still do plenty of work and can be incredibly tanky. It can be buffed to an effective 1+ save rerolling 1s with a 5+ mw shrug allowing it to tank Mortek Guard basically forever. Even rend 2 damage has a tough time getting through it. Breath of Gorkamorka allows it to get wherever it needs to go, and it can still get +1 damage from the Warchanter (not to mention 3d6 charge and/or Fixin Beat). I think a Big Waaagh list with a unit of 30 Savage Orruks or Arrowboys, a Wurrgog Prophet, a Wardokk, a Rogue Idol and the rest Ironjawz could be quite good against OBR.

Are you fully committed to playing pure IJ?

He is talking about the possibility of the reroll saves triumph

The "attacks ignore" refers to the part of the rule that negates the ethereal rule, not the separate second part of the rule ("in addition..."). The second part of the rule instead refers to "wounds inflicted by Drakkfoot units." It's entirely possible this refers only to wounds and not to mortal wounds, but it's not because of the attacks part in the previous clause.

Are you certain about that? I've run into quite a few people who seem to think that the Drakkfoot ability works for all sources of damage. And yeah, I know that it is technically possible to get a Wardokk in a Big Rukk list, but I think the cost (losing the maniak weirdnob and boarboy mainiaks) is clearly too high.

@kozokus I had to admit at first glance I was skeptical of your list but after reading your excellent writeup I had to give it a go. It definitely seems legit! I really wish there was a way to get a wardokk in there but I think your build is the only Big Rukk configuration that makes sense. My only question is why Icebone? I get that going Icebone or tribeless gets you that +1 to cast command trait -- that's definitely nice. But ignoring all ward saves is just so juicy.

Now that we have the height of the megas we know that the following Mierce items are the right size: Gomagg Mjagnir (maybe, hard to say. he is probably shorter but his pose is also not standing upright) Papworth Borruk Old Bill ________________________________________________________________________ On another note, I have to say that every time I have the urge to say something critical of this release I feel a twinge of intense guilt because I so very much do not want to rain on @KingBrodd's parade.

Fair enough, but it's really not reasonable to ignore SC prices when they happen to fit into the lists that you are already providing. Many factions have great SC kits that you would buy even if you aren't explicitly building around them. The cost of entry to many current armies is a lot lower than it is to SoB or LRL. That might change if LRL gets a SC kit, but even then it'll be pretty high on the price spectrum. SoB can't really have a SC kit at the current pricing level. Some more examples: Ironjawz: Megaboss on Maw Krusha, 2xWarchanter, Weirdnob Shaman, 6 Gore Gruntas, 30 Ardboys, 10 Brutes: $503 Bonesplitterz: Maniak Weirdnob, 3x Wardokk, 50 Arrowboys, 30 Savage Orruks, 10 Savage Boarboy Maniaks, FW Rogue Idol: $453.75 (with no SC set no less!) I'll not take the time to make lists now, but I know you can put together MANY Seraphon, Legions of Nagash, and FEC lists for under $500. Personally I think it's kinda wild that even $500 (not including supplies, paint, basing materials etc.) is the point of entry for a single functional list. $800 is really pushing it. It's not a 10-15% increase at that point, it's 60%. The pricing of even the cheapest GW armies is high relative to the rest of the industry. Warhammer has a reputation for being a difficult hobby to get into for many reasons but price is a big factor. Pushing that 60% higher seems to me to be of questionable health for the hobby. While some folks are certainly solitary in their enjoyment of the hobby, many rely on having opponents to play against, people to paint with, etc. Without new people drawn into the hobby it will slowly die. Are you going to drop $800 on a new army or are you going to buy a new TV? A next gen console and several games? A 3d printer and tons of files/material? A functional gaming PC? Like 4 huge-box miniature focused board games? A drum set or decent quality guitar setup?

Have any of you adjusted your purchasing plans due to the cost of the Alarith Stoneguard kit?

While I heartily agree that the Blood Stalker warscroll is very disappointing, I think you are missing a key factor: hero sniping. Vanari Sentinels have pretty bad damage output for their cost, but the fact that they have good range and proc mortal wounds off the hit roll makes them good at picking off small heroes. At 80 points I think they'd be good enough to see play but I don't think that they would be spammable. Their offensive efficiency at 80 points still isn't that good, and their defensive efficiency is merely fine. You might see some Kunnin Rukk style builds pop up around using Morathi and/or the mixed battalion, but I don't think builds with 70 Blood Stalkers would even be particularly good. The problem is that as soon as Blood Stalkers become passably efficient (like in the 80 to perhaps 100 point range) they give the faction access to a key element that was previously to costly to really consider: hero sniping. One of the main things that keeps DoK honest right now is that they struggle to pick off support heroes. If you let DoK players pick off 5 wound support heroes for the cost of a 200-300 point unit then it might well unbalance the faction.

If Stoneguard are $60 for 5 models that's outrageous. I had been planning on buying an entirely new-in-box army for the first time in ages with this release, but at those prices I'll be waiting on secondhand.

@KingBrodd the spare loincloth would make a pretty nice banner!

I'm not going to say that I'm confident that you are wrong, but I'm curious about a couple of things: How many games have you gotten in with Jaws of Mork that have left you confident about particular matchups being very poor? What matchups in particular worry you? How many different configurations have you tried? I know that the whole "4-1 army" thing is a trope and I tend to think that it's a bit overstated. Every list has bad matchups (especially on certain battleplans), and if you happen to draw the wrong opponent on the wrong battleplan you are going to have a hard time. For a list to consistently 5-0 the best tournaments it basically needs to be clearly OP AND played by top level players. Maybe such a list exists right now, but it might not. Adam Slovak's list is really interesting because it's really quite different from classic squigalanche type builds. It's focusing much more on hoppers than bounders, an approach that just wasn't very viable before. JoM brings hoppers up to the point where their explosive speed can actually matter, and their mortal wounds ability gives you another dimension of attack that allows you to threaten support characters much more effectively. My first instinct with JoM was to jam bounders, but the more I think about it the more I think that hoppers could really be a better core.

I don't know a ton about GW's design and manufacturing process, but I'd be pretty surprised if the Underworlds kits were originally supposed to be for AoS and then got repurposed into a side game. It's definitely possible that some kits belong to factions that either got axed or just haven't come out yet. I'd just be very surprised if the kits that we've seen so far were originally intended for AOS as they are all easy build with sculpted bases while basically the only AOS kits that are like this are the starter set ones.

I guess I'm not that surprised about Teclis. In the pics he looks significantly larger than a Bloodthirster. If the Sentinels and Wardens are $60 per 10 that'll be rather disappointing. Makes me think the Alarith Stoneguard will be $50 for 5.

I don't mind the model at all, and yours look quite nice! I mostly like there to be a little variation, and a lot of my lists have 3-4 wardokks... so having that many copies of the same hero model takes something away from the visual impact if the army, imo.

I don't think he would have helped in that particular game. Prime just doesn't do that much for his points cost. If you wait to charge up his mace he will come in too late to have an impact, and if you don't he doesn't do nearly enough damage (especially against Light of Eltharion or Teclis with the ethereal spell).