swarmofseals

Dreadlord on black dragon is a thing now, and with a really nice CA

It's 10:00 AM in New Zealand and the site has not updated yet. Time to RIOT! 😆 EDIT: IT'S UP! With new warscrolls!

That seems odd to me, as it would mean that the NZ store would be updating at 5:00 PM Saturday local time.

Anyone recall when the NZ website usually updates? I'm champing at the bit for the possibility of new warscrolls!

Pretty brilliant! I was wondering if there was a way to kill off your own unit and completely forgot about spirit flasks. The knight incantor is a decent pick anyway.

@Thiagoma yeah, I agree that the Phoenicum ability seems weaker but gotta remember that this is just a part of the overall picture. In most books there are subfactions with ****** abilities but good artefacts/command traits/command abilities, and some with great abilities but ****** artefacts etc. We really can't say anything yet about whether one faction or the other is too weak or too strong.

I think that the Phoenicum ability will be far harder to make work in practice than you guys think. For it to do anything of note you need to have all of the following come together: You must have at least two units in combat At least one of those units must be a unit that your enemy can kill in one go At least one of those units must be a unit that is strong enough to get value from the bonus in excess of the cost of the unit you are throwing away Your opponent has to choose to kill the weak unit before you activate the strong unit The first three characteristics are non-trivial but certainly doable. It's the last one that is the real trouble. Let's examine some scenarios: A: You have one weak unit and one strong unit in combat with your opponent's strong unit. If you are activating first and are trying to get the bonus, you activate your weak unit. Your opponent then activates and will choose to attack your strong unit as much as possible. Unless the positioning is such that your opponent is forced to allocate enough attacks to your weak unit to kill it, you won't get the bonus. Even if you do get the bonus in this situation, the +1 to hit and wound with a now damaged strong unit will have to exceed the value of simply attacking first with your strong unit at full strength, and exceed it by enough to justify the loss of your weak unit. B: You have one weak unit and one strong unit in combat with your opponent's two separate units. If you go first, you activate your weak unit, then they activate the unit fighting your strong unit, then you have to activate your strong unit before they kill your weak unit. You'd be better off activating your strong unit first and forgetting about the bonus. If they go first, then they activate their unit fighting your strong unit, then you activate your weak unit, then they have to kill your weak unit and you will in fact get the bonus. Keep in mind that this scenario will only occur if your opponent chooses to charge in this way, which basically gives your opponent control over whether it happens or not. You'd need to manufacture a situation where they really need to clear out that chaff unit at the same turn that they charge your strong unit. C : You have multiple strong units in combat. In this situation you might get the bonus, but you will be losing something of significant value in order to get it. I think this is the most realistic scenario most of the time, but even then it likely won't come up a ton. In summary: If you have more units in combat than your opponent, then they will just choose to attack your strong units when they have to activate and you will only get the bonus if you can manage the positioning in such a way that they are forced to allocate enough attacks to kill a weak unit. If your opponent has more units in combat than you do, then they will simply avoid attacking the weak unit until you are forced to activate your strong unit. If you have the same number of units in combat, then you will only get the bonus if the opponent activates first (most of the time meaning it was their turn and they had to choose to create this situation). I do think that the bonus will be much more likely to activate if your opponent has abilities which force him to strike at the start of the combat phase, but even then it won't help you against the strike-first unit. If you pile a weak unit and a strong unit into a keeper, it's just going to smash up your strong unit. You have to feed a weak unit to the keeper while striking some other unit that doesn't strike first elsewhere on the board. It doesn't even work against FEC, because Savage Strike only works when they charge... so basically they'd have to choose to charge some garbage unit of yours while also fighting your good unit with something that doesn't strike first. It'd take a pretty dumb opponent to choose to do that. The thing that will really help make this work is if we get an ability that allows us to activate and pile in from >3". That'd make this ability a lot more realistic.

Book looks great if that article is any indication. I really like the buffet style approach! I really enjoy flexible battletomes and am looking forward to creating some spicy brews with this one. For me the biggest bit is the confirmation of significant warscroll updates. The biggest obstacle for this book IMO is the fact that so many of the warscrolls are outdated. Knowing that there has been a substantial attempt to correct this is pretty huge.

While I broadly prefer the Old World setting to the AoS one, I think the concept behind the Beastgrave is fantastic. I suppose on a small scale I really like a lot of the locations and lore of AOS, I just find that the big picture falls flat. In other news, I'm very excited to see WHU warbands that might actually see play in AOS. Both spells are superb and the warbands are reasonably costed. The Bray-shaman's spell effect is really dangerous, especially as it isn't faction specific but the fact that it casts on a 7 with a relatively short range means that it will be unreliable enough to probably not cause too many problems. I really like that Skaeth's warband is a single warscroll and much prefer that design. While the Bray-shaman's scroll is great, the fact that he will take up an extra drop is a heavy strike against him.

I've never liked any of the goblin wolf rider sculpts of the past, but these guys knock it out of the park. The posing of the mounts and riders and the overall detail is absolutely on point. I love that GW is showing that they can absolutely execute on both new designs and on throwbacks like this.

Mathhammer-wise, Gotrek is defensively inefficient against damage 1 attacks, moderately efficient against damage 2 attacks and very efficient against damage 3+ attacks. He is offensively inefficient when he attacks once and efficient (but not extremely so) when he attacks twice. He's powerful enough to not be completely unplayable, but I just can't imagine him being "broken" or "overpowered" at all so long as you are actually playing a real battleplan. I guess I can see how he wouldn't be fun to play against, but he is far from unkillable and can be countered in a lot of different ways. It seems to me that if this character is unfun then you must have a pretty narrow definition of fun. @Sleboda I very much doubt that this guy will be played by half of all Order players. Allies aren't really balanced by their point limits, they are balanced by the fact that they don't benefit from allegiance abilities (the core source of power for nearly every competitive army). Allies have barely been used at all at the tournament level, and I don't think that this is going to change that. Speed is the single most important thing in AOS, and this warscroll is basically the slowest warscroll in the game. If half your Order opponents drop 520 on a model that will spend at least half the game doing nothing, then you are going to win a lot of games of AOS.

I suspect that there are a couple of reasons why GW doesn't push Forgeworld stuff more. Right now, I think FW exists as a relatively niche arm of GW mostly aimed at serious hobbyists while GW proper aims at the full spectrum of gamers and hobbyists. If I were GW, I would not want to push people who aren't serious hobbyists toward buying FW products for a couple of reasons: Resin is much more difficult to work with and is (potentially) more dangerous. Less experienced and less serious hobbyists would likely hate feeling "forced" to use FW products if they were pushed harder. FW products are expensive, and pushing them with aggressive rules support could create a lot of negative sentiment. I've seen this more in 40k communities where FW stuff has been more competitive at times, but the "P2W" resentment can be very real. The last thing GW wants is to force a game first/hobby second player to bomb out of the community because they hate being "forced" to buy difficult, expensive FW kits because they are needed to be competitive. Cannibalization. People have limited budgets, so trying to encourage people who would be buying GW products to instead by FW products is really just shifting sales around. FW justifies itself if better if it fills a separate niche. Profit margins. This one is speculation on my part, but it could easily be that the profit margins are lower on FW products. I know that seems crazy given how expensive FW is, but it very well could be the case for any number of reasons. If FW profit margins are lower, then GW actively prefers people to buy GW mainline products instead of FW, but FW is still a net benefit if it is capturing a segment of the community that wouldn't otherwise buy regular GW.

True, it could be a somewhat cheaper solution to the screening problem but doesn't solve the body count problem really. If you're taking enough marauders to play the objectives game then you might as well just take clanrats. The lack of battleshock immunity would be a real problem. But yeah, if you really wanted to you could do something like: Arch-Warlock Grey Seer on Screaming Bell 9 Stormfiends 6 Stormfiends 5 Skryre Acolytes 20 Marauders Soulscream Bridge Extra CP

Blood Knights are one of the mercenary companies.

I've got a lore question! Does anyone know of any good "official" resources for skaven runes/writing? I don't really care if it's an AOS or WHFB publication. I found this resource: https://pariedolia.weebly.com/nimh/the-skaven-alphabet which is quite excellent, but I don't see any citations so I have no idea if it's a fan creation or from an official publication.

Don't forget the -arch suffix! From wikipedia: "From Late Latin -archa, from Latin -archēs, from Ancient Greek -άρχης (-árkhēs), from ἀρχή (arkhḗ, “rule, government”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *h₂ergʰ- (“to begin, rule, command”)." So really it's more like "Bonelord Bonereapers" but that of course suffers from the same problem. It's a little better than Boney Bonereapers though XD Personally I'd have just called them The Tithe. It's way scarier, way more evocative, and perfectly descriptive of what they do.

As someone who trains in a koryu sword art I had a very similar thought! Now that's an idea! The bandages will seem really weird though, but the champion head is spot on.

I don't think that conclusion follows. Didn't both DoK and Idoneth come out after the heralds?

Totally. Grim, emotionless construct faces would have done it much better for me. __________________________ I forgot to mention something in my previous post. While the 40k announcements usually don't matter much to me (I don't play 40k), this one actually has me really excited. I think I have posted this a couple of times, including in a thread with the theme of "what would you do if you were GW?", but one of my biggest hopes is that GW will move away from exclusively relying on single faction releases and move more towards campaign based, multi-faction releases. It looks like this new 40k campaign will be doing just that. With each chapter in the campaign providing new rules for a couple of factions (and presumably corresponding model releases) it gives the opportunity to add a new kit or two to an existing faction without having a full update. If such a system were adopted for AOS it would mean that factions could get more attention outside of major releases and there would be plenty of opportunities for updating outdated kits piecemeal. I very much hope that I am right that GW is going in this direction!

I hate to say this, but this new faction is just not doing it for me. The detail is incredible, and there are some aspects that I really like but overall it's a pretty big miss for me personally. First off, the positives: I really like the basic concept The catapult is pretty interesting I really like the basic design of the mortarch as a kit. Adding bulk to the kit by making it a diorama instead of just making it a big monster or a guy on a big monster is a really exciting development in design. I know not everyone is going to like it, but for me it's a big hit. It's taking something like the Contorted Epitome and taking it up three levels. That said: Although I like the basic concept, almost everything else is a pretty big miss for me. It all seems very confused with too many details from different sources of inspiration. I also am not a fan of the bone armor, although I think it's more an issue of the execution on these kits as I like the morghasts a lot. Part of the problem is that many of the kits just seem really derivative. You've got your knockoff liberators, your knockoff varanguard, and some, uhh, tyranid warriors? There is so much that I like about the mortarch kit. The stuff I mentioned above, all of the amazing details... I love the messenger dude with his undead carrier pigeons. The problem is that every time I look at it, my eye is drawn straight to the center, which happens to be a bone codpiece that makes Orpheon Katakros look like some sort of nightmare Ken doll. To me there is a big disconnect between the fluff and the models. The fluff is very dark, but a lot of the models just look silly. I think the bone masks are a big part of the problem, but I think it's also that horror depends on at least some element of familiarity. These guys have a lot of very subtle elements of familiarity, but none of them evoke horror -- they just look muddled and, dare I say, silly. Overall, the faction very much reminds me of poorly thought out fusion cuisine. Fusion cuisine works when it takes familiar elements from different cuisines and combines them in a way that both captures something essentially attractive about the inspiration while also creating something new and harmonious. Bad fusion happens when you take inspirational elements that don't work well together and cram them into something that becomes totally unrecognizable. There are design elements here from so many sources and poses that are reminiscent of so many different existing sculpts that the design ends up feeling both too unfamiliar to evoke horror and yet still somehow derivative. Just my personal take on it -- I very much hope that others like it a lot!

I hate to do this but I'm going to indulge myself in a bit of complaining. I'm dutifully working on my Skaven project and really enjoyed setting up my clanrat units. They have been super easy to clean up and despite the simple design it's not hard to make a unit where each model is unique. My unit of Plague Monks, however, is taking forever to clean. Is it just me or is the sprue design of this kit just atrocious? The mould lines are awful and the sprue gates are in the worst places. Anyone else hate building this kit?

Am I the only one finding it strange that we are getting the full reveal for Tithe before Orruk Warclans and Cities of Sigmar? I thought for sure those would be a quick drop.

I gotta agree with the prevalent sentiment here: trying to come up with a nerf list is a fool's errand. If you really wanted to tamp down all of the power strategies, then this list is not nearly complete. To make matters worse, as you remove some "broken" things, other things tend to emerge. Even if you do somehow manage to cull down everything that is imbalanced you will still get some people who will complain about whatever they lose to regardless. I think the suggestions provided by others are good -- meeting engagements, slow grow leagues etc. are all solid options. I'd also consider scrapping the idea of a tournament altogether and instead marketing it as a "Play Day" or something similar. Structure it like a tournament (random pairings, a certain number of rounds with set battleplans etc.) but eliminate all results reporting, standings etc. If you have enough people you can even split players off into casual and competitive groups to try to ensure that a higher percentage get good games in (although a fair warning that this can be difficult to pull off).

@Obeisance The basic shell seems fine, but I'm not sure that I like the Vigordust Injector with just 6 Warplock Jezzails. With VI, 6 Jezzails are averaging 2.66 mortals and 8 rend 2 damage per turn vs. 3 mortals and 6 rend 2 damage without it. That's not a lot of damage for 440 points and an artefact slot, especially given that the injector will kill a jezzail on average every turn. I'm also not a big fan of WLV without Skitterleap.

This is super off topic, but as I don't think we have any off topic forums I figure this is as good of a place as any. Are any of you familiar with Deathwatch in 40k? If so and you aren't adverse to providing a little advice, please PM me!