swarmofseals

Yeah, that is certainly true -- although some competitors got quite a bit better as well. I'm not suggesting that DoK aren't good (they very likely are, and could easily still be top tier). I'm more curious to know how the top lists are adjusting to the new points costs. I haven't gotten a chance to play DoK at all, so I don't feel that I have the in-game experience to comment on what changes should be made. There are some relatively obvious adjustments: 1. Jack Armstrong: dropping the Bloodwrack Medusa brings it back into line exactly, but is cutting that second wizard acceptable? It seems like the least-worst option though, given that it otherwise would require major restructuring such as dropping the battalion, which seems like a non-starter. 2. Nicolas Guidez: dropping the medusa seems like the only option here aside from majorly restructuring the list. 3. Dagmara Wajs: pretty much has to drop 10 witches and the extra CP 4. Rosenramm: this list probably has to morph into Jack Armstrong's list as dropping a hag queen and merging the 20 and 10 witches into a block of 30 still leaves it at 10 points over. 5. Samuel Jansson: this one pretty clearly drops 10 witches 6. Stefan Gmur: this list is perhaps the hardest to adjust and the most "different" of all the ETC lists. Probably the cleanest solution would be to merge the unit of 20 and unit of 10 (picking either witches or sisters) and drop the endless spells, but perhaps the endless spells are important to the list. Alternately it can be moved toward Cauldron Guard instead of Slaughter Troupe to save 30 points, merge the 20 and 10 units and drop geminids but keep swords. It's pretty hard to keep geminids. 7. Melisa Mumcu: dropping the medusa wouldn't be quite enough, and it also might not be advisable to do so. Probably the most obvious change would be to drop 20 witches and add a third Hag Queen or possibly drop 10 witches and switch to Cauldron Guard. 8. Roger Barker: vaguely similar to Melisa Mumcu's list, the adjustments likely lead to the same general places. What do you all think about this analysis? It seems like the competitive lists are mostly converging to lists with 60-70 ladies and Morathi, or 90-100 ladies and 1-2 casters (either medusa or warlocks).

Is anyone aware of any posts or podcasts in which any of the top DoK players have talked about their adaptations to the new GHB? All those ETC lists are pretty useless given that they need major changes to fit in under the new points scheme. Jack Armstrong's list went up by 140 points Dagmarja Wajs' list went up by 160 points Rosenramm's list went up by 180 points Samuel Jansson's list went up by 130 points Stefan Gmur's list went up by 100 points Melisa Mumcu's list went up by 130 points Roger Barker's list went up by 170 points I know everyone and his mother is insisting that DoK is still top tier, and that may be so, but these lists are all going to have to drop significant pieces.

I like the beasts well enough, but for someone who has been longing for a more feral/savage wood elf faction for a long time, the Kurnothi are just not doing it for me. I like the centaur quite a bit, but the other ones not so much. The armor makes them look like they belong in Blood Bowl, the satyr legs are too aesthetically similar to beastmen, and the big orange hair is just not my jam. I like the most recent Wardancer sculpts and really dislike the older versions, so I think that probably sums it up for me. Do we really need more than one big orange hair faction? To me, what makes the idea of a "beast elves" faction compelling is the uncomfortable contrast between grace and savagery -- and these models look neither graceful nor savage (except the centaur). The posing feels very stiff, the proportions seem weird, and the savagery is heavily deflated by the sense that they've spent more time styling their hair than training for battle. ALL THAT BEING SAID, I do think that the overall aesthetic is a really nice accomplishment if what they were trying to do was to bring back the old wardancer look and make it new. They definitely did that in spades, it's just not my thing.

Stormvermin are OK (good, even) when compared to other elite infantry, but they are just dominated by Plague Monks. I'd be surprised if a build centered around the Verminus battalion wasn't viable, but for the time being it's going to be worse than using Plague Monks.

I'm curious how you guys have found Skryre Acolytes to function in practice. On paper the damage is extremely good, but with only an 8" range they are practically a melee unit, and their defensive efficiency is quite bad. How do you guys find yourselves using them in practice? Can you screen them and still get decent target selection? How do they perform against opponents who have access to ranged damage?

I'm really digging the Stormfiends discussion over the last page or two. I've been thinking about this warscroll since last weekend, and I definitely think it's underrated. If we assume spark, vigordust and rerolls to hit, 12 Jezzails deal an average of 5.33 mortal wounds and 16 rend 2 damage, while 6 Stormfiends (2 ratling guns and 2 wind launchers) will deal an average of 24.889 rend 1 damage and 8 rend 3 damage. So Stormfiends are a tiny bit cheaper, have an overall advantage on damage, a massive advantage in survivability (38 wounds and a flat 4+ vs. 24 wounds and a 4+ only against shooting), and can do work in close combat as well (11.55 rend 1 damage and 14.22 rend 0 damage, assuming +1 to hit and no rerolls). Jezzails, on the other hand, have a substantial advantage in range and will thus have an easier time of target selection, for the most part. It seems to me that both options have a potential role.

The simplest solution would be to take the route that Beasts of Chaos took, with expensive battalions enabling the marks for god-specific factions. This ensures that they can push the warscrolls a bit more for the actual StD army while keeping them both available and balanced for god-specific factions.

That's an interesting one. I don't think so because I'm fairly certain that you can't legally break unit coherency when moving, so breaking coherency in order to get closer to two different enemy units wouldn't be "possible" under the normal movement rules. That said, I'm not entirely sure what should happen in this situation. My best guess is that the opponent would start moving models, and then would have to make a move with each model in succession that fulfilled the requirements of the spell to the greatest extent possible given the rules of movement. So you'd end up with the unit strung out thinly. That's just a guess though.

I think one noteworthy thing about CE is that it's a rare case of a warscroll that stands out for serious consideration as an ally or for a GA Chaos force. There are several reasons for this: It's easy to make it very difficult to kill as long as you have the resources to screen it. When kitted with a -1 to hit artefact it becomes exceptionally difficult to take out with ranged attacks. The rerollable cast and unbinds are VERY valuable. To make full use of the casts you will probably want an endless spell, but there are plenty of lists that badly want to resolve something like cogs. The value of the reroll depends a bit on the number you are trying to hit (see below for the exact math, note that the math is a bit different for unbinds). Overall, the rerolls are probably somewhere between the value provided by +1 cast/+1 unbind and +2 cast/+2 unbind. It's really difficult to find wizards that provide casting bonuses like this (although it's noteworthy that in GA Chaos there is at least competition from the Lord of Change and Grey Seer) 4+: 99.3% chance of success (slightly worse than +2) 5+: 972% chance of success (almost exactly +2) 6+: 92.3% chance of success (slightly better than +2) 7+: 82.6% chance of success (slightly worse than +2) 8+: 66% chance of success (slightly better than +1.5, if that makes sense) 9+ 47.7% chance of success (vaguely +1.4) 10+ 30.5% chance of success (~+1.2) 11+: 16% chance of success (just a bit worse than +1) 12: 5.5% chance of success (around +.5) Horrible Fascination works outside the Slaanesh allegiance abilities Overwhelming Acquiescence isn't specific to any keywords, and although RR1s to hit is common there are some warscrolls that have a tough time getting it. Overall it's a package of strong abilities that isn't particularly dependent on it's own faction's allegiance abilities.

Not sure that it's fair to count the 40k stuff, and it's very likely that we will see Free Cities and Orruks before any unannounced tomes, and Ogors will probably be either before or concurrent with an unannounced tome, I'd think.

I don't own a copy of the new GHB yet, but my friend's copy lists Dracothion's Tail as requiring 4 other Seraphon battalions instead of 0-4. Fangs of Sotek is still 0-4. Was Tail changed, or is this generally considered to be a typo? Strange that it didn't make it into the errata.

@xking @madmac I'd go a step further and suggest that the book could immediately benefit subfactions even without their own battletome. Three things are holding back factions like dispossessed, wanderers, darkling covens and especially free people's: Lack of battalions Some poor warscrolls Points costs IMO there are lots of builds that are very close to competitive that could get there with just a small update from this tome.

In the app the Bloodstoker can only target KHORNE MORTAL units, so BoC can't benefit unless I am missing something.

It's not pure speculation. It's based on a clear and unambiguous statement made by GW.

Hard to imagine the info didn't proliferate

If I recall correctly GW stated that they were on track to be completely caught up with modernizing all factions by mid 2020 or thereabouts. Even if we extend that to by the end of 2020, that means that you are likely looking at a maximum wait of 16 or so months given that GW doesn't really do new armies at holiday time. That certainly isn't imminent, but it's not that far off either. ___________________ Some mostly baseless speculation: I'm going to go out on a limb and say that the Feast of Bones box will not be Ogors vs. Death, but Ogors vs. StD/Everchosen. If we are in fact getting a new Death faction, they aren't going to be released as part of a battle box. All of the battle boxes have had one new model per side, which doesn't fit well with an entirely new faction. The chaos half of the box could even be something like a unit of Varanguard, a unit of Chaos Knights and a new hero. That'd be right in line with the MSRP of either half of Carrion Empire or the Sylvaneth half of Looncurse.

Didn't state troops get updated on 2012? Still old but 8th Ed.

Yeah, I hear that. For me there is a huge difference between preorder next week and 2-3 months! I think I'll probably wait to see what's on tap for next week's preorder window and if it's not Free Cities then I'll probably focus on my Beasts of Chaos for now rather than do more work on this project blind.

There hasn't been any word yet on the timeframe for this book, is there? I've been working for a month on list variations that will likely be heavily impacted by this tome. I'm hoping we see it sooner rather than later.

I've been working really hard on a competitive Freeguild list, and I guess this will send me back to the drawing board! I'm OK with that 😃

Those AOS warscrolls aren't exactly exciting, but they are far from useless. A cheap unit that can dish out -1 to hit has the potential to be very solid, and the Iron Golems are at the top end of defensive efficiency. Untamed beasts aren't tough, but their pre-battle move and ability to run and charge makes them interesting. Anyone who has played against Skinks knows how annoying being able to retreat instead of fighting is. I think the big problem though is that none of these units have respectable offense (except maybe the Raptoryx, but even then not really) and aren't battleline.

First and foremost, a caveat: I'm only responding to the initial post and haven't read the entire thread, so apologies if I am repeating what someone else has already said! I agree with you that there is a clear disconnect between the fluff and the actual "official" model range. Hopefully this will get updated at some point, but in the meantime I see it as carte blanche to make a "freeguild" army with aggressive conversions and use of models from other ranges. I don't see any reason why discontinued models like high elf archers or spearmen couldn't be used as freeguild soldiers. You could mix some Dispossessed or Wanderers or even Darkling Covens models in there with no problems, particularly if you did a little conversion work.

Thanks, that is very helpful!

This is a bit of an odd request, but has anyone here been playing long enough to have a good grasp of the history of Freeguild/Empire infantry releases? I picked up a cheap empire army a while back and have just been trying out some configurations, but I really have no idea what editions the models are. There are even a few sealed boxes that look like they are probably older than the current Freeguild Guard set, but they seem so similar that I'm really not sure. I think most of my plastics are from the Empire State Troops (2000) box, which has 20 models in it. I understand there have been two releases since then: the 2006 release and the 2012 (current) release. Those of you that have been collecting for a while -- do you ever field the old sculpts along with the new ones? Do you find that it looks strange on the tabletop? What are the main differences in the look between the kits?

Ahh, I must have missed that one! That does definitely help.