swarmofseals

Ohh, I'm not saying that GW would do this because it's mad at its customers. It would make a decision for business reasons. Everything I've read about GW suggests that the old corporate culture was to prioritize models, with rules being a second class citizen at best. Clearly that has shifted, as we are now seeing a lot more rules-focused products. I'm sure making that shift was a struggle. Every large company has internal factions with different beliefs about how the business should be run. I'm sure there are people at GW advocating for taking rules design more seriously, and I'd be shocked if there weren't people who still advocate for the old way. One can easily imagine this conversation happening: Manager: "this is our plan to release a bunch of new rules updates over the next year!" Executive: "Sorry, we are re-allocating your team to other tasks. Every time you guys release a new rules package without a major models release the community complains and is very negative. Clearly our customers don't want these updates" Manager: =(

I'm really not getting the disappointment. I know that everyone is wanting some massive faction release to be announced with tons of new kits, and they specifically want it to be their faction of choice... but is that really the bar we are setting? Not every announcement is going to be a major new models release. I for one love the fact that GW is now willing to supplement their big faction releases with minor releases that are more focused on rules updates. It seems to me that people think this is an either/or thing, and that these rules updates are replacing major model-focused releases. They aren't. It used to be that we'd get a couple of faction releases with new kits per year at the very most. Let's look back at WHFB 8th edition: 2011- three factions 2012- two faction 2013- five factions 2014- two factions I'll note that I was not playing WHFB at this time so I don't know if these were all major releases with new kits, but I'll assume that they were. Over that four year span we are averaging three new releases per year. I also missed the first bit of AOS, so I can't speak to that, but let's look at the last couple of years: In 2017 we got a full faction release in KO (11 new kits), a faction update in Tzeentch (8? new kits), and a new subfaction in Stormcast Vanguard (5? new kits) along with a new battletome (Khorne) and a smattering of new models (Horticulus, Gavriel, and Naeve). 27 kits, 2 major releases, 1 minor release, 1 battletome. In 2018 we got a faction update in Nurgle (7 new kits), a faction update in Daughters of Khaine (3 new kits), a new faction in Nighthaunt (~16 new kits? more if you count alternate sculpts), a new subfaction in Sacrosanct (~9 new kits?), and a new faction in Idoneth Deepkin (12 new kits) plus two new battletomes (Legions of Nagash and Beasts of Chaos) and a smattering of individual releases (the 4 harbinger kits). 53 kits, 4 major releases, 1 minor release, and 2 battletomes. In 2019 so far we've gotten a faction update in Gloomspite Gitz (13 new kits), a faction update in Hedonites of Slaanesh (8 new kits), a faction update in Blades of Khorne (6 new kits), three new battletomes (Skaven, FEC, and Fyreslayers) which had a total of 8 new kits between them plus the arch-revenant. 36 new kits, 2 major releases, 1 minor release, 3 battletomes so far. I wouldn't even expect 2019 to compete with 2018 given that the game got a new edition in 2018, but so far it's keeping pace nicely. Even if you discount all of the faction terrain and endless spells sets, 2019 so far still has 24 new kits released as of mid May. That's only 3 kits short of the entirety of 2017. I don't know how many new kits got released with each new WHFB 8th edition faction push, but I doubt that the average is any more than 10. So that'd be about ~30 new kits a year, and I bet it's lower. We're getting just as many new kits as ever, and over the last two years we've been getting dramatically more new kits and have gotten these new battletome updates on top of that. None of this is even counting updates that are for other games that happen to be compatible with AOS -- so I'm not counting any of the Underworlds stuff or the Warcry stuff. In this context, I really just don't get the disappointment and negativity. GW is announcing awesome new stuff at an unprecedented pace and yet people complain that not every reveal is a 10 kit major faction release. If every reveal was a big release, then we'd only be seeing two or three reveals a year instead of the reveal every couple weeks that we've been getting in 2019. I certainly can't tell you guys how to feel, but I hope you understand the message that you are sending to GW. You want cake, and GW is giving you just as much cake as always, but now they are offering you ice cream between servings of cake and you are turning your nose up at it because it isn't more cake. That reaction isn't going to get you more cake, it's just going to discourage them from offering the ice cream. ______________________________________________________________ Phew, OK. All that being said, the new warband is not my cup of tea but the lore implications of a presumably chaos warband with a strong elf feel to are very interesting. I haven't used GW paints in ages, but this contrast stuff could possibly change that. I'm skeptical of the results that they are showing (could it really be that easy?) and will want to wait for some reviews by the community. If it lives up to the advertising though it could be a real game changer for batch painting. The thing I am most excited about by far is the announcement of the new 1k point rules pack. I know people are already dismissing this without even seeing what it contains. Personally, I'm constantly running into the problem of people not having enough for a 2k game or not having time for a 2k game. Unfortunately, in my experience small games suck. There are balance issues for sure, but more fundamentally the battleplans just don't work as well with lower points totals. While this new rules pack may not fix everything (heck, it may not fix anything), it's at least a real chance for a dramatic improvement in the gameplay quality of low points games. That would be absolutely massive for quality of life and for the hobby in general. A huge percentage of new players get introduced to the game at low points values. New players are less likely to have enough stuff for a 2k game, and things like slow grow leagues are really popular and great for introducing new players to the game. A good first impression is key to retaining these players, so any improvement to the quality of gameplay at low points values is going to have an outsized effect on new player retention. That is why I am really excited for this reveal. New models? Not my jam, but cool -- I'm sure others like them a lot! At least four new battletomes this year? REALLY cool -- especially given that it means a new Death tome. What could that end up being? New rules support for lower point value games? Now that is HYPE.

Arguments like the one you are making aren't particularly useful at the moment. It's not quite fair to compare the Stegadon to Bow Kurnoths as the Stegadon is split between multiple roles. It has more value in melee than from it's ranged attack, and it also has a relevant support ability. It's still not a tournament level warscroll. Kurnoths with bows have nearly all of their value tied to their ranged attacks. You're absolutely correct that Kurnoth Hunters have good ranged damage output compared to a Stegadon, A crossbow might be an excellent weapon when compared with a thrown rock, but that doesn't mean that the military should be investing in crossbows. As to the second point, I think we will need to wait and see if there are any changes to the revenant warscrolls. I wish they were more mainline as well. That said, the Arch-revenant's command ability is really quite an amazing addition to the Sylvaneth army. The range is short, but +1 attack is very strong, and Sylvaneth is really lacking in terms of command abilities in general.

Hence why I said "Wow, I was almost correct on this one XD just missed it by a box of grots" XD

Wow, I was almost correct on this one XD just missed it by a box of grots. Now I just hope that they make revenants actually worth fielding outside of battalion requirements.

I'm really stoked for this boxed set. This is full-on speculation, but my semi-realistic wishlist for the contents would be: Sylvaneth Hero 2x5 Revenants 1x3 Kurnoths vs. Goblin Hero (probably loonboss on squig) 10 Hoppers/Bounders 12 Squig Herd 20 Grots The MSRP adds up to $262 + heroes, which happens to be the same MSRP as Carrion Empire exactly. This would be ideal for Sylvaneth as it would mean everything but heroes will be available in a discounted set (at least temporarily), and it gives Moonclan a nice, thematic set of models at a discount. 10 Hoppers/Bounders and 40 grots would also be a possibility. The main drawback of the either of the aforementioned configurations is that the set would be completely imbalanced internally, but I'm not sure that is actually a concern to GW. EDIT: and while I'm at it let me wishlist a warscroll update for revenants increasing the cost but bumping them up to 2 wounds each, similar to Fyreslayers. I think it's going to be hard to make them viable as a mainline unit as 5 man, 1 wound, 5+ save squads. If that change were made the boxed set would actually be internally balanced.

I think that folks should probably slow down a little bit with the panic about Hearthguard. By the numbers, they are indeed very good. Auric Hearthguard are super efficient when shooting monsters and merely fine when shooting at any other target. Hearthguard Berserkers with broadaxes are a little more efficient than poleaxes if you don't have rerolls to hit. If you do have reroll all hit rolls, the poleaxes are more efficient (note: you must re-roll all non 6's, not just misses, in order to get this level of efficiency). If you have rerolls both to hit and to wound, then the broadaxes are a bit more efficient. In each case though the numbers are reasonably close. Hearthguard overall are also very defensively efficient as long as they have a hero around. This is an easy condition to meet, but if the opponent is one of the armies that can reasonably snipe out your heroes you could be in trouble. Regardless, it's clear that Hearthguard are a very, very good unit at their current cost. That said, there are many units with comparable efficiency. Witch Aelves, Bestigors, Tzaangors, Tzaangor Enlightened, Morsarr Guard, and Boingrot Bounders are all good comparisons on efficiency. No unit is an exact match, but they are in the same ballpark. Plague Monks are a bit worse on defensive efficiency but their offensive efficiency is actually FAR higher than Hearthguard (like, it's not even close.) All of these are tournament caliber units, but none of them have really been shown to be broken. The most dominant warscroll on this list is probably Witch Aelves, but even these have mellowed a bit of late. DoK certainly has far overperformed over the past year, but since the release of the last several battletomes (particulary Skaven and FEC) they aren't showing the same level of dominance. People are also ignoring the one glaring weakness of this unit, which is speed. Movement is really important in AOS. I'll add the huge caveat that I haven't seen the allegiance abilities yet, but unless there are a TON of buffs which improve movement, this unit is REALLY slow. Every unit that I listed above is faster than this one, and many of them are much faster. Even the "slow" units like Witch Aelves and Bestigors move 6" and can run and charge by default, and many can be easily buffed to move much faster than their baseline. Only Witch Aelves have had a lot of success without access to high movement. The slowest unit of the ones I mentioned (Plague Monks) is still faster than Hearthguard, and despite it being ultra efficient (again, to a degree that makes Hearthguard look like a joke) it hasn't exactly ruined the metagame (at least yet). People who are imagining two units of 30 locking down the entire board are dramatically overestimating their defensive capability. High damage concentration units are pretty common in the metagame right now, and if you spread out a unit of 30 as wide as you can, you are going to get hit hard and only be able to retaliate with a few models. 30 Hearthguard can soak a ton of damage, no doubt, but there are plenty of units out there that can deal a ton of damage as well. I don't think you can count on holding out long enough. The folks who are imagining holding multiple objectives with a single unit of 30 should remember that a unit can only claim one objective at a time. I fully expect Fyreslayers to be solid, and Hearthguard are probably the single most competitive warscroll. I don't think we need to worry about them ruining the meta though, not when there are plenty of other things out there that are super strong in their own right. EDIT: I'll also note that stacking multiple +1 to save from the same source is something that will be very easy to FAQ, and if Fyreslayers do end up being kinda broken because you can stack them up to 2+ rerollables this will be the kind of fix that won't need to wait for a points adjustment opportunity.

As a fellow sword nerd, you are definitely on to something. I think the model is great overall, but she is just asking to get that finger broken.

Just want to make sure that I'm not missing anything -- it's not possible to get any bonuses to casting for any of the rotbringer wizards, is it? Aside from arcane terrain, of course.

What kinds of things gave you trouble, if you don't mind me asking? And is the spellportal mostly for Dreaded Plague?

I'm fairly certain that a unit of 40 can have both banners and instruments. 1 in 20 models can be a banner or icon bearer and 1 in 20 can be a gong or chime bearer. It doesn't say that both need to be equipped the same way.

Yeah, there isn't much you can do to stop six rippers from munching one of your units. If you have another unit nearby to counter-attack with, however, then you've basically taken off half their army while only losing ~200 points. Summoning is also a greater concern at 1k though as the relative value of the summoned units is much higher when compared to what is already on the board. I was wrong about the HPA though, I forgot that the Avalanche of Flesh ability is an actual attack and not an ability that is triggered on contact. So it's maybe not particularly good against Skinks in that way. It's still solid though. It's combat stats for the points are pretty excellent. It's reasonably efficient (particularly for a monster) even without the Avalanche of Flesh attack, and with it it can be insanely efficient. It has poor defensive efficiency though and worst of all is the random movement. I have a feeling that it's going to be the sort of unit that will win some games singlehandedly while other times will feel like total dead weight.

It's a bit tough to calculate just how good Plague Monks are in part because so much of their value comes from the bajillion different abilities on their warscroll. Skaven is such a massive battletome that I'm sure playtesting everything extensively was difficult to impossible, and this is just one of those things that fell through the cracks I'd bet. This is a fair point, for sure. 40 Stormvermin are still more expensive than 40 clanrats + 40 plague monks though, and perform far worse on offense and defense. That said, not everyone wants to field a bajillion models. To me, it all comes down to your reason for fielding them. If a person tells me that they want to field Stormvermin because they hit hard, look cool, and they want to focus on Verminus or Skryre or what not then that's great. If they say that they are fielding Stormvermin because they are the best unit option in terms of power level, then I'll pick an argument XD Interesting for sure. I'd bet that if a Seraphon player really tries hard it'll be very difficult to kill his Slaan pretty much no matter what you do. Skinks are a pain in the butt no matter how you slice it, and I think Plagueclaws are too expensive to be a real solution there (not to mention the resources that you'd need to devote to guarding them. Skinks are just a pain in the butt to deal with for almost everyone, and Skaven are no exception. Weapon teams seem like a bad idea as they are pretty short range and the Skinks can likely shred them with their own shooting. I could see Stormfiends being a decent solution as they should be able to smack Skinks around in melee as well as clear them out with warpfire/ratling cannons in a way that isn't totally vulnerable to Skink shooting. Another interesting option are warscrolls that deal damage when they move/charge like the Doomwheel and Hellpit Abomination, as they will still deal damage to the Skinks even if they retreat. Random movement is a problem, though. All in all I think the best solution might just be pure mass. If you just march up the board the Skinks will have to give way or die. You should be able to take objectives pretty much at will, and nothing the Seraphon player has can compete with your efficiency. Once you have the objectives, pushing you off will be really difficult. Yeah, I should stress that Stormvermin are actually not terrible in terms of their pure stats. Their offense and defense are both reasonably efficient, although the sheer point cost is problematic in that it gives your opponent a very juicy target. I think Grave Guard would see more play if they weren't dominated in every way by Grimghast Reapers, and Stormvermin might as well if they weren't dominated by various superior options.

Absolutely brilliant.

I think 20-25 is a bit of an exaggeration. Let's do the math though based on your numbers and see. 30 stormvermin, all of them getting to attack vs. 40 plague monks with 20 models attacking with knives and 30 models attacking with staves. Note that having 30 models also helps the stormvermin, but we're going to need to control for the significantly greater point cost. 30 Stormvermin: 33.88 rend 1 damage on average Plague Monks (not charging): 8.89 rend 1 damage plus 26.67 rend 0 damage on average Plague Monks (charging): 15 rend 1 damage plus 45 rend 0 damage. If you use my WDR formula to normalize the rend (rend 1 = 1.33 times rend 0) and then control for the cost difference, you get the following numbers: Stormvermin: .1073 Plague Monks (not charging): .1604 Plague Monks (charging): .2706 So there you have it. Even if only 20 Plague Monks get to fight with their blades and 30 with their Staves, they are still nearly 50% more efficient when not charging and 152% more efficient when charging. That and they don't lose their +1 to wound roll after taking only one casualty. On defense it's absolutely no contest. Even if you assume the Stormvermin never lose their +1 to save, their defensive efficiency is .1429 when compared to Plague Monk's .2. So Plague Monks are 40% more efficient on defense vs rend 0. That increases to 56% more efficient against rend 1, 94% more efficient vs. rend 2 and 133% more efficient vs. rend 3 or better.

20 Stormvermin will do an average of 18.22 rend 1 damage per turn, and they have an expected wounds vs. rend 0 of 40. Note that the damage falls off dramatically even after losing just 1 model, and their expected wounds drops if they fall below 10 models. 40 Plague Monks will do an average of 15.5 rend 1 damage plus an additional 46.67 rend 0 damage per turn. That does not count their charge bonus. If they charge, that number goes up a LOT. They have an expected wounds vs rend 0 of 48. The only problem is that it will be harder to get 40 Plague Monks in range to attack, so you can probably expect that some of your rats will be idling. Still though, it's really no contest. For 40 points fewer you get tremendously more damage and more survivability, and it takes 11 deaths before your damage per model starts to drop off rather than 1. Plague Monks are by far the most OP offensive unit in the game right now. And as far as support goes, why not take a Plague Furnace? Giving your monks battleshock immunity is great, and it actually is quite efficient on its own. Even if you don't do that though a unit of Plague Monks is still going to be great. My biggest gripe about this battletome is how much better Plague Monks are than Clanrats. I'd love to be able to support my infantry with all of the cool and fun Skaven toys, but it's so hard to justify the downgrade from monks to Clanrats as battleline. EDIT: Regarding Plagueclaws, I think they have a completely different role than WLC. Plagueclaws are far and away at their best when shooting at large units. When shooting at 10+ strong units, they do similar average damage to a WLC, but it's rend 2 instead of mortal. In exchange you get added range, slightly slower cost and indirect fire. WLC are at their best when shooting at support heroes who would otherwise be very difficult to hit with conventional shooting. Against a target like this, the Plagueclaw is expected to do only a third of the damage of a WLC, and at rend 2 instead of mortal. Personally, I don't like the Plagueclaw mostly because Skaventide has access to better tools for wiping out hordes. WLC, on the other hand, does something special by enabling you to snipe support heroes. That said, your concern about LOS is a valid one. I'd just suggest that Plagueclaws will be too ineffective against small targets to be worth bothering with.

Not just tier 1, but tier 0. If it made sense to say "tier -1", I'd say that. The offensive scaling on Plague Monks is just completely messed up. To use a Magic analogy: Lightning Bolt is a historically good magic card. One red mana, three damage. Witch Aelves are like Lightning Bolt. Plague Monks are like a spell that reads one red mana, nine damage.

Mathematically I'm pretty confident that Plague Monks are by far the most broken warscroll in the game right now. People complain about Witch Aelves, and Plague Monks are basically more efficient than Witch Aelves in nearly every way. At baseline they are the most offensively efficient warscroll that I have ever seen while being respectable on defensive efficiency, and with full buffs they are literally several times better than anything I've calculated. While I don't think Plague Monk spam is necessarily uncounterable, I do think that Pestilens has a very real chance of being "the new DoK", only far more than DoK ever was. Yes, I understand this. My point was that as a 4 drop list, you are going to get the choice of going first or second most of the time. Against armies where you actively want to go second, you're really very likely to have the choice as most lists that are under 4 drops are alpha strike lists. Against alpha strike lists, you don't actually get much benefit out of choosing to go first because you can't really out alpha them, so you're going to be taking the hit anyway. The question isn't whether being a 1 drop is good -- it definitely is a good thing -- but whether it is worth the amount of resources it takes to go from 4 drop to 1 drop. I suspect that it isn't, mostly because I think this army stands to benefit less from choosing to go first/second than most armies, and therefore it won't be worth spending 270 points for a marginal improvement in the odds of being able to do that (even when factoring in the extra cp/artefacts). Time and playtesting will tell, however!

Been following this discussion a bit, and I think there are a couple of interesting questions that playtesting will help answer. The first question is how valuable being a one drop army will be for Pestilens. No doubt being a one drop force is amazing for some factions, but I'm not sure that it really matters for Pestilens. A typical single Congregation of Filth army will likely be 4 drops -- the Congregation, a second Plague Furnace, a Verminlord Corrupter and either a Masterclan general or a third Plague Furnace. That's enough to out-drop most opponents anyway, although clearly there are some 1-3 drop lists out there. That being said, does going first really matter that much? This is not an alpha strike army. You might be able to pull off some shenanigans with gnawholes, but against a skilled opponent I doubt it will work all that often. It's not like a Slyvaneth list that can drop into the center of the table or a deepstrike n' charge list like eel spam or Gavriel Surecharge. It's not even a "normal but really fast" list like Crypt Flayer spam or Deathmarch. Even with cogs, you've got a 15" or so threat range on turn 1, which is not enough to get a first turn charge with any kind of reliability in most battleplans. Thus against alpha strike opponents you're going to be eating it regardless, and against normal opponents you probably out drop them anyway as 4 is still quite low. That said, this army is very well suited to eat an alpha strike. Your characters are extremely resilient with solid wound counts and buckets of defensive abilities, and your troops are numerous, expendable, and easily made immune to battleshock. Plague Monks are really quite fine on defensive efficiency, especially with the 6++. Offensively, they are so absurdly efficient that you can afford to lose loads of models and still have a comically massive counterpunch. The second question: how valuable are small units of plague monks when compared to large ones? Pestilens obviously has an amazing buff game, and that tends to benefit the larger units more. That said, if you are expecting to be counterpunching then having screens is quite valuable, and Congregation of Filth allows you to have plenty of screens without getting bloated on drops. The mortal wound ability from the champion is also quite interesting. It's not very long range, but 13" isn't bad, and it'll really add up if you have a lot of small units. Since it does not require a roll to hit, spamming this ability can really threaten support heroes in a way that is relatively unique. I'll be very interested to see what balance people end up on between small units and large units of plague monks.

I mean, I know that this all makes sense thematically, but it isn't the way the rules are written. By the rules, the Plague Furnace, Screaming Bell, and DoK Cauldrons all benefit from Look Out Sir. The text of the Look Out Sir rules only care if the hero has the MONSTER keyword. There is no mention of base size, model size, wound count or anything else. To be specific, this is the entirety of the Look Out Sir rule: "LOOK OUT, SIR! You must subtract 1 from hit rolls made for missile weapons if the target of the attack is an enemy HERO that is within 3" of an enemy unit that has 3 or more models. The Look Out, Sir! rule does not apply if the target HERO is a MONSTER." Normally I would 100% agree with you about this being likely to get FAQ'ed, but the current functionality of the rule with DoK cauldrons has been a big part of the competitive meta for quite a long time (close to a year now) and there have been two major FAQs released in that time. The GHB2018 FAQ I could give a pass on given that DoK had only been out for a few months when that FAQ was probably being worked on, but the January FAQ this year was an excellent opportunity for either the rule or the specific warscrolls to be FAQ'ed and GW didn't do it. I mean, it's certainly possible that it will get FAQed in the future but I think it's noteworthy that GW had at least one clear opportunity to FAQ it and decided not to.

I remember seeing a post either in this thread or the Pestilens thread that the Screaming Bell/Plague Furnace now have keywords that stop them from benefiting from "Look Out Sir". I can't find the post now, but this is incorrect yes? Neither warscroll has the monster keyword, or has there been an errata that I missed?

The bonuses for battalions rarely justify the costs by themselves. The extra CP is nice, particularly for this army, but the real question is whether or not you actually want to be sure that you go first. If you are trying to play a very aggressive game, then you pretty much have to. I think FEC are under more pressure than most to go first because getting alpha striked and losing your characters before they have a chance to summon is incredibly devastating. All of the abhorrents are kinda undercosted, but only if they get their summon off. If they don't, then they are pretty much all overcosted. So perhaps there are competitive FEC builds that can afford to go second, but I suspect they will require you to be running a lot of ghouls to make sure that your characters don't get smashed turn 1.

If you haven't already, I'd suggest taking a listen to the Facehammer battletome review. Those guys are some of the best players in the world, and they convincingly make the argument that one drop is really not the norm. There are a handful of armies that can one drop, but most cant and the average number of drops is actually pretty high. A battalion doesn't need to let you one drop to be good -- trimming your army down into the 4-5 drop range will still let you go first in a high percentage of games, and taking one of these battalions really helps make that possible.

I did the math so you don't have to! Expected values of a "banshee scream" (2d6-bravery) and "terrorgheist scream" (1d6+6-bravery): Banshee Scream: Bravery 0: 6.996 Bravery 1: 5.996 Bravery 2: 4.997 Bravery 3: 4.025 Bravery 4: 3.109 Bravery 5: 2.276 Bravery 6: 1.554 Bravery 7: .9714 Bravery 8: .555 Bravery 9: .2774 Bravery 10: .1109 Bravery 11: .0277 Bravery 12: 0 Terrorgheist Scream: Bravery 0: 9.5 Bravery 1: 8.5 Bravery 2: 7.5 Bravery 3: 6.5 Bravery 4: 5.5 Bravery 5: 4.5 Bravery 6: 3.5 Bravery 7: 2.5 Bravery 8: 1.667 Bravery 9: 1 Bravery 10: .5 Bravery 11: .1667 Bravery 12: 0 If you want to translate Banshee Screams into Crypt Flayer screams, just use the same bravery value if in combat or Bravery+2 if out of combat. Terrorgheist starts to outperform a unit of 3 flayers at Bravery 8 (in combat) or Bravery 3 (out of combat). When you look at efficiency rather than absolute performance, the Terrorgheist starts to outperform flayers at Bravery 6 out of combat and Bravery 11 in combat. I also ran the math on the offensive and defensive efficiency of the Terrorgheist, Crypt Flayers, and Zombie Dragon (note: unmounted versions of the monsters). What I found is that the Terrorgheist and Crypt Flayers are pretty close. The flayers are more efficient on both offense and defense at baseline. If the Terrorgheist heals twice it passes the flayers on defense, and it's pretty close to even after healing once. The Terrorgheist starts off significantly worse on offense but scales a tiny better with extra attacks, at least when compared to a unit of 3 Crypt Flayers, but it would take an unrealistic number of extra attacks for the Terrorgheist to catch up to Crypt Flayers. In Gristlegore specifically, the Terrorgheist at baseline become essentially identical to Crypt Flayers in offensive efficiency. It'll scale a bit better than units of 3 Crypt Flayers with extra attacks, but will scale worse than large units of flayers. The Zombie Dragon is just straight up less efficient than either the Terrorgheist or Crypt Flayers and is defensively identical to the Terrorgheist except that it can't heal. In terms of ranged offensive efficiency, I tried to figure out against what bravery level the flayers and the Terrorgheist reach a level of efficiency that is generally "average" for a pure ranged unit. The results surprised me. The answer for Crypt Flayers is somewhere between Bravery 7 and 8, at least at melee range (5 and 6 for "long" range). So as long as your target is bravery 5 or less for long range or 7 or less for close range, Crypt Flayers perform at a level of ranged offensive efficiency that is typical of an average pure ranged unit. For the Terrorgheist, the Bravery target is Bravery 5, albeit at that point they are performing worse than Crypt Flayers. Overall, the efficiency numbers for both of these warscrolls are not good. They are VERY inefficient defensively and mediocre in terms of offensive efficiency. The ranged portion actually help quite a bit though, particularly for flayers as they look closer to solid at baseline when you consider that they perform reasonably well as a ranged unit except against really high bravery levels. Also, once you start factoring all of the crazy buffs you can give them both warscrolls start to look a whole lot better, particularly large units of flayers. Such units are a huge liability though with their high cost and poor defense though, so you really need to be sure you can hit first.

Aha, that did the trick. The archregent is better than I could have realistically expected. That thing is just nuts. The summon, which is now truly free because of the throne, is incredibly flexible and will reliably deliver 120-200 points worth of models to the table. So there are two costs that you are paying: Between 0-80 points The opportunity cost of fielding a large unit For those costs you get a model that's reasonably tough for a foot hero, a decent melee profile, TWO casts and unbinds with access to one of the best signature spells in the game, I think the opportunity cost is definitely a significant one given that FEC is looking to have a sweet buff game that benefits large units, so that may tamp down a bit on truly spamming archregents. That said, I think we're likely to see multiple copies in a lot of lists.