swarmofseals

Weird, my app still has the old warscrolls. I tried restarting it but no update.

Where are you guys seeing the new warscrolls? I checked on the NZ site and the links to all of the FEC warscrolls are broken.

In a Royal Family build the throne is absolutely crazy good and will be akin to having 200-300 extra points for free. That's clearly the high end of its effectiveness. The low end is probably like 50-100 points worth, like you said. That's still quite good -- far better than the Gloomtide Shipwreck, for example. It's not an army-defining piece of scenery like the Wyldwood, but even at just 1-2 command points it's still a decent bonus for free. If you told me any of the factions that I play were getting 1-2 free CP at the start of the game I'd be ecstatic. It's a really big deal. I'm not sure I'm following your reasoning. The bell seems to mostly useful for it's battleshock immunity. I don't think you can count on rolling exactly 13 on 3d6. The lightning and vortex spells are certainly offensive though. In constrast the FEC horses are clearly offensive while the corpse wall is defensive. I don't actually think it's fair to characterize the grail as defensive though. It's a healing spell, but it has quite a long range and triggers off kills. Sure it can be used to keep your tarpit going like you suggested, but it can also be used to allow you to extend your monsters deeper into enemy territory. It's a lot easier to move your dragons/terrorgheists away from support for a deep offensive move when you know they are going to be able to heal themselves effectively after the first round of combat and will likely be at or near full strength for the opponent's retaliation. It's a support spell that enables both offensive and defensive strategies.

I have to admit I'm pretty confused by the reactions to these warscrolls. The throne is basically a handful of free CP, which is absolutely huge for this army. It remains to be seen if all-in summoning remains a popular build, but if it does this thing is like having a couple hundred free points. Given how powerful the feeding frenzy command ability is, I suspect FEC is going to be a very CP "hungry" (heh) army and the throne is just pure gravy. The endless spells are all good examples of design that is actually functional. The wall is probably the most lackluster, but I suspect it will be cheap and still quite useful for forcing a dispel. The grail is an awesome design. You set it up where you are about to hit the enemy and it helps you recover from the damage you take during that round of combat. Then your enemy is forced to make a choice between dispelling it, or trying to fight away from it. I suspect if it functions even just on your turn it'll make up its points cost pretty frequently, and if it stays on the table for longer it'll be even better. The stampede is a predatory endless spell that might have enough impact to actually see play. Even against 3 wound models it has respectable damage output and it moves really far. If you hit two or three enemy units with this (which is pretty realistic given that it has an average threat radius of 24.5") you are doing really well. It could be overcosted, of course, but I think the design makes it at least plausibly useful which is more than one can say for most endless spells.

I depends on what your frame of reference is. The heroes, Witch Aelves, Sisters of Slaughter and Cauldrons are all pretty quick for foot units with a move of 6". The WA and SoS can also run and charge, and the whole faction gets to reroll 1's to run on turn 1 and additionally reroll 1's to charge on turn 2 on. Snakes are a bit faster at 8". Transformed Morathi is very fast. Then you've got the Khinerai and Doomfire Warlocks, which are both also very fast. Khinerai can drop in, have HUGE movement and even have an additional movement related ability. The problem is that neither of these units can really hold up in melee, so they are much more tactical scalpels rather than part of a real Alpha Strike. So overall compared to a conventional army, DoK is a above average for speed on the main battle line with supporting units that are extremely fast. Compared to the tournament metagame though, DoK is actually quite slow. When you compare to the plethora of true alpha strike builds like Dreadwood Wargrove, Gavriel Stormcast, Eel Spam, Dragonlord Host etc, DoK is at least one turn behind.

I think there are a couple of reasons for this aside from the likely increased production. The biggest reason is likely that the value was much lower. IIRC, the previous year's offerings had MUCH more value. Going by MSRP, the 2016 Stormcast box had $343, Ironjawz had $304.75, Sylvaneth had $311, and Khorne (which also took a while to sell out IIRC) had $287. So that's a discount of about 50%, 44%, 45%, and 41% respectively. Last year, they reduced the value of the boxes significantly. Tzeentch had the lowest value at 235, while Kharadron had $240 and the other two had about $245. That's a discount of 28%-31%. Tzeentch and Kharadron had the advantage of featuring kits that were entirely new, but the Death and Stormcast boxes featured few things that weren't already available at a discount (SC and ally boxes for all of the Death stuff except the Morghasts, and the Blightwar box for most of the Stormcast stuff). Death at least benefited from the popularity and general competitiveness of the LoN release while Stormcast Vanguard suffered from a poor box composition (12 Gryph Hounds?? what?), few competitive units, and the fact that the Vanguard Chamber was eclipsed by the Sacrosanct Chamber, all but ensuring that boxes still on the shelves at the release of 2.0 stayed there. Contrast that with the Sylvaneth box of 2016, which was IIRC the quickest to sell out that year. The value was quite good and it was the perfect complement to the SC box with only one kit (and a kit that you are likely to want multiple copies of, at that) overlapping. Basically any Sylvaneth player that didn't already have a complete force would look as a must-buy. It had great value, and you would likely slide nearly every model in the box directly into your army regardless of whether you were playing casually or competitively. All of the 2017 battleforce options compare unfavorably to that, and not just in terms of value. An established Death player is likely to see a bunch of redundant kits, most of which are only seeing niche competitive play, but it remains an OK option for someone just buying into Death who hasn't already picked up a SC or two. A Stormcast player is likely to see the box composition and just pass unless you reaaaaaally love Gryph Hounds. A Tzeentch player might look at the box and see a solid value, but many Tzeentch players will only use a few of the kits, particularly for daemon focused players. Casual Kharadron players are going to want most if not all of the units in that box, but competitive players are going to see most of the value tied up in kits that are pretty bad (and were even worse when the box came out). I think that the Idoneth box shows that GW is aware of the problems that the 2017 Battleforces had. At 28-31% off, the boxes basically have to be very well composed to sell well to existing players, and they likely need an mix of new and existing players for the boxes to sell aggressively. The Idoneth box features $265 in value, or about 36% off. It's not as good as 2016, but it's better than 2017 and much more competitive with the Start Collecting range. The composition is not very competitive, but at that level of discount I think there is a chance that all but the most tournament-focused players will find it appealing.

I know this isn't a TW:W forum (although TW:W is what got me back into the hobby!), but good lord that exceeds my wildest expectations. When I saw that the next DLC was going to be Vampire Coast/Dreadfleet themed I thought we'd get some new lords with fresh campaign mechanics and some reskins of Vampire Counts units. I did not expect such a vastly new roster with incredible units like -- is that a pirate Necrofex Colossus??? What is that giant crab thing? Giant undead cannons!?!?! Please stop, my fangs can only get so erect.

I think what happens to Daughters of Khaine is going to depend a lot on what GW's balancing philosophy shakes out to be. While some people might not like the current dynamics of the game (which have been leaning toward faster, alpha-heavy play), an argument can be made that the overall balance level has never been better. In every other phase of AOS there have been one or two factions that were clearly creating an unhealthy dynamic in the metagame. In GHB2016 it was largely Destruction (pick two of: kunnin' rukk, stonehorn/thundertusk spam, goblin spam) and in GHB2017 it was Tzeentch. There isn't any army that is proving to be oppressive like that. While there are a few armies that are putting up pretty consistently good results (DoK among them), there are clearly quite a few options at the top of the pile. And tournament after tournament has shown that there are plenty of other factions that can still put up great finishes. At this point there just isn't evidence of a need for a big rebalance. Some minor buffs to underperforming factions could make the metagame even more diverse, but as it is there are just a ton of options and nothing is oppressive. The only thing that could arguably use a look is the predominance of alpha-strike lists, but of all the top tier lists DoK (and maybe Nurgle) is the least capable of being built for an alpha-strike. Right now, I think the game is balanced around pervasive imbalance. Just about every competitive faction has some things about it that are busted. The result is that external faction balance is still solid even though internal balance for some factions is very skewed (SCE is probably the best example of this). The most broken things that DoK have right now are definitely Witch Aelves and Hag Queens. Despite that fact, nearly every unit DoK has access to is still seeing some level of competitive play (exceptions: Blood Stalkers and Khinerai Lifetakers). I'm a huge fan of mathhammer and efficiency, but any serious player will tell you that the numbers aren't everything. Tactically useful but inefficient units can make or break a competitive list. In some ways, hyper efficient units like Witch Aelves can make inefficient tactical units (like Khinerai) competitively viable. If you have a very efficient foundation, you can afford to take some inefficient units too. DoK pays for these advantages in other areas. DoK has no real viable way to alpha strike, has relatively weak magic defense, and has difficulty lowering drop count. Most if not all of the other highly competitive factions have a similar dynamic -- a set of things that are well above par and a few clearly defined weaknesses. Ultimately, how GW reacts to this will be a major crossroads. I see two paths and one supplementary question: Shake things up just for the sake of change. This will likely entail wide reaching nerfs across all of the competitive factions affecting all of the "cornerstone" units that define each factions competitiveness. Supplement with buffs to bring up factions that weren't as competitive and/or to make new sets of warscrolls the foundation of competitive lists for formerly competitive factions. Use a light touch to maintain or enhance the current state of balance by keeping competitive factions largely the same with a small tweak here and there plus buffs to factions that need help. Supplementary question: do we want to keep the metagame as aggressive as it is? If so there could be some global nerfs to the abilities that enable alpha-strikes, and this will likely involve errata more than just point changes. If GW goes with the former, expect Hag Queens and Witch Aelves to get hammered. If the latter, then I could see things staying mostly untouched or with a small nerf only. Personally, I think GW would be incredibly foolish to go with the first approach. It's far riskier and has limited upside compared with a huge potential downside. The upside is that they might sell more models as the competitive churn would be higher, but the downside is that it would seriously ****** off enfranchised players and be very likely to result in a less balanced metagame overall. This strategy would be a good one if the game were stagnating. In that case the benefit of shaking things up is higher. If a lot of players are expressing boredom with the status quo, then it's time to take that risk. I don't see that happening now. I see a lot of excitement about the diversity of lists placing well at tournaments as well as continued excitement about new releases. I don't think GW needs churn among high level competitive players right now. Top players will buy into new armies anyway as they get bored with their current ones. What GW needs is to keep expanding the core of the playerbase, and showcasing tons of factions doing well at events is the perfect way of doing that.

Mathematically they definitely are. Their offensive efficiency is very above the curve, although it's becoming increasingly common for newer battletomes to feature one or two warscrolls in the same league. Morrsarr are also super fast which helps a ton.

Augh, you guys are correct regarding sisters of the thorn and ishalen guard. I forgot that you don't get cover on the charge and that their ability isn't actually a +1. Boo.

I haven't seen this discussed since the old Idoneth thread, so I'd like to drop some thoughts on allies in an at least competitive-ish Idoneth force. This thinking was at least partly prompted by @Unter's post above with the Witch Aelves and Hag Queen package as allies. As a DoK player, I well know how nasty Witch Aelves are. That said, I wonder a bit about using them as a source of bodies. Their offense is great, but their defensive efficiency drops off quite a bit without the DoK allegiance package and temple abilities. When compared with 30 Namarti Thralls you are getting roughly equivalent offense at baseline (WA are better against some targets while NT are better against others), but I'd probably give a slight edge to WA there. You also get slightly better mobility, but you lose out on any kinds of deepkin synergies. In terms of defensive efficiency it's a bit of a wash. All that being said, it seems to me that deepkin are pretty rich with sources of rendy damage, so high efficiency no rend damage does fill a bit of a gap in the roster. I can see taking the Witch Aelves + Hag Queen package and could honestly see a case for bringing a second Hag Queen along for the ride just to make sure you don't lose Witchbrew. I took a peek at the deepkin allies list while pondering this further, and I noticed another possible candidate: Eternal Guard. Don't get me wrong -- EG aren't even close to being in the same league on offense, but if you are looking for bodies they are defensively very efficient. The Witch Aelf package is costing you about 7.59/9.17/9.42/9.42 points per effective wound against rend 0/1/2/mortal damage. Eternal Guard have a lot of variation in their effectiveness, but it's always better than this: Note: for the following numbers when I say "in cover" I am only factoring in the effect on the EG shields, NOT +1 save from cover Moving, no cover: 4.28/5.64/7/7 Moving, cover: 3.89/5.48/7/7 Not moving, no cover: 2.92/4.28/5.64/7 Not moving, cover: 2.33/3.89/5.48/7 Comparing with the Witch Aelves, Eternal Guard are just far more defensively efficient. If you want bodies that will hold the line, I'd consider some of these. That also got me thinking again about Sisters of the Thorn. They certainly combine well with Eternal Guard, but they really combine well with Ishalen Guard. I'm sure most of you know how easy getting a turn 1 charge is with eels, particularly if you boost the charge distance. Combine the +1 to save on the charge with the first turn guaranteed cover and the fact that units must fight if able, and a unit of eels charging on turn 1 are going to bounce horrific damage back. They will be sporting a 2+ unrendable, rerollable save that kicks back a mortal on 4+. Depending on your setup and the opponent, it's not entirely unrealistic to keep the Sisters of the Thorn outside of unbinding range and still reach your eels, who themselves are close enough for a first turn charge. After that, the Sisters are fast enough to keep up with the rest of your army and should still have some decent targets. I could see 20 Eternal Guard (either 2x10 or 1x20) and 5 Sisters of the Thorn making a potent allies package.

Of course there isn't a *need* to turn it into a single number. It's about saving time while still arriving at a useful number. I don't have a spreadsheet set up so I do all of my calculations manually. Doing separate math for each possible save would take a lot longer, but I'm glad to have the information now that you've provided it! I'm also happy to see that your numbers tell pretty much the same story that mine do. If you aren't taking a Tzaangor Shaman, then Bestigors are indeed better when charging or against 10+ models, and they are quite a bit better when charging against 10+ models. With a Tzaangor Shaman, the Tzaangors are a bit better than charging Bestigors or Bestigors vs. 10+ models, but worse than Bestigors with both bonuses. On the other hand, Bestigors with neither bonus are quite a lot worse than Tzaangors (as long as they have 9+ models, a shaman or both). And like you said, Tzaangors with <9 models are incredibly worse than Bestigors. My overall conclusion is that both Tzaangors and Bestigors have a tactical value. Bestigors are great if you can reliably exert control over what they are fighting against, but are vulnerable to certain kinds of opponents (fast, hard hitting monsters in particular, I think.) Tzaangors, on the other hand, are a lot less volatile as long as you bring enough bodies. In a 10 model unit, I think it's no contest -- Bestigors all the way. In larger units, I see a clear role for Tzaangors. I think Bestigors make for good ambushers as this will allow you to have greater control over what they are facing off against. Tzaangors, on the other hand, are a great unit to deploy normally and hold your herdstone area. Moving from rend 0 to rend 1 is a bigger boost on average than moving from rend 1 to rend 2. All those dual weapon attacks and beak attacks effectively bumping up to rend 1 from the herdstone is great. You have less control what those Tzaangors will be facing off against, but you also don't really care as they are good against pretty much anything. I don't understand this sentiment at all. Basically all of my analysis indicates that Tzaangors and Bestigors are competitive choices. Tzaangors are the same as before below 9 models, better between 9 and 18 models, and worse at 18+ models. It's not a straightforward nerf. I also am not sure exactly what models GW is pushing here. All of the kits that Tzaangors might be out-competing under the old warscroll are way older kits than the Tzaangor kit. The stereotype is GW pushing newer kits to drive sales. Why would they want to make a new kit unattractive? I'm pretty sure GW is just as happy if you buy a box of Tzaangors vs. a box of Bestigors.

Yes, I did include the extra beak attack. If Enlightened on foot are indeed 3 for 100 then they will probably have pretty similar efficiency to Enlightened on disc. Their WDR with a Shaman but without Guided by the Past is about .125, so yeah that's nearly identical. Their points per wound is 11.11, so a tiny bit cheaper there. The problem is that they lose the incredible speed that the discs give, and I don't really see any advantage to compensate. The scenario that you describe doesn't really help trigger Guided By the Past. It's not that easy to pull off a charge in a formation like that. If your front line unit fails their charge, then your enlightened on foot are stuck. If your front line unit succeeds, then you still need to get the enlightened within .5" of the enemy unit for their charge to succeed. If you can manage that, then the enemy unit can reach your enlightened. They might not be able to get quite so many models in range, but that's mitigated by the enlightened having 1 less wound per model. To trigger GBtP you need to get the enemy to activate but not cripple your enlightened, and I don't quite see how this strategy accomplishes this. It might work better on defense where you can stick a line of Gors or Bestigors in front of the enlightened (and thus they won't be reachable by 1" range weapons but can strike back), but in that case the enemy probably charges at an angle where the enlightened will be out of range if at all possible. Basically its a measure of offensive efficiency that calculates the amount of weighted damage that a warscroll does per point that it costs. The weighted part is the interesting bit. Each different value of rend and mortal wound is given a weight based on it's relative value against the entire range of possible armor saves, with the relevance of each armor save being itself weighted based on how common it is. I did a bunch of math and ended up with a relative weight of 1 for rend 0, 1.33 for rend 1, 1.66 for rend 2, 1.9 for rend 3 (rarely used) and 2.16 for mortal wounds. Note that this does not factor in situations with rerolls, ward saves, or models that partially or fully ignore rend. As a result WDR is meant to be a general measure of efficiency and not precise for a specific combat situation or metagame. Feel free to recalculate it if you want with different weights based on the types of armor that you expect to face. In general, if you face heavier armor or opponents that have a lot of rerollable saves you should place a bit more weight on rend and mortal wounds. If you face lighter armor, opponents that tend to have ward saves or who are partially or fully immune to rend then you should place a lower weight on rend and/or mortal wounds (depending on the specific situation). See above. Yeah, I was counting savagery unleashed and destined mayhem but that's it (I did actually specify that in the original post). Tzaangors are definitely worse if you don't take a shaman. I don't think it's fair to call it a "tax on each other" though. The shaman is a powerful warscroll on its own right. That once per game casting reroll is a very good bet for getting of key endless spells like cogs on turn 1. It's also a very fast and reasonably tough wizard, which is important for several battleplans. Tzaangors are definitely less efficient without a shaman, but if the battleplan dictates separating them they hardly become useless. They are still more efficient in that situation than Bestigors who aren't charging and aren't facing a 10+ model unit (which will happen a lot against certain armies like deepkin). I also don't think the change to the shaman spell is a big nerf. Setting up a new unit of d3 models isn't that great, while adding d3 models to an existing unit to keep those key bonuses going is quite good. I'm also not sure how adding models to an existing unit works in terms of how you are allowed to equip the added models, but if you are allowed to "return" slain models with greatblades and/or mutants then that's a pretty big game.

I use a formula that I call WDR to compare offensive efficiency across different values of rend. I won't get into the nuts and bolts right now, but suffice to say it's good for general comparisons. If you want the exact numbers against models with a specific known save, you can do a more accurate comparison. Just looking at some of the new warscrolls: Tzaangors (at 18 points per model, all paired weapons or greatblades, supported by a Tzaangor hero and with +1 attack): WDR of .121 Bestigors (at 12 points per model. Minimum efficiency: not charging, target <10 models, not against order/Maximum efficiency: charging, target 10+ models, against order): .078/.179 Tzaangor Enlightened on Disc (at 140 points per 3, without shaman/with shaman/with shaman and guided by the past): WDR of .105/.127/.235 These numbers are quite interesting, I think. Tzaangors are just overall solid. A WDR of .121 is very good, even in the context of recent battletomes. They also don't need any specific scenario to make them good. Bestigors have a lower floor but also a higher ceiling. In less than ideal circumstances they are far less efficient than Tzaangors, but in ideal circumstances they are quite a bit more efficient. Tzaangor Enlightened are similarly efficient to Tzaangors as long as they have a Shaman, but if you can manage to pull off Guided by the Past they become absolutely bonkers. Looking at defense, Tzaangors are 9 points per wound with a 5+ save while Bestigors are 12 points per wound with a 4+ save. Against rend 0 they are identical efficiency, while Tzaangors pull ahead slightly against rend 1 slightly more against rend 2 and solidly against mortal wounds. Tzaangors Enlightened on discs are 11.67 points per wound with a 5+ save, making them generally less efficient than both of these options. Bestigors are a tiny bit faster than Tzaangors, while Tzaangor Enlightened are crazy fast. Tzaangors fall off a lot when they drop below 9 models. Both Bestigors and Tzaangors suffer from a similar problem in large unit sizes. Both get a massive regiment discount, but they are also on 32mm bases with a 1" range. While their raw efficiency gets a lot higher in a massive regiment, they also are going to have a lot of trouble getting all of their models into range. This is somewhat less of a problem for Tzaangors who have more of the damage output concentrated in the models with special weapons. If you load up these models in a small area, they can concentrate damage better. However, if your opponent gets the drop on you and charges the opposite side of your blob you are also going to experience a steeper dropoff in your offense than you would with Bestigors. A final consideration is buffability. I'm honestly not sure of all the same external buffs apply to these units, but assuming they do it's worth noting that they benefit a bit differently from extra attacks. In general, Enlightened do love extra attacks with three different melee weapons (two of them being quite good), but with far fewer models per unit they usually won't get as much out of extra attacks. Bestigors vs. Tzaangors get pretty interesting. My guess is that Tzaangors get more out of extra attacks overall. They have two melee weapons (albeit one is crappy), but more importantly their Greatblades have a much higher value overall than individual Bestigor attacks. That said, Bestigor attacks have a higher value than regular Tzaangor attacks. At some point I'll do the math, but my gut is that Tzaangors have a slight edge. TL;DR - Tzaangors, Bestigors and Enlightened are all really good offensive choices. Tzaangors are a bit more reliable, but Bestigors will shine brighter against horde armies (order in particular). Tzaangors are a bit better at concentrating damage, but they also require a higher points investment on a unit by unit basis. Enlightened are also really nasty and super fast, and become ludicrous if you can force their Guided by the Past buff to be active.

Gosh, I don't know why you'd think I'm being pessimistic -- I'm only narrowly commenting on the summoning, and that was alongside comments suggesting that Bestigors are poised to become one of the best units in the game. You're absolutely right that the other bonuses range from relatively narrow to very good. Beastmen don't need summoning to be good, I think. I suspect that they will be at the very least tier 2 if not tier 1 competitive based only on the information we have now, and that's with the summoning being mediocre at best.

I haven't had a chance to process all of the changes yet, but assuming the rest of the Bestigor warscroll stays the same they are going to be absolutely insane. Their defensive efficiency is solid enough (not great, but not bad either), but their offensive efficiency will nutty. The only warscroll that I can think of with better raw offensive efficiency is Witch Aelves. The summoning bit is fluffy but doesn't seem all that useful to me. It'll depend a lot on what the cheapest things cost. Given what we can see on the chart, one summoning point appears to be worth approximately 20 points. If you get one point per turn and d3 for sacrificing, then even if you are in position to sacrifice every turn you only get 3 points per turn on average, meaning you won't be summoning anything impactful until turn 3 or so, and thus you'll only get 2 turns of use out of your summoned unit (3 if you get lucky). Even in the best case scenario of sacrificing ungors, you are only "gaining" 14 points per mortal wound dealt. You should really pro-rate the value of the summoned unit too, so summoning a 200 point model on turn 3 is really only "worth" 100 points, arguably less. So all in all the summoning ability seems to be a very small edge, not something that is likely to drive top tier tournament lists.

I swear every time I post some efficiency numbers someone pops out of the woodwork to scold me for not factoring synergies and buffs and reminding me that "mathhammer doesn't tell the entire story". Believe me, I very much know this. I even try to acknowledge some of the specific points that you made in my original post, such as that "if you are running the Glottkin, then Plaguebearers and marauders benefit the most from his spell," (and of course marauders moreso than plaguebearers at max size). The kind of mathhammer that I was doing also doesn't factor in movement, which is really important. Marauders beat BKs on that one too. Ultimately though I'm not very convinced by the scenarios you are painting for marauders mainly because they rely so much on Blades of Putrefaction. If you attempt that spell without any cast bonuses, there is a 41.64% chance you fail outright. So if your opponent has no unbind you have a 58.36% chance to succeed. If they do have an unbind (with no bonus), that chance drops to 43.72%. If they have some sort of bonus to unbind then it becomes much harder. I can't recall any ways to get a casting bonus on a Rotbringer Wizard (although maybe I am forgetting a realm artefact) aside from random terrain bonuses. So overall I'd be surprised if you could reliably resolve Blades more than half the time, and that's assuming the caster doesn't die and your opponent doesn't have some super-unbinder like Arkhan or Nagash. Even if we set aside the possible unreliability of Blades, I kinda want to do a comparison between Marauders and Plague Monks now, factoring in Blades and/or extra attack buffs. With Blades Value of Extra Attacks And here are the base numbers for Plague Monks as well: Overall I like Plague Monks with knife and staff better mostly because you don't fall off quite as much in less than ideal combat circumstances where you can't easily get all of your models in range. Dual knives are more efficient in a vacuum but I suspect most of the time they will be less efficient in practice. So looking at just the knife+staff numbers, they are 2.19 times more efficient than marauders on offense when charging and 1.59 times more efficient when not charging. With Blades of Putrefaction active, Plague Monks are 2.08 times more efficient when charging and 1.54 times more efficient when not charging. They also benefit a tiny bit more from extra attacks. And these numbers are underselling the different between Plague Monks and marauders simply because marauders are more likely to have idle models and they also don't factor in a couple of small buffs that Plague Monks get. Plague Monks are also more buffable than Marauders, benefitting from the Verminlord Corrupter command ability as well as the Glottkin's. You could also stack on the buffs from a Plague Furnace if you like. Looking at the defensive side of the coin, Plague Monks have a points per expected wound of 6 across the board. They also have pretty much the same battleshock resistance as marauders. So on defense, marauders are 1.8 times more efficient against rend -, 1.44 times more efficient against rend 1, and 1.2 times more efficient against rend >1 and mortal wounds. Conclusions Marauders are definitely a better unit on defense, particularly with the support of a Harbinger of Decay and particularly against low rend. On offense though Plague monks are absurdly better at baseline, benefit more from buffs, and have more buffs that apply to them. Of course, Plague Monks are only battleline for Clan Pestilens. I think if you are going to be playing a buffed infantry game, several large blocks of monks screened by several small blocks of marauders is probably the most efficient solution.

Just going to spew some mathhammer filth. Battleline comparisons on defensive and offensive efficiency. Defense - the numbers are points per effective wound vs rend -/1/2/mortal damage. I will be applying a 30% bonus to large units of plaguebearers to reflect the -hit ability that they have. The actual value of the bonus varies depending on the base to hit roll of the attack, but 30% is a reasonable middle-ground value. The bonus is greater against shooting, of course, but it doesn't exist at all vs attacks/spells that don't roll to hit... so take the numbers for Plaguebearers with a grain of salt. Note: the lower number is better. Raw defensive values: Defensive analysis: Offense - These numbers are calculated using my Weighted Damage Rating formula which allows you to compare offensive efficiency across units with different rend values. This is intended to be a ballpark estimate and the numbers will vary a little depending on how you weight the different rend values. I'm basically expecting 4+ and 5+ saves to be very common, 3+ and 6+ saves to be uncommon and 2+ and - saves to be rare. That gives me weights of 1.33 for rend 1, 1.66 for rend 2, and 2.16 for mortal wounds. The overall number reflects the number of weighted damage you get on average per point spent, so in this case the higher number is better. Also, note that I'm assuming all models can attack in these calculations. Obviously the actual practical efficiency of larger units will be lower than these charts reflect as you will probably have idle models, particularly for unit types with 1" range and bases larger than 25mm. Raw offensive values: Offensive Analysis Overall Conclusions Going purely on efficiency I don't see much reason to take Plaguebearers or Chaos Warriors as your battleline. Putrid Blightkings and Chaos Marauders are both just more efficient on defense and on offense. Marauders make ideal screens, while BKs are probably the best at actually tanking heavy damage. None of the units are really that good offensively, so I don't think relying on these particular units to play offense as well as defense will pay many dividends.

These weapons reference values that change depending on how many wounds the GUO has taken (many large creatures work this way in AoS). See the chart on the warscroll to reference what the correct value is.

I've been exploring Nurgle a bit recently so I just dipped my toe into this thread (eww) and read the last several pages but not the whole thing from the start. What is the current conventional wisdom on Bloab Rotspawned? Most of the Maggoth Lords look kinda ****** to me, but I could see Bloab being useful. He's inefficient on offense and on defense, but his other abilities have a lot of potential. The fly cloud just gives yet another possible hit penalty, and his spell seems like it could do a huge amount of damage. Best case scenario you damage the unit in your hero, shooting, and combat phases and then again in your opponent's combat phase. Barring unlikely events (such as dealing damage in the movement phase or other phases of your opponent's turn), that's 6.67 mortal wounds on average, or 1.67 per phase. So for the spell to be good you only need to damage in two phases, 3 makes it very good and 4 makes it fantastic.

Right, of course. My analysis doesn't factor in every possible target. Generally speaking abilities that allow for rerolls on saves, grant bonuses against rend - attacks or abilities that proc on a save roll of 6 all favor rend. Similarly, some targets ignore rend 1 or ignore rend entirely, and some targets have additional "ward" saves on top of their regular save. Those situations tend to favor rend -. It would take far too long to account for every possible combination of these factors.

Unless you make your own conversions, you have to buy a command set for every unit. This is especially annoying as the leader is actually a downgrade. EDIT: Specifically, the fireglaive leader is a downgrade.

They are that good. Their offensive efficiency is very high and they aren't bad on defensive efficiency either (particularly against rend). They have good move and fly as well -- just a great all around unit.

It's important to recognize that the ability has value even if you don't trigger it. It influences your opponent's movement, particularly with respect to small units and lone heroes. You want your opponent to stay back from your gravesites, especially if you have them placed near objectives. For battle plans that involve wizards and artefact bearers for objective capturing this is particularly potent.

Yep, very big changes from the FAQ. Most of the broken stuff has been nerfed. Spellportal nerf should hit Nagash lists hard, although being able to Hand of Dust through the portal is still pretty nice. Lens getting nerfed probably helps us more than it hurts us, particularly for Arkhan lists. It also makes Reikenor a more attractive option for an ally choice as his signature spell is actually good. Guardian of Souls in a Legions of Nagash list officially can't take a lore of the dead spell now, which is unsurprising but a little sad.