PlasticCraic

Just asked him 😃

In their GH20 review, THWG mentioned that the Rogue Idol may actually be 400 points, because another update came out afterwards that took him back down to 400 (from 420). The guest (Dispossessed Dan) took the view that although he hates Greenskinz (boo!), it is the most recent document, and therefore 400 is the valid points level. Does anyone know what they were referring to, and what's your view on it?

This again! @MKsmash have just been discussing the same topic. I submitted it for FAQ (twice now) but they didn't reply. I'd encourage everone to email AoSFAQ@gwplc.com to raise it to their attention. It needs clearing up.

Lumineth is probably the main one that might come in around 2 / 3 drops? We'll have to see what "The List" looks like for them, but Teclis and a Battalion is a very big chunk of that army. But yeah, whether LRL is worth building around remains to be seen, so maybe a 3rd drop wouldn't be the end of the world.

@broche yeah I was even thinking 2 drops: Megaboss on Foot Warchanter 30 Ardboyz 30 Ardboyz 10 Ardboyz 5 Ardboyz 5 Ardboyz Ardfist 1970 Two drops, get up there with loads of board control. 30 Ardboyz in their face, on the rare occasions that you'll bounce you either don't charge them or just tag, and Alpha Bunker instead. Could also drop 15 Boyz for 6 pigs if you wanted a bit more board control, although it's also an extra drop. For what initially looks like a really skewed list, it doesn't actually have that many bad matchups, although I liked it better when you could use Ragged Cloak on the Warchanter.

You hero! Thank you.

I've ran them in Big Waaagh with some success, they were in a big unit of 8 at the time: https://plasticcraic.blog/2020/02/27/summer-smash-tournament-review-big-wins-for-the-big-waaagh/ I took that list to another GT shortly afterwards. I had to drop after Day 1 (problems with my flight home, it was when Covid was first kicking off). But overnight I was 2-1, having lost to the player who went on to win the event, and beaten the guy who finished 4th. So it definitely has legs. That list needs work anyway, but the big unit would hate getting shot at. People who did have ranged output targeted the Heroes, but that was a bit of a trap: this list could function perfectly well with any 2 or 3 of its Heroes dead.

Just putting out the call to see if anyone kept the pdf download of the final BAR and FAQ for Season 2 please?

Not sure whether you submitted the FAQ, but I did (again) and they didn't bother answering it (again).

I've published an article on the Anvil, including some cool creations, that might be of interest: https://plasticcraic.blog/2020/07/18/gh20-review-part-2-anvil-of-apotheosis/

No, but I'm interested to see it! I take it you already have the models (since they're no longer available)?

That's good to know, they are the one thing that has barely been leaked yet, but the single biggest impact on the game that we'll be playing for the next 6 months (well those of us who focus on Matched Play at least). We played that one that was leaked last weekend (with the 6 objectives, and you nominate the key one). It was fantastic. Really interested to see the full suite tomorrow. I'm not rapt with the points changes personally (Acolytes down? 20 Spider Riders still cost the same as 20 Hearthguard? Nothing but nerfs to the Destruction FW units?). But a good set of missions will be remembered long after that is forgotten. TBF out of all the things GW promotes, the Anvil is the least directly related to selling you more stuff. You might buy new GW kits to kitbash, but you might also use 3rd party minis (like this Tyrant https://www.sciborminiatures.com/en_,shop.php?art=1276#i/2012/big/rhino_02.jpg), raid the bits box to tack stuff onto things you already own, scratch build and so on. I've honestly got loads of ideas for this, none of which involve buying new models from GW.

Yeah I think you've really tried to work in the spirit of how it's "meant" to work and make a unit that feels right, and you've done a good job of it. Because you've approached it in that spirit, your opponents might even give you a break on the points cost - I'd be happy to let you use it in a friendly game at well below 280 points. It's pretty easy to break the whole thing if you min max though. It's still fun. I guess it's back to the original days of "talk to your opponent" AOS if we want to use it, and just all be on the same page. Locally I think we might do a campaign where these Heroes are allowed, no holds barred, break it into a million tiny pieces. I will double it up as a hobby project but again I think as long as you are all approaching it the same way, it can be fun and memorable.

You can make some utterly bent stuff in there, it's just hard to make the thing we all wanted because the Ironjawz base profile is garbage. They put him on a 5+ save so you have to spend a million points to get back to where you should have started. I don't think it'll be allowed at matched play events tbh, you can do some really crazy stuff.

Yep, in the White Dwarf issue that covered the Vostarg lodge in detail (including new rules), there was a short story that was explicitly about this topic. Duardin are definitely sexually dimorphic.

10 points off the Battalion, are they serious? 🤣

Yeah they are different units for gameplay purposes. I'd expect the Mancrusher to be a rebadging of the existing Aleguzzler model though. That's good though! You don't really want them to be named - this way you can take Command Traits and Artefacts. This book is going to be wafer-thin already, without all of the Heroes also being unique!

Yeah it does mean you can't put Breath on them though (or if you do, it's only going to help in the Charge phase). So the extra D6" you get from the run is way less than what you've lost from the spell. Although even then it would sometimes be useful for having a second mobile unit (one with Breath, one near the Big Boss), or if you get unbound. Maybe it's not as useless as I thought. Yeah I sent it in again too! Haha.

I loved the snippet about Thunderbellies figuring out how to trap the bolts of lightning when a Stormcast dies, and putting it in the Mawpot as "Lightning Meat". All those SCE going missing in Chamon, because Ogors have eaten their souls! I'm also a huge fan of Braggoth. His Battalion was a low-key fan favourite, so although I was initially disappointed that it didn't make it into the new book, it was awesome to see that he's alive and kicking in the storyline. Frozen in an ice block since the Age of Chaos, then thaws out ready to rumble! A bridge between ancient and modern eras - I love it. A White Dwarf short story and named character Warscroll would be the icing on the cake.

Hey Franz, what I don't like about it is that I think it's too restrictive. You have to be wholly within 12" of the SBB at the start of the charge phase, which means you can't run away from him and out of range. It's overly restrictive on the Boarboys in particular, since they are moving far faster than him, so he acts like an anchor holding them back. I've read it differently from you in that I don't think you get a "free" extra 5" move in the charge phase, but if that's what it's meant to be, then I agree that's far better (for Savage Orruks especially). Maybe you could send in an FAQ? I sent one in already, but they ignored it in the last round of FAQs. I might try again too.

Yep, I would argue that some Greenskinz units can be competitive within a Big Waaagh, but I certainly wouldn't be going out and accumulating any more at this point. I'll never bin that book because it has a lot of good memories - even the fluff in it was quite good. But even if you're running Greenskinz in Big Waaagh, all you need is a couple of Warscrolls that are in the app, so it lives on the shelf now. It was actually my main "Battletome" at an event as recently as this time last year (Dwellers Below event in Melbourne), when I ran Mixed Destruction.

Agreed with all of the above! Hopefully the Hag doesn't get overlooked as a FW model.

Very good post @Theo Jansen I think there's a lot of related but distinct discussions we could have around the playtesting process. Some of these are (with my opinions italicised): Is it a net benefit to the game? Yes, massively so. Is it perfect? No, just as we can't expect any process to be perfect, but we should constantly strive to improve. Do they do a good job? Yes, I think so, looking at some of the things they have caught. The relevant comparison is not a subjective, imaginary perfect version of a given book, but what that book looked like before playtesting. Is it fair to criticise the process? Yes with an asterisk. From someone on the outside looking in, the UK scene seems very factional and I could well imagine that criticising the process is used as a proxy for criticising the individuals involved / scoring points in personal feuds. Hopefully when there is well-reasoned, constructive criticism of the process, that doesn't get misconstrued as criticism of the individuals. Do the playtesters get an advantage in individual events? Already discussed extensively in this thread and beyond, with some good points raised on all sides. Minor if any in my opinion. Do the playtesters get an advantage in the ETC / other team events? Yes, and it's probably quite significant. It's this last one that is the one that I would argue deserves most focus, given that the reason this blew up as a topic was specifically because of comments made on the Bad Dice review of the Lumineth book, by a playtester who represents England at the ETC . In the context of ETC, having a team of mostly / all playtesters is advantageous in several ways: You know which way the meta is likely to go before everybody else This can and does inform your portfolio of armies (confirmed on the podcast) You know whether to invest time and tournament reps in specific armies You know if an army has a likely hard counter looming All of these things are huge in an event where pairings are critical. I think that context is something that deserves specific discussion. For ETC specifically I would suggest an earlier cut off date for what is valid. It's not a perfect solution, because it means you're likely playing with an "old" ruleset, but it would solve the issue of big swings in the meta right before the event that some teams knew already knew about in detail, and most teams didn't. Finally I'd like to say that there are several red herrings that come up whenever playtesting comes up that I would like to address in advance: "They're great players" Yes they are, and sincere hats off to them for their many achievements. But that is tangential to this specific discussion. You could put Usain Bolt in rocket boots, and say he would have won the race anyway, and that would be true. "The game would be worse without playstesting" Agreed. Suggesting that playstesters have an advantage in team events is in no way advocating for the abandonment of the entire playtesting process. Interested to hear everyone's thoughts on the above, but especially from playtesters on whether they agree / acknowledge that they have an advantage for the ETC specifically, and what if anything they would suggest as an outcome for that.

Yeah the Shadespire warband is the main thing that gives me hope. I think there's a chance we'll get a "Savage Tribes" army at some point, and I'd love to see reimagined Gitmob artillery as part of that. New Doom Divers with a step change in design, similar to the Screaming Skull Catapult becoming the Mortek Crawler (or the Black Coach before that). At least, I really hope there's a chance!

Yeah the Battalion bonuses themselves are pretty poor, although you get some points back from the Kopp Rukk in that you don't need to take a Prophet to get access to his spell. So you can load up on 4 Wardokks, get access to all the good spells, and put them inside a Battalion to keep your drops down. I'd suggest 2x minimum Morr Boys in the Battalion, to use as chaff. They're not really worth investing in further, because Savage Orruks have a better save and 2" reach, but you can always use a cheap chaff unit. Brutal Rukk is awful, but again it bundles up your units (Battleline this time) into one package. If you take a Rogue Idol or Big Stabbas, that will put you up to 3 drops overall.