Grailstorm

It’s the definition of game breaking. Some armies literally can’t kill him. No unit should be immune to combat.

Not if you don’t have ASF. Or long pile ins.

How can anyone possibly like this rule on Mannfred. It’s the most game breaking rule I’ve ever seen.

Eh?

You can’t charge after their move. All normal moves made within 3” are retreats.

The ballista has an ability that lets you pick a unit within range of a hero and +1 to hit vs that unit. But the way it’s worded, it explicitly says pick 1 enemy unit and 1 friendly ballista. Do you read this as you can only pick one unit total no matter how many ballista you have? So you can only do this ability once, at the beginning of your shooting phase? Or can all ballista do it?

How are you playing Eltharion’s half damage rule? Does it apply to mortal wounds too? The rules say that these do damage and are applied at the same time as “normal” damage. Contrasting this, we have the Seraphon FAQ that says you can’t -1 damage from mortal wounds.

I know when its your turn, you go first with all of your start of turn stuff, then the opponent does. But how does this translate into abilities on the field? Say you’re fighting in the realm of light, and the command is to strike immediately used at the beginning of the combat phase. Both players want to use it. We enter the combat phase in player A’s turn. Does he: 1 - use the ability, and fight immediately, then player B does the same. 2 - use the ability, then player B uses the ability, then player A fights, then player B fights

I’m trying to figure out if tournaments have been allowing mercenaries? Most packs just say some variation of “use matched play” to make your army. Mercenaries comes before this section in the handbook, but it’s clearly written with matched play and pitched battles in mind. Are they generally allowed?

I frequently see this played wrong, and just want to double check I’m not making a mistake with my interpretation. Here’s the example. Stardrake gets buffed by the Castellant Lantern. So a dice roll of 6 heals a wound allocated to it. The way I always see it played is that wounds are healed in real time. For example, I was just watching a stream where a Stardrake was damaged by the unit champion, who did one wound. Then the attacks from the rest of the unit did nothing, but the Stormcast player healed a wound. My understanding is this can’t happen. Wounds are allocated after all attacks from the unit have been resolved. So a Stormcast player can only heal if a second unit is fighting it, or it was damaged in a previous phase/turn. Right?

Many spells come under allegiance abilities, and the rules state that mercenaries cannot benefit from allegiance abilities. Does this mean that allegiance spells can’t buff them?

The most important thing about Bastiladons is their near invincibility in this battalion. You can just teleport them to a key position and block/hold up units forever.

They get locus, exploding 6s, and then 2 of their choice when they choose their host. So 4 distinct abilities before you factor in summoning. Sylvaneth get 3 abilities, 4 with a wargrove. And no summoning. And that’s the high end. You’re hard pressed to find another army with 4 abilities (although Nagash hosts do). Free Peoples have 2. Daughters have 2, or 3 with a Temple. Ironjawz have 2. Stormcast have 2, or 3 with a Stormhost. So this is my point. Slaanesh have 4. And they’re great. And then they also have summoning. The fact still remains it’s one niche situation. On average, one Keeper will always kill one Thirster (they do more combat damage on average than all three Thirster variants before factoring in abilities). I don’t think there’s really much to address until we see more results. I think it underscores their power, you obviously don’t. Personally, I think any army with an >70% win rate has something overpowered about them. Tzeentch did. Daughters did. FEC did. And now Slaanesh do. Slaanesh were in a solid place before their book and now they’ve exploded.

This is the basis for the whole game. If there is no attempt at balance, there’s no point in playing. I never said anything about summoning not being included in the strength of an army as a whole, though. It plays a huge part in the strength of an army as a whole. Surely there is no need to point out how summoning is an additional layer on top of an army? All armies with an allegiance get abilities, items, and traits. Armies that summon get abilities, items, traits and summoning. Some armies have it, some don’t. It wasn’t originally a thing. Now it is a thing. Points haven’t been adjusted to cater for it. Therefore it is an additional layer on top of the base game. There is no situation in which summoning is disadvantageous. Armies do not lose anything for having summoning. Their other abilities are no lesser (see Slaanesh for one such example). Their units are no more expensive.

That is a niche situation in a 3-Thirster list fully geared around combat. It will be interesting to check back in here in a couple of months when we have some more tournament results in.