Neinball

Exactly as ACBelMutie said. There were lots of variation, sure a lot used guard, not just because they're good but also because they battleline. If you look at the results from big tournaments, there have been Nagash/guard, Nagash/Deathriders, Katakros/guard, Katakros/crawler, guard/harvester, and many variations of non-named heroes of the same. Now the power is shifting from the subfaction back to the individual units and well, motrek guard are the top so expect to see them even more than you had before. If you weren't seeing Deathrider Kavalos Lances in Petrifex in your meta, then don't expect to start seeing them in Staliarch lists now as they were far better before. If people wanted to play that, they could have. Now less so, since they don't have the innate power of PE to proper up the weakness of the build as Deathriders are squishier than Guard and a lot harder to heal.

Not really. OBR already had a pretty wide selection of viable lists, they were all just petrifex. I'd wager you're likely to see even less variation in lists now because mortek guard are going to be even more valuable now for the less survivable subfactions.

The current errata for the 8th ed core rule book constitutes more significant changes to the game than the 7th ed book made from 6th ed. Not every new edition is as ground shaking as 8th was. Most are usually kept to minimalistic changes so that codexes are still valid. Why would this constitute it as 9th vs 8.5? GW never numbers the editions, it’s always just “a new edition” the community is what names it, just like how 7th wasn’t just called 6.5 even though that’s honestly all that it was.

Honestly the same thing happens for DoK, Idoneth, SCE, and many others. People decide which subfaction is the most powerful and everyone flocks to that one. And since Petrifex isn’t game breaking I wouldn’t expect any changes anytime soon.

Yup, OBR already got their post launch FAQ and won’t get any further updates until at least the big FAQ at the beginning of the year or (more likely) until the GHB in the summer.

There was a leaked photo from a couple of weeks back with even more new marine models (grav bikes and something else I don’t remember) so they’re far from done with the flood of marines.

Hell, I'd just be happy if every hero got access to the command ability instead of just the general.

Tzeentch is quickly overtaking Petrifex elite for the spot of most hated army, but there is so many games being played this weekend, we’ll have some good data on if Petrifex is really as bad as people think. Like, I know it’s powerful but I think the initial win rates are slightly inflated due to being a completely new army, but people have had time to practice against OBR in general now.

I’d guess that skeletons could be “marinated” in the nadir as it’s a place of even more concentrated death magic than the grave sand the original skeletons were exposed to. And of those original skeletons, we’re talking millions upon millions upon millions. Legions of skeletons beyond counting so even if they are not replaceable, there would be so much raw material they’d (which is at least partial recycleable) that I don’t think it’s concern any time soon.

How key are the banners? Could Reiknor's ability to snipe them out help? Seems like it's not just one issue, but a lot of them, so I'm interested in hearing your current thoughts on going about the issue.

I once tried out a meme list with 28 chaingasts. It was a fun game and far from competitive, but their shooting was dangerous. 15” range is hard to screen for. I’d love it if they expanded nighthaunt shooting options a little with units like that, whipping around chains etc.

This particular portion of the FAQ was created when LoN only had FEC as allies. LoN can now ally in Nighthaunt units, I don’t think anyone with common sense would bar you from using it as an ally.

My hopeful wish list for at least one of the battalions is to let multiple heroes use the spectral summons command ability so we don’t have sacrifice utility when making Olynder our general.

I’m down for 40 of the black and red.

This is all too true. I had this experience with my Necrons in 7th. I had like a 50% win rate in my local group, but everyone claimed that my undead robots were super OP because they wouldn’t die. Went back to Tyranids and did much better in our leagues but no more complaints despite winning far more games.