SwampHeart

The Plague Furnace has that ability naturally - just like (for whatever unknownable reason) basically every other Skaven large model has.

Yeah that was Darren Watson, it's a really interesting list. He took some interesting pieces to really take advantage of Kairos' manipulate a d6 once per game as well (beast caller's bones specifically so he could take control of a monster once per game).

Now that's a good call! Plus you get some additional (non DP generating) MW output out of the Keeper. Good for slicing a few wounds off a character or a light chaff unit.

Yeah but if you take your own cloak you give up Thermal Rider which is a big deal. A Keeper without fly isn't near as big a threat as a keeper with fly - that's why its such a hard trade to make. And even in the case where you have 2 Keepers with 2 artifacts you can't get Doppleganger and Thermalrider - you'd have to settle for the Godseekers girdle instead.

@CB42 not to choke up the thread too much but I think fiends look attractive against that setup. There are a myriad of problems with using Fiends as the solution for anything but from a purely theory based perspective I think the tandem -1 to hit and -1 to wound (assuming a large enough unit) plus their own potential damage output against a monster makes them an ideal answer to the GKoTG. Again I don't think this is practical unfortunately because Fiends are overpriced at current but they do seem ideally suited for the job.

Savvy players will see the flying keeper jumping the line plan and do exactly this. Its a great idea in theory to say just jump over them and kill the characters but Skaven are so wildly undercosted that they can truly bubble wrap characters to the point where even with fly you can't get into a position to damage them. I think either shooting their screens or possibly looking into Seekers is a solid idea. Seekers might actually be a pretty strong tool for clearing our chaff screens like dogs, clan rats, etc. They're more expensive than Raiders but faster with a more consistent damage output. Seekers as a whole are a tough one for me - I always want to use them but they're the first thing I cut. I'm not 100% sure on what a solid answer is to the Doppleganger - maybe this is a case where you'd take the Exalted Keeper for the -1 to hit option? I don't like relying on magic as an answer ever, its too unreliable - especially given we lack any bonuses to cast. All that said maybe its a great target for an early Mesmerizing Mirror? Another idea is that since Doppleganger is once per game to see if you can bait it out with a strong charge from non keeper units paired with Locus support. I can tell you the GKoTG doesn't want 30 Bestigors beating on him anymore than he wants two keepers so there may be value in trying to get him to spend the cloak early or pin him in a bad situation. @Magnus The Blue - bracketing is a term meaning you move the monster down one of its wound brackets.

Honest answer is its difficult to deal with. I've considered Ungor Raiders, especially with a pre-game move it isn't too hard to get 30 in range to shoot a hole in the screen but obviously that's a points investment. Right now my main game plan is usually putting Bestigors into the screen and understanding its a bad trade. The Bestigors will wipe out my opponent's screen, I know I'm going to get charged by Plague Monks so I atleast try to keep the Epitome near them for the chance to swing before they will before they get removed. Usually the goal against that build is to go full bore and just try to pin my opponent on his side of the table for the first two turns so I can get the upper hand on objective scoring, and then just try to keep pressure up via summoning. I have 2 very competent Skaven players in my local meta so I get to play this game pretty often. I'm able to win it more than I lose but its never an easy game and I'm usually picking up wins by slim margins. Really not something I've even thought about the counter on. I'm fortunate (or unfortunate from a practice standpoint) that I only have 1 FEC player in my local meta and they play Blisterskin rather than Gristlegore. Just trying to theory hammer it out I wonder if the GKoTG isn't the ideal prey for a Blademistress on Exlated Chariot? Or maybe an actual unit of Seeker chariots? Obviously this isn't a guaranteed match up but I think the opportunity to deal MWs before combat could be really beneficial at bracketing the TG.

They should but some don't - doesn't change my expectation to see command represented on the table.

I've never been to an event that didn't allow FW. I'm sure they're out there but most of the AoS events are pretty inclusive about letting you use your stuff.

Or use Bits sellers on eBay, or just left over bits from other kits with extras?

I've played against both at this point. The Skaven list is entirely unable to deal with the speed of HoS in my opinion. Now obviously this is build dependent but I'm running Godseekers with Cogs - 2 Flying Keepers and 30 Bestigors are just too fast for Skaven to reliably set up their rat trap on. Even if the Skaven player deploys well back from the line once you've got the pressure up their endless spell nonsense is just irrelevant. The Skaven list I'm more concerned with is the slightly more mundane list that takes advantage of how undercosted plague monks are with the buffs they have available. Death Frenzy Plague Monks really hurt - especially an army like HoS because we rely on killing things before our opponent gets the chance to do so. Against Shootcast I've not had a ton of issues. I will say playing a Shootcast list is why I went with 2 Keepers, one is too vulnerable to being deepstrike popped. Against this match up board control becomes much more important. Ballista are only 18" for the high volume shot and given that they need to be 9" away when they drop in you can zone out areas to protect your characters but it requires a lot of forethought and examining what angles you want to have available.

From the Core Rules Designer Commentary:

As a TO this is a no go for my events (granted I run small FLGS events). Additionally as a player at a tournament this would be a no go. If your unit is supposed to have hammers and great maces it should be modeled as such. I like to think my opponents are good people who wouldn't try to gain an advantage from this but unfortunately I've had this not be true. Same as above - must be represented in the unit. First, having these models on the table represents an element of correct game play - the removal of casualties. If you have your standard bearer or musician in such a place as to where you'd either have to remove them or lose unit coherency that's a choice you've made. You have to be cognizant of that during game play. Second it should be easy for your opponent to identify what is in a given unit at a glance - I shouldn't have to ask each turn which unit has which options. As long as the options you're using on the table are represented I'm fine. I've played against Ungors with Spears and bows on their back so they can be used as raiders or ungors before. Again the key is I need to be able to look at the table - at a glance - and accurately identify what you're fielding. Absolutely not - if you've got Ishlaen on the table they're Ishlaen Guard. This is far too easy to be used for advantage, especially against an opponent who doesn't know better.

No, this has entirely to do with army imbalance. Both of these players had more experienced players attempting to help them build their armies into a better space and the KO player just didn't have the options to do so by comparison to the DoK player. Army imbalance leads to army tiers and army imbalance is awful for new players. These guys were playing missions as is appropriate and had a community working to help them progress. They weren't just two guys with no guidance starting out. Our club lost out on two new players because of the army imbalance that exists in AoS right now - when people talk army tiering they're talking about army imbalance.

Yeah in my experience someone who actually gives a darn about their models tends to be a better/more fun/more engaging opponent. A pay-to-play opponent tends to be a ****** at the table. I prefer people who embrace the whole shebang, not just the rules. But that's just my personal experience with people who pay to have mold lines removed.

This is 100% incorrect, I've lost new players in my group because of it. Specifically I had 2 new guys pick up DoK and KO at the same time, neither were aware of the power difference in the two armies. They played for about 3 months with us (and my group tried to help them out, got the KO player games against the non DoK player, etc) but every time they played the KO player was absolutely dejected. To be clear the DoK player wasn't playing a netlist but was literally just taking good DoK units out of what was available and was still just entirely heads and shoulders above the KO player. After three months of this both sold off their armies and went on to find other games to play. Imbalance has more of an impact on casual and new players than top end tournament players.

This is correct, you may only take 1 SLAANESH HERO in a Supreme Sybarites battalion in a Pretenders host.

I agree with @Enoby - I don't really find a need to increase my speed most of the time.

I don't have the source but at some point GW stated they pointed based on allegiance abilities. That said I think that's entirely false and I use BoC as proof - if allegiance abilities matter then surely Tzaangors (and all their derivatives) would be priced differently in BoC vs. DoT. But given that they're not I think its clear GW doesn't actually factor in allegiance abilities. All that said I'm interested to see what happens in GHB 2019.

This should basically never happen though. This isn't relevant to the main point of a balanced book but from a tactical stand point we should both out drop and out speed both Skaven and LoN with GGRs. If you aren't consistently controlling the pace of combats with HoS you're probably losing already - its honestly the greatest 'soft' (i.e. not a specific set of rules) strength of the book. I've had a chance now to get about 15 games under my belt with the new book and the thing that consistently wins me games is our ability to set the pace of the game and control the board by movement. Its one of the reasons I'm strongly considering going back to a 3 drop build, just to ensure that outside BoC and Sylvaneth (at current) I should be in control of who takes the first turn. But yes its about balancing, its about not going all in on 3 Keepers because they keep you from accessing the other tools you need. Its also about understanding our summoning is very strong but having a concrete plan for it. The thing I see most often with HoS lists is this plan to just rack up tons of DP but no actual plan on how to spend it in an attempt to win the game.

So I've played Chaos Knights in a HoS army a few times and even with the exploding 6s they're not generating any real damage. 10 Chaos Knights (with ensorcelled weapons) do 22 wounds before saves including horse attacks. I haven't done the math on lances but I don't suspect it looks much better.

30 Bestigors with 25 in combat (not hard against a unit like GGRs) will do 24 wounds after saves, if you're limiting yourself to just Hedonites then 30 Daemonettes in Epicureans does 17 wounds. Those numbers also become staggering against a unit like Plague Monks. We have the tools to handle hordes, well, especially given our speed. The key is balancing those units that handle hordes against our desire to load up on characters. I'd personally rather spend the 300 points on Bestigors than 360 on an 2nd keeper every time just because it means you aren't leaving a glaring weakness in your play to armies like DoK, Skaven, and GGR LoN.

Doesn't work on Bestigors - only on Warherd. I'm trying to figure out what other buff it might be.

What were you not in range of?

I try not to jump on board conspiracy theories (especially ones regarding GW's competence) but this feels like what happened. They wanted to give a huge group of people a reason to buy the starter so they took a unit that is clearly balanced for NH and allowed it in LoN. And in doing so they effectively offset every possible weakness of that unit and created a scenario where NH is better in LoN than on its own.