Sception

Cado's starting to show up in some tournaments, including Anthony Lawrence's impressive 5-0 list, so that's pretty cool. I finally got my own Cado model for Christmas, & I'm looking forward to painting him up.

all equivalent hero and lord models became different models for the same units in the transition from WHFB to AOS, so there's at least ~some~ precedent. We've also had examples of units with different weapon options being split off into separate units then later recombined into the same unit with (or without) options again, iirc. "Guardian of Souls with Mortality Glass" was originally a separate unit from "Guardian of Souls with Nightmare Lanturn," but later recombined as just an alternate model for the same unit - though that was a limited edition model so I don't think anyone expected the unit rules to stick around forever. Then again, they might have, since I think people were expecting a new model for guardian of souls after the soul wars box was dropped, and if that had happened it could have been a dual kit. So yeah, not a lot of precedent, but not none.

Yeah, but they could change out the included 32mm base for a 40mm base and say that the monster kit ghoul king and the archregent are two different models for the same unit.

I also wouldn't mind the /removal/ of the ghoul king on foot unit - or rather combining 'ghoul king' and 'abhorrant archregent' into a single unit, with abilities closer to the latter. I just don't see a point to having both of these in the same faction, it's basically just "Daniel / the Cooler Danial" meme. We don't need both 'bad/weak ghoul king on foot' and 'good/useful ghoul king on foot' in the same army. If they do opt to keep both, I hope they differentiate them somehow. "I cast one spell per turn and have a buff spell vs. I cast 2 spells per turn and have a better buff spell", "I summon ghouls vs. I summon the same ghouls only more of them", "I can sort of fight in melee but not good enough that you ever want to put me there vs. I can fight a bit better than that guy, but still not enough better that you ever want to put me there" is, again, just "a guy vs. exactly the same guy but better". You can't even argue points efficiencies, since the stronger summon swallows the difference in cost between them. If they're going to persist as different units, then they need to have different jobs, not the same job that one of them just does twice as good. Again, though, my preference would be to not have them as separate units to begin with. I thought that sort of 'hero vs. lord version of the same guy' distinction was left behind in oldhammer. After all, we don't have necromancers and master necromancers anymore, or vampire counts and vampire lords, etc.

my own wish list: stolen from SBGL: dire wolves & fell bats new kits for existing units: * ghoul courtier * dual kit horrer/infernal courtier * plastic varghulf new units: * ghoul support caster / court advisor * elite ghoul "Yoemen" dedicated infiltrators/trappers * ghouls riding dire wolves or fell bats "mounted Yoemen" * 1+ named characters, especially the Carrion King, preferably as a big dioramma type model Aesthetic wishes for any/all new kits * Convey the delusions in the models themselves. not just slavering bitey guys mindlessly rushing forward - give them regal robes of skinned hide, crowns & swords of broken bone, scavenged scraps of armor, more upright postures, ugly monstrous faces but with pompas condescending expressions, messengers carrying tatters of cloth with nonsense scrawled on it in blood, have the horror courtier carrying a dead horse head stuck on a broken pike between its legs as an imaginary steed, etc etc. the lore of delusions is amazing, but it needs new models to bring it to life on the table.

They look great!

Peasant archers - unlikely to see a direct equivalent going forward, I'd mix them in with men-at-arms as regular ghouls Mounted yeoman - nothing in-faction - fingers crossed for wolf or bat mounted ghouls in the future. In the mean time, you could ally in dire wolves, black knights, or hexwraiths, and convert ghouls-on-wolves to represent them. Damsels - on foot, ghoul courtiers are a reasonable substitute, especially with the arcane tome. fingers crossed for dedicated ghoul support caster / court mage advisors in the future. Trebuchet - nothing in faction or via allies, nor anything likely going forward, sadly. Foot squires - I'd roll these in with men at arms and peasant archers as more regular ghouls, but you could pull in sbgl vyrkos bloodborn allies to represent foot knights, foot squires, or other semi-elite smallish base infantry. Battle pilgrims - as per foot squires Grail relaque - size and shape of a knight hero, in a stretch you could run this as one of the big base courtiers. Personally, though, I'd incorporate it into some sort of scenic terrain situation. Knight variants - well, pegasus knights vs. not pegasus knights is covered by flayers vs. horrors. Minor differences between errant and realm knights could simply be used to distinguish one unit from another, while the fancier non-pegasus knights - questing & grail - could represent horror champs and heroes. a lot of the above are real sticking points, but I don't think knight variants are any more significant than equipment variants on men at arms. The latter are still just crypt ghouls, the former are still just crypt horrors. .......

OBR are in a very difficult place, and need a significant re-write to work properly given the 3e changes to command abilities. That said, there are players who continue to do well with them in competitive formats, and there have been positive moves. Battleline-if for the monstrous infantry is something we've wanted to see since day one, and conditioning that on a mortisan general isn't a particularly onerous condition. The heroic action to force a spell through is very nice as well. As an AoS original faction, It does feel natural to compare OBR to Lumineth and be bitter at the preferential treatment the latter has received. Whenever I find myself slipping into this mindset, I make a conscious effort to compare to Fyreslayers or Kharadron instead, and recognize that our initial wave was fantastic and support since honestly hasn't been that bad. The transition to 3e has been awkward and will remain awkward until we get a new book, which is annoying, but OBR aren't the first faction to have an awkward edition changeover, and won't be the last. In the mean time, we endure, and I take some comfort in the ludonarrative ressonance of that - it's difficult times for me playing OBR, just as in character it's difficult times for the OBR themselves, and in both cases we shoulder on and endure. It's what we were built for, after all.

I kinda hope not. The incarnate rules are a bit of a mess, and the SoB have already demonstrated the difficulties with balancing a faction made up of like 5 big dudes in a game otherwise meant to handle battles between armies of 50+ little dudes.

oldhammer fantasy had a lot of problems, but the biggest one was something I don't think the devs and decision makers were even aware of until it was too late - narrative stagnation. Nothing ever really happened in the lore, even relatively minor changes got retconned away a few years later rather than building into bigger events. There was nothing to get excited about, nothing to shake things up or stir up interest. Nothing to attract new players or get existing players to come out of their insulated basements playing the same armies against the same opponents. End Times shook things up. Suddenly there were big events happening, big things changing, characters dying, armies combining or being destroyed. It was controversial, but it was also exciting. Players got motivated, they came out to speculate, they revised or added to their armies, tragically new people started playing the game. From the outside, there was so much activity. I don't have the inside perspective to know whether that translated into sales, but it's hard to imagine it didn't. But even if the End Times did demonstrate that there was life to be found in the Fantasy game and product line after all, by that point it would have been too late to change course. Still, it's hard not to imagine a different course for Age of Sigmar if the devs had embraced and built on the renewed interest in fantasy and the old world rather than abandoning it.

Same. A burrowing, dungeon carving, treasure hoarding insect race is just a neat idea. A faction rousing from ancient slumber and marching forth from their catacombs to reclaim their stolen treasures and avenge themselves on those who took them also speaks to the Tomb Kings fan in me. Even if, sadly, as we've gotten more lore on the Silent People its become clear that they won't be a death faction when and if they do appear. Not sure what they would be instead, though. They aren't chaos, they build and collect rather than destroy, but they also don't sound like they'd be friends to any of the order factions.

I don't know what imba means (google search didn't help, unless part of Cado's lore is that he's big into the mountain biking scene), but just to be clear, the model is in plastic, not finecast. Otherwise, I don't think it's supposed to be limited, but who knows with GW these days.

It's colossally unlikely even if Bloodhunt does include soulblight given the nature of war cry as a small scale skirmish infantry game that only barely includes rules for cavalry models, and the fact that AoS rules for warcry warbands are generally for the whole warband as a pile rather than separate rules for individual models within it, but if such a set could be used to give us back mounted vampire lords I'd be very happy. Stealing away the option for mounted vampire lords at the same moment that we finally got a proper plastic kit for their blood knight retinue was a tragedy.

4.44... (5 attacks * 2/3 hit * 2/3 wound * 2 damage = 40/9) mortals unbuffed. The sword is damage 2, or 2 mortals per successful wound roll with the Fallen up. No flaming sword as as a unique hero, though. again not nothing, but I'm not sure it's enough to earn his points & hero slot in a competitive setting.

The Warscroll from the link (hopefully fine to post, it's part of a free download on WarCom My thoughts: -5 points and losing the command ability for +1 wound, +1 attack, +1 rend, +1 reach (why? Greatswords don't normally get extra reach), more reliable damage, stronger Hunger but with worse timing (hunger works pretty much the same for everything else in the faction, why does it work differently on this one guy?), an ok but unremarkable signature spell, and the amazing Court of the Lost sounds like a steal. In fact it sounds like such a steal that this guy is probably destined for future nerfs. I've seen the pattern of outside-of-battletome content that seems too good on its face getting subsequently nerfed into oblivion or banned outright to Legends repeated too many times. Cado here is probably doomed to the same fate. And yet, for however long as these rules persist, I'm still not convinced that he's an easy choice over the generic Vampire Lord. That command ability is why you take vampire lords in the first place, All this guys other abilities are cool and good, but I'm not convinced they make up for that. 4.44 mortal wounds when the Spirit of the Fallen is up, without counting any other buffs, isn't nothing, but the regular vampire lord is swinging with 15 to 20 grave guard or zombie attacks, and doing so without having to expose themselves to the dangers of melee, and that's probably just better? Especially since +1 wound alone doesn't exactly turn a fragile infantry hero into one who can heedlessly wade into melee, or easily get there in the first place against a foe with significant shooting output, especially a unique hero who can't benefit from defensive artefacts or command traits. But I really like the model, and like many I've wanted a version of regular vampire lords who are scary in their own right, not just for the bonuses they grant to other units, so I'll still be trying to use this guy. He's not legion locked, so you could run him as a second vampire (since you can't use the command ability twice in the same phase anyway) in an infantry heavy Vyrkos list, using the steed to help position the faction buff aura where you want it or stacking the tutor with the faction's casting re-rolls to power out endless spells. Or you could run him in Kastelai, where he can keep pace with blood knights (who don't benefit from the vampire lord's command ability anyway), and benefits from the buffs for killing units. Then again, Vyrkos has Radukar the Beast and Beladamma Volga, and while both are pricier than this guy I also feel like they bring more to the table, and Kastellai have the Vengorian who can also keep pace with blood knights and protect them with a rend malus aura. All of these other heroes are more expensive than Cado, and arguably less damage output at least against very heavily armored opponents, but they also do more for the army I think. I don't know. Your thoughts? EDIT: he doesn't benefit from subfactions, says so right there. Whoops! That only reinforces my feeling that despite his many cool benefits, he will still struggle to steal a spot from the generic lord.

unfortunately, I do not have any spare cursed city bat swarms. I do have this soft plastic bat swarm from the reaper bones line, if that's any interest:

I need between 1 and 3 more of nagadron's head (the head of Neferata's dread abyssal steed) for my counts-as necropolis knight conversions, as such: by any chance are there any fellow forumites out there with spares of the bit after assembling mortarch kits as Arkhan or Mannfred? I could offer paypal (say $5 per head plus shipping), or trade from my extensive bits box of chaos marines & miscelaneous undead - just tell me what bits you want & I'll let you know if I have any lying around.

Nighthaunts have a separate subforum now, you can find it here: https://www.tga.community/forums/forum/181-nighthaunt/

Bit of a long shot, but... For compulsive collector reasons, I'm looking for this guy, Garkorr, the 500th store limited edition Bladegheist Revenant: For trade I have new-in-box and completely unopened the similarly hard to find Darrakar, the 2019 store anniversary limited edition Guardian of Souls, the one with options to build with either the usual nightmare lantern or a 'mortality glass' instead. Ideally I would like the Garkorr to be similarly unopened, but given the model's obscurity I'm willing to accept assembled, just not already painted, so long as the model is undamaged and you promise to pack it in an extremely gentle but well supported fashion - Nighthaunt models being so frustratingly delicate. Alternatively, if you happen to be near Baltimore Maryland or Washington D.C. we could make a trade in person.

Is their an official faq on this? As is the rule is extremely ambiguous and could easily be read the other way. Zero plus one is one, after all. Also, how does it interact with harvester? Do you re-roll the trigger roll? That seems most natural, but that roll doesn't determine how much you bring back, just whether the ability happens, so a strict reading would have the roll come and go before nagash has a chance to interact with it. Do you bring back two morteks for every 4+? That doesn't seem right either. New nagash is a mess, & honestly needs a rewrite.

I would prefer both wards and mortals to become less common outside of specialized factions, even if it meant going back to the drawing board yet again for the zombie warscroll, but that's not the game we're playing these days. Even if we were, though, 6++ would still not be good enough to warrant the hassle of wholly within bubble management, imo.

The change to FEC was framed as a 'balance change', and Nighthaunts were low performing before the new book. If unconditional 6+ ward is being conceptualized as a balance change then I don't expect it to come to SG since we're not doing that badly. I'd like to see it as a QoL fix, 6+ ward is not a good enough benefit to be worth the hassle of maintaining wholly within bubbles, but yeah, I don't expect it. Especially since it would further undercut the relatively little value left in gravesites apart from as a deployment option.

I don't mind mental load, but yeah, it needs to be proportional to the effect on the game. A 6+ ward is almost nothing, you shouldn't have to expend effort maintaining it.

Isn't that GS objectively worse than the one that only reauires 3 GV units on the table at the end of the game? One less unit, with no restrictions on where they end up? I guess the 4 quarters one allows summoned vets while whe three units one requires them to be from your starter army, but while NH have some healing we're not really summoning a lot of units to the table mid game.

Sounds about right, though I feel host is neither up nor down, and the main problem for grieving is that the 30 model chainrasp or grimghast units they like to take are hard to fit in cruciator bubbles. There are still games that will be won by no retreat tho. It's just that kind of ability. Not convinced by squads of 30 GVs in general, especially of the 32mm base stuff, due to aforementioned difficulty fitting in cruciator bubbles. I mean, yeah, it's a big bubble, but 30x 32mm bases is so much table. Speaking of cruciator bubbles, these are vital this season. Maybe even 2+ mandatory? Not running them at all is right out, certainly. If you don't have one yet, now's the time to buy. .... Thought on hexwraiths? I very much like a unit or two of hexwraiths in anything. Fast as heck, mortals on the charge, don't give up extra damage to vets, 24+d6" sacraficial first turn move to box in enemy vets or hunters, whichever are more troublesome for you in a particular game, unless they can teleport or fly. Maybe I'm overestimating the value of that due to coming from obr, who are so slow that losing your first turn of movement is practically game right there, but still. Make them hunters, maybe have Reikenor toss a purple sun downfield, and they even have some halfway respectable output against enemy gelato vets. Grimghasts, crimson bladegheists, & quicksilver dreadscythes all do far more damage as hunters, but they're also vulnerable to enemy hunters so they have to play around cruciator bubbles, while hexwraiths are free to range out.