Sception

Looking at saurus warriors, lets compare them to a similar unit in an 'official' faction - basic Chaos Warriors. Both close order heavy infantry, both 14 points a model with heavy armor, hand weapon, and shield. Both get -1 ap with their hand weapons, but chaos warriors also get magical attacks. Chaos warriors have more weapon options, but their model kit also had more weapon options, so that is what it is. Both have a special rule that helps them with fear, terror, and panic tests. Both Move 4, Strength 4, Tough 4, Wound 1, and Leadership 8. Chaos Warriors get +1 weapon skill (4 vs. 3), and +3 initiative (4 vs. 1), which admittedly is pretty huge. Even with maximum charge bonus, saurus can only hope to tie initiative with Chaos Warriors. On the other hand, Saurus have +1 attacks, which is a big deal. Nearly double the attacks per frontage (slightly less than double since comparing champions is 3 vs. 2 attacks). Chaos Warriors can pay extra points to trade the undivided mark for another, which may or may not be a benefit. a limited number of saurus units can take shield wall, which isn't as good, but also isn't nothing. All in all, yeah, I'd call the chaos warriors better. Saurus are certainly better at chewing through big bulky chaff units like zombies and skeletons which will have trouble causing damage through the more elite infantry's Ws4, T4, and 4+ save, leaving most of the front rank alive to take advantage of those extra attacks, but have trouble dealing with stuff that hits hard enough to drop several saurus before their abysmal initiative 1, since every lost saurus is a significant reduction in their damage output. That said, I don't think chaos warriors are better by a huge margine, and their faction does pay some significant costs for their elite melee infantry, including having little to no shooting and relatively limited access to skirmishers & ambushers & the like, while lizardmen are a much broader 'some of everything' kind of faction.

The game my dude. Killing warhammer fantasy the game. Square bases, ranks & flanks, unit trays, USRs. The Old World, as a rule set, is /very much/ warhammer fantasy, a game they swore up and down was never coming back, and they absolutely meant it when they said it. The Old World only exists because corporations like GW can and do go back on stupid decisions all the time, no matter how firmly carved in stone.

Before old world was announced, would you have thought they'd ever go back on killing warhammer fantasy at all? dumb corporate decisions change over time as the people in charge change and old hangups are traded for new ones.

Not sure I see it as an undead player. Vamp Counts look more or less on par with Tomb Kings. less experimental (no eg skeleton skirmishers), but still. "per example lizardmens, havent any sacred spawns ( like most of real books has, the 6th mechanic to pay points and upgrade some things)." most 'supported' factions don't have this sort of variant thing either, least not in the main 2 books. "scaly skin seems count as normal armor now? so our saurus hero save at 4 at best, being slower, atacking last, hitting worse, being hit easier and costing more than every real faction hero saving at 2+" You've got the same mundane armor as a Tomb King can get, better mounted since cold ones have +1 armor. also better if you're comparing heroes instead of lords, since princes only get light armor. As with tomb kings, you compensate w/ magic items if you think you need it, and console yourself with toughness 5, which is significant. "cold ones always were the same as dark elfs since they are the same mount. but now dark elf one has +1t while having same stats and point cost." This is odd & should be fixed. "cold blood not working in break tests, making it totally useless, we went from being the stone army that wont ever move ( like dwarfs) to go away running in every lost fight." break tests work different now. Everyone is effectively stubborn. it's understandable that devs might have thought that + cold blood was too much. fear & terror matters more now, so the new version is still a real ability. "the worst offense for every lizardmen player im sure, after decades of having our god frog going into battle being carried and huged by his temple guard he cant do it now!!! and must go alone to battle." What prevents him from joining the unit? did I miss something? "bastiladons having only 4w when steam tanks have 10!!!! is a total joke." War Sphinx only has 5 Wounds. 4 doesn't seem that odd for a smaller monster, & 3+ save still makes it tougher than most. "carno is a joke, worse than worst dragon, and even sligthy worse than griffons!!! and saving at 5s when should have been a tank killing machine." you'll put a hero on it and give the hero better/magic armor. "and could go on.... but i think everyone get the idea." It's a new game. maybe some of the points & balance is off, but I'd wan't to see how things actually play out on the table before casting such harsh judgement. cold one situation is weird though. I could see devs not wanting a saurus hero on a cold one to be Tough 6, but they should work the same between dark elves & lizardmen regardless.

I think I've settled on a 1k starter list for tomb kings, sticking to the generic ravening hordes list for now, and focusing on classic, iconic, faction-defining units. Goal is a TK army that you look at & say 'yup classic tomb kings', even if they're rising up out of the snows instead of the sands. ... Tomb Prince, Great Weapon, Armor of Silvered Steel (i prefer flail to great weapon, but that's the model I have) Tomb Herald, Shield, BSB Mortuary Priest, Level 2, Necromancy 32 Skeleton Warriors with Spears, Shields, light armor, Nehekharan Phalanx, full command. All characters go here making a big 7x5 block to anchor the army. 15 Skeleton Skirmishers with bows and Ambush. Gotta have some archers, & the ability to skirmish them is cool. Probably won't ambush them often, but the option is neat. Casket of Souls, cus you gotta Screaming Smull Catapult. No skulls of the foe, sadly. too many points in rare with the casket at 1k. - Either - 3 Skeleton Chariots with full command - Or - 3 Ushabti with either warscythes or greatbows, but no command ... Total comes to exactly 1,000 points regardless of chariots vs. Ushabti. I'm not really committed to one or the other there, as both units are pretty iconic. The chariots maybe more so, but the ushabti are better models. I can replace the chariot drivers with 7e VC skittles, but am kind of stuck on the horses, since GW store legality is a concern. I don't really need to choose between chariots & ushabti (or between bowshabti & bladeshabti). I'll assemble & paint all 3 options & try them each out. After all, 1k is just a target on the way to 2k+. Now I just need my 3rd party bases & unit trays to arrive so I can start rebasing & assembly.

Watch DB4 come out 3 to 4 weeks after DB5.

What do you use for that? Last time I tried, I found the converters I used couldn't handle GW epubs, always ended up with messed up formatting. Haven't tried in a long while, though.

A word on the epubs, for anyone else who got those. GW uses some pretty wonky formatting on the already wonky epub3 file type and a lot of readers don't handle it well. Apple users shouldn't have any issues, as the default books app works fine. On windows PC, GW recommends Azardi, and that's the only reader that's been able to work for GW epubs for me on windows since the old redium extension for chrome went chrome-os exclusive. Azardi itself is a bit of a pain to find these days as most of the default distributions for it seem to be defunct. I was able to get it here: https://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/E-Book/Azardi-eReader.shtml Scratch that. For both Windows and Linux PC, use Thorium. For Android Users, Google Play Books works, except it has a file size maximum of 100mb, which isn't enough for the big rulebook, and most other android ereaders can't handle GW's epubs at all. The one I know that does work is Colibrio Reader, so use that.

Despite weather related shipping delays, my preorder haul arrived in time for release day. Snakes, Bowshabti, Tomb Guard, and reference cards. No physical books, I opted for the epubs, and after an hour or so trying different ereaders I finally found one that displays them properly, so am happy there. Sadly can't start assembly yet, as I'm still waiting for third party bases & unit trays to arrive. Speaking of bases, I can finally answer one of the questions I've been asking for a while: do the official bases actually match the official base sizes? This is a relevant question because the old bases did not always match their official sizes, particularly the cavalry and chariot bases. Well, at least for the models I ordered, these are indeed the old bases. That means the 25mm squares and 40mm squares are close enough to accurate, ever so slightly small but within 1mm of the correct dimensions, but the charriot is ~significantly~ off. About the right length at within 1mm of 100mm long, but only about 47.5mm wide. That's enough narrower than it should be that you can look at it and just see that it's not 1x2 proportions. if you run a unit of 8 tomb kings chariots 4x2 - a large unit to be sure but not unreasonably so for the chariot-heavy nobles variant list - then that unit will be a full centimeter narrower than their official width if you put them on the official bases. It's not a huge deal either way, the difference isn't so much that I think official events would care, but it matters a lot for movement trays, especially ordering 3rd party trays. If you're making your own trays you can just measure the width of the actual bases and cut your tray to custom size, but when ordering trays you'll need to account for the discrepancy if you want everything to sit flush. Alternatively, if you use third party or scratch built bases that are made to the official base size, they'll be too wide to fit a unit tray that is made to fit flush to the first party chariot bases. ... I don't have anything on the 25 x 50mm cavalry bases, but those were also narrower than stated in the past, closer to 23.5, so there will likely be the same issues with unit trays there.

The thing is, I regretted not getting the broken realms books. Big, important, setting-changing events happened in each of them that are still relevant now. The Dawnbringers books really haven't been like that, though.

I'm stopping with book four, and regret purchasing books 2 and 3. In retrospect I should have only gotten book one (with the path to glory campaign rules) and four (with at least some stuff for factions I already play). The overall narrative hasn't been terrible, at least compared to what we've had for the rest of 3e, but also very much isn't worth us$300, if not more.

I was really hoping for more Undead releases from the Dawnbringers campaign. I know, I know, the entire new FEC range, but that's more of a normal faction release/refresh with a new battletome, and the exciting aspect of Dawnbringers was the opportunity to release new models that didn't have to be tied to a faction release. And there are so many notable gaps in the undead ranges in AoS - Grave Guard, Cavalry vamp lord, faction terrain, and endless spells for soulblight. Faction terrain & monster for nighthaunts - along with updates to the painfully dated Cairne Wraith, Tomb Banshee, and Hexwraiths. that rumour engined new morghast for OBR that now probably isn't coming out for another year or two, not to mention the long wished for mortek archers But it looks like the only undead release for dawnbringers outside of the fec release (which, again, was very impressive, but also is a normal and frankly long overdue faction update with book, not something that required dawnbringers to happen), is ~yet another~ named vampire foot hero. A fairly cool one sure, but still literally the last thing the game needed. Eh, maybe I'm just feeling excessively negative since I really was expecting the morghast from this preview and it didn't happen. It's not like there weren't any undead previews tonight, the side game models looked cool at least. I should go back to sleep.

Yeah, those seem like unreasonable expectations. AoS 4 is still pretty far out to be pushing skaven previews, and while I get that some people think the old world faction line up means AoS is getting chaos dwarfs at some point, I think they're forgetting that Chaos Dwarfs were always a red-headed step child faction and it's entirely possible they won't be a supported faction for either game system. Even if they do get an AoS faction release, I'd be shocked if it were this year, so while I could sort of get why people might have thought we'd see skaven, chaos dwarf expectations were totally unrealistic.

No new morghast in the LVO preview. Which imo means it's probably not coming in Dawnbringers 4, and that fits with the OBR role in the narrative previews we've seen being pretty minimal. In turn, that means it's probably one of those long haul rumor engines that doesn't show up for like a year or three. Hopefully I'm wrong and we see it in a warcom article in the next week or two, but we're running out of time before dawnbringers 4 is out, and they were already pushing dawnbringers 5 in the lvo preview, so the chances of any new AoS undead releases that we haven't already seen are getting pretty slim.

Does anyone remember the early dawnbringer books that came with multiple exciting new units for multiple factions, not just like a hero, or a box of random heroes as a cartoon tie in? Seems so long ago.

No proper undead for AoS, just side game stuff. Pretty disappointing for me, as I was really hoping for that new morghast. Starting to think the only new model we're getting for Dawnbringer 4 is the LoBlood lady with the snake - that and the FEC stuff we've already seen, but I consider that to be a regular faction release, not a dawnbringer thing.

I just want that rumored morghast hero. Anything else undead is gravy.

I was never in danger of starting Stormcast, being an all undead only undead player myself, but the constant stream of new stormcast models and rules and redundant infantry beatstick heroes is just exhausting. Not even in an 'I wish my faction got some of that attention' sort of way, just in a 'how could anybody keep up with this?' kind of way. If my faction got an entire separate faction's worth of new units each edition - sometimes even multiple times per edition, with everything I already owned or invested in emotionally getting shoved into the afterthought bin like yesterday's news, I'd lose interest in the hobby altogether.

An aggressive schedule getting all nine 'supported' factions out in 2024 would in some ways be ideal - especially for players looking to start those armies. On the other hand, that's a heck of a lot of time and attention in the release schedule dedicated to a side game, so it seems unlikely to me. Personally, I also hope their a bit slower than that if only because GW dragging their feet would give the indie tournament scene for TOW more time to establish itself before 'official' GW events start sucking the air out of the room, and since the indie scene is more likely to allow the 'legacy' pdf factions I would like them to have time to entrench themselves as the defacto standard instead of GW's weird internal politics and game system faction ghettos.

I am suddenly tempted to pick up an entirely new casket of souls, despite already owning one in metal. The third carrion is also very nice

Let me know if this isn't the right subforum for this... ... ok, so none of us have seen the pdf rules yet. they're supposed to be 'as detailed' and as play tested as the core faction rules (not counting arcane journal additions), but that leaves some questions up in the air, including: 1) will there be bloodline rules? 2) will ghoul kings be an option/variant for vampire heroes & lords, or will they be fully separate unit entries? Some things are reliable though. For instance, the pdfs won't include special characters. The pdfs will as include a single muster/roster/army list that covers the army as broadly as possible - ie, the expected units will be core, special, rare & so on. It'll be up to the community to write and settle on an arcane journal, and while the official ones aren't out yet, they've been previewed & reviewed enough to get a sense of what's expected from them: 1. a few special characters 2. exactly two 'army of infamy' variant muster/roster/lists 3. some variant units tied the armies of infamy 4. faction specific magic items, some of which are tied to the armies of infamy. For a hypothetical homebrew vamp count arcane journal, obviously we would want to include bloodline rules if they aren't in the pdf already, though again there's an open question there in terms of whether ghoul kings should be generic vamp heroes with strigoi bloodline rules layered on top or if they should be separate units sltogether due to the more extreme differences in stats, mount, and equipment options. That's something that'll be answered for us by the PDF, not really something that can be anticipated in advance. For special characters, the obvious choices are Kemmler, Krell, and the Von Carsteins - they had the most recent official models after all. But that's already maybe too many, and also I would argue that since none of the named Von Carsteins were active in the official time period of tOW, that instead of going in the arcane journal they should go in a separate homebrew 'historical campaign' supplement covering the Vampire Wars specifically. If we leave the Von Carstein crew out, they we could just go with Kemmler & Krell. Two special characters is plenty, and as non-vampires they have the appeal ot being equally playable regardless of your bloodline. However, it is a little odd to have a vampire arcane journal with no named vampires in it. Do we just start off with the big vamps in Abhorash, Neferata, & Ushoran, despite the lack of clear rules & models to draw from in previous editions? Is Melchior still kicking around, or has he been replaced by Nicodemus at this point? ... That's special characters, but what about the 'armies of infamy'? Again, I'd be inclined to leave Von Carstein stuff for a Vampire Wars campaign supplement, but even without them we still have the Lahmia, Blood Dragon, Necrarch bloodlines, and Strigoi which might be a bloodline and might be separate units altogether, all of which would like to have their own armies of infamy, though some might need them more than others. Potentially multiple bloodlines could be covered by a single 'vampire covens' army of infamy centering vampire units & downplaying lesser undead. I could see both Blood Dragons and Lahmians working with core blood knights. There's also potentially room for a necromancer or wight king led 'no vampires' variant. That's something that people always want, and if the core vampire count pdf centers vampires then a no-vampire variant list might outright require an army of infamy. We could break with convention & simply have more armies of infamy than official arcane journals, but imo that makes general community acceptance less likely. If I had to pick exactly two armies of infamy for the arcane journal and we *weren't* segregating all Von Carstein biz to a separate supplement, then I'd say the two Armies of Infamy should be Von Carstein citizen levy with a mix of living and undead empire troops, plus a no-vampires at all Necromancers & Wights undead horde. If we *are* putting Von Carstein stuff in a campaign book, then personally I'd trade their AoI out for a dedicated Strigoi / Ghoul King RoI, as they're probably the most deviant from the core vampire counts army and thus most in need of a separate muster. Plus there's lots of room for expanding them with extra units borrowed from AoS. But going with Strigoi and Necromancers as the variant armies, like going with just Kemmler & Krell for special characters, would mean a vampire counts arcane journal where the actual vampires aren't getting much attention or focus. Apart from maybe bloodline rules, but those might be in the pdf already. .......... So what are you all thinking so far? Is splitting off the von carsteins into a separate 'historical campaign' book a good idea or not? how many and which armies of infamy do you think a homebrew vc arcane journal should include? Which special characters? Should the focus be doubling down on the vampires themselves, or should it be extending rules support to the non-vampire armies that will probably be the least supported by the core VC pdf rules?

She can be a lot more than /just/ Nagash's tool. Being Mortarch prevents her from directly defying Nagash's word, but with Nagash temporarily out of the picture that's not a huge restriction on her own plots and schemes, and whether she's advancing Nagash's agenda or her own, she should still be a competent actor with more Ws than Ls. I recommend the Dominion of Bones novel for one of the rare cases where she's allowed to be properly competent, though admittedly it goes a bit far in the other direction. Again, my complaint is less how Ushoran gets one over on her in this one specific narrative and more how it fits into a pattern going back to first edition, where Arkhan and Mannfred were portrayed as dangerous and competent, always working successfully toward hidden agendas, where Neferata, supposedly the most subtle and manipulative of the mortarchs, was always working towards a blunt, obvious goal that rarely succeeded and almost never knew what was actually going on behind the scenes.

I just ordered a bunch of plain bases and unit trays from https://covetedforge.com/ to re-base my tomb kings with. Hopefully the quality is good, will post brief review either way.

I *hope we're freaking done* with single realm editions. It was a total mistake that wasted the entirety of third edition, and things are only getting better now with the dawnbringer books in large part thanks to not being locked down to a single realm. Also a starter box set in the realm of shadow that doesn't feature daughters of khain or Malereon's shadow elves would be a pretty big waste.

The Ushoran stuff is great, and really propels him into a position as an important and unpredictable player in the core narrative going forward. At the same time, I'm disappointed by the limited presence of the Ossiarchs and non-presence of the Nighthaunts - though maybe they play a bigger role in the Aqshy side of the story this time around. A bit more significantly, I'm frustrated to see Neferata once again playing the jobber. She's been stuck in that roll too much over the course of AoS, and it does undermine her ability to be taken seriously as the threat that she should be in the overall narrative. But that's more a complaint about a trend going back to 1e, more so than this specific instance.