Baron Klatz

I don’t think it has to be “heavy advantage” so much as the other Lodges benefiting from yet more options they can pull on in a heated battle. Like a Lofnir lodge that saves some room for some infantry now has a low investment tough fighting force that can easily hold up enemy monster killers. We’ll see how it all adds up when the full rules are out. So far it does feel like Maggotkin where the sum is better than the smaller parts for a fun mid-tier army.

Unless you plan to spam Flamekeepers and run them with a Battlesmith so you can multiple the ur-gold effects and recover the losses. That seems to be the game plan with most lists wanting to run him.

Leaker with the tome noted this: ”Grimwrath got a full rules section full of oath just for them. Runemaster know all prayers and give cp so it grant lots of adaptability”

Army-wide bodyguards would be big on improving the synergy between the durable infantry and their leaders both buffing the troops out and making death both cheap and a resource to use. I’m guessing they’re holding off until the final day to unveil what both Fyreslayers and Deepkin will get for that to up the hype at the last minute.

Me and my brother finally grabbed the Fury of the Deep box among other goodies. Going by the new Battlesmith rules and his love of the “fire Viking” infantry looks like he wants to go heavy on Flamekeepers and “bards” to keep cycling his forces between life and death to build up that Ur-gold.

Ohh, hadn’t considered that. A team of Magmadroth Hunters of the Heartland would both make great counter-monster units and be fluffy with Lofnir’s lodges in the Realm of Beasts. Edit: well thanks to a certain someone who spells melee as melle one of the leakers noted the full Fyreslayer tome is looking good. ”I think fs are going to be pretty strong ! I know it look bad from the reveal but this is not the full book. I am actually quite stoked on them... In fact the battletome is like Maggotkin, they want the rules to reflect how the Slayers army should fight.”

Sons of Behemat are both Leaders & Battleline so I imagine that happening here too. Yeah, it’ll probably be like the Deepkin turtles where you’ll probably be only able to fit in 3 or 4 which could be why it specifies up to 3 getting buffs.

Super frivolous desire but I want that magazine exclusive Praetor champion with the underarm helm and buddy him up with the Castigator Underworlds leader but with both face-helms painted the opposite stormcast’s color for a “we’re related” nod.

Likely why Andy talked about other races like Brets having outposts in Ind alongside that part. Araby 2.0, they’re on the map but everyone else is in their house.

Age of Myth stuff is a big win in my book. That’s why I loved “Pantheon” with a closer look at the gods interactions when Chaos was still scratching & whispering at the edges of the Realmspheres trying to get in. I’d absolutely love more with so many teases of the past golden glories like cities of learning in Ghur that had both human and Orruk scholars in them, the Chamonian sky-domes of Djeb’dah of crystal plateaus with duardin and grot nations built on soaring bridge-ways in the clouds or the Azyr city of Nordrath that connected straight to the underworld trade cities in Shyish and had a strong worship of Nagash as Deathrattle kings and Soulblights would come up to their celestial city and tour the wonders of Azyr with the undead knights & kings having friendly jousts on bridges of starlight. So many lost wonders and alliances that can be explored as a goal to fix and bring back to the Mortal Realms again.

So just like the Border Princes then. They’re still in the early stages of development and years off before anything can happen so it’s basic stuff we already knew(which tbf can’t be helped here because they already gave everything for CA to show off) but they slap a barely mentioned icon on the far edge of the map to get people’s hopes up. Meh. 🤷

My personal opinion is AoS artillery should continue to be about mobility rather than pure firepower so it’s never a “sit back and gunline/castle” build which are usually boring especially in dynamic magic & melee games like this. Mobile and more active artillery very accurate to the lore too between the crazy magic in the Realms making static positions an Endless Spell death-trap and just the constant changing and shifting nature of the realmscapes meaning you have to be ready to move at all times. All the modern artillery accommodates this trait with the Kharadron airships, Ossiarch crawler legs, the various monster-back weaponry and the Stormcast, Lumineth and Kruleboyz ballistas all being noted as light and easy to disassemble & reassemble quickly as shown with their high movement values of 5 and 6(only the Stormcast being slow at 3 despite it’s lore of being easy to break into two parts for fast travel because it’s still very slow heavy armored Stormcast carrying the parts. But now have the Knight-Judicator and his enormous longbow as mobile artillery at 6 movement to compensate). I support this design philosophy and would be more than okay with unique artillery pieces that are monster-back firing platforms that also charge, heroes with massive ranged weapons & large-moving warmachines like Cogforts and steam-crawlers that carry the hybrid roles of artillery and monster units to keep pace with melee-centric game and how the Mortal Realms armies have to adapt to eldritch battlefields that are unstable at the best of times.

I grin a bit with Anvils because I called exactly what they’d do with it. They’d make it much less useful and more flavorful* but niche because the narrative shifting from Death to Beasts focus. *(I do enjoy how the Deathly aura is useless against Daemons & Death because they obviously can’t be frightened by the afterlife.) At least it does go in-hand with running Sacrosanct Anvils to counter that with shutting down Chaos & Death resurrections and how Anvils are usually ghost hunters anyway. Though they do get the top places in the aesthetics awards. But now is the time of Astral hunters and monsters! Preach! 🙌 They have such cool lore. ”They chase passing meteorites and shooting stars for sport, headbutting them between one another. Though if they find a more interesting target, such as Mustori and astral projections of Lord-Arcanums, they will knock the meteorites toward them. Lord-Arcanums that survive this game with their spirit intact and join in by sending the meteors right back again can win the respect of these beasts, this is often the method used by Lord-Arcanums to convince Tauralons to become their mounts.”

It’s stayed pretty much human only. Slight exceptions being Anvils of Heldenhammer & Lord/Knight-Relictors as they’re reforged from undead and necromancers which includes ghosts, deathrattle, deadwalkers and even some vampires that the God-king deems honorable enough. Back in 2015 to early 2016 it was supposed to any race but the higher-up devs waved that away so they could just focus on the human element. Josh Reynalds and others have put breadcrumbs here and there like Helios from “Soulwars” being implied a reforged aelf and some nudges at even Skaven warp-lightning going wrong and sending their souls his way. But you know, infinite realms means infinite possibilities. You can easily handwave it as a chamber he’s been keeping ready to unleash and they had the Human keyword removed so go wild. 😛 Shout-out to Vincent’s Ratcast project for Celestium powered rodent heroes:

Soon(tm). ”Ulfenkarn: City at the Edge of Death is expected to release in PDF in Q1 of 2022, and in stores Q2.” https://cubicle7games.com/aos-soulbound-looking-ahead/

Josh Reynolds and basically everything he touched but Huge kudos to “Spear of Shadows” and “Soul Wars” along with him bringing the always kind but epic Gardus Steelsoul to life. My favorite Stormcast pieces would be “Hammers of Sigmar” by Darius Hinks, “Blade Storm” by Guy Haley and “Fist of an Angry God” by William King.

Asked on a AoS discord about it: ”Their February production update from a week or two ago said champions of death has only just started shipping” So a bit longer wait before you can unleash Nagash’s Soulbound “heroes”.

My bet is some heroes get cheaper to match the Flamekeeper. That way the hero-heavy army can play more into either this edition’s herohammer or monster mash with cheaper Magmadroths they’ll probably be able to deploy as battleline ala Sons of Behemat(maybe the cover of the Soulbound Bestiary was a sign? )

Haha, there’s a nice poetic irony here of the destroyers of civilization/buildings needing to safeguard a structure in the first place. I really like this though and hope more factions have to be more concerned about their terrain as a keystone of their strategies to balance out that it’s free. That also gives the rampaging monsters more value and fits the current narrative theme of settlers & invaders huddling around their places of safety in new lands outside the innerlands teeming with stampeding giant horrors and wild forces of nature wiping out everything in their path.

I think they can add some nice flavorful rules to Vulkites to make them stand out. Just give them a Knights Excelsis-type Lodge that gives them a boost depending on what weapon they wield. Vulkites with Fyresteel Handaxes: “The fiery warriors of this Lodge relish battle with many ancient tales of outnumbered oathsworn Fyreslayers turning the odds for a contractor by their heated blades alone.” If an enemy unit within 1” of this unit has more models then give the unit +1 Attacks & +1 damage Vulkites with Fyresteel Warpicks: “With mercenary guile and a few lava runes turning the Warpicks molten, these warriors hack effortlessly through the realmscape before emerging to hack through the foe with hideous effect.” Vulkites can do Magmic Tunneling without a Runesmiter and gain 1 mortal wound on 6’s when rolling to Wound. Something like that.

Honestly don’t look that hard to kitbash into city aelf Privateer Corsairs. You could kitbash Kharadron bits on them to justify the tech with a steampunk flair as an Ironweld Corsair theme or lean into the back banner and high helms by going a unique Lumineth Privateers force route. From Alien-ninja-pirates in space to Aelven-Samurai-pirates from the Sun. Would fit really well with a Wind Temple army since: @Gecktron did an excellent deep-dive into inspiration for them(and could go nicely with Deepkin allies sea theme with the upcoming tome) ”Some informations on the Lumineth fleet and Seaport Matah. Matah has been a center of trade and economy during the Age of Myth, also protecting the heartlands of Ymetrica. Matah survived the spirefall. Beaten, its wall cracked, but not broken. Since then, Matah has turned to war. Some Hurakan mages have made their home in the towers of the city. Suppressing their nomadic nature to commute with the spirits of the winds raging across the sea. Directing them to either give a speed boost to aelf ships, or to hinder the ships of the enemies of Hysh. Should this fail, the fleets of Matah set sail. Manned by Vanari, and armed with starshard balistas. (The german article mentioned "oars powered by sunstones", but im not sure how to translate that)” Shout-out to his homebrew naval stuff based on them “I hope im not interupting anything, but here my take on what a Lumineth ship from Helon could look like. Called the Wave Song class, each ship of this class from Helon is connected to the wind and sea spirits of Hysh. Catching their attention with colourful flags and banners, these spirits power the ship. Reaching acceleration rates far above almost every other ship in the realm of light. The light frame sits on a large blade-like foot that elegantly cuts trough the water, while two smaller feets help with stabilising the ship during rapid manoeuvres. While the ship mainly trusts in their speed and agility, its compliment of Starshard balistas, and skilled Helon archers allows it to punch above its weight class”

Oh sweet! It’s got the collection of narrative campaigns from their website like “the Purge of Anvilgard”, “Forlorn Hope”(the BR Lumineth defense against Ossiarchs) and the Ulfenkarn treasure trove: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/02/24/relive-the-fall-of-anvilgard-in-this-free-warcry-campaign/ https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/04/28/bring-the-lumineth-to-warcry-with-free-fighter-cards-and-a-new-campaign/ https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/04/01/hunt-treasure-in-the-cursed-city-with-this-free-4-player-warcry-campaign/ Love that they’re putting them all in one place like that and not forgetting about them. This already sounds like the go-to book for Warcry players.😍

Could just be pointing to a heavier focus on co-op battles since the multiplayer aspect is kinda the highlight of the article(that Dreadhold shot of 4 different warbands going at it is gorgeous! GW’s team that make these cinematic pictures are always amazing 😍). I like it though, Warcry sieges can tie in handily with Dawncrusade, Ulfenkarn and Red Harvest/Catacomb narratives with all that terrain about. Also an excellent opportunity to see the lore of Carngrad expanded as a big central gladiatorial city in Eight-Points. There’s not a whole lot of info on it yet but the name’s are certainly eye-openers: ”Locations: Water Hill” Oh that sounds alrigh- “Locations within Water Hill: the Aquaduct of Pain.” Ohh…

Exactly. The armywide buffs and overhaul of mechanics like making sub-factions more versatile can be huge for making Fyreslayers a fun army to play. Like just giving them armywide bodyguard would be enough to turn them into a hero focus army with pricey troops that the Flamekeepers store up for a climatic boost to turn the tide. Fitting for a Realm of Fire people who are all about burning bright before turning to ash. It would be cool to see a allegiance trait split like Scions vs Stormkeep with the Fyreslayers having something like Mercenaries vs Ancestral Flames so they can either go coalition heavy and focus on buffed up heroes “going merc” or Ancestral flames boosting the Magmadroths and fire abilities instead(making them too hot to handle for allies). On top of that the Seasons of War having a chance to change to Aqshy could do things to help Grimnir’s children same way Era of the Beast sent Sons of Behemat from low tier to top tier. Fury of Deep already favoring the Aqshyians could be a good sign. Plus there’s still these rumor engines that might end up Fyreslayer surprises. That gold paint-job is fire! 😍🔥 Also really like the metal job you did to make the warpicks and sling shield match-up. Nice bits of blue to give a color contrast too. 👌

More time to slip in some new models at least. Rumor mongers said Deepkin in February and Fyreslayers in March(which is when Winter ends) so the predictions may be spot on.(same predicters that said they saw the playtester with new models for both armies so hopium floweth!) Also loving those Warcry sets, gonna be great for Lumineth and DoK fans. Was a little iffy on Stormcasts being so low count but this line: “The imposing Thunderstrike Stormcast Eternals can call down falling stars to damage even the mightiest of foes” Has me content for celestial orbital strikes in Warcry. Lastly, feeling more confident this year is gonna be Aqshy Realm Rules focused. Had a shower thought not only Fury of the Deep is set there but Arena of Shades is the NightHaunt besieging Har Kuron which was the former major Anvilgard port in the searing seas.