someone2040

umm... what? Like, I love Gotrek and Felix (or at least, definitely used to), but I really don't get this. Bringing back Old World characters just... feels weird. It's bad enough that they kept the Mortarchs around on the basis of 'Nagash remembered them into existence, and they're well... Undead'. Or Kroak for that matter, who was definitely destroyed in the End Times. Next it'll be revealed that Karl Franz is actually the leader of the Free Peoples as a way to have it make sense that some of the Free Peoples iconography has Karl Franz on it. Dunno, I guess we'll have to wait and see. But I'd prefer to see more original characters of the mortal realms, even if it's a similar style book to Gotrek and Felix (buddies not-buddies roaming around the mortal realms).

I don't think it can be Lord of the Rings. The Rumour Engine (as far as I'm aware) has only been for releases done from the main studio. LOTR is now handled exclusively by Forgeworld. As for the rumour engine image. I don't see it being a Death thing, the arrows or bolts, whatever they are look a bit too clean for Death or Destruction. The metal work on the quiver leads me to think it's some fashion of Dark Aelf (Shadow aelf or otherwise), or it could be something Chaos as well (Potential Darkoath stuff?). I'd probably guess Shadow Aelves though, as I guess in theory we should be much closer to that release since we've had the little serpent on hand rumour forever now.

I don't have the experience to comment on whether the negativity is well founded, but I do think there are 2 upcoming expansions which will provide greater insight as to how well the Bloodreavers will do. The first is the Skaven release. Why is this important? In theory, the Skaven should operate somewhat similarly to the Bloodreavers. Lots of numbers, weak attackers, and fast to move around. The neutral cards therefore will likely offer more to the Bloodreavers which feel similar, than perhaps to other warbands. The second is the Khorne Bloodwarriors release. We don't know how far off that is, but my understanding is that we'll be able to use almost all the cards in that set (apart from character specific upgrades). Basically I understand that any Khorne card will be able to put in a Garreks Reavers or Magores Fiends deck. This could come with some powerful Khorne themed cards to help the Reavers out.

So personally, I was a bit disappointed at the lack of content shown, but I'm over it now and looking back it probably makes sense with how much they have shown. At the end of the day, IMO, I feel that 2017 was a bit of a let down. It started really strong and exciting, but Kharadron Overlords was basically the pinnacle, with a crest when the GHB 2017 launched. But apart from the two characters in blight war, there hasn't been a single model released for Age of Sigmar since April. And I'm sure that's in part due to 40k new edition, but it's still disappointing none the less. So... why am I going on about 2017. Well, at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what gets revealed at this point. It isn't going to change how 2017 ends up. GW are focusing on their Christmas sales, they don't want people drooling over whats coming up in 2018. So what I'm hoping is that, sure, don't spoil stuff now, but they really need to start 2018 off strong. And the year has to be more balanced IMO, not a strong AoS first half followed by a draught for 6+ months. I'm really hoping (since we know Codex Daemons is first off the rank in 2018) is that GW comes out swinging with a big Nurgle release, followed by Deathrattle into Malign Portents (or Malign Portents right into Deathrattle, either way is fine). They need to come out swinging, because there are so many story threads and races that haven't been touched upon yet (But somehow two Duardin races and Stormcast getting 3 books), and having 8 months (potentially +) of basically no new models isn't a great way to keep people engaged.

I had my first game yesterday and really felt that pain. I had dealt 2 damage to Brightshield, and decided to all in on a Karsus charge (Using the take 1 damage roll 2 extra dice). Karsus went in and completely whiffed against Brightshield on 5 dice, and then got smashed back in return. That basically swung the game and I couldn't get back in with only Saek and Garrek left (who were also somewhat deep). Will be interesting to see how they go after a few more games and when I start messing around with the deck.

Mate, it's all done off the calculation. If that's the way the calculation falls, it's the way it falls. Yes, Silver Helms are ****** compared to Dragon Blades. But currently in AoS, they're the same points. This wasn't meant to create 'balanced' renown for everything, merely to apply the renown calculation to a bunch of existing units that weren't included in the Skirmish booklet.

May I suggest that in the Starting Decks you put the full name of the cards, and not just the numbers. Since this isn't actually a database, I can't just plug in those numbers into a query and figure out what's what. In lieu of that, it'd be nice to know the names of the cards (especially since you didn't list them in order, presumably because you listed Objectives then Ploys then Upgrades in numerical order).

Hey guys, Attended our last tournament at Southern Wargamers for the year. This was the first tournament since the Generals Handbook 2017 has dropped, and I was looking to try out my Free Peoples. Since I am 99% sure I'm going to be attending Cancon next year (Australia's largest tournament), I made some last minute changes to my list so that it was more similar to what I think my final form will be. This meant assembling, undercoating and getting a base coat on 13 more miniatures one day before the tournament! Ultimately, my list for the tournament looked like this: Freeguild General - Sigmarite Weapon, Shield, Stately War Banner - General - Indomitable Freeguild General on Griffon - Greathammer and Shield, Armour of Meteoric Iron Gunmaster 20x Freeguild Guard 30x Freeguild Crossbowmen 10x Freeguild Handgunners 20x Freeguild Guard 10x Freeguild Handgunners 10x Freeguild Greatswords 5x Freeguild Pistoliers 3x Demigryph Knights Hellblaster Volley Gun Cannon So the changeup from my previous lists are the addition of 20 Freeguild Guard, a Gunmaster and Hellblaster, changing the 20 Handgunners into 2 lots of 10, and dropping a Freeguild General and a Cannon. This allows for another tanky unit, which also gets the benefits of a great company. It means I can afford to be more aggressive with one if need be. We did not know the scenarios before the tournament, they were rolled for each round. Game 1 - Sylvaneth - Scorched Earth I started the tournament up against a Sylvaneth list. He had the extremely tanky Treelord Ancient, Branchwych, 30x Dryads, 2x5 Tree Revenants, 2x3 Kurnoth Hunters with bow and 6x Kurnoth Hunters with Scythes and a Household battalion. The game started fairly well, he managed to teleport his Ancient and Treelord forwards but the Ancient failed the charge. The Treelord went in and was quickly felled by my shooting. The big trees teleport close to the Free Peoples lines Sadly, this was followed up with a lot of whiffing on my left flank. The cannon failed to dent the Treelord, the Freeguild General on Griffon went into him and whiffed completely. Something he would continue to do in the next few combat phases. Ultimately, the game was decided when I failed to keep someone on my centre objective. My opponent managed to summon more Wyldwoods near the board edge, which allowed his Scythe Hunters to teleport in as well as the Tree-Revenants. Because of this, I started migrating some of my units towards that section to hopefully give some relief and stall them out one turn before burning my objective. I moved my unit off, then moved my Freeguild General off as well. So it basically came down to losing by 1 point later on. He left his right objective really weak as the Tree-Revenants disappeared to provide additional support (and ultimately burn my left objective). My army eventually made it across the board, and stole his objective for 1 turn, and then burnt it in the 4th turn. We were only going to get 4 turns in the game, and sadly I didn't manage to roll high enough to draw on the objective points. Ultimately my Griffon also fell, after whiffing for like 3 combat phases straight, he got a miracle phase where he dealy like 10 wounds all at once, but the rest of the army failed to finish off the Ancient over 2 turns. So a bit disappointing start to the tournament. Definitely a learning experience, and I still haven't quite worked out how I'm going to play Scorched Earth. I think one poor thing I did was put all my fast stuff on one flank. It meant when that flank fell into trouble, I didn't have anything mobile to quickly scoot over and help. Major Loss Game 2 - Death with Nagash - Duality Of Death This game was against a majority Deathrattle army led by Nagash. He had a 40 Skeleton unit, 2x20 Skeletons, 20 Grave Guard, Nagash, a Necromancer and 2x Wight King (1 with banner). I felt I had the advantage in this matchup as my Griffon can take the objective turn 1. Especially if I kept him away from Nagash who could potentially one-shot him. Since I had more drops, this didn't end up being too much trouble. The Free Peoples line prepare for battle As it so happened, the game was a bit of a non event. He got the first turn and moved up as fast as he could. Sadly for him, his Wight King was not close enough to the objective so would not be scoring turn 1. In my follow up turn, my Griffon General took the objective closest to him. The rest of the line moved up, and I scored the first point of the game. Immediately after, I got the double turn which basically secured the game. The line moved further up, and started shooting the enemy units. The Demigryphs managed to get a charge into his Wight King and Skeletons near his objective. This ultimately decided the game, as the Demigryph's for the first time managed to do 2 things! The first was actually kill the Wight King in a single go, that was pretty amazing and not expected (Only just I might add), and that was only with 2 of them too boot! The third one attacked the Skeleton unit (Which had Danse Macabre on them) and killed 3 Skeletons which prevented them getting the +1 attack. In his turn, there was not enough room for Nagash to get close enough to the objective. The army slowly moved around, but basically, the Death just couldn't get to objectives fast enough. Nagash wipes out the Demigryphs and moves onto the Swordsmen The rest of the game the Death basically marched towards their deaths. I had moved up far enough that my Crossbows and Handguns were in range, and I could just hold the line with them now. So the Skeletons just marched and marched, but got shot and shot. Nagash did wade through a chunk of the army after he knew he couldn't catch up, but that was game as he couldn't catch me after 3 turns of scoring to his zero. Major Victory Game 3 - Order - Knife to the Heart The last game was against a mixed Order army. Mainly Free Peoples with a few random extras. His list was composed of a Freeguild General with Stately War Banner, Freeguild General on Griffon, Bretonnian Lord, 30x Freeguild Guard with Halberds, 2x10 Freeguild Handgunners, 20x Freeguild Greatswords, 5x Freeguild Outriders, 5x Grail Knights, Steam Tank, Hellstorm Rocket Battery. The game started off a bit concerningly. His Hellstorm took out my cannon crew, his Griffon took out the Pistoliers and his Brettonian Lord took down the Demigryph Knights. In retaliation my shooting managed to make a huge dent in his Freeguild General on Griffon and mine took out his Outriders. I then won the initiative roll, and my Freeguild General went after his backline which was extremely fragile. I took out his Griffon, and did a few wounds to the Steam Tank. I initially thought I might be able to auto-win by taking on the Handgunners, but reading that it only came into effect from turn 1, I went after the Hellstorm instead and finished it off. At this point, my opponent knew he was in trouble with a rampaging Griffon in his backline and his own Griffon downed. He kinda threw caution to the wind, and charged everything into the line which ultimately did not go well for him. Now you see a Steam Tank... soon you won't... He quickly doubled back his Freeguild Guard (Slowed down by the deadly terrain), while his Greatswords engaged my Freeguild Guard. They both slowly whittled each other down, while my other Freeguild Guard and Crossbows gave chase across the board to the enemy objective. At the end of the day, the Freeguild General on Griffon managed to kill all 30 Freeguild Guard, before being joined by the infantry to claim the objective on turn 5. The long slog had paid off, and I had tabled my opponent apart from his Freeguild General. I do feel sad for my opponent. I outranged his army, so ultimately he had to engage me. And engaging a line of Freeguild Guard which has extra shooting phases is just nasty. Even if he had won the initiative for turn 2, I think the only difference would've been a Minor rather than a major. Major Victory So that was it for the day, I managed to come in fourth place out of 12 players. I'm happy with the result, but feel that I probably got off a bit easy on my matchups after losing the first game. The 2nd game was almost an automatic win. I think if I had played against Stormcast or Tzeentch I would've been in a bit of trouble. Overall I like how the army played, but definitely need to get a bit more prepared for moving and having my army out and ready to go. I was comfortable with the amount of models I was moving around (even if I was sloppy sometimes), but the army setup in round 1 took a lot of time (and is the only game we didn't finish). That being said, I am considering changes. Two things I'm currently considering are getting more heroes. The current thought is to swap out the Gunmaster + Hellblaster Volley gun for a Warrior Priest and a Battlemage. The cannon could be a stronger piece also, but it's easy to transport (Which will be important going interstate). Hopefully I get more games done in the next 2 months, as I'm going to need a lot of practice for Cancon.

I don't think Slaves to Darkness will see much love. GW have not seemed very interesting in pushing the whole Undivided thing lately. They love pushing the different chaos gods though, which is why I'm sure sooner or later we'll see Tzeentch and Nurgle warbands make their way into Shadespire also. I would love to see Slaves to Darkness though, an Aspiring Champion leading a bunch of Warriors around, done up with very 'Chosen like' models. Would be super cool, but I suspect that the Blood Warriors warband will likely fulfil that in some ways. Cool to hear the rest are coming soon, although a bit of a shame we're not going to get another 2 before the end of the year, early Q1 is still pretty good (as long as they don't eat into AoS release slots that should be happening also!). I'm wondering for how long of a 'break' Shadespire is going to take after the first 8 are done though. Like will they release a new warband every month, or will they let things settle for a couple of months before releasing another 4~ warbands or so. Next year will be super interesting I think (For both Shadespire and Age of Sigmar).

I have to say, I'm mildly disappointed at the costing of the warbands for ANZ. Every other currency gets them at 50% core set cost or below. To me, that's the price point that makes sense. The core set comes with 2 warbands + the stuff you need to play the game, so of course, it should cost at least double the price of one warband right? Especially since all the miniatures will be of the same quality. There's no longer the excuse of marking up individual kits because you can 'customize' them compared to the push-fit single pose models in starters. There's also the fact that in AUD, it costs a $50 to buy one.Psychologically, it feels like being $50 pushes it just outside the impulse buy or 'collect them all' territory. If it was a fiver less, I don't think I'd be having these feelings, it'd be less than 50% of the price of the core set and below that $50 threshold.

I wouldn't be surprised if we hear about a Nurgle release on the horizon. I am just reading through this months White Dwarf, and there was a little mention about one of the sculpters who did one of the new Death Guard models, and something else for Nurgle that they weren't quite ready to mention yet (Possibly implying a new Great Unclean one?). I get the feeling that the Blightwar stuff was just a taster of stuff to come for Nurgle. If I had to guess, perhaps January will be Deathrattle followed by a Nurgle release after.

The rule for difficult were the only ones I was unsure about(and of course, the only original rules). Perhaps a better rule would just be to prevent running through difficult terrain. In some ways, i have no issue with slowing terrain helping shooters. In real battle, the guys with the bows on the opposite side of the river of course have the advantage.

I think honestly, it's not so much the line of sight blocking or the movement, it's the fact that buildings are often reduced to impassable terrain, or walls don't provide cover because they don't exist as an 'area'. I personally believe there are a few issues with the current warscroll approach for terrain. Mainly that each piece of terrain has it's own warscroll, no matter how similar they may be. Also GW don't produce warscrolls for terrain they don't sell. Both are important, because the former means more rules to remember (including all the little nuances and extra spells and what not each give), the latter because it means you're out of luck for many different types of terrain or club terrain which isn't GW plastic. Personally, if we do ever get a new edition of AoS, I would like to see some complexity creep back into it. 4 pages was a great selling point, for sure. But at the same time, it doesn't mean there isn't space for an 'advanced rules' section, which adds back some nuances back into the game. I mean, terrain is literally just a page MysteriousLandscapes.pdf And all I've done is collect the 'similar' rules from various warscrolls and put them in one spot. But I bet most people just count building as impassable terrain, or ignore the rules for walls or ophidian archways, or swamps/lakes/etc are just area terrain that provide cover.

Pleasantly surprised at the price after the rumored 70usd. Comes out the week after I'm back from my holiday, so pretty psyched for that!

So it's been a month since the Generals Handbook 2017 came out. I gave an initial battle report in my last blog entry, and now on the eve of my 3 week holiday, I figure now is as good a time as any to write down some further thoughts. Since my initial battle, I've managed to get in another 3 games. 2 of them were using the Matched Play scenarios, while the other one used the Open War cards. I've been using the following Free Peoples list during these outings: Game 1 - Sylvaneth - Battle for the Pass The first of the 3 games was Battle for the Pass vs Sylvaneth. The Sylvaneth player dumped a Wyldwood on what would ultimately be my objective , and being an army with battalions outdropped my army easily (Either way he would've out dropped me). Deployment finished Overall this game went pretty smoothly for me, as my opponent deployed pretty far back (Given we needed to reach objectives in the mid-field). His Tree-Revenants went after my cannon, but bounced off the crew and were shot down by the cannon in return (Due to being locked in combat, couldn't move into range of something better). By the end of my turn 1, I already had control of both side objectives and was ahead on points. The Freeguild Guard race up to get control of the objective, while on the far side the Pistoliers do the same Ultimately it took too long for my opponent to get up to the side objectives. I had left a Gryph Hound and Greatswords back to prevent my opponent teleporting onto the Wyldwoods on my side of the board, so the Sylvaneth had no easy way to catch up on points. Eventually Durthu did get into the fight, smashed aside the Freeguild Guard, Demigryphs and Handgunners before being bought down. Durthu about to smash the Demigryphs, but on the far side the Griffon has dispatched of the Scythe Hunters The counter-attack was ultimately far too late. Durthu was felled by combined firepower, while the Ancient did finally control the objective the Freeguild General on Griffon had managed to demolish the rest of the army and even stole control of the enemy objective on the last turn. While the Freeguilds took heavy losses towards the end of the game, it was a resounding victory overall. The Ancient takes the side objective, but in the background the Griffon is busy gobbling down a Branchwych Game 2 - Wanderers - Open War The second game (played the same day) was against a Wanderers army. The Open War cards I remember was that we had diagonal deployment, the objective was to kill as many enemy models as possible (doubling that number if you slew the enemy general). I believe the twist may have been one army has to finish deployment first, and gets first turn unless a 1 is rolled. My opponent got choice of board edge, and got a lot of mystical terrain. Coupled with the Wanderers ability to teleport around at will, this made the game quite difficult. Deployment finished, the Wanderers appear to be on one side... My opponent got the first turn, rolled a bunch on his mystical terrain, and then both units of Glade Guard and the Nomad Prince teleported towards my main army, and took off a bunch of my Freeguild Crossbowmen. Wild Riders appeared in the backline to go after the Cannons, but thankfully failed their charge. I think both spells failed on the Eternal Guard. In my turn, all I could do is move forwards to get into range. I think the Handgunners went after one of the Waywatchers (may not have bee in range of the Glade Guard), while the Crossbowmen took some shots at some of the Glade Guard. Both Cannons I believe fired at the Eternal Guard and took some off. In combat, the Griffon ate one of the Waywatchers, while the Demigryph Knights killed 2 of the Wild Riders. Crossbowmen heavily depleted, but initiative could swing the game The rest of the game is pretty hazy. The Wild Riders basically spent most of the game going after the Cannons, failing charges, and all that. The Greatswords ultimately finished them off, but got lost in the sea of dead models. The Eternal Guard were so heavily depleted by the initial attack by the Griffon and Cannons they were basically out of the game for the rest of the battle. I believe the Nomad Prince and at least one unit of the Glade Guard (the one that hadn't taken casualties) teleported back over to take some shots at the Griffon. The Griffon had a chance to get into the Glade Guard and Prince, but ultimately failed to kill the Spellweaver in one turn so didn't have the opportunity to charge them. The Freeguild General on Griffon failed to take out the Spellweaver, so was locked in combat for another turn Ultimately, a lot of mistakes cost me the game, but getting reckless with my General was the worst one. The game was pretty even, but I decided to use him and my Demigryph Knights to go after the enemy when they teleported back over to my side of the battle. This ultimately cost me the battle as the General was slain my a Glade Guard model, and even with the combined might of all my shooting, I couldn't take out the enemy General in return (The -1 to hit was pretty tough). My General on Griffon was eventually laid low by reflected mortal wounds off the Eternal Guard also (If it seriously mattered, I would not have done this but I knew it didn't matter by that time). Game 3 - Sylvaneth - Knife to the Heart Last game I've played (and the last for a while :() was once again against a Sylvaneth army. We originally rolled up Scorched Earth, but decided to re-roll it since we had both already played that scenario. I won the roll off for deciding territory, and decided that I would take the side with the Arcane and Damned terrain, letting my opponent having the Mystical and Deadly. He had placed a Wyldwood base somewhat close to my deployment area pre-game, and I knew that he would be looking to alpha strike due to his Ancient having the Moonstone of Hidden Ways. Deployment finished, Durthu, 2x3 Kurnoth Hunters, 10x Spite Revenants all waiting to come out from the Wyldwoods Right from this turn 1, he summoned a new wyldwood with the Branchwych, buffer up the Treelord Ancient, and then teleported everything. The Ancient and Tree Revenants appeared behind my lines (With the Revenants only just being outside 10" from the Gryph Hound). The stuff coming out of the Wyldwoods appeared from the front. Unfortunately for the Sylvaneth though, the Ancient missed with his ranged attack, Durthu wasn't in range of the Handgunners. The Treelord and one unit of the Hunters managed to get in a charge, with the Hunters taking a lot of firepower from the Great Company to lose a Hunter before even fighting. A fairly lacklustre round of combat saw the Ancient only being able to kill a single Pistolier, while the Hunters killed some of the Freeguild Guard (including a few running due to battleshock), another Hunter was bought low. The Freeguild Forces get off quite easily given the army of Trees bearing down on them In return, the Free Peoples line held and blew the Ancient out of the game. The Handgunners even got to split their fire between the Ancient and the Tree Revenants with more fleeing due to battleshock. A devestating turn of events, even Durthu took a wound from the cannons. A good portion of the army gone already Ultimately there's not a huge amount more to talk about in this game. The Greatswords were killed by Durthu and the Tree Revenants, but the combined firepower of the Free Peoples was too much. One of the cannons even managed to roll 2 sixes for damage against Durthu when he had a single wound remaining! (If only it was the first turn!). The Freeguild General on Griffon got into the backline and deleted all the Dryads in a single turn, and that was about it. Thoughts So those are summaries of the games I've played so far. I think it's important to note, that it has only been a month, and we don't exactly play every week, so people are still trying things out. My opponent in the last game wanted to see how the Moonstone worked, and I think alpha striking his Treelord turn 1 was not exactly the best game plan. But here are some thoughts I have Freeguild General on Griffon This guy has done work for me every game. Sometimes he whiffs a round though, but it's going to happen from time to time of course. He is amazingly tough as well, but I haven't come up against many armies with mortal wounds yet. 20x Handgunners At some point I think I'm going to have to either make another 10 of these guys, or build up command for another unit. I've only gotten away with them being in 20's due to either my opponents not understanding their strength, or getting extremely lucky in my last game. Gryph Hound I'm still not sure I actually like this guy or not. His warning cry abilitiy has never gone off, even though I've played 3 armies which actually have 'teleporters'. My opponents will just make sure to put them further than 10" away. I guess in a way, this is fine, as it gives me a pretty critical turn to retaliate. Think I'm going to have to play around a bit more with him, my army is 1960 points so if I did drop the hound, that's another 10 Freeguild Guard I could fit in. Demigryph Knights They just... never seem to do damage. They're alright with tankiness, but without any buffs (The only one I can give being Hold the Line), they just can't deal any damage. Dunno, my gut feeling is that ultimately they'll be cut from the list unless I'm making a Freeguild Regiment. I feel I'd rather the utility of something like Pistoliers or Outriders, but for now, being painted they'll be sticking around. Maybe the Cavalry Halberds will be better? Perhaps I just have this thought of how Lances should work (Go in and blitz away half a unit) and they're just never going to be able to do that. That's about it for now. Obviously not a huge amount of experience yet, but when I'm back from my holiday, there'll be our first GHB 2017 tournament two weeks later. Should be a good work out for the Free Peoples (But getting everything painted in time is going to be trouble!).

Hmm $70USD is probably gonna be somewhere between $100 and $115AUD. I guess from a pure models point of view, it feels a bit steep. You're only getting 8 models between the two factions. I'm hoping that it's inflated because you basically get the core game components as well, like the board, cards, tokens and rules. No idea how much in reality those things are really worth, but at the end of the day everyone is going to need to buy a core set to play. I really hope the expansion sets aren't as costly. The sculpts might be nice and interesting, but at the end of the day, they're like 3-8 push fit models and a few faction cards. I'm really hoping they're around the $25USD~ish price point. All the 'Easy to build' sets cost $15USD and come with a similar amount of figures. So seems reasonable to me that you'd be paying a bit extra for some cards and that's about it. It's also the price point where 'collect them all' is extremely accessible. So people that want to play 'top of the meta' and collect all the extra cards they can to assemble their decks can splurge and do so. But for people who just want to sit on a faction or two they like, they pay the entry cost of the base set and then purchase an extra faction or two. Overall, really looking forward to seeing whats in store for Shadespire. With the warbands being so small, I guess I'm hoping we see at least 1 Shadespire warband come out every month (With more coming out initially to kick things off).

My understanding is that if you qualify for the rules in Firestorm, it's on top of your allegiance. So you pick an allegiance to build your army around, this could be IRONJAWZ or it could be GREENSKINZ or even DESTRUCTION. Then once you've built your army, if all the models in your army qualify for a Great Cities (or other allegiance ability from Firestorm), then you get that as a bonus on top of your regular allegiance abilities. So in your case, you would get the DESTRUCTION abilities and you could use Stoneclaw`s Gutstompas as well as long as all the models in your army quality for that allegiance ability. As for Wraithfleet. My gut reaction was not impressed, until I remembered you get your regular allegiance abilities as well. So it's kinda cool and interesting, but definitely this one feels more 'fluffy' than anything. It would be nice if they bought out the old Vampire Pirates models as Made to Order (Something we don't see very often for AoS).

I think the Anvilguard ability is very interesting, and potentially quite powerful. Ignoring the fact that you can kill off enemies which can't escape, let's think about some other tactical applications. A) You can push people off objectives. Yep, if you're fighting in the middle of the board, the enemy might have to move back 6" or have models destroyed. Super useful ability, as you're essentially pushing them back 6" away from the objective, allowing you to potentially crowd more models onto it. B) Some shooters get abilities that trigger when you're not within 3" of an enemy (Double shotting crossbows, Handgunners, Darkshards, probably more). Combat is the last place you want to be, but if you are there, this can help your shooters out by allowing them to get their bonuses back, or just giving them more room to move back and shoot. Definitely keen to see what else is coming

I'm a little mixed up front about the Great Cities allegiance abilities. I truly enjoy the fact that they're dishing out different allegiance abilities for different cities. It puts a bit of a narrative spin, on this city is known for it's people to be X. Really enjoy thematic abilities. But I am a little concerned that something that should be narrative, could make its way into being mandatory for matched play. These abilities seem like they're all going to be 'free'. Unless there is a significant downside to taking a Great City, then why wouldn't you? You only ever get a bonus, so there's no reason not to just say your Sylvaneth are from Hammerhal, or your Stormcast are from Tempest's Eye. Then there's the fact that Order is obviously getting a lot of love, but where does this leave the other Grand Alliances? So a little concerned, but hopefully it's got a balancing factor somehow. Perhaps something like Death, Destruction and Chaos armies get a bonus when fighting against an army from a Great City. This would mean, that Order vs Order - Both players have option of a Great City. Order vs Other - If Order took a Great City, both armies get a free bonus, but if they didn't, then neither player would get a bonus anyway. Anyway, I think it would be a shame that a supplement that seems to be more focusing on map based campaigns, essentially becomes mandatory purchase to stay 'competitive' in the game. The game would start to feel like supplement hell (Oh, I need my battletome, ghb, season of war, whatever other supplements...) and makes the game feel a bit pay to win, which would be super unfortunate.

Yeah, for the record, I'm perfectly fine if the Stormcast/Blood Warriors are expansion character type stuff. I'll honestly be overjoyed if that's the case, because I think in a miniatures game, you want the ability to customise which miniatures you take, not just the cards in your deck. I guess the other thing is the Shadespire release pace may be faster than what we're used to. We're used to releases that span 2-3 weeks, with battletomes and an array of new miniatures. But Shadespire warbands are only 3-7~ish model warbands after all. If you can't tweak the models in your warband, I think it'll still be fine if we get our initial 4-6 warbands straight off the bat, and then they release 1-2 new warbands every month.

GW very rarely put out spoilers in a different order to release. Like, they wouldn't put out a picture of Fyreslayers and Stormcast, and then go, SURPRISE, it's actually Seraphon first. It's just not in their MO. It's in the same vein that in all the artwork you see in the battletomes, you never see something GW doesn't want you to see. You don't see any art of the factions that haven't played a role in AoS to date (So no Free Peoples, Aelves of various kinds, Ogors, etc). As for the content. I'm a little disappointed that they're not stepping outside their 'major faction' bounds. Especially if you can't 'sub out' models in your warband, I don't think we need a second Stormcast and Bloodbound warbands this early. Shadespire seemed like a good opportunity to give some focus to the factions that haven't gotten any model love so far, but it looks like GW are just playing to their favourites. At least with Death and Destruction they don't have many avenues left open in terms of that, so we could see some surprises in those warbands (Although, if I were to guess it'd probably be Flesh-Eater Courts and Bonesplitterz). Perhaps third phase will have more interesting and unique warbands.

Sotek may have been primarily a Skink deity back in Lustria (Even though the Slann and Saurus eventually came around to him as well), but he certainly seems to exist in some capacity within AoS. Not sure if he's mentioned at all in the Seraphon battletome, but GHB2017 just released a 'The Fangs of Sotek' Warscroll Battalion, which is actually mainly a Saurus battalion led by a Slann. Barely a Skink in sight! (The only Skinks that are in the battalion are either in the optiona Thunderquake battalion or the additional SERAPHON units). As for the latest rumour engine pick. It could be part of a helmet ala Blood Knights, but I'm not sure. The 'gap' in the membrane on the back feels a bit odd for a helmet, and it looks like it curves far too forwards also. There's a similar one in the current Blood Knight kit that isn't anywhere near as large.

No. Gold is more fine grained, as it's essentially taking the matched play points for the unit, then dividing it by the minimum unit size to get points per model (or gold). Renown does the same thing, but divides the value by a further 5 and then rounds that number. Because of this, renown is more coarse grained and imbalances can occur. In general, they roughly work out very close, but you can definitely get imbalances (See my post above yours for an example of 2 50 renown warbands that are 20 points apart).

Personally I would prefer either A) They count as their own unit in game or B) You can substitute them into existing units for a cost. For example: You may replace the Liberator-Prime of any Liberator unit with Severin Steelheart for +X points. Severin Steelheart uses the following warscroll: <<Insert made up Severin Steelheart warscroll here>> I don't really feel that any of them are 'hero-worthy' status for Age of Sigmar. But I do feel they'd be fine replacing unit leaders or models in units, with slightly different/better rules. I certainly wouldn't be fussed at all if most of them were basically a stock standard Liberator/Bloodreaver/Skeleton/Ardboy just with a special ability/weapon/slightly better statline and came with a very minor points increase to the unit. I mean, at the end of the day, the big bloke Oberyn the Bold for the Stormcast is just a Liberator with a Grand Hammer, and Angharad Brightshield is just a Liberator with a Hammer and Shield. There's nothing hugely special about them other than having a name.

Personally I feel that they went with renown to create a fake disconnect between AoS Points and Skirmish Points. Like, I'm really surprised at how many people just don't get it, and ask for other people to work out renown points for models they want to use. We've known the formula from basically the first time we got any in depth look at Skirmish. But overall, it means that even though we get updated points every year, GW don't have to update Skirmish points at the same time. Because they've never come out and said these points are based on Matched Play profiles. So they can feign ignorance whenever it comes up (Even if people with half a clue know better). Additionally, because the points are less granular, they're less prone to small shifts in points. Obviously, there was a pretty huge upheaval in points for a lot of factions this time (Most of them included in Skirmish renown updates). It's unlikely that GHB2018 will tweak points as much. But because Skirmish renown is more coarse grained, it's less prone to these changes in cost. Orruks went from 100 to 90, but they still end up as 2 renown no matter if they cost 100, 90 or even 80. Personally, I would've preferred renown is it had absolutely no connection to AoS points. i.e they actually went and had a think about balancing things for Skirmish. This would actually justify a separated points system in a good way as they could actually take into account things that do and don't work (Such as Lord Celestants Hammercloak/ Skeletons not reviving D6 per turn). As it stands, renown is basically just a mechanism to obfuscate the fact they're based on points. Ultimately, I think if you branch outside your core faction the points start to balance themselves out. I wrote up 8 quick 50 renown lists, and they all came within +/- 10 points of 250. Half of them within 5~ish points of each other. But it can definitely create some huge outliers: That's a pretty large discrepency between the Bonesplitterz and Deathrattle, 20 'points' is like 2 and a half extra Skeletons (And that's ignoring the fact that Deathrattle don't get some of their in game bonuses). So overall, I think in most cases, renown is 'good enough', but there'll be some outliers. At the end of the day, you can always convert the renown the other way and play using points if you feel it'll lead to more balanced games