Solaris

I actually disagree with most of what you've written in this post and in others. The double turn adds a LOT of tactical consideration to the game, forcing you to be very careful with your positioning when there's a risk of your opponent getting a double. In many scenarios it's actually perfectly valid to sit back passively for up to three turns, scoring with chaff and screen units as much as you can and waiting for your opponent to commit. If my opponent is in no position to inflict heavy damage on me, I'll happily give them a double turn (I actually did that in a game I played just two days ago). That way, I can get into an advantageous position later in the game instead. It's all a matter of being in the right position at the right time. If your opponent is able to attack your monster or important unit for two turns in a row, then you've made a mistake earlier in the game to enable that. If I position well, I can mitigate my opponent's double turn. If I position well, I can also maximize the the damage I inflict should I get a double turn of my own. At all times, you need to be prepare for both winning and to losing the next initiative roll. The players that do this tend to do well in tournaments consistently, and the players that don't do this tend to lose and/or complain about the double turn on the internet. I actually think IGOUGO would make the game incredibly dull. Turn predictability would take away so much from the game in terms of tactical positioning and maneuvering. It would significantly empower gunline armies, making kiting and screening reliable ways of ensuring several turns of shooting.

Totally agree, I think it's the responsibility of both players to talk beforehand and adjust to their opponent's expectations when playing casual games. Sometimes I want to try a new list, sometimes I want to practice for a tournament and sometimes I want to roll dice and laugh at my Orruks doing stupid stuff and dying in droves. Talking to my opponent beforehand so we both know what to expect is key to a good gaming experience. The previous point of letting go of excuses was related to playing top tier armies. When I play my DoK, I know that if I lose, it was because I made mistakes (most of the time). With my Destruction armies, there is always the feeling that I could have won if I brought a stronger list. There's a lot more pressure on me as a player to perform when I bring a strong army to the table.

I disagree with this, what you're describing is a person trying to do the best they can. For me, both list building and gameplay are quests for perfection. I play strong factions because they lend themselves well to this - polishing a diamond is more fun than polishing a roadside rock. For my competitive armies, I have never copied someone else's list, yet there always ends up being many similarities. If several people try to optimize the same faction, chances are they'll arrive at similar conclusions. As an avid tournament goer, I know some people that do copy other people's lists, and they tend to perform significantly worse than the players that actually design and perfect their own lists. There's also something to be said about daring to let go of all excuses and accepting that when you lose, the fault lies with you as a player and not your army. This is somewhat off topic, so no need to discuss it further. I just want to challenge the notion that trying to perfect your craft is "admitting you need help to take an advantage". That's a narrow-minded way to look at things.

Yeah, of course. I'd prefer Witchbrew and Hagg Nar to be rewritten, but that won't happen. Hags up to 100 or so is a given, they are just far too good currently. Witches and Sisters losing their horde discount might be fine, if other units are adjusted down to compensate. Larger changes will remove them from contention. I think points can bridge the gap between DoK/LoN/Skaven/Slaanesh and others, but I don't think points can do anything to FEC. They just break some core mechanics of the game, and you either have access to an answer or you don't. The only thing that can be done is bringing FEC down, but that won't happen this year since the book is new.

Yeah, sure. What's your point? What I'm saying is that I'd prefer them to remain strong, and for other factions to be brought up to their level. If you prefer them to be brought down instead, of course we'll have differing opinions on what should be changed in the faction.

I think it's just a matter of where people want the army to end up. DoK are currently a top tier army. Some people want them to remain as such, and just want the internal balance of the faction to be improved. Other people want the army taken down a notch or two, to be in line with currently weaker factions. Depending on what they wish for, people have different opinions of what should change about the army. In the current meta there are several factions as strong as DoK. Since many of them are new, they will not be attended to in General's Handbook 2019. The options are to either nerf DoK (likely to happen), or to buff other factions up to their power level. Personally, I would much prefer the latter, since that would allow me to continue bringing my army that I've spent so much time on to tournaments with the chance of bringing home the trophy if I play my cards right. If they are nerfed instead, the odds of podium will disappear. In that case I'll have to bring something else to compete.

AoS 2.1 stats are hardly relevant anymore, the 2.2 table is what you should be looking at. Either way, DoK are still a power house, of course, but they now have really stiff competition from FEC, Skaven, LoN and to some extent Slaanesh. BoC and Tzeentch builds with 12+ Enlightened on Discs are also extremely strong. In many ways, the top tier meta is rather healthy now, with many armies fighting for the top spots. This is in stark contrast to AoS 2.1, where DoK and LoN were extremely dominant. If DoK are to remain a competitive choice in the current meta, but be better internally balanced, some changes need to be made. Hags need to go up to 100 or 120 points. Blood Stalkers are useless and need to go down significantly. Even then, they will only be used if they work as an efficient combat unit, since their shooting is so subpar. Warlocks could probably go down to 140, and Lifetakers to 70. The Slaughter Queen should go down to 80. She will then primarily be a cheap priest unit, since noone in their right mind takes her as general. The Hag on Cauldron could go up to 330 to match the Slaughter Queen. The Avatar is a joke unit and will be competitively irrelevant regardless of price. Witch Aelves and Sisters of Slaughter should probably not have their horde discounts, but if they lose that the army is quickly approaching tier 2. The ideal change would be to fix the temples (Hagg Nar in particular), but that's not going to happen any time soon.

Sorry if I wasn't clear guys, the list is submitted and cannot be changed. I'm looking for general advice and tactics for the army, rather than specific suggestions for how to change my list. Steed of Shadows for the Medusa shooting is a neat idea which I never considered, so I'll think about how to incorporate that into my future builds. For the time being I want to focus on the gameplay though, because the list is set.

Hey guys! Bringing my Daughters to a tournament for the first time soon! Hit me up with your #1 top tips for playing the army competitively Here's my list, for reference:

I don't really care about the reasons, I just lament the fact that one of the coolest miniatures released for AoS isn't included in the army =(

So much this, I love the model and was endlessly disappointed when I realized it wasn't in the book.

It's essentially the number of wounds an attacker has to deal to kill the entire unit. Take for example 30 Gors with a 4+ save. If you deal 30 wounds to them with no rend, they will save half and take 15 casualties. In order to kill all 30, you need to deal 60 wounds to them (note that there was an error in the calculation previously - updated numbers are found in the original post). As for the math: if x is the number of wounds in the unit, y is the number of wounds required to annihilate the unit, and p is the probability of them failing their saves, y is found by solving: x = p * y --> y = x / p In the above example, x=30 and p=0.5 (Gors vs no rend) yields y=60. Yeah, I also think the 25 mm base is an advantage here. If you want to string them out, 40 models with 25 mm bases will reach further, and if you want to pack them as compact as possible (to be fully within 12" of a shaman, for example) they will still cover less area.

I'm mainly looking at them from an ambushing perspective, so keep that in mind. For ambushing, I like several smaller units over a few larger ones so that I don't have to rely on any single charge roll. Needing a 7 on the charge (Cogs, which goes off reliably since I cast it with my potion-drinking Tzaangor Shaman), and ambushing 2-3 units each of the first two turns, I can reliably get one or two charges off. With the inherent rerolls of the chariots, that is especially the case. The more dice I roll, the more likely I am to get a few units into combat. Now, what I want to do is charge one enemy unit simultaneously with two independent chariots. If I get both of them into combat, my opponent has to split his attacks between them. This increases the odds of at least one of them surviving. Note that with a 15" movement (10" inherent + 3" from Great Bray Shaman + 2" from Cogs) you can pull this off deploying normally as well, you just have access to less angles of attack and are hindered more by screens. Totally agree on the Bullgors, they are unfortunately designed in such a way that they cannot fully exploit the strengths and synergies of our book, and are pointed too high. There is no reason to ever take Bullgors over Bestigors or Enlightened. I also consider the large bases an advantage in this case. Roadblocks and screens are board control pieces, and larger bases generally means increased board presence. The only disadvantage I see to the base size is that it may be harder to find space to ambush them. Just wanted to briefly comment on this, here is the effective wound count of 30 Gors and 40 Ungors, depending on the rend of attacks targetting them: Rend - Gors: 60, Ungors: 60 Rend -1 Gors: 45, Ungors: 48 Rend -2 Gors: 36, Ungors: 40 Rend -3 or better Gors: 30, Ungors: 40 As you can see, 40 Ungors are consistently more durable than 30 Gors and cost 10 points less. The way I see it, Gors are in an unfortunate spot where they are worse than Ungors as screens and board control pieces, and worse than Bestigors as damage dealers. Unless required by a battalion, I would never bring them - they just have no niche in the army.

Yeah, I'm also looking at them as an ambushing roadblock. I'd go with a few units of single chariots, instead of a unit of two. That way, you can charge an enemy unit from two sides so that a lot of the models are stuck in the middle and unable to attack. Your opponent will also have to divide his attacks between your two units, instead of putting them all into one unit.

Yes, in case it was unclear I'm also not attempting to be combative in the slightest. I'm merely trying to make the point that ambush is not as useless as you seem to think it is ? There is also no such thing as an automatic loss in Total Commitment just because you have a list built to be good at ambushing - it's not a huge investment. Granted, I'm a new Beasts of Chaos player and have nowhere near your 20 games yet, but I do think there is merit in using small ambushing units to threaten the board from every single angle at once, and my experience playing against Legion of Night lists backs that up.