Grimrock

It's almost like this confusion and concern about a core mechanic could be alleviated with some sort of... message from GW? Some method of regular communication they could establish between themselves and us, the customers. Something where they could talk about new and upcoming rules. Who knows, might even help build sales by generating customer engagement and excitement instead of leaving everyone hanging and assuming the worst from their products. Maybe they should get working on that.

I'm legitimately surprised we haven't gotten a Nurgle article today. I mean it's the preview week for the first AoS book in about 4 months, the first non release army, and we've gotten one article? Normally at this point I'd assume they've just phoned the book in and there's nothing exciting to post about, but all the leaks and rumors point to it being a really significant change with a ton of new stuff. Why in the world isn't GW talking about it?

Funny enough this IS that keeper. At least their interpretation of it applied to the new keeper body. I agree it doesn't look anywhere near as good as the art, but it is N'kari. Also no Nurgle article yet today? Are we actually going to get a genestealer cult article but no Nurgle one?

Actually with the way it degrades I think it might be better to do it in reverse. As soon as any unit has any disease you give it a token of some sort (since it'll stay with them for the rest of the game at a minimum of 1) and then you grab a d6 if you add any more throughout the turn. In battleshock you can take the dice away and leave the token. Hard to speak to the strength right now, but it seems ok. It looks like a poor trade for the wheel, but it is very thematic and it definitely plays to a war of attrition where nurgle gradually wears away at the opponent. Spells and artifacts could make a huge difference in how much damage you cause throughout a game so we'll have to wait and see what we get.

Oops, read that wrong. Well that is a pretty huge difference, I'll edit my post. Thanks!

Well a unit can get topped up pretty quickly in protracted combat (2 per turn plus however many 6's). An extra 3-4 mortal wounds every round is nothing to sneeze at and considering how durable we're supposed to be with everything having disgustingly resilient I wouldn't be surprised if most combats take at least 3 rounds to fully resolve. I'm assuming at least one of the spells will be something along the lines of 'target unit rolls for disease immediately as if it were the battleshock phase'. The artifact will probably be something along the lines of 'this model gives 2 disease points instead of 1', but might be something like 'pick one enemy unit within 3, it immediately has 7 disease points'.

This! I've been refreshing like crazy all day hoping for... anything really. I'm finally ready to jump on the hype train after a 2 month delay and I get nothing. I know we'll see the whole book on Saturday, but come on GW. I've waded through all the lame articles for ages and now that I'm actually excited about something you can't even give me a 'Nurgle sorcerers through the ages'? A 'Community paints our models for us so we don't have to bother but look how cool they are'? Not even a 'Nurgle lore you all know already but let's repeat it because it uses up an article for the day'?

Based on the visible battle tactics in the preview today it looks like we have some confirmation of this. At least it looks like disease counters are definitely a thing and there's a tactic for killing models with them and one that looks like it has to do with spreading them around. The plaguebearer change sounds pretty solid assuming nothing else changes on their scroll and their points don't go way up. Not sure how I feel about the tree though, losing run and charge is going to deeply change the way we play. If the wheel is completely gone as well then the only speed buff we'll have is the bell (assuming it doesn't go as well). Unless blight kings get a major damage buff I could see them disappearing from the tables. Too slow and the plaguebearers sound like the better tanky option.

I don't know, as soon as I saw it tied to the GHB I assumed it'd be switching every year. If they were going to keep it around for multiple years then why put it in the annual publication? Besides it makes total sense, it's a quick and simple way to switch up the meta and drive sales on different kits. Maybe next year we move over to the realm of metal and all the extra resources mean it's cheap and easy for armies to build up huge armies. Now battleline units are getting bonuses for battle tactics and there's a special spell to give +2 speed to battleline units and a command ability that gives +2 save to battleline units. People go out and buy a whole bunch of new battleline and maybe that slow squisy unit is looking like a much more viable purchase. 2023 and we're off to Ulgu where all the intrigue and shady dealings mean more and more commanders are popping up trying to make an empire, so we're buffing heroes.

Keep in mind the DoK Khaine and the eldar Kaela Mensha Khaine are two totally different entities with some thematic overlap (unlike chaos which is the exact same in both games). There has never been an official crossover model for them and it's unlikely that a new avatar released for eldar in 40k will ever make it to AoS.

Anything to share that hasn't already been discussed here? This is pretty much my only source of news, I didn't know there was something that hasn't been mentioned.

Some interesting thoughts in there that seem to line up with what I'd expect. I'm thinking the impact of Covid will be felt for a long time due to the way that GW works so far in advance. Sure shipping has been disrupted recently, but we can't forget they probably lost months and months of development for future products due to lockdowns. Release schedules may be impacted for years and I wouldn't be surprised to see 3rd last until 2025/26 as a result. That being said, it's weird the person is so sure about contents of a starter box that won't release for another 4.5 years. As far as we know GW likes to operate about 2-3 years out, it's tough to believe that they're so sure what will be in something that is so far away. The random insult to MWG also makes it sound like a troll more than anything.

Maybe it's just a consequence of playing Narrative? It's not like your opponent can quickly change their list or tactics for next week to make it a better game, they're kind of locked into what they have. Your list definitely hits like wet tissue paper and will crumple about as fast, but it does skew on bodies pretty hard and I can easily see a number of lists at that point level that wouldn't stand a chance regardless of tactics. I get not wanting to play down though, these kind of mismatches have been one of the big reasons why I've avoided stuff like Path to Glory. Too easy to make the wrong decisions and get stuck being too powerful and having no fun or being too weak and having no fun.

I don't know if I'd go that far, but I am perfectly happy to see the Glottkin become something scary. They've been pretty bad for quite a while, generally needing at least a harbinger to follow them around and keep them alive. It'll be nice to see them standing on their own for once and hopefully they'll get a solid offensive buff as well. The biggest thing I'm worried about is how difficult it is to balance a model at that point level (assuming they're actually going to be 700 points). At that level a model is generally overpowered (ex. Archaon now) or disliked and barely ever taken (ex. Archaon before the S2D book was released). I don't want a total OP auto pick, but I do want them to be good enough to not feel like I'm handicapping the list by bringing them. I'll just cross my fingers I guess.

True, but keep in mind that the release is, as of now, extremely small. One model and a book. Even if they did somehow fail to ship by the 18th due to holiday issues the book is released for free to everyone on YouTube through reviewers. Really all that people would miss out on is a resculpt for a model most nurgle players already own. Plus it was originally planned to drop in October but got pushed back. If an extra month and a half can't help them guarantee a release of this size then I don't think anything will help them.

Yeah, the rule says to add 1 to the attacks of khorne units wholly within 16". Since he's always within range of himself he gets the extra attack. For him to not affect himself there would have to be an exception in the rule like the wrathmongers.

They said that Nurgle would be out in December just in time for the grandfather to spread his gifts around the world. It was probably just fancy wording but at the time i figured it meant they'd be out just before Christmas, which would mean release on the 18th and therefore a preview on the 5th. I'd be more than happy to be wrong but that's what I'm expecting until proven otherwise. Plus if we get dragons today and they come out on the 4th it'd line up nicely to have Nurgle previewed that weekend.

Should give more hits on average as well (about 17 vs the current of around 15). Also native rend 1. Pretty big improvement so far, but obviously we need to see the rest of the scroll and their points value. If they stay at 4 wounds and get a more consistent healing they could be pretty impressive.

Well you do have to remember that there are 18(!) different heroes for maggotkin (including Fecula but not including all of the Slaves to Darkness or Forgeworld heroes), a number of which were only taken in the current book for use in batttalions or for their command ability. With both of those gone there is absolutely a huge space for redundancy in the army. I'm all for streamlined rules as well, but I'm having trouble believing that GW will put in the work needed to make more than a scant handful of the heroes actually have a purpose. Also remember that of the very few non-hero units, only Blightkings and Plague Drones were any good for the vast majority of 2nd edition. Beasts were totally useless before the recent re-work and Plaguebearers were pretty so so until their recent changes and improved support. Nurglings and Blightlords still have no real purpose in the army. Even with so few units GW still can't seem to make everything viable. Maybe the new book will be better, but honestly I'm pretty jaded at this point. It pretty much leaves me in a holding pattern where the army I most want to work on right now is also a complete unknown and I'm stuck waiting for the new book (and subsequent FAQ) before I have any idea of how things will work.

Actually based on the way they handled stormcast the witherstave sticking around is just about the only thing I'm reasonably confident in. After that though... Hard to say. As always I expect the good things to get nerfed and the bad things to get buffed. I could definitely see them reworking the cycle of corruption (which would be a huge shame, like you said a total loss of flavor for the army). The biggest concern I have is the apparent removal of command abilities in 3.0. Quite a few of our models live and die by their command abilities so without then they're going to need a total rework or fall into obscurity. GW has rarely shown that kind of initiative, especially with these mini releases.

Depends on the box unfortunately. They were originally billed as a small ~500 point army that was ready to go out of the box, but that kind of fell apart as more boxes were released. For example when they made the Death Guard box they forgot about the new rule limiting the number of poxwalkers in your army, so it ended up being a totally illegal box that would require at least one more purchase to use fully. Points have also fallen by the wayside in deference to not giving too big of a price discount. For example the Adeptus Mechanicus box (one of the more expensive factions) has far fewer points than the Necron box set. Basically what you have now is a small force that may or may note be legal with a decent discount. They're generally not built to be purchased in multiples (they often contain a character you don't want more than one of), the price is almost double a start collecting, and the discount percentage is worse than start collecting. Essentially they're a solid downgrade on all fronts. They're better than nothing, but not much.

Who knows. Like @Enoby said it could be intentional because it fits StD design so well (arbitrary restrictions to keep everything but marauders from being any good). It also sort of makes sense since they're Darkoath which is a little different from your standard cultist. They're also being released alongside another warscroll which has the keyword, so it seems intentional. On the other hand every other chaos warcry warband has the keyword so it's inconsistent. It also breaks synergy with the Darkoath Warqueen/Chieftain's command abilites which makes absolutely no sense. All in all I'd say 50/50 one way or the other. Classic GW.

It just fits the StD design ethos so well... Have something that could possibly be decently good, but then throw in an arbitrary restriction to make sure nobody wants to use it. Because reasons. I mean if you can get all of them into combat then 21 attacks doing mortals on 6's to hit isn't bad for 100 points, although that's very dependent on their base sizes, but that's all they have. They go in, cause a couple mortal wounds, and then die to a stiff breeze. The spider people at least seem interesting as a strictly better version of the splintered fang in a cabalist army, but they're 110 points so I'm not totally sold.

That article was posted back in June and was focused on how to use the current battletome in the new edition, it has nothing to do with the new battletome.

Yeah I'm not surprised but it's definitely a nail in the coffin for me. I bought into the original set partially because it was such a great deal with models and terrain. With the prices continually creeping up and my need for terrain satisfied by the original box I have no interest in paying these kinds of prices. It's too bad because that terrain looks pretty fantastic and I love the darkoath warband, but there's just no way.