Grimrock

Man I'm super pumped for these warscrolls. The sorcerer lord's buff is massive, full rerolls to hit and wound with rerolls to save? Absolutely amazing. Archaon looks fantastic, marauders look fantastic, daemon prince looks fantastic, chaos lord looks fantastic, full rerolls to save on chaos warriors looks fantastic. Honestly I'm having a tough time seeing something to be really disappointed in... I guess I was hoping for more for varanguard, but if it means I don't need to pay $120 for 3 models then I'm not really complaining. I was figuring there wouldn't be many warscroll changes, but the amount of tweaks and improvements is really blowing me away. If the alleigance abilities, battalions and spells are even half decent then this army is going to rock the house. All I'm hoping for now is a cheap spell that buffs rend and I'll be happy as a clam.

Yeah, but they usually roll out the previews before the pre-order to build hype. Articles after the pre-order are usually pretty sparse, maybe a tactical one or a painting article. For example they've completely ignored the endless spells. The only completely new models of the release (ie. not resculpts) and we still have no idea what they do. I know the GMG review should reveal all tomorrow but it's weird for them to rely so heavily on a third party.

Is anyone else kind of flabbergasted that we only got a single rules preview for S2D this week? There's usually 2 or 3 right? Hosts, endless spells, new models... I assumed we'd at least get a deeper look at everchosen today but nothing. I mean if GW isn't even trying to hype the release I really don't know what to expect.

Yeah wouldn't be surprised, but even if they up him to 800 points there's still room to bump the varanguard to 300 each and fit in 2000. I guess we'll see, 800 has to be incredibly difficult to balance especially with all the potential synergy from the different marked armies so I'm hoping he stays similar to now. At 800 he'd have to get something bonkers like auto kills from the slayer of kings or something.

Disappointed the warcry warbands aren't battleline, but not surprised. At this point I'm kinda hoping the rules stay the same for them with no added synergies so I'm not tempted to pick up any more boxes. The point changes for the everchosen stuff sounds... Drastic. You can currently fit 12 varanguard, archaon and a gaunt at 2k with 120 points to spare. Really that's what I was hoping for, the models are so expensive they really needed a points hike to justify the cost. As long as that comes with a significant boost in power in going to be extremely happy. Also picking a mark for the varanguard should pretty much guarantee a purchase for me.

I was thinking you could take a picture of it along with one of their models and fingers for turn number. Guarantees the picture isn't from a different game.

I'm liking the rule previews so far. Ravagers look extremely flexible and interesting to play, and the everchosen looks really strong. I guess it makes sense since taking Archaon means you don't get a command trait, so this ability has to cover the usual power from that as well. It does reinforce the likelihood that Archaon probably won't see many personal buffs, likely just huge strength from allegiance abilities.

Yeah, I guess what I'm trying to say is it's not fully without precedent and we might be stuck this way for quite a while until they're ready to fully refresh the line. Not the end of the world but disappointing for sure. Hopefully the rules get a proper rework at least. I've been wanting to pick up some S2D for a while but I've been paralyzed by all the different choices they might make on release.

Hmm, they actually kind of did do that for a while. Way back in 2012 Dark Vengeance had a set of beautiful chaos space marines. Amazing sculpts, really captured what chaos marines should look like. They kept the old marines around until they resculpted them this year. Little different because they called them chosen, but still, such a blatant difference in quality between the two and it stuck for almost a decade.

Preview article for the start collecting box is up. Disappointingly no rule tidbits, but one interesting comment: "These kits won’t be replacing anything that’s currently in the range, meaning if you like the original models, good news – you’ll be able to keep using them!" I could be wrong, but it's really sounding like they're not doing a full resculpt after all, they're just releasing the monopose from the start collecting and leaving all the old kits as is. I'm not overly disappointed because I've always liked the old chaos warriors and knights, but I know some people were really hoping for a full resculpt.

Yeah I spent a few days doing 2 or 3 models a night, carefully planning out each weapon change, head swap, etc. It was a labor of love, but there's no way I'd want to go through all that again... and I'm assuming max units will be at least 4 boxes. I can't imagine anyone really wanting to go through the work to convert those units, and all the things that makes the models so good in warcry can make them so terrible in AoS.

Yeah, I actually picked up two boxes of Cypher Lords for warcry and decided to try to modify them so I didn't have any duplicate models. The way the models are sculpted... it's like they were aggressively trying to prevent conversions. The backs of the heads are sculpted into the torsos and specifically designed to only fit properly with a single face mask per body. The arms are partially sculpted in, leaving unique joints like a 45 degree horizontal at the shoulder. I was able to work in a number of bits from other kits, but there was a fair bit of green stuffing involved. Even the really unique and strong visual cohesion of the warband (which I love by the way) actually worked against me because weapon swapping something from, say, the kairic acolyte kit looks super wrong because it's a totally different style. The narrative explanation in my head is they've raided camps in the bloodwind spoil or been blessed by tzeentch, but from a pure visual perspective I'm not overly happy with it. Trying to make it work in AoS is going to be a massive pain, and you're going to end up with a lot of copycat models. Heck the leader models have as much detail as some hero models, but they're going to be wandering around with their identical quadruplet siblings. The only solution I can think of is to hack up the units into different warscrolls. Like the commander models get their own warscroll, and the rest of the models count as marauders. Then you can mish mash up a unit of 40 dudes from different warbands while still keep everything from getting too repetitive. I don't think GW will do it though, so I'm really curious what will happen.

Freaking nailed it

It's tough to imagine because endless spells are generally built off the theme of the army and slaves... Well it doesn't really have a lot of themes. They're intentionally the generic dudes of chaos that can run with any army. In Warhammer they had the norscan thing going on, but that doesn't really seem like the case anymore. I was thinking it'd be cool if they got endless spells themed after the different gods, like one for nurgle, tzeentch and slaanesh, each one buffing it's particular mark. So tzeentch could be +1 to cast, slaanesh an aura of run and charge, nurgle a +1 to save or something. Plus then people who play the other chaos armies would want to pick them up, making more sales. If they do go with pure slaves themes, yeah I'd expect a rune of chaos undivided floating in the air. Maybe a spectral bear or some northern beast. Then I really can't think of a third lol.

I think beyond the unmodified 6s nurgle also needs some bonuses to cast. The spells are fantastic, but typically needing 7s means only the GUO can do it reliably. I'd like to see the tree give a +1 to cast or rerolls for wizards within 7", and let us place them after sides are chosen. Gives you something to think about for placement and a way to make blades a little more consistent.

Lots of problems with ambushing the harvester in melee. First, your opponent needs to give you enough room to get at the harvester. If you have to drop 9 inches away that'll be almost impossible. Second, since it's usually embedded in a mortek unit about half the base will be inaccessible so good luck getting a dozen frost sabres actually being able to fit and attack all at once. Third, even with 48 of those attacks a petrifex harvester survives something like 60-70% of the time. Then return attacks from the harvester and mortek shred the sabres, heal the harvester, and you've blown all those resources for nothing. If all you have is melee, your best chance is your opponent making a mistake and moving his mortek away from the harvester and leaving it vulnerable. If they keep it glued to the mortek there really isn't much you can do.

I know it's been mentioned, but I'd just like to re-emphasize this. A big chunk of armies have limited or no access to the obscene amounts of shooting or mortal wounds required for OBR. When you can't shoot the harvester out or kill it with spells, and you can't out fight the mortek, you're pretty much left with running away all game and trying to desperately get as many scenario points as possible before you're ground under. You can do your best to make a game of it but it's still going to feel bad at the end of the day. It's easy to tell people that they just need to get better at list building or strategy, but not everyone has access to the tools required to handle an army like OBR. If you need to take a nail out of a wall and all you have is a screwdriver, well, you can try but you're gonna have a bad time. To me that's where you have the negative play experiences. When you look back over your game and can tell there's nothing you could have done better or nothing you could have put into your list that would have helped.

Well the change could be archaon realizing he isn't as secure as he thought with enemies threatening his stronghold. That leads to a great muster of chaos, starting the process of them becoming the big bad again.

Yeah if you're going goretide then you could skip the hounds pretty easily. As for the skullreapers, they're definitely punchier than most combat heroes . If you get them under the bloodsecrator and wrathmongers against a unit of 5 or more they can put out 9 mortals on average in addition to about 12 wounds before save. Toss on a bloodstoker and/or killing frenzy and they'll mulch through hordes or elites pretty easily. They're not perfect, but they're a good generalist problem solver. Also for the models, I'm not a huge fan either but I found that mixing the wrathmonger bits in (especially the helmets) made a huge difference. Leaving off the shoulder pads and back banners helped a lot as well, and since all the weapons are effectively the same now you can get good variety with the normal and daemon ones.

Chosen could always come as a multi kit with normal warriors too. Different weapon and helmet and you'd be pretty much good to go. Maybe a few mutations or something for good measure.

Dropping the flesh hounds would free up enough points for skullreapers. You have a decent amount of anti magic without them and your battleline is already covered with gore pilgrims, so I don't think they'd be missed. The extra 20 points combined with your leftover would also be enough for hexgorger skulls. If you decide not to go with goretide then you could probably drop the bloodwarriors down to 5 instead. They're nice but I think if you're going to use them you need to go all in or not bother. I'm curious to hear how the bloodcrushers work for you. I like them, but never enough to justify picking them up. 1 attack on the riders hurts haha.

People in my area also tend to play one game at a time. When a LotR league started up over the summer it was an absolute nightmare trying to find an AoS game. People showed up on game nights, played their games for the league, and went home. When warcry dropped there was a bunch of interest, but AoS won out and nobody plays warcry anymore. My group has about 20 or so active players. If it counts for anything, I also stick to one due to the monetary and time investments trying to get armies up and running. Plus I get one game in every few weeks typically, so it's not like I get really bored and need to switch things up. I don't know if Fantasy would win out over AoS here, but we do have a bunch of old school fans. I'm sure it'd be enough to make a dent initially, but after that who knows if they'd come back or not. Edit: Maybe it's a north american thing? I know in Canada we pay a decent markup for miniatures so that might have some impact. I've been gaming for almost 20 years now and I can't think of a single person I've met that actively played more than one game for any length of time. I've seen some people try, but they always seemed to settle on one or the other.

They could always take inspiration from d&d with different castes of giants. Current one being a hill giant, the smallest and crudest of the bunch, and then move up from there with fire giants, frost giants, stone giants, cloud giants, and storm giants. Even if you only use a few types you have lots of room for variety and different roles. Use different weapons/amounts of armor to differentiate between heroes and battleline within the same kit and you're off to the races.

Well, got my first game against the OBR tonight. After after a full 5 round game playing as slaanesh I managed to kill two whole models. A few more fell over of course, but arkhan picked them back up so not permanent damage. I did win by a single victory point on the last combat phase in the last turn, but if he had been a touch more aggressive in the first two turns I don't think I would've stood a chance. Catapult did great, putting 10 wounds on a keeper one round, thinning out daemonettes in others. Didn't even need to use its special shots to make a huge impact on the game. I will say that the layering of buffs caught me off guard. At one point the mortek was rerolling saves, 5+ death shrug, 4+ harvester resurrect, rend -2, exploding attacks on 5+, hitting on 2+, rerolling 1s to hit. They were an utterly unkillable unit that was also an unstoppable blender that killed everything it touched, with 20 of them taking out almost 1000 points of models. I avoided it as much as possible but there's only so much you can do when it's walking straight at the objectives and taking up the whole center of the board. So maybe not grossly overpowered, but it felt like the only thing I could do all game was avoid combat all together and sit on objectives. It worked, barely, and only because he was being cautious, but not exactly a fun game for anyone.

I'm talking about the rumor engine pic. It could be another new warcry monster coming out early next year.