Grimrock

I gotta be honest, I never really liked much of the old Chorf line from fantasy. The Legion of Azgorh stuff wasn't too bad, but still pretty clunky and weird. Seeing them modernized in total war and playing through a campaign however has made me do a complete 180 on them. I absolutely love what CA did with the models and I think it'd be amazing if they got some sort of dual release for TOW and AoS. Certainly wouldn't be impossible, they'd just have to ship them with both square and round bases, and with all the little hints and nods they're doing lately I wouldn't be surprised at all if that was their plan.

This is a really good point. I'm working my way through some new slaanesh models and blissbarb archers in particular are making me really crave for some old school simpler models, but not if they're going to charge through the nose for them. If they try to come out with a kit that was made back in the early 2000's and then charge modern day prices for it the system is going to be more or less dead on arrival for me. I've still got an old Orcs & Goblins army kicking around that I could try out but even then I'm not going to go through the process of rebasing everything to their new standards if there's no chance I'm going to get into the game.

I'm pretty sure the problem with commands being simultaneous is timing related. Generally there are almost never circumstances where commands can be triggered at the same time. Unleash Hell and Redeploy might work, but others like Forward to Victory or All out Attack don't. They trigger immediately on a very specific action which can't be done simultaneously across multiple units. For example with All Out Attack you issue the command when you pick a unit to attack, but you do that one unit at a time not all at once. If you couldn't break the commands up then it would be nearly useless without a ton of additional wording in the rule. I don't think there's a good way to modify the current behaviour without making the rule overly complex.

What's weird for me is it steps on so many toes for the faction. Stealthy pack hunters that attack from the shadows? Genestealers already exist. Small elite melee unit? We already have warriors and raveners. Not to mention the obvious fact that appearance wise it's just a smaller and slightly less interesting looking version of the lictor. The unit doesn't fill any new niche or bring something exciting to the faction, it just seems to be the next in a long line of units designed to invalidate existing units that people already own.

The thing is though, that base size used to be the size for the models ages ago. Back at the tail end of fantasy 7th edition the models were released as a dual kit for warhammer fantasy and 40k and that thin oval base was used for 40k. So the reason it's all on the pictures and such is they haven't been properly updated. Not to mention the fact that the base style wasn't even used in 40k for very long, they switched to the more rounded version a long time ago. It would extremely weird to intentionally change them to a base size that hasn't been used on models for like... more than a decade? Like absolutely bizarre. I'm vastly more inclined to believe that they updated off a weird spreadsheet like Krispy suggested. Wouldn't be the first time they've made mistakes with official bases either. If you go back a couple years to when they first created the base size document they said that Skarbrand was supposed to be on a 120 mm x 92 mm oval base like the other bloodthirsters. He's literally never been sold with that base, absolutely no reason to have him on it, the person creating the doc just made an obvious mistake and set it to the wrong size because he's a bloodthirster so he should be on the same base as the bloodthirsters.

I'm pretty sure you're right, the wording is the same as on the new Keeper of Secrets double fight ability. If you could use it multiple times I would expect it to say something like once per battle for each unit that has this ability or something similar, but it just says once per battle. It's a little weird because we don't usually have a rule on units that can be taken multiple times but is still limited to once per battle, but I'm pretty sure that's the intention.

Looks very similar to a list I've been trying out. The only thing I might change for yours is to split the seekers into two units of 5 instead of one of 10. You aren't likely to have less drops than your opponent anyway and 5 man cavalry units are excellent screens/objective grabbers. You might lose out a bit if you want to use them for euphoric killers but with coherency you'll probably struggle to get the extra attackers in anyway. Plus the slickblades will be better euphoric killers in most circumstances.

That's definitely true to an extent, but I think the biggest issue slaves faced was their reliance on those buffs (their stats were pretty bad without them) and how frustratingly inconsistent they were. A single failed prayer or an unbound spell and your combo would just fall apart leaving you high and dry on a critical turn. With a lot of the slaanesh buffs/debuffs just happening with no dice roll things are dramatically more consistent. From a game perspective I imagine that the pricing is a little tricky for buffing pieces. Sure you could make the lord of pain 250 points or something and decrease the points of all other mortal units by 10-20, but then maybe nobody would take the lord of pain. I think the current method of just assuming everyone has some buffs/debuffs and pointing accordingly works in theory specifically because the buffs are close to automatic. It does have the unfortunate side effect of creating near auto includes because people need to take the buffing pieces in order to justify the cost of their other units, but there are worse problems for an army to have.

I might be wrong but honestly I don't think the army is priced based on the -1 to hit or any of the other depravity bonuses or the summoning, I think it's priced based on the variety of easily accessible buffs and abilities. Just to start +1/+1 is a killer buff, and hedonites have access to it with no spell cast, no command point, nothing other than a little positioning which is generally trivial for an army as fast as this. Add to that access to a couple low cast +1 to wound spells and a sub faction where you're literally drowning in command points and you get an army that will almost always perform dramatically better than they appear on paper. Then you have a dizzying variety of tech where you can decrease numbers of enemy attacks, force them to attack certain models, reduce hit and wound rolls, forcibly dictate early game positioning... There's just so much going on once you hit the table that there's no way you can consider the units in this book just based on stats alone.

Ah, I understand. Yeah it's tricky as he's cheaper than most priests. If it were me I think I'd drop him and the bloodreavers to try out the new realmgore ritualist and then put in the wrathaxe, but dropping him and the skulls for a mighty lord of khorne could work too. I think someone mentioned using him and the Gorecleaver relic to completely overcharge a lord on juggernaught which sounded pretty fun. If you were to go with the pair buffing eachother then I'd be tempted to go all the way with a Gorechosen battalion and the command trait for +1 attacks on all gorechosen. Really lean into the beatstick.

Fair point on pretenders, but there are still some benefits. One would be to allow your general to move around freely without being tied to the blissbarb units. If your general is the Lord of Pain then sure, not a real issue, but if it's a keeper you're free to make full use of the 14" movement without any cost to core efficiency. Another would be easily getting around a -1 to hit by using both buffs. Assuming the galatian champion rules go away this summer people will be relying on look out sir again and 21 shots at a 2+/3+/-1 with no real counterplay and a potential threat range of 30ish inches will be an absolute nightmare. Thinking about it more maybe I'm just carrying some baggage over from other armies. For example khorne had some good shooting tech in their 2nd edition army book that was intentional (if you believe the designer that spoke up about it) but GW shut it down immediately. Generally speaking they don't seem to want chaos to be a shooting alliance outside of skaven and tzeentch, so I'm quick to assume they'll remove anything half decent. Maybe this will stick around unaffected but it makes me nervous haha. I should probably just try to enjoy nice things instead of constantly fearing the nerf bat.

I played a game against slaves last night as well and I felt the same way. The number of command points is just kind of nutty. For example S2D took the first turn to avoid a nasty alpha strike and to clear out The Masque in the backline. I redeployed the Masque and did all out defense in the shooting and melee phases and it didn't even come close to making me feel tight on CP. Afte that the keeper one shot a 14 wound daemon prince that was under finest hour and all out defense. Then she proceeded to face tank a charging varanguard unit even though she lost her ward from a nurgle prince (this was thanks mainly to the -1 to hit). Thanks to the fact that she survived that varanguard charge the Crown just absolutely neutered a unit of 10 chosen, which were subsequently obliterated by 10 myrmidesh under the Lord of Pain buff and a double pile in from the keeper. There was some good luck on dice here and there, but honestly it didn't feel outside of the standard deviation. The army feels just... so smooth now. Incredibly fast, hard hitting, resilient once you can get some depravity. Incredible shooting units, incredible buffs, excellent options from the book that cover pretty much anything you might need in a list, and all at a really reasonable point cost. Obviously too early to call OP, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see a couple tweaks. The first thing I expect to see is the Lord of Pain's ability being changed to only affect melee weapons. It's just way too good with blissbarbs right now.

I've never looked at their warscroll before today, but they look kind of... ok I guess? They're sort of like slightly better bloodreavers but without a real role. They do slightly more damage than reavers (as if they have reaver blades with rend and reach and a special weapon), but they're still not doing much damage overall with a 4+/4+. They're slightly faster with the pre-game move, but they're not really tough enough to hold the points they get to and I don't think the army is hurting for alpha strikes thanks to the new movement shenanigans. I haven't really had much experience but honestly on paper I'm not really sure I'd reach for them. If I wanted cheap bodies I'd go for reavers since neither unit is going to do much damage in combat anyway. If I wanted infantry to hold a point I'd go for bloodwarriors. If I wanted fast cheap units I'd go for flesh hounds as they're excellent screens. I could maybe see having one unit to go grab a flank objective or something to try to split up my opponents forces, but that's about all I can think of. I really like the look of the first list, but I don't think the bloodstoker would be very helpful since you don't have many mortal units. If you swapped him out for another unit of reavers I think it would be better. Also I would try to find a way to get the Killer Instinct prayer in there, it's an incredibly good prayer for helping our army get up the field faster. It's harder to tell with the second list as I've never played a game that big before. I think it looks ok though and it seems to have all the important components. It would definitely be a very bloody game which is always fun.

That's ok, I won't ever be attending a tournament that you judge so it won't be an issue!

I've been fidgeting with a list that I want to try out with proxies before I drop any money. It's built to help minimize costs for new purchases (I've got a potential line on a few of those old Slaanesh Sybarite boxes and a bunch of existing daemons), but I'm not really sure what to do with battalions for it. Does anyone have any thoughts? Pretenders Keeper of Secrets 400 - strength of godhood - crown of dark secrets - flaming weapon Lord of Pain 135 - stubborn as a rhinox The Masque 140 Seekers 140 Seekers 140 Blissbarbs 150 Blissbarbs 150 Daemonettes 250 - reinforced Myrmidesh 290 - reinforced Slickblade Seekers 200

Well if you look at them without considering skullcrushers I think they're really solid. 180 points for three five wound models with a 3+ save is already good. They're fast for the faction and that combines well with the extra movement we have now. They kick out a respectable number of mortal wounds on the charge with impact hits and their blades, especially in bloodlords (pretty sure they'll have the bloodletter keyword so they should get mortals on 5+ right?). I think in units of 3 they're solid advanced units to take and hold objectives and should beat most chaff with relative ease. A 6 man unit should work as an excellent anvil while also dealing a respectable amount of damage. I think their main issue is how they compare to skullcrushers. I'm pretty sure they're similar for overall damage if you're taking bloodlords, but for 20 points more skullcrushers get a 2+ save and a ward against spell mortals. Skullcrushers also get access to run and charge with the bloodsecrator. The thing is with skullcrushers being better I wouldn't be surprised at all to see them get some nerfs if khorne starts doing well at tournaments so maybe bloodcrushers are a safer purchase? Also I think bloodcrushers look a lot cooler but that's just personal opinion.

Yeah, same as the rest of the chaos tomes so far. I also don't remember seeing anything that specifically works with Khorne so coalition units are pretty much hosed. Chaos marauder horsemen might still be decent screens, but I can't think of much else.

I just checked out the AoS Coach review on youtube and it has a full breakdown on points at the end. He's also really specific and did what looks like a word for word copy of the allegiance abilities/traits/artefacts along with in-depth changes to the different warscrolls. You need to have the existing book or app to know the full story, but as long as you do it's the best breakdown I've seen yet. Still hoping Facehammer will do a proper review once the book is out so I don't have to cross-reference so much but this should be good enough for now. After going through it again I'm feeling a little more hopeful for the book. The general allegiance rules have seen a pretty good glow up. Artefacts/traits/slaughterhosts aren't mind blowing but there are a couple cool little combos you can pull off. The new prayers are pretty fantastic and the addition of the priest keyword to so many models means you'll be able to take advantage of them regardless of what type of army you want to run (also a priest bloodthirster just sounds fantastic). Similarly the new tithe abilities are really good with Murderlust an obvious standout. Everything seems to be tuned towards making sure you get to combat quickly and at relatively full strength. As usual there are a number of dud warscrolls but generally we're better off than we used to be. There were a lot of sidegrade changes (like skullreapers gaining a rend and +1 to hit against large units but losing re-roll hits so they can't fish for mortals anymore and swapping Murderous to the Last for the strictly inferior murder rolls) or improvements that just don't seem to be enough (like blood warriors getting a save and rend, but still wounding on 4's for some unknown reason). There are a number of good improvements though like bloodreavers (murder rolls should do more damage then they ever could otherwise), skullcrushers, bloodcrushers, and bloodletters (2" reach! finally!). Gorechosen heroes have also gotten a lot better combat wise, but I'm still not sure if it's enough to make me want to reach for them over priests or bloodthirsters. Honestly I think the biggest weakness we have is the book specific battle tactics and grand strategies aren't super great. You should be able to do a few of the tactics depending on your matchup, but the grand strategies are pretty awful all around. We'll definitely have some issues scoring points, but maybe that's ok as we'll be forced to kill the opponent off faster to make sure they can't score either. Very thematic.

I think we might have to wait for a review that actually shows the new army book, the current ones are too vague or imprecise to really get a feel for the nitty gritty interactions. If I had to guess the hero phase tithe abilities will probably happen at the start of the phase and the prayers would be after, but I could be wrong. Honestly I'm having problems getting a good feel for the book in general. Maybe it's just because I can't see everything in front of me, but it seems a touch flat so far. There are improvements here and there, but they're generally only enough to just barely cover the the buffs we're losing. Heroes have gotten better which is great, but they're generally only going to a level they should have been from the beginning. I'm not really excited for any of the units other than skullcrushers and bloodcrushers. So much has stayed more or less the same but that kinda sucks when what they were was so miserable. I probably just need to get it on the table but that'll have to wait until we can get a better look.

Hard to say without seeing everything (man I hate that his head is in the way of almost every warscroll haha), but it's looking pretty solid so far. Pretenders seem like a big winner even without seeing their spell lore and that crown of dark secrets is an almost Be'Lakor level middle finger to god-tier units like Archaon. Looking forward to Saturday for a better quality look at the book from Facehammer or GMG. I skipped the last book because I would have had to essentially re-buy the entire army as all my daemons were relegated to summoning fodder and nothing else, but this is definitely looking more promising. There definitely still seems to be a slant towards the newer mortal models but at least some of my collection will be playable again. Having to pick up a few boxes is a lot more palatable than re-buying a whole army.

Oh yeah, +15 damage and -15 rend is an obvious oversight. That's why I figure we'll get a day 1 FAQ on it. Something like 'If this general has issued any commands to a different...'. It's just funny to take the obvious mistake from GW to the maximum silliness.

Currently by raw I'm pretty sure it does, but it isn't limited to just +3/+3. They can issue a command every phase, 3 times each, and the buff lasts until the end of the turn. On the Honest Wargamer stream they showed that the other trait for pretenders is they generate 3 command points instead of 1 for the general being alive, so that's 5-6 command points in a turn with the heroic action. Considering they could issue a command in the hero, movement, shooting, charge, and combat phases I think they max out at +15 to each. Super unlikely to get that high, but +9 to each would be easy. Obviously I think we're going to get a day one FAQ limiting it to only giving +1. Classic GW rule writing.

Didn't they change that over to a battalion in the latest GHB? So no chance for a one drop if you want to get good use out of your melee infantry. Plus who knows what we'll have in the next season, maybe it'll stick around maybe not. I'd rather have it on the warscroll like with chaos knights.

I hope they'll be viable, I love painting up daemons and they feature prominently in the 40k Chaos Daemons combat patrol box so I'd like an excuse to pick that up. If the rumors are right and they're going up to 2 wounds then I'd definitely expect them to get an extra attack at minimum, and hopefully some way to attack in multiple ranks like a 2" reach or some special rule. Today's article looked interesting. I like the changes to the bloodstoker in particular. We're probably losing re-roll to wounds and I'm not in love with the likely return of daisy chaining, but anything to get rid of wholly within 8" haha. The other changes seem nice but it is a lot of focus on heroes that have historically been quite awful. Hopefully this is a sign that they've gone through and re-tooled all the hero profiles.

Question for anyone that has bought the new Exalted Hero of Chaos model, how does it compare size wise to the standard chaos warriors? I've been thinking of picking up the Khagra's Ravagers box and using it for a chaos lord, two exalted heroes, and a chaos sorcerer, but I'm not sure if they'll be a suitable standins once they're on 40mm bases.