angrycontra

Fear not, big stabbas max unit is 8. Got my book earlier than expected (don't ask me how or why, I have no idea but I'm not complaining).

Gotta say that scourgerunner chariots seem like a steal for 60p. They're like mobile mini cannons. Each has 2 reliable shooting attacks that have chance to do d3 mw. For 180 you get 3 of them (I know they have mass bonus but bought seperately allows you to make them all leaders, thus giving them +1 to hit). Is there anywhere points for corsairs? Didn't see them in the list.

Damn you GW, I was perfectly happy with the idea of starting orruk army with the new book and now you went and released anvilgard box and I want to go full pirate mode too. My poor wallet.

Nah, I read it as "cos and orruks are NOT coming next week (gotta release that 40k psychic expansion first y'know) but maybe week or two after that". I hope I'm wrong though.

I know I ain't really contributing anything new here but good god gw, is it really that hard to release 2 books with no new models... For cities of sigmar I can almost understand if they want to make new boxes for existing units with rounded bases, but warclans? They have no new units, everything already has round bases and based on what we've heard, they don't even have terrain or endless spells, so what gives? I bet next week we're gonna get new stormcast model and space marheen supplement codex announced for pre-order week after that... Sorry for being so salty, but the original sweet orruk warclans and cos announcements are already starting to leave really sour taste in my mouth. If they weren't ready to release them by this point then maybe they should have announced them at NOVA instead and save a lot of wasted expectations and excitement.

Furthermore, new rules only allow buying max 1 cp with 50p

In my opinion most of these point changes are good enough. They do decent job at improving inner balance while also nerfing some of the top tier armies. Lon got increases for nagash and arkhan both and necromancer too. These 3 are all popular and importan lon chars (well arkhan and necro primarily). Grimghasts got significant nerf, any lon list that ran 3x30 of these guys either needs to find 180p to remove from their lists or replace those grimghasts (add to this wolf and arkhan/necro changes). Idoneth eel changes may feel insignificant on surface but they're pretty huge once you start spamming them. If army has like 3x9 eels that's already 90p, add soulscryer increases and we're looking at 30-60 extra. Dok got 30p extra on big witch elf units and 30 extra for hag queen. This may not be enough to fully drop dok but it can still give 120+p nerf to most dok lists out there. Meanwhile many other armies received some decent point reductions. No, bcr, ko or ironjawz, etc. are not suddenly gonna be s-tier armies but the gap is smaller now and these armies have better fighting change. Same with nighthaunt. Yes the grimghast nerf hurts them too no doubt, but I'd argue that it hurts nh less than the nerf hurt lon unless you spammed nothing but them before but this change should encourage people to have more variance in their lists. Obviously the big question will be whether the upcoming nerfs to skaven fec and fyreslayers (talking about hgb mainly here) will be enough. Especially skaven and fec need significant changes for the game to be more balanced (in gristlegore's case, it's not the point changes I care tbh, I want that always-on always strike first to be nerfed).

I just read fyreslayer vostarg rules in newest white dwarf and their version of warrior kinband is insane. 110p for +1 attack for vulkites wholly within 12" of runeson (melee). Lotl gives free command for the runefather every battleround (but no double pile-in hgb) and forge brethren gives runic empowerment on 2+ instead of 3+. Both are cheaper though.

I disagree with the notion that Skaven are not gonna get anything next year. I'm not saying that they will 100% get something but this whole "they already got btome" or worse "they're op already no need for new stuff" is a load of bulldung. LoN got battletome last year, and only couple months after they received new models through nighthaunt. Stormcast have gotten new models and book every year basically (yes yes I know, space marines and all that but still). Chaos space marines received new models 1,5 years after their codex release. Who is to say that gw couldn't make clan skryre btome with fully updated skryre range and some new stuff? Obviously that wouldn't massively help mixed skaven lists but some of the updated models could still be used. They could also release new boxed sets with new models or campaign book that comes with new models. Again, I don't claim to possess some inside knowledge of gw's doings and future release but the fact is, neither does anyone else here. Gw do what they do, skaven still have pretty horrid old model range in dire need for update so I wouldn't be surprised at all if gw decided to make them the stars of "year of rat". It should also be noted that much like most of 40k 8th ed. codices, aos 2nd ed. Btomes are still mostly rush jobs to get every faction playable so what gw does after all btomes are out is still a mystery.

I think one way to somewhat balance this mode would be to introduce (house) rule that no unit in the army can exceed 400 or more points. I feel that 400+ is a "magic" point value where things get too broken for 1k games (thanquol, fec gristlegore general, morathi, vlord on z.dragon, 10 evocators, 6 stormfiends etc.). It would limit army building but then again, I don't see much fun in steamrolling opponents with op units.

Well I've been saying for quite some time that I've always wanted Gw to salvage those better looking tomb kings models and use them to make either new faction or add something new to LoN, so I'm all for it. With that said, I don't think there's going to be actual Khemri as faction (in fact, I don't think that battletome will even have word Khemri in it, or settra for that matter), it's more likely some brand new undead faction with khemriesque style so they can combine it with the old kits.

As much as I would want these to be true, these point changes feel too good to be true. Gw has not exactly given me massive confidence that they'd be on the point with so many major point changes at the same time, many of these feel something balance-savvy players want to see with points but not something gw will actually end up doing. Plus as mentioned, if fyreslayers are listed that would essentially mean that even before their btome was released, gw knew they f-ed up fyreslayer points because there is such a short time between their tome and ghb release.

I've used Aurics frequently against keepers of secrets and they just melt them away (even without lofnir command). They are simply insane against monsters and not horrible against anyone else (not too bad melee either). With the hero protection on top of that, I basically build all my lists so that I have minimum of 10 of them in each.

Well if you want to have 30 hgb, then I think that you have 1 hgb unit too many. I would drop the 15 man unit from the list and replace it 2x10 vulkites. Combatwise those vulkites are worse than hgb but you can spread them out better and use them to hold/cap objectives, screen units etc. And while I personally love magmadroths and would never make a list without one I think this list could benefit from changing that magma to runefather on foot. This would free 180 points to your army (220 if you count the "leftovers" from the vulkites) which could be used to make one of the vulkite units bigger and magmic invocation or buy 5 aurics (to protect runefather and bsmith) and grimwrath berzerker to aid that other hgb unit.

The problem I see with this list is that you have too many hgb and too few heroes to support them. Hgb are great, no-one denies that, but their power is directly tied to the heroes that support them. The moment you face any army that has half decent sniping abilities, those 4 heroes are going to die like flies, leaving very weak and easy to kill hgb units (not to mention losing lotl in the progress). Another problem is that I don't see this list winning any objective games. You have basically 3 units in your entire army. You can't split your heroes and hgb 'cos that will leave both vulnerable. Furthermore hgb lack bodies and although they are good killers, they're no plague monks. Outside of the 30 man unit, it can easily take like 3 turns to kill 60 moonclan grots with the 10-15 hgb units (if not more, given their netters and -1 to hit).

I don't think there's really any room for battlesmith interpretation. The original ability stated: "until your next hero phase, those units can't retreat but can reroll failed saves" and this happens immediately after raising the banner, therefore these units are not required to be within 8" at all times, only when they receive the buff. The new battlesmith however has a very different wording. It states "add 1 to save rolls on units TARGETED by enemy attacks that are WHOLLY WITHIN 12" of this model". This wording clearly implies that when your unit receives attacks, that is when you need to be wholly within bsmith range.

I for one am happy that that terrain costs points as much as it does. Last thing I wanted was being forced to buy this set for some neutral scenery. Now its main purpose is being interesting terrain piece for narrative and maybe some specific army build (command point thirsty armies can really use that terrain).

From what I understand, that errata/faq focuses mainly on that command trait that allows knowing 2 prayers. Allegiance rules do not prevent use of warscroll abilities unless specifically stated. I do agree that it was weird for them not allowing using both book prayers that the priest might know. Personally I feel that vostarg lists work best with foot general, since he can more easily run with the troops and not having to slow down for the rest of the army. I'm also not sure if extra command point purchased with points is that useful for vostarg (their lodge command is once per turn deal and I've found that battleshock is rarely an issue for fyreslayer army). I feel like you could remove that and maybe magmic invocation to add another grimwrath berzerker.

For death, I believe there is ongoing rumour that death is going to receive new legions of nagash tome to replace the old one (and seperate nighthaunt completely from LoN) with new models added. Doesn't sound unbelievable to me, considering that only 1 and half year ago they released chaos space marines codex with no new models and only recently they released abaddon and friends to supplement that codex and soon it has been 1 and half years from LoN release. Most likely will be tied to this stormvault thingy.

This was really disappointing preview. Even the usual "you shouldn't have had your expectations so high up" arguments don't play well here. All I was expecting was new battletome (with endless spells/scenery, no new models), more complete picture about forbidden power, and new warcry warband. Well I got the warband, but nothing else. Contrasting paints are very very interesting though.

While I agree that 30 hgb is pretty much impossible to kill, that is still not the same as impossible to deal with. First, 30 hgb is not 600p unit, It is 980p minimum (600 for unit, runefather 100, 140 for bsmith and 140 for lord of the lodge, not counting runemaster 'cause he will likely be mending the pizza oven). 980p for single unit (since the heroes don't do much by themselves) that has 4 move. What happens to hgb after someone throws one of those "half all your movement" spells at them or throws one of the many wall endless spells in their face? What happens to hgb when someone starts to "bubble wrap" them with cheap expendable units like clanrats (there's no need to charge the unit, just slow it down by placing units near it)? What happens to hgb when dok player sends morathi to fight them? All of these methods do one thing: Slow the unit down to crawl. Aos has only like 2 or so scenarios where hgb shine because there are so few objectives to hold, but they can't be in 2 places at the same time, you deal with hgb by not focusing on them. They are simply too slow to be dictating who fights who. If skaven player slows 1000p worth hgb with 360p worth of clanrats and some endless spell, that player can use the rest of his/her 1600p to deal with the rest of the fyreslayer forces. Not saying that 30hgb isn't underpriced or really really good (broken), but it is really easy to shut down single unit that has nothing else going for it than awesomu powar in melee and is really slow. And of course, armies with good snipers will blow those heroes protecting them out without any real problems. Finally, only real spell protection fs have is 50/50 banner that either works, or doesn't (not that it matters when wall endless spell forces you to slowly go around it).

Funnily enough, one of my list is almost exactly identical (just few minor differences). One thing though, runefather should be your general, not runesmiter, otherwise you won't have enough battleline (runemaster makes aurics battleline, not smiter). Anyway, what I do different on my list is that instead of battlesmith artifact, I have droth-helm for runesmiter on magma and I plan to run both of my magmas as this duo team acting as a sort of "quick response unit". Also don't forget 2nd magmadroth trait from battalion (if you run both magmas together, that save reroll of 1 is pretty nice choice).

I'm really glad they changed the faq as fast as they did. Making battlesmith saves no longer stack was also great change. I don't think bsmith stacking would've been that problematic for tournament scene (because killing 30 hgb is already more or less impossible already so why get more saves on them) but it would've had catastrophic effects on more casual games.

Yeah it does seem weird f-up by gw. Personally I'm not gonna bother with that part of the errata because there is no way in seven hellos that gw just thought: "you know, +1 to prayers is pretty strong, let's make it activate after all prayers have been cast." That would just be insanity.

Vulkites are solid stand alone units as they need no hero support to perform. With shields they're basically better more cost efficient blood warriors to hold objectives. 20 of them is not easy to remove from objective. Aurics are also great unit (possibly best option for khorne, considering khorne's lack of shooting). 360p for 15 is great unit, 31 shots at 18" range 4+ 3+ rend -1 dam 1. The fact that they do double dam against monsters makes them great at countering slaanesh keepers (just recently played game where just 5 of these blew 10 wounds from kos) and fec gristlegore. They don't need support from other fyreslayer heroes. Grimwraths are interesting as allied heroes. Good stand-alone heroes that hit hard and don't waste your leader slots. Hearthguard berzerkers ain't that great as allies. You can only have 10 of them because you need fyreslayer hero near them and one hero just isn't good enough to protect this unit.