RuneBrush

Who knows! The new rules have confirmed certain things, but there's still loads of bits that are unanswered.

The move was down to a few things. First and foremost it allowed GW to compete at a board game level price. This means the small and medium starter boxes are at a price point that could be asked for as a birthday/Christmas present without it breaking the bank. They're equally at a level where somebody might buy it to see what it's all about. The top end box is intended for somebody who's more committed about getting into the hobby, it contains everything you need to start your addiction in gaming - models, dice, battle mat and scenery. Dominion/Indomitus were intended for existing gamers to get into the new edition of the game, limited run, huge savings, rulebook, brand new models and no dice, scenery tokens etc. It's a quick and easy way to give us new models to add to an army (or start a new one).

The Battleforce boxes do tend to be pretty varied with a wild card or two thrown in. I do agree that generally we don't see ones that contain recent releases in (though nothing would surprise me). I'm thinking we're going to have a heavy leaning into monsters because it ties in with the new edition & Ghur focused games. Although I've listed each grand alliance separately, I could see one not having anything (Chaos) and another receiving more (Destruction). I also could see there being 6 boxes. Death FEC / Bonereapers My leaning is onto FEC as I believe Bonereapers are due a second wave this edition. Soulblight is possible with a double/triple Terrorgheist box, but becomes less likely as ideally you'd want a Vengorian Lord (< 12 month old model) Chaos Beasts of Chaos / Mortal Slaanesh / Mixed Chaos / Skaven Hard call on this one because there are quite a few viable choices out there although not many that fall into the monster line of thinking. Beasts & Skaven do work on the monster front and certainly would be nice to see something for those armies. Beasts and mixed chaos would also slot in as Coalition units, which would increase the popularity. Order Seraphon / Stormcast / Cities I'm of the view that Fyreslayers & KO are due a second wave at some point this edition so don't consider them in the running for a battleforce this year. Lumineth feels possible because we know they've not been quite as popular as anticipated (so this would be a good way to shift some stock), however I actually think that may be the reason GW avoids them in a battleforce because we've had a lot of releases for them and their release box hung around in stores for months. I'm hoping we won't see Stormcast (it certainly won't be Thunderstrike if we do see them), however will concede that they're the poster boys and make a good Christmas pressie Destruction Gloomspite (Spiders) / Sons of Behemat Personally I don't think there's any chance we'll see Kruleboyz because they're a brand new force and we waited a year for the Nighthaunt box (also a new army). Ogors works on the monster thought line, however it's been done before and I suspect we may get a big update this edition (the Cursed City Ogors don't look anything like the old range).

I think popular is a bit of a subjective term. By popular do we mean the number of people who own a Stormcast army (in some shape or form), or do we mean the number of people who actively play a Stormcast army? Stormcast are a good army to start off with. They can have a fairly straightforward playstyle, the miniatures are easy to assemble and enjoyable to paint, plus they're the poster boys, so we know they're going to get solid support throughout each version of the rules. As you say they're available in plentiful supply to, having been included in all 3 versions of the boxed game and within the Mortal Realms magazines. For me I feel Stormcast don't inspire the passion that other forces do. I know many greenskin generals who are borderline fanatical about their armies, yet can't think of ever encountering this within Stormcast.

I'd also include advantages that are hugely one sided. At one point there was a huge number of Order armies that simply gained bonuses against Chaos. One or two Chaos hunting units makes sense, especially when given something like a reroll. Straight up additional damage has always felt bad from both sides of the table.

The decision to move AoS & 40k away from FW was made about 4 or 5 years ago. Nothing to do with competition, it was felt that the main design studios were better placed to write the rules & point for the main games. It was confirmed in early 2020 that the AoS design team aren't involved in the development of The Old World, they're actually really looking forward to it's release, but know nothing more than us.

Not heard that one, but would be surprised as Age of Darkness and Titanicus share some of the same resources (both set in the Heresy). FW were advertising for plastic sculptors not that long ago too. FW/specialist games have separate teams for each game system which includes Aeronatica, Bloodbowl and all the Lord of the Rings bits

Strictly speaking, I don't believe there's anything preventing you doing this providing you abide by the 1 in 4 limit. However, I'd not bank on this staying as valid because it's basically a cheeky way of paying less points for units and many opponents will think you're taking the micky.

The past 3 years has seen seismic changes for many UK companies and GW hasn't escaped. They've been expanding the company with new warehouses and expanding their factory & office capacity. I've always had the impression that the plastic terrain made in China was a temporary stop gap until they'd increased their capacity here. Any company that imports products is also currently facing huge transportation problems with costs spiralling out of control - think I heard a container is now costing £15k from the far east (two years ago it was £2k).

+++ MOD HAT +++ For me to put probability first is putting the horse before the cart. The point of dice based games is that they're random. Gamers use probability (often intuitively) to make decisions during a game, however there are just as many times when probability is thrown to the wind - otherwise nobody would attempt that 12" charge. You're welcome to hate my response (though I think you perhaps use the word hate too freely) - the point still stands that this is meant to be a thread talking about games people are playing and it's being hijacked to talk about maths. Feel free to create a new thread if you wish to continue your discussion on probability and dice rolling and lets keep this thread focused on actual games people are having of the new version of the rules.

+++ MOD HAT +++ I've always thought wargames revolved around rolling dice. Regardless though, this thread is about the games people have been playing and how they're finding the rules.

Yes and no. Personally I still like the loose grouping of allegiances under what I'd call broad ideologies. However now that the various allegiances have had more background and lore added, I don't think fielding a min-maxed grand alliance army should be a thing any more. What I'd personally love to see is some of the cool things we read about in books becoming an actual thing - both for narrative and matched play. We've had mixed allegiances appear in Firestorm and Malign Sorceries - let's see them have their own battletome and actually be fully fledged out. Some factions should be able to "cross the threshold", Shyish Ogors fighting for Nagash, Orruk tribes fallen to Chaos, FEC who believe their holy knights of Sigmar etc. It wouldn't require a huge change in rules, just a tweak here and there. Lastly, we actually need a proper mercenary system, let's see the return of some units being able to be fielded as Dogs of War with a wide range of factions (though not all). Let's see big monsters and war machines be added that can be fielded in multiple armies - why is a manticore only Chaos and Hypogryf only Order?

+++ MOD HAT +++ Just a nudge back onto talking about games rather than maths please 😉

+++ MOD HAT +++ Pack it in - now. Am just going through tidying up the thread and then onto issuing warning points where people can't behave.

I reckon you may well end up needing a range of different prices depending upon the army. An army with 100+ models could be underpriced at $4000, but I'd hazard nobody would pay that for an army with only 4 models - that's taking to extreme examples. I think speaking to the tournament crowd would be a good starting point - certainly the meta for AoS3 is a month or so off starting to settle as people try to work out what is good and what's bad in the new rules. Initially your best bet is going to be word of mouth and a bit of social media posting. Sort out an army to your agreed standard and play with it at some events, get your face known and make sure you're not backward in coming forward when offering it as a service. Most people I know who do army painting like this tend not to advertise, although most are really active on Twitter and Instagram

I could see something like this being popular amongst some people (we're all different afterall and for some the painting/modelling aspect is a necessary chore). I think the cost will depend entirely on the army in question, plus the quality you're going to produce at. My initial reaction is $3000 sounds low -by the time you subtract the actual cost of purchasing the army, a carry case and display board the actual profit is probably only $2000 at best. Having seen the standard of eBay paint jobs, I'd suggest using GW's standards of "battle ready" and "parade ready" as your benchmark. It's more tangible and people should understand what they're getting.

+++ MOD HAT +++ Just seeing if we've any more rules discussion to be had. Currently feel the thread has focused fairly heavily on a just a couple of points.

Personally it's option 1. The wording says 'Add one to the attacks .... units wholly within 18" until the end of that phase'. For option 2 it would expect the wording to be 'whilst they are wholly within 18"'. Could be worth emailing the faq team though as I can see it being read by different people in different ways.

Thank you! The quantity I've managed to paint has been pretty awful over the past year as I've just been doing odd models for fun rather than having a focus on what I need to do.

+++ MOD HAT +++ Sorry folks, I'm going to lock this thread because it's largely going round in circles now. For those of you who are struggling with the size of the typeface, please make sure you feed this back to GW either via their customer services email or their complaints process. Hopefully this will encourage GW to ensure their design guidelines include a minimum font size component (or update it if it already does). For those of you making comments like "buy some glasses", please stop. The chosen font size in the new handbook is clearly causing some real issues for people who have poor eyesight and these comments are not coming across as particularly tolerant or pleasant. Eye complaints come in many shapes and forms and can be very restrictive for people who have them.

Personally in many years of gaming, I've never come across that guy in my gaming group, local club or when I've attended events. If somebody started insulting me about my army in a pick up game, I'd likely pack my stuff up and leave. That type of player isn't welcome in most environments.

Just caught up with the current discussion and I think we're looking at some extreme situations. My interpretation is as follows 😊 First off proxy vs conversion/kit bash. In this context, a proxy is when you substitute a pre-defined miniature (A) for a different pre-defined miniature (B). For example if I used a unit of Chaos Marauders in my Khorne army as Blood Reavers. It could be confusing and would certainly be so if I went "the ones with red trousers are Blood Reavers but the ones with black trousers are Marauders". If I'd scultped Khorne symbols onto those marauders and used heads from a different box - basically changing them so they physically look different then they'd be considered a conversion. You have to apply common sense to this and remember we play games 3 feet away from our miniatures. In fairness at the opposite end of the scale a proxy could be a miniature that is so radically different to the GW models that you genuinely don't recognise what it's meant to be (if you have to declare a model "counts as" then it's likely a proxy). Painted schemes. OK, this is always a controversial subject because we all have our own opinions and views. In my eyes this has never been about preventing people being creative - if you have come up with your own scheme I don't actually think this rule even is about you. Instead I see this as more about somebody who's painted their army up using a GW created scheme for a particular sub-faction, but chosen the rules for a different sub-faction. In the vast majority of cases, providing you're consistent and explain what's what, you'll likely be fine, however there will be cases when you're playing somebody who knows exactly how a Khorne Skulltakers Tribe should play, may be playing a team game, have spectators or even have the game being streamed. Basically anything that would cause a "hang on, I didn't think that unit could do X". Now that's nothing to say that using proxies and not matching up colour schemes is bad. Maybe you want to test out how a unit of Blood Knights would work, but only have a unit of Gore Gruntas for example. What you need to do is to check with your opponent or a TO if you're planning on doing this in the wild so to speak.

+++ Mod Reply +++ Excessive negativity is one of the core rules of TGA - it was there right at the beginning when the forum was built and each and every one of us agreed to abide by the rules when we joined up. It's often misconstrued that this rule means no criticism or negative comments, but this isn't what the rule is about and not how we aim to moderate. The vast majority of hobbyists want to come to a forum and read about a hobby they enjoy and are passionate about. They don't want to come to a forum to find pages worth of people moaning because something's happened that they don't like. Nobody wants to have every comment replied to with "well that's because GW are rubbish at X". If you're finding every aspect of the hobby to be negative then it's probably worth taking a bit of a break, we're meant to enjoy doing our hobby after all. As a final point, in the past we've had a few darker periods, yet we've upheld the excessive negativity rule and TGA is all the better for it. We're actually in a fairly good point with AoS now - yes there are things that could be improved, but I'd say there are less of them than things that work OK.

+++ MOD HAT +++ Feel there's a bit of excess negativity floating around here. Just a reminder that we want constructive discussions here please, bashing GW for the sake of it isn't constructive.

Was just looking at the warscroll myself and realised they weren't a monster - also just realised they lost their Terrifying Howl ability from the Cursed City warscroll booklet! Was thinking they'd be a great companion for a Terrorgheist 🤦‍♂️