RuneBrush

The Age of Darkness ruleset benefits from a huge amount of preparation and planning right at the beginning of the project. Alan and the team round him, did things like working out the rules for all the primarchs at the same time to ensure there wasn't any power creep. Having a standard marine as a "datum" has also helped because it's really easy to compare anything new to multiples of that basic unit (if that makes sense). I think with it being more of a historical game there was a lot more conversation between the designers and the sculptors - you don't see the scenario we have in AoS where some armies don't have endless spells or scenery pieces because nobody has designed them

+++ MOD HAT +++ Thought it prudent to post up a reminder of the TGA forum rules. Over the past week or so the mods have had to deal with an above average number of instances of each of these. No potato picture leak photos - photos from official sources are fine No excessive negativity or complaining - this is a discussion forum and we expect posts to be constructive, simply stating "I hate X" isn't constructive No bad behaviour towards other members - I hope I don't need to explain this one Please take a moment to remind yourself of all of the rules in our TGA and you thread where we cover the above and more Along with the more formal https://www.tga.community/site-rules/

Good spot! They'd still look great in the game, but would agree as they're not push fit, unlikely to have been intended for it. The latest rumour is the UK company they used for printing went bust and the company they use in China was shut down (and as such behind schedule) due to the pandemic. This may or nor be true (it's a rumour!). What I will say is that most contracts created with companies in China tend to be "one off" contracts rather than ongoing ones, so I could completely see how this could cause a problem (I work for a company that has a lot of contracts with Chinese companies and you're very beholden to their schedules and availability)

Going to be interesting to see what drops on Saturday. Like you say there's the option of a classic "starter" style box (Soul Wars-esq) or a hobbyist two army box like Indomitus. I can actually see justification for both of them, so can't make a call! Reckon you're right with whatever appears be at the £125 price point. I'm wondering if we may see something mirror what 40k does now, where the handbook basically consists of matched/organised play rules and the narrative/casual play bits get released in the form of Path to Glory books. When 9th ed 40k dropped, they released a new Chapter Approved book, so wouldn't be surprised to get something.

+++ MOD HAT +++ Not particularly happy with the direction the rumour thread has taken over the past few pages. You know who you are and I'm more than happy to start giving people time outs if you don't pack it in...

😁 Personally I wouldn't mind if Nighthaunt & Gravelords were combined into one battletome - if it were thought through and made sense. That said I do have a Legion of Grief army and really like how it looks on the tabletop with skeletons next to chainrasp, so may be a little biased. That said, I do think Nighthaunt and Gravelords have the advantage that they both have a large enough core miniature range to justify them each having their own book. If both ranges were in a single book, then you'd probably it 50% larger to cover everything equally. I suppose one question that does need to be asked is if people feel that any of the soup battletomes have resulted in one particular faction losing it's identity when factions were combined?

We're in danger of going off tangent here The two bits I've just highlighted read that you are suggesting they woke up one day and decided to change things. Sorry if I've misread this - I know typed responses don't convey the nuances of the spoken word well. As I pointed out in my chunk of text, the changes GW have implemented were made due to the way the player base interacted with the rules and them trying to react and modify a game system that had been some years in the planning - which they also admit they got wrong. I think over the course of AoS 3 we're going to see every battletome be given a refresh. I think we may well see a number of currently standalone armies get pulled together into single battletomes. A bit like Ogors and Orruks I expect there to be a soup option and various non-soup options. That said I think GW now have a much clearer idea on what they want each faction to do, so wouldn't be surprised to see some sweeping changes too - Soulblight Gravelords has shown they're not afraid to completely and utterly revamp (ba-dum-tis) an army right to it's core.

Daemon Tzeentch could be an option? Pretty heavy magic focused and allow you to go a bit wild on colour scheme too.

GW didn't wake up one morning and go "let's change how AoS works" which is what you're suggesting happened. What they tried to do was react to what customers were telling them they wanted from the game and how some people were playing. In essence the only reason they changed what they were doing is because we made them change. AoS will have been 3+ years in the making and changing track won't have been a decision taken lightly. Ultimately they were damned either way - leave the game as it was and end up with a mess where people write their own variations for tournaments which becomes the default way to play, or move towards what people claim they want and end up being slated because they're not supporting certain armies that were designed for the old version. Your hypothesis is correct in that soup battletomes do seem to be them trying to refresh factions that may well not see any updates because they haven't the resources to give them full blown second waves any time soon.

Probably just worth reminding people where we came from so we can understand why we're at the point we are. When AoS originally came along it was intended as a entry level tabletop game where each force played was only 30 to 40 models using a simple 4-page skirmish rule set. GW introduced loads of small factions with the intention to give people a massive amount of choice for the force they wished to field. This meant each force only needed a small selection of models - half a dozen different units was perfectly ample when you only have 30ish miniatures on the tabletop. Gamers are creatures of habit though and struggled to get their heads around building a force without some kind of sensible guideline, for many list building was a huge part of their hobby too. That resulted in three or four different points systems being created by people out in the community. As you can imagine that led onto tournaments being able to be run - and the tournament folk heavily pushed for games to be of roughly equal size as WHFB, effectively growing the number of miniatures people were fielding in games. Because of this push by the community, GW did their best to catch up, they introduced their own points system (using the SCGT system as a basis but multiplied by 10) and introduced the three ways to play. What wasn't as easy to solve (and still isn't) was the actual miniatures side of things. GW can only support a limited number of miniatures at any one point in time* and a range of miniatures normally take 3 years before they get released in the wild, sometimes more - these ranges can also be planned some years in advance too. So why have I just written this screed of text? Firstly it's because some of you may not be aware of quite how far we've come in the past 6 years, and to also help highlight why armies like Fyreslayers have such a limited range of miniatures. Fyreslayers were the first fully AoS force they were created with the intention you'd only see a handful of them on the tabletop, it likely never crossed anyone's mind that you'd be running huge units of 30 fiery duardin! * Their new warehouse has only come online recently

I'll make a caveat that I thoroughly enjoyed playing Skirmish. It's an expansion that I still believe is playable now and a great way to really personalise a small warband. For me though, it wasn't a true entry level to AoS. It added rules rather than remove them, things like banners with aura effects always like a bolt on rather than a core mechanic. For a new player the fact you needed to know the AoS rules and then learn a load of exceptions always made it a higher entry level rather than lower. What I do have high hopes for is the new Path to Glory system that's being added alongside AoS3. It's been confirmed that it's similar to 40k's Crusade system so will be unit based rather than splitting up units, which means it'll use the core rules pretty much without modification. You're likely only going to need 500ish points to play too which gives people a good excuse to create armies from the random models you've picked up over the years.

Preview is confirmed for this Saturday @ 6pm BST

+++ MOD HAT +++ Gentle nudge back onto rumours 😊 Happy for somebody to make a thread about the pro's and cons of soup books 🥣

It'll be a scheduled post - they don't have a person sat there with a calendar waiting to push stuff live 😉

Have any specifics? Could be useful for those of us who are wondering what we've got in store for our armies 😊

Heyho folks! Now that Soulblight Gravelords has landed, I'm going to lock this thread and direct everyone over to the new discussion topic. That way anybody coming into the battletome fresh won't need to wade through pages worth of rumours and speculations.

Here we go folks, the great big discussion thread now that we (hopefully) all have a copy of Soulblight Gravelords in our hands 🤗

My own feeling would best be described as "mixed". On the one hand the pandemic has cut the lifetime of AoS2 effectively in half. This is one of those curve balls life throws at you, it's nobodies fault and we're largely all in the same situation. The hobby knock on from this though is that I have a generals handbook that's never seen play and feel like version 3 is going ahead simply because somebody made that decision months ago and the new version is ready to release. The other side of the coin is that I'm pretty excited about a new version and keeping my fingers crossed that we see changes that will shake things up and level the playing field a little bit. I'm really looking forward to seeing where the next story arc goes and how the various factions change to tackle the new destruction threat.

As it currently stands, an ally is a unit from the same faction (e.g. Gravelords and ally in Nighthaunt). Mercenaries are normally outside that factional restriction (e.g. Gravelords can include the Mega Gargant Big Drogg Fort-kicka). Kragnos can just be added to *any* destruction army (he's counts as part of it and neither an ally nor mercenary). It's been hinted at/mentioned that we're going to see changes with how we compose armies in AoS3 - so an all Mega Gargant army may actually be possible! He'll have access to the generic command abilities, but would agree it's quite unusual for a model not to have something!

+++ MOD HAT +++ If people wish to discuss AoS3 please can we take this to a new thread.

+++ MOD HAT +++ Ahem, just a nudge back onto the topic please folks...

+++ MOD HAT +++ Just a nudge back on track before we go too far down the garden path on GW prices and completely derail this topic.

Not really, TO's are allowed to implement whatever rules they wish at their event. If an independent TO wants GW support in the form of freebies and advertising, then there's going to be some base requirement involved.

I believe on mobile, if you tap on the header of a quote and then press the backspace/delete key it should get removed?

Ctrl+Right-click and you should get the option 😊