Enoby

++Mod Hat++ As has been mentioned multiple times on the thread by other mods, drop the topic. Normally I would recommend starting another topic in the case of off topic discussion, but in this case I cannot see this particular comment producing a worthwhile thread that wouldn't have to be quickly locked.

In the core rulebook, there's a rule that states you can't include a model worth half or more of your army's total points. I am certain there was an FAQ or rules update that made this not apply in the current GHB, but I can't find it anywhere. Did I imagine this?

I agree about not going off topic, and this will be my first and last thing I say about this, but I do think representation in models is important. That's not to say that women will only go for all female armies or vice versa, but the choice to be able to see a bit of yourself in the characters is important. That's not to say a man couldn't play a female army/character (or the other way around), but people do tend to gravitate towards things more similar to them. This is especially the case in kids. I can say that, from experience, I have really struggled to get into 40k because every single important Chaos character pretty much has to be male (and this is close to true in the Imerium as well, when it comes down to Primarchs who now seem to dictate the setting). I certainly don't dislike male characters, but I get more easily invested in female ones when I'm creating them. Having the option would really help me at least. It's hard to explain without going really deep into it, but for me (especially when younger) representation was the number 1 thing that got me interested in something. When I was a lot younger (like under 10), my first experience with Warhammer was being told that the only girl characters were the "Witch Finders" (which I think were Sisters of Battle), but they sucked and the best faction was Space Marines, but women couldn't be them because they were too weak. I should say that this guy was 12-13, so not the pinnacle of maturity, but that put me off Warhammer for years. However, you're right that the community is key - all the representation in the world wouldn't matter if playing a game with someone had a significant chance or harassment or bellittlement. I think representation is good for getting people interested, but that only goes so far and the state of the community is what makes or breaks someone joining the hobby. In both regards, AoS is far superior to 40k. As for DoK, they don't really do anything for me - the lore doesn't grab me (but I do like Morathi) and the witch aelved/sisters of slaughter seem a bit too generic looking. Most of the women I know who play like Soulblight or Slaanesh, both of which are good for representation. Aelves are also pretty common.

I'm really looking forward to this book, and I'm glad it's a narrative focus. I've just got my fingers crossed that Anvil of Apotheosis is good. I think, at the moment, I've put matched play on hold and narrative seems like my preferred way to play right now.

Oh yeah, I agree the vast majority of reasonable groups would let you take a keyword that made sense. I suppose my concern is less "will you be able to at all" (because it's an easy houserule) and more that if they've left the keywords off, would that be indicative of lesser quality control or less time/effort put into AoA. There are also a small number of keywords that offer generic power ups - for example, Eye of the Gods in Slaves to Darkness and Greater Daemon in Slaanesh. While some groups would be fine just adding these on (should you want to make a custom Keeper of Secrets for example), others may argue that some keywords should cost points as they translate directly to buffs. I've also found it's harder to sell people in my group on supplementary rules that need house rules, no matter how minor. I think a lot of it comes from the enthusiasm being sapped out of someone when creating a character, only to find out it doesn't work unless they get permission. Despite most of the time the permission is easily obtained, some players feel as if their hero was only allowed at the behest of others. A made up hero from AoA being unofficial shouldn't logically matter, but I've seen it dampen enthusiasm before. I really hope so, it would be a great thing for them to include that would allow people to upgrade the heroes that already fit their character concept. Generic heroes like Chaos Lords can fit the bill for most Chaos Lord-like character concepts, and some players may bemoan losing the command ability for potentially little gain, so allowing someone to upgrade their generic chaos lord to be more unique would be a huge boon. I'm very much looking forward to it too. My worries come from the fact that some GW publications seem to vary wildly in quality - AoA is one of those things I'm just praying they get correct as it was one of the best supplementary rules ideas they had in AoS 2. If it's poor or just half finished then it'll be a big blow for narrative gamers. I think my worries are partially there as Path to Glory 3e, while fun, feels half finished. Like they got the skeleton written and then ran out of time - small things like renown doing very little for your warlord (even though the narrative of P2G is that they're building their renown and army), outposts being a vestigial system, upgrades being about removing restrictions instead of getting stronger, and feeling too much like matched play in some areas make P2G 3e less appealing than it should be. This comes from someone who's 17 games into a P2G campaign - I've enjoyed it a lot, but it feels as if it would have benefitted from being its own book with more time dedicated to finalising rules.

I think a few people are a bit cautious to get into Legion of the First Prince, unless they already play the Daemon armies and S2D. While it's not a "fake" army, it's not had its own battletome yet and that might make people cautious of such a high buy in that could end up down the drain should GW feel like it. Of course, every army can get Squatted (or Chorf'd), but it's more likely if they've not had an official battletome.

One potential candidate would be the Contorted Epitome - not much survivability, but it's effectively immune to mortal wounds. If we give it the Arcane Tome, it can be a three spell caster, rerolling casts, with a +1 to cast; the daemon spell lore isn't great, but we do have the options of healing or horde clearing. Overwhelming Aquiesence is also good as it allows the Incarnate to reroll 1s.

In all honesty, as long as they have points (which they'd need for P2G), I think most people would be happy to use them in casual matched play games - which is the best of both worlds. Anvil shouldn't be made dry for fear of breaking tournaments, and the more narrative the abilities the better when it comes to making your own characters. No one wants their unique hero to be less interesting and powerful than the generic equivalent, so I'm hoping P2G lets us fully explore character creation and doesn't miss out some potentially interesting inter-factional interactions (like necessary keywords being available). I'd also love if you could properly upgrade these heroes in P2G using renown to make that more of an impactful mechanic for heroes (especially the warlord). My biggest fear is that not enough thought goes into the Anvil and some armies just don't have heroes that can work properly. For example, in Slaves to Darkness, they don't just need access to the Mortal and Chaos keywords, but also potential access to Slaanesh/Khorne/Nurgle/Tzeentch as well as Daemon (for Princes), Eye of the Gods (very importantly), and Darkoath. I can see them forgetting 80% of those options (just allowing a god mark) which would suck and leave generic Chaos Lord as a better stand in for most characters. Fingers crossed that the Anvil was a significant undertaking with lots of thought put into it, and not just a bone to throw narrative players written in a couple of days.

I think the Incarnate looks interesting, and does add some much needed rend to our lists, but it comes with a few downsides: - No retreating for a good chunk of our army, which is often necessary - As it can't be bound to our Uniques, so it'll give Glutos and Synessa a -1 to cast - We don't have a great Hero to bind to the incarnate - either we have to look to S2D, which have no synergy so this effectively becomes a 600+ point model, or we stick it on a Lord of Pain and hide him - Competitively speaking, I believe (from memory so I may be wrong) that Be'lekor is an ally as he lacks the Slaanesh keyword, so it's either this or him Overall, it's strong and would help us with damage. However, we don't really have a good hero to attach it to as all of our good heroes are uniques. It's worth a test, but I think this will be better in other armies.

Some good news, by the sound of it, is that KO had a Warscroll change in their White Dwarf - if we dare to be optimistic, we may see Slaangors saved.

It's odd because someone did leak the back page with the Slaanesh news, but didn't show anything else when they definitely could have. Someone must have it, at the least.

It would be a really expensive April Fools prank - artwork, animation, and voice acting is not cheap

It's interesting that you mention this actually; it's a perfect encapsulation of the design team half understanding the issue. On one hand, they heard the complaints about no mortals, and so introduced an entire White Dwarf to try and address this. So that was good. On the other hand, they hadn't realised just how busted summoning was so it ended up being grossly overpowered. It was probably the case that they just didn't realise the mechanical implications of Slaanesh but did consciously know what was wrong with the book (lack of mortals). If this next White Dwarf is written like that last one, then I have no clue what it'll include.

Thanks for the info. Hopefully they'd have had enough info to go off when they wrote this update then. My worry is that it'll have been written from the perspective of "oh, maybe Slaanesh will fare better in AoS 3 so we'll be light touch" rather than now where we've seen that AoS 3 didn't help (mostly due to the massive points hikes). If that's the case, we'll likely not see much at all.

That'd be a shame - I've written magazines before and they usually have a month's turnaround, but they're much more locally based. I'm unsure if GW's print for magazines is all done in house and then shipped, or if the design is sent to be printed in each country (as magazines are much easier to print than bound books). I can hope it's the latter, but it's likely the former. We can only hope that the writer realised Slaanesh's issues before this was created, and it wasn't written at the start of AoS 3...

Does anyone have an estimate on when these White Dwarf entries are written? I know the criticism with the GHB and some books is that they're written so far in advance that they don't touch on as much as they should. I would hope White Dwarf has a quicker turnaround.

I think Depravity Points as a concept work very well, but I do think summoning is the thing our book does best. Unfortunately, summoning at the cost of your initial army (e.g. few buffs, middling warscrolls, expensive points) doesn't feel fun or thematic. Depravity Points, as they work now, would work well for a group of niave cultists. They'd have rubbish stats and poor buffs, but they'd summon their masters to bring about the real army. In an army that was thematically about weaker mortals getting tricked by powerful daemons, current depravity points would be great. To be honest, it would make lore sense for Tzeentch to have the best summoning. But currently the lore is that our army is full of supremely skilled warriors who value perfection of their craft. Even Blissbarbs, the lowest of the hosts, have good skills with a bow. Summoning is seen as an honour and a blessing, but it doesn't really play out that way. Instead of a powerful army of knights who prove themselves in the name of their god to receive some support from daemons, it's a medium-skilled army of very few knights who need the help of daemons to do much of anything. Summoning should stay, but it should be toned down to allow the army to stand on its own.

Thanks for the other White Dwarf info @Neil Arthur Hotep and @Rachmani It does look like most of them are proportional to their armies, with Khorne being the exception (maybe Slaves to Darkness too, but they didn't really need much help - they have some bad warscrolls, but their allegiance abilities are mostly fine if not a bit restrictive). If we get something proportional, then being one of the worst armies win rate-wise, we should theoretically get something at the Beasts of Chaos level. On the other hand, Beasts of Chaos were infamously bad for a very long time and they attempted multiple fixes before this one, so it probably won't be on their level. I don't want to presume too much, but the loudest complaints have been "too many points" and "too much of a focus on summoning" (and "Slaangors suck" but that may be a GHB fix). They can't fix the points but they can do something about the summoning. Even if it it, as mentioned before by others, a bonus for storing depravity over spending it. In all honesty, I'd love this and it'd go a long way to fixing an army if the rules were good enough. Even if it was a "spend X depravity for Y buff this turn", that'd still be a nice alternative. Things like extra rend, run and charge, automatic Locus of Diversion, always strike first on one unit - all would be thematic buffs.

I agree - it'd be a nice boost, especially for some of our lesser used heroes. Even if it was one per host, it might breathe life into things like the KoS. I'm just wondering, what have the other White Dwarves been like? From the ones I've seen: - Ossiarchs: Big changes to their command abilities, including new ones. Overall, a good change to make them more in line with other armies. I think it gave them one or two more heroic actions too. - Slaves to Darkness: Very small, pretty disappointing changes that just allowed some of the least used heroes to take marks and let cultists be battleline sometimes. A good narrative section though. - Beasts of Chaos: A pretty huge change which upgraded their herdstone and gave them interesting monstrous actions. - Khorne: I think this has been considered the worst so far, giving this already rubbish army just a 6+ save against spells, which is worse than one of the Cities of Sigmar armies. So far the results have been pretty mixed, and there's not really a general pattern to it. You may initially think "oh, Beasts of Chaos were so bad they just wrote loads to make them better", and that would be sensible, but then Khorne (who has been struggling for nearly just as long) got one of the worst updates. The absolute best case scenario is that the writer looked at the survey and took in as much as possible for this update. This, however, is pretty unlikely due to the sheer number of changes.

I'm cautiously optimistic, but we should definitely keep our expectations low just for our own sakes. I thought it'd be helpful to go over what isn't likely to be improved, mostly on the basis that these changes would be too large or would be in the GHB. Things that are very unlikely to be changed: - Points reductions as they're almost always restricted to GHB and December updates - Warscroll rewrites, again as they're usually restricted to GHB and December updates, and GW may think this would be too hard to keep track of in a White Dwarf - Allegiance ability overhauls. While we may see tweaks and additions, the core of the book will stay the same. On the bright side, small changes/additions are pretty likely if not certain - Similar to before, but changes to our summoning is unlikely. Perhaps there will be additional rules like "if you have more DP, your army is stronger so you don't need to summon", but the summoning table itself unlikely to change and I doubt they'll make any changes to the depravity rules. On the bright side, I think the below are possible/likely to change: - Changes to each host to reflect the fact that warscroll battalions are no longer used; even if this is just a removal, I hope it will be replaced with something else - An additional allegiance ability, though no clue what it could be. It may be a small change, but we can hope for Excess of Violence to work on shooting, a benefit for not summoning, and a way to buff our units (perhaps tied into the previous rule) - We will almost certainly get more core battalions, battle tactics, grand strategies. They probably won't be good but who knows. - If we're very lucky, and this seems to only happen rarely but it's possible, we may get our own unique spin on the core rules such as BoC's monstrous actions and Ossiarch's command abilities. It would be great if chariots had their own set of monstrous actions - If we're very lucky, but I do think this is unlikely, we'll get a new host

Sorry, I got this off a Whatsapp so only have this image

Also, good news for Slaanesh fans Let's hope for a Beasts of Chaos over a Blades of Khorne.

Oooh some big (hopefully) news for us...

For those wondering, Sigvald looked like this: It's an incredibly impressive and technically brilliant paint job, no doubt - I would say it shows more raw skill on this model than number one (this isn't to say the painter is more skilled, just model vs model). However, as an entire piece, Sigvald seems to be less well composed than the Skink. It's technically incredible but it's very grey/metallic, whereas the skink is classic colours and clean. While I think Sigvald is overall more impressive and more technically demanding, the Skink looked better as a whole piece.

Am I correct that it's effectively D3 mortal wounds with three key differences: - No ward saves allowed (or damage caps). - If the model isn't or can't be killed (not enough wounds allocated yet) it does nothing. - It triggers instant kill protection, but this is very rare anyway. A smaller difference would also be that it doesn't interact with anything that requires you do wounds; e.g. Depravity Points. I like it - it's different than just D3 mortal wounds at the end of the combat phase, though still reletively similar in function. It's probably weaker than just a straight D3 MWs at the end of the phase as the MWs will likely always do something whereas this may not, but I prefer this as it's a cool way around just doing more MWs.