Enoby

As mentioned previously, GW has likely already written the GHB 2022 and so feel as if they can't pre-emptively write points changes before they're in the physical book, and re-writing warscrolls isn't much of an option if those warscrolls are being edited (or having their points changed) in the next GHB. Now, it is GW's fault for tying everything to a physical copy, but this could well be the most rules writers are allowed to do. It's better than nothing an it's an interesting promise that may allow for more diversity at the top tables, but likely won't uplift any poor factions. I think, out of everything, it does at least reassure me that GW know what's performing too well or too poorly (besides overlooking Khorne). It gives me a small amount of hope that the GHB will bring meaningful changes to these factions.

I think most people seem to agree that warscroll rewrites are the preferred method of balancing, both for reducing power and increasing it. However, I do wonder how long it takes to rewrite a warscroll successfully - with how rarely it happens, you'd think it's an arduous process but I do wonder what the timescale is. Looking at Malifaux, they tend to balance through slight tweaks to the model's rules (though sometimes more than slight); these happen alongside 'battleplan' updates in something called Gaining Grounds. They can change around 10-20 rules in these, and they're annual like the GHB. I wonder if AoS would be better served by annual warscroll changes to the best and the worst alongside points changes for lesser offenders, rather than Warscroll changes as the last resort.

I think, as @Neverchosen has said, it's a bandaid solution before changing points to see if it helps tide things over. Potentially it's more there to discourage spamming while still allowing you to do so - for example, if you had two units of max reinforced pink horrors and you were playing against a Prime Hunter list, then you risk giving your opponent 12 victory points to your opponent, which could well cost you the game. Of course, they might not manage to do that, but the threat of it being possible may do more to cut down on spam. With points, you can cut down on spam by making something so expensive it's unviable to spam it - this can work, but it's a pretty black and white solution where you either can't afford it in your list or you can. This new way doesn't force anyone to change their list, but it does increase the risk of spamming a unit. I don't think it will have an enormous impact on competitive, but I like the idea behind it. Potentially in the future the Prime Hunters will get different abilities, like extra command points.

I think this is an interesting rule to say the least, and I'm definitely looking forward to how it pans out. Happy that they've got penalties for taking the best stuff as well as bonuses for taking poor performers. On the other hand, did they just nerf Khorne again? 🙃

A slight buff for us in a random update...

Yeah, it's a really unfortunate update. I do think that, no matter the spot that Slaanesh may be in at the moment, Khorne is in a worse place - I said a few pages back, but it just seems like GW can't write good Khorne rules for some reason.

No, this isn't it unfortunately - that would be good The actual one (from a photo) is: 6+ save against spells (not mortal wounds) and a Blood Tithe if you save. Then there was a small change to the Skull Altar: - No more -1 to cast, instead all Khorne heroes on the altar can use invocations like a priest and miscasts do D6 Mortal wounds So yeah, people are a little bummed out about it.

I'm not sure when the new magazine itself is dropping, but the update itself is already in the public - it's not great unfortunately

++ Mod Hat ++ Please keep it civil. @Doko I totally understand you not liking the book, but constantly stating you don't like it isn't particularly helpful for people here to discuss the army and doesn't create an environment conductive to productive discussion on the thread. You may think the new book sucks, and that's totally fine, but the book is out and won't change soon, so there's only really a point in discussing what you can do with it. People want to know how to play, not be told that they shouldn't bother even trying.

I think this recent White Dwarf Khorne update is a great example of why people may be falling out of love with AoS, so I thought I'd break it down: - Khorne, for a long while, has had pretty substandard rules, often not portraying him as the Blood God should be, with weak attacks that aren't particularly becoming of his lore. - Despite this, when Broken Realms came around, they updated every army except Khorne. - Some thought this may be a sign that they'd be getting something soon, but that hope never materialised. - Around them, other battletomes got stronger stats that left the Blood God's warriors on the lower end of the spectrum, close to bog standard skeletons in skill. - Many people were upset with the state of Khorne, thinking that they didn't have the offensive or defensive capabilities to stand up to the majority of armies. - Finally, they got a White Dwarf update. Unfortunately all it did was give them a weak spell shrug shuffle and around their scenery piece rules. It didn't make the warriors and more deadly, or make them significantly more defensive - those playing Khorne will be stuck with pathetic attacks for longer. I think this suggests a disconnect between the rules writers and what many players want. This isn't always a bad thing as sometimes players' wants aren't feasible or thought out, but at the same time, it does leave the impression that there's not much to look forward to in an update. By this I mean, the complaints of Khorne players were ignored for some random ad-on abilities, and it means for future updates of any armies, there's a good chance that you'll not be helped that much. Sometimes they get it right (like Beasts of Chaos) and everyone gets excited, but sometimes they get it wrong and it feels like no one tried to get it right, which leaves fans questioning the quality of the rules.

I just can't understand why the God of Blood and War is so hard to write fitting rules for Surely "good at killing" should be easy to translate onto gameplay? But at the moment, Khorne isn't the God of War, he's the "God of I-Don't-Like-Magic-Except-If-You-Call-It-A-Prayer" - it's really uninspired and just not very fun to play. To not go too off topic into the "state of the game" thread, I think rules like this is what cause people to fall out of love with AoS. You have a fantastic looking army with some visceral lore, only for that to be compounded by boring rules that just don't fit.

I think this is why it's so confusing - Ironjawz and Daughters of Khaine do ultra-violent murder crazed lunatics much better than the God of Blood's forces even come close to. It seems to be a common theme with Chaos, where despite them having lore that would suggest they're extreme in one particular area (e.g. being the coalesced form of Blood and War), they perform pretty middling in that area. This is especially true compared to order. That's not to say Order is OP and Chaos is weak, but rather the design philosophy of Chaos as a whole (besides maybe Nurgle) often means they're not the best at anything, and they're just 'okay' at a lot. I think this is nowhere more clear than Khorne. When the God of War's chosen warriors, who have their bodies and minds altered by coalesced anger and their armour is made of the blood of their victims, have 2 attacks at 3/4/-/1 you know something is wrong. Even Chaos Warriors - who should by all rights be less accomplished than a Blood Warrior - are better at fighting. I just don't understand the design philosophy. At least with Slaanesh, you could tell that they were overcompensating for the ridiculous power of the last book (even if the new book is uninspiring) but Khorne has never been great, so there's no excuse as to why his army is so disappointing.

I've just seen the Battle Trait and Warscroll rewrite - they're okay, but don't really help killing power at all The new battle trait is a 6+ spell/endless shrug - this isn't a mortal wound shrug and is all or nothing (you ignore the full spell on a single roll of a 6). If you roll the 6, you get a blood tithe. The Skull Altar now no longer gives a -1 to cast, and instead causes D6 mortal wounds to anyone who miscasts. Any Khorne hero 8 wounds or less can garrison in the Altar and can use Invocations like a priest, and benefit from the Words of Hate ability. --- Personally, I think these are fine (as in, they're technically a buff but nothing exciting), but they still don't do a good job of portraying Khorne as the Blood God. They seem hyper focused on making him anti-magic and praying a lot, which isn't why most people like Khorne. A little bit of a rant, but one of my least favourite things they've done with Khorne is make him the prayer god. It just feels so... cheap? As in, Khorne doesn't like magic because it's cheating and sneaky, but he's okay to throw 'totally-not-magic' axes from the sky because I guess that's different from a wizard summoning the pendulum? I'm certain they'll have justified it in the lore, but from my perspective it just comes off as a bit uninspired. I really wonder why GW can't get AoS Khorne right...

I really hope this update helps Khorne; despite their numerous model releases in AoS, on both a rules and lore front they're up there with Beasts of Chaos in how poorly they're presented. I've mentioned it loads, but I've never seen a battletome put so many people off AoS as Khorne's many attempts. Though I have a sinking feeling that the change to the Skull Altar will be something ridiculous like "+1 to prayers" rather than the current reroll 🙃

I agree. While in an ideal world, they'd have all of the matched play updates for each army in a General's Handbook (like in the good old days), if that's not possible then I'd prefer White Dwarf updates were released. It's much better than being stuck for years with an outdated book

From today's White Dwarf Article, regarding Khorne: "They also earn a Battletome update including a new battle trait, a new warscroll for the Skull Altar, a Grand Strategy and three Battle Tactics for matched play, and further goodies for open play and Path to Glory." Doesn't say all too much, but if it's the scenery is as improved as the BoC Herdstone and the new battle trait is good, then maybe a Blood Warrior will have killing power deserving of their title!

I do think you've raised some good points, and I wonder if simultaneous casualties would help mitigate this to an extent; I think this may have been an apocalypse rule. So, from memory, how it worked was that you attack with a unit, tally up the damage it caused (but don't apply it yet), and then attack with the opposing unit (again tallying up the damage but not applying). After everyone has attacked, you apply the damage and take away casualties. I'm not sure how this worked with shooting, but it may be that shooting phases were simultaneous too. I think this was added to save time, but it is an effective countermeasure against alpha strikes. It does come with its own issues, in that there's less reward for tactics (because it's bound to be a bloodbath on both sides unless you can pre-emptively debuff an opponent), but it does get rid of the issue where your favourite units are put back in the box without doing anything at all. I don't think it's a perfect solution, but it's something I'd want to try in AoS, just to see how it feels. I can see some potential issues developing, especially when it comes to greater tactical input (perhaps the unit that strikes first should get a bonus to give some reason to do it) and certain abilities no longer working (though I think they did have a rule that strike first did cause casualties before the strike back), but I think it'd remove the risk of melee alpha strike altogether.

I do agree with this, especially when it's combined with a dry AoS release schedule at the moment. I think, in first to second edition, the vast majority of armies were promised something new in the GHBs (I think for two years running in the last year of first and the first year of second) - basically, everyone who didn't already have their own allegiance abilities, got one. In AoS 3, it was basically a case of the core rules changing, which impacted armies indirectly but not exactly in a way that was as exciting. In AoS 1 - 2, there was loads of discussion around armies because nearly everyone was getting something new (especially compared to the nothing they had before). Currently, armies that haven't got an update don't have much more to discuss. I don't know if it would have been too much work, but if all of the White Dwarf matched play updates were included in the first AoS 3 GHB, I think the reception would be better. I agree with this too, and I think it may be because this is one of the first times in AoS that battletomes are being updated on a wide scale; while Stormcast have had a few refreshes, the majority of armies have only had the one battletome and so have rarely had to deal with losing something (which is necessary to avoid rules bloat). I have also noticed that there are some posts which are unhelpfully negative in relation to new battletomes; not that the comments themselves are wrong, but occasionally (and not just on this forum - it's especially common on Twitter) people have the opinion that not only is something bad, but no one else should be allowed to enjoy it either. I know Slaanesh groups (but thankfully not this forum) are really bad for this; I do think the book is sub par, but anytime anything is said about the book, its dogpiled by people insisting it's impossible to win with and that there's no point in even trying, to the point where people handicap themselves by refusing to learn. On the other hand, as mentioned before, I do think some battletomes feel subpar and sometimes soulless. As @Koala said, the ingredients are there but some battletomes (not necessarily the AoS 3 ones) just feel grey. As if the writer didn't have much time or passion to give to the project. I think these issues are made more apparent with passionate fans - if you look at the Slaanesh thread (or the survey a while ago) a lot of people were really passionate about the army and the possible new mechanics that could come with the new mortals - surely, we thought, they'll have to add something exciting for these new models. In the end, the book had some solid quality of life changes and very questionable points values, but more importantly, it had a lot of people saying "I could have wrote this better". When you have passionate fans, you have a lot of ideas and expectations (which are difficult to manage) about how the army should perform. The writers may not feel the same way, and they can't accurately translate these hopes into the battletome. So when an army gains a larger following of excited fans, the updated battletomes need to exceed the quality of the previous battletome, and in many cases I don't think they do. I think this leaves some tomes feeling like wasted potential. I can only really fully comment on Slaanesh, but the ideas for combat drugs, perfections, and customisable excesses were just not met in what was overall a retread of the first book with the same emphasis on summoning; this was combined with all of the troops having fluffy sounding abilities that translated into 'get a ward save/do mortal wounds/add to hit or wound/reroll hits' - just bland gamey rules. Look at Glutos's scroll for example; the theme is a multi course meal, which is awesome, but the effects of this meal don't really translate that well into gameplay - they're not weak, but they feel like the effects were made without regards for the fluff (e.g. why does 'main course' translate into battleshock immunity?). However, if you look at something like Lumineth's new scrolls, Sevireth (hurricane fox) has the 'into the gale' ability, which is basically a tornado surrounding them. This gives a ward save (because weapons struggle to find their mark through the wind) and a reduction on pile in because its hard to walk through the gale. This is a great ability because not only does it have a tangible effect, but it mimics the fluff. I think AoS 1 (and to an extent 2) did a better job at translating this fluff into rules, though it did come at the cost of balance. For example, the old Chaos Lord ability (think it was something like "Death or Glory") where you could swear to kill the opposing general that turn, and if you did you got to be a daemon prince, and if not, you got to be a spawn. Now the Chaos Lord has a weapon that does mortal wounds and a command ability that allows a unit to strike twice - you could copy that warscroll into any other army and it wouldn't feel out of place with a slight refluff. I don't think it's a universal problem with every book, but I do think this thread has helped put my finger on it a bit more - there are a lot of rules that sound fluffy, but are actually really basic. Warscrolls like The Chaos Lord, Glutos, Sigvald (who has cool rules, but nothing on vanity - no bonuses for being the centre of attention in his own army, or ways he can distract himself with his own beauty), and Knight-Heraldor are pretty bad for this. On the other hand, there are plenty of new warscrolls that do feel really creative - Lumineth are a great example, a lot of Soulblight seems pretty cool, and new Nurgle's abilities seem much more fluffy than before. I appreciate it's very difficult to make creative rules that don't just boil down to mortal wounds, pluses to hit, ward saves, and battleshock immunity, though it does feel like some books suffer more than others in this regard (with mortal Slaanesh, imo, being the worst offender (and ironically daemon Slaanesh being pretty great with it's fluffiness)).

Yes, you can fight with Sigvald and then something else so it's pretty strong You can use the Keeper's command ability to attack twice in a row, and it counts as an activation. So it would go like this: - Sigvald charges - Sigvald fights first - Keeper uses their CA - Sigvald fights again - Opponent fights

I think, overall, I do agree with your conclusion but it's hard to put my finger on why. Certainly, I can say I was more excited for AoS 1 and 2 battletomes, and I do remember being a lot more wow'd by their warscrolls and allegiance abilities back then. On the other hand, that could just be nostalgia talking - or at least the excitement that comes with the game being new. Regardless, as the game has matured it's seemed like there's been a push for more standardised battletomes and simpler Warscrolls. That doesn't necessarily mean weaker, but rather less 'creative' (or open to manipulation, depending on how you see it). It's very easy to point to AoS 0 where the Warscrolls were absolutely insane and had you act differently depending on the time of day, but it's been a long time since AoS 0 and we would probably be best looking at the beginning of AoS 2. Slaves to Darkness came out early into AoS 2 and while the battletome and warscrolls themselves are controversial, I do think the abilities themselves are narratively inclined (Eye of the Gods especially, the different Tribes and their different playstyles, the Marks of the Gods etc.), but even then they got rid of some of the sillier rules like the Chaos Lords big stick of 2d6 death (the biggest tragedy of the book). Lumineth, while a lot more recent, is a very narratively inclined book with loads of exciting Warcrolls, and the reason that makes me think it's not just a nostalgia thing - their books and warscrolls feel fresh and creative, giving me a similar feeling to AoS 1. I don't have any empirical evidence, but from looking through the Warclans books, there's a lot to do tactically, but it feels a bit like fluff covering for bland (or perhaps too standardised) rules. I do think there are still fun warscrolls in the game and interesting allegiance abilities, but it feels like there are some that were designed with functionality over form. Partially (if not mostly), I'd reckon the reason is that you can only have so many ways for rules to interact with one another, so we've often seen a lot of the new rules before. Path to Glory, if it had more work on it, would be a great way to add your own fluff - I really hope that they release a large book for PTG to help make it feel like a fully fleshed out game mode.

It does seem that, when compared to 40k books, you get a lot less bang for your book with AoS battletomes A lot of it is just the differences between the games, but the 2021 Slaanesh book had loads of copy and pasted rules (one of which doesn't work with the new allegiance ability) and I think this has been true with a lot of other redo books unfortunately. It's not always the case (looking at Nurgle), but often is - I'd personally prefer they only release books when they have a good chunk to add/change to the rules. Some changes will always be present in new books, which is a given, but they'd be more exciting if they took more risks rather than just nudging things around a bit.

Finished another Path to Glory character, this time with two models Queen Akhash as a Warqueen (Undivided) and her as an Aspiring Champion (Tzeentch) after making an unwitting pledge to a Lord of Change.

I've played a lot of sub 1000 point games in Path to Glory, and have enjoyed all of them a lot They have always been with friendly lists, but one thing I have appreciated is that on foot heroes feel much more heroic - my Chaos Lord actually did a decent amount of damage, and one of the opponent's Orruk Megaboss on foot is very scary with Destroya (or whatever that +3 damage weapon is called). This is narrative so there will be more friendly games and unbalanced battleplans, but each unit feeling more impactful is a huge boon when you want to be a bit more experimental with unit choices (you can of course experiment in 2000 points, but the smaller the points the more a unit will stand out usually). The speed is also nice too - I've played a lot of 750 point games, and getting them done in an hour or so is great. There are a few issues, but nothing that's been game breaking. As mentioned, every unit is proportionally more impactful, so certain units may be too big to use in a fun way. For example, I was asked to stop using the Karkadrak lord at 750 points and under as it was too difficult to deal with. That wasn't an issue with a group of friends, but may be harder to moderate with strangers.

Totally agree with what you've said, and have a few things to add: When I played 2019 Slaanesh, which as many remember was an awfully overpowered and oppressive book, it left me in bad situation when it came to casual games. The reputation of the book meant that nobody wanted to play against the army, no matter if you were playing three Keepers or only a single hero and a load of chariots. In addition, depending on the attitude of the opponent, occasionally there were lose-lose games: - If you won, you were carried by the book. - If you lose, you must suck to have managed that. That's not to say being significantly underpowered is fun either, but OP sounds much more exciting than it is when it comes to casual match ups.

As Liquidsteel has said, do you know if the data you have is accurate (like a full battletome leak) or is it just speculation? While I have no doubt it could be true, I'm just concerned it might be someone trying to stir the pot.