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Enoby

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Everything posted by Enoby

  1. I 100% agree with you and your logic is sound, but at the same time I do remember the army-specific forums being busier even when we were in the "GHB Allegiance ability" era, where there was less choice. I could very well be mistaken, but I used to go on the Chaos forum part a lot and there was loads of discussion even when a faction didn't have a book recently, but that seems to have dried up. Even Maggotkin, last time I checked, have minimal discussion. I think the only Chaos faction thread I've seen gets tonnes of discussion in the past two years is Slaanesh, and that's because it has a dedicated following and it was a very poor book. I reckon a lot of this is likely just the excitement of things being new - despite the fact that the GHB allegiance abilities were very narrow, they were novel so ended up being exciting. Now allegiance abilities are a given so they don't drive that same excitement, and as you said, the books aren't usually complex enough to spark debate on what's good. I think AoS may be in a bit of a tricky middle ground when it comes to complexity. It's definitely more complex than before, which probably turns the most casual crowd off. But it's nowhere near as complex as 40k with different weapon options and a much more piecemeal design to lists. It's not that one's better than the other, but by the sound of what others have said, currently AoS is too complex to be the beer and pretzels game it used to be. On the other hand, some people I play with have argued it's too simple and that they end up taking the same stuff as it's objectively better (not that complexity will always fix this, but I think what they're saying is that there isn't enough customisation to make the 'worse' choice interesting).
  2. Same boat here. I can only hope they didn't change much of Tzeentch because they were actually happy with it, and not because they didn't have the time - and I hope they're not happy with our current book. I suppose, at least from what I saw, not many fans seemed unhappy with Tzeentch's old book so perhaps they took that as a sign not to change much? If it's any hope, ours was the last book Jervis wrote and perhaps on the rushed side of a faction that was, at the time, considered in need of nerfs. More than that, Jervis can't be given the book again so there's little chance of anyone being too attached to the current rules to change them. I really think this uncertainly on whether a new book will be good, or even a worthwhile investment, is really hurting the system - mostly because, when someone gets a new book, there seems to be more fear than excitement, and thus less hype. Not all of the changes make sense, and fans are often left feeling unsatisfied - but not always. All we can hope is that all of the "worst battletome ever!" comments have gotten through to the rules team and the person who's assigned to write the next book knows they need some big changes.
  3. Seems to be the case here too, and in general AoS discussion hubs things seem to have dried up. It's a shame because I don't think AoS 3 is doing much to deserve what appears to be a growing lack of intetest, but rather I think it's just the fact the hype fell off. Between 40k taking the lion's share of releases, AoS's big future release being leaked, and the books (while better quality than 2e on average) not really sparking much discussion, it seems AoS is losing quite a lot of momentum which is a huge shame. This, of course, could just be observational bias - but on the other hand, they did mention this in their financial report so there's likely some truth to "AoS is losing hype" statement. Personally, I've not enjoyed competitive AoS in a while as it's often felt very samey - perhaps it's the armies I usually face, but it's kind of turned into sink or swim alpha strikes that don't leave much of a game. I'm not sure if this is what other people have experienced, but in my last few games the damage has been so high that there's hardly been a game at all. I have been enjoying narrative games a lot more, especially when curated to stop people bringing their "narrative" triple cabbage list.
  4. To be honest, I see the Gaunt Summoner rule as more akin to the Mighty Lord of Khorne's axe rule - the one that auto slays on a 5+ should the hero be wounded. Realistically, it's very unlikely, but the use is more like a mind game. You see the Mighty Lord of Khorne out in the open and still you think twice about trying to kill them in combat with a hero, because on the off chance you get unlucky then your hero is totally gone, no matter how strong they were. With the Gaunt Summoner, it's unlikely to go off as they need to survive until the end of that phase to use it - and unless they really buff the summoner's defences, that's unlikely to happen. With the Khorne Lord, it's unlikely because 3/3/3/-1/D3, and then a 5+ isn't exactly an attack befitting of the title "mighty". It's less that it's a viable strategy to hope either goes off, but rather the pressing question to your opponent of "dare you try?". That fear of very bad luck is likely to keep heroes like those pretty safe from other heroes.
  5. I'd quite like to think so! King Brodd is a fantastic member of the forums, and a real beacon of positivity. If GW staff do hang around here at all, I'd like to think they thought of him when working on the model.
  6. Really love the new Chosen, and definitely looking forward to painting them. While expected, it's a big shame about Gitz. I know GW doesn't update on a "needs" basis and the rules team likely has little to no say over whose rules they write, but it does make you wonder how upper GW decide who gets a tome. I assume it would coincide with models, but what determines that? I doubt it's wholly sales, as Gloomspite are very likely to be a better seller than Fyreslayers or Sons. Maybe it's just a dartboard. Also hoping Khorne gets a new book early next year - both Gloomspite and Khorne seem to end up turning new players away from AoS when they start with them, from my experience.
  7. I hope Warcry does well but it wouldn’t surprise me if not. I think a lot of people, myself included, are reluctant to buy into new GW games that aren't "Warhammer". Not just because opponents are harder to come by, but also because there's a much higher risk that the game is cancelled unceremoniously. For example, if anyone bought onto Silver Tower, you may have felt dissapointed that it was only supported up to its second box set and now may be around gathering dust (it even used to have an app that disappeared, if I remember correctly). Unfortunately this mindset is self perpetuating and I can only hope that it picks up traction so people are keen to buy in.
  8. I very much agree. It's why I'm hoping they take their time with it and use the strong reaction against the current book to be a catalyst for change, rather than just neatening things up. I do think most 3e tomes are closer to "neatening up", but to different degrees - DoK feel hardly changed with a few QoL boosts from what I could see, Orks had a faction added to them but other than that were pretty unchanged unfortunately, but Nurgle and Sylvaneth had large changes to them as both were outdated. I'm hoping they see us as needing as the latter two. My worry is they'll be scared to do as big a redo as Nurgle, though I think that's what's necessary. Even if they got rid of most of our abilities and rethought everything, I think we'd be more likely to end in a better spot. Despite our book coming out quite recently, the design is still reminiscent of mid-AoS 2, and there are loads of mistakes/outdated rules such as Breathtaker not making sense, Battalions being a core feature of the hosts, very limited rend, and the twins having the wrong weapon profiles. I'm also dissapointed that they didn't expand the mortal spell lore, considering we have a strong mortal caster with an ability to swap spells out... which you'd rarely do as all three choices are pretty bad (with, imo, battleshock immunity being the best).
  9. I'm curious, I've heard lots of good things about AoS 3e battletomes, but have heard more mixed things about the Skaven book. Could anyone elucidate? How is everyone finding the book so far?
  10. I have a feeling Slaanesh won't be in it either, potentially being saved for the next season against a Lumineth faction if AoS 4 is to have the backdrop of Slaanesh's escape.
  11. I may be wrong, but isn't the Curseling just a "class" of Tzeentch Arcanite leaders now? So you could have a lot of Curselings in one place, all looking very different. If that is the current lore, then it might be hard to reconcile it with the past Villich. While I like generic heroes, it's a shame that the original Curseling has mostly been forgotten in AoS lore, unless I've missed something.
  12. I definitely think they've helped too, though everyone else has access to them and we're not the most effective user of the Purple Sun (it helps us a lot, but our best caster is still not unbeatable by a long shot) so I don't know if we can attribute the full 14% boost to those alone (but I don't doubt they helped). I suppose by "too easy" I didn't meant "too good", but rather "not cognitively involved". Old Slaanesh was far too strong because of its summoning combined with the locus, but I'd say the summoning was the biggest issue - hence why it beat other armies that had strike last. However I disliked our old locus because it felt like I was making incredibly safe moves every turn - I moved up my KoSs, made the enemy strike last, and hoped I killed them. I never felt particularly involved in wins as I didn't need to interact with what I'd consider AoS's most tactically complex stage - attack order. I'm fine with tactically conditional strike first/last, such as Sigvald (who needs to charge), but rolled for strike last felt very tactically uninvolved for me. I'd like our new locus to be useful (unlike currently) but not run up and smash (unlike before); something like: "Subversion Once per phase, when a command point is spent, you can attempt to subvert the command with a friendly Hedonite Demon Hero within 12" of the unit issuing the command. On a 3+, the command point is spent and the command is both issued and received, but the command has no effect. Add 1 to this roll if the Hero has the Greater Demon keyword. Each friendly Hedonite Demon Hero can only use Subversion once per battle round." Something like this would be powerful (you could potentially shut down big plays or inspiring presence), it would be relatively unique and flavourful (with Slaanesh daemons whispering into the ears of the enemy to cause chaos), but you would have to think hard about when you used it - if you only had one demon hero, you may want to wait until a big inspiring presence is going to be used to save an opponent's elite unit, or try to stop a huge rally, or to cancel out an important command like Ravager's/FEC summon but you couldn't stop all of them. Balance-wise, this is probably a bit on the strong/oppressive side so it may need a further limit (such as not spending the command point), but the idea is to have a locus that is both strong but requires tactical choices from both opponents (for example, the opponent trying to trick you to use your once per phase Subversion on a command ability they don't care as much about). As a side-point, I'd love it if mortals got their own special allegiance ability.
  13. Thanks for the write up Personally I hope we don't get strike last back - at least personally, I found AoS 2 Slaanesh to be far too "easy" in that I just pushed my KoS up the board and killed with impunity thanks to strike last (I don't like it on the treelord either). However I do think the current locus is underwhelming and would like to see it replaced with something both more fitting and more useful, like some sort of command ability 'off' switch (even outside of the combat phase). Something that's useful but has to be used intelligently. I do think/hope our next book will be of much better quality so long as it has time to be written properly. I really hope the twins get a full rethink too - Synessa isn't bad, but they're not bad in a bad way - they're good for chip mortal wounds. It's very silly that the embodiment of Slaanesh's subtly and magic is worse at casting than a mortal with a special staff and a Contorted epitome. It's even more silly that they mixed up the weapon profiles of Dexcessa and Synessa's models, suggesting they were both a rushed job (with Dexcessa having the scourge attack profile but Synessa being the one with the actual scourge). On a more positive note, our win rate has gone up from 29% to 45% thanks to the last GHB. Not that we're decimating tournaments, but the points drops were a big help.
  14. Perhaps I missed it, but any news on the Legionnaires getting AoS rules before the S2D book? I like the look of them but tend to use cultists in P2G so wouldn't have a use for them without AoS rules.
  15. Really love the sorceress model. I like that she's distinctly a Chaos sorcerer but different enough that you can run her, the current plastic kit, and the Underworlds kit in a single army and none of them would look repetitive.
  16. + Mod hat + This conversation has reached its end. Back to rumours, please.
  17. I know they've kind of gone off doing faction scenery - or, at least, we've not seen any in a while - but I'd love it if Chaos Dwarves got the huge brass bull forge that was in their capital city, Zharr Naggrund. I believe it was this city whose halls were littered by the statues of sorcerers who had petrified from their magic.
  18. If it wasn't already known, looks like this sorcerer's staff answers a Rumour engine.
  19. I do wonder when we'll get our new book. I'm certainly not expecting any time soon (definitely not this year) but I was wondering whether we'd get a 3rd edition book at all; on one hand, I'd hope for next year, but on the other I'd like them to have as much time as possible to improve our current book and warscrolls - looking at the time between our books, a year isn't enough to do more than a rushed job. I did have a game against Ironjawz last night (1000pts). Unfortunately my army died without rolling a single dice, besides priority (which I lost) and a 1 on redeploy. I tried to get as far away from them as possible, but they rolled high on their charge (and 32" move is hard to escape). Not really much to say about that one! It is dissapointing that we're not really that fast of an army. Certainly, our base movement speeds are fast, but unlike other armies, we don't have much movement manipulation (like move in the hero phase, a large number of run and charge, considerable charge bonuses) so we end up feeling middle of the pack. I hope, next book, we can actually call ourselves the fastest army...
  20. The trailer didn't really hit right for me either. I think the issue is that it didn't divulge her personality at all - well, besides angry and shrieks a lot. Looking at the Azazel trailer, you see him lounging back as a warlord marches through his army, talking to his tail nonchalantly. You can tell a lot about his personality as he looks onwards at the Khorne lord excited, laughing before they fight. Valkia, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have any particular personality trait besides angry - and perhaps that's the point, all things considered, but it does make her appear boring. But yeah, getting beaten up by random warriors doesn't really help her case either - even if Khorne doesn't have an interesting personality, he should at least have cool champions.
  21. You may not like it, but this is what peak Slaanesh body looks like.
  22. While I personally don't mind CoS being related to Sigmar, I will at least put in some defence of the "antitheist" stance as it was what put me off Vampires. So, to begin, AoS is definitely a god-focussed setting. I myself play Slaanesh which is very god aligned, though it could be argued that the Chaos gods are rather unique in their less-humanoid manifeststions compared to the other gods. In a world of infinite realms it could be argued that you need gods to tell a story - after all, the only beings capable of making a noticeable impact would be deities (or not far off). Personally, I love the Chaos goes and the callous way they interact with their followers - awful, inhuman clouds of emotion that use and discard the lost and the damned at will. So why am I making at least a bit of a stand for the "antitheist" opinion in AoS? In 2015, I started the game playing Vampire Counts after reading and enjoying Neferata. At the time I started, there wasn't much lore at all and I didn't even realise there was a core book for the first month. Regardless, a few months in I learned that "all was one in Nagash" - aka Nagash was the head honcho of Death and the dearly departed were just extensions of his will. In many ways, this is similar to Chaos. I, however, didn't like this - in fact, it (alongside no updates) put me off Death and I've not looked back. Why? Well because I think Nagash is kind of lame and I didn't want my guys to have anything to do with him. And his hat sucks. As mentioned before, many of the AoS specific gods are pretty mortal - like the Greek gods. In some ways this allows you to have more engaging stories with them where they can make mistakes and learn from them. Unlike the Chaos Gods, these guys are actually characters who have plans that are comprehensible and so can become a fully-fleshed out part of the narrative. However the issue can come when you make a faction have too much to do with a humanoid god. Simply put, if the god is done poorly then it reflects badly on the entire faction. If Sigmar was suddenly rewritten to be an arrogant drunk idiot who kicks puppies and punts orphans into the sun, then Stormcast players may well feel robbed of their faction because their head-honcho dictates the direction of them. Even if you wanted Stormcast to be heroic, Drunk-Sigmar would be hard to reconcile with that. So basically, gods can be a good tool to tell a story in a large setting but if they're too intertwined with their faction then their presence can take away the personality of the individual characters. If you love Neferata but hate Nagash, then you'd struggle much more to enjoy Death than if it were the other way around. TL;DR - Gods can be a cool narrative tool but sometimes individual gods are lame and that reflects badly on the faction they represent.
  23. It is odd how Order has a lot of rules for working with itself, despite the fact that Order is at war with itself quite frequently, but the Chaos Warrior who gets into a battle frenzy with their Lord next to them thanks to the power of Slaanesh, can't get into the same frenzy when they're surrounded by the Dark Prince's most favoured servants. I know our book is very sparse in the way of Allegiance abilities, but I'd love it if they rethought every Chaos god book to split their Allegiance abilities into "Coalition/Pure". So if we used our book, the Coalition ability would be Euphoric Killers, and the Pure ability would be the abilities gained from Depravity Points. Pure would still be better, but you wouldn't feel punished for taking S2D or BoC. I think, what's more, both S2D and BoC have relatively meh to bad warscrolls on their own (besides Archaon and Belekor), and require buffs and allegiance abilities to work. This is fine when they're in their own armies, but means you're punished even more for taking them as coalition unless you really invest in it, and then they're still much worse than in their own army.
  24. Now AoS 3 is around a year old, we've had the chance to get used to Battle Tactics (BT) and Grand Strategies (GS), as well as the unique faction BTs and GSs. These are amongst the biggest changes in competitive AoS, and while they're not as controversial as coherency, they are something a lot of my opponents ask to ignore (BTs rather than GSs usually). So I was wondering how the community at large feels about them: - Do you often use BTs and GSs? - Do you prefer one over the other or are they both equally as beneficial? - If you do use them, do you think they add to the experience? - Do you think they make the games more tactical? - If you don't use them, or have stopped, why? - How would you improve them/their implementation? - What do you think of faction specific BTs and GSs? I think AoS 3e has made some big steps forward onto making AoS a more competitive game. While it's often easy to ask about new things to add to the system (something I'm guilty of), AoS has thrived off simplicity and perhaps these are a step too far for some.
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