Enoby

I do really wonder why Lumineth have gotten bigger points decreases than Slaanesh...

I totally understand people's concerns with over-complicating AoS's rules, and certainly these are a far cry from older iterations of AoS. On the other hand though, I appreciate matched play is becoming its own thing. Previously, matched play was seen as default AoS - despite the stereotype of "competitive" being complex, matched games were the easiest to pick up and play and had less complex in-game rules than narrative and open too (when accounting for their battleplans). It was to the extent that matched play was the default no-frills mode rather than a true competitive mode. Basically, "we added points and some simple battleplans" and called it a style of play. Now it seems like they're turning GHB matched play into a true competitive mode, with all the bells and whistles to do that. This does mean it's more complex, but also gives matched play more of an identity than "that mode you play with a stranger". Don't get me wrong, that casual simple points game still needs to exist - but perhaps they should have four modes of play: Open, Narrative/PtG, Matched/Competitive, Standard. For a long time, matched play has lacked an identity beyond being the version of AoS that is the easiest to play with everyone. Now it seems to have transformed into a true competitive mode with rotating seasonal alternate rules (rather than just new battleplans). Again, that standard mode still needs to exist and it's probably what most people will play the most, but it's good that there's a true competitive mode now too.

I think that's true for new books (probably Nurgle onwards), but iirc, 'old' factions get their full update in the GHB points book and the online part is for new factions, or particularly egregious old factions. However, old factions that need a bit of a tweak won't see that between the physical and digital copies. It does make you wonder why they bother with physical points books at all. I'm personally just hoping for a Slaangor rewrite 😔

Also, as an aside, they mention that the points are in a separate book: "It’s bundled with a 34-page Pitched Battle Profiles book with all the latest points values, which will also be available online for free." This is fine and all, but a little disappointing to hear - I'd hoped they'd stopped putting points in the GHB so they could update points more reactively online, rather than being restricted by print.

I don't want to say it's broken, but I can see some potential issues. If it's +1 damage against any (non-mount) battleline, then I'm afraid the game may become more rocket tag, where whoever strikes first wins. In addition, +1 damage is perhaps the most dangerous buff to give out because it doesn't scale equally. As we've seen with Decimators, +1 damage gets better for every attack you have, so now battleline units with multiple attacks are considerably better. It would have been better if it was additional rend or +1 to wound - still very useful, but not quite "wipe your unit off the board with a sneeze useful". I like that they're being experimental, but I'm worried it will have unintended consequences that will break some units while leaving others useless. It remains to be seen, but the more general something is, the more problems it's prone to.

I think this is true for units on a small base, but for units on 32+mm bases, I don't think spears allowed attacking in the third rank. This is what I meant by these rules being too general - it's fine for some units, but other units/weapon options have been missed and that's a shame. They can't catch everything with general rules but it would be good if they had specific exceptions (e.g. Chaos Warrior Halberds had a benefit, or if Squig Hoppers could attack in two ranks). It would take a lot of time for rules writers, but at the same time, the GHB is a paid product that should have maximum effort put into it.

Looking at the new GHB rules, I think units of 10-15 Painbringers followed around by a LoP in the new objective holding battalion could be worth looking into. With them rerolling hits, their damage isn't too shabby. Below is the average damage of 15 Painbringers: Also, if we look at units of 10 Painbringers vs 10 Twinsouls in the new +1 damage battalion, we can see their damage against GV compared (both rerolling and not for the Painbringers as there's no gaurantee they'll get the command point off). So 10 twinsouls are clearly better damage wise than Painbringers when both get +1 damage. However, this does make me think that a unit of 15 Painbringers counting as 3 each for objectives, rallying on a 5+, and rerolling hits with a unit of 10 Twinsouls to clear the opponent's GV will be good to use.

I'm not sure how much I like these. I'd definitely have to play them first, but they seem, for lack of a better word, like a band aid. This is probably because that's the function of a GHB - to look at previous seasons and mix it up, as well as tackling the problems they have. However when I say "band aid", I'm mostly concerned with how general it seems, and how general rules interact with specifics. So, for example, if we look at Chaos Warriors. They should theoretically benefit from the new ranged rules, except if you built them with halberds, which is a shame as it reduces viable choices in the unit. Halberds currently let you get an extra rank in (over the usual 1 rank), but now this is standard for all weapons. I imagine this applies to other units with 2" range weapons. Similarly, I can imagine there are some units that would like the extra range given by this rule, but just don't qualify because of their mounts - for example, squig hoppers. I don't think these guys were tearing up the meta so it's a shame they don't benefit from this small boost. Or, for another example, fiends of Slaanesh, which in one breath suggest you take 6 for an extra ability, but heavily punish you for it with coherancy - as they're not battleline, they don't benefit either. In addition, this is definitely tailored around making melee troops better - extra melee range, a potential always strike last effect, and potential objective holding power (ranged units can do this, but tend not to be the ones contesting objectives which this battalion helps). This means it's a (slight) nerf to ranged battleline units who won't reap the benefits usually, but have the chance of taking extra damage. Potentially this is intentional, but again a general change hurts struggling specifics (e.g. Blissbarb archers). I get what they're going for, and I appreciate it's very hard to get everything right, but it would have been nice if they added in some extras - like Galletian Warriors getting to strike in 3 ranks if they have 2" range, or some struggling units that normally wouldn't qualify for the Galletian Warriors buff have an exception (this could still be possible but very doubtful). I'm mostly interested in the points drops, though - hopefully they're worthwhile.

I think Slaanesh daemon princes still exist - there have been a few in the lore (produced after imprisonmemt), so is there any reason these guys haven't ascended when 'lesser' champions have? I'm genuinly curious, this isn't meant to be a gotcha or anything

+ Mod hat + Please don't post leaked pictures

Unfortunately Slaangors are not very good at all, but thankfully you can swap them with more Painrbringers or Twinsouls from the box. Other than that, the list should work well enough - just make sure to try keep Glutos topped up on healing to ensure he still has a 5+ ward save as long as possible.

If it is ours, I do wonder if it means a book may come earlier than expected. Certainly not this year, but maybe next year. I'd have initially guessed we may skip over 3rd edition and be one of the first 4th edition books to come out. Let's hope they've had a good amount of time to work on the book this time.

I think (hope) it may be Hedonites, just with design similarities. It's not guaranteed, but GW do prefer to keep certain design types exclusive.

Maybe new stuff for us? Could also be Aelves, but the glove is very similar to a twinsoul glove, and the boots are similar to Sigvald.

Just saw this pop up after my message, thanks for finding the blurb I should have been clearer, when I say blurb, I meant more "short summary in 100 characters or less", which I didn't make clear - sorry. I guess "blurb vs blurb" would be better said as "condensed theme vs condensed theme". I think though, commenting specifically on the blurb you gave, it sounds cool but still doesn't grab me. It doesn't really give strong themes other than "good vs evil in a battle of reclamation" (of course, there are others, but that seems to be the main one). This isn't bad by any means, but there's just something more gripping and depressingly human about: "It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor of Mankind has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies. He is a rotting carcass writhing invisibly with power from the Dark Age of Technology. He is the Carrion Lord of the vast Imperium of Man for whom a thousand souls are sacrificed every day so that he may never truly die.Yet even in his deathless state, the Emperor continues his eternal vigilance. Mighty battlefleets cross the daemon-infested miasma of the Warp, the only route between distant stars, their way lit by the Astronomican, the psychic manifestation of the Emperor's will. Vast armies give battle in His name on uncounted worlds. Greatest amongst his soldiers are the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines, bio-engineered super-warriors. Their comrades in arms are legion: the Imperial Guard and countless planetary defence forces, the ever-vigilant Inquisition and the tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus to name only a few. But for all their multitudes, they are barely enough to hold off the ever-present threat to humanity from aliens, heretics, mutants -- and far, far worse. To be a man in such times is to be one amongst untold billions. It is to live in the cruelest and most bloody regime imaginable. These are the tales of those times. Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war. There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods." The description of the god as a "rotting carcass", "Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only war", and "There is no peace amongst the stars, only an eternity of carnage and slaughter, and the laughter of thirsting gods" paint the setting so well, and in such a visceral way.

I'm more trying to compare the themes rather than the lore - so blurb vs blurb. From what I understand, 40k has always been some variation of "in the grim dark future there is only war". From Rogue Trader: It's definitely been refined over the years, no question, but I think this theme of 40k really resonated with people immediately. This is probably shown best by the fact it overtook Fantasy, which had more time on 40k. I don't think current AoS has this immediate pull in its theme for many people. Don't get me wrong - I like current AoS lore. I much prefer it to 40k. But I just don't think it has the same innate pull. As mentioned before, but I'll elaborate, AoS reminds me of an RPG setting. When I play Pathfinder, I don't care all that much about Golorian, but I do appreciate I can make pretty much what I want, and add in settlements that help fit my character. The world doesn't have a hook, but I prefer that to having a tonne of restrictions. To look at AoS vs 40k, if I want my army to fit into 40k then I have to jump through hoops to the point I might not end up making the character I wanted. In AoS, I could make up my own society and it would fit in just fine with very few things (if any) that needed a change. I love that about the setting for a wargame. But despite much prefering playing and creating in the world of AoS, and thinking 40k's actual lore is a bit naff and limp wristed, I still think 40k has a better draw. On a blurb vs blurb basis, 40k just has a more interesting setting on the surface level.

One thing that's been touched on a bit is AoS's theme, and how that doesn't seem as strong (or at least as noticeable) as either 40k's or WHFB's. While I prefer AoS to 40k from a lore perspective, I can't disagree with the idea that 40k's theme is more flavourful and much easier to catch people in. This isn't a case of me being more familiar with 40k - I'm much more familiar with AoS. AoS's setting is not bland, but I'd argue its superficial theme is. By this I mean the idea someone gets of the setting by looking at a few of the models and the blurb. For 40k, if an interested person looked into it on a very light level, they'd immediately see "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war", coupled with a medieval si-fi design with strong 'religious' theming. Without reading a single book, they could become instantly hooked on the lore - wanting to learn more about the "most cruel and bloody regime imaginable". There are specific rules in the setting that guide everything. I don't think AoS currently has that kind of pull. The original tag line of AoS was "an age of neverending battle", coupled with big gold paladins. At least to me, and others I've asked, that doesn't really say anything or raise many questions. While it may look similar to "there is only war", the key part missing is a neat description of the setting - "in the grim dark future". In addition, the Stormcast designs weren't that thematically tied into the immediate tagline - yes, they're fighting, but that's the bare minimum for a wargame. The most it would tell you is that they're probably the good guys, which isn't really enough to draw people in. If we look at 40k again, one huge benefit that setting has is that you can describe the theme in an interesting way in reletively few words. If I said "in the future, humanity has regressed to a state of authoritarian madness, worshipping the a corpse on a throne who requires 1000 sacrifices a day", someone could easily instantly become hungry for more info; lots of questions are raised because it starts from a grounded source - humanity. I don't think I could give the same type of summary for AoS; if I were to try, it would probably be "a world died, and out of its remains spawned near infinite realms of magic. These realms lived in peace until Chaos returned to destroy their sanctuary; the god King Sigmar forged a new army of fallen heroes to take back the realms". I think, on its surface, it just doesn't sound as intriguing as 40k's lore. It's not bad, but it's also not that strongly themed - it sounds very high fantasy and without proper grounding. It's very hard to describe, and of course subjective, but AoS on its surface looks quite generic. It's not when you look into it, but new players need a hook to do that. It reminds me of the DnD and Pathfinder RPG settings - they're not bad when you look into them, but they're also not that inspiring on a surface level. Like AoS, because they're so varied, the theme doesn't stick out - they want to let you get away with your own creativity, so don't give an overarching theme that could restrict you. While I think the lack of strong theme can be good in that sense, it does mean fewer people give the lore a chance and there's less discussion about the happenings of the narrative.

As for my opinion of the lore, personally I think that the reason AoS lore has quite a bad rep outside of its own fandoms is because early AoS lore (2015) was actually poor. I say this as someone who wasn't involved in WHFB or 40k so I had no past ties, and I really wanted to love AoS's setting - I read most of the Realmgate Wars Black Library series and all of the Realmgate Wars campaign books (those huge things full of some pretty cool battle plans). New AoS lore is considerably better, and I much prefer it to 40k, and I think it's superior to WHFB for wargaming (but not for stories). It's still not perfect - as mentioned on the Rumour Thread, Broken Realms 4 felt like a rushed job that knocked a lot of life out of the series, which was incredibly disappointing. I'll go over my thoughts in chronological order to try explain my thoughts a bit better, and perhaps to give some insight to those who have more recently joined AoS and didn't go through the Realmgate Wars. A Rough Start It'd be no surprise to hear that AoS had a rough start; after all, the setting came out of the destruction of another established and beloved world. To rub salt in the wound, it was just after Warhammer Fantasy was shown a bit of attention from the End Times releases, so the end of the setting was likely to sting that bit more. To make matters worse for the WHFB crowd, the new AoS setting seemed to be incredibly vague - there were realms that corresponded to the winds of magic, and it was an age of never-ending war. Gone was the Earth-sized word with identifiable continents and cities with normal people living normal lives, replaced with mysterious expanses that had yet to be developed besides "in the Realm of Fire, there's fire". Even though I came into the hobby right at the start of AoS, I wasn't sure exactly what was happening with all of the characters on the print out rules I had - it was, for at least a few months, totally unknown whether they were alive, and if they were, what they were doing. I certainly couldn't tell you of how people lived in the Realm of Fire. So, as far as starts go, it was messy. As mentioned before, the Realmgate Wars series is likely one of the reasons people outside the fandom don't look at AoS's lore very fondly. It's said that first impressions are the most important, and unfortunately for AoS, many people's first impressions where "big storm people beat up Khorne over a variety of desolate battlegrounds in fights that lack tension or memorable characters". That sounds very harsh, but it's the most honest review I can give of the first book of the series. Most of the Black Library Realmgate Wars books (henceforth referred to as BL RGW) were a collection of stories were Stormcast fought their way through a variety of 'bad guy' armies to achieve goals that we're told are important, but because there has been close to no development given to the places they were meant to be saving so it was hard to care. For those who weren't around during this time, one of the most asked questions on FB groups were "are there still normal humans in AoS" and it was quite a big thing when a group of straggling humans appeared in a later BL RGWs. At this point, Stormcast were very disliked by some of the fanbase - and I will admit I was one of them. Now, it wasn't because of any "Sigmarines" stuff, but rather because at the time they just couldn't lose and it became almost pitiful to watch Chaos get slapped around again and again. It was like reading a synopsis of an easy video game level, where Stormcast clobbered through a load of Chaos mooks without much resistance, only to get to the boss fight and beat that without much of a care either. If I recall correctly, Korgus Khul ("Mighty" Lord Of Khorne) wanted a Vandus's (Lord Cellestant) skull for his DIY project to please Khorne and give him immortality; this Khul guy was built up as the big bad throughout the book. However, the stand off involved a Stormcast flying at him, getting sent to the Realm of Chaos with the axe, and then Vandus beating Khul with relative ease, only for Khul to trip over his pyramid and get covered in skulls so the Stormcast didn't mercy kill him there. Most of the books were like this, where Stormcast were shown to be amazing killing machines and their enemies may as well not have bothered to show up for all the good they did. I personally disliked them strongly because of this - it felt like they were Mary Sues, where instead of their victories making me go "wowee these Stormcast guys sure are cool" it made me think "I feel nothing but pity for Chaos, and I can only assume they got so far because their enemies felt sorry for them". Perhaps the idea was meant to be a rallying cry for Fantasy players - a bit of a "Chaos blew up your world, but they're certainly not capable of it here and we're getting revenge". However, I think this had the opposite effect and it was read more like "it's okay that your Fantasy chumps couldn't hold these guys off, these Stormcast are cooler and better". In addition, in the 8th book (I think), my at-the-time favourite character Neferata showed up in the book, being chased down by a Slaaneshi lord (who in the campaign book also tripped off something to avoid being killed by Stormcast - seemed to be a running theme). This lord managed to get near Neferata through her blood knight guards, and she was about to be kidnapped, only for the Stormcast to save her. This rubbed me the wrong way as it suggested that Stormcast were stronger than even a Mortarch. So, the above sums up my feelings on the BL RGWs - a poorly written series of action scenes that had very limited world development and an over-emphasis on Stormcast. I think these books would have been better received had they been from the perspective of a normal person watching this unfold, allowing for more world building, higher stakes (if it's their home that's about to be trampled), and a more relatable perspective from the get go. In addition, it would have been better had they toned down the SCE to match their enemy rather than exceed them, necessitating tactics and teamwork, perhaps with mortals. However, there is still the other side of the story - the Campaign Book Realmgate Wars (henceforth referred to as CB RGWs). These huge books are pretty great gaming pieces for their unique battle plans, but unfortunately very poor worldbuilding. You may well have seen some of the maps in the CB RGWs, but if not, they were fantastical themed lands with landmarks that often lacked any context. They were meant to inspire your imagination, but often times they presented unliveable hellscapes that didn't even seem worth fighting over. And yes, this was the point - Chaos had ruined the land, but because we didn't even know this land to begin with, it was hard to feel invested in Barren Landscape No. 24. The CB RGWs were written in a way to show Order's take back of the realm against Chaos, but as mentioned, it felt flat because we didn't even know the lands that were being saved. The above map was of somewhere in the Realm of Fire which used to be inhabited by people who could control water, and that's how they could live there - cool, that could be interesting. Except that single sentence is all that's left of them, and we're back to fighting over a desolate landscape of fire and blood, similar to the desolate landscape of fire and blood next door to it. While I couldn't find the map for it, Asphyxia is a landscape of fire and blood controlled by cannibal Khorne cultists. It's never explained how these guys are still alive (not even a throw away "Khorne throws stuff at them they need to kill to eat"), or why they even stay there any more, considering its a desolate landscape with nothing of value for anyone anymore. As mentioned on the other thread, one of the reasons Lumineth have such good lore is because they look into their society and how their past failings have shaped how they live their lives. The lore is still open enough to do your own thing with them, but it gives them a sense of realism that is still often lacking in AoS. Society and history are, obviously, important to worldbuilding but the CB RGWs only had small snippets of history that led to nothing, and no interesting societies to explore. I won't go on about each individual book, but I truly did try to like these when I first got into AoS but I just couldn't manage it. They were combat descriptions in big unexplained desolate landscaps that I had no reason to care about. A new hope So, at least for myself, AoS's lore was pretty grim for the first year. In fact, I felt myself losing interest in the hobby as the lore showed no signs of improving past "Stormcast bonk chaos and take more land". However, things did start looking up as a new book, The City of Secrets, was revealed. Finally, a book looking solely at mortal lives in AoS, exploring the City of Excellis in Ghur. I read this book, and while it wasn't perfect (spoilers: I was miffed that the Stormcast had to be involved in the end, but it was much better than before), it did shine a new light on AoS where we could see the realms and their oddities from the perspective of relatively normal people. And then came what I would consider to be the big turning point in AoS's lore - Malign Portents. This was, for those who don't know, the lead up to Second Edition AoS. The forces of each grand alliance were converging on Shyish to help or hinder Nagash's plan. Involved in this build up was a lore book that went over what each faction was doing in this time, and what they thought of current events, and more importantly, free short stories. One of these short stories almost single handily brought my interest back to the lore. As mentioned, I was totally burned out with Stormcast and how often the stories had been "and then the Stormcast came and beat everyone up and won", but this short story was from the perspective of a human man trapped in a house as zombies tried to claw their way into his home. He could just about see out of the window into his oncoming demise, but then a flash of lightening whitened the sky and his saviours descended into the undead horde. He watched the Anvils of Heldenhammer cleave through the zombies and he was filled with hope. Until the first Stormcast was overwhelmed, and then the next, and then the next, until he was alone and doomed again. This bit of lore really helped cement the idea that Stormcast were no longer the invincible warriors they were portrayed as. Not only that, but more stories came out about Stormcast dragging people from their homes and executing entire villages for potential corruption - they were quickly losing their "Mary Sue" status and becoming more complex characters with weaknesses. Now, Malign Portents did end in a bit of a messy note. Nothing too bad, but it felt like a lot of build up happened about nothing for some of the characters, however the true end was the Necroquake which tied into the new edition and the endless spell releases with Malign Sorcery. This event was important for two big reasons: - The first was it showed a faction that wasn't Order or Chaos doing something important; yes, it didn't go exactly as planned by Nagash, but it was a new focus on Death - The second was that something big actually happened. At this point, AoS's lore started edging ahead of 40k's. Yes, 40k would blow up a planet, but lucky for the Imperium they had a second planet in reserve, so Cadia was really just good for the slogan. The Necroquake had a large effect on every faction, both rules-wise and lore-wise. In addition to Malign Portents, the AoS 2 core book was released, and it had special effort put into looking at some of the societies of the realms. There was nothing too detailed, but it helped make AoS feel like people actually lived in the realms, and it wasn't just a series of desolate landscapes for people to have punch ups in. I've not read many Black Library books from this time - even though I think AoS's lore had come on leaps and bound from where it began, there were no books that really caught my eye. Unfortunately this is still the case as I personally don't think GW writes Chaos that well usually, and that's what I'm interested in (I've heard Plague Garden is good, but I don't really like Nurgle all that much and I'd rather not read an older Stormcast book). However, from what others have said, the Soulwars books were actually very good. As AoS 2 continued, more and more factions appeared and started doing their own thing with their own societies and cultures, without need to be shackled to Stormcast or Chaos. Broken Realms and where we are now I will start this section by saying that BR: Morathi is one of the best campaign books I've seen by GW recently. It's not perfect, but it sets up some interesting concepts and actually has something huge happen - Morathi becomes a god and Slaanesh gives birth! These are two huge and permanent changes to the setting that should shake things up for years to come. In BR Teclis, we had Akhan the Black be potentially destroyed in the light of Hyish, and while it was an underwhelming ending for the Necroquake, at least something of consequence happened. In BR Be'lakor, the first prince concocted a way to stop the Stormcast from reforging which should have been a huge blow to order with new narrative pathways opened for what Stormcast do when they're faced with the potential of a fate much worse than death. Unfortunately the final Broken Realm, Kragnos, it all seemed to be a big nothing burger. The God of Earthquakes came to shake the setting up, but was beaten back. Slaanesh's kids were beaten by a few Stormcast and some humans, which is embarrassing. Morathi's misdeeds seemed to be forgiven. We went from everything ramping up to no real payoff, using 40k's signature "while the enemy pushed back, the allied forces were weakened and if the enemy comes again then maybe something will happen, but probably not". It felt like a very rushed book, and I think there were last minute changes - especially because in the AoS 3 CRB it mentions that Morathi defeated Slaanesh's kids, which isn't at all what happened in Kragnos. Thondia came out recently, and I enjoyed this book. It had a balanced view of all of the factions that appeared, leading to more interesting fights where you didn't know who would come out on top, and the potential of more interesting developments down the road of Beasts of Chaos. Overall, the lore is in a much better place than it was and I am excited when we do get new lore for AoS because, usually, something does happen in it. In addition, one of the biggest benefits of AoS's lore is that, at the end of the day, the lore is to facilitate the wargame and AoS does that well. There are very few checkboxes you need to fill in when designing an army - you're free to do what you want without conflicting with the lore. This is fantastic for building your own army, though it does leave some issues when it comes to reading books and stories... Some of the remaining issues in AoS As mentioned, the lore has come a long way, but there are still a few issues that I think stop AoS from getting the same amount of lore discussion as 40k and Fantasy (discounting the obvious reason of fanbase sizes). The first is that the lore is intentionally vague and open. I think this is great - necessary, even - for building your own guys. I thoroughly dislike 40k's way where it feels like you need to fill in check boxes to fit into a certain faction to the point they don't really feel like your guys any more. However, this comes at the price that there's rarely that much to discuss. They were brought up before, but Sylvaneth are a cool looking faction of forest spirits. You can do a lot with them, from having them hate humans to having them work co-operatively with green cities, either would fit well and could be well developed. However they don't really have a true culture or history - nothing that feels as if they're a well developed people. You'll get snippets of lore, but nothing that defines their culture. As mentioned, this isn't always a bad thing, but it can leave the lore feeling empty. The second is the sheer size of the setting. Again, like before, this can be a good thing because you don't run into any issues like you could in Fantasy where you want your people to come from somewhere, but it wouldn't make any sense given the scale of the setting. In addition, in AoS, you have to worry less about stepping on the toes of other factions - if you want your own cities to be the biggest and best for miles around, that's no problem. However it can leave the setting feeling more intangible, where you struggle to care if a particular city is destroyed because the scope is so large than anything short of a realm being blown up could probably be ignored. It's a double edged sword, however, because as seen in 40k, if you make some places too important then nothing ever happens to them (Terra) or something happens and it doesn't make that much of a tangible difference anyway (Cadia - lots of "tell not show" in this case, where it was meant to be terrible but we never see the bad effects). Finally, a lot of the named characters in AoS don't feel fleshed out enough - or they're survivors from Fantasy. It's a shame when the most important people of the new setting are the ones from the old setting. More than that, the actual new characters like Brokk just seem to be added in for model purposes, and while we get a small backstory, we rarely see them actually do anything so we just don't get to like them. Or the small snippets we do see of them, while they can be cool, aren't enough to actually develop them. I think this is something that can be improved in the future, but it's notable in 40k discussions when 80% of talks are about named characters - it's obvious that named characters are important for a setting. TL;DR Old AoS was actually pretty rubbish, but it's come a long way from where it was and can go further. However, there are some parts of AoS that people don't like which are intrinsic to the way the setting is, and changing them would weaken the setting in other areas. Personally I think AoS is the best Wargaming setting for "your guys", and that's what matters most to me.

Following on from the very interesting discussion on the rumour thread, I've created this for people to continue sharing their thoughts on the past, future, style, direction, quantity, and quality AoS lore.

++ Mod hat ++ I think this is a really interesting discussion - the development and quality of AoS lore is something that I'm personally very interested in. However I think it would be better suited to its own thread, rather than the rumour thread Here's a thread:

I understand what you mean, and it's really hard to put a finger on it and say "this is the problem". I'm also not saying 40k is better - I know that has loads of balance issue at the moment. I think AoS has some very interesting rules - Nighthaunt, Nurgle, and Sylvaneth all seem to be shaping up to have interesting tactics and ways to manipulate the game state without it just being "do damage". Whereas Big Waagh, as an example, just gives out +s as the game goes on (usually max by round 2), which sounds fine but after playing against it a lot it's very boring. Not just because the army is always on 2s and 2s so every unit blends into one, but also because command abilities and heroic abilities for +1 to hit and wound (finest hour) stop mattering very quickly. I do think that a lot of armies just don't play in a unique way because, design wise, they've limited themselves. Think about the warscrolls in your favourite army, and then think of how many hit or wound on 5s (or even 6s). Probably not many. It seems, for the vast majority of warscrolls, 4s are the lowest tier of hitting, and because 1s don't matter, there are three numbers on the dice the rules team work with. In addition, rend rarely goes above 2, and damage is capped at 6 (besides Skarbrand). This can leave warscrolls feeling quite samey stats-wise, and thus they rely on their warscroll abilities. However, AoS 3 seems to have been doing a job of cutting them down to be more basic. However, without a full overhaul, they can't just fix this by putting 5s and 6s as more common stats in new books because that would feel bad for them. It's very hard to fix, and I don't think I know any easy way to do it. I think there's more to it than just the stats though. Sometimes it feels like there are some rules you can't help but think "I could have done better". Not because of your own writing prowess, but because the rules seem so bland and uninspired. Anvil of Apotheosis was the most recent one for me, but Khorne's entire rules existance and the new Slaanesh book (especially the twins) are other examples. There's just sometimes this pervasive feeling of lower effort rules. Rules where it seems they were written very hastily, or without any love for the faction, or without enough thought on how it would play in a game. Anyway, I'm getting very off topic so I'll stop! Just hoping Skaven aren't badly done to.

If it's true, it again brings into question the ability/management of the rules team. I do want to stress "management" because we don't know the reasons - it could well be deadline related - but it seems that AoS rules are pot luck on whether you get your faction seriously improved with new rules or if they just copy and paste. It's probably my most disliked thing about AoS - that the rules are of wildly different quality and passion behind them. The team have proven they can write high quality books and supplements, but some battletomes/suppliments feel like there has been close to 0 effort in even trying. Note, it may well be because some deadlines don't allow high quality, which is a management issue. For example, Anvil of Apotheosis 3e was a huge let down, basically being just a copy and paste of the GHB's old one without proper thought put into it (e.g. they've missed out entire factions and sometimes armies in the case of Slaves to Darkness). Someone spending more than ten minutes giving this a read over should have been able to produce something of greater quality. Someone spending a week or more of dedicated work could have produced an amazing narrative supplement. In a similar but less severe vein, you get Khorne's White Dwarf which is both uninspired and weak. Again, it seems like little care went into creating it. On the other hand, you get really well written supplements like the Beasts of Chaos White Dwarf, which were creative and strong, breathing new life into the army. And battletomes like Lumineth where, despite poor balance between warscrolls, was trying to be a strategic army with lots of options and tactics to choose from with some very strange (in a good way) warscrolls. AoS would be so much better of a game if the same care, time, and attention went into all battletomes and supplements and we didn't end up with haves and have nots. For currently weak books, new battletomes and supplements are equally as worrying as hopeful because it seems sometimes the writers just drop the ball. Not every attempt will be a hit, but there's a huge difference between "swing and a miss" and not trying to swing at all (e.g. copy and paste). Sorry for the rant, and I really hope the Skaven battletome rumours aren't true, but after the poor Anvil of Apotheosis it's something that's really been bugging me about AoS rules - just this sense of "how did anyone think this was okay?" that crops up. A mistake is one thing, and it happens, but some things are less like mistakes and more just a lack of quality control when it comes to the quality of the rules themselves. I'd love an honest interview with the rules team to hear their opinion on these 'bad' rules. Not a cheesy marketing interview where it's all sunshine and rainbows, but a genuine explanation of how Slaves to Darkness slipped through the cracks of Anvil, or why are Slaangors, or does anyone know what to do with Khorne's rules?

+Mod hat+ As @KingBrodd has already said, please don't antagonise other forum members by alluding to them. Whether or not it was meant in a fun way, it can be construed as toxic or belittling.

I don't think it will "cure" our book, but I think it will give a more satisfying experience simply because we could build a more rounded army. As an example list, if we knocked 20% off all our units (which I think is the summoning tax, though realistically a 20% drop is very unlikely): - Army Faction: Hedonites of Slaanesh - Army Type: Invaders - Subfaction: The Lurid Haze LEADERS Sigvald (210) Glutos Orscollion (380) Lord of Pain (125) Shardspeaker of Slaanesh (120) BATTLELINE Blissbarb Archers (135) Blissbarb Archers (135) OTHER Myrmidesh Painbringers (115) Myrmidesh Painbringers (115) Symbaresh Twinsouls (265) Slickblade Seekers (185) Slickblade Seekers (185) TERRAIN 1 x Fane of Slaanesh (0) TOTAL POINTS: 1970/2000 Note: I'm not saying this would be balanced, just using this to illustrate my point. In the above list, there's a bit of everything and some space to add your own design - for example, you could trade out Slickblades for more archers. One thing to say about our units, besides Slaangors and the KoS, is that they do their job even if they are too expensive. This is in comparison to something like Blood Warriors, who will never live up to their name no matter their points. So in the above list, your army has multiple ways it can take on a situation which allow the army to feel more varied. For example, against hordes the Twinsouls would be good, against monsters Glutos can tank, against shooting units Sigvald and the Slickblades can get to them early, the archers can hold objectives in the mid protected by Painbringers, and the Shardspeaker can try use her ability and inevitably roll a 2. In real Slaanesh, you would have to forgo many of these options (or at least lose a lot of functionality) because everything's so expensive. That leaves you with an anaemic list with no wiggle room besides your core options. This means that every list lives and dies on its 'gimmick' with no room for mistakes, and no chance for experimentation. I also play Slaves to Darkness, and while they do have access to more buffs (from the overtuned Chaos Sorcerer that you will definitely include in every list), their warscrolls are often bland and usually weaker than ours. I've found them fun to play because they're cheap and you can take a wide variety of units to fill out different parts in an army. If Slaanesh got considerably cheaper, it wouldn't solve a lot of the issues you have, but I think it would make them a lot more fun to play.

I don't think Archaon did come out in the End Times - I'm 99% sure that he came out in 2015 as part of the Everchosen release, alongside varanguard and the gaunt summoner in one of the smallest battletomes ever. Note, you won't find a box with Archaon on a square base