Lucentia

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but currently Slaangor are one of the worst warscrolls in the game (if not the worst!) Of course if you really like the look of them there's no harm in playing with them, just don't, er, don't expect them to do much of anything.

This is a good shout, I think, if the swamp guys are actually Nurgle aligned (assuming that wasn't a slip up in the advertising copy) then it would make sense that we'll see other god-specific warbands in this new season/phase of Warcry.

The studded gloves are very Hedonite, yes, though the sword doesn't totally match the Slaanesh style (They do have a pretty eclectic mix of melee weapons, but they generally have a pretty consistent haft/handle design.)

Yeah, maybe if they'd kept the bonus damage on charge or had an extra base attack they'd be an interesting option as a cheap, fast missile to clear off opposing screens, but as it stands they're only really going to be doing the same things as Heartrenders but not as a good. A shame cos I've got 20 of the flappy idiots and they were in a pretty fun spot last book! Ah well.

They look basically the same size to me, though the Melusai midriff does have a little sculpted detail to show the skin giving way to scales which you might want to cover up, and actually getting the torsos and legs neatly joined might require a bit of work just due to how the witch elf kit is laid our.

I dunno, 40k has some pretty archaic looking mechanisms going on in parts. I don't think it's likely to be Cities/Dawnbringers though, from the sounds of how they were talking they don't necessarily have finalised models for that range yet.

The only downside is that the +1 to prayers is now also on the cauldrons, I believe, which was the main value of the foot avatar to me previously, but I'll still give one or two a spin at 155, sure, that doesn't feel crazy.

Yeah, they added that in the latest set of FAQs, not sure quite who was frequently asking that question, and it has the feel of an answer where they didn't totally think of all the possible ramifications. But on the plus side it does make it easier to break through any abilities which halve or otherwise reduce run rolls too.

Man, what'd my Lifetakers do to deserve that? They'd just made them fun to play with in the last book! (Also, if ever a unit could've benefited from an extended coherency range...)

I do have a soft spot for the T-pose avatar, but I don't know if it makes it better or worse that it's on such a comically teeny tiny base. I'm willing to be the designers were discussing whether or not just give it the monster keyword wholesale, only to decide on this mini-monster version cos you can't have a monster on a 40mm base, it'd be embarrassing!

There's also still a bit of a mystery around the scheduling of the first two Lumineth tomes, I'm still almost half-convinced both waves were supposed to drop together but got snarled up in shipping issues, though I suppose we'll never really know! I'm not against a 3.0 Lumineth book cleaning up all those janky rules, but it certainly wouldn't be my first choice of tome to update pronto. As an average aelf enjoyer it's kind of wild to see all the aelf books pushed out so quickly, but on the plus side it means they're not likely to get touched again for the rest of 3rd edition, so it's more of a front-loaded aelf season that should lead into a relatively aelf free period!

I dunno, it's not a nothing update like many of the tome celestials, like, these rules do function and do something for the army, however, it feels to me like it's just pulling in-game decision making in yet another direction. Playing hedonites, in my experience, is already caught between scoring VP and scoring DP, where you want to let units live for DP but need them dead for objectives, and this update kind of just throws another layer of decision on top of that by incentivising hoarding DP for the bonuses, which feels like a misstep for a faction already sat on a knife's edge. That said I do like that the first two bonuses can be used and you can still summon later in the same turn, and there are occasions where you'll have lots of DP but no opportunity to spend them yet, so as I say they're not completely useless rules or anything. But I don't think they really do much to address the pressing weaknesses of the current Hedonite rules, certainly I don't think you could run a successful non-summoning list just off the back of these, our generally low damage output remains untouched, and I'm not going to suddenly start wanting to put Keepers in my lists just cos they might get a juicy 5++ at some point. However, if we see some key points drops with the GHB maybe this'll be enough to make the army at least a bit more fun to pilot.

I don't know where the echoes of doom name rumour cropped up, but I would be a mildly unusual box name cos they usually call to both factions in the name. Have we had a book release without a dual box yet for 3.0? I know a few tomes did in 2.0. Next week's preorders are the DoK/Nighthaunt tomes, interestingly they do mention the DoK warscroll cards are coming but delayed, so clearly still some issues with their cardboard/printing supply lines.

That would be cute. Assuming that the AoS show is going to fill the same time as the 40k one there's no way they can pad out an hour on just a single release, even if it is a substantial one, though some of the segments will likely be for things like campaign books or upcoming animations.

Soulbound is a very fun RPG in my experience, and as you say the books, artwork, and background material is generally of excellent quality. However it doesn't play much like D&D5 at all, the base rules are somewhat simpler (characters have only 3 core stats and a couple of class/faction features, for example) so directly transferring statblocks won't work. That said weapons/spells/etc. do all have detailed stats which could at least provide inspiration for D&D-style versions, there's even a section for helping players create their own custom spells/prayers in the core Soulbound book, which might be useful. I'd say of you get a chance to leaf through the core book you'd probably be able to get a better idea of how feasible moving elements into D&D would be, it does depend a little on how fast and loose your group are with the rules!

Slightly disappointing for a subfaction trait if true, Draichi Ganeth were always that sub-optimal choice that I had a soft spot for, and in the previous books gave a pretty fun bonus to charging units. However, GW showing they're willing to play with reinforcement limits in books is good news for those armies which really struggle in list building due to said limits, even if DoK isn't generally considered one of those!

Mildly interesting that the Blood Rites preview doesn't have the avatar activation in round 3, or the battleshock immunity in round 5. Obviously the community previews don't always cover the full rules, so they could have just omitted it to focus on the main changes, but it could potentially mean avatars are no longer tied to the same activation mechanic.

The crossbow/magic bolt models in the shadowstalkers are technically 'darkfire warlocks' who, like their doomfire counterparts, seem to all be men.

To be fair our last warband was an equally ludicrous points cost but in the opposite direction, the points tags on underworlds units are often pretty arbitrary, even by gw standards!

The Shadowstalkers and Zombies also have 2 wounds each, maybe that's a way they're trying to make the underworlds warbands more generally appealing in AoS? Or the rats have been hitting the gym in the time between battletomes, I suppose.

Well, it's underworlds in the realm of shadows, and Shadowstalkers are about as archetypal an Ulgu unit as you can get, plus they're squaring off against Eshin in the core box, so it's a kind of assassin/ninja mirror match for the theming. I don't think they particularly design the underworlds bands with mainline AoS in mind, it's its own game too! Plus on the off-chance the warband does have cool AoS rules you can just proxy existing shadowstalker models no problem.

It's a bit of a weird one, I almost want to say blood bowl, but I don't think the rumour engine ever covers BB stuff? The cobbled together nature suggests destruction, but it's so cobbled together it doesn't really look like an effective weapon, so maybe for a weak/non-melee unit? The checkered pattern is more a 40k ork thing, I think? Maybe gloomspite, I guess, maybe part of a war machine crew model, or something.

They're not great, quite fast, but very fragile and with fairly low damage output, Slickblade Seekers are probably the strictly 'better' choice for a harassing unit most of the time. That said the models are very cool, and they do provide some interesting utility with their -1 to hit and spell casting debuff. I'm pretty sure I saw a tournament list do quite well recently with 2x3 Fiend units? Honestly with the shape of Slaanesh right now if you like the models there's probably no harm in throwing a unit into a list and seeing if you can make them work.

I'd love to see the 40k Avatar show up in the new book, it'd neatly solve the issue of the only monster keyword being Morathi, but I don't think it's very likely simply cos the model is very specifically an Eldar piece and doesn't really match the DoK model range that closely, plus really we should have an Avatar of Morathi in its place! (Though that said I might pick one up anyway to use as an incarnate/anvil of apotheosis hero/narrative play custom monster, or whatever, it does look cool!) The new Shadowstalkers are kinda funny just because the Warcry squad look so great, and were such a fun surprise, that just having alternate sculpts feels like a bit of a letdown compared to some of the other Underworlds warbands, but they're still very cool and I'm not gonna complain about having an alternate Shroud Queen model available. Khinerai battleline for a subfaction feels like something that could feasibly happen. I do wonder if there's going to be any cleanup on the priest hero warscrolls, abilities like Rune of Khaine and Touch of Death were already rarely used even when they could get access to multiple chanting rolls, seems like the sort of thing they could easily strip out without too much impact, though I'd love to see Rune of Khaine changed to something like +1 damage to the caster's melee weapons if they successfully cast a prayer that turn, or something.

My guess would be that we'll see Malerion's stuff once the focus of the game's setting rolls into Ulgu, the only question in my mind is whether that's part of a new edition change or more of a GHB/Season of War supplement situation, but I'd generally lean towards them saving him to kick a new edition off with a big hitter.