Mikarovic

On the Warhammer Community page for the Las Vegas Open (here) where the aforementioned confirmation of each Grand Alliance getting at least one more battletome, the image attached shows a Vampire count. We can guess a Soulblight Battletome is in the future, hopefully a faction of Vampires too stuck-up to kneel before Nagash. This, if true, would explain why Vampire Knights and Zombies didn't get new miniatures with the Legions of Nagash release.

Seems the vast majority of lists I see have their Hearthguard Berzerkers with Whirly Maces. Are they that much better than the clearly more Dwarfy choice (:P) of Axes? As I understand it their damage is a wash at about 4+ armour. Whirly maces get better against better armour but get punished by nurgles reroll hits of 6.

Cute interaction in the Forge Brethren battalion. The +1 to save ability happens in your opponent's Hero phase and lasts until your hero phase, at least according to 2+ Tough. So if you get double turned you can have this buff up twice, perhaps even on the same unit... perhaps on a Smoldering Helm wielding Magmadad.

As mentioned previously, The Smouldering Helm looks like it has a tonne of potential on a Magmadroth. With all the +1's to save (even without the soon to be FAQ's Battlesmith stacking) the rend reducing Magmatrait and the reroll save Magmatrait (Magmadroth subfaction required for magmatrait stacking) we can Tokyo Drift a Magmadroth into a -1 rend horde and still be reflecting a majority of saves as mortal wounds. This might be too janky to rely on as a central gameplan (mortal wounds and shooting counter it) but it doesn't seem to be much of an investment, so strikes me as a cool bonus to tack on to existing strategies, rather than an all-in strategy that loses you the game if it flubs.

Is it unfair to say Hearthguard Berzerkers are getting 4 times as choppy? Extra attack + 2" range means 4 attacks per 32cm as opposed to 1? Seems huge. If they can make the army more elite, as in play with fewer models, jack up their offense (ya know, the SLAYER part of fyreslayer) and make multiple archetypes playable I'd say they can call the book a success. Based on previews so far they're pushing a HeroHammer archetype, which is right in Fyreslayers' wheelhouse. Pretty hyped. Dark Iron Fyreslayers is now project #1 for me.