Faction Focus for FEC went up end of last week. I was curious going into this one. As late as the 3e FEC book was, you would expect it to have been designed with 4e rules in mind, so the index rules would then look pretty similar. However, all signs point to the FEC faction release having been intended to drop much earlier in 3e's lifespan, and having been pushed back substantially by the various factors impacting GW's production schedule in recent years (covid, brexit, war in europe, stuttering shift from chinese to british production due to misc. issues with new facility, etc).
Well the preview landed and... yeah, the index looks a lot like the current 3e rules. Which is a good thing since those rules are really good, but also makes for a not terribly exciting preview article since most things are like, yeah, that's similar to now.
That said, the faction traits have been significantly toned down. Delusions are gone (though Ushoran still grants one each turn) for now (hopefully actual battletomes are allowed to be more complex, allowing them to return later). Noble deed points remain, and work pretty much as they currently do, but the rousing oration ability to generate noble deed points is gone. Under the current rules, that's where the majority of noble deed points are generated, particularly before combats start. As such, NDP probably won't be able to convert into nearly as much recursion as they do currently. It's also likely that you'll have to work to build up points in the first few turns and will only have feeding frenzy up over part of the board in maybe the second half. While Ushoran hasn't changed much from his already good rules, this arguably makes him a much more attractive choice, as his melee stats make him the best at generate NDP and his expanded feeding frenzy range lets you then spread the buff over the rest of your army without having to worry about generating that many points on any other heroes.
But of course whether he's a must take, playable, or display tier will depend heavily on points costs, which aren't part of these previews, and are subject to change going forward anyway.
Personally, I would have preferred they kept delusions (very fluffy, easy to run, and I like how the current rules let you pick them at the start of the game), and ditch NDP (hasslesome, require note taking / token tracking) if it had to be one or the other, but ditching NDP would have necessitated a more comprehensive overhaul of how the faction overall works, given how dramatically they play into both the factions offense through feeding frenzy and defense through recursion of both models and units. Regardless, the overall story of the article still imo boils down to mostly good news for FEC as their rules mostly stay in place. Odds are your existing army will still be able to function more or less as is, albeit with less recursion and less reliable feeding frenzy.
