Age of Sigmar "grand alliance of Death" incoming

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They were specifically talking about the Hell Canon and Scaven BSB on their last podcast which was before the Tomb King thing happened. But it's still a really stupid decision. I say as long as it's still in the app it should be valid. Means I couldn't field my Vlad Isabella team except as two generic vamps if I went to the tourney.
 
@Oppenheimer not really true b/c those are still in the app if you downloaded them. They didn't remove them like they removed the formations (I still have my Count Mannfred but no longer have Deathrattle horde or Charnel Pit).

So if you went off of what's in the app some "discontinued" models would still be allowed too. Still BS.
 
Yeah it's hard to say where they'd draw the line. They said no hell canon. It's still in the app, just sold out online. Vlad is still in the app and is sold online but if you click on his scroll on the store it links only to the generic vampire lord.
I'm pretty sure they were basically saying that regardless of what's in the app if it's not in the Alliance book it's not allowed.
I think if it's in the app it should be allowed but they never said that. Although they did say they expect those things to disappear from the app in time and so are making the rule now.
 
Well, if they're restricting choices to what's in alliance books, then there's only chaos and death models in the entire game. If they restrict to only AoS plublished books, that adds fyreslayers, seraphon, trees, stormcast, and... nothing else.

Either the compendiums should be fair game, or they shouldn't be. But I have no idea why they wouldn't be, as they're published AoS rules.

The tournament scene obsession with 'current' and 'official' and 'legal' are so at odds with this game.

It really ticks me off, in part because their points systems was one of the better ones, I was considering pushing for it as a foundation for casual pickup games in my area. Only apparently it's going to be missing values for several AoS units, over an arbitrary condition of whether GW currently sells the product lines? We know from pre-end-times rumors that there will be no evergreen AoS product lines. New stuff will sell till interest dies down, then it goes on last chance. Everything will be that way.

And for GW, that's one thing. I mean, they have to pay to store and maintain the molds, shelf space, etc. Stuff costs money. They do not have a small enough enterprise to make print-on-demand work as a business model, so whatever.

But GW isn't the one saying you can no longer play with your toys once it's no longer economically feasible for GW to sell them to you (leaving aside that their economic feasibility might extend further if they weren't so committed to their anti-community policies and outrageous price points).

No, that's the SCGT people telling their players that they can't use their purchased and painted armies with legal, current rules. If they really expect a hobby minis game tournament scene to persist with the kind of turnover that MtG features - which seems to be the model GW's going in - then I think they're going to be sadly surprised. This game's community is bruised and battered enough by GW's BS.
 
I got the Alliance book today. Thought I'd post the one warscroll they so generously allowed us to have . . .
Legion of Death
1 Wight King
1 unit black knights
1 unit grave guard
3 units skeleton warriors
Unbreaking ranks: Return one slain model to each LoD unit that is with 9" of WK at start of your hero phase
March of Dead: in your hero phase LoD within 9" of WK can move 4" as if were movement phase (can't run)
 
Same units as old deathrattle horde (including unreasonable three skeleton unit requirement). Alright benefits, but really not any more interesting, stronger, or weaker than those of the existing formation.

Was it really impossible to just re-print both our existing skeleton and ghoul formations, and give us something new for one of the other sub-factions? To take away two formations and give us back only one, itself basically just a slightly different reprint of one of the two they took, I mean, this seems utterly pointless.

Bleh.
 
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The problem with the 3 skeleton units is that small units if skeletons are worse than large ones. 1 unit of 30 skeletons would be much more effective than 3 units of 10 skeletons. Wish I could field one unit of skeletons warriors, one of spearmen and one of archers, that would at least make sense.
 
Field 3 of 20. 10 w/axe/sword and 10 with spear. Then set them up in wedge formation imo. You still get 60 warriors. Run the BK as a picket line with WK in the middle to buff. Run a set of 20 archers behind for support. Least that is my plan for smaller games.
 
The entire unit is equipped with either swords or spears, you can't split a unit half and half, and the attack bonus is based on number of models in a single unit, so one clump of 60 is generally superior to 3 of 20.

Or, if you want the formation, I'd look into one block of 40 spears, then two of 10 swords, again over three blocks of 20, especially if you're running other single-unit buffers like necromancers or the like.

If running this formation (or the old deathrattle formation, for that matter), it would be one block of 40 skeletons, closely screened by a line of 16 to 20 grave guard, with a wight king (maybe two - one black axe and one banner) next to the skullington unit behind the screen. Throw two units of 10 skellies on the flanks as speed bumps, and a min unit of black knights way out on a flank as a potential harrassing unit.

But the knights and small skelly units are all essentially taxes in this formation (again, whether the old deathrattle horde or the new army of the dead). Black knights are pretty bad in general, and skellies are only impressive in excess of 30 models and with buffs on them.

In general, I think you're better off skipping the formation. If you like the skeletons plus wight screen phalanx, sure, go with that, but the benefits of the formation aren't worth taking the extra skeleton and black knight units when you could be fielding something much better on its own, like spirit hosts, morghasts, blood knights, grave guard, etc.
 
Excuse the noob question, but where do you get you can't mix sword/spear? RAW "Models fight in units. A unit can have one or more models, but cannot include models that use different warscrolls"

And Skeletons Warriors Warscroll states “Some are armed with Ancient Blades while others go to war with Ancient Spears”

Not seeing an either/or... can you help here?
 
It actually says "some units are equipped with ..." Not some models. Therefore the whole unit needs to be equipped with the same thing.
30 or more models is +2 attacks. But you want more than 30 if you can help it so that when models are killed you don't lose the bonus right away.
 
Interesting on that, thanks @Oppenheimer though I know that our GW allows for mixed so that's interesting.

On the math though.


Based on what I am reading, a unit of 60 would have 180 attacks (3 attacks based on >30), 2 units of 30 and a unit of 10 would be 130 attacks ((2x30)x2) + 10) and 3 units of 20 would only be 120 so that makes sense at least 60 more attacks over the 3 of 20.

However that only looks at short term.

That unit of 60 can only return D6 (with stnd bearer) + w/e random rolls on 6 with Infernal standard. This leads to an entrophic decline of the unit as a whole when compared to the formation.

3 units would all automatically return 1 unit due to formation, plus the infernal banner rolls, plus 3D6 with stnd bearers.

so would need to figure avg loss per round and then run simulation based on rate of return (1D6 vs 3+3D6)...

Could be interesting.
 
I have played with someone who has mixed equipment but it was unfair because he had a Stormcast liberator unit that has mostly two hammers but one guy had a shield. Due to that he got to reroll ones when hitting with all but one of the models in his unit but got to reroll all saves of one as well because of that one shield guy. That's clearly not how it was intended. It should be a trade off to get the attack bonus or get the shield bonus.
 
Our GW wouldn't let that fly, basically only the guy with the shield would get the bonus to his roll, just like when you add a modifier to a champ etc.
 
So while holding infantry constraints (non-elite/non-hero/no-spells) steady and using avg loss vs avg D6 roll, + formation gain the block of 60 is superior in atk output through 35 rounds, at that time the 3 blocks of 20 blows past putting out almost 3:1 atks thereafter.

Granted we all know it doesn't last that long but I was interested in seeing the computer simulation of it anyway.
 
Well, if they're restricting choices to what's in alliance books, then there's only chaos and death models in the entire game. If they restrict to only AoS plublished books, that adds fyreslayers, seraphon, trees, stormcast, and... nothing else.

Either the compendiums should be fair game, or they shouldn't be. But I have no idea why they wouldn't be, as they're published AoS rules.

The tournament scene obsession with 'current' and 'official' and 'legal' are so at odds with this game.

It really ticks me off, in part because their points systems was one of the better ones, I was considering pushing for it as a foundation for casual pickup games in my area. Only apparently it's going to be missing values for several AoS units, over an arbitrary condition of whether GW currently sells the product lines? We know from pre-end-times rumors that there will be no evergreen AoS product lines. New stuff will sell till interest dies down, then it goes on last chance. Everything will be that way.

And for GW, that's one thing. I mean, they have to pay to store and maintain the molds, shelf space, etc. Stuff costs money. They do not have a small enough enterprise to make print-on-demand work as a business model, so whatever.

But GW isn't the one saying you can no longer play with your toys once it's no longer economically feasible for GW to sell them to you (leaving aside that their economic feasibility might extend further if they weren't so committed to their anti-community policies and outrageous price points).

No, that's the SCGT people telling their players that they can't use their purchased and painted armies with legal, current rules. If they really expect a hobby minis game tournament scene to persist with the kind of turnover that MtG features - which seems to be the model GW's going in - then I think they're going to be sadly surprised. This game's community is bruised and battered enough by GW's BS.
Just an update on this. The latest Heelenammer podcast has Dan doubling down on the fact that no one should be playing with models that are not sold in GW's store. He said that this year they're going to allow tomb kings at the south coast GT but not going to allow any of them at all next year. Interesting his co-host Steve really disagrees with him and thinks that since the rules were released they should be valid army to play with even at tournaments. Dan argued that since the PDF for TK is in the last chance to buy section too it might disappear from the website and wouldn't be fair to new players at a tournament if they couldn't get the PDF for the opponents army online anymore.
Made me so mad listening to it. Can't believe Dan is being so stubborn about not playing with discontinued models. People shouldn't have to throw out an entire army just because GW doesn't want to stock the shelves with them anymore.
 
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My opponent this weekend questioned my use of archers and skel horsemen but when pointed out that they were still avlb for purchase via GW and on app and free pdf he relented and let them ride.
 
I agree with you completely. It's not like the PDF wouldn't be available a dozen other places if GW ever took it down - not that there's any indication that they're doing that. Plenty of tournaments in 7th and 8th editions even allowed that homebrew Chaos Dwarf army book, and IMO were better off for it.
 
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