AoS - 3rd AoS News Thread
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El Syf
Vargheist
One quick question; if the grave guard do get redone then surely the wight king on foot needs redoing? For the record I quite like the current one but obviously there will be a disparity between the two.
I’m purposely ignoring black knights and the mounted wight king. I know it’s a shared kit as well which complicates things.
I’m purposely ignoring black knights and the mounted wight king. I know it’s a shared kit as well which complicates things.
for an updated wight king on foot I'd honestly just like to see velmorn or whatever his name is from underworlds repackaged as a stand alone model.
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Join Us for the Warhammer Preview Show: World Championships of Warhammer
Join Us for the Warhammer Preview Show: World Championships of Warhammer We'll have big reveals for Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Warhammer: The Horus Heresy, Warhammer: The Old World, and more!
Preview show announced for next friday.
Unfortunately the chances for undead announcements are close to zero. For AoS we're expecting announcement of the Orruk Wartribes battletome, to be accompanied by an Ironjaws Spearhead with no new models in it and a single new infantry hero release - the already leaked 'hobgoblin slittaboss'. For tOW we're expecting announcement of the Empire arcane journal with 2 to 3 new resin heroes. I don't know what's expected for 40k, but it isn't necrons. And there are no undead in Horus Heresy.
I believe that's all the games that have been announced as getting previews. I don't think we're expecting announcements for war cry or underworlds or blood bowl or kill team, so no chance of random new undead stuff sneaking in from those directions.
Soulblight is still expected to be getting a 4e release in the first half of next year, and they are expected to be getting more than just the lone hero treatment - though the exact release rumors have grown hazier (new grave guard is pretty consistent, but conflicting rumors over what else might come with them). We're not the next release though, nor even the next one after that. I think Gloomspite at least is also expected before Soulblight as a more substantial release, and possibly more factions getting the infantry hero treatment (which is super frustrating with how random infantry heroes, already pretty bad throughout most of AoS, are substantially worse in 4e due to each one forcing an extra deployment drop). So I don't think an official reveal is expected until some months into 2025.
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There ~is~ some possibility of maybe like a narrative campaign supplement for AoS to be announced alongside the warclans stuff. If so, it'll probably be a continuation of the vermindoom story, so sigmarites vs. skaven. Probably not a lot of narrative involvement from the undead, but we might see tidbits of lore in sidebars, and there might be some relevant gameplay stuff in the form of scenarios, campaign rules, maybe something for spearhead or path to glory. The whole idea that there will be a campaign supplement announcement at all is speculation though, so I wouldn't get too invested in the idea. I'm kind of just grasping at straws for an excuse to even watch the preview for undead fans.
i picked up the new white dwarf for the petrifex article. The lore is interesting - particularly the bit about mobile fortresses & workshops following behind the migratory petrifex armies, allowing them to continue research & construction on the move, & that can be used to surround target enemy settlements creating an impromptu wall cutting off reinforcements.
The 'necrosian cabal' leading the legion & the 'grand necromistic' that leads them are also given a bit more detail, which is cool, but probably not enough to be worth the price of the magazine.
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the rules.... well, they don't matter, unless you have a cities player interested in playing out the seige of lethis flashpoint, but even if you do I recommend just ignoring these rules and running generic obr instead. They must have been written by someone who was traumatized by 2nd edition petrifex, because they are *terrible*. unplayably bad. arguably literally so, since they forgot to say what units the necromystic can take in his retinue.
the necromystic itself is an over 300 point harvester that trades all its special rules for slightly improved melee weapons and a single cast. that's right, its not even a double caster. it can't heal anything so the greatest ossiarch boneshaper is a bad boneshaper, and there aren't any rules to reflect its cool gimmick of projecting its mind into constructs on the battle despite not physically being there - like no ability to possess another harvester if the body it starts in dies or the like. very boring rules implementation, and wildly overpriced.
the only other heroes allowed are ossifectors & soulmasons, which yeah means these rules are unfluffy as well as unstrong, because the legion of master shapers cannot field a boneshaper at all.
the forced heroic trait and artefact can only activate in melee, which, again, the only units you can put them on are ossifector and soulmason. the trait requires the hero to kill stuff with its melee weapons.
the list can take harvesters, but not the mortek guard half the harvester special rules are written to support, with nothing to make up for the lost utility
the only available unit with more than move 6" is morghast harbingers. They don't get cavalry or teratics so good luck scoring objectives or battle tactics. they don't even get morghast archai. yes, they only get one type of morghasts, and its the one with a special rule they can't use because its based on relentless discipline, which petrifex don't get.
These rules have exactly three things going for them. A good unlimited spell (-1 to be wounded for target unit), a double fight on the charge command ability (though with low speed and no ability to retreat and charge good luck using it), and a 1/game bring back half a dead unit ability that one fails if you roll over the unit's starting strength, so even the best odds on a reinforced immortis unit still fails in 1/6 games.
Again, none of this matters, because these rules are legends anyway, but even if you find someone who lets you use them they seem bad to the point of being actively unfun. just a miserable time on the table. a meteoric fall from grace for the fossil legion.
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On a more positive note, again back to the lore, there's at least reasonable justification for the petrifex to be the ones seiging lethis instead of the crematorians or praetoreans - despite the write up implying that the main point of the attack is to destroy Lethis's supposed new anti-undead weapons, what the petrifex are actually here for is to dredge godbeast remains from the lake itself.
The 'necrosian cabal' leading the legion & the 'grand necromistic' that leads them are also given a bit more detail, which is cool, but probably not enough to be worth the price of the magazine.
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the rules.... well, they don't matter, unless you have a cities player interested in playing out the seige of lethis flashpoint, but even if you do I recommend just ignoring these rules and running generic obr instead. They must have been written by someone who was traumatized by 2nd edition petrifex, because they are *terrible*. unplayably bad. arguably literally so, since they forgot to say what units the necromystic can take in his retinue.
the necromystic itself is an over 300 point harvester that trades all its special rules for slightly improved melee weapons and a single cast. that's right, its not even a double caster. it can't heal anything so the greatest ossiarch boneshaper is a bad boneshaper, and there aren't any rules to reflect its cool gimmick of projecting its mind into constructs on the battle despite not physically being there - like no ability to possess another harvester if the body it starts in dies or the like. very boring rules implementation, and wildly overpriced.
the only other heroes allowed are ossifectors & soulmasons, which yeah means these rules are unfluffy as well as unstrong, because the legion of master shapers cannot field a boneshaper at all.
the forced heroic trait and artefact can only activate in melee, which, again, the only units you can put them on are ossifector and soulmason. the trait requires the hero to kill stuff with its melee weapons.
the list can take harvesters, but not the mortek guard half the harvester special rules are written to support, with nothing to make up for the lost utility
the only available unit with more than move 6" is morghast harbingers. They don't get cavalry or teratics so good luck scoring objectives or battle tactics. they don't even get morghast archai. yes, they only get one type of morghasts, and its the one with a special rule they can't use because its based on relentless discipline, which petrifex don't get.
These rules have exactly three things going for them. A good unlimited spell (-1 to be wounded for target unit), a double fight on the charge command ability (though with low speed and no ability to retreat and charge good luck using it), and a 1/game bring back half a dead unit ability that one fails if you roll over the unit's starting strength, so even the best odds on a reinforced immortis unit still fails in 1/6 games.
Again, none of this matters, because these rules are legends anyway, but even if you find someone who lets you use them they seem bad to the point of being actively unfun. just a miserable time on the table. a meteoric fall from grace for the fossil legion.
....
On a more positive note, again back to the lore, there's at least reasonable justification for the petrifex to be the ones seiging lethis instead of the crematorians or praetoreans - despite the write up implying that the main point of the attack is to destroy Lethis's supposed new anti-undead weapons, what the petrifex are actually here for is to dredge godbeast remains from the lake itself.
El Syf
Vargheist
I kind of miss the days when the people who collected and played an army would write the book or contribute to it. Alessio Cavatore springs to mind as an example for vc; that 6th Ed book was so good on so many levels and I like the fact there was a two page spread of him going through each unit giving his take on them and advice. Obviously blood knights didn’t exist yet but other than that the tone and everything of that book was superb.
It was a much bigger preview than I thought it would be. I was expecting stuff for 40k astra militarum, 30k solar auxilia, old world empire, and aos orrukk warclans, but the imperial guard in particular got more stuff than I was expecting, and I thought we'd have to wait for the next preview to see eldar & gitmob reveals. So that's pretty cool overall... though as expected nothing to see for undead in any game, so nothing I'm going to pick up myself.
I love the gitmob, but it does feel weird to have them in the gloomspite book given how completely different the aesthetics are. Much the same as it feels off to have the ironjaws and krulboys in the same book. It really feels like the designers want to introduce entirely new factions to the game, but somebody told them the game already had as many battletomes as it can handle, so they're just forcing different factions to share space in the same book.
But whatever, the minis are fantastic so I can't really complain.
Path to Glory book for AoS could be interesting. It's forcused on Hel Crown, I'm sure supports any faction but that's not really a narrative focus for any undead that I can remember off the top of my head. Is anybody actually playing the new path to glory, though? I haven't actually played it yet, but as a game mode it looks pretty painfully unbalanced and unlikely to make for fun games, and unlike the 3e version you have to find opponents who actually want to run a campaign to get any use out of it, you can't just use it as a fun way to flavor and organize a growing collection that you can play normal pick up games with while still tracking experience, quest, & territory progress. I suppose they did tie anvil of apotheosis into it, with has been popular in the past, though I'm not sure it will continue to be in 4e when shackled to PtG. there was only one narrative campaign book in 3e, not counting the edition ending dawnbringers stuff, and while it wasn't the most impressive in terms of rules or major lore significance & events, it at least wasn't locked into 3e's path to glory specifically. I'm somehow less excited for Hel Crown than I was for even Thondia as a result.
But again, I haven't actually tried 4e PtG, so maybe it's good and I'm just a hater for no reason.
new regiments of renown could be cool, I guess? Eh, we'll see what the Death ones look like. I don't find the existing regiments of renown very compelling outside of maybe the single mega-gargants. IMO Most of them are just way too many points for a slap-dash selection of units that don't really work together with regiment rules that don't at all make up for the lack of faction rules. But RoR aren't inherently bad, so again, we'll see.
This goblin wizard on a pole on a chariot does have an ossiarch messenger bird stuck to their helmet, so I guess were weren't ~completely~ without representation for the undead in this preview.
El Syf
Vargheist
I watched it on Valraks stream which for AoS was a mistake as he hates AoS! One thing that struck me is how petty people are; berating the reveals as they don’t play AoS/Horus heresy/old world/40k etc and then instantly changing their tune when a reveal they were interested in came up. None of it was of any real interest to me but I could appreciate them all for people who play those factions. Also I saw somewhere that the gitmob models or at least some of them were designed for end times?! Can’t remember where I saw that though sorry.
El Syf
Vargheist
Another interesting thing to note is that by all accounts faction terrain and endless spells are back.
Faction terrain is neither here nor there for me, but endless spell’s narratively should not be a thing after the Necroquake was resolved.
I can see how the already existing “wild” endless spells could still be around but how are new ones coming into being not withstanding the real world reason?!
Faction terrain is neither here nor there for me, but endless spell’s narratively should not be a thing after the Necroquake was resolved.
I can see how the already existing “wild” endless spells could still be around but how are new ones coming into being not withstanding the real world reason?!
I don't know this Valrak person, but they sound like a pain in the ass. Have parents stopped teaching their kids that if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything?
(I guess my parents didn't teach me well enough, because I just called Valrak a pain in the ass 
)
Animostity between GW games, especially AoS enjoyers vs. non-AoS enjoyers, has been a thing pretty much since AoS's release. Most of that was GW's fault for the way they handled WHFB's retirement and AoS's loss, edit: launch, AoS's launch, but that was quite a while ago, and we have old world now, so I do kind of wish the more antagonistic people would let it go.
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El Syf
Vargheist
He has said in the past he doesn’t hate it just has no interest in it but then sometimes can’t help himself and goes nuclear especially when AoS get the best looking models lol. I get it he’s having fun and trying to grow his channel but some of the people in the comments etc just come off really bad.I don't know this Valrak person, but they sound like a pain in the ass. Have parents stopped teaching their kids that if you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything?
Pictures of what might be a new Vampire Lord on Nightmare have leaked, if I understand correctly spotted in a tiny corner of an image in an upcoming white dwarf
This only might be a new model. It could just be a particularly elaborate conversion.
This only might be a new model. It could just be a particularly elaborate conversion.
I'm not a huge fan of the hyper-extension on the horse's right front leg. Looks a bit awkward to me, especially with the sharp bend at the hoof. Also, the rider's right leg seems weird? That might just be a bad picture issue though, this is blown up from a tiny corner of a small magazine image. Or these might be signs that this is an extensive conversion after all, maybe something someone at the studio did for anvil of apotheosis what with the path to glory campaign book coming.
I don't see any recognizable bits from other kits, though, so I do still think it's more likely that this is an accidental preview of an upcoming model release. If it is I'm sure I'll like it well enough, but I might have to re-pose the horse's leg a bit - cut it at the joint, cut away an angle at the bottom of both sides, wire pin into a new pose, greenstuff the gap. Wouldn't even be that hard a conversion, no real sculpting, only smoothing over gap fill. As for the rider's leg... I'm hoping that is just weird picture and not weird sculpt, as if it's the latter it would take resculpting to fix.
Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll be like the OBR kavalos hero - a dual kit generic & unique character with two different poses on the steed that can be assembled either which way independently of each other. I have been hoping they go the dual kit generic/unique route for an eventual cavalry vamp lord since that would be the perfect opportunity to introduce a minor hero for the Kastelai.
I don't see any recognizable bits from other kits, though, so I do still think it's more likely that this is an accidental preview of an upcoming model release. If it is I'm sure I'll like it well enough, but I might have to re-pose the horse's leg a bit - cut it at the joint, cut away an angle at the bottom of both sides, wire pin into a new pose, greenstuff the gap. Wouldn't even be that hard a conversion, no real sculpting, only smoothing over gap fill. As for the rider's leg... I'm hoping that is just weird picture and not weird sculpt, as if it's the latter it would take resculpting to fix.
Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll be like the OBR kavalos hero - a dual kit generic & unique character with two different poses on the steed that can be assembled either which way independently of each other. I have been hoping they go the dual kit generic/unique route for an eventual cavalry vamp lord since that would be the perfect opportunity to introduce a minor hero for the Kastelai.
Seems a good a time as any to update my soulblight wishlist:
- bespoke model for vhordrai (probably dual kit with new generic vlozd, but I'm content enough with the current that a separate sprue job of the existing dragon like they did with king brodd would satisfy me)
- dual kit generic/unique vampire lord on nightmare
- necromancer on steed (I know this one's more of a stretch, but still)
- new grave guard (must! essential!)
- endless spells & faction terrain - give us bespoke gravesite models to spookify the game table!
- LORE: more than anything else I want a proper dive into the mannfred/neferata war - actual stakes, territory gained and lost, other dynasties & death factions taking sides, collateral damage to humans in shyish, territory lost to chaos/skaven while the undead fight each other, details on individual battles and army movements. I don't think Nagash will be sitting out another edition after this one, the temptation to bring him back will be too great, so 4e is really the last time to properly capitalize on the imo super cool vampire civil war concept.
- Rules: honestly, I'm pretty content with the soulblight index overall. I'd like basic skeletons to be better I guess - maybe increase their unit size to 20? And I'd like vampires to go back to being commanders of the dead rather than the character assassin thing they currently have going. Maybe bring back bloodline powers as a new kind of enhancement to differentiate vampire heroes and give you more a reason to run multiple of them, since there's so, so many great AoS vampire lord models and barely reason to run one of them in an army?
El Syf
Vargheist
There’s definitely some weird proportions but as you say could just be how zoomed in it is. Hopefully if it is real it has a different head option too, not the biggest fan of the cranky cone hair do it and some of the blood knights and the old Konrad model had.
I think there's a fair chance that we could see multiple head options even if it's not a dual generic/unique kit. We've seen multiple heads on a number of other hero models recently, and spare head option doesn't take much sprue space. If not, then head swaps usually aren't too hard, and helmeted heads from the blood knight kit should fit well.
Old World Almanack – And for our next trick…
Please give a round of applause to our helpers.
New resin necromancy wizard being released sometime in the new year for Empire in the Old World. Would make for a good Necromancer in soulblight. Sculpt is a bit flat, but I really like it.
New rules update out now.
Highlights for the Death faction:
Nighaunt: Got hit hard with points increases, but got a very nice buff/quality of life improvement in the form of Discorporate now being in effect for the rest of the turn instead of the phase. Also really nice that Spirit Torments and Tomb Banshees now can go into other hero's regiments!
Ossiarch Bonereapers: A few points increases, but nothing too crazy as I see it (but I'm not an OBR player so I might be wrong).
Soulblight Gravelords: Plenty of points decreases more or less across the board. Hopefully this will make them more competetive.
Flesh-eater Courts: Hooooraaay! Tremendous points decreases for everybody's favourite cannibals! I think they might have gone a little over board with the decreases, as even Ushoran (who is a quite strong unit) got a major deduction. But hey, I am not complaining as FEC is my current army project.
Highlights for the Death faction:
Nighaunt: Got hit hard with points increases, but got a very nice buff/quality of life improvement in the form of Discorporate now being in effect for the rest of the turn instead of the phase. Also really nice that Spirit Torments and Tomb Banshees now can go into other hero's regiments!
Ossiarch Bonereapers: A few points increases, but nothing too crazy as I see it (but I'm not an OBR player so I might be wrong).
Soulblight Gravelords: Plenty of points decreases more or less across the board. Hopefully this will make them more competetive.
Flesh-eater Courts: Hooooraaay! Tremendous points decreases for everybody's favourite cannibals! I think they might have gone a little over board with the decreases, as even Ushoran (who is a quite strong unit) got a major deduction. But hey, I am not complaining as FEC is my current army project.
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Nighthaunt - The discorporate change is actually a nerf, in that it has to be used in the hero phase, not in reaction to being attacked. So if you discorporate one unit the opponent can just concentrate their damage on other units. It's still good, but much less effective than reactive use, especially since armies tend to focus their damage in particular phases - mostly shooting or mostly combat - rather than spreading damage out over multiple phases.
I'm not complaining, mind. Nighthaunt have been heavily overperforming for all of 4e, they needed some major nerfs, but imo the problem is how their design concept - ethereal saves, everything fast and flying, no ability to even lock them in combat since they can charge out at other targets - interact with the fundamental core rules of 4e. There's also the heavy redundancy in their units. Revenants gone up a ton of points? Hardly matters. Just run harridans or reapers instead, they're all basically the same unit.
I just don't think there's a points cost where this army with these core rules works. They'll either be overpowered or unfieldable. But maybe I'm wrong! I'm often wrong about balance issues. And the discorporate change shows that GW is willing to make changes to their faction rules, not just their points cost. Take away their ability to charge out of combat with one thing into something else - ie, if they're in combat with something before the charge they still have to be in combat the same unit after - and I think they might be close to ok. Beyond that they still really need to diversify the function of the units - maybe make reapers slower, maybe lower harridans save, etc. But that kind of thing will likely need to wait for a battletome update at least.
anyway as is the changes we see here are fair, and might lower their win rate some, but I still think they'll at least be among the strongest armies in the game, if not still outright the strongest. Well see, though. Again, I'm often wrong about these things.
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OBR - it seems that the Devs were specifically targeting 30 Kavalos + either Katakros or, especially, Nagash builds. The 30 kav + nagash build in particular is no longer fieldable due to being 2100 points for just that. However, Nagash + 2x10 kavalos + 2x teratics is 2k points on the nose and pretty close to what the 30 kav build did, so not even that build is really dead.
There was a nice quality of life change for the harvester - it now gains tithe points from any model in an enemy unit that dies if the unit is in combat range of the harvester, not just if that specific model is in combat range, plus it saw a price discount. Unfortunately, I still don't think it hits hard enough to justify even the reduced price just in itself, and even with the qol fix it doesn't offer enough support to morteks to make them viable to build around. Maybe if OBR could use the new field marshal honor guard, but they don't have any infantry subcommanders to put it on. As is I just don't think morteks work well enough to justify building around to begin with, even with kavalos going up in points, especially with the anti-synergies of not benefiting from the anti-charge relentless discipline and their shield wall shutting off katakros's buff. We'll see, though.
OBR have been hanging out around the upper end of 'acceptable' win rates, mostly off of Kavalos but more recently we have seen some crawler builds gaining traction. The +20 points per 5 kav might bring their win rate down a bit, or might just accellerate the shift to artillery. I don't think it will put mortek guard builds on the table, but we'll see, I'm sure some people will try them.
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Soulblight Gravelords - These are some fantastic changes. Dramatic points decreases to many units - including whopping changes like Lauka Vai down 50, Ivya down 40, several heroes down 30 - including kritza who at 70 is an incredibly cheap utility choice for scoring battle tactics who is effectively immune to melee combat. Wight kings went down in points and can now be taken as subcommanders to a bunch of other heroes, which when combined with the new field marshal honour guard is a big boon for grave guard. The unridden monsters dropped 20 points each, and the vengorian dropped 50 just like lauka did, plus there's a new honour guard ability for monsters, so there might even be something there? Probably not, honestly, like most unridden monsters in the game their warscrolls are just really bad, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some players trying it.
Overall these are really fantastic changes. The only thing I ~really~ wanted to see that didn't happen was increasing the base unit size of skeletons to 20. But while that didn't happen overall there's so many fantastic buffs here that I really can't complain. If anything these changes might be going a bit overboard, because the spite gourds really weren't doing ~that bad~ in the numbers to begin with. Which is a bit of a concern, because the Soulblight battletome isn't far out now, and if they go into it with above-acceptable tournament performance we might see some excessive last minute nerfs applied in classic pendulum fashion.
But that's a worry for later, for now things are looking very nice indeed for the vampires.
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Flesh Eater Courts - As much as the gravelords got out of this update, the biggest winners in death, arguably the biggest winners in the whole game, are FEC. Not only did they see significant points decreases accross most of their range, they also got their oratory ability back, allowing you to farm crucial noble deed points without having to commit fragile heroes to melee. The Grand Justice saw some particularly nice changes, as he's now fieldable as a subcommander AND he generates noble deed points for himself whenever he uses his ability - I expect to see him a LOT more now, which is great as he's a neat character with a fun model.
FEC's win rate wasn't all that low, but that was deceptive, because their /usage/ was really low, so the results that were seen were mostly from a handful of experienced and committed faction veterans, and even then using some pretty repetitive lists. With these changes I think we'll start to see a lot more FEC at events, more variety from those lists, and more importantly I think more casual FEC players will start seeing more success and having more fun at local tables.
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It's worth pointing out that even though all of these armies can field Nagash, he no longer costs the same points in each faction. OBR's nagash went up to 900 points, since they were the faction fielding him the most and winning the most with him when they did, likely due to having the best units to take advantage of his revival ability. By contrast FEC, who almost never fielded nagash, saw his points cost drop down to 840 for basically the same warscroll. I don't think this change will see him showing up in FEC much - he actually does work pretty well with them when considered in isolation (his 8 casts will have him projecting feeding frenzy from turn one, with 10" flying move and a huge base to put that bonus wherever you need it), but FECs mostly cheaper (especially after this update) and more fragile units don't make the most of his big revive ability, and more importantly if you're going to spend a ton of points on a giant centerpiece hero in a FEC list Ushoran's just going to synergize with the army better while only costing half as much and fitting them better aesthetically.
Anyway, we saw a lot of significant changes, far more so than I was expecting, and mostly in the right directions, so I'm pretty happy overall. However, my big hope was that we'd see significant changes to manifestations. Maybe limit them to being summoned only once per game, or maybe change them to not count as enemy models for the purpose of restricting movement and deployment, or maybe reduce a caster's or chanter's power level for each manifestation they have on the board. Something. Because right now they're more than a bit obnoxious. None of that happened, so yeah they'll still be rather obnoxious.
But yeah, mostly very happy with these updates. Probably not enough that I'll start liking 4e as much as I liked 2e - and tying battle tactics and underdog to the double turn is just balling all the things I like least about playing age of sigmar into one ugly tangled mess. But again, overall I'm quite happy.
I'm not complaining, mind. Nighthaunt have been heavily overperforming for all of 4e, they needed some major nerfs, but imo the problem is how their design concept - ethereal saves, everything fast and flying, no ability to even lock them in combat since they can charge out at other targets - interact with the fundamental core rules of 4e. There's also the heavy redundancy in their units. Revenants gone up a ton of points? Hardly matters. Just run harridans or reapers instead, they're all basically the same unit.
I just don't think there's a points cost where this army with these core rules works. They'll either be overpowered or unfieldable. But maybe I'm wrong! I'm often wrong about balance issues. And the discorporate change shows that GW is willing to make changes to their faction rules, not just their points cost. Take away their ability to charge out of combat with one thing into something else - ie, if they're in combat with something before the charge they still have to be in combat the same unit after - and I think they might be close to ok. Beyond that they still really need to diversify the function of the units - maybe make reapers slower, maybe lower harridans save, etc. But that kind of thing will likely need to wait for a battletome update at least.
anyway as is the changes we see here are fair, and might lower their win rate some, but I still think they'll at least be among the strongest armies in the game, if not still outright the strongest. Well see, though. Again, I'm often wrong about these things.
........................................
OBR - it seems that the Devs were specifically targeting 30 Kavalos + either Katakros or, especially, Nagash builds. The 30 kav + nagash build in particular is no longer fieldable due to being 2100 points for just that. However, Nagash + 2x10 kavalos + 2x teratics is 2k points on the nose and pretty close to what the 30 kav build did, so not even that build is really dead.
There was a nice quality of life change for the harvester - it now gains tithe points from any model in an enemy unit that dies if the unit is in combat range of the harvester, not just if that specific model is in combat range, plus it saw a price discount. Unfortunately, I still don't think it hits hard enough to justify even the reduced price just in itself, and even with the qol fix it doesn't offer enough support to morteks to make them viable to build around. Maybe if OBR could use the new field marshal honor guard, but they don't have any infantry subcommanders to put it on. As is I just don't think morteks work well enough to justify building around to begin with, even with kavalos going up in points, especially with the anti-synergies of not benefiting from the anti-charge relentless discipline and their shield wall shutting off katakros's buff. We'll see, though.
OBR have been hanging out around the upper end of 'acceptable' win rates, mostly off of Kavalos but more recently we have seen some crawler builds gaining traction. The +20 points per 5 kav might bring their win rate down a bit, or might just accellerate the shift to artillery. I don't think it will put mortek guard builds on the table, but we'll see, I'm sure some people will try them.
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Soulblight Gravelords - These are some fantastic changes. Dramatic points decreases to many units - including whopping changes like Lauka Vai down 50, Ivya down 40, several heroes down 30 - including kritza who at 70 is an incredibly cheap utility choice for scoring battle tactics who is effectively immune to melee combat. Wight kings went down in points and can now be taken as subcommanders to a bunch of other heroes, which when combined with the new field marshal honour guard is a big boon for grave guard. The unridden monsters dropped 20 points each, and the vengorian dropped 50 just like lauka did, plus there's a new honour guard ability for monsters, so there might even be something there? Probably not, honestly, like most unridden monsters in the game their warscrolls are just really bad, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some players trying it.
Overall these are really fantastic changes. The only thing I ~really~ wanted to see that didn't happen was increasing the base unit size of skeletons to 20. But while that didn't happen overall there's so many fantastic buffs here that I really can't complain. If anything these changes might be going a bit overboard, because the spite gourds really weren't doing ~that bad~ in the numbers to begin with. Which is a bit of a concern, because the Soulblight battletome isn't far out now, and if they go into it with above-acceptable tournament performance we might see some excessive last minute nerfs applied in classic pendulum fashion.
But that's a worry for later, for now things are looking very nice indeed for the vampires.
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Flesh Eater Courts - As much as the gravelords got out of this update, the biggest winners in death, arguably the biggest winners in the whole game, are FEC. Not only did they see significant points decreases accross most of their range, they also got their oratory ability back, allowing you to farm crucial noble deed points without having to commit fragile heroes to melee. The Grand Justice saw some particularly nice changes, as he's now fieldable as a subcommander AND he generates noble deed points for himself whenever he uses his ability - I expect to see him a LOT more now, which is great as he's a neat character with a fun model.
FEC's win rate wasn't all that low, but that was deceptive, because their /usage/ was really low, so the results that were seen were mostly from a handful of experienced and committed faction veterans, and even then using some pretty repetitive lists. With these changes I think we'll start to see a lot more FEC at events, more variety from those lists, and more importantly I think more casual FEC players will start seeing more success and having more fun at local tables.
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It's worth pointing out that even though all of these armies can field Nagash, he no longer costs the same points in each faction. OBR's nagash went up to 900 points, since they were the faction fielding him the most and winning the most with him when they did, likely due to having the best units to take advantage of his revival ability. By contrast FEC, who almost never fielded nagash, saw his points cost drop down to 840 for basically the same warscroll. I don't think this change will see him showing up in FEC much - he actually does work pretty well with them when considered in isolation (his 8 casts will have him projecting feeding frenzy from turn one, with 10" flying move and a huge base to put that bonus wherever you need it), but FECs mostly cheaper (especially after this update) and more fragile units don't make the most of his big revive ability, and more importantly if you're going to spend a ton of points on a giant centerpiece hero in a FEC list Ushoran's just going to synergize with the army better while only costing half as much and fitting them better aesthetically.
Anyway, we saw a lot of significant changes, far more so than I was expecting, and mostly in the right directions, so I'm pretty happy overall. However, my big hope was that we'd see significant changes to manifestations. Maybe limit them to being summoned only once per game, or maybe change them to not count as enemy models for the purpose of restricting movement and deployment, or maybe reduce a caster's or chanter's power level for each manifestation they have on the board. Something. Because right now they're more than a bit obnoxious. None of that happened, so yeah they'll still be rather obnoxious.
But yeah, mostly very happy with these updates. Probably not enough that I'll start liking 4e as much as I liked 2e - and tying battle tactics and underdog to the double turn is just balling all the things I like least about playing age of sigmar into one ugly tangled mess. But again, overall I'm quite happy.
Yep, exactly what i was thinking. A nerf, plus points increases.
We'll see it it will be right or not.