Generals handbook 2017

[Infernal Skull]

Just a note for future reference. Please avoid posting videos in responses to comments in discussion topics, as it's unclear who or what you are responding to, and your own words generate much more discussion than a video would do. Thank you - Irisado.

 

[Infernal Skull]

this along with the generic death abilities nerf made the faction almost useless. soulblight and FEC got some nice stuff but the rest is utter shit -.-' there goes all motivation out of the window. i don't know if i should start another army or abandon the hobby altogether...

Just jump into Kings of War or 9th Age, dude. Good thing you didn't re-base on rounds. Right? ...RIGHT?? o_o

This handbook is pretty disheartening. FEC is the only sub faction in the Death "grand" alliance that seems to form a viable army: regular infantry, monstrous infantry, big monsters, lots of characters, and it can get zombies & wolves as allies.

The FEC alliance ability has an army-wide bonus (the delusions) and good traits and artifacts, whereas mixed Death and Nighthaunt don't get shit in their alliances.

Soulblight has GREAT allegiance abilities, but their model range is so shallow you can't really form an army out of them. Is anyone going to get more than 10 Blood knight models (or EVEN 10 of them at their price and in Finecast)? How many boxes of Vargheists/ Crypt Horrors/ Crypt Flayers does GW seriously expect us to buy?

Deathrattle Battletome better get here soon, and it better have some GREAT fucking models in it or I'm seriously considering being done with AoS. I get that it's essentially just a testing ground for 40K, and now that they've made a great 40K game, we're left with the shitty version of the rules and zero attention to armies that aren't shiny new AoS armies.

They may as well have errata-ed ed the rules with:
"Under the heading for ARMIES, add the sentence: 'Anyone who played Warhammer prior to the release of Age of Sigmar can go fuck themselves.'"

 

[Alabaster427]

Just jump into Kings of War or 9th Age, dude. Good thing you didn't re-base on rounds. Right? ...RIGHT?? o_o

Deathrattle Battletome better get here soon, and it better have some GREAT fucking models in it or I'm seriously considering being done with AoS. I get that it's essentially just a testing ground for 40K, and now that they've made a great 40K game, we're left with the shitty version of the rules and zero attention to armies that aren't shiny new AoS armies.

They may as well have errata-ed ed the rules with:
"Under the heading for ARMIES, add the sentence: 'Anyone who played Warhammer prior to the release of Age of Sigmar can go fuck themselves.'"

No-go on the Deathrattle tome. I asked in the Warhammer live chat this week (Nighthaunt vs. free-people). One of the design studio guys was the announcer and he was talking about the new Death allegiances and Deathrattle came up. I specifically asked about a Deathrattle tome since they didn't get any allegiance abilities. He said there are no plans for a Deathrattle tome.

I'm holding out hope that TK (and maybe all remaining deathrattle) will end up as Kataphrons or something similar. The main problem seems to be that there's no fluff to support the existence of these units. I personally don't give two shits about the fluff, but I know I'm in the minority. Kataphrons are in the fluff and would provide a way for Death to get an update with new models. I know it's a long shot, but stranger things have happened. I'm definitely not going to hold my breath for one either, though.

 

[Alabaster427]

With Death getting the shaft the way we did, there has been an unexpected and unprecedented consequence. People that have never played Death (i.e. Order/Chaos players mostly) are crying out on our behalf. Several people in my community have made public complaints about Death getting nerfed, especially after GW kept saying we were getting some TLC. I think it has less to do with us being wronged and more to do with them wanting to play against someone other than Order and Chaos in tournaments, but I'll take their support regardless.

 

[Eyeless]

Just jump into Kings of War or 9th Age, dude. Good thing you didn't re-base on rounds. Right? ...RIGHT?? o_o

This handbook is pretty disheartening. FEC is the only sub faction in the Death "grand" alliance that seems to form a viable army: regular infantry, monstrous infantry, big monsters, lots of characters, and it can get zombies & wolves as allies.

The FEC alliance ability has an army-wide bonus (the delusions) and good traits and artifacts, whereas mixed Death and Nighthaunt don't get shit in their alliances.

Soulblight has GREAT allegiance abilities, but their model range is so shallow you can't really form an army out of them. Is anyone going to get more than 10 Blood knight models (or EVEN 10 of them at their price and in Finecast)? How many boxes of Vargheists/ Crypt Horrors/ Crypt Flayers does GW seriously expect us to buy?

Deathrattle Battletome better get here soon, and it better have some GREAT fucking models in it or I'm seriously considering being done with AoS. I get that it's essentially just a testing ground for 40K, and now that they've made a great 40K game, we're left with the shitty version of the rules and zero attention to armies that aren't shiny new AoS armies.

They may as well have errata-ed ed the rules with:
"Under the heading for ARMIES, add the sentence: 'Anyone who played Warhammer prior to the release of Age of Sigmar can go fuck themselves.'"

wrong actually as i started playing when AOS started and i hate square bases :C oh well i'll just refrain from buying anything until Death gets something nice, got other hobbies to keep me going.

 

[Sception]

If someone told you there were no deathrattle tome plans, they were lying to you in order to keep with an NDA. It's coming. Late this year, early next year, some time after Shadespire or Shardspire or whatever it's called is out, but it's coming. I'd bet my bottom dollar on it. There's literally no other reason that deathrattle wouldn't get subfaction rules when /nighthaunts/ of all things did.

A Deathlords battletome will probably be around not too long after that as well. I'd bet my 3rd-to-bottom dollar on it.

I wouldn't expect any new models for either of them though, apart from the 'sepulchral guard' from Shardspire for deathrattle, and while those might get interesting rules, model-wise they're just skeleton warriors like we already have, but with a bit more dramatic posing.

 

[Infernal Skull]

I wouldn't be surprised (and kind of suspect) that it wouldn't be called "Deathrattle" and would be something else like "Underlords of the Crypt-City" and contain all the skeletal stuff and a few new model types.

But we'll see... Because the longer this goes on, the more I suspect that there won't be anything new beyond those Shadespire skeletons.

 

[Eyeless]

as far as FEC are concerned they're amazing =] just had a majoy victory with them against ironjawz with 15VP to 0VP in Duality of Death battleplan, and he's a player which i used to lose to or have a hard time to beat previously

 

[Alabaster427]

First impressions of GHB 2017 are pretty good for Death. FEC, Nighthaunt, and Soulblight all look a lot better. Deathlords and necromancers got cheaper.

Death: Red Fury got balanced. I always ran it on my ghoul king on terrorgheist, so it's not as good now, but it's much more useable on other generals. I like the new cloak of mist and shadows, but I usually ran that on my wight king, so that's gonna have to change. Ring of Immortality got fixed, so there's that.

Desert Legions:I'm still really salty about the fate of tomb kings, but there's a silver lining. Now that all of the named characters are generic characters, they can take the Death command traits and artefacts while having relatively unchanged warscrolls. Red Fury would be awesome on "Settra" and the Tomb blade no longer requires slain enemies to heal, just wound rolls of 6 and most characters have a lot of attacks, especially on the charge. Settra with supernatural horror could also be really good against the new horde meta.

Nighthaunt: I can finally start running my Black Coaches again, which have been shelved since GHB1. I also have a reason to start buying more spirit hosts and hexwraiths, which have a pretty nice new start collecting box. Deepstriking Mournguls is also awesome. It's too bad their allies aren't great. I think the only command trait is the reroll deepstrike. All of the rest of the traits are mediocre at best. The artefacts are mediocre also, especially since there are no nighthaunt warscroll battalions. I can't think of any reason Nighthatunt would take allies.

Soulblight: Battleline Vargheists AND Blood knights seems awesome, but on paper is different from on table. I like the Swift Death bloodline, but giving everything fly is lame as only the blood knights and maybe a vampire lord benefit from gaining fly.

FEC: I really like Feeding Frenzy. With a necromancer ally, 3 pile ins for ghouls. The demonic powers, er, I mean delusions are awesome. Royal Hunt and Feast Day seem especially good.The command traits are also good. I like Majestic Horror and Savage Beyond Reason, but I think Completely Delusional is the most powerful and fun. Their artefacts are ok, but can be really powerful in certain situations, mainly when paired with mortis engines or a summoned mourngul.

 

[Unas the slayer]

That's good to hear.
I'm sure we can find a way to play some underpowered TK and obtain some result.

For Nighthaunts and Soulblight, I was already playing those 2 allegiances at 1000 pts, so any improvement it's a bonus.

 

[Oppenheimer]

The compendium redo is quite a mess. I created a fan version of Bretonnia scrolls ( https://www.dropbox.com/s/jgnwpxbhc7stpnb/AoS_BRET_Compendium_2017 V2.pdf?dl=0) in the way that GW should have as their scrolls actually got nerfed but for everyone else I'm going to just use the old scrolls and new points.

I also hate the new allies abilities because you can't ally with Deathlords and have them be a general. I really wanted Neffy leading a Soulblight army. GW can't do anything right.

 

[Alabaster427]

That's good to hear.
I'm sure we can find a way to play some underpowered TK and obtain some result.

For Nighthaunts and Soulblight, I was already playing those 2 allegiances at 1000 pts, so any improvement it's a bonus.

Yeah. I played a 1000 point game of Nighthaunt for the first time a few months ago against Ironjawz and completely destroyed them. I haven't played soulblight yet.

 

[Unas the slayer]

Yeah. I played a 1000 point game of Nighthaunt for the first time a few months ago against Ironjawz and completely destroyed them. I haven't played soulblight yet.

I've posted a couple of BatReps with Soulblight Allegiance. Blood knight on the battlefield, are even more impressive than on paper!
Soulblight battle reports

 

[Infernal Skull]

I don't know why the Death allies need to be so restrictive, since there's a limited amount of points and allies don't get ANY of the alliance benefits. I really would have liked to take a "feral" army of FEC ghouls and add in wolves (which I still can) and fell bats and bat swarms. Sure, I guess I can still do that under a mixed Death alliance, but those rules are nowhere near as impressive or interesting.

 

[Infernal Skull]

I think ALL of the Soulblight traits and artifacts looked great. I don't remember there being any that immediately stood out as non-takers. The only issue I see with that alliance is the lack of troops. It's all big models, and they're not that difficult to kill, either when compared to Nighthaunt's Ethereals that always have a 4+ save.

 

[Alabaster427]

I've been doing some theory crafting.

I think ALL of the Soulblight traits and artifacts looked great. I don't remember there being any that immediately stood out as non-takers. The only issue I see with that alliance is the lack of troops. It's all big models, and they're not that difficult to kill, either when compared to Nighthaunt's Ethereals that always have a 4+ save.

I've always thought the Blood Knights' save is garbage in AOS. In old world it was a 2+, Now it's a 3+ and your enemies get extra rend against them. I'm excited to finally have a reason to paint my kit-bash Abyssal Terror.

 

[Unas the slayer]

I've always thought the Blood Knights' save is garbage in AOS.

Absolutely yes. BK really need to charge and wipe away (or severely cripple) the target.
That part is not difficult, the problem is counterstrike by nearby enemy units.

 

[Infernal Skull]

I'm excited to finally have a reason to paint my kit-bash Abyssal Terror.

Abyssal Terror doesn't have the "Soulblight" Keyword, so it can only ever be in a mixed Death Grand Alliance. It can't be included as an ally for any of the other sub-allegiances, and isn't part of the Soulblight allegiance.

 

[Sception]

Jeeze, GW limited what can ally with what by subfaction keyword, instead of just letting you ally with anything in your alliance? Bleh. Yuck. They really can't do anything right by us.

Also, why the heck does 'necromancer on a nightmare' have its own scroll, with its own higher points cost, when the regular necromancer scroll already lets it ride the exact same steed with the exact same rules and no price hike?

 

[Irisado]

Can all this confusion be avoided by using the original warscrolls that I downloaded for freefrom GW;s website before the General's Handbooks were released? This would make life easier for me.

Beyond that, I find it all increasingly confusing and hard to follow. I'm glad that I've kept all my figures on square bases.

 

[Oppenheimer]

I am also just using the old compendium scrolls for a lot of things too. Our GW store even house ruled that being fine.

 

[Sception]

The thing is, some of the changes are good and fair. Tomb Kings stuff probably shouldn't have the deathrattle keyword, for instance. Some of the point changes are perfectly fair, etc.

 

[Alabaster427]

Abyssal Terror doesn't have the "Soulblight" Keyword, so it can only ever be in a mixed Death Grand Alliance. It can't be included as an ally for any of the other sub-allegiances, and isn't part of the Soulblight allegiance.

Yeah. I figured that out. AOS app and Azyr hadn't updated yet. I emailed the app builders about it and they said thanks, but no fix yet.

 

[Alabaster427]

Jeeze, GW limited what can ally with what by subfaction keyword, instead of just letting you ally with anything in your alliance? Bleh. Yuck. They really can't do anything right by us.

Also, why the heck does 'necromancer on a nightmare' have its own scroll, with its own higher points cost, when the regular necromancer scroll already lets it ride the exact same steed with the exact same rules and no price hike?

Everything good gets chopped, but the redundancy-master gets to stay....

 

[Oppenheimer]

The thing is, some of the changes are good and fair. Tomb Kings stuff probably shouldn't have the deathrattle keyword, for instance. Some of the point changes are perfectly fair, etc.

Have to disagree with you on this one. Their skeleton warriors are exactly the same as the VC ones but with different shields. They should all have the same keywords. I liked that everything that was a skeleton had the deathrattle keyword.
The game needs more synergies in order to create new interesting combinations of units, but less.