I hear your arguments for combined arms, but at the same time I am the person who _only_ wants to play with units I like, and I would drop AoS if I had to have certain units in my list. I picked up AoS only during Broken Realms (or so. Whenever they started allowing new battlelines). I loved snake Morathi (Shakerathi, if you will) from the second she appeared but never touched the army before I could play all snakes. I would not want old minimum of 30 witchelves even if best painters in the world painted them up and gifted them to me. I love DoK for monsters, and monsters ONLY. Same with gitz. I want zero golblins or trolls. I did not even consider the army before you could play only squigs. Same with Skaven. I do not want 30+ basic rats, but I am thinking of all stormfiends and doomwheels very often now. Even with Slaanesh - where I love the look of every single model in the line - I would not want more than ten daemonettes ever. Thee chariots though? This is tempting! I even started looking at IDK now that I can have exactly zero namarthi in it. I am just this type person. You cannot pay me to play the unit I do not care about. And I feel like players like me should have the niche in the game. Maybe tournament packs can have some anti-spam rules instead? Like, no more than 30 of same model for basic guys, no more than fifteen of the same for elites etc?
No that's totally fair, I never want to close anything off, more just that the combined arms and mixed units is sort of the paradigm the book is designed toward on average. I want to always allow the armies to also be built in weird ways for fun for sure.
Saw the SCE section - Agree with nearly everything you said (odd given how frequently my opinion is a contrarian one) On combining scrolls: - Redeemers = Liberators, Vindictors, Sequitors, Vanquishers - Protectors = current Protectors + Shield Annihilators - Retributors = Current Retributors + Grandhammers - Decimators = RIP - Dracothian Guard = Tempestors and Fulminators only (remainder folded into Fulminators or RIP) - Judicators = bow Judicators + Vigilors - Castigators = RIP - Raptors = just Longstrikes - Xbow Raptors and Xbow Judicators combined into same scroll or RIP ---- That would be a start followed by the Knight Heroes Knight heroes: - I think the Questor-Soulsworn scroll is an idea for most SCE Knight heroes - the Soulsworn Relictor is basically a Knight Relictor. He has the same profile as the other Questor Soulsworn, but if you include him they get a special ability - Can have that for Knight-Questor joining Redeemers as a pseudo super sergeant, for Knight-Incantor joining Evocators (granting them the dispel scroll and maybe even the ability to cast a spell other than empower as long as the Incantor is alive), etc - May not work for all Knight heroes, but could clear out a bunch (save for named ones like Neave Blacktalon) The pseudo invulnerable / super armor save: - Great in concept - In practice, would go back to Tyler and would like GW to do better overall design with mortal wound throughput (esp AoE) and rend bonus / armor debuff sources --- the pendulum swung a little too far back the other way after early 3.0's reaction to SCE save stacking What I remember of SCE early on: - 3+ save and -2 rend on Paladins! Yay! - Holy crap they streamlined way too much and got rid of good things (Lantern of the Tempest, some of the Staves, ...) - These enhancements suck - Dragon nerfs (needed) - People complaining about save stacking (and me defending it) - Me liking the Amulet of Destiny on my Stardrake until that was nerfed - Obvious early on the only two general options were Lord-Relictor High Priest or some wizard Master of Magic - Why are all my casters, except the new Dragon, all only single casters now? - Stormkeep is cool but Scions addresses Stormcast big weakness of bad movement better than Stormkeep addresses Stormcast big weakness of low model count for objective control - Everyone thinking Thunderstrike is Primaris Stormcast when they are all the same scale -- it's just new edition new armor, just like in 2.0 - And last But Not Least SCE mortal wounds on defeat is so stupid, I wish it was gone and that the entire army just got a points cut
What I remember about DoK: - Oh, wow, didn't they just get a new book? - Hmm... Very streamlined and all focused on their blood ritual, ok - Damn good enhancements too - 4+ rally?! - Oh, horde witch elves a possibility, not just Morathi and the Bow Snakes (...which never materialized outside of non competitive games... Which still surprises me... I guess no one wanted to build 100+ witch elves) - Oh... This is awkward, they have book battle tactics... That are good... And relatively easy to accomplish.
What I remember about Fyreslayers: - Other than the Magmadroth buffs and enhancements, esp the Command Traits, I remember not being impressed initially and even thought they were overall nerfed a bit ... Boy was that incorrect Much stronger than I initially thought (Other than Auric Hearthguard which were obviously bad and still are) Would still like KO and Dispossessed to get their own version of "Lord of the Duardrazhal" for combined dwarf armies
Nice show! It's really interesting to see you guys reflecting back on all the books of the V3. For tzeentch, the main complaint that I have is the absolute shit show that we have for our artefact options. Our army is led by fragile magicians , yet we have 90% of our Artefacts being swords, axes, or other melee stuff that make you pick a melee weapon to do melee stuff. This is ridiculous to the point where the only valuable "book" we were taking was the stupid Arcane Tome from the core rulebook. Nobody wants to melee with any of the characters in the book. We need artefact that matches our playstyle. Also, regarding chaos, I think all chaos gods need a version of the DP, like its the case in 40k. I always found stupid to have this beautiful model with all its versions being stuck in STD ( I didn't finish the video yet, so dunno if you guys talked about that).
Awesome show… 4hrs but packed with info. Was also really timely! I had jumped back on the soulblight battle wagon…. But is just so broken that it is not giving fun games for my opponent. This review was awesome at helping me chose my next experiment before the next GHB… going to look at Ogors!
Congratulations on your next game, whatever it turns out to be! Personally, as someone who designs games as a hobby but lacks the business wherewithal to get it into a respectable, consumable format, I wonder if you'd consider a "behind-the-scenes" game development episode. How you guys get a game from early sketch to finished product. I think it would be fascinating!
Coming back to the hobby having taken a break since covid (3.0 launch), I decided to watch all the battletome reviews to learn how my (8) armies play and how the meta is overall. This video was like a crowning bonus as I wrap up the last of them. Thank you so much for all these great reviews. As an added bonus I was painting zombies as they were declared "the best or second best unit in the game".
Welcome back! I just started with 3.0 as a former Warhammer Fantasy player. Thankfully I have been able to use a lot of my old fantasy models. I think you will really enjoy 3.0 I really liked WH Fantasy but I Love AOS.
Vince to an almost 4 billion dollar company. "3 orcs is too many" More importantly, if they are going to cheap out and reuse 90% of the art, I am not buying another battletome. If the rules are invalidated two weeks later/next balance patch, I would still be happy to have nice art book.
3:02:44 my biggest gripe is the total over costing of all Foot ogors, how ironguts can be 270points and never getting a point adjustment even though nobody brings them at that cost, makes me confused if they really want us to play any foot ogors or stick to guns and monsters. The book has some fun rules but the internal balance is just crazy, especially compared to many new armies.
I'm an avid "dedicated casual" Sylvaneth player, and "keep the core, streamline the cruft, buff the weakest bits" is spot on. Our teleports have some really neat functionality, but with a lot of small differences that can be a negative experience for the Sylvaneth player to remember, never mind their opponent. Some standardisation of ranges and terminology would be nice! We've got 3-4 really unique, well-designed subfactions, and 2 that are pretty limited and disappointing. Tonnes of our effects rely on getting a bunch of spells going, which limits playstyles and makes us an army that's a bit too dependent on a few sets of casting rolls - it would be neat to see our woods-summoning spell replaced with a Heroic Action, for example, or have a wider source of smaller charge bonuses rather than relying so heavily on Spiteswarm Hive endless spell. It's a solid B grade book - not perfect, but a very good foundation that gets the army's gimmick right and addressed the biggest issue from the previous iteration in a satisfying way.
This was a fantastic show!!! One thing I didn't hear you guys touch on that concerns me is when units get pointed based on subfactions, making them over costed in other subfactions. As an example if the VLOZD gets pointed based on Legion of blood (where it does way more damage) or flies and lord of affliction in drowned men.
Black coach rule idea "Runaway Wagon". The black coach moves 20 inch straight and automatically inflicts a mortal wound to every model it passes over. Just blast the Initial D soundtrack and drive it around all over enemy chaff or something silly like that.
I really enjoyed this discussion. Tyler and your guest added a lot to the conversation too. I'm a pretty casual player and the game has almost been moving too fast for me to keep up. I'm really glad they are moving to longer Generals Handbook seasons. Vince I love how you seem to really have your finger on the pulse of fairly casual players and encourage count as or proxies when they make sense. It's so nice to see tournaments capable players leaving space for the rest of us. I feel like if GW just started watching Warhammer Weekly we would be in an even better place next edition.
as someone who has all the warbands, this is a reprint of the starter set that came out in 2021 or so. it is not the shadespire warbands. this is the starter kit that is non seasonal, it just been sold out for awhile.
Thank you for calling out the Skaven nerf to being unmodified. It had a tax to it and was such an interesting thing to explore that wasn't warping the meta
Seraphon - It's so interesting coming back to this. You are so right calling this book tale of two cities. You can either play the NPE army that wins tournaments, or have a fun match and lose with coalesced. It can feel like Starborn is the real army and Coalesced is the Army of Renown you play in a casual game when you're bored. Even when you do play starborn there isn't any real variety in lists thanks to kroak and friends taking up all the points because that's the only real way to play. Its internal balance is way off to a point its become one of my contenders for most written book.
How i would differentiate the roles for fyreslayer units: -change vulkite musician from +1 run/charge to "This unit can run and charge". (offense) -Hearthguard ignore the once/game restriction for fierce counterattack (defense) -Auric hearthguard gain the retinue ability but for priests, the flamekeeper, and battlesmiths (support) How i would differentiate the roles for magmadroths: -Runesons, no changes. Perfect. (offense) -Runefather, loses lord of the lodge but gains "All models within 12" fight before they are removed from play when they die. If a model already has a rule which lets it fight before being removed, ignore the second iteration and add an extra attack when it fights on death." (whatever the GW specific wording would be) (defense) -Runesmiter, loses runic empowerment, gains a prayer that lets a magmadroth unit within 12" range gain the effects of fierce counterattack if charged until your next hero phase. (support for magmadroths, since they can't normally counterattack) Also, the runemaster should lose his crappy prayer and gain a prayer that allows a unit to count as receiving the enhanced effect of whatever the current ur-gold rune is. Add 3 more mount traits.
My last AoS game is almost a year back. (Still watching the show out of habbit I guess ;) ) Listening to many comments on the tomes I'm kinda happy that I (temporarily) gave up on the game. I could never shake the feeling, that it's so tome-dependant if two players are actually able to have enjoyable games. And that is considering you are paying a premium price for your rules. These days we just tend to play games where the rules come for free but we have more fun than with this overpriced, but often undercooked mess. :(
Vince, you nailed it on the next Stormcast book. Can we PLEASE get some real allegiance abilities?? And can we PLEASE STOP making Stormcast units better in other books for the love of Sigmar?? Stormcast (and all of the other early tomes, really) feel terrible to play right now. The power creep in the new books is off the charts insane, everything does 50 billion mortal wounds, and that vaunted "3+ save" does literally nothing and has been handed out like candy this edition. Basically if you have armor, you have a 3+ save now, which completely negates everything that's supposed to be special about Stormcast. They just feel like "a bunch of dudes" now, and it's not fun to play. There's nothing cool or interesting about the army as it currently sits.
KO Thunderers being a big offender in this category Absolutely should not have a 3+ save Same for Khorne Blood Warriors (I am okay with the Juggernauts having 2+ saves)
Agree with your comments on how LRL should be Vince. Also I would include more internal balance and better choices for list buildings. Right now almost everything is tied up in one battleline unit - wardens. Listbuilding should be fun and varied. This book doesn't help with that.
I put this on to build my blissbarb seekers and 12 minutes in I'm getting told its the hardest kit ever built by someone with 19 armies, LOL. I already built some slickblades, so I knew it was going to be like this haha
Orruk warclans was a bit sour even on release and aged like milk. The kruleboyz rules reeked of fear, like they were terrified of them being broken. They definitely need a rewrite, but despite gutrippaz going down 30 points since launch the stuff that is actually good has barely moved, if at all. Battle regiment and being leader reliant have always been a thorn in their side. IMO they could hit the middle with some point drops, making the grinnin blades ability an army ability, rewritung subfactions, and making boltboyz always battleline. Bonesplitterz have strong but bland abilities and were only good for the 5 minutes where turning off ward saves in a nurgle meta were good, got nerfed pretty harshly, and fell off a cliff. Also savage big boss going up like 20 points out of nowhere last ghb. The army is narratively awesome, if only they could get some fun rules that make playing the army feel like hunting. I feel like ironjawz could have a resurgence with minor changes. A unit with better impact hits and/or the stonehorn trick would go a long way. Also the subfaction balance in the book is absolutely atrocious. Topped only by how awful kruleboyz artefacts are.
Absolutely not 3 books for Warclans. I would hate that. This is how it should work. When picking your army, you gain abilities based on how many heroes have the faction keyword, Ironjawz, Kruleboyz or Bonesplitterz. If you have 1 Ironjawz hero, all your Ironjawz units can use the mighty destroyers command ability. If you have 3 Ironjawz heroes, your Ironjawz units can use the smashing and bashing ability. If all units in your army have the Ironjawz keyword, you can select a Subfaction. (Ironsunz, boodtoofs or Da choppas) If you have 1 Kruleboyz hero, all your Kruelboyz units gain the venom encrusted weapons ability. If you have 3 Kruleboyz heroes, you may employ dirty tricks. Pick 2. If all units in your army have the Kruleboyz keyword, you can select a Subfaction. Of the 3 All Bonesplitterz units have a 6+ ward. If you have 1 Bonesplitterz hero, all your Bonesplitterz units gain the spirit of Gorkamorka ability. If you have 3 Bonesplitterz heroes, your Bonesplitterz units can use the tireless trackers ability l. If all units in your army have the Bonesplitterz keyword, you can select a Subfaction.
@@VinceVenturella thank you! Still watching the episode lol. It's a long one. I love the show btw But ya I would love it if it was just OWC Orruk Warclans. I also have more ideas too like having the Waaagh table (now Waaagh energy points) be always active, but the points are only generated by heroes and all Orruks gain the ability to increase their wounds characteristic like the mageboss' (the Megaboss' also gain +1 attack like they do now)
I hate to say it, but these last few tomes have really killed AoS for me, and I play two of those armies (BoC and SbGl). SbGl seemed good and fair when I read it, and like our boy Tom my take was WAY off. It feels really bad cause AoS has been my main game since they added points, but I just cant do it anymore. I'm not leaving permanently; I'll be back probably when 4.0 comes. But in the meantime I've switched over to One Page Rules Age of Fantasy. I still get to use my AoS models, the rules feel fair, it's super easy to teach, and I'm done in 1 to 1.5 hours. It felt weird at first, but never having units over 21 models, never having an army total over 60ish models and recursion being as rare as a 3 dollar bill has really felt more approachable and fun. All that having been said, I hope 4.0 wins me back, GW makes cool models and finding GW players is usually pretty easy, but I play these games to have fun and relax, not to feel frustrated and dickish cause my book is either under tuned or so over tuned that my opponent has a bad time.
3:04:00 Anybody playing StoD that thinks the units cost too many points needs to play Kruleboyz for a bit and then see how they feel about that. Played KB vs StoD recently and my opponent had more wounds on the table but all his stuff was on a 3+ save with 5+ vs mortals and -1 to wound and ignoring one point of rend and so on-They do not feel too expensive to me (though that's coming from a KB perspective I suppose). That was before the warrior and knight points drop too. Feels bad XD
While I love the rituals in BoC I personally think they belong in DoK. The whole vibe of it is blood magic/priesty stuff. Also DoK/dark elves traditionally we're a faction that had the ability to self-damage for buffs (e.g. the dark elf sorcerer still has this legacy).
I like the show, still listening to the playback. Bounder charge has always worked like that. Hasn’t been a problem for the history of the book till decent scrolls followed it up. Rockguts I think are pointed right. They’re a swingy unit, they can clear stuff and whiff, they take buffs well, but in my opinion buff pieces contribute to the overall cost of the unit. Increasing points while ward saves are cut out book after book is risky I think.
I would love to see books like Orruk Warclans and Ogor Mawtribes split into their constituent parts. Then they could use the technology of the GHB to put together Big Waaaagh or Combined Ogor allegiances.
If aelves get 3 and a half books, orruks should, too. It would be great to see the different cultures get some development (and to see Ironjawz maybe get some of that old Black Orc "professional competence" back, but that's just me wishlisting)!
@@georgesutherlandhoward4417 Or FEC and the G-Lords being two different armies when they're A) both clearly vampires and B) share part of a model range. Either split these things or don't, but don't split some and not others for seemingly no reason.
@@VinceVenturella While I don't necessarily disagree, it isn't like they're getting rid of stuff to make balance easier. All of the warscrolls and abilities that are in one book today would just be in two or three books tomorrow.
Hard disagree on fyreslayers. It's such an underrated book! Command traits and artefacts are fantastic, almost all the units are viable in lots of different builds: lofnir magmadroths, vostarg vulkites, greyfyrd grimwrath berserkers all have multiple 5-0s and play zero hearthguard berserkers which are a build in themselves! Flamekeeper released before the book so that list was always there, just really suits this ghb. Overall great book considering the small model range!
Collapse units down all you want, I love my Stormbros but there's too many Warscrolls. Man I'd love to put some Thunderraiders on the table. Maybe give me a couple of different leaders with a very small difference between them for "flavor".
Being from the PNW I found Gravity Falls incredibly endearing. The same creator as Owl House, taken as a pair they're easily the best animated series output produced by Disney in the last decade. YMMV Anyway, amazing and entertaining analysis as always!
Aren't they different creators? Gravity falls was Alex Hirsch and Owl House was Dana Terrace I thought? Although I think Hirsch does some voices and some script consulting for Owl House as well.
They "cut" half the warscrolls in the book functionally by leaving sacrosanct and vanguard on 4+ saves for no reason in 3.0, so we never had to think about them anyway.
The Blissbarb Seekers were the worst kit I'd ever made and then I tried to tackle a 1:35 WW1 tank from one of the high end Japanese manufacturers and I will never complain about GW models being fiddly again.
I love these talks but could I please request that when you talk about all these interesting points you elaborate what they are. For example I don't know anything about the good SCE artifact you talked about getting nerfed and I'd love to know this info to better follow your opinions. Keep the chats up great place for me to grow my knowledge of AOS!
I feel like a lot of the video was about bumping up older armies to deal with newer ones. Tbh, I feel like it’s more of problem of a small number of newer tomes breaking the balance of an otherwise largely balanced meta. Not that some weaker books don’t need work, just that it may be more efficient to tone down stronger books.
What I keep hearing again and again is the lack of model range for so many armies. Except Stormcast, I love the idea of knights becoming buff units for battleline or other troops.
Hey guys, great show as always and as always I also have opinionated opinions. Stormcast oh man, yes they're in a bad place now. As I said last time, I think they could make them the strongest and most straightforward faction, and then use them as the ceiling that no other army can surpass. Hence making them the best beginners faction. Currently Ogres are a much more beginner friendly faction. Nighthaunt are fine, they're already very strong. Not all armies can dish out buckets of mortal wounds from afar. Some armies have to fight in melee, so a 4+/5++ means that only a couple of wounds actually go through.....and those get immediately healed-rezzed by the support heroes. Yes I suspect that putting 60 shots that do mortal wounds on a 5 into that support trio is going to make short work of that, but that's a problem with the faction that can do that. Skaven It's a bloated faction, with no direction. I think it's an army that should take the hit, lose a load of stuff (because they're supposed to be low quality bait) then the savvy utilisation of specialised units and spells might turn the battle around. Important "might" gotta keep that casino. Oh boy I'd write a 4 hour dissertation in response to this...better not lol so I just had to jump ahead to Khorne. Blade of Khorne, It's better than it was, but it's far from OP. It's almost as if murderlust was the one good thing and even that can be worked around. Almost everything is still stuck on damage 1 (srsly wrathmongers and skull reapers, the elite khorne units are damage 1....) There's still no way of getting around debilitating debuffs, obligatory priest crutches, almost no shooting, useless non priest mortal heroes (they could have just removed the leader keyword). There's maybe 2 or 3 decent command traits/artefacts in the entire book (ignore wards is nice, but why is it limited to this one trait??) No new heroic actions, the only new bataillon is worthless. They even went so far as to insult Khorne with a 4+ rally. It's like they tweaked the daemons a bit, then halfway through the book it had to go to print and just feels unfinished. Scylla is exactly the same as before. Khorgoraths have barely changed. Wrathmongers are a 15 wound buff wagon (don't get them into combat, those hammers are made of soft foam) and Skull reapers still don't ignore ward saves. So yeah I'm not complaining that Blood warriors are too cheap. 2 attacks on a 3+/4+ and a 3+ save, no ward save, no way around debuffs, no StD god banner, no linked hero (for bodyguarding or double fighting) No eye of the gods table...They're not too good. Many other units are as good if not better. Also fun thing, alliance units were bad, but since StD decided that blades of khorne and khorne aren't the same, now alliance units are absolutely worthless. It might have been too good with the V2 book, but it isn't anymore. Murder rolls ? a single mortal wound on a 5+. Lose 10 models that's an average of 2 or 3 mortal wounds, which can be ward saved. Also it's only from attacks in melee, so not against spells or shooting or out of activation. It's actually worse that the stormcast version (they roll more dice). Now that's fine for bloodreavers, not so great for wrathmongers. They're not squigs / gobbos that can be brought back to do it again, because most of the time they'll be stuck in combat because there aren't 40+ of them. Don't get me wrong, this book is way better than the last one, it's nice to be able to play Khorne finally (albeit with crutches) But it's a far cry from being too good. Nighthaunt are a bane of this army for example. Also why are daemons terrified of ghosts ? Agreed the blood tithe table doesn't work right. The most expensive things will never happen. I'm not spending 8 for an extra attack, when that's a murderlust, a unit of bloodletters and another murderlust in the next hero phase. But I think the blood tithe table needs a complete rework. Blood tithe could be a mounting pressure, the more blood tithe the closer Khorne's realm. Each extra blood tithe adds passive army wide buffs (or within range of a hero/altar). Some of these buffs could be the endless spells which wouldn't need to be tied to priests and would be just the effect of Khorne having an eye on the game So we could finally not have endless spells and a wizard tower in Khorne thank you very much. It could be incremental small buffs up to 8 blood tithe, and I'd prefer buffs that punish the players for cowardice rather than just +1 to this or that. Summoning would be the only way to spend blood tithe and that would bring the pressure down, so buffs would disappear. So it would be a choice, keep the buffs or bring in that bloodthirster to try to get the buffs back? I think it could work, but I hadn't finished the draft before the V3 book was released so GW didn't see it in time :(
2:23:39 this is more of a comment on the core rules but it relates to how reinforcement points require extra special rules to work well with hordes (of which there are and should be quite a few in the game). Get rid of them. Or battalions. Or both! I get that they each solve problems, but I’m allergic to stuff like reinforcement points. Tweak the existing mechanics instead. We already had army building points. We already had a system for structuring the spending of those points. We shouldn’t have a third parallel one. Heck, “third” is generous. There are so many little things guiding and restricting army list construction that there must be a way to do more with less at this point. This kind of minutiae and book keeping should always be kept at a minimum in army construction. I’m convinced that most people would vastly prefer to focus on which units to take, and in what quantities, in order for the army to be fun/good/winning, not just to make it legal for play. Especially new players, or people like me who are mostly collectors and painters.
Interesting thought on digital only ruleset. Who will look after the archive? There’s a rich interest in the history of these games and digital only might make this harder
the biggest design flaw for Kruleboyz isn't their core rules, it's their units, they have only 3 actual troops, including the hobgrots while having a bunch of heroes that seem to miss the unit to synergize with. Where are the regular gnashtoofs to go with the great gnashtoof. The bird killaboss is super fast but nothing can follow him if he goes out to fight and his own damage profile is garbage. they have the sloggoth that gives +1 to hit to an army that needs unmodified 6s to do something so he's litterally better in any other destruction army as an ally
DoK need a revamp. I wouldn't mind paying 120 if WA/SoS were 3s 3s -1 1 damage. Part of what holds the list back is the wholly within auras on slow cauldrons when you want to be fast and the loopholes you need to make them decent in combat. 3's 4's 0 rend 1 damage doesn't cut it anymore compared to the Blood Sisters MW output and attacks and fight on death and don't need buffs to do their roll( and are only 30 points more). Cauldrons also don't do enough for their points as they are slow/fragile/don't do enough damage. I also stopped playing Morathi/Bowsnakes bc I get tons of hate for it even personally attacked for bringing it, even though we have other degenerate lists that don't get hate. I hope they tear down the bowsnake combo so we can have a more balanced army overall. I love Vince's idea!
Hey Vince, what do you see as the difference in design between IDK and Slaanesh? From your description they both seem like they should be a high speed high damage low save trading army. Interested to see how you might differentiate them
Yeah, I think IDK is hit and run, flying and wants to use the tides, I think Slaanesh will feel very similar (and that’s okay) but be more focused on just raw speed, high rend and single unit missiles as opposed to combo plays like we mentioned for IDK.
I love my SBGL. Yet it annoys me that there’s no general way to buff your vampires. Everything focuses on Summonable units, except LoB which goes too far (mostly the whole unrendable) I‘d wished for more Vampire support. Btw: The Mortis Engine is good!
I should mention that there are definitely a lot of grammatical mistakes as well as some sentences that don’t make much sense. So some rewriting will be done at some point in the future. But I do hope that this gives you somewhat of an idea of what I wanted the book to be and what we instead got.
Sad about your take on LRL. I just started them and I like them. They have some NPE stuff, but all the new books are power creeped to the max, so it balances itself
Yeah, it's not really even the NPE, like I said, they are just working too hard to be slightly good. It just feels like they could be redesigned to just be good units.
Nothing should be nerfed until EVERYTHING gets updated period the end.... Also just because you don't understand how an army works (and are too lazy to figure it out how to play against it) doesn't justify a nerf either. The nerf hammers have been absolutely brutal by GW in many cases in the past and does more harm than good in my view as a general rule. Don't attack/adjust specific factions attack specific rules mechanics - basically outlaw the bad things TO EVERYONE - no exceptions.
There is a very careful attitude toward making changes now, they've certainly taken a much more conservative view to making sure things are a challenge and targetting units that are a challenge.
I want to see tzeentch yeet destiny dice into the sun. To me its a poor fit narratively. Tzeentch is fickle, his plans often go awry, but he always has more plans. Destiny dice are like the opposite of that. It also pushes the book into the johnny/spike space, but they should be pure johnny. Tzeentch is basically an anthropomorphized version of the johnny archetype. Destiny dice are narratively a seraphon mechanic. Changing reality to fit the great plan. I'd much rather the agendas from the 2e book, without the destiny dice, it would be way less consistent, but would embrace the fickle aspect of tzeentch.
I feel like you’re a bit generous with Slaves. The three core units feel quite flawed. Warriors are supposed to be an attrition anvil but have incredibly lackluster output so they just end up dying slowly without doing much. Knights would be lovely if they just hit on 3’s and Chosen are expensive. Hard to deliver without further investment and sometimes they just fall flat because they are a lot of points for -1 rend. It’s not fatal flaws or anything, but I think it’s pretty evident why Varanguard are so dominant. Book has good bones, just need some adjustments points wise to improve the variety you actually see on the table.
Slaves' core rules are really solid from a mechanical and thematic standpoint, so I rate them super-highly myself as a play experience, but I do agree that they could absolutely do with some points tweaks, if only to make lots of other things more expensive by comparison.
Warriors are an amazing anvil, they don't need to do heavy output Knights are capable of similar damage to SCE Fulminators when played correctly, with much more threat projection Chosen, I admit, at first seemed over costed to me as well. They seemed more expensive than my own SCE Paladins and not as good. But, as I read the book and played several games, I found out how to buff them properly. When buffed properly, Chosen are absolutely worth their cost and do much better for their points than SCE Paladins (except maybe protectors who are also good Anvils, not just beat sticks)
@@cmleibenguth Warriors don't need to do heavy damage, of course not. But I have found that they typically don't deal much damage at all when they don't have their 'near an objective you don't control' buff, especially if they aren't Galletian Veterans, meaning including warriors at all is a drop cost to any list. I don't find that they particularly fit the playstyle or compliment the other units in Slaves, as you have no ranged threats to protect with a wall and they take up so much space and very few actual threats in your army can fly... so a countercharge becomes difficult if the unit isn't practically wiped. Knights are good. I don't disagree one bit. But they can be a bit swingy, especially once roar is in play or Daemonic Power got unbound. I don't know... I don't think hitting on 3's would be unreasonable for them at all. Of course I don't expect that kind of change in the next couple of years. This is just a wishlist item for me. While I quite like chosen they just don't compare favourably to their obvious counterpart hammers. Knights are cheaper. And faster. And tankier. Varanguard are more expensive, but they're a lot faster. I've often found that when I try to play Chosen I need to invest in a way to make them faster, that often being bridge or Mark of Slaanesh. The former closes the point gap, the latter eats 1-2 command points per turn and forces a hero to baby sit the chosen (which in fairness was probably already happening so I can buff them). Even after all that Chosen just have so much worse rend and no ward to speak of. Sadly I just don't think there's much of a case for them over Varanguard at present points cost. Don't get me wrong. I love Slaves to Darkness. They're by far and away the army I play the most. I've played them since before they had a book in 2nd edition and I haven't quit since. But I don't think this book is a silver bullet. I think some points changes could fix a lot of the internal balance issues and make list writing a whole lot more compelling. That's all. :)
@@georgesutherlandhoward4417 I absolutely adore Slaves and I think the book has really solid rules, a much improved experience from the 2nd edition book where we had to sit in 12" rings around heroes to have Allegience abilities. I just tried to point out that it has some flaws too, even if it might be the 'gold standard'.
I listened to this for 2 hours while procrastinating getting up and I still have no clue what they're talking about. Some sort of card game? I don't know.
Everything 2022 feels overcosted and aging now sums up most of the conclusions, nah you guys are just comparing everything to 6 powercreep books in a row.
@@VinceVenturella how is that your takeaway from me using the term powercreep. I don't think dok or nurgle or idk are overpointed now. I also think its pretty likely they'll raise slaanesh and gsg too much like they did to skaven in 2e. Obr isnt undercosted given what it can put on the board, what it has is just too strong. How do you nerf KO, going from 35 to 30 Thunderers doesn't do anything.
@@rotm4447 I wasn't taking anything away, I was truly clarifying, i didn't understand what you meant. I agree with your point as you made it in the reply. Changing 5 thunderers really doesn't move the needle, it needs rules changes.
@@VinceVenturella The way their approach to rules in battlescroll seems to be, if it can't be fixed in one line its not really going to functionally have an effect. That would let them do zombies at least. The books aren't like that crazy. They'll probably just put thunderers at 160 or something in the end.
2:53:22 “such a dissapointment” is the best way to describe the LRL book, when it first came out my thought was “this is one of the worst books in 3.0” and I’ve been right, straight downgrade from last book. GW had 3 chances with this book and still can’t get it right, it’s obvious they don’t have direction, and they even stripped 90% of the flavour from the book, all their nerfs have led to negative or no changes in the book, and like you said, we do so much just to be average. We are a book stuck between horde and elite, meaning we have the points to be elite, but not the warscrolls, and we have the warscrolls of a horde, but not enough bodies to back them up, or support from heroes or the tome to really make them shine, we’re lost and I’m dreading the 4.0 book. Also we have 1 playstyle and all our strengths have always been from gimmicks and accidental broken rules and not because our army is actually good.
The sce scrolls in the starter box aren't particularly good either. If anything being originally balanced against Stormcast means you end up weak as they usually are. We have 3 examples of it now.
I have now started a Kruleboyz army built on the contents of that box - but telling that 3.0 is nearly over before I felt like it was worth going all in on the army
Thanks for the show--prolly my faves since Vince was hopped up on painkillers. As someone who likes to relax & listen . . . it took me a couple more tries to finish the whole 4 hrs. SC: I would love to see GW turn some of these knight-level heroes into unit champions/upgrades, leaning more towards having a Rend -2 K.Questor duel enemy heroes on behalf of reinforced Libs/Vinds/Vanqs/paladins, &/or picking a Heraldor to give them rerolls on charges + their once/game toot, or embedding a K.Relictor w/ some Sequitors or Evocators, or K.Azyros w/ hammer Prosecutors, or a Rend -2 K.Venator w/ javelin Prosecutors, etc. (They could also remove the Leader keyword from Knight-level independent warscrolls.) Also, having so many named Hammer of Sigmar heroes runs up the warscroll count. I would rather they make named characters be a stormhost-agnostic 'name your unique dudes' upgrade options, than for them to go overboard consolidating unit warscrolls, as having a lot of options is kind of like having another low-key army trait. Would also keep page counts down. Ditch/fix the MW's on death trait, & plz improve their enhancements, plz. (A pre-nerf arcane tomb would be nice). Would love to see more Rend -2 Damage 2 on the Lords/leaders, so they could fight their newer book counterparts on more equal terms. (Another way I discern power creep, even fighting NH heroes.) Also upgrade Stormkeeps, unless their plan to push sales of new & bent CoS sculpts w/ the new time coming, LoL. Stormcast, with their mediocre mobility + lack of MW protection need Scions of the Storm. Also, I, (along w/ Tyler) appreciate seeing Vince come around more on my leading question from last week... more recent books seem pushed/are hitting older tomes like waves [of power.] I stand by my comment regarding Annihilators w/ shields having a 5+ MW ignore. Though, as a Tempest Eye player, I'm tempted to run Thunderers in a +1 to hit & wound bubble, w/o having a toxic 4+ rally, + flying land raiders to haul them around. I hope to be less of a NPE-generator as a CoS player trying to swim in these increasingly choppy waters/meta. Otherwise I've been trying puzzle out whose casters to coalition into Hallowheart, or if Treedudes help in Living City as I await a new book . . .
4 Hours? what a treat to wake up to
I hear your arguments for combined arms, but at the same time I am the person who _only_ wants to play with units I like, and I would drop AoS if I had to have certain units in my list. I picked up AoS only during Broken Realms (or so. Whenever they started allowing new battlelines).
I loved snake Morathi (Shakerathi, if you will) from the second she appeared but never touched the army before I could play all snakes. I would not want old minimum of 30 witchelves even if best painters in the world painted them up and gifted them to me. I love DoK for monsters, and monsters ONLY.
Same with gitz. I want zero golblins or trolls. I did not even consider the army before you could play only squigs. Same with Skaven. I do not want 30+ basic rats, but I am thinking of all stormfiends and doomwheels very often now. Even with Slaanesh - where I love the look of every single model in the line - I would not want more than ten daemonettes ever. Thee chariots though? This is tempting! I even started looking at IDK now that I can have exactly zero namarthi in it. I am just this type person. You cannot pay me to play the unit I do not care about. And I feel like players like me should have the niche in the game.
Maybe tournament packs can have some anti-spam rules instead? Like, no more than 30 of same model for basic guys, no more than fifteen of the same for elites etc?
No that's totally fair, I never want to close anything off, more just that the combined arms and mixed units is sort of the paradigm the book is designed toward on average. I want to always allow the armies to also be built in weird ways for fun for sure.
Saw the SCE section
- Agree with nearly everything you said (odd given how frequently my opinion is a contrarian one)
On combining scrolls:
- Redeemers = Liberators, Vindictors, Sequitors, Vanquishers
- Protectors = current Protectors + Shield Annihilators
- Retributors = Current Retributors + Grandhammers
- Decimators = RIP
- Dracothian Guard = Tempestors and Fulminators only (remainder folded into Fulminators or RIP)
- Judicators = bow Judicators + Vigilors
- Castigators = RIP
- Raptors = just Longstrikes
- Xbow Raptors and Xbow Judicators combined into same scroll or RIP
----
That would be a start followed by the Knight Heroes
Knight heroes:
- I think the Questor-Soulsworn scroll is an idea for most SCE Knight heroes
- the Soulsworn Relictor is basically a Knight Relictor. He has the same profile as the other Questor Soulsworn, but if you include him they get a special ability
- Can have that for Knight-Questor joining Redeemers as a pseudo super sergeant, for Knight-Incantor joining Evocators (granting them the dispel scroll and maybe even the ability to cast a spell other than empower as long as the Incantor is alive), etc
- May not work for all Knight heroes, but could clear out a bunch (save for named ones like Neave Blacktalon)
The pseudo invulnerable / super armor save:
- Great in concept
- In practice, would go back to Tyler and would like GW to do better overall design with mortal wound throughput (esp AoE) and rend bonus / armor debuff sources --- the pendulum swung a little too far back the other way after early 3.0's reaction to SCE save stacking
What I remember of SCE early on:
- 3+ save and -2 rend on Paladins! Yay!
- Holy crap they streamlined way too much and got rid of good things (Lantern of the Tempest, some of the Staves, ...)
- These enhancements suck
- Dragon nerfs (needed)
- People complaining about save stacking (and me defending it)
- Me liking the Amulet of Destiny on my Stardrake until that was nerfed
- Obvious early on the only two general options were Lord-Relictor High Priest or some wizard Master of Magic
- Why are all my casters, except the new Dragon, all only single casters now?
- Stormkeep is cool but Scions addresses Stormcast big weakness of bad movement better than Stormkeep addresses Stormcast big weakness of low model count for objective control
- Everyone thinking Thunderstrike is Primaris Stormcast when they are all the same scale -- it's just new edition new armor, just like in 2.0
-
And last
But
Not Least
SCE mortal wounds on defeat is so stupid, I wish it was gone and that the entire army just got a points cut
What I remember about DoK:
- Oh, wow, didn't they just get a new book?
- Hmm... Very streamlined and all focused on their blood ritual, ok
- Damn good enhancements too
- 4+ rally?!
- Oh, horde witch elves a possibility, not just Morathi and the Bow Snakes (...which never materialized outside of non competitive games... Which still surprises me... I guess no one wanted to build 100+ witch elves)
- Oh... This is awkward, they have book battle tactics...
That are good...
And relatively easy to accomplish.
What I remember about Fyreslayers:
- Other than the Magmadroth buffs and enhancements, esp the Command Traits, I remember not being impressed initially and even thought they were overall nerfed a bit
...
Boy was that incorrect
Much stronger than I initially thought (Other than Auric Hearthguard which were obviously bad and still are)
Would still like KO and Dispossessed to get their own version of "Lord of the Duardrazhal" for combined dwarf armies
I'd rather they got rid of Bow Judis then Xbow Judis, the bow ones look incredibly goofy.
Nice show! It's really interesting to see you guys reflecting back on all the books of the V3. For tzeentch, the main complaint that I have is the absolute shit show that we have for our artefact options. Our army is led by fragile magicians , yet we have 90% of our Artefacts being swords, axes, or other melee stuff that make you pick a melee weapon to do melee stuff. This is ridiculous to the point where the only valuable "book" we were taking was the stupid Arcane Tome from the core rulebook. Nobody wants to melee with any of the characters in the book. We need artefact that matches our playstyle. Also, regarding chaos, I think all chaos gods need a version of the DP, like its the case in 40k. I always found stupid to have this beautiful model with all its versions being stuck in STD ( I didn't finish the video yet, so dunno if you guys talked about that).
I don't have anything to say just commenting since I know it helps. Thank's for the long show. Got a lot of painting done.
For Fyreslayers bring back the axe throwing machine like the one in Fantasy, that would be great.
YEEESS! MAGMADROTH MOUNTED GOBLIN HEWER!
Thanks a lot for the show, very insightful and probably one of your best ones (and that says a lot)!
Agreed, this was a great discussion!
Awesome show… 4hrs but packed with info. Was also really timely! I had jumped back on the soulblight battle wagon…. But is just so broken that it is not giving fun games for my opponent. This review was awesome at helping me chose my next experiment before the next GHB… going to look at Ogors!
Congratulations on your next game, whatever it turns out to be! Personally, as someone who designs games as a hobby but lacks the business wherewithal to get it into a respectable, consumable format, I wonder if you'd consider a "behind-the-scenes" game development episode. How you guys get a game from early sketch to finished product. I think it would be fascinating!
Sure, sounds like a lot of fun.
That sounds super interesting. Hear, hear!
For the small Stormcast heroes, just keyword them as "champions of Sigmar," and then plug them into foot units like you suggested.
Coming back to the hobby having taken a break since covid (3.0 launch), I decided to watch all the battletome reviews to learn how my (8) armies play and how the meta is overall. This video was like a crowning bonus as I wrap up the last of them. Thank you so much for all these great reviews.
As an added bonus I was painting zombies as they were declared "the best or second best unit in the game".
Welcome back! I just started with 3.0 as a former Warhammer Fantasy player. Thankfully I have been able to use a lot of my old fantasy models. I think you will really enjoy 3.0 I really liked WH Fantasy but I Love AOS.
Great to see Thomas on here, can't wait to him in September
Looking forward to FMC!
Vince to an almost 4 billion dollar company. "3 orcs is too many"
More importantly, if they are going to cheap out and reuse 90% of the art, I am not buying another battletome. If the rules are invalidated two weeks later/next balance patch, I would still be happy to have nice art book.
3:02:44 my biggest gripe is the total over costing of all Foot ogors, how ironguts can be 270points and never getting a point adjustment even though nobody brings them at that cost, makes me confused if they really want us to play any foot ogors or stick to guns and monsters. The book has some fun rules but the internal balance is just crazy, especially compared to many new armies.
I'm an avid "dedicated casual" Sylvaneth player, and "keep the core, streamline the cruft, buff the weakest bits" is spot on.
Our teleports have some really neat functionality, but with a lot of small differences that can be a negative experience for the Sylvaneth player to remember, never mind their opponent. Some standardisation of ranges and terminology would be nice!
We've got 3-4 really unique, well-designed subfactions, and 2 that are pretty limited and disappointing.
Tonnes of our effects rely on getting a bunch of spells going, which limits playstyles and makes us an army that's a bit too dependent on a few sets of casting rolls - it would be neat to see our woods-summoning spell replaced with a Heroic Action, for example, or have a wider source of smaller charge bonuses rather than relying so heavily on Spiteswarm Hive endless spell.
It's a solid B grade book - not perfect, but a very good foundation that gets the army's gimmick right and addressed the biggest issue from the previous iteration in a satisfying way.
Consolidation for Stormcast could be all three paladins can just be one warscroll. Dracothian Guard can be two warscrolls (one melee and tempestors).
This was a fantastic show!!! One thing I didn't hear you guys touch on that concerns me is when units get pointed based on subfactions, making them over costed in other subfactions. As an example if the VLOZD gets pointed based on Legion of blood (where it does way more damage) or flies and lord of affliction in drowned men.
It's a really good point and another challenge of designing subfactions in that way.
Black coach rule idea "Runaway Wagon". The black coach moves 20 inch straight and automatically inflicts a mortal wound to every model it passes over.
Just blast the Initial D soundtrack and drive it around all over enemy chaff or something silly like that.
Commenting for the best show on TH-cam.
I really enjoyed this discussion. Tyler and your guest added a lot to the conversation too. I'm a pretty casual player and the game has almost been moving too fast for me to keep up. I'm really glad they are moving to longer Generals Handbook seasons. Vince I love how you seem to really have your finger on the pulse of fairly casual players and encourage count as or proxies when they make sense. It's so nice to see tournaments capable players leaving space for the rest of us. I feel like if GW just started watching Warhammer Weekly we would be in an even better place next edition.
I’m sure they’re watching. ;)
as someone who has all the warbands, this is a reprint of the starter set that came out in 2021 or so. it is not the shadespire warbands. this is the starter kit that is non seasonal, it just been sold out for awhile.
Was busy playing sigmar while this was live but now it's hobby desk background
Fyreslayer book does lack differentiation. But it's got more list differentiation than the new Seraphon and SBGL books which really says something.
Thank you for calling out the Skaven nerf to being unmodified. It had a tax to it and was such an interesting thing to explore that wasn't warping the meta
Such a joy to watch. Excellent model and always inspires me to pick up the brushes
Seraphon - It's so interesting coming back to this. You are so right calling this book tale of two cities. You can either play the NPE army that wins tournaments, or have a fun match and lose with coalesced. It can feel like Starborn is the real army and Coalesced is the Army of Renown you play in a casual game when you're bored. Even when you do play starborn there isn't any real variety in lists thanks to kroak and friends taking up all the points because that's the only real way to play. Its internal balance is way off to a point its become one of my contenders for most written book.
In my poor internet arctic life, nothing better to download than a 4 hour warhammer weekly
perfect to start painting my stormvermin while listening to this
How i would differentiate the roles for fyreslayer units:
-change vulkite musician from +1 run/charge to "This unit can run and charge". (offense)
-Hearthguard ignore the once/game restriction for fierce counterattack (defense)
-Auric hearthguard gain the retinue ability but for priests, the flamekeeper, and battlesmiths (support)
How i would differentiate the roles for magmadroths:
-Runesons, no changes. Perfect. (offense)
-Runefather, loses lord of the lodge but gains "All models within 12" fight before they are removed from play when they die. If a model already has a rule which lets it fight before being removed, ignore the second iteration and add an extra attack when it fights on death." (whatever the GW specific wording would be) (defense)
-Runesmiter, loses runic empowerment, gains a prayer that lets a magmadroth unit within 12" range gain the effects of fierce counterattack if charged until your next hero phase. (support for magmadroths, since they can't normally counterattack)
Also, the runemaster should lose his crappy prayer and gain a prayer that allows a unit to count as receiving the enhanced effect of whatever the current ur-gold rune is.
Add 3 more mount traits.
My last AoS game is almost a year back. (Still watching the show out of habbit I guess ;) )
Listening to many comments on the tomes I'm kinda happy that I (temporarily) gave up on the game. I could never shake the feeling, that it's so tome-dependant if two players are actually able to have enjoyable games. And that is considering you are paying a premium price for your rules. These days we just tend to play games where the rules come for free but we have more fun than with this overpriced, but often undercooked mess. :(
Vince, you can have Stormcast tanks, as long as we get shadeglass powered Stormcast dreadnoughts too!
I'll sign off on that 100%
Vince, you nailed it on the next Stormcast book. Can we PLEASE get some real allegiance abilities?? And can we PLEASE STOP making Stormcast units better in other books for the love of Sigmar??
Stormcast (and all of the other early tomes, really) feel terrible to play right now. The power creep in the new books is off the charts insane, everything does 50 billion mortal wounds, and that vaunted "3+ save" does literally nothing and has been handed out like candy this edition. Basically if you have armor, you have a 3+ save now, which completely negates everything that's supposed to be special about Stormcast. They just feel like "a bunch of dudes" now, and it's not fun to play. There's nothing cool or interesting about the army as it currently sits.
KO Thunderers being a big offender in this category
Absolutely should not have a 3+ save
Same for Khorne Blood Warriors (I am okay with the Juggernauts having 2+ saves)
Agree with your comments on how LRL should be Vince. Also I would include more internal balance and better choices for list buildings. Right now almost everything is tied up in one battleline unit - wardens. Listbuilding should be fun and varied. This book doesn't help with that.
Great review of how things have developed. It'll be interesting to see what 4th brings.
Yes, long show warhammer weekly! :D
I'd love the Knight losing the leader treatment with named characters getting the Karanak treatment.
I don't even play aos but damn I love this🤘
Great show, gouys :D
4 hours of joy, Thanks guys
Gonna try coalesced in a tourney in a couple of weeks. Let's see how this works, lol!
Off the chain - taking me back years. 😂
Thomas you handsome devil you didn't tell me you'd be on my favorite show! Great talk guys keep up the good work!
Bringing those 4 hour live streams mainstream
I put this on to build my blissbarb seekers and 12 minutes in I'm getting told its the hardest kit ever built by someone with 19 armies, LOL. I already built some slickblades, so I knew it was going to be like this haha
I built blissbarb seekers this whole episode and I only finished two of them. Can't wait for them to DLAB against soulblight lol
Orruk warclans was a bit sour even on release and aged like milk.
The kruleboyz rules reeked of fear, like they were terrified of them being broken. They definitely need a rewrite, but despite gutrippaz going down 30 points since launch the stuff that is actually good has barely moved, if at all. Battle regiment and being leader reliant have always been a thorn in their side. IMO they could hit the middle with some point drops, making the grinnin blades ability an army ability, rewritung subfactions, and making boltboyz always battleline.
Bonesplitterz have strong but bland abilities and were only good for the 5 minutes where turning off ward saves in a nurgle meta were good, got nerfed pretty harshly, and fell off a cliff. Also savage big boss going up like 20 points out of nowhere last ghb. The army is narratively awesome, if only they could get some fun rules that make playing the army feel like hunting.
I feel like ironjawz could have a resurgence with minor changes. A unit with better impact hits and/or the stonehorn trick would go a long way.
Also the subfaction balance in the book is absolutely atrocious. Topped only by how awful kruleboyz artefacts are.
Absolutely not 3 books for Warclans. I would hate that.
This is how it should work.
When picking your army, you gain abilities based on how many heroes have the faction keyword, Ironjawz, Kruleboyz or Bonesplitterz.
If you have 1 Ironjawz hero, all your Ironjawz units can use the mighty destroyers command ability.
If you have 3 Ironjawz heroes, your Ironjawz units can use the smashing and bashing ability.
If all units in your army have the Ironjawz keyword, you can select a Subfaction. (Ironsunz, boodtoofs or Da choppas)
If you have 1 Kruleboyz hero, all your Kruelboyz units gain the venom encrusted weapons ability.
If you have 3 Kruleboyz heroes, you may employ dirty tricks. Pick 2.
If all units in your army have the Kruleboyz keyword, you can select a Subfaction. Of the 3
All Bonesplitterz units have a 6+ ward.
If you have 1 Bonesplitterz hero, all your Bonesplitterz units gain the spirit of Gorkamorka ability.
If you have 3 Bonesplitterz heroes, your Bonesplitterz units can use the tireless trackers ability l.
If all units in your army have the Bonesplitterz keyword, you can select a Subfaction.
Yep, we mentioned that as an option during the show. I think you’re dead on.
@@VinceVenturella thank you!
Still watching the episode lol. It's a long one.
I love the show btw
But ya I would love it if it was just OWC Orruk Warclans. I also have more ideas too like having the Waaagh table (now Waaagh energy points) be always active, but the points are only generated by heroes and all Orruks gain the ability to increase their wounds characteristic like the mageboss' (the Megaboss' also gain +1 attack like they do now)
Really liked vince's idea for stormcast heros
Great show as always...love Thomas and his input...thanks as always for the weekly show!
I hate to say it, but these last few tomes have really killed AoS for me, and I play two of those armies (BoC and SbGl). SbGl seemed good and fair when I read it, and like our boy Tom my take was WAY off. It feels really bad cause AoS has been my main game since they added points, but I just cant do it anymore. I'm not leaving permanently; I'll be back probably when 4.0 comes. But in the meantime I've switched over to One Page Rules Age of Fantasy. I still get to use my AoS models, the rules feel fair, it's super easy to teach, and I'm done in 1 to 1.5 hours. It felt weird at first, but never having units over 21 models, never having an army total over 60ish models and recursion being as rare as a 3 dollar bill has really felt more approachable and fun. All that having been said, I hope 4.0 wins me back, GW makes cool models and finding GW players is usually pretty easy, but I play these games to have fun and relax, not to feel frustrated and dickish cause my book is either under tuned or so over tuned that my opponent has a bad time.
"Play Skaven: Its like a swiss army knife and every tool is dull"
3:04:00 Anybody playing StoD that thinks the units cost too many points needs to play Kruleboyz for a bit and then see how they feel about that. Played KB vs StoD recently and my opponent had more wounds on the table but all his stuff was on a 3+ save with 5+ vs mortals and -1 to wound and ignoring one point of rend and so on-They do not feel too expensive to me (though that's coming from a KB perspective I suppose). That was before the warrior and knight points drop too. Feels bad XD
While I love the rituals in BoC I personally think they belong in DoK. The whole vibe of it is blood magic/priesty stuff. Also DoK/dark elves traditionally we're a faction that had the ability to self-damage for buffs (e.g. the dark elf sorcerer still has this legacy).
BEHOLD, A DARK SORCERER OF ELD. EMET_SELCH FLIES OVER YOUR HEAD
Nice review. Quite the ride.
I like the show, still listening to the playback.
Bounder charge has always worked like that. Hasn’t been a problem for the history of the book till decent scrolls followed it up.
Rockguts I think are pointed right. They’re a swingy unit, they can clear stuff and whiff, they take buffs well, but in my opinion buff pieces contribute to the overall cost of the unit.
Increasing points while ward saves are cut out book after book is risky I think.
I would love to see books like Orruk Warclans and Ogor Mawtribes split into their constituent parts. Then they could use the technology of the GHB to put together Big Waaaagh or Combined Ogor allegiances.
If aelves get 3 and a half books, orruks should, too. It would be great to see the different cultures get some development (and to see Ironjawz maybe get some of that old Black Orc "professional competence" back, but that's just me wishlisting)!
@@georgesutherlandhoward4417 Or FEC and the G-Lords being two different armies when they're A) both clearly vampires and B) share part of a model range. Either split these things or don't, but don't split some and not others for seemingly no reason.
The issue is there is already so many armies, and so much trouble in balancing them, I'm not sure splitting anything out will really help.
@@VinceVenturella While I don't necessarily disagree, it isn't like they're getting rid of stuff to make balance easier. All of the warscrolls and abilities that are in one book today would just be in two or three books tomorrow.
Hard disagree on fyreslayers. It's such an underrated book! Command traits and artefacts are fantastic, almost all the units are viable in lots of different builds: lofnir magmadroths, vostarg vulkites, greyfyrd grimwrath berserkers all have multiple 5-0s and play zero hearthguard berserkers which are a build in themselves! Flamekeeper released before the book so that list was always there, just really suits this ghb. Overall great book considering the small model range!
Also great show, great guest, thanks guys
Collapse units down all you want, I love my Stormbros but there's too many Warscrolls. Man I'd love to put some Thunderraiders on the table. Maybe give me a couple of different leaders with a very small difference between them for "flavor".
Same.
So a minor hero is the term you were looking for to describe the Stormcast "subheroes" or just "-=storm knights=-" aka the knight-caste?
Being from the PNW I found Gravity Falls incredibly endearing. The same creator as Owl House, taken as a pair they're easily the best animated series output produced by Disney in the last decade. YMMV
Anyway, amazing and entertaining analysis as always!
Aren't they different creators? Gravity falls was Alex Hirsch and Owl House was Dana Terrace I thought? Although I think Hirsch does some voices and some script consulting for Owl House as well.
If they did the stormcast units as weapon options that would be good. Especially for the first gen paladins and dracothian guard.
They "cut" half the warscrolls in the book functionally by leaving sacrosanct and vanguard on 4+ saves for no reason in 3.0, so we never had to think about them anyway.
The Blissbarb Seekers were the worst kit I'd ever made and then I tried to tackle a 1:35 WW1 tank from one of the high end Japanese manufacturers and I will never complain about GW models being fiddly again.
I love these talks but could I please request that when you talk about all these interesting points you elaborate what they are. For example I don't know anything about the good SCE artifact you talked about getting nerfed and I'd love to know this info to better follow your opinions. Keep the chats up great place for me to grow my knowledge of AOS!
I feel like a lot of the video was about bumping up older armies to deal with newer ones. Tbh, I feel like it’s more of problem of a small number of newer tomes breaking the balance of an otherwise largely balanced meta. Not that some weaker books don’t need work, just that it may be more efficient to tone down stronger books.
What I keep hearing again and again is the lack of model range for so many armies.
Except Stormcast, I love the idea of knights becoming buff units for battleline or other troops.
Hey guys, great show as always and as always I also have opinionated opinions.
Stormcast oh man, yes they're in a bad place now.
As I said last time, I think they could make them the strongest and most straightforward faction, and then use them as the ceiling that no other army can surpass. Hence making them the best beginners faction.
Currently Ogres are a much more beginner friendly faction.
Nighthaunt are fine, they're already very strong. Not all armies can dish out buckets of mortal wounds from afar. Some armies have to fight in melee, so a 4+/5++ means that only a couple of wounds actually go through.....and those get immediately healed-rezzed by the support heroes.
Yes I suspect that putting 60 shots that do mortal wounds on a 5 into that support trio is going to make short work of that, but that's a problem with the faction that can do that.
Skaven It's a bloated faction, with no direction.
I think it's an army that should take the hit, lose a load of stuff (because they're supposed to be low quality bait) then the savvy utilisation of specialised units and spells might turn the battle around. Important "might" gotta keep that casino.
Oh boy I'd write a 4 hour dissertation in response to this...better not lol
so I just had to jump ahead to Khorne.
Blade of Khorne,
It's better than it was, but it's far from OP. It's almost as if murderlust was the one good thing and even that can be worked around.
Almost everything is still stuck on damage 1 (srsly wrathmongers and skull reapers, the elite khorne units are damage 1....) There's still no way of getting around debilitating debuffs, obligatory priest crutches, almost no shooting, useless non priest mortal heroes (they could have just removed the leader keyword). There's maybe 2 or 3 decent command traits/artefacts in the entire book (ignore wards is nice, but why is it limited to this one trait??) No new heroic actions, the only new bataillon is worthless.
They even went so far as to insult Khorne with a 4+ rally.
It's like they tweaked the daemons a bit, then halfway through the book it had to go to print and just feels unfinished.
Scylla is exactly the same as before. Khorgoraths have barely changed. Wrathmongers are a 15 wound buff wagon (don't get them into combat, those hammers are made of soft foam) and Skull reapers still don't ignore ward saves.
So yeah I'm not complaining that Blood warriors are too cheap. 2 attacks on a 3+/4+ and a 3+ save, no ward save, no way around debuffs, no StD god banner, no linked hero (for bodyguarding or double fighting) No eye of the gods table...They're not too good. Many other units are as good if not better.
Also fun thing, alliance units were bad, but since StD decided that blades of khorne and khorne aren't the same, now alliance units are absolutely worthless. It might have been too good with the V2 book, but it isn't anymore.
Murder rolls ? a single mortal wound on a 5+. Lose 10 models that's an average of 2 or 3 mortal wounds, which can be ward saved. Also it's only from attacks in melee, so not against spells or shooting or out of activation. It's actually worse that the stormcast version (they roll more dice).
Now that's fine for bloodreavers, not so great for wrathmongers.
They're not squigs / gobbos that can be brought back to do it again, because most of the time they'll be stuck in combat because there aren't 40+ of them.
Don't get me wrong, this book is way better than the last one, it's nice to be able to play Khorne finally (albeit with crutches) But it's a far cry from being too good. Nighthaunt are a bane of this army for example. Also why are daemons terrified of ghosts ?
Agreed the blood tithe table doesn't work right. The most expensive things will never happen.
I'm not spending 8 for an extra attack, when that's a murderlust, a unit of bloodletters and another murderlust in the next hero phase.
But I think the blood tithe table needs a complete rework.
Blood tithe could be a mounting pressure, the more blood tithe the closer Khorne's realm. Each extra blood tithe adds passive army wide buffs (or within range of a hero/altar). Some of these buffs could be the endless spells which wouldn't need to be tied to priests and would be just the effect of Khorne having an eye on the game So we could finally not have endless spells and a wizard tower in Khorne thank you very much. It could be incremental small buffs up to 8 blood tithe, and I'd prefer buffs that punish the players for cowardice rather than just +1 to this or that. Summoning would be the only way to spend blood tithe and that would bring the pressure down, so buffs would disappear. So it would be a choice, keep the buffs or bring in that bloodthirster to try to get the buffs back? I think it could work, but I hadn't finished the draft before the V3 book was released so GW didn't see it in time :(
2:23:39 this is more of a comment on the core rules but it relates to how reinforcement points require extra special rules to work well with hordes (of which there are and should be quite a few in the game). Get rid of them. Or battalions. Or both! I get that they each solve problems, but I’m allergic to stuff like reinforcement points. Tweak the existing mechanics instead. We already had army building points. We already had a system for structuring the spending of those points. We shouldn’t have a third parallel one. Heck, “third” is generous. There are so many little things guiding and restricting army list construction that there must be a way to do more with less at this point.
This kind of minutiae and book keeping should always be kept at a minimum in army construction. I’m convinced that most people would vastly prefer to focus on which units to take, and in what quantities, in order for the army to be fun/good/winning, not just to make it legal for play. Especially new players, or people like me who are mostly collectors and painters.
Interesting thought on digital only ruleset. Who will look after the archive? There’s a rich interest in the history of these games and digital only might make this harder
the biggest design flaw for Kruleboyz isn't their core rules, it's their units, they have only 3 actual troops, including the hobgrots while having a bunch of heroes that seem to miss the unit to synergize with. Where are the regular gnashtoofs to go with the great gnashtoof. The bird killaboss is super fast but nothing can follow him if he goes out to fight and his own damage profile is garbage. they have the sloggoth that gives +1 to hit to an army that needs unmodified 6s to do something so he's litterally better in any other destruction army as an ally
DoK need a revamp. I wouldn't mind paying 120 if WA/SoS were 3s 3s -1 1 damage. Part of what holds the list back is the wholly within auras on slow cauldrons when you want to be fast and the loopholes you need to make them decent in combat. 3's 4's 0 rend 1 damage doesn't cut it anymore compared to the Blood Sisters MW output and attacks and fight on death and don't need buffs to do their roll( and are only 30 points more). Cauldrons also don't do enough for their points as they are slow/fragile/don't do enough damage. I also stopped playing Morathi/Bowsnakes bc I get tons of hate for it even personally attacked for bringing it, even though we have other degenerate lists that don't get hate. I hope they tear down the bowsnake combo so we can have a more balanced army overall. I love Vince's idea!
I really like this show
Glad to hear it!
My poor spiderfang
Hey Vince, what do you see as the difference in design between IDK and Slaanesh? From your description they both seem like they should be a high speed high damage low save trading army. Interested to see how you might differentiate them
Yeah, I think IDK is hit and run, flying and wants to use the tides, I think Slaanesh will feel very similar (and that’s okay) but be more focused on just raw speed, high rend and single unit missiles as opposed to combo plays like we mentioned for IDK.
I love my SBGL. Yet it annoys me that there’s no general way to buff your vampires. Everything focuses on Summonable units, except LoB which goes too far (mostly the whole unrendable)
I‘d wished for more Vampire support.
Btw: The Mortis Engine is good!
I should mention that there are definitely a lot of grammatical mistakes as well as some sentences that don’t make much sense.
So some rewriting will be done at some point in the future.
But I do hope that this gives you somewhat of an idea of what I wanted the book to be and what we instead got.
Seraphon needs a full rewrite.
Vulkites have the same mw ability as Boingrots when they charge
That's true, but it's on the shield version and only on 6's. Not nearly as good as bounders and black knights.
Drink when Vic says sundry
Be careful, you could die.
Sad about your take on LRL.
I just started them and I like them. They have some NPE stuff, but all the new books are power creeped to the max, so it balances itself
Yeah, it's not really even the NPE, like I said, they are just working too hard to be slightly good. It just feels like they could be redesigned to just be good units.
Nothing should be nerfed until EVERYTHING gets updated period the end....
Also just because you don't understand how an army works (and are too lazy to figure it out how to play against it) doesn't justify a nerf either.
The nerf hammers have been absolutely brutal by GW in many cases in the past and does more harm than good in my view as a general rule.
Don't attack/adjust specific factions attack specific rules mechanics - basically outlaw the bad things TO EVERYONE - no exceptions.
There is a very careful attitude toward making changes now, they've certainly taken a much more conservative view to making sure things are a challenge and targetting units that are a challenge.
In a world...Where Flesh Eater Courts is ignored as usual...10's of people are kinda upset. Did I miss something?
They didn't get a new book yet, that's all. :)
Age of Sigma
I want to see tzeentch yeet destiny dice into the sun. To me its a poor fit narratively. Tzeentch is fickle, his plans often go awry, but he always has more plans. Destiny dice are like the opposite of that. It also pushes the book into the johnny/spike space, but they should be pure johnny. Tzeentch is basically an anthropomorphized version of the johnny archetype.
Destiny dice are narratively a seraphon mechanic. Changing reality to fit the great plan.
I'd much rather the agendas from the 2e book, without the destiny dice, it would be way less consistent, but would embrace the fickle aspect of tzeentch.
I feel like you’re a bit generous with Slaves. The three core units feel quite flawed. Warriors are supposed to be an attrition anvil but have incredibly lackluster output so they just end up dying slowly without doing much. Knights would be lovely if they just hit on 3’s and Chosen are expensive. Hard to deliver without further investment and sometimes they just fall flat because they are a lot of points for -1 rend.
It’s not fatal flaws or anything, but I think it’s pretty evident why Varanguard are so dominant. Book has good bones, just need some adjustments points wise to improve the variety you actually see on the table.
Slaves' core rules are really solid from a mechanical and thematic standpoint, so I rate them super-highly myself as a play experience, but I do agree that they could absolutely do with some points tweaks, if only to make lots of other things more expensive by comparison.
Everything in the book buffs cav, it wasn't rocket science even pre-release that this is how it was going to end up.
Warriors are an amazing anvil, they don't need to do heavy output
Knights are capable of similar damage to SCE Fulminators when played correctly, with much more threat projection
Chosen, I admit, at first seemed over costed to me as well. They seemed more expensive than my own SCE Paladins and not as good. But, as I read the book and played several games, I found out how to buff them properly. When buffed properly, Chosen are absolutely worth their cost and do much better for their points than SCE Paladins (except maybe protectors who are also good Anvils, not just beat sticks)
@@cmleibenguth Warriors don't need to do heavy damage, of course not. But I have found that they typically don't deal much damage at all when they don't have their 'near an objective you don't control' buff, especially if they aren't Galletian Veterans, meaning including warriors at all is a drop cost to any list. I don't find that they particularly fit the playstyle or compliment the other units in Slaves, as you have no ranged threats to protect with a wall and they take up so much space and very few actual threats in your army can fly... so a countercharge becomes difficult if the unit isn't practically wiped.
Knights are good. I don't disagree one bit. But they can be a bit swingy, especially once roar is in play or Daemonic Power got unbound. I don't know... I don't think hitting on 3's would be unreasonable for them at all. Of course I don't expect that kind of change in the next couple of years. This is just a wishlist item for me.
While I quite like chosen they just don't compare favourably to their obvious counterpart hammers. Knights are cheaper. And faster. And tankier. Varanguard are more expensive, but they're a lot faster. I've often found that when I try to play Chosen I need to invest in a way to make them faster, that often being bridge or Mark of Slaanesh. The former closes the point gap, the latter eats 1-2 command points per turn and forces a hero to baby sit the chosen (which in fairness was probably already happening so I can buff them). Even after all that Chosen just have so much worse rend and no ward to speak of. Sadly I just don't think there's much of a case for them over Varanguard at present points cost.
Don't get me wrong. I love Slaves to Darkness. They're by far and away the army I play the most. I've played them since before they had a book in 2nd edition and I haven't quit since. But I don't think this book is a silver bullet. I think some points changes could fix a lot of the internal balance issues and make list writing a whole lot more compelling. That's all. :)
@@georgesutherlandhoward4417 I absolutely adore Slaves and I think the book has really solid rules, a much improved experience from the 2nd edition book where we had to sit in 12" rings around heroes to have Allegience abilities. I just tried to point out that it has some flaws too, even if it might be the 'gold standard'.
I listened to this for 2 hours while procrastinating getting up and I still have no clue what they're talking about. Some sort of card game? I don't know.
Just good old fashioned warhammer (miniature game). It's a great deal of fun. :)
You forgot the FEC book oh wait…
Everything 2022 feels overcosted and aging now sums up most of the conclusions, nah you guys are just comparing everything to 6 powercreep books in a row.
Are you saying the current stuff isn't too good?
@@VinceVenturella how is that your takeaway from me using the term powercreep. I don't think dok or nurgle or idk are overpointed now. I also think its pretty likely they'll raise slaanesh and gsg too much like they did to skaven in 2e. Obr isnt undercosted given what it can put on the board, what it has is just too strong. How do you nerf KO, going from 35 to 30 Thunderers doesn't do anything.
@@rotm4447 I wasn't taking anything away, I was truly clarifying, i didn't understand what you meant. I agree with your point as you made it in the reply. Changing 5 thunderers really doesn't move the needle, it needs rules changes.
@@VinceVenturella The way their approach to rules in battlescroll seems to be, if it can't be fixed in one line its not really going to functionally have an effect. That would let them do zombies at least. The books aren't like that crazy. They'll probably just put thunderers at 160 or something in the end.
2:53:22 “such a dissapointment” is the best way to describe the LRL book, when it first came out my thought was “this is one of the worst books in 3.0” and I’ve been right, straight downgrade from last book. GW had 3 chances with this book and still can’t get it right, it’s obvious they don’t have direction, and they even stripped 90% of the flavour from the book, all their nerfs have led to negative or no changes in the book, and like you said, we do so much just to be average. We are a book stuck between horde and elite, meaning we have the points to be elite, but not the warscrolls, and we have the warscrolls of a horde, but not enough bodies to back them up, or support from heroes or the tome to really make them shine, we’re lost and I’m dreading the 4.0 book. Also we have 1 playstyle and all our strengths have always been from gimmicks and accidental broken rules and not because our army is actually good.
Kruleboyz heavily suffered from "the bad guys in the starter box who are there to get punched by the good guys in the starter box" syndrome.
The sce scrolls in the starter box aren't particularly good either. If anything being originally balanced against Stormcast means you end up weak as they usually are. We have 3 examples of it now.
@@rotm4447 yeah that's saying what I mean in a better way - "balanced against Stormcast at the start of the edition" - that sums it up!
I have now started a Kruleboyz army built on the contents of that box - but telling that 3.0 is nearly over before I felt like it was worth going all in on the army
Thanks for the show--prolly my faves since Vince was hopped up on painkillers. As someone who likes to relax & listen . . . it took me a couple more tries to finish the whole 4 hrs.
SC: I would love to see GW turn some of these knight-level heroes into unit champions/upgrades, leaning more towards having a Rend -2 K.Questor duel enemy heroes on behalf of reinforced Libs/Vinds/Vanqs/paladins, &/or picking a Heraldor to give them rerolls on charges + their once/game toot, or embedding a K.Relictor w/ some Sequitors or Evocators, or K.Azyros w/ hammer Prosecutors, or a Rend -2 K.Venator w/ javelin Prosecutors, etc. (They could also remove the Leader keyword from Knight-level independent warscrolls.)
Also, having so many named Hammer of Sigmar heroes runs up the warscroll count. I would rather they make named characters be a stormhost-agnostic 'name your unique dudes' upgrade options, than for them to go overboard consolidating unit warscrolls, as having a lot of options is kind of like having another low-key army trait. Would also keep page counts down.
Ditch/fix the MW's on death trait, & plz improve their enhancements, plz. (A pre-nerf arcane tomb would be nice).
Would love to see more Rend -2 Damage 2 on the Lords/leaders, so they could fight their newer book counterparts on more equal terms. (Another way I discern power creep, even fighting NH heroes.)
Also upgrade Stormkeeps, unless their plan to push sales of new & bent CoS sculpts w/ the new time coming, LoL. Stormcast, with their mediocre mobility + lack of MW protection need Scions of the Storm.
Also, I, (along w/ Tyler) appreciate seeing Vince come around more on my leading question from last week... more recent books seem pushed/are hitting older tomes like waves [of power.]
I stand by my comment regarding Annihilators w/ shields having a 5+ MW ignore.
Though, as a Tempest Eye player, I'm tempted to run Thunderers in a +1 to hit & wound bubble, w/o having a toxic 4+ rally, + flying land raiders to haul them around. I hope to be less of a NPE-generator as a CoS player trying to swim in these increasingly choppy waters/meta.
Otherwise I've been trying puzzle out whose casters to coalition into Hallowheart, or if Treedudes help in Living City as I await a new book . . .