AoS GHB 2020 Predictions & Desires

[Dread Saurian]

Point drops for Bastiladon/Stegadon/Dread Saurian/Troglodon - They are all honestly quite bad imo considering the points you sink into a single model. Never played with a Carnosaur so dont know if they are pointed okayish.

I would assume a point increase for Kroak and Salamanders, but how much? It is really difficult to tell since people have barely played across the globe. No major tournaments with 5 games yet either. I also dont think Kroak is bonkers OP compared to Lord of Change/Nagash/Teclis, he is certainly good though. Kroak is already a 600 points investment at least (320 for Kroak + 40 Balewind + 140 Astrolith + 100 for 5 Guards), possibly more if you throw in Endless Spells or a normal Slann.

Considering that Balewind has been off the GW website for almost all of 2020, I have a feeling we might see it disappear in GHB20 - This would be a pretty big nerf to Kroak tbh. The loss of 6" range especially hurts Kroak due to the short base range on Celestial Deliverance, plus the extra spell and +1 save is pretty impactful imo. This would be an interesting way to nerf him.

Salamanders are incredible strong and seeing lists with 18 hurts a bit, but we dont really have a strong alternative beyond blobs of 40 Skinks fully buffed with +1 hit, reroll 1s to hit and Starpriest venom staff. This would just make Coalesced/Saurus lists even worse if Salamanders were hammered.

Changes to current terrain rules - Both previous GHB ones but also core rules ones. Make them matter a lot more. This would also be a welcoming buff to Coalesced. Like if you step onto a Volcano terrain piece you better have a damn good reason to do so, since it is a volcano right? As it is you can pretty much forget about them all beside Arcane, Commanding and Entangling. Maybe Overgrown and Nullification is semi decent.

Carno works fine where it is. I'd sure like the point cost for myself to drop back to what it was.

 

[VVolfsong]

Desires

• For the Coalesced not to be hit by nerfs targeted at the Starborne.
• Point cost reductions for several of our large dinos.
  
• New rules for the Realmshaper Engine.
• Updates to the Cold-Blooded and Primeval Dominion rules for the Coalesced.
  
• New rules for Saurus Guard so they have more uses than just idling next to a Slann.
• New rules for the Eternity Warden.
• New Rules for the Saurus Sunblood (nothing inherently wrong with him, I just never see him in any lists).
• Rules to help hold objectives added to the Thunder Lizard constellation.
• Updates to the Celestite Warblade for the Saurus Scar-Veteran so that it isn't straight up inferior to the Celestite Warspear.
• A balance pass on our Artifacts and Command Traits.

Predictions:

Either no changes at all or point cost increases targeted at the Starborne that will at the same time hurt the Coalesced. I'm not holding my breath for any updates to any of our rules.

 

[Canas]

Given that the table of content was leaked I don't think we're going to see anything of interest bar maybe some changes in pointvalues. But with the lack of tournaments even that seems unlikely to be particularly interesting. In all honesty, the only thing I'd expect would be for Salamanders to be made more expensive to the point they're useless in Coalesced and somewhat balanced in Starborne.

 

[Xuil]

From what I’ve heard there’s now a limit of 3 endless spells.

By the time we’ve brought Balewind and Geminids, Burning head if you have any bastiladons... that’s our lot. Given that this may be designed to limit the guarantee of a realm-empowered spell, it’s possible that bound (and faction specific) spells aren’t affected?

 

[Canas]

From what I’ve heard there’s now a limit of 3 endless spells.

By the time we’ve brought Balewind and Geminids, Burning head if you have any bastiladons... that’s our lot. Given that this may be designed to limit the guarantee of a realm-empowered spell, it’s possible that bound (and faction specific) spells aren’t affected?

I really hope so. Otherwise this'd be the 2nd time that we get a cool new endless spell toy only to have it nerfed to irrelevance within weeks....

Also, god I wish they'd figure out magic in AoS already. Whenever they come up with something cool a annoying nerf is waiting in the shadows to reign in the excesses..

 

[Jason839]

I really hope so. Otherwise this'd be the 2nd time that we get a cool new endless spell toy only to have it nerfed to irrelevance within weeks....

Also, god I wish they'd figure out magic in AoS already. Whenever they come up with something cool a annoying nerf is waiting in the shadows to reign in the excesses..

They haven't been able to balance the game in 6 years, why would they start now?

 

[Canas]

They haven't been able to balance the game in 6 years, why would they start now?

Eventually they should manage, even if on accident

Though for magic it shouldn't even be that hard. Start by bringing down the outliers and you've already solved half the issue. Morathi with her double range, Nagash with his 9 casts where the average is like 1.5, Teclis with his guaranteed casts. As long as you have outliers that ridiculously far from the average it'l always be a pain to balance... reign them in to more normal levels and you solve most of the issues that plague any cool idea they release right now.

 

[Putzfrau]

I think limiting endless spells sounds like a good idea. Endless spell spam is not an engaging play experience for most players.

I also disagree strongly with bringing down the outliers (surprise surprise). This game has point costs for a reason. Units should be allowed to be strong at something as long as their points reflect that strength. Strong casters should exist within AoS just like strong fighters and strong shooters do.

I really don't understand the perpetual gripe about magic. It's not exactly an "i win" button even with the stronger casters in the game.

Can we go back to the post release honeymoon period please? I liked it way better when everyone was in the constant glow of new book and new things. Lately it just seems like there's a whole lot of talk about what we don't have or can't do. Maybe i've just been focusing on that, but we just had an awesome book come out. Feels like we can bask in the awesomeness just a little bit longer? There will be plenty of time to justifiably complain when the book is in it's twilight years and we're getting tabled by the 5th stormcast battletome or something.

 

[ILKAIN]

I think limiting endless spells sounds like a good idea. Endless spell spam is not an engaging play experience for most players.

I also disagree strongly with bringing down the outliers (surprise surprise). This game has point costs for a reason. Units should be allowed to be strong at something as long as their points reflect that strength. Strong casters should exist within AoS just like strong fighters and strong shooters do.

I really don't understand the perpetual gripe about magic. It's not exactly an "i win" button even with the stronger casters in the game.

Can we go back to the post release honeymoon period please? I liked it way better when everyone was in the constant glow of new book and new things. Lately it just seems like there's a whole lot of talk about what we don't have or can't do. Maybe i've just been focusing on that, but we just had an awesome book come out. Feels like we can bask in the awesomeness just a little bit longer? There will be plenty of time to justifiably complain when the book is in it's twilight years and we're getting tabled by the 5th stormcast battletome or something.

I think your assessment of "Awesome" is different from most of the other forum members, which is resulting in your inundation in negative posts lol
I think the book was good... but if awesome is 5 stars im only giving it 3 for good.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

I think your assessment of "Awesome" is different from most of the other forum members, which is resulting in your inundation in negative posts lol
I think the book was good... but if awesome is 5 stars im only giving it 3 for good.

that seems about right competent but nothing mind blowing. much better then what was but still having several massive flaws.

 

[Putzfrau]

I think your assessment of "Awesome" is different from most of the other forum members, which is resulting in your inundation in negative posts lol
I think the book was good... but if awesome is 5 stars im only giving it 3 for good.

I'll take one of the three/four best books in the game any day of the week..

that seems about right competent but nothing mind blowing. much better then what was but still having several massive flaws.

Every book has flaws. We have multiple strong builds across both "parts" of our army and at least one (i'd argue 3) VERY strong build that can compete with the best lists in the game.

Almost every single unit in the book is at least usable with a few notable exceptions. We can run a magic heavy list, a shooting heavy list, or a melee heavy list with good results. You can run saurus, you can run skinks, you can run with a slann or without. No lizardmen book has even come close to this in terms of flexibility and you have to go all the way back to 7th edition WHFB to find one as powerful.

There is no reason to be upset with this book right now unless the only models you have are stegadons, trogs, and the eternity guardian.

Of course, all in my opinion. But i'd be very curious why people are so down on a book that's so strong AND so flexible.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

I'll take one of the three/four best books in the game any day of the week.

If people can't see that they are being willfully ignorant.



Every book has flaws. We have multiple strong builds across both "parts" of our army and at least one (i'd argue 3) VERY strong build that can compete with the best lists in the game.

Almost every single unit in the book is at least usable with a few notable exceptions. We can run a magic heavy list, a shooting heavy list, or a melee heavy list with good results. You can run saurus, you can run skinks, you can run with a slann or without. No lizardmen book has even come close to this in terms of flexibility and you have to go all the way back to 7th edition WHFB to find one as powerful.

Anyone complaining about this book as a whole is intentionally being ignorant of everything i just mentioned. Or they are instead intentionally choosing to focus on the tiny amount of negatives for some reason.

There is no reason to be upset with this book right now unless the only models you have are stegadons, trogs, and the eternity guardian.

Of course, all in my opinion. But i'd be very curious why people are so down on a book that's so strong AND so flexible.

i don't think establishing bad motive as the reason for disagreement here is helpful. it's obvious that you don't seem to mind the problems that most others have, but that does not mean they are being unfair. the book has a lot of problems. i have been down on it since day one it's not bad but i don't think it's one of the best books they have put out, not even close.
if you don't mind the failiors of the book that's fine but people have the same ability to be let down and this book let a lot of us down

 

[Putzfrau]

i don't think establishing bad motive as the reason for disagreement here is helpful. it's obvious that you don't seem to mind the problems that most others have but that does not mean they are being unfair the book has a lot of problems. i have been down on it since day one it's not bad but i don't think it's one of the best books they have put out, not even close.
if you don't mind the failiors of the book that's fine but people have the same ability to be let down and this book let a lot of us down

Agreed, I edited that out of my post but you caught me before I did. My apologies.

What problems are you referring to specifically? Not having mount traits? No good battalions? Every book doesn't get everything. That's just a fact.

Those are only problems in the context of the larger book. If the book needed mount traits to be viable, it would be an issue. We don't, so it's not. I want to be able to fight twice with my saurus. Not being able to is only a problem if the melee components of the army don't work without it. I think you could argue that they don't work without it at the highest level, and i think we could discuss that.

I guess i just don't understand what there is to be let down about. These complaints seem, for lack of a better term, petty at best. Unless i'm missing some larger issue with the book here. If you're let down with this book, I'm just curious what the expectation was.

If an OBR player told you he was disappointed with his book, what would you say to him (or her)? If a tzeentch player was complaining about their artefacts, what would you tell them? If you went onto the tzeentch forum right now and their "GHB 2020 Wishes" thread was all just "why can't we have this" and "i want this" and "can you believe this book got this?" what would you think?

That's essentially whats going on now. We are drowning in riches and complaining that we didn't get rubies to go with our diamonds.

Edit: I wanted to clarify one thing. I dont think this book is without faults. I dont think we shouldn't be allowed to complain about them. I just don't think it should be the only conversation we have, and lately it feels that way.

Maybe I just need to step away from the forum. I've been having the most fun playing warhammer that i've had in probably 10 years. I used to like coming to this forum to learn and help other people learn and shoot the shit about lizards. Lately it's just been bumming me out. Maybe that's on me.

 

[Random Lizard]

I'll take one of the three/four best books in the game any day of the week..



Every book has flaws. We have multiple strong builds across both "parts" of our army and at least one (i'd argue 3) VERY strong build that can compete with the best lists in the game.

Almost every single unit in the book is at least usable with a few notable exceptions. We can run a magic heavy list, a shooting heavy list, or a melee heavy list with good results. You can run saurus, you can run skinks, you can run with a slann or without. No lizardmen book has even come close to this in terms of flexibility and you have to go all the way back to 7th edition WHFB to find one as powerful.

There is no reason to be upset with this book right now unless the only models you have are stegadons, trogs, and the eternity guardian.

Of course, all in my opinion. But i'd be very curious why people are so down on a book that's so strong AND so flexible.

I believe the book is pretty good in terms of power, not amongst the strongest and not in the bottom either.

My issue with it is how lazy it looks ...

-Starborne abilities are a copy/paste from the old book essentially (with notable nerfs).
-Spell lore is almost copy/paste from GHB19 (and our slann spells are lackluster)
-No mount trait even though we are the original behemoth faction
-most warscrolls were unchanged and when something did change it was copied from another (slann/trog comet call being the most obvious).
-starborne faction abilities and skink battalion ability countering each other in some way or being the exact same.

 

[Erta Wanderer]

Agreed, I edited that out of my post but you caught me before I did. My apologies.

What problems are you referring to specifically? Not having mount traits? No good battalions? Every book doesn't get everything. That's just a fact.

Those are only problems in the context of the larger book. If the book needed mount traits to be viable, it would be an issue. We don't, so it's not. I want to be able to fight twice with my saurus. Not being able to is only a problem if the melee components of the army don't work without it. I think you could argue that they don't work without it at the highest level, and i think we could discuss that.

I guess i just don't understand what there is to be let down about. These complaints seem, for lack of a better term, petty at best. Unless i'm missing some larger issue with the book here. If you're let down with this book, i don't think your expectations were realistic in the first place.

If an OBR player told you he was disappointed with his book, what would you say to him? If a tzeentch player was complaining about their artefacts, what would you tell them?

That's essentially whats going on now. We are drowning in riches and complaining that we didn't get rubies to go with our diamonds.

bad internal balance between starborn and coalesced i mean 2 of coalesced abilities are useless more often then not and one is a out right detriment.
bad spell lores 2/3 being bad/useless and our stand out spell being a bog standered hoard killer. we have great bonuses to cast but nothing to use them on it's one of the reasons kroak is taken so often he has enough warscroll spells that he doesn't have to fall back onto the lores.
bad monsters over all it's a constant problem in AoS but for the faction that is all about dinosaurs it hurts and no mount traits just makes it worse
no effective anvil this is where temple guard could have come into it's own but they nurffed their save. instead we got worse warriors that can act as wounds for kroak not great for our eleat infantry.
the realm shaper not getting into that again but out one new sculpt being so subpar is a gut punch.
the major hits to our game macanics did need to happen but they went to far in a few cases and didn't replace them with anything but +1s. so we have a very boring play style nothing interesting just buff units and throw them at people.
so many bad units things that where just poorly thought out or badly balanced with the rest of the book. they didn't need to hit rippers that bad or the ark or chameleons or eternity warden or skinks(not that they are bad but they did get triple nurffed). and a lot of the things they tried to fix failed hence why you still don't see them in lists
a complete lack of strikes first strikes last double pile in's fight after death run and charge(on actual melee units) retreat and charge and several other tools means our melee struggles even when fully buffed that and the high drops lowers our options a lot

i don't think our battalions are worse then any thing else out side of tzeench they work no complaints here
saurus are better even good if you build them right but they do not stack up well next to good melee builds right now and they suffer from over reliance on squishy heroes
salamanders are great no complaints not broken just the new razordons
i like the bound spells fun flavorful rules

we have solid tools but with anything that's not salamander kroak and/or skink spam(with out the fun parts) you are working twice as hard for 3/4 the out come and while still good more often then not it hurts to see things in other armies that so effortlessly out class us
sorry for being a bit gripy but i have been being positive for the most part recently and just had to vent

 

[Putzfrau]

I believe the book is pretty good in terms of power, not amongst the strongest and not in the bottom either.

My issue with it is how lazy it looks ...

-Starborne abilities are a copy/paste from the old book essentially (with notable nerfs).
-Spell lore is almost copy/paste from GHB19 (and our slann spells are lackluster)
-No mount trait even though we are the original behemoth faction
-most warscrolls were unchanged and when something did change it was copied from another (slann/trog comet call being the most obvious).
-starborne faction abilities and skink battalion ability countering each other in some way or being the exact same.

So you would have just preferred a bigger shake up from our first book? I can respect that. I was looking at it as layered changes. There was a lot that worked from the first book and they didn't want to totally lose what people enjoyed by risking an end result that was "new and different" but less polished.

I do think the spell lore is sloppy. In my mind I pretend it's because bound endless spells are so powerful, but the whole lore is so whatever it is hard to rationalize. I also think it would have been nice if some of our battalions weren't just the old battalions split down the middle.

I guess I've also found it to be an okay trade off for the benefits we did get. I can live with a sloppy spell lore because the other magic pieces (our warscroll spells, bound endless spells, kroak, etc) are so strong/fun/flexible. I'm okay with lazy battalions because they aren't needed to make a functional seraphon list.

Appreciate the response tho, thank you!

 

[Krissey]

TBH I don't really care as long as I can figure out a min/maxed as competitive as possible list that uses Kroxigors. I've made a few. Now I just need to buy the models and test them..

 

[Erta Wanderer]

TBH I don't really care as long as I can figure out a min/maxed as competitive as possible list that uses Kroxigors. I've made a few. Now I just need to buy the models and test them..

i love krox i have 6 of them! be warned they are very hard to put together

 

[Putzfrau]

bad internal balance between starborn and coalesced i mean 2 of coalesced abilities are useless more often then not and one is a out right detriment.

I think coalesced is stronger than people give it credit for, but I do agree that the terrain and the bravery allegiance ability are poorly thought through. I think they are just a small tweak away from being good (only negative debuffs and impacting all terrain).

bad spell lores 2/3 being bad/useless and our stand out spell being a bog standered hoard killer. we have great bonuses to cast but nothing to use them on it's one of the reasons kroak is taken so often he has enough warscroll spells that he doesn't have to fall back onto the lores.

I mentioned this a little in the above post, but I think there was a little reluctance to give us a powerful lore and bound endless spells. Bound spells are just absurdly strong. I do think they could have spent more time on the lore, I think it suffered from how long our book sat in playtesting. At the time of it being written, it wouldn't have stood out nearly as badly, but when it's dropped right between tzeentch and Lumineth it looks pretty sad by comparison. I would argue that a vast, vast majority of the spells in AoS are pretty useless. Maybe the Lumineth lore is a sign of things to come /shrug

Regardless, even with a bad lore we still have great spellcasters and magic is an important part of our list. So its not exactly like the end result is much different than if we had tons of spells to choose from.

bad monsters over all it's a constant problem in AoS but for the faction that is all about dinosaurs it hurts and no mount traits just makes it worse

I agree and disagree. I think carnosaurs are very strong. Trogs are okay for their one trick. Bastiladons are strong. Stegadons could use some love.

If i had to say, my complaint with the dinosaurs is they are all kind of the same. The whole army is actually. Everything is more in that "glass cannon" space than anything. Not a whole lot of diversity, but i'll get into that below...

no effective anvil this is where temple guard could have come into it's own but they nurffed their save. instead we got worse warriors that can act as wounds for kroak not great for our eleat infantry.

This is where i think design philosophy comes in a bit. It feels like this book was written with a specific idea of seraphon in mind. Every unit seems to be build around this ability to do a ton of damage, but can't take a punch at all. The monsters, the units, the heroes, it's all the same. With that in mind, I think that's the reason we didn't get an anvil unit. Our army isn't intended to have an anvil, because we've been designed (and hopefully balanced) around being able to do a level of damage that doesn't need one.

Whether you agree with that or not is something else, but I don't mind that all armies don't get everything. I like that seraphon feel fundamentally different than an army like fyreslayers or something.

the realm shaper not getting into that again but out one new sculpt being so subpar is a gut punch.

No arguments there. it's a real shame.

the major hits to our game macanics did need to happen but they went to far in a few cases and didn't replace them with anything but +1s. so we have a very boring play style nothing interesting just buff units and throw them at people.

Hm. Can't say I agree here. I don't think seraphon have a boring playstyle, and I think it's far more nuanced than you're giving it credit for. I think our playstyle changes drastically depending on if you lean into skinks or saurus, coalesced or starborne. You might need to elaborate a little here, cause i'm not seeing it at all.

so many bad units things that where just poorly thought out or badly balanced with the rest of the book. they didn't need to hit rippers that bad or the ark or chameleons or eternity warden or skinks(not that they are bad but they did get triple nurffed). and a lot of the things they tried to fix failed hence why you still don't see them in lists

Again, not sure i totally agree. A vast majority of the units in this book are usable at a casual level. A decent amount are usable at the competitive level. In terms of flexibility, we're actually doing pretty alright compared to other books. Ark and eternity warden are not good, i'll give you that. Ark really wasn't ever good tho, so not sure what you mean by it getting hit too hard. I think skinks are in a great spot, but i was sad to see wary fighter go. Like i mentioned above, it feels like they tried to make up for it by just cranking the damage up to 11.

a complete lack of strikes first strikes last double pile in's fight after death run and charge(on actual melee units) retreat and charge and several other tools means our melee struggles even when fully buffed that and the high drops lowers our options a lot

They've largely moved away from activation wars, for better or worse. I think not having run and charge (or some ability to move with speed) is problematic for Warriors for sure. I think being able to dictate the flow of the game with a good one drop could have helped with this. However, Saurus Warrior armies still work, and they work better than in the last book. Saurus knight lists are genuinely strong, even without those things.

i don't think our battalions are worse then any thing else out side of tzeench they work no complaints here
saurus are better even good if you build them right but they do not stack up well next to good melee builds right now and they suffer from over reliance on squishy heroes
salamanders are great no complaints not broken just the new razordons
i like the bound spells fun flavorful rules
sorry for being a bit gripy but i have been being positive for the most part recently and just had to vent

all in all, i'll say thank you for responding at length! I do think that ultimately the opinion that shapes my beliefs is you gotta take the good with the bad. Every book has compromises, and so far i'm pretty happy with the compromises made here. I can see how those compromises might not be as palatable for everyone, but I do think that conversation should be had in the context of a book that's VERY VERY strong. It's important to understand that this is a good book, and if we want to complain about its faults, we should do so knowing there would be a cost to adjusting those faults. Giving this book everything you've outlined would create an extremely problematic battletome (moreso than it already is).

My last point is in reference to this:

we have solid tools but with anything that's not salamander kroak and/or skink spam(with out the fun parts) you are working twice as hard for 3/4 the out come and while still good more often then not it hurts to see things in other armies that so effortlessly out class us

I think you can always say "a list made up of b-tier units is going to perform 3/4's as well as a list made up of a-tier units." That's true across every book in the game. However, i also think that people have taken the Kroak/salamander meta to an absurd place. There are plenty of other viable builds for how most people play, and there are even other viable builds if your intention is to be as competitive as possible (which is far from most peoples intention).

I think Kroak and salamanders strength have made us blind to the rest of the book, when there's some really cool stuff in there. Thunderquake is still extremely viable, as is Saurus Knight spam. If we're talking about more casual situations, you can run almost anything. If you aren't literally trying to regularly podium at tournaments, your options are hardly limited.

I don't think we, as a community, should get so lost in Kroak and Salamanders that we mistake the rest of the book as being bad.

Edit: i'm bad at getting everything in at once apparently. To bring this back to the topic at hand, I think if we're talking about what we want for the 2020 GHB, that notion of compromise should still be infused in what we are wishlisting for.

 

[Krissey]

if your intention is to be as competitive as possible (which is far from most peoples intention).

I think you will find that my intention is to be as competitive as possible...with Kroxigors.

And also other things too. I want to use Terradons to good effect, and Saurus (all of them, anything that's Saurus keyword). And..I like Salamanders. And Bastiladons. I like everything.