AoS 4th Edition is nearly here...

[Canas]

Grots

Faction ability:

• The bad moon continues to exist.

Subfaction ability:

• Squigs get a +1 to their bite on the charge.

Fine, but again, very limited if that's all the subfaction does.

Magic:

• An AoE summon starlight. Neat. But the 12" range is short for a support hero...

Units:

• Skagrot
  • Control the bad moon
  • Personal spell is a basic damage dealer. Roll dice equal to the casting roll, each 3+ does 1 mortal wound. Fine I suppose.
  • If a nearby unit redeploys you can always count on a minimum roll of 4.
  • Has a 4+ ward save
• Gobbapalooza
  • Ward save that becomes worse over time
  • No personal spell
  • Basic buff during the hero phase for a nearby unit. Or prevent an enemy from using command abilities (GW really seems to like that this edition..)
• Squig herd
  • Herders can respawn squiqs during the hero phase. On a 1+ the herder gets eaten instead
  • Sucks at holding objectives
  • Pretty decent attacks
• Loonshrine
  • Bad moon effect on nearby grots
  • Command ability to respawn half a unit

Overal, kinda boring? The squigs are neat I suppose.

Spearhead:

• Different bad moon effect from usual
• Rockgut Troggoths
  • Minor ranged attack
  • Some regen
  • Yet more attacks with -2 rend.

Overal, pretty boring compared to the skaven and SCE.
Continues the trend of no personal spells for casters.
Also, continues the trend of everything seemingly having rend.

 

[Kilvakar]

Is GW counting on the carno being such a massive powerhouse it'll dominate spearhead on its own? Cuz that's about the only thing the spearhead has going for it; it has a big monster. With the caveat that historically speaking it's been one of the weaker monsters in AoS...

Carnosaur is much weaker than before, which honestly makes me really mad. Why, just why won't GW let Seraphon have their massive T-Rex dinosaur be GOOD IN COMBAT?

Sorry for the digital shouting, lol! But according to Caleb Hastings GW confirmed that the stat profiles for Spearhead are going to be the same in the main game, but their abilities may differ. As is, spearhead Carnosaur is, to be frank, pretty crap. Maybe it AoS proper it's abilities will be awesome, maybe not. But it'd better have some pretty broken abilities to make up for that crappy statline and weapon profile, lol!

 

[Canas]

Carnosaur is much weaker than before, which honestly makes me really mad. Why, just why won't GW let Seraphon have their massive T-Rex dinosaur be GOOD IN COMBAT?

Sorry for the digital shouting, lol! But according to Caleb Hastings GW confirmed that the stat profiles for Spearhead are going to be the same in the main game, but their abilities may differ. As is, spearhead Carnosaur is, to be frank, pretty crap. Maybe it AoS proper it's abilities will be awesome, maybe not. But it'd better have some pretty broken abilities to make up for that crappy statline and weapon profile, lol!

I just did the math on a napkin.... Fun fact; the carnosaur is apparently the weakest melee combatant in our spearhead.
Against a 4+ save the carno averages 5,667 damage in melee
The saurus warriors average 5.9 damage against a 4+ save.
The kroxigor in that box average 6.667 damage against a 4+ save without including brutal blows

If you include the carno's ranged attack, it adds 0.88 damage against that 4+ save, WHICH STILL PUTS IT BEHIND THE KROXIGOR

God this version of the carnosaur sucks.

It really begs the question what is the intended playstyle for this spearhead...

 

[Canas]

Nighthaunt focus:

Faction ability:

• ethereal. This also explicitly affects Nagash. (Having factions affect Nagash seems like a great way to completly screw up his balance...)
• Give friendly nighthaunt a 5+ ward as a CA when they get attacked
• Several different auras. Each can be used once per turn, and a unit can only use 1 aura per turn, because balancing stacking effects is hard
  
  • -1 to hit for an enemy (all nighthaunts)
    
  • All nighthaunt that are in combat can charge.If you roll less than a 3 on the charge it doesn't count as having charged. (this one can be stacked with other auras depending on the order)
  • -1 to save for an enemy (only for cavalry and war machines nighthaunt)
  • Strike last effect for an enemy (only for hero nighthaunt)

The ward save stands out for not having a rule of 1 limitation, but I guess with the new limited command points that simply wasn't needed.
The auras are... odd. Difficult to tell if that's going to be fun without playing it.

Subfaction:

• Run & charge for nighthaunt
• No mortal wounds when retreating (o look.. the 2nd faction that ignores the retreating mechanic... what a usefull mechanic...)

Magic:

• Summon starlight but a -1 to wound instead of hit. Also it's a buff for friendlies, can't be used on an enemy.
• Again, frustratingly short ranged for support heroes.

Units:

• Lady Olyander:
  • All her attacks autowind on a 6. Seems like frightfull touch is no longer a faction ability, but is now stuck on each individual warscroll.
    
  • Once per battle return D3+3 health worth of models to every nighthaunt unit
  • Substract 3 from control scores for nearby enemies.
  • Personal spell: remove bonusses to hit and wound from an enemy.
  • The ward save has also moved from the faction ability to the warscroll

Why does GW keep sticking "subctract X control score" on everything? And more importantly, why do they keep sticking it on heroes that should be busy doing things other than grabbing objectives?

The personal spell is neat I guess.

• Reikenor
  • Coprse candles: deal 1 damage to a target. If you picked an enemy reikenor gets +1 to cast, if you picked reikenor he also gets +1 to his power level.
    
    • Seems like you can use this twice per turn, once in your hero phase, once in your opponents.
    • Its not entirely clear how beneficial an extra random power level is going to be, so difficult to judge if this is worthwhile.
    • Annoyingly shortranged. At least reikenor is a melee unit I suppose.
  • Personal spell: Deal D3 damage, if it kills an model deal another D3. Again, annoyingly short ranged.
  • +1 to hit and wound for his sword if he attacks a priest or wizard.
• dreadblade harrows
  • +3 to control score for nearby nighthaunt if this unit charged.
    • This seems a bit silly since it can stack. It also affects itself RAW. Should probably be limited to a max of +6 or something for any given objective.
  • can teleport
• Myrmourn Banshees
  • Can unbind spells that target nearby nighthaunt. Deal D3 damage to the wizard when succesfully unbinding.

Overal, nothing amazing, but GW is really loving their control score shenanigans...
The short range on a lot of support heroes is a bit weird, and starting to become a trend. Feels more like the nerfed the range on support units than the range on ranged units like the promised..

O, and I didn't mention it yet; but of course every single unit shown has rend on at least 1 attack.

Spearhead:

• slightly altered version of the strike last aura. Requires a charge of 10+. Seems a bit difficult to pull off.
  
• Ethereal
• Knight of shrouds:
  • Give a friendly target a 5+ ward.

 

[Canas]

CoS:

Battle traits:

• Units can get orders. Each hero can give 1 order. Each unit can recieve 1 order. But 2 heroes can give the same order to different units..
  • Move 3"
  • +1 attack on the charge
  • Apply strike last after shooting
  • give a target strike last & a 5+ ward
  • Bonus effects depending on the race of the unit

These are reasonably fun. Though I'm not sure if the racial bonusses will see much play. Not unless they get a wave of new models to flesh out the other racial subfactions. Also, bit of a shame that again the rule of one is dumped on everything. Limiting it to once per hero should've been enough.

Subfactions

• Start in "fortified" on your first turn and -1 to wound for enemies on your first turn

Again; this is weirdly limited for a subfaction ability. Are subfactions literally just going to boil down to 1 minor rule this edition?

Spells

• give a unit 3 dice while charging

Again, only a 12" range. Other than that not particularly novel or anything.

Units

• Tahlia Vedra:
  • "anti monster" on an attack with 2 rend.
    
  • Can affect 2 units with 1 order.
  • Once per game, ressurect a few models.
    
  • Apply strike last to a monster that charged and is in combat with Tahlia once per turn. Why are the requirements that strict?
    
  • Pretty good combat.
• Fusil Major
  • 24" gun, auto-wound, anti-hero
  • +1 to hit rolls for ranged attack that target what he targeted.
  • Can fortify (-1 to rend for attacks targeting him
• Freeguild cavaliers
  • +1 damage on charge
  • deal mortal wounds on the charge
  • Has a standard, but no standard special rule?
• Steelhelms
  • Has a musician & standard, but no special rule?
  • Can consecrate an uncontested objective, giving you a 5+ ward on nearby units until you lose control.

So couple of things.

1) Is GW sure that they nerfed the range on ranged attacks & not the range on spells & support abilities?
2) That consecration rule is very cool, and very powerfull for what is your most basic troop
3) the anti-X rules are really pointless given the way they've been implemented...

Spearhead:

• altered version of orders that interacts with battlecards in spearhead. Honestly, far too much text for a spearhead mechanic...
• Cavalier-marshal:
  • Can ressurect models for units that are out of combat.
  • More control-score nonsense

Ressurection is funny, themed as him telling the soldiers to get back up.
The control score nonsense is getting old. GW should show of something else already...

 

[Canas]

Lord vigilant on chicken

- Can resist abilities.
- Allow a unit to use 2 fight abilities, but it now has strike last. Once per battle.

I think this means it can make a unit fight twice? This is very confusingly phrased.

 

[Jason839]

I just did the math on a napkin.... Fun fact; the carnosaur is apparently the weakest melee combatant in our spearhead.
Against a 4+ save the carno averages 5,667 damage in melee
The saurus warriors average 5.9 damage against a 4+ save.
The kroxigor in that box average 6.667 damage against a 4+ save without including brutal blows

If you include the carno's ranged attack, it adds 0.88 damage against that 4+ save, WHICH STILL PUTS IT BEHIND THE KROXIGOR

God this version of the carnosaur sucks.

It really begs the question what is the intended playstyle for this spearhead...

Probably copium, but maybe there is an unannounced rule that prompted them to weaken the base carno stats?

 

[Kilvakar]

Probably copium, but maybe there is an unannounced rule that prompted them to weaken the base carno stats?

Unknown at this time. To paraphrase what GW said in one of the recent previews "You'll notice that some things feel less powerful than before, but don't worry, either other comparable units have also been nerfed or this unit now has a more specific niche." In Caleb Hastings' recent video about playing the Spearhead game, the GW rep saw his disappointment with the Carnosaur and said "the stats and profile are the same in Spearhead and AoS, but abilities will be different."

So it's definitely nerfed, but we have no idea what it's main game abilities will be. It could get crazy powerful abilities, mediocre ones, or nothing at all. Just going to have to wait for the indexes to come out. I'm betting it will still be weaker compared to other factions' monsters though, lol!

 

[Canas]

Unknown at this time. To paraphrase what GW said in one of the recent previews "You'll notice that some things feel less powerful than before, but don't worry, either other comparable units have also been nerfed or this unit now has a more specific niche." In Caleb Hastings' recent video about playing the Spearhead game, the GW rep saw his disappointment with the Carnosaur and said "the stats and profile are the same in Spearhead and AoS, but abilities will be different."

So it's definitely nerfed, but we have no idea what it's main game abilities will be. It could get crazy powerful abilities, mediocre ones, or nothing at all. Just going to have to wait for the indexes to come out. I'm betting it will still be weaker compared to other factions' monsters though, lol!

Comparing it to the other heroes we've seen so far, the all the heroes have similar attacks.
E.g. de oldblood seems comparable to the SCE on the chicken as well as to the CoS general on a horse.
The carnosaur as a mount is a bit better than the horse or the chicken, but not great.
The most notable difference seems to be that the carno has 14 wounds whereas those smaller mounts have 7, in return the smaller mounts don't have a wound-table effect, but the carno does.

Which basicly means:
A full health carno does more damage than a 1 full health chicken riding SCE.
But a damaged carno probably losses to the chicken.

 

[Canas]

Tzeentch

Faction;

• Cheating dice
• Can set 1 enemy unit on fire in each shooting phase, if you hit it with specific attacks.
• At the end of a turn each burning unit rolls a D3, on a 2+ suffer damage, on a 1 they're no longer burning
• If you heal or ressurect a burning unit, instead the burning effect goes away.

Burning effect seems like fun. However, with only 1 unit per turn it seems quite limited in how quickly you can spread it.
Also, there's some weird interactions with going first/second that further complicate this since you can only set units on fire that have been hit by an attack.

The anti-healing effect is interesting. as well.

Overall, seems like for it'd be vastly more fun if setting things on fire was easier.

Subfaciton

• Burning units get -1 to hit

Again; fairly minor for a faction ability.

Spells:

• Tzeentch is one of the few factions with 2 lores
• Transformed to spawn: deal damage, create a spawn if you kill something.

The spawn comes from reserves, because apparently GW is reversing summoning back to the horrible state of 2th? 1st? edition summoning where it was a glorified deepstrike mechanic. Lame.

Two paragraphs later; GW of course makes in immeadiate exception by pointing out that if this spawn gets killed you can just create a new one. Whereas most other factions can only "ressurect" a model once. Also lame.

Also, of course it only has a 12" range. GW is seriously does not like wizards with range this edition.
The fact that having 2 lores is exceptional also kind of sucks.

Units:

• Kairos
  • Same casting bonus he always had
    
  • A special ability to re-use battle tactics once per game (meh)
  • +1 to casting for nearby wizards
  • Personal spell: minor debuf (-1 to save, -1 to hit & wound, can't use command abilities). Again, meh.
  • Can probably beat a carnosaur in melee combat
  • Can't set enemies on fire...
• Gaunt summoner:
  • A ranged attack that can actually damage an opponent! wohoo
    • It's only 12". Your squishy summoner does not want to come close to enemies... Boo...
  • Can put units in reserve, then deepstrike the unit (meh..)
  • Personal spell: the deepstrike effect has a longer range and can be closer to enemies....
  • can't set enemies on fire
• Curseling:
  • Can set enemies on fire. Also, it's a pretty decent attack he uses for this.
  • Pretty good combat profile; especially for Tzeentch
  • If it unbinds a spell roll a D6 on a 4+ the enemy wizard loses 1 level (meh..)
  • Personal spell: +1 rend for its melee attacks (boring, and it already has 1 rend)
• Pink horrors:
  • Can set enemies on fire
  • Ranged attack is only 12"...
  • Split: return 2 slain blue horrors to a nearby unit
    • Obvious counter: don't touch the blue horrors until the pinks are dead...

Overal; they're all kinda boring. With the exception of the curseling, and really he is only interesting because it's one of the few Tzeentch units in AoS with decent stats. Also, they're all absurdly squishy, with the excpetion of the curseling. Kairos has 5+/5++, gaunt & horrors have 6+/6++.
This was fine when Tzeentch had summoning, ranged attacks, and decent spells, but all of those mechanics have been nerfed into the ground...

Spearhead:

• Cheating dice
• Kairic acolytes
  • 18" ranged attack
  • "totally not a spell"-ability to give their ranged attack +1 rend

Pretty boring; I assume the acolytes are missing 90% of their rules.

Anyways overal: Tzeentch seems to have been nerfed into the ground. The burning effect has potential, but seems far too difficult to spread with this preview (maybe they get spells/abilities to fix this?). Also, Kairos' personal abilities are a major dissapointment. They're not that powerfull, but more importantly, they also aren't terribly interesting or flavourfull...

O, and the fact that summoning is back to being a glorified deep-strike ability just sucks.

Rather dissapointing....

 

[Canas]

KO:

Faction:

• Deepstrike from reserve
• Big ships provide cover to nearby infantry (weird, but okay...)
  
• Units can hitch a ride on ships,units cannot use charge abilities when this is done

The cover seems odd. Its not like other big units provide cover?
Also, it's not clear if the units that hitch a ride can't charge, or simply don't get bonusses from charging.

Subfaction

• Get an extra artifact.

Instead of spells, artifacts:

• Remove 1 dice from a monster when it charges
• Remove ward saves from a target
• Unbind a spell

All one-time uses, limited by the rule of one. All boring.

Units

• Brokk Grungsson
  • +1 attack for two nearby units
  • Give run and charge and shoot to 3 nearby ships that are out of combat. Again, once.
  • Do some damage to a unit
• Frigate:
  • Still has a lot of guns
  • Units can hitch a ride when it charges, everything charges together. Units get strike first.
  • Bomb enemies it moves over
• Skywardens
  • Still has guns
    
  • Can retreat for free & damage an enemy at the end phase.
• Thunderers:
  • Champion can't replace his weapon (Why? Do champions even still get a bonus?)
  • Can shoot in combat if it didn't move
  • 18" range on its long ranged weapons
  • 5 attacks on its anti-infantry weapon (max 2 out of 5 models)

Spearhead:

• Gets the hitchhiking rule
• Arkanaut company:
  • +1 to hit when targeting a unit guarding an objective
  • Ranged weapons 10-15"

Again; ranged attacks don't really seem nerfed in the slightest (in fact, some of their ranges got boosted from 9 to 10"). So who knows what GW meant with that claim a while back.
I hate that literally all the artifacts are 1 time uses.
Other than that, nothing terribly unexpected.

 

[Canas]

Ogors:

Faction ability:

• Trample damage on the charge
• +2 to run rolls while you haven't used "feast on flesh"
• "feast on flesh" Once per game, roll a D3 for every ogor unit that fought. On a 2+ deal damage to their enemy and heal the ogor unit
  • Can only be used once per game.
  • An enemy unit can only be hurt once
  • Units not in combat when you happen to use it will not got a second chance

"feast on flesh" suffers from more rule of 1 nonsense....

Subfaction:

• Monsters do +1 damage on the charge.

Yay?

Spells/prayers:

• Cause a blizzard on a piece of terrain. Terrain now counts as "obscuring", on a 10+ nearby ogors get a 5+ ward

The wardsave is neat. The normal effect is kind of underwhelming. And obviously there is the problem of not everyone playing with the same amount of terrain.

Units:

• Kragnos
  • Impressive melee profile
  • Being wounded barely makes a difference.... Wound tables suck this edition.
  • Protection against spells, which is confusingly worded. can only be used once per spell ability. So presumably if you cast the same spell twice he can't block the second? Which given the rule of one seems largely irrelevant
    
  • Can't be instantly destroyed, instead suffer 6 wounds
  • Personal rampage ability to do damage on the charge
  • +1 to charge rolls for nearby allies
• Huskard on stonehorn
  • Ranged attacks are all limited to 1 attack. Making its ranged combat pretty insignificant.
  • Ignore the first damage suffered each phase.
    
  • Buff/Debuff all nearby monsters each turn.
• Gluttons
  • 4/4+/2+/1/2 makes for a rather impressive number of attacks
  • +1 control score if you have used your feast ability
  • That's it...
• Gorgers
  • Deepstrike
  • Similar to gluttons, but a bit stronger against infantry. Not by much though since they come with 5 models instead of 6.

So, it's depressing that they have so few interesting characters they're stuck with Kragnos....
The huskards buff/debuff effect to nearby monsters is fun. it's ranged atack is sad...
The gluttons are terribly boring.
The gorgers are also rather boring.

Spearhead:

• Ironblasters & mournfang cannot be setup and have to appear in turn 3.
• leadbelchers
  • Their ranged attack is actually shorter! I think this might be the first one they show with an actual change to their range.
  • +1 to hit for shooting when they haven't moved.

Terrible spearhead ability...

Overal, rather dissapointing as well.

 

[Putzfrau]

Guys, keep in mind those scrolls are for spearhead, and they've specifically said they toned down warscrolls and abilities for spearhead.

The kroxigor spearhead scroll, for example, is much different than the aos one.

 

[Putzfrau]

Ogors:

Faction ability:

• Trample damage on the charge
• +2 to run rolls while you haven't used "feast on flesh"
• "feast on flesh" Once per game, roll a D3 for every ogor unit that fought. On a 2+ deal damage to their enemy and heal the ogor unit
  • Can only be used once per game.
  • An enemy unit can only be hurt once
  • Units not in combat when you happen to use it will not got a second chance

"feast on flesh" suffers from more rule of 1 nonsense....

Subfaction:

• Monsters do +1 damage on the charge.

Yay?

Spells/prayers:

• Cause a blizzard on a piece of terrain. Terrain now counts as "obscuring", on a 10+ nearby ogors get a 5+ ward

The wardsave is neat. The normal effect is kind of underwhelming. And obviously there is the problem of not everyone playing with the same amount of terrain.

Units:

• Kragnos
  • Impressive melee profile
  • Being wounded barely makes a difference.... Wound tables suck this edition.
  • Protection against spells, which is confusingly worded. can only be used once per spell ability. So presumably if you cast the same spell twice he can't block the second? Which given the rule of one seems largely irrelevant
    
  • Can't be instantly destroyed, instead suffer 6 wounds
  • Personal rampage ability to do damage on the charge
  • +1 to charge rolls for nearby allies
• Huskard on stonehorn
  • Ranged attacks are all limited to 1 attack. Making its ranged combat pretty insignificant.
  • Ignore the first damage suffered each phase.
    
  • Buff/Debuff all nearby monsters each turn.
• Gluttons
  • 4/4+/2+/1/2 makes for a rather impressive number of attacks
  • +1 control score if you have used your feast ability
  • That's it...
• Gorgers
  • Deepstrike
  • Similar to gluttons, but a bit stronger against infantry. Not by much though since they come with 5 models instead of 6.

So, it's depressing that they have so few interesting characters they're stuck with Kragnos....
The huskards buff/debuff effect to nearby monsters is fun. it's ranged atack is sad...
The gluttons are terribly boring.
The gorgers are also rather boring.

Spearhead:

• Ironblasters & mournfang cannot be setup and have to appear in turn 3.
• leadbelchers
  • Their ranged attack is actually shorter! I think this might be the first one they show with an actual change to their range.
  • +1 to hit for shooting when they haven't moved.

Terrible spearhead ability...

Overal, rather dissapointing as well.

So gorgers have the highest damage potential of any unit they've shown so far, and the 4.0 huskard scroll actually averages more damage than the current one (assuming you get the monstrous action off), even accounting for the trampling charge change.

The ogor preview was definitely less exciting than some of the others, but if theres a run and charge buff somewhere the army has some serious gas.

I think it's quite clear that the game has undergone some simplification, so i think approaching each of these previews as "boring" and "not very interesting" is kind of missing the forest for the trees a bit.

 

[Canas]

Guys, keep in mind those scrolls are for spearhead, and they've specifically said they toned down warscrolls and abilities for spearhead.

The kroxigor spearhead scroll, for example, is much different than the aos one.

Judging by the non-spearhead warscrolls, the differences can't be that big.
Most of the warscrolls shown are pretty simple with very little in terms of personalisation. Even characters with potential for weird sheninigans like Kairos aren't exactly given much flavour.

So gorgers have the highest damage potential of any unit they've shown so far, and the 4.0 huskard scroll actually averages more damage than the current one (assuming you get the monstrous action off), even accounting for the trampling charge change.

Damage overall seems to lay somewhat higher.
Rend seems to be present on nearly everything they show, but there seems to be less mortal wounds.
Also, saves seem a bit lower and ward-saves seeem to come at a premium, with a lot of them limited to "once per combat" kind of rules. Tzeentch & Nighthaunt being a bit of an exception given that they are horribly squishy without wards (or well.. they're stil squishy with.. but slightly less squishy)

I think it's quite clear that the game has undergone some simplification, so i think approaching each of these previews as "boring" and "not very interesting" is kind of missing the forest for the trees a bit.

Sure, but so far I can't say they've shown much reason for that simplification to be reason for celebration.
If this is the "cool" stuff that they want to show off, then it's not very promising.

Don't get me wrong, there's some neat things with potential. Like the CoS steelhelms ability to consecrate an objective. The knight arcanums dedication to anti-endless spells, annihilators strike last effect, clan moulder's subfaction ability, Gaunt summoners getting some form of halfway decent ranged attack.

But for every cool rule there are is something that's awkward.
For example, why do so many of the cool rules have a rule-of-one type limitation. Take Tzeentch's ability to set stuff on fire. Could they really not come up with a balanced rule where you could set more than 1 unit on fire per turn?
Similarly, why are all the examples of anti-X rules such bad examples? Why does Krondys have a 4/3+/2+/2/4/anti-infantry? Does he really need that 1 extra rend to kill infantry?

 

[Putzfrau]

Judging by the non-spearhead warscrolls, the differences can't be that big.
Most of the warscrolls shown are pretty simple with very little in terms of personalisation. Even characters with potential for weird sheninigans like Kairos aren't exactly given much flavour.

We've seen kroxigor for both spearhead and non. The difference is substantial. Whether it's more flavorful or not that's up to each individual to decide. Its also largely pretty darn similar to the current scroll. If you have a problem with the current levels of personalization as well, i think thats fair.

Damage overall seems to lay somewhat higher.
Rend seems to be present on nearly everything they show, but there seems to be less mortal wounds.
Also, saves seem a bit lower and ward-saves seeem to come at a premium, with a lot of them limited to "once per combat" kind of rules. Tzeentch & Nighthaunt being a bit of an exception given that they are horribly squishy without wards (or well.. they're stil squishy with.. but slightly less squishy)

I think thats a hard statement to say with any kind of accuracy unless you've done the math on every scroll they've shown. Compare 3.0 cities cav to the 4.0 scroll for example. Mortal wounds seem to have been substantially lowered which could have a profound rippling effect for damage across the board.

In general, 4.0 seems to be more of a "this trades into this" type of game. Units have specialties that need to be utilized to get the most out of them.

I think the general impact of "less mortal wounds, less wards, less save stacking, less aura buffs, less general rend (but more specific rend)" is a balance that'll be hard to truly understand until seeing more scrolls.

Sure, but so far I can't say they've shown much reason for that simplification to be reason for celebration.
If this is the "cool" stuff that they want to show off, then it's not very promising.

Don't get me wrong, there's some neat things with potential. Like the CoS steelhelms ability to consecrate an objective. The knight arcanums dedication to anti-endless spells, annihilators strike last effect, clan moulder's subfaction ability, Gaunt summoners getting some form of halfway decent ranged attack.

But for every cool rule there are is something that's awkward.
For example, why do so many of the cool rules have a rule-of-one type limitation. Take Tzeentch's ability to set stuff on fire. Could they really not come up with a balanced rule where you could set more than 1 unit on fire per turn?
Similarly, why are all the examples of anti-X rules such bad examples? Why does Krondys have a 4/3+/2+/2/4/anti-infantry? Does he really need that 1 extra rend to kill infantry?

We've talked about the rule of 1 a lot. It's clearly a balancing issue. You don't have to like, or even agree with it, but the "reason why" is quite obvious. Also, i think being critical of Krondys anti infantry is a bit harsh considering his tail currently has a very "anti infantry" ability too. Does he really need a tail attack that scales with # of models to kill units with lots of models? You can make that argument in circles, about everything. And considering theres a TON of infantry in the game with high saves, it makes sense to get extra rend to make it better at killing infantry? That's clearly the goal with that attack, given its current scroll and its 4.0 iteration.

I think simplifying some of the jank in the game is an attempt to make the game easier to get into, which is a noble pursuit (and one that again, i feel like they've been quite clear about) I play the game a lot, i dont have problems with compartmentalizing everything, but i can't tell you the amount of times i've been teaching new players and the sheer quantity of (often unnecessary) rules has been a massive barrier.

In terms of lack of overall flavor, I think its fair to reserve judgement until we see more than 3 warscrolls per faction

All of that is to say, i think its really easy to see a corner of something and be critical of the whole picture. You have just enough information to to extrapolate poorly, without the whole picture for context. I think it's fair to hold back some of that criticism for when the whole picture is revealed, and take these little snippits for exactly what they are... Just enough information to get ourselves into trouble


edit: and i forgot to mention, I think a handful of the new command abilities add a TON of strategic depth. Counter charge, casting magic in your opponents phase, the shooting one, and power through are all such amazingly impactful abilities

 

[Canas]

We've seen kroxigor for both spearhead and non. The difference is substantial. Whether it's more flavorful or not that's up to each individual to decide. Its also largely pretty darn similar to the current scroll. If you have a problem with the current levels of personalization as well, i think thats fair.

Where is the non-spearhead kroxigor? Haven't seen that one.
Anyways I was talking more in general. Most of the warscrolls we've seen are pretty sparse with 1 maybe 2 abilities. So it's not like there's much to remove for a potential spearhead warscroll on most of these. Hence why I was/am expecting the kroxigor to not get that much extra on their full warscroll.

I think thats a hard statement to say with any kind of accuracy unless you've done the math on every scroll they've shown. Compare 3.0 cities cav to the 4.0 scroll for example. Mortal wounds seem to have been substantially lowered which could have a profound rippling effect for damage across the board.

O sure, this is just based on paper napkin math.
But so far we have the following:

• Vastly more rend
• Saves no longer stack
• Ward saves are rarer & come at a premium
• A decent number of attacks seem buffed (especially melee stuff)
• There are less mortal wounds

Overal I would expect that to push damage higher/survivability lower.
However, it is possible that the change in mortal wounds has some unexpected effects. Especially when considering high-end play where things are min-maxed to a much greater extend and small changes like this have much bigger impacts than on average play.

less general rend (but more specific rend)"

Still waiting for a single example of a unit that actually uses this specialisation properly instead of throwing even more rend on an attack that already has a bunch of rend. I really hope the warscrolls shown so far have not been representative for the implementation of the anti-X rule.

We've talked about the rule of 1 a lot. It's clearly a balancing issue. You don't have to like, or even agree with it, but the "reason why" is quite obvious.

O I understand that they're doing it for balance reasons; but if the only way you can balance a mechanic is by sticking limitations on it that significantly undermine the intended fantasy then the mechanic just isn't very well designed.

Tzeentch's fire is probably the best example of this. The whole fantasy is setting the entire enemy army on fire, or at least large parts of it. The rule-of-one limitation activly undermines that fantasy. So find a different way to balance it, or change the fundamentals of the mechanic.But don't make a mechanic that so clearly wants to be spammed and then stick a rule-of-one type limitation on it.

Also, I'm just annoyed that they seem to be throwing rule-of-one on nearly everything vaguely interesting shown so far. Has GW forgotten there are other ways to balance things?

Also, i think being critical of Krondys anti infantry is a bit harsh considering his tail currently has a very "anti infantry" ability too. Does he really need a tail attack that scales with # of models to kill units with lots of models? You can make that argument in circles, about everything. And considering theres a TON of infantry in the game with high saves, it makes sense to get extra rend to make it better at killing infantry? That's clearly the goal with that attack, given its current scroll and its 4.0 iteration.

It's fine for Krondys to get anti-infantry stuff. But why put it on an attack that already has 2 rend. It doesn't specialize the attack when it already has such high rend baseline. If instead that attack had 0 rend, and he get anti-infantry (3) then it'd be a good use of the mechanic.

Also, so far most of the anti-x examples seem to suffer this problem. Which really annoys me cuz I really like the concept of specialized attacks, but they're completly wasting the concept like this.

In terms of lack of overall flavor, I think its fair to reserve judgement until we see more than 3 warscrolls per faction

Out of the 10 or so wizards we've seen, the only ones with a personal spell where the named wizards like Kairos & Nagash.
And the personal spells we've seen have not been terribly mind-blowing.
And that's just the lack of flavour on wizards. So far, it's not been promising....

But yeah, who knows, maybe the remaining warscrolls will be much more interesting.

Also minor caveat; there is some cool stuff. Like the steelhelms or the knight arcanum. But for every fun steelhelm there are seemingly boring 10 units with a "modify the control score by X" type rule... (Seriously, GW is heavily pushing the control score...)

All of that is to say, i think its really easy to see a corner of something and be critical of the whole picture. You have just enough information to to extrapolate poorly, without the whole picture for context. I think it's fair to hold back some of that criticism for when the whole picture is revealed, and take these little snippits for exactly what they are... Just enough information to get ourselves into trouble

Sure, just so far they haven't been particularly exciting. In general, GW kinda sucks at building hype when releasing rules. They're way better at building hype when releasing models or stories.

edit: and i forgot to mention, I think a handful of the new command abilities add a TON of strategic depth. Counter charge, casting magic in your opponents phase, the shooting one, and power through are all such amazingly impactful abilities

O, there is some fun stuff. But again, heavily limited by rule-of-one, or other limitations like how low CP generation will be.
Which is a shame. I want to do more than 1 cool thing per turn.

 

[Putzfrau]

*snip*.

Think it'll be fair to agree to disagree on a lot of this, but i think it's more of a matter of degrees than anything else. "dumping rend on things with already a ton of rend" is IMO a little hyperbolic, unless we are considering rend 1 "a lot of rend." Implying you'll only be able to do "one cool thing a turn" is again, a little hyperbolic. We know for a fact that command generation is more than a single command point. Implying that things have "vastly more rend" is also a little hyperbolic. Some things have less, most things are the same, and there are a few examples that have more, and even then its against specific targets.

Basically, i think its really easy to make things seem overly negative when we take pretty nuanced changes and talk about them in ways that are anything but nuanced.

The kroxigor scroll was the first 4.0 scroll they showed on one of the articles. And tbf MOST scrolls in the game have "just a single thing" on them. See my point above.

Also, we generally know that things are somewhere in the range of 15% more expensive (comparing the 2k show battle to existing points), which also cuts back drastically on the damage capacity of any given army.

Again, not trying to totally derail the doomfest, but I think it does us a disservice to not appreciate the nuance of whats going on here. The changes being made are subtle, but smart. They are codifying a lot of language, reducing a lot of redundant dice rolls, cutting back on mortal wounds to make saves actually matter, and ensuring "free" buff stacking is more manageable. Rend is generally in the 1ish space on everything but characters and powerful monsters, and when its not 1 its being modified against a single unit type. There's a TON more 4+ hit in the game, which when combined with the other command abilities we talked about, makes all out attack more of a real choice.

I think its fair to say GW isn't great at building hype when releasing rules, but i think thats also kind of the name of the game. Rules aren't exciting unless they are broken or unique and by their very nature MOST rules just can't fall into one of those two categories. And that's without mentioning that a vast, vast majority of players are going to have a harder time contextualizing all those subtle changes in the context of the larger game because they're playing like, 12 games a year. Subtle is less exciting, and the transition in 4.0 seems to be a refining process, one that's inherently subtle by nature.

Ultimately I think we're going to see a much lighter barrier to entry, with a strategic depth that isn't so heavily tied to a combination of knowing every single unique rule in every single army book and a mastery of unintuitive mechanics (like pile in). I feel like thats generally a positive change, but time will tell. I'm obviously eagerly anticipating the index and full core rules to get a better understanding of how all these pieces are going to fit together. But the game is pretty great right now, so simplifying the worst parts of the game is *probably* going to be a good thing, if i had to guess.

anyways, its good to be back. I missed this

edit: missed your comment on attack specialization. Its hard to say without playing it, but I think i'd personally tend more towards what we've seen than what you're saying. Maybe there's a nice middle ground? But having something useless or godly is a classic feels bad moment that makes things harder to balance. It isn't fun when your toy is useless 90% of the time and isn't fun for your opponent in that 10% of the time where it's absolutely slaughtering something.

Think that just reinforces the differences in our opinions. You want it to be a bit more black and white. I appreciate the subtlety that's going on.

 

[Canas]

Think it'll be fair to agree to disagree on a lot of this, but i think it's more of a matter of degrees than anything else. "dumping rend on things with already a ton of rend" is IMO a little hyperbolic, unless we are considering rend 1 "a lot of rend."

The point is that every single example of the anti-X ability is on an attack that already has rend.
On top of that the examples shown nearly always have multiple attacks, making their specialisation pretty underwhelming.

Sticking with Krondys for the moment he has:
4/3+/2+/2/4 anti-infantry
6/3+/2+/2/2

Against a 4+ save the anti-infantry bonus increases his damage output from ~13 to ~14 damage.
The difference is minimal. Which is a dissapointing use of a "specialisation" mechanic.

The kroxigor scroll was the first 4.0 scroll they showed on one of the articles. And tbf MOST scrolls in the game have "just a single thing" on them. See my point above.

Looked it up. The difference with the spearhead warscroll is that they get anti-infantry & that they get a moonstone hammer on 1 in 3 models. Which hits slightly better. Wouldn't exactly call that a major difference.

Again, not trying to totally derail the doomfest, but I think it does us a disservice to not appreciate the nuance of whats going on here. The changes being made are subtle, but smart. They are codifying a lot of language, reducing a lot of redundant dice rolls, cutting back on mortal wounds to make saves actually matter, and ensuring "free" buff stacking is more manageable.

O there are improvements. They're just not very exciting.
Like, I appreciate the warscrolls are easier to read & that they implemented that colour coding stuff.
But no-one is going to be excited about QoL stuff

I think its fair to say GW isn't great at building hype when releasing rules, but i think thats also kind of the name of the game. Rules aren't exciting unless they are broken or unique and by their very nature MOST rules just can't fall into one of those two categories.

O rules can be exciting without being broken. Stuff like the steelhelm's consecrate is fun. It's thematic, it has potentially interesting uses.
The biggest problem is that GW simply dumps some warscrolls but doesn't show any fun combo's, And half the warscrolls aren't terribly interesting.
For example take the CoS focus. Why did it not include examples of the dwarfs & elfs to show potential combo's with the orders? Why did they only show human warscrolls?

Similarly, take a look at the spells revealed so far. They've largely been minor buffs & debuffs like "give -1 to hit". Which is fine, but maybe show off some other types of spells? We just had Tzeentch, and there's barely anything magical in there somehow.

At the same time we do get sad news, like summoning just being gone, or a cool new mechanic like Tzeentch's "set everything on fire" being neutered by being subject to a restrictive rule of one. Which isn't great for building hype.

Ultimately I think we're going to see a much lighter barrier to entry, with a strategic depth that isn't so heavily tied to a combination of knowing every single unique rule in every single army book and a mastery of unintuitive mechanics (like pile in). I feel like thats generally a positive change, but time will tell.

O definitly, 4th seems to be a more intuitive and easier to start game with some nice QoL improvements.
But QoL don't exactly balance out losing fun mechanics like summoning, or how limiting the rule of one seems to be in 4th because they stick it on everything.

edit: missed your comment on attack specialization. Its hard to say without playing it, but I think i'd personally tend more towards what we've seen than what you're saying. Maybe there's a nice middle ground? But having something useless or godly is a classic feels bad moment that makes things harder to balance. It isn't fun when your toy is useless 90% of the time and isn't fun for your opponent in that 10% of the time where it's absolutely slaughtering something.

O, there's definitly a limit. If you overspecialize you get stuff like Kroak who can get stuck on a single model of a clanrat or something because he only has 1 dice in that scenario. Which is just silly (seriously, why doesn't Kroak have a simple attack to at least allow him to deal with basic opponents...)

But going back to Krondys; let's say if he got the following instead:
4/3+/2+/0/4 anti-infantry (3)
6/3+/2+/2/2

He now does 10 damage against a 4+ save, and still ~14 against infantry. The difference is large enough that he feels specialized, but its not like he's suddenly only going to damage infantry. Which seems like a fair balance.

 

[Putzfrau]

The point is that every single example of the anti-X ability is on an attack that already has rend.
On top of that the examples shown nearly always have multiple attacks, making their specialisation pretty underwhelming.

Sticking with Krondys for the moment he has:
4/3+/2+/2/4 anti-infantry
6/3+/2+/2/2

Against a 4+ save the anti-infantry bonus increases his damage output from ~13 to ~14 damage.
The difference is minimal. Which is a dissapointing use of a "specialisation" mechanic.


Looked it up. The difference with the spearhead warscroll is that they get anti-infantry & that they get a moonstone hammer on 1 in 3 models. Which hits slightly better. Wouldn't exactly call that a major difference.



O there are improvements. They're just not very exciting.
Like, I appreciate the warscrolls are easier to read & that they implemented that colour coding stuff.
But no-one is going to be excited about QoL stuff


O rules can be exciting without being broken. Stuff like the steelhelm's consecrate is fun. It's thematic, it has potentially interesting uses.
The biggest problem is that GW simply dumps some warscrolls but doesn't show any fun combo's, And half the warscrolls aren't terribly interesting.
For example take the CoS focus. Why did it not include examples of the dwarfs & elfs to show potential combo's with the orders? Why did they only show human warscrolls?

Similarly, take a look at the spells revealed so far. They've largely been minor buffs & debuffs like "give -1 to hit". Which is fine, but maybe show off some other types of spells? We just had Tzeentch, and there's barely anything magical in there somehow.

At the same time we do get sad news, like summoning just being gone, or a cool new mechanic like Tzeentch's "set everything on fire" being neutered by being subject to a restrictive rule of one. Which isn't great for building hype.


O definitly, 4th seems to be a more intuitive and easier to start game with some nice QoL improvements.
But QoL don't exactly balance out losing fun mechanics like summoning, or how limiting the rule of one seems to be in 4th because they stick it on everything.



O, there's definitly a limit. If you overspecialize you get stuff like Kroak who can get stuck on a single model of a clanrat or something because he only has 1 dice in that scenario. Which is just silly (seriously, why doesn't Kroak have a simple attack to at least allow him to deal with basic opponents...)

But going back to Krondys; let's say if he got the following instead:
4/3+/2+/0/4 anti-infantry (3)
6/3+/2+/2/2

He now does 10 damage against a 4+ save, and still ~14 against infantry. The difference is large enough that he feels specialized, but its not like he's suddenly only going to damage infantry. Which seems like a fair balance.

Yeah that's definitely fair. I guess I just always tend towards the more conservative changes for better or worse.

Hopefully when we see the full indexes theres more of the stuff you're looking for.


And fwiw, I think an entire separate profile and two different rules in a warscrolls that really only has one rule to begin with is relatively substantial difference between kroxigor warscrolls, but again I think that just comes down to the way we both look at "substantial".