Rettile said:
so the older faction, the one with the best wizards in the world... has no incarnates. But dwarfs have one. This, my dear GW, is a background rape
Let's please not toss that term around casually.
The other formations seem to be pretty decent with nice bonuses. Everything about the Red host is garbage to meh at best, because all the bonuses/upgrades are on things that are garbage to meh at best. WS3 Skinks are no better than WS2 Skinks because they aren't combat units (in fact, their one combat upgrade - Poison - is irrelevant as far as WS is concerned). An extra D6 on S1 hits is statistically meaningless. And Hatred Skaven is only useful in one match up and, even then, you probably don't want your Skinks to be in combat anyway. Let's also not forget that although the formation includes Tehenhuain, who has a special rule to join Jungle Swarms, and Sotek Arcs, who have special rules to add more swarms to existing units, it doesn't actually include any Jungle Swarms (presumably because GW don't sell a Swarm model anymore?).
Let's compare the other formations. Thanquol: Unbreakable. Queek: Re-rolling charges and an extra round of shooting per game. Throng: Re-roll hits from decent combat troops, and re-rolling 1s for all
core outside of the formation. Middenheim: Unbreakable, know a new spell,
whole freaking army is stubborn.
And Lizardmen get 3d6 S1 hits instead of 2D6. Whoop-de-do, guess we get the short end of the stick
again.
At least GW have been honest about their neglect this time:
red-crested. You know, like red-haired step children? No?
It's probably a fun list for fluffly ET:Thanquol games but that's about it.
KingCheops said:
This removes the need to take 25% core. Rest of your points can be spent as you wish as long as you adhere to the non-core limits. Skave got 2 formations, dwarf 1, and empire 1. This to me seems indicative of fantasy following the trend GW started with 40k.
As I recall, formations are outside of the % allocation and therefore don't contribute towards minimum Core. In otherwords, you'll need to spend a minimum of circa 1000 points on the garbage Red Host, and then still another 25% of your total points in Core (probably on yet more Skinks) - and that's assuming you run all the units at minimum sizes. So at a regular 2.4k, you'll be spending 1600 points on stuff you don't really want, before getting to spend 800 points on stuff you do.
Edit: Ah, I stand corrected. From Warseer:
In this case, one of the special rules for these formations is that if you take them you aren't forced to take 25% of your total points in core units, as it would be the case normally.
This might make the RH more attractive, if only that you're getting a little more utility out of your Core allowance, albeit at a slight additional cost. I'm still not sure that I'd want to, though, when you're paying 300 points for those two Bastialdons, and you'll probably still want to get some more Skink units.
Conversely, it makes the other formations even more incredible than they are already. FFS.
