GW News: magic and prayers in #NewAoS

The range change on weapons is potentially good. It simplifies balance a little bit and can clean up some units which had a fake choice because between two weapon loadouts where one option was clearly better in 99% of realistic scenarios.

But that's about the only change that actually has any meaningfull information so far.

Also the fact that "stuff is colour coded" is announced in the same article is kinda odd. Like it's a potentially nice quality of life improvement, but it isn't a change to the actual game...

 

Wow! That's some big changes.

 

Here is what they meant by "modular rules", but it really not much:

1. There's core rules.
2. There's advanced rules.
3. Use core for all kinds of games.
4. Use core and advanced rules except battle tactics for Path to Glory.
5. Use core and advanced rules for everything else.
   
6. Use the same as above AND seasonal rules for GHB.

 

That sounds pretty good. We may not know much at the moment, but what we do know is leaning towards the positive. That's good news to me!

 

The way it's presented it seems to be:
1 Spearhed: introduction for newbies.
2 Path to Glory: casual/non-competitive
3 Matched play: competitive
4 GHB: Competitive with seasonal sheninigans

Which begs the question; What are battle tactics, and what is so special about them that they are the only difference between casual and matched play.

Also I don't like this:

Because what they're essentially saying is "if something is broken we can just fix it with a seasonal band-aid now."
Which isn't a great approach towards fixing things, it's how we ended up with the mess that is magic in current AoS. Just stacking bandaid upon bandaid.

 

Double turn stays another turn! Democracy be damned!

Now, in matched play battlepacks, when you choose to take a double turn, you give up your opportunity to pick a battle tactic for the turn.

 

Given how much of a focus they seem to be putting on battle tactics they better be interesting.

As an aside; it's weird that they present this as some kind of fundamental change considering battle tactics aren't used in half their new gamemodes. You'd think the trade off would be based on something that's relevant in every game mode...

 

It's strange having a nice piece of Lustrian/Lizardmen/Seraphon terrain locked in a bundle box featuring two random factions...

 

Any guesses on whether it will eventually be released separately?

 

That's a really nice terrain piece. Something that would be really hard to build from scratch.

Why is it in a box with a bunch of non-lizards? Shouldn't at least one of the two armies be Seraphon?

 

Warcry is currently set around a crashed temple ship. Hence the large mount of Seraphon related scenary that can be found in the warcry boxes.

Which seems to be the only thing GW can think of for the seraphon really; as a mysterious backdrop for other factions to fight over.

 

They already existed in Third Edition and are pretty much the AoS equivalent of 40K Stratagems I think... a horrible idea, as they dictate how a player should play with their army to win on VPs, rather than encouraging them to formulate their own strategy (it's like playing your army on autopilot), and one of the pointless pieces of bureaucracy required when selecting army lists that made 3rd so bad, alongside the equally dumb 'Triumphs' and 'Grand Strategies'. I don't know if those two will be staying as well but just the knowledge that so-called 'Battle Tactics' are staying means I'm no more interested in 4th than I was in 3rd.

I honestly think the double-turn is fine, it's the dumb Battle Tactics, Grand Strategies and Triumphs that should be executed. 2nd Edition was fine without them or the other pointless army selection extras.

 

Probably, the Mawpit was made as a standalone purchase at some point.

 

Counterpoint: Command Abilities have far more in common with Stratagems than do Battle Tactics, Triumphs and Grand Strategies by a long shot.

I'm not at all convinced that you're playing your army on autopilot by using them. You still have to choose your Battle Tactic at the start of each turn based on what you believe you can accomplish during that turn, and Grand Strategies are at best Secondary Objectives that don't reward you nearly as much as you think.

On the other hand, Triumphs are just bad underdog bonuses you get as compensation simply for your opponent having spent more points on their army than you did on yours. This has pretty much been the reason why my group doesn't bother with them doing Contest of Generals.

 

That makes more sense then. It seemed so random before. Thank you for the info!

 

I wonder how much it will cost on its own.

 

I will have a guess at 45 Euros, matches with what is currently available on the GW store. I am very curious as to how much the pieces coming to pre order will be on Saturday as in the stand alone terrain set.

 

See if that's the only difference between "casual" and "matched" play that'd be dumb.
So I'm hoping that there's more to it than that in 4th edition

 

Liberators got remade! and they look like this:





Hot take: I don't like the redesing. Nose is dumb, shoulders are tiny, shield doesn't match and the tabard was way more cool.