GW News: magic and prayers in #NewAoS

The new Clanrats

They look fine.
One minor issue though; they seem to be more details than the older models, so its going to be a pain to paint a ton of them.

 

I certainly won't deny they are good sculpts, though they're a lot more animated than the older sculpts so won't be so willing to rank up nicely, especially on the venerable 20x20mm squares I keep my rats on. You're also on-point about details, more details is certainly more annoying to paint (looking at you Island of Blood Lothern Sea Guard!).

Moreover I'm concerned that in the picture-scroll-thing they only show a total of 10 different sculpts, suggesting that they'll be in boxes of 10, making it especially expensive to build up good-sized units of them, and a pain especially when you consider they released the new Vampire Counts Skeletons in a box of 20 (but of course Vampires get everything, GW want to spare no expense on them).

Still think it was unnecessary to redo them, the older ones were fine and still in-tune with the modern aesthetic.

 

Given Skaven is one of the de facto horde armies, I don't imagine a lot of people will be thrilled with the work needed to start one up from scratch with these, even out of the core starter box. The current ones are a dread to consider painting en masse as is, not least of all due to being exceptionally hard to properly speed-paint, and those had the benefit of being dirt simple to build in all of 3 pieces (i.e. ideal for a horde army).

 

They're so good I already forgot what they did to Savage Orcs and Beastmen last week!

Plus the static picture of command there's 13 (sacred number).

TOW*

 

Command abilities in 4e

Couple of things:
- O god more rule of one bullshit.
- Everything can use command abilities now. No more need for heroes or unit champions or something
- Reactions are a thing now. This is neat. Especially if other abilities use this scheme as well.
- A command ability can be used to cast in the enemy hero phase; Which is cool. But there better be multiple ways to do this, 1 per turn is increadibly limited. Also, no idea how this interacts with spellcasting limit. Can Nagash cast 9 times in his own turn, then once in an enemy turn for a total of 10? Or can he cast 9 times in total?
- The actual new command abilities are decent enough. Free movement, countercharging, a heal. They are fun little tricks to pull.
- Only countercharge seems to be 2 points? Why?

Also; given the rule of one bullshit the punishment for not using battalions is completly negliceable...

 

Nonsensical, we all know that it should be...

 

Nah, that rule is rather silly too.
Though at least it's only half as silly as the rule of one

 

Those rat guys look good!

 

Mano a mano in AoS 4.

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• There are now abilities that "just happen" in the active player phase , like Arboyz Shield Bash or Blood Sisters Crystal Touch. Whenever you guys like to happen in the order you like.
• You can only shoot in melee if you have the ability Shoot in Combat.
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• Natural 6s are now critical damage, mortal wounds are now mortal damage.
• Save stacking gone, only +1 save limit.
• Instead of allocating damage points to a model in a unit, damage points are now allocated to the unit as a whole. When the total of damage points allocated to a unit equals the Health characteristic of that unit, the commanding player removes a model from that unit, but they must stay in coherency. This is suppousedly more convenient but I'm confused.
  
• Expect spears to now have Anti-charge (+X Rend) to justify your weapon loadouts from different kits.
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• Coherency is 1/2" unless specified on the Warscroll. Seven or more models must stay at coherency range of at least two other models in their unit.
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• Magic, prayers and manifestations on friday.

Hyped for blendergor!

 

Lots of stuff there. I'll let you more experienced players summarize if these are good changes or bad... or just something different.

 

No different to before, and it's silly to see GW give rules keywords now as well as units. Do they think we're infants?

This on the other hand certainly is a step in the right direction - it was always dumb in previous AoS Editions to allow any missile troops to shoot at enemies they're fighting in close combat when said enemies would be far too close to use missile weapons against them, and gave missile-oriented armies a massive and unrealistic advantage over melee-oriented ones. So long as only units armed with small, handy missile weapons like pistols, throwing axes/knives e.t.c are given this new Shoot in Combat keyword, this will be a big improvement toward capturing the realism of close combat fighting in the game. Melee troops should be able to overpower missile troops easily in close combat, as they have always done throughout pre-firearm history.

Critical Damage is something that seems to have come from Warcry and Underworlds, it'll be interesting to see how they differ from mortal wounds.

This is honestly no different from what's been seen before - you're still removing a model from the unit once enough wounds have been allocated to kill one off. It's just fancier wording.

I'm interested in this new 'Control' statistic that has now replaced Bravery - is this referring to a new Morale mechanic, or is it referring to how difficult it is to keep a unit disciplined, and by extension how easy it is for said unit to charge without orders?

I also like this idea of units suffering wounds if they want to pull back from combat, as the enemy attempts a last few strikes as their foe turns to withdraw. I can't remember if this was part of previous Editions, but if not then this is a good move.

 

The very last battlescroll of 3rd Edition is here.

You can also read lore for skaven and Darkoath.

When they showed the Liberator warscroll it was pretty evident 'Control' is a port from 40K's Objective Control.

 

I don't play 40K, so I don't know much about it's rules. While I'm glad that some folks seem to be pleased with AoS adding in 40K-esque mechanics, my desire (in theory) was to have them each be their own games.

 

I take it the Kroxigor's "Anti-Infantry (+1 Rend)" means that they don't get +1 rend vs. heroes/monsters/etc...

 

To be expected that weapons specialize now.

I also expect that Warxigors now get Anti-Monsters, for example, to differentiate them from regular Kroxies.

Probably Kingslayer (Archaon's swords, that was it's name, right) and other God tier miniatures will have Anti-Hero +X Rend or Damage vs Heroes and Monsters or something to reflect how powerful they are