The Rumour Thread

[JackStreicher]

The free battle report looks fun. Only criticism: Destroyed units coming back 24/7 (especially powerful ones like rat ogres) is abnoxious.

 

Scurry away: A 2/3 chance to deny a battle tactic is kind of absurd tbh

Edited June 20 by JackStreicher

[Gitzdee]

First the squatting of BS and now no Spearhead for IJ. Sigh... good times to be a Big Waaagh player with a mixed BS and IJ force. Hope the spearhead will be a good one if it gets released some day.

Edited June 20 by Gitzdee

[Baron I_oyd]

18 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

The free battle report looks fun. Only criticism: Destroyed units coming back 24/7 (especially powerful ones like rat ogres) is abnoxious.

 

Scurry away: A 2/3 chance to deny a battle tactic is kind of absurd tbh

laughs in skaven

[Marcvs]

19 minutes ago, woolf said:

yup kinda sux to not have them there as one of the coolast factions.. luckily spearhead is not a massiv investment (comparably) in time & money so hopefully those players can pick up something else decent.. 

the IJ player in our group is really down after thi news. He only plays IJ, builds & paints at a glacial pace, so this means he's locked out of the game mode for the foreseable future. Hope someone writes a fan-made spearhead pdf for IJ.

It's also interesting to reflect on the choice. We're going from "no rules without models" to "no rules without boxes". Giving IJ a Spearhead would have taken a minuscule investment, and would have allowed existing players to enjoy the game mode -it could even have been marketed as a placeholder to let them know a new one would come out and replace the first. To me this is a clear indication of how much "existing players" are not considered as important customers, as opposed to new ones

[Ejecutor]

7 hours ago, Cataphract said:

I’ll make the bet for Friday Bldes of Khorne reveal with new Daemon Korgus Khul model

No way! It would be sick, but it would also be such a weird way to release him...

[Ejecutor]

6 hours ago, The Red King said:

Which is only worth about as much as saying "we aren't beasting IJ". Soon tm is the same as never as far as anyone wanting to play Spearhead with their friends before 5th edition is concerned. It could be in 3 months or 3 years.

We will get it by the end of the year as last.

[Snarff]

4 hours ago, IronVIke said:

I think that is going to be how some of the faction growth (new factions) will be introduced and expanded on. LIke Malerion and shadow elves will be 1 of 2 factions along with daughters of khaine in a combined book for example.

This leads to so much less content per army though. To illustrate what I mean, (with a rough calculation, assuming that each army gets equal focus in their battletome) here is each edition with the average number of battletome paged dedicated per Orruk army:

1st edition - 120 pages per orruk army:

• Ironjawz battletome: 128 pages.
• Bonesplitterz battletome: 112 pages.

2nd edition (combined IJ and BS) - 52 pages per orruk army:

• Orruk Warclans battletome: 104 pages.

3rd edition (KB added) - 45.3 pages per orruk army (26 extra for Ironjawz in supplement):

• Orruk Warclans battletome: 136 pages.
• Ironjawz battletome supplement: 26 pages.

 

With each army added to the battletome, the average number of pages per army keeps decreasing. Most battletomes are 96 to 104 pages (excluding outliers like, Warclans CoS and SCE). Only 45 pages dedicated to a souped army is less than half of a full battletome. For IJ this was supplemented, but the total of 71 pages remains more than 20 pages fewer relative to battletomes dedicated to one army.

This is also assuming that every army gets equal treatment in each soup book, but from what I've heard the focus was decidedly not on Bonesplitterz. So if you're unlucky, your army gets even less focus than the rest of the armies in the soup.

This might not be a big deal if you're a fan of every army souped in a book, but if you buy a battletome specificially for one army you're interested in, they become quite a bit worse in terms of content. So if they follow the trend, IMO battletomes lose a lot of their worth if you're not interested in playing all the souped armies in them.

And of course, these calculations are not perfect. Some pages would be redundant in souped tomes (you don't need multiple covers or contents pages), but in general it's fewer pages dedicated to lore, art, pictures, paint schemes, etc. of each separate army in soup books. Battletomes can already be light on lore, but souping armies will just compound that if these trends continue.

Edited June 20 by Snarff
Readability

[Nezzhil]

4 hours ago, Beliman said:

Faction pack means Battletome?

Because using WarCom, that only know the Index info that designers give to them is hilarious to think that this message implies two books. Right know we have one book for two factions: Orruk Warclans Index.

[Nezzhil]

4 hours ago, Beliman said:

Faction pack means Battletome?

Because using WarCom, that only know is the Index info that designers give to them is hilarious. And to think that this message implies two books is wrong. Right know we have one book for two factions: Orruk Warclans Index.

Edited June 20 by Nezzhil

[michu]

I always preferred all Orruks in one book. True Orruk horde contains all kinds of Greenskinz and the army should reflect that. Adding a RoR won't be enough. 

Same goes for the Cities of Sigmar. Chris Peach's Hallowguild army looked more compelling than current range. What I want to say is... Bring back GA rules! Let us mix the armies!

[Ejecutor]

45 minutes ago, Snarff said:

This leads to so much less content per army though. To illustrate what I mean, (with a rough calculation, assuming that each army gets equal focus in their battletome) here is each edition with the average number of battletome paged dedicated per Orruk army:

1st edition - 120 pages per orruk army:

• Ironjawz battletome: 128 pages.
• Bonesplitterz battletome: 112 pages.

2nd edition (combined IJ and BS) - 52 pages per orruk army:

• Orruk Warclans battletome: 104 pages.

3rd edition (KB added) - 45.3 pages per orruk army (26 extra for Ironjawz in supplement):

• Orruk Warclans battletome: 136 pages.
• Ironjawz battletome supplement: 26 pages.

 

With each army added to the battletome, the average number of pages per army keeps decreasing. Most battletomes are 96 to 104 pages (excluding outliers like, Warclans CoS and SCE). Only 45 pages dedicated to a souped army is less than half of a full battletome. For IJ this was supplemented, but the total of 71 pages remains more than 20 pages fewer relative to battletomes dedicated to one army.

This is also assuming that every army gets equal treatment in each soup book, but from what I've heard the focus was decidedly not on Bonesplitterz. So if you're unlucky, your army gets even less focus than the rest of the armies in the soup.

This might not be a big deal if you're a fan of every army souped in a book, but if you buy a battletome specificially for one army you're interested in, they become quite a bit worse in terms of content. So if they follow the trend, IMO battletomes lose a lot of their worth if you're not interested in playing all the souped armies in them.

And of course, these calculations are not perfect. Some pages would be redundant in souped tomes (you don't need multiple covers or contents pages), but in general it's fewer pages dedicated to lore, art, pictures, paint schemes, etc. of each separate army in soup books. Battletomes can already be light on lore, but souping armies will just compound that if these trends continue.

Don't you think that, in that case, the BTs could be a bit chunkier? I have no clue how 40k is behaving, in case we could use it as a reference, but it wouldn't surprise me.

[Snarff]

11 minutes ago, michu said:

I always preferred all Orruks in one book. True Orruk horde contains all kinds of Greenskinz and the army should reflect that. Adding a RoR won't be enough. 

Same goes for the Cities of Sigmar. Chris Peach's Hallowguild army looked more compelling than current range. What I want to say is... Bring back GA rules! Let us mix the armies!

I personally really like the separation with the RoR system. It makes for a much more balanced game that allows each army to have defined roles, strengths and weaknesses. I wouldn't mind seeing some narrative rules for GA armies, but in matched play it is going to most likely feel forced or lead to some very unbalanced situations. For example, I hated having to ally in Stormcast wizards to my Fyreslayers just to make dispelling feasible.

I think Regiments of Renown are an ideal solution. It allows you to have a large chunk of another armies' units in your army, and they can be balanced completely separately from the main army. So you have the option to ally in units without the balancing nightmare that comes along with it.

[Ejecutor]

17 minutes ago, michu said:

I always preferred all Orruks in one book. True Orruk horde contains all kinds of Greenskinz and the army should reflect that. Adding a RoR won't be enough. 

Same goes for the Cities of Sigmar. Chris Peach's Hallowguild army looked more compelling than current range. What I want to say is... Bring back GA rules! Let us mix the armies!

I had no idea who was the guy behind this army that I saw some pics! I even saved some of them as references. He did such an awesome job indeed.

I found this, in case someone wants to read about it: Chris Peach’s Army of Hallowguild – Armies on Parade

[Snarff]

6 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Don't you think that, in that case, the BTs could be a bit chunkier? I have no clue how 40k is behaving, in case we could use it as a reference, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I mean, from what we've seen with Orruk Warclans, the pages per army have only been going down as more armies are being added to one book.

And chunkier battletomes will also most likely mean pricier battletomes. We've seen the price of battletomes going up with each edition anyway if I'm correct. I don't want to pay more for the battletome for the army I ACTUALLY want the tome for, just because another army was forced in there too.

Edited June 20 by Snarff

[michu]

4 minutes ago, Snarff said:

I personally really like the separation with the RoR system. It makes for a much more balanced game that allows each army to have defined roles, strengths and weaknesses. I wouldn't mind seeing some narrative rules for GA armies, but in matched play it is going to most likely feel forced or lead to some very unbalanced situations. For example, I hated having to ally in Stormcast wizards to my Fyreslayers just to make dispelling feasible.

I think Regiments of Renown are an ideal solution. It allows you to have a large chunk of another armies' units in your army, and they can be balanced completely separately from the main army. So you have the option to ally in units without the balancing nightmare that comes along with it.

I don't care for balance. It never existed in GW games and it never will. If I have to choose between options/creativity and balance, I want options.

[Snarff]

6 minutes ago, michu said:

I don't care for balance. It never existed in GW games and it never will. If I have to choose between options/creativity and balance, I want options.

Balance in AoS has been better than ever. I do care about balance, in the past some armies were completely unplayable in spite of all the options they had. Armies without wizards could not compete in Andtor.

Besides, somewhat restricting options in the end allows for a lot more variety than just allowing everything. Take Fyreslayers: They used to be all Hearthguard Berserker spam if you wanted to stand a chance against anyone at all. Ever since Hearthguard berserkers got nerfed and different lodges (with their own restrictions in terms of battleline, rules and army composition) were rebalanced, the amount of different lists you could run with Fyreslayers increased tremendously. The more options there are, the more every faction with access to the strongest option will gravitate towards the same option leading to more and more homogenization. And having to pick between fun and functionality is not a good thing IMO.

AoS1 (pre-points system) is a great example. A ton of options, more than there ever have been in a GW game and certainly more than AoS now, but was it actually fun?

And if the balance doesn't matter to you, why not mix your armies anyway? GW won't call the police on you for doing so, you just need likeminded people.

[Lucentia]

This is not even a conundrum unique to AoS, or warhammer, I'm sure you see it in lots of games.  For example, in open format competitive pokemon there's a very large choice of options, but you'll tend to see the successful teams running similar selections, whilst in more restricted formats there is generally more variety of teams despite the ostensibly fewer options, cos people can't just pick the top dogs in whatever category they need.

Or perhaps to keep things in warhammer land, it's worth remembering that mixed Order lists were often quite high up I tournament rankings whilst they were legal, simply because being able to pick and choose the top units from multiple factions has a power all of its own.

Edited June 20 by Lucentia

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, Nezzhil said:

Because using WarCom, that only know the Index info that designers give to them is hilarious to think that this message implies two books. Right know we have one book for two factions: Orruk Warclans Index.

So, a guess based on something that happened before, and may (or may not) happen in the future.

[ArcLight]

9 hours ago, Gothmaug said:

you sure? If it was on a hero war scroll I'd agree, but its listed on the Army battle traits, which I would think means it only can be used once overall. 

I'm not sure in truth, I'd have to look back through the other army traits to compare. Maybe more hope than anything else I guess. 

[ArcLight]

5 hours ago, Marcvs said:

Imho they're wrong. "Once per battle" clearly applies to the ability itself (picking a hero is part of the ability). Other allegiance ability are formulated similarly, like SCE's "heaven's sent".

As to the absence of the (Army) tag, I think it's just superfluous for a once per battle allegiance ability. Have we seen any "Once per battle(Army)" allegiance ability?

Fair point, you may well be right. 

[Beliman]

5 hours ago, Marcvs said:

Imho they're wrong. "Once per battle" clearly applies to the ability itself (picking a hero is part of the ability). Other allegiance ability are formulated similarly, like SCE's "heaven's sent".

As to the absence of the (Army) tag, I think it's just superfluous for a once per battle allegiance ability. Have we seen any "Once per battle(Army)" allegiance ability?

I don't know what to think. Imho, they should be the same to stop any weird gameplay. What's the diference between this:

And this:

[Sabush]

5 minutes ago, Beliman said:

I don't know what to think. Imho, they should be the same to stop any weird gameplay. What's the diference between this:

And this:

I think the first one needs an errata where they add "(Army)".

[Snarff]

1 hour ago, Lucentia said:

This is not even a conundrum unique to AoS, or warhammer, I'm sure you see it in lots of games.  For example, in open format competitive pokemon there's a very large choice of options, but you'll tend to see the successful teams running similar selections, whilst in more restricted formats there is generally more variety of teams despite the ostensibly fewer options, cos people can't just pick the top dogs in whatever category they need.

Or perhaps to keep things in warhammer land, it's worth remembering that mixed Order lists were often quite high up I tournament rankings whilst they were legal, simply because being able to pick and choose the top units from multiple factions has a power all of its own.

It's unfortunately prevalent in a ton of games. Pokemon is a great example, but also some MMOs fall in this category.

To expand on the Pokemon example, in competitive singles Pokemon there are multiple formats. The formats with the largest number of options (Anything Goes and Hackmon) have very few Pokemon that actually see play. If you're fine with always losing, you have the option to play with your favourites. If you actually want to stand a chance, you need to play with the best options, just like everybody else. So while in theory it is the format with the most options, 99% of those options will never see play because there are no restrictions on the 1%.

As soon as there are no restrictions on the strongest option, people gravitate to that option even if there are a lot of other options. If you want to keep up and even have a chance to win, you will have to pick that option too. Restricting options and nerfing those that are too strong is not just essential for balance, it's essential for fun too. Because what fun is it to have 100 options when 90 of them do not actually matter?

Edited June 20 by Snarff

[Beliman]

3 minutes ago, Sabush said:

I think the first one needs an errata where they add "(Army)".

Then, there are a lot of erratas in this previews.

[Ejecutor]

3 minutes ago, Snarff said:

It's unfortunately prevalent in a ton of games. Pokemon is a great example, but also some MMOs fall in this category.

To expand on the Pokemon example, in competitive singles Pokemon there are multiple formats. The formats with the largest number of options (Anything Goes and Hackmon) have very few Pokemon that actually see play. If you're fine with always losing, you have the option to play with your favourites. If you actually want to stand a chance, you need to play with the best options, just like everybody else. So while in theory it is the format with the most options, 99% of those options will never see play because there are no restrictions on the 1%.

As soon as there are no restrictions on the strongest option, people gravitate to that option even if there are a lot of other options. If you want to keep up and even have a chance to win, you will have to pick that option too. Restricting options and nerfing those that are too strong is not just essential for balance, it's essential for fun too. Because what fun is it to have 100 options when 90 of them do not actually matter?

The problem is that some people just find it fun when they win...