The Rumour Thread

[JackStreicher]

13 minutes ago, AquaRegis said:

Its the current state of GW unfortunalty. 

The two main games, get most of the attention so steady the bloat and cost for the game increases, and a the once or twice a year a busted codex comes out which shakes up the entire meta (Votann), which gets nerfed after a few months. Every month or so a ew expansion book roles out for £30 which while adding some interesting rules and lore, just adds more bloat. outside of one semi-official tournament i never used the Gallet rules ever. 

Meanwhile the specialist games like TOW, HH, MESBG, necromunda have a lower cost (hh-tow being an exception to an extent), have a tighter rule set that releases all at once so internal balancing can happen afterwards and theres no new shocks to the system like in 40k, and allow you way more flexability for hobbying and gameplay. The fact that for example Tomb Guard chariots exist and have rules, despite never having models is indicative to me that theres an emphasis of "your dudes" rather then the stringent locked in rules that 40k and Aos have. 

Also the HH boxes and the TOW starter boxes are a way better value for money. for roughly the same price as a combat patrol or spear head, you get way more models and only really need to add a hero and lord to get going. With the price increase a 40k combat patrol will net you 20-30 models, 40 if you get one with chaff in it. 

Sadly.

When they announced everything has become weaker I hoped for moderation in mortality, which to me is way more fun than removing my models all the time.

In general it actually looked like the truth, with some outliers. Well that hope has been crushed with the latest warscroll.

[Ejecutor]

2 hours ago, Mutton said:

It's not about power level. It's about the Mawtribes losing basically everything that made them fun and replacing those rules with abilities that do almost nothing or literally have a chance of doing nothing. They didn't even use the full page to write new traits. It feels very low effort compared to what we've seen from everyone else. The ogres got punched harder than any faction we've seen previewed thus far. It's the only preview that trashed my excitement to play a faction.

Mawtribes players have a right to feel gutted (no pun intended).

Obviously not everything that this new team would do will be perfect. There are going to be better indexes than others, but luckily this is not set in stone. I don't know 100% because I don't follow 40k, but I am pretty sure that if something doesn't work the indexes will receive a FAQ. So what are receiving now could be improved in the future. Also, we are not seeing the big picture. Maybe that flavour is on the warscrolls now.

[Tonhel]

8 hours ago, Chikout said:

This is another point I disagree with. Tournament players don’t want a simplified game with a lower skill floor. Tournament players certainly don’t want underdog mechanics. GW uses tournament data to balance the game but they are doing that for new players. If I’m a tournament player, I’m already fully invested. I’ve bought and painted a 2000 point army and agreed to pay more money to play the game. If I lose at the bottom or round 2, I’ll be annoyed but I’ll move on and play the next game. If I’m a new player I get thrashed in my first few games by an army that is simply better than mine, there’s a fair chance I might just decide that gaming isn’t for me. The balance is for that new player more than the tournament player. 
They use tournament data because it’s much easier to gather that than it is to visit everyone’s garages or living rooms and ask them how their game went. 

Where in my post I am saying that tournament players want a simplified game with a lower skill floor?

And where is said that GW uses tournament data for balance the game for new players? 

GW uses tournament data as a tool to balance the game for everybody. It's the only data they have outside their own testing enviremont. It's not something I am really a fan off, as not everybody builds their army with the highest possible competitive effectiveness. But as a balancing tool, I understand why the use it.

Lol, I just posted the data from the Honest Wargamer, which is the most up-to-date data and imo reflects the current game status on tournament level the best.

Edited May 31 by Tonhel

[Sahrial]

1 hour ago, Beliman said:

Without knowing anything about Mawtribes, how do they compare with the other faction focuses? Not about power level (that it's hard to tell without the full picture and points), but how many flavourful things they lost?

The keynote themes for Ogors have been:

- thematic non-combat MW generation, usually from charge impact

- high mobility tank units, through low saves but high wound density

- board presence

Our impact hits were a big dynamic gamble that was a lot of fun: the better your roll, the more dice. The bigger the unit/model, the better chance of dealing a MW. Sometimes you whiffed it. Sometimes you flattened a unit. You celebrated the big charges extra hard. It felt good.

Now, it’s the same 2+ for d3 every other impact ability seems to use this edition.

The Everwinter followed the Beastclaw Raiders around, a combination curse, god, and source of cover. It rarely came up, but it was always a chance: you get stuck in combat with a BCR unit, you risk feeling the magical frost stab into you, and the longer the battle goes on, the more likely you’ll feel its bite as it covers the field.

Theres currently no mention of it, mechanically, outside of the new terrain mechanics I’m still digesting the use of.

we went from multiple thematic and dynamic, if simple, army traits to two significantly nerfed versions of some of those traits, and a merged version of the Mawpot once per game heal and the everwinter/gulping bites damage generation we used to get a version of every turn.

theres just a lot of blank space on that trait page.

subfactions, the mawtribes, all had very precise and thematic identities.

BCR specifically had hyper elite Monster focused Boulderhead, super mobile heavy cavalry mournfang focused Thunderbellies, and mystic/tactical focused Winterbite. Boulderhead made you monsters tankier, and your monster heroes fit extra mount traits. Thunderbellies gave the Mournfangs run and charge, creating some of the fastest units in the game. Winterbite played with cover and utilized models that didn’t get a lot of play outside of that subfaction, like icebrow hunters and yhetees (admittedly not the best stats or rules, but great lore)

it appears BCR is getting a single, monster focused formation. It gives no additional abilities or rules. It adds one mortal wound to the impact hit roll.

more wounds and semi-customizable hero traits traded for +1 mortal wound per charge

i’d say that’s a lot of flavor lost

[Sarouan]

Before I said competitive play and obsession for balance will kill the game. I only need to look at this thread to be convinced of it.

[JackStreicher]

16 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

Before I said competitive play and obsession for balance will kill the game. I only need to look at this thread to be convinced of it.

I don’t see it as clear cut as that but yes.

AoS arguably has become rather stale (less fun thematic rules) however this can be intentional since they will spice things up with battletomes

 

Edited May 31 by JackStreicher

[Nezzhil]

20 minutes ago, Sahrial said:

The keynote themes for Ogors have been:

- thematic non-combat MW generation, usually from charge impact

- high mobility tank units, through low saves but high wound density

- board presence

Our impact hits were a big dynamic gamble that was a lot of fun: the better your roll, the more dice. The bigger the unit/model, the better chance of dealing a MW. Sometimes you whiffed it. Sometimes you flattened a unit. You celebrated the big charges extra hard. It felt good.

Now, it’s the same 2+ for d3 every other impact ability seems to use this edition.

The Everwinter followed the Beastclaw Raiders around, a combination curse, god, and source of cover. It rarely came up, but it was always a chance: you get stuck in combat with a BCR unit, you risk feeling the magical frost stab into you, and the longer the battle goes on, the more likely you’ll feel its bite as it covers the field.

Theres currently no mention of it, mechanically, outside of the new terrain mechanics I’m still digesting the use of.

we went from multiple thematic and dynamic, if simple, army traits to two significantly nerfed versions of some of those traits, and a merged version of the Mawpot once per game heal and the everwinter/gulping bites damage generation we used to get a version of every turn.

theres just a lot of blank space on that trait page.

subfactions, the mawtribes, all had very precise and thematic identities.

BCR specifically had hyper elite Monster focused Boulderhead, super mobile heavy cavalry mournfang focused Thunderbellies, and mystic/tactical focused Winterbite. Boulderhead made you monsters tankier, and your monster heroes fit extra mount traits. Thunderbellies gave the Mournfangs run and charge, creating some of the fastest units in the game. Winterbite played with cover and utilized models that didn’t get a lot of play outside of that subfaction, like icebrow hunters and yhetees (admittedly not the best stats or rules, but great lore)

it appears BCR is getting a single, monster focused formation. It gives no additional abilities or rules. It adds one mortal wound to the impact hit roll.

more wounds and semi-customizable hero traits traded for +1 mortal wound per charge

i’d say that’s a lot of flavor lost

The prayers are covering the terrain of the map over time. With two prayers and using enemy turn it is easy that almost all the terrain is winter covered, after that happens remember that all the prayers will spread over all the winter terrain so without the other two (that we have the confirmation that all the prayers have and effect of put these winter tokens). 

I think that the winter is good covered with that stuff.


After reading and reading again the FF, I am really happy with the result and I think it have a lot of potential there if we have the tools.

[Sahrial]

1 minute ago, Nezzhil said:

The prayers are covering the terrain of the map over time. With two prayers and using enemy turn it is easy that almost all the terrain is winter covered, after that happens remember that all the prayers will spread over all the winter terrain so without the other two (that we have the confirmation that all the prayers have and effect of put these winter tokens). 

I think that the winter is good covered with that stuff.


After reading and reading again the FF, I am really happy with the result and I think it have a lot of potential there if we have the tools.

I think that prayer is definitely the most interesting part of the FF, and I really hope we get more in that toolbox, for sure. As much as I love the nuanced simplicity of mawtribes, I’ve also always said our biggest weakness was lack of tools in the toolbox. Im not giving up hope or hype yet, but currently it feels like we lost quite a few of the tools we did have, and didn’t get enough hints as to the trade off yet.

My hype is still there, but decidedly more skeptical. I will be very glad if I’m proven to be worrying over nothing.

[Jagged Red Lines]

8 hours ago, Gitzdee said:

How is this different from any other edition? These things are unavoidable unless they release all tomes at once. At least we are all starting with a fresh index now.

Because most tomes carried over from 2nd ed were still viable if not great up until their 3rd edition books were released (obvs exception being OBR).

Hell there used to be a guy with FEC who would dominate every RTT he was at with his old battletome even up to last autumn.

Index rules so far look like they're written on the back of a cigarette packet. Comparatively very bare bones, as I think you even acknowledged. 

It's a completely different beast to previous editions.

[Sarouan]

35 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

AoS arguably has become rather stale (less fun thematic rules) however this can be intentional since they will spice things up with battletomes

It's not even a question of that. Competitive play and obsession for balance keep asking for more competitive gameplay and more "balance". Nothing is never enough, nothing comes faster enough.

That's what keeps casual players from playing the game, and once a game is only filled with a thinner number of competitive players...well, it goes out the Warmachine or Guildball way.

I feel like GW needs to go back to its roots and push more about the Hobby, about creativity, about the narrative. Not just matched play. They should allow imbalance to be a part of the game again : asymetrical battle boards, playing with not the same amount of points, playing with unoptimized units...

I watched Spearhead videos. First I would have said "yes this mode is for new players, so that they can play faster". But I'm not thinking that anymore. I think this mode is (again) intended towards competitive play, and it doesn't especially play faster either if you look at the length of it all.

It's quite telling we still have nothing in the previews about the Path to Glory in 4th.

[Chikout]

One thing that is guaranteed is that the battletomes will have more rules than the indexes. They want to sell us books after all. It will be interesting to see how different the Stormcast and Skaven books will be from the indexes. At the very least I expect there will be more artefacts, heroic traits and lores. They've said each book is going to have an anvil of apotheosis and different paths. I wonder what else will be included. Will there be spearhead content or will that continue to be in different books? 

My biggest hope is that the lore sections don't see the cuts that the 40k books got.

Edit @Sarouan Did you miss the path to glory preview? 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/05/03/walk-the-path-to-glory-and-forge-epic-armies-in-newaos/

Edited May 31 by Chikout

[Sarouan]

4 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Edit @Sarouan Did you miss the path to glory preview? 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/05/03/walk-the-path-to-glory-and-forge-epic-armies-in-newaos/

Well...that's basically Path to Glory in 3rd a bit streamlined and the real "novelty" is Anvil of Apotheosis...but they didn't show anything about it specifically, that's what I'm talking about.

[Grungnisson]

1 hour ago, Sarouan said:

Before I said competitive play and obsession for balance will kill the game. I only need to look at this thread to be convinced of it.

Geeks geeking out about their hobby. Clearly a sign of the end of times.

Look, it's all just a bit of fun. Even when we get invested in discussions, it's still, essentially, just fun. No need to be judgemental, Mr/Ms High Horse.

[Sarouan]

6 minutes ago, Grungnisson said:

Geeks geeking out about their hobby. Clearly a sign of the end of times.

Look, it's all just a bit of fun. Even when we get invested in discussions, it's still, essentially, just fun. No need to be judgemental, Mr/Ms High Horse.

Fun for the competitive players who don't understand they repel quite a lot of potential people into the Hobby. But feel free to keep having fun, just don't complain if you see you have less people to play with in the future.

[Sonnenspeer]

Which faction will be shown today?

I have like 5 different armies, and non of their rules was shown so far 😵‍💫

[Grungnisson]

1 minute ago, Sonnenspeer said:

Which faction will be shown today?

I have like 5 different armies, and non of their rules was shown so far 😵‍💫

[bethebee]

1 hour ago, Sahrial said:

i’d say that’s a lot of flavor lost

of course we can't say anything for sure but for a book that felt pretty lazy in 3rd this already looks like a downgrade.  when you look at Tzeentch's new rules you can at least see the thought process, whether or not you like it.  summoning requires too many extra units, so it's replaced with reviving old units.  pink horrors require too many boxes to play, so let them function with a 2nd unit ingame instead.

for ogres?  d3 mw charges to decrease the lethality... which removes the damage scaling instead of just tweaking the ratios.  you can run 2" farther instead of just moving 2" further... for the army that wants to exclusively charge and shoot.  remove the everwinter ability entirely to make the rules cleaner...  when most beastclaw players said that they wanted it to be more relevant.  not to mention that leadbelchers remain terrible (with an even smaller niche as battleline is removed) and things look even less tanky now.

i really can't imagine these being improvements from someone who genuinely plays the army, even with the reduced powerlevel.  maybe it'll turn out ok though.

[Sonnenspeer]

Just now, Grungnisson said:

Oh no, again not my dudes 😭🤣🤣

[Ejecutor]

6 minutes ago, Sonnenspeer said:

Which faction will be shown today?

I have like 5 different armies, and non of their rules was shown so far 😵‍💫

FEC.

[Lucentia]

I've played ogors for the entirety of the existence of AoS, rebasing my whfb models onto rounds, moving to Beastclaw when that book came out, then got souped back into a less thematic book for 2nd, etc.

For my two cents, these rules snippets seem perfectly reasonable, and in line with the rest of the rules we've seen so far.   Impact mortals won't spike but are still in much the same ballpark, and incidentally promote running the multiple small unit lists that elite armies tend to prefer.  Movement characteristics have been reduced a little on the top end everywhere, I assume they're trying to limit turn 1 alpha strike lists, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a run and charge ability available somewhere.  For what it's worth, I don't really think any if the ogor books have been particularly characterful, and these battle traits are doing fundamentally the same things in much the same way.

[Ejecutor]

Now I know why IDK don't get new waves. They are not even welcome in the forum!



I was looking for their specific section to share this IDK STLs I found when I was seeing something else, in case someone would be interested:

Spoiler

This month's Release (heroesinfinite.com)

 

I also find it interesting this kind of stuff to see what others imagine for factions that maybe you are not so aware of what their potential could be.

Edited May 31 by Ejecutor

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, Sarouan said:

about creativity, about the narrative

Absolutely. I know I keep bringing it up, sorry, however TOW has reignited my creativity and will to customize units and to kitbash! It’s due to customization options, longevity of heroes while playing AND a ruleset that doesn’t replace magic items every 6 months.

 

1 hour ago, Sarouan said:

That's what keeps casual players from playing the game, and once a game is only filled with a thinner number of competitive players...well, it goes out the Warmachine or Guildball way.

Interestingly I‘ve stumbled across this argument a lot in the past couple of months, however it was in the context of Video Games. It seems to be „a thing“ in terms of: You can’t cater towards both parties, if you push balance too hard you lose the casuals, if you neglect balance the comp. cummunity will start a flame war (yet continue playing). Whenever the vocal people (minority of gamers) were heard and the game was made to be to their taste the games lost most of their player base and died. A reason for that was that competitive players were pushing casuals out, once the casuals were gone the competitive community became bored and moved on.

The dynamics of TT and Video Games are different however since games take longer and you can’t just jump in and have 8 games a day. The overall speed is slower, so the effect of GW‘s change in target audience will show it’s effect with a big delay. 
 

To me AoS is a game, not a competition. GW tends to disagree as of late it seems.

Edited May 31 by JackStreicher

[Cdance93]

1 hour ago, Sarouan said:

Fun for the competitive players who don't understand they repel quite a lot of potential people into the Hobby. But feel free to keep having fun, just don't complain if you see you have less people to play with in the future.

If people are put off by this version of the game then they’re not supposed to be playing AOS in the first place

[MitGas]

40 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Now I know why IDK don't get new waves. They are not even welcome in the forum!



I was looking for their specific section to share this IDK STLs I found when I was seeing something else, in case someone would be interested:

  Hide contents

This month's Release (heroesinfinite.com)

 

I also find it interesting this kind of stuff to see what others imagine for factions that maybe you are not so aware of what their potential could be.

If GW gave their female minis such chests, we‘d have a huge discussion again where some would say it‘s unnecessarily sexist. Some of these models definitely look cool, I‘d like to see more fantastical deep sea creatures/monsters along the Aelven stuff personally though! Kinda like those crab people in Aquaman. But I have absolutely no idea what IDK players want and I imagine they might be split on the issue as well with some longing for lovecraftian creatures and others wanting more Aelfs. Obviously the latter are totally wrong! 🤭

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Sarouan said:

Fun for the competitive players who don't understand they repel quite a lot of potential people into the Hobby. But feel free to keep having fun, just don't complain if you see you have less people to play with in the future.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me personally the anti-competitive crowd in both AoS and TOW are the ones killing my hype the most at the moment. They certainly pushed me out of WHFB when I was a teen, too.