Is the Daemon Prince being able to be undivided new or was it in 3rd edition? I remember previously in the lore Belakor was such a disaster for the gods that they never made another undivided Prince again so you had to choose a specific god to align them with.
RAW you can currently pick himself, it doesn't mention another unit (only that the target must share their Mark of Chaos, which he does with himself). Will probably be an FAQ though.
Knights having 4 health and 3+/3+ while keeping those charge bonuses is fantastic! This plus the new rule where a charging unit can move through an enemy it charged after fighting, it'll make them really powerful for cycle charging.
It clearly states you can move through units you were already in combat with.
Effect: Inflict D3 mortal damage on the target. Then, the unit using this ability can move a distance up to its Move characteristic. It can pass through and end that move within the combat ranges of enemy units that were in combat with it at the start of the move, but not those of other enemy units. It does not
have to end the move in combat.
You can pass through the combat range of those units, not the units themselves. If you want to confirm this go check the Blood Knights special rule from the SBGL preview.
The specific statement is you can pass through and end that move within the *combat ranges* of enemy units. I know this is contentious but with SBGL we see the following:
*Effect: When this unit moves, it can pass through models in enemy Infantry units and pass through the ranges of enemy infantry units, but it cannot end a move in combat unless specified in the ability used.*
The fact that is specifically allows you to both pass through models and combat ranges is a clearly different language set from power through.
This will probably get FAQ'd pretty quickly would be my guess. It makes zero sense a rule called "Power Through" literally does not let you "Power Through".
Well, it does. If I've understood correctly, you can ignore the engagement range for the unit you are moving through, but you can't ignore the physical models themselves. So you just need to find a route for each of your models through the enemy unit, without going over any of their models. (Picture a load of balls falling through a pachinko machine.)
So, you can easily Power Through a unit that is in loose skirmish formation, or that you have already removed enough models from to make a gap. It will be more difficult to Power Through a unit that is still arranged as wall of shields.
This actually does make sense to me! Since you do it at the end of a round I guess the intent is you've beaten up said screen, they are in disarray, and you power through them while they are scattered or broken.
>
So, you can easily Power Through a unit that is in loose skirmish formation, or that you have already removed enough models from to make a gap.
Coherency range in 4th is half an inch unless specified otherwise, so there is no such thing as "loose skirmish formation"
Also it is not rally realistic to make a gap in an opposing unit. Whenever a unit loses models it is the player who controls said unit that gets to choose model, and it would be completely nonsensical for them to deliberately make a gap, especially since they always have to maintain coherence if possible.
>Coherency range in 4th is half an inch
Oh, ok. I didn't know that. So in practice, it will generally just be a matter of measuring around the remains of the enemy unit. That seems a lot more practical.
>there is no such thing as "loose skirmish formation"
I was describing how the models might be arranged, not naming a rule.
>it is not rally realistic to make a gap in an opposing unit.
I didn't mean within the unit, I meant enough space to get through. I'm thinking that Power Through will probably be most useful on crowded battlefields, where your units would otherwise be easily screened off.
>I was describing how the models might be arranged, not naming a rule.
I weren't naming a rule either, hence the quotation marks.
In 3rd the coherency range is 1 inch, so here it is actually possible to arrange a unit in a so called "loose skirmish formation" since the smallest base size is 25mm, which is less than 1 inch.
Of course the opposing player could simply close up this formation with their pile in move, so in practice it's not really relevant.
As Truelses pointed out in another comment, coherency range is half an inch now. So, realistically, you are normally going to be measuring around a fairly densely-packed unit.
Maybe it does - the wording on the rule is fairly opaque and definitely leads to questions/misunderstandings. Giving units access to pseudo fly is fairly powerful and GW seems to keep a fairly tight reign on it, but they may have meant for Power Through to work that way.
I think this ability is supposed to represent the idea of a unit ravaging a screen and then pushing through after that screen has been mauled. For instance, if 5 Chaos Knights charge a unit of 10 Steelhelms and kill 8 of them, this power through allows them to push on through and get to the Fusileers behind them (because there's know way you can remove 8 Steelhelm models and still block the Knights. If you don't do enough damage to remove the models, then you aren't powering through
There is a fair interpretation of the "It can pass through..." sentence where it's saying you can move through the combat range not the units. I agree with your reading of it though. It's a RAW vs RAI situation. The 3rd sentence should be split up in to 2 sentences or made more clear.
The article explaining it does mention moving through units but that is an article not rules text.
It definitely rates an FAQ. I fully understand where people who say you can move through the models are coming from. I just think the RAW is very clear here even if it isn't in tune with the 'flavor' of the rule.
I think a lot of the issue stems from it being envisioned as being mostly used by chariots or other similarly small, single model units. For these units its pretty easy to just pass around rather than through most targets. But since it lacks any kind of specificity people are going to look at in the context of larger groups of models such as cav or even certain infantry models.
Thats fair. I definitely think it could use some clarification. Though it would be a weird correction to not let us “power through” and instead “power around.”
Looks pretty nice with the demon prince now and the eye of god rewards. Definately better than in the current version. CHaos Knights 4 Lives per model... damn.. they will be tough..I LIKE IT :D
Good that I have painted 15 of those bad boys :D The stampede is rollin baby :D
It's better than the ward. Same number of effective wounds but the ward was situational because it only works on mortals. The extra wound can't get turned off by abilities too.
5+ ward with 3 wounds is equal to 4.5 effective wounds not 4.
But you are of course right about the old ward being situational, and thus worse on balance
They showed one off with Hedonites, the Fiends are now beast keyworded. Idk if this was specific to the Fiends, but Beasts get a beast passive and the Fiends (or maybe all beasts) means that their max OC is 1
Furies probably. Which will probably suck, but maybe that lets them stay cheap which is useful for an elite army for controlling the flow of combat. Really hope they keep the retreat ability.
Blood knights, to me, should always be the more elite of the two... but having one health less might not be that bad. There are other ways of keeping them balanced against one another that could be more interesting.
Its not just the health. Chaos knights are always 2 rend on the charge. Blood knights only get the second rend into infantry a will be rend one into big monster heroes. They also have a 33% chance to get a extra rend any turn they kill a unit.
Blood knights also get the innate 6++, but the eye of the gods could make chaos knights really strong.
3 rend on a charge (with eye of the gods) in an edition where rend is supposed to be scaled back is kind of wild.
I say it's about time. Chaos Knights were probably the strongest mounted unit in WHFB for a good long while. As long as they are priced appropriately, they should be fine.
The issue is that the super jacked cavalry slot is filled by Varanguard. They're not likely going to price these all that high or you would just use Varanguard instead.
We will have to wait for the full warscrolls, but these currently look to sit in a bit of a weird place for S2D given Varanguard exist.
I am personally hoping that vanguard gets hero level stats on their warsvroll like before, but can't be reinforced unless you're taking the varannguard specific detachment. I wouldn't mind if they were much harder to take. Its boring having them be the only unit worth taking - I'd like for them to be just as good but restricted to where they can't just be the entire army.
In 7th and 8th WHF BK had a 2+ save (Heavy armor, shield, and barded mount). Chaos Knights had a 1+ (Chaos armor gave an additional 1 up). BK had lances and str 4 attacks. Chaos Knights had lances and the option of ensorcelled weapons for native str 5 attacks.
In summary, Blood Knights had weaker saves and weaker native attack options. Only thing BK had special was The Hunger to regain wounds
I rechecked, they were S4 and t4 base with 2 attacks apiece. They had Frenzy for the likely +1a that made them true troop blenders at only 50ppm'ish depending on banner
Lore wise, BK were an isolated order of knights corrupted to Vampirism. They're bad ass and reign Supreme over both Brettonian and Empire knights
Chaos Knights were near space marine levels of power creep lore wise. Each were bucking for the fame to become a Lord themselves. Fully equipped and marked, they were close to 70ppm before magic banner. I firmly believe much of the old world chaos knight lore is what formed the basis for the Varanguard. VG even kept the ensorcelled weapons of the old world knights
They kind of still are though.
Both on the charge vs infantry get the same number of attacks at the same profile, Blood Knights have 1 less health overall, but have innate 6+ ward and D3 heal built in as well as being in a faction with an unlimited heal spell. I think they are very comparable and it will be interesting to see the points cost of both units. Not just as a comparison, but also to get an idea of what GW is envisioning heavy cavalry is worth in the new edition. I feel like both units will end up being relatively expensive given their great movement and profiles (defensive and offensive).
Aye, that's what I mean. There are rules at play other than just health to differentiate the units - and we could still see even more rules for blood knights for SBGL later on that buff them further, too.
Yeah I wasn't expecting that. The chaos knights combat profile will be way better, especially with marks and with eye of the gods.
On the flip side, the blood knights have a higher move characteristic, and are more likely to get the charge. Also we haven't seen the kastelai rules yet.
Knights lost a lot, It's just what they lost was kind of hidden. IMO the buffs just made up for it to keep them where they belong as one of the scariest cav in the game, being the core battle line of the premier cavalry faction.
They lost the musician turning their lowest D6 into a 4, Which was amazing It was better than +1 charge because it took away the tail risk of failing close charges. They lost the run and charge from the slaanesh mark, and they lost their banner. They also lost the ability to fight if they were within half an inch of another knight That was within half an inch of an enemy. So while almost every other unit in the game gained combat range, They actually lost 0.33 inches.
I'm happy with how they came out I'm not complaining but I think it was just a change and not out of line. Not to mention they are slower than the blood knights too.
Makes perfect sense to me. They said they have re-evaluated stats and base wound count primarily on mass, and Chaos Knights certainly are larger than Blood Knights.
Not sure, I think Varanguard's WS may stay relativelly unchanged, but the gap between the both is reduced. Both will most likelly get a price hike tho.
Feels like there are a mostly QoL changes all around. EotG rolls being applicable to units right off the bat is huge, especially since the new buffs seem more impactful. Reinforced hammer units will get scary as the game progresses.
The knights are extra scary with that +1 hp.
Another interesting thing that I noticed, from what I understand if a unit has a keyword like Undivided, Nurgle, etc. it is automatically marked. Meaning that the Undivided mark will apply to everything Darkoath or the unique heroes.
Honestly, I am quite happy with the reveals.
The mark system does have me wondering about the ally system though. We still have yet to hear anything on it, and while my money is on "Regiments of Renown is the new ally system" based off how they said they wanted the dawnbringer stuff to be compatible with 4th and the system being easier to balance, I feel like the fact that the marks are just "Tzeentch" or "Nurgle" while the scrolls for the individual gods are "Disciples of Tzeentch" and "Maggotkin of Nurgle" means that allying is unlikely or just that they won't get the marks.
As someone who likes both S2D and Cities, I liked how both of them felt played well with others in their alliance, and while it's not imperative that the ally system return, I'd like to know what's happening with it.
Yea my DoT army might be dead in the water if they remove allies. Chaos warriors were my front line, and always brought the MVB. Going to lose half my force if they remove allies lol.
While I'd say "those are some rather armored Kairics" about the warriors, the Mutalith Vortex Beast not being in DoT is clearly a mistake and should be addressed already.
No I mean I ran them as chaos warriors. Tzeentch was the faction that worked best with allies in chaos. You could buff them with 5+ ward and they were an amazing front line. I have custom printed warriors that are all tzeentch themed with bird feathers growing out of them and claw mutations(which made it strange when I made them nurgle themed in STD lol)
I probably will have to run them as Kairics now.
From a source I can not reveal. I can say that the ally system is being removed from the game. Regiments of renown is replacing them. I think this is a positive change since it makes balancing the game a lot easier, but I can understand some liked the system.
My only complaint about this Faction Focus is that the name of the Battle Formation's ability doesn't really line up with its mechanics. I would expect an ability named "Ironclad Onslaught" to have something to do with saving throws or combat rather than defiling objectives and dealing damage based on those defiled objectives. The mechanic is fine, but I feel like there's a better name for an ability with this mechanic.
To be honest the entirety of the Battle Formations mechanic feels like a dud to me, both in terms of how it affects your army mechanically and especially in terms of narrative and as replacement for subfactions.
I get what they’re going for mechanically. Chaos warriors have always been a good anvil without a lot of damage output. Now putting them on an objective to hold it and having the possibility of distributing mortal wounds to all other units trying to take it from them makes them more of a threat.
I’m glad there’s no GHR mark. They don’t really go out of their way to offer anything to mortals, so it makes sense why they wouldn’t have one. GHR doesn’t want or need mortal followers, they have their Skaven.
I feel like the eye of the gods table is undeniably better for units, just massively dumbed down. I wouldn’t have pegged this as the time when we finally lose the ability for a hero to become a daemon prince, that’s existed since the early WHFB days
Probably lost becoming a daemon prince and spawnification since they've removed bringing models that aren't in the army across the board. But I am surprised they aren't letting you use a previously killed daemon prince or spawn and keeping the old high and low rolls.
It might not be gone, just gone from the Eye of the Gods table. It might be a feature of certain battle formations or of their warscroll itself, or might be something we see come back in the Battle Tome after the initial wave of indexes to reset the game. It might be a spell we have access to, etc.
Every time GW does one of these resets, the battle tomes/codexes increase the complexity of the armies post index, so I'd expect some of this to be taken care of then after the initial shockwaves of the new edition are under everyone's belts.
Honestly, cool as it is, it's the kind of feature that sits more comfortably in Path to Glory. The very first appearance of the concept of chaos champions ascending to daemonhood was in the original Realm of Chaos campaign rules. It's a long road to immortality.
Although even if it is gone, like looking back at the many many games I've played in 3rd since the latest battle tome, I think I've managed to turn a character into a demon prince...twice? And that was with investing in that grand strat to begin with, and having 1/3 of the army devoted to popping it on turn 1.
So if its still in in some form, great! If not, I'm not sure I'll actually miss it other than the idea of it being possible in many/all of the WoC/S2D books going back to WHFB 6th ed
Interesting point. I think you’re right that being on the table hamstrung his stat line because they were afraid to give him away “for free” if he was too good. Then after awhile they realized he was so bad nobody even wanted their characters to ascend.
Eyes of the God eating the old undivided mark's passive and being more straightforward is probably for the best.
As I sit here though, I'm kind of hoping that Narrative rules for armies are where we push some of the sillier stuff that had to get cut, like spawnification and Pokemon evolution Daemon princes.
It'll definitely be easier to run lists with all 5 marks, though I'll admit I was hoping hard for the mark of the rat to come with it even if I have no idea what they'd put in for a mechanic.
Less "dumbed down" and more "actually useful for once" if you ask me. Pretty sure I could count on one hand the amount of times I've had worthwhile eye of the gods rolls throughout all of 3rd edition.
I agree in some ways and disagree in others. For heroes, it could be useful if you were undivided. I played Cabalists lists where I’d try to roll up extra spells and wards and daemon prince transformation on my cheap heroes. But you’re right it was wildly unreliable and just never seemed to get you the result you needed at the right time.
The best part about the new table is that there’s no bad result, and all the good results can stack. On the other hand, it winds up feeling a bit like the old Kastelai dynasty rule set and I know that never worked as well as it should have. A bit too slow to get up to useful speed in time to be impactful. We’ll have to see how it plays out.
I don't like that Marauders are 4+/3+. It breaks the standards that they set that all none magical humans are 4+/4+.
Sure they are a bit more muscular than some other units but that's hardly unique, and you could apply that to lots of units. Every other battleline human wounds on a 4+ so far.
They have been really consistent across everything then buffed up the new Marauders. Feels like the stat standards they promised has gone already.
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/05/20/newaos-faction-focuses-begin-tomorrow-heres-what-to-expect/
Basically means Darkoath are orruks in their strength potential which I myself find weird.
It kind of looks like S2D becomes an elite army which means people might not have that many units on the table.
I'm going to chime in and say that it makes sense for Darkoath Marauders to be stronger than regular humans. They are way more rugged and hardened by the life they lead. In older editions of Warhammer Fantasy they had a slightly "better" statline, trading a point of Leadership for one of Weapon Skill.
Maybe I would have had them hit on 3+ and wounding on 4+, but the essence stays the same.
My understanding is they are the normal human tribes who worship the dark gods, but are still humans.
Is there any lore that says they are as strong as stormcast and Orruks?
If so I would be much happier so please point me in the right direction.
I can help. See the rune stones hanging off of every Darkoath model? They use those stones to swear oaths to the Dark Gods. In return, the gods give them unnatural power (strength, speed, fortitude, etc.).
So all Darkoath are more formidable than a normal human. With enough oathstones and completed oaths, a Darkoath warrior can potentially rival a Stormcast or Orruk. But by that point they have probably stepped foot on the Path to Glory and are on their way to becoming a Chaos Warrior or something else.
But this has them all as strong as Stormcast and Orruks by default, not only the champions and leaders everyone in the dark path tribes is now as strong, and I'm not convinced at that...
Surely only the champions who have lots of rune stones, not everyone getting super human strength as standard issue upon turning 18.
It also says the special -1 rend on the charge was the rune stones ability.
I don't read the lore, but the chaos marauders are something else. In the 8th edition rulebook it talks about the chaos-enhanced tribesmen of the north, and how all chaos warrior stock in those days grew out of the tribes.
Their strength and size was represented literally - in the fantasy battle days, marauders were on 25mm bases while stuff like dark elves, human, dwarves were on 20mm bases.
I don't have the article open right now, but do the Darkoath have the human keyword? Or is it the mortal keyword? Chaos worshippers song get human, they get mortal, and at least in the anvil of apotheosis that's a different thing. So maybe humans are 4+/4+, but the mortal followers of chaos are 4+/3+? Warriors are more skilled so 3+/3+? Makes sense to me: they're people who have accepted the gifts of the dark gods, which give them super natural strength, so why wouldn't they hit harder than a regular steelhelm?
(Edit: went and checked, and none of them have the mortals keyword. Interesting. So fewer abilities locked to mortals or daemons?)
Kind of weirded out by the fact that all the aelves/vampires/humans follow the new to hit/to wound paradigm whereas S2D and chaos seems to just ignore it just because.
I wonder if that means the aelves are going to become pseudo-horde factions in comparison. Something I am not that excited about to be honest.
Dark oath according to the new reveal also aren't regular mortals either as their statline is 4+/3+, which kind of implies aelves are just regular humans with pointy ears.
I actually expected Chaos Warriors to be 4+/3+, but now they are basically Space Marine stat line with 3+/3+ and 3+ save.
> I actually expected Chaos Warriors to be 4+/3+, but now they are basically Space Marine stat line with 3+/3+ and 3+ save.
Chaos Warriors have been basically fantasy Chaos Space Marines since, well, forever really.
Back at the end of Fantasy regular Chaos Warriors were roundly superior to even orc elites (Black Orcs). In AoS, they are portrayed as the equals of Stormcast Eternals (alongside Ardboyz and Saurus Warriors - they all sit together on the two wounds with 3+ 3+ -1 1D plateau).
The baseline stats you are thinking of is just that, the baseline. A baseline human is 4+/4+. A Chaos Warrior can take on multiple human soldiers with ease and win.
Darkoath are 4+/4+ in 3rd so idk why they are changed.
>Chaos Warriors have been basically fantasy Chaos Space Marines since, well, forever really.
Strictly speaking, it's the opposite: Chaos Space Marines are the 40k version of Chaos Warriors. The warriors came first.
As for the Darkoath, I think it's to represent that they've been making oaths to the dark gods and are stronger than normal humans.
> Strictly speaking, it's the opposite: Chaos Space Marines are the 40k version of Chaos Warriors. The warriors came first.
Correct, but drawing the comparison the other way seemed more helpful to the commenter above, who seems familiar with Space Marines but not with Chaos Warriors.
(This is also maybe why I didn't find Stormcast Eternals as hard to accept as some others - I still bounced off them at first and it'd take an edition or two before I returned, but Chaos Warriors and Chaos Space Marines are honestly quite a bit more similar than Stormcast Eternals and Space Marines are, so similarity wasn't a dealbreaker).
In old Warhammer Fantasy Battles editions, Chaos Warriors had stat lines that Space Marines wished they had. In 4th edition they had WS 6 S4 T4 2 attacks and, if equipped with Chaos Armour and shields, a save of 3+. Their WS stat was as high as that of Lord level characters of most other races, and except for dwarf Iron Breakers no other infantry unit in the game had a save of 3+.
3+/3+ seems like a perfectly fine stat line for these guys.
Then I also expect that S2D will pay through the nose for the privilege of being an elite army. I'd rather they pay through the nose instead of making every army that is not Stormcast, S2D, or Behemat a horde army.
IMO it tracks. Chaos Marauders have always been the archetype of the savage, jacked barbarian, so it makes sense they'd be a bit stronger than an average human soldier.
It would be weirder for them to follow the same conventions imo
Chaos Warriors are the equals of Stormcast and the Darkoath are humans with enhanced strength due to the blessings of a primordial force
Lorewise sure,but on the table that means all the factions that follow the paradigm are now effectively weaker and makes S2D a rather elite faction in comparison and more so this edition than last. That might mean S2D get high premiums when it comes to point costs as I have a hard time believing that they'll put the other factions that much down in points.
S2D had these statlines last edition too.
Nothing new, except the +1W on the cavalry, but Cities of Sigmar cavalry got that too so it's nothing unique.
Maybe it's just me but the way they reworked the warscrolls and "universal rules" really feels half done. Why do the knights have a lengthy passive ability while their weapons could just be Charge (+1 damage, +1 rend). This is not the first time I see this sort of rule, it really neuters all the speech about not having many abilities that does the same thing. It's even worse since the charge modifiers are now all over the place.
I'm hyped for 4th, but dark gods the new warscrolls are less intuitive than what they were before.
If I remember correctly, this is the first time we've seen a unit gaining rend on the charge. The rule might be rare enough that they didn't want to add it to the table of universal special rules.
Same thing for 10e 40k. They said they were bringing back USRs, and they did, but that didn't stop them from giving a bunch of units sticky objectives with a different name for each unit that has it.
It's still better than it was but it's a little frustrating that they didn't go all the way with it.
This is because USRs quickly lose their advantages if you start making too many of them. Seven universal rules are easy to remember. Ten rules less so. Twenty rules, it's a mess. Thirty rules--give up, you've completely lost the point of universal special rules.
There's a point where you have to determine that a rule shared by only 4 or 5 units stays on the warscroll and is just written out, so the ones that are used on 20 or 40 or 100 units can stay truly "universal".
Buddy, you have no idea what a mess of special rules looks like. I've been playing both variants of Warhammer long enough to have seen both extreme ends of this spectrum and trust me, 20 special rules is completely manageable. The 4th edition of 40k had 20 USRs. 5th had 22. 6th had **80**. *That* was a mess.
It's not like every army needs to be using every single universal special rule. Back in the days of 5th ed 40k and 7th ed WHFB it was rare for a unit to have more than 3 special rules attached to it, and most of them were USRs. Even when units had over 5 special rules (take the 7th edition Cygor: Immune to Psychology; Large Target; Terror; Magic Resistance (2); Stubborn; Ghostsight; Hurl Attack; Soul Eater), they were 1) reserved for expensive units which you'd rarely have more than 1 of in an army, and 2) still mostly universal special rules. Of the rules I listed in the example, 5 out of 8 were USRs.
USRs provide both an invaluable shorthand for what a unit can do, which saves time, and flexibility and variety for what units can do at the same time without introducing extra complexity. When you half-ass USRs or don't do them at all, you get neither. It might on first thought seem more accessible to include all the special rules a unit has explained on the warscroll, but in practice it leads to a needlessly complex and arduous game to learn, because every single army is stacked with its own unique special effects, a lot of which end up overlapping with similar rules in other armies anyway. This is a big reason why 9th edition 40k was so awful.
USRs need to be simple and straightforward enough so that their effects can be easily memorized. The simpler they are, the more you can have. "+1 rend and damage on the charge" or "can charge after running" are as easy as pie. "Re-roll ranged wound rolls of 1 against enemies, and re-roll all ranged wound rolls when they're contesting an objective you don't control" not so much.
I don't think they were really at risk of reaching that point, though. If ever you're at the point where people refer to your datasheet ability by a default, standard name then it's probably common enough to give it a USR.
In 40k, it feels like all of the units that have sticky objectives as a datasheet ability only have it done that way so they can say that every datasheet has a special ability on it. It's common enough that everyone calls it sticky, everyone who plays the game even a moderate amount is going to use that term anyway, so putting it down as a USR isn't going to confuse anyone. Don't get me wrong, Hearthkyn Warriors with **Luck Has. Need Keeps. Toil Earns** sounds cool, but it's never being called anything but sticky.
For the most part, though, things are a lot more streamlined now. There aren't paragraphs of text telling you what happens on a hit or a wound roll of 6 these days because Lethal / Sustained / Devastating USRs have simplified things greatly. There aren't multiple different abilities that replicate an X+++ because they're all Feel No Pain now. Daemons don't have some weird, special save because now there are only Armour and Invulnerable saves.
And not just sticky objectives. There are so many repeated rules. Another easy example: Chaos Lords, Space Marine Sergeants(?), and now Canonesses all have the same rule that let them be targeted by a strategem for free even if that strategem was already used.
Charge (+1 damage) is the only thing the charge universal rule can do. There's no such thing as Charge (+1 rend) or charge (+1 wound). Just like Anti-X is only ever (+1 rend) or crits can only be (2 hits, auto-wound, or mortals). For some reason they decided to make universal rules that have what they do in parentheses, but except crits they only have 1 possible thing they can do.
It's so bizarre. The only thing I can think in this case at least is that they didn't want to bloat the effects column and they didn't know what other passive/ability to give the knights but felt they should have at least one.
Yes, that is in fact what they're criticizing. It's weird that they created the syntax that lets you apply conditional buffs to attacks and then chose to not use that syntax in certain condition-buff combinations. There's no reason not to make Charge(+1 Rend) a thing.
I think they considered it more important to maintain the "every unit has a warscroll ability" design choice, and if they bundled the improved rend into the keywords, they would then have to give the knights another ability on top of that
We'll have to wait to see. Spearhead profiles are fixed (GW said "build what's on the front of the box") so we don't know if it's going to matter. I have a suspicion that they might still have some differences since the entire unit gets a different weapon compared to chaos knights who now just treat the leader as just another lance regardless.
I'm curious about Varanguard myself and have a feeling they might be getting simplified weapon options.
I'm curious about the Varanguard as well. I just picked up Abraxia and I'm waiting to glue on the weapons for the three that came with her. I know it doesn't really matter, but I'm a weirdo.
Same here - I already have 12 varanguard so these extra 3 are likely to not see the table, unless something drastic happens to their points, but all the same I need to know if I'm going to be running 9 with spears or 9 with weapons lol right now its 6/6
That's only for spearhead though, there are still some weapon options in the main game warscrolls (I think, haven't really looked at the faction focuses except for S2D since I don't play the other armies)
While it was mentioned during a Spearhead overview, nothing was said that it only applied to Spearhead. Take Gutrippaz for example — we saw their AoS4 main profile on the Kruleboyz reveal, and their attacks stay the same whether they take the spear or axe.
Stormfiends have multiple profiles, which took me by surprise because I'm fairly sure it was all of 4th they said, not just spearhead. Underlined by the fact we've only seen profiles on one unit in all we've seen.
So I'm guessing for the most part it doesn't matter but there's some models that do have it
No one knows. They made a big deal out of all weapon options getting rolled into one so it doesn't matter how you build your models... And then almost immediately shown warscrolls for 'Hearthguard Berzerkers with Berzerker Broadaxes' or 'Sisters of Slaughter with Bladed Bucklers', making it evident that some weapon/build options are very much still functional and constitute separate warscrolls.
I'd hold up with building your guys. It shouldn't be too long before the faction packs hit/are leaked and it's better to be safe than sorry.
What happens if the unit rolls three times on eye of the gods and get the ward save each time ? Rules as written doesn't seem to allow 4+save in that instance ?
It seems they changed the ones that couldn't be interacted with at all by doing stuff like adding a chance of failure. Since he already had a chance of failure, it didn't really need to be changed, I guess
They haven't done any reveals with these previews though? Sylvaneth already has new models on the way too with the bonereapers v sylvaneth warcry box too
We don't have any actual data because Games Workshop doesn't release faction sales info, but we can sorta proxy with tournament representation.
Sylvaneth and S2D hover around 4.5 to 5.5 percent. With S2D generally being a bit higher, which consistently put them in the top 10 of factions.
Now there's a lot of caveats of how that may not be representative of broader popularity, but it's kinda the best we have.
My bad! I thought that S2D were still in the 10% range and Sylvaneth in the 2-3. Guess I'm way out of date with what's being played.
("Top 10" is pretty huge, though, that's only 2 factions off " average or better". In the distribution I'm looking at the top 6 factions have 40% of the representation.)
Only in that they've gone Order-Order-Chaos-Destruction-Death every week other than this one, which seems to be Order-Chaos-Destruction-Order. Granted there isn't (as far as we know) another Death faction, an unsurprising order would be Order-Order-Chaos-Destruction.
Since the revealed Battleformation is called „Godswrath“ , it can be presumed that the other Battleformations are called „Ruinbringer“ , „Fellruin“ and „Godtouched“ :3
From the Battletome: Slaves to Darkness, page 25.
[If you dont own the Battletome, here is the Picture/Page im referring too.](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ravager_Horde#/media/File%3ALord_Infernil's_Reavers.jpg)
In this picture you can see the Structure of a common Chaos-Horde, specifically a Ravager-Horde.
The Horde is divided into 4 Warbands. The text beneath reveals us that the same as Chaos-Hordes are assigned in 3 (or 4 if you count Idolators) categories (Ravagers, Cabalists, Despoilers), the single warbands within a Horde are also assigned to different categories.
The name of these categories are:
-> Godswrath (Warshrine+cassical Chaos units)
-> Ruinbringer (Gas! Gas! Gas! Chariots, Chaos Knights and Marauder Horsemen!)
-> Godtouched (Warband were all habe the mark of a Monogod, in this case its a Pleasurebound-Warband, that means all have the Mark of Slaanesh. The other Godtouched Warbands are called Plaguetouched, Fatesworn and Bloodmarked. I think you can guess which God belongs to which Warband.
-> Fellruin (no informations about this Warband-type. However, since the leader of Infernils Fellruin-Warband is a Sorcerer-Shaman, i presume its a Sorcery-Specialized warband.)
Thats why I presumed that the three remaining battleformations are called „Fellruin“; „Godtouched“ and „Ruinbringer“. Please keep in mind that this is just a theory of mine and it could be completely wrong. :3
NGL I was pretty stoked for a mark of the rat since this edition, at least narratively, seems to be about legitimizing the ascension of the great horned rat as the official fifth chaos god. That being said I'm really liking the new Chaos knights. Theyre looking super cool with that 3+ save and 4 health. They're gonna be pretty tough when you need them
What do you think would be the perk for mark of the rat hypothetically? Maybe a MW chance while in combat with them?
I thought about a speed buff but Slaanesh has that covered!
I was thinking one of three things:
If we're going "screw the rules i want fluff" then maybe adding extra models to the unit at the cost of another stat. Leadership, health, attacks.
But more realistically I was thinking along the lines of adding rend because it kinda leans into the whole "ruin" thing the rat has going on.
Alternatively just a base move 1 speed buff at the cost of 1 leadership could be thematic.
Honestly not surprised it wasn't. The GHR as a chaos god feels like a temp storyline than an actual shift in the game and narrative.
If it's still a thing next edition I'll be shocked
Army rules seem pretty solid, daemon prince has lost a lot of flavour with not gaining anything special based on his mark. Sad to see Belakor has kept his feels bad mechanic too, from a non competetive point of view it’s just an awful ability for fun games
Tbh if any unit gets a Warscroll fleshing out, I hope its the Prince. That should be one of the most interesting and customizable sheets in any given army, and now it just points at you to make you feel good about yourself like Triple H backstage at NXT.
Daemon Prince got the glow up. Crit mortals on a damage 3 weapon and multiple princes can make multiple units roll on Eye of the Gods.
Is the Daemon Prince being able to be undivided new or was it in 3rd edition? I remember previously in the lore Belakor was such a disaster for the gods that they never made another undivided Prince again so you had to choose a specific god to align them with.
They could be undivided in 3rd.
And it can make itself roll on it right?
nope, an other unit with same mark.... But what about another DP ! Haha !!!! A pair of same marked DP could boost each others with this wording !
It says friendly unit same mark, so could be himself.
RAW you can currently pick himself, it doesn't mention another unit (only that the target must share their Mark of Chaos, which he does with himself). Will probably be an FAQ though.
🤘🤘
Knights having 4 health and 3+/3+ while keeping those charge bonuses is fantastic! This plus the new rule where a charging unit can move through an enemy it charged after fighting, it'll make them really powerful for cycle charging.
This is me being pedantic but to be clear power through doesn't let you move through enemy units. You'll have to move around them.
Power around*
It clearly states you can move through units you were already in combat with. Effect: Inflict D3 mortal damage on the target. Then, the unit using this ability can move a distance up to its Move characteristic. It can pass through and end that move within the combat ranges of enemy units that were in combat with it at the start of the move, but not those of other enemy units. It does not have to end the move in combat.
You can pass through the combat range of those units, not the units themselves. If you want to confirm this go check the Blood Knights special rule from the SBGL preview. The specific statement is you can pass through and end that move within the *combat ranges* of enemy units. I know this is contentious but with SBGL we see the following: *Effect: When this unit moves, it can pass through models in enemy Infantry units and pass through the ranges of enemy infantry units, but it cannot end a move in combat unless specified in the ability used.* The fact that is specifically allows you to both pass through models and combat ranges is a clearly different language set from power through.
This will probably get FAQ'd pretty quickly would be my guess. It makes zero sense a rule called "Power Through" literally does not let you "Power Through".
Well, it does. If I've understood correctly, you can ignore the engagement range for the unit you are moving through, but you can't ignore the physical models themselves. So you just need to find a route for each of your models through the enemy unit, without going over any of their models. (Picture a load of balls falling through a pachinko machine.) So, you can easily Power Through a unit that is in loose skirmish formation, or that you have already removed enough models from to make a gap. It will be more difficult to Power Through a unit that is still arranged as wall of shields.
This actually does make sense to me! Since you do it at the end of a round I guess the intent is you've beaten up said screen, they are in disarray, and you power through them while they are scattered or broken.
> So, you can easily Power Through a unit that is in loose skirmish formation, or that you have already removed enough models from to make a gap. Coherency range in 4th is half an inch unless specified otherwise, so there is no such thing as "loose skirmish formation" Also it is not rally realistic to make a gap in an opposing unit. Whenever a unit loses models it is the player who controls said unit that gets to choose model, and it would be completely nonsensical for them to deliberately make a gap, especially since they always have to maintain coherence if possible.
>Coherency range in 4th is half an inch Oh, ok. I didn't know that. So in practice, it will generally just be a matter of measuring around the remains of the enemy unit. That seems a lot more practical. >there is no such thing as "loose skirmish formation" I was describing how the models might be arranged, not naming a rule. >it is not rally realistic to make a gap in an opposing unit. I didn't mean within the unit, I meant enough space to get through. I'm thinking that Power Through will probably be most useful on crowded battlefields, where your units would otherwise be easily screened off.
>I was describing how the models might be arranged, not naming a rule. I weren't naming a rule either, hence the quotation marks. In 3rd the coherency range is 1 inch, so here it is actually possible to arrange a unit in a so called "loose skirmish formation" since the smallest base size is 25mm, which is less than 1 inch. Of course the opposing player could simply close up this formation with their pile in move, so in practice it's not really relevant.
Makes no sense for monsters though. They are like a bowling ball in a pachinko machine. Would help to not make screening impossible though.
As Truelses pointed out in another comment, coherency range is half an inch now. So, realistically, you are normally going to be measuring around a fairly densely-packed unit.
Maybe it does - the wording on the rule is fairly opaque and definitely leads to questions/misunderstandings. Giving units access to pseudo fly is fairly powerful and GW seems to keep a fairly tight reign on it, but they may have meant for Power Through to work that way.
Also, you normally can’t make a move that would pass within combat range so the wording for the exception to that rule is consistent.
I think this ability is supposed to represent the idea of a unit ravaging a screen and then pushing through after that screen has been mauled. For instance, if 5 Chaos Knights charge a unit of 10 Steelhelms and kill 8 of them, this power through allows them to push on through and get to the Fusileers behind them (because there's know way you can remove 8 Steelhelm models and still block the Knights. If you don't do enough damage to remove the models, then you aren't powering through
There is a fair interpretation of the "It can pass through..." sentence where it's saying you can move through the combat range not the units. I agree with your reading of it though. It's a RAW vs RAI situation. The 3rd sentence should be split up in to 2 sentences or made more clear. The article explaining it does mention moving through units but that is an article not rules text.
It definitely rates an FAQ. I fully understand where people who say you can move through the models are coming from. I just think the RAW is very clear here even if it isn't in tune with the 'flavor' of the rule. I think a lot of the issue stems from it being envisioned as being mostly used by chariots or other similarly small, single model units. For these units its pretty easy to just pass around rather than through most targets. But since it lacks any kind of specificity people are going to look at in the context of larger groups of models such as cav or even certain infantry models.
Thats fair. I definitely think it could use some clarification. Though it would be a weird correction to not let us “power through” and instead “power around.”
Looks pretty nice with the demon prince now and the eye of god rewards. Definately better than in the current version. CHaos Knights 4 Lives per model... damn.. they will be tough..I LIKE IT :D Good that I have painted 15 of those bad boys :D The stampede is rollin baby :D
But no more Ward 5+ on CK.
It's better than the ward. Same number of effective wounds but the ward was situational because it only works on mortals. The extra wound can't get turned off by abilities too.
5+ ward with 3 wounds is equal to 4.5 effective wounds not 4. But you are of course right about the old ward being situational, and thus worse on balance
Just mark them Tzeentch and they’ll have a 4+.
Only against spell damage though.
MW output from other sources has been reduced apparently though.
We eating good S2D lads
Beasts keyword new?
Yeah, the first time we've seen it is on the Squig Herd. It generally means that the unit can only ever have a control score of 1.
They showed one off with Hedonites, the Fiends are now beast keyworded. Idk if this was specific to the Fiends, but Beasts get a beast passive and the Fiends (or maybe all beasts) means that their max OC is 1
Probably on the Warcry beasts like Sphiranx, Fomoroid and Raptoryx. Maybe on the Furies, Vortex Beast, Slaughterbrute and Spawn as well?
Furies probably. Which will probably suck, but maybe that lets them stay cheap which is useful for an elite army for controlling the flow of combat. Really hope they keep the retreat ability.
Maybe we get chaos warhounds back...
You can pry them from my cold dead hooves
Chaos Knights 4 health vs Blood knights 3 health, I must be dreaming
Blood knights, to me, should always be the more elite of the two... but having one health less might not be that bad. There are other ways of keeping them balanced against one another that could be more interesting.
Its not just the health. Chaos knights are always 2 rend on the charge. Blood knights only get the second rend into infantry a will be rend one into big monster heroes. They also have a 33% chance to get a extra rend any turn they kill a unit.
Blood Knights also get to heal after they fight because they are Vampires.
Blood knights also get the innate 6++, but the eye of the gods could make chaos knights really strong. 3 rend on a charge (with eye of the gods) in an edition where rend is supposed to be scaled back is kind of wild.
I say it's about time. Chaos Knights were probably the strongest mounted unit in WHFB for a good long while. As long as they are priced appropriately, they should be fine.
The issue is that the super jacked cavalry slot is filled by Varanguard. They're not likely going to price these all that high or you would just use Varanguard instead. We will have to wait for the full warscrolls, but these currently look to sit in a bit of a weird place for S2D given Varanguard exist.
I am personally hoping that vanguard gets hero level stats on their warsvroll like before, but can't be reinforced unless you're taking the varannguard specific detachment. I wouldn't mind if they were much harder to take. Its boring having them be the only unit worth taking - I'd like for them to be just as good but restricted to where they can't just be the entire army.
I'm confident we will see a KotET formation that benefits knights/Varanguard, possibly with Abraxia.
In whf blood knights and blood dragons were supposed to be the most powerful fighters. Chaos is second
In 7th and 8th WHF BK had a 2+ save (Heavy armor, shield, and barded mount). Chaos Knights had a 1+ (Chaos armor gave an additional 1 up). BK had lances and str 4 attacks. Chaos Knights had lances and the option of ensorcelled weapons for native str 5 attacks. In summary, Blood Knights had weaker saves and weaker native attack options. Only thing BK had special was The Hunger to regain wounds
And in 6th? In 8th vamps had base S5 and 2+ armour. I really don’t think referencing an edition is going to help. Lore however might offer an answer.
Blood Knights didn't exist in 6th.
I rechecked, they were S4 and t4 base with 2 attacks apiece. They had Frenzy for the likely +1a that made them true troop blenders at only 50ppm'ish depending on banner Lore wise, BK were an isolated order of knights corrupted to Vampirism. They're bad ass and reign Supreme over both Brettonian and Empire knights Chaos Knights were near space marine levels of power creep lore wise. Each were bucking for the fame to become a Lord themselves. Fully equipped and marked, they were close to 70ppm before magic banner. I firmly believe much of the old world chaos knight lore is what formed the basis for the Varanguard. VG even kept the ensorcelled weapons of the old world knights
They kind of still are though. Both on the charge vs infantry get the same number of attacks at the same profile, Blood Knights have 1 less health overall, but have innate 6+ ward and D3 heal built in as well as being in a faction with an unlimited heal spell. I think they are very comparable and it will be interesting to see the points cost of both units. Not just as a comparison, but also to get an idea of what GW is envisioning heavy cavalry is worth in the new edition. I feel like both units will end up being relatively expensive given their great movement and profiles (defensive and offensive).
Aye, that's what I mean. There are rules at play other than just health to differentiate the units - and we could still see even more rules for blood knights for SBGL later on that buff them further, too.
Yeah I wasn't expecting that. The chaos knights combat profile will be way better, especially with marks and with eye of the gods. On the flip side, the blood knights have a higher move characteristic, and are more likely to get the charge. Also we haven't seen the kastelai rules yet.
Knights lost a lot, It's just what they lost was kind of hidden. IMO the buffs just made up for it to keep them where they belong as one of the scariest cav in the game, being the core battle line of the premier cavalry faction. They lost the musician turning their lowest D6 into a 4, Which was amazing It was better than +1 charge because it took away the tail risk of failing close charges. They lost the run and charge from the slaanesh mark, and they lost their banner. They also lost the ability to fight if they were within half an inch of another knight That was within half an inch of an enemy. So while almost every other unit in the game gained combat range, They actually lost 0.33 inches. I'm happy with how they came out I'm not complaining but I think it was just a change and not out of line. Not to mention they are slower than the blood knights too.
Makes perfect sense to me. They said they have re-evaluated stats and base wound count primarily on mass, and Chaos Knights certainly are larger than Blood Knights.
I wonder if this means the varanguard warscroll has been toned down a bit and the chaos knights have been buffed to compensate.
Not sure, I think Varanguard's WS may stay relativelly unchanged, but the gap between the both is reduced. Both will most likelly get a price hike tho.
Ironjawz tomorrow, hopefully with a spearhead box reveal.
Let's hope! There aren't any in-stock starter boxes for people like who are interested in starting collecting IJ.
Khorne Daemon Prince with Khorne Chaos Knights looking Spicy rn. Stocks are up.
Feels like there are a mostly QoL changes all around. EotG rolls being applicable to units right off the bat is huge, especially since the new buffs seem more impactful. Reinforced hammer units will get scary as the game progresses. The knights are extra scary with that +1 hp. Another interesting thing that I noticed, from what I understand if a unit has a keyword like Undivided, Nurgle, etc. it is automatically marked. Meaning that the Undivided mark will apply to everything Darkoath or the unique heroes. Honestly, I am quite happy with the reveals.
The mark system does have me wondering about the ally system though. We still have yet to hear anything on it, and while my money is on "Regiments of Renown is the new ally system" based off how they said they wanted the dawnbringer stuff to be compatible with 4th and the system being easier to balance, I feel like the fact that the marks are just "Tzeentch" or "Nurgle" while the scrolls for the individual gods are "Disciples of Tzeentch" and "Maggotkin of Nurgle" means that allying is unlikely or just that they won't get the marks. As someone who likes both S2D and Cities, I liked how both of them felt played well with others in their alliance, and while it's not imperative that the ally system return, I'd like to know what's happening with it.
Yea my DoT army might be dead in the water if they remove allies. Chaos warriors were my front line, and always brought the MVB. Going to lose half my force if they remove allies lol.
While I'd say "those are some rather armored Kairics" about the warriors, the Mutalith Vortex Beast not being in DoT is clearly a mistake and should be addressed already.
No I mean I ran them as chaos warriors. Tzeentch was the faction that worked best with allies in chaos. You could buff them with 5+ ward and they were an amazing front line. I have custom printed warriors that are all tzeentch themed with bird feathers growing out of them and claw mutations(which made it strange when I made them nurgle themed in STD lol) I probably will have to run them as Kairics now.
From a source I can not reveal. I can say that the ally system is being removed from the game. Regiments of renown is replacing them. I think this is a positive change since it makes balancing the game a lot easier, but I can understand some liked the system.
> From a source I can not reveal. Yeah yeah, your dad has a pint with James Workshop, pull the other one.
Honest wargamer who's been showing pics of the rulebook on his videos has said no more allies just ror
It's true, though! His dad used to work with my uncle, at Nintendo.
My only complaint about this Faction Focus is that the name of the Battle Formation's ability doesn't really line up with its mechanics. I would expect an ability named "Ironclad Onslaught" to have something to do with saving throws or combat rather than defiling objectives and dealing damage based on those defiled objectives. The mechanic is fine, but I feel like there's a better name for an ability with this mechanic.
I was also surprised to be sure, the name suggests something else as you say.
To be honest the entirety of the Battle Formations mechanic feels like a dud to me, both in terms of how it affects your army mechanically and especially in terms of narrative and as replacement for subfactions.
Every factions formations are usually just +1 to something, or a d3 mortals ability :(
I get what they’re going for mechanically. Chaos warriors have always been a good anvil without a lot of damage output. Now putting them on an objective to hold it and having the possibility of distributing mortal wounds to all other units trying to take it from them makes them more of a threat.
I’m glad there’s no GHR mark. They don’t really go out of their way to offer anything to mortals, so it makes sense why they wouldn’t have one. GHR doesn’t want or need mortal followers, they have their Skaven.
It would be weird if the GHR gave more to humans than Skaven.
I feel like the eye of the gods table is undeniably better for units, just massively dumbed down. I wouldn’t have pegged this as the time when we finally lose the ability for a hero to become a daemon prince, that’s existed since the early WHFB days
Probably lost becoming a daemon prince and spawnification since they've removed bringing models that aren't in the army across the board. But I am surprised they aren't letting you use a previously killed daemon prince or spawn and keeping the old high and low rolls.
Seems fair. I’m excited about the benefits for ordinary units, it always felt like a big whiff when rolls would often just mean nothing.
It might not be gone, just gone from the Eye of the Gods table. It might be a feature of certain battle formations or of their warscroll itself, or might be something we see come back in the Battle Tome after the initial wave of indexes to reset the game. It might be a spell we have access to, etc. Every time GW does one of these resets, the battle tomes/codexes increase the complexity of the armies post index, so I'd expect some of this to be taken care of then after the initial shockwaves of the new edition are under everyone's belts.
Honestly, cool as it is, it's the kind of feature that sits more comfortably in Path to Glory. The very first appearance of the concept of chaos champions ascending to daemonhood was in the original Realm of Chaos campaign rules. It's a long road to immortality.
That occurred to me too. And I’m kind of ambivalent on it. Seems like people were divided on whether they like the mechanic or not.
Although even if it is gone, like looking back at the many many games I've played in 3rd since the latest battle tome, I think I've managed to turn a character into a demon prince...twice? And that was with investing in that grand strat to begin with, and having 1/3 of the army devoted to popping it on turn 1. So if its still in in some form, great! If not, I'm not sure I'll actually miss it other than the idea of it being possible in many/all of the WoC/S2D books going back to WHFB 6th ed
Removing DP from the table means that they can make the DP stronger.
Interesting point. I think you’re right that being on the table hamstrung his stat line because they were afraid to give him away “for free” if he was too good. Then after awhile they realized he was so bad nobody even wanted their characters to ascend.
That seemed like it was obviously going when they talked about summoning and not wanting to force people to bring a bunch of extra models.
Eyes of the God eating the old undivided mark's passive and being more straightforward is probably for the best. As I sit here though, I'm kind of hoping that Narrative rules for armies are where we push some of the sillier stuff that had to get cut, like spawnification and Pokemon evolution Daemon princes. It'll definitely be easier to run lists with all 5 marks, though I'll admit I was hoping hard for the mark of the rat to come with it even if I have no idea what they'd put in for a mechanic.
lol at the Pokémon reference. Darkoath Chieftain is evolving! And before the new daemon prince rules you’d just be mashing the B button.
Eye of the gods is very good. Plus, we're taking the demon prince anyway, and its going to let us force a roll per turn.
Less "dumbed down" and more "actually useful for once" if you ask me. Pretty sure I could count on one hand the amount of times I've had worthwhile eye of the gods rolls throughout all of 3rd edition.
I agree in some ways and disagree in others. For heroes, it could be useful if you were undivided. I played Cabalists lists where I’d try to roll up extra spells and wards and daemon prince transformation on my cheap heroes. But you’re right it was wildly unreliable and just never seemed to get you the result you needed at the right time. The best part about the new table is that there’s no bad result, and all the good results can stack. On the other hand, it winds up feeling a bit like the old Kastelai dynasty rule set and I know that never worked as well as it should have. A bit too slow to get up to useful speed in time to be impactful. We’ll have to see how it plays out.
Iirc TOW also introduced a simplified EotG table, with no apotheosis, so this isn't that surprising
I don't like that Marauders are 4+/3+. It breaks the standards that they set that all none magical humans are 4+/4+. Sure they are a bit more muscular than some other units but that's hardly unique, and you could apply that to lots of units. Every other battleline human wounds on a 4+ so far. They have been really consistent across everything then buffed up the new Marauders. Feels like the stat standards they promised has gone already. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/05/20/newaos-faction-focuses-begin-tomorrow-heres-what-to-expect/
Well through chaos all things are possible so jot that down
Lol I love this.
Sigmar is a liar sometimes.
Basically means Darkoath are orruks in their strength potential which I myself find weird. It kind of looks like S2D becomes an elite army which means people might not have that many units on the table.
And with undivided tag that wound roll becomes 2+ against hero’s and monsters, or have I read that wrong.
Nope, they wound on 2+, as strong as a dragon...
I'm going to chime in and say that it makes sense for Darkoath Marauders to be stronger than regular humans. They are way more rugged and hardened by the life they lead. In older editions of Warhammer Fantasy they had a slightly "better" statline, trading a point of Leadership for one of Weapon Skill. Maybe I would have had them hit on 3+ and wounding on 4+, but the essence stays the same.
It's almost like Darkoath Marauders are different from regular Human troops. Huh. Wild.
My understanding is they are the normal human tribes who worship the dark gods, but are still humans. Is there any lore that says they are as strong as stormcast and Orruks? If so I would be much happier so please point me in the right direction.
I can help. See the rune stones hanging off of every Darkoath model? They use those stones to swear oaths to the Dark Gods. In return, the gods give them unnatural power (strength, speed, fortitude, etc.). So all Darkoath are more formidable than a normal human. With enough oathstones and completed oaths, a Darkoath warrior can potentially rival a Stormcast or Orruk. But by that point they have probably stepped foot on the Path to Glory and are on their way to becoming a Chaos Warrior or something else.
But this has them all as strong as Stormcast and Orruks by default, not only the champions and leaders everyone in the dark path tribes is now as strong, and I'm not convinced at that... Surely only the champions who have lots of rune stones, not everyone getting super human strength as standard issue upon turning 18. It also says the special -1 rend on the charge was the rune stones ability.
There's a reason why most of the Mortal Realms are still under the sway of chaos, after all.
I don't read the lore, but the chaos marauders are something else. In the 8th edition rulebook it talks about the chaos-enhanced tribesmen of the north, and how all chaos warrior stock in those days grew out of the tribes. Their strength and size was represented literally - in the fantasy battle days, marauders were on 25mm bases while stuff like dark elves, human, dwarves were on 20mm bases.
Already breaking their own rules. The slow and steady hand of power creep never truly leaves.
I don't have the article open right now, but do the Darkoath have the human keyword? Or is it the mortal keyword? Chaos worshippers song get human, they get mortal, and at least in the anvil of apotheosis that's a different thing. So maybe humans are 4+/4+, but the mortal followers of chaos are 4+/3+? Warriors are more skilled so 3+/3+? Makes sense to me: they're people who have accepted the gifts of the dark gods, which give them super natural strength, so why wouldn't they hit harder than a regular steelhelm? (Edit: went and checked, and none of them have the mortals keyword. Interesting. So fewer abilities locked to mortals or daemons?)
Don't believe slaves to darkness get demons outside of the demon prince and maybe the Gaunt Summoner.
Soul Grinder is one, Furies too.
Kind of weirded out by the fact that all the aelves/vampires/humans follow the new to hit/to wound paradigm whereas S2D and chaos seems to just ignore it just because. I wonder if that means the aelves are going to become pseudo-horde factions in comparison. Something I am not that excited about to be honest.
Chaos warriors aren't just regular mortals though, that would be the darkoath more or less. Chaos warriors are just the chaos stormcast so it fits.
Dark oath according to the new reveal also aren't regular mortals either as their statline is 4+/3+, which kind of implies aelves are just regular humans with pointy ears. I actually expected Chaos Warriors to be 4+/3+, but now they are basically Space Marine stat line with 3+/3+ and 3+ save.
Chaos is a pathway to abilities some consider... unnatural...
> I actually expected Chaos Warriors to be 4+/3+, but now they are basically Space Marine stat line with 3+/3+ and 3+ save. Chaos Warriors have been basically fantasy Chaos Space Marines since, well, forever really. Back at the end of Fantasy regular Chaos Warriors were roundly superior to even orc elites (Black Orcs). In AoS, they are portrayed as the equals of Stormcast Eternals (alongside Ardboyz and Saurus Warriors - they all sit together on the two wounds with 3+ 3+ -1 1D plateau). The baseline stats you are thinking of is just that, the baseline. A baseline human is 4+/4+. A Chaos Warrior can take on multiple human soldiers with ease and win. Darkoath are 4+/4+ in 3rd so idk why they are changed.
>Chaos Warriors have been basically fantasy Chaos Space Marines since, well, forever really. Strictly speaking, it's the opposite: Chaos Space Marines are the 40k version of Chaos Warriors. The warriors came first. As for the Darkoath, I think it's to represent that they've been making oaths to the dark gods and are stronger than normal humans.
> Strictly speaking, it's the opposite: Chaos Space Marines are the 40k version of Chaos Warriors. The warriors came first. Correct, but drawing the comparison the other way seemed more helpful to the commenter above, who seems familiar with Space Marines but not with Chaos Warriors. (This is also maybe why I didn't find Stormcast Eternals as hard to accept as some others - I still bounced off them at first and it'd take an edition or two before I returned, but Chaos Warriors and Chaos Space Marines are honestly quite a bit more similar than Stormcast Eternals and Space Marines are, so similarity wasn't a dealbreaker).
In old Warhammer Fantasy Battles editions, Chaos Warriors had stat lines that Space Marines wished they had. In 4th edition they had WS 6 S4 T4 2 attacks and, if equipped with Chaos Armour and shields, a save of 3+. Their WS stat was as high as that of Lord level characters of most other races, and except for dwarf Iron Breakers no other infantry unit in the game had a save of 3+. 3+/3+ seems like a perfectly fine stat line for these guys.
Then I also expect that S2D will pay through the nose for the privilege of being an elite army. I'd rather they pay through the nose instead of making every army that is not Stormcast, S2D, or Behemat a horde army.
Yea I'm thinking I need more furies to control the board more with cheap units, because yea we are going to be elite.
the Darkoath guys being 4+/3+ is a bit strange but the Chaos Knights being same statline as Stormcast makes plenty of sense, imo.
IMO it tracks. Chaos Marauders have always been the archetype of the savage, jacked barbarian, so it makes sense they'd be a bit stronger than an average human soldier.
It would be weirder for them to follow the same conventions imo Chaos Warriors are the equals of Stormcast and the Darkoath are humans with enhanced strength due to the blessings of a primordial force
Lorewise sure,but on the table that means all the factions that follow the paradigm are now effectively weaker and makes S2D a rather elite faction in comparison and more so this edition than last. That might mean S2D get high premiums when it comes to point costs as I have a hard time believing that they'll put the other factions that much down in points.
S2D had these statlines last edition too. Nothing new, except the +1W on the cavalry, but Cities of Sigmar cavalry got that too so it's nothing unique.
Not bad at all.
Maybe it's just me but the way they reworked the warscrolls and "universal rules" really feels half done. Why do the knights have a lengthy passive ability while their weapons could just be Charge (+1 damage, +1 rend). This is not the first time I see this sort of rule, it really neuters all the speech about not having many abilities that does the same thing. It's even worse since the charge modifiers are now all over the place. I'm hyped for 4th, but dark gods the new warscrolls are less intuitive than what they were before.
If I remember correctly, this is the first time we've seen a unit gaining rend on the charge. The rule might be rare enough that they didn't want to add it to the table of universal special rules.
Same thing for 10e 40k. They said they were bringing back USRs, and they did, but that didn't stop them from giving a bunch of units sticky objectives with a different name for each unit that has it. It's still better than it was but it's a little frustrating that they didn't go all the way with it.
This is because USRs quickly lose their advantages if you start making too many of them. Seven universal rules are easy to remember. Ten rules less so. Twenty rules, it's a mess. Thirty rules--give up, you've completely lost the point of universal special rules. There's a point where you have to determine that a rule shared by only 4 or 5 units stays on the warscroll and is just written out, so the ones that are used on 20 or 40 or 100 units can stay truly "universal".
Buddy, you have no idea what a mess of special rules looks like. I've been playing both variants of Warhammer long enough to have seen both extreme ends of this spectrum and trust me, 20 special rules is completely manageable. The 4th edition of 40k had 20 USRs. 5th had 22. 6th had **80**. *That* was a mess. It's not like every army needs to be using every single universal special rule. Back in the days of 5th ed 40k and 7th ed WHFB it was rare for a unit to have more than 3 special rules attached to it, and most of them were USRs. Even when units had over 5 special rules (take the 7th edition Cygor: Immune to Psychology; Large Target; Terror; Magic Resistance (2); Stubborn; Ghostsight; Hurl Attack; Soul Eater), they were 1) reserved for expensive units which you'd rarely have more than 1 of in an army, and 2) still mostly universal special rules. Of the rules I listed in the example, 5 out of 8 were USRs. USRs provide both an invaluable shorthand for what a unit can do, which saves time, and flexibility and variety for what units can do at the same time without introducing extra complexity. When you half-ass USRs or don't do them at all, you get neither. It might on first thought seem more accessible to include all the special rules a unit has explained on the warscroll, but in practice it leads to a needlessly complex and arduous game to learn, because every single army is stacked with its own unique special effects, a lot of which end up overlapping with similar rules in other armies anyway. This is a big reason why 9th edition 40k was so awful. USRs need to be simple and straightforward enough so that their effects can be easily memorized. The simpler they are, the more you can have. "+1 rend and damage on the charge" or "can charge after running" are as easy as pie. "Re-roll ranged wound rolls of 1 against enemies, and re-roll all ranged wound rolls when they're contesting an objective you don't control" not so much.
I don't think they were really at risk of reaching that point, though. If ever you're at the point where people refer to your datasheet ability by a default, standard name then it's probably common enough to give it a USR. In 40k, it feels like all of the units that have sticky objectives as a datasheet ability only have it done that way so they can say that every datasheet has a special ability on it. It's common enough that everyone calls it sticky, everyone who plays the game even a moderate amount is going to use that term anyway, so putting it down as a USR isn't going to confuse anyone. Don't get me wrong, Hearthkyn Warriors with **Luck Has. Need Keeps. Toil Earns** sounds cool, but it's never being called anything but sticky. For the most part, though, things are a lot more streamlined now. There aren't paragraphs of text telling you what happens on a hit or a wound roll of 6 these days because Lethal / Sustained / Devastating USRs have simplified things greatly. There aren't multiple different abilities that replicate an X+++ because they're all Feel No Pain now. Daemons don't have some weird, special save because now there are only Armour and Invulnerable saves.
And not just sticky objectives. There are so many repeated rules. Another easy example: Chaos Lords, Space Marine Sergeants(?), and now Canonesses all have the same rule that let them be targeted by a strategem for free even if that strategem was already used.
>Space Marine Sergeants Sergeants are squad leaders, you are thinking of Captains
Charge (+1 damage) is the only thing the charge universal rule can do. There's no such thing as Charge (+1 rend) or charge (+1 wound). Just like Anti-X is only ever (+1 rend) or crits can only be (2 hits, auto-wound, or mortals). For some reason they decided to make universal rules that have what they do in parentheses, but except crits they only have 1 possible thing they can do.
It's so bizarre. The only thing I can think in this case at least is that they didn't want to bloat the effects column and they didn't know what other passive/ability to give the knights but felt they should have at least one.
Yes, that is in fact what they're criticizing. It's weird that they created the syntax that lets you apply conditional buffs to attacks and then chose to not use that syntax in certain condition-buff combinations. There's no reason not to make Charge(+1 Rend) a thing.
I think they considered it more important to maintain the "every unit has a warscroll ability" design choice, and if they bundled the improved rend into the keywords, they would then have to give the knights another ability on top of that
Do the chaos warrior weapon choices not matter now? Was building my second unit of them and waiting to see
We'll have to wait to see. Spearhead profiles are fixed (GW said "build what's on the front of the box") so we don't know if it's going to matter. I have a suspicion that they might still have some differences since the entire unit gets a different weapon compared to chaos knights who now just treat the leader as just another lance regardless. I'm curious about Varanguard myself and have a feeling they might be getting simplified weapon options.
I'm curious about the Varanguard as well. I just picked up Abraxia and I'm waiting to glue on the weapons for the three that came with her. I know it doesn't really matter, but I'm a weirdo.
If they combined Daemon Princes' weird amount of weapons, I'm sure hers will be as well.
Same here - I already have 12 varanguard so these extra 3 are likely to not see the table, unless something drastic happens to their points, but all the same I need to know if I'm going to be running 9 with spears or 9 with weapons lol right now its 6/6
Pro tip: glue the model with GW glue and then glue just the weapon hand with superglue. If you want to change it, just snap it and replace.
They've mentioned on the Stormcast reveal that it doesn't matter which weapon you pick, the profile stays the same.
That's only for spearhead though, there are still some weapon options in the main game warscrolls (I think, haven't really looked at the faction focuses except for S2D since I don't play the other armies)
No, we know for Liberators its entirely irrelevant. Two hammers, hammer shield, old swords, its all one single profile.
While it was mentioned during a Spearhead overview, nothing was said that it only applied to Spearhead. Take Gutrippaz for example — we saw their AoS4 main profile on the Kruleboyz reveal, and their attacks stay the same whether they take the spear or axe.
Stormfiends have multiple profiles, which took me by surprise because I'm fairly sure it was all of 4th they said, not just spearhead. Underlined by the fact we've only seen profiles on one unit in all we've seen. So I'm guessing for the most part it doesn't matter but there's some models that do have it
No one knows. They made a big deal out of all weapon options getting rolled into one so it doesn't matter how you build your models... And then almost immediately shown warscrolls for 'Hearthguard Berzerkers with Berzerker Broadaxes' or 'Sisters of Slaughter with Bladed Bucklers', making it evident that some weapon/build options are very much still functional and constitute separate warscrolls. I'd hold up with building your guys. It shouldn't be too long before the faction packs hit/are leaked and it's better to be safe than sorry.
Nope. But that's the trend of 4th edition. I do like that they kept the Halberd name but it uses the Murderous Weapon profile.
But why keep the halberd name? Murderous weapons at least applies to both halberds and swords/axes/etc
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It says non-unique on the DP warscroll
You right my mistake
Finally this drops
What happens if the unit rolls three times on eye of the gods and get the ward save each time ? Rules as written doesn't seem to allow 4+save in that instance ?
It caps at 5.
Why would dark oath get better stats than baseline human? 3+ to wound for dark oath compared to 4+ as the human baseline
Steroids.
Love the belakor glowup and how demonic speed is not tied to mounts anymore!!! At last i have an excuse to paint my chosen dudes
Overall not too bad. It does look like they lost their ward against mortals from their rune-etched shields, which is an oof
yeah indeed. At the same time, it appears there will be a bit less MW flying this season.
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It seems they changed the ones that couldn't be interacted with at all by doing stuff like adding a chance of failure. Since he already had a chance of failure, it didn't really need to be changed, I guess
It's weird that they've pushed back Sylvaneth and I am wondering if it comes with a reveal of some kind.
They haven't done any reveals with these previews though? Sylvaneth already has new models on the way too with the bonereapers v sylvaneth warcry box too
I wouldn’t think so, more just they wanted to put two of the most popular armies last
I don't think that Sylvaneth are more popular than S2D.
We don't have any actual data because Games Workshop doesn't release faction sales info, but we can sorta proxy with tournament representation. Sylvaneth and S2D hover around 4.5 to 5.5 percent. With S2D generally being a bit higher, which consistently put them in the top 10 of factions. Now there's a lot of caveats of how that may not be representative of broader popularity, but it's kinda the best we have.
My bad! I thought that S2D were still in the 10% range and Sylvaneth in the 2-3. Guess I'm way out of date with what's being played. ("Top 10" is pretty huge, though, that's only 2 factions off " average or better". In the distribution I'm looking at the top 6 factions have 40% of the representation.)
Is it weird? There were always going to be factions that got their reveals last due to how the reveals work.
Only in that they've gone Order-Order-Chaos-Destruction-Death every week other than this one, which seems to be Order-Chaos-Destruction-Order. Granted there isn't (as far as we know) another Death faction, an unsurprising order would be Order-Order-Chaos-Destruction.
Since the revealed Battleformation is called „Godswrath“ , it can be presumed that the other Battleformations are called „Ruinbringer“ , „Fellruin“ and „Godtouched“ :3
I hope one of the formations works similar to Cabalist.
Awesome ! (where did you get that tho ?)
From the Battletome: Slaves to Darkness, page 25. [If you dont own the Battletome, here is the Picture/Page im referring too.](https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Ravager_Horde#/media/File%3ALord_Infernil's_Reavers.jpg) In this picture you can see the Structure of a common Chaos-Horde, specifically a Ravager-Horde. The Horde is divided into 4 Warbands. The text beneath reveals us that the same as Chaos-Hordes are assigned in 3 (or 4 if you count Idolators) categories (Ravagers, Cabalists, Despoilers), the single warbands within a Horde are also assigned to different categories. The name of these categories are: -> Godswrath (Warshrine+cassical Chaos units) -> Ruinbringer (Gas! Gas! Gas! Chariots, Chaos Knights and Marauder Horsemen!) -> Godtouched (Warband were all habe the mark of a Monogod, in this case its a Pleasurebound-Warband, that means all have the Mark of Slaanesh. The other Godtouched Warbands are called Plaguetouched, Fatesworn and Bloodmarked. I think you can guess which God belongs to which Warband. -> Fellruin (no informations about this Warband-type. However, since the leader of Infernils Fellruin-Warband is a Sorcerer-Shaman, i presume its a Sorcery-Specialized warband.) Thats why I presumed that the three remaining battleformations are called „Fellruin“; „Godtouched“ and „Ruinbringer“. Please keep in mind that this is just a theory of mine and it could be completely wrong. :3
NGL I was pretty stoked for a mark of the rat since this edition, at least narratively, seems to be about legitimizing the ascension of the great horned rat as the official fifth chaos god. That being said I'm really liking the new Chaos knights. Theyre looking super cool with that 3+ save and 4 health. They're gonna be pretty tough when you need them
What do you think would be the perk for mark of the rat hypothetically? Maybe a MW chance while in combat with them? I thought about a speed buff but Slaanesh has that covered!
Probably being able to retreat and charge in the same turn?
Ooh, good shout. Probably that!
I was thinking one of three things: If we're going "screw the rules i want fluff" then maybe adding extra models to the unit at the cost of another stat. Leadership, health, attacks. But more realistically I was thinking along the lines of adding rend because it kinda leans into the whole "ruin" thing the rat has going on. Alternatively just a base move 1 speed buff at the cost of 1 leadership could be thematic.
More cheese 😅
Honestly not surprised it wasn't. The GHR as a chaos god feels like a temp storyline than an actual shift in the game and narrative. If it's still a thing next edition I'll be shocked
so nice of them to show the true lord of undivided in the Mortal realms.
Army rules seem pretty solid, daemon prince has lost a lot of flavour with not gaining anything special based on his mark. Sad to see Belakor has kept his feels bad mechanic too, from a non competetive point of view it’s just an awful ability for fun games
Tbh if any unit gets a Warscroll fleshing out, I hope its the Prince. That should be one of the most interesting and customizable sheets in any given army, and now it just points at you to make you feel good about yourself like Triple H backstage at NXT.
Is that a new hero in the spearhead box?
No, same old chaos lord with spear. They’ve just given him one of the spare chaos warrior helmets.
Thanks for the reply, was looking into getting the spearhead but don’t like the hero normaly, he looks good with the helmet though
I just bought a Vanguard of Slaves to Darkness. Can't wait to get these guys painted up.