GHB has relativly "big" changes, but so far none of it is properly massive.To be honest I think there is happy medium to be found. The old WFB way was quite unfair because some of the armies were simply forgotten. It was okay if you were playing Orcs & Goblins for instance but much less so if you fancied Bretonnia. Additionally, the infrequency of the FAQs was brutal. On the other hand, I think that the yearly updates via the GHB might be a bit too much (at least for my liking). While you want to avoid stagnation, you also want to allow for sufficient time so that players can settle in a bit. Of course it is difficult for me to judge because I don't really know how significant the changes are from one GHB to another. Are they equivalent to a FAQ/errata or are they small changes or significant changes or drastic changes.
My preference would likely lie somewhere in between.

god those things are stupidly powerfull… Though the special spell for the evocators is neat, might the rule of one finally be removed now.
That thing is going to be hilarious up close (or well close... 18" is not close...) a potential of 24 -2 rend hits. Add in some bonus to hit rolls 'to make it reliable and it'l wreck basicly anything…I don't mind the Evocators and Sequitors much (depends on their cost of course, they are strong) but the ballista sounds outright broken unless it is, like, 350 points or so.
It's expensive for ahobbyThere is a Crow on this ones base
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Quite looking forward to what happens. With the whole any number models, I have noticed the minimum and maximum with previous warscrolls being different when compared to the handbook also.
Been trying to get others to join the hobby but I can't seem to make them budge, even when telling them that there is free rules and that.
It's expensive for ahobby
Is "ahobby" a typo or a crack against the name Aelves?It's expensive for ahobby
aboth?Is "ahobby" a typo or a crack against the name Aelves?![]()
I can live with that!aboth?
while true, we must look also at the negative aspects of the Old Way.
Few books and years of waiting took the game to a stagnant level, where a new edition was running and some armies were still stuck with their old, surpassed manual. And if your codex was not competitive, your army would have been condemned to fall behind for years.
It was terrible.
With the current system, every army receives something helpful with every release. For example, Dispossessed (an army which still lacks a battletome) received additional abilities and new artefacts with the GHB17. Sure, there are still top-tier and low-tier army, but the game is in constant evolution and everyone knows that each year, something will be given to their own army.
Apparently, a fanboy of Sigmar wrote them.![]()
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I tend to agree with this analysis with the caveat that some factions are still very badly underrepresented (due to a lack of models in the faction) while others get all the toys (SCE). AoS needs to either combine obsolete factions or remove them entirely. Imagine fielding the Aleguzzler Gargants faction vs. SCE.I think @Killer Angel has hit the nail on the head here. Probably the one thing AoS has over Fantasy is that the effect of powercreep on older armies is considerably less due to the living rule set. Nowhere is this greater seen than in Fyreslayers - they were one of the first brand new armies in AoS and were pretty strong when they first came out, but when the new army formula came in to introduce allegiance abilities, artefacts, army special rules and traits, such as in the Kharadron Battletome, the Fyreslayers became a bit weaker as they were being outclassed by these new armies with all their fancy new abilities. However, this then changed when the general’s handbook 2017 came out, which gave the Fyreslayers allegiance abilities, artefacts and command traits. This then pushed them back again to being on the competitive level of the newer armies. If the old system had still been in place, Fyreslayers would have probably been in the same place as a fantasy army like Tomb Kings - strong at the start but victims of powercreep.
Imagine if this had been the case in Fantasy - if it had been, I imagine GW might well have changed the Tomb Kings’ magic to be more like that of Vampire Counts once the VC book was released and they had found they had mastered the idea of Undead Magic, which may well have boosted the Tomb Kings quite a way forward, perhaps to the point of being stronger than VC in places due to cheaper Skeletons and tougher monsters.
A lot of those obsolete factions only really seem to be mentioned as allies for other factions. E.g. bring some gargants with your grot army. I don't think GW intends on making them full-fledged factions. The reason they're still left as their own faction is probably due to the whole ally mechanic. They want several "proper" destruction factions to be able to bring the gargants, so they need to be their own "faction" to be able to say "these other destruction factions can ally with the gargant faction".I tend to agree with this analysis with the caveat that some factions are still very badly underrepresented (due to a lack of models in the faction) while others get all the toys (SCE). AoS needs to either combine obsolete factions or remove them entirely. Imagine fielding the Aleguzzler Gargants faction vs. SCE.
A lot of those obsolete factions only really seem to be mentioned as allies for other factions. E.g. bring some gargants with your grot army. I don't think GW intends on making them full-fledged factions. The reason they're still left as their own faction is probably due to the whole ally mechanic. They want several "proper" destruction factions to be able to bring the gargants, so they need to be their own "faction" to be able to say "these other destruction factions can ally with the gargant faction".
Having said that, there's several others where it's much less clear. E.g. the various human or aelve sub-factions based on the old armies could probably be rolled into 1-2 factions instead of 4-5 of em without conflicting with the whole allies thing.
Certainly Ironweld Arsenal should have their war machines returned to Dispossessed and Free Peoples respectively, as it hits them hard that they have to take what were their own war machines as allies if they want to use them.