GW News: SKAVEN VICTORY! #NewAoS

The face isn't too bad this time, but it's not one I'd use for the rest of the model. His body suggests that he's standing proud and defiant in a relatively relaxed pose, while his face suggests that he's trying to apply force to something, be it trying to lift the hammer, crush the orc's skull, or avoid soiling his armour in constipation.

 

His expression does seem a bit off kilter, but I think it's his forehead that does it for me more. It just seems a touch out of proportion with the rest of his face, at least based on the precedent of other models. The other store exclusive Stormcast had the same problem I think.

 

It reminds me of the modelling faces from zoolander

 

New warscrolls for slaanesh. There's an astonishing amount of powercreep going on imho. And I really dislike the keeper's damage output.
However some of the new spells/abilities are interesting. The concepts behind dark temptation & irresistable challenge are neat.

Though it feels like everything is increadibly reliable and powerfull with only 1 or 2 possible ways of countering. Which is rather questionable. Also we desperatly need something to distinguish anti-hero/monster and anti-horde weapons in AoS. Those new keepers are explicitly advertised as hero hunters, but there's nothing stopping them from utterly destroying hordes with the same ease.

 

Really? I thought the Keeper was pretty underwhelming. Yes it has a damage 5 weapon, but only 2 attacks with those weapons, and this damage deteriorates with the number of wounds it suffers, as does the number of damage 2 attacks it has. I mean if you can charge it with something similarly fast and powerful before it charges you such as an Auric Runefather on Magmadroth (which conversely has a damage 3 weapon that never deteriorates) you can easily knock the stuffing out of it before it has a chance to use those weapons to such dangerous effect, or whittle it down with shooting so that it’s only around half health before it gets into combat with you.

Again, I think the best idea is to just shoot the thing with magic and mundane shooting to get it down to around half-health before it can get into melee.

 

It's going to depend on its save, but given that these models rarely have less than a 4+, and buffs often aren't too difficult to come by, I fear it'l be a pain to knock down a peg or two. And I dislike the general armsrace it results in of bringing bigger and badder stuff to try and get the first blow in. Also, slaanesh being stupidly fast getting in the first blow is going to be a pain.

Also, What really bothers me is that there's no real counter beyond "strike first". I can't send in say a horde of fodder and have it waste it's fancy 5 damage attacks cuz it'l just wipe out that horde in a few swipes. Nor can I send a capable duellist to lock him down as he'l just get crushed unless he gets the first few blows in. The more new stuff is released for AoS the more I want a mechanic to distinguish multi-target and single-target attacks (like 40k's wounds not carrying over rule) so we can field counters beyond "attack first" or "just shoot it".

A similar issue holds for the new things like dark temptations. There's no choice to make as the target, the chance of dying is so high that the potential benefits do not even begin to compare to the price, but refusing the bargain deals significant damage, especially since you'l also be in range for the keeper to finish you off immeadiatly. So as the target it's not a matter of choosing to avoid temptation or give in, it's just a matter of pick your poison. With the only genuine "counter" being just never being in range for it (or being tzeentch and having cheat dice I guess). The idea is really neat, but the negative effects are so significant thatthere just isn't any temptation...

 

I guess we’re just going to have to hope the points costs are as painful as the damage capacity. Or with a bit of luck, we’ll have the next Battletome release and benefit from the powercreep ourselves!

 

meh, I'd rather not have that much powercreep, or at least not damage focused powercreep. That has a tendency of reducing games to a matter of who bursts down the other one first which isn't that interesting a playstyle to me.

 

It definitely isn’t ideal. There has to be plenty of other interesting rules they can create that don’t just consist of ‘Most Recent Release: This model is our most recent one, so clearly it is the best and can wipe the floor with everyone. Instantly win the game’

 

Endless spells for slaanesh and their terrain piece. Again an effect that forces your opponent to move a certain way Although those are interesting, I do feel like Slaanesh being the only one who has those makes it rather powerfull, and more importantly, there doesn't seem to be anything balancing it out. There's no counterplay beyond "kill the source". No other army has similar tricks. And it's not like slaanesh itself will be a particularly slow army or something to balance out the level of control they get over the opponent.

 

also, underworlds is apparently getting an online variant. Which is interesting as that's their first game that relies on models getting a proper digital variant.

 

First pre-orders are online so you can look at their warscrolls.

Syll'eske has a neat ability in combat where only 1 of his personalities attacks at once, giving him 2 activations in a round of combat. However, one of those will Always be the after everyone else. Which is interesting, and also has some nice implications for balance, the guy dishes out a lot of damage, but this way the opponent can likely retaliate instead of being annihilated in one go.

That mirror thing is stupidly overpowered. 2 spellcasts re-rolling failures, powerfull unique spell, stupidly powerfull supporting ability, basicly immune to mortal wounds, rend on all it's attacks, high number of attacks. Decent amount of wounds. The only thing that's not good about it is that it only has a 5+ save. That thing better be expensive as hell.

Keeper of secrets seems increadibly powerfull as well. Apart from the fairly amazing statline & his challenge ability we saw earlier it has the following:
- Attacks do mortal wounds on an umodified wound roll of 6.
- 14 wounds with a 4+ save
- One of the following: More mortal wounds with a ritual knife, Healing with a sinister hand, A 6 + ward save with an aegis, A whip for an extra attack & a debuff on monsters.
- 2 spells (Slaanesh apparently has Tzeentch level of wizards?)
- An interesting AoE spell that damage if you roll above the targets bravery with 2d6
- Command ability that allows slaanesh stuff to fight twice. Can target itself. Can only be used on the same target once per round.

The named character:
Weapons-wise a little bit weaker than a normal keeper of secret at full health, but his spear decays less badly. Same 14 wounds and 4+ save. Also his spear has -3 rend.
Other than that:
- +1 to saverolls against attacks made by heroes
- Can either have the whip or ward save that a normal keeper has.
- Can decide to target a specific hero at the start of a combat phase. All attacks must now target that hero, but his spear does a guaranteed 6 damage instead of D6.
-2 spells
- Unique spell allows him to re-roll hit rolls when targetting heroes and re-roll save rolls when attacked by a hero.
It seems weaker than the regular keeper, unless it's targetting a hero.

Also, both keeper models are quite expensive, there's only 2 models that cost more to buy in the entirety of AoS.

To be honest, all of these seem ridiculously powerfull. But especially the mirror and keeper of secrets seem like they are vastly overpowered with very few weaknesses/drawbacks, if any, unless they end up costing an arm and a leg.

 

I'm trying to work out how they are £85, this mostly comparing the Lord of Change, which have similar options. Well it's a good thing that Slaanesh is on my list but way down the line so it gives me time to save up.

 

Great unclean ones are equally expensive. But yeah for some reason lords of change & bloodthirsters (except scarbrand who's only a little bit cheaper) are significantly cheaper.

 

And look to be a good size bigger.

 

Urm, was this supposed to happen GW?

 

what the hell is that grot fighting? A chaos tree revenant with bat Wings?

 

The more I look, the more I see part elf, part tree, part undead, part dragon Feels like a way of squeezing into every faction.

Update, I just checked and it's gone now, so yeah they leaked their own stuff. And I only went of there to use the Warscroll Builder to check which Aelves are battleline