If only one could choose mode of PE. It can switch to +CP when you need reroll saves and vise versa. It is better to buy 2 CP for 100 points, than taking engine and hope it will work as you need.
I'm mainly interested in the book do we know how long it will be before they start selling it sepratly?
i can live with that even if they don't my local GW store is running a vault campaign so ill see it there i just wanted to read it before hand for planing.
The book contains the following: - some background about the ongoing shenenigangs involving Nagash - Two new factions including some (limited) allegiance abilities, prayers, artifacts etc. These two factions are what the story revolves around, so one is a death allegiance combining nighthaunt and deadrattle, the other is an order army combining idoneth, SCE & fyreslayers - Explenation of the mercenary system - The new empowering artifacts (only 6 of em). They only work in a stormvault campaign though (or well, they work in any campaign, but the point is that they grow over the course of multiple battles so they're not going to be of much use outside of a campaign). - A bunch of battleplans to play out important battles from the fluff of the book. - Some fairly decent tips surrounding the painting of terrain Also, the box comes with a set of cards with rules for the endless spells & the new terrain, and since they currently also give a set of those cards whenever you buy something I now have 2 of these sets so eh yay? Overall a bit underwhelming. I had expected something more along the lines of the earlier endless spell box introducing more spells and artifacts. For example this book could've introduced "realm prayers" similar to the realm spells previously introduced to help the priests for factions that don't have their own prayers yet. Also, the endless spells are fairly massive. I was under the impression the models where smaller.
It’s all a bit ‘meh’ but the mercenary lot could be a little change up (keep people thinking on their feet) rather than the usual ‘oh you play.....I know exactly what to expect’ lol, I like having to think up a few counters in my armies. For example having fyreslayers means that you can now have a deep strike - alpha strike option in any army (that do a heeeeelll of a lot of damage to monsters at 18” range) will be something I will be adding to a few lists ;D
Ai those buggers hit like meaty orange trucks, for me though it’s a 10 block of Auric heathguard with Smiter to deepstrike first turn +1 to wound on 21 18” shots at 4s/2s that deal extra damage to monsters then if somehow they don’t die -1 to hit and half movement... sick just sick oh and this will be in my gitz army - sooo good luck retaliating with a block of 60 grots with fanatics in front of them ;D Watch 2 units eat half the enemy army whilst the other ton of stuff goes about sitting on objectives.
Read a bit of the book now, the mercenary units do come with 2 drawbacks: - The first turn you won't get a command point if you have mercenaries And - An advantage and disadvantage depending on the merceneraies you use (e.g. FEC get +1 to hit rolls if they charged in the same turn, but can't ever retreat and fyreslayers gain +1 to hit when targetting someone who charged, but lose 1 bravery from the third round onwards) This is quite interesting imho. I do hope they'l expand upon this system eventually.
yeah, that particular drawback seems unimpressive with loads of armies either having acces to more command points or not really needing them (e.g. us with a skink based army). However, it's an interesting mechanic and much much much better than simply going "you can only field X points worth of mercenaries". The other, mercenary specific drawback I find more interesting. Fyreslayers aren't the bravest to begin with, losing a bravery will have a significant impact. And similarly FEC not being able to ever retreat leads to some interesting playstyles.
Yeah, I like them having additional rules - but they are one more thing to remember lol, the slayers probably won’t suffer too badly from the bravery drop - third round is a fair way off and those guys don’t have great saves without their support network anyway: D so likelihood is they will be dead and gone (as they where an alpha drop anyway) and generally not an integral part of the army to start with.
I'm mostly just glad they put a mechanic like this in. I hope it means we'l get more rules like this and eventually move away from a pointlimit for allies instead working with limitations like this to balance out the mixing and matching of armies.
But mercenaries still has the same point limitations which allies have. Just some more drawbacks on top of it.
Hence my hope we eventually move away from the point limitations and instead use drawbacks like this.