It isn't the only reason though? If you needed a 6 in order to save a 5-damage attack from a Keeper of Secrets then there's clearly an advantage to taking the 6. Likewise if you could use a 6 to successfully wound with your 3+D3 damage Ironblaster shot then there's a pretty good reason right there to take the 6. You're calling this a stupid mechanic while suggesting an alternative of "All the attacks of your carnosaur will guaranteed hit, but I get to summon a KoS". Who in their right mind is going to give their opponent a free 400 point KoS so they can hit every attack (to say nothing of whether those attacks successfully wound or are saved) with their 200 point carnosaur?
More Slaanesh rules. Breaking the rule of one for command abilities & hero actions, because the only thing consistent about the general framework that is supposed to apply game-wide in GW games is that GW will inevitably introduce exceptions to the rules underpinning this framework. Like @cyberhawk94 pointed out. Crucial rolls like that are really only going to happen a handfull of times per game. Plus, the Slaanesh player doesn't even have to tempt you on a crucial roll that would be bad for the Slaanesh player. What's probably going to happen is that the Slaanesh player will "tempt" you to get a free 6 when your skink screen fails a save. Or your saurus knight fails a hit-roll while fighting over an objective. Situations where that D3 damage (and that D6 deprivation points too...) massivly outweigh the potential value of a measily guaranteed 6. It was just an example. I'm not saying it should specificly summon a KoS in return for you attacking with a carnosaur, I'm just saying that this is the scale of temptation and cost this kind of temptation-based mechanic should be working on. The temptation should be something far more significant than a single succesfull dice-roll, and the cost should naturally be scaled up to fit that level of temptation. A mechanic like this should be tempting you into paying a prize by offering (seemingly) great rewards, but at (seemingly) small costs, instead of utilizing a punishment when you refuse. Attaching a punishment-on-refusal to a temptation-but-at-a-cost type mechanic completely undercuts the core concept of this type of mechanic.
Bribery mechanics work well in card games because the opponent always has the option to take the damage until the point where it will kill them to preserve the board state. Life points are a resource and so while annoying the bribery mechanic isnt really able to punish both sides of the deal. I find that they don't translate well into tabletop format because you get punished easily no matter what you do. Take the dice and give them summoning points they can use to summon a chariot or Keeper to steal objectives or kill you. Take the damage and you are weakening the models you need to capture objectives yourself, making it easier to kill your own models and take your own objectives. No matter what you do the opponent "wins" and you lose. You do not have a clean no thanks, ill take the damage and preserve boardstate like in a card game. In short I think its bad game design and I do not like it.
I suppose what I don't understand about this argument is why the opposing player should have a "no thanks" in the first place. It's the Slaanesh player's battle trait. The main benefit is supposed to be in their favour. We Seraphon players have Lords of Space and Time and Scaly Skin. Nobody has ever asked me how me teleporting units around the board or halving their damage is supposed to benefit them. The way I see it, the offering of a 6 is to offer the opponent a way to choose a lesser of two evils. Which decision is more beneficial to them might be obvious. But they're not necessarily going to know which benefits the Slaanesh player most. Maybe they're trying to weaken this unit with MW for an easy tactic next turn, or maybe they're fishing for DP so they can summon something. At the very least it's forcing player interaction in a better way than, say, Tzeentch destiny dice ("Actually, I'm going to use this 1 so you fail that save. Sorry sweetie.") There's a lot of room for mind games which I quite like. To each their own, though.
Cuz it's a reward-but-at-a-cost style mechanic, or at least it's presented as such. Thematicly, and mechanicly a no-thanks option should exist. Also, the benefit should still be for Slaanesh as the cost should be greater than the temptation.But getting that balance right in a competitive type game (even for a casual level, casuals still want to win after all), while still being able to convince the victim to take the bait is difficult. Especially when the reward and cost are fixed values, because in a competitive setting people will figure out if the reward is worth the cost. Imho, mechanics like this belong in more roleplaying focussed games, and don't work as well in competitive focussed games. Sure, just a couple of caveats. 1) Making it a choose-between-two-evils type mechanic is a different type of mechanic, and loses the thematic nature. 2) The fact that choosing the damage option allows Slaanesh to "tempt" again, because for some reason choosing damage doesn't consume the dice, is kinda weird. As it means that choosing the damage is equivalent to giving Slaanesh a free, reusable comet call. At minimum it should consume the dice, even if it's a choose-between-two-evils type mechanic. 3) Getting 6D6 deprevation points seems like a lot, given that the table only seems to go to 36. 4) It still needs some limitations, having it proc on every failed roll is simply kind of obnoxious, and like I pointed out earlier, basicly blocks minor units from fighting as they'll do more damage to themselves than to Slaanesh. 5) The "reward" of the free 6 is completly meaningless, as Slaanesh can simply make sure to only offer it when its value is limited if not completely useless. Aren't destiny dice limited to your own troops? I disagree, no decent player is ever going to be "tempted" by a free 6 on an insignificant roll. Similarly, no decent Slaanesh player is ever going to offer that free 6 on a crucial roll. So there's simply no room for mindgames, because the temptation that's supposed to be the core of the mind-game simply isn't really there in practise.
The rule doesn't say that the Slaanesh players keeps a die offered, whether it's accepted or refused. The rule does seem to benefit Slaanesh (naturally), but, to be fair... I think these are mind games.
The rule only states what happens to the die when it is accepted. It never says the die is consumed/removed/whatever if it's rejected. And usually, if an offer is rejected, you get to keep the thing you originally offered. Though it might just be bad phrasing and GW forgetting to cover all their bases. Wouldn't be the first time a rule is missing a crucial sentence or two. Mind-games require trickery, they require ambiguity if you might come out on top. These don't provide any ambiguity. It's very clear that . That free 6 is always going to be useless (assuming Slaanesh is halfway capable...) Those minor units are always going to perform poorly when affected by this kind of rule. Once players figure out if they rather eat the D3 damage or the D6 depravity points it's always going to play out the same. There's no mind-game, there's just a constant, virtually guaranteed, stream of damage and/or depravity points.
This isn't true at all. Age of Sigmar as a game is basically about victory through sacrifice. It might be in the Slaanesh player's best interest to offer a 6 that means the opponent kills one of their valuable units, or preserves one of their own. e.g. Skarbrand is a unit that can table armies on his own if given half a chance. If I offer a save roll that will keep Skarbrand alive, the Khorne player is obviously going to be tempted by that. The Khorne player knows I'm plotting something (will I bank the points for 6s to deal MW? Will I summon a cheap screen keep my heroes protected? Maybe I'm behind on victory points but can catch up if I summon them onto an objective?). But he also knows that having Skarbrand alive going into a possible double turn is valuable too. The mind games come from fooling opponents into thinking the offer is good for them. Sometimes it really will be good for them, it's just better for you in ways that aren't immediately obvious. Many armies in AoS need to play the long game to win, and from reading the summary of this book, the Hedonites are one of them. Offering 6s when it's of no real benefit to the opponent just means you'll be slow to gain depravity, and this army really needs those points for either durability (-1 to hit, 5+ ward) or summoned reinforcements. I think it's too early to write this mechanic off as a dud. Myself and the other players in my local meta are pretty excited to see how this rule can be used in competitive play. Maybe time will prove me wrong.
The issue is that there's only 3 possible scenarios where the 6 is actually usefull in a competitive setting, and a Slaanesh player will still be willing to offer it: 1) The D6 points will allow Slaanesh to do something way more usefull than a skarbrand with one wound left. 2) Slaanesh is confident that he can neutralize skarbrand anyway, for example, he still has another, sufficiently powerfull unit left to attack with to finish skarbrand off. 3) Slaanesh made a grave mistake. Not just a small mistake, but a pretty big one. The only time you'll realisticly see a Slaanesh player make a "bad" deal is either when Slaanesh is just kinda bad and makes significant mistakes throughout the game, or when he gets unlucky and say rolls a 1 on his D6 depravity points when he needs a 2+. Especially once people have had the oppertunity to get used to the new tome and can reasonably accuratly estimate the value of depravity points. That's not mindgames, that's just luck, or the consequences of facing a fairly bad opponent. Anyways; we're starting to talk in circles, so let's just move on.
A lot of Seraphon models are gone from GW's site. - SC Boxes - Saurus Astrolith Bearer - Saurus Sunblood* - Skink Priest* - Skink Starseer - Slann Starmaster - Saurus Knights* - Saurus Warriors - KROXIGOR* - Razerdon*/Salamanders I'll also point out that the eternity warden, oldblood and temple guard are still on the site and so perhaps are not getting an update? * = We haven't seen an official reveal yet but these are gone nonetheless. Edit: Added the asterisks and included the Sunblood this time.
Temple guard & oldblood are reasonably nice sculpts, plus they're proper plastic and not finecast nonsense, so I don't think those will get an update. I'm surprised the eternity warden is still there though, that's the only finecast model left right now.
I prefer the Oldblood in the carnosaur kit, as in the one you can make if you build the troglodon. I'm not too fond of the squareblood though knowing my luck as soon as it goes I'll be panicking... I actually bought the eternity warden thinking it would go. It is a nice model and its been fun to paint so far and finecast isn't too bad or maybe I've been lucky to not have too many problem with it. Cleaning up can be tricky and time consuming though.
O I agree it's not the best oldblood model, but it isn't horrible either. Plus you already got 2 alternatives. So it doesn't really need an update. I'm mostly just surprised they're phasing out finecast, and in our case doing a pretty big line renewal, but then let 1 finecast model stay. Just a tad odd.
Pretty standard for GW. They update most of the army and leave a few heroes for future single hero releases