AoS NEW *rumor*

Somehow I picture the new Saurus more as club wielding buffs and the old models as spear guys.
I do like the new spears over the old ones though.

Grrr, !mrahil

 

Some thoughts on the new Engine of the Gods.

As many have stated before, the new Engine ability isn't all that good. It has some useful powers, but they're risky to attempt if you haven't stored up energy by not using it. So you will only likely get to use it's ability to heal itself a few times in the game, or maybe use it more aggressively once or twice if you don't have to heal. And it's no longer a priest. It's certainly not like the Engine of the past.

But it's worth looking at it from another angle. One of trade-offs. The Engine of the Gods is a Stegadon, for the same cost as a Stegadon, with all the stats and abilities of a Stegadon, with a few exceptions. First, it can't be battleline in a Thunder Lizards army. Second, you are taking the Engine instead of the Skystreak Bow or Sunfire Thrower. So you sacrificing it's ranged weapon electives for the chance to heal or maybe attack, etc. a few times a game. So I would think of it like this:

"For 300 points, you can take a Stegadon. It can be equipped with a Skystreak Bow, Sunfire Throwers or an Engine of the Gods. If you are a Thunder Lizards army, it counts as battleline unless you armed it with the Engine of the Gods."

That puts the trade-offs into a point-based perspective; the Engine should be arguably equal in value to those other two weapons, and isn't meant to be quite the mystical machine it once was.

Edit: Forum member "Just A Skink" pointed out that the EotG is also a totem, so it can issue commands to units within 18". That's another important detail that you get with it for the same cost as a regular Stegadon.

Edit 2: There is another difference between the EotG and the regular Stegadon. The reg Steg has Skink War Party, and counts as 10 models while contesting an objective. The EotG (and even the Stegadon with Skink Chief) does not.

 

Good points. Plus, it's a "Totem," which I think means it can issue commands on itself.

The new EotG does feel riskier to use although the pay-offs are about the same as last battletome (meaning either heal, laser, summons, or time stop). I agree that the EotG seems much more like minor heal rolls every round/every other round or one "big" use once per game. But I kind of want to "play with my toys" every turn, so I'm not happy about the change.

I think GW could have left it about the same as last battletome and just nerfed the range of its abilities... which they did anyway. Although I guess it's a better that the EotG doesn't need a Slann to babysit it, I think it might have been interesting if a Slann could still benefit it. Maybe a Slann could sacrifice a spell to give it extra dice in the same turn, or something like that?

 

Oh, I hadn't noticed it's a totem. I looked up the rule, and it means it can issue command to units within 18". That's an important addition.

 

Or giving it an extra dice for a commandpoint, so we have more outlets for all thoose CP we generate. Maybe the EotG will see use as an Arcane Vassal, but is there actually even one reason, to not just use the Troglodon for that instead?

 

maybe i forgot or missunderstood but was there a release date for aggrodons, kroxigors astrolith bearer and spawn?

 

EotG can't be an Arcane Vassal in the new battletome iirc as it isn't a wizard or a Leader model (no enhancements). Trog looks about right for it though. Just ridiculously durable in coalesced, and if a little less durable, very "mobile" in Starborne.

 

Soo, the army box is an early release set. The book isn't technically legal for tournament play for another 2 months when the official release of the battletome and the individual kits for the line refresh hits stores. Might see a vanguard box at or shortly after release too.

 

Ah ok, so we talking about june? A Vanguard box would be nice, hopefully without skinks. would love to see new models in there

 

See, this is one of the issue with approaching balance purely from a trade-offs point based perspective and wanting fun and weird mechanics to be of equal value as a basic weapon profile.
You end up with toys you can't actually play with.

Honestly it's surprising that there's nothing that interacts with the EoTG. Extra dice for a command point, for a spell, for a bunch of summoning points.
Adding something minor like that would've immeadiatly fixed the thing.

 

I guess i like the idea of the EotG in theory, having to bank up turns to do better abilities, but it's a little crazy they kept those abilities nearly identical to what it can currently do and just gated them behind additional turns of no value instead of low probability rolls. EotG were ubiquitious in the meta over the last couple years because they were Priests, heroes, discounted compared to Stegadon Chiefs and had a lot of combined utility from all those things, not really because their random chance buffs were meta-defining or something, now they've lost basically all of that for no real compensation (and i kind of expect that something be changed pretty quickly because of that).

I think this is really the worst part of it, you're left with a unit that you're incentivized to not really use. Because you have to pick which thing you're trying to use before you roll for it, and the way that the values are set so X number of turns corresponds to near universal success while less than that maes it so low as to be unreliable, there's really no functional difference between how it works and just making it cost some kind of unit-specific meta currency that it gets 1 of each turn

 

Just realised that the Eternity Warden is still available but there's definitely no warscroll?

 

Most likely they're just trying to get rid of whatever they still have in stock.

However, given that when new armies come out they often release more models for those armies soon after the initial release, perhaps they're planning on updating some of the missing units with new models but just haven't finished them yet and will release them in yet another dual-faction box like they've done with other armies recently...

 

Fun little touch which buffs Contemplations of the Ancient Ones a little - heroic actions are at the start of the phase, meaning that you can swap spells out as soon as you need them rather than having to waste a turn Stellar Tempesting a five model unit.

 

If anyone wanted to know edit: or not... not letting me upload images?

 

When I upload images, I upload them to imgur first and then link directly to the image in question

 

Not sure if posted anywhere but some random bit of detail I saw when going through the instruction manual.

Now that's where the Skink Priests went, to become random skulls that will just get obscured.
It's just an odd bit of detail, the only possible way of seeing it is at very specific angles

 

Does the realmshaper engine bit of terrain from the new gnarlwood box look like it’s the same size as the normal faction terrain? I wonder if it’d be a fun (and maybe cheaper) alternative to use

 

This is a reference to the new Warcry Nightmare Quest box set that was revealed today.

 

Ah, yeah, I probably should've specified that. I hadn't seen that picture though, assuming the stormcast are on 40mm bases like most thunderstrike guys are then it seems like it's around about the same size (maybe a little smaller?)