GW News: SKAVEN VICTORY! #NewAoS

As I mentioned above, Fire is the most obvious candidate, because realm of heavens is full of Sigmarines who would PURGE HERETICS and in Fantasy Light Magic had a profound effect on banishing Daemons of Chaos, so I'm assuming the same magic in AoS would make the realm of light less desirable for Chaos cultists to lurk in.

 

New endless spells and scenery revealed for Sylvaneth. That Vengeful Skullroot looks pretty nasty
https://www.warhammer-community.com...ells-and-awakened-wyldwoodgw-homepage-post-3/

 

Are you sure? Looks pretty standard to me. The Battleshock effect only applies if you fail Battleshock tests, so armies with a high Bravery (like Fyreslayers and Seraphon) and those with easy access to battleshock immunity (like Skaven with their Screaming Bell) are going to laugh in the face of that spell, especially if they keep away from the Wyldwoods. Also Wyldwoods can no longer insta-kill monsters. I don’t really think any of these spells are going to be much of a problem if you keep away from the Wyldwoods and know how to hit them hard enough for healing only to be prolonging their deaths.

 

Endless spells preview

They're rather powerful. Nearly everything is AoE, and a decently large AoE at that, Sylvaneth are completly immune to the negative effects, not difficult to cast (especially when taking into account the fact that sylvaneth can now get +3 to casting without too much effort). Seems a tad worrisome

 

I’m still sceptical - the Gladewyrm only affects enemies within 1” of it, and the Skullroot only affects units it travels over, which can’t be that many as it only moves 8”. Compare that to the Molten Infernoth which can’t be dispelled and affects all units within 3” of it (which is a pretty large radius especially as it has a Carnifex base) and these Sylvaneth spells look pretty ineffectual.

 

The heal of the gladeworm is 6" though & the spiteswarm hive has a similarly large AoE.

Mostly they just seem overloaded though. Either affecting a fairly massive area like the spiteswarm, or doing a lot like both healing you and damaging your opponent. Seems like the type of thing that quickly gets oppressive. Especially since all of them double down on aspects sylvaneth are already strong at. Yet more healing, yet more mortal wounds spam (especially around their forests) yet more movement (or more save re-rolls). There just seems to be a bit much going on.

 

The Gladewyrm has to roll to both damage and heal units - sure it is 3+ but the fact remains that it isn't automatic, and the fact that it only damages units within 1" of it means that it is pretty ineffective as a damage dealer and is better off sitting in the back lines as a healer. Also I think the Healing Mist ability only affects units with multiple wounds i.e. Kurnoths and Treemen, and cannot resurrect models from 1-wound units, as it doesn't specifically say you can add models with a single wound back to the unit - the Chalice of Ushoran spell from the Flesh Eater Courts army makes it specific that such a bonus is allowed from that spell, but this Gladewyrm spell gives no such assurance.

Concerning the spiteswarm hive, +3 bonus to movement is good, but re-rolling 1s to save is pretty standard and while it may be more useful for the tougher monsters, it won't have much effect on their chaff who have awful saving throws anyway.

I'm assuming then that this means that basic Sylvaneth troops will still die to a stiff breeze and can't be brought back (at least not with the Gladewyrm), and that while their forests are a problem, the simple answer to that is to stay away from them and lure them to come to you (they can't win a standard kill battle if they don't try to engage you, and they don't have very much shooting). Furthermore the forests themselves have been nerfed as they can't insta-kill monsters anymore as I mentioned earlier - I infinitely prefer them as they are now to their previous rules that allowed them to potentially insta-kill a Magmadroth if it charged a unit entrenched inside.

Perhaps this is because I'm a Fyreslayers fan and view things from a Fyreslayers point of view though - from a Seraphon point of view perhaps the mortal wound endless spells are more worrying, but even then other endless spells deal a similar amount of damage - the Skaven spells can potentially be a lot more dangerous, and the Corpsemare Stampede for Flesh Eater Courts is much more dangerous to infantry and cavalry units.

 

Mostly what concerns me is the amount of potential synergy. They already have amazing zoning potential thanks to their forests. Having endless spells like this will turn the forests into even more of a stronghold for sylvaneth.

For example take a unit of kurnoth hunters with bows, put them in a forest, put a gladewyrm next to them. They'l outshoot most enemies at range & anyone attacking them in melee risks a deluge of mortal wounds. Plus they'l heal a decent chunk of the wounds they lose. That's a rather powerfull combo for nearly no investment and with little in terms of counterplay. And with a 30" range on their bows they can threaten a massive area so "avoiding the forests" doesn't really get you anywhere either.

As for the re-rolls. Re-rolling 1's for a 6+ save still gives you about 16% more succesfull saves. Combined with the fairly large bublle it will have a noticeable effect as it'l simply hit a lot of units when used well.

 

This Saturday we will see what the last warband for Warcry is.

 

And here it is, the last Warcry warband (the last I'm assuming that will be coming out next Saturday) - unusually, this one hails from Hysh:




These chaps certainly have an interesting aesthetic, almost Chinese style, and they probably worship a mix of Slaanesh and Tzeentch (they wear the blue of Tzeentch but they have a seductive nature like all followers of the Dark Prince of Excess). While they aren't my number one pick, it should be interesting to see how they work on the battlefield.

OK, here's my final list of warbands in my order of preference:

1. The snake warband from Ghyran have my vote still - I just love their Corinthian helmets and gladiatorial equipment
2. The crow warband from Ulgu are a close second - these chaps have a classic Tzeentchian feel (as Tzeentch is often known as the Raven God and of course has a lot of birdlike Daemonic servants)
3. The new warband from Hysh look pretty interesting actually, although they don't do enough for me to knock the snake and crow warbands from the top spot.
4. The warband from Ghur really brings the original Chaos Marauder aesthetic bang up to date while still capturing their raw, Conan-esque essence, but aside from that they are just meh. Neither good or bad, just meh.
5. The Chamon warband just doesn't tick the right boxes for me - they make all the weapons and armour for Archaon's armies, yet they can't make a pair of shoes? That's the one thing that reduces their appeal in my eye, otherwise they would perhaps be higher than the Ghur warband and possibly the Hysh one.
6. Finally the ghastly Death warband I just really don't like. While they do bring some grimdark back into AoS and would probably be at home in 40K as some weird skull-clad underlings of the Imperium, they are too much of a mix of the worst things about Dark Eldar and Vampire Counts and I honestly wouldn't have them within twenty feet of my home, let alone in my collection. I just hope GW don't make them especially powerful like they did with Dark Eldar and Vampire Counts.

 

I totally called that the next warband would come from Hysh. The new warband looks quite good in my opinion, a very civilized look to go against the common barbaric look that chaos usually has, I hope GW expands on the more civilized sides of chaos in the future. Also the more ambiguous worship of chaos that is shown in all the warbands, none of them scream or show that they worship Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch or Slaanesh and most of them don't really share the traditional aesthetic of chaos worshippers, but you can still get a feel of which gods that influences each of the warbands.

 

Having some chaos factions that aren't completly batshit insane and actually do more than just murder everyone they come across would be interesting. Though I fear that destruction and chaos is too entrenched in chaos lore to really allow for anything more civilized than warbands that murder eachother the moment they see an oppertunity.

 

Also, those hysh one's are tzeentch

 

That's how I feel whenever a new mtg set comes out with a red black faction. Nothing but insane murder cults incapable of raising children or building a culture... sigh.

 

Warcry is definitely coming out for pre-order next week - the stuff to be initially released includes the Starter Set, containing those Chaotic creatures we saw in the early trailers and some nifty new scenery that would be great for Mordheim @Warden:


A separate rulebook (which is great as I can just get that rather than having to fork out on the starter box with the subpar gangs):

A reboxing of the Garden of Morr (again), known to all AoS fans as the Sigmarite Mausoleum:

And Warband and Battleplan cards to help keep track of your warbands and your scenarios respectively:



Also for some reason GW have decided to release the gang only previewed on Saturday/Sunday at the initial launch and the rest later on, which is annoying for me personally but great for those of you who like them the most:


Interesting to see that these Warcry warbands are larger than Warhammer Underworlds warbands yet smaller than Necromunda gangs at 8 models.

As for the faction symbol conundrum, Legions of Nagash was the remaining faction that was missed out in the original picture, and I'm assuming that it was simply saying who would be getting their warband cards first (as certainly GW have decided this), and that all factions currently with a Battletome will still get rules for them in the main rulebook (otherwise I'll be pretty annoyed that sh*tty Daughters of Khaine get rules but proper factions like Kharadron and Fyreslayers don't).

Anyway, great to see that GW are bringing out the separate rulebook at launch this time and that they didn't follow the route of Necromunda where they took ages to make the separate rulebook. Also in the accompanying video GW confirm that Warcry is going to be the AoS equivalent of Kill Team, so it looks like they are going to phase out Skirmish for this (which to be honest isn't bad in my view as Skirmish was just playing with the AoS rules in Skirmish-size games, while this new game looks like it's a lot more suited to skirmish gaming like Kill Team and Necromunda are - pretty much Mordheim 2.0 and with a lot more rules to represent the cut-and-thrust of small-scale battles).

 

The terrain looks nice. That alone makes the starter box interesting for me seeing as I severly lack terrain.

As for it replacing skirmish, they better introduce custom warbands for every faction then and do it quickly. Kill team has plenty of different teams with dedicated boxes for different factions, this only has chaos.

As for the mausoleum, is there any difference with the current version? Or just a new box cuz reasons?

 

That's what I'm hoping. Certainly GW are releasing warband cards for the ones they put in their icon list of non-Chaos factions, but I'm pretty sure these are just optional extras to make gameplay more convenient - I'm hoping that they'll also have rules for every faction in the rulebook. Certainly they've teased rules for some in there:

 

Just seen in a GW video that there are only 9 regular Age of Sigmar factions in the main Warcry rulebook alongside the Chaos warbands.

Please excuse the potential torrent of curses as I rage at why the hell GW could have put such an awful faction as Daughters of Khaine in there at the expense of so many far superior Order factions they could have chosen instead...