Yes you can make a Priest or Starpriest fly but that takes up an artefact slot. That is worth WAY more than 20, 50 points or whatever. It is basically half the reason why people take a batallion in the first place. Being able to just "buy" effectively artefacts like that is beyond broken. I obviously dont know the exact value from every unit, but I have a pretty reasonable idea of how many Salamander shots I need to allocate on average to take out a Terrorgheist or Motek Guard unit of X, or how much damage I can expect in return from a Stonehorn/Maw Krusha charge etc. Same with threat ranges of the different armies. Having these weird and sudden abominations of heroes running around on the table is gonna throw things off. I dont like it unless you get taxed by effectively paying for an overcosted model compared to what it brings. I dont think that kind of customization is needed in AoS or healthy for the game as it is. 40K isnt AoS. WHFB isnt AoS. You cant draw parallels. Removing the ability to measure at will in AoS wouldnt be cool either just because that was how WHFB was played. It is a different game. Anyways, I dont think any of us entirely know how this hero-forging will work, what combinations are available etc. At the end of the day, if you think it is a cool mechanic, go for it and play with your mates that way.
Sorry what would you be removing in this case? Are you saying in WHFB you couldn't measure stuff whenever you wanted to? I'm confused. True. I am however optimistic & hope that they'l manage to make it work well enough to fit into matched play & get the support it needs from GW. Even if tournaments refuse to actually use it.I just hope that if they refuse to join in GW won't let that deter them from giving it meaningfull support. Throwing it on the pile of narrative play with no support or balance-effort is great and all, but without that it'l just be an unbalanced mess completly reliant on houserules. At which point we're back to were we started before getting an official hero-builder-template.
Yes, for a long time in WHFB you couldnt premeasure anything. You also had to guess ranges for certain artillery and other shooting attacks.
I played WHFB like 15 years ago. Back then you werent allowed to measure distance like you can now. Like if you were to shoot with a cannon you had to guess how far it would shoot. Now you can measure at any given time and ensure you constantly are within range of your buffs and outside of the enemy's range.
I actually enjoyed the old days without pre-measurements. It made you pay attention a lot more to your movements as well as you opponents' movements, and keeping an eye on those ranges as they move. It was challenging, but in a fun, tactical way. With that said, I am happy that AOS is a different game. Teenager me with loads of free time to practice "guessing" ranges of all my stuff loved it. Adult me, with less free time really likes the quicker, smoother, simpler gameplay of AOS. As for the buildable heroes, I am excited for this option. Me and my friends used to run campaigns back in 5th and 6th edition, where we had custom house rules for creating a hero character to be the character you followed through the campaign. As you won or lost, your hero would gain experience and grow with the campaign. By the end, you had these characters with backstories that became tied to the story of the campaign and the stories of the other players' characters. We had rivalries and allegiances between interesting combinations of characters. By the end, we became more personally attached to the characters we made, versus any of the special, named characters from the books. I can certainly understand balance issues in competitive play with build your own characters. There needs to be restrictions like many have said already on what type of characters you can play. However, I think what it adds to the narrative aspect of play is well worth dipping my toes into these rules. I am still very new to this game, however I really like the bonkers, everything is possible, narrative focus of AoS as opposed to the more tactical focus of WFB, and I think the buildable characters have the opportunity to add a lot of intrigue into the narrative feel of the game.
Individually all those effects seem fine, and even reasonably costed. I have however 1 major concern. Do those abilities stack, or are some mutually exclusive, similarly are there more limitations for unit types and the like (e.g. a skink can never be ethereal or something)? The only limitations I can see on that list are for specific unittypes, e.g. only a wizard can get +1 to casting. But are there others? Cuz without further limitation to keep certain combo's in check you're going to end up seeing some absurd comboes. For example is there anything stopping me from putting ethereal, a ward save, regenerative and a 3+ save on the same character for eh, about a 100 points? I mean, it's a decent investment, but it's nowhere near high enough to outright make it unviable. And even ignoring potential synergies between these upgrades, it raises some issues. A 6+ ward save for 30 points is horribly overcosted on say a skink priest, but a steal on a carnosaur. Why aren't they dynamicly prized? I do hope that there's a hell of a lot of context missing here cuz if this is the gist of it then it's basicly hopeless for matched play (and honestly, not much better for narrative play as it seems fairly barebones a system).
Death Guard for sure this time. Ribbed tubes and pipes with ripped open covering is 100% their design language.
I'm think you have to build up off the generic heroes they give you. You can't just add these to any character.
I'm using the skink priest as a reference for "generic skink" and carnosaur for "generic saurus on big mount" as I am assuming those are representable-ish.
I'm somehow seeing ropes and linnen, like a sail or something, but I guess you're Right though Grrr, Imrahil
Im awaiting for us to get the full picture in regards to the custom hero system, but initially being able to effectively buy Ethereal amulet that cheap sounds crazy. Will obviously depend on what sort of save you can get on the heroes, but considering it was just removed from matched play.. Damn!
the ropes seem more like the tubing in 40K, but yeah the covering looks like a sail or wings. Maybe chaos got their hands on a gyrocopter from the new admech releases and corrupted it?