Interesting. 240 seems like quite a steal, but I could see that being in the lower end of the range depending on how much GW values certain things. Maxing out at 3+ definitely feels better at that point range that a natural 3+. I mean obviously I'd love it, I'd be super interested how that would shake out on the table top.
Like others have been saying it's a combination of two things, fluff & mechanics. On the one hand our fluff constantly paints us to be fairly amazing, with individuals, or small groups of, seraphon pulling off great feats. Slann re-aligning the stars, a small group of saurus guard protecting a slann for eons under constant assault from chaos tribes, an eternity warden strangling a greater daemon as he dies himself, an army off seraphon locked in eternal battle with daemons, a sunblood is supposed to be an eons old hulking monster who's whole existence revolves around combat and who's fought god knows what etc. But none of this is represented on the tabletop, especially on the saurus side. Our rules make us look more like skaven or regular humans, where individuals are rarely exceptional. This is especially noticeable for the saurus. The saurus units should be relativly elite, but they simply aren't. Unmounted Saurus heroes don't even begin to compare to their fluff (though this is at least partially due to how AoS treats minor heroes in general). And our behemoths mostly just look bad in comparison to other monsters. They're not necesarly super bad; but they're rarely better in terms of raw stats when compared to others. Which, again, does not fit in with how they're shown in the lore. For example the carnosaur is supposed to be an apex predator, yet a lot of other behemoths, and even lesser units, easily kick his ass. The main advantage our behemoths seem to have is that they're relativly cost-efficient rather than individually powerfull, which again feels more like something that'd fit for skaven or regular humans than for us. Mechanicly speaking there's also two other major issues. The fact that starborne exist complicates things. A summoning and teleporting army needs to be balanced out by overall weaker stats (or some other major weakness). And coalesced are stuck with these weaker stats as well. The heavy focus on synergy-based playstyles. Which again, mandates that our baseline stats are lower to ensure we're not too powerfull when all the synergies are stacked. This additionally has two further sub-issues Due to how buffs work in AoS, and the rule of one, we can only really fully buff 1 target (or maybe 2 at a time). Which means we are perpetually stuck with several units that will never be operating anywhere near full potential. Which feels odd, usually synergy-based playstyles revolve around buff-bubbles to buff the entire army, as opposed to buffing just 1 target with the rest of the army being sacrificial fodder that's there to buy time for that 1 buffed unit. The extend to which we can actually be buffed. A fully buffed skink (as in the individual skink in a unit) does over 10 times more damage against an 4+ save than an unbuffed skink does. Which is just rather an extreme jump. Aside from the fact that this clashes with the fluff, it also means that mechanicly speaking they've created a playstyle people may not necesarly enjoy. It is relatively complicated, and requires a good chunk of sacrificial fodder since only the buffed part of our army is "competitive", the rest is mostly there to buy time (hence the common lists of "drown our opponent in skinks while a buffed unit does as much damage as possible"). Also, I'd be willing to bet most people are attracted to the saurus & carnosaur part of our army, and for most of AoS Saurus have been significantly worse than skinks. So that probably explains why there's quite a lot of complaining. If skinks were the more populair subspecies you'd probably see more happy people
Apperently the giants are getting a major update in the white dwarf. So I guess that's where the big updates are going to go now while we wait for a new battletome. does make me wonder why they didn't include it in the corebook or GHB or something though, this is kinda inconvenient.
I'd like the carnasaur claws to get rend 1 and the jaws rend 2 with a real 3+ to hit as a starting point.
Based on the teaser it seems a bit larger than usual though, at least for AoS, for 40K it seems to be quite common to get an update this size in white dwarf.
it's awesome cuz it's fluffy. But it does kinda defeat the point of taking them out in the first place and replacing them with more balanced generic battalions cuz they couldn't figure out how to balance the faction specific ones.... At least the new faction specific battalions seem like they're limited to generic bonusses (e.g. an extra artifact, or being able to place a unit in reserve). As opposed to weird bonus abilities we used to see.
Hopefully they keep it simple, because I do like the fluffyness of different armies having different battalions. But power creep is so easy if they aren't pulling from a set selection of abilities. What happens is ability A exists, somebody comes up with ability B, which is slightly better, but close enough, then C, which is slightly better then B, and so when you get to E ability A is basically worthless.
Alternatively... Now, i loved Faction Battalions. But if you erased them, try to not introduce them again a couple of months later...
Maybe reintroduce them, but they pull from the same set of abilities that the core battalions use, just in army appropriate combinations to get them.
It just occurred to me that most of the core battalions can't be used by SoB because they don't have anything that qualifies as a sub-commander. What about the two Ogre factions, are they in the same boat?
Yeah, I don't think this is a sign of things to come, I think this is just a patch to make Sons *able* to do battalions at all
Yeah, I didn't realize they couldn't use most of the core ones, so it very well may be that they're just giving them a couple so that they can have close to the same number of battalions as everyone else. But still, I wouldn't be surprised to see more faction-specific battalions come out, but with generic bonuses in line with the core ones. Also, every GHB will probably have new realm-themed battalions if they keep up with the new realm for every book thing. Also, thanks @Putzfrau for your response! I agree that our warscrolls aren't trash (except for Ripperdactyls...), but none of them are that good either. I think it just comes down to a difference of opinion on whether you're a fan of the synergy and buff-focused playstyle or not. I love the army, and I still have fun playing them. But I always feel irked that we have nothing, and I do mean nothing, that's truly an "elite" warscroll. *Everything* we have requires buffs to function, even Kroxigors which are our least buff-dependent unit still need to at least a +1 to hit to really do well. That's what I mean when I say our units are cannon fodder. They're all just really average or somewhat below average troops that are there to take a buff, do some work, and die the next turn. And the problem I have with that playstyle is pretty much what @Canas said: If I were to redesign the army I would make the point costs for Starborne and Coalesced different. I would make Scaly Skin apply to mortal wounds or change it to a ward save, and replace the terrain rule for Coalesced with something better, personally I would pick an army-wide +1 rend because they're more savage and physically powerful than the Starborne. Then, I would make our monsters tougher and able to function without buffs, bringing them in line with other faction's monsters. I would give Saurus 2 wounds and Guard a 3+ save. I would change most of the targeted or command ability buffs to auras, expect in specific cases like the Starpriest's staff. I would also make it so that more of those synergies were for all units, and not Saurus or Skink only. And specifically about the VLzD question: Yes. Other than not flying and not being a spellcaster, I absolutely think that our Carnosaurs should be at least close to the level of the other monster-heavy factions' big boys. I get that units like the Zombie Dragon, Stonehorns, and Terrorgheists all look, for lack of a better word, "angrier" and more "nasty" than a Carnosaur, but that's mostly because a Carnosaur is based on a real creature while the others are undead monstrosities and over-the-top fantasy mammoth-things. But that doesn't mean that stats-wise a thousands of years old reptile riding a probably equally ancient dinosaur should be weaker than they are. Just because nothing in our army looks like a savage, evil destruction beast doesn't mean they shouldn't be able to hold their own against savage, evil destruction beasts. If it's just base size you're talking about, the VLzD isn't that much bigger, and the Stonehorns are the same base size. The Arachnarok Spiders are on the same base size as a Maw-Krusha, but that doesn't mean they should do as much damage. On another note: Looks like the Stormcast are getting a different coherency rule as part of their new allegiance abilities: