AoS 4th Edition is nearly here...

[Putzfrau]

View attachment 148721
Shorter range, less rend, no crits on sixes, no "more warp power" to turn that D3 into a 3, no sniper rule.
Sure, the maximum damage output with perfect roles is the same, but the average performance & the special rules are very much in favour of the skaven here.


I'm not saying it's particularly good or impactfull.
I'm saying that it has far more offensive power than minor support heroes usually get.
Which is made extra ironic by GW's earlier statement that they're toning down ranged attacks.

And it also doubles down on @Kilvakar worries about the apparent damage powercreep for the new edition. Very simply put; if a minor warlock already has this; what kind of firepower is an archwarlock going to bring? Let alone a named warlock, or a warlock mounted on a weaponsplatform or something...

Haha you're right they are not the same profile. A starseer was also a wizard which is considerably more useful than the mild support this offers.

I think calls of damage creep or super powered heroes is just fear mongering at this moment. Of the scrolls we've seen, half of them do less damage and even the ones do more it's mild at best.

Besides I'm sure most skaven players would rather the warlock engineer be a wizard than have a few decent shots and a pretty mid support ability. /Shrug

 

[Canas]

New prosecutors

The wings look better than the old design.

Also, apparently abilities now have an equivalent to ward-saves where you can just ignore the ability on a 4+.
Hopefully it only working on "non-core abilities" won't be too arbitrary a division.

 

[Canas]

Endless spells are basically summonable units now.

On the one hand; I guess this is good. It allows them to do "regular" attacks, as opposed to mortal wound spam. Which opens up design possibilities.
On the other hand; they can now be simply destroyed (in addition to being dispelled). And they aren't exactly sturdy (quicksilver swords has a mere 6 wounds, and a 5+/6++ save). So it's not like they take terribly much to be destroyed.

Sure, any damage they soak is damage that isn't put into an actual unit. But it still seems a bit easy to destroy them like this.

O, and needless to say, they don't benefit from any faction abilities or anything.
Which is a bit of a shame. Could add some interesting flavour to have interactions with faction rules. Admitadly, allowing that would probably be a nightmare to balance

Same for faction terrain. They can now be destroyed. And similarly, they also aren't exactly sturdy (8 wounds, 3+/6++ for the fyreslayer terrain).

 

[Canas]

Spearheads

The spearheads themselves aren't that interesting, its just combat patrols for AoS. But they reveal some new (simplified) warscrolls.

Mount attacks now have the "companion" ability. Presumably to make it clearer what attacks are buffed by artifacts and such.
Cavalry is a keyword that exists now, apparently.
They reveal the Magister on Disc's spell, and it kind of confirms magic is going to be the exact same dissapointment it's always been, as all spells shown so far have had no meaningfull changes (aside from the endless spells).

The magister is better at melee combat than it used to be for some reason. It's ranged attack is still essentially useless.
Which is a shame. Had kinda hoped that the new skaven model indicated GW had realized that support heroes need to be given something meaningfull to do besides their 1 spellcast/ability-use per turn, and that melee attacks on a support hero are wasted. But I guess not.

 

[Canas]

Twists & battle tactics.

Honestly, it seems a bit much? Having the effects be better than your average spell/ability on a random minor hero seems a bit weird.

 

[Canas]

Terrain rules

Models can now jump off cliffs. Unclear if there is going to be fall damage.

Only faction terrain can be destroyed, which feels odd.

Other than that we seem to get 40K rules regarding LoS.

And some terrain pieces can give you a +1 to casting on a D3 roll.

 

[Putzfrau]

terrain changes seem smart, seems like it cleans up a lot of the nonsense while also being more impactful.

 

[Gothurz]

 

[Gothurz]

The invisible rules go something like this:
BATTLE TRAITS
Any Combat Phase
Beast of the dark jungle
Declare: Pick your general and one enemy unit they are in combat.
Effct: Pick one of the follow rampage:
Gargantuan Jaws: Pick 1 enemy model in comabt with your general and roll a dice. If the roll is exceed or greater than that model’s Health characteristic, it is slain.
Roar: Pick an enemy unit that in combat with general. Substract D6 obcjective control points when you score this turn.
Regiment Abilities
Once Per Phase, End turn
Predatory Fighters
Declare: Roll a dice for each enemy unit that in combat with your models.
Effect: On 3+ deals 1MW for that enemy unit being in combat.
Enchantment
Once per battle (?), Start of turn
Ancient Warlord
Declare: Pick your general to use this enchantment.
Effect: You can use general Ancient Warlord ability to pick 2 unit instead 1.

 

[Canas]

The invisible rules go something like this:
BATTLE TRAITS
Any Combat Phase
Beast of the dark jungle
Declare: Pick your general and one enemy unit they are in combat.
Effct: Pick one of the follow rampage:
Gargantuan Jaws: Pick 1 enemy model in comabt with your general and roll a dice. If the roll is exceed or greater than that model’s Health characteristic, it is slain.
Roar: Pick an enemy unit that in combat with general. Substract D6 obcjective control points when you score this turn.
Regiment Abilities
Once Per Phase, End turn
Predatory Fighters
Declare: Roll a dice for each enemy unit that in combat with your models.
Effect: On 3+ deals 1MW for that enemy unit being in combat.
Enchantment
Once per battle (?), Start of turn
Ancient Warlord
Declare: Pick your general to use this enchantment.
Effect: You can use general Ancient Warlord ability to pick 2 unit instead 1.

Predatory fighter does a max of 1 MW per enemy unit per turn? That is absurdly bad.
Should it not be "roll a dice per model in combat" or something?

Also, the rampages are weirdly limited. I get that this is spearhead, but I would've expected the carnosaur to have at least 1 rampage that could be used against heroes and other monsters. Hopefully this is just cuz of the simplication from spearhead...

Not a fan of the battle-damaged rule for the carnosaur. Combined with Nagash's scroll it seems like damage tables for monsters are basicly gone, with the damage-effect kicking in quite late & being relativly minor now.

I'm surprised saurus retain their loadouts though. Given that their warscroll says "celestite clubs" and not "celestite weapons".

As for the Kroxigor. Can anyone tell if its special rule kicks in at 3 or 5 models? Can't quite read it.

O, and the Carnosaur's command ability is kind of underwhelming. +1 to charge on a single unit, or on 2 if you get ancient warlord, isn't exactly impressive for a big monster...

I'm really curious how much of this is due to the "simplification" for spearhead, and how much of this is genuinely just dissapointing.

 

[Gothurz]

Should it not be "roll a dice per model in combat" or something?

I think, when I read that first time same as u, but yes - 1 Dice per enemy unit. Oterwise u make for example 10MW on list with 40-50 Health. That's will be to good.

I'm surprised saurus retain their loadouts though. Given that their warscroll says "celestite clubs" and not "celestite weapons".

At matched Play they give as a weapon option. Look at krox warscroll. On Spearhead u have only one weapon. At normal warscroll 1/3 krox can take another option.

 

[Canas]

I think, when I read that first time same as u, but yes - 1 Dice per enemy unit. Oterwise u make for example 10MW on list with 40-50 Health. That's will be to good.

Sure, but now it's 1-2 MW assuming you keep your entire spearhead in combat constantly. Even in the small scale of a spearhead game that's pretty underwhelming.

In general though, even taking into account that spearhead is simplified. This seems pretty weak.
There's no magic, no ranged attacks, no real utility to speak off. The army is also pretty slow.
And as far as special rules go:

• Predatory fighters is too minor to be relevant, even in spearhead.
• Kroxigor's are anti-horde; spearhead isn't going to involve many hordes.
• The carnosaur is our biggest combat unit, but the monstrous rampages don't really support this.
  
• The command ability we got is +1 to charges. Which isn't terrible, but it's not enough to make up for the slow movement speed of the kroxigors & saurus.
  • The general ability for some reason doubles down on this CA, instead of giving something more usefull....

I didn't expect much, given the historic lack of synergies between kroxigors & Saurus. But this spearhead has very little going on. Especially when considering that historically, seraphon haven't exactly had the greatest stats. So I doubt we can just rely on the raw stats of the spearhead to make up for the lack of well, everything really.

Anyways, I'm rather curious how this will stack up against the spearheads that have some actual ranged, magic, or utility in them...

 

[Gothurz]

The army is also pretty slow.

But u remember we play on board 30x22 inches? We have deployment whole in friendly territory more than 6 inch from enemy territory. So we can chance to to charge on 6 (minimum 12 inches between units, move 5, charge+1).

 

[Egres]

But u remember we play on board 30x22 inches? We have deployment whole in friendly territory more than 6 inch from enemy territory. So we can chance to to charge on 6 (minimum 12 inches between units, move 5, charge+1).

I think it’s 30x44 in but yeah smaller board for spearhead!! Well that’s the board size for 40K anyways so assisting its the same here

 

[Canas]

But u remember we play on board 30x22 inches? We have deployment whole in friendly territory more than 6 inch from enemy territory. So we can chance to to charge on 6 (minimum 12 inches between units, move 5, charge+1).

Sure, you can play on a board that's so tiny that movement no longer matters. But,that doesn't change the fact that the spearhead is comparativly slow with 5" move on 2 out of 3 units and a +1 to charge isn't exactly a massive improvement. The other spearheads are going to be comparably fast, if not faster. Not to mention that quite a lot of spearheads have some ranged or magic options. So outmanouvering anyone with this spearhead is going to be difficult.

Which brings me back to the crux of this spearhead; what exactly is it supposed to be good at?

• It's not fast
• It has no ranged
• It has no magic
• It has no interesting utility or special rules (e.g. no fly, defensive abilities, buffs/debuffs, etc.)

Is GW counting on the carno being such a massive powerhouse it'll dominate spearhead on its own? Cuz that's about the only thing the spearhead has going for it; it has a big monster. With the caveat that historically speaking it's been one of the weaker monsters in AoS...

 

[Canas]

A new overview before the faction focus

Apparently GW now uses racial and role-based stats. With humans being the average with a 4+/4+ baseline for attacks.
Nothing spectacular really, mostly it just depends on what the trade-offs are going to be. (e.g. elves are better, cuz of course they are, with a 3+/4+ so what's the trade-off for that?)

More interesting is the weapon special rules.

• If you have multiple critical hit effects you have to pick one (Lame...)
• Anti-X adds rend when fighting a specific target. E.g. pikemen with anti-cavalry get bonus rend against cavalry. This does stack (e.g. anti-hero 1 + anti-cavalry 1 = 2 rend) Which is interesting
• Companion indeed indicates mount weapons. It limits the buffs it can recieve. Specificly, you can't give the mount fight first, or +1 attack. You can however give it say +1 rend or +1 to wound. Which seems rather random a distiction to make. I'd expect an errata soon..

Baseline rend has been reduced, with anti-X replacing it. Maybe AoS will finally start seeing some proper dedicated anti-X units. As opposed to simply being effective against basicly everything.

The other rules aren't particularly new or exciting.

 

[Canas]

Faction focus SCE

They get the following:

General abilities:

• Deepstrike, like always
• Ressurect a 1 destroyed unit with 2 or more models once. Themed as reinforcements arriving at the last second. It's thematic, but does SCE really need a ressurection mechanic?
  
• "Their finest hour": Once per turn give +1 to wound and save rolls for a unit. A unit can only use this once per combat

Overall nothing spectacular. Its kind of lame that "their finest hour" can only be used once on a specific unit.

Subfactions:

• Ruination subfaction/battleformation/whatever you wanne call em: once per turn give 1 unit a 5+ ward save

Seems pretty weak for a subfaction ability. Maybe the subfaction makes up for it with other things?

Prayers

• +1 attack to a friendly unit, on a chanting roll of 12+ affect every visible SCE in 12"

The AoE effect is pretty cool. Though given how prayer rolls work I'm not sure if that effect will see much use unless we can get modifiers easily.

Warscrolls:

• Krondys:
  • Fun personal spell. It's like summon starlight, but you get to choose which stat to debuff.
  • Other than that; pretty good combat stats. Has "anti infantry" but it's not like it needs that or like it specializes him in any meaningfull way...
• Yndrasta:
  • Anti-monster, which again is really not necesary, nor does it do much to actually specialize her.
    
  • Only vaguely interesting rule is dazzling radiance, but using her to support an objective seems kinda lame... Aside from that it's just a beatstick.
• Knight-arcanum:
  • Decent combat profile for a wizard. As usual SCE are some of the few who get support heroes that can actually fight minor opposition.
  • No personal spell
  • Dedicated anti endless spell caster, with multiple effects.
    
  • Overal interesting, but very niche
• Annihilators:
  • Strike last effect on an enemy that charged them. More reliable against larger units. Neat.
    
  • Do mortal damage when using deep strike.
    
    • Someone is going try to use this to deal significant damage to their opponent and spam a billion annihilators... I doubt it's going to be very effective, but rules like this just beg players to try and abuse them...

Spearhead:

• Prosecuters:
  • Their damage output seems pretty high for a skirmishing unit.
• Special rules for the spearhead:
  • Once per battle, get a 5+ wardsave on 1 unit
    
  • Once per battle, 1 unit can run & charge

Pretty boring, but at least it seems our "weak" special rules for spearhead aren't that terrible.

The knight-arcanum is interesting.
The annihilator's strike last effect is interesting. Their deep strike damage is going to be annoying.
It's a shame that the anti-X rules are not used effectivly at all on Krondys & Yndrasta, their baseline stats are good enough to not really care about that bonus.

Also, a high amount of the effects can only be used on 1 unit. I assume it's for balance reason, but this kind of balancing approach just encourages doomstars. Plus, it creates swingy games where the difference between a fully buffed unit & one that is not is going to be rather big. Would rather they encourage spreading out buffs.

 

[Canas]

Skaven faction focus:

Faction abilities:

• Deepstrike via gnawholes
• Once per game setup 1 gnawhole if you have fewer than 3. Presumably to make up for the fact that stuff can be destroyed in 4th
• Does not suffer damage when retreating on skaven infantry and cavalry
• Once per turn perform a free move on a unit that isn't in combat and didn't just deepstrike

Seems like they want to focus on their mobility I suppose.

Subfactions/battle formation

• Fleshmeld menagerie:
  • Once per turn 3 non-hero moulder units can be buffed using a D6
    
    • 1-2 damage them
    • 3-4 +1 attack
    • 5-6 +1 attack & 5+ ward save

Considerably more interesting than what the SCE got as their subfaction ability, both in terms of fluff as in terms of raw power.

Spells:

• Warplightning vortex
  • Do D3 damage to enemies within 6" during each hero phase except on the turn it was summoned.
  • -2 to run & charge rolls for enemies within 6"
  • Do D3 mortal wounds to enemies who run over the vortex

On the one hand, it can deal a lot of damage in one turn since it can trigger twice per turn (once in each hero phase) and then an additional time whenever you run over it. On the other hand, you could just smash it apart before moving and never really suffer any damage.
Interesting though how much more powerfull it is than the generic endless spell we saw earlier...

Units:

• Skreech Verminking
  • 7/3+/2+/2/3/crits (2 hits) seems like a rather impressive melee profile given his special abilities.
  • Personal spell: roll 13 dice, each 5+ deals a mortal wound OR ressurects 1 clanrat. Neat.
    
  • Terrifying monstrosity: prevent target from using CA, also lower their control score. This is like the 4th or 5th model that has rules like that. GW seems to really like their control scores and CA...
  • Thirtheen headed one: once per turn buff one of the clans (e.g. +1 to cast for masterclan wizards, heal moulder units, etc.). Neat
• Rat ogors:
  • 1 in 3 can now have a warpfire gun. 10"/2D6/2+/4+/2/1/shoot in combat.
    • Neat? But also, whatever happened to "we're reducing the power of ranged?"
  • Basic melee attack: 5/4+/3+/1/2
  • Inflict D3 damage to themselves for +1 melee attack
  • Fairly squishy
• Warplighting cannon:
  • 20"/2D6/4+/do a mortal wound on hit
  • Skyre heroes can add +6 attacks, but a roll of 1 deals D3 damage to the cannon
• Gnawhole:
  • D3 damage to enemies moving over it
  • respawn a unit of skaven infantry once per turn. This is a CA
    
  • Teleport skaven

Some neat effects, but ranged attacks do not seem to be meaningfully weaker....
Also, earlier they claimed that rend would be reduced and instead they'd focus on "anti-X" rules. But so far there is a lot of rend on the units shown here as well as earlier...

In general, quite a lot of damage output.

Spearhead:

• Special rules
  • Deep strike
• Grey seer:
  • No personal spell..
  • Improve control score of a unit
  • Wither: Not a spell, so can't be unbound. But also roll 2D6 and on a 6+ do D3 wounds. Only 13" range.

Special rules are quite poor for spearhead given the small board.
The lack of a personal spell on the grey seer is dissapointing, and the focus on control scores abilities is getting annoying. Especially while we haven't had the chance to play with it.
Wither is... interesting... By not making it a spell they give him something to do outside of the 1 spellcast per turn. It also removes the conflict between personal spells & the faction lores. It also helps to provide support characters with the ability to actually defend themselves against a minor opponent. On the other hand, 13" range is pretty terrible for a squishy support unit who desperatly wants to stay out of harm's way...

 

[Gothurz]

UPDATE SPEARHEAD RULES:

 

[Canas]

UPDATE SPEARHEAD RULES:

well at least ancient strategist is more usefull than ancient warlord. Still not great though.
Predatory fighter is a lot better than originally expected. Once per phase does at least mean you can trigger it like 7-8 times per turn.
On the flipside; remembering to use it every single phase is going to get annoying quickly...

Also, GW is really eager to stick rule of one-variants on everything...