9th Age 9th Age (beta) out now - check link in first post

9th Age is the continuation of WHFB 8th edition that people were expecting before the release of AoS.One could say it's "fanmade", although it is made by people who were behind various tournament comp packs (swedish comp and ETC) and driven by the community.

In other words if you want to continue to play WH as you used to 9th Age would be the go-to place. It's still in development so if there's something you dislike raise your voice over at http://www.the-ninth-age.com/

Also all rules (BRB and ABs) will be free and online. I think they'll make them printable and at some point more interesting with graphics and stuff.
Models will be added later, but right now they're focusing on the rules.

 

It says "use the saves of the rider" so if you have a 1+/4+ save like we usually with armour of destiny then your combined profile have that.

 

The new ward spell from "high magic" actually buff the engine of the god.. hmm..

 

I hope we'll just have loremaster to all BRB and high magic. If we just keep loremaster to high magi then. Uh yeah.. XD

 

Oh shi1t, only checked our special rules and it's AWESOME haha. Snakadon grants poison, solardon grants +1WS and have a lore of light spell, PF = reroll 1s.

The slann is mentioned as.. The frog

Excitement is real.

Some iffy stuff - slann is down to 4 wounds, javelins lost their poison and blowpipes remain meh. Also we have our own javelins without the multiple shot 2, but instead strenght as user +1 so S4 javelins. We'll see.

Cowboys remains the same however, OB have Ld9 and +20pts and 5+pts for the mount. SV = +10pts and same with mount as OB. So all in all they're the same, but more fairly priced.

Erhh Cold Ones gained the PF so there's that xD

Alright the slann overall got somewhat a nerf. -1W, less disciplines and overall less interesting disciplines IMO.

OOOOHH and only 1 discipline allowed for the Slann. What the hell...?

We now have:

1) Becalming Cogitation 35pts (up 10pts)
2) Reservoir 20pts (same)
3) Soul of stone (same)
4) Wandering Deliberation (same)
5) previous High Magic Attribute for all lores 50pts
6) Master of Mystery - know an extra spell35pts.

So we lost all the lesser used disciplines, got our attribute back, but at 50pts and without and excessive amount of spells. Hmm.. I do suppose maser of mystery and "the attribute" and WD will serve at a platform to have a ton of signature spells, an extra spell AND unlearn an unneeded spell so you can have 3-4 spells in one lore. I hope I make sense.

I'm not super meh about this, but I had hope for some more creativity instead of removing. Oh well. ^^

Also they're now called Frog Disciplines so forget anything I've said so far. I forgive everything haha.

Magic items are the same although the egg was changed to breath weapon at S D3 + 2 so average of 4.

Units:

Core:
All in all the same except magic banner (25pts) on saurus warriors and 45pts kroxigors for skinks. Also attacks against kroxigors are now randomized - hits on 5-6 = kroxigors. My math might be wrong, but 100 attacks against kroxigors like this at WS4+ and S6 will result in roughly 10 less wounds than 50 attacks with same stats (previously only front rank would've been allowed to hit the kroxies so I just halved the numbers). Overall good. Also assuming the unit still cause fear enemies have -1Ld.

Special:
CoRs are everything we wanted and MORE. 30pts with lance. Boom. 10pts/model grants Light Armour. Maybe a tad excessive. I mean are they really supposed to be in the chaos knight area? They can take magic banner (50pts). Overall very good.

Kroxigors got nothing else than 5pts reduction and full command.

Ripperdactyl got hit with the nerf bat. They lost their toad and gain devastating charge. Previously they had 2A and D3+1 frenzy attacks. So their attacks ranged from 4-6A/Model. We now have 4A/Ripper although more flexibility. It didn't fix their main issue though - they still have I3 so they still suffer horribly from risking being killed first. I like to compare them to Wild Riders and those guys usually strike before anyone else. Also shield and light lances are now an upgrade worth a total of 6pts. So a ripper is now 46pts. Hmm..

Bastiladon is absolutely auto-include now. 90pts for a +1WS buff wagon. Can be upgrade to poison attacks within 6" at 20pts. That still 40pts cheaper than the old one!

Rare:
Salamanders at 70pts

Razordons at 55pts and now have 2D6 shots and fire like a Volley Gun.

Troglodon have same engine as solardon (+1WS and a lore of light spell)

Stegadon and ancient stegadon merged. That's fine. All the the good things at 190pts, blowpipes at +10pts. Engine at 40pts. Multiple wound impact hit at 30pt. All in all I'm fine with that.

Carnosaur can be taken as a monstrous beast (150pts) OR like previously just with T6 and 6 Wounds and WS4 at 210pts.
The monstrous beast one can only be taken by a SC so a maximum of 2+/4+ save. The T-Rex guy is OB only.

Initial thoughts:
GOOD and exciting! Not perfect for sure. There are some very good stuff, some meh things and some downright bad things.

I like PF since it kinda counter WS3. More magic banners is nice. CoR appear a tad too good for their price? I could be wrong. Bastiladon went from fluffy to downright auto-include - if you cannot find 90pts for a +1WS you're doing something wrong. Monsters got a good and healthy buff and I love that.

Blowpipe skinks and ripperdactyl are the true loser. That's unfortunate, but we can still fix that. Kroxigors got a decent buff, but compared to minotaurs they're still lacking IMO. They need that added flexibility. Minotaurs can have S6 charge w/ impact hit and 5 attacks at I4 and WS4 for the same price. They just lack armour save (6+ lol).

I think swarms should've been core and templeguards didn't see a single change. They didn't really need it I suppose, but allowing them to have hw/s and a base price of 13pts would've been an interesting choice. They could've had AP banner and the bastiladon for that WS5 and parry and AS3+ in close combat. Oh well

It would appear many of our suggestions got added and that makes me very happy. They actually listen to us and that great!

 

Oooh that's very unfortunate. Oh well hopefully we can talk some sense into them. I'm not sure why you think this is flavorless though. It's the first update that's supposed to be temporary. Next week they're gathering people to create a more detailed book (including more magic items - we currently don't have our magic banners). What we got was what we wanted to begin with or close to it. I'm okay with that. Things aren't perfect, but again this is just the first edition of a beta.

 

Models are the same.
Fluff is the same and most units stayed the same. How can they ruin something they have any say over? They didn't touch the fluff because they can't.
The rules are the same with mostly improvement. They mostly fit the fluff (not the ripper with the toad).

The biggest offender so far is the Slann. That sh1s is downright dumb.

No offence, but if your issue is that one single model I've gotta say that's rather narrow minded. Now I do know you don't like the combined profile rules and that's a fair complaint, but we overall received a good buff and more of our units are viable.Skroxigor units are much better, Saurus Warriors reroll 1s and have a magic banner, all our units can gain +1WS (not what I wanted, but it's good regardless), snake ark on bastiladon is actually viable and generally speaking all our monsters are now viable.

obviously though you're entitled to your opinion I'm just of the opinion that a lot of our units are more viable.

The troglodon is odd though. It's a more expensive bastiladon (it's faster alright so it can keep up), but it have the same engine. For the sake of making things less complicated that's good I suppose, but IMO that's what you could call flavorless.