GW News: BIG N' SMALL WAAAGH! COMIN'

Yes, I think you have it right. The unit gets to attack twice, but after it attacks the first time is has "strike last" applied to it.

 

Tzeentch

Faction;

• Cheating dice
• Can set 1 enemy unit on fire in each shooting phase, if you hit it with specific attacks.
• At the end of a turn each burning unit rolls a D3, on a 2+ suffer damage, on a 1 they're no longer burning
• If you heal or ressurect a burning unit, instead the burning effect goes away.

Burning effect seems like fun. However, with only 1 unit per turn it seems quite limited in how quickly you can spread it.
Also, there's some weird interactions with going first/second that further complicate this since you can only set units on fire that have been hit by an attack.

The anti-healing effect is interesting. as well.

Overall, seems like for it'd be vastly more fun if setting things on fire was easier.

Subfaciton

• Burning units get -1 to hit

Again; fairly minor for a faction ability.

Spells:

• Tzeentch is one of the few factions with 2 lores
• Transformed to spawn: deal damage, create a spawn if you kill something.

The spawn comes from reserves, because apparently GW is reversing summoning back to the horrible state of 2th? 1st? edition summoning where it was a glorified deepstrike mechanic. Lame.

Two paragraphs later; GW of course makes in immeadiate exception by pointing out that if this spawn gets killed you can just create a new one. Whereas most other factions can only "ressurect" a model once. Also lame.

Also, of course it only has a 12" range. GW is seriously does not like wizards with range this edition.
The fact that having 2 lores is exceptional also kind of sucks.

Units:

• Kairos
  • Same casting bonus he always had
    
  • A special ability to re-use battle tactics once per game (meh)
  • +1 to casting for nearby wizards
  • Personal spell: minor debuf (-1 to save, -1 to hit & wound, can't use command abilities). Again, meh.
  • Can probably beat a carnosaur in melee combat
  • Can't set enemies on fire...
• Gaunt summoner:
  • A ranged attack that can actually damage an opponent! wohoo
    • It's only 12". Your squishy summoner does not want to come close to enemies... Boo...
  • Can put units in reserve, then deepstrike the unit (meh..)
  • Personal spell: the deepstrike effect has a longer range and can be closer to enemies....
  • can't set enemies on fire
• Curseling:
  • Can set enemies on fire. Also, it's a pretty decent attack he uses for this.
  • Pretty good combat profile; especially for Tzeentch
  • If it unbinds a spell roll a D6 on a 4+ the enemy wizard loses 1 level (meh..)
  • Personal spell: +1 rend for its melee attacks (boring, and it already has 1 rend)
• Pink horrors:
  • Can set enemies on fire
  • Ranged attack is only 12"...
  • Split: return 2 slain blue horrors to a nearby unit
    • Obvious counter: don't touch the blue horrors until the pinks are dead...

Overal; they're all kinda boring. With the exception of the curseling, and really he is only interesting because it's one of the few Tzeentch units in AoS with decent stats. Also, they're all absurdly squishy, with the excpetion of the curseling. Kairos has 5+/5++, gaunt & horrors have 6+/6++.
This was fine when Tzeentch had summoning, ranged attacks, and decent spells, but all of those mechanics have been nerfed into the ground...

Spearhead:

• Cheating dice
• Kairic acolytes
  • 18" ranged attack
  • "totally not a spell"-ability to give their ranged attack +1 rend

Pretty boring; I assume the acolytes are missing 90% of their rules.

Anyways overal: Tzeentch seems to have been nerfed into the ground. The burning effect has potential, but seems far too difficult to spread with this preview (maybe they get spells/abilities to fix this?). Also, Kairos' personal abilities are a major dissapointment. They're not that powerfull, but more importantly, they also aren't terribly interesting or flavourfull...

O, and the fact that summoning is back to being a glorified deep-strike ability just sucks.

Rather dissapointing....

 

KO:

Faction:

• Deepstrike from reserve
• Big ships provide cover to nearby infantry (weird, but okay...)
  
• Units can hitch a ride on ships,units cannot use charge abilities when this is done

The cover seems odd. Its not like other big units provide cover?
Also, it's not clear if the units that hitch a ride can't charge, or simply don't get bonusses from charging.

Subfaction

• Get an extra artifact.

Instead of spells, artifacts:

• Remove 1 dice from a monster when it charges
• Remove ward saves from a target
• Unbind a spell

All one-time uses, limited by the rule of one. All boring.

Units

• Brokk Grungsson
  • +1 attack for two nearby units
  • Give run and charge and shoot to 3 nearby ships that are out of combat. Again, once.
  • Do some damage to a unit
• Frigate:
  • Still has a lot of guns
  • Units can hitch a ride when it charges, everything charges together. Units get strike first.
  • Bomb enemies it moves over
• Skywardens
  • Still has guns
    
  • Can retreat for free & damage an enemy at the end phase.
• Thunderers:
  • Champion can't replace his weapon (Why? Do champions even still get a bonus?)
  • Can shoot in combat if it didn't move
  • 18" range on its long ranged weapons
  • 5 attacks on its anti-infantry weapon (max 2 out of 5 models)

Spearhead:

• Gets the hitchhiking rule
• Arkanaut company:
  • +1 to hit when targeting a unit guarding an objective
  • Ranged weapons 10-15"

Again; ranged attacks don't really seem nerfed in the slightest (in fact, some of their ranges got boosted from 9 to 10"). So who knows what GW meant with that claim a while back.
I hate that literally all the artifacts are 1 time uses.
Other than that, nothing terribly unexpected.

 

Ogors:

Faction ability:

• Trample damage on the charge
• +2 to run rolls while you haven't used "feast on flesh"
• "feast on flesh" Once per game, roll a D3 for every ogor unit that fought. On a 2+ deal damage to their enemy and heal the ogor unit
  • Can only be used once per game.
  • An enemy unit can only be hurt once
  • Units not in combat when you happen to use it will not got a second chance

"feast on flesh" suffers from more rule of 1 nonsense....

Subfaction:

• Monsters do +1 damage on the charge.

Yay?

Spells/prayers:

• Cause a blizzard on a piece of terrain. Terrain now counts as "obscuring", on a 10+ nearby ogors get a 5+ ward

The wardsave is neat. The normal effect is kind of underwhelming. And obviously there is the problem of not everyone playing with the same amount of terrain.

Units:

• Kragnos
  • Impressive melee profile
  • Being wounded barely makes a difference.... Wound tables suck this edition.
  • Protection against spells, which is confusingly worded. can only be used once per spell ability. So presumably if you cast the same spell twice he can't block the second? Which given the rule of one seems largely irrelevant
    
  • Can't be instantly destroyed, instead suffer 6 wounds
  • Personal rampage ability to do damage on the charge
  • +1 to charge rolls for nearby allies
• Huskard on stonehorn
  • Ranged attacks are all limited to 1 attack. Making its ranged combat pretty insignificant.
  • Ignore the first damage suffered each phase.
    
  • Buff/Debuff all nearby monsters each turn.
• Gluttons
  • 4/4+/2+/1/2 makes for a rather impressive number of attacks
  • +1 control score if you have used your feast ability
  • That's it...
• Gorgers
  • Deepstrike
  • Similar to gluttons, but a bit stronger against infantry. Not by much though since they come with 5 models instead of 6.

So, it's depressing that they have so few interesting characters they're stuck with Kragnos....
The huskards buff/debuff effect to nearby monsters is fun. it's ranged atack is sad.
The gluttons are terribly boring.
The gorgers are also rather boring.

Spearhead:

• Ironblasters & mournfang cannot be setup and have to appear in turn 3.
• leadbelchers
  • Their ranged attack is actually shorter! I think this might be the first one they show with an actual change to their range.
  • +1 to hit for shooting when they haven't moved.

Terrible spearhead ability...

Overal, rather dissapointing as well.

 

FEC:

Faction:

• Get noble deeds points for doing stuff with heroes
  
• +1 attack to nearby allies if a hero has 6 noble deeds.
• Ressurect 1 model to a unit by spending points
• Ressurect half a destroyed unit by spending all of 6 points at once.
• Heal all abhorants

The heal is a bit random. Why is this a faction ability?
The fact that wizards & priest get kinda screwed over is a bit silly. They generate far fewer points than a melee beatstick would.
Surprisingly, no real rule of one limitations

Subfaction

• Fight with 2 units instead of one whenever it's your turn to pick a fight during the combat phase

This is surprisingly good for a faction ability? The hell?

Spells:

• Corpse stampede endless spell
  • 10/5+/3+/-/1 attacks
  • 10 wounds, 5+ save
  • Deal D3 move to units you run over during the movement phase. You can run over a max of 3 units.

10 wounds is the highest we've seen for an endless spell so far. Still pretty squishy though..
The limitation for number of units you can stampede over is lame.
It's attack profile is borderline pointless, it's fully dependent on that stampede.

Units:

• Ushoran:
  • +1 attack aura from faction ability is larger than usual
  • Personal spell: cause an enemy to attack themselves. Funny but usually not terribly usefull.
  • Put strike last on some enemies
  • Give a situational buff to your army (e.g. +1 to save if they are contesting an objective.) 4 different buffs, pick one.
• Marrowscroll herald
  • When in combat choose: 1) give every ally that is in combat with this target strike first or 2) target is infected for the rest of the game, whenever it uses a CA spell or prayer roll a dice, on a 5+ it fails
  • Has stealth
• Cryptguard
  
  • Damaged enemies cannot use CAs
  • When near a hero BOTH get a 5+ ward
• ZOmbie dragon
  • Deepstrike ability
  • After a charge, roll a D6 on a 3+ move 2D6, still end in combat, deal D3 damage to a unit you moved through.

These are actually rather good? And fun? How the hell is this faction focus so much better than the others?

Spearhed:

• Simplified version of noble deeds, limited to the units in that box
• Morbheg knights:
  • Can still charge after retreating
  • Does not suffer damage from retreating

There seem to be a lot of units who can retreat without suffering damage...


Overal; a suspiciously good faction focus.

 

Ratling warpblaster

20" 3D6+3/4+/3+/1/1 crit autowound.
+1 to hit against units with 10+ models
Can be buffed to 6D6+3 attacks, but hitrolls of 1 deal 1 damage to it after it finishes shooting things.

I mean, it's very skaven, but depending on what buffs you can slap on this this could potentially be very oppresive, if a bit gimmicky.

 

This is the first "overpowered" looking faction (to my untrained eyes). Ushoran is still a beatstick. And a double charge from a big monster? Have fun trying to screen your heroes. I hope SBGL doesn't have the same feature on their zombie dragon.

 

I don't think they're necesarly overpowered. But it is the first faction that actualyl looks like it gets some fun tools.

On the other hand; fyreslayers are boring again:


Fyreslayers:

Faction abilities:

• ur-gold, each effect can be used once. Only one can be used per turn:
  • Strike first on all units fighting an enemy that charged (should this not be on all fyreslayers that charged?)
    
  • Deal D3 mortal wounds to every enemy within 10" of a fyreslayer
    
  • 5+ ward save
  • Charge & run
  • Crit(mortal) on all melee attacks
  • You pick them at different points (e.g. the ward save can be activated in the hero phase, the charge & run in the charge phase)

One of the few examples where the rule of 1 limitation makes some kind of sense.

Subfaction

• +1 to wound for infantry units that charged

How boring

Prayers:

• Summon starlight, but -1 to wound rolls. Also -1 to rend if you use the powerfull version.
• Again 12" range...

Not particularly exciting.

Units:

• Runefather on magmadroth:
  • -1 to saves for an enemy
  • +1 to attack for allies (once per game)
  • Save rolls of 1 damage the opponent (Another rule that seems to be inverted, shouldn't this be on a 6?)
  • Anti-infantry on its ranged attack, which already has rend of course...
• runemaster:
  • get tokens for praying succesfully
    
  • Spend tokens to buff the ur-gold abilities (e.g. the ward also gives +1 to saves).
  • Requires 3 tokens so can't use this immeadiatly
• Berzekers:
  • While near a hero, both get a 5+ ward
  • +1 to attack if the hero is wounded
• Molten element endless spell:
  • -1 to wound for enemies that got wounded by it last turn
  • 10 wounds/5+/6++ making it relativly sturdy for an endless spell
  • Fairly solid damage profile for endless spells

Spearhead:

• Simplified runes & enhancement effects
  
• Battlesmith:
  • +1 to save for nearby fyreslayers
  • 5+ wardsave ( once per game)

Fairly boring again. The inverted rules are odd but have some potential I suppose.

 

Another tongue-in-cheek comment, based on the revealed armies so far. 4.0 seems to not like monsters. Several of the revealed heroes do extra damage to monsters. Some do A LOT of damage to monsters.

 

Idoneth

Faction:

• Another deepstrike. Surprisingly common as a faction ability. Was it this common before?
  
• Tides effect. Nothing unexpected; but of course Ebb tide gives them the ability to ignore damage when retreating. There are rather many ways to ignore that damage...

Subfaction:

• +1 to hit for sharks.

Thematic, but boring and minor

Spells:

• A teleport. Not subject to the rule of one?

Units:

• Eidolon:
  • +1 to casting
  • Personal spell: -1 to saves for enemies against melee attacks. Of course, again 12" range
    
  • Rampage: Prevent an enemy from using command abilities... very original.
  • ignore negative modifiers to control score for nearby idoneth.. again very original and exciting.
• Tidecaster:
  • garbage support stats
  • 1 whole ability.
    • Isharan ritual roll (is this different from a prayer?)
    • Three possible effects:
      • Can't shoot at idoneth unless you're close
      • +1 to run and charge
      • Deal an extra D3 damage to enemies that retreat
• Sharks:
  • O look, more anti-X rules on attacks that already have rend.
  • +1 to shark attacks while near a wounded or recently killed unit
    • Fun fact; if you are near say 10 skinks, and you kill 1 skink you get +1 attack. If you kill all 10 skinks you do not get the buff. Bit silly.
  • -1 dice for monsters/cavalry units that got shot by the gun.
    • Does not care if you take the anti-monster or the anti-cavalry gun. Again, bit silly.
• Akhelian guard
  • More anti-X on weapons with rend...
  • -1 to attack for a nearby enemy
  • 5++ if it charged

Spearhead:

• Simplified tides effect
• Namarti thralls:
  • +1 damage against monsters
  • But also: anti-infantry
  • Because that combination makes sense on the same weapon....

This is honestly just a mess, not to mention just uninspired & boring.

 

I don't THINK the deepstriking is as common in 3.0 as it seems to be in these 4.0 reveals. But maybe it is as I think about it. Regardless, several of the revealed armies have a chance to deepstrike now.

 

I don't think they're rules are that boring. Run & Charge and Strike First (if unit was charged) might help them be a bit better in 4.0. The only real negative, of course, is that each Rune is once per battle. Use them wisely.

 

I mostly mean that there isn't anything particularly exciting in there.
Nothing that makes you go "oo, I could do X. That'd be cool." No combo's no clever plays, no funny interactions.

There's only 3 vaguely interesting rules:

• Strike first when charged
• The Magmadroth's ability to deal damage on a save of 1.
• The berserkers interactions with heroes.

The strike first has potential as a nice reversal-type play; but it suffers from being reaaaaaaaaally good against certain armies, but reaaaaaaaally bad against other armies. Which is a design that quickly ends up being really frustrating for 1 of the 2 players.
Also, the awkward restriction of having to call it at the start of a turn makes it weird to play around; especially when combined with the big differences in effectiveness against different opponents.

The Magmadroth is funny; but simply too minor to be terribly interesting. It's mostly just going to be funny to see a fancy model like archeon get defeated by a nat 1 every so often.

I like the berserkers, but sadly they suffer from being the 2nd or 3th unit shown with a variant of this bodyguard rule; so they're not as novel.
Which is a general complaint I have about these reveals; there are so many units/factions/whatevers with basicly the same few rules. There is a ridiculous amount of repetition for what is supposed to be a series of articles showing off the new stuff.

 

It's Fyreslayers, so it fits. Boring rules for an uninspired and boring faction.

 

O true, wasn't expecting much here, fyreslayers have never been particularly inspired and have always largely been wasted potential.

 

Nurgle

Faction:

• Infect enemies with disease
  • Infect an enemy near nurgle unit
  • Infect an enemy near a diseased unit
  • ONLY INFECT 1 PER TURN
  • If everyone is already infected deal 1 damage to all sick units
• Healing a diseased unit removes the disease
• Deal mortal wounds to all diseased units at the end of a turn.

This is just Tzeentch's fire ability. Why would you make these two faction abilities so increadibly similar?
Also, the rule of 1 rears its ugly head again, undercutting the thematic flavour.

Worst of all; I like it. Just why would you introduce this ability twice?

Subfaction:

• +1 damage for your end of turn disease.

Spells:

• Heal a target
• If the target is already full health -1 to wound for attacks targeting it.
• Again, 12" cuz GW clearly hates supports in 4th.

I like that it has dual use. That's neat.

Units:

• Great unclean one:
  • Ressurect destroyed nurgle units with 3+ models at half strength
  • Mortal wounds to nearby units
  • A spell to disease enemies
• Bilepiper:
  • Minor buff for an ally. Pick one of 3 effects.
  • Both offensive and defensive options, which is neat.
• Harbringer of decay
  • -1 to move, -1 to run, and -1 to charge for 3 units. This inexplicably has 24" range?
  • More control score nonsense. This time as a prayer.
• Blightkings:
  • Control score ability... very exciting...

Spearhead:

• Part of your spearhead cannot be setup at the start, similar to the ogers.
  
• Simplified disease mechanic
• PLaquebearers:
  • -1 to hit for shooting attacks

Right, so this one is weird. On the one hand; I like the disease mechanic. On the other hand Tzeentch already has this as a faction mechanic. And having 2 factions with the same mechanic is stupid....

The great unclean one's spell is nice; one of the rare examples of interaction shown in these spotlight. But the fact that it's a personal spell on a GTO confirms that diseases are going to be capped by the rule of 1. Which undercuts the theme...

I like the healing spell.

It is a mystery why the harbringer gets such a massive range compared to other support abilities.

And the rest is just the usual boring stuff.

 

SoB

Faction:

• Timber is now a faction ability. Also, big monsters can avoid it.
• 3 Rampages to do damage
  • 1 just does damage, but requires charging
  • 1 allows you to move a unit but can only be used against monsters and war machines
  • 1 is an anti-horde ability.
• Stop someone from using CA (..sigh...)

Nothing spectacular, but then again, SoB much like Fyreslayers are very one-note. So not unexpected.

Subfaction:

• Give an artifact during deployment, not during list creation

I guess the writers are going for a "change your artifact depending on your opponent" kind of rule; which has some potential? Maybe? If the artifacts are good?

Artifacts:

• Run and charge. Once.
• Summon an endless spell. Once.
• +1 to hit for nearby units. Once
• +1 to attack, rend & damage for your stomp attack
• 1 mortal wound on a save of 6
• +1 attack to melee when IN COMBAT WITH a hero

The passive ones are decent-ish. Nothing exciting though.
Also; the +1 attack against a hero is badly phrased. It's one of those rules where you don't need to actually target the correct opponent to get the bonus...

Units:

• King brod
  • Decent personal prayer
  • Cannot be the target of an enemy rampage
  • Cannot be instantly killed
  • Longshanks
  • Anti-X rules on attacks that will already flatten most opponents anyway..... God this mechanic is wasted on GW.
• Gatebreaker
  • More pointless anti-X rules.
    • Hilariously, an anti-faction terrain. All the faction terrain shown so far is very fragile. I get that it's thematic for a gatebreaker, but what's the point? It has 6/4+/2+/2/4. Does it really need the extra rend against terrain that tends to be in the range of 10 wounds with a 5+ save?
  • Can't be instantly killed
  • Longshanks
  • Pulverising strike: used to be an alternative to regular attacks. NOW ITS A BONUS.
    
  • An ability to deal even more damage against faction terrain. Because GW is really going for overkill hear. Also deal damage to every non-monster unit near it, which is neat I suppose.
  • Fun fact; it only has bonusses/abilities against faction terrain. Regular terrain is safe for some reason.
• Warstomper
  • O look, more anti-X rules on attacks with high baseline power.
  • Same basic rules as the other giant
  • For its club: add 2 attacks for every 5 models in the target unit. So a unit of 40 clanrats gets to face 20/4+/2+/2/2/anti-infantry from one single weapon. Against 10 clanrats its 8/4+/2+/2/2/anti-infantry; so basicly the warstomper is just going to delete your infantry units. And then still has 2 weapons left to kill some other stuff...
    
  • Use enemy models as ammunition for a ranged attack. Only works with models with 3 wounds or less.
• Mancrusher:
  • Can run and charge while near a gargant
  • Slay a random model, again, only works with models with 3 wounds or less.
  • The only giant without anti-X apparently.

Spearhead:

• A rule to turn one of your giants into a general since you only have mancrushers.
• A basic ability for your general
  
• A simplified rampage.
• Mancrushers:
  • Timber rule added
  • reinforcements rule added (really reinforcements? On SoB?)

Anyways; fairly one-note on account of the simple design of their faction. So not unexpected.
A massive waste of the anti-X rules.
I hope to god that pulverising strike will be FAQed to work like the old version; cuz as an extra attack it is just silly.

Other than that; really it's the same problems SoB always have had due to their inherent design flaws caused by creating an army that consists of 3 models in total.

 

Ossiarchs

Faction:

• Their special command abilities are now "regular" abilties.
• This is the same fundamental mechanic as CoS' orders...
  • Differences:
    • CoS 1 hero commands 1 unit. Different units can get different commands. Different heroes can give different commands
      
    • Ossiarch; only 1 hero gets to use 1 command, but can command all nearby units at once
    • CoS commands get bonus effects depending on race commanded, Ossiarchs don't.
  • Effects:
    • +2" move
    • Charge & retreat
    • +1 to charge rolls
    • anti-charge
    • +1 to wound rolls
    • 5++ ward
• Army-wide wardsave, and crit (2 hits) on weapons has been moved to the individual warscrolls

Reasonably fun mechanic, but dissapointingly similar to CoS's commands.
Also, the rule of 1 limitation combined with the short range is a bit odd. A 12" bubble does not feel like it'll be enough to command an entire flank unless you play in really tight formations. On the bright side; there isn't much AoE effects in AoS so I suppose this could work if the objectives allow that kind of playstyle?
Also, it feels more powerfull than the CoS commands. For example, the CoS defensive command also gives a 5++ ward, but comes with strike-last as a punishment.

• Subfaction
  • +1 to infantry wizards.

Why are the subfaction abilities so boring in 4th...

Spell:

• empower nadrite weapons
• No longer subject to the rule of one

Units:

• vokmortian
  • Pick an enemy; for the rest of the turn non-fight core abilities cost 1 CA. (once per battle)
    • So, like casting a spell costs 1 CA then? This is confusing.
  • Personal spell: bind an enemy to an ally unit. Whenever the enemy uses an ability against that ally, deal mortal damage.
• SoulMason
  • Spell: give a unit first-strike
• Necropolis stalkers
  • Pick an effect:
    • Command score nonsense...
    • -1 to hit rolls for attacks targeting this unit
    • No ward save for an enemy attacked by this unit
    • get anti-hero
• Mortek crawler
  • 24/4/4+/2+/1/D3+2/anti-infantry, crit(2 hits)
  • Give an enemy you shot at strike last

Spearhead:

• Some units need to stay in reserve
• You get special ossiarch CA points
• Deathriders:
  • Ossiarch CA:
    • can move over infantry as if it can fly
    • Trample damage on a charge

The faction mechanic is fine, assuming that it actually works in practise and doesn't turn out to be too short ranged/limited by the rule of one. Just a shame it rips off CoS.

Aside from that; the units shown give a very blue-mana vibe. They all have abilities that are designed to interupt the enemy (e.g. remove wardsaves, strike-first/last, increase ability cost etc.). It does result in some more interesting rules than most of what we've seen; but blue-mana stuff does tend to be obnoxious for the opponent to suffer through. Especially since there doesn't seem to be much of a downside to any of those rules for the ossiarchs.

Also; this is one of the first faction focusses, where it's become obvious that some parts of the warscrolls are secretly faction abilities. With it explicitly pointing towards the nadrite weapons. Which I guess gives some hope for the factions with the more boring faction abilities; maybe you get lucky and you have a secret faction ability hidden in your warscrolls.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com...ew-5th-edition-and-the-same-classic-gameplay/

 

I take it you're a Talisman fan?

Personally I've never understood why GW keep going back to this completely non-Warhammer game... I suppose it's a relic of their original industry of trading in RPG stuff.