Kroak projects power yes, and over quite a large range. But he isn't physically controlling that space. And you can contest this power projection. Sending in defensive units, sending in cannonfodder, sending in something scary that forces Kroak to retreat, bringing powerfull anti-magic stuff, are all ways to deal with Kroak's power projection. On the other hand 40 Grots aren't so much projecting power as much as they are simply physically in the way. And you can't reallycontest their physical presence outside of murdering them all. And even killing them only really starts achieving something when the "right" models get removed. E.g. if there's 4 rows of grot, and the first 2 rows control an objective than any losses in the 3th and 4th row are irrelevant. It can make it feel very hamfisted. Also, it doesn't help that it is just quite literally a massive chunk of the board, it just feels kinda weird to be able to daisy chain a single unit to cut the board almost completly in half and similar nonsense. At least if it was 4 units of 10 daisy-chaining like that you could break through their lines with relative ease by focusing on a single weakpoint, but with 1 unit of 40 and the losses taking place at the end of the line this doesn't really work. It's a minor gripe though. If they are switching to a more 40k-ish systemI feel like they really should've started to show us more interesting terrain by now though. That might help sell these anti-terrain rules they keep pumping out a bit more. Right now they just feel kinda irrelevant for a good chunk of players. I mean, they've been introducing anti-terrain stuff at the very least since our new battletome with the "extend astromatrix" spell & coalesced "primeval domain" and those weren't exactly well recieved due to their lack of use. A lot of the newer stuff isn't much better. Honestly this alone is reason enough to change it.
*SPOILERS* If Kragnos wasn't there I don't think destruction would have even breached the walls because Kroak's magical ward destroyed the battering ram that Gordrak made out of the god beast skull. And then he opened a massive portal that teleported Kragnos away to buy time for order to recover from the assault and come up with a plan. That seems pretty good to me, it certainly could have been a lot worse. It would have been cool to get some more engagement or dialog from him with the other forces of order, that's my biggest gripe
Oh he definitely did a great job. He just seemed a bit passive except for those two acts. The most important of which had to be suggested to him by Morathi of all people
To be fair, if Kragnos wasn’t there then Kroak wouldn’t have been there either, his presence actually saved the city through that. Though at the same time the Slaanesh elements wouldn’t be present either, so the city would be in a much better place to defend itself
It could have been so much worse. Kroak actually effortlessly dunked on his enemies, at least. I feel bad for Slaanesh fans. SPOILERS --------------------------------- The twins' debut into the world was so lame that the epilogue has Be'lakor chastising them for having such a lame debut.
Rule reveals for some of the new SCE. A rather absurd 2+ save, rather good weapon baseline (3/3+/3+/-1/2). It is in line with the lumineth and their perfect stats though. Also for some reason they can trample on the charge much like ogers/stegadons/etc. bit odd. Fun little rule on setup though, dealing damage when they are setup for the first time. Could make for some nice shenanigans, plus it's nice and fluffy as SCE are supposed to arrive as thunderbolts.
remember they are only 3 models so with alpha thats 10 attacks at 2 damage average 6 not all that much for a elite unit
6 damage from a round of melee combat yeah. But also an additional 1.33 mortal wounds from deepstriking on everything in range, another 3-4 mortal wounds from the charge. They do plenty of damage on the turn you deepstrike them using say the SCE allegiance ability, which seems to be the main idea. And sure, still not extreme damage. But it is more than sufficient to take objectives or threaten a flank. Deepstrike them on a rear-line objective and you've probably killed whatever was guarding the objective, especially if you can do it towards the end of the game when the opponent has suffered significant losses and is starting to be spread thin, and put a unit with a 2+ save on top of it. The only thing they're really lacking to hold the objective is model count. But at the same time, it's not like an average MSU is actually going to take back the objective for more than a turn. So simply sending say a MSU of skinks to take it back is pointless. Forcing your opponent to either surrender that objective, or send significant forces to actually go and retake it. I doubt they'l be overpowered, or even all that popular. They're probably going to be too expensive for that as elite units. They're also far too slow. And their main gimmick is the powerfull deepstrike, which you can only use once. But I wouldn't be surprised if people'd take one or two units to deepstrike and steal the occasional objective, or force an opponent to split up their forces.
I like it and, for once, it makes sense. I believe that actually SCE need some love, they have fallen back dramatically.
they have 1" clearance so one guy maybe two if they are lucky if they make a 9" charge which in a army with very little + to charge is unlikely they are paladins all the other paladins cost any where from 170 for 3 to 210 for three lets take the middle ground and say 190(and thats being very generous). so you are paying 190 for a unit of 3 that if every thing goes right deals 11.66 damage. they are underwhelming. if you let the deep strike army drop into your back lines you are playing the game wrong. they cant do that as if you leave them in the clouds to long they die and if you do leave them up there then you are fighting with a reduced vertion of a not very good army anything can just walk onto the OB and just take it from them. you don't even have to fight. why is it pointless? if you are guarding your OB well they are barly on the edge IF they take it from you you can just stand on the other edge and have a 45% they don't make their 7" charge these guys are not scary. they are very slow melee anvils that are trying to be shock troops
They re-roll charges after their deepstrike, giving them a fairly decent shot at it. You're too focused on their general effectiveness. A 190 point unit doing 12-ish damage under good conditions isn't brilliantly cost-effective no. But you're not going to use them cuz of their brilliant damage output. You use em because 12-ish damage, deepstriking on a weak flank, taking (or at least threatening) an objective & being powerfull enough to require actual effort to be moved off said objective makes for a nice little unit to annoy your opponent with and goad him into making mistakes, even if it's just using the threat of that deepstrike possibly happening. First off, the fact that your opponent has to play around the potential of this deepstrike is valuable in itself. Secondly, as the game goes on it becomes more and more difficult to cover all possible deep-strikes. Unless you're absolutly dominating your opponent your army will suffer losses and inevitably an opening will arise for a deepstrike at some point. You're not always going to perfectly cover all your flanks, no matter how good you are, and dismissing that as "you're playing the game wrong" is just silly. A MSU of 10 skinks can walk onto it, sure. And then combat starts and ~8 skinks immeadiatly die, and unless you're willing to burn a CP the last two probably flee and regardless the SCE hold the objective again. And most other screens covering your backline you can quickly run on there won't fare much better. So no, simply walking onto it with minor forces is rather pointless, you'l need to dedicate something significant to taking it back. Yes, this is what's going to hold them back; it's very difficult to use them optimally. And even when playing optimally they're only really good for a very specific situation. And since meta-tournament play revolves around playing optimally, yeah you're probably not going to see a whole lot of them there. Outside of the occasional player holding them in reserve for a last-minute objective steal. In more casual play this'l be less of a concern, but even there they're a bit too specific and difficult to pull off. But when it is pulled off it'l probably cause some ranting as there's little an opponent can do to fix things once these have found an opening to use. I like their deepstriking focus. It's fun & flavourfull with enough impact to be relevant if you're clever, but limited enough that it's not immeadiatly overwhelming. Less of a fan of their 2+ save though. I wish that wasn't needed.
I'm so happy right now. The priest fight has been something I've been asking and a proponent of for the longest time. Also, Bound is likely to change. Also, wow, new prayers for all Priest acting like spells? The Return of Ward Saves as a thing in the rules? Jebuz.
I'm guessing we get to control our spells outside of that 30" bubble? Or multiple per wizard (or both). And steal the spells of others? Though even in the best case scenario this would significantly undercut bound endless spells as special mechanic. So I'd hope we'd get something to make up for that. Which means an important mechanic in our tome is already outdated, yay. Guess we're not allowed to ever have a relevant up to date tome for any significant amount of time...
I'm just going to guess that our Bound Endless Spells never go wild. As far as the Annihilators...we're not really concerned about that, are we? It's stormcast, and they need all the help they can get.