Has that been confirmed? I know that it really hasn't been said either way if they're going narrative or staying in matched play. A lot of people are still thinking that whatever these "battlepacks" are, the main ones might still ban warscroll battalions...
I see it this way, if they are being honest and these "Battlepacks" are actual equal sets of rules for different styles of play. I guarantee you that any shop and most players are going to play with the "Battlepack" that doesn't throw out half their book. However given GW's record I'm pretty sure that the "Battlepack" thing is just a flowery misrepresentative way of saying open/narrative/matched play. Which they are doing for their stupid marketing strategy which they did for 9th edition 40k, where they just name everything with vague buzzwords and then push out rules that pushes a lot of players away. Though the timing on the AoS one is funny as a bunch of 40k players in my area are getting into AoS because of what they did with 9th. So if they do it again with AoS they are probably going to lose some people entirely. However I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are being honest with the implication that there are multiple "Battlepacks" for different types of matched play. Similar to how card games have different formats like MTG's Standard, Modern, and Legacy. One that is their "super competitive" what ever that means for a wargame, format that uses super restrictive list building and only the generic battalions let's call it Standard. One that is the middle ground with some of the new list building rules, but allows warscroll battalions, let's call it Modern. Then one that is like list building is now where it is just a point limit, ally limit, and everything else is fair game, let's call it Legacy. Which I honestly think almost every shop and most players will play the equivalent of Legacy, and hopefully GW will focus their support on the one that actually gets play. Though I could again see them doing something stupid that'd alienate players like pushing their "Standard" even if no one in the community is wanting to play it. Eventually having future books have no warscroll battalions and having every event be a "Standard" event even if the majority of players are doing the "Legacy" mode. Which means some shops will default their events to that new "Standard" Also just a side note, I wouldn't mind the elimination of battalions as much if pushing them out of the game didn't leave most armies out in the cold. As a lot of armies were balanced around their battalions. So to strip the ability to take them away, along with all the changes to command abilities. Leaves a lot of factions screwed completely until they get a new tome. Which for some factions could be 4-5 years. Unless GW actually planned ahead and is going to blitz through them releasing new tomes for each faction within a year of the new edition. Because some factions rely on those layered buffs to a degree that no amount of errata or 3 page spread in a GHB can fix.
This is what I'm really hoping for. Not necessarily that we get a new battletome super-early, but that GW at least stops putting most of their focus on pumping out new factions and tries to update their battletomes within 2-3 years rather than waiting 5+ years for some factions to get updated. I know that we're getting the Kruleboyz as a new army, so of course Stormcast and Orruk Warclans are probably getting updated relatively soon. They'll probably put out Malerion's Umbraneth sometime soon, but I think that might be it for new army rumors. I really hope that they're running out of new faction ideas and they start updating and refreshing old ranges like they've done with Vampire Counts.
They're definitely doing Chaos dwarves too. Plus Lumineth can probably still expect Fire and Water Temple stuff, and maybe Tyrion. Hope they find the time to update old stuff in the next couple years
https://spruesandbrews.com/2021/06/...ing-aos-3rd-edition-launch-box-and-core-book/ Here's basically everything for 3ed's rules, and also the Dominion models
With the rules fully out, im cautiously optimistic on how we will fare. Given our tendency to spam monsters, the hero and monster buffs are quite the plus, however the modifier caps and unit cohesion also hurts a fair bit. Any stupid combos we can spot right off release?
Maybe not that stupid, but being able to throw Stegadon Helm, All-out Defence, Mystic Shield and Armored Crest on a Stegadon Chief makes for a hilariously resilient monster.
Blah. Everything I was worried about is basically true. AoS is just "40k, but fantasy" now. The majority of the rules are just copied over from 40k. They want you playing monsters and heroes (which does sound fun, to be fair), but no more hordes. Just a bunch of little elite squads running around the board. I guess at the very least the core rules are a bit more simplified, but this new edition is going to do the same thing to AoS that 9e did to 40k. Armies that have been built for the new edition already (Lumineth, Soulblight), or those that get updated fast (Stormcast, Orruks), will be kicking butt while armies with older rules that don't play well with the new rules will be in the trash heap until GW gets around to updating their books. Some armies with special rules or subfactions that happen to mix well with the new rules will probably be ok though. Ogors, Gargants, Gristlegore FEC and Seraphon Thunder Lizards all benefit, but any army that relies on buffing hordes or using the same key buff on multiple units is utterly screwed. Everything about this new edition feels so... limited. No big units, no buff stacking, no using the same CA more than once, no giving the same unit more than one CA... It really feels like they want everything to just be based off the warscrolls and get rid of synergies as much as possible. The writer of that review was saying the same thing that GW has been touting, that these rules will somehow force more "variety" in your lists, but in reality all that will happen is that people will spam multiples of the same unit that has the best base warscroll profile and can function the best on it's own. Yes, the lists in this edition will be *different* than what we see now, but there absolutely will not be more "variety" in people's armies. They will just stop using the units they're currently spamming and switch to whatever units fare best in the new rules. What they're actually doing is trying to force you to re-buy your army by forcing a change in unit efficiency. Before, why would you spend the money and points on multiple MSU of super-elite models when you could get better effects by buffing up hordes of cheaper troops? Well now you can't run cheap troops effectively anymore, so you have no choice but to go and buy those expensive models that cost $50-$100 for a 3-5 man unit. And since you can't get most of your strength from "normal" battleline anymore, I imagine GW is hoping to see big sales increases on their more expensive stuff. But I've heard a lot of people say they switched to AoS because they didn't like the direction 40k was taking, now they'll probably lose those people all together. Also, I don't know if GW did it for this reason, but everyone I've seen defend the new coherency rule basically says it's "because it looks better" to have tightly-ranked units rather than spread-out lines. To me, that's just dumb. "Oh, let's make our infantry nearly useless in actual combat, but won't they just look lovely marching across the battlefield?" Utterly stupid. We can't do that. Saves are also capped at +1, but negatives to saves are not capped. Yet another reason good base warscrolls are going to be all-important this edition. Rend was already good, now it's even better. Now, I'm sure some people are going to take this as me complaining that Seraphon specifically are boned with the current rules, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm just saying that I personally hate the entire playstyle I'm seeing from 3rd edition, I think it's a worse game as a whole. If anything, my favorite way to play Seraphon, Thunder Lizards, has gotten better overall. But I was really hoping they weren't going to push for AoS to be even more of a skirmish game than it already was, and that's exactly where they went.
The stupid thing is that with MSU the stacking of buffs is no longer anywhere as problematic as it used to be. Buff-stacking was mostly a problem cuz throwing 5 different buffs on 40 bodies was just ridiculously effecient. But without the necesary bodies this will no longer scale to same absurd levels, solving most of the problems it caused. Meh, there is something to be said about trying to remove some of the "stupid", game-y and unrealistic looking formations people use. Daisy chaining to tag multiple units often looks rather dumb since your unit is now showing its flanks to the enemy and should be cut down easily. Rules that prevent that are honestly not that terrible an idea. However, what makes this line of reasoning kinda dumb though is that these new rules don't do much to actually fix this. Now instead of a daisy chain you'l just see triangle capped daisy chains which arguably looks even stupider. Or maybe a double lined daisy chain, which isn't much of an improvement. So they haven't really achieved much while making the life of melee troops, especially units that should be used in units of 6, needlessly complicated.
Also, praetors are hilarious. It's yet another unit that's saurus guard, but significantly better. Much like the bladelords they can protect more than one specific type of hero (in fact the praetors can protect every SCE hero). And more importantly, they can fully negate damage. Allowing them to survive much longer than either the guard or the bladelords . What is it with GW and constantly releasing better versions of the same type of unit, usually in a relativly short timeframe.
there is now a generic 9" 4+ prayer that does what serpents staff does but on hit rolls and targets a enemy that will be all
So if we are limited to only +1 to saves, does that mean skinks with shields can never benefit from mystic shield? Our skink priest got better, but out starpriest doesn't have the priest keyword so no special buffs to him. Now that we know what battalions do what I wonder what one will be best. Getting another artifact would be nice, I love feathered cloaks on stegadon chiefs.
yep 5+ is the hard limmit yeah but to be fair he is already great in order battle regiment, warlord , command entourage.... oh and the rest are there to.
I'm guessing all of these shield effects will be rephrased to be similar to the warscroll of the new orruk boss. "If this unit has a shield he has a save of x+ instead of y+" to deal with that. Though how long it'l take for them to fix them is anyone's guess... At least we're finally getting some more generic spells & prayers. Which is nice. Just rather a shame that they're fairly uninspired (especially the spells, the prayers are nice enough I guess) and overlap with some special abilities, like the starpriests' serpents' staff.
You think the Thunder Lizards got better? There are the hero and Monster actions, that is nice, but I feel like we are losing more than gaining. Thunderquake is no longer available so the list is losing mobility and output. We can no longer buff Basties with +1 to hit and shoot with the twice, you can no longer buff Stegadons with +1 to hit and extra attacks from Chief. Chief is losing a lot of its possible output. Also defense stacking is much weaker now. Koatls Claw looks to be really boned though, with the +1 to hit maximum and no command ability stacking.
Ah, thanks! I hate it when they mix the images for the rules and then rules in the text. I usually avoid reading the text in the articles since it's so full of nonsense and "allowing you units to be even more stronk and versatile and blah blah great command abilities faster game bleh bleh". However, I'm noticing something odd here. In the image for the battalion abilities for example for expert it says: "...1 unit can receive the all-out attack of all-out defence command without the command being issued and without a command ability being spent". This must surely be in addition to a command ability being used on them and thereby complicating this even further. Otherwise that wording is horrible. Or what does it mean?
unfortunately not they would not you can use the ability on some one else but that battalion ability is just making it free once
Ah, and it doesn't count as using the command ability which means you can use the command ability twice in the same phase but on different units. Gotcha. Still think it's bad wording.