AoS NEW *rumor*

Lumineth redux. In a vacuum, I don't mind this b/c it is a nice bump for NH since they didn't have any shooting before. Plus, I sort of like the flavor behind why they can shoot through cover. With 5-ghost units (that I assume aren't battleline) it might not be too oppressive?

Lumineth can do it just because... well, elves.

 

Touché. I missed that. Ha ha.
You're right, they should have been 18" at least, if not 24". I guess GW wants to keep them more close combat. Bodyguards sound like a reasonable role based on that.

 

Hoping for bodyguard rules on this unit or maybe some synergies with other models/units, because this profile is very bad lol. A bodyguard rule would be quite good for nighthaunt tho, although I'm basing that on the needs of their old book so who actually knows

 

Given that their name is "Craventhrone Guard" I'm guessing they'll get some sort of bodyguard rule? Although hopefully it's not just for Kurdoss. If so, that will probably be their main purpose, just like how Saurus Guard are just there to guard a Slann, not to be our primary melee infantry. Also, Nighthaunt are not really a shooting army so giving them a really powerful shooting unit all of a sudden would be kind of out of place. I wish that GW would find ways to let armies counter shooting or be better at melee rather than just making everyone into a shooting army.

 

Mwha, what's their pointcost and what else do they have? It's not the worst shooting profile out there.
As some supporting fire, this seems like a fine enough base-line for this unit. Especially considering that Nighthaunt isn't supposed to be heavy shooting.

If this is all they really get, or they're horribly expensive, then this is quite bad.

 

5 models at 2 4/4/-1/1 does less then 2 damage againsed a 4+ save. and we all know 4+ is no longer the standard. this is bad shooting even for bad books. and if your within 12" they most would rather just have had bladegasts and charge

 

Skinks do like 0.1 damage against a 4+ save baseline (or less, maybe the 0.1 was against a save of -, can't remember right now) and they can still be turned into capable shooting with enough synergies.

Anyway, assuming this is just the baseline for these ghosts, and they get some synergies/special rules/have a decent melee profile/are super cheap/some other advantage. This is fine.

If this is all there is to them, then yea, they're quite bad for a new fancy unit.

 

Yeah, Skinks don't do well against 4+ armour on their own at ranged. Statistically speaking, Meteoric Javelins and Boltspitters respectively have 16.7% and 11.1% chances of wounding an unarmoured target per attack, and those gets halved by the 4+ save to 8.3% and 5.5% respectively. Conversely, if you're willing to accept the fact that a skink unit without javelins or boltspitters still has an effective threat range of about 15"-17", Moonstone Clubs are the weapon to take for damage dealing, with a 25% chance to wound unarmoured (12.5% vs 4+ save) per attack before buffs.

 

they also have twice the attacks +6" range and all their damage comes from MW procs and even after layering on 3 separate buffs it's still not very good

it really isn't this is slaangor lvls of bad you could tripple their damage(this would require a +1 to hit attack and wound so 3 separate buffs and thats still only 2 times damage not 3) and it would still barley be passable. even if the whole army gets a MWs on 6s to hit it wouldn't be good and that would be a bonkers broken buff.
if a thing needs masive buffs to be good then you are better off buffing something that is good in the first place. the above mentioned buffs would make them THE SAME as blade gasts are now but without rerolls and they don't need buffs to do it.

 

That is all assuming they have nothing else of significance aside from this one ranged attack....
In which case yeah, if this is supposed to be their main strength, and they have nothing else, then it's a pretty underwhelming unit.

However, without additional information you can't say that these are Slaangor levels of bad. All they've revealed is 1 attack & one special rule. There's far too many unknowns to outright dismiss them at the moment, and what's shown so far at the very least isn't outright useless (it's not great by any stretch, but at least it's not the 0 damager per turn of a skink MSU, and they're guaranteed to get more than just this one attack).

So far the most you can say about them is that they're not particularly exciting, and they need something in addition to this one ranged attack to be considered good in any way shape or form....

 

well DU thats what we are talking about. just to jog your memory.
"As some supporting fire, this seems like a fine enough base-line for this unit." we have established it isn't
"this is bad shooting even for bad books."
you can definitely change the goal posts to is the unit bad but thats not what we you said and it's not the point im arguing. yes this damage on their primary weapon is slaangor bad. can they have some thing that makes them good? sure general speculation is they might get a body guard rule so they can be ablative wounds just like saurus guard.

 

Right, was under the impression it was more of a general "this unit isn't looking great"-discussion and less a "this ranged attack is underwhelming"-discussion.

But yes, in a vacuum it isn't great, especially if you're expecting some significant shooting, though I'd still say it's not the worst. Feels like a better version of the terradons ranged weapons (not entirely sure of that, don't have the warscroll here, do they outperform terradons?) which seems like a decent enough baseline to be functional and not a complete waste of space.

But yes, if you're expecting a dedicated shooting unit then this isn't particularly great, unless they get some special weapon-options like the judicators and this is just their "basic" weapon option.

 

they do the same amount of damage and terradons are bad at shooting.

that was what people where expecting when they saw crossbows.

 

well that's dissapointing, thought they'd pull ahead with the rend. But then all they really get is the 4 extra attacks from being a larger unit. Which isn't impressive....

I guess they technically have rend -2 in certain situations, but that is super dependent on terrain, so that's not great either. I guess GW might be overvalueing that.

 

First look at the nighthaunt v.s. DoK box. Doesn't seem to bad, decent amount of units, shame the factions aren't interesting

 

Special rule review for the new DoK hero.

Not sure how to feel about this one. On the one hand, it's relativly interesting as a rule & probably not too powerfull in most situations. On the other hand, it'll be pretty devestating when she takes out the last 3 wounds on something big that should've survived another round (or longer if it's something super sturdy with healing).

Also, this might make her extremely dangerous against minor foot-heroes, and not just stuff like a skink priest which dies to a stiff breeze anyway, but even the sturdier ones like a oldblood will end up getting killed rather quickly, since against a hero with 7 wounds she'll only really need to do 4 damage if she rolls well on killing stroke.

On the bright side, at least it's a foot-hero that can actually achieve something significant in combat, even if it's only in specific situations...

 

To be honest it's nothing to write home about (thank goodness), as it relies on said heroes to have three or less wounds left in order for it to work, to the point that she could probably just kill them using her normal attacks. It's useful if she fluffed her regular attacks and gives her a second chance to finish off her target, but it's not that powerful at all.

Looking at this and also looking at the reviews of the Nurgle and Fyreslayer tomes it certainly seems as if GW is actively trying to tone down the 'broken-ness' of armies so that they can provide some good combos but nothing that dominates the meta. Currently of course this means those armies are going to get stomped by the armies that had crushing meta dominance at the end of 2nd Edition (Vampires, Lumineth e.t.c), but if GW tones down those armies as well, then it could work out to produce a much healthier game overall, where better tactics wins out over super-builds.

 

I think what bothers me is that while it is extremely niche, it is also extremely reliable when it is relevant.
Creating a couple of scenario's where she'll be doing far more damage than is normal for a foot hero.

For example, an sunblood only averages like 2-ish damage against a 4+ save. Killing blow alone does similar damage.
So she can probably (assuming she gets a similar or better melee-profile) viably kill targets with 5-ish wounds in a single round of combat. Whereas the sunblood will need around 3 rounds to kill the same target.

That's a rather big difference.

Similarly, minor footheroes like a sunblood normally aren't real threats against big scary monsters, even when the monsters are at low HP. But she can.
For example, that sunblood can still realisticly fail to kill archaon, even if he has only 1 wound left (25% survivalrate for archaon at 1 wound? 75% at two?, nearly 99% at 3 wounds?) . Whereas she stands a much much higher chance of killing archaon, without even taking into account her actual attacks.

She's definitly not OP, at least not based of this rule alone, it's far too niche and specific for that. And if this special rule is truly a threat opponents will just shoot her of the table turn one anyway. But it feels like a weird rule.

To be honest, it kinda feels like a special rule that belongs on a fancy behemoth, like how some of them can eat a single model at the end of combat. Feels out of place on a minor foot-hero. Then again, maybe she just turns out to be the first impressive foot hero in AoS and she comes at a 200+ pointcost or something, in which case it makes a lot more sense to have a special rule like this

That'd be nice.

 

That's assuming she could get into one-on-one combats with these targets in the first place, but those sorts of characters are going to be hanging around with big units that can shield them from missile fire and also kill her either before she takes down her target or, if she fought first, kill her afterwards. She also needs to be in base contact with that character, and a canny player can position that character in relation to their unit to make sure she can't reach them.

Nevertheless, it's extremely reliant on the DoK army being able to take Archaon down to three or less wounds in the first place, and if the Gladiatrix enters combat with him earlier than that, Archaon could reliably squish her before he would even fall to 3 wounds or below. Additionally the ability only works on heroes - non-Hero Monsters and units have nothing to fear from it.

In other words, the Gladiatrix really needs to be kept away from any models that can reliably crush her until they are very low on wounds, or strike infantry characters only when their parent units are dead, and then send her into combat to deal the finishing blow. Quite thematic really for cowardly she-Elves who murder the innocent and stab their enemies (and each other) in the back. Opponents on the other hand can simply aim to engage her in combat with units that do not fulfil these conditions, or blast her and her unit with missile weapons - given DoK units die to a stiff breeze that won't be difficult.

I personally don't think she's impressive at all as a foot hero, certainly not compared with foot Auric Runefathers and Runesons who can now pick a retinue unit that can reliably take all the hits for them (this should have been the third Fyreslayer allegiance ability and applicable to all their characters, one of the flaws of the new book), as well as still having beast melee profiles. I'm certainly not worried about what she may bring.