AoS NEW *rumor*

I honestly am annoyed they brought back squats. It was the last thing I enjoyed the most about the nids historical canon lorewise. (The best nid story imho is devastation of baal or enemy of my enemy)Being that they made the squats extinct and by all means squats shouldn't stand a chance vs nids now, since they lost vs the nids when they had better and more equipment available to them. Now I know most players don't care about the lore but damnit I do and that inconsistency is really hard for me to look past.

But I'll get over it in a week nonetheless due to my foaming at the mouth at more wounds for my world eaters that is comming(I'm gonna fuck up so many of my friends horde armies)

 

I mean, they can easily explain some squats surviving. One planet had a massive super weapon that allowed them to fight off the nids, some squats survived cuz they happened to be on a space-ship/planet in a random corner of the galaxy, tzeentch thought it'd be funny to teleport some squats into the future etc.. Obviously they now have a massive grudge against them and have spend the last few centuries/millenia creating dedicated anti-Nid weapons so a tragedy like this never happens again. Hell, have them become a migrating faction with no fixed powerbase that chases down Hivefleet-tendrils for fun.

Not really that difficult to spin this in a satisfying way.

Admittadly, it is GW, so who knows how they'll fuck it up but its definitly possible to fit this into the historical cannon without problems.

 

I've already seen people online saying they're upset the Squats came back because it takes a win away from the Tyranids. I personally don't get it, especially because their "extinction" happened in an offscreen info blurb because GW wanted to discontinue the army. Myself, I'm glad they rectified that. And to be fair, most factions other than the Imperium or Chaos rarely ever get permanent major victories. Just look at the Necrons, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, Orks and yes, the Nids as well. (The abandoned Ynead plot thread stands out) Narratively speaking, factions besides Humans and Chaos basically exist to be diversions from the "main" story of Imperium of Man vs. the Ruinous Powers, or allies of convenience when the Imperium needs saving. I just hope that the army and their new lore is interesting, because other than Tau, Squats are probably the only army I'd be interested in playing.

 

Hey let's not invalidate people over subjective opinions. It's not like there isn't a mountain of evidence of the nids being jobbed out to plot armor and stupid reasons to lose.

 

As a side question, the new rules of prime hunters etc is official and non optional as far as I read that post. What about scenery rules for terrain, mystical arcane etc? Is that something players can opt out to not use if it is agreed upon, though the baseline is that it is "enabled"?

 

Scenery rules have always been a part of the game, but its not unusual for players to agree to play without them since their effect can be relatively minor outside of arcane/mystical.

 

I mean the only faction that isn't is the Tau. But basicly every other faction could conquer the galaxy if they could manage to stop screwing themselves over in various ways for more than 5 minutes.

Kinda difficult to give everyone achievements when they're all super powerfull and noone is supposed to lose.

 

My boy Kutlakh the world killer would of mopped the floor with the swarmlord

 

Completely agree with this. Pre-battle discussion normally has a tentative "so, do you want to play with terrain rules? no problems if you do".

 

don't forget dammed. i get so much use out of that one.

 

A bit more info about the incarnate

It's attacks do indeed look fairly impressive, even at base-level, but it does kinda reinforce that utility seems to largely be ignored in favour of a 400 point beatstick, which is imho a wasted oppertunity. It'll beat everything we got into the dust with relative ease...

I do hope they give some more explanation about what happens when the bound hero dies though. Cuz so far all that's revealed is that it might attack your own troops, but from what is shown so far you don't appear to lose control over its movement aside from the forced charge.

 

Chomping endless spells seems really nice not gonna lie

 

ok this is very strong but also suicided to take. if this thing breaks free and it will break free if your opponent had ANY kind of shooting it is going to tear you a new one

 

Itll survive at least 2 turns unless you can punk the hero. Risky but high reward. It'll definitely see play just not sure how much.

 

i was definitely talking about the hero. that is a major point of weakness

 

Yep, but ways to mitigate. Also not horrible if it's wild either. Ways to mitigate that too.

 

I was really hoping it would be a new unique Endless Spell that everyone could use. Instead, it's a 400 point beast that can crush pretty much anything. Sniping the hero is definitely a weakness, but I think people will still be able to throw it at your army before it hits their own even if you do kill the hero early.

The rules in it's wild state say that it can run and charge, it has as 12in movement, and the player who brought still gets to control it's movement. So if you snipe the hero turn 1, they'll still run the Incarnate towards you and most likely either get it farther than 12" away from their own units, or within range of your units. It also get's more powerful in wild mode, so unless your opponent bound it to a really important hero they'll probably just laugh and watch this thing tear your army apart while they just go for objectives. Most units will get no save against this thing's attacks, so you're just praying it rolls a lot of 1s or say goodbye to whatever target it attacks.

It also has a "can't be killed" rule that makes it very hard, but not impossible, to take out turn 1. The rule says the roll takes place in the battleshock phase, so I assume that if you somehow manage to damage it in your opponent's turn through overwatch or some other way, you can possibly bring it down. Still, it has another random death mechanic that works like Kroak's, which I already dislike. Sometimes you'll bring it down by dealing a few damage points per turn, but it looks like you have to deal at least 10 damage to it to make it likely to go down a state.

I guess the positive is that armies that are lacking in big beatsticks will love it, and armies that already have plenty of damage output will avoid it. Still, I can see some crazy combos like taking Morathi and this thing, ensuring that you just simply can't snipe the controlling hero for a long time, giving the Incarnate free reign to rampage through the opponent's army. Or just binding it to a Maw-Krusha or some other really big, tough hero and just laughing as you get ripped apart by two massive monster. I don't like the anti-Endless spell mechanics. You can already dispel them pretty easily, so having this thing literally get more powerful by feeding on them just seems like GW is telling you not to take Endless Spells.

All in all, this thing seems like a melee army's dream. I buffs your casters while debuffing others, lets your friendly units get all-out-attack in an AoE, lets you re-roll run and charge rolls, prevents units from retreating and is a melee blender on top of that. Is it worth 400 points? I'm honestly not good enough at AoS math to say. But I personally do not think this thing is going to be fun to play against or with. Which is a shame, since I thought the terrain set looked cool and assumed that we were getting a new universal Endless Spell.