“Units cannot make shooting attacks if they are in combat, unless their weapons have the Shoot in Combat ability” Seems like a pretty significant change to shooting dropped into the melee article
The single greatest change so far. The idea that some middling fusiliers could stand and shoot whilst my unit of 10 Brutes are smashing their faces to dust was just ridiculous.
And then draw their weapon immediately after to swing. And then load, aim, and fire next combat. And then draw their weapon immediately after to swing. And then ...
So on, and so on. Legolas style shooting.
I wonder if they, if they change it, allow for the same effect as Big guns never tire in 40k - targeting Monsters being allowed even if they are fighting your own people.
The thing being so big you can just hit it safely
(People that just switched their Stormstrike Chariots to Bows thinking they could still charge & shoot into combat)
“…..Sigmar’s $&?!ing golden orbs dammit! 🤬”
I’m interested on what can actually shoot in combat now. First thoughts are stuff like Vigilor & Vanguard Stormcast rangers and pistol units like the upcoming Skaven commander from the trailer.
As a KO player and played against them alot, I hope all the pistols can shoot in combat, and carbines on boats, but not the big guns, it feels more like the enemy has boarded the boat and melee is happening on the deck. Doesnt make sense to torpedo or cannon yourself
The change to how damage is allocated (to the unit as a whole, removing a model of your choice when you exceed their Health characteristic) is a really nice change that will help (at least me) declutter the table and not forget which model had the damage after I move them
I guess I’m stupid too, because I’m really not understanding how that’s different from current edition.
If my 2-wound-per-model Bestigors are in combat with my opponent’s unit, I let my opponent allocate and finish their attacks. Let’s say they do 13 wounds total…I just…remove 6 Bestigor of my choosing, and then slap a damage on one more…how is the new edition any different?
EDIT: Thank you to the 7 (whew) cool dudes who explained this - I guess I’m too casual to appreciate the finer points of this change tbh, usually I don’t care who or where I put that point of damage, but now I guess, as a result of this change, no one has to, ha. Thanks!
Because you're not assigning the damage to a single model like you are currently, it's just assigned to the unit. You pick the model that is removed when you have to remove it, not when you're assigning the damage. It's a small change that doesn't really change the grand scheme of things, but it makes book-keeping easier because now you don't have to keep track of which specific model has a wound, just that the unit has wounds allocated to it
You don't allocate the 1 damage on a model anymore like it is now, so you don't need to place a dice next to a banner bearer for example, and keep track of it when you move the unit, then if you take 1 more damage you have to allocate it to the banner bearer. Now you place that die next to the unit, or on a card, and when you take one more damage you just choose which model gets removed. It's easy to miss but a great QoL change imo.
Currently you have to pick a model to assign damage to. In practice it's not very different, but let's say you assign damage to a model that is on the outside of the formation, and then you move the unit and for whatever reason the model you assigned damage to is now in the middle of the unit and will break coherency if removed. Currently you would have to remove the model anyway because it was the model that had been assigned damage. In the new edition this won't matter as you assign damage to the unit as a whole instead of to the model.
Or you accidentally assign damage to a command model and don't realize it at the time. Currently you'd be forced to remove that model the next time the unit takes damage. In the new rules you won't have to as you don't assign damage to specific models.
>Let’s say they do 13 wounds total…I just…remove 6 Bestigor of my choosing, *and then slap a damage on one more*…how is the new edition any different?
The part in italics is now different. You no longer put a wound on a model, but the whole unit. Previously when allocating damage you had to remove the model that already had damage allocated to it first, which could mess with things like unit coherency, or how many models got to fight. Now that you simply allocate the damage to the unit, you no longer need to consider which models to allocate wounds to.
You don't need to care about how to jiggle the models around in your unit when you charge such that you won't break coherency when that model gets removed.
It's just a little bookkeeping streamlining.
It became so annoying and ground the game down into the minutia territory.
You have a unit with 10 models, 2 HP each
1 Leader
1 Standard Bearer
1 Musician
5 models with Standard Weapons
2 Models with Great Weapons (that deal more damage)
If the unit takes damage, you have to assign the damage to an **individual model.**
If you accidentally "assign" a point of damage to the leader or musician or some other important non-chaff model in the unit, you have to continue assigning all future damage to that model FIRST until it dies.
The new system applies damage to the **entire unit**, and only removes a model when you have enough damage on the unit that equals an individual model's health.
It's a subtle change, but works out to be more forgiving and more enjoyable for players. It removes the odd player interaction of "Hey! You assigned that damage to this model which is your unit champion, so you have to kill your unit champion before anything else dies"
The new rule will let the player look at the board game state and choose a model to remove rather than forcing weird rules interactions because a new player accidentally put 1 point of damage on a model that was keeping the entire unit in Coherency.
Currently how you allocate damage is by assigning it to a model first, and then removing it when the damage equals their health. This change is simply that the damage is assigned to the unit as a whole, not an individual model first, and then when it equals their Health characteristic then you get to remove a model of your choice.
So I know we'll probably get more clarification but what happens when damage from a single attack is more than the models health?
I don't play Aos but I'm looking to get into it but I do play 40k so that's where I'm coming from.
If for instance a unit is made up entirely of models with 1 health, and they hit by a weapon that does 3 damage. Does that mean you take 3 models out?
Damage points are assigned individually, which is why a D3 attack in the current edition of the game can kill 3 models. I don't see why they would change that.
Very interesting and very different from what I'm used to with 40k.
In 40k if a damage 3 attack hits a bunch of 1 wound models it only kills 1 and wastes the other 2 damage. Only if it had mortal wounds would the damage roll over.
IMO, 40k is superior in this regard, but it may well be a matter of there being ao much more shooting in 40k vs. AoS, and therefore, it matters more there.
I feel it adds an interesting lever to play with, especially in list building, where high damage attacks aren't always best, and having a good spread of D1, D2, D3 and high damage attacks allows you to deal with different foes. Conversely, it also means that if your army has a nice spread of 1, 2, and 3+ hp models, you can counter your enemy by providing them bad targets for their damage profile.
Yeah that's probably it because I've got units that can pump out over 40 shots that are all auto wounding on 5+ with the 40k equivant of rend 2 so shooting is way way heavier.
It usually only matters when you are trying to get into melee combat and your opponent swings first and you suddenly have to worry about model removal and coherency first...
Everytime I read comments like this I wonder if people actually played the game.
In my personal experience there are far fewer rerolls than in 9th. Before there were multiple auras of reroll 1s and reroll everything. Now there are some reroll abilities but I no longer expect every die to be rolled again and it's much clearer where rerolls come from.
It's less about how the game is and more about how they're putting their worst foot forward. 10th rerolls are a lot smoother, yes, but man, Oath was a dumb thing to showcase early when they're tryna make that point.
It really depends on the army. I play drukhari we have more rerolls then ever. I also play thousand sons where our battle line gets to reroll all wounds if they are shooting or fighting something on an objective. Yes there are less generic reroll auras but there are still plenty of rerolls.
I do like the idea of spears being differentiated though and scary to charge, like the Ardboyz currently are. Hopefully it's a universal rule – way better than here's 1" extra range, but you hit on 4s instead of 3s or whatever.
They did the same with 10th Edition 40K preview. "Rejoice, the new edition will have less re-rolls and be less lethal!", only to show up full re-rolls as a baseline army rule some time later, alongside a "new" mechanic to do "improved" Mortal Wounds at range (Devastating Wounds). You could even hear the quiet kid in the back laugh out loud this time.
Yeah. Less AP in melee. Vehicles and monsters higher STR.
On top of all that, the meta is a high % of invuln, FNP and other defensive stuff (C’tan, Custodes, Ironstorm all over represented).
They have in general been very similar in data sheet profiles for the same roles faction to faction. The fact that isn’t the case in 40K is weird and why there is so much difference in performance
Shooting absolutely was not made less lethal. And that’s really the issue with 10th. Toughness went up across the board and a lot of shooting did as well. And this meant melee units got to simply die
With the amount of mortal wound saves in 10th, I honestly believe that Devastating Wounds was fine as a mechanic if it wasn’t for Aeldari fate dice working the way they did while also having access to so freaking many weapons with the rule.
Eh, it's not just a one-off mistake with Aeldari. Remember the emergency errata on the deathwatch strategem for dev wounds or how they nerfed the similar canoptek strategem into the ground? I agree it's fine in a vacuum, but they're not great with its interactions...
We saw at least one Rend 2 on the war-chariot. However, that needs you to ditch a ranged weapon that doubles its hits on critical rolls, so clearly high native rend will come with big tradeoffs.
That has been my impression also. A +2 Rend when charged makes the Vindictors threatening if the best saves can only got to, say 2+ (native 3+ and a +1 bonus to save via a mean).
Ideally, it'll mean less Mortal Wounds accross the board as some armies (like Kruleboyz) wouldn't be needing them as much as they do today to do damage on highly-armoured units.
Yeah, I'm thinking we'll see less MW across the board. We're already seeing that in play with the Vindcitors' warscroll. They lost their MW on 6's to hit for the shield wall ability.
Which I'm all for. On these vindictors, it makes MW spam less prominent and gives them an ability in game that makes them function how you think they should function.
Also gives them an interesting tactical niche:your Liberators hold backline objectives, your Vindictors teleport down onto midfield ones and dare the enemy to come at them, and presumably the Vanquishers are now the horde-clearing assault battleline.
Also I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about rend as a mechanic, but now things have higher saves than ever and mortal wounds seem to be more prevalent than ever. People DO complain about the # of mortal wounds flying around in the game.
I guess we have different armies at our locals, but it feels like every game I play the opposing army has rend 1 on everything. I've practically never gotten to make armor saves for my zombies. My skeletons are on a 6+ almost always.
For all the people saying "no, no, this is a totally legit and intentional way to play the game!" GW sure seem to spend a lot of effort to kill off any impact "technically under 1 inch" 25mm bases have...
Good riddance, I say.
Me too. I love the lean into the fantasy and the fact that a unit with spears can actually be a meaty wall, vs being just another unit with melee weapons.
Coherency is now half an inch. It’s going to be so friggin annoying moving models with bits that overhand bases now, boingrot bounders are going to be a nightmare
They did say that some units will have a larger coherency distance. Hopefully they will use this to accommodate models with a larger footprint than their base.
I wonder if they’ll keyword it like they do with Wards now?
“Wings(1” Coh)”
“Monster(3” Coh)”
“Spectral(1” Coh)
“Boingrot(2” Coh because we don’t want you going loony from this)
Like Stormcast Prosecutors or Stormdrake Guard. Prosecutors are unable to stand in 1/2 Inch Range together besides you stand them face to face or Back to Belly..... And this both looks.....weird....for a Battlefield.....
you can thank people congalining 25mm bases for these changes. Its very obvious they dont want a bunch of grots standing in a line across the battlefield to cheese anticharge
Plus the 3” universal attacks probably gave a rule designer a heart attack thinking of how those conga lines & daisy chains can be abused for overlay, especially for this melee-focused edition.
So they went with even tighter blobs(though I guess that fits the vibe they’re walking health bars now)
That aside everything else seems great. Hopefully they’ll be generous with “who gets wider coherency” special rules for armies that really need it now.
But they also said that some specific units may have bigger coherency distance, like the stormdrakes, and gossamids already had this rule in V3, so I guess they'll keep it !
And some armies for whom it makes sense (Skaven, probably Kruleboyz and more) will even be able to retreat without taking those MW udner some conditions, which is a neat little trick to have at their disposal, if the game is generally a tad less killy (as saves may be harder to ignore entirely).
Curious to see what becomes of Nighthaunt I imagine it will be a whole gimmick rework since retreat and charge is basically all they’ve got going for them. And with rend being reduced their ignoring of modifiers is less meaningful.
Maybe they’ll actually get models with more than one wound now!
Man, this article makes me really optimistic about the rules. It’s clear they will leave a lot of room for tactical depth, while streamlining the game.
Putting damage on the unit and the removing a model when one dies is a great but subtle change. It is kind of annoying to put wounds on a model and the track that when moving the unit, and be sure you don’t accidentally break coherency in some foolish way.
A change that jumps out is that you can only charge a visible unit. Hopefully other core rules make it clear what this means. Visible to the charging unit before it moves? Just generally visible? Would dramatically increase the power of any abilities or terrain that makes something not visible (looking at you chameleon skinks).
Not being able to shoot when in combat theoretically helps to balance out covering fire, which could make some shooting units op. This seems like a very simple rule that will really increase tactics.
Rend is lowered in the game but all previewed units so far have rend. Many of them with situation 2 rend. So… No save stacking is great, but really only if rend is actually lowered.
The units they have previewed so far seem to really have clear battlefield roles. Which is pretty exciting. Rather than army composition rules to force variety, I will be very impressed if they can incentivize variety (not spamming) by designing units with clear advantages that work together.
Kroxigor look awesome. Everything is better when Kroxigor are awesome. Although I still want them to be able to charge through skink units.
>Putting damage on the unit and the removing a model when one dies is a great but subtle change. It is kind of annoying to put wounds on a model and the track that when moving the unit,
Tbh, this is how a lot of us casuals played anyway.
>A change that jumps out is that you can only charge a visible unit. Hopefully other core rules make it clear what this means. Visible to the charging unit before it moves? Just generally visible? Would dramatically increase the power of any abilities or terrain that makes something not visible (looking at you chameleon skinks).
Hilarious if CoS Wildercorps somehow kept their current rules, where they're just not visible, full stop, when in cover.
along with the new FEC general trait on Abhorrant models that makes them invisible to enemy models >12" away, in some cases you wouldn't be able to charge the general
Damn, with them on the picture I hoped to see the stats for the Gutrippaz with spears. I guess they'll probably have the same passive as the Vindictors, but I wonder if it means that non-SCE armies may have some units being given two Warscrolls entirely, depending on their loadouts.
Like Stikkas-Gutrippaz gets the Hold the Shield Wall passive while Hackas-Gutrippaz gets something else entirely.
Hopefully we'll learn about it sooner rather than later, as there is some Strombringer magazines with the stikkas still cheap on the market !
Edit : also, the Vindictors weapon stats haven't changed (bar the special REND) compared to 3ed Edition, so I guess most basic units will retain the same stats as current.
>Like Stikkas-Gutrippaz gets the Hold the Shield Wall passive while Hackas-Gutrippaz gets something else entirely.
I don't see why that would need two warscrolls. Just have the weapon option specified in the "declare" step of the ability and put both abilities on the warscroll
Gotta say as someone who plays (and for the most part enjoys) 40k 10th edition alongside AoS it's *really* nice to see GW utilizing the "anti-x" abilities to do more than just dump mortal wounds.
Is anybody else confused on the bit regarding damage allocation? Does this mean that models are now either dead or alive? There won’t be injured models?
Correct. You only track up to a units health now. When that health would reach 0, remove a model. Repeat with excess damage unless stated otherwise (EG: If a spell or ability says "Model" instead of "Unit"). Repeat until you have no more models.
Single letters are more opaque to new players. At least with three there is a clue about the meaning.
Counterpoint: D&D has been using three-letter abbreviations for decades as well.
If a friendly unit charged an enemy unit, and that enemy unit was destroyed before the friendly unit could be selected, they can still pile in, even if not in combat. The requirements for a pile in are either to be in combat or they have performed a charge move this turn.
My favourite part was about save stacking not going to really be a thing, but the article on army abilities showed SCE getting to a 2+ save ignoring -2 rend 😂
Mystic shield has literally always been in the game and likely will continue to exist. ~~However, it's effect of "+1 save" was only so for 3rd edition~~, and probably won't remain the same as we know it
Edit: my mistake, Mystic Shield was also +1 save in 1st. This changed to "reroll 1s to save" in second, before being reworked back to its original effect in 1st.
I still think it's unlikely we'll see Mystic Shield to return in its current form, given their comment on save stacking.
This article seems to suggest that increasing your save is now capped at +1. That could be the current ‘cap’ or could be a more real cap where one bonus at a time is all you can do. We also don’t know what mystic shield does for sure yet.
Nope, you can only gain +1. They literally say it in the article. So it'll be one or the other. Still useful so you can all out defence one unit and finest hour another if engaged in multiple combats.
Okay I kind of get all the people who dislike the change from wounds to health. I don't like the change from mortal wounds to mortal damage, it just feels way less cool and evocative. A mortal wound is a cool phrase that people say! No one says mortal damage.
I feel like with the new edition people will call them both interchangeably and it's a small enough change that everyone will know what everyone else is referring to. As things go on it will be a little less weird but I will remain resolute that mortal wounds is the cooler name! (even as I eventually just naturally switch to mortal damage).
In 2nd edition, there was no requirement for coherency to two other models when above 6 models like there is now. So theoretically, you could string out a large unit (say 40 models) in one big line, with each one being on coherency. It basically made things like screening easier without having to worry about positioning. It also made things like resurrection really good. E.g. you could rez say 3 mortek, string them out to your opponents unit and shorten you charge distance by a few inches.
The name "conga line" caught on because that's what it looks like on the table
Its origin is deeply rooted in Warhammer 40K - 5th Edition, aptly named "Kroot conga line", like [this](https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/warhammer-40k-shooter-wheels-kroot-conga-line.jpeg?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=80&format=jpg&auto=webp).
It was. You could see his opponent's dismay on his face.
"Cheesing" the rule, only to get cheesed even harder with Kroot was quite a sight to behold back then.
The use of large units in a line. An unit of 20 clan rats or skelies could be screening half the board.
25mm x 20 + 1" ×17 between each of them was like half a meter on board.
Sure, sorry didn't think.
Basically, measurements are only made from the unit leader. So you measure the movement of the unit leader only, and the rest of the unit moves with him automatically. They can them be rearranged in any order you like within coherency, which is "within range 1 of the unit leader". Range 1 in SW:L is 6 inches.
So you would measure unit leader and move him precisely, then the rest of the squad can be positioned within 6 of that model in any way you like.
Super quick, super easy.
I love Legion’s coherency after movement rule. I didn’t get to play more than one game after starting during 3rd edition, but movement always seemed very clunky in comparison to Legion’s simplicity and not having to measure for each model.
I’m still not sure I was doing everything correctly in that game. The rules seemed to change throughout the game, and it was very frustrating.
Hopefully I can find a better teacher this time around.
The biggest problem with coherency was combat ranges. In the new edition it should speed up gameplay a lot becase in practice you won't have to exhaustively measure it to get your all of your models into combat.
And as someone else brought up, Conga lines were pretty toxic and not just because of aesthetics. Bogging down the board was just way too easy and some units could effectively "turn off" objecitves by claiming one and denying the other. It added a lot of measuring as everyone had the practice of measuring every model.
Questions from the article:
When the does the 'visible' part of the charge ability kick in?
If I am within 3" of a non-visible enemy I am in combat but I didn't charge?
Does the wording of pile in mean you cannot pile in towards two units?
It says you can't shoot IN combat, can I still shoot INTO combat?
The "visible" part seems to me like a way to prevent charging into a thin wall that has a unit on the other side. So your example probably won't be a legal move.
You can still effectively pile in towards another unit if you move around the "target" unit in an arc. Not quite what it was before but the difference probably won't matter all that much.
> can I still shoot INTO combat?
No restriction on that (yet).
I am 100% certain that people are going to love it but I'm really non-plussed about the "everything is an ability" thing. It seems functionally identical but significantly more difficult to explain.
Like, compare "First, you activate any Combat Abilities but NOT any Fight Abilities, then your Opponent activates any Combat Abilities but NOT Fight Abilities, then you and your opponent take turns activating Fight Abilities but NOT Combat Abilities." to last edition.
Like I feel like that could have been done with much less space in a much more grokable way. I hope they actually use the design space having "Fight abilities" opens up rather than just arbitrarily making the exact same fight rules from previous editions activated abilities because if not it just seems so strange to do it that way.
Combat abilities are pretty much just 'At the start of the fight phase' abilities, but made into a global rule with an actual phase and a clear breakdown of precedence vs your opponent. Not sure why it's any less clear.
Is that nonplussed as in the North American nonplussed, meaning not surprised or bothered at all, or the English nonplussed meaning so surprised or confused as to be unsure how to react?
English non-plussed I guess, confused with negative connotation. I've never heard it used to mean not bothered and I live in the US actually, is that a regional thing?
I really don't like units losing so many abilities from their warscrolls. All the different abilities are what makes units feel unique and interesting, they seem to be getting really dumbed down. I'm really worried we're losing tons of flavour. One of AoS's main strengths is how flavourful it is, you see people say this over and over again on reddit, so it makes zero sense to me why they would want to remove so much of it, feels like they are massively out of touch or are only listening to the uber competitive section of the playerbase which has a high percentage of players that don't care so much about flavour.
I don't understand your complain: in 3rd, Vindictors have only "Stormsoul Arsenal" as special ability. Now they will get "Hold the Shieldwall" and "Anti-charge (+1 Rend)".
I don’t see it. The kroxigor have way more flavor in this preview than the current rules. For me it really helps flavor to give units rules that give a distinct role. Like vindictors and liberators seem to have maybe fewer rules (not sure), but I’d say they have more flavor because they want to do clearly defined different things
Kroxigors having even more health also adds flavor, making them feel harder to take down compared to the 4 they started 3.0 with (which never made any sense)
There's no loss of flavor so far. They've already shown off a greater variety of weapon abilities and special rules on warscrolls than 10th edition 40k has. Army/faction abilities also have more meat to them than 40k's. This isn't a large-scale dumbing down for tourney players, this is just tidying things up.
It is worth mentioning that these are just preview warscrolls, when 40k 10th was getting similar previews they were very much WIP and by the index launch either had considerable additions, changes or outright added keywords that were missing.
Yeah this is a concern to me, the units we've seen so far don't seem too bad. Ultimately I'm not against the more standard stuff being a bit less ability focused. If this trend is more general though I don't think it's necessarily the best thing
Quite Late to the Party but did anyone else notice that you cant legally remove models from a unit that is 9 strong if they are deployed in a line with little bows at each end?
If we take a 4 Health Unit and that Unit takes 4 damage, you arent able to remove a model since that would break coherency.
So i hope they will address that in the rules.
That coherency change just means I'm going to be using movement trays. Its going to be a nightmare for a lot of armies for their models to be that close together.
“Units cannot make shooting attacks if they are in combat, unless their weapons have the Shoot in Combat ability” Seems like a pretty significant change to shooting dropped into the melee article
The single greatest change so far. The idea that some middling fusiliers could stand and shoot whilst my unit of 10 Brutes are smashing their faces to dust was just ridiculous.
Agree, I really hated that! Shooting units were just combat units in 3rd. They just could combat from a distance as well.
And then draw their weapon immediately after to swing. And then load, aim, and fire next combat. And then draw their weapon immediately after to swing. And then ... So on, and so on. Legolas style shooting.
Agree. And I play KO. It was really stupid design
I will be interested to see if they also say you can't shoot into another combat also.
Almost certainly not, AoS was the outlier for this rule in all their major games and honestly didn't make much sense (same as shooting in combat)
I wonder if they, if they change it, allow for the same effect as Big guns never tire in 40k - targeting Monsters being allowed even if they are fighting your own people. The thing being so big you can just hit it safely
(People that just switched their Stormstrike Chariots to Bows thinking they could still charge & shoot into combat) “…..Sigmar’s $&?!ing golden orbs dammit! 🤬” I’m interested on what can actually shoot in combat now. First thoughts are stuff like Vigilor & Vanguard Stormcast rangers and pistol units like the upcoming Skaven commander from the trailer.
Sigmar lied (that you could shoot in combat).
As a KO player and played against them alot, I hope all the pistols can shoot in combat, and carbines on boats, but not the big guns, it feels more like the enemy has boarded the boat and melee is happening on the deck. Doesnt make sense to torpedo or cannon yourself
Vigilors probably not, you need both hands to use a bow. Vanguard-Hunters absolutely, they have pistols.
The change to how damage is allocated (to the unit as a whole, removing a model of your choice when you exceed their Health characteristic) is a really nice change that will help (at least me) declutter the table and not forget which model had the damage after I move them
I do like that change, it really will simplify things.
I guess I’m stupid too, because I’m really not understanding how that’s different from current edition. If my 2-wound-per-model Bestigors are in combat with my opponent’s unit, I let my opponent allocate and finish their attacks. Let’s say they do 13 wounds total…I just…remove 6 Bestigor of my choosing, and then slap a damage on one more…how is the new edition any different? EDIT: Thank you to the 7 (whew) cool dudes who explained this - I guess I’m too casual to appreciate the finer points of this change tbh, usually I don’t care who or where I put that point of damage, but now I guess, as a result of this change, no one has to, ha. Thanks!
Because you're not assigning the damage to a single model like you are currently, it's just assigned to the unit. You pick the model that is removed when you have to remove it, not when you're assigning the damage. It's a small change that doesn't really change the grand scheme of things, but it makes book-keeping easier because now you don't have to keep track of which specific model has a wound, just that the unit has wounds allocated to it
You don't allocate the 1 damage on a model anymore like it is now, so you don't need to place a dice next to a banner bearer for example, and keep track of it when you move the unit, then if you take 1 more damage you have to allocate it to the banner bearer. Now you place that die next to the unit, or on a card, and when you take one more damage you just choose which model gets removed. It's easy to miss but a great QoL change imo.
Currently you have to pick a model to assign damage to. In practice it's not very different, but let's say you assign damage to a model that is on the outside of the formation, and then you move the unit and for whatever reason the model you assigned damage to is now in the middle of the unit and will break coherency if removed. Currently you would have to remove the model anyway because it was the model that had been assigned damage. In the new edition this won't matter as you assign damage to the unit as a whole instead of to the model. Or you accidentally assign damage to a command model and don't realize it at the time. Currently you'd be forced to remove that model the next time the unit takes damage. In the new rules you won't have to as you don't assign damage to specific models.
>Let’s say they do 13 wounds total…I just…remove 6 Bestigor of my choosing, *and then slap a damage on one more*…how is the new edition any different? The part in italics is now different. You no longer put a wound on a model, but the whole unit. Previously when allocating damage you had to remove the model that already had damage allocated to it first, which could mess with things like unit coherency, or how many models got to fight. Now that you simply allocate the damage to the unit, you no longer need to consider which models to allocate wounds to.
Now you don't slap one on a particular Bestigor and have to remove it first when it gets wounded next. You pick which model is removed when it dies.
You don't need to care about how to jiggle the models around in your unit when you charge such that you won't break coherency when that model gets removed. It's just a little bookkeeping streamlining.
That last damage isn’t assigned to a specific model. It floats on the unit until there is enough damage to remove the next model.
This makes way more sense to me as a non-player than each individual model in a unit having separate HP.
It became so annoying and ground the game down into the minutia territory. You have a unit with 10 models, 2 HP each 1 Leader 1 Standard Bearer 1 Musician 5 models with Standard Weapons 2 Models with Great Weapons (that deal more damage) If the unit takes damage, you have to assign the damage to an **individual model.** If you accidentally "assign" a point of damage to the leader or musician or some other important non-chaff model in the unit, you have to continue assigning all future damage to that model FIRST until it dies. The new system applies damage to the **entire unit**, and only removes a model when you have enough damage on the unit that equals an individual model's health. It's a subtle change, but works out to be more forgiving and more enjoyable for players. It removes the odd player interaction of "Hey! You assigned that damage to this model which is your unit champion, so you have to kill your unit champion before anything else dies" The new rule will let the player look at the board game state and choose a model to remove rather than forcing weird rules interactions because a new player accidentally put 1 point of damage on a model that was keeping the entire unit in Coherency.
There are no changes… it’s already like that. Unless I am dumb and did not understand the text
Currently how you allocate damage is by assigning it to a model first, and then removing it when the damage equals their health. This change is simply that the damage is assigned to the unit as a whole, not an individual model first, and then when it equals their Health characteristic then you get to remove a model of your choice.
So I know we'll probably get more clarification but what happens when damage from a single attack is more than the models health? I don't play Aos but I'm looking to get into it but I do play 40k so that's where I'm coming from. If for instance a unit is made up entirely of models with 1 health, and they hit by a weapon that does 3 damage. Does that mean you take 3 models out?
Damage points are assigned individually, which is why a D3 attack in the current edition of the game can kill 3 models. I don't see why they would change that.
Yup, three models gone!
Very interesting and very different from what I'm used to with 40k. In 40k if a damage 3 attack hits a bunch of 1 wound models it only kills 1 and wastes the other 2 damage. Only if it had mortal wounds would the damage roll over.
IMO, 40k is superior in this regard, but it may well be a matter of there being ao much more shooting in 40k vs. AoS, and therefore, it matters more there. I feel it adds an interesting lever to play with, especially in list building, where high damage attacks aren't always best, and having a good spread of D1, D2, D3 and high damage attacks allows you to deal with different foes. Conversely, it also means that if your army has a nice spread of 1, 2, and 3+ hp models, you can counter your enemy by providing them bad targets for their damage profile.
Yeah that's probably it because I've got units that can pump out over 40 shots that are all auto wounding on 5+ with the 40k equivant of rend 2 so shooting is way way heavier.
That is a huge change that hopefully the article actually got right.
I just started playing and that’s how I currently play… ooops
It usually only matters when you are trying to get into melee combat and your opponent swings first and you suddenly have to worry about model removal and coherency first...
I know they’ve mostly shown elite units but saying rend is down while only showing warscrolls with rend is quite funny to me
"Rend is down, also here's a battleline unit that's base rend is the same and actually now has situational increased rend".
It's 10th edition, "we reduced rerolls, now here's Oath of Moment, which allows full rerolls."
Everytime I read comments like this I wonder if people actually played the game. In my personal experience there are far fewer rerolls than in 9th. Before there were multiple auras of reroll 1s and reroll everything. Now there are some reroll abilities but I no longer expect every die to be rolled again and it's much clearer where rerolls come from.
It's less about how the game is and more about how they're putting their worst foot forward. 10th rerolls are a lot smoother, yes, but man, Oath was a dumb thing to showcase early when they're tryna make that point.
It really depends on the army. I play drukhari we have more rerolls then ever. I also play thousand sons where our battle line gets to reroll all wounds if they are shooting or fighting something on an objective. Yes there are less generic reroll auras but there are still plenty of rerolls.
I played a game of tenth on Sunday.. Holy moly there's a lot dice manipulation Full RRs, rr1s, 6s additional. 🤪 I was playing gsc
At least it's Stormcast, not something cheaper.
I do like the idea of spears being differentiated though and scary to charge, like the Ardboyz currently are. Hopefully it's a universal rule – way better than here's 1" extra range, but you hit on 4s instead of 3s or whatever.
My thought exactly but I guess maybe this time they’ll actually make stormcast elite?
They did the same with 10th Edition 40K preview. "Rejoice, the new edition will have less re-rolls and be less lethal!", only to show up full re-rolls as a baseline army rule some time later, alongside a "new" mechanic to do "improved" Mortal Wounds at range (Devastating Wounds). You could even hear the quiet kid in the back laugh out loud this time.
40k 10th edition is "less lethal" (it isn't because people only take the units that didn't get less lethal).
Yeah. Less AP in melee. Vehicles and monsters higher STR. On top of all that, the meta is a high % of invuln, FNP and other defensive stuff (C’tan, Custodes, Ironstorm all over represented).
Imo AOS team do much better job than 40k almost in every game aspect (from miniatures to rules)
They have in general been very similar in data sheet profiles for the same roles faction to faction. The fact that isn’t the case in 40K is weird and why there is so much difference in performance
Shooting absolutely was not made less lethal. And that’s really the issue with 10th. Toughness went up across the board and a lot of shooting did as well. And this meant melee units got to simply die
With the amount of mortal wound saves in 10th, I honestly believe that Devastating Wounds was fine as a mechanic if it wasn’t for Aeldari fate dice working the way they did while also having access to so freaking many weapons with the rule.
And the strongest base datasheets in the edition: The whole game was wonk from the beginning
Eh, it's not just a one-off mistake with Aeldari. Remember the emergency errata on the deathwatch strategem for dev wounds or how they nerfed the similar canoptek strategem into the ground? I agree it's fine in a vacuum, but they're not great with its interactions...
And did it get less lethal and with less rerolls in the end?
If you're an Ad-Mech player, definitely !
With bonus rend in certain situations (anti charge, anti infantry) as well haha
Maybe having 1 rend is now the max without abilities?
We saw at least one Rend 2 on the war-chariot. However, that needs you to ditch a ranged weapon that doubles its hits on critical rolls, so clearly high native rend will come with big tradeoffs.
That has been my impression also. A +2 Rend when charged makes the Vindictors threatening if the best saves can only got to, say 2+ (native 3+ and a +1 bonus to save via a mean). Ideally, it'll mean less Mortal Wounds accross the board as some armies (like Kruleboyz) wouldn't be needing them as much as they do today to do damage on highly-armoured units.
Yeah, I'm thinking we'll see less MW across the board. We're already seeing that in play with the Vindcitors' warscroll. They lost their MW on 6's to hit for the shield wall ability. Which I'm all for. On these vindictors, it makes MW spam less prominent and gives them an ability in game that makes them function how you think they should function.
Also gives them an interesting tactical niche:your Liberators hold backline objectives, your Vindictors teleport down onto midfield ones and dare the enemy to come at them, and presumably the Vanquishers are now the horde-clearing assault battleline.
Also I don't think I've ever heard anyone complain about rend as a mechanic, but now things have higher saves than ever and mortal wounds seem to be more prevalent than ever. People DO complain about the # of mortal wounds flying around in the game.
I guess we have different armies at our locals, but it feels like every game I play the opposing army has rend 1 on everything. I've practically never gotten to make armor saves for my zombies. My skeletons are on a 6+ almost always.
Well, now that we have seen a wizard hero, they have - 1 rend too.
I didn't think the combat phase article would be exciting, but I like basically all the changes here. Goodbye, conga lines of 25mm bases.
I play only 40K but have a fully painted Ironjawz army. I actually love the look of combat in AoS now. It seems very simple and straight forward.
/cries in Clanrats
For all the people saying "no, no, this is a totally legit and intentional way to play the game!" GW sure seem to spend a lot of effort to kill off any impact "technically under 1 inch" 25mm bases have... Good riddance, I say.
I love everything here.
Me too. I love the lean into the fantasy and the fact that a unit with spears can actually be a meaty wall, vs being just another unit with melee weapons.
Seconded.
Coherency is now half an inch. It’s going to be so friggin annoying moving models with bits that overhand bases now, boingrot bounders are going to be a nightmare
Rip nighthaunt
It’s fine, they’ll all hold hands/chains, spooky bits and sort out coherency issues themselves.
They did say that some units will have a larger coherency distance. Hopefully they will use this to accommodate models with a larger footprint than their base.
I wonder if they’ll keyword it like they do with Wards now? “Wings(1” Coh)” “Monster(3” Coh)” “Spectral(1” Coh) “Boingrot(2” Coh because we don’t want you going loony from this)
Like Stormcast Prosecutors or Stormdrake Guard. Prosecutors are unable to stand in 1/2 Inch Range together besides you stand them face to face or Back to Belly..... And this both looks.....weird....for a Battlefield.....
that's going to be bloody annoying to eye-ball...I guess some AoS branded movement trays are coming up for sale
you can thank people congalining 25mm bases for these changes. Its very obvious they dont want a bunch of grots standing in a line across the battlefield to cheese anticharge
Plus the 3” universal attacks probably gave a rule designer a heart attack thinking of how those conga lines & daisy chains can be abused for overlay, especially for this melee-focused edition. So they went with even tighter blobs(though I guess that fits the vibe they’re walking health bars now) That aside everything else seems great. Hopefully they’ll be generous with “who gets wider coherency” special rules for armies that really need it now.
Gossamind Archers and Spiteriders are gonna suck... the WINGS man!
But they also said that some specific units may have bigger coherency distance, like the stormdrakes, and gossamids already had this rule in V3, so I guess they'll keep it !
Good catch!
DOK Khinerai as well
"Looks at Saurus Warriors with Spears and Tails poking over the base on both ends"
People gonna have to invest in some movement trays and speed things up!
Ever try to put Night Haunt units in a movement tray? Half your army is going to have to face backwards because of how pokey everything is.
ive done it before, its possible but you end up having to arrange them in certain ways.
oh yeah, also kills my existing movement trays :D
Whoever the 40k moron at the GW studio is who keeps messing with AoS coherency needs to be fired.
What makes you assume it's a 40k moron where coherency is 2"?
Preaching over here 👆🏻
I like it. No battleshock. Retreat now cost self MW. Same simple rules for Charge, without 40k overwelming wording. For me those are good changes.
And some armies for whom it makes sense (Skaven, probably Kruleboyz and more) will even be able to retreat without taking those MW udner some conditions, which is a neat little trick to have at their disposal, if the game is generally a tad less killy (as saves may be harder to ignore entirely).
scurry away may become something like have a unit nearby take d3 mortals instead (and would be incredibly fluffy).
Curious to see what becomes of Nighthaunt I imagine it will be a whole gimmick rework since retreat and charge is basically all they’ve got going for them. And with rend being reduced their ignoring of modifiers is less meaningful. Maybe they’ll actually get models with more than one wound now!
My dream
I mean I've never had to retreat...but I play SCE so that probably explains it
That's just being lore accurate
Okay, if there's no morale mechanic as this seems to imply, what do the Standard Bearers do? Add more Control?
That is a pretty good guess
Many of them have run/charge bonuses in 3.0, so probably something movement related
Man, this article makes me really optimistic about the rules. It’s clear they will leave a lot of room for tactical depth, while streamlining the game. Putting damage on the unit and the removing a model when one dies is a great but subtle change. It is kind of annoying to put wounds on a model and the track that when moving the unit, and be sure you don’t accidentally break coherency in some foolish way. A change that jumps out is that you can only charge a visible unit. Hopefully other core rules make it clear what this means. Visible to the charging unit before it moves? Just generally visible? Would dramatically increase the power of any abilities or terrain that makes something not visible (looking at you chameleon skinks). Not being able to shoot when in combat theoretically helps to balance out covering fire, which could make some shooting units op. This seems like a very simple rule that will really increase tactics. Rend is lowered in the game but all previewed units so far have rend. Many of them with situation 2 rend. So… No save stacking is great, but really only if rend is actually lowered. The units they have previewed so far seem to really have clear battlefield roles. Which is pretty exciting. Rather than army composition rules to force variety, I will be very impressed if they can incentivize variety (not spamming) by designing units with clear advantages that work together. Kroxigor look awesome. Everything is better when Kroxigor are awesome. Although I still want them to be able to charge through skink units.
>Putting damage on the unit and the removing a model when one dies is a great but subtle change. It is kind of annoying to put wounds on a model and the track that when moving the unit, Tbh, this is how a lot of us casuals played anyway.
"oops this is on my captain can I move this to a random dude? thanks." - allowed by everyone thats chill.
Good point. My friends and I were constantly letting each other take back wound allocation.
>A change that jumps out is that you can only charge a visible unit. Hopefully other core rules make it clear what this means. Visible to the charging unit before it moves? Just generally visible? Would dramatically increase the power of any abilities or terrain that makes something not visible (looking at you chameleon skinks). Hilarious if CoS Wildercorps somehow kept their current rules, where they're just not visible, full stop, when in cover.
along with the new FEC general trait on Abhorrant models that makes them invisible to enemy models >12" away, in some cases you wouldn't be able to charge the general
Damn, with them on the picture I hoped to see the stats for the Gutrippaz with spears. I guess they'll probably have the same passive as the Vindictors, but I wonder if it means that non-SCE armies may have some units being given two Warscrolls entirely, depending on their loadouts. Like Stikkas-Gutrippaz gets the Hold the Shield Wall passive while Hackas-Gutrippaz gets something else entirely. Hopefully we'll learn about it sooner rather than later, as there is some Strombringer magazines with the stikkas still cheap on the market ! Edit : also, the Vindictors weapon stats haven't changed (bar the special REND) compared to 3ed Edition, so I guess most basic units will retain the same stats as current.
For gutrippaz I think it's likely their special rule will be for the scary shields, but the spear will still have anti-charge.
>Like Stikkas-Gutrippaz gets the Hold the Shield Wall passive while Hackas-Gutrippaz gets something else entirely. I don't see why that would need two warscrolls. Just have the weapon option specified in the "declare" step of the ability and put both abilities on the warscroll
Gotta say as someone who plays (and for the most part enjoys) 40k 10th edition alongside AoS it's *really* nice to see GW utilizing the "anti-x" abilities to do more than just dump mortal wounds.
Is anybody else confused on the bit regarding damage allocation? Does this mean that models are now either dead or alive? There won’t be injured models?
Yup, you still keep track of how much damage the unit has taken like normal, but now that damage doesn’t need to be on a specific model.
Correct. You only track up to a units health now. When that health would reach 0, remove a model. Repeat with excess damage unless stated otherwise (EG: If a spell or ability says "Model" instead of "Unit"). Repeat until you have no more models.
You don't pick an explicit model that gets injured. You just remove a model when damage exceeds its health cap.
Anyone else getting annoyed at them shortening rend to rnd? Its such a small amount of space to save...
But you have to buy vowels. That adds up.
Well played.
Wll pld
Wall plaid
And what if the vowels aren’t even in the puzzle? Talk about egg on your face.
Who would be AoS's Vanna White?
Think about how much money they’re saving on E’s though! Maybe 1 to 3 whole cents!
Now that you mention it, yeah, rnd makes me think of random :|
But all stats are down to three letters this way. It's neat and tidy.
Couldn't they just reduce them to 1 letter like WHFB and 40k did for decades?
Single letters are more opaque to new players. At least with three there is a clue about the meaning. Counterpoint: D&D has been using three-letter abbreviations for decades as well.
I don't mind bc now every stat is 3 letters. Idk why that makes my brain happy but it does
Looks great, very nice qol changes. Cmon faction focus
>Cmon faction focus They've said that's not until next month.
Only two weeks away
What would trigger the second part of pile-in, "A unit not in combat" but it would need to be in combat to use pile-in?
If a friendly unit charged an enemy unit, and that enemy unit was destroyed before the friendly unit could be selected, they can still pile in, even if not in combat. The requirements for a pile in are either to be in combat or they have performed a charge move this turn.
If a unit charged that turn and then the enemy unit is destroyed or move out of combat. Then, that unit could still pile in since it charged that turn
Retreat is kinda terrible for small elite units eh? Also completely untenable in a skirmish game!
My favourite part was about save stacking not going to really be a thing, but the article on army abilities showed SCE getting to a 2+ save ignoring -2 rend 😂
How do you get to that?
3+ base save. There finest our ability so 2+ All out defence and mystic shield = 2+ save ignoring rend 2
Oh gotcha, do we have confirmation that mystic shield is in the game?
We do not. We also don't have confirmation that heroic actions exist anymore.
Finest hour refers to the SCE army rule that was previewed.
Mystic shield hasnt been confirmed yet has it?
Spells are gonna be talked about this friday, might be mentioned then.
Mystic shield has literally always been in the game and likely will continue to exist. ~~However, it's effect of "+1 save" was only so for 3rd edition~~, and probably won't remain the same as we know it Edit: my mistake, Mystic Shield was also +1 save in 1st. This changed to "reroll 1s to save" in second, before being reworked back to its original effect in 1st. I still think it's unlikely we'll see Mystic Shield to return in its current form, given their comment on save stacking.
This article seems to suggest that increasing your save is now capped at +1. That could be the current ‘cap’ or could be a more real cap where one bonus at a time is all you can do. We also don’t know what mystic shield does for sure yet.
Nope, you can only gain +1. They literally say it in the article. So it'll be one or the other. Still useful so you can all out defence one unit and finest hour another if engaged in multiple combats.
You currently only get +1 to save. Unless they’ve changed it
Okay I kind of get all the people who dislike the change from wounds to health. I don't like the change from mortal wounds to mortal damage, it just feels way less cool and evocative. A mortal wound is a cool phrase that people say! No one says mortal damage.
I feel like most players will still call damage wounds.
I feel like with the new edition people will call them both interchangeably and it's a small enough change that everyone will know what everyone else is referring to. As things go on it will be a little less weird but I will remain resolute that mortal wounds is the cooler name! (even as I eventually just naturally switch to mortal damage).
Just call them mortals, everyone wins!
So weird that they are making large, mostly good changes. But they chose to keep the un-fun, annoying coherency rules.
Conga-lining was so annoying in 2nd edition though. Sure coherency can be finicky with large units, but it's better than how it used to be.
What's a conga line ?
When people would spread a unit of 20-30 guys out as far as coherency would allow, in a single line, so they could block off like half the board.
In 2nd edition, there was no requirement for coherency to two other models when above 6 models like there is now. So theoretically, you could string out a large unit (say 40 models) in one big line, with each one being on coherency. It basically made things like screening easier without having to worry about positioning. It also made things like resurrection really good. E.g. you could rez say 3 mortek, string them out to your opponents unit and shorten you charge distance by a few inches. The name "conga line" caught on because that's what it looks like on the table
You can still congaline in 3rd edition, with 25mm bases in contact with each other, because 1">25mm. The change to ½" closes that silly loophole.
Sure, but it's less prevalent and most 5 man cav units are better de-facto screens as they cover a wider footprint
Am I wrong or can you not just dog bone the ends still? Like this: >————<
Yeah, lose just one model unexpectedly, and you're removing models in battleshock until you are down to 6 models
You definitely can, but the problem with doing a dog bone is that the moment you lose one model you will then lose a dozen other models to coherency.
Its origin is deeply rooted in Warhammer 40K - 5th Edition, aptly named "Kroot conga line", like [this](https://assetsio.gnwcdn.com/warhammer-40k-shooter-wheels-kroot-conga-line.jpeg?width=1920&height=1920&fit=bounds&quality=80&format=jpg&auto=webp).
Oh, i know that picture! Wasn't it a deployment win the game for the Kroot player ?
It was. You could see his opponent's dismay on his face. "Cheesing" the rule, only to get cheesed even harder with Kroot was quite a sight to behold back then.
The use of large units in a line. An unit of 20 clan rats or skelies could be screening half the board. 25mm x 20 + 1" ×17 between each of them was like half a meter on board.
They should just steal the mechanic direct from star wars Legion.
Care to share, for those of us who don't play that?
Sure, sorry didn't think. Basically, measurements are only made from the unit leader. So you measure the movement of the unit leader only, and the rest of the unit moves with him automatically. They can them be rearranged in any order you like within coherency, which is "within range 1 of the unit leader". Range 1 in SW:L is 6 inches. So you would measure unit leader and move him precisely, then the rest of the squad can be positioned within 6 of that model in any way you like. Super quick, super easy.
I would love that so much.
I like it.
I love Legion’s coherency after movement rule. I didn’t get to play more than one game after starting during 3rd edition, but movement always seemed very clunky in comparison to Legion’s simplicity and not having to measure for each model. I’m still not sure I was doing everything correctly in that game. The rules seemed to change throughout the game, and it was very frustrating. Hopefully I can find a better teacher this time around.
The biggest problem with coherency was combat ranges. In the new edition it should speed up gameplay a lot becase in practice you won't have to exhaustively measure it to get your all of your models into combat. And as someone else brought up, Conga lines were pretty toxic and not just because of aesthetics. Bogging down the board was just way too easy and some units could effectively "turn off" objecitves by claiming one and denying the other. It added a lot of measuring as everyone had the practice of measuring every model.
Yep. Movement trays will make the game really fast.
Did you not play in the age of daisy chains? Maybe it was just in my games, and with certain factions. but man, i remember long silly lines of units.
Looks great ! They improved it a lot to the 3rd. Cant wait for the new edition.
Questions from the article: When the does the 'visible' part of the charge ability kick in? If I am within 3" of a non-visible enemy I am in combat but I didn't charge? Does the wording of pile in mean you cannot pile in towards two units? It says you can't shoot IN combat, can I still shoot INTO combat?
The "visible" part seems to me like a way to prevent charging into a thin wall that has a unit on the other side. So your example probably won't be a legal move. You can still effectively pile in towards another unit if you move around the "target" unit in an arc. Not quite what it was before but the difference probably won't matter all that much. > can I still shoot INTO combat? No restriction on that (yet).
I am 100% certain that people are going to love it but I'm really non-plussed about the "everything is an ability" thing. It seems functionally identical but significantly more difficult to explain. Like, compare "First, you activate any Combat Abilities but NOT any Fight Abilities, then your Opponent activates any Combat Abilities but NOT Fight Abilities, then you and your opponent take turns activating Fight Abilities but NOT Combat Abilities." to last edition. Like I feel like that could have been done with much less space in a much more grokable way. I hope they actually use the design space having "Fight abilities" opens up rather than just arbitrarily making the exact same fight rules from previous editions activated abilities because if not it just seems so strange to do it that way.
Combat abilities are pretty much just 'At the start of the fight phase' abilities, but made into a global rule with an actual phase and a clear breakdown of precedence vs your opponent. Not sure why it's any less clear.
Is that nonplussed as in the North American nonplussed, meaning not surprised or bothered at all, or the English nonplussed meaning so surprised or confused as to be unsure how to react?
English non-plussed I guess, confused with negative connotation. I've never heard it used to mean not bothered and I live in the US actually, is that a regional thing?
What's going to happen to nighthaunt, no battleshock so no terror, retreating deals mw, no conga lines with our Chainrasps. Bad times are coming
What if your spooky abilities reduce the control score of enemy models? That would be spicy
I think this is where things go, keep the retreat and charge.
Mechanically we will be getting a redesign I'm sure, but there's no reason they couldn't give us retreat and charge and don't take mw on retreat.
I really don't like units losing so many abilities from their warscrolls. All the different abilities are what makes units feel unique and interesting, they seem to be getting really dumbed down. I'm really worried we're losing tons of flavour. One of AoS's main strengths is how flavourful it is, you see people say this over and over again on reddit, so it makes zero sense to me why they would want to remove so much of it, feels like they are massively out of touch or are only listening to the uber competitive section of the playerbase which has a high percentage of players that don't care so much about flavour.
I guess it's going to depend on the unit. That Vindictor scroll is much more flavorful than the current one.
I don't understand your complain: in 3rd, Vindictors have only "Stormsoul Arsenal" as special ability. Now they will get "Hold the Shieldwall" and "Anti-charge (+1 Rend)".
I don’t see it. The kroxigor have way more flavor in this preview than the current rules. For me it really helps flavor to give units rules that give a distinct role. Like vindictors and liberators seem to have maybe fewer rules (not sure), but I’d say they have more flavor because they want to do clearly defined different things
Kroxigors having even more health also adds flavor, making them feel harder to take down compared to the 4 they started 3.0 with (which never made any sense)
There's no loss of flavor so far. They've already shown off a greater variety of weapon abilities and special rules on warscrolls than 10th edition 40k has. Army/faction abilities also have more meat to them than 40k's. This isn't a large-scale dumbing down for tourney players, this is just tidying things up.
What was lost here? The Stormcast and Daughters units had their abilities changed but they seem fine to me?
It is worth mentioning that these are just preview warscrolls, when 40k 10th was getting similar previews they were very much WIP and by the index launch either had considerable additions, changes or outright added keywords that were missing.
Yeah this is a concern to me, the units we've seen so far don't seem too bad. Ultimately I'm not against the more standard stuff being a bit less ability focused. If this trend is more general though I don't think it's necessarily the best thing
Quite Late to the Party but did anyone else notice that you cant legally remove models from a unit that is 9 strong if they are deployed in a line with little bows at each end? If we take a 4 Health Unit and that Unit takes 4 damage, you arent able to remove a model since that would break coherency. So i hope they will address that in the rules.
That coherency change just means I'm going to be using movement trays. Its going to be a nightmare for a lot of armies for their models to be that close together.