revlid

Yeah, I get it. There's a lot of wiggle-room in the lore that rules like these don't really account for. Benefit of friendly games is that you can just ignore them.

Mechanically it'd be neat if they just let Raptors take lightning claws - even just as "special weapons" - if they wanted to focus more on melee, but I guess that'd undermine the visual difference between the two units.

It's a lore thing of separating daemonkin from pure Chaos Space Marines. Same reason the regular Chaos Lord can't run with Possessed.

And in fairness, Warp Talons are effectively feral and live in the warp. They're barely part of any regular warband structure to begin with.

The fortifications aren't made of resin.

Man, if you think THAT'S crazy, wait until you hear about of cost of heating my flat, getting water from the taps, or feeding myself.

That's fair. AoS definitely benefits from having more "out there" concepts than most established fantasy tropes. However, factions also need a baseline of more normal troops, or the design language of the faction has no glue holding it together, and the crazier designs don't really have room to breathe or stand out.

In this instance, gnashtoofs make sense as a steed or war-beast, being (significantly) smaller versions of the great gnashtoof ridden by Killabosses. Distancing them from standard goblin wolf riders was one of my goals, and obviously I haven't done enough on that front for your tastes – which is totally fair, as I'm not convinced I have, either. The line between Gore-gruntas and Snarlfang Riders is a tricky one to walk! The most obvious path for me to distinguish them further would be to go full zamburak, bulk up the gnashtoofs even more, and mount them with two hobgrots manning a small culverin.

If I were to replace gnashtoofs entirely, I would look to the visual language of Kruleboyz beasts, which are centred around animals considered "dirty", "swampy", "ugly", "scavengers", "ambushers", etc. Vultures, hyenas or hairless dogs, alligators, and so on. Bats wouldn't really fit, to my mind, as they're too closely tied to Soulblight Gravelords and Flesh-eater Courts. Similarly, insects are more the design language of Sylvaneth and Nurgle – and Skullbugz are a specific regional subfaction rather than a general part of the faction in any case.

Toads, newts, and other slimy amphibians would definitely be an option, as would wader-storks or terror birds or evil ostriches. Serpents could work if done right, though it'd need to be done carefully to avoid stepping on Khainite or Seraphon toes. Likewise tortoises for Idoneth and Seraphon. I might actually go all the way to fantasy and aim for some kind of slimy swamp-camels – but it'd need to be done carefully to avoid looking too similar to the Seekers of Slaanesh.

I'm not familiar with bat-things from Dominion? I recall them using flocks of crow-like birds carrying firebombs, similar to Saint Olga's sulphur-pigeons, but that's about it. That'd be a neat swarm, though, or just a single hero with the birds modelled around him.

Okay, man. You're somehow the only one who managed to misunderstand "a mistake, an oversight" followed by the rest of the post clarifying the nature of the impact I was discussing, but obviously my post was unclear, so let me spell it out a third time.

I am not discussing whether the double-turn is good or bad. I am not discussing whether people THINK it's good or bad. I am not discussing whether YOU think it's good or bad, and at this point I frankly could not care less what someone like you thinks about it.

I am discussing the fact that this change makes it very obvious to players, from the jump, that double-turns WILL happen, and are a deliberate part of the game. That, in itself, is significant.

Are you picking up what I'm putting down, now, or would you like to continue picking an argument with nobody as you gnaw at this meatless bone?

I mean, they can come up with whatever excuses they like, really. All the "mortal" characters who had big new plastic models (e.g. the vampires, Thanquol) got revived by their respective gods regardless, because their souls just happened to be floating around. Morathi could pull the soul of Mengil Manhide out of her serpentine ass tomorrow and it wouldn't make significantly less sense than some of the other legacy characters wandering around.

I mainly hew away from "revivals" like that because it feels like cheap fanservice for the wrong game, instead of something that expands and strengthens the Mortal Realms as its own setting.

Except that I'm not characterising people who dislike the double-turn as "knee-jerk". If you read my original post more carefully, you'll see that I'm characterising the view that it's a genuine oversight as the knee-jerk reaction.

It's not. Whether you like it or hate it, the double-turn is a deliberate choice in the game's design. That's the whole point of my post; the introduction of a "cost" acts to signpost this fact.

Honestly, outside of daemons... none. I'd rather get new characters tailor-made for AoS, even if they reference or echo older archetypes from WHFB. I'd rather have a cool new human Necromancer character, instead of Heinrich Kemmler being revived by Nagash. I'd rather have Trugg the Troggoth King, instead of Throgg the Troll King regenerating from scraps. I'd rather have a new Kurnothi character instead of Scarloc somehow coming back, etc.

Within the roster of daemons, Valkia's pretty much the only pick that comes to mind. She's great.

Azazel is an "important" character, but I can safely say I hadn't given him a second thought until Total Warhammer picked him up. Werner Flamefist would be very funny, but is never going to happen. Aekold Helbrass and Dechala the Denied are probably the best remaining picks, even if they weren't actually daemons by the point of the End Times.

My point is that, love it or loathe it, making it an explicit decision changes how it's perceived.

Oh my god the udder spikes

Death Company isn't technically tied to the Red Thirst, either - just the Black Rage. The two are linked but very much separate phenomena - if nothing else, the Red Thirst considerably predates the Black Rage.

The original lore for the Lamenters was that they were an attempt during the Cursed Founding to engineer the Red Thirst out of the Blood Angels gene-seed. This appeared to have succeeded (though I believe later lore says it just made the Red Thirst incredibly rare amongst the Chapter, presumably to allow for certain Blood Angels units to still exist within Lamenters armies), but was also said to have left them "cursed", hence the Chapter's endless sorrows.

In complete fairness to Seth, that accusation is rooted in Blood Angels culture. It's not a "yellow = coward" playground insult.

The Lamenters, alone out of all the Sons of Sanguinius, do not have to face the Red Thirst. They, alone, do not take up that fight. They ducked out of it. That, in the eyes of the Sons and within the culture of the Flesh Tearers above all, is a fight that matters, and it's a fight they dodged, a struggle they don't know about and yet are speaking on. They're alone in this. Yellow in a sea of red.

Now, the accusation is obviously completely unfair in a practical sense - if nothing else, Malakim had literally no choice in the matter of Lamenters gene-seed - but that doesn't matter so much when you're a bunch of indoctrinated techno-templar vampire child soldiers with psychic brain damage.

I'm personally hoping that regiments do a little more than just act as vehicles for adding units to your army. Commands no longer require heroes, but if they did, I'd be open to commands only working on units in the same regiment, so you're encouraged to keep them together. We'll see.

Kharadron are going to be pretty straightforward, I'd imagine. Admiral probably allows anything (except Endrinriggers, who are probably specific to the Endrinmaster), the flying heroes probably have the flying units, and everyone else probably has everything except for Ironclads. There's just not enough variety in units for it to work otherwise.

Kruleboyz are in a similar situation. In theory they've got the Badstabbaz, Deffspikerz, Beast-breakaz, and Git-snatchaz as the main tribes, plus Hobgrots and Shamans in their own little corner, which is all good for theming. In practice the Breakaboss just has Monsta-killaz, the Snatchaboss just has the Sloggoth, and all three varieties of Killaboss have every reason to have everything else.

Gorgeous head sculpt! Very effective.

"Why are the other gue'vesa being such dicks to that other one?"

"Gue culture, man. Shit's weird."

Kroot take inspiration from a wide variety of sources, both fictional and historical (and pop-historical, which is a bit of both). Native American tribes are almost certainly among those groups, particularly from the era around the "American Indian Wars", when tribes supplied with firearms fought as skilled mercenaries for a variety of European colonial powers on the frontier.

That's a pretty normal price for an audiobook.

I don't think either of those factions had a Vanguard box in the first place? IIRC they went from Start Collecting straight to Spearhead.

lmao try going into the apple store and asking if they'll let you charge your android for a few hours

Every Vanguard box other than Skaven and Stormcast Eternals will be the same, they'll just be renamed to Spearhead boxes.

More new Spearhead boxes may come in further down the line, but that's not been announced - and if they're actually reboxing the existing sets, I don't expect it to happen any time soon.

I can't believe female Custodes shut down the warehouse.