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Do you know where he said that? I've been looking for it, but i can't find his post.

It was several months ago, no link sadly.

ah, was hoping there might be rumors on specific units or whatever that might be coming down the pipe.

Sadly no. Just insinuations that it would be as big as the recent range refreshes, with some new goodies mixed in with refreshed kits.

chaos0xomega wrote:
ah, was hoping there might be rumors on specific units or whatever that might be coming down the pipe.

They sure don't lack units needing a refresh

chaos0xomega wrote:As a gristlegore player, them being pacifist monks is just odd.

Cathayan warrior monk delusion ghouls.

There's a Reddit thread that has images of the rules posted from the latest battle report with the new FEC rules.

https://www.reddit.com/r/FleshEaterCourts/comments/186pkws/some_fec_rules_revealed_in_battle_report/

A lot of that looks really cool, but the final rule of summoning "reinforcements" really puts a damper on FEC for me. I understand why they are trying to eliminate unrestricted summoning in the game, but requiring both 6 points AND it be units already destroyed really kills my joy for the faction.

TBH I never really felt like the summon mechanic fit thematically with FEC, though it hurts my gristlegore list as I was reliant on my twin Ghoul Kings on Terrorgheists summoning in a pair of extra units to give the army a few more bodies. Besides, its not like you weren't paying the points for summoning in the cost of the character anyway. Ghoul Kings and Archregents arent worth 170-240 pts without the ability to summon in those other units to justify the cost.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/11/30/peeling-back-the-skin-on-the-design-decisions-behind-the-flesh-eater-courts/

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2023/12/01/painting-the-flesh-eater-courts-how-eavy-metal-rendered-the-royal-court/

Fancy stuff on painting.

I do like the pale fella on the right. Also that's some impressive molding detail with the teeth.

I maintain that GW should have gone with the white one on the right as the posterboy color scheme instead of that dreadful green. It's just so much better.

Personally I kind of prefer the middle one. More “twisted human” than the pale one and less “mouldy corpse” the green one.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
Personally I kind of prefer the middle one. More “twisted human” than the pale one and less “mouldy corpse” the green one.

Agree. Middle is my favorite scheme.

Here is my unboxing and review of the Flesh-eater Courts army set, as usual with high-res sprue pics and a rundown of all assembly options. There is also a look through the new Battletome:

https://taleofpainters.com/2023/12/review-flesh-eater-courts-army-set/

Cheers.

Shame about all the stuff being monopose and the Guard not having two different weapon profiles in the rules is what the feth....

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Guard not having two different weapon profiles in the rules is what the feth....

They did the same with new skellies - same profile for either sword or spear. Freedom of building stuff however you like them?

Basically yeah, GW are on a big "make things simple" spree. AoS has seen it with alternate weapons basically having identical profiles. This means every unit can now take any weapon option people want.

40K has seen weapons keep individual profiles, but their points costs are now removed so they are all going to cost the same to take.

Honestly AoS has it better in regards to balance since whilst its a more simplistic approach, it does at least mean that the unit has a known game impact which can be built into its point cost.
40K is a mess because some weapons/gear are just flat out better than others (or more generally better); so 40K has varied profiles but more imbalance and no actual way to balance it out.



It's a bit odd because GW seems to be really strong right now and yet they are taking steps that suggest they are pushing for more game growth by making the games easier and easier. Might be they have seen less growth of new customers even if established are doing well? I know AoS needs more general growth over the whole market (pockets are strong and pockets are weak but its not ass strong overall as 40K)

But who actually gonna mix and match weapons, knowing they could reverse course next cycle and you'll be stuck with an illegal or at least suboptimal unit?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
But who actually gonna mix and match weapons, knowing they could reverse course next cycle and you'll be stuck with an illegal or at least suboptimal unit?

New people of course who have not really been around long enough to know how much GW will jumble things up.

It's the same as how I build my units for AoS with only one banner and musician despite the rules allowing you to take 1 per unit block. Because I know there's a good chance GW might make some sane choice on that one day. Just like how in 2nd edition big infantry blocks were a thing and now in 3rd edition you can't build more than 2 big infantry blocks (actually 2 big unit blocks of anything). 4th could easily flip head over heels and remove the reinforcements mechanic.

It's the same as how experienced Tyranid players either accept it; or use magnets for warriors and bigger models because of how often GW changes the fundamental rules of the game and the codex on what weapon options are legal and such.

Newbies get caught out with an edition change;

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Cheers.

Shame about all the stuff being monopose and the Guard not having two different weapon profiles in the rules is what the feth....

Good. It would generally be non-choice anyway. Plus rarely have any real impact on that level models anyway while freeing modeling options. Hard to see ghouls as organized with identical weapons as is...

Just for example gloomspite gits. Stabbas. Spear or sword? Technically speaking they have option. Technically speaking one of them is even superior. In practice IT DOESN'T MATTER. You aren't going to win or lose game either way because one does 0.01 damage more

Now I get to assemble my skellies mix&match and not have to worry about sorting 100 skellies into specific units to match weapons and in the end it doesn't even matter game effect wise which they would even if they had actually spears or swords. The difference in damage output is too neglible to matter.

You might win 1 game more out of 10000000000000000 games by having "optimal" weapon on stabbas. Bohoo. Do you live long enough to play that many games?

tneva82 wrote:
Do you live long enough to play that many games?

No, but as Overread pointed out, I've lived long enough to have mixed units invalidated with a new edition before.

And yet previous editions of the same game; other wargames; pc games and real world battles all show that different weapon options really do have very different impacts on the battle state.

A cavalry unit charging front on to spears has a vastly different result to charging front on to swords.



Plus any argument that some armies would have "rabble" that would have random weapons is thrown out by armies that would have very ordered and structured equipment. Vampire skeletons; Cities of Sigmar; Stormcast; Daughers of Khaine - honestly once you start listing the number of armies that would have uniform weapons outnumbers those that wouldn't.

Even within those that wouldn't its more likely to be a question of arguing over the lore perceptions. Flesheaters are totally insane, but within that insanity they see themselves as a martial, ordered, knight army. Many groups within that would have uniform equipment and weapons - honestly only the lowest peasant fighters would be more of a rabble, whilst the rest would be uniform armed.

Also on the table it looks good - a cavalry unit with a mish mash of maces, swords and lances doens't look the same as one that is armed with lances ready for the charge; or swords ready to flank attack.

Again this is perhaps the only edition of this game in over 30 years (honestly are we nearing 40 now?) that has uniform stats for different weapons.



Honestly sometimes I feel like Gw has someone in the rules team or management team for AoS who has convinced themselves that the way toward more sales and popularity is just to be totally different from every other wargame on every front; no matter if those fronts are simply sane points. Just aiming to be "different" from everything else is the target at times

Sure you could have weapon differences.

But when you have like sword 3+ 4+ rend 0 dam 1 1" or 2" but 4+ to hit...

Doesn't matter. Flat out irrelevant. Your rabble isn't going to kill much more regardless of what you equip and you are winning 1 game like out of 10000000000 more if you have the "optimal" weapon.

And skeleton rabble is excelent for rag tag weapons. Skeletons don't particularly care what they are equipped. They are dead bones moving...

Not sure how game would benefit from no choice(as one is always better anyway regardless of what GW writes) and even then it's irrelevant for all reasons.

FB 5, 6, 7, 8, AOS 1, 2 and even in 3 you have rabble with different weapon stats in practice only 1 is ideal rest inferior and even then it doesn't matter what you want.

Hell skeletons in AOS2 book had spear and sword...And for actual practical gaming purposes it...did...not...matter. Your win or loss was not dependant on those. If your plan dependent on skeletons actually killing more with the ideal weapon your plan sucked as the kill rate wasn't going to noticably increase anyway.

tneva82 wrote:
Sure you could have weapon differences.

But when you have like sword 3+ 4+ rend 0 dam 1 1" or 2" but 4+ to hit...

Doesn't matter. Flat out irrelevant.

You are not wrong, but that's a design choice GW has made for AoS some time ago. GW being GW this might change as early as next year with 4th edition, or in some later edition. But we should not pretend this to being some divine law: different weapons could and should do different things, not just be a cosmetic choice.

If different units can make a meaningful difference on the tabletop; then different weapons on a unit can also make a meaningful difference. It purely depends on the numbers behind them and the numbers are 100% something GW controlls.


Another line of thinking with GW making units simpler is that they are trying to build more tactical slots into the game. Units with 2-3 weapon types can cover several roles with those weapons. So suddenly 1 unit has multiple battlefield roles depending on what its equipped with and even with mono-pose models that you can't easily magnetize for weapon swapping; people are still more than happy to "my swords count as spears for this game".

So to generate more sales and create more niches if each unit has only 1 stat and 1 weapon then in theory you can now make 3 different models for what was once one. That means you can grow the army wider without units tripping over each other.
It's actually how a LOT of GW's competition work right now. Many wargames have models with 1 weapon loadout or very simple equipment variation. GW always stood out somewhat in having so many options in the box for each model.

It seems like they are changing direction and potentially pushing back on that in some form to create gaps for themselves so that armies can be made easily larger.

I think it also plays into their style of rules building because they don't make their rules deeper and more complex to create niches (esp in fantasy). Of course niches can create issues of their own (eg how in 40K when air units were added and the only counter was direct AA units which meant you could load up on air units and dominate any opponent that wasn't the same or loaded up with AA)


However I kind of feel that if that is GW's direction then its purely in the writing room today and not in the design floor who are still producing multi-weapon models.

GW did indeed make a lot of weapon variance pointless ( 3+ hit 4+ wound or 4+ wound 3+ hit being the common options) or no-brainer (anything with reach) but that's an issue with the execution, not the concept.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
GW did indeed make a lot of weapon variance pointless ( 3+ hit 4+ wound or 4+ wound 3+ hit being the common options) or no-brainer (anything with reach) but that's an issue with the execution, not the concept.

Exactly. The lack of AoS having any variation in armour types also doesn't help.

There's a few things GW could do to improve weapon variation, eg

1) Anti large/cavalry as a feature. Adding large/cavalry as a featured group on its own and then giving specific weapons a bonus against them whilst either no bonus or a negative against regular models would make a huge swing. Suddenly those spears wouldn't just be for 1 inch more reach but ideal for a big monster or cavalry charge; but less useful if the enemy charges you with their footmen

2) Light - Medium - Heavy armour types; or even just a regular and heavy so it didn't get too complex/bogged down.

There's a lot of other things they could have done as well to try and help give specific weapons more niches to fit them into and more meaningful variety in the stats.

I do agree for much of AoS's life a lot of weapon choices are often quite simple with one choice being better than the others outright. I agree though that that's about how the game works and GW's choices on game design .

Man, I look at the new Varghulf kit and all I can see how easily it could’ve been a dual build Mourghul kit as well. Probably a bit smaller than the FW Mourngul, but still would’ve worked. Shame.