 Hello everybody, if it's Wednesday, it's Warhammer and that must mean it's time for another episode of Warhammer weekly Joining me as always is my co-host Tom. What's going on buddy? How you doing? Hello friends. I'm doing pretty well You know in the in the in the busy bustle of things, you know, you know how it is Yes, event Event quickly approaching and life is in life is indeed full. So, you know, we'll get there hopefully Yes, you actually have to uh, you know be a working man now and uh and deal with that We'll also dealing with, you know All the rest of this now weird Weird It's it's very strange. Welcome to welcome to probably what most people experience Uh, so We're going indeed it is indeed it is. Yes real life is in fact a constant nightmare. Um At any rate tonight, we're going to discuss what we'd like to see. We're going to talk of redesigning AOS We might do a few of these in the future Um, but I wanted to focus in tonight on a few key items specifically heroic actions monsters rampages and command abilities Three things that are really I in my mind emblematic of 3.0. Although command abilities existed beforehand um, you know 3.0 I feel is where they've really come into their own as a as a concept and obviously heroic actions and monsters rampages are both new here And although i'm sure they've probably locked most of the design for 4.0 Let's hope that they catch this show in time to make some last minute changes But either way, I still would like to talk about what we want on the record. Yeah, sure sure Okay So and of course as we get going hey If you're excited to talk some more hammer if you're jazzed for the show tonight Don't forget to hit like and do all those fun things that really are really appreciated and helps other people find the show uh But first off the news and the internal question did tom bring up the file and read the news before this second Rumor engine. That's right. Tom There is in fact a rumor engine and tom I come to you with great with great tidings of joy Uh for this night Uh a savior Comes to us Uh, but not the one you think Not some not some shepherd nonsense. No. No get that out of here No, our savior comes on on sweet leather wings Wielding a sword forged in the heart of the chaos realm ready to strike down all who would oppose The wheel of corn, uh because I fully believe this is volkea's spear. I like i'm i'm serious I think this is just a hundred percent volkea We've had a we've had some corn mentioning going back and forth and dawn bringers We called out dawn bringers as being uh, you know as as corn is having a place in the dawn bringer story We know we can get new heroes That spear very simple. It's got a little chaos star Up on the on the hilt. It's at an angle not that they necessarily take the picture at that angle But it's certainly taking the picture at the angle of volkea spear right in the traditional model where she's coming down staffing Yep Uh, I am just fully on board with this being volkea spear. Let me just say that Sure. Uh, I mean, I think that like looking at it it could make sense Um, it's clearly chaos. There's no question about that. Have you actually done a comparison with her other spear? No No, I just looked at it saw the cast are and went there we go Done. Hey, so you don't you don't know anything. It's just uh, just what you would like I'm gonna will this into existence tom. That's right You know, could it be anything else? Sure. Could it be, you know, like storm keeps over here trying to rain on our parade Just being a parade rainer talking about how it's like a baron guard hero or something like that and sure Could it be any of those chaos things? Yeah, of course. It could be something else It could be a cool baron guard hero or something like that Should it be volkea? Yes, of course. I'm gonna keep saying this until eventually It's true If I will it long enough it will happen tom Look it worked. It took eight years, but we got big pig Okay So you got to start now. All right You can't just you know, most people's problem is they try to will something into existence once and then when it doesn't happen They just give up. No, no, I mean that checks out. Yeah, it takes the will of doom. Okay. That's that that is what it takes Uh, you have to be able to you have to you have to stare down an entire enemy universe Uh in a grudge match and out will it? That's what you got to do Okay, sure. I'll accept that Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I could have also made reference to doom Uh opening the door and standing in front of the purple man on the purple man giving him directions and then doom just looking at him and not responding and then smacking him in the face because uh Doom is not affected by such Simple trivialities as the purple man Uh at any rate some of the greatest panels in comic book history Um Yeah, I hope it's volkea, but it could be any chaos related. Yeah hero Sure Okay, cool Uh, I buy it. Yeah, uh, we have the preview day. Um saturday nine a.m And uh, we have uh the new themes like the new britainian standard bearer. Yes. Yes He is he is a big giant ridiculously sized standard. I love how we're just like We can't go more over the top with this. It is as we are all the way over the top Uh, and I mean, would you have it any other way? No, it's fine. It's I'm not saying it's inappropriate. I'm it's perfectly fine It's just funny. Um And this guy is resin, but he looks very nice. It seems like a good clear resin sculpt. So I assume we're probably upping our our resin game again It's really a shame that that games workshop and and fine casts and all of that made Like turned an entire generation of people of into thinking that resin models had to be bad Because that's just not true. There's so many like great resin models from other companies and third party producers I paint them constantly And they're amazing and clean and sharp and beautiful sculpts. So like you can do it if you invest So hopefully they have this this guy looks pretty good. Uh, yeah, I think this guy looks pretty nice. So Yeah, uh, he's it's fine I mean, it's ridiculous, right? Like that's what it's supposed to be. Sure. Um Yeah Yeah, yeah, so I mean like You know seems fine enough, uh There was also a leaked image of a pegasus new pegasus light in plastic So here's the question like are you gonna paint any Bretonians? Like are you gonna go back and Am I gonna paint any of my original still unpainted Bretonians the 12 pegasus nights. I still have unpainted or the uh entire Lance like of grail nights. I have unpainted since I have 10 unpainted grail nights or the other 10 nights the realm I have unpainted or like are you asking me what I'm gonna add to my already massive army because like I have a whole grail lance and two nights the realm and a night's errant and uh Peasants and all of that like I have a pretty massive Bretonian army Like certainly more than 2000 points in the old world unless it's they go unless they go a real wild direction But we now have like new sculpts. That's what I'm saying. Like we have plastics coming. We have We have the new standard bearer. Like are you gonna pick the army backup? No, no because when you when you're when your entire aesthetic of your new game is Here's basically the old stuff again And everything new we sculpted is like a minor improvement over the original stuff. It's just like Why would I why would I buy anything new? I mean if they end up sending me some of the stuff I'll I'm sure I'll paint some of it up um, sure but like Yeah, I mean my Bretonian army is already big enough. I could just play it tomorrow, right? Like this game comes out I've got an army day one. I need no no additional effort Kyle said Vince has a pile of shame. No, no, it's not a pile of shame Those are just extra things like I have this massive army the army's done It's like a 4 000 point army. I mean it just I had more stuff. Uh, you have to understand Kyle There was a point in time Tom knows this well When the the the the dark days for many but the great days if you were somebody who was surfing around ebay quite a bit Where people were just fire sailing Uh entire collections of miniatures very cheap I I built the equivalent in aos of like a 5 000 point dwarf army for under 200 dollars, right? We did our our six month March whatever it was called right of like budget budget aos like how how cheaply can you build an army? And we had like a budget each month and all that and we did for under 200 bucks I built like over 4 000 points of aos it it's probably closer to six now that I look at Yeah, sure. Um, yeah, I mean that was that so like we were just bulk buying entire armies for like a hundred dollars It was a wild man. It was a crazy time Uh, it was so that was the when when when that's what we call stonks right there So, you know, you see it you see the market at a low you you make a money move. Okay Uh at any rate I have that extra stuff still around from them Um But it would be fun to paint a few Bretonian type things again. I mean they are obviously quite pretty models Um, yeah, I have a soft spot in my heart for them Even though like especially things like the grail knights and stuff that I do think were exceptional sculpts for their time Um, all right Uh, yeah, I mean the preview show is this Saturday at 9 a.m And we will if there is enough aos and old world stuff That's worth talking about because if you things are kill team in 40k Then I'll I'll call these boys up and we'll figure out if we can do a show I don't know what tom saturday looks like, but we'll we'll see if it's possible. Uh, What time are we talking? Is it like 9 a.m? 9 a.m. Is the preview show it would end up being like 10 or 10 30 or 11 when we did ours depending on how long they go That's pretty close to soccer, but I or football if you will, um, but I may be able to do it Yeah, we'll see what happens. We'll see if it's worth it Uh, the other thing that we know, I think Given the I don't I didn't download this image because it was on like twitter and facebook But they didn't share it on the website, but they shared the like three days to go image Okay, until the preview show and it just might as well have said we're going to talk about sylvaneth So I just feel like it's almost guaranteed We're going to see because we had made a call that sylvaneth will be in the next dawn bringers book Uh, and I stand behind that And that was more or less in my mind confirmed today. Yeah, like the move, you know the move to the realm of life Yeah, I mean they they had like a tree stump with the number three on it and like the Bugs and stuff that they always use for sylvaneth all around it. I was like, okay cool So we're gonna see some sylvaneth stuff on saturday Got it. Like it wasn't a wasn't a real subtle hint Right, wasn't it wasn't a difficult, uh read. Yeah. Yeah, you didn't have to really uh Go full detective mode here. Um Okay, so, uh, there we go. Um Yeah, I think I think that's I think that's all our new stuff, right? I think that's yeah, that's it That's okay And quick by the way. Yes indeed. I did bring up the uh in the file ahead of time Oh good. Well, I'm glad to hear it. Tom. I'm very excited about that I can meet I can meet minimum standards sometimes I believe you Uh, all right. Well with that, let's move to uh Some pick of the week. Tom, what would you like to share with everybody out there? Uh, you know, if I'm gonna be honest like I've just been neck deep in In Like trying to get caught up on aos stuff, right because like I've been be so behind the game for so long um, uh, I It's an older video But it's something that I put on in the background just because I always enjoy his deep uh his deep baritone Um, and that would be hey woe did a reveal show for the you know, like in light of the reveal show that's coming How about you go watching? Uh Hey woe's treatment of the nova 2023 review Um, which was last month Again, it's older, but I enjoyed it and no, I get it I'll pop on a little hey woe plus when you're looking for for the long form content. There's nothing wrong with that I'll link out to hey woe plus channel We can do that. Uh, he was on the show last week. We're gonna have him back on Next month. Tom. I don't know. Did you watch the show last week? Uh, I was in another country and my internet was not I was on my honeymoon. Yeah, and uh, the internet wasn't good. So that's fine The only reason I asked we we had like a very long magic discussion I'm not going to restart that here because of course with the Tyler's getting into it by the way. So we're excited. Is he really that's very exciting times But we're gonna have him back on and I'll make sure you're on this show because, uh Hey woe has has created custom commanders for every army in aos and he A couple of them and he is an excellent card designer That is what I'll say like the man has a future like he is it's top talent. It's top talent. It's good stuff. So very much looking forward to that Uh, but my pick of the week is going to be for Uh, holy wars gt here what tom is talking about being neck deep in the preparation for is holy havoc tournament coming up in About a month from now almost exactly to the day. I think that's right. Um Uh, which is a teams tournament In held in illinois run by our good friend steve herner That happens this fall, but sign-ups for holy wars in the Spring which is on february february second will go live on I want to say ah the 16th Of october so here in five days At 7 p.m. Central standard time you can see all the details at holy wars gt.com that is linked down below It is also a teams tournament. Uh, they're both teams tournaments. They're both Sorry partners. I guess is what we would call it here. It's two people. We just two of you with a thousand points Uh at any rate, it's an amazing tournament. It's a singular experience. Uh, the terrain is truly something you can't imagine Um, you have never played on a table like this and you never will Anywhere there is no other experience like this in the world Uh as these custom tables And and it's back on old four by six tables And so you're actually playing with more you're playing with more space That is true They are they are on the old style larger tables because steve made all those tables custom like the boards Are just built into many of the tables like there's not a separation for many of them So it's not as though you could just cut them down Um like the sort of the one of the tables for example being like basically a sort of city of venice It has about an inch and a half of resin poured or something on it to make it like water And then there's like a city a series of bridges and uh walkways and things that sit on top of it In this like big venice like city's marble structure And it's incredibly deadly and fun and wild to play on So, uh, hope to see people there. Remember the 16th. You can find the link down below So check it out. Uh, all right with that Let's move to some hobby time Tom i'm guessing you're deep in it buddy. How goes the the hobby? What do you what do you've been working on? Uh board suck. No Yeah Yeah, no, it's good. Uh, just waiting on stuff to dry, you know, you know how it is Um a little bit here a little bit there I've built a bunch of models. I don't know if I'm going to use all of them Um Uh, yeah, I'll leave it at that So like they're because like some armies still have some summoning Um and like adding models to units and so you have to like overpaint If you want to be prepared for that eventuality. Sure. That's why I don't play those armies I understand that right and so I'm finding that I'm having to like paint and prepare more than I And just Hmm understandable Yes, I'm sure everybody is very sad for you. That's a series don't cry for me argentina sort of situation there Um, all these dead bodies. They're just all around me. Yeah indeed Um for myself, it's been quite a busy hobby time as well Um, so first of all, I finished these boys Let me get these guys up here Uh, but uh, these are the new Brute Reckas or whatever whatever they're called something like that To add into my iron jaws force the sort of unit of three I modeled them with the big giant choppy weapons because I like the big giant choppy weapons Um, and I think they just look cool. I don't know what I'll actually play them as but who cares There'll be a video about these dudes at some point in the future So Excited about those guys. Yeah, they were they're cool And so the iron jaws force grows. I've got almost everything from the new force added um, I have also been experimenting with some of the uh speed paint metallics Uh speed paint 2.0 metallics the idea of a sort of contrast metallic is a fascinating idea, of course But I uh, I was putting an old rack ass model here to work to see how they they come out And I have to say so far. I'm actually Quite impressed by these but that'll be end up being a a video as well as we sort of as I deep dive into those Um, I also got a great game in this weekend Uh, christian weir was down So he and brendon came over and we got a good game in Uh, it did not go well for me You might say that everything went wrong Uh And uh, there were no works left alive Um, but that's okay. It was a very fun game So Uh, it was the first time I've got zog rock on the table the new the new iron jaw guy who like Touches your models and and gives them mortal wound stuff. Yeah, okay Uh, never got the ability off once Bomb it it goes off on a two up That's uh, it's brutal. I rolled that three times I mean that that's that's par for that course for you though. Yeah, sure I mean like if you have to roll a dice you will simply not be able to make it work It was shocking I got to the point where it was just funny because like zog rock at for for a moment was like my only hero left for like sort of a series of turns. He was my hero left and So my general had died and I was like No problem bonus command point on two up rolled a one and I was like that's no issue I was like that's fine. Whatever and I was like, okay, uh, all all mortal wound this unit Two up rolled a one. I was like, yep. Okay. Cool. I did that two turns in a row one one one one It was great. I was like, this is amazing The this is the new model syndrome if you've ever seen it, right? Because it was his first game after being painted So you just he had he had to be terrible the first game. That's what happens. So I mean it like they're like as as superstitious as it is. I mean, there's some good. Yeah like Things always perform their worst when you put them on the table for the first time, sure It was still fun. It was a real fun game and uh, yeah Uh, so that was that was my that was my hobby time pretty pretty good We got it got a lot got a lot of stuff done and uh after this after I'm done with this experimentation and filming and everything I am turning to my warlord for upcoming holy havoc as I need to Craft a new warlord. So there we go Um, all right Uh, so With that tom why don't we uh Why don't we Get to the main the main topic tonight, shall we? All right, main topic Redesigning aos Uh, as I said at the top I want to start With heroic actions monster spam pages and command abilities And audience out there watching first of all, how come you haven't hit like yet? There's so many more of you watching than if hit like go ahead and click that button. Uh, all right And uh, you know hit like for your new models being terrible or whatever you like whatever whatever reason catches your fancy And uh, and and we're gonna we're gonna dive into this But I'll be curious out there audience. I want to hear about your feelings on these individual items as we're going So do please share as we as we get into it. Um, all right So let's just jump we're gonna just jump straight in My goal here is 4.0 is coming. I'm sure it's already written I don't care If it is it is if it's not it's not uh, and Uh, our goal here is just to talk about what these things should be Yeah, uh, and How they should we feel they should function? What's the best sort of world where this could work? What's wrong with them currently? And what's the better world for them to be in? Uh, Hades death god says say something we like and we will Hades you're a great guy. How about that? There you go Just i'm not i'm not above i'm not above that. I'm not above pandering. Hades. All right Okay, true So, uh, we're gonna start with the we're gonna do these in order. Okay Let's start with heroic actions Yep Okay And tom I want your thoughts here. Yeah, because I know I'm sure you have many many thoughts, right? Okay. Yeah. Yeah But here's my list. What's wrong with heroic actions? I think this is maybe the best system out of the three We're gonna talk about tonight All right Here's why I think so it's pretty good overall Like it's got a good memory trigger What I mean by that is like it's a start of turn thing, right? It's okay. Start your turn You do your heroic action. You pick your battle tactic. Like there's several things There's a lot of like cleanup stuff you do at the start of the the turn It's kind of easy to remember. That's one of those things, right? Yep Most of time it's a single use thing like you're picking one hero. You're doing one thing Yeah, right And there is an easy default which I consider both a good and a bad All right, like the the easy default No, you don't know what else to do. You just say I roll the die and go for a four For a commitment, right? Yeah, that's it. Like that's just your no thought put into this. I've got nothing else to do default right That's a good thing because then you can sort of help Uh alleviate the need for a choice But it's also a bad thing because it kind of always sucks when you have a default and you don't really have interesting choices You're making most of the time Do you not like I don't know to me like the healing always weighs strongly, right? Like if I have somebody that's injured All like I don't just default to the to the command point, especially if like I have a good economy within my army Right. Sure. Sure. I'm not saying you never use the other ones. I'm just saying there's the default Right. It's like Because the healing one you have to have an injured hero outside of combat Sure Right, but you don't always meet so you might have a guy who don't want to heal but can't Right best day ever is once per game and you don't often like you sometimes you have a hero You know, you want to use it on sometimes not right Yeah And the bonus unbind there can be entire games where that's just never even something you're going to utilize either because you already Have enough unbinds or dispels. You don't need extras or or whatever, right? Like right here Your opponent doesn't even have any wizards at all like whatever right Um, if you say you're playing me, that's a dead choice. Okay, because I don't I don't have any wizards. That's not happening Okay sure and so I So here's really my the here's my challenges slash questions. Okay I really hate the different triggers for each one Like this one is a bravery check. This one is automatic. This one's more up, but we've already sometimes two up We've already said that like like it needs to be standardized much like monster factions. It needs to be standardized Yep, sure sure And And we'll talk about that later, but also the question that I ask Here really is is this the right set of effects? All right, so so that's that's my there's my quick Talk Okay, unpack that a little bit. What do you mean by the right set of effects? Could we think of better things that would be that would make more sense for the heroes to be doing at the start of the round Other than the four that are on offer, right? Is this the right four is for the right number? Um, should there be more should there be less should they be different like this isn't a bad system? Right, don't get me wrong. Okay So can I And maybe this is like complexity for complexity sake, so maybe the answer here's no and i'm i'm just gonna acknowledge that right out of the game Okay, do we have to have the same four for each grand alliance? Okay unpack that. I mean I give me give me a pitch so what if what if some Like I like immediately I went to like a command ability, which is not right right like originally initially I went to something like rally like to like but I want to talk about rally because this will this will capture the heart of what i'm saying rally feels like an order ability Everybody can do it But it really feels like an order ability now. I understand it's flavored differently for different armies Like in the with undead armies rally is used to restore troops. It's reflecting like the audience. Yeah, I got you But when we look at heroic actions Like I just wonder if maybe they're ought to not be something like Two standard abilities And then maybe a different One for each grand alliance that's indicative to who those grand alliances are Okay Okay And and what their heroes are doing like that it's really capturing the essence of that So for chaos it could be something warp related It could be something like so you could lean into the flavor with something like this Or you could lead lead into like kind of the zeitgeist of the army Order being about structure about commands about, you know, like giving You know The the various elements that are associated with order Destruction being about rampaging and about marauding and whatever else right like Um Death could be about returning troops Right, like, you know, like traditionally like we've had many bites at this apple of like, how do we regen troops? For a while it was a it was an automatic ability Then it was a command ability then it was a spell like there's a bunch of different things we've bitten at But oftentimes it's the heroes doing this Maybe the right answer is to see that in heroic actions Yeah, where the heroes are summoning back units. I say all that to say I wonder if you could have like and it would give more distinct flavors to the individual grand alliances Okay So it would and so in an ideal world If I were designing it, I would do something like this You have two and I recognize the complexity here is significant You have two base You have one grand alliance And you have one army base One from your arm Um, and then so now that would recognize like from a complexity level you're moving from like four base up to like 20 Um, 24 or somewhere in that space of base heroic actions that are kind of uniform We'd have 25 heroic actions one for each army plus four plus two. So you'd be at 31 41 there you go I don't know. That's just my gut and and maybe the answer is like it's not for every yeah anyways No, and that's where I was going to push you like is it army based or is it grand alliance based? They don't pull too much on the alliance based stuff anymore. Although they do a little Like the the armies of renown are largely alliance based, right? Like they can go into any destruction force that has the blah blah blah, right and so on So it's not as though that's like a technology. They've completely abandoned Yeah, I like are you thinking these are existing in the core rules? What I mean is like The heroic action page in the core rule. Yep. Okay. Yep. Yep. So 4.0 book. We get it Here's what it looks like you turn the page heroic actions You know 12.2 or something, right? And it's like All heroes have access to these two command ability or sorry. There's two actions Let's say two or keep it two for the moment. Okay, because that'll end up in an interesting nice round number Yeah, and then Order heroic actions destruction heroic actions chaos heroic actions death heroic actions. There's two sure For you too, right? Yeah. So now you have 10 total But the two are more flavored to like generically be about the broader themes of that alliance Okay Yep, so you still end up with the same number like you still have four right. Yep. Yep and I think that that there could be something to that I'm gonna be honest. I hadn't thought about that at all But I don't hate that. I don't hate that one bit And then and then maybe maybe the answer is you don't always add them from armies, right? But that would never ever Unless it's like unless it's something specific the army's doing like they did with you know, s2d or something like that I'm not saying you can't ever I'm just saying like it's not an expected part of the book. Sure. Sure It could be like part of your allegiance abilities as you get new heroic action options That can still be a thing in the same way We could give you monster's rampages or your book could give you command abilities because you know it's just something that is Endemic of your army, right or emblematic for your army, perhaps a better word, right? Yeah, okay And that would that would lend more weight to the grand alliance Decision right like right now. It's not really a decision We functionally like grand alliance functionally means zero at this point. Sure Um, because you're not like it may dictate allies, but your army is dictating allies. Your grand alliance is not dictating Yeah, let me answer a couple comments here is I think there's some interesting discussion going on Uh, the um The you know storm keeps I'd rather have army specific actions rather than alliance actions Yeah, I get that they'd be more specific But I think then that's getting too specific and there'd be too many out there The advantage to this and keeping 10 of them in the core rules is they would be knowable Right like people would be able to know them and think about them Yeah, um 10's not too many. Yeah, it's not too many like 10 is not too many of a thing That's a knowable number um The Assistant ref and dylan steelbow said why not get rid of heroic actions and give us more options for grand abilities because I think they are different things I I really do feel that they're they're they're different and it's good that they're two different resources heroic actions feel more like the the hero itself doing something for itself And that's why I don't like heroic actions that but in any way are are like going into Another that are in any way spilling over to another unit Like the heroic action should be self contained It's something that hero is doing that is affecting them and them alone, right? And you wouldn't want to staple every one of these like specific command abilities with this hero may issue this Commandability and this this hero must be the receiver of the command ability when issued in this way like oh god You know, I mean like what a nightmare No, just just have this extra thing and then it's not running on this It doesn't have to work against the resource of command points. It doesn't have to balance against that I don't have to try to figure out do I need to increase the command point pool accordingly like It's it's a lot right By keeping it in the core rules and having it be like um And having it be a set thing that's really there to like speak to the flavor of what the heroes of that alliance are like Um, I think you could lock it in and keep it pretty reasonable Kyle Nelson said yeah, this doesn't exacerbate issues. We have when new battle tomes released I don't know how it interacts with it at all Kyle unless you want to unpack that more for me because it's not happening in the battle tomes I think he's assuming my one suggestion to include one with every army Oh, I'm putting the kibosh on that you had the right idea at the beginning Which was locking it to a sort of grand alliance function because You know the two you could sort of preserve I suppose Right sure Might be like like what are the two we preserved tom What are the what are the let's say you pick two that are generic out of the current list? What are the two you preserve? I mean, I have an easy answer Okay, let me hear yours It's best day ever and the bonus command point You mean finest hour and bonus command point correct Those the two you preserve See I So let me push back on that sure so I thought about finest hour potentially preserving that but I wonder if what might not be better Is combat bonuses that map to the grand alliances and so that may be an easy customization You're saying that every one of them would have some kind of each of the four would have something effectively replacing best day ever Down there like something a specific combat focused one but focused on their flavor. Okay. I can accept that Yeah, so one of the heroic actions in all four buckets is like some kind of combat related thing But in the flavor of that alliance. Okay cool. Yeah, so then what do we keep the heel and the Yeah, I think I think maybe so I think that um I think the right answer would be you keep The command ability maybe in the heel And then like the like the unbind could be reflavered um It could be reflavered to be something like calling upon sigmar or it could be reflavered as like like Like warp storm something right like you're invoking larger like disruptive energies or etc etc right like so you could reflavor some of it in those ways um Yeah No, I like the concept. I think you're I think you're on to something there right I would want I would want and maybe what we could play in is that to have um, if you're wanting it to be buffing Right, like you want it to like you want it to be focused on those individuals Maybe what the right answer is is to have something like this. You have something that is action point or command command a point uh command point affiliated and then you have a um an offensive one A defensive one And then some other utility And so and what I mean by defensive is that maybe those are some of your custom fits in both often Like maybe destruction doesn't have a defensive one. They have an offensive one and they have something else, right? Sure So like a different like it may be a mobility utility rather than Rather than Offense and defense, but you could play with that and it wouldn't just have to be bonuses It could be healing so healing would sit in that kind of defensive type of space Like the winds like somebody are like embracing the winds of shahish right for for death could be Could be a healing like a self healing Sure, maybe we don't give them maybe we don't keep the healing one at all. Okay, because like it does feel very specific So sure like death could get a could get a bigger heal one By the way, then maybe we don't need to put like massive self heals on every death hero They get right right sure indeed indeed and so So again, I don't have specifics like because this is this is kind of spur of the moment But that's that would be my where my gut would be is to do something like that where we are playing in the space Of grand alliance identity and helping give give distinctive flavors To the grand alliance itself Um, because that's just not something that we're that we've seen in design in the last like two editions No, that's interesting And it could be a sort of mechanic that is acting as an expressive element in the core rules That's sort of talking about it gives you a bit of a taste of the flavor of what that alliance is about very large Because there are some unifying concepts, right? um, yeah, that's interesting, okay And Uh savage lupine said wait, how many of these just are just renaming not reflavoring with this idea? Well, there we'd moved to 10 so I assume a bunch of them are getting Created out of whole cloth some of them would be renamed like maybe the the heal thing ends up in somewhere else Um, like and narrower like right like it's not going to everybody. It's only going to some armies, right, right, right We got a couple we got a couple people in the uh in the in the comments Uh saying that uh, basically we don't trust gw to do this. We're not talking about gw at the moment We're we're we're saying how things should be We're making this. Yeah, we're doing this Okay, like that that's just pessimism on a scale. I can't abide right like you have to always push them to say This is the right way to do the thing Not like if there's a good idea, but there's a chance for that they'll they'll fail They need to elevate themselves and rise to the occasion. We don't not do cool things because we're afraid they might dump it All right If we if we did that that that that's a sort of risk aversion and design that will lead that way leads damn nation Okay And and so like we we have to push for these things just saying we think they'll screw it up or they have a bad track record Oh, that's true. I'm under. I'm completely empathetic to where you're coming from But that doesn't at all change how things should be Right. That's like saying well a lot of things in the world are bad. So we might as well not try like no We we must always try okay And just and just hold gw to that higher standard and just hold them to that higher standard Yeah, like absolutely. Absolutely um the uh and so like Now to answer rory. I see out there he rory tv had had made a couple of comments to the order of like You know, you you're making a choice anytime you add a mechanic and you have to always ask the question Is it is it taking away? More than it is the cost is the juice worth the squeeze effectively, right? And I do very much agree with that tom and I think about that all the time when we're when we're when Certainly when I'm writing the game when tom's developing the games. I write it's a common point of discussion of like is this worth it I think actions. Oh good And this is why I said, you know, like the complexity may not be worth, right? Yeah, because we're adding Which like that's where my heart was but at the same time right now. It's just boring I mean if you're a regular player of an army or even a couple armies in a faction The complexity does not go up for you at all. You had for now. You have for then Correct. That's it. Right. It's yeah, the complexity the complexity is understanding how your Your abilities interact with the other arm. Sure. What are the two things they're going to bring to the table? Yeah, right that's right that are new or different. Yeah So it's not nothing but heroic actions in general I do think are one of those things that falls on the good side of it. They're quick I don't see people sit and deliberate over these for a long time because there is a default As I said, it's really good and a bad right like heroic actions are generally very quick People tend to like them. I think most people like best day ever and find it to be fun when they call it on their hero And then do something cool Like assistant ref had mentioned somewhere back that the plus one save can be warping and I'm like, yeah, sure But okay, like it's still worth it. It's fun. It's fun to have that thing Like not everybody gets mystic shield not or can cast it reliably not everybody has plus to save effects But it's neat that you have something you can do They'll make your hero a little tougher for a short amount of time Right. I think I think like if we were to test heroic actions when we were to survey on these I think this would come out very very positive overall in in like how most players would survey and estimate this That's my feeling of the thing. I don't see much in the way of complaints about heroic actions. Okay. Yeah Which is why I say I think they're the closest Where to like being good design, right? Let me skip to this. Let me jump to my next slide here Let's just let's let's do the simple version than the complicated versions You just kind of stretched out the bigger redesign, which is fine. I have no issue with that Let's say tom. They want to keep it to a simplified system We're like, we're just gonna keep the same four like this is the lowest effort rewrite of this Okay, we're gonna start at the simplest point and then move out Does that work? Okay. Yeah Cool So to me the simplest point is this you move to a single check for all heroic actions Either they're all automatic or they all check on the same number Spoilers. My answer is they're all automatic You just do them Yeah, okay No more rolling a dice. We're gonna make it even quicker. Just what's the thing you want? Okay, yeah healing you heal a d3 wounds. You still got to be outside of combat. It's fine, but you just do it No more weird bravery check where for some reason the Uh ultra fast regenerating troll can't heal himself because he's like bravery six but the Bag of bones That's just sitting there On a skeletal horse basically auto heals because it's on a 10 like tying that to bravery was just the stupidest choice ever It's like somebody doesn't understand what a bell curve looks like when they wrote that rule Like that is a bargain basement fail of understanding how math works Yeah So we're just gonna make a heal a d3 wounds. You just have to be outside of combat. That's it Not that big a deal. It's a d3 wounds Okay, it's not that much healing. It's all I guess so whatever Command point you get a command point that hero has to use it same restriction applies Sure, right like that's it. It's that hero. You're giving it to that hero So and if you don't use it by the end of the turn it burns off all the same Right, so it's already a very limited command point that we're rolling for here. Yeah Uh, so just give them just have it go ahead All right, this one hero can get it They have to be the one that uses it and it burns off at the end of turn not even in the end of the battle Around like it, you know, like it burns off the end of turn Unbind you do that you get bonus unbind to spell like that one's already automatic. It's the correctly designed one Right. Yeah And then best day ever the other one that's in my estimation correct if we're gonna keep it Just just again because you just do it. It's just a thing. You just do what's fun You call it out. It's fun. You do it again still limited to once again right Great, there's your four That alone is better to me way better We've gotten rid of the silly dice rolls. Well, it's different. It's cleaner Right. Yeah from a design standpoint. Yeah, like bare men's we've cleaned it up Okay All right. Now, let's take a step out Let's take a step out of this right Yep, and say like what's our world look like Where We either are these the right for? Now Here's what I'll say That unbind The bonus unbind to spell I really want to chuck that thing off the roof It's the it is by far the weakest Well, and it's funny too. We're saying this now because in the current season, it's actually really useful Sure, right Ironically Here we are Two and a half years into a os 3.0 For the first time this heroic action is like relevant in the meta and it will be there until the end of this But we probably won't have a wizard season again for like all a 4.0. So who cares Right, right. We didn't have one. There's the first wizard year in the nine years or whatever of a os So we're probably not getting another one anytime soon No I like I don't know what it's doing and it feels like we could uh It feels like well, they're not going to keep primal dice stormkeep like there's no universe where primal dice becomes a standard mechanic That's just clearly a seasonal thing Um, I agree with it is relevant in the current season Like I cannot argue with that. It's not going away in the current season We're talking about a change of 4.0. So the right would be gone These will be here But so was bounty hunters. It was relevant in its current season, right? But that but that that did not stick around Yeah I think the boat is unbinding to spell just should be jettisoned and if our concern Works don't enjoy your city. Isn't that just your anti-magic bias? Maybe I don't know could be who knows what goes on in your subconscious It's entirely possible What if you like replace that? I just feel like it's not interesting most of the time. I'd rather have an interesting choice there Go ahead. I'm thinking Like what if you tied it to like um Like here's a weird one go for it hit me instead of finest day ever Or like not instead of instead of that but like in place of the unbind what if you like Granted yourself For a board safe against mortals Oh against mortals specifically Yeah Yeah, I mean something like that. Here's what I'll say it would be interesting if Like it doesn't necessarily have to be defensive Could be a five up against mortals or something like that, right? Maybe that's the more relevant thing I don't know, you know, depending on what the balance is again. It only be against mortals. It's not against all rooms So I understand it's quite limited, right? Right. You have to understand it like that. But again, that's still quite situational and specific And so my my concern there is I would I would like it if we had something that people were actually interested in using right um And and it would be interesting if it was something that That like there's a lot of ways we could go with it that I haven't thought through deeply Okay Like you could have the hero gain a bonus to Cast a spell like we could have a magic related one for a single for a single spell cast, right? They can right you could go the opposite direction instead of if we're gonna have heroes randomly just Pushing magic away for no reason, right? It would make more sense if like a wizard gained a bonus to cast a spell like focus or something like that, right? Or even just give them a re-roll on the next spell they cast sure something like that, right? Well and the reason why I would do something like that is that it would it forces order Like yes, you get this benefit, but it also forces you to not like like wait until after Like wait until after all their unminds are used or something like right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it actually forces Your hand on what you're casting because there's a downside potentially Yep um so Cody let me I want to address this real quick endless spells I've got so cody said endless spells have gotten juice in the past year This ghp is the main reason we don't see them as much. I mean I agree that this ghp is death to endless spells There's no there's no point to playing endless spells in the current ghp Uh without primal dice, we would see much more use and no access to heroic willpower means non magic armies will get abused by them Um, not necessarily one we were talking about at the launch you breathe All endless spells will be rebalanced at the launch of 4.0. I mean I can guarantee that and That's one two There's no reason that low magic or anti magic armies couldn't have some rule That like if you were going to ever back in an army specific thing Putting like heroic willpower or something like that in those armies is what makes sense Like if those if those no magic armies have some kind of answer In the same way that long beards used to be able to grumble and like kick endless spells out of the out of the game Right, right? That kind of mechanic is what should be occurring in those armies To keep them in balance and in play. That's how we should be addressing that right Um, so yeah, I don't know what the what the right answer is there I mean, it could be a simple tom right as like Choose either the combat or shooting phase the hero gains plus one or plus two attacks in that phase or something like that Right, it could be literally that easy right, sure Just so like cool a fighty hero thing right or whatever Well, and this is why I think that it's way more interesting if it was grained alliance specific sure Like like frenzy to salt right like that screams destruction to me plus two attacks um In melee or whatever your profile Here heroes profile not the mount or whatever, you know, like something in that space. I could I could readily see Uh, I don't know I just I like it's fine how it is it could be simple and hide but it could also be better Let's let's go a little let's let's move a step farther out. Let's get into some blue ocean here. Okay Let's not worry about the number of heroic actions. There are or replacing anything or anything like that Right, okay. Oh, that's a good point there. Kyle Kyle said like my bonus attack thing Would be like you could add like on the charge like plus one attacker plus two attacks on the charge Or something like that. That's a great idea. Kyle. I like that Let's let's talk about what we're the tight if you were going to just add new heroic actions again Don't worry about what we're adding as far as complexity goes. This is just blue sky Design, right? It's for somebody else to replace later. What's the types of areas you think should be explored with heroic actions What are the types of things that would make sense in your head? I mean you mentioned the the mortal wound shield, okay? Durability leadership mobility combat Okay, uh, and then maybe something utility like those are the super categories that I would create. Um, if I were playing in this space Okay Yeah, I could see like a A sort of lead from the front heroic action um, like something where you know, if the Uh hero charges that turn Uh, and fights in the combat bays Then they gain the strike first effect or something like that, right? Um, some kind of effect being really powerful, you know, like that would be good Just from the standpoint of like it would have an effect on Like other units if they have the ability to pull their units into combat. Sure Absolutely, you know, what are the challenges with these is trying to make sure that they don't end up just being abused by the 14 Woon monster heroes and not ever used by the the tiny heroes, right? I mean, this is one of the big challenges to the design with this Yeah Rory had said what if what if hero actions were genuinely powerful, but each hero can only do One action a game then it's more interesting and when to pull the trigger not just roll for cp Yeah, maybe I There might be something to that I'd have to think that through it's a big change But I don't I think there might be something to that Um, yeah Right I don't hate that Yeah, sure And assistant ref does bring up a good point that if you're going that far out You mean I assume you mean like deeper in the turn Why not ditch the start of the player turn trigger the advantage? Is it's an easy place to remember, but I don't know it actually makes that much sense Yeah, it's a good point like doing those kinds of like later in the turn triggers are always a bit questionable You're not you're not wrong assistant ref like that's fair Yeah, but it does feel like Heroic actions should probably be taking place in the hero base like that does feel right Yeah, there's something about the timing that works But then that means we should restrict our design accordingly to like where you can feel or understand the The effect right like right there the rockability of it. Mm-hmm. Yeah So, you know, I think like I read it like I read it as the heroes are making a pivot on the battlefield Based on what's going on around like that's like that's how I read that and and it's them exerting their will On the flow of the battle in a way that's not like a command of it. Yeah, I mean the You know, I think that if you look at at something like You know triggering for bonus attacks or Allowing them I like a reposition where just this hero is moving and maybe that's limited in some way Like it's a it's a it's a direct move of inches not a direct move of their movement value or something like that So that big monster heroes who have like fly 16 can't just abuse the crap out of it Could be fine. I know some people are very opposed to hero phase movement But I like legitimately don't mind a hero phase move if it's you can't do it in combat If it's treated as a normal move and it's like a five-inch move or something like that Something like that could be very very potent and useful Um, especially on foot heroes who need to reposition the castus bell and bring somebody into range or something like that If that might end up being used much more on those smaller heroes potentially potentially um You know, uh, but like that kind of stuff all makes sense to me I think there is fertile ground here That we could explore even when when talking in like very generic terms Where you have to make them work for kind of every army every hero, right? Yeah And I think that that Rory has a good point Where he said, you know, like if we if we moved these Or or even if we moved more of them to once again You know, one of the things that's fun about best day ever Is it is a big potent effect, right? And that's obviously governed by the once a game thing So if you moved, you know, if you had another one that was Uh That you had one or two more or something like that that were once a game I do feel like you you want to be careful that you don't back yourself into a corner like imagine Like imagine something like seasoned veteran Sure, that allows you to It gives you one reroll before Before the end of the term much like you'd get one command dice You get one reroll what would that be like hit wound save Word save whatever Yeah, okay, okay Tactical insight you know reroll one hit wound or save roll before the end of the turn something like that. Yeah, sure Yeah, sickness as second best day ever. Yeah, it's like it was a pretty good day pretty good day yes absolutely But I think there's a lot of ground that could be explored here And and one of the things I like about your idea kind of just to synergize this all together is that I I actually hadn't even thought about it all tom, but I really like that world you described because We actually could explore some of this other space Right with with the grand alliance more specific abilities because then you're deciding a little more flavor, right? Yeah, right? Yeah Uh, yeah, like or ETB said once per game fight on death only foot hero sure like something like that could be could be absolutely there Like and that's the last if the hero dies this turn They may you know fight before it went one additional time before they were moved from the battle or something like that And realistically that should live Like if you were to have something like that That should live in this kind of space Right like Not only are we talking about Like i'm talking about just grand alliances in general like if you're going to do anything in the core rules Grand alliances are like the most Like I'm laughing at halo who called it last day ever So you've got best day ever and last day ever Which I do love I'm not gonna lie like i'm pretty in for our last day ever Like you get to fight on death and you get a plus one to wound it's your last day ever or your plus one to hit Or I don't know whatever each yeah that kind of thing. Yeah. No, that's that's my check There you go plus one attack and you could fight on death. Yeah, it's your last day ever. This is it make account Yep No, I don't hate that Like you're not gonna get into discrete design in books about grand alliances because that's a level above Right, whatever that resource is. Yep, but in core rules, it feels like you should be able to get into grand alliances Yep Like that's the place to do that because it communicates something about the the What what is cohesive across? All of death What is cohesive across all of chaos? Right like the destruction when you could easily imagine them having one that's like a heroic action That's like plus one attack plus two if they charge like that's a perfect destruction Offensive heroic action, right? Like you just you can see that existing in destruction Basically every destruction army has somebody in it some heroes in it who want to charge Who want to be more fighty? Everybody, you know, like it's just it's just a thing Ogres love that iron jaws love that everybody loves that right like goblins even love that There's plenty of there's plenty things in the gits book. They want to get in there and use that that kind of an ability Yeah Yeah, okay. Yeah, I have some trolls that definitely want that right like man Yeah Okay The Colt spanks said I know this is off topic, but strike last effect My buddy will attack with a unit uses a character that gives the strike last effect to that unit And attack me at the end of second time. Is this how it works? It always seemed off. No No colt it is not. I don't know what to you that tell me what two abilities you have interacting But no, you can't fight again unless you're specifically instructed to fight again The fact that you suddenly if you gain strike last after you attack just nothing happens the Okay, nothing changes, but yes, you only fight again if something instructs you to fight the second time Yeah, um It Yeah, we would need to know what the specific abilities are that are interacting And and I and by the way something somebody said earlier, which Rory just repeated and I meant to call out was Grand alliance feels like where the color the color pie would sit In this and I've pushed for years that we should have better definitions around the color pie right yeah, and Like absolutely the case that that's that that should be that way um So yeah, yeah, I think the I think they could just do a lot with rogue actions and I think it would be really great if some of these heroic actions could lead into Uh champions and not commanders or whatever i.e. nine wounder less heroes versus 10 wounder more heroes, right? I don't want it to all be that way But I think it'd be really cool if some of them pushed more about that that way Sure, right where they were they were better or had more effect or clearly, you know More incentivized for for heroes of that amount or something like that. Yeah, or whatever. Yeah, right Because I just I like the Foot heroes have always struggled in this game and heroic actions If they become actually something useful interesting Have some real utility could be a way to Incentivize those foot heroes coming back in besides just the buffbot foot heroes Yeah, we're only there to be like I give a bonus and then I that's the only reason I exist, right? It's like, okay. Yeah so Okay cool very good uh, I think that uh Yeah, cool. You'll need to you'll need to tell me what the what the specific unit is but I mean it's like again if it says you fight like you you get to fight a second time But you do so with the strike last effect then sure then they get to fight a second time Which there are plenty of units like that That's how they've started designing stuff. Oh, yeah So, you know, if that's what's going on then sure they get to fight twice um, but like It's that that's different wording than just the strike last effect applied for some reason right Okay, uh, all right so Um Yeah, like if you're talking about heralds of ruination on chaos chosen Yes, that does allow them to fight twice once a game But the strike last effect applies to the second fight that is correct because the ability instructs you to do both things So there you go. Okay Uh, cool Next up. All right monsters rampages. I got a lot more to say here Uh, let's talk about these these guys These things are wildly unbalanced, right? Right, I mean, that's just that's just where we start That's where we're gonna start this Monsters rampages are so far out of whack like heroic actions. I think could be defended as The the unbide one aside, which again in the current season I will openly admit has now come into its own like a like a scared flower. It is now Opened up its beautiful bloom and showing its little petals to the sunshine our our our little uh Our little command ability has emerged from its cocoon a beautiful butterfly And we now really have all four that are that are theoretically useful, right in in many games. I've used all four of those Yeah, okay in in the current season So fine. Sure. Okay Yeah, but that is not true for monsters rampages These are just wild Okay, these are completely Inequitous just madness lunacy downtown crazy town, okay Yep If there's going to be a dice roll for these You should roll the dice first Then if it's successful Then you do the monster section because they all just trigger like On a x You may because you may do the monster section for this monster since all monsters get to do one It would be logical to gate this one behind a dice roll Yeah, right the heroic action you get one and only one Yeah, okay and But with this every monster gets to do it So I think it's fair that you go, okay three up this guy gets to do one pick one off the list Three up this guy gets to do no up. He failed. Don't have to worry. No decision needs to be made I don't need to worry about stomping or roaring or which thing is the right thing to do or my special bookie book things or whatever I just move on Okay, right But you should be rolling the dice like this is very basic game design That you should be doing the check And then if you pass the check Executing the action Yeah This is like really simple stuff Okay Yep The timing for these is bad as there's no actual trigger at the end of the charge phase for other stuff your need to You're needing to do Right. Yeah. Yeah Like And and moreover it's happening in between two of the most exciting things you do in the game which is charge and Fight your first combat Yep. Yep. Right. Okay Hades death god says I don't quite understand isn't that basically the same thing and reverse? No, okay Let me explain Hades. Let's let's let me get into this Okay Why do you do the dice roll first? Okay, because a lot of people have choice paralysis So they'll sit there and go Do I want to roar? Do I want to stomp? Do I want to do this? Do I want to do that? And all of their various choices might have different Roles to see if they happen or not. So they hem and ha for a long time about which one to use and then roll and fail Right. So they wasted all of the choice time To get up to get to end up in a failure state Okay, right whereas if we flip it and they just go Roll the dice Okay, I got a three pick But if you enter the so you'll have that that is the same amount of time theoretically because now they we flipped it now The choice is the same. Yeah, but if they fail the roll nope rolled to end We have cut all of the choice time out of it Okay, so like it is just that's why you organize things that direction because you don't put you don't put analysis paralysis In front of the gate to see whether or not you're allowed to execute on the choice you made Yeah, and he's as often as you can Okay Sometimes it's unavoidable, but there you go Okay So To return back to what I was saying the the timing for these is bad It's in between these two other things that you you actually want to be doing Right And moreover these just don't carry enough water to make non hero monsters actually do work And keep up like theoretically you don't have that many hero monsters in your army most of the time There are exceptions Okay, but oftentimes if you want to get the full clutch of behemoths You've got to dip into into just monster monsters and most monster monsters just suck They just suck Yeah, and the way they should be they would be better Is if they were if they had Good monsters rampages they could do Right. Yep. Yep, but they don't these just don't do enough because Your main guy roars Then somebody stomps and then you're done Because everything else is trash And the stomp was bad you just did it because it was like whatever it's some free damage Right Because there's such a clear rating of these It's like, okay Roar is incredible Best heroic action in the game or sorry best monsters rampage in the game by far Including all specials Right. Yep. The only thing that's potentially on the level of roar Is the king broad and ogre Uh, and yes, I put him in that order just to bother. Hey, whoa Uh, you know 3d6 surf over the top and land behind After a charge Right Yep Because again that one doesn't actually check it just happens Those are the only two that are on the level with roar Yeah, I agree with that. Okay So it just sounds like you just need better design Yeah, so so like these have to do more stuff, right? All right I'm not before I go the next one I want to hear your thoughts your thoughts on monsters rampages hit me because I I ramble for a lot there I'm passionate about this one because you know, I love monsters. I'm timmy through and through It just feels like we need better design And we need more options and so If I think roar needs so either roar needs to be brought down or everything needs to be brought up Like that like that's To me, that's the starting point. You're doing mortals. Great. It's a d6 now Right Um, which which it like I like I know that some people are going to flinch there and be like, oh that seems so powerful I mean, yeah, I'll just wait till I flip to the next page. Tom. I love that you and I think like Yeah, I mean we've been doing this for a while. Um So I uh I don't know. I just I would love to see impactful monsters abilities If if that's what we're doing and you can't replicate them, right? Like imagine a roar like it doesn't like It doesn't have to be like they obviously roar has been dang like terrifying presence or whatever Where you could like force a model to move outside of three inches directly away Sure I mean forced movements always hard to navigate in this game for like a million reasons as we learned with dawn bringers part two with the improved smash the rubble that then started causing all the giants to teleport Indeed Yes, obviously that's not the intent. Um But I think that something like that could be Uh, it could be really interesting Yeah, and like The the problem here is that this should be Actually the thing that sets monsters apart because they all get to do one and it's like their thing Right. Yeah This should be the thing that actually makes monsters interesting and it shouldn't take a couple of Book ones like I'm not opposed to book ones. Okay, like broads and the Like people have mentioned some others are their favorites, right? I don't remember the oven gory one's off the top of my head Bob, so I'll take your your word for it. I mean oven gory generally sucks, but It's fine. Like it's cool if they have good monsters rampages. I don't remember um The and people mentioned the strike last at the tree lord, which is again. Yeah, that is a good monsters rampage It's certainly on the level because it's a three up fight last effect. So, you know, hey pretty great Right. Um, not bad at all and the The the the problem with these is every so often we'll get a book where an interesting monsters rampage occurs But we've just got this foundational weakness Of the core four being complete trash So they have to keep writing new ones so that monsters actually have something to do because they know You'll never take monsters because you run out at like one Yep Right you stomp because it's like passable That's like a C grade you pass the class, but nobody's nobody's thrilled about it Right, right Uh murkford says do we need them could we just make monsters better? You know, I don't know. It's a good question I think one of the interesting things about it is that if you just make all the monsters better Generically, which is a path you could go then those monsters just are what they are Right, they just they have whatever's printed there and there's no skill checking to it No, nothing like that. And if the monster's bad, it's in the list phase if it's it's dead in the list phase right Whereas because monsters rampages are a modular piece that can snap on to any monster It makes all monsters more interesting if you have a well designed system Like if we had four core interesting monsters rampages here Yeah, right Then all monsters immediately without needing to redesign 200 war scrolls Become better and like realistically, they're not gonna write rewrite 200 war scrolls. They just won't they just what's not gonna happen So you know like This is like we can attack the the precision problem and And and do something interesting and and and skill checking Where like using the right monster's rampage at the right place is actually highly valuable Right, and that to me feels like the better fix Okay Okay, let's see Okay, let me uh And I do agree it does set them apart as a feel From other types in the game right because they have access to this unique thing There's some kind of very similar to do it of like oh, it makes this unit feel different Right because it can do this thing that nothing else can do all right So Let me redesign them. Okay. I'm gonna we're gonna again. Let's let's start Uh, let's start At like the most minimal move possible as always and then and then travel out from there Okay All right So if we were if we were forced to keep the exit, well, I'm not even keeping all of them That's a lie if we were forced to keep something like the the current thing. Here's here's my answer You roll a die on a three up You select one from below max one usage of each per face and I've seen some people Asking about the one per face thing in the comments I do think the one per face thing is more interesting than allowing them to just spam them Right and right everybody to do the same one. Yeah Yeah Because I do think that then leads to some amount like there is a cost there the cost there is analysis paralysis But the payoff there is You can design them to be a little more powerful when you know, they're capped at one per face And which is a positive like because if you're if you're if you're gonna make them all So they can be generically spammed then you've got to set the power level lower, right? Yep And two it then adds an element of sort of skill testing in a way that people will learn when and how to use what thing And how to best apply their resources Right and so that's that's also interesting Okay uh, and so Uh, here's here's here's some basic ones. Okay that that I wrote this again I'm just starting my my my my initial thought was let's stay as close as possible But I want to go far afield from that as we talk here. Sure Okay Uh, definitely not tough. Definitely not. They're already doing that. That's called the old world But we don't need to do that and that's also a terrible idea because that was a bad game Um, or at least at various points in times Uh, that I often loved, uh, okay Roar, uh The unit may not issue or receive commands. Fine. Keep it as it is. There you go. Let's just let's just let's just imagine and design around that Okay stomp is now a d6 mortal wounds non monsters only. Okay. I'm gonna up its mortal wounds a whole bunch, but make it real swinging Maybe they get out of the way. Maybe they don't But it's a big old mortal wound hit, right? Nobody likes nobody I should say this way nobody relies on rolling a d6 Yeah You get one you get six both equally possible Yep Titanic duel we're going to improve it in two ways First of all, it's plus one to hit and wound out Okay And it can target monsters or heroes Okay Yep, but it only applies to the monster attacks So if you've got a mounty guy on top, he's not he's not involved in this Yep, the the dude does not benefit and or any other crew Right Yep right How do you so sorry I was already moving forward on your sweeping blows. No sweeping blows plus one attack Infantry only like you can only it can only attack infantry Okay, okay, so sweeping blows would lock it into attacking inventory Would sweeping blows also be monster only not dude on top Good question. I hadn't thought about that. Well, I'll say maybe sell me either way No, I think I mean, I think the right answer is this like We're imagining the monsters doing this not the guys on top. So yeah, let's say yes. Let's say yes It seems like a natural a natural consequence The other one I would do is terrifying presence sure and Choose a unit A non-hero unit Within three inches that unit gains strike last I think you could go strike like there's so many let's talk about potential like let's let's Because you know warpstone enjoyers that haven't infantry been bullied enough already my answer. No, definitely not They have not been they're still the kings of this game. Have you seen zombies recently? They're pretty good, man In fact, they're they're like maybe the best infantry units are traditionally like pretty strong But at a deeper level monsters are meant to be a counter to masked infantry, right? Like I've watched record of lotus wars. I know how this goes You get out You get out the demon dragon of demon dragon mountain and you let that boy loose on an army That's it for that army homie, right? You can have all the ballasty you want It don't matter none when when shooting star comes around and starts to breathe in fire Okay, yeah So like yes, this is the counter to that right Now uh the So like other places to explore Shutting off inspiring presence when you're near we already do that with all the the big giants That's not even monsters rampage. They just do that. Sure. Right. Yeah. I can see that as being a thing Uh, I could see counting for less on objectives Like the you know, the you mess and ability the brutes have where they can like turn off one and two wound models Within a certain distance as counting toward objectives. I could see the same sort of thing being there Right Like large in charge if you will scattered confusion or something like that where they're just preventing other things from from counting toward Like within a distance of them just counting towards objectives Right shock shock and all. Yeah, sure. All right. Exactly Um I could see uh turning off retreat While you're near them Right or something like that. Um, kind of the inverse of the forest retreat. I suppose, right? Yeah But you know, I would love a like forest retreat would be cool, but it's very hard to execute in combat. All right Yep. Um, plus it's usually a buff for the enemy not a Not actually a penalty. You you could turn off pylon pylon. That would be really interesting Yeah, I mentioned that in the comments. I think that's exactly right. Yes and great for a monster Yeah, like that takes away the advantage against those infantry units without directly penalizing Yeah, absolutely Like stopping pylons would be very cool and and and moreover not only is it flavorful It makes sense what's happening there, right? Like where it's sort of it prevents them from coming any closer through You know various and sundry things you could imagine giant monsters doing that prevents infantry from getting up and surrounding it Right. Um as as was observed in by destiny in the chat Infantry as a it's not a keyword that we have It's you know, it's a tag that we don't have a clear indicator Yep, I'm assuming in 4.0. We do I didn't mention this, but I've just I've just snuck this in Okay Like I am assuming that in that in 4.0 We become smart and create a keyword and definition for what infantry is And then that's a thing like wouldn't it be wonderful if it was just like we have monster. We have hero And we could do something like Infantry and infantry and cavalry. Sure cavalry weird Weird I just have those and like they don't even have to they could be keywords, right? Or they could just be battlefield types They could they could just be keywords that exist on scrolls like I don't care right right like whatever it can exist in 10 ways Right like just make it exist So that you don't have to keep defining this in like 50 ways every time you clearly want to use something like that Yeah Right in every book where they have to be like in every battalion and stuff like that where they're like Infantry means you know this and it's a Unit with this wounds or less that doesn't have a mount or a companion or a crew aura aura aura aura aura I'm like, okay. Got it. Cool Right Yeah Um, see I'm just assuming that that like has a formal definition Um Yeah, I think that I think there's just so much room to explore here with what monsters could do Let me ask you a question Is for the right number or do we need like is for the right number? Because you think well four is sort of the behemoth cap I guess right So Is for the right number or do we need more? I think we need sex Okay Just that's the that's the just you've got feeling that's the right number Yeah, in my gut. That's the right number because you'd inevitably have a conditional monsters rages Sure Would you want to go the same direction you mentioned with heroic actions where there's like Grand Alliance specific ones or a monster is just of a cohort that like now we can have a single unified list here And does that cause you some agita if the two systems have different? Uh Typographies as it were Yeah, I don't mind if they have different typography because that doesn't bother me Um, and in fact, I think I like that better Like I like them feeling distinct Them having their own shape because this forces a role Like I would like heroic actions to never roll Yep, right And I would like monster sections to always roll and it's always a three It's always a three up. Yeah, and like when new ones are added on scroll or something like that It's just it's still the same thing. It's a roll Now if you want to make some special monster That's like really good at its monstrous rampage for some reason Then you could just say like they get a plus one bonus to their monstrous rampage roll if successful Re-roll the dice. Yeah, whatever right So like it's it's not as though we still can't play with that mechanic Right, we're just that that design space is still there and and just ready to be plumbed quite easily So it's not as though you can't have one that's still On a two up or or nearly automatic through a re-roll or whatever, right, right? Okay But yeah, I just feel like there's when it comes to monstrous rampages one of the things that lets me down the most is that That we haven't explored all this space that we were stuck with like They got this idea of destroying terrain and like that is just I couldn't I could not jettison that thing off the list fast enough, tom I couldn't because it's just the stupidest thing What is what does that do in in 99% of the case is nothing just nothing It does nothing Right if if all terrain Was like faction terrain sure right In in such a way that you could just grab it and pull it off Right, and it all had approximately around the same size Sure, and there was space at tournaments to actually like set terrain where you weren't where you weren't setting it on the ground and then kicking it and breaking the terrain Yep, yeah or cluttering up the tables or whatever Like yeah, we don't we don't live in a world where we can remove terrain from the table like the terrain is on the table. It's on the table Right, right. So like breaking terrain and then not removing it from the table doesn't feel right um And Then you have models and just all the things right like all those things that are problem and so I think that since we can't just like Since it's not terrain that has a clear footprint That is easily removable and not without disruptive models Then the the ability just needs to go. Yes So to me The the answer here is let's make like I I honestly was going to answer five Okay, I'll tell you why Okay, I wanted five to handle Heavy monster factions that have cheaper monsters, but yet can still take they can break the behemoth limit We have which there's plenty sure And if they go super monster heavy, they often end up having their own monsters rampages in there And yet those factions will tend. Yeah, not not always but often and by the way, they should in the future Like if you're going to be a a monster focused faction, you should just be showing up with your own monsters rampages They're unique and add to your your your choice set there But assuming if we assume that most of the monsters show up with like one More right that they're bringing then that gets me back to six But then I leave room for the the special one there because we had the same number in our head I was just getting there through a different way right, but then generically I still have the room to compensate where I'm not always necessarily burning like if I'm if I'm heating the normal limit I'm not always burning through the same for every round. Yeah. Yeah, right indeed Yeah, so if I'm not fighting a monster this round or if I'm not fighting infantry this round I still have another thing I can go to Right because I would want the fifth one that was in like the base set to be pretty open-ended Right. Yeah, like roar You know like where it's like usable against anything Where it feels like there's some flexibility there. Yeah Yeah, so I've got two that are like generically available and then three that are like more specific ish To what's being bought Right. Yeah, I can see that So that to me feels like the right sort of balance where you've got your your primary two that are good against everything And then your three they're like, okay. This one's against monsters this and heroes This one's against anything. That's not a monster. This one's against infantry Yeah, the most common unit type in the game, right? so There you go like that would that would feel like in most rounds if you had four things you still have four things to do With that choice set That's my thoughts. Yeah, I think that's good. Yeah um all right Matt P said honestly every monster should have a special rampage ability Uh, and yeah, I'm not against that at all. Like I don't mind at all if basically monsters just show up with their own monsters rampage on their War scroll. I don't mind that one bit. I think that's perfectly fine um Doesn't need to be the case in my mind, but I don't but like if it did I wouldn't I wouldn't hate it Uh Singer says hello. You caught it live. Hi Vincent. Tom. Hi singer. How you doing buddy? um You know like, uh, I I just think that there's a lot more um A lot more space here All right, cool good Anything else we want to say on monster scram pages before we move on to command abilities Okay Tom before I move to the command ability slide. How did command abilities used to work tom? Who could issue command abilities? uh heroes and Uh before the current world how could who could issue command abilities? Uh heroes and like uh command models No, that's the current world I'm saying before that your general Yes, you're saying like the beginning. Yes, I wasn't the beginning. That was quite recently That's how quickly your brain has smoothed over all of of a of aos history Okay. No, it was this is a very recent thing Okay. Yeah It doesn't feel that way. Hey, woe is is is correct. You're general, right? We moved in this world where like everybody's issuing commands, right? and command abilities Are a really interesting thing because we not only open the door to Well, and here I want to start with a little more theory Because we not only open in for a while. It was those that actually had command abilities on their war scroll. Sure. Yeah Yep Weird world, right? Anyway, this this this system has changed a lot and I I point that out to say this system Has changed a lot addition to addition Yeah, right. We keep redesigning this trying to find the right Like waited to to crack this nut Okay Yep um the And hey, woe said making every single unit basically a general was like a thousand percent quality of life improvement But also maybe too much, but you probably can't put the bunny back in the hat I agree with hey, woe like we've we've opened this door We're not stripping the command abilities away from like unit champions or something like that Like it's just not gonna happen. Okay We've already said basically every unit in the game can issue command abilities to itself right, we we've opened that door and Pandora's box has been opened and you can't you can't close it all the demons are out Okay what so But here's my question tom what what do we want out of command abilities because in 3.0 What happened is not only did we get everybody the ability to issue command abilities But we made A bunch of new command abilities to be issued right Yeah, every phase a bunch of phase locked command abilities and They're all like obviously there are still army specific ones though. They've been reduced greatly over the course the addition but they exist okay, and Let's think about what we've added. I want I want to do a quick I want to do a quick rundown here tom because I have a theory Yeah, I want you to tell me if this theory holds water for you. Okay Yep, right here. We go Let's talk about that. Let's talk about them. All right rally Is rally a defensive ability or an offensive ability? A defensive ability I would tend to agree it restores models to a unit that's been injured right doesn't Like yes, obviously if that unit then lives and goes and fights they fight better because they have more people But it's a defensive ability and it can't be in combat right and you can't be in combat. Exactly. Okay. Good. All right uh redeploy Is that a defensive ability or an offensive ability? Uh, I would say that it probably gets used more defensively But it can be offensive if you're redeploying like a monster into a charge Sure into a charge lane or something. Yeah, but you're right For the most part that the generic use of redeploy is basically as a defensive command ability, right? Somebody marches up to you four inches away Or five inches away or whatever you redeploy to try to make it a really hard charge Right. That's just kind of the stock standard use of the thing right Yep. Okay, cool um Unleash hell Is that a Defensive ability or an offensive ability? This is a tough one I think it's a defensive ability. Okay. Why so? Well, um Because you are only going to use it like you're using it in a in a way to as Produce the effectiveness of the damage that's going to be incoming on Whether you're trying to remove models or trying to reduce their profile Or just wait somebody from charging you at all because they'll die Right or just wait them from charging you at all. So it's a porcupine ability, right? Yep. Um, if you come and hit me You're going to take damage So you're trying to de-incentivize. I would say it's a defensive Okay, I think that's justifiable. I mean obviously it's a bit of a defensive ability using an offensive tactic But I think your porcupine assembly is right I like I don't like you're not using It to Reach out and touch somebody ever right like that's not how it's being used and so it's not an offense It doesn't let you point in click and delete. Yep. Yep. I agree. I agree So that's to me, that's defensive Okay, fair. All right Uh, all out offense. I think that's in the title. So we'll call that an offensive ability, right? Yep, and then all out defense. I think we'll call that a defensive ability, right? Sure. Sure. Okay, cool Uh Reroll charge or what a forward to victory whatever the heck they're called. I don't know that the That the reroll of charge ability. What do we call that one? That's all right. I agree Uh inspiring presence Uh, that's uh I think that that's probably, you know I think it's probably a defense I would tend to agree. I think I think inspiring presence is a thousand percent of defense ability. It's about stemming losses Right. Yes, correct. If it's not reducing Reducing damage if you will. Yeah, absolutely. That's all it is, right? Like there's this rule that says bravery in check and run away. This is an armor save for that phase Yeah, correct. Okay. Yep Okay, cool, and then uh The run six is the only one I didn't mention. Maybe that one's called forward to victory I don't remember what these dumb things are called because whoever whoever says their actual names um I that one I I'm not even sure it's either. I mean like if you have run in charge It clearly becomes offensive, right? But used generically. It's like just a mobility trick, right? Yeah, uh, I would I like I don't think that it's combat offense And I don't think it's necessarily combat defense, but I think that it is off oftentimes it is offensive from uh like a big like a uh An objective sample Yep Okay, so now So that's kind of our sweep. Did I forget anything? Did I get a mole? You know Let's say yes. Okay Um, I mean generic ones here, okay Uh Let's talk about how many of those are reactive Right Like what's what in there is reactive? Redeploy is reactive. It's triggered by your enemy's movement, right? On the shell is reactive. It's triggered by your your enemy's Movement, they're they're charged into you Yeah All that defense is reactive right, it's It's spurned or it's trigger is you're attacked Yeah, yeah, yeah, and inspiring presence is reactive It's triggered by you needing to make a battle shock test because you suffered losses right, yeah so um All of these All of the reactive sort of command abilities for the most part are defensive Okay And there's only one like I really do think the run six is is just mostly a utility thing It's most often used to like score or move to objectives or something like that to score a battle tactic and so the I think that one's just neither and it's it's interesting as a generic Standout as being neither offensive or defensive. I think that's actually what makes it interesting Yeah Whereas your proactive ones Okay Rally and An all-out offense right Certainly rally is still defensive, but all-out offense is like you're gonna do that once right Yeah What i'm getting out with this Is right now all of the quote-unquote reactivity that's been added to the game Is defensive Yeah So when we infused Into into 3.0 a bunch of new command abilities We just added the sort of like natural inclination was to add counterspell or well, they really they added a leak They were adding interaction Sure sure like the key is is that what they were trying to do with reaction is add interaction So things that inherently aren't interactive Like when you're being in fact you have no response and so it's giving you agency at various points in the term 100% agree 100% agree, right? Yeah But not every reactive ability has to be mana leak Right has to be defensive Like reactions or reactions you can respond in a hundred ways Yeah Um So one of the interesting things to me about heavily defensive Reactions in the way that they've been stuck into the game Is that it encourages you to run super hammers Like the sort of natural secondary consequence of having a lot of defensive interactivity Is for you to run more hammers Because one you have your own defensive reaction abilities already covered So your super hammers have acts the same access to those as anybody else, right? Yeah, and can you can redeploy your super hammer away and hopefully You know cause them to fail a charge, right or whatever, right? You have access to all our defense blah blah blah blah blah, right? Yep And the so like your your natural response should be to get four hammers in your list Right four massive hammers you can swing around in your list to go crush people Because you need to be able to go over the top of all of their things all of their units Right, right, I need to get over the top of your only shell over the top of your your all-out defense Right over the top of your redeploy. I need to be able to have multiple units line up on you From different angles, so that's almost impossible for you to redeploy away from me right Like What it's encouraging Is is like the more hammers I run The better I do All right, and that's generally been true for a while It's been generically true for basically all of 3.0 aos until we got the reign of the The like unkillable attrition monsters of obr and spg Both of whom had hammers that did plenty of damage. Don't get me wrong Like the mortis garden necropolis stalkers are straight killers They just also happen to be defensive monsters that are nearly impossible to remove, right Zombie spam those zombies do a ton of damage and are very deadly Right, they just also happen to have like insane regeneration and board control Right. Yep. Yep And so what I'm getting at here is Do we need reactive offensive abilities That help you trade better Okay Okay I mean, this is ultimately a trading game right Yeah, like that that is the Oh a reactive ability like um A unit that is charged they receive a command if they've been charged and they get fight on that Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Like again, I don't want everybody who's listening to get like too caught up in the specifics We're just we're just we're just brainstorming out here, right? But yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about, right? Like yeah in like fight to the last Right Um a unit that you can only issue it to a unit that's charged that's that has received a charge this turn has been charged And has not yet fought Right Yeah Okay That is targeted by an attack like it has the same trigger other than that is all up defense, right? And when they Die they get to fight Or something like that Or if we want to keep it simpler when they die because we don't generally like fight on death abilities anymore because they're rather complicated to sort of educate When they die you roll a diet on a five up that You know, if you remove the model the attacking unit suffers a mortal wound or something like that, right? Like a murderless type of Murder-roll type of ability Right You know, yeah, you could imagine a counter charge ability Being an offense. I think so many people in the comments mentioned that, right? Um where like you have some kind of um, by the way, like 40k had this Back for a while because they've had heroic intervention Some version of this right where the hero is like you charge the unit the hero's like, oh, hold on I gotta get involved in this boom and they come join in the fight Right. That's a reactive offensive ability You know Um, and I could imagine the same thing there like that could be one here like a heroic intervention where your hero is just like Hold on I'm in this too Trying to avoid me, huh? No, you know, like you don't charge the mega boss and he's like not having any of that I'm getting in the scrap. Let's do this Right or whatever. Yeah Yeah, okay So I could just imagine again Lots of reactive offensive abilities That make it much more interesting in helping you to trade Right in making it more more costly for the for the super hammers to come into you Um, something like that, right? Yep, um rather than just the defensive abilities What do you think so so let me ask like one do you have any thoughts on the entire situation? I just laid out am I right am I imagining things? What do you think? I think it's a really complex system Uh filled with a bunch of conditionals. Yep That could that could use a ground up redesign Like I'll say it. I'll like I'll I'll I'll I'll be the one to to call it out here. Um, I I appreciate interactivity I struggle with um Like again the complexity is it's difficult to to teach younger players and new players. Sure Just because there's so much going on that they have to remember like okay in this phase You can do this thing in this phase. You can do this thing Is that what you mean? My encouragement to you is to find somebody that is completely new to the game that has no conception of the game and sit down in 15 minutes try to explain How a turn works And and why you would decide to do the things that you would sure Um, and I think what you're quickly going to see is that just there's this there's this huge invisible um Data bank of actions counteractions often sitting in these command abilities That makes the the learning load of this game very very difficult Okay Yes, we like final fantasy three or whatever But All of the the baggage, you know, the right that sits underneath and the subsystems and the I didn't play any of those. I had a sega but continue. I know indeed shining force too. There you go Okay, cool. Now now i'm back on board. All right. You're you're on All right. Yep. Um, the reality is is that Uh, like you didn't get all the mithril pieces the first time through right like that's that's you're not doing that. Um and so I Like I am interested in the long term health and longevity of the game Okay, and we have built an edifice particularly in command ability That is unsustainable Like for the growth of the game Okay, like and I and I just I feel that in my bones Um, I have my have largely not played this game with my children in the last Three years two years. Okay. The reason is because it's just too much for even 10 year olds 12 year olds 13 year olds Sure It is Um, and these and these are kids by the way Who can expertly pilot commander decks? Yeah, sure. I understand like I understand That that's what you do under a card singleton magic decks with your kids. Yeah yes, and and Being able to juggle all of the variables That are going on it's not in no way are you in a space where it's you know, read the card Do what the card says like that's not what this game is and it and it doesn't space like it doesn't exist anywhere In that realm right now And so my question is is what do we need to do? To get the on ramp for newer players back to something that's more manager Okay Okay, so that's my that's my pushback on commander What's the answer there in your head? No, that's and that's a perfectly fair pushback. I get that completely Is the answer? Like last week one of the things I had proposed and we've talked about it on this show before Is I am very much a proponent of a starter battle pack A standard battle pack and an event battle pack Okay, sort of three levels right, right and One of the things I've talked about is that the starter battle pack would strip out a lot of stuff Okay, yeah, we were talking I mentioned it because we were talking secondaries last week, right or yeah Yeah, yeah Is that last week? I don't know two weeks ago at some point. I think last week. I don't know Times the flat circle. I'm pretty sure it was last week And uh My question is Are you like saying Okay, and the starter battle pack there's like two command abilities They're using combat and it's like all out attack and all that defense Let's just imagine those are sort of the those are sort of the simplest ones Whatever we think of them as far as power level. There's certainly the simplest to execute, right You're you're attacked or you want to attack you do you do this thing Or like real charges or something like that. That would be the the kind of thing you'd keep one or two or three of them If you're gonna keep any or are you saying zero of them occur here? And then you in the standard battle pack, maybe we have some but we have an on ramp into it Okay, but we have a version of the game that cuts this completely Or are you saying jettison this whole system? Okay, and we need something really like we need to really take this back to formula and think about what we're doing completely Like command points command abilities the whole concept Turn it on its head. It reinvented in some new way I mean, so what I would do is this Um, the first thing that I would do is I would scale back whatever's going to be in the core rule So I would scale it back to a handful of options. Okay two two three Make those universal Okay, so maybe like I mean in all battle packs. So again, maybe it's like Reroll to charge All out attack all it depends. I think the three simplest ones we all have in our head, right? Sure. Sure. Sure And then I this is super contentious Okay, like and so I like I college that Right from the get go We move a command ability back onto heroes Okay And so then you have for any given hero your core Plus whatever whatever's on the scroll if there is even Some of them will not have anything on their scroll, which is kind of the world that we live in, right? um But I would default and lean back into more more command abilities being on scrolls And so I wouldn't even mind if something like this. Let me let me let me push this Um, yes, it could be reroll all charges Uh as one of the three reroll charges plus two plus again, I'm not wet at any of those I'm just kind of picking them because they're sort of three simple it could be also be auto run six So it needs to be a mobility is the point and you and you could more liberally's Sprinkle reroll charges on the onto Many more hero command like if you're like there could be a stable Until like this is a world we could live in Okay, we could have the uniform three Sure, whatever they may be Okay, and then we could have let's say I'm gonna pick a number out of the six other abilities That are just sprinkled across all Non-unique heroes, okay So like you're saying there's a singular sort of choice set, but it just it repeats And it is it really right in different ways. This is a this is a combat hero foot hero So he's gonna have a more one of the more combat uniform six ability right And then your unique heroes could have their own unique command ability okay And so the actual knowledge pool then is going to be three plus six is nine Plus then any uniques Sure, the advantage is if you're actively playing. I mean, there is something to be said for to me the the sort of The thing that you're the advantage to what you're you're laying down Is that the text is no longer hidden Right because actually on every hero war scroll what it actually says Is also you can do all these heroic actions we mentioned earlier You know and also you can issue all of these command abilities, right? But that text isn't present You just have to know that by looking out to a different part of the rules, right? So you're minimizing down the amount of stuff that's existing somewhere else that isn't printed on that scroll Now if they can do the Like if they have an unleash hell or something like that, you know, whatever I'm just saying it generically, right? And that would be something written on the scroll the person knows they can do it If you have the scroll in front of you, you know, it's a capability that guy can do Right. Okay. You can you can read it right in front of you. It's not hidden information Right, right. And I think that to me that's the most egregious part of the current edition is the hidden information When you're teaching new players Because what I have to do is have to create cheat sheets For my kids or whoever else i'm teaching it how to play the game with like not only phases Right, which is like just kind of the entry level helper and what you're going to do in those phases But then an entire sard sidebar of abilities that may get activated in those phases Yep um And it just it Like If they're going to sell war scroll cards put the rules on the war scroll Yeah, I'll be honest. I don't hate that at all. Um The thing I would say is like well, there's I sort of have two different feelings about what you just said Okay Yeah, so let me see if I can let me let me parse out because I'm reacting in real time obviously to your idea, right? Yeah so To your first idea, which is let's cut the game down to a very simplified List let's let's say three We could even go for if we're feeling very generous, right? Maybe it maybe it is like You know run six reroll charge inspiring presence Maybe that's it or something like that, right? I don't know. Okay, or whatever Okay, then I like the idea of These things being specific to the hero and having them be printed on the war scroll and stuff like that uh because There is a cost there the cost is exactly what singer just said Right where you constantly have to flip to the hero to see if it has that ability Like you have to know all of your hero's abilities But in list building you're choosing what command abilities you want by choosing what heroes you're actually sure No, I I agree. It's not it's not separate information. It's just there Like you have to remember all of that and put it together and know that that's what they're bringing to the table, right? Yeah, yeah, I'm just saying there is some cost there Right sure sure and we do this already with other abilities Of course Of course you you pick the hero for other utility buffs that it brings the table, right? Like in the same for the same reason this would just be one more thing like that Like you already picked the skank priest because he gave your He he had the ability to because he has the run in charge spell where he has the Uh, but he may also be what you need to rally skink you right? Yeah, exactly exactly right So like rallies out of the game as a generic thing But the certain heroes that are that are that like it would make sense Those certain utility heroes that are very closely tied to their unit. They might have the ability to rally back those dudes Here you go Necromancers can rally skeletons and zombies. Yeah, sure sure right like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah No, absolutely um the um Assistant ref said if you're going that far, do you even need such a thing as command abilities anymore? Why not just make them worse real abilities not mess around with uh command points and all that? Well, because theoretically if you have four heroes and they all bring their own unique command ability Plus the three you're still balancing between those and paying off opportunity costs. You're not punching the button seven times around Right, right like that's what you don't want right Right, you want there to be opportunity costs because that's how you let them be powerful But you let them be meaningful because it's a meaningful decision, right? So there's there's absolutely still I mean unless you're playing slinnish pretenders in which case then hey go nuts um Tripped it baby, uh infinite command points go um That army sucks, but that is a fun ability um the The thing i'm not sure about okay um is The thing i'm not sure about is the like the idea of the repeating six Maybe but maybe i'm reading it too more strongly than what you're thinking. I don't know okay so like Because I wouldn't want it to be like if many were that Okay, if many were just the same repeating six of some kind Then yeah, i'm okay with it. I wouldn't want it to have to be just unique heroes That have like like that that have access to something different Like I think it could be an interesting way To have a couple foot heroes again going back to my earlier point Like it could be an interesting thing to have a couple foot heroes that you want to make Have an interesting role in the army have a unique command ability that they bring to that army Again, you don't want to be careful with this. You wouldn't want more than like one or two of these generic guys per army Then maybe whoever's unique, but just unique is such like a heavy baggage it brings with it in the game, right? Well, and so what I would say is this it wouldn't have to be unique But it needs to be distributed like it was on the unique Yeah, that's fine. And so like each book is going to have a handful of like Unusual command abilities that would be the way I would say it they're they're on back on board Right, because also unique characters are distributed really inequitously across the forces Of course, right like certain gas armies have like 62 named characters And then you've got like iron jaws. We just got our first named guy Yeah, and that's not what i'm talking about right like that's not what i'm leaning into What i'm leaning into is the fact that like in general You're going to have in any sampling and distribution. It's going to be one of the six on 90 percent of your heroes 80 to 90 percent of your heroes and then a handful of your heroes are going to have standout abilities that are often going to be related to what they are Yep Uh, yes, exactly. Hey, it was what's a unique character undersigned ogres. Yeah, exactly right So but yes now i'm back on board if we're saying distributed kind of as like if the if the real thing you're trying to put your finger on there is A couple a handful whatever that means what the right number is right like let's call it One to three or something like that right of the unique command abilities per army Right, then i'm back on board and I actually like this idea quite a lot because Now you are like again we can go back one of the problems that we've constantly had Is that those Foot heroes are very hard to like like what's the reason we're taking them unless they have an amazing utility But if they have a cool command ability that could let them be offensive or that could be unique or let them be defensive or Let them actually play a role Then not only could it be utility but it could be anything So your melee foot assassin could actually do his melee foot assassin job because he has unique command ability, right? Yep Okay, yes, so you so the key is here and i'm like i'm gonna kind of i'm not gonna wrap us up But i'm gonna go like kind of go big Um because like we're at command ability is worth the end right worth the end. Yeah. Yeah um In this what we've done is we have both streamlined each of these systems But Allow them to remain distinct In what they're doing and how they're functioning And then the combination of these three systems together are going to generate a complex ecosystem Of actions and reactions Yeah, without it being without any one of them being overly heavy and the advantage here is that By the way when with with those war scroll printed command abilities, whether we're talking about the unique ones or the generic ones I would still want some of them to be reactive. It's not like reactive abilities go away just to just to be super Yeah, you know like Unleash hell should still be on a war scroll, right? It's just printed on the war scroll, right? It's it's the thing and this is what it does Or redeploy can still exist, but it's on the war scroll It's not just something generically every unit can do all the time ever Right, and so on and so forth reactive offensive abilities could be on there counter charge abilities and Fight on death type of damage on death things, whatever you want to call it, right? Um abilities could be on there like you can have quite a lot of different Reactive command abilities that are happening, but they'd all be then more tied to the heroes those specific heroes They would create more opportunities like as a johnny This would open up a lot of doors for for for that type of player Right, because then the list building phase becomes a very interesting Series of decisions that are made Right, it's moving in some ways back to 2.0 Like it's dialing back the trajectory that we've went on in three And yet it's also simplified All right, and yeah, it's a ref you're not wrong He said by the way those already exist to some extent think of the counter charge on the doom bull. Yeah, I agree Yeah, I agree. I agree Um, and so it so there is some Warrant for this right? Um, but the key is is that most of your command abilities are going to be on heroes I'm gonna come from a stable of like six abilities or something like that. That's not the generics Yep Right, right. That's that's that's where I'm at for what I think the command ability system should be Okay, I mean my honest answer is I really don't Hate that at all Um badger badger said how about on the worst rolls? There's an indication of what phase the ability can be it can be used in Yeah, I love that. There's no reason right like on the worst goal You could either it could be a label an image an icon of something a signifier big bold letters that just says like commandability bold Perren's hero phase Whatever, you know, like I can do whatever you want You could have it be visual like you could have it be a little symbol for the hero phase Or it could be like hard which agnostic Like Perren's charge phase comma reactive or something like that like you can like You can do a lot with very little Yeah, so Yeah singer, I think the hope is it wouldn't because you would know Like because tom saying it's there's a there's a this set list of like six that then gets sprinkled around and then plus One to three uniques you'd know what you have in list building And like everybody would know the shared six because they have some heroes that had them and they either put them in their List they didn't you either put the unleash hell guy in your list or you didn't Right and you know who the unleash hell guy is because it's one of the reasons you took the guy You took the guy for unleash hell for the same reason now like I said you take the skink priest You don't flip around When you take a skink priest or like whatever, okay, you know when I take the engineer to overcharge my Warp lightning cannon I'm not flipping around to see who has the overcharge in the warp lightning cannon. I know who does that. It's the engineer That's why I took the guy Yeah, he's getting right in the list building face He got in there and he's standing right next to that because that's why I put him in the list That's how I deployed him on the table right and so um It does raise like The coltspink says I guess I'm confused on how this simplifies the game I feel like from a new player you may be confused as to what models uh To what these models do and use what abilities. Yeah, I don't think you're you're totally wrong there. There's both There's always a learning curve if you want this in there I think the place it hopefully simplifies it is it becomes non-hidden knowledge like it's all this If they hand you the scroll or you read their scroll or whatever Right. It's now just like a known quantity. That's what this guy does Right It's written there clearly transparently on the thing How many command abilities do we have currently that any one hero could do if they have zero command abilities on their All defense odd assault. I mean everything I need earlier Yeah, I know but I'm wanting to count them um Uh re-roll charges nine Auto auto. Yeah. I think it's like nine right like auto run six rally um Inspiring presence on leechell Inspiring presence on re-roll charge uh Yeah, anyways That's nine abilities that every single model on or every single hero on your table could do Sure Right. Um, and so now you're gonna tell Um a new player That they have these three command points to spend On the 64 option Yeah Yeah um Assistant ref says this is all great until gw puts a os war scrolls been a paywall like they're redo like they're doing with a 40k right now I one I thought they backtracked on that in 40k two that would certainly suck three They've committed to never doing that with a os war scrolls will always be Generically free. They have said that repeatedly and often through three additions. They've never given us any indication They're going to backtrack on it. I mean any a company is a company. It makes decisions It's they don't they're not they're not they're not contracting anything in blood Um, but you know at this point we're nine years into the game. They've kept warscrolls free for nine years They've repeatedly stated their commitment to it again, I Like you don't make design choices because of something some future Because they might do something wrong in the future like you talk about what's the good state. Yeah Right. Yeah Yep so um and and yeah, so And again, I said, you know, like every hero can do one of those nine But the reality is is that in a lot of armies, it's not nine Because we have heroes with command abilities and we have allegiances that are bringing command ability and And and and this is a challenge, right? This is this is the challenge Of it's all of this information and none of it is actually on any of the warscrolls what you're supposed to be playing the game with Like at that point we're playing we're back in warhammer fantasy battles choosing magical items and a bunch of other things That are modifying what your characters are that are nowhere near profiles or anything like sure Justin Joy said wouldn't that make lists really samey se kind of already has this with the translocation tax? Yeah, I think that's there's a potential for that. You'd have to watch that carefully I do think that's a potential downside like I don't think you're often in crazy town there Justin with like the the chance they would have a downside where lists are looking a lot of the same because people gravitate towards certain heroes to bring certain command abilities into their army Well, I mean the reality is is that um Okay, so you have six different heroes Right what that tells me is that you're creating a diversity of units that you're adding to your army rather than the same unit five times Yeah, and I mean with your like the other pushback you could give would be well You mentioned an example right now with the translocation tax I mean most armies already have this they tend to include certain units because of utility abilities They already have are we actually changing anything like don't we already do that? You already take certain units because the certain abilities they have because they're the good ones that do the good things Right, so I don't know that this would dramatically change the situation any it probably just be more of the same I think is what I would what I would come down to Um, if you have designed right it could open up some of that space because you could provide counter weight Yeah, and in and you're allowing And you're allowing an on-ramp player Sure Which is something which is something that we don't have right now Yeah, like we have like and I and I don't want I don't want to say this too strongly But I feel this in my bones We have a game that's That is designed to die in the long At the moment. Yeah. I mean, hopefully that's obviously that's a whole we we we did a whole show on that like if if four the decision wants to avoid The slow death of like warhammer fantasy. We have to get the The new players we have to get the new player on ramp rebuilt that thing got demolished as we transitioned into 3.0 And like there is no easy way for new players to come join this game Okay So It's tough. It's tough. Yeah, I agree with that. All right, lots of good thoughts Hey, I want to know what you think this first of all, thank you to everybody who's been putting lots of great ideas in the comments tonight I told you I wanted your ideas and boy, did you you throw them out there and I loved all of it Thank you for all the the great insightful commentary back to what we were doing. That's really great. Um So good stuff. I very much appreciate all the interaction. Hey, don't forget to hit like if you didn't already Tom good thoughts tonight. I think this is good. Hopefully we gave him some stuff to think about. We'll see how it actually How it actually all shakes out and probably What nine months from now? I assume or something like that. That's probably when we'll know and uh And I guess we'll see but hey hit like hit subscribe do all the things that make things it's fun It helps other people find the channel And we thank you so much. Uh, if you want to support the channel there's lots of ways you can do it Besides hitting like and subscribe and all of that you can share it. That's totally free Just hit share and tell people about the show. You can uh check out the new merch store down there You can see the cool. Tom. Did you see the new did I actually show you this this showed up? I don't think you saw this last week Take this out bow I did go and look on it. Like I looked on the uh That's I saw Kathy's uh, Kathy's new uh character as well. Yep. She's got her She's got her new character in there with the the canines of chaos The dog the countess of doggos. Yes indeed and uh, so we had we had to get a death faction And so why of course my wife fills that role easily uh, and just being like, you know like the Not for any negative reason, but just because I I would fear her the same as a vampire lord like absolutely checked out and The anyways, you can check out the new merch store that links down there. There's links if you're gonna buy hobby supplies There's links down there for monument and element games. You can click through those and use our codes Uh, hey, you can also check out the patreon That's more hobby focused on review and feedback and taking your next step on your hobby journey Or you can just watch more videos on the channel. That's great too. But as always Uh, thank you so much for watching this one and if you've got more thoughts on stuff We didn't talk about drop them down in the comments talk about it. Uh, let's let I want to hear your thoughts Uh, but as always We'll see you next wednesday