 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 Well the tax in my battalion. It's Tom. What's up, buddy? Hello friends Also joining us. It's a it's zero to one Huey Trong Huey. How you doing today, brother? I'm doing well. Thank you. My friends like to call me Owen Jackson though. Just For my wife is gonna be thrilled. I'm here. I'm finally here. That's right. There you go We're happy to have you on the show. I've been remiss and not having you on before very glad to have you finally and We're gonna we're gonna be breaking into battalions tonight in case you couldn't tell from our incredibly Brilliant opening there We're gonna be talking about what makes a good battalion and what are the good battalions and why are so many of them bad? And why can't we get better ones? What is in the way of this? That's what we're gonna talk about, but of course first some news Tom what do we got? So how about that rumor engine? Yeah, man. It's up on the screen. I'm always a fan of ogre's getting new models. I Don't think that's what it is. Oh, you're saying cuz it's a dead overhead. Got it. Yes Now I understand your joke. Okay. Sorry. It's a joke. Yeah continue I mean, they also but ogre's also have a lot of heads is what I thought you're making a reference to like they Classically also use that aesthetic of like carrying around heads you snacks True. They're like it's like crunchy chicken feet for them. You know, you just pop them in delicious Lotta a lot of taste there. It's got the brain sort of a new mommy, you know Mommy, you know, absolutely, uh, so you what do you think this is? Oh? Well, I was thinking I was thinking that it's one of these old Theories that you guys had which is a obviously death cast eternal. So that's it's an old pick but you know me, you know, you never know they're playing the long game here, but I was thinking that this Nail being kind of a little bit irregular is not gonna be some sort of like elf or anything like that So I was thinking I was thinking more like gets or like something destruction need that Might be more cobbled together. So I'm thinking something along the lines of I couldn't say thing, but okay. That's what I got Okay, I like it Tom. What about you? I'm gonna go with orcs Okay You go into the work. I'm gonna go with orcs. That's my new pick. Everything's orcs We're moving on now that we know vampires are coming everything's orcs now. That's our that's our new thing We're getting is what you're saying Yes, yes, yeah But they're not they can't be iron jaws So what you're like the truest of orcs, so they're just they're not orcs Okay, so it's some other type of orcs. What you're saying is new orc release Fake orcs. Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm excited Look, I was a longtime fan of not orcs like that is to say I never liked orcs And never interested me. I thought savage orcs are stupid. I thought regular orcs are stupid I thought goblins are stupid, but funny which is redeeming So they were like the best of bunch like in my old rankings goblins were definitely at the top, right? That's that was like by a country mile is like then Goblins were here still below the like I'm interested in collecting them But they're the best of the bunch then you got yeah like normal orcs then you got like savage orcs They're barely registering on the screen here And then they came out with iron jaws and it was like boom way up here So, you never know it's a it's a wide spectrum. That's what I'm saying Yep That's not that's what I'm going for this. I agree Yui. I agree. I think it's destruction and the just the question is like what what destruction is it and We're we are due for a new army, right Well, yeah, I mean If you mean they have to have releases in the latter six months of the year. Yes, I agree No, we didn't have a destruction or be not that long ago. Remember it was right remember when those But we have like four total sure right sure we have almost no destruction I heard me so you're saying because we're getting another death. We have to then also get another destruction army No, just like that's just a trajectory like we are wrapping up the death chapter You know like the trifecta of death Is being wrapped up now in the solar solar solar wars, right? That was this second edition And so now like again, I think that you know All like all of the stories are pointing to destruction being on the ascendancy That's our trajectory. So now this is new works Okay, okay All right It is funny because my favorite character in warhammer age of reckoning was obviously a goblin was a squig herder Right, so yeah Other than my and then a squig herder and a and a shadow warrior just I can pick them Uh, that's what that's what that says right there If there's a bad class in an mmo, I'm on top of it. Don't worry. I got it. I got it on lockdown anyways, uh Yeah, I'm just I think it's probably just one of the models that's in either the upcoming vampire new death Work her city right in that that cavalcade of death. We're about to get that. We've been slowly leaking out here Uh, like this just seems pretty dead on especially because it's still dripping goop Right. It's not just a dried head. There's like goop Here is it goop strand? Yeah, right next to the elf head the elf ear. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. So, uh You know somebody who likes fresh blood fresh heads Goopy death Fresh death death. There it is. That's I've done. I've done the the calculus You can see the you can see the strings on the wall That's what's happening. Yeah, this is I don't think this is that dude There's no way well. I don't death don't have weird nails. I I agree with hui here okay More advanced carpentry coming out of death models, but anyways go ahead It's just also I think the timing of it. I mean, it's a little like too close to this release whenever this is that I think rumor engines are normally kind of Further out. So I didn't think of anything within the next four months would be kind of in play, right? So Could be wrong, but I mean Sometimes they spoil them very close. I here's here's why I think it's death Because I think they got burned by last year when they were like Trotten out all these models That actually we're just going to get now in like the next one to three to four months, right? That we've got those rumor engines for them more than a year ago When they were going nuts in march and april and thought, ah, we'll be back on schedule in no time this is going to be this will all blow over right and Uh, here we are and there are six months or something behind schedule and they're like, mm You know what? Let's just stick to more pictures of stuff about to happen Just saying fool me once shame on you fool me twice. You'll never fool me again. Go ahead don't I got nothing. Sure. Sure. They just sent somebody down to like the The studio where they're like drafting the next warhammer world like display Yeah, with all the new models and he's like just go take some photos of the new thing. Correct That's what I'm saying. Yes Well, the the traditional way they do this is they just like go into Pete's office and He pulls a model out and then they take a picture of it That is their legitimate strategy. So yeah Pete give me a model here. Correct Anywho, uh, all right. What else we got? Um, you know a little bit of And let me emphasize a little a little bit of uh, uh, slanesh and dock Dripping out this week Um with the pre-order coming swiftly I have opinions, but I don't want to start so Huey. What's your As a neutral third party uh What's been your opinion of the pre Release preview, whatever we want to call them articles the hype articles That have been put up thus far Um, so the slanesh one was um, it was going in detail on the On that what is it? I can't remember the name of the model, but the Lord glutos the fat boy. Yeah, that's right. Um Yeah, I I kind of like that It's not obviously the best. I mean the gold standard is still goonspite and the evocative tone of that But uh, I'm liking it. You know, I want to see those models I like I like seeing the sculpts getting really a lot of attention. So I love models. So yeah, I'm good with that I'm happy with it. Yeah And yeah Tom, what's been your opinion? Lacking Sure, sure Um, they are not generating the hype in me that I think they're wanting to generate Like I just I want crunch man like Okay. Yeah, that's what I got the reason you get a hype man in your crew Is because he builds up for the main Player, right? When you get little john the reason to have him because it's because you want somebody behind you Who's really building hype who's like always dropping hype, right? Who's just loud and hitting it and getting energy into people, right? Who's building up excitement for what's about to happen Like the verse that's about to be dropped on you is going to change your life forever Okay, that's what a hype man's job is. All right Now theoretically these articles are supposed to be hyping a release The doc articles fine fine enough Okay, like because we just got a bunch of Marathi We the real the only real question with doc because we don't expect huge changes in the rules, right? No, like the scrolls and stuff like that. Yeah What we expect is basically that we're going to see changes in the sub factions So like they knew that the number one thing we're all concerned about is what are you doing with the sub factions? Right? Is haggard going to be less busted? Is is is cobra kai going to be in the book? Is craith moving to five? Right is craith moving to five an unanswered question I might add Uh And but but that being said the first article they published for doc Was about the sub factions basically right like the first crunchy article we got was like we've got our sub faction article Yeah, and and we said okay hagnar. Here's your generic ability your new generic like we said first off They said they're now going to be structured like, you know, all other sub factions No more of the proto aos to almost a sub faction not a sub faction thing Right, which is a real crime. Let me just say I love the weird like Corner case stuff with each of the sub factions like the the the expanded battalions and all that stuff Yeah, I don't disagree that they should Continue to explore like I know we've seized upon this way that sub factions can be built But I actually would like them to play with that Uh structure a little more like there's a lot more we could do in there messing with Allions was an interesting way to do it. Um, so it could be that kind of stuff. It could be a hundred different things, right? Um, but but like mess with the formulae So, okay All right, so at any rate so we got to see hagnar and okay They're going to add one to the battle rounds and we saw the command ability for drakeganeth So we know their old plus one to hit on the charge is now the command ability Right instead of the just thing that they have on all the time which take that drakeganeth you overpowered sub faction But honestly, that's okay. Who knows what else they'll have. I'm okay with it. Um Because depending on how they roll it in drake could be lining up to be really good by the by uh The like imagine tom if their generic ability is something to do with like movement on the charge Right, which is often what they pair with plus one to hit Right. I'm just saying drake will get real interesting real fast Yeah, like plus two to charge and your treated is flying or or whatever. It's something crazy, right? Yeah, it could just it could literally just be plus one to charge and it would still be really good It would be. Yeah, um, you're not wrong. And then they told you. Yes. Cobra Kai is going to stay the same. Okay, great fan fine fantastic, right So we answered the most important question now. Let's turn to slanesh number one question on slanesh player's mind is not Six reasons I give a crap about slanesh and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna hate the first article So the first article was pure hype nonsense Just like six things that are super cool about slanesh bus feed list 2021 Great Fantastic. Okay, like sure that should probably be your first article like get everybody excited That that was an okay hype article Article number two needs to be here's what we're doing with the most toxic allegiance abilities We've ever written in the history of war hammer Here are you know those allegiance abilities that made people hate the game quit the game Stop playing their armies and had a really outsized win rate Those allegiance abilities that literally sent people into a tizzy that I have Probably a hundred comments about if not more in the npe survey The thing that made me shelve an army the thing that was calling for people to ban the army from tournaments You know that thing that you messed up on so badly That people even people who love the army hated playing it We're all curious as to what you're going to do with that That's saying that everybody uniformly loathes one two The current allegiance abilities are based completely on heroes And you're coming out with 11 new scrolls Two of which are hero three of which are heroes. Okay Uh I'd like to know if these other eight scrolls are going to literally be any good at all in the army or whether they're just Allegiance ability lists wouldn't that be a nice thing to know? Okay, so people who are writing these articles Please understand the concerns of players of this army Like you have to know this is the number one question. You have to Is the locus going to stay the same is depravity going to stay the same How do you not know that's the number one question? Answer that question because I honestly held back on part of the order that I put in Okay Because I don't know how much I want it like I'm like sure. Did I buy one of everything? Yes, of course It's lanish. Let's not be insane here. Okay, but I wanted to get more But I was like look, I'll buy one of everything because I'm gonna paint it and I want to have a complete army Right, but I also want to know am I literally just buying stuff that's going to sit on my shelf Okay And given their current production, it's not like I can afford to sit around and wait Like if I don't put in my order in I'm not getting this stuff for like a month Or so after it comes out Okay So at any rate uh The uh I and so joe says I didn't mention depravity in the meta watch article when I talked about slanash Uh, you're right. I didn't because I don't want one It was like it would have opened up a whole new sub faction of explanation Like a whole new not sub faction sorry a whole new like Subline of what I had to explain if people didn't know how to depravity works and it's really complicated And two like I just you know, like in general, it's just a really it's a morass So but I did talk about the locus, which is the other thing that I want to see changed, right? Um, so at any rate Let's get on it Let's get that article up tomorrow that talks about the thing we all care about Uh, so stop with the here's all about the fact guy video or article like cool beans do that next week Okay, that's for next week after we've all seen the rules Seriously, we're all going to see the rules when man reads book Okay, so as of this weekend, we're all going to know the rules If you want to participate in the hype then make your articles worth reading Ha ha ha ha And here's a cool fact guy that is an incredible model. I'm not at in any way Talking about how that model. I think that model's freaking amazing. I can't wait to get it and paint it I think it's gorgeous. I am all about slanesh halfling Again, I pretty sure the sculptor did this the same guy who did catacross the man is a genius The man isn't is a living artist. He is the da Vinci of our time. However, but you are compensating him and his yearly pay It is not enough. He is killing it. The painters are killing it Your creative team around him is killing it. The story with him was fantastic. Love the dude Okay A plus all of that But the article I wanted this week was not look at how neat this guy is I can see it All right, show me that next week after I know the rules and then you go Here's some cool backstory and here's the sprue and I'm like, oh, this is this is more revealing of the stuff I wanted to know my excitement level is now even higher okay so Again, I'm not trying to tell anybody how to do their job but This is not what should have been there So Do better Okay life is good But these articles could be better So That's what I have to say about that Okay So you're kind of neutral on the way that flanash has come up Yes, I'd say I'm a five. Yeah, okay Yeah Uh, so at any rate, uh, yeah, yeah, that's I think I think I've now said I've said my piece There we go What's the next one? I'm done. I'm good Okay, uh, we got a new underworld warband preview Who likes orcs? Oh, yeah, man, absolutely. Oh, I've got that. Oops the wrong way. Sorry picture went the wrong way. There we go tada this dude Wolf wolverork, I guess or orc workereen. I'm not sure quite quite savage He is this dude is actually super cool. Like I will say I know I just talked about savage orcs And how much I don't like them and I'm not gonna get this warband, but this is a great model This dude's fantastic Yeah, uh, Huey, what do you I I know I just went on a rant. What do you think of savage orcs? You're a savage orc fan. What do you think about this guy? Uh, I don't read savage orcs uh, because the old sculpts that kind of always took us a little bit too, um, Like savage, I guess. I don't know primitive and I I this this direction I think is a little bit better and uh, maybe bodes dives with the rumor engine if anything in terms of aesthetic, but Yeah, I'm more I'm I don't hate them. I just I will never buy and paint savage orcs, so Sure, it's never it's never gonna happen, but I'm I'm kind of okay with it being around. It's fine Fair enough. It's just fine. Can I talk about a weird choice they made in painting this guy real quick? Sure They painted his actual nails Right his his his claws his finger not not the not the outer claws, right his his fingies Okay. Yes his his finger his orky claw his orky nails his orky nails Yes on his fingers and I actually really like that I've used that same color on nails before like I like that black to To teal color scheme on nails. I think it actually looks really good Uh, but they didn't do his finger. They didn't do his toenails Like does he not have toenails does he just have like just skin? He didn't he doesn't terrible off He doesn't paint those it's not painting them. They're just I assume they're that color like I assume the Fingernail made out of paratint or whatever. No because he has normal toenails. The answer is he paints his fingernails Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. All right. Those have got to be some nice press-ons, you know Absolutely right Yeah, wait way too long, right? Those are unnaturally long, right? So, uh, what what actually stood out to me Was the feather aesthetic? Uh-huh sure. Yeah. Yeah Because up until this point like I could be wrong. I'd have to look back what through the savage orc model line But I'm pretty sure they don't do feathers Feathers I think have traditionally been the sole purview of the um The force goblins the force goblins. Yeah, I literally don't know You know, that's what I like. Yes When you look at all Uh, I don't think the big stabba has them. Oh, no, it has runes carved into the wood. It has like chords like ropes It so it has those elements, but I don't think it has the the the feathers Um, yeah, who's saying there's some on the shamans. I'd have to go look But I just I painted a lot of those feathers on my force goblins. And so what is just so striking to me is that um those feathers, uh, other than being uh, Ohio state and michigan colors Um, is that the you'll never unsee it now. Um, it's funny. Is that I thought about that but you're right Is that it's just it's a curious like aesthetic addition to um savage orcs where traditionally Like we haven't seen it as much on at least the normal rank and file savage orc model Again, it may have been it may have been on the shaman. Okay. All right. That's cool Yeah, this guy's neat though. I like this guy. Uh, I think this warband is going to look really good as they all do I mean, let's face it like almost everyone in the underworld's warband, especially in the later seasons here They're just like it's just it's just dinger after dinner dinger. They're knocking out into the park. So yeah Oh, there you go. Yes. Okay. SDM says literally just assembled a bunch of bone splitters no feathers on the regular troops there you go So yes, uh, and also those are all He's really does support both ohio state and michigan. He's neutral in the great in the great Uh rival right here. So that's fine He's got a lot more michigan feathers though. So I don't know he does. It's just curious All right, what else we got tom? um curse city Got a new uh glaive skeleton Bam, that's right. Super excited Oh, I thought he was head was on fire because that's what it looked like in the video, right? We kept calling him burning head guy But no, it's just hair, which is weird But okay, so this is one of the one of the new one of the other bosses, right one of the villains Um, this guy's the head of the captain of the guard as it were Uh Yeah, this guy looks sweet as right, uh, and we got to see him and his two buddies um And I like how how much they're all Not keeping their heads upright now. Yes all the skeletons have this like kind of puppet Look to that Yes, yes, the the selfie thing Huey, what do you think and then here's the other skeletons by the way, which this guy is what we saw This dude right here on the left that I have on screen now and you'll see in a moment if you're if you're watching live, uh, but This guy right here On our left is the one we saw in the preview video rotating like the back of this dude's shield Uh, or actually it might I don't know which one it was It was one of the two because they both have the shield with the pits and then the spear going down I don't remember exactly which angle the spear was at But it's one of these two guys is who we saw in the preview video back in like Whenever when we were all looking at the death models frame by frame So, uh, we still haven't seen undead orc ogre ghoul Whatever boss guy Uh, it looked like the pirate so Uh, Huey, which which take on these dudes you like them you fan beautiful. I love it. Um, I mean It's something that I think Can only really be done like, you know, even just evoking this Uh puppet type of like unnatural, you know moot and like a stance Only done in a in a highly, um, controlled sculpts Right, you know, if you had like multi parts and you're you know People would just line them up straight and then you know or whatever So you it's really hard to kind of get this convey convey this Um with the regular kind of tabletop guy, right? So here you get you get this you get this feel That's that's just fantastic, right? So yeah And obviously this is the uh, this glaive was a rumor engine as well. I should state obviously from like April of last year or something and saying it will be more than a year Uh, sorry halberd. Yes, you're correct. This halberd was a uh, a rumor engine from from last year This beck de corbin was a rumor engine from last year Uh, I'm I'm gonna go I'm gonna go get my arms and equipment guide from second edition and pull out the Pull out the pull arm list um so the uh I mean these dudes are great. We keep seeing like I I Kerr city can't come out soon enough is is my general opinion. I think we're all in agreement on that Absolutely My biggest fear is that it doesn't drop until like the end of March Uh, I suspect where we're at. Absolutely. It's going to be the end of march I think we'll be lucky if it's the end of march and not the beginning of April Oh or sometime in April. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, it's disappointing. It's all I'm saying. I wanted a tuner Uh the Yes, thank you. Skate said this bulge. Yes Absolutely, uh, so the um I mean because we we're only getting like one of these articles a week and there's still a lot of things to reveal Mm-hmm Yep, I have a friend coming in town at the end like mid march And I was hoping that we would have this so I could have it together and we could play it all week while he was here but Not happening. I sincerely doubt you will that will be happening. Tell your friend to delay their trip That is my answer come in April. Yeah delay by a month. Yeah Uh, so, yeah, these skeletons, uh, cool stuff. Very excited. Um, they are revealing additional things on the map, by the way Like if you look at that original map that's on the connected Warhammer cursed city site When they revealed this dude, they actually revealed his Stronghold it was one of the blacked out shields on the original map that you couldn't hover over and reveal anything You can now reveal his stronghold in the story of it And so I assume that as we reveal the rest of the villains will reveal the rest of the blacked out shields with with their Their stuff. Yeah So there you go Uh, all right, what's next? Uh, I think that's it for this week, right? That's that's very well potentially it. Yes I don't remember. I wrote the news. I don't remember what I wrote It's been a slow news week somehow Uh, obviously the the slination doc stuff as we mentioned goes on pre-order Uh, the big question that we have this isn't really news This is just sort of a transition into as we get before as we close this section out Is on distribution Right, like we've been so understocked on stuff recently I really I I've never worried about being able to get Warhammer stuff before, you know, I'm saying like In general, I don't because I I don't generally go in for big launch boxes Which are sort of the only things That we have to that generally get pushed your endometasis and your stuff like that I really don't buy those big boxes because I just don't I like I like it it's not interesting to me to have that much plastic and hanging over my head like I'd have to be super interested in both armies, which they I'm rarely am Uh Most of the time if you're just talking about normal army releases, it's like, okay, that stuff's out. It's available Uh, how many slanesh dice did or two slanesh dice? Yeah, let's talk about some final things on this But I I want to one my big question is on Distribution, I really hope there's enough out there and I'm not sure that's going to be the case To pricing, uh, we did get the prices released Well, some of them are pretty much what we would expect Like the the two regular foot heroes are the same price as all the foot heroes are now Yeah, so fine. Like that's just what those things cost. Um, the The like regular it like the bliss barb infantry is the same price or sorry. Yeah little archers are like on the cheaper side Cheaper side by current standards Um Of what they're releasing the mere midash the pain bringers and the and the executioners They're more expensive The cavalry is like the most expensive cavalry Do we know how many that we're getting per box though? It'll be like five and five and both The the uh pain bringer dudes, I believe I don't have the price sheet right in front of me Um, but if memory serves it's like Five for I do have the the price sheet right in front of me. Here we go. This is in us dollars The pain bringers are five guys for 60 bucks. The archers are, you know, 10 11 technically for $50 Uh lord gluto's there is 115 Uh, the slick blade seekers those five cab 65 buckaroos Uh, very expensive for five cabs sick volt is like 55 exactly where I expected to be the fiend bloods are like 50 The lord of pain and the the shard speak. Like I said, they're just 30 dollars. They're standard hero pricing So, you know what just struck me We've never gotten a multi-part kit of k of chaos knights And it's been a it's been over a year Correct. Yeah, we never got the actual other you're saying other than the start collecting Right In the start collecting. Yes Yeah, it just dawned on me. Sorry. You're talking about cab and I was trying to think about like when the last like significant cab release was dawn right like dawn riders and then I I went back also to Um, the chaos knights and then it just dawned on me that like We still don't have an standalone box for them I agree actually with dan and hooves in the chat saying gluto's actually came out cheaper than I expected for a centerpiece model like that Like 115 actually felt like he was going to be I thought he'd be more I thought he'd be like 140 or something like that, right? um, so that's fine let's talk about, uh Mr, uh um Sigvald Yes, Sigvald the magnificent Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm the vane glorious one. What are we talking about? I I expected him to be like more Uh, it's a good price. I'm fine with that. I'm at 55. Oh, uh, do you just remind me of another thing? I'm angry about Hey In the article They talk about the invaders faction in the third waste of time article where we talked about sub allegiances where they said Hey, Sinesh sub allegiances. They're all the same except they confirmed that you'll be able to use the Pain bringers and the executioners is about a line if you have a lord of pain general Which would it be a good idea in invaders because in invaders you can have three generals so yada yada Great fine. They're all the same. They could have just the article just could have been like they're basically the same Article over thanks. Um, yeah But then they were like the pretenders the faction that what that believes that you know No one should be put above them. It has very like haughty vane leaders perfect for someone like sigvald and I was like Have you guys played this game? ever The special thing about Pretenders is you get two command traits Okay That's what's special about that thing How many command traits do unique characters get tom? They would answer would be zero Maybe maybe it's different for slanash Then say that and I would have been super excited because if I can stack two command traits on sigvald Then I take all this back and I am beyond excited Okay, that's gonna be awesome Like he's so vane glorious that he he could either he can even take these traits, right? You can further divine him fantastic great. That'd be awesome But that's not the way these things work ever So unless you're gonna get like then the rule should say sigvald's great for this as unlike normal special characters That can't take any command traits sigvald can in the pretenders faction. That's something special about pretenders Doesn't that make you excited vince Yes Yes, it does article writer Uh anyways Uh, yeah, he's good price 55 is a good price for him. I mean, he's you know gorgeous model. So yeah, I mean 100% How are you if you're not buying sigvald? You're not into this faction like that What you know what I'm saying like if you're buying things and you're not buying sigvald get out Get out. We don't want you here Like I'm not into gatekeeping, but I'll gatekeep you on this If you're getting slanesh, you must own sigvald period This is my like fourth sigvald So because I mean I have three of the old bottle painted their chaos lords. So Sure. Yeah So all good You have a lot of strong opinions and I do I do it's uh, it's a spicy night It's a spicy night Well, we'll see when we get into the battalions if I can chill it back out. There we go All right, so that brings us to the end of the news anything else we want to say there. No, I think we're good. No Do you have anything else you want to say events? No, man. I'm happy. I'm good. All right. Let's go to pick of the week Okay Pick oh the week hui you're the guest You get the opportunity to go first What is your pick of the week you'd like to share with everybody video yada yada Oh, I'm going to shout out fellow Canadian youtuber season of war jordan he puts out Some of the I think his format is different than a lot of other Battle report formats and he plays pretty competitively and he's he's doing a lot of good work to expand the channel expand the kind of Types of armies that are being played and scenarios and really plugging into the community so I'm gonna have to say, you know season of war keep up the good work jordan and You know, I think a lot of the community really backs what he's doing But I'm gonna boost the signal on that for sure that season of war is my pick. It's awesome I got the word the Canadian boys, you know what I'm saying? He makes some excellent base toppers as well. Thank you, jordan Fantastic, uh, love it. I will link down in the description. Awesome pick tom. What would you like to share with everybody? Nothing. Okay, fair enough Well, I have a I have a pick for everybody our good friend paul over a radio free hammer hammer hull Radio free hammer hull Has been doing a great series on starting armies The style like what you should think about when starting an army The models and what you should buy and that kind of thing and kind of put giving people a path To actually beginning in the various forces, which I think is a really nice series. They're they're shorter videos very digestible Very easy. He really packs the information in his most recent one was starting night haunt Uh, which I know there's night haunt are very popular. They're a very good army I say that knowledge um It's uh as as tom proved this weekend with his endless winning with his night haunt. So they're good now They're op nerf night haunt Vince is still a little bit hurt. No, not at all. It was very fun games. Actually. I like playing night haunt. It's fun um Like they they actually do play a really fun game. It is fun to play against night haunt. That's an interesting thing. Um So, uh, yeah, check that series out. There you go. I'll link it down below Okay So I had a born-to-peg with paul on that on that night haunt video He didn't put in a dreaded blade hero as uh one of your top hero General picks and like how could you leave this guy out? I do agree with that. He is uh, that's a hot pick It just it just tells me that paul doesn't play night haunt I That's an auto pick for me if you're playing pure night haunt, right? Like there like there is no other general Tom had two in all weekend I had two on the table all weekend And I am unapologetic about that. That is one of the best buys in the army at 90 point Yeah, there is no other general and if you disagree you can fight me paul Bring it we're we're challenging a lot of people to combat tonight. It seems tom. All right, apparently apparently and uh So yeah my pick of the week Uh, or that was my pick of the week. Sorry. Let's go to hobby time. There we go. That's where we're at That's the part of the show we're doing right now. I know what we're talking about You're you don't know you're confused. All right, so Let's talk about some hobby time Uh, hui what you've been working on man. What's on your table? What's on my table? So, um, normally I'm an army painter and I just paint like oodles of armies of models Like I've painted the 200 uh plague monks when clan pestilence gave in pestilence was a thing and uh, you know Hundreds and hundreds of models, but I've got this guy on here. He's a kick starter I don't know if you can see him He's a wukong the monkey king friend of mine gave gave this to me. It was from a kick starter And I just thought you know, I was talking to him about Stretching my legs a little bit in terms of trying techniques and like giving myself the time to really Push myself You know, I think a very wise person told me to start painting bravely. I think that's a good device and I probably have to Take that take that in really push myself. So Um, that's what that's what I've been working on. Nice. Nice. I like it. It's good to I that's You know, I wanted there's a video I'm thinking about doing But I'm just trying to figure out the angle on it for hobby cheating and it's going to be all about claw lords Oh, yeah, even claw lords which I've painted a bunch of And like I have seven claw lords. That's too many for obvious reasons and the The thing I want to talk about in the video is not actually about painting claw lords but about why I've painted so many Because I don't actually need them And so they just are like Relaxing and fun and I can just do whatever I want with them Even though they're part of an army I play because I'm never going to need that many and I can just experiment and push myself and and But at the same time make it about nothing other than just painting the model, right? Because it's not it's not part of a 2000 points I'm looking to run for a tournament. It's not a competition thing. It's just like It's just a chance to relax and I think there's a lot of value to it I use it whenever I want to have a completely like stress-free fun time I paint some kind of claw lord And I think that it's good to have models like that like it doesn't you don't have to paint claw lords But it would be like but I think I want to talk about the idea of Store bay models almost right like palette cleansers the idea that it's this thing that you just need to Paint something every so often that there's no pressure or expectation around whatsoever And I think that so if I can figure out an angle on that I'll do a video at some point. So yeah, I fully support that tom What's been on your hop what's been on your desk? I mean you were down here for the weekend. We played a lot of warhammer That's that's a lot of hot We did play a lot of warhammer. I played a lot of night haunt this weekend. Um You know when we went down, uh, I thought long and hard about Uh The survey that we had covered last week. Yeah, sure sure and given that, uh, vent Had to suffer through me playing ko for like five or six games last time I went down I decided to treat him to storm cast a night haunt this week. Sure I would point out you put storm cast on the table once got a stone horn up your Took us and we're like no ghosts from now on. Nope all ghosts all the way down Um, yep, it's true. I was like, nope storm cast still not playing it. Uh, They're real hard to do at 1500 points. Um Yeah, uh I've I'm in in a cleaning process. Uh with like my space and area. It doesn't help that Uh new magic set dropped this week. And so I'm underwater in cards right now like like open Boxes and sorting. So All uh, I'll be back to uh to paint next week Good to hear it. Uh, you know, don't don't fall down that magic route a little too deep there Uh, for me, I'm very excited because I finished up this project Which was something I really wanted to to take seriously and work on and this is this is all done now Um, so this is my uh, I wanted to paint a vampire it and so there she is and I wanted to play with moonlight and a very sort of cold washed out lighting scheme and uh Use the the idk boat as a matter of fact says that's the boat she's standing on. That's the front of this prowl I had to like cut it down And uh, so I'm just really excited about this. I like how she came out and uh Yeah, so that's fun. I'll post up some pictures of that this weekend so everybody can kind of see what's going on there spooky um So our our spooky moonlight vampire it even if we're not going to get the models I wanted I wanted to still make it real and um and then now the next thing on my table and it's still in pieces Is one of these little matriarchs from creature caster. I haven't assembled her yet I got her out actually not long before the show and just started looking at the pieces to figure out how it all fits together Uh, just kind of wanted to paint up, uh, some of these little girls get some more like Uh demon stuff painted up. So she's a cool model. I have these matriarchs and I haven't painted them So I was like, yeah, that's a good thing to put on the the death or on the on the table. So there you go uh, okay Uh, so that's that's uh hobby time. All right gentlemen with that Uh with hobby time complete as always we want to know what you're working on talk about it over there Say it right now in whatever side of the screen. It's this side of the screen That those that those that the chat screen on or drop it down in the comments if you're not watching this live I I hope you're hobbying while you're watching this Okay, so with that gentlemen Let's turn to battalions Uh, the best battalions so Let me start with some opening statement. Let's lay some foundation here. Shall we? One There are a lot of battalions in this game Right a couple okay and Yeah, john john's over there finishing his kit batch for vincy con 2021 next week. I can't wait for you to get here, brother Uh, at any rate the there are a lot of battalions in this game And here's something I noticed Most of them are bad Or not played very often Right I mean not played very often. Let's say that I think like it's okay to say bad too, but sure let's soften it Like they're hard to take or you don't you're not compelled to take them even players who aren't necessarily when I say bad I don't mean competitively. So maybe you're right. Maybe I need to redefine my term Right I don't mean bad like competitively. Certainly if that were to be the measuring stick Then most of the most battalions in the game 80 90 percent would fall short Sure, I mean bad like a lot of them just don't even make me want to play them in any kind of way Yeah, they're just not compelling. Yes. Yes. I don't so like I'm not I'm talking any angle. I could attack this from Right, right narratively. It doesn't make me think all cool. I'll try this out and see what what it does How it feels whatever right? Um A lot of them just feel flat Yeah But there are a precious few uh that hang on and So the way I want to start this before we get into the specific battalions I want to talk about what makes a good Battalion, I think this is actually harder to define As I was thinking about all the things here. I I figured there's so many different cross answers for this Okay, so let's let's see if we can put this together first What makes a quote-unquote good battalion Huey start us off. What's your what's your thoughts? What what makes for a good battalion? Um, well, I would say my first thing I look at is the relative cost of the battalion So it's got to be affordable Okay, that's what I'm not going to like list everything but that's what I just started with. No, that's fair Now the here's my question though. How much is that? so How much is that elastic pricing because I think battalions Have elastic pricing. They're not right economics in elastic versus elastic goods I think I cannot I think that battalions are elastic goods, right? And I think that like you look at change host that's 180 points that puts it on the upper end of what battalions cost and yet Most people seem pretty willing to pay that right But you look at you look at the one drop stormcast nonsense That's 300 points ish You're dropping in battalions people are willing to play with a 1700 point army because that's all they need to win right The And and so on and so forth like I can give more examples, right, right? So I think cost is like If it's bonds are good, then it's like, okay, you can pretty much run the the board up Right change host could be like they could they could do the next they could do the summer ghb And change host could be 220 Let's let which would be a really really big price increase, right? And I think people would still take it. I don't think it would stop getting taken right Um, so maybe actually it's an elastic good. Sorry. Um, I need to flip around my explanation there. Um but at the same time the Like There's some kind of ratio. That's what you're putting your finger on there. That's I'm trying to think of the right way to say this There's like a goodness There's some kind of value Ratio, it's not just the points cost is what I mean. Well, right? So let me jump ahead and I think there's something that you're trying to get at vent And one of those things is like does it have units? I want to take Okay, okay. So this is because of yes So because the other half of this story Is that oftentimes it will have units that like I don't want to take or there'll be just like too many units, right? And so there's a real utility question of like Is there too much or not enough? And and that's part of that calculation as well. It's all of those things Okay Now so you're saying the unit composition matters, right? Yeah, absolutely. It does. Okay. Yes, great I I don't disagree with that. But that's an amorphous point What I mean by that is you haven't told me anything yet Okay, I need you to drill in on that because let me give you three examples Okay, and and all these have very different unit composition situations Yet, I think all three are good Okay one Change host change host is like if you want any freaking demon thing in this army Go nuts, right? They're all in there All right, it's the lord of change and and and basically any number of anything else you want Okay. Yep. So just wide open All right Yeah, okay fine one Okay two The iron fist out of iron jaws Okay. Yep It's not as flexible. It's three to five of The main units Okay, but no heroes Right It's and you get it you get a big boss boy and your big boss boy can do his big boss thing And he can get people to move around and stuff and it's great And a lot of lists have iron fist in it casually and competitive because iron fist is just a great battalion That has a great ability, right? Which is the third program you need to touch on in a moment, right? Which is the abilities But the unit restrict like that's a much much tighter unit restriction Mm-hmm, right. Okay Three Here's my third list. Okay. I need to remember the name of this. I think it's called hold on. I need to break up the name Uh, the royal mordants I'll fleshier fleshier fleshier parts. Yeah, I had to think of the exact term Which is one vargulf quartier one unit of crypt horrors one unit of crypt flares One unit of crypt ghouls This is a very on rails battalion Okay And yet I argue it's really good. It's the it is the gas in the engine of smashbat And it works well in smashbat right So yep Like unit composite and by the way the like you could argue that like the things like the crypt horrors and that are attacks Okay, okay, maybe they are maybe they aren't But you could be argued, right right So you can have my my point is just saying like I tried to walk a spectrum there obviously, right from like most open-ended to On the tightest rails and yet all good Right Yep um, and I would point out that like, uh That the royal mordants only fills your battle line out if you're doing hollow morn Uh, so at any rate or something like that. It's I forget the exact like it's only under a very specific circumstance Some faction whatever I don't remember Anywho, uh, so so what do you mean tom when you say unit construction, right? I'm trying to drill in on that because I just said anything can go Yeah, it has to not be bad units and so like it has to be not beast of nergal So, okay All right, so hold on that fair. Okay, but I'm gonna I'm gonna counterpoint you again. I'm gonna counterpoint you again. Okay Yeah, all right The storm cast patrol in marathi, which we were very up in arms about right? Yep Yeah, and which I still think is a huge npe But thankfully hasn't manifested to be as competitive as it probably would have been years ago Because it's just the insane amount of like shooting high damage and teleporting that's around that people can get out of 60 liberators Can disentangle themselves but That has like a unit of six griff hounds in it and look I like griff hounds just fine, okay But that is 120 point tax in that battalion Mm-hmm. It just is Those dogs are like cute They're not aether wings Right Um, and if you don't like that like we can go find other battalions that have taxes that have bad bad Units in them quote unquote whatever that means, right? Yep and And still that is still played Right because we're willing to withstand some amount of tax Yeah, so is your point just it can't have too much Yeah, it can't have too much Right Right It can't have too much All right, I want to go back to Huey Huey, what do you think about? How much to you does the special ability Matter right because the battalion is granting you some kind of ability to everybody in the battalion How much is that? How much is that mattering? Okay Um, I would say it's pretty significant the the ability I mean with the storm cast one that you're referencing Uh, what is that battalion without that ability really sure? You know, it's who cares You know, um, I don't necessarily want to take a lot of those units, but that ability all day, right? So, um, yeah that battalion also has a lord bariton in it Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Oh free girlfriend. Who cares? I mean like But uh, yeah, the ability is huge for me Okay So and tombi, I hope it's clear what I was trying to drill in on right? Yeah, absolutely What what was bad to me in this context? It's so amorphous, right? That's that's why I'm because We we do clearly tolerate tax units to some degree, right? Yep. Okay so Here's so if we've talked points We've talked the units they they are Composed of right and we've talked about the ability Yeah Okay Now there's a couple things we haven't talked about yet. All right Uh, how much does the the impact on your drops gonna mean battalions? Uh Battalions impact your drops, right? I mean that's just a function of what they do How much does that ability of impacting your drops matter overall? Like is that part of the discussion? I would say it has some it's a small factor It's not a huge one for me. It's it if it's like, oh, okay, and it also cuts my drops then great, but i'm not going to Take a battalion or not take a battalion on that Because of that reason the cutting down the drops is not a big one for me. So okay, it's very minor Okay Tom the question is can I get to three drops? Like that's the question that like that's the only thing that matters if I can get to three drops Then i'm like that is a huge incentive to me because it lets me control 80 percent of my opponents 90 percent of my opponents um If it's If it's more than three drops, it is completely inconsequential to like weighing in on my decision Sure So I think that's fair. So what I would say is I think you're I think you're you're both right I think in most cases it's a nice benny And then in some battalions It's so massive because you're like wow. I can put my army down To like one two or three drops with this battalion All right, I mean that's what zinch is doing with change host okay Um because it's like that in the fate master and you call it a day, right? Uh So to me as I was thinking about this what I realized we have here And like obviously all battalions are offering like they're all equal and that they all give you a cp in an artifact, right? So there's no distinguishing there. That's just the fact of life, right? So to me when I was picturing like the graphic in my head Of what this actually looks like it's kind of like four sliders Right of like how much points does it cost? How what's the unit? You know viability in it One thing we didn't mention there was like how much is it covering heroes? I want to take and covering my battle line Right battalions that tend to contain battle line tend to also be more valuable Right, so that's also part of the like unit composition discussion that we didn't touch on right So that's a slider right Then we have the the special ability slider And then we've got the drop slider right and the drop slider like doesn't matter until it hits You know three or less as you said maybe four or less honestly And then all of a sudden it like shoots way up in value Right And so like all four of these things go up and down Right and when one hits where the average goes above some line It's a good. It's it's like a viable battalion, right? Yep Yep Now the other thing we didn't talk about it's I think part of it But it it is relevant It's sort of almost like a meta concept to it is uh is that What's kind of a story is this battalion? You know telling you yeah, right? Yeah, like battalions are In essence a narrative construct given rules, right? And So I think that that does Way into your kind of view it gives you it's it's almost not a slider It's almost like the lens through which you view the thing You know to return back to the previous things we talked about you know Honestly change host is pretty boring like I don't know what that's doing That's just okay. It's all the demons together under a lord of change like cool beans, right? Iron fist, I guess I get what's going on there like there's a big boss He's a big tough orc. He's risen to the top and he's brought all his boys together He's like a little mini boss, right kind of getting at the knob concept, right? fine Some of them though have really great Narrative, but yet it it just almost can't touch it because of the other things are like so bad, right? You look at it. You're like, well, I want to play this but because it sounds really cool And some battalions or some sorry some battle tomes are really good uh that Uh, they're excel at like creating narrative You understand what I mean, so like the boc battalions Uh, uh, like the the the god-based beo beast of chaos battalions They're very narrative And they're I would argue like pretty good Yeah, right Because they tend to push you to one drop they tend to contain basically any of the units you want to throw in the army Right, they cover your battle line. They're costed relatively reasonably in most cases Not all a couple of them are like 200 points. That's too much. But anyways um Like like beast of chaos needs any battalion worth 200 points, but you know, whatever um That's that's a hilarious joke But but the point is is that like those seem to hit on all those cylinders and have a cool lens to view them through Whereas the city's battalions which are also highly narrative driven Just seem like a total whiff in most cases Yeah, because they're so like the unit composition slider Is so off kilter Right Yeah, um Yeah, so at any rate that's that's kind of the stuff By the way, a couple people said disagree reading the artifact being the same in consequential some armies The artifact is worth a lot more than others. So I would say the artifact value base Various based on army. I I agree with that completely Okay, I wasn't meaning to say that like it's never part of the discussion within the individual army I was just meaning it's the same across the board So I don't have a slider for it in in my like meta construction here of in the like in the void of what these things contain You're absolutely right. Um, you know, if you get a second artifact in idolaters Like That is literally worth zero value Even the first one is probably Like who cares You know, absolutely like totally totally fair point Okay Anything else we want to say on the meta level Huey any other thoughts you had like that? I didn't touch on sort of the 40 000 foot view of Battalion what makes them good or bad Just the point that you were making there, you know, I think for clarification my thought like what you were saying is You know, uh, the command point and the artifact that doesn't help you in terms of a sort of relative ranking Right like all battalions grant this so then therefore, you know, it may not apply Um, but also, you know, so what like the units are all different like it's all, you know There's a lot of things that also change the equation So but I think that's the the general point is like battalions Like there's you can't say this battalion is better because it grants a command point. They all do that Right, so it does right right. You could say wash. Yeah, you could say this battalion like taking a battalion in this army Is good because this army is very hungry for command points and artifacts, right? But that's night on is the great example of that that that can be true for any battalion you access in that book Right like just the presence or absence of a battalion and then you still have to go down to the level Of all the other sliders we created Right because that then judges the individual value like, you know, you really want to battalion in this army Whatever for reasons, right? The the only thing I'd add to this battalion Discussion and it's not necessarily about ranking battalions But I think for players that are getting into aos or they're thinking about armies battalions are great. I think way of understanding gw's What they've called like the silhouette of the army like, okay, what are what are they thinking the silhouette of the army can be? For gets right, okay Okay, this this kind of looks like this kind of looks like this and you then have a sense of okay This is an army that like this is what gw's kind of designing towards so, you know, perhaps That gives some indication But that doesn't help us with this ranking type of thing But it's just something an aspect of battalions that it lends a little bit of information to the players About like what gw's design thinking is is going for those armies Yeah, I love it. Uh, I love it. That's a really good point. Like it's almost an instructive Guide on like what should you be collecting and purchasing toward right? It can be Which is one of the reasons that quote-unquote bad battalions again, we'll you know, we can get at that definition I understand that that's a very loaded term, right? But battalions that include units that they don't realize are our tax units or aren't good or you know, whatever right um Or that are very hard to collect or don't give you enough battle line Right or like there's lots of little pitfalls that a new player could fall into Right Um, which is a shame like I feel like in general my philosophy would be They should make they should like restrict like bring the number back in But actually focus on making them all viable and expressing different faces of the army Yeah, that's good Right if I were if I were to do like, you know, what would be my guiding principles on battalion design One it should contain like looking at the way we just talked about what makes them good, right? I would say okay points don't matter in the end like it'll be pointed wherever it points I'm not going to think about that in the design phase. So I'm not going to worry about that right It should contain a mix of units that People will want to play in the army right its special ability should express And work with those units to to fully express and bloom Some element of that army right if there's an element of the army that's about like Uh, you know going fast and charging and getting into melee then there should be a battalion That contains some selection of the melee type units and has some kind of bonus that does like has to do with them charging or getting into melee Right that kind of expresses that thing, right? So on right um And I think that would be sort of my guiding principles Right, and then the my last guiding principle would be they should all tell a story and be interesting Yeah, right like that my my go fast charge battalion is like the whatever rough riders, you know, like they're ready to go Uh, so the that's just how I would that that would be my guiding principles. I sat down every time I tried to write a battalion Is it meeting these principles? If no bin it start over, right? uh Okay Excellent So let's get into what are the best battalions. We're not going to talk worse today We had a very we had a show last week focused on negative. Let's talk about the good stuff What's them goods Huey Start us off. What's your what's the first one on your list in in best battalions in the game and and why? Uh, I'm going to start off with probably going to steal toms, which is uh plate touched I an excellent first choice. So, uh, plague touched out of the slaves to darkness battle dome uh one Nurgle mortal hero and Six or seven. That's right. I just couldn't remember what the total was. Yes, seven. Come on now No, it was seven. I was trying to remember it was one plus six or seven was the number of the unit seven Mortal slaves to darkness nurgle units. There we go. Mm-hmm something like that Yeah, and their ability the the ability is kick back Uh mortals on a roll of six to Woon, is that right? Yep. Yes. Got it. I don't know its points off the top of my head All right. Why do you like plague touched? Um, well, I think it's it's the most flexible Battalion in terms of as we talked about uh, so It doesn't even limit itself to just, you know units let's say marauders or warriors, but that includes Heroes as well So you can you can really compact a lot of your army right into that and you've come to one drop And the ability is nice, you know, it's a nice little benefit benefit as well. I don't mind kicking that back Um, so I I think it and it doesn't at at the end of the day. It doesn't cost that much either So I think it's it's flexible. Yeah, like one of the for me one of the strengths is that it's flexible Hmm So so let's let's put this up against our rubric that we created right? Let's put it against the test Let's just on my slider. Let's call it one to ten. Here we go ready cost Uh, it's probably like a three on cost. It's a fairly expensive battalion, right? It's not it's not super cheap. We're not getting away with like a 60 point battalion here or something something on sense right Unit selection unit composition. That's a solid 10 right sliders all the way to the right because yes It's locked at eight units total But they can be any mix of heroes regular units units of any size right like anything that's mortal nergal Slaves of darkness has a huge selection of units Right. That's great. Yep ability Probably a six it's a good ability plays into what the army wants to do You know like win through attrition in the grind nergal likes the grind You know giving giving those those diseases out Yeah, yep. Okay uh And then drops You know probably like a nine on the slider right because it it it could very easily take you to one or two drops Like oftentimes you might add in like a second. There might be a second drop for various reasons Maybe like a could be like a great unclean one of them. Bellacore or Bellacore or Bellacore. Yeah, don't worry. I was getting there Yes Some big demon that isn't immortal is generally going to be your second drop. Yes Exactly Yep, so the first the first drop is bellacore the second one is the plate Because bellacore is auto included Real quick I want to answer a comment that rolled by which was vince instead of aiding a strength should a battalion ever cover a weakness Uh, yeah, sure like it didn't mean that when I say express the face of an army That can be expressing a weakness and turning it into something that's a valid play style right through a battalion You can do this your sub factions as well by the way Right, like an army could have a very minor thread of like a particular play style Yeah of of msu or something or whatever you could pick a hundred different play styles And that could actually be very like if you were just playing the scroll straight with the points That might be actually very hard to express. This is my shooting style thing or my you know, very tough survivable grindy thing or whatever that could be very tough to to express solely on the war scrolls But there's sub factions of Italians you can like okay if you want to Play into that you take this and this and now you are doing that thing Right, you've dipped up into that becoming viable. So yes 100. I think that's completely valid Um, you got to be careful on that kind of stuff because you don't want to do that too much Otherwise you get armies where everybody can do everything Yeah But I think it is valuable, but play touched great choice. I like it. Yes Okay, Tommy what's your butchernet? What's your first best pick? um, I'm gonna go with uh I'm gonna go with uh lords of the lodge. Okay, okay uh Fire slayers battalion talk us through lords of the lodge tom You know, it's interesting with the lords of the lodge you get like everything you need okay, um And uh it so it's uh, it's a uh, rune father It is a Um, it is a like rune master, uh, which is the only potential tax. It's a battle smith Um, and it's a unit of hearthguard berserkers Uh, um, which is traditionally what people are all uh, you know And and it actually creates so it's a it's an amazingly outsized useful ability. Okay, right? Just like what it does Is an outlandishly useful ability Uh, it uh, it's well-costed. Um, and it's a pretty significant part of your army now Again, it lowers your drops, but not enough like for me. I still end up pushing past six drops with it Um, but yeah So there you go. Nice Yeah, I I think that it's an interesting one right because again comparing it to our scale when you look at lords, right? It's not doing the drops work. It's got a pretty low score there as you mentioned But it does have It has the heart of something you want and its special ability is pretty good Well, and so yes, and not only that like you're required in So fire slayers you're gonna do hermdar if you're doing competitive Because you're gonna do hermdar you have to have that item Right, but there's a lot of other really good fire slayer items Not the least of which is like ignore spells on a four up or Um, or increase your banner to 18 inches And so you really want to have a battalion in that army. Sure Um, the closest thing to attack so everybody will really hate you. Yes Yes, and the closest thing to attacks is the rune master that's in there But even then like he's a great second like he's a great backfield priest to camp your your forge. Okay so Uh in general like it is one of in my opinion it it almost couldn't be Better because everything in there has a role in the army Like you need the the father to make the hurt guard Battle line like it's just doing everything you need You need the cheater battle smith to push their save to like two up re-rolling ones Is like a bunch of nonsense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah So Yeah, okay. All right Good enough. Good enough. All right. I dig it Uh, okay cool. So my pick my first pick for uh best battalions Uh is going to be a very sideways pick, but it's good for a different reason. Okay I want to talk about the skull in uh in in in maw tribes Okay, go on All right, so I stand behind this battalion. I really think this is a good battalion I don't think I'm that alone here like I think other people like this battalion too All right, like I don't think I'm like I don't I don't think I'm out on the ledge here too far Now, I don't know how much people think of this is like really being competitively good I'm not sure that that's I don't know and frankly. I don't care Okay, this is like my answer But this is one to six ice brow hunters and two to ten units of frost sabers Okay And Its ability is it gives you plus one to charge rolls for units from this battalion while they're wholly within another unit from this battalion Okay Now the important part to recognize here is that the hunter and his kitty cats are a Ambushing unit that can just pop up anywhere on the board in ogres, right? And the they already have a built-in plus three to charge And if you want to make the kitty cats actually going to do work, you got to kind of spam command points on them to to pump them up Yep and I and the important part about the skull is that it is cheapest chips Okay Battalion wise. I mean we are talking about like 80 points or whatever it is like it's super cheap. Okay And Maybe a hundred. I don't remember what's not made of it. It's very cheap So it's Helping you like you're going to be ambushing with these things when you come in you're now plus four to charge total, which is great Right, it gives you an extra command point to feed to the kitty cats Yep, which then actually makes them Good and it can just sort of be the reason I like it is because it can fit into a lot of other concepts in the ogre Force, right? What I'm saying is like let's say you're trying to do a bunch of meat. You want to do ogre bodies if that's your thing Right, that's what you're on about just walls of flesh right Then you can still fit a skull in there because it's such a minor investment Right, let's say you're doing monster trucks Uh, you can probably still fit in a skull, right because it's a minor investment, right? So no matter what your strat No matter what version of the ogre's you're trying to do You can use a skull, okay And I think that's another interesting Way To think of battalions that we didn't talk about before but this is also a way that I sometimes use battalions or I like them When they're a minor seasoning to an army when they let you take like a Quarter of your army or a fifth of your army and do something really interesting with it and contain it in that way, right? Like it's a low cost battalion with a low number of units and you just kind of like and also here's this thing Right It's like the also starring at the end of the credits, right We've got the frost lord on stone horn the huskard on stone horn Some big mother monster truck guys who we don't care about names They don't recognize they're rolling in the credits, right and then you get to the end and it's like Also with and then we get back to names we recognize and it's like also with the skull And so I just I love that idea that they're like I like when battalions can be just kind of minor things I honestly wish they would explore that A little more there's not a lot of that space in the game Um where they have these like, you know, you can put like where you can buy the battalion and all the units in it for 400 points Right And I think that's an interesting space because it does give you that extra command point It does give you that extra artifact very valuable in ogres, by the way So had to just have any battalion in there And sure like if you want to go your old bad and have that kind of concept Sure, you can just do the old monster truck your old bad or your bad either one whatever Uh, but I like the skull I think it's I think it's a best battalion for that reason Because it's a minor that it's a minor investment that gives me some value That is also a nice seasoning on the army. It's a side dish Yeah It's a side dish on the army All right, hopefully that checks out for everybody. There we go. All right Yui, what do you got? What's your next best battalion? Well I'm gonna go with uh, I'm gonna I'm gonna start cheating right away. All right. I'm excited. I'm picking uh, well This uh wardens of the storm keep and the storm tower garrison as a pair I basically think of them as one one battalion. Sure So I think these two are Out of the I don't know millions of storm cast eternal battalions that are available These are only only two that are really viable in my mind and uh, with a good reason so Um, I don't know how much you want me to go into it, but uh, we did touch on under a little bit earlier You know, it's the garrison you're talking about garrison not patrol, right? Uh The garrison is the mixed arms force. That's right. I agree. I think the wardens and the garrison Is like if you want to play A storm cast army and play like feel like you're playing storm cast Yeah, like I looked at storm cast and I said This is the thing I would like to play. I like what the cut of the jib of this army, right? You looked at these models. You thought liberators looked cool Right. You thought having some shooty dudes behind, you know, sort of the the the shield guys up front with shooty dudes behind And your heroes buffing them and you're like, yes, I like what's going on here. This is good Okay This is the like this is the battalion combination to do that Because it expresses the best part of all these units, right? The liberators get very good at defense in this in the storm in the storm tower garrison rules the storm keep rule Sorry, um, and they can then buff the shooty guys behind them Right, you can get all your heroes in there and get some extra command points, which is great You're often wanting to like spam a lot of different command points on Storm cast so not only do you get the one for the, you know, each battalion But you're also then throwing the clutch dice at the beginning to get a bunch more right so, uh, I think that's uh That to me is A good pick because it feels like it's the storm cast storm cast battalion Which there's value to that too, right? Like to a battalion. This is another angle on this. We didn't talk about that's why I said this is such a rich concept, right? Because what's fascinating to me about this one and we're going to touch on another one of it a moment Yes, everybody in the comments. I see you shut up. We're getting there. Okay. We're going to talk about it in a minute. Good lord um the the uh There's something to say for like a battalion that just actually don't shut up chatting a lot is good engagement. So keep chatting Uh, keep talking keep keep yelling at me angrily. I'm gonna not mention the thing you want me to mention longer that way That way you talk more. Um at any rate There's something to be said for a battalion that is just sort of like an expression of the platonic form of the army Right, and I think that's exactly what you just hit on So, yeah, make sense to me. All right, tommy. What's your pick numero dose? Um death riders Yeah, death riders Uh, I knew it. I knew we were gonna talk about it and I am excited Tell us about death riders tom because I I'm guessing a lot of people might not know what death riders is or does Yeah, absolutely. So death riders is the uh battalion for night haunt It is their kind of go-to battalion. It uh in my opinion. Um, it is one to two Dread hero uh dread blade guys. Um, it is uh, so one to two of those guys um Two hex rates and a black hole two Two units of hex rates and a black coach. That's right. Um and So one of the interesting things about death riders is that it Uh, it makes everything in the battalion Uh, uh, it reduces their target number in order for their charging Does that make sense normally night haunt night haunt are a slot machine army They get to fight in the charge phase on a natural 10 to charge In death riders They fight in the charge phase on a natural nine in addition It actually gives them a charge bonus But who cares like the point is that it moves the number to a natural. I mean, it's nice. Don't get me wrong But yeah, like it's not necessary But moving the number from 10 to 9 the statistical jump in number of times that a nine chart Like a nine occurs versus a 10 occurs is significant. Yeah It's a big deal Yeah, I agree. Uh, what so so place that against our Uh against our sort of evaluation Why is you understand what I'm saying? Like is this unit comp? Is it special abilities? What's doing it for you here all of the above? Uh, it's special abilities and like you need Like so it's funny because it actually led me to Like understand more clearly What was what the big deal was like, let me say it this way What the optimal solution was for um It for uh night haunt because I was going to run with the Uh dreadblade harrow anyways, but having a second one actually gives you the ability to um Having a second dreadblade harrow actually gives lets you put the pendant on the off guy so that you're never worried about placement Um, and so it's just this really interesting uh like situation that ends up working out definitely in uh In my favor in a way that I had not anticipated or that I wouldn't have probably done on my own Yeah, sure. It gave you a different angle to play in the army, right? And I'll have to say it's Like it I really I've played both with you and against you using deathwriters like we did a team tournament where you had deathwriters and Like it actually makes the black coach a really interesting fun model to play against when it's getting bonuses to charge And it powers up and it can run in charge and running way out there And when if you drop a nine on that coach and you get to fight in the charge phase and fight in the hero phase Something that coach can place to pay some real dividends Right, like you were you were jumping across the board and tying up models hard Right with that black coach So your x-rays could come in It has a 20 like to be clear it has a 21 inch move Which is um when it when it auto runs. Yeah That's pretty good Like that's not too shabby folks Yeah, and then putting the plus one to charge on top of that then in the end, right? Right. Yeah, right Yeah, uh So yeah, I like deathwriters. I think you know when I look at it on our rubric It includes Units that are all in the way that especially that battalion wants to play like it's a it's a reinforcing Virtuous circle, right? Of everything's pretty fast. Everything wants to move fast. Everything wants to hit hard and be where you want to be, right? mm-hmm It takes one of the core abilities of the army and actually does a really good thing with it right, right and It's like through through its special ability right right and it has some effect on your drops like a middling effect on your drops, right? Yeah, yeah Okay, fair enough. All right. Well now I'll give you my second pick And for my second pick we are going to pick the thing that the chat has been going crazy for but don't worry Here it is It's our pals in the maws of jorke as we know they are called now The maws of jorke and the squiggle ranch battalion Uh, we all know squigs are the best part of gloomspite geets. We know that we all know this and actually The squiggle ranch much like your stormcast battalion that you talked about it's sort of the platonic form of that thing Right like if you're into squigs Look no further, right? This has got on the unit composition score. This is everywhere you want to be, right? I want to go to there like you can get your loon boss on mangler mangler squig or cave squig whichever one you want, right? You can get your more loon bosses on giant cave squigs You can get uh your squig rider Stampede you can get your mangler squigs. You can get your squig herd units, right? Yep, um It's great All right, and the ability it gives you is interesting if if not This it makes a really good two drop Let me just say that because you often will get scraggie in the mix with this, right? So you can control the bad moon Because under the light of the bad moon you get a six inch pile in Right, and if you're already in maws of jorke, you're getting better roles and stuff on your on your run around the board Uh, so you're not as like The challenge of squigs is obviously an army of random movement, right? right, um, right and This held like in maws of jorke. You have a lot less You know you've got a lot less risk to that the squigel inch then also reduces that risk by giving you a six inch pile in when you're under the bad moon Right, uh, so which is just an innately powerful ability anytime it shows up right, um So like I said, it's usually two drop because you usually contain all your squig parts and then and then scraggie so you can Fletts with the moon to make sure it just kind of sticks in the middle or or whatever right stays where you need to be Uh, I think it's just a great like it goes to what you were talking about earlier as well hui with um Giving somebody a roadmap to an army, right because squigs the kind of thing that will get people into gits Right, they'll they'll see those little those little lunatics and they'll be like, yeah, I am about that Okay, what do I buy here right look at this battalion and it's like boom Roadmap this is your army Right. This is what you need Right here. It's written on this piece of paper by this paint this collect this right So I think on all of our measures it's banging Right. Um, point twice. It's it's a little expensive but reasonable Uh, like it's probably middling But like unit composition fantastic Special ability good right probably like a solid seven maybe an eight right depending on how much control Right, uh, and then drops amazing right bringing you down to a one or two drop Uh, so yeah fantastic Uh, and again super flavorful with a name like squiggle edge come on Come on son like that's That's amazing. This is what you want. This is how battalion should be Right, you read squiggle edge and you honestly think to yourself Do I want to play squigs should I get a gits army? Like you you have that thought, you know, you might say no But you're lying to me if you're not telling me that for a minute for like a hot minute when the first time you read that battalion you were like Am I into squigs? Am I gonna do this? Like are we doing this right now? Are we doing this? Yeah It crossed your mind. Okay. Oh, yeah 100% All right, I like it. Okay Uh, so yeah, that's it's a great battalion. Uh, all right. Huey, what's third pick? Third pick. I'm going with um Something that I think you're you were kind of alluding to earlier, which is sylvanus outcast Okay right, so this is uh relatively small battalion just three units of spite revs and You know, it's it's one of these sub 300 um total all-in cost for the minimum if you want to get in on in on a battalion. Yeah, and So it's it's quite I think it's quite common I think with sylvanus armies to you know find a way to squeak in their three units of spite revs and fit in all the toys right so All the all the current offs that they want right so that's it's helping them in lots of ways like that No, I like that pig. You're right. I mean the the spides like you can lean into it hard Right where you've got like three big giant bricks of spides, right if you're going for Uh, you know the winter faction or whatever, right? Right and so it can be like a backbone of of what you're doing there Or Yeah, as you said, it can just be some spice on top. So it's got a little flexibility It's never going to be your whole army dog because it has no heroes and it's a very limited battalion in that regard But it is a nice like this is an easy battalion to fit into stuff if you need a battalion and nothing else fit Yeah, it's interesting because its special ability is like Probably middling to bad, right? Let's be honest with ourselves And narratively it's like, okay, I guess they're just angry. That's the the text is just like They're angry people and scary and it's like, all right. That's fine But it has that spice that little bit of usefulness. So no, I think outcasts is a good choice. That's interesting Yeah, silvan ether like Silvaneth like storm cast Have a lot of battalions that I look at and go Nah Right, I mean storm cast have to be the worst offender in in aos 2.0 of the the nope battalions Right, where it's just like no, no, that does nothing. That does nothing. That's all tax has no ability. It's too expensive I don't want these units. What are we doing here? There's no narrative to it. There's no flavor What is going on? Right? Yeah Levy leave I said at the end will you rate all of your number one picks? Do you mean like like out of 10? Which one's the top? I don't know if we could do that But but I encourage the audience to say what they think is the best I don't know how we'd put these against each other. It'd be really hard Yeah, the single elimination tournament would be very brutal Because like outcast just loses outright because it's in a bad army So that's rough for them We could do a little sports fantasy thing where vince your team of battalions versus my team of battalions versus tom Oh, there you go. That's group. So, you know, uh, Yes, right over here. There we go. No, we're gonna we're gonna have the audience pick who had the best best Who's the best best who had the best picks? All right That's what we're doing. There we go. I do want to do a battalion survey. There's so many more surveys I want to run. I just don't want to help survey everybody. There's so many more surveys. I want to run I have a big list We'll we'll get there Okay, tommy third pick Um, i'm gonna have to go with uh, chaos iron sky uh command. Ah, yes Okay, so explain to people because this is uh, this is a juicy battalion and not a lot of people necessarily know chaos So what is what is the iron? It is a uh, it's what chaos allows chaos to be so like one drop ish um It is it's one iron clad, which is their big boat Uh, three units from a list of heroes. So the chemist the navigator or the android master either of them um one company of uh arcana company And uh, one to three units of endring rigors And so there's just a lot of like options here, right? And I just love how flexible it is Honestly and does have the option to contain all of your battle line depending on your your choice is an army composition Yep, yep And so there's just a lot of flexibility honestly. Um, and that is really enticing to me So, um, and it can contain all your battle line So you can realistically be one drop here. You can also include an admiral or a brock if you want But you don't have to And uh, it's just it it can it can have everything or or it doesn't have to on top of all of that It has this weird kind of ancillary bonus Which is it gives um It gives battle shock immunity to all the units within 18 inches And if you've ever played ko the the absolute last thing you will ever want Is your endring rigors running? Sure And so having an 18 inch bubble of that is really helpful like more like surprisingly more helpful helpful than you'd think Okay, so I like it. I like it All right, my third pick we'll do a couple more rounds this because there's a lot. There's a lot of good ones in the game My third pick I mentioned it earlier. I got to bring it back up here. We're on the destruction kick right now And that is the iron fist battalion Look, it's been the backbone of my iron jaws army since its inception It is and always like it's in every version of iron jaws. I have used the iron fist battalion The flexibility of three to five units of what I wanted Right of the like the core units of my army that are all battle line like iron jaws are very forgiving army Anyways, because basically everything is battle line, right? Yep. And uh And a so like it's it basically is going to contain all your non heroes Yeah, in the army and so And and that combined with just a great great special ability like an army defining special ability in uh in your ability to use Your mighty destroyers right again without a spending a cp every round All right, as long as the big boss is alive as long as your knob is alive Uh, it's so good Like so freaking good Um, the fact that it gives you like a way that combined with your your command trait On your mega boss and you can have two free of these every round It's why I actually play sub factionless in iron jaws when I play them Despite how good I think iron sons is I still play sub factionless because Iron fist and that is just like no no what I want I I believe I have a belief I'll talk about this more later that like it he When you can just sort of always do the command abilities you want to be doing Like all the time you win the game Okay um And this this what that lets you do this right right right and The the fact that it can you could put it into the that this battalion can have like a six or a pigs in it that's now a 32 wound You know unit on a four up save and can run around is very hard to get that that guy dead is fantastic right So, yeah, that's my that's my that's my pick iron fist it Rates high in all the things it's costed just in the right place Gives me good unit comp affects my drops in a positive way without being over overwhelming But has an absolute bonds or good special ability like a hot 10 out of 10 On special ability right and no tax zero tax So there you go. All right, hui back to you pick four Pick four. Oh my god. Okay. Uh, you're number four. You don't have to pick four. Just your number. Oh pick four pick number four Oh, that's right. Okay. Um, yes. I think I have to mention change host Yeah, it had to come up in this conversation eventually We got it deep in the draft and it's a it's quite a quite a great battalion. It's a great buy to get this deep in the draft Yes, we should have done this as a snake draft. That would have been a really good way to do this. Yes Missed opportunity. All right next time we do this show. We're doing a snake draft. I'm warning you all now We're gonna snake draft the the the next time we do a best thing. All right Okay I don't know like how much we want to get into it. I think it's you know It it does it checks off a lot of boxes in terms of drop count. It's fantastic The selection is almost everything that you'd ever want Um, the ability is it was even better before it's still pretty good Like it's you know, two units was insane, right? But one unit. Hey, I'll take it. That's that's very useful, right? And uh, you know, the cost is 180 like, okay. Yeah, but that's fine. It's a little higher in but All day, right? So absolutely It just it wins on we already talked about it a lot. So we won't belabor it. I agree. But yes, it it it is the defining Uh answer to what's good in almost all of our ratings, right? Like yes, it's a little expensive, but not probably not expensive enough Like I think like I said if it was 200 points people still play it if it's 220 probably people still play it, right? um, because it your your drops go to like Negative somehow, right? It contains any and every unit you want in more or less any combination you want, right? Yep And its special ability is really good so good. It had to be nerfed and patched like a month after release and it's still good And yeah, yeah, it survived the swing right of the nerf bat. Yeah Absolutely So yes, I mean like look it is the rote pick But it is the best of the best for a reason like Some people just win seven super bowls. I guess like that's what happens So Sometimes that's what occurs Uh, all right tom your fourth pick I'm just I'm gonna go in and say blightsist Ah, okay So our our fat boys and nergal. All right. Yeah, like so nergal has been putting up good numbers recently If you look at any of any of their performances in recent events, whether they be on tablebop simulator or in the southern atmosphere What you're gonna see is that uh, nergal is up there on top tables like fairly consistently um And you know, I feel I feel pretty confident in saying uh, that You know a piece of that Is is the presence of blightsist? Okay, um, it's a battalion that has a lord of blights Three to six units of blight kings. Yep. Um, which are probably the most point efficient Elite unit in the game like point to wound to elite profile. I agree because there's threes and threes um And you have zero to one sorcerers and zero to one harbinger decays both things you would probably be interested in bringing Mm-hmm. Um, and so it's the kind of thing that it's just uh It's like it's just good all round Um and on top of that as if that isn't all good enough um It gives rend to everybody in there and it stops the benefits of cover to anybody you're attacking And so just literally like at at every step, right? It's performing Um, it's doing like it's doing double duty Um for the types of things that you want to be doing Sure duty. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so I just like I love blightsist and because of the recent point deductions Like it's stock just went up even more for me Okay, how much is so two questions one is the Blight lord or whichever one's included in there. I think it's the blight lord of blights. Thank you Yeah, whatever all their names Uh, how much is he attacks to how much is the quality of this sure easy answer How much is the quality of this battalion dependent on The fact that blight kings are hyper efficient right now Right, like let's let me just paint a world for you. Okay. Yeah, I don't think this is gonna happen in any in any world But let's just imagine blight kings were suddenly 180 points tomorrow Yeah, okay from their current 140 Yep, is this still a great battalion? Uh, no like this battalion rises and falls on blight kings period Yeah, that's there's an interesting sort of sub layer here To battalion quality not just at the current moment, but that is their flexibility to change over time Right. So like the iron fist endured because at various points in time Like the pigs are the best or brutes were really good or our boys are really good, right? Like whatever You know the the individual quality of which one of those three things you wanted varied incarnation of the army and incarnation of the army points adjustment point adjustment, right But it didn't matter because you would just switch It was like three to five of these things in any combinations So you just moved to whatever was quality at that moment the battalion endured Right. Yeah Whereas this one is like When blight kings are good this battalion is banging Yep, it's a very if then statement, right Yeah Yeah, no, that's a it's it's interesting. Okay. Okay. All right uh All right, my fourth pick My fourth pick is my pure fun pick I don't know if people are going to agree with me on this. This is what I call my out on a ledge pick Okay, but I have a deep and abiding love for this battalion. I think it's good and I think people Overlook it Not because it's bad But because it's up against too much broken stuff to rise to the top Okay And that is the thunder quake temple host in seraphon Now put down your pitchforks and torches angry citizens Okay And let me explain which one this is the thunder quake temple host Is the thunder quake one I hate the name the way they decided to name these by the way All four battalions have the same first name and then a slightly different second name based on whether it's the starborn version of the coalesced version I don't know who thought this was a good idea. Okay, but It wasn't let me answer the question for you You're wrong. It was a bad idea, right Trying to remember which one i'm actually supposed to take when i'm just like scrolling on war scroll builder I'm like, wait, which one was it again? Anyways, okay thunder quake temple host is the coalesced version. So The coalesced one is the is the fun version of seraphon to me. It's not the telepority summony one It's the we all take one less damage and uh, you know, we're the we're the living seraphon Yeah, um, it contains everything I want in my monster heavy Uh, uh thunder lizard build. Okay, you can take a stegodon with skink chief. Yes a plus I can take two bestilladons. Nope thumbs down. Don't like those. I don't need those shooty things. Those are boring or stegodons Yes, thumbs up a plus in any combination And then one, uh, kroyger unit No, or a hunting pack. Cool. Okay. I'll take three sallies. I mean, you know, I'm not going to break the bank on sallies I'm not running 20 of them or whatever, but three sallies are a potent thing And the ability is beast masters which in your hero phase declare if this battalion will be swift or savage If you swift till your next hero phase units in this battalion can run and still shoot and or charge If you choose savage into your next hero phase add one to the attacks characteristic of melee weapons used by units from this battalion Fantastic fantastic One of the ways you turn your stegodon on skink chief into like a five to seven depending on his profile because everything gets affected differently So you have to like literally be like, okay, I'm getting plus two to the guy and the little skinkies get plus one and the Stegodon's horns get plus four and the stegodon stompy stomps get three and it's just like The jaws sorry get plus four and that, you know, you get the point, right? Like you've got to calc each profile separately. They all it's not universal Like you're anywhere from plus two to five attacks to the model Anyways, it's great. And I love the the the the little skink chief on stegodon turning him into like The combat monster of monsters and having him running and hit for like 40 It's really fun. And it's not like this is not a Tournament winning seraphon list. This is there's no there's no croak in this list There's no skinks most like the only skinks in my list are usually like a few tenors of uh of chaff that died instantly and are worthless um And so like but I love this battalion because it gives me everything I want Right, it has the backbone of the army. I wanted to take which was like my monster dudes and my stegodons I love my triceratops in that army And it gives me a way to make them even better And so, you know, there you go. It's great. I'll dig it. I dig it Uh, so I like thunder quake temple host If you want to play seraphon if you're a seraphon player and you want to stop having your friends hate you start playing like thunder lizards and go a stegodon heavy build and uh, and uh, people will have fun And uh, it's it's because they'll you just run big monsters across the table And and hope for the best So and you play a lot of source big blocks of source, which are like very very infantry All right, hui your next pick sir pick number five Okay, so this pick is um It's supposed to be in one book, but it's really not uh, it's the fantasma gorya of fate So beast of chaos. Yes zinch taken all the different Units in zinch in beast of chaos and given them all the mark of zinch And I say that's not really in this book because I never would take it in beast of chaos I would just take it in disciples of zinch and Because they all get the mark of zinch, right? So destiny dice, I'll take that over uh, sacrificing and you know getting more dudes in right and uh, Yeah, you you get maximum flexibility here Cost is is reasonable The ability is that it gets zinch. I don't care about anything else like it's just Sure, that's the that's the ability The ability is everybody gets to dispel like in nine inches or something like that But every unit can cast a dispel but they have to be within nine inches The ability is they get to go go into club zinch and club zinch is pretty cool and so Bouncer pulls back the rope. He's like, oh See you've got the mark come on in. Yeah. Oh, yeah You've somehow managed to forge your way in even a Saigor who is the hater of all of But yeah, I I think it's uh, you know, it's it's a Underused battalion, but because that's the beast of chaos range. It's not really seen too much, but uh, I think it's really good Yeah, I have run a lot of phantasmagoria Because I in my beast army. I really like I just really I really liked the zangor and in all their various and sundry forms Right. Um, I think all the zangor cool I kind of wish they were A little more viable, but it's fine. I like getting out a good zangor beast army and The phantasmagoria lets you get all those bad boys out on the table as part of that battalion along with all your regular Dudes, you know, you can get shamans in there still but you can still have like your shaggy shags The shag off and and everything else you'd want you saw some vestibular running around Whatever you need, right? It's it's a First of all, it's very easy to make a one drop out of this. You almost have to work not to make your army a one drop in it um and Yeah, like you said your ability is okay, but like it has everything I want unit compositions fantastic insanely flexible Uh pushes me to one drop and the ability is like, okay, that's neat I never basically run out of dispels because all of the units all over the freaking table. So It's like everybody's dispelling something um So, yeah, I I think it's a shame because beasts They just need like a little bit of love in here and there probably mostly in the battle shock area And maybe in some of the the the hardness with which they hit But a lot of the bones of beasts of chaos are good, right? Like those god mark battalions are good Like they've got some interesting bones in that army. It's just it doesn't come together Right, they're too fragile They're they don't hit hard enough for what their their fragility gives you and their various is too So way too susceptible to battle shock, but anyways, I agree with you fantastic, but I love me some fantasma. Gloria wonderful pig And I think I underrated in beasts of chaos or not maybe Just in my circle. It's an unborn raiders. I love those models. Like those rules. They're just fantastic It's a unit. I don't see not nearly enough of I didn't respect them until I painted them and realized how characterful they are There's those little dudes are so character like they have great faces Their bodies are very different. Like some of them are quite fit. Some of them have little pop bellies Like the anguars are really interesting models. They have a great amount of just just cool character to them Uh, well, I want to answer a question. Joseph Arnold. I'm new to aos. What does vince mean by one drop? So during deployment, joseph, uh, you go you you go back and forth deploying Right and whoever finishes first gets to decide who goes first The trick is battalions You can set down your entire battalion as quote-unquote one drop, right? So everything in a battalion goes down and deploys at once If your whole army fits in one battalion, you can deploy your entire army at once Meaning unless you are unless you're playing against somebody who also has a one drop Right, that means you always have the power to determine who goes first Right now, there's certainly not as big of a first mover advantage. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. It's really funny Like in 40k, there's a huge first mover advantage Like people who take the first turn have like they just recently did a whole article on this And it was like no, no, the first turn advantage is still real big whoever gets to go first has like this huge advantage Um, whereas in aos you use it to give the turn away most of the time Right, uh, you use it to make your opponent go first like the so at any rate, uh, interestingly That's that's what a one drop means Okay Cool. Tom your fifth pick I mean, I don't know like I'm digging deep at this point Uh Well, we mentioned some corn stuff before the show when we were talking Yeah, like but there's just no like really good corn stuff. There's like some okay corn stuff Um Yeah, I don't know. Uh Like maybe, uh Uh, whatever it's called, um Which one? Gore pilgrims brass stampede Yeah, so gore pilgrims, for example is a solid battalion. Sure. Um, it's not good, but it's solid Um, it has a lot of what I want but not everything. Um, and not always in the numbers that I want You know, like for corn, I want to run MSU, right? Like that feels like that's what the army should be and yet there's not a lot of battalions that will let me do like 10 units sure um and so, uh But brass stampede is a solid, uh Pick because it has a lot of really hard units That hit really hard and it does it makes those units do what they're already doing better more. Yeah. Yeah Like it's interesting because if we're talking corn corn is one of those interesting examples Like we should just use this to talk about to just we should use your pitta to just sidetrack here in a corn, right? Yeah, like tyrants is obviously the one we've seen tons and tons on competitive tables, right Gore pilgrims is a generally solid battalion that was there for a long time. It's not yep as heavily picked now right, um But you know, it's it's around whatever right and then you as you mentioned brass stampede But like those are the three Right, right Doesn't gore pilgrims also require models only available in the start collecting probably A lot of those corn models have just never gotten a right a correct release and I I couldn't explain to you why that is Um, like why is there no? Corgirath I can still go by off the shelf. I think like that's still not a thing, right? I'm correct You can't just go buy a corgirath. You're right. Yeah, I'm good. It's I don't know it came out six years ago at this point like I feel like it should have been Probably that should be a thing probably did we lose the mold like what happened? so like Steve misplaced the corgirath mold is the only thing I can think of um But you know the uh like the the three corn battalions are really interesting to me because They they're all Good, but each has like significant Problems right like tyrants cool. It fits into that like big heavy a bunch of your bruiser demons into one battalion thing But it lives or dies based on the quality of those demons, right? Whether blood thirsters can can actually get there and do the work they need to do Quality of enemy chaff shooting like there's a lot of things that impact tyrants of bloods going up and down, right? Brass stampede is very much on rails like you have to really be into juggernauts to do brass stampede, right? right Um, and so like each of those are interesting, but they're all You're right. They're all kind of in this like second tier, right where I don't know if I call them best Uh, you know game wide, but they're yeah Good Yeah, they're good Okay, my fifth pick. All right All right Fifth pick it was good. You know, you thought you thought we were going to get away from a slanesh discussion in this No, no, no, no, no my friends you who are insane We're going to talk about supreme ciberites The the Italian I've never built a slanesh army not once without in my thousand point army I had supreme ciberites, okay Like there is no time I have played a slanesh army without supreme ciberites He who has the most he or she who has the most command points wins in this game. Okay That is what I believe Because if I have enough command points to make every run I need to make a six to reroll to never fail, you know to always reroll every charge To double pile in every time I want to double pile in to do everything I want to do and be everywhere I want to be Then I win Right because I mitigate bad luck command points are are You know at their core like literally the core functionality of them not the War scroll expansions of them. I mean like the basics are bad luck mitigation right No bad like mitigate your battle shock mitigate your your hits of one your you saves of one Bad luck mitigation, right Mitigating risk is how you generally win Games of major sigmar right or types games in general. Yep supreme ciberites Uh, is a battalion that contains all of your heroes because it's just one to six chaos slanesh heroes fantastic uh It So you can fit all of your heroes in obvi right she can have more than six heroes Uh, and it's very you can fit everything from like you can shove everything from argion in this list Right to all your keepers to your whatever whatever your contorted epitome Uh The and every round you roll a die and if you have less if you roll You know equal to or less the number of viewers you have alive you get a bonus command point It's part of the command point engine that I would use in my invaders to have You know to easily be hitting like 10 command points 11 command points in a game, right? So when I needed to pop off I could just be like and I'll do this and I'll do this and I'll do this Will this well ever run dry? No Like I'll blow six command points at this turn if it means I'm gonna use it to win this game There have been many turns and tournaments where I've spent six command points in a turn Right playing slanesh and still had command points left That's what you want, right Yep So, uh, everybody's saying so gets his number one then because they have the most access to command points Well, I guess you gotta also have something to do with those command points So that is a you're right that I guess I am oversimplifying a tad but Um Supreme Sibirates fits all my heroes Controls my drops in a big way by making all my heroes into one drop And gives me something I really like like extra extra cp always good So there you go. Uh, that's the Sibirates Okay All right, so We've gone through a lot of bests Okay So now I just want to I want to do one quick round here Of then we'll close it out with a little with some sort of closing thoughts of what we want to see in the future but I want to do a quick round here of Almost battalions Okay You understand what I'm saying like those battalions You've always wanted to do or you think are almost there. Okay, but they've got some kind of deal breaker in them That just makes them Uh, that just makes you go nah Okay Uh, like you understand what I'm saying like there's the the we're gonna call this the the deal breakers Okay, where there's some kind of battalion that you're this close on But it just doesn't work Okay, and since I just sprung this on you guys and didn't mention I was gonna do this before the show Uh, I'll go first Okay All right, so There's quite a lot of battalions that I think Fall into this category Here is mine In the base storm cast book Okay There is a battalion of three Star drakes drakes one Templars Yeah That's it. It's just like three of those things All right Yep, and The ability like first of all it's still Surprisingly expensive for what it's doing like it is a surprisingly expensive battalion So the cost is bad, but I'd be willing to do it. Okay Because I love the idea of running trip star drake like that's so stupid That is just the dumbest thing you could do But I love it Okay, yeah I would I would build an army around this, but its special ability is so stupid and worthless Okay, so bad And so bad because you have to play a bad army to take drakes warren temple Yeah, you can't even choose the good star drakes, right? Right You're like Willing to play like I'm willing to play a bad army, but the deal breakers one you're right That's that's part of the deal breaker, right? I want to take star drakes. I have to take the bad star drake. Okay Whatever, but then its special ability is so Terrible it should have the most amazing special ability right because It's because you're over investing in losing the game Yeah, yeah these star drakes are overcosted models that can't kill anything Right that aren't as survivable as their lord cellist and brethren And they're one model Right I should have just a Bons or special ability out of this right like just Lack of do nonsense like every round During every hero phase They do 2d6 mortal wounds to everybody within three inches of them or something like that right just something crazy Yeah, I don't know. I still don't know that that would be over the top for that arm Right like yeah, I agree. I think that's actually pretty realistic right like if you are within uh six inches if a unit is within six inches of Any star drakes from this battalion right 2d6 immortals right because you have nothing else in your army at this point Right like stormcast are expensive. You've got like some unit of libs or something Like that's the rest of your army get out of here That's it. Okay Because you still got to fill out battle line and stuff here folks, you know, like it's not this isn't a slam dunk runy Uh So the fact that its special ability is so terrible. I was so excited about that battalion when I first read it I was like, oh my god Yes star drakes are like 500 ish points piece. Yes, that's correct. The the template is like four What's the template? 420 maybe yeah 420 He came he's come down significantly since original publishing. But yes, he's still this is still a huge chunk of your army Okay So at any rate Terrible deal breaker because of its horrible special ability. There you go Uh, I feel like if one of you doesn't pick a city's battalion, we're not doing the section of the show, right? So who wants to go next? Uh, I mean I was going to take pick another stormcast. Oh go ahead. That's fine Um for me it's cleansing flanks Okay, the one that everybody was hot on when it came out and everybody used. Yeah, they're like everybody's like I think it's this one You know like when we looked at the book we're like it's this one and I was the same I looked at it. I'm like, yeah, I think it's this one. It's this battalion. Uh, the problem is is Where are those guys? Like people were going to take that battalion and play that battalion and that it never performed And the re so that's why it's my like almost this battalion Gotcha because because it just it's never been able to actually like put up the numbers It's never been able to actually perform competitively. Um, and the challenge with it is that so I'll just talk about What it does, uh, it's a relatively expensive battalion. It's like ones 40 160 something like that um, that is two units of sequiturs in two units of of evocators It could be either of the evocators, but because of the price on evocators after the like Because remember they took a price hike initially Yep And so did sequiturs comical, but yes, I do remember when that happened Yeah, like both units took price hikes like the kitty caters have come down But they've never been able to perform for what they're doing. Yep. Um, and there's no heroes in the battalion The battalion helps you perform better, but still Um, so if you take it it doesn't actually help on drops Because you still need an arc if like if you're taking it to do like a sacrosanct focused You still have to have an arcana to actually make everybody battle all your sequiturs And then even then you're still down a sequitur unit So it's like not enough units and no heroes In an army that traditionally wants lots of heroes And because of the pricing of the units and the pricing of the battalion, it's just not competitive And so it's always just been just Just it's always fallen. Yeah, it's always been like almost there, but never quite. Yeah, right, right Like and I put together a storm cast list I kind of like that uses it But I still want like more points like I'm still feeling it like that it's just it's just not It's just it's not there Okay, if I could get like a hundred more points across the entire list Between like units and battalions and stuff like that where I could fit in like one more hero or include some of those heroes in the battalion It it might go somewhere, but man, it's just it's rough as it is. Gotcha. All right fair enough Huey, what's your what's your deal breaker pick? Oh, yeah, well, I'm I'm going to pick um one that hits along a couple things that we talked about before But it was a battalion that went from the penthouse to the basement and that is the warp cop convocation Oh, yes That that old battalion that thing was broken. It was just stupid It did the whole sorts of ridiculous nonsense, which we're all glad is it doesn't do anymore, but you know it's got the structure of the super battalion with none of the benefits of getting extra command points and artifacts And a lot of You know a lot of costs that go into it and it's just it's just It's not even that far off like it's I feel like I can I just feel like it's just viable but like Every time I build it. I like cannot just cannot do it just yet It's it's just a touch That's really for me almost there and you know, it's it's got a lot of character in it And it's got a lot of potential. I feel like the warp cop convocation, you know the way that you build it and it's I just feel like it's it's just A little just close, but it's not it's not really there yet Yeah, we could say this for almost any of the scaven battalions which are like a plus on flavor because they're all just the great clans mostly except for the the I guess they're all kind of the great clans, but um the You know all of them are like almost right and The the warp cog is you're like, oh gosh Do I really almost every one of the sub? The sort of sub-attallions Almost every one of them have something in there that's tax like oh gosh. I've got to take what Yeah, you know, look, I just want to do wheels here guys You know, but it's like you got to take an engineer and one to five of these things and two to five of these things And one to three of these things. I'm like, oh boy Okay, this is a lot going on here, you know, and then I got to put two of these together You know, obviously the only one that's exempted is the the arch spark bullstick or bull ticker Whatever the one that's just like an engineer and a warp lightning cannon. Okay. Well, yeah That's what I was going to take anyways I guess But just doing that to get two engineers and some warp lightning cannons is pretty much Terrible just you don't actually you don't actually have anything in your army And you've spent a huge amount of points Exactly, right for for a couple artillery pieces and some characters. They're going to sit at the back of the board, right? So, yeah, I agree I played the Slink Talon this weekend by the by speaking of bad scaven battalions the all eschen one and uh Yeah, you did. Yeah, I did That was when tom was playing a storm cast his star drake Just got into night runners and then fought them for the rest of the game and he never killed them all So, oh wow, I mean we didn't kill him. We didn't even do a wound to him He ended the game on full wounds uh, it was just like It it's the worst it is a battalion made of all the worst units in the game so Yep, uh, it was real fun and stupid my starter. I've just ate scaven It just sitting there just happily munching on scaven for like six combat rounds Yeah, like and they couldn't do anything to him. No, no, I mean we could have done that for 50 rounds And he wouldn't have taken a wound He would have been at zero wounds after 50 rounds of attacks Yes, right. Yeah It was just it was it was hilarious and I was like glad I've got all these assassins way to go guys Now to be clear like I just want to clear up for the audience It's not that he was like it's not just that he was on a two up reroll ones He also had the prayer on him that forced rerolls of sixes. Sure Yeah, so yeah, like so like even like the normal scaven like assassin double taps on sixes were shut off Um, yeah, so like he was super buffed. It's not just like a like casually dragons are overpowered No, they're not it was just like that is the worst army to try to crack through that shell The army of poison assassins did not bring the proper tools to deal with a star drake. So It was fine. My my my warp novel Lord was off like assassinating your partner's entire army. So it didn't really matter It's true. It's true um The uh, okay, so I wouldn't call him my partner. He was ramming uh monster trucks down my throat But I understand what you're saying. Sure. Sure. Um Oh, yes, that's right. Because that was a three way game. Wasn't it? Yeah, it was a three game. Yes That's right. I forgot that partner probably wouldn't be the word I would use Yes, it was over there killing ogres. That's right. Well, well all the all the things that weren't killing your army I was killing and taking his objectives from him Yes, correct. Yes, that happened. That did happen. Now. I remember that it went. Uh, yeah, anyways Uh, just want to give a special shout out here as we close this section out of the the dealbreakers to the veridian pathfinders The living city battalion. I could have picked almost any uh Cities battalion because I I submit that the only the only truly good one is the aether guard windrunners I stand behind this But the veridian pathfinders being an especially egregious one Because its requirement is a nomad first of all Like I get it. You're the living city one But like did it have to be all the wanderer stuff? Like couldn't have a little more flexibility than that I'm not saying they shouldn't be in there at all. I'm just saying like can we just Can we just pick all of the cities? Maybe we just branch that out a little bit Uh, but three units of living city wildwood rangers boy, that is on rails And then a nomad prince and then oh, don't worry. Also zero to one units of living city wild riders. Well, thank god I was worried Uh, what's a good battle plan for three player games? Uh, just fireball check out all of the triumphant treachery battle plans And the coalition battle plans from the generals handbook 2017 Uh, you should be able to uh, you should be able to find those either online Or I'm sure you can find an old copy of the ghb for like two dollars at this point really because Who cares and it has a bunch of great multiplayer? Uh scenarios that I've I've played quite a bit and they're very fun Um, we play the the three player triumphant treachery scenarios without the special objectives and they work great Like you don't need that element to it and you can still just you can just play them as a straight three player game So there you go Uh, okay, so final thoughts hui. What do you want to see out of battalions? In the future, right? Like what what are you hoping? Do you want to see like you can frame this in aos 3 and do you want anything to change? How do you hope they design them? You know opine as you see fit for your future site um I think they can probably Play with the formula in terms of what the battalions grants you so, you know, we're seeing things like Bone reapers where command points like that's irrelevant. All right, we're seeing things where I don't leaders don't get artifacts Okay, so, you know, maybe uh, if it's if it's more customized in terms of okay, these are the things that Matt like that they're bringing in that battalions grants and It's not just okay. Well, as we said like command points and artifacts Maybe they don't do that or maybe some give you multiple artifacts or maybe some give you multiple command points, right? Like it can it doesn't have to be so Flat across the board, right? And I think they can probably bring in more of those things Right, so I'd like to see a little bit more playing in that kind of design space Interesting. I like that. Okay Tom um I would like just more flexibility like so some battalions just don't have flexibility in units and like I Like I really really feel that Um, and so I would just love if they were just a little bit more flexible. Okay Okay, so Yeah, like I I really feel that when we don't have it. Got it. So My future wish would be one always tell a story with the battalion Two I completely agree with your both both your points were excellent Like you can tell a story and sell the units be flexible We just talked about those the god battalions and beasts, right? Like it's doable You don't have to put things on rails to tell a story Um, so like be telling a story express like I said earlier the facets Of the army like bring those to the fore. Um, here's a small rules change Battalions should make you drop all at once. You shouldn't be able to to parse out your drops Okay, like you actually can technically like parse out drops and just be people by one Now which is stupid like you should just have to drop your whole battalion It should be you know, you should just have to deploy the whole stupid thing That's this weird rules nuance that that That just lets people win by rules that I don't like Okay Yep It's complicated. It doesn't need to be there for no reason, right? So just get rid of it if you play a battalion you drop the whole battalion once done end of story. Can you parse it out? No done, okay um and uh limit your Uh battalions in the book stop printing like stick to like a Uh a stick to basically I would say four or five battalions That should be what we see in the book, right? Each one with a variance of units that expresses something about the army and a way to play With an amount of selectability to where the battalion isn't super good one day And then super terrible the next because the unit gets nerfed right Make it so if i'm investing in the army, I can use the battalion in multiple ways Not just one way Um exceptions being Continue making the really cool big monster battalions. This is my personal thing. I want this to continue Uh wherever possible always include a Three or something like that of your giant crazy expensive monster Battalion because they're fun and goofy and they make the timmies very happy, right? Just make them so just make them so they're still kind of flexible like your thrice fold fulfillment and your Fate masters whatever the thing is that lets you have all the lords change And your tyrants of blood and you know on and on right? I'm still pissed off the scaven didn't get a scaven when you know that was like The demonic conclave or something right the council of the demonic council or whatever Where you have multiple vermin lords, so I think that that's a great way to go for Uh for those battalions always have that one timmy battalion in there, right? Because it's fun And it's like never the right answer But but it's okay because the person who wants to play that will play it I shouldn't say never the right answer tyrants. Well, it's pretty much the right answer for a while You can make it the right answer Um just understand that you're on the back foot when you design that battalion because you're investing a thousand to 15 or points in your army into three models that all count as one model in the game And are innately bad at winning the game of age Right Okay, and also yes, give us the sons of uh of behemoth battalion and lower the points on all of the sons accordingly. Thank you very much Uh anyways And or just rewrite the book I'll take a version two next year. Just like just like slanesh like it's okay. You can do it And I'm just really sub PDF Like that's a white world. I'll pay it like I'll pay normal price Okay, just give it to me. There you go Uh, so there you go. That's battalions now. You have to vote. Which one of us had the best picks Drop it down in the comments Who who is the overall winner of the best picks? So there you go Uh, or or if there's a battalion that we didn't talk about that you think is the best Please put that down in the comments and and give us why Uh, really appreciate that give it a like if you haven't already like it's so easy It's just moving your mouse from here to here or if you're watching this on like an ipad Look at how easy it is to just touch it with your finger. You can just boop just booping it picture It's like a very adorable puppy's nose that you're just booping That's what that like button is you wouldn't not boop a puppy's nose. So boop the like button Uh, subscribe if you haven't already. We really appreciate it. Huey. It's been great having you buddy Thank you for having me It was a pleasure Absolutely brother. We'll have you back on for sure in the future to all of you out there who are watching Thank you so much really appreciate it as always We'll see you next wednesday