Hello everybody, if it's Wednesday, it's Warhammer and that means it's time for another episode of Warhammer Weekly. Tom is not joining us this week because he's a loser and not available at this time of day and frankly I was willing to toss him to the sharks just right overboard when I when I had the chance to bring the entire face hammer crew on to discuss the the the sons of Behemoth these new giants that we're all very excited for so go around the horn here Russ How you doing sir? Good to have you on? Yeah, I'm good. Thanks. Thanks for having us absolutely less. How are you doing today? Oh? Less is muted He's the only one Not working. That's all right We he was I could just hear him beforehand, so we'll we'll get him in a minute. We'll get him by his sound bag in a second I'm sure we'll insult him in his absence. I can't say anything and Byron also. How are you doing buddy? I'm fine. I'm fantastic. How are you doing buddy?  No, no Play around with it He may like it's funny because when we sound checked before the show was like, yeah, no problem We could hear him fine. He was talking It was all good and then as soon as we go live. There we go One time he's the lesson and on Apple products. He's gonna he's never gonna let slip this down There you go. There is a little like settings option down at the bottom or in a little kebab where you can play with your Microphone if you click on the ellipsis. Yeah, there you go. Cool. All right. So anyways Let's start off with some news gentlemen, and I'm curious as for your takes on this stuff So first of all the the rumor engines up I won't ask you to speculate too much just in case this is a thing that some of you may or may not know About but I was very excited about it. It's a cool like bone Sail chain wing thing. I don't know what it is. I'd like it to be in pirates, but yeah, I can tell you exactly what it is Oh, it's this girl on the chain. There you go. I'm not with some kind of with some kind of Exactly nailed it that is that is I don't actually know what it is by the way It sounds strictly on Canon whatever it is. So yes, it's got skulls It's got chains and it's got some kind of tattered wing flesh, so it's definitely Warhammer That's what we've managed to have put together here a hundred percent There he is Let's hope it's vampires or vampires or pirates that are waiting to be vampires or anything of those nature Yeah, that'd be fun. I'll be fine. I need to go Any or all of the above Obviously we had the gridiron preview this last weekend With all of that stuff revealed. So are any you guys war cry or underworlds players any you into that stuff? I Kind of like war cry we've done me and Russ have been to a couple of war Should I get my trophy I Give you that one it's fine Yeah, yeah, I play war cry a bit when it come out. I've really touched it and Underworlds I own a lot of it and don't tend to play it, but I do like it, but it's just time in it. Yeah, sure exactly That being said, what did you think of the let's look? Yeah, they showed the new luminous realm lords We all saw that they were fine. We all liked the sword master. It was great happy times Like truly that sword master did look great. Even I must admit that However, let's talk about what really mattered out of that preview. How awesome was that slanesh warband was that amazing? Exactly. Thank you. That's right. Sexy cow sort of at the sexy cow. I Cow that makes you slightly uncomfortable because it is so attractive. Yes, that's what I like That's why I like I like to question myself deeply when I have to look at a model and that's I'm gonna say that's very very thematic. So yeah, you did it.  We saw that they're wearing the similar Baluni hammer pants. I do love that hammer pants are apparently in fashion in the mortal realms this year first We got techless. He's got his hammer pants now slanesh. They've got there It's it's like the sort of Persian inspired hammer pants, right? Clearly. That's sort of they're all wearing the Jasmine pants from the I like to think it's more like emcee hammer, you know, I know people say that GW is kind of stuck in the past But you know, they're trying to catch up One fashion mistake at a time. No, I'm kidding No, I do I do like that. I think the models are great. So it's nice to see an ascetic for Sonesh mortal rather than just like mortals painted purple You know because you got the dirt the acolytes was inch Which they've got a very unique ascetic and the war cry war bands. I think the shades by a war battle underworlds I should say under worlds.  Yeah, the underworlds war bands is that is particularly cool for those inch So it's nice to see. Yeah, I agree. It's I here's what I'll say whole army of these when let's go Get them in my get them in my hands. I'm I've got the money. This is a take my money now situation between that and the lord of pain, I think is was his name that's coming in Chaos model for a long time. Yeah If you've got the money do you have the hours for every single pendant feather gem doobie. What's it? That they're not gonna be a yeah, but I'm gonna the jungles everywhere How many contrasts 17 different base coat and then 17 different selects of contrast, I think they're amazing But I'm looking at the mix. It's just hard to work out a way to make these happen Solid either like solidly quickly in my opinion. I Think they do take a lot of time. In fact, one might say Byron that they require an Excess of time Ah One person may say that They're like we'll make the models so like traumatic to get through that you got really be to get through it Yeah, there's a little it's got to be pain to get to the pleasure of having the painted model That's the if that's that is the story of so nice. Yeah, that's I think they offset it with the the brilliant daughters of Cain snake which has got Ever all the luggage from the entire army on its back They went well, let's make the slash models look less busy by making the busiest model ever It just like over here stealing your thunder like Very excited for her to I might add Both of those figs were like both those new leader models were incredible. So yeah excited for that We've got the the new war cry Box obviously going on pre-order this weekend We got stats for the speaking of daughters of Cain and that that snake lady who's showing up daughters are clearly Gonna be getting some stuff here because we got the scroll today for that war cry warband and it was Interesting. It's not often. I say the war cry war bands are interesting in a OS Did you all get a chance to look at the stats today for them? No? No, me and Russ look to them of why Yeah, I can't remember it so you're gonna enlighten me and like jog my memory because it's fair enough a while Yeah, I'm happy to enlighten so two interesting things about them first. There was a fun little Thing that was put up on the website for them that they then changed the verbiage to the community team changed the verbiage to Which I will read now As agents of Marathi the canine shadow stalkers will find a natural home among their elven kin the umbraneth Cool name not no idea what that is that disappeared a few minutes later. So there we go But as well the cool thing about the canine shadow stalkers like attack wise and damage wise they're fine Of course like all these war cry war bands. I mean none of them are You know, they're not your hammers. They're not your animals but Every round instead of moving they can just teleport and show up nine inches away from anybody That's just the standard way they can move the whole the whole war band can just Pop out disappear appear somewhere else and I started immediately thinking of Calibron lists with You know a couple unit a couple of groups of heart renders So I've got like four potential threats on any objective at any point in time You move off of any objective even a little I'm taking it from you I thought that was just a real that'd be some really nice play there. So I think that's a cool addition to the army Is it and a genuine unrestricted doesn't matter if you're in combat, etc. Correct. Yep. Wow You can teleport. Yeah, instead of moving where So, um, you're gonna see those on the table. That's I think so. That's what I'm telling you like That that is a good chaff unit. It's also on it's Untempolized if you know that you understand I'm saying like it doesn't have like Hagnar or Calibron. Yeah, it doesn't it doesn't restrict you What temple you can take base is what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah, exactly so I'm saying that's that's you're gonna see that Because that's real threatening in an army that already had a lot of mobility and obviously ability to reach out and threaten objectives Especially in something like Calibron my personal favorite. I know everybody's always on the Hagnar train But come on cool kids play Calibron That's all I'm saying and you want to be a cool cool cool kids.  Oh, yeah I know it's fine. I've been told from my description of certain books said like cities of sigma, but not stupid I Played a a all basically mostly snake like I had to have a couple of the normal Girls for obvious like just chaff or whatever, but my army was you mean No, I mean Two units of ten was my only and they're both sisters slaughter But two units of ten sisters slaughter was my only non snake things in the army So I I feel like and I'm playing in Calibron. I feel like I played the fair version of the army That's all I'm saying.  All right So and now if you're talking about Tom, he was on the how many units of 30 Can you pack in Hagnar cheat train that made me go that? To choo choo black exactly correct. Yes, that is the appropriate sound So All right Also as well with war cry we got the new alliance books coming which looks like it's gonna wrap together all the rules So for people couldn't get the cards from stuff like that and have the fate I hope they turn down a bit Which one they turn down a bit that the the non what I call the non official war bands. Oh the non Well, yeah, the ones that weren't released is like war cry standalone box sets because yeah when we went to that event The one I've been yeah, yeah that one The the other the non war cry war bands just seemed like a notch above everything else Yeah, I think it definitely depends like some of them. I feel like are in line But honestly you look at something like the Gitz for example, like I think I think the Gitz warband is one of the strongest in the whole The whole system because they can play everything from just the cheapest most ridiculous blood the board guys up to just absolute Beaters that smash into things at high speed and do outrageous damage and they've got everything in between Right. Uh, they're versatile. They're mobile. They hit hard. They chaff Yeah, there's and they have good abilities too. Like good like good on card You know, I'm saying like the work right card abilities So Yeah, no, I agree. I would be fine with seeing them sort of Rebalanced, I mean when you look at the new city stuff they published recently that felt pretty in line That one didn't feel too crazy so Yeah, we'll see Be interested to see how it all turns out. I'm looking forward to you get my hands on that the the actual the game And seeing if there's been many changes. Yeah, sure sure like I do have questions as to what this new What the new box that's gonna bring us because it could bring a lot of changes Uh, it's a good game. I mean like it's my we don't have enough time for a normal game and just don't want to really Uh, think too hard game if that makes sense. Like it is just the fun relaxing game It's it's kind of I was going to say is that your segue it is it's going to be a big segue That is what I'm going to talk about that later as being a strong positive like no joke It is a very low stress armor. We'll get there. We'll get there We'll get there All right, and then the only other news is we're getting a new painting handle handle in november, which Oh, there's um, there's a but I hear that in a version of on the end or a jewel to fit with slanette See now, that's how you make that joke properly Byron and I do love it Too too many people with that joke. It's a blunt instrument, but no yours Perfect. This is why you got some englishman on isn't it? Yes That's that english humor that drive perfect Uh, all right So that's all our news We're plowing through that because I want to get to these giants what we're coming in Hot like a giant dealing mortal wounds. Just smashing through the news. I don't care Aaron Rudd has given me the stop it eyes as well. So The stop it eyes. I like it Uh, yeah, there's no edit button when we're live is there. So that's the there is not Yeah, fine, but don't be yourself too much We've all got to not be ourselves too much unfortunately.  It's like, yeah Actually No, we're okay. Just gotta keep the swear and in check And I'm not drinking so everything's fine. Oh, they're okay. Good. Well, yeah It's 10 o'clock. You'd be perfectly fine if you had a drink. I wouldn't hold it against you uh, all right So let's talk about some pick of the week stuff uh face hammer crew in general I won't make I won't go around the horn But uh, is there some stuff you'd like to to share with everybody out there? Watching some videos some blogs anything like that that you'd like to draw everyone's attention to or boost the signal on You can make this trust not mean It's not massively vested interest in plugging their own stuff Yeah, I heard it's done some good videos. Oh, they're really good. They're so good Um, honestly, um this week I haven't done anything other than have my head in a spacewalk commission so I've not done a lot of um internet surfing obviously when you create content as well you kind of Your spare time is putting that out. So um, yeah We're we just released two sons of bear much those which have gone really well so If you if you want to hear what we have to think about I mean a lot of detail and they're worth checking out and um I know there's a lot of different people releasing um content on that and um We've been tagged in that I am a war gamer series by yeah, um a os coach. So We've got our video in post-production pre-production. I don't know how you say one of those One of those two um Yeah, so I haven't really been on the interwebs much this week. So no firing has gotten a fit that they've been It's been very difficult. We've had quite a hefty week so far with um Some stuff going beyond the scenes for what me and rest do to help hgw as well. So that's quite busy time for us um, and um, I've been like again ad mech Commission work, which has been quite good. Um, I know without being too Sort of like plugging and pointing to our own stuff It's like I'm not sure if anyone's seen but we've released some really nice objective markers that people I think that was really nice Yes, it's an advert come on to be to show an advert. No, I'm joking. Um, there's been um I just think that for me the the weekend and I know we covered it briefly is that The the only things that I've really been excited about and sort of like been looking at has been the Um, you know the war cry stuff. I'm super into the those dark half models the canine guys Um, particularly the one that looks like uh, waylander from the david gem will book, you know, the the two crossbow guy Um, so I I mean that's what I'd be looking at other than that. There's been some really cool um conversions on twitter. Um, I believe the guy is called Uh, uh ricky ricky. I haven't got my yeah with his gargants. Yeah, I think they've been really really cool So like if no one's seen those I'd definitely go and check those out Because I think there's just a lot of options and he seems to be throwing even more money at those kits to make them look cooler so is Ricky's conversions are incredible. I'll include his uh, his twitter down below afterwards so people can go follow him He's doing such an amazing job with this army. He obviously did like the the uh, the converted empire army before Empires wrong thing or say cities whatever you use a lot of empire stock stuff And it was like empires industry at war empires of industry. I don't remember the exact name But it was incredible. He even made it on like fan made Uh, battle tone for it like the the man goes all out. It was incredible It's yeah, his battle terms are really good. Um, that was one of the things that drew me to his profile Originally was the the whole sort of like yeah, the engines of industry stuff Wasn't and he was making like mech stuff for his is of sigma army and wrote his own Sort of like fan fiction book kind of like what tyler did with the tomb kings and stuff So it's really really interesting to see how his stuff's sort of progressing Um, so yeah, and obviously like there's never guy damian peddley on twitter He's really really good with his conversions some more 40k focused stuff He's doing really really nice death watch marines. So That's the stuff I've kind of seen other than the obvious warmer community articles that have gone out Damn it. You just took mine. I was going to say It's a little bit like straight down the nose, but there is a great warmer community Article and we are talking about large giants that have been turned into other types of giants And I think that's a really good place, especially if people aren't Like some of them out there are gorgeous and incredible to look at but if people want to look at Not all of them in there because some are very very very involved but there's a couple of really simple ideas for Customizing a giant and putting your own spin on it or having it to be kind of aligned to a particular chaos gold or stuff like that I think it's fantastic Yeah, and I mean, there's certainly room here to make them your own Like we'll we'll get into it a little when we get into the giants themselves But if you in the beginning in the section they talk about like what these giants look like In all the other realms they have descriptions of like the giants from Shamon and that are all like this spoke enough metal hammered into their flesh and stuff like that and the giants from Shai-ish that are like ashen and have spectral spirits just kind of trailing behind them There's like so many cool ideas that are just right there in the tone for people to to convert on and it's completely In flavor like there's absolutely nothing wrong with it You can still easily just put like the right weapon on it or maybe just stick to a single head or something like that And know which one you're dealing with so it's not like So you're not going to have that many on the table as well even if you do get crazy, right? It's not impractical to say the one with the outrageous chaos axis this guy the one with the crazy boat for a hat is this guy right and then the other ones the one remaining one like Your opportunity for getting lots of giants on the table are A very slim unless you're playing 10,000 points Which sounds amazing So, you know, I gotta it's gonna be a little while before I get a 10,000 in this army, but That'll just be a football game your objectives are just brilliant. Yeah Everywhere. Yes So for myself Those are all good suggestions. I do want to just hammer home that the face hammer cruise But now some of the stuff on to youtube from face hammer worldwide I will link that down below with their channel. So you should go check it out. Their review was Really great. I did listen to you guys's entire review as well as I think everybody else's Before I did this show, which was good. I got to hear the whole the whole range of thoughts Before for crystallizing my own um So yours is perfect and yours is yours is distilled percolated spot on It's filtered. I don't know if we've gotten perfect yet, but it's It's filtered by time and and some kind of brittle like filter. Yeah, so um at any rate Uh, let's talk some quick copy time and then let's get into this guy So ross, I think you already mentioned what you're working on but uh, what has been on your table anything besides space wolves? Uh saves to darkness I mean that I'm a building. Um, so from the face of a worldwide. I started my sorcerer Um, I've built some varen guard and to for that and obviously you've got the sun's a bear map behind me Um, so I'm planning to do those as a chaos. They're corrupted chaos Warband so I want to I'm probably gonna end up buying a couple nights and magnificent red to go with it So it's like the most expensive arm in the world. Um but yeah, I want to basically um Use the artifact on the kraken eater and do him like corrupted by zinch So I'm gonna do like eyeballs and his skin and stuff like that and feathers and things like that So it's going to be a slow burn, but yeah, I'm quite looking forward to getting that But I've been doing commission painting. So basically just been painting space wolf lines all week. Um Going slightly mad. Um, but yeah Nice, uh, yeah, these giants do lend themselves to going to chaos really easily like that's just such a fun aesthetic So can't wait to see how that looks man. That's fantastic. When you say the knights, do you mean like What kind of knights like chaos the night desecrate? Okay, so that yeah the imperial night like the chaos night. Yeah, okay The chaos version. Yeah So I figured you can use like the spikes that are on it to come out the skin or the banner Yes, some of the chains the the leg guards could probably go as um as like shin guards or even like on the arms on the shoulders Might make a gut plate out of the knight shoulder pad Love it. Love it. There's a hundred percent that would fit so amazing those those big spikes Can you can just set them right into the back of that flesh so easily and then it's it's just gonna look awesome Plus they have the chains going between them and stuff too. Yeah, just super chaosy Dig it. I dig it Uh less. What about yourself now? Is it just a mech? Um, so everything my commission paint stuff. Um, I did paint a Um a secretary for a storm castle general secretary over the weekend. Just as like a palette cleanser Um, I keep every now and then I'll pick up a model and I'll try and emulate as close as I can to the heavy metal star Just as a way of trying to to level up and be because like that is the like the end goal for me I mean, there's lots of amazing painters out there But if I could paint a marine to the same standard as a heavy metal star that would be Like, you know my dream. So I've been working on doing that every now and then so I've done a couple of Other bits, but I did a secretary at the weekend And I've been sort of assembled. We've had like some some games recently Like myself Byron and Russ we played Like socially distanced gaming at a friend's house car break spear So I've built all of my luminous stuff for that. So I've been really excited about getting and painting some more of my luminous stuff It's just finding the time Um to do it with the when you paint for a living Um because of like me and Russ obviously both Commission painters due to sort of like covid issues. We shall say in the uk Um, it's hard to find time to do your own hobby when you're painting for other people Particularly if you've stopped just a like a errors painting somebody else Stuff you kind of like just want to like chill out really plus all of the the content we're doing and and other stuff It's been difficult But I'm hoping to get some time on my lumen f4 switch is done in the sort of like the sire paint scheme out of the The book and with the marble braces. So That's what i've been i've been looking at doing more of those I want to maybe paint start painting avalanor Because of the list that i've sort of like leaning towards is mostly our f units around the umetrica sort of grand nation Um, so that's kind of where I am But but yeah, that's other than commission painting and that's secretary I've been thinking a lot about luminous stuff, but not actually Paint any of the luminous stuff. So that's all right. Sorry Uh cow elves best elves. So you're making you're making good choices in your life. I like that. I like that. Yeah Byron, what about yourself? Uh, I turned a rogue island to a gorilla So that was uh, that's that's a fantastic endeavor. It actually turned out really well Any purpose behind that or just that felt like a conversion that you needed to have in your life I didn't know like you joke for the second one entirely. So, um, basically the um I really really like the pose of the thunder tusk stone horn kit And I think dw knock it out of the park whenever they go kind of nature natural world focused And that lots up from uh smaller at the back like bulldog or gorilla pose I've always found really really kind of if something needs to look aggressive I think that's a great way to do it So, um, just by tilting things around at a different angle with a rogue idol I repositioned him a little bit probably like three or four Hours work to get it all assembled including the stuff you do that normally takes a couple of hours anyway And it does happen to be the most forgiving kit in the world for doing that type of thing with like You wouldn't know if everything had gone wrong once it was painted. So, um That turned out really really nicely and then I have actually been doing a little bit of Beastman stuff too. So I'm starting on Basically a nightmare themed Beastman army, which is the most wide open theme you can ever imagine The guys can start making jokes now No Just we'll be here forever mate like oh Anyway, it happens to be wide open thematically, which is convenient for me because I don't want to be restricted Um, given the given how I am I just want to pick nice things and put them in my army if they look scary and that was genuinely the idea behind it So I've ended up with what looks like the most weird demon prince you've ever seen which involves uh draka and a Like a fleshy accord stomach from somewhere and then a sitbell skulls head and some frost heart phoenix wings So it's um, it's kind of going towards nightmare fairies is where that army will end up. I think Uh Well, that sounds amazing one two The phoenix wings to make as demon prince wings. I fully support my my like converted bellicor. I did this as the exact same wing So I'm all for this idea. Do you have any like concept of what you want to focus on beast? It's a huge army. Like is there is there particular Elements that you like particular units you want to have in there that you've got Like from a gaming perspective or a visual perspective. Yes Yes So gaming wise I'm I'm actually trying to play with Stuff that I don't think is very good on purpose at the moment Um, I've tried to rust about this at length and it's it's a topic I don't want to I go into too deeply because I think it's a huge one and interesting so I won't shut up but um Basically, I've I've realized that if you play an army that almost instantly dies the moment you make a mistake It's the fastest way to learn getting better at the game many armies You realize you made a mistake like two turns later one turn later like two phases later stuff like that I've been playing with bone splitters, which die to anything due to bravery and They're just being no saves in the army unless you're a rogue idle broadly speaking um and The idea is I want to up up my level of play to what I think it was a couple of years ago so I've been doing that with them and basically I just went through the list of books I had and picked out the One that I think is arguably amongst the weakest and again does that being not hugely resilient You'll know the moment you've screwed up. Yeah, and that was beastman So continuing on the theme if anything's too good It might not go in there and I just want an army full of glass cannons I think because that that also fits with that So it will probably be a cup of chimera Maybe a few cockatrice and then I'll fill the gaps with whatever lets me do it with the least models Uh, I love everything about what I'm hearing here I've been a stan for the chimeras and cockatrices for a long time I've got I I have like five cockatrice in my beast army. So yes I support this more than you could actually use because I don't know when to stop Uh, which just you haven't seen the list that I've been writing mate your way up But the I think that The fact that that's also one place to go into my 18 cockatrices or something on the table. Yes Yeah, because they're just other units you could just go nuts with them like they don't yeah exactly 90 points 90 points 90 points You can do that quite a few times until you've run out of points.  It's just it's a blood boil Everybody loves blood boil And so why not have 15 things that can blood boil in your army? It's pretty good Exactly that. So the idea roughly is couple chimera couple cockatrice Maybe Jabba's life because conversion abilities are just wide out there. You could do whatever you like And then um minimal models for the rest of it So there will be some mortal wounds that range as a theme from models that hit hard, but can't get hit back Yeah, I love it I like the idea of the the army with no forgiveness because I think there is some armies like that where it's you can You're absolutely right There are some armies where you can kind of just screw up and it doesn't matter the army can handle it Right, it can just oh you didn't position exactly right, but it doesn't actually matter much and stuff like that But there are some armies that are you're always feeling like you're dancing on the knife's edge And it's like you may take one wrong step and you're going to know about it immediately because you just lost the game And you're right. It is it is a good way to lose And at the same time Absolutely, and I think there's there's plenty of other armies that are an equally An equal power level, but you you might just not know as immediately and because it just makes it more obvious If you're going for like an educational purpose, then there's armies that could be better at being bad As as much as that makes sense But you don't know about it until you realize that your slow army was out of position two terms later So I'm fast fragile, etc. I like it I like it For myself my hobby time. I'm working on frank here. I'll hold I'll hold him up Frank is the third Gargant in my Crusher unit the other two are already done And so once once frank is done, then I'll have the whole whole unit completed He's got the most like little spikes and little power bits hanging out of him. He's got the you mentioned the chaos Uh Night there rust and yeah, he's wearing one of the like chaos knights Face masks or whatever they fit. Yeah right on that head perfectly. So Uh great bit there and all all my crushes have chains on them because they're all you know Like they all have chains around their necks because they're all just like I picture them being led around By the big guy who's just like grabs all three of their chains. He's like come on. We're going this way you dumb dumps Uh, so I'm excited about that about the fourth one already converted once I get these four painted Then it'll be time to get out those big mega gargants and start chopping and changing them as I start cutting up those overly expensive kits to uh To convert them so but on the bright side, I'll have a lot of extra Pieces maybe in the end I can just build a whole extra one out of the out of the pieces. We'll see what happens Build a giant sized chaos bone. That'd be interesting. There you go. Yes I definitely will have the parts for that I I I actually got together like all the extra because I probably have I already had an army of giants Before I did this just for a hobby project a couple years back I put together an army of 10 giants and so it's from across sort of the history of giants I have like the albion giants in there and all that kind of stuff Yeah, and so I got together all my giant bits and made sure they were well organized And I was like holy crap. There's so many extra bits because I mean I've probably bought before this I probably already bought eight of the regular Giant kits beforehand.  Just all those great bits. It's still still a good kit for bits.  This is like a couple different cow type things I'll just ship them all to you and be like here you go for your for your basing material One one a day just one a day By the 30th day, he's like, what are you doing? Exactly. Like Chinese water torture but with cows I love it. Well now now I know what we'll do once he finally breaks. It's only a matter of time. He'll break eventually Uh, all right So gentlemen Let's talk about some sons of them. Howie Uh, I've got my book here. All right beside me as I lean out of frame Got our book Uh, and uh, I want to start with just some High-level thoughts. There you go. That's right. Uh, nice nice Like give me the pitch of how you feel about the army That's sort of let's you know 40 000 foot your overview Strength weaknesses just how you kind of generally feel so russ kick us off um, I think they're an army that Um on paper when you look at them probably look a little bit simplistic and a little bit shallow But I think when you You get into it. There's quite a lot of Variations to play with. I think they're a lot of fun. I think they're a great army if you If you don't want to feel overwhelmed learning too much because um, a lot of books when you play them, you're you're kind of like I need to remember this and this buff and this area and this So it's actually quite liberating playing with them. And I think it really helps your Uh, sort of micro management of piling in in the combat phase. Uh, so I think it it really does help you be a better Player in that regard, but I think overall I really like it obviously. Um, I think it's um I was a bit concerned originally because although I'm a play tester with this project. I didn't really play test it so um I was a little bit like can they really be Anything when a gimmick army? Um, and sort of please I think they can be more of that. So Yeah, I think they're they're decent All right, right on Byron. What's your thought? Um I think if you like Exactly what Russ said but part of the reason why it's so difficult to analyze them initially is that you're using a lot of Metrics that are based on warhammer as we know it and these are not warhammer as we know it Like there has never been this many wounds in the same place multiple times on a table of Aegis Sigma Um, for example, and the the list of things like that Um, it's not very long, but it's very significant. So I think it's a it's a very underestimatable book And it's also a book that particularly given that corona is a thing It's going to be very weird putting it on a table because people just haven't played stuff like this before anything else in the game If you manage to do 30 wounds to it's got less less done on an objective than you Um, it's also hitting you back like well It's either dead or it's hitting you back with 10 dudes maximum or something like that and these guys don't do that at all Um, so I think it's kind of fascinatingly different and may be an antidote to A lot of particularly stream art examples of armies that are out there at the moment. Um It will have some awful matchups, which is like anything that is kind of polarized being a small amount of very large models Which don't have an elite level save? Um Regardless of how many wounds they have there if you can do a load of wounds at range that are medium quality You're going to suffer with them. But um, I think they're I think they're really really interesting I don't know exactly where they fall within the barometer But I think that people have graphically underestimated them because they're trying to estimate Their power on a load of metrics. They're just Basically irrelevant Okay, all right Less what about yourself? Well, the guys have kind of covered it quite well.  But I think it's one of these armies that as russ touched on when you see it in the book Despite like we're all good gamers here. We can open up a book and like pick out the best war scrolls straight away I think this book definitely benefits from actually getting some table time Um, I think everyone massively underestimates the amount of damage they put out Um, particularly when you have, uh, you know, the more organs on the charges the grabs, um, you know, it rewards Um, clever play with regards to piling in and regards to how you choose Where you sort of like deliver those wounds. There's a lot of damage there Um coming out of a relatively small base size So if you like mitch it into 30 witch elves at the front of them, you're gonna die But if you tag it on the corner and you know with that three inch reach you can pile in you can do lots of different stuff um, I think You know, you look at it on paper It's very underwhelming play a game against it and I think if you play someone who is a good age of sigmar player Um, you know, it's gonna surprise you Just because of the fact that you're just capping those objectives It's an objective game at the end of the day So like all your giants can die But if no one can score the objectives because you've got X amount of models holding the objectives for four turns It doesn't matter does it? Yeah, yeah, I You know if this is I went on a long journey with this book Okay, I'll be honest now. I've been stoked for this forever I I went and pulled the clip at some point time in 2016 I said, you remember when they came out. I can't even remember the book now But there was like the sons of behemoth Battalion right that was back around the lights destruction. Thank you. Yes. There you go And on that show is like, you know, we need we need an army of giants.  I did a whole giant army as a hobby project. It was inspired by that single battalion, right, which is long since not been part of the game Yeah, so like to say that my expectations for this book were over inflated or high This would be a would be a an understatement The way I would summarize is this it was the best of times It was the worst of times It was the age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness, right? The epoch of belief and the epoch of incredul- incredul- incredulity There we go. Tough word to get out Mr. Dickens the like Ultimately, I am almost of completely two minds on this book. I've gotten three games in so far with them And my honest honest answer is that I don't know that I've had this much fun playing with an army In quite a long time other than the only other army that I think I enjoy this much is like my iron jaws now I am super timmy like I'll when I when I fight with a big monster literally in my head This is not a joke. I mean this when I attack in and swing in with a big monster in my head. I'm going And I'm making noises because that's what I want, right? I want a thing that feels big and smashy and and Scary like I love big monsters and Playing this army is really funny. You don't get that just from reading the book Yeah, right?  What is this one of the games?  And you will have those moments and they just feel incredible like it's it's so awesome to to pilot this monster. It feels more monstrous Then I think other Monsters and like I love big monsters. I have two Archeons. Okay, like I really cannot impress this as much but but I am profoundly disappointed with the book at the same time because I feel that There was a lot of like choices made That were derivative of their greatest strength And those choices hurt my personal overall ability to enjoy the book as much as I could Okay, I'm gonna unpack that and then I want you guys to actually like give me some thoughts on this Okay So the greatest strength of the army is undoubtedly its objective control Right, I mean we have all got to agree on that part. I think Like the fact that your little babies count as 10 or sometimes 15 every in a particular tribe meaning a unit of them is like 30 or 45 For objective counting on basically nothing in base size because those guys are on tiny tiny baby bases versus How big they are right like that is an incredible amount of capturing power in a small space And the fact that the big guys count as 20 slash 30 again depending on tribe, right is just so Freaking Powerful like people will underestimate this people will Not understand that like you will toe in to that six inch ring and just be like, well, this is mine now It doesn't matter that you've got, you know 15 dudes on this I threw one rock at you. You only lost one guy. This is mine now, right or whatever But that rule is so powerful and it necessitated Everything else in the book to be adjusted to where it is Like there's not as much synergies as you would expect with other armies. There's not as much power. There's not they don't Like I know you said they hit hard. I mean they they do I don't I don't worry. I've got a powerpoint presentation I'm sure we're all excited I I have lots of comparative metrics for exactly how hard they hit and yeah, sure they hit hard not as hard as Many things in the game, but they hit hard And so their damage had to come down their defense had to come down Their available synergies had to come down everything had to come down because if they had that kind of objective taking power And they could ramp themselves up like other things could like if you could make him as offensive as you could make a Mega boss on maw crusher and by the way, those two aren't even close the mega boss can like There is easy math where the mega boss one rounds your your mega garden 72 likelihood Okay So that's like But if he could if you could ramp the giants that level It would be a problem Right, it would be a problem because the the that mega boss is one guy. Ultimately. He's one model. He toes in he's one model That's it.  Like when you can come in and smash somebody and they don't push any threat back do it Otherwise fight as little as possible retain as many units hold all the objectives And if that rule wasn't like that if the rule was You know, I'll just throw some out there if the rule was like Uh mega gargants automatically count as taking an objective if they've slain models on a unit currently holding that objective And they're within range of it or something like that, right? Otherwise they count as one model So they want to be fighting Okay, or whatever like you can structure that rule in 50 different ways But my point is that would fundamentally change the the The way that the army wants to play And that's my ultimate challenge with it is in my head. This was big stompy smash smash I go around and fight everybody But sort of the fun way to play the army and quote-unquote maybe the most competitive or right way to play the army isn't the same But i'm interested i'm keen for your thoughts and I know i just rambled for a long time It's it's quite interesting actually because I think like some of the stuff you said with the comparison with the more crusher um rust played uh against uh an iron jaws arm you have quite an offensive um more crusher build um and I mean maybe rescuing sort of like yeah big one maybe rescuing unpacking sort of like give some examples in that Well, I think I disagree with what you're saying to a point Because I think the strength of the army is is the mortal winds on the charge and so and what I think um You want to be fighting in multiple places because you'll generally kill what you fight Um, and I know people can talk about damage to to the cows command month I'm not interested that the reason there's a good reason why they're damaged too You know because it makes them more consistent The fact that they survive well Um, and so if you commit to the giants in multiple places Yeah, you get to maybe spike one giant if you committed more full lot to it But you're gonna lose your other stuff. So you've got to kind of try and pick them off piecemeal And I think from the games I played certainly Um, I played against obr. I played against big war twice. I played against fleshy accords Um, I took a charge of a fully buffed up terror geist with plus three attacks reroll to wound With its more Didn't kill me a bit lucky on my part, but then I killed it in one round You know because I countercharged it, you know My guy retreated off with his couple wounds left and then it was I kind of you get this feeling and like they are outnumbered And they're trying to drag you down and you're being attacked by lots of little things coming at you from different angles Yeah But I think that kind of feels that kind of aesthetic of them like being like gulliver's travels, you know Lots of sort trying to drag you down lots of little annoying things um, but I I think they're strongest when they're hitting you all at once because It is just overwhelming especially when they've got to start splitting their attacks between multiple gargants. Um I know what you're saying about the retreat and that but what you don't want is you don't want They're the opponent to be able to charge multiple units into one kill it Then charge multiple units into another one kill it sure by Going in multiple places. You're going right.  Um So I I kind of disagree because I think the end of the day you want to be fighting um Because you need to kill their stuff before you get overwhelmed and you need to get up on the objectives and most Missions You're both going to have to go for the objectives. So you will end up fighting I do understand what you're saying that sometimes it's better to retreat and still have a toe Been six then you still get that objective and sure things like that. But um Yeah, I I I don't know. I I mean I played against um, I play a lot of combat armies and I I don't think they feel any different to any other combat army when you when the mission dictates sometimes you go Actually, it's better for me to step away from this fight rather than fight But if it's your go you get to go first normally, you know, there's stuff out there that you don't but you know, that's different um, and you know the end of the day you're They they do put out a lot of damage um If they put out too much damage Then it would be it would be ridiculous. You would steamroller and it's um, It's quite interesting because during the playtest we actually made them more survivable um Because we gave them more wins because they were dying too easily we found Yeah, I mean, I'll say and my experiences obviously might be different. So I you know, the three games I got in were against You know one drop. No, I'm sorry two drop Two drop change host uh against uh purely offensive iron jaws and against ogres, okay, like against uh, uh um Not not boulder head, but against a blood gullet ogres okay and You know, so the change host was a non-game like I'll just lay that out there. That was a non game, right? It's for a lot of armies. So right sure. I don't disagree with that but that was like In in a round he lifted a thousand points in my army in the next round he lifted the last thousand like that was It was just like yep. Okay. That was a fun non game uh, and against the iron jaws what was funny is that I found myself not wanting to charge often Okay, like it's but now what I mean here is you get depends on how your army's constructed and what you're dealing with, right? Like obviously that's the case because I think you To me and this is getting too deep into it But like to me you often want to have singles because you need singles you need single babies I'm just going to call them baby giants and big boys So you want some single babies around because you need them to like just be floating units that can threaten objectives and Chaff and do all the things that other armies normally do with your 180 point guy And that one guy going into anything is a is not a win Like he's going to die instantly if he goes into attacks most anything Uh, because I mean he's 12 wounds on a five up save right? I mean that's that's the raw math of it Like you wouldn't we don't look at any other unit of roughly 10 guys on a five up save and go That's a survivable thing right once we take it out of the when we move it away from a four and a half five inch tall model right Where nobody's looking at that going this thing's definitely going to survive But it's super powerful because it's 10 dudes. So I would always toe in Take it hold and then that guy would get blown up in the ogre game It was interesting because I buffed up, you know, I buffed up buffed as much as you can There's almost no buffs in this army But I took the three I was playing stomp a tribe and I took my three pack of crushes into a unit of 12 Hyper like they were super buffed overs, you know plus one attack plus one to hit Sixes on mortal wounds on the bite. They had the full they had that somebody they hit jackpot on their on the ogre slot machine Okay Now it's important to say I had nothing to say about that right I couldn't stop it because all the spells just either went or they didn't Yeah, uh, and I killed nine of those ogres outright, which is great. Like that's 36 wounds between the charge and the fight. That's pretty great Right like no joke. That is a ton of damage to that unit stomp a tribe little baby gargants Uh, believe the hype they do hit like a truck Okay, like I'll I'll rep that a hundred percent Those three ogres then pulled two giants to the ground on the pileback Right now that's slightly higher than mathematical average, of course Right, but my point is there they are absolutely and should be treated as made of glass. They will break You know, I think the little ones especially Yeah, like they I think this is maybe the mistake people make is that The little ones are kind of your hammers and the big ones are your anvils I think that's probably right.  Um, you know, but that's It's still the same as a lot of other books out there. Um, and I think from what I was surprised at when I played with them um From my experience of playing with like flesh eaters and and legion the gash and other other books They they didn't feel like they were like lost Like they were just like they just didn't compete on that level and even against like a pretty honed big war army I went into it on like turn two Went straight straight through it in two turns basically Um, not even breaking a sweat didn't even lose a gargant Let me re-racked and played again and um James played a lot better and it was a combo charge from my gargants took it out I was able to counter charge and then but by the time we got to turn three I was so far up on objectives. You you couldn't come back from it Yeah, I think that there's an I want to get less and Byron back in here too because I know The show must have been going for a while and they'd say to sit here and watch us talk Yeah, I mean I think it is very scenario dependent, right? There are going to be scenarios that I think are really really hard hard hard for this army almost match up independent, right? When I think about something like star strike where you don't have a chance to you know, where basically you're not doing the majority of your scoring until You know into turn three That's a tough scenario, right because by that point you've probably lost a decent part of your your army um And so like that's How often star strike shows up in tournaments, whatever whatever, right? Like okay, we can talk about that but whereas if it's something like Oh, I don't know if it's something like uh, honestly, maybe even like something like places of arcane power I think that's actually a really strong one because your megas can actually go and hold pretty easily You can bring the little ones around to chaff It's almost impossible for them to get enough bodies there to get you off of it once you're on it And if you've got a kicker then you can even position your army in a more strong place, right? Uh And we'll talk about like the potential FAQs There that are out there for for this army because there's a couple that I think are are The way they come down will be impactful. All right Lessor or Byron what like we've been going on what what other Yes, what do you guys think what what do you got? Do you want to go Byron or do you want me to go? Um, I think we've with the giants and there's a lot of stuff out there is that realistically, there are a couple of non-match ups for nearly every army in the game like, you know, low drop ko You know change hosts stuff like that, you know, no matter what you're playing if you're playing teclist You can get shot off just as easy as by a lower drop ko army or a you know a change host army I think the the strengths with the the book is when you play some of the actually wants to come and fight you Um Particularly on the mission setup, you know, as you said star strike is going to be a difficult one But any sort of mission that you can Essentially out squand out fight your opponent on right. It's it's not It's not easy streak. They're not like a push I don't know if maybe the internet was expecting them to be a push it forward deal a ton of damage style army Um, or not, but to me they even though they're like a low model came I do feel like they they could at least compete in a tournament let's say, um, which I don't see why I mean, do we did worth? Sorry was everyone expecting them to be like a 5-0. Is that what is that what people said? They want to push it forwards and smash You know, it's yeah, I think that Just real quick on that I I know I wasn't expecting that and nor would I want that after playing slanesh for the better part of a year When it was overpowered is all get out which left a sour sour taste mild. It wasn't fun I shelved the army in september last year because I had so little fun playing it. I never want that again It's awful. It's really unfun for everybody I do think though. There's it like the thought might have been that yes, this the Fundamental question this army will ask is can you handle? Can you handle the thunder the mountains rumble the town shake the rivers dry up because my Catastrophe that's literally what a group of giants called according to the book My catastrophe is coming your way, right? And it's a little more finessey than that And I so I think that there's there might be some mismatch of just expectation They're not in competitiveness because I agree with you less and and russ and everybody I think ultimately it is a actually a competitive army again There are they're gonna be non-games, but that's like he said I agree. That's true for everybody I do I don't think the competitiveness is actually the challenge. That's not where my Sting comes from Yeah I mean, I think a couple of things the outline and rush touched on this briefly is you just described playing with a combat army, dude like, um, like it's A lot of a lot of good iron job players will know like slightly annoyingly that the times that they've done Really well is where they kept on fleeing with their blob of 30 Hard boys and they their idea was not to fight really Um apart from reactively for the entire game and they stood in they stood in the way you made intelligent decisions And then like there are a couple of key bits where once you gone something Buffed up and damaged it so it could move after a teleports and you had a reliable charge You went in there with something that has I don't know like um the cliche would be six pigs that have been war chanted or whatever And then they do go and wipe something out, but a lot of play with armies like that It it it's just how how armies play at a high level if they're a combat army You don't have the option to reach out and touch things as much and this army does have more of that than most armies that are this combat focused um They do stuff in every phase Apart from the magic phase You could say and I think that is very easy to underrate Like it it comes from more sources than any other Combat army that I can think of them like someone might be able to correct me on that If there are any exceptions or formations or stuff like that But it delivers enough that it becomes more reliable. Whereas if you're used to playing I don't know two more crushers like That's like you can't rely on that you can rely on this And you add the rocks and stuff like that and that helps The fact that when you do go into that thing that you should be worried about I've been saying more crush a lot But you already used the example so more crusher if you've taken it down a few pips It's not going to hit you as hard and you've got so many wings that you might survive for two turns Rather than you thinking that you weren't going to survive for one or something like that um I think that The use of the ovals with the small guys is really important and in particular things need to stand next to other things If you're going to play this intelligently now, obviously you've only got a limited amount of Bases on the board a very very limited the most limited ever amount of bases on the board for this But um It like and there is so much flexibility playing with an oval I'm going to say a load of stuff that sounds really obvious, but it's tiny here and it's wide there Um, so if you send in one big guy with two ovals next to it and they want to get through to your big Guy needs just smashing face They're going to have to split attacks and this is much easier if you don't take a three of the of the baby giants um that we're calling them because People don't have a decision there. They can't over allocate They can't under allocate and that's when you're going to punish your opponents Same as any combat army or any ms multiple small unit army That has made multiple charges on something if people played in that style before the real power to those is where You end up pinning something and particularly when your army whilst pinning Things is for the larger part going to be outscoring it on an objective I think it's it's very easy to just not realize the strength of that Um kicking is unique like that.  Is it's just colossal? it's a really really difficult thing to kind of Be able to describe how powerful it is until someone goes into you and they realize that they've done six wins here six wins here and they did like Whatever it was 16 here, which was double what they needed to kill one guy and then you just muller them back Um, or you just do a lot of damage back and and then you've scored for long enough And I think they are an army that could frequently have no models left on the table at the end of turn three And have won the game mathematically at that point Um, which is uh, it's it doesn't always feel like a Pure and crisp like down the line victory, but it is how the game has won Um, I do see what you mean about the the power of the objectives But I mean I'm not a playtester. I don't know if that was part of the process if it was considered like that But I think one thing to bear in mind is every time an army has come out that has been Graphically different from what has existed before or like even going like harking way back to ogres in seventh or eighth Can't remember which one it was I thought six, but yes, I remember the release of the book because my my friend immediately went out But the ogre player I played he bought that army like day one when it came out He still has it to this day Yeah That day will come but whenever something this different comes out In order to not make um Like I don't know bag on them. They're they're great, but there's a reason they're always the answer to every good army in the world eels um I think a ring on the underside rather than the oversight is Is more sensible So I don't know if that was a calculated decision where they ended up or something like that but when something is that different, um, I think it's The wrongs of it being overpowered are just far greater than the The rights of it being potentially a tiny bit under the level or conservatively You know pointed costed um ability or something like that um And I think historically if you look at the game that it's it's always ended up like that because people are trying to design Something's never existed before ko perfect example They pay is really well and truly come now But and that's not um, I'm not like condoning it, but I just think it's factually something that is very likely to happen Um, I'm not saying they don't have competitive play. They do absolutely and I think they can they're more likely to come on the powerful end of a good role of scenarios for you then Become undone on a bad role of scenarios for you. So I think there's actually On people don't seem to discuss this but if you go to an event There's more scenarios that can roll up in your favor than not in your favor And you could just end up literally raffle stomping through Four games without having to do much Um, particularly there's so many scenarios where you start close to people We went through the scenarios and analyzed them in our last show and um It's surprising how many I believe are either neutral or in your favor Um, and you do look and you're always going to think of the ones that aren't um, yeah No, and also I mean like look let's not underplay things like there's a lot of scenarios now that are granting bonus points for things like Battleline or behemoths or leaders and you very easily have all three of those in the mix all the time Right like the fact that your entire army is basically running around with all that stuff makes it quite easy Yeah, so no don't I and by if people haven't played those scenarios with those new extra bonus points scoring and seeing how Crazy impactful those things are to the game They're crazy impactful and so the fact that you have easy access to even just scoring those extra points all the time It means a lot They don't especially when you score early I think like if you're scoring early and you're scoring Whatever is 10 to 20 more than you would be that can just make you uncatchable even if you are dead at the end of turn three Sure Yeah, I mean like I said ultimately look if I had to put plant a flag in the ground you want my like Okay, you want my like ultimate guess, right? Uh, my ultimate guess is it'll be sub 50 win rate, but above 40% win rate and it'll it'll soundly land in the fat middle somewhere Okay, if I had to pick a specific number, I'd say 42 or 43 percent So it'll drift closer to two and three than three and two overall now I have a lot of different reasons for that belief Mainly because of what's good in the meta right now and I believe that like there's just a lot It has a lot of natural predators. Those things could adjust over time. Yeah, who cares who cares? That's all like I said ultimately I think it's competitive and Byron the the thing you said that I want to like hone in on and say I completely agree with this Do you know how happy I am that this army exists now? It exists Who cares like in the end part of me is like look I'm playing the long game here. Okay I bought my scaven in 1998 Sometimes they were the greatest army in the world. Sometimes they were horrible You know addition to addition book to book rules to rules But I still love the army and the first step is you got to exist We can fix it later, right? Like it'll it'll go every army goes up and down It has the roller coaster of time. So that's why I don't get too hung up on like Competitiveness. I think it's competitive enough. I think it's solidly in the fat middle. I think you'll compete I think you'll surprise people. I think smart players will be able to negate A lot of the tricks they're gonna have like there are there's counterplay there That's not a bad thing by the way that I think that's a good thing Like that means that smart players smart play pays dividends Which is I think how we want the game to work And so you will engage in that kind of match, right where you're trying to make sure you land the multi charges You're trying to make sure you can grab at the right models pick the right things out of the unit break coherency at the right times And they're counterplaying you trying to make sure you can't do those kinds of things, right? They're trying to set up against the terrain So you can't get in there and block off the other part of their army from the encounter charging you were Or or or or right? Yeah And I think that's good one of those plays to your advantage is they the the thing What if people trying to like triple stack ranks in order to stop you from breaking coherency? That often results in people having less attack density and less models close to an objective when the army that You need both of those to beat this army Which I think is a particularly interesting thing to consider the more intelligently people play For long-term survival the less intelligently they're playing for killing you and also scoring the objectives Yeah, yeah What I like about this just to chime in a little bit. So we've been reading the chat and stuff So I've seen some people talking about comparing them to beast claw raiders and I've made an event with beast claw raiders Just before kovid happened Um, and in my opinion they play very similar. I think they're a little bit different They're a little bit more they're less susceptible to being like charged on one shot than what bcr are Obviously the event I went to you weren't allowed I'm a line sorcery artifacts anyway, so you couldn't take like the thermal rider and stuff like that Um, so for me like I prefer the play to beast claw raiders I think the reason for that for me is because it feels like you can't make a mistake Because you've got four or five you've got four units You know, you've got four things if you misplay one of those things That's that's 25 percent of your army Like that you've thrown away or you've played incorrectly or you know, so I think it's got that element of Um, like I I agree what you're saying. I think if you take play a skill to an average level I think you're sort of talking about a You know a two three three two depending on emissions and things like that Yeah, I think there will be some outliers Because I think if you if you get the rubber the green because you need to rub the green what you play against What scenarios you get but if if you're particularly Good with a combat army. I think this is it gives you all the stuff you need and I do actually I do believe that But I I think as well one thing that's probably important to touch on is Because of the lever that we use On stuff is normally points, right? So adjustments is points to to sort of Handbrake stuff into where it needs to be You can't really do that with this book. Yeah So from my point of view, I think with the limitations of the design space in the number of war scrolls What's in the book? I think all the tribes are viable in their own different way and I I think they've done a really good job Of releasing a what I call a mature book Whereas other books will come out and they might be a bit janky. They might be a bit like Oh, this is a bit too powerful But then it kind of gets fixed and fault. I mean so there's a prime example Yeah, and it falls somewhere in the fat middle if people want to use that term Um, I know all about fat middles, but that's different I So like for me It's like but that's where we want stuff to be, right? You don't want stuff at the five and oh The four and one the the polarised This is the where it used to be when I think I think for me like and I know there's some people calling us like Sort of derogatory names about how we talk about stuff I didn't believe it. I wouldn't say it But the the thing that that frustrates me is when you see people out there that want to love it Want to enjoy it and they're being told don't even bother. It's awful That's just the opposite way round of someone saying oh, they're gonna win everything But right it's origin people. So I think it's just being realistic. They they're somewhere in the middle But they're they're totally fine. They're not they're not garbage And I feel people saying that is putting people off enjoying the hobby or doing the thing they want to enjoy Yeah, I want to just chime in real quick russ because I want to back that up Like I said, I've had three even even the change those game.  It's bookkeeping and like mental baggage is to that the way that I describe that Yeah, and it's not here in this army, and I don't mean that as a negative I just mean like it is fairly direct You actually win by the little tactics like this the decisions you were talking about like what you were saying Byron less through what you're like What's printed on the thing isn't what you're needing to remember what you're needing to remember is how to play a good game of war hammer Yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, I think and also at the point of which people using what does a unit of witch elves backed up by a haggis and metric for What's acceptable in combat? We've already lost that like that is that is and like I'll be polite that that's not an intelligent way to look about measuring things reasonably for the long-term health of a game Like Byron, you've given us the perfect segue into power point time Okay Are you unhealthy? So well, I've I've so I've prepared a little power point here. Let's uh, I'm gonna bring that up Let me make sure I hold on. I've got to change my picture. So I'm small enough So I'm not blocking my own power point for a moment Make myself small you guys are covered for the moment So people won't see you so you can feel free to pick your nose or whatever like that people just see it It's a trap All right. So let's let's go. Oh, hold on. There we go. Okay So let's go to our giant breakdown. Here we go. All right So I these are the things I've listed the strengths. You all tell me what you think about my strengths list. You ready? objective Power per square inch simplicity moderate drops impact hits Single target model killing like the fact that you can pick models out of units stuff in your pants that kind of thing These are strengths. I think they're really strong people underestimate this stuff These all feel fair or anything I missed that you want to add uh multi uh damage in multi phases Okay, you mean like oh because of charging and and impacting and then combat Yeah, I'm not back in the rock throws. By the way, that is a I'm I'm sorry, man I can't get behind you on the rock throws No, that's fine. They just do mostly nothing I So I think uh quick again because I know we've got a power point coming and everyone's salivating but um People people are very used to measuring especially shooting by seeing it very effective in stage one being hitting somewhat effective in stage two somewhat effective in stage three and somewhat effective in stage four being like wounding saves after saves, etc um This army does badly at stage one and the way better at the rest because it's a It's it's difficult to hit and once it does it's much more likely to wound something Which I think to some degree makes it controllable for picking out key pieces And you will do less wounds But if you want to kill that guy when you do hit that wizard who's got three wounds remaining the amount He takes wound. He's dead. So I think stuff like that is easy to underestimate and the um Yeah, it kind of the I guess a lot of it rolls up into damaging multi phases, but I do think the sum of that is far greater than its parts Okay, um, so yeah, that's that's fair. Yeah. Yeah, I mean we'll get to the math of the rock throwing later Russ less anything I missed as far as strengths. I mean these all seem fair and I think these are really like real strengths of the army I think yeah, I think you've put the power per square inch, which is the point That I thought you might miss which is the fact that you deliver a lot of power in a small space Yep. Yeah, I think it's it's to me In our worldwide show we talked about that delivery Yep, I would always argue you've got defense of the small space as well. Sure. Yeah, yeah Yep, that's why I'd like to think of it generically like power right like anytime if you can if you've got a model The type of offensive and can just sort of pin a unit on the corner and not die ever And like that now their only choice is spend five turns the rest of the game trying to pile it on you And never bring you down or just retreat in ways to turn that's such a wonderful thing, right? So Yeah, yeah, they're very fast all of them Uh, who the Giants? Yeah Yeah, okay All right next slide Limitations, I've got 20 of them Oh amazing. Okay. Yeah Now here's what I want to set the stage here with this. Okay. This is just meant to be a representation of stuff This is not meant to mean this is why the army's bad Everybody's gonna think because I put a slide up that said limitations and you don't have this stuff that I'm saying it's bad It's not armies don't need all this stuff. Most armies don't have all this stuff cough sarapan on cough uh, but Um, but like and armies don't necessarily need these things I just want to be factual with people about the types of things You're not doing in this army, right? It's just a statement. I am putting no No Normative good or bad way to behind it. These are just meant to be statements, but I'm interested. No battalions Objectively true. No allies No chaff in the traditional sense of how we think of chaff No command abilities outside of the stomp a tribe, which has its own very strong limitations because you can't use the normal game command abilities instead Uh, low, I'm going to call it low defense So I'm going to call it not no defense just low like there's a lot of good defense in the game. They don't super have it uh Low mobility and what I mean by that is not like they're all okay on speed 8 to 12 benches, you know, stomp us run in charge. Okay, whatever, you know, that's not nothing But my point is with that is really no teleport no ambush No, no ultra high move speed flying 16 inch moving stuff multiple armies have those kinds of things Yeah, I guess I should have said high average speed. Yeah, not Individual which is true, which I'm which I'm I would absolutely agree with you on that Byron. That's that's totally No magic outside the kraken artifacts now Obviously, there's an FAQ question there is does the kraken artifact actually make you a wizard and hence able to use endless spells and stuff like that TBD on the FAQ I would argue obviously that's what the intention of it was and so I hope that's how it comes down Seems pretty obvious to me. That's what it was So, okay Cool, we can probably not worry about that too much. I think like yes, of course should be the answer Uh, no prayers Low shooting. I didn't say no. I said low minimal power projection. No summoning healing. It's hard to dig out This is one of the things you mentioned like earlier of like being able to with to bounce back From bad moves. It is kind of hard to dig out with this army No activation wars. Not a bad thing. That's a good thing. I'm happy to not see it Point is just it's there. Some armies do have it They don't that's okay Max one magic item because you do have no battalions. No way to get x there. You can get two. Yeah, you can Okay, you can kraken. You can trade your command trait for a second artifact. That's fair All right, this story is right. Hey, I'm actually me That's fine No free command models. This is such a little thing, but it's something I really think about a lot Um, most units in the game have command models Obviously, that's why the idiots with flags is like the best thing to take in the breaker tribe Um And command models often do a lot. I think of bell ringers and skaven allowing retreat and charge I think of how often you just see plus one to run and plus one to charge Printed on command Stuff, right and that's just not here in this army So there's little things like that that you just miss out on those free little buffs that units often carry Uh Minimal chaff mitigation I called it minimal because you can't throw rocks at them. Hope for the best Whatever low average damage by cost will get into the math behind that Uh, no mortal wound protection. No unique characters. The mercenary guys account. What's that? Actually, you could take the uh, the port cullis on your breaker, which gives you a six up because that is true You can port cullis to that guy to get a six up mortal wound save if you want to make the worst That can be good We've done the map. It maps out a little bit better if we need to survive more No, yeah, it puts into an average of 41 wounds on its own, right? So if you go 40 wounds plus that Yeah, um, it actually puts him up somewhere around 40 Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not I I did run that build. I didn't hate it But yes, nothing outside of that one magic item.  So Um, we'll talk about that's one of the things that actually makes me super sad. They're but There are there are generally things I have no way to gain additional cp outside of buying one or the command trade for stompa Once per game at the start of the game Low to no synergies And no true anvils in the traditional sense. We would think of it Or to screw that Uh, I mean, I think of like I look I you're so first of all, I'll preempt myself with Byron's pushback on me here That is not fair to say this but when I think of a true anvil. I think of something like Uh, hearthguard berserkers or phoenix guard or somebody like that, right? Who can who has a huge after saving and just stand there and take an outrageous amount of punishment and walk Yeah, right But like a 35 wound giant that re rolls a four up save Uh, yeah, I mean sure it's not bad.   That's fine. That's fine. I get it. I get what you're saying I I do think the the the original point that I made about you can't I'm not Negin all to any of these but you're applying metrics to something that when it's like these true anvils that when they've taken When half of them have died that took ages. They're still worth less than you Yeah, so I do think for those reasons like a Somewhat hefty pinch of salt has to be taken whenever you're talking about stuff like that because the game is one on objectives And you already touched on the power of that Yeah, um, yeah. Yeah. So when when you when you've got one wound left You're still worth more than most things in the game that are going to be left standing next to you And that has a real power obviously makes things swingy But um games will be won with that frequently with this army agreed. Yeah, don't disagree This was more just to get it out there and something like Most of these things I honestly don't care about is my answer. I wouldn't want them in the army. Okay You're like six of them Yeah, like there's a couple of things. I mean, I'll tell you right now. Here's one of the things that's that's one of my biggest problems I really hate the no command ability on the war scroll thing for your big giants It really bothers me deep in my soul.  Okay. It has nothing to do with competitiveness at all It's just like there are 90 point corn heroes Who are apparently big enough to take command of people and can do something right can like boss people around in some way right And these are my leaders like command abilities are this implicit thing that Leader especially combat style heroes tend to have Right, like if you build a monster if you build a hero in aoe And you make him the commander he gets a command ability Let's see automatic choice. You cannot literally you cannot build a commander melee type dude without a command ability. It's the assumed state right And I hate that it's not there because I feel like I lost This choice that I normally make of like am I going to do this? Is this worth spending or should I just do the re-roll ones thing later? Do I need to save one to re-roll a charge? Right or whatever like that's actually kind of fun to have that tension and make those decisions And it's just removed Right, it's also it's also a way to be able to further customize and play a limited book in a way of your choosing So let's say You went for this like I'm going to use the word shooting loosely But the shooting version of this list and it let you it let you shoot a second time or improve your shooting attack or something Like that. Yeah, definitely wouldn't be breaking things and it would let you Have more options or be able to go slightly more down one route that fitted with your theme or how you want to play Etc. Yeah Yeah, I mean, I think fundamentally actually you hit upon the thorn in my paw with this book Is that I do agree that all three of the tribes are playable Okay Don't just agree with that. Yeah But they're not very changing Really in the fundamentals of the army your ability to make this army your own again Not talking competitiveness that can get thrown out the window, right? That can go right overboard with tom. Hopefully he catches that somewhere in the water before he drifts away out to see it. Okay Your ability to like truly make choices in the list building phase That make this army your own is so Limited like it's hard to lean any direction And I don't think that's a necessity Of only having four war scrolls because there's actually seven scrolls in this book If you count the three special characters that we decided this army isn't allowed to use right And it might as well Right. Yeah, like it would just be cool if you had like if you could maybe you had named unique giants Same kit same stuff print a print me a prince vorderai Right, but when he's in the army, then this thing happens, right? Like you said, maybe the rock throwing gets slightly better in some way, right? Or whatever you build into a rock throwing chair or maybe he makes the army faster So you can go for a more speed based thing or maybe he makes the army hit slightly harder But even cost them defense Cool, I'd be down for that Like I wouldn't mind if these things were trades again because I'm not looking about power I'm just looking to make the army my own. Does that make sense? Yeah Yeah, I don't disagree with what you're saying and the fact that you know You could potentially go well if you have a crack in your head But rather than giving it the net and the club you give it the guy in the hand and I don't know the flay or whatever. It's a different thing And obviously the the little the little gargants have got You know cows and cages and clubs and different things and one's got hooves and horns and So you could do something around that. I don't know. I wasn't really involved Sure, we don't we don't really get involved in that level of discussion Nor should I mean that's not a play test. I think that would have been an initial concept thing and design thing Right. Yeah I do think you lose one of the most important parts of our hobby Which is the ability to endlessly write lists in your head whilst you're on the toilet because of this stuff And that's um That's uh, that's like when there weren't points in in like in the dark days of the beginning of the game That's what you lock and I think it like I've used a silly example But it's literally when you're bored and you want to design something in your head because you really like thinking about this and Solving problems and trying to make the perfect list that doesn't exist You do lose a proportion of that through the the lack of ability to in this list for sure Yeah, this book for sure And I don't think any of us ever thought this army was going to be scaven or cities or something like that You know 50 60 war scroll armies where you can just build until the cows come home. There's an infinite number of lists That's not that's not the fair metric, right? That's not what i'm comparing against But there are other low Scroll count armies that can still do that thing you're talking about there byron, right? Yeah Yeah, definitely and it doesn't it doesn't it doesn't take much There is some flexibility, but you are pushed down a fairly narrow path in order to do that Right Okay, let's do some math. We'll go quickly through this. Here we go So here's your your basic scroll damage chart Okay, this is just your baseline stuff and then your additional damage over on the side I'm kind of blocking stuff still there There we go to wait for the stream to catch up. I understand. Yeah, I'll move myself here So everybody can see that says additional damage There we go. Okay. So like your kraken eater averages 6 to 13 But he has the advantage of not only the impact hits but three grabs three grabs is like Very meaningful. So let's not underestimate that but just These are the numbers folks War stompa averages 9 to 17 He also had impact hits.   And then you've got the man crushers who are actually your most damaging a unit of three is actually your most damaging thing Because not only does it do 3d3 impact hits. I'm just assuming the two up by the way And they also do three grabs on the pylon Did you did you map any of these with the bonuses like the command abilities and the Breaker abilities or anything like that? Oh, I'm so happy you asked Next slide is indeed Okay So let's start with a stompa allegiance. There's your baseline and then so this is the this is what your damage spread looks like in stompa So again, the baseline in the box is just a reprint from the previous page, right? You've got your single you've got your man crush against 10 models and your man crush against 20 models Uh, your man crush against 20 models that damage spread is quite Wide being 27 to 46 But it's 27 to 46 Right Oh, and thank you. Somebody said d3 grabs on the kraken. Yes. I wrote three. I should have said d3. Thank you I left the number off. But yes very powerful Uh, I mean crushes will bring it home if they get in there like these guys hit like you imagine damage does Uh The rock throwing the most likely outcome of one group of giants throwing rocks is zero damage That's the single most likely outcome to add 24 percent. Okay Now that doesn't mean it's actually the average is just the single most likely the the average damage is actually like three What save did you do these against? I wanted to ask a great question. Everything's baselined against a standard four up save Okay, okay. Yep. This is all against a four up save.  So, you know For me what I found the the throwing rocks interesting was I was playing breaker. So I had two two gate breakers and they're damage four run three And you get plus one to hit if you pick the right Tribe, you know So What I found what I would do is I would chunk four wounds off of some off of like a five wound hero And then the man crush would just try and chip that last wound off Yeah And that's that's something a lot of combat army struggled to do. I'm not saying it's reliable Let's let's be honest about this but over Over a turn two two three turns you've got two damage four rocks The the three shots and the crack in here and the the d3 per model from the the man crushers in my list where I had three big ones three little ones It's enough to chip away a monster drop it a bracket or or snipe a hero or you know, and I think it's very easy to overlook it But it's not a reliable thing that you get a guarantee every turn But this is this is the thing about a dice game, right? You you have spikes and You know no, I agree.  It's unreliable like you said, but when it connects it does do work Yeah, yeah And then if you've got nine man crushes all throwing like say you're in stomp a tribe and they're just all throwing At stuff it goes four to twelve if they're throwing against ten models Again, assuming that wouldn't get changed in an FAQ. There's no reason it should be But if it would it it jumps up it doubles if you do it against 20 models it doubles again uh, or sorry, it trebles I apologize, um and That actually becomes really scary So like if you're all in on babies and you're targeting big units And you're you're using that command ability out of stampa. Then yes, you can actually deal some pretty significant damage to big units with your rocks Notably though, then you're not running and charging Because you have run in charge not run and shoot Uh, and then you only move eight which is like not as great. It's okay Yeah, I think I think they for me like I played the man crushes as a As a hammer follow-up charge and my big guys as the anvil So I didn't want them close to my front line.  They might kill it Then you follow it up with a counter charge from the other gargant and then the man crushes Then you should wipe out pretty much anything you touch with that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Uh All right, let's talk let's talk breakers. So you asked about breakers. So here's what that that looks like So, um, which I have comparisons in both So there's the the man crusher with their if they get the plus one to hit Because one of the great things about the breaker tribe is the plus one does extend to them This is another thing that kind of bothers me Is that like the way these tribes interact with the other giants is not even And that actually kind of bothers me because then that even further constricts your list building Right, like it'd be neat if there was more interaction. So for example in stomp a tribe You give stomp a tribe offers zero benefits whatsoever on that page to any other mega in the list Right, they're just independent agents Nothing they gain they gain zero from stomp allegiance They cannot benefit from any of the command abilities nor can they Uh, you get the other ones, right the generic ones Only the man crushers benefit from that Whereas in the breaker tribe they give it out to themselves and all the man crushers, which is cool I like that and then obviously the taker tribe benefits everybody the most because it does the the increase of the objective count all the way So The man crushers go from 11 to 20 to 15 to 24 The gate breakers go from 9 to 18 to 12 to 23 So it's a pretty big jump just we're getting the plus one to hit I didn't figure it with the plus two if you happen to take uh fierce the the Intense low things or whatever the command trade is it lets you pick a second one because there are overlaps where sometimes you can Get plus two to hit. It's not the most common thing, but it can happen Did you map out the extra two attacks on the um Using the flail No, I haven't because I think there is an interesting build here I didn't map it out, but there's an interesting build here I think with the plus two attack flail and the rage blade from the realm. So your sixes are double taps Right If you want to turn your gate breaker into like a true damage machine, I think that's the closest you're going to get to that Uh, because then he's on 12 attacks six is being doubles and hopefully you're getting into the stuff where you're plus one to hit Because if you're not that guy, it goes real swinging on damage real fast Like when he's on his fours with his big weapon I mean we know we all know it for the experience of rolling for fours are right Sometimes it'll math out fine. Sometimes you roll and be like, okay. I got 12 attacks on fours. Alrighty hit three times Okay, yeah, right like that's It's not that weird Uh So yeah, I mean it's the breaker is the damage Here's my thought I found breaker. So I've run all the the allegiances I found breaker to be the most underwhelming In my mind. I actually like Maybe this is me and my personality, but for me I liked stomp of the best and then I'm really torn like then I'm really super torn between taker and breaker Slide note side note real quick gentlemen. I want an informal poll right now. Okay. Here we go cool takers breakers stomp us All right Why oh why folks at GW. This is a huge missed opportunity huge takers breakers shakers They stomp the ground Crack and eater doesn't have the word taker in it anywhere, but you decided on that so Vore stomp us stomp on the ground and shake it We could have had takers breakers and shakers and that would have been amazing What do you think gentlemen? Are you with me on this? Is this a missed opportunity? I'm with you. Yeah sure. Yeah 100% Okay I like take I like taker just because you can use all the undertaker gifts. So yeah, that's nice. That's nice Okay, but what's your I mean, how have you been feeling like Russ? Uh, what what's your what's your banking of them in your mind right now? um I I played I've only played a caveat this I've only played four games with breaker I liked it. I think the Additional two attacks on the guy made a bit more consistent the plus one the hit I think made them More able to kill stuff more reliably and I think that means you take one less round of combat, which is massive Yeah, um, so I do like breaker I'm stomper I like and I don't like it. Like I I don't like the I like the ironworld cestors for the reroll saves Yeah, it's it's really good.  It really hurts We'll let you want to charge and you're gonna hate your life And you only end up with one mega gargant and sometimes you need two leaders for objectives and stuff. So for me I think on on some of damage it looks amazing But for me, it's the probably the weakest for match play like if you go into an event I think breakers Really stupid in some missions. Like there's some missions that like here are missions and you take three mega gargants. It's just Low mode. It's just really funny um, I personally think Kraken is probably where I'm leaning purely Because of the art of fact, which allows you to have a wizard So it's an unbind and a cast and you could take endless, you know f a q dependent, but obviously I think you can kind of Think if we kind of think that the intention is there a wizard and they could do if in a wizard can do then I think that plays and I think you need to have a balance of maybe two big ones and Three to three to six little so yeah Yeah, I'll get to field them in the smaller units because you know obsessed about getting your value out of the The points as well, right? Yeah. Yeah, so I'm thinking for me. It's take take a break a stomper Less what about you? We haven't heard from you in a while. What did you So, um, it's I think with the um, sort of like sort of like touching on what rest is saying then it's like I think for me, I enjoy playing the stomper like the one giant with as many little guys as you can fit in I think it's nine, isn't it? Like points wise. I really enjoyed playing that army. I don't think it's maybe the most competitive I think if you play some people, they just sort of like line up in front You're on the 12 inch line You can just push that army into them kill them and you know have fun doing it Um, I kind of think Competitively, there was probably not the best. I'd probably agree with Russ that the taker due to the objective control um, you know the obviously the The light making them, you know, count as a wizard and stuff like that. I think that's where the competitiveness of the army is Um, so again, I'd probably despite stomper being my favorite. I'd probably rate it Third so I'd go take a breaker stomper again same as Russ, but I if I was going to do the army I think I'd do stomper because I that I enjoyed playing that the most Okay, got it. Yeah, that's kind of like where I am with it I'm not sure what Byron thinks and stuff Like six years into this game, I still call whatever cavalry I have men on horsey So I'm too slow a learner to be able to participate in this I still don't know which one's the retribution adjudicator. Um, so But the list that Russ and I had a chat about after the day when he played his games that one It's take care and I do think what you add with the flexibility of I know that the way I play I would want to have multiple small units of dudes Um Of the baby giants and the fact that you can take obviously we're not talking about something reliable here But if you do have a turn like being able to stop someone's endless spell is a thing like that But like you just get a chance at it and because that doesn't include bonuses it was cast with Um, you might get more out of that if it's an endless spell than trying to stop I don't know the gashit plus 15 or whatever Um, but also it does give you a chance to do a couple of things that are pretty cute such as activating cogs for the extra spell and the saves And being able to do some interesting things there, which is exactly the type of like finangling that I really get a a massive hobby Bonafor, yeah Yeah, I mean, you know thinking about the tribes There's little things that that kind of drive me crazy little restrictions that I wish weren't there So and you just kind of touched on like we mentioned the stomp of thing Like the fact that you can't use command abilities at all because you lose access to the generics on your big boys Is like, uh That really hurts like not even be able to activate a re-roll ones or re-roll a charge Like forget the fact of what I talked about earlier that really drives me crazy of not having a printed command ability The fact that you even then lose those is like man, that's really ouch, you know Succeed to know again with the 27 restrictions for writing an army. Yeah, yeah, exactly the the fact that like the war stompa himself caps at 10 attacks on the stuff around him i'm like Why like lots of things make lots of attacks just I understand we maybe we needed a cap Maybe I don't even know if that's the case. I don't see a cap on gyrocopters and uh, or you know And there's steam guns or a million other things like that in the game every mortal wound spell That's just like roll on the unit and four ups or mortal wounds So if there's 40 dudes, I guess you get 40 rolls You know like there's so many examples of that stuff with just no cap and this is a guy I got to bring into combat There's a bunch of little things like that that kind of get at me And I'm just like why is that there it doesn't feel like it would dramatically change things It's restrictions for restrictions sake So I don't know whether I don't know whether that was reigned back Because there was a potential it being a little bit too Powerful and the like I mentioned already like it's quite hard to get it out and get it right sure But I agree with you like for me the stomper is I'm not really that interested in running a stomper My list don't include it I think you only run it in a stomper tribe and I don't think stomper tribes where I want to go I certainly don't want to build and paint nine of the old models Completely fair. I think my I mean my list I think is is definitely Big boy big boy pack of three littles and then three littles right is like the one I've been leaning to and I I tend to like that. That's I've had the most sort of success slash fun with Okay, let's do some just quick math. Here's some fun unit comparison stuff So I've got the gate breaker and the war stomper printed up here The kraken eaters lower damage than either one of them, but whatever whatever Just I picked two because I needed to have enough space on the page So here's some fun numbers for you Just thinking about other units in the game that are around this cost so like What storm vermin so I this is all just mapping this out and I'll I'll give some some background here So storm vermin, I'm assuming 30 out of 40 of them get to attack And I'm assuming that they've got a claw lord around them giving them plus one attack and re-roll ones Because that's how I attack with my storm vermin every time they fight. I don't ever fight unless I can do both of those things So seems pretty fair And like they average 35 to 44 damage pretty consistently on that So that's a lot And again, that's 500 points worth of stuff just to keep it completely fair the claw lords 100 The frost lord murder horn variant 14 to 27 obviously counts as 10 dudes I've added some additional considerations of other synergies that might be in play For example storm vermin might have death frenzy the frost lord or the the frost lord has an ogre charge Which is pretty good. Obviously it does some significant damage coming in depending on what your role Uh, I put phoenix card in because I thought they were a real interesting comparison when you put phoenix card up against Like what a war stop it does on average So this is a unit of 30 phoenix card, but I'm assuming you only get 22 attack Uh, and they do 11 to 17 Um, obviously they're quite an anvil the fact that they do the same damage as the giant as the war stompa and are You know fairly resilient um, it's actually kind of an interesting comparison to run the simulation of these giants against them because The Cracking eater even though he has the lowest damage can kind of make the most headway since he can Grab right like his grab ends up paying huge dividends Uh, because they can't They can't duty them together whatever it is. They're they're a little flame protection. They can't floor up feel no pain it, right? Uh, and then the mega boss on maw crusher Assumes he has his own plus one to hit command ability in an offense build and has a war chanter buff again I've never attacked with my guy without this and certainly this is how I would be attacking if I was running this I ran this army for a year. I mean like if my guy goes in he goes in with at least this probably more And he's 21 to 35 damage in this situation. Here's an interesting bit of math If you roll him like that He only has about a 15 chance to kill a mega gargantt on the charge If you have the additional command point to re-roll ones to hit Just that one command point it switches to a 72 chance to kill the mega gargantt on the charge That's how much that math matters Anyway So neat bit of a fun bit of math there So, you know, this is like that's why when I said at the on the initial slide like average damage like these guys get it done They're not like if you look at the gate breaker He compares pretty favorably to the frost lord and obviously that's not the gate breaker with the plus two attacks If you gave him the plus two attacks or the rage blade or anything like that what you talked about He'd be right up there Right, he'd be on the same numbers So that's actually not too bad Right, that's a pretty even hero and you count as 20. He counts as 10 That's not bad right But I think you do need to be like Knowledgeable about what kind of damage you're talking about here, right? It's not you are not You know, you're not 30 storm vermin or a juiced up mega boss on maw crush or something like that Right, not these hyper damaging things No, but what what's interesting though is like when you charge a mega gargantt with with something that can do A lot of damage There's quite a high chance you get left on a few wounds and you're not dead and then you get to strike back Whereas If you go in Like you you lose a lot of power very quickly if you go into something and fight and kill half a unit or You know What do it in a oneer it can't hit you back and it makes a massive difference You know, I think the That that's the thing that's really hard to consider When you do this sort of stuff because you just A A mega gargantt on a wound is still pretty scary because I don't actify that much They don't one of the best things they did in this book Oh, we didn't mention it, but I want to mention it They don't start degrading until more than 12 wounds on they have a third Profile to start degrading whereas most monsters have a quarter or less That was the best choice made in this book and you absolutely notice it like no joke love that more monsters should be like that Really good choice Russ took the words out of my mouth. I would love to see a Like a second round of combat version of this against a like average unit Whatever that is. I think that would be truly fascinating To see how those scales degraded between them both in terms of how they score on objectives and how much damage they do Yeah Yeah, it's it's I I may play some of these out and just kind of share something out on twitter or something because it is interesting Like, okay, if they come into you and get this What what does it look like and bail based on who's charging who's fighting first that kind of stuff? And obviously that could make a big difference, right? You're right. The megas don't really degrade terribly. Most of them are still quite Dain almost as dangerous as they were to start, right? and um The reality is there aren't actually a huge number of things in the game that on balance have a high probability to kill them Right Uh, like I mentioned the juiced mega boss the storm vermin that kind of stuff like there are these are just my picks the a buffed Ghoul king on terror guys is pretty statistically like you to take you out, but again all of these statistics might say this Yeah, indeed They all end up at like 70 percent 75 percent. So it's not like that's an every time that's still one out of four times We know one out of three times you're guys walking away from that and those are like the most offensive units in the game Yeah, right Um, I I just love it when people talk in absolutes.   So That doesn't really make sense does it so right? Um, I did calc out by the way and there's almost no chance for a keeper to bring you down No, so and it just gets flattened, right?  So that's cool This is a player's hat. Can I have enough one in a minute by the time you won the mystery point? point Let's do just a couple other quick fun ones here that I thought was interesting Uh, I compared to the help hit. Why did I pick a help hit? Because it's one of the worst monsters in the game Uh, and it's on a five up It actually does about the same damage as your non gate breaker giants Uh, but if it's you know, whatever it can come back alive. It's whatever when you figure in its avalanche of flesh It actually does slightly more Which is not great The dreadsorian was a fun comparison because he's a big 500 point insane monster who also has 35 wounds But who only counts as one guy Uh, who actually if you go read that, I don't know when the last time any of you read the dreadsorian worse scroll was I did it all the time Who's not looking at their dread war dreadsorian? Who doesn't go to bed with that just tucked under their pillow It's on my wall. I need to just memorize the scroll for my next seraphon on me Well, it's all in my bedroom a giant sized version of it. It's right next to my like my Jervis poster and that kind of stuff It's all that's all Next to the other stuff next to rust this framed go trick model. Yeah Was back in eight edition where it belongs So the dreadsorian was an interesting comparison because he has this 500 point 35 wound monster, right? And so he's actually very similar His damage is way more swingy Super more swinging because he's like four to 16 But he's actually about the same damage as the the war samba and the kraken eater He also has the same mortal wound charge. They do like d6 or d3 of it's a monster He has the same terror thing that they do like he's a very similar war scroll almost the he has like almost the same rules as they do Um, so which was funny I did do system This is the thing about the damage on the gargantz. So people are like Oh, it's damaged too on the club But it's a massive club and all these jokes and it's like the thing is what it allows The book to be is way more consistent. Sure because if you had like five attacks at damage five Then You you you hit or say even go on that damage eight say three attacks You you're going you're even going zero eight sixteen twenty four, right of what goes through Yep, so whereas if you're damage two with ten attacks, you've got two four six eight You know up to 20 so It it kind of makes the math less impactful Um, because you haven't got that swingy Like I missed or I rolled a one for the damage there's damage d6 or a lot of two You know, it's it still exists in the army, but I think it's I think it's it was a good decision for the clubs to actually feel like If you if you forget about the Like the narrative of it should be this damage is this size and you think about the impact of what you do with the weapon Then it kind of does feel like a titanic club if that makes sense, but the rules may not reflect Yeah, I mean we could talk all all day. I think that's one of those choices that I would have preferred the less competitive choice Just because for me, I like big numbers, but you're right. I mean mathematically, you're absolutely right Right, like it does allow for more consistency. Yeah If you don't get completely ruined by minus one to hit as well, otherwise you could just not take your model out if you're back Minus one hits pretty hurts It's not this army does not respond well to debuffs. Yes, that is true that these numbers fall like a rock Uh, I did do witch elves just for you Byron. Don't worry. Oh, thanks But I only did 20 witch elves and I did not give them mind razor even though that You know that's telling Even though it's entirely possible, but I didn't give a mind razor. I gave them the standard plus one attack They have on scroll right of like I didn't even give them plus two attacks. I'm assuming the shield variant, right? Uh, or that they don't have a hero nearby And then I gave them re-roll to hits and wounds because I am assuming they get some witch brew and it's you know They've either turn three or turn two prey their way to turn three This is the most common way people attack with witch elves. So yeah, uh, I tried to be Reasonable and by the way, this is a unit of 30 by only calc 20 of them attacking because again the like you very rarely fight with All 30 witch elves. I don't I don't like calcing big units like that at max efficacy Because that's never actually reality Which should be said that is a thing in the giant's favor if you're touching them You're fighting with your whole profile, right? Like that's not to be underestimated. So that's why I think the charge is so important Yeah, sure. Sure They do 16 to 24 Pretty good damage. Again, the important part there is to realize it's very unlikely Unless there's hyper hyper hyper buffed that they bring your your big boy down And the last one was pure for fun five corn chaos knight. It's one of my favorite offensive units in the game Uh, a unit that I believe people are are sleep on Yeah Hey, then you and I are simpatico on this They hit like a mac truck at 17 to 25 damage outdoing nearly all of the gargants now That's assumed there. That's assuming they're within range of the corn generals Command ability and have the plus one attack and you're on the charge with lances. So there you go Is that with demonic power on No, no, they do not have the re-roll hits and wins. No, I didn't give him that I just gave him straight. That's just straight up the generals like the corn generals re-roll ones to hit and plus one Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I did not give them like obviously there are and that's one of the things I'm talking about right like You say that as a joke. I'm gonna go ahead and that's the end of my presentation. There you go. Thank you everybody Yay presentation. Oh, so you're back on camera now Cool, put your pants back on. All right, so um, I can't see that anyway. I'm approaching this like any skype job interview I don't Have a job interview by I They didn't get very well when I had You were not the interviewee. Yeah, right It's one of those things that like you mentioned about with demonic power on and it's a good point like when you think about You know when you're playing like let's take slaves to darkness, which I consider to be a banner book I think slaves to darkness Like slaves to darkness lumeneth realm lords I think are two of the best books that have come out a long time Marauders are straight jank and should be stricken from the earth that rule needs to say that we need to erase that That turn their charge into a six But I'm willing to forgive that other than that. I really think slaves is one of my favorite books I have like I have slaves army and everything except nergal because nergal is an abomination and should be similarly thrown out into the ocean with tom and You know, I love playing that army and I think that book is so successful But again, there's so many different ways to build like synergies and variants and get your you know Make that army your own right and to have units interacting in interesting ways And that's just not here Right like that what you see in the numbers here is largely going to be what you get It like the performance of this army Numbers wise numbers wise Falls within a very narrow band Because there just isn't that much there's nothing in the book that can push it up or down You're not going to bring in allies. There's not going to be a battalion that pushes it There's no wizards sitting around to demonic power. You know what I mean? Like all these other things that would happen don't happen. It just is where it is they are What's written on the tin? They don't have ways to increase reliability Which is the like and that is what top top top tier books do have they Like straight up throw out the window if you're teaching you got fade dice or they have re-rolls whenever you need them if your doors or They have access to buffs or that, you know, like they don't get archived or stuff like that and Removing variants out of the game is where strength becomes because then when you make a right decision There's a higher chance of it being a right decision So I think that is That's kind of a That comes into the list building as well because the pieces you'd add in and customize If you're going for power they do that and if you're going for theme, they let you go in whatever direction you want Yeah Yeah Yeah, I mean Overall, I think that's actually my biggest like I know I I think it's my biggest complaint about the book I don't like the way In the end, I think the 10 20 thing drove the rest of the decisions and for my money I would have rather seen a different core mechanic still focused on objective taking But it could have been a different number sure But I would have rather seen it been more either combat dependent like if they're fighting Like if their terror ability was if they're fighting and if slain a model They like just take objectives or count the number of wounds they did or reduce the enemy by the number of Models that were slain or whatever, you know, like the you know, the verringard command ability Yeah, I was about to say about that for the um Is it nice the empty throne where they've got that? Yeah going in? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, thank you nice the empty throne. That's what it is. Yes Like I just there are there are other ways that could have played out that would have encouraged a different style of gameplay And also been less Competitively powerful like let's be honest the 10 20 is like so rock solidly good Right that it necessitates a lot of other decisions I also probably wouldn't have based the tribes on the individual gargants because then that further Constrained everything down, right like when you read the narrative of the book There's some really cool sounding tribes in there Like they give a lot of really cool narrative about like some awesome tribes that stomped around and did big things And like these different catastrophes roaming.  Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, it has a personality to it You know what I mean Yeah, I think I think I agree with what you're saying in many ways. I think um there's definitely There's a lot of scope for doing a lot more um, but I think It is also I don't know. Maybe they were trying to play it safe. I don't know. I don't really didn't get involved in that sort of Design philosophy, but I'd say that when you think about a lot of books that come out For the first time in the first instance, um And you know to think about ogres and sick edition They come out and they were they were kind of trash, right? I mean um, and it took a while to kind of mature into what they They end up being and be a bit more interesting. So a bit more varied. So I think it's a start point. I think it's I think it's solid, you know Who knows in the future would they get a new battle tone in three four years? What's going to happen or a white dwarf article? I'll take a white dwarf article We could get there with a white dwarf article give me like a We could we could do a nice white dwarf special and we could we could correct a lot of the things that I that I A lot of what i'm speaking to right that is my current sort of challenges with the army, right? because It really is that dickens quote at the beginning, right? I'm going to keep playing this army. I'm building this army I'm painting this army these models are super fun to paint super fun to convert super great kids Fun on the table and I think they are competitive. They're on the weaker side of the fat middle. I would argue but still they're competitive. Who cares? It's that other stuff that's been kind of You know writing at me, right? So so let's play a little game here Okay, here we go And this can and then we can we can touch on some final bits and then we'll call it a day What Would you love to see In the future for this army because I think you're right Russ This is this is like version one right now that it's in game. It's in the game We can have future tomes. We could have future articles. We could have expansions. Whatever What would you love to see russ? I'll start over on you. What would you love to see from This army in the future you get to do anything you want. What's the thing you would want to see? You're in charge I'm sorry, russ has got to leave the call don't go ahead. No, no I'm in No, I I don't know you I think It would be nice to get a Another unit between the two like maybe a wizard Character that's kind of like a between a mega gargant maybe just not a mega gargant or a man crusher But just a gargant like something in between Like something in between the two And whether that could then be a hero could be like a shaman tribe type thing or it could be a A unit of elite man crushers Oh, I love that idea. Yes. Like you're um What they called the I'm the guys with two anders in the ogre army Oh, like you're like your uh iron guts iron guts. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so you get to your man crushers Quick side note when I played that ogre army. I had four iron guts. Sorry. I had two iron guts left in a unit fighting one of my megas Who had 16 wounds left. I was like, this is fine. It's two overs. They have seven attacks between them because the champ was there, right? It's gonna be fine, right? Totally fine. He hit all seven times wounded all seven times and suddenly I was staring down 21 potential damage I made two out of the seven saves and lived on one wound and then killed him and I was like, oh my god Oh god, that was scary But I mean as a point to your earlier discussion of like even one guy on one wound is real Like he still does the business, right? He's still got there. Yeah. Yeah, but I love the idea of the shaman or something like that Yes, like some kind of like religious thing.  And truck off allies. There you go. Oh, there you go.  It gets more ridiculous Right, I think I read one of the things is that fire slayers exist because they got squashed by a giant And they're short that's where they're short Yes, all there's their their stories are great Les, what about you? What's what would be your what would be your thing for the future? I think I'd like to see um Another three like a three part kit with maybe a special character option Like uh, that'd be like really cool, you know, if you had like the king giant or something um, and you could kind of like You know, maybe have one because they're all quite the similar pose If you notice I have like that counter option with a never three So like a never three tribes or never two tribes and then a special character that maybe allows you to do Something funky. Like you said, they're quite spiritual Maybe like some prayers like some some prayers to behemoth and stuff That might be quite cool as a way to buff your big your big guys Um, and sort of like have that interplay it'd be really nice to Maybe if you take the special character make the you know Be able to just have it so that you could have just just the big giants on the table and like do just right Do you see that? I think that would be kind of cool. Um You know whether or not Like or like he buffs them to a point where that they can become more damage input or one that's a quicker Yeah, you know or just even sort of like one that just sort of like buffs the the ability to move or the fact that they don't degrade You know, hey, the stone mage has got that ability in the lumeneff book where they it doesn't allow avalan or to drop Maybe if you take the special character and he's within like the 24 bubble Then the rest of the guys don't drop and then they're just constantly Fighting on top pro far moving on top pro far Um and stuff like that. I think that'd be kind of nice. I think it'd be interesting It's always good to add more stuff to an army with a limited amount of war scrolls. So you look at um Some of the other books that have come out. I'm trying to think of one off the top of my head now Then it might have minds gone blank Yeah Both have a pretty limited number of war scrolls But then kayo got their little andrin master on in dirigible suit And it suddenly opened up a whole new way to play the army because he made all your balloon boys battle line Right. It's just like sometimes a little thing can make a big difference Yeah, it's this when they create a whole new army adding to that army is really cool You know, you look at uh daughters of kane like they're adding They've added like they're adding a unit with that special character They took an existing range and then added new cool stuff to it I think being able to maybe just flesh out the sense of behemoth a bit more, um, you know And also I like the idea what rest said about maybe, uh, you know an elite, you know Of man crushers that you could build differently. You know, maybe that's I have all the way for that idea just big maybe armored or something or with like actually Or a parma save or whatever or even ones that like, you know, that perfect the art of throwing stones It gives you more like, you know Like a range of shot You know a missile unit with more rocks. Yeah With better than damage too Yes, or like here would be a fun thing like obviously your gate breaker can smash terrain We didn't talk much about it. It is a super fun thing that gate breakers can do It's highly situational to whether or not it matters Uh, I would like to physically personally smash every idk boat in existence with a hammer So I feel very empathetic to my to my garden. Um But uh, we also didn't talk about long shanks very much But it's not a very good ability and makes me very angry Long shanks is another ability that makes me very very angry every time because it only works on normal moves Not charges or pylons or anything like that And it's actually very hard to walk over units and all of the printed gw terrain has a part higher than four inches Every single kit that gw prints has an aspect higher than four inches meaning you cannot walk over any of the current kits Anyway Just slide aside But I went around and measured all of them because I own them all and I set them off my table and measured them and was very upset anyways, um Do you think we need to make you a long shanks stick? I see long shanks to be like not four inches for god sakes anyways um or work when charging um but the the Smashing terrain thing is super fun and you turn a piece of scenery into rubble It'd be really cool if that then impacted like the rock throwing of the gargants When they were in the breaker tribe or something like that, right? Like if you're near scenery that now has the rubble keyword You do like d3 plus one rock throws instead of d3 or whatever, you know, it doesn't have to be like the biggest deal in the world That's cool. Yeah, yeah, it'd be so easy Uh, okay. Byron about yourself. What do we got? um very unimaginatively, I think quite a lot of the things that I In a lot of situations don't like about other battle tomes are things that this would really benefit from so something like the tides or the stupid daughters crap Like that would be um I have no love for that um I uh I think that would really add quite a lot to them and then the ability to spend command points more interestingly, which obviously could be um That could be because there is a kit that comes out and there's a couple of variants in it And they have the ability to do so but one of the nice things about it being such a compact book is a single White dwarf article already mentioned like if if one thing was added to this book, it could be it could be vastly different So I think there's quite a lot of opportunity for that The other thing that could happen is very small point reductions would actually make a huge difference because it's one of the awkward books like um obr Like iron jaws where you're like 150 points under or 20 points over, you know that type of sure Irritating scenario. I think that changed Tweaked ever so slightly it's like one more dude makes a big difference in a lot of situations And um or maybe you wouldn't be forced into taking a unit of three and then two and two you could be like one one one one one one one or whatever um, so yeah, I think there's there's numerous ways you could do that and Those ways could bring in reliability because I think it's an important part of allowing them to to fight stuff That is in the tier above them currently Yeah I think if I had my way I mean look if I I'll be honest if I had my absolute way like if I'm king for a day I would have gotten this book and went nope try again and set it back Okay, and that's not for anything competitive. I would have been like here's a list of stuff You need to change this is fundamental stuff get this out and it would have been all flavor The army would have come out and been probably weaker than what it is right now But it would have been more to my liking but uh Going forward I I hope that we eventually see something like the the dominus kit, right? Like so for the everybody makes the imperial knight comparison, right? And eventually you got the second type of imperial knight who had this second kind of capabilities So that's sort of your perfect world, right? Is that you have this different kind of mega with more options I would love if they had a unique character build Such a missed opportunity not to have unique characters You can use in a in a book full of unique characters You read the story it's just over and over again these powerful because the way the Gargants rise up as one of them is bigger and stronger and more Dangerous and devastating than the rest, right? And they take ultimate control through this sort of through a sort of mightier makes righty or you might say and You know the fact that none of that's there so that's my perfect world, but my I think what I would love to see is Something that addresses honestly some of the fundaments like I would love this. This is such a long shot, but here would be a fun thing Sometimes we change war scrolls in FAQs. It happens. It doesn't happen all the time. Should happen a lot more A lot lot more But you know, maybe we just say add the following command ability to the three mega gargant war scrolls Ask Tom about war scrolls that get changed in