#Sons of Behemat

[bloodsweatandresin]

I've been working on this guy from print n play as a proxy mancrusher gargant. I think one more session to finish metals and do the hair and I'll call it done.

[mouse-romance]

My gargantuan army starts here.

[farsight-the-char]

Big Things.

Fans seemed pleased.

.....

Bonereapers are up next.

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

Is there one faction in AoS or 40k that is more expensive to get if you want to have a decent shot? Also, is there a faction where you need MANY minis vs a few? Like will a Guard army always be smaller than a Nid army of similar strength? Idk I don't play the game

Firstly, this question is heavily dependent on individual army lists, so, putting that aside, I’ll just answer at a surface level. I repeat. A surface level.

For 40k: Death Korps of Krieg. They’re a guard army, so you need many infantry minis, and the overwhelming bulk of their stuff comes from Forge World. Like. Good luck.

An army of Knights could also be very expensive. Granted, you only need a literal handful of minis, but they are expensive lads, especially if you want FW knights in there.

Most expensive AoS army is probably Sons of Behemat. Knights but made of skin and poor life choices.

[drawn-on-phone]

I've talked about it elsewhere, but I want a war drama from the Tyranids side. Specifically focusing on the Norn Queens communicating around an invasion via sharing information on new builds of units, sning at each other for various fleet specializations, and taking control of (or commanding the more sentient) bugs on the ground.

I also want it to have the cold, detached perspective of what amounts to a professional RTS / MOBA stream. The conversations are curt, pointed, and personalities come out of command/control styles. All the while, the Hive Mind entity controlling the fleet lingers on the edges like a manager ready to cut off or take direct control from our View Point Norn Queen.

Addendum: There was a new Nids PoV short-story, and it sucked. The Hive Mind being simplified to "me hangry, so me hate-eat the idiot Genestealer Cultists because they are only food," really REALLY sucks. AoS has the Ogor Mawtribes and Sons of Behemat, which basically just are hungry bois, but they are complex hungry bois. The Hive Mind in the short story isn't complex or interesting. It is Discount Dollar General Grim Derp.

Taking a break from complaining about necron treatment to complain about Tyranid treatment! Because the fact that nids don't have their own books/lore/characters is bonkers to me. "Oooooh, they're too vast and alien to comprehend blah blah blah giving them characters undermines the mystery and horror..." NO! COWARDS! You want to sit there and tell me no author in the history of science fiction has ever effectively written from the POV of the alien? The inhuman? Made it both chilling and sympathetic? Never???

Gee it sure would be nice if Games Workshop had ever worked with a Hugo Award-winning author who had previously written a series including the POVs of hyper-evolved intelligent alien spiders. And it would be even better if that author had already written a book about Genestealers and so likely understood tyranid lore. OH NO WHERE SHALL WE FIND SUCH AN INDIVIDUAL???

Oh hey look it's Adrian Tchaikovsky! Author of the fantastic 40k book Day of Ascension. Go! Give him a pile of money to solve the Tyranid lore problem. Robert Rath and Nate Crowley fixed necrons, this clearly can be done. Hive tyrants and lictors already have enough individual personality to become characters in their own rights. Deathleaper exists. This is so, so doable.

There, solved the problem. I expect my copy of the new Tyranid novel in the mail. You're welcome

[octaviousdominus]

It seems that the Inquisitor may have eaten some bad corpse starch as he was plagued by weird nightmares of skeletons fighting daemons and giants.

Lessons learned:

In aos hedonites of slaanesh are complex but could be S tier.

Sons of behemat are fun and much simpler. Also can easily get high army point counts in path to glory thanks to footslogga getting first mega gargant free and a quest that gives king brodd as long as you are doing that quest.

The tribes each have a specialty, breaker is good vs garrisoning terrain, taker is good vs unique characters artifacts and when theirs objectives, stomper is best vs horde armies and smasher is best vs other monsters. Few if any in my meta garrison terrain, and the lack of objectives in aos is telling. Against some match ups smasher would be absolutely broken. So I'll go with stomper for good without broken.

[haaaaaaaaaaaave-you-met-ted]

Sons of Behemat Battle Tome Cover by Thomas Elliot

[minisandmonoliths]

Fee Fi Fo Fon...

Getting my Gargant On

[a-wa-c]

I play Sons of Behemat and have a very ugly army of Slime Soulblight Gravelords. After all this I have two concerns:

1. What system will replace weapon ranges, because horde units like the Deadwalker Zombies are kind of balanced around the idea that a unit of 40 can't all get into combat. Hopefully there is still a range of engagement, god forbid they just say the whole unit can fight to simplify the whole affair.

2. Gargants being the AoSknights, I hope we don't get stuffed around like 10th Ed Knights.

Adepticon Reveals for March 21, 2024

I've almost recovered from COVID, so I'm going to actually watch the livestream for Adepticon and catch the reveals! Whoot!

Before we start, let's try and make some predictions. First, the easy one. We're probably going to get the reveal for Age of Sigmar 4th Edition, though they'll probably just call it the next edition. Everyone's calling this one, since we're currently wrapping up this edition's narrative campaign and GW seems determined to keep to their 3 year cycles. It's practically a gimme.

We know we're only getting teasers for Heresy and Necromunda, so I don't have much to say there. For 40K, we're probably going to see something Chaos. I'm not exactly sure where we are on the roadmap, but that teaser definitely feels like Chaos. I don't think they'll reveal our mystery Codex just yet, but I'm ready to be wrong there.

For Warcry I'm guessing we'll be getting a new box announced. Same for Kill Team, though I don't think we've seen all the previously announced boxes released yet. I'm betting we'll see something similar for Old World, since they seem to be bringing armies back a box at a time. They've been talking green skins, so maybe they'll show us a full box set for them.

For Underworlds I'm going to go a bit further. They'd mentioned new ways to play some older war bands, so I'm guessing they'll be announcing some new rules or expansions to breathe some life into older Underworlds sets.

With those predictions pinned for me to suffer or celebrate, on to the show!

IMMORTALITY IS A CURSE

That's the heading we're beginning the show with. Okay then!

Just Lewis today, then? Okay! Hello, Lewis! What you got for us?

Okay! So they're going to have various presenters talking to people to do the reveals. That's new! Let's see how it works out.

Yep. Those are some spikey boys.

Dread Talons! Oh hey! We've got the Chaos Lord with Jump Pack back! Definitely some new sculpts there. After the show, I'll go through the articles and take a look at what exactly is new.

We got Nick and Simon for this part of the reveal! They definitely look like they're ready to have some fun! Oh! And we've got both Stu and Josh today!

Oh wow! We're getting two new CSM battle forces! Interesting!

Mentioning Vashtorr, I hope he gets a bit of a glow up. I really like him, and it would be nice if he got rules that make him feel like he the Lord of the Soul Forges.

They're announcing eight detachments for CSM. Couldn't let the slaves of the corpse emperor have all the detachment fun! This is definitely going to be a sticking point considering Tau players just got their hands on their codex and it only has four. While I'd prefer fewer, more well balanced detachments, the way GW has been dishing them out to each faction is kinda weird. I'm expecting to hear some grumblings about this.

Okay, so they're trying to go for kind of an interview style feel to this presentation. But it's feeling very scripted. Like . . . really scripted. WarCom's purpose has always been to be the hype train for GW. But even with the obvious restrictions on how they'd interact with chat, there still felt like there was a little bit of genuine interaction. This feels very phony to me. Not sure I like this new way of doing presentations.

And, of course, they're suggesting all the CSM fans should run out to grab both boxes. I'm curious how this will turn out. On the one hand, this will allow someone still collecting their army to pick the box they think will serve them best. On the other, that's even more FOMO boxes coming out. And again, can't help but note that Tau only got Kroot in their box, so Tau players that wanted to actually play Tau didn't get served very well. But CSM is getting quite the spread it seems.

Wow! Even the way that cut off felt abrupt and forced. Geh. Really not liking this so far . . .

So apparently that's not it for 40K. They really want all the 40K fans to stick through the entire show and maybe find something they like from the other systems. For now, it's time to visit the Mortal Realms. Don't think it's AoS yet, but let's see what we get.

It's Warcry! And it's a new boxed set! Looks like an Osiarch warband verses an Idoneth warband! Those are gonna be some interesting miniatures! Of course we already saw those new hounds teased.

Just Nick and John this time.

Oh! I was wrong! Looks like it's Sylvaneth, not Idoneth. I got a more Idoneth feel, but these look like they're both oddballs for their factions. The Osiarch warbands are exiles. And the Sylvaneth have been infected in some way.

Warcry isn't going to smaller box sets yet it seems. This boxset will contain both warbands and the terrain.

Oh! Moving right on to Underworlds it seems! Let's see what's up!

Underworlds often gets the craziest warbands. We've got a Death warband, and I think a Chaos warband? It's honestly hard to tell, they've got kind of a torture asylum kinda vibe to them.

So this is our new box and season. Oh well. Maybe there will be more, but it was a swing for the fences prediction.

So our Death warband is Flesheater courts. The delusion for this band is that they're all gourmet chefs getting ingredients for their lavish banquets. Yum!

The Brotherhood of the Bolt are crazy flagellants that have at some point been struck by lightning. And so they believe they've been chosen by Sigmar! Like I said, Underworld warbands are fantastic.

Now we're back to get a little bit more build up for the full AoS reveal. What could it be?

Oh! Getting teased by some Chaos boys! This dude looks badass!

Looks like Cities of Sigmar verses Slaves to Darkness.

Oh! Dudette! Abraxia, Spear of the Everchosen! Really awesome model with some really cool lore behind her.

From here, we're moving on to the next chapter of the Dawnbringers. I'm not caught up on this lore, so I can't comment much here. As I keep watching and listening though, I can't help but be reminded of how well the AoS lore has developed. I really loved my read of the Dominion book and of Morathi. There just isn't enough space in my life for both setting and systems to receive equal attention.

Teaser time!

Dune. Arrakis. Desert Planet.

Oo! Something Mechanicum this way comes!

The little post teaser chat has me thinking this is Mars and that we might be doing something with the war there. It would be nice to get a campaign for the Martian Schism with rules for both Mechanicum and Dark Mechanicum forces.

And now Dwarves! Looks like they'll be getting our next Old World box set! Dwarf players rejoice! Most of these are looking like older sculpts still, though I think that one champion might be new.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's a new Dwarven champion. And he looks awesome! We're also getting a new Dwarf King that can be fielded either on Shield Bearers or on foot.

Oh! I see GSC!

Yes! I'm finally getting my GSC kill team! And they'll be up against an all new Votann Kill Team! Unfortunately, it doesn't look like my Kill Team is all new miniatures, as we've got part of the Broodcoven here. I was kinda hoping for something more bespoke. It's not like we've got a large variety of units.

Votann, on the other hand, definitely needs new units. So I'm glad they're getting some much needed love. These are Hernkyn Jagers, and are part of the advance forces for the Leagues.

Rotlock Negotiation! Heh!

"Anyone else want to negotiate?" "Wh-wh-where did he learn to negotiate like that?" "I wonder . . ."

Oh! It's specifically a Brood Brother Kill Team! Veteran Brood Brothers! Very nice! Looks like it is at least a little bespoke!

And I think this is our Necromunda teaser. Hah! Well that was quick!

Alright! Time for that "just one more thing."

Got quite the badass taking on some Tzangors! Oof! Really intense depiction of how harrowing being a Stormcast must actually be!

Woah!

That's one way for the Skaven to begin their assault! Bloody 'ell!

And yeah, they're just calling it New AoS, the New Edition. We can count guys! You realize we're only up to 4, right? There are Orks that can count to 4!

Alright! We're going to get into rules here! It sound like we're getting a full, proper Edition change along the lines of 40K 2nd to 3rd, 7th to 8th, or 9th to 10th. Wonder if they're going to try what they did for 10th and give us some free rules.

"Opening up the game to more players than ever."

. . .

Guys. You realize that AoS was already the simpler system, right? How much more simple are you going to go? I'm okay with streamlining, but you can go too far. There are parts with 10th Edition 40k where I feel you slimmed down too much. While I do think there is potential fat to trim in AoS, there's some things they slimmed down in 10th I don't want to see happen here. For example, I don't want to see AoS go to a 10th Edition style Enhancement system. They went to lean with that system, and I hope they expand it in future editions. Kitting out your heroes is an integral part of any fantasy setting. You can't do that if you've only got three Enhancements for your entire army!

He's literally using the same language Stu used for 10th Edition. I'm all but waiting for him to say "Simplified, not simple."

But! One thing I think AoS could use, is something like Combat Patrol. If they took the Vanguards and made them standalone buy and play armies, that would be good! I'm hoping that's more how they're planning to get newer players in, not by greatly "streamlining" the game.

D'oh! Combat range is gone. I know one AoS fan in particular that's not going to be happy about that. That was such an elegant way to do different size weapons without Rank and File. Oh boy, this is turning into my anti-hype . . .

Oh! Here we go! Spearhead looks to be the AoS version of Combat Patrol. There's the claim from 10th, that it will be the most balanced game. We saw how well that worked . . . I'm trying not to be down since this is still good. But I hate hearing the same marketing hype that we already saw fail to play out.

We're getting more USRs, so that's definitely good. I'm a big fan there!

Okay, there's another one they claimed for 10th that I please, please, PLEASE want them to actually have followed through on! Stu had talked about how in 10th they tried to make it so that when you look at unit, you know roughly what to expect from that. But 10th just has no consistency as to how strong or tough weapons or models are. I'm really hoping that when Ben says they lined models up and tried to assign stats to them, they really actually did it.

Okay! They're doing free rules at launch. That definitely helps things!

And with that, that's the end of our reveals. And we're back to that banner, "Immortality is a Curse." Which is incidentally, one of the reasons why corporations suck!

Final Thoughts

Okay, my initial plan is that I was going to go through the reveal show, and then take a closer look at miniatures. But I think I'm going to make that a Part 2, since I'm seriously running out of gas. The 4E reveal really didn't help.

What is it with fantasy settings and fourth editions?

I'm trying not to be to anti-hyped by this. There were cool things in this reveal show. Let me TL;DR my sticking points.

I don't like this new style of presentation. It's too staged and controlled and there's no opportunity to get more information or clarifications live.

Two FOMO boxes for CSM is maybe too much. On the one hand, I like the idea of having more purchase options. On the other, I can't help but feel this is them seeing if they can sell more big boxes.

Eight Detachments for Chaos. Fluffy, and puts them on par with the divergent Space Marine chapters, but also makes anyone who got five, or even only four detachments feel even poorer.

They're selling the Broodcoven again! Did they just make way too many of these? Chances are if you play GSC, you've already got this. It greatly reduces the value on this box set. I hope we can get those Veteran Brood Brothers by themselves.

All those selling points for 4E are the same ones we got for 10th. And they really failed to deliver on them. That doesn't mean they won't succeed with AoS. But taking weapon ranges away is a bad start.

Other than that, those were some great reveals with great miniatures! Abraxia looks absolutely sick! We've got Mechanicum teasers for Horus Heresy! Dwarves are one of my favorite classic Warhammer armies! And the new warbands for Warcry and Underworlds are all awesome!

I hope we get real livestreams back. I hope those boxes are just what CSM players needed. I hope they do more with the detachments in the future to bring more balance and parity. I hope I can get those Veteran Brood Brothers sooner rather than later. And I dearly hope that all my fears for Age of Sigmar 4th aren't justified.

I'm gonna try and catch the livestream for Grinding Gear Games tomorrow, so I'm gonna go to bed for now. I'll try to spend some time drinking in the cool minis sometime this weekend.

[queen-gorgo]

[art-of-thomas-elliott]

I’ve been extremely excited to share this picture and can now finally show the world. Here is a double page spread for the brand new ‘Sons of Behemat’ battle tome. Doing this picture was great fun, as you all know I’m a huge fan of giant monster films and this picture was a great opertunity to capture the earth shattering destruction when giant creatures go to war and the terrifying prospect of facing off against them with nothing but combat weapons and balls of steel.

All rights to Gamesworkshop PLC

[mouse-romance]

Gonna do my first spearhead this weekend!

I've already decided to try out Ossiarchs and Fyreslayers. Which should be my third one?

[petterwass]

Ultramarines would be the funniest thing to out in there. Or Sons of Behemat, go fully asymetrical

New trailer is out for the Age of Sigma: Realms of Ruin game.

And they say there's four factions in the game: Stormcast Eternals, Orruks Kruelboys and Nighthaunt.

Boy! I wonder who the fourth faction in a Warhammer game is going to be...

[farsight-the-char]

Generally simplified version of the Disease rules (but tbh probably an improvement, from what I have read from MkN fans).

Warscrolls look fine.

No word on allying in Slaves to Darkness units?

But that might come with the StD rules.

....

Sons of Behemat up next.

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

King Brodd and, more importantly, HIS LITTLE LADS

[gilgamesh-enjoyer]

I don't normally post stuff I've painted on here, but I'm super proud of the design I painted freehand on the Anvilgard banner my gargant is using as a loincloth