"Age of Sigmar Review - Chaos Dreadhold Hardback" Topic

Been going through the new Chaos Dreadhold hardback this weekend – penned a few thoughts on it here;

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Thanks for the review. I was probably going to pick this up by and by but now I might get it today.

Judging by the pages you've scanned, it looks like they are plugging their circular 'skullfest' castle thingy quite heavily.

Not surprising, considering the price of it.

John T

they are plugging their circular 'skullfest' castle thingy quite heavily

Yup, they want you to buy several of them.

Are there a lot of companies out there that don't want you to buy several of their things?

I just got the book today. From a glance through it so far the art is amazing, as it has been in the last book. The dreadhold pictures at the end are a little repetitive and don't seem to add anything new. It seems like about 6 pages wasted there.

I did read the rules about manning the gate and they seem a little unfair to the defender. Basically with either a Monster or 5 models you can open the gates to go in if there aren't enemy on the other side. If the enemy has models there then it is a shoving contest to see who has more models. You roll a d6 and add a bonus for models on each side. The side that wins opens the gate.

It seems like this is a bit simplistic and that even Khorne berzerkers might be trusted to remember to at least put the bar down to close the door if they are going to bother shutting it at all.

I'll probably modify the rule a bit to give the defenders a better chance of holding out. Probably add a +3 or something to the defenders side even if the door is unguarded.

Battletome, dreadhold, lifewells, rotbringers, bloodbrass, stormcast, realmgate… What's with all the artificial compound words? Is GW marketing to a bunch of sugared up tweens with no attention span to keep reading for the duration of two whole, separate words? What does blood brass even mean? I think we ought to expect more from GW writers… no?

I think they've (the writers) probably been told to make sure everything is "copyright-able". It seems thats driving lots of the name changes and the strange new terms for things. Elf becomes Aelf, Dwarf become Duardin, Lizardmen become Seraphon, etc, etc. It does feel like they're really trying just a bit too hard.

The interesting thing is that the actual core rules for AoS are not too bad – they're missing some stuff, they dont feel like completed, play-tested, polished rules but there's some good ideas and we're finding that using our traditional WHFB armies but with AoS rules works just fine, in fact frankly even better.

I have a feeling that writing in general is being given a back seat, which is a mistake in my opinion. It's something that started with the new White Dwarf monthly which is very little text, no art and all photography. I suppose it's easier and cheaper to hire a photographer and certainly images are a hundred times more copyrightable than text, but the hobby really suffers from it. One wonders, do the owners of GW still play actual games? It smacks of the dark days of late TSR, when D&D's creative direction was controlled by people that had never touched a six-sided die before…

I dont think the owners necessarily play but they still have a creative department that must playtest stuff.

"One wonders, do the owners of GW still play actual games?"

Well if they don't (or the people writing this stuff don't) they had a helluva lot of beginner's luck on AoS. This is one of the best new things GW has done since Warmaster.

That's high praise! Warmaster was quite a capable system… If I had a mint, I'd try to get into it as well.

Warmaster is one of my favourite games ever.

There are certainly plenty of people making 10mm figures out there. A couple of warmaster armies shouldn't cost too much.

"This is one of the best new things GW has done since Warmaster."

That is borderline sacrilege.

If you had taken that statement any further I would be concerend for your welfare ( <-thats a jest, no real intent)

I still dabble with WMF/A, it is indeed my favorite system. I always felt if GW had gone more 15mm with their fantasy, and ran a streamlined system like WMF with the WHFB fluff they would have had a killer system. I of course could be dead wrong.

My main complaint with that castle (and hence the book) is way toooo darn many skulls. Does GW know how to make something without a skull?

Everything they make looks like it belongs to Skeletor.

Yup, they want you to buy several of them.

Everyone knows the mark of a true, reputable, upstanding company is one that doesn't want you to buy it's products. This is why so many miniatures companies don't bother having pictures of their products on their websites.

"Everyone knows the mark of a true, reputable, upstanding company is one that doesn't want you to buy it's products. This is why so many miniatures companies don't bother having pictures of their products on their websites."

OMG, I have fallen and I can't get up…. so true…. so funny….

waiting for the grognard to come to the defense using some 1980's explanation on why pictures are a silly thing to want…

My main complaint with that castle (and hence the book) is way toooo darn many skulls. Does GW know how to make something without a skull?

I don't know, but if you can guess how many there are, you get one free…

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'My main complaint with that castle (and hence the book) is way toooo darn many skulls. Does GW know how to make something without a skull?'
If you think GW overdo it, check this out.

'One of the most well-known collections of bones is also the largest and most-visited. The Catacombs of Paris contain a whopping six million bodies' worth of bones spanning the walls of more than 300km of tunnels. '
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This is one of the best new things GW has done since Warmaster.

Oh and how is Warmaster going for GW these days?

Oh that right it is doing the same as WFB.

Yes, Mithmee, dead and gone, the way it should be, instead of GW keeping thirty five different game systems going just to appease a random person on a random forum.

Mithmee, the end of Warmaster worked out well for myself and my friends. Despite its cancellation years ago, miraculously we find ourselves still able to play occasionally with no input from GW. And now our armies have gone up in value significantly.

A smart gamer/collector can stand to make a good bit of money off of GW's business cycle.

Yes, Mithmee, dead and gone, the way it should be, instead of GW keeping thirty five different game systems going just to appease a random person on a random forum.

Hmm, I think that there are still several thousands individuals who are still playing the games that they killed off.

GW decision to screw over it customers and they do a very good job of doing that.

Thousands of individuals would barely be a drop in the bucket to their worldwide sales. You do understand that it costs money to keep things in production?

"Hmm, I think that there are still several thousands individuals who are still driving a Honda Prelude and want to buy a new one.

Honda decision to screw over it customers and they do a very good job of doing that."

Mithmee… really man….for your own sake, let it go. We all heard you the first 1000 times you posted your love for GW.