by Hyarion » 06 Aug 2015, 22:09
It really seems like GW is trying to break away from the traditional concept of "armybooks". Barring rules for allies, each armybook provided a unique way to experience Warhammer through it's particular sets offerings of options and drawbacks. Dwarves offered consistently high Leadership, highly effective warmachines, etc at the expense of no magic, low movement, no cavalry, etc. It is simple to come up with equivalent lists for any other army book (more on this later).
A player's choice of armybook (further refined by their own "fluff restrictions" or style preferences) therefore represented very significant choice and a particular fusion of stylistic preferences "I like armies with good cavalry" and acceptable penalties "I don't feel hampered by the fact that my chosen armybook doesn't have warmachines." The fact that a little bit of imagination and elbow grease, coupled with general acceptance of "counts as" armies effectively removes artistic preferences as a barrier for any particular army list except all but the most egregious cases*. Bretonnian armies could be effectively modeled completely with High Elf miniatures and virtually noone would bat an eye as long as the player was consistent with how the army was modeled. Each armybook therefore was required to have a certain degree of "completeness" so that players would not feel too hamstrung for having chosen it to play with.
*I fielded a Wood Elf Bloodbowl team, The Kansas City Leafs, who were all supposed to be mental patients. My Treeman, Mr. Squeekers, was a squirrel who thought it was a treeman. Physically, it was a very small miniature squirrel on a very large base. Most other players thought this was funny and appropriate except for one player who just complained and groaned.
While certain model ranges will have a pleasing degree of artistic cohesion (All wood elf models together, skaven models together, lizardman models together, etc) and while they may have certain bonuses in certain combinations (Wanderer nobles eliminating battleshock tests for other Wanderer units and such) I want to make the argument that GW by their elimination of Armybooks as a means of introducing cohesion and standardizing penalties (All Dwarves have low movement, No Wood Elf access to Heavy Cavalry, etc) have done away with the concept of "counts as" armies/models as well forced us radically rethink the concept of an army.
An important part of the game of warhammer used to be that every player, regardless of their chosen army list, had a limited toolset (based on their chosen army book) to deal with the problems posed by other army books, and the utilization of those available options was part of the fun and the challenge of the game. GW has rather deftly cut through that gordian knot by making all options available to all players with no penalty (other than perhaps by losing out on artistic cohesion). I believe it is now meaningless to say for example: "a Sylvaneth army" because there is no reason not to take whatever models with whatever abilities you desire to round out your available toolset, so to speak. It is, I believe, dishonest to continue with any sort of expectation that each type of keyword (Wanderer, Highborn, Stormcast Eternal, Sylvaneth) will have the same type of completeness that we used to find in army books in the past.
I would not be expecting any new Sylvaneth models, not to say that there won't be any, but I wouldn't be expecting them.
The Warrior of the Silver Flame
I hold the Glaive of Law against the Earth.
If you refuse to capitalize on your strengths or make the most of your opponent's weaknesses, you are begging to lose.
There is no combat without movement.
