One thing in particular that comes to attention are the rules for the new ridden monsters, such as Glottkin and Karl Franz Ascendent - while both of these models feature a ridden monster, they no longer have a split profile. For example, the new Karl Franz Ascendent model has a 3+/4++ and 9 wounds, with the strength/toughness/movement characteristics of your typical ridden griffon all under the same statline. This makes Karl particularly frightening as you can't just snipe his mount out from underneath him with a few well placed cannons.
So will this be the direction of the future? Has GW realised that cannons are just a little bit TOO good at taking out monsters, and wants to let the big boys come out again?
If so, I will be thrilled. A shared profile of wounds and wardsave amongst rider and mount means factions will be able to finally bring out a few hundred points of awesome and not be worried about having it thrashed in their opponents first shooting phase - you might finally even see some monsters in the competitive scene! To put it into perspective, a cannonball that hits and wounds does 3 - 4 to an enemy monster. Karl Franz with his shared profile Griffon would take roughly 6, accurately placed cannonballs to bring down as opposed to one or two - you would be better trying to counter such a character with static combat resolution or your own combat machine. A few things that become immensely scary are elf dragons and the Stone Horn from the Ogre Kingdoms (yeah... the monster that, with a combined wounds profile, would have 11 in the bank and only take 1/2 the wounds from artillery pieces - yikes!).
So what would these proposed changes mean to you guys? Would you all immediately bring out your biggest, baddest monster? Let us know!
Keep shaking things up GW - it's going great!
Alles gute,
TommyH