Now that I've looked over the book a few times and heard a few peoples own opinions on the book, I will now give my own little view on the book (which might not be too accurate as I still don't have the core rule book yet, thanks to GW forgetting to send it to my local independent retailer so forgive me if I much up or miss some vital points).
There is a lot to like about this one. The book feels somehow more cleaning and organized then the previous book, though some of the explanations are not in it (it's considered that you have already read the Core rules and you already understand things, particularly the Allegiance section). The book is broken down into several parts and like my previous General's Handbook review, this too will be in short parts.
Open Play Games
This section has been shortened down greatly with a page full of various map layouts, though the open war cards have now been replaced for dice rolls. Simple and effective and I like that.
Aerial Battles
With the ever growing number of models with the Fly rule (not to mention much of the Kharadon Overlords), the idea of actually having air battles seems like a great idea. There are two types of combat types, a two map one where is on the ground and one is in the air and the second one which takes place in the sky, with ground units having to stand on tower/mountain tops with the risk of falling off (flying units don't fall cause they can fly anywhere, so having more flying units can really help in this). As someone with very few flying units, I don't think this would be too good for me.
Narrative Play Games
This is probably my favourite part of the book, the Narrative Play has a collection of rules you can use to change the way the game can play out. These can be positive or negative and can either effect your army, your opponents army or both. There are over forty of them to choose from and they even have two examples to help show off how you can incorporate them into your games through historic battles. As you play games, think about the story these armies are creating and add appropriate rules to represent how these stories are shaping the battles you play. Much better then the previous book (which had the rules for fighting in the Realms, which has now been moved to the Core Book).
Gathering of Might
Want to fight battles with massive armies, then these rules can help shorten those games (cause you know, moving hundreds of miniatures in a horde army is just so much fun). With its own Traits, Artifacts, Spells and even a few missions, this is for those with large miniature collections who want to thrown down and given most of mine barely reach 2000pts, I'll probably never do it, but speaking of points....
Match Play
The main reason most get these books, match play has had a few alterations to it.Things like Command Points, Pitch Battle Profiles and Allegiance abilities have been adjusted. What caught my eye was the Understrength rule, cause while the whole 'pay full points for unit even if you don't have minimum number of models' rule is still there, it no longer mentions that an understrengh battleline unit doesn't lose its battleline status. Whether this is a mistake or not we probably won't know until an faq update or unless it was stated in the Core Book, but if this change is right, then I do like it (didn't make sense to pay full cost for players who didn't have the model numbers and not get the battleline rule, at least from a poor players perspective). I'
Points changes for the most part are fine, either adjusting them by 20 - 40 points (a number of wizards have been altered like this, mostly due to Malign Sorcerey is my guess), with some gaining and some loosing. For me the most annoying one was the points change for Pink Horrors, which jumped by 80 points. From what I understand from players, it was because the Disciples of Tzeentch faction was a bit too overpowered and this was altered to help balance it out. Unfortunately, my Tzeentch group is actually a collection of Daemons and Slaves to Darkness, with an equal amount of both. As such, I can't pick neither Allegiance due to model numbers and so am a general Chaos Allegiance, but the increase cost means I am better off just picking a Gaunt Summoner and going to a Realmgate and just summoning the Pink Horrors. What this just means is that now I have to seriously think about what to do with my Tzeentch Chaos faction.
Update: So apparently from what I've seen on online battle reports, so long as the Chaos units have the Tzeentch keyword (so a Mark of Tzeentch) they apparently count as a part of the Allegiance and not allies. This means I could form a Disciples of Tzeentch group, but it would still mean I'd have to fork out roughly $80AU just to get the book which has the Allegiance rules (Also, my current smart device's OS is not current enough to use the AoS app and upgrading that would cost a hell of a lot more then getting the book), so for the moment I'll just have to rely on the General Allegiance rules.
Speaking of summoning, each Chaos God Allegiance now has its own summoning rules, along with a summoning cost for each Chaos God specific Daemon you can summon. Each rule to gain summoning points seem to be more in line with the associated Chaos God, but the old warscroll spells to summon those Daemons are now gone. A few characters have also had a rule or two altered to adjust to this too. The Allegiance rules for Seraphon also have these summoning rules now, so if you want to rain Lizardmen from the sky you can.
The Allegiances from the previous General's Handbook are back and have been alternated a bit, mostly to bring things in line with the new command points and a few minor tweaks. There is some debate from Slaves to Darkness players as to how useful the new changes are for the faction, particularly with the Chaos Lord, but from my understanding of the description only the 'units' with the same mark as the Hero within that set range gets the mark bonus, it never states that the Hero themselves gain the bonus (since it the Chaos Lord already has that bonus), so while I agree that the Lords command ability is useless for those with a Mark of Tzeentch and No Mark, it still has a longer range then the other marks and still has its uses. I suspect that their Heroes will be updated in the near future to make them more useful, but for now it is just a waiting game.
Scenery now has their own warcrolls and are brought in line with the cover rules for movement and shooting, but what is interesting is that Sylvaneth Wildwoods no longer cost points and that units from other AoS games (like Shadespire) have their own pitch battle profiles and points. Great additions now that the game is really changing into a more fun direction (well, in my opinion it is).
Overall
Obviously if you plan on playing any game with a points value system you'll be picking this up regardless, but I would recommend it mostly for the Aerial battles and Narrative play sections, as the first can really add a nice twist to armies with a nice number of flyers, while the second for the shier number of options to give more fun (or challange) to your games.
As for how it currently effects my factions (apart from my Tzeentch Chaos mentioned before)? Most already use the General Allegiances, so it's more down to the points changes (though the addition of more Nighthaunt units does give more options for my Death faction) and the only difference to my current Skryre faction is that the Doomwheel is a little cheaper (though Warp-Grinder teams went slightly up while Stormfiends went slightly down, so things to think on in future expansions).
As with all things, this is just a short personal opinion of mine and you should check out other peoples reviews for a more in-depth look.
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