Likely just to see how strong he is after the conflux, make sure hes still super powerful, make the gatewatch fools feel super small and could possibly even make them serve him or perish. Like a "well he's too strong lets join him instead" moment.

Violence is in his nature, after all he has never cared for anyone but himself and Amonkhet has already fulfilled his need for an army. The plane is now useless to him so he is discarding it and why not take this new army for a test drive? Surely he needs to know that they can perform as expected, plus i am sure this is all highly amusing to him.

Destruction is fun

Guess so. He does make Phenax look opposite-of-sadistic in comparison.

He's not even limited to 60 years: the first Hour of Devastation story revealed that the spell he cast on the second sun allows him to set its position purposefully, so he could have just waited however long he needed to find or invent a new method of interplaner travel.

What do we think of Bolas's apparent plan: creating an army of jacked up zombies?

Weak, at least until we get more information. I expected more than Wrath of the Lich King 3.3.0.

I think it doesn't make sense unless he has a way to leverage it off-world and he really doesn't have that right now. At present, one of his minions has access to the knowledge of (but not the full technology for) how to make a functional planar portal...sort of. Unleashing an army of undead right now on Amonkhet seems pointless because there is nowhere for them to go and nothing for them to do, save for killing off all those potential recruits that could have bolstered the army's numbers until a functional portal was built on-site.

So, right now, I've got nothing. Bolas has a dumb plan that I don't understand and it doesn't seem to solve his original issue of losing his previous god-like powers. I feel like the army isn't an end point, but merely a "Step 3" in long chain of steps that Bolas put into place that will give him what he really wants from this dying plane. Why he needed an army of rock-zombies is still beyond me though.

Commanding a massive army is not really Bolas' style, he needs an army for some reason so we have to wait and see why. May be a massive attack on Dominaria or New Phyrexia? There is something out there that needs this kind of firepower. And yeah we need to know why he sprung his master plan in Amonkhet, may be he found another way to move that army. If it's all for show than this story is all dumpster fire with no real direction.

I"m sure this is just a step in the overall plan, and I'm willing to bet Dominaria and the rest of the story of the 25th anniversary year will deal with other steps and the culmination and stopping there of. I don't think it's accidental that we get Bolas, one of Magic's biggest and longest running villains, making a huge splash right before a milestone year.

"This is only the beginning." as they say.

Finally ! Please ! Something like this, global events, please !

Silly as it is, I really do feel for Amonkhet's gods, even Rhonas who we got to know just now. They were just so benevolent, seeing them lied to or mutated into abominations is depressing. I dare even feel a little grief for Rhonas.

I could see why Bolas would create an army in anticipation of gaining interplanar capability. THat doesn't explain why he set that army on the loose now. Not if Bolas actually has power over when the hours occur at least.
Perhaps these projects require you to hit the restart button periodically for some reason. I'd need some convincing on that one.
I suspect there were some last minute changes to the Kaladesh story that messed things up. If Bolas knew about the portal ahead of time and was confident he could he could acquire and reproduce it, then the schedule lines up. I never got that impression though.
Wasn't Amonkhet originally supposed to happen before Kaladesh? I thought I read in a column that they switched the order to make the story work better.

I'm a bit miffed about another short fight with the Scorpion God but tell me about it... I am clutching my heart to know how the others bite the dust, specially Oketra and Hazoret (my faves among them), seeing Solemnity and all.

Oketra and Hazoret will probably be the last ones to die, the former due to how her end is so key and the latter because she is essentially the mascot of Amonkhet

Maybe the supply of lazotep was limited, and it has all been used now, so he doesn't need Amonkhet anymore. And destroying anyone involved to keep it all secret does make some sense.

Of course, without some way to teleport his army off Amonkhet, it is a bit pointless. Maybe he just wants to see if they are as good in battle as he intended?

My issue is that having a rock-zombie army doesn't solve Bolas' major issue when he originally landed in Amonkhet and set to work trying to save his immortality and fading powers. Having an army of a few thousands, however strong, is meaningless if you are dead and/or powerless, which are the two things Bolas never wants to be.

Agreed, Bolas' gambit pile-up still isn't coming together for me. Besides, he could just summon his freaking army to another plane if given enough time and/or mana. Oldwalkers used to do that sort of thing all the time back in the day, and Bolas should still be more powerful now than the average planeswalker was before the Mending. I'm also still wondering why Tezzeret told Liliana about Amonkhet, not to mention Bolas' other dangling threads like releasing the eldrazi. Wherever this is going, I just hope Dominaria isn't in for another invasion story...

That said, I like the general tone and direction of HOU so far. Amonkhet disappointed me in terms of being Egypt world, but it's fun as Old Testament Disaster Movie. Bolas winning, the Gatewatch getting wrecked and everything going to hell deeply satisfies me. And the card set itself resonates with me a lot more than Amonkhet did. Eternalize feels like the thing that Embalm should have been, I like several of the tap-to-exert creatures, and I've spotted quite a few rares and uncommons that I want. The new gods are a lot cooler than the old ones, Razaketh is busted, and that hoopoe is probably the most adorable thing since Harmless Offering. I'm definitely buying packs of this.

The Kaladesh stuff isn't even helpful. Rashmi's teleporter, if Tezzeret could remake it, can't actually teleport the lazotep army, because they're not artifacts.

Also I get hoopoes in my garden. Only been showing up the last couple of years, we never had them before. They must have spread somehow. I should find someone who knows about birds.

Maybe they were originally artofacts in the cards but they had to change them fir development reasons and in fact they are still artifacts in the story?