When is the new Death Battletome coming out?!?!?

[FRoper]

i think death will get some form a relase this year, probably after GHB 2.

I would like to see some form of ranged option, as the army can get very boring to play with as it is the same options. yea the Night haunt list and Settra list did very well, but the problem is a lack of options.

These are my idea

- Some kind of Death rattle mage

- more heavy and survivalable infantry

-a decent spell list, but they really need to fix summoning, so you can summon, but it is not over powered. such as buffing up unit models/resurrection.

- ranged units

[Captain Marius]

Liche priests returning as actual priests could be pretty cool and would distinguish them from the wizardy necromancers. Having just started rebasing my VC skellies into a Deathrattle army I hope they receive a bunch of new heroes/units and not just a get you by book to tide them over - im quite happy to wait too!

[CoffeeGrunt]

I'm going to stare into my crystal ball and hazard a guess that the Nighthaunt list involved liberal use of Mournguls to stay afloat? Telling me that lists which anchor on Tomb Kings or lists which anchor around Mournguls are good in tournaments doesn't get around the fact that the rest of Death can be a bit meh.

Especially as those Tomb Kings aren't even in the GA book and are due a round of nerfs judging by the teased GHB2 points costs. The Mourngul is silly-good, but it's also a crutch.

The majority of the book is made of chopped-up pieces that don't work as well together, especially compared to how they used to as Vampire Counts. Neferata and Mannfred can't even run pure Soulblight lists. The Mortarch of Blood, Vampire Queen Neferata, can't run pure Soulblight. Wtf?

I mean, each other GA is now boasting a fair amount of subfaction books. Destruction have Ironjawz, Beastclaws and Bonesplitterz. Chaos have Blades of Khorne, Bloodbound, Disciples of Tzeentch, Pestilens, and Everchosen. Order have Kharadron Overlords, Stormcast Eternals, Stormcast Eternals again, and again, Sylvaneth, Seraphon and Fyreslayers.

Death got Flesh Eater Courts.

Don't get me wrong, I like what GW are releasing and I believe we'll see a release in time, hopefully before 2018. The problem is that people keep equating Death as a faction like Wanderers or Dispossessed, not a Grand Alliance like Order or Chaos. 

[Captain Marius]

39 minutes ago, CoffeeGrunt said:

The problem is that people keep equating Death as a faction like Wanderers or Dispossessed, not a Grand Alliance like Order or Chaos. 

Agreed, I doubt GW have any intention of making Death work as a unified force, they will just be a number of distinct factions that can ally in matched play like any Grand Alliance.

I of course i hope they get cute with Deathlords, Soulblight and Deathmages so they can be tagged on to other factions, but i wouldnt hold my breath!

[Celestant651]

More or less, We will most likely see some sort of new Death faction by the end of 2017.

[Guest]

I'm starting to suspect that the 4 grand alliances were created first and foremost because they sounded cool from a narrative/lore perspective, without much thought put into what this would actually mean for the distribution of the factions and the practical army building implications down the line. Death as a concept was never going to be as expansive as the other 3 in terms of the variety of factions it can contain (you have the undead and then... what? A faction of funeral directors?), and I do wonder whether the lack of Death releases is more a reflection of the design team feeling limited and uninspired by it, rather than any other considerations. GW has always seemed to be very designer-led when it comes to picking their projects.

 

Maybe Death is doomed to always be the bridesmaid and never the bride.

[shinros]

On 4/19/2017 at 2:32 PM, CoffeeGrunt said:

I'm going to stare into my crystal ball and hazard a guess that the Nighthaunt list involved liberal use of Mournguls to stay afloat? Telling me that lists which anchor on Tomb Kings or lists which anchor around Mournguls are good in tournaments doesn't get around the fact that the rest of Death can be a bit meh.

Especially as those Tomb Kings aren't even in the GA book and are due a round of nerfs judging by the teased GHB2 points costs. The Mourngul is silly-good, but it's also a crutch.

The majority of the book is made of chopped-up pieces that don't work as well together, especially compared to how they used to as Vampire Counts. Neferata and Mannfred can't even run pure Soulblight lists. The Mortarch of Blood, Vampire Queen Neferata, can't run pure Soulblight. Wtf?

I mean, each other GA is now boasting a fair amount of subfaction books. Destruction have Ironjawz, Beastclaws and Bonesplitterz. Chaos have Blades of Khorne, Bloodbound, Disciples of Tzeentch, Pestilens, and Everchosen. Order have Kharadron Overlords, Stormcast Eternals, Stormcast Eternals again, and again, Sylvaneth, Seraphon and Fyreslayers.

Death got Flesh Eater Courts.

Don't get me wrong, I like what GW are releasing and I believe we'll see a release in time, hopefully before 2018. The problem is that people keep equating Death as a faction like Wanderers or Dispossessed, not a Grand Alliance like Order or Chaos. 

This is the reason why I believe(Well I hope.) death is going to get a similar tome to blades of khorne since in all the lore they still fight the same just like in the past. Along with some new models. I think some of the factions will be like the "slaves to darkness" for death. 

Honestly such a tome would solve many of our problems. 

[Captain Marius]

3 hours ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

and I do wonder whether the lack of Death releases is more a reflection of the design team feeling limited and uninspired by it, rather than any other considerations. GW has always seemed to be very designer-led when it comes to picking their projects.

I dont think theres any evidence to support this - sure Death havent had any brand new faction books yet but i'd argue Nagash and his followers have had more build up in the narrative than Gordrakk and the forces of Destruction. Its just not been Death's turn yet, and despite being a Grand Alliance it is never going to have as many factions as Order or Chaos, which are made up of a multitude of gods.

I would absolutely expect to see some new books soon though, whether its Deathrattle or something brand new - and whats more Id argue that GW are still following their original plan for AoS releases, which appears to be a specific brand new faction for each major god (ie weve had Sigmar, Khorne, Grimnir, Gorkamorka, Alarielle, Tzeentch and Grungni, that leaves Nagash, Nurgle, Malerion, the Great Horned Rat, Slaanesh and Tyrion still to go!)

I think this idea that AoS is (or should be) split into 4 even approximately equal Alliances is a bit disingenuous, as the new range focus appears to me to be very much on god/realm specific factions. Then you add easy updates like Flesh Eaters, Seraphon and Bonesplitters for extra flavour!

The only real outlier here i think is the Everchosen book, but it was worth it to get the setting's biggest bad into play near the beginning!

[Celestant651]

I think the Dark elves should have joined Death.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Captain Marius said:

I dont think theres any evidence to support this

Hence the words 'I do wonder whether'. 

 

Its just not been Death's turn yet, and despite being a Grand Alliance it is never going to have as many factions as Order or Chaos, which are made up of a multitude of gods.

Well this is exactly why I wonder whether the alliances were created for aesthetic/narrative reasons without really thinking through the practical implications. Order, Chaos and Destruction can not only go off in a multitude of different directions but already came with a multitude of diverse factions pre-existing at launch. Death will need ungodly levels of imagination to even begin offering the same kind of diversity. The creativity and awesomeness of the Kharadron Overlords release is very encouraging in that regard though. If anyone can pull it off it's GW.

 

I would absolutely expect to see some new books soon though

There's no evidence to support this either. Ha! Gotcha! 

 

I think this idea that AoS is (or should be) split into 4 even approximately equal Alliances is a bit disingenuous, as the new range focus appears to me to be very much on god/realm specific factions. Then you add easy updates like Flesh Eaters, Seraphon and Bonesplitters for extra flavour!

If the alliances existed purely for narrative flavour I would agree with you, but it's not difficult to demonstrate that the alliance structure actually has a significant impact on the game itself. The other alliances have many, many more viable unit combinations to play with, supporting a much broader range of army compositions, tactics and play styles. When it comes to Death, competitive players have no such toys to play with and even fluffy lists are hamstrung by the complete lack of synergy between the woefully tiny and fragmented factions (a small number of notable exceptions aside). Creating and releasing factions based on the various gods is all well and good from a thematic standpoint, but absolutely fails to serve the alliance-centric structure of the game (not that I think GW is actively releasing factions on a god-by-god basis in any case, I think you're seeing a pattern that isn't there).

GW chose the theme around which the structure of the game would be built, and it's the 4 alliances, not the various gods. They now need to properly support that structure, which doesn't necessarily mean making all alliances equal in size or strength, but does mean ensuring that each alliance has broadly comparable toys and tools in their respective boxes. Each alliance deserves to be fully fleshed out narratively, aesthetically and in terms of gameplay potential - Death is currently the most underserved in those departments by a significant margin, and the more time goes by with the other alliances getting multiple rounds of attention, the more dubious the 'it just hasn't been Death's turn yet' argument feels.

There is some glaring foot-dragging going on with Death which suggests there may be more to the story than just a busy release schedule - maybe it's because they want Death's big differentiating factor to be summoning but they know the summoning mechanic is unsatisfactory right now so they're holding off until it's fixed. Maybe they've painted themselves into a corner by making Death a grand alliance in the first place and are struggling to work out how to expand its scope beyond the standard undead tropes. Who knows. But regardless the paucity of Death releases over such a long period seems like something deliberate rather than an unfortunate quirk of the release schedule.

But of course, I could be wrong. We'll probably never know.

[Captain Marius]

55 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

GW chose the theme around which the structure of the game would be built, and it's the 4 alliances, not the various gods. They now need to properly support that structure, which doesn't necessarily mean making all alliances equal in size or strength, but does mean ensuring that each alliance has broadly comparable toys and tools in their respective boxes. Each alliance deserves to be fully fleshed out narratively, aesthetically and in terms of gameplay potential.

I dont think this is the case - matched play and the very concept of AoS as a competitive game were only bolted on by GW a year after release, so at least 3 years after all the initial design work.

I dont think GW are interested in creating comparable Grand Alliances as suggested, and are rather focused on exploring individual factions within the rough framework provided by those Alliances (hence my crazy god-themed army theory!)

I do think theres some evidence for one or more new Death books in the short term though, eg the random skellie repack, the tombstone on the rumour engine a while back, the reveal of the sepulchral guard and nagash's general involvement with shadespire... nothing concrete but the hints are there!

[Celestant651]

I think that maybe, just maybe. AoS, should have only had 3 alliances, with these little quirks.

Order (Minus Dark Elves/Order-Serpentes/Darkling Covens...etc.

Chaos (Minus Skaven)

Death/Destruction (Plus Dark Elves and Skaven)

This way all the alliances are balanced and Death doesn't only have 1 faction.

[ZephyrExia]

1 hour ago, Celestant651 said:

Death/Destruction (Plus Dark Elves and Skaven)

This way all the alliances are balanced and Death doesn't only have 1 faction.

Yeah, but I don't really think having mournguls and stonehorns in the same list would be very fun. 

I do agree that a good/bad/other system may have been a better idea rules-wise, but thematically, which the release of AoS seemingly focused on, I feel it is better how it was implemented.

A balanced release schedule would be appreciated so all Alliances get new things, but the Overlords revamping races makes it hard to imagine what future races could be.

[Darth Alec]

We've seen a little bit of what Death will be. Interestingly enough, there's less "soulless automatons" and more "shreds of their souls". The new skeletons from Shadespire are this, with no specific liche/vampire/necromancer leading them. We've also heard about several Deathrattle legions led by Wight Kings, not anything else. 

 

Not much we can do other than wait. GW hasn't dissapointed with their AoS factions so far, so whatever it is, it'll probably be good.

[Liath]

I was getting the distinct impression that Tomb Kings were over and they not coming back. Chatting to the guys in the shop they very rarely sold models and GW is after all a business!

Having said that, the number of TK armies you see in the big competitions does make me wonder if they would be "resurrected" if there was enough demand?

[Celestant651]

Remember even though you can not playing tomb kings in AoS, they are still compendium. 

Also, you can always modify the other faction's models to look like they've been zombified, or they have succumbed to Nagash's teachings.

[WoollyMammoth]

I have been very vocal about this subject and I agree with everyone's complaints here. That being said, there is a lot of silver lining here.

Like most death fans i was excited to see death become 1/4 of the game at AoS launch, but this was simply a misunderstanding. Regardless of how they organize it, death is a niche. If you like deathrattle, you probably like nighthaunt, and zombies and vampires, mummies and giant skeletal beasts. In comparison, if you like Stormcast you don't necessarily like Fyreslayers. Order and Chaos are filled with different niche armies. Destruciton has a few as well, but death pretty much just has one. If you stop thinking about it in terms of their "grand alliance" system and more of it as a "niche" system, it makes a lot more sense

- They launched Stormcast, their new and favorite new niche, and nurtured it to thrive
- They released lots of Khorne (most iconic of all chaos gods) as the nemesis niche of stormcast
- They released Fyreslayers hoping to cater to the dwarf niche. Dwarfs are very iconic and a popular niche
- They released Flesh Eaters to cater to the death niche. It was awesome and very cool but unfortunatly before the GH and new major turn in the design direction.
- They released Sylvaneth, hoping to build on the success of the wood elf niche that was selling out like crazy in 2014.
- They released Ironjaws, Boneplitaz and BCR which pretty much caters to every destruction niche (other than goblins).
- They released Tzeentch to cater to both the human and daemon tzeentch niche.
- they are releasing the new dwarfs which is kind of an awesome bandaid over the Fyreslayer dwarf niche.

The next niche in line?:
- Elves
- skaven
- nurgle
- slaanesh
- death

I don't see it likely that they come out of nowhere with a new niche, these 5 are majorly in line to be addressed. Nurgle has things brewing with the 40k death guard, Skaven got a spoiler just recently, Both elves and slaanesh have things going on related to the Eldar becoming the Aeldar and forming a new faction of Ynnead, and death has the new Sepulchral Guard reveal and spoiled skeletons box. 

Niche which do not appear to be next in line:
- Seraphon.
- Free peoples. 
- goblins.
- beastmen.

The niche of death is just in a really bad place. They were the last book released before the huge direction turn with the GH and allegiance stuff. Sure, multiple niche armies are stacked up together as part of the GA but there is really not a whole lot of picking and choosing going on. You see "mixed chaos" which is really just khorne with Sayl. You see "Mixed order" of sylvaneth and wood elves, which is just the old wood elf niche. You see mixed chaos daemons which is just the daemons niche. Then of course you see a few powergame "pick the best of everything" lists like mixed destruction or mixed order, but this only effects you if you like building perfected power-lists only to win, and most of us death are not complaining in regards to that. If you are a powergamer you are going to pick whatever is good and you don't care much about the fluff and the lore and the look of the models.

That about sums it up. We are just one little niche like skaven or elves, so it makes sense that we are mostly ignored. If we are lucky, there might be a huge lore shift and maybe they have a ton of stuff ready to go, just waiting to match up with the narrative to release lots and lots of death stuff.

[mmimzie]

On 4/28/2017 at 10:40 AM, WoollyMammoth said:

I have been very vocal about this subject and I agree with everyone's complaints here. That being said, there is a lot of silver lining here.

- They released Flesh Eaters to cater to the death niche. It was awesome and very cool but unfortunatly before the GH and new major turn in the design direction.


Niche which do not appear to be next in line:
- Seraphon.
- Free peoples. 
- goblins.
- beastmen.

 

IF your gonna list FEC which got no new models and then not mention that a seraphon battletome was indeed released your mission stuff. 

Also note skaven have gotten a release in the form of clan pestilian battle tome or whatever it was called pre GH.

[polarbear]

I wouldn't mind if they retconned/rewrote the Grand Alliance idea and instead just gave armies a list of races they can ally with. Could open up some cool things cross-alliance like Fyreslayers and bad guys teaming up for that ur-gold.

[mmimzie]

16 minutes ago, polarbear said:

I wouldn't mind if they retconned/rewrote the Grand Alliance idea and instead just gave armies a list of races they can ally with. Could open up some cool things cross-alliance like Fyreslayers and bad guys teaming up for that ur-gold.

Nah i like the grand alliance things. It seems fine, and gives a good general theme. Just all of them need equal attention.

One problem with 40k is if you play xenos/chaos. You were boards all year because the imperium got all the releases, and any imperium army could ally up. So all the imperium releases mattered for imperium players.

But if you played orks/tau/nids the only release you got was for your specific faction and that's it. So, you spend 3 or 4 years wondering when you'll be next to get something.

With the grand alliances you can release something and it impacts the whole grand alliance. For instance FEC which hit just before GH2 effects all of death, and gives all of death access to battalions they can use as part of thier list. The only problem with death here is the faction started off as the smallest, and thus lacks diversity.

If they came out with say a death rattle book. You'd be able to add those models to any of your death forces that you already have established. In this way i think the grand alliance idea is WAAAAAAAAY better because it allows GW to organize it's players into groups, and please each of those groups with a single release per alliance. 

[Ratamaplata]

Did I really just read a post with the word 'niche' (mis)used about 50 times?!

[Celestant651]

But then again, Death was only created from the ashes of one faction, the Vampire Counts. They've pretty much sucked all the life out (no pun intended) of the vampire counts. There is nothing else you can do except create a new Death Army, which GW probably will not do.

[Captain Marius]

Of course they will, ill bet theyve got a whole range of morghast style Death goodies just waiting for their slot in the release schedule! Weve seen the merest hint of new stuff with the Sepulchral Guard and im excited to see what else they have coming up. Its a shame that someone has to be last to get brand new goodies, but once theyre out all this moaning about Death being ignored will be a moot point. For my part, i bought a Flesh Eaters battalion today so i can make the most of what Death currently has to offer!

[Celestant651]

I think that GW should take a break from releasing stuff for order, DEATH NEEDS MORE ATTENTION.

 

[Darth Alec]

GW will definitely make a new Death faction. Deathlords is effectively the backbone of all death going forwards. Narratively, and aesthetically, if not mechanically.