Davariel

I think my most memorable hobby moment was when (way back in WFB 7th) a friend charged his 5 man Empire knight unit - which I think had a captain - into my single rank of puny High Elf archers. Across three rounds of combat the knights with their lances, captain, and 1+ save failed to deal any damage whatsoever to the unarmoured archers, and took one casualty each time. Then they broke, fled, and were run down by the pursuing elves. The mere mention of High Elf archers had my friend frothing at the mouth for years afterwards.

It would be amazing to one day see a Grail Knights/Knights of the False Grail dual kit. (A Bretonnian can dream, right?)

This is very true. I don't mind the current foot hero paradigm from a gameplay perspective - I think using small heroes as buff pieces works well and is reasonably intuitive and simple. I do get the feeling that it limits the narrative of the game a bit, though. Non monster/special characters feel a little... peripheral sometimes, and personally I find it harder to get invested in stories about largely interchangeable buff heroes who don't have much room for, well, character. You can use named characters, of course - and their rules generally do a great job of feeling strongly unique and characterful - but that in turn makes the setting feel a little small, like in all the vastness of the Mortal Realms, only the same handful of characters in each faction are ever doing anything.

You know, I'm a little torn on the attendants. The idea behind them is great, and they're nice models in and of themselves. I'm just not sure I like the image of a handful of ordinary humans in an otherwise all SCE army. I like how Stormcast armies look as a force of mighty warriors. I like how mixed armies of Stormcast and ordinary mortals look, too. The idea of a full SCE army with just two or three ordinary humans tagging along, though? I can't help but think they'll look a bit out of place. Maybe the Ruination Chamber will have more attendants in the rest of the range, who knows. In any case, the Reclusians are wonderful!

I was painting some Nighthaunt today and it felt very strange to think that these gorgeous, modern sculpts were released as the counterpart to a range that's just been declared outdated and tossed out. Even though I know Sacrosanct is its own case, even though I've had about 3-4 armies go OOP and I'm as inured to it as anyone can be, and even though I haven't played in years and just collect models I like these days... it's still really weird to think of an army that new (and that was so heavily marketed as the face of the game just as it really took off!) getting cut.

I wouldn't be surprised to see the two small Nighthaunt heroes disappear at some point too (the Cairn Wraith and Tomb Banshee). They're slightly older and are have had their concept largely taken over by newer units.

I started painting my first batch of Bretonnian bowmen yesterday to test out my planned "TOW style" army scheme. Contrast is a godsend, I've never gotten yellow to look so good with so little effort.

The news has me considering redoing the bases on the handful of Beastmen I own. I tried going for a Ghur badlands theme with them (what with the Era of the Beast and all!) but I was never entirely satisfied with the results. Now that their story will likely see them menacing Bretonnian peasants instead of Dawnbringer crusades, I might give them some nice forest bases instead.

Wow. This was a much more brutal culling than I expected, and anyone who's spent hours and hours of love on their armies that are now getting discontinued has my sympathy (I've been there, several times!). I will say that this is a really bad look for AoS. Some uncertainty around the model ranges was understandable after the messy launch, and there was certainly a grace period where GW could get away with discontinuing stuff as they tried to figure out what they were doing. However, it's taken AoS way, way too long to "find its feet" and decide what it wants to keep. Around the point everything was covered by a battletome and had received at least minor support (which was late 2nd I think?) they really needed to commit to supporting armies long term (with perhaps an exception for unique cases like Cities). Pulling a move like this - especially with the relatively recent Sacrosanct - is pretty terrible for maintaining confidence in the product line and encouraging long term investment in armies. Whether or not that will amount to anything... who knows (probably not). But I do think it's both unhealthy and highly discouraging for AoS to still be conducting major purges this far into its lifespan.

Fair enough! I should have added a disclaimer that I was only stating my own opinion 😄

I completely agree with this. It's hard to get excited about the new Liberator when it's essentially a weapon swap Vindictor with some very minor armour and shield differences (plus a slightly odd helmet), but it's ultimately a good thing for the game that the SCE range is moving towards a more cohesive, polished, and (by most accounts?) popular design.

Those foot knight conversions look excellent. The more I see of those models the more I like them (and I thought they were good to begin with!).

Having just painted the new Beastlord alongside some Gors, there's really not much room to revamp the range to match it. The Beastlord has the exact same design language and details as the older Beastmen, it's just a more modern (and lovely!) sculpt.

AoS really, really needs to decide what model ranges it wants to move forwards with and stick to it. This kind of uncertainty around units and armies being removed isn't healthy for the game.

I agree with what RexHavoc said. Personally I think AoS tries to have it both ways in terms of being a setting or a story, and the results are often mixed. As a story, there's clearly a serious amount of effort that goes into the campaign books and short stories. There are some genuinely big story developments, and major events do take place - but beyond introducing a new army or new model, there isn't always much follow up, or serious consequences. Rather than an organic story that develops naturally and lets events build upon each other, a lot of the time it feels like AoS has a slightly scattershot approach to storytelling - plot threads are introduced out of nowhere, abruptly resolved, or left hanging, and then the story swerves towards the next army release/new edition anyway. That sounded a bit more cynical than I intended (and I do like a lot of the AoS narrative!), but sometimes it feels like a lot happens, but nothing really changes. Obviously that's important because AoS isn't just a story, and you've got people spending time and money building armies to use in the setting (RIP the stuff I bought to make a themed Har Kuron force, haha). But I think AoS is missing something in its approach as a setting too, The focus is often on the same cast of named characters, and what's going on at the highest level between them and their armies and cities. I love how much room AoS leaves for you to sketch out your own corner of the realms, but it's also so big that I think any force of "your dudes" can feel slightly disconnected from the broader setting.