Updating past Battletomes

[AthlorianStoners]

Hey all, was just thinking about hypothetical and potential updates to past Battletomes and Allegiances. Looking  for everyone's ideas as to what they would add, what units or models they'd like to see and new mechanics that could be cool. 

DISCLAIMER: Aware that in all likelihood this won't happen, but its fun to speculate and it can't hurt to voice our ideas.  Please refrain from discussing the realities and the likelihood of releases, this is purely for fun. 

Here are a few of my ideas. I can update OP to feature more battletomes as people post their ideas, and I'll add user credits to the idea as well to distinguish stuff. 

BEASTCLAW RAIDERS 

Spoiler

 

 

My favourite faction, and one that is ripe for an update. Considering all the models in the faction are from WFB, and they seem to sell well/are popular, an eventual new wave of releases seems likely for them. A few ideas: 

• Plastic versions of the Yhetee, Icebrow Hunter and Frost Sabre kits. These kits are all in desperate need of a plastic release. 
• An Icebrow Hunter with pet Frost Sabre in Plastic (from @Killax)
• A Prayers table. Huskard's having access to a prayers table seems like a no brainer to me. Give the Huskard on Stonehorn and the Huskard on Thundertusk their own unique prayers each, as well as access to the prayers table from the allegiance. 
• Huskard on Foot: A smaller point value Huskard, the foot version would help add more support to the faction as well as having access to the newly invented prayers table. This would add some versatility and survivability to the faction. 
• Frost Bear w/ Rider: A mid range beast, smaller than the SH/TT but bigger than the Mournfangs, serve as a more obvious command unit with more useful command abilities. Has lore connections with the origin of the Beastclaws. 
• Gorger/Yhetee Dual kit (from @Killax) A dual kit with universal arms and legs and different heads and torsos. 

Below are from @Elmir

•  Adding frost wolf riding gnoblars/grots to them so they have acces to cheaper scoring units (but still not quite horde-like) would fit well with the theme and would help them out a lot in competitive play. 
• Additional battle traits based on the ever winter. In the fluff, it slows down enemy units, disrupts shooting, etc... but it has zero actual gameplay effects. 

 

FLESHEATER COURTS 

 

Spoiler

Similar to the BCR, this isa faction with a lot of holdover models, but room in the new lore for expansion. 

• Spell Table. Access to their own spells would prove wonderful for the faction. Consolidating their allegiance abilities into their Battletome is also a big boon. 
• Ushoran, The Carrion King. More a question of when than if in my opinion, such a big deal has been made of Ushoran in the FEC lore that he has to see a release. As a character that operates on a direct level with Nagash and his Mortarchs, Ushoran would need to be powerful, and also be a larger, centrepiece kit. 
• Plastic Varghulf. This model could have so much more potential. 
• A courtier box. Models that actually standout form your rank and file (and not just on bigger bases). And make it so that FEC players don't have to cannibalize their units and field everything under strength. (from@AverageBoss) 

Below are from @Elmir

• Reworking the ranged ability of flayers. It is useless against 99% of enemies. 
• A redesign of the current command abilities and taking the summoning/movement shennanigans away from them. Most armies moved away from having to waste their spellcasting on summons, wasting cool command abilities is possibly even worse...
• An rework of the delusion table AND feeding frenzy. They have to be one of the weakest/ lack luster battle traits out there. 
• A cool gruesome terrain kit (like charnel pits) to boost the army around it could be fun. 

 

 

FYRESLAYERS 

Spoiler

• Mini-Magmadroth Cavalry (from @Kirjava13). Cavalry unit comprised of baby Magmadroths. 

 

SERAPHON

Spoiler

•  
• A Death-like replenishment mechanic (from @rokapoke)
• Own spell Lore (from @rokapoke)
•  

 

CLAN PESTILENS

Spoiler

• Plastic Censer Bearers (from @Kirjava13)
• Plastic Plague Priest on foot and one or two other releases to ensure that they're not desperately boring. (from @Kirjava13)

Below are from @Nikobot

• If anyone's listening, some Ideas as to how the Pestilens list could look...

  They are never going to be a shooting or magic army, so they are going to have to get nastier in melee or cheaper, probably supported by lots of prayers.

  Clan Pestilens

• Verminlord Corruptor - OK'ish, but a lot of the time doesn't get the job done. I'd recommend a combat buff as they are currently rubbish and give them a points increase. Change Plaguemaster ability so it does MW's on 6+ to hit and plague reapers do 2 damage, -1 rend. Improve profile spell a bit and give them indiscriminate contagion spell (or 1 of them) or 1 spell and access to prayers/blessings.
• Plague Lord (NEW) - Warrior priest Lord, command ability, buffing ability for monks, chooses a prayer, casts 1 prayer
• Arch Priest (NEW) - Better Plague Priest (Lord), 1 profile prayer, chooses 1 prayer and 1 blessing. Cast 2 prayers or blessings, command ability
• Censer Zealot (NEW) - Censer hero, buffing ability for censer bearers
• Plague Abbot (NEW) - Battle standard bearer/warrior, ranged buffing
• Plague Rector (NEW) - Plague engine of war expert, buffs Plagueclaw, furnace etc
• Plague Priest - add command ability, profile prayer, chooses a prayer. Casts 1 prayer
• Plague Monks - ok as is
• Plague Shrine (NEW) - slow moving shrine, big pot of the foulest diseases that creates more fumes, diseases, prayers and buffs. Think smaller, less mobile Cauldron of blood. Profile prayer, Chooses a prayer and blessing. Casts 2 prayer/blessings.
• Plague Monstrosities (NEW) - Monks that are so diseased and swollen, larger and tougher beserkers, 40mm bases, 3W, think blightkings
• Blessed Brothers (NEW) - Monks that are so infected and contagious their bodies are sacs of pestilence and their minds have rotted leaving them insane. They are taken into battle like fanatics and released from monk units into the enemy where they go beserk before "detonating" into a shower of contagion.
• Plague Censer Bearers - Once one of the scariest units in WHFB, need a combat buff and rethink. Hero phase fumes just dont work for a unit with size 5-10, no armor, needs to be beginning of combat phase
• Plague Censer Throwers - Part of a new model kit with Plague censer bearers. These guys are not combat oriented, but hurl plague monks short distances, think Skryre Acolytes and their poison wind.
• Plague Furnace - Needs to do more combat damage, rethink fumes as above, profile prayer, chooses a prayer and blessing. Casts 2 prayers or blessings per phase.
• Plagueclaw Catapult - fine as is, could be cheaper
• Army wide 6+ ward save + buffs, think Daughters of Khaine. Plague monks were meant to be the toughest Skaven. Naked 1w troops ain't tough, sad.
• Prayers list/lore (6 total) - can be taken by priests in addition to profile prayers
• Blessings list/lore (6 total) - Better prayers, can be taken by select priests in addition to prayers and profile prayers. Mostly buffing friendly units with virulent diseases and lethal abilities to make them hit harder and survive longer.
• Priestly Magic Items (6 total)
• Standard Bearer Magic Items (3 total)
• Normal Magic Items (6 total)
• 4-5 Churches - Daughters of Khaine Temples that allow you to focus on an army style and stacking with battalions
• 6-8 Battalions - Rethink a few of the existing as they are too expensive and drag in too many points
• 2-3 Special Characters

 

 

IRONJAWZ

Spoiler

•  
• I would love to see a Mkii Ironjawz Battletome at some point. We've had several good topics in the Destruction forum about additional units that could be added. (from @Chris Tomlin)
• Megaboss on Grunta (that buffs Gore-gruntas)(from @Chris Tomlin)
• Chariot/Wagon pulled by Gruntas with either a Shaman or fighty character mount option(from @Chris Tomlin)
• Beserker type unit or maybe some ranged threat/artillery etc etc.(from @Chris Tomlin)

 

 

DARK ELVES

Spoiler

It gets mentioned a lot from what I can see, not strictly updating battletomes either, but putting some of the 'dumped' Dark Elves into a Faction for those of us with the models to use again (with a bit of common sense). These could be 'free' wins for the game, unless for some reason they make the game horribly unbalanced. Furthermore, the legacy WHFB models are less likely, surely, to be bought new so I don't even buy the argument the stores wouldn't like to stock the models. They won't need to, no-one is buying them now anyway vs  the newer stuff, right? If not, encouraging a bit of conversion or modelling was always part of the fun IMO, and I've bought a box of models before now to strip and convert etc. (All below from @syph0n)

• Shades into the Shadowblades faction (as Battleline)
• Dreadlord on Drakespawn into the Order Serpentis faction (could at least let us use the Malus Darkblade model for example, or the relatively new model anyway, as Leader, allowing more battleline choices at lower points games)
• Sorceress on Drakespawn into the Order Serpentis faction (as Leader, giving some in-house themed magical action and also has a relatively decent new model)
• Reaper Bolt Thrower into the Scourge Privateers (these things were supposed to be ship mounted weren't they? The guys even wear Sea Dragon Cloaks!)
• Dreadlord into the Darkling Coven faction (theory being he/she'd be enthralled enough to do the bidding of the Sorceress / leads the Black Guard etc)
• Master with Battle Standard into either Darkling Coven or Order Serpentis faction (DC if just on a horse or on foot, OS if like the old rules you've got this guy on a Drakespawn like I do... Would need a rule re-write for either)
• Sorceress on Dark Pegasus into the Darkling Coven faction (as Leader)
• Beastmaster on Manticore into the Scourge Privateers (don't these guys go around raiding and taking beasts a la Kharybdyss?)

 

 

 

[Killax]

Solid choices for sure, so much to still update.  What I do think is that's it's more likely that GW will reuse the concept in a new plastic set. With this in mind I think that the following could eventually be made:

Beastclaw Raiders
- Hunter and Frost Sabres, likely with the Hunter having new weapon options. Would work wonderfully as a new kit for sure. Not unlike Khorghos Khul and the Bloodscrator for example.
- I think that ultimately we might see a dual kit of Yhetee and Gorgers. I believe that plan was even discussed in the past but never executed. Basically the same models could use the same legs and arms, the torso and head would likely be different (and thus weapons) but that dual kit shouldn't be extremely hard to design.


- Like always I hope GH2018 will give them a right bump in the right direction too. I don't know why GW choose to push Fyreslayers and Seraphon a ton but not really do this for all other older Allegiances too.

Many more options are there however... Great topic!

 

[Kirjava13]

I've said it before, I'll say it again: Fyreslayers need some monstrous cav comprised of dwarves riding baby Magmadroths

I would love to see what creative minds could do with the Lizar- I mean Seraphon, WRT new releases and the whole of the fossil range + space daemons theme to work with.

[rokapoke]

Just now, Kirjava13 said:

I would love to see what creative minds could do with the Lizar- I mean Seraphon, WRT new releases and the whole of the fossil range + space daemons theme to work with.

I'm very curious how the Slann's summoning could change in the future, based on the adjustments in the Nurgle and Death battletomes to fundamentally change the mechanics of summoning for those armies. Honestly, if GW wants to stick with the "memory dinosaur" approach, then a Death-like replenishment mechanic would make a lot of sense for the Seraphon. Plus, new spells would be helpful. I'm not going to lie, I've found that being able to cast Curse of Fates and Summon Starlight with my Slann has been absolutely HUGE since GHB2017, but it would be nice to have more spells to choose from as well.

[Kirjava13]

Pestilens really ought to be revisited again too. They need plastic Censer Bearers, a plastic Plague Priest on foot and one or two other releases to ensure that they're not desperately boring. Ironjawz fall into this category too.

[AGPO]

 I'd like to see every faction with a summoning mechanic reworked in a similar way to LON and Nurgle, so that we can dispense with reinforcement points. In particular for horrors I'd like to see it tweaked so the pinks cost more but you don't pay for splitting.

[TheWilddog]

I really worry about the old Battletomes. With the release schedule geared toward all the new stuff I can not see where these old tomes are going to get any love.  I mean we still have not seen the Light Aelves of Teclis/Tyrion, the Shadow Aelves of Malerion, the hinted at other Stormcast chambers, etc.  I just can not imagine that FEC or say Seraphon are ahead of any of these in the line.  Makes me think my FEC have a long wait ahead before anything new.

[someone2040]

2 hours ago, TheWilddog said:

I really worry about the old Battletomes. With the release schedule geared toward all the new stuff I can not see where these old tomes are going to get any love.  I mean we still have not seen the Light Aelves of Teclis/Tyrion, the Shadow Aelves of Malerion, the hinted at other Stormcast chambers, etc.  I just can not imagine that FEC or say Seraphon are ahead of any of these in the line.  Makes me think my FEC have a long wait ahead before anything new.

I can see perhaps a splash release of a character or something for the older tomes could come without a full battletome update. In the way that Malign Portents is essentially a splash release for Slaves to Darkness, Stormcast/Order, Moonclan Grots/Destruction and Nighthaunt.

That being said, I don't think we're due for any more v2 battletomes anytime soon. The only one I think may have some merit is Ironjawz.

The reason being we've only seen 2 redone battletomes to date, Stormcast and Blades of Khorne, both extremely popular factions, possibly the most popular factions for their grand alliances (Stormcast definitely are of course). They had also fallen behind in design trends due to being the first 2 battletomes released. So Ironjawz in a way may fit that patterns as they're basically the posterboy faction for Destruction.

To me, the only reason why you'd do a v2 battletome any more is you want to expand that faction even further. So new models are basically a minimum, and potentially a fluff implication is also required (The coming of Ushoran for example as well as a new unit or two could for example put FEC back on the map for an update).

Overall though, I personally don't think we're quite there yet for the need of v2 battletomes. I don't really think Stormcast and Blades of Khorne were really necessary to be honest, but they get 'special boy' privileges. As I said, in general I think they'll come with models, and I think there's plenty of factions around that I'd like to see further fleshed out with their own tomes and models before we start recycling back onto the existing content.

It's for those reasons I don't really want to see Stormcast at all this year (other than the splash release type models). They've already had 3 waves of models, and are the largest faction. There's so much other cool design space to explore before you give Stormcast war machines or mages or whatever.

[AverageBoss]

To add to the FEC lineup.

A courtier box would be great. Models that actually standout form your rank and file (and not just on bigger bases). And make it so that FEC players don't have to cannibalize their units and field everything under strength.

[Chris Tomlin]

Morning,

I would love to see a Mkii Ironjawz Battletome at some point. We've had several good topics in the Destruction forum about additional units that could be added, such as; a Megaboss on Grunta (that buffs Gore-gruntas), a big chariot/wagon pulled by Gruntas with either a Shaman or fighty character mount option, a Beserker type unit or maybe some ranged threat/artillery etc etc.

I feel that Ironjawz are the poster boys of Destruction in AoS, so it would be nice for them to get some additional units and maybe a rules refresh.

Also it would be cool for the Battletomes that updated old WFB armies to the AoS setting without providing no new models (like FEC and BCR) to get an update with some plastic love as well. This to mean seems less likely though.

In general though, the release schedule seems packed and it's hard to see where the older Battletomes might get a look in right now. I'm all for looking forward to the exciting new stuff, but certainly wouldn't want the older armies to slip into irrelevance either. Luckily we have the annual General's Handbook which can go some way to mitigate this.

X

[syph0n]

It gets mentioned a lot from what I can see, not strictly updating battletomes either, but putting some of the 'dumped' Dark Elves into a Faction for those of us with the models to use again (with a bit of common sense). These could be 'free' wins for the game, unless for some reason they make the game horribly unbalanced. Furthermore, the legacy WHFB models are less likely, surely, to be bought new so I don't even buy the argument the stores wouldn't like to stock the models. They won't need to, no-one is buying them now anyway vs  the newer stuff, right? If not, encouraging a bit of conversion or modelling was always part of the fun IMO, and I've bought a box of models before now to strip and convert etc.

So, I'd say my obvious, logical choices:

• Shades into the Shadowblades faction (as Battleline)
• Dreadlord on Drakespawn into the Order Serpentis faction (could at least let us use the Malus Darkblade model for example, or the relatively new model anyway, as Leader, allowing more battleline choices at lower points games)
• Sorceress on Drakespawn into the Order Serpentis faction (as Leader, giving some in-house themed magical action and also has a relatively decent new model)
• Reaper Bolt Thrower into the Scourge Privateers (these things were supposed to be ship mounted weren't they? The guys even wear Sea Dragon Cloaks!)

My "not sure where these would go but had a try anyway":

• Dreadlord into the Darkling Coven faction (theory being he/she'd be enthralled enough to do the bidding of the Sorceress / leads the Black Guard etc)
• Master with Battle Standard into either Darkling Coven or Order Serpentis faction (DC if just on a horse or on foot, OS if like the old rules you've got this guy on a Drakespawn like I do... Would need a rule re-write for either)

My maybes, or "if we have to" as the models are really old (I personally would forget them):

• Sorceress on Dark Pegasus into the Darkling Coven faction (as Leader)
• Beastmaster on Manticore into the Scourge Privateers (don't these guys go around raiding and taking beasts a la Kharybdyss?)

Truthfully, I cannot imagine any of this happening. House rules here I guess, or expensive allies for units that seem to have logical homes. Not bothered about named heroes as such, but a shame not to get to use some good models. My Malus Darkblade I carefully made a new cloak and sword for, and put Spite's head on to a new cold one would make an excellent Dreadlord on Drakespawn, even if the cool Malus rules are dead. At least I can use Shadowblade and Lokhir, even without their flavourful rules!

 

EDIT 2:

Some artefacts unique to them would be nice as well, for example, a set of blades for a Black Ark Fleetmaster to proxy Lokhir style models for Scourge Privateers. Something tasty for Order Serpentis, lances, swords, better shields or whatever. I guess those are covered by Order Artefacts but they lack uniqueness. I guess at least it keeps AoS simple to know...

[Kisufisu]

Plastic acolytes for clan skryre -.-

[TheWilddog]

6 hours ago, someone2040 said:

I can see perhaps a splash release of a character or something for the older tomes could come without a full battletome update. In the way that Malign Portents is essentially a splash release for Slaves to Darkness, Stormcast/Order, Moonclan Grots/Destruction and Nighthaunt.

That being said, I don't think we're due for any more v2 battletomes anytime soon. The only one I think may have some merit is Ironjawz.

The reason being we've only seen 2 redone battletomes to date, Stormcast and Blades of Khorne, both extremely popular factions, possibly the most popular factions for their grand alliances (Stormcast definitely are of course). They had also fallen behind in design trends due to being the first 2 battletomes released. So Ironjawz in a way may fit that patterns as they're basically the posterboy faction for Destruction.

To me, the only reason why you'd do a v2 battletome any more is you want to expand that faction even further. So new models are basically a minimum, and potentially a fluff implication is also required (The coming of Ushoran for example as well as a new unit or two could for example put FEC back on the map for an update).

Overall though, I personally don't think we're quite there yet for the need of v2 battletomes. I don't really think Stormcast and Blades of Khorne were really necessary to be honest, but they get 'special boy' privileges. As I said, in general I think they'll come with models, and I think there's plenty of factions around that I'd like to see further fleshed out with their own tomes and models before we start recycling back onto the existing content.

It's for those reasons I don't really want to see Stormcast at all this year (other than the splash release type models). They've already had 3 waves of models, and are the largest faction. There's so much other cool design space to explore before you give Stormcast war machines or mages or whatever.

I agree, it seems like the only Battletome that might get a volume 2 is Ironjawz and that seems iffy since they got allegiance abilities in GHB 2017. 

My main hope is that GHB 2018 will see some point alterations for some of the Battletomes factions that will help out.  For my FEC, I would love to see ghouls go down to 80, putting them on par with Skeletons and Crypt Horrors come back down to 140 (right now at 160 there is very little reason to take them over Flayers).

Also I think a general magic supplement giving magical lores to those allegiances without them would be fantastic and go a long way to helping out the older factions. 

[Nikobot]

To me the reference of battletomes in most cases doesn't deserve the title battletomes...
Being a Skaven player, the Pestilens battletome is simply the compendium entries put into a book with virtually no changes (VL bravery changed, they split plague priest into 2 profiles...)

Its not great really and kind of pointless.

I don't know if Seraphon really changed much for the Lizardmen compendium, and the rest are anaemic and may as well be another compendium army.

Only beastclaw, bonesplitterz and sylvaneth have the bells'n'whistles of spells/magic items.

Everything pre-Tzeentch needs serious help and I can't really see any armies as being in a better state than others due to "having a battletome" prior to that release apart from whatever benefit they got from ghb17 points and allegiance tweaks.

[Nikobot]

If anyone's listening, some Ideas as to how the Pestilens list could look...

They are never going to be a shooting or magic army, so they are going to have to get nastier in melee or cheaper, probably supported by lots of prayers.

Clan Pestilens

• Verminlord Corruptor - OK'ish, but a lot of the time doesn't get the job done. I'd recommend a combat buff as they are currently rubbish and give them a points increase. Change Plaguemaster ability so it does MW's on 6+ to hit and plague reapers do 2 damage, -1 rend. Improve profile spell a bit and give them indiscriminate contagion spell (or 1 of them) or 1 spell and access to prayers/blessings.
• Plague Lord (NEW) - Warrior priest Lord, command ability, buffing ability for monks, chooses a prayer, casts 1 prayer
• Arch Priest (NEW) - Better Plague Priest (Lord), 1 profile prayer, chooses 1 prayer and 1 blessing. Cast 2 prayers or blessings, command ability
• Censer Zealot (NEW) - Censer hero, buffing ability for censer bearers
• Plague Abbot (NEW) - Battle standard bearer/warrior, ranged buffing
• Plague Rector (NEW) - Plague engine of war expert, buffs Plagueclaw, furnace etc
• Plague Priest - add command ability, profile prayer, chooses a prayer. Casts 1 prayer
• Plague Monks - ok as is
• Plague Shrine (NEW) - slow moving shrine, big pot of the foulest diseases that creates more fumes, diseases, prayers and buffs. Think smaller, less mobile Cauldron of blood. Profile prayer, Chooses a prayer and blessing. Casts 2 prayer/blessings.
• Plague Monstrosities (NEW) - Monks that are so diseased and swollen, larger and tougher beserkers, 40mm bases, 3W, think blightkings
• Blessed Brothers (NEW) - Monks that are so infected and contagious their bodies are sacs of pestilence and their minds have rotted leaving them insane. They are taken into battle like fanatics and released from monk units into the enemy where they go beserk before "detonating" into a shower of contagion.
• Plague Censer Bearers - Once one of the scariest units in WHFB, need a combat buff and rethink. Hero phase fumes just dont work for a unit with size 5-10, no armor, needs to be beginning of combat phase
• Plague Brazier Throwers - Part of a new model kit with Plague censer bearers. These guys are not combat oriented, but hurl plague braziers short distances that release plague fumes, think Skryre Acolytes and their poison wind.
• Plague Furnace - Needs to do more combat damage, rethink fumes as above, profile prayer, chooses a prayer and blessing. Casts 2 prayers or blessings per phase.
• Plagueclaw Catapult - fine as is, could be cheaper
• Allegiance Ability Army wide 6+ ward save + buffs, think Daughters of Khaine. Plague monks were meant to be the toughest Skaven. Naked 1w troops ain't tough, sad.
• Allegiance Ability Great Plagues - needs a rework, more control rather than so random. You need to be able to choose targets, not strike nearest target etc and need more choice.
• Prayers list/lore (6 total) - can be taken by priests in addition to profile prayers
• Blessings list/lore (6 total) - Better prayers, can be taken by select priests in addition to prayers and profile prayers. Mostly buffing friendly units with virulent diseases and lethal abilities to make them hit harder and survive longer.
• Priestly Magic Items (6 total)
• Standard Bearer Magic Items (3 total)
• Normal Magic Items (6 total)
• 4-5 Churches - Daughters of Khaine Temples that allow you to focus on an army style and stacking with battalions
• 6-8 Battalions - Rethink a few of the existing as they are too expensive and drag in too many points
• 2-3 Special Characters

[Kirjava13]

2 hours ago, Kisufisu said:

Plastic acolytes for clan skryre -.-

Pls

[Planar]

All IJs need is a Brute Lobba throwing brutes across the board 

[Elmir]

FEC:

-Reworking the ranged ability of flayers. It is useless against 99% of enemies. 

- A redesign of the current command abilities and taking the summoning/movement shennanigans away from them. Most armies moved away from having to waste their spellcasting on summons, wasting cool command abilities is possibly even worse...

- An rework of the delusion table AND feeding frenzy. They have to be one of the weakest/ lack luster battle traits out there. 

- A cool gruesome terrain kit (like charnel pits) to boost the army around it could be fun. 

BCR:

- Adding frost wolf riding gnoblars/grots to them so they have acces to cheaper scoring units (but still not quite horde-like) would fit well with the theme and would help them out a lot in competitive play. 

- Additional battle traits based on the ever winter. In the fluff, it slows down enemy units, disrupts shooting, etc... but it has zero actual gameplay effects. 

Iron Jawz: 

- Consolidate them in a larger orc battle-tome in which they are a specific clan in which the specific iron jaw units are extra 'ard (akin to soulblight in Legion of Blood for death). 

[DantePQ]

I think it's safe to assume that those mini armies like for example Darkling Covens won't get any update. GW will keep on doing new stuff and then somewhere in future (like 2020 I guess) start to revisit existing armies but I doubt that they will refresh all of them (things like Seraphon or FEC could only get GH update) also they could go with fast, refreshes mixed with new armies. Take Sylvaneth : refresh of Dryads + 1 unit with two codex entries + 1 hero with 2 codex entires that's 3 box so it could be even 1 week release. Some armies could go even with two boxes (KO, BCR,Fyrelsayers) - dual unit + dual hero for 1 week releases. 

It's just a matter of time if GW wants to release like 5-6 armies in 2018 and as much in 2019 (but probably less as they use time when they're releasing new armies for AoS while Wh40k is getting codexes done as fast as possible with little to none new minis) that they will have to mix new armies with refreshes. So they can swap then Wh40 with AoS, with Wh40 getting huge new armies with lots of stuff and AoS getting small 1-2 boxes refreshes from mid-late 2019. I think 1-2 more Aelven armies (Malerion and Teclis/Tyrion), about 2 destruction armies, Slaanesh, 1-2 Death armies, Free Cities and they can easily hit refresh armies with like 1 new army a year and some refreshes. (that's 8 I mentioned + Deepkin) seems reasonable. 

[AthlorianStoners]

I don’t suppose it will achieve anything but I wonder if we should send this list when it’s more in depth to GW or someone who works there? Can’t hurt right?

[Swooper]

1 hour ago, DantePQ said:

I think it's safe to assume that those mini armies like for example Darkling Covens won't get any update.

One of those "mini armies" literally just got an update, so I'm not sure what you're basing that on.

[DantePQ]

26 minutes ago, Swooper said:

One of those "mini armies" literally just got an update, so I'm not sure what you're basing that on.

Not really, Witch Elves kits are just one of the newer kits and quite narrow range (actually 3 boxes). 

Other armies have much older minis and as time goes by they will be just well older and chances are slimer that they will a part of an update. There are 11 Aelven armies or so and with plan to release more "new" armies majority of them will be squashed. 

[AthlorianStoners]

15 minutes ago, DantePQ said:

Not really, Witch Elves kits are just one of the newer kits and quite narrow range (actually 3 boxes). 

Other armies have much older minis and as time goes by they will be just well older and chances are slimer that they will a part of an update. There are 11 Aelven armies or so and with plan to release more "new" armies majority of them will be in squashed. 

Agreed on this, I think that of the factions that exist: 

There are those with a decent chance of getting expanded or getting their own Battletome - 

• Wanderers 
• Swifthawk Agents 
• Darkling Covens 

Those with a slim chance - 

• Order Draconis 
• Order Serpentis 
• Eldritch Council 
• Phoenix Temple 

And those with basically no chance - 

• Shadowblades 
• Lion Rangers

[hughwyeth]

RE all the skaven stuff-

I would actually rather have them unified again. Have a Nagash type tome that allows you to field either a unified skaven force or a distinct clan force or a mixture of clans without counting as allies. Sort of like a mini grand-alliance within a grand-alliance. I find skaven the most fun when I mix all the clans together rather than just Skryre or Verminus etc. 

[syph0n]

2 hours ago, AthlorianStoners said:

Agreed on this, I think that of the factions that exist: 

There are those with a decent chance of getting expanded or getting their own Battletome - 

• Wanderers 
• Swifthawk Agents 
• Darkling Covens 

Those with a slim chance - 

• Order Draconis 
• Order Serpentis 
• Eldritch Council 
• Phoenix Temple 

And those with basically no chance - 

• Shadowblades 
• Lion Rangers

I hope you're wrong, just because it seems such a shame, but I can well imagine the road map at GW to be similar. Some of the changes are mind-boggling to me as a recent return to the hobby. However, there's clear financial motivation to nix armies. The Shadowblade faction is so odd. Newish plastic Dark Riders that could have comfortably fit into any other faction and Assassins wherever too. 

More bizarre to me is the drop of a load of model choices as I outlined earlier.