Rune's Summary of Warhammer Fest (AoS Focused)

[RuneBrush]

Morning all!  Finally back from a weekend of Warhammer Fest (wish I'd booked the day off now!).  The first Games Day (as was) I attended was back in 2000, I've only missed going to two Games Day/Fest events and without question this has to have been the best yet, there was so much going on and nothing stayed static during the two days.  Regardless of what system you play, there was something on offer for you.

Now most of the "reveals" have been put up on the Warhammer Community site, however I'm going to go through what I found out/concluded based on talking to people and overhearing, using the first seminar to give it a bit of structure and focusing on the Age of Sigmar parts.  I've also not read the forums over the weekend so apologies if you know this information.

A huge disclaimer and statement before I start - GW staff are very good at keeping secrets and short of applying thumbscrews and pulling finger nails we only get snippets of what they want us to know.  Occasionally something might slip, but this is rare.  There is also much obfuscation!  As such please don't take anything as gospel!

The first seminar I attended was the New Releases Seminar.  Now I'm going to be honest and say that there were only a couple of complaints I had from the whole weekend and both stem from this seminar.  Firstly, we were told no photos because they'd be appearing on the Warhammer Community (WHC) site later (can't see what's wrong with a few grainy photos personally), secondly the Community article actually contained more information than we were told in the seminar?  I know I wasn't on my own at feeling a bit cheated that despite investing time and money in supporting the event, people sat at home found out more information more quickly that those at the Ricoh.

However (and seriously that's the only negative over the whole weekend), the biggest reveal for our comminuty was Age of Sigmar 2 - the Soul Wars.  The rumour mill proved right and we are indeed receiving a new version of the core rules with a huge push on expanding the narrative and getting under the skin of living in the mortal realms.  It would appear that we're getting a new book (similar to the 40k rule book is my guess) which contains more narrative and an abundance of maps and similar background - the stuff a lot of people have been crying out for.  Amongst the revealed changes there is going to be an expanded Hero phase including all heroes being able to use their command abilities and a command points system.  I wasn't able to glean any information beyond that. 

Magic is being given an overhaul (more on that shortly).  There have been changes made to units in combat shooting because of the sheer number of comments about people not liking it.  The core rules will be more than 4 pages long too but (along with warscrolls) will remain free to download.  The new rules are going to drop in June and although not confirmed in so many words will have a new starter set - "why would we change the format" was the answer given to that question.  Equally although not confirmed we're likely to see this appear at the Age of Sigmar Open Day (another reason to go - if you've not got your ticket yet, why not!)

The new rules set has been underdevelopment for the past year, however work actually started on it shortly after the original rules were released.  This explains why the new rulebook will contain maps and they've changed the shooting from combat rules - two items that were really hotly debated when the original rules were released.

One piece of information that came from a different seminar was that for the past four Battletomes (starting Maggotkin), that the rules writers have now written a set of guidelines so that we should continue to see battletomes being more consistent.  We're going to continue to see more wholly within in order to prevent conga lines as an example.

Now one confusing piece of information was that in the first seminar it was confirmed/implied we'd be receiving a new Generals Handbook at the same time as the new rules, however at a different seminar it was said that the new handbook is some while away.  Very much a case of "watch this space".

The "strategic double turn" wasn't spoken about at all in the seminar but was mentioned on the WHC article.

WHC are planning on doing reveals on the changes on the build up to the new rules, I'm guessing in the same style as we've seen for new battletomes.

Magic is being a bit of a shake up and one guess I'm making is that we're going to get a list of generic spells to pick from in the core rules - I can see Arcane Bolt and Mystic Shield being wrapped up in this list.  Signature spells aren't going and there's no intention to change the 2D6 cast method.  In addition, you have the Malign Sorcery expansion which is an expansion to the core rules and contains a mixture of faction wide and faction specific spells.  This include spells with persistent abilities (and models on the table).  One thing this expansion is designed to do is to complement weak points in some factions.  It is also worth noting that some factions (e.g. Khorne) will initially get the rough end of the stick - however the rules team are very aware of this and have plans to balance this out, but don't expect something in the immediate future.

The rumour mill has once again proven accurate and we've both Nighthaunt and the Stormcast Sacrosanct Chamber coming along as new armies.  They both have a release month of June which adds more weight to the thought they may be part of a new starter set.

There is a fantastic tongue-in-cheek video where they poke fun at the fact that Sigmar's answer to everything is to open a new chamber and the Sacrosanct Chamber is what's appeared.  This features Stormcast Wizards, Celestial Beasts and Lightning Artillery.  A push has been made to make the model range represent the background a bit more accurately when it comes to gender, so we're going to see a higher number of female models in this new release than in past ones.  The artwork for this is beautiful and the idea of more tribal Stormcast is a really interesting one - and one that I can see as a great inspiration for painting.

Nighthaunt, we found out a bit less information but the model range is just as beautiful (in it's own ghostly way) including a Night of Shrouds on steed, what we think are Skaven Ghast and the Black Coach which is amazing (amongst others).  There is rumour of a forth Mortarch with this release (which would make sense).  There are also two new paints that work in a similar style to Nihilakh Oxide - and are in the bigger sized pots.  It's worth noting that these were developed after the models were painted based on the colours the Army Painters and 'Eavy Metal painters used.

We're finally getting an Age of Sigmar website!  Although a bit overdue, the new site will contain lots of information and include quite a few how to play videos.  This should make it a lot easier to get into the game for new players.

Not wanting to be outdone, Black Library are bringing back Gotrek in an Audio Drama and he's being voiced by Brian Blessed because who else could voice such an epic character!  Really looking forward to this as I've personally enjoyed David Guymer's Gotrek and Felix books.

Warhammer Community is going to be receiving a lot more Age of Sigmar content too.  We were told that we could look for 4 things a day for 8 weeks - so we're talking beyond the release of the next rule set.

We're also getting the "STORMCAST" - a 3 weekly podcast.  No idea what the content or length will be but quite looking forward to this.

The Hammerhal Herald is going to mirror the Regimental Standard with a wry and humorous look at the Mortal Realms.

Finally, on that front, we're getting Games Workshop's first ever webcomic.  This is very much in the style of Ctrl-Alt-Delete and Looking For Group.

I had a really good talk with the new Forge World Age of Sigmar team.  Now the impression I've got is that they've spent quite a bit of time getting to grips with what they've got to work with, which reading between the lines is a mess.  The massive Khorne Dragon is finally finished (and looks amazing) and from the sound of it should be out in the next month or so.  Every single warscroll is going to be reviewed and tweaked and they're looking into some things such as making some monsters able to be used across different armies.  For example, the Merwyrm (currently Destruction only) would really suit being run in a Idoneth Deepkin army - but be pretty ridiculous in a Stormcast army.

They were really open to suggestions on what people want to see too and they envisage producing a massive range of things from decal sheets, upgrades, units, monsters right they way up to titanous creatures.  I got the impression that they're struggling to work out where to start, I did however get the impression that their initial goal isn't going to be self contained armies.

There's another scenery set to come out alongside the ruins that contains walls that aren't as ruined.  You also have a set of objective markers for Age of Sigmar that look amazing!  The chests were based on the ones that came with Heroquest

The new rules will see a number of dice being released, including scenery dice, command dice and new wound dice.  I would imagine that these are completely optional and I've yet to see somebody playing with 40k command dice if I'm honest.

As far as I can remember that's pretty much it when it comes to AoS.  We've more big releases to come following the new rules, but those are the big focus currently.

Oh and I won a Golden Demon for my 40k vehicle.

Feel free to ask questions, but please let's keep this on track

[HorticulusTGA]

Thank you very much RuneBrush (and congrats for you grim darkness win) !

One thing I want to point out is that according to the "new edition FAQ", the GHB is indeed said to come algonside the new edition so June-July is my bet

https://whc-cdn.games-workshop.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar-QA.pdf

Good to hear about FW, even if it's still a bit messy I miss the huge Warhammer Forge project...

I guess the AOS website will be a transformation of the Malign Portents' one. 

Great time ahead !

[Gaz Taylor]

31 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

Oh and I won a Golden Demon for my 40k vehicle.

Congratulations!  

Also liked your mini review and whilst this is a Age of Sigmar forum I am still disappointed with the lack of Adeptus Titanicus coverage from you  

I spent the weekend viewing the coverage via Twitter (as well as SCGT) and I was very impressed with the reveals and what GW had on show. The second edition of Age of Sigmar was very surprising (and something I have been nay saying for months)  but very welcomed. I know what you mean about the seminars but they can be good to go to if you get some good questions. 

[RuneBrush]

30 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Congratulations!  

Also liked your mini review and whilst this is a Age of Sigmar forum I am still disappointed with the lack of Adeptus Titanicus coverage from you  

I spent the weekend viewing the coverage via Twitter (as well as SCGT) and I was very impressed with the reveals and what GW had on show. The second edition of Age of Sigmar was very surprising (and something I have been nay saying for months)  but very welcomed. I know what you mean about the seminars but they can be good to go to if you get some good questions. 

Thanks!.  In a momentary lapse - Adeptus Titanicus looks amazing!  Big box contains basically everything you need to play and looking like around £150, but has a huge saving (equivalent to one of the Warlords for free).  Also as it's plastic it will likely be sold via third-parties.  Box contains two warlords, six knights, buildings and command panels for those.  Reavers will be coming out shortly after and then followed by Warhounds.  Carapace weapons also have a minimum range and under some circumstances can't shoot a smaller titan - allowing a warhound to get in the face of a warlord.  Very excited, although my poor wallet is less impressed

Completely agree on the new edition, wasn't expecting quite as many big changes as it appears we're getting.  What was really nice was talking to the rules writers on the Sunday morning, you really got an indication of how much they love the system and want to make it the best yet for all styles of play.  The last seminar I attended was about writing rules and it was really interesting to hear what a difficult juggling act they had and why they made certain decision on certain rules.  For example, the reason terrain gives you +1 save is because that's the very last step of the attack process so it speeds things up and makes it really clear - the player who's taking the damage is responsible for remembering.

[Gaz Taylor]

10 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

Very excited, although my poor wallet is less impressed

Same here! Think price will be a big factor in wherever I pick it up or not. Anyway, Age of Sigmar stuff......

11 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

The last seminar I attended was about writing rules and it was really interesting to hear what a difficult juggling act they had and why they made certain decision on certain rules.

I think this is one of the things some players forget about when they are being critical about the rules writing. GW want to make a game that is open to everybody and it's a fine line between making a game that has the complexity and tactical options to something which is easy to pick up and play. I think they have nailed it with AOS and I'm very curious how the second edition will work but I have complete faith in the people behind it  

[The Wanderer]

Great roundup, thank you!

Did you manage to pick up and learning on the future of LotR/Hobbit/Middle Earth?

[RuneBrush]

20 minutes ago, The Wanderer said:

Did you manage to pick up and learning on the future of LotR/Hobbit/Middle Earth?

I'll be honest and say that's the one thing I didn't actually manage to find out anything about - sorry!

I did see the new models though (I really need to finish off my Oliphant), Keith is doing an amazing job with them

[MightyMetro]

2 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

The last seminar I attended was about writing rules and it was really interesting to hear what a difficult juggling act they had and why they made certain decision on certain rules.  For example, the reason terrain gives you +1 save is because that's the very last step of the attack process so it speeds things up and makes it really clear - the player who's taking the damage is responsible for remembering.

Sounds like an interesting seminar.  Its great they are being so transparent.  Decisions like this demonstrate GW are serious about refining/streamling the game, without discarding depth.  

I’d love to learn more about their rule writing process.  Does anyone have links to similar posts / webchats / streams on the subject?

[RuneBrush]

8 minutes ago, MightyMetro said:

Sounds like an interesting seminar.  Its great they are being so transparent.  Decisions like this demonstrate GW are serious about refining/streamling the game, without discarding depth.  

I’d love to learn more about their rule writing process.  Does anyone have links to similar posts / webchats / streams on the subject?

That seminar was really interesting and just opened the door a tiny gap into how challenging writing rules is.  I don't think the seminar was recorded, but it's a pretty good one to send into the Warhammer TV/Community guys as a subject for one of their Thursday Twitch interviews.

[FERRUMITE]

Nice to hear! Did the FW team give any kind of clues as to when they’d be updating the rules for their lines? I’d simply love if they were ready come the new edition!

[bsharitt]

5 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

 In addition, you have the Malign Sorcery expansion which is an expansion to the core rules and contains a mixture of faction wide and faction specific spells.

In the deluge of info over the weekend I didn't realize that magic was still getting its own external expansion. I had assumed that the magic supplement rumors ended up being fulfilled in the "cinematic sorcery" being put in the new edition of the core rules.

[RuneBrush]

27 minutes ago, FERRUMITE said:

Nice to hear! Did the FW team give any kind of clues as to when they’d be updating the rules for their lines? I’d simply love if they were ready come the new edition!

Nothing specific.  The impression I got was it was something they've been (and are) working on.  I think they're planning on doing them in chunks, so review all the Tamurkhan PDF, then Mosterous Arcanum, but there wasn't any indication when they'd hit the world

[RuneBrush]

Just now, bsharitt said:

In the deluge of info over the weekend I didn't realize that magic was still getting its own external expansion. I had assumed that the magic supplement rumors ended up being fulfilled in the "cinematic sorcery" being put in the new edition of the core rules.

I thought the same at one point on Saturday - but it was confirmed that Malign Sorcery is still an expansion!  It's also been called a core rule expansion too, which suggests to me that you can use it in your army if you want to (e.g. regardless of what method of play you use)

[ClockworkGeo91]

Thanks for the indepth coverage and congratulations on your win!

Very excited for the lore aspects of the 2nd additions, especially the maps!

[HorticulusTGA]

Oh one more question @RuneBrush

Are you sure about the "4 articles about AOS.2 every day" part ? 

Because it seems quite ambitious, and IIRC in the article or in the Pete Folley's video, they "just" mention daily update.

It's great anyway !

[RuneBrush]

7 minutes ago, HorticulusTGA said:

Oh one more question @RuneBrush

Are you sure about the "4 articles about AOS.2 every day" part ? 

Because it seems quite ambitious, and IIRC in the article or in the Pete Folley's video, they "just" mention daily update.

It's great anyway !

When I typed that part of me went "that can't have been what they said", but it's certainly what I wrote down.  Looking at it realistically, that may well include the other items - so 3 AoS podcasts per week, web comic and Hammerhal would reduce that to 3 articles a day.  We know there's the new rules, Malign Sorcery and two new factions to cover.  Throw in some Mengel painting tutorials and odd articles on things and 4 articles for 8 weeks isn't unrealistic - although it's still a very steep target.

However despite that I think 2 AoS articles a day is more achievable

[stato]

43 minutes ago, HorticulusTGA said:

Oh one more question @RuneBrush

Are you sure about the "4 articles about AOS.2 every day" part ? 

Because it seems quite ambitious, and IIRC in the article or in the Pete Folley's video, they "just" mention daily update.

It's great anyway !

They said that on the FB live video there would be 3 or 4 articles every day in the lead up, not sure when that will start though?

[Shearl]

Thanks for the great summary!

Do you think it's hopeful we might see some new Fimir?

[Peter (Age of Miniatures)]

Thank for the writeup @RuneBrush. Great to hear a bit from people at the event. 

[KillagoreFaceslasha]

Hey dude, thanks!

Any news on the AOSRP? Any info you can share?

[blueshirtman]

Was there any talk about fixing the underpowered faction like BCR? Most of the new changes sound very nice, and new stuff to use is always welcome, but BCR have no command abilities on their heros, and have 0 casters of any kind. So they would be punished a lot, if the focus of the game went there.

[PlasticCraic]

Excellent post, thanks for that!  And congrats on the Golden Daemon, what an achievement!

14 hours ago, RuneBrush said:

I had a really good talk with the new Forge World Age of Sigmar team.  Now the impression I've got is that they've spent quite a bit of time getting to grips with what they've got to work with, which reading between the lines is a mess.  The massive Khorne Dragon is finally finished (and looks amazing) and from the sound of it should be out in the next month or so.  Every single warscroll is going to be reviewed and tweaked and they're looking into some things such as making some monsters able to be used across different armies.  For example, the Merwyrm (currently Destruction only) would really suit being run in a Idoneth Deepkin army - but be pretty ridiculous in a Stormcast army.

This part really piques my interest.  I wonder how that would work with the Merwyrm for example... it's potentially just as thematic a part of a Fellwater Troggoth army within Destruction, and the cool FW monsters are one of the big things Destruction GA has going for it. 

So I wonder if (/ hope!) they would do a duplicate warscroll with the Idoneth keyword (for example), rather than just taking units away from Destruction?  It'll be interesting to see how they handle it. 

It does open up a lot of cool possibilities such as the Rogue Idol getting the Orruk keyword for example (so he could benefit from the Warboss and Fungoid Cave Shaman command abilities), and maybe even a Bonesplitterz keyword (Hand of Gork to help with its mobility problems) - after all it doesn't have any bones, so there's no reason they'd hunt it, and as religious fanatics they would be more in tune with it than most.

 

[valenswift]

Great write up. I was also at the event on Sunday (my first Fest since 2010) and enjoyed it immensely, a selfie with Duncan being the highlight

One complaint I do have tho was the shambles that was the Golden Demons award ceremony, how hard is it in 2018 to cobble together a slideshow so we can see what the winners had painted? As it was i lost interest after the first couple of awards as I had no idea who or what I was clapping for so we went for one last look round instead. It was a shame as it meant the event kind of fizzled out rather than being the celebration of the hobby and culmination of a great weekend that it should have been.

[BobbyB]

9 hours ago, KillagoreFaceslasha said:

Hey dude, thanks!

Any news on the AOSRP? Any info you can share?

I went to a seminar on videogames that for some reason I couldn't hear got turned into a seminar on WFRP. Didn't give much more information on either system TBF, although it appears WFRP 4th is a little more of a change from 1st than was initially reported, although probably still not much.  All they said about the AOS RPG was that it's still in development so they can't really talk about it, but they guy who's doing it is really excited about it, and that it will have a completely separate system to WFRP 4th (I think we knew this, but good to get confirmation)

[RuneBrush]

12 hours ago, Shearl said:

Do you think it's hopeful we might see some new Fimir?

If I'm being truthful, I'm not 100% sure we will, though I am keeping my fingers crossed that we might get the few finished off that we saw 18 months ago.  I'm going to start a list of questions for the AoS Open Day in 6 weeks and will add Fimir onto it.

9 hours ago, KillagoreFaceslasha said:

Any news on the AOSRP? Any info you can share?

Sorry to say that I didn't find a chance to speak to the RP guys there.  I can't even recall specifically seeing them - however the licensed products area I found pretty tricky to navigate as each stand would jump up and try and nobble you on the way past if you made eye contact!

8 hours ago, blueshirtman said:

Was there any talk about fixing the underpowered faction like BCR? Most of the new changes sound very nice, and new stuff to use is always welcome, but BCR have no command abilities on their heros, and have 0 casters of any kind. So they would be punished a lot, if the focus of the game went there.

Nothing specific.  BCR falls into the same category on the magic front as Khorne does, so I would imagine they may get something in the future.

7 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

This part really piques my interest.  I wonder how that would work with the Merwyrm for example... it's potentially just as thematic a part of a Fellwater Troggoth army within Destruction, and the cool FW monsters are one of the big things Destruction GA has going for it. 

So I wonder if (/ hope!) they would do a duplicate warscroll with the Idoneth keyword (for example), rather than just taking units away from Destruction?  It'll be interesting to see how they handle it. 

It does open up a lot of cool possibilities such as the Rogue Idol getting the Orruk keyword for example (so he could benefit from the Warboss and Fungoid Cave Shaman command abilities), and maybe even a Bonesplitterz keyword (Hand of Gork to help with its mobility problems) - after all it doesn't have any bones, so there's no reason they'd hunt it, and as religious fanatics they would be more in tune with it than most.

The impression I got was that they're experimenting with using just one warscroll.  They way I'd tackle it would be to give each monster it's own Pitched Battle Allies block and a rule that it inherits the Grand Alliance of keyword of your army.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed the Rogue Idol gets a keyword tweak - I did say to them that models around the 200~400 point mark are fantastic as they fit into allies quite nicely so hopefully they remember that

48 minutes ago, valenswift said:

Great write up. I was also at the event on Sunday (my first Fest since 2010) and enjoyed it immensely, a selfie with Duncan being the highlight

One complaint I do have tho was the shambles that was the Golden Demons award ceremony, how hard is it in 2018 to cobble together a slideshow so we can see what the winners had painted? As it was i lost interest after the first couple of awards as I had no idea who or what I was clapping for so we went for one last look round instead. It was a shame as it meant the event kind of fizzled out rather than being the celebration of the hobby and culmination of a great weekend that it should have been.

Glad you enjoyed the event!  No selfie for me (and I didn't think he'd want me collaring him at the end of the day whilst he was picking up a cuppa).

The awards could have been a little bit more polished, even stood at the side of the stage we didn't really know what was going on (though making the children go first meant the adults could just follow their lead).  I think the one thing that could have mitigated with the technological issues was if they'd read out what our entries were.  I'd say that probably the worst thing about the Ricoh in comparison to the NEC or NIA is that there isn't really a proper awards area so the actual awards feel a bit anticlimatic by comparison.