Beasts of Chaos proof that GHB Allegiance is not Kiss of Death?

[kenshin620]

31 minutes ago, Majorkill18 said:

Wasn't nighthaunt already proof enough?

To be fair they basically completely reinvented Nighhaunt (not to mention the Malign Portents Herald). I'd even consider NH to be the first "true" AOS undead faction rather than a simple conversion rule of WFB models. Even Daughters of Khaine kind of got an excuse for their update since they're so central to the Slaanesh story.

 

I cannot see GW doing a NH style overhaul update for the vast majority legacy armies like Dispossessed (who are also outbeat by 2 AOS dwarf factions anyways) or Free People (heck they can't even keep their horse knights, unless of course the mold just simply broke). So the only other hope going beyond the GHB for these factions are LON and now BOC style updates where they don't necessarily add in new models but give the army more options and flexibility (unless of course they mess up the internal balance like a small chunk of nagash units). Also even with LON, old allegiances may not have benefited. Soul Blight, despite being reprinted, is in a confusing place with their only saving grace being Battleline Blood Knights, and yet compete with the very similarly themed Legion of Blood.

 

I confess that I lost faith in more LON books since GW seemed to be taking their sweet time, but BOC rejuvenated it. For now anyways.

[Kramer]

1 hour ago, kenshin620 said:

I confess that I lost faith in more LON books since GW seemed to be taking their sweet time, but BOC rejuvenated it. For now anyways.

I think there is also the business aspect. Pair a LoN style book right next to a big release (or two) you know will sell well. If it's all 'old' army updates a lack of new models kills AoS hype and momentum. Other way around all new factions, you could argue it would distance AoS from older players

(know it happened to me when I switched over to AoS. All new factions but nothing really grabbed my attention so I was left playing with 'neglected' factions and painting backlog).

[kenshin620]

16 minutes ago, Kramer said:

I think there is also the business aspect. Pair a LoN style book right next to a big release (or two) you know will sell well. If it's all 'old' army updates a lack of new models kills AoS hype and momentum. Other way around all new factions, you could argue it would distance AoS from older players

(know it happened to me when I switched over to AoS. All new factions but nothing really grabbed my attention so I was left playing with 'neglected' factions and painting backlog).

I do agree that constant side by side updates are a bit much. So I didn't expect LON books like 2-4 months after LON. And I guess to be fair 2.0 did shake a lot of things up. Not to mention GW is really juggling every single one of their games these days (LOTR is getting relaunched, Kill Team updates, Adeptus Titanicus just launched, then theres the Ork update).

Still though, a 9 month gap is a pretty long time. And some of the other things happening in between doesn't inspire confidence like the 3rd Stormcast Book (can we safely predict a Stormcast 2019 book?) or the somewhat controversial Warhammer Legends Dark Elf PDF.

I suppose another issue with releasing these kinds of books for these factions is actually filling in the dang book with alternative paint schemes and somewhat interesting fluff. Lets be real here, I cannot fathom any earth shattering revelations about the Beasts of Chaos other than "we kill people for the dark gods. *Insert Free City we plundered here*". Unless of course they actually bring in some special characters...

[123lac]

4 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

I suppose another issue with releasing these kinds of books for these factions is actually filling in the dang book with alternative paint schemes and somewhat interesting fluff. Lets be real here, I cannot fathom any earth shattering revelations about the Beasts of Chaos other than "we kill people for the dark gods. *Insert Free City we plundered here*". Unless of course they actually bring in some special characters...

Will BoC have any named hero characters?

[kenshin620]

14 minutes ago, 123lac said:

Will BoC have any named hero characters?

We still have no idea.

 

They could take their Finecast models out of retirement, or they could give new models (like maybe finally make Kholek Suneater). Or they could not have any, which will make their fluff really bland.

It's not the first time a book went characterless, Beastclaw Raiders and FEC have none, but then again even in WFB those (sub)factions never had any. Meanwhile BOC/Beastmen had a whole catalog of characters, though half of them never got models.

[123lac]

7 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

We still have no idea.

 

They could take their Finecast models out of retirement, or they could give new models (like maybe finally make Kholek Suneater). Or they could not have any, which will make their fluff really bland.

Yeah it will be a very bland book if there's no named heroes.

As far as I'm aware every army with a battle tome has named heroes. So either they'll have to take existing models and slap some names on some of them, which would be very unoriginal, or design at least one new model to be the 'leader'.

Fingers crossed they create a new model or two. Kholek would be cool.

Edit - are there many finecast BoC models that aren't listed on the GW website?

[kenshin620]

50 minutes ago, 123lac said:

Edit - are there many finecast BoC models that aren't listed on the GW website?

I actually thought there were, but it seems Morghur and Gorthor stayed metal.

They could reinstate Malagor since they're just using him as a generic model and it may be easier to explain the chaos gods revived him, as opposed to the savage orc character Wurrzag who stayed generic.

[Yoshiya]

Quite a few armies have battletomes but no named heroes though it's mainly ones that repurposed older models. Off of the top of my head, Beastclaw Raiders, Bonesplitters, Flesh Eater Courts, Fyreslayers, and Clan Pestilens (don't collect any of these so correct me if I'm wrong) all have battletomes but no named heroes.

That said, Bonesplitters and Flesh Eater Courts still have lore that captures many people's imaginations so depending on how they reimagine Beasts of Chaos it could still work without named heroes.

[Kramer]

9 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

Still though, a 9 month gap is a pretty long time. And some of the other things happening in between doesn't inspire confidence like the 3rd Stormcast Book (can we safely predict a Stormcast 2019 book?) or the somewhat controversial Warhammer Legends Dark Elf PDF.

What 9 month gap? This year we had nurgle, legions of Nagash, daughters of Khaine, idoneth deepkin, nighthaunt, stormcast and a whole second edition of rules?  And September beast of chaos  

And you are pretty negative regarding the stormcast book. But with the new stormhost rules, new fluff, and all the sacrosanct stuff, it still is a full release. With all the playtesting, fluff writing, painting effort etc. As nighthaunt or at least as Daughters of Khaine. 

In my mind Dark Elf legends is a separate project. Can’t imagine the same kind of resources going into that.  

So I can’t find the 9 month gap.  

[Moonlightwolf]

So we already had nighthaunt prove this, soulblight somewhat prove it by its inclusion in Legions of Nagash and now theres Brayherd to nail the point home. GHB allegiances should be seen as test runs at this point rather than a kiss of death.

[kenshin620]

6 hours ago, Kramer said:

What 9 month gap? 

The 9 month gap between LoN and the 2nd LoN style book, Beasts of Chaos. I guess one could say the chaos god books are somewhat styled like it too, though  they haven't really changed/reprinted the slaves profile. Ever since its inception, people have been wanting their own LoN book, from orruks to skaven, especially since GBH doesn't change army compositions. 9 months between those kind of books for legacy armies is a long time. Heck even DoK I was surprised that they didn't include assassins who used to be khaine worshipers (are they still? or are they just now generic aelfs who stab people?). The other rumored armies are also debated on being LoN styled, or more stand alone. Like will the Moonclan be a grot overhaul which includes the supposed grot sky pirates and gitmobs, or juts solely focus on Moonclan/Fungoid.

As for the stormcast, I am not surprised they need to make them, especially for all the new models and the reorganization of stormhosts, but it did seem a bit half baked with copy pasting a lot of the 1.5 profiles and point costs. So now poor paladins and liberators are seemingly left behind, and then theres the "look at all our special characters for the Hammers of Sigmar" thing (well it wouldn't have been so bad, except for all these lists that use Garviel!).

Plus its not that SCE got updated itself to me thats the problem, but all the other AoS factions (other than khorne by technicality) haven't and who knows when they will. Kharadron Overlords still only have 1 battleline! Fyreslayers only have one strategy, a swarm army!

I just don't want what happened to Fantasy where GW starts to really lag behind on Editions to Army Books thing. Like Beastmen being stuck with their 7th book. GHB sort of alleviates this, but GHB doesn't provide any real massive changes from the previous years other than the new summoning mechanics (well slaanesh did get a pretty big boost with their new system).

 

2 hours ago, Moonlightwolf said:

soulblight somewhat prove it by its inclusion in Legions of Nagash

To be fair, LoN also included GA Death. For some reason.

It wouldn't be so bad if you could take GA items in a non-GA army! That summoning book looked pretty neat.

[stato]

46 minutes ago, kenshin620 said:

...9 months between those kind of books for legacy armies is a long time...

No its not at all.  GW works in multiple year plans, 9 month between that type of book is short.  They havnt even released all the 40k codex in 12 months and that was a major plan.

[Dead Scribe]

If they have powerful rules that can put some top tier army lists together with that are good at final tables in tournaments, I'll definitely be looking at them.

[kenshin620]

1 hour ago, stato said:

No its not at all.  GW works in multiple year plans, 9 month between that type of book is short.  They havnt even released all the 40k codex in 12 months and that was a major plan.

With 40k though, it is guaranteed everyone will get their 8th edition codex (except maybe inquistion, I think they're firmly in an "allied" kind of situation right now. And whatever weirdness the Ynnari occupy). With AoS, not so much. Could more GHB allegiances get updated? Maybe, though with varying chances. I'd rank Skaven and Darklings far higher than Dispossessed (who I'm pretty sure are a done deal right now outside of an umbrella Free Cities book) or Free People. Could non Allegiance factions get updated? A even bigger maybe (other than Masterclan skaven), with some I really fear for like Lion Rangers. Especially with that 3rd aelf faction rumor that could be a completely brand new line like deepkin.

 

Plus the number of codex updates is slightly inflated due to all the space marines! Took them this long to make chaos marine faction books! Now if only those dang codex supplements people bought actually had a use in 8th....

[MightyMetro]

7 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

With 40k though, it is guaranteed everyone will get their 8th edition codex (except maybe inquistion, I think they're firmly in an "allied" kind of situation right now. And whatever weirdness the Ynnari occupy). With AoS, not so much.

I understand your point here. A significant difference is that AOS is still world-building, whereas the 40k universe is established.  

GW are still establishing the factions that reside in the mortal realms.  These are  new factions, or new spins on old factions.  Sure, legacy models are present, but these are either placeholders, Karl Franz adorned Free Guild, or minor factions that will fade into insignificance in future, various aleves.  This process will take years. 

BoC is a positive as it establishes that there will be a role for this faction as time goes on.  It may be a while until a second wave strikes, but they arent going anywhere.  LoN factions too.

However, if GW have no intention of developing minority factions from the old world should they create a soup battletome?  Isnt it a step backwards in terms of mortal realms world building?  It could be argued that it is unethical to encourage sales with a new book. It would also encourage more complaints later as to why the soup factions are then ignored. I assume thats this is the purpose of the legends project.  It provides rules for play, for free, with the understanding that the factions are now inactive and will not be updated. 

[SuperHappyTime]

11 hours ago, Moonlightwolf said:

So we already had nighthaunt prove this, soulblight somewhat prove it by its inclusion in Legions of Nagash and now theres Brayherd to nail the point home. GHB allegiances should be seen as test runs at this point rather than a kiss of death.

To be correct, every army rehash before Nighthaunt has proven they haven't discarded anything that was put in the original GA books.

To be radical, Beasts of Chaos may be proof positive that GW have realized that Segregation/Ghettoization of the old army books was a bad move (at least, until you can get the army a full release a la Daughters of Khaine/Nighthaunt).

We've had Legions of Nagash stick all the Death back together, and now Beasts of Chaos to stick most of Beastmen back together (while adding some of the old Warriors of Chaos standouts). I think sticking Skaven, Free Guild, Dispossessed, Dark Aelves, High Aelves, Goblins, Orcs, and Ogors back together might be what is needed to make the older armies competitive again.

[Kramer]

On 8/28/2018 at 3:28 PM, kenshin620 said:

The 9 month gap between LoN and the 2nd LoN style book, Beasts of Chaos. I guess one could say the chaos god books are somewhat styled like it too, though  they haven't really changed/reprinted the slaves profile. Ever since its inception, people have been wanting their own LoN book, from orruks to skaven, especially since GBH doesn't change army compositions. 9 months between those kind of books for legacy armies is a long time. Heck even DoK I was surprised that they didn't include assassins who used to be khaine worshipers (are they still? or are they just now generic aelfs who stab people?). The other rumored armies are also debated on being LoN styled, or more stand alone. Like will the Moonclan be a grot overhaul which includes the supposed grot sky pirates and gitmobs, or juts solely focus on Moonclan/Fungoid.

As for the stormcast, I am not surprised they need to make them, especially for all the new models and the reorganization of stormhosts, but it did seem a bit half baked with copy pasting a lot of the 1.5 profiles and point costs. So now poor paladins and liberators are seemingly left behind, and then theres the "look at all our special characters for the Hammers of Sigmar" thing (well it wouldn't have been so bad, except for all these lists that use Garviel!).

Plus its not that SCE got updated itself to me thats the problem, but all the other AoS factions (other than khorne by technicality) haven't and who knows when they will. Kharadron Overlords still only have 1 battleline! Fyreslayers only have one strategy, a swarm army!

I just don't want what happened to Fantasy where GW starts to really lag behind on Editions to Army Books thing. Like Beastmen being stuck with their 7th book. GHB sort of alleviates this, but GHB doesn't provide any real massive changes from the previous years other than the new summoning mechanics (well slaanesh did get a pretty big boost with their new system).

 

To be fair, LoN also included GA Death. For some reason.

It wouldn't be so bad if you could take GA items in a non-GA army! That summoning book looked pretty neat.

Yes and no. If you isolate it like that 9 months seems long. But you are making that distinction between types of battletomes. In that vacuum, yes. 

But as it all drains the same resources it’s more fair to judge the total rules releases (and even discounting model productions) it’s been massive this year. The rules designers have been producing like crazy. Barely two months between releases throughout the first 9 months*. 

*Beast of Chaos coming September finishes it off.