Beasts of Chaos , an "Experiment" for compilation books?

[kenshin620]

Ok so I made that topic about GHB armies and BoC awhile back about it not being the kiss of death for armies which sparked much debate, and with the BoC book looming around the pre orders I kept on thinking.

 

Is BoC GW's way of experimenting with releasing a big compilation book without releasing new models for old armies?

 

Now I can see the argument now, "but BoC is clearly the 2nd Legions of Nagash Book!" ? But there are some key differences that makes me think BoC is a leap of faith on GWs part and the first truly "oldhammer" book update versus LoN. 

1. LoN is IMPORTANT to the lore of AoS. Nagash being a god has much power and weight through the new fluff and his Mortarchs are also quite characterful.

BoC, lets be real here, probably aren't. Sure the book will have "important battle X" and there is a new fluff change that Dragon Ogors used to rule Azyr before Sigmar kicked them out, but Beasts are marauding generic bad guys. They have no special characters in AoS and everything they can do could easily be replicated with Mortals or Daemons.

That is not to say they don't have flavor, other characterless armies still do, but a big huge book with no characters is a pretty stark difference to LoN. This kind of somewhat generic fluff seems it would also fit many other armies like Free Peoples/Free Cities.

 

2. LoN was 70-80% of the Vampire Count line, and technically once they squatted TK, 70-80% the entirety of Death until Night Haunt update. Even if you removed Skaven from chaos, BoC only represent 1/3 of Chaos (other 2 being Mortals and Daemons), or even less if you count each God being their own thing so that'd be 1/5 of Chaos (and 1/6 if counting chaos dwarfs). LoN represented an entire overhaul of Death itself (minus FEC) whereas BoC are just a slice of chaos pie. It's almost like LoN was Grand Alliance Death 2.0. They could have skipped BoC update for Skaven or something and people wouldn't have been surprised imo.

 

3. Vampire Counts were very popular in warhammer, which was boosted to an all time high with their OP 7th edition book and further boosted with the End Times. A big huge "VC compilation" update makes sense monetary wise by attracting a large fanbase.

Beasts of Chaos/Beastmen were not. The Chaos Split Up in 7th really hampered them and gaining one of the worst 7th edition books didn't help. I think it was safe to say that Beastmen were in the bottom 50% (if not bottom 33%) of "popular armies" in old warhammer. Sure we have our fanatics, but player base wise it was probably smaller across the world vs most other armies. Heck I wouldn't be surprised if Bretonnia had a similar number concurrent players despite being dropped post 6th.

 

4.  BoC represent basically an entire Generic (as in no special character) oldhammer army line, with the entire Beastmen Book+Thunderscorn and a few monsters (minus any discontinued models like harpies or chaos troggoths). No other "no new model" book has done this scale of an update like Flesh Eater Courts or Beastclaw Raiders. Not to mention Beasts of Chaos is the name of the old book, no other army has used the old army names (well thats an IP thing but still interesting. They could have easily done something like "The Wyldherds of Chaos", "Chaos Doombeasts", or something).

 

5. Beasts of Chaos came out of nowhere. Many other projects are either well known in previews (Orktober, Sisters of Battle) or heavily hinted months in advance (Darkoath and Moonclan via Malign Portents). Without needing to advertise and tool up new models, it seems that whipping up a book can be done (relatively) quickly and quietly.

 

In conclusion I think the Success (or failure, hopefully not though) of BoC will do 2 things

1. Signal whether or not theres enough demand to finally move some finecast models into plastic such as Centigors or Tuskgor Chariots. Yes one could argue BCR should have prompted this (I hate you so much finecast yhetees) but BCR is a small update and came out as an early 1.0 book. GW was still trying to put out the fires of the launch.

2. Signal whether to speed up or slow down compilation books of other sorts. While I am very sure GHB armies will get updated eventually in one way or another, BoC could be testing the waters if there should be more speed in releasing these kinds of books. If it flops though, they may want to delay those kinds of books in favor of AoS factions.

 

But this is my tinfoil hat conspiracy, feel free to poke holes in my logic.

[Slayerofmen]

They should definitely chuck a 40k and release compliation books for the ranges that are just sitting around. Recompile the elves for example

 

And it needs to pick up in speed imo the want to play most of the armies is there (for me at least) just plan warscrolls and generic allegiance abilities don't make them interesting enough to invest the time and $$

[Bloodmaster]

5 hours ago, kenshin620 said:

but BoC is clearly the 2nd Legions of Nagash Book

NOPE. BoC is the reunion of things that shouldn't have been split up in the first place. As was LoN, but LoN united a whole GA, whereas BoC just unified a fraction of a GA. BoC is more like Battletome Lizardmen or SCE. 
In a way, BoC is GW admitting that fracturing army books into little pieces was a stupid move

[Kyriakin]

The elephant in the room is whether BCR, Pestilens, Bonesplittaz, (etc.) would get sucked back into the soup book, or retain their autonomy,

[Overread]

7 minutes ago, Kyriakin said:

The elephant in the room is whether BCR, Pestilens, Bonesplittaz, (etc.) would get sucked back into the soup book, or retain their autonomy,

Thing is if GW keeps to some of the split up armies then its not an issue now, but in the future. If Skaven are broken into 4 armies then that means GW has to update 4 armies to keep 4 separate Skaven player pools happy. If they "soup" them back together into a single book with easier alliances and cross units whilst retaining individuality for themed armies within the single book; then they've got 1 faction and thus only 1 core update for the players of that faction. It unifies those players and makes it more likely that they'll not just by Skaven Pestliens, but also the other branches of the Skaven force. Not just because its easier to ally, but because its there in the book and rules and lore that they've already got. 

 

I think AoS needs this in a big way. At present a lot of factions are fractured into as many parts as there are Space Marine Chapters and, lets be honest, GW cannot expect every AoS faction to be Space marines in marketing and model release and upkeep in the future. It's insane and mad to think that GW could keep updating and keep all those players happy.

 

So I really hope this is a sign of the times and that GW will move forward with this approach. Aelves would benefit greatly from this; just look at the two polls run recently on the forums here and you can see a big gap between people playing Battletomed factions and people playing those without Battletomes (I'd wager its an even bigger gap if you were to remove everyone who has a legacy army of High Elves, Dark Elves etc.. from the polls). GW must see that in their sales as well, maybe not as sharp a line (or it could be even sharper) and I'd wager they want to rectify that. For them having models sitting on shelves isn't good; they want to be selling not stalling. 

 

As much as I'd love to see GW do 5 or 10 High Elf factions - to see an Order of Dragons and an Order of eagles etc..... - at a practical level I can't see it working long term at all. Not for GW's benefit nor for Customers benefit. 

[Kyriakin]

42 minutes ago, Overread said:

As much as I'd love to see GW do 5 or 10 High Elf factions - to see an Order of Dragons and an Order of eagles etc..... - at a practical level I can't see it working long term at all. Not for GW's benefit nor for Customers benefit. 

It could if the factions are fairly small (i.e. Ironjawz/Fyreslayer-sized), and if the models have reached the point where they may not need replacement (i.e. hard plastic, modern design, highly-detailed, etc.).

I genuinely believe GW are hitting a plateau of miniature quality now, and things may not become "dated" in the way they used to in terms of design and/or materials. This would mean less ongoing replacement, and increased ability to explore outwards into more and more factions.

In terms of shelf space, things could become "web-only" over time.  However, I think full squattings should always be avoided as they tend to spook a player base that wonder if their faction might be next in line for a complete removal.

[Overread]

Thing is even if models reach a limit of detail there is still style and variety. Many people only collect a limited number of armies or even one or two or just one. If your army goes years and years without an update many will leave the hobby rather than stay. The way I see it GW has to be able to either replace sculpts with newer ones (which might not mean any more "detail" just a newer style); update them with new models (new toys to use!) and also keep them fresh and vibrant. 

If armies go without rules and models for too long people will drift away once they've "got it all". Now with alliances GW can at least add things to one faction and, in theory, it adds to the alliance pool; but only for the segment of users who use the alliance. Plus not every addition is going to work in an alliance.

 

Eg there are lots of Order players who will never purchase a single Stormcast model; even though their army can use them, they'll just never get them. Part of this is because the unique style and appearance of each faction is a visual identity that many people like. They don't want a big Stormcast model in their Fyreslayers army. They "might" ally another dwarven unit in, but they won't have any of those giant men in golden armour or those lithe Aelves or those pesky humans etc.... 

 

That's my one worry with GW spreading itself thin over so many factions is that we reach a point where GW simply cannot support the armies they've made. 

[Ashendant]

10 hours ago, Bloodmaster said:

NOPE. BoC is the reunion of things that shouldn't have been split up in the first place. As was LoN, but LoN united a whole GA, whereas BoC just unified a fraction of a GA. BoC is more like Battletome Lizardmen or SCE. 
In a way, BoC is GW admitting that fracturing army books into little pieces was a stupid move

Beasts of Chaos, Blades of Khorne, Maggotkin of Nurgle and Disciples of Tzeentch are factions composed of other faction, the so called "soup" factions.  This is proven by the AoS Core Book 2nd edition that still lists the smaller factions like Tzeentch Arcanites, Daemons of Nurgle and Khorne Bloodbound as existent factions and the fact that they added the Brayherd keyword to the Tzaangors.

The only changes to the faction list in the second edition is that Chaos Gargants faction has been absorbed by the Monsters of Chaos faction, and that the Hosts of Slaanesh seems to have been split in two with the addition of the Daemons of Slaanesh and a currently unnamed mortal faction .

[Jamopower]

I'd say that this kind of books start to be required to keep the game together,  as the "codex creep" has been huge in past few books. There's just so much stuff in the new books thst playing against them with an older army is like playing a different game. 

[Lucio]

Overall I think Beasts of Chaos is simply a release that was made because there were a couple of cool miniature ideas, a decent sized range of plastic to draw from and options to tie into people's exisiting Chaos God armies or to go it alone.

 

[AGPO]

Another point to make with this book is that since we think beasts can now get God specific key words, we're also seeing an expansion to several other factions. If I can give my big gor and bestigor units the mark of Khorne then I'll be bringing my battle standard bearer out of retirement as a Blood Secrator. Likewise my other armies may be getting ungor raiders as a screen and extra missile unit.

Along with allies and with nighthaunt adding units to LON, it's nice to see GW adding more options to expand outside a single faction without going full Grand Alliance.

 

[the_prophecy]

I dont think that "generic" matters in this case because i see that Beastmen fit very well into the setting of AOS without even changing anything at all to make them more AOSish other than tomb kings or imperium (or free peoples) or the old high elves. GW wants to move away from the old armies that remind to much of Tolkien Stuff (like the dispossesed) or other things that are related to totally different styles or even historical stuff (like tomb kings or the old imperium).

GWs main antagonist is and was always the Entities/deities of Chaos and Beastmen are a welcome "neutral" Chaos form other than Bloodbound, Nurgle etc. without changing the fluff or the minis or the names. That will be different with Elves, heck they dont even want to call them elves anymore so i understand that they are holding back with the other releases. 

The Beastmen Minis stood the test of time very well i think (not all of them though) so that is a bonus factor