Sentiment about the new releases

[JPjr]

1 hour ago, EccentricCircle said:

I have no strong opinions on the endless spells either way, but it is amusing me that this thread is the most literal example of flogging a dead horse i've ever seen.

could be worse, they could be sitting on the fence.

[Chikout]

The skaven got a whole bunch of kits for 8th edition and more during the end times. The clanrats, stormvermin, screaming bell, doom wheel, warp lightning cannon, thanquol, storm fiends, warlord, grey seer, and verminlord are all fairly recent plastic kits of a high quality. 

The resin heroes are all fantastic sculpts so I hope they stay. There are some older kits especially the gutter runners which do not hold up, but it is simply not true that skaven have been starved for attention in fairly recent times. 

I still hold out hope that some of those older kits get updated sooner rather than later but I am very happy that a skaven book is coming out at all. 

The scenery pieces should not be that difficult to scratch build, especially these two. You just need to get some measurements of the base sizes. 

[Kirjava13]

4 hours ago, michu said:

Wait, Arch-warlock is great sculpt, it's only problem is that it's metal.

He should look awesome, but any discussion of him also always involves the nightmare involved in putting him together because he's so misshapen he doesn't fit together and you have to green stuff him (his left arm section in particular) to high heaven just to put him together.

[Overread]

Mine isn't that bad! 

He just need a sliver of greenstuff between the claws and honestly the gauntlet slips over the top and hides most of that anyway. I do think I'll break the nose tweezers out just to help pinch the two sides of the hand together, but its not that bad. The rest of him goes together really easily. 

 

I'm guessing yours @Kirjava13 might have gotten the main arm bent more than it should be or perhaps there was a cooling error and one bit shrunk a little more. But the arm assembly, whilst a little fiddly, isn't that bad.

 

It's still, I think, my favourite Skaven sculpt! I just hope GW gets over their nude rat issue and gets us some more furry ones back with more fur detail over their bodies!! 

[JPjr]

Getting away from grousing about the models (or lack of), it's interesting looking at the rules for ambushes in the new genestealer cult codex, feels like Skaven would be good candidate for something similar in AoS, I'd love to see a lot more elements of misdirection and the like introduced into the game.

[EccentricCircle]

21 minutes ago, JPjr said:

could be worse, they could be sitting on the fence.

I guess that's what I'm doing really! The spells look fine, if not something I'm massively fussed about, but I'd quite like to get the bone throne just to add to my Mausoleum board as scenery!

[Charleston]

To be honest, I find this discussion here fascinating. I would have never expected that two faction updates that noone has expected a month ago cause such a bad feeling within the (tga.)community. That may be related to the fact, that my expectations were limited to the box without any forther releases, while others seemingly expected a gloomspite-scale of releases.

Nevertheless I also can´t get rid of the impression, that a main cause is the fact, that a hobby like AoS is a very personal thing. We invest a lot of time, effort and money to build up a thing. We learn to play, we like our dudes, we want to have fun with them. We are emotionaly attached to our hobby. And this is great, but also has a big downside: News, Changes and Releases that are done by GW are also attached to that emotional state. GW had already lost the communities trust once during AgeOfKirby and is still working on rebuilding this consumer relation. Meanwhile also the WHFB to AoS trasition a lot of factions was either squated (Tomb Kings, Bretonia) or reduced from a main faction to a splinter of its former glory (Aelfs, Duardin), which also had an impact on a lot of players. Therefore I completly understand players having a lack of trust in gw´s actions, which leads to a pretty complicated emotional relationship to the company. Yet, just try to think about the current state of the game. And compare it to like 2 years ago. The game is in a fine state, releases are fast paced, we get tons of new cool rules and models.

In the end, as soon as the box drops people will stop complaining and forget all the discussion. Especially with LVO dropping the next wave of releases on Sunday. I am just feeling sorry for that guy at gw who tries to explain to himself why the community hates their work althrough they try to please players.

[Shearl]

I feel like this most recent release needs to be looked at in the context of the previous year’s 40k releases. By and large they pushed out a bunch of codexs with little model support. This was done to get away from the indexes and bring all the armies in line with 8^th.

I think we’ll be seeing a number of these quick battletombs with terrain and spells, with the occasional big release thrown in. Once they clean up the existing armies they might transition back to a previous method of rotating out big releases, or maybe they’ll go with a new approach, it’s hard to say.

I also understand the complaints over the “mandatory” terrain, especially if you don’t like the sculpts. This might sound like I’m some GW apologist but at least they’re not priced to poorly. The gloomspite piece is huge and is only 60 USD, and I think the highly decisive FEC throne is like 35 USD. And yet again I know you might say, even if it’s not too much it could have gone toward other stuff (that you like).

Basically to wrap up what I’m saying, I see this as an attempt to get things on equal footing and not necessarily GW’s approach forever.

[Nos]

So to summarise, GW need to make something that satisfies everyone, and everyone has a different perception as to what will satisfy them including things that will contradict what satisfies someone else . Piece of cake really. 

[Jetengine]

The FEC release is mostly fine. Some questions have been raised about the quality of the Endless spells but other then the Varghulf its a mostly solid (if miniscule) range. Yeah more models would be neat but as a serviceable faction it'll do.

Skaven on the otherhand are a damn joke with GW trotting out 25 year old sculpts in finecast. This was a faction that deserved a heavy release not a 'get you by'.

[Overread]

The only odd thing with skaven is that they have updated several of the old sculpts with new plastic ; they were just trapped with Island of Blood and appear to have either been abandoned or forgotten. 

 

Then again it might just be GW policy for hits year to only update battletomes of armies that already have them - plus endless spells and terrain and perhaps one model or two. That might just be their way of getting through the year whilst also dropping bigger updates for armies that haven't had a battletome for AoS thus far a well as any new armies. 

[Lucky Snake Eyes]

Skaven could use new sculpts but at least they have options, I showed the archregent and the other previewed rules to a friend of mine that plays FEC and he straight up thinks archregent and dragons are all you'll see now outside of ghoul summons. He agrees with me when saying FEC lacks list variety but he won't complain too much when his 2-3 viable lists all pack a big punch... my poor skeletons keep ending up ghoul food...

[Jetengine]

Also everyone bringing up 40K are kind of comparing Apples to Oranges, considering most 40k factions (save Eldar iirc) are 90% plastic.

[Future]

I think we can directly compare this to 40k. 40k doesn't have the problem of being a reboot of an old game so lets ignore model quality. They built the game (8th) and then released all the codexs so that everyone could play the game. They also released new model lines along the way such as knights.

This is exactly what we are seeing now in AOS and I love it. I'm just confused how this can go so sorely with some people. No one in 40k was angry about getting battle tomes. In order for feedback to be actionable from GW it has to make sense. Then you saw most factions get a ton of new sculpts through kill team a year or more after their faction codex. They still continue to see new models and new sculpts in one off boxes.

 

So yes this is similar to 40k, and yes models continued showing up after the rules. I'm not sure why getting to play your army with the newest rules is so doom and gloom for your faction. If the 40k trend continues we will continue to see 1 offs of leaders continuing in the future.

[Overread]

@Future I think the difference is that prior to 8th edition 40K most armies (barring a few like Sisters of Battle) were getting updates, new models and attention and most of those that didn't get updates then were getting new models as 8th came out. Eldar are almost the exception in the whole 40K line up at present in that they retained a high percentage of finecast models. 

 

With Fantasy most if not all the factions were nearly totally ignored. Even new stuff for things like High Elves and Skaven never made it out of the starting boxed set (Island of Battle). So many of the armies wound up with older sculpts in plastic, resin and even metal. So the difference is that whilst many are still viable they are still quite old in terms of models. For new people to AoS this isn't as much of an issue save for a wondering if they'll update; but for old-hands it means less to buy because they've already got the army from 10 or more years ago. 

 

That said I do think GW is doing right; the biggest complaint for AoS isn't a lack of models its a lack of Battletomes and faction security. So getting more tomes out now is the best thing they can do. Fix that then swing back later to update and add new stuff. 

[Throt the Unclean]

1 minute ago, Future said:

No one in 40k was angry about getting battle tomes. In order for feedback to be actionable from GW it has to make sense.

No one in Age of Sigmar is complaining about getting battletomes either. People keep saying that people are complaining about getting battletomes and it's not true. I haven't seen one person complain anywhere on this entire site about getting a new battletome. lol

In this thread, the thread about the Skaven release in the Chaos forums, and I'm sure many other places on this website there is tons of sensible feedback for GW to act on. 

And just so everyone knows, you can contact GW Customer Services through their phone number differs in each country (1-800-394-4263 for the US) or email (custserv@gwplc.com) and they will document and forward any of your comments, questions, and concerns to the appropriate people at GW headquarters. That includes any critiques you might have. Obviously, don't be disrespectful or rude, but don't be afraid to let GW know what you think. Customer feedback is an invaluable resource for any company. 

[Jetengine]

 

7 minutes ago, Overread said:

@Future I think the difference is that prior to 8th edition 40K most armies (barring a few like Sisters of Battle) were getting updates, new models and attention and most of those that didn't get updates then were getting new models as 8th came out. Eldar are almost the exception in the whole 40K line up at present in that they retained a high percentage of finecast models. 

 

With Fantasy most if not all the factions were nearly totally ignored. Even new stuff for things like High Elves and Skaven never made it out of the starting boxed set (Island of Battle). So many of the armies wound up with older sculpts in plastic, resin and even metal. So the difference is that whilst many are still viable they are still quite old in terms of models. For new people to AoS this isn't as much of an issue save for a wondering if they'll update; but for old-hands it means less to buy because they've already got the army from 10 or more years ago. 

 

That said I do think GW is doing right; the biggest complaint for AoS isn't a lack of models its a lack of Battletomes and faction security. So getting more tomes out now is the best thing they can do. Fix that then swing back later to update and add new stuff. 

This. Like I'd expect this kind of update for all AOS forces (book, terrain, ES) but older stuff that needs more work should of had it. Now Skaven players will have to wait 'till they get round to AOS3 to get updates.

[SwampHeart]

1 minute ago, Throt the Unclean said:

And just so everyone knows, you can contact GW Customer Services through their phone number differs in each country (1-800-394-4263 for the US) or email (custserv@gwplc.com) and they will document and forward any of your comments, questions, and concerns to the appropriate people at GW headquarters. That includes any critiques you might have. Obviously, don't be disrespectful or rude, but don't be afraid to let GW know what you think. Customer feedback is an invaluable resource for any company. 

I know I emailed them this morning telling them I think the FEC and Skaven releases (like BoC before) are bang on and that I hope they continue to get Battle Tome support out without waiting for models. Models can be released in any manner of ways but we need more armies up to Battle Tome standards. 

[SwampHeart]

1 minute ago, Jetengine said:

 

This. Like I'd expect this kind of update for all AOS forces (book, terrain, ES) but older stuff that needs more work should of had it. Now Skaven players will have to wait 'till they get round to AOS3 to get updates.

Or you could be entirely wrong? They've released plenty for 40k through methods other than new codex - Kill Teams, Tooth and Claw, etc. It is entirely possible for GW to release new models for an existing army in a format other than 'army + model' release. We've seen them pioneering and exploring it all last year. 

[Overread]

@Jetengine not necessarily - GW can update the models at any point in time of their choosing without having to release anything but the updated models. They can also add new models without having to add a new battletome since they have the rules for free on the website, wascroll builder and in the box. So nothing ties them to having to wait for a new edition to release new stuff. 

[Thiagoma]

1 minute ago, Jetengine said:

 

This. Like I'd expect this kind of update for all AOS forces (book, terrain, ES) but older stuff that needs more work should of had it. Now Skaven players will have to wait 'till they get round to AOS3 to get updates.

Yeah but in the meanwhile they can actually play with a Skaven army that makes sense. As an Aelf player i would love to be able to actually field my guys without going Ga Order or having only 3 models avaiable.

 

[Throt the Unclean]

1 minute ago, SwampHeart said:

I know I emailed them this morning telling them I think the FEC and Skaven releases (like BoC before) are bang on and that I hope they continue to get Battle Tome support out without waiting for models. Models can be released in any manner of ways but we need more armies up to Battle Tome standards. 

Awesome! I'm emailing and letting them know how utterly lazy and horrid the new sculpts look!

[Jetengine]

1 minute ago, Overread said:

@Jetengine not necessarily - GW can update the models at any point in time of their choosing without having to release anything but the updated models. They can also add new models without having to add a new battletome since they have the rules for free on the website, wascroll builder and in the box. So nothing ties them to having to wait for a new edition to release new stuff. 

While they CAN has there ever been an example of them doing so ? 

[SwampHeart]

1 minute ago, Throt the Unclean said:

Awesome! I'm emailing and letting them know how utterly lazy and horrid the new sculpts look!

That's fair - I just hope I don't ever see you complaining about how long it takes for an army update because that would be utterly hypocritical. 

[SwampHeart]

Just now, Jetengine said:

While they CAN has there ever been an example of them doing so ? 

Wrath and Rapture.