What would you do, in my shoes...

[GutZilla]

Hey guys. 

I got into age of Sigmar last year, and my first army was Gutbusters. So far, I’ve built 2200 points and painted around 1750. I love the army, they are very fun to play with, and I enjoy the models. They are painted in a swamp theme, with tanned/orange flesh shade skin, green camo pants, and muddy swamp bases. Pretty slick looking force in my opinion. 

The thing is, I’ve always had a thing for the beastclaw raider models. I recently bought a Start Collecting Beastclaw Raiders box thinking I could build up the mournfang and stonehorn and use them in my Gutbuster army for some speed. Now I’m not so sure what to do. 

Option A is to build and paint the BCR box to be used with my Gutbuster army, and call it a day. Move on to a different army after, maybe even a different grand alliance (but I am quite partial to destruction). In that case, I’d like to paint the stonehorn/mournfang swamp themed. I’d adopt the story that my swamp ogor tribe raided a BCR warband, and captured a stonehorn/some mournfang for their own uses.

Option B is to commit to building a winter themed BCR army, leaving me with two pretty distinct looking (thematically at least) ogor armies... but still, similar in many respects. Perhaps too similar. I want variety, and maybe I would get bored playing ogors every time I played. 

I know the only person who can make this decision is me, but I really am conflicted about what to do here. I truly like both options and can’t decide, and because of it I haven’t built up the BCR box yet because I don’t know how to load out/paint the units. I guess I’m hoping chatting about it out loud will help me come to a conclusion. Anyone else out there have multiples of very similar armies? Does it get boring? Put yourself in my shoes... is it “too much ogor” to build two separate ogor armies without even trying a different faction?

[svnvaldez]

I think one of each destruction army is a super cool idea and I am trying to do it myself. This is a picture from Nov. white dwarf and I love the look. The BCR has completely different bases to the Gutbusters (each with the same rim color). I'm painting each army separately but I chose to do all the bases in the same style (fall themed)

[Skabnoze]

I have a suspicion that when they release a full Gutbuster book (vague rumor mill says it is not that far off) that they are going to fold Beastclaw Raiders back into a larger allegiance.  They just did exactly this with Skaven and bringing Clan Pestilens back into the broader army.  So if it were me then I would probably paint them up as a larger coherent looking force.   That way you can field them together or separate and the army still looks good.

In fact, even if they don't combine them the 2 armies already ally with one another and you can always mix them together as a general Grand Alliance Destruction army.  But I am still willing to bet that these 2 allegiances get combined back into a single book (probably Firebellies also).

[svnvaldez]

7 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

I have a suspicion that when they release a full Gutbuster book

My feeling is AOS2 will see a battletome for each army  on the AOS website. This is the same list that was with the AOS2 previews. These include mixed beasts, mixed grots, mixed skaven but Gutbusters and BCR are kept separate.

https://ageofsigmar.com/factions/destruction/

100% Firebellies and Maneaters get folded into Gutbusters. I could be wrong. I have no inside info.

[Skabnoze]

14 minutes ago, svnvaldez said:

My feeling is AOS2 will see a battletome for each army  on the AOS website. This is the same list that was with the AOS2 previews. These include mixed beasts, mixed grots, mixed skaven but Gutbusters and BCR are kept separate.

https://ageofsigmar.com/factions/destruction/

100% Firebellies and Maneaters get folded into Gutbusters. I could be wrong. I have no inside info.

That is a compelling argument.  Although I find the idea of an entire combined Aelf battletome to be absolutely revolting.  Has anything more disgusting ever been conceived?

[PlasticCraic]

 

1 hour ago, GutZilla said:

Option A is to build and paint the BCR box to be used with my Gutbuster army, and call it a day. Move on to a different army after, maybe even a different grand alliance (but I am quite partial to destruction). In that case, I’d like to paint the stonehorn/mournfang swamp themed. I’d adopt the story that my swamp ogor tribe raided a BCR warband, and captured a stonehorn/some mournfang for their own uses.

Option B is to commit to building a winter themed BCR army, leaving me with two pretty distinct looking (thematically at least) ogor armies... but still, similar in many respects. Perhaps too similar. I want variety, and maybe I would get bored playing ogors every time I played. 

I'd suggest Option C, keep the two armies thematic, then keep riding the Destruction train! 

Peronally I have a pretty extensive collection, entirely Destruction, and entirely on the same basing scheme.  It's great because as Skabnoze points out, you can then ally everything together, or use them together in a GA army, with no issues.

You can keep it thematic with BCR by doing a swamp theme...with some snow on it.  That's not the fudge that it sounds like.  BCR don't only live in icy wastes - they go everywhere, and the Everwinter follows them.  I've seen loads of icy tundra-themed BCR basing schemes, and while it does look great, it's just as thematic to have some snow dogging their footprints on another landscape.  My own basing scheme is Badlands, all with black rims, and my BCR are on that with some snow on it!

[PlasticCraic]

23 minutes ago, svnvaldez said:

My feeling is AOS2 will see a battletome for each army  on the AOS website. This is the same list that was with the AOS2 previews. These include mixed beasts, mixed grots, mixed skaven but Gutbusters and BCR are kept separate.

https://ageofsigmar.com/factions/destruction/

100% Firebellies and Maneaters get folded into Gutbusters. I could be wrong. I have no inside info.

Yep I think that's a fair call.

Clicking through the images beneath the description for each Faction, it's interesting that Grots has images of Troggoths and Gargants as well as the usual Grot groups.  Which as we all know is in-keeping with how Gloomspite Gits was put together.

Extrapolating that to Gutbusters, they do have images of Maneaters and Firebellies in there.  Might be some further evidence to support your prediction!  Firebellies are described as Priests...could they be the first thing in the GA to actually get the keyword, and maybe even some Prayers?

(It does also mention Aleguzzlers in the text for Gutbusters...could this be a second chance at an updated Warscroll? Probably not, but we live in hope!)

[Skabnoze]

35 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

(It does also mention Aleguzzlers in the text for Gutbusters...could this be a second chance at an updated Warscroll? Probably not, but we live in hope!)

Honestly, I think they should not be afraid to add certain models into multiple armies and differentiate the warscrolls based on the book.  Sure, giants are universally big drunken idiots but I expect that a giant that hangs out with Grots is different from one that hangs out with Ogors which in turn is different than one that hangs out with chaos beastmen.  One size fits all is not that great.  The Beastmen Gargant already has the Whipped into a Frenzy rule on his warscroll - so it is possible that a Gutbuster Gargant may have different rules than the Gloomspite one.

I still want an all Giant army though.

[PlasticCraic]

I reckon you must have a nice old school Giant or two kicking about @Skabnoze, do you have any good photos for us?

[Skabnoze]

53 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

I reckon you must have a nice old school Giant or two kicking about @Skabnoze, do you have any good photos for us?

Maybe...

Spoiler

I painted this guy in early 1997.  Last year I took him to a monster-bash event at my local GW because I thought he might be the oldest painted GW model to ever be in that store.  Funny enough, he was older than a couple of the other people that played in that game!

Lots of fun stories about good old Olaf the Red here aka Olaf the Pincushion (there is a story about that moniker).

My current phone camera is all screwed up or I would give a few more pictures of this guy.  His entire outfit is painted up as pieces of banners from other armies that I copied out of the old 5th ed core rulebook (where else would a giant find fabric that large?) and then painted freehand.  The most prominent banner designs I took for the opponents I regularly played against.  Hard to tell in the picture but the weird tooth in his lower teeth is a gold tooth.  The weird thing stuck to the side of the club is a wanted poster nailed to the tree that says:  "Wanted Dead or Alive: Olaf the Giant".  I figured that he was proud of the notoriety and decided to uproot the tree it was posted on and take it with him as a trophy.  The poster was made of printed paper that was curved into shape and coated with super-glue and then had a light drybrush of bone to make it look like parchment.

These old Marauder Giants came with a 40mm square base - which his legs don't fit on.  The only way to stand them on that was to glue him diagonally onto the opposite corners.  So I simply cut out a piece of heavy card-stock and coated the edges with glue.  Ghetto, but it has held up for over 20 years now.

 

[PlasticCraic]

That's awesome!

Get him on an oval base, he deserves to see table time?

[Skabnoze]

5 minutes ago, PlasticCraic said:

That's awesome!

Get him on an oval base, he deserves to see table time?

He gets table time with his square base.  I don't mind him being a blast from the past and not quite fitting in with the direction I am reworking the rest of my old army into.  I have stripped and pulled apart a lot of my old models to rework them into Gloomspite for AoS, but Olaf gets to be stuck in the 90s - goblin green base and all.

[Solaris]

I'd do the BCR in the same scheme as the Gutbusters, for several reasons. First, regardless of which army I play it's nice to have access to allies that fit into the army. Second, it is very likely that a new Ogor Battletome comes out this year, and from what I hear it will include both Gutbusters and BCR. Therefore, you'd do yourself a disservice that you might regret by painting them differently.

I totally get what you say about variety though. I'd suggest starting up another army as a small side project, and doing that in a completely different theme.

[Malakree]

@GutZilla Rumour has it that the next two books to be released are Gutbusters and Sylvaneth.

Personally I have made sure to keep theme across my destruction forces as I've slowly been expanding them. It leaves me with a single large cohesive force that I can display together and doesn't look out of place if I ally them into each other. 

[Satyrical Sophist]

For Chaos I've tried to keep some colours in the scheme the same, while varying others. Similar metallics etc. My Tzeentch are quite blue and pink, but keep dull silver and grey as a component, tzaangor have a similar scheme while keeping the pink highlights they have the blue move towards grey, and gain a brown red horns. The BoC stuff keeps the greys and dull metallics along with the brown red horns. They completely lose the pinks and the blue gets even closer to grey. The splash colour for them is a dirty yellow. The goal is that each looks distinct while also not clashing. 

I feel some of that might have made sense, but less than I am entirely happy with.

[GutZilla]

Thanks for the input everyone! Sounds like for the most part people are suggesting I build up and paint the SC box in the swamp theme (with maybe a touch of snow on the bases) so that they fit with my ogor army. This idea gets a lot more tantalizing if they actually release a unified ogor battletome, but who knows what will happen this year.

Heres a photo of an irongut from my army. As you can see, definitely not the typical BCR paint scheme, but then again this is fantasy land so who really decides what an “ogor” looks like...

 

[GutZilla]

7 hours ago, PlasticCraic said:

 

I'd suggest Option C, keep the two armies thematic, then keep riding the Destruction train! 

Peronally I have a pretty extensive collection, entirely Destruction, and entirely on the same basing scheme.  It's great because as Skabnoze points out, you can then ally everything together, or use them together in a GA army, with no issues.

You can keep it thematic with BCR by doing a swamp theme...with some snow on it.  That's not the fudge that it sounds like.  BCR don't only live in icy wastes - they go everywhere, and the Everwinter follows them.  I've seen loads of icy tundra-themed BCR basing schemes, and while it does look great, it's just as thematic to have some snow dogging their footprints on another landscape.  My own basing scheme is Badlands, all with black rims, and my BCR are on that with some snow on it!

Awesome! I kinda like the idea of fielding them within my Gutbuster army as captured war beasts from a raid against a BCR force. 

 

How did you paint the fur on the stonehorn/mournfang?

[GutZilla]

2 hours ago, Malakree said:

@GutZilla Rumour has it that the next two books to be released are Gutbusters and Sylvaneth.

Personally I have made sure to keep theme across my destruction forces as I've slowly been expanding them. It leaves me with a single large cohesive force that I can display together and doesn't look out of place if I ally them into each other. 

Interesting... haven’t heard anything about a sylvaneth battletome in the rumour mill. When you say gutbusters you don’t mean a unified ogor battletome (with BCR included) right? 

I agree, it is nice to be able to display and play with them all together without creating a disjointed looking force!

[Satyrical Sophist]

51 minutes ago, GutZilla said:

Interesting... haven’t heard anything about a sylvaneth battletome in the rumour mill. When you say gutbusters you don’t mean a unified ogor battletome (with BCR included) right? 

I agree, it is nice to be able to display and play with them all together without creating a disjointed looking force!

It's a few different "rumours". Slyvaneth have a couple of things supporting a coming release.

One, some comments from GW at an event (vague because I don't think there is a record).

Two, Slyvaneth don't actually need much to have an updated release. If we are talking BoC or FEC or Skaven, then they'd expect endless spells and a terrain feature, and it's entirely possible that Slyvaneth might not get new terrain, they already have wild woods. They also don't need too much in the way of rules changes, more a modernization of wording on stuff.

Three, Nightvault warband. This is more extrapolation.  Shadespire has some factions that didn't get an update (though skaven have now been updated), but nightvaults warbands were designed for night vault. The warbands without a V2 battle tome are Kharadron Overlords, Tzeentch and Slyvaneth. The other factions either have a battletome or will in the future (dark oath, who are probably getting a full release, not a revamp). Those factions are some of the most errataed in the game.  It really wouldn't be surprising to have them all see a new tome, and only KO would need a rework.

 

Gutbusters are a mix of things as well.

One, they were pictured as the destruction list for the upcoming roadmap. I don't actually think that one is super relevant, since it's the generic GA Destruction picture (one with the ogor in front and squig hopper in background).

Two, with the AoS V2 overview. They combined some factions together on the faction focus. At the time not much was made of it, but since then beasts of chaos (which was actually what they called it back then as well) came out, merging Brayherd, Warherd and Thunderscorn. Then Gloomspite merged spiderman, troggoth and moonclan, like the grot faction focus. Gutbusters faction focus apparently included man-eaters and firebellies. So that's something of an indication of a change coming.

Third, they released the ogre kit to bring it into AoS, with round bases.

[Malakree]

Gotta be honest, my info mostly comes from people on the tournament circuit. Most of them seem certain that sylvaneth is the next book, then gutbusters.

We also know that a free people's book is coming at some point, not sure when.

[mikethefish]

5 hours ago, Malakree said:

@GutZilla Rumour has it that the next two books to be released are Gutbusters and Sylvaneth.

Personally I have made sure to keep theme across my destruction forces as I've slowly been expanding them. It leaves me with a single large cohesive force that I can display together and doesn't look out of place if I ally them into each other. 

Have heard otherwise.  Rumor I heard was that after Khorne, the next two books to be released are Kharadron Overlords and Sylvaneth.  The release supposedly would be on the same scale as Skaven/FEC (so basically just book, endless spells, and terrain  feature.  Maybe dice too) and would coincide with the release of the final two Nightvault war bands.  

They are all just rumors, but sadly the one I mentioned makes more sense to me.  Using the popularity of one system to increase sales of another (Underworlds and AoS) just seems like a very GW thing to do.

[Kamose]

11 hours ago, Skabnoze said:

That is a compelling argument.  Although I find the idea of an entire combined Aelf battletome to be absolutely revolting.  Has anything more disgusting ever been conceived?

I have to agree! The idea of any Battletome for Aelfs fills me with indescribable, unutterable loathing! Nasty, nasty aelfses!! 😠