The Rumour Thread

[Still-young]

7 hours ago, Mandzak-Miniatures said:

So I guess that scaled rumor pic is a zoat for bb..

I don’t think so. I don’t get a forge world feel from it, and it seems too big for a blood bowl character. 

[Yokai]

6 hours ago, the_master288 said:

Gaining new people to the hobby is a lot harder than keeping those you already have.  New armies will only get GW so far, in my opinion.

Hence the big push for specialist games like Warcry and Kill Team, which are much easier to get into.

[AverageBoss]

5 hours ago, Overread said:

I think GW will likely do both. Focusing on adding 2.0 Battletomes, but also perhaps introducing a new force now and then. It's the best of both worlds when you consider that this time last year we had 2 Battletomes that were 2.0 ready (Daughters of Khaine and Idoneth). Yep that was it - just two Battletomes at this very same time last year.

So GW is addressing the battletome issue, its just slowed down a bit now over the summer because we've got contrast paint, forbidden power and warcry games as well as trade issues causing some problems iwth supply of some products (otherwise we'd have sylvanath and perhaps even hints at another battletome for release)

Yes, but companies a fraction of GWs size manage to to do across the board updates to every model and faction in their games simultaneously. This also tends to lead to a more healthy and varied spread of forces. Really wish GW would abandon the "one at a time" approach.

[Sleboda]

10 hours ago, angrycontra said:

 I don't think there's going to be actual Khemri as faction

=> Nor do I. More likely if they returned some form of Tomb Kings, it would represent all of Nehekhara, not just one region such as Khemri.😉

9 hours ago, Mandzak-Miniatures said:

So I guess that scaled rumor pic is a zoat for bb..

=> My regular Seraphon opponent is afraid/excited it might be Exodites. He really wants new Seraphon, and would be bummed if the teases went another direction, but on the other hand, space elf dino-riders, as he puts it, would make him happy.

[PaniuBraniu]

As the new Death faction will probably be released around the same time as the new Underworlds starter, I think we have good reasons to believe, that it will be focused around the Katophranes. If so, we will have totally new approach toward death - POSTHUMANS instead of necromancy, ghosts and all that jazz. I think this is very in line with the whole AoS concept.

[Mungrun]

What would be the difference between Deahtrattle's lore and the new TK's army? (if finally happens) Aside from the aesthetic.

I think they are basically the same concept.

[Overread]

4 hours ago, Yokai said:

Hence the big push for specialist games like Warcry and Kill Team, which are much easier to get into.

Aye GW has awoken from the Kirby "no marketing" era into an age where a lot of traditional hobbies are dwindling. Mechanno, airfix, hornby,  model airplanes etc... a lot of those hobbies are running on old fans or are pretty much dead. Lego has weathered and managed to survive by twinning itself to major movie tie-ins; GW tried that and it burned them in the end, its just not a market they are built to tackle. 

There's also mobile phones, computer games, social media and a whole rafter of other hobbies to distract people today. 

So GW has emerged and realised that not only is the market much more complicated, much more full of competition outside of their hobby, but also within. Their one trump card is that in many regions Warhammer and GW is the gateway product into Wargaming (esp for fantasy and sci-fi). GW is lucky to be in such a powerful position, but at the same time it means they are the company it falls to do recruit new gamers. With many other companies just far too small to have the resources and groups like Privateer Press being more focused on the competitive and far less on recruitment; whilst big firms ilke Reaper are more about providing for the market than expanding the market. With all that it means GW is the one that has to get the kids in. To secure new generations so that they grow up to become loyal customers. Otherwise they'd run the risk that they could keep their mature market, but it would continually dwindle and before they know it they can wind up like some of the other hobby blocks; with very old core fans and a huge generation gap in their playerbase and a very big investment required to get back into the kids market once more - which often is almost beyond the company to afford unless they take a big investment from outside (which brings its own risks and issues )

 

A big part of that has been breaking their "Oh that's Warhammer its super expensive" image. Lots of cheap ways to get into the hobby and whilst things like Killteam and Skirmish have been around for a long time they were always minor parts of the main rules. Now that they are products of their own (at least killteam fully is) with marketing, a book and product boxes. With all that they are now much easier to entice new people in and also to get experienced players playing too. They also serve the mature market well when people have jobs and families and don't have 5 hours on a game night to game away; when they've only 1 maybe 2 hours. 

Another part is massive social media attention to the point GW has actually gone rather nuts and has content out almost every single day of the year. That's a huge marketing power push designed to keep attention on their products. It's also a good way to keep attention on enw releases, but also casually on older armies that might not see new things for a long time; but by GW keeping attention on them it stops them "being forgotten". GW's marketing on that front is insanely powerful now and they are putting out way more than most other companies even in other markets. 

Edited June 7, 2019 by Overread

[Overread]

3 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

Yes, but companies a fraction of GWs size manage to to do across the board updates to every model and faction in their games simultaneously. This also tends to lead to a more healthy and varied spread of forces. Really wish GW would abandon the "one at a time" approach.

True but that's often all they do - and its long been that balance is not GW's strong point. However GW does pair new battletomes to new model releases (right now you get spells and terrain pretty much every time). In addition GW has a lot more lore within their books - a lot of people are fans of the GW experience not because of the rules but because when they pick up a Slaanesh Battletome, over half the book is stories about them, lore, info about the models etc... Many other games you might get half a paragraph on a few models, a short one page on the faction (if you are lucky) and that's it. They tend to market models and rules (if they do much marketing) whilst the lore, whilst often developed, is rarely presented. 

[Thiagoma]

2 hours ago, Mungrun said:

What would be the difference between Deahtrattle's lore and the new TK's army? (if finally happens) Aside from the aesthetic.

I think they are basically the same concept.

Kinda. TKs undead were self aware. They retained their inteligence and knowledge.

The old models show that by having then doing diferent stuff like  riding charriots in formations and such. 

[Kugane]

I personally think having warhammer underworlds available online soon will draw in lots of new people that want to go to real life events alongside of playing online. Magic arena has pulled in many people into our LGS and revigorated that hobby. Funny enough magic arena also brought in more warhammer hobbyists as a result that decided to do both MTG and AOS/40k.

Then again cardgames and miniature gaming are two different beasts... considering 1 all you do is sleeve your cards for 10 minutes and the other you need to sacrifice a month of your life to even get the stuff painted xD.

Edited June 7, 2019 by Kugane

[Overread]

Aye underworld online - IF its good will do GW well, though GW has a lot of eh to meh grade games in their computer game market. 

 

Now something like Dawn of War series or Warhammer Total War - those are big top end top quality titles that draw in fans. Of course the TW team are working with old world, but I figure once they've done game 3 they will likely move on to AoS

[Dirtnaps]

4 hours ago, Mungrun said:

What would be the difference between Deahtrattle's lore and the new TK's army? (if finally happens) Aside from the aesthetic.

I think they are basically the same concept.

It depends on how they'll go about the lore of the new TK army really, they might not even be called TK but have the same feel or similar themes. WHFB wise the main thing that differentiated TK skellies from regular old skellies is that they were self aware and had a culture and civilisation. Now is that the same in AoS? Probably not, there has been a few self aware Deathrattle characters in the novels along with the Sepulchral Warden in Shadespire, ofcourse these might be the exception for one reason or another. There isn't really much to go off lore wise really, at least not yet anyways.

[the_master288]

On 6/1/2019 at 1:58 PM, VBS said:

It's now available:

https://www.blacklibrary.com/all-products/liber-chaotica-hb-2019.html

 

Preordered even if I never buy directly from GW (not keen on voluntary 20%+ rip-off), but I'll make an exception as I really want the book  

Did you receive your copy?  I got mine yesterday.

It's an absolutely beautiful book.

[RuneBrush]

7 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

Yes, but companies a fraction of GWs size manage to to do across the board updates to every model and faction in their games simultaneously. This also tends to lead to a more healthy and varied spread of forces. Really wish GW would abandon the "one at a time" approach.

What you're describing is exactly the same issue many companies get criticised for.  It's far easier to make a decision and implement it in a small company than the same decision in a larger company.  It's basically company logistics and the bigger the company the more difficult it is to implement things.

[michu]

Preview of June WD! This time we'll get not only Battalions for Fyreslayers but also rules for Bael-Grimnir and new Battleplan. And this month we're going to visit Ghur (so that means Hysh will be in July; eh, waiting again...).

And for 40k we will get rules for playing KT in Blackstone Fortress!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/06/07/white-dwarf-preview-junegw-homepage-post-2/

EDIT: And if someone haven't seen it yesterday - there will be a ZOAT BB STAR PLAYER!!! Converters - rejoice!

Edited June 7, 2019 by michu

[alghero81]

I still doubt the old allies of Nagash can be the Katophranes, not doubting they are coming, but they can’t be the same thing...

[Zanzou]

9 hours ago, AverageBoss said:

Yes, but companies a fraction of GWs size manage to to do across the board updates to every model and faction in their games simultaneously. This also tends to lead to a more healthy and varied spread of forces. Really wish GW would abandon the "one at a time" approach.

I agree. I can’t help but feel GW does the “one at a time” drip feed to try to get people to buy into more factions to be honest.  GW does however put a lot more into the battletomes than just rules, but that’s not an excuse to let the rules of certain factions fall off the planet for 50 years.

Big company or not, they need a team dedicated to timely cross-faction updates. Not just for whoever they decide is the flavour of the month. GW is picking up their release schedule, but yet another GHB is being released where slaves, dwarves, elves, free peoples are in a completely  neglected state, and even others like bonesplitterz and seraphon still need updates.

Hopefully they’ll fix that in the coming year, but I’m obviously still skeptical based off choices I’ve seen made.

Edited June 7, 2019 by Zanzou

[Thiagoma]

9 minutes ago, Zanzou said:

Big company or not, they need a team dedicated to timely cross-faction updates. Not just for whoever they decide is the flavour of the month. GW is picking up their release schedule, but yet another GHB is being released where slaves, dwarves, elves, free peoples are in a completely  neglected state, and even others like bonesplitterz and seraphon still need updates.

This is really bad. No excitment for the GHB considering my faction isnt really suported after years of AoS.

[Overread]

36 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

This is really bad. No excitment for the GHB considering my faction isnt really suported after years of AoS.

WE don't actually know the content of the GHB yet - rumours only. 

That said for armies like Slave to Darkness or Seraphon not being in the GHB makes a lot of GOOD sense because chances are they will get a battletome, endless spells and terrain in the next 6 months or so. 

 

Remember AoS started out with NO army support. No rules, no real warscrolls, no real focus. It then went through several big changes as well as a huge management change of CEO and focus at GW. In general I honestly say for all the yeares it has existed as "AoS" its worth only counting it since 2.0 lunched (or thereabouts since there were several 2.0 compatible tomes before 2.0 dropped) 

[Ogregut]

32 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

This is really bad. No excitment for the GHB considering my faction isnt really suported after years of AoS.

What faction is it? 

We don't know what's in the GHB yet and which factions will get stuff.

Also were only half way throughout the year and had 6 battletomes so far, with sylvaneth coming and at least 4 more to come. Compared to the release rate of any edition to warhammer this is awesome.

It sucks if your chosen army isn't one of those 11 but you will get your time.

I'm a huge dark elf fan, I've a massive army waiting to come out of retirement, along with a high elf, wood elf and slaves to darkness army but everyone's time will come, its just about being patient

[Acid_Nine]

1 hour ago, alghero81 said:

I still doubt the old allies of Nagash can be the Katophranes, not doubting they are coming, but they can’t be the same thing...

you know what? I'm almost thinking it's going to be Vlad Von Carstein reborn or something funky like that.

[Blueraven84]

This is why I collect other 12 factions or so, never a boring moment....

 

49 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

This is really bad. No excitment for the GHB considering my faction isnt really suported after years of AoS.

 

[Overread]

1 minute ago, Acid_Nine said:

you know what? I'm almost thinking it's going to be Vlad Von Carstein reborn or something funky like that.

I'd welcome GW fleshing out the vampires specifically. IT's kind of sad that right now the best and most bloody faction on the battlefield is Daughters of Khaine who have somewhat stolen the blood-soaked fire and theme. 

[Blueraven84]

1 minute ago, Acid_Nine said:

you know what? I'm almost thinking it's going to be Vlad Von Carstein reborn or something funky like that.

As much as I want vamps to get full support I have my doubts about this

[the_master288]

20 minutes ago, Overread said:

Remember AoS started out with NO army support. No rules, no real warscrolls, no real focus. It then went through several big changes as well as a huge management change of CEO and focus at GW. In general I honestly say for all the yeares it has existed as "AoS" its worth only counting it since 2.0 lunched (or thereabouts since there were several 2.0 compatible tomes before 2.0 dropped) 

It's funny you mention this because the only real reason we are seeing a resurgence of AoS is due to the fact that GW was forced to make massive changes to the company at a core level.  Only time will tell if they have truly changed permanently, or it was a desperate move by the company to save Warhammer Fantasy/AoS from being killed off completely by the shareholders in favor of focusing only on Lord of the Rings and Warhammer 40k.