The Rumour Thread

[MitGas]

I don't want to remove any faction but the reason I got some disdain for some factions is simple: they get too much stuff while others get nothing or not even half as much. It's simply not fair. Doesn't help that some of the IMO derpiest factions get so much stuff either but that's personal preference. It's not that they shouldn't get lots of new kits but when i look at factions like Skaven, BoC, Cities and Seraphon and then compare those to some others like LRL or SC, it feels pretty unfair. Same with say those half-armies we got (Ironjawz, Sylvaneth, FEC, Fyreslayers, Idoneth etc.) that feel like first waves and not like complete armies. Feels kinda unfair compared to the recent uber-releases of say LRL or Slaanesh now too. In their defense, the messed up release schedule made things seem worse than it is.

Oh and entirely subjective but AoS has too many Aelf factions now. I hope we're done after Malerion. And personally I hope that some get merged. Malerion and DoK for example. I'm sure some disagree but I find armies best when they got lots of options and don't look the same. Guess that's why I like Chaos.

[sandlemad]

1 hour ago, Raviv said:

They can't stretch a trailer to a 45 minutes preview. If the preview is dedicated to AoS 3, it's got to be more than that.

Maybe it's going to be a mixed preview with something for everyone, like most of the Saturday previews we've seen lately.

My guess is some info for TotalWarhammer3, combined with The Old World teaser.

Granted. I can see them doing a ‘review’ of everything to happen in AoS 2.0 to eat up twenty minutes but 45 minutes might be a stretch.

Could be best to think of the 40k 9th ed reveal around the same time last year to set expectations:https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/05/23/the-big-warhammer-40000-previewgw-homepage-post-1/

A video, some high level rules updates, news of an app, some waffle about playtesting, a handful of starter kit models revealed, and a teaser for a big centrepiece model. Doesn’t seem implausible to expect that amount of stuff on Saturday but probably not more and possibly less.

Edited May 5, 2021 by sandlemad

[MitGas]

3 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

I really hope that after Destruction and Duardin and other smaller Factions recieve their updates, that the next Chaos alligned Factions updated are not any of the big 4 but a relaunch of Skaven and BOC. Update all the resin and old metal minis from Skaven, update the Gors, Bullgors, Razorgor, Tuskgor Chariot...hell update almost the entire BOC range and make them a primal fury that we know them to be. Keep them Chaos.

I'd prefer for them to make a small wave for Tzeentch Mortals with our missing heroes and some Chosen equivalent before. Then the army would be complete and I won't need new stuff for the next 10 years.  I hope the rumour engine teases just that. 

Oh and a Chaos dragon... it doesn't get more Tzeentch than that.

[Aeryenn]

32 minutes ago, MitGas said:

I don't want to remove any faction but the reason I got some disdain for some factions is simple: they get too much stuff while others get nothing or not even half as much. It's simply not fair. Doesn't help that some of the IMO derpiest factions get so much stuff either but that's personal preference. It's not that they shouldn't get lots of new kits but when i look at factions like Skaven, BoC, Cities and Seraphon and then compare those to some others like LRL or SC, it feels pretty unfair. Same with say those half-armies we got (Ironjawz, Sylvaneth, FEC, Fyreslayers, Idoneth etc.) that feel like first waves and not like complete armies. Feels kinda unfair compared to the recent uber-releases of say LRL or Slaanesh now too. In their defense, the messed up release schedule made things seem worse than it is.

Oh and entirely subjective but AoS has too many Aelf factions now. I hope we're done after Malerion. And personally I hope that some get merged. Malerion and DoK for example. I'm sure some disagree but I find armies best when they got lots of options and don't look the same. Guess that's why I like Chaos.

I agree that they should step away from some factions and return to Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth, Ironjawz etc but PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE don't ever again merge any factions. It's basically a death sentence if we look at what happen to them. Take skaven. One of the most iconic Warhammer armies of all time. What did they receive after merging them? One model was it? What happened to Ironjawz? No new models. Cities? Ok, it's a bit different with them but it was one unit of witch hunters, correct? Basically dead in terms of new releases. If they do something similar let's say to Fyreslayers and all Dwarfs that's basically it. It should be called a crime against humanity. Develop factions on their OWN. It takes nothing more than goodwill. I can think of like 5 new sculpts for Ironjawz right away. Same with Fyreslayers. DON'T KILL CONCEPTS by merging them into armies with no real theme.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Aeryenn

[Ratboy genius]

1 minute ago, Aeryenn said:

I agree that they should step away from some factions and return to Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth, Ironjawz etc but PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE don't ever again merge any factions. It's basically a death sentence if we look at what happen to them. Take skaven. One of the most ivonic Warhammer armies all time. What did they receive after merging them? One model was it? What happened to Ironjawz? No new models. Cities? Ok, it's a bit different with them but it was one unit of witch hunters, correct? Basically dead in terms of new releases. If they do something similar let's say to Fyreslayers and all Dwarfs that's basically it. It should be called a crime against humanity. Develop factions on their OWN. It takes nothing more than goodwill. I can think of like 5 new sculpts for Ironjawz right away. Same with Fyreslayers. DON'T KILL CONCEPTS by merging them into armies with no real theme.

In skaven's case, their factions were never meant to be split-I don't think merging factions is a death sentence, I just think GW doesn't have plans for Skaven. Ironjawz you might be speaking too soon on that one, if rumors are to be believed

[RamsesIII]

3 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

I agree that they should step away from some factions and return to Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth, Ironjawz etc but PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE don't ever again merge any factions. It's basically a death sentence if we look at what happen to them. Take skaven. One of the most ivonic Warhammer armies all time. What did they receive after merging them? One model was it? What happened to Ironjawz? No new models. Cities? Ok, it's a bit different with them but it was one unit of witch hunters, correct? Basically dead in terms of new releases. If they do something similar let's say to Fyreslayers and all Dwarfs that's basically it. It should be called a crime against humanity. Develop factions on their OWN. It takes nothing more than goodwill. I can think of like 5 new sculpts for Ironjawz right away. Same with Fyreslayers. DON'T KILL CONCEPTS by merging them into armies with no real theme.

I'd argue that fyreslayers would need a turn in their aesthetic and premise to survive as their own army (nothing as extreme as combining two completely separate armies though). The slayer theme isn't bad, but I'd argue they're hurt a bit by the lack of variety in designs and colours.

[Feii]

21 minutes ago, Ratboy genius said:

popular(?) enough to get 2 big waves and some characters

the first big release was basically 2 flies one stone because they have upgraded the 40k slaanesh demons in one go. I just hope the hedonite mortals don't end up like the tzeentchian ones. 

[CommodoreCass]

They are so much concept to increase number of entries of Fyreslayers. Small magmadroth cavalry, Infantry with flamethrower, War machine, tank... They just need some love. Actually there are 0 Rumour or Rumour Engine that could be connected to Fyreslayers. 

[Ratboy genius]

1 minute ago, CommodoreCass said:

They are so much concept to increase number of entries of Fyreslayers. Small magmadroth cavalry, Infantry with flamethrower, War machine, tank... They just need some love. Actually there are 0 Rumour or Rumour Engine that could be connected to Fyreslayers. 

Other than Szeras, the entire necron refresh had 0 rumor engines, so that doesn't necessarily mean you're out of luck 

[Feii]

1 minute ago, CommodoreCass said:

They are so much concept to increase number of entries of Fyreslayers. Small magmadroth cavalry, Infantry with flamethrower, War machine, tank... They just need some love. Actually there are 0 Rumour or Rumour Engine that could be connected to Fyreslayers. 

from the lore perspective there is active Grungni, Grombrindal, Gotrek "not definitely Grimnir" Gurnisson. It's all coming together lore wise. (so many Gs [pun intended]) 

[Aeryenn]

10 minutes ago, RamsesIII said:

I'd argue that fyreslayers would need a turn in their aesthetic and premise to survive as their own army (nothing as extreme as combining two completely separate armies though). The slayer theme isn't bad, but I'd argue they're hurt a bit by the lack of variety in designs and colours.

Oh it's easy to be fixed. Just leave naked dwarfs in wave 2 and add more salamanders, fire/earth elemntals, some kind of runic priests unit, golems or underground creatures, tamers, riders. Dwarf/Magma hybrids.
With Ironjawz it was also easy. Wywern, Wyvern riders, shootin balista, catapults, archers, weird boyz, berserkers. It took me 60s to come up with these ideas. Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz don't really fit together. It's like teaming up paladins with cave man. Same goes with Fyreslayers and Dispossessed. Everything but short height and beards makes them different. Better develop one cool theme than force it together just because it's easier that way.

Edited May 5, 2021 by Aeryenn

[Feii]

2 minutes ago, Ratboy genius said:

Other than Szeras, the entire necron refresh had 0 rumor engines, so that doesn't necessarily mean you're out of luck 

Szeras had the flayed dude as the rumour engine but necrons had some interesting lore in the period before their prerelease (like the SK lore in a WD issue out of nowhere - wink wink WD was in the last one)

Not sure if Fyreslayer focused but I think dawi players will be getting something big within a year. Who can deal better with the green menace than them Not a dawi player but fingers crossed for them 

[Clan's Cynic]

1 hour ago, Bluesummers said:

Everyone mentions Whitefang, is this guy some insider of sorts? 😋

 

Whitefang is all and all are one in Whitefang (or at least people who visit TGA)

[Feii]

1 minute ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Whitefang is all and all are one in Whitefang (or at least people who visit TGA)

Whitefang: Ancestor God of Revelation 

[King Under the Mountain]

12 minutes ago, CommodoreCass said:

They are so much concept to increase number of entries of Fyreslayers. Small magmadroth cavalry, Infantry with flamethrower, War machine, tank... They just need some love. Actually there are 0 Rumour or Rumour Engine that could be connected to Fyreslayers. 

Fyreslayers were my first AOS Army because I loved Slayers in Fantasy.  I thought the combination of Slayers + Fire stuff was a cool idea and I really love the Magmadroth mount.

But after painting 40 of those half naked guys while staring enviously at all the other armies made me regret my decision.  Sailed the skys ever since. 

[Clan's Cynic]

35 minutes ago, RamsesIII said:

I'd argue that fyreslayers would need a turn in their aesthetic and premise to survive as their own army (nothing as extreme as combining two completely separate armies though). The slayer theme isn't bad, but I'd argue they're hurt a bit by the lack of variety in designs and colours.

I'd say the price is what did them in most. FEC aren't quite as extreme on the visual sameness front, but their diversity does just come down to Small Ghoul, Big Ghoul, Leader Ghoul, Dragon, as opposed to Naked Dwarf, Leader Dwarf on Magmadroth. The difference is you can start playing and build up a decently sized FEC army for a 'good' price (by GW standards). Even if you don't want to 'main' them, they're a decent side project for the cost. 

By contrast, Fyreslayers were the most expensive non-Primaris army until Lumineth in terms of characters and boxes. These days the cost probably wouldn't make much difference to people, but this was back when GW was at their lowest point and thus people were a lot less likely to buy literally anything for any asking price. Their characters now all being Direct Only for £20 each definitely doesn't help either.

Whilst Start Collecting box is a good one, the lack of any further discount box since - be that Battleforces, Broken Realms or Vs sets - has done nothing to encourage people buy them and especially not the Direct Only'ing of their characters. At least FEC you can just stack up Start Collecting(!)s, add in the new Broken Realms box and away you go. Meanwhile Fyreslayer advice thrown at people is usually, "Magmadroths are ****** bro, you need to spam at least 60 Hearthguard bro!" and then the Beardling sees that'll cost him £160 for the Hearthguard alone (at a discount) and promptly goes to play Kharadrons.

All the doomsaying about them being merged or even outright squat'ed (heh) doesn't help encourage people either. 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Clan's Cynic

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

27 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

Cities? Ok, it's a bit different with them but it was one unit of witch hunters, correct? Basically dead in terms of new releases.

A bit weird to single out Cities as a "dead faction".

Cities was released in October 2019. Since then, these factions have seen major releases:

• OBR
• Slaves to Darkness (start collecting)
• Sons of Behemat
• Lumineth
• Slaanesh
• Soulblight
• Maybe DoK, but not really.

Everything else was single models, like the Witch Hunters Cities are getting right now. So in what way are Cities meaningfully different in terms of new releases compared to the majority of armies?

At the same time, Cities have had rules supplements in three of the four Broken Realms books. Outside of straight new models, that makes them one of the most supported factions currently.

[Chikout]

13 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

I agree that they should step away from some factions and return to Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth, Ironjawz etc but PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE don't ever again merge any factions. It's basically a death sentence if we look at what happen to them. Take skaven. One of the most ivonic Warhammer armies all time. What did they receive after merging them? One model was it? What happened to Ironjawz? No new models. Cities? Ok, it's a bit different with them but it was one unit of witch hunters, correct? Basically dead in terms of new releases. If they do something similar let's say to Fyreslayers and all Dwarfs that's basically it. It should be called a crime against humanity. Develop factions on their OWN. It takes nothing more than goodwill. I can think of like 5 new sculpts for Ironjawz right away. Same with Fyreslayers. DON'T KILL CONCEPTS by merging them into armies with no real theme.

Correlation doesn't equal causation. I think a lot of people are a touch short-sighted when it comes to future releases. In terms of meaningful waves of minis the maximum they've done for AoS is 6 per year. That means a minimum of 4 years to do every faction. 

 I think a more likely scenario is that gw looked at their upcoming slate of releases, realized that ironjawz and bonesplittas weren't scheduled  to get anything for a while and decided to release a combined book. The overriding impetus of second edition was to give every faction a book. Now that they have successfully done that they can re-examine the range.

The combination of bonesplittas and ironjawz gave both factions and the combined big waagh a new lease of life on the competitive scene despite the lack of new minis. 

Look at legions of Nagash. Gw created a combined book but then over the course of three new books gradually split everything out again. I have a feeling we might see a similar thing with destruction in the next few years. 

 

Unfortunately I think fyreslayers might be at the back of the queue when it comes to new releases. They are officially AoS's least popular faction after all. A combined book might save them from being canned. 

[baiardo]

The solution could be a discount big boxes for everyone when faction A vs faction B is released.

 

Edited May 5, 2021 by baiardo

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Look at legions of Nagash. Gw created a combined book but then over the course of three new books gradually split everything out again. I have a feeling we might see a similar thing with destruction in the next few years. 

Really good point. It's good to remember that writing rules is cheap and easy, while making models is expensive and hard. During the Great Battletome Rush of 2019, I think it was GWs priority to make all models playable with real, non-generic rules. This was a substantial change of direction from the AoS 1 days, during which all the factions were originally split up, and as a consequence it made sense to recombine at least some armies to give them enough tools to be playable.

Now, with AoS 3 in the works, the situation is different yet again. It might make sense to now un-soup some previously souped factions again, if GW can commit to actually expanding their model lines enough to stand on their own. The only problem here is with people who went in for a combined force and are no longer able to field all their models together. But that blow can be softened by just introducing 1-in-4 subfactions to newer battletomes.

[PJetski]

12 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Unfortunately I think fyreslayers might be at the back of the queue when it comes to new releases. They are officially AoS's least popular faction after all. A combined book might save them from being canned. 

Where are you seeing faction sales? 

What's the threshold for "being canned"?

[ian0delond]

58 minutes ago, Aeryenn said:

I agree that they should step away from some factions and return to Fyreslayers, Sylvaneth, Ironjawz etc but PLEASE, PRETTY PLEASE don't ever again merge any factions. It's basically a death sentence if we look at what happen to them. Take skaven. One of the most iconic Warhammer armies of all time. What did they receive after merging them? One model was it? What happened to Ironjawz? No new models. Cities? Ok, it's a bit different with them but it was one unit of witch hunters, correct? Basically dead in terms of new releases. If they do something similar let's say to Fyreslayers and all Dwarfs that's basically it. It should be called a crime against humanity. Develop factions on their OWN. It takes nothing more than goodwill. I can think of like 5 new sculpts for Ironjawz right away. Same with Fyreslayers. DON'T KILL CONCEPTS by merging them into armies with no real theme.

Yeah sure because merging Moonclan, Spiderfang and Troggoth into Gloomspite Gitz was a death sentence for them too.

[Chikout]

6 minutes ago, PJetski said:

Where are you seeing faction sales? 

What's the threshold for "being canned"?

No sales data but there have been two different polls by a user on tga and by Warhammer weekly that ranked fyreslayers as the least popular faction. They are also one of the least represented factions in competitive play despite having very strong rules. I've no idea what the threshold for canned is. Historically it's something gw has been very reluctant to do.

[Acrozatarim]

Honestly, I'd like to see more merging, along with better interplay between factions that are merged so it's not just saving battletome space. Stick Fyreslayers in a combined 'Duardin Cults' book with followers of Grungni and Valaya, and make it so a mixed force of all three is actually a competitive and functional army rather than 'I guess you can take some guys not of your subtype if you really want, but no fun synergies for you!'

[Clan's Cynic]

3 minutes ago, Chikout said:

I've no idea what the threshold for canned is. Historically it's something gw has been very reluctant to do.

It's only five years ago they killed one of their three flagship games and since regularly carved away large chunks of peoples collections (A lot of stuff was binned going into CoS despite being useable in AoS for years). I don't know if I'd call GW reluctant.

I still don't think Fyreslayers will be merged or squat'ed - all they need is a few models that aren't Naked Dwarf and they'd probably see a sizeable increase to their popularity - but I can't blame people for eyeing them nervously. 

Edited May 5, 2021 by Clan's Cynic