The Rumour Thread

[Ejecutor]

Quote

The General’s Handbook 2024-25 found in the impending launch box comes in a card format

That's interesting. I wonder if this card's format will be kept or if the following General's Handbooks will be shorter.

[KingBrodd]

13 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

I see Silent People as almost impossible to come, and kinda unfair if they do. We know Chorfs are coming after Chorfs presumably Malerion at either the end of the ed or the beginning of the 5th edition. If any other faction comes before Malerion the poor guy will be a walking meme for AoS.

I dont doubt Malerions coming. I also dont think the Silent People will be a full faction. More likely a Warcry or Underworlds Warband.

I also think Malerion and DOK will come together as one. Im no fan of soup but that faction, to me, needs souping.

[JackStreicher]

1 hour ago, Ferban said:

Oof.  This reminds me of the "Hunter and Hunted" battle scroll where they straight up just gave extra points to the low performing armies.  Yes, maybe this meant they got more points and won more.  But it didn't address the substantive reasons for the low performance.  Rather than look at addressing warscrolls, battle traits, and the like - the things that would make the army play better and be more enjoyable - they simply tacked on a few extra points to artificially skew the win rates.  Even while the army had the same underlying struggle.  

I would much rather see balance applied to armies and units directly rather than simply tossing a few extra points (in the form of easy tactics) on low performers to artificially boost numbers. 

That’s what I mean by BTs warping AoS. All of third hasn’t really been about the models or the battles. BTs are what the whole game is about, there’s zero immersion left.

 

 There‘s so much potential how BTs and terrain could be woven into the gane:

BTs: granting a buff for performing something flavorful (a ritual?)

Terrain: Fighting over terrain to control the battlefield instead of objectives. Terrain granting buffs in addition to Victory points.

instead it’s just a layer of abstraction, a side game besides AoS that has little to do with AoS as a whole.

Edited April 24 by JackStreicher

[Landohammer]

3 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

Forcing people to play suboptimally, or bring bad units, to score points is just taxing victory. You go from playing with 2000 points, to playing with 1600 points and 400 points of junk to score points. Just shrink the armies at that point. Honestly having BTs being stuff you want to do anyways isn't even bad design, it forces you to communicate a plan to your opponent, which lets them burn what resources they can to try to deny it. The system might be better that way, it would certainly fix the narrative issues.

Ok so keep in mind that we had 8 editions of Warhammer Fantasy and 2 editions of sigmar where battle tactics weren't really a thing. What we learned from those editions is that if you make a game solely about killing power, lists become homogenized as the most lethal/survivable units become clear and the rest of the units fall to the wayside. An "ideal list" becomes obvious quite quickly. Its why we have objectives and secondaries now. 

The BT system is meant to reward preparation and strategy in addition to raw killing power. You can argue that the secondary system is not good, but arguing that secondaries themselves are bad for the game is a bold argument and goes against like 20+ years of game development. 

I have played game systems where you just push forward and fight and whoever gets the most kills wins. That's essentially what TOW is now (with a bit more nuisance of course).  But IMHO its not what AOS is meant to be. 

 

[Ejecutor]

21 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

I dont doubt Malerions coming. I also dont think the Silent People will be a full faction. More likely a Warcry or Underworlds Warband.

I also think Malerion and DOK will come together as one. Im no fan of soup but that faction, to me, needs souping.

To me the key to know if Malerion is coming or not is how DoK are treated during this edition. It is pretty likely a top 3 armies in terms of needing a release. If it is only receiving its classic hero, then Malerion is coming. If it receives something else I see complicate that we will see Malerion early 5th edition as I agree, Malerion and DoK will be one.

[JackStreicher]

7 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Ok so keep in mind that we had 8 editions of Warhammer Fantasy and 2 editions of sigmar where battle tactics weren't really a thing. What we learned from those editions is that if you make a game solely about killing power, lists become homogenized as the most lethal/survivable units become clear and the rest of the units fall to the wayside. An "ideal list" becomes obvious quite quickly. Its why we have objectives and secondaries now. 

The BT system is meant to reward preparation and strategy in addition to raw killing power. You can argue that the secondary system is not good, but arguing that secondaries themselves are bad for the game is a bold argument and goes against like 20+ years of game development. 

I have played game systems where you just push forward and fight and whoever gets the most kills wins. That's essentially what TOW is now (with a bit more nuisance of course).  But IMHO its not what AOS is meant to be. 

 

BTs are arguably (imo) a bad way to implement secondary scoring into the game. There’s better ways to get secondary scoring. 
I don’t like winning based on kills either, a mix is needed.

BTs feel like playing  Yu-Gi-Oh with one hand while the other is playing AoS, yet for some reason the Yu-Gi-Oh game is more important.

Edited April 24 by JackStreicher

[ScionOfOssia]

My major issue with BTs is that once the season is over, you’re bringing an army who was balanced for the last GHB into something which needs to be balanced in a different manner (Hello Null Myriad nerf due to it being such an intensely wizard-focused season) and for some, that’s praying you get battle tactics that are reasonable for you (If Andtor vanished, I can guarantee you that the OBR winrate would probably drop by at least 5-7% unless Monstrous Infantry was the next theme). 

I hope future GHBs spread BTs out so there’s some that aren’t locked to the GHB’s gimmick, even if they’re a bit harder. 

[Landohammer]

8 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

BTs are arguably (imo) a bad way to implement secondary scoring into the game. There’s better ways to get secondary scoring. 
I don’t like winning based on kills either, a mix is needed.

BTs feel like playing  Yu-Gi-Oh with one hand while the other is playing AoS, yet for some reason the Yu-Gi-Oh game is more important.

Ok I can at least understand that argument. I feel like saying "hey we can do better with BTs" is a lot more reasonable of an argument than "secondaries just need to go". Those arguments are just crazy town to me. 

Personally I prefer battle tactics that require you to actually engage with your opponent. Magical Dominance, Intimidate Invaders, and Surround and Destroy are the worse offenders. They reward avoiding interaction with your opponents models.

Into the Maelstrom, Bait and Trap and maybe Reprisal are better in terms of gameplay because they actually require you to commit, sacrifice, or risk units and have active counterplay. 

[AquaRegis]

57 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

I see Silent People as almost impossible to come, and kinda unfair if they do. We know Chorfs are coming after Chorfs presumably Malerion at either the end of the ed or the beginning of the 5th edition. If any other faction comes before Malerion the poor guy will be a walking meme for AoS.

Silent People were never going to be a releash of any kind imo. They were always background fluff to add some depth to the lore like the fish people in WHFB were. 

Chorfs i reckon will be next year as a big army release, and Malerion will probaly come as a revamped edition to DOK around the same time Tyrion and the rest of the Lumieth will appear, as the contuination of the WHFB rivalry has been hinted at strongly in aos. 

[Peacaf]

41 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Ok so keep in mind that we had 8 editions of Warhammer Fantasy and 2 editions of sigmar where battle tactics weren't really a thing. What we learned from those editions is that if you make a game solely about killing power, lists become homogenized as the most lethal/survivable units become clear and the rest of the units fall to the wayside. An "ideal list" becomes obvious quite quickly. Its why we have objectives and secondaries now. 

The BT system is meant to reward preparation and strategy in addition to raw killing power. You can argue that the secondary system is not good, but arguing that secondaries themselves are bad for the game is a bold argument and goes against like 20+ years of game development. 

I have played game systems where you just push forward and fight and whoever gets the most kills wins. That's essentially what TOW is now (with a bit more nuisance of course).  But IMHO its not what AOS is meant to be. 

 

Units that have been used to protect from fire or to redirect charges have been played for years in Fantasy.

Or has no one seen a skaven player with 150-200 slaves?

In AoS 4.0 we will probably have units with more defined roles and that seems correct to me.

[Augusto]

So what are we expecting for gloomspite gitz new expansion? besides armored troggoths and gitmob hero or chariot

[Ganigumo]

22 minutes ago, Landohammer said:

Ok so keep in mind that we had 8 editions of Warhammer Fantasy and 2 editions of sigmar where battle tactics weren't really a thing. What we learned from those editions is that if you make a game solely about killing power, lists become homogenized as the most lethal/survivable units become clear and the rest of the units fall to the wayside. An "ideal list" becomes obvious quite quickly. Its why we have objectives and secondaries now. 

The BT system is meant to reward preparation and strategy in addition to raw killing power. You can argue that the secondary system is not good, but arguing that secondaries themselves are bad for the game is a bold argument and goes against like 20+ years of game development. 

I have played game systems where you just push forward and fight and whoever gets the most kills wins. That's essentially what TOW is now (with a bit more nuisance of course).  But IMHO its not what AOS is meant to be. 

 

I'm not arguing that secondaries are bad. I'm arguing that the current system isn't great, and any system that rewards you for doing stuff tangential to the primary game is going to feel weird and out of place especially if you care about the narrative of a battle. Plus they become busywork if you can solve them(skill ceiling), so its just playing the old game with extra steps. I'd be a lot more forgiving of the skill ceiling if the system was less complex, and somewhat more forgiving of the complexity if the skill ceiling was higher. 

Seasonal rules, and balance updates can play just as big a role in pushing people to play certain units as specialized battle tactics, and we still get those "ideal lists" anyways, the only difference is that the heavy handedness of the seasons would kill them faster than we're used to.

A lot of problems stem from BTs trying to be battleplan agnostic too. I'd be quite happy if secondary scoring got built into the battleplans. Where sometimes you could have kill points,  sometimes something close to BTs, etc. In that way having a variation on secondaries would both make games feel less "samey" and encourage diverse lists since you need to be able to adapt to the different secondary systems.

You could maybe fix the current system with incredibly tight BT writing and strict unified design constraints on them, but I'm not sure its worth it. I haven't played much 40k 10th, and i'm not a huge fan of how it handles secondaries, but at least it knows what its trying to do with them. Take consistent ones you can achieve (safe), gamble on random with more potential for points (risky), and gambits as the super risky comeback mechanic where you give up on the primary.

[Ganigumo]

Just now, Augusto said:

So what are we expecting for gloomspite gitz new expansion? besides armored troggoths and gitmob hero or chariot

new grots and spiders, after that the moon's the limit.

[HCMistborn]

All I am getting from these rumors is my best bet for Dorfs is either the Chaos kind of the Old World kind.

[Ejecutor]

20 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

new grots and spiders, after that the moon's the limit.

new grots and spiders, after that the bad moon's the limit.

[novakai]

3 hours ago, Augusto said:

So what are we expecting for gloomspite gitz new expansion? besides armored troggoths and gitmob hero or chariot

They did tease a new species called a Supharbreath Troggoth in a white dwarf one time. 
 

while I don’t know what to expect for Gitz in 4th, they do have a lot of room to expand upon despite being a pretty big range already. Update Spiderfang, more Moonclan grot knight like Grimkrak’s court, plastic version of their old forgeworld kits like the Hag and Squig Gobbla, or expand Gitmob.

Edited April 25 by novakai

[Gitzdee]

2 hours ago, Ejecutor said:

That Spider Incarnate is going to appear sooner or later in one form or another purely for prestige. Imagine they don't release it and in seven years it is there still pending as RE. It is not good for them.

I could see them removing the article and just pretend like it never existed if need be. It wont be the first time they would do something like that. We are like the 0.01% of the playerbase that would actually notice.

[Ejecutor]

2 minutes ago, Gitzdee said:

I could see them removing the article and just pretend like it never existed if need be. It wont be the first time they would do something like that. We are like the 0.01% of the playerbase that would actually notice.

The Rumour Engines site is like the Book of Grudges. Once there, there's only one way to be removed!

** Side note: I know Warboss Kurdan uploads his pics to his blog, so even if they would do that the image won't be lost. I use the link to the Warcom images to quickly load them, but I also have them downloaded as a fallback. So it will be an even bigger shame, as the image will always be around.

[Gitzdee]

1 hour ago, Augusto said:

So what are we expecting for gloomspite gitz new expansion? besides armored troggoths and gitmob hero or chariot

 

18 minutes ago, novakai said:

They did tease a new species called a Supharbreath Troggoth in a white dwarf one time. 
 

while I don’t know what to expect for Gitz in 4th, they do have a lot of room to expand upon despite being a pretty big range already. Update Spiderfang, more Moonclan grot knight like ‘s court, plastic version of their old forgeworld kits like the Hag and Squig Gobbla, or expand Gitmob.

Solid guesses. I could add a few things.

Sourbreath Troggoths, are in legends at the moment but could be revived into Gitmob in addition to the armoured Troggoths.

Grotbag Scuttlers, at the moment only background fluff. But sky pirate gitz vs flying Skaven vs Kharadron Overlords would be pretty epic.

We also got a Skragrott lore piece recently that declared war against the Skaven. Maybe moonclan could be getting some vehicles like a pumpwagon or a shroomchucka/ bombshroom catapult. Also still need batsquig cav in my life or just a few other type of squigs that got introduced with Mollogs Mob.

Edited April 24 by Gitzdee

[KingBrodd]

1 hour ago, Ejecutor said:

To me the key to know if Malerion is coming or not is how DoK are treated during this edition. It is pretty likely a top 3 armies in terms of needing a release. If it is only receiving its classic hero, then Malerion is coming. If it receives something else I see complicate that we will see Malerion early 5th edition as I agree, Malerion and DoK will be one.

Id day Top 3 Armies in need of a release are;

Fyreslayers.

Idoneth.

Ogor Mawtribes.

[Gitzdee]

1 minute ago, KingBrodd said:

Id day Top 3 Armies in need of a release are;

Fyreslayers.

Idoneth.

Ogor Mawtribes.

I think SCE are in need of releases. The poor souls lost about half their army. And to make it even worse, they cant even keep their souls anymore!

[bethebee]

1 hour ago, Augusto said:

So what are we expecting for gloomspite gitz new expansion? besides armored troggoths and gitmob hero or chariot

i think it could go 3 ways. 

1. is a general army expansion.  maybe a new trogg, new stabbas, an armored grot knight unit.
2. is increase the gitmob stuff.  more wolves and plains grots, give them a hero and a chariot.
3. is a spider refresh/expansion to make them fit into the army better.

i think 2 is the most likely personally but i also would like it the least; GSG is one of the most thematically rich and congruent armies in the game (even with Spiderfang) and i think that the Gitmob stuff sticks out like a sore thumb.  it's not bad, but i'd so much prefer if it was just it's own army without being forced to cross-pollinate with a completed army.  1 would be nice; GSG doesn't really need this but i mean i'll take it.  3 would be ideal, both by replacing old models but also working out the last few kinks in the army's aesthetic and really expanding on the insect theme of GSG which i think is wildly under-utilized.

Edited April 24 by bethebee

[Chikout]

I went back and listened again to the Warhammer weekly episode about battle tactics and read a few Reddit posts about it. The most surprising thing I saw was that it was mostly new players defending the system. As a long term but relatively inexperienced player it's the sequencing that I find problematic as the phases got broken up into more and more pieces. Choosing battle tactics to go for is a minor issue. 

The real problem are the lack of counterplay and the inequality of the book battle tactics. The easiest mitigating solution is to remove book battle tactics and to ensure that the core battle tactics they have all have some kind of counterplay that lets the opponent have the chance to deny them. 

There is potential in the system, it's just that the first stab at implementing it was poor. I'm sure they've been bombarded with emails and comments. I'd be very surprised if the design team didn't watch the Warhammer weekly show about battle tactics. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now especially as everything else they've previewed so far looks pretty good. Of course it's entirely possible that if they are bad, the community just ignores them. We did that with the old scenery rules after all. 

Edited April 25 by Chikout

[Grunbag]

With spearhead coming at launch and require a spearhead or vanguard box to play , we can expect an ironjawz box before V4 right ?

[Hollow]

I played a "final game" of AoS 3 the other day. We met at 6 (chatted, went over lists, set up etc) and the game officially started at 7. The game concluded at about 9:30. (We stopped for around 10 mins for smoke, snack, bathroom break) Once finished we packed up and he left at about 10:30. 

So even though the game ran pretty smoothly between 2 people who knew their lists, that is a pretty big chunk of time. 

Edited April 25 by Hollow