The Rumour Thread

[Thiagoma]

17 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

My take away from the last few pages here is that my friend's newly-acquired, freshly painted Swifthawk Agents army is basically DOA. That's a shame, they are so much fun to play against and really just need a few minor tweaks to be really competitive.

Yup. Swifthawk will be losing Seaguard, High Warden, Reavers and Swordmasters probably going away as well. It is a shame, some really nice models.

[JPjr]

FEC 'lowdown' up

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/02/06/6th-feb-battletome-flesh-eater-courts-the-lowdowngw-homepage-post-3/

[Gecktron]

What is this? Feeding frenzy being useful?
I like it. This forces the player to decide between using CP to summon new units or to give a extra fight phase to existing units. 

[JackStreicher]

21 minutes ago, Gecktron said:

What is this? Feeding frenzy being useful?
I like it. This forces the player to decide between using CP to summon new units or to give a extra fight phase to existing units. 

Double combat ZD...ouch 

[Mutton]

It's funny that DoK also have that command ability, but you never end up using it because of the weird way most army builds work and how everyone has to be your general to get their benefits. I really hope they fix that in the next GHB. Oh you want an army of melusai? No command abilities for you.

[Televiper11]

54 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

Yup. Swifthawk will be losing Seaguard, High Warden, Reavers and Swordmasters probably going away as well. It is a shame, some really nice models.

They're beautiful all painted up, such a shame. At least he can play them in Open/Narrative.

[Laststand]

17 hours ago, Overread said:

Something honestly went wrong with Island of blood and you can tell Fantasy was really suffering with sales and support when GW releases a slew of new sculpts for 2 major factions and fails to ever release them after the combined boxed set. My betting is that Island of Blood sold really badly - or at least not enough to recoup the investment and make it viable to produces more moulds for the separate sprues. IT might also have been a huge mistake that they wound up on the same sprues as that totally broke the chance for GW to release separate boxed sets for each army. 

I think in the transition into AoS and all the madness that followed its just something that hasn't yet got back on the table. Thankfully Skaven are still in a strong position - High Elves though are in a really precarious position right now - actually the only Aelves we've got are Daughters of Khaine. That kind of hits home at how ina mess Aelves are right now. I figure we might well see them re-unite them or at least some; but its near impossible to tell what they will do and the current store page lists them all under one umbrella (that's bold if they try to do a single Aelf Battletome considering that high and dark aelves are vastly different in designs. 

What about idoneth deepkin and wanderers? They are elves.

[stato]

6 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

They're beautiful all painted up, such a shame. At least he can play them in Open/Narrative.

He might be being rather over pesemistic.  Its unlikely Elves will be redone before the GHB and we dont yet know if any unavailable models for Grots or Skaven will be removed from that anyway, so its likely youve got 6months minimum, probably 18months or more.

Edited February 6, 2019 by stato

[Televiper11]

1 minute ago, stato said:

He might be being rather over pesemistic.  Its unlikely Elves will be redone before the GHB and we dont yet know if any unavailable models for Grots or Skaven will be removed from that anyway, so its likely youve got 6months minimum, probably 18months or more.

That's good to hear. Would like to see him get them through a tourney or two before they're phased out. I'm happy playing Open so I'll be seeing them a lot but it is nice when people who never even consider Aelf factions scoff that SHA and then get whupped. 

[Enoby]

I'm kind of hoping for a Slaanesh release/tease at LVO. There's no real basis besides that DoK were revealed this time last year (and their main enemy is Slaanesh) and that there are more Slaanesh models confirmed to be in the works. I feel Slaves to Darkness will be later on, to give people a break from huge releases.   

[HollowHills]

13 minutes ago, Televiper11 said:

They're beautiful all painted up, such a shame. At least he can play them in Open/Narrative.

Swordmasters, the sad face resin ones, are still sold so should be safe. The archmage is also sold in a plastic kit and is a relatively popular choice for an ally in some lists. Both are safe for now. 

High warden and spireguard are in trouble, but they are only likely to go if 1) we get a new aelf soup book or 2) in GH19. 

If 1) just proxy them for something (dragon lord and phoenix guard maybe?) plus be happy you got a new book. 2) you still have until June at the earliest which is plenty of time to enjoy the army and think about your next painting project. 

So should be OK. 

[PJetski]

I love that they're putting Mount Traits in more armies

[Sleboda]

10 hours ago, Malin said:

The more you expect the more disappointed you can be.

Yep. Like they say in 40K, "hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."

Hope is a soul-crusher.

Better to be pleasantly surprised than have your hopes dashed.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Sleboda

[Skabnoze]

7 hours ago, Aryann said:

Brand new AoS factions seem more to focus around a theme/subject rather than race. Flying troops and airships, sea creatures and chaos gods treated seperetely for their theme - gore, magic, illness, seduction. 

Skaven are much more than just "rat people". Skyre faction fits the role of advanced tech. Moulder is a great material for mutants race like GSC in 40k. Eshin as pure assassin force. Pestilence is obvious. Especially the first two seem like an easy material for battletome and expansions. Leaving them and whole Skaven just with a battletome seems like a waste. 

I don't argue that you could mine Skaven, or any allegiance for that matter, into a whole lot of diverse potential battletomes.  The diversity within Skaven might be a bit more obvious than some other races/allegiances, but you can make the same argument for all of them.  The mortal realms are somewhat infinite in scope, most of these races are detailed as being spread across all of them, and a creative design team could take any faction and split it into numerous distinct sub factions.  

But honestly, I just don't see it happening.  To be realistic, if any battletome would be split into multiples rather than Voltron-ed back together (which seems to be what they are doing) then the most likely candidate by far would be Stormcast Eternals (I am not advocating for this to happen).  Honestly, I don't think that would be very healthy for the game either.  A smaller number of books is better in regards to potential balance and also for GW's ability to support those armies. 

This fast rate of development and release rate of both books and models for various armies is quite new for GW.  They have obviously ramped up their ability to develop multiple products compared to the past when you there was just a handful of releases per year and most armies waited 5 or more years between decent updates (in just about every game).  If they were to go bonkers and fully explore all aspects of each race/allegiance with a full book and model range then we would end up back in a state such as that where their production capacity simply cannot keep up with the growth.

I fully agree that GW could make a great full book and model range for every skaven clan.  I think they could have done the same for Gloomspite and made a Moonclan book, a Spiderfang book, and a Troggoth Book.  I think they could make a full book for each Stormcast chamber.  They could do some really interesting stuff by making a full book for every Deepkin enclave (I would expect that different oceans within different realms would have different creatures) or Sylvaneth Wargroves (nature has a staggering variety of form they could explore).  And while all of these things would be cool by themselves - what would the state of the game be if they did all of them as separate full releases?  We are already seeing factions released specifically for AoS that are stagnating somewhat due to how rapidly the game has changed since it's initial inception.  That situation would only get worse.

My opinion is that these combined allegiance books are a very good compromise.  They let GW explore a lot of ideas within a single force, maintain interesting sub-factions, but also condense the amount of books & models that they need to create.  I am sad to see that there won't be many new model kits for Skaven.  I hope that at some point GW will consider rescultping units outside of book-release windows.  But a combined Skaven book (regardless of how many model kits were released) always seemed to me like the best way for GW to release this army.  I can understand the desire for a full battletome for each clan.  I have that same desire for Goblins - but I personally don't think it is very realistic.

[Sleboda]

6 hours ago, Overread said:

back stabbing murder rats.

That should totally have been the name of the Skaven book.

[DantePQ]

1 hour ago, Mutton said:

It's funny that DoK also have that command ability, but you never end up using it because of the weird way most army builds work and how everyone has to be your general to get their benefits. I really hope they fix that in the next GHB. Oh you want an army of melusai? No command abilities for you.

Really ? Slaughter Queen gets her ability to work a lot of time for me and take note that it is really powerfull for an army like DoK as almost any unit that you will use it on hits like a truck. 

I'm taking Melusai build to Heat 1 and it's really good, and you can still take Blood Sisters in any Slaughter Queen build. 

[Skabnoze]

8 hours ago, Kramer said:

It;s weird how somebody can agree with you in such an opposing manner, haha 😂Read what I was replying to, and see that I agree that it's a good thing to keep it in one tome. Just not the argument that the power ranking of the chaos gods in the lore should have any influence on the discussions  

As to your comment about 'they don't seem to be an unique snowflake'  (with all the connotations of that phrase). Seem is the keyword there. GW controls the story, the background of each clan is unique enough and GW could easily expand on it if needed. In units with Pestilence and Skryre you have a bigger roster than Ironjaws for an extreme example. but compare it to AoS releases like DoK, ID, KO. DoK 15 scrolls, 6 boxes. ID, 16 scrolls 11 boxes. KO 12 sets. Pestilence currently has 7 sets and Skryre 12. With two unique playstyles in the grand Alliance. Add two multi purpose and your are easily equal to that.
If the differences in the your examples mean there is enough there for unique rosters and playstyles. Absolutely the game would be better with them as different factions, as they would function as different armies just share a root in the lore.

all in all, still like the umbrella tome but with a little effort it could have been separate tomes. Just like spider riders could have been a separate faction/tome with a little effort. (just an example closer to your heart I guess  )

Yeah, I understand your point about the power-levels of the various gods.  But, I am viewing it more from the point of view of the company fleshing out the model ranges within the grand alliance category system they created. 

GW seems to be driving AoS development in tandem with the story they are trying to tell for the Mortal Realms.  This is somewhat new compared to what they did in the past for 40k or Fantasy.  To your point, they very well could take a minor faction within the universe and make a ton of separate model ranges and army books for that faction.  That is precisely what they did for 40k with Space Marines.  Those are all very tiny forces when it comes to the galaxy at large (1000 guys per chapter - yet the Imperium spans pretty much the entire milky-way galaxy...).  If we went with the largest and most powerful forces got the most army books then probably 3/4+ of the codexes for 40k would be variations of Imperial Guard & Orks (if we go off the background).  So yeah, I get your point for that.

I probably did not express my thoughts well enough.  If GW makes 1 book for each chaos faction, but then makes 2-5 for Skaven, then Skaven would obviously overshadow the rest of the Grand Alliance.  I don't think they want that to happen.  The same thing goes for any faction really.  In addition, I think they need to consider the broader impact of how many books they add to the game and the sales impact of how they split up or consolidate any of the races/allegiances.  The more books they add to the game, the more complex the game state becomes, the harder it is to try to test and balance (lets ignore how successful they historically are at this), and the more resources it requires from them to properly support all of those armies with future releases.  I personally would prefer if the game consisted of a smaller number of umbrella books that could be refreshed every ~2 years than a very broad selection of books that lead them back to the 4-10 years between updates timeline we used to have.  But that is simply my opinion and preference.

And considering they are a business they most likely have to consider the sales impact of how narrow or broad they make any of these releases.  Could they have released a separate book and full model range for Moonclan & Spiderfang?  Sure they could have.  Can they make a full range for every Skaven clan?  Sure they can.  But what is the purchasing habits of the fans of those ranges and the broader audience appeal?  Is there a point where splitting the faction up effectively just cannibalizes sales of other sister ranges?  I expect that there probably is (I'm not sure where that threshold lies).  If they made the effort to create a full separate model line for every clan, and a full book, how much sales would that generate beyond simply creating a single tome that houses all of those clans?  Would it be enough to justify the additional development & production costs?  I don't know, but I expect that is something they have to consider. 

I do believe there is a point where they would simply fracture the Skaven (or any faction) player base and run into diminishing returns.  There are undoubtedly a few greedy rats people who would hoard collect all of it, such as @Skreech Verminking, but I don't expect they would be the majority.  It is probably better for GW's bottom line if they spread the updates out across a broader swathe of the playerbase than focus on a single niche.  The single niche focus that they did with 40k Space Marines for the last ~20 years has come back to bite them now and is probably the primary factor for the push to replace standard space marines with Primaris (they ran into a market saturation of their own making).

Edited February 6, 2019 by Skabnoze

[Overread]

One big bonus to teh way GW has started doing sub-armies within AoS is that they can add to it and take away from it and its only paperwork. They can take all the temples of Daughters of Khaine and close them and just have one army. With Marines they went the other way and made dedicated sub-armies; the problem is every one they add they have to keep around or risk losing players. 

That means its all good when marines are selling strong; but when they oversaturate and players start to shift away suddenly GW is left with a halfdozen chapters of models of which only a couple are actually selling in any good volume. 

 

 

[Thiagoma]

5 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

I probably did not express my thoughts well enough.  If GW makes 1 book for each chaos faction, but then makes 2-5 for Skaven, then Skaven would obviously overshadow the rest of the Grand Alliance.  I don't think they want that to happen.  The same thing goes for any faction really.  In addition, I think they need to consider the broader impact of how many books they add to the game and the sales impact of how they split up or consolidate any of the races/allegiances.  The more books they add to the game, the more complex the game state becomes, the harder it is to try to test and balance (lets ignore how successful they historically are at this), and the more resources it requires from them to properly support all of those armies with future releases.  I personally would prefer if the game consisted of a smaller number of umbrella books that could be refreshed every ~2 years than a very broad selection of books that lead them back to the 4-10 years between updates timeline we used to have.  But that is simply my opinion and preference.

Also, they could keep the microfactions inside the bigger factions. For example they may in the future release a few Moulder models for Skaven.  Skaven players rejoice, those who enjoy that special side of Skaven will be even more pleased, but you reach a greater audience.  Both groups of player can use those models.

[Overread]

2 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

Also, they could keep the microfactions inside the bigger factions. For example they may in the future release a few Moulder models for Skaven.  Skaven players rejoice, those who enjoy that special side of Skaven will be even more pleased, but you reach a greater audience.  Both groups of player can use those models.

This is a big bit esp when looking forward. 

AoS launched with the idea of having loads of small armies in Grand Alliances. I think GWs plan at the time was that that way they could release a bunch of models, sell them and then retire them and release something different. Continual new armies, continual new BIG releases with BIG Sales. Thing is that doesn't work for gamers. Gamers are long term customers and want support. Armies that get ignored fast fall into lack of sales and that means either dumping investment or investing even more to bring them back. If you have 5 skaven armies then you've got to update 5 skaven armies to keep your skaven players happy. If you've got one combined tome then you only need update skaven once to keep all potentially happy as they are not locked out. Plus with a single tome customers are more likely to go multi-clan over time; whilst with single tomes you've got more chance of ending up with more collecting single clans - that means you might end up with a load of pestilens players and then no one playing skyre suddenly! 

 

[Skabnoze]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

One big bonus to teh way GW has started doing sub-armies within AoS is that they can add to it and take away from it and its only paperwork. They can take all the temples of Daughters of Khaine and close them and just have one army. With Marines they went the other way and made dedicated sub-armies; the problem is every one they add they have to keep around or risk losing players. 

That means its all good when marines are selling strong; but when they oversaturate and players start to shift away suddenly GW is left with a halfdozen chapters of models of which only a couple are actually selling in any good volume. 

 

 

It is basically the problem that they created when they split Warhammer Fantasy factions into a ton of mini-factions for AoS on release and then also created entire new factions and model ranges.  They now appear to be working to reforge a lot of those micro-factions back up into broader groupings because the game was a difficult to support mess with the amount of fracturing that they did.  My feeling is that this consolidation is a very good thing and we should be careful about advocating that they effectively reverse course.  I understand everyone's desire to have their personal favorite forces have more attention and in-depth focus.  I'm right there with everyone.  If I had my way every grot and orc subfaction would have a full dedicated model range and army book.  I would then create more grot and orc armies such as steampunk grot sky-pirates.  But it is probably a good thing I am not in charge because I am not sure those actions would improve the long-term health of the game as a whole.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Skabnoze

[amysrevenge]

16 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

Also, they could keep the microfactions inside the bigger factions. For example they may in the future release a few Moulder models for Skaven.  Skaven players rejoice, those who enjoy that special side of Skaven will be even more pleased, but you reach a greater audience.  Both groups of player can use those models.

I think this worked especially well with the Gitz - Spiderfang and Moonclan still feel like completely distinct forces, within one tome.  You *can* mix them up in one list, but in general even though I have armies of both, I'm not really tempted to mix them up.

[Skabnoze]

3 minutes ago, Overread said:

This is a big bit esp when looking forward. 

AoS launched with the idea of having loads of small armies in Grand Alliances. I think GWs plan at the time was that that way they could release a bunch of models, sell them and then retire them and release something different. Continual new armies, continual new BIG releases with BIG Sales. Thing is that doesn't work for gamers. Gamers are long term customers and want support. 

I agree.

It is also helpful to consider that miniature games don't necessarily work like other games.  You can create a board game, or card game, and make the splash release cycle where you make new products and then discontinue them when you make a new splash release.  That is effectively how most collectible games work.  But we have never seen an effective collectible miniature game that still requires players to assemble & paint their miniatures.  Large wargames simply don't work like that.  There is a significant investment on the part of the player in buying, assembling, and painting their force that does not exist in games that effectively play straight out of the box.  Many of those games also have cheaper buy ins - at least for the broad playerbase (ignore high level competition). 

If Magic the Gathering stops selling a specific set and makes a whole new set it does not have a massive impact for the average customer.  They can buy the new stuff, or not, and keep playing.  Their old cards still work fine and they don't necessarily have to buy the new stuff.  But they could also play exclusively new stuff or mix new stuff in with the old.  The barrier to entry is low enough that if some customers are turned off by this sales mechanism it is still cheap enough to get new people to buy in.

Miniature games are much more expensive in terms of what it takes to get a standard army (a card deck is much cheaper).  They also require more work on the part of the player before they can be used.  If GW started a sales cycle of single-release armies they would likely cause a lot of their players to simply quit the game in favor of something else with longer-term support.  GW used a sales strategy like this with Specialist Games since the 90s and look at the life-span of those games.  They generally only flourish while they have active support and as soon as that support slows down they tend to die.

[Aeryenn]

@Skabnoze I can see your point but now you just fall overboard. It's not about releasing 5 ork factions and 10 elven factions. When there is a fine theme/subject GW can work on and create around it a new faction then it should IF we agree that so far this is how AoS developed. If somebody decided that Slayers and Witch Elves deserve their own faction then Skaven certainly deserve more than one combo faction. We see how distinct each clan is and don't need any creative team to flesh that out - clans are already pretty much ready. Few models here and there and you have independent and strongly themed factions. It doesn't necessarily have to canibalize each other - it can draw new people into the hobby if they see how rich and unique AoS is. There is probably a faction number that exceeding will give more bad than good. I don't know that number. Yet in my opinion if GW would turn back and now start conglomerating all the dwarfs together, all the elves together, all chaos gods together that would kill this game. We would end up with few messy alliances that would look like several drunk people meet and each throw his 5 cents into combo-faction. Model updates for that kind of factions would satisfy nobody. 

[Skreech Verminking]

26 minutes ago, Skabnoze said:

 There are undoubtedly a few greedy rats people who would hoard collect all of it, such as @Skreech Verminking, 

Greedy?

Im Just a simple terrifying Verminlord, who feels pity for all those left alone rats.

😉