The Rumour Thread

[Aeryenn]

16 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

I would always take anything like this with a large pinch of salt, I've lost count of the number of times I've heard or been told "no idea" for it to appear within the next year.  GW staff are super careful about admitting anything coming out before it's been released.

It's highly unlikely GW will release new units *just* after bringing new battletome and even more unlikely Fyreslayers will receive next battletome in a year or two. Not popular enough. 

I would love GW to seperate model releases from battletomes but so far there are no signs of that.

[Kaleb Daark]

48 minutes ago, Austin said:

I guess the overall point I am making about old bad GW is that they are clearly still terrified about the Chapterhouse court case and refuse to create new units in battletomes without models. 

I'd like to see however more of an approach like they did with the Grey Knights Grandmaster Dreadknight, where they took one model, bashed it with another and hey presto - new rules but with existing models.

For instance, a slaughterpriest of khorne on  warshrine, replacing the shrine master, or darkoath warqueen or chaos lord on mammoth for instance.

or a character on a dragon / chimera / mammoth / beachball.  Its no real cost for the mothership with new investment but would add a different lease of life or angle on some models, and just keeps things simple as well.

[Gecktron]

1 minute ago, Kaleb Daark said:

I'd like to see however more of an approach like they did with the Grey Knights Grandmaster Dreadknight, where they took one model, bashed it with another and hey presto - new rules but with existing models.

They did that excessively around the time the first Generals Handbook dropped. The Flesh-Eater courts got the Ghoul King on Zombie Dragon, Crypt Flayers and all the different Courtiers besides the Varghulf. Same goes for the mounted BCR Ogors and a few units for the Bonesplitter Orruks. 

[Overread]

37 minutes ago, RuneBrush said:

I would always take anything like this with a large pinch of salt, I've lost count of the number of times I've heard or been told "no idea" for it to appear within the next year.  GW staff are super careful about admitting anything coming out before it's been released.

Aye if its not in a formal press release they basically can't and won't say anything. Furthermore don't forget that GW is heavily internally compartmentalized to further cut down on possible leaks. So if the staff member you ask isn't directly involved in the early stages then they might not even have a clue and are only able to surmise based upon what they've heard around the office. The new models could be around the next corner, but if that staffer is in the wrong department they just won't be aware of it till later. 

I do sometimes wonder if letting their design studio lead on many things does result in gaps that management might prefer filled - ergo no one on the team wants to make a Fyreslayer so we get an unnaturally long gap - but we've only ever had rough ideas how this area of GW really works (we've net to snare one of the design team online in the forums ;))

[Nos]

1 hour ago, Aryann said:

I am just referring to community feedback and exaggerate intentionally.

It's a viciouc circle with Stormcasts. They sel well because they have great, constant support with models and books and they receive new models because they sell well. I am absolutely sure that the same case would be with pretty any other army if it received same support, name it Ironajwz or Idoneth. If they got original and cool new minis every year they would have been as popular as Stormcasts.

When they leave Fyreslayers unsopported with minis they will be unsupported by clients' purchases.  The message I received from GW about Fyreslayers from Adepticon: No new minis until maybe AoS v.3.0. Maybe never if they remain unpopular.

I'm not really convinced with the price argument. We all know how costly this hobby is. Whenever I start a new army I am aware it will take 1100-1300 PLN for me to gather 2k army. It makes really no difference for me to spend additional 200-300 PLN for a more expensive Fyreslayer models to reach 2k points. I spend like 2500-3000 PLN a year on AoS so 5-15% more spendings is not the case. As for me it's the monotony of Fyreslayers and the neccesity to paint multiple multiple *same* models. It's just boring.

People often refer to the Stormcast as the AOS posterboys, and they are, but this serves a purpose.

Every story needs a protagonist, every product needs a visual aid. Stormcast serve as both.

 

Sigmar and his Stormcast are the principle anchor that keeps all of the rest of the Mortal Realms together, just as the Empire was in Warhammer. It provides a centre from which to understand everything and holds everything together. The story of Sigmar is very relatable Western pagan myth; Zeus/Odin, chief of the Gods try to keep disparate personalities together and survive their scheming while watching over/judging free people. Most epics also have a human protagonist doing the same; Ned Stark in GOT, Gandalf in LOTR etc.

 

If the centre of AOS was Teclis or Gorkamorka or any other deity other than Sigmar, it wouldn't work, because it would be too much work to make those non-human characters relatable. Teclis or Morathi wouldn't be able to be themselves if they were the focus of most of the fiction because they would either have to becone more human and sympathetic and thus lose their personality, or their alien nature would be too off-putting and complicated for the majority of the audience to go along with them as the centre of anything. 

 

The Stormcast are Sigmar's manifestation, so in a game where he is the lead they're going to crop up very frequently. The Stormcast themselves are designed to be an easy archetype to elaborate on because they're principally a means to tell the story while being relatable. You have Stormcast roman legions, Stormcast riding dragons, Stormcast wizards, Stormcast with dog birds, Stormcast medieval warrior monks, Stormcast scouts, all in the same army, all recognisably different while being the same. They reflect the diversity and fantasy of the Mortal Realms in a way you couldn't communicate with any other faction while still being recognisably what they are. Basically because they're Human and we understand how Human cultures work. 

 

As the Mortal Realms are fleshed out the SC will always be there to help illustrate its character. It's easy to imagine an aesthetic for pretty much any environment or context for the Stormcast to fit in, because they can borrow from pretty much any human civilization in history or in fiction and people will read the shorthand. 

 

Much harder to do that with fantasy races, because the second they depart from their fantasy context people get thrown. Most peoplec want orcs to be orcy, elves to be aloof and secluded , dwarves to live in mountains or be obsessed with gold and craftmanship etc. Not everyone of course, myself included. But if you're building a fantasy IP ignoring the expectations of the overwhelming majority of your audience is folly. There are multiple fantasy liscenses, books, games etc that have tried to focus on a non-human protagonist. By Games Workshop’s standards all of them would have been a crushing failure.

 

On top of all that, SC hit the hobby sweet spot of being easy to paint to a basic degree for beginners while still providing a canvas for expert painters, being easy to learn but difficult to master on the tabletop, of looking great in a unit of 5 or a unit if 20 meaning you don't need millions of them etc.

 

Theres a lot more to it than "They just sell because they're supported better". GW didn’t just pick a random number out of a hat and go “yeah those will be our guys”. They designed a faction specifically to communicate what AOS is as a product and as a fiction. AOS success is in a large part due to how well the Stormcast communicate this. 

 

You can always make the argument that whoever the posterboys are will sell best, but it would take far more work to make that Idoneth or Undead or anyone else who isn't essentially human. And now that Stormcast have so effectively established themselves as a successful ambassador for AOS as a product and a fiction, that's not going to change. 

Edited March 29, 2019 by Nos

[Skreech Verminking]

Just came in and am really wondering if I’ve mistaken this forum for the Stormcast one.

Ah so were talking about the protagonist of the aos range.

well I’m with @Nos on this one although I got the feeling that the focus on the Stormcast factions has been loosened a bit and seems to go more into all of the factions rather then focusing on almost only Stormcast and blades of khorne.

Having some kind of a central point is just sometimes needed, in this case we have the poster-things.

Just sometimes we also have to remeber that a story can get a bit sout if you only focus on that one point and just forget the rest, which more or less happened at the beginning.

I mean nobody really likes the idea of somebody or in this case a specific faction to get everything and beeing updated every year, when another armie still sticks in the age of having been forgotten.

Anyways back to the rumors and other kind of sweet nonsense kind of talk.

5 minutes ago, xking said:

Does anyone know what this is? 

 

Endless spell Maybe???

Terrain Feature for armies who still don’t have one??😅🥶

Or just terrain which looks cool on the table?

or maybe a trap for poster-things, made by the Skavenrace to kill-slay this guys😀.

(I have basically no glue)

 

[JPjr]

@xking, @Skreech Verminking

 

 

[Sleboda]

16 hours ago, Austin said:

... they are clearly still terrified about the Chapterhouse court case (1) and refuse to create new units in battletomes without models.  This is really the problem especially when they (allegedly) have production issues (2) ...

If GW said, hey- in four/five/seven months we are releasing a Seraphon battletome and along with that there will be X models.  Ok awesome.  Guess what I won't be doing, buying the not Seraphon alternatives (3)

It's interesting that you take one thing that is not a fact at all and frame it as such (1) while a thing they themselves said it's indeed a problem being addressed (2) and framed it was only a possibility.

I don't blame GW for any exasperation they may feel.

(3) You know what else would not get bought in that scenario? Anything. If a player knew that in 4 months a new range of their favorite army was hitting, they very well might skip any other new stuff. Without that knowledge, they might spend on other cool new stuff.

 

We would all love to know, as fans, what is getting released when, but from a business perspective, it's a bad idea. 

Edited March 30, 2019 by Sleboda

[Aeryenn]

@Nos

Human race/faction is usually the most popular in fantasy/sci-fi games. It's thanks to how easily it is to identify yourself with them rather than Undead/Orks/Fire Golems as you mentioned (funny how racists undertone sounds from that regarding our latest quarrel about the need of diversity). Most of your post was written from an insider position. When John Smith enters GW Store he doesn't know all the story behind the world, who's the boss, who are the good and bad guys. I doubt he chooses his army based on that. He won't ask the store owner "hey, who is the Gandalf of AoS? I want his army."

People differ but when John Smith sees Stormcast helmet on every second box he might be tempted to go for the popular guys. Even I who dislike WG Stormcast policy bought Soulwars because it was economically good offer even if I wanted just Nighthaunt, book, markers and dice.

I'm not sure if that was the case if they had equal visual presence in a store. If they were just 1 of 20 released armies. 1 release, 1 battletome. No posters. No presence in Blighwar, Soulwars box etc.

But yeah, I understand their purpose for GW. If you ask me, Stormcasts had enough. There is no need for Stormcast deamons, Stormcast, war machines, Stormcast, savage tribes, Stormcasts riding octopuses and Stormcast vomiting with rainbow. They are alredy everything and everywhere. Enough to drive the story on their own, fighting with themselves. I'm not the only person here who is tired of yet another Stormcast model and you know that. Enough is enough. There was a time when Stormcast had more models in GW online store than whole Death combined. It's a caricature of Grand Alliances and their purpose.

[Overread]

I think GW Facebook has said quite a few times that there are no plans for a big stormcast release in 2019. I think GW is well aware that they don't need nor want to overplay the stormcast hand - I think its mostly just a thing in the past because GW pushed them HARD as the new army and gave them a lot of choice and options as the posterchild army of the game. Part of that linking back to the launch and the hwole name of the game - Age of Sigmar etc...

 

I think even GW admits that Stormcast have already got a big range of models and options - heck we've not seen any stormcast releases this year thus far save for the new store launcher model (and that's such a niche category that many sc players will never get hold of her unless she goes on general sale later). In fact we've had skaven, goblins, khorn, slaanesh - heck Fyreslayers is the first Order release of the year .

[Overread]

29 minutes ago, xking said:

Does anyone know what this is? 

 

It's an endless spell from the new Forbidden Powers release coming "soon". It's a universal one which means any faction can make use of it. Clearly its something built during the Mythic Age by the followers of Sigmar. Interesting that its got Stormcast icons on the pillars as that was long before SC were created, however its likely that stormcast are made in the image of Sigmar and that that is Sigmar himself with his hammer not a generic Stormcast on the pillars. 

So whilst its history is something forged by ancient peoples at the height of their power, its now a free-agent that any faction can secure. As for what it might do that's impossible to say. It looks like it might be linked to something celestial or temporal. It could be a powerful time machine! 

[PJetski]

Forbidden Power is confirmed to have both endless spells and scenery, and that looks more like scenery than a spell.

[HollowHills]

7 hours ago, Aryann said:

Nobody wants new Stormcasts yet they get new chamber opened every year! 

People clearly do want that because otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. 

[Forrix]

7 hours ago, Aryann said:

Nobody wants new Stormcasts yet they get new chamber opened every year! 

To be honest I didn't expect FEC to be updated at all and GW kinda impressed me with hero, spells and terrain. It was my fault to consider them pre-AoS temporary faction soon to be forgotten. Wonder if they will update Bonesplitterz as well. 

With BoC and now Fyreslayers GW messed it up. It would have taken them really little effort to bring some new life into those lines just by introducing 1-2 new non-hero units.

Is there a single person that was on the fence with Fyreslayers and after latest announcements wants to start a 2k points army with them? I was and spells, book, scenery don't change a thing for me. I still don't want to glue and paint 90 naked clones to be competetive. It sounds like a torture and I'm mostly a painter rather than gamer with AoS. 

I started a Fyreslayer army last summer but got burned out and was disappointed in the Vulkite and Hearthguard kits. They're not terrible but the lack of options (only 5 heads/bodies in Hearthguard and Vulkite is two duplicate sprues) makes them terrible value for money compared to other kits and is really really bad when your whole army (minus heroes) is built from just those kits. I was hopeful for the new Fyreslayer release and while I like what was released without new units its dead on arrival for me. I'm a little curious about what they do with Magmadroths (that kit is quite good) but I doubt I'll be enough to change my mind and I am debating on selling off what I've got.

Seriously, compare the hearthguard kit to the 40k Scions kit. They both build 5 semi-elite infantry that are roughly the same size and can make up the vast majority of an army. Scions are $5 cheaper and have 17 head options in edition to more build variations than the hearthguard, including a hero.

[Aeryenn]

26 minutes ago, HollowHills said:

People clearly do want that because otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. 

In further posts you have explanation of this from both @Nos and me. 

[Austin]

1 hour ago, Sleboda said:

It's interesting that you take one thing that is not a fact at all and frame it as such (1) while a thing they themselves said it's indeed a problem being addressed (2) and framed it was only a possibility.

I don't blame GW for any exasperation they may feel.

(3) You know what else would not get bought in that scenario? Anything. If a player knew that in 4 months a new range of their favorite army was hitting, they very well might skip any other new stuff. With that knowledge, they might spend on other cool new stuff.

 

We would all love to know, as fans, what is getting released when, but from a business perspective, it's a bad idea. 

I read your response as pretty snide. If you didn’t intend that I apologize. 

I’m not sure what part of the chapterhouse saga you mean isn’t fact. GW had an adverse court ruling. After that ruling they pulled all units that had no models from books. Books still have no units that don’t have models very quickly. So it seems logical that GW is still impacted. I admit that I don’t know as fact that they are “terrified.”

And I categorically disagree that nobody would buy models if GW clearly communicated a release schedule. 

[Raviv]

1 hour ago, xking said:

Does anyone know what this is? 

 

In the facebook live-stream they called it something like "Panambural Engine". They said it's a terrain model.

[Nos]

1 hour ago, Aryann said:

I'm not the only person here who is tired of yet another Stormcast model and you know that. Enough is enough. There was a time when Stormcast had more models in GW online store than whole Death combined. It's a caricature of Grand Alliances and their purpose.

Of course there are people fed up of Stormcast. Never suggested otherwise.They're just massively outnumbered by the people who aren’t, that’s all.

If you doubt how effective a top heavy investment in one faction can be, look at Space Marines. While I balk at the notion that’s “all” Stormcast are, as that Is to underestimate the sophistication of how subtley they have been designed, as per my previous post, they do save the same purpose.

And if you think GW are going to look at all the evidence that indicates that yes, they finally have a *second* Space Marine Line in a entirely different system that also sells like gang busters and can be transposed go pretty much any setting and they’re not going to disproportionately invest in that product line as they have done with Space Marines, you’re insane.

As a Stormcast player this actually worries me as I fear the concept of what a Space Marine is has been lost among their ubiquity-they’re hardly humanities elite when they’re everywhere and die like flies-and I worry the same might happen with Stormcast.

But you know who isn’t worrying? The people who made the decisions to make more Space Marines, because their bank balance tells them it was the right move.

Its easy to say to any company “if they did x instead of y I’d buy it”. That argument is weak when a huge number of people are already buying Y already. 

Edited March 29, 2019 by Nos

[Furuzzolo]

When i started to collect Dispossessed i remember Fyreslayers and Ko as very popular.

I recall watching tournament's lists and see 90 vulkite berserkers all over the place and I'd say Slayers were VERY well represented in the competitive scene. One came very high at Adepticon 18, maybe top 3?  They're everywhere.

So why were they so popular then with the same model range and the same problems they have now? Ah yeah. They were op.

So lets hope the book has some good rule 😉 😉

Edited March 29, 2019 by Furuzzolo

[madmac]

16 minutes ago, Forrix said:

I started a Fyreslayer army last summer but got burned out and was disappointed in the Vulkite and Hearthguard kits. They're not terrible but the lack of options (only 5 heads/bodies in Hearthguard and Vulkite is two duplicate sprues) makes them terrible value for money compared to other kits and is really really bad when your whole army (minus heroes) is built from just those kits. I was hopeful for the new Fyreslayer release and while I like what was released without new units its dead on arrival for me. I'm a little curious about what they do with Magmadroths (that kit is quite good) but I doubt I'll be enough to change my mind and I am debating on selling off what I've got.

Seriously, compare the hearthguard kit to the 40k Scions kit. They both build 5 semi-elite infantry that are roughly the same size and can make up the vast majority of an army. Scions are $5 cheaper and have 17 head options in edition to more build variations than the hearthguard, including a hero.

Yeah, pretty much. I got into Fyreslayers last fall, anticipating some sort of update to make them more interesting. I do like the models up to a point, but what you get is not far off from picturing if the entire non-hero unit selection of Stormcasts was limited to just the liberator box. Liberators with swords, hammers, greatweapons, two hand weapons, there you go an entire army range. Who could possibly not be sold on that?

I mean also Stormcasts need to be more expensive to buy, and you need to have at least 90+ Liberators to make an army, it's your only kit after all, and you're playing a horde faction, so just deal with it man. I'm sure if that's how Stormcast were presented with no further updatesthey would still have been a top selling army, no question.

I think the thing that bugs me the most about it is the very real fear that not doing enough to fix Fyreslayers is just going to leave them to go continue their death spiral of popularity and eventual removal as an army, it's frustrating.  Even Fyreslayer players are barely interested in the update, and I don't think I've seen one person convinced to get into the army by it so far.

I'm not planning to sell off my Fyreslayers just yet, but I'm looking for the army book to give viable builds that are relatively light on models, and I'm adjusting my expectations of long term army support way, waaaay down.

 

[Aeryenn]

@Nos To be honest I'm already used to "new year, new stormcast" policy as others probably are, yet it still irritates me every time I see BoC/Skaven/Fyreslayer/yet to be announced/ treatment. From the official GW online store, not going into details: Fyreslayers have 12 items, Stormcasts have 57. Ridiculous. Most people would be happy with 1-2 new units for Fyreslayers. Just that. Just that little effort. In the end we might be seeing new yet unrevealed hero as it was (wasn't it?) with Khorne and if that's the case - why would they wait with that instead show it at Adepticon?

Edited March 29, 2019 by Aryann

[HollowHills]

I agree that from a fan perspective Fyreslayers deserved more units to give them improved diversity. However, from a business perspective it may not be justifiable to release new units from a range which is unpopular and may continue to be so going forward. 

If the criteria for releases is that they will only happen if the whole range gets some new units, that might mean some just never get touched. 

It may be far easy to balance business with doing right by fans and agree that the minimum for all factions will be a new book, scenery and spells. 

[alghero81]

8 hours ago, Chikout said:

They never did. In a seminar last year they said we would see cool new stuff for destruction in 2019. Presumably they meant the gloomspite. 

If we assume the lvo info about new battletomes for each grand alliance meant in 2019, then that promise is already fulfilled with the fyreslayers announcement.  If we assume it means post Lvo, then we have another destruction battletome and interestingly another death battletome this year.

Interesting, related to your last sentence, Tom and Vince notes as the new Warcry warbands are missing the 9th symbol and so far there are 3 order, 3 destruction and 2 death recognised (assuming hints online are correct). I’m not doing 1+1=100 but...

[amysrevenge]

1 hour ago, Austin said:

And I categorically disagree that nobody would buy models if GW clearly communicated a release schedule. 

This issue led to a policy change at my local store back in the day.

8th Edition Ogre Kingdom book. We had a couple months notice. Local store's pre-order policy was to pay when you pick up, not at time of order. Hype train was in full effect, and they had a huge quantity of pre-orders. Then the hype train ran it's course, people started looking ahead to the  next thing still weeks out from release, and when it finally came to release day so many Ogre pre-orders went unclaimed that the store changed to a pay-ahead pre-order policy.

[bsharitt]

2 hours ago, HollowHills said:

People clearly do want that because otherwise they wouldn't be doing it. 

Yeah, while I would love new stuff for Ogres and Dwarfs, that doesn't mean I don't like my Stormcast army and don't want new stuff for them. In fact, the new Sacrosanct stuff is what pushed me to finishing that army,