The Rumour Thread

[Kaleb Daark]

On 19/04/2018 at 2:42 PM, Rogue Explorator said:

I think the less popular legacy factions will always be there in the background, but they will surely slip into obscurity as far as tabletop presence goes.

I am thinking less squats and more 40k beastmen, general Mutants and Genestealer Cults pre-rerelease. Or Fimir in the World-That-Was.They where always there, pretty much from the start, but as their old kits went out of production, simply no new ones dropped. They still played a (sometimes important) part in the lore, but they hardly ever had armies playing an important part in events.

It sort of makes sense, particularly for many of the order ones, as more and more "proper" armies show up, the cults, colleges, messengers, engineers and criminals (heck, even the freeguild comes across more as a militia than a "real" army) of the Free Cities have less and less reason to go to war themselves. They can remain an important part of the free cities, but I suspect the Free Cities/Free Peoples may ultimately get new stuff not connected to any of them as well, slowly but surely pushing the old stuff further and further to the sidelines until by the time it is to discontinue the models, hardly anyone cares to complain.

This is the gentlest way to do it and as a added bonus GW used those old kits to do some worldbuilding for them, without them, we would hardly have by now learned that aelven pirates and sorceresses run some of the organized crime in the free cities or that the best messengers you can get are elves on flying chariots.

 

And if any prove to develope a cult following asking for their return or GW runs out of ideas, they can always be brought back in force, just as Genestealer Cults where.

I'ts exactly what and how it  happened to the Dogs of war.   A gentle phasing out where ultimately they wait till the buying public lost interest and thus they disappear from the website quietly with not many people really caring at the time.

We need to remember that the promise was that no old army would become obsolete from the world that was, only that they wouldn't get supported as time went by and new factions and story lines opened up. 

Also, we are looking at a new modelling dynamic and design language as well, which naturally will make older stuff seem a bit staid and boring, after all they were all designed to rank easily.  remember how much complaining when blightkings and the khorne farmers in their armoured dungarees came out about how they wouldn't rank on 25mm bases and 40 was rubbish for infantry.  We've all got those lovely old models which no longer are part of the game, sad as it is.

Like you say, until there is a reason to resurrect the line stays dead.  Who knows with enough pestering you might see sandy skeletons back.  Look at sisters of battle.   I know that the TK thing has bee brought back to the table at the head office so many times but each time its very much a case of "other than the constructs what do they bring to the table?"

Like you say Rogue, they'll always be there, in the lore and as a narrative medium.

[Captain Marius]

4 hours ago, Kaleb Daark said:

We need to remember that the promise was that no old army would become obsolete from the world that was...

Do we have a source for that? Cos my view of AoS is some factions will be left behind (ill be amazed to see another serapon book, tho GW did give them basic allegiance abilities...)

The culling of the old ranges was brual, not just Brets and TK but stuff like my Empire Knights and Cannons, or Chaos Forsaken. I would not put another cull of outdated factions past GW, even if it was seraphon or pestliens etc.

[Barkanaut]

14 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

Do we have a source for that? Cos my view of AoS is some factions will be left behind (ill be amazed to see another serapon book, tho GW did give them basic allegiance abilities...)

The culling of the old ranges was brual, not just Brets and TK but stuff like my Empire Knights and Cannons, or Chaos Forsaken. I would not put another cull of outdated factions past GW, even if it was seraphon or pestliens etc.

Especially since the new factions seem a lot more popular than the old ones just because they fit the high fantasy theme. It pains me to say it but I think some more legacy armies are going to be in the chopping block soon to make room for  ore AoS specific factions or at the very least mass updates to old stuff DoK style. Kharadron and Deepkin have completely upset their plans I think. Originally when AoS looked to be stable but not growing and didn’t have much content it made  sense to keep some legacy armies. Now however it’s got a huge selection and growing rapidly every year. I do think skaven and sepharon will get AoS specific updates even if it’s a unique new army spin on them as they are very popular factions from the old setting. Others like beastmen though I dunno they never seemed all that popular to be honest. The only other legacy army I would see sad to go is beastclaw raiders as I do feel there is tons of untapped potential with giant frost animals and beasts for them to ride on. 

 

While not all of these are coming soon I’ll make a list of armies that will,ikely light in AoS. 

 New death, Slaanesh, and moonclan are all coming if rumors are to be believed. 

Heavy lore hints for light and shadow elves. 

Grot skypirates have also been hinted at. Possibly darkoath army as well. They also jokingly teased fishmen recently but I want fishmen and have hope we’ll see them in destruction real soon. At the same time skaven and sepharon new army/updates are inevitable due to popularity. 

That is a ton of new armies right there. At least how I see it. Throw in the once per year cool new army no one seen coming and there is like 3 years of releases right there. 

Edited April 20, 2018 by Barkanaut

[Kaleb Daark]

1 hour ago, Captain Marius said:

Do we have a source for that? Cos my view of AoS is some factions will be left behind (ill be amazed to see another serapon book, tho GW did give them basic allegiance abilities...)

The culling of the old ranges was brual, not just Brets and TK but stuff like my Empire Knights and Cannons, or Chaos Forsaken. I would not put another cull of outdated factions past GW, even if it was seraphon or pestliens etc.

I probably didn't explain it very well, sorry.

Cast your mind back to the painful birth of AoS during the age of Kirby ; GW released the compendiums and in the AoS  QandA's they said that "all existing armies would be playable in AoS" because of course each one had a compendium.  They also said however that there would be no more support for the old armies, as the new armies and factions would start to come in.  And in truth we've seen this in as much that yes the compendiums still exist but as of ghb X there was no longer competitive points or viability for this or that compendium.

To draw a parallel  GW did nothing more than what Microsoft did with XP, continuing to support it until quite late in the day and then finally saying look, we've got a business to run, get with the program.

I totally agree with you in the second paragraph.  It's going to be sales that do the talking, as well as stuff that just doesn't 'fit' anymore.  And in many ways that's an ever evolving storyline for you, stuff happens and things change and sometimes cataclysmically.   But yes, I too believe the drive by cullings can and will happen.

[Rogue Explorator]

2 hours ago, Barkanaut said:

... Others like beastmen though I dunno they never seemed all that popular to be honest...

Well, I think Beastmen as a part of Warhammer have quite the following.

However Beastmen as an army for themself where never all that popular. I believe that is because they never really got to develope a good take on actually executing what Beastmen are in the miniatures and army lists.

Looking at my old Beastmen stuff, they had some amazing artwork and lore. They where truly dark, crude and strange in ways no other faction was, the true children of Chaos. But the army never remotely resembled any of that. I have seen quite a few people say that Beastmen belong in Destruction or are no different from Orcs. And looking at the miniatures and how they are presented, I can not fault them, those really do look like rather uninspired generic evil humanoids. It does not help that bar maybe the Cygor and Ghorgon they never really got any truly unique units.

 

So if GW wants to scratch the entire Brayherd and Warherd factions for a new take on Beastmen, I am all for it and (provided we see new ones are coming before the old get scatched) I do not think many would protest.

 

However, I think entirely scratching undivided Beastmen would be a poor decision. I think the Gor are just to iconic to Chaos to be represented solely by the monogod variants.

Edited April 20, 2018 by Rogue Explorator

[Kyriakin]

1 hour ago, Kaleb Daark said:

To draw a parallel  GW did nothing more than what Microsoft did with XP, continuing to support it until quite late in the day and then finally saying look, we've got a business to run, get with the program.

Different though, as a PC operating system has no emotional attachment and no personal contribution (i.e. painting, etc) from the consumer. In this regard, dropping a line of miniatures due to sales has to be done more sensitively than for, say, a vacuum cleaner that is selling poorly.

The key point here is that we need to see what the "end game" is for compendium armies.

Let's say you are a Brayherd player, and you look at the TK's situation. As long as you already have your miniatures, the situation won't look bad. Sure, TK are not winning any tournaments, but neither are Brayherd. The worst that would happen is that you lose legal battalions and allies. A bit of a bummer, but not a deal-breaker should the same fate eventually befall the Brayherd. In fact, in a weird way, you might end up with the whole "family" back together (i.e. Brayherd, Warherd and Monsters of Chaos) and actually have a lot more options.

However, let's say in GHB18 that the Tomb Kings and Brets lost their points and become "open play only".

This would spook the hell out of any player of 75% of the currently playable factions. Unless you get a Daughters of Khaine expansion, you know that, should it fall, the Sword of Damocles now effectively represents the abyss for your army as I have never seen a game of Open Play in my life (even the ones I have heard about at least use points as a time-saver, but without other restrictions).

Tread very carefully GW (although, to be fair, I feel post-Kirby GW does).

Edited April 21, 2018 by Kyriakin

[Barkanaut]

2 minutes ago, Kyriakin said:

Different though, as a PC operating system has no emotional attachment and no contribution (i.e. painting, etc) from the consumer. In this regard, dropping a line of miniatures due to sales has to be done more sensitively than for, say, a vacuum cleaner that is selling poorly.

The key point here is that we need to see what the "end game" is for compendium armies.

Let's say you are a Brayherd player, and you look at the TK's situation. As long as you already have your miniatures, the situation won't look bad. Sure, TK are not winning any tournaments, but neither are Brayherd. The worst that would happen is that you lose legal battalions and allies. A bit of a bummer, but not a deal-breaker should the same fate eventually befall the Beastmen.

However, let's say in GHB18 that TK lost their points and become "open play only".

This would spook the hell out of any player of 75% of the currently playable factions. Unless you get a Daughters of Khaine expansion, you know that, should it fall, the Sword of Damocles now effectively represents the abyss for your army as I have never seen a game of Open Play in my life (even the ones I have heard about at least use points as a time-saver, but without other restrictions).

Tread very carefully GW.

I have emotional attachment to xcp. Just because you come from crude flesh doesn’t mean we all can’t commune with the machine spirit.  XP is 100x the is any ****** windows has done  lately. 

[bsharitt]

7 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

or Chaos Forsaken.

Oh god those were terrible models, especially for how late in the game they came. My local shop still has a couple of those on the shelf with the old WHFB stuff that I'm sure they'll never sell now. I've looked at the model and wondering if I can redeem them and maybe talk the owner to selling them to me at a discount, but they're so awful I can't think if what to do with them. Maybe use the torsos with the legs and heads of better chaos models, but even then I'm skeptical.

But I digress. As far as sun-setting old ranges, I get the feeling from GW as of late that maybe they regret the level of house cleaning they tried to do a few years back(there is a new regime in charge now after all). Between the whatever it was, Wahammer Legends or something, that will be bringing back old models for build to order and rules(probably covering current compendium when it comes out), I feel like GW is honoring their past a bit more. With the latest FAQ for 40k, they actually released a few datasheets for obsolete models for that game for non-matched play(power levels, no points). So while some models may lose full matched play support I think GW is really intent on keeping fans happy these days by keeping stuff playable. Of course them being non-matched play is sort of the compromise between the two new GWs, the one that want's to make fans happy with support for all the models and armies they want to play and the GW that has an unheard of level of support for tournament play across 40k 8th, AoS, and Shadespire. That's kind of my worry with this new official support for old armies(I want to call it Wahammer Legends and I can't recall if that's the right name, and of course the term is way too generic to Google since there are many Wahammer "Legends"), that some of the lesser supported stuff will drop down to it, like my stuff from Spire of Dawn that just isn't sold anymore(which would be a real shame since the Reavers are the only generic battleline to tie together all the old High Elves outside of compendium). But for the most part I don't see stuff currently being sold and supported going away anytime soon. Whether it's through supplements, the GHB or LoN style "catch up" battletomes, I get the feeling that GW wants to get everything up to a vaguely on the same ballpark of effectiveness on the table top.

[Jamopower]

Tomb kings and Bretonnians already have points, so they just simply cannot lose them. You can always use the old ones as long as you have them, as they are not going to get any new units in long time.

[Dragobeth]

12 hours ago, Captain Marius said:

Do we have a source for that? Cos my view of AoS is some factions will be left behind (ill be amazed to see another serapon book, tho GW did give them basic allegiance abilities...)

The culling of the old ranges was brual, not just Brets and TK but stuff like my Empire Knights and Cannons, or Chaos Forsaken. I would not put another cull of outdated factions past GW, even if it was seraphon or pestliens etc.

With the thing about Seraphon being able to live on the Mortal Realms after being summoned by the Slann and even create cities we have room for new takes on the army, I Hope GW take it and make more lizards becouse I love dragons and lizards a lot (Ey GW, now that Dracothion helps the Slann why not an aztec-cosmic lizard dragon? I could buy 20 of them)

On the other hand, I know armies get emotional conection with the players since they paint them and all but I see the "lets make new minis that fit in our new setting" as a logical step, cosmic-magic dragon-lizards fit better than just aztec lizardman riding dinosaurs even when I love both ideas a lot. Of course you could do updates to existing armies with some new models and a battletome, but there are some armies that feel a little poor on the MR Setting (I mean, it's have been thousands of years after the End Times and the humans still fight like in the Old World times? not even a little of innovation having 8 worlds and a lot of years?) and it happens on all the GAs, not only Order.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Dragobeth

[Captain Marius]

58 minutes ago, Dragobeth said:

With the thing abour Seraphon being able to live on the Mortal Realms after being summoned by the Slann and even create cities we have room for new takes on the army, I Hope GW take it and make more lizards becouse I love dragons and lizards a lot (Ey GW, now that Dracothion helps the Slann why not an aztec-cosmic lizard dragon? I could buy 20 of them)

I agree. By scrapping the Old World GW gave themselves the creative freedom to design whatever they want whenever they want. But i am sure that certain ranges will be discontinued to allow for this. TK and Bret ranges were removed to make room for stormcasts, bloodbound, fyreslayers, ironjaws, sylvaneth et al.

I think whether old stuff has rules and points is largely irrelevant, as the game is being updated so regularly these days that theres no way theyll spend resources keeping every model with current rules in perpetuity. At some point there will be a brand new edition that wipes the slate clean, just like AoS and 40k 8th have done.

With the rumoured AoS phase 2, i wonder if theyll implement proper points to the game, instead of the power style points we have now (where a bloke on foot costs the same as the same bloke on a horse...!)?

[Jamopower]

42 minutes ago, Captain Marius said:

I think whether old stuff has rules and points is largely irrelevant, as the game is being updated so regularly these days that theres no way theyll spend resources keeping every model with current rules in perpetuity. At some point there will be a brand new edition that wipes the slate clean, just like AoS and 40k 8th have done.

 

Even when wiping the slate clean with AoS, they still made rules and points for almost everything that they have produced in the years gone by. They even bothered to add counts as recommendations for stuff like Wood elf chariots in the first army lists, even though they have had rules last time in 5th edition and models even before that. It's just like with stuff like Chaos dwarfs and Dogs of War in earlier editions. They got the initial rules in the white dwarf after the release of 6th edition and people still played them in 8th edition ten years after with those same rules. It is not likely that Bretonnians will ever get new rules or models (at least in that theme), but with those rules they already have, they are still very much playable, at least outside tournaments, as long as any army with a current Battletome. They just aren't as good on the tabletop as the new offerings, but I believe it doesn't matter for many gaming groups.

[BrownDog]

From the Idoneth Deepkin Battletome-

"Air breathers who do submerge into the watery worlds below bring back
astonishing tales. Coastal freedivers and beast-hunting Scourge Privateers
return with reports of strange and terrible creatures. The rarely seen aquatic
races – like the merwynn or kelpdar – are known to go deeper still,
although even they do not dare travel beyond the strata where the light
of the sun still penetrates, however weakly. They speak with whispered
horror of the deeper twilight waters and the ultimate blackness beneath,
where the crushing pressures and near-freezing temperatures are fliled
with the most dreadful of underwater predators."

Did the Merwynn and Kelpdar exist in Warhammer Fantasy? If not then we may have a proper fishmen (sub)faction.

[Dragobeth]

27 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

Even when wiping the slate clean with AoS, they still made rules and points for almost everything that they have produced in the years gone by. They even bothered to add counts as recommendations for stuff like Wood elf chariots in the first army lists, even though they have had rules last time in 5th edition and models even before that. It's just like with stuff like Chaos dwarfs and Dogs of War in earlier editions. They got the initial rules in the white dwarf after the release of 6th edition and people still played them in 8th edition ten years after with those same rules. It is not likely that Bretonnians will ever get new rules or models (at least in that theme), but with those rules they already have, they are still very much playable, at least outside tournaments, as long as any army with a current Battletome. They just aren't as good on the tabletop as the new offerings, but I believe it doesn't matter for many gaming groups.

It all depends on the group in question, in my case I play with a friendly/narrative group so armies that arent that competitive can still shine a little (we usually dont use competitive things and dont abuse of some rules becouse we just want to have a fun time ((I know fun can be going all on competitive for other people)) ) or you can see silly things like an open play game with 2 armies of 8k points (man, that was funny, Nagash vs 3 Dread Saurian)

In tournaments it's totally other way tho, the thing is how GW  manage it, you can try to update current ranges to make them competitive while you keep making new ones (again, the only problem with this is that some models and armies from the Old World dont fit really well with the high-fantasy of AoS even when AoS's realm has no limit)  or you can make new ones and maintain the old ones just for fun untill no one buys them and you can fase them out in silence.

[Jamopower]

Yes that was my point exactly. In tournament play, even a lot of the quite new stuff seems to be already out of fashion, but it still doesn't stop people using stuff like Khorne bloodbound armies based on Blood warriors and the Gorechosen back at home. Just like it doesn't stop anyone from playing with their Tomb kings, even if  they don't have the perfect counters for the newest flair. The rules still work perfectly and there are the points if you use them. It also doesn't cost any resources from GW to keep supporting them on this level. They just need to keep those few pdf:s somewhere on the back of the webpage. In which they are quite good at. You could find a lot of specialist games rulebooks and stuff like the witch hunter codex from the official pages a long time after they had ended "supporting" them.

[Kyriakin]

The problem is that when Legends was announced at Adepticon, it is said that it would cover all the old WHFB armies and not be matched play (i.e. no points).

When someone asked if this would include the Tomb Kings, the response from GW was along the lines of "well, they were a Warhammer army".

Now, was this question in reference to the Made to Order run or joining the Legends roster, or both?

If the Tomb King army is included within the Legends system (i.e. with named characters, no points, etc.), it is difficult to imagine a parallel army also existing within pointed compendium (i.e. with generic names, points, etc.) at the same time. Should LegendsTK indeed represent a replacement army - rather than an additional army - TK (and Brets) will have lost their pointed status.

Someone higher up in the thread said that "you can still use old points" (i.e. TK16, TK17, etc.), but I never see anyone use, say, the battalions that lost their place in GHB17 nor the named characters that were genericized in GHB17. Furthermore, despite their general high-quality, the uptake of unofficaial, fan -made battletomes is fairly low within the mainstream.

"Officialdom" is a very powerful thing for wargamers - even those that don't play competitively. TK and Brets are on the precipice of it now, but haven't been pushed off yet. However, if they are, my motivation to do Darkling Covens, Pestilens, Dispossessed, Gutbusters, Free Peoples, Brayherd, Warherd, Gitmob, Greenskinz, Phoenix Temple, Scourge Privateers, Order Draconis, Order Serpentis, Spiderfang, Soulbight, Devoted of Sigmar (etc.) would just plummet, as a similar fate may befall any of them in the next few years.

As I said, the current TK situation is fine if you have the models, but losing pointed status would represent the abyss.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Kyriakin

[Kaleb Daark]

4 hours ago, Jamopower said:

Tomb kings and Bretonnians already have points, so they just simply cannot lose them. You can always use the old ones as long as you have them, as they are not going to get any new units in long time.

They can and they will.  There will be no new units for brets or tks. 

The best you can hope for is that there will be a new faction that makes use of these models but rest assured they wint be brets or tks as we know them.

 

i imagine gw actually gave a difficult time working out what to do with their basic humans.

If it were me, i think we have two really nice opposites, the technology humans in the form of the eld empire stuff and the mystical humans.

i was thinking take brets out of the rigid medieval knight mould and perhaps put them more into a darker narnia style mash up.  Centaur allies and lords on dragons,  and instead of all that lady stuff, they place their faith in druids.

their usp could be monsters in place of technology.  

If they were in the realm of shadows then they might also be mortal enemies if the fimir and daughters.

 

or something like that.

[Kaleb Daark]

@Kyriakin  i missed this, please could you expand on what ‘legends’ is?

[Kyriakin]

9 minutes ago, Kaleb Daark said:

@Kyriakin  i missed this, please could you expand on what ‘legends’ is?

Legends talk starts around 27:58:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evhvGDHWs3A

[Inqy]

I don’t think Seraphon are likely to get squatted any time soon. Even if nothing new gets produced, they get regular mentions in fluff as a thing that exists in the setting. In contrast TKs *never* get mentioned. 

You don’t give exposure to something you want to disappear.

[Kyriakin]

7 minutes ago, Inqy said:

I don’t think Seraphon are likely to get squatted any time soon. Even if nothing new gets produced, they get regular mentions in fluff as a thing that exists in the setting. In contrast TKs *never* get mentioned. 

You don’t give exposure to something you want to disappear.

Wasn't there something about Red Chariots of a Sun God? I never saw it, but have seen it mentioned from time-to-time.

Also, I think they leave "seeds" all over their writing, which currently have no intention to be expanded upon.

However, should a future designer think "red chariots of a sun god sounds cool" in the future, he/she will be able to explore this idea and the resulting new release would have been at least mentioned in the previous lore, as opposed to just coming out of nowhere.

Edited April 21, 2018 by Kyriakin

[Jamopower]

1 hour ago, Kaleb Daark said:

They can and they will.  There will be no new units for brets or tks. 

 

Do they come and delete the pdf's I have on my computer or burn the printed out warscrolls from my shelf? I'm sure there will never be any new content for those armies, but it doesn't make them any less playable with the rules they already have. 

That said, I don't believe we are going to see any new content for, say Daughters of Khaine either. At least for many many years. Basides some splash release for Shadespire or a character for some boxed set. 

They might lose their official status and all, but still the rules are there and if you have a Bretonnian army you can use those rules until the end of days. It's not like a computer game where something can just be removed from the game totally. The people have the physical copies and will use them no matter what. I mean, people around here play warhammer 3rd edition regularly. 

It's also the reason why it's hard to see them removing stuff they have already made rules totally from the game. Keeping them in with minimal effort gives them a lot of goodwill from their customers for almost free.

I have understood that the whole Legends thing was created because a lot of people (me included) wished for more of the old stuff in their big survey they had. The first wave seems to be old special characters and having non pointed warscrolls for them makes a lot of sense. 

Edited April 21, 2018 by Jamopower

[Thomas Lyons]

2 hours ago, Kyriakin said:

"Officialdom" is a very powerful thing for wargamers - even those that don't play competitively. TK and Brets are on the ppreciipace of it now, but haven't been pushed off yet. However, if they are, my motivation to do Darkling Covens, Pestilens, Dispossessed, Gutbusters, Free Peoples, Brayherd, Warherd, Gitmob, Greenskinz, Phoenix Temple, Scourge Privateers, Order Draconis, Order Serpentis, Spiderfang, Soulbight, Devoted of Sigmar (etc.) would just plummet, as a similar fate may befall any of them in the next few years.

It is and this is exactly what I have been warning folks about for the last couple years.  If they are going to have rolling discontinuation with older factions, we can expect them to roll some "current" factions into compendium/discontinued status in the coming years, which severely limits my interest in building a majority of the armies in the game :-/

1 hour ago, Inqy said:

I don’t think Seraphon are likely to get squatted any time soon. Even if nothing new gets produced, they get regular mentions in fluff as a thing that exists in the setting. In contrast TKs *never* get mentioned. 

Not true.

[Vasshpit]

@BrownDog what is a kelpdar? I can't find anything on this sudject?

I know the merwyn is a forgeworld beast but what's the other?

Edited April 21, 2018 by Vasshpit

[Rogue Explorator]

54 minutes ago, Thomas Lyons said:

It is and this is exactly what I have been warning folks about for the last couple years.  If they are going to have rolling discontinuation with older factions, we can expect them to roll some "current" factions into compendium/discontinued status in the coming years, which severely limits my interest in building a majority of the armies in the game :-/

I share that fear as well. It will take quite a few more strong shows of continued support for released factions (like giving Fyreslayers or Ironjaws a second wave) before I have any trust that AoS factions outside Stormcast can expect future support beyond basic rules updates.

55 minutes ago, Thomas Lyons said:

Not true.

That could just as well be Deathrattle. Them not having chariots on their army list does not preclude some having them in the lore. But then again, at the moment, Wight Kings pretty much less interesting Tomb Kings with much more boring armies.