The Rumour Thread

[madmac]

10 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

very jealous of that DOK box! congrats!

i can't really see this but I suppose if TOW is going to be a straight up cash grab it makes sense? idk... this being the first starter box feels like it kowtows to all the hate towards AOS, while leaving out the biggest factions during TOW's time period. very weird choice to me especially when Kislev was the first model teaser.

I'm continuously skeptical of most TOW rumors because they consistently feel like wishlisting that's completely unhinged from what GW has been presenting so far. TOW started with a map of the Empire, Kislev concept art, more maps and then Cathay stuff. The only mentions we've gotten of Brettonia was a new map, and new art of the old peasant archer model. Tomb Kings have gotten even less attention, the first solid mention they've gotten is a single piece of art in the last update.

I'm not saying I don't think GW is going to do Bretts and TK, but as the first thing they release? The starter box? Serious doubt.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

11 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

very jealous of that DOK box! congrats!

i can't really see this but I suppose if TOW is going to be a straight up cash grab it makes sense? idk... this being the first starter box feels like it kowtows to all the hate towards AOS, while leaving out the biggest factions during TOW's time period. very weird choice to me especially when Kislev was the first model teaser.

It's difficult for me to tell how plausible a TK vs Bretonnia box would be. It's probably the most obvious wishful thinking fan prediction to make: GW will bring back the two armies that did not make their transition to AoS. But there is a good reason those two factions got discontinued. It's because they didn't sell.

But never the less, I could see it happening. There were some rumour recently of old TK kits being put back into production a few months back. So maybe? I'm kinda surprised they are not putting two new factions like Kislev and Norsca in their starter, if this rumour is true. It would be hard to drum up excitement with 10+ year old kits.

[Jetlife]

1 hour ago, Vasshpit said:

So theres an upgrade sprue now for a kit that hasnt even been released on its own yet? 

 

Also these would great for a lot kits to get. 

Sooooo many. They did it with SOB and it was pretty cool. I think there are a lot of units that could use this treatment. Fyreslayers and Ogres come to mind. This could even work for the Grot spider kits. 

I would love to see an upgrade sprue for the Mawkrusha since people run two of them. Some variety would be cool. 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Jetlife

[cofaxest]

2 hours ago, Goatforce said:

Not AoS, but has anyone put this up yet?

Very exciting if true! I get the impression it is from a reliable source too

I can believe in that. 2024-2025 is abit too far for new release for duardins but from dwarf perspective I can see something like that -> 2023 3ed CoS book with dispossessed -> 2023 3ed KO book -> 2024 AoS 4ed -> 2024-2025(prob 2025) the old world -> 2025 4ed duardin book with new dispossessed+KO+FS(maybe more but I think not) -> 2025 4ed CoS book with new city duardins. 

Edited January 4, 2023 by cofaxest

[Thalassic Monstrosity]

32 minutes ago, Beliman said:

There is a wargame that is already crafting it's narrative with a "living world". Conquest, the Last Argument of kings.

Each day, any player, painter or whatever can cast a vote in their main web to see what all characters are going to do, what new factions are going to enter the setting/narrative and all this stuff. It's up to you If you want to base your vote using games as the main source but some TO can send their tournament results too.

At the ens of the year, the narrative will advance and reflect what people voted. Even if there are milions of trolls, you can't just nuke a civilization and remove an army from the game, but maybe some cities will fall, some sellswords are going to change flags, some characters are going to die... 

Btw, really great game!

Infinity did the same.  In fact I think it was player-decided when Bit and Kiss joined the Combined Army.

Honestly it was really fantastic feeling your decisions having an effect, even if it was just a small battlefront on one planet.  In one campaign Haqqislam and the Nomads had an early alliance through the community, so when Nomads lost one of their territories Haqq rallied to take it back and essentially surrender it back to their allies.  Some of those communities were great.

[Cataphract]

When do folks think they will reveal all of the New Year teasers? 

[Sarges]

8 minutes ago, Cataphract said:

When do folks think they will reveal all of the New Year teasers? 

Probably not all but mostly at LVO (January 26-29th).

[Gothmaug]

2 hours ago, CommissarRotke said:

I actually remember being scared of the Storm of Chaos event because it felt like so many more people were on the Chaos side, and what would it even mean for Middenheim to actually fall? And I don't mean in a good way: if Chaos had won the tournament games I have no idea what GW would've needed to do to maintain their narrative status quo. They had hyped up Middenheim as the "lynchpin Empire city" where if it fell everything else would too. Can't exactly keep going for years if your protagonist faction gets shattered by a player tournament...

They'd just have to spend some time crafting a story narrative that would affect only a regional scale, and not the entire universe. And there are plenty of ways to balance the outcomes so its not stacked by everyone showing up as the same faction. It just takes some effort and planning on GW's part. 

 

And yes, they could even turn the general of the best army into an actual character in the system. Paradigm used to do that with their conventions, the team that won the entire event would have their characters written up and included in a printed book that was part of the games canon. 

 

So there's certainly more that GW could do to include their fanbase in their worldbuilding, but the question is, does the overall player base WANT the world to change? Or do the majority prefer the system to stay static? Personally I like change, but I know quite a few people who are more than happy to have their Warhammer 40K world remain unchanged forever. 

[Mutton]

2 hours ago, Beliman said:

There is a wargame that is already crafting it's narrative with a "living world". Conquest, the Last Argument of kings.

Each day, any player, painter or whatever can cast a vote in their main web to see what all characters are going to do, what new factions are going to enter the setting/narrative and all this stuff. It's up to you If you want to base your vote using games as the main source but some TO can send their tournament results too.

At the ens of the year, the narrative will advance and reflect what people voted. Even if there are milions of trolls, you can't just nuke a civilization and remove an army from the game, but maybe some cities will fall, some sellswords are going to change flags, some characters are going to die... 

Btw, really great game!

Conquest looks dope. I just wish they hadn't gone the GW-influenced "premium price" route. Otherwise I probably would have tried it by now.

[CommissarRotke]

1 hour ago, Gothmaug said:

They'd just have to spend some time crafting a story narrative that would affect only a regional scale, and not the entire universe. And there are plenty of ways to balance the outcomes so its not stacked by everyone showing up as the same faction. It just takes some effort and planning on GW's part. 

But that's the problem, GW did not give themselves that room. Middenheim is/was explicitly positioned as "if this city falls, the Empire does" multiple multiple times. TECHNICALLY this was a "regional" issue, but what is WHF without the Empire? There are no other protagonist humans outside of this tiny portion of pseudo-earth. When your world's protagonist humans are explicitly centered in pseudo-Europe, having it fall essentially takes out the entire system. Which is why the Empire remained untouched until End Times.

1 hour ago, Gothmaug said:

the question is, does the overall player base WANT the world to change? Or do the majority prefer the system to stay static? Personally I like change, but I know quite a few people who are more than happy to have their Warhammer 40K world remain unchanged forever.

the million dollar answer seems to be "change is good when I like it, and bad when I don't" 😅 lot of things in 40k especially that should probably happen and won't. AOS at least feels more like the gears are turning super slowly rather than not at all.

 

1 hour ago, Gothmaug said:

And yes, they could even turn the general of the best army into an actual character in the system. Paradigm used to do that with their conventions, the team that won the entire event would have their characters written up and included in a printed book that was part of the games canon. 

this is a great idea 100%, would be cool to see more games do this.

[King Under the Mountain]

7 hours ago, rattila said:

Well they did something like this with the 13 crusade (for 40k) and the storm of chaos (for Battle). Turns out not so well because some factions were sur-represented and other almost not there. Plus, for 40k they had so much imperium player that they had to tweak the result to make a story, because otherwise abaddon stayed in the Eye. Same for Battle but the other problem : they had to slow the advance of chaos because it was way too fast. Still a nice try. Maybe that, by opening this only at the tournament some problems would be solved but it seem a lot of effort. Or maybe just saying : this particuliar tournament will decide the fate of this planet, assuming its not one of the essential worlds for the setting.

Please don’t take offense to my “um actually” but I’m going to show my age as someone who actively played both events (and also the mostly forgotten Nemesis Crown campaign) but you actually got it backwards.

In Eye of Terror the “Destruction” side was easily beating the Imperium for most of the campaign, mostly thanks to a much more organized forums.

 

In Storm of Chaos, Chaos absolutely got steamrolled.  This was largely thanks to GW deciding to have three main factions “Order, Chaos and Greenskins”, with the intent that Greenskins would be neutral but they had foolishly printed a story in White Dwarf leading up to the campaign where Crom (I think, memory comes and goes) beat Grimgor, so Greenskins were out for vengance and fought against Chaos.  I remember the memes back then because Chaos wasn’t going to move and inch with the rate they were losing, so GW had to wave a wand and let Chaos teleport to the city walls.

 Overall Storm of Chaos was largely a failure because GW obviously had an ending in mind prior to the campaign and when the results told a different story they had to bend the narrative to make it work.
 

Still better then End Times story tho…. 

[Clan's Cynic]

12 minutes ago, King Under the Mountain said:

Overall Storm of Chaos was largely a failure because GW obviously had an ending in mind prior to the campaign and when the results told a different story they had to bend the narrative to make it work.

I'd argue GW's "well done Chaos, well done, HOWEVER..." when it came to desperately handwaving Cadia not falling as "w-w-well you see... uhhhh... Order had more... errr... let's see... Battlefleet Gothic(!) victories! Therefore it's a stalemate!" was as bad as Chaos magically teleporting to Middenheim.

At least the Storm of Chaos stuff was so shameless it actually managed to make me laugh, and I was playing for Order in that one!

Seasons of War and Konor were still worse in my opinion. There was a pretty blatant attempt at a 'pay to win' in that store purchases counted towards your victories as much as actually winning games. No prizes for guessing which Grand Alliance/faction won those as a result. Even Nemesis Crown felt more satisfying than those.

Edited January 4, 2023 by Clan's Cynic

[novakai]

Well keep in mind Valrek can be wrong sometimes, it largely depends on if he right about 30K Epic being release as well as Exodites as those are two of his rumors that are bit way out there to be true. Even the rumor of the Lion being release is a bit iffy but I can see that happening 

i m only saying this as this OW rumor already came up already and it wasn’t from the greatest of sources

[Twisted Firaun]

2 minutes ago, King Under the Mountain said:

Please don’t take offense to my “um actually” but I’m going to show my age as someone who actively played both events (and also the mostly forgotten Nemesis Crown campaign) but you actually got it backwards.

In Eye of Terror the “Destruction” side was easily beating the Imperium for most of the campaign, mostly thanks to a much more organized forums.

 

In Storm of Chaos, Chaos absolutely got steamrolled.  This was largely thanks to GW deciding to have three main factions “Order, Chaos and Greenskins”, with the intent that Greenskins would be neutral but they had foolishly printed a story in White Dwarf leading up to the campaign where Crom (I think, memory comes and goes) beat Grimgor, so Greenskins were out for vengance and fought against Chaos.  I remember the memes back then because Chaos wasn’t going to move and inch with the rate they were losing, so GW had to wave a wand and let Chaos teleport to the city walls.

 Overall Storm of Chaos was largely a failure because GW obviously had an ending in mind prior to the campaign and when the results told a different story they had to bend the narrative to make it work.
 

Still better then End Times story tho…. 

I'm going to show my age now and ask which side did the Tomb Kings fall under? 

Regardless some of my favorite parts of the lore in the past five to seven years was the Malign Portents and Fate of Konor events. Malign Portents truly felt like a legitimate open narrative event, with different rules and storylines opening up depending on which faction was currently winning. It didn't hurt that this event also led to the shift away from the "anything goes" era of AOS to an actual game, and I'd argue we're still seeing the effects from this event spill out into the lore. Fate of Konor suffered the same fate as the Eye of Terror event (one side more or less steamrolling the other), but it was still balanced enough that Chaos arguably got a few "major" wins in.... though that might've been due to the fact that the Dearth Guard range had just been dropped.

I want another event that actually has some stakes! I want GW to give us a new hero for each grand alliance and a goal to fight over for a week or two! Maybe the Stormcasts save one city while Nagash claims a whole continent, maybe a new named Daemon Prince rises to the top, who knows?!?! just make it interesting and make it have a CONSEQUENCE!!! 

Rant done now.

[Clan's Cynic]

6 minutes ago, novakai said:

Well keep in mind Valrek can be wrong sometimes, it largely depends on if he right about 30K Epic being release as well as Exodites as those are two of his rumors that are bit way out there to be true. Even the rumor of the Lion being release is a bit iffy but I can see that happening 

i m only saying this as this OW rumor already came up already and it wasn’t from the greatest of sources

I've noticed Valrak tends to be more accurate the closer to an actual release we are. If it's something a week or a month out, he's probably got a reliable source.

But he's been throwing out big, sweeping, """rumours""" for years that often wind up being nothing, however enough time has passes that people forget them and seem to take him as reliable because he's also accurate sometimes. Being right only half the time isn't a very good track record, but people still act like he's all-knowing for some weird reason.

There's a reason "PRIMARCH!!!" is a meme associated with him. He's flung darts at pretty much every one of them as returning to 40k now. A broken clock is right twice a day, so it had to happen eventually. 

Edited January 4, 2023 by Clan's Cynic

[Noserenda]

Thats because GW only fixes the release schedule a 3 months ahead, and thats still subject to things going wrong as we have seen a lot recently. Thats why i never like yearlong rumours because they are at best only broadly true, like, this may be what GW wants to do right now, but plans shift.

Which is i suspect where even accurate rumourmongers go wrong.

As for letting players determine the plot, well it can work, but you have to keep it controlled, otherwise you get utter chaos that makes no narrative sense. Legend of five rings is a huge example of this with so many bizarre, meme-y or deliberately troll results making the games history wildly incoherent at times.

[El Syf]

32 minutes ago, Twisted Firaun said:

I'm going to show my age now and ask which side did the Tomb Kings fall under? 

Regardless some of my favorite parts of the lore in the past five to seven years was the Malign Portents and Fate of Konor events. Malign Portents truly felt like a legitimate open narrative event, with different rules and storylines opening up depending on which faction was currently winning. It didn't hurt that this event also led to the shift away from the "anything goes" era of AOS to an actual game, and I'd argue we're still seeing the effects from this event spill out into the lore. Fate of Konor suffered the same fate as the Eye of Terror event (one side more or less steamrolling the other), but it was still balanced enough that Chaos arguably got a few "major" wins in.... though that might've been due to the fact that the Dearth Guard range had just been dropped.

I want another event that actually has some stakes! I want GW to give us a new hero for each grand alliance and a goal to fight over for a week or two! Maybe the Stormcasts save one city while Nagash claims a whole continent, maybe a new named Daemon Prince rises to the top, who knows?!?! just make it interesting and make it have a CONSEQUENCE!!! 

Rant done now.

Tomb Kings, Vampire Counts, Dark Elves all fell under order much like in end times actually. Storm of chaos lore was great as that’s where grimgor battered archaon and left as he couldn’t find a good enough fight.

[Ogregut]

49 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I've noticed Valrak tends to be more accurate the closer to an actual release we are. If it's something a week or a month out, he's probably got a reliable source.

But he's been throwing out big, sweeping, """rumours""" for years that often wind up being nothing, however enough time has passes that people forget them and seem to take him as reliable because he's also accurate sometimes. Being right only half the time isn't a very good track record, but people still act like he's all-knowing for some weird reason.

There's a reason "PRIMARCH!!!" is a meme associated with him. He's flung darts at pretty much every one of them as returning to 40k now. A broken clock is right twice a day, so it had to happen eventually. 

It's almost like he makes money from people watching his videos and will do all he can to suck people in to watch. 😜😜

It's why I don't tend to watch those channels, all seems to much like clickbait. 

Edited January 5, 2023 by Ogregut

[King Under the Mountain]

1 hour ago, Clan's Cynic said:

I'd argue GW's "well done Chaos, well done, HOWEVER..." when it came to desperately handwaving Cadia not falling as "w-w-well you see... uhhhh... Order had more... errr... let's see... Battlefleet Gothic(!) victories! Therefore it's a stalemate!" was as bad as Chaos magically teleporting to Middenheim.

At least the Storm of Chaos stuff was so shameless it actually managed to make me laugh, and I was playing for Order in that one!

Seasons of War and Konor were still worse in my opinion. There was a pretty blatant attempt at a 'pay to win' in that store purchases counted towards your victories as much as actually winning games. No prizes for guessing which Grand Alliance/faction won those as a result. Even Nemesis Crown felt more satisfying than those.

It took over a decade but the 13th Black Crusade finally got Cadia! 
 

Wasn’t into Age of Sigmar when Seasons of War took place but I hope they do another campaign (without the weird store purchase thing you mentioned)

 

Also Nemesis Crown will always be a treasured memory because it was the first time I built a Dwarf army (which turned into a life long love for those stunties) and well, we both know who won that campaign! 

[Magnusaur]

Looking at the updated roadmap - I mean, scrying the stars and stuff - it seems reasonable to me that Seraphon is the first Order army of the year to receive an update. I'm thinking if it was the Kharadron or Cities, those would have been featured in the preview video. Or the other way around, what is clearly Seraphon units would not have been teased if they weren't landing within a couple of months.

Do the wise speculants of the TGA community agree?

[Neverchosen]

I think for me it feels like there is a pretty simple solution to the narrative which is to have different paratexts cover different narrative concerns. But I also feel like this is getting wildly off topic even for me.

Obviously things wont fit as neatly as this but these are how I imagine the broad strokes in terms of narrative levels and what each form of paratext is best suited at.

The Mythic :
The rulebook and battletomes should focus on the paradigm of the realms and the various forces and cultures. These books cover the mythologies and major characters and events in the mortal realms. 

 The Epic
The campaign books are the epic narratives that slowly overtime impact and shift the paradigmatic structures of the rulebook and battletomes.

The Romance:
Black library and additional paratexts, this is where you can showcase the impact of the other two types of narratives on a more focused and characterful way and also develop individual stories that showcase that even minor conflicts can be the most critical moment in a character's personal journey. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Back to the rumours, has there been any Underworlds Warbands that were released for completely new factions?

It has introduced new subfactions and hinted at major reworks but I am starting to wonder if the Malerion deniers might be accurate at least in this regard.

Edited January 5, 2023 by Neverchosen

[novakai]

4 hours ago, Ogregut said:

It's almost like he makes money from people watching his videos and will do all he can to suck people in to watch. 😜😜

It's why I don't tend to watch those channels, all seems to much like clickbait. 

Well this forum is a bit too gullible and naive when it comes to rumors.

granted it more about his track record on rumors but he has been notable a big AOS hater so this could be his way of bashing the community since there a big divergent between the two sides

Edited January 5, 2023 by novakai

[Ogregut]

2 minutes ago, novakai said:

Well this forum is a bit too gullible and naive when it comes to rumors.

granted it more about his track record on rumors but he has been notable a big AOS hater so this could be his way of bashing the community since there a big divergent between the two sides

Which is all the more reason not to watch him. I've seen a couple of his videos and he seems like a few you tubers who fall into the the trap of believing their own hype and become quite self righteous. 

As for the rumour, it would be weird if it was tomb Kings vs bretonnians after showing us map after map after map of the old world, then setting the story for the first box set in the land of the dead. 

I can see the bretonnian and tomb King model lines being made available again. 

I could see alot of old warhammer models being made available again, maybe on a rotation like lotr. 

High elves, wood elves, orcs and goblins, bretonnians, tomb Kings, empire, dwarves.

The 2nd prices for oldhammer and middlehammer models has risen and risen of late, bretonnians models especially at the moment are at a premium. It would be easy money for GW to make a army available every month or so. 

[Still-young]

13 hours ago, Sarges said:

Probably not all but mostly at LVO (January 26-29th).

Probably not even mostly. Last years LVO wasn’t great in terms of amount revealed (the last of the Eldar, the DoK/Nighthaunt box, Ka’bandha for Horus Heresy, an animation trailer, one Corsair for kill team and just announcing that Necromunda: Ash Wastes was a thing). 

[Ogregut]

1 hour ago, Still-young said:

Probably not even mostly. Last years LVO wasn’t great in terms of amount revealed (the last of the Eldar, the DoK/Nighthaunt box, Ka’bandha for Horus Heresy, an animation trailer, one Corsair for kill team and just announcing that Necromunda: Ash Wastes was a thing). 

This year could be better, last year we were still recovering from the pandemic, add to that the shipping issues and delays which could account for the smaller reveal show.