The Rumour Thread

[Hollow]

I like the ToW profile. I much prefer USR which can be learned, allowing you to clearly see what a unit does by just having the keyword on its "card". 

As for the AoS "books/lore" discussion, I really wish that GW and Black Library would invest more into building out the Mortal Realms. Regardless of subjective opinions, the actual game of AoS is in a solid place and the models/factions are in a very solid place, unfortunately, the weak leak for AoS is its "world-building". 

It's not that the lore of the setting is "bad", it just feels a bit scattered and thin. There is so much potential in how the Mortal Realms could be portrayed. As was previously mentioned, The Horus Heresy's setting has been brilliantly explored through novels.

I'm not sure I am entirely sold on how AoS is approaching its Realms exposition. I feel like each of the 8 realms should be characters in themselves and discussed simultaneously. People should be able to relate to them. Have a favourite and be able to "spend time" in them. I'd really like to see a new and updated "Travellers Guide to the Mortal Realms" series on Warcom. More maps! More art! More stories. More written lore explaining cultures, civilizations, nomenclature, and creatures. (I've mentioned before that I would love to see an 8 part "coffee table" style book series detailing each of the respective realms as if from the perspective of a great explorer) 

In terms of product, there should be a scenery section for AoS that has 8 different sets allowing you to create battlefields in each of the realms. 

[Goatforce]

40 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

For Skaven, what plastic kits would be fine to purchase right now? I still think the clanrats and stormvermin look great. Imo, these don't need a replacement. What kits could and should be replaced?

I have the Island of Blood pushfit clanrats and imo, they are still fantastic. I prefer to have new plague monks in the AoS 4th edition starterset instead of new clanrats.

I would definitely say Eshin stuff, a fair amount of Pestilens and some Skryre (Acolytes, weapon teams) are probably the most likely to get refreshes, which does cover a lot of stuff. Given that basic Ghouls got left alone and there is only so much a refresh can do I would say that clanrats and stormvermin aren't in too much danger.

[Chikout]

47 minutes ago, Hollow said:

I like the ToW profile. I much prefer USR which can be learned, allowing you to clearly see what a unit does by just having the keyword on its "card". 

As for the AoS "books/lore" discussion, I really wish that GW and Black Library would invest more into building out the Mortal Realms. Regardless of subjective opinions, the actual game of AoS is in a solid place and the models/factions are in a very solid place, unfortunately, the weak leak for AoS is its "world-building". 

It's not that the lore of the setting is "bad", it just feels a bit scattered and thin. There is so much potential in how the Mortal Realms could be portrayed. As was previously mentioned, The Horus Heresy's setting has been brilliantly explored through novels.

I'm not sure I am entirely sold on how AoS is approaching its Realms exposition. I feel like each of the 8 realms should be characters in themselves and discussed simultaneously. People should be able to relate to them. Have a favourite and be able to "spend time" in them. I'd really like to see a new and updated "Travellers Guide to the Mortal Realms" series on Warcom. More maps! More art! More stories. More written lore explaining cultures, civilizations, nomenclature, and creatures. (I've mentioned before that I would love to see an 8 part "coffee table" style book series detailing each of the respective realms as if from the perspective of a great explorer) 

In terms of product, there should be a scenery section for AoS that has 8 different sets allowing you to create battlefields in each of the realms. 

I do think that the AoS lore is good. I'd go so far as to say it's better than the old world in many ways. The problem is the ways and places it has been presented. There have been about 90 AoS novels so far. That's about 10 a year. Fantasy got 150 novels in 30 years so about half the release rate. A major difference though is the lack of series in AoS. Since the Realmgate wars the only ongoing series has been Gotrek and even there most side characters only hung around for a single book. 

Fantasy had many longer series. Nagash, Teclis, Orion and others all got trilogies dedicated to them. Give us a Gordrakk trilogy or a series of books focused on Katakros. It's been a couple of years since they introduced two new characters complete with a book and a mini each but neither has had a follow up. 

There has been lots of good content in White Dwarf covering the different realms, but I definitely echo the point about collating it all into a series of coffee table books. 

There's also a lot of good stuff in the RPG but again it's spread out across many books and a lot of them are naturally intermixed with rules and campaigns for the game. It's a lot of money to buy those books just for the lore and most people aren't as crazy as me. 

It would be amazing to see all the cool art and lore  they've already done, mixed with new material in a series of volumes. There's a huge amount of potential there. 

[Gitzdee]

2 hours ago, EntMan said:

This is just from my head and based on nothing. But as, like it or not, AoS in many ways mirrors or follows 40k, I had been thinking that maybe we are seeing the AoS version of the Great Crusade, and maybe it'll initially play out well for Sigmar but all go wrong with betrayal as he nears the completion of his grand plan. Stormcast civil war.

But maybe in AoS case the corruption will be by Death, rather than Chaos, as Stormcast start to be increasingly dissatisfied with the reforging process and some begin to switch to Nagash.

And Kroak becomes a proper undead frog with other zombie amphibians joining him to battle Nagash. A man can dream.

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, Tonhel said:

For Skaven, what plastic kits would be fine to purchase right now? I still think the clanrats and stormvermin look great. Imo, these don't need a replacement. What kits could and should be replaced?

I have the Island of Blood pushfit clanrats and imo, they are still fantastic. I prefer to have new plague monks in the AoS 4th edition starterset instead of new clanrats.

I personally believe that clanrats and stormvermins will be fine, should the skaven be the next faction getting an update in 4.0 (we of course all hope so)

Kits or clans that we could probably see being update, if any at all, are clan skryre: weapon teams (including jezzails) and skryre acolytes (may we’ll see a new warlock model or arch warlock👐🏻)

clan pestilence: plague censer, plague monks

clan eshin: night/gutter runners

Clan moulder: rat ogre, master moulder, giant rats (maybe rat swarms but I have a feeling that they may be going from the range) and packmaster although I could sed gw doung a gloomspite gitz thing here and just making the packmaster an additional model taken when playing units of rat ogres or giant rats.

now these are just what I think could happen, sadly I don’t know anything and in the end it is up to gw how and what gets updated.

I still doubt thought that clanrats or stormvermins will be part of that update, if it happens

[GhostShark]

22 hours ago, MitGas said:

I think there‘s zero chance that we won‘t get Malerion‘s forces. 👍 Dark Elfs were quite popular back then and when I look at this forum, it seems a given that there‘s still a huuuuge interest in them. Evil elfs is such a classic trope, and Malerion has been teased for so long AND even Morathi got a whole army, I think it‘s extremely likely that Malerion will at least get a wave with multiple units, a centerpiece and some surprises. So at the very least they‘ll expand DoK by a wave akin to the latest Flesh-Eaters, CoS or Seraphon! If not even I would be disappointed and I won‘t collect them (back when I started the teo guys I played collected Dark Aelf and O&G, so I‘m very nostalgic…. And Dark Eldar in 40k popped off too, so why wouldn‘t AoS DE not become a huge success). 
 

TLDR; I‘m very optimistic about Malerion getting a very lovely army in the not so distant future. The fans have been patient enough! 

As a DoK player who got into the army for sexy elf women I'd be really disappointed if we finally got an other wave and it WASN'T sexy elf women, but some other thing entirely.

 

[Ejecutor]

45 minutes ago, Chikout said:

I do think that the AoS lore is good. I'd go so far as to say it's better than the old world in many ways. The problem is the ways and places it has been presented. There have been about 90 AoS novels so far. That's about 10 a year. Fantasy got 150 novels in 30 years so about half the release rate. A major difference though is the lack of series in AoS. Since the Realmgate wars the only ongoing series has been Gotrek and even there most side characters only hung around for a single book. 

Fantasy had many longer series. Nagash, Teclis, Orion and others all got trilogies dedicated to them. Give us a Gordrakk trilogy or a series of books focused on Katakros. It's been a couple of years since they introduced two new characters complete with a book and a mini each but neither has had a follow up. 

There has been lots of good content in White Dwarf covering the different realms, but I definitely echo the point about collating it all into a series of coffee table books. 

There's also a lot of good stuff in the RPG but again it's spread out across many books and a lot of them are naturally intermixed with rules and campaigns for the game. It's a lot of money to buy those books just for the lore and most people aren't as crazy as me. 

It would be amazing to see all the cool art and lore  they've already done, mixed with new material in a series of volumes. There's a huge amount of potential there. 

Btw, if someone is interested about the RPG books you can find them for free down in Blight City if you know where to search.

Imo they are more accesible than the novels in terms of not needing to throw money to get your hands into the lore.

Also, a serie on warhammer + similar to Hammer and Bolter giving some lofe to the AoS world building would help a lot.

[Vagard]

As I agree that clanrats and stormvermins are not the first in the revamp list for skaven, it sounds weird to pack a starting box with old minis. Since the first ed boxset, there always have been brand new minis in the box, both SCE and opponent side if i'm not mistaken. 

That said, as the clanrat are the backbone of skaven army, I hardly see a box without 20 of them. So i'm pretty certain to see a new kit even if they are not the ones who needs it the most. But as we seen with kruelboys, we can expect a lots of new kits, both revamp and brand new ones, and some cuts like CoS as well i guess.

About gutter runners or censer bearers, or every unit which represent a specific clan, warcry is the best way to release such units. So maybe we will see them a bit later in the edition.   

Kruelboyz had 11 kits released for the new ed. If we stick to this nober for skaven we can expect : 

- clanrats

- stormvermin

- weapon team

- rat ogors

- jezzails 

- master moulder

- generic master

- plague monks

- plague monk hero 

- some brand new kits 

-> gutter runners and censer bearers as warcry teams during the V4

Edited November 28, 2023 by Vagard

[Lucentia]

If skaven are going to be in the starter boxes, they will want to fill those boxes with brand new minis, and they will want those forces to be playable out of the box, so I would expect to see at least one battleline unit resculpt for the skaven, most likely Clanrats, much like the tyranids got new gaunts.

However, the alternative possibility is that they focus on a new/less supported Skaven clan for the starter boxes, which brings its own brand new battleline units with it, in which case some of the older kits might remain as they are.

[Luperci]

22 minutes ago, GhostShark said:

As a DoK player who got into the army for sexy elf women I'd be really disappointed if we finally got an other wave and it WASN'T sexy elf women, but some other thing entirely.

 

You wouldn't settle for sexy elf men?? Joking aside I would imagine a combined Malerion and morathi battletome being like orruk warclans, not truly part of the same army.

[Tonhel]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

I do think that the AoS lore is good. I'd go so far as to say it's better than the old world in many ways. The problem is the ways and places it has been presented. There have been about 90 AoS novels so far. That's about 10 a year. Fantasy got 150 novels in 30 years so about half the release rate. A major difference though is the lack of series in AoS. Since the Realmgate wars the only ongoing series has been Gotrek and even there most side characters only hung around for a single book. 

Fantasy had many longer series. Nagash, Teclis, Orion and others all got trilogies dedicated to them. Give us a Gordrakk trilogy or a series of books focused on Katakros. It's been a couple of years since they introduced two new characters complete with a book and a mini each but neither has had a follow up. 

There has been lots of good content in White Dwarf covering the different realms, but I definitely echo the point about collating it all into a series of coffee table books. 

There's also a lot of good stuff in the RPG but again it's spread out across many books and a lot of them are naturally intermixed with rules and campaigns for the game. It's a lot of money to buy those books just for the lore and most people aren't as crazy as me. 

It would be amazing to see all the cool art and lore  they've already done, mixed with new material in a series of volumes. There's a huge amount of potential there. 

I don't know. The AoS world doesn't really grasp me. I know there are 8 realms, but it could easly be 4 or 20. What does it matter. I played Empire during Warhammer and Slaves to Darkness and Cities of Sigmar with AoS. With the Empire, I wanted to have an Averland and Reikland army. Not only because of the colours, but because the location on the map, the history and etc.. I knew the background of my army and each hero had a small background that fitted with their magical items. I never used named characters and barely switched my magic items. Lol, I got attached to my heroes in Warhammer.

With CoS it's more like hmm, I like the Lethis allegiance. It is handy against OBR and Soulblight armies of my opponents and I like the colour scheme. That's it. The realm where Lethis is in, doesn't interest me. Nor I am attached to my heroes. (I am even not bothered to give my heroes a name...) I know ofcourse this is subjective. But I started with AoS after the End Times and with each edition AoS got better rules wise and the mini's got amazing,  but still after 10 years the background doesn't do much for me.

Warhammer entangled me much more fluff wise, maybe because it was smaller in scope, more grounded and easier to grasp. I don't know. But all that high fantasy stuff in AoS is just to much imo. Although I do like the game and really like the miniatures. 😉

Edited November 28, 2023 by Tonhel

[Grungnisson]

3 minutes ago, Luperci said:

You wouldn't settle for sexy elf men?? Joking aside I would imagine a combined Malerion and morathi battletome being like orruk warclans, not truly part of the same army.

I then propose another option, an army of Tilda Swintons and 1970s David Bowies to satifsy the fans of sexy in-between elfs.

[Gitzdee]

I fully expect Skaven to be handled like CoS. There are too many subfactions to be updated all at once. I think it is plausible that one or 2 get removed to make way for new ideas like they did with wanderers etc. I know it might not be a popular opinion, but i would like a rework of the Skaven army. It would make me start buying into the army and put them in line with other AoS models.

[MitGas]

47 minutes ago, GhostShark said:

As a DoK player who got into the army for sexy elf women I'd be really disappointed if we finally got an other wave and it WASN'T sexy elf women, but some other thing entirely.

 

Hmmm, I can understand that but I figure it‘s not too unlikely as they used to be a single force as well… GW just went ahead and built new factions around the most beloved and iconic units in AoS to varying degrees of success. There might be a point in keeping DoK a girl‘s club though, I guess one more or less exclusively female faction is something Warhammer fans on the whole like. A difficult situation. 
 

I always argue for mixed forces as a) I like it and b) I think it‘s easier/better to not have too many different factions but I get your point. Plus hawt elf chicks > spoony elf dudes! 😇

[GhostShark]

24 minutes ago, Luperci said:

You wouldn't settle for sexy elf men?? Joking aside I would imagine a combined Malerion and morathi battletome being like orruk warclans, not truly part of the same army.

I'm sure you'd be right. But the problem still remains. Instead of getting a new wave of DoK, we'd be getting some other thing. 

[Vagard]

11 minutes ago, Gitzdee said:

I fully expect Skaven to be handled like CoS. There are too many subfactions to be updated all at once. I think it is plausible that one or 2 get removed to make way for new ideas like they did with wanderers etc. I know it might not be a popular opinion, but i would like a rework of the Skaven army. It would make me start buying into the army and put them in line with other AoS models.

Don't think we can see it as CoS. Every clan have a speciality which is translate in game (monsters for moulder, warmachines and firepower with skryre, assassins and strike-and-fade for eshin etc). In CoS, duardins aelves and humans have basically the same roles, just a different warscroll to stick with the race (dwarves are slower, aelves faster...) but you can see that there is warmachines, monsters, light and heavy units in every races. 

Furthermore, there have been several recent releases for eshin (deathmaster and UW units) and pestilens (UW units) so pretty sure there will be a cut for some units but a whole clan? I doubt it 

 

EDIT : Long time no see @Whitefang 😴

Edited November 28, 2023 by Vagard

[Ejecutor]

4 minutes ago, Vagard said:

Don't think we can see it as CoS. Every clan have a speciality which is translate in game (monsters for moulder, warmachines and firepower with skryre, assassins and strike-and-fade for eshin etc). In CoS, duardins aelves and humans have basically the same roles, just a different warscroll to stick with the race (dwarves are slower, aelves faster...) but you can that there is warmachines, monsters, light and heavy units in every races. 

Furthermore, there have been several recent releases for eshin (deathmaster and UW units) and pestilens (UW units) so pretty sure there will be a cut for some units but a whole clan? I doubt it 

Don't forget the power of LEGEND. If it fits their narrative (why not having an inner war where some clans are completely destroyed or have to be rebuilt into something new?) wouldn't surprise me if GW moves those UW bands into legends, similar to what happened to those Cursed City heroes that were moved into legends pretty quickly.

[Vagard]

Bit different to move to legend a buch of motley heroes from a 200ish € standalone game box than a way more accessible spammable unit from a more accessible game at 40ish € a box. Even more unlikely if it happens, it will be a first for a UW unit to go to legend compared to the huge amount of warbands. Very very unlikely to me

And as far as I remember, ulfenkarn heroes never has AoS rules (not sure about this one)

Edited November 28, 2023 by Vagard

[Luperci]

Pestilens would be the only clan I could see getting cut as they kinda overlap with nurgle's stuff. But I don't expect to see that happen really, I really hope skryre and moulder don't get axed.

[Chikout]

44 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

I don't know. The AoS world doesn't really grasp me. I know there are 8 realms, but it could easly be 4 or 20. What does it matter. I played Empire during Warhammer and Slaves to Darkness and Cities of Sigmar with AoS. With the Empire, I wanted to have an Averland and Reikland army. Not only because of the colours, but because the location on the map, the history and etc.. I knew the background of my army and each hero had a small background that fitted with their magical items. I never used named characters and barely switched my magic items. Lol, I got attached to my heroes in Warhammer.

With CoS it's more like hmm, I like the Lethis allegiance. It is handy against OBR and Soulblight armies of my opponents and I like the colour scheme. That's it. The realm where Lethis is in, doesn't interest me. Nor I am attached to my heroes. (I am even not bothered to give my heroes a name...) I know ofcourse this is subjective. But I started with AoS after the End Times and with each edition AoS got better rules wise and the mini's got amazing,  but still after 10 years the background doesn't do much for me.

Warhammer entangled me much more fluff wise, maybe because it was smaller in scope, more grounded and easier to grasp. I don't know. But all that high fantasy stuff in AoS is just to much imo. Although I do like the game and really like the miniatures. 😉

It's always subjective of course, but when someone gives an answer like this, I'm curious how much they've read. Lethis is one of the more interesting cities in the realms. It is the beachhead of Sigmar's effort to build a kingdom in the realm of death, the home city of the Anvils of Heldenhammer and was the prison of Katakros. It has history that has actually played out in the course of the game.

I also find the realm of death fascinating as it was essentially the Discworld's afterlife before Nagash took over. Now the entire realm is gradually being consumed by a mini blackhole in its centre. That's way more interest to me than any location in the old world but as you say it's all subjective. 

[Hollow]

3 minutes ago, Chikout said:

I don't know. The AoS world doesn't really grasp me. I know there are 8 realms, but it could easly be 4 or 20. What does it matter.

 

I have heard similar things before and it's why I think the AoS design studio would do well to really explore and define the realms further. The 8 realms should matter a lot more than they currently do. Rather than have an edition focused on a singular realm, it would be cool if an edition spent around 4 months "in" each realm releasing factions, battle tomes, books, scenery and narratives appropriate for each. 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

1 hour ago, Lucentia said:

If skaven are going to be in the starter boxes, they will want to fill those boxes with brand new minis, and they will want those forces to be playable out of the box, so I would expect to see at least one battleline unit resculpt for the skaven, most likely Clanrats, much like the tyranids got new gaunts.

However, the alternative possibility is that they focus on a new/less supported Skaven clan for the starter boxes, which brings its own brand new battleline units with it, in which case some of the older kits might remain as they are.

I would also predict a restructuring of the Skaven faction. And that would probably result in a bunch of kits getting removed without a real replacement, as well.

Just look at Cities: The Freeguild used to have three variants of Guard and Greatswords, now only Steelhelms. They used to have Crossbowmen and Handgunners (and arches in the before-times), now only Fusiliers. Demigryph Knights, Pistoliers and Outriders, now only Cavaliers.

I personally welcome the move towards fewer redundant units and I think overall it is good for AoS factions not to cling to the units established by WHFB forever. But because that is the current mode of operation for GW, I think we whould expect Skaven to lose a bunch of kits, as well (although hopefully picking up some new stuff along the way).

[Ejecutor]

32 minutes ago, Vagard said:

Bit different to move to legend a buch of motley heroes from a 200ish € standalone game box than a way more accessible spammable unit from a more accessible game at 40ish € a box. Even more unlikely if it happens, it will be a first for a UW unit to go to legend compared to the huge amount of warbands. Very very unlikely to me

And as far as I remember, ulfenkarn heroes never has AoS rules (not sure about this one)

They had AoS profiles. Most of them for CoS.

[RetconnedLegion]

3 hours ago, Hollow said:

As for the AoS "books/lore" discussion, I really wish that GW and Black Library would invest more into building out the Mortal Realms. Regardless of subjective opinions, the actual game of AoS is in a solid place and the models/factions are in a very solid place, unfortunately, the weak leak for AoS is its "world-building". 

It's not that the lore of the setting is "bad", it just feels a bit scattered and thin. There is so much potential in how the Mortal Realms could be portrayed. As was previously mentioned, The Horus Heresy's setting has been brilliantly explored through novels.

I think it’s an issue of sales rather than lack of ideas or motivation when it comes to AoS. We’ve had several trilogies cancelled after a book due to poor sales. Of course, that raises the question of if it’s the lack of sales driving the lack of support or the lack of support driving the lack of sales? GW seem to only print about 12 copies of their novels these days, if you don’t preorder day one good luck finding a print copy in non GW stores.

[Clan's Cynic]

Chaos? Ogres? FEC? Take your guesses. The presence of the broken tusk makes me inclined towards something Destruction though.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Clan's Cynic