The Rumour Thread

[Matrindur]

1 hour ago, Elarin said:

One of my sources believes that the Old World pre-order will be on the 20th of January with the release on the 3rd of February. The Flesh-eater Courts models and the latest Dawnbringers book should be on the shelves on the 27th of January. It is not my regular, most reliable source; though, so I'm not 100% certain that it's true 

That sounds pretty believable and if its true we still have one more preorder between kill team and Dawnbringers 4 on the 6th for the 20th which could either be the rest of the inital Legions Imperialis wave or the Dark Angels boxset. The other of the two will then likely come after FEC and TOW on the 27th for release on the 10th.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Matrindur

[Jagged Red Lines]

51 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

Those are better minis, yes, but there’s zero chance that GW would ever take that approach. Where would the profit be? Better to sell minis they’ve already put the design effort into and get that market, however small, for relatively low effort.

Also more generally, while TOW is fundamentally not for me, I don’t think there’s much benefit in canvassing hardcore AoS players or AoS-centric social media to see if they’re going to pick any of this up.

My main concern is that they'll look at sales and deem it unprofitable, then effectively abandon it again.

When the real reason sales are low is because they're trying to sell ugly, 30 year old kits for inflated prices. 

[Elarin]

1 hour ago, cyrus said:

Thanks for the info !

Do you know beside Ushoran if there are more miniatures/boxes coming with Dawnbringers book 4 ?

Unfortunately, I have only dates. However, I'm 99% certain that Flesh-Eater Courts are coming in January and that the Old World is going on pre order in January as well so the dates seem very plausible 

[Jator]

2 hours ago, Elarin said:

One of my sources believes that the Old World pre-order will be on the 20th of January with the release on the 3rd of February. The Flesh-eater Courts models and the latest Dawnbringers book should be on the shelves on the 27th of January. It is not my regular, most reliable source; though, so I'm not 100% certain that it's true 

IIRC the leaked tie-in novel had the 20th January date too. So we can probably take it for granted, barring unforeseen circumstances.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Jator

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 hours ago, sandlemad said:

Also more generally, while TOW is fundamentally not for me, I don’t think there’s much benefit in canvassing hardcore AoS players or AoS-centric social media to see if they’re going to pick any of this up.

After TOW news I always take a look at Warhammer Fantasy groups and content creators to see what they have to say.

On the WHFB subreddit, people seem generally excited about the rules reveals and the contents of the Tomb Kings box. There are some people voicing their disappointment that the old skeletons were not updated, but there are also a bunch of people saying they like the old sculpts. The real question, of course, is how many people would be wishing for a return of the 5th ed skeleton kit if we had actually got an updated TK kit instead (I suspect it would be a vanishingly small number). Still, the reception among the target audience seems positive right now.

The big question in my eyes is how TOW intends to grow its player base beyond established WHFB players that have not moved on to AoS. Currently, we are looking at a game with more difficult rules, worse sculpts and probably more models needed to play compared to AoS. The old sculpts and number of models especially are something I view as barriers to winning over current AoS players: They are informed enough to know that GW could do better in terms of sculpts and they know what they are getting themselves into with 100+ model armies.

That leaves the question of how to attract completely new players to the game. It seems to me that TOW would have to do so on the strength of its IP (old world setting) and maybe price point (if they make it cheap). GW can't just keep pandering to WHFB player nostalgia indefinitely; it's not a recipe for sustained growth. I want to see what they do to bring new people into the game after the inital launch period is over.

[Tonhel]

2 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

After TOW news I always take a look at Warhammer Fantasy groups and content creators to see what they have to say.

On the WHFB subreddit, people seem generally excited about the rules reveals and the contents of the Tomb Kings box. There are some people voicing their disappointment that the old skeletons were not updated, but there are also a bunch of people saying they like the old sculpts. The real question, of course, is how many people would be wishing for a return of the 5th ed skeleton kit if we had actually got an updated TK kit instead (I suspect it would be a vanishingly small number). Still, the reception among the target audience seems positive right now.

The big question in my eyes is how TOW intends to grow its player base beyond established WHFB players that have not moved on to AoS. Currently, we are looking at a game with more difficult rules, worse sculpts and probably more models needed to play compared to AoS. The old sculpts and number of models especially are something I view as barriers to winning over current AoS players: They are informed enough to know that GW could do better in terms of sculpts and they know what they are getting themselves into with 100+ model armies.

That leaves the question of how to attract completely new players to the game. It seems to me that TOW would have to do so on the strength of its IP (old world setting) and maybe price point (if they make it cheap). GW can't just keep pandering to WHFB player nostalgia indefinitely; it's not a recipe for sustained growth. I want to see what they do to bring new people into the game after the inital launch period is over.

I hope that ToW will be a huge succes, but I don't think the goal is to attract new players or to really grow. That's the task of AoS. AoS had the better mini's and AoS is created in such a way that GW can release any miniature they want for it and still can create a piece of lore for it that would fit within the AoS background.

I can't wait for ToW and I would be very happy if the support by GW for ToW is somewhere between the support Middle Earth and 30k gets. A good ruleset and than some nice campaign books like they did with Tamurkhan. But I don't expect more for it. If there is more it will be at the cost of AoS and I don't think that this is what GW wants.

 

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

14 minutes ago, Tonhel said:

I hope that ToW will be a huge succes, but I don't think the goal is to attract new players or to really grow. That's the task of AoS. AoS had the better mini's and AoS is created in such a way that GW can release any miniature they want for it and still can create a piece of lore for it that would fit within the AoS background.

I can't wait for ToW and I would be very happy if the support by GW for ToW is somewhere between the support Middle Earth and 30k gets. A good ruleset and than some nice campaign books like they did with Tamurkhan. But I don't expect more for it. If there is more it will be at the cost of AoS and I don't think that this is what GW wants.

I agree to an extent, but from the perspective of GW as a business all their games need to grow and attract new players to justify their existence. That can mean different things for different games, of course. I imagine GW would be happy with Killteam not being a huge seller on its own if it acts as a pipline into 40k proper, for example.

What that would mean for TOW is a big question. Maybe growth for TOW means "a sufficient number of WHFB players return and some AoS players get a TOW army as their second game". But if that is the plan, then it is predicated on the profit margin of the game staying high because the market is small. In terms of models, that probably means keeping a lot of old kits in production for a long time to keep costs down and pricing new character kits as "enthusiast" models (forge world prices).

I don't know about you, but I am not really blown away if that is the perspective. It's better than nothing, and having OOP kits available again is pretty nice (definitely picking up some of those 8th ed Tomb Kings kits), but it doesn't exactly make me want to jump in with TOW. I think a lot of people were hoping for something resembling the level of support that AoS gets (like, appropriately scaled to what is feasible for a side game). Consistent smaller army updates, refreshes of old kits, cool narrative campaigns with new kits, that kind of thing.

[Marcvs]

2 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

What that would mean for TOW is a big question. Maybe growth for TOW means "a sufficient number of WHFB players return and some AoS players get a TOW army as their second game". But if that is the plan, then it is predicated on the profit margin of the game staying high because the market is small. In terms of models, that probably means keeping a lot of old kits in production for a long time to keep costs down and pricing new character kits as "enthusiast" models (forge world prices).

Maybe ToW is also (partially) justified by just "occupying a space" and keep people into the GW-ecosystem, by providing a rank and flank game and stopping even remotelly potential competitors (KoW, ASOIAF, Conquest) from getting bigger. In this sense, it wouldn't need to be a money making machine, just kind of pay for itself.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Marcvs

[Clan's Cynic]

GW probably intends to grow TOW via Lil Timmy thinking "golly gee whizz, rank-and-flank sure sounds interesting!" and going from there.

Similar to how Horus Heresy is seemingly pitched for an older audience than 40k, which is increasingly 'arcadey' and tournament-focused. They share a setting, but they're pretty different games. 

4 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

Maybe ToW is also (partially) justified by just "occupying a space" and keep people into the GW-ecosystem, by providing a rank and flank game and stopping even remotelly potential competitors (KoW, ASOIAF, Conquest) by getting bigger. In this sense, it wouldn't need to be a money making machine, just kind of pay for itself.

Also this.

It's probably not a coincidence they announced TOW the same time as Kings of War Third Edition and started showing off "Tomb Kings are coming back!" articles when KoW was putting out it's Not!Nehekharans.

I know quite a few people who were eyeing or building up KoW and other rank-and-flank armies who promptly abandoned them completely and were perfectly happy just waiting years for TOW to drop. The Games Workshop name, rightly or wrongly, carries a lot of weight to a lot of people.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Clan's Cynic

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

3 minutes ago, Marcvs said:

Maybe ToW is also (partially) justified by just "occupying a space" and keep people into the GW-ecosystem, by providing a rank and flank game and stopping even remotelly potential competitors (KoW, ASOIAF, Conquest) from getting bigger. In this sense, it wouldn't need to be a money making machine, just kind of pay for itself.

This makes some sense to me. But I think the misalignment here between our interests as players and GW's interest as a business is pretty obvious, if that is the case.

 

3 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

GW probably intends to grow TOW via Lil Timmy thinking "golly gee whizz, rank-and-flank sure sounds interesting!" and going from there.

To be honest, I don't believe most new players choose their starter tabletop game by playstyle preference.

[Clan's Cynic]

Just now, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

To be honest, I don't believe most new players choose their starter tabletop game by playstyle preference.

Well that's the thing, they're not aiming it at people who are completely new to tabletop games.

The miscommunication about "there won't be a starter set" more or less confirmed that, since GW's idea of starter sets is for total newbies to wargaming - though I believe their investor reports have said similar things about Horus Heresy.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Well that's the thing, they're not aiming it at people who are completely new to tabletop games.

That's part of the reason why I wonder how they inted to grow it, because the market of already established tabletop players who are knowledgable enough to have an interest in a rank and flank game, but don't currently already play a rank and flank game or own a warhammer fantasy army has got to be pretty small. GW discontinued WHFB for AOS partially because that established market was not profitable enough, after all.

[Clan's Cynic]

11 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

That's part of the reason why I wonder how they inted to grow it, because the market of already established tabletop players who are knowledgable enough to have an interest in a rank and flank game, but don't currently already play a rank and flank game or own a warhammer fantasy army has got to be pretty small. GW discontinued WHFB for AOS partially because that established market was not profitable enough, after all.

GW was haemorrhaging money on all fronts back in 2015. Even 40k sales were tanking. Considering End Times stuff usually sold out during pre-orders - something which rarely happened on anything back then - I think GW realised too late there was a market for stuff, they just couldn't sit back and not release anything new for years and expect people to keep buying (thus the aggressive release cycle we've had ever since).

I dunno, it's difficult for me to get too cynical, when I remember similar discussions about Horus Heresy in the runup to 2.0 and assurances "none except neckbeard grogs want to play 7th edition rules. It's going to be dead within three months". All that talk quickly dried up. Similarly I remember being assured "the hype for Legions Imperialis is gone, the delayed killed it"... and then everything sold out on Day 1, and I see a lot more internet and real life excitement for TOW than I have HH 2.0 or LI (except in AoS circles for... reasons I can speculate). 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Clan's Cynic

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

2 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

GW was haemorrhaging money on all fronts back in 2015. Even 40k sales were tanking. Considering End Times stuff usually sold out during pre-orders - something which rarely happened on anything back then - I think GW realised too late there was a market for stuff, they just couldn't sit back and not release anything new for years and expect people to keep buying (thus the aggressive release cycle we've had ever since).

I dunno, it's difficult for me to get too cynical, when I remember similar discussions about Horus Heresy in the runup to 2.0 and assurances "none except neckbeard grogs want to play 7th edition rules. It's going to be dead within three months". All that talk quickly dried up. Similarly I remember being assured "the hype for Legions Imperialis is gone, the delayed killed it"... and then everything sold out on Day 1, and I see a lot more internet and real life excitement for TOW than I have HH 2.0 or LI (except in AoS circles for... reasons I can speculate). 

I definitely still hope that TOW will be a success, even if I don't currently have plans to get into the game. I think having the Old World setting back, having an officially supported WHFB ruleset and having Bretonnia, Tomb Kings, High Elves etc. back on sale are all huge positives

I just hope GW is internally clear about their aims with this game, so that the game doesn't end up stagnant with no releases.

[Nezzhil]

6 hours ago, Elarin said:

One of my sources believes that the Old World pre-order will be on the 20th of January with the release on the 3rd of February. The Flesh-eater Courts models and the latest Dawnbringers book should be on the shelves on the 27th of January. It is not my regular, most reliable source; though, so I'm not 100% certain that it's true 

Yep, first AoS and then OW but one day before for OW.

Edited December 15, 2023 by Nezzhil

[LordSolarMach]

6 hours ago, Ejecutor said:

Also theres resins and resins. Forge resin has an outstanding quality. Even with that, I pass on resin mainly cause the heavily overpriced costs from Forge.

With all the price hikes I'm not sure there's much of a difference anymore. 

For example, the newer Deathmaster sculpt is $45 (CAD), whereas I'd imagine Skitter Stab-Stab will be priced at the point that all the other Blood Bowl Star Players are... $45 (CAD).

The Thousand Sons' Infernal Master is $50 (CAD), whereas the Thousand Sons Librarian will probably be at the same price as the recent Horus Heresy Consuls... $53 (CAD).

[Grunbag]

5 hours ago, Elarin said:

Unfortunately, I have only dates. However, I'm 99% certain that Flesh-Eater Courts are coming in January and that the Old World is going on pre order in January as well so the dates seem very plausible 

Any news on a COS or IJ vanguard ? 

[CommissarRotke]

16 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

To be fair I wouldn't call it 'nostalgia' when people have been asking GW to bring back Fantasy for seven years. 

My take is they realised there is a market for rank-and-flank games they left the door open for other companies to fill (Kings of War, Conquest, etc) and recognised it was a blindspot they should be filling themselves

 

16 hours ago, Ogregut said:

It's giving people what they want, what they've been asking for since the end of 8th Ed warhammer. 

I love AoS, it's a great game with some of the best models ever made by GW. 

But warhammer fantasy was my first love in wargaming when I first started over 30 years ago

I see your points but tbh I think players asking for it back *still* falls under nostalgia; because in your own words people are asking for it back because it is something they've had since childhood. that's still nostalgia, regardless of any other corporate reasonings.

they are both filling a mechanical gap (rank n file game) and nostalgia gap (returning a flagship IP) by doing TOW.

[Ejecutor]

22 minutes ago, Grunbag said:

Any news on a COS or IJ vanguard ? 

That CoS vanguard is taking longer than the twin tailed crusade to reach their destination!

[Clan's Cynic]

Probably 40k, but there's reasonable guesses for AoS and even TOW with this one I think.

[Asbestress]

1 minute ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Probably 40k, but there's reasonable guesses for AoS and even TOW with this one I think.

Obviously a metal panel being used as a shield by the new Flagellants and definitely 100% never-ever trench raider close-quarters infantry for the Krieg refresh.

[Ejecutor]

6 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Probably 40k, but there's reasonable guesses for AoS and even TOW with this one I think.

Those holes are clearly arrow holes and not bullet holes at all.

[Neverchosen]

7 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Probably 40k, but there's reasonable guesses for AoS and even TOW with this one I think.

On the Fourteenth day of Christmas, GW previewed me:
Fifteen Vampirate Banners
Fourteen Bolters Bolting
Thirteen Holy Hand-grenades 
Twelve Krule Kudgels 
Eleven Astartes Scabbards 
Ten Ossiarch Boneclaws
Nine Nighthaunt Vaping
Eight Servo Calculators
Seven Grotbags Scuttling
Six Sickly Casters
FIVE KURNOTH ANTLERS
Four Fuzzy Cloaks
Three finecast miners
Two undead helmsmen and
A parrot on a Vampire

[KingBrodd]

Im going to sound like a massive pessimist but if that box costs more than £90 Ill let out a laugh so loud itll wake Behemat from death.

[Ejecutor]

14 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:

Im going to sound like a massive pessimist but if that box costs more than £90 Ill let out a laugh so loud itll wake Behemat from death.

I was doing some maths earlier based on Horus Heresy latest box as we were talking about a rumour of it being priced the same than the HH launch box (240 €):

MKIII Tactical Squad (warhammer.com)

This is 20 marines for 60 €. AoS/ TOW should be cheaper than 40/30k so I am assuming the content of the box can be split in 5 boxes.

40 Skellies
32 Arches
16 Horses
3 Carts
Heroes

If we price the non heroes boxes as 60 € as well and the hero a bit higher (60-80) and the book being 55 € that's a total of 375 € (60+60+60+60+55+80) worth of material. So I sadly see it feasible being 240 € for the box (a 35% discount over full estimated price).

Also woth saying that this would be like taking the latest WHFB prices back in place (16 units 30 €), so I don't see it crazy
 

Edited December 15, 2023 by Ejecutor