The Rumour Thread

[Lucentia]

Probably doesn't help that even 40k chaff units tend to have, like, 8 weapon options of varying degrees of uselessness.

To kind of square these two tangents, we could be looking at something like clanrats just being armed with 'rusted weapons' and the starter box squad will be mixed swords and spears.  The new FEC cryptguard do this, where their swords and halberds have the same profile, potentially written with 4.0 in mind.

[The Red King]

Guys whitefang sad reacted my art gripe. Incoming Chinese gotcha game for 4th edition AoS confirmed! (This is a joke)

[Mcm6495]

Hace 22 horas, Gaball Slaaneshi dijo:

Es mi turno :

 

Hacia

-Abraxia es una mini muy bonita. Realmente no nombro nombres en mis juegos, así que no soy muy entusiasta como la gente de aquí. Pero rezo para que Dawnbringer 6 sea un buen final y, en mi opinión, una de las mejores campañas narrativas de Games Workshop.

-Lo siento, Slaanesh, pero los Skavens me llaman... o tal vez pueda hacer Slaaneshi Skavens. Es muy herético, sí, sí. Los skavens son totalmente divertidos, son fieles a sí mismos y a su diseño histórico. Tengo curiosidad por la historia entre Archaon y GHR que parece concluir finalmente un pacto. 

-Stormcast son muy buenos. Pero siento que son demasiado...normales. Prefiero esperar a las minis, que parecen más antinaturales que un simple Thunderstrike Liberator.

-Índices; si quizas. Nunca he jugado AoS, pero puede que me permita comenzar por un tiempo antes de que Meta se convierta en el nuevo jefe de la cuarta edición.

40k

Buenas noticias para el CSM. Estoy feliz por ellos.

Remolcar

Los enanos de plástico son muy buenos. Quiero que el tipo del escudo lo convierta en caos. Umgrim siempre es Ungrim pero sentimos su juventud, así que creo que eso es bueno.

 

Grito de guerra

Sylvaneth no es para mí. Son perfectos por supuesto pero no para mí. Sin embargo, Ossiarch debe ser una banda en mi lista de tareas pendientes. Ya escucho los susurros del alma de los tres perros. Y vaya... ¿te imaginaste derretir tu alma con otra y ponerla en un cuerpo de cuatro patas y dos manos? Si no tienes PTSD, el destino podría darte uno.

Inframundo

¡POR SIGMAR EDDISON! Son muy divertidos, pero los encuentro demasiado sombríos. Sí, AoS es oscuro, pero tiene un culto de un buen dios donde te torturas... son 40k. Preferiría Fĺagellants como en la tradición, quienes con su sangre curan del caos.

 

Los demonios son agradables, pero no son un milagro.

 

 

I'm the same, I hope that in the future we get a nameless Varanguard hero.

[The Lost Sigmarite]

2 minutes ago, Sarges said:

Clash of Masterclans.

Tbf I’d be very down for a mobile game like this about Warhammer.

[Koala]

1 hour ago, Ganigumo said:

Good design: Not forcing players to consult spreadsheets to figure out points
Bad design: Not balancing the weapon options

A failure to properly balance the options does not make this bad design. They fail to balance weapon options constantly, and which one is good changes from edition to edition, which punishes players with the wrong loadout.
Even with my previous experience with 40k that was the case. You'd always run tankbustas with max rokkits, one edition nobs with big choppas would be good, and another power klaws would be the thing. I remember buying models with no upgrades as ablative wounds just so my fights last power klaw nobs would get a chance to fight last, the klaws were more expensive than the model itself. You play GW games long enough and you just kind of accept they're going to ****** up loadout balance constantly.
Happens in AoS too, Tzaangor used to run shields, and are now best even ignoring the special weapon options with dual blades, gore gruntas used to bring choppas, now they bring spears. There are probably hundreds of examples across tons of editions.

GW has gotten SO MUCH better at this. 

With every new iteration the gap between options closes (better in AoS, but then it does not have a decades old player expectation of "this weapon is better than that weapon" ) . 

Could they have gone further? Absolutely! 

Can you find examples where rules feel off or even plain stupid? Sure.

Welcome to the scale of the hobby ("too big" )

But we are honestly at a point where you need extended calculations to find the optimal loadout for a lot of units. Some players even complain about "all the options being the same". 

I for one am looking forward to the next iteration of datasheets. And am optimistic they will - in general - feel like they all have a place. 

[Sigmarusvult]

2 minutes ago, The Red King said:

This looks like cash grab mobile game art. I know it's not but geez is that a step-down in art quality.

Agreed, hopefully this is just for the emails and promotional stuff.

It is a real shame that artist Thomas Elliot left GW last November. He did such a good job in giving AOS a more mature and epic aspect without being overly depressing, which I think is too often the case in 40k.

I really hope that whoever comes in to replace him is going to be as good or better. 

[Skreech Verminking]

49 minutes ago, Sealven said:

I just got an email from Warhammer with some art I hadn't seen before.

Looks like new Stormvermin are on the way

I mean the artwork is awesome.

you see a clawleader of the clanrats on top and some on the bottom.

but I don’t see anything indicating clanrats gettting a new kit.

these guys look like clanrats as we know about them

[Flippy]

19 minutes ago, Ganigumo said:

A unit being the same cost is regardless of weapon options, with the options balanced against each other is good design.
If one of the options somehow changes the units role entirely, IE from an anvil to a ranged hammer you should probably have a different entry entirely to point it appropriately, and to make things clearer to the players.
The complaint that "A boltgun and Plasma gun costing the same is ludicrous" is not a game design argument. Its a verisimilitude argument. The only reason its a problem is because the narrative says plasma guns are better than boltguns. There's no reason a plasma gun couldn't be 1 high AP/STR shot, and the boltgun would get enough low AP/STR shots to be comparable. Maybe the meta favors high AP stuff, but its not impossible to have them be roughly comparable.
Customization of troops to that level just isn't impactful enough to the game as a whole to bother with the complexity. I understand some people enjoy the quartermaster simulator aspects, but its a lot of overhead the game doesn't need.

You missed two aspects. One is that verisimilitude matters a lot - even more, perhaps, than balance or overall game result. So does customisation, even if it does not affect the overall game result in any significant way. The reason is obvious; we put the models on the table for the game, but also for the theatre of imagination.

The second aspect is that the points complexity does not affect the gameplay at all. This "quartermaster simulator" is a solitaire you can play in-between actual games - you usually have ample time to figure it out. 

[Draznak]

4 minutes ago, Sigmarusvult said:

It is a real shame that artist Thomas Elliot left GW last November. He did such a good job in giving AOS a more mature and epic aspect without being overly depressing, which I think is too often the case in 40k.

I really hope that whoever comes in to replace him is going to be as good or better. 

The departures of Thomas Elliott and especially Paul Dainton (my favourite GW illustrator of all time) are very bad news for the quality of GW illustrations. I also hope they'll find good replacements (Igor Sid seems to have returned, at least to BL ?) but it's going to be hard to do as well.

This newsletter art reminds me of the terrible period at the start of AoS when there was a lot of very poor quality artworks.

[Garrac]

So, instead of a 20 clanrats + 10 stormvermin box seems like we're looking at a 40 clanrats box.

3 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

I mean the artwork is awesome.

you see a clawleader of the clanrats on top and some on the bottom.

but I don’t see anything indicating clanrats gettting a new kit.

these guys look like clanrats as we know about them

I mean, clanrats on the leaks, clanrats on the trailer, clanrats on the artwork... I think the sooner we accept clanrats will get a refresh, the better.

[DinoJon]

13 minutes ago, The Red King said:

Guys whitefang sad reacted my art gripe. Incoming Chinese gotcha game for 4th edition AoS confirmed! (This is a joke)

I'll be honest.... I would be all in for a decent Age of Sigmar mobile game

[Pizzaprez]

42 minutes ago, RollSixxess said:

Khul gets beheaded by Abraxia after he descends because nothing makes your antagonist look more threatening than if they kill the last antagonist 

EDIT : Also at what point does Be’Lakor just give up? Vashtorr is now doing his thing in 40K and stole a big scary teleport engine and a large rat became a Chaos God before he did. He finds a way to mess with the immortal lightning warriors who end up becoming Primaris Marines instead. Abraxia is Chaos’s 2nd favourite child now. 

dude has been struggling for as long as he's existed as a character, lol: one of the things i love most about him!

It'd have to be a pretty big narrative shift for him to become the focus, but you wouldn't see me complain: let Archaon go on an old-school Realm of Chaos style vision quest and leave the empty throne unattended for awhile: give Abraxia vs Belakor the stage for a "main chaos faction civil war" arc

They gotta give the dude a win that sticks; cursed skies are cool! I'd love to see 'em circle back to them. Collapsing the realmgates was a real cool idea, and I like how much of a hater he still is after all these years

on the topic of rats; they look cool! I don't love the new stormcast heads! I do love the nucasts!

[CommissarRotke]

4 hours ago, GloomkingWortwazi said:

Meanwhile at the allpoints...

Chicken Little is that you??

[The Lost Sigmarite]

47 minutes ago, RollSixxess said:

 

EDIT : Also at what point does Be’Lakor just give up? Vashtorr is now doing his thing in 40K and stole a big scary teleport engine and a large rat became a Chaos God before he did. He finds a way to mess with the immortal lightning warriors who end up becoming Primaris Marines instead. Abraxia is Chaos’s 2nd favourite child now. 

The whole character point of Belakor is that he’s never going to become a full chaos god no matter how hard he tries.

[Clan's Cynic]

Dawnbringer Chronicles with Elves in it, bah!

Quote

This week, the Dawnbringer Chronicles chart a familiar tale – a sister’s desperate search for her lost brother – but not all is as it seems in the Mortal Realms. An aelf of the Lumineth delves deep into the Temple of the Ur-Phoenix, and she may not like what she finds at the end of her quest.

Things don't sound too swell for the Phoenicium.

Edited March 22 by Clan's Cynic

[CommissarRotke]

2 hours ago, Vaellas said:

So long Gavriel, I don't know if you will be missed?

of course he'll be missed... he was the bomb after all :')

2 hours ago, Dragon-knight77 said:

Im kind off miff the Ruination chamber is basically of now this meme

Of course they only shown off just 4 models (and 2 leaked) so maybe there still something  in the work 

everyone needs to chill out about the trailer IMHO.

we've seen the most stable veterans of the Ruination Chamber, coming out of retirement from monasteries. We have not seen the Stormcast being kept inside those Black Towers that Ionus is helping with.

the properly F'd up Ruination Chamber may only come after the launch box, which I'm fine with waiting for.

[KriticalKhan]

47 minutes ago, The Red King said:

This looks like cash grab mobile game art. I know it's not but geez is that a step-down in art quality.

If it weren't for the new design, I'd have thought it was straight out of 1st edition

[Chikout]

26 minutes ago, Draznak said:

The departures of Thomas Elliott and especially Paul Dainton (my favourite GW illustrator of all time) are very bad news for the quality of GW illustrations. I also hope they'll find good replacements (Igor Sid seems to have returned, at least to BL ?) but it's going to be hard to do as well.

This newsletter art reminds me of the terrible period at the start of AoS when there was a lot of very poor quality artworks.

As I said earlier, I'm pretty sure the retirement of John Blanche had a lot to do with. How many GW artists were taking a pay cut to work with a legend? Now he's retired, I'm sure quite a few artists were wondering what was keeping them at the studio. 

The slightly good news for AoS 4 is that these artists probably all contributed some art to AoS 4. The art for the core book will have been completed about a year ago. 

Also Kevin Chin is still there I think. He might be my favourite GW artist of the last 10 years. He painted a lot of my favourite pieces. 

Edited March 22 by Chikout

[BarakUrbaz]

So analyzing the vision from the short story:

 

Quote

 

A nest sits in the branches of a petrified tree. Its branches drip sap. Within the nest, phoenix chicks strain up towards the sun.

The winds rise. The tree shakes. Black cyclones whip around it. Clouds form overhead, drinking the sunlight. They pulse onyx and scarlet. 

There is movement in the branches. A lizard skitters above the nest. Scars line its flanks, but it ignores them. It eyes the phoenix chicks ravenously. They screech as it coils. The lizard opens its mouth. Teeth of black steel are enshrouded by flame.

It lunges, and its teeth flash.

 

The phoenix chicks obviously represent Phonecium itself. I think the lizard actually represents Abraxia's reptilian mount. They did state in order to cure the Flesh Eater Delusion she has to conquer a "certain place", but didn't tell us where. Maybe she has to conquer Phoenicium in order to get like some Aelven magics or something.

[Mcm6495]

I'm a loyal follower of Nagash and I was wondering if there were rumors about which might be the first death faction to receive his battletome.

[CommissarRotke]

49 minutes ago, The Red King said:

This looks like cash grab mobile game art. I know it's not but geez is that a step-down in art quality.

in a way i guess? but i like how vibrant the art is MUCH MORE than the dreary, muted colors Warhammer insists on giving everything. definitely unfair to say this is a step down in quality when we can actually see all of the details the artist(s) painstakingly put in...

the Skaven still look just as creepy as they're supposed to be, animalistic and frenetic. and the Stormcast have this cool juxtaposition between being colored like determined heroes while their armor gives them a more inhuman look.

like look at this spittle?? the subtle bloodied jawline?? these would be impossible to see with the "moody Warhammer filter"

 

[Ganigumo]

44 minutes ago, BarakUrbaz said:

So you're literally saying narrative shouldn't matter in terms of game design. 

Game design is separate from narrative yes. They're different fields. Call of Duty and Doom are both shooters but their narratives are very different.
I'm not saying verisimilitude isn't important, but we (and designers) should be very careful about letting narrative make the game worse, or stop us from making it better. Its very much a case by case basis too, and representation of narrative can come in many forms.
Like narratively sometimes a single space marine can kill hundreds if not thousands of something like orks or tyranids. But in gameplay a single grot with a rusty pipe could get lucky in a 1v1. In the example giving plasma more AP and a bolt more shots represents that plasma is more powerful well enough, it just means that it isn't strictly better than the bolt option. Maybe people will make dumb jokes and complain about it, but nobody is going to stop playing because of that. They will stop playing because of bad design.

30 minutes ago, Lucentia said:

Probably doesn't help that even 40k chaff units tend to have, like, 8 weapon options of varying degrees of uselessness.

To kind of square these two tangents, we could be looking at something like clanrats just being armed with 'rusted weapons' and the starter box squad will be mixed swords and spears.  The new FEC cryptguard do this, where their swords and halberds have the same profile, potentially written with 4.0 in mind.

Since they're rewriting everything I would be very happy if they just rolled all the profiles into various "assortments of weapons". I guess when you have a shield option they should probably relent a little. Blood knights did it too. Everything going to 3" range makes most spears obsolete so its a good time to do it.

21 minutes ago, Flippy said:

You missed two aspects. One is that verisimilitude matters a lot - even more, perhaps, than balance or overall game result. So does customisation, even if it does not affect the overall game result in any significant way. The reason is obvious; we put the models on the table for the game, but also for the theatre of imagination.

The second aspect is that the points complexity does not affect the gameplay at all. This "quartermaster simulator" is a solitaire you can play in-between actual games - you usually have ample time to figure it out. 

I addressed verisimilitude a bit above, but tl;dr we make sacrifices to it because the game needs to be an abstraction of narrative that functions as a game.
The points complexity is a pain point, you need to respect your players time, and there isn't a great way to lay it out in a rule book without making the points section intimidating and complex. I know it appeals to people, but I feel like its better suited for narrative or smaller scale games where the options can matter more. I think necromunda goes pretty deep into that stuff.
With respect to customization I'm not against it, but the decisions you ask your players to make should actually be impactful.
I would actually trade every warscroll option in the game, as well as most enhancements, to get a cleaned up version of anvil of apotheosis put into the core matched play rules. 

[Deakz28]

6 hours ago, Ejecutor said:

Btw, anyone else saw yesterday in the warcom posts a mention of the upcoming event in the GW stores? It was a minor one mentioning to contact your store to know more, but I cannot find it now.

Yes I mentioned this it’s a 3 month long campaign unique to every store! It’s super cool but doesn’t start for a week or so

[Elbaf]

Wait ... no more AOS book in french then? .. That's why i keep waiting for Blightslayer ...

These pic indeed look like a kind of mobile game, i want to see a commercial where a Grey seer just play the game badly and keep killing his units (that's 100% skaven lore)

[Gaball Slaaneshi]

17 minutes ago, Elbaf said:

hese pic indeed look like a kind of mobile game, i want to see a commercial where a Grey seer just play the game badly and keep killing his units (that's 100% skaven lore

where a Grey seer just play the game goodly and keep killing his units-slaves*.

You'r welcome ^^