The Rumour Thread

[novakai]

To be fair I think eventually troops like Stabbas/shootas, witch elves, and all the Daemon infantry will eventually get a new sculpt since GW has been slowly redoing every armies basic infantry unit

Ogors are in I hope they stay around territory though

[JackStreicher]

45 minutes ago, Souleater said:

Anyway, I don’t have any Thunderstrike models in my SCE…and my other painted army is Bonespilterz. 
 

A rather disappointing day for me.

 

Imo most will return with new armour (like liberators)

I am upset about the Tauralon:

They never knew what to make of it, gave it bad rules and now it’s gone (I love the Model)

Edited April 4 by JackStreicher

[sandlemad]

A real sour point in particular is the release of the BoC vanguard box only 15 months ago, a kit specifically targeted at onboarding new players into playing BoC in AoS… only to have them dropped from the game. They had to have been fully aware that this would be happening in the near future. I mean damn. 

[Gaball Slaaneshi]

Well, first of all I would like to extend my condolences to our Stormcast, Beasts of Chaos and Bonesplitterz players.

For me, the reason for all this is quite simple:
Tom Kirby. Yes you know the boss of GW until 2017.

Small reminder, GW prepares the games 3 to 4 years in advance.

So Tom Kirby, he ordered the End Times of Battle, the 8th and 9th edition of 40K and the start of AoS 1th BUT ALSO 2th.

Yes, V2, released in 2019, two years after his departure but already ready since 2016 if we follow the calculations. The same goes for the 40k V9 which was prepared in 2016/2017 to be released in 2020.

So, this guy who simply ordered the entire Fatcast range (the Stormcast 1th and somewhat 2th), left. But when he left, there were still 3 Stormcast Chambers to open, and knowing that he seemed to enjoy it since he had only OPENED 3 in the 1st edition (4 Battletome Stormcasts in 1st)

But also the Primaris V8 and V9 and their simply WRONG fluff.

We therefore note a pattern, bet everything on SM and Stormcast, and write lousy fluff (AoS 1th, End of Times, 40k 8th)

But he left. And what do we see now with several years of hindsight?

The fluff of the 3rd will make a huge stonk. the Eternals are finally beautiful and proportioned correctly, and do not come out in packs of 40. And the 3rd was not "we open a new room"
Old World was announced in 2019 for a 2024 release.
40k returns to solid foundations with mid-primaris, mid-firstborn Sternguard in terms of armor. As well as a simply rescale terminator armor.

My theory? Tom Kirby screwed up so much that the new boss wanted/had to correct all his ******. Quite simply, Old World is the panic to save the battle boat that Kirby sunk. AoS 3th and now 4th finally have a real solid artistic direction. And 40k returns to grimdark like in 7th.
and the Bonesplitterz/Chaos Beast? No one plays them, and it's too caricatured (may I remind you that the Wild Orcs are orcs from the South?)

And the Beasts of Chaos make thematic duplicates with several AoS factions

Chaos Undivided? StD
Talking animals? Skaven do it better and funnier.
Centaur? EVERYONE
Don't like civilization? Every faction of Destruction!

The only hope in my opinion is Morghur in a few years. But I wouldn't bet it.

[The Lost Sigmarite]

Do you think they removed BS because they didn't sell well, because they're a blatant racial stereotype subfaction, or because both ?

[Ejecutor]

1 hour ago, Snarff said:

They already do this for Underworlds. Older warbands aren't always the best, but they're playable and even very occasionally updated. Even if the models are not in production currently, you can play everything from launch to current edition.

I don't think there's any reason to have to cut entire factions, especially if they have the ability to keep everything playable.

The problem is that the size of both games is not comparable. You can balance all the purged AoS factions eternally, especially if you allow them to be played in official tournaments. You could end with an army that pro players cannot buy being the top one.

[Ejecutor]

2 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

Do you think they removed BS because they didn't sell well, because they're a blatant racial stereotype subfaction, or because both ?

Both, but mainly sales.

[novakai]

1 minute ago, sandlemad said:

A real sour point in particular is the release of the BoC vanguard box only 15 months ago, a kit specifically targeted at onboarding new players into playing BoC in AoS… only to have them dropped from the game. They had to have been fully aware that this would be happening in the near future. I mean damn. 

They did this with Greenskinz in 1st edition as well lol

 

2 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

Do you think they removed BS because they didn't sell well, because they're a blatant racial stereotype subfaction, or because both ?

that and probably they  had no plan or ideas to expand them in the future 

[EthanolMuffins]

Was planning on doing Ossiarch as my next army but with all those lovely warcry bands going looks like its slaves to darkness instead, ill just proxy them for other things

[Ejecutor]

1 hour ago, Mcm6495 said:

Do you think that the new band of underworld flagellants could become a reference for flagellant miniatures in the future?

Remove all the electric-related stuff and they are mainly the old Flagellants, so yes.

[Ragest]

4 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

Do you think they removed BS because they didn't sell well, because they're a blatant racial stereotype subfaction, or because both ?

Sales. Money is the only important thing.

[Ejecutor]

1 hour ago, The Red King said:

To those saying it had to happen due to production capacity, that is entirely untrue for BoC who are still being sold. Which is somehow worse because it's just a flat out middle finger from GW to AoS players.

 

It may be true for the others but it feels like that isn't their reasoning when the biggest cull is based purely on their desire to... not print a battletome? Separate ToW and AoS but not when it comes to most of the StD and GSG and also cities dwarves? (Literally what is their reasoning cause that's 3 out of 9 armies that are in both but Beasts being in both is UNACCEPTABLE!)

Those 3 armies are going to get their minis refreshed and their old minis removed like BoC. Why not do that with BoC? GW would know their reasons. Either sales, aesthetics, laziness or whatever.

[The Red King]

20 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Just a thought…

Anybody who is feeling really angry they want to burn their army - don’t.

If you feel that strongly and have 100% decided you have had enough, donate your army or models to an after school club. Let children have chance to use the models as part of a club.

I'll never burn by army but I do feel the need to cynically ask what they kids are supposed to do with them? D&D I guess? Plus I don't want to encourage anyone to get into a game run by such a... company.

[Malakithe]

I dont understand why those chose my poor EvoKitties and not the super useless Vanguard Chamber 

[pnkdth]

17 hours ago, EonChao said:

Whereas Primaris marines are different from firstborn from an enhanced biology standpoint, the Thunderstrike Stormcast are just wearing new armour that by lore is designed to help their souls return to Azyr upon death, as justification for better proportions in models. These are just Stormcast Liberators like the old models so players can continue to use the older bulkier models or these with the same rules 

In that case, I admit I misunderstood the whole deal. I was thinking this was Primarisification and "look at this new cool unit which is the same as the other just better." However, since you can use them interchangeably, no harm no foul.

[Aeryenn]

I can't imagine how miniatures can resemble such negative feelings to make you cast your army into fire. Totally, across 8 years I've probably spent like 400-500 hours on this hobby. Buying, assembling, playing, reading the lore and above all painting. I would consider it a self disrespect to just throw it away. Even if any of my models will no longer be supported with rules I will still keep it on my shelf. As I do with my first Stormcasts that will be in the cut.

[Chikout]

7 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I'll never burn by army but I do feel the need to cynically ask what they kids are supposed to do with them? D&D I guess? Plus I don't want to encourage anyone to get into a game run by such a... company.

Ok. Genuine question. Anger at GW is warranted but is there another game company that keeps their minis and rules buyable and useable for longer? 

[Dragon-knight77]

2 hours ago, Mungrun said:

Dam just up and front telling you "Go play a different game."

no word on Bonesplitterz that a double edge sword I guess. Yeah, while I understand culling the SE & Skaven units & even the old finecast one (Valkia and Eternity guard will come back im sure) but there no upside to anything else. Like this just feel like you're asking a main game to conform to a specialist game even if it selling well. Like so much for being the HH relationship that boosted both game it just seems like they're at each other throat and GW will suffer of it

but no seriously why are they giving Bonesplitterz a free PDF tome they're not giving a F*** about removing entire ranges why dangle a crumb

[The Lost Sigmarite]

18 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I'll never burn by army but I do feel the need to cynically ask what they kids are supposed to do with them? D&D I guess? 

Kids don't care about WYSIWYG, new releases and edition changes - just give them models and they'll play them as whatever they like. I got into Warhammer as a teen but all of my middle school friends who got into the hobby earlier than me played models as whatever they liked so long as it loosely fit the theme - Abaddon was loosely Abaddon and more like, whatever chaos character was needed that day, Tyranid monsters were pretty much interchangeable so long as the base size fit, Mephiston could be Calgar one game and a Farseer the next depending on who was borrowing your mini...

Give kids some Gors, and they'll be marauders, zombies, particularly mutated CoS steelhelms... For young uns', miniatures are miniatures and so always cool, that's what great about newer players.

Edited April 4 by The Lost Sigmarite

[Gaz Taylor]

9 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I'll never burn by army but I do feel the need to cynically ask what they kids are supposed to do with them? D&D I guess? Plus I don't want to encourage anyone to get into a game run by such a... company.

Free stuff to an out of school group which will allow children chance to play with miniature games. That’s it. They can use it for GW games or make their own up. It gives them a chance if they would never have it in first place.

[Magnusaur]

My condolences to all collectors of Beastmen and Bonesplitterz. Morrslieb hangs low in the sky, this will be remembered as a dark day indeed.

Took me like an hour to read every post/page from the past few hours. Wanted to take it all in. I really can't blame anyone for having strong feelings about this, least of all the people who - like me - spend time their free time discussing rumors about plastic dolls, on something as antiquated as a forum. We're a passionate bunch, nothing wrong with that.

On a personal level, I was most surprised by the wholesale removal of the Sacrosanct range. Not just a few kits here and there, but all of it. Meanwhile, the Extremis and Vanguard models - stuff I would have better liked to see Thunderstrike versions of - remains untouched. Strange.

It could be that an update to Sacrosanct is already in the plans. Maybe not a 1:1 do-over, but a partial remake and expansion. Maybe the old Sacrosanct will be re-released if and when that time comes. Could be that GW is simply culling the bloat with no plans for direct replacements.

Whatever the case, it's pretty disheartening to see so many plastic kits be retired after less than 6 years of service. Perhaps I am being naïve, but I hope GW learns something from the kind of cannibalistic release practices that has characterized much of the Primaris and Stormcast ranges. Stormcast may be much more popular than Nighthaunt (or a similar army), but at the end of the day, the Chainrasps released in Soul Wars aren't butting heads with four other flavors of "basic Ghost troop" the same way Sequitors are, for example. It all just feels a bit unsustainable, as is.

But who am I kidding, if they really are planning to remake these, then the "lesson" learned from all this is a lot more sinister.

Time will tell.

And just to add the thinnest of silver linings, this list will at least give us some fuel for speculation about future Skaven releases and such...

[Grimrock]

Interesting thing to wake up to, that's for sure. Of course my condolences for the people that just lost their armies, I don't want to see the community shrink any more but I absolutely understand if it's time to move on from GW. Looking forward, I think people absolutely need to take a very careful and measured approach to buying miniatures. I thought we were past the mass culling but GW has yet again proven they'll cut even brand new product out from under you at any time, so best to beware. Obviously if you're just buying for the models to paint or the narrative or for use as proxies then go nuts, but if you expect rules to exist past a single edition then you might not want to take the risk. 

Stormcast players, I would absolutely avoid buying anything released before 3rd edition. Just because they haven't axed some models yet doesn't mean they're safe, they probably just have a limited amount of resources for resculpting. I would expect the remaining fatcast models like Dracoth riders to be gone by next edition. Also given the fact that GW seems committed to bloating the faction every 3 years with a new release box you might not want to jump on the thunderstrike bandwagon right away. Who knows if next edition or the one after has a new style that replaces everything thunderstrike? 

Ogor players, if I were you I would absolutely wait until their book is released in 4th edition before buying new models. If they don't get a major overhaul this edition I'm pretty confident they'll be axed in 5th, maybe 6th latest. They're no different from BoC, an old range with a couple token releases for the last few years. For people saying that they would be axed now if they were going to be axed remember people have been saying that about BoC since they got their first army book. GW might just be biding their time for 3 years until they've finished their initial releases for The Old World and are ready to expand east towards Cathay. 

It probably goes without saying, but I wouldn't touch anything from a specialist game with a 10 foot pole anymore. I'm really glad I put off buying any Warcry warbands specifically for use in AoS, and now there's no chance I will going forward unless it's purely for conversion purposes. I don't care if they're built specifically for a given sub faction like Legionnaires or even if they're core for another main faction like the Rotmire Creed, they're all at high risk to be put into legends within an edition. 

Edited April 4 by Grimrock

[The Red King]

9 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Ok. Genuine question. Anger at GW is warranted but is there another game company that keeps their minis and rules buyable and useable for longer? 

To be fair my final statement was worded to avoid another filter word so may not be very clear.

But to answer your question to my knowledge there is not a bigger mini company than the biggest mini company so no? I also don't support WotC any longer after... 20+ years of D&D being at least 40% of my personality lol.

Big companies ruin good things is my stance. Ruining it better than the competition (due to their near stranglehold on the market) doesn't really bear softening the blow imo.

[Luperci]

24 minutes ago, Gaball Slaaneshi said:

We therefore note a pattern, bet everything on SM and Stormcast, and write lousy fluff (AoS 1th, End of Times, 40k 8th)

I understand end times but was 40k 8th fluff bad? At the time I don't remember people disliking the narrative of the great rift, plague wars setting for dark imperium was cool and I enjoyed the vigilus campaign books, psychic awakening was a bit of a nothing burger but I liked the set up for 9th and the necron null space zone by the end.

1st ed aos fluff wasn't bad either reading it now, I wasn't an aos player back then though. It just needed a bit more history and background to flesh it out, which realmgate wars did a decent job of.

[Vasshpit]

32 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

they're a blatant racial stereotype subfaction

Please explain this. I really don't get it.