The Rumour Thread

[RuneBrush]

Anybody else say conversion material for a Wight King with Infernal Banner?

[Changer]

Very nice looking Deathrattle.  I'm looking forward to painting models from each faction with Shadespire!

[shinros]

I AM THROWING MONEY AT THE SCREEN NOTHING IS HAPPENING.

 

Also this reveals why they kept all the VC stuff for death in my opinion it matches the aesthetic they were aiming for in AOS. They also note they were inhabitants of the city.

Edited April 13, 2017 by shinros

[Sete]

Awesome. Instabuy

[sandlemad]

Some primo skellies, very spooky. Nothing wildly unexpected but good and dynamic, and with that sword-and-sorcery look. In the old WHFB background they used the idea of the pre-Sigmar iron-age inhabitants of the Empire to justify the unified aesthetic of their skeletons being cairn burials and similar. It's a great look.

 

EDIT: You know what I really like the designers' notes on these guys. Bizarrely it makes them more relatable than inhuman stormcast or half-mad reavers; just some hard-working skellies, outclassed physically, needing to keep their wits about them in an arena of monsters and superhumans.

Edited April 13, 2017 by sandlemad

[Darth Alec]

GW continues to make the best skeletons. No angry eyebrow-skulls! Yet loads of personality. Love that.

[Aginor]

I like the pants-less Scythe dude/lady. I bet he/she was a fun guy/gal when he/she was still alive.

[Double Misfire]

Spooky skelletons yess

 

@Killax

I've noticed a couple of posts by you stating that GW is returning to a previous more fantastical aesthetic apparently lifted from earlier editions of Warhammer as a counter to the apparently 'historical' look favoured by GW from 8th edition onwards as if it is hard fact and it makes my head hurt. I'm starting to wonder if I have been playing a completely different version of Warhammer to you for the last 20 years (or possibly reading different history books), as I fail to grasp how, using the Empire (unarguably WFB's most directly historically influenced main army and the setting's protagonists/POV characters in most of its incarnations) as an example, these images from late 80s and early 90s publications...

Spoiler

...are more bombastically fantastical than these images from the 8th edition Empire range and accompanying books:

Spoiler

 

I personally don't think GW are taking direct visual cues from any 'era' of WFB at all with AoS and are ploughing forward with the models and concepts they want to make, building on the legacy of the old setting but without any of the constraints forced upon them by its comparatively narrow scope.

 

Additionally you've used the term "sword and sorcery" to describe what you consider non-historical fantasy at least twice. The term "sword and sorcery" was first coined to describe the style pioneered by Robert E. Howard's original Conan the Barbarian stories, which as well as being set in a typically low magic setting reminiscent of Earth, were written by Howard as a means of writing multiple stories set in different historically inspired settings and locales starting the same protagonist and without the amount of research he would have had to put into a "proper" piece of historical fiction, making them by definition historical fantasy and forever associating the term "sword and sorcery with it".  

Spoiler

 

[Mortarch]

Sepulcral Guard seems to the name of the "Unit" for the "Deathrattle" Faction... or is that the team?

Possibly a step over Grave Guard when they are ported to AOS full? or... will these even be released as unit and JUST be Shadespire...?

 

Either way. Ill take 15 please.

[Aginor]

I think it would be a terrible waste not to use them in AoS.

[Turragor]

2 minutes ago, Mortarch said:

when they are ported

I wouldn't get so hopeful but maybe.

Also, I think all this above is what everyone was complaining about with previous releases (not me I'll note, I don't mind) - "don't discuss the release in the rumour thread".

[shinros]

5 minutes ago, Mortarch said:

Sepulcral Guard seems to the name of the "Unit" for the "Deathrattle" Faction... or is that the team?

Possibly a step over Grave Guard when they are ported to AOS full? or... will these even be released as unit and JUST be Shadespire...?

 

Either way. Ill take 15 please.

Lore wise they lived in the city before nagash cursed the place. With only shards of their personality remaining. According to their page.

Edited April 13, 2017 by shinros

[Gaz Taylor]

9 minutes ago, Mortarch said:

Sepulcral Guard seems to the name of the "Unit" for the "Deathrattle" Faction... or is that the team?

Possibly a step over Grave Guard when they are ported to AOS full? or... will these even be released as unit and JUST be Shadespire...?

 

Either way. Ill take 15 please.

It sounds like it's the name of the Warband in Shadespire. I wouldn't be surprised if they are ported into AOS but depends if there is other things coming out later this year for Death to go along with the release  

[Killax]

29 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:

Spooky skelletons yess

@Killax

I've noticed a couple of posts by you stating that GW is returning to a previous more fantastical aesthetic apparently lifted from earlier editions of Warhammer as a counter to the apparently 'historical' look favoured by GW from 8th edition onwards as if it is hard fact and it makes my head hurt. I'm starting to wonder if I have been playing a completely different version of Warhammer to you for the last 20 years (or possibly reading different history books), as I fail to grasp how, using the Empire (unarguably WFB's most directly historically influenced main army and the setting's protagonists/POV characters in most of its incarnations) as an example, these images from late 80s and early 90s publications...

...are more bombastically fantastical than these images from the 8th edition Empire range and accompanying books:

 

I personally don't think GW are taking direct visual cues from any 'era' of WFB at all with AoS and are ploughing forward with the models and concepts they want to make, building on the legacy of the old setting but without any of the constraints forced upon them by its comparatively narrow scope.

Additionally you've used the term "sword and sorcery" to describe what you consider non-historical fantasy at least twice. The term "sword and sorcery" was first coined to describe the style pioneered by Robert E. Howard's original Conan the Barbarian stories, which as well as being set in a typically low magic setting reminiscent of Earth, were written by Howard as a means of writing multiple stories set in different historically inspired settings and locales starting the same protagonist and without the amount of research he would have had to put into a "proper" piece of historical fiction, making them by definition historical fantasy and forever associating the term "sword and sorcery with it".  

Spooky Skelletons indeed.

Yes, I absolutely read into the books from 4th and onwards. Whats important to understand while reading my post is that I'm largely not talking about the lore of models but the visual designs and the visual lower fantasy designs that Warhammer incorporated from 6th and 7th while 8th brought that fantasy design back with monsters and eventually End Times, better put the beginning of Age of Sigmar.

When you look at Empire designs from 6th through 8th you will largely see models who are infact largely drawn from historical inspiration. While true that they eventually gained their war-wagons and monsterous cavalry this wasn't until much later into 8th edition that this was applied to the Empire. No, most of the older designs made semi-sence, as a historical fantasy depicts. No Stormcast eternals, no Gladiator warriors wielding Anvils as weapons. No Elemental Dwarfs made up of fire and gold...

There is most certainly a visual cue going on from several areas, simply made anew. Design that largely didn't get reflected into models (up until AoS). To give you another example from Liber Chaotica Khorne:
 
Art comming from 2003, draw the comparison to currnet Nurgle/Khorne design for yourself.

 
Models made 10+ years later.

However the point remains that for every 'unique' design that has come out in true fan-style GW and books that only focus on the flavour of a specific faction GW likes to refer to the 1st to 4th edition artworks. What we see now is that GW is finally able to re-create this in plastics completely. 
It's also very logical to re-use this previously created content. This is what made GW unique in the first place. The 80s and 90s where what made GW big in the first place.

Sword and Fantasy genre grew, so the suggestion that this fantasy setting is definitive and not grew throughout the years is completely incorrect. We also have our new Conan, He-Man or however you want to call them now, they are the Stormcast.

Cheers,

Edited April 13, 2017 by Killax

[Veterannoob]

Watch the Warhammer TV Facebook page around 5pm UK time today  

[Dez]

I'm surprised they revealed the Skeletons first, I thought for sure they would save those for last. Looking forward to the Ironjawz reveal

[sandlemad]

I think generalising a shift from sword-and-sorcery to a more historical look for all armies isn't really supportable.

 

For the Empire (and Bretonnia), have to agree with Double Misfire that they were peak-historical in 4th/5th ed. and were progressivley fantasy-ised in 6th-8th ed. For Bretonnia this involved adding reliquaries and such, while for the Empire they had more griffons, more pointy noses, more skulls, more Blanche on the armour plates. This didn't really make them Conan-style sword and sorcery though.

 

For Chaos, it's tricky. Those wonderful Liber Chaotica designs weren't isolated though, they were all over the BL and 6th/7th ed. army book art and fit perfectly with the Norscan/Kurgan barbarian look, not the earlier 4th/5th ed or earlier styles. You have absolutely correctly identified that these are only truly coming through in the models now (though the fur around the shoulders became omnipresent in 6th ed.) but I think another explanation for this would be that a lot of these elements are god-specific and until now there was minimal capacity for creating lots of god-specific miniatures. Chaos warriors, marauders, even the warshrine to a degree all had to cater for four relatively distinct looks and so were 'watered-down' somewhat in the production. There's also a technological issue; a lot of the mutated designs in the Liber Chaotica art just wouldn't work on minis until now, think of the awful plastic mutation sprue. 

GW is clearly going back to these designs (along with some much earlier stuff for Tzeentch and Nurgle in particular), I agree, but these are designs from 6th/7th edition that just never found their way into sculpted work.

 

For skellies, I whole-heartedly agree with the move to a sword-and-sorcery look, if we're thinking of sword-and-sorcery as a 1930's Conan style. I would caveat that though by saying that this look was already present in the 8th ed. plastics. There's a particular lineage going on, where the plastic grave guard/black knights/wight king/skellies draw inspiration from the older metal mounted wight king and a few others. They tend towards a sort of mish-mash 1930's iron age cairn-dwellers look, exactly the kind of guys Conan would've cut in two. I'm not sure there's a name for this visual style but it's definitely distinct from the old vampiric dragonwing stuff and, as you put across in your other post, the bony VC/TK fusion elements that Nagash and the undead aristocracy have.

[shinros]

I think normal skeleton warriors are being reboxed they are sold out on the web store. I hope since it's quite annoying for base infantry we gotta buy 25's.

Edited April 13, 2017 by shinros

[Guest]

These Shadespire skellingtons, while very nice models, essentially seem to be the current plastic regiment but in more dynamic poses. Not that there's anything wrong with that (it's a great kit), but I don't see much to get *too* excited about here. It's not like they're really introducing a new and distinctive Death faction as such, which is a bit of a missed opportunity what with all the clamoring and such.

And that leader guy is in desperate need of a very big hat. All Death characters henceforth should have very big hats.

[Vaeron]

2 hours ago, Turragor said:

 

Also, I think all this above is what everyone was complaining about with previous releases (not me I'll note, I don't mind) - "don't discuss the release in the rumour thread".

I like coming releases being discussed. What I don't like was the wishlisting/conjecture being presented as fact that was going on For several pages not long ago.

[Mortarch]

1 hour ago, shinros said:

I think normal skeleton warriors are being reboxed they are sold out on the web store. I hope since it's quite annoying for base infantry we gotta buy 25's.

Hope so, but why not do all of them at the same time?

The other Skeleton Warriors (5s), which is of the older sprue, is still available. So possibly they run down their stock of the 10s a bit faster than intended? If it was intentional to remove them now, for reboxing, why now - Deathrattle release? Maybe. Unlikely at this time considering a DORF DAY is dawning. If it was a Deathrattle release, I would have thought they did Graveguard and Black Knights at the same time.. at minimum.

[Requizen]

32 minutes ago, Jamie the Jasper said:

These Shadespire skellingtons, while very nice models, essentially seem to be the current plastic regiment but in more dynamic poses. Not that there's anything wrong with that (it's a great kit), but I don't see much to get *too* excited about here. It's not like they're really introducing a new and distinctive Death faction as such, which is a bit of a missed opportunity what with all the clamoring and such.

And that leader guy is in desperate need of a very big hat. All Death characters henceforth should have very big hats.

To be fair, there's only so much you can do with skeletons in rotted/corroded armor. They all end up feeling like variations of one another. It's similar with my Necrons, the only difference between most skeleton robots is how lavishly they're adorned.

[Galas]

Citadel began doing historical miniatures. The Warhammer World as a World was made with the only excuse to fit all the miniatures they were doing in that age with their own IP. Thats why you have Araby, Tilea, Estalia, Empire, etc... carbon copies from our world. From a objetive point of view, Warhammer was a more historical setting at his beginning that later.

But this are not rumours, sorry!

Edited April 13, 2017 by Galas

[Guest]

Just now, Requizen said:

To be fair, there's only so much you can do with skeletons in rotted/corroded armor. They all end up feeling like variations of one another. It's similar with my Necrons, the only difference between most skeleton robots is how lavishly they're adorned.

That is very true. Hats though! More hats!

[shinros]

5 minutes ago, Mortarch said:

Hope so, but why not do all of them at the same time?

The other Skeleton Warriors (5s), which is of the older sprue, is still available. So possibly they run down their stock of the 10s a bit faster than intended? If it was intentional to remove them now, for reboxing, why now - Deathrattle release? Maybe. Unlikely at this time considering a DORF DAY is dawning. If it was a Deathrattle release, I would have thought they did Graveguard and Black Knights at the same time.. at minimum.

I don't think it's a deathrattle release considering new dwarfs are coming they did something similar with the necromancer where he was sold out for a time and rebased. Rebasing the skeleton warriors and giving them an increase count will enable people to start up death more easily.

we already have a lot of elites already on circles we were just missing some infantry. 

Also what's interesting in my store we only have 1 box of skeletons they haven't been sending new ones.

Edited April 13, 2017 by shinros