The Rumour Thread

[eciu]

5 hours ago, Killamike said:

Stormcast havent had a proper release in how long? And people still complain about them.  

Move on. 

Don't they have enough models to actually last a good few years without any proper new releases ? 

[Overread]

5 minutes ago, eciu said:

Don't they have enough models to actually last a good few years without any proper new releases ? 

They have around 60 listings on the gw website, but a good number are non model or repeats so you could say around 45-50 which is still a lot (its equal and more than big armies from the past like Skaven or Seraphon). They also have quite a lot of diversity within that, infantry, ranged, flying, monsters, cavalry, artillery, mages, named heroes, warriors e tc..

 

So they do have a varied and complete roster. They are indeed at a point where its actually hard to add more because they already have a complete toolbox of options open too them. This is where AoS falls down a little compared to 40K in that 40K has more unit and variation niches to fit into. I do hope that AoS starts to expand - even just moving cavalry out of "troops" would be a start. 

I think for now stormcast will still get the odd new hero and such, feature with alternate sculpts in getting started sets and the like; but I don't see them getting many more "new" things at least until other armies are up to size. It's a symptom of them updating so much so fast, but at the same time they've got so much I'd wager there's enough there to keep many hooked on them for a good while before they hit their limit. With the odd new named hero and such along the way that should keep them active and interested with room to start a second active force if they really hit the limit with Stormcast. 

[KingBrodd]

54 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

Why?

Just joking mate I absolutely love the Mega Gargants but they definitely should be cheaper.

[AGPO]

7 hours ago, Overread said:

Stormcast don't have to be in the box. In fact historically Old World never had a single faction dominate the start collecting box; it always varied. There's no reason a new edition couldn't feature two entirely different non-stormcast armies. It's the Age of Sigmar not the Age of Stormcast. It would further help GW to solidify popularity of other factions and of the setting as a whole. It also takes them a further step away from single-faction-domination marketing. Which whilst that is easy and Stormcast are clearly going to be very core; it also can backfire to waht 40K wound up as. 

 

AoS has way more factions and diversity so mixing up the marketing and promotions away from Stormcast is essential unless the long term plan would be to remove many of those new factions. I really think the launch of AoS showed that that isn't a viable sensible strategy for a major wargame. 

 

6 hours ago, Enoby said:

I have a feeling that, right at the beginning of AoS, Stormcast were intended to be the Space Marine equivalent for marketing and attention but they seem to have lessened this a lot. Either because Stormcast weren't as successful as they had initially wanted, or because they felt another approach would be better overall. Either way, we're better off for it.

Part of the issue for the Old World was that it didn't have a single beginner friendly faction that was low initial model count and forgiving to paint and play. First Gen Stormcast definitely filled that role even if with Soul Wars the minis did get a touch more fiddly. High Elves and Empire in contrast were way more fiddly both to model and play, and the huge 40 strong units of 8e just exacerbated that fact. With the Nighthaunt and Necrons GW has been doing a much better job of making the other side in their starter sets beginner friendly, so hopefully this is the model for 3e.

The other thing GW makes no bones about is that having a single "favourite child" faction works really well for them as a business model, and has in the past been credited for subsidising al the risks they take with new factions and specialist games. 40k has roughly twenty factions. Let's say for the sake of argument  50% of new releases are for Space Marines (possibly a slight exaggeration) and about 50% of people have Space Marines as their main army (probably an underestimate) with the others evenly split at about 2.5% of each release. That would mean that every two releases, they'd have released something to interest 52.5% of their customer base. If players were evenly split between each faction (5% each) then they'd take 11 releases to exceed that number of customers reached. Even if moving to an even number of releases model tripled the size of the player base it still wouldn't work out so well for them. 

Given the huge overheads on developing a new range of models, I don't blame GW for falling back on their bankable factions every couple of releases as long as they still do some interesting stuff. With the return of specialist games, all the new factions for AoS, the return of Genestealer Cults, Warcry, Killteam, Blackstone Fortress, Underworlds, giving Thousand Sons and Deathguard their own unique unit rosters etc. I'd actually say GW was in its most creative period I can remember for decades.

[Greyshadow]

I'd really like to start a Stormcast army but with a few other projects on the go it will be a few years away until I do. I'd like to go Warrior chamber but I'd prefer to see miniatures that look more like the art in the core book; more female warriors, the option to build a few models in each unit with no helmets, a bit more personal bling on the models that sort of thing. Hopefully that comes in the next few years. If it doesn't, I'd probably lean to doing Sacrosanct instead.

Edited February 6, 2021 by Greyshadow

[Overread]

Forgeworld have a set of resin alternative heads for Stormcast so you can certainly pick them up to help with your desire to have more exposed heads and a few more female faces on your side. 

 

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Stormcast-Eternals-Heads-Upgrade-1-2019

 

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Stormcast-Eternals-Heads-Upgrade-2-2019

[HollowHills]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

Forgeworld have a set of resin alternative heads for Stormcast so you can certainly pick them up to help with your desire to have more exposed heads and a few more female faces on your side. 

 

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Stormcast-Eternals-Heads-Upgrade-1-2019

 

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Stormcast-Eternals-Heads-Upgrade-2-2019

Every single female stormcast looks like a man. Seriously, they look like they've been injecting testosterone. 

[Mutton]

5 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/02/06/warhammer-40000-the-apps-new-update-offers-more-features-than-ever-for-less/
 

(App monthly price lowered from 4,50gbp to 1,99 gbp) This is the best example of how we customers can influence the pricing:

Don‘t buy if it is too expensive, then GW will react.

I don't think I've ever seen GW lower the price of something. This day shall be remembered forever.

[alghero81]

3 hours ago, AGPO said:

That would mean that every two releases, they'd have released something to interest 52.5% of their customer base. If players were evenly split between each faction (5% each) then they'd take 11 releases to exceed that number of customers reached. Even if moving to an even number of releases model tripled the size of the player base it still wouldn't work out so well for them. 

Interesting analysis but we also need to consider most of us don’t have infinite money so even if 52.5% of the people is interested every 2 releases they cannot possibly afford to buy every two releases. In the end the cycle of 11 releases would actually be healthier as it gives higher chances of everyone interested to actually afford to buy.

Of course this is all rhetorical but considering GW stocks and revenues are going up every year we should not doubt their current model works so far. 
In saying that Stormcast have been the store model or special edition model 3 times out of 4 for AoS, so to say they are not central to their marketing even today is unfair. Last non-SCE special edition models I remember were 2 Nighthaunt models. Since then a wave of Knight questors...

[JackStreicher]

8 hours ago, HollowHills said:

Every single female stormcast looks like a man. Seriously, they look like they've been injecting testosterone. 

I disagree  

[eciu]

6 hours ago, alghero81 said:

Since then a wave of Knight questors...

Totally and absolutely not a wh40k scenario of "here have a Primaries Lieutenant for every occasion on every occasion".....

[zilberfrid]

8 hours ago, HollowHills said:

Every single female stormcast looks like a man. Seriously, they look like they've been injecting testosterone. 

I disagree. Now I won't say they are good sculpts, especially for the price, but there is clearly a caucasian female bone structure.

If you want more, more diverse and better heads for less, get the Frostgrave Wizards 2 (you also get the rest of the set). I have used it on my Cursebreaker lady and it doesn't look out of place.

[zilberfrid]

7 hours ago, alghero81 said:

Interesting analysis but we also need to consider most of us don’t have infinite money so even if 52.5% of the people is interested every 2 releases they cannot possibly afford to buy every two releases. In the end the cycle of 11 releases would actually be healthier as it gives higher chances of everyone interested to actually afford to buy.

Of course this is all rhetorical but considering GW stocks and revenues are going up every year we should not doubt their current model works so far. 
In saying that Stormcast have been the store model or special edition model 3 times out of 4 for AoS, so to say they are not central to their marketing even today is unfair. Last non-SCE special edition models I remember were 2 Nighthaunt models. Since then a wave of Knight questors...

Including the one they killed the only AoS Order human thusfar for.

[Lowki]

About stormcast. It was never my favorite army. Resembles to much sci-fi/ 40k for my more conventional taste for fantasy (lotr, gothic etc) Not that I hate it, There are just many armies and factions that I like more. 
 

However, yesterday my 9 yr old son painted his first mini, with a little help from his dad, and of course he picked stormcast for an army. They seem to be ideal for young people to step into the hobby. They appeal a lot to kids so it seems, with their knightly apearance, strong armour, big weapons,  lots of gold and metal. They would easily fit in as a skin for Fortnite I suppose. Also for painting they are a good start, not to small,  not to many tiny details, with their robes etc they are good practise for using contrast paints, and pure metals like gold are also a relatively easy thing to paint with decent result.

if Stormcast is what is needed to get my son into this hobby..than .from now on they are by by far my favorite army  bring on the next chamber please :D

On them needing new releases. Well as people said before they already have plenty to pick from, with alot of variants. So no, I dont think they need anything new, but I agree that they didnt get much the past few years, so I agree that we should stop complaining and making cynical remarks about them getting too much. i dont think that holds true anymore. And no matter how many units there are, at some point you like to get something new and shiny for you army. And I guess they need a rule update right? Or are they still competative ( truly don’t know.)

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Lowki

[Beliman]

I know that SCE design  mirrors Chaos Warriors (faceless dudes with big weapons)  transformed in good guys (space marines electric boogaloo), but I always look at them as something that came from the 80's: Riding dragons, storms full of lightning, big hammers, and I'm pretty sure that their BSO is played by Dragonforce. 
They remind me of classic paladins:

Spoiler

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Beliman

[Benkei]

Let's be real, elves are the real Space Marines of AoS

[alghero81]

2 hours ago, eciu said:

Totally and absolutely not a wh40k scenario of "here have a Primaries Lieutenant for every occasion on every occasion".....

Sure but to be fair did AoS had same number of occasions as 40k? I mean when have you seen a Black Library special edition miniature for AoS?

2 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

Including the one they killed the only AoS Order human thusfar for.

Which one? The Excelsior war priest? That was a Silver Tower model not a special model and made the same end as many others from the same game.

All I’m saying is that while I Hope AoS 3.0 starter set will not contain SCE, thinking that AoS 3.0 will not have an SCE release in some form is a bit delusional (in the good sense, no offence to anyone).

[alghero81]

2 hours ago, Lowki said:

About stormcast. It was never my favorite army. Resembles to much sci-fi/ 40k for my more conventional taste for fantasy (lotr, gothic etc) Not that I hate it, There are just many armies and factions that I like more. 
 

However, yesterday my 9 yr old son painted his first mini, with a little help from his dad, and of course he picked stormcast for an army. They seem to be ideal for young people to step into the hobby. They appeal a lot to kids so it seems, with their knightly apearance, strong armour, big weapons,  lots of gold and metal. They would easily fit in as a skin for Fortnite I suppose. Also for painting they are a good start, not to small,  not to many tiny details, with their robes etc they are good practise for using contrast paints, and pure metals like gold are also a relatively easy thing to paint with decent result.

if Stormcast is what is needed to get my son into this hobby..than .from now on they are by by far my favorite army  bring on the next chamber please :D

On them needing new releases. Well as people said before they already have plenty to pick from, with alot of variants. So no, I dont think they need anything new, but I agree that they didnt get much the past few years, so I agree that we should stop complaining and making cynical remarks about them getting too much. i dont think that holds true anymore. And no matter how many units there are, at some point you like to get something new and shiny for you army. And I guess they need a rule update right? Or are they still competative ( truly don’t know.)

 

Yeah you make a good point, SCE are user friendly for kids to start, heard that story many times with many dads. Also Nighthaunt seem to be popular with the female gender, at least by my limited experience selling my excess pieces.

[zilberfrid]

2 minutes ago, alghero81 said:

Sure but to be fair did AoS had same number of occasions as 40k? I mean when have you seen a Black Library special edition miniature for AoS?

Which one? The Excelsior war priest? That was a Silver Tower model not a special model and made the same end as many others from the same game.

All I’m saying is that while I Hope AoS 3.0 starter set will not contain SCE, thinking that AoS 3.0 will not have an SCE release in some form is a bit delusional (in the good sense, no offence to anyone).

I do mean the Excelsior War Priest. It is clearly made in the AoS era, the only order human that is. It was needed in the Cities roster and it's gone now.

While I don't like Stormcast, a set that gives the Vanguard and Warrior sects a few female sculpts would be interesting. I do want to make something from the Gryph Chargers, but the dudes on it are really ugly.

For SCE players, it's better to get the older chapters up to speed than have them linger with bad rules and get new ones.

[eciu]

1 hour ago, Benkei said:

Let's be real, elves are the real Space Marines of AoS

Rule-wise it seems so 😜

[MitGas]

42 minutes ago, eciu said:

Rule-wise it seems so 😜

Release-wise too now with the upcoming wave. Not even SCE got a second wave this fast - not even Spees Mahrines did! We got an Aelf problem in AoS - we can soon rename it to Aelves of Sigmar. .. I hope that after this and the Slaanesh release were done with pansy Aelves for a long, long time (well, Deepkin should get a kit or two) and focus some of the other races.

I just hope that the next big releases are reserved for Vampires/with Minions, Skaven, Seraphon and Sigmarites. Smaller releases would be nice for everyone but the early small armies with few kits would need them most. If GW wants to get my money, they need to release Tzeentch Mortal elites though (which are - to be fair - very, very low on the list of priorities in the game as a whole). 

[Ragest]

1 hour ago, MitGas said:

Release-wise too now with the upcoming wave. Not even SCE got a second wave this fast - not even Spees Mahrines did! We got an Aelf problem in AoS - we can soon rename it to Aelves of Sigmar. .. I hope that after this and the Slaanesh release were done with pansy Aelves for a long, long time (well, Deepkin should get a kit or two) and focus some of the other races.

I just hope that the next big releases are reserved for Vampires/with Minions, Skaven, Seraphon and Sigmarites. Smaller releases would be nice for everyone but the early small armies with few kits would need them most. If GW wants to get my money, they need to release Tzeentch Mortal elites though (which are - to be fair - very, very low on the list of priorities in the game as a whole). 

Because this is not a second wave, is the other half of the first one.

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Ragest

[Mitzrael]

So today we'll probably see second wave for HoS with battletome, along with book and endless spells for DoK( any chance for combat patrol-like boxes?). Some time later there is second wave of Luminites, Cursed City... and then? Are Gravelords and Soulblight will be separate armies or subfactions of big Nagash's army, like LoN or something renamed? I am quite confused what we're seeing after Teclisian BR book.

[madmac]

33 minutes ago, Mitzrael said:

So today we'll probably see second wave for HoS with battletome, along with book and endless spells for DoK( any chance for combat patrol-like boxes?). Some time later there is second wave of Luminites, Cursed City... and then? Are Gravelords and Soulblight will be separate armies or subfactions of big Nagash's army, like LoN or something renamed? I am quite confused what we're seeing after Teclisian BR book.

If Cursed City is meant to tease Gravelords, and it seems that way, the actual army release for Vampires will probably be several months later, likely in late fall.

The next BR book after Teclis should be Alarielle, following the teases GW laid out when they announced Broken Realms.

[xking]

I wonder if we will see more lumineth today