The Rumour Thread

[Ogregut]

1 hour ago, KingBrodd said:

I'm so tempted to pull the trigger on the SC Beastclaw Raiders, do we really think the SC will go away? Or will we recieve new ones such as a SC Gutbusters?

I was thinking the same with the beastclaw raiders and could do with another Fyreslayers SC. 

I'm suprised they haven't already switched over to the higher priced combat patrol style boxes for AoS

Some of them are particularly good, the dark eldar one for example. 

 

[Neverchosen]

6 hours ago, JackStreicher said:

StD really need a rewrite in order to:

- Get their theme right (Knights and Warriors need to be menacing, not pathetic | Tzeentch Demon Princes should be wizards etc.)

- Cleaning the bloat and outdated abilities

- Massive Warscroll rewrites for all Warcry warbands (combine them to a single cultist horde with unified rules)

- Nerfing of Archaon

- Be creative

I feel like we are entirely on the same page here. I will post some of my silly ideas, none of them are particularly well thought out and I doubt they'd actually work in play but I tried my best to take your last point seriously and do something creative.

I think that with the increased save to most Stormcast that is exactly what is needed to improve Chaos Warriors and Knights. Even if they do not get the same additional improvement to hit and wound rolls of their angelic rivals, the increased save potential will make them much more potent and make shield a more tempting option. This would also make Cultists and Marauders with their lighter armour fill a very different niche.
I think that Demon Prince's should have the ability to be either Wizards or Priests with Tzeentch prince's locked to Wizards and Khorne prince's locked to Priests. Nurgle and Slaanesh will then have the ability to chose between the two options. Alternatively, each Demon Prince is both a Priest and a Wizard and Tzeentch looses the priest keyword but gains two spells and unbinds and the Khorne demon prince looses the wizard keyword but gains an additional prayer?

In terms of bloat I really dislike the uselessness of our most iconic and fluffy rule. I think that Eye of the Gods is a an amazingly thematic ability and it now has hopefully found it's home in Path to Glory, so hopefully we can get a more reliable and stronger ability in it's place.
If we were ever to get an updated version in matched play, I hope it would be more akin to Artefacts or Tyrant Big Names. I think 'Spawndom' could particularly move from a random punishment to a fun version of Gift of Morghur: "Having drawn the attention of the Chaos Gods Failure will result in a fate worse then death. When this model is slain replace them with a Chaos Spawn". Dark Apotheosis will now become the reward for slaying the enemy general and be a free ascension to Princehood. Demonic Legions will work like the Gaunt Summoner's summoning ability and be limited to spellcasters sacrificing their casting once per battle to summon the base demon unit of their chosen mark (still resulting in Gaunt Summoner's being better specialists at their job). The other rewards are simply more straight forward upgrades. I could see for balance reasons the Eye of the Gods being limited only to the army's general... Not sure how that would work with ravagers current rules.

I am all on board the single Cultist profile train, I do think it would be neat if they took the most salient rule from each unit type so that the unit you play can somewhat reflect their playstyle in Warcry and if it allowed you to gain these additional rules by reinforcing your unit with a different Warband e.g. Iron Golems lets the unit re-roll saves and reinforcing them with Untamed Beasts allows them to run and charge. This would let them play into one of the new 3.0 reinforcement rules in a unique and interesting way that allows people to find the synergies that work for them while keeping the identity of each unit from their original game system.
People have pointed out that certain synergies would be much stronger than others creating redundancies for certain warbands but I think that they all ready have this issue and at least here people are encouraged to mix and match to gain further abilities. 

Archaon is the big bad of AOS and so I think his extremely powerful warscroll is somewhat warranted, but I think he needs much more severe restrictions for inclusion. I saw someone suggest that god tier models should not appear outright and require some form of required action/successful incantation to be brought forth onto the field. At a minimum I think forcing Archaon to follow a similar rule to the Celestant Prime not being on the field for the initial turn or two could possibly help mitigate his utter dominance on the battlefield.
I also think having Sigvald gain the Slaves to Darkness keyword, and to be joined by some of Archaon's other End Times lieutenants would be cool and let people make marked armies feel more fluid with their god specific collections. I think it would be neat if these characters forced units that can take a mark to take their chosen mark and then could issue a free command to units that share their mark. This way you can include whatever ally or pre-marked S2D unit but still feel encouraged to build to your chosen named character. But most importantly they retain their utility in their own god-specific armies.  

In terms of creativity I will admit that my ideas are not well fleshed out and clearly need work and balance but are already more interesting than the rules we currently have. So far I have really enjoyed the work laid out in SCE and Orruk Warclans so I am hopeful that my silly rules will get blown out of the water by the rules designed by actual employees who are paid to do this sort of thing. I do not expect such a massive overhaul but I will continue to wave the eight-point banner because cool models will always be cool models.


Now Back to Rumours:
If the SC rumours are true I might need to get some FEC boxes ASAP, they are my favourite death faction and a SC set with a cool bone dragon calls to me like a siren.

Hear me sing
Swim to me
Swim to me, let me collect you
Oh my heart, oh my heart
Is waiting to paint you
-Tim 'Neverchosen' Buckley

Edited November 6, 2021 by Neverchosen

[Ahlambra]

5 minutes ago, Neverchosen said:

I think that with the increased save to most Stormcast that is exactly what is needed to improve Chaos Warriors and Knights. Even if they do not get the same additional improvement to hit and wound rolls of their angelic rivals, the increased save potential will make them much more potent and make shield a more tempting option. This would also make Cultists and Marauders with their lighter armour fill a very different niche.

I'm not sure if adding one would make them broken, but it's weird that there's no sub-faction that focuses on Knights or Warriors. Obviously you can buff them with command abilities or spells, but considering there's 2 for Varanguard it always felt like there was one Knight/Warrior sub-faction missing.

[EntMan]

10 hours ago, Neverchosen said:

18 hours ago, EntMan said:

I got a pack of Lord of the Rings Hobbits to use as crew for my ironweld arsenal, with a bit of bashing to replace mini axes with tools or signal flags.

That sounds amazing any photos?

As you can see they are definitely still a work in progress but hopefully you get the idea! You can also see the beginnings of my steampunk automoton gun crew.

[EonChao]

7 hours ago, novakai said:

Well yes combat patrol style boxes are going to be the future in terms of army starter boxes for both system eventually.

To add to this the first 40k combat patrons came out alongside codex supplements Space Wolves and Deathwatch not the main release. So if the change is happening we should probably assume it will happen on a book by book basis as new battletomes are released (with SCE and Orruks getting there’s next year like Space Marines and Necrons did this year). So we’d expect Maggotkin to be first up to get replaced and so it makes sense they’d try to sell through their remaining stock

[Neverchosen]

15 minutes ago, EonChao said:

To add to this the first 40k combat patrons came out alongside codex supplements Space Wolves and Deathwatch not the main release. So if the change is happening we should probably assume it will happen on a book by book basis as new battletomes are released (with SCE and Orruks getting there’s next year like Space Marines and Necrons did this year). So we’d expect Maggotkin to be first up to get replaced and so it makes sense they’d try to sell through their remaining stock

I am a little confused about how Combat Patrols work and how it could translate into an AOS equivalent. From my understanding a Combat Patrol is a specific 'power level' designed around being a starter for a specific style of play similar to Path to Glory?

So what is the approximate amount of points presented in these boxes? Do they work well for matched play i.e. include an appropriate number of core/battleline troops? I am fairly curious as I am wondering if it will make it easier or more difficult to start a new army, furthermore I have been a little more 40k curious as of late. 

[Grimrock]

51 minutes ago, Neverchosen said:

I am a little confused about how Combat Patrols work and how it could translate into an AOS equivalent. From my understanding a Combat Patrol is a specific 'power level' designed around being a starter for a specific style of play similar to Path to Glory?

So what is the approximate amount of points presented in these boxes? Do they work well for matched play i.e. include an appropriate number of core/battleline troops? I am fairly curious as I am wondering if it will make it easier or more difficult to start a new army, furthermore I have been a little more 40k curious as of late. 

Depends on the box unfortunately. They were originally billed as a small ~500 point army that was ready to go out of the box, but that kind of fell apart as more boxes were released. For example when they made the Death Guard box they forgot about the new rule limiting the number of poxwalkers in your army, so it ended up being a totally illegal box that would require at least one more purchase to use fully. Points have also fallen by the wayside in deference to not giving too big of a price discount. For example the Adeptus Mechanicus box (one of the more expensive factions) has far fewer points than the Necron box set. 

Basically what you have now is a small force that may or may note be legal with a decent discount. They're generally not built to be purchased in multiples (they often contain a character you don't want more than one of), the price is almost double a start collecting, and the discount percentage is worse than start collecting. Essentially they're a solid downgrade on all fronts. They're better than nothing, but not much.

Edited November 6, 2021 by Grimrock

[yukishiro1]

Combat Patrol for the box just means "more expensive with less discount than the Start Collecting used to be," it doesn't actually mean anything in terms of being able to field a legal army necessarily. It's just a way to squeeze more from the customer while still making them think they're getting a deal.

Some executive in the bean-counting department obviously made a decision a year or two ago that Start Collecting was offering too large a discount so they decided to do a double-whammy and both increase the purchase price of the starter sets while also reducing the discount percentage. Looking back, it was one of the first signs that the relatively customer-friendly policies that started when Roundtree replaced Kirby were ending and GW was moving back to focusing on extracting more and more money from existing customers rather than growing the player base. Traditionally this phase lasts ~5ish years and results in significant financial trouble for the company followed by a change in management; we'll see what happens this time I guess.

Edited November 6, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Lurynsar]

So I feel there’s a lot of misconceptions or downright bitterness at GW about 40Ks Combat Patrols. 

Combat Patrols are a specific level of 40K. Either 500 Points or 25 Power Level. The boxes are all right around that with one of the builds in the box (they’re full kits so people can make more or less depending). They’re meant to be able to be picked up by two players and have a fair starter level game. Something Start Collectings have never been able to do. While there was a single one (Death Guard) that had issues. This was due to a change in the Rules for that army that’s want properly communicated early enough. The box is actually still playable, but it is sadly, the lease efficient. 

These boxes still have significant discounts (the average is 33%, with a few being even more). While some Start Collectings were a better monetary value, many were downright awful value and playability. Combat Patrols have been seen as a positive in most 40K circles in my experience. Even at a higher price point the discount is great and the actual balanced way for two players to start together has been a huge boon for new players.

For the most part they are not good to buy several of as an army, but that was never GWs intention of Start Collectings either. So while some people may be upset that they can no longer buy most of an army through a few SC purchases; that’s just a by product of making the sets as intended. The Start Collectings range was so wildly inconsistent that theirs update was good for most, and bad for some. But is much better for new players as a whole. 

Ive noticed through trade that Start Collectings have been slow to restock for AoS. So while there’s no promise they’ll be discounted they’re certainly having stock issues (more than normal) right now. It’s very likely IMO that starting with Nurgle we will see “Battalion Boxes” which are around 500 points and meant to be played in whatever Battalion GW decides. This will have the Combat Patrol price tag and help new players enter into AoS with any army they want at a “balanced” level with a friend. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by Lurynsar

[novakai]

I think people are just concern about initial sticker price of Combat patrol box for new players. It is a bit of a shock value but they are more gear to a experience player who want a bulk of units at a discount.
 

 Then again they advertise that the best place to start the game is with the cheaper starter sets like vanguard and harbringer. It just your out of luck if you want to start an army that isn’t SCE/SM or the current editions enemy side.

[Morglum StormBasha]

So no Xmas boxes in the Xmas guide, but can confirm krondys is 95 gbp as is dungeonbowl.

I’ve been told not to expect any Xmas boxes this year as factory didn’t have capacity so your more likely to see more 30 percent off sale bundles instead to move existing stock.

[Still-young]

1 minute ago, novakai said:

I think people are just concern about initial sticker price of Combat patrol box for new players. It is a bit of a shock value but they are more gear to a experience player who want a bulk of units at a discount.
 

 Then again they advertise that the best place to start the game is with the cheaper starter sets like vanguard and harbringer. It just your out of luck if you want to start an army that isn’t SCE/SM or the current editions enemy side.

Yeah, the value is still there with the Combat Patrol boxes, but the higher price means more of a sticker shock for new players that they’re ostensibly aimed at. Funnily enough I said the same over on dakka earlier today, but I think an ideal solution could be to have both a cheaper start collecting and a more expensive combat patrol, that were meant to be complimentary if you got both. 

[Doko]

But 40k usually have cheaper in points units than aos,new 40 k starters are 500 but maaaaaany of actual aos starters are allready 500 points(as fyreslayers where we have magmadroth with runefather,runesmitter and vulkites that are as 600 points)

[KingBrodd]

1 hour ago, Morglum StormBasha said:

So no Xmas boxes in the Xmas guide, but can confirm krondys is 95 gbp as is dungeonbowl.

I’ve been told not to expect any Xmas boxes this year as factory didn’t have capacity so your more likely to see more 30 percent off sale bundles instead to move existing stock.

£95!? Nice!! I really thought theyd charge £120 like they did the Megas.

[yukishiro1]

2 hours ago, Lurynsar said:

But is much better for new players as a whole. 

 

I dunno, that hasn't been my experience at all. "Pay 1.5x as much, get a lower % discount than you used to, and get an amount of models that is just enough to be intimidating to paint for a new player but not actually enough to play the game in anything like a balanced state" isn't a great sales pitch. The great thing about Start Collecting is that it gives a new player just the right amount of models to start with from a hobby point of view - not so few that it feels pointless, not so many that it's overwhelming. There's a reason it's called "Start Collecting," not "start playing." It recognized that getting people into the hobby is about, well, getting people into the hobby. 

The Combat Patrol model requires a much larger initial investment both monetarily and in terms of commitment. And for someone with that level of commitment...they'd probably just rather pick out their own stuff instead of being saddled with whatever GW thinks they should have. It seems to be aimed at a new customer profile that doesn't really exist out in the real world. I've seen several new would-be players look at the combat patrol and then say "nah, I'm good" or actually change factions to something that still has a SC box because it seems less daunting. 

From what I can tell Combat Patrol seems to be popular with existing casual GW customers who want to start a new army and don't really care that it's not optimal, not with completely new players (or with competitively-minded players, since you typically end up spending more when you figure in that most Combat Patrols have some trap choices that end up being higher than the discount). 

AOS SCs are also mostly at or over 500 points already, and there isn't any 500 point matched play system even in theory in AOS. It seems like they'd need to go up to 1000 points to get something that would have any gameplay-based justification to it, and that would require pricing well above what Combat Patrols are priced at, unless they are willing to actually give bigger discounts for the new boxes than for the old ones, which seems unlikely. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by yukishiro1

[novakai]

I am guessing that GW want new player to start with the pure starter sets to get into the hobby first since they have two forces that you can play quick games at actual reasonable prices. That why they started release three different types of them this edition. Of course that lead to the majority of player being SM or SCE players and they can get milked more money in the future when they release more models in the next edition. Oh wait

Edited November 6, 2021 by novakai

[Gitzdee]

I really liked the broken realms boxes. They should do more of those instead of sc boxes imo.

[Horizons]

28 minutes ago, Iksdee said:

I really liked the broken realms boxes. They should do more of those instead of sc boxes imo.

Right? I thought they were great and it was fun to play with the battalions while they lasted.

Got two Kraeth's Shadowhunt since it easily allowed me to pick up my troops.

 

[yukishiro1]

The BR releases were great for existing players, but they went OOP almost immediately, and were marketed around a concept GW knew they were about to nuke with the new edition, so it's hard to see them or something like them coming back. If they think even SCs offer too large a discount to players, the chance of them doing more discount sets like the BR ones seems really small. 

Just to add a little more on the combat patrol thing and newer players generally - it feels like something that is a bit out of time. It might have worked 10 or 20 years ago when the wargaming market was so much less developed, and the choices were mostly either GW or something based on an IP with no recognition outside of wargaming. These days, we have a plethora of non-GW games based on well-known IPs - the SW games, SOIAF, etc, essentially all of which offer a better actual gameplay experience than GW games, and which also offer cheaper entry-level sets with much less need for hobbying. SW: Legion is $120* for a starter set that gives you the rules plus two armies, and the game is actually playable with those armies, not in theory but in practice. You can have fun with either of the two SW: Legion starters for $120, it's not a "you can technically play this but the game barely functions" kind of thing. 

At least where I live, people don't start GW games to play the games any more. There are other better options out there if that's your main orientation. People get into GW games because they love the miniatures, because that is what GW has over the competition - SW: Legion models are fine for what they are, but they're fundamentally functional, not ornamental. Nobody (well, almost nobody) starts SW: Legion because they want to hobby. 

The trouble with Combat Patrol is it's trying to compete in an environment it just can't compete in. If you want to play a sci fi miniatures game, and your choices are spending $140 on a Combat Patrol that doesn't even give you the rules, and that gives you 1/4 of the standard army size, or spending $120* and getting the rules + two armies you can absolutely play with in a Star Wars game...it isn't much of a contest. GW can't win that fight. What they can win is the fight for hobbyists...but you don't do that with boxes where the pitch is "you can play a tiny game with this." 

Ironically, Start Collecting boxes feel much more in tune with the current reality in the wargaming market than the newer Combat Patrol boxes do. 

*In fact it's more like $60-80 at actual prices, because you can typically get Legion stuff for a bigger discount than GW stuff, and the price just went up anyway so a lot of stuff is still available at the older lower prices. 

Edited November 6, 2021 by yukishiro1

[Ratboy genius]

42 minutes ago, yukishiro1 said:

What they can win is the fight for hobbyists...but you don't do that with boxes where the pitch is "you can play a tiny game with this." 

 

 

Correct. 

Why do you think each release is coming with a billion characters? It's not for gameplay reasons.

[Sigmarusvult]

3 hours ago, Morglum StormBasha said:

So no Xmas boxes in the Xmas guide, but can confirm krondys is 95 gbp as is dungeonbowl.

I’ve been told not to expect any Xmas boxes this year as factory didn’t have capacity so your more likely to see more 30 percent off sale bundles instead to move existing stock.

Sad if true  also if they do bundles on their webstore, that means that you won't be able to get it from non GW stores with their usual discount.

[yukishiro1]

2 minutes ago, Sigmarusvult said:

Sad if true  also if they do bundles on their webstore, that means that you won't be able to get it from non GW stores with their usual discount.

That one's definitely a feature, not a bug. 🤣

[novakai]

GW could just stop on their dumb conversion currency system and have the rest world pay at the UK price. But I guess at the end of the day they care and cater to that market more then the rest of world. UK price are high but not inflated and sometimes look reasonable.
 

Star Wars for reason seems less popular unless it’s US, it alway had a lack of appeal overseas. Since Legion is more US base they probably based their prices to the USD competitive rate. I don’t even know if they even distribute it globally to other countries.

 

Edited November 7, 2021 by novakai

[Maogrim]

A lot of this doesn't make any sense. First of, if someone is seriously considering getting into AOS or 40K, he is interested because the aesthetics appeal to them. I can't imagine anyone thinking 'Yup, want to play any Sci-Fi war game, will buy whatever game offers the best discount'. Hence I don't think that GW need to compete with other games on that level. That of course does change if a person were on the fence between a GW system and another company's and would like both games' aesthetics just the same. But I don't think that's all too common.

Now, what SCs and Combat Patrols do is ease you in and offer a decent enough orientation on where to begin. I'd be interested in seeing how armies without SC's like Ossiarch Bonereapers are doing with new players compared to those who have really good ones. I know at least one person who was looking at OBR but never got started because of the lack of a decent enough box set. I think GW would really do a disservice to themselves if they were to get rid of Start Collectings, but reasonable combat patrols, not necessarily in terms of playability but in terms of discount, will work as well.

Edited November 7, 2021 by Maogrim

[KingBrodd]

+++MOD HAT ON+++

Back to Rumours please guys.