The Rumour Thread

[HammerOfSigmar]

GW is not releasing the preview for the remaining first founding chapters this week, at least up to Wednesday.....I am afraid we have to wait till September to see any further preview on AOS. Probably we will have just short independent stories in these weeks.

[Shankelton]

5 hours ago, Charleston said:

Well, a merge would be great for my Ghostclaws, but in general I am still quite carefull about that whole merge thing. We didn´t had any signs from gw that this could happen. The Pictures/Trailer do not include BCR´s, they are still separated on the shop and have, if I remember correctly, different introductions on the AoS-Page.

It's a solid point. 

Another thing I see no one mentioning is that the aleguzzler gargent is likely going to have a home in the mawtribe books. I quite hope it'll be the case. As I love the old sky titan lore from the ogors, and wouldnt mind seeing that adapted to the mortal realms with a bit of lore. Giants would be a neat centre piece model for us.

 

Either way I'm pumped. I'd prefer bcr to have everything but the mounted boys retired, with the BCR flavor being a facet of the mawtribes lore. So if you want to build your army, that theme still exists.

 

But if BCR remains there own thing? Cool. Just dont make me buy yeti lol. I'll settle for a gargants, grots and big sky cannons. Still tons to play with, and the silhouette is diverse enough with grots and gargants. With man eaters getting the axe (as well as firebelly. Since it has weird overlap with the butcher. Personally would prefer a new sculpt and combine the aesthetic if they got that way)

[alghero81]

The Gargant is already in the Gloomspite not that would stop them to put it elsewhere since he is already a multi-faction Chaos model...

[zilberfrid]

1 hour ago, alghero81 said:

The Gargant is already in the Gloomspite not that would stop them to put it elsewhere since he is already a multi-faction Chaos model...

I really would like more multifaction models overall.

[alghero81]

1 minute ago, zilberfrid said:

I really would like more multifaction models overall.

Ah yeah I agree but it’s also a trap: I started a small Nighthaunt army few years back and now I have more than 7000 points of Death army...

[Hankster]

Hey Hivemind, I just heard a rumor over on FB that Tzeentch is getting a new battletome this fall and Slaves to Darkness/Everchosen has been pushed to next year. 

Does that match up with anything anyone else has heard?

 

[Overread]

5 minutes ago, Hankster said:

Hey Hivemind, I just heard a rumor over on FB that Tzeentch is getting a new battletome this fall and Slaves to Darkness/Everchosen has been pushed to next year. 

Does that match up with anything anyone else has heard?

 

That rumour seems to be doing the rounds and has been echoed about for a while. That said far as I'm aware its a "hot air" rumour which means its got no real source nor any proven rumour source/person. Ergo its something that is doing the rounds. 

It's not helped that at this stage its perfectly possible to be the case. I'd personally find it an odd choice for GW because the ypushed Slaves at Christmas with a bundle deal and they've pushed Slaves at the mid-year with Warcry warbands. So leaving them another full half a year or more without any update just seems like a very odd release pattern choice when they've front-loaded interest with pushing cheap models and new warbands and a new wargame; all of which is aiming to steer people into Slaves. 

 

Ergo they are building up all this product interest and yet Slaves don't even have a single Battletome through the whole of AoS's lifespan. Meanwhile Tzeentch at least has a tome - most people looking to play as that faction can see that most of the models will remain and that any update would likely be adjusting points, properties and adding spells and terrain. 

Slaves are still in that bracket where they could lose models; get significant changes to how the army operates and its point costs as well as potential duel purpose of the book such as wrapping in Everchosen. From Gw's point of view on the store, updating Slaves would also mean that they could remove the "creatures of chaos" tab from the store because once slaves is updated then all the Chaos models will be within a specific faction and there is no need for the creatures tab (esp when many are not even creatures just beasts of war models). 

 

The only model in creatures to stand out is the Soul Grinder and that would likely get wrapped into Everchosen (as part of the Slaves book) or just into Slaves 

[Hankster]

12 minutes ago, Overread said:

I'd personally find it an odd choice for GW because the ypushed Slaves at Christmas with a bundle deal and they've pushed Slaves at the mid-year with Warcry warbands. So leaving them another full half a year or more without any update just seems like a very odd release pattern choice when they've front-loaded interest with pushing cheap models and new warbands and a new wargame; all of which is aiming to steer people into Slaves. 

Slaves are still in that bracket where they could lose models; get significant changes to how the army operates and its point costs as well as potential duel purpose of the book such as wrapping in Everchosen. 

Yeah, the switch away from Slaves after building them up seemed odd to me as well. I actually just up their cheap box since I've thought the modles were great and they seemed like they would get a update and merger with Everchosen soon.

Re: Models I assume there is no information about which if any of their models might be discontinued. One would think stuff in their start collecting and special boxes would be safe. ...but with the great order cull I'm a little worried I've invested a bunch of money in models that may get discontinued.

[DinoTitanedition]

My guess is, that we're gonna see more Slaves to Darkness in the third Underworld season and a testrun for some new designs of other factions. Initially I thought about Greenskins, but the upcoming Battletome does not look like they will be included there. In my book, they're cut from the range and from the lore.

What I could see though is an expansion of warbands for Gloomspite Gitz in the form of Spiderfang. Some folks on foot, seperate Spiderlings and so on would make sense, as they could be used in AoS, Underworlds and with a new warband card in WarCry. The woods theme sems to fit in Underworlds and if I remember right, there was a speartip teasered quite some time ago.

 

[Overread]

Culls are REALLY hard to predict, esp at present because GW is releasing army updates in Battletomes out of sync with model updates. 

Suffice it to say that my impression at present is that:

1) Slaves will likely lose most of the finecast. This is mostly Exalted Chaos Heroes and the Mounted Chaos Lord; though the familiars are also in there too. Most of those are easy to lose as there are plastic Chaos lords already and they've still got the manticore kit with the lord and sorcerer mounted options for it. Right now there's no real reason to keep the exalted lords save for their visual variety and with regular and darkoath leaders already in the army there's a wealth of mortal leader options. 

2) The marauders kits are very old and outdated. I could see GW getting rid of the infantry and replacing them with the Warcry Warbands. So instead of one group of fanatical followers, you'd have several flavoured warbands instead. That would be a very sensible approach since the Warcry Warbands are made for slaves and far outstrip the quality of marauders.

3) Marauders mounted might hang around as the warbands don't have any mounted options. If GW ever does mounted warbands of course then I'd revise this and have them gone too! Again its a very old and dated kit (though doesn't look as bad as the infantry).

4) Chaos warriors and knights are old, but they have aged decently well. They were also in the christmas box and in the getting started set. So replacing them would be a MAJOR army overhaul for the range. It could still happen, but I'd not expect it at this stage. One day for certain, but not this time around. 

5) Chaos Chosen are very hard to guess, they are all finecast which is a big strike against them, but at the same time if they were replaced I'd expect it with a duel Chaos warrior kit (ergo a single kit that can be build as warriors or chosen). Another option is GW could simply make chaos warriors with duel handed weapons into "Chosen". This would let them keep the current kit and use their finecast weapon upgrade - simply making warriors with great weapons into chosen. 

6) All the rest of the plastics are pretty much safe - prince, warshrine, sorcerer, warhounds, leader, darkoath leaders. 

7) Furies we already know are replaced and the only reason they are still on the store is likely that GW hasn't released the individual boxed sets for the Warcry main game set. Otherwise I'd expect to see a furies and raptors boxed set one day - likely with either 6 and 6 or 12 and 12 (depending on stats and what price GW wants to charge for it). 

8 Cockatrice is at risk as its finecast. Though being a beast it might see a new sculpt through Warcry or it might hang around for a while longer. Hard to say as its more unique than the Chosen or heroes. 

Edited August 15, 2019 by Overread

[Chikout]

Not surprised in the slightest that slaves aren't coming until next year. I have been saying that since the first warcry previews. I don't think they have been pushed back. This was probably always the plan. Gw probably wants to put the warcry warbands in the book and we have at least two still to come.  I think we will see the next two warbands sometime towards the end of the year with the slaves book coming in the spring with several new minis. Giving warcry a bit of space to be its own thing is also a good idea. 

[Overread]

I don't think as late as spring. 

There are currently 10 Battletomes needed for AoS to have it completed. 

• If Gutbusters and Beastclaw Raiders are a combined book then that reduces it by 1
• If Slaves and Everchosen are a combined book then that reduces it by 1

Both of those appear very certain bets at present so that takes us down to 8 Battletomes. Of those 8

• Free Cities and Orruks are confirmed to be released. 
• Death has 1 more Battletome confirmed to be released this year (no official news save for the statment by official sources that each grand alliance had more tomes to come and at that stage Death had no armies outstanding for a tome update)
• Ogres might be near confirmed as they are getting a new kit and a duel army box. 

Furthermore GW released a good 6 tomes in the first half of the year and there's every chance that they will get another 5 or 6 out in the latter half of this year. So that might well mean one or two more books ontop of those. 

That means there's a very strong chance of reaching Christmas with only 2 or 3 books outstanding. So it might only take them until March to get the remaining books out. 

 

Now GW could speed things up if they duel released one or two books, esp if they were just book, terrain and spell updates.

The real trick is prediction and at present lots of armies have old sculpts that clearly need reworking; some that might want removing and gaps in the roster to be plugged. So we can easily sit here and justify, with sound reasoning, why any army (barring a few like stormcast) could do with new models or updated sculpts or both. 

 

[alghero81]

Cockatrice is already in the Beast of Chaos book, so I don’t think it’s at risk for now

[Overread]

Just now, alghero81 said:

Cockatrice is already in the Beast of Chaos book, so I don’t think it’s at risk for now

Ahh good - I did wonder but I forgot which creatures were in Beasts. Just more justification for updating Slaves and doing away with the creatures tab on the GW storepage!

[Hankster]

I'm thinking the Sylvaneth delay might have pushed a Christmas release of Slaves into next year. 

...stupid trees. Still getting in my way. 

[EccentricCircle]

So to summarize:

Some more new stuff will be released this year. This could range from four more books, one for each grand alliance, or potentially as much as everything that still needs an update. We know what a couple of those things are going to be (Orks and Cities), and can guess at a couple more (Ogres and Undead), but have no idea when or in what order they are actually coming. Any speculation on things "being pushed back" is baseless, since we never knew when they were meant to come out in the first place. Everything could have been pushed back, nothing could have, chances are we will never know!

To summarize the summary of the summary:
We'll just have to wait and see!

Edited August 15, 2019 by EccentricCircle

[Vasshpit]

I'd bet the underworlds destro faction will be Ogor based and maybe a Bonesplitterz warband. 

I'd wager a BCR hunter and some kitties. 

Also, personally, I'd rather see yhetees become some kind of frost Troggoth just to unify the setting a bit. 

[Forrix]

I've just given up on Slaves to Darkness/Darkoath ever coming out. I'm sure we'll see something for Archaon and the Varanguard eventually just because they're new, excellent models with outdated rules. I really think the originally planned STD book got canned though. We might get something for them eventually but if we assume the book was being worked on around the time the Darkoath Warqueen was released (assuming Harbingers = planned army release) we could be looking at a book finished then held back for 2 years (or more). At some point the rules may no longer reflect design processes or philosophies of books near it in the release cycle.

[amysrevenge]

Just now, Forrix said:

 if we assume the book was being worked on around the time the Darkoath Warqueen was released (assuming Harbingers = planned army release) 

I've thought this was an unsupported assumption since day 1, creating false expectations in the community.

[sandlemad]

I question the idea that GW is simply going to cut all finecast models as a matter of course. We have the Free Peoples cull but then we also have two releases this year which kept quite a few finecast models, e.g. a lot of the skaven range, a fair few Gloomspite models. Even in cases where existing finecast models have been replaced with plastic, like the Khorne daemon heroes or the Gloomspite Looncurse boss on squig, we still have multiple other finecast models in those ranges.

For StD I'd agree that the chosen are likely to go - the models were never that popular anyway, I think, folks seem to go with slightly converted/upgraded warriors - and that there's a lot of overlap between characters. The mounted lord though, eh. It's a distinctive model and a popular one for Golden Demon, etc. Certainly it has less crossover with other chaos heroes than, for example, the old Skarsnik/Loonboss & squig model has with the loonboss on giant squig or the loonboss on mangler squigs.

RE: yhetees, I can think of at least two AoS-era art pieces depicting them, in their battletome. That's not a guarantee of their getting new models but it's more than other culled models got. I'd also note that the situation of an AoS book made up of pre-AoS models getting a new version/getting combined into a larger one has happened before with Sylvaneth and they didn't lose their finecast model.

[EccentricCircle]

There is certainly no reason for them to rush to phase out resin and metal models entirely. So long as they are supporting Lord of the Rings they are going to have to maintain the capacity to produce them, since half of that range is still metal or resin, and it doesn't seem to be popular enough for it to be worth their while reissuing everything as a plastic sculpt. They have been doing an increasing number of new plastic character models of late, but I can't see many people crying out for plastic men of arms of Dol Amroth for example.

I get the impression that 40K is in a similar boat, they have a vast number of resin characters, and unlike AoS there is a need to keep those specific characters as unique models. It would take a massive revamp for every army in order to phase out resin entirely. I've no doubt that one day that will happen, but it will be as and when they update the ranges, not all at once.

AoS seems to be closest to phasing out resin, but its very army specific, there are many factions with none left, but also forces like Skaven and Serphon who couldn't work without their resin models. Until the time comes for wholesale reworkings of those factions, i'm sure that resin models will continue to hang around here and there, such as the branchwraith. There is no point in losing that unit, or spending a lot on a new model yet, but one day there probably will be.

If they ever lose the LOTR license then I could see that precipitating a wholesale move away from resin, and I'm sure that they plan to have AoS and 40K be entirely plastic by the time that time comes.

[madmac]

Yes, I agree that probably not all resin models are marked for death, yet anyway.

If we look at Ogors specifically, I expect Maneaters, Firebellies, and Gorgers are gone for sure. They're pretty vestigal models in term of the role they fill in the army, and really the inclusion of Maneaters/Firebellies as mercenaries was the kiss of death I think.

OTOH, there's not really any plausible chance of removing the finecast butcher without a replacement, that's the core (and only, once the Firebelly goes) wizard model the entire faction is built around.  Likewise, axing the finecast from the BCR side would be reducing that entire army/subfaction to two kits and remove a lot of the options and flavor they currently have.  It would be like the Orruk warclans keeping Bonesplitters as an ostensibly fully supported subfaction but removing all but one of their heroes, at that point they don't actually exist anymore except on paper.

[Hankster]

37 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

I've thought this was an unsupported assumption since day 1, creating false expectations in the community.

You never know, but I'd wonder why they have given the slaves to darkness keyword to a bunch of new models if they were going to drop the entire thing. They definitely get merged with Everchosen if/when they get a book. But I'd be very surprised if they don't get anything.

[amysrevenge]

I don't think there was necessarily anything to "drop".  They added a handful of models with the StD keyword.  That could be the end of the story. 

A plausible outline of events is this:  they planned to make a handful of StD models, then they made a handful of StD models, then they were finished with StD. 

The only reason we expected a Darkoath/StD/Everchosen combined battletome is because to many in the community it makes sense that they would do it.  That's literally as far as the rumour goes - it makes sense to some people in the community for them to do it.  They didn't say they were going to do it, nobody (as far as I know) credibly overheard they were going to do it, nothing.  It just makes sense to some people that they would do it, and hence "they were going to do it, and since it hasn't happened yet they must have delayed it", and not "hey that thing we made up never happened - maybe it's something wrong with us and not with them".  Haha.

[michu]

Or maybe it's because of Herald and GW's shop "Everchosen and Slaves to Darkness " tab?