The Rumour Thread

[Kyriakin]

It's been pretty random in terms of what old WHFB players were caught holding the granade when it exploded and who avoided it.

I was just thinking about how lucky WHFB Beastmen players are, which, lets face it, was one of the lesser WHFB armies in terms of focus and representation (and, I assume, sales).

While they did have a weird limbo period of separate Breyherd and Warherd, they are now sitting pretty with 90% of their old line still on sale and contained within one single book. Hell, they even got Tzaangor and a few other random monsters to join the party*. And what did they lose? Ghorros Warhoof and some standing character sculpts (and these all got a Made to Order run). In these tumultuous times, that is quite a result.

Compare that with High Elves, Tomb Kings, Dwarfs, Brets, (etc.)

However, the Squat Gods seem do seem to be smiling down upon Dark Elves.

* For god's sake, make Skin Wolves Beasts of Chaos already.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Kyriakin

[Sleboda]

10 minutes ago, Overread said:

Seriously the launch of AoS was an utter mess that GW should never have allowed to happen ;but they did. 

I see people say that, but I don't get it

 I still think the original AoS was it's best state.

[Overread]

Yeah its been impossible to predict - even some sculpts like the high elf dragon were really hard to predict that GW would remove that model. It's also ahrd because we don't see the 5 year plan. GW might well have new sculpts for those removed HE models - in other armies under other names - but we might not see them for another year or two. 

The other surprise was GW putting all the city factions together. I'd expected a combined Aelf book with a loss of some models ;but adding humans and dwarves in as well was a big surprise. 

[Overread]

Just now, Sleboda said:

I see people say that, but I don't get it

 I still think the original AoS was it's best state.

That might be because you're the kind of person that wants to make their own rules for the game. 

AoS at launch had no formal points and no formal rules for the game. There just wasn't a game at all, just a model line. 

There were some joke rules with things about stroking your beard for bonus points ;but otherwise there was no real proper sensible game to actually play with AoS at launch. Even the casual rules had no points values to help you build armies so you could easily  come to the club with 30 spearmen whilst your friend brought 5 dragons and you'd have to either spend ages experimenting to find what worked against what or, what most did, use the old world points values. 

 

Lets not forget that up until the actual launch day no one expected GW to:

1) Destory the Old World setting entirely
2) Destroy multiple factions and fragment them into subfactions - some of which had 1 model in them
3) Remove 2 armies from the game 
4) Remove all the games rules and strip it back to a joke edition of rules. 
5) Change ALL the bases to round and remove all rank and file. 

All this was after the "End Times" campaign where GW had put a lot of effort into boosting attention and getting Old World players hyped up for the game. 

 

For those who wanted boutique models or to puzzle out building their own game it was a fun time. For the super casual or the model collector it was a good time; but by and large it was a mess. Not just the launch but also the massive product direction change with no upfront marketing or buildup or anything. 

[Kyriakin]

27 minutes ago, Overread said:

For those who wanted boutique models or to puzzle out building their own game it was a fun time. For the super casual or the model collector it was a good time; but by and large it was a mess. Not just the launch but also the massive product direction change with no upfront marketing or buildup or anything. 

I agree with your post, except for the bold.

In my experience, "casuals" want points as there is nothing less casual than "building their own game"!

Points are a universal language for quick pick-up games:

On FLGS Facebook page: "Hey. Anyone fancy a 2000-point of AoS this Saturday? I'm bringing my Nurgle"

"Yea, sure. I play Nighthaunt."

"Cool! See you at 10-ish!"

Done.

Edited August 30, 2019 by Kyriakin

[Overread]

3 minutes ago, Kyriakin said:

I agree with your post, except for the bold.

In my experience, "casuals" wants points as there is nothing less casual than "building their own game"!

Possibly true though I suspect its more that we've both just used one term even though within casual gamers there's a whole rafter of different kinds. 

[AthlorianStoners]

I don’t think all old factions will get removed or are even in danger. The at risk factions I think have been clear from the beginning. Not all old world stuff is gonna go, but some will.

• Flesh Eater Courts are definitely staying, they’ve turned a small part of WHF into an awesome original faction. 
• Sylvaneth, DoK, Nighthaunt, GG and others are all WHF factions that are going to stay as well, they’ve taken some themes and expanded them. 
• I think LoN and CoS may not receive much future model support but I can’t imagine them getting wiped now that they have a Battletome. 

Slaves to Darkness will probably see some cuts and that’s all I’d really be concerned about. Even if they stop producing some of the soup Battletome models (CoS and LoN) they won’t eliminate those rules. 

[Overread]

Right now Slaves to Darkness are the only faction without a Battletome in any form nor one on the horizon. They could certainly lose some models, but at the same time they've alaso gained 6 new warbands (which all scale easily up into full unit numbers) and there's 2 more to come. I can easily see them losing the foot marauder models and them being replaced with the warbands from warcry. 

I can also see them losing the finecast exalted heroes from the line; they are already former named heroes who lost their names and being finecast can be easily retired. Players can easily keep them as marked leaders for their force so its not a huge loss. 

Otherwise most of their units are either newer plastics or so strongly staple that they wont' go. Chaos warriors and knights certainly would not be removed without being replaced with new sculpts. 

 

Gutbusters could still lose some models, but might also gain some at launch. Though I think unless GW is holding a card up their sleeve, the Gutbusters won't get a big release this time around. 

Edited August 30, 2019 by Overread

[AthlorianStoners]

Yeah I expect Slaves to more or less trim the fat. 

Assuming Gutbusters and BCR are combined (which seems all but given at this point) there probably could be cuts but overall see the faction get adds. 

[Overread]

Yep plus don't forget some of the slaves models are hidden in the "creatures of chaos" listing which, when slaves gets an update, I fully expect to be removed as it will then be a pointless listing since the models will all be in other armies (mostly slaves and beasts of chaos). 

[Beliman]

1 hour ago, zilberfrid said:

If Free People do not get new plastic, they are doomed.

Moulds are the only thing GW seems to value highly. Rules are updated each year, Lore is extremely fickle, but moulds are not.

As for the pictures, I happen to like the first one. It is labelled Empire Demons, so it is a bit of an old one.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Updat the whole pack: models, lore and rules.

And I know that both pictures are from Warhammer fantasy too. But one aims for a low fantasy and the other has a lot more going on: overdetailed armors that seems to be taken from Dark Souls, giant ivory castles, magic weapons throwing lighting, etc... and I must say that this fits really well in AoS.

[AHexInScarletRed]

2 hours ago, Kyriakin said:

That's what I mean.

The aesthetics of the Coven Throne are so classically vampiric that it would almost force the aesthetic of anything joining it back towards classic Soulblight.

Assuming the kit isn't removed, of course.

I've started LoN a few months ago, going down the route of Legion of Blood with Neferata, a VLoZD and some Blood Knights with mostly NH mixed in. Seeing the release of Ossiarch Bonereapers, I'm thinking about investing into them, as that's probably the path that GA Death is going to take in the coming years. Looking at the more recent AoS factions, which are mostly rather original in terms of lore, it's hard to imagine that they keep "regular" Vampires forever - which is a pity, as they're the Faction I've wanted to play the game for years with. Sure, I can be mistaken and they update Soulblight with new, more fitting forces (which I'd love), but I've got the feeling that the surplus of Mortarchs will lead to the downfall of the original three. 

[AthlorianStoners]

13 minutes ago, AHexInScarletRed said:

I've started LoN a few months ago, going down the route of Legion of Blood with Neferata, a VLoZD and some Blood Knights with mostly NH mixed in. Seeing the release of Ossiarch Bonereapers, I'm thinking about investing into them, as that's probably the path that GA Death is going to take in the coming years. Looking at the more recent AoS factions, which are mostly rather original in terms of lore, it's hard to imagine that they keep "regular" Vampires forever - which is a pity, as they're the Faction I've wanted to play the game for years with. Sure, I can be mistaken and they update Soulblight with new, more fitting forces (which I'd love), but I've got the feeling that the surplus of Mortarchs will lead to the downfall of the original three. 

I think the og Mortarchs are safe as any character can be. They’d have to be some of the most represented characters in the lore and the black library novels. 

Soulblight will almost definitely get an expansion, I’d guess the only units besides the Mortarchs that would stay would be the Vargheists and the VLOZD as they’re with FEC.

[alghero81]

The definition of what someone classifies as an update is probably subjective. I don’t follow 40k but they just announced updates for all 40k armies with the new campaign. If this means tweaks here and there without waiting for a new battletome/codex it’s welcome also in AoS! Imagine a new campaign with some tweaks on sub-factions of an existing army with maybe a new hero or a new troop. Sure it’s not the GG treatment but I would be more than happy if that’s the direction they are going.

Regarding LoN there’s no way they are going to squat entirely one of the most winning factions in the game today. It’s like disqualifying Real Madrid from the Champions League because you need space for new teams...

Some models will go, sure, especially the old ones. Some will be replaced. I’m personally interested in seeing what happens with the OBR and how they will merge together. Nagash should be able to use any death model outside of FEC but I understand makes balancing more problematic. As someone already mentioned having different points/limitations based on the allegiance could be a solution. On the other hand I hope the existing deathrattle can be used in OBR with some clever keyword magic and at least some units from OBR are available to Legions to keep it fresh.

We know this phase is push as many battletomes as possible but we don’t know what the next phase will be. They can’t create new armies forever, one way to support them would be to keep supporting soup battletomes so that a Legion player for example could slowly build an OBR army, or a Orruk Warclan player expand from Ironjawz to any other new warclan they add in future...

Edited August 30, 2019 by alghero81

[Fisher KIng]

On ‎8‎/‎29‎/‎2019 at 1:37 AM, KriticalKhan said:

I know that they're constructs, but why on earth do the skeletons have NOSES? As far as I can tell, no other unit they showed has them, why would they put them on the infantry?

 

[AHexInScarletRed]

58 minutes ago, AthlorianStoners said:

I think the og Mortarchs are safe as any character can be. They’d have to be some of the most represented characters in the lore and the black library novels. 

Soulblight will almost definitely get an expansion, I’d guess the only units besides the Mortarchs that would stay would be the Vargheists and the VLOZD as they’re with FEC.

Ah, I didn't take representation as an indicator regarding their stay. I think my time with GW is too short to make an educated guess, here. Thank you for the reassuring words! 

I'd be over the moon with Soulblight getting an update and becoming "realm'd". Fingers crossed for an AoS take on Blood Knights, in the years to come. 

[chord]

2 hours ago, Overread said:

That might be because you're the kind of person that wants to make their own rules for the game. 

AoS at launch had no formal points and no formal rules for the game. There just wasn't a game at all, just a model line. 

There were some joke rules with things about stroking your beard for bonus points ;but otherwise there was no real proper sensible game to actually play with AoS at launch. Even the casual rules had no points values to help you build armies so you could easily  come to the club with 30 spearmen whilst your friend brought 5 dragons and you'd have to either spend ages experimenting to find what worked against what or, what most did, use the old world points values. 

 

Lets not forget that up until the actual launch day no one expected GW to:

1) Destory the Old World setting entirely
2) Destroy multiple factions and fragment them into subfactions - some of which had 1 model in them
3) Remove 2 armies from the game 
4) Remove all the games rules and strip it back to a joke edition of rules. 
5) Change ALL the bases to round and remove all rank and file. 

All this was after the "End Times" campaign where GW had put a lot of effort into boosting attention and getting Old World players hyped up for the game. 

 

For those who wanted boutique models or to puzzle out building their own game it was a fun time. For the super casual or the model collector it was a good time; but by and large it was a mess. Not just the launch but also the massive product direction change with no upfront marketing or buildup or anything. 

Just your opinion, which is no more or less valid than the original posters.  I happen to agree original AOS was the best as you were not constrained by rules.  And there were plenty of community point systems that were better than the current official point system we have now.

[Thiagoma]

I would like to point out that nothing is really safe after the squatting of High Elves.

It had mostly modern plastics, a unique look (never seen elves represented that way outside warhammer) , lore mentions and nothing stopped it from beeing squatted.

Low sales? Perhaps, but they were broken to pieces and made website exclusives. This foruns had constant influx of people trying to get into then and giving up on the lack os structure.

A self fullfilling profecy.

Meanwhile we had a reunited skaven book on the same year containing a bunch of resin and even metal miniatures. Now cities with a bunch of old models (several resin) as well as Dark Elves untouched for some reason.

So what can we learn from it: 

- Miniature materials mean nothing.

- Miniature age is not important (see Skycutter).

- Uniqueness is irrelevant.

Maybe the feeling would be different if we knew GW plan? Not really,  GW seens to have changed plans quite often.  Legends was just improved to make removed models punch feel less of a gut punch. 

Cities and Orcs (forgot books name) are bandaids, lets not pretend otherwise. 

 

[Kirjava13]

As much as the "give 'em Endless Spells, terrain, a new book and maybe a new character and chuck 'em out the door" approach has twisted my nips (and not in a good way), it does seem like a bit of a kick in the teeth for Cities and Orruk players that they don't even get that cursory level of attention.

[Thomas Lyons]

7 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

I would like to point out that nothing is really safe after the squatting of High Elves.

It had mostly modern plastics, a unique look (never seen elves represented that way outside warhammer) , lore mentions and nothing stopped it from beeing squatted.

Low sales? Perhaps, but they were broken to pieces and made website exclusives. This foruns had constant influx of people trying to get into then and giving up on the lack os structure.

A self fullfilling profecy.

Meanwhile we had a reunited skaven book on the same year containing a bunch of resin and even metal miniatures. Now cities with a bunch of old models (several resin) as well as Dark Elves untouched for some reason.

So what can we learn from it: 

- Miniature materials mean nothing.

- Miniature age is not important (see Skycutter).

- Uniqueness is irrelevant.

Maybe the feeling would be different if we knew GW plan? Not really,  GW seens to have changed plans quite often.  Legends was just improved to make removed models punch feel less of a gut punch. 

Cities and Orcs (forgot books name) are bandaids, lets not pretend otherwise. 

 

Notice the trend that collected books that had a) the largest number of miniatures and b) which were the most generic in their diversity are those product lines that retained their metal and finecast models. These would include Legions of Nagash, Beasts of Chaos and Skaven. If I were a betting man, these are the armies that I trust least to retain their current shape when they are next updated. That is, my money is on these armies having a 2-3 year lifespan before they'll experience major changes.  I suspect current stock levels had a lot to do with the  shape of these factions. They will certainly not look the same with their next update.

[Overread]

In a way the whole 2.0 is a Band-Aid rules system. It's a darn good one don't get me wrong, but its clearly GW wrapping up and healing some of the damage done to the product line and game as a whole whilst also bringing it together as a single game once more. It's a welcome help even if we've had some parts cut away. We can just hope that the AoS 3.0 builds upon this foundation. That we see new sculpts steadily come out; replacing old ones, refining design choices and also adding new things. 

 

I also think that what armies GW has chosen to keep alive now are long term investments in those armies remaining for AoS. Orruks and Cities are getting a band-aid now; but in the future we can expect far more for them! 

[Overread]

1 minute ago, Thomas Lyons said:

Notice the trend that collected books that had a) the largest number of miniatures and b) which were the most generic in their diversity are those product lines that retained their metal and finecast models. These would include Legions of Nagash, Beasts of Chaos and Skaven. If I were a betting man, these are the armies that I trust least to retain their current shape when they are next updated. That is, my money is on these armies having a 2-3 year lifespan before they'll experience major changes.  I suspect current stock levels had a lot to do with the  shape of these factions. They will certainly not look the same with their next update.

I don't think stock had anything to do with it considering that many of the Skaven models kept ran out of stock more than once on the UK store and yet GW kept producing more. GW is also not holding great stocks of much anyway; heck look how fast the HE stuff vanished. A day and it was pretty much all gone. 

If GW wanted to retire things they can do so without worry of shifting stock. Heck Skaven are very popular in general so shifting old stock of them wouldn't take very long at all. Even the old metal acolyte would sell pretty fast if they were "last chanced". 

 

Instead I think that those armies will retain the identity that GW has given them now. Of course we will likely see some sculpts updated, others dropped and more added. There will be evolution of the lines; but I don't think it will be wholesale changes in the manner that we've seen thus far with removals. Once Slaves to Darkness are out I think that should be the end for AoS in terms of mass model removals and losses. A good line to draw in the sand and to move forward on an AoS model line that players can feel safe in investing in without worry that 3 years later half their army will be removed. 

 

 

[AthlorianStoners]

12 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

I would like to point out that nothing is really safe after the squatting of High Elves.

It had mostly modern plastics, a unique look (never seen elves represented that way outside warhammer) , lore mentions and nothing stopped it from beeing squatted.

 

I disagree that nothing is safe. Maybe transitioning from WHF to AoS that was the case, but now we have clear indicators. 

No high elf army received any form of support, no Battletome, no new models, barely any lore representation outside of Phoenix temple.

Id also suggest that there was a lot of model conflict between high and dark elves in terms of units fillings the same role. This isn’t really the case with any other army’s within a grand alliance, and especially to the degree that those two elven factions had. 

From my experience, it was always theorized that the most unique of the High elves MAY get supported with their own faction, that being the Phoenix temple. The rest have always seemed fairly generic and not as targeted as the more modern AoS factions. 

As someone who came into the game with no WHF history, high elves have never seemed remotely like they were going to be a major force and their squatting doesn’t seem an indicator that anything can go. 

[Overread]

There's also the issue that GW is releasing 2 more Aelf themed armies "at some stage". The current remains of the highelf forces might well have clashed with those themes so GW took the choice to remove them now with  a long term view that some of those concepts will come back. I refuse to believe that they will have a high fantasy game with only 2 or 3 dragons in it! 

Edited August 30, 2019 by Overread

[Panzer]

33 minutes ago, chord said:

Just your opinion, which is no more or less valid than the original posters.  I happen to agree original AOS was the best as you were not constrained by rules.  And there were plenty of community point systems that were better than the current official point system we have now.

To be fair it's not 'just' his opinion. GW already told us themselves that they didn't handle it that as well as they could at first, that with the help of community feedback they made the improvements that brought us to where we are today and that they saw the positivity of those changes reflected in their sales numbers.