The Rumour Thread

[Overread]

*pokes the site* it lives again! 

It would be neat if GW would watch some of the trick/stunt horse riding teams that go around and get some inspiration from them. Granted its the kind of riding that might not be all to effective in actual battle; but for lithe and light characters like aelves you could easily see them standing on the backs of two horses, perfectly in control and balanced without reins. Or with a modified saddle so that they could not just swing into the side and lash out with a sword but go around under and up the other side of hte horse (not sure if that would actually translate well as a model though). 

 

Otherwise your standard "heroic" pose as defined by classical art works. Also don't forget that many motions can appear rather odd if you freeze them mid-motion. Take jumping, if you photograph a horse with its hind legs on the ground when jumping it almost looks like its more standing and leaning on an invisible bar with its front legs; rather than leaping. You need it timed just after the legs leave the ground to give that sense of actual motion (which in a model means you've got to sculpt it with grass and dirt flying up to the hooves as it takes off to give it a contact point). 

[sandlemad]

What this model hits home, more than the basic cavalry, is how bloomin' big the mounts ("Regular Abyssals?") are. Their shape and structure doesn't quite match up with any living animal - even putting aside the bone structure that could never be anything natural, look at those rear shins - and the heads and legs clearly come variously from rhinos, dracoths, griffins, giant warthogs, etc. These are seriously big constructs, larger than juggernauts. Fitting for stormcast-sized warriors.

[Overread]

Lets not forget that a lot of GW's general mounted models are quite small in comparison to the riders. Horses and mounts were often kept smaller to make them cheaper to cast and practical to field on the table. You see the same if you compare things like the artwork of seeker riders to the actual model. In the artwork they are quite chunky mounts, in the model they have some of that but not as much. 

You can see the same if you compare things like the Raging Heroes mounted models to GW ones. 

 

Part of it is a style and GW was very in line with the standard 20-30 years ago for mounted models. I think that with plastics and such we could and should, in theory, have horses closer to the size of demigryphs and such - large draft horses designed to hold the weight of an armoured rider and to thunder forward etc... Indeed it would be neat to see them alongside other horses, smaller ones, used by a flanking archery unit - emulating the smaller mongolian ponies and their archer riders etc...

 

Of course alongside that GW has also branched out into more heroic poses and less of that "Parade Ground" posing too. 

 

 

 

In other interesting observations look at where the bit of the bridle is. It's right at the back of the mouth near the jawbone, whilst in reality a bit sits far further forward and would be between the mounts fore and rear teeth. Of course for the hero mount the mount has a huge mouth of sharp teeth and no natural gap between the fore and rear teeth. It's another sign that these creatures are not simply a skeleton brought to life. 

And yet the fact that its got even just a bit and reins suggests that these mounts are not totally "docile". That they have a life and mind of their own and are wild creatures. It makes the Bonereapers quite interesting and will be neat to see how they perform in the lore itself. Whilst they are clearly a heavily constructed army in soul and body, it also seems that they have quite a lot of potential independent thinking potential. That coupled to their multiple souls could make them quite a curious race to interact with. It also raises the possiblity that they will be a "people" not just a machine construct. Which introduces the potential for Bonereaper settlements. Perhaps even a Matrix like aspect to them - machines built by a great creator who are then gifted with the ability to create themselves. Mayhap they might start making sons and daughters not just warriors. What if a Reaper is made who wants to be poet not a warrior?! 

Edited October 8, 2019 by Overread

[Double Misfire]

20 minutes ago, Overread said:

What if a Reaper is made who wants to be poet not a warrior?! 

😳

Are we getting Felix as a Bonereaper and not as a Stormcast as initially hinted at/assumed by Gotrek?! 😜

[Scurvydog]

Interesting take aways from the article from a lore perspective is that they are called Warrior Monarchs and also the mission of the "purification of Shyish".

Obviously there can be no monarchs without kingdoms, this might of course mean they were monarchs in life now generals in death, but that is not made entirely clear. This is more interesting with the mission of the purification of Shyish, if Nagash is creating kingdoms entirely for the dead.

I really do hope this will create something interesting with the Soulblight vampires, as I can't see them being too happy about giving up all their living thralls. Sitting in kingdoms of nothing but the dead is bad for business for those who feed on the living. 

[Overread]

8 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:

😳

Are we getting Felix as a Bonereaper and not as a Stormcast as initially hinted at/assumed by Gotrek?! 😜

Hey far as I know Gotrek has not yet confirmed it. He greatly suspects Felix would be a Stormcast because of his noble life defending the lands of men from the taint of chaos, however I'm not sure if he is a stormcast (though I've not yet made it as far as the End Times stories about them so I don't know what happens to Felix in them - yet). Felix could well have fallen through a crack and wound up a Reaper! 

Imagine poor Gotrek - travelling not just with an aelf who, for all intents and purposes, is a DARK ELF to Gotrek, but then having to wander with the product of a necromancers madness in a Skeletal construct Felix! He only just tolerated Ulrika in the old tales and was half way to slicing her in half

 

@Scurvydog it might not be a purging of all life, but possibly more a purging of non-death-peoples. Ergo that the living are not hated, don't forget the Reapers talk of a Tithe, they clearly realise that if they destroy all living things then their bone supply will eventually run out. Taking a Tithe suggests that they will treat living settlements like farms, taking their tithe and reaping a harvest from them. 

Purification would likely take the concept of cleaning the lands of Stormcast, of the living who don't follow Nagash. Cleaning out Orruk infestation; Chaos taint; pesky Stormcast and human settlements who stand against or who just don't want to pay the Tithe. 

 

 

Calling them Monarchs I think ties into their slight mongolian influence. The idea that the hoards of the Reapers are made up of united "Clans" of reapers brought under one ruler. Lets not forget whilst this is a "new" army, the story speaks of how Nagash was building them for aeons and that the new leader is only now taking command of the full force under him. So the Monarchs might well compete for his attention and reward; or might even plot against each other. They might even have old rivalries and such. 

Edited October 8, 2019 by Overread

[Kramer]

23 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:

😳

Are we getting Felix as a Bonereaper and not as a Stormcast as initially hinted at/assumed by Gotrek?! 😜

That would be a brilliant twist for a future book. Finally found Felix... he turned into a big bad baddie

[Charleston]

Well, reading the usual "But what kind of bones are thoose? That makes no sense!" complain about OBR again and again makes me fear the future a bit. People once again do not take at least a bit of time to understand the factions lore which mostly explains the sculpts.

OBR are no skelletons, they are made from a bone based material. Thoose Mounts are too. Or the funny-slann-mockering-stool with chubby legs. Or the catapult. Or the big guys. But people see them and act like "I wonder what animal has a skelleton like this catapult" and this triggers me from time to time more than it should.

In general, the setting, as 40k, really suffer due to more and more people going 100% meme-lore, which is sad, as people really miss a lot of good background on this game.

[Forrix]

If they do Felix as a Bonereaper he could share a body with Ulrika...

[amysrevenge]

Been offline a couple days but... why didn't "ogre" rather than "ogor" raise a big enough red flag to make that China factory screensot thing instantly agreed as fake?

[Whitefang]

No I think you misunderstand the point

I totally understand what OSB are and why they are look so different 

Yet I still complain about them because I am a big fan of ‘proper human skull’

I like skull because of the chilly terror and emotionlessness given by it, so it’s difficult for me to accept the mockery and weird grin on these new homeboys faces

I am just sad we lost a opportunity to get some new sculpts skeletons and how amazing these guys could be if they had proper skulls

Edited October 8, 2019 by Whitefang

[smartazjb0y]

Just saw that the new 40k battle box is $230. I don't play 40k, is that standard? Or when compared to the battle boxes AoS gets (Looncurse, Carrion Empire) that go for $160, does it actually have a lot more stuff inside? 

[Dreadmund]

20 minutes ago, Whitefang said:

No I think you misunderstand the point

I totally understand what OSB are and why they are look so different 

Yet I still complain about them because I am a big fan of ‘proper human skull’

I like skull because of the chilly terror and emotionlessness given by it, so it’s difficult for me to accept the mockery and weird grin on these new homeboys faces

I am just sad we lost a opportunity to get some new sculpts skeletons and how amazing these guys could be if they had proper skulls

I like the OBR heads, since they're shaped that way and not natural. Nagash seems to be purposefully perverting the design of the Stormcast in the design of the Bonereapers and the heads seem like a perfect counter to the stoic, frowning stormcast helmet design: a grinning, gloating mockery of life. The OBR in general seem to be Nagash's way of saying "Anything you can do, I can do better" to Sigmar.

That said, all you need is a box of skulls and you can convert them into some excellent models with a proper skull shape if you wanted.

[sandlemad]

42 minutes ago, Charleston said:

OBR are no skelletons, they are made from a bone based material. Thoose Mounts are too. Or the funny-slann-mockering-stool with chubby legs. Or the catapult. Or the big guys. But people see them and act like "I wonder what animal has a skelleton like this catapult" and this triggers me from time to time more than it should.

I think you misread me, I'm not saying that the mounts don't make sense or expresseing a dislike of them, simply noting how very clearly artificial they are. There's no animal in all the world with bones like those on the rear shins (or armoured bone plates on their hind legs or rib cages on their front legs) because they were, as you say,  deliberately designed by the bonesculptors. Same for the heads, they're meant to look like the skulls of dracoths/griffins/whatever, that's where the designs are coming from. And I think that's cool.

I get what you mean about this sort of unimaginative literalism in the community. That being said, there is also room for someone to say 'I appreciate that there is a background justification for bone-men with noses but it still looks dumb on its own merits, why couldn't we have a better design coming from that background, i.e. lose the noses, keep the rest?' Interesting background is always good but it doesn't act as a blanket excuse for all visual design issues with a model.

[Overread]

33 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

Been offline a couple days but... why didn't "ogre" rather than "ogor" raise a big enough red flag to make that China factory screensot thing instantly agreed as fake?

Ogre and Ogor are both used as spelling and Ogor actually gets a red underline to be "corrected" to ogre under most spellcheckers. It doesn't mean that GW is spelling it wrong, they could be using an older style of spelling which simply isn't added into most modern spellcheckers. Heck Word used to flag meerkats as a non-word for years. 

[Turin Turambar]

22 minutes ago, sandlemad said:

I get what you mean about this sort of unimaginative literalism in the community. That being said, there is also room for someone to say 'I appreciate that there is a background justification for bone-men with noses but it still looks dumb on its own merits, why couldn't we have a better design coming from that background, i.e. lose the noses, keep the rest?' Interesting background is always good but it doesn't act as a blanket excuse for all visual design issues with a model.

personally if i was building/designing a warrior for a semi-medieval fantasy setting, i would give them jaws. like morghasts. I think bone reapers would have looked way cooler with morghast-y heads (so they look like slim wing-less morghasts)

Edited October 8, 2019 by Turin Turambar

[Charleston]

1 hour ago, sandlemad said:

I think you misread me, I'm not saying that the mounts don't make sense or expresseing a dislike of them, simply noting how very clearly artificial they are. There's no animal in all the world with bones like those on the rear shins (or armoured bone plates on their hind legs or rib cages on their front legs) because they were, as you say,  deliberately designed by the bonesculptors. Same for the heads, they're meant to look like the skulls of dracoths/griffins/whatever, that's where the designs are coming from. And I think that's cool.

I get what you mean about this sort of unimaginative literalism in the community. That being said, there is also room for someone to say 'I appreciate that there is a background justification for bone-men with noses but it still looks dumb on its own merits, why couldn't we have a better design coming from that background, i.e. lose the noses, keep the rest?' Interesting background is always good but it doesn't act as a blanket excuse for all visual design issues with a model.

This was by no means directed only towards you! I am sorry if this was understood this way. And I know and appreciate the fact that people have different reasons not to like the new design patterns! Meanwhile it just feels to me like people expect thoose to be just skelletons 2.0, which makes no sense.

I also agree with the critique on the heads. I strongly belive that some 3rd Party Sellers will quite soon jump on the train and deliver well scaled classic skulls. Puppet Wars has already a nice and diverse selection of alternative heads.

[Sharkbelly]

High Elves are coming next!

[CommodoreCass]

 

What does Great Mawpot stand for? Is it the new name of the Tyrant presented at Open Day?

[Overread]

18 minutes ago, CommodoreCass said:

 

What does Great Mawpot stand for? Is it the new name of the Tyrant presented at Open Day?

 

Unlikely, the all the items in that list are overseas produced plastics like terrain and endless spells. The new Tyrant is a GW model so will be produced as normal in Nottingham

[michu]

29 minutes ago, Sharkbelly said:

High Elves are coming next!

Either orks or imperium.

[Gareth 🍄]

2 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

Been offline a couple days but... why didn't "ogre" rather than "ogor" raise a big enough red flag to make that China factory screensot thing instantly agreed as fake?

It can be seen here: https://panjiva.com/Wargames-Factory-Ltd/33258484?fbclid=IwAR0IZG6r2eUMWAmt5tdgw-TrxFBaaLvfwmuSb87a7_xP_xJjZUSJ_wHOIsM

[Lowki]

From the latest reveal: "A dark mirror of the Lord-Celestant on Dracoth, a Liege-Kavalos is the perfect field general for your Ossiarch Bonereapers army"
That seem to confirm what I guess we already knew, OBR is Nagash answer to Sigmars SCE, literaly.

Now, although I was undecided about it for the past month, seeing the latest reveals, the harvester as well as the two generals, I made up my mind and decided to let this one pass.
No one should take this as a complaint or critisism though. I highly appreciate the Lore, the originality and quality of the new models. Above all, I am perfectly fine with not everything that GW produces being my cup of tea exactly.
I love the diversity of the AOS universe, and there is still much else to choose from (as if I am in desperate need for more grey plastic to begin with.) 

In fact there is a lot about them I do like. It is just something about this army, can't even put my finger on it what exactly, that doesn't get me as exited about them as I was with i.e. Night Haunt and Gloomspite Glitz.
Might be just how the human mind (or just mine) deals with what it sees. I mean, although I know they are not skeletons but Boneconstructs, my mind still sees something that looks a lot like skeletons, but at the same time also registers that there is something wrong with the atonomy. Like noses where there shouldn't be any, wrong proportions and bones on wrong places. Similar to how the human mind generally prefers symmetry and harmony, it might also perfer things that match the blueprint it has set for it. So if I see a skeleton it should look like how I know or expect a skeleton to look like.

That in mind it wouldn't surprise me that if OBR would have had less resemblance with real skeletons, I might have liked them much more than I do now. There may be even a solution in that, as it might be that with just a different paintscheme, just letting the idea go that bones should be painted as real bones for instance, will have them look much better to me. Like the black faced general next to Orpheon Katakros. I like that one a lot, but when I look at him closely I don't think he is much different from the other models, it is just that he has been painted differently.

Having that said, I am really looking forward to other peoples paintjob once they are out. And even more the conversions to be made, as if there is one army that allows perfectly for modifications it is this one I think.

Edited October 8, 2019 by Lowki

[Cèsar de Quart]

7 minutes ago, Lowki said:

In fact there is a lot about them I do like. It is just something about this army, can't even put my finger on it what exactly, that doesn't get me as exited about them as I was with i.e. Night Haunt and Gloomspite Glitz.
Might be just how the human mind (or just mine) deals with what it sees. I mean, although I know they are not skeletons but Boneconstructs, my mind still sees something that looks a lot like skeletons, but at the same time also registers that there is something wrong with the atonomy. Like noses where there shouldn't be any, wrong proportions and bones on wrong places. Similar to how the human mind generally prefers symmetry and harmony, it might also perfer things that match the blueprint it has set for it. So if I see a skeleton it should look like how I know or expect a skeleton to look like.

That in mind it wouldn't surprise me that if OBR would have less resemblance with real skeletons, I might have liked them much more than I do now. There may be even a solution in that, as it might be that with just a different paintscheme, just letting the idea go that bones should be painted as real bones for instance, will have them look much better to me. Like the black faced general next to Orpheon Katakros. I like that one a lot, but when I look at him closely I don't think he much different from the other models, it is just that he painted differently.

I couldn't agree more.

Yes, it makes sense, rationally, but design is not about rationality. If you make a skeleton but don't give it correct proportions, the human brain will squint and say "wait a minute"... and this cognitive dissonance will tamper with your easy enjoyment of the design itself.

Familiarity is a big concept in any sort of design. A cozy home or a peaceful street will tend to look the same in most media, regardless of the world it's set in, because, well, it's easy to signal to the viewer's brain "this is home"; just make it look like home. Hobbits looked like (and lived in) Tolkien's idea of home, and it was very effective shorthand. 

And yes, I would have liked bone constructs which were less humanoid and more on the abominations side. 

[sandlemad]

18 hours ago, Lowki said:

That in mind it wouldn't surprise me that if OBR would have less resemblance with real skeletons, I might have liked them much more than I do now. There may be even a solution in that, as it might be that with just a different paintscheme, just letting the idea go that bones should be painted as real bones for instance, will have them look much better to me. Like the black faced general next to Orpheon Katakros. I like that one a lot, but when I look at him closely I don't think he much different from the other models, it is just that he has been painted differently.

I think this is definitely a factor. That darker commander next to the Mortarch is my favourite model so far. Part of it is how good his pose is and the restraint in his decoration, but the colour scheme does make a difference. Doing these guys in a sort of ebony colour or charred, reconstituted material or something less obviously bone does make a difference. All those 'stonecast eternal' schemes but with more even more variety.

I don't love the the infantry but the screenshots of them in different schemes - the Null Myriad and Crematorium Guards - really improve them in my eyes.

+++ MOD HAT +++ No leaked pictures please!

Edited October 9, 2019 by RuneBrush