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AoS didn't get big refreshes because the Battletomes - just like the 40K codex- came FAST. Far too fast for 5-10 model updates per month. Instead we got a few updates here and there, some removals and some new forces. Gloomspite got a big update and refresh. 

40K is also clearly showing that big updates happen. Genestealer Cults, Sisters of Battle and Necrons have had/are getting big faction refreshes (SoB was a total update). Along the way we've had new models for other armies slip in here and there in one's and twos. It's a sensible pattern - new Banshee for Craftworld alongside big Necron updates. The Eldar might have a big update but it could be years or; so you keep them happy updating one or two here and there. Same as Skaven - they got a new leader model. The only reason it felt odd was it took them a year to put it on general sale; however it was updated. Again one or two new things here and there are easy ways to push out small updates that don't need a new book; you save that for later. 

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1 hour ago, madmac said:

Yeah, my first instinct was to say 40k, but it's got a crude gear heavy look that would work for AoS's more advanced tech factions.

The The round part looks almost identical to what's on the Imperial Knight joints.

My guess is a a terrain piece for 40k with rules to it.

Edited by Clan's Cynic
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Indeed and more precisely, in 3 years (from v8 launch to v9 launch, exactly 3 years),  not mentioning the individual new 40k minis, 40k had brand new  update:

- first wave of primaris

- deathguard

- chaos marines

- sisters

- second wave of primaris

- adeptus mechanicus

- Knights with one new (updated?) IK, one new RK, 2 even bigger guys, 2 armigers builds...

- third wave of primaris (v9)

- new necrons

and of course few things here and there includung the dark eldars/ eldars things...

So, yes, it is possible to refresh an army.

But no, GW prefers to add brand new armies to AoS. But maybe that now that we have 22 AoS armies (almost on par with 40K), GW will refresh existing armies (or add substantial units to existing armies).

 

Edited by GeneralZero
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1 hour ago, Overread said:

AoS didn't get big refreshes because the Battletomes - just like the 40K codex- came FAST. Far too fast for 5-10 model updates per month. Instead we got a few updates here and there, some removals and some new forces. Gloomspite got a big update and refresh. 

40K is also clearly showing that big updates happen. Genestealer Cults, Sisters of Battle and Necrons have had/are getting big faction refreshes (SoB was a total update). Along the way we've had new models for other armies slip in here and there in one's and twos. It's a sensible pattern - new Banshee for Craftworld alongside big Necron updates. The Eldar might have a big update but it could be years or; so you keep them happy updating one or two here and there. Same as Skaven - they got a new leader model. The only reason it felt odd was it took them a year to put it on general sale; however it was updated. Again one or two new things here and there are easy ways to push out small updates that don't need a new book; you save that for later. 

I don't think we can compare 40k to AOS releases in this circumstance. I am looking at trends in each respective game. The two different systems are are extremely different in methodology. 

AOS releases, historically and lately, have been small. I don't think GW is just going to reach a magic point where they are like "Hey, thats enough factions, lets start expanding older ones". 

I really hope I am wrong, because I think the biggest weakness of AOS is the lack of unit variety within many codexes. But evidence is showing that the best old factions can hope for is rule updates combined with supplemental models like terrain, endless spells, and models shared with secondary games. 

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Eh, it's common sense that in the long run, GW will eventually update armies that they still want to support. Looking at 40k and the WHFB though, those updates have always been pretty sporadic and unpredictable.  It's great that Sisters of Battle got a big release this year, but how long has it been since their range had a meaningful update before that?

I think we will continue to see what we've been seeing with AoS, lots of smallish new army releases, and rules updates for existing armies bundled with small model additions and in some cases folding new armies together.

Basically, I see the Warclans model as the dominant one. Ironjawz and Bonesplittas got folded together into a single rules update for 2nd edition yes, but prior to that both of them were released as "new" armies.

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Whether we should keep adding new armies indefinitely or expand the ones we have is a difficult question. The more books you have, the more difficult it becomes to manage the range as a whole. We are in the glorious place now of having every single book compatible with AOS 2.0, but already some books are starting to feel a  bit dated. Introducing new armies means introducing new playstyles which increases the risk of a petrifex situation occuring again. 

That said the excitement that a whole new faction creates really is unmatchable. Despite the recent announcement of a whole new edition of 40k, I am still far more excited about sons of Behemat and the Lumineth. 

As for how much expansion a book needs, I think 20 wars rolls excluding endless spells and scenery is a good number. More than that starts to take you towards redundancy. We've already seen that with judicators/castigators and liberators/ sequiturs.  In terms of variety there aren't really many books that fall short. The only books that lack variety in my eyes are dok (not enough heroes), KO (not enough infantry), idk (no elite infantry), Fyreslayers (no mid size stuff), and Fec ( few unique hero sculpts, and a lack of batty stuff) . Some books have sidestepped the issue by combining factions, ironjawz being the prime example. That's between 5 and 7 books that really could do with a expanded roster. 2 new factions , 2 expansions and 2 refreshes of old sculpts a year would see us in a very good place within 3 years. 

That said, that is the kind of time frame we are looking at. 4 years between substantial updates will be the norm, and the more new factions we add, the longer that timeframe will be.

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56 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Whether we should keep adding new armies indefinitely or expand the ones we have is a difficult question. The more books you have, the more difficult it becomes to manage the range as a whole. We are in the glorious place now of having every single book compatible with AOS 2.0, but already some books are starting to feel a  bit dated. Introducing new armies means introducing new playstyles which increases the risk of a petrifex situation occuring again. 

That said the excitement that a whole new faction creates really is unmatchable. Despite the recent announcement of a whole new edition of 40k, I am still far more excited about sons of Behemat and the Lumineth. 

As for how much expansion a book needs, I think 20 wars rolls excluding endless spells and scenery is a good number. More than that starts to take you towards redundancy. We've already seen that with judicators/castigators and liberators/ sequiturs.  In terms of variety there aren't really many books that fall short. The only books that lack variety in my eyes are dok (not enough heroes), KO (not enough infantry), idk (no elite infantry), Fyreslayers (no mid size stuff), and Fec ( few unique hero sculpts, and a lack of batty stuff) . Some books have sidestepped the issue by combining factions, ironjawz being the prime example. That's between 5 and 7 books that really could do with a expanded roster. 2 new factions , 2 expansions and 2 refreshes of old sculpts a year would see us in a very good place within 3 years. 

That said, that is the kind of time frame we are looking at. 4 years between substantial updates will be the norm, and the more new factions we add, the longer that timeframe will be.

Note that some armies are really top heavy with Characters. Its not uncommon for many armies with decent unit numbers to have 70% of those unit options be characters.

The better decision in terms of game balance is to expand the existing armies, no doubt. But one cant help but wonder if new armies are not in fact more profitable than expansions. I mean we have OBR, Lumineth, and Sons of Behemat all coming out within a relatively short amount of time. (with several more factions  rumored like Shadoneth and Kurnothi). This would have been laughably unheard-of just 3 years ago. 

Compare that to 40K which hasn't really seen an entirely new faction in quite a while. (nor are there any rumors of any) 

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there was clearly a phase - 40K started adopting and AoS at lauch was embracing it fully - of when GW was going to roll out lots of smaller factions. We saw this - Custodes, Sisters of Silence - Yinnari  - the growing prominance of "subfactions" outside of Marines. I think at the end of the Kirby era marketing was moving toward spreading armies wider through many many subfactions rather than new armies and new ideas. Clearly the thinking on that took a huge turn with new management and adopting a new focus. I think GW was starting at new armies as a secret weapon of big fast sales; however that's a short term profit generating idea and overlooks the importance of long term considerations. Especially for a market that relies heavily on long term gamers. Long term fans are the ones organising clubs; welcoming newbies; running games; playing the game; marketing the game. That guy with his one Daughters of Khaine army for 10 years is your marketing man selling it to others. If you release a billion new armies and never another DoK new model or update then you lose that gamer (at best) and at worst they turn into a campaigner against your game 

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11 minutes ago, Overread said:

there was clearly a phase - 40K started adopting and AoS at lauch was embracing it fully - of when GW was going to roll out lots of smaller factions. We saw this - Custodes, Sisters of Silence - Yinnari  - the growing prominance of "subfactions" outside of Marines. I think at the end of the Kirby era marketing was moving toward spreading armies wider through many many subfactions rather than new armies and new ideas. Clearly the thinking on that took a huge turn with new management and adopting a new focus. I think GW was starting at new armies as a secret weapon of big fast sales; however that's a short term profit generating idea and overlooks the importance of long term considerations. Especially for a market that relies heavily on long term gamers. Long term fans are the ones organising clubs; welcoming newbies; running games; playing the game; marketing the game. That guy with his one Daughters of Khaine army for 10 years is your marketing man selling it to others. If you release a billion new armies and never another DoK new model or update then you lose that gamer (at best) and at worst they turn into a campaigner against your game 

Around the same time the first rumours of AoS were leaking out - most of which proved true - one of the things mentioned was that it's armies would be cycled and all, essentially, limited releases. The theory was they'd be encouraging people to buy a new, albeit smaller army every year or so rather than sitting on one collection and slowly expanding. Obviously this being the Kirby era - and going full steam ahead into AoS - they didn't foresee how pretty much making people's collections redundant in a big/whole way might upset people.

Presumably they've moved away from that though.

You can also see this with things like Fyreslayers - one of the earliest AoS-exclusive armies - only such a small range, compared to things like Ossiarchs and Lumineth had pretty decent numbers of new and varied kits with good scope to expand into different designs than, 'Naked Dwarf on foot'.

My personal take is that we're going to keep seeing new armies until the holdovers from WHFB are either replaced, or have AoS specific sculpts (EG Slaves to Darkness.) obvious exceptions being Skaven and Lizardmen as they're a very 'GWified' range already.

Edited by Clan's Cynic
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Exactly. It's why so many armies got dropped and so many became tiny. We'd have kept things like Demons and Stormcast and a few others; with many of the rest being short term armies. The whole Grand Alliance system was built to support it. You'd not collect an army bit a Grand alliance. GW might stop selling Fyreslayers but they'd be "GA Order" so you'd just use them in your order army. Not having any formal rules also played into that (though apparently GW did have a full rulebook written out; they jsut dumped it last moment because of odd management choices). 

Honestly a lot of AoS's problems can be traced back to odd management choices and mangers who were very disconnected from the actual market and customerbase. They were too focused on the numbers and turning fast income from investments. Looking at things like new armies generating big spikes in sales; without realising that those big spikes relied on long term army and game support. That big waves of new gamers relied heavily on older gamers - some of which wouldn't be spending much if any money on  GW product. The 40 year old gamer who already had 30K of marines from 30years ago isn't big spending now - but he IS running the game club; welcoming newbies; teaching them and more. 

 

 

Thankfully GW today is recognising the values of longer term investments; of longer term consumer and gamer support etc... 

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I think the best way to look forward is to look backward - GW can surprise us by doing something completely different, but it's most likely that their tactics will remain the same for now as what they've been doing has turned out to be very successful.

What types of things have they done?  Also, I know you will anyway because it's the internet, but I'm explicitly asking anyone who has a reason, to correct any of these.

1) Stormcast.  These guys stand out from the rest of the line as a unique entity. 

Characteristics of this tactic: 

  • New army for AoS.
  • Consistent (for the first few years anyway) multi-kit additions to the line.
  • Dribs and drabs such as new heroes.

2) New army.  There have been several brand new armies.

Characteristics of this tactic:

  • Entirely new line of models.
  • New battletome.
  • Never again (to date) add a full unit to the line.  Might possibly add a hero.
  • Maybe endless spells, maybe terrain.

Examples: Idoneth Deepkln, Fyreslayers, Kharadron

3) Revised and updated army.  This would be an old WFB army that is given a solid AoS treatment

Characteristics of this tactic:

  • Re-use of many old plastic (or even finecast) kits
  • One or more new plastic kits, either to represent new units or to replace old metal/finecast kits
  • "Squatting" of some of the WFB or early AoS compendium kits.
  • New battletome
  • Never again (to date) add a full unit to the line.  Might possibly add a hero.
  • Maybe endless spells, maybe terrain.

Examples: Gloomspite Gits, Ironjaws, Daughters of Khaine, Nurgle, Sylvaneth

4) Battletome only.  This would be an old WFB army that is given a token AoS treatment

Characteristics of this tactic:

  • "Squatting" of some of the WFB or early AoS compendium kits.
  • New battletome
  • Never again (to date) add a full unit to the line.  Might possibly add a hero.
  • Maybe endless spells, maybe terrain.

Examples: Flesheaters, Seraphon

5) Soup combinations, either of old WFB armies or combining early AoS armies

Characteristics of this tactic:

  • "Squatting" of some of the WFB or early AoS compendium kits.
  • Battletome
  • Never again (to date) add a full unit to the line.  Might possibly add a hero.
  • Maybe endless spells, maybe terrain.

Examples:  Legion of Nagach, Cities of Sigmar, New Orruk and Ogor books, Beasts of Chaos

 

What sort of things can we learn from the past, when predicting the future?

First, I don't know where to file Slaves to Darkness in that list, they kind of fit and don't fit in a couple places.  All of the "real" line is old kits, the new Warriors and Knights supplement but don't replace the old kits, and all the Warcry bands which are technically StD don't feel like it to me.  They are a 3, and also a 4. Hard to categorize.

To me there is one big lesson (and this is where I need someone to correct me if I'm wrong):  with the exception of Stormcast, there has never yet been a new multi-model unit added to an army* in the entire life of AoS.

*By "army" I mean a faction with a printed battletome.  So no post-battletome additions, other than heroes.

 

So, while it is possible that at any time we could have new units for old armies drop into our laps, it would be a departure from established practices, not a continuation.

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1 minute ago, PrimeElectrid said:

No AoS article for 11 days :(

40K is doing to dominate this week with all the 9th edition stuff flying around and AN having new Tau models. But don't forget two new AoS armies means that there will certainly be a few weeks where AoS rules 

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41 minutes ago, amysrevenge said:

with the exception of Stormcast, there has never yet been a new multi-model unit added to an army* in the entire life of AoS.

There is other specific case to my eyes that is Khorne army.

Khorne did get some new plastic kits unit in the Flesh hound. now, this is an update of an old finecaste unit but even if not, as it was released into W40k/AoS box, not even sur how to deal with this case.

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37 minutes ago, Overread said:

40K is doing to dominate this week with all the 9th edition stuff flying around and AN having new Tau models. But don't forget two new AoS armies means that there will certainly be a few weeks where AoS rules 

I cannot wait for the Sons articles to start dropping.

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I'm part of those who think that their policy seems to push new armies rather than adding new range of models for actual armies. 

I would bet it's definitely more profitable than trying to satisfied  players of a specific faction

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2 hours ago, amysrevenge said:

What types of things have they done?  Also, I know you will anyway because it's the internet, but I'm explicitly asking anyone who has a reason, to correct any of these.

Well put overall. One thing I would add, not as a correction but as a note to remember, is that a release being a 'New Army' or a 'Revised/Updated Army' does not necessarily have implications for release size. Updated armies such as Gloomspite and Nighthaunt got more new kits than new armies such as Ossiarch or Kharadron which in turn got more kits than other updated armies such as Daughters of Khaine or Sylvaneth.

Also, and this is basically anecdotal, but I don't believe that revised/updated armies appeal to those who already played WHFB ancestors. I'd be pretty confident that there's a lot of Sylvaneth players out there who never touched Wood Elves.

Edited by sandlemad
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As an addendum to my post above, after considering it for a while.

There aren't that many old WFB armies left to deal with.  So there are fewer opportunities left to do what I labelled as 3, 4, or 5.  They'd have to un-soup some Legions of Nagash or Cities of Sigmar, or un-squat Gitmob or Greenskins or Bretonnia.

So maybe there is reason to hope for a new tactic out of GW sometime in the not too distant future?

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A complete new concept for the Destruction would be great tho. Cause besides recycling old concepts and expanding some areas it's just Fantasy 2.0 for this Alliance (I hope Classic gobbos and orcs stay in the void) 

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Honestly I’d like to see some general grand alliance books. Ways to combine all the smaller sub faction armies into a cohesive force. Yes I know there are basic rules back from the 2018 GHB,  but a Grand Force Destruction tome that allowed all the destruction armies to mesh well together under Gordraak would be fun. The 20% allies in a standard army just doesn’t do it for me.

 

i hear the new Chaos book did something simmilar, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. 


 

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TBH, I have so many things to assemble, glue, not even mentioning painting that I'm (almost) done with buying stuf for AoS: some thing like 4000 or 5K points per army for 7 armies... I am actually building the tzeench army: I am less than half of it done and I don't see where I can stock the minis lol. 5 armies to go hahaha I need a bigger house. Stocking our minis is a really big problem.

But.....

But I'll add at least ONE giant. Must have. And probably later an army of them (with the gargants also), one of them giants being heavily  kitbashed with so many spiky things that I got for chaos (from princes and spawns essentially, but not only). I'll play the giant in most armies. Just for the fun of having such a big mini on the table.

My investments are also frozen. Same problem...except that this new necron army is killing me. Sh*t, one more army. I swear that it'll be my last one!!! 😜

Conclusion: I'm impatient to see the sons. My heart is bleeding. But my brain is expecting them later, far later.

Edited by GeneralZero
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Not all new players are drawn to new armies though. I am new and after being given the Nighthaunt half of SoulWars and building that up, I have now gone the other way and have started a Beasts of Chaos one. I'm mindful that they need an update, I'm aware that this may mean that some units may be lost and I knew that that they don't seem to be particularly popular, or meta, but none of these things stopped me. I wanted Beasts and so I bought them.

So in my case, their old army has been financially better for them than the Nighthaunt one was.

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