The Rumour Thread

[Verminlord]

14 hours ago, Overread said:

I think Soulblight would be worth a new battletome of its own. 

I would say the same of Ironjaws, splitters, BCR, the various cities factions, the skaven clans, ect.

To me it looks like vampires will be souped in with deathrattle and LoN retired. Probably we will see a few new vampire kits to spice things up: new knights, foot vampire unit, a few heros, bats refresh, terrain, spells. I think it will be like the gloomspite release where it's more of a refresh than a reimagining like KO.

Edit: To be clear I don't have a problem with soup books, it just seems that is the way GW has been trending for AoS

Edited October 7, 2020 by Verminlord

[Scurvydog]

It really puzzles me why orruks are getting so little love from GW. Even the latest warband of brutes as the first release since 2015/16 when the IJ's were released, are just that, more brutes with no interesting rules either. The book souped both IJ and BS together, creating very little diversity for each faction. I look at the IJ subfactions and compare them to what other books with a relatively low model variation manages to do with fun rules, such as FEC and Fyreslayers. They also got no terrain and no endless spells.

Somehow I can't belive GW would simply leave Orruks at the wayside like this, there must be something coming in the future right? right?... Oh yea probably more Aelves :s

 

[KingBrodd]

10 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

It really puzzles me why orruks are getting so little love from GW. Even the latest warband of brutes as the first release since 2015/16 when the IJ's were released, are just that, more brutes with no interesting rules either. The book souped both IJ and BS together, creating very little diversity for each faction. I look at the IJ subfactions and compare them to what other books with a relatively low model variation manages to do with fun rules, such as FEC and Fyreslayers. They also got no terrain and no endless spells.

Somehow I can't belive GW would simply leave Orruks at the wayside like this, there must be something coming in the future right? right?... Oh yea probably more Aelves :s

 

I think for 3.0 there is still a very good chance that it could kick off with Gordrakk seiging either Azyr or Excelsis. This could even be the new Starter Set of Orruk Warclans VS Stormcast. 

I think GW have some big plans for Orruks in the pipeline. Wether this be the Godbeast Siege Engine, new Ironjawz or Bonesplitterz units or even just brand new 'Standard' Orruks.

[Overread]

I think one problem Orruks had at the start of AoS was they wound up with in effect 3 armies of Orruks doing the same things just with varying ages of sculpts and amounts of armour. So they had a lot of armies, which got whittled down, but in the end they basically had very few actual ideas as such. I think its a combination of them both having a slow update but also a bit of a Primaris Marine effect where new sculpts that in other years would have replaced, were instead put alongside. 

It seems to be a policy GW have stuck with with Marines, but not tried to adopt anywhere else since; which makes me think it was an "old management" idea. 

I would love to see them get more diversity into the Orruks and more content into both kinds. I'm not sure if they should or would ever split formally into their own Battletomes - there are pros and cons of them. But at the least getting some revamps and additional toys would be great. 

 

That said you can say similar things for most AoS armies. 

[Beastmaster]

55 minutes ago, Verminlord said:

I would say the same of Ironjaws, splitters, BCR, the various cities factions, the skaven clans, ect.

To me it looks like vampires will be souped in with deathrattle and LoN retired. Probably we will see a few new vampire kits to spice things up: new knights, foot vampire unit, a few heros, bats refresh, terrain, spells. I think it will be like the gloomspite release where it's more of a refresh than a reimagining like KO.

Edit: To be clear I don't have a problem with soup books, it just seems that is the way GW has been trending for AoS

I don’t think it’s souped if it has a clear common theme. On the contrary, what makes some armies so one-dimensional models wise is the concentration on a single species. Compare all-dwarf Fyreslayers or all-elf Idoneth with Ogors/Gorgers/Yhetees/Gnoblars Mawtribes or Skink/Saurus/Slann Seraphon.

Likewise, I would prefer a Vampires/Skeletons/Zombies/Bats/Wolves soulblight to an All-Bedsheet Nighthaunts army any time of the day. Or even at night.

Edited October 7, 2020 by Beastmaster

[Gareth 🍄]

Johann's brother?

Brohann?

[KingBrodd]

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/10/07/sons-of-behemat-better-in-bulk/

Gargant Tribes!!

[Verminlord]

8 minutes ago, Beastmaster said:

I don’t think it’s souped if it has a clear common theme. On the contrary, what makes some armies so one-dimensional models wise is the concentration on a single species. Compare all-dwarf Fyreslayers or all-elf Idoneth with Ogors/Gorgers/Yhetees/Gnoblars Mawtribes or Skink/Saurus/Slann Seraphon.

I suppose common theme is a matter of opinion but factions that were separate before have been joined together. That is soup. I would prefer that those faction's themes be reinforced through lore and supplemental model releases to stand on their own rather than be souped together. But again, matter of opinion. I'd be more than happy with a vampire/deathrattle book.

[Baron Klatz]

It can go either way. I personally think we're past the soup period as that was done to get everything up to date fast. With the Lumineth release they hinted in the articles that's the way they're moving forward so we could either get soup or see the older undead lines disappear and replaced by a new theme and sub-faction releases.

Personally hoping for Soulblight and Deadwalkers mix to be "Cities of Nagash" as they imitate the living cities with the vampire courts, worshippers and undead townsfolk we see in the lore for the realm of Shyish. (plus new zombie models and it'd tie-in to that possible Death Warhammer Quest)

1 hour ago, KingBrodd said:

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/10/07/sons-of-behemat-better-in-bulk/

Gargant Tribes!!

I love the bitten in half shark(bottom left) for Kraken-Eaters.

 Interesting the Gate Breakers are the main hatred for Civilization because of Behemet's death. I wonder if they'll get lore that's why they work with undead and Shyish in hopes of finding his soul in the underworlds of that realm?

[sandlemad]

I rather like the distinction between Stompers, Breakers and Takers, that idea of broad kinds of factions rather than specific e.g. Stormhosts or Lodges. Worked well for StD with their Ravagers/Despoilers/Cabalists, should work well here. Gives a bit more conceptual room for Your Dudes.

It also emphasises how central the mega-gargants are to the faction. Rather than a mix, the background and the rules seem to be conceptualised much more as your Big Lad, maybe his Just As Big Mate, and then all the smaller gargants that he can bully into doing his bidding who then take on his style and preferences. Kind of a fun approach, makes it about big eccentric personalities rather than sub-groups and blends of cultures (e.g. here's a Megaboss and his ironclad boys but also he has this Bonesplitters shaman and his savage orcs following them around too).  

Also those Fierce Loathing options are a good laugh. 

Edited October 7, 2020 by sandlemad

[Joseph Mackay]

7 hours ago, Scurvydog said:

It really puzzles me why orruks are getting so little love from GW. Even the latest warband of brutes as the first release since 2015/16 when the IJ's were released, are just that, more brutes with no interesting rules either. The book souped both IJ and BS together, creating very little diversity for each faction. I look at the IJ subfactions and compare them to what other books with a relatively low model variation manages to do with fun rules, such as FEC and Fyreslayers. They also got no terrain and no endless spells.

Somehow I can't belive GW would simply leave Orruks at the wayside like this, there must be something coming in the future right? right?... Oh yea probably more Aelves :s

 

I strongly believe gw prioritised (and rushed) releasing a battletome for every army so they were all on an ‘equal footing’ rather than models. Gw knows armies with old books don’t sell as well.

on that subject of books, I also don’t believe the books were written in the order they were released. There’s no way Seraphon was one of the last books written. The warscrolls are fairly weak with any real power coming from allegiance abilities, they have no prayer list or Mount traits. Bound endless spells was pure laziness so they didn’t have to make any faction ones, and I believe the terrain piece was made during fantasy but not released for whatever reason, it wasn’t made for AoS, it was something leftover from fantasy.

I just don’t get it, that release plan. Could gw really not come up with new stuff for Flesh-Eaters, Fyreslayers, Ironjawz etc or update old models for Skaven, Ogors, Seraphon, Slaves To Darkness? The only thing that makes sense is that they rushed out the books rather than focusing on new models (note that I don’t count faction terrain or endless spells as models in this regard, and even so, not everyone got those either). I also believe Legions Of Nagash and Cities Of Sigmar were temporary stopgaps to get everyone updated. Legions will go away once the final faction has gotten its own battletome (Soulblight). Bonereapers will replace Deathrattle, Flesh-Eaters replace Deadwalkers etc. Cities, I believe will eventually have the factions expanded out. Dispossessed will eventually get their own battletome, same with the humans. The elves however will either get rolled into another faction (Order Serpentis as part of the Shadow Aelves for example) or replaced and/or discontinued

[Chikout]

There are a few things to think about when considering gw's release strategy. 

1- they have looong term goals.

Gw wants aos to be a going concern for the next 50 plus years. In order to maintain interest over time they have a slower release rate of new armies than we would like. Currently they tend to do one all new army and 3 or 4 updated armies each year. This year the Lumineth are all new and the gargants are an update. We may yet see updated Slaanesh and daughters this year, but that is still rather slow. With 24 books currently out that's a new update every 6 or so years. 

2- gw relies on known big sellers. 

Gw has survived as long as it has largely thanks to the popularity of the space marines. There was a time when the tactical squad was selling better than the whole fantasy range. This means that gw returns to the well of space marines more than any other army. This has carried over to aos to a limited extent. We can reasonably expect a new range of stormcast minis every two to three years. Unfortunately this knocks back  everything else in the queue. 

3- gw's production and storage capacity is a major bottleneck.

Every kit that gw adds to the kit is something that needs to be manufactured, stored in warehouses and manufactured again when stock runs out. This is why battleboxes have such limited runs and don't usually get reprinted. What gw wants is a limited number of kits that can be produced sold and cleared off warehouse shelves quickly to make way for the next product while giving a guaranteed return on gw's investment. 

There was an interview with Adam Troke when he was in charge of lotr where he said he had to negotiate for warehouse space so that gw would let them rerelease some old minis. 

All this is going to say that gw is physically incapable of producing new minis at the rate that many fans would want. 

Books avoid a lot of these problems. They are printed in China and are available digitally which reduces the amount of physical copies that need to be produced.  (This does make gw's decision to abandon digital codexes in 40k rather strange)

This has led to gw producing a huge number of books in recent years but a relatively small number of minis in comparison. Unfortunately the lack of writing staff, just 8 or so rules writers compared to over 30 miniature designers in the main studio, has led to books feeling rushed.

4- the future

Gw has been working on addressing some of these problems. They have been building new factory facilities and new warehouses in both the UK and America. Potentially this could result in an increased rate of miniature releases. 

Unfortunately what with one thing or another we probably wont see those improvements for a while. 

 

[EccentricCircle]

10 hours ago, Joseph Mackay said:

I strongly believe gw prioritised (and rushed) releasing a battletome for every army so they were all on an ‘equal footing’ rather than models. Gw knows armies with old books don’t sell as well.

on that subject of books, I also don’t believe the books were written in the order they were released. There’s no way Seraphon was one of the last books written. The warscrolls are fairly weak with any real power coming from allegiance abilities, they have no prayer list or Mount traits. Bound endless spells was pure laziness so they didn’t have to make any faction ones, and I believe the terrain piece was made during fantasy but not released for whatever reason, it wasn’t made for AoS, it was something leftover from fantasy.

I just don’t get it, that release plan. Could gw really not come up with new stuff for Flesh-Eaters, Fyreslayers, Ironjawz etc or update old models for Skaven, Ogors, Seraphon, Slaves To Darkness? The only thing that makes sense is that they rushed out the books rather than focusing on new models (note that I don’t count faction terrain or endless spells as models in this regard, and even so, not everyone got those either). I also believe Legions Of Nagash and Cities Of Sigmar were temporary stopgaps to get everyone updated. Legions will go away once the final faction has gotten its own battletome (Soulblight). Bonereapers will replace Deathrattle, Flesh-Eaters replace Deadwalkers etc. Cities, I believe will eventually have the factions expanded out. Dispossessed will eventually get their own battletome, same with the humans. The elves however will either get rolled into another faction (Order Serpentis as part of the Shadow Aelves for example) or replaced and/or discontinued

I disagree on the seraphon pyramid. When you compare that to other scenery kits, it really is a cutting edge design. For a long time, during wfb and intk AoS scenery kits have often used lots of really big pieces, and not had the most efficient sprue layout. 

A year or so ago they came up with the system the pyramid uses where the kit is several copies of the same sprue, which combine to build a symetrical structre. You see this with the recent Rohan house and pallisade kits, and I believe the ossiarch obelisk, though I've not built that one. 

It really is a revolutionary approach which must make such multiple sprue kits only require a single mould, since the sprues are duplicated.

I don't know how long that design has been in development, but there is no way that they didn't come out of the same cycle of innovation. I thus don't believe that any of them are throwbacks to an earlier design cycle, even if they use the old lizardmen design language to good effect.

This "symmetrical sprues" model has a lot of potential, and I'm really curious to see how they use it going forwards.

Edited October 8, 2020 by EccentricCircle

[Scurvydog]

7 hours ago, Chikout said:

2- gw relies on known big sellers. 

3- gw's production and storage capacity is a major bottleneck.

While that is true, it also somewhat frustrates me with the massive amounts of warbands to warcry for example now taking so much space, when that game could easily function like Kill Team, and basically still does with other miniatures. Why not just release new marauders to use for StD and also warcry? With the effort put into many of these warbands they could completely revitalize suffering armies from AoS, which for strange reasons are being neglected with no models for years.

They could have focused on the skirmish AoS game Warcry by making new marauders, new saurus warriors, updated ardboyz etc and hit two birds with one stone. Instead all these effort goes into some incredibly detailed warbands, which are absolutely terrible in AoS and does not really fit, which seems incredibly inefficient for GW. The way they plan their focus puzzles me to no end with so much low hanging fruit and missed opportunities.

[zilberfrid]

10 minutes ago, Scurvydog said:

While that is true, it also somewhat frustrates me with the massive amounts of warbands to warcry for example now taking so much space, when that game could easily function like Kill Team, and basically still does with other miniatures. Why not just release new marauders to use for StD and also warcry? With the effort put into many of these warbands they could completely revitalize suffering armies from AoS, which for strange reasons are being neglected with no models for years.

They could have focused on the skirmish AoS game Warcry by making new marauders, new saurus warriors, updated ardboyz etc and hit two birds with one stone. Instead all these effort goes into some incredibly detailed warbands, which are absolutely terrible in AoS and does not really fit, which seems incredibly inefficient for GW. The way they plan their focus puzzles me to no end with so much low hanging fruit and missed opportunities.

I get what you mean, but like Necromunda, the styling of the Warcry models is much of the draw of the game.

I do agree that the warscrolls in AoS of Underworlds and Warcry models should be more usable.

[KingBrodd]

I'm looking forward to the Sons Battletome for all the juicy hints at where the setting is going next and what Rumours we can also gleam from it!!

[Scurvydog]

1 hour ago, KingBrodd said:

I'm looking forward to the Sons Battletome for all the juicy hints at where the setting is going next and what Rumours we can also gleam from it!!

I think Sons lore will be their own little fairytale, but for sure the upcoming Broken Realms will bring us into the next phase of the larger story. I am very much excited for that and enjoy little updates here and there to look forward to. 

Some people did not like PA for 40k, but I found the format quite decent and giving something to everyone at a somewhat rapid pace kept some hype and new life to stale factions. Of course with hits and misses as always with any game system. If Broken realms will result in a new book with some narrative progress and new content for a handful of armies in each, that would be great, I'd hope to see something like 4 books during 2021 with new content for all factions, either a new sub faction and possibly a new unit, hero or updated kit here and there.

I am also excited for the new tome celestial for WD. In the next issue we will see a new Troggoth faction for the Gitz like the fun addition for Jawz of Mork. Made better with GWs new direction for WD content being viable for matched play, this makes any addition much more exciting.

Previously they only really did some battalions, but now we are seeing entire sub factions, that could really result in some interesting things and also add to armies needing a little boost, like exactly squig and Troggoth armies needed. Maybe a new faction making non eels really good for Idoneth? Perhaps a Warherd sub faction for BoC making Bullgors and Ghorgons much more dangerous!? I really hope they use that medium to "patch" some of these cool but rules wise lackluster factions.

[Soolong]

Would rather have malign portents short story's then having to shell out for more books for army's I don't collect to get lore but I'm still looking forward to the new releases. 

[Vasshpit]

I just hope Broken Realms will offer more than just a new foot hero for armies. 

A lot of factions could really use a few new tools. 

 

[Gnawdwell]

So at this point the teased but unreleased stuff for AOS is the Shadow & Pain box as well as the Warcry Catacombs box and the new underworlds season? In that case looks very much like they have to make a new preview soon to keep the hype train going.

[Sleboda]

There's also the Halloween blood bowl team. I know it's more AoS adjacent, but it is fantasy and some folks will find ways to use them in AoS.

[Gareth 🍄]

[zilberfrid]

41 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

There's also the Halloween blood bowl team. I know it's more AoS adjacent, but it is fantasy and some folks will find ways to use them in AoS.

Yeah, it's weird that we're a good way into october, and they are not even in presale yet.

Also, the Orlock doggies and jetpack people.

[Gnawdwell]

4 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

Yeah, it's weird that we're a good way into october, and they are not even in presale yet.

Also, the Orlock doggies and jetpack people.

True, I'm starting to wonder if they won't be released before after the new BB edition comes out. Besides, BB is not AOS related in my mind although i see the overlap, it being fantasy,  Necromunda on the other hand can hardly be considered an AOS release

[MitGas]

5 hours ago, Scurvydog said:

While that is true, it also somewhat frustrates me with the massive amounts of warbands to warcry for example now taking so much space, when that game could easily function like Kill Team, and basically still does with other miniatures. Why not just release new marauders to use for StD and also warcry? With the effort put into many of these warbands they could completely revitalize suffering armies from AoS, which for strange reasons are being neglected with no models for years.

They could have focused on the skirmish AoS game Warcry by making new marauders, new saurus warriors, updated ardboyz etc and hit two birds with one stone. Instead all these effort goes into some incredibly detailed warbands, which are absolutely terrible in AoS and does not really fit, which seems incredibly inefficient for GW. The way they plan their focus puzzles me to no end with so much low hanging fruit and missed opportunities.

As a Chaos-fan I'm obviously happy with the interesting new warbands we got (much less so with their rules in AoS) but if I look at your post objectively, I can only 100% agree with you. Everything you've said is right on the money. We needed new marauders (and we could use plastic Chosen and/or multipart warriors more than 8 warbands too), Saurus warriors, Skaven, a new spin of the empire of old, new units for some of the newer factions that feel lacking both in variety and game rules... there's so much that's in dire need of an update and instead we get lots of very unique and often very beautiful models that nobody asked for. It's cool to have these but it would be cooler to get the stuff we really need.

Personally I feel like the focus on things like the Warcry warbands, more Aelves (with possibly two more Aelven factions coming) and now Giants are a huge step in the wrong direction, even if all those units are well made and definitely have their fans... but now shouldn't be their time. I'm happy for everyone that liked them, really but there are so many other IMO more deserving factions out there that need reworks and updates.