The Rumour Thread

[RileyArlic]

14 minutes ago, KriticalKhan said:

The Old World exists solely to capitalize on the popularity of Total War and Vermintide. I'm 99% sure they announced it as soon as they could so that fans of those games would know it exists before the hype for them was over. There isn't likely to be any communication or coordination regarding AoS as they have separate teams developing both games, and you only have to look at the general AoS player base's reaction to know that The Old World isn't really something they're interested in ---reactions go from simple disinterest to viewing it as an existential threat to AoS' existence. Whether or not The Old World actually releases on time to capitalize on any TW and Vermintide hype is anyone's guess, but before people give GW too much flak for how long it's taken, Covid-19 dropped right in the middle of its development, and we all remember how much it impacted the hobby in general. Had it not happened, we'd be right in the middle of their estimated release window right now. I don't think a year or two of delays is very unreasonable given everything that happened.

 

But on the subject of Total War and Coatls in AoS, some of you might remember that a Lizardman DLC was released for TW Warhammer II that featured Coatls as a unit unlike anything they'd had on TT. Given GW's development to release timeline of about two years and how involved they are in the design process for Total War (according to them and the developers of that game), I wonder if we might find out the Total War Coatl is based on concepts for the possible AoS unit? As a rule, TW Warhammer doesn't include AoS-specific content, but that hasn't stopped them from using AoS designs for things that existed in Fantasy.

The only thing I know for... relatively certain is that GW is protective of their IP and likely checked every design that Total War made through their creative designer before approving it for use in the video games.

It doesn't necessarily mean that GW are going to use those designs for themselves, but inspiration does happen. You can see it in the new Warriors. They have the same head shape, that viciousness, the muscle build, but the shields and other decorations are different in key ways. 

The Total War Coatl is... odd. It's a beaked and feathered creature that looks like it belongs more in a Tzeentch army than a Lizardman army. There's a couple things to that...

1. A Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec deity, and making fantasy models of another culture's deity can be seen as problematic.
2. If GW did decide to make a coatl unit of some kind, and I had a tinfoil hat on my head, I might think that GW told Total War to make sure that their coatl wasn't too serpent-like so that when GW came out with their own, they'd have an easier time IP protecting it. 
3. That's all I got.

I'm personally not expecting a coatl unit, at least not yet. Maybe in a future wave of Seraphon. 

[Sahrial]

I have returned briefly from my piles of Ogors, goatmen, and 30k mechanicum projects to see if anyone else thinks the vampire heavy posts on warcom might imply a sooner turn around on the sbgl book than previously expected

[RileyArlic]

1 minute ago, Sahrial said:

I have returned briefly from my piles of Ogors, goatmen, and 30k mechanicum projects to see if anyone else thinks the vampire heavy posts on warcom might imply a sooner turn around on the sbgl book than previously expected

Seems to me to be more about the Warcry warband and GW putting a bunch of lore forward to explain their existence...

would be happy to be wrong though! 

[ArcLight]

I did notice the specific reference to a couple of unique characters that have yet to show up in miniature form, could be hints of something to come in the future. I don't know if they show up in any of the novels or the lore sections of the battletome?

 

"Genevieve and Ulrika

Could Nagash or even some foolish mortal manage to pluck another vampire soul from the swirling energy between the realms? How would we cope if legendary vampires such Genevieve or Ulrika were to return? Would they save any mercy for the Askurgan Trueblades, or the rest of the Soulblight dynasties?"

Edited February 8, 2023 by ArcLight
Adding italics

[ArcLight]

1 hour ago, RileyArlic said:

The only thing I know for... relatively certain is that GW is protective of their IP and likely checked every design that Total War made through their creative designer before approving it for use in the video games.

It doesn't necessarily mean that GW are going to use those designs for themselves, but inspiration does happen. You can see it in the new Warriors. They have the same head shape, that viciousness, the muscle build, but the shields and other decorations are different in key ways. 

The Total War Coatl is... odd. It's a beaked and feathered creature that looks like it belongs more in a Tzeentch army than a Lizardman army. There's a couple things to that...

1. A Quetzalcoatl is an Aztec deity, and making fantasy models of another culture's deity can be seen as problematic.
2. If GW did decide to make a coatl unit of some kind, and I had a tinfoil hat on my head, I might think that GW told Total War to make sure that their coatl wasn't too serpent-like so that when GW came out with their own, they'd have an easier time IP protecting it. 
3. That's all I got.

I'm personally not expecting a coatl unit, at least not yet. Maybe in a future wave of Seraphon. 

It's worth noting that the new Skink cavalry has a bit of a feathered look to the mounts - if they were introducing something like a Coatl then there is already recent precedent for how they could include a feathered design of some sort.

[Captaniser]

17 minutes ago, ArcLight said:

I did notice the specific reference to a couple of unique characters that have yet to show up in miniature form, could be hints of something to come in the future. I don't know if they show up in any of the novels or the lore sections of the battletome?

 

"Genevieve and Ulrika

Could Nagash or even some foolish mortal manage to pluck another vampire soul from the swirling energy between the realms? How would we cope if legendary vampires such Genevieve or Ulrika were to return? Would they save any mercy for the Askurgan Trueblades, or the rest of the Soulblight dynasties?"

Spoiler for the Book Gothgul Hollow

Spoiler

Ulrika makes an appearence at the end of the book, and has acted as a mysterious guide for our protagonists.

 

[JackStreicher]

2 minutes ago, Captaniser said:

Spoiler for the Book Gothgul Hollow

  Hide contents

Ulrika makes an appearence at the end of the book, and has acted as a mysterious guide for our protagonists.

 

In AoS?

kind of odd tbh.

[Captaniser]

6 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:

In AoS?

kind of odd tbh.

Spoiler

Correction, it was Genevieve that appeared in the book, not Ulrika.

Her appearance is quite unusual, since she comes from an earlier age in WHFB's history before it had a solid lore foundation and mostly acted as background filler.

 

 

[EonChao]

5 hours ago, Ogregut said:

For those intrested, the new partworks series for AoS, Stormbringer, launches today in the UK. 

The first 2 premium kits are especially good, the big dragon and mawcrusher. 

https://hachettepartworks.com/en-en/warhammer-age-of-sigmar-stormbringer/

Thanks for the heads up. I've updated the dedicated Stormbringer thread

Some pretty good changes from the test runs. Swapping out a set of scatter terrain for 5 more Stormcast Vindictors in the main issues and swapping the Yndrasta and Gnash-toof sprues for Kondrys and Gordrakk in the premium issues is a pretty good boost value wise if someone's getting started (or ignore all of the new Stormcast releases apart from Dominion like I did to prepare for this)

[Twisted Firaun]

4 hours ago, Captaniser said:

  Hide contents

Correction, it was Genevieve that appeared in the book, not Ulrika.

Her appearance is quite unusual, since she comes from an earlier age in WHFB's history before it had a solid lore foundation and mostly acted as background filler.

 

 

As in the Kim Newman character from Anno Dracula? I must be really showing my (lack thereof) age here cause I'm beyond confused. I liked the article though, it makes me hopeful for a new vampire character/dynasty down the line. Maybe we could get another Legion of Blood (Lahmian) character serving under Neferata? or another NEHEKHARAN (Ancient Egyptian)+ *Insert preferred aesthetic here* to go along with the japanese/buddhist monks of the Askurgan Trueblades.

[KingKull]

1 hour ago, Twisted Firaun said:

As in the Kim Newman character from Anno Dracula? I must be really showing my (lack thereof) age here cause I'm beyond confused. I liked the article though, it makes me hopeful for a new vampire character/dynasty down the line. Maybe we could get another Legion of Blood (Lahmian) character serving under Neferata? or another NEHEKHARAN (Ancient Egyptian)+ *Insert preferred aesthetic here* to go along with the japanese/buddhist monks of the Askurgan Trueblades.

Genevieve was a protagonist (or a recurring side character) in the novel/short story series that began with "Drachenfels" in the late '80s.

Newman liked the character, and introduced it in Anno Dracula as well (same character, but no inter-universe connection).

I read the books just recently, and I highly recommend you read the Genevieve books as well. It's hands down the best, most gripping piece of Warhammer fiction (from any universe) I've ever read.

I know the bar for WH fiction is pretty low, but it's also pretty high on my list of best fantasy series, I even found it more engaging than The Witcher.

Not to spoil anything, the characters and stories rely at once on nuance and cliche, and one of the thing I really admire Newman for is his ability to lean into the cliche with style (when he does) and still make it fresh and spicy.

As a side note, I'm not that much older than you and only caught the tail end of Fantasy while it was still around as a little kid, but the Old World from the late 7th/8th ED I love so damn much pales in comparison to Newman's early vision of the setting IMHO.

Edited February 9, 2023 by KingKull

[JackStreicher]

6 hours ago, KingKull said:

I read the books just recently, and I highly recommend you read the Genevieve books as well. It's hands down the best, most gripping piece of Warhammer fiction (from any universe) I've ever read.

I somewhat disagree. The story was vastly watered down by long, unnecessary deep dives into the inner workings of a theater and the art of acting in a drama. At least it was somewhat educational, for most of the time it was quite boring though.
Reading it was like walking through a big puddle of tar: really pertinacious and taxing, yet in the end somewhat (and weirdly) satisfying.

Edited February 9, 2023 by JackStreicher

[Still-young]

Just catching up on the last few pages; man it’s gonna feel pretty petty/ungrateful to be disappointed in the Seraphon release at all with what we’ve seen so far but if they do the Saurus warriors and don’t redo either the temple guard or Saurus cav, that’s just a baffling decision to me. The cavalry are so bad. 

[Snarff]

26 minutes ago, Still-young said:

Just catching up on the last few pages; man it’s gonna feel pretty petty/ungrateful to be disappointed in the Seraphon release at all with what we’ve seen so far but if they do the Saurus warriors and don’t redo either the temple guard or Saurus cav, that’s just a baffling decision to me. The cavalry are so bad. 

Better one bad unit left bad than half the range being bad. Even with ignoring the bad parts of the range and using just the new models you could make a beautiful army already.

[Nezzhil]

Kroxigors are Out of Stock from Australian warehouse.

[DeLewko]

Hopefully Knights will follow 

 

 

[Chikout]

14 minutes ago, DeLewko said:

Hopefully Knights will follow 

 

 

Reading the tea leaves it seems pretty certain that Kroxigor are on the way with the same name but a new design. Skinks and temple guard are staying as they are. Salamanders are possibly getting reimagined with a new name and we are getting some kind of new kit that may act as an army centrepiece even though the Seraphon already have quite a few of those. 

The knights are the big question especially as we are getting a new dual build cavalry unit. I would quite like to see them get a glow up to the level of the Dracoths. That would be pretty exciting. If my theory about GW's plans for Seraphon holds true we could find out as soon as Monday. 

[Lord Kroak]

Longtime lurker here, thought I'd post just to clarify what we know about the seraphon release.

Besides the already confirmed Slann, Saurus, Skink Cavalry, and Astrolith Bearer, the release will likely consist of the following:

- New Kroxigor - confirmed by Whitefang

- New "Salamander"/Razordon kit - hinted at by Whitefang

- New Cold One Knights - hinted at by Adam Troke during the Bloodpelt Hunter reveal (the hunter's quiver is a reptilian head that looks a lot like a redesigned cold one, and Adam said we'd soon find out what creature the head belongs to).

I think that'll be all the big kits that seraphon receive this year, though they'll probably also get one or two plastic heroes as those are currently lacking in the range. Maybe an oldblood with different weapon options?

 

 

 

[EntMan]

39 minutes ago, Lord Kroak said:

Longtime lurker here, thought I'd post just to clarify what we know about the seraphon release.

Besides the already confirmed Slann, Saurus, Skink Cavalry, and Astrolith Bearer, the release will likely consist of the following:

- New Kroxigor - confirmed by Whitefang

- New "Salamander"/Razordon kit - hinted at by Whitefang

- New Cold One Knights - hinted at by Adam Troke during the Bloodpelt Hunter reveal (the hunter's quiver is a reptilian head that looks a lot like a redesigned cold one, and Adam said we'd soon find out what creature the head belongs to).

I think that'll be all the big kits that seraphon receive this year, though they'll probably also get one or two plastic heroes as those are currently lacking in the range. Maybe an oldblood with different weapon options?

 

 

 

Well I've not added up the numbers, but apparently on the LVO reveal stream they said the Seraphon revealed then was less than half what's coming. So that does roughly fit with what you've mentioned above 😃🦖

Edited February 9, 2023 by EntMan

[Malakithe]

In unrelated rumor news all the 40k people are going nuts over the possibility of 40k losing T and using the same system that AoS uses 

[Gitzdee]

17 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

In unrelated rumor news all the 40k people are going nuts over the possibility of 40k losing T and using the same system that AoS uses 

I think this is funny somehow.

40k player about 9th: do not like rules

40k player about 10th: do not like any changes to rules

[Arzalyn]

7 minutes ago, Gitzdee said:

I think this is funny somehow.

40k player about 9th: do not like rules

40k player about 10th: do not like any changes to rules

That's way people joke about gamers in general hating two things only: how the game is and any change to the game.

Just wait until we get our next edition next year and a similar reaction for AoS will appear.

[Gitzdee]

2 minutes ago, Arzalyn said:

That's way people joke about gamers in general hating two things only: how the game is and any change to the game.

Just wait until we get our next edition next year and a similar reaction for AoS will appear.

True. The things that bothers me is when devs listen to some people raging on the internet and changing things when the initial game was fine. 

[dmorley21]

In the Metawatch video today, the lead game designer mentioned this spring will be the quickest set of AoS releases since 3.0.

[EonChao]

42 minutes ago, Malakithe said:

In unrelated rumor news all the 40k people are going nuts over the possibility of 40k losing T and using the same system that AoS uses 

Although I think Whitefang confirmed that was false earlier in the thread when it was mentioned.