The Rumour Thread

[Chikout]

GW have released models individually but they have never broken up a sprue as far as I am aware. This the problem with the island of blood stuff. 

[Jamopower]

That's one of the reasons why I don't we get additional releases for those factions themed very strongly. There's so much more to explore and when you think of it, there's not so much you can do with a one theme in a fantasy setting before you start to repeat. In addition to fighty, priesty and wizardy character, you have light and heavy cavalry, line infantry, elite infranty, shooters, warmachines, monsters, skirmishers and chariots. I believe for example the Idoneth range already more or less ticks all of them.

 

If you think backwards. Old high elves had gazillion versions of the same heavy infantry unit, which just led to people theming their army around one of them, which is sort of what Age of Sigmar has been catering at least for now.  It looks like we'll get a new elven army, a dwarf army, a human (stormcast) army, a chaos army and an Orcs and goblins army with changing regularity.  Which has it's perks, after all new stuff is usually more interesting than old. Especially as you can still sell the old stuff for new recruits. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Jamopower

[DantePQ]

@Jamopower I think opposite releasing new stuff for existing armies is easy money and much welcome addition for any player.

Take Idoneth they can easily use Kraken alike Monster ridden by some kind of hero. 

I think its great move to refresh factions in future with releases like :

- 1-2 dual kits whatever they are hero,infantry 

- endless Spells 

- Battletome 

[Jamopower]

It is, but I would say it's even better to get that elf player to invest in to a completely new elven army that is themed around, say Fire or Lions, that he can also ally with the older army. 

 

And of course the terrain kits and endless spells seem to be given for everyone. They look to be quite easy to do and can be produced for cheap in China without influencing the production of the Nottingham plant.

[Overread]

Thing is having 5 Aelf factions that are all small armies with very niche focuses within them runs the risk that you will get many who only play 1 of those 5. This means that GW has to release something new/updated for each of the 5 every so often to keep those gamers interested. Long term you can end up losing playesr because an army hasn't seen an update in years because you've got another 40 armies in the same game. 

 

Now if you have a single big army with focuses within it then you've got only 1 army to release an update for. Even if the new model is niche within the army there's a greater chance that more of your fans will buy it. Plus they dont' get that "I've been ignored" attitude as fast. So now you've got fewer armies, with diversity within them and a greater chance of players buying more models and changing their tactics. 

 

Gits and Skaven show this perfectly. You could have 5 or 6 Clan armies each with their own book and rules. However a Pestilens player might only play Pestilens. They've less encouragment to start other Skaven forces because of the allies limits. If they want to go Clan Skyre its not a slow evolution its a full "new army" approach. 

However put them in one book and now even though there's only 1 new model it counts for all the Clans; there's more chance that a Pestilens player will steadily add more and more skyre or Moulder and then widen their collection. 

 

Mechanically you end up with roughly the same; you still have themed armies on the tabletop, but behind the scenes you've got far more encouragement and potential to have more money spent on factions and fewer factions in general to update. This means more regular updates for each army, that means happier more content gamers and more purchases. It's basically win win for all involved. 

[Xasz]

I like those Slaves to Darkness rumours, I guess it's hibernation time till summer. 😮 

[JPjr]

you know what, if consolidation is the way forward then call me crazy but I reckon they could go one further with that and lump all vaguely related factions into groups. I'm just knocking ideas around here but maybe call them, Big Leagues, or Super Unions or even Grand Alliances.

[Jamopower]

14 minutes ago, Overread said:

Thing is having 5 Aelf factions that are all small armies with very niche focuses within them runs the risk that you will get many who only play 1 of those 5. This means that GW has to release something new/updated for each of the 5 every so often to keep those gamers interested. Long term you can end up losing playesr because an army hasn't seen an update in years because you've got another 40 armies in the same game. 

 

Now if you have a single big army with focuses within it then you've got only 1 army to release an update for. Even if the new model is niche within the army there's a greater chance that more of your fans will buy it. Plus they dont' get that "I've been ignored" attitude as fast. So now you've got fewer armies, with diversity within them and a greater chance of players buying more models and changing their tactics. 

 

Gits and Skaven show this perfectly. You could have 5 or 6 Clan armies each with their own book and rules. However a Pestilens player might only play Pestilens. They've less encouragment to start other Skaven forces because of the allies limits. If they want to go Clan Skyre its not a slow evolution its a full "new army" approach. 

However put them in one book and now even though there's only 1 new model it counts for all the Clans; there's more chance that a Pestilens player will steadily add more and more skyre or Moulder and then widen their collection. 

 

Mechanically you end up with roughly the same; you still have themed armies on the tabletop, but behind the scenes you've got far more encouragement and potential to have more money spent on factions and fewer factions in general to update. This means more regular updates for each army, that means happier more content gamers and more purchases. It's basically win win for all involved. 

That's exactly my point, if you replace Skaven with Elves, it's pretty much the system I was describing (and we have?). I believe there is still much of baggage from the Old world involved and many still consider High elves and Dark elves being a different thing, but of course I don't know how it is for newer players. At least the fluff with the free cities and elven heroes working together seems to imply that the old split is not anymore a thing.

 

And if you compare to 40k releases from past years. There aren't so many additional releases to existing armies. Orks got their ages old stuff updated and chaos chapters have got expanded, but otherwise it has been a new character here and there and completely new forces.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Jamopower

[Overread]

@jamopower - the thing is if you look at a lot of 40K armies they are quite complete. Tyranids went through a semi recent phase and got a lot of new big monsters added to their army. Necrons and Tau also got big chunks of models and a little further back and Dark Eldar did get that too. Basically a lot of 40K armies are at a stage where they are pretty full of models. Adding new things isn't as needed because theyv'e already got a wide roster; that's why you see GW adding things like flying units that remain flying and super heavies and lords of war. 

Fantasy was like that until AoS hit; plus fantasy had gone through a long phase where GW had openly ignored it for the most part. So if you're looking at recent history then sure many armies were ignored and fantasy was falling apart. Bleeding and losing players all the time and not getting many more in. AoS was to try adn counter, but swing the hammer too far in many areas that proved bad for medium and long term interest. 

 

I can see GW reuniting the old Dark and high elf armies somewhat; uniting both together is trickier because visually they are vastly different and lore wise they are very different too. You've got noble, generally nice high elves alongside darker ones that are happier to stick a blade in you or malicious or greedy etc... They are two very powerful opposing viewpoints on the world. Uniting them could work, but I'd say it could only work if GW were to re-release one half with new revamped models that better unified the combined appearance of the army. 

 

It's one thing to have orks and trolls and goblins together because they are different species; but when you've got the same species in the same army it seems odd to have one with long cone helms and the other half totally different .

[Thiagoma]

3 minutes ago, Overread said:

@jamopower - the thing is if you look at a lot of 40K armies they are quite complete. Tyranids went through a semi recent phase and got a lot of new big monsters added to their army. Necrons and Tau also got big chunks of models and a little further back and Dark Eldar did get that too. Basically a lot of 40K armies are at a stage where they are pretty full of models. Adding new things isn't as needed because theyv'e already got a wide roster; that's why you see GW adding things like flying units that remain flying and super heavies and lords of war. 

Fantasy was like that until AoS hit; plus fantasy had gone through a long phase where GW had openly ignored it for the most part. So if you're looking at recent history then sure many armies were ignored and fantasy was falling apart. Bleeding and losing players all the time and not getting many more in. AoS was to try adn counter, but swing the hammer too far in many areas that proved bad for medium and long term interest. 

 

I can see GW reuniting the old Dark and high elf armies somewhat; uniting both together is trickier because visually they are vastly different and lore wise they are very different too. You've got noble, generally nice high elves alongside darker ones that are happier to stick a blade in you or malicious or greedy etc... They are two very powerful opposing viewpoints on the world. Uniting them could work, but I'd say it could only work if GW were to re-release one half with new revamped models that better unified the combined appearance of the army. 

 

It's one thing to have orks and trolls and goblins together because they are different species; but when you've got the same species in the same army it seems odd to have one with long cone helms and the other half totally different .

Imo what should be done is a separation inside a Bt of Uglu and Hyish Aelves. Those who decided to follow Malerion and those who follow the ways of Teclis and Tyrion.

Wanderers have their own identity and all they need is a behemot and a BT with reviewed rules to have a full army.

[Jamopower]

Is that really much different from say Skaven? If you paint mixture of high, dark, wood and newer elves with the same theme, you'll get quite coherent force as the bottom designs are pretty similar.

 

And as with 40k, I agree with the complete forces. Thus I would compare Idoneth etc. with Custodes, Deathwatch and such. New variations of the old "super themes". Don't believe we will get a new wave of Custodes anytime soon either. Although the Genestealer cults get new models soon, so you never know. I guess in the end it will all be dependent on how much the specific themes sell models.

[Overread]

It's quite different because at their core Skaven are skaven and behave much the same. Skyre and Pestilens are still back stabbing murder rats. The Aelves though have utterly different morals and social structures and viewpoints. 

 

Sure they can unit against a common foe, but their societies are just so widely different and opposed that to try and unify them as a single army would require something major to shift in the lore. Either some major retcons or some kind of massive event - eg a plague wipes out most Aelves forcing the remains together etc... But even then you'd have issues. 

 

Finally you've got history - whilst some would like to see AoS totally divorced of the Old World; in the real world we live in that's just not going to happen. AoS is not a brand new game; its a game with history and legacy and on some level its got to uphold to that. 

[Thiagoma]

I highly doubt a Dragonlord would ally with a Corsair.  Even by aesthetics they are quite diferent.

[JPjr]

6 minutes ago, Thiagoma said:

I highly doubt a Dragonlord would ally with a Corsair.

Maybe not, but a member of the Order Draconis might/would with a Scourge Privateer.

[Jamopower]

I believe that they co-exist in same communities as per current fluff?

 

As said, I believe that the whole split to the old WHFB armies is historical baggage. It's more what people feel, than how it goes currently. Of course the model range reflects that in some degree as well, but probably that's also why they seem to make some curating of the range all the time.

[Gorks Pokin' Finger]

3 minutes ago, Overread said:

It's quite different because at their core Skaven are skaven and behave much the same. Skyre and Pestilens are still back stabbing murder rats. The Aelves though have utterly different morals and social structures and viewpoints. 

 

Sure they can unit against a common foe, but their societies are just so widely different and opposed that to try and unify them as a single army would require something major to shift in the lore. Either some major retcons or some kind of massive event - eg a plague wipes out most Aelves forcing the remains together etc... But even then you'd have issues. 

 

Finally you've got history - whilst some would like to see AoS totally divorced of the Old World; in the real world we live in that's just not going to happen. AoS is not a brand new game; its a game with history and legacy and on some level its got to uphold to that. 

Once Destruction is taken care of this year, I would like to believe GW will turn their attention to sorting out the loose-end Order factions. Perhaps there is a reason we haven't seen a Free City Battletome yet. It would seem to be the easy answer, but like you said, some of these factions would have a hard time working together in the same city unless there was a common foe to unite against. Plus, most of the Order factions have pretty much the same units (Order Draconis & Order Serpentus for example). 

If Gitmob and Greenskins are not being continued, but are going to still exist in the background for those who still own the models & armies, then it's fair to suspect the same is going to happen for some of the Order Aelves

[Elazar The Glorified]

With the whole bigger or smaller factions thing it's worth highlighting that there was clearly a point in time when they moved between a plan of having lots and lots of sub factions and really playing up the differences between elements that had previously made up the same army to aiming to give both the sub factions and the overall faction more depth by highlighting their differences and also how they then come together. The first obvious examples of this were Legions of Nagash and then the Beasts pulling smaller factions back together (e.g. Monsters, Brayherd and Warherd) . Then Gloomspite did similar and now Skaven since. They could have expanded a specific element further but clearly the strategy has changed with these now 

[Jamopower]

Still at the same period of time they released the Idoneth, which would have been max two units in the Dark elven army if they had been released for WHFB. So I would believe we'll get mix of both in the future. Tie in books to wrap up the older factions together (a Free cities book or few, with universal allegiances for Aelf, Duardin and Free people would be easy, as with one for ogres and then some new stuff like the rumoured Darkoath.

[stato]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

Thing is having 5 Aelf factions that are all small armies with very niche focuses within them runs the risk that you will get many who only play 1 of those 5. This means that GW has to release something new/updated for each of the 5 every so often to keep those gamers interested. Long term you can end up losing playesr because an army hasn't seen an update in years because you've got another 40 armies in the same game. 

Thing is if these players are not buying new armies, they are not a great revenue stream, so losing them is not an issue (from a business perspective), you lose gamers all the time for many reasons.  You get far more revenue from creating new big exciting things and people buying new armies than you do people buying a new unit for an existing army.

I agree from a community perspective its great to keep friends in the game, but that wont keep you business growing.

[Turgol]

Back when the first informed rumours of WHFB being discontinued and a new system being released started to appear, part of the information was about a change in the commercial strategy. The idea was that new releases would last only for a time, you would miss if you did not buy them, forcing you to keep buying as released. A second rumour on the change of commercial strategy rather pointed to newer, small factions being better than the bigger, older ones.

At the dawn of AoS, I think these rumours proved to have some flesh to them. Older factions did get new rules, but were messy and much less adapted to the new dynamic system than say SCE or Bloodbound. But given the lack of success of AoS at launch, GW were forced to adapt. They kept their strategy of constantly releasing new small stuff, but I guess they broke with their more radical idea of not looking back to the older stuff. Even if you discount rethought factions such as BCR or Bonesplitters, the new "master BTs" show commitment to both big and small factions. And they are getting some model support, as shown by Gloomspite.

 

I do not think either that the smaller factions are there not too be looked at again by GW. Some might get the terrain, update BT, endless spells treatment. But some are clearly meant to be supplemented. When KO third wave was previewed, the message read "this is all, for now". I would guess the same about FS and IJ, even Sylvaneth. The older small factions, like Bonesplitterz, I would not bet getting anything other than spells and terrain.

[Thiagoma]

2 minutes ago, stato said:

Thing is if these players are not buying new armies, they are not a great revenue stream, so losing them is not an issue (from a business perspective), you lose gamers all the time for many reasons.  You get far more revenue from creating new big exciting things and people buying new armies than you do people buying a new unit for an existing army.

I agree from a community perspective its great to keep friends in the game, but that wont keep you business growing.

That isnt exactly a good point. Were people buying moonclan before the book? where they buying Beastman?

People wont buy Aelfs because they are almost unplayable. Order Draconis- 3 Warscrolls Phoenix Temple have 4.

And currently those are the best options. It is inviable and cause people not to buy those kits.

Give it a book, traits, options and people would buy. There is a very good number of plastics on all ranges of Aelfs.

[Carnelian]

1 hour ago, Overread said:

Thing is having 5 Aelf factions that are all small armies with very niche focuses within them runs the risk that you will get many who only play 1 of those 5. This means that GW has to release something new/updated for each of the 5 every so often to keep those gamers interested. Long term you can end up losing playesr because an army hasn't seen an update in years because you've got another 40 armies in the same game. 

 

Now if you have a single big army with focuses within it then you've got only 1 army to release an update for. Even if the new model is niche within the army there's a greater chance that more of your fans will buy it. Plus they dont' get that "I've been ignored" attitude as fast. So now you've got fewer armies, with diversity within them and a greater chance of players buying more models and changing their tactics. 

 

Gits and Skaven show this perfectly. You could have 5 or 6 Clan armies each with their own book and rules. However a Pestilens player might only play Pestilens. They've less encouragment to start other Skaven forces because of the allies limits. If they want to go Clan Skyre its not a slow evolution its a full "new army" approach. 

However put them in one book and now even though there's only 1 new model it counts for all the Clans; there's more chance that a Pestilens player will steadily add more and more skyre or Moulder and then widen their collection. 

 

Mechanically you end up with roughly the same; you still have themed armies on the tabletop, but behind the scenes you've got far more encouragement and potential to have more money spent on factions and fewer factions in general to update. This means more regular updates for each army, that means happier more content gamers and more purchases. It's basically win win for all involved. 

Best of both worlds: release funky new specific factions and if they sell well, continue to add models to their range and if not, at some point in the future (e.g. Aos 3) subsume them into a wider faction 

[Austin]

I sort of think Gloomspite must have been a test run of sorts where they resculpted old models.  If that sold well, I bet we will see a ton more like it (just AoSmogrified).  I don't really know how we (the community) can know this without just being patient, which is something I lack haha.

I wonder if it is time for GW to just tell us what the plan is for armies.  I know they want to sell old kits as long as possible, but man it would be a solid to do for the community.  Don't need to know models, or spoilers for books, but just the general idea.

[Dirtnaps]

@Jamopower I don't think we'll ever see Idoneth combined with Dark Aelves or High/Light Aelves, lore wise they are more than likely too different at this point. It makes sense that they would ally with one another (although I don't think they'll be able to ally with Light Aelves considering their history with Teclis) but the Idoneth are primarily isolationists, there would have a pretty massive event happening story wise to get them to permanently join with another faction and when you couple that with their need to remain unfeeling because of the trauma inflicted on them inside Slaanesh I just don't see it happening for anything less then Slaanesh being released and a permanent fix found for their broken souls with the help of one of the other aelf factions or even Teclis himself. If we're looking at units the way I see it there isn't much benefit to them being rolled into another faction, all they really need is for Embailors to be made a unit with a bunch of different monsters to fill in any of the gaps the current Idoneth range has as well as give some more unit variety. That along with some endless spells and as far as I'm concerned they're done for this edition. 

Edited February 6, 2019 by Dirtnaps

[Jamopower]

I never meant real combination. Got bit sidetracked from my original "thesis", which is that people who like elves will get the elven armies. Maybe not all of them, but having a new elven (or dwarven, or undead, etc.)  army every now and then, will keep large enough amount of them buying new stuff and more importantly, will get new people interested. That adds up to more money in the long run than giving a new book and unit or two every few years. The fact that you can field them all on the table is a plus, but not anyways necessary.

I'm pretty sure that quite a big share of the people that walk outside of a Warhammer store with bag full of boxes don't have a clue what they have bought in terms of gameplay, but they are very sure what they have got in terms of looks and in that way having your elves in a forest or in a sea theme doesn't have too much of an impact, if elves as a grand theme is what you're interested, compared to being interested on, say, dwarfs.

Edited February 6, 2019 by Jamopower