Squatting Watch: Alerts for Discontinued Models

[Mandzak-Miniatures]

2 minutes ago, Fairbanks said:

Horses that have been axed by GW since the start of AoS: Most Empire Knights, Silver Helms, Glade Riders, and all of those Bretonnia Knights

New models that have had Horses: Varanguard

Not to mention that horses don't scream the same kind of Fantasy world that AoS has built from the beginning.

Death faction has plenty of 'horses' in ghostly, skeletal and zombie forms

[swarmofseals]

1 minute ago, Fairbanks said:

Horses that have been axed by GW since the start of AoS: Most Empire Knights, Silver Helms, Glade Riders, and all of those Bretonnia Knights

New models that have had Horses: Varanguard

Not to mention that horses don't scream the same kind of Fantasy world that AoS has built from the beginning.

Clearly yes, there has been a general move away from horses as the go-to mount in AoS. I won't argue with that. But I don't think that the reasoning that the kits that were removed went because "all horses have to go" holds up given that there are several kits that could have been purged which have horses, but those kits were not purged. So arguing that the War Altar is going away because it's drawn by horses just doesn't make much sense given that the Celestial Hurricanum/Luminark kit has basically the same design. Similarly, saying that Dragonblades,  Freeguild General, Archmage, and Dragon Noble kits all must go because they feature horses doesn't make sense either given that they are keeping Pistoliers/Outriders.

[Greyshadow]

Firstly, I have seen how gut punched people feel when they find their army is no longer supported. I have sympathy for all who have been left disappointed too. 

My perspective on it though is that GW releases loads of new models every year. Eventually, there is only so much stock you can sustain. Way back in the late nineties GW stopped selling every lead model they had every made. It was actually threatening to drag them under. When Age of Sigmar was initially released we knew this type of cull was on the cards. Cities of Sigmar has clearly bought the issue to a head and some hard decisions have been made. GW never made any promises that what we collect would be around for ever. At least now we know.

Personally, I will always keep and play games with my painted armies. I am thankful for the now quite exclusive units that I was able to collect and enjoy.

P.S. I hope I haven't been disrespectful to those who are disappointed, totally not my intention.

[Lord marcus]

So if this list you guys keeps posting actually comes to pass......well, I'm moving tommorow morning, but before I pack up the liquor stock I'm going to have a shot in memory of all the fun, the excitement, and the great ideas those models created.

 

Memory eternal, decade and one half of Warhammer minis. Memory eternal.

[zilberfrid]

Props to the New Zealand CR manager by the way. An email with the list and a banner featuring some of the lost models is more than we get from HQ.

Free People did not get hit very badly, just the archers and every sane option for the general, but I am now sure we'll lose the militia option when we get new warscrolls.

Damn, just when I was letting people convince me "new GW" was changed, they do this.

I do have enough stuff so I don't need to send money to GW though, not really feeling that urge at the moment.

[Cambot1231]

 

RIP my 40X beautiful Glade Guard  5X Waywatcher Lords.  This just might break me out of the hobby ☠️

Edited August 3, 2019 by Cambot1231

[Greyshadow]

12 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

...Damn, just when I was letting people convince me "new GW" was changed, they do this.

I do have enough stuff so I don't need to send money to GW though, not really feeling that urge at the moment.

I am sure this could be handled in a better way but it is a bit of a difficult one. If they signal their plans too early then scalpers move in and fleece the community of the hobby money. Too often and people loose confidence armies will be around long enough to finish. 

[zilberfrid]

7 minutes ago, Greyshadow said:

I am sure this could be handled in a better way but it is a bit of a difficult one. If they signal their plans too early then scalpers move in and fleece the community of the hobby money. Too often and people loose confidence armies will be around long enough to finish. 

The latter might just be true, they have kept people hoping for long enough as it is.

In New Zealand a banner with the models has gone up, not in the rest of the stores, so it's already there. They also mailed people that it was happening.

In the US, when the War altar went to no longer available, then to out of stock, then back to no longer available. Someone took effort not to tell the community anything.

As for scalpers, it's easier to just set a search on the "last chance to buy" if the players are not informed. They put it in friday night, and will not give negative news before the end of gen con, so I expect no communication before monday (maybe, just maybe, if they have replacements lined up, they will acknowledge the culling before this).

[Dr Ben]

1 hour ago, Cambot1231 said:

RIP my 40X beautiful Glade Guard  5X Waywatcher Lords.  This just might break me out of the hobby 

Were you taking your 5 waywatcher Lords in a tournament list? Awesome if you were, but it doesnt seem likely.

If you just play for fun with friends then you can still play them just fine. They've got warscrolls and I don't think many people would object to including them in the allegiance for allegiance abilities, command traits, artefacts etc. 

It will be annoying if they do get missed from the battle tome(which we still don't know 100% until official confirmation*). But no reason you can put them on the table and snipe ****** like Robin hood/Legolas/insert favourite legendary archer. 

Also if you're playing with legacy wood elves forest dragons are awesome in the activation wars. 

*ok so we got official confirmation 10 minutes alter...… d'oh

Edited August 3, 2019 by Dr Ben
new information

[overtninja]

Speaking as someone who owns a crapton of old Wood Elf models, I fully understand how sad it is to lose a good deal of your range (not as much as high elf and dark elf players of course). For those of you with big collections, or who have just purchased models, keep in mind that you can always use them as counts-as for other models - I use 20 old Wardancers as Wildwood Rangers, and all my Sisters of the Watch are old Waywatchers and Glade Guard Scout models. You don't have to trash all your old stuff if you can find a place for them in whatever army you choose to play.

It's also important to remember that there is nothing permanent in a wargaming hobby - everything eventually ends up being squatted, discontinued, or otherwise retired from production or the game itself and replaced with new things. It's a shame when your wonderful models that you've had potentially decades of good experiences with are no longer able to be fielded, but with a bit of creativity and repurposing you can probably keep at least some of your collection in use going forward.

If anything, what this means is that newer players will be getting new kits to build, paint, and play with, and not have to hunt on ebay for models that might already be hard to come by, while as a long-time player you will be fielding models that many players have not seen before and may not even be able to buy at this point! You'll always have distinctive models to field with your older collections.

Anyway, we don't even know the contents of the new book, and honestly we might be looking at some new model releases for the Free Cities that you can use your current models to represent. It is worth keeping some optimism about this, and thinking about what you might use your older models to represent in the future.

[Gareth 🍄]

From GW's newsletter, if more confirmation was needed:

Don't Miss Out!

It's your Last Chance to Buy these classic Aelf, Duardin and Free Peoples models! If you've always dreamed of owning these miniatures, this is your final opportunity to secure yours – they're going fast and not coming back.

[Black_Templar_Lad]

I'm genuinely shocked about the skycutters and the glade guard. After those kurnothi I was planning a classic wood elf army mixed with sylvaneth. I know there are other troop choices but I thought glade guard were the go to. 

The skycutter is one of my favourite models and planned to put that in with the wanderers so might pick one up.

Also shocked about the freeguild HQ's,  what is there to take if you wanted a solely human force? Unless it means a re-model??

 

Edited August 3, 2019 by Black_Templar_Lad

[Dr Ben]

Last chance to buy up in the UK as well now. 

[zilberfrid]

17 minutes ago, Dr Ben said:

Last chance to buy up in the UK as well now. 

Right before half the models were already out of stock. Way to inform the fans.

[zilberfrid]

29 minutes ago, overtninja said:

Speaking as someone who owns a crapton of old Wood Elf models, I fully understand how sad it is to lose a good deal of your range (not as much as high elf and dark elf players of course). For those of you with big collections, or who have just purchased models, keep in mind that you can always use them as counts-as for other models - I use 20 old Wardancers as Wildwood Rangers, and all my Sisters of the Watch are old Waywatchers and Glade Guard Scout models. You don't have to trash all your old stuff if you can find a place for them in whatever army you choose to play.

It's also important to remember that there is nothing permanent in a wargaming hobby - everything eventually ends up being squatted, discontinued, or otherwise retired from production or the game itself and replaced with new things. It's a shame when your wonderful models that you've had potentially decades of good experiences with are no longer able to be fielded, but with a bit of creativity and repurposing you can probably keep at least some of your collection in use going forward.

If anything, what this means is that newer players will be getting new kits to build, paint, and play with, and not have to hunt on ebay for models that might already be hard to come by, while as a long-time player you will be fielding models that many players have not seen before and may not even be able to buy at this point! You'll always have distinctive models to field with your older collections.

Anyway, we don't even know the contents of the new book, and honestly we might be looking at some new model releases for the Free Cities that you can use your current models to represent. It is worth keeping some optimism about this, and thinking about what you might use your older models to represent in the future.

There's a lit of might be and whatever, but my current mood is "Well, they'll just churn out a few extra Sigmarines, and use the new warscrolls to invalidate options we already had".

They stated a handful of models were going to be squashed. This is not a handful.

I play Freeguild, and I don't like the crossbowmen or guards, so I was already heavily converting, but seeing what general they left for us makes me wonder if they ever played the faction. That's objectively the worst looking and loaded general one could choose.

[overtninja]

3 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

There's a lit of might be and whatever, but my current mood is "Well, they'll just churn out a few extra Sigmarines, and use the new warscrolls to invalidate options we already had".

 They stated a handful of models were going to be squashed. This is not a handful.

I play Freeguild, and I don't like the crossbowmen or guards, so I was already heavily converting, but seeing what general they left for us makes me wonder if they ever played the faction. That's objectively the worst looking and loaded general one could choose.

I understand. I honestly don't think they'll just replace options with more sigmarines, because this release is supposed to emphasize how normal people are able to fight for themselves in the mortal realms. AoS is pretty much He-Man metal album cover fantasy, but there is still a place for normal people, since GW kind of likes that narrative angle anyway.

Anyway, if you have Freeguild General models that are preferable to you, you can definitely still field them, and I'm sure people will be pleased to see them on the table. I love it when people look at my models and wonder where it's from and and whether I converted it, personally.

[Dr Ben]

4 minutes ago, zilberfrid said:

There's a lit of might be and whatever, but my current mood is "Well, they'll just churn out a few extra Sigmarines, and use the new warscrolls to invalidate options we already had".

They stated a handful of models were going to be squashed. This is not a handful.

I play Freeguild, and I don't like the crossbowmen or guards, so I was already heavily converting, but seeing what general they left for us makes me wonder if they ever played the faction. That's objectively the worst looking and loaded general one could choose.

The amount of models retired is a surprise to me, and judging by the reactions online other people too. 

In the specific case of the freeguild generals the one random foot guy remaining should mean the warscroll is included. I think it might be as simple as the retired models all having KF or Karl Franz on them somewhere which doesn't make sense in the current AOS timeline. Still got the griffon though which is still a sweet model. 

The wood elf characters had a lot of redundancy and are old metal sculpts so its not totally surprising they are going to legends. Lion rangers and postmen also not surprising anyone (shame about the sky cutter though). The old dwarf thunderers and warriors are classic dwarves but aren't up to modern sculpt standards. Plus the old battle for skull pass mini's are very common on ebay so it makes sense they want to take those out of circulation. I guess maybe the new warscrolls will just say 'gunners' or 'crossbowmen' and not specify a race so you can still use your old beardies?

The dragons and elven mages are very surprising to me. I think those dragons still look pretty sweet and they were even occasionally popping up in tournament reports. I also thought the loremaster would be showing up in virtually every cities of sigmar list for that awesome buff spell, sadly no. 

I'm still trying to figure out why get rid of all the devoted of Sigmar leadership but not the flagellants themselves. Maybe just low demand? Maybe new plastic witch hunters/warrior priests on the way?

[zilberfrid]

9 minutes ago, overtninja said:

I understand. I honestly don't think they'll just replace options with more sigmarines, because this release is supposed to emphasize how normal people are able to fight for themselves in the mortal realms. AoS is pretty much He-Man metal album cover fantasy, but there is still a place for normal people, since GW kind of likes that narrative angle anyway.

Anyway, if you have Freeguild General models that are preferable to you, you can definitely still field them, and I'm sure people will be pleased to see them on the table. I love it when people look at my models and wonder where it's from and and whether I converted it, personally.

Every Freeguild general option is preferable to the one they now have. That one would stand out negatively in a regular Greatsword unit.

We're getting updated warscrolls. I don't know what loadouts for the guard and general will survive.

[Black_Templar_Lad]

Missed out on a Skycutter ☹ ohwell I guess.

[zilberfrid]

8 minutes ago, Dr Ben said:

The amount of models retired is a surprise to me, and judging by the reactions online other people too. 

In the specific case of the freeguild generals the one random foot guy remaining should mean the warscroll is included. I think it might be as simple as the retired models all having KF or Karl Franz on them somewhere which doesn't make sense in the current AOS timeline. Still got the griffon though which is still a sweet model. 

The wood elf characters had a lot of redundancy and are old metal sculpts so its not totally surprising they are going to legends. Lion rangers and postmen also not surprising anyone (shame about the sky cutter though). The old dwarf thunderers and warriors are classic dwarves but aren't up to modern sculpt standards. Plus the old battle for skull pass mini's are very common on ebay so it makes sense they want to take those out of circulation. I guess maybe the new warscrolls will just say 'gunners' or 'crossbowmen' and not specify a race so you can still use your old beardies?

The dragons and elven mages are very surprising to me. I think those dragons still look pretty sweet and they were even occasionally popping up in tournament reports. I also thought the loremaster would be showing up in virtually every cities of sigmar list for that awesome buff spell, sadly no. 

I'm still trying to figure out why get rid of all the devoted of Sigmar leadership but not the flagellants themselves. Maybe just low demand? Maybe new plastic witch hunters/warrior priests on the way?

Yeah, I can't see flagellants used without any priests, so something should support them.

The one random foot guy is a resin model that is not up to par with regular greatsworders, it was the old empire captain. If they feel especially cruel, that is now the only loadout for generals.

I'm stepping away from the discussion now, with a last glance at Warhammer Community to see if they have more than the few words in the mail for this.

 

EDIT, nope, nothing there

Edited August 3, 2019 by zilberfrid

[Thaliontil]

50 minutes ago, Dr Ben said:

Last chance to buy up in the UK as well now. 

Same in the Spanish store. I really hope that, at least, the dragons/Dragon blades of the High Elves are reboxed. Or that this comes with a "teaser" of the new Light Elves. I'm very disappointed right now :(, all my excitement with Cities of Sigmar has disappeared.

[zilberfrid]

Just now, Thaliontil said:

Same in the Spanish store. I really hope that, at least, the dragons/Dragon blades of the High Elves are reboxed. Or that this comes with a "teaser" of the new Light Elves. I'm very disappointed right now :(, all my excitement with Cities of Sigmar has disappeared.

The "handful of models discontinued" was a bit of an understatement.

[Luke82]

1 minute ago, Thaliontil said:

Same in the Spanish store. I really hope that, at least, the dragons/Dragon blades of the High Elves are reboxed. Or that this comes with a "teaser" of the new Light Elves. I'm very disappointed right now :(, all my excitement with Cities of Sigmar has disappeared.

I really doubt it’s anything to do with reboxing unfortunately... I endured the same when the Orcs were removed, that hope being crushed!

[zilberfrid]

4 minutes ago, Black_Templar_Lad said:

Missed out on a Skycutter ☹ ohwell I guess.

It is still for sale in the UK/EU store, perhaps something is possible if you go there?

 

But then again, sending money to GW is not something I want to be doing at the moment.

[Overread]

A good few are "out of stock" but not showing it on the store page until you click on the item, Skycutter is already listed as such on the UK store. It's a shame GW isn't doing more casting runs of the models for a "last week to order" which, whilst it might hammer their production, would at least give more people a chance rather than fighting over the last stocks (esp as GW isn't holding much stock of things these days).