The Future of AoS

[Overread]

A place to chat and debate on the potential future of AoS as a game in terms of rules, lore, factions, models, dice, whatever! Rumours should be in the rumour thread; but here we can take things a bit further and hash out what we think might happen.

 

 

REMEMBER this isn't going to define the future of AoS; its just a fun way to talk about the potential of the setting and what hints and signs we can read that might portent to the future of the game and future releases and twists and turns  of the Realms.

 

 

I'll kick things off and say that the Death Grand Army release of the new Bonereapers surprised me considering that it was a force GW hasn't strongly hinted at before and when the two Aelf new armies were hinted at far more so - esp with the Shadow/Dark aelf force being the primary population of the whole Realm of Shadow. However it gave me a moment to pause and reflect that GW added an army to one of the two smaller Grand Alliances in the game. Indeed with the upcoming Orruks Battletome and the all but confirmed Ogres Battletome combining up the armies in Destruction ontop of Gloomspite. It means that soon the Destruction Grand Alliance will only have 3 armies to its name. Now granted they are 3 very distinct armies (Legions of Nagash sort of catch-alls a load of units from Flesheaters and Nighthaunt as well as a few of its own vampires and skeletons - and will soon share models with Bonereapers too - so it sa bit of a mishmash faction) but they are still only 3 forces. 

I can well see GW turning their eye to adding a fourth to that Grand Alliance; on top of revitalising and updating the existing lines for Orruks and Ogres of course. A 4th force I would honestly hope could be something new and different, though the release of the new Goblin Wolf Riders for Underworld might suggest antoher gobbo army. However I think that with Darkoath, Wolfriders and Kurnoth what we are seeing is that GW can use Underworld to show off some creative alternate armies and forces that they might lack the resources and market space in their line up to add as full armies for the main game. Some might also argue that they are testing the waters, however the way that GW sells universal cards within specific packs might mask that since not everyone buying each Underworld team will be buying them for a love of the models and might purely be buying them for the rules on the team and/or the universal cards for other warparties. So the only real metric of popularity would be chatter. 

So that leaves us with the possibility of another army joining Destruction. Personally I'd welcome a non-chaos Barbarian army. Whilst Barbarians have traditionally fitted into Chaos almost exclusively and with the new Warbands that is reinforced, I could see room to add a force of barbarians in to the lore who abhor the worship of Chaos and who instead might directly oppose them whilst still living in a barbaric manner. Of course the real trick will be giving such a force an identity of their own when Chaos already does a lot of the "bare chested muscle warriors with bone/leather/god knows what that was once armour" Furthermore Orruks and Ogres also do a lot of the big wild beasts of the lands (something that I expect to see GW flesh out all the more - Orruks especially need more than just a handful of wild boars) 

[Artobans Ghost]

Love that non chaos barbarian theme. Totally cool. 

You mentioned the wolf riders. On another forum, I asked the question of how do they fit in? Was answered by a suggestion that the Mongolian theme might allude  to them being allies/army choice for the new ogre battle tome. Like upgraded gnoblars. If that’s the case, I’m in with the faction just for the fluff alone. 

[Vasshpit]

I hope that humans, be it barbarians or any other, stay out of Destro completely and it stays a place for all things monstrous and beastly but there does seem to be an affinity towards that idea @Overread

I think the Kroot could find a place in Destro although not sure on lore and details... 🤔

There also seems to be substantial support on the idea of the Fimir coming proper (i.e. plastic kits) to Destro

I'd love to see Gitmob come back and those new awesome sculpts give this fella hope. 

GW could also introduce the mythical fishmen as a faction or some kind of insect humanoids similar to Thri-kreen from D&D.

Ironjawz have always been to me AoS Uruk-Hai. THE elite military force of Destro and I hope they continue that way. GW continuously hints at that they arent just "hulk smash" but very cunning in their own right. 

Future looks bright and not every release will be embraced by all (I want to like Ossiarch but the execution just doesn't do it for me) but it's a great time to be a Warhammer fan. 

Edited September 15, 2019 by Vasshpit

[Charleston]

4 hours ago, Charleston said:

Gitmobs would surely answer the big question on how to expand the Grand Alligiance of Destruction. If we take a serious look at the factions, both, Destruction and Death lack faction diversity. For a long time the GS Death had only Legions of Nagash and FEC, meanwhile we have also the Nighthaunt and soon the Osiarch Bonereapers.

Meanwhile, althrough Destruction has more different Factions than Death, it yet feels like an GA with the lowest overall Support out there. I don´t know if Ironjaws were a AoS Faction or an Endtimes-Carryover, but beside them only Gloomspite Gits were really redone as a 2.0 Faction. BCR were the only supported Ogor-Subfaction so far and beside them an IJ only Bonesplitters have seen an Battletome.

With what we know, we can carefully assume GW to clear up Destruction into:

• Orruk Warclans (Former Bonesplitters and Ironjaws)
• Gloomspite Gits (Former Moonclan and Spiderfangs)
• Ogors (althrough we don´t know if we can already assume a merge with BCR´s)

Althrough there were not many hints at BCR+Gutbuster Merge beside a Banner showing Maneaters together with a Thundertusk, concidering GW merging Orruks together, we would have 3 Factions for all 3 "races" of Destruction. This would be finally a nice, cleaned up, GA Destruction, with a quite easy way for GW to Support them with only 3 Tomes. And this would lead plently of room for GW to add new Factions to the GA. At this point, Gitmob Grots would fit the theme quite nice, bearing enough creative space for GW without loosing a nostalgia factor.

Overall, I am a big fan of GW cleaning up the mess from the AoS1.0-Faction-Split-Times. It makes it easier for people to grasp armybuilding and makes it for GW easier to rework the books. Also, with all factions having a 2.0 supplement, gw has more room for campaign boxes and new factions. Althrough the price for this clean up was mostly paid by legacy army players which have to suffer the CoS-Cuts. At least GW noticed this and seems to adress the issue with Legends-Armies getting finally point costs. If they would also add an own and decent alligience ability and artifacts for them, I think the players would be fine with it.

 

See my opinion on this topic from the rumour thread quoted above. I share your concideration. For me, the OBR Announcement was also a supprise. Althrough it is logical that GW focusses Death during the Soul Wars Age in AoS, yet the announcement came out of nowwhere. Also the timing was unusual as it was an additional announcement althrough the already teased minis were not released yet, which is rather unusual to the release/tease polic we´ve seen the last year.

Adding something new to Destruction is also something I would expect for the next year to happen. I wouldn´t think of barbarians as thoose are lorewise tied either to be Darkoath or primitive belivers of Sigmar. I would hope that GW would create another really new faction as they did with the OBR for Death or with Kharadron and Idoneth for Order. Something unique for Destruction which ain´t generic fantasy.

For the future we have the following things we could crystalize some speculation around:

• The Kurnothi-Aelves and Gitmobs from Beastgrave may become factions
• The mentioned dark/light Aelfs, althtrough we shall concider that GW may have thrown away that idea
• Darkoath and reworked Slaves and Everchosen may be awaited, althrough GW seems to also rearrange thus factions
• Another SCE Chamber -> The "Dude, you were reforged once too much" Chanber most propably as it is the only one hinted

I do not know if GW works on another Death Release. I can imagine the designers are concidering Vampire Pirates after all that hype in the Total War: Warhammer 2 Community about them, but this is long time no reason for them to create such an army.

 

[PraetorDragoon]

GW has put a bit too much emphasis on Barbarians = Chaos for me to expect any Destruction barbarians. They likely would end up too similiar looking.

Fimir and Fishmen have been mentioned and would be cool. Otherwise, something like an Elemental faction could be destruction... and provide something that isn't really around in Destruction yet.

[SaJeel]

I am curious if you all think that any rules specifically need to be added to the game. I have thought one rule change that is just 5 words but would add a massive amount of depth with formations flanking and buffing elite armies, but u don't think its needed

 

On faction stuff I would like to speculated on who will be the other half of the Feast of Bones, 

For ogors it's the new Tyrant,Ogors, leasbelchers, and the Cannon.

With a name like feast of Bones I can only imagine it will be death related, so I'm thinking a zombie and skeleton combined faction is on the horizon.

[madmac]

While I tire of the focus on Death, there is one obvious hole left to be plugged, and that's doing something with Vampires.

Otherwise, I suspect Destruction are going to be the next focus after Soul Wars, and will hopefully be getting some badly needed new/updated models to match.

I can't see human Barbarians ever becoming Destruction, as it stands Destruction is a ghetto for Greenskins/Ogors and it would be shocking enough if they ever get a new race added to their roster. I do like the Fishman idea, though.

 

[Overread]

Honestly I think the way GW have done things like the Darkoath Warqueen novella and also the back story to most of the Warcry Warbands its quite firm that Barbarians are a Chaos thing. Though we might see more stories about them where they are barbaric but not chaos crazed. Even the Warcry warbands are not technically chaos crazed and several are almost regular humans simply with access to some magic and a god that is likely a Chaos Greater Demon or two in disguise. It actually leaves an interesting bit of the lore open that we could see - story wise at least- some chaos barbarians abandon chaos. 

 

 

I agree that Destruction deserves attention, though honestly both Destruction and Death are at the bottom end compared to Chaos and Order. Destruction has it a bit worse though since Orruks were at one time broken into 3 armies all doing the same thing - wild boar riding orruks with warchiefs, dancing musicians and shaman wizards. Basically the same core concept with 3 alternate sculpt with the Ironjawze having a bit more metal on them. I really hope we see GW address them and give them some more unique models and concepts to work with; esp since they've lost the gobbos from the army. Orruks could be pushed up to be closer to the Barbarians or destruction; especially if we start getting more orruk focused lore and stories that shows they are more than "me ork me fight". It's also an ideal place to put a lot of the oversized beasts that the Realm of Beasts is famous for. 

 

Death I agree @madmac Vampires need some love. It actually makes me a bit sad that right now the most bloody faction is Daughters of Khaine instead of the Vampires. In fact with Khaine and Khorne the vampires of AoS are at present quite dry in terms of blood! Though the big question would be if vampires would branch off in their own army or form the core of the Legions of Nagash. Right now they are the rough core of the Legion, but I could see a time when GW might retire the Legion of Nagash or upgrade it into the "Grand Alliance Death" army in all but name. It actually might be an interesting way to approach the Grand Alliance Armies - instead of just throwing all the warscrolls into one pool; cherry picking them out of each army instead. Coupled to alternate stats for the army. Thus allowing a wider range of models, but without breaking the games internal balance too badly. Thus making them viable and interesting whilst also limited and holding an identity of their own.

For AoS matched I'd welcome that kind of change, since Open Play will always support Grand Alliance armies or even armies built with whatever you want from any alliance. 

[Blightzkrieg]

Since it's known that Arkhan is a part of the new boneboy faction, a path forward for death could be giving each mortarch their own AoSified death faction. Neferata would have something classically vampire, Mannfred might have more bats and wolves and monsters, and then Nagash can stick with Legions of Nagash as a soup book. 

That would be a lot of work though. I think one thing that needs to be looked at is how many factions can we realistically expect total in each GA (and consider that Order and Chaos will be bigger than the other two).

[AthlorianStoners]

I think Werewolves would be an awesome addition to Destruction. They’re very underrepresented in AoS and have huge room for expansion and branching out. 

[michu]

1 minute ago, AthlorianStoners said:

I think Werewolves would be an awesome addition to Destruction. They’re very underrepresented in AoS and have huge room for expansion and branching out. 

There is that thing that Werewolves (or Skinwolves as they're called) are a Chaos thing in Warhammer. They are made by FW.

[AthlorianStoners]

1 minute ago, michu said:

There is that thing that Werewolves (or Skinwolves as they're called) are a Chaos thing in Warhammer. They are made by FW.

They wouldn’t necessarily have to be werewolves in the traditional sense, but anthropomorphized wolf men, created from the raw energies of Ghur.  

[michu]

I don't know how would you'd distinguish them. Antropomorphic chaos werevolves and ghur antropomorphic werewolves. It's possible but not easy and I don't know if it's worth the effort.

[madmac]

14 minutes ago, Blightzkrieg said:

Since it's known that Arkhan is a part of the new boneboy faction, a path forward for death could be giving each mortarch their own AoSified death faction. Neferata would have something classically vampire, Mannfred might have more bats and wolves and monsters, and then Nagash can stick with Legions of Nagash as a soup book. 

That would be a lot of work though. I think one thing that needs to be looked at is how many factions can we realistically expect total in each GA (and consider that Order and Chaos will be bigger than the other two).

I think there's a natural ebb and flow to new books vs soup books.

New armies and concepts basically require new books in order to flesh them out properly, or V2 books for factions like Fyreslayers and KO that stumbled out the gate with their first book.

But if we look at Orruk Warclans and what little we know about it, Ironjawz and Bonesplittas were both separate army books once. So were Skyre and Pestilence, and arguably better off for it, because that focused development is something they can bring with them into a soup book.

Basically, I expect we'll continue to see new books for new armies, and compilation books for linked factions that just need a rules refresh. You could for example do a new Ogor army based on Fire Eaters, and then later an updated Mawtribes that adds them to the book and updates everything to 3rd edition, ect.

 

[Dr Ben]

55 minutes ago, madmac said:

While I tire of the focus on Death, there is one obvious hole left to be plugged, and that's doing something with Vampires.

Otherwise, I suspect Destruction are going to be the next focus after Soul Wars, and will hopefully be getting some badly needed new/updated models to match.

I can't see human Barbarians ever becoming Destruction, as it stands Destruction is a ghetto for Greenskins/Ogors and it would be shocking enough if they ever get a new race added to their roster. I do like the Fishman idea, though.

 

The recent forbidden power short story certainly showed that destruction are up to something.... 

Also in this thread people have talked about 'barbarians' a lot. From the context I think that means naked northern european/conan/old world norscan aesthetic and culture. For GA Order or destruction barbarians there are plenty of other 'barbarian' groups from which influences could be drawn like moari, Polynesian, many different North american groups, lots of people who bordered China for a couple of thousand years etc. etc.

I know what madmac means about the current destruction factions. But we have living humans in all the other grand alliances and worshipping all the other God's. All the books tying up the old factions since legions of nagash are soon to be more or less done. So it doesnt semm that unlikely to me that we'd get a group of gorkamorka worshipping humans at some point. You would have differentiate them from the orks somehow. Maybe have them more politically motivated anarchist s or something along those lines.

Just to be clear, I mean 'barbarian' from the perspective of various historical empires hence the '' . I'm not denigrating anyone's culture or history. 

[Kramer]

19 minutes ago, Dr Ben said:

So it doesnt semm that unlikely to me that we'd get a group of gorkamorka worshipping humans at some point. You would have differentiate them from the orks somehow. Maybe have them more politically motivated anarchist s or something along those lines.

It’s mentioned in some of the realmgate war books. So the narrative hook is already there. It only requires a: they suddenly grew in power because.... [insert plot point here].

[Vasshpit]

1 hour ago, AthlorianStoners said:

I think Werewolves would be an awesome addition to Destruction. They’re very underrepresented in AoS and have huge room for expansion and branching out. 

I'd prefer Gnolls. 😉

[Overread]

Gnolls and Werewolves led by Owlbears with giant ferret cavalry

[Vasshpit]

Just now, Overread said:

Gnolls and Werewolves led by Owlbears with giant ferret cavalry

Now thats just silly! 🤪😜 heh. 

[Mutton]

I'm still rooting for an AoS Fimir Destruction faction. Aka, what happens to Chaos worshipers who are completely ignored by their gods.

[EccentricCircle]

As far as fleshing out destruction I think there are actually a few possibilities. As a fan of Chaos Dwarf lore, I'd love the goblin wolf riders to be the vanguard of a full Hobgoblin Khans faction. There is plenty of potential to mix some of those older models with some of the cool stuff that was lost when the Gitmob were removed.

However I think that one possibility which hasn't been mentioned much is a full Giant army. I could see them making something like the Imperial Knights in 40K where an army is a very small number of huge models. You could expand on the trolls and include them as well, or they could form their own faction, separate to Gloomspite one day.

Edited September 15, 2019 by EccentricCircle

[Artobans Ghost]

25 minutes ago, EccentricCircle said:

As far as fleshing out destruction I think there are actually a few possibilities. As a fan of Chaos Dwarf lore, I'd love the goblin wolf riders to be the vanguard of a full Hobgoblin Khans faction. There is plenty of potential to mix some of those older models with some of the cool stuff that was lost when the Gitmob were removed.

 

Love it👆😺

[KriticalKhan]

Buckle up, this one is gonna be long.

Eventually there will be a point where GW reaches the maximum capacity for models it can physically produce, this puts a hard cap on how many armies there can be, and I think we're approaching the limit. Obviously, no one here has the exact numbers, but I don't see them going over 25, and 4 armies per GA (at a minimum) makes for a nice number. The current faction list is

__________________________________________

ORDER

-Stormcast Eternals

-Cities of Sigmar

-Sylvaneth

-DoK

-Deepkin

-Seraphon

-Fyreslayers

-Kharadron

CHAOS

-Khorne

-Tzeentch

-Nurgle

-Slaanesh

-Beastmen

-Skaven

-StD and Everchosen (assumed to be merged)

DEATH

-LoN

-Nighthaunt

-FEC

-Bonereapers

DESTRUCTION

-Orc Warclans

-Gloomspite

-Mawtribes and BCR (assumed to be merged

___________________________________________________

The current rumored/assumed-to-eventually-exist faction are

____________________________________________________

ORDER

-Tyrion's Hysh Elves

-Malekith's Ulgu Elves

-Kurnothi

-Grungni's nuDorfs

DEATH

-Soulblight

CHAOS

-Darkoath (99% just going to be marauders for StD)

DESTRUCTION

-Gitmob revival

-Fimir

-Fishmen

__________________________________________________

In my opinion, Soulblight is going to remain a part of LoN, and Fimir are never ever gonna happen. I'm still sketchy on Gitmob and Kurnothi getting actual armies, but they've got the highest chance out of anyone on this list. Malekith and Tyrion's factions are interesting; we know they exist in lore, and they've been a part of it since launch, which is more than many current armies can say, yet that's the extent of the support they've gotten. There's the Mistweaver model, but we don't technically know if it's a part of the Ulgu elves, IIRC. If Kurnothi end up as a faction, then there would be 3 (4, depending on who you ask) elf factions in GA: Order. If Ulgu and Hysh elves get added, that would put the number up to 6. The elf factions combined would outnumber the rest of Order, two  other GA's, and be equal to Chaos. I don't know about you guys, but to me, that seems like a lot.

If we are close to the army capacity, then it might make sense for GW to add to existing armies, rather than create new ones. The current 2.0 book updates are essentially a clean-slate for GW to build off of, It wouldn't be impossible for some 2.0 books to get updated before 3rd ed with new stuff, but that's just speculation. For some baseless speculation, here's my guess for GW's future plans, stated with no authority, but absolute confidence (this will be wrong).

ORDER

-Stormcast Eternals

-Cities of Sigmar

-Seraphon

-Sylvaneth+Kurnothi

-Dok+Malekith Elves

-Tyrion Elves

-Idoneth Deepking

-Fyreslayers

-Kharadron Overlords

-nuDorfs

CHOAS

-Slaanesh

-Nurgle

-Tzeentch

-Khorne

-Beastmen

-Skaven

-StD/Everchosen merged faction

DEATH

-LoN+updated Soulblight models/new faction

-FEC

-Nighthaunt

-Bonereapers

DESTRUCTION

-Orc Warclans

-Gloomspite

-Mawtribes (gutbusters+BCR)

-a new faction that incorporates a revamped gitmob (or they're added to Gits/Warclans)

But, who really knows? Maybe the Underworld Warbands are just that, and won't ever get new armies. Maybe Malekith and Tyrion will stay as lore exclusives. Maybe Fimir will get plastic models. Maybe Fishmen will finally show up (lol). GW has consistently evaded my attempts at predicting them, I'm basically just a medieval soothsayer who doesn't realize that dark clouds bring rain.

As long as ogres get a good book, I'm happy.

*Of course, none of that is relevant if (when) GW adopts 3D printing their source of model production, since that would completely remove the need to have molds for individual sprues. Prices would never go down (remember who we're talking about here), but the only limitation for how many models or armies they'd be able to manufacture would be how quickly they could write rules for them. That's a pipe-dream right now, and not entirely relevant, but I think it's an idea worth bringing up.

[AthlorianStoners]

8 hours ago, michu said:

I don't know how would you'd distinguish them. Antropomorphic chaos werevolves and ghur antropomorphic werewolves. It's possible but not easy and I don't know if it's worth the effort.

I don’t think it would require much work, as as far as I’m aware there has been no representation in AoS for Chaos Werewolves. Keep the old FW models as skinwolves, since they’re a solo forgeworld unit they don’t really have much of an impact anyway. 

Have the new faction be the werewolf focus, as since in AOS werewolves aren’t really associated with chaos anyway it’s not a huge jump. 

[Kyriakin]

A desert-based faction.

AoS clearly has most of the fundamental biomes (i.e. snow/ice, ocean, sky, forest, magma, etc.) covered, but a desert-based faction has been notably absent since TK were removed. The desert is a great potential source for spells, endless spells and unique terrain (e.g. sand tornadoes, pyramids, tombs, etc.), as well as fauna/mounts not covered elsewhere in the range (e.g. vultures, camels, scorpions, cobras, ibex, etc.).

While bringing TK back (probably as mummies, rather than skellies) is obviously the lowest hanging fruit in this regard, the faction could also be an Araby-esque human faction or, better still, a sort of Nubian/Araby/Moorish desert elf faction:

Also, Vampires. No need reinvent the wheel on this. As classicly gothic as possible to match the aesthetics of the Coven Throne and Neferata.

Finally... GIVE SKIN WOLVES THE BEASTS OF CHAOS KEYWORD!!!

Edited September 16, 2019 by Kyriakin