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The Future of AoS


Overread

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We had another talk with a friend which ended up with another seance of "reading the release portents".

  • We came to the conclusion, that GW seems to steer into cleaned up GA´s and factions: Therefore Orruk Warclans, Cities of Sigmar and Gutbusters make perfect sense, especially if GW merges BCR´s into one big Mawtribe Book.
  • After the October Release of CoS and Orruks, there will be a hype up for OBR, which may come together with a big Army vs Army Box together with Gutbusters.
  • Afterwards there may be some break again, maybe for another campaign-release, followed by the last missing factions to be updated. At this point I could imagine another Dual Box of Tzeentch vs Kharadron Overlords as both lorewise like to compete for chamon. This pairing would make sense, as the first box would push GA Death vs GA Destruction and this here would close the pairing with Chaos VS Order..
  • Thereafter, or inbetween, there would be room for another suprise by GW.  StD may come as Soul Wars Phases slowly out in the narrative, with Archaon "rising", maybe ending the Soul Wars between Death and Order by providing another threat. Althrough Darkoath Barbarians really would be rather a joke than a thread to boths, Stormcasts and OBR. "Yo, Archaon, why are your soldiers nude man? Come on! Even thoose Slaaneshi Guys are better protected". All in all this, or the OBR alone, may be lorewise the trigger for Sigmar to once again push the button and create a new Chamber of Stormcasts.
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I'm betting slaves to darkness don't even get a book to be honest, they seem to have been relegated to warcry.  Though something about archaon would likely come out, I don't think its slaves to darkness.  Rather I'd bet that an everchosen army can take elements of any chaos army and that the only models are really archaon and the varanguard and maybe some type of varanguard unit on foot that has been uber high fantasied up, leaving the legacy kits like chaos warriors, chaos knights, etc all... to be discontinued.

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I don't think we'll see new chambers released. Stormcast as a range are already very full and adding yet more would run a very high risk of them tripping over each other even more. A new hero or such maybe but I don't imagine seeing big Stormcast releases for a long long time.

The only way they could do it would be to make Stormcast identical to Space Marines and release a new Chamber as its own entire army, much like how there's Ultramarines, Blood Angels etc.... Thing is we don't know the rate of Stormcast selling and Marines only got to that position by being an insane seller for 40K. I just don't think stormcast, for all GW's pushing, are in the same boat. A strong seller yes, but not anywhere near "as big" as the marines are. At least I would hope so - I'd hate to see the mistake (and yes it is somewhat a mistake) of having AoS weighted toward one faction over the others. 

It's far healthier to have more factions at the top; it spreads the load and it means that the game environment remains diverse in terms of what armies players get to see. 

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5 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

I'm betting slaves to darkness don't even get a book to be honest, they seem to have been relegated to warcry.  Though something about archaon would likely come out, I don't think its slaves to darkness.  Rather I'd bet that an everchosen army can take elements of any chaos army and that the only models are really archaon and the varanguard and maybe some type of varanguard unit on foot that has been uber high fantasied up, leaving the legacy kits like chaos warriors, chaos knights, etc all... to be discontinued.

I think that's an almost insane way of thinking considering that Slaves to Darkness and Chaos Warriors are the biggest enemy of the whole Realm setting prior to Nagash causing a bit of an upcry about soul allocations. Especially considering that GW fleshed out Chaos with full armies for each Chaos God (as opposed to a combined book which we had before for demons). 

Slaves to Darkness are just supremely unlucky in being the last army to get a Batteltome for the game (note they still might come before Seraphon and KO tomes are updated, but it would still be Slaves first Tome). It's somewhat odd considering how Slaves and chaos Warriors are supposed to be the biggest enemy of Stormcast, but I think armies like Khorne sort of got in the way as it were with popularity and getting updates first.

 

I fully expect Everchosen and Slaves to be combined into a single chaos force. I expect to see the finecast exalted heroes vanish; but also the marauders plastic infantry kit; being replaced with the 8 Warbands from Warcry which are ideally suited to replace the mortal element of a chaos army; whilst at the same time giving Slaves 8 very differently themed infantry choices. Indeed through Warcry Slaves will have possibly the largest and most diverse range of basic infantry models. 

The Slaves book would likely have options to run an Everchosen army; a Slaves army and perhaps another type. I'd also expect the new "cultist" keyword on the warcry warbands AoS profiles to replace the Mark of Chaos rule so that warscrolls don't have to reprint it out every single time. 

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Lets just say with the culling of older kits that I expect a newer, more cartoon-friendly version of chaos warriors that are bigger and beefier.  Hopefully without the god-awful grin lol.  Chaos knights I don't see sticking around.  Almost anything on a standard horse seems to be gotten rid of.  I'd expect chaos knights to be removed entirely and the varanguard are their replacement.  

Edited by Dead Scribe
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4 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Lets just say with the culling of older kits that I expect a newer, more cartoon-friendly version of chaos warriors that are bigger and beefier.  Hopefully without the god-awful grin lol.  Chaos knights I don't see sticking around.  Almost anything on a standard horse seems to be gotten rid of.  I'd expect chaos knights to be removed entirely and the varanguard are their replacement.  

I can't see GW replacing knights with Varanguard considering the price difference and mechanics and size difference. Also Daughters of Khaine still have horses! As do the Free Cities. Meanwhile there's still ghost and undead horses in Death. 

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7 minutes ago, Dead Scribe said:

Time will tell.  They'd also have to totally revamp the warscroll because chaos knights right now are very very weak.  

Aye that's a given, a new battletome is just the time to do that. They might also revamp them not with new stats alone but also with army wide abilities and such. 

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I think all of the doomsaying regarding Everchosen is a bit preemptive. It's my belief they're merely at the back of the queue because unfortunately somebody has to be. 

From a marketing perspective, it also makes some sense to put War Cry out there and then in a few months, when the novelty dries up, go "Ah, what a perfect opportunity to make a new army with your War Cry models as figureheads with the new Everchosen(tm) Battletome."

That, or we'll be heading towards a full blown revamp of ye olde Warriors of Chaos range to bring them closer to the Vanguard Varanguard.

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I believe deadscribe is correct and there will be another fairly major cull in the Slaves to Darkness department. However, I do believe they will still get a tome and I do think they will be a pseudo-combined book sort of how speculation has supposed Orruk warclans will turn out. 

 

I believe there will be a Warriors focused side, a more Darkoath/cultist/marauder focused side and a way to combine them (with three thematic allegiance abilities to boot). Finally, I believe Archaon and his Varanguard will be allowed to be included into any of the factions and "unlock" special abilities/command abilities depending on which mini-allegiance they are taken with.  I do firmly believe that marking may disappear but allying in any other chaos unit will likely remain. I also believe that a worship based summoning ability centered around shrines/unit numbers (similar to their frankly awful battalion) will be a way to summon daemons from any god onto the field, I also believe it will be very inefficient compared to the specific factions to make it useable but never superior to the individual faction summoning. 

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I have been saying for well over a year that we will see the slaves to darkness book once all the warcry warbands are out. We still have two warbands to go. That will make for 11 new warscrolls for slaves. It would be very strange if gw didn't put out a book that capitalises on this. 

In terms of releases for next year, I think we will see slaves with  a few new models, maybe three or four kits.

Mawtribes with a similar number of new kits.

Ko and Seraphon with minimal support.

New Aelves of some sort and new destruction. 

We probably won't see our first refresh of a 2.0 book until 2021. 

That would make for 4 substantial miniature releases in 2020 which is the same as we are getting this year with gits, slaanesh, warcry and bonereapers. 

As for a new side game we could see a new edition of Warhammer quest at the end of 2020. Pete Foley said in a recent podcast that they want to make quest a thing going forwards. A game every two years, alternating settings seems about right.

I think we might see the specialist games studio finally getting round to Mordheim in 2021.

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I’d love to see some new flavour injected into Destruction.  Thinking about some destructive archetypes, there are a couple that spring to mind, other than more giants. (I’d love a giant army).

Insectoids.  Scratching the same itch as Tyranids, a consuming society, possibly a hive mind, although I’d imagine they’d want to keep the two of them similar but different (Stormcast and Spacemarines).

Elementals.  Something from a realm not so explored, such as Light or Shadow, creatures born of that realm that want to spread their influence irregardless of what anyone else thinks, maybe by consuming magic or raw resources, at odds with the order forces of that realm.

Old Machines.  Like Horizon Zero Dawn almost, some ancient vault or something opens and a swarm of replicating, consuming crazy old machines made of clockwork or something.  The realms are “really old” enough to allow this.

Anyway, I think AoS has so many things it could do, and I’m really excited to see what those are.

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13 hours ago, Overread said:

I don't think we'll see new chambers released. Stormcast as a range are already very full and adding yet more would run a very high risk of them tripping over each other even more. A new hero or such maybe but I don't imagine seeing big Stormcast releases for a long long time.

[...]

It's far healthier to have more factions at the top; it spreads the load and it means that the game environment remains diverse in terms of what armies players get to see. 

Well, I have to agree that is would make more sense, even for GW, to let the "Stormscasts are our protagonist faction"-thing go and provide suport for different factions, f.e. with SCE not beeing in the next Starterset again etc, like WHB did. Nevertheless I firmly belive that from business point gw really belives a higher margin here as they experiences with Marines in 40k. We will see :)

5 hours ago, Chikout said:

Ko and Seraphon with minimal support.

New Aelves of some sort and new destruction.

Well, Seraphon have the range to actually be redone into a great faction by rules alone, maybe including some lore retcons and terrain.

New Destruction is something a lot of people waits for, including myself. I like the factions suggested by @Remus Prime at this point.

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1 hour ago, JackStreicher said:

They‘re elven spirits (if I remember correctly from the lore)

They are not.  They are "memories of the ancient guardians" so they are the trees memories of elves which is just silly when the entire wood elf line is RIGHT THERE and  GW are just like "oh woah and weal if ONLY there were SOME elves to help the sylvaneth! Alas! Alas!"

Stupid. 

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Sylvaneth are still angry at the Wanderers. Alarielle proclaims peace and forgiveness but it's not that easy to forgive someone who abandoned you in the hour of need. Read Heart of Winter. There are Wanderers that hate Sylvaneth. There is no easy solution "just add Wanderers back to the Sylvaneth". 

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I've got 40 really old Chaos Warriors needing rebasing and repainting, eager to be followers of Malal (which means Chaos Undivided these days).  I'm hoping the next Slaves to Darkness, which I think might be changed to DarkOath as that's much more trademarkable, will be like a type AB blood....able to receive anything (as allies), but give everyone else an impending sense of doom!  Which is what happens when you get the wrong blood type, besides a painful death.

Also looking forward to the great MawTribes with all the Ogors under one tome.  I think they'll be pretty strong indeed once that happens, and the plastic kits they have are still really good.  

Hopefully the Gitz can still ally with the united Orruk tome when that comes out.  Got a box of Savage Orruks for Warcry, and I can make all the Warband dudes, AND still have a full unit of Arrowboyz to ally with my Spiderfang as it stands.  That's another older box still good for production.

 

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Chaos Knights and Mounted Marauderare a relatively new kits Chaos warriors and Marauders on foot are much older and in need of a new sculpt. 

The warcry warbands won't replace marauders due to not having 10 models in each box (a real shame and missed opportunity imo). 

The main question for S2D is whether darkoath will be combined with them. Malign portents had 4 harbingers, and so far the other 3 have had full releases, Nighthaunt, Sacrosanct and Gloomspite. So Darkoath are highly likely to get a big model drop, but will them be separate or combined with S2D? 🤷‍♂️

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The warcry warbands don't have to have 10 models in each though. They already share very similar stats, keeping them on alongside marauders and you can bet that the infantry marauder kits just pale in comparison to the vibrant warcry warbands. Esp if GW is getting new Slaves players direct from Warcry. They've already got rules to take the warbands up to around 30-40 man blocks (just under for most)

 

Note when I say replace I don't mean that the warcry warbands become marauder models in the rules; I mean that the marauder unit itself vanishes from use and is replaced with the warcry warbands instead. 

Edited by Overread
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Marketing-wise it makes absolutely ZERO sense to put Chaos Warriors/STD at the end as Chaos sold more than most other armies from WHFB combined. Sure, that itch got scratched with the god-specific armies but frankly in relation almost nobody gives a damn about ogors or Aelves in relation to simple Chaos Warriors who made up a majority of WHFB sales. That GW hasn't managed to get a new kit out for the single most iconic Warhammer unit is baffling at this point, especially because 5/6 are potential buyers.

 

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19 minutes ago, MitGas said:

Marketing-wise it makes absolutely ZERO sense to put Chaos Warriors/STD at the end as Chaos sold more than most other armies from WHFB combined. Sure, that itch got scratched with the god-specific armies but frankly in relation almost nobody gives a damn about ogors or Aelves in relation to simple Chaos Warriors who made up a majority of WHFB sales. That GW hasn't managed to get a new kit out for the single most iconic Warhammer unit is baffling at this point, especially because 5/6 are potential buyers.

 

Varanguard? They're Undivided Chaos Knights+1, right down to the colour scheme.

Also, the Blight Kings and Blood Warriors are also clearly meant to invoke a very similar vibe/aesthetic as Chaos Warriors just devoted to a specific God, something which was requested for years by Warriors of Chaos players, long before AoS was even a glimmer in GW's eyes.

Just because the Thousand Sons and Death Guard received models years before Vanilla Chaos Marines didn't mean they were doomed, low and behold, they weren't.

Edited by Clan's Cynic
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7 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Except the Blight Kings and Blood Warriors are clearly meant to invoke a very similar vibe/aesthetic as Chaos Warriors just devoted to a specific God, something which was requested for years by Warriors of Chaos players, long before AoS was even a glimmer in GW's eyes.

Just because the Thousand Sons and Death Guard received models years before Vanilla Chaos Marines didn't mean they were doomed.

Yeah, but still - no new Chaos Warriors after all this time is quite baffling. No single other unit is that beloved in WHF and even God-specific units can't replace them. If they wanna earn cash, they should release them. It's a bit as if they redid all 40k factions and updated Space Marines last.  it makes absolutely no sense. 

That said, I'm happy we got a dedicated Tzeentch force, now I got DoT and Thousand Sons to collect - but 99% of Chaos players like Chaos Warriors and right now they are pretty bad and the kit (despite being great for its age) doesn't hold up, especially because they're too small. I hope I don't sound overtly aggressive but you gotta wonder why they don't release stuff people would instantly buy in a heartbeat. 

 

@Varanguard: And they're hardly usable in God-specific armies... and few play StD or Archaon's boys. :) 

Edited by MitGas
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