Faction Expansion

[BarfAtTheMoon]

Just a conversation starter, because I'm curious

So with the knowledge that two more chaos warcry warbands will eventually come out, most likely with a larger expansion, there's a possibility that more non-chaos warbands will also surface at the same time.  If the expansion was those two chaos warbands, plus two new warbands for each other grand alliance (so two for death, two for destruction, and two for order), what factions would you want to see represented?  Which ones do you think are most likely?

 

[Charleston]

In the end it depends on the popularity of the game. If gw notices thrends in consumer preferences they surely will adress them.

[BarfAtTheMoon]

I agree.  I think I meant this more as a wishlisting/speculation topic, just to see what people would like as the next two factions from each grand alliance.  

[BarfAtTheMoon]

I'd like to see Fyreslayers and Kharadron for Order, gotta have some Duardin with all those Aelves!  

Destruction's gotta have the Ogors, maybe Troggoths would be a cool elite warband to go along with that, though I'd love to see a beastclaw list with the cats and yetis. 

Death's a little tough, since we have the main armies represented already...maybe the Ossiarch will come out in time to have a warband? I'd love if vampires could be in there but I'm not sure that's viable.

[Acid_Nine]

I think I would just like a supplement with all the expansion card warbands in it, because right now if someone didnt jump on the warband they wanted right away then they are out of luck for things like storm cast eternals or bonesplitters. In fact, the monsters and mercs proved they could easily do something like that, so it’s weird that they didn’t release a pdf or something for all the extra warbands yet.

[Kramer]

I would expect fyreslayers or KO to represent duardin. 

I also think an all vampire/thrall warband would be a great choice. But not very likely. 

Stormcast are a given as (if I understood it correctly) some of the mercenaries mention a different stormcast rune. 

Maybe a small human faction? Sons of Odessa would be cool. As would a witch hunter warband. 

[Overread]

I fully expect to see GW flesh out the rest of Warcry with rules for the other full armies in the game like skaven and the like. I'm a bit surprised we've not got this already to be honest, but at the same time I get a niggling feeling that Bonereapers might be part of that launch and that the Syvlaneth delay might have pushed Reapers on a month. If that's the case than the Warcry slot that likely was going to be the next expansion of rules might have been fast swapped with the mercenaries expansion (even though the book doesn't actually suggest it - so this might be how they always envisioned it or they made some fast changes to it). 

 

Otherwise after the two further Chaos Warbands its really hard to say what GW will do with Warcry. On the one hand they consider that its the Killteam of AoS; however Killteam didn't get whole unit blocks released for it. Furthermore thus far all the warbands are going into Slaves to Darkness - a single army. That's 8 fully diverse unit groups and whilst they share similar stats that's a huge number of unique sculpts and models for one army; esp one segment of the army (the 80 point or so 9 or so troops). 

I can't really tell at all if we will see many more unique chaos sculpts for Warcry; if GW will add more beasts or simply use it to deliver more expansions for other armies that were coming anyway but which will get a warcry sticker to make them appear cross-game and  give a chance for more warcry marketing. 

[Yoshiya]

Order: Slyvaneth, KO

Death: Vampires, Bonereapers (i guess since zombies would just be like skeletons again)

Destruction: Ogors, Troggoths

 

Personally, I’d prefer mini-expansions to the existing chaos warbands eventually rather than for them to keep releasing new ones. Just one or two models per to flesh them out a bit more, maybe a faction specific mercenary or something that gives them a themed hero unit. Alternatively, more mini monsters would be cool. Maybe they could introduce some for other grand alliances so everyone can take thralls (change name to be appropriate). I see no reason goblins or Orruks wouldn’t be able to find and force some creatures into their service for example.

Games Workshop is going to have to tread carefully with future model releases and expansions as I think adding many more fighters to the warbands will just turn it into AoS-lite (a common complaint in my area for Killteam that eventually lead to its death here as people were no longer sure what the standard people expected for a pick up game was).

Rule expansions might be safer but would lead to an issue of people not picking up the newest book and thus those that did can’t use it every game, feeling like it’s a waste of money potentially and thus not getting the next book until they know others have (who are waiting for the same thing in turn).

 

[Madluper]

Alternative models for existing chaos warbands is a MUST. 

[Moldek]

Maybe not feasible but I’d love to see them release warband boxes for the non-chaos factions at some point. Just so that you have an easy point of entry for beginners / low budget. For instance the gloomspite gitz could get their underworlds warband sprue + a couple of aos sprues + the cards. Also release cards for easy to build models like sequitors and banshees! 

Faction wise if I had to pick, hmmm :

sylvaneth & KO could be interesting, or the new kurnoth-centaurs from beastgrave. A multi-race free cities warband would be really cool.

aren’t trolls a bit big for a warband? If not I’d say something weird, like troll(s) + wild squigs a la Mollog’s Mob. And ogors, with a few options for very cheap grots chaff. Bonus points if you have a leader option that allows you to field a full on gnoblar waagh.

For death, ossiarch bonereapers seem like the obvious choice, but I’d love to see a « living » shy’ish death cult. Could be lead by a vampire priest

[Lior'Lec]

     I agree with some alternative models but I’d also like to see so much more. For the models I wouldn’t mind small mini-packs of 1-3 models with some variety in their build style. So you could buy a blister pack with a single multiposeable Ogre Breacher or three multipose Legionaries with all weapon options.

     Now in addition to this I’d like to see all eight bands rebranded as Dark Oath/Slaves/Everchosen (or however they plan to relabel the greater army) warbands in order to open up similar styled specialized units for other armies. This would allow GW to do waves or seasons focusing on other armies and allinaces. So you could have a season which introduces BoC and Skaven with 3-4 flavorful warbands each getting the same treatment with a Warband box plus blisters. Or have a Mortals of the Realms season with 8 Cities of Sigmar warbands having the same options and so on.

[Redmanphill]

I would very much hope that they keep the game within the narrative theme they have established. Simply adding factions in to the game randomly would break that. I simpy don't see the Cities of Sigmar (Freeguild) turning up in the Eight Points.

My hopes for future expansions would be for the basic eight Chaos Warbands to get new models and at the same time a second set of cards would be printed for the twelve AoS factions that are currently present in the setting. Lets build depth rather than breadth to the system.

[Moldek]

2 hours ago, Redmanphill said:

I would very much hope that they keep the game within the narrative theme they have established. Simply adding factions in to the game randomly would break that. I simpy don't see the Cities of Sigmar (Freeguild) turning up in the Eight Points.

My hopes for future expansions would be for the basic eight Chaos Warbands to get new models and at the same time a second set of cards would be printed for the twelve AoS factions that are currently present in the setting. Lets build depth rather than breadth to the system.

I agree that they should keep the setting coherent; I want freeguild rules to be able to convert all kind of weird treasure hunters, but I don’t see it as essential.

[Acid_Nine]

3 hours ago, Redmanphill said:

I would very much hope that they keep the game within the narrative theme they have established. Simply adding factions in to the game randomly would break that. I simpy don't see the Cities of Sigmar (Freeguild) turning up in the Eight Points.

My hopes for future expansions would be for the basic eight Chaos Warbands to get new models and at the same time a second set of cards would be printed for the twelve AoS factions that are currently present in the setting. Lets build depth rather than breadth to the system.

I would like to keep the narrative too, but I can see how they could work them in. Sigmar knows it's a little weird having DoK show up when they are not one of those factions that could teleport in like, say, deepkin or stormcasts. I think having the freeguild be limited to the more stealthy models like assassins, wanderers and shadow-warriorswould work pretty well in terms of working cities into the narrative. They sneak in to help stormcasts or to accomplish goals of the cities magistrates or arcane colleges, and then run away. I could also see them including freeguild in general as a sort of former slave army, like they had been captured but managed to revolt against their overlords and are now their own faction in the bloodwind spoils. 

Edited September 23, 2019 by Acid_Nine

[stratigo]

On 9/21/2019 at 10:52 AM, Charleston said:

In the end it depends on the popularity of the game. If gw notices thrends in consumer preferences they surely will adress them.

Remember that the lead time on new models is often a year or more