2022 Age of Sigmar Release Predictions

[Gitzdee]

I am wondering how much GW will stick to the races of Ghur going forward. Pulled this bit from a wiki, dont know how accurate this is (its missing Silent People for one). While we just started this edition the first thing i notice is that a few races have already been covered. Soulblight Avengorii also just got updated with Lauka Vai. Does this mean a possible new race or model update could be among these races? Another thing that jumps at me are that most of these are rumoured for updates. Shaggoths could be in a rumoured StD update and fit the monster theme. Ogors/ Skaven are also in this list. Could be going crazy but i think i'm onto something here. I dont think the Worm-riders will be a thing because of Dune copyright battles. But if they decide to do the Worm thing they can have all my money. Any thoughts?

Ghur Inhabitants

Aelves:
Dhom-hain enclave of the Idoneth Deepkin

Ionrach enclave of the Idoneth Deepkin

Various Scourge Privateers fleets can be found in the Realm.

Duardin:
Lofnir Lodge: Fyreslayers with large numbers of magmadroth's and who are often paid to march to war alongside the Ogor clans of the realm.

Gargants

Great Worms

Grots

Humans:
Vurm-tai nomads: The worm-riders, horse clans of the Amber Steppes who took to following the migration routes of the Great Worms and picking over what was left in their wake, or simply raiding the caravans that traveled to and from the worm-cities.

Hunter-tribes of the Great Coil: Hunters who move vast haunches of meat thanks to Trade Pioneers.

Treestriders of the Gnarlwood: Tribesfolk who reside in a deadly forest of groping vines, hunting strange species and gathering medicinal herbs.

Ogors

Orruks

Sankrit: A reptilian race with a small empire at the northern edge of the Sea of Bones.

Skaven:
Clan Rhukrit: They sweep across the Ravenous Plains with swarms of attack vehicles, followed by crawlburrows.

Sunwyrm

Shaggoth

Soulblight Vampires:
The Avengorii: A dynasty that dwells in the Sascathran Dunes.

Sylvaneth:
The Aerchhoi: Bitter and dangerous, they inhabit the Druichan Forest near the city of Izalend.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Iksdee

[Skreech Verminking]

1 hour ago, Iksdee said:

Clan Rhukrit: They sweep across the Ravenous Plains with swarms of attack vehicles, followed by crawlburrows.

You mean doomwheels and doomflayers.

how much money I would spend for some doom flayer units that look and feel like that of total war warhammer 

[Clan's Cynic]

• Fyreslayers/Idoneth - Battlebox, Battletomes, nothing more except maybe Endless Spells for IDK.
   
• Nighthaunt - Hero model, Battletome with more sub-factions, that'll be it.
   
• Sylvaneth - A small wave of Wood Elf-esq Kurnothi and/or merged with the Wanderers with one new Hero model. The Cursed City Elf just looks too much like a normal Wood Elf for me to believe it's a coincidence. Lore will handwave this as there being enclaves who never fled to Azyr (like the Cursed City model's) and they were always there off-screen, or Alarielle welcoming them back into the fold.
   
• Blades of Khorne - Valkia will get a new model and of course a Battletome but that'll be it. 
   
• Gloomspite Gitz - Same as above.
   
• Slaves to Darkness - The Chaos Sorcerer Warhammer+ tease makes me think we might see the multi-part Warriors/Knights finally and a good chunk of the older kits like Marauders given more sculpts.

Edited January 12, 2022 by Clan's Cynic

[Baron Klatz]

5 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

or Alarielle welcoming them back into the fold.

She already forgave the Wanderers back at the end of 2016 after the Seeds of Hope campaign. 
 

The problem is the Sylvaneth themselves haven’t so we got things like 2018’s “Heart of Winter” where a Wanderer in the city of Izalend despises the forests because Sylvaneth slaughtered his tribe trying to settle in the woods there after coming back from Azyr. Sylvaneth even call the tribal tattoos they wear “traitor marks”.  
 

5 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Lore will handwave this as there being enclaves who never fled to Azyr (like the Cursed City model's)

Just for the record, the Kurnothi are actually a type of tree people and not pure flesh aelves. That’s why they all have Lamentiri seeds in their stomachs and the Cursed City Kurnothi was both hidden in a sub-realm only Sylvaneth are allowed in and her rules make her apart of the glades rather than the cities.

So it wouldn’t be actually Wanderers that hid in Ghyran but that Alarielle finally regrew a new people that are literally apart of nature. Tree people in the flesh so the other Sylvaneth will accept them. Ones like the antlered Kurnothi might be super special types grown only in Ghyran’s secret realms that lead while the more bestial mixed Kurnothi are common from being in the wilds like Ghur(flowers to weeds comparison).

BUT I’m personally expecting just Sylvaneth insect cavalry. One of the accurate rumor guys that called the recent box said “non-Kurnothi Sylvaneth” release so going by that.

Wouldn’t be the first time Warhammer Quest & UnderWorlds made models(especially aelven ones) that didn’t go anywhere just like Silver Tower Warpriest, Grot snarlfang riders, Brayherd and sadly Bonesplitterz didn’t lead anywhere. Some things are just fun one-offs the designers explore.  

Edited January 12, 2022 by Baron Klatz

[Popisdead]

On 1/11/2022 at 7:38 AM, Gaz Taylor said:

That sounds feasible although I’m not sure about the new faction. Personally I suspect the release schedule is in tatters for AOS due to various things and they are currently working out how to get stuff to shops. This is why I personally doubt a new faction this year. 
 

I hope I’m proven wrong but that’s just how I can see things playing out. 

I think this is on point.  Let's just assume we will get some stuff for AoS and GW will try to find ways to continue to do product development and distribution with some success.  All too many people between a chair and keyboard have opinions how they would run a global corporation better in a pandemic with a supply chain issues being one of the latest issues.

 

I hope and predict Beasts of Chaos get a broken OP book that dominates the scene and becomes the biggest bandwagon hopping army in the history of Wargaming too and GW sells so many BoC kits they change the name to Age of Beasts of Chaos.   Morghur ascends, Krakanrok beheads every other godhead and makes their heads pillows in his tree fort while eating candy and watching the 1980s hit Monster Squad on Netflix.

[Gaz Taylor]

2 hours ago, Popisdead said:

All too many people between a chair and keyboard have opinions how they would run a global corporation better in a pandemic with a supply chain issues being one of the latest issues.

Lol! I do agree with that. I just feel the 40K schedule is more resilient as this is where GW make a lot of their money from. I think AOS is more flexible and I’m just not expecting any totally new armies. I hope I’m wrong as I want Chaos Dwarfs!

[Snorri Nelriksson]

Going by the wole idea this is a "more 40k" year i'd say that we will get 1\perhaps 2 "Big releases"(for big i mean not BT and hero or BT and a pair of units nut something between soulblight and Kruleboyz releases).
Imho 1 new army near the end of the year\2nd half and one near summer to keep at least the flow of releases:i'd point to Malerion guys (seriously there's just them now left unless we think about Grotbag\Gitmobs or Chaos dwarves) and a legacy army reworked, probably Skaven as we approach Ulgu...or Beasts of chaos, as the Chaos GA is needing more things like these and we're in the age of beasts.
Destruction imho will get the "possible 2nd new army for the edition" the next year or perhaps even further, they started with Kruleboyz so like the Nighthaunt\Bonereapers thing we'll see the second army coming after some time.
I can't see nothing new for dwarves honestly until we'll see if Fyreslayers will get souped or not.....i hope not as alreay stated before but only GW knows.

[Noserenda]

I do get the feeling we might see a Khornegor box with the Khorne book, if nothing else, to give the World Eaters some custom fodder.

[Snorri Nelriksson]

2 hours ago, Noserenda said:

I do get the feeling we might see a Khornegor box with the Khorne book, if nothing else, to give the World Eaters some custom fodder.

Considering the bloodbowl Khornegor that we got fairly recently i'd say it would be possible if not probable....or perhap after the WE codex hits the 40k (as some rumors says is down the line but not too far).

Edited January 12, 2022 by Snorri Nelriksson

[novakai]

Given the theoretical timeline i can see World eater being the 10th edition starter army. there has been some mirroring between 40K CSM and their related AoS God army but while Disciple of Tzeentch and Thousand sons had cross releases on models in Tzaangors, Deathguard and Maggotkin of Nurgle coming out similarly close to each other but didn't have Pestigors or any units share between them. this time maybe they are timing a product release between Worldeaters and Blades of Khorne.

as for new Army, it possible it whatever this daemon release that supposed to come out for 40K (daemon Codex has not been release yet) is going to tie into Sigmar was well. maybe it Be'lekor and Ruinstorm daemons since he seems to have been gaining narrative significance in both settings recently.

[EccentricCircle]

So: things we can be fairly sure of. 

Idoneth amd Fyreslayers, probably just a tome and heroes, though I'd be very happy to be proven wrong.

We've also seen heroes for Nighthaunt and Daughters of Khaine in the trailer. My guess is that they will just be a book and hero too, but again you never know. 

So my money is on those being the first four tomes of the year. 

If we get one of the old resin factions updated then I think it will be Seraphon.

Looking back at last edition, the malign portents heroes clearly telegraphed the shape of things to come. Broken Realms felt more miscellaneous, but if the stand alone models released were part of upcoming design efforts then that suggests Seraphon, Sylvaneth, and Cities.

Now cities stuff could just come as part of cursed city expansions, after all, the S2D expansion last edition was by way of warcry, and I feel as though the two factions could well be analogous.

Cursed City might give us more undead too, perhaps more vampires, or maybe more likely nighthaunt and ghouls timed so that they get something with their tomes? 

I don't expect Lumineth or Slaanesh to get another wave, despite being in broken realms, as they already did. It wouldn't completely surprise me though!

Then I think we'll see something completely new, but this is just as likely tp be completely unexpected as it is to be something we're wishlisting! As a dwarf fan, I'd live the rise of Grungni or Valaya, or the return of the Chaos dwarves. But the brand new factions are very rarely anything we could have predicted. 

As for shadow rlves, I've historically been skeptical that they were on the schedule, but each year they get more likely, and we're now reaching the point where GW have had time to design them twice over in the time we've been hyped for their upcoming release. So maybe they will have thoughts s time!

Mostly though, expect a lot of stuff to come via spin off games like underworlds, warcry and maybe now cursed city. Remember that between them they almost get as many model release slots as regular AoS. They are also smaller drop releases, easier to squeeze in.

 

Above all expect the unexpected. That tends to ge what we get!

[Jymmy]

I would be in love if they released a Cities book that solidified a bit more the ties between the diverse races, as now it seems like an amalgam of various subfactions. Maybe classificating its keywords by their function in the city (take ironweld as an example of covering the units regardless of their race). For example you could have Expeditionary/patrolling units, which include shadow blades, wanderers,… City Guard/defense including most freeguild and darkling covens, etc

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

On 1/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Since it's the start of the year and we know next to nothing about any upcoming Age of Sigmar releases, let's have some fun making a few guesses for a bit. That way we can all come back a the end of the year and see how wrong we were 😎

It has almost been a year since I started this thread. Time to take a look how the year of 2022 played out for AoS. Were our predictions on point? (SPOILER: No.)

 

On 1/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I'm personally working from the perspective that GW releases about three big model drops and one new faction for AoS per year. Everything else just gets a battletome and a hero (or maybe no hero, or maybe some extra support through Underworlds/Warcry).

I thought this was a pretty good working hypothesis at the time! Turns out, GW had other plans and started to really push out battletomes at a surprsing speed. This year we got 11 books: Fyreslayers, Deepkin, Nighthaunt, Daughters, Skaven, Sylvaneth, Tzeentch, Sons and Lumineth, Ogors and Slaves to Darkness, with Gitz and Beasts confirmed to be on the way next year.

 

On 1/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

With that in mind, my predictions for this year's releases are these:

• We know Idoneth and Fyreslayers get a new hero each as part of their battle box, and that's probably all they will get.

For context, at this time the Fyreslayers/Idoneth box was already announced. Turned out to be right, but this was a really safe bet.

 

On 1/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Idoneth get their battletome soon after the box releases, Fyreslayers don't.

The new army this year is a new type of Grungni-dwarf. That faction gets souped with Fyreslayers and Dispossessed. KO retain their own codex, but are coalition.

I made a kind of risky prediciton here, and it turned out not to be correct at all. I really thought that, after all the loose plot threads from Broken Realms, Dwarves would quickly get some kind of payoff in terms of a new faction or new models. In the end, Fyreslayers are still around in their basic form, and it does not look like dwarves will be unifying anytime soon. I suppose there is still hope for Grungni-dwarves at some point, though.

 

On 1/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

The major model releases this year are Grungni-dwarves, Beasts of Chaos and Ossiarch Bonereapers.

Three misses: None of these factions got anything at all this year. At least that means there is still a chance to be correct next year, but it's not looking good for Beasts.

I was pretty convinced that OBR would get updated quickly for two reasons: I thought that there were probably still designs left that could be put into production from when OBR initially came out, and I thought they would be a high priority for updates since their 2nd ed rules worked so badly in 3rd. But then this prediction got invalidated days after I made it when the OBR White Dwarf update was announced.

Poor bone daddies, I hope you get the update you deserve soon.

 

On 1/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Nighthaunt, Gitz and Khorne get tome updates with a single hero in addition to that. Skaven and Flesh Eater Courts get skipped because they will receive larger updates in the future.

Gitz and Khorne did not come out this year, after all, and Nighthaunt got one of the few medium-sized updates. It looks like Gitz might not even receive a hero, but a unit instead. It would have been difficult to be more wrong on this one.

 

On 1/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

So overall, I would predict six battletomes and 3 big model releases, with one new faction.

11 battletomes and 3 releases of more than 1 unit (none of them "big"), no new factions.

 

On 1/11/2022 at 4:16 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

For the more distant future, I think this edition we will see Malerion elves, Chaos Dwarves and a new Destruction faction as new armies. Beasts, OBR, FEC, Skaven, Cities (Freeguild), Ogors and Sylvaneth will get significant model releases. Probably Lumineth, too, even though that's just running the faction into the ground

Chaos dwarves still seem pretty likely, with all the foreshadowing in the lore right now regarding Hashut, but I am kind of loosing faith in my other predicitons when it comes to new factions. It seems like we are staying in Ghur for the time being, so maybe Malerion makes more sense for 4th. A new destruction faction is still on the table, though, and I hope we get it.

It turns out, Skaven, Lumineth and Ogors did not get big model drops, but Sylvaneth got a few new models at least. I suppose there is still a chance for OBR and FEC, probably not Beasts, though. Cities is practically guaranteed, of course, and that was a real prediciton at the point of writing: The Dawnbringer update was only announced 5 months later, in May.

I was surprised by Nighthaunt and Slaves to Darkness getting new stuff (although a few people predicted the latter).

[WrathOfTheLion]

3 hours ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

Chaos dwarves still seem pretty likely, with all the foreshadowing in the lore right now regarding Hashut, but I am kind of loosing faith in my other predicitons when it comes to new factions. It seems like we are staying in Ghur for the time being, so maybe Malerion makes more sense for 4th. A new destruction faction is still on the table, though, and I hope we get it.

It turns out, Skaven, Lumineth and Ogors did not get big model drops, but Sylvaneth got a few new models at least. I suppose there is still a chance for OBR and FEC, probably not Beasts, though. Cities is practically guaranteed, of course, and that was a real prediciton at the point of writing: The Dawnbringer update was only announced 5 months later, in May.

I was surprised by Nighthaunt and Slaves to Darkness getting new stuff (although a few people predicted the latter).

Dawnbreakers was always pretty much guaranteed with how the lore of 3E is. It's such an integral part of the basic setup of the current plot. A new Destruction faction sounds likely to me, I'm not sure about in 2023 though given 10E 40k is probably launching then, and it's already tight with cities in there.

Lumineth I think is probably pretty stable for now. They're the faction I'm most familiar with, and basically the things 'missing' are two elemental temples, more melee/Vanari stuff and of course Tyrion. Were we to sketch out releases for them, I'd expect at some point a mid sized kit release with just an elemental temple expansion (three kits - Wizard, Unit, Spirit), and then a big update with Tyrion and the army units. Tyrion might be a paired released with Malerion. Anything else would just be single heroes.

I know I predicted Slaves to Darkness a while ago. That one was bound to happen ever since the SC box had newer push fit sculpts.

Edited December 23, 2022 by WrathOfTheLion