Umbraneth (if we will)

[Danaork]

Malerion, Ulgurothis warriors 4rth or 5th edition ? A launch box army to this editions or an army during this editions ? 2024 ? 2025 ... ? i'll like to see all your opinions !

[Sception]

IMO we're likely to see them in 4th edition, but not in the starter box since that's pretty much confirmed to be stormcast vs. skaven.  Skaven in particular should be seeing a major range refresh, which means we probably won't see anything as dramatic as a brand new faction for the rest of 2024, so I'd guess Shadow Elves in 2025, probably as a new faction, though I could see them getting added to Daughters of Khaine as a combined dark elf faction with two different divine figureheads leading two distinctly themed subfactions between them, sort of like what I expect the Lumineth to become once Tyrion is introduced.

That's all pure speculation, though.

Edited January 7 by Sception

[Hollow]

I sincerely hope that we do see Umbraneth in AoS 4th edition. They won't be in the launch box, as it has been all but confirmed that the primary antagonist for 4th will be Skaven. I have said it before but I would personally like to see the Daughters of Khaine, a select few Dark Elf Kits from CoS and a range of New Umbraneth kits consolidated and released under a single larger "Children of Khaine" faction in AoS 4th. I suspect that will not happen and if/when we do see Umbraneth they will have a handful of units in their own battletome. 

[Gitzdee]

On 1/8/2024 at 10:12 AM, Hollow said:

I sincerely hope that we do see Umbraneth in AoS 4th edition. They won't be in the launch box, as it has been all but confirmed that the primary antagonist for 4th will be Skaven. I have said it before but I would personally like to see the Daughters of Khaine, a select few Dark Elf Kits from CoS and a range of New Umbraneth kits consolidated and released under a single larger "Children of Khaine" faction in AoS 4th. I suspect that will not happen and if/when we do see Umbraneth they will have a handful of units in their own battletome. 

I also think this is going to be a subfaction. Order is already packed with stuff and i think DoK has plenty of room to include a subfaction. Just like Sylvaneth has room for Kurnothi. I also hope Idoneth also gets something like a subfaction.

[Tonhel]

I hope that the army will have dragons. Lots of dragons. I woudn't mind hybrid stuff like Vengorian lords so long as there are still some elves mounted on dragons and other reptile creatures.

[Xil]

On 1/8/2024 at 12:22 AM, Sception said:

IMO we're likely to see them in 4th edition, but not in the starter box since that's pretty much confirmed to be stormcast vs. skaven.  Skaven in particular should be seeing a major range refresh, which means we probably won't see anything as dramatic as a brand new faction for the rest of 2024, so I'd guess Shadow Elves in 2025, probably as a new faction, though I could see them getting added to Daughters of Khaine as a combined dark elf faction with two different divine figureheads leading two distinctly themed subfactions between them, sort of like what I expect the Lumineth to become once Tyrion is introduced.

That's all pure speculation, though.

Thats my prefered solution as i have stated multiple times already. Daughters could use a range expansion and they already dip in the shadow themes.

[OkayestDM]

I'm not sure which edition we'll see them in, but I'm fairly confident the release of "Umbraneth" will be closely preceded or followed by the Tyrion expansion to LRL. There's already been hints in the lore and battletomes that the two of them are squaring off. 

I think there's equally fair arguments to be made the Malerion's army might be its own Battletome, or else paired with DoK. If GW is leaning into the symmetry/mirror image motif, they'll likely be paired with DoK. Tyrion and Teclis, the brother gods, vs Morathi and Malarion, the mother/son gods. 

Alternatively, Umbraneth might be to DoK what Idoneth are to LRL, an independent faction with lore ties to the other, but with which there is a complicated history. Even if Order and Elves both already have plenty of battle tomes, I can absolutely see GW adding another if they feel confident it will net enough of a profit on its own. 

 

I'm very curious what the shadow-aelf range will entail. We know shadow daemons are a thing based on some of the short stories about Ulgu. I wondered for a while of the rumor engines showing the poison bottles were Umbraneth related, but at this point it looks like those are Nighthaunt. 

Lots of potential design room for the faction, looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

[Sabush]

I'm an old school dark elves player, and I think it will be very interesting to see what GW decide to do with them, both in AoS and in OW.

Imo they are in an awkward position.
In AoS ~80% of the old DE-roster is split between two factions. One of which is mixed with humans and dwarfs, which doesn't feel very "Dark Elfy".
In tOW they are a PDF-faction that won't receive any support in the near future.

I doubt they'll expand on the DE/Umbraneth any more under the CoS-banner.
As I see it they have a couple different options:

1. They might move the DE-units over to DoK (With a faction namechange). Something I'd welcome.
2. They could add a new faction for Malerion, who's rumoured to be introduced in the future, and move the DE-units there. But I think it would be weird to have a new faction with old models, I think it's more likely that Malerion comes with his own breed of elves.
3. They could also create a new faction that includes DoK, old DE-models and Malerion. (And also future Malerion-elves).
4. Remove the old DE-units from AoS completely, which makes them fully available for tOW. In the same move they can add Malerion and new units and include it all in DoK (maybe with a namechange).

I personally like option 4 the most, as I will be playing both AoS and tOW.
But the other options sounds alright too.

I just hope we got some hints or informations about what thay're planning to do.
Because right now it feels like there's no way to play a true Dark Elves-army in either format, which really sucks IMO.

I hope they reveal what's going on in Har Kuron soon, haven't heard anything about that city since Broken Realms AFAIK.

Edited January 10 by Sabush

[Pizzaprez]

I've seen strong feelings against adding Malerion and his stuff to the Morathi army, but I think they could fix that with a bit of narrative

There are already witch aelves siding against morathi for one reason or another; whether it's betraying her allies or wrongfully claiming godhood.

Malerion could be an answer to that; if he's "more loyal" than Morathi, or a "real" god, I could see a witch aelf civil war happening

Even if the two gods have an "alliance of convenience" their people may not be all about it

It'd also be a direct foil to Tyrion and Teclis being BFF co-leaders

[EonChao]

I have issues with the idea of adding Malerion's followers to Daughters of Khaine, but also feel like a 5th elf army might be one too many for AoS so can get over them being combined with DoK with a new faction name (like Orruk Warclans are now three factions under one banner), or with Idoneth (Malerion vs Tyrion and the Idoneth vs Teclis leading them both to be positioned opposite the Lumineth).

[Tonhel]

5 hours ago, Sabush said:

I'm an old school dark elves player, and I think it will be very interesting to see what GW decide to do with them, both in AoS and in OW.

Imo they are in an awkward position.
In AoS ~80% of the old DE-roster is split between two factions. One of which is mixed with humans and dwarfs, which doesn't feel very "Dark Elfy".
In tOW they are a PDF-faction that won't receive any support in the near future.

I doubt they'll expand on the DE/Umbraneth any more under the CoS-banner.
As I see it they have a couple different options:

1. They might move the DE-units over to DoK (With a faction namechange). Something I'd welcome.
2. They could add a new faction for Malerion, who's rumoured to be introduced in the future, and move the DE-units there. But I think it would be weird to have a new faction with old models, I think it's more likely that Malerion comes with his own breed of elves.
3. They could also create a new faction that includes DoK, old DE-models and Malerion. (And also future Malerion-elves).
4. Remove the old DE-units from AoS completely, which makes them fully available for tOW. In the same move they can add Malerion and new units and include it all in DoK (maybe with a namechange).

I personally like option 4 the most, as I will be playing both AoS and tOW.
But the other options sounds alright too.

I just hope we got some hints or informations about what thay're planning to do.
Because right now it feels like there's no way to play a true Dark Elves-army in either format, which really sucks IMO.

I hope they reveal what's going on in Har Kuron soon, haven't heard anything about that city since Broken Realms AFAIK.

Option 4 is for me also the best choice. New support for Dark Elves in TOW and complete new AoS units with a Malerion release. I also will play both games.

[Xil]

13 hours ago, Pizzaprez said:

I've seen strong feelings against adding Malerion and his stuff to the Morathi army, but I think they could fix that with a bit of narrative

There are already witch aelves siding against morathi for one reason or another; whether it's betraying her allies or wrongfully claiming godhood.

Malerion could be an answer to that; if he's "more loyal" than Morathi, or a "real" god, I could see a witch aelf civil war happening

Even if the two gods have an "alliance of convenience" their people may not be all about it

It'd also be a direct foil to Tyrion and Teclis being BFF co-leaders

I actually haven't seen lots of post against that idea. Especiallly no strong feelings.

Lets make list of the different advantages of adding or seperating:

Adding:

1) Less Battletomes > less rules and bloat

2) Quasi Range expanion for DoK (which is needed)

3) Opens up different playstyles within a battletome by choosing Morathi or Malerion with different allegiance boni

4) easy start for collecting the army as it can be added to a existing DoK force (rather than getting a full blown new army with books, markers and models and what not)

5) reintroduction of a true Dark Elf successor as a complete faction

 

Seperating:

1) Allows for confontration between Morathi and Malerion, rather than cooperation

2) Umbraneth can have a  unique look (like IDK) rather than being forced to tie in with DoK/DarkElf

 

Feel free to add to the list.

Edited January 11 by Xil

[IronVIke]

I think we are going to end up in Chamon for 4th and that the umbraneth are going to get the FEC treatment as a major narrative faction release in a lead up to Ulgu for 5th in 2026. I think the order or range refresh and changes would go as follows. 

2024 - Most likely a 4th launch with a Skaven Refresh (although part of me thinks we might be getting hugely swerved as GW does like to do new factions in their release boxes, so i'm either thinking this is a plant and we could get Chorfs, or more than likely this will feature a skaven clan that we haven't seen much of represented in the models yet. much like kruleboyz was a branch expansion of orruk warclans)

2025 - 1 refresh (most likely a BoC or an Ogres) and 1 new faction launch (Chorfs)

2026 - 1 refresh (Boc or Ogre whichever is left), and 1 new faction launch (Umbraneth). I feel like we are getting them headed into 5th because for narrative purposes. There will be other small range releases. in addition to these larger refreshes and new ranges, but I think that with 4th being the focus of order vs chaos there are other faction releases that will take precedence over Umbraneth. 2026 we will get them (cities of sigmar style) and the narrative will flow into them leading us through the next version of what dawnbringers is to us now. Leading the SCE into conflict with a new Death faction in the launch box of 5th in Ulgu. You then have 3 years to build lore for Ulgu and a year to tease plot points about it. 

[DD-Lord]

The Umbraneth has been something people have been wanting for a long time.

I am imagining them being similar to the Lumineth in a way, just like how the Lumineth are a sort of "remaster" for the elves of Ulthuan. And bring back similar aesthetics and ideas mixed with new ones. I am imagining the Umbraneth doing something similar, but probably not completely similar. For example, the cold ones have been completely reclaimed by the Lizardmen/Seraphon, and Lustria and Naggaroth no longer exist, so having the Umbraneth also riding on them would probably feel redundant.

[Luperci]

I like the idea of a combined battletome for Malerion and Morathi's forces that basically let you which of the two gods your army follows. Even though Morathi has all the fragments of Khaine she doesn't have a monopoly on the cult of Khaine. I imagine the form umbraneth/ulgorothi will be unique to the previous dark elf aesthetic in some way but I honestly don't have a solid prediction of how. One thing would be to take a real life cultural inspiration that we didn't see in the og dark elves as well as upping the magic and monsters in typical AoS fashion. DoK have a vague ancient Greek inspiration so maybe they'll be similar to that in a way? I know a lot of people hope to see dragons but I personally doubt it, given dracothion and his kin are solidly order aligned and we haven't seen any other dragons from the main studio post 2015(start of AoS). I do hope some of the beast tamer side of whfb dark elves translates over though, a new hydra could be awesome or maybe a giant wyrm(see massacre wurm from mtg or purple worm from D&D).

[Danaork]

Dark Aelves for LVO ??

[Sabush]

2 hours ago, Danaork said:

Dark Aelves for LVO ??

Rumour has it that it's new Mandrakes for 40K/Killteam.
But I sure would love some new dark elves!

[Danaork]

1 hour ago, Sabush said:

La rumeur dit que ce sont de nouvelles Mandrakes pour 40K/Killteam.
Mais j’adorerais certainement de nouveaux elfes noirs !

That will make me so sad if it isn't a Malerion's Aelves after the text on instagram story and the shadow of "5 days to go"

[Gitzdee]

12 hours ago, Danaork said:

That will make me so sad if it isn't a Malerion's Aelves after the text on instagram story and the shadow of "5 days to go"

I think they could refer to the Nighthaunt part of the Warcry box. If it was Malerion aelves we would have heard at least some rumours by now. We only got rumours for Lumineth, Nighthaunt and something Graverobbers for Underworlds. Main AoS will probably be just the Dawnbringer stuff. I hope we get to see some new roadmaps.

[Lord Krungharr]

I mean wasn't there that Underworlds warband with shadow-aelves with glitchy capes?  Those looked cool and very much what want Umbraneth to be.  

[Danaork]

With LVO previews showing the Krethusa model, so can this last be a teasing of Malerion arrive and Aelves behind him ?

Malerion praying Morai-heg instead Khaine ? Will the Croneseer being her herald ?