Reforging Newly Retired Units!

[Neverchosen]

Hey folks wanted to make a bit of a proactive thread covering how you intend to keep some of your models on the tabletop.

Will your Beasts of Chaos become Slaves to Darkness or transition to square bases?
Will your Sequitors become fancier Liberators? 
Will your Warcry units combine taking their Dark Oath?

[Sarouan]

"What's a gor if not a Darkoath with horns ?"

Sequitors were always Liberators in disguise. That's why they were wearing robes !

My Warcry units will do what they do the best : being played in Warcry.

[brocktoon]

1 hour ago, Neverchosen said:

Hey folks wanted to make a bit of a proactive thread covering how you intend to keep some of your models on the tabletop.

Will your Beasts of Chaos become Slaves to Darkness or transition to square bases?
Will your Sequitors become fancier Liberators? 
Will your Warcry units combine taking their Dark Oath?

I don't post much but one post I made that got traction was about how my group ran pretty cold on 3rd. I'm giving some very serious consideration to making a 2e document incorporating cool new models but with a 2e rules chassis. I need to get out from a mountain of more pressing work first, but I was brainstorming ideas before this cull. It's almost a definite now. 

[Gitzdee]

I will proxy my Bonesplitterz as regular Ironjawz.

Savage Orruks as Ardboyz.

Savage Big Boss as unit champions.

Wolverine from Hedrakkas Madmob as Ardboy Boss

Wurgogg Prophet as a Weirdnob Shaman.

I think that will fix most of my problems. I think it will look great next to the Wrekkaz and Morgoks Krushas.

[Neverchosen]

For my units:
Sequitors = Liberators
Castigators = raptors with huricane cross bows
Celestar Ballista = No clue hopefully it is getting an updated model 
Warcry Units = Darkoath Marauders
Warcry Champions = Dark Oath champions and Chaos Sorcerers. 

[Chikout]

Cypher lords - Tzeentch arcanites.

Untamed beasts - Khorne bloodreavers

Ungors-  blissbarb archers

Bestigors - Tzaangors

Centigors - whatever the new mounted marauders are. 

Tuskgor chariot - chaos chariot

Bullgors and doombull- ogroids.

Gors - marauders

Beastlord - chaos lord

Lord arcanum on gryph charger - lord Aquilor. 

Edited April 5 by Chikout

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

I'll use the 'Legends' rules. Simple. 

Although I've been thinking for a while about homebrewing some stuff, fully integrating my Slaanesh-styled Beasts units and whatnot into the Hedonites faction. Could probably do with collaborating with someone who's better at the nitty-gritty of the rules... I'm good with the fluff (no false modesty there... nor any genuine modesty) but not so hot at the dice-rolling side of things. 

[Davariel]

The news has me considering redoing the bases on the handful of Beastmen I own. I tried going for a Ghur badlands theme with them (what with the Era of the Beast and all!) but I was never entirely satisfied with the results.

Now that their story will likely see them menacing Bretonnian peasants instead of Dawnbringer crusades, I might give them some nice forest bases instead.

[EccentricCircle]

I never got into 3e in the first place, so I'll just keep on using them for second edition, warcry, and mini agnostic games. I'm much more into the hobby than the game anyway, and thankfully this cull doesn't take away much that I wanted to collect. (They already decimated my collection the last three times they did this, so I'm pretty much over it at this point.) I mostly have the models I like and have more fun with old or mini agnostic games anyway. Grognard status here I come I guess.

[Mortal Wound]

For my Slaves to Darkness, I am proceeding with no change. Warcry warbands represented only a fraction of my overall army and then only as get-you-by models until we finally get proper new Marauders. We are getting proper new Marauders soon so I'm fine with my Untamed Beasts and Iron Golems being retired to the hall of fame shelf and only coming out for Warcry.

For my Stormcast, I am still undecided. Most of my army is Sacrosanct and Sacrosanct are my favorite models both in terms of aesthetics and playstyle. I was actually planning to pick up more Sacrosanct units last week to participate in the Warhammer Store Dawnbringers thing and have a full 2k Sacrosanct army ready for 4e. I was stopped from going to the store and purchasing them by an illness that kinda feels like providence now. I still don't know what to do about it. Part of me is completely deflated about AoS. Part of me wants to go with the flow and embrace Thunderstrike. Part of me still wants to complete the Sacrosanct army while they are still available in stores to play them with the one year pity rules at least and then reevaluate.

And part of me wants to be super contrarian and super irresponsible, take a huge cash loan, buy up all the local stock of 1st and 2nd ed Stormcast, hoard all the sprues and kitbash them into whatever new Thunderstrike units they keep coming out with in perpetuity.

What is more striking about everything is how much of a paradigm shift this has been for me outside of the specifc models that are going away. I keep wondering, if five-years-old Stormcast are not safe as model purchases, what IS a safe long-term model purchase? I find myself second guessing my existing purchase plans and buy lists. Should I really pick up that Ogroid Myrmidon and Fomoroid Crusher I've been wanting to take off a person locally? Should I pull the trigger on those two additional Chaos Chariot I was planning to get to field a nice unit of three ? Should I get that Chaos Predator and Vindicator for my 40k army? It's not fun to think about.

[Neil Arthur Hotep]

I only have one Stormcast, a Knight-Azyros:

I convertes him for my Cities back in 2nd edition when he gave all ORDER units +1 to hit.

He has been on the shelf for all of 3rd edition, but when I get an opportunity to proxy him for something, you better believe he's coming back.

[PiotrW]

Honestly speaking, I don't know what to do. I'm totally heartbroken by yesterday's news. GW nixed some of my favourite Stormcast minis *and* destroyed my concept for a colourful, varied, fun Slaves to Darkness army.

I'm depressed as heck and I'm considering dropping both AoS and WH40K altogether.

[Gitzdee]

5 hours ago, Mortal Wound said:

For my Slaves to Darkness, I am proceeding with no change. Warcry warbands represented only a fraction of my overall army and then only as get-you-by models until we finally get proper new Marauders. We are getting proper new Marauders soon so I'm fine with my Untamed Beasts and Iron Golems being retired to the hall of fame shelf and only coming out for Warcry.

For my Stormcast, I am still undecided. Most of my army is Sacrosanct and Sacrosanct are my favorite models both in terms of aesthetics and playstyle. I was actually planning to pick up more Sacrosanct units last week to participate in the Warhammer Store Dawnbringers thing and have a full 2k Sacrosanct army ready for 4e. I was stopped from going to the store and purchasing them by an illness that kinda feels like providence now. I still don't know what to do about it. Part of me is completely deflated about AoS. Part of me wants to go with the flow and embrace Thunderstrike. Part of me still wants to complete the Sacrosanct army while they are still available in stores to play them with the one year pity rules at least and then reevaluate.

And part of me wants to be super contrarian and super irresponsible, take a huge cash loan, buy up all the local stock of 1st and 2nd ed Stormcast, hoard all the sprues and kitbash them into whatever new Thunderstrike units they keep coming out with in perpetuity.

What is more striking about everything is how much of a paradigm shift this has been for me outside of the specifc models that are going away. I keep wondering, if five-years-old Stormcast are not safe as model purchases, what IS a safe long-term model purchase? I find myself second guessing my existing purchase plans and buy lists. Should I really pick up that Ogroid Myrmidon and Fomoroid Crusher I've been wanting to take off a person locally? Should I pull the trigger on those two additional Chaos Chariot I was planning to get to field a nice unit of three ? Should I get that Chaos Predator and Vindicator for my 40k army? It's not fun to think about.

 

3 hours ago, PiotrW said:

Honestly speaking, I don't know what to do. I'm totally heartbroken by yesterday's news. GW nixed some of my favourite Stormcast minis *and* destroyed my concept for a colourful, varied, fun Slaves to Darkness army.

I'm depressed as heck and I'm considering dropping both AoS and WH40K altogether.

I changed my mind on what i want to buy from GW. I continue to finish my armies that i planned, gathered, build, painted even if GW if putting them into legends. I am a hobbyist first and gamer second. I will just continue building an army that i like, using models that i like. And to be honest i am thinking about buying more Spiderfang before they get removed just because i always wanted to expand them. If they ever get new models, great, i can add more to that army, if not, than i have an army i really like the looks of or i can use legends rules or try a system like OPR.

I still like these older models very much and i dont feel like having to buy into the newest shiny toys because GW decides to refresh them and forcing me to buy the 2.0 version of models i basicly already own. 

Edited April 5 by Gitzdee

[pnkdth]

4 hours ago, PiotrW said:

Honestly speaking, I don't know what to do. I'm totally heartbroken by yesterday's news. GW nixed some of my favourite Stormcast minis *and* destroyed my concept for a colourful, varied, fun Slaves to Darkness army.

I'm depressed as heck and I'm considering dropping both AoS and WH40K altogether.

Yepp, most of the deleted units/factions will be used in other games. AoS 4th has to become a massive epic bombshell of a game for me to even consider it again. Deleting BoC like this isn't a trivial little thing where you can proxy it. Rule of cool works as long as the rules somewhat lets me play in a manner suitable to the lore. Anyone who claims S2D can even come close to what the current battletome is does not play BoC.

And to those who say "just play ToW" is giving off the same vibes as Activision when they said "don't you have mobile phones?"

Maybe I was naive but I was hoping for a FEC revival for BoC but I guess not. I wish I could be more positive but I'm just so deflated. BoC getting a refresh in 3-4 years is nothing but copium. So yeah, I'm thinking I'm done as well.

[PiotrW]

My personal opinion on the effects of the new cull:

Stormcast Eternals - this is just... stupid and unfair. Many of the removed models are relatively new and good-looking. What's the point of nixing them? If GW thinks there are too many SCE units for the faction to be manageable, then... sorry, it's on them, as it was them who kept releasing new waves of SCE with each edition. People spent money and time on these models - just nixing them to make room for new stuff is heavily disrespectful toward the client base. Again, it's real money we're talking about here.

When it comes to me, I've lost 15 Sequitors, 2 Ballistas, 6 Castigators, 2 mounted Lord-Arcanums, 1 Knight-Incantor and 1 Knight-Venator. Which is, I think, around 200 GBP of purchases. And nearly 1/4 of my monthly wage. Should I ask GW for compensation or something? Not to mention, I genuinely like these models...

Slaves to Darkness - here I lost 3 Warcry warbands along with 1 WHU team. Which is nearly another 100 GBP lost... Plus, this decision is, IMHO, very poor conceptually - I planned on using the Warcry warbands to give colour to my StD army. I was aiming for a wild, disorganized, flavourful army consisting of barbarians, heavy troops, kung-fu sorcerers, weirdo spider mutants etc. I was really stoked about the upcoming Darkoath box, as it would've tied all of this very neatly. Instead, GW will give us the Darkoath... which are awesome... but they will take away the colourful cultists. And the StD are back to the old, boring, strictly barbarians + armoured goons flavour. And my interest in this army suddenly drops a by a huge degree... And I have even made a custom female Chaos Lord and a custom Chaos Sorcerer for this army...

Skaven - here I won't comment, as it seems that GW is going for a wide range refresh. I just cannot imagine them dropping the Clanrats or the Storm Vermin completely... I suspect they will be back. So, no harm done (at least for me). I'll just try selling my unassembled metal Skaven (there's a market for those) and I'll pray that my plastic Warpfire Throwers from Isle of Blood are still usable.

Beast of Chaos - this is just... sad and arrogant. "You can still use them! Just go play a different game!". Sheesh.

On Bonesplitterz I can't comment, as I'm not familiar with that army at all.

Overall, all of this is really... alienating. GW really feels like an abusive company to me right now. I could just barely stand them releasing battletomes (20+ GBP each) and, then, declaring them obsolute a month later... but now, they are having people spend money on costly models, only to nix them? I'm honestly wondering if I can stomach supporting company like that anymore.

And yes, I do understand the need for range refreshes, but... just look at how Corvus Belli does that. They keep updating their Infinity models all the time, but they aren't usually nixing troops completely. They just release better models to represent them - and, if you don't to buy the new versions, there's no problem.

BTW. A sidenote: I shudder to think what the new battletomes will look like. The 10th edition codexes for WH40K actually are unreadable for me, as they us a 6 pts font on many pages. If GW goes this way with the AoS books, then... I won't even be able to read the battletomes. Darn...

[pnkdth]

1 hour ago, PiotrW said:

People spent money and time on these models - just nixing them to make room for new stuff is heavily disrespectful toward the client base. Again, it's real money we're talking about here.

A point which often glossed over.

It isn't just the rules and army that goes, it is everything put into them that's lost too. Sometimes it even turns into blatant gaslighting, e.g. "It is only plastic toy soldiers, stop being upset." GW's business model is build around their players getting more and more attached, not only because cynical side of using sunk cost, but also because the army becomes a part in how they interact with the hobby overall (building, paint, playing, reading, etc, etc). When you take time/effort/money away from someone that someone is understandably going to feel aggrieved.

 

[Neverchosen]

5 hours ago, PiotrW said:

Slaves to Darkness - here I lost 3 Warcry warbands along with 1 WHU team. Which is nearly another 100 GBP lost... Plus, this decision is, IMHO, very poor conceptually - I planned on using the Warcry warbands to give colour to my StD army. I was aiming for a wild, disorganized, flavourful army consisting of barbarians, heavy troops, kung-fu sorcerers, weirdo spider mutants etc. I was really stoked about the upcoming Darkoath box, as it would've tied all of this very neatly. Instead, GW will give us the Darkoath... which are awesome... but they will take away the colourful cultists. And the StD are back to the old, boring, strictly barbarians + armoured goons flavour. And my interest in this army suddenly drops a by a huge degree... And I have even made a custom female Chaos Lord and a custom Chaos Sorcerer for this army...

I always wanted a really complex but cool Warscroll for the varied Chaos Warcry Warbands. It would feature a generic statline that would be consistent across all the warbands. But then you would choose a specialization for the warband named after each individual Warcy unlocking an effect for the warband. For example Iron Golems would increase the save of the unit and Untamed Beasts might give deepstrike. 

This would make a flexible and unique unit that would encourage people to buy multiple warbands to find fun combinations that feels fitting for Chaos Undivided. Cypher Lords and Scions of the Flame for a ranged harassment unit. Corvus Cabal and Tarantulas Brood for speedy objective takers. Darkoath Savagers and Spire Tyrants for a deadly execution squad. Of course the varied unit sizes, base sizes and different effects would make it nearly impossible to balance... but it still could have been a really unique and cool identity for some of GW's best sculpts. 

[Son Of Morghur]

Hello,

I am very sorry for everyone.

I just gathered a whole Beasts Of Chaos Army, and planned to play them more seriously and to start engaging with the competitive scene, since I only played very casually until now, and wanted to get more invested in the gaming aspect at my local store.

I still plan on doing that, I will play the beasts as long as I can and as much as I can. I also still plan on painting my whole army, and I hope (just got some strong hopium delivered by my local Dark Eldar Salesman ) that we might get a similar looking army back.... Maybe under the form of chaos-freed Beatsmen roaming around in the mortal realms....

Only hope remains. I do not feel investing anything into my other armies at the moment - honestly this move did destroy my motivation. I am still waiting for Idoneth to get their second wave (I am kinda tired of playing the same armylists over and over again, be it a full eel list, or a full shark list, it does not feel that different in the end), and I am not fully convinced to buy more into sylvaneth. I couldn't bring myself to get Alarielle since the beginning of AoS.... But I like the new Cavalry units they just received.

 

I will stop buying GW products for at least a year. The whole scrapping just shattered my confidence in GW. I have enough to paint and a pile to work on.... Why should we lick the boot that kicks us anyways?

[JackStreicher]

On 4/5/2024 at 6:49 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

I only have one Stormcast, a Knight-Leonardos:

Fixed that.

*italian accent* oh, LEOnardO what-e are you-e doing here? Papa Sigmar hase been lookin for you-e

[Satyrical Sophist]

11 hours ago, PiotrW said:

My personal opinion on the effects of the new cull:

Stormcast Eternals - this is just... stupid and unfair. Many of the removed models are relatively new and good-looking. What's the point of nixing them? If GW thinks there are too many SCE units for the faction to be manageable, then... sorry, it's on them, as it was them who kept releasing new waves of SCE with each edition. People spent money and time on these models - just nixing them to make room for new stuff is heavily disrespectful toward the client base. Again, it's real money we're talking about here.

When it comes to me, I've lost 15 Sequitors, 2 Ballistas, 6 Castigators, 2 mounted Lord-Arcanums, 1 Knight-Incantor and 1 Knight-Venator. Which is, I think, around 200 GBP of purchases. And nearly 1/4 of my monthly wage. Should I ask GW for compensation or something? Not to mention, I genuinely like these models...

 

If you are interested in keeping on playing SCE, then the best I can think of off the top of my head is.

Sequitors as liberators.

5 Castigators as EITHER Judicators (If they are coming back with new models), OR Vigilors OR two sets of crossbow Vanguard Raptors.

Mounted Lord Arcanum as Mounted Aquilor or the new chocobo mounted Ruination Chamber lord.

The knight incantor can be a knight arcanum.

The Knight venator and the ballista are currently without easy proxying. I think there is a non zero chance we get an updated winged stormcast hero. I'm less sure of the ballista, but its possible.

 

I had a go eyeballing how many points of units I lost, and its kind of eye watering. I have a fair chunk of soul wars and mortal realms stuff, and have a full beasts of chaos army.

I think it works out as about 5k of stormcast and 5k of BoC (might be a bit under, but counting the war cry stuff, definitely over 5k). It's been an emotional time.

 

Thematically for beasts I'm currently thinking of seeing about running them as Khorne maybe. Comparisons are a bit vaguer, but I THINK that it could work. (Bestigor as Blood Warriors, Gor as reavers, maybe even minotaur as mighty skull crushers).

[Loskelodd]

Well, my Bonesplitterz weren't used for AoS to begin with; they tread the battlefields of the 41st millenium. I am a bit bummed there won't be new kits released to use for kitbashing but what can you do? Ironjawz will have to be the replacement.

[EccentricCircle]

Its interesting to see the dichotomy between hobby first folks like myself going "we'd better get the models we like before they're gone" and the game first folks going "glad I didn't buy those models"

 Both are legitimate points of views but I'd like to expand on my philosophy a bit in case it helps anyone come to terms with things.

If you are feeling down about having "lost" a lot, remember you don't have to do what gw tells you. There are a lot of great games out there which aren't nearly as prescriptive as warhammer. Casual games, proxying, playing older rulesets, conversions etc. are all valid options.

Rules have always been ephemeral, because gw churn everything as fast as they can get away with so they can sell the same product over and over with pointless changes.

birthday B what 20 years of hobby, and the death and rebirth of games like wfb and necromunda have taught me is that minis are what matter.

So long as you have models you love, you can find ways to use them and their time could well come round again.

But I think getting invested in any one ruleset is risky because frankly GW don't make them to last or give us anything like what would usually be considered long term support. We as a community may find we need to do what the mordheim and inq28 folks have done, and build our own AoS.

So hold ob to the models you've poured love and effort into. And don't let a bunch of corporate shareholders motivated by greed tell you what you can and can't do with them.

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

6 hours ago, EccentricCircle said:

So hold ob to the models you've poured love and effort into. And don't let a bunch of corporate shareholders motivated by greed tell you what you can and can't do with them.

Well, to be fair, these greedy baddies have said that we can do exactly what we like with our miniatures. They've made it perfectly clear that there's still going to be rules for everything. It's just a fraction of players who are really affected by the decision to restrict what's allowed at official events. 

[PiotrW]

16 hours ago, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

Well, to be fair, these greedy baddies have said that we can do exactly what we like with our miniatures. They've made it perfectly clear that there's still going to be rules for everything. It's just a fraction of players who are really affected by the decision to restrict what's allowed at official events. 

Well, not exactly.

When it comes to SCE, what GW said is that the squatted units will receive an free PDF supplement with updated rules. Which is fair. But next year, they will be moved to Legends (maybe with some final rebalancing) and then... it's over. No more updates. So, how long until using these units will become impossible to play with due to further rule changes, balance issues etc.?

And, honestly speaking, I don't understand why they cannot keep the PDF supplement thing going... Producing tons of miniatures is costly, I get it. So I could live with GW declaring that the Sacrosanct models won't be produced anymore - so long as they kept providing rules for them. So that people who had them wouldn't be losing anything. Instead, we'll get one update and... that's it for the Sacrosanct. Of course, the PR people at GW keep telling "We're encouring you to keep using these models", but... how are we supposed to do it? By homebrewing rules for them?

Seriously, would it be that hard for GW to maintain 10 more warscrolls?

[Big Kim Woof-Woof]

10 minutes ago, PiotrW said:

Well, not exactly.

When it comes to SCE, what GW said is that the squatted units will receive an free PDF supplement with updated rules. Which is fair. But next year, they will be moved to Legends (maybe with some final rebalancing) and then... it's over. No more updates. So, how long until using these units will become impossible to play with due to further rule changes, balance issues etc.?

They've said they'll update the rules as often as needed as long as this new edition lasts. 

Ultimately, though, it comes down to the question of how long it's reasonable to keep supporting rules for models that are no longer produced. And that's a bit of a moot point.