EccentricCircle

Thank you! I'd not thought about Slaaneshi pretenders, that could be another interesting angle to explore. I might need to finally read the Slaanesh battletome. At the moment I only have vague ideas of how my friend's armies will fit into the campaign if I'm honest. We've not started playing yet, so hopefully once everyone is developing lore, it will all intertwine nicely. I like your shared continent for sure. I think these sorts of games work well when there is a real sense of place and history to a campaign. I've never gotten to play a game where the roll of the dice determined whether a city would stand or fall yet, or been able to explore the larger scale ramifications of games as the narrative unfolds. Hopefully if my warcry campaign goes down well I can get my folks into doing something like that. I like the idea that some of your folks turned to chaos, and those who stayed loyal to sigmar were reforged. That's a great narrative hook, and I'd think it would make for some really dramatic battles when the two forces clash! I also really like your take on Morghur, that definitely fits with my idea that things rise and fall within the Warp. Morghur might exist as a sort of twisted and misshapen manifestation, but if the beastmen become ascendant and their faith shapes the realm of chaos more than that of the humans who follow Khorne then maybe he could become a genuine threat to the other, more established gods. Something which the big four definitely would want to avoid by stamping out the worship of "lesser" chaos gods whenever they can. Your diagram of how the gods fit together is also really cool. I'm sure I've seen a similar write up of a wheel of chaos before, maybe on Chaos Dwarfs online. I don't know whether that was you, I feel like it had them in a different order and had malal at the center of the wheel?

Wow. As a pure xenos player and fan of tyranids this s crazy. That said, its clear that GW consider the different colours of space marines to be different factions with their own books and models (albeit with a lot of crossover potential). Should we not thus consider spin off factions on the Xenos side as well. So it would be more fair to consider all Eldar together for example. For this comparison I think they consider new stuff for Genestealer cults to be as much a tyranid expansion as Space Wolves are a Space Marine one. To bring things back to AoS this does put the glut of stormcast in. Perspective at least. Of course the advantage of our more varied range is more variety, but the disadvantage is that there are more old ranges to languish.

Thanks! Yes, I figure that the Iron Golems are the most Hashut aligned of the warcry factions (though I don't actually have any of them yet. Some day...) I'm conceptualising my army as being based around the "other" four chaos gods. So there are Chaos Dwarves representing Hashut, Beastmen representing Zuvassin the god of destruction, and then my Cypher Lords, are the "Apostates of Necoho" representing his role as god of atheism. Most of the rest of the army is made up of unaligned barbarians and the other warcry bands, who I will align with Malal, unless something in the warband's lore really points it at another faction! I have a small contingent of skaven, though I've yet to decide whether they (and by extension the horned rat) are actually wholehearted supporters of the plot, or are just mercenary and opportunists. I think the latter, partly because it fits the Skaven character, and partly because it keeps the symbolism of four gods vs four gods. I figure that Khorne, Nurgle, Tzeentch and Slaanesh weren't always the dominant chaos gods in the warp, but over the aeons different entities wax and wane as the warp reflects the whims of the different realities it touches. The only "major" god who is represented in my army is of course Tzeentch, since naturally He is the god you can count on to be lending his support to every plot, even one to depose his own chosen one! The basic philosophy is that Archaon, by his very nature is a heretic. He is supposed to be the greatest warrior of Chaos, but that is a lie. If you claim to be the Everchosen for thousands of years, presiding over a tyranical empire in the name of "Chaos", then all you are really doing is leading to stagnation and in a strange sense order. My warriors have decided that for Chaos to truly reign, Archaon must die, and the cycle must be allowed to begin again. In short if Chaos is not allowed to destroy itself then it is not truly Chaos. Thus must a new Everchosen rise to replace the old, and Chaos be renewed. It even kind of goes back to the conspiracy theory about what Archaon actually read in the prophecy in the Inqusition's vaults all those millennia ago when he was still a sigmarite templar. There is at least one theory I've seen which states that what he learned wasn't that he couldn't defeat chaos and should turn to darkness in despair, but rather that the way to kill the Chaos Gods was to destroy the world, and rob them of their worship. Clearly that failed. Even when the old world burned the Chaos Gods were sustained by the worship given to them in every other dimension (most notably 40K). But maybe Archaon is still secretly working against them, and has found a new way to stymie chaos and lock it into an eternal decline. Certainly that's what my warriors believe, and why they seek to depose him. To this end my Darkoath Warqueen Elsar Ragnarsdottir has declared herself Everchosen and has embarked upon a great quest across the realms to assemble the missing fragments to the Crown of Chaos, which I'm planning to run as a narrative play warcry campaign in our gaming group. All the factions will compete to gain the fragments of the crown. Long ago, just before the breaking of the old world, Archaon used fell necromancy to hide his soul in a phylactery, so that he could never truly die. Thus he would rob the Chaos Gods of their prize in a final act of spite. But Be'lakor stole the phylactery, and sealed it in the Anarchives, an ancient repository of dark lore hidden within the winding pathways of the Realm of Chaos. He sealed the library, using his own crown as key, before shattering it and scattering the fragments across the Realms (and maybe beyond, I like the idea that the campaign will actually take us back in time to the old world at one point, and maybe even into the 40K dimension, perhaps a shard is kept in the black library of the Eldar!) So now warbands seek the crown of the First Daemon Prince, either to steal Archaon's soul, return it to him, or destroy it. My queen wants to set herself in his place as I've said. My friend's stormcast want to destroy it, and my other friend's nighthaunt want to offer the soul of the Everchosen to Nagash as the ultimate prize. I'm not sure who else will be playing, but hopefully there will be some more "loyalist" chaos factions. We'll see how the campaign goes, and what happens. Hopefully it will run through out next year.

This sounds awesome. I really like this narrative, and it sounds like it will give a great focus to your force. My own work in progress chaos army has some similar ideas at the heart of it. Firstly I am a big fan of Chaos Dwarves, and have an army of them. So I wanted my Slaves to Darkness army to be able to align with them philosophically. I've always liked the idea of the ragged barbarian tribes on the edges of civilisation, and the old lore that the warriors of chaos trade with the Chaos Dwarves, to get their equipment, hellcanons etc. Thus it was clear that Hashut is going to be far more prominent than the other "major" chaos gods. It also drew me away from collecting a heavily armoured chaos warrior focused warband, as my dwarves already fill a bit of that niche, and I wanted something contrasting, more based around the warcry bands. I will post more about my background when I have more time, but essentially they are a coalition of tribes who believe that it is time for the everchosen to fall, and that it is their destiny to overthrow Archaeon, and set the next champion of chaos undivided on the throne... And to unseat the champion of the four great powers, they are going to need the favour of all the others...

When is it not the right time to say that?

I posted this breakdown in the Old World thread a few weeks back, but this is my assessment of which factions already have cross compatibility and how the rumours of upcoming stuff might prep the field for the Old World to use a lot of extant AoS minis: In terms of model support, there is already a lot of stuff they can draw on. Lets break down the old WFB factions into Ready to go, just need some heroes appropriate to the era: Warriors of Chaos (Mostly still out there as S2D) Beasts of Chaos (All still in production as themselves) Skaven (All still in production as themselves) Lizardmen (All still in production as Seraphon) Ogre Kingdoms (All still in production as mawtribes) Dark Elves (Almost all still in production as part of CoS) The Empire (Almost all still in Cities, but might need an update to match the aesthetic of the earlier era, if Dawnbringers are coming, expect there to be Crossover potential!) High Elves (Half the Lumineth range is usable as updated High Elves) Vampire Counts (Half the Soulblight range is usable as updated VC) Night Goblins (Half the Gloomspite range is usable as updated Night Goblins) Still have a core of models, but would benefit from more variety Wood Elves (Still a few in Cities, and half of Sylvaneth covers the tree spirits, mostly. New Glade Guard, Ariel and Orion, and Tree kin, and you'd basically be there. I could see that and a few other shiny things coming with a "battle for Athel Loren campaign book, and us being done!) Dwarfs (They still have a core of stuff in cities, but are missing enough that they would need a fairly big release to cover the gaps. You can't really use fyreslayers as slayers, we need thunderers, quarellers, regular dwarfs, and of course heroes, if dispossessed are coming, expect there to be crossover potential!) Savage Orcs (You could make the case for expanding bonesplitters and making a more solid Savage Orcs army at the same time, but they were always a subfaction anyway, so I don't think its that likely they'd get devoted support) Can't really use anything currently on sale, so would need a rerelease: Tomb Kings (None of the current undead really fit, but you could put the Sphynx, Snake and Tomb Guard kits back into production, and then you'd basically just need skeleton archers and some updated chariots. Since we've not got skelly archers in soulblight there could even be some crossoever potential there if they did a Nu-lamia update paired with an updated Tomb Kings release.) Chaos Dwarfs (but there are all those rumours right? I'd expect that if they do come, half the range will match their old loadout while the other half with be realms-y like the elves and vampires.) Brettonia (This is the first big one. Like Tomb Kings they have a lot of old kits, but I feel like fewer hold up, and would be likely to be rereleased as is. I think that a Kislev style campaign/expansion where they really update and expand them would be sure to get them brownie points with the diehard fanbase though. I could see it being one of the earlier campaigns. Until then though people can probably muddle through with old models or knights and peasants from other manufacturers. Somewhere a GW accountant would be crying, but the fanbase would be ok.) Orcs and Goblins (This is the other really big gap in the line, and in my opinion the most important one. We could get by without Bretonians or even my beloved Tomb Kings until such time as they saw fit to do an expansion centred on them. Classic orcs and goblins though as such a central threat to the old world that I think they would have to do something with them. Again I'm not sure that the old kits hold up too well, and its not long since they were phased out. Unlike the other recently updated armies Kruleboyz just don't replicate the classic army. so wouldn't be usable as proxies I don't think. We've not heard much about orcs in the previews so far, but if I had to pick a faction to be invading Kislev in the starter set, its they and not chaos whom I would choose.) So there you have it. All three Chaos factions already have pretty good support, as do High Elves and possibly The Empire, who were always the other most popular hero factions. It would take a few solid releases to get full coverage, but not out of step with the kind of support blood bowl or necromunda gets, averaged over a year or two. There is no reason to suppose that anything old world wouldn't fit into AoS, and the aesthetics of the two games really aren't that different. A huge amount of fairly recent stuff would work equally well in both.

Yeah, I feel as though over all we really don't have anything to complain about. The gaps between releases are always going to feel tortuous to those who are waiting for the next big thing, but they aren't disproportionate. In fact GW is very even handed with releases for the two systems, while AoS still does lag behind in popularity, they market it and release stuff as though it is just as big a deal as 40K. Its only when you move away from the gaming products themselves and into the tie ins, novels, cartoons and memorabilia that there is a clear disparity in what gets released. But I think that gives us the feeling of being un-favoured somehow, when as far as actual rules and minis go we really aren't.

I agree about conversion, definitely do what you want to do and use the models you want to use. As to picking models you like, rather than ones you'll like playing, I have a counterpoint... Rules change. What might be fun to play today might not be in six months time. If you buy based on rules and game play, then you will have a solid army right now, but over time it will wax and wane as they all do (except beastmen). Whereas if you get models you like, then you will have those models forever, and while their star might rise and fall, they will always be what you enjoyed collecting in the first place.

Agreed, there are no bricks in the underhive.

Lets discuss the chaos pantheon stuff in another thread some time. I agree its not a good idea to derail the rumours further, but I like your schema and I have thoughts!

It might just be a certain anti AoS bias, but most people I know are calling them "new vampire counts"

The one that most often throws me is actually SoB meaning Sons in AoS land and Sisters to the 40k lot. That and BoK, which for some reason I always read as Beasts of Kaos, before remembering that Khorne is a thing.

" What is the acronym for Idoneth again?" "IDK" "Fair enough, I'll ask someone else" Or GW should specifically create more factions with the same acronyms as common bits of internet parlance. Just to confuse things more!

I've been skeptical of the rumour that there isn't going to be a battleforce, but seeing that bundle... Yeah, that really does look like a way to do battleforces without a) printing more packaging, and b) selling it through 3rd party stores. I'll be interested to see whether any more bundles pop up in the coming days. A few other factions lend themselves to this style, having multiple start collectings which could be thrown together at a discount.

Personally I don't think there will be a new set of core rules for Warcry any time soon. This may be wishful thinking, but the rulebook in catacombs actually incorporated errata and updates. It wasn't branded as a new edition or new product, but I can't see them going to the effort of releasing a new run of the book if they weren't expecting it to be "the" definitive version for a while. We also got the four grand alliance books. Again that sort of compendium or index release is what you usually get at the start of a cycle. I thus think the first substantive update to warcry has actually been and gone, and that it will be staying much the same for a while yet.

He'd make a great mercenary ogre working on a KO sky ship. Maybe my admiral had better tell his crew to start salting all that sky kraken meat ready for a hungry new crewmate! The wacry box looks great. I love the terrain. Glad it's not a new edition, as others have said the game is in great place for casual and narrative pkay. We need campaigns like this and catacombs more than a rules update. A new edition probably won't fix anything anyway, just force us to re-buy the rules.

"Not wanting to devalue the brand" is their stock answer for why they don't do sales usually. I remember when AoS came out, I wanted to complete my collection of 8e army books, and scoured a few different GW shops for them. I asked if they would be put on sale now that the game was being discontinued, and was told "Nope! That would be mean to the people who already bought them at full price, you can buy them for full price, until next Thursday when they all go in the bin"

I think/hope that the "lying" comment is a miscommunication. It looks like the "burst your bubble post" is actually replying to my comment about the veracity of what I was told by a GW salesperson, not your questions. I think he read both posts together, and thought my statement that I didn't know how reliable the store managers statements were was directed at him, and then when you responded he thought that was you. I may be wrong, but that's how it looks to me reading back after the fact. It doesn't surprise me at all that they destroy the books and cards, as those are perceived to have a "shelf life" even though by any sensible definition they shouldn't. I had hoped that this didn't extend to the actual models themselves, which explicitly don't expire. That said, I'm afraid to say that in this day and age it doesn't surprise me at all that they might do this. Consumerism is a blight upon society, and at this stage I don't think there is much that big companies do which I can be shocked by, sadly. Lets just hope plenty of those models end up in the hands of people who will love and cherish them before they are sacrificed on the altar or profit margins. Its not as though we have infinite plastic reserves, oil is a fossil fuel, and one day there won't be any of it left. More companies need to take the route Lego are and start developing more sustainable bio-plastics. Its likely more expensive for them in the short term, but it would be nice if future generations are able to have these models too!

Thanks, yeah don't put too much stock in my anecdote, it definitely falls into the "thing a shopkeeper told me once category" I have no way to verify that he was right/honest about it.

I once asked my local store manager about the recyclbility of used sprues, and was told that internally gw collect them up to melt down an recycle. Now je may have been wrong, but he certainly seemed to think the shops sent waste sprues back to the factory. I'm less clear on whether we can put waste sprues in the plastic recycling. It's polystyrene right? So maybe?

I absolutely see where you are coming from, but th counterpoint, which may be just as unpopular is this... GW have been too obsessively focused on their "main games" for long enough, there is actually no rule which says that those should be the focu s. With proper support the "Side games" could be just a big of a brand. They know what sells better than we do, and will always follow the money.

Thanks! Yes I hope so.

Thanks for your post, but there is no need to get into an argument on my account. I'll set the record straight and then say no more on the subject, but suffice to say accessibility is one fairly major component of why I'll be sitting out 3e, along with there not being a local scene for AoS here. Playing the game in general is made harder by eyesight issues, and while there are certainly work-arounds like trying to get the rules on a larger screen, there is always a cost benefit analysis. I would rather they kept the free pdfs, as that way I have a system in place to make those rules accessible. As it stands I'd have to work out a new way of doing things, for relatively little gain. For everyone's sake I hope that some level of free rules do end up being available in the app. Saving the old warscrolls before they're gone, or having legacy rules in the app is all well and good, but as things evolve and get superseded, that ceases to be good for those who want to stay up to date. I reckon that my best bet is to stick with AoS2 and the very comprehensive legends stats, for the occasions I persuade someone to play the game. If and when 4e rolls around I'll revisit that decision and see if I want to buy in again. (Chaos Dwarves if they ever come may change my mind for example). Otherwise I'm happy with the legacy version, and know it will continue to work for me.

Agreed. Its a testament to how good this community is that we can go this many pages of deliberately controversial statements without it degenerating into a mess. While I certainly don't agree with everything that has been raised, and some points have been a little more fraught than others, it has been thought provoking throughout. I think it also highlights that at least within this somewhat biased cross section of the community, many of the things we assume are going to be controversial actually have quite a lot of support.

That's a fair assessment!