EccentricCircle

For example at the moment Triple Helix has Kurdoss, bladegheists, grimchasts and dreadscythes each for £20.63. https://www.triplehelixwargames.co.uk/product-category/warhammer-age-of-sigmar/grand-alliance-death/night-haunt/ There would be some P&P to pay, probably a fiver or so. Thus I'd need to be able to get the box for £80 or less for it to be a good deal. If the hexwraiths and chainrasps had been stuff I actually wanted then it would have been a no brainer, but getting a few more of those isn't worth paying £100 for the box at full price, even if it is technically a "good deal" in terms of what you get for the price. If you don't want said stuff, then its not a good deal. You can spend a fortune saving money and all that.

I think I'm actually purchasing more hobbits than I was, because unlike AoS models, the Lord of the Rings stuff is still relatively cheap. Most of the old metal LOTR blisters are still reasonable, its only the newer plastic kits, and some of the stuff that was released along with the hobbit movies that is getting a bit pricey. Interestingly I think the gradual price increases across the board may be de-senstising me to some of the higher prices. I remember back when the Hobbit sets came out, that the step up in price for what I was used to in LOTR and Warhammer was a step too far, and I hardly bought any of them (In fact that was what made me really dive into WFB, after not quite getting into it before). Now everything has increased to the point that the Hobbit range is in line with everything else, and LOTR looks quite cheap by comparison. Buying AoS models has clearly warped my sense of what is value for money more than I realised!

Here's a thought about the Kurnothi. There's debate as to whether they will be their own thing, whether they should be part of Sylvaneth, etc. But what if we're seeing the start of other factions getting what I'll call the "Stormcast Treatment". Stormcast have been repeatedly expanded, but the way they have done it isn't by just adding new stuff here and there, but by basically building a series of Stormcast "mini factions" each built around a different theme. Sacrosanct could almost stand as their own thing, even if the other chambers didn't exist, but work equally well as part of a larger collection. Could Kurnothi be the same thing for the Sylvaneth? Albeit with a slightly less coherant visual design. They could be the next "chamber" for that faction, not just more of the same, but a distinct, and in a sense independant force which nontheless would work with the existing lineup to make a more diverse range. I wonder if we might see a separate army book initially, but then see it all rolled back in in future, in much the same way that Extremis stormcast initially had their own book, but then everything was gradually updated to all be in the same battletome. Of course its far too early to have any evidence one way or the other, but it could be an interesting way to go. Imagine if an updated Ironjaws army took another iconic orc image, such as Wyvern cavalry, and made a coherant subfaction based around that. It would look good with the other Ironjaws, but could also stand alone, and it would gradually all be rolled in together. I could see the same thing happening with Kharadron Overlords. You already have the distinction between the actual Arkanaught troops, and the Grundstock marines. They could add more subfactions, each with their own distinct flair.

The article didn't say anything about the prices, so surely that's all still just rumour and speculation until they actually go up for preorder. I'm sure there are people for whom its not a good deal. If you've already got multiple start collecting sets then sure, you'd be getting more of stuff you don't need. However if you are considering starting skaven, or wanting to expand on a small collection it could still be useful, even if its not as much of a saving as it could be. I was looking at it from the position of having the Spire of Dawn Skaven, but no others. If I wanted to expand on those to make a bigger army then it would be a really nice way to do that. As it stands I'm not in the market for a new army project, and skaven are a long way down my list of priorities, but I could definitely see situations in which it would be quite a cool collection.

And we Dwarf players have never forgiven the slight of being outnumbered 3 to 1 either! That grudge shall stand in the book until the end of the world after this one if it has to!

They look good, but I'm personally not to fussed about most of them. Stormcast looks fine, but I'm not after any more of them. The Gloomspite one is a great selection, but nothing which I really need more of. Skaven looks awesome, but I have no plans to start a full Skaven army. The most interesting one is the Nighthaunt, since it is more or less what I was hoping it would be (and suggested it might be a couple of times earlier in the thread actually!) I am keen to get Kurdoss, bladegeists, grimghasts, and dreadscythes, so it could be a good way to do that, but it will really depend on the price. I kind of wish they'd put the newer cavalry in there instead of the old Hexwraiths, as I've got about as many of those as I'm ever going to need already. I guess chainrasps were always going to be in there, but again, I'd be more likely to go for it if they had gone for something a little more interesting, and which I didn't already have plenty of. So I guess I'll see how cheaply I can get the box. I could pick up the four kits i'm interested in from one of the online discount vendors stores for a little over £80, so unless its cheaper than that there isn't too much point buying it just to get some more chainrasps and hexwraiths. We shall see!

That is my feeling yes, but finding opponents who agree to disregard the FAQs, (even if they'll agree to play narrative games in the first place), can be quite challenging. Mind you finding AoS opponents at all is proving quite challenging at the moment, so that might be exacerbating the situation!

I'd not realised that they'd done that with Sisters, that is interesting! You're probably right that that is a special case, rather than a sign of things to come, and as you say their whole marketing strategy is very built around a repetitive hype cycle. I've never thought that that was the healthiest system, but it certainly seems to be working for them. I guess the thing is that as a narrative player, I don't actually want to be constantly checking for updates, FAQs, six monthly points rebalancing etc. I'd far rather buy a book, and have it be all I need, for however long I choose to play the game. I can't be the only person who feels that way,

Yeah,precisely! That's why I'm advocating an open play test process, which is becoming standard practice in the rpg world but doesn't yet seem to have caught on for wargames. Companies like paizo and Wizards of the Coast put out playtest materials as much as s year ahead of the product being finalised, and actively solicit feedback from hundreds of thousands of people. Suppose GW were to contact all the major tourney organisers and give beta rules to everyone who was taking part. Or release a bi yearly pack with prototype rules for up coming products. They probably wouldn't get the same level of responses that the rpg companies do, but they would have a lot more data than their fairly limited playtest pools. The downside is that they would have to be less secretive about their plans, which is why i unfortunately can't see it happening any time soon.

I guess you could pledge your allegiance to Quorn! (I now have a doubt as to whether mycoprotien is actually gluten free though.) You're quite welcome!

That's awesome! I'm going to now have that stuck in my head for hours... For Hours!

The "Farmers of Sigmar" rumour is silly, everyone knows that they would have to have a silly name like Grainreap Harvestators. Battletomes like Cities of Sigmar or Beasts of Chaos are definitely in a minority when it comes to AoS naming conventions.

Its got to be Kurnothi right? That design is very elven, but with a definite beastly element to it. I think a waystone for a reimagined woodelf/ wardancer faction is a solid call.

For sure! Its just a case of when they figure that out, and how many people have to buy the book before they do.

It would be nice if they did their playtesting before publishing the books though. Its quite frustrating to buy an expensive product, and have its rules change a few weeks to six months later, because the tournament scene have decided its a bit over powered. I'd much rather they released prototype rules six months ahead, let the tournaments work with them for a bit, balanced everything, and then released a battletome at the end of the process. Open playtests are becoming more and more common across tabletop gaming, as companies are increasingly realising how big of a resource the fan community is. GW is half way there with their more frequent updates, but I'd actually be fine with a slower rate of releases, if I knew that at the end of it there would be a solid product, which was going to stand the test of time. Ideally I would love them to break the cycle of constantly updating stuff. Get everything working, and then focus on producing new material which is balanced to what already exists. Once everything is up to a 2.0 standard then there really is no excuse for further power creep from one release to another, and they should be able to focus on diversification, expansion, or updates to the model lines, without adversely affecting the rules. Its just not something that's achievable with their current rate of updates.

I bet the red painting handles will sell out quite rapidly. The red ones always go faster. It always seems strange to see people simultaneously worrying about army boxes selling out, while saying they've bought multiple copies. Maybe they should limit it to one per customer?

No worries, just please consider how you word critical posts, and whether criticism is justified by the situation. I'd argue that this isn't a thread about army books across editions. What I wanted to communicate is that proportion of armies with books is one metric by which editions can be judged, and and that AoS was doing fairly well in that account. Anyway, here is a snapshot of my Warhammer shelves: Kislev and Ravening Hordes are in there too, but are a bit too thin to be visible. I also have the big box set for WFRP 3e, but that doesn't fit on the shelves. I'm not sure what I'll do when I get around to getting the next few battle tomes, maybe 40K will have to move to a different shelf!

Because its not a problem of just listing the books, but rather of defining what counted as factions at any given time. I didn't need to Google a list of books, i could literally see them all on my bookshelf while writing, and knew for a fact that all extant factions had at least one book across either 4e or 5e, that 7e and 8e didn't update everything that had come before, and that 6e was closest to a complete set, but missing a separate Daemons book, and updated Chaos Dwarfs. However where I was uncertain was whether that stuff was a valid mark against it. CDs weren't really a thing any more by that point, and Chaos was in the process of splitting into multiple factions, having originally just been one armybook for the lot. It would be absurd to criticise 5e for its lack of tomb king and vampire count books, when they were all just factions within the undead army back then. Without reading a lot of army lists and potentially cross referencing with catalogues I couldn't be certain whether they "missed a book" that edition or not. Its quite possible that Daemons were fully playable with their own lists, despite not having a book, or that all daemon lists were not yet a thing. 6e and 7e also shared trade dress in some cases so there were a couple of books that could have been either. Sure lexicanum could have told me that. However most of this was beyond the scope of the post I wanted to write, and I was typig it on my tablet after already going to bed anyway, so wasn't about to start doing extensive research. I thus couched my post slightly more vaguely than I could have, knowing that someone would be quick to chime in if 6e was considered a complete update by the standards of the time. I didn't expect a fairly casual post on a typically friendly forum to be held to the highest standards of scholarship, and was wanting to spark discussion, more than provide a definitive answer. I hope that helps.

I'm not sure there has ever been a past edition during which every faction had an army book, maybe sixth ed came closest? On that metric its definitely doing well!

There are also some bizarre ebay listings which sell the unopened box for a higher price than it would cost to get one direct from GW (all postage and packing taken into consideration). I have no idea how those sellers expect to every sell anything. I can just about understand people charging a premium for built and painted models because they think their paintjob is worth the price (It rarely actually is in my opinion, but that's another matter...) Unopened models should be at RRP or below though, otherwise whats the point?

Actually thinking about it the bigger change has come from the latest batch of models being discontinued. I wasn't too impressed by that, and it has kind of swung me back towards buying more second hand stuff. I've probably spent a similar amount as before, but a smaller proportion has gone to GW directly, with far more being to second hand sellers, ebay etc. I already try to get things from either my local games store, or the triple helix webstore, so its probably not that noticeable a shift. However I'll be getting less from them too, while trying to track down older models on ebay etc.

I pretty much don't buy things when they release, but wait a while to see what ends up in start collecting and battleforces sets. However as the price of those goes up, that is proving to be less useful a source of discounts. I had been considering getting another FEC battleforce to build a zombie dragon, but shelved that idea when the price went up. It didn't even go up very much in that case, but I decided I had better things to focus on. I think I need to not get a new army next year, just focus on adding the odd set to ones I'm already using. That's not just down to the price rise though. Its just generally a very expensive hobby.

And with realmgates being the best ways to travel, coming through a portal with little idea where it's actually taking you is a much bigger danger than in most settings too. This sort of getting lost would be a major hazard!

They already did a made to order of the chaos dwarf blood bowl team a few years back. I'm not saying that rules out them doing it again, but wouldn't that be the first time something got a second made to order run?

A nighthaunt box with Kurdoss as the centrepiece and Bladegeists and harridans could be good, I've thought from the start that that would be the way to go. If they also included the full box of Grimghasts then it would be a really nice complement to Soul Wars and Storm Strike.