[Will WH: The Olde World armies be marriable with Age of Sigmar?]

GW may have called it "25" or 28 mm respectively, but none of their i models have been true 25mm for decades. Newer models don't really keep to a proper scale, but are more in the 32mm range. From at least the mid 90s wfb models were "Heroic" scale and bulky for 28mm models. Lord of the Rings is closer to 25mm and that was specifically to distinguish the models from warhammer, so that they wouldn't be compatible.

So while scale creep is certainly a thing, there wasn't some massive shift when aos came out, it was just the continuation of what had already been going on.

[Warhammer - The Old World]

Hmm, That all sounds ok, but it also seems like a pretty safe guess more than inside info. Some of it (such as which editions it will take after), should eventually be falsifiable, but by that time its proved true or false I don't think there is much else in there which we'll care about.  Interesting though.

[The Rumour Thread]

I think AoS has the quite big advantage that complete novelty is a possibility. They could showcase just about anything vaguely fantasy themed, tell us how it will fit into the realms and we'll go "Cool! makes sense". So long as it doesn't get too sci fi, or contradict something existing its basically all good (and even Kharadrons are pretty sci fi really).

Conversely 40K is very established, and when they do bring out new factions is almost always with a view to expanding on some small facet of lore like the genestealers, or the various imperial ordos which are now their own thing.

We would ironically like a bit more of that every so often!

But then you come to Tyranids, and I love them to bits, but really what more do they need? They could bring out plastic lictors and biovores, get rid of the last of the resin. That would be good. But the basic troops, while ancient are fine for what they are. Its a horde army, and I don't want to have to paint dozens of ultra-detailed, really dynamic, monopose hormagaunts. The present kits are all nicely designed, clear and not overly cluttered. They might be a bit lacking in imagination, but that isn't something the army needs.

Given the kind of range updates GW do, its better for them to go all out on the genestealers, who have a lot more variety and a lot more potential for all the fiddly little details and gems, and ornate guns that GW loves so much. They may not be "expanded tyranids" but they expand on the tyranids in a new and valuable way, adding another aspect to the game.

It would be good to get similar kind of updates for AoS, maybe update the clunkier lizardmen, but I argue frequently that most of them are fine. If you are after a horde of naked lizard people, there is only so much design space to explore there, and making them to detailed makes it harder to paint up a big army.

But suppose they were to bring out a new Slann servitor race, for sake of the argument Amazons are probably the closest equivalent to Genestealers vs Nids. Could they do more with making humanoid aztec inspired slann cultists than they could actually trying to think of new lizardmen to fill some niche which the Seraphon are presently missing?

This is why I hope that we get the Kurnothi as their own faction, rather than part of Sylvaneth. We don't need to dillute the visual integrity of the Sylvaneth. We can have an independant faction which can freely ally with them, which has its own design space.

Just think how good Fyreslayers or Daughters could be if they got the Genestealer cults treatment. That's what I'd like to see rather than total refreshes for ranges which are still mostly good. (Skaven get a pass, since they are in dire straights)

[Chaos Gods and Different Forms of Worship.]

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?

 

[The Rumour Thread]

4 hours ago, The Red King said:

Setting aside the fact that "Xenos" is not a faction but literally the lump category for "not power armor" there have been 142 space marine kits released since the last time Tyranid got a new model.

 

 

So a revamp of the necron line doesn't really impress me as an eldar player and a revamp of the eldar line isn't gonna make tyranid feel any better, and in between each "huge revamp" of any one faction space marines will get at least the same number of kits if not more.

 

That's a disparity that doesn't sit well with me.

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.

[Chaos Gods and Different Forms of Worship.]

3 hours ago, Neverchosen said:

Wow this is a terrific idea, are you using Warcry Warbands? I feel like the Iron Golems seem like they are likely worshipers of Hashut. Are you using the Chaos Dwarves as proxies for Chaos Warriors? I feel like this force is something Be'Lakor would likely want to dip his shadowy talons into particularly if they can upend the status quo in the eight points. 

I also wish them luck in taking down Archaon even though it means they'd technically come into conflict with my own army... that is if my army can ever find the time to leave the fictional region I developed for my lore and the neighbouring regions of my friends armies.

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.

[Chaos Gods and Different Forms of Worship.]

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...

[Rumours on low Dominion sales - discussion]

27 minutes ago, Skreech Verminking said:

Since we have reached the thirteenth page, I thought it would be the right thing to say,

”Skaven are awesome!!!!”

When is it not the right time to say that?

[Will WH: The Olde World armies be marriable with Age of Sigmar?]

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.

[The Rumour Thread]

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.

[Unpopular opinion thread]

51 minutes ago, pnkdth said:

Do not choose an army based on the minis you like. It is a popular thing to say but since this hobby demands your time and money you can easily end up with an army you absolutely hate playing which means you'll never want to actually play again. Do you research, ask around, and get your head in the game and then adapt whatever army you end up liking into the look you like. There's TONS of different themes you can do. Do you like chaos but prefer stormcast models? Use stormcast model and convert/kitbash or simply paint them like the chaos faction you want to play. Anyone who tells you you can't is not worth the time of day.

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.

[The Rumour Thread]

43 minutes ago, Still-young said:

Necromunda bases don’t look like that. They don’t have scenic bases built into the models, and the scenic bases they use for Necromunda are a lot more sci-fi looking. I would be very surprised if it’s Necromunda. 
 

It looks more AoS/Fantasy to me than 40k related. 

Agreed, there are no bricks in the underhive.

[The Rumour Thread]

5 hours ago, Neverchosen said:

I think with the direction that Games Workshop is moving Slaves to Darkness (via Warcry) means that worshiping a god beyond the traditional pantheon would not preclude them from the army. I do think it means they likely will not have access to Marks. Chaos Undivided incorporates different forms of God Worship not exclusively the Four Powers. Namely it has been established that the Warcry Warbands are not certain of the nature, or names of the Chaos Gods and may worship their own version of the Gods. Archaon and Be'Lakor both have cults dedicated to their worship. 

So in other words, I do not consider the worship of Hashut, Morghur, Malal or any other named or unnamed god a way to preclude inclusion in Slaves to Darkness. If anything I think it has more to do with following Archaon's ongoing wild ride so I can imagine him contracting the worshipers of Hashut into his service. This is why I can also imagine BoC entering the S2D soup... however, I feel both Chaos Dwarves and BoC would be too much likely leading to a larger number of Wascrolls than Cities of Sigmar or SCE.  

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!

[Unpopular opinion thread]

7 hours ago, zilberfrid said:

Soulblight

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

[Unpopular opinion thread]

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. 

[Unpopular opinion thread]

" 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!

[The Rumour Thread]

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.

[The Rumour Thread]

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.

 

[The Rumour Thread]

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.

[Rumours on low Dominion sales - discussion]

"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"

[Rumours on low Dominion sales - discussion]

10 minutes ago, ArkanautDadmiral said:

Can you expand on that first comment?

 

Show me where I implied you were lying and I’ll happily apologise, but I’ve not done that anywhere. You’ve made a comment and I’ve asked for information, nowhere have I said you’re lying… I’ve no reason to think you’re lying either. In fact I’ve just gone through my comments and can’t understand where I’m supposed to have accused you of lying?

A lot of businesses do those things with perishable goods, supermarkets have sections with end of shelf date food at discount, and they DO donate surplus food to charities here in the UK… they can’t do that with it all though unfortunately because it rots. It’s not the same having to throw an inedible bag of potatoes in the bin as it is destroying plastic toys, it’s not remotely similar and as I say, food is discounted and is also donated.  Supposedly 7800 tonnes by uk supermarkets a year. Spain and France better with 100,000-118,000 a year. It’s obviously still an issue but it is discounted and it is donated. Maybe it’s completely different where you are?

Can’t fathom how you think it’s the same. Perishable products have to be gotten rid of, it’s illegal (UK) to sell food past it’s use by date so it has to be destroyed for safety, it’s not a remotely similar situation.

 

This isn’t me saying you’re lying about GW destroying product, maybe they are, which is why I’m asking questions, to learn more. But it’s definitely not similar to the food industry.

 

Did you get an indication in your conversations about how much stock is sent to be destroyed?

If it’s as long as an edition cycle, would that mean for example boxes of Beastgrave would start to be recalled from GW stores for destruction now with the release of Harrowdeep? Will have already happened with Shadespire?

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!

[Rumours on low Dominion sales - discussion]

16 minutes ago, ArkanautDadmiral said:

It’s not recyclable unfortunately.

There are businesses that repurpose non recyclable materials into other forms though. One near me turns plastics into furniture, construction area barriers etc. I was hoping to organise collecting and sending all our local communities sprues there.

What you’re saying is at direct odds with what the other user is though. It’s obviously preferable but if I worked at GW I’d be using that as a PR campaign and running a scheme that involves customers being able to drop off their unused sprues in bins at GW or to be sent to GW direct so they can be disposed of in a better way than being put in the bin.

Especially in today’s climate.

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.

[Rumours on low Dominion sales - discussion]

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?

[Unpopular opinion thread]

5 hours ago, Orbei said:

Warcry shouldn't exist. The new warband models look really cool. At the same time, Nurgle gets 1 new model with their update. GW can't handle adequately supporting their mainline games (AoS and 40k) and it's sad to see so many cool models released for a niche game which appeals to a small subsect of the player base. It's a waste of resources. 

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.

[The End of Free Warscrolls]

15 minutes ago, Sarouan said:

Ah, my bad for misinterpreting your post, then. Yes, it's true wargame books aren't designed at all for people with bad eyesight or worse. Even with free warscrolls printed at a bigger size, it's still quite a cost in itself in printed material and gaming space so that you have everything available at hand. AoS is already a game that takes a lot of space and money investment, it clearly doesn't help.

Hope you'll keep having fun with the second version.

Thanks! Yes I hope so.