HollowHills

I don't think we will ever see Island of Blood sculpts again to be honest. Dark Vengeance for 40k had an excellent chaos lord, cultists and marines as well as a load of Dark Angels sculpts that have never been released. If you want chaos cultists in 40k you currently have to buy them in a box of 5 with all the same monopose, even though DV came with loads of options. Basically anything with shared sprues is dead.

Can we play as Idoneth Deepkin and if so is our Soul stat going to be an issue?

The Dream New boxed game ala carrion empire. Blood in the Water Deepkin v DoK New heroes Ishrann Embailor 100 points Command ability: in the hero phase pick one unit of akhelian allopexes or akhelian leviadon wholly within 12" of this model. That unit can immediately pile in and attack with its jaws and fins. Spell - dominate beast. Casting value 7 pick one enemy monster wholly within 12". That unit fights after all other units in the combat phase. Only one weapon the pain staff 1 attack 3+ 3+ - d3 Against monsters has a rend of - 2 and d6 damage. Makes allopex battleline as general. Melusai Bloodhunteress 140 points Command Ability: in your movement phase pick one unit of Melusai wholly within 9" of this model and remove both them and this unit from play. At the start of the next movement phase (friend or foe) place both units wholly within 6' of a table edge and at least 9' from the enemy. First of the Scathborn: get the mortal wound on ranged attacks from bloodstalkers and the stare mortals from the melee snakes for this hero. Trueborn of Morathi: unmodified hits of 6 for bloodstalkers wholly within 12' of this unit inflict 2 mortal wounds instead of 1. Melee snakes wholly within 12" do d3 mortals on 6s for their stares. 3 attacks 24 range 3+ 3+ - 1 dmg does 2 mortals on hit of 6. 1 attack melee 4+ is a mortal 6 is d3. You get some snakes and sharks plus some other bits. That's my weirdly specific wish for LVO.

The theory goes that zombies are the serfs, ghouls are men at arms and so on. Based on the art for the fence spell it seems plausible. As mandzak said though the zombies are pretty bad sculpts.

Well some people are theorising that the corpse cart and zombies are getting added to fec. With the cart becoming a wizard to cast the new spells.

I understand that, but if you get something now then your army will be in a much better state than it has been since the aos launch. They are perfectly free and able to revisit these factions in the future. If they know that their big releases for the next year and a bit are planned out, then its better to support those that aren't part of that picture with a small release. That way those factions aren't left with nothing until 2020 or 2021. I think if you look at the aos website and the store you can see a picture of how GW want the factions to look like going forward. If they can get all those into a playable state with battletomes they can revisit them later and dot in new releases. It's like with 40k, they wanted to get a codex out for everyone. I don't know anything about modelling. But if reusing some digital assets and reducing some of the time and cost it takes to develop new kits means we can get more, well maybe that's a good trade. In WHFB armies might languish for years without rules updates or new kits. Ask a Brettonian player, or an Orcs and Goblins player what is was like playing WHFB. We are now in a position where, GW for all their faults, are supporting all of their armies for both core games.

I can't believe people are being salty about this release. For ages people have asked that GW update old WHFB factions. Either you get a book, some endless spells and a scenery piece or you can wait for years to get a full model update. GW can't release new model ranges for every old faction every other month. What do people expect?

What do you think they will show for aos at LVO? I was expecting the tomes for these factions to be part of that. Black Legion for 40k will be the focus I think.

Also theory... GW are releasing two battletomes in one week because the release schedule for the year is packed.

Pretty sure GW will revisit skaven for a new exciting army in the future. See these books as placeholders, better to have something thst makes your army decent now than be left in limbo for the next year or more while other stuff is worked on.

Codex Black Legion will come in March, but a lot of the new units will have <legion> keyword so will work for the other guys too. Expect Ynnari to get a model release with their own range, so they aren't just using a mix of dark eldar and craftworlds. Will that be this year? Don't know. Sisters of Battle are obviously coming. I also expect more primaris at somepoint. To be honest 2019 will be fairly light on aos I think, I think we will get a campaign book like malign portents and more boxes in the style of carrion empire. Maybe a soul wars related campaign in Chamon?

Pre-order for SC Maggotkin and SC Idoneth Deepkin this month?

I believed he was being silenced because I have an unfounded paranoia that fansites are all covering for GW. That said the rumours did sound dodgy... I think what we can all learn from this is that deepkin endless spells are back on the wishlist baby.

No idea whether the rumours are true or not, but I don't understand why the site owner needs to stop them being posted. Well... I do but I better not go back to my old conspiracy theories...

Stormcast with a 4 up? Lies.

To be honest I think a lot of armies have this issue. Deepkin only work at a good level if you go for a variation of eel spam, or rather morsarr spam. The issue with Namarti builds for deepkin is not the points cost, but that the synergies just don't work. It's very difficult to keep a soulrender wholly within a unit of 30 thralls, nearly impossible. But for smaller units with a 5 up save how do you keep them alive long enough for the render to be useful? Leviadon? Useless. Allopex? Useless. Nighthaunt players are better off running LoN than their own allegiance and units. All of the best units in the army can be taken in LoN and that gives access to gravesites and three of the most potent heroes in the game (vlozd, arkhan and nagash). As someone else said BoC are basically just a way to get easy tzaangor refills. Even stormcast, the pride and joy of aos, have been relying on evocators alphastriking in with Gabriel. Most of their huge range are totally useless on the table atm. KO have probably faired worse than the above, but the truth is to be competitive most armies are extremely limited.

Not in a million years are they squatting the recent plastic kits for any of the WHFB elf factions. Even just in terms of already produced stock, I. E. Kits in the warehouse and stores across the world, they have tons of plastic. It would be a phenomenal act of stupidity to squat these factions when beasts of chaos and LoN have proven how successful older stock can be when given some new rules.

Lol... Just lol.

I don't believe that ironjawz will include Greenskinz units. A lot of those kits are ancient. Far more likely to see them removed and replaced with a few new ironjawz kits to be honest. I do know, for as close to fact as you can get via a third party, that GW releases are very flexible and that they can move them around.

I fully believe fyreslayers will get a release, but I think it has to include models. Probably two kits and a named hero. Where that fits in who knows. I'm going to be grumpy until we get new deepkin spells, high elf soup and hysh elves.

Easy enough to see if it's true. If we get a seraphon book soon that'll tell. I am pretty sad if deepkin don't get endless spells though.

A rumour went around awhile ago on /tg/ that Gotrek was going to reunite Dispossessed and Fyreslayers into a single army.

I just want deepkin endless spells but I've heard nothing about them.

I heard a dispossessed tome this year recently. Also any news on Idoneth endless spells?

So "From the Deep" and "The Deeper Shade" do not feature deepkin at all. "The Sea Taketh" is great. A kharadron steals something from the lost city of Aighmar and the deepkin pursue him. Generally very creepy. My criticism would be some of the description is rushed or vague, particularly of the city at the end. Also the deepkin lose a bit of mystery when there is a sky chase between a gun hauler and a turtle that came off as silly. Probably a solid 3.8/5 "The Learning" I didn't like at all. Lots of lore inconsistencies. It says that deepkin can't tame beasts without breaking their spirits, but in the battletome it says they can build bonds with intelligent beasts. It also said the cythai were silver helms and dragon knights, which makes no sense. Generally not that great setting. 2/5