HollowHills

I don't want to go off topic or be political, but I thought this story might be helpful for some people out there who have gone through or might be going through similar experiences. In early 2021 I came out personally and professionally as a transgender woman and have been living full time as a woman ever since. The truth is this wasn't a massive surprise to me. In my teens I'd tried to come out and transition before, but due to various factors and some failings with the healthcare I received I went back "into the closet". As part of that I'd learnt to think that if I could be "manly enough" I could fix myself. When I got back into Warhammer in 2016 I basically didn't have a social life. I was always uncomfortable around people and had poor mental health. I decided to get back into painting models as a way to manage my mental health. It also meant that I had one thing which would get me out the house and socialising (other than work). I later came to realise that painting those little figures probably saved my life. My mental health continued to get worse, to the extent I tried some silly things. During those low periods painting my Idoneth models was an outlet for creativity, colour and passion when I felt so repressed in the rest of my life. Unfortunately, due to internalised transphobia and mysogyny I wasn't always the best person. I felt resentful to ****** people and women involved in the hobby, because that was the life I wanted but was too ashamed to embrace. At times I made "jokes" and comments I'm not proud of, some on this very forum, to try and prove to myself that I could be "one of the lads". However, at the same time as I saw increased representation in the hobby and Games Workshop embracing greater diversity I began to imagine at least one part of my life where I could be trans and still be accepted. So AoS ended up giving me two things, a creative outlet to be completely free and express myself when I didn't have one anywhere else and a safe space where I could still have social interaction when I was early in my journey. I'm pleased to say I'm so much happier now and have a wide range of social relationships both within and outside the hobby. My passion for Warhammer has never been greater and since I started HRT I've painted more models than ever before! I wanted to share this story for two reasons. Firstly, as an apology to the people I may have made uncomfortable with exclusionary comments back when I was a "toxic egg". Secondly, if there is anyone reading this going through struggles around their own identity. The hobby is, and will always be, a place for you. I am committed to do everything I can to make sure that everyone, regardless of gender, sexuality, race or neurodiversity has a place in our game. I'd like to invite anyone who feels comfortable doing so to share their own experiences of how Warhammer helped get them through a tough time. Thanks for reading.

I have some rules rumours that aren't super exciting, but are relatively reliable (GW could change things ofc). One is that Sharks will get battleline when taken in a specific enclave (maybe Fuethan?) and further buffs from that enclave. Second, that thralls will be significantly more viable due to additional support from rules we haven't seen yet.

Get ready for battleline sharks with further buffs from a specific enclave 😉

I just want to know when my ****** book is coming out. Girl has to buy a collector's Idoneth book, cards and dice. I need to know if that's Feb budget or if I can buy lingerie and naughty toys.

Just stopping by to casual mention that many playtesters have been using sharks and Team England are changing their DoK player to an IDK player for this year...

Reavers are great at the moment...

I think the crab thing is a bit of a meme for sure, but at the same time a lot of people really love my painted duinclaw even though he is a lot less impressive than some of the other models. Same with the octopus. There are tons of people who love sea creatures and would be way more into Idoneth if GW leaned more into that and less into elves

Good price on the box. Not sure if I will buy it as I've already got a lot of sharks and reavers. Be interesting to see how many halves of each people are selling on the fb groups. I think part of it will come down to how good the warscroll is on the thrallmaster. If he gives my reavers +1 attack or something silly then he's a must buy!

If they do release the box without battletomes then that does make me slightly hype that we might at least get some new spells or scenery later on. Like how DoK got new spells and Slaanesh got a big release.

This is perfect 👌. It captures my sentiment exactly. The other point I would add is that both heroes, as mentioned previously, are extremely bland. The Fyreslayers get another foot hero that on the table will be indistinguishable from their other heroes. The Idoneth get a foot slogging support hero, again not very exciting looking, when the army already has foot slogging support heroes that rarely see play. It would be nice to see all of the "new" armies designed for aos start to get roster expansion. Even if it's only a single new unit and a hero, like how khorne got the hounds and the dog hero.

Don't really need anything. It's more a case of want. Because otherwise it's 3 to 4 years before you get to paint a new unit for your favourite army. I would have been fine with getting a foot hero and book in 2nd ed, but kinda feels like we were ignored for an edition (for better or worse) and now are getting minimum effort.

Please GW announce the Fyreslayers and Idoneth books so I can get off the copium and accept there are no more models.

A dark elf alliance book with DoK, Umbraneth and Idoneth would work quite well. Like warclans they could all have their own allegiance abilities and a set for using them all together. Lore wise it isn't really a problem to have them on the same side and also fighting each other, as DoK and Idoneth (maybe Umbraneth) are quite individualistic with a lot of factions within factions. This is assuming GW have no intention of significant expansion to DoK / Idoneth post the introductions of Umbraneth. I would obviously prefer no souping.

If this was true I would cry. 😅

Yeah I agree, it's the same kind of metallic glaze they use for the Idoneth, but I think it probably is some random kill team model.

She has hair! She isn't one of us.

Stop the Count. The crab won but GW fixed it because they wanted to frustrate our meme. Half the people who voted for Belakor aren't even alive.

OBR aren't getting any new units. No new AoS army is getting anything other than a hero in a battlebox and maybe another model as part of an end of edition tie in. 2nd waves are a myth.

I'm guessing the book has a female nemarti character in it as a villain maybe? The cover artists then made her look like a thrall master to help sell models. But yeah, was kinda hoping we'd have the nemarti hero at least. Ofc you can just head swap and paint the model grey, the hat is kinda dumb so I might do that anyway. Honest to God both of these models seem like the laziest they could come up with. The Fyreslayer looks like all their other heroes. For deepkin, even if doing a single hero, you could have at least had another cool unique sea creature instead of another eel. You could make an idoneth hero standing on a battle crab or riding a sting ray for the same amount of plastic as a magister on disc or squig hopper boss.

This is cool, but I personally expect the battlebox and tomes to be a single week release in January. A bit like the aetherwar box that featured KO vs Tzeentch at the start of this year. I could be wrong, the existence of the Gotrek novel could mean a larger focus on these two. However, I am expecting a bigger aos release either for a new army or a major update. For instance, chorfs, skaven or the arrival of umbraneth.

No one really needs anything in that sense. Each army is functional regardless of unit choice. In terms of what we'd want? Literally anything other than a generic bald foot hero with a 6' inch move for the fastest army in the game. We don't even get a new sea creature, just the runt eel. What could you do with idoneth? A giant crab with/ without riders. A giant octopus/ squid. Mantaray type monsters. Hammerhead shark type monsters. A whale like creature. Weird mutated deepkin (think Lovecraftian deep ones). Even if we were going to get a foot hero we could have got an Ishrann Embaillor (a unit heavily featured in lore but with no model). They could have at least given us a female sculpt so this new character doesn't look like a ****** mash up. It's like they used assets from the guy riding the turtle, the akhelian king and then put part of a soulrenders hat on him. Which is probably what they did. They literally did the worst thing they could do other than just squatting the faction and releasing no models.

The copium argument is that new models are coming, but GW want to sell existing stock first (like the Slaanesh box that had a new hero + old sculpts). In favour you have the fact that aos has not yet had a major release to follow up on the launch. That they mentioned more news to come and they didn't flat out say there would be nothing else on fb. This would allow them to reveal some new aos models on New Year. But I think we all know this is quite unlikely. The red pill is that two unpopular armies got tossed in a box to try and shift some existing stock. Generic foot heroes are the cheapest form of model support you can give and it probably took a junior designer all of half a day to ctrl x ctrl v some existing assets together. Both armies get a book and then forgotten about until maybe soup in 4th.

The silver lining is that playtesters have been painting deepkin which might mean their book is good? 😅

I'm not going to clog the thread with my bitter tears, but I will say one last thing. Why even make a new faction if you aren't going to support them and expand them to a similar size as others? We didn't even get a new book for all of 2nd ed. Now we almost certainly won't even get endless spells. I look forward to seeing another two rounds of Lumineth and the inevitable Umbraneth. Maybe we will at least get souped so I can use my existing models in an army that gets support.

Do you know what people like about Idoneth? Sea creatures! The models that are popular (other than the eidolon) are the turtles, octopus and crab. Literally the last thing that existing players want and the last thing that is likely to draw new players to the army is a footslogging bald elf. Also even though I expected a foot hero you managed to disappoint even my low expectations by 1) Not making the model a Namarti hero (which would have been something different at least) and 2) Not making a female hero (which I hoped for from the gotrek cover). The new book will be something, but honestly I haven't been thrilled by any of the 3rd ed rules. So I don't mean to sound salty (no pun intended) but I really think this might be my cue to step away from the hobby for awhile.