Overread

Darn it its nearly the end of the first week of October and not a single Ossiarch article from GW!

I think Cities should remain those armies built from the Cities Battletome only. Darklings and such I think should remain on their own since they are technically fully separate armies. Furthermore their future is very uncertain and with Cities out I'd expect to see those niche forces not reappear in the next Generals Handbook. Likely moving into the catch-all Legacy block when it comes out (which depending on how well its taken up might warrant its own subforum where all those subgroups can get moved to in the future).

Also note that someone over at FW derped when updating the site (or there's a nefarious scheme going on). Either way the forgeworld greater demons don't appear on the page for AoS any more, nor for 40K. Thankfully they are still there, just hiding in the Ruinstorm for Horus Heresy (I'm guessing when the tags got updated whoever did it deleted the old tags) https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/The-Horus-Heresy?N=191608925+3231708598&Nr=AND(sku.siteId%3AGB_fw%2Cproduct.locale%3Aen_GB_fw)&Nrs=collection()%2Frecord[product.startDate+<%3D+1570101120000+and+product.endDate+>%3D+1570101120000]

It's hard to say, but Death isn't that big a Grand Alliance and this army already has Morghasts, Mortarchs and Nagash so there's a decent chance that Legions would be able to take Bonereapers as allies in games. Heck Nighthaunt might even be able too (Flesheaters harder as they are sort of doing their thing being crazy )

Honestly the Warcraft film wasn't too bad, it sort of suffered in that it wasn't quite sure who its audience was (established fans or new fans) and there were some question marks over their use of liveaction humans in a basically otherwise fully CGI setting. Overall I enjoyed it and was sad that there hasn't been a sequel. That and the whole warcraft storyline has been messed around like mad through World of Warcraft (Warcraft 4 where for art thou?)

Makes more sense than a mega-thread considering how many are likely to run mono-city armies within the battletome.

Yep check the hobby general chat thread for a few references to campaigns running now. I also agree that GW is doing a big exposure push for their brand. It makes full sense; the market is FLOODED with digital games and such distracting kids from craft hobbies whilst things like meccano, lego and hornby are all relying on a lot of older fans keeping them going with fewer youngsters taking them up. So on the one hand GW can really steal a big slice of the craft based hobby market; on the other they've also got to carry the marketing torch all on their own. So outreach via licences with big name brands in other markets - like Marvel in comics and CA in PC Wargames - are fantastic ways for GW to use their IP in a way that puts very low risk for them. Since GW hasn't got to invest anything into it and even if the products launched fail, GW still gets their kickback and still produces their core product for their core market with little in the way of sales risk nor harm. It's a win win for GW and likely one of the more affordable ways to advertise without getting sucked into the big money world of TV ads and such.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/02/converting-the-cities-of-sigmargw-homepage-post-3/ I recognise that walking tower at the bottom! Nice article showing off some homebrew conversions for the Cities of Sigmar armies. Including at least one from a user here on the forums ( though I've totally forgotten their name)

It would be a neat way to release the pair and some new terrain all in one big go. GW is clearly keen for Warcry to do well so it would be a neat approach. They also clearly expected the starter set to sell well because they are already getting the individual content boxed out for it quite early. Then again they had all the rules and cards up for individual sale at launch so it might just be that GW didn't feel the need to protect sales of one block by strong staggering of releases. So could be we are burning through the Starter set stock REALLY fast Also its KS season GW - for crying out loud throw us some (Ossiarch) bones to keep us hungry for them before multiple KS steal away the money!

In hobby related news its Kickstarter Season! I don't think we are allowed to post non AoS KS links but search engines work still : Reaper Miniatures is doing Bones 5 which is already over 1 Million $ on day 1. Many of the models are going to be in the new Bones Black material which sounds like its a bit closer to a resin in that its a bit firmer and less bendy than regular Bones. Great source of cheap big models or warriors and monsters and such for adventuring and DnD. Burrows and Badgers has a KS coming up (its not yet out) to expand their range; skirmish fantasy gaming. Think Redwall - their models are very good and hold a lot of animal charm Time of Legends: Joan of Arc 1.5 is also running, this one is shorter so don't miss out. It's basically repeating their first KS in terms of model options and prices, but also adding in a brand new expansion for the game. LOADS of 15mm warriors and fantasy models including a full town, a castle tower and wall setup and siege gear. So lots to enjoy. ArcWorlde: Second Edition stylish fantasy adventuring. The sculpts this guy produces have an insane amount of charm to them. This one is not only adding models but the second edition of their skirmish rules. There's even a wildbest "AI" for solo games or player VS wildlands in team games. Obsidian Protocol - not fantasy related but worth a shout out as this one is doing very well. Armoured Core/Zone of the Enders style mechs (so fast agile looking mechs) which come with magnets in the box so taht you can swap out the various loadout weapons and bodies for different skirmish battles with them. Very creative but the most risky of all (all the others have done KS before, already delievered and shown good quality products and communication).

There's a load of fantastic skaven sculpts in metal that have huge character and quality to them - easily able to stand up to the modern designs in terms of sculpt quality. Now what can evolve and vary over time is style. Some armies go through bigger style changes then others. Skaven have mostly remained within the same style more or less over the years. Meanwhile compare the first, second and third generaitons of Tyranids and there are HUGE differences. Here the style changed 3 times over the years quite significantly; furthermore the size also changed. The first edition Hive Tyrants are really quite small, whilst the current generation are far bigger all over. We've seen the same in AoS in even more extreme comparing the old Greater Demons to the new models and the vermin lords as well. Going from large to super large models.

The key to realise is that to Daughters of Khaine their temples are battlegrounds and their form of worship is battle. As such your witch aelf, (which we must remember is a warrior not representative of the entire population) spends copious hours training hard. For them battle is a dance, an exhilaration and moment of joy even within the brutal bloody fighting. Their magics are also blood based without them being vampires, so they will harvest and use hearts and blood for their spells and boons. Indeed some of their mixed concoctions use blood as an ingredient. However they are not in the same league as, say, a bloodthirsty vampire or khorne worshipper. For them its a more functional element of their society and outside of battle a witch aelf might be quite and reserved, but otherwise not inclined to just reach out and tear out your heart for no reason. Their society is also female dominated, however from what little we've seen whilst the males are a lower class and physically weaker, they are not (save by morathi who is a bit crazy) hated. Indeed I suspect without Morathi's magics twisting the race to breed weaker males the society might steadily move toward an increasing level of equal gender balance, though the religious aspects would always keep females on top. We've seen in the novella Heart of Winter and in the Gotrek stories (he now travels with a witch Aelf) that the witches are almost normalish; its the priestesses who are bit more fevered and driven. Those closer to Morathi and also in the clutches of power struggles in the higher levels. Which makes sense and likely the higher up the power you go the closer to Morathi you get and the more they would have to twist tehir beliefs to match hers to gain favour or be forced (morathi will use her head snakes to bite those who oppose her with power and influence, turning them into Bloodwracks - a boon and gift but also making them totally under her control - interestingly whilst Melusai are hinted at being used as secret police by Morathi, the book doesn't state that they are mind controlled like the Bloodwracks). For me right now the biggest question over the faction is how Melusai and Khinerai fit into the society. We know that they are kept mostly hidden within the temples and that they are, or were, Morathi's "secret weapon"; however I think that they appear enough that they are now at least known to exist by many. What begs the question is how they operate within Khainite Society. Furthermore biologically if they can reproduce with other aelfs and what the offspring are like - a key question as the fountain of souls from Slaanesh could end (either Slaanesh escapes/ the supply runs dry or even the other Aelf gods block Morathi out of the supply when they discover her stealing more of her fair share of souls). Sisters of Slaughter would also be interesting to learn more of as they have helms melted to their faces and are clearly religious fanatics within the faction. So how they operate outside of battle would be interesting to see. Plus don't forget the faction has builders and painters, accountants, farmers, shepherds and more. Behind the army is a whole faction of aelves who worship Khaine, but who don't enter into the temple armies.

Flame stylised hammer - Fyreslayers!

Far as I see it if GW have any marketing sense then 2.0 is the cut-off point for removing whole armies for AoS for the near and middle future periods. There's just no sense in them releasing a patchwork battletome now and then removing armies later. Plus Dwarves, Aelves and Humans feature heavily in the lore. The only reason those 3 forces have been less on the tabletop is the same reason slaves to darkness ahve been less - because they don't have 2.0 edition rules and the 1.0 rules some of them have are rubbish, missing or rely on only a handful of models that many don't feel like spamming (Everchosen). It's the same issues Skaven had prior to their Tome, everyone would use Pestilens but the other Clans were very underrepresented compared to what they are now. Same for Slaanesh and many many others. It's simply the fact that AoS prior to 2.0 was a mess of jumbled rules in different places and quickpatch rules and such. 2.0 is the 1.0 release, if GW wanted Cities factions gone they'd just remove them. Now Cities might change in the future, GW might split armies out of the united force and into their own books given time, with updated sculpts and the like, butI can't see them destroying them down further. It would be a foolish marketing move

Exactly. Plus they are only around 80points for a minimum unit, that's pretty low for AoS in general for troops. So they aren't going to set the world on fire, but they are there to replace or work alongside the marauders - cheaper units used for chaff and such. Though the individual flavours of the Warbands gives them quite a bit of diversity -eg the Iron Golems are clearly an ideal cheap tarpit that is going to be tougher to remove. The warband aren't trying to replace Chaos Warriors nor to hand to hand with Stormcast, they are a mob of wild warriors at the lower end. Meanwhile in Warcry you're dealing with the cream of that crop, those who have risen higher than the masses teaming in armies, thus going on the quests to join the upper ranks. Something story based that isn't shown in the game (unless you consider that some Chaos Warriors were once Warband parties) And this is all before Slaves gets a battletome with supporting leaders with auras and updated allegiance abilities and the like. I'd prefer it over them having a dozen rules for each model in the unit which would make them wildly impractical to use. As for the monopose, that's not really any different to many other models coming out at present. Plus once they are all jumbled up in a functional unit it won't appear as strange.

Honestly I happily put Malazn next to Game of Thrones - one is epic high fantasy the other is epic low fantasy - both great series (Malazan only has the edge because the authors finished the main book series ;)) And yeah I'm surprised there are not more Malazan fans on here considering AoS is very Malazan in many respects and its epic nature

Thing is GW hasn't sold its IP its just given a lease to Marvel to produce comics. It's likely a short term agreement and comes with conditions such as GW reviewing content. Doesn't mean it can't fail, but it means that they aren't signing over their life to Marvel. Just the same as they didn't sign over themselves to CA or any one of the number of other comic, game and such companies that they've worked with over the years.

In fairness Slaves to Darnkess are not setting the world on fire at present either - kinda happens to all the factions without a Battletome at present.

We've no confirmation that that rumour is accurate yet though. We've also not seen hide nor hair of an endless spell for them - not even in the sneaky leak that happened a short while back. That said this is Ossiarch month - so hopefully we shall be seeing more and more news of them!

It's not so much that they are pulling it but that stock is selling out. Considering how fast they are bringing the individual content to retail it suggests that they knew it would sell out pretty fast; but they likely hoped it would make it that far - if not they expected it t obe fully gone by Christmas - and now they know it likely will go well before. It's a welcome warning. I'm also equally glad that they've sped up bringing individual content to sale. We still don't have the new Flesheater nor Skaven leaders from WAY at the start of the year in their duel box.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/30/games-workshop-and-marvel-comics-team-upgw-homepage-post-1 Marvel is going to do GW COMICS! Ok so chances are it all starts out 40K but AoS might well get a look in too. The question is does this mean we now have to put up with GW adding super-heroes to 40K! Will Space Marines appear in the next massive marvel catch-all-every character we can think of film? Will we have to work out if Superman is stronger than Khorne?! Does this mean we get annual cross over comics where the Emperor of Man appears before the Xmen and fights it out with Dr Xvaier? (ps I've no idea which superheroes are DC and which are Marvel since to me they mostly just sorta blur together into a collective superhero soup).

Wait that's a really good point - it could be!

I think if GW wanted it to only include the chaos forces they'd have kept it as such. Just look at how the warcry boxes easily blend into AoS proper. Each Warband forms one segment of three or four that can comprise a full unit of basic warriors for a Slave to Darkness force. That to me speaks volumes of GW's intention that Warcry blends into AoS. The only real difference is that GW has focused on Chaos exclusively for new models and it might even be them simply using Chaos as a cornerstone or evolving a once Chaos Only game into the Killteam slot. Meanwhile the Warbands for something like Underworld are not as seemless a merge and are often a bit more overly complex - appearing like a halfdozen characters in one go rather than a block of troops. In addition games like Necromunda are fully separate and the units cannot be brought into the main game (unless you proxy them of course). Warcry is likely, in part, a result of GW using new methods to release models outside of big codex updates; and also a combination of two projects that likely allowed Warcry to get its own models whilst at the same time providing new sculpts for an existing army (slaves to darkness). Balance is variable and I'm sure the other warbands will improve; that the new book they've announced has 2019 on the front suggests taht their long term plan is annual books which will update rules and balance and likely add new models to the game - most likely reflecting a year of releasing new models in general and thus adding them into warcry as well.

A lot of the studio style painting is a bit simpler today. I think its partly GW trying to advertise at "standard tabletop" quality which is easier for more gamers to copy-cat. Whilst GW still has Evy Metal quality items floating around. Meanwhile some of Foregeworlds models appear to be being given to beginners

Meanwhile I'm over here thinking "That's not a fomorian " That's a fomorian! From Warrior kings, an old RTS game. A beast that walks rather like T-rex only with larger forearms and claws; carrying a rider and two bags on its back (either side). It's tail is a long prehensile length that curls to a grabbing claw at the end which curls up, grasps ammo from the bag and then slings it forward. A living walking artillery unit!