Overread

It's a sad fate but it seems to be their fate. Swifthawk and Eldritch might end up in Legends or it will just get lumped back under high elves in legends. Otherwise both forces are gone. Now personally I found it very shocking that GW pulled some of those models, esp the dragon and such. I wonder if part of the 5 year plan down the road is that they cleared some of those out to make room for more things later in the "angelic" aelf army that GW has teased us about in the lore for a long while. However its impossible to predict what will or won't come about at present.

I've never really seen dwarves as clumsy in fantasy as a generic trait. Strong, squat miners. Often set in their ways, often shunning the surface world (though also in need to trade with it). Many settings also copycat Tolkien and have them as one of the "older" races which means they advanced into higher levels of science and civilisation before humanity. Engineers is also a common trait, though even if they don't have superior technology they are typically pretty good at building structures and working stone. Even in Diskworld they hold a pretty strong history with the only clumsy one being a rather overlarge adopted "Dwarf" who is mostly only clumsy due to being a bit big for the mineshafts and the like.

I could see Nighthaunt getting a boxed set. Gloomspite seems to be a popular bet and I can see why - a strong selling army that began way at the start of the year so ample time between then and a christmas boxed set. Slaanesh or Nurgle for chaos who seem to get one a year. Hard pick as Slaanesh is new, though a box for them really cries out for throwing in a keeper and that eats up a big chunk of money for a Christmas box. Meanwhile Nurgle are quite popular and have quite a wide variety of choices Also it strikes me that Tyranids could get a box for Christmas this year for 40K

I think in part its because fantasy was built differently from the ground up. Fantasy had originally the rank and file system which sold models so GW didn't need lots of niches and specific counters as that wasn't how the game was playing out and the mass troop/cavalry aspect helped drive sales on its own. Eventaully that died off though and now we have AoS which sort of inherited a simpler system because there was nothing specific counterwise before and because AoS at launch was without proper rules. I hope AoS might get a touch more complex, I'd like troops to get more importance and to be split up a bit - if just to make the warscroll reader easier to read when dealing with big factions like Skaven. I also think that for larger factions more subdivisions and more key roles and counters helps improve army diversity and function. I honestly think that at some point we will see GW flesh out the artillery and siege weapon side, but not for quite a while yet. Heck I'd like to see GW consider having fliers and ground fliers as separate conditions like they are in 40K - things like eagles and dragons and airships should be able to represent staying aloft through the battle; whilst things like the dragons can come down to fight on the ground. etc... edit - also for Ossiarch relevance here is my guess for a two wave release: Wave 1 Battletome Katacross Leader with soul-scythe Infantry Cavalry Elite Infantry (4 arm guys) Catapult Possibly: Terrain Dice Endless Spells Wave 2: Cavalry leader Leader on chair Reconstruction leader (character we saw in the corner of a page in the leak) Harvester Terrain if it didn't appear in Wave 1

Right now its not really neglect its just the order of releases. Some armies were first and some were last; thus far GW hasn't double-released any faction in the 2.0 releases. Some armies were first and some were last; heck lets not forget Destruction started the year with 1 working Battletome and maintained that right up until just over a week from now where they get a second and then there's a potential third at the very end of the year. Seraphon, Tzeentch, Slaves and KO should be seeing new Tomes early into 2021. At GW's current speed then at worst end of April should see all of 2.0 with battletomes. This might come sooner if they duel release any and could come later if they throw out another surprise like Ossiarchs. Otherwise April to May should see AoS finally arrive at a fully functional 2.0 system! At least that's my guess based on 1 tome a month and GW's current release pace, and assuming no more trade hiccups. And that's forgetting that October is going to have 3 battletomes (Orruks, Cities and Ossiarch) so clearly if GW wants to they can push them out fast (though granted in the grand scheme of things Orruks and Cities are apparent delays after sylavaneth)

The Slaves to Darkness Christmas boxed set has only been on sale since last Christmas. Also like most armies that don't have abattletome the main reason they are not selling well is because they don't have a battletome. New customers don't see any clear rules to use the army; whilst existing ones are cautious at investing into an army that could get some big fundamental changes to it with a new book. This might include removing models; adding models and changing the role and points of models. No point building your super elite army of chaos warriors if GW then turns around and makes them dirt cheap in points; similarly no point in building an army of chaos chosen if GW then turns around and removes them. It's the same reason non Plague Skaven weren't shifting well; same reason that many of the Order aelvesa and humans weren't selling etc.... Basically AoS is a big backwards because whilst its got all the models released it didn't have a game released for them (rules). It's more a case that someone had to go last and with GW focusing on Stormcast and Death fighting it out since the start of the 2nd edition; Chaos was taking a bit of a backseat compared to Death (which has now got two full new armies from the 2.0 release - Nighthaunt and Ossiarch) Warcry is a clear sign that Chaos is fine in GW's view; why else would they make a whole game built around one faction element if they wren't confident. Slaves and Everchosen will pick up once a 2.0 battletome is released and GW gifts them some nice marketing. Darkoath I think has changed, I think originally they were going to appear and I'm surprised there wasn't a Darkoath Warcry warband (though Untamed Beasts look darn close to Darkoath save for the weapons)

Yep its a bit of a weakness. Right now the fact that there's a lot of armies like Daughters of Khaine and Flesheaters with very small model ranges kind of mask it over; but you can really see it in much bigger armies. It's something I hope GW might choose to address in the future. It would be nice to see things like cavalry get its own segment and properties and its easy to adapt to other factions that might not have a traditional cavalry unit (heck for Flesheaters it would help reinforce the lore on which ghouls think that they are riding horses when they are just oversized superfast ghouls).

It depends on the mechanics of the army. If its like Stormcast then you've got options; meanwhile it could be like Daughters of Khaine and a good few are fairly cheap so they full up leader slots but not the army. Or it could end up like Slaanesh whereby the army wants you to run almost nothing but high cost leaders. That said AoS has the issue that it does sort of lack an elite slot in its composition. We've got leaders, troops, behemoths and artillery. Of them Artillery is already pretty empty for a lot of factions, whilst troops is a mish mash of basically everything. We could do with things like fast attack, heavy support, troops, elites as concepts brought over from 40K (though adjusted up for a fantasy setting). I think its also because AoS doesn't have as many divisions; most things can hurt most things without much trouble so yo udon't have as many required specialist roles like anti tank; anti air; anti infantry; anti etc.... Heck cavalry don't even get a bonus to attacking infantry nor to spears get a bonus against cavalry etc....

Their internal campaign story to the TW Warhammer games is also leading up very nicely to a massive chaos invasion of races in the last game and the likely "End Times" of their own. Plus they've honestly done a huge amount of Warhammer in this trilogy of games already. Once the 3rd game is out the likely only big area they could update them on would be doing a fully fledged sea battle system - however with the nature of warhammer that would be as big as what they'd just made just on sea rather than land. Otherwise they'd eventually hit a point where there were no more units to add and the only factions would be ever more "theoretical" ones like Cathay and Nippon. Plus from the licence side of things if I were GW I'd want to encourage/push CA to making Age of Sigmar in their engine and game - link up the marketing system.

In general all that matters for an Endless Spell is that they are on the correct base size for the model, accepting that for some (such as walls) there is no base for the model as the model is its own base. Other than that the base can be clear, black, blue, pink, purple. You can paint the model bright rainbow colours or whatever. In the practical real world no one is going to force you to repaint universal endless spells specifically for each army you own - its just madness. The model is there to represent a spell, nothing more, though in competitions with army/theme/painting awards and such it might lose you a few points, but otherwise it wouldn't be something to worry about. Heck GW doesn't even care if you use 3rd party resin scenic bases if you want (they tried once I think to control that and basically no one played ball so they had to let it go)

Total War Age of Sigmar! We have Old World now bring that fantastic engine and game to the new world! Don't really think I have to sell this one - and if you've not tried it then totally check out TW Warhammer! Cities Realmskies - City builder focused around the Stormcast, but expanding likely with expansion packs for different races/grand alliances. Allowing you to build the super epic skyscraper magical cities of the realms. A one of a kind fantasy city building sim game that puts you in charge of where the walls go; where the bastions are; the food; the roadways. Manage issues such as congestion of transport beasts on the main networks; balance magical influx so that your mage universities can research; ensure the KO have enough skyports to trade and transport goods; setup intricate road networks both through the city and into the surrounding countryside. Tackle issues such as chaos invasions; policies to avoid chaos corruption; choose if you pay the Tithe or not! Action RPG game where you are the Stormcast. Adventuring through a series of epic battles. Fighting through hoards of chaos; swarms of skaven; mighty orruks and even up against vast godbeasts. Fight on the moving cities built atop the backs of roaming wurms, the huge skyscrapers swaying too and fro and teaming with skaven. A epic story woven into it showing you the tormented mind of a once man now stormcast as he fights to purge the land of chaos; whilst also dealing with the demons of his half forgotten past. See the struggles as he witnesses the ruins of his past; the surviving vestiges of his people; see him war with the internal conflict as he must put down the corrupted. Shadow of the Mythic Age - you are Sigmar and its the Age of Myth. Nay even the time just before. Travel over the vast open plains of the Realms; jump through raw magic realmgates and do battle with the gigantic godbeasts of myth and legend. Each one a mysterious puzzle to work out how to defeat. You are a GOD, no base warriors or champions would even stand in your way; nay your focus is purely on these godbeasts. (yes this is Shadow of the Colossus in AoS form)

Remember GW has a huge archive of art and art takes a while to produce; its more likely that old art gets recycled around even when models get removed.

Art has never really connected. There are loads of things shown in art that never make it or which get removed. Art I'm ok with - the community site though they really should be more involved as its clear sometimes they don't know all the future plans when they make up articles.

I've not heard of the wheel being complained about, granted for a part living war machine one would think they'd have used something else; but it likely just means that the living part is the platform ;whilst the wheel is for wining the mechanics of the trebuchet down into position to fire. Indeed its actually neat to see the wheel there as it means we could see a full wheeled trebuchet made in the future for other races

Eh I think the reason is somewhat muted online due to 1) They aren't Tomb Kings 2) They weren't hinted at for a long while in the lore. So people weren't expecting them. 3) There's some bitterness from those with old models or small armies thinking that GW could have used this slot and production to update existing forces rather than plug for a new one. Heck Bonereapers are going to launch with more model variety than Fyreslayers, DoK or Flesheaters in terms of complete model kits without considering duel kits. However overall one of hte main reasons its muted is that we don't yet have the models in hand to play with. Plus GW hasn't pressed hard on the marketing yet so the hype has come and gone fast. It's in the simmering phase now, but you can bet once GW gets a week or two of marketing behind them the chatter will pick up a lot. Doubly so once people get to see, handle, assemble models and also see them painted up with different schemes and read some of hte lore about them.

With Slaanesh you cannot summon back a dead unit, but once a model is removed from the table nothing stops you using it to represent a newly summoned unit.

" A Tie to the Old World" You mean like more than half the AoS range? Cites, Skaven, Seraphon, Daughters of Khaine, Flesh Eaters, Most of the Legion of Nagash, Sylvaneth, Ogres, Orruks, the core central themes of much of Gloomspite Gitz, Almost the ENTIRE Chaos Grand Alliance? I mean I can't see GW getting rid of the vast majority of the game. Now if we're talking about replacing old Seraphon sculpts with new updated ones I'm right here with you; but nope I can't see them squatting Seraphon nor indeed any major factions once they are into 2.0. To do so would be daft now since they'd seriously throw a LOT of confidence in AoS as a model line into question.

Skyrgots has always seemed to be a bit like skyskaven - ergo neat ideas that are more thrown out there to encourage someone to go buy a load of two armies and build their own conversions based on the KO models (esp since a lot of those sky factions are described as having gained their skyships by stealing and modifying KO ones). They might also be the sort of things that could be fleshed out if GW ever does a warmaster scale game for AoS or a Man-O-War style game. Ergo games where big skyships and dragons and leviathans and such work within the game well.

Oh GODS! You've either turned your luck around or cursed the whole game!

Right now my thoughts are: 1) Underworld Warbands - my gut feeling is that GW is using these more to allow them to display niche factions rather than test-drive big faction concepts. Darkoath, Kurnothi etc... are not likely to get full armies of their own. Now they might do what they did with Darkoath and a few models or even an infantry or cavalry unit might appear within another army. So Sylvaneth might get a cavalry option of Kurnothi centaurs in time; but I wouldn't expect to see them fleshed out as a whole army. 2) GW has teased the two Aelf armies (dark and light) for a long while in the lore. Dark Aelves are even set to be the main population of the Realm of Shadow which I think sets them quite strongly as an army that "should" come around. Light Aelves could still get wrapped into antoher force (rarer now as when I made that prediction I thought GW would unit the Aelves into a single force; rarer now as they are allied to Dwarves and Humans which makes for quite a full faction in itself). They've even got some concept art of the Dark aelves kicking around in the books - so I think they are set to come. When is a big question and GW has already surprised us with the Ossiarch Bonereapers. 3) I think that we should see GW settle down and indeed copycat the idea from 40K into AoS - that of having campaigns tied to model releases. The big question will be if GW adopts this for AoS or not as there's quite a lotof factions in need of big and modest updates. From armies like Skaven or Ogres where there's a lot of old metal and finecast in need of updating; through to armies like Fyreslayers and Flesheaters where the model range is very small and they clearly would benefit from some diversity and new models. Balance wise GW has made those small armies work in the game (heck FEC were broken powerful); however visually and model wise they are more bland. Some more models introduces new tactics, new ways to run them and more product for customers to buy (heck financially FEC are the cheapest AOS army in terms of the fact that you can buy pretty much everything in start collecting boxed sets). As a result I think we'll get both, like 40K has. Some armies will get big revamps of models; others will get a trickle feed of smaller updates. 4) Hopefully we won't see any more mass removals of models once AoS 2.0 is established (we still have Ogres and Slaves to Darkness to go, both of which could lose models. I don't expect KO, Seraphon nor Tzeentch to lose models). If we do (eg in teh case of Skaven) then hopefully they come with mass releases. Updating old sculpts and releasing new ideas. Skaven are also worth a mention in that, in theory, they did have a lot of revamped models designed, just put onto a very poor sprue system that was paired with a highelf update that made it hard to split the content for both games. A poor business choice that I think GW learned hard from and since then we've seen them be smarter in splitting up duel box sprue into their own sprues not combined. 5) Warcry should get 2 more warbands and another wave of cards to add the rest of the AoS armies into it. The next big thing will be seeing how GW continues to approach it. They could even use it to add new units to other armies and seeing how they tackle the warbands in Slaves to Darkness will be very interesting to see how it pans out. 6) Looking further ahead next year is possibly the release for Warhammer Total War 3. Now that game could slip over into 2021 and will also have a period of content adding and support for at least a year or so after. However it would give high hopes that CA might approach GW and secure the licence for AoS. Thus letting them take the groundwork into the modern model gaming age. A good pairing for CA and GW.

Based on your track record I think it best that you tell us what army you're collecting now. And darn that is some terribly rough luck too!

Exactly. Heck the way the Mortal Realms works it actually throws up huge problems in some very simple areas. For example consider trade. In the Old World it was easy to assume that most traded with minted coins and gold, gemstones etc.... A very simple analogy to our own world and many of the items would have held relative similar values. A Diamond the size of a fist would be darn valuable. In the Mortal Realms there's a whole realm made of metal. Gold, iron, steel, tin, bronze - in the Realm of Metal all those things are laying around on the surface; they even have rust storms not dust storms (how on earth anything survives breathing in a rust storm is a miracle - you'd think the lung cancer rates would be through the roof). So this one realm alone already throws up huge issues with basic trade. How can gold or even minted coins have value when the metal is as common as mud to that realm, which then trades with the others. Indeed how can the other realms trade back to the metal realm? Well the realm of beasts likely trades back a lot of food supplies to a metal realm. So now we have to deal with the concept of huge value swings. Meat might be pretty cheap in the Beast Realm - but super valuable in the metal and vis versa for base metals. However how to you organise trade so that one market doesn't flood the other. How do you organise trade disputes. Then lets throw on top that there are only specific points (Realmgates) where this trade can be conducted; how do you then have many vast kingdoms operating. Some must be trading only locally, not through the realm gates. So now how do you avoid supertraders? Why aren't the KO, who appear to have a tight monopoly on a lot of transporting, utterly rich beyond words. The Realms are fantastical, but at the same time so far removed that even a basic concept like trade has to be worked out a bit. Even if what gets worked out isn't "perfect" it needs structuring. There's already Realmstone, which appears to be far too valuable for regular trading; there's also UR-Gold which is in the same boat. Both good for trading at the kingdom to kingdom level, but rather impractical for your larger traders and citizens.

Eh there's whole companies making Kickstarters and running firms (Raging Heroes). GW can take any direction they want and the 3rd parties will just follow GW. It doesn't really matter if they are generic dwarves or if GW makes Steampunk Dwarves who fight in dresses whilst riding atop slugs where the slugs have wings. The 3rd parties will just copy-cat the concept. Also I think that GW is solid enough in their position that the vast majority of people will be buying GW brand models The name changes alone mean that GW can at least steal the first google search terms, since the 3rd parties can't use those names to advertise their products.

Hey wait a sec that's not me! I've been the one saying its not coming until 2023! Gah darn Ogres can't even tell one crazed Skeletor fan from another!

Right now it doesn't look like it. We've seen the basic troops with both spears and swords as weapons for all the models and we've seen at least one holding a duel handed sword (which might be a 3rd option or a special unit within the regular unit, such as a leader model). Cavalry we've also not seen with archery options either. We've also seen the back-of-battletome photograph of the army, which often showcases much of the army. The only ranged in there (besides magic) was the walking artillery. It would seem that, certainly for this launch, the Bonereapers are a close combat orientated army; likely with the capacity to repair and replace and perhaps summon troops on the battlefield. This latter ability might be tied to kills made as well and is likely tied to specific models such as the harvester (the big thing with corpses on its back). Though that could equally be a support for repair/replacement.