Overread

Surprise this week, Wrath and Rapture is not next week! In fact next week is a big 40K week with their Chapter Approved (equivalent to Generals Handbook); A big Campaign book; several models once part of larger kits now being released on their own and new models. So its a big 40K week! So if Wrath is coming this year its coming out almost right before Christmas!

So wondering what direct you guys might take my collection thus far, partly just talking out loud about ideas and planning what to purchase and work toward next: Currently I've got 1 Blood Cauldron (slaughter/hag queen option) 1 Shrine 2 Hag Queen 2 Slaughter Queen 2 Bloodwrack Medusa 2 Avatar 30 Witch Elves with Bucklers and full command 30 Witch Elves with duel daggers and full command 10 Khinerai Heartrenders 10 Khinerai Lifetakers 10 Blood Stalkers 15 Doomfire Warlocks Allies: 6 Gryph Hounds (Stormcast Eternals) 1 Supreme Sorceress (Darkling Covens) 2 Assassins (Shadowblades) 1 Hydra My thoughts: 1) Getting another 30 Witch Aelves and then arming them either with bucklers or duel blades. Visually duel blades looks the best; though functionally bucklers are more durable and long lasting whilst blades require getting the first round of attacks in to really give their best. The downside to this is its expensive; a lot of money for those 3 boxes of witches. 2) The Battleforce Boxed set. About the same price as the above and whilst it should last around a long while it might be one of those things better to "grab before its gone" deals. It's unfocused though so gives me a little bit of everything rather than any one thing in bulk. I can't say no to more command and avatar options in general; whilst another 10 khinari is a solid block to put to use. Witches and Melusai are not in a great number, but would could certainly be put toward future expansion plans. 3) Several boxes of Melusai. Starts me down the road toward being able to take a snake-heavy army; however I sort of feel like whilst this would be a great direction to go, considering how far I've come in terms of Witches it might be better and more sensible to focus on one then the other rather than walk between the two. 4) More allies - well who doesn't need more gryph hounds! But otherwise more allies might not be required, though I've heard people like eels these days! 5) Other ideas! ?

Doomfires are good! Mobile skirmishers who give you an extra magic dispell and who have their own powerful signature spell! They are expensive to field, but handled right they can bring a lot of pain and hurt to the enemy!

Agreed, plus even if you don't use hte cauldron you'll likely use the hagqueen and would have the option of running an avatar heavy army too. Plus the rest of the contents are totally usable in many armies and with the price discount you might as well get it as the cauldron is nearly free (basically any 1 type of things in that box is basically free if you want the rest, so might as well get it all!) Heck what I've got right now is basically the contents of two boxies plus more witch aelves. I'm even tempted to get the box! I want more witches, I want more snakes; I really love khinari so I can't turn my nose up at them and another cauldron is good to have around!

Added and updated to include: Tyrion and Teclis Omnibus (Blood of Aenarion, Sword of Caledor, Bane of Malekith) Warriors of the Chaos Wastes Omnibus (Wulfrik, Blood for the Blood God, Palace of the Plague Lord) Knights of the Empire (Hammers of Ulric, Reiksguard, Knight of the Blazing Sun, Dead Calm, Stromfel’s Teeth, Lords of the Marsh, Dead Man’s Party, Bernheimer’s Gun) All are pre-orders coming out over the next few months. Note the short stories in Knights of the Empire appear to not be sold on the BL website on their own; so chances are they might be from Inferno Classic (which is being put on print-on-demand every few months, I believe January is when the next set goes on sale) or from other sources.

I don't think GW does much tweaking besides just ensuring a good clean shot and lighting. After that its making sure the white balance is right and the photo properly prepared for printing. I don't think they do any recolouring or touchups or such. One trick I know they have done is that sometimes models aren't glued together for package shots, so that they can use one model and put different arms on it, I think they use bluetack rather than magnets (its a product display rather than game item). There was a case a few years back where the box art for, I think, the plastic wraith knights for Eldar managed to make it all the way through and they didn't have any guns on the models!

Oh wait yes I mixed up my marines! Still that means Tezeentch needs a musical player (unless there is one I've missed). A lead violinist/soloist would suit Tzeentch!

It's clearly a music stand with candles on top - and as its chaos it clearly means that Khorn is getting a musician! Nurgle has bagpipes; tzeentch has the guitar marine; Slaanesh has the harp so Khorne needs one. I'm thinking perhaps drums or bells!

Katz honestly that sounds good. Some might suggest making 20 of the spear carrying khinari as they are a bit more popular, but honestly both forms have their solid uses and 10 of each is a very good number to work with. Magnetic cauldrons are the way to go if you want variety for less cost, esp if you make it so that the queens can go on their own bases. That would easily let you put down two hag queens on foot; a slaughter queen on cauldron and then have two bloodwracks to either field alone or put one on a shrine.

It's best to think of the avatar on the cauldron as just part of the cauldron itself. It requires animating like its footed version, but has the bonus that it can be moved around without requiring activation because its on teh cauldron. Thus you get the best of both worlds, esp since the cauldron wants to keep up with the infantry and close combat units and comes with its own queen to ensure that the avatar can have a prayer cast when required. Of course the downside is a cauldron is more expensive to buy, takes more space up on the table top and has other duties outside of the avatar. So avatars on their own still have a place in the army.

I doubt GW knew in advance otherwise they'd have quickly changed all their website photos before it went on sale. Far better to just change the product then than to send out orders and get complaints back. GW could sell them in any combination they like so there's no reason for them to lie up front about what would be in the box. More likely one of a few things happened: 1) GW central changed an idea and for some reason that change did not get communicated to the full team. Either the change was to add or remove something and it only made it so far. Considering that photographs and instructions are likely made/designed in GW HQ chances are that department got the change, but the factory doing the packing didn't. A communication error that could be GW or factory or both 2) The factory put out the wrong packing and production instructions to their manufacturing side and as a result all the boxes were wrongly packed. A factory error. 3) GW likely didn't notice since the shipment was probably all sent over in one big container and by the time they cracked open boxes to sell the item was already shipped to distributors. 4) Much of hte GW terrain doesn't get much fanfare before launch, normally one post or a bit of a post and that is about it. It's just not a product line that GW bigs up as much unless its something big and impressive like a huge orbital cannon; or tied into a campaign that is going on. Whatever happened clearly something went wrong, though in the grand scheme of things its thankfully a minor error for gamers. For GW its a more major error that either highlights issues with their internal communications or issues with their overseas factory and if you've followed any Kickstarters the factories can be a nightmare in some countries. Often able to produce great masters and sample castings, but then really letting quality and packing slip when it come to actual mass production. So without any further info my money would be more on it being a 3rd party factory error than a GW central error (considering that, by and large, GW gets the right stuff in 99.9% of their own produced product)

It is a missed trick that BL hasn't published it all in a collected edition, even a single ebook release would be something.

Flesh hounds are super hot inside, so hit with the burning of Khorne that if they didn't have the frills to help with heat dispensation, they'd self combust!

@MADlikes bit a of a fan of snakes ? Note one tip, I've seen a few "how to paint" of snakes which have been done with the snakes half assembled - so snake body built and then painted and then upper body. One person even put a temp pin into the socket that the body would sit in and then didn't glue the snake body to the base first. That way they could easily move it around and paint the underside of the scales where the body lifts up from the ground. Once done they then glued it down and then glued in the upper body and painted away.

If witches (or sisters) are to receive an attack give them bucklers. They survive longer and the mortal wounds generated can tip the odds in their favour of at least doing more damage. Duel blades are great, but best when they get the charge and make the first attack (so they can cut down the enemy before they retaliate). At the very least any increased durability can shift them from being wiped out to holding the line; that would keep those 20 Evocators tangled up whilst your khinerai and others are free to leap upon objectives.

It's impossible to say. BL has a kind of scattergun approach to some things. Some are marketed as clear short or long series; other times they are clearly experimenting with characters and if one proves popular they will likely continue with them. So some might appear totally one-offs, but they get a good reception and call in the market and later BL produces more. Other times something might appear to be setting something up, but nothing ever comes of it with further stories. Also don't forget that the new Novellas aren't yet listed, those are half way between short and full novels and are nice stories that fit into building and fleshing out the world. There's also the short stories in Inferno

@Throt the Unclean my thanks indeed! Like you I found the BL website a messy listing (esp for AoS) which was what prompted me to sit down and write all this out! For some reason with AoS they keep releasing a fair few of the short stories in multiple collected editions, which makes it a bit of a pain because it means that you will likely end up with repeats. In general short stories are often not worth getting from BL unless you really only want one or two or want to read them right as they are released. Most end up in a collected edition which will often have one or two stories unique to the book itself. It's messy, but hopefully GW is only doing it now because they don't have all that much lore and it should clean up on its own in time. I would love to make a time-line post, but that's nightmarishly tricky and the best I might be able to come up with is a publication date list; since GW doesn't have a dating system for their stories so its very trick to tell what comes before or after what sometimes. Some stories are clearly from the very beginning of the Age when the Stormcast are first retaking Realmgates; others are clearly many generations later set in cities rebuilt from the devastation of the Chaos Age.

I'd be half tempted to model it with bloody drool from the mouth and then a cup (golden and expensive) on the ground beneath catching it

See I was wondering how the harpist was going to carry its harp around! Great idea to make sure its got legs and to recycle a body for the purposes! It's actually probably one of the most brutal and dark models we've seen for a long time from Chaos! With the exception of possibly obliterators. I wonder if this means we'll see far more of this "Pinhead" approach to gruesome guts and blood from Slaanesh!

Witch Aelves are a much newer kit and were very bold for their day as they were released in the rank and file era so still had to fit onto rank and file square bases. The older Deamonettes are an older kit made when GW's technology was different, but also when their design aesthetic was different too. Personally I'd rather see all female and all male deamon infantry for Slaanesh rather than the half and half that always feel a bit unblaanced (even though I understand the reasoning for the hermaphrodite approach). A winged Slaanesh unit would be great to see and its certain that Slaanesh needs some new toys to compete with the new things the other chaos gods have got (esp nurgle)

It's back! https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/11/23/no-028-a-rude-awakening/ Though we have to assume that as the Stormcast appear to have died (a few times, again), our brave and mighty hero Archiblad is likely having a well deserved rest after having to win the battle on his own!

Even if you don't need the Cauldron, don't forget it gives you two more queens, another avatar and a bloodwrack. Even if you only want the avatar its basically free in the Christmas box. By UK pricing its about a £60 discount on getting all the items separately from the GW store; so that's either the cauldron or two boxes of infantry/troops of most kinds in the box itself. So its a great deal. Plus most Daughters right now are a very small range so there's very little chaff/waste in the box. You'll certainly use queens and avatar; the snakes; more sisters/witches. One bonus of a tight faction is that there is very little waste.

All we can hope is that in many years to come, when GW comes to change deamonettes, they remember this bit of art!

HUZZAR! All prepare for the return of the mighty Archibald!

I find it amusing that they hotlink to the resin hounds when they are about to replace them with plastic ones I'd wager this means that Wrath and Rapture will likely go up on Sunday as preview for next Saturday's pre-order.