Overread

I'm expecting GW to push out Endless Spells pretty fast for a lot of factions. It's a new mechanic that gives fantasy its own distinct appearance and I can see the pushing it and what better way than not only giving a very affordable magic starting set; but also a slew of endless spells. I just hope that after endless spells we see some fantastic beasts released too. They have made a lot of noise about monsters and fantasy creatures in the Lore and already we've got Stormcast with a whole host of varied magical mounts.

What the Grand Alliance structure doesn't really show is that most of the factions within the Grand Alliances are only allies of convenience against greater foes. For example Destruction and Order and Death all allied against Chaos originally. However over time Destruction and Death forces broke away, which is mostly the gods/leaders of those Grand Alliances falling out with each other (ergo falling out with Sigmar). That filters down to the peoples that they rule over. Further within each alliance there are power struggles, wars, deceptions and private agendas. Daughters of Khaine are a great example of a force which has temples wide spread through many Order cities and who are tolerated as allies because of their significant prowess in battle and their hatred of chaos. However they are VERY unreliable allies. There's a short snippet of a story about an allied fight and a soldier watching a Witch Aelf fight, only for her to smile and turn on him and take his heart as well. Meanwhile some other factions are totally changed; the Shadowblades are no where a part of the old Dark Elves and are instead described almost like Sigmars own Inquisition force. Left behind when he originally closed the gates in order to be the deadly hand that operated in the shadows to fight against Chaos before Sigmar's return with his Stormcast. There are still ties; most of the old High Elf factions ally with each other and no one else; same for the old Dark Elf, Human and such. So the old structure is still there; but the various components are broken up and have their own unique Lores. Honestly I really wihs GW would revise their website and introduce the factions better - there is a lot greater depth to them than is presented. So yes there's every reason that a shadowy group of Daughters of Khaine would raid a Stormcast war host. Or turn on them at the end of a previous battle; or compete with them over a shrine or other resource. The various temples and underlines can well war when their godly overseers are also arguing in the background. Only for them to throw down those differences at large to stand united against a Chaos incursion. I actually rather want to read the Deepkin battletome as they are even more fickle allies of anyone as they come to the surface specifically to steal the souls of the living so that their race might continue to live.

Thing is poor rules is GW's own fault and they've seen the pattern that good rules sold armies more than enough times; heck it was a cornerstone of their marketing for decades. So I figure that there were other elements. TK were are pretty modern army; most other companies would not have dropped that significant investment in moulds and product and lore and instead would have reworked rules to promote sales. That's why I figure that whilst they were selling poor; their choice to axe them was likely the tip of the iceberg for a much larger axing of factions. One that, thankfully, did not come to pass.

TK always struck me as a very random faction to kill off when one considers that the entire Fantasy range was selling poorly and yet TK were very distinctive and fairly popular in general - they'd even had quite a few semi-recent models. I'd have afar more expected something like Bretonians to go first. I hold the view that chances are if Kirby had remained in power we'd have seen more and more fantasy factions resigned to a point where fantasy would have become a boutique line of fantasy monsters and models rather than a miniature wargame line. So I've often felt that TK have potential to be returned to the game at some stage. Of course the more undead factions GW releases with the new aesthetic the less chance there is of a full return; but a partial one could be possible. With the whole multiple realms and realm gates approach of Sigmar its fully possible to introduce a means for TK to return. A mighty Pyramid that survived the end of the world; coated in magic and hanging in the depths of space; dislodged and drawn toward the plans of the realms when Slannesh breaks his bonds and is freed from his prison. TK crashing into one of the lands and spilling out to establish themselves in this strange new world hot on the heels of a huge Slannesh demon incursion. A realmgate found mysteriously. Locked with magical runes that are broken by a mage seeking answers/power/discovery/escape. Only for it to open a portal into a strange and vast Citadel of unknown origin, from whence pours the mummified and animated undead defenders of that ancient civilization. Unable to close the realmgate now and yet driven to scourge the world and temple of any infestation of the unworthy who could risk damaging or harming their intombed gods within those dark stone walls. And a million other arguments. The current Sigmar world is ideal for randomly adding new factions with super deverse backgrounds and visual asthetics.

Having been looking at a few stats I'm coming to the view that our Blood Stalkers are a bit, well, stuck. I kind of think they need 2 or even 3 shots each rather than 1. Sure they are designed to be a mobile shooting platform that moves closer each turn to get into close combat, but even then they pale compared to their sisters; so they kind of end up stuck half way; neither good in either role. I'm actually thinking a Akhelian Allopexes fits the role better as a skirmisher.

Actually GW is suggesting that they can do Sisters of Battle in well under a year. I think the key thing is that concept to finished models to production ready to sell varies depending on a lot of factors; including what else is being worked on and the release scheduled and also the production setup and a host of other things. It's very likely that GW has a scale of projects, some being worked on as a primary focus and which are developed faster; and those which are on a back burner and might be worked on far less and thus take longer or which might even be shelved from time to time. So the run-time for a release varies a lot.

Thinking on Shadow Patrol Battalion and how to make it work. 2 Units of Doomfire Warlocks 4 Units of Khinerai. So first up its actually quite free in how you can choose the khinerai as you're not bound to a specific type. This lets you vary them as you wish for the army. However even if you take just the base number of units and the battalion it all comes in at 770 points. That's expensive when one considers that many of those units want to be backed up. 5 Doomfire Warlocks in two groups isn't as good as 10 in one at least in terms of the damage output of Doomfire and in the survivability of the unit itself. The Khinerai are in a worse position as they are only one wound each and at 5 in a base group that's very fragile, plus neither type is blessed with a larger number of attacks either so even if they get the first strike on a target they need to hit the right target to work. So thinking on how to use them so that the shadow patrol hits hard is going to be key. To my mind there's a few ways to use them, assuming that you deploy them off-table rather than on table. 1) Use them in the last few turns or even last turn of the game to swoop in and contest or even secure an objective point. Likely not worth it with more than one group. This gives the player a last chance to secure points in the last part of the game, where the survivability is a lesser issue. 2) Deploy them in a group focusing on a single target or objective. This overcomes the fragility of the individual units by focusing them on a specific area en-mass. It also increases the chance of them clearing out the area or at least crippling a near-by threat. 3) Add units to them to increase their potency. Adding units to each group puts a lot of points into the Shadow Patrol, taking it to 1410 points total. That said it does increase the performance of all the various components, but does meant that there's less points on the table for other things - remembering that at least 300 points is needed to get battle-line (minimum) troops on the table and then at least another 100 or so for a general. Of course once might only put extra units into one or two of the shadow patrol - giving one or two units that hit heavier and the rest that act more for support. 4) Put more points in to battle-line units and the rest of the army and use the shadow-patrol units to bolster those attacks. 5) Use additional options to bolster performance. Eg putting a Shadowblade assassin with one of the khinerai units so that when it lands its got the additional wealth of attacks that the assassin offers. Spells and such are also good; eg attacking near a cauldron for the additional save help. To me this somewhat highlights the weakness of khinerai in terms of their damage output and survivability. They are very much a glass cannon and might be closer to a glass pistol .

I know how you feel though bad painting skills and slow assembly progress keeps me from getting all the things (cause in reality it would end up being all the boxes )

@EccentricCircle an army that vast calls for a photo showing off the over 2000 models in one go (go forth and dominate the floor and tables!)

Do they need a "monsters faction?" Far as I'm aware so long as the monster has the Grand Alliance key word for Destruction then it can be allied into any destruction force. The only ones that would have limits are those such as Skaven or Ork that have the keyword printed in their keyword list. Though I will agree it is somewhat messy at present and I think that FW has to take a proper look at them in general. hopefully along with a big release of some new critters. I'd love to see FW do some more dragons and the like

Didn't spot a similar thread (sorry if I've missed it). This can often be interesting to share complete lists of what we each have in our collections. A neat way to show what we've all got and it can also be an interesting resource for people to see what other people get for certain armies. Kind of thing one can stick in a signature and also edit back over time to show how ones collection has grown and changed over time. Daughters of Khaine: 1 Blood Cauldron (slaughter/hag queen option) 1 Hag Queen 1 Slaughter Queen 4 Bloodwrack Medusa 30 Witch Elves with Bucklers and full command 30 Witch Elves with duel daggers and full command 20 Witch Elves with duel daggers and full command 20 Khinerai Heartrenders 20 Khinerai Lifetakers 20 Blood Stalkers 15 Doomfire Warlocks 1 optional female wolf warlock rider Allies: 6 Gryph Hounds (Stormcast Eternals) 1 Supreme Sorceress (Darkling Covens) 2 Assassins (Shadowblades) 1 Hydra Skaven: 1 Master Moulder 1 Arch-Warlock 1 Warlock Engineer 1 Warlock Bombardier 1 Plague Furnace 1 Screaming Bell 1 Assassin 40 Clanrats with spears 40 Plague Monks 3 Stormfiends 1 Doom Wheel 3 Warp Lightning Cannon 1 Doom Flayer Hedonites of Slaanesh 3 Infernal Enrapturess 1 Herald on Foot 1 Masque 1 Syll'Esske: The Vengeful Allegiance 1 The Contorted Epitome 30 Deamonettes 10 Deamonettes 20 Seekers of Slaanesh plastic 10 Seekers of Slaanesh metal 9 Fiends of Slaanesh plastic 7 Fiends of Slaanesh metal 2 Exalted Chariot 3 Seeker Chariot 1 Fane 1 set of Slaanesh Endless Spells

Isn't there a FW event coming up? I wonder if we'll hear anything about the new Sigmar team and what projects they could be working on. I still feel that FW has to pay proper attention; we got the new warscrolls but they didn't even adjust the alliance that some of the models have (Myerwurm clearly needs to be allowed into Idoneth)

Honestly whilst I can see the Endless Spells becoming standard I think the realm stuff might stick to casual play only and even then be something some do and some don't like. Some of hte spells or items do seem more broken or open to abuse than others. Depends if GW takes a look in a few months and revises any or not.

My main problem with command abilities and battalions is more visual. They are both rather expensive to achieve and yet put nothing on the table itself in a visual nature. This seems really odd as GW introduce Endless Spells which are a point sink for visual spells. To me the game is a visual one and whilst we've always had upgrades and unit options and the like, its odd to have CP be such a big piont sink that they are. You can easily spend several hundred points on "nothing". Even at 2K points, having 1/10th or more going on nothing visual seems really odd to me.

It looks like this week is a Bloodbowl week!

DoK are a glass cannon army so they are nearly always going to hit very hard when they work as intended. The key of the army is to strike hard and fast and do maximum damage. However if your opponents learn to knock out or tangle up key units (like hags and queens) and to use screen units that are tough but perhaps not as damaging, but whcih can hold the line to block charges from Witches and Sisters - then your opponent can go some way to turning tables. Basically you need to either hit DoK faster and harder or have tougher units that can tarpit and out-last the initial hard hit.

Ahh Shadspire is different again. I hope it keeps going, I'd like to see more factions get a little squad of hero units to use in there! Though I'm reminded that Sigmar already had Skirmish rules and many of the battletomes also have skirmish components to them. So surely GW can just put out a brand new 2018 2.0 skirmish rule book to reinforce that; couple that to a couple of starting kit boxes and away it goes.

I thought Shadspire was the Sigmar equivalent? Certainly they've been making models for it for specific factions and I'd assume they will keep making more factions in Shadspire versions?

The only thing on them I'd worry about are the whips, but even they are small (the worst are whips on Slannesh chariots). The worrying models or Daughters are, in my view, the Cauldrons and Khinerai (one day I'll learn how to spell that word without having to look it up). Both feature a lot of small contract area parts and both feature some thinner details; plus cauldrons are big! Khinerai are also pretty big (actually just compared it, they are nearly as big as an angelus heavy warbeast from Hordes) so even when one has a stable storage its going to take up quite a chunk of space!

And upon that day much blood was spilt upon snake booty In other news what you guys using to transport Khinari? I thought they'd be fragile, but having put one together my GODS are these going to be fragile models! Really beautiful but gods spears and tails they are thin!

Ahh the Blood Cauldron kit itself won't be discontinued*, that's just out of stock for a fair bit. It's only the combined Blood Coven (cauldron and witches) kit that is going away . *If it were it would only be because GW put it into a starter kit only; much like they've done with a few other big monsters from fantasy. However I think that because of what the Cauldron offers to players I suspect it won't be in the new getting started kit; I suspect the new getting started might be something like two units of witches and then some harpies or snakes.

For clarity they've never had one. They had a combined kit of one Blood Cauldron and one Witch Aelves set at discount. The Blood Coven kit (which is what it was called) is being discontinued, though it appears that distributors still have stock for 3rd party retailers (and some local GW stores might also still have stock if you contact them to ask). So it might be around for a little bit more but it should be ended. Where this leaves daughters is anyones guess. I think GW will give daughters a proper kit and will do something to lower the price of Witch Aelves (which are grossly overpriced right now for a battleline troop choice). But I've not heard anything and chances are even if you contact GW you won't get an answer.

It's the strings of a guitar (photographed sideways and thus likely being held in the air high in great exaltation by its player). This is the beginning of the re-metal-ifiction of Warhammer! Getting back to its 80s roots when everything came with a metal/rock music tracks!

I think you've captured that era of style fantastically! I often feel that animation through to art the detail and skill has grown in general at large since that era; but we've somewhere along the way lost some of the style and magic that those earlier artists had. Love to see your fully army complete with Endless Spells on the table as I bet that would look a rare treat of fantasy!

Love the choice of colours; the very dark edges give them a very "classic fantasy" visual style that reminds me of a lot of book/album covers from the past.