Skabnoze

It's just speculation. But bear in mind that GW has explicitly said that the way they currently work is that the rules team goes to work once the Design team hands them a bunch of models. We also know that sometimes they sit on completed designs for a while. And we also know that their physical production capacity is limited and decides where things fall in terms of release windows. So I would expect that the Design team would have some things sitting in limbo waiting for something. Here is a hypothetical example to think of. Malign Portents added a character to each grand alliance and very much seems like those releases were matched to upcoming release books (Stormcast, Nighthaunt, Moonclan/Grots, Slaves to Darkness). It could very well be the case that they designed 2-3 characters for each Grand Alliance and then chose which ones to fit into Malign Portents. Or, maybe they have a new campaign setting and they are making another character release wave to go with it. It would not surprise me if they used that opportunity to brainstorm what Ogors in Age of Sigmar would be (like they did with Moonclan and the Fungus shaman). So it could be something as small as a single model to prototype out a new visual. I'm just shooting from the hip with ideas so feel free to ignore everything that I have said. In regards to consistency they did just consolidate all Trolls onto 50mm bases.

How do we know they are so serious? Maybe Sigmar simply has not opened the Clown Brigade Chamber yet?

It seems to me that the new piling in rules is going to enable/force both sides to engage a whole lot more of the models in units as combat continues. I don't care for the 40mm Ogors simply due to the visuals for the models, but I am not sure it is a giant nerf until we thoroughly wrap our heads around the tweaks to the new edition. Pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if some of these base increases that seem out of left field (Ogors, Fanatics, etc) are due to stuff that the design studio and modelers are currently working on? It could very well be the case that they have some WIP (or completed) designs for new Ogor models and they are planning to bump the scale of them up slightly. In the past the main driving reason for base size increases has been model size creep. Maybe when GW compiled the official base size chart they figured they would hit us with some of those changes now and let people adapt before new models come out later on? Pure speculation - discuss....

If you look at the recent errata the Legions of Nagash book effectively deprecated the entire Grand Alliance Death book. My hunch is that they may migrate the remaining Grand Alliance only allegiances into blanket books like this that have rules dedicated to fielding combined forces. No idea how far off some of these would be, but it seems like the smartest way to update them. The Grand Alliance books were necessary and useful to get rules out for the models that crossed over from Warhammer Fantasy in the early days of Age of Sigmar but they are missing too many pieces of what makes good armies for Age of Sigmar and they don't really make sense anymore.

I hope so - since I have been a huge Night Goblin fan since the 90s. But honestly, I have not really been disappointed with any of the Age of Sigmar releases for quite a while now. I am not a huge Stormcast fan, although the expanded darker fluff is starting to interest me, but even those models are quite nice and well done. So as long as they tease and give me an idea about what is coming out further than the next month's release wave I will be quite happy.

I would not be surprised to see GW drop something big and a couple months out in the Open Day. They have spoiled the majority of Stormcast & Nighthaunt already and pretty much the whole new edition. I don't think they want the hype train to slow down on the release day for the new edition - they would probably prefer to kick it into high gear. Now don't get me wrong, I think there will be more info and models from the new Stormcast and Nighthaunt books that are shown, but I would not at all be surprised if they blindsided us with a tease or reveal of some of the other things coming further down the pipeline. GW has seemed to learn more about the value of future hype generation than they did in the past.

They specifically made errata for some warscrolls and command abilities so that they cannot stack. This mainly seems to be the command abilities that allow a unit to immediately fight an extra combat like the Wurrgog Prophet or the Slaughter Queen. So if a warscroll was not updated with that restriction then it is currently fair game assuming that the GHB has no restriction.

So, on the topic of the errata and possible new battletomes I found it interesting to look at the errata for the Grand Alliance books - most especially the Grand Alliance Death book. So for each of the Grand Alliance books it seems that the errata to them is to deprecate the units that now have an entry in a battletome. For example, Bonesplitterz, Beastclaw, and Ironjawz were all deprecated from Grand Alliance Destruction. What I found interesting though was that the Grand Alliance Death errata said to deprecate the entire book: I find that interesting because it basically means that Legions of Nagash was effectively a full replacement for Grand Alliance Death. We sort of knew that anyways, as it was a much better way to play with that stuff, but it is still interesting to consider. We have been discussing the idea of a similar "Waaagh! Gordrakk" or "Legions of <insert destruction warlord>" type of book for a little while now, but this makes me think that GW may indeed actually put out a few more of them to consolidate allegiances that otherwise might not see an update for a long time (or at all). But that is just pure speculation on my part.

Yeah, I have some bases to rebase my Bonesplitterz onto (I like premade resin bases for most occasions) and I was thinking the same thing. My Weirdnob is also the metal one and a standard 60mm cavalry base does seem a bit small for his balance.

I was browsing the base size document, because I was going to go for another big fancy resin base purchase spree and I noticed that the Maniak Weirdnob is listed as "75 x 42mm". Was this how people were previously basing him? I find it a bit odd that all other Bonesplitter characters are on the same size base as equivalent infantry models. It does not bother me at all - I just find it odd.

It is too bad that the Waaagh! command ability does not persist until your next hero phase. But the ability to toss a bunch of them out there and stack them possibly makes up for it. Also I just noticed that Ardboyz have been clarified so that the shield save does not work against mortal wounds.

That is how it reads. Shame that they did not remove that bit about measuring to the closest enemy, but it just means that you will pay a bit more attention to where you position the unit in order to get this bonus. It is nice that they removed the requirement of needing to roll over 8 on the dice so now you can use charge bonuses (cog spell anyone?) to trigger this.

This errata was easy to make and had probably been sitting around waiting for the next General's Handbook anyways. They were all obvious ones that we had discussed quite a bit. I don't think this at all indicates that a new book is not happening. GW has historically dropped a fairly large errata on the release of a new edition and those often touched units that were then quickly replaced by a new army book. This just happened in 40k 8th edition with the release of all of the Index books at launch and then some of that being changed in books that were quickly released. It may also indicate that these units are unlikely to change from this version in a new update of the Battletome. I still posit that if the rumors of a mini-release wave of Ironjawz models is correct then that is going to coincide with a new book. Printing new army books is almost a guaranteed sale for GW - and there is no better time to rewrite a book than a new edition. One reason that GW regularly resculpts the same models and issues new versions of the rules is so that they can keep selling those things to the same player base - they are a business after all and why make all new products when you can just iterate the existing ones? It is also worth noting that in the Malign Portents Errata document they have deprectated the warscrolls for the Stormcast and Nighthaunt Harbingers completely. They now say to refer to their respective battletomes for their new Warscroll. I expect the same will happen to the Fungoid shaman and I would not be surprised to see these warscrolls be changed in some ways.

Another thing to consider is that if you are using matched-play points then the Arachnarok with shaman is also considered a LEADER - which counts against the total number of leaders your army can have for that point size. The Arachnarok with the flinger and no shaman is not a LEADER.

I would expect models that they no longer sell to potentially be phased out of Matched Play entirely and only work for Narrative or Open games.

I don't think the Forgeworld units summon spells on the warscroll are going to survive the release FAQ. I saw it confirmed somewhere that the Forgeworld FAQ & Warscroll update is going to come out day 1 along with the other errata. I expect that they will have made a decision on how to handle these things. But maybe they do keep them - you never really know.

Man, the Legion of Azgorh are going to be pissed when they see the Stormcast have stolen their Bale Taurus... First Sigmar steals souls from Nagash and now they steal their mounts. What's next - Squigmarites?

I actually like JGroover's list a bit more than the old-school Gorefist. Gordrakk's command ability does not work on himself and the Gorefist at the same time, but you could use the Fungoid Shaman's command ability to let Gordrakk run and charge. Also, the Warboss with banner is a nice addition.

Orcs & Goblins models have had bird skulls on the models before - although mainly for the Savage Orcs. I don't think it would necessarily be out of place for Moonclan. Regardless of orc & goblin subfactions this thing looks like it is for something destruction related - probably an orc or goblin.

This is fair and I agree. For Ironjawz to do more will probably require a model update wave and a new Battletome. But my question is - what other role should they do? I'm not denying that they could use more playstyle diversity. But the whole point of the army is to be uber-elite melee orcs. They name all their formations after a Fist - which tells you how preoccupied they are with punching stuff. The only alternate role that I can come up with off the top of my head that seems fitting would be the ultra-durable role. Right now Ironjawz really are not that tanky. They are tankier than other orcs, but they still are mainly built around offense. Maybe they add an alternate brutes unit that carries shields and is a bit less offensive in order to be highly defensive and hard to shift? That seems like it might be fitting for Ironjawz. But as it currently stands I don't think the army is really geared to do much more than punch people in the face. The biggest playstyle change you could really do right now would be to go heavy into the Wierdfist. In regards to Gore Gruntas - don't discount the buffs we can layer onto them.

To play devil's advocate - what else would elite orcs do? Thematically speaking I don't think this is really the army for subtlety.

Well, new editions is the most likely place to see existing army books get rewritten. Historically it has not always happened since there have been army books that have spanned multiple editions before. But on the whole those are rare and it has mainly happened in 40k and less often in Fantasy (although it has happened). My hunch is that we will see a number of older Battletomes reworked for Age of Sigmar 2nd ed. 40k has most of their codexes out now and they will probably slow down their book releases for that game and probably concentrate on releasing more campaign books. Theoretically that means they may have more bandwidth for book rewrites for Age of Sigmar - although that will depend on if they also want an accompanying model release and how big they want those releases to be. But, books like Legions of Nagash do not require model releases so we may see more of those. I have a feeling though that we will see reworked battletomes and small model release waves for some of the earliest battletomes. So things like Ironjawz, Beastclaw, Fyreslayers, Silvaneth, Clan Pestilens, etc. They have a lot of allegiances to expand with new books, but it would probably be best for the game if they balanced out updating existing books with releasing new ones. This is generally what has happened in the past when they have released update editions that are backwards compatible with army books. Ironjawz are a fairly popular faction but have a limited amount of models. I'm sure there is a fair bit of money to be made with a new book and a small release wave.

Well, if you use either Gitmob or Moonclan grots units you can get a big bucket of wounds for relatively cheap. I like Gitmob myself because it allows me to use all of the forest goblin on foot models that I have. Also, since both gitmob and moonclan grot units are base battleline you can build your list as general destruction without really losing anything if you wanted to run a couple units. If you want a more durable unit then you could ally in some Ardboyz.

I have felt for a while now that Bonesplitterz as an army should emphasize berserk melee. Not only does the battletome mention this but it is also what Savage orcs have always been. They have always been insane lunatic berserkers that fight without any thought to their own safety. So you end up taking lots of casualties but dish out a ton of attacks. The main ways that I can see to represent this is to either give units a ton of attacks or buffs for more attacks. Have units generate additional attacks or hits. Or to make units attack in melee multiple times in a turn. I like how many units and abilities in Bonesplitterz fight multiple times per round. I will probably look into the Drakkfoot clan as well because of that. I have always liked the idea of the Kopp Rukk as well. My one major gripe, outside of price costs, is that I still think that the standard Savage orc warscroll needs to be reworked. Even if they become super cheap I just don’t think they are representative of the standard Bonesplitterz orc like they should be.

Stormcast models are bulky - but honestly everything that GW sculpts tends to fall on the bulky side. Most game miniatures tend to be bulky and it is partly due to material and sculpting design choices. Most humans have exaggerated proportions so that the materials can hold the detail, painters can paint it, and so they are durable enough to stand up to regular handling on the table. Very few games use more regularly proportioned models as they tend to be very thin and spindly. This means that for heroically scales games like GW games the artwork and the models diverge a bit in appearance since artists often make the subjects more appropriately proportioned. I agree that the Stormcast art on the new cover looks very cool.