Skabnoze

GW still sells non-river trolls individually on their web store. So you can pick up 2 more if you want. You can also find lots of troll models on eBay pretty easily. Or, you can sell the one you have without too much issue.

If you are playing matched-play games using point values then units have minimum sizes now and you purchase them in chunks rather than individual models. Trolls come in minimum groups of 3.

My preference for allies is Gitmob. One reason is that I have a lot of forest goblins on foot from long ago - including characters. They work perfectly as Gitmob grots with a shaman and visually stick with Spiderfang.

Coincidence? I think not...

It should have a rule where if dispelled then the wizard plummets from on-high and lands on his face and takes a mortal wound. This needs to happen if only because the mental image is hilarious.

I think Darkoath may end up being a rebrand for Slaves of Darkness. Slaves of Darkness seems like a faction where if they put out a full Battletome they may be likely to replace half the kits in the faction with newer ones. Maybe it ends up just being a name applied to a few heroes, maybe it becomes a keyword, or it might simply become the name of the allegiance and they drop Slaves of Darkness.

I just hope that whatever Darkoath ends up being has models that look like the two characters released so far. I really love the old Frank Frazetta Conan look they went with for those characters and I would love a whole faction with that theme.

The way rumors have been leaking out, including rumor engines, it feels like Moonclan will probably be released before Darkoath. There has been almost not talk that I have seen about Darkoath which makes me think that they are a little ways out.

I think Skarsnik is the new Mortarch of Grief and inside the coach is Gobbla. #youhearditherefirst

You are correct. I made my post having only looked at the artwork that had been previously linked in this thread and not having seen the video. In those pictures the headpiece looks a lot different than the close-up in the video. After watching the video I agree with you.

The silhouette looks nothing like Isabella and a lot like Khalida. Isabella has always been transylvanian vampire themed and not egyptian in any way. I would love for Isabella to come back into the story in some way, but it does not really seem to fit with that picture.

No, I don't get that feeling really. GW has doubled down on very specific themes and Grots are thematically all over the place. The only product so far that breaks that trend is Legions of Nagash. We might see a book like that at some point for all of Destruction, but I don't get the feeling that they will make a grot specific one. I expect that they will turn at least one grot faction into a full allegiance with a battletome and probably eventually get some sort of anthology book released for most of Destruction. The rumors specifically for Moonclan seem strong enough that at this point it feels like a "when" and not an "if".

To be fair, Mannfred died many times in the Old World. When the old Undead army book was released in the early 90s he was still "dead" and his spirit was being held in some form of reliquary prison. The Gotrek & Felix short story in that book (most army books used to have a Gotrek & Felix story in them back then) was about the pair stumbling across a group of necromancers/cultists performing an arcane ritual to resurrect a vampire and bind him to their will. Gotrek interrupted the ritual and killed them all and by accident the vampire spirit broke free of the spell was able to return to the world. At the end of the story they revealed that it was Mannfred. So, just saying that he (and most vampire characters) has a history of being dead and then not dead - or UNdead if you will.

Well to be completely fair there are not really that many named characters in Age of Sigmar right now.

I agree. Even before the End Times series Thanquol was one of my favorite Warhammer characters. There are some characters that I feel were just so fun, unique, and interesting to Warhammer that it is a shame to lose them. Nagash was one and I was sad to see how long he took a nap over the various editions, but it was heartening that he was still around in the background and could possibly make a return. Then he did during the End Times and it was pretty epic. For me, Skarsnik & Gobbla live in the same space as Thanquol even though they are more minor characters. Skarsnik was just exemplified the main goblin traits more than any other character and I simply love goblins. Grom was great - but he was a weird anomaly rather than being representative of his race. I think it is also easier to bring over some of these characters who may have been influential in small areas of the Old World but on the whole were very minor players. Skarsnik had a big part to play in connection to the Karak Eight Peaks and the story of the Dwarfs, but to be fair that stronghold was lost long before Skarsnik's story began. Other characters that could be neat to bring back into the world are characters like Azhag the Slaughterer, Deathmaster Snikch, Grom the Paunch, Joseph Bugman, Heinrich Kemmler & Krell, etc. Those characters were always relatively minor, but they had a lot of flavor and they would all still fit fairly well into the Mortal Realms.

They all will if you have a sharp enough knife...

Oh, it may have been the Maggoth Lords I was thinking of and not Glottkin. Sorry, as I said I have not yet purchased that battletome. Thanks for the clarification! My point still stands that there is some precedence for retcons of some characters.

I agree with you for the most part, although I do like when they make little fluff nods to older characters. I enjoy most of the new world building they are doing. That said, I have zero issue being a total hypocrite when it comes to Skarsnik and Gobbla (or probably Grom the Paunch)!

I could swear that I heard they changed it in a podcast or some other fluff description video (maybe it was 2+ Tough). But, that does not mean they are correct, and I have not read the AoS Nurgle Battletome so I will defer to people who have on this one. Can you confirm that they kept Gutrot Spume & Thanquol's background from the Old World the same?

Wasn't there an allusion somewhere that Settra is around still, but in a slightly different form? It seems like Tomb Kings won't be a thing again, but I think there was some fluff out there about Settra or one of the other Tomb King character's soul being in Age of Sigmar somewhere. Sort of similar to how the new allusion with the upcoming Gotrek novel is that Felix may be a Stormcast Eternal. I am pretty sure I heard a mention of a Settra reference in the fluff in a pod-cast or Youtube channel lore video (2+ Tough maybe?)...

GW has been a bit loose with continuity between the World that Was (Old World) and the world of Age of Sigmar. They have brought named characters over in some cases but retconned their back-story so that they are fully from the world of Age of Sigmar and sort of erased that part of the Old World. I believe they did this with the Glottkin and now have them being from one of the mortal realms rather than a remnant of the Old World. The same goes for Gutrot Spume I think. I don't know the current fluff behind Thanquol either - but I don't believe that he is immortal now and still around in Age of Sigmar. So precedence is there to bring older special characters over and simply retcon them. Moonclan is so underdeveloped right now, and Orcs & Goblins were never the most developed in the first place, that it would be very simple for GW to simply bring Skarsnik and Gobbla back with a new origin story into Age of Sigmar. My hope is that they at least revisit the concept of a big nasty Moonclan Warlord with a massive pet squig whenever they make a Moonclan battletome. But I would be head over heels thrilled if they simply dropped Skarsnik & Gobbla back in. I just always really loved those two characters. I was sad when they disappeared from Warhammer Fantasy for an edition or two, and I was extremely thrilled when they brought them back. I would again be equally thrilled if they brought them into Age of Sigmar. Honestly, those are the characters I want from the Old World more than any other. It would be neat if they make Gobbla behemoth sized and back to being the biggest Squig around - like he once was. I would be all over a Grot Warlord riding a Colossal Squig!

I would like to see Vlad and Isabella come back in some form. I would be cool with them being spirits now. That would be neat. Also, they should bring Gobbla back as a giant killer ghost squig. It saddens me greatly that he was killed in the Skarsnik novel...

That king model is amazing. I love it! Also, GW are real jerks for dropping those silhouettes into the background...

Why would that be odd? The vast majority of games I have played (including most GW games) do not allow you to shoot into close combat without some sort of special ability. Age of Sigmar is very much the odd man out in regards to this. I’m not claiming that how Age of Sigmar handles this is good or bad, just saying that not shooting into combat is by far the norm for tabletop games.