Skabnoze

I agree. I am not sure about a new emphasis on Souldblight. I can see that, but I can also equally see them expanding Deathrattle. Either way, I think they would pick one of those two allegiances and expand them out - similar to how Gloomspite massively expanded Moonclan and then mainly left Spiderfang alone but gave them some real quality-of-life improvements. Legions of Nagash will get a rewrite at some point, probably before too long, if for no other reason than to convert Gravesites into a terrain kit they can sell and to drop some endless spells into the army. However, as I said previously that book was a very good product when it released but eventually it is going to become a bit of an anchor if they don't figure out a better way to split up what it encompasses. At the time it was effectively a replacement for Grand Alliance Death and it has a very strange format even compared to other "soup" battletomes. If nothing else the book could use some clean up and modernizing for AoS 2.0, but I have the feeling they will probably also want to restructure the army to some degree.

Tomb Kings I will believe when I see them. I'm not saying that GW won't trot that idea out at some point, but it sort of feels a bit too soon to me. That said, they do sort of need to sort out Death. Legions of Nagash was a good book for when it came out - but it was basically a giant get-you-by book that really just resorted the old Death kits to be useful in the game without new models and effectively replaced Grand Alliance Death. But at this point that book is starting to show it's age and it really does not fit very well with the new edition in a few ways. In addition, Legion of Nagash tied up so much stuff into a single book that in order to expand Death armies they will probably need to figure out a good way to disentangle it at some point. Splitting the various Mortarchs in the book out into their own allegiance battletomes seems like a good way forward for GW to go. The one thing they would have to figure out if they do that is how to handle Nagash himself and they have a similar problem to solve on the Chaos side with Archaon. If they do decide to brush off Tomb Kings and reimagine them for AoS then the thing that makes the most sense to me would be for them split Neferata from Legions of Nagash and move her into whatever this would be. But, I also believe that at some point they will do something with Deathrattle and it seems like a Tomb Kings redux would step on Deathrattle unless they did not do much with the skeletons concept and instead concentrated more on the construct & monsters side of Tomb Kings.

Who doesn't? Can you honestly blame them? Admit it, even you do... 😉

The standard Dankhold Troggoth was easily the biggest miss in the Gloomspite book. There are various other big misses on that chart and a whole lot of "internet favorite" ideas listed. I am not opposed to a lot of the things listed on that image, but I don't at all believe it is the real thing.

To be fair, campaign supplements for GW games that are not designed primarily around a campaign (Necromunda, Mordheim, etc) have always been niche products. This is not new for AoS and the same dynamic existed in Warhammer Fantasy and still does exist in 40k. I generally like that GW remains willing to put out campaign supplements for their games. Campaigns & other forms of structured long-term play can be a whole lot of fun. The downside is that they require someone to put some effort into setting them up, organizing, and continually running the campaign. When done right I think they are some of the most fun ways to play tabletop games. However, they will always be somewhat niche because they require extra work and organization from a group of players. It can be hard enough in our hobby for people to regularly manage to play standard games and so it gets even tougher to get organized long-term groups going. But products like these can help lift some of the burden of designing the campaign and let people just focus on organizing. It is similar to playing a RPG module rather than creating one from scratch - some of the work has already been done for you.

You should be able to. Nothing in the rules for army construction or the battalion prevents you from doing so.

This is correct. The ability can stack onto a single unit, hence why it talks about damaging units when stacking. But nothing in the ability text allows you to trigger the ability more than once from a single unit of Snufflers. So in order to stack multiple snuffler buffs onto a unit you need more than one unit of snufflers. Honestly, they should reword this ability so that this is explicitly mentioned in the ability just for clarity.

I give them a bit more credit than this. Britain is in very close proximity to the EU and I expect they teach the metric system better than they usually do here in the US and people tend to have more exposure to it than here in 'murica. But for the sake of argument lets go ahead and assume that despite GW 25mm bases existing for the last 25+ years and the games using Imperial measurement that whole time (except Epic - that game used metric) that the designers were under the assumption that a 25mm base is equal to 1". And lets also assume that they playtested the game with this assumption. The end result is that it should not matter at all. The core rules are very explicit for how to measure distances and how to attack in melee. To attack in melee the enemy has to be within range. To measure range you simply measure the distance between the two model bases from the closest points. So, if you have 2 models that are attacking over a 1" wide base and both the attacking model and defending model are in base to base contact with the intervening model then the farthest possible distance the attacker and defender can be from each other is 1" - which is within range according to the rules. So it does not matter if 25mm < 1". If you take the stance that 25mm == 1" then a model with 1" melee range can attack past a model with a 1" wide base that it is in contact with. The intervening base has to be greater than 1" wide to prevent an attack. If GW wants to prevent models with 1" melee range from attacking past models with a 25mm base then they need to explicitly call this out in the rules because there is nothing in the rules (measurement conversion does not matter) that stops it. But again, this above train of thought still assumes that the GW developers are a bunch of dunces that don't know much of what they are doing and don't remember much of grade school. I have been in this hobby for a long time now and I have seen GW do a lot of bone-headed things, but even I think this seems like a very poor view to take regarding the competence of the rules team.

I am well aware of the history of goblin and Squig models and base sizes. I have played them since 4th edition in the 90s and I own an absurd amount of them. I don’t see the relevance of new models on 32mm bases for this point. Sure, many new models are on 32mm bases, but that has not stopped them from making new models on 25mm (Squig Herd for example). It seems unlikely that they are going to phase out those bases and if they do then that is fine. But until they do then those models can fight in 2 ranks or 3 ranks if they have 2” range on their weapons. This is no different than 32mm bases fighting in 2 ranks if they have 2” reach. The same goes for models on 40mm bases that have long melee range. I don’t know if GW playtests all of these units fighting in full ranks based on the reach of their weapons. If not then they should be since their rules specifically facilitate models fighting past each other if they have the reach. But it still does not matter if they do or they don’t. The rules are clear in regards to how they work and the purpose of some weapon vs others is specifically the reach. The strength of some units in melee is the amount of attacks they can deliver. I honestly don’t know the point you are trying to make unless you are simply trying to say that models on 25mm bases should not be able to attack past one another. If you are excited by the movement trays shown in the Apocalypse photos then that is great. I already said that I was glad that GW was making some. I will probably pick some of those up - even if I only use them for 40k. For AoS I already have a different method for movement trays that are more flexible in regards to model positioning - and that is more important in AoS than 40k so for this game I will most likely continue to use the ones that I have. Some sort of movement trays is better than none and it is always nice to see companies invest in things to make games more convenient to play.

Why is that a fixation? It is simple math and not some fixation to abuse game mechanics for advantage. This is a pretty important thing for many units. I am not sure about most armies, but for Gloomspite the amount of attacks you can get from second and third ranks is important - especially for units such as Squig Herd or Stabbas.

Speaking of Nagash - that exact thing happened to me with him! The 40k edition swap of 2nd edition to 3rd edition seriously screwed with most people's collections regardless of what army they played. Thankfully GW has not repeated such wide-spread army/model invalidation since then.

No, I suspect you are correct. AoS has obviously been quite a work-in-progress in regards to making it the successful product they want it to be. My opinion is not that they are necessarily making a bad call - but simply that they need to make a call. If they make something explicitly a small ally or narrative product line then there is nothing preventing them from expanding those into full forces at a later date when they get an exciting idea. If you go far enough back in 40k they had a number of current factions that started that way. Grey Knights were originally a super unit you could ally into your Imperial army and not their own force. The Death Watch started out like that also. Eventually they decided they should be full armies. Nothing is stopping them from making some sort of book that codifies some of the smaller allegiances as narrative or ally factions and doing that would not stop them from fully fleshing those out farther down the road. I simply think they need to make a decision about these forces and then execute those decisions sooner rather than later.

I do as well. I have significantly invested in games that massively bloated their game and at a certain point I started to question why I should purchase something simply because my collection was large enough that new additions to my faction (not simply resculpts or duplicate units) were hard to play with. As an example I played Warmachine/Hordes from 1st edition up through the 3rd edition and I eventually just stuck most of it into the closet. That game hit a point where to realistically play with my collection required playing more games than I could really fit into my schedule in a year or so. The game plays at a relatively small model level and they expanded the factions into huge things where you play with such a minority of your collection if you tend to be a collector. That really bothered me and eventually it made me question if I should even buy anything anymore - even if I thought the models looked neat. Eventually I just stopped playing it entirely.

I can deal with stuff like that - but GW needs to make these things explicit in my opinion. I fully expect more kits or even small allegiances to drop off - just like Gitmob and Greenskinz seem to have, but GW needs to get this stuff out of the way. If there are allegiances & kits that they want to just stick around just as allies and continue to sell the models then they need to make players aware of this so that people don't heavily invest in these forces without knowing explicitly what they are doing. This is simply allowing customers to make better informed decisions. There are people who will still make entire large collections out of niche forces and know exactly what they are doing. I have played an all Night Goblin (now Gloomspite Moonclan) army since the mid-90s and I knew exactly what I was doing the whole time. In fact, I am still a bit surprised and in shock that they actually are a full army with their own Battletome now. I honestly never thought that would ever come to pass. But there are still a number of potential purchase pitfalls that people can make with this game and GW should be doing as much as they can to minimize that.

You won't get an argument from me - except to say that I hate having any useless models in my collection (and I have a lot...). In the case of smaller games it is at least easier to modify/repurpose those models for another edition, but I still don't like it. If I can still field the same units, even if they are subpar, then I am much happier when an edition changes. This is a hobby where I expect to be spending some amount of money over time. I don't expect to have a couple of purchases and be done forever. I don't mind buying new stuff - I just mind when old stuff is relegated through the shelf not because of competitive concerns but simply because they no longer function in the game.

I would really like GW to get AoS out of the state where we have so many factions without real rules. Every faction needs to be contained in a real battletome or retired from the game. AoS has it's warts, all games do, but on the whole it is one of the more excellent games that GW has ever produced in my opinion. However, it needs to get out of the weird state it lives in with regards to the factions. Thankfully they seem to have been doing just this. Hopefully they continue heavily on this path until they get rules for everyone. They managed that with 40k for 8th and for AoS to truly shine they need to do it here also. And old legacy battletomes are not good enough either - everyone meant to be in this game needs a 2.0 battletome. I want to see new interesting factions as much as anyone, but more than anything I want the existing old-school & AoS 1.0 messes cleaned up first. To the Games Workshop Age of Sigmar Dev Team: Do your homework & chores and then you can go outside and play.

To be fair, they kind of have to. I am not a huge fan of it either, but having watched many games develop over the last couple of decades it has become obvious to me that long-lived games need to have multiple editions in order for the business to thrive. The games themselves don't always need it, but the businesses need to sell products to thrive and grow. They can expand a game, but eventually so much is stapled on that the game needs a reset and an edition change is necessary. Games that just continually add new stuff and expand eventually become overly bloated messes. They could potentially lock down a game, not expand it anymore, and just sell the same products - but eventually people will get bored and the game will begin to diminish. GWs strategy of doing new editions fairly often can be quite annoying - I won't argue with that. But from a business point of view it allows them to sell customers the same thing over again. And for all the customers that are turned off by the process it seems that at least as many, if not more, are generally excited by edition revamps as most of these games continue to grow. For me, the biggest problem comes when a game makes an edition change that makes existing collections simply unusable. I can deal with when existing stuff is less useful than newer options. That is very annoying, but when an edition change makes your models no longer able to be used it is rage enducing. That happened in 40k from 2nd to 3rd edition and I have seen it happen in other games as well. Thankfully GW usually makes collections still useable for a pretty long period of time in their games. I hope that at some point someone stumbles into a better long-term business model, but I have yet to see one.

I don't disagree that I would like to see some of the "meat" of the game in regards to mechanics. I don't fault you at all for your opinion. Everyone is different in regards to what they want and what excites them. My post was meant to push back a bit and say that for some the hype that GW has been doing has been working. I understand that for some people their excitement has gone down or never even taken off - but for others it has gone up. Not every ad/hype campaign will work on everyone - or is even meant to. I have played every skirmish game that GW has released (I'm old...), and on the whole I like most of them. So for me they get a bit of good-will in regards to skirmish games. They usually make a decent game - but historically have poor support for them. However, I will say that if I made my purchases solely on game mechanics then I probably would not have purchased any GW games over the last 15+ years. Collecting and reading game rulebooks is somewhat of a hobby of mine and I have a pretty decent sized collection. I'll usually not hesitate to pull the trigger on purchasing a rulebook for a game, and I will say that I have played most of the games that I own the rules for at least a few times. In my opinion there are far better games in terms of mechanics than most GW games. But on the flip side it can be very hard to find a group for many of those games and GW games also have the advantage of relatively broad and easy to find (comparatively) player groups. At the end of the day my personal opinion is that GW excels at making interesting game worlds and truly outstanding miniatures. In my opinion they have only got better at this on average over time (current 40k world is back-sliding in regards to a lot of what I enjoy - but the rest of the products are getting better). So when I evaluate whether I will invest in a game then I look at the type of game (army vs skirmish, fantasy vs future, figure scale, etc), the likely price point, how likely I can find other players, what the miniatures look like, and what the mechanics of the game are. Mechanics are a big deal for me, but when it comes specifically to GW games I expect the mechanics to probably be mediocre and I hope that the models are great. So far in my opinion the Warcry models have only got better and better as they have been shown off and so my interest has gone up. Your mileage may vary. I am not saying that anyone is wrong in their personal opinion.

They do seem to heavily operate in that mode and I find it a bit funny. I have only ever met a very rare group of people that have to buy every shiny thing that is hyped for a game and also have the money to do that. I have known a few that would sell their existing army and jump onto the brand new release hype for a game - but those are ultra-rare also. And I have been playing miniature games since the 80s... Most people don't have enough time or money to significantly invest in more than 2-3 factions and so the idea that your customers won't buy the thing you put out now because you showed them something coming a bit further down the line is silly. Those customers were likely to only buy one of those things anyways and probably will when the one they want releases. If they end up buying both of those things then they probably would have done that if you showed them both.

I agree. I picked them up a while ago but I am having a really hard time deciding how I want to paint them...

I would do 3 or 4. If this is a friendly game then I would simply have a conversation about how you can use the models that you own and really enjoy. Friendly games should 100% be about both players having fun. I think that should be the goal for all games, but especially so for a friendly game. A bit of conversation before hand should easily let both players come to an agreement.

GW already makes a Skaven Eshin boxed set right here: Eshin boxed set

In addition, many (maybe most) native speakers of english don't have a sophisticated enough understanding & mastery of the language to adhere to that. And then there are non-native speakers to consider. There is no educational bar required to post on the forums aside from some basic level of literacy and we don't need one. People seem to be able to communicate their points well enough most of the time.

When Warcry was announced I thought the narrative concept was cool, but I was not terribly interested because I wanted a broader skirmish game for AoS than just chaos. I have been a chaos player in 40k since the 90s and have dipped my toe into Warhammer Fantasy Chaos a bit - but WFB never really delivered the sort of chaos that I wanted. AoS really did not either from the beginning, but the early DarkOath models easily caught my eye since I am a huge fan of Frank Frazetta's Fantasy artwork (especially Conan) and this stuff really screams that look. But as a general fan of skirmish games on the whole, and as someone who really likes the faction diversity in AoS, I was disappointed at the initial announcement of it being focused on Chaos. I also did not really care for the first warband models they showed off with the weird helmets. And then they announced it will incorporate rules for other races, even if they don't make new warband modes for those races in wave 1, and I was MUCH more on board. And since then they have been showcasing new warbands that I really like. I like the models shown for each of the warbands with the exception of the first one revealed. I love the barbarian group from the realm of beasts. The snake crew with Retiarii gladiator weapons (net & trident) are great. And this new tengu crew with the crow skull masks also look really neat to me. And the more that I look at the original crew the more I think a different paint job and head-swaps would improve them a lot for me. The only thing I really don't like about them are the helmets and I can easily replace those. I understand and sympathize that some people are not interested in this game and don't like how they have advertised it - but there are others of us who do. I started out with this game pretty low on my radar and each new teaser has really bumped up my desire for it. At this point I will definitely buy the box set with the rules on day-1, and I am likely to buy all of the factions they have shown so far. If the next few teasers look as neat to me as these have then I will get those also. This is probably the GW product that will kill my wallet more than anything else they do all year since I don't purchase every army they release.

Maybe they could just wander themselves out of the mortal realms and into oblivion...