Skabnoze

Booo! I notice a distinct lack of big hats. Since puny humans are all the same size how does anyone in the realms know who is important and means business without a big imposing hat?

You could be right and it could be something decayed. To me it seems like something that is snapping due to strain rather than being decayed - but we also don’t have the full picture so who knows.

If we are guessing that the rope is something for Grots (seems most likely for Grots or Skaven), then I highly doubt it is for grot sky pirates. I still think the first grot release we see will be Moonclan, and this rumor looks most like something for a Squig kit. Where the Squig is being restrained or tethered by one or more grots who are probably being partially pulled/dragged along and also straining the ropes to the point where they are snapping. You can see the knot in the picture and it is obviously not a noose - it is a really badly tied knot which I think also supports the idea of Grots or Skaven. If they do a full Moonclan release then they will probably end up creating plastic kits for some of the current range which is heavily resin. My guess is that this is for a new Mangler Squig model.

I have a feeling that many of the old ranges will be slowly retired in some fashion. Either by releasing new battletomes that incorporate them or simply by whole new ranges that replace them. I expect that we will at some point see the legacy stuff quietly retired by removal from the Generals Handbook over a few iterations. But before that point it is not unlikely to get some sort of Legions of Nagash style book for much of it. I do think we will see old stuff pruned from the game at some point, but I don’t feel that they will do anything drastic in the fluff like the did with the swap from the old world to Age of Sigmar. When stuff starts to go away I think it will happen with a whisper rather than a bang.

I don't think a new version release like we are used to seeing in the past will be anything we see for 40k or Age of Sigmar any time soon. They really do look like they are moving in the direction of living rulebooks. If you watch the moves that they are doing they seem to be doing pilot iterations of ideas across both games. Age of Sigmar piloted the idea of a very small and simple set of core rules, moving most of the special rules to units, and eventually the concept of the General's Handbook being used primarily as a vehicle for matched play that they can reissue yearly. Sure, it appears that it was not something they meant to do from the beginning and rather was something they did in reaction to a lot of the push-back from the playerbase due to launching the game without any mechanism that makes the social contract for arranging a game simpler (without this it is hard to handle simple games against strangers - and can even be annoying with a regular game group sometimes). They brought those concepts over to 40k, then layered a bit more complexity into the core rules (some of it is good, but some does not add anything to the game IMO), added stratagems, etc. Now 40k is in a place where they have to rapidly develop the game, in regards to army rules, core rule adjustments, FAQ/Errata policy, etc. The game had such a huge change to the mechanics and rules, and it is financially such an important game to GW, that it is obvious that they have to work hard to make sure that this edition is successful. Age of Sigmar was a giant gamble, but given the relatively poor sales position Warhammer Fantasy was in (which was entirely GWs fault given how expensive they pushed the game to be by doubling up on price increases and pushing an edition that increased unit & army size - they priced out huge chunks of the player base) I think it was a gamble that had little downside. Good that it was successful, but it almost wasn't and they had to work hard at it. If you look at what they have been doing with 40k it is plainly obvious that they learned a lot from Age of Sigmar and are using those lessons in handling 40k. So given all of that, I have a strong feeling that they will turn around and apply things they have learned from 40k back into Age of Sigmar. I think this is a good thing. It has been a long long time since GW appeared to actually learn from their actions (both good and bad). Now that both of their core games are relatively stable and in a good place I think we will see them test certain ideas out in each one and apply the most successful ideas to both. I have a feeling that this big 40k rules Errata/FAQ, which was not tethered to any sort of physical release, will be similarly applied to Age of Sigmar. They can adjust the core rules fairly easily without having to worry too much about cost adjustments. They have a product that allows them to yearly adjust the matched-play costs for the entire game. This means any period of disturbance from a core rules change will not be too long unless they drop that change simultaneously with a General's Handbook. It might honestly be better for them to drop a core rules change 3-6 months ahead of a General's Handbook release to get some feedback. They can always drop an errata and recost a handful of the worst offending units.

The huge changes they just dropped into 40k, including changes to core rules and even more core rule beta changes, makes the rumors of big core rule changes for Age of Sigmar seem more likely. They just dropped these big rule changes into 40k far ahead of the Chapter Approved book (including a few cost adjustments). I like the fact that they are doing some of the rule changes as beta rules. I would like to see them put some beta rule changes into Age of Sigmar.

I have only played a couple of games of Age of Sigmar since getting over my distaste for how they handled the old world and looking at the current state of the game and fiction with fresh eyes. I decided to bring out my Savage Orcs first simply because it is in more of a playable state and they also have a Battletome that I enjoyed. I bought the Warscroll cards & tokens for them and I found them to be only marginally helpful. I played a game with a friend who used another one of my armies comprised mainly of Moonclan and with a few Spiderfang models tossed in (trying to get him to come back to playing Fantasy with me). My experience with the cards & tokens was fairly poor. I had a fair amount of tokens to represent spells, wardok dances, and relics - and we were unable to really effectively tell them apart other than leaning in close and reading them. I will probably have to break out some crayons and color-tint these things simply to make them more useful than a random coin. I printed out the grot unit warscrolls for my friend to use, and those were about as convenient to use as the Bonesplitterz warscroll cards that GW made. If that is going to be the case then I might as well mock up my own cards that are easier to read and use and then just laminate them. I absolutely love swanky extra junk that looks cool and makes my gaming easier. Price does not generally bother me as long as the item either looks really cool or is highly functional. I love cool dice (even if they can be hard to read) and I will happily buy expensive dice packs (the squishy plague dice for Death Guard are brilliant - I love those things). I have a ton of custom Greenskin dice commissioned by the Waaagh.com years ago from Q-workshop. I will probably commission custom Moonclan and Spiderfang dice from Chessex if GW does not make dice for them (or just because you cannot have too many dice). But I have to say that so far I am very disappointed in both the quality and usefulness of the Warscroll Card packs that GW makes for Age of Sigmar. I will probably be looking into alternatives.

I agree with you for the most part. I like the idea of the warscroll cards. I don't like using electronics for rules in mini games. A lot of games have apps and I don't like any of them for actually playing the game. I greatly prefer cards for unit stats and abilities as I don't want to have to constantly flip through a book. I really like when games have cards for keeping track of your units and abilities. That said, I am not a big fan of the Warscroll cards that GW made for Age of Sigmar. The cards are gigantic, which I don't mind that much, but the print on the cards is stupidly tiny. Most of the card is wasted space. They simply reprinted the warscroll onto the card without any format adjustment. Either change the format and make it work for the real-estate on the card, make the cards smaller if you want tiny text, or adjust the size of the printed text to use the giant flash-cards they made. The tokens are ok, and I like that they made the effort to give them to you, but the art on the tokens is pretty uninspired. GW has excellent artists and they could have had some real fun making doodles for the tokens. It is a shame they decided not to make them more interesting visually. I am also extremely disappointed that they have not provided cards for Spells and Warlord traits. I hope they start doing that in the future. I like the army-specific card packs that 40k has because they look nice with good artwork and they provide you useful reference material like spell lists. Age of Sigmar should have included cards for spells. But, I also think that the 40k cards should have included cards for unit profiles. Honestly, I wish at this point that they would consolidate the card packs for both games into a similar product. I am happy to pay for an accessory pack that is visually interesting and also makes the game easier and quicker for me to play. Right now both the Age of Sigmar and 40k card packs are missing useful stuff.

If they released rules changes like that in the General's Handbook, or at least alongside it, then a full rebalancing is theoretically what you get.

I admire everyone who can pull off gametable view. Fully completed armies look fantastic most times - even with a less detailed level of paint job. My problem is that I have too much OCD when it comes to my models. I am extremely bothered by flash and mold lines and I have to fully clean up almost every model I touch. I also hate duplicates of models (although I can deal with it for stuff like rank & file goblins) so I tend to convert a fair bit (I also like to build over the top display models). And then I can never manage to stop myself from putting very detailed paint jobs on almost all of my models. The end result is that I never seem to manage to finish anything. I need to figure out how to break myself of some of the most extremes of perfectionism...

I am somewhat disappointed that they are not all armed with fish. I may have to remedy this...

Well, they paid enough attention to jack up the cost of a number of things - some which seem like total head-scratchers. I was organizing my office yesterday and decided to compare costs in both General's Compendium (I bought the 2016 one not long after it released - but still did not play the game then). I was really surprised to see how much the cost of some of the Moonclan heroes increased by. I cannot fathom at all why both Warboss versions warranted a 50% cost increase. The costs of many of the characters especially seems out of whack when you look at the costs for many of the Daughters of Khaine heroes. Hopefully they pay more attention with the next iteration of GHB.

I was thinking it was probably something like this. Reading the profile for each weapon I am rather perplexed as to why all 3 are not the same cost to be honest. The flat 100 cost seems to be the easiest to slot into many lists.

This can be fixed to some degree with subsequent editions of the General's Handbook. I am in the same boat as Sheriff and hoping that GW really looks at the state of things and does a decent job tweaking Destruction (and all Grand Alliances & sub factions) to make them fun for people to play again.

I find it interesting that the primary choice is always the Rock Lobber. Is it mainly the cost? Or is it the combination of cost, flat 3 damage, and potential to double fire? I ask because all 3 of the artillery choices seem useful and with their own advantages & uses, but the rock lobber is the cheapest and seems to be in most lists that I see.

Pretty sure i have seen this year referred to as the Year of Death in a number of different sites - but I could be wrong. I was replying to the "no idea what is coming next" series of comments previously. I would hope that if this year has an emphasis on Death that we would see more for them. Yes, Nighthaunt sounds great. My comment was mainly that if there is an emphasis on that Grand Alliance that I would hope they would get more releases than they have so far. For the Magic supplement - I really hope that is a game-wide supplement rather than just oriented around a specific grand alliance. Not doing so seems like it would be a big wasted opportunity. As for "wanting" you can always want more.

I thought this was supposed to be the Year of Death? I would seriously hope that meant a bit more than just a catch-all battletome like Legions of Nagash...

Sold!

Sure, but we already have 2 dwarf factions specifically for Age of Sigmar and I want some goblins.

Deepkin need a real enemy. I say we lobby for underwater diving grots!

But will he Sing with a Jamaican accent or a New Zealand one?

How dare you defame the Warrior princess of the Fathoms Below, Daughter of Triton, Arch-Siren of Under-the-Seas, Queen of Part-of-Your-World, Mistress of the Seashells! May her Royal-Majesty visit death and destruction upon all those who oppose her!

I am heavily leaning into getting the Idoneth Deepkin (I will wait until I read their rules and decide if the playstyle appeals to me), and if/when I do they will be led by Ariel...

80s cartoons are where it’s at. I am pretty sure Saturday morning has never, and will never again, contain as much awesome as it did in the 80s. Myaaah!!

Doing a “living” rule-book does not prevent them from releasing a big physical copy or a new box set. What I was saying is that the core rules are tiny and one of the smallest parts of the rules now. A big chunk of the older style rulebooks is already bound into the yearly release Generals Handbook. The core rules themselves is so small that they don’t need to do massive v2, v3, etc style releases like they used to do in the past unless they want to change the whole game from top to bottom. But the direction they have moved Fantasy and 40k both seems like that is unlikely. Matched play points already changes yearly. Most of the rules of the game are held in warscrolls that they can easily change in generals handbook, errata, or a new version of a battletome. It just seems like they don’t need the old full edition releases anymore.