JPjr

yeah, pretty much agree, still plenty of life left in Blackstone, I see a new AoS Quest game as 2020 earliest (though would be delighted to be wrong) BUT I think there's still potential for some kind of boxed game this Xmas, just makes sense to me. last year, if I recall correctly, we had Wrath & Rapture, Urban Conquest and Blackstone as the big, just in time for Xmas releases. trying to think what's been announced... there's the new Kill Team starter set but that's already out, and I guess the whole Psychic Awakening shenanigans could lead to some big release but still leaves a potentially big AoS slot. lots of things it could be that would work towards a Darkoath/StD type army in the new year, imagine a box like Speed Freaks but with Darkoath Chaos Hound Chariots and Rhinox riders or some other made up fantasy cavalry type stuff. Anyway if there is something along those lines I'm sure we'll learn about it soon (I think BSF was announced at the end of August last year, so maybe it is too late). they're not that bad? I mean I look at them as being your rank & file stock troops in a new Chaos army, they're pretty cheap (points wise), can all do at leats one thing reasonably interesting and unlike say the WHU warbands you can take them in units big enough that they won't get wiped off the board straight away. I think they make a pretty cool flavourful basis for a StD army, one or two decent sized units that you then build on top of with, I'd assume, rejigged buffed and more elite Chaos Warriors. They all have the 'Chaos Cultists' keyword too that might mean nothing but could also open up some more interesting possibilities and abilities when a BT does drop.

interesting thing (well, interesting'ish I guess) about them not keeping the Warcry box available is you'd think they'd want a big new starter box/standalone game around for xmas. Have we had any hints of what might drop this year? some kind of WH:Quest thing? Thinking of Slaves to Darkness, imagine if having dropped all the Warcry Warbands, the Furies, Chaos Turkeys, Fomoroid Crusher & more they then drop a big game where like with Blackstone Fortress that comes with a whole StD/Darkoath tribe as the enemies. Blackstone Fortress worked great for that, the Servants of there Abyss were, model wise at least, a great 24 model start to a Chaos Kill Team/40K army that then rolled into the big Black Legion rollout this year. Could work well doing it like that in AoS too.

I would say that yes whilst - like everyone's favourite sexually problematic swamp monsters - it definitely owes it's name and some of its physical characteristics to the Fomorians I would be amazed if it had anything at all to do with the Fimir in game/universe. For a start apart from its cyclopean nature it doesn't really share anything else with them, certainly in terms of physical appearance. Plus haven't the Fimir been firmly distanced from Chaos in AoS anyway and also I think GW would be very happy if most people just forgot about the Fimir existing tbh. Anyway absolutely lovely model and can't wait to get my mitts on it. EDIT: 'big chungus' tho... 👏👏👏

yeah, true... absolute sticking my finger in the air and making a wild, unsubstantiated, almost certainly wrong guess here... The Wolf Boyz will in someway be part of/related to the Maw Tribes rather than Gloomspite and they want to drop it closer to that book's release so they don't give away any tidbits of info on their warscroll (keywords etc) and/or have some more models to drop around that book as there's only going to be a couple of new actual Ogor sculpts.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/29/coming-soon-grym-watchers-abominable-intelligence-sporty-saurus-and-an-action-figure/ no wolf riders but FEC war band next week...

just a reminder that the greatest ever Games Workshop computer game where you play one of 8 wizards representing each wind of magic battling out for arcane supremacy is still available to play for free online http://torinak.com/qaop#!chaos

I've said it before AT TEDIOUS LENGTH but there's a fix for Seraphon here I'd be happy to flesh out if anyone from GW would like to pay me to spend more than 5 minutes thinking about it...

I'm not so sure, maybe not for a bit but I could see at least one faction in the main game getting something along those lines in the not too distant future. I mean the fact they added a whole section on aerial battles to the last core book suggests it's at least something they'd like to explore. Plus as the two we always think about, Skaven or Grotz, are classic Dwarf adversaries they would be a perfect foil for the KO, who knows maybe when their line gets refreshed or even just a new Battletome we'll get a lot more of an idea. just in terms of making the game more 'cinematic' and getting more some big, cool, crazy models on the table it's a pretty decent way to go anyway. saying that I'd also love them to do a more epic sized game with sea- and air-ships but we'll see about that.

Talking of Battlemages, of all the old human Empire models I would not be surprised if they or some version thereof are one of the few that get a new set of models once the current release schedule/battletome blitz has run its course. There's quite a bit of art that's been doing the rounds for at least a year or so now of realm specific spellcasters, so I could easily imagine a set featuring (or individual releases of) wizards that tie in with that. Now of course that could just be a nice imagery for the sake of it but it does mean time has been spent thinking about what they would all look like, and it would be a nice way to add more realm specific models into the range without having to go the Warcry route and produce 8+ whole units.

maybe they listened to all the fans here who incessantly whined made considered arguments about their legitimate grievances that terrain and spells were nothing but a greedy cash grab move by GW or more likely, for Orruks at least, maybe they'll just add those in later when there's a space in the production schedule it's not like they need to be in their book. In the mean time players should just buy some Hulk Smash Hands instead and just once per game throw them at the table.

sounds good, you should crack on and just write it for yourself. funnily enough I'm sure I've either read someone else's story (canon or fanfic) about a tribe of Ogor's that did start eating ghosts, trying to remember what it was now... EDIT: aha! turns out in was on this very forum a few months ago...

finally someone is fleshing out the mortal realms and filling in all the holes.

nice premise, very on trend. good luck!

yeah that was my concern but I think you'd be ok there, there's definitely growing signs of internecine strife in the old mortal realms so it's an interesting thread to pull at. good luck! well, you know what they say, why mess with the classics! good luck with it! yes totally, I must write tens of thousands of words a week in copy, press releases etc but it's been ages since I've written creatively or even any journalism so boy did I need a jumpstart to get going. as you say though now I've got a taste again I'm definitely up for just knocking out more, we should organise something like a monthly writing jam on here, just so people have some inspiration/reason to keep knocking stuff out. Plenty going on there, sounds interesting! Good luck! These kind of 'contests' are always a crapshoot as so many people will enter so honestly I'm not expecting much but hey it was an experience and got me thinking about writing again so all good.

Well the deadline just closed and like almost every bit of coursework and assignment I've ever had I handed mine in with seconds to spare. Who else has chucked their hat into the ring? Feeling good about yours? I had about 3 stories I was working on right to the end and really not sure I submitted the right one. 2 were a little more out there (a story about a group of, effectively, mushroom crazed Grot eco-terrorists & one about an art dealer who specialises in Orruk sculptures) but also potentially more interesting. I totally chickened out though and submitted one about some Evocators cut off and being hunted in Shyish, I'm just about happy with it and felt was a lot closer in tone to all the Inferno stories, but still not sure that was the best thing to do. Ah well it's done now.

full warscrolls available for the new units. aos_skaeths_wild_hunt_en.pdf aos_grashraks_despoilers_en.pdf

would appear to be from here. looks like the box art for the FEC war band.

ah interesting, often meant to look at that ruleset but never found the time, I figured there would be some solutions out there. nice.

hey feel free to accuse me of that all you like, having been involved in this hobby for well over 3 decades I see absolutely no shame in wanting to occasionally nudge it in a smarter, more inclusive direction or, as I prefer to think of it, maintain the progressive values that have been an important part of its DNA since its inception. Ridiculous as I'm well aware that sounds when we're discussing the reproductive habits of magical snake women and trees. anyway I'm sure @Overread will have taken it for the mild (I mean hardly extreme?!) and very mildly tongue in cheek note of caution that should be kept in mind when dealing with such an outlier faction as DoK... Anyway I know that any discussion of political or social issues is like kryptonite here so I shall bow out and leave it at that.

for me the most egregious and probably easiest to fix (though it still adds extra layers of complexity) is the whole 'half a model from a unit is peaking out from behind a wall, we can shoot the entire unit' aspect. that I'd love them to look at, but even there where it feels like there are easy fixes it will still be a pain to get right and keep the game moving fast, and of course also dealing with the knock on consequences for both shooting and melee that would come out of this. as for actual LoS with models it's clearly a nightmare in a game where modifying your models is not only permitted but encouraged and held up as one of the key pillars of the hobby. it's utterly ridiculous but almost the only thing I can think of that might just work would be for someone (well GW) to produce a set of 'domes' for each base size that represents the 3D zone, as it were, that something on a base of that size occupies (with the idea being that people/things aren't static so they don't just occupy the exact physical space their model takes up). then if you need to check you just quickly replace the model with the 'dome' and you have an easier template to go by. now obviously this is a ****** solution, and even in the few seconds it took me to think it up and type it out I've already thought of several objections, caveats and even specific models where this wouldn't work but hey I'm not being paid to come up with solutions so there you go. personally though I would love it if they did figure something out to make it both work better as (again complicating the game further so obviously a no-no) you could interest more elements that would make positioning, movement, use of terrain etc much more interesting and open up lots more tactical options (so the option for units to crouch for example, halving their 'dome' height' but also significantly reducing their movement for example).

really not sure that taking one of the only ranges that puts female (if a tad tiresomely tropey) models front & centre and giving their leader a male counterpart to put her in her place and 'fix' them is the best way to go here...

christ, is it me or has this website just become nothing but an interminable source of misery of late?

New rumour engine pic, whilst some kind of piratical goblin airship would obviously be amazing it actually looks a little neat for a destruction model. Random thought, what if it's part of a kind of early modern semaphore system, like the balls & flags one the French army used in the late 1700s. It would be a great non-weird, non magical terrain piece for a Cities of Sigmar army. Exactly the kind of thing the Ironweld Arsenal would develop and an army that is supposed to be (or at least is a direct descendent of an army that is supposed to be) much more of a realistic rank & file army would use. To be honest I'd put the chance of that being right at around 0.01% but I'm going with that or a rickety windmill terrain piece that comes with a fat Ogor Knight astride a fat donko and a halfling Sancho Panza.

I'm thinking... Gotrek / 520 Lord Arcanum on Gryph Charger / 220 5 x Sequitors / 130 5 x Sequitors / 130 1000pts and as a bonus I actually get to do something with the Stormcast from my Soul Wars set.

I'm tempted to build a ridiculously low model Meeting Engagements force around him.