JPjr

Here's a random theory I've been entertaining the past month or so about what's coming for AoS, in terms of rules, 3rd edition, new releases and how sieges might play into that. So let's say next year does see the release of the 3rd edition, along with a suitably big box set with new models in. I mused the other day that whilst SCE are the most obvious another option could be Malerion/Ulgu Aelves vs. New Slaanesh models. They'll want to tie the release in to a big lore development, the freeing of Slaanesh would make sense as being the main narrative for this arc and those would be reasonably obvious factions to kickstart it off with. And as a big starter set it would allow them to introduce one entirely brand new army that would be hugely anticipated and a much needed update (in model terms) to the chaos faction missing it. But what about Stormcast and the opening of the next chamber? I hear you cry. Well yeah, I did assume any new starter box would feature them but I was thinking SCE have so many models right now (and are still so new that the first wave can't just be waved away) that if they were to do a sacrosanct size release the tome would either become ridiculously huge or we get into the realm of separate tomes for each chamber. So what if the, I don't know let's say, Ruination Chamber is one focused on big war machines and it's opening is tied into the Excelsis storyline. They could do that with just 2 or 3 kits plus a piece of scenery, which SCE are missing, and then the next SCE Battletome wouldn't have to be much larger than the current one. Assuming we get something like Malign Portents or Psychic Awakening in the lead up to 3rd, giving armies that need it a little spit'n'shine, they could release an Orruk vs SCE siege box set along with aSiege of Excelsis book, then freeing up the 3rd edition starter to not feature SCE. It makes sense the first two editions focused on getting big SCE ranges out as they were starting from scratch and setting the tone for the new game, but as a more mature product by 2021 there's a chance, no matter how slim, that it might be less necessary.

also I should say that personally I don't think retcons are (necessarily) a bad thing. we're not dealing with the work of a singular auteur here*, we're working with multiple authors writing over several decades to accommodate the commercial whims of a toy company. things that make sense at some point won't at a later date, people will slip things in that seem innocuous that in later times might have massive** ramifications or you know be a bit 😬 when viewed through today's lens and need excising. there will be good writers and bad writers and it's a constant process of editing and tidying that work, and if something doesn't fit or work and something more interesting can be done without upsetting the entire apple cart then why not. as I said it's not an allegedly infallible religious text it's some background to why this little plastic soldier is trying to kill this little plastic soldier. like statues of racist men if bits of lore are no longer relevant or useful to us today then tear it down, future generations can rebuild it if they so want. *and even then look at Tolkien's Legendarium, one of the most researched and thought out fantasy universes, he was editing, revising & changing stuff he'd written decades before right up to his death. ** relatively speaking, of course

a setting that, let's be honest, was developed & made up and retconned numerous times over the course of decades, and still had ridiculously large gaps in it. I love the old WHFB setting, I still engage with it all the time via WFRP but it wasn't some perfectly thought out thing that arrived on day 1 as a perfectly conceived concept with all its history and lore in place, as flawless as if it was communicated to Rick Priestly by god himself. and carved on tablets of stone, obsidian stele, a flaming book or some golden plates. I mean ages ago I posted a picture of the map of the old world, released around the same point in time of WHFB as we are now into AoS and it was, let's say, still a work in progress... and then, just to take one small example, 20 or 30 years into the game they could barely figure out amongst themselves whether Albion, a country based on the place the people making the game actually lived in, was 1 island, several islands or even existed on maps.

And some people prefer pizza to a curry. Which of course is fine, you just have to wonder why five years after Pizza Hut closed and reopened as Tikka Hut they’re still coming in everyday to complain that they can’t have mozzarella and pepperoni on their naan bread, instead of going next door to Pizza-2-Go. tbh I’ve totally lost the point of this discussion, if there ever was one, but this analogy was too stupid not to share

whilst, YES I agree, the counterpoint to that is that the 100K would have been divided across all the regions, so what someone was saying 7500 for AUS/NZ, lets say 20K for the UK, 15K all of Europe, 20K US or whatever plus how ever many units that were set aside to be available in store on launch day (please note I'm clearly just randomly pulling numbers out of my ****** here). so in that case with huge demand each regional store could have sold out their allocation quickly even with such large numbers, especially as the day went on, people saw it selling out quickly in regions that went live before them and the FOMO kicked in. I know I hadn't planned to get it on day 1 and then the madness hit me.

what I'm hoping to see is them develop, expand and really lean into the new secondary objectives and what's in the new 40K rules, so winning points isn't just a case of squatting on an objective marker like a motley group of bums but actually doing things. different units having different actions that they can perform to score more points. get it even further away from it being a game of just smash and kill the other side and actually set out to achieve specific things within a battle (though of course fun to have some straight up murder, death, kill games). the good thing is if done well (BIG IF of course) that could be a way of making specific, perhaps underused, units more popular and shifting the ✌️meta✌️ away from just the most powerful, damage dealing choices. it could introduce more tactical play and, to get back to your original point, if they really went to town there could be specific things that can only be scored in either the first or second turn, so it's not just I go first so I can kill you first, or I go second so I can get the double turn.

personally I'd consider it a SLAP IN THE FACE if GW spent all the time and effort to re-do and AOSify a Brettonian army just to satisfy the kind of new jack, Johnny-come-lately players who only got into the game some time in the last 25 years, some of us are still patiently waiting for a new army of medieval thespians and travelling players you realise.

Personally I've found the best way to get my Warhammer Fantasy fix has been setting an alert on my phone so that several times a day, every single day for the past five years I can quickly jump onto whichever social media platform Games Workshop has posted on about Age of Sigmar and reply "bRiNG baCk FaNTAsy" and then sit back and bask in the glow of how original and clever I am. it's either that or hanging around Warhammer subreddits like a nonce around a playground waiting for anyone to mention AoS so I can tell them how much it sucks. it's cool, I mean I spent so much time doing it that I lost my job and my wife left me and took the kids but the new basement I've moved into is pretty cool in a grim dark way and I've named one of the rats here Karl Franz. EDIT: LOL thought I'd check and yep there you go, don't change losers, don't ever change...

someone on twitter was claiming that their mate whose mate works for GW said the initial Indomitus run was 100,000 copies and that it was more than GW have ever produced in one go of a box. but god knows whether that has any basis in reality as for a hobby about weird fantasies it's certainly got its fair share of weird fantasists.

since the GW & diversity thread has been closed I'm going to leave this here, pretty much makes everything said in that thread redundant...

I'm literally just running out the door, and not sure 100% what you'd want the thread to exactly be about, but please feel free to start one yourself, link to my ridiculous comment if you want and go for it, lots to talk about regarding the hobby and media so happy to chat about it.

I shall endeavour to keep this brief*, for once, as I'd hate to take up space reserved for all the genuine rumours we get here... * LOL failed again...

and clearly a pretty ****** one 🧐

Apologies this is going to be longer (actually much, much, much longer as it turns out) than it has any right to be but it touches on a couple of things I've been thinking about and also it's raining and I'm basically unemployed right now so ****** me what else have I got to do... Oh Jesus this thing keeps getting longer and longer and it's boring me so I'm covering it up, only read if you really can be bothered...

What is this AoS that you keep referring to? I'm going take a massive leap and assume, within the context of this forum, that your lazy turn of phrase might be referring to the tabletop game, Warhammer Age of Sigmar. Now I'll concede that it is sometimes colloquially, and incorrectly of course, referred to by some of the more degenerate people out there as just Age of Sigmar, but AoS? I'm sorry that's just the garbled sound some barbarian might make and frankly a step too far. In the interests of maintaining a coherent dialogue I would suggest that you take note of Luke 4:23 and the edict, "Physician, heal thyself".

hmmm, I can see why people might think that but I don't buy it personally (encouraging them that is, I think they almost certainly plan for, and have contingencies for leaks on some level). at the end of the day they have to send out material to press/bloggers way ahead of release so inevitably some of it will leak, just ideally through keeping a tight promo list they keep it as close to release date as possible. as for when things do leak all that polished preview material will generally have been prepared weeks or months in advance so it will be sat there ready, so that's easy enough for them to react. but it's still a pain in the ******, when you're planning releases you want as much control as possible over what goes up when to carefully manage expectations and control how that info is revealed (after all if there's a community that will viciously overreact to some bit of half information then the man-babies and emotionally underdeveloped teens that make up a vocal segment of Warhammer's are a sureshot), you also don't want to have to make your staff run around trying to get an article online on a Saturday because somethings leaked when you'd rather they be, I don't know, down the pub, at the football, shopping or just relaxing. as for playing into it and making light of it, well I mean we've all seen over the last however many years people have developed a sense of entitlement around this kind of stuff. whether its bad photos of models or leaks of entire albums, once it's out that's the new reality and you have to deal with it. behind the scenes you might be righteously pissed off and doing everything you can to fix it but publicly it's often best to grin and bear it otherwise you get the nice bonus of not only having your material leaked and marketing plans messed with but legions of your apparently most loyal fans calling you every name under the sun for having the temerity of wanting to protect your own interests.

Because the contents of battletomes, codexes, core books, White Dwarf, etc etc ad infinitum are copyrighted, whether something’s been leaked or how readily available it is online in other places doesn’t change that. now I get that you can say, well we’re not posting photos here just providing a link to that material and sure that’s a defence and it’s unlikely to end up with GW taking TGA to court but at the end of the day you’re still basically providing an index to copyrighted material. Wargaming/RPGs as a whole are, let’s face it, a small industry really, doubly so on the wretched little island that is the UK, and triply so when you’re just focused on one game produced by one company. Ben who owns this site is a very active part of the community, so it’s understandable that whatever his real feelings or situation might be, which I have zero knowledge of, he might want to exercise some degree of caution towards the company that his website and tournaments are solely dependent upon or probably as much of a consideration just does not want to ****** off people that he knows well & considers friends in my own business we’ve been totally wrecked the past couple of decades by copyright infringement and generally speaking if someone hosts a site that didn’t contain direct downloads of, for example, music albums but just links to where you can grab them, we might not send in the lawyers but it’s unlikely that we’d greet you with open arms at conventions, offer you job/work/sponsorship opportunities or treat you like a mate. its hardly 1984, I mean one is not allowing people to posts links to copyrighted material about little plastic toy soldiers and the other is about a metaphorical totalitarian state that survives via the rewriting of truth and history, the corruption of language and thought, the constant brutal oppression of its people, a permanent state of war and the torture and destruction of any and all dissidents (which sure if you ask some of the more hyperbolic people involved in this hobby they’d say is a pretty fair description of GW but you can’t fix that 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️).

Trying to think of a way to reply to half of all this without getting permabanned and nope, after 4 attempts I just can't do it.

eurgh... I would like a blanket ban on discussing possible AoS3 launch box sets*, at least until I've actually finished painting the Soul Wars (bought on release day) box 😬 *Ulgu Shadow Weavers vs. Slaanesh Mortals...** ** or more likely Stormcast Ruination Chamber vs Orruks??? ...

Have to admit I’m genuinely gutted the photo In the original post here wasn’t of a bunch of just pre-End Times books.

@Sleboda I had the Nightmare Legion RoR but I always lusted after the Skullchucker and the Chariot, such cool models, oh god and that big Skeleton Army box set they did back then, what was it? must have been about 88 I guess.

Longhorn stood looking over the ruined parapet. The chill wind ruffled his surcoat, whistling eerily between his ribs. "Still coming?" the voice belonged to Screamer, one of his companions-at-arms. "See for yourself." A black column stretched frorn the horizon to a mile away. like an army of ants on the move. "Here" said Screamer, struck by a sudden thought, "We can talk, right?" "Yes." sighed Longhorn. He hated it when Screamer had one of his sudden thoughts. "And we can see them, right?" Longhorn nodded. "How?" "What?" "We're Skeletons. right? No eyes, no eardrums, no vocal cords - but we can see, heat and talk. -Makes you think, doesn"t it?" "I try not to think. There's too damn many contradictions to being Undead. Let's see what Morbius is up to." Anything was better than Screamer waxing philosophical. They found their leader in one of the larger chambers, which was fitted out as a workroom. Books, scrolls and spell ingredients littered the floor and several tables, and the Liche was poring over a mouldering parchment. "Yes, I know they're getting closer, and yes, I know there's lots and lots of them: he said without looking up. "I'm working on it. So why don't you get to your units and make sure your side of things is ready eh? They should be here in about an hour." Precisely an hour later, the mortal army was drawn up before the fortress. Longhorn and Screamer stood in the courtyard with their units, along with Reaper and Hellblade, the other two captains. The gates had begun to quiver under the impact of a ram. "You know," remarked Reaper to no-one in particular, "Being dead already doesn't make this any easier. And where's Morbius? That gate looks like giving any minute: "Yes, but how can we see it giving?" asked Screamer. "Give it a rest, will you? sneered Hellblade, hefting his runesword. "Just be happy we can and concentrate on keeping your bones together." As he spoke, the gates collapsed. Screamer and Hellblade broke into a charge, moving their units to block the gateway while Longhorn's troops covered the flanks and Reaper's held the parapet, pouring arrows and rocks onto the mortal heads beneath. The battle was deadlocked for nearly an hour. The Undead forces were almost halved, but for each Skeleton destroyed four mortals had run screarning away. Then a robed figure appeared from the inner fortress. "Ah, Morbius." Yelled Reaper from atop a pile of Elven heads, "So glad you could drop in. Have a nice kip, did you?" Ignoring him, the Liche chanted over a pile or shattered bones. and a grey-white mist rose from the ground. When it cleared. the bones fused weirdly into some kind of catapult. Three armoured Skeletons began to work the machine furiously, loading it with skulls. As the skulls hailed down, the mortals broke, trampling their fellows underfoot in their panic. "I must admit," remarked Longhorn as they pursued the fleeing mortals, "That was one of Morbius's better ideas:" "And here comes another one of his better ideas," said Screamer, pointing behind with his spear. A two-horse chariot of fused Dragon-bone had driven out of the fortress, and was gaining on them rapidly. "Here Morbius," called Screamer as the chariot passed, "How is it we can see and hear and..." "Not now, Screamer."

Pretty sure it will come, just the nature of this hobby that it takes for absolute ever to work their way through each faction whilst bringing out new stuff and, of course, at the same time servicing all the deeply, deeply unhappy people who play 40K and keeping them in a permanent state of feeling aggrieved. I realise for a lot of people a CoS update that essentially just refreshed that line is exactly what they want but god, personally, if they went to all the time, effort & money of doing a human (not Chaos) army with enough new models to satisfy people and we just got a load of Holy Roman Empire looking motherf***ers but now with even puffier pants and a couple of people standing on rocks I'd be a bit gutted. I guess the problem with 'humans' in AoS (and indeed I think this cuts across a lot of fantasy universes) is that as patently dumb & ridiculous as it is we can just about train ourselves to ignore the fact that all the, say, Fyreslayers or Khardron or Idoneth across all the immeasurably large mortal realms style themselves in pretty much the same way. Give them a slightly different paint job and different basing materials and if you don't think about it too much it feels, just about, enough to reduce that homogeneity. But humans... I feel like we're so used to the fact that we come in so many different shapes, sizes and colours and that you can take just 100 people from the same town and there'll be an almost baffling variety of fashion styles and dress that to have a one size fits all 'human' faction is a massive ask, though of course not as insane as just accepting that for, well, reasons everyone dresses like early modern Germans... it's also much easier, though of course loaded with its own particular issues, to dip in and out of different real life cultures, mixing & matching diverse styles, for inspiration when it's then applied to something like skeletons or tree people or whatever. It's fine if you're going to have half a dozen different human factions but that's obviously not happening so it's finding that sweet spot, something visually interesting but doesn't terrify the innately conservative Warhammer player, something that doesn't feel totally pinned down to one specific era/location but also it's just a bland mess. Tricky one. Very tricky. Personally if I was GW I'd just throw money at whoever does the styling for Fulu Miziki and get them to come up with concept sketches for an entire range, but then I think AoS needs to be bigger, wilder and more crazy and so far it's tilted towards that in a few models it's honestly still very, very trad. Then again that's possibly another something where I'm not exactly in line with the, at least most vocal, audience out there.

Check your inboxes/DriveThru accounts folks. The (PDF of the) GM Screen & Cities of Flame supplement has just dropped, a hell of a lot sooner than I was expecting, so that's this afternoon sorted... on a slight tangent but they ever mentioned Soulbound, like even once, on the Warhammer Community site? I always get the feeling like GW has this very weird, not entirely supportive, relationship with their licensees and related 3rd party companies.