Pizzaprez

May 29

4 hours ago, Snarff said:

The fully grown ones are usually Zharrgrim or high ranking lodge members. But we know that they have to be trained, we know that some lodges utilize them a lot more than others, and we know they take little ones into battle. So cavalry really would not be out of the question at all.

Add in a new centerpiece with the flying lava drakes and make the new calvary kit pull double duty for ground and air options!

Just, like, find a way to make the Duardin riders look unique!

May 24

5 hours ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

GW seems to be going heavy on the “dark Chaos engineering” vibes recently. We have Vashtorr and next up in line are Chorfs. Maybe Vashtorr will get some new friends in 40k one day (I want DarkMech to happen). Anyways, it’s a good time to be a Chaos fan.

Ever since the very first description of the Forge of Souls having like "stunted workers" or something vague-but-short I pictured Chaos Dwarfs fully living in the Realm of Chaos

Now that the forge of souls has been fleshed out a lot more, that doesn't quite line up as neatly but maybe My Dude escaped the World that Was into the Realm of Chaos and scored an apprenticeship

It'll be a bad time for my wallet if we're hitting the era of "chaos magitech" in fantasy and 40k: that was always my favorite

I'm wondering how they'll handle Hashut; will be still be a question mark? Will he be a fully fleshed out sixth member of the pantheon? Will they talk at all about how he survived getting bodied by Gorkamorka in the End Times?

May 23

2 minutes ago, DD-Lord said:

I am a strong believer that AoS won't be breaking out into the public with video games until some extremely notable studio decides to have a go at it. And this includes Creative Assembly, although an AoS Total War would probably be rather hard to make correctly.

A Fromsoftware Soulsbourne, P* Character Action Game (Khanite Aelf!), an over-the-shoulder third person action game a la Space Marine, a deep RPG with all kinds of choices like Baulder's Gate, a Left 4 Dead/Vermintide style "fight hordes!" game, a bullet hell shooter where you play as a swifthawk agent desperately trying to deliver the mail; the possibilities are endless!

I think AoS could do with something that isn't an RTS or Mobile Game Shovelware title. Flex the narrative and setting instead and I think AoS could easily find some mainstream appeal!

May 23

27 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

apparently there's been text that some got into Azyr already?

either way... people are going to have to get much more comfortable with major, sweeping Order wins if they want to see Azyr cracked open. That would be another apocalypse, and the chronological Age of Sigmar is not out of the (technically second!) post-apocalypse yet

I'm really hoping to see this "colonization" arc result in maybe a small time jump with a fistful of new cities and some genuine, strong, footholds in the Realms that an End Times event would have to shake Order out of

Then, Azyr is fair play imo. Give it some maps, maybe make it a "series of sub-realms" and explore what a "sub-realm" actually looks like.

It'd be cool to see an inverse-realm thematically: Order has won in Azyr and Chaos is having to fight and struggle to establish a foothold. It was the only safe base for the Order pantheon for 500 years: is it mostly metropolitan? Azyr is the only realm with a lot of basic question-marks, and even if it just started as "no, those rumors about rats are extremely untrue" it would mark the beginning of the same sort of long and slow decline that the Old World suffered

I don't really want to see Azyr totally destroyed at all even a little bit: I really like that Order has a "safe haven." I would honestly love to see some rock-solid gains for Order.

If the other realms are "mostly chaos with Order warring their way outwards" I'd like to see Azyr as something more insidious: rats and spies secretly working their way into Azyr to weaken it from within. As the last bastion of the Age of Myth, it would be fitting to see "no one could ever break in here! Even as we slam open the doors and march out!" be the hubris that, eventually, could take Azyr.

I like that the AoS setting isnt "the end times are two weeks away" and I'd like to keep it that way: it'd be cool to see the start of the rot of safety and security in Azyr as the forces of Order continue to make gains

5 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

Fire and flamethrowers have always been a staple of Chorfs. I really expect a plastic Dawi Zharr army to have more pyrotechnics than a Rammstein concert.

Truly a “there is no war in Ba Sing Se” moment. I think earlier editions have said that Eshin deathmasters sometimes slip into Azyr to spy on what the SCE are up to. I don’t think we’ll see a full Skaven invasion of the Realm of Heavens, but maybe some skirmishes between Azyrites and Eshin rats up there ? Definitely a possibility. I’d love an Underworlds/Warcry set about that.

YES!!! I rewatched Avatar this year and the way Azyr talks about "nah there are 100% no problems here!" reads a lot more like Ba Sing Se! I'd love to see more of Azyr and I'd love to see what a realm "choked by Order" could look like!

And all I want for the Chorfs is crazy heavy metal pyrotechnics you have no idea hahaha all of this perfect

May 23

1 hour ago, ScionOfOssia said:

“By Hashut, these hands are rated E for everyone and opening night looks like it’s gonna be busy.”

-Forge-Prophet Indis Criminate

Lol, this gave me the image of Chorfs having wrestler-style gates for their fortresses to pop off pyrotechnics whenever they march out, which rocks

1 hour ago, Captaniser said:

Calling it now. Emberguard will be the setting for the next edition of Warcry.

Ruined city that no one really controls with weird and magical catacombs? Sounds like a perfect location for would be treasure hunters to make a name for themselves.

I'd love this! AoS has room for like fifteen different Mordheims and I'd love to see more with "small warbands scrabbling over ruins" in the setting. Also would be an easy way to circle back to some of the now-discontinued Ruin kits from prior seasons and AoS 1.0; the Azyrite Townscape is pretty gorgeous in person and I'd love to see more swirly-column terrain kits

2 hours ago, Sception said:

The nadiir wasn't exactly the intended result, and the necroquake as such wasn't intended at all (though it absolutely served Nagash's purposes, so the common idea that it was some sort of failure is way off base), but the Nadiir is still very close to what nagash intended, more so than fan memes generally acknowledge.

Nagash was aiming to consolidate the entire wind of shyish into a single point of infinite arcane density that he could contain within himself - allowing him to bring it all with him wherever he went and access its near-limitless power freely and at will without limits or restrictions. Instead he got a city-sized concentration of mearly-unimaginably-colossal arcane density, one he can't freely move around, with power he can only access a (titanic) portion of at a time, and which is theoretically harmful even to himself if he sits inside of it for too long, though "too long" is measured in a god's time scale. Basically he wanted a naked singularity in his pocked, but because a few infiltrating skaven caused an ever so barely perceptible misalignment in his pyramid he had to "settle" for "only" a black hole in his back yard.

The Nadiir was also supposed to absorb /all/ of the magic of shyish - including reducing the physical realm of shyish back into the magic from which it was formed and absorb that too. In practice the Nadiir only absorbed the overwhelming majority of the magic in the storm at the perimeter of shyish, with a significant minority ricocheting off of the ever-so-slightly-misaligned implosion as the necroquake, which proceeded to bounce around the mortal realms continuously until Teclis put it to rest. The Shyishian magic that had already taken physical form as the Realm of Shyish and all its underworlds was damaged & disrupted, but not wholly absorbed at the time of the ritual - though the effects of the ritual haven't ended, even with the calming of the necroquake. The Nadiir is still slowly absorbing the physical realm of Shyish a bit at a time, like a black hole feeding on an accretion disk.

And yeah, at least as far as I understand it, no new underworlds are supposed to form anymore, because new underworlds in Shyish - like new continents and subregions of the other realms - are formed from and within the wild magic continuously storming around the perimeter of their realm, and that storm of magic simply isn't there anymore. Nagash's ritual inverted the magic of shyish. All other realms are most stable in the center and most unstable at the edges where they meet the wild storm of their magical wind from which new stuff - mostly realmstone but also lands, seas, creatures, and so on - is constantly being created from the raw magic of the realm. Modern shyish by contrast is most unstable in the center, where the magic that should be at the edges is concentrated into the Nadiir, which is in a constant process not of creating new stuff from the magic of the realm but rather destroying the stuff of the ream and reducing it back to raw magic. meanwhile the edges of the realm are desolate and empty - a barren dessert wasteland of ruined, half-formed afterlives almost entirely devoid of both life and magic.

I was familiar with some of the details from your first three paragraphs; that's how I understood the ritual as well! I think I interpreted the "Nagash doesn't quite capture all the magic" bit to suggest the "natural" processes of Shyish, as a planet, still function despite the goal of the spell being to eat everything and funnel it into Nagash.

I'm real intrigued by the "dead underworlds" plot thread, with the half-formed afterlives you mentioned in your last paragraph; could you point me at a source for that? I must have missed it and that changes how I think about Shyish pretty hardcore! I'd love to dive a bit deeper; the "magic metaphysics" of the realms are very interesting to me!! I appreciate your response!

2 hours ago, Grunbag said:

I hope for a spiderfang rework , based on those Blanche artworks

I'd love that too; Blanche's initial AoS sketches always live on the tip of my brain when i go to convert/paint stuff. Hollowpress recently published two volumes of his Voodoo Forest personal project if you'd like some more from Blanche! I have the first volume and it's extremely pretty

2 hours ago, EntMan said:

Is there anything in the new Skaven lore so far, explicit or hints, about whether they've broken into Azyr as well as the other realms?

2 hours ago, Gaz Taylor said:

It’s been hinted at in the recent article

really hoping this heralds a new era of "the rats aren't real!" in AoS

"there are no rats in the Realm of Azyr." is probably the thing you want to hear least from a member of the Order of Azyr when you're trying to whistleblow that your tavern fell in a gnawhole

May 23

3 minutes ago, LordSolarMach said:

In Realm of Chaos: Slaves to Darkness (1988), the writers use "he", while stating that Slaanesh is male on the left, female on the right.

But yeah, Slaanesh has tended to be portrayed as fluid - both The Dark Prince, and She Who Thirsts.

One of my favorite descriptions of Slaanesh was from the tale of the Silver Knight from the 6th ed Daemons codex; where Slaanesh "visited him in the form of a young man" and that "in the form of" always stuck with me. Reminded me of older IRL myths where gods would appear as things to talk to people, and that direct interaction with mortals really rang true as something Slaanesh would do instead of the other 3. Khorne and Nurgle might invite you over, but Tzeentch would use visions or messengers while I could absolutely see Slaanesh speaking directly to people. Didn't that happen to Glutos? I forget.

Here's the story:

Quote

23 minutes ago, Sception said:

I'm actually kind of annoyed/confused by that part. Like, an island chunk of skaven city bursting into shyish would be fine and good, but a new underworld?

that's specifically not supposed to happen.

Maybe they're going to retcon how underworlds work again in 4e, but in the past new underworlds formed in the wild magic of the realm's perimeter and drifted inward to join the established innerlands as faith in that underworld consolidated and calcified. In the aftermath of the necroquake and the formation of the shyish nadiir the swirling magic at the perimeter of the realm is gone. It no longer exists. It was all either absorbed into the black hole of the Nagashizzar Shyish or exploded out into the realms at large in the necroquake - the energy of which was settled and siphoned away by Teclis.

New underworlds aren't supposed to form in current day AoS, because the stuff they used to be formed from simply isn't there anymore. Unless maybe the skaven underworld was already there, and has simply exploded in size/power/population since the vermindoom?

I don't know. Going to hold off on passing judgement, but I won't be happy if they go back on the lasting impact of prior events.

I think I had a different view of the Necroquake? I don't recall "new underworlds won't form anymore" as much as I recall "the things at the edge are no longer drifting inland towards stability; they're all drifting into the black hole" though if I missed that somewhere please correct me!

Iirc (and I might be mistaken havent reread that book in a minute) the Necroquake was not the intended result of Nagash's scheme: he was aiming to consolidate all that magic at the center of Shyish in a way he could exert control over it, but Skaven spies tossed a wrench (corpse) into things and the spell backfired bc of chaos taint

I figured it was more that new stuff forms at the edge still but there is only a period of relative stability before the continent itself dies? If new religions are at the less-stable edge, and the "more established" stuff is at the center (in a black hole) the "safest" place to be is in a continent of a dead or forgotten religion which, cosmically, is probably dying a bit slower than one weighed down by active belief. If almost all the Death magic got into the pyramid and Teclic cleaned up the scraps from the other realms, it could still be the case that Shyish still has enough wild magic to keep things going

But Shyish has always been sort of hard for me to wrap my head around: the (cool) Neferata book I read only confused me more and emphasized that it's a "magic realm" moreso than some of the others seem to be; with hidden leylines and passages between underworlds

May 23

13 minutes ago, Big Kim Woof-Woof said:

Back in the World-That-Was Slaanesh was often described as completely androgynous, so 'it' was appropriate. But in all the AoS lore they've always (to my knowledge) used the 'he' pronoun.

Unlike His daemons, who are all 'them/they/it' nowadays. Even the Alluress has become an Allurer.

I think Slaanesh can/should get any pronouns and it be appropriate. It makes a lot of sense that different cultures and individuals would have a unique perception of the "most impossibly alluring chaos god." I've liked the take that Slaanesh really is more of a mirror than something with a set/solid form him/her/it/themselves

22 minutes ago, Asbestress said:

HOLY SH*T IT'S ACTUALLY REAL WE ARE GETTING ACTUAL CHAOS DWARVES

NEW COGFORT MINI/TERRAIN VS NEW BALE TAURUS HERE I COME

MY HOBGROTS WILL SEE PAINT! MY HORNS OF HASHUT WILL RETURN REGARDLESS OF BEING CUT!! MY METAL CHORFS WILL SEE ROUND BASES!!!

1 hour ago, Nezzhil said:

HASHUT FORGE-CITY!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Way past stoked, love seeing "Hashut Forge-City" in a key that'll be applied to all the realms.

The second they're given any background in AoS, they'll suddenly launch to a faction with a footprint that dwarfs what they had in WHF in the Dark Lands.

My boys were always stuck in the Fantasy Eastern European Hellscape! So cool to see them elsewhere.

I've been waist-deep in my Chorf backlog the last couple months, real psyched to see them relevant again

May 23

New Chorf logo on the map looks to be a dwarf head with lil bull horns which, if that's the case, is silly and adorable

Also hilarious they've been fifteen feet away from the protagonist city "the whole time"

Also also sets them up to fight Khorne, Cities, AND Skaven which is fun; chorfs don't generally play well with others

May 22

2 hours ago, Mutton said:

Personally, I wouldn't lose sleep if Pestilens was moved to lesser, narrative role. I don't think it's a Clan that is principal to the identity of the Skaven. Skryre, Moulder, and Eshin more clearly define Skaven society and behavior. Pestilens was always the weird offshoot sub-faction obsessed with disease. Nurgle better fills their role and do we really need two factions dabbling in plague and disease? I really don't care either way, but I just don't think Pestilens is a necessary aspect of the game itself.

IF they decided to axe Pestilens as a skaven thing, I'd hope to see equivalent units added to Nurgle proper. more horde-focused Monks with a Monk Leader that Pestilens players could 1:1 use their rats for would be alright but I guess the part of Pestilens I've liked most in AoS (pushing them even closer to Nurgle, overlapping some keywords to encourage cross-play) has been out of style for a minute now.

For the skaven faction identity, I think Mad Science, Frankensteins, Rat Hordes, and "nightmare religions" all fit into what I personally think of as the "skaven faction identity" and I think having both pestilens and Grey Seers as competing factions is a nice mirror to the Skyre/Moulder competition thematically. Also "rats=plague" pairs nice with "old world" views on that sort of thing, which is fun.

I personally like when GW encourages allies and multi-army factions: I think Pestilens being the "plague rats the healthy ones avoid" to the point where they can call on Nurgle allies and vice/versa is thematically kind of cool. I'd prefer to see them fully scoot into Nurgle if they were hit with a cut; it could be a way to emphasize that GHR=Nurgle as a system of belief is likely problematic for Nurgle as an independent entity. In fact, it could be cool to find new avenues to explore the way the GHR could/will undermine the other Chaos Gods

May 22

6 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

For me it was clear. If BoC are supported in Spearhead then Sacrosanct and BS would have to be supported as well.

4 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

2 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Rat Ogres was mentioned as a pretty customisable kit, so wouldn't surprise me if it hides some little secrets in the sprue.

1 minute ago, Ejecutor said:

Yeah. Warscrolls are different between both modes.

No offense intended, but do you know you can hit the little plus button next to "quote" to quote more than one post in a single response? It's pretty helpful for responding to multiple people across multiple pages in a thread; if you hit the "+" it even saves the post you would like to quote when you go to the next page!

May 22

23 minutes ago, Chikout said:

In other news did anyone notice the different arms on the rat Ogors?

There are different heads too.

genuinely extremely happy for Skaven players. The Rat Ogre was a model I didn't like even when it was relatively new; I think it was the action-figure looking shoulder joints (which, with the hobby knowledge i have now, could easily be sorted with some epoxy)

Really glad to see one of their most iconic units get such a nice update; it's been overdue since Isle of Blood, and I'm happy that the kit looks to be a rat version of the almost-too-flexible new Troggoth kit with it's borderline overwhelming amount of multi-building-step options for weapon arms and heads. I'm also stoked that Wolf Rats seem to seriously be on the table; I liked those models enough when Warhammer Forge first made them that I had to talk myself out of a skaven project!

Real happy for the rats-y'all are eating good! Fingers crossed for a new take on an "elite pestilines monk" unit and a warcry squad or something for some Eshin assassins. It's cool to see the army get updated without losing swaths of the faction identity

May 21

40 minutes ago, novakai said:

I guess there alway anvil of apotheosis for the narrative flair

but path of glory rules tend to be a mix bag or go to deep or to shallow then what people want them to be like territories, Veteran abilities, and customs traits

With GW so eager to sell similar books every edition, I'm honestly sort of surprised Anvil of Apotheosis and PTG haven't been split into their own books.

I could see a meaty PTG selling well, and Blood in the Badlands-style supplements to add new mechanics, locations, or just inspiration campaigns to when your gaming group's whistle.

Similarly, I could see Anvil of Apotheosis being another great once-an-edition book. I get that then you couldnt split all that stuff into 50 army books and White Dwarf issues, but I think having a one-click "I want to try to run a narrative campaign with my friends" book seems great?

GW could even nickle-and-dime the community by having an Anvil for each GA and GA-specific PTG supplements under the guise of "that way we can update them earlier if we have something particularly exciting" (whenever they want a bump for the shareholders)

May 20

1 hour ago, Grimrock said:

I've been playing AoS since the first GHB and I'm deeply indifferent bout the upcoming edition. Over the course of 3rd my local gaming group went from about 20ish regular players to 0-2, and this new edition doesn't look like it's going to fix that. There are minor improvements sure, but all the pain points of the current edition are still there. It's a huge shame because this is the best time to be getting hyped and starting a new project, but there's just nothing in the rules they've previewed that has made me excited.

I've got 5 different AoS armies, probably about 20,000 points all told, but I just can't seem to want to get hobbying. I was planning on getting the darkoath box and Abraxia, but now I just look at the cost and think... eh. I've already got the old marauders built and painted, what's the point of getting the new sculpts? And even if I really like the Abraxia model I have no desire to pay that much extra for a unit of Varanguard I'll probably never use so I'll hold off on the FOMO box for now and, odds are, by the time she releases solo there may be no point in ever buying her. I don't know if it's the most recent rounds of squatting or the upcoming price hike, but honestly I'm so down with everything it's got me wondering if I'm just about done with the hobby entirely.

I'm in a similar boat as you, tbh. AoS 1.0 got me back into the miniatures hobby after a college+early career hiatus. I have some amount of an army across all four GA's, and I likely also have 10-20k points in stuff.

For me, it's the one-two punch of yet another round of cuts and a price-hike announcement less than a month later. I could stomach a lot of GW's decisions, but I'm not sure how they felt reasonable punting people's time/money/hobby investment and turning right around to feel like they, actually, deserve even more money. I already didn't love their decision-making, and now kits that were $30 are $60+ now and only getting more expensive.

I've been trying to get my wife and a couple close friends to play any miniatures game for years now. My friends and I are not at the "wealthy" tax bracket, though we mostly have stable work. I genuinely, in good conscious, could not possibly ask any of them to invest anything in GW. IF they like the models, more power to them: my buddy loves Skaven and loves the 4.0 models. Lucky for GW, the artists they don't properly credit still are great enough to draw people in to their products. I can't pretend like I won't be tempted by some particularly-cool Chorf plastics.

I'm in the position where I've wanted to get into the FLGS AoS scene: I've tried to start four different armies and GW majorly adjusts battletomes and rules before I can get a couple games under my belt to feel confident enough to play with randoms in public. Combined-race Cities, Legion of Grief, Slaanesh-marked Beasts, and now "Horns of Hashut flavored Slaves to Darkness" have all been axed before I can even finish building to 1500. And I was so close with the Horns. I wanted Slaves to be "my army" until the Chorf book, and I themed all my leaders and Chaos Knights appropriately. I now have heavily converted (and financially expensive to have built) leaders and Knights to match a battleline option that was axed less than two full years after it was released. I'd love to be in the FLGS enough to have my finger on the pulse, but my hectic actual life has prevented me from having a ton of hobby time until the last couple months. Just in time for GW to bin my 4th attempt AoS army.

And GW wants more money from me? Laughable. If it was not for the legion of creatives (both employed and stockholm syndromed) under their sway, GW would be cooked.

May 20

9 minutes ago, HCMistborn said:

GW has shown that they are company just for money, not for community good will. If it means they can sell a few more Yeti's, then forget about telling us before they drop them.

such a choice tbh. Just put out the get-you-by rules early and watch people panic-buy the entire stock. By the time the book drops without Yhettis, they'd have been out of production for more than a year and have already been in legends for awhile.

I've never been one to pretend a shareholder-controlled corporation is my friend, but GW's business practices went from not great to honestly pretty bad. I don't think I could reasonably encourage someone to invest in a GW game. If they're so enthusiastic about the miniatures that they can stomach the price, I'd point them in a different direction for what to do with those models. I dig GW toys: they make some excellent miniatures! But the forced obsolescence of books is wild to me. There are so many great games out there that won't cut your entire army or subfaction out of the game at a whim at the very last minute because lowkey they were hoping you'd unknowingly help them clear inventory.

May 20

1 hour ago, Grungnisson said:

I guess we'll come back to this conversation in about six week's time.

3 hours ago, Draznak said:

24 factions...

Does this mean that BoC is still around before it leaves for good ? Ironjawz splits with Kruelboyz ?

It's going to be a long month ahead...

I'll be genuinely shocked and more frustrated than I'd like to admit if GW releases a BoC box with circle bases for Spearhead. A PDF of the cards? Sure. The army is supposedly cut and in a "get-you-by" state. If they try to charge any money for any AoS Beasts content it'll be pretty scummy at this point.

I don't think GW culling their ranges is reasonable, but I could absolutely see AoS 4.0 being the "cuts edition." Or, at least, it should be. Ten years into the life of a game is an insane time to be on the fence about which things "are" or "aren't" AoS models vs "Fantasy leftovers." Really 2.0 was the time for that, really anything that wasn't "an Age of Sigmar miniature" internally should not have been put into a single book that was sold on a shelf.

GW really should have announced what was being cut for every army in AoS at this point. Even if Ogors are two years away, they already likely know internally whether or not Yhettis are making the cut. It is going to be an exhausting experience seeing each chunk of the community biting their nails ahead of their army books. If GW is planning on throwing out babies with bathwater, they really should just get around to doing so already.

On the topic of rumors, I wonder how much "bad Fyerslayers" are going to be incorporated with this Chorf reboot. Fyerslayers already have quite a few models people rightfully pointed to as being "Order Chaos Dwarfs" like the priest when they released; are the two factions going to mirror each other?

It'd be neat to see Chorfs as an evil mirror to both Duardin factions: fire, religion, animal taming from Fyerslayers and "using the magic of the realms in unexpected or unusual ways" from Kharadron. Being extremely religious about their demon-god and doing crazy things with Aether and magic should/could frustrate both Order Duardin factions in their own ways

May 20

27 minutes ago, BarakUrbaz said:

Context: During the Age of Chaos, the Vostarg Lodge lost its main Magmahold and its Runefather, causing his twelve Runesons (unable to determine the rightful heir) to split apart with one of them, Zhafor, founding the modern Vostarg Lodge which is a playable faction today.

That's extremely cool!! I think spinning off Chorfs from Fyerslayers makes a certain amount of sense (and sets up Fyerslayers to "need" a new wave to fight their old nemesis)

Wonder if Darz dug too deep, lol. I'd love them to keep that LotR inspired origin

May 19

35 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Dawbringers VI, at last. Also standalone releases of the Darkoath kits and a paperback of Realmslayer.

New terrain kit is gorgeous; you could theme a whole table around it. The crystal being full of skulls and growing horns is weird but it begs a unique paint job

MTO on terrain kits is cool to see; wouldn't mind seeing the scrapped "in-tact buildings" get a release that way. Honestly if they started to rotate all the WHF kits it'd be hard for me not to bite

May 18

1 minute ago, Dragon-knight77 said:

Yeah i agree with @Gaz Taylor

from what i got from 4chan (so take a massive pinch of salt) it going to be updating most of the Chaos characters i.e Epidemius, Blue scribe along with some basic demons like Bloodletters and nurgling that sort of things

That's a mixed bag for me tbh

Some resin models could be updated to plastic, but a lot of the basic daemons still hold up! After seeing the Exalted Seekers for the Hedonites, I think Slaanesh *could* do with a second pass: you have a chariot that can be three slightly different chariots and a lot of models that have aged less gracefully than a lot of the other god's

With Emperor's Children slated to get a reboot, I wouldn't be opposed to Slaanesh finally, for the first time in the history of me playing this game, being the god that gets the most new kits for a couple years! Drop a reboot range for the demons with EC and an expansion for a Hedonites release (that gets added to 40k)

The other gods could really just use more, imo. Unless they're going to substantially change the current "squigs with arms" vibe of the tzeentch basic daemons, I'd rather the monogod stuff just get new stuff!

Over the years, Khorne in particular has mined the specialist games for units like the Blood Slaughterer; I'd love to see new takes on old stuff and brand-new things!

Also Storm of Magic! Lots of demonic stuff in there

A Juggernaut chariot, for example. Just *more* stuff in general

May 17

Really into what was shown here!

Rats are neat; great sculpts all around

Stormcast are real cool, going to try to pick up a couple of the older kits to bash with them; don't love the helmets too much on most the new stuff

New terrain sprue is.... Alright I guess; probably couldnt put more than two spruce's worth on a table without seeing things repeat and I don't love that we went from "under construction" to "full of rats" with no kit for "in tact buildings" in between

May 16

11 minutes ago, Jagged Red Lines said:

Haven't been on the thread for the past few days. What on earth is going on? You lads been starved of decent rumour sources for so long, we've moved into Jungian archetypes?

honestly yes, haha though tbh I still feel like that fits for Ossiarch! Either doing what Nagash wants to the letter or experimenting with beast bones or "a way to keep us from exploding so often." I could see new miniatures that exist to better collect the tithe, and new miniatures as a result of the Ossiarch (now out from under Nagash's thumb) doing some self-experimentation to make new weird stuff

19 minutes ago, Gitzdee said:

This!

(Ill end up in the hospital)

that'll be two of us! The Glareface gloomspite guy has my hopes real high for whatever "common grot" winds up being in AoS

16 minutes ago, Gitzdee said:

GSG could possibly be split into shroom/poison users and providers.

Dealers and addicts? lol you're not wrong there. Actually a "goblin looking to make the ultimate high" could be a neat character: like a lil' manic goblin Ku'gath

May 16

1 hour ago, Hollow said:

Does anyone else see/feel a general direction of the AoS studio emphasising 2 types of sub-faction for each faction/race? It's an interesting design pattern I see when looking at the AoS Factions as one.

Destruction -

Orruks - Kruelboyz, IronJaws.

Goolspite - Gobbos, Troggoths.

Ogor Mawtribes - Fat bois and Skinny bois (Will be interesting to see if/when Ogors are updated if they double down the current fat boi aesthetic or expand the Gorger one)

Chaos -

Mono God - Mortals, Demons

STD - Warriors, Darkoath

Skaven -????

Order -

Humans - Stormcast, Cities

Light Aelves - Teclis, Tyrion

Dark Aelves - Malerion, Morathi

Duardin - FireSlayers, Kharadron

Seraphon - Coalesced, Starborn

Indoneth - ????

Sylvaneth - Kurnothi, Treekin?

Only Death GA seems to have factions that are more "singular".

Skaven - Tech, Mutation

Vampires - Knights, Monsters

Vampyric Undead - Wet, Dry

Ghosts - Tortured, Torturers

Ossiarch - rule followers, rule benders

Flesh Eater Courts - actually crazy, pretending to be crazy(?)

Not as clear-cut as some of the others, but you're right: look close enough and most armies seem to have two major subthemes... that's interesting, and I wonder what it could mean moving forward.

If we got "Sun Grots - Sky, Ground" you'd see me attempt a backflip

May 16

2 hours ago, Dragon-knight77 said:

Oh it seem they're doing a remake of the old classic Gray seer model

Leave it to AoS to love it pre-6 edition call back

The End Times and AoS approach to remaking classic metal models is so great. Nagash got a huge glow-up too! Gives me a ton of hope that we might get a hero model or two that's a straight remake/update for Chorfs. The old bighat leaning on his axe has always been a GOAT warhammer model imo. Excited to see what's in the pipes (lol) for Skaven moving forward. Past updating their older stuff, I'm intrigued to see which new directions they expand in. The artists at GW are so good: I wish I knew their names.

1 hour ago, AquaRegis said:

Just had a thought about the next updated range being COS.

A bunch of the current human cities range is old Empire models, (griffon, wizards, steamtank, Flagellants etc.) so to me with how GW hates you using a model from a different game system and the Empire getting its old models back and a Arcane journal atbsome point, its pointing to COS getting a 2nd wave.

There's already a precedent with this with the lumineth wave 2, and COS are one of the most popular and well revived AOS factions.

I'm all but positive you're right. The Luminark and Hurricanum seem to be sticking in AoS, but all the other overlapping units probably have a timer on them. They might get replaced with equivalents, "equivalents," or something new or not at all but I don't see much overlap in Cities continuing after their newest tome. In a book or two it'll be completely rebooted into whatever they want it to be next.

May 15

44 minutes ago, Acrozatarim said:

I suspect the packmaster might actually be a new Moulder hero to replace the old master Moulder that is (I think?) leaving the old range. We know heroes are a big deal now for army creation with their retinues, and it'd make sense to have a hero in the roster who can take rat ogers and abominations as their main unit choices. That could give us four likely heroes in the box for Skaven - clawlord, seer, engineer, and packmaster - which would match Dominion.

I think that's a rock-solid guess: at this point, Goblins and Squigs are the only unit left with a "handler and pets" situation in AoS right? I could see Rat Ogres, the rumored Rat-hounds, hellpit abominations, and Giant Rats (if they make it) along with the other moulder stuff i've forgotten all sharing one buff-hero like AoS tends to do.

A Moulder hero for mutants, Skyre for guns, Eshin for ninjas, Pestilines for monks, along with a fighty Ratlord and Grey Seer for masterclans. Outside of mount options, that feels pretty perfect for Skaven to me. Each slice of the Skaven pie has a dedicated support hero that way, sort of like how Cities used to be before being introduced to the axe.

I'm curious what Skaven's identity will look like in a couple editions. I think we'll either see the lines between clans blur, or the clans becoming more defined with new sculpts. After Cities, I could see "skaven soup" happening to the clans with less defined "factions" in the tome

May 15

Said this in the rumor thread but I'll echo my thoughts here: I think a Space Marine style game is a perfect fit. Emphasize that a Stormcast is an eight foot tall knight with as many gear options as Space Marines have! Game could be one focused quest, or a quest that is interrupted by death and reforging. "Death and reforging" could be a lot of things, but it could be a way to show a passage of time or to have the protagonist jump Realms altogether! That sort of "getting reforged a lot" mechanic could be extremely cool in a deeper RPG with dialogue options or story choices: maybe Your Guy loses some conversation nuance, or maybe the morally grey options are unavailable to you after too many deaths. Maybe you don't get the option to help or save a person because your own moral compass has degraded a bit.

I think a banger action game with no multiplayer component, DLC, or live service would do a ton to underscore what is cool about the setting. Set it in a crazy part of the Mortal Realms' terrain, emphasize sky dwarfs and other AoS specific stuff that really makes the setting shine. Make the game a length that feels like you got a whole story, but not so long that you don't want to replay it. Have some really interesting and memorable setpieces like Space Marine did to brand the setting in the audience's head. Leave 'em wanting more!

I think leveraging multimedia well could springboard AoS's popularity after one phenomenal game. In my opinion, AoS is a canvas with more potential then a lot of other fantasy settings and does things that are cool and unique without being so tied to what has been "popular fantasy" in mainstream pop culture for awhile now. Greek and Norse mythology and Superhero stuff is all in the zeitgeist and AoS is a unique blend of all of it. There is a ton to like, and I'd like to see a studio take a swing at something that is extremely removed from "controlling squads of lil' guys strategically"

5 hours ago, Lucentia said:

I have long held that a dynasty warriors/musou style game would be a really good fit for AoS, either as a slightly more grounded thing where various non-unique heroes from different factions are playable, or a very over the top, bombastic game where you're playing as, like, nagash or morathi or whatever. That style of game lets you easily spotlight a bunch of factions by including just one or two playable characters from each, and powerful heroes sweeping through hundreds of enemy warriors to single-handedly turn a battle is pretty AoS-coded in my mind.

The stormcast dark souls/action rpg idea is also a good one that's basically a perfect fit. Basically just stop trying to make warhammer strategy/tactics games, imo, I already play warhammer for that, give me something with a different feel!

Oh gosh man a Stormcast Warriors game would take up so much of my time. Give you the "hero" stormcasts as options, wade waist-deep through skaven or chaos cultists just knocking 'em away ten at a time before getting your own self smacked by a Big Monster. If you ever played the first Hyrule Warriors, that game did a phenomenal job combining big Zelda monsters with hundreds of lil' shrimps. Seeing a Chaos Warrior champion standing head and shoulders above the sea of normies, slaughtering fistfuls of people as they go to fight each other would be such a vibe.

Imagine a Warriors map that's split into two by Realmgates! Ah! So cool. Fight across Aqshy to make it through the portal to Ghyran and siege the enemy keep from within; that's unique even to the Warriors genre, and I think that's the sort of stuff that would help cement AoS as a unique and cool setting

5 hours ago, Gitzdee said:

I think a soulslike game would be the perfect game to hype the setting to the masses.

A soulslike would be so so so cool, but I also feel like it's the biggest gamble potentially. AoS has been aping souls-vibes for a bit, and I'd be genuinely concerned with a bad AoSouls game: it could have the backlash of "the entire setting is a bad souls knockoff," though it could also have the opposite effect of being a fantastic game that elevates the setting. If you gave me free reign, I'd try to work out how much money From Software themselves would ask for: might as well go big! It worked for TWW!

A Stormcast Questor who has been reforged too much and sent on the sort of long solo quests we hear about occasionally would be a perfect Souls protagonist. Meet other quirky stormcasts who have been reforged too much, etc. The classic "depressed knight on a log"

May 15

30 minutes ago, Neil Arthur Hotep said:

It's true. Sad that setting a game in the mortal realms is still so much of a gamble 10 years after its introduction. I personally think it is a great setting to play in, with lots of space for fun and creative stuff. I have been greatly enjoying my Soulbound games.

On the one hand I think a lot of WHFB players rejected the setting as a kneejerk reaction since AoS "killed" their game, and I think the general sentiment of "AoS is pretty fun but the setting sucks" has kind of persisted since then. On the other hand, though, GW are not making it easy to actually learn about the Mortal Realms and the AoS narrative from the outside (or even the inside!).

I'm with @Pizzaprez on this one, personally. I really love the freedom you get to tell your own stories with AoS and its setting and always find it hard to interact with highly-described (not sure what a good term for this would be) game worlds. And I find the details and concepts that are established in AoS very fun and interesting, as well. I think mortal realms have a lot of potential to set additional games (other than AoS) in, if someone with a real passion and vision for the setting comes along and takes advantage of its strengths.

18 minutes ago, Gaz Taylor said:

I think this is spot on.

I know enough about how the realms work but no details. That is partially down to you have to invest into the narrative with time and getting the novels, and as a father to an autistic child that's quite difficult for me to find the time. I like all my information in quick doses as I know I won't have the time to properly read things. The last books I properly read was last year on Jury service during the week and half I was waiting for the trial to start.

Also to add, I don't think it helps that some vocal old school fantasy players look down their nose at the setting but that is also due to the fact that the fantasy background didn't massively change over twenty years!

Although there is now a topic about discussing video games for AOS (go and have a look), I think it is a massive untapped setting. There is so much you could do but I wonder how much GW pressure studios into what can appear in the games. I think stepping away from Stormcast and grand battles, you could have something wonderful and tell a great story.

Anyway, not long until the preview show. Does anybody have any special plans for watching it? Mine will be catching up when I can as I have a wedding to attend and I don't think I will get chance to watch on catch up until the weekend.

All this discussion about an AoS game just has me tripling down on my feeling that they just haven't found the special sauce yet. I'd quote all y'all individually, but I'm trying to respect the fact that we split off that discussion (understandably!) to a different thread

I think a lot of people who hated AoS from the outset never did give it a completely fair shake, especially after the setting moved past the Realmgate Wars. I loved Fantasy, but Storm of Chaos is what hooked me as a teeneager: the End Times -> AoS brought me back into the hobby excited for the sequel to Fantasy with an open mind. I don't think everyone had that perspective, and tbh a game getting blown up is tough I can't completely blame them for their negative feelings

Setting-wise, I've been dipping my toe into DnD lately and I've been intrigued by their use of a "multiverse" to offer lots of unique worlds full of notable locations, many of which came from(?) or were heavily featured in other media: I know of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter from other DnD media primarily, so it was cool to see them mentioned offhand. Age of Sigmar is a canvas that could handle that exact same sort of thing with the Realms and Sub-Realms and I'd hope that's where the setting goes long-term. The novels I've enjoyed have done a ton to both humanize the Realms (Grombrindal) and emphasise how unique and crazy they are (Dynasty of Monsters) and I think the "general audience" could really chomp down on a fantasy setting that isn't Norse or Greek mythology or Superhero adjacent. The DnD movie was a lot of fun, and served its purpose in getting me intrigued about the game again. AoS, as a setting, does a good job of threading a needle between Soulsbourne and Terry Pratchett and I've love to see more kinds of cool stuff in the Realms

As far as the preview, I'll probably watch it over dinner or while playing a videogame on the side; I tend to space out during a lot of the talkshow discussion (unless I'm particularly passionate about something) so I like to have something tactile to do! I've also been working on my terrain backlog this week so maybe I'll build up some of that: the Red Harvest kits are some of the most boring kits I've ever assembled but they look so great on the tabletop. Lots of cleaning mould lines off plastic scaffolding!

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