Scurvydog

Aligns with my assumption of GW moving away from these old model lines, I still think GW wishes to move away from them, but approving this tome might buy them a couple of years more to phase them out and get people hooked on "the new stuff". I know that is a pessimistic line of thought, but I strongly believe GW is only hanging on to these old models to not lose revenue on old stock and molds and until they have something "better/new" to fill the gaps. This does not really explain the no new models for Orruks, Ironjawz is even a model line created for AoS and is rather new but very limited, even more limited than Fyreslayers and they got both terrain and spells. A New book but no models is almost more disheartening than no new book at all, as it shows a minimal effort approach and shoots down hopes of a more varied model lineup which both current Orruk model lines desperately need. Both Ironjawz and Bonesplitterz are nothing but foot infantry and boar riders, the book needs to be very creative to differentiate this from a rules perspective, but from a pure collectors perspective it is all very similar and the 2 forces hardly compliment each other, no flyers, no warmachines, no monsters, no mounted melee hero except the mawkrusha. As little as a boxed set with a Warboss on a boar would have been something and make sense, even if sort of boring.

They state quite clearly that Ironjawz got their own rules, BS got their own rules and then a 3rd options to combine them, why would they release an Ironjawz book then? Not going to happen. Hope they have something interesting up their sleeve to "compensate" for nothing new, Ironjawz being such a narrow but new model line seems like a huge miss to not expand on.

I just think it is the artists rendition of genreric Orruks and there wont be another warband. The ardboyz we got are not even real Ironjawz, as we all know they are just the fan boyz hanging around the brutes who are the real ironjawz. Disappointing yes, but that would be in line with how Orruks have been handled all of the AoS lifespan.

Well the real advantage for Slaneesh is not just the warscrolls, but the KoS can both on a 2+ force the cabbage to fight last and also fight again instantly for 1 CP instead of only in the hero phase as IJ now can. In most cases this means that the KoS will hit you first on a 2+ and most likely hit you twice if the first time did not do the job. That is not counting they are also wizards who can cast multiple spells. The only way I managed to bring one down was to carefully plan a charge, and also have the muscle bound brute trait and a lot of luck. Basically on my turn 2 in one of my games, I managed to use mighty destroyers in the hero phase to get my gruntas to take out a wounded chariot which charged them the previous turn and blocked access to his line, as things were positioned so my cabbage could not fit anywhere useful. Luckily I manged to bring down the chariot, and make room for the cabbage. In the charge phase I got in and got lucky with the bulk, rolling 6 4+ and also landed the trait and rolling 3 dmg on the d3, so I did 9 mortal wounds on the charge. Even with that, the keeper made me strike last taking me to 7 wounds, and then I finished it of, but the cabbage would have been toast if I did not get that lucky charge and bracketed the keeper as much. Yet killing it and loosing 7 wounds gave him enough summoning points to summon a new one... We are hard pressed against the super fighty armies, with powerful strike first /strike again mechanics and also often baked in wizards in their hero behemoths. The power creep has been real and with our current model line all being fighters, even a new book will either have to bake in just as much power creep or we will still be sort of meh. I don't know how they will fix Ironjawz, the model line is so limited, so without first strike abilities, we will still lose in a fight against the power hitters currently, namely DoK and Slaneesh. How do you make a pure melee army viable in the current meta? There are no models for fast units, flying units or basically anything else than just slow brawlers, so the rules will have to be really creative if not to just copy paste the current best combat rules and command abilities.

At this point it could be whenever, I was expecting them to already have been released, but now I am starting to think they might be vastly delayed to later in the year. It could happen next week though, but GW seems to focus on upcoming space marine chapters and the psychic expansion, so after beastgrave this week, I would expect something 40k revealed as the next preorder on sunday, unfortunately... GW considers both underworlds and warcry releases as "AoS" so we have been without any cool new stuff for a long long time for those of us who do not care at all about these side games.

It sounds like my typical Ironjawz experience in some ways, especially the double check and triple check of Whaagh. It is so poorly implemented and I try to explain it as well as possible pre game with my opponent, as it will always create discussion if you just suddenly pop 5 CPs and get maybe +7 attacks to everyone. Usually I snowball a poor or unlucky opponent so bad it is not fun this way or if you face a crafty opponent they will simply deny a good whaagh with screening and other shenanigans. The last player sounds extremely frustrating and should have gotten a warning by the sound of it, but at that point the mood has soured anyway, but might help the next person facing that guy.

My main issue with AoS is the uncertainty with many factions. I would have prefered GW had just removed everything they did not intend to actually move properly into the AoS setting at this point. Even with CoS coming up, I doubt we will see a new dawn for most miniatures in that book after that, it will probably be the last hurrah for those old world models, as it seems GW really wants to create all brand new factions specifically for AoS with maybe an older filler unit here and there, DoK being a prime example of mixing new and old to a cohesive new "pure AoS" faction. Even armies who got battletomes in AoS 1.0 have been shuffled around, or as with one of my armies the Seraphon, appears to be completely forgotten. Ye they got a new spell lore in the generals handbook, but they are basically not present in any other AoS related material, be it novels, games or boxed games like warcry and underworlds. This uncertainty that your purchase is a black hole I see as a major issue, and I would like nothing more than GW putting out a clear roadmap of "safe" factions, but they will not do that in a million years, as that is a loss of sale of obsolete models until then. I have friends who started wanderers and slaves to darkness, GW even put out a STD box for christmas hooking people, only to see them not working at all in game, with no ray of hope from GW. These guys are not buying anything else, I am not buying any more seraphon and that is all because the future is so uncertain. Interesting sure, as everything can happen, but the way factions are created and casually thrown to the wayside worries me a lot, as I like my purchases to have some legs to stand on moving forward.

Good thing GW did not want to talk about CoS and Warclans at Nova as they were coming oh so soon...

Been thinking about this and I think the term has merit but in my opinion it is not just new models, but an escalation of power, a fantasy arms race of sorts, starting with the Stormcasts and Khorne factions back at the first release setting the bar for bigger, meaner, leaner models. This is so clearly seen in the new death army, I have been saying to my gaming group for the longest time that skeleton warriors and zombies are not the soldiers of death in the long run, Nagash will get into that arms race and create something in his image to rival the stormcast, and here we go. Same story with Ironjawz, bigger meaner orruks. The bar has gone up and while this is not always shown as the battleline being mighty warriors, it is clearly shown in the new factions increasing the fantasy relative power level. Dwarfs or Duardin are not enough, no they are flaming super berserkers on dragons or they are steampunk sky pirates now, that is AoSification of the classic dwarf fantasy. Same we are now seeing with the bonereapers which is the AoSification of the classic skeleton horde, and Deepkin/DoK redefining what an Aelf is and can be in this setting. Some models from the old world lend themselves better into this and can be repurposed, like the former elite witch elfs, which are now the main infantry of a faction, or the former elite ardboyz now being the runts and fanboyz of the Ironjawz.

As usual Seraphon is forgotten again, no word, no nothing on them either. The battletome is absolutely useless to own right now, nothing in it is valid anymore or FAQd in some way.

Another week of my ironjawz boxes sitting there, as I want to see the new book before putting them together... I have nearly lost all faith in both cities and warclans being good books, sounds like extreme left hand work, with bare minimum effort put in just to get it over with and move on to shinies they want to create. Guess I can only be positively surprised at this point. The new death guys look cool though and if they stretch the orruk release so far, I might as well just skip it all together

for 1250 you could go for something like: 1x Megaboss 1x war chanter 1x wierdnob shaman (or fungoid possibly) 1x 10 ardboyz 2x 5 brutes 3x 3 gruntas

Hope they surprise us with a box release like the skaven vs flesh eaters and dual book release, but the pessimist in me doubt anything that nice happens. At the very best we will maybe see both books up for preorder with no terrain or spells as they mentioned at Nova.

GW taking over FW rules is a healthy change. FW seems to always have a disconnect, my gaming group flat out refuse 40k FW as they just seem to power creep a lot and perceived as cheese in all my years of gaming. On the opposite end we have the AoS FW rules after AoS 2.0, and oh boy did the nerf hammer hit hard there, especially with the models which actually fit in rather well with their armies, such as the mourngul, giant squig, Whaagh Idol and Dread Saurian, while the rather random destruction aligned Magma Dragon is still incredibly powerful and carried mixed destruction lists to most of their competetive victories, while not really fitting into any theme. Clear ruling of wether they are allowed or not seems to be an issue for many people I have talked to as well. If GW takes over the ruling, this will hopefully become a lot clearer and either add some of these models into books, or allow them to add them in Errata to the core books, which should help reduce the weird outsider feeling they have right now.

With both 4 arms and morghasts and catapult + mortarch, it might not be so bad if there is no behemoth as such. Considering the military theme I'd like to see some archers most of all, or really any kind of ranged support besides a catapult.

It does not appear like GW is ever looking to anyone else for their designs. The only influence I have seen to date is the introduction of blood ravens in the 40k lore, but that is not even models. Total War has done the sort of rare thing and expanded on the original designs, where most other products just copy paste the established looks. As a seraphon player I would love nothing more than if GW took a cue from CA's designs, but I do not believe they will. In fact I find it more likely they will abandon the line alltogether, as the mesoamerican theme no longer fits their design philosophies (of not using any real world culture inspiration 1:1). Doing a sculpt is also quite a different beast than just having the models look, but of course they could be inspired by anything they see, but I do not think any assets other than artwork as inspiration will be useful for creating miniatures. I might be wrong though of course, just my impression though.

Which is also why one of my friends dropped his Wanderers army. I also considered a freeguild army, but even with Cities coming out, I still feel that is just a bandaid to appease the collectors for now, until they can release the new shinies. I firmly believe none of the classis fantasy miniatures will be considered into the future of AoS, they are just "supported" and are only there because people already paid for them, but I believe GW would just scrap them all if they could. I would not recommend anyone to start a force which is not uniquely created for AoS, and even then support seems shaky, like Orruks being a hot mess, now receiving what sounds like a bare minimum effort release with just a book and not even an endless spell. It is almost unfortunate with the cities book, as that might trap some people into simply helping GW get rid of obsolete models, then after storage has been cleared, we will never see anything for these models again. Same thing happening in 40k with space marines and primaris, how many really believe we will see anything non primaris release ever again? This design comment also further strengthens my belief that Seraphon as we know them are getting squatted, why else would the oldest and frankly completely unuseable battletome not get anything at all? Either nothing is coming or something completely new, the entire Mesoamerican theme clashes with GWs new design philosophy.

A strange discussion going on with wether or not the new faction is taking the mantle of tomb kings or not. Clearly many passionate old shool Tomb King players, I even have a 2k army of them myself harking back from when they first released. I don't get the hardline going on though, that this new army does not have anything in common with Tomb Kings, it reminds me of the Marvel fandom discussing Peter Parker spiderman vs Miles Morales spiderman. The new guys are clearly their own thing, but also clearly inspiried of what was before in some core concepts, yet completely their won in the current setting and fluff. The focus on constructs is clearly a parallel to Tomb Kings, nothing is a copy paste here, but the general idea of fusing piles of bones to do specialized tasks is the same and not really present in the other death armies. Most death armies have rather mindless minions with only the heroes having any personality, the Tomb Kings had minds of their own, these guys have at least 1 or several. How they identify with their faction, leaders and the world in general is completely different, but the sentient undead idea is an important common denominator. The military structure is also somewhat similar compared to other death armies, as we can already see these guys appear much more like a coherent military force with advanced war machines to support them and specialized troops, rather than the ragtag hordes, ghosts and monsters of the other death armies. There are more points, but all in all I can see why die hard Tomb Kings fans refuse these as "taking the mantle", they are clearly their own thing, but they are also very much inspired by some key concepts the Tomb Kings originally introduced to Warhammer lore and now reintroducing them (the concepts) in a new form to AoS.

This was also a chance to bring in Gork or possibly Mork more in the narrative, destruction as a whole is not really involved in the whole soul wars, and order has Sigmar, Death has Nagash, and Chaos obviously all their gods playing the game against each other, while destruction is just sort of there and does not really have a place in the greater narrative. It is a bit disheartening, but hopefully destruction gets some better fluff after the soul wars...

Q&A mentioned no new terrain or endless spells. It sounds like a bare minimum effort release with just a book and nothing else. My expectations are extremely low at this point, as both Orruk factions really need some new models to fill roles in their lineup, just mixing more guys on foot with more guys on boars does not really add much.

I think I might take the plunge with this new death faction. I really like the "standing army" theme of them, even though I have a nighthaunt army, those guys just feel a bit scattered and without purpose, which makes sense from their fluff, but I like the organized warriors, heavy cavalry and artellery support we have already seen here, much more structure. It hopefully feels more like warfare than skirmishing, if that makes sense. The foot soldiers remind me a lot of sylvaneth revenants really, sort of the same profile and size by the looks of it. I fully expected an army from death to match the "over the top" armies of order, chaos and destruction, skeleton warriors is just not an army Nagash would be satisfied with, when going toe to toe with Stormcast, Ironjawz brutes and Archaons Varanguard, these guys fit into this new AoS over the top fighters a bit more. I expected them to match the visuals of the morghasts so that surely came to pass, even more when seeing the models compared to the artwork, where that did not get across as much. I do not think they look goofy, but there are some missed opportunities as others have pointed out, but I will wait and see the remaining models and some other paint schemes. I could see them looking menacing in all mineral or even metal colors, or mix with maybe obsidian or maprble would look cool and would emphazise the frankenstein constructs even more. The catapult is awesome but looks like a nightmare to transport, which also goes for the mortarch, who is insanely cool otherwise. I do not have a problem with him being a static character in scenery, and he seems to be a clear indicator of a more defensive army, in contrast to nighthaunt and flesheaters. I hope to see a few more unit variations, a flying unit, a behemoth or maybe ranged infantry to supplement the ranged capabilities of the catapult and force the enemy to advance on you. LOn another note I am greatly concerned about the coming Orruk warclans book as an IJ player. It sounds like a super minimum effort release, without even terrain or spells, for armies which by themselves have an extreme lack of variety. IJ and BS do not even compliment each other model wise, as it is just mixing in more boyz on foot or boyz on boars, they double down on the same stuff and fills no holes. No flyers, no warmachines, no behemoths except the MK, no fast cavalry, not even a warboss on a mount. My expectatins are very low, so I guess I can only be positively surprised and if not, then that is just more to save up for our new dead overlords.

I have been enjoying the Hulking Muscle-bound Brute trait lately, it really makes a mawkrusha an even greater wrecking ball at removing models in the charge phase. Last game I managed to put 3+6 mortal wounds (yes very lucky roll) on a keeper of secrets on the charge, this crippled him enough to only dish out 5 wounds before I could retaliate. I felt this was my only chance as the keeper can just force me to strike last in the combat phase on a 2+ and also strike twice. This is rather gimmicky though, and I hope to see a lot of changes in the new book, but the power creep is real and the current meta for combat armies is brutal, with strike first and strike again abilities at the top. Mighty destroyers is often plain worse, as striking in the hero phase does not really come to play before a 2nd round of combat, although I did get some use out of it, clearing out some obstacles to allow me to actually charge the otherwise screened keeper of secrets. Now I am in a bit of a limbo with my Ironjawz, impatiently waiting for the new book, which there has been a strange silence regarding after the reveal.

Doubtful with the space marine release they want all eyes on that for a while I fear.

I will agree with you here and dearly hope this will not be as much of an issue in the new book. Right now CP is just so valuable, not only for Whaag bombs but the new command ability is just so good and useful all the time, that you can never have enough CP. All our utility and offense is based around these 2 huge CP dumps right now, but if they have any sense, then the book will change this band-aid fix to something more sustainable. As you mention, IJ right now has a lot of no fun snowball mechanics, you either lose hard or win hard most of the time. I am reluctant to play them just because games either go wrong for me very early and I can just wait out the loss, or I completely wipe my opponent turn 1/2 and have to deal with the saltyness. Very rarely do I see close games, where turn 3-5 are still exciting and I really hope the new Whaag mechanic allows that. The IJ model range is just so limited and all are melee brawlers, so I can see the challenge of designing rules for them, to increase flexibility and tactical options, rather than just adding ways to roll dice more in combat.

Well the stone spear from rumor engine is a spear for one of the new beastmen in the warband, so not bonesplitterz.