dirkdragonslayer

I think we will know probably the same day the book releases. I think that's how they have done it before, remove the old rules/points when the new book releases.

The two Saurus teasers are just the body guards of a plastic Slaan. Oh maybe I shouldn't jinx it.

Accidentally double posted.

So there's been a very minor leak through the description of a scheduled review; the contents of the book. It's nothing major, but some things I noticed. • Our subfactions are called Gittish Hordes. No description on what they are, but if I had to to guess it's the 3 White Dwarf ones we are familiar of and then one for Skragrott and his foot-sloggin' gits. • No profiles have been removed, like people were predicting. Kragnos is (thankfully) not in it, but Grinkrak's Court must have missed the deadline to get in. Even the Aleguzzler is still here. • SKARSNIK LIIIIIIVES. Somehow. Despite being discontinued a month ago, and his smaller spiritual successor being the new hero, Loonboss with Great Cave Squig is still in the book. I don't understand how or why, but I'm glad Da King of da Eight Peaks is still with us in spirit. • Interestingly the Squigboss with Gnasha Squig is grouped with the Moonclan on foot units and not the Moonclan Squig units. We know he buffs Squig Herds from earlier teasers, so that's kinda weird. Maybe that means there will be more play between foot-slogging gits and squig-riding gits?

I'm counting the days before we get a leak. I want to guess the leak will happen on Wednesday or Thursday.

Arachnarok with Flinger hopefully gets some damage on the Flinger. The debuff is nice, but it's really unreliable. Maybe some damage would make it more worth considering. It is our only artillery left, after all.

With the Khorne Warband for Warcry just around the corner, I feel like it's just about your time. At least, I hope it's your time.

I feel like they probably won't be as cheap as the old Wolf Riders. They seem to have really big bases, which makes me think they might be more elite? They have spears, Bows, and venomous mounts similar to the Spider Riders from what they are hinting, so maybe they will compare to Spider Riders like Boingrot Bounders and Squig Hoppers? I'm really excited to see if they buff Dankholds. They have always been in an awkward place of "Usually Rockguts do the same job but better." They are such pretty models, I own 3 official ones and one conversion. There's so many fun abilities you could give them outside of giving them more attacks. Leadership aura is cute, but what if they had a magic resist aura, or regeneration boosted when eating people? Also remember to look at the tokens they teased. There's some new effects teased in it; Drenched in Vomit, Pet Gribbly Squished.

I wonder if they are going to be more "elite" than the old Wolfriders? Spears, Shields and Bows and venomous bites on their mounts feels like it could step on Spider Rider toes (well, their tarsus). They look big though, maybe 3 wounds instead of 2?

Rippa being re-released as a generic Gitboss (with two body guards included in his profile) would be the dream, but I don't think it will happen. There's no precedent for it yet.

The only old model I would say needs desperate updating is the Spiderboss on Giant Cave Spider. That model is too spindly to be in Finecast Resin, I have seen one with bend and break under it's own weight. Spider Riders could be better, but they are serviceable. Madcap Shamans still look fantastic.

I think you are pretty accurate, if you check old stats. The factions seemed like they were made to mirror eachother. In AoS first edition, Stormcast, Slaves to Darkness, and Ironjawz were kinda similar. They are obviously different factions, but the stats of their main units were very similar. Liberators/Ardboyz/Chaos Warriors all had similar stats and 2 wound 32mm base profiles, Retributor/Brutes/Chosen were pretty similar, then Dracothian Guard and Gore Gruntas. Stormcast had their Stardrake, Ironjawz had the Mawkrusha, and StD had ther Lord on Manticore (but really their dragon guy was Archaon.) Nagash was left out until he made his Bonereapers trying to join the big boys club. But, surprisingly, his Liberator-like unit didn't have 2 wounds like Ardboyz or Chaos Warriors. Edit: It feels like Ironjawz were supposed to be the face of Destruction, the Orruk Stormcast, but they maybe they weren't as popular as they expected so they never got more releases. Then 3rd edition has Kragnos and pushed them off the throne before the siege of Excelsis and the Krulesboyz are taking their spot.

Awesome article. Love the way it reframes the siege of Excelsis by saying "oh no, Skragrott tooootally did all that on purpose." Interesting note, they seem to frame "Da Kings Gitz" in a similar way as Glogg's Megamob, Grimskuttle Tribe, and the Jaws of Mork. I wonder if "Da King's Gitz" is gonna be a new subfaction to buff Moonclan on foot? Since Jaws is for Squigs, Grimskuttle is Spiders, and Glogg is for Troggs, but there's no subfaction for normal grots. Unless we see more Wolf Rider rumors, I'm gonna guess Gitmob is just gonna be the one separate unit that doesn't really synergize with the rest of the book's rules. Like Hobgrots in Kruleboyz.

I would say the original book was well written, but was written with a different vision for AoS. It came out very early in 2nd edition, alongside battletomes like Beasts of Chaos and Skaven. These battletomes had interesting and fluff based rules to encourage specific builds and playstyles. They tried to be a more focused experience, to make you play Pestilens-focused, or Squig-focused, spawn-focused, etc. Then about halfway through 2nd edition, around when Daughters of Khaine released the battletomes were starting to get more competitive, wider offerings for buffs, more power creep. They stopped adding silly rules like sacrificing your own units at the herdstone, your heroes turning into chaos spawn, the Bad Moon's random movement, etc.

I have been thinking about returning to AoS. I left when 3rd edition dropped due to some mechanical changes, but I'm being tempted back by Gloomspite updates and Drekki Flynt. Anyway, what size are objectives nowadays? I know 40k used to use decorative 40mm or 32mm back in the day that you measured from, and my former AoS community did the same. Now that I'm peeking back in, a lot of people are using 6" plastic discs with no physical object in the center. Not very pretty. Is this the new standard? Do people still use more decorative objective markers? I was thinking of printing some objectives but this change kinda befuddled me.

I have been learning 3d modeling for fun, and I have been very tempted to make some Sky-fish models for Kharadrons. Not like units, but maybe objective markers or terrain? Sky-whales, schools of sun rays, void sharks, armored aether-robins, etc. Just a dumb thought, sorta inspired by that one printable Kharadron terrain set.

Yeah, I can see that at my local stores, they have sold well but there's still a lot left. A lot of people play Space Marines, but not enough to sell $200+ battleforces for every variation of Vanilla Marine, and GW seems to over-produce the boxes and unload them on small retailers. It felt excessive in 2021 or 2020 (can't remember which) where they had 2 Marine Battleforce boxes, and this holiday they have put out 6 (that I remember). Plus the boarding party box. Even with the largest fan-base, it's too many Marine boxes to sell.

In Blackstone it's revealed that they weren't "heralds of the Nids" in the old way of being Nid ambassadors, but refugees heralding an upcoming disaster. They were one of the first races to encounter the Nids and fled as refugees, trying to befriend others for sanctuary and warn them about the approaching doom. When they encountered humanity there was a psychic miscommunication, something like "[The Nids] are coming to destroy you, you will be destroyed." And humanity took that as the Zoats threatening them so they started killing Zoats. Now they live as isolationist nomads.

I could see the Troggoth Hag being kept around in a spiritual sense. A reference in the book, maybe a trait or artefact to make a Dankhold Troggboss a *Moonclan wizard* or references her. "Hag's Eye Talisman" or something. You can already sorta do it. Dankhold Boss with the generic Spellbook artefact that makes anyone a wizard, Scrapskuttle's Arachnacauldron, and you have a discount Troggoth Hag. She couldn't cast any Gloomspite spells without the cauldron anyway due to keyword conflicts anyway, so it's pretty similar (but a lot cheaper/weaker).

In Dwarf Fortress, spears are part of the holy trinity of Dwarven weapons. Axes for hordes of soft targets, hammers for hard armored targets, spears for causing internal damage to big monsters. But I'm not imagining it's super long spears like real-life pike walls, but shorter ones like boar spears, hunting spears, or winged spears. Like how some of the Kharadron have those pikes for killing sky monsters.

He's a lot smaller than Skarsnik, I think, so proxying is out of the question. Still very excited though to have a herder-boss sort of hero. I know his mask is probably supposed to look like tusks, but does anyone else see one of those novelty fake mustaches?

I really regret not getting one. The release of his DLC in Total War Warhammer is what inspired me to play Age of Sigmar. A year or two ago I tried ordering him through my FLGS, but I waited half a year before canceling the order since it wasn't coming.

I hope Skarsnik comes back. He's one of my favorite models since he's a 60mm base centerpiece in the center of a mob of grots. He just looks cool. He does fit in an awkward spot though of being a somewhat upgraded normal Loonboss. Maybe a different command ability that makes him more like a big Squig Herder or something.

I can believe a Gitmob hero on Snarlfang with how GSG synergies work, but I'm 50/50 on whether the Chariot is real. Unless Snarlfangs get lumped in with Spiderfang heroes/buffs somehow. Like I could see one of those faction versus faction battle boxes with a Gitmob hero, 10 Snarlfangs, and some Fellwaters or something.

Also I just bought a Sloggoth, I hope we don't lose them as allies when this updates...