overtninja

I'm looking for it myself, but in general, as long as you use mostly GW bits (and not, say, other model ranges for the base of your model), you make it easy to tell what your model is supposed to be, you keep it basically the same size (certainly the same base size, but also not too tall or stretching too far or whatever), it shouldn't be a problem. I do a lot of conversions myself - if you are in doubt, ask your store manager what is appropriate and show them examples of what you intend to do and get their feedback. I've had no problems in any store with my dudes - though I mostly do kitbashing and greenstuff modifications, rather than custom-building anything.

It might be that the general they kept is the Greatsword dude - perhaps they have plans for a greatsword-specific hero. Most likely, he was the only non-Old-World-Empire-branded general in the range. Hopefully they'll make a few clampack characters to replace the ones that have been retired, it's quite a large number.

Most people don't adhere to this standard. In their own branded stores they can enforce this sort of rule, but in any FLGS or home game you are free to do whatever you as players agree to do. Unless you can only play at an official GW store in your area, there's no real compelling force to do this, especially if it quashes the enjoyment of the game and prevents people from playing.

Most of the old armies, including the ones being discontinued, got updates to their model ranges in 8th edition - and tellingly, those are the very same models that are staying. HE got the shaft because the new stuff they received went to other factions (SotW went to Wanderers, for instance, and they are a dual kit with Shadow Warriors, who are also staying, and Dark Riders share a kit with Doomfire Warlocks - Wood, Dark and High Elves were allied in the End Times). Goblins kept all their 8th edition kits and got all new squigs and - I'd say they are roughly 2/3 new models. It is perhaps more useful to look at what models are being kept and how they form the basis of what might be made in the future rather than look at what is entirely new, because as you said, most armies are based on 8th edition WHFB minis rather than completely new. I suspect that at the time they were being sculpted AoS was already known to be a thing internally, and they were producing dynamically-posed kits with the intention of making the transition into rounded bases - but this is speculation on my part.

First point - yes, they have. Models for every army, even Tomb Kings, had rules in AoS from it's start. They were perhaps not the most competitive rules, but they were rules you could play with. I would actually hazard that the original rosters for legacy armies were actually rather strong and well put together, internal-balance speaking. Also, from the first release of points, those models also had points. Second - that statement was not for you, as a new player. That statement was for people who have had their models for the last 15 or more years, for armies from 6th, 7th, and 8th edition WHFB. And even then, would it be fair to say that you bought your army based on it's aesthetic appeal, or did you buy it based on the rules you knew they had in the current game? Either way, it's fair to say you did choose your army, which had rules current with the game. Unless you are a High Elf player, most of your models remain playable in the game currently. I don't think it's dishonest to say you bought a product for a game you wanted to play. What is dishonest is taking my statement about long-time players and applying it to new players, so that you could then be 'disappointed' by it (by a complete stranger on the internet, no less). Your third point is somewhat agreeable, but for people who did in fact want to play with those models, it was nice to get them re-boxed with round bases, especially if they were short some models for their unit. It does, in fact, show that GW has supported those models for the game, for which they actually released products at various times (the campaign book set in the realm of fire was their first attempt to bring the older models into the game). If you are complaining about the rules and how they play on the table - well, that quite literally IS on you, since they are freely available for you to peruse and make decisions on. However, I daresay that you did not make your entire decision on how powerful they were in the game, nor were you making an investment on the potential of superior rules-sets being released in the future. You bought the models you wanted, when you wanted, to play the game you wanted. I very much doubt you were lied to about how the models would play, or how they compared to other models, or otherwise.

I am going to work my very hardest to find ways to field them with the new tome, I've customized all my heroes and I'm sure they'll find a home representing something! I'm a big fan of the Waywatcher myself - if need be she can be the unit champ for my SotW (which are old Waywatchers themselves), or another elite ranged unit, particularly if a scouting elite archer unit is in the cards. For the rest, it will be a bit harder, but I'll figure something out, and I'm sure you will too! I'm looking forward to seeing how different forces get arranged - there will almost certainly be more unit options in an all-elf list now than before, and without knowing allegiance requirements it's hard to spitball what we'll be able to use.

Hmm, that is a pickle! Still, I would be surprised if warscrolls don't get revised in the new book. Until then, the warscrolls still exist for your other dudes and you should continue to use them in your games until the new book comes out, imo. If you have to, use your old models with the current supported warscroll for the buffs at least - it's largely what you're bringing them for, anyway.

That's kind of what waiting for the Battletome is, I think - take a look at it before making your assessment. If you don't like what you see, you can examine your options from there. No reason not to take a look, though!

Hmmm, good point - but normal dudes can ride the horses, generals should get giant bird-beasts or dino-monsters or something else cool. If I had a Skycutter, I'd put it on the ground, give them birds little legs with greenstuff, and be like 'alright this is my (insert current name) chariot!' That cannon is crying out to be applied to other models for additional Dakka. If you've got the bits and stuff, you could construct a steam-walker with the cannon and other things to represent your Steam Tank, and you could repurpose the crew to be it's pilots, potentially with additional models. Given, this is some work, but if you're willing to chop-shop your collection, anything is possible!

Well, you've still got the Gryphon General, which is imo the best option if you want him to live more than a turn to buff your units' to-hit rolls. The ones on foot are really susceptible to being sniped off the board with direct damage spells in my experience, or beaten up with MW-generating abilities. Many armies can nuke them off the table in their first hero phase at this point, so you'll want as durable a Freeguild General as possible. Fielding a second one on foot for redundancy is a good bet in my opinion, though not as your primary. With any luck you'll get a General riding a Demigryph or something rad like that. Also, if serious tournaments are your thing, um... well, if you're not willing to employ the newest, nastiest, most imbalanced garbage faction with the most horrific list, you're not playing with the same intentions as the other players there. You'll be middle of the pack with good generalship, but otherwise you'll get trounced by whatever this month's aberrant grotesqueries are. 😜 This is okay, but in my opinion this game is more fun when you don't angle the entirety of the hobby to official tournament play, because it's such a narrow and demanding subset of the game that many armies simply can't hack it and it sucks the fun out of the entire hobby. Build the army you want, let your opponent know what you're using, and in most cases everyone will be okay with it and have no issues playing you.

Which general, the one on the horse, or the one on foot? If it's the latter, you can surely continue to use him as-is, I'd say. I also suspect there will be a new mounted option - though at this point if you're not riding some kind of he-man beasty that's not certain. I've got a friend who did the same thing - started with a Khorne army but wanted to play normal people good guys. They retained most of their range, happily - which to me demonstrates that the 'normal dudes fighting monsters' angle is one that GW continues to like (in keeping with basically the whole tonal feeling of WHFB as well). I'm hoping the new Free Cities tome leads to a lot of players bringing out their human, dwarf, and elf armies again, just like the new Skaven book encouraged a lot of players to dust off their awful rat collections. Best of luck!

I think GW also has to feel that it's disingenuous of them to promote old sculpts that they aren't happy with themselves, but they also don't want to be stuck with stock they can never shift. The people buying the older model ranges aren't necessarily new players, but for them they would represent a kind of 'trap', in a way - a model range that persists because of their existing fans but is not for new players to collect, because it's on the way out. For both new players and GW, it's better to discontinue the ranges at this point. A necessary evil, as you said. :{ The writing has been on the wall for a long while for the old model ranges, I'm afraid. Some of them have found new life in AoS as part of other factions or as their own new faction, augmented by new kits, but many are too generic, modeled too static, or otherwise simply not interesting or distinct enough to mesh with AoS's aesthetics. I want to also be clear, as a Wanderers player, that I am more than a bit sad to lose all my cool heroes. I scratch-built several of them and heavily customized them to make them my own. I will find a way to use them, however I can, moving forward, and I genuinely hope everyone who has legacy models can find a way to do the same with their own collections. GG can stuff it though, I have like 60 of the nerds and the best parts of the kit were the spites and little roots and things. Not going to miss them very much, especially if I can replace them with cool new archers. If not, I'll definitely be using them to represent some other bow-shooting unit, because I've got them. If I were a new player, though? I'd be interested in new hotness, the same way I was/am about Sylvaneth.

Back in WHFB they replaced their entire metal range with new plastic sprues, for almost every army. Those that weren't eventually given at least some plastic kits were eventually discontinued. Halflings used to be a thing, for instance, Dwarves used to wear Renfair clothing like The Empire, Wood Elves looked like Robin Hood: Men in Tights, but with massive mohawks (the new Bloodbowl models have a similar aesthetic), and there were rather a lot of old war machine kits in metal that were replaced, notably for Skaven, Chaos, Dwarves, Empire, Orcs&Goblins... You get the idea. There has always been significant roll-over for models as technology advances, molds wear out, and the company responsible wants to give their customers something new to model, construct and paint - and give new players something to acquire. GW does want to make new models for things as much as possible, and that eventually means getting rid of everything currently available over time and creating new things. This doesn't mean you have to buy them, of course - but GW's business model is to make you want to. If you as a customer sour to their practices because you've grown very attached to the models you've had for, at this point, potential decades, that's largely on you. They've supported them with rules and/or points for the whole stretch of AoS, they know people have genuine affection for their collections and they've not disrespected that imo. They even kept a lot of old metal models in circulation with Finecast (which was sadly rubbish in the end, but an honest effort to keep their metal molds usable instead of junking all of them at once), which was a costly prospect for them in terms of development and didn't even end up breaking even. They wouldn't have done that if they didn't care about people being able to buy those models for as long as possible. That said, new collectors shouldn't have to buy 15 year-old models when GW can make much better things now, with the altered aesthetic they are currently developing their games with. It's also important to remember that just because you buy a thing it doesn't mean that thing will be useable forever, or that it will always be a current thing. You don't have to buy the latest thing to be 'safe', but if you buy the oldest thing, you should probably keep in mind that the oldest things will be the first to be discontinued or otherwise replaced with newer things. Let's be honest, the old WHFB ranges are not, in the end, AoS minis, and expecting all of them to be produced for the entire stretch of AoS's life is unrealistic. It's sad to see them go, but at this point it's a matter of stock and a genuine need to produce new things as a company.

It's not about what can continue to be used - most models can be used long after they are sold as counts-as. It's about what they choose to keep in production, keeping in mind the age and condition of the molds, the popularity and number of models sold, and whether or not it's cost-effective to produce them as they are now. You should definitely use your cool old minis!

I understand. I honestly don't think they'll just replace options with more sigmarines, because this release is supposed to emphasize how normal people are able to fight for themselves in the mortal realms. AoS is pretty much He-Man metal album cover fantasy, but there is still a place for normal people, since GW kind of likes that narrative angle anyway. Anyway, if you have Freeguild General models that are preferable to you, you can definitely still field them, and I'm sure people will be pleased to see them on the table. I love it when people look at my models and wonder where it's from and and whether I converted it, personally.

Yo, all the heroes outside the Nomad Prince are Finecast, which is, was, and has been pretty rubbish in terms of quality, and probably cost GW more money than they saved trying to preserve the expensive metal molds. They seem to have finally sold their stock from like 10 years ago, and now it's time to move on to the modern levels of quality they are capable of creating with plastics. I own most of the WE heroes in metal and I completely understand them wanting to let them go - they don't really match the style of the newer models and they certainly don't match the story they are trying to tell. The GG kit's scale is smaller than most other aelves, and frankly the kit is pretty static in terms of posing. GW can do a lot better now that units don't rank up on little squares, and I don't fault them from retiring all the old kits that were sculpted specifically to rank up. If anything, we'll probably be getting better archer kits for the free cities later on - and there's good money they'll be aelves, because no one bows better. Ultimately, as someone who owns an awful lot of old metal WE models, I'm actually happy to see the remaining metal go - what player, new to the hobby, is going to want to buy 15 year old metal models when they could buy much more dynamic models in plastic? Most of what drives the sadness for replacing kits is nostalgia and a feeling like you can't use old things for some reason. I currently use my old metal Wardancers as counts-as WWR, my Wild Riders are the old metal ones, I use the old Waywatcher metal minis as my SotW, and my heroes are all metal - including my NP, which is the old Wood Elf with Spear and Sword hero with the cool antler hood. It's okay that new players get newer things - you can still use the old ones to represent the new units and models, and if anything it will add interest to your army and spark conversation rather than be some sort of detriment. As hobby players, we should be using as many old models as we can to represent our armies, especially if we put lots of time into converting, painting and basing them. You should be able to use your old models to represent new things, is what I'm saying, and the new Free Cities book will give you ample opportunity to do so. For now, it's time to get creative with what we can use our models for in the future, so that they can continue to see the table and be enjoyed by everyone.

I'm buying those satyr aelves, I've got a full old beast-themed Wood Elf army that could really use some goaty boys.

All the heroes outside of the Nomad Prince were resin or metal, so it's a no-brainer that they'd get rid of them as soon as they could - GW's experiment with keeping their metal molds usable with a proprietary resin was pretty much a flop - Finecast was a massive fiasco in terms of quality and probably cost them a good deal of money. (I've not got the monetary figures but I do know that there were massive issues with bubbling, bending from heat, being malformed or poorly molded, etc.) They have likely sold through most of their existing stock, so it's time to retire them. It's a shame, as some of them are actually nice sculpts (I own most of them in metal, which is awful to paint but oh well), but GW is capable of creating even better miniatures now that they don't rely entirely on hand-molding their minis. I'm not upset about the loss of GG models either, because they are runty compared to most other AoS models, and we could end up with much nicer aelven archers out of the deal - which would be a net win for the game - us older players could use our GG as counts-as and newer players could buy the new models. Also, I am 100% into buying any satyr/centaur aelves they make, I love the overall look and would love to field units of them - even if #2 from the right looks really, really derpy.

Speaking as someone who owns a crapton of old Wood Elf models, I fully understand how sad it is to lose a good deal of your range (not as much as high elf and dark elf players of course). For those of you with big collections, or who have just purchased models, keep in mind that you can always use them as counts-as for other models - I use 20 old Wardancers as Wildwood Rangers, and all my Sisters of the Watch are old Waywatchers and Glade Guard Scout models. You don't have to trash all your old stuff if you can find a place for them in whatever army you choose to play. It's also important to remember that there is nothing permanent in a wargaming hobby - everything eventually ends up being squatted, discontinued, or otherwise retired from production or the game itself and replaced with new things. It's a shame when your wonderful models that you've had potentially decades of good experiences with are no longer able to be fielded, but with a bit of creativity and repurposing you can probably keep at least some of your collection in use going forward. If anything, what this means is that newer players will be getting new kits to build, paint, and play with, and not have to hunt on ebay for models that might already be hard to come by, while as a long-time player you will be fielding models that many players have not seen before and may not even be able to buy at this point! You'll always have distinctive models to field with your older collections. Anyway, we don't even know the contents of the new book, and honestly we might be looking at some new model releases for the Free Cities that you can use your current models to represent. It is worth keeping some optimism about this, and thinking about what you might use your older models to represent in the future.

I just built the new Wyldwood set, and I'm happy to report that all the old kits would be pretty easy to convert to be similar to the new ones. At first I tried to chop up the old plastic base into the new bases' shapes. It's probably doable, at least as the core of what you want to do. Otherwise, you could model the approximate shapes out of pretty much whatever as long as you can greenstuff over it. Aluminum foil would work pretty well I think. The old trees themselves are about as tall as the new trees, but the old ones have a lot of branch density lower on the tree, which is why they are rather bad for AoS. The new trees are also stylistically different than the old trees - they look more like mangroves with their raised roots than the old ones, which look like evil apple trees. I think it wouldn't be hard to raise the trees a bit, and if you've got a bunch of unassembled old trees like I do, I think coverting them with new roots or extending the bases would work really well.

@SyrexYou'll get more out of the Arch-Rev if you use his command ability on Kurnoth with swords or scythes, since they do a lot of damage per attack, and they also benefit from the Arch-Rev's aura. On Dryads it's a bit lackluster since they don't have great attack stats, but Spite-Revs are a great target for it also. I finally got around to playing a game myself, against my regular Nurgle opponent at the FLGS. He brought a pretty hard list, with Rotigus, an undying GUO with the Endless Gift, Bloab, A Lord of Blights, and a Blightking Battalion, and a surprise unit of Nurglings to deep-strike. I suggested he use the bell on the GUO instead of the sword, since he has felt like the 2.0 scenery rules give him more mobility issues, even with good cancer tree placement (it worked really well for him all game). For my list, I wanted to try all the stuff that was pretty different with the new book, so I brought a Winterleaf army, a TLA as my general, a Household Battalion, Drycha, an Arch-Rev, 10 Spite-Revs and 5 Spite-Revs to round out my battle-line, 6 Kurnoth with Scythes and 3 Kurnoth with bows. I also too the Gladewurm endless spell, and then forgot to use it all game, because I am a pro. I also forgot to use the new Command Ability for my General, or the new Winterleaf Command Trait, which was also pro. We played the 2019 Focal Points battleplan, and my opponent ended up with an arcane ruin to buff is casting for both Bloab and Rotigus, which was awful, since they have really nasty field-wide attack spells, while my side of the field had Deadly ruins. The center was dominated by a Dreadfire portal (sadly unclaimed all game) and a Magewrath Throne (which was heavily contested by both sides), which flanked the center objective. With the new scenery rules, my Wyldwood (still using the old ones, sad) was hard to place, and since we couldn't find anything that said otherwise, my opponent put his Gnarlmaw just a bit into my side of the table, so he could better snag the middle. The game went really back-and-forth, with my opponent holding the middle with all his Blightkings against Drycha, my TLA, 10 Spites, and an occasional Treelord, who spent a lot of the time hopping around the map fighting fires. Putting down new woods was difficult, and while my Spirit-Revs snagged a cross-table objective on turn 2, they were swiftly dealt with my the GUO, who was hedged out of effective combat for most of the game, even though his movement buffs to the other units proved extremely potent. Rotigus and Bloab bullied my army very effectively from their Arcane terrain spiking my Arch-Rev first turn (she was saved by her Ultimate Sacrifice ability, but , but it kept them out of melee until my 6-man Scythe unit chewed through the Blightkings in their way and went ham on them at the end of the game. The Treelord stomps helped a bit, but mostly the extra offensive power of the Spite-Revs and the teleports from the Spirit-Revs are what really helped me keep up with my opponent on points. Kurnoth continue to be amazing, of course. By the end, not many things were standing, but the MVP of my game was my Branchwych - she survived most of the game on 1 wound remaining, survived solo combats with Nurglings (which she killed) and a late-game summoned Beast of Nurgle (which she ran from), as well as all the 'anyone I want takes d3 mortal wounds' spells and abilities that Nurgle brings to the table. I gave her the spell to restore a model to a unit and the Vesperal Gem artefact, which meant that every turn I was automatically bringing back a whole Scythe Kurnoth model. It's dumb strong, and kept my Bully Squad going into the 3rd and 4th turn, when I was running on fumes and needed to do outrageous damage. Also, thanks to the new GHB2019 command abilities, I was able to buff the Kurnoth for combat and claim the crucial last-turn objective to squeeze the points I needed to just barely win. In all, the army feels stronger and more capable, and does a much better job of growing back from damage than they used to. The artefacts are really attractive, and the new glade rules do a great job of defining playstyles. Winterleaf is going to be extremely common with the new rules. Also, exploding 6s are dumb on Scythe Kurnoth.

A lot of people don't like terrain because most terrain for WHFB was made to basically prevent movement on or across it - either by having nowhere flat to put your models, or just being basically a big rock in the way. This is why many players don't like terrain - if there are too many terrain pieces that are not pathable it's just going to gum up the table and make things less fun. This also drives people to ignore terrain and make sure it's not an effective part of the game. I'm glad that GW is starting to produce terrain with a clear intent that it can have models placed on it easily and fought over - which will encourage more players to use it. I've not used the realm rules but I'm keen to, many of them seem pretty fun, but a few, like those that limit sight range in Ulgu and stuff, just hose some armies and that's lame.

I'm excited for the new Cities of Order tome. Free peoples, aelves who aren't snakes or fish, and dwarves who aren't in the air or on fire have long been featured in AoS's lore and stories, but mostly to be slaughtered and otherwise suffer horrible fates. It's about time the 'normal' inhabitants of the mortal realms got a battletome that will update them to be a proper fighting force so they aren't just a punchline or a way to show that some other model range is really good at killing folks. I've been modeling my Wanderers to be from Ghur anyway, so if I can add centaur elves and wild dudes into the mix, I'm all in.

Whoever it ends up being, the voice sounds a lot like Jim Cummings doing his Razoul the Head Guard voice from Aladdin.

let's also keep in mind that with the new scenery rules, there is a 0% chance you'd be able to throw down a full 6-part woods in matched play. there's no point in seeking advantage in this case - though the new models have a slightly smaller footprint, which in the new rules is actually better overall.