Captain Marius

If we get more than Idoneth for AoS it will detract from their release so i wouldnt expect it. An update to the core rules would be cool, but they only released blood and thunder and the getting started stuff last year si i doubt therell be a new starter. I wouldnt mind being surprised though! Slaanesh i doubt will be til next year - narratively the way were going we should angel aelves and majestic terrible aelves first. As for Nagash, he seems to have given up trying to kill everyone everywher (need the living to due to get those yummy souls) so im theorizing all this fluff i leading up siege of the Varanspire - thats how you dominate the Mortal Realms!

Nagash explicitly ate Valaya on his way to Nehekhara in the End Times. Her death screwed up a bunch of protective runes allowing the skaven to massacre almost the entire dwarf race during Thanquol. God those books were brutal!

I think this is a major reason why gw need to manage their pre-release marketing a bit better. Already this year we've had DoK steal the thunder of LoN, who stole the thunder of MoN before them... We've got people on this thread more interested in what comes after Idoneth Deepkin, a faction for which we've not yet even seen models for! This costs sales! My personal approach is that i cant afford the new stuff so im at a lag of 2-3 years - just started fyreslayers when they finally got a start collecting box ?

Loving all the new weapon options for witch aelves, sisters of slaughter and doomfire warlocks, and the rules for animating the avatars of khaine are awesome! The new fluff really fleshes out some of existing lore too which is nice. And the Morathi models themselves are some of GWs best work - what a great release!

Those ruins are ace, perfect for scattering amongst the larger pieces, thats a must buy for me

Has anyone read Legions of Nagash? Theres a whole faction going around eating souls that explicitly isnt Chaos, Nagash, Sigmar, Tyrion or Malerion. Pg 12. Even Arkhan cant figure out whats going on. Fishmen are happening, at last!

Agreed; for me warhammer is about models, not rules, so i am far more likely to enjoy a release (and spend money) when new models come out. The rate of book releases in 40k is insane, to the extent that im not even trying to keep up, just painting the odd model in between aos units, and certainly not playing it. Im still peeved about the 8 month gap between Kharadrons and Nurgle (whatever the excuses are), but the new approach using Malign Portents to frame the next wave of releases has me motivated again, so hopefully theyre back on the right track!

Last year we saw kharadrons early on but they werent all released til May. Id expect the same with DoK. I dont get this idea that the 4 GAs should be equal in any way either, theyve not been since they were made up. I do think GW should give each faction their own goals in any global campaign, as saying eg SE and DoK want the same thing is lazy, even if they are grouped in the same GA. I also dont like the constant reference to Death players or Order players etc. We're all warhammer players, we're not entitled to anything based on whatever random alliance of factions weve chosen. Just enjoy the release ride! Or, if GW dont release any AoS battletomes for 8 months straight like last year, causing games to dry up in your area like they have in mine, have a moan that their overall release schedule has opportunities for improvement! My view: all new stuff is good, at regular intervals bring it on!

Assassins used to part of the Temple of Khaine so itd fit thematically. I hope they get Executioners back too tho its unlikely!

Im not so sure, the last two chaos releases went out of their way to update old units - i doubt anyone was expecting a plastic Changeling! Itll be interesting to see if the Death range is considered as classic as the Chaos ranges - the focus on Soulblight has my hopes up at least!

The rumours ive read (on this site!) have suggested new zombies and a new black coach. My own bet would be for plastic bloodknights at least/last, and hopefully new bat swarms, fell bats and soulblight heroes. Alongside any brand new stuff. If all that forms the basis of Nagash's Legions, there's plenty of room for Flesh Eater Courts and brand new factions to exist alongside them!

You could go so far as to say it is elf-evident!

What a great day for aos news! Im reallly impressed by the new rules for the Great Unclean One and Nurgle heralds, and all the other Maggotkin stuff revealed on the War of Sigmar review. Major change to how summoning works for Nurgle, which i expect will be reflected by a similar change for Death summoning. I did not expect them to revisit the whole Death range, let alone with 4 different themed allegiances based on Nagash and the 3 mortarchs - this has made me excited enough to crack back on with my never ending skellie rebasing project in preparation! I expect Nurgle, Custodes and Thousand Sons to take up tje release slots for the next six weeks, maybe with the Necromunda Orlocks and the next Shadespire warband in there too - so17th feb i expect will be the proper start of malign portents with the book and the Nagash battletome. Also, whoever thought of letting Thousand Sons use the mutalith vortex beast is a genius - i love it when kits can be used across multiple factions or even systems!

This is a concern for me, theyre teasing stuff so far in advance im losing interest before its released (cases in point, Magnus the Red, Kharadron Overlords and Shadespire). The Rumour Engines are so vague I pay them no attention any more. However I really like the preview articles on the Community site, especially the 'Coming next week' ones on a sunday - i think 2 weeks is the sweet spot for me when it comes to reveals. I must say im impressed with the effort behind the malign portents promotion - i hope they can deliver something worthy of their hype!

I reckon the release of new AoS factions is following the pattern of one per god, and we're finally seeing the second half of these factions. We've had new models (including entire new ranges) for Sigmar, Khorne, Grimnir, Gorkamorka, Alarielle and now Nurgle, with Nagash coming up next. Evetchosen is a bit of an outlier (tho Archaon is a demigod at least) and Sigmar and Khorne have had further updates. The rumours suggest shadow aelves of Malerion after Nagash's new faction, which would hopefully fit into this year's release schedule (last year saw only 3 factions receive proper releases). After shadow aelves i predict the Horned Rat will get a release, as hes recently been set up in opposition to Malerion in the background. That leaves Tyrion's light aelves and finally Slaanesh, which could all conceivably be released in 2019, tho id bet on 2020 for Slaanesh. Hopefully theyll sprinkle in a bunch of books for the random old factions too, as many sets of allegiance abilities were conspicuously absent from GHB17! I doubt Malign Portents will be much more than the 4 heralds and Nagash's new faction, unless it really is the sequel to Realmgate Wars and provides the narrative throughline for the next series of releases... which would be awesome! All in all loads to look forward to!

Nice model, but LOL what is the point

I wouldnt expect the next stage of narrative to just be Nagash throwing his weight around - Nurgle has already begun his Blightwar invading all the realms, while Tzeentch has been poised to make a move since the end of All Gates. With DoT well established, and enough Order factions to represent the Free Cities, i think 2018 will look at a whole range of baddies!

To be fair if they did release random battleline units to flesh out collegiate arcane, ironweld arsenal etc id snap them up with no hesitation!

A recent interview on the wh community site said they work on miniature design projects around 3 years in advance. It looks to me like Realmgate Wars was their first 'phase' of releases, with Stormies and Bloodbound supported by a smattering of other releases, then Sylvaneth bridge the gap between phase 1 and 2, and phase 2 was tzeentch and kharadrons with reinforcements for stormcasts. These new rumours, mixed with some recurring ones, suggest phase 3 will be nurgle and Death, possibly with some aelves and any random stuff they might do (the only remotely random armybook this year was Blades of Khorne, which had no models released alongside it). Personally im more interested in models than rules releases, so i look forward to them getting back on track!

I would not be impressed if the rules of 1 were incorporated into the open play rules. I agree they bring some semblance of balance to matched, but i dont think they would add anything to open or narrative. Bases i dont mind, theyre pretty much universally used, tho Im sure any attempt to enforce base sizes will open up a whole can of worms! Rolling for realms is a missed opportunity, but i concur ive never used it. Maybe it could be mixed with terrain rules, which i also never use due to being too complicated?

Something else weird with Death is the Malignant keyword and start collecting set. Did they consider doing a mixed faction and change their minds, or are Malignants what this new Herald bloke will be leading? Id like to see Allegiance abilities for races like Orruks, Humans and Daemons, and a general increase in units that can be taken in several different factions. I also hope Firestorm has set a precedent for creating Allegiances for a bunch of factions within a Grand Alliance.

For me this year has shown that they can churn out tons of rules no problem, to the extent that i cant keep up. Ive tried skirmish, gave path to glory a miss as locals wont play, love the updated handbook, gave firestorm a miss as locals wont play, and will skip shadespire as, altho it looks awesome, itll distract me from pure AoS/40k. We're currently in the longest gap between army book releases AoS has yet had. I know it sounds a bit entitled, but for me the new army books boost my inspiration and productivity a ton, so i value these above all other releases. Roll on 2018 i guess!

It does look like thats it for this year. Weve got shadespire (still not out for 2 weeks!!), followed by the skelly and ironjaw warbands, then in november necromunda is out along with nids and aeldari iirc, so id expect no more than the other 4 shadespire warbands. In december theyll hopefully do some army boxes (last years were fantastic) and if were really lucky we might get some stuff (thousand sons were released in december last year, first time weve had a proper release in december for... decades i think!) but i wouldnt count on it. So january it is - we had arcanites, tzeentch daemons and vanguard chamber in quick succession at the start of this year so hopefully we'll see something similar in 2018. I wonder what the new stormcast chamber will be

I think so, but only if you took a single faction of those listed as your primary allegiance.

I think the different groupings for Firestorm are an interesting new approach to building an army, and do a lot to finally flesh out all the Order factions that have sort of been sitting in limbo since the Order GA book was released. I think it would be better if you only tack the new abilities on to the basic Order allegiance (i mean i could take 1600pts of stormcasts with stormcast allegiance, any City allegiance, and any allies i want, completely bypassing these new restrictions...) but hey ho! Im kinda excited to see what the future holds - maybe a Ghurlands campaign with different combos of Destruction factions, or a Chaos War based around the five Gods and their followers...