Captain Marius

Hmm, with this release alongside the up coming Blood and Thunder maybe GHB2 is gonna be a soft edition update. Hopefully with some tweaks to the core rules!

Oh no i think they definitely care, as has been shown with their incredible improvement in customer engagement in the last year. I just think there are opportunities to improve their release strategy (which in itself is vastly improved from the monthly release dump they maintained for decades). I think 40ks had a good showing this year too, with all that hive world terrain, more plastic heresy marines, and talons of the emperor (not to mention a proper set of skirmish rules...) sure beats the NOTHING AoS got in the back end of last year... And as for novels, whatve we got, TWO confirmed as upcoming for the whole of AoS in the next few months, while 40k had about 3 out just this week! Could do better GW!!

I recall there being a 5 month last year gap between Beastclaw Raiders and Disciples of Tzeentch, in which we saw the likes of Deathwatch, GS Cults, Prospero and Bloodbowl... and no AoS! At the time i thought that break was fine as we had indeed received a fair bit in the first half of the year. Now though its been more than 12 months since the last of the Realmgate Wars campaign books was released! They built a good head of steam with the 4 books in the first 4 months of this year but i feel that momentum has dissipated. I AM tho looking forward to GHB2 (more that 40k8!) and seeing all the other goodies they have in store for us. In this 40k hype period they couldve dropped a couple of repack armies like Freeguild or Slaves to Darkness or something to tide us (ok me) over tho!

Didnt he become Torgun, a bog standard Knight Venator? I could do without bad guy stormcasts for at least another year. According to my theory of a brand new army per god, and following the rumour engine, we're due something for Nurgle, Nagash and Malerion soonish, which leaves Tyrion, Slaanesh and the Great Horned Rat for next year. At this point tho ill settle for anything - discounting the shadespire skellies, weve not seen any new models for AoS since the whole Kharadron range was unveiled in March!! I know weve had Skirmish and what have you, and the coverage of 40k has been outstanding, but im beginning to feel theyve dropped the ball with AoS a bit.

Sold! Great to see further work tying the setting together... also this sounds mega fun!

I like how the Skirmish rules deal with summoning - no spells or abilities that summon stuff have any effect! Nice and simple!

With the SE and KB boxes gw simply missed the opportunity to make them appeal to any collector of the faction, whereas the other two are great starters or add ons to the start collecting sets. I think 5 libs and the 3 bird people plus hero wouldve been better, as you at least have a bunch of weapon options on the libs (unless you have to follow the unit option restrictions... which you probably do!) I think i read somewhere the max is 20 models in a warband?

The Ironjaws and Flesh Eater boxes are fantastic add ons to a start collecting box (or the other around). I think the Stormcast one is a bit limited though, as theres no easy way to expand the 3 libs and 2 retributors to 5 man units for regular aos. I think the khorne box is even worse in this regard - 3 blood warriors and the most useless hero in the whole of the bloodbound... sign me up for the first 2 boxes tho!

Alas you only get 2 Retributors in the SC box, you get 3 in the AoS starter set!

Ok not quite fly, fair one! I think the principle is the same in this case tho, long-bomb your murder unit into combat on turn 1 when there are no enemy units in no-mans land. Fine in theory, can be costed fairly in points i believe, but so open to abuse that why would you do it? As for not playing against such a model, i would not deny an opponent the chance to field whatever they like - i will however reserve the right to moan about it on forums like this one!

It has fewer wounds than the other verminlords! And its spell is Sayl-lite: +6" move plus fly to ANY friendly unit, 6+ to cast... cmon guys think this nonsense through before publishing please! Model is lovely tho...

Skirmish seems like a deliberate attempt to give some support to that original 'anything goes' approach - if its anything like Shadow War itll be ace!

The latest SE battletome made it clear that reforging also exacerbates the traits peculiar to each stormhost, so Hallowed Knights glow with divine light, Celesial Vindicators crackle with lightning etc. So i dont think they always lose a piece of their soul to Nagash - instead it is the job of the Lord Relictors to minimise this.

Does anyone have an example of this, ive looked through all the previous unpainted bits on the rumour engine and they all look like plastic to me! I like trying to figure this stuff out so any help in telling the difference would be appreciated!

On the Rumour Engine i believe when theyve shown unpainted bitz before they have always been plastic, suggesting that this latest one WILL be a resin kit, which i think suggests BloodBowl (or a special edition ork of some description).

If they do points per model they should do points per upgrade as well, so we'll be back to micro min maxing for optimum points efficiency... I really dont see the need, but if its what list builders want then fair enough. As a counterbalance id like to see more battalions without points values, and maybe some warscrolls for named heroes like Vandus or Gardus that just use the regular model with a tweak for narrative purposes. I think narrative allows for a lot more creativity than matched and would be keen to see the new GHB/narrative book series cater to this.

Armed with a Big Off Birthday Cake, looks like AoS to me!

I think we'll get a full slate of releases for aos alongside the 40k stuff, were currently sitting comfortably on a new book per month this year. And to recap, we have rumour engine pics of scourge privateers/shadowkin, daemons of nurgle, a random tombstone that could indicate deathrattle (maybe with some TK stuff in #wishfulthinking) and of course that rat tail! Exciting times!

Am i the only one who isnt a fan of painting and modelling guides in army books? They feel like filler to me, taking up room that couldve gone to more fluff! On the other hand i do enjoy painting and modelling articles, but prefer them in WD, or on forums like this one. Hopefully their inclusion is not a trend going forward!

The Questor in Silver Tower has a 40mm base, I believe the only Stormcasts who differ are the Azyros and Venator on 50s, with the Venator available in one of the Silver Tower expansions. Fwiw the Blight Kings and Lord Castellant in Hammerhal are on 40s too /pedant

Ill put in a wish of cover changing to -1 to hit enemy units completely in cover rather than +1 save. I dont think the change to base to base is essenial... but thats how i play open narrative and matched so it wouldnt change anything for me!

Ok this is nice, builds on Hastings' rumour of a skryre update, and/or the Nurgle release, if Pestilens will be part of Children of Nurgle! Or could be Hrud! Yeah or earthwyrms...

I wouldn't bet on such consistency! Im currently rebasing my old dwarfs and they seem to all be on 25s while fyreslayers are on 32s (kharadrons have both). Ive not quote figured out the best solution yet... Also Flesh Hounds - theyre supposed to be on 50mm rounds but that looks ridiculously huge to me so mine will go on 60mm ovals. Would this be acceptable? They were previously sold on 40mm rounds or 50mm cav bases which are even smaller! Personally i hope the GHB leaves base to base as a house rule and leaves it to TOs to deal with the minutiae of base size advantages and what have you!

Prototype?

Im not sure, its not like 10 liberators with just a prime is worth thecsame as 10 libs with a prime and 2 grandweapons even tho they cost the same... i dont think theyll go into that much detail. Might be cool if they did tho!