Dr Ben

I may be being a little bit too politically correct, but what about that priest(ess) says they are a 'he'? I mean they're undead skeleton construct things so they aren't exactly going to have ******..... Katakros is the exception but the rest of the range so far is kind of non-gendered and a-sexual by definition so far. Also does Katakros make anyone else think of Word up by Cameo?

I found the complaints that the 'skeletons' have noses kind of amusing. That's really a minor detail compared to say, all their limbs or the fact the cavalry seem to have a rib-cage which goes all the way down to their pelvis. Anatomical accuracy was definitely not the aim. They essentially are made of armour plates and wearing more armour plates. I agree with Overread that you can paint the exoskeletons however you like with no requirement to paint them bone. Painting them all Chamon style if you want to go full Necron is one obvious example and would be a very quick paint job with a metal primer. My favourite idea so far is getting a bunch of slaanesh and idoneth bits then making them into a giant crab army.

In the Warhammer weekly review they reported the GW reveal team said in the preview seminar that the morghasts would be included . It is a bit like that. Its totally fine not to like them, as long as you don't hate other people for liking them (which you haven't so its all good). The ability to shift fighting style sounds interesting (as long as its not too complicated). My uneducated guess would be something like the Sequitor ability to chose to be more defensive/offensive. As for things about Katakros being the best strategist in the realms...… the community articles tend to be a bit hyperbolic. You may well be right, but personally I wouldn't assume too much about his actual warscroll from those comments. Although from the aforementioned preview seminar it sounds like he does have very interesting rules involving having to fight all the various attendants in the diorama in turn before Katakros himself steps off his dias to fight you personally, which makes him more powerful the more wounds he takes.

Could be, but it would have to be something new from the range. It doesn't look like the tails on the beastgrave kurnothi which have little spikes at the end. Their fire-hair all transitions from red to orange, I know its greyscale but I'd imagine there would be a bit more of a dark to light transition. Also I really need to procrastinate less...……..

They seem to be making a lot more spin off boxed games recently. Aeronautica imperialis isn't a million miles away from dreadfleet as an idea. I'd say the odds aren't bad on dreadfleet being re-invented as a new boxed game. 1. This seems to be accepted as almost certainly correct, but I'm not sure it has been officially stated in so many words (yet). 2 and 3. Your theories seem as good as any. Skulls and runes are common motifs so personally I wouldn't read too much into that bit - but that's not to say you're wrong. 4. Pretty much. Certainly looks like green death magic. There definitely seem to be Asian influences in the helmet shape and other details. Infantry, not quite a horse/bird head (undead gryphcharger or demigryph?) cavalry and catapults are definitely in and who knows what else. Most of the troops look skeletal with uruk-hai style swords or spears and shields. The boss (mortarch?) looks like he has lips on the lower half of his face/mask so not sure what's going on with him.

Fair enough. It definitely could be that way. Slaanesh does force you into a sub-faction but I don't think it limits your choice of warscrolls dependent on sub-faction. So that probably doesn't parallel with Cities of Sigmar especially well. I think Legions of Nagash is a better parallel. Legions of Nagash effectively was grand alliance death when it was released. FEC was missing but all the other death sub-factions were included. Yes it does force you into a sub-faction, but the Grand Host of Nagash is basically your default option with a generically useful ability for most armies you might build*, and you can opt into the other more specifically focussed and restrictive sub-factions if you want. As you describe, Hammerhal could easily fulfil a similar role in CoS. It could easily be the effective default option with universally useful abilities which don't favour any particular units strongly (like the bravery buff it has in firestorm) and little to no restrictions on which units you take. So I can also imagine that and I think that would work just fine. Its just not what I anticipate them doing. Partly because the stormhost/temple/enclave/skyport/lodge etc. system has been the most commonly occurring way of doing sub-factions. More importantly, the whole idea of 'build your own free city' is one of the best bits of the faction for me and plenty of other people. Forcing you to be 'like hallowheart, but not hallowheart' wouldn't ruin it, but it would detract from it. I hope/expect GW rules writers will be aware of this and write this part of the hobby into the book like the 40k team has done with the recent Space Marine codex (in the Warhammer community articles at least). *I mean legions innumerable extra regeneration not chosen guardians 1 extra morghast attack!

I think its probable we will get the option to make our own free city with a choice of command trait and artefact and access to all the warscrolls. I can't think of any other allegiance where you are forced to take a sub-faction. This is always balanced by having the most powerful abilities tied to the sub-factions. So, I think we will get an enhanced version of the existing mixed order made available where you can choose from anything in the book, but you will probably be better off taking one of the city specific sub-factions in nearly all situations. I'd also be surprised if they didn't stop you trying to get 'best of both' by going tempests eye and allying in a phoenix or whatever. Rules wise I anticipate this being like with the current Skaven arrangement where you can't ally pestilens into a skryre list etc. Firstly, lol, I'm so playing that scenario. Secondly I agree. Interesting if it is true and you can garrison. Its got that nice balance between being quick and easy to paint tabletop standard (just base coat grey and drybrush!) or heavily customisable if you want to go the extra mile on the paint job or make your own (giant tree-house for living city, helipad for tempests eye etc. etc.)

With the new blackstone fortress expansion coming out we've now got everything release from the UK games expo preview in May. Gotrek was the next mini revealed after that so it makes sense that he is coming out soon with the book. Not sure that means anything for CoS though. The Gotrek model was part of its own Black Library thing. Also we've got the new hammerhal herald which is Beastgrave -amber bones are the new shadeglass apparently (looks like we're getting all bones all the time until Christmas this year). I am probably totally incorrect but I kind of expect a 'freeguild needs you!' hammerhal herald poster before the CoS release. So I think this is a hint we will see the beastgrave release very soon and before CoS.

If he's being carried around by a grunt then the grunt has left him high and dry in this picture!

Fair enough. So... the explanation for walking around with a sarcophagus stuck to your back is that it is one of Nagash's ironic punishments for something?

You're right. That is really weird. It might just be the shadow (I'm looking at it on my phone) but the feet look massive as if they might be sarcophagus feet. Odd though it seems at face value, walking sarcophagus isn't beyond the realms of possibility given that silhouette. Alternatively, Undead turtle king back for vengeance against IDK for years of turtle cruelty.....

Blood angels players going into the black rage and smashing their keyboards reading this thread 😛

I agree that replacement for the bonesplitterz characters doesn't seem likely in the immediate future, but you never know I suppose. Ogors have at least the new tyrant confirmed and some suspiciously out of focus models in the new trailer so it's a bit more rosy looking for mawtribes. Comparing new and old tyrants I don't think the old tyrant will be missed that much. Maneaters are super characterful (if expensive) models so it would be a shame to see them go, but they don't add all that much battlefield-wise to the other foot slogging ogors. The gorger sculpts aren't in the same class, but their deep strike adds more tactical flexibility (or at least it would if they could do anything worthwhile after the deep-striked). In an ideal world we get plastic maneaters who can deep-strike like proper ogor ninja's should be able to.... We'll have to wait and see if the old finecast mawtribes get gitz, skaven or mercs only treatment.

Why not have it count as a rocket launcher. Its an artillery piece which isn't accurate but can do a ton of damage. That could be a cannon. It's not perfect, but noone is not going to misunderstand what it does and have a bad play experience. Almost all the rest have easy and intuitive understandable proxies with the remaining stuff. Again not perfect, but by no means a disaster. If they don't racially keyword the warscrolls they won't even be proxies, they will just be the thing. Here's my attempt at a list (apologies to anyone who has already done this somewhere on the forum): Tiranoc chariot - scourgerunner chariot aka elf horse chariot Lion chariot - drakespawn chariot aka elf monstrous chariot Lion ranger - wildwood rangers Glade guard - darkshards or even upgrade to shadow warriors or sisters of the watch Spell-weaver/archmage - sorceress aka elf magician probably best, human wizard variants wouldn't be a problem for me though Archmage or noble on dragon - sorceress/dreadlord Swordmasters - greatswords/executioner skycutter - freeguild general on Griffon if high warden variant or (ok so this is a stretch) grundstock gunhauler if you have the ballista variant dragon blades - probably drakespawn knights aka elven heavy cav, dark riders or wildwood riders at a push wood elf heroes /dragon knight heroes - whichever other foot heroes you want really. No reason you couldn't have an elven freeguild general. Other wood elf heroes will sub for nomad prince, waystrider makes a perfectly good assassin. Gunmaster - cogsmith organ gun - volley gun thunderers/dwarf warriors/quarrelers - just their direct human equivalents unforged - fyreslayer doomseeker i guess, either that or a warden king on spring break warrior priests/witch hunter - excelsior war priests war alter would have to be a lumiark or hurricanum i suppose. Both have bolts of smiting and holy aura's of some description, so again not unintuitive from a gameplay persepctive. agreed, was writing the post above!

The amount of models retired is a surprise to me, and judging by the reactions online other people too. In the specific case of the freeguild generals the one random foot guy remaining should mean the warscroll is included. I think it might be as simple as the retired models all having KF or Karl Franz on them somewhere which doesn't make sense in the current AOS timeline. Still got the griffon though which is still a sweet model. The wood elf characters had a lot of redundancy and are old metal sculpts so its not totally surprising they are going to legends. Lion rangers and postmen also not surprising anyone (shame about the sky cutter though). The old dwarf thunderers and warriors are classic dwarves but aren't up to modern sculpt standards. Plus the old battle for skull pass mini's are very common on ebay so it makes sense they want to take those out of circulation. I guess maybe the new warscrolls will just say 'gunners' or 'crossbowmen' and not specify a race so you can still use your old beardies? The dragons and elven mages are very surprising to me. I think those dragons still look pretty sweet and they were even occasionally popping up in tournament reports. I also thought the loremaster would be showing up in virtually every cities of sigmar list for that awesome buff spell, sadly no. I'm still trying to figure out why get rid of all the devoted of Sigmar leadership but not the flagellants themselves. Maybe just low demand? Maybe new plastic witch hunters/warrior priests on the way?

Last chance to buy up in the UK as well now.

Were you taking your 5 waywatcher Lords in a tournament list? Awesome if you were, but it doesnt seem likely. If you just play for fun with friends then you can still play them just fine. They've got warscrolls and I don't think many people would object to including them in the allegiance for allegiance abilities, command traits, artefacts etc. It will be annoying if they do get missed from the battle tome(which we still don't know 100% until official confirmation*). But no reason you can put them on the table and snipe ****** like Robin hood/Legolas/insert favourite legendary archer. Also if you're playing with legacy wood elves forest dragons are awesome in the activation wars. *ok so we got official confirmation 10 minutes alter...… d'oh

It would make sense to me to have a wardancer like faction spun out of the wood elves like DoK was spun out of old dark elves (and everyone expects angel/light elves to be spun out of high elves). On the other hand I prefer to think its a goth elf wearing new rocks until there is hard evidence otherwise. We had that scaly tail rumour engine a while ago. What about a seraphon band - maybe that tail is a kroxigor with some skink buddies? I like the way you're thinking. We do have 1 official non-FW chaos dwarf in warcry incoming after all. Personally, I'd love to see some new dispossessed with characterful underworlds sculpts though, I know its a very worn out fantasy trope but I do like my dwarves old-fashioned, drunk and grumbling.

I think movement is another issue for some monsters. Nearly all the monsters you see played (in competitive list reviews anyway) can fly. Monsters on foot are relatively easy to chaff and often hard to position so that you can use their higher damage per inch to good effect. I think it could help (and be fun) if some monsters got a rule added to their warscroll which gave them some kind of line-breaking movement effect. I know several monsters have a d3 mortal wounds on the charge type rule, but I think extra movement would be more helpful in many situations. From an emotional point of view it feels a bit anti-climactic when you charge a stonehorn into a unit of 10 elves/ungor/goblins etc. and they just stop it dead. I don't know exactly how would implement it or if anyone knows of similar mechanics in other games, my top of the head idea is something like "when making a charge move this model can move over units with a wound characteristic of 1 as if they could fly". p.s I know thermal rider cloak exists as an option for heroes (and who doesn't like a rocket powered woolly mammoth or t-rex) but I think this thread is primarily about non-hero monsters

I think we definitely will see some effects based on city keyword and some based on race/subfaction as well. Similar to how the verminlord warbringer cast dreaded death frenzy on any skaventide but their command ability only effects clan verminus, or how nurgle can be all nurgle, maggotkin only, nurgle demon only, nurgle mortal only etc etc. Agreed no guarantees, but up until now they have kept the minor subfaction keywords for some allegiances. I think FEC can ally deadwalkers and deathmages but not LoN for example. It means you can play not one mighty witch hunter, but units of 5! The smiting of the unrighteous will be immense!

They definitely don't sound like the Jamaicans I know. On the other hand, people in this thread have also seem to have suggested the owner of that voice might be Mongolian, Chinese, Egyptian or Von Carstein (Eastern European I suppose). Whilst it doesn't seem very clear which real world accent the voice is meant to have, I think we can all agree with overtninja that it definitely does sound a lot like Jim Cummings (it reminded me the most of Minsc).

This was speculated on a few months back when we first saw the kraken in the lake lethis art. Given that much of the design work is already done for TWW2 it kinda makes sense they would make use of it and bring the vampire Coast to TableTop. But the vampire Coast have a very classic pirates of the Caribbean feel. To me at least, the tithe teaser doesn't have that kind of vibe.

This was a year ago now and I don't remember any of the new releases being linked to this part of the story directly. I do wonder if we will see any Great Oubliette escapees being included in the official lore or if they were just giving us something to build into our own narratives. The suggestion about the next stormcast chamber made above, maybe with some anvils of heldenhammer special characters, would be a possible future direction for this lore nugget (there will be another stormcast chamber at some point after all...)

Looking at the webstore I make it AOS 21 battletomes vs 40k 24 codices as it stands. That counts blood angels/dark angels/space wolves individually but not all the various white dwarf supplements etc. I think consolidation like the new orks tome makes sense to reduce the number of books they need on shelves whilst opening new gameplay opportunities. But the reduction in books hides an increase in gameplay complexity. The amount of gameplay novelty for each new release will naturally trend downwards as you add more of them over time. As the novelty decreases that risks ever more temptation towards power creep and/or rules bloat in new releases to compensate. I love seeing new armies come out and I'm sure GW said to expect new AOS 2.0 tomes for everyone by the end of 2020 so I expect we'll continue on a roughly similar release trajectory for another 12-18 months or so. I don't know if GW market research people have figured out what the golden number of battletomes is, but it does seem like at some point the emphasis will have to switch from adding whole new armies to emphasising campaigns, updates, small numbers of new centrepiece models and releasing new ways to play with the same minis like apocalypse, kill team and now warcry for AOS.

My (high speculative) guess is you've answered your own question on 'Why show only the ogre half' of a theoretical elf vs ogre box. The new centaur and elf from ghur look like a 'wild elf' new faction to me. possibly styled off an expansion of the old wardancer concept similar to how DOK was drawn from old witch elves (with centaurs instead of medusae/medusas) . But separate to wanderers who seem to have been folded into free cities (also the same with other old dark elf stuff). And hey presto you have an interesting battle box of slow tough ogres vs fast and fragile elves, centaurs and friends. PS RIP swordmasters