Dr Ben

I've got half finished armies of ogors and dispossessed/ko mix so I'm hyped. Those books should keep me busy for a couple of years. Also intrigued by the centaur and wild elf looking silhouette in beastgrave.

Does anyone know if the scale will be right to kitbash with necromunda gangs? I think my wife could get into a femanarchist band of escher/corvus bird-punks. Cawdor and delaque also seem like they could be ideal if you want to paint robes not toned cultist bodies. Also, to actually stay on topic... Corvus is my favourite, very much like old world norscan tzeentch followers. I think iron golems have some under appreciated potential, especially for a nurgle feel with those single eye helmets and lots of corroded metal effects.

Battleline: French and German philosophers from 1850-1980. Behemoth is a giant Dawkins-bot which shouts at everyone the Dracothian didn't create the mortal realms and beastmen are the result of natural selection.... More seriously, I think if you combine the ideas in the thread above to get flesh golem crafting mad scientist dwarves who essentially believe they are God because they can create life (sort of) and therefore counter prayers that could be interesting. On the other hand I don't think it's necessarily bad from a game design perspective to keep prayers undispellable because that is the main reason it's different to magic in gameplay.

My skin wolves are going to end up as gorgers, so they'll be neither man nor beast (when I get around to it....) Given that we already have god's (or avatars of them anyway) on the table I'd love to see FW make a god beast range. It would fit with the classic FW niche of doing giant things and allow epic recreations of battles from the lore (Also the giant KO ship mentioned in the battle tome) I hear the comments above about people not buying that much Aos FW, but at least some peoe bought the khorne dragon. As also mentioned above a lot of the other stuff just isn't as epic as the regular plastic. Why would you buy a warpfire dragon when you can get a regular dragon Lord or stardrake which is much more playable and no less cool. So I reckon more epic is the direction to go.

If you don't already know them I'd start with the honest wargamer lists for inspiration. It's a 2k list, but the most successful recent list at a big recent tournament was https://thehonestwargamer.com/aos-list-rundowns/kharadron-overlords-skyhooks-for-days/.

1 kroxigor plus a couple of skink buddies and you've got yourself a shadespire warband maybe?

I'm pretty sure it was reported from warhammer fest that there is at least 1 more destruction battletome due this year. I had noticed a couple of the ogre references but hadn't put them all together like that. A Skaven or gits style ogre book would make sense, but there isn't the diversity of either of those factions with the existing ranges Also now slaanesh is out they obviously need more depravity points!

Tin foil hat on. Obviously it could be anything, but after that kraken type thing on the forbidden power art vampire Coast is what my moneys on. Lots of the development work (concept, digital design on the new units, old world lore etc) has already been done for total war. So it would just seem to make business sense to convert that into TableTop.

Yeah. Definitely looks like a kraken tentacled thing in that picture. I thought that it was meant to be an ally for Nagash? Undead kraken would be an interesting and unexpected direction. Luthor harkon and the pirate coast from Total war 2?! If the kraken is what it turns out to be then it makes sense of why the IDK are in this new allegiance though (plus the whole teclis thing)

Yeah, I wouldn't read much into it until we know more concrete details. When describing new releases they have a tendency to give them a bit of hyperbole and narrative flavour that doesn't necessarily reflect the rules. Remember packs of magmadroths? Broadly speaking I think the concerns about 40k style soup lists hinge on whether the mercenaries can keep/combine allegiance abilities. If not I don't think it will complicate things much more than allies within allegiances already do for order and chaos. It would probably have a bigger impact on destruction/death who have fewer ally options. I don't play 40k,so I am probably totally wrong, but it seems from the outside like the soup problem has a lot to do with being able use any stratagems from any detachments you bring. Allegiance and command abilities are the AOS equivalents roughly speaking. Command abilities are relatively limited by key words and availability (for most factions). Mixed allegiance abilities would be extremely complicated to implement. add a keeper of secrets to FEC and summon yourself a whole new army of extra slaanesh allies anybody?

In the old world they were definitely separate species with defined roles in the quasi-Confucian order of lizardman society. Spawning pools were created by the old ones and once lost they couldn't be replaced, if I remember correctly. So either the reproduction was magical in some way or the environmental conditions needed for healthy seraphon tadpoles were not naturally occurring.

I'm also hoping for some pretty awesome dwarf-bots, vengeful ancestor spirit powered golems would fit the bill nicely. Valaya would be interesting and creates a very natural space for some female duardin characters which I would like to see. But still..... Golems and massive adapted mining machinery to burrow up and crush enemies into pulp for me please. I like your idea linking duardin constructs with the forging/reforing process via Grugni. If that was the case then a sneaky dispossessed release would kind of fit in as part of the soul wars storyline. They are the classic enemies of the Gobbos who just got re-released and Skaven who are hotly tipped for the same treatment, so it would kind of make sense to see a Dispossessed release from that point of view too........ Nah I'm just gettingover-excited. Anyway I still need to get enough regular bearded dudes painted by the time anything comes out whenever that might be.