madmac

I'm thinking Tzeentch. Never got a white dwarf update, probably isn't getting a bunch of new models.

RealmLords had some problems, but not in a way that I felt like the author was just a bad writer. I'm willing to give his second book a chance at least.

1000% Beasts of Chaos. I don't think anything else in Warhammer shares that aesthetic.

I'll just point out that Kill Team released in late summer 2018 and got it's second edition late summer 2021, while Warcry released in late summer 2019...

More than zero, I'd say. If Sylvaneth are finally getting a large update, it would be a little odd to not have some nod to the Kurnothi after teasing them for literally years now, up to and including Broken Realms implying the return of Athel Loren. Also if Underworlds can get a retread of a Warcry band, why not Wild Hunt 2.0?

Warcry seems more plausible to me. We literally just got a big Underworlds announcement/release while Warcry has been in limbo for quite a while.

IDK and Fyreslayers also can't buy the Fury of the Deep heroes separately, which I recall being promised to come alongside the battletomes at some point as well.

Horus Heresy. Though granted that one is probably a little farther out still.

Maybe. It doesn't tell us a lot, basically every GW armored foot looks like that. Looks a little too slim for Stormcast though, and doesn't have the bolts. I'm gonna say probably some kind of elf though, both IDK and LRL (Stoneguard) have armored boots that look pretty much exactly like that. If not an elf, than probably a human.

True, but that was a whole different era of internet, where everyone was trying to top each other with the most elaborate possible April Fools jokes. Now it's mostly just a day where companies try to avoid announcing things to minimize confusion. Even setting aside the leak, the joke is obviously that the obvious joke is not a joke. Squats are coming, and even in that shadowed teaser at the end we can see they've been redesigned.

I think BB people were expecting a Norse team, but I can't really square that with the shield. Can't square that with any blood bowl team though, to be fair.

Those are all resin models, they're definitely not getting reboxed. That said, nothing seems to be sold out yet in the US at least. Worth keeping an eye on I guess.

At this point, I start to wonder if armies that get White Dwarf updates aren't getting a better deal than the ones that have actual battletomes. Certainly the amount of new content seems about the same-You get new lore, Tactics, Strategies, maybe some additional allegiance abilities or whatever, and the price of the update is far lower...

Right now both Vulkite options seem terribly flawed. Shields have a 4+ save which is as good as it gets for Fyreslayers, but not really anything to brag about otherwise, especially now that Fyreslayers have lost all their save stacking options except the generic command ability. The big problem is that their damage output is so low that it might as well be zero, and they're not that tanky that it's worth paying 170 points for just a 4+ save and horrifically bad attack density. Vulkites with Axes can get an acceptable number of attacks on the charge, which is not to say it's particularly a lot, again, compared to what most armies can do. 16 attacks is slightly above average for like a 5 man base unit, and low for a 10 man unit that isn't getting stiffed by coherency. 10 Thralls for example can easily put out 21 attacks, with Rend, and that's before sweeping blows kicks in to give them 31 attacks or damage 2. Now Thralls are super buff, but even a lot of bog standard mediocre CoS infantry units people don't play are putting out 21 attacks on average, without the charge conditional and probably with rend. No rend is also a serious problem, mediocre attack density+no rend+squishy+slow is not a winning combination all in all. TLDR, I don't think either type of Vulkite is good, but probably right now I'd lean double axes if I had to use one or the other.

Well if nothing else, I have to give this book props for breaking the cycle of battletomes with obvious winners and losers. There's a lot of losers in this book for sure, but winners? They're hiding pretty well!

Have to agree with Jack here. The more battletomes we get for 3rd edition, the less interested I am in 3rd edition. Most of these books (and so far every one of them except Nurgle is for an army I have) just feel like boring downgrades that also cost and arm and leg. The new Fyreslayer battletome for example has no notable new art, the "new" lore looks like it could just fill a thimble, and as far as I can tell it actively makes my army not just less effective but less interesting with fewer options and far less flavor, which seems to be the overall trendline for 3E. I haven't been excited about getting a new battletome for months now, all I get out of it is a vague sense of dread and a reminder that these guys go for apparently $55 a pop now. I don't think it's all nostalgia either. 2nd Edition really shook things up for most armies, lots of them never had a proper battletome before then, or it was mechanically barebones so seeing them getting actual flavorful and interesting mechanics and working subfactions ect was quite exciting. The KO book for example was huge, it totally redid how the army played and made it fun and effective for the first time ever. These 3rd edition updates feel more like, well, 2nd Edition Sylvaneth. A book that didn't want to rock the boat, so it was basically 90% the same as the last tome with a few warscroll tweaks and didn't change anything particularly, a book that excited no one and caused a huge drop of interest in the army.

I don't like the fact that the Retinue is Runefather/Runeson only. It's a huge durability nerf to every single Priest and Totem hero and also combined with the improved melee stats on the Runefather/Runeson also just blows Grimwraths and Doomseekers out of the water as being...anything. Why play a dedicated melee hero who's about the same/worse in melee who also doesn't get free bodyguards? The Grimwrath oath system continues to be an anchor pretending to be a buff. Bad enough they previously had to select from a list of options not as good as a 5+ ward in melee that only one Grimwrath in a list can have, but now it's not even on their Warscroll. Not that anyone would ever take a Grimwrath ally but point is they gained nothing from all of these changes. All of the Ur-Gold Runes except the two they previewed are basically unchanged and there weren't any sneaky allegiance abilities they were hiding from us, either. I think future lists are going to be pretty much Lofnir with a pack of HGB led by a Runefather and/or Runeson. Auric HG lost all reason for existing, Vulkites still don't seem worth taking seriously, the Flamekeeper will just get shot to death turn one. Runemaster and Runesmiter are OK maybe but not anything very interesting.

The Grimwrath thing is just their list of warscroll buffs from BR turned into an allegiance ability, there might be slight changes but it's the same concept. They gave up the automatic 5+ ward in combat for this, it's honestly a nerf in almost all situations especially now that it's turned into an allegiance ability.

I can understand why it seems that way, but it's really not a big thing, IMO. For one this is an ability than even under ideal circumstances you'll get to use maybe once or twice over the course of a entire game (How many different full stacks of elite infantry to you think Fyreslayers have on the table?) As opposed to right now where first strike is used freely basically every turn and still Fyreslayers don't win much with that. Secondly, Hermdar is the lodge built around defensive tactics. There's no reason to play Lofnir at all if you're not dropping at least 2-3 Magmadroths on the table, and droths don't get to use this ability. Vorstarg is bulit around wild turn one charges and uh, you don't get to use this ability at all if you've already charged into combat, so pretty situational there. Greyfyrd is just terrible all around, but allegedly it's based on spamming foot heroes, and foot heroes also can't use this ability. Even if the details of the subfaction abilities get shuffled around, aside from Lofnir, which we already know doesn't, I expect the themes will be largely the same, and only a defensive infantry theme (Which is Hermdar) is going to get much mileage out of this as written.

I get where you're coming from, and we'll know for sure in a few more days but it's looking increasingly unlikely to me that Fyreslayers are getting any secret sauce big enough to offset a towering mountain of nerfs.

It was locked behind a subfaction that was three times as good as every other subfaction, even setting aside the first strike command ability. Opening up other lodges for play is all well and good but this still a devastating nerf to Fyreslayers in practice, and those other lodges tend to focus on things (like Magmadroth spam) that don't benefit from this ability much or at all.

Old ability was tied to the only subfaction people realistically played, nerfing it this much is not a buff over how Fyreslayers play right now in practice. What other subfaction is taking heavy advantage of this anyway? Not Lofnir, with their Magmadroth focus. Not Volstarg, with their focus on aggressive charging, or Greyfyrd, which in a fantasy world where anyone played Greyfyrd was focused on hero attacks.

Yeah at this point I'm left with hoping there's some janky combo that works, maybe the new subfactions have some juice or droths or whatever. I'm not expecting it'll be a strong tome overall, just judging from how many different ways you can give a unit a temporary 6++, presented as a huge defensive buff and not a pity substitute.

You're paying like 650 points for 30 shield Vulkites and a battlesmith mind you, and getting effectively zero damage out of it. I would only hope it would at least be able to hold for one turn for all that + a once per battle ability, a spell(?) and a CP.

There's always been vague hinting from playtesters that we'll keep bodyguard and fight first in some form. I don't think it really matters though, those things weren't exactly keeping Fyreslayers alive before all the nerfs, much less after. I sympathize though, in that I can't really see right now either how GW is expecting this army to be played going forward.