madmac

Agreed. Beasts have gotten comparably a lot of attention in the last year, even their portion of the last balance update was actually targeted and substantial, I don't know how you read any of this as GW prepping them for a big cull. I'll also note that the BoC write-up in the core book goes out of it's way to reference obscure resin models that hardly see play, including the Centigor and the Jabberslythe. Doesn't sound like prepping for a culling to me at all.

Terrible, honestly. It's basically the Thrallmaster except he has to jump through a bunch of hoops instead of choosing an effect, potentially stackable for free every turn.

Sounds like the opposite to me, honestly. They already did ToC STD months ago, after all. What this says to me is that BoC will be a late edition update, which makes them more likely to get new/updated models, IMO.

It doesn't, but I wouldn't jump to the conclusion they've made no changes to Thralls without confirmation either.

Ehhhhhhhhh. The first one seems like it's just there to officially replace Lotann, I don't know why you'd ever choose it over exploding hits unless you've got some other exploding hits effect going. Otherwise he's fine I guess, though really heavily focused on Thralls. Reavers get minimal benefit from this guy.

I kinda agree, but when it's a 40K codex or box coming up, I've noticed lately that GW always finds a way to write another 6 community articles anyway. AoS releases almost always seem to get the bare minimum of coverage by comparison.

I'm sure eventually we will, but the fact that they haven't even been announced yet makes me think they're being held back for some upcoming preview. Hopefully a slightly more interesting preview than just "Holy Cow! IDK get a new battletome, here's the cover!" but you never know with GW. Either way, it's definitely not a Shadow Throne situation where they announced the codexes alongside the box and then had to clarify that both codexes were delayed a few weeks. It's not even Piety and Pain, where one faction immediately got a codex and SoBs came later with a new wave of models. They've very specifically not even mentioned the word battletome as of yet.

Sadly, this.

Most of those rumors are just a bunch of nonsense sourced from 4chan wishlisting that has been proven false over and over but people keep repeating for some reason.

Nah, the Dark Elf Rumors come from more credible sources, the OBR "leak" was from the same 4chan wishlisting as 20 other made up rumors. That said, none of the Dark Elf "leaks" confirmed an army release. There was credible mention of an Underworlds Warband, and a separate rumor of Malerion involvement in the next summer campaign. Both of those could be true and not necessarily mean a Dark Elf release is imminent.

They usually do two separate model reveals on Monday, to be fair. It's just been a lot of 40K and specialist games for the past several months.

True. New split Warscroll for Vulkites maybe? They don't usually include scrolls for all unit variations in these boxes to start with though...

If nothing else, I can't think of anything past those two that's obviously missing. There's always the potential to pull another Deepkin but they've just about hit all the expected notes at this point.

Keep in mind, this was also true for Shadow and Pain. New Warscrolls for the old models that came in the box on both sides, books came months later. Ditto for the old Sylvaneth/Gits box, it had updated warscrolls for the Sylvaneth side even though the battletome was extremely delayed.

True. Although to be fair that teaser left me with nothing but despair that AoS wouldn't see anything meaningful in the next six months and not much else.

That ended up being like a three month gap, IIRC but yes, possible.

I guess this raises the chances of being the next pre-order, but still no mention of battletomes, and that Gotrek novel isn't out for a while either. It's a bit curious.

Slaanesh also got an entire wave of mortal units following the one mortal hero in the DoK/Slaanesh battlebox. There are precedents, if rare.

Eh, for me it depends a lot on the army. For something like Nurgle, or say Mawtribes sure they're pretty much fine. Could use some resin models replaced and there's things you could do with them but it's not a huge deal if they have to wait a bit. So many of the "new" AoS armies though, just feel like budding flowers that might never bloom. So much unrealized potential, which makes getting left as a skeleton force for years and years that much more frustrating. You can only do so much with books for these armies, also. Deepkin almost couldn't get a new battletome that's as good as the one they have now+BR. Sure some things might get shifted around slightly but it's probably not a huge upset, and if it is that might not be a good thing. Armies like Fyreslayers and Ironjawz even more so. It almost doesn't matter what they do with them ruleswise. Fyreslayers went from Vulkites good, HGB Bad, to Vulkites Bad, HGB Good, resetting the clock to Vulkite spam isn't going to excite anyone. Ironjawz flip between leaning Ardboyz or Brutes depending on the edition but it makes zero real difference to how the army plays at the end of the day.

Yes, they absolutely should. Getting shoved into a book with other armies is not a boon to an army you play. It just means less playtesting, less options, less lore and less effort was put into your army than it received previously with good odds of a bunch of previously good stuff getting nerfed because it's too strong in combination with some other armies model you never wanted to use, or because it intrudes on some other soup factions perceived niche, etc. There's a strong undertone of "armies I don't like should get souped and they'll love it. Armies I like should never, ever be souped." going around these days, you almost never see people who play that army advocating for it.

I mean it's a trend yes, but that doesn't mean it's a good thing or can't be complained about. It's basically a figleaf towards pretending your army is getting any attention, because GW has figured out that it looks better if a new book comes out with at least "a" new model attached, and they've already basically run the whole endless spell/terrain thing into the ground. Deepkin specifically aren't as bad off as many other AoS 1st edition armies, but still they basically didn't get anything for three years, and getting the model+book treatment now signals they very likely won't get anything for another three...six+ years is not a trivial amount of time for anyone with a normal human lifespan, really. Wargaming is its own niche and all, but sometimes I have to genuinely wonder how many people who buy an army when it comes out end up selling it off and quitting the hobby altogether before it ever gets a major update. For Fyreslayers, again, they have one of the smallest rosters in the entire game, they were added in (IIRC) 2016, so after three years they got an oven and endless prayers, another three years wait for one no-effort hero and then what, hoping that after nine years and three editions, next time in 2025 maybe the hopes of Fyreslayer players won't be crushed? Not really complaining about any army in particular here, these are just examples but I think it's worth remembering that the time-scales involved in this hobby are kinda insane when you take a step back, and that anyone's favorite army getting basically a pass-over for any given edition is a not-insignificant blow. Few people can say for certainty that they'll be around to see their army get updated, except for Space Marine/Stormcast players.

Just the fact that you called Orruk Warclans two armies that can be played in combination highlights the reason no one who actually plays an army wants to get Warclanned. Or Bonesplittered, to be more precise.

Yeah, that's the main difference. It hurts way more for most AoS armies to get skipped over for an edition than their 40k equivalents, who still have rosters of dozens of models, even if they're aged.

Pretty sure I see cables, so...40K.

Could be, and is odd because both DoK and Dark Eldar got their books this year. I saw someone suggest it's a 40K Kill Team model though, and that's unfortunately probably dead on.