madmac

That's an Eldar. They have a special character who basically wears bone armor, gotta be him.

Just to add to this, I think Kruelboyz also were probably originally intended to be the generic Greenskins replacement and bridge between Ironjawz and Bonesplitters, but they ended up turning into their own very specific thing instead.

Even that wasn't an actual 2nd wave, it was just a split release, all the models were obviously already done. The true second wave factions would be Slaanesh mortals and Stormcast everything.

It's not impossible that it's Fyreslayers, but hard to say with just the limited view we have. The studded bits coming out remind me a little bit of the Battlesmith

Honestly, even though they are now the oldest battletome, Deepkin have great rules to this day. After Broken Realms they have at least niche builds for basically every unit, aside from some, cough redundant infantry buffing foot heroes cough that almost never see play. I actually worry a bit that a new battletome will make them worse/less fun somehow.

As someone who plays both armies it's literally IDKs 3rd foot hero who buffs infantry only, and Fyreslayers 3rd Priest on foot. Even if they have good rules players of either army could literally just use one of their several redundant hero models as a proxy.

The thing is, even for a Priest it's basically the same as usual. They all wear capes and hold some kind of brazier or brazier axe. The Iron Mask is the only really new thing here.

Really disappointing. Even the two new models are pretty meh in the overall scheme of things and mostly built out of existing assets. I don't hate them, but even for box exclusive heroes they're pretty eh.

Bugman and Grombrindal, secretly twins separated at birth?

Huh, that's an interesting image. Really digging the classic dwarf vibes, and what's with all the dragons?

The Doomseeker is a nice model, I like him. Completely useless on the table and always has been, unfortunately. Same role as the Grimwrath but forever worse at it.

Hope and expectation are entirely different things. Fyreslayer players have been waiting 5+ years for a new model, expectations are below sea level, while hope is the only reason to keep playing the army.

Yes

No matter how unlikely, the hunger for new Fyreslayer units is eternal. They've been in AoS from almost the very beginning and have the fewest troop options and variety of any army in the entire game short of SoB. I also play IDK and I'll happily snatch up any new models they happen to get but it's not comparable at all.

Very true. And the Stormcast battletome is no great shakes either. A couple of overpowered units, a whole lot of mediocre/trash units, and an almost unsettling level of blandness hanging over it all.

No doubling up heroes in battleboxes. There isn't a hard and fast rule for units, but none of them have come with two heroes. If it's all old units and it probably is, then it can only be some ratio of Vulkites to HG, there's nothing else.

There's no iron law of not conflicting with a Start Collecting Box. Shadow and Pain had SC overlap on both sides, for example. That said, there is always only one hero on each side, so no Magmadroths in a battlebox with a new hero and yes, the Fyreslayer half is going to be hella lame without any new models to pad it out, like 2xHG and one vulkite, or even just 3x HG while the IDK side can easily slap together a nice selection of models.

I play both IDK and Fyreslayers but unless they pull out something truly shocking I can't imagine buying the box. I have no interest or need for more old models, and foot heroes on their own is something I'd buy eventually but eh.

Brokk's problem these days is that the generic ballooner hero is basically the same thing but cheaper, and with command traits and artifacts is just flat-out better. The better, generic guy is still 20 points cheaper, so...sorry Brokk.

I think it's more that a theoretical decent game needs to exist for you to imagine playing fun games with as you build and paint your army. If there's no game, or the game that exists is obvious trash that's naturally going to hurt sales. Likewise if the game happens to be really super good and everyone talks about how good it is, that's probably a sales boost. I'd say Kirby's problem, or one of them at least, was being too dismissive towards the idea of even pretending to care about the game side of the business. Most of the time GW's games seem to just trundle along in a bland middle ground of mediocrity, and I doubt any of these day to day rules shifts have any real impact on overall sales. No doubt models with really good rules sell better than ones that are unplayable, of course, but GW seems to work on a rotation basis where the "good" models frequently change between battletome updates or occasionally point shifts. Basically I would argue that rules do matter to sales, but only in extreme cases in either direction.

I doubt it. The timelapse between those miniatures being previewed/released and Cursed City selling out instantly was basically nothing. There's pretty much no way GW had time to spin-around and instantly repackage them as regular SBGL content. Even their preview content is written months in advance usually, to say nothing of actual production shifts.

Yeah, I don't get it either. 40k has had consistent releases with an updating roadmap and only minor, quickly communicated delays this entire year. 40k has a roadmap, Necromunda has a roadmap, Underworlds has a roadmap, it's literally just AoS and Warcry that are still playing the Mystery Game with every release, huge delays with no communication for months beyond "Uh, Covid" and stealth editing old articles time after time.

Yes, absolutely, I would bet money on it without a second of hesitation, especially now that SBGL are in the Tome Celestial club for 3rd edition. It may be true that nothing is technically impossible, but there's zero reason to think otherwise right now.

This is just being contrary for it's own sake. This discussion kicked off because of this months SBGL update, an army that was literally the last tome released before 3rd edition. Are you going to look me in the eye right now and tell me that you honestly think this is a sign they have a new battletome on the way? Really?

I get where you're coming from, but that's pretty obviously not the intent of these White Dwarf updates. These have all been hold-over updates for armies that are relatively new/fine that are almost certainly not getting a new battletome anytime soon. Granted, with the way AoS releases have been, it feels like no-one is getting an updated battletome soon, but that's a whole different and much sadder story.