madmac

Depending on how ambitious GW gets with doing Gutbusters, I could see them replacing/eliminating a huge swathe of characters. One of the big downsides of Gutbusters currently is that literally all the heroes are finecast, including the Firebelly Caster, the Gorger, and all the Man-eater models. So new plastic equivalents for Tyrants, Butchers, Firebellies and some sort of customizable Maneater kit strike me as low-hanging fruit. And if they're doing that much 1-2 new unit kits also seems reasonable. But what plastic kits they do have for basic Ogors/Grots/artillery still hold up reasonably well. I don't think it's likely that any of them get removed, much less all of them.

Ah, ok. Really just looks like a Morsaar Guard who's been dismounted. I wouldn't turn up my nose at Akhellian infantry but I don't think the picture means anything. In any case, I'm happy for Khorne being anounced, just because I can hope again that the next armybook announcement is something vaguely interesting to me. Not getting the old hopes up too high though, I'm rooting for Seraphon/Fyreslayers/KO/Beastclaw/Gutbusters/Light Aelves, in no particular order, but there's no telling how much more Chaos get announced before the next Order or Destruction release.

I'm honestly not sure where you are seeing this.

Eh, I'd say "many" is stretching the truth quite a bit. I saw very few people stridently against or doubting a combined Skaven book, and Gloomspite was speculated to be a combined book well before it was announced. The only really surprise there was the Spiderfang, which wasn't that much of a stretch and still predicted by many people. A combined Dwarf tome just sounds like a cop-out, honestly. Fyreslayers and Kharadron are brand new armies with awesome models and very divergent concepts, not scattered remnants of old model ranges dying to be swept under the umbrella of much older models and less defined lore. It would also totally fail to address the actual needs of both armies. Fyreslayers need new models and more fleshed out lore almost more than they need a new battletome, Kharadron have a great model range and lore, and just need a complete book re-write. Also, a generic Dwarf hold terrain piece for Fyreslayer and Kharadron armies? And presumably equally generic endless spell equivalents for both instead of cool fire effects for Fyreslayers and high tech machines for KO? Meh. I won't say it's impossible, but I do think it's unlikely, and as someone who collects both Fyreslayers and KO savagely disappointing if true.

Huh. I don't know much about Wanderers but I know Glade Guard are the workhorse battleline unit for that faction, and they were already re-packaged for AoS, so it's not that. OTOH, they're still available on the US site, but we've seen this before with Gitmob and Greenskins, so this may be the deathknell. Unlike those two, this wasn't an ancient kit either, so I'd be surprised to see it replaced even if Wanderers did get a battletome out of nowhere. Really hard to guess what this means for Wanderers except keep an eye on the rest of the roster, I guess.

That's very Deepkin, actually. Those treasure designs are used for the base of the Eidolon and Shipwreck models. I'm going to guess Deepkin Endless spell.

The question of brand new armies vs updated classics is an interesting one. There's some obvious examples of brand new armies, like Ironjawz, Deepkin, Fyreslayers, ect. And some obvious classic armies like Skaven, Beasts of Chaos, or Seraphon. OTOH, there's some in-between options that I'm not sure how GW classifies them. You have for example FEC and Beastclaw Raiders, new army concepts using entirely old sculpts. You also have releases like Daughters of Khaine or Gloomspite Gits, building old concepts into heavily revamped armies with a lot of new models. Would Darkoath or Slaannesh Mortals be "brand new armies" in GW's eyes? I honestly don't know. That said, if we go faction by faction looking for possible "new" armies: Chaos: With Slaannesh and Darkoath all but confirmed for this year, along with Skaven and Blades of Khorne already getting updates, I would be very surprised to see any other "new" Chaos armies in what is already shaping up to be a very Chaos heavy year. Destruction: Gutbusters I think is looking to be the next big Destruction release with how it was previewed as a combined Gutbusters/Fire-eaters/Man-eaters army in the leadup to 2nd edition, and the way it's organized as such on the store, and described that way on the faction page. How many new models they get is the big question but I do feel like Ogres are due to get a big update to bring them up to par with Gloomspite/IronJawz and establish them as the third major tentpole faction for destruction. There's also mention of Grotbag Scuttlers going back at least as far as the KO battletome, but I don't think we'll get another new Goblin army so soon after Gloomspite, and there's been no rumors of them coming that I'm aware of. Death: Death is pretty well wrapped up currently, with Nagash, FEC, and Nighthaunt covering the entire current range, so any new armies they get will be fairly out of left field. I could see building Soulblight into a new army maybe, but again I don't know of any real rumors pointing in that direction currently. Order: As mentioned, the new Light Aelf and Dark Aelf dynamic is very well established and are inevitably coming at some point. Are one of them coming this year? Maybe, and they do seem like the cleanest fit for "brand new faction" we know about currently, but it's hard to say if they can be squeezed in this year or not. Otherwise, Order is the faction most in need of some consolidated army-books to clean up the Human/Duardin/Aelf micro-factions but I don't think any books along that line would count as "brand new" armies.

I suspect a good chunk of the order range is due for a culling, but not until some more new factions are released to replace/absorb chunks of it. Much like how GW didn't officially pull Gitmob and Orruks until Gloomspite was released. Freeguild IMO are largely placeholders until a new human faction is released, likewise the final fate of the various Aelf leftovers won't be fully apparent until the Shadow/Light Aelf factions are released, and it may be a while before we get any of those factions.

The real problem with combining Fyreslayers and Dispossed is that neither faction really gets anything out of it. Seriously, in terms of mechanics they are largely identical already. Slow, tanky infantry units backed by support heroes describes both armies to a T. They both have tunneling as a hero limited deepstrike mechanic. Even Auric Hearthguard and IronDrakes are almost the same unit in terms of stats. Different models but they gain basically no new options by combining. Fyreslayers have so much more potential to be more interesting by continuing off in their own direction, (More fire, more monsters, new mounted units, ect) and Dispossed are much better served melding with Ironweld to reform the old Dwarf army.