madmac

Here I am, a guy where apparently half of my armies (at least) are getting a hero and a book for an edition I'm not really a huge fan of, and they're raising the prices on books 10% to boot. I already bowed out of the last season of Underworlds, and I'll never buy another Warcry Starter. If GW has me at the point of considering how much I really need a new battletome when just about the only thing they're still selling me is books, they may have miscalculated a smidge.

This. I've seen in a price list floating around for Example that Red Harvest is somehow going up, even though it's more expensive than Catacombs, which was itself something like a 35% price increase over the first Warcry starter just a year before with significantly more content. Prices are already unrecognizable from where they were when I jumped into this hobby, and that was less than four years ago.

No particular reason to think so. We know already they are extensively repackaging old boxes to fit the new design as new battletomes are released, and Dryads aren't a kit that is especially in need of an update, knowing how loathe GW is to replace anything plastic in most circumstances.

I haven't seen anyone arguing that this will destroy the company, just that GW's prices on most things are already absurd and always climbing no matter what is happening in the world, which is accurate.

I don't remember the timing, but they definitely did a Tomb Kings MTO a while back. There was a Dark Elf one too at some point.

The sprue comes in multiples of 4, so if they repacked to an even number they'd have to add a fifth sprue, not impossible but seems unlikely IMO.

Wow, that's later summer than I was expecting. I'll just cross big summer release for AoS off my hopium list now I guess. It's going to be a long year if this is the pacing...

Reminder that there was no new rumor engine last week either. They're also still padding out their WHC content by talking about a single Codex every day for like a month probably like they did with Tau. There might be bigger issues behind the scenes then we are aware of...

We're actually getting to a point where most armies already have one or the other TBH. Assuming Sylvaneth/Skaven for the two summer books, there's about 8 armies left not covered-Slaanesh, LRL, KO, Tzeentch, Gits, Mawtribes, Khorne, FEC. Obviously out of those only a few really jump out as needing an update urgently. Slaanesh, KO, Tzeentch are IMO good candidates for future Tome Celestial updates to get them by, LRL same except they probably have another wave+book coming eventually, really I think we'll see Gits, Khorne and FEC to round out the year with maybe a new army or other larger update. Mawtribes I'm not sure about, depends on if they're getting models, I think.

Kind of annoyed that we still can't buy the Red Harvest bands separately, honestly.

Battletomes or a specialist game week. This is a natural break point for 40K, so I expect a break from them finally.

I think this is our week. GW wouldn't throw out the Eldar codex immediately after Eldritch Omens unless 40K was desperately backed up, and honestly, it's not. They got through the GSC/Custodes/Tau backlog already and haven't even started previewing the next release (Tyranids) yet. If it's not the battletomes this week it'll just be a slow week with assorted small stuff, like Tome of Champions Four Months Late or more Combat Patrol boxes or whatever.

That RE was for the new Sylvaneth hero they got with Broken Realms.

So what you're saying is, the next new army is Halflings? Checks out...

I find it easier to think of the short term. What are they putting out next week? Probably not the Eldar codex already. And the Necromunda thing feels far off, and the Kill Team release hasn't been covered past a single model yet. Nothing going on with Warcry or Underworlds for a while, obviously. Good chance we'll see at least one AoS battletome next week, IMO.

Oh I dunno. I'm not expecting anything for Fyreslayers, but if I wanted to play devils advocate I'd point out that if GW just wanted the buff to work on any Fyreslayers non-hero model, they wouldn't need to list out every unit individually. There might be reasons they don't want Fyreslayers to be able to drop +1 damage on, say, Calvary or artillery. Or a unit of female fyreslayers who according to the lore tend to wear armor instead of hammering runes into their skin. Also, as far as rumor engines go, there is this...You can't tell me that's not a dwarf face, and it looks more like Fyreslayer work than KO. The Bird (Or is it a dragon head?) is also a weird Rumor Engine. It's not specifically a dwarf thing in terms of iconography, but it's got that angular dwarven aesthetic to it, IMO.

DoK was the last army to receive endless spells, came out of nowhere too, no one expected it. Slaanesh has both, from their first release, LRL had endless spells with the first release and terrain with their second.

I'm not feeling optimistic yeah, too many disappointing Fyreslayer rewrites recently. Starting with Broken Realm, we had two truly pointless warscroll changes, to the extent that they might as well not have bothered. Then the new hero is terribly designed with one of the clunkiest list of buff requirements I've ever seen in my life. New unit warscrolls downgraded across the board, with signs of just poor insight into Fyreslayers, like thinking changing axes from 5+ to 4+ means anything, or that giving Shield Vulkites the same stat buff as every other updated shield unit in 3E deserves +10 points and half damage output. Now take away Warscroll Battalions, and add Simplified subfactions, in a new book that all signs point to being written by someone not getting Fyreslayers as an army, yeah...

BoC are getting a Tome Celestial literally in Feb this year, I don't think they're getting a book until next year, unfortunately. OTOH, if they were just getting a book, less reason to delay updating them, right? Right?

Sounds crazy, but actually something like that seems not impossible on second thought. Purely because I don't think any of these six tomes will get a big model wave, so that leaves things open this year for the usual two big releases. Also, if I filter the list of armies that are covered now either by new tomes or Tome Celestials and also not LRL/Slaanesh because I don't think those are happening this year, I end up with, like...KO, Gits, Mawtribes, FEC, Khorne, Tzeentch. I'd be shocked if any of those were major updates, so two new armies kinda possible?

No, because the elf covers are brand new, the dwarf/ghost covers are old.

Happy to see a Roadmap, and feel like I dodged a bullet with Fyreslayers not being souped, that said... 1. Reused Battletome covers, WTH GW? 2. This pretty much confirms a very veeeeery lean schedule. We'll get the first two books in Feb to go with their battlebox and probably no models, then 2-3 months for a battlebox and two tomes with probably no other new models, then 2-3 months for I'm going to put my stakes down now, battlebox and two tomes with probably no other models. 3. Skaven vs Sylvaneth for Summer, I'm sure of it now.

Eh, I've seen it posted around. Monday is price confirmation day, no reason to doubt.

Well if nothing else there was no mention of "Path to the Preview" this time, so they might actually be done with Eldar reveals for a bit. Could be another Kill Team mini tomorrow though, or something for the new Necromunda...

There being actually no news is why they're pitching this week on community having a lot of news and announcements, supposedly. There kind of has to be, at this point they haven't even properly announced the Kill Team box or Eldar Codex, much less anything at all for AoS except that one box. They've got max 1.5 weeks worth of stuff without additional news.