CommissarRotke

did not know those existed... here I go hoping for multipart Thunderstrike again 😢 have to disagree here: the original armor designs may have been too heavily influenced by space marines, but they get different things like mortal lives, keeping their humanity, shore leave, actual honor, and an entire menagerie of cool magical animals. if you're more of a scifi fan, sure, space marines get "cooler stuff" but that doesn't mean Stormcast don't have their own.

that's also the other problem yeah: nothing in AOS is going to come close to the written lore of 40k... and I think most of us would agree for the sake of faction balance and money it's probably better Stormcast aren't getting separate books for their Stormhosts and dominating the game completely. I'm glad we can't fully compare them. 100% yeah. though for me I'm fine not getting excited because I always thought Tau and Eldar looked cooler overall the redone proportions of Primaris are more appealing for sure, but they don't tweak any real nostalgia for my teenaged 40k fan.

but you're not mixing Blood Angels with Space Wolves, so unless your Chapter has an entire model range out wouldn't you still have instances of the same minis in order to get to 2k? Like if you want more than 5 Sanguinary Guard you're going to have duplicates. Lore-wise Celestial Vindicators are not the same as Hammers of Sigmar, so I'm not sure about this part either. Blood Angels and Space Wolves are "both Space Marines" they're just different Chapters that happened to get specialized kits.

Whitefang has been extremely insistent than Dawnbringer Crusades is for/made up of all Order factions and is not a renaming of COS, multiple times. And DBC make sense as vessels from which to move the metaplot forward. It feels like they will be a reimagining of Grand Alliance Order, both for better narrative and rules play. edit: insistent not insisted

ohh yea, honestly GW kind of did tease that too! Yndrasta was investigating the Ghur incarnate and it felt like those energies could feed back to Morghur.

I think the cover is supposed to reflect how infected the Realms are with Chaos? It always felt more metaphorical; even the Stormcast lady isn't a 1:1 for Yndrasta. It's an awesome cover for sure.

hopefully so! I imagine reboxing for the UK is much quicker

Prince Vhordrai is linked in this but not actually available?

for as much as I absolutely adore the Judicator models and enjoy the Liberators, it would be great to see them in sleeker armor for sure. Please no more capes though....... even better, those bone tithes are not guaranteed battles! since the article also mentions mortals in the Ossiarch Empire live relatively safe lives. GW has me doubly intrigued!!! OBR was already my first pick for doing a Death army.

it's not exact sure, but the inspiration is clear. the style of armoring is quite close: armored legs and arms, breastplate/tunic over chainmail, helmet coverage/shape all match up. now that you mention this... the sergeant's hammer-head has a bone inset and looks painted to be a bone handle, while the axe head is all metal and is on a darker wood. NICE touch. Y'all are making me want these more and more 😅

literally though, if the narrative supplements to end EotB have Dawnbringers founding cities that actually survive, what better way to shove drama war into your wargame than Skaven popping up 😂 or Beasties

Skaven would be the perfect way to end the "Era of Beasts" run and bring us into the new 4.0 era tbqh!!! Especially if the next realm will be Ulgu 👀 Optimally I'd like to see a Stormcast+Cities box fighting against a Skaven incursion. you're the one with a Temple Ship, ask the Skink Starseer 😜

idk, the idea of orc/orruk WAAAGHs means that your warclans can look as different as possible, because the point is that all of these individual warclans/warbands came together for long enough to become a force of nature (the waaagh). the physical models may not mesh together design wise sure, but the faction itself has reasons to look that way at least. I always found it weird in WHFB where these Waaaghs would say they brought clans in from all around (hills, forests, caves, plains, etc) and then the only difference in the models is the regular Orcs with Night Goblins and occasionally "regular" goblins. I like that AOS can have 3 unique warclans show up together--their rules for Big Waaagh just need to not suck!

thank you so much!! this doesn't seem to be anything new compared to SCE's battletome, but as an intro to the game it makes sense.

Hopefully it contains either the Kroxigors or the new Salamander along with more Saurus and whatever hero they pick... that would be optimal. If the vanguard box doesn't impress you same as the launch box, there's always the Christmas battleforce :')

not that I didn't believe people, but I did not realize how close! can't wait to see the full unit

It has to, I think. COS range refresh is launching in a new book that includes ELEVEN cities that I think we can safely call subfactions. that is reason enough to put the rules for creating Dawnbringer Crusades into another book. But which book right? GW loves to make us buy more books. So forcing any Order players (including COS!) to buy this narrative book in order to make our own DBC is also par for the course. But to make non-Order players interested in buying more models, they'll want to keep DBC inside something people will already be poised to buy. The narrative book is the best choice for both cynical and hopeful (common sense?) reasons. Don't make COS people buy 3 books, get new interest via combined DBC-narrative book.

I wouldn't call the new freeguild bland; they have great poses and the faces manage to have a good amount of character to them as well. The old not-HRE troops were always bland (just as bland even), and TBH I think other fantasy settings trying not to look like Warhammer are probably why the new troops look "generic" to people now. Because Warhammer's been defined by these weirdly unarmored dudes for decades it is now hard to conceive of human troops that aren't pseudo-historicals. And for all of the complaints about pricing. Looking generic is good yes? It means even simpler proxies and STLS to fit into the AOS human aesthetic? At least, that's the way I'd take it.

the differences in Kislev mods vs Cathay mods will never not be funny to me... Cathay has a bunch of really interesting or cool designs drawn from Chinese mythology, history, and badassery. Meanwhile Kislev mods are like "we removed ALL the magic ice and made these bears into HORSES" one side here is clearly having more fun with the fantasy setting.

for leaders i don't mind at all! the new WHU band looks so cool I can't wait to see them in person. for battleline troops it feels bad to make the decision whether to leave details unpainted or to take even more time getting a chaff unit painted. slightly less minute details would be appreciated, especially since there is a good chance these redone kits will not be multipart. if you painted them keep them!

Ironically for playing they're not necessarily great for new players. But hobby-wise yes, for sure intended for new players. if we include the actual hobbying part, I think Death would be OBR? At the least, they look easier to build and paint compared to Soulblight. GW should absolutely have newbie posterfactions for each Alliance though

hopefully they will keep their more simplistic designs? I LOVE the new thunderstrike stuff but by golly I'd love it even more if redone Judicators and Liberators had no capes and less greebles!

not so sure Stormcast failed actually! in this instance I think I'd give GW credit in realizing they can't have another 40k situation. maybe doing more Thunderstrike kits will change this approach, but it does feel like Stormcast are positioned to be posterchildren without the entire setting being centered around them. I mean hell, the "inciting incident" in AOS is a Pan-Order Pantheon defending/attacking Chaos; in 40k it's a (super)human civil war brought about by Chaos. There's not really room to put Stormcast on the same type of pillar that Space Marines inhabit. They exist because Sigmar allied with Aelves, Duardin, Dracotion, and even Gorkamorka and Nagash (and whoever else I'm forgetting).

~~patiently~~ waiting for issue 5's Reforging lore now 😍

Pretty sure the Empire and Bretonnia were never as accurate as we'd think, and there are actual Historical Wargames if you want that accuracy. These new dudes likely have historical accuracies for a different time period, just as Empire and Bretonnia had some for their own periods. Someone mentioned earlier in here the Empire state troops only look like that because they're from a time period where guns were rampant so armor didn't make sense. The new ones look rough and bulky because foot troops got armor back when there weren't many guns.