sandlemad

I get the annoyance but tbh while it wasn’t quite as underserved as, say, Blood Bowl, it was in the wilderness for a long, long time. Besides, overwhelmingly the Necro releases are random resin weirdos (and so not eating into AoS releases*) with more character and creativity than 90% of space marine releases in the last 5 years. They’re clearly labours of love on the part of the sculptors. Anyway, fingers cross we get a lizard preview * Though AT and other specialist games are a different story…

Grave Guard could do with an update, they're sadly outpaced by the new skellies, and a nightmare-mounted cavalry vamp would be brilliant feels like a real gap... but the Corpse Cart is a great mini, really doesn't need anything changed. Wouldn't mind seeing something more done with the Radukar's court minis. A generic Gravekeeper hero would be cool, he seems a more popular option than the others. There's maybe less need to the Vyrkos Bloodborn to be the vampire infantry unit everyone wanted now we have the Askurgan Trueblades but would still be cool to see them become standardised.

I like the Lord of Hubris, he’s a fun character, but yeah, he’s perhaps not doing anything not already present in the list. Would have loved to see a new version of this classic:

The Slaanesh hero is fantastic, pelvic thrust and all, so much character. Good restraint on the amount of cruft, an appropriate Slaaneshi elegance. The Khorne hero is fine, I guess? A bit busy tbh and I wouldn’t have said “terrain-focused slaughterpriest” would be a clamoured-for addition to the Khorne range. Seems a bit niche. Could work interestingly with the wider rules though. Agreed that a Valkia resculpt would be cooler, she’s the only particularly interesting unique mortal character for the faction.

That’s definitely the Khorne rune. Probably not for 40k now the WE are out. Unlikely to be for WHU or Warcry either, both have recent Khorne offerings. So something for AoS but it looks rather like a staff head, which would be odd. Or a banner top or an armour-mounted icon? Or perhaps the counterweight at the end of Valkia’s spear?

Definitely, they’re the classic example of an original (or mostly original) GW creation, one of the very few. Given that GW has been banging the drum about making their fantasy races unique to their settings since c.2005, it’s really quite surprising that they haven’t pushed them harder. Particularly when (i) they epitomise the grubby black humour GW is known for, and (ii) seem to have been one of the more popular armies in WHFB days.

I’d second @Clan's Cynic’s comment, that was more or less the trajectory it’s had in my experience. I’d add though that it did see some popularity with ‘board game people’. I found a lot of interest and willingness to play WHU among friends and family that would be completely absent for main AoS or even more conventional skirmish games. Partially that was the game structure but also the fact that it came off as more affordable and approachable than other GW stuff. Tighter rules too. As discussed, increased prices seems to have put a serious dampner on that interest, sadly, and this was already from a more casual crowd that wasn’t chasing the latest release. A shame, it’s a good game.

Interesting! This is definitely a return to the old Dimetrodon-looking salamander of yesteryear. The 6th ed update was intended to make it look more agile and hyperagressive, with the designers’ notes specifically saying that a big lizard spitting from miles away like artillery was a bit, well, silly. Conceptually I agree and prefer the furious speedy lithe version (more the art than the mini) but still, nice sculpt. Perhaps also interesting is how different this is from the salamanders in Total War, which are an improved design but very close to the 6th ed one. I wonder does this say anything about The Old World? Though admittedly Lizardmen are probably pretty far down the line for that. Would certainly be surprised if the current rules for Salamanders and Razordons stuck around.

They’ve blown hot and cold on this tbh. There’s been whole spans of editions where they have indeed been good about not invalidating things within a faction, and then times they’ve suddenly dropped stuff like a hot potato. Sometimes it’s with unit loadouts but for a drastic version, look at the new World Eaters codex. Whole swathes of units cut, seemingly at random, leaving a lot of long term WE players looking at stuff they’ve had for multiple editions - bikers, raptors, chaos lords on foot or in terminator armour - just gone.

Cool concept, cool boxes (probably with a small discount), but yeah, hard to take seriously when they’re likely going to be illegal to field outside of open play/homebrew rules in 12 months or less. A shame, the whole Dogs of War/Regiments of Renown side of things has always been rad.

Out of interest, what are the gaps in the KO range people would like to see filled? It’s certainly small but feels more rounded than one-note jobs like Fyreslayers or Ironjaws.

Yeah, unless they're actively increasing pay for staff in line with inflation, then it has nothing to do with responsibility towards their employees or even adjusting to inflation, really, just extracting more profit.

It’s a pretty unreasonable price increase (on top of the many other recent price increases in the last few years, both openly publicised and quietly applied) given that by their own admission and own reports they’ve been operating on ludicrously high profit margins for years. 67% last year. It’s not about inflation, not really. It’s about GW being unwilling to accept extremely high profits rather than insanely high profits.

Damn that's a good mini. Almost more than the regular warriors, he restores the saurus to "absolute brute you should be afraid of". It's a little odd to see a macuahuitl made entirely of obsidian but still, badass looking weapon.

These guys have a lot of goofy charm nowadays! It’s kind of like Saurus appearances have evolved with depictions of dinosaurs, and these guys come off like the heavy boned ideas of dinosaurs you see in Victorian art or the Crystal Palace iguanadons .

Those vampires are brilliant, someone’s clearly been playing a lot of Sekiro. The Flesh Hound Aficionados are good too, better than just another Khornate musclebunch. As ever, it’s clear that the hardest working miniature designers in GW are (i) whoever makes the freaks and hanger-ons for Necromunda and (ii) the Warcry team. It’s like all the creativity got sucked out of the 40k primaris line and diverted straight to them.

That’s actually very close to the ruddy brown colour they had in 6th ed WHFB.

The IT saga for GW has been going on for years, since something like 2018. It's to do with upgrading their ERP and they've gone through different consultants and partners, put a lot of money into it, had a lot of troubles but without much improvement. There's been a bunch of articles about it and GW themselves have been fairly open in their annual reports about the risks associated with not getting it right... and sounds like they haven't got it right:https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/13/games_workshop_launches_05m_at/ They're not the only organisation to be hit by massive delays in doing these kinds of upgrades and tbh it sounds incredibly frustrating to deal with.

The thing is that the existing Maruaders are already pretty high fantasy in that they're brawny unclothed Conan-style barbarians with horned helmets. If GW really wanted to make them more low fantasy or to distinguish them for WHFB, they could make them something like the various historical Viking/Saxon/etc minis on the market, but I'd be surprised. Moreover even putting aside the excellent diversity of aesthetics you get through the Warcry range, you still have a fairly pure update to the existing normal marauders kit in the form of the Darkoath Savagers. Granted they have a classically Warcry mix of weapons and there's no flails but otherwise they could work as 1:1 replacements. Same to a lesser extent with the Spire Tyrants. Little bit surprised GW didn't just roll with that.

They’ve nailed flames in plastic, perhaps less so in resin? Not sure if it’s material, the sculptors, or the technique but you can see it in the handful of other FW minis with flames, it’s always a lot chunkier.

Booo, the LoV Grymnir was robbed, all time dwarf classic. Though, yes, understandable for this year's Big Dude to get the #1. Bit surprised that Helbrecht didn't rank.

Something big and floating, trailing hooks and chains, and with something carrying a shield riding it. Some sort of Saurus, maybe a character, maybe a finally redone infantry box? Seems relatively stripped down. A new Seraphon monster or cavalry, seems to have a Saurus rider? Has feathered wings and could be a new, larger, redesigned Cold One meant to look more like modern interpretations of raptors. Khorne (or Warcry?) foot hero, maybe, based on the twin barbed axes. A lot of skulls, including a bird one which we sometimes see on Darkoath minis. An elf or Slaaneshi warrior with two swords matching some of the existing rumour engine pics. The arches on the back look a little like those of a 40k incubus.

@acr0ssth3p0nd Well put, it’s such an elegant system. Easy to lean, lightweight, efficient… Tons of depth and nuance without just piling on stratagems and battle tactics and all the cruft that characterises most modern GW games, which to my mind by and large give complexity without much added depth. I think it’s one of the best rulesets to ever come out of GW and still feel that they missed a trick by not using it as a starting point when first creating AoS.

I could see this - Hearthkyn with some extra bits to make them small-unit explorers/Hernkyn - and would be 100% down for it. The kit's already so well set up to be a kill team.

Oh man, truly brilliant mini… but concerned that this is a limited edition job and not an actual new character or whatever. It seems to account for most of the rumour engine images that could be FEC but without necessarily indicating a range expansion to a faction that so badly needs it…