sandlemad

Honestly the history of zoats in WHFB is interesting enough - ancient and reptilian, like dragons or dragon ogres, possibly pre-dating the arrival of the old ones - but it's their parallel history in 40k as something not less mysterious that really makes them cool. Having two new zoat models and a video game appearance in the space of a year is an unprecedented glut of riches. More than they got in the past thirty-odd years.

I think this is honestly better. Here Aenarion has relevance specifically because of his relationship with Morathi, making for a good scene. We don't need to bring him back to 'active service' and I hope they don't do anything with him, he'd only hollow out whatever faction he gets added to and/or step on the toes of Tyrion/Teclis for the Lumineth. I'm not as against old WHFB characters in AoS as some but I really don't think there's anything interesting or worthwhile that could be done by bringing back a background WHFB character and making him a major player in AoS. It'd be like having Isildur show up in Return of the King.

Just finished the Bonereapers novel by David Guymer. It's good. The plot summary on the BL website - a free city in Shyish that's been paying the bone tithe for a century but has now taken on some Fyreslayers - doesn't quite touch on how it's the taking in of Fyreslayers (who are basically refugees as well as mercenaries and so arguably don't have contribute to the tithe) that is then used as a wedge issue by certain folks in the city's conclave to force their city into a rebellion against the Ossiarch. It's set about a century after the necroquake and there's four POVs: a freeguild general, a freeguild outrider captain, a fyreslayer runeson, and a Liege-Kavalos of Ossia. There's a lot on negotiations. The Ossiarch do things by the book. They meet every decade with the conclave in a temporary field camp, they offer wine, the conclave members are offered seats on bone chairs (which may be made in part of the bones of their parents, brothers, neighbours, themselves). They're polite but never more than they need to be. The freeguild general protagonist thinks that their superiority is so baked into their psyches that cruelty would actually be an effort. The bone tithe deal is of course one-sided and means that a significant amount of the city's military only have one arm, which makes a particular joke of stuff like their order of knights, once famous for overthrowing the vampiric overlords of the city centuries ago and now humbled by the Ossiarch's legalism. You get to see through the eyes of the Liege-Kavalos Heraklis, only freshly raised to the post following the failure of his predecessor. He know's what's what. He's in military command but is otherwise subordinate to the Mortisian soulmason in charge of the tithe and negotiations. While the Mortisian has to consult his library of legal texts (a portable one stored inside the carapace of a large beetle-like bone construct) and confer with his peers back in Ossia via spirit-messenger before concluding that opening hostilities would be legal and fitting, Heraklis is privately blunter about it. He obeys and is happy to do so but he knows that as important as the legal niceties and correct form are, these things always end in violence, because Nagash is all and all are one in Nagash. Good action throughout. The Ossiarch do get a fair bit of 'new army' gloss. There's some Helms Deep-style scenes where the first Mortek guard to reach the top of the walls has to be essentially swarmed by freeguilders to take it down, and the bit where the trolls burst through the gate in Minas Tirith except it's Immortis guard and a Gothizzar Harvester. Despite that the freeguilders are portrayed as brave (if burdened by how many of them have over the years literally donated limbs to the Bone Tithe) and the Fyreslayers get a fine showing. They're vital and fiery, laughing and roaring and leaping into the fray, where the Ossiarch are cold and disciplined. Also gives a good idea of what a threat a Magmadroth is, it's like a living fire-breathing barricade. It's nothing terribly complicated, it's largely a short siege novella, but if you're interested in the Ossiarch it's worthwhile.

Yeah I think these are almost certainly the same faction, maybe even the same set. I had been leaning towards new ogre stuff but the gear looks a bit finnicky, maybe something more goblin-focused. Or Necromunda, House Cawdor's models have a lot of bent nails sticking out. They do have the Godsworn Hunt but I could see room for a more Chaos Warrior/Varanguard-style warband, something closer to Archaon.

Gonna quote myself here. Anvilgard hasn't been squatted. If an Anvilgard collector/player/whatever doesn't like these developments, that's fine, but it's wrong for them or anyone to act like there aren't interesting creative options to take for Your Dudes. Maybe the freeguild soldiers are now cannon-fodder, slave-soldiers marked for death on the battlefield or eventually on the altar (think Sevatar's red gauntlets in the Horus Heresy books). Is there a rebellion brewing? Have any of the freeguild soldiers turned to the worship of this powerful new shadow goddess, since Sigmar was so patently unable to aid them? Maybe the humans are 'let go' and hired back surreptitiously as mercenaries because your quietly dissident elven commander wants to keep them as part of his military strength without drawing Morathi's eye or causing trouble back in Har Kuron. What happens when Morathi's shadow agents come sniffing about...? Maybe your whole force is part of the fractured Anvilgard-in-exile military, led by cold-blooded elven warriors who'd still rather die than turn on their human brothers-in-arms. How do they feel about the new goddess and their lost city? Are they harried and desperately trying to get word to Azyrheim? All those are perfectly adequate themes for an army or for adjusting the theme of an existing army and I thought them up in 5 minutes. Cadia after the loss of their homeworld, Biel-Tan in the aftermath of their schism, Middenheim post-Storm of Chaos (but pre-8th ed.), all these offered new contexts and opportunities. If an Anvilgard player doesn't want to take these new opportunities, that's their right, but that is a choice. If they want nothing for their army but "Anvilgard fossilised in amber at a very specific moment in time and nothing but", that's fine as well, the book specifically says you can play that too, just any player using a Tycho/Azhag/Gorthor/Vlad von Carstein/Helm Hammerhand would.

I've always thought Esske, one half of Syll'Esske, has a powerful Handsome Squidward energy going on. Also, y'know, he's part of a power couple. The only power couple in any GW game to have their own portmanteu name. Not quite Brangelina or what have you but that's solid, stable. Stability is sexy.

I would really be shocked if that turned out to be anything other than a vampire. There's blood-drop icons on both the blade and the bracer, the pommel looks like a gothic bottle of blood, the protrusions from the blade resemble those of old vampire models (incl. the vampire-inspired Mephiston), and the combined straight quillons and curved handguard is a characteristic of the post-7th ed. WHFB vampires. It's also of a piece with the other sword we've seen previewed.

What rumours? Where are they abounding? C'mon dude. Please. A link. A source. Anything. Even "my uncle who works at GW says...". Did you have it in a dream? Anything at all to suggest you're not just saying whatever comes into your head. Give people a reason to respect you. Please.

Very interesting idea. Not entirely sold on the idea of a kit that could be built either as a daemon primarch or a regular daemon, GW seems to stick to keeping the primarchs their own beasts as prestige kits, like Archaon or Alarielle. But the point that the Newborn could offer a god or god-adjacent thing which could reasonably be made into a model is very interesting. Something on the order of Nagash or Teclis, rather than having an inevitably disappointing model for Khorne or Nurgle themselves.

If they hew to the updated 40k characterisation (and who knows given its Blood Bowl), they'll be intellectual and refined but manipulative and not above using brutality to get what they want. In that case Destruction doesn't quite feel like it would fit. Of course their 40k and WHFB characters were fairly different, one was tyranid collaborators/slaves/refugees, the other was enigmatic magical hermits of the deep woods, so who knows.

Thanks for linking that article, it's good stuff (as long as you don't read the comments...). While I agree that GW is both not particularly toning down the sexual element in Slaanesh, there does appear to be an effort to broaden the aesthetic and conceptual space beyond that somewhat: e.g. the WHU warband (though as good as they look, their designs flirt with some unfortunate orientalism), and the mirror thing with a focus on avarice and wealth, and generally the emphasis on refinement in other model designs. Opulence, elitism, perfection-seeking, etc. GW isn't about to throw Slaanesh away and the idea that they were was almost entirely (and sometimes knowingly incorrect) fan speculation but I do think GW is trying to tread a little carefully for fear of indulging the unpleasant and toxic attitudes you mention, which are indeed sadly pretty common among a lot of 40k fans especially and can make the hobby a rather unwelcoming place. Specifically on the baggage, I though Kieron Gillen's slightly older article, "On Slaanesh" was excellent on this subject and makes the point that while Slaanesh is heavily freighted with strong and 'problematic' meanings ( associating queerness with decadence and monstrousness, basically), there are ways of addressing that. One is, as discussed, to broaden the conceptual space around Slaanesh to include. Another would be to add more representation elsewhere in the range so there isn't a 1:1 association between queerness/whatever and monstrosity - "to put it another way – the queerer they make the Eldar, and the more ****** content there is elsewhere in Warhammer 40k, the less problematic Slaanesh becomes" - and so Slaanesh doesn't have to bear all the weight of these associations, freeing up some conceptual space. It will be interesting to see how GW takes this. The Newborn certainly does offer them a chance to shake things up somewhat - narratively? in the worldbuilding? that at least seems to be a big part of the Broken Realms project - even if all the evidence suggests they won't do that to the exclusion of Slaanesh's existing concept and aesthetic.

Sounds to me like it’s deliberately meant to be ambivalent as to whether this figure is a vampire or shadow-elf-thing. GW dangling the hints with some misdirection, keep folks guessing.

Some sort of heavily-armoured unit would be cool, maybe lean into the Zharrgrim priesthood side of things and have them as temple guard rather than associated with the body of warriors or the Auric nobility. Masked and armoured, putting aside investment in their own glory and runes and such, make them like reverse Fyreslayers where they subsume their identity in that of the temple guard. It's drawing from the chaos dwarf side of inspiration and the Infernal Guard. Dark, defensive, ritualistic. Maybe them them around missile weapons as well, emphasis how different they are from most fyreslayers. In fact that religious side of things, that the Fyreslayers as a society are essentially one grand warrior-cult, is something I'd like to see more of. If ever there was a force deserving of a war-shrine kind of model, it's them. I'm not wild about dwarven cavalry in general either but having that drawn by juvenile magmadroths or some other sort of magma-beast would be fine, somewhere between a shrine and a chariot. And then maybe that has a dual build setup as some sort of artillery piece, but leaning towards the fire-launcher or ballista end of the spectrum rather than cannons and artillery. A bit like the dwarf chariot in the Hobbit movies. Functional, well-engineered, but still fitting that more archaic approach. They really need something though, something to add visual variety. Fyreslayers are the most one-note and undercooked faction in AoS.

The annexation of Anvilgard by rights should offer a host of interesting background opportunities for folks who are interested in the faction in much the same way that the destruction of Cadia did for folks with Cadian armies. If you're an Anvilgard CoS player, what does it mean to Your Dudes to know that they city has been taken by a once-ally? How do they feel about elves? How do they feel about folks they once fought alongside? What about Sigmar, where was he? Or the Anvils of the Heldenhammer, why did they not protect the citizens? Or the Kharadron, do they intend to shrug and continue trading? What will Your Dudes do, join up with a government in exile? Attempt to undermine this new goddess's influence? Vocally decry her while still fighting chaos/Nagash/etc? Push for a crusade against Har Kuron? Refuse to fight alongside the Darkling Covens or Scourge Privateers of other cities? Launch partisan attacks against Morathi's new empire? Grind their teeth, bury their bitterness and find common cause against larger existential threats? Any of these would easily be enough to build a characterful army around and of course if you don't care about such things, the book seems to be explicit that you can use the same rules as before.

Damn they're going all out with this book. Wild. It's very small fry compared to the big implications but the idea of a free city that's like an auxiliary force for the DoK is cool, both in the background and for anyone who has an old WHFB dark elves army.

That's fan art just used as a placeholder image. Lady Atia is/was someone with sources in GW who had a track record of reliably hinting at forthcoming stuff for AoS and 40k before she stopped a few years ago, apparently at GW's request. The DakkaDakka rumour tracker thing shows a bunch of her 'predictions' and though they were often somewhat vague and clearly coming from glimpses at unreleased stuff (sylvaneth, fyreslayers, most early AoS stuff), they were usually accurate.

Maybe another 5-ish? Assuming every faction features, that we have four to five factions per book, that each book has representation from at least two GAs, and that some factions (Stormcast definitely, possibly LoN/CoS/StD) appear more than once even if in a reduced capacity. Maybe one or two more if these are tied into new releases for e.g. vampires. RE: subject matter, we might be able to tell based on the different plot threads that are current or 'waiting in the wings'. What with the last Broken Realms story, Gordrakk's upcoming siege of Excelsis (as an entree for battering his way into Azyr) seems to be hinted at again and that's been rumoured for over a year. So that could hint at a book based around Ironjaws/other Destruction forces vs Cities of Sigmar/Stormcast/other Order forces. Otherwise maybe something about the growing ties between the dwarf factions?

Idolators sounds to me like some sort of battalion based around the Eidolon and other units, like Namarti or Akhelians that consciously or subconsciously venerate it despite it not actually being an avatar or divinity. Like a low grade version of the old Court of the Young King for 40k eldar. EDIT: Or StD perhaps, depending on how badly the table of contents is goofed up on WHC. EDIT: yeah: "the Idolators of Lord Rokar Gresh."

So, looking at the table of contents, this books seems to be more than half background and narrative, at 71 pages, with the remaining 49 going to rules content. That's promising! By comparison the 40k Psychic Awakening books tended towards roughly 20 pages of (shallow, indifferent) background and then another 60-odd pages of rules and traits. I like what this suggests, something closer to the abandoned Vigilus-style books.

Given how similar they are though, I wouldn't be surprised if the mega-gargant is basically carrying around a bit from an as-yet unreleased kit. Sort of like what was pointed out earlier with the Slaaneshi Direchasm archer's arrow also being in the mega-gargant bits.

I think it’s probably because you are fundamentally incapable of not putting forward the exact same shallow one note take in response to literally any event tbh. Anyway. Interesting that these books will actually be including revised warscrolls for existing units. If they continue that trend, that alone would be enough to elevate them above the 40k PA books as a means freshening factions and addressing things which don’t quite work. It’s better than ladelling on more artefacts, allegiance abilities, etc, more meaningful. I’m happier seeing an attempt to fix the allopex at the source, for example, rather than making a specific battalion that makes it a good choice in a narrow set of circumstances.

Weird that there are no Kurnothi in the Beastgrave novel. Must have been some production changes but instead it follows a branchwraith.

Never noticed the similarity in the pauldron but if they did ever make a Sigmar model, it would be imperative that they keep the ol' "twin tailed comet" gesture to show what he thinks of the foe.

A bit less so with the Hrothgorn kit, shown here: https://www.wellofpower.com/post/product-review-hrothgorn-s-mantrappers While GW seem to be happy enough adding instructions like that for legacy WHFB models, I'd suspect they're more reluctant to do so for models released in February 2020.

I don't think it's impossible that we'll see a new plastic hunter. Yes, Hrothgorn fills that space. Yes, it would make more sense to repackage him as a new hunter box. Yes, it would be much easier to just change the warscroll so the hunter can be accompanied by gnoblar attendants as tokens or something, but GW makes weird decisions when it comes to individual SKUs and the like. I'd prefer something new and honestly Mawtribes needs new yhetees/butcher/gorgers far, far more than a second plastic hunter model but that's how it is sometimes. The hypothetical frost king folks were talking about would be interesting, though now we know one of the WHC rumour engines discussed (the gutplate thing) is actually from the mega-gargant kit.