sandlemad

Oh interesting. He doesn't look obviously blind in a way that GW artists might want to indicate - pale eyes or a blindfold like the old Eltharion swordmaster model - but maybe. And whomst among us has not wilfully grown awkward facial hair when we've reincarnated despite our brother telling us that it's not a great look and that we're a god now?

Based on what we can see of the wings, neck and torso, that doesn't look terribly humanoid, can't see much room for conventional humanoid shoulders or arms there. It also has tons of lunar imagery - most of which lines up broadly with the Celennar model - when Tyrion's solar theme is something that's beenn hammered home for decades.

Probably Kel-en-nar if they're sticking to the old Irish-influenced naming conventions Jes Goodwin and co would dip into for some of GW's elf factions buuuut given the predominance of lunar imagery and the sheer similarity of the name to the Greek goddess of the moon, probably Sel-en-nar. And yeah, no way that's Tyrion, it's Celennar for sure.

Or cos it's thematically cool and works well. There doesn't have to be any expectation of GW changing anything or doing anything with the idea for the Horned Rat to be interpreted as filling a lot of the same interesting thematic role that Malal did. Maybe even better than Malal did actually: the half-ignored rat burrowing in the belly of chaos, the self-abnegating self-destructive impulse, the unpleasant pseudo-canonical germ (is he a chaos god? Yes but no but yes but not like that but...) that represents the inherent contradictions in chaos, expressed as... rats. As a mockery not just of civilisation but of the rest of chaos, standing outside the main pillars (the pantheon, Archaon, the mortals, the daemons, the beasts, the Eightpoints), cackling madly, ruining the best made plans of others, building themselves up and then collapsing through their basest impulses towards treachery and self-destruction. Obviously GW will never come out and do anything with Malal because they can't, and they did not specifically intend for this aspect of the Horned Rat to hit on the same notes, but on a thematic and conceptual level, it's there and it rules. It's what makes me happy with skaven being both part of and apart from the broad brush conception of 'chaos' (with the additional caveat that grand alliances are something a lot broader, more immediately game-focused, and less limiting than folks take them to be). Again though, that's all on a higher thematic level and is broadly disconnected from release schedules or copyright law or people getting steamed about the variability of attention different tabletop factions get.

Two, Dire Avengers have been plastic for a good while now, though two out of 8+ isn’t amazing. It’s kind of inherent in having such a wide variety of pretty distinctive unit designs as a core part of the craftworld range (I think you could just about do fire dragons/striking scorpions and maybe warp spiders/dark reapers as dual kits) but it’s been slow going and GW will tend towards the new hotness for new models.

This is a good point, it's closely associated with Ynnead and moreover whatever the wavy magical effect stuff is, it's pretty similar to the flowing wraithbone you can see on the Yncarne model. I think this is pretty plausibly some future Ynnari stuff.

I'm surprised that they missed out on the opportunity to have any death stuff at all. Even something minor like, I don't know, a Legion of Grief analogue for OBR (doesn't really work for obvious reasons but something on that scale of interest) or like a new mixed death faction to represent Katakros's legions and non-ossiarch auxiliaries or something. Pull in a wider range of death players. As is, cool that it's aiming at a wide range of chaos players and especially cool that it has stuff for cross-pantheon daemon forces - it's been bizarre not having them properly represented in AoS - but that's still a more narrow audience than it might have been aimed at. As is, non-chaos folks who do get it will largely be doing so for the background, siege rules and rules for fighting in the Eightpoints.

Crystals, a very obviously elvish rune, some sort of magical energy? Definitly Lumineth.

Yeah the new Kharadron tome mentions Bugman's as a brewery, albeit without much more detail. Whether he survived or his legend became something of a calling-card and was re-used millennia later is up to you.

Now that you mention it, it's been fully 13 hours since we last heard anything from GW about these pointy elves. That's kind of a suspicious silence, isn't it? Feels like they're trying to downplay their importance... I dunno guys, can't prove anything but feels like they might be about to squat pointy elves.

Huh, those are odd. GW tend to be pretty consistant when it comes to using or reusing elvish/eldar runes, more so than with their other background, but I think some of these are new. There's a bunch of recognisable Eltharin runes on the infantry and cavalry - lecai (light, nobility of the soul) is fairly prominent but there's definitely other recognisable ones like daroir (remembrance, memory) and more incongruous ones like arhain (shadows, night) - but some of the more ornate ones and all the runes on Teclis are fresh. Maybe there have some 40k eldar precedent? The fancy one on the sphinx's collar looks a little like the eldar rune for autarch or maybe another one with a swirly tail.

I agree with this to a degree. It's one thing to be justifiably disappointed with the lack of a more comprehensive or model-oriented update (or the prospect of that in 2020) but if we're at the point where the reaction is "A new battletome? Damn, that's a guaranteed sign that they're being squatted", then parts of the fandom might be irrevocably brain-poisoned. That seems to be more prevalent elsewhere than necessarily on TGA but it's quite a thing to see.

Seconded, "Realm-lords" is an awful name. Even Lumineth... I don't know, 'Lumineth Something' would have been better. Lumineth Hosts. Lumineth Phalanxes. The '-eth' ending tying them to the other elf factions is cool though. Some lovely models, mind. Not my cup of tea but a well thought-out aesthetic, a good evolution from the older High Elf look, and some incredible technical achievements. They do look a lot better in the video, the GW photos don't really do them any favours, some poor angles that don't show the strengths of the Eltharion and Teclis minis. Unfortunate about the Seraphon. There's a lot they could change but frankly new sarus warriors, knights and kroxigors would get them 95% of the way there, most of the other models are good but resin (the slann is basically perfect) or a bit rubbish but not core to the army. Looking forward to the background working through the Starborne and the Coalesced thing but a simple-ish core refresh, even one on the order of the Slaves to Darkness SC box, would go a long way to pulling folks in.

I swear we could replace you with a D6 table of poorly thought-out bad takes or actively invented conspiracy theories and it would be about the same level of hysterical self-victimisation.

Here's hoping GW goes out of its way to distinguish their background/visual identity from the ogres. Bit concerned about the prospect of another faction of big thick dudes who like smashing and wear gut-plates, trousers and not much else. It would be good it they could bring in some of the tragedy or melancholy the WHFB giants had. Doesn't have to be literal sky-titans but it would be a distinctive theme. The quote from the WHFRP bestiary stuck with me: "Lost and done. Our empire is no more, lost in the sands, trampled by insects. Ours is the long slow fade to quiet. Ironic for we whose voices once shook the mountains’ roots. Not many left to mourn our passing now, not that you scurrying parasites would bother. Of course we turn to drink... or to the darkness in the North. Both are ways of forgetting what we’ve lost." Regardless I think it's safe to say that some of their background will be tied in to Gordrakk's upcoming attack on Excelsis. A siege is the perfect time to start showing off a new faction of giants.

That's got a lunar thing at the base and classic High Elf gems, definitely something for Pointy Elves.

I think to a degree this is inevitable. Very few players are going to know every army or every unit in the depth required to seriously change their tactics, even if we had half the number of armies. It does lead to a related issue of game design though, that of when it becomes difficult to make a new faction with a meaningfully distinct or fresh play style and identity. I'm not talking about necessarily making sure a new army's competitive builds are radically new but ensuring that they don't tread too much on the conceptual space of an existing faction, most of which do have a bit of a range of play styles. This can be done with the model design and background much more easily but taking the example of the hypothetical Grotbag Scuttlers, the designers would need ensure a faction of airship-borne goblins are not too similar to Kharadon Overlords. I think it can be done and the fact that one's destruction and the other's order makes it less of a huge issue but still, there is a range of space for new armies and that shrinks over time. You want a new elf-y faction for order? Have to make sure it plays relatively differently to the existing three. A new destruction faction? It shouldn't tread too much on the styles of Mawtribes/Ironjawz or the range of Gloomspite builds. That's obviously compressing the more subtle details of how these forces are different and there's nothing wrong with, say, having multiple cavalry/big guy/swarm/magic-centric forces but it's something that will only get harder as the number of factions increases.

Imagine being Mannfred and discovering that that nerdy High Elf whose plot you schemed against is a god now. His jock brother? A god. Their edgelord cousin? A god. Your old boss? A god. Just doubling down on the Starscream ne’er do well side of things.

Do you just... make up whatever?

They haven't gotten rid of him. He is mentioned extensively in the core rulebook and several battletomes. His shtick is that he's a blind warrior god of Hysh who can only see through Teclis. There's a human city that worships him. He hasn't been mentioned in the two low-detail WHC preview pieces we've seen about the new faction - we don't even know their name - so to say that "they have entirely squatted tyrion now" seems poorly thought out at best. We don't know what his relationship to this new faction is.

I don't think they're going to abandon a fully plastic army of nearly a dozen kits that was created less than two years ago and is repeatedly mentioned in the battletomes, art, and BL books. Making something fit the changing background and what the design studio envision for AoS is certainly a Thing but so much that it would prompt them to drop a line like this.

Didn't expect this before LVO. It's a big headdress but the Moon Staff and his sword are pretty clearly updates to his old ones. They look more proportional too, thank you modern sculpting. Overall, looking at the armour, it's surprising how traditionally Ulthuan-style his clothes are. I know GW said they were going that way but that might as well be the apparel of a High Elf champion. If anything it's less ornate than old Teclis. Will be interesting to see how much that comes through on the rest of the range.

The Grymwatch deck also has a bunch of cards showing brutes and they pretty consistently have the topknot dude with two swords and the two maces dude. So far though the skull-masked guy doesn't seem to have appeared obviously elsewhere. Unless that's him on this card, which looks like a dude with a flail, some sort of tusked half-face helm/mask. Could be a fourth guy. Unlike the other brutes, there's not really a bunch of cards which show this consistent design, leaving us a little in the dark.

I hadn't noticed it before but look at the weird ridged/fluted metal things in the Sphyrinx's hair. They have very much the same appearance as some of the hafts (of a mace and a staff?) in the rumour engines. Similarly the sort of ridges you see on the second Sphyrinx's false beard (which is pretty Egyptian style in itself) is not that different to the ridged look you see on the Cypher Lords. We know both the Sphyrinxes and the Cypher Lords are from Hysh. I think we're seeing the beginnings of a visual design language for that realm and consequently a few of the design cues we'll see on the Pointy Elves. That said the idea that that mace is being wielded by an elf is absolutely wild to me, even if there's design similarities elsewhere, but it wasn't the ogres and it wasn't the Spire Tyrants...

A new ogre beast doesn't seem impossible. Besides the looted shield, those pyramidal studs are very ogre-ish. They appear on the old tyrants and elsewhere. It's definitely destruction though and a gutplate for a huge new gargant also seems plausible. ...or.... or it could be heavy scrap armour for the bulging, uneven hull of a Grotbag Scuttler airship. I want to believe.