sandlemad

Gotta say, this is far more interesting than anything set in the age of myth, which was really only ever written as a pre-age of chaos backdrop for all it was fleshed out in AoS 2.0. If it's anything like old WHFB I won't be playing it (rules, size of armies, etc) but it's good to see the old setting get attention, it really did have tremendous depth. It also makes for less of a glaring hole for anyone who's coming at it from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, Vermintide or the eventual three Total War: Warhammer games. I'd be surprised if it wasn't the massive popularity of the last two that gave them the push to get on this.

There's a bunch of 'natural' nighthaunt that could appear, the WHFB legacy models (and the Black Coach). These would be the ones who weren't hauled out of their particular punishments by Lady Olynder, the ones mentioned early on in the NH battletome's timeline. You could include the Knights of Shrouds too. But point taken.

Whoa. I hope this comes with a serious reorganisation because as-is FW can barely look after the horus heresy range and the WHFB/Warhammer legends side of things is several times larger.

They don't really fit the Mawtribes aesthetic either though. They're neither ogres nor gnoblars, there's nothing in the battletome about the mawtribes having as association with gitmobs outside of great pan-destruction hordes, all there is is the vaguely steppe aesthetic which isn't really as pronounced in the ogre background beyond the very surface level. Making them just destruction or the only gitmob-keyed warscroll in the game seems more plausible. Outside of when there's a battletome in the offing for them to be incorporated into, GW doesn't do much for Underworld warbands. The Silver Tower approach that zilberfried mentions seems more likely until we eventually/possibly get a gitmob tome or further releases.

Something that hadn't clicked for me is that Rippa's story, of a fated divine choppa, is vaguely similar to the story of Attila receiving the sword of Mars. Appropriately Hunnish, if that's what they were doing.

Whoops. That's some slip up on WHC's part. Super buzzed for Manflayer though!

A bunch of AoS anthologies, audiodramas and novels have been mentioned at the Black Library Weekender: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/11/10/black-library-weekender-2019-the-reveals/#gallery-14-1 Of particular note is Lady of Sorrows, a novel by Josh Reynolds about the Mortarch of Grief. Great to see him writing death again, his Nagash books have been the best BL works for AoS.

Got it, a preorder preview rather than a reveal of a new-new warband. The keywords could well be a hint - it was definitely the case with the Moonclan warband giving away prospective names and keywords - but equally whatever appears on their warscroll could simply be a stand-in (which is one possibility for the Kurnothi) or even a kind of dead end (like some of the old Silver Tower models).

Ooh, where did this come from? Will it be an actual new warband or a trailer for Snarlfang's Rippas? We already know from the leaked release sheet that they're due out soon.

It's probably worth noting that 'Amazon Gothique' was the name of the original 1980's painting rather than being tied to the Amazons of actual WHFB background or the 2002 Mordheim warband of Amazons, who were then re-used in White Dwarf for the WHFB Lustria campaign. Beyond being female warriors in a time when GW didn't have much of them, there's not really any connection. In the same vein, I wouldn't expect this to lead into a new faction or anything bigger for AoS. If anything her visual style is closer to the other weird and wonderful chaos warriors of the time.

I like that it's clearly a one-off special miniature - far more exciting than yet another variant pose stormcast or marine - but I think I'd like it more if they'd stuck to the 2D oldhammer pose in the brilliant art. Like Slambo. Lots of the individual details are great and suitably Blanchian but still. Otherwise I think the Necromund Belladonna is probably a better recreation of the spirit of the artwork, even if it's actually the successor to a very different model.

So this has cropped up, looks like a prospective AoS model of one of John Blanche's famous pieces. Cool idea and not a bad model, though it's a shame they couldn't translate the wonderful dandelion-clock hair to a miniature.

A really nice touch is that we can see the eyes and just a bit of skin through the helmets. Makes it clearly AoS, that these duded aren't in suits of powered armour or whatnot. That and the return to/refinement of the 6th ed. hordes of chaos aesthetic (as opposed to the 7th/8th ed. chaos aesthetic which sort of tried to be a throwback to 1st ed but ended up looking clunky and weighed down with detail) are the standout features of this for me. Based on the art in the trailer with an Iron Golem and an Untamed Beast fighting alongside these warriors, a knight and Archaon, looks like the Warcry warbands are indeed stepping in as the line infantry, though what exactly that means for the regular marauders remains to be seen. EDIT: See now this - If you’ve been collecting Warcry warbands, you’ll be able to field a diverse barbarian horde made up of tribes from across the realms. - is just exactly what I was hoping for. The Dark Gods March In Step!

These guys are great. I loved the old warriors, pose and all, so to see these new warriors as an update - more variation, better poses, same spirit- is a pleasant surprise. The knights are fine too, though I thought the last plastic knights were hideous compared to the hulking, intimidating old metal knights. The new mounted Lord... he’s cool, very cool. That’s a proper chaos wastes monster, a slab-scaled brute reminiscent of Tamurkhan’s toad dragon. Does he compare with the old fine cast chaos lord on steed? No but he’s still very good.

This mounted lord better be pretty dang good, the current one is an incredible model and a hard act to follow

These own. I love that first thing. Got a kind of Miyazaki look, like the forest god from Princess Mononoke. It has three eyes but it's not all that chaotic.

Yo, StD battletome probably tomorrow. From the AoS FB page: https://www.facebook.com/GWWarhammerAgeofSigmar/posts/1167136616816463 EDIT: haha beaten

This is certainly the existing trend but it’s pretty loose, largely just background for Ghur in the same fashion as for the more fleshed out realms, and it remains to be seen how much further GW will take it. Re: StD, might be worth noting that Mengel’s review of the Ossiarch tome notes that Katakros has just launched a massive invasion of the Eightpoints, aiming straight at Archaon’s fastness. That could be the event that provides the lead in for a new StD tome.

Interesting that they've changed the names of the BCR subfactions to something in English. Based on the icon, backstories, characteristics and rules, looks like the Boulderheads are the old Svard alfrostun (Braggoth's crew), the Thunderbellies are the Olwyr, and the Winterbite are the Fraya.

Good point about the cultist keyword. And re: the weapons, I get that and agree with that flattening approach mostly because it doesn't just go in the one direction and say "all of you have 'Maiming Weapons' now" (which is itself basically fine and permissive of conversions) but also takes certain things and makes them characteristic of the whole warband, like how the Iron Golems all have bolas as a short range missile attack. It's really only the odd example like the Breacher Ogre only being a regular human-statted dude with two extra wounds. Not giving him extra damage or slightly more distinguished attacks feels like a missed opportunity, particularly when GW already gave the Unmade champion its own special weapons profile. It's not the end of the world but it could be improved.

Yeah the current Warcry warscrolls aren't awful in design terms, they're certainly less restrictive and special character-esque than the Underworlds ones, but they do still cling very tightly to the contents of the boxes. It's not the worst, they account for different weapons (e.g. all Iron Golems have bolas rather than just the one warrior) and usually it's just as though they have a command group (e.g. one dude must be a champion, one must be the snakes) but it would be good to see a little more flexibility, even if only to account for the fact that not everyone works to these exact 'blocks'. That's besides their effectiveness, where they really are just Marauders 1.5 with a few variant abilities or quirks. That's not a bad thing and is thematically appropriate, but being able to benefit from some more synergies would be nice.

Adding fully eight unique, fleshed out and distinct plastic mortal units to StD is pretty good. Adding furies, bird things, the Fomoroid crusher and a possible foot Varanguard on top of that is more than the last four AoS battletomes has received. There's no technically about it, those Warcry warbands are new mortal chaos units and come off as a lot more interesting than a rejigged basic marauders kit. That's a lot of visual and cultural diversity for a force. I've mentioned it before but it makes for a really cool and diverse bunch of distinct warbands from all over the realms, all marching in step for the dark powers, reminiscent of Xerxes's forces as recounted by Herodotus or the various wildling tribes making up one horde in Game of Thrones. They could certainly do with more interesting warscrolls than the restrictive get-you-by things they have now - they don't need to be insanely powerful and probably should be cool variations on the marauder/warrior spectrum - but something interesting with faction rules more widely would do it.

He's got the same orange gutplate as the models and as the other bits of art we've seen. He's definitely a Blood Bowl ogre.

Looking at that 'leak'... should we be concerned about how it mentions the 'Oldheim Ogres' blood bowl team when we now know that they're called the Fire Mountain Gut Busters? There's also the re-release of the Warcry warbands, which seems odd. Could be putting them in regular AoS packaging though without the Warcry gubbins.

It feels so good to see that gnoblars are still a Thing, both with these new BB sculpts and in the battletome.