sandlemad

But that's... not a leak. It's a supply chain information website listing actual shipping data which happens to include information on what GW is having shipped from China. It's not secret or confidential or something that's been photographed in violation of an NDA or GW's copyright, it's open public-facing information. Anywhere people inserted a screengrab, they simply could have linked to panjiva.

Is this coming from a particular source? The butcher part is absolutely plausible but it's also something a lot of people have been spitballing for months - a core part of the army that can't really be excised as easily as the maneaters or gorgers, though it appears they're sticking about - so I wonder if it's rumour reverb.

That's true but look at Skagrott or Lady Olynder or Horticulous Slimex, they're all new but are characterful and fleshed out. They have interesting hooks and distinctive personalities. The only stormcast example I can think of in the game with anywhere close to that is Neave Blacktalon and she's still got less to her than those guys. Basically all the others are nothing more than a flat "he/she was a noble hero before his reforging, he/she a noble hero now" (though Aventis Firestrike and Astreia Soulbright have the barest ghosts of hooks as potential). There's good examples in the background, like Hamilcar Bear-Eater, but interesting memorable stormcast characters just aren't there in the battletome or on the board.

This dude's uninspired. Just a basic liberator-prime with a flat 2D pose, some slightly fancier-than-normal weapons, a decent head and a tome. I thought the last few event/anniversary stormcast - and most of the stormcast SCs, really - were dull until I saw this guy.

On a purely aesthetic level it kind of feels like they should be a bit horde-y? Moreso than the band of stormcasts forming a tight shieldwall or what have you, part of their image seems to be that they're a serious legion, disiciplined ranks of spears and banners, etc. Numbers as well as strength. That pricing scenario seems unfortunately plausible though, probably pre-rationalised in the army list designers' minds by the likelihood that slightly more affordable cavalry-focused forces or forces built around big dudes will be encouraged as variant playstyles.

I think this is definitely a factor. That darker commander next to the Mortarch is my favourite model so far. Part of it is how good his pose is and the restraint in his decoration, but the colour scheme does make a difference. Doing these guys in a sort of ebony colour or charred, reconstituted material or something less obviously bone does make a difference. All those 'stonecast eternal' schemes but with more even more variety. I don't love the the infantry but the screenshots of them in different schemes - the Null Myriad and Crematorium Guards - really improve them in my eyes. +++ MOD HAT +++ No leaked pictures please!

I think you misread me, I'm not saying that the mounts don't make sense or expresseing a dislike of them, simply noting how very clearly artificial they are. There's no animal in all the world with bones like those on the rear shins (or armoured bone plates on their hind legs or rib cages on their front legs) because they were, as you say, deliberately designed by the bonesculptors. Same for the heads, they're meant to look like the skulls of dracoths/griffins/whatever, that's where the designs are coming from. And I think that's cool. I get what you mean about this sort of unimaginative literalism in the community. That being said, there is also room for someone to say 'I appreciate that there is a background justification for bone-men with noses but it still looks dumb on its own merits, why couldn't we have a better design coming from that background, i.e. lose the noses, keep the rest?' Interesting background is always good but it doesn't act as a blanket excuse for all visual design issues with a model.

What this model hits home, more than the basic cavalry, is how bloomin' big the mounts ("Regular Abyssals?") are. Their shape and structure doesn't quite match up with any living animal - even putting aside the bone structure that could never be anything natural, look at those rear shins - and the heads and legs clearly come variously from rhinos, dracoths, griffins, giant warthogs, etc. These are seriously big constructs, larger than juggernauts. Fitting for stormcast-sized warriors.

So how about that new Ossiarch hero? https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/07/lords-of-the-ossiarch-bonereapers-revealedgw-homepage-post-2/ Good to see a generic fighty hero too, the Liege-Kavalos, I was getting concerned that there wouldn't be one. Looks cool too, it's very much the same silhouette as the Lord-Celestant on Dracoth but he's also got a pretty close pose to that of Volturnos. I like the continuity between Mannfred & Co.'s dread abyssals and the mount, looks slightly more pronounced than on the regular cavalrymen. The special character version isn't bad - check out that Egyptian-style bone beard! - but the generic one wins out, I think.

And from the Malign Portents background they're basically in space... That said, the fact that it qualifies the listing as "DOMINION OF SIGMAR ASTROLITHIC SKYSHRINE" rather than "SERAPHON TERRAIN"or similar makes me think it's a generic terrain release like the stuff that was released with Forbidden Power.

That one corsair champion might be the best dark elf model ever made. You can practically see him gazing over a sacked village on a winter morning. . I love Kislev but frankly the range was pretty mixed in quality. The Kossars were cool, Tzar Boris was brilliant but stuff like the winged lancers were better in concept and design than in execution. Otherwise... these Empire captains were great. Even got two-handed weapons, would fit right in as Freeguild Generals, both are better and more characterful models than the current plastic one.

They released Gloomspite in, I think, two weeks and that was with some minor 40k stuff too. Gloomspite was 10-ish kits + dice, battletome, endless spells, terrain, which appears to be comparable to the Ossiarchs (the mortarch, at least four-ish heroes of various sizes, infantry, big guys, cavalry, monster, catapult). I could see them pushing them out in two weeks.

Warband preview of the Grymwatch is up on WHC: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/10/02/warband-focus-the-grymwatchgw-homepage-post-4/ Now that is how you make a characterful warband, they've really hammered home the black humour of the core FEC theme through the names, abilities and flavour text. They seem fun.

I like this Vaul idea. Some hammers for working silver and gold can be rounded. Or croquet?

Imagine if there were rules for destructible terrain. Like if this dude lobbed a boulder at a walkway and it collapsed under the fighters, or he pulls away a chunk of masonry to drop on someone, causing a wall to collapse. That would go some way towards delivering the ridiculous gravity assissted shenanigans - falling, bouncing - currently only delivered by Necromunda.

That was unexpected. The Fomoroid is decent, got a strong Warmachine/Hordes feel to it. The Spire Tyrant axeman is... fine. Warcry remains the premier game for folks who like their musclebunch but hope the other members of his warband are more interesting. Fingers crossed on that new book containing more than just reprints of the cards for the non-chaos warbands. Skaven, etc would be cool. It think it's both. At any rate the Fimir were themselves a much more direct reference to the Fomorians and specifically Balor of the Evil Eye (ironic that they were an early deliberate attempt to make something unique to GW but were even then pulling closely from myth) so it's two roads to the same destination really.

Interesting! It looks the part but I agree, that use of Ogre rather than Ogor in a product title is a mark against it, particularly when their repackaged basic gutbuster dudes box has 'Ogors' so prominently on it.

Oh interesting, where did this come from?

It’s probably somewhere back in the rumour thread but searching for Beastgrave on war of Sigmar ought to do it. Here’s the cards with DoK on them: https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/4158 It looks like the Nurgle warband may be led by a female sorcerer. And yeah, pretty sure that’s a female ghoul.

I think 'societies' is the key thing here, with the privateers being entirely their own semi-nomadic culture. Nick Horth's Heart of Winter novella covers this apparently. There used to be a multi-realm 'Scourge empire' which was more like a vast unchallenged pirate host that loads of places had to pay tribute to, but obviously the age of chaos shattered that. The remnants wound up becoming semi-respectable, working for Azyrheim (hence privateers, not pirates) and then after the realmgate wars acting as monster hunters and defence fleets for cities like Anvilgard. The fleetmasters seem to be the old scourge empire noble families and some of them feel this is all far too domesticated and are itching/conspiring to resurrect what they used to be. I suppose we'll see more of this in the battletome.

We already know the warbands for this season from the cards (kurnothi, beastmen, ghouls, gitmob, ogres, nurgle, ironjaws/warclans, DoK), so you'll get your wish re: DoK, with confirmed Sisters of Slaughter and possibly one of the snake-ladies. Most of the tokens do seem correspond to individual warbands though. - 6 Feast counters - Ghouls seems most likely but I suppose it could be ogres- 1 Horn counter - Kurnothi (confirmed)- 6 Madness counters - ghouls, almost certainly. Means they might have more than one effect - 6 Potency counters - Nurgle? As in potency of their disease?- 6 Ritual counters - Beastmen (confirmed)- 5 Sacrifice counters - sounds about right for DoK, sacrifices to Khaine's heart or what have you- 15 Waaagh! counters - Ironjawz? Could be gitmob but considering that this is already a warclans mechanic in AoS...

Oh these are good minis. Much, much more personality than most FEC models, love the difference between the still human challenge of the dude with two meathooks and dull expression of the dude who has been interrupted mid-feast. They seem to be toned down too from the main ghoul kit, they have a lot less, well, back hair. The bats are an interesting addition, I wonder how they'll all play? Seven fighters is a good sized warband. You could definitely use the Duke as a crypt ghast courtier and probably three or four of the others as the same.

Ha, they may have donked up the reveal for those ghouls, WHC still has a big question mark over who the next warband could be. We'll find out at 4pm tomorrow!!

That's it, isn't it, they're both armoured elite elves with two-handed swords. It's hard to see any reasonable good-faith argument by an opponent that it's all too confusing without them being 'that guy'. Some stand-ins definitely need bit more creativity but stuff like using an Archmage as a Sorceress or Ellyrion Reavers as Dark Riders is practically a perfect 1:1 translation into the rules.

I didn’t say that. I said that assuming that every new tome/codex is stronger and moreover intentionally stronger than the tome before, the most common way that folks talk about power creep, is dumb and provably incorrect. Idoneth is weaker than DoK. Sylvaneth is weaker than FEC. You’re talking about new battletomes for specific factions, which often are stronger than their previous versions but by no means always.The new orks almost certainly will be stronger than before, but look at tyranids or chaos space marines. They had multiple codices where they got weaker or stayed approximately the same despite folks sagely repeating that power creep is a universal and things always get stronger because GW just wants to sell more models. Half the time newly introduced models aren’t even the stronger choices in books. Power creep definitely exists but is not consistent or universal.