sandlemad

That's pretty much exactly it. Gordrakk feels betrayed that the stormcast turned out to be like all the others; not worthy foes but instead building cities and such. Only Sigmar's left. From the Forbidden Power story a few weeks ago: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/06/forbidden-power-the-hammer-god/https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/06/forbidden-power-the-hammer-god/

In its most unthinking, cynicism-masquerading-as-insightful "lol GW just makes every army stronger than the last one" form commonly repeated in the community, power creep is provably not real. Idoneth Deepkin were not more powerful than preceding armies. Neither were Gloomspite, Slaanesh or Sylvaneth. There's 40k examples too and have been for decades. Talk about larger patterns of design, breaks between editions, or shifts in how free GW is with allegiance abilities or summoning or subfactions, then there's a broader (if not guaranteed consistent) trend of power creep with occasional 'resets'.

Like I said, this attitude is just utterly, incomprehensibly alien to me and sounds like not just a different game but a different existence.

This is a good point and one of the things that turns me off tournament play. I just don't understand how people can conceivably chase the meta given the incredible expenditure of time and money it takes to dig into the new hotness, to catch up in a month or whatever. For MTG or similar, even with some ebay poaching and the like, I can get it. For getting/shelving 80 ghouls or 60 witch elves maybe twice a year, I fail to comprehend.

It's a weird scenario, basically a tacit acknowledgemnt that a fundamental aspect of their background has changed significantly and in a way that seems directly in response to fan's pretty widepsread dislike of their 1st ed. background. It was part of the same Malign Portents realignment of the background but this new stuff is basically confined to that one short story. Either way I think there's 0% chance of them being squatted. They've been infamously popular for years, their rules have always been at least fairly powerful, they have obvious widespread appeal (dinosaurs riding dinosaurs), they already had a unique GW-specific visual design (no one else doing Mesoamerican ancient alien lizardmen in this fashion), they have nearly a dozen plastic kits (of which easily half a good and modern), a lot of their kits have been transferred to round bases, and they received a two page illustrated spread in the main rulebook. They're far, far from the firing line. The basic saurus warriors could do with a refresh and I would not be surprised to see some of their finecast characters/small mixed units disappear but there's seriously no way they're going anywhere.

I suspect it's probably there to accommodate the inevitable AoS warscroll for the Beastgrave wolf riders warband (which is probably only a few weeks out as one of the warbands to get background in the rulebook) rather than anything beyond that... for now.

Very fine article. I like the gryph hound idea but particularly well done on addressing the varying levels of appropriateness or 'goodness of fit' for proxying. Warriors --> longbeards, great. Tzar Boris --> unit champion, mildly depressing.

And the core rulebook, which brings it up with a surprising "look, we can write about logistics and trade too!" level of eagerness, probably in reaction to exactly the kind of stuff Ironbreaker brings up. The image of the realmgates of Ghur acting as colossal cross-realm portals for the massive quantities of red meat from mammoth beasts shipped out to other realms in return for stuff like fine weapons or rock salt is one that sticks with me. RE: how close things are to other things, a lot of it is mapped, just in the same fashion as 40k. Here are is Shyish: https://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Realm_of_Shyish You can tell how close or how far things are to the Nadir and Nagashizzar, and that is meaningful in itself. It is largely going to apply to your homebrew areas (just like the Whatever Sector in 40k) but then if you want the detail, you look at the Prime Innerlands. There you can compare the locations to the timeline to see where events occurred and what battles were fought where, e.g. these coasts came under attack by Nurgle's plague fleets at the dawn of the age of chaos, this archipelago is gradually becoming more saturated with death magic see what are the cultures (the people of Hallost are resentful of Sigmar and are just across the straits from the ancestrally loyal Sigmarite city of Glymmsforge, Ossia looks to be ruled by Katakranos and will be developed in the next Death battletome but is very close to some of the only realmgates in the area, Lethis was a fishing-village-turned-city founded only a century ago by Azyrite colonists and covered in more detail in the Forbidden Power book) see what what personalities are associated with where (here is Neferata's stronghold, there is Mannfred's abandoned kingdom) draw inferences that spark inspiration (here is an industrial ocean-city of chaos dwarfs not that far from a prominent Fyreslayer lodge, what's that all about?) Like, it's there. The detail is mapped but not to the exclusion of other areas. You can see the relations between places, you can see what's up with different territories. It's done with a light touch often enough and with an eye towards opening up possibilities. It's clearly meant to be inspiration and representative of a larger world rather than being there to say 'no, you can't do this' (same approach as with Forge World's horus heresy stuff, the most rigorously defined pseudo-military historical approach anywhere in GW) but it's there and it's being added to consistently. Even the plot of the Gloomspite novel hinged on the city's upriver proximity to Hammerhal Aqshy and what that meant for anyone who encroached upon it; geography as a narrative driver.

Yeah this discussion about the realms feels weird and strangely out of touch when the main rulebook literally does have "named places", "cities and landmarks", "firm geographic and temporal elements" (i.e. maps, histories and timelines) for areas the size of the old world or larger - the Great Parch in Aqshy, the Prime Innerlands in Shyish, the Everspring Swathe in Ghyran, and the Spiral Crux of Chamon - as well as large scale "metaphysical or vague kind of maps" showing the relations between the realms. It's right there, pages and pages of it. It's not terribly deep, frankly, but there's an almost ostentatious effort spent on outlining different regions' exports or characters or rivalries off the battlefield. GW is very clearly trying for a kind of halfway house, where they have large-ish areas with geographical and temporal detail but then also larger undefined areas for players' own background, to avoid any kind of 'small world' syndrome like WHFB occasionally had. In that, it's close to the 40k model, where you might have every planet in Ultramar mapped out and given background but then the majority of the Ultima Segmentum is still there for folks to fill in themselves. It's nowhere near the detail that WHFB had amassed by the end but their efforts to link up with the hideous maps from the early campaign books show that they really are trying to go down that road of building up momentum towards a detailed setting (read: viable detailed IP). Hence the focus on these cities (in the Season of War, Firestorm, Malign Portents, AoS 2nd ed., this new RPG and presumably the new CoS battletome) and defined portions of the realms.

Good catch, that makes it stranger and stranger.

I don't think it's an ogre weapon. Looks like the core is stone but the trim is fancier than even the fanciest current ogre weapons. The proportions look different too, given the size of the shaft it would be a pretty small head (*waggles cigar*) which makes me think it's probably roughly human-scaled. Kroxigor doesn't seem impossible - the stone core and the regularity of the spikes - but their weapons so far are more obviously Mesoamerican in style. I think this is going to be a weapon for the Spire Tyrants warcry dudes.

The Kharadron already had this amusing "destroy you with FACTS and LOGIC" libertarian spin on them so this is a hilarious take

Which is a bit eh... It's appropriate for CoS as they're to some degree the baseline of the mortal realms and attuned to the spells of the different realms, etc, so they should be using the standard endless spells and using them well. With the bonesplitters/ironjawz, they're so distinctly associated with Ghur (I know orks get everywhere but still) that this feels more half-assed than for CoS.

I know we saw those exact models last year and that it's only one version of three different CoS schemes based around blue and white but the clean navy, deep red and crisp white of Anvilgard is so choice.

Review of Beastgrave up on War of Sigmar: https://war-of-sigmar.herokuapp.com/bloggings/4168 Some clearer rule details (e.g. the whole hunter and quarry thing) and some interesting background for Ghur. No large scale preview of other warbands but it seems the rule book has short sections on the gobbo wolf riders and the ghouls, suggesting that they’ll be the next ones released. Looks like the leader of the ghouls is a duke, questing on behalf of his king. Presumably a mid-level hero? Not sure if he’ll be an abhorrent or a mordant.

That does seem to have been the deliberate design behind some of the original S1 miniatures. Can't recall where it came up (a Stormcast episode?) but the liberators and bloodreavers were intended as what we would now call easy-to-build kits but then then an opportunity for a different game was brought up and so they were shifted into that as the rules were written. The S2 and what we have seen of the S3 warbands are clearly purpose-designed for use in Underworlds, with more variety in the models and things that don't slot neatly into pre-existing units.

Seems pretty specific that these Kurnothi are just Oakenbrow-affiliated though. I suppose if we take the Moonclan example as precedent - where the keywords refelcted the upcoming release - the amount of Sylvaneth-connected stuff with them suggests that the Kurnothi aren't due for imminent release as a larger faction. Not the biggest surprise considering we know of at least four battletomes due before then. EDIT: perhaps doubly weird considering Heartwood is supposed to be the glade that's all about Kurnoth.

That is what he said, yeah. Very generally 'of the X persuasion' just means of that kind or type. It's a casual way of referring to them so it's pretty broad and not specific: "Kurnoth type elves". They definitely worship Kurnoth - " Skaeth and his companions are worshippers of Kurnoth, the god of the hunt and fallen ally of Alarielle, the goddess of life." - but then they're also referred to as "spiritual avatars of nature in its most primal and aggressive state". So I don't think we can safely say if they're spirits like Tree Reveants and other sylvaneth or more like the Scathborn of the Daughters of Khaine, elf souls which have been reincarnated into strange new forms. I think the NDA on Beastgrave will be finished when it goes on preorder this weekend so we might get a bit more information from people who received review copies.

So the Warhammer Underworlds website has been updated with some Beastgrave stuff: https://warhammerunderworlds.com/ The rules changes are largely covered in this WHC article but the setting and warband sections are probably of interest for the background. The Beastgrave is essentially a giant carniverous mountain that acts like a psychic angler fish, planting dreams and visions of treasure in mortals' minds to lure them into its caves, where it will consume them. This also has the effect of warping its victims' minds into more bestial forms, more aggressive and compulsive about being predators or prey. The mountain was then affected by the Necroquake, which has basically intermingled it with the city of Shadespire so they all but occupy the same physical space. Phil Kelly uses the analogy of a cracked mirror with this mountain behind it and the cracks being cracks in reality, hence those trapped in Shadespire accidentally slipping in and out of the Beastgrave. He also mentions the possibility that those warbands are somehow spreading the curse of Shadespire to those they fight, so the Kurnothi and beastmen are now just as much subject to the weird reality-mirroring/warping/resurrection nonsense that Nagash de-facto inflicted on those S1 warbands. I would also note that Kelly did call the Kurnothi 'aelves', though given everything else I suspect we're talking about a pretty broad spectrum of what could roughly be considered an aelf, with your basic Azyrite dudes on one end and tree-revenants or whatever on the far end.

That feels more appropriate, an FEC warband that's outnumbered by Blood Warriors or Ironjawz would be weird. Interesting designs though! Good to see considering how same-y and homogenous the main FEC range is. We're probably looking at 2-3 weak ghouls, a stronger fighter with a two-handed bone, the prominent lady-ghoul, and the beardy champion. If he's some sort of ghoul chamberlain-wizard, cool. Otherwise this is definitely an opportunity for AoS players to pick up courtiers without having to split off model from the main crypt ghouls box. Also this is what, the fourth leak/leak-adjacent thing GW has had this week? Accidentally putting up all the cards pre-Breastgrave release, accidentally putting up the Eldar banshees vs incubi box cover on their print website early, the space marine expansion supplier/distributor leaks, and now this. I have no doubt that GW does seed this sort of thing sometimes but some of these really do seem to steal current releases' thunder and go against what they want to do. This one, for example, looks very similar to the Zarbag's Gits/Eyes of the Nine leak last year.

Yeah not thrilled about them. It’s a cool concept, the whole ‘Wild Hunt’ feral aspect of the old Wood Elves, and the designs are fine but the sculpting isn’t there. Weird body twists, massive hair, caprine/deer-like legs that don’t work as well as their beastmen counterparts. If they do expand them into more of an army, I’d hope they get better models out of it.

I was saying that’s why folks have ginned up frenzied Alex Jones style conspiracies (seriously, if we’re going to go gamergate on this, why not have a YouTube video titled “Freeguilds didn’t die... it was murdered!!!”), not the general dissatisfaction about poor release/promotional strategies. That, I do get, even if I find the sheer feverish nature of the reaction offputting.

Considering this thread started with a suggestion that we start a Gamergate movement, yes. I sympathise to a degree but this - and the fevered conspiracy-mongering over the last while, just because GW hasn't put out recent news is no reason to work yourself into hysterics about a book being secretly suppressed - is pathetic.

Maybe but the 'Beastlord' seems to be a simple Bestigor champion and there already is a plastic bray-shaman. He even got packaged in with the SC Beastmen box. The Bloodwrack Medusa, if that's what we're guessing from the rumour engine, does already have a plastic model too. I'd also question the inclusion of the wolf riders there. A plastic kit of 3 dudes is not a substitute for a core unit of 10-20, particularly a unit which isn't in a battletome and is currently confined to Legends. The Hunter works because with the sabretusks he's replacing two resin products in one kit. The new Nurgle witch/sorceror we've seen on the cards could be another as well.

We do, GW confirmed that there'd be a battletome at NOVA. Low detail otherwise but the fact that they showed the BCR and other ogres together in the display case does suggest that they'll be joined in one book. The Tyrant is definitely not for Underworlds, he's got a regular AoS base, not the sculpted one all Underworlds models come with.