sandlemad

Could be but that would sadly mean the replacement (in the background and new stuff at least) of classic Ogre Kingdoms gnoblar-style grots with regular common goblin-style grots. I suppose these could be hangers-on the hunter picked up on the way but still, I'd be sad to see the little wretches go, always thought they had more character than standard WHFB common goblins/AoS gitmob.

New plastic hunter and frost sabres confirmed from Beastgrave cards. Looks like sabretusks are changing design to a more conventional RL sabretooth cat look, with long canines on their top jaw and less of that weird old mohawk they used to have.

*slams like button so hard the mouse breaks* YES. New plastic hunter and tusks, christ yes. I'd hoped and hoped and then CONFIRMATION. Haven't been so buzzed by a model in ages. He's gonna have crossbow and some traps and a sabretusk with actual top jaw sabre teeth... This is what I wanted. Ahem. The blightking looks cool but that gobbo... He's not one of the wolf riders we've seen, looks like he might be waring a sash of chainmail..? Maybe he'll be lumped in with the Ironjawz warband? I know they don't care for grots but not sure where he fits, we do seem to have eight warbands confirmed if the 'Retrieve Javelin' card depicts one of the DoK melusai.

Pretty sure the Battlemages will be coming back once they remove the old points cost and ally branding from the box and regardless there’s still the foot battlemage from the Hurricanum kit. So that’s 6 separate wizard warscrolls. That’s not to be sniffed at.

Unboxing of Beastgrave up on WHC: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/16/beastgrave-unboxedgw-homepage-post-2/ Anyone with eagle eyes and the will to damage them want to try to pick out hints of the Kurnothi background? This seems promising:

I'd agree that there's nothing strictly new about the visual language of this tyrant but I suppose it shows that while GW could have taken a new path with the non-BCR ogre aesthetic, one which ignored the visual elements of the BCR (which in the models really are exactly the same as the current regular ogres, just painted in whites and blues), they didn't. Which is a thing. Personally I really like that they've kept the little glimmers of Early Modern-inspired features with the ogres, like the use of pistols and blackpowder weapons. It's a small detail but it is another thing which stops them from being big non-green orcs. Also that model was posted on Spures & Brews two months ago! Granted it was NOVA but it's still surprising to see a model 'in the wild' (ish) that early. Here. It's from Hastings at War of Sigmar ( http://disq.us/p/230dnq1 ). He's generally better than a lot of other rumour-y people but then there's always scuttlebutt, stuff that doesn't pan out, etc.

So if they’re sun-worshippers, that could make them appropriate as a broadly Hyshite faction (in the same way that Kharadron are Chamonite and DoK are generally from Ulgu), which could make them an appropriate enemy for Tyrion and Teclis’s angelic light elves.... if and when GW get around to them. Great models anyway, good sense of motion, a pleasingly subtle/non-OTT update of the old concept, and having an all-cavalry Underworlds warband is exciting. Probably a sort of new selling point for Beastgrave in the same way that magic was for Nightvault? Though from the cards there doesn’t seem to have been much special about that Kurnothi centaur dude. Was really hoping for this rumoured ogre hunter but I am still happy for those who love this stuff because I am capable of valuing things that are not directly aimed at me without getting narcissistically outraged when others get toys.

And it was announced at the same time GW confirmed a new ogre book. Feels off.

A mixed ironjaw brutes and bonesplitters warband would be interesting and appropriately Ghur-ish, if he's not just a big topless ironjaw. Dude on the right looks strange though. Anyone else think that looks more like his bare skull than a mask? Could just be a quirk of the art though.

Likewise, I'd say it was well underway. Anyway, Beastgrave how-to-play video up: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/12/learn-to-play-warhammer-underworlds-beastgrave-todaygw-homepage-post-3/ It'll be interesting to see what are the new mechanics, possibly pulling from Dreadfane, as well as maybe some background hints for the Kurnothi. There was also the promise of " more news from the Warhammer Underworlds coming this weekend, as we reveal a brand-new warband unlike any you’ve seen before" which could be a bunch of things but I chose to fervantly believe is this rumoured BCR hunter with kitties. Arguably not a million miles from Mollog and his mates but still. EDIT: Going to throw in this rumour from back in July, mentioned on Atia's blog by Hastings: http://disq.us/p/230dnq1

And then there was only about a week between Nightvault going up for preorder and then the next two warbands being announced. Seems plausible that we'll be looking at that kind of timescale again with Beastgrave, though maybe their release will be doubled up with something else.

So something I hadn't noticed previously was a small reference to what sounds like the Ossiarchs in the main rulebook, in the background section about the draining of the Khaptar Sea. Given how far in advance these things are written, this could well have been based off of early design work for the faction. It was a surprise to see it, along with the amount of reference made to Kurnoth. I suspect we'll see this pre-Necroquake battle somewhere in the battletome's timeline, with the Necroquake possibly spurring them/Nagash to go forth as conquerors rather than as a defensive force.

Little Beastgrave novel preview on WHC today, with three exclusive cards: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/09/11/beastgrave-the-novel-with-bonus-cards/ Check out the middle one. That chubby rascal looks like a Nurgle sorceror. Gonna call it, Maggotkin warband confirmed.

That's the thing, it really would be a relatively easy win. Plastic tyrant (confirmed), plastic hunter with frost sabres (rumoured, for Beastgrave), and a plastic butcher would basically sort out the joint ogre range to a decent, if not perfect level. Ten plastic kits without a much redundancy, I can see that being pretty attractive in GW's eyes. Certainly it would be better rounded than even some new factions. Firebelly/maneaters are flavourful but as an extra wizard and elite infantry unit they have less of a unique roll, so could stay as finecast mercenaries. Yhetees and gorgers could really do with new plastics as well and I'd be sad to see them go but I can easily see a scenario where in GW's eyes they're less 'core' to the identity of the ogres and can be chucked.

It's prescriptivism vs descriptivism. As always when arguing about historical material culture (as in the 'definition' of a halberd is historical, not the, uh, giant bone dudes), prescriptivism is ahistorical bean-counting that spends more time on its own typologies/terminologies (which would be uttery alien to anyone who ever used a pole weapon) and fitting things into neat academic classes than actually thinking about the meaning of the object of study. It's a halberd.

If the ogre release does prove to be more than a plastic tyrant and a new merged battletome, I will flip out.

A really poorly-constructed tiller on a goblin airship? I'll selfishly hope it's something ogre-ish - terrain? - but if this is a sign of future Gortbag Scuttlers, hey, cool.

I kind of get the impression that this is an aesthetic aspect of Death - rot, decay, zombies - that GW has more or less handed over to Nurgle in favour of the colder, 'drier' aesthetic with the End Times releases, the Nighthaunt, the Ossiarchs, and Nagash's background in general. It's still there a bit but there's clearly been a lot of effort to make sure there's some conceptual and design room between Nurgle and Death so I wouldn't expect to see it get much attention. The old 40k daemonhunters codex had a good trick with this. If your inquisitor had, say, a warrior in their retinue that must mean that they're at least a bit martially minded, so it boosted their weapon skill (as well as having a tough bodyguard model). If they had a savant or bonded psyker, that boosted another stat and gave some other effect. GW used a lesser version of the same thing later on for imperial guard advisors, though it was more about the special rules. It was a nice effect anyway, where the makeup of a retinue/command squad both customised your hero and made a unique kind of squad.

Gonna a link a fan translation of the background here from Atia's blog: http://disq.us/p/247r2sf The Null Myriad is an rock solid name for a force and to an anglophone 'Necroseismo' does sound cool.

The walking chair guy is great but the mounted general looks to be almost in exactly the same pose as Vandus Hammerhand or the Soul Wars Lord-Arcanum. Bit on the nose if these guys are in some sense deathcast. Still not seeing any conventional infantry commander either...

Wait, this is bad? The kind of discussion which needs to be removed?

GET HIM GOTREK, MESS HIM UP (this is Good. This is Good and appropriate and I like it. RE: background, I mean, he's Gotrek. He did this kind of thing in the old world, he did this in the realm of chaos for however long and he's still at it. Getting the master ur-gold rune blasted into him certainly helped. He might call himself a dwarf but even the spectre of Snorri Nosebiter was able to offer up the point that that was really more of an umgak manling term, when you think about it... )

The Varagyr fur is rather worse than plastic GW fur to be honest and the heresy VIth legion range is a mixed bag... The Leman Russ fur cloak is much better, for example, you'd struggle to get that in plastic. I guess I'm talking about the potential of the material rather than any specific instance.

I'd second the note that as good as GW plastic has got, FW's resin offers lot of fine detail that you seriously just cannot currently achieve in plastic. There may not be enough of a market for these kinds of infantry/cavalry-sized models but they were good designs and stunning stuff technically. GW proper is still miles off replicating this sort of thing in plastic. Look at Lietpold the Black, look at the mail and the lace, it's insane. Or compare the fur from the old and tragically lost ogre rhinox cavalry to that on the mournfangs:

I was under the impression that this had already happened early this year, that all 40k and AoS rules for FW models were being produced by those games' respective teams. I remember this because the news came relatively shortly after news of FW taking on a rules writer (or developing the role, at least, might be misremembering) specifically for AoS and it seemed like something of a 180. Either way Specialist Games becoming more independent seems very plausible. Necromunda, Blood Bowl and especially Adeptus Titanicus all seem to have been larger successes than GW proper anticipated. That's almost certainly down to their caution and underestimating demand but still, it clearly led to SG getting the green light for Aeronautica Imperialis and further expansion would not at all surprise me.