sandlemad

In this case it's not a novel or WD or similar though, it's part of the Forbidden Power release, meaning it would be synced up with the rules for the scenario that we'll see later in the week just as much as the text for battletome. It's entirely possible it was written by someone who also wears a development hat and who may have written the rules. This is one of the rare cases where it is more likely to be aligned with the production curve than not. Doesn't mean it's a slam dunk on these kits being retained (e.g. Dekay's point about the skycutter in Malign Portents) but I think there's good reason to treat these WHC shorts/scenarios/posts as meaningfully different to other AoS stuff.

Caution about how much we can infer from the presence of Firebellies/Maneaters is definitely a good idea but I'd note that this isn't a throwaway line in a novel or short story, this is a case of those ogre units (and only those ogre units, in the context of their mercenary rules) appearing in a Forbidden Power release. Later in the week, possibly even today, we'll see a scenario built around them. I think - and I could be wrong - this is an example of the rules/design/production guys putting out mainline expansion content, which suggests that it's more likely to be supported/part of a production schedule than not. Again, no guarantee. These mercenaries appeared in the GHB2019 but then so did the dwarf cannons and they were squatted about two months later so...

If you're thinking of just playing casually or treating it like a good and replayable boardgame, it really is easy to get into. A starter box and another warband or two that you like the look of is plenty for something you get out for a quick game every few weeks. I don't know if its the cards or the hex board or the rules design but I've found it's considerably more appealing than regular AoS for folks coming from boardgames or 'casual' gaming backgrounds. I've playeed it with family members and friends who would otherwise have an instinctive distrust of tabletop battle stuff and they've loved it. In a sense you'd miss out on the deeper parts of the deckbuilding element but it's still a great game. Maybe but I've always seen a certain amount of distrust towards the MtG system (rotation, standard, etc) from WH players because of stuff like that. Could be different crowds though, this may be grogs who are glad they can still play with their early 90s dwarves and/or folks who just aren't into that element of the game.

This sort of rotation is going to be pretty alien to a lot of long time GW folks though, it's much more of a MtG and similar games thing. I don't play underworlds competitively so it won't affect me at all - and there's that, if this is a game you play with friends or in any venue besides tournaments, this will make zero difference - but if you'd bought into the competitive mindset, I can see how it's frustrating. It might not be that different from meta-chasing and constantly buying new AoS armies but if it's going to be a blunt "sorry, you can't use those models from about two years ago", it will be irritating for a lot of folks.

Good to hear, though it shouldn't really be a surprise considering that unlike all the other kits that went on LCTB, they had already been repackaged for AoS. My suspicion is that they're being repackaged (again) to remove the points cost from the back of the current box. Can't think of any other current kit with the same issue. I can see the rationale for why they did this at the time, with that wave of allied detachment boxes, but it was always going to come back and bite them.

See now the fact that it's just maneaters and firebelly is curious. I'd like to take it as reassurance that they're staying but then as part of Forbidden Power this feels more closely tied to the mercenary company in the GHB. It is probably the longest and most consistent bit of fiction featuring ogres and especially ogre dialogue that AoS has seen so far.

Some sort of commander or hero? We have the tombstone-herald guy from the video and we have the Mortisian priest but no conventional military leader besides the mortarch and the officers on his base. Might not happen of course or could simply be a build option from the Mortek Guard or Kavalos Deathriders.

See now if anything that actually accentuates the Wayne Barlowe look of this dude. Check this painting of a demon commander atop a Demolisher and tell me you don't see the similarity: https://i0.wp.com/waynebarlowe.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/barlowe_demolishers.jpg I'm banging this drum but all of the moulded bone and stretched skin stuff is similar to Barlowe's Hell work. Same for the colour schemes in fact, apart from the midnight blue and green. https://waynebarlowe.com/artwork/hell/

I mean Nagash is a fantastic blend of nihilistic mortal-turned-demigod with designs on becoming a universal force, nearly the only being who can look the chaos gods in the eye without flinching, the true totalitarian (" Only when the cosmos is united under a singular consciousness, with every spirit and body bent towards the directives of that consciousness, will he be satisfied "), a schizophrenic god-king with a thousand different theads of grasping consciousness, the coldly monstrous masterplanner with the colossal arrogance to do what he says is necessity (" I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. "), a more interesting implementation of many of the ideas behind the 40k Emperor... but then he's also an incredibly petty saturday morning villain who nurses grudges, lashes out at his subordinates and howls curses to the sky when his evil scheme is foiled by literal rats. That's why he's the best character in AoS.

This pulls on some of what came up in the Soul Wars novel. Sigmar is raising up souls, expanding on their potential with the inadvertent cost of their selves, while Nagash is more explict about using souls as resources, stripping out the unnecessary bits and moulding them like clay to fit what he wants of them. It's kind of a matter of degree in some regards - Arkhan's 'both of them are the same/two sides of a coin' is a little disinegnuous but there's an element of truth - and cramming multiple souls into a warrior-construct is like the extreme end of that.

I like the theory of the constructs and the tbh the smiles are sufficiently creepy that they win me over (less so the noses... something can look dumb even if there's apparent background justification) but they really fall down on the posing. Static and imposing, fine, good idea, but these dudes have weird old-fashioned 90's space marine squatting poses and their weapons held out right in front of them awkwardly. Same with the four-arm dudes, those are dreadful weightless action figure poses with no sense of being stately automata. Look at the old ushabti as a comparison, didn't do anything in particular to appear like statues but by god from their poses they felt big and slow-moving and swinging weighty blades. Combine that with the chunkiness of the detail (great concepts, wonderful design, iffy implementation) and to my mind you have something that goes beyond fixable with a head swap. By contrast the cavalry, and particularly the noseless champion, look much better in this regard and of course the characters are exquisite. This may be a personal taste thing in part but I really do feel like while the design/concept work is great, it hasn't come through in the models. In that they're unlike the Nighthaunt range, which has great concept/design work that ties directly into their amazing sculpting (not a dud in the range) and an incredible level of technical engineering accomplishment. I would also say that there's more to a model being dynamic than being in an action-y battlefield post. The Mortarch is dynamic in the extreme, just that the internal movement and implied tension in his pose are subtle and naturalistic. It's that good good contrapposto, with all that brings up from the sculptors' art history background. RE: the scenery, it's a snapshot, just as much as Mannfred's steed leading into the air is, just as much as Reikenor's, just as much as any model that has any kind of pose.

Looncurse released months after Gloomspite though and (due to the delay) months before Sylvaneth. An ogres vs Ossiarchs box seems certain but I’d be careful about how we’d fit it into any predicted timescales.

Yeah these are a development of at least some of the tomb kings concepts but the necrosphinx and sepulchral stalkers would stand out a mile on the basis of their smooth metal and clean bone, their literal material, as much as their material culture and aesthetic. I used the comparison before of scourge privateers and idoneth but if anything the visual gulf between the spiritual ancestor and the AoS implementation is larger here. They definitely pull from that End Times deathlords aesthetic: moulded bone distorting the human frame and with some insectile elements, segmented curved armour, large gems, stitched skin for fabric, fanlike crests, curved razor-like weapons. Even the cavalry steeds are like miniature lesser versions of Arkhan/Nefereta/Mannfred’s steeds. The crows/ravens seem to be a consistent feature here, seems at least in part to be a military messaging thing. The name is a trio though. Ossiarch is good, Bonereapers is dreadful. Ossiarch Legions or something would have been better, a simple “The Bone Tithe” would have been good too.

Tbh not really feeling the infantry, cavalry or four-armed dudes. There’s some excellent ideas there but they have the posing and vague feel of an evil faction in a chunky 3rd party starter kit. More random outcroppings of bone than the interesting development of the broadly central Asian/Japanese/Roman aesthetic. A lot less subtlety and good design work than the Nighthaunt, for example. The characters and catapult are great though and the new Mortarch is perfection itself. I get why folks might not like the way he’s set up to be supervising the battlefield but I love it, it’s got more dynamism in the slight twist of his hips than any ‘charging forward’ model. He tells a story and develops a whole character with his pose and gear. Seriously though, google ‘Wayne Barlowe hell’ and you’ll see what I mean, in sculpting and painting he looks like he walked straight out of an illustration of a demon general or duke of hell.

These guys are like a Wayne Barlowe painting come to ‘life’.

No it wasn't, the four-issue trial was announced in February 2018 and we didn't see the full 40k range until August. Regardless, it's not hard to take a reasonable estimate at what the contents will be by looking at the ranges: Nighthaunt, probably ETB Reikenor the Grimhailer Knight of Shrouds Cairn Wraith Tomb Banshee Knight of Shrouds on steed, Guardian of Souls, Spirit Torment sprue 2 ETB Dreadblade Harrows 10 ETB Chainrasps Lord Executioner, 4 Grimghast, 5 Glaivewraiths sprue 4 ETB Glaivewraith Stalkers 4 ETB Myrmourne banshees Stormcast, probably Lord Arcanum and Knight Incantor sprue ETB Astreia Solbright 3 ETB Sequitors ETB Celestar ballista 3 ETB Liberators 3 ETB Retributors Vandus Hammerhand Some of the other stormcast Soul Wars sprues? Maybe some of the other contents of the old Thunder & Blood box? Maybe not, they're not terribly well arranged for splitting out A bunch of the single sprue SC heroes, e.g. the knight-heraldor, knight-questor, lord-ordinator There's other possible models, 40k Conquest spreads out two-sprue kits over two issues. Some of these (e.g. chainrasp) will almost certainly appear multiple times. Some of the other Nighthaunt kits are three-sprue though (e.g. Craven King, Lady Olynder, hexwraiths), suggesting they probably won't appear. There may also be some associated Death or Order models they could slip in as well as allies but hard to say what. And then some terrain and paint sets on top of this, maybe some sort of art book like the 40k Silver Templars one.

Pretty sure the 40k list didn't appear until quite a while after launch, certainly not until after their four-issue trial. This only went up this morning so you will likely be waiting a few months to see the list. That said, we can look at the 40k version and get an idea of the kinds of models they'll include. Most of the stormcast and nighthaunt ETB/starter set ranges will be reused for this. Probably some of the single-sprue characters as well.

£2.99 for 10 chainrasps and the ETB sequitors is ludicrous, I am sold. That's like a little over 10% of what the (overpriced, admittedly) retail box costs and vastly cheaper than ebaying them. Even when the cost bumps up to its regular, this is still a chance to get nighthaunt and SC stuff for incredibly good value. In fact if it's anything like the 40k one, we'll be seeing models like Lady Olynder and similar going for less than half price. I am absolutely onboard with picking up bits and pieces of nighthaunt as painting projects. EDIT: I mean damn, get issue 1 and 4 and you have a starter Warcry warband for about a tenner. EDIT: And hey, that looks like a unique Knight-Incantor!

Some sort of future Kurnothi thing? A ponytail or... literal tail

I don't think the necron comparison exactly works out (though some of the layered armour looks similar, as does the antique militarism, the relatively dispassionate feel and the talk of a tithe) but I would unironically agree with this in that so much of what makes Primaris marines distinct from old marines can be easily traced to concepts and approaches that GW developed for the stormcast.

Based on the aesthetic they're going with here, I'm not sure it would quite work. The serviceable kits are the tomb guard, necropolis knights/sepulchral stalkers and warsphinx/necrosphinx. All of them are pretty heavy on the obviously Egyptian look. There are hints of an Egyptian appearance in some of the art we've seen but not that much and what's there is blended with other influences. To my mind it's a bit like the Scourge Privateers and the Idoneth Deepkin. They're close and if GW had made a few slightly different choices when designing the Idoneth they'd sync closely but at the moment they don't really gel perfectly. For that matter, I'm not seeing much in the way of constructs in these previews... There's a focus on armoured skeletons but no animated statues or ushabti-things.

Look at those dudes, look at their helmets and gear. I can see Chinese, Mongolian, Roman and Egyptian influences going into a melting pot. Given the bones used for back ornamentation I think that scythe rumour engine is definitely for these dudes and not eldar/chaos. I am increasingly thinking the dude we saw in the previous video isn't the mortarch or the central character, more of a herald. The speaker is the masked general at the end. Possible units: - Catapult - Heavy cavalry on undead monsters (doesn't really look like a rhino skull but it's got horns and that one in the background looks like a terror bird) - sword and board infantry (armoured, hooked falchions, with a little pattern of bones on their skulls?) - spear infantry - commanders (swords and banners, possibly command unit for infantry or could be heroes) - Mortarch (masked, spear/staff and heavy shield; could be infantry or simply shown unmounted here) - the tomb-on-his-back dude from the previous video.

Love the Brian Froud energy in this thread and Vasshpit, the naturalistic colouration on those squigs looks great!

Oh I dunno, there's a suprising amount of former art historians working or GW and folks like Jes Goodwin and John Blanche have a real depth of knowledge. Amarna period art is probably the best known kind of Egyptian art in the mainstream anyway and was discussed a lot in 19th/early 20th c. artistic circles. Akhenaten is widely known (rightly or wrongly) as 'the first monotheist' and I can see someone emulating his replacement of polytheistic gods in Nagash usurping previous gods. Or as you say the designers could simply have been reaching for 'generic Egyptian' style, which in most people's minds is basically the motifs of Amarna art anyway. One thing I would note above all though is that GW and the design studio are really going out of their way not to make 'fantasy versions of X'. When Maxime Pastourel was talking about designing the Warcry warbands, he was emphatic that they didn't want to make a pastiche of any one culture but wanted instead to use motifs from multiple RL cultures to get a particular feel or atmosphere across. You've probably seen that image shared around (and linked here: https://i.redd.it/wgwsfh1c2tb31.png) of the Cypher Lords pointing out Chinese, Japanese, Roman and Egyptian aspects meant to convey a wealthy, cultured imperial feel. There's more depth there. More interest and room for designers to play around without it getting washed out quickly; I think of Jes Goodwin grumbling about folks mistaking the Ultramarines for space Romans when he made sure that they had the freedom to draw from the larger 'Classical' grab bag. There's also less risk of it being, to quote Jes Goodwin again, "culturally appropriative or just a bit naff". I think that's what we can expect from these new Death guys. Not Tomb Kings, not 'undead Mongols', but some new (and copyrightable) faction which draws from multiple cultures to make a defined AoS-specific thing, one which probably has overtones of ritual and antiquity and which may come off as vaguely 'Eastern-inflected'.

That's an interesting point. The artist who does these animated trailers has quite a distinctive and stylised approach, so much so that when they did the Genestealer Cults one I saw the vehicles and thought 'nah, that's just a weird stylised background thing' but then it turned out to accurately reflect a forthcoming model. Here, well, the silhouette matches two rumour engines. It's funny because this illustration/animation looks wonderful but is clearly hewing very close to the appearance of the models, unlike a lot of the early AoS art which also hewed close to the models but looked dull, cookie-cutter and lifeless (haha). I guess previewing and hinting at things is the purpose of this kind of trailer art.