sandlemad

Thinking about how the Warcry warbands would work in AoS, I was originally not too keen on it, thought it was more of its own (more interesting tbh) thing and one which would not really pass on to the tabletop. Minimal visual and themtic coherence compared to most of the other AoS forces, which its fair to say are pretty visually homogenous in a way that WHFB armies usually weren't by virtue of how they tunnel down into a particular old subfaction or focus on exploring a particular theme. Why not just have a core of Darkoath marauders, horsemen, skirmishers, archers, etc? But I was rereading Rob Sanders' Archaon novels and it struck me that they show a greater and weirder diversity of mortal forces in the chaos hordes than we ever saw on the tabletop. Eastern armoured pikemen, cannibal ogre-worshippers, mutated maggot-men with one mother, steppe horsemasters, a warrior-cult of mirrored knights. That's cool as heck and shows a lot of variation quite distinct from the traditional axes of mortal/beast/daemon or khorne/nurgle/tzeentch/slaanesh. It's the kind of encyclopedic listing off of different groups that you see in Herodotus when he's listing off the different backgrounds of Xerxes's forces or, to use a more recent and probably more appropriate example, like in GRR Martin's books where Jon Snow sees the different distinct tribes of wildlings. Could most of this variation be represented by, say, marauders with a variant paint scheme? Probably, rule-wise, but it does lead to a kind of smoothening out of the sheer amount of weirdness. If a new Chaos Hordes book consisted of Everchosen, Slaves to Darkness and Darkoath, the latter could be the opportunity to show the huge range of tribes and peoples that follow chaos in one way or another. Folks from all over the realms that have come to the Varanspire and then left again as part of the hordes of chaos, keeping their fighting styles. So you could have a core of 'generic' darkoath marauders, horsemen, characters to represent those tribes who maybe don't deviate from the mean so much and to establish a slightly more normal core. Then you have a small phalanx of heavily armoured breachers from Chamon, a band or two of crow-masked skirmishers from Ulgu, fanatic shock troops from Shyish... Lots of visual contrast and variety, nothing else quite like it in AoS, united with a common colour scheme or banner or warpaint or base style. All the chaotic (eh? eh?) variety of a barbarian horde under a stern-faced brute in black armour, bearing the sigil of the Everchosen. Like, if GW had spent the same amount of energy (as though this sort of thing can be easily transferred) developing a single battletome, there's no way it would ever have as much weird diversity and creativity as these 6-8 warbands. In a certain light it's like Warcry is an excuse to get 6-8 new boxes of unique marauders. Obviously it's not, GW is pushing this hard enough that they clearly want an AoS kill team but as a side effect that has the potential to make mortal undivided chaos more than muscleboys on parade, it's pretty cool. I think it's more meaningful than the simple and kind of halfassed way GW has incorporated the Shadespire warbands into the codices.

It's a problem, I agree. Maybe they could change the weapon options for the thralls? In the AoS rules they all just carry their namarti blades but they could have made a rules distinction between glaives, swords, and axes. Warcry looks like it has quite a bit of detail in the rules, it could be a way to diversify the choices.

Considering as well that he then jokes about being instantly converted to WAAAGHcry, it's definitely got no nastiness to it. That list of units looks pretty plausible. If it's real, I'm glad that the stormcast involvement is limited to the vanguard units, more thematically appropriate to the Eightpoints. Not 100% on the Akhelian though, feels a bit odd for their floaty magic to work in the heart of the Eightpoints and for them to be the only real (squigs don't count) cavalry in the game. You know, you could pick up a decent nighthaunt warband on ebay for not much more than £10, I think. Bits and pieces of soul wars, a few glaivewraiths and reapers. It's tempting.

If anyone hasn't already, you should listen to the latest Stormcast podcast. It's an interview with Maxime Pastourel where he discusses the ideas, background and concept work behind Warcry. Some of the rules too, vaguely. Lots of very interesting stuff, for example some broad thoughts about how these guys relate to the chaos gods and their more obvious followers (visually and culturally) and how the Eightpoints 'work' as a home of roving warbands, shanty towns, shrines and camps. In this case it's some thought on how all these different warbands from all over the realms, all feeling the call of Archaon, interact outside of combat in those tense neutral zones or temporary peaces, e.g. the Iron Golems make the most prized weapons,, the Untamed Beasts provide the meat, the Corvus Cabal act as spies, etc.

I'm looking forward to seeing how many weapon options we're actually getting with each warband and which bodies they fit to. The Necromunda kits come with a fair few spares, albeit rarely with quite the variety players really want. The 10-person Orlock box came with something like enough weapons for 20 dudes, though these by no means fit every model without some conversion.

So this is all incredible and there are so many inspired details to pick up on - the use of the cog-toothed Cawdor hoods is brilliant - but I want to note in particular how great the use of the term "The Weld" is. It somehow gives them a real grimy northern English industrial feel just from the sound of it.

Looking at some of the art in the video, looks like vanguard-hunters will be an option for stormcast (unsurprisingly) and grimghast reapers for nighthaunt.

Gotta be the Crow Boys. Fleet-footed shinobi in bird masks with brilliant weapons and excellent poses on every model. Their champion and the bird-person/shaman/avatar are the standouts but they're all wonderful.

You know now that you mention it it kind of makes the start kit matchup seem off. True, you have the metal vs flesh but they’re both warbands of big burly dudes. Matching up one or the other with the Crow Boys or the Unmade would be an interesting contrast between that big burly look and a very different spindly sort of aesthetic.

It's distressing, no infantry unit should cost £50 for a minium unit of five models, especially when they're old human-sized monopose sculpts. Particularly when they are a fairly basic skaven that die like flies. I get what people are saying about them formerly being an elite unit in WHFB but even if they stayed in that role and weren't shifted to battleline, that's still an ludicrous price. That's Sisters of Battle cost but for a 60 point unit. There's a reason there are so many folks converting these guys and I'd recommend that you do the same. Frankly you shouldn't have to for a battleline unit but there it is. Is there any other unit that's got as extreme a monetary cost/points cost ratio? I mean there's some price changes which can be grudgingly put up with in an already insanely expensive hobby but this is a joke.

Whoa. The designers have clearly been taking a big sip from the well of John Blanche's sketchbooks. The others I'm a little indifferent on but the AoS28 folks are going to have a field day with the champion. You know, they are more Slaaneshi than the other warbands in their focus on inflicting agony (though I think you could make a case for a Khornate implementation of them at the very least) but they're broader than that in their visual identity. Unlike the main GW Slaanesh models, they're not refined, they don't have lots of swish fabrics or jewels, they don't have curved weapons or spines, they don't have that Hellenic flavour (except maybe the sandals). They're malnourished-looking post-apocalyptic wretches with crude spiky weapons of iron and wood. The masks and that roughly hammered armour are pretty distinctive. That spiked halo motif is repeated on half the models, makes me think of Darkest Dungeon. They're something at least a bit fresh, to GW at least. Also I'd suspect that the old flayed face rumour engine image is on the back of the champion's kilt.

This feels like Darkoath. Killing the kings of the weak lands and keeping their heads as a barbaric trophy is their jam. Most Destruction factions probably wouldn't care quite as much. Certainly any new ogres would have something a bit meatier and more obviously part of their larder. Warcry is a possibility but having the heads of multiple monarchs and then leading a warband of less than a dozen dudes feels a bit incongruous. Unless it's a Varanguard adjudicator of some kind?

It's not clear - $20 or possibly £20 was apparently mentioned at the Grand Clash - but we can expect it to be cheap. Word from the underworlds FB community is that a Q&A confirmed that this is only going to be released in the US and Germany, though presumably it'd be easy enough to import online. Some folks are saying that it'll be a Barnes & Noble exclusive but that could well be rumour reverb. Note as well the original preview said that "while both warbands will initially be exclusive to the set, we should see them available separately in the not too distant future" and apparently the Q&A confirmed that while the Dreadfane rules are streamlined, the ploy/objective/etc cards are all compatible with regular Underworlds.

Bear in mind everything that’s been said about this being a game targeted at ‘non-GW’ customers in bookshops and other locations outside of the usual GW/game stores. It’s not meant to be a replacement for the existing starter or even targeted at people who are already playing Underworlds, it’s closer to the Conquest magazine or 40k’s first strike. As an Underworlds player I’m going to get it because I need another board and like the banshee models - and also as an affordable gift for folks who aren’t into the game already - but it’s not meant to be a new starter and doesn’t come in lieu of the eventual season 3 stuff.

Partially - £20 has been mentioned as a price, not sure how reliably - but also a potted version of Underworlds that can be sold outside of the usual GW/LGS avenues, in bookshops and nerd cruft stores and the like.

From GerManticore on facebook, the back of the Dreadfane box: https://www.facebook.com/GerManticore/photos/a.1321991021263613/2125636407565733/?type=3&theater It mentions a 'dreadfane.com' but this currently links to nadda. Release data soon, hopefully?

Shyish. A land saturated by the power of death that (until recently) wasn’t notably worse in a lot of ways than most other realms. Settlements, cultures, ecosystems, the lot. The afterlife stuff was fun too, played around with an uncanny blend of ‘this is where souls go’ and ‘this is an actual place you could theoretically take a Kharadron airship to’.

Never to this extent and with something of a hiatus on having lower cost options around 7th/8th edition WHFB (rules that incentivised large units, no real effort at skirmish-level gaming), to their detriment. Gouge might be a slightly more evocative term than the discussion warrants, however accurate, so let's say instead that with the increased variety of low(er) cost ways into the hobby that GW has released in the last three years, they may have felt that the market could bear an increase on these other kits.

I realise it's basically an annual thing but could this be the other side of the coin to all these efforts GW has been making to allow for varying costs of entry? Start Collecting, Conquest, First Strike & Storm Strike, Kill Team, Shadespire, now Warcry are all there, so why not twist the knife on these other kits once you've reeled the customer in?

That soulscryer is cool. Gossamer robes are an underrated sartorial style for men.

In b4 folks fixate on the word 'illuminate' as a clear and unambiguous sign that this is from Teclis's Hyshian Elves (elves seems pretty plausible in fairness)

Interesting, looks like it could be the lower blade of a fairly symmetrical double-edged sword or perhaps big spearhead. The attached gubblins do match those on the ironjaws blades and some of the ogre ones but can't really think of any weapons that fits that exact profile.

Exactly, this is the most attention mercenaries have got in fifteen years. Even aside from that context, there's tons of precedent in the background for forces from one grand alliance including detachments from another.

Hell, even putting the warsphinx/king's warsphinx aside, they could probably get more individual warscrolls out of the necrosphinx. Change the role and rules based on, say, if it has a skull face or not, or if it has its wings. Wouldn't be much more than they've done with the araknarok. Throw in another scroll for an warsphinx without it's howdah and you're up to five "separate units". Then two for tomb guard, two for snakes, a hero or two. That's already comparable scroll diversity to fyreslayers or flesh-eaters, and rather better model diversity, even before you add new units.

Never came across before thanks for bringing it up. Fascinating stuff, very interesting to think with in general, would be an absolute disaster implemented here. To return to Warcry, what I really like is not just how the warbands have an identity and aesthetic distinct from the four powers, but also how each could be interestingly adapted to a particular god. Corvus Cabal Tzeentch: most obvious, the Raven God, seeking to emulate birds as observers of all, in the air (a changeable element), gatherers of knowledge; also they're literally called a cabal! Slaanesh: the joy of demonstrating skill through elegant stealth takedowns, striving towards avian perfection Khorne: the blood gods care not from whence the blood flows, and if that's from slitting the throats of those left for the crows... the God of Battle's End Nurgle: the crow as bringer of disease, the knife bringing a slow decay from a festering wound; the Crow God Iron Golems Tzeentch: the arcane wisdom of the fire (He Whose Voice Is The Flame), the changeability of ore into flowing metal, the craft of magic weapons Slaanesh: avarice, greedily taking metal from the earth and forging it into exquisite weapons, perfectly crafted to be sold at a high price; maybe go full on Greasus Goldtooth and have elements of gold in the armour? Khorne: fire, forges, strength: all classically Khornate, linking with the blacksmith stuff in the daemons/Bloodbound Nurgle: making good use of the things left behind... the rust in the soul but taking what others scorn reforging it into something of use; the unfeeling strength of armour as a metaphor for the uncaring endurance in the Grandfather's name. Also singing while you work! Nurgle as the Jolly Foreman Splintered Fang Tzeentch: the aesthetic of scalemail and such is vaguely Tzeentchian; scholar-warriors with a deep interest in alchemy and thus poisons Slaanesh: sibilant sensuous serpents; the exquisite agony of good drugs and drawing out a foe's death with just the right poison; the Lord of Serpents Khorne: there's room for a mode of worship of the god of war who appreciates the cunning murder, maybe even blurring Khaine and Khorne considering the presence of a chaos elf; or gladiators, always a solidly Khornate approach Nurgle: the Grandfather can have subtle poisons that rot a man from the inside out but also they're from Ghyran and could shine as examples of the twisted new life that has grown from His influence Untamed Beasts Tzeentch: there's probably something there about consuming/transmigrating the souls of the great beasts, of embracing a changeable nomadic lifestyle that's even less constrained by rules than most of their fellows, of interpreting the Changer's wisdom through the wind in the long grass or the patterns in the clouds or in the organs of the beasts you slay Slaanesh: the thrill of the hunt (see House Devine in 30k) but also that fur, those rippling pecs, the opulence of an oiled warlord slumped on a throne in an incense-filled yurt, feasting on the most exquisite meats and wearing the rarest and most dazzling furs Khorne: he likes skulls, he probably likes bigger skulls from predatory monsters even more. Slay the beasts, eat their flesh, grow strong, kill more for the God of the Bloody Feast Nurgle: it's the ciiiiircle of liiiiiife I'm excited to see the other warbands.