sandlemad

More or less just ogres that have been cursed not to be able to enjoy food or sate their hunger but in practice they do seem to mutate and degenerate, getting long lanky arms, distendable jaws and so forth. In WHFB, it was in part because they were often exposed to warpstone in the caverns and tunnels under the mountains but there isn’t really anything about that in AoS. So yeah, bigger and weirder but no real reason why.

While I love to see the gorgers, I really do, probably one of the most needed refreshes in all AoS… Ironjaws won this one hands down. We prob should’ve anticipated a dual kit for the weirdbrute/ragers and it works, both look good. Will be interesting to see how they’re differentiated ruleswise. Ardboys are the star though, fantastic sculpts. I still want to see a size comparison with brutes but tbh my concerns about a meaningful visual difference have been pretty much put to rest. Lockstep spears and shields go a good way towards keeping their disciplined background. Otherwise, well, Trugg is no Throgg (Throgg, my beloved) but a fine sculpt, almost like a big friendly Finnish woodland monster. Vampires are great, love the flouncy romantic shirts on the thralls, a gang of poets hypnotised onto the blood bowl pitch. Marines are marines and when the whole release is effectively upscaled old minis, it makes it even more boring than usual. Fulgrim is a real surprise, amazing mini if a sign of release weirdness, but already has EC players tearing their hair out and proclaiming that their faction is being squatted in 40k. Some really good stuff here though. I wonder who the Warcry Kruleboys will be paired with.

Tbh we could be waiting a while. It was about half a year before the respective Indomitus-unique bits were released, meaning there was no easy way to get skorpekh lords, that executioner chaplain, etc for quite some time. Could be the same with the unique tyranids.

Oof that is shockingly sloppy. I know of a case where a whole run of Discworld books were relegated to free conference giveaways because of a similar spine typo. For BL/GW to actually put them out for distribution, passing however many sets of eyes in editorial, marketing, sales… that’s wild.

These are an interesting case because they were effectively just nighthaunt CAD assets repurposed - quite well - as an endless spell. To many mind that suggests a lack of that thought process re: future direction. That said, completely agree that having some hunched leering ghouls perched atop horrible zombie steeds would be cool. imo it’d be a better alternative to the current approach to delusional noble knights, where the crypt flayers have awkwardly deluded themselves into being both rider and steed.

Yeah, theoretically base size, overall mini size and I guess masks should go a good way towards distinguishing them. It’s the kind of thing that’s quite hard to gauge from a hero version of the ardboys, in fairness. I do think that ‘the ironjawz look’ isn’t an excuse for having identikit minis, even accepting that the different armour textures between old ardboys and the rest weren’t to everyone’s tastes. An army’s aesthetic should have enough room to allow some variation, e.g. arkanaut crew and grundstok thunderers are both kharadron infantry but are not clones, and are sufficiently distinguished by ornateness as well as gear. More generally I hope that the ardboys being relatively disciplined spit-and-polish try-hard types is retained in some capacity. It was fun with 40k ork kommandos, it’s fun here.

…the lack of an apostrophe and contraction for ‘Ardboys really changes things, doesn’t it.

Yeah cool mini but… he does look a lot like a brute. There’s some mention about discipline in the article text but I’m interested in seeing the line ardboys to see how that goes in miniature terms. If they’re trying to align their armour style to the wider ironjaws beaten-metal aesthetic, cool, but I hope they do actually keep some meaningful distinction (in both looks and background) so it’s not just “brutes” and “brutes with masks”. Would certainly be interested in seeing a size comparison.

Tbh I think this - the strength of the Gork/Mork thematic binary - is more of an argument against Bonesplitters. Leaves them a distinct third wheel. "Here's your Gork faction of orks, here's your Mork faction of orks." "What about Bonesplitters?" "Oh yeah, they're... also around."

Ah, missed Whitefang’s reaction, fair enough.

I'd be very cautious about looking at a single mini from a WHU release from 3 years ago and going to "ah, that must be what the weirdbrutes reference from another rumour is". It could line up, I think it'd be aesthetically cool, but it's far from confirmed.

With drummer and standard bearer too. Looks like two weapon options: halberds/great axes, or regular swords with the occasional meat-hook in the off hand/claw. Though it also looks like there’s a few flaming torches in the kit. Wonder what’s up with them.

There’s something quite charming about the gore-gruntas to my eyes. They look like big muppets/Jim Henson creations. Like something you’d see snorting through the background in Labyrinth or the Dark Crystal, or maybe the Neverending Story. Big and rubberised and not that naturalistic, not that many points of articulation. Oversized heads and cartoony teeth. I like them but I can’t deny that they’re technically inferior to stuff like the maw-grunta and many other more recent minis, with their thick fur and broad stretched detail.

I have a good bit of admiration for him doubling down on the ‘two thin coats’ catchphrase, and particularly for using it on a a niche painting product. Good man Duncan.

With a name like Weirdbrute Wrekkas, what I’m hoping for is brutes who the power of the waaaagh has made go full super-saiyan. Stripped of their armour to the waist, glowing eyes, flame-wreathed fists that can punch through a fortification. No need for siege weapons, just get these muscle-wizards riled up and have them brute force their way through in classic ironjaws fashion.

That’s not a brute on top though, that’s a boss or nob of some sort. Everything about the dudes on the sides - armour, pose, weapons, scaling - is almost identical to the brutes kit, with the exception of having full-face helms. They’re quite distinct from the existing ardboys and hardly different at all from the existing brutes.

Sylvaneth are in a pretty decent place, aren’t they? They look to have a pretty robust and diverse range: 3 distinct types of infantry, flying archers, ogre-sized elites, 2 cavalry variants, a monster, 5 heroes (actually less than some other factions tbh) and 3 named characters. A kurnothi unit or two could be cool but while the range isn’t StD/vampires-equivalent in size (or as bloated and redundant as the stormcast range), it’s certainly one of the better served in AoS.

REIGN OF BRUTE is a truly incredible name

Oh man, The Thing(s) In The Woods pulling Mother Ostankya’s sled, now that’s a deep Mordheim cut . Go TW team.

The designers and sculptors do like to pay attention to this kind of symbolism. Be’lakor for example has the dying chaos warrior on his base to indicate his role as the prince that’s bitterly opposed to the intentions of the rest of chaos. Could see something similar being done for Ushoran, perhaps.

Interestingly there appears to be some slight continuity with the WHFB empire range. Check out the puff-and-slash around the gunner's jerkins. Makes me feel that with the right scheme, minis like the general on griffon and the steam tank commander could be tied in well.

I kind of like the idea that the response was "You want elite humans? They're called dwarfs."

I mean Nova's at the end of the month and pre-orders were going to be well before that, so if GW really intended to build a preview around minis that a lot of people would already have seen in their battletomes a week or two before, then I can't say I'm too sympathetic.

I don’t think these are bad minis but they are so ridiculously swole that they veer into a different sort of comical. You’ll have your steelhelms, your cavaliers, and then these ridiculously roided up gymrats whipping themselves and leaping into the fray.

“Pontifex Zenestra is the Matriarch of the Great Wheel, one of the many Cults Unberogen who worship aspects of the God-King Sigmar. Allegedly a great-grandmother at the dawn of the Age of Sigmar, she brooks no questions about the accompanying skeleton whose scars mirror her own.“ Alright now this is a fun mystery.