sandlemad

That’s so good. With the cloak and the banner and the horse’s hair, you can almost feel the cold wind. Just a wonderfully evocative pose. Similar to the Nurgle harbinger in how understated it is.

I was wondering that myself... The legs seemed different at first glance but now I'm not sure. What makes the idea that this is a unit more convincing to me is the fact that there are so many options, tbh. 3 different heads, 2 different weapon heads, 2 distinct sets of pauldron spikes, 2 distinct tilting shields (which actually might be oversized ornamental Dawnbringer coins?!). GW hasn't done a character with that many options in years. I think it's a unit with a range of options and the two shown here use the same core body piece.

Looks like these Arch-Knights are some sort of elite then. Not ogres but cool! The pontifex is interesting, looks like there's one special character and maybe a generic version, a sort of update to the old Bretonnian Grail Reliquae? Also I don't think anyone was expecting this release to be quite so heavy on characters Marshal Grand Herald Alchemite Warforger Soul Shepherd War Surgeon Whisperblade That's not a bad thing, mind, given we also have a wide suite of distinct units as well, but I'd expected for there only to be the Marshal, Warforger, and maybe a banner bearer. These are all very cool, characterful sculpts. Also it's only just struck me but beyond Mordheim, Terry Pratchett, and the works of Hieronymous Bosch, the really strong influence here is Darkest Dungeon. All these characters could be straight out of those games.

Tbh it sounds like the kind of thing that's really easy for someone on 4chan or a random discord to just make up. Particularly given we already know about GW's crippling supply and logistical issues.

Agreed, “generic battleline” is the operative term. The Rotmire Creed felt like a way to add a marauder-ish infantry unit to Maggotkin. Not sure Khorne or Tzeentch needed ‘filling out’ exactly for infantry but certainly the kruleboyz and CoS warband offer options that aren’t basic spearmen. Askurgan Trueblades might not be battleline but they did provide a long wished-for vampire infantry unit. Would be interesting to see what and Ossiarch warband would look like. They’re so regimented that it’s kind of hard to imagine…. An emissary retinue could be interesting but then they did that for WHU and it was regular Mortek guard. Maybe something feral and berzerkerish, building on the Ghurish beast-bone concept?

Yep, pretty sure that’s 6th ed Beasts of Chaos art. The Bretonnian helm is a giveaway. Still looks dope.

That ridged armour doesn’t look like anything I can recall from the rest of the kroot range. Otherwise a krootox has been suggested elsewhere.

Arguably it’s kind of a continuity with the WHFB Empire, which had very strong links with the dwarves and was much more heavily influenced by dwarven culture than by that of the elves. Boosting that with more shared cultural touchstones has potential.

Agreed with @Marcvs and @JackStreicher here. I would be very cautious about personalising corporate marketing strategies or making reactions to them solely about ‘the poor designers’. Particularly when there’s a pretty sizeable stable of those designers (and authors, rules writers, staff, painters, and social media folks) who are pretty open about how badly GW treated them. Nothing GW does is out of the goodness of their heart and I’m confident the overwhelming majority of people working for them (now or in the past) are not as wrapped up in the constructed magic of the reveal and the hype machine as GW fans. It’s just marketing, at the end of the day.

Same. Night Runners and Gutter Runners are both stealthy skirmishers, just one's simple chaff that comes in big units and the other's slightly more elite and comes in small units. They're both just points on the same clan Eshin advancement track so no harm in lumping them together or something. Monks and Censer Bearers are meaningfully different in the background though, with one being line infantry and the other being skirmisher suicide-troops with very distinctive weapons and an AoE effect. Honestly, they're more distinct than any two Fyreslayers units, for example. I could maybe see them being folded into the plague monks unit as a weapon upgrade - like the bonesplittas big stabba - but tbh they serve a purpose and make the Pestilens line relatively fleshed out: hero, big hero platform, line infantry, skirmishers, artillery. Sorry to rag on poor old Fyreslayers again but that's already more meaningfully diverse than their range. Separately, on the point about AoS designers drawing from the deep well of old skaven designs, I think it's already happened. The design for the Warlock Bombardier owes a good bit to this old bit of art from the Skaven heraldry book. As far as I know, the doom rocket never got a sculpt and was just a weapons option for warlocks, so it appears that some design digging takes place.

Or indeed a sort of pseudo-replacement or reimagining, in that tyranid vein. Maybe night runners and gutter runners merge, or night runners stay as infantry while gutter runners become a minor hero (or group of heroes, like the old Eshin Triad). Maybe Skyre Acolytes become a fully-fledged infantry unit while the old Poison Wind Bombardier role is adopted by a new variant Warlock-Engineer. Skaven are in an interesting position as clans Moulder, Eshin and Pestilens all received their own WD/supplement army lists at some point in WHFB, which makes for a pretty deep well of old unit concepts that could be drawn upon: stuff like the burrowing behemoths for Moulder or stealth-sorcerors for Eshin. Any of those could be pulled on and reworked for new-ish unit ideas. So too could the FW brood-horror, just as the FW dimachaeron was reimagined in the form of the tyranids' Norn Emissary.

This lad, 6th ed. dwarf lord, shortly after release. Chunky fella. I painted the metal helmet crest as feather and the samurai mask as, well, flesh. Didn't look great but still have a lot of fondness for the mini.

The basic ogres, i.e. gluttons, iron gut and leadbelchers, are solid classic sculpts, fun details, shoulder joints that surpass many more recent versions… but yes, they’re not terribly dynamic for AoS and suffer from a lot of very similar faces. It would be good to have at least the gluttons and ironguts replaced (the leadbelchers’ standard poses hold up better given their role) but that’s nowhere near as needed as replacements for the metal/finecast gorger, yhetees and butcher. Sabretusks too, to a lesser extent. Those are critical, maybe some of the most needed replacements in all AoS.

How cool would it be if the ghoul standing on the statue (whether Ushoran or an Abhorrant or whatever) also had a beard, and this statue was how he looked before gradually turning into a horrible monster? Like an Ozymandias atop his own shattered visage?

Separate to the rules discussion but none of the nostalgia was working for me until I saw the classic old studio dwarf hold terrain in this image. All the way back from 2000 and still looks gorgeous, just like I saw in WD as a kid. The door is like a Book of Kells page and is represents an aspect of dwarf aesthetics that diminished after 7th ed.

That TOW piece does give a bit of high level info on how it’ll differ from 8th ed. The magic being split across phases is close to current 40k, for example, though they don’t explicitly call that out.

More recent Warcry warbands do seem to have much more of a place in the AoS range than the older StD ones. The Rotmire Creed seem fairly well regarded by Maggotkin players, as do Hunter of Huanchi for lizards. The Askurgan vampires, the Khorne hunters and the Jade Obelisk for Tzeentch maybe less so but they don’t seem to be unplayable, certainly not to the “just take marauders” level of the early warbands.

These are fun! Quite low key really. A good array of pretty distinct alt-builds in the video too, looks like more boar spears and blades. Very Mordheim too! Check out the weird little Boschian/Blanchian thingy at the feet of the rightmost dude. Looks like there’s something with a bird skull for a head too in the video.

They’re from the AoS 2nd ed rulebook. There’s no descriptions or details on roles (wizard, noble, priest, warrior, whatever) but they’re mean to be illustrations of a dude from Shyish, from Chamon, or from Ghyran.

“The Summer King” is such a good title for a horrific undead monstrosity.

Yeah, this is very much my feeling. Might be a slightly different story when it comes to e.g. chaos warrior sculpts but I’m hesitant to put big speculation on a random photo in very early WHC marketing material. RE: the new Callis & Toll story, I like the addition of some political awkwardness around Hammerhal Aqshy launching a crusade. Also how First Marshal Vedra is framed as figure of fear. Given that her own rise was accompanied by purges of the Conclave, sounds about right…

To clarify, do we actually know that the old resin/metal 7th ed. treeman is set to return? It was shown in a photo, yes, but given that the current plastic treelord/treeman was an 8th WHFB release… Was it confirmed somewhere in a social media post or something?

It’s tricky, it’s only associated with the SCE that came out through Dominion. Not all Kruleboys have this kind of base detail but some outside of the Dominion release do. That said, I agree that this level of basing could indicate WHU and shouldn’t necessarily be tied just to a mainline AoS Kruleboys release.

The Kruleboys’ cross-clan, role-specific ‘tribes’ are actually surprisingly well laid out, though they’d certainly be a good way to expand the range. Beast-breakaz: boss on mirebrute, Warcry monsta-killaz Git-snatchaz: boss on mirebrute, sloggoth with goblin crew, WHU snatcha crew Feels like any gnashtoof cavalry- which really do feel like the obvious addition to the range, thematically and for improving the playability - would be the perfect addition for the Beast-breakaz. Some sort of hunting pack would be good too. Tbh the snarlfang riders would have been a solid addition, all the more so if they had been hobgrots, but oh well. I quite like the hobgrots as a mercenary element in the kruleboys list though, they broaden the background and it’s nice to see this kind of multi-race cooperation… even if it’s just because both are sneaky gits.

I think this is the point. I agree with the sentiment and would have been completely cool with a Necromunda/Mordheim-style all or mostly random chaos goons approach. But a lot of people around the time of the launch disagreed strongly and wanted something more like contemporary Kill Team, where every faction was represented. On the original point, I don’t think @novakai is ‘generating a narrative’ so much as recognising a perceived issue with early Warcry in the community. I observed folks having the same issue with the game, even if it wasn’t my feelings on the matter.