sandlemad
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Posts posted by sandlemad
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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.
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Love the Brian Froud energy in this thread and Vasshpit, the naturalistic colouration on those squigs looks great!
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1 hour ago, Goddin said:
I think you give too much credit to the designers =). I think they just wanted Egyptian-looking symbols, and omitted the Aton for space on a miniature. If I were to give the designers more credit than I think they are due, I would say because the Aton was a god and this character will be a servant of Nagash, who does not allow his servants to worship anyone else.... so take the aesthetic without all the meaning behind it.
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'.
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58 minutes ago, Fairbanks said:
It’s funny, but those candles in the vid line up exactly with the rumor engine photo. Looks like the back.
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.
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14 minutes ago, madmac said:
Yeah I think this pretty conclusively kills "Tomb Khans" in favor of this being a true remake of Tomb Kings. Which is perfectly ok with me.
I mean the way rumours work, this hinges on the knowledge or understanding of who saw them. 'Mongolian' could have referred to a vague Central Asian aesthetic, even just pointy helms and lamellar armour or something, rather than a full horseback skeleton army. Dude is wearing that, maybe he's carrying a bow or sabre, 'I guess he's Mongolian?' Same with the music, the fact that I saw it described variously as Irish, eastern European, Chinese, Middle Eastern shows that we're dealing with (i) some broad fantasy aesthetics being hinted at and (ii) folks not really grokking what they're looking at
I am reminded of the way the original Sanuinary Guard were accurately described ages before release with the exception that their (elegant, handguarded) swords were referred to as 'rapiers'. In this case the dude who saw them simply didn't know how to describe fancy swords and went with the term he knew. Spot on about the rest but everyone was confused about the idea of space marines with slender duelling swords.
To return to the dude in the video though, what is that exactly on his back? It could match something from that one slate-with-candles rumour engine but it looks almost more like an overhanging awning or something.
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This is indeed new death then.
Look at the general/emperor's staff or banner thing. That very much look like it has two heads hanging from it, just like the rumour engine, right down to what could be a silhouette of the crowns. Maybe the more recent stormcast helm could hang from his robes.
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6 hours ago, KriticalKhan said:
That's word-for-word the 4chan post that got linked a few pages back. And that 4chan post was just everything that people have already been theorizing wrapped up in a nice little package with a 'leak' tag slapped on to get peoples attention. Throw in some disappointing stuff to keep it "realistic", nad you've got an unsubstantiated, uncredited rumor from a site known for making things up that gets spread around for no good reason, and now it's been picked up by someone 'legit', so even more people will believe it.
Indeed, making this stuff up and making is seem plausible is the easiest thing in the world. My suspicion is that while you probably do occasionally get someone posting a genuine bit of news on 4chan... it's 4chan. Of course there's going to be fabrications.
Case in point, this set of 'rumours' is being circulated:
I think it's fair to say that this is pretty obviously made up of everything plausible which folks already speculate about, with a few disappointing elements lumped in, e.g. the highly unlikely case of Seraphon, the first WHFB army to get rebooted for AoS almost in its entirety, with a substantial plastic range which apparently sold well in WHFB and still does in AoS, being squatted.
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That’s not new art, pretty sure I’ve seen it in the original Bloodbound battletome. Doesn’t look like a novel or even a draft novel cover.
I’m thinking fan supplement, nothing more.
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I question the idea that GW is simply going to cut all finecast models as a matter of course. We have the Free Peoples cull but then we also have two releases this year which kept quite a few finecast models, e.g. a lot of the skaven range, a fair few Gloomspite models. Even in cases where existing finecast models have been replaced with plastic, like the Khorne daemon heroes or the Gloomspite Looncurse boss on squig, we still have multiple other finecast models in those ranges.
For StD I'd agree that the chosen are likely to go - the models were never that popular anyway, I think, folks seem to go with slightly converted/upgraded warriors - and that there's a lot of overlap between characters. The mounted lord though, eh. It's a distinctive model and a popular one for Golden Demon, etc. Certainly it has less crossover with other chaos heroes than, for example, the old Skarsnik/Loonboss & squig model has with the loonboss on giant squig or the loonboss on mangler squigs.
RE: yhetees, I can think of at least two AoS-era art pieces depicting them, in their battletome. That's not a guarantee of their getting new models but it's more than other culled models got. I'd also note that the situation of an AoS book made up of pre-AoS models getting a new version/getting combined into a larger one has happened before with Sylvaneth and they didn't lose their finecast model.
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55 minutes ago, silverstu said:
You might get a new hunter model through BeastGrave - Hastings mentioned an Ogre Hunter as a possible war band [although his list missed BoC and Wanderers turned out to be Kurnothi]. Still possible and what I'd hope GW would use Underworlds fro -to expand ranges.
That would work extremely well. A hunter and two sabretusks/hunting animals on two sprues. It would be about the same 'mass' of plastic as the other warbands and would offer some interesting command-based stuff for Underworlds along with potential harpoon crossbow tricks and a suitably wild/bestial/Ghur-ish focus. Then it gets released without the cards a month or two later as a kit for the Mawtribes. Boom, two resin SKUs replaced with a single multi-system plastic kit.Might be too sensible though...
4 hours ago, Kyriakin said:Yea, I quite like the Hunter too.
I know HeyWoah gives him a bit of stick by calling him the "gingerbread man" - due to his slightly unnatural arm position - but there are far worse sculpts out there
He was the model that first sold me on the Ogre Kingdoms when I saw a blurry cameraphone photo when they were being released. I agree about the pose, I've cooled on it a bit, but the central conceit and a lot of the details are great.
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12 minutes ago, Double Misfire said:
With all this talk about how glad we'd be to see the finecast ogre stuff at the awful end of the spectrum disappear forever, would anyone else be as me if the Maneater models got retired? 😢
The maneaters are special because (quite apart from being great sculpts and emblematic of a kind of light-hearted character and humour that was disappearing from GW even at the time of their release) I can’t imagine how you’d reasonably emulate them properly in a plastic kit. Half a dozen very distinct big infantry models (and associated unique gnoblars!) with basically no crossover, each unique and clearly a case of the sculptors letting loose and having fun.
By that same token though, it’s half a dozen resin ogres for one unit, ogres which no one is really going to want to buy more than one of, so I can see why GW would not look upon them fondly from a limited stock rationalisation POV.
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I’d be sorry to see some of the units go but it would purely be from a thematic and variation basis. The yhetees and gorgers really are some of the ugliest models around. They were early 90s-looking when they were released. I’d like to see new yhetees but i’m not holding my breath. Gorgers on the other hand don’t really feel like they offer as much when pulled out of the WHFB context of the mountains of mourne.
And for the sabretusks, all they need to do is release the fenrisian wolves kit in AoS packaging and call the warscroll “Frostsnarl Lopers” or whatever garbage name they go with. Hardly anyone uses the cat models as cats because they’re ugly and ludicrously expensive for what they are. Just go with existing plastics and make a note in the background that “some hunters are accompanied by great tusked mountain cats while others tame silent-running wolves” to leave it obviously open to existing players.
The butcher also really needs an update but the hunter, the fire belly, and the man eaters are all excellent models.
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As expected, a focus on the boxed games. That's minimum two rumour engines solved, the Kurnothi hunting horn and the ungor spear.
I like the variation in ungor body types, some have pot bellies, some are buff. The Kurnothi are interesting, though it's hard for me to look at their legs/poses and not find them a little wonky. Wild Hunt themed elves (or elvish creatures) feel like they have some room to grow. I suppose they could carry over the old Wild Riders but as bsharitt said, there's no gurantee considering previous examples (gyrocopters/kharadron, scourge privateers/idoneth, slayers/fyreslayers).
More importantly though, how about those Blood Bowl lizardmen. The saurus are wearing mouthguards! And look how cute the skinks are!
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Beastgrave and Warcry seem pretty plausible for GenCon, more so than AoS. Their focus last year was on licensed games and the non-core stuff, namely Lord of the Rings and Adeptus Titanicus.
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That looks pretty Hyshite, the candles make it like the old empire light wizards and the rays make it seem like the Cypher Lords' headdresses. I think this could plausibly be associated with Light Elves.
Anyone want to have a crack at the runes? I see three elven looking runes, I start thinking Tyrion, Teclis and Hysh itself, though I can't quite get them to match any existing high elf examples even as closely as the Idoneth rune matches nastirr.
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The similarity in style certainly isn't an indicator that it's one of the katophranes, just that it's exactly the same kind of icon/visual element as was used for both Shadespire and Nightvault. I would be very surprised if this isn't what we'll see on the cover of the Beastgrave rulebook or on the generic Beastgrave cards. It's not an ogre and it's probably not a new army.
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Dang that tyrant is brilliant. A colossal spear! Proportionate tusks on the gutplate! The old metal tyrant is still an incredible model but this guy rules. I'm digging out my ogres, that's it
But do you know what's best about all this? "The Mawtribes hunger." Mawtribes. A new faction name. "Gutbusters" was hands down the stupidest name GW has ever come up with for anything. Whether Mawtribes is the replacement name or the term for an overarching Beastclaw/regular ogres battletome, anything which minimises Gutbusters as a term is genuinely more than I hoped for.
And yes, I can easily see 'The Feast of Bones' being a battle between ogres (tyrant and then some combination of bulls, leadbelchers and the ironblaster/scraplauncher) vs... legions of Nagash, maybe, with some sort of new hero? There are a handful of bony rumour engines still to be solved.
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Warcry isn’t a boxed or specialist game though and GW has already committed to 8 new plastic kits minimum. It’s kill team, only more so.
re: allocating resources, I know a lot of people who have zero interest in AoS as a mass battle game and who couldn’t give two figs about a random new battletome but who are going in on Warcry. Sometimes that’s because of game size, sometimes because of the models and background.
Really, anyone can make an argument based on ‘why didn’t they just’. I would’ve rathered they squatted beastmen and put the development effort into something interesting rather than a battletome which does nothing other factions don’t do in a more compelling fashion, but clearly they have some appeal.
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The early modern HRE look of the old Empire range is unique and offers a good contrast with the rest of the high fantasy AoS range. The honest infantrymen with halberds propped against whatever comes against their city-state. I'm glad they stuck with that rather than churning out some generic fantasy humans.
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holy moly cities or sigmar and a merged bonesplitters/ironjawz out of left field. And keeping that good good landsknecht look! Faith, steel and gunpowder against the worst monsters a high fantasy world can set against them.
3 minutes ago, Riddles said:Curse those who hyped up ogor battletome
A plausible scenario is that there could be an ogre vs whoever battlebox with a battletome further down the line (and not previewed here). As was the case with almost every battlebox.
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The agony is real. I want to see those damn ogres.
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That's a big boy. Christ I hope it's a plastic tyrant.
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You know, this might stop the (entirely justified) disappointment some event-goers have had where they find out about the new stuff on their phones while standing in the queues for the actual events...
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1 hour ago, Infeston said:
But now, as some time has passed, I have the feeling that "Meeting Engagements" was just some initial hype. Some YouTube Channels have gone back to posting only about 2000 points games and also most of the posts in forums or on reddit have also gone back to 2000 point games. The last time something was posted in the "Meeting Engagements" - Thread on TGA was July 12. Normally if a format is relevant there are frequent posts about it.
Maybe this is just a personal feeling based on my limited perception and maybe my opinion is totally subjective, but this is why I wanted to post about this.
Was "Meeting Engagements" just an initial hype and people will push 2000 points battles more and more or is this just my subjective opinion?
I feel like the caveat here is that it's only been a month since the GHB2 was released. I don't think much inference can be reasonably drawn from activity or inactivity of threads or channels over such a short time, particularly in the summer. It's also worth remembering that these avenues of discussion represent a pretty small proportion of the overall hobbyist population.
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The Rumour Thread
in Age of Sigmar Discussions
Posted · Edited by sandlemad
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.