EonChao

Hey now, those are still available in TOW if someone particularly wants a set 😉

It's worth noting that Coherency can vary so we could see some of the more awkward to rank up units like Harridans get larger coherence numbers

You have to have some models in the easy to paint faction that are more challenging to allow painters to progress their skills in the same faction. Same as with the Terminator Librarian or the Bladgeguard. It's possible these will be in the launch box but not in the actual starters, or they could be in both. Either way they're still easier to paint than lots of other things in the range. And personally, they look really good to me. Looking forward to adding a unit or two to my collection, and I love the idea of priests grounding them by reading off their deeds and names endlessly.

Ascended Khul was a rumour going around for a while but I don't believe it was ever substantiated by any of the actual rumour mongers. The only thing we've had confirmation wise is that Vandus and Khul's story is apparently concluding soon.

There's also been a few smaller updates that are bigger than a single character (Necrons with 3 characters and Dark Angels with 2 characters and 2 units). And AoS 3rd had Nighthaunt (2 characters and a unit) and Sylvaneth (Lady of Thorns and two units) within the first year of its life. So there should hopefully be something reasonable over the next year after 4th drops

We also know they'll have the set on display at the Realms Reforged events in mid May which fits with this schedule. We've got 5 Monday's left between then and the 16th May when the US Open happens in Dallas, Texas and the whole box is previewed. And with one of those being the 13th May it might be used for something else instead.

Honestly having had a few days to clear my head and think about it, as a Stormcast and Space Marine player this is kind of how I want to see those factions going forwards (that said still frustrated with what happened to Beasts and Bonesplitters). If they stick out a pdf rule book with rules for whichever chambers and unit types are currently not the focus of the narrative so that people can play with them but keep the line less bloated in terms of SKUs, then maybe halfway through the edition offer a made to order run on some of those models, advertised well in advance, to let people round out collections if they want to. I have zero problem with using my first edition Liberators and Prosecutors in place of the new ones if I don't want to pick up the new models, nor with using the pdf rules if I want to bring my Sacrosanct of the shelf. Or my Heresy plasma gun squad as Hellblasters in 40k. And if I do think the updated models coming out are better, I can pick them up at my own leisure.

Just and idle thought, do you think that Beasts of Chaos, Bonesplitters and Sacrosanct Chamber will get Spearhead rules in their online tomes?

If you mean AoS rules then those are all on the War Com page. If you mean new Warcry profiles for new AoS/Underworlds kits then those are slowly trickling out in White Dwarf

Not quite, AoS and 40k both share the same studio within GW (along with Underworlds, Warcry and Kill Team). That's why you hear people talk about both the main and specialist studios, there's only really two. So miniature designers in the main studio can work on all five games that fit into the main studio (I'm not sure how specialist studio divides its work force) whilst rules designers seem to work on separate games but they all report to the same overall studio head.

Sadly that's exactly how some businesses work. It's a symptom of very significant silo mentality in the business. It's less about charging each other for their services internally (that's almost certainly over simplifying it), but more about proving the value of each department's contribution. So the studios very much need to justify how much time they spend on each project, likewise the different online stores will each have their own stats regarding this. And one thing that some people hate to have in those scenarios is to have to argue about how much of a products failure (or success but usually it's due to worries about perceived failures and blame) belongs to each department involved in delivering it.

Here me out, Skaven vs Idoneth as the first set in a new season set in a flooded city. The rumour is it's some sort of jump pack hero for Sisters so that could be part of the base used to make it look like they're jumping. Honestly I'd love a more Necromunda/Gorkamorka/Mordheim themed game set in the Blight City, with each clan of Skaven represented by a different warband, that's a lot more focused on the campaign and narrative side of things than Warcry, especially with the Skaven promotion system of dead man's shoes.

You never know, they might sneak in a spare copy of Dominion into a box with the new figure just to clear warehouse space They've used Battleforce as a product title in the past for none Christmas stuff. The Christmas thing is a fairly new thing in the grand scheme of things. Previously it's been used for the start collecting equivalents as well (back in the days of 3rd and 4th ed 40k)

Birmingham has been running games in which the heroes leading each players armies can try and escape Gheist's Isle's harbour in the face of an invading army to prepare to bring reinforcements to save the city, using a board made from Cursed City tiles, which is really cool. The Derby store has updated with a description of Goblet Gate's location, trade and history. They're also having a painting contest using to determine the city guard's colour scheme with free minis to use to do so. Might be worth seeing if your local store is doing the same. To the south of the Living City in the realm of Ghyran, lies the region of Futilla Wood. The ancient trees cast long shadows and the haunted glades chime to the sound of tainted beasts. Sitting proud on an outcrop of solid Gyranite realm stone, the city of Goblet Gate guards the eastern approaches to Futilla Wood. Famed for it's fine wines produced in the rich, loamy soils surrounding the city, Goblet Gate has become a major trading hub suppling The Living City, the Phoenicium and many other great bastions of order beyond. However, the city has a dark history... Once it used to be the seat of a another master, an undead monster who was banished with sword and flame centuries before. Many citizens still tell the tale that the Goblet their famed city was named after was once used to collect the blood of its people for sinister and dark rituals. They even say that armies are mustering in the haunted woods beyond the city ready to claim the city for themselves and secure the treasures still sealed away in the bedrock and catacombs of the troubled city. Now in the darkest of nights, screams ring out once more and the city guard are hard pressed keeping law and order. People are going missing and murmurings of a dark prophesy coming true are all that can be heard in the inns and boarding houses of Goblet Gate... Nottingham's city is called Firestrike Vale.

All of the beasties in those pages really deserve to have models in AoS

Beasts of Chaos can take Slaangors and Tzaangors (including Shamans, Enlightened, and Skyfires). So whilst they were released with those armies they were also for Beasts of Chaos. The Warband for Underworlds looked great and it being no longer available is nothing unusual, all the Beastgrave ones are. The Endless Spells and terrain were sculpts specifically for AoS, so even if the Beastlord could be argued to be an unused WFB sculpt (which it probably wasn't) they definitely had time and effort put into them. Likewise we know the main studio staff were improving the overall Beastmen look from Underworlds and the various 40k Beastmen they produced. And they were featured regularly as Chaos forces in novels, instead of pushing something else instead. So it was almost certain they were considering keeping a hold of the range for AoS until something change internally for TOW.

Shuffling the Beasts of Chaos into TOW likely reduces the amount of product that they're likely to need to make as TOW is a much more specialist system than AoS with likely smaller levels of stock that need to be maintained betweened the webstore and physical locations. However I buy into the idea that they've been moved to TOW because they're the older kits. Because there's nothing to replace them then they've been removed from AoS so that each sale of a Beasts kit can be a confirmed sale for TOW metrics wise. It's stupid idea but it's exactly the sort of weirdness that a big company would do just because it makes one person higher up have an easier job. Personally I'm wondering if Beasts were meant to stay in AoS as a faction but weren't due for a range refresh until late 4th, early 5th and someone higher up told them to pull the plug now to make things easier on the finance team. I suspect it'll be a long time before we hear anything concrete though

Honestly if you speak to anyone currently working in, or formerly in, head office, and even on a retail side of things, Age of Sigmar vastly out performs the last years of Warhammer Fantasy Battle. Whether or not TOW will outperform it eventually remains to be seen but probably not with how inaccessible the game is for new players. It's great it's back but it still has a lot of the issues that WFB had. Wasn't it also mentioned in Dark Harvest that Kurnoth is stirring in his "death"? I'm not 100% because it's been a while since I read it but it rings a bell. GW's main issue over the last 5 years has been production capacity. They just can't keep up with it demand for most of their products. Much as I hate the line being culled, this is part of the solution. It hit Space Marines last year, it's hitting Stormcast now, the Beasts and Bonesplitters stuff is being shuffled around. People can't afford everything but there's enough people in the hobby now to buy most things. AoS doesn't sell as well as 40k but that's honestly a boon to us. I like the fact that I can still find the FEC box if I look for it, unlike the newest Kill Team one which already might as well not exist. How GW sees it is all that matters. They sold more of it than any other box set. If those sets didn't sell outside of that then that's inconvenient but it still outperformed every other fantasy big box, they just need to make sure they get the balance better this time. And you won't see TOW catch up to AoS anytime soon, it's not new player friendly in anyway. It might outsell Warcry and Underworlds but it's targeting a different target market to them. Likewise 30k won't ever outsell 40k. It does really well from what it seems but it's also probably produced to a much smaller quantity than the average 40k release. It's not an "anti-consumer squatting move." Products have a shelf life and get removed from sale after a certain amount of time in any hobby. When their main issue recently has been production capacity, removing a bunch of older kits so they no longer have to worry about stock probably is an overall consumer benefit on the industry side of things, even if it sucks that we've lost a bunch of models. It'd be anti-consumer if they weren't providing free rules to allow people to continue to using all these models. And remember they did the same with a bunch of Space Marine stuff last year. Some of it got replaced but plenty didn't.

Something to be clear on, it's not a few designers daring to break the boundaries of older stuff, it's all of them. All of the studio staff, in each studio, are fans of Warhammer through and through. They both want to shape it with new creations as well as capture their vision of older existing things and so you get some things that are very strikingly different from what's come before, like the Warsong Revenant, Shadowstalkers, Ossiarch-Bone Reapers and Corpse-Rippa Vulcha, as well as stuff that plays it very safe like the Boingrot Bounders, Grimghasts and Fyreslayers. But either way you'll often find that someone who worked on one think doesn't fit the feel of that faction was done by someone who has had their hand in other models for the faction that you love.

Warcry and Underworlds are both handled by the same studio as AoS, sculpt wise at least. If they're making things in that, especially in Warcry, then it's with a view to use it in AoS. There may be exceptions (and the Sylvaneth are the biggest of those with how diverse the model types are in it even by Warcry standards), but their designing them from Heart of Ghur onwards with a vision for how they fit into the current AoS armies rather than just being explorations of the niches of factions like Warcry 1.0 was for Chaos Underworlds probably isn't in danger. It seems to sell well and be fairly popular event wise. From a design perspective it's a useful testing ground for new sculptors and existing ones to flex their muscles and make some truly inventive new models. I do think they'll move away from including them in the Battle tomes, but they'll still likely get datasheets or have equivalent models in AoS you can use them to represent. Warcry is a bit more uncertain, it seems to be less popular but I think that's why they've moved to the new smaller boxes model with both it and Kill Team. Again it's a useful tool for releasing new units for AoS factions that aren't getting a major focus this edition as well as building hype towards upcoming releases. Like Kill Team it's also probably a decent driver of terrain sales. Depending on what targets they have for it and how important they think it is to have a fantasy skirmish game to not lose sales to the many other ones in the market, it's probably safe. TOW has no effect on AoS resources, separate studios are handling the models and separate studios are handling the rules. The main thing seems to be the supposed siloing of factions to make it easier to track metrics. Like the old resin Maggotkin sorcerer they're probably ideal candidates for making a new hero release to go with a new battletome. I think they'll be safe for now until they do that. That said the Myrmourn and Grimghasts both occupy the same space but with the new regiment system you could see those characters work with those units better in regiments instead of awkwardly being very similar The treelord base thing is because it was a WFB kit, so there are people who brought it and still have it on a square base in their Wood Elf armies. Sales wise they're going to keep them separate though and the Treelord does fit the Kuronoth Hunters/Revenents feel much better than the Dryads. If the Dryads were going to go then they just had the best opportunity to do so with the recent cull. Wood Elves are bound to be no more than a year out for TOW and they were happy to remove the Branchwraith

The Sephulchral Guard were sculpted by the same person who did the Skeletons for Cursed City which defined the look for the late 2nd ed refresh their standard kit got. The whole thing was a process in updating those kits for the new setting I believe.

I was clarifying what they normally do so we don't get a deluge of posts from less aware users also claiming the other characters only available in the Vanguard boxes have "disappeared" off the webstore. There's also been plenty of times that stuff has been marked as sold out instead of temporarily when it's just being repackaged too. If you'll note in my post I did clarify that I'm certain both are getting replaced.

Nope, the Frigate and the Ironclad are behemoths but none of them are artillery

Oh thank you, forgot those

They do go through phases of removing the characters from the Vanguard boxes from the webstore to encourage people desperate to buy them to pick up the box. There's plenty of others like it right now, the Isharen Soulscryer, Fyreslayer Battlesmith, Melusai Ironscale, Magister on Disc, Knight of Shrouds, Branchwych, and Mortisan Soulreaper are all in the same boat. That said both the Grey Seer and Vanguard are certainly getting replaced with new models One of the things I noticed when going through the path to glory campaign stuff happening in stores is that despite there being a point for painting a piece of artillery, there's strikingly few within AoS. I think it's only Cities, Lumineth, Ossiarchs, Ogors and Khorne which have any after the purge, so hopefully Stormcast get something if only to keep some variety in the game.