Marcvs

In most of the *Order controlled* realms, which is probably around 10% of the Mortal Realms? I don't know if we know much of the economies of the Chaos dominated parts -i.e. most of the Mortal Realms.

Well, at minimum there will be rules to use them as normal unit(s) outside the Regiment of Renown. Otherwise we would have the weird situation where the Blacktalons cannot be played in a Stormcast army.

well, as for most people, it all tends to be a bit blurry. I have picked "competitive" basically because the gaming side is my main motivation in AoS and I do play in 4/5 tournaments every year. Still: - I only play one army (Stormcast) because I like their look and lore. I have created a lore and a colour scheme for my army (the Flamescar Stormkeep of Edassa), plus a full table of terrain to match their "environment" (the Outskirts of Edassa). - Because I like to be able to swap lists around (outside of the tournaments I play at my club which is much more "casual", so I need to be able to build non-optimised lists) and to quickly adapt to new GHBs/seasons, I have collected a bit more than 20k points of stormcast and have all the units in the book bar 1 (Vigilors, poor fellas) in my collection. Around 16k is painted, although I am repainting a lot of stuff because I found "my" colour scheme only after two/three years. The only thing I would not check is "casual". As I said, I play a lot of "casual" games (basically, all my games outside of tournaments are), meaning non-optimised lists and so on BUT I really dislike AoS in a casual setting: the constant rules checking by my opponents who, legitimately, do not have them all by heart like me, the time taken for taking decisions over things like battle tactics, the amount of games where we only play 2 or 3 rounds because, as one of the many wargaming dads, my time is limited and I also want to spend my free time with my family, always leave me frustrated with the game. So, in the end I prefer to play AoS (as opposed to other systems) in a tournament setting.

well he can't take the generic prayers in 3rd edition (Curse and the like), so he has access to Smite and Bless which are not exactly great.

they even work on the assumption that a lot of people will just impulse buy their product and possibly/probably never do anything with it

he looks really interesting in Lethis (he gets the City prayer if I am not mistaken) and even his appearence feels very thematic for the city 👍

I mean, if you take the incredibly overpriced single foot heroes as a baseline, everything else is cheap. I don't see where are the 5 heroes in blacktalons. Which hero on a 40mm base has a 2h hammer? which one (on a 40mm) has a crossbow? which one has a sword and axe? So 2 heroes at best even by that logic. And if the answer is: who cares about wysiwyg just use them as other stormcast heroes, well then why is the box of Soulsworn Questors less expensive since it gives you 6 "heroes"? (also, said soulsworn questors are new minis and they have 2 heroes as well: a castellant and a knight relictor, and still cost 45€). Again, I'd say that the honest explanation is: GW believes that the link with the series and with one of the very few developed AoS characters means people will buy this box at 60€.

Tbf, not buying their (or these specific) products AND then complaining "publicly" (as public as a forum populated by other hobbyists is) about it is potentially/infinitesimally more effective than just not buying them in perfect silence, and it costs very little, so it's an efficient strategy just as for GW to keep increasing their prices as long as theresult is more money for them. If their behaviour is justified by them "just behaving as a company", people complaining is them "just behaving as dissatisfied customers". Well, people make this argument here because we're talking about AoS/Warhammer/GW products. Maybe they also complain about these other companies, or maybe they don't because it's not their hobby of choice or the way in which they connect with their local community and so on.

Ionus is also missing keywords (he's not a LORD or KNIGHT in Stormcast, so his prayers have no range), wonder if that's going to be fixed

Of course, by definition, a new player might not be aware of the last part, but that's another discussion. The problem with the reasoning is that: ok it's not for new players, it's for players who already have a full dragon army. But then, the main character is bundled with... two more dragons.

yeah but there's plenty of counter-examples to that theory (which is a good one, mind you). The scourgerunner chariot at 42.5€ per 100pts comes to mind I'd say in this case it's the single characters explanation: it's the kind of box of which you'll only ever buy one

yeah was hoping for 45€ like the questors (6 new stormcast minis). for me it's going into the "maybe one day" pile, and if their rules end up being good I'll just assemble them with proxies (old zephyros, a castigator with a bird on top, 2 questors and a random wizard with cape will do)

Ionus seems ok for 3 dragons, but agree on the other two. 60€ for the 5 minis of the blacktalons is hard to justify (for me/to myself) for something I would buy "because they're cool"

I am in the same boat, I already got 9 Stormdrake guards (4 GW, 5 conversions/other ranges) which feels like... enough? no way I am getting two more, so I guesss it's conversion time for Ionus while waiting for a separate release.

Speaking of pricing, maybe these larger boxes will be similar to the MESBG basic troops (24 for 40€ from GW direct) so something like 50€ for 32. In fact the more I think about it the more MESBG seems to be the reference more than HH.

Not relevant anymore since it has been clarified officially

a different angle for the discussion about the resin. Because the faction was "lost" to the hobby for quite some time, there's a relatively high number of bretonnia-esque ranges from 3d designers/printers. So, the moment the GW model is also in resin (I know, not the same as 3d printing resin etc but still falls in the category "resin" for most people) it comes into direct competition with these alternatives which are very likely to be cheaper -and by that I mean, having them printed for you and posted.

if they are on 25mm round, you can just glue them on 25mm square. However, the main thing is to wait for official informations about the bases. As the others have mentioned, movement trays might just be a thing

Don't know if somebody else said this already somewhere but I find it quite funny that it's yet another model on foot... for Bretonnia. And the only mounted model shown so far was not even a knight. It seems a weird choice in terms of the expectations of the public concerning the faction, but maybe it's just me.

All true, but also applicable to all other factions imho. Which AoS novel would you pick as a "breakout hit"? Do fans know the difference between Illiatha and Alumnia? Or Tempest Eye and Greywater Fastness? Personally I would always bet on Stormcast in the launch and starter boxes for 4th and would be surprised even by a change in 5th, if anything because of the inertia of the big-GW-machine and sunken costs.

Uhm, no? For the purpose we're discussing here (transport and storage) you glue them under the base and thats it.

Maybe not gladly but as another Stormcast main, I'd rather have updated units where I have the option of buying them or keep using my old ones, than new units which I will need to buy for competitive play / access to cool new rules

and remove the statue

As someone who has contemplated the same option (i..e playing irondrakes as fusiliers) just be careful that the base size is very likely to be different. We still don't know exactly the base size for fusiliers but they seem to be on 28.5mm (or even 32mm) bases

IMHO, narrative got nothing to do with it. AoS will not have an End Times as long as GW sees more money in AoS than in AoS:End Times + new product. The only honest statement about this sounds more or less like this: at the moment we assume* that AoS is doing fine, so no reason to predict any End Times event in the forseable future. *unless someone has seen more pecise numbers