KingKull

Can I just say I love your profile pic? That artwork made me fall in love with wood elves!

No lie detected! I'm still excited for everything coming, and will still buy a TK army for myself as well. This one probably hit me because the Beeronnians were impeccable (imho), and I love TK more than I love Brets. Still, fun times ahead!

Thanks! That cavalry is absolutely gorgeous!

That's exactly the thought I had yesterday.

Oooh! Where is the second one from? It looks even better than the highlands one!

The person who apparently designed the only part of the new TK model I like confirmed a lot of my feelings about it.

Something about the quality of the lines on that drawing makes me think of new blood bowl art (not the humorous aspect of it, but literally the hardness & shape of the lines), and I like it. I suppose it's not impossible that the same person did it, ToW is a specialist product after all.

The other critter opposite the griffon looks strikingly like the oop (is it? idk) plastic chaos manticore, so we can probably expect it to be a part of the range. I also now realize that the shields represent all the factions listed in that one article (also with the visual version of the much maligned and subsequently deleted "good vs bad" grouping)

I'm hoping there's also Lizards wave 2. IIRC there was a highly accurate rumor monger who predicted new temple guard & bigg dino before the new release but it never materialized. Judging by his track record (pretty much all the stuff that came out toward the end of 2022/beginning of 2023 for both main systems), it seems to me that W2 is likely. Also, leaving temple guard as they are would be a bad look.

Okay, hear me out. Concerning the "sand mummies" rumor - what if the Tomb Guard replace skeletons as basic mooks, while those mummies take the tomb guard's place? Would take archers out of the equation, but it's not the worst outcome imho. Edit: TG don't even have to replace basic skellies, just to become "core" so that people who don't want to buy ancient skelly models have the option not to. Alternatively, since not even the rumor poster seems to know what those "sand mummies are", what if it's just a rebranding of the basic troops which comes with both melee and ranged option? That would seem in line with Bretonnian foot knights who get to choose between great weapons and sword & board. If we're not getting basic skeletons, I really hope one of these two is the case (if not, highlands minis is in the process of releasing an absolutely gorgeous TK range, and I'm already overjoyed with their dwarfs & Beets).

Ah, that's a shame... Thanks anyway!

Cheers. However, I was wondering about what do the foot knights look like next to mounted knights, if anyone has a clue.

Since I don't know which way is up in Photoshop, has anyone tried making a size comparison going by the (supposed) fact that new foot knights have a 25mm base front and old plastic knights of the realm are now on 30mm?

I think that pilgrims & reliquae are due for an update, as they've been ominously missing from the photos so far IIRC

Where did you see that?

Not sure I like the "whole first rank fights always" thing, but the wizards thing seems promising, if vague.

Not sure I like the "whole first rank fights always" thing, but the wizards thing seems promising, if vague.

Edit: Double post

To me, the aesthetic of 6th-7th era of Warhammer is the best and largely unsurpassed - the technology has gotten better, but the balance between composition each model and the art direction it pursued is simply perfect imo. What I liked about it is that the models looked believable and the art direction was well balanced with some unique touches Dwarf longboards and heroes (the eye patch & pistol lord and the helmet holding lord in particular) are my favorite dwarf models ever made; they reek of character but manage to remain very grounded. As someone who loves wood elves in all settings, the 6th ed WE still feel unique and unsurpassed. The combination of tattoos, glassy eyes, twiggy veils and an occasion gleam of highly sofisticsted metalwork gives off a sense of mysterious yet savage and very "earthy" fae, which I adore, and the 8th edition refreshes of Wild riders and eternal guard were a large downgrade for me, as that subtle balance was lost (treman was dope though, especially since it retained the Pan's Labyrinth aesthetic of driads, another favorite of mine). Although there were some great models in 8th edition (dark riders, black guard, tomb kings of all sorts), that was when I started losing interest in the setting because it stopped resembling folklore & history in favor of what are for me warcraft-esque over the top fantasy, and the mortarchs you mentioned, the chaos stuff (minus juggernauts), as well as the bone gargoyles that are now a part of the Ossiarch range (the name escapes me) are some of the models that first made me think that. All that looked like all the rest of generic modern fantasy, removed from its historical inspirations and designed to aggressively grab attention, which is something I wasn't a fan of even as a kid (which is probably why I never liked warcraft either). Of course, all of this is just personal preference, but I *loved* the 6th/7th era of WHFB and I'm glad that ToW seems to be sticking closer to it with the new models, judging on what we've seen so far.

What I find ridiculous is GW selling old chaos warriors again, and telling the complete newcomers from your example to buy those old models when they can see perfectly good new ones with the exact same aesthetic being sold for AoS. Even people with zero experience with Fantasy as a genre, let alone Warhammer, are able to tell they're one and the same thing. When crucial, indelible parts of that strong IP you mentioned have been transported wholesale to a different setting, I can't see another option that would be not scummy but also not senseless (such as making *another* new kit of chaos warriors just for ToW). Or delete chaos warriors (and other similar examples) from ether game, which is daft and luckily not going to happen. So, if we're going by consumer satisfaction (as I previously argued that us non-GW employees should), there's really one good option in such cases.

I know, but the vast majority of older players I've spoken to/chatted online with prefers the newer models where they exist, the treeman being the most often quoted example. Edit: A better thing to do would be to include the new models in such cases on the official photos and art, and sell square bases separately like they said they'd do. And since it's aimed at an experienced audience, those people don't need to be led by the hand and have a "compatible with ToW, just buy square baes" sign on each and every box to get the hint.

No, Ganigumo is right. Just because something is good for the company doesn't have to mean that the consumer won't find it ridiculous, but quite the contrary. Interests of the company and those of the consumer are often opposed in some crucial aspects - and guess what, we are the latter, not the former. This isn't directed against you personally, but I'm tired of people making excuses for predatory practices just because it makes more sense for the company. By now, most of the people bothering to comment on such things would know about GW's business practices (or be familiar with how corporate businesses in general function), but cynically accepting things just because it makes sense for them gives GW leeway to be more crappy in the future. So, yes, releasing and promoting old models when perfectly good ones exist is rubbish and doesn't help the game and its future community, even if it makes GW more money in the short term.

If GW does the (imho) incredibly daft thing of returning old models where 1:1 updates exist, sometimes even from the WHFB era (current treeman says hello), I hope that people simply use the newer models en masse and GW gets to a point where it can't ignore the trend and simply goes with the flow. Also, I'm not buying the claim that new chaos warriors are noticeably more detailed/harder to paint then the old ones, especially in an era where contrasts exist. On a side note, I realize I'm looking forward to ToW not just because I like the setting, but also because of the simplicity and expected lack of change of the game's core. While I find AoS enjoyable when played with like-minded opponents, I'm at a point in my life where I just can't keep up with the constant flow of rules, updates, missions & whatnot. Even though the core of WHFB is crunchier, that crunchiness makes games where two armies simply deploy across each other with the main objective just being to kill the opponent more enjoyable. And once you learn the crunch, it (hopefully) never changes (significantly). And when I only play one game of Warhammer (of any flavor) a month at best, all the missions, grand strategies, objectives etc. are too much of a bother to learn and remember in order to play a game competently, which I like to do.

Yes, but how many actual hobbyists read those books, let alone people who're marginally interested in the setting and want it to be "sold" to them in a relatively effortless manner? I *love* WHFB, but I hardly ever decide to spend my time on reading the vastly mediocre BL books about it, let alone a setting in whose lore I'm not nearly as interested in. This is where the army books and visual presentation comes in, and I haven't discovered anything about the daily lives, cultures, beliefs and habits of the factions that interest me. And when there are such details, they are built around hard to relate to concepts such as magical soul stones and magical mist oceans that make me put the book down and not open it again.

I understand this was not your main argument (and more power to you if you enjoy AoS in such a way), but I don't think AoS does this any better than other games, which is usually brought up in defense of its thematic vagueness and abundance of radically different (and often incongruent) archetypes, sometimes within the same faction (again, not saying you're doing this). On the other hand, I also never understood why the highly defined setting of WHFB prevented this - my wood elves came from the Crag Halls of Findol, had a personal history and had bespoke conflicts and arch emesis, and were led by an alter lord whose story I made up. Same thing goes for my mates' Nuln empire and Kharond Kar dark elves - and none of it prevented us from coming up with campaigns, stories and conflicts that we were all highly invested in - without participating in, or contradicting the "main" narrative and established lore. And the more I learned about the WHFB universe, the more possibilities I saw for doing the same thing - and the more I wanted to do it.