Neverchosen

Sludgeraker and Gothizzar Harvester kit bash feels like the great start of something tombkingy... maybe using the Sludgeraker as the bas body and greenstuff bandages over it? I am not really good at kitbashing or greenstuff, sadly. @Kaleb DaarkMaybe Stormcast are to scale and this game has been about skinny duardin the whole time? 🤩

Overall: Once again in with my unsolicited and poorly thought out hot takes. It was almost the opposite of what I expected with more models revealed and no preview of upcoming faction releases. I loved the vast majority of the reveals although I am a little sad that we only got two completely new Kruel Boyz units. The hobby preshow: it was amazing seeing the various artists being showcased but I had it playing in the background so I didn’t see everything. I did catch Ash from GMG and Jack from retooling ones models and loved the shoutouts to them. I will say that I feel every non-standard Stormcast theme looks better than the blue and gold. I think that these are my favourite Orruk and Stormcast models by a long shot so I am pretty bias. Stormcast reveals: Lord Commander Bastian Carthalos— I am in love with this model and he makes the Annihilators feel less randomly huge. I am not the biggest fan of running named characters but this guy oozes epicness. Now I want a reimagined Crom the Conquror to fight him as Archaon and the Prime battle overhead. This is a dude that I would follow into battle… but only cause I think he could handle all the fighting and I could cower behind him. Knight Relictor — I love the Balthasar Gelt helmet. However, I am not super into the skulls, feels a little more Space Marine or Chaos to me. I think that an alternate colour scheme might sell me on it. Classic Warhammer but does not match my vision of Stormcast. But it will fit in really well with certain schemes and themes. Vanquishers — I like them but they suffer a little from that Stormcast monotony, I do hope they are an alt build for the multipart Vindicators kit as it would make their similar design more palatable. I do like the fabric portion and if I find an easy approach I would love to make them tartan styled kilts*. They are a really good model but I prefer the spears to swords. Vigilors — These are by far my favourite reveal alongside Bastian Carthalos. I have never loved Stormcast ranged units barring the Ballista. But these check all my boxes and will work with my intended green and brown scheme**. Despite loving them I do not know if I will be able to fit them into my army as I need to keep my Stormcast collection small. However, I might make an exception for these ones. Annihaltors — Still my least favourite of the new range but they have gotten better as they are now buddies with Lord Chadmmander Bastian Carthalos. I do really like their rules though. Kruelboyz Reveals: Mashcrawla Sloggoth— Ugh, this thing makes me so uncomfortable and that is why I love it. I will avoid fighting it out of a sense of pity. I love and hate this thing in equal measure… I think the paint scheme makes it really uncanny. It reminds me of the creepy bio-weapon from Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind. Gutrippaz— Still cool models. My feeling towards them is more or less the same upon the initial release namely they are better orc models. Man-Skewer Boltboyz — My favourite troops for the Kruelboyz. I feel like these continue that trend for me and so I am excited to see more of them. Skumdrekk — We got our gator and it is absolutely bizarre... I feel like I still needing to wrap my head around the strange anatomy of this thing. The rider is the best looking Kruelboy so far. The variant on the other hand I absolutely love. I would take the hero from the named build and the monster for the alt build. Army Books: Glad to have it finally confirmed that the Kruel Boyz are part of the Orruk Warclans. The Stormcast cover has this little chaos fan grinning as that is the exact type of battle I want to recreate on the tabletop. Also I am glad that they are claiming that they are giving more reason to play the various unit types in Stormcast… but we will see. *anyone know a good free hand method for a poor amateur painter? **or my Tartan idea... if I could pull it off... help me!

I would love all of those reveals, however I feel like my Beastclaw Raiders are a fully realized army and I can do without further temptation 😅 Although, Gnoblar hero and plastic Yetis would be instant purchases for me. I also think Duardin will be previewed whether they follow Hashut or Grungni is the real question. 🤔

Popular Opinion: Beliman clearly has great taste! 😎 I personally think the juxtaposition of majestic body, graceful wings and terrifying face make it feel like a genuine mythological creature. I can imagine the stories being told to little Azyr children about how they should be wary of the Tauralon which looks beautiful from a distance but is terrifying up close. I also imagine that those same children seeing a Stormcast hero flying across the sky on one would be in a state of awe. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Now for my predictions for the day: using the Indomitus Launch Party as a base I suspect it will be a small yet overblown affair. My guess is that we will get a big centre piece model revealed for both alongside the reveal of new battle tomes and a teaser preview of some upcoming models. My heart says crocodile but my head says crocodile-like monster for Kruelboyz, Stormcast will probably get some more draconian love particularly in light of Kragnos' recent reveal. I hope that it if they get a dragon that it is a mid range option between Stardrake and Dracoth riders or at the very least a different dragon genus. However, I would be really happy if the flying cavalry rumour proved true and we got a reveal of pegasus riders to go with Yndrasta and the aforementioned Tauralon. The battletome preview will be fairly interesting but I am most interested in learning how Kruel Boyz will function alongside the other Warclans in the book which will hopefully be addressed. As for the teaser preview I think we will get flashes of models followed by a full reveal of an upcoming hero. I am hoping for a Chaos Dwarf, Kurnothi Aelf or one of Malerion's champions but I feel the smart bet will be on a new named human hero.

But that is why I find their monsters so relatable. 😢

Hey Warhammer Community finally remembered that tomorrow is Crocodile day! https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/07/02/5-ways-to-celebrate-the-new-editions-arrival-in-true-mortal-realms-style/ I like to add pics to these posts and this one was fantastic, plus furthers my hopes that the DOK will adopt Corsairs for real one day.

So if I am reading this correctly a Tzeentch marked shrine granting a unit of 20 chaos warriors will still only have plus one to their save for the sake of dice rolls, but if they were hit by a rend -1 attack they would negate the rend.

I am curious does the chaos warrior unit size and war-shrine ability stack? If so Tzeentch Warriors may become practically unkillable.

As someone that loves this game for the freedom of expression and joy of creating a fun paint scheme, I feel like they have this backwards. If my opponent is so hung up on things like that they don't have permission to play against me, even if my scheme fits their narrow view of a faction. 😛 Furthermore, this clearly a blatant attempt to get folks to purchase multiple versions of the same armies and paint them in each colour. It clearly works on space marine players so I think they are hoping that their AOS poster boys will get the same Malibu Stacy in a new hat love. Having just purchased Dominion and waiting for it to arrive I developed a scheme with black pauldrons and earthy tones such green and brown for their fabrics. I do not think that any stormhost or chamber use those exact colours? My Chaos warriors wear crimson armour with white cloaks and I do not intend to run them as Khrone... they worship Santa undivided! Finally, I am building my Ogres and want to forgo human skin tones and make the ogres look more like frost elementals and really love the blue hues I have seen people use in similar projects. Also I am always upfront with which mark or subfaction I am using and no one has ever been confused. This fact would not change if I used a Games Workshop paint scheme.

Is the preview confirmed to be a live preview? Maybe the lack of promotion is that it will be a simple article expressing thanks for purchasing Dominion along with further hype that it is selling fast and a self congratulatory pat on the back that they produced more copies, followed by a few pictures of whats to come? I am still hoping for a crocodile and some pegasus knights.

Either this proves the Crocodile exists and will hype itself. Or that the crocodile doesn't exist and they know we will be terribly disappointed so they are trying to mitigate the damage by acting like it isn't happening. 🤔

I am with you on this one hundred percent, the old battalion system did not work for me. It often felt very forced and extremely unbalanced. I do wish there was a little more variety in the current battalions. I mentioned in a previous post how I wish there was more varied icons for example to allow for cavalry focused battalions or flying focused battalions. But simply giving different armies the same tool box to build around is a great step forward. I also think not limiting battalions to points is always great as I would much rather have my 2000 points represent my hard work and chosen units rather than a special rules tax for taking certain units and wanting to dictate the first turn. My Slaves to Darkness army can run extremely varied battalions but my Beast Claw Raiders are much more limited in what I can build for them. But this feels actually really appropriate as my BCR army is much smaller and dedicated to a specific play style in contrast to my more generalist S2D force. I am going to build a Stormcast army using Dominion as a base and I am thinking of adding two Celestar Ballista just to open up a different battalion for them and to develop a more shooting focused army that is not quite at the level of the notorious 'shootcast' builds. But this is how battalions should function as a fun theme for building an army but not as a strictly limiting element of a game that often already has enough 'taxes' for building a list.

I am probably projecting as it is my favourite faction, but I really feel like GW was really trying to develop a concrete narrative and aesthetic for all the main God factions before focusing back on the Undivided side of Chaos. Slaanesh somewhat broke from this by having the split release, but otherwise GW did a really good job of creating a basis for the God specific factions before working on Slaves to Darkness, and S2D got a fantastic release with great models and ostensibly kick started a great game system in Warcry. Now we are hopefully going to see that love spread to our bestial and rodent brethren. As well as the rumblings of a possible Chaos Dwarf release, I feel Chaos is second only to Death in terms of having a coherent range of minis and dedicated set of rules. I feel Destruction is getting close, whereas Order feels like it will need to make a few more soups and possibly strain a few others to strike a more reasonable balance...

I am hoping for a mid sized hero option for a dragon. I would love a more magical winged wyrm inspired drake as a unique clade of the Stardrakes. But even just a midpoint between Stardrakes and Dracoth's would be appreciated. This mainly is because some people have suggested a pegasus mounted flying unit and I am really excited about that prospect. I think they could pair really well aesthetically with Yndrasta. Kruel Boyz are going to have a tough match up against Skaven.

I love the gator speculation but I hadn't realized they were legit rumours? That is really exciting 😄 I am greatly looking forward to the weekend to have so many of my hopes dashed.

The longer I have been able to sit with the rules (still not functionally playing with them sadly) the more I am seeing both the pros and cons. I still overwhelming like the changes but I do still find it hard to digest the sheer amount of things and special rules occurring (neither a pro nor a con more of an issue with my own ability to adjust to some of these changes). However, my biggest gripe is also the most obnoxious possible nitpick which is I hate the unit designations in the Battalions. I wish there were appropriate icons for unit types such as cavalry, fliers and ranged units. There is the sad reality is that the line would clearly still need to be drawn somewhere and I love the freedom and variety of the current battalions.

So I finally did it and chomped on Dominion*, now I am more excited about rumours regarding the two principal factions. Are we still stuck with the vague rumours of wolves for Kruel Boyz and something draconic for SCE? I am still holding out hope for the idea of Stormcast Pegasus Knights. Beyond that I have heard more rumours regarding the next series of battle tome releases than I have about the two armies we are getting currently. *Dwarf soup you were too beautiful for my collection 😭

I for one am happy that they were able to meet the demand. I just ordered my box from a local hobby store. It was a pretty big purchase for me financially but it nets me essentially half an army. Still not sure what to do with the other half. I might gift it to a friend for trade bate or to another friend as a promise that if he picks up the eventual starter to give me the Stormcast half... many decisions. Still I am happy to have some Angelic warriors to paint up as opponents for my Chaos and Ogres. I say overproduce as I am not a fan of artificial scarcity. I am not a 40k fan but I would have likely tried 9th edition if I ever actually saw Indomitus in person. Oh well I am happier with wizards and dragons then psykers and tanks.

Hahaha, my excitement over the lore you described made me overlook that it came from Dreadfleet. I know nothing about the game except that the models were utterly beautiful and that it was somewhat of a standalone release? I will say that Age of Sigmar seems to be begging for some degree of Naval/Aerial combat hybrid style. Whether it is an expansion of AOS proper or a side game it just feels like it would work so well. Idoneth and Kharadron require zero design changes to work into a naval/aerial styled game and could function as the poster children of the game/ruleset.

Sooo... every word of what you described speaks to my soul 🤭

I am really hoping that with Old World I can run my Chaos Warriors and Ogres. But I would absolutely get an Araby army in a heart beat.

Spoilers!

I am thinking if I run SCE I would forgo cavalry to give them a unique identity among my collection... no idea how I will factor the new Chariot into this equation. However, pegasus knights to back up Yndrasta would be an insta purchase for me.

I think that you bring up wonderful points and as one of the players on the lower end of the financial spectrum many of your points hit close to home. I typically stay away from balancing debates as I am not a great strategist to begin with but it does seem to be a place in which a lot of toxicity seems to creep. Most of the people I play with are locked into their armies for financial reasons and I am one of the few to build multiple small armies. This is largely because I like the play style of elite factions making 2000 points more viable. Even if the term elite seems to be a serious misnomer on the tabletop. My goal in getting back into this hobby was really simple. I simply wanted to build, model and paint two roughly equal armies to play with either my partner or some friends. I actually accomplished that goal and through some trades and a little generosity from a friend my second army was actually significantly cheaper than I anticipated. For this reason I have been thinking of starting a third and likely final army... my goal is to pick up Dominion*. I hoped to repay that friend with half the contents, but he is not interested in either faction so I have been trying thinking about trading the Orruks for some more Death units for his army. The pressure to buy the new hottest thing is always more or less just dreaming for me. A good example is how excited I was for Be'Lakor's new model but it sadly fell beyond my price range. However, I do have a small derpy plastic Demon Prince and in a pinch I can proxy it for Be'Lakor. I am not interested in the competitive side of gaming and just want to share in some fun times with my friends. My small group of fellow players are very generous about not being over competitive. When using my collections, if one of my armies is over powered I will simply let the newer player use them and if I am playing with someone more experienced than we can work out some internal balances. But the reality is that when this hobby becomes unfulfilling to me I know that I will likely sell my pieces and move on. It will be a sad day but I also know it is the reality of someone in such a hobby with limited budget and shelf space. The fact that I have made it this far is a shock but has been entirely based around smart purchases, second hand models and trades. I do like this hobby enough that in selling my armies I will look for a new smaller scale game... just to have some fun models and something to do on rainy nights. I keep wanting to learn more about Frostgrave as it seems like a nice game size and I have heard good things but sadly none of my friends are interested and still haven't found the models that quite click with me aesthetically. Star Wars Legion is another one that has piqued my interest but I also feel like my love of that franchise will stymie my creative process a little to greatly... maybe I could paint a sith version of Luke or a rebel legion of Battle Droids but I would then want their canon equivalents as well. 😅 But wherever life takes you my friend, make sure to enjoy your hobbies and find pleasure in the things that you choose to do. And if ever you wish to return you have a community here to rehash jokes about Choas Dwarf hats and GW's hotly anticipated release of Critters and Keys. *Heck this is only possible entirely thanks to being very cautious with my COVID relief money.

🤩 If this does not happen I am going to be so sad... maybe Malerion could cheer me up a little but otherwise I am now going in with full expectations of a Chaos Dwarf trailer.