OkayestDM

This actually makes sense and ties in with the 'Declare and Effect' nature of how abilities work now. It would be very hard to properly points balance units that loose the thing that they do (magic, in this case) due to a modular rule set being taken out. However, if each wizard model is given a special ability (Boneshaper, Swampcaller, etc) that they always have access to, then magic really can become modular, provided none of the wizard abilities are treated as unique spells. The spell lore is simply tacked on, and only wizard-keyword units can cast them. For balance purposes, they may have to make a Swampcaller choice, where they can either use their ability or cast a spell, but not both. How good this modular system actually is will depend a lot on how they've approached warscrolls and abilities for this edition. There's plenty of room for error, but they demonstrated in 3rd that they have the capacity to write goodvrules and keep things fairly well balanced. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until we have more than wild speculation and a defunct edition to go off of.

It has been said that in the new edition, armies will pick a single spell lore and then every wizard will have access to those spells. Depending on how many "universal" spell loses they design, this might be how they restrict access to the universal endless spells while still making them free. The Orbs of Ulg-Hysh cannot be taken alongside the Pendulum because they come from different spell loses. They may also parse out the generic endless spell to different factions, or else retire them and release a wave of Faction specific ones over the course of the edition. On an entirely different note, the replacement of Battleshock with Control has a lot of potential. It might just be a rebranding, like Health, but there's a lot of interesting possibilities here. They could go the 40k route and make it a roll off to see if the unit can contest an objective and receive commands. It might also become a stat that determines how well a unit holds an objective, possibly a more refined/granular version of what we have now (heroes, monsters, ogres, gargants, etc.) This option strikes me as the more interesting from the lore/immersion perspective, but also more likely to cause imbalance.

Should be easy enough to file or scrape off though.

We also need to consider that there were quite a few SCE kits released after Dominion, and we may be getting a lot of the Oldcast updates and/or Ruination units that way.

My baseless theory regarding Darkling Covens is that they will remain in CoS until Malerion is released, at which point it will be revealed that they've been secretly working for him the whole time. If, as I hope, Malerion is no friend to the other Order Factions, this could result in uprisings thruought the CoS, with the possibility of another Anvilgard or two. Doubly so if Morathi comes to her son's aid.

Wouldn't it be interesting if GW went with the narrative that Nagash's defeat has weaken his grip over the death faction as a whole, allowing them to assert more individuality and deviate from his overpowering will? Imagine Bonereapers who no longer hold any particular enmity with the living? Cunning and duplicitous vampires who nevertheless see an alliance with Order to be in their best interests? Nighthaunt no longer trapped by the vindictive judgment of Nagash, able to embody more of their former personalities? No need to change FEC, their lore is already perfect. I doubt GW would really go for it, but what a fun narrative twist it would be! Made all the more tragic by Nagash's inevitable return to power, when he would reassert dominance and strip the individuality and independence away from them again. (Though perhaps he never regains total control? Much more interesting that way.)

1: Stormcast - the Greek/roman aesthetic coupled with the immortal demigod champions theme appealed to me greatly. A clear "goog guy" faction, all dressed in heavy armor. 2: Ironjawz - look no further than the megaboss on foot. Brute strength coupled with bulky, rough-hewn armor and an overall theme of violent savagery made them a good counterpoint to the Stormcast I was collecting. 3: Tzeentch - I've always loved the "cunning, scheming, deceptive" factions in games (Romulans are my favorite Star Trek race), and the undertones of mutation and cosmic horror were icing on the cake. 4: Beasts of Chaos - I honestly got into BoC because of the models. Beastmen-type models have a place in most fantasy game systems, and though the community is often split on them, I quite like the Bullgors (minotaurs are my favorite fantasy monster.) 5: Cities of Sigmar - I had started collecting Wanderers because classic eleven factions have always appealed to me, and I love hit-and-run fighting styles in games (though I'm also keenly aware that it often isn't fun for the other player.) When they were grouped into Cities, I saw it as an opportunity to have a respectable elf faction - as nothing else existed that appealed to me at the time. 6: Ossiarch Bonereapers - At this point, I had at least one of every Grand Alliance except for Death, but the available selection at the time did not appeal to me. When ossiarch were released and I saw the Necropolis Stalkers for the first time, I knew they were the faction for me. The lore bit of elite, specially crafted and assembled legions that served as a twisted Nagashian mockery of the Stormcast was icing on the cake. 7: Lumineth Realmlords - Spiritual successor to High Elves, hailing from the realm of Light, crusading to burn chaos from the realms, sporting unique spirit temples? This faction was the Elves I had wanted, and better thanks Elves I already had at home. Some of the Aesthetics were a bit of a miss, but the themes were so good, as were the hinted at future releases. Wave 2 was everything I had hoped it would be, and with Foxes being my favorite canine, the Wind Temple was a solid win for me.

EDIT: Misread the original post, my reply was not relevant to the question.

For 3rd edition, I counted 15 new Stormcast heroes and units released in combination. If the new/updated units for 4th edition total about the same, GW could still update an impressive number of units to thunderstrike while having plenty of space left over for a well-rounded Ruination chamber.

I'm of the mind that if something happens to BoC, it will be the current models shifting to TOW and a new range released for AoS. There's a lot of excellent design space for weird mutant beasties, but the "all goats" motif of current beasts does put a design limiter on how far they can stretch the envelope before the models don't look like they belong. An overhaul would allow them to add Pestigors, Khorngors, and updated or faction specific chaos spawn, and then release rank-and-file BoC who tie the disparite god-specific beasts together aesthetically. There's a LOT of design space available if they overhaul BoC, I find it hard to believe that GW would pass up that kind of opportunity (especially since, as others have said, it allows them to create a copyrightable IP in the process.)

OBJECTION! There are only two crows in the relevant image! This is clearly only an attempted murder!

While they get a lot less fanfare than Whitefang, Nezzhil's hints, predictions, and rumors have been solid ever since they started dropping them. If they're not worried, I'm not worried.

I'm not sure which edition we'll see them in, but I'm fairly confident the release of "Umbraneth" will be closely preceded or followed by the Tyrion expansion to LRL. There's already been hints in the lore and battletomes that the two of them are squaring off. I think there's equally fair arguments to be made the Malerion's army might be its own Battletome, or else paired with DoK. If GW is leaning into the symmetry/mirror image motif, they'll likely be paired with DoK. Tyrion and Teclis, the brother gods, vs Morathi and Malarion, the mother/son gods. Alternatively, Umbraneth might be to DoK what Idoneth are to LRL, an independent faction with lore ties to the other, but with which there is a complicated history. Even if Order and Elves both already have plenty of battle tomes, I can absolutely see GW adding another if they feel confident it will net enough of a profit on its own. I'm very curious what the shadow-aelf range will entail. We know shadow daemons are a thing based on some of the short stories about Ulgu. I wondered for a while of the rumor engines showing the poison bottles were Umbraneth related, but at this point it looks like those are Nighthaunt. Lots of potential design room for the faction, looking forward to seeing what they come up with.

Clearly Chaos Dwarves . . .

There are runes on the blade in the bottom left. It's either Space Marine or Stormcast with those designs.

What about Mawtribes? The highlighting is pretty bright (frost?) and there's a wierd shape coming off the skeleton's shoulder that might be ice?

Same. Lumineth are my favorite models, and magic is fine, but I want a martially-focused army, not a magic one.

I can't recall for sure, but I have the distinct impression that they said in the stream that Dawnbringers was just the 4 books.

I'll get the disappointment at how short the preview was out of the way first. With that said, I am otherwise very pleased. Cos could have shown a bit more, but I'm sure they want to stretch out the reveals leading up to the release. I don't think the chosen paint job really does the models justice. Different color choices will definitely make these models pop. The solo heroes all look excellent. I may even buy the Fyreslayers hero, just to have. The model is very dynamic, and hopefully it is a preview of things to come (pretty sure that's the first Fyreslayer wielding hammers, maybe they'll have an accompanying unit or two further down the line.) Glad I opted not to buy the old Harbinger, that new model is amazing. I am also extremely happy with the Maw-grunta. That's going to be a treat to collect and paint.

That's another rumor engine sorted!

We could always fall back on Vampirates?

To be fair, my recollection of the Soul Wars was the release of Nighthaunt, followed by a LOOOOOOOOONG period of very little for death. OBR weren't revealed until August 2019, and weren't available until November or December. Soulblight didn't release until May 2021, after the events of the Soul Wars and only barely before the release of 3rd edition. The other major new releases that edition were LRL and SoB, which have nothing at all to do thematically with Death (though they tied them in fairly well narratively.) As far as the "Era of the Beast" theme is concerned, GW has done ok so far. Excluding a few obvious misses on their part (Skaven and Beasts of Chaos, which they might still make up for in the next "Broken Realms" release,) Stormcast got dragons, Seraphon and FEC are getting reworked, and we got the Kruelboyz. Unless they tease something at Warhammest, I wouldn't expect to see anything new for Destruction until just before 4th Edition, either during or after the next big narrative event. Jack London's friend has already hinted that they'll be getting "something" in the not-so-distant future, but there's no telling how significant it may or may not be. Given that we're coming down off of the Covid-induced lull in production from GW (based on the assumption that planning and production begins roughly 5 years out), I'm honestly surprised we've gotten as much as we have in the last few months.

I really like the change to battleshock. If I recall from the stream, they said that at least one of the things it would do is make that unit less effective at holding objectives. To my mind this is a big design win, as it intuitively directs players towards the primary victory condition for the game (which will be helpful for newer players especially.) A much better fit than the old "lose more models for losing models" design. Adjacent to that point, the Objective Control stat is a must-have feature for AoS 4. Fine-tuning which units are good or bad at controlling objectives has huge implications for different armies, and can dramatically affect both list building and play style (and create better internal balance.) Balancing offensive punch against objective control is already a factor in the game, but this could give it a lot more weight and nuance. I'm not sue how I would feel about the magic phase being done away with and integrated into the other phases, but I'm not against it either. Command abilities have gotten a lot better since they were moved into the phase where they matter, so I see potential there.

I know not this "Bloodbowl" of which you speak. All I see before me is a Chaos Spawn for my Beasts of Chaos Army. Edit: Or, you know, a Pestigor . . .