Gistradagis

Take my very fist-shaking angry upvote.

True, but as you say, that was in good part the GHB changing the meta. To be specific, however, my fears are less power-related and more design-wise. Like, Nurgle is a really strong book, but I'd say it's also very poorly designed. You spam as many flies as possible and that's pretty much it. It's very strong, also very boring and stale. Meanwhile, books like NH, Sylv or Skaven have been pretty amazing in design and viability, I'd say. My concern, then, is of GW doing more the former than the later, and simply designing the book to shelve the Vanari stuff and really push forcefully what saw little play before. We still have a lot of things to see before making any real judgements, but some of the stuff leaked (if taken at any validity) reminds me more of the first 3.0 books than the ones we're seeing now, which worries me.

It had been commented ("leaked") that it might mean a loss in range and no more ignore-LoS rule, with the rest staying more or less similar. Which, to be fair, would make them terrible, unless they scaled down their points quite a lot.

Oh god I hope it's not true. This screams lazy design, just like Nurgle's book, where they picked some trash units and made them great to sell, and other stuff worse. I really hope we don't see a case of "just shelve all of your Vanari stuff and Teclis, time to buy all of the other side of their range if you want good units."

I wouldn't, in the context of our army. You also need to consider that PBs are the "base" battleline. With our other stuff also going up in points, like the Glottkin supposedly being about 700 and the GuO 550-600, this + 3 MSU of PBs would already be half of our entire list. It's quite the tax just to fill the minimum. That's part of what worries me. I won't be surprised if they are, say 180. And would still be our cheapest battleline, so an expensive tax for the minimum of 3 battleline units. Much like you say, the change from 5+ to 6+ is also lowkey very big. With the increased damage, mortals, and general aggression, losing a point to our save characteristic can be more trouble than what it's worth it, even if they move to 2W. Our PBs would be very big on paper, but die far more easily than ever before while taking more of our list space. Not much longer to find out though.

GW is generally so-so at pointing higher wounds, so PBs at 2W might mean they'll become... really expensive. Like, don't be surprised if PBs are suddenly 160 or so.

Wh... what? One of the key weaknesses of our current book is that we have a TON of options but almost everything is terrible and has no place. The Witherstave has reigned supreme for years, and the sub-factions meant we had no choice of a Trait. Heck, the book currently still had legs thanks to the Bilepiper update in BR: Teclis. I do certainly hope that we do get balanced enhancements though. Cuz almost every single list was Witherstave, and then trying to fit in Blades of Putrefaction and/or Favoured Poxes. As an addendum for the book rumours/leaks, I've heard of some people who have been able to check the book and the new Diseased Points allegiance (which is kind of terrible in a vacuum due to extremely low mortal wounds behind 2 dice rng walls) will meaningfully interact with warscrolls and sub-factions (each adding its own touch to how the points work or what they do, supposedly).

I must say, the new allegiance sounds quite terrible. I wonder if we're meant to get some other synergy off of it, like a certain number of stacks giving penalties and the like? Because a handful of mortal wounds here and there at the end of the turn sounds really mild and unimpactful. But if actually debuffs opponents with enough tokens, that can be really interesting. I have also heard that BKs stay at 4W (some people thought they might go up to 5 after seeing Fecula's bodyguards being 5W themselves), and that while we don't have our own endless spells, the "neutral" ones we cast will count as infected and add tokens for the new allegiance.

I do genuinely believe we could see an extra wound, if anything because one key element in our new book is that almost all of our units need a bit of a boost, but my scepticism over the info on that article is mostly rooted in some stuff feeling like they simply didn't pay too much attention, rather than it being a secret wink to a tome that wouldn't be announced for months. Perhaps it was, but I'm not very convinced. On the flute? I really don't know. When it came out, my friends and I thought about it, and ended up feeling that it could be smth Nurgle-related, this being a flute and the fingers weird, or some death model, who also has models with similar fingers. Perhaps it is for us, perhaps not. Or perhaps it is smth Nurgle-related but that we won't see until months later, getting some random new model? I don't know. Much like you say, this kind of "I reject hope" is very thematic for Nurgle, so at this point I have made peace that what we know presently seems to indicate we aren't getting new things, be it an actual mortal range like Hedonites, endless spells, or something else such as the flute rumour. If we get a surprise announced before December, fantastic. Otherwise, I'll simply concentrate on our new rules and book.

6 non-hero units. Literally 2 units of mortals, the second being a mount version of the first with the mount from another one of our units. Our line does a supremely poor job of representing our range, except for daemons who have it alright. "everything you'd want." Edit: For bonus points, we're also the only Chaos faction without endless spells. Which isn't the worst thing in the world, but still a funny detail.

Pusgoyles already count as 2 models, what is this "they get 1 extra wound to count for 2 models"? The suggestion from the June article was because those writing it just paid little attention to how Nurgle works. iirc the article had several mistakes/errors. Also, I've already heard a few times the Wheel might be going away (which I'm fine with, really). And, tragically, the article was fairly clear that we're getting nothing but the new sorcerer model (yay, waiting 4 years for 1 re-done model).

BoC would fit the initial Ghur push, too, so it's not a crazy thought. Hence why I personally feel like Skaven and BoC have a stronger possibility of being the October Chaos army. And yeah, the mortal range for Nurgle is Blightkings, and Blightkings mounted on drones. Not particularly amazing.

Perhaps actually read the post. There's a reason I speak of non-hero units (spoiler: it's for the non-hero units). A million heroes and 6 units is a straight up weird balance. End of fantasy is not long ago, but it's not AoS. This is also not a competition, it literally doesn't matter how old other kits from other armies are. GW isn't going around by kits age or necessity, and an army's release isn't going to depend on whether it'll make other people feel bad about their armies also needing stuff. To say that Nurgle doesn't deserve more units because other armies have older models makes 0 sense. Your personal take on endless spells doesn't change the fact they were introduced with the idea of being for almost every single army, and that Nurgle lacks them. It's not something anyone "needs" because no faction "needs" anything, everything is extra. Again, that comparison is great for dishonest arguments, but it's still not a competition. Nurgle needs more non-hero models, independent of what other factions have and need.

A hero is the last thing Nurgle needs, rather. Same for terrain piece. Nurgle, ironically (as it looks like a big faction), actually needs a pretty big release. It lacks endless spells, and an actual (AoS) release (it has 6 non-hero units, from 40k and the end of Fantasy basically), Slaanesh-style. Do I think we'll get it? Eeeeeeeeh, not really. Much like you say, I do believe we'll get some random piece like a hero, endless, and book. And age doesn't mean much to GW, as they release stuff according to their own mysterious plans, and not book age or meta state.

99% sure it's not Chaos Dwarfs. To begin with, they did mention 3rd edition would be more about reinforcing the existing armies than bringing new ones, so I don't expect Chaos Dwarfs until reaaally late into the edition, if ever. My guess is on Skaven or BoC, too. As a Nurgle player I'd love to finally get the update/extended release I need, but I'm not really expecting it, and nothing seems to point at Nurgle as a possibility.