RocketPropelledGrenade

Yeah, I don't recommend anyone hold their breath until AoS 4 comes out. Sounds like a good way to really exemplify the Death Grand Alliance, and not in like, a fun hobby way!

Much of this post is decent to great advice, but I wanted to home in on the bolded text here. The concept has historically been fundamentally bad because it was bad under the basic assumptions we've had from first ed onwards. There are lots of ways they could change things to make it better with a full rules overhaul. Will they? Hard to say, and I personally doubt they'll shift things too drastically on that front. But I could definitely see a world where they do, and already came up with half a dozen or so ways they could do it while typing out this post.

GW themselves confirmed it this week. I was pretty surprised that the rumors were right for once, but that is unfortunately the case.

I hope the cards are like current 40k secondary objectives, which I like a lot. Great system above and beyond clearing the low bar to improve on Battle Tactics (I don't hate them as much as some, but they're not great).

Would've loved Ulgu, but yeah. Keep waiting, Malerion!

We do not, but it would be weird not to announce that IMO.

Skaven are going to be last in the show with the 4E announcement. They're saving the big one for maximum impact.

Pretty sure only one of the dwarfs is new, although I could be wrong. Also, doesn't TOW have its own rumor/news thread now?

Abraxia is cool, but I do wish she'd been multibuild. S2D desperately needs a more modern generic character in her weight class. The Lord on Manticore doesn't cut it cool factor wise, and the Lord on Karkadrak is a much lower tier of power. Making some assumptions about Abraxia, of course, but I'm fairly confident.

I saw an unlikely but theoretically possible prediction for Dawnbringers 6 on Reddit recently, and now I'm just bracing myself for disappointment when it turns out to be wrong because it spoke to me as a beautiful idea. What if the Lady of Ruin or whatever her name is comes as a dual (or triple) kit that replaces the Lord/Sorcerer on Manticore with a better sculpt and/or monster? I would love that. Deeply want a monster hero that is cool but not Archaon (don't want to pay that many points and prefer to avoid named lore characters where I can manage).

They have done a Warcry release of multiple units across a single box with the Hunters of Huachi and their pet Terawings being distinct warscrolls (ignoring the two Hunter warscrolls as just weapon swaps that aren't relevant for this purpose). So there's a bit more hope there.

Okay, I forgot about Morghur, I'd like a model for him too.

More AoS original characters would be my preference. The only returning characters I'm interested in are the ones who have done stuff in AoS already. I do want to see models for Tyrion, Malerion, and maybe Grungni, but I'm not interested in them as returners, just as what they have become.

Fair enough! To be clear, I wasn't trying to argue you should or had to agree about 40k, just that I don't think any of us have a clear picture of overall sentiment. I'm largely in tune with Goatforce here. We had a ton of very flavorful battletomes where the mechanics lined up with the lore, with S2D being the peak or something close to it. I personally don't hold Gitz as having flawed battletome design though, just flawed points values. Khorne, OBR, and SBGL are closer to being outright bad design, but even there I'd go to bat and say they just live out their fantasy too well and should have been reined in sooner. The only battletomes this entire edition I would actually rate as bad design are Slaanesh (Temptation Dice are a huge chore on both sides, plus too much shooting for their ride fast, die hard aesthetic and theming) and Seraphon (which could be fixed by making the divide between Coaelesced and Starborn closer to OWC style with separate winrate tracking and balancing the units as if they were separate warscrolls per version).

A lot? Maybe. Depends on your definition. I don't think the vocal contingent you see online is any more representative and less anecdotal of a source than the extremely positive local reception I've been seeing. And for myself, this is the best edition 40k has ever had. That all has to do with the core rule changes, though. It made the indexes necessary, but the indexes themselves are of variable quality. I do think GW is moving in the right direction with fixes and updates to 10th, though. With regards to AoS, I'm fine with indexes, but it will be a bit of a shame to ditch some of the amazing battletomes we've had in third by moving too far. 2023 imbalances aside, the battletomes this edition have largely been stellar IMO. I would honestly be fine with 3+ more years of 3e provided they fixed how they did seasons and made the on-ramp for new players easier.