Neil Arthur Hotep

Something that is interesting from my outside perspective is that all the armies that I thought would get larger or more impactful updates this edition have yet to receive their new battletomes. Gitz, OBR, Beasts, Seraphon, FEC, Cities and maybe even Soulblight are all good candidates for a large release. If we take the earnings report at face value and there were shipping delays affecting AoS releases, then maybe the battletome order was shuffled around to focus on small releases first?

It's hard to say. Next year could be like this year or could potentially be super packed. We already know that big S2D release is coming and Cities are being worked on, too. Plus we know of three more Warcry boxes and probably a bunch of cool Underworlds warbands as base line releases. In addition to that, we might still see a new army and/or a large scale model release for an army that needs it like Beasts or Gitz. Chaos dwarf and regular dwarf rumours have also yet to pan out.

For sure. I want to say one last thing before I get back on topic, though. I think for non-competitive players of fairly skill-rewarding games (games without huge random swings), Johnny is probably the most common player type. People who want to do clever stuff but don't primarily care about winning or competition are, in my opinion, exactly the kinds of people drawn to complex strategy games with a casual player base. I think the difference between the guy who just wants to show up, roll some dice and have a good time (Timmy) and the guy who spends forever tayloring his list to do very specific things that are uniquely his own (Johnny) is real enough that the distinction is useful. Now you have me thinking about colour identities of AoS armies again. I will have to make a contentious list at some point.

I would have to disagree here: Spike might like to combo off in MtG if that's the strong deck that wins games, but Spike would be just as happy winning with a really value efficient goodstuff deck. The difference is that Johnny would be bored with a deck that is not "clever" in any way, just really mechanically efficient. Personally, even though Timmy/Johnny/Spike is not necessarily well rooted in psychology or exhaustive, I still think these terms are pretty useful if only for self-identification. It's good vocabulary to have when you want to talk about what appeals to you about a game. Of course, in the context of competitive discussion Timmy and Spike will mostly come up, because they map fairly directly to casual and competitive (although not exactly, describing someone as a Timmy/Spike player makes sense).

I don't know, when I see people talk about Timmy, Johnny and Spike I usually see them mention all three and usually it's in the context of game design. I find when people just want to talk about casual/competitive they just say casual and competitive. Especially in the context of games like AoS where self-expression has another dimension (painting/modelling) I think it's good not to disregard Johnny. It's a pretty valuable category when it comes to understanding why people are attracted to AoS/certain armies.

There is certainly something to be said about not falling into the trap of deriving your satisfaction in this hobby solely from buying new models you will probably never paint. I think that is a common psychological trap people fall into since the immediate gratification of buying a new thing is easier to get and more addictive than the slow burn of painting your army. But still, even though I think that I have a fairly healthy relationship with the hobby in this respect (barely any grey plastic, nothing unbuilt), I am feelinga bit unexcited about the state of current AoS offerings. I think most people got into this game for the models, and if new models don't get announced that doesn't exactly build hype. The narrative is also not really moving foreward that much as far as I can tell. Recognizing this doesn't have to mean that you have an unhealty relationship with the game.

I personally also don't like that faction terrain an upgrade to your army list that doesn't cost points, but does cost money. Just from an accessibility perspective.

There should be an update soon, though. I thought the next battlescroll was supposed to be this week.

Classic Shmeclis! Really enjoying how they keep finding new ways for him to be the worst. I mean this unironically.

Hard to say, but the last time I looked them up on eBay they were actually in pretty high supply and fairly affordable.

I think you get the option of a single model or three pack.

A few ideas off the top of my head. I have personally mixed Freeguild and Death bits to some success: This guy is made out of Rocket Battery and Hurricanum crew bits. The shield is from the old Skeleton Warrior kit. There are a few shields in that kit that are not super decayed or vampirey anf would fit a Shyishian Freeguild quite well: If you want to build better looking Handgunners but stick to GW bits, I recommend the outrider/pistolier kit. It will leave you with a lot of leftover guns and heads even if you build the models normally. You can fit the outridet capes on normal infantry bodies for a pretty cool result:

This sentiment is right, I think: GW are the biggest tabletop wargaming company and should definitely improve their processes so that something like this does not happen. But I think we also need to recognize that this swift downloadable rule fix before the army is fully out is still a good response. We all want blunders like this to preferably not happen at all in the future, but actually putting out a fix rapidly instead of waiting 3 months for the next scheduled balance data slate is by no means the worst they could have handled this.

I did not have a lot of time to paint this month and spent most of it on one mini. The goal was to practice patterns and freehand by painting Cleona Zeitengale like this FF6 concept art:

Yeah, I also don't really see a reason to suspect any large releases other than Slaves to Darkness and eventually Cities of Sigmar right now. But that does not have to mean no meaningful AoS content next year, necessarily. Warcry and Underworlds seem to be going strong, so that is nice. We can depend on a few cool warbands and a bunch of Ghur terrain from those two. I think there might also be room for a Sylvaneth-level release here and there. A lot of the yet to be updated factions could benefit from this, like KO and OBR. We have not yet seen a completely new army this edition. We might not get one next year or at all, but there always have been several per edition before.I Also I think it is worth noting that of all the plot points that have been set up in the lead up to 3rd edition, exactly none have been resolved. What is up with Nagash and Arkhan? What are the effects of Alarielle's life surge? What is Grungni up to? What about Morghur? Malerion? I hope at least some of this stuff amounts to something before the edition is over.

Just introduce some new lore about the mysterious asbestos tailors of Aqshy. I'm with team pants on this one.

That explains why those new Darkoath guys intuitively appealed to me so much more than the previous ones. I don't have a lot of interest in Conans usually, so I was surprised that I found these new guys actually kind of intriguing. Must have been the fact that they are actually wearing pants tha did it for me. That narrative narrative of a band of explorers getting corrupted by the bestial nature of Ghur is also fun enough that I can see myself using it as the basis for a Soulbound one shot. Between this and the fantastic new Grave Guard, I am definitely picking up the Gnarlwood box. It's a complete hit for me.

That would probably make me start a second Deathrattle army on top of the one I currently have. Deathrattle vs OBR is also a really interesting pairing. The preview makes it seem like all the Grave Guard are the sons of that Wight King boss. I guess the big boy just drank a lot of milk growing up.I +1 for more undead Ogors, though. Still kinda miffed that Radukar is not an Ogor vampire.

I suppose if they also take it as an opportunity to rewrite the Wight King's rules, because otherwise it will never see the table. The old foot Wight King holds up OK, though. I'd rather see a completely new hero. Or just, you know, the updated Grave Guard everyone really wants.

It would have to be a new type of hero, too. Unless they decided to update the Wight King on foot. In which case this would be the least exciting update possible.

I really want to see a big Beasts release before the edition is over. The faction has so much potential, but has been narratively directionless and stuck with old, bad models since I can remember. All those faithful Beasts players really deserves a break.

I see some pitting on the mace head, which usually indicates GA: Death. Could be Soulblight or FEC.

I also want to see a reimagining of the old puffy sleeves and hats style. I mean, the Ironweld elf from that recent Greywater book shows what a modernized version of that could look like. Especially for the permanent armies of Sigmar's mega-cities, I think a certain level of pomp would be appropriate. Side note, I definitely hope we don't see the average Freeguild dude in an armour that looks like the Chaos Legionaires'. Not because it looks bad or anything, but because I would die if I had to cleanly paint those tiny rivets on their brigandine for 30 dudes. In any case, I think it's fairly probable that we will see a mix of low tech and high tech with the new Freeguild. The weapon preview suggests lower tech, more highly armoured core troops, but recent models like Hexbane's Hunters are not abandoning the established high tech elements yet. So I think that both will be present in the final release, as well.

I actually think the guys in that image look very much like classic army Empire guys. I have definitely painted that leather cap you identified as a pilot hat a few times. It is found a lot in the Ironweld kits and the little non-battlemage helper guys from the Hurricanum wear them, too. Anyway, I like this depiction of the Freeguild in a wilderness scenario. As much as I hope the puffy sleeves and big hats stay in some capacity, they would probably get in the way when exploring the turbo-jungles of Ghur. EDIT: Some "pilot hats" from current kits.

Hey everyone, I am looking to buy a new Wight King on Steed but have all the Grave Guard and Black Knights I will ever need. I will pay GW prices, so about 40€ or so. EDIT: I am located in Germany, so I am looking for EU based offers. Sorry, UK and US friends, but shipping and customs would mean that I might as well buy the start collecting box.