Neil Arthur Hotep

I looked around a bit and you can find the letter on PETA's official website. So yes, it is genuine. Honestly not surprising for PETA, they always pull the dumbest publicity stunts. It's really sad that they are the first name that pops into people's heads when they think about animal wellfare organizations.

It remains to be seen if Deadwalker Zombies get a significant warscroll rewrite. They might not quite be a horde unit anymore in the new book. At least, not to the degree that they currently are (max unit size of 60 with a horde discount and bonuses to hit and wound at 20+/40+). Currently, LoN has a problem with having too many basic infantry choices that fill essentially the same niche. Chainrasps, Skeleton Warriors and Deadwalker Zombies are all slow, cheap chaff options that don't deal good damag and are mainly there to sit on objectives and tarpit stuff. In most builds, that makes skeletons and zombies pointless because Chainrasps just do that job the best. It would make sense for the Gravelords book to differentiate all the infantry choices more. Let's assume that Chainrasps are just out as a native troop choice for Gravelords (it would make sense to use the opportunity of the new army book to finally disentangle Nighthaunt, OBR and the rest of the current LoN range). The easiest way to differentiate skeletons from zombies would probably be to make zombies more defensive and slower, and skeletons more offensive and faster. The new Cursed City zombies give me that impression anyway. They don't look particularly offensive or fast, but they do look like they would be hard to put down. It seems even staking them down into the ground and weighing them down with a huge, heavy gravestone is not enough to stop them. From the looks of it, the new zombies are still on 25mm bases, but it's still possible that we are looking at unit sizes of 30 max instead of 60 this time around. Maybe they will turn out to be the Phoenix Guard of Gravelords, just without the offensive punch.

I'm going to try to focus on stuff that I want in particular, not all the stuff we all agree should happen anyway (replace resin kits, update old sculpts, expand small armies...). I have two armies right now, Cities of Sigmar and Legions of Nagash. For LoN, I don't even think I have to wish for very much. The Gravelords update seems to be doing exactly what I want and could reasonably expect. All the important subfactions seem to be getting support, the faction is getting cool new heroes and old janky finecast models are being replaced. Hardly anything is being removed, too. It really looks like LoN is going to graduate into an actual AoS faction soon, as opposed to being just GA: Death 2.0. I also like that GW is keeping the old aesthetic. Really happy GA: Death has room for both the high fantasy of Bonereapers and the low fantasy of rats, bats and skeletons. My Cities army is Freeguild-focussed. I have been thinking about what I would like for Freeguild, besides new sculpts. I think the direction I would like Freeguild to take is basically this: What would a modern military force look like if it was run by renaissance Germans? To me, that would mean keeping the old Empire landsknecht look, but leaning hard into the Leonardo DaVinci machines, like the Steam Tank. We already have some of that in Cities with Steam Tanks and Gyrocopters, but I would like to see other things like self-driving artillery (put the Helstorm Rocket Battery on a steam car) and troop transporters. Of course, all covered in copious amounts of heraldry and banners, and all a bit janky when compared to what the Kharadron are doing. I think this would give the Freeguild a fun direction while keeping in touch with it's old Empire roots. I'll also include one wish for a new faction per Grand Alliance: Order: I'd like to see the Order of Azyr. A bit of a low-hanging fruit, but witch hunters have a cool aesthetic that I would like to see come back as it's own thing. Death: Bring back Tomb Kings. I know, I know. It's a meme. But I am allowed to ask for it because I am still actively working on a Tomb Kings army right now. I really believe that Tomb Kings will come back given enough time. If Broken Realms does what some people are speculating and weakens Nagash's stranglehold on GA: Death, I think it becomes more and more of a real possibility. Once the narrative space is there for them to come back, I think it will happen eventually. FEC should still get their range update/expansion before that, probably OBR, too, but once all the current Death armies are in a good place as far as models go, I think the return of Tomb Kings is probably the next logical step for Death. Destruction: If the Silent People become a real army, I might be tempted to buy in. Currently, nothing in Destruction is super exciting to me, but an insectoid faction might do it. Chaos: I don't really care that much about chaos, so no real ideas here. I don't know if we need a new Chaos faction, to be honest. Expanding and updating the existing factions might be better. Especially Skaven and Beasts. Maybe Chaos Dwarves would be cool, though. I like the babylonian aesthetic and they definitely still have some fans out there. I think they ultimately fit better into AoS than they ever did into Warhammer Fantasy.

Good post! Just on the point of the amber thing though: We should not forget that Amber is the realmstone of Ghur, so it's probably not the most significant thing looking at the Silent People specifically. Works really well with the whole insect idea, though.

Everyone in the mortal realms should just die, to be honest. It's not like there are significant drawbacks and we'd finally have some peace and quiet around here. This post was made by Nagash gang. Anyway, the Bashizzar in Nagashizzar is coming up, we will see how that shakes out.

There is at least some precedent for models moving back and forth between FW and mainline. Stuff like the greater demons or verminlords had mainline models first, then got more impressive FW variants and finally had their mainline models upgraded to match forgeworld levels of bling. I can't find any evidence of a model originating with FW and then becoming a mainline thing at a quick glance, though. Maybe in 40k? I think that this happened for some of the tanks, possibly?

I think the short story actually implies the opposite: That sounds to me like the city was originally founded by humans, and then the elves moved in later. Runining the fun for everyone, as is their tradition.

Together with the other recent discontinuations, the removal of the Mourngul might be indicative of Forgeworld planning to stop supporting AoS altogether. Sucks for armies with good FW options like Gitz and Warclans.

I'm sticking with my prediction that Gravelords will be announced after BR: Teclis is released, like Hedonites were after Morathi. I originally thought they would come out in between BR: Teclis and BR III (which we now know is Belakor), but since Belakor has now already been announced, I am not so sure anymore. It looks like nearly all the minis from Cursed City might make it into AoS proper as part of Gravelords. The new zombies come in a set of 10 and have been referred to as just Deadwalker Zombies in the community articles. They will probably replace the current zombie kit. The recent bit of fluff about Gorslav the Gravekeeper possibly being part of an order of deathmages also lends credence to the idea that he will make it into Gravelords as a new hero type. With the old bat swarms becoming "no longer available online", it seems like the new ones from Cursed City will be their replacements. The announcement of the new Rat Prince vampire mini makes it seem like rat swarms could also be a new addition to Gravelords. The Ulfenwatch skeletons are actually the hardest to place, in my opinion. The old skeleton kit does not really need an update, and Deathrattle already have a light and heavy infantry option. Kind of hard to predict what role the new skeletons will play. They might just end up as an easy to build option for skeleton warriors. They will carry over to Gravelords no doubt, though, since they also come in a pack of 10 with a banner and champion option.

Double post

Fun story. A nice little piece of world building, although there don't seem to be any big revelations or any foreshadowng this time. Maybe we will get Settler's Gain rules for Cities of Sigmar in BR: Teclis, though? Hopefully along with rules for a Shyish based city.

I was thinking about this in terms of ease of getting into the game. I would see it as a big advantage if we lived in a world where I could legitimately advise people who are looking to get into AoS to just pick up a starter box of their army, secure in the knowledge that those boxes will contain everything necessary to play a somewhat balanced and fun game against any other starter box. While I can agree on newcomers not caring about optimal builds, I disagree about caring about having a build that is at least playable. Currently, the playability of SC boxes is all over the place, and many contain units you don't really want or need. If there is one thing that is currently a big barrier of entry for AoS it's that you either need to do a good amount of research before buying your box, or risk getting stuck with models you have no use for (which might well push you out of the hobby again after your first purchase). As for the point about price: Yeah, it sucks that stuff is getting more expensive. I am and will always be with you there. But it's also a reality of AoS being a product that is sold by a business. You have to expect prices to rise with each new edition, at least to keep up with inflation, but probably more. Maybe GW would be better off pricing their starter boxes cheaper, but they probably have some kind of data that tells them by how much they should raise their prices to maximize profits. So if we have to live with the fact that prices on similar products will rise over time, the best we can hope for is that they at least improve their entry level products with each iteration.

That's basically my understanding of them. GW is trying to market the combat patrol boxes as a 500 point army in a box. So, unlike the Start Collecting boxes, the idea is for the contents to be a playable. Not sure how well these boxes actually achieve that goal, since I know nothing about 40k. I think that's generally a good move, because it makes getting into the game more easy for beginners. Since GW is a business, they will be looking to raise prices every few years. That's probably the main driver between discontinuing old SC boxes and introducing a new type of similar starter box. But at least in this case there is actually a benefit for new players, too. Personally, I believe we will see a similar development for AoS fairly soon, but probably not before the edition change. Because that's just a natural place to start updating bundle boxes.

We already know that Lumineth will get rules in BR: Teclis. They said on stream that you can get access to the complete new LRL rules by buying either the old battletome and BR: Teclis or the new battletome alone. But the point about them not putting the new guy into a discount box makes sense. I see two options here: A dual box with Lyrior and whoever Horrek is, with Horrek also being a new model in either FEC or OBR. A new Lumineth Start Collecting with Lyrior in it. With all the new models LRL are getting, a new Start Collecting seems like a real possibility.

We have seen both of them on the board at the same time in the preview shots, but that could just be so that they have a nice promotional picture with all the miniatures in it. If Radukar transforms into the Vargskyr in game, I think that would be perfect, as well. Big Castlevania energy.

Lyrior Uthralle is this guy: I had to look him up, too. Looking into it a bit more, I actually don't think Horrek Venzai is the Wight King. The Wight King model also has an image on the Warhammer Community facebook page, but it does not refer to him by any name. Just "The Wight King". It's probably a character from BR: Teclis who does not have a special model, like Ven Brecht. Since BR: Teclis only has OBR and FEC on the Death side, I think he's form Bone Reaper. Probably a Liege Cavallos.

Possibly the new Wight King?

To me, keeping the Cursed City models more low key is the perfect choice for the mood and scale they are going with the game. The heroes are regular (fantasy) people and their reasons for wanting to save the city are personal. They face skeletons, zombies and vermin as their opposition for the most part. What's at stake is the fate of one city. Because the scale is smaller and the stakes are lower, it becomes a comparatively much bigger deal when the heroes have to face a big monster, a necromancer or indeed a big, strong guy in a wolf pelt. The big bad can't be too different in scale from the rest of the narrative. He can't be some kind of realm-level demigod vampire threat, because it would strain believability too much. In fact, I like that what we have seen of Soulblight Gravelords so far is also fairly low key. I really think this more grounded aesthetic is what draws people to Legions of Nagash as opposed to OBR, for example. I like that it seems like GW wants to support both asthetics, the more high fantasy one as well as the more grounded one.

For me, on the other hand, the Rat Prince is my favourite new Vampire model yet. Because I enjoy a good Dracula.

Last week of March/first week of April would match the time from announcement to release of BR: Morathi pretty much perfectly. By the same logic, we should be expecting BR: Belakor in the last week of April/first week of May.

I really love this guy. He might be my favourite new vampire yet. Something important that this guy does for me is to give context to rat swarms. I always felt they were kind of out of place, given that Skaven exist and that Soulblight already have bat swarms (which are much better connected to them in their design). Now, I'm even considering building a bats, rats and automobiles wolves list when the book rolls around. That's saying a lot, since those models were previously my least favourite in LoN.

How is Cursed City so good? I'm excited about every single model they have revealed for this game so far. Every. Single. Model.

That’s right, not in your deployment zone, but any terrain wholly within your territory. That could give us a lot of “free movement”. Good post. Are you sure this is how it works, though? Your deployment zone is defined by restrictions found in the battle plan, after all. It seems to me being able to garrison terrain features in your own territory does not overrule the deployment restrictions found on the individual battle plan (x away from enemy territory and units...).

I don't really agree with that. Maybe it's just that I don't know enough about AoS lore, but to me, the big difference between Destruction and Order is not about their associated gods, but about the idea that Destruction factions are not civilization builders. Or at least not city builders. They all seem to be nomadic to some degree, or in the case of Gloomspite seem to live in some weird, semi-mythical underworld. I feel Destruction factions are most defined by their primitivism (at least at the moment) and rejection of any authority not based on personal strength. While they are happy to destroy the works of civilization, they are not malevolent in the way Chaos factions are. There are enough examples of Destruction mercenaries working with the forces of civilization, too, when it suits them. You can imagine Orruk bodyguards, Ogor traders and Gitz just being more or less harmless pests. You can't really think about Skaven or other Chaos factions this way. Well, maybe Beasts of Chaos, but they seem kind of under-explored anyway.

What I find interesting about this guy is that he has this sort of samurai-looking silhouette with a western sword. Lumineth have that kind of thing going on sometimes, but for some reaons this model does not look like Lumineth to me. It seems like what I assume is his sleeve is kind of tattered, which could suggest that this is a Death model. Ossiarch or Gravelords both seem like possibilities. It's hard to say what is going on with his head, though. Hair blowing in the wind? Head on fire?