Neil Arthur Hotep
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Posts posted by Neil Arthur Hotep
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2 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:
I'm now wondering if Soulblight Deathlords will be released after 3.0? That seems unlikely, when the release schedule is usually dominated by whichever army is opposing the Stormcast until at least the end of the year, but between the Lumineth getting a huge new wave, the Hedonites wave, Warhammer Quest probably dominating a few weeks (Blackstone Fortress had a two week pre-order cycle I believe), Kill-Team and a lot more stuff supposedly coming for Sisters, I'm struggling to see where they can cram them in before June/July.
Unless we aren't getting 3.0 this year...? Or it's being pushed back towards the end of 2021.
The Soulblight Gravelords release seems to follow the Hedonites pattern: It will probably release after BR: Teclis, around three months after the Underworlds warband that teases the faction. That's what I have been expecting since before we even saw the Vampire Lord leak, at least
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2 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:
The Helbard is a rumor engine pic.
Crouching sword guy on the right as well.
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6 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:
If they bring Greenskins(z?) back after squat'ing them I'd laugh my ****** off.
Worked for High Elves.
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18 minutes ago, Maier666 said:
And we know how good Teclis plans usually work.. Sooo no problem? 😬
Spoiler: Broken Realms 😅
Between Nagash being a huge chump and Teclis
heckingeverything up for everyone, this seems 100% in line with their previous characterization. All that is missing is Nagash building another Black Pyramid and Skaven blowing it up again somehow. -
1 minute ago, Clan's Cynic said:
I'd agree if we hadn't already seen the leak from a blister pack. To me that suggests they're not that far away.
I could try to argue a bunch of stuff about supply chains, Covid delays and market saturation, but honestly I have no idea what GWs production cycle usually looks like. I think they produce products a long time in advance, and I know stuff that is just being released now has been in the works for a while. But I can't pretend that I know what that fully done blister means in regard to release timing.
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5 minutes ago, Black_Templar_Lad said:
Im setting my expectations for Soulblight.
Im on the confident side that we'll get a proper revamp but I honestly wouldn't be surprised if all we saw was the Warband and whatever models are in a potential Quest set, with the full revamp coming much later.
If it was just one extra Vampire Lord, why even change the army name if it was just one new model. Could've just kept it as Legions of Nagash: Vampire Lord. I know FEC were made practically from a couple of units but LoN already had a large selection that surely one more model wouldn't warrant a complete change.
Completely agree. I am still sticking with my original timeline of Vampires in spring/early summer. So I would not be surprised if we see very little of Soulblight Gravelords tomorrow.
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2 minutes ago, Clif Blunderbrows said:
Yeah, I’m working off the assumption that the two Lumineth kits, the vampire UW warband and hero, and the new Broken Realms book are the only AoS announcements planned for Saturday. Which in my mind is already an amazing preview show. So adding literally anything on top of that would really just put me over the moon in terms of hobby hype!
I'd say we should also expect whatever "Ulfenkarn" is to be AoS related. Likely a Warhammer Quest.
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3 minutes ago, KingBrodd said:
What is the Clampack leak mate?
Before the plastic Vampire Lord was put on the official site, a potato cam photo of that model's packaging was making the rounds. It was packaged as a "Soulblight Gravelords Vampire Lord". And a new faction name implies a new battletome.
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4 minutes ago, Ghoooouls said:
Yeah this has been leaked, models look a bit like old swordmasters (but obv lots cooler)
By "leaked" do you mean "part of the Lumineth Underworlds warband and also that one Broken Realms story and obviously in the works for months" ? 😉
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4 minutes ago, TheR00zle said:
I did as well, then I looked back and saw that they didn't really match any model in the range.
I just interpreted those guys as fancyful Bladegheists, Grimghasts and Chainrasp. Honestly, if we get another marginally different bedsheet with a spear I'll riot.
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3 minutes ago, Nasnad said:
But but but the skaven are the reason for the necroquake, not nagash, go right some rats instead!
Completely on brand for Teclis to have terrible judgement once again.
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7 minutes ago, HorticulusTGA said:
Broken Realms : Tome I announced the Hedonites battletome, so Tome II could announce Battletome : Soulblight Gravelords.
I predicted exactly this in the Soulblight thread yesterday:
On 1/21/2021 at 2:17 PM, Neil Arthur Hotep said:I would guess that Lumineth could be the driving faction in the next Broken Realms, and Gravelords could be a Battletome release in between Broken Realms II and III, much like Hedonites are in between BR I and II.
So that's not at all an ad hoc rationalization. If the Soulblight release follows the Hedonites pattern, it's what we should expect.
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3 minutes ago, LordAlpharius said:
Unless Teclis utterly wipes the floor with Nagash any soulblight revolt would probably be easily crushed by Nagash, so I dont think GW will take lore in that direction.
Yeah, why would they weaken Nagash's control of Shyish? That would make it some sort of Fractured Domain. A Broken Realm if you will. I don't think that's a theme they are going for 😉
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22 minutes ago, Greybeard86 said:
Yes, you can. But currently AoS is not set up that way, there are no serious unit specializations. There is a tad of difference with rend, but it tends to erode away anyway. At least that's my understanding.
That's going a bit far, don't you think? I assume you don't mean that there is no appreciable difference in AoS between, for example, infantry and cavalry. Because that's clearly absurd. I think what you want to say is that AoS does not allow for significant differences between units of the same type in the same army (e.g. two different infantry units) but even that does not seem right to me. Maybe if you are looking at two units of the same type and at the same point level, but why limit yourself in this way? That does not seem to be what @RocketPropelledGrenade is talking about.
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1 minute ago, lare2 said:
I've been thinking about this as well but SGL will already have a number of big centrepiece models - Nagash (potentially), mortarch (Nef/Mann), Coven Throne, Palanquin, VLZD. Seems a bit saturated.
If we remove Nagash (just hypothetically), that's only three kits. Plus, while the Mortis Engine kit is cool, it does not have the rules to be a proper centerpiece. Even Ideoneth, with their small model range, have the Turtle, Akhelian King and Eidolon.
Also, for big releases, including a new centerpiece seems to be the modus operandi for GW since OBR at least. Katakros, Teclis, the Slaanesh Chariot, as well as the Triumph of St. Celestine and the Silent King in 40k. Maybe the Mega Gargant, too, but that's kind of reaching.
I think if SGL is a large release, a new centerpiece seems fairly likely.
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59 minutes ago, JackStreicher said:
Aoart from that I just hope the Wight King gets a rules rework and that our foot Vampires will get some kind of protection against shooting and MW magic spam (more resilience).
If Gravelords are an LoN replacement and if the Wight King sticks around at all, I think him getting a rules rework is very likely.
At the moment, he's just a worse Vampire Lord, pretty much. It would be nice if he actually offered good Deathrattle synergy, instead of being a Vampire Lord without synergy with anything other than Deathrattle, as he is right now.
4 minutes ago, Malakithe said:That leaves Manny and Neffy to hang out with whatever this new thing will be. What will their roles be now?
I think the least we can expect are new rules that make Mannfred and Neferata actually synergize with the SOULBLIGHT keyword. New command abilities seems fairly likely to me.
A bit more speculation: If we see a range expansion, then I would guess one of the two will be the Vampire-focussed centrepiece, and the other will be more zombie/skeleton/creature of the night focussed. I think Neferata buffing Soulblight and Mannfred buffing all the other stuff seems somewhat likely, even though the new Vampire Lord looks more Carstinian than Lahmian. Another option could be that Neferata enables an aggressive playstyle for Soulblight, while Mannfred enables a more defensive/ambushy one.
There is also the possibility of another Mortarch/big centerpiece hero being introduced, if we are being really optimistic.
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23 hours ago, Sception said:
Ah, but the AoS factions have not been fully established, as Legions of Nagash is /technically/ a first edition battle tome, never updated for 2e. [...]
I want to comment one more time on why I think it's not unrealistic to expect a larger release for Soulblight, not just a battletome update and a plastic Vampire Lord. I definitely don't want to imply that your points are somehow invalid, though. Especially the point about managing your expectations. I agree that the LoN book was actually really good for the time. Same with other, similar books like Cities of Sigmar, which has some of the best mechanical design of any AoS book, even if people are still disappointed that there were no new units. And you are completely right that we should not hype ourselves up to an unreasonable extent and then get disappointed with a good release just because it does not fulfill all our hopes and dreams.
Your argument was that looking at the release patterns for old factions, it might be more reasonable to expect a small release with few new models than a big faction rework with lots of kits. I think the evidence supports this. But evidence is always subject to interpretation. It's up to the person analyzing the evidence to decide what is especially pertinent in the case at hand.
In my opinion, your examples from 2019/2020 are not the most pertinent ones. It's true that they seem to establish a certain pattern for updates to old factions. But I think we also need to look at the context of those releases. In 2019, we were seeing close to a battletome a month. GW was going through an effort to give every faction real rules. At the same time, they were focussing their large releases on AoS original factions. That tells me that at the time their priorities were to make old factions playable, and to give AoS a more distinct identity in comparison to WHFB.
I think we are past that era of AoS 2.0 now, though. And since I think priorities have likely changed now, I don't expect the same patterns to hold. For one, the battletome release cycle has slowed down considerably. Even disregarding COVID, we would not be looking at a breakneck pace of a battletome every month anymore. And since that pace has slowed down, we can probably expect future battletomes to come with more significant model releases again.
It could also be valuable to look at Legion of Nagash related releases specifically. There were two of those, Nighthaunt and OBR, and both times they came with a good amount of new models. Nighthaunt are an especially pertinent, since much like Soulblight it's a faction that builds significantly on old models.
Plus, there is the pattern of the Hedonites release. Since that is the most recent release, it might be a good indication of how faction updates will work in the future. So that could mean a large amount of models supplemented by spin-off game content (Underworlds, Warcry, duel box heroes, possibly Warhammer Quest).
Anyway, there is not that much use in arguing this point right now. It's probably best to wait and see what the preview show on saturday has to offer. If we see any new troop options, I think a larger release is likely. If we just see heroes and Warhammer Quest, it's probably a minor battletome release. Either way, I personally be happy with updated rules and a new Warhammer Quest or something like that. Plus, if those rumour engines are not LoN/Soulblight stuff, at least Flesh Eater Courts players can probably look foreward to new models.
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33 minutes ago, Enoby said:
While it's fake, how would people feel if it did replace LoN as the main faction? Assuming we don't get a redo of everything in Death, it would let people run old fashioned vampire counts with skeletons and zombies, while also allowing others to just run vampires in a subfaction.
It's definitively what I expect (actually have been expecting for a few months). I think it's the logical place for LoN to go after Nighthaunt and OBR.
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33 minutes ago, Sception said:
I don't dislike the idea of new vampire elite infantry, but IF the gravelords really are LoN 2.0, then that makes them a new book for an existing AoS army. A holdover oldhammer AoS army at that. Looking at what new model kits other armies in similar positions got in their last releases, we have examples like:
- Ogres: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, not even any endless spells?
- FEC: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, some endless spells
- Skaven: one new hero model, one faction terrain kit, some endless spells
- Seraphon: one faction terrain kit, not even their own endless spells? Did they even get a new hero model?
- Beastmen: faction terrain piece, some endless spells
- Cities of Sigmar: Nnnn... nnothing? I don't think they got a single new model kit
[...]
That's a valid position, but I would point out that all those examples are from a time period where GW was still in the process of giving everything new battletomes. Now that AoS factions have been fully established, I think we might well be at the point where old factions WHFB might finally get expanded or redone.
The division between AoS and WHFB factions is murky, anyway. Hedonites are getting a big release soon, and while Slaanesh mortals are an AoS thing, Slaanesh in general certainly is not.
We will have to wait and see. My personal stakes in this are fairly low, anyway, since my LoN is converted Tomb Kings, so I have long given up on the possibility of "proper" new models. But I genuinely think the new Vampire Lord, presumed faction name change and all the Death rumour engines/teasers suggest a larger release. If that could finally put to bed the idea that old factions can't get new models, that would also be appreciated (although I can understand that's probably the smart prediction at this point in time).
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My thoughts on that prophecy:
The gate will shatter!
Probably the gates of Excelsis being brought down by Gordrak, as most people have guessed.
The earth will tear!
This one is mysterious. I think this line, plus the name "Broken Realms" could hint at something happening to the geography of the mortal realms. No idea what it could be, though.
The sky shall eat the storm,
I find this line tricky because both "sky" and "storm" could be references to Sigmar and the Stormcast. If "sky" is the Sigmar, I would guess "storm" is the Waaagh. That would suggest that Gordrak succeeds in bringing down the gates of Excelsis but is eventually pushed back by Sigmar. If "storm" is Sigmar, on the other hand, I have no idea what "sky" could be. Lumineth? Kharadron? Both seem unlikely.
and the serpent’s tide will rise!
The serpent is probably Morathi. The serpent's tide might be a reference to the DoK/Idoneth alliance, as some have pointed out.
The Changer’s riddle is born anew
The Changer is probably Tzeentch, but the reference to being "born anew" made me think it might be Slaanesh.
by the splitting mirror of the Dark Prince!
The "splitting mirror of the Dark Prince" is probably Sigvald, given his backstory. It would make sense if he somehow helps with the rebirth of Slaanesh, if that is what "the Changer's riddle" is referring to in the previous part. If it's about Tzeentch, I have no idea, though.
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Of the two new Vampires we have seen, I think I prefer Bat Hair over 80s Hair, but they are both really nice. I like that they decided to go with plate armour with a bat wing motif as their aesthetic choice.
I hope we get creatures of the night in addition to skeletons and zombies with this new battletome. I am fully willing to build that Castlevania army.
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22 hours ago, Sception said:
I think the "deadwalker hero' model looks piratey, which is the kind of theme I'd expect from a War Cry or Underworlds release rather than for a base faction in AoS.
Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part, but the "foot vampire knight" arm & sword still looks more FECy than SGLy to me. Proper Vampires get nice, well maintained gear. Pitted & corroded stuff is for lesser undead. The boot you put there also doesn't match the armor style on the confirmed vampire lord, which makes me think it's not a new vampire thing.
The "necromancer Vampire" and the bone flute in the "centerpiece diorama" bits look more like daemons than undead to me.
the "vampire duelist" bits look to be an underworld thing based on a preview on warhammer community today.
I think those are all very reasonable takes.
Just to note, I put all rumour engine pictures that (I think) could possibly be Gravelords units into my list. I did not try to stick to ones that are likely, necessarily. Probably, some of these rumour engines will not be Gravelords, or not even Death. So yeah, I full expect some things on the list to be Underworlds, Warcry or a specialty game (Warhammer Quest seems likely).
I agree that there are a few pictures that look like FEC. But I'm not sure where an FEC release would fit into the timeline. After Hedonites come out next month, there needs to be a Lumineth and Gravelords release. I would guess that Lumineth could be the driving faction in the next Broken Realms, and Gravelords could be a Battletome release in between Broken Realms II and III, much like Hedonites are in between BR I and II. I suppose it could be that FEC get a small expansion in BR II, but more likely they would go into BR III. We will be probably a year and a half out from the release of that rumour engine at that point, plus the "vampire foot knight" is the earliest Death sneak peek we have. That's why I think it might be somewhat likely that it's a model in Gravelords or Ulfenkarn (if that is the next Warhammer Quest).
I put that picture down as Vampire Foot Knight because I fully believe there will be some kind of Vampire infantry in the Vampire battletome. I think that's almost as certain as new Blood Knights, even if we don't have rumour engine that definitively points towards it. It could be, though, that Vampire duellists will fill that role completely. Given how Underworlds warbands often depict a cross section of a faction's troops, I still think it's likely that we will see foot vampires even if we know that two of the rapiers and sabres are part of the Underworlds warband.
For the bone flute, I could see that being a Chaos or FEC thing. The "necromancer vampire" seems like a Death thing to me, though. The long, skinny hand with the skull really suggests that, in my view.
As for the boot in the "vampire knights" section, I just wanted to put that somewhere because it has a skull on it. That's by far the thing I am the least confident about. I think it's possible that there are several visual styles in this army for different Vampire bloodlines, though. That would explain some differences in armour designs and appearance. But I guess we will probably see on Saturday.
Finally, as far as models being removed: I think it's fairly safe to say that anything Finecast will go unless it's replaced. I believe that means GW will get rid of build options such as mounts or wings for Vampire Lords/Wight Kings, because those are basically straight upgrades anyway and only really existed to ensure old models remained playable. And while I think retooling Wight Kings and Necromancers to be on round bases would be nice, I think that's not actually physically possible since plastic models use steel molds that can probably not be easily modified.
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Since you mention stuff going out of production soon: I'm pretty sure we won't be able to get all the classic Vampire Lords and the Necromancer with Hat after Soulblight Gravelords are released.
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Death & the Divine undead previews
in Death
Posted
Yes, let's not lose sight of that. Cursed City is looking really nice, lots of room for cool models both on the hero and undead sides. I was originially hoping the Vampire Huter would be a proper Cities of Sigmar unit, but I am warming up more and more to the idea of a self contained little hobby project like Warhammer Quest.
Since the preview had nothing about Gravelords, it would make the most sense to me if they got their release after BR: Teclis. I think it's likely that the events of that book will be justifying why Vampires are suddenly their own faction. We should have expected that, to be honest: Vampires being impotant had been set up in BR: Morathi, but not paid off. It makes sense that we would need to see the narrative developments of one more book before the faction can be officially revealed. Since BR: Teclis is about Nagash, but Legions of Nagash don't feature in the book, I think a release of the (possible) LoN successor faction afterwards would be a very natural place for it in the narrative. That would also mirror what happened with Hedonites.