Neil Arthur Hotep

I don't know, man. I was pretty skeptical about BoC being removed from AoS, but all recent Whitefang hints really seem to point that way. Kind of looks like assuming they will be reimagined for AoS is pure copium at this point. The message was always "BoC will be gone", not "BoC will be updated".

The game experience is never going to be 100% perfect at 1000 points, but it becomes a lot more playable when you are not expected to contest up to 6 objectives with half an army.

And then also support the format by actually writing battle plans that work at 1000 Points.

I agree with this. It's not like AoS actually struggles modeling the difference in toughness between a Chaos Warrior and Grot. If there is an actual problem here that would justify moving to d10s or whatever, it must be something else. Maybe something about how easy/difficult it is to tell at a glance and get an intuitive understanding of how defensive a Chaos Warrior actually is. The "best" argument for moving to d10s or d12s is probably that it would allow us to get rid of the wound roll. But that would probably necessitate redesigning everything about the game, so the juice is not really worth the squeeze here.

Yeah, but the dog is horizontal.

Kind of insane that they added battle packs in the beginning of the edition and then did nothing with them. Because they solve this exact problem.

Throwing out the path to glory rules nobody uses and replacing them with non matched play legal character building rules would be a good way to get hero customization back into AoS, IMO.

40mm for the Soul Shepard, 32mm for the Gargoylian, 28.5mm everyone else.

It probably really is a combination of factors. Old World is in the fairly unique position of both being an established IP with a lot of invested players, while also technically being a completely new game for a lot of people. I can imagine how that might make initial demand hard to gauge. There was an interview with the owner of an independent store on Guerilla Miniature Games a few days ago. He said that on his end the launch of Old World was smaller than that of Horus Heresy 2nd ed, but that a lot of the sales actually went through GW stores directly. Which suggests that people buying into Old World are not established players who frequent independent stores. A large percentage of the sales coming from new customers might not have been something GW expected, given how they marketed TOW as a game for established players.

Not disagreeing in general, I just though it was funny that in this particular instance, you can very much still do the "impossible" thing (give a battlemage a magic sword). Yeah probably. However, that is a barrier on the modeling/hobbying side. I was only thinking about the rules side for my post. I am definitely in favour of GW releasing more variant models. Honestly, who could be against that? I don't know how you can seriously doubt that being confronted with a huge list of options to choose from is a barrier to new players, though. New players already find the limited customization AoS offers daunting in a lot of cases. At least that is my experience. Remove or rework grand strats, battle tactics and core battalions (all huge barriers to easy list building, IMO), improve game flow (less picking stuff from tables), cut down on trap options and improve sign posting for rules, off the top of my head. Commit to keeping model count generally low and get games back to under three hours for people who play casually (like, once a month). But also: don't introduce stuff like points for enhancements and don't go hard on simulationism like TOW does. This stuff can exist in AoS, but needs to live in the narrative/open play sections.

Plague Monks are already back in pog underworlds form: This or a Warcry warband released at a later date might be the shape they take in in AoS in the future.

It really feels like we are one core rules revision away from finally seeing the AoS system reach a truly refined form. They did a lot of experimentation during 3rd edition with the different GHBs. I hope they take what they learned from that and give us a really polished 4th edition that takes what worked well in 3rd and leaves the rest behind. I think resetting everything back to indexes at this point would be a waste of potential, so I strongly hope this is not the plan.

I previously heard store owners say that there is about a 60/40 ratio when it comes to 40k/AoS sales. Which, depending how you want to spin it is either "40k and AoS sales are nearly 50/50" or "40k is nearly twice as popular as AoS". You can literally do this exact thing in AoS, lol: However, you are hitting on a point that I have recently been thinking about. For certain kinds of games like RPGs and tabletop games, especially fantasy games, the ability for players to have fun by themselves during downtime, when they are not actively playing with other people, is very important. For many people, it's probably this is probably the main source of enjoyment, as actually playing the game is often quite hard to set up. I think TOW maximizes this source of enjoyment by having list building rules that are a lot more in-depth, especially with its magic item system. This has, to an extent, been "lost" in AoS, in the effort to lower barrier to entry. It seems to me these two aspects of these games, potential for downtime fun and ease of entry, are kind of at odds with each other. So I think it is great that GW now has two systems that each serve one of these needs, and I hope that AoS keeps refining its focus by committing to lowering barriers to entry further.

Interesting, I thought everyone agreed that the older skeletons were extremely oversized. Certainly, the tomb kings (5th ed?) skeletons are. The newest Vampire Counts (7th ed?) skeletons are good, though. However, it's not like Warhammer and AoS are super consistent about scale anyway. Characters are frequently a good bit larger than troops and vehicle crew members are usually a bit smaller, for example.

All that is true, of course, and I am sure you are great fun to play with IRL I think my comment was less directed at you and more at some generally unpleasant and, in my opinion, exclusionary discussion I have seen in other places. Like, a guy asking "what do I do against shooting armies?" and people responding "Just don't play with that kind of WAAC cheese-lord". Which I think definitely goes too far, especially considering TOW will be a lot of people's first WHFB game and they won't have any preconceptions of what lists are supposed to look like.

Something that shines through in your reply, and I think is actually what drives a lot of the wailing and gnashing of teeth online, is that many TOW players seem to dislike long line formations because they view it as off-theme (doesn't look right) or gamey. I don't personally have those hang-ups, so I mostly wonder if they are actually good from a gameplay perspective. It looks like a strategy that has plenty of counter play at first glance, but I'd like to read some first-hand experiences. Kind of don't like the impulse to not want to play with people who just do what the rules incentivize them to do, personally.

I think those are on a sprue with a bunch of other unrelated stuff (bat swarms? objective markers?).

You vs the skeleton she tells you not to worry about:

Which is what I mean: They have Plague Monks right now, so losing them would be weird. But in the context of the game as a whole, not having a "monk" unit to go with your priest is actually not especially strange. So I can believe that GW would just remove the unit if they are not willing to update it. Although I could see them keeping them around, too. It almost seems like par for the course for GW to keep one really old, bad looking kit around through a refresh. Looking at you, Grave Guard and Flagellants. Plague Censer Bearers 100% go in the trash, though.

So, have any of you guys experimented with long line formations yet? I see people kind of losing their minds all over the internet about the rule that lets everyone in the front rank attack. But, even at a cursory glance, a long line of models just doesn't look good to me (outside of shooting units). A line of 30 models would already be unwieldy in AoS with its much more permissive movement, so I just can't imagine it in TOW.

Moulder is already mad science, even: They are dudes making Frankenstein rats. Eshin and Pestilens can just exist as characters and warbands, IMO. This definitely works for Eshin, ninja assassins should not be running around as big blocks of units anyway. For Pestilens, it's a little more strange, but it's not like you have to have a religious battleline unit if you have priests. Other armies seem to do fine without those.

So, in the Skaven prediction thread, I just arrived at basically exactly this list by assuming that the release would be themed around weird science, all metal and resin would be replaced and new Battleline units would be needed for the 4th ed starter box. To me, that list makes perfect sense right now from GW's perspective.

Just in general: Nothing that is in metal or resin stays as-is, in my opinion. Everything End Times or later stays. Every big kit stays. The starter box needs basic troops and a medium-sized character, which cannot be old stuff. I think the Skaven refresh will focus on weird science. Main factions will be Masterclan, Skryre and Moulder, with Eshin and Pestilens only supporting. So I expect these kits to survive in their current form: Lord Skreech Verminking/ Verminlords (2014) Hell Pit Abomination (2010) Screaming Bell/ Plague Furnace (2009) Clawlord (2014) Thanquol and Boneripper (2014) Stormfiends (2014) Warp Lightning Cannon/ Plagueclaw Catapult (2010) I expect these to get new kits: Clanrats (2009) Warpfire Thrower [Metal] (2010) Master Moulder [Metal] (2010) Warplock Jezzails [Resin] (2011) Warp-grinder [Metal] (2011) Arch-Warlock [Metal] (2011) Rat Ogors, Giant Rats and Packmasters (2004) Skryre Acolyte [Metal] (2008) Ratling Gun [Metal] (2011) Stormvermin (2009) Grey Seer (2013) By which I actually mean: New Clanrats and/or Stormvermin for the starter A new Weapon Team kit that builds some or all the current options New Jezzail kit (sniper hero?) New Skryre acolytes New Rat ogres Possibly new giant rats as a Moulder battleline option A bunch of characters: Plague Priest, Arch-Warlock, Moulder guy, Grey Seer Which means the following will be gone: Plague Monks (2004) Stormfiends (2014) Doomwheel (2009) Gutter Runners [Metal] (1997) Rat Swarms (????) Skryre Acolyte [Metal] (2008) Plague Censer Bearers [Resin] (2011) Warlock Engineers [Metal] (2010) Doom-Flayer [Resin] (2011) Night Runners (1999) I also think we will get: A new mid-sized character (Skryre mech armour?) A new big centerpiece A new war machine that is not a Doomwheel Another character or two or a weirdo support unit like the Gobbapalooza

I just finished painting my Command Corps and thought it would be a good time to contribute to this thread a bit. I painted these guys to represent my homebrew city, Schwarzerden. Briefly, the idea is that Schwarzerden is a city in Chamon which is known for its skills in alchemy. The name is actually a reference to that: Schwarzerden means "black earth", and apparently one of the etymologies of "alchemy" is that it comes from "Kemet", which also means "black" and refers to ancient Egypt (the land of black earth). Basically, Schwarzerden is supposed to be smaller City of Sigmar controlled by the local Collegiate Arcane, which I represent on the table by using Hallowheart's rules. For uniform/heraldy colours, I went with orange and off-white. These are supposed to be the colours of the (only) local Freeguild of the city, the Sun's Splendor (which is another reference to an alchemical text). I actually decided on these colours some time around the release of the 2nd ed Cities book, and weirdly now some kind of warm red or orange and white seems like one of the most popular paint schemes for Cities. I guess Hammerhal now being red/white is what drives it. The Whisperblade is the first unit of the Corps that I painted, and it was mostly just to relax after batch-painting Steelhelms and Fusiliers. I went with leaving visible brush strokes to speed up painting and give some texture to the cloth. One thing I tried with this guy that didn't work out is that I actually pre-shaded the whole cape in orange before putting a black-brown ink on it, which ended up totally overpowering it. I had to re-do all the highlights after. The War Surgeon, similarly, was more or less just an exercise in applying my army colour scheme. I think the most notable thing about it from a painting perspective is that I use mostly just one common shade and highligh colour for everything: Sepia ink for shading (to lean into the medieval art vibes) and light yellow for highlights (to keep the palette warm). I try to keep to a fairly tight palette in order to unify the look and don't use a lot of different paints. The one notable extra thing on the War Surgeon is the tiny bit of object source lighting I did on the lamp. I did it by lightening the surrounding area and then glazing in the light effect using yellow ink and fluoro paint. The Arch Knight and Great Herald are good examples of the metallics I do in this army. They actually tie into the fluff for my city: One of the goals of the city is supposed to be the alchemical creation of Sigmarite, the metal that divine Stormcast armour is made of. So far, the best of they have been able to manage, however, is a type of enhanced steel, which is lighter and more durable than normal, and has a blue shine to it. The Great Herald is a nice example of how I want to express the city's skill at metallurgy through the banners, for which I have painted the central square with metallic paints. Schwarzerden is supposed to be so good at metal working that they can even manage to make sheets of metal thin enough to the point that they behave like cloth and can be incorporated into their banners. For the "insignia", I sketched out in sunrise in metallics, but I actually want to express that this is the environment being reflected in the banner. The Arch Knight illustrates how I do metallics with this army, which is by painting the left side bright and the right side dark. All the metallics are sketched out in silver, and then later tinted with blue ink mixed with gloss medium. The left side then gets extra silver highlights, while the right side gets another coat of a black wash. That gives you the dramatic difference in tone appropriate to metal, and is a very quick way to do it. The recipe is super simple otherwise: Just steel paint with silver highlights. Since in the fluff the blue metal I use is supposed to be lighter, I paint weapons like axes in regular steel/silver (because you would not want them to be light, the weight is the point). This also helps them stand out more, because my usual process of tinting with ink makes the metallics overall darker. The lighter silver can serve as a focal point. Lastly, there's these two weirdos. I wanted to use the Mascot Gargoylian and Soul Shepard as excuses to break the rules a little and do some weird stuff. For the Gargoylian, I thought there should be no reason for it to be bound by my usual paint scheme. Instead, I used all the base colours from my palette (the blue from the armour, red from the bases and yellow highlight colour) to give it a very vibrant and unnatural look. After all, it is supposed to be a weird little magical creature, and if magical stuff cannot be colourful, why even play a fantasy game? I grew up with Super Nintendo RPGs as one of my first sources of exposure to fantasy stuff, and the colourful style of those games is still something I love an try to capture in my painting. For the Gargoylian, I did a little wet-on-wet painting, and again didn't fuss too much about the brush strokes. The Soul Shepard is the last model I painted for this unit, and he (she?), too, gets to be colourful. I have some fluff for this: Even though the clergy of Schwarzerden are nominally part of the regular Sigmarite church, I like to think that their specific sect has grown out of older indigenous shamanistic traditions, which is reflected by their mismatched, colourful and patterned robes as well as their emphasis on the sun in their worship (which ties them back to the Sun's Splendor Freeguild, as well). This is why I wanted to paint the Shepard with very vibrant robes and move outside the usual palette by including purple. From a painting standpoint, on this model I made extensive use of wet blending on the robes and smoke. I am not very good at it yet, but I think a one-off weirdo like this guy is a good place to practice. You can see how I make use of the universal yellow highlight in this model: The smoke and robes (both top and bottom) always go up to light yellow at their brightest highlight. I also wanted to include patterns such as the red stripes on the skirt and the africanesque squares on the sleeve. I don't know if you would get to "shamanism" (I had Korean shamans in mind, mostly) without knowing that is what I am shooting for, but I think you can see it if I tell you. Now that I have committed to this fluff, it will be fun once I get around to Zenestra. The Doot Skeleton was painted to resemble the piece of medieval art that it clearly comes from: But with some orange mixed into the basic skin colour to keep it within the palette. Other than that, I think the only thing left to talk about is bases. Generally, I use cobblestone streets (it is a Cities army, after all), which I paint in a gradient of red-orange-yellow-white, and then wash with sepia and drybrush off-white. When I have to have earth, I paint it black-brown, as the name Schwarzerden would suggest. Vegetation get yellow-orange leaves to stay within the warm palette. That's it, I believe! I hope you find this kind of thing interesting.

Vampire Lords should still be SINGLE tagged, even if they are battleline, right?