Neil Arthur Hotep

I want to say a little bit about this line from the preview: Quite a few people have really latched on to this and concluded from it not just that the Dawnbringer Crusades will have a religious theme (which, honestly, they should have if we take the setting of AoS seriously), but that they will somehow be significantly more religious than the Freeguild is right now or the Empire has been in the past. To the point of being described as fundamentalists or fanatics, even. The thing is, the only substantial bit of design we have seen so far does not really cash that out for me. Here are all the new bits they previewed: A general theme of skulls, hammers, twin-tailed comets and the cool S of Sigmar. The thing is, all that stuff is already found on the current models, especially on the biggest and newest kits where they had the technology to add a bunch of gubbins: Even more so, this seems to be true for some of the older kits that were lost with the first Cities book. The current Freeguild general is not especially bedecked with Sigmarite imagery, but several that are no longer being produced certainly were: Personally, I would not characterize the Old World empire as a religious fundamentalist or fanatical faction. Religion was definitely one of themes they had, but by no means the only one or the most important. Reading that people don't want the Sigmarite religion in their models or don't like the gothic imagery being added to them kind of leaves me scratching my head. Both of those things are already on the current models, and were even more present on the old Empire stuff. The religious theme is already there, it's just not the main thing about the human AoS models.

I'm kinda late to the party on this one, but it's good to see that the GW writers have finally unlocked the tech of "This unit is not a MONSTER, but can rampage like a monster." Let's hope they apply it to other units that should really be able to smash things to rubble or deal mortals in the future, like the Ironclad or the Steam Tank.

But why? It seems to me that the Skaven leaks follow the same pattern as all other battletomes up to now, with the warscrolls being simplified. For all other tomes, the power of the units has been moved from the warscrolls to the allegiance abilities. I really don't see a reason to suspect it will be different in the case of Skaven. Also, so far all 3rd edition tomes we have seen have been pretty good. I think Skaven are almost guaranteed to get a boost with their new tome. Partially because their current tome is just not doing so hot, so it's more likely their power will go up than down (unlike DoK, who really need to be a bit worried since they are one of the stronger tomes). It's also very likely that the Skaven tome will see their whole subfaction situation cleaned up like the other modern tomes have and there is a fairly good chance that they will get access to the free reinforcement mechanic we have seen as part of the DoK book. Both of those changes should do a lot to increase the viability of a Skaven army.

I personally think that there is no real reason to suspect that the Dawnbringer Crusades mean that the other subfactions of Cities will be removed. Or even that the Freeguild will no longer be a thing. Both of those would be major retcons of the established lore. I suspect that there will be a Freeguild refresh, which might entail the loss of some units. We probably don't strictly need both Outriders and Pistoliers, or Handgunners and Crossbows. Freeguild Guard probably don't need three loadouts. If those kits get updated, they might just be one build option. Other than that, I could imagine kits with very specific Empire markings going. Maybe the General on Griffon will be replaced, since he's very clearly just Karl Franz from the Old World. I speculated in the other thread that we might see two things: A Freeguild refresh which makes those units more clearly AoS units, and a bunch of Warcry warband style specialist units. The former would form the core of shared troops among the different Free Cities, while the latter could be used to explore more concepts of the different people of the Mortal Realms.

I like that this update gives Hedonites one of the thing everyone has been asking for: An alternative use of DP. This will certainly help ease new players that don't have full summoning side boards into the faction. The buffs are also all very useful. As a Death player, I can attest that the value of a 5+ rally is higher than you might think. Especially since rally returns whole models, so it's good even on cavalry and other multi-wound units. +2" movement is always good for any playstlye, but especially for infantry heavy armies. Mobility wins games and this is a big mobility buff. The 5+ ward requires you to make concessions in terms of summoning, but on the other hand Amulet of Destiny was a 5+ ward on one hero, and that was so good that it had to get nerfed down. Getting a 5+ ward on every unit, including heroes, is huge. The best thing about these buffs in my opinion, though, is that you don't really have to choose between them and summoning. You can stick to the previous summoning game plan of 30 Daemonettes and still make use of the movement and rally buff. It's free value, even if you don't build around it. I really feel the army is just a few point drops away from being in a fairly reasonable place now.

It was to be expected given the pattern of the Tome Celestial releases, but this still kind of sucks. Putting out a new DoK book was already questionable, in my opinion, but three Lumineth books in two years really is too much. We saw how far into the future those books are produced with the Slaves to Darkness leak, which will probably only hit shelves a year from now, so they were definitely working on Lumineth 3.0 right after the release of Lumineth 2.0. On the plus side, the 3rd edition tomes really do seem to all be of really high quality. The new Nighthaunt tome looks super fun and we can hope that Sylvaneth, DoK and Lumineth will all be more fun and shifted more towards the middle power wise, as well.

I think it's fairly likely that we will see two things: A refresh of the current Freeguild models that does not constitute a radical departure from the old Empire aesthetic It would make sense given the current lore and would prevent the invalidation of existing Freeguild-heavy armies. Plus, I am sure there are people out there that actually like the current look of those models. I think the revealed renders seem to indicate that this could be true. It has been noted by many that they seem very similar to current Freeguild/old Empire iconography, just updated for AoS. This could contain updated Freeguild troops, new steam vehicles, an expanded Devoted to Sigmar subfaction, and new Collegiate Arcane units. The Warcry-ification of the humans of AoS Much like the existing Warcry warbands did a lot to show the diversity between Chaos humans, GW could put out a bunch of small warbands that show the diversity of the people of the realms. It would be a good way to pay off the current lore without having to scrap Cities of Sigmar as an army and starting from scratch. This could contain all the weird stuff that is constantly mentioned for flavour, like those Shyishian death cults and so on.

Great parchment? 😉

I'm really torn on this. I don't want the cooperative flavour of Cities to disappear, and the best way to realize it would be by having mixed-race units, but on the other hand I also think that AoS really lacks a faction you can point to as the "human faction". There are three classic elf factions plus Sylvaneth. There are two distinct types of dwarves. But for humans, they are kind of a footnote at the moment, even in Cities. I know, I know: Stormcast are humans and chaos has a bunch of humans. But they kinda don't feel like variant human factions when there is no real base line.

Don't get me wrong: I don't think it's likely at all. I think it will be same way as with Stormcast, where people were afraid they would just be Sigmarines, which also didn't turn out to be correct at all. There is some indication that the writers want the tone of AoS to be different from 40k. It's not primary AoS material, but the Soulbound books emphasize that, while frequently dark, the intended tone of AoS is also hopeful. The belief that a better tomorrow is possible is supposed to be a core theme. Cities in particular have a theme of progress through cooperation. I hope they stick the landing on Dawnbringer Crusades. How the faction is handled could be a huge turning point for AoS. I mean, the option is not off the table, but it seems like it would start with the next edition at the earliest. At some point, I do expect that some kind of restructuring of Cities has to happen. The current state of being composed of basically five separate Fantasy armies can't realistically go on forever. Let's hope it happens in a satisfying, narratively appropriate way, though. I don't see anybody bemoan the loss of Legions of Nagash very much, so I don't doubt it can be done.

I can say that even though I am currently super positive about that the future might hold for Dawnbringers, if they actually become the Imperium of Sigmar and all the Cities fluff I have been getting invested in since the battletome came out not even three years ago gets hard reset, I will probably drop the game of AoS completely. The setting would be entirely too loose-weave for me. I just could not take any plot developments seriously at that point.

I wonder about the other Cities subfactions. At some point, my prediction was that Cities would be handled like Legions of Nagash. What I mean by that is that I believed the individual subfactions would become armies of their own or reintegrated like they were in Fantasy: Dispossessed into a new mixed dwarf faction, Wanderers into Sylvaneth, Dark Elves into DoK/Malerion... But it does not seem like that has happend. The Fyreslayers book is out, and it's not Dwarf Soup. There is no indication that DoK or Sylvaneth will be reintegrating Dark Elves and Wanderers. At the same time, these subfactions are now pretty strongly established as part of Cities. Wanderers in Living City, Dark Elves in Anvilgard, Dwarves in Greywater Fastness... It would be hard to imagine GW just hitting the reset button on that and going "Cities are inexplicably only humans now". I would sooner buy the idea that Dawnbringer Crusades become a sub-allegiance of Cities, like Stormcast get the option to play Stormkeeps or Scions. But even then, the current fluff has not established the Dawnbringers to be pure human or be motivated by xenophobia towards the elves and dwarves of the Cities. They are not venturing out to found racially pure human cities or anything like that, and it is established that they are frequently supported by the Kharadron Overlords and Ironweld Arsenal. In my opinion, it's not at all unlikely that Dawnbringer Crusades will do exactly what they said on the stream: Refresh and expand the human component of Cities in order to get away from the Empire of old to have a real human faction for the Mortal Realms. And that definitely does not imply that everyone else will get kicked out of Cities.

Now that Dawnbringer Crusades are definitely upon us, what does everyone think this will mean for the existing human kits? I honestly find it hard to predict which kits will stick around. I think Guard, Handgunners and Crossbows will definitely be replaced. Outriders and Pistoliers also don't really hold up that well and will probably be replaced or just dropped. The artillery models still look cool, but the crew is pretty crusty and they could definitely be replaced with more impressive new options. But other than that, I don't know if there is a good reason to replace any other existing kits. Flagellants hold up OK for what they are. Greatswords look good and don't hvae any out of place heraldry on them. Demigryphs could honestly be AoS originals. I find it hard to predict what will happen with the big kits. The Hurricanum pretty obviously says KARL FRANZ on it, which doesn't really make sense for AoS, but it otherwise looks very appropriate for the game (and Luminarks had a big role in Broken Realms). The Griffon kit has some old world stuff on it, but it's probably the best model out of the old Empire range. The Steam Tank is a pretty classic model, too. My prediction is that we will see a lot more characterful infantry and cavalry out of the Dawnbringer Crusades, as well as an expansion of the Devoted to Sigmar subfaction and the Ironweld. Replace all the basic troops that really need it, keep the best kits, and add a lot more of the unique stuff that the Cities of Sigmar already have according to the fluff, but that has not been realized on the tabletop. I think that would make for a really cool release.

I think it's a good choice, too. It's a way to expand on the Freeguild without completely losing sight of their historical roots. The old Empire was very strongly based on the Landsknecht troops of the 30 Years War, but the Spanish also had a major role in that conflict: I hope some of the current Freeguild aesthetic is preserved. I always found it a fairly unique choice for a fantasy human army and would love it to stick around to a degree. But it's not like we don't have any indication of what the humans of the Mortal Realms might look like. Cursed City and the ven Densts were after all specifically called out as part of the stream, and there is a good amount of variation between them: If those models are any indication of what they are planning for Dawnbringers, I am excited. I think bringing up the Freeguild to this level of uniqueness would mean a lot. Currently, they are just way too close to 30 Years War Landsknecht models from a historical tabletop game.

It's not like I dislike this guy, but between the new generic vampire lord, the Vyrkos, Anasta Malkorion and the Crimson Court at least I personally have more vampire lords than I can shake a stake at. I know there are some people who will love this guy, though. The lone wandering swordsman is not yet a flavour of vampire lord that we have. Let's hope his rules are fun and his books are good.

My hope is that we see some distinct people of the realms. Right now, even though I love the Freeguild models, I have to agree that it's super weird that by and large the humans of the sprawling, culturally diverse (according to the lore) mortal realms all look like they are from 17th century southern Germany. I would love to see the cool concepts that are hinted at in, for example, the Soulbound books. Like those daring rough riders of Aqshi that follow tribes of Beastclaw Raiders around to harvest the ice created by their Everwinter (which is obviously highly valuable in the Realm of Fire). Or even the Cogforts and lightning shield generators which seem to have been part of the lore in forever, but are still conspicuously missing from the tabletop. An honestly, in a world that is ruled by gods, there probably needs to be representation of a Church of Sigmar. I really feel like this is the real goal of this update: To have models for the humans of AoS that finally realize all the cool stuff the lore says they should have.

I have done this math before and this looks pretty much right to me. Honestly, realizing that if you have to go through an unbind your odds of successfully casting a spell are always at best a coin flip has put me off of bringing wizards pretty strongly. Especially the one cast no bonus wizards that I would only take for their spell. Upwards of 100 points (frequently more like 130) for a 50% chance to trigger an ability is just not that enticing. On the other hand, all those it has raised the value of all those Destruction wizards a bit for me. After all, figuring in unbinds. a CV 7 spell is not actually that much less likely than a CV 4. But given that unbinds change the casting math so significantly, I tend to try to bring at least one wizard. Just not for their flashy warscroll or lore spells, usually. Rather, I only want them for the unbind and to cast Mystic Shield every once in a while. Of course, when wizards with good casting bonuses or extra casts are available, that changes things quite a bit.

I am honestly surprised by the hyperbole in this thread. What we got was just an announcement of a refresh of the human models of the Cities of Sigmar. Realistically, judging by the renders, not even one that seems super ambitious. Still a bunch of vanitas imagery, just with "SIGMAR" banderoles instead of "KARL FRANZ". The hosts and website talk it up like "this ain't your grandpa's empire", but really we have not seen any indication to the contrary yet. I also find it pretty questionable to conclude from the trailers we got that Dawnbringer humans will have a conquistador theme or be human supremacists. The first just comes from that one guy in the skaven trailer having a morion helmet. If that's our standard then let's not forget the Kruleboyz teaser: The humans shown here are also Dawnbringers (most likely) and have a much more diverse aesthetic than just spanish conquistadors. The idea that they will be human supremacists, extreme religious zealots or that the other races will be kicked out of the next Cities book seem to rest on even more shaky ground, in my opinion. The only moment I can point to is that the hosts said "this update will focus on humans, not the other races", which certainly is not confirmation that the other races will be out by any stretch of the imagination. Lore wise, it has so far been established that the Dawnbringers are not exclusively human. So I don't know why one would conclude from Dawnbringer being worked on that elves and dwarves will be removed from cities. Certainly, the hosts make it sound like the goal of the project is to have an "everyman" faction for AoS. I think the writers at GW must realize that religious zealots and human supremacists would not be a way to cash that idea out. I really feel like some people in this thread are setting an impossible standard. GW wants to update the human models of Cities of Sigmar to be more grounded in the mortal realms, rather than to feel like Old World leftovers. If that is their ambition, that means replacing pretty much the entire Empire/Freeguild range. That is a huge project, especially if they actually want it to live up to their own hype by really making the faction more than just "AoS Empire". So why is it surpising to so many in this thread that they are not also working on the other Cities subfactions at the same time? If your goal was to keep the theme of Cities as a coalition of all the "ordinary" people of the different races of Order working together, but want to keep the subfactions more or less distinct, how would you expect updating those sculpts to work? It seems to me that the only way to do it is to focus on one subfaction at a time. They are all composed of entire army ranges from Fantasy after all. I get the apprehension that the identity of the current Cities of Sigmar could strongly change in the future. I also would not love that. But the current status of the cities is pretty definitively written into the lore. I would honestly be surprised to see them divided along racial lines again in the future. At the same time, a "normal human" faction has been an element that has been missing from AoS for a while now. I really think that GW making a big deal out of the fact that they finally intend to tackle that deficiency in the way that it deserves is a huge positive and I hope they manage to do the project justice.

Belated hot takes: Skaven The new deathmaster is a cool model (for me, a definite improvement over the old one), it's just a pity that he has to exist in the same army as the ancient Gutter Runners. That will be a clash of art styles if ever there was one. Skaven got robbed, they really needed new troop kits. Sylvaneth I have never been a huge fan of Slyvaneth up to now. I always thought they were a bit samey as a faction, with the majority of their troops being some variation of tree person. There are a few stand out kits, of course, like Drycha and Alarielle, but not enough for me personally to really get excited about the army. I think this expansion of their insect subtheme is a really good choice. The new archers and cav units unquestionably read as Sylvaneth at a glance while still being quite different from anything found in the army before. Now I just hope their new battletome does them justice. Cities of Sigmar I won't go into it at length here (I will save that overly long rant for the dedicated discussion thread) but I think the news that GW is finally dedicated to giving AoS a proper human faction is phenomenal. I have personally though that this was a very conspicuous void in the AoS line up for a while. In the lore, the humans of the Cities of Sigmar are consistenly important, driving forces of the narrative, but on the table they don't even have a faction to clearly call their own. I found it a bit comical at time: If you look at the Soulbound books, for example, there are player character archetypes for all the different factions that are thoroughly anchored in the lore. DoK witch elves, KO aether chemists, Fyreslayer Battlesmiths... But humans get the choice of being Battlemages, Excelsior Warpriests (which are not even in the game anymore) and Trade Pioneers (which have never been in the game). A huge mismatch between what the lore tells me about humans and what the game actually cashes out. I am very optimistic about the Dawnbringer project: There seems to be a commitment to re-do most of the human kits currently in the game. I would say, worst case, that means we get new Freeguild kits with a more clear AoS identity. But best case, the sky really is the limit. Just imagine, distinct models for humans from all the different cultures of the realms. Aqshian rough riders. Ghyran jungle scouts. Hyshian warrior-poets. Chamonite mega-engineers. There is just so much potential here and I can't wait to see how it turns out. GHB The points are out of the GHB, which is great. Finally we won't have to deal with balance adjustments made, like, a year in advance. Kind of makes the latest battlescroll a bit puzzling to me, though. I really thought the reason why they didn't touch points in it was because we would get new points in the GHB. Black Library guys They cool. Ogroid Theridons The ogroids are a cool sub race for chaos and I am glad they are being expanded upon. I know a lot of people really love the Myrmidon and Thaumaturge. Overall I feel like I said this before, but: Everything that was actually shown off was cool, but you can't help feeling like there should have been more. At least I got Dawnbringers to pour all my hopes and dreams into for a year before getting disappointed that they don't live up to my ridiculous imaginary standards.

I could see Ogors getting a maneater kit announced today or on boxed games day.

Absolutely! Let's hope the same happens in AoS. It would go a long way towards giving the rules team the ability to actually balance the game.

If it works like in most other books, then you would still be able to bring Kurdoss in Scarlet Doom. He just would not benefit from any allegiance abilities granted by that subfaction.

In other battletomes with subfactions, it is common to lock all or most named characters into a single subfaction which they may or may not benefit from. It seems GW's standard mode of operation is to have on "main" subfaction per book which gets to be the one the majority of named character belong to. Usually it's the subfaction with the most generic/least impactful allegiance ability. Mechanically, locking characters in like this prevents them from making use of other subfaction allegiance abilities. Sometimes, GW also does it for lore reasons: For example, all the Cursed City Gravelords units are Vyrkos subfaction locked, even though there is not really much of a gameplay reason for this. The Cities of Sigmar units from Cursed City had an even more extreme versions of this, where they all got a subfaction keyword that doesn't even exist in the Cities book at all. I have not seen the page in question, but if they are warscroll battalions and not core battalions, they are not matched play legal by default.

I mean, by all means buy the books. They are really fantastic. But nothing in them readily translates to DnD.

Kinda sucks that the AoS kits didn't even go on "last chance to buy", though (unless I missed it). I would probably have picked up a Penumbral Engine or Sigmarite Mausoleum with the Sepulchral Guard I ordered two weeks ago if I had known.