Acrozatarim

Well, I got a Whitefang heart react, so either it's small orcs or our prophet leads us astray

The List Labs guy is being a bit mischievous - there's only a very small amount of new rumour info in the video, and it doesn't feel particularly earth-shaking stuff, although he's also thankfully not vague about it. If he has read the rules there's presumably plenty more he could have packed in, but I guess he's intending to parcel it out more slowly to reel in subscribers for the channel. I don't particularly begrudge him that - I'd just like to know more sooner. So for those who don't want to watch it, the rumours this time are more info about command abilities: Ranges on generic command abilities increased to 18"/12". Unit champions are also going to be able to use command abilities. There's a new generic command ability that gives +1 to hit.

Also, they claim that all the Stormcast and wolfrider models in the new boxed set are new, and that the box will contain both Stormcast and new faction battletomes (or, well, they just say 'books', but the strong implication is battletomes).

I mean, Kragnos might not have anything to do with the new wolfrider army at all. I don't think any rumours have suggested these guys are Kragnos' folks.

Oh I would give a lot for goblin werewolves as part of a wider wolfrider faction.

What, small orcs rather than big goblins?

Given other rumours about them possibly cutting down on the number of units who can horde it up in general, they may have decided to stop doing the whole 'if you've got 20 you get +1 whatever' numbers rules across the board for 3e? God knows the sheer variety that the horde bonuses take across the different books is pretty damn incoherent at this point, and honestly I don't think it's really worked as a sticking plaster replacement for the old combat rank bonuses that WHFB numbers gave you.

When was the last time White Dwarf featured a kitbashed model in a battle report that's the intro for a newly updated or released army?

What time of the month does White Dwarf usually hit the shelves?

Is that... a squig with a gun on his shoulder?

Of course, if Kragnos turns out to be available for all Destruction factions, that'd nicely resolve the 'where's the Destruction factions' issue.

I'd quite like to see a combined Duardin Cults book mashing the Fyreslayers up with cult devotees for Grungni and Valaya too. Keep the Kharadron off as their own thing.

If you're wondering why GW would stick an AoS 3 reveal on Saturday behind a paper-thin "???" veil, remember that they haven't said anything officially about an AoS 3rd ed as yet so, by their corporate routemap, the 3rd ed announcement is still supposed to be this big amazing thing that'll blow folks away with surprise. And while, to a lot of us, it seems like it's already obvious - the 3 year cycle, the rumours bleeding out through the seams, etc - it will be a big surprise for lots of people who don't pay much attention to the internet or spend their time reading up on the latest murmurings from the rumour mill. There will be a whole load of folks who, if it is AoS 3rd ed on Saturday, are gonna go "WOW NO ****** WAY".

3rd -8th April doesn't match up to a week starting Monday, so it's probably just an error rather than a piece of evidence as to GW's original scheduling. The text part of that picture's a minute's work in a layout or graphics program and probably gets slapped on shortly before it needs to be uploaded onto their website's content management system.

If this is legit and Stand and Shoot is coming back, I suspect we'll see it combined with bigger limits on shooting and melee in general.

Unless Kragnos is associated with the rumoured coming wolf-rider faction (which he might be!), I assume we'll just see him as a single model without an associated new army. I have no idea where they'd even cram in a whole new army on top of the wolf-riders and Soulblight Gravelords; certainly I'd have expected to hear more rumours or see more Rumour Engine pics suggesting one by now, if it was coming.

To be fair, Tzeentch has a legit bone to pick over the Silver Towers bit of it.

I wouldn't shed a tear for battalions in their current incarnation getting the boot. I'd rather see some of the more interesting associated abilities retained in other forms, but battalions are an enormous headache of game design as they currently stand.

This sounds like the sort of clearing of the slate that the setting needs with respect to Nagash, tbh. He's a throttle on the ability to do anything new or interesting with the Death factions, and to be a useable element of the setting he needs to a) take a backseat and b) have goals that aren't 'literally kill everyone, everywhere, forever'. He's worse than the ****** Chaos Gods. Good to see that GW are willing to also have there be genuine victories that aren't 'Aha, it looks like a victory but...' or 'No-one gets to really win, everything switches back to the ~status quo~ again straight away'. That sort of faux 'balance' in outcomes just degrades the narrative into an indistinguishable slop where no-one can ever achieve anything meaningful. As ever, the devil will be in the details of the story, but the broad strokes look like GW are following through on some interesting stuff with the BR series.

Tyrion was titled as prince in WHFB, so might be a reference to him if they're going to stick with the aelven gods theme of naming.

Lumineth also had an unusually tiny number of warscrolls with their initial release, iirc, even by small faction standards.

I suspect the 'llama' is either a sphiranx-riding Lumineth hero, given the sphinxes of Hysh indicating the possibility of a nobler strain of sphiranx than the mindstealer in the sphinx's image, or it's Tyrion and his sun-symbolizing sphinx like Celennar is moon-linked with Teclis, and Tyrion flat-out rides his sphinx to battle. Not sure it looks quite elaborate enough to be Tyrion, but... could be him.

Yeah, looks like: - Lumineth cloud-rider of some kind? - Lumineth rider on something that I think is more Sphiranx-like than horse-like? - Witch hunter/vampire hunter! - Some dead-looking chaps? - Big ol' new Slaanesh special character/carriage.

So, as we stand on the threshold of the new year and the impending Slaanesh second wave release - what would people want or hope to see in a purely hypothetical Tzeentch second wave? Obviously it's unlikely we'd see one any time soon - we're better set for mortals than Slaanesh were or Nurgle are, and there's lots of other armies in dire need of expansion first - but I'm absolutely champing at the bit for an expansion of the mortal ranks. Imagining a similar scheme to Slaanesh, I guess we'd see a special character, dual-kit chaos warrior equivalent, and 1-2 more kits plus characters. I'm craving Tzeentch-flavoured warrior sculpts and warscrolls; I'd also love to see Aekold Helbrass come back, or a new inheritor of his power. The gift of life was really interesting and different while helping show the weird scope of Chaos, and it'd be a great excuse to expand Tzeentch-related plots into the Realms of Life and/or Death. I'd also want to see awful, majestic arcane war engines. I keep thinking of the Winged Terror and Bale Towers from old Man O'War...

Happy Christmas all! My wife surprised me with some new paint racks, some paints to add to my existing pile, a Tzaangor Shaman and Curseling, and finally a new angle-poise magnifying lamp - a pretty great haul of stuff. Now I can actually get my desk set up as a proper little painting area!