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Careful, lest we once again confuse wishes and hopes for rumours. I'd love to see FEC get a bigger release but I also remember FS and nothing much happened there at all. That said, FEC seem to be attract attention of a wider scale so perhaps GW could see more potential there. On the other hand, sod it, FEC is going to return more glorious than ever. Hail to the King and Queen! Long may they reign over our fair and fertile lands! Onwards, brother/sister, to a brighter tomorrow!

Though you could say the chain mail of the duardin has never been weaker since it is split and full of broken links. KO and FS can remain who they are, however, the latter does have a pretty strong redemption arc (plus slayers were already quite unhinged to begin with) and have pretty slim pickings of units despite having their own tome. From an Old World Dawi player I'd love to see fantastical new war machines and an army which embrace the best of the best armour and relentless advance over the board. Then again, when you consider DBC they might just do faction focused tomes goes forward where the cities of sigmar are better represented.

The Old World is going to be a smorgasbord of kitbashing for AoS. Unlike HH which solely focus on marines. CoS will benefit massively and open up lots of themes previously without model support. On the flip side of life, SBGL will have lots more to choose from as well. The list goes on and on. Look at me, seeing the sunny side. 😅

Exactly, seeing multiple battletome releases which aren't much more than warscroll changes and some reshuffling in allegiance abilities doesn't exactly make me jump with excitement. Ogors, for example, didn't just lack rules but need a model refresh as well. All the hype for this army is dead for me and I'm not expecting much more for FEC either since it seems GW's attention is focused on a few armies in AoS. In other words, I do not feel like they deserve to charge a premium if they do not deliver a premium product for every single faction.

It is a type of resin mixed with colours and moulded/shaped/cut into the desired shape. Then you can use a drill to further create effects, polish it down. For waves (the crest) I've seen people use glue and then blow them out into natural looking wave patterns. Here's one example but if you look for diorama vids/tutorials you will be able to finds lots more.

I hope there's new stuff too but turning it into something completely unrecognisable is not the way to go with established armies. At that point you gotta strike a balance between old and new so the change actually makes sense within its setting. In regard, Chorfs going destruction doesn't fit because it be such a huge departure from what their god stands for + I think it is unlikely GW will abandon the daemonic machines and its potential to create some truly awesome models. I am not sure if you misunderstood me, I was just making parallels between philosophies (concerning CSM iron warriors) not suggesting overlap in models. The CSM aesthetic doesn't fit AoS properly either (except maybe the soul grinder/mauler fiend). However, I hope we get to see more of the chaos duardin FW style explored more fully. Especially more bull daemons and crazy war machine + whatever unholy awesomeness they conjure up for its centre-piece model.

Chorfs enslaved orcs and created black orcs because they needed tougher orcs. Their entire ethos stems from dominating everything and everyone. Think Molag Baal from Elder Scrolls. Having them destruction would make very little sense since they are very much about industry and building stuff... Just in a very different and more sinister way than other duardin. That and Hashut being a chaos god of domination and tyranny. Probably not the sharing type. Chorf society is also built on that philosophy. A lore accurate method could be create a rule similar to "allies" but instead call it slaves. A dark theme to explore but Chorfs are one the most wilfully cruel and brutal factions in the game (up there with WHFB dark elves). In many ways similar to CSM Iron Warriors in how they view other life other than themselves as beneath them, either to be used used up in their factories or be crushed into submission (or a bloody pulp).

FS would have been so much more exciting if they had some classic duardin with a "fyre" theme. Less monotone and there's tons and tons of cool duardin stuff you can do with fire and war machines. The iconic flame cannon, for example.

A very meta way of doing a Tzeentch release, for sure!

That could be. My point is that 40k is seeing a huge renewal and AoS, so far, haven't with their old and outdated model ranges. For example, Aeldari got a huge release with their codex and Skaven got a hero and a warband while warcomm tried to make it sound like there were so much new cool stuff. There's been a lot of small releases for armies who needed the biggest changes. That's what I mean with GW having to set a new tone for AoS and why I do not see any overlap with 40ks massive range/codex refreshes/updates and AoS' box and a new hero tome updates (some felt more like an extensive errata than new tome). As far as Era of the Beast I didn't expect too much to begin with as it is supposed to be in-line with 40k seasons. Seems to have been more of a Kraggy + incranate spotlight than anything. I would certainly love to see BoC get their big update though as, 1) they deserve it, 2) I really like their status as being the children of chaos. They don't truly worship they just do/live/act. Some may have the favour of a particular god but yeah, their attitude and how that pans out is cool thematically. TL;DR: Tome quality-wise it hasn't been bad but I feel model-wise things have been decidedly meh.

This also tracks with their overall release schedules and why certain armies end up getting more and more (and more frequently). If X (marine) sells really well then Y (new marine) is more likely to sell really well (primaris wave). Just replace X and Y with certain factions in AoS which got multiple releases and you have a good idea of which armies sell the most and which armies are only perceived to be popular through disproportionate attention online/competitive meta representation.

Regretfully, there's also Skaven. DBC is also more of a sub-faction on their own than CoS and Whitefang seem to have hinted that CoS will get updated city by city (or something along those lines). Both Eldar and CSM are large enough factions to warrant the investment and the substantially larger amount of players in 40k compared to AoS makes these range refreshes more likely. For AoS, the tone needs to be set with Skaven/Ogors because 40k releases (or warcry warbands) helps us none.

Unless, of course, the army is both chaos and duardin. 🎩

Chorfs could kickstart a whole redemption arc for the more shameful deeds of other duardin. When they stare right in the face of their worst it rekindles their belief in the old ways, the old gods, and the term slayer once more takes on its true meaning as the Fyreslayers/KO/duardin march against their fallen kin. To once more be worthy of their ancestors respect.

Don't... Don't give me hope. 🥺

Though we lack the full picture the mopium take from me is that both LRL/DoT got HoS'ed because of outcry of NPE + having been at or around the top of the meta. Saving grace for DoT is that GW might overbuff the daemon side because of wanting to shift lots of daemon boxes (with the coinciding Daemon codex for 40k). For now though the Curseling is an over-costed hero with a mediocre short ranged spell and 50/50 chance for its ability to do something, two toothless and over-costed mortal units. Hopefully Horrors are fun to use because failing that the army looks like a total chore to play. Turning off CAs is interesting but Enlightened are 215pts for 3 (12 wounds on 4+). They're not durable or particularly killy so they might not even be alive long enough for their ability to come into effect. That seem to be the general theme of these warscrolls, i.e. too many abilities which require way too much setup to simply become useable. Obviously there's more in the tome but, yeah, I'm getting GW overcorrection vibes all over this.

They've been making big moves lately too so I'm getting the impression we're going to see more than ever. I think we're entering a golden age for the hobby. Lots of wargames, skirmish, campaign based stuff, light RP stuff, board games, and board games in video games. Even had some board game nights with my "non-nerd" friends lately and now we're doing biweekly sessions.

Aye. One of my favourite things about WHFB army books was how you could customise your heroes. Sure, there were some options which were more competitive than others but the options were there and you usually could make them workable.

One Page Rules.

Warcry is now a solid intro to skirmish games. Something which is good for other games too since almost everyone end up wanting a deeper game after awhile. That said, there are times when you just want to keep it simple and Warcry is a good alternative for that. OPR is arguably better but at the very least Warcry is now more accessible since you can try before you buy and that's an encouraging development. Overall, really good for the hobby as a whole.

It is chugging on as expected. The annual report shows they're going continue to reinforce the 'boutique' feel and niche marketing because they do not believe the hobby can go properly mainstream. Prices will continue to be incrementally increased to make it less noticeable, queue the boiling frog-analogy. Personally, I've slowed down my purchaces but I think there's enough players who buy tons (and can continue to buy tons) so GW will barely notice. I'm right at the very edge of what I find acceptable. On the flip side, in addition of skirmish games, I've rediscovered board games. On flip of the flip side, perhaps with the tome it'll look like a better deal. For now, we must trust in Tzeentch.

I'm rifling through it all and there's nothing that's really new, is there? Just a compilation of already announced stuff or am I missing something?

I do not think AoS is going to be buried away just that the releases are going to be crowded with a lot more power armour. My comment was focused on the release cycles of battletomes which aren't released in a round-robin style but rather than big sellers are cycled back in before other unreleased tomes. Eventually they get to all of them but we have seen certain factions getting preferential treatment. The complexity isn't just about new players but your ability to keep yourself in the loop. That said, GW are improving in terms of digital releases but even so, it could become a bit much when you'll need different books for different incarnates, battlepacks, and so on. Guess we'll see and perhaps I just gotta accept the fact I'm more of a casual gamer these days. I wholeheartedly agree on the pile of opportunity and I think it is something which should be more widely talked about and encouraged. Rather than seeing it as a point of shame see it as a point of inspiration and drive to finish stuff before buying more. That's also why I'm rather annoyed at the bundles and versus boxes since they add more and more gray stuff.

They seem to operate on some kind of metric where popularity/sales dictate attention which would explain why some factions are cycled back in before other factions even getting their first 3rd ed tome. Marines don't get so much attention just because GW likes marines, it because they sell like crazy. Now (as per the annual report) Horus Heresy is classified as a core game alongside 40k and AoS we should expect even more marine releases (plus there's whispers of 40k space marines not being far off either). Also per the report, GW are doubling down on the FOMO and Versus boxes and focusing their effort on existing players + additional focus on more frequent releases and rules (seasons and other expansions) means this game is going to get more complex and expensive to get into. The wording in the report seem to indicate that they do not have any faith in making the hobby mainstream, e.g. niche marketing. For AoS this probably means we should expect nothing more than hero in a versus box + tome updates (with a few exceptions like S2D and DBC). I hope I am wrong and sometimes these reports are purposefully jumbled not to reveal too much. So this round of hopium is on me!

Yeah, the juggernaughts are just *chef's kiss* awesome. It just looks like they could go through anything. For 40k I would I have liked a smaller tank-sized version of the Lord of Skulls. In both systems build on that bulky 'mass monster' look. Who knows, there might be more to come.