RetconnedLegion

I play Warcry for Warcry and Necromunda for Necromunda. I don’t want Warcry to be a reskin of Necromunda because there already is Necromunda.

Witch Hunters are Sisters of Battle, no squatting just a rename, Chaos Dwarfs didn’t have an army book, we had a collection of White Dwarf articles and there was no Codex Squats because they stopped being sold at the start of 2nd edition, not 3rd. Fimir were a handful of models. A far cry from removing a full range of plastic miniatures. Regardless it’s a moot point. The dropping of small ranges of mostly metal miniatures in the early ‘90’s is hardly a trend when it’s literal decades before its done again.

Entirely possible, and I imagine the continuous production woes for the last several years played a significant role. I think it’s certainly clear something has changed in GWs plans for supporting products.

I own several D3’s because they came with Warlord Games ‘Gates of Antares’. After the initial novelty wore off, they’ve lived in my dice tub unused. It’s simply far easier to roll one of your many, many d6s and halve the result then to bother taking additional special dice.

The fact I’ll need to see a flow chart before I even know who’s in charge of what and reports to whom is evidence of this.

That cycle is why the Beastcull has surprised so many. Despite some claims, the GW model has typically been to leave armies for substantial amount of time and then add something or refresh the range. “Squatting” a whole army, rather than the occasional unit, isn’t common at all. Nor is dropping a range of plastics after only six years. The fact my Catachan army is still based around a kit released in the late nineties is an example of how the opposite has been the norm, that plastic kits linger. As a Bonesplitterz player, did I expect new models? Nope. Did I expect a brand new Battletome exclusively for them? Nope. Did I even expect them to be on the store shelves at my local GW? Nope. I expected them to remain as is, maybe updated rules with the next Orruk book, online only to buy. But still available. That for GW was the norm. Instead there’s a rules update but I can’t buy anything new for my collection. It’s literally the case where I WANT to give GW money, and I can’t.

Which is ironic because it wasn’t too long ago that the consensus among my friends was that Ironjawz were definitely going to go because GW had done so little with them for years.

The counter to that, however, is I don’t want to play other games. I want to play AoS and I want to collect and paint Bonesplitterz models to do it. Something that now has a time limit. Yeah digital battletome and then legends lets me play for hopefully at least an edition or two, but I won’t be able to buy the models without trawling second hand sites.

Based on my past luck with 40K etc, I can almost guarantee I’ll find out the army I want to collect will end up being auxilaries.

In a completely different game system. It’s like ruling out anymore Kharadron sky ships because Squats had them in Epic.

That’s the biggest impact of the Beastcull: uncertainty. We’re all left unsure our factions are safe for the long haul. I anticipate we will see rumours of “X or Y is going” for the foreseeable future.

That and “Legions Imperialis is underperforming” makes me say bullplop too. Selling out of every single release, as soon as new stock comes in, does not indicate underperforming. 4chan tried to spread the same nonsense about Adeptus Titanicus.

In the case of Sacrosanct and Bonesplitterz it’s also a case of availability. If I want to add to my Maniaks in the future, I’ll be trawling eBay for them, something that’ll increase in difficulty and cost the further on we go. Having done that for years with Chaos Dwarfs, I can tell you it can really hurt your motivation for a project.

That’s what’s going to be difficult about the boosting Legends play route. If i buy some beasts in solidarity, that sale is a tick for The Old World - so any increase in sales sends the message that it was the right move them to TOW. But conversely, if I don’t buy Beasts, that’s a sign they aren’t selling, sending the message there’s not enough demand.

Nice update to the unit, not quite enough for me to defect from my Grots. Yet.

People said the same when the new Beastlord was released.

That, I think, is the key issue for whether or not an army returning to TOW affects AoS factions. Soulblight have had new models for most of their core units, and said new models wouldn’t work ranked up on square bases and have their own design language distinct to AoS - a Soulblight Vampire doesn’t look like a Van Carstein of old - so even if Vampire Counts return to TOW they should be relatively safe bar Graveguard and Black Knights. Compare that to our sadly departed armies, who never had an AoS refresh and so still had their WHFB aesthetic. If GW want to keep the two ranges from crossing over, then removing Beasts of Chaos was the only option. Seraphon are the faction my friends are currently discussing. They, and Gloomspite, differ from Soulblight because they have had new models but the WHFB aesthetic is pretty much unchanged from their Lizardmen and Night Goblin origins. If Lustria ever becomes part of the plans, i do wonder what their fate will be.

Yeah I get what you mean there. We’ll have to see what GW comes up with. My own additional preference is that they aren’t all leaping over bits of scenery.

I’d imagine the biggest risk to Underworlds is another wave of issues around getting cardstock components printed. Otherwise I think the game itself is largely safe, even if individual warbands don’t last long. Likewise Warcry has turned into AoS Kill Team, a way to release kits that don’t necessarily justify being made a full AoS release. Those that sell well will likely make the shift to a proper AoS release - Darkoath being the best example for AoS. The factions at risk are those that still use a large number of WHFB leftover kits. That means the non-Human Cities units and Ogors for the most part. Skaven are getting their refresh, Ogors are rumoured for one, but Cities Aelfs and Duardin are likely to vanish with the next Battletome.

None of which is equivalent to them all striking similar poses, linking up their shields and marching forward in a neat block. But agree to disagree, and we will see what GW brings us tomorrow.

Different strokes for different folks. When reading Skavenslayer etc I never once pictured the Clanrats etc. neatly forming up and marching forwards together ( Stormvermin being the exception)

Which is why they should be in a multitude of poses not neatly ranked up. Ironically this is also why Beastmen never quite fitted WHFB for me. In a game of square, ranked units their background was an ambushing, charging in a horde from the woods force. Which fits AoS playstyle far better than Fantasy.

I hope so. Orderly Skaven just seem wrong.

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

40K army building rules. You can only have 3 of any datasheet, or 6 if it has the Battleline keyword. Something that has done a lot of harm to narrative focused collection. Want a Catachan Jungle Fighters army? Tough because you can only take six squads, which limits the army size considerably.