ArcLight

I have to admit I'm disappointed that the Soulblight hero sounds like they are another named character in a battletome already full to the brim with them, and which is one of the few that actually feels lacking in generic hero options compared to the number of warscrolls in the book. Having said that, she does look fantastic though.

That's fair, there's definitely a lot of detail that is 'confirmed only in the sense that people have made educated guesses that make sense and fit with the other lore. I agree on the vagueness in Elden Ring and I think there's a lot there left to be explored. It'll be interesting to see what the dlc covers or expands on.

Bloodborne is actually one of the least obtuse of the games and has been dissected pretty thoroughly by this point. What are you thinking of that people haven't been able to answer? (Apologies for going a bit off topic, this just happens to be my favourite topic!)

You can bet on there only being 1 torso to prevent exactly that! Definitely an unexpected model though, as others have said this could mean an even larger release than expected - very exciting!

In regards to the new units vs refresh of old units, it's useful to compare to Soulblight and Slaves to Darkness as they're similarly large scale refreshes of Fantasy armies. Excluding the Cursed City related special characters, Soulblight only got 1 new unit (Vengorian Lord) alongside a significant number of updated sculpts for existing units. S2D also saw mostly updated sculpts - just the Ogroid Theridons and the special character alternate build for the mounted lord were new units. Essentially, I wouldn't be surprised if the Raptordons were the only new unit, with maybe one more surprise new character/monster.

These look kind of interesting. Mainly speaking to the Sylvaneth and Soulblight ones, even though I couldn't use either of them because of that. Seems as though some see a Points discount compared to getting the units normally, presumably to account for them not getting allegiance abilities.

I suppose the Incarnates could be some of the 'Beasts' that this is the era of... if we were to get more than a couple throughout the edition.

I just can't imagine them doing the first 3 boxes with Nurgle > Tzeentch > Khorne, then not doing Slaanesh in the 4th one.

That and hopeful rumours of maneaters getting replaced via Warcry because they kept getting removed from the online store in the weeks/months leading up to the book.

They could also be aiming to tie the proper discovery of the ship / delving into more closely with the timing of the Seraphon battletome release itself.

This is Nighthaunt, who got their book last year. I think people are looking for the Soulblight/OBR new box art that is apparently floating around.

The only reason why I kind of suspect a new faction may be incoming is that it will feel odd to go from the frenetic pace of battletome releases we've seen so far in this edition to only 2 battletomes (FEC and Cities) in the last year of the edition, even if one of them should be a massive release. There's been plenty of talk about how the first 6 months of an edition tend to be fairly light on new books, so there shouldn't be too much 40k stuff coming in the latter half of this year after the edition launch period is done in July-ish as well. Lots of finger in the air speculation, but that's the fun of this - I'm excited to see what the next 18 months or so brings.

The idea of it being a Destruction focused edition is also just following the logical trend where the narrative of 1st and 2nd Edition featured Chaos and Death respectively as the primary opponents of Order. I agree that a lot of the narrative focus would likely be later this year and into next year, but it just doesn't feel like Destruction as a grand alliance has had really any impact on the game at all - no narrative weight, no significant releases since the edition launch, nothing really. Maybe because their focal god character in Kragnos is less the type to scheme and plan so it feels less like his machinations are going on in the background compared to Nagash/Archaon? I don't know.

RIP Destruction if this truly is an edition focused on them. Unless we see a late edition revamp of the Warclans book with new kits or an entirely new army or two of course.

It's worth noting that the new Skink cavalry has a bit of a feathered look to the mounts - if they were introducing something like a Coatl then there is already recent precedent for how they could include a feathered design of some sort.

I did notice the specific reference to a couple of unique characters that have yet to show up in miniature form, could be hints of something to come in the future. I don't know if they show up in any of the novels or the lore sections of the battletome? "Genevieve and Ulrika Could Nagash or even some foolish mortal manage to pluck another vampire soul from the swirling energy between the realms? How would we cope if legendary vampires such Genevieve or Ulrika were to return? Would they save any mercy for the Askurgan Trueblades, or the rest of the Soulblight dynasties?"

New Saurus cavalry and Salamanders would be the logical 2 out of 3. Now that we've seen the Astrolith Bearer, there's no rumour engines looking like a big monster anymore and the last 2 big refreshes of old world armies have just seen 1 new unit introduced each (if you exclude Warcry/Cursed City related models) - the Ogroid Theridons + the Vengorian Lord. I may well be forgetting another unit there, but the focus for both previous refreshes has overwhelmingly been replacing old models of existing units, so it makes sense for that to also be the case here. Although again, the Skink riders could be an effective replacement for the Saurus riders as well, so who knows.

It's always possible that Saurus Guard as we know them go away and are replaced by a battalion that can include a Slaan and some Saurus and gives them a bodyguard rule or something along those lines? Either that or the old models will just stay so that the more elite version of the basic troops looks a bit weedy next to the basic one like skeletons/grave guard.

I'm not sure if I've missed someone already posting this, but reviews are starting to pop up for the Beasts of Chaos and Gitz books for those that are interested. https://www.goonhammer.com/battletome-gloomspite-gitz-2023/ https://www.goonhammer.com/battletome-beasts-of-chaos-2023-the-goonhammer-review/

What is it about that army that makes it a particular counter to Teclis/Sentinels?

Re: the timing of Soulblight reveals, there was a potato cam leak of the new vampire on foot which forced their hand a bit with that one.

Looks like good news for Sylvaneth!

It'll be interesting to see what they come up with for unique enhancements for the foot heroes. Also will make a big difference how 'Infantry' is defined - most books have quite a wide variety of battleline now, so I guess will operate similarly to GVs in terms of who counts for it?

You're not wrong unfortunately.

I agree with your overall point, but the warbands =/= proper units may be changing, for Warcry at least. We'll have to see what the Seraphon warband actually looks like, but if it is 5-10 chameleon skinks or even something like 5 skinks + 3 kroxigor I see that as an acceptable (if not ideal) way for some armies to be updated. If they constructed the warbands to intentionally work for regular AoS units (even if they did have specific rules as well) then it would be a great way of updating units outside of battletome releases.