ArcLight

I'm always buoyed by your enthusiasm! That would make for an amazing reveal show!!

It feels like this edition of AoS will really need to be measured on how 2023 goes. Either they pull out several (relatively) substantial releases (e.g. Sylvaneth/Nighthaunt or bigger) and show that the release order just needed to be shifted around to get the easier releases out first, or we get another year of predominantly uninspiring releases, at which point I don't think 3rd edition can be seen as anything other than a disappoint overall in terms of game growth/support. I'm personally hopeful that the former case is true and GW would do themselves a lot of favours if they would just come out and say something along those lines. Even avoiding any specifics, just "there will be more substantial releases next year than this year, bear with us".

This seems crazy early! I guess full leaks of the battletome are likely to happen over the next few days, for better or worse.

This is kinda where my thinking has been with it too. There's definitely room for some larger AoS releases in amongst the campaign books leading up to 40k 10th edition, especially given the relative lack of codexes they'll be releasing. Thinking about the armies in need of refreshing / expansion, perhaps they're focusing on some of the armies with little-to-no models from post-Fantasy (e.g. Beasts, Seraphon, Flesh Eaters) rather than other armies with a more modern range (e.g. Fyreslayers, Idoneth) even if the latter ones are also in need of model support. Maybe I'm just a hopeless optimist 🤷‍♂️

They used the word 'efficient' so could be more a case of points increases on certain units rather than direct nerfs, e.g. Dragon Ogors, Cockatrices maybe? Alongside a tweak to the herdstone itself.

Certainly hoping for some impactful rules changes! Anything in particular you're hoping or expecting to see?

On the topic of rumours/speculation, does anyone have any thoughts on what we might see in the balance warscroll whenever it comes? Seems like there's a few cases where point increases (Beasts of Chaos, Incarnate) or decreases (Kruelboyz) could have a fairly significant impact independent of any actual changes to rules.

Sadly every indication so far is that the preview will be 40k only, that's certainly what it sounds like from the WarCom article: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2022/09/30/celebrate-warhammer-day-with-a-monster-warhammer-40000-online-preview/ "Festivities kick off on Saturday the 8th of October with a special live Warhammer preview dedicated to all things Warhammer 40,000 and Kill Team."

Not only in Ghur, but specifically in the Gnarlwood now - same place as Warcry is currently set. Perhaps some potential cross over narratively / overlap in warbands?

That's when they surprise you with an actual release for Chaos Dwarves/Malerion's Elves or something! They've been rumoured so much that no one would take the suggestion too seriously lol.

This has never stopped them from previewing warscrolls before, if the usual doom mongering that accompanies a lot of the preview articles is anything to go off.

Is this the first time they've done a vs box and then not released both battletomes at the same time? Seems very bizarre...

I think this would be a good balance and a more comprehensive road map would make people a lot less hungry to jump on leaks all the time I imagine - at least you would be able to be excited to know that your army would be getting a release with 2-3 new kits in January, for example, and would be able to budget for releases like that. And then would get the additional excitement when it got to time for a proper preview and you could see the kits in all their glory.

By comparison, it was 106 days between the announcement of Arena of Shades and the release of the Nighthaunt/DoK battletomes. I don't think we can guess anything too specific just based on the gap between announcing this and release of the books.

On the topic of the Destruction tomes that are coming, if the 2 fall ones are Gitz and Ogors then they would seem to give more credibility to the idea of the Sons book coming with a full new kit rather than just an upgrade sprue, possibly over the winter period. This is assuming that the Fall tomes all only getting a single hero release is true of course, since a new mega gargant kit feels like the sort of thing they would want to make a big deal out of rather than it being relegated to the same level of importance as a small single hero release for other factions.

Rumor Engine could be something for FEC? I'm sure I remember reading rumours about them getting a decent release next year (?) and the the clawed look of the hand would fit them + the scale vs the skull would fit with a a roughly Vargheist sized unit or character I think.

Just to give a recent example, the Kurnoth Hunters warscroll changed between the Echoes of Doom box and the Sylvaneth book - the Envoys of the Everqueen ability changed to something completely different along with I think a couple other changes to their special rules.

Seems like the nerf to Scaly Skin for Seraphon is restricting it to only apply to Saurus, Kroxigor and Monsters.

This is interesting, I wonder whether the Skaven one is early or the Sylvaneth one is late. Skaven seems to be the first one that has released at the same time as the battletome I believe so maybe the former? Either way seems to be a sign of the cramped release schedule caused by the delays, especially with the GHB slipping in on the same date as all this other stuff.

Beastmen could be done in a similar fashion to Soulblight, as a large range refresh near the end of the edition that 'caps off' the current narrative theme for the edition (I.e. Death led to vampires / Beasts leads to, well Beasts). Skaven are obviously likely to be further off because of the upcoming tome.

Isn't it meant to be Tzeentch coming alongside Lumineth? Are we expecting a mainline release for Slaanesh anytime soon?

This would be awesome and could potentially tie in with encouraging supporting smaller units (model wise) while keeping a similar size of unit footprint. Maybe that's too optimistic to hope for though.

There's been nothing other than speculation really based on the new narrative focus on the Dawnbreaker Crusades and some of the recent models like Cursed City heroes + the endless spell hunters from Broken Realms.

Rumour re: The Old World that has just popped up on reddit. No idea on the validity of it, but interesting to think about.