RileyArlic

We're definitely speculating about things that are way out. Seraphon, Flesh-Eater Courts, and Cities of Sigmar still gotta come out, along with Season of War: Gallet and the next General's Handbook, and then the speculation for 4th edition will begin. Or maybe it has already begun, a year and a half out XD As it is, I feel like AoS is in a pretty good place, rules-wise. There's not the same bloat issue of 40k and the various generals handbooks have been keeping things interesting. I know the roll for turn priority is still a thing that people bemoan in certain circles, and I know the topic on Mortal Wounds has gotten a lot of headway. Terrain is also a thing that punishes gameplay rather than enhancing it. If they can sharpen those 3 parts of the core rules... best game ever?

My major hope for AoS is that we DON'T see Stormcast be pushed on us every edition. It'll all come down to GW and how they make money off of the various sets, but getting to a point where in AoS a new edition could have something else featured on the box art would be incredible. Cities of Sigmar could take over for that once in a while, introducing new mortals from different cities wherever the new realm is, instead of just banking on new Stormcast... I still maintain that one of the best new-edition box sets they could do would be Cities vs Skaven. It'd be excellent. One of the things I hope we see for Seraphon would be ways to make other things battleline. So far, only the Thunder Lizard subfaction gives you Stegadons as Battleline, while none of the others affect any battleline.

Pretty much. It's almost an adage at this point "GW works 5 years ahead", well, that means that stuff that came out 5+ years ago is now a concept that began 10+ years ago, which was a totally different time than we are now. It makes me real excited for what could be coming in the next 5 years! On another note, what do we think is going to happen with Seraphon sub-factions? Currently, there's 4 main subfactions (Dracothion's Tail, Koatl's Claw, Thunder Lizard, and Fangs of Sotek) and then the two variations on the army, Coalesced and Starborne. Stormcast definitely have a similar breakdown, where their Scions of the Storm have more deep strike shenanigans where the Stormkeep is more about protecting the cities. I could see Starborne getting plenty more deepstrike/relocation shenanigans, but do we think they'll keep the summoning aspect? What about the Coalesced? And will we get more than 4 subfaction abilities?

I don't think it's that they're going to up and replace all the 1st edition stormcast models right away, but they have opened the door to do so when the time comes. The new stormcast models, basically ever since Vanguard was introduced, have brought in more gender diversity, where the 1st edition models were basically male-only. I'd love to see the original Judicators and Liberators get that sort of treatment, updated to the new Thunderstrike armor and given more options for gender, heads, and other details. I don't expect to see this happen for a goodly while, however. There are many other things that fans are craving rather than simply more Stormcast.

1. Necromunda almost got me into the game a couple of times. Corpsegrinder Cults were incredible... but were so busted that none of my local groups want me to play them. I'm happy for people that enjoy them, but jeez I can't get excited about anything they release for that game... except the terrain XD 2. Incredible that the WE Combat Patrol still isn't out, especially since they've already confirmed that the Codex is only going to have a 5-month lifespan. A friend of mine on a budget was depending on that combat patrol, and now they don't even know if they're going to get it before the new edition. 3. I'm sure that New Model Monday will return to more Necromunda and Blood Bowl stuff. There's still a good number of rumor engines left to satisfy, even though a TON were resolved at Adepticon. Would be nice if they used the Model Monday as a way to reveal upcoming Space Marine and Tyranid stuff. 4. The wait for Seraphon continues to be painful. I was hoping we'd see the Death battletomes go on preorder, but I guess that'll be another week out. I have SO MANY QUESTIONS about the new Seraphon, and more than anything I really want to see the new color schemes that GW have produced, to get my creative juices flowing!

I love simple, blocky terrain like this. Stuff that your models aren't going to snag on, things that is easy to measure to and from, it's genius and I want more of it. Will we get it? For some reason I doubt it. Just like the OBR terrain, I wouldn't be surprised if this is simply a conversion done by the design studio for the purpose of pictures. The main advantage is having this terrain that can then be used in GW stores and events, as that's where I get most of my gaming done. 3d printed stuff is awesome great, but I just can't bring it into the store, so please James Workshop, give me terrain that's a worthwhile purchase and not a FREAKING TREE THAT IS DESIGNED LIKE A CLUSTER OF FISHING HOOKS THAT SNAG ON EVERY SINGLE MODEL THAT COMES WITHIN A SQUARE FOOT OF THAT TERRAIN BASE!

On the larger scale of things, I definitely feel that AoS is winning in a lot of ways. 1. AoS will have most if not all of their battletomes out by the end of the year, leaving at LEAST 8 months to enjoy those tomes before a new edition. On the other hand, 40k just released Imperial Guard and World Eaters that are going to have sub 6 months to actually play in 9th ed before being thrown in the bin. 2. Fresh ideas are abundant in AoS, with new things coming out every edition, filling out the world with wild, awesome, whimsical, and often badass things. On the other hand, 40k struggles under the immense weight of needing to print a whole new Space Marine army every 1.5 years. I've even seen people complaining about the Tyranids not having enough room in their line for new stuff. 3. The lore has been on a decent clip, with big, world-changing events. Even focused on Ghur, we've still seen Kragnos unleashed, Morathi ascend to godhood, Nagash get punted in the face by Teclis, and dragons return to the mortal realm via Krondys and Karazai. Meanwhile, in 40k, Ultramarines swooped in to save the day, yet again, and despite dying twice, GW pulled a mcguffin to keep Azrael alive, meaning so far the rubicon primaris has a 0% casualty rate as long as you have a name. I don't want it to sound like I'm just aimlessly hating on 40k right now, because I do love the lore and several of the factions, but AoS just keeps winning every time I see a reveal. For AoS I know it's going to be something new and wild and fun, and for 40k I know it's going to be space marines XD

IMO, lizards stole the show again. It is indeed hard to beat the 10th edition launch trailer and the Lion, but the confirmation of kroxigor, new dino riders, and a launch box (that by the way will come with warscroll cards AND enhancement cards) is a HUGE win. Horus Heresy was the worst. You could kinda tell the announcers were REALLY trying hard to make the book seem valuable. Zone Mortalis and new core missions IS good, the game needs those, but good god, show a model. Would have made a huge difference. Everything else was great too, but, again, Seraphon be winning big.

AoS is likely 1 video for each of the upcoming factions. Seraphon, Soulblight, Ossiarch. The last one could be just a second seraphon video if they split up the reveals. Horus Heresy is interesting. One guess I saw is that it could be the next Ascended Primarch, which I feel is a pretty safe bet.

FEC so devolved they return to monke The Stormcast vs Soulblight Warcry set is interesting, as it uses existing Underworlds Warbands but put into a box with new terrain. I'd love to see more of that. Little tidbits of scatter terrain are great for filling out a larger build or creating an armies on parade board. Or of course, playing skirmish games. I wonder if we'll see older Underworlds warbands return to print like this.

we still have another year and a half in Ghur with AoS 3rd edition, so I imagine we'll see another 'season' of Warcry here.

to be fair, considering all the issues from the pandemic and shipping delays, I wouldn't be surprised if this was supposed to be the first Warcry warband for the new edition, and just had to be delayed and redone for now.

An interesting dichotomy in ogor culture that I'd love to see expanded upon.

I'd love for there to be a Seraphon reveal on Monday and then even MORE lizards on Wednesday for adepticon.

Shame that the K'Dai never made it and Skaarac is also no longer available through FW. When was the last time that FW made something for AoS or 40k? It's been almost exclusively 30k and side games for the longest time.

It is a little curious that we're getting the reveal/tease of the next Kill Team box, but not the next Warcry box... But really, I just want the rest of the Seraphon stuff in my eyeballs.

I believe because it counts as a 'modified 6' not an 'unmodified 6'.

Consider. 6 temptation dice per turn. Same unit cannot be affected more than once per phase, so you can't just stack on 6d3 mortal wounds onto a single unit. You give the opponent an auto-6, though it doesn't proc abilities that hit on unmodified 6's, so that's a thing... but let's say your opponent is swinging in with a big beefy Monster of some kind. You're unlikely to want to give that monster a free hit or wound on an attack that could do 3 or 6 or more damage to your units. You're also unlikely to give something that you really want to kill a free save. The counterplay is you're boosting your opponent. You give those temptation dice to a chaff unit and the opponent will simply take the mortal wounds and deny you depravity points. You give those temptation dice to beefy units and suddenly your opponent is doing more damage than average to your forces. I think there's going to be a particular kind of unit that you're going to give these things to, elite enough that mortal wounds really hurt but not so powerful that a single swing would make the difference between survival and defeat of the unit they're hitting against. If you do too much damage, say, to a unit and they fail a save, the opponent will just take the temptation dice to deny you depravity points because their unit is likely already dead anyway, so a mortal wound or two wont make a big difference. It's really clever, and I think it'll take playing on the table to really figure out how powerful it is. Good players are going to be very good at it, but because depravity points take a LOT of them to power up, and because the same points are used in summoning, requiring you to give up power-ups to summon new things onto the table, it's not the end of the world to let your opponent have some deprav points. And who knows? Maybe the entire army has gotten a boost in points levels to make up for it all.

I'm all for that. If they get the Kurnoth Hunter treatment I'd be thrilled. Two different melee options and a ranged option? Gosh that'd be sweet. Not counting on it, but it'd be nice. I'm starting to doubt a launch box as well. It's still possible, as we're not even halfway through March yet, but we'll see by Adepticon I'm sure. If Valrak is saying they're going to reveal a Cities of Sigmar box set, then that makes me think that a Seraphon launch box ain't happening. They didn't do a launch box for World Eaters, so it's not like every update is gunna get something like that. If not a launch box, hopefully the new Vanguard box will be a really good one.

Yeah, somewhere between here and the Blood Bowl model. Though, the lizardmen from the blood bowl team are pretty different from the new saurus warriors, so who can say! I will say though that the blood bowl model is... well, so it's not a bad pose at all, it's just one of those odd poses that's hard to get a good camera angle on. But, the chonkiness and fidelity of detail is there.

Here's my predictions, and keep in mind that I like to keep my expectations LOW so that anything EXTRA is a pleasant surprise. Warhammer: Underworlds - Cities of Sigmar vs Tzeentch - start of new season. Warhammer 40k: Kill Team - Last box of the Gallowdark series. My bet is Fallen vs. something. Warhammer 30k: Horus Heresy - Plastic Sicaran variants. Warhammer: Age of Sigmar - The rest of Seraphon, silhouette of SBGL and Bonereaper heroes. Warhammer 40,000 - Finally reveal last book of Arks of Omen, tease more Space Marines vs Tyranids and announce 10th edition but reveal little else.

Basically, here and the AoS discord/reddits are the only places for reliable discussion on AoS. A lot of other places around the internet and a lot of content creators just haven't jumped on. Tabletop Tactics has finally started doing AoS batreps which is fantastic, and it seems like they're having a lot of fun with it, but the AoS batreps generally get about 1/3rd less views than their 40k counterparts. Hopefully AoS will continue to grow. I do still worry that GW is going to basically cannibalize itself by putting out the Old World, and instead of either game growing, you'll just create yet another community that craps on AoS for no good reason

Yeah, I'm sure we'll see the rest of the Seraphon at Adepticon, along with whatever the SBGL and Bonereapers are going to get. Here's hoping for plenty more. My main hope for SBGL is that it's not just an updated Necromancer. They're great models, but I'd love to see a different sort of take or rank or something else to give the army some more flexibility.

We see this happening in real-time. FW just removed a bunch of Krieg tanks and have been replacing the 30k tanks with plastic steadily but surely. From what I understand, Forgeworld will basically only maintain the legion-specific stuff for 30k, as well as any special characters in resin, and a handful of upgrade packs, but anything that's 'generic' (that any legion can take) will eventually be moved to plastic. What that means for the Mechanicum, Solar Auxilia, several of the Knights, and other stuff like various Tau suits, Badab War characters, and other stuff... anyone's guess. One thing to think about is that GW has been printing out FREE models for a few months now. The model of the month that you go in to a GW store to grab, literally for free (while supplies last, etc) used to be a kit that they would open up, have the employees at the stores build, and then put in little boxes. Now, they dedicate a whole mold to making them. The Jakhal, Cadian Guardsman, Jade Obelisk and Rotmire Creed models, and one other I can't remember, have been on sprues that they put in generic boxes, package in the stores, and then give out FOR FREE. If GW are willing to do that as a promotional thing, then literally anything could be made into plastic.

I agree. My concern is that covid really shafted AoS 3rd edition. We already see evidence of that across the release schedule. The question is: how far back has the story been pushed? There's evidence that the events with Vashtorr and co should have actually been released 6 months to a year ago, and we could have seen a very different 'arks of omen' campaign to wrap up 9th. That in mind, how far will they go with the wrap-up of 3rd edition? It wasn't until the end of 2nd edition that Broken Realms unleashed Kragnos and Morathi became a Goddess, so a lot can happen in those end-of-cycle campaigns that feel a lot more 'earth shattering', so if a lot of what we see across this edition is simply 'setting the stage', then big things could be coming soon. To some of the points above, GW definitely hint at things early. They look 5+ years out for designing and releasing new factions and models, so that gives white dwarf, campaign book, and codex writers a lot of time to tease things. They are also known for dropping hints for things that are made to inspire conversion ideas for hobbyists. Want some Rootking Dwarves? Why not take some Fyreslayers and some green stuff and make them look like their legs are stumps and roots of trees? Use a beast other than a Magmadroth for the leaders? There's lots you can do, and a lot of White Dwarf articles show how wonderful people's creativity is.