Magnusaur

Those are some massive hammers indeed. Makes the Annihilators look positively modest by comparison. Excited to see more faces and variety in body types going forward.

After the trailer reveal, how are we feeling about this rumor? Seems like a mostly educated guess. It doesn't say that the other resin/metal weapon teams are moving away, though. Pretty sure by the end of the full Skaven release, the army will have no resin whatsoever - either due to being replaced or squatted. That's where Tyranids ended up, anyway. It didn't explicitly call the Clawlord(?) on Wolfrat(?) from the trailer, but maybe that's just part of "Wolfrats". As for how the new Clanrats might look, these comparison might give us some idea...

Just reposting this here, in case it might stir our resident rumor-oracles from their ancient slumber... Stolen from reddit, in turn taken from some Discord server:

I honestly can't imagine them shoving 40 Clanrats into the box. I know Island of Blood had that many, but these will no doubt be a tad bigger (from what we've seen of the leaked artillery piece) and include a teensy bit more options. I think 20 Clanrats and 10x Skavenslaves, Giant Rats or some other chaff gets included. With Leviathan, Termagants got pumped up to 28mm bases and a 5+ Armor Save, with the new Neurogants being added as the true "chaff".

New Liberator looks... fine? I certainly don't hate it, but I think (in this case) painting the noseguard gold would make it harmonize more with the rest of the trim. I think these will look great next a unit of Vindictors. As for whether or not people would have liked Stormcast better if they had looked like this originally... Obviously, the reception was dictated by the circumstances of ending WHFB and so on, there's really no way to discount that context. But personally, it was never the "fatness" of the OG Stormcast that bothered me. Even seeing them side by side, I still like aspects of the original. The things I actively dislike(d) about the original wave of models are 1) the gaudy paint scheme and excessive lightning bolt iconography, 2) the absence of helmetless heads, making the entire army look dead and monotonous and making players think that they were Thousand Son-style automata, and 3) the lack of diversity in body types. Sequitors addressed all three of these well enough that I would have been happy to accept those as the standard template for Stormcast going forward, but here we are. I do think Thunderstrike looks great as well, and people certainly seem to have connected with these, especially as the setting matures and the miniatures released become a little more grounded and less gaudy-looking. Now show me a damn Clanrat! I want to know what the enemies of Sotek look like already!

I don't know if The Old World will be on a 3-year-cycle like the main games, but I'm fully expecting the re-release of old (supported) armies to take most of this year, leaving campaigns and what not for next year. Maybe then we'll see Kislev and Cathay...

I may have just been missing the forest for the trees or my coldblooded nature makes me slow to catch on, but... Has it been rumored/speculated/suggested that the rebooted Cities of Sigmar's de-emphasis on the interspecies composition of the Cities was informed by a need to free up those older Dwarf/Dark Elf/Empire kits for The Old World? What's been the TGA take on this?

To be fair, The Old World wasn't around back then, even if we knew it was coming. The doomsaying can get tiresome, but I understand why people are confused, concerned, and prone to panicking in a situation like this. There's no real precedent for models being shared/torn between game systems like this (except maybe Daemons) and needless to say Games Workshop are not doing much to alleviate concerns. I believe they provided us with the name for new Varanguard champion, Abraxia.

As someone who has often been hesitant about Age of Sigmar's rather abstract worldbuilding, I appreciate today's primer. A strong sense of scale and place is what I miss the most from the setting. One question for the loreheads: the article describes Azyr as "hanging between the realms". Why is that? What makes Azyr special? Is it the because it holds the core of the World-That-Was? Is Azyr the functional sun of the other realms? Or is the whole thing meant more as a metaphor (the home of Order keeping an eye on the rest of the universe).

My speculation on the contents of the new launch box ("Ruination"): Stormcast 1x Lord-Ruinator on Birb 3x "Ruinators" 10x Reforged Liberators 3x Reforged Prosecutors One or two additional character models. Skaven 1x Warlord on Giant Rat 20x Clanrats 10x Giant Rats (chaff, like Scarab Swarms - I know a rumor said they were going away, buuut) 3x Jezzails 1x New Artillery Thing 1x Rat Ogor One, maybe two additional character models, like a Grey Seer. This seems to align itself pretty closely with both Dominion and Leviathan. I don't think we'll see Stormvermin in the launch box. They feel very much like a "next step" kit to me, a la new Genestealers.

I was never a Dwarfs guy, but I love seeing all the new and returning stuff. Really impressed by the general quality of the kits, their age taken into consideration. How old is the Warriors kit? Also really exciting to see more plastic releases outside of Tomb Kings and Bretonnia!

Anyone care to speculate on new/reforged Stormcast units? Looks like we'll have updated Liberators and Prosecutors, in addition to the new "Ruinators". Then there's the Ruinator on bird-gryph. I'm wondering if they will update Judicators as well. Ruinators feel like they fit the Paladin-class, so doubt we'll see updated Retributors. With Prosecutors getting redone, I can't help but wonder if we'll see a new Celestant-Prime? Could even have it be a new character and/or a one-his-last-reforging version. "How the mighty have fallen." In terms of pure speculation, I would love to see more artillery, chariots, altars - anything "artificial" that breaks up the monotony of armored dudes & dudettes. Would love an easy-to-build Knight-Draconis or even a Lord-Draconis on a majestic new dragon. Not that we really need another big dragon model, but I think we're automatically past talking about *need* when we're discussing Stormcast...

Without knowing the actual lore, I like the idea of Ruination members being brought out of retirement because of the extraordinarily desperate situation, rather than them being used as Death Company-style go-out-with-a-bang warriors as the default. It feels like a subtle difference between traditional grimdark ("Stormcast are reforged so many times, eventually they go mad") and a more humane, but equally tragic setup ("Stormcast are eventually retired under mostly dignified circumstances, but war demands that they go back to fighting.") Having said that, I definitely also want to see some more unhinged warriors. I think the Dreadnought metaphor works quite well, with them being ancient, venerable, and impossible to replace. Apropos nothing, but has there ever been mention or speculation of Stormcast tanks?

I'm interested to see how the members of the Ruination chamber(s) are depicted. Simply casting them (no pun intended) as the Stormcast "elites" is a meaningless concept in an army, world, and franchise that is constantly one-upping itself with bigger armor and plates and taller super human warriors. The artwork of the female Stormcast transitioning from Sacrosanct to Thunderstrike and beyond looks ridiculous. What I think is more interesting (and honestly wouldn't surprise me), is if they portray the on-their-final-forging warriors as a mix of retired veterans who now have taken on roles of governance and traumatized warrior-poets who have made peace with the fact that they too are mortal. I want the Ruination chamber to evoke this keen sense of bravery in the face of finality - not just hurr durr even bigger pauldrons.

Lots of rat-spawn for Sotek's altar...! Congrats everybody on the new edition. I thought the trailer was fine, even if it felt like a retread of the last one. I don't know if it's a texture thing, but I feel Stormcast end up looking even more plastic-y than Space Marines in these things. Really wish we would have seen something a bit more substantial from the new edition, like a couple of models or a warscroll. The post-trailer presentation felt a little rushed to me. Other than that, pretty good reveal show, I suppose. I think The Old World took the cake for me, personally, those Dwarfs look great. Abraxia looks incredible as well, holy cow - when will Seraphon get a big lizard like that? I collect Genestealers so it was nice finally seeing their rumored Kill Team, even if it wasn't all that exciting. Cool that plastic AdMech are coming for Horus Heresy and I'm curious about Necromunda too... Edit: The only straight miss for me is WarCry. I like the Sylvaneth models, but as someone else said, they feel very much like multiple units squashed into one (which is mostly a problem when considering their application in the "main game"), but the Ossiarchs... The centaur looks pretty awesome, kind of makes me wish the Kavalos all looked like that. Like either the army should be more grounded and militaristic or more overtly body horror/crazy. This blend doesn't really work for me, unfortunately. The bodyguards look cool as well, wonder how much Mortek Guard might have been if they were of that size/proportions? But the creepy-crawlies don't do anything for me.

Though I preferred the dark green branding of 2nd edition, giving the AOS the red treatment felt like a passing-of-the-torch move, cementing that GW considers the game & world is a worthy inheritor and successor of WFHB. Especially with the make-overs of classic armies the past few years, like Soulblight, Seraphon, and now Skaven. As for the flying troops in Kill Team... The game appears to be on a 3-year cycle like WarCry, so a new edition later in the summer would not be surprising. And taking the game "to the skies" seems like a good impetus for a new edition!

Assuming that 4th will indeed be a rules reboot, it's interesting how the pattern appears to be rules reset = same branding (40K 9-to-10, AOS 3-4); mostly same rules = branding reset (40K 8-to-9, AOS 2-3).

Updating Clanrats definitely makes sense. They may not be the oldest or ugliest models, but I don't think the importance of having fresh, easy to build, and plentiful core troops to entice new collectors can be overestimated. And that's really what these launch boxes are designed to do, in my mind - create new collectors. They make players go "You know, I always loved the idea of [army], but the models were holding me back. But now..." As for rumor engines, I could be wrong on this, but have any of the launch box army models (Nighthaunt, Tyranids, Necrons, etc.) ever featured in rumors engines? I wanna say no? Except for the specific one they did for Kruleboyz.

Sounds like "educated wish listing", though I do love the sound of updated Skinks. The idea of Sigmar sending FUBAR souls up against Skaven's "soulrippers" is kind of funny, though. "I wasn't planning on recycling these anyway, hah!"

What an incredible send-off to 3rd edition! Lovely, lovely models. While 3rd took a turn toward a darker, grittier fantasy than the one I initially fell in love with, these models - and everything else released over the past few years - has just been stellar. I really love Darkoath being a mirror to Cities of Sigmar, not just conceptually, but with actual models. One thing that - in my opinion - held Age of Sigmar (and "new"/post-2017 WH40K) back for a while, was the lopsided incongruence between old and new models. Chunky Primaris facing off against decades-old Eldar Guardians and tiny Chaos Marines, chad Stormcasts towering over ancient zombie models and derpy Saurus Warriors, etc. etc. I really love how things are starting to balance themselves out more, visually speaking, and how the renewed emphasis on the Mortals of the Mortal Realms have grounded the setting in more ways than one.

Hot damn, those Darkoath look incredible! Can't wait to see them face down Cities of Sigmar. Lots of gritty human goodness!

They better give me some new Skinks! In all seriousness, it's hard to say. In the grand scheme of things, as others have said, everything's a question of when rather than if. In an ideal world I would want everything to get updated eventually, even the stuff that came out shortly before The End Times. I'm squarely in the camp of minimizing miniature overlap between Fantasy and Age of Sigmar - again, in an ideal world. Realistically speaking, I wouldn't expect Daughters of Khaine or Dryads to get a rework anytime soon, meaning within the current decade. I believe both were released around 2013 and kind of became design cornerstones for the AoS armies that followed. I think Clanrats, Marauders, and Grots are all much more likely. All three of them feat neatly in the category of models that players need a ton of, so they have to be easy to assemble, paint, and readily available - similar to Necron Warriors, Chainrasps, Termagants, and other cannon fodder. I definitely expect Clanrats to get a makeover this summer. Grots could be up for a glow-up 3 or 6 years down the line. As for Skinks, my personal cope-theory is that the kit is already ready and done and just being held off. We've seen new Skinks on the Raptadons, as handlers, priests, attendants, and so on. That means that the future design principles of what a Skink looks like - or can look like, rather - has already been figured out. And with the models released all being sort of "deviations" from the norm (like the handler Skinks' crests running side-to-side), I would expect them to have planned out what that the "baseline" Skink will look like as well. As for Beasts of Chaos... To me, they feel like the single-most ignored army by Games Workshop. I am not familiar with their lore in Sigmar, but very little about their model releases has demonstrated a willingness to secure for them a bespoke home among the model ranges of the Mortal Realms. If anything, the otherwise awesome single model they received this edition doesn't seem to herald some intriguing change or update to their design language. It looks exactly like Beastmen always have, for better or worse. *However*, until recently, I would have said the same thing about Seraphon and even Ogors. Then one day a new Kroak model popped out of the sky and Mawtribes got their new models from WarCry. So who really knows, right?

Don't have to much to say other than I hope people are happy with the reveals. I keep my ear pretty close to the ground when it comes to rumors (well, I guess everyone in here does, haha), so can't really complain about the lack of surprises. Only thing for me is probably the Nighthaunt warband. I'm a big fan of the ghosts, though I would love to see some 40 or 50mm units for them. Like Ogryn ghosts or whatever, just something to break up the silhouettes a bit.

From the article: Care to speculate what those new models might be? Assuming we haven't already seen them. Also, do we know if possible remasters will be in resin? I haven't worked with FW resin before, but I take it it's a lot better than Finecast?