JerekKruger

Okay, that's genuinely birth extremely surprising, and extremely cool (and somewhat expensive, as I can't help but buy some 😄 It might be that GW thought it would be a bad look to be having old minis released, especially ones that will technically be minus for TOW.

Not as far as I know. There might be a "your taking the ******" situation if you tried to buy way too many, but even then, as @Ejecutor says, people often buy them for other people who can't make it. That said, I think the anniversary week ends in Friday, so if you can't make it up before then you might want to give them a call and see if you can reserve some minis (or pay for them over the phone and pick them up later). Would be a shame to turn up on Saturday and find you've missed out.

Agreed. At the vet least there did be an opportunity to buy these models in, say, December every year for people who can't make it to an event or store anniversary. Ideally they should just be available the year round online. But of course that doesn't serve the objective of getting people into stores and events...

I didn't see him, but I can't say I looked that carefully. There was the Gutrippa boss from last year.

Probably not telling anyone anything they don't know, but if you live near Nottingham and want any (recent) FOMO minis there's a very good chance they are currently available at Warhammer World this week. I picked myself up two Steel Rooks today. Tempted to pick up a second Darkoath warchief but decided one was enough. You can also get the Fyreslayer and Votann minis, as well as Inquisitor Cartavolnus, as well as many more. And there was masses of stock in today.

They look gorgeous: I love the use of teal (is that teal) as the non-metallic colour on these. If GW re-release the Isle of Blood sprues I will really struggle not to start a High Elf army!

I think it's fair to say it won't be on a 3 year treadmill like AoS and 40k are, but I do think it'll be more like Horus Heresy than other specialist games i.e. it has a decent chance of getting a true new edition rather than simple consolidation. This will, of course, depend on popularity.

I hope that's the case, but don't want to set myself up for disappointment. I think the rules of TOW are pretty damn good, with a few wonky edge cases, so would benefit hugely from a light touch pass, and I think adding at least some if the legacy factions in would be really good (I am building a Dark Elf army anyway, but if they eventually get an Arcane Journal and some new minis I will be very happy).

To be fair, Blood Bowl had perhaps reached saturation. All the classic teams have be released, asking with quite a few completely new teams. There comes a point where they are scrapping the barrel for new ideas, and it might be best to release very slowly rather than dumping multiple bad ideas into the game. Also Blood Bowl is weird in that it will survive being cancelled. It has done so before after all.

I don't think GW will literally kill TOW, even if it eventually stops selling, for a long time. They killed fantasy, and it created uproar, and they went to the effort if bringing it back. To kill it again soon after release would be disastrous PR. I the worst case scenario is it goes into maintenance mode i.e. they keep it around but with no new releases and minimal resources put into it. But honestly, given the hype around it right now, I am not too worried. I think there's a decent chance we'll get a second edition like Horus Heresy did some time after all the arcane journals are released, hopefully with at least some legacy factions added. I think there's a decent chance such a second edition could chance the time frame too, maybe just by a bit, it maybe significantly. There's plenty of Warhammer history to explore after all, and GW can use that to encourage people to build new armies with new paint schemes etc. I also, personally, don't think BoC will be removed from AoS. That would be a massive kick in the teeth for any AoS exclusive BoC players which would generate a lot of bad PR.

I'd be very surprised if he is never released separately. I can always pick him up on eBay if I really want to.

Oh I know it's not a true FOMO box, but I suspect it'll be out of stock for the majority of it's overall life span, so if I do want it I may have to (shock horror) wait a long time to get it 😄 I'm not going to buy it anyway. I have the rule book, I have templates, I don't want the old Bret sculpts, and the easiest way to get the Duke is to buy him separately (if I decide to get him). But that little part of my brain keeps kicking in.

FOMO is a hell of a drug. I keep considering buying this because if I don't I may not get another chance for a while, then I decide not to. Then, a bit later, I consider it again...

I can almost guarantee they'll be the old ones sadly.

That'd be great. I've just ordered a cheap Stormcast Ballista and am going to see if that can be converted too. If I get something that looks good I'll post pictures too!

I have considered that, but I think it just looks too LRLy and I'm not sure I can make it look Dark Elfy.

I just order 15 Dark Riders/Doomfire Warlocks. Never have I been so happy GW included them in every budget box, and that they are kinda meh on AoS 😄 Now all I am lacking for my Dark Elves in Bolt Throwers, and I'm not sure what to do for them. Metal ones go for a lot on eBay, and the 3d printed ones on Etsy look not great. I'm wondering how hard it would be to built the Bolt Thrower itself somehow, and kit bash some Dark Elf warriors as crew. Other option is I wait for High Elf ones to get rereleased and Dark Elfify them, but I don't know how viable that would be.

Agreed. The only thing I don't like is the whip, not because it looks bad but because I hate overly fragile parts of minis. Also great is that you can mix in parts of the Twinsouls to the Painbringers, perhaps to mark out a champion.

The whole Hedonites mortals range is just... chefs kiss. It just works so well for what Slaanesh is. I particularly like Myrmidesh, who Evie the old Juan Diaz champion of Slaanesh on foot mini do well: they give that feeling that they fight elegantly, making combat more of an artistic expression than a brutal competition.

Agreed, although I doubt it'll be sooner than a year since I suspect they're short term release schedule is pretty much set in stone.

My answer is I am terrible at choosing an army, because so many different factors come into play that it becomes hard for me to pick a true winner. Factors that I look at include: (i) Aesthetics. This includes both the minis themselves, as well as the accompanying artwork. Obviously the minis are more important, but when there's an amazing piece of art for a faction I do find myself drawn to it. (ii) Lore. This tends to be less of an issue for me in AoS, although there are still factions whose lore just doesn't call to me (DoK for example). In WHFB though, the lore of a faction was a big deal for me: I liked Wood Elves, but it always bothered me that they'd have very little reason to be fighting away from Athel Loren. Meanwhile Orcs and Goblins, or Beastmen could be literally anywhere and needed basically no excuse to fight. (iii) Paintability. Once I've picked out an army that looks good, I start to think about paint schemes. If I can't find one that I like, that's a negative. I have this issue with S2D in AoS: if I don't want them to look like they are marked by a specific god, I am left with very few colours I can use, and when we rule out black as a colour I hate painting I am left with even fewer. So whilst the minis are great, I can't find a paint scheme for them that I like. Meanwhile Sylvaneth are almost bad in the opposite direction, as I can't decide on what season to paint them. (iv) Gameplay. Ultimately, if I'm going to play games with an army I want them to play in a way I enjoy. In MTG terms I am mostly a Timmy: I enjoy experiencing extremes. What time prime might describe as "win more", I describe as "win funner". So whilst KO tuck a lot of boxes for me, they just don't do it gameplay wise. (v) Roleplay potential. This relates to lore to an extent. Basically I love investing my characters with back story, and some factions allow this more than others. S2D is supposed to be a faction of powerful individuals all seeking greatness, so focusing on characters makes sense (though it hurts when your mighty Chaos Lord dies to a stiff breeze), whereas for Nighthaunt this feels much less doable. If I try to max out all of the above, I end up with no factions, so I have to compromise. At the moment I am working on a Dark Elf army for TOW which is mostly a result of looking the minis and rules (plus having picked up a great deal on eBay).

I've been thinking 6x3 or 6x4 (for rank bonus redundancy) too.

Agreed. To me it seemed obvious at the time so the Kislev stuff was assisting on WarCom that the intention was for Kislev to be released fairly early in TOW's life. I would be amazed if the 3d models for at least some of a potential Kislev range haven't already been done. Something changed. My guess is GW got cold feet and decided to scale back TOW fur gear that it wouldn't be as popular as they'd originally hoped*. My how is sales have been good enough that they're recognising it has legs, and we'll see things like Kislev and Cathay in due course. In any case my strategy doesn't change: I enjoy TOW and buy products to support it, going that doing so will increase the odds of longer term support. I would love a TOW 2.0 (like Heresy) with more supported factions, new minis for existing factions etc., but that will only happen if the game sells well. *Might not help that TWW3 has not been as popular as TWW2 was, and with that enthusiasm online started to dry up

They were, though I do sometimes wonder how much of that is nostalgia over being young and relatively carefree.

Huh, I would have assumed Nagash reclaimed it during the End Times, but I can't find any reference to that. Somewhat surprising to me.