Mortal Wound

Customer uncertainty is a significant concern and I wonder how much it will come back to bite them in the behind sales-wise. Because this fundamental paradigm shift in brand confidence isn't just limited to AoS. There's a lot of cross-pollenation between AoS and 40k and even 40k-exclusive people are watching this debacle keenly. If 6-year old models for a mainline faction that constitute a full sub-army with a unique playstyle isn't safe from culls, what is? People are gonna consider their purchases more carefully. Eldar Harlequins, are those a safe purchase in this 'new normal'? What about Dark Eldar Wracks and Pain Engines? Death Watch Veterans? Thousand Sons Mutalith Vortex Beast? I was gonna get a couple Predator tanks for my Black Legion Chaos Space Marines. I am not so sure now that I should make that purchase. Heck, I'm assembling Venomcrawlers right now in preparation for the new codex. I was gonna get another one because they'd be cool to play as a formation of three. But should I? Those don't even have a separate kit but share an old starter set-style sprue with another unit... The erosion of customer trust is a big deal and they opened a Pandora's Box full of it.

My sentiments exactly. Warcry would have been an even more stellar game if it stayed narratively focused on Eightpoints and Chaos Weirdos as a self-contained ecosystem. That's the game pitch I initially fell in love with and wanted to see expanded. What I didn't want to see is the current 'anything goes', Smash Bros style melting pot where you have three skinks, a Lord Relictor, an Idoneth wizard and a Kharadron Overlord fighting against Callis and Toll's crew and Jelsen Darrock in a meat tree forest. I think there was simply a lack of faith that this original concept would have sustained the game and they immediately shoehorned AoS models into it without giving it time to breathe.

They soft abandoned the idea of Warcry being self-contained to warbands of Chaos weirdos fighting in the Eightpoints fairly early on in the game's lifecycle and categorically abandoned it with the Ghur redesign. I can't see them doing that just to then immediately zoom it in again thematically and make it a Mordheim/Necromunda style game. A Kill Team model, where the setting is wide open and warbands are clearly corresponding to specific AoS factions to the point that the game as a whole could be viewed as a backdoor for small splash releases for a parent game, is much more likely and something they already seem to be transitioning towards, going by the makeup of the last two boxes and the revealed new one.

Listen, there seems to be a bit of a miscommunication here. I'm personally not offended in the slightest by anything I have pointed out. Trust me, I'm the last person you know that would pearl clutch about this sort of thing. Only thing I am doing is observing that if anyone really wants to dig in and look for this sort of stuff to be offended by, it's already there. So it's not the sort of thing what would give geedub pause with Chaos Dwarfs. They demonstrably aren't walking on eggshells with this kind of thing. I know this sort of nuance is getting increasingly hard to parse on the internet but someone mentioning a thing doesn't necessarily mean said person is looking for a fight and ready to die on a hill for said thing. Sometimes it's just people having a conversation and making observations. I hope this clears it up for you and others because I really don't appreciate the tone of being told to 'chill out' with my 'delusions'. Heck, that wouldn't be an acceptable way to address another person even if we _were_ having a genuine argument here.

And third, they already redesigned them aesthetically away from hats, beards and big noses with Legion of Azgorh. And fourth, GW is demonstrably not that culturally sensitive. They have an entire faction of devil-worshipping hedonists that's near-East oriental coded. They released evil Asian mysticism vampires last year. They have an entire civilization of sadistic slavers and body horror serial killers in 40k that are always given thick Eastern European accents in audiobooks. I could go on, but bottom line is a bunch of short guys with beards ain't giving anyone pause. For crying out loud, they already have an entire civilization of bearded misers in AoS. This is the roleplayer sprinking in some culture war bullcrap for good measure because they know their target audience of 4chaners will eat that up.

This is for a paperback edition. BL novels no longer 'just come out'. They get either a hardback release or a hardback special edition, and only some of them get paperback releases much later down the line. One of the reasons I no longer buy physical BL books and stick with Audible.

They're 'clanrat weapons'. All under a single unified profile on the warscroll. Equipment variants don't exist in 4ed outside '1 model in 5' or '1 model in 10' special weapons.

I was wondering about that myself. I'm guessing it's just another bit of graphic design that they think is extremely clever and helpful, but undecipherable and completely superfluous to most regular people, like the phase colors and ability type icons. Maybe green is for stuff you do in your opponent's turn? Rolling saves would technically qualify.

To each their own. I dislike it because it looks like videogame UI. But I'm probably just old like that.

Rather, they shouldn't get told anything like that, but in actuality a lot depends on the manager. Some are pretty clued into stuff and friends with people surprisingly high up the chain.

That's deliberate to keep people talking and speculating. Also to provide fuel for content creatures that can get easy clicks with '11 things you missed about the new AoS warscroll REVEALED' nonsense videos, complete with big yellow arrows that yell 'POWER LEVEL?!?'

AoS Gotrek is a bit of a special case. To all intents and purposes, he is the AoS version of One Punch Man, and just like One Punch Man, the interesting bit in those stories is not how he can win any fight with one punch, but how he affects the lives of everyone around him, especially his companions. The AoS Gotrek books have quite emotionally resonant and surprisingly deep explorations of personal anguish, depression and inability to break away from a downward spiral. A constant theme throughout all the books is that most of Gotrek's companions are emotionally or mentally broken in some fashion, unable to free themselves from chains of despair often wrought by their own hands. Gotrek's adventures are less about fantastic beasts and how to punch them, and more metaphors about coping with deep personal scars and finding the power and courage to get up and face the world again and again when everything seems like it doesn't work and doesn't belong. It ain't Nobel prize winning literature, but honestly it's damn impressive writing for something that technically doesn't have a higher bar to clear than 'be a good advert for toy soldiers'. That all being said, if you want something with lower powered characters that's competently written, I recommend Gloomspite. It starts as a romp centred around a classic trope of a colorful adventuring party, but later becomes surprisingly dark and gritty. Incidentally, it also has some themes of emotional struggle and feelings of inadequacy, albeit delivered in a bit more heavy handed manner I felt.

For my Slaves to Darkness, I am proceeding with no change. Warcry warbands represented only a fraction of my overall army and then only as get-you-by models until we finally get proper new Marauders. We are getting proper new Marauders soon so I'm fine with my Untamed Beasts and Iron Golems being retired to the hall of fame shelf and only coming out for Warcry. For my Stormcast, I am still undecided. Most of my army is Sacrosanct and Sacrosanct are my favorite models both in terms of aesthetics and playstyle. I was actually planning to pick up more Sacrosanct units last week to participate in the Warhammer Store Dawnbringers thing and have a full 2k Sacrosanct army ready for 4e. I was stopped from going to the store and purchasing them by an illness that kinda feels like providence now. I still don't know what to do about it. Part of me is completely deflated about AoS. Part of me wants to go with the flow and embrace Thunderstrike. Part of me still wants to complete the Sacrosanct army while they are still available in stores to play them with the one year pity rules at least and then reevaluate. And part of me wants to be super contrarian and super irresponsible, take a huge cash loan, buy up all the local stock of 1st and 2nd ed Stormcast, hoard all the sprues and kitbash them into whatever new Thunderstrike units they keep coming out with in perpetuity. What is more striking about everything is how much of a paradigm shift this has been for me outside of the specifc models that are going away. I keep wondering, if five-years-old Stormcast are not safe as model purchases, what IS a safe long-term model purchase? I find myself second guessing my existing purchase plans and buy lists. Should I really pick up that Ogroid Myrmidon and Fomoroid Crusher I've been wanting to take off a person locally? Should I pull the trigger on those two additional Chaos Chariot I was planning to get to field a nice unit of three ? Should I get that Chaos Predator and Vindicator for my 40k army? It's not fun to think about.

I don't think there's any conspiracy beyond the usual 'no kit option, no rules option' policy. The new Liberator kit is likely structured just like the Vindictor kit, with prescribed posing and grandhammer arms that only fit a specific rank-and-file model. 'Everyone' having the grandweapon on the champion is a bit of a stretch to begin with as well, given how many Liberator units in the wild were 1st edition starter/start collecting models. Grandweapon champions was something you did if you bought the full kit, which, given the availability of the starter models, only real Stormcast nuts did. Like me.

Devastating Wounds are not autowounding hits. Devastating Wounds are wounds that do not allow a save of any kind, exactly like Mortal Wounds, but unlike Mortal Wounds, they do not spill over overkilled models as you explain. There seems to be a lot of confusion about Mortal Wounds, Lethal Hits and Devastating Wounds in 40k in this discussion, but at the end of the day, it's really all moot anyway, since no one can make a definite prediction how Mortals will work in AoS4. For one, it's now called Mortal Damage instead of Mortal Wounds so we really can't make any assumptions. Which is a shame, because now my handle doesn't work with both games.

I think you are confusing Mortal Wounds with Lethal Hits. The latter are hit rolls of 6 that automatically wound. Mortal Wounds still exist in 10th ed 40k as a separate thing and are wounds that do not allow a save of any kind, but can be negated by Feel no Pain. In other words, Mortal Wounds still work exactly the same across both games right now, only the AoS equivalent of Feel no Pain is Ward. Source: I am one.

It's a question of courtesy if nothing else. I consider it courteous towards my opponent to make the functional equipment visible on my models and in my units, rather than expecting them to take my word that I am correctly tracking the state and position of imaginary, invisible command models and special weapons across multiple units for several hours in a game that is already mentally taxing to be begin with. If you don't see a problem with it, so be it. Different folks have a different concept of what is considered courteous or gentlemanly in real life social interactions, let alone in a game.

Until you come across an ability like the giant stuffing a specifically picked model with its specific equipment down its pants.

You are not a dummy. They do the same exact thing for 40k stratagems in 10th. To this day, after almost a year, most people still think icons and/or colors on 40k stratagems correspond to the flavor type or cost of stratagem. That is, if they even notice and acknowledge the existence of various colors and icons on stratagems in the first place, which they rarely do.

Outside 'one in X' special weapons, I don't think weapon options count for anything other than aesthetics. I think Whitefang the Second mentioned something to that effect at one time.

"The champion cannot replace their weapon." Stop it please, my models are already dead after yesterday.

Well, that's because when people called for a trim of the bloated Stormcast range, what they meant and imagined was culling the redundant foot heroes and consolidating redundant units into catch-all warscrolls, such as making Judicators with Bows, Judicators with Crossbows, Castigators, Vigilors and Hurricane Raptors into one warscroll called Judiciars that would allow you to use whatever models you liked under one statblock. What they didn't mean nor imagine is taking the entirety of the most unique thematically, most unique in terms of playstyle and quite possibly most popular sub-theme of Stormcast that's functionally an entire army in its own right with models barely six years old, and yeeting it straight into the sun.

They know the six month schadule is barely tolerated in 40k and is likely to be massively unpopular in AoS, so they are being purposely vague with it. Apparently it's working, judging by the fact that there have been people both here and on Reddit expressing surprise when a six month shelf life of the book is mentioned. However, they let slip it will be a six month thing in the initial Warhammer Fest reveal stream (which has since been deleted from Twitch), I believe the exact verbage used was that the book 'lays out the framework for the next six months of Matched Play'. I remember deliberately rewinding the stream to check I heard that right.