Chikout

That’s a very cool video but GW’s open day preview has been extremely weird. That star player was the main focus of the preview video they put up on Saturday, but instead of showing him off on Sunday they’ve waited until today to say anything. Meanwhile the Darkoath video that GW themselves accidentally leaked hasn’t got a mention despite the fact that the video is all over the internet. The cat isn’t merely out of the bag, it’s up on the table, gleefully knocking all of the community team’s best plans onto a concrete floor.

The specialist games studio is definitely going to run into a resources problem. We’re already seeing this. Bloodbowl used to get 4 teams a year. Last year they got one. Middle Earth used to get a couple of plastic kits a year but they haven’t had a single new sculpt in more than a year. Titanicus and Aeronautica got dropped probably because they don’t have the resources to support them alongside Legions Imperialis which has an even worse stock situation than The Old World. If selling out quickly is a measure of success, that game is GW’s best product ever. The old world looks to have been a big enough hit that it deserves the level of support, Heresy is currently getting but unless they hire several more designers, I don’t see how they can do it. It also seems to be the case that at least one designer who was being trained to make Old World plastics left suddenly. When Underworlds first came out people were saying it wouldn’t last a year but here we are 8 years and almost 50 warbands later and it’s still going strong so I’m certain The Old World will continue getting support for a long time but I don’t think we’ll see a big increase in the level of support any time soon.

I'm really curious how many of the new resins they are making. Nekaph is already sold out. Did anyone here successfully get one?

They've gone the other way with the likes of the unmade. I like that Chaos has such a wide identity now. It fits the lore of them being the majority of the inhabitants of the realms. Personally I love them. Between the Harbinger, the freeguild marshall and this chieftain GW might have made three of their best minis ever. I was all set to get excited about Skaven but they've got some serious competition now.

Surely they’ll have to show the Skaven now? It’s really weird that they’d upload a video now if it was meant for Adepticon.

Major leaks! Holy **** I’ve seen amazing things.

Yeah I noticed that. Interesting decision to do a hero unit and normal units. The Darkoath are a really unusual range. Two heroes, two Underworlds units, a warcry unit, a regiment of renown and so far no regular units.

The core boxes have been in and out of stock and couple of times in various places. It's the lack of new resins that is surprising. I would have thought they would have been easier to produce as they would be made with a different machine and wouldn't have to compete for production time with 40k and AoS. Hopefully they've made more resins for the second wave.

Here's my outlandish prediction based on that list. Tyrion will appear in the 4th edition ending campaign but like Kroak, his army won't turn up until 5th edition. Malerion will fall to chaos and be the 5th edition starter faction. He will ally with Belakor. There will be a new range of shadow deamons. 4th edition will see updates for Skaven, Stormcast, Chaos Duardin, OBR, IDK, either Fyreslayers or KO not both, Ogors, gitmob in gloomspite and 2 out Khorne, Nurgle and Tzeentch. That makes 10 updates which is the same as this edition. Cities will get another warcry warband and an Underworlds warband but no 2nd wave. FeC will get another Underworlds warband.

It's especially true if you consider lead times. In an interview about the 9th edition starter box Jes Goodwin said that concept work for the box started 5 years before release. By that logic, the decision to make Skaven the 4th edition launch faction was probably made some time in 2nd edition. That's why we haven't had much support for them so far. I'm sure GW already know what the 5th edition launch faction will be.

The list from SG warhound said globadiers are getting a refresh. Those are skyre acolytes now. Could we be getting a proper unit of them?

I get the once bitten twice shy feeling but this is definitely from the fourth edition refresh. It's a push fit kit. It's possible it could be one of the kits that goes alongside the box like the Stormcast chariot but it's almost certainly from the launch box itself. I love the idea of having Skaven push the model. If they redo the screaming bell I love for them to put it on the biggest base and have a team of Skaven hauling it along. It's a perfect opportunity to have a diorama style set but also be something that fits better with the range than the static Katakros diorama. As for the reveal, we got look leaks of a FeC sprue and a Bretonnia sprue but GW didn't say anything for weeks. I'm still expecting the first official mention of 4th edition to come at Adepticon.

I wonder if this is repurposed material from a season of war Gallet book. It would certainly add credence to the idea that Season of Gallet existed and was cancelled.

Probably the best white dwarf gift ever. I absolutely love that mini, and the lore that came with him. The Kislev and Cathay situation is very disappointing. I'd love to know what happened. The rules seem to be pretty good, and the books they've put out are solid to the extent that I hope AoS follows the same format, but everything else has been quite badly handled.

We definitely aren't getting Warhammer Fest this year. GW cancelled it. It's possible GW will do an online thing to replace it but there is no in person preview event in April or May this year.

Interesting to see another preview this soon. We still don't know if they are going to do another preview in the spring now that Warhammer fest has been cancelled. Could we be seeing book 6 next weekend and then a full 4th edition reveal at Adepticon? I think the goose will be a hafling thing for blood bowl. We will probably see the dwarf range for the old world and custodes and/or Orks for 40k. It really does depend on whether they have an event planned for April or May.

The Eldar had 50 preview articles between Jan 3rd and March 23rd. It's kind of insane how many articles they did for a release that wasn't huge. Cities had 25 articles in more than a year. The Eldar preview cycle was certainly concentrated but they really did take over the community site for more than 2 months, if not explicitly the new model Monday section, though they did a Christmas day preview followed by 6 Monday previews in a row from Jan 3rd to February 7th. (One of those was the codex and one showed off the autarch options). I really hope the Skaven get this kind of treatment, but I'd be surprised if the whole 4th edition rollout has more articles than the Eldar had.

Of course they can. The imperial guard did. Seraphon did. Cities would have if there hadn't been a leak. The big Eldar wave took over the community site for months.

I agree that Gorkamorka, the chaos gods and Sigmar should never get models but AoS is pretty strongly inspired by Norse mythology. That's a setting where the gods walked among mortals even before Marvel came along. For me it's ok if any of the gods that were formally mortals are in the game. Sigmar being the exception as the whole point of his narrative is that he realised getting directly involved was a bad idea. The horned rat was never mortal so it doesn't make sense to do a Horned Rat model. An avatar would be fine though.

It's annoying that they don't include the old text so we know what the changes are. The Eidolon spell went from 12 to 18 inch range and went from d3 units to 3 units. The melee thing isn't new.

There's definitely a sixth book. A Whitefang like suggested as much. Also if book 5 was the last book it would be marketed that way. "The thrilling conclusion to the Dawnbringers saga". Look at the way the Lion book was marketed.

Not really. If the book just sold out, it doesn’t make much sense to reprint it this close to the end of the edition, especially if 4th is a reset.

They promised a quarterly battlescroll. If the next one comes out on Thursday it will be a full 5 months since the last one. We’re not talking a week or two late here.

While the internet is full of over reaction, I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect GW to release their updates at the same time each year, especially since they promised they would. If someone is a month late on a deadline in almost line of work, you can be sure that the client will be more than a little angry.