Sabotage!

Holy! I don't even play LoTR but that is an absolutely gorgeous sculpt (Merry and Pippin too!)!

The way the head of the sorcerer silhouettes it looks like a Tzeentch symbol. That's kind of curious.

I'm 100% with you on the 40k and Slaanesh stuff (not sure if we will get the reveal on the Undead teaser yet.....I'm hoping though, very curious) LOTR: I really have no idea. Necromunda: Definitely the new Van Saar special units and books, the "2" preview was definitely in a form of Van Saar armor. Underworlds: I think you are right on the money. We will probably see the whole Seraphon set and if the teaser from the other day is what everyone seems to think it is, we will see the Slaves to Darkness band (about time!).

Well with today's preview it seems very likely we are getting a Chaos Warriors Slaves to Darkness warband (about time!). If that's the case we are currently looking at: Slaanesh, Slaves to Darkness, Lumineth, and Seraphon. That leaves 4 Warbands. My money would be on: Bone Reapers (almost a given) Idoneth (Are they the only new to AoS faction without a Warband?) Bonesplittaz (Destruction needs at least 1 representative and these would be a logical choice) And....? My guess would be Cities of Sigmar, Vampires, or Something for Destruction.

That's a good point. Maybe one of the books in Broken Realms will focus on the Newborn? Slaanesh doesn't need a ton of kits - maybe a dual kit of mortals, a kit of Slaangors, and maybe a big hero kit for the Newborn and a normal mortal hero (maybe....already have the Lord of Pain). Something like that would put them pretty in line with the rest of the Chaos gods for options.

So now that Slaanesh is a big deal we are going to see this translated into Slaanesh Mortals aside from just one new hero and a new Underworlds band........right? I so very much want a unit of Slaangors like the one in Direchasm. That all aside it sounds like a pretty interesting book. Cool to see the plot move forward.

This is a ridiculous point. Yes, we have been getting plenty of Chaos humans (and they are awesome....as someone who plays Chaos), but Order has only had one human miniature made since the launch of AoS. And you say that life is harsh and quick for humans in the mortal realms and say that's an example as why we don't have any new Order humans? To counter that.....we have an entire faction of Goblins....for which whom life is harder and quick (and Orruks for that matter too), and humans are just as like to die in one of the cities as an elf or dwarf. We have even seen artwork of mortal humans fighting alongside stormcast that weren't from 16th century Germany (the art was the banner for Warscroll builder for a long time). Even if a human lifespan isn't as long as a Fyreslayer or Deepkin it doesn't mean that the army couldn't have unique heroes (or maybe go with a novel idea of an army without unique heroes).....this was done just fine in WHF. TL:DR The mortal realms is a huge an not very well explored area. GW can literally make any type of faction they want. The reason their aren't new Order humans in AoS is because no one on the design team wants to work on them. But from a lore perspective it makes little to no sense as Order aligned humans would greatly outnumber all the Fyreslayers, Deepkin, DoK, Stormcast, etc. combined. It would be like 40k without the Imperial Guard (though GW's trying their best to make that range of models obsolete).

Yeah, this seems to be true. I’m not opposed to having a bunch of elf armies, but I would prefer they did a larger variety to begin with and then add more elf options. When half of the new armies they have put out are elves it is a bit much.

This. So many factions have less than half the units they should to be an army with actual choices (Deepkin, Fyreslayers, Daughters, Ironjawz, Slaanesh mortals, etc.). A dual kit or two for each of these factions would go a loooong way to make them more diverse armies. Also how about we see some new Order humans some day? I mean we already have 4 new elf factions and another one coming......

Eh, I think they are fine. If you are going to argue that they are a waste of design space, I can definitely see that, but not from the things you pointed out. To me the glaring fault is that YET ANOTHER new AoS faction is elves. Now we have snake elves, sea elves, tree elves, light elves, satyr elves, shadow elves to come......and yet no new mortal humans? or unique races? or doing something different for GA Death other than ghosts/skeletons/ghouls? Seems like the AoS design team should have named the game Age of Elves......

Awesome, I'll have to watch the video more closely! I'm also a bit concerned about Primacy/Hunger. I figure if they keep adding a new mechanic each season the game will become incredibly bloated. I suppose if each mechanic is exclusive to each season it wouldn't be so bad.......though for people that play casual like me, that would certainly be a lot to keep tabs on.

You can make out their general stats (move, defense, health) and arguably their attack stats from the picture of the game in process. I certainly don't have the eye-sight or magnification programs to make out their special rules/inspiration trigger though. That Slaanesh Warband is absolutely magnificent. Hands down my favorite warband that has been sculpted for this game. The details and aesthetic are right on point. The Lumineth are nice too, but don't hold a candle to the Slaanesh band (ha......ha).

That would be nice to see too. Especially if they flesh out a faction that is lacking.

I suppose it wouldn't be impossible to see something like the Slaves to Darkness release in December, where a faction gets a new Start Collecting with new miniatures, some spells, and a new Battletome (though if it's an up to date Battletome I suppose this part could be skipped). If GW were to do something like that DoK and IDK would both be good candidates as they have older Battletomes, smaller ranges, and no endless spells.

I must of missed that, thanks for letting me know. Bit of a bummer in that means there likely won't be new mortals for Slaanesh any time soon.

Yeah, that's what they tend to do with new army boxes. Though I expect that the army box will be out before the new campaign book, so who knows. A lot of armies with the 40k books got a single hero, but Mechanicus got three new boxed sets. Slaanesh could really use a few boxes to put them on par with Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Khorne. Not sure if they will pop up or not though. I would personally appreciate it, even though I'm more of a Tzeentch guy. I imagine Slaangors at least will pop up before/at the same time as Emperor's Children if we don't get them for AoS. I haven't played AoS for quite a while (and never played Slaanesh), though I heard there are issues with depravity. I don't think GW really cares a ton about army balance when adding new units to armies, at least they haven't in the past. All that said, who knows, GW's timing on releases don't always seem to follow a particular pattern.

I'm really hoping with this new book and Slaanesh focus we finally get some mortal troops for Slaanesh and some Slaangors beyond just the Underworlds band. They could probably get away with just two kits - a dual mortal troop kit and a Slaangor kit.

I am not financially priced out of the hobby in that I couldn't afford to make an SoB army, but seeing the prices, even if I were interested in playing them, I wouldn't pay that much on principle. Now everyone has a different perspective on what value is (or each product has a perceived value in other words). GW's main games have a pretty low preceived value in my eyes. For example I could buy the Warcry starter around the same time last year for 170$ (the new one is likely to cost similar), which by all accounts is a complete game. You get two full warbands, all the terrain you need, the full rulebook, dice/rulers, even wild monster models. All you need are hobby supplies and you can play the game. Or I could buy one SoB model, for 25$ more and do literally nothing with it until I put together a full army of other (or SoB models). To me that is incredibly low value. Compounding this many armies can get nearly 1000 points of models, or enough to play a substantial game in AoS with a similar investment. You could easily buy a SoD start collecting kit and a few other kits and have a 1k point army, same with Stormcast and several of the more elite armies. Even if you are just a hobbyist and don't play these games, the perceived value is still really low to most people. A start collecting box of something is going to take most people a lot longer to paint than a single large model. Personally I don't play AoS or 40k any more. I generally don't think they are that great of game, cost a lot of money, and would take up nearly all my hobby time. GW's specialist and boxed game provide much better value to me. I can paint up a Warcry band in a few weeks, an Underworlds band in a weekend and get playing quickly, in games that I personally enjoy more than AoS and 40k (substantially more than 40k). 3rd Party games provide a lot of these same benefits. I am able to play Warcry, Underworlds, Relicblade, and Blitz Bowl for about the same price as a single army for 40k or AoS. It gives me multiple games to play, multiple types of things to hobby on, and as an added boon a lot of my buddies who are more into board games actually enjoy these games. 200 dollars would get me a new Underworlds Starter, a new faction for Relicblade, a new Warcry warband, and a box of Blood Bowl models which I could turn into a team for me and one for my buddy. As opposed to a single model for a single game. I know this is a bit of a wall of text, but in short: Unless you feel that you absolutely must play AoS/40k, I'd suggest looking into GWs smaller games and game by third parties. They provide a lot more value in ability to play games with less investment and give you a more diverse hobbying opportunity.

Well, I don't think there is any strong evidence. I do think it's a possibility there could be some sort of Vampire/pirate warband for Underworlds or Warcry looking at some of the more recent rumor mill pictures. That last hook looks definitely like it belongs to some sort of undead and it is a nautical tool being used as a weapon. Very well could be zombie/ghost/skeletal/undead sailors or something and have nothing to do with a vampire though. It does definitely look like we are getting some sort of new Undead soon, which makes me soon. What they are though, I'm a bit unsure of. I will say I think a Vampire Pirate and some undead sailors would be a neat Underworlds band.

In a perfect world yes, but very few companies can keep perfect production schedule due to a large variety of reasons, often outside of their control (shipping, supplies, etc). That’s why most companies have release dates of Q1 2020 or Summer 2020 until they are very close to the release date and they have everything they can possibly control in place. That all said, GW probably has a rough date in place for the Scions.

I think this is probably what will happen. The design team originally said that there would be later Warcraft boxes focused on non-Chaos factions when a large portion of the community complained about the game being Chaos only. Enough people complained about it that GW rushed some factions out the door so people could use non-Chaos stuff, but I don’t think that was their original plan. I think each version of Warcry was supposed to focus on a different conflict, and not all of them were supposed to be set in the eightpoints.

Eh, we have a rumor engine from August that belongs to them, they have been teased since August in the Warcry core rulebook and we are almost certainly getting Spire Tyrants in January. I'm thinking Scions will most likely be a Q1 release.....likely March. I imagine the original plan was to release them and the Spire Tyrants at the same time but production complications or manufacturing capability slowed them down.

We better see those Scions soon.........urge to Warcry rising........ Also curious to see if we see an Underworlds reveal and what the warband will look like. Only one I'm not really excited to see are the Nurgle one because GW is way too one-dimensional with Nurgle sculpts (large bloated model with guts spilling out with a sores on them.......sums up about every Nurgle model for the last 15 years).

Agreed, we only saw three new models and were notified of two Battletomes we knew we were getting. That and yet another Space Marine character is just boring. I was hoping for the Scions of Flame, a new Underworlds band, a new unit for someone, or something remotely interesting.

Wasn’t there supposed to be some sort of preview at Pax Unplugged? They said they would have unreleased models in the display case. Who knows, they may just be the models of things that have already been previewed. I was expecting the Scions of the Flame or something though.