Sception

Are we /sure/ we're sure that it's an army of renown for the LoB diplomats to Ushoran, and regiments of renown for each mortarch? Could the preview article have maybe gotten that backwards? Because it seems like a regiment of renown would make way more sense for the diplomats (so you could run them alongside FEC army as fits the lore), while armies of renown would make a lot more sense for the mortarchs (ie personal retinues of their own faction, as opposed to running mortarchs cross faction which imo makes way less sense).

I mean, the ridden monsters do have abhorrant healing built in. One could draw a parallel to soulblight, where most of their faction traits are about supporting summonables but their hero monsters are still good enough that double-dragon has been one of the main soulblight builds since zombie spam was nerfed.. Then again, vampire hunger is better than abhorrant healing in magnitude, reliability, and timing, and the vampire heroes riding their zombie dragons hit harder and have better saves than their abhorrant equivalents, and most soulblight subfactions have better artefacts & command traits for powering up their generic monster heroes than FEC have, plus they have a bunch of unique monster heroes like the mortarchs and Vhordrai, and Sure Usoran is great, but what he's mostly great at is anchoring & buffing a bunch of peasants and knights. All in all, it just feels like the torch for undead winged monster mash lists has been passed from FEC to Soulblight, at least for a while.

Once Usoran is released, I expect he'll be filling the 'big monster' slot of most FEC armies that want to bother with a big monster at all. I'm definitely feeling / hearing more excitement about the smaller stuff - lots of knight shenanigans, basic ghouls can put out a ton of attacks, the elite ghouls have a ton of utility baked in, and a bunch of the small heroes seem fantastic. I could definitely see FEC without monsters taking center stage for a while. Kind of depends on points adjustments though.

I understand the wish. I'd pay a frankly embarrassing sum for the STL files of the studio's OBR walls, gate, and tower, and they wouldn't even have to design anything new for that. That's stuff that's just sitting around idle on someone's computer already. But yeah, for the moment I can't imagine GW wants to be putting the idea of 3d printing into the minds of any hobbyists who aren't already thinking about it.

I doubt GW will go the stl route any time soon. Long term it's hard to see it as anything other than the unavoidable future of the industry, but in the short term there's quality (FDM is lousy for minis), safety (resin involves toxic liquids and vapors), and profitability questions (not sure GW can sustain itself on a 'buy the template once then print as many as you want' model, to say nothing of maintaining brick and mortar stores without which the entire hobby withers and dies for lack of a place to gather and play).

The main things on my painting to-do list for 2024 are: AoS: OBR vanguard 40k: Necron Combat Patrol MESBG: Mordor Battleforce TOW: ~500 points custom starter force for tomb kings, ideally based on the old battalion contents, but that only works if I can come up with a GW store legal conversion substitute for the horsemen that I actually like. HH: Raven Guard special terminator unit, for a friend Underworlds: Kainan's Reapers War Cry: some playable warband. Probably misc OBR stuff unless an official OBR warband is released before I get around to them. I'd like to expand the Tomb Kings, Mordor, and especially the OBR forces out into full standard size playable forces w/ matching terrain, maybe make one of them into a proper armies on parade entry, but there's a lot on my plate already, and that's before we get into likely elden ring dlc and silksong releases this year which, if they happen, will distract my attention away from tabletop hobbies.

Where I am all of warhammer fantasy battle became 'oldhammer' pretty much the moment AOS was announced. A LotR style existence is pretty much the midpoint between 'big hit' and 'total failure'. Thinking about it, yeah, that is probably the most likely future trajectory for TOW, and imo wouldn't be a bad thing at all. Sure, MESBG doesn't get the sort of release hype that builds new fans on its own, and some of its models are /really/ showing their age with no hope of first party updates, but if you can put in the work to gather a local scene to play then it remains one of the better games in GW's lineup, and the lack of constant new releases and editions means the game overall is a lot more stable. I don't think there is a future where TOW gets supported the way 40k or AoS is supported, with regular new releases including multiple major model line updates per year. The best that could be hoped for if TOW is super successful is a Horus Heresy type trajectory, where new plastics, including updates of existing models, do sometimes happen, but are mostly tied to relatively infrequent new editions, but new resin character and unit releases aren't terribly uncommon. Even that might be too much of a best case to hope for, since Horus Heresy is like 90%+ a single faction (notably the only one that ever gets plastic releases), and that just won't be the situation for TOW.

IMO there's no clear roadmap because GW is righfully taking a wait and see approach to TOW's success. Right now it looks like GW's plan for TOW is to invest the minimum possible amount of money and effort until they can more accurately gauge interest. And honestly, as much as I do think they should have redone the TK skeletons rather than bothering with the bone dragon, I do think the minimal approach is the correct one, and one more likely to lead to the long term success of TOW then diving in with entire brand new model lines, whether for existing factions like Bretts & TKs or new ones like Kislev or Cathay. I mean, let's be real here, it's still an open question whether there will be a legitimate player base for the Old World at all. Yes, there's been a fair bit of online buzz and interest around the game, but that noise could turn out to be a mirage generated by bitter grognards eager to discuss any oldhammer news but who will never give GW another dollar no matter what they do plus computer gamers who like total warhammer but will bounce off of the inconveniences baked into the hobby aspect of a tabletop minis game no matter what the models looked like. Starting with a minimum viable product like they're doing means the game doesn't have to be an immediate smash hit to justify its continued existence the way it would have needed to with a heftier initial investment. A smash hit is admittedly far less likely this way - oldhammer players with existing Brett and TK armies are unlikely to buy much for this release since there's not really anything new on offer, where as I at least would likely have dropped us$500+ on new minis alone if they had redone the skittles & skittle horses. But on the other hand, a modest hit is ~possible~ in a way that it just wouldn't have been if TOW had needed to justify a major up front investment by GW. If TOW fails on even its currently modest expectations, then we'll likely see nothing else. Just a stand alone ruleset that oldhammer fans can hold onto and play in their basements and local stores for as long as they like. And honestly, I'd be ok with that. That already constitutes more support for the Old World than I'd ever thought we'd see again a decade ago. If on the other hand TOW's initial release is a success, however modest, then I'd expect another wave or two of oldhammer rereleases, with maybe a couple modest resin heroes, every four to six months until the officially supported factions have all made the rounds. By that point GW should know whether the game has legs - in which case I'd expect to see a second edition release with more significant new model support - or not. Personally I'm hoping the game plan for TOW is extra flexible, including possibly re-examining the decision to focus on a specific locked historical timeframe. IMO oldhammer factions changed little enough in their composition over time that they could and should have just opened TOW up to the entire span of the old world's history, letting them zoom in on one major exciting event after another as the seasons and editions roll by, rather than remaining locked in one particular time frame when not much is going on with the idea of slowly ramping up to an interesting event maybe some time in the future.

No question. better choices of what models to do, better execution on those models. If the new FEC stuff weren't so cool, I'd be grabbing up bretts to run counts as FEC in aos.

as for the new tk stuff... Nekaph looks cool, but my loyalties are to Arkhan rather than settra, so I'll probably skip him. Herald looks... ok, but not a huge improvement on the old metal model. maybe a bit more stable for resin with the draping cloth bits touching his body? Regardless, plastic sphynx crew on infantry base converted to carry the big sphynx banner is still a better herald bsb imo, and anyone who makes a royal or necrosphynx will have the bits to make that left over. swarms... Eh. imo they're better than the old lightly textured square tiles, but also a less good implementation of the swirling bits of stuff concept than I would have expected from GW in recent years. Also, swarms were so far down the list of stuff that needed to be redone in the tk line that, like the dragon, I just find the decision to spend studio time and production resources on these baffling. ... Anyway, I'll be getting a box or two of the swarms, digital copies of all the rules, and if the bone dragon is available separately I might get that too, price depending (yes if under us$80, no if over us$160, maybe if inbetween). I also might pick up a couple boxes of black knights/hexwraiths to start replacing the skeletal horses pulling my chariots. the hexwraith steeds are taller than the old plastic tk horses, which will tilt the chariots up a bit, but since I'm also replacing the skeleton crew with the 7th ed vamp count skittles, that'll actually probably work with their forward lean.

The actual tk releases are a bit disappointing to me, but digital format book releases is such positive news (ie, people will be able to get the rulebooks on release and start playing even if the physical books suffer from the usual shipping issues and delays) that overall I'm pretty happy anyway.

If there even are any other new plastics coming, I hope it's new ushabti and not a unit of mummy infantry. That's what tomb guard are for, and the old resin ushabti are awkward plus the melee & bow versions were designed far enough apart that imo they don't look right next to each other in the same army. or maybe a new bone giant / heirotitan. one was rumored to have been fully designed in the latter days of oldhammer, and only didn't release because the decision had been made at that point to scrap the faction along with the old world. Though if they do turn out to have another big plastic centerpiece monster kit on the way, that only makes the decision to do the bone dragon instead of new skeletal infantry and horses all the more frustrating.

That's possible, actually. Shoot. Hadn't thought of that. As for new stuff, I'm trying not to get too hopeful. We've seen some obrish rumour engines, but those could just be a warcry warband. We'll see though. I'm hype for the next dawnbringer book regardless.

hard to say without getting her full write up. At the moment she's the leader of a diplomatic delegation to Summercourt, so in theory if you want an immersive army representing what she's up to *right now*, you take her in whatever her regiment of renown is and add that to a Flesh Eater Courts army with Ushoran. more generally, though, she seems to be Neferata's right hand, so Legion of blood with neferata, some bats & wolves since she seems to like those, maybe a coven throne or blood palanquin since they have a lamianesque feel, or maybe instead a vamp lord on zombie dragon, but converted with a lady vamp rider? Fill out battleline with some black knights & skeleton regiments? Unfortunately the current skeletons feel much more vyrkos or legion of the night than lahmian. if you can get your hands on some of the previous vamp counts skeletons with spears and give them some tomb kings shields, those might fit the desired aesthetic better.

If there were another tomb kings plastic kit coming, I think it would be in the army box. IMO the dragon is the only new plastic kit the tomb kings will get, and anything else new will be individual resin heroes.

The faction overall definitely doesn't, but I'm happy to see a second named hero for Legion of Blood. Long term I'd like to see 2 to 3 named heroes for each soulblight subfaction - though that would require removing as many Vyrkos heroes as get added to the other subfactions combined. Otherwise, I like her. Very distinct. And I've always been a sucker for tall, goofy hats. On the subject of silly hats, what I'm most excited for is the suggestion that Arkhan may be returning to active service. Exciting times! While I would have preferred Armies of Renown for the mortarchs rather than regiments of renown, the latter does allow the Mortarchs to assert the sort of general authority over the undead that they really should have but that the current ally rules don't really allow for. Back in 2nd edition, for instance, we had some Katakros/Olynder team ups that the ally rules never actually allowed for.

I like her a lot, but I've always been a sucker for tall silly hats.

I'm still waffling on green vs. black gems for my OBR. Here's the Mortek Guard unit command with the current green gems, and a quick photoshop for how they might look with black gems. Opinions?

Almost certainly not. Possible, but very unlikely. For one the current model is in plastic and still holds up. For two, it's a multi-kit with Mannfred and Neferata, so unlikely to change until they do as well. I expect that will happen eventually, but I don't expect so now. It's possible, I just don't expect it. That said, a more classically minded Arkhan model putting him back on his old flying four skeleton-horse chariot packaged with both round and square bases to run in either AoS or TOW would be incredibly cool, and such a model could be mounted on the same oval base as the current arkhan allowing people to keep using their existing arkhan model. Still, though, almost certainly not happening right now. ... As a big fan of each of the mortarchs, I really hope these Regiments of Renown stay matched play legal in 4th edition, as I would like to have the time to collect, paint, and play with each of them. Probably not going to happen, but still. This certainly increases the priority on my Arkhan repaint, I was going to save that till the summer (and maybe test some stripping and repainting methods on my soulmason first), but now.... I did finish the first unit in my new OBR paint scheme: I'm pretty happy with them overall, though I do wonder with the overall brighter scheme whether canon-compliant black soulgems would be a better fit than the glowy necron green gems I used here. My room mate says the green gems pop nicely from across the table and I'm just overthinking things, but I'm not so sure. Maybe I should do some more test models....

From Warcom's article about the new named Lahmian Vampire: "The Mad King Rises also contains plenty more for Death armies, including six Regiments of Renown – one for each Mortarch! Check back in the new year for more coverage." Arkhan's back, tell your friends.

what really ticks me off is that the tomb kings *have* plastic kits that still hold up reasonably well. the tomb guard, necroknights, stalkers, sphinxes. /None/ of those are in this box. Instead we have 90+ of some of the worst plastic models that were left in the oldhammer range, already hopelessly outdated to the point of being outright embarrassing when the game died going on two decades ago! The tomb kings line had two big problems - skeleton humans and skeleton horses. Even the chariots hold up well enough if you replace the skelletons pulling & crewing them. Just Two Sprues could have revitalized the entire range. That's less than went into the bone dragon, and the tomb kings already had impressive large monster centerpieces. but no, not only did they not update the models that needed it most, they didn't even try to mitigate the misery with any of the halfway decent kits they already have! Talk about putting your absolute worst foot forward. A mistep so bad their shin burst from their leg to impale their head from below. It's like they /want/ this game to fail. I'm big salty abt it.

I've already resigned myself to re-rebasing my tomb kings. I'd just like to get the official word on what the new base sizes are so I could start working on them to have some hope of being ready to play when the game releases.

30mm x 60mm for the base size, eh? Do we think all cavalry will be on that size, or will there be smaller cav still on 25 x 50s, sort of like in AoS there are 65mm ovals and 75mm ovals? Do you think it's safe to extrapolate further from that? 30 x 30 square bases for larger infantry that used to be on 25mm squares? 60 x 120mm the new size for chariot bases & things like sphinxes & necroknights?

I just hope the stormcast stuff is new models for existing units. SC getting an entire army's worth of new units and heros added to their army each edition has already made their faction unweildy to the point of being actively unfun to collect & listbuild for.

Fair suggestions, but tbh I've kind of been itching for an excuse to mess with Arkhan some anyway. I've felt for a while that my paint job didn't quite do justice to my conversion work on that one.