Baron Klatz

I know I always go for omnibuses first(to the point I have to make sure they only contain one story I already own 😅) I love the variety of getting to see so many fun snippets of different factions & places in the Realms through one read through. Easily AoS’ biggest strength that you can quickly hop between a Stormcast, Grot, Kharadron, Deepkin, Chaos Warlord to Sylvaneth and keep a fresh flavor each. Here’s hoping it gets translated with the announcement! 🤞 Yeah, between units acting like walking life bars, with the important units removed last, and equipment being mostly cosmetic that seems to be easily done now you can go crazy with parade flag units instead. I know with Libs now not caring if they go to battle armed with dual-shields I could also kitbash some flag units for fun to harken back to those Realmgate Wars flag bearers we never got.

Whoa whoa whoa! Was this mentioned here and I missed it? Had spotted it on Discord for a new Omnibus for the Mortal Realms. Seems it has stories jumping between the first ever AoS novel “Gates of Azyr” to the newer stuff like Dominion. Very nifty to see with how much AoS4 has felt like a big callback to AoS1 so good to get newbies caught up and absolutely beautiful cover. That’s an insta-buy for me! 👌 ⚡️ (Plus anything Josh is a must)

That was a good shot for the goat bois. Really grazed me. 😅 I do wonder what their Legends rules will be? Maybe 2 Traits & 2 Battleforces focused on monster hunting for a last hurrah to chase some gargants into the horizon? BoC I imagine are gonna be Rend crazy since it’s such a rarity in the game now. Plays on the Rend powers they had in AoS3 and it’ll be mooved out in a year so they don’t hurt the meta for being an exception to the rule.

But Dey didn’t hab da Big Stabba’! Oh and better more cave art. Pour some Juju juice out fer da crazy ladz. 🍺

I’m just happy the OG Liberator & Fyreslayers are getting some excellent rep on their Facebook. 😄👍 But yeah. Beast fans are allowed the salt mine on this. And probably the one angry Bonesplitterz fan in that herd. (at least I hope those are BoC fans and not just the “Rawr Games Wokeshop!!” crowd making false anger like on Twitter.

possibly, a lot of people wanted more attacks in so it could’ve been overlayed with their conga line concerns which were growing in frequency through Aos3(whole rows of Snarlfangs or boars lines up nose to tail to cut off half the board and one guy got completely pushed out from his Beastmen ambushes since the over guy stretched his troops out to cover the table so he won Round 1) Tons of complications in design work and for how fast & easy they want AoS4 to be this was probably the best they could do that wasn’t yell “Conga Lines are Illegal!!!” Yeah a half inch between Rounds is better than people are giving it credit for. And remember stuff like Gossamids, Prosecutors and other big units got special coherency rules on their Warscrolls that have them extra space. So they’ll still be good and possibly we could see it keyworded to units that could also have problems there.

You literally said LotR movement trays before that. 😂 It fits the same though, closer blocks but they still will have enough room between troops to move around, rotate into better positions and pile in or slide around terrain.(not to mention the troops like draconith & gossamids who get extra coherency to do more) I mean this is almost the same debates we had when the AoS3 rules dropped and people blew up about closer coherency rules then too. We’ll adapt and keep have fun with our heroic blobs and solo heroes like always. Especially with how great the rest of the rules look. 👍 ⚡️

Lord of the Realms (which LotR was one of the game rules used in AoS1’ rule designs so we may have come full circle to a blob block game)

Yeah, like there was a story of the NightHaunt chasing retreating Beastclaw Raiders too deep into their Everwinter which even freezed their ethereal souls solid and the Ogors ate them like spooky popsicles. And the dark waters in Ulgu’s Harrowdeep can even Drown the ghosts in the flavor texts. The Mortal Realms are wreathed in powerful crystallized magic down to grass and water(which is magic mists that settled). So that kind of stuff is all on an equal playing field the whole setting is so over the top “that nothing’s special”, even endless hordes of screaming ghosts & spectral daemons.

I mean they had already shrunk to 1” by AoS2 so they were already going up those Stormvault stairs in grouped warbands. 😄 So a little bit closer isn’t that big a deal for most stuff to still be mobile blocks of blobs that can adjust themselves to the terrain, swarming in narrow choke points, spreading out on battlements & piling into the enemy. Mostly just hope they’re smart for the units that do need it like giving it to key words like Ward has now so it’s “Wings(1” Coh)”, “Spectral(1” Coh)”, “Monster(3” Coh)”.

Agreed(but ran out reacts). Feels very much like the units are gamer pieces & walking health bars. Very arcady in that sense with the emphasis on wanting faster games. I agree closer coherency is a pain but that’s the beauty of round bases that it’s an easy rotate to keep everyone together, even if someone does end up charging in backwards. 😅 Hopefully we’ll see wider special coherencies for NightHaunt, Sylvaneth & Gloomspite stuff as the major issues. But otherwise it’s an easy enough thing to adapt to even having your guys move in a death ball across the field. And I can understand it. AoS2 already had congaline & daisychain problems even AoS3 couldn’t solve, now with the new 3” melees as well everyone gets those would be nightmares of overlays. So tighter blobs were their answer. That aside everything else looks really good & thematic with much more vicious melees feeding into AoS’ Gods vs Monsters status as no one takes a backward step under the constant watch of their gods and goes all in.(and retreat is heavily punished) After the initial birthing pains I think AoS4 onwards is gonna be an amazing time to battle through the Mortal Realms and see built on in the next editions!

That’s definitely a big part of it. Even since the Realmgate Wars the Silver armor styles were better for a contrast against all the grimy Pestilens & Nurgle corruption & warpstone. but I do also think it has to do with Stormhost rotations too to avoid Ultramarine burn-out. Hammers for 3rd against Orruks and big chaos gits like back when they tussled with Ironjawz(even inside the Gnarlwoods at that which was a 2016 thing) Hallowed Knights now for their natural high resistance to magic & chaos corruption. Anvils of the Heldenhammer next edition against Death Possibly Astral Templars against Destruction and then either Hammers again or finally Celestial Warbringers or Celestial Vindicators get some love against Chaos.

I mean that’s more than a simple retcon, you’re looking at tons of characters completely flipped around like Elspeth’s entire rivalry with Gelt dropped because he wasn’t born yet and all the connecting elements to the Storm of Chaos thrown out the window. I could see them making a brand new campaign that rewrites Tamurkhan & his battles with the Chorfs & Cathay as a way to give them something to do in the Great War but “finishing the story” just isn’t possible and smacks of a wishlist because of Thrones of Decay’s superfluous connections to it.

My bet is Lord-Celestant. The forms seem closer. With Valius an official Thunderstrike Lord-Castellant I think he’ll be their future blueprints with heavier keys & city heraldry themes on their armor to give that “demigod governor” feel as they take command of a city under their Stormkeep. They seem to be heavily tied to Death and what the Relictors set-up as Necromancer paladins. They have skull emblems, hourglasses, ghost fire weapons & wings, a “Gryph-Stalker” that looks like a gryphon/raven hybrid. Looks like they’re one-half ancient veterans and Paladin & Lord-level Knight-Questors that form into groups for warriors with too much Azyr energy to be affected by warpstone or chaos, and the other half heavily using necromancy & Death magic to augment their abilities and(I’m guessing) keep their hollowed souls stable. And GW keeps throwing that “as themselves” phrase around. ”Now they have been called upon once more – the only forces hardy enough to enter a warzone blighted by the corrupting force of the warpstone. For these mighty warriors, this may be the final time they step into battle – at least, as themselves.” So possibly hinting at Ruination storm automatons or bound lightning gheists after their last reforging to go with the Death theme.

Dang that looks GOOD!😍 Also yeah I run my photos through Discord first and then have that put it online before posting it here so the site has an easier time reading them. It’s a bit finicky. 😅

I’m hoping it will be part of a moral about working together and things only turn around for CoS(and order as a whole) as they work more alongside eachother. Currently human-focused: can barely hold their own. Ironweld update with new city-duardin & Cogfort: can firmly hold together and even push. Collegiate Arcane update has the city-aelves bolster the human mages & eldritch war engines: successfully crushing the forces of Chaos as they retake the Realms. Order of Azyr bringing in the Celestium Gargants: stomp all over everyone.

Well technically it would still be Metal-based. The Ironbark as the name implies are glades that adapted to Chamon so are treemen with silver veins in their bark, use steel weapons and can grow homes & fortresses out of all the abundant copper & iron trees that the realm of metal manifests(which is partly what they did for the lost Duardin that needed homes when the Age of Chaos ruined them) But yeah hopefully this ends on a high note and the hold is restored after this. I loved how wholesome the Sylvaneth-Duardin are. “Treelord Grundylach and Warden King Aedagrim are the joint rulers of Karaznethil. They are as close as brothers, and while stern when alone, they share inside jokes in each other’s company, grinning beneath their beards. Many such Sylvaneth-Duardin pairings exist in Karaznethil, from ‘Mossbeards’ who grumble away the days together to Duardin lineages who pledge themselves to a single Noble Spirit, each new generation befriending each new reincarnation.

That’s the vibes I’m getting. the starter box is gonna represent one of those “Death Company” crusade against one of the major Skaven strongpoints thanks to their heavy Death/Relictor theming. I’m willing to bet the big reveals of the box not shown in the trailer is the Skaven are lead by a named Skaven Greater Daemon character while the Stormhost gets a Thunderstrike Lord-Relictor that gets a name in narrative but is a standard Lord(same as when Ionus first appeared in the 2015 launch) It’s basically what they’ve been setting up with past stories of transfigured and Thunderous Ones but put into a marketable form for refreshes over a purely narrative one. I liked someone’s idea that since Ruination seems to be the Realmgate War veterans given a refresh we could see a unit of 3 suped up Thunderbolt Crossbow blasters as the new “artillery” and why the ballista was removed.

Don’t forget him and his chaos helm topper. Maybe new ones will have horns at the top?

Ngl, I saw the notification he reacted and was bracing hard for a confused react. 😅 Thanks for keeping my stomach settled and not in knots after dinner, Whitefang. 👌 So either weird beasties very likely for Destruction or the angel thing or something i obtusely didn’t even notice I said in all that. 😄 I’ll be happy either way. 🍻

Skimming over topics since last I was here. On Paladins staying gone, sad but makes sense. Between Annihilators and now the new huge Ruinators their place as the super armored units has been filled twice.(and I kinda wondered if that was why Libs took the Protectors nose bar so someone kept the design the Hallowed Knights use on their emblem) I’ll be interested in the lore explanation they might give. Since the last tome said Retributors become Annihilators maybe they’re pulled back as training gear in the Gladiatorium instead of being an active battlefield & death training via reforgings. Only thing I really wonder on now is if we’re getting two Prosecutor variants. Ones in the trailer have blink-and-you’ll miss it Ionus skulls on their shields. So I wonder if we’ll see that they’re spear &shield Ruination angels with ghost fire wings while the Warrior Chamber gets a refresh with dual hammer light wing angels again?(or something new like swords & lanterns). And on weird things, that can literally be anything and especially based on fan interpretation like how weird they saw Kragnos or Lumineth in general. Yeah. I was always in that camp too because early in AoS they leaned toward animal people in Destruction. Fimir were made Destruction. Silver Tower Ogroid started with the lore Ogroids worked & worshipped under Gorkamorka before they went to Chaos for more power. And literally anything that wasn’t Beasts of Chaos goats was a natural creature of the Realms no matter how surreal or twisted it was. And no matter how hard people bleated about Kragnos I always saw him as too clean for chaos, not having any centigor claw hooves or any mutated scales on his body. So I fully agree it’s just GW’s future plans to eventually make beast people a Destruction thing because there’s more neutrality & narrative room there than the corrupting children of chaos can offer who taint everything they touch. Like just look at how hyped Total War fans are for Tigermen that are neutral anthro creatures? Apply that to an AoS army of beastkin, centaurs and possible insectoids & eagle people that can work alongside any city or faction they want and you got an easy winner.

Hopefully with the Kragnos hunting horn guy from the warband. I’d love them to really lean into Monster Hunterz now between the Bonesplitterz niche needing to be filled and as they’re no longer on a cosmic villain spree it’ll give them a new direction to do as they chill a little(and echo back to when Gorkamorka was Sigmar Pantheon’s main monster killer)

Yeah, a lot of Stormcast designs rocked variants of a nose ridge. Neo-Libs are just pushing it hard as the Protectors did.

Eh, the top of the helm seems a lot thicker so it’s just smoothing out the mask-under-ridge nose-helm look they always had.

Stalkers a good term. It definitely looked more like a predator that waited for an opportunity to pounce compared to some of the burlier gryph-chargers that charged in with their horns at first notice. Of course not. Bloat, smooth out, bloat back up. That stirs the currents that makes the money flow. 💸 (That’s why I know Sacrosanct will be back with a new coat of paint in an edition or 2) Warcry in Catacombs first and later in UnderWorlds with NetherMaze. Still a good shout though.