Baron Klatz

Should be. Apparently Killteam already does smaller sets that can connect to the big set? I guess Warcry is doing the same but with UnderWorlds Warbands? I guess narratively that’s why they nixed the full hold of the UnderWorlds curse of we’re gonna start seeing the warbands in other Realms on their own adventures like Crypt of Blood has the Storm-Errants vs the Vampires battling for artifacts in Neferata’s Shyish domain. Honestly that’s an exciting prospect if they start mixing them up more for other sets down the path that have chances to make the packaged teams more enticing like the Ogor captain taking on the Kharadron profiteers in Chamon with clockwork terrain and vault treasuries or the Exiled Undead battling the Deepkin Soulcatchers in Hysh over a repository of scrolls and crystals on how to strengthen souls or new things like a Fyreslayer warband going up against the Eshin Skaven in a portion of Hammerhal Aqshy among the cobbled fiery markets in honoring their guard contracts.

It’d be really cool if they packed so much into the big Season book with Dawners on top of the Gallet stuff. However if FEC is as big as Whitefang hinted then I’m hard pressed to believe they’ll launch beside either Seraphon or CoS instead of being their own thing in winter where a larger update could fit neatly by itself. Will be interesting how this plays out but I do think both mystery books are just supplements. Which I’m fine with, just mean they can cram more lore into each(I’d very much love CoS to get showcased settling in every realm with art and dioramas for every magic reality.🤩 You just need more conviction in the Omnissiah!! Though for real as the last vestiges of the Stormcast conversation fade, I do love that though slim by Stormcast standards the new guys are still inhumanly giant and make great golems or Astartes/Custodes while better doing their own thing now. They have hit a good middle ground with the models and I’m excited to see what they can do further(hoping more pushes towards the Annihilator side of things as their armors advance through the decades. Give me mini-Annihilator Liberators and Judicators, GW, and I give you a imperiled wallet. 💸)

I doubt they’re a horde army. After zombies I think AoS horde releases are over until a Skaven refresh.(especially at the price rate and then staunchly staying to 10 troops a box) They’re just as heavy armored as the Deathrattle who put a bar on hordes in the first place and compared to the old Empire militia these might as well be knight errants. Won’t be surprised if they add a few extra lore elements to help them like those heraldry diamonds are magic plates carve from the metaliths to reflect blows and make them last longer against their daemon & demigod foes. The I can imagine next stuff is like shielded gunners, chimera lancers, and other stuff that look more mundane but have enough effects for that “AoS cranks everything up to 12” theme.

Yeah, it’s always good to remember that AoS focuses on what multiple factions can accomplish together. Especially with the Stormcast Eternals who not only are super big on uniting all races and gods but their very creation is thanks to the team-up of Sigmar, Grungni and Tyrion building the Sigmarabulum that encircles the remaining molten core of the world-that-was. The new armors have even been big on referencing that with those “crescent” designs which are the celestial city’s shape(because of course Sigmar’s connection to Mallus made it spawn twin-tail flares) Besides AoS3 being bigger on up AoS1 ideas I also take stuff like this to hint at the connections of Order getting stronger especially now with the Freeguild revamp looking to replace Wfb holdovers with closer ties with AoS races(Lumineth coalitions > Asur leftovers). And as for posterboys I feel Stormcast have pretty much succeeded despite people’s hesitancy towards them. Their face masks are unique & synonymous with Age of Sigmar to where they’re used in partner programs. I only ask is they keep the bulk, smooth pauldrons and just streamline the extra leg armor a bit but make both feels like mini-annihilators in being unmovable. Would give them a distinct design difference to the Vindictors & Vigilors who are designed to be lighter and faster where-as Liberators have to get in closer than their spear brethren and Judicators form and hold firing lines instead of Vigilor ranger tactics so extra armor would help them hold their positions. Definitely. With Grungni having more time now to work on the new designs hopefully they reflect that with more design embellishments to show he’s been busy after the decades the Thondia campaign’s been through. Especially bring back the over-detailed animal & dragon masks! I doubt those guys are going soon. They weren’t wave 1 with the Warrior chamber but their own wave some time later as Extremis chamber. Hopefully they’ll get theirs closer to 5th edition and get a full Dracothion legion of dragon-flyers, dracoth-heavy lancers and Extremis foot troops that serve as bulky defenders that support the cavalry but can magically keep up with them(so fast heavy infantry as long as the dragons are around) and Extremis-Questors that go around collecting the Solar Gems of slain Stormdrakes & Dracoths that couldn’t safely bolt back to Azyr so wait in gem stasis until retrieved later(this is what they already do in the lore so a unit collecting them like Sylvaneth beetle cavalry collect soulpods)

I mean…that would fit. Age of Sigmar is literally a daemonic post-apocalyptic setting. Many realmscapes are eldritch wastelands with daemon bikers about so medieval Fallout soldiers fit to a T.

But that’s also when he was very adamant on mostly resin releases and repacks of old models. “for those of you interested in The Old World project, a I can tell you that Bret and Tomb King plastic kits are going back into production, ready to be available when the project launches.” “Only these two ranges as far as I understand, because many people mourned their loss from the new setting, and GW can make a quick $ off the nostalgia hype and have ZERO dev costs to put into getting them into production again. As far as I understand a LARGE part of the Old World stuff will be resin.” “No sorry, I mean the WHOLE of the Old World stuff,including the new stuff, very large amount of resin kits.” So I really doubt they’re making that the starter set if it’s to dive into old expensive models and resin. Dakka’s known for sharing some really false rumors up to fake pics like the recent Tyranid gunner that was just a photoshopped Bonereaper so I wouldn’t put any stock in it.

I could see this happening for the beginning and making them proxiable. Like despite Blades of Khorne getting a new Vanguard they still are selling the Starter Box from the chopped up 1st edition set so I don’t think they’re in a hurry to take those out and it wouldn’t be hard to just stamp Thunderstrike keywords on their warscrolls. Aesthetically I say they do. GW’s designers really showed their skill with making the new stuff but it can still go smoothly with the classics as they share the key features that make what a Stormcast Eternal is.

For me it’s that they look more like celestial demigods now. Like the mockeries Chaos always done with golden figures like Sigvald impersonates but actually honest-to-goodness divine holy immortals. That are also so big that cities have to accommodate them with extra large 9-foot doorways and they can straight up strangle hold a daemon with one arm. 😄 Last few months I saw a number of people put wings on them and they fit divinely for that feeling they give me. Also two twitter ones kinda unrelated to my celestial examples but we’re talking Stormcast wings and these are hella cool. Let’s. 👏 Go. 👏 Scuttlings! 👏 🕷 Well there’s already a hint towards Liberators. You can see what looks like a thunderstrike one in the Kruleboyz art with a Thunderstrike Evocator behind him. (I’m all for how crazier seraphim the halo masks look 👌) On revamps though, how long do you think it’ll be before Plastic Craic has to make this article again for the huge discontinuations CoS is about to get? https://plasticcraic.blog/2019/08/06/example-post/

This is brilliant! Thank you so much! 😍 Dear God-king! Twitter Grots!! 😱

I really love his robot arms holding and sorting the books. That’s some incredible engineering at near Ai levels. Hopefully between him and the dirigible suit using the robot appendages and their focus on CP we’ll see Cogmonculus units by next edition. A CP system seems perfect for them to function as super armored and powerful infantry but need Command Points in order to do anything as their programs.

The Skaven have been eyeing up Hammerhal in their tome and scouting out it’s defenses. So it could happen as the big new edition opener as Freeguild defend Hammerhal Aqshy and then march out to aid the other major cities like Tempest’s Eye which Clans Skryre is attacking with an air fleet right now while the Stormcast Eternals are preoccupied with Khul trying to take over the Orb Infernia sub-realm moon again before he tries to use it to spread the red mist and take over Aqshy again. (Lexicanum link to anyone that wants to read the first time he conquered that sub-realm by beating the Seraphon in the center and the time cannon the narrative campaign had to build to reverse his fortunes https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Dread_Solstice ) But I don’t see the golden posterboys going anywhere soon. They’re the perfect face(mask) for the franchise and have really strong sales like even with the hyped up Gloomspite Squig box last year getting big focus for both their new tome making them competitive & a bunch of TOW usable models the Stormcast box, full of mid stuff like Knight-relictor leader & Vigilors, still sold out at the same time. AoS3 and Battleline options go together like war and hammers. I can already bet War-spawned Andre battleline in the Sotek constellation since he favors them while the regular Kroxes probably go with Dracothion’s Tail as they do have some Draconith aesthetics and are more peaceful by nature. Koatl’s claw is so vicious that creatures with Aggro in their name should fit right in. Raptadon probably just need a Skink general. Oh yeah. Personally expecting lightning golems/fantasy dreadnoughts of the Stormcast souls too fractured to retake human form(the ruination’d part) so serve in constructs that also aid in their return to Azyr by being so big nothing dares to try blocking those lightning explosion. Big bulky Terminatorcasts could work too if Annihilators are just precursors. And I’d love to see some rough and tumble artillery made to deepstrike in like a meteor before going to town on the foe. Like the Astartes Deathstorm drop pods but celestial-forged space rocks. I feel a lot of that is due to being in the Realm of Beasts and a lot of heroes and releases wanting to match functional & stealthy hunters, cruel monster priests or savage beasts. Very curious if they’ll change it up next edition to reflect the other realms being more vibrant than the dour wastelands of Ghur. Like Vindictor hoplite/argonauts for Ghur because they fit exploring and monster slaying but once we hit Chamon it’s time for high fantasy floating clockwork islands that something like lightning robots or star-vessels would fit with. Edit: I will say though that the Codewright does seem wackier in design. Sure books are more mundane than a anti-grav balloon but this is the first time we see full on sign of electrical engineering with the megaphone mouths hooked up to his vox speaker below the chin and the robot arms are the same as many high-tech suits use.

I can see some updates like earlier when I talked about the possibility of a 10th anniversary to make the Thunderstrike Brotherhood actually match the looks(at least some design touch-ups with male & female options) and give Vandus a new model to go up against Khul. Maybe more dynamic lightning around his model to show his strategy of calling down orbital strikes around his position with little care about his own safety.(could get a cool new chain reaction rule that if his lightning blasts actually take him out his troops around him act like their Blaze of Glory is triggered by the power of his own reforging, frying the enemy with a bunch of mortal wounds) Mainly I can see an update strategy if Stormcast Eternals are planned to be the constant edition release every edition. If they’re planning that every 3 years and across 7 Realms then they’re gonna run out of new chambers fast. Updating older units into sleeker looking angels and some warriors into top-heavy juggernauts wouldn’t be a bad idea to stretch that out(even just Ruination chamber + Ruination Chamber Thunderstrike reinforcements would shave two editions off) Like with the earlier Prosecutors suggestion, making them look closer in form to the Knight-Venators would likely help their graceful flyer aesthetic a lot. (Soulbound’s sleek stylized art is a pretty good design cue to take from) I do hope as they go along that they show Grungni’s had enough time to start embellishing again and make some stuff that looks like a combo of new and old designs. I see people mix AoS1 designs with AoS3 and they look stellar! Fyreslayers I get, they need female Fyrequeens and could use more masks and drake-scale armor like kilts, but do Ironjawz need it? They seem a pretty solid design that holds up even with the latest stuff like the Warhammer+ one. They look like the perfect standard if someone wants to go bright and fantastical or serious and grimdark with their looks: Would you add even more armor? Make them bigger or just do deadlier weapons like spiked brass knuckles and iron claws? Summoning pretty big on their lore how they get down to the lower Realms with their teleporters and Slann thinking bodysuits into existence for their Azyr bodies to wear and gain physicality, which the articles have been pretty big on pointing out the phantasmal Starborne nature, so I can’t imagine that’s going. Personally I hope they add a bit more to both groups. Starborne gaining their starlight blood that banishes daemons & burns undead- > “There is a great little sidebar that depicts a vampire going up against the Seraphon. Feeling a bit peckish, she bites into a Saurus, then realises she is not drinking blood but pure celestial energy (not great for a vampire). Then the Saurus turns round and bites her head off…” -so it’s close to Stormcast Eternals Blaze of Glory but doing like 1 damage to neutral enemies while Chaos & Death keywords get hit with D3 mortal wounds to make them dread the star daemons of perfect Order. Destruction having to deal with the hardened carapaces of the Coalesced so already have it rough. With how big the refresh is I could imagine two more constellations. Maybe a Huanchi one that favors the Starborne chameleons fresh from the shadowy cosmos of Ulgu which buffs summoning for ambush tactics while a Chotec constellation battlelines the Spawns of Chotec and focuses on unleashing the ancient tech to cleanse Chaos with flame(insert Astartes Salamander jokes here)

According to the memes I’m seeing it looks likely. At the very least it’ll be like AoS3 where you have everything free on the app until the book update. (Everyday our beloved Kharadron rules-lawyer becomes a bigger and bigger blessing to the community as a whole)

I imagine after Warhammerfest. They’ll probably want to showcase the new Freeguild unit with the rest of the troops and options it’s composed of and maybe tease a new unit/lord to further kindle hype. Then can begin the drip feed of models, terrain and the Dawncrusaders narrative tome.

I get Seraphon fans excitement but I know me and a good chunk of the community are like this with our wallets right now.

Tbf, a lot of the upcoming Thunderstrike releases look like Vanquishers+ With either regular masks or something attached to the top of the mask, or beard masks. And indeed there’s much less helm variety than even AoS1 Stormcast had which included everything from alien-like protector helms, animal helms and dragon helms. The classic Stormcast had more variety than that between bulky Warrior chamber, sleeker animal helmed Vanguards and the wizard robed & ghost-catching armed Sacrosanct. This makes sense of course. Grungni made the Thunderstrike in 12 days to counter the encroaching threats unleashed upon the Realms and even the many wraithful NightHaunt forces still lurking about after Nagash’s defeat. Compare that to the 400 years he had time to make regular Stormcast and you can see why he could embellish the armors like crazy. But I think they could update many of the old models into more energetic versions. A lot of the Stormcast lines date back to 2013 before they overhauled their production machinery in 2016 that gave them even more impressive sculpts afterward. I’d love the AoS1 units to get a touch up with that new equipment. Like how amazing Gardus Steelsoul looks. And with the new detailing they could finally make a lot of stuff look like their art such as the OG Knight-Vexillor who looks waaay more intimidating than his model which was still using older production equipment at the time.

Primaris effect, all new changes immediately feel like the ultimate reboot that changes directions of things. 😄 Even after GW still shows love to classic Astartes armors and side-reinforcements like Gravis armor the Primaris “reboot” has strong ripples through the community and like they can only go one direction.

I imagine they’ll start restructuring around the AoS 10th anniversary. Long enough to say the models had a good run before they come out with updated Lord-Celestant, Liberator, Retributor & Prosecutor lines with male & female options and put the old stuff in rotation. (Up to debate whether Thunderstrike or not, a lot of classic armors act as trainee level stuff before being reforged enough times to upgrade to Thunderstrike like Retributors proving themselves to be Annihilators. Plus the unopened chambers likely won’t have access to it as they’re secretly operating in the background lore like the Logisters helping manage the realm-spanning supply lines since 2017 and the Age of Intrigue) Agreed on the hoods. Never enough DOOM!!

It would be pretty badass that after the Chambers Ruination, Covenant and Logister opened up they got new Stormhost organization art of a new chamber revealed at the bottom called Finalis Chamber that’s rare giant lightning golems empowered by his aspects. Maybe even as an Order Rogue Idol but made from Stormkeeps mashing Metaliths together and calling down his divine gaze upon it.

Eh, so can Stormcast Eternals since the get-go to form their main tactic shieldwalls but you know they ain’t touching the old stuff. I mean people were just dying on a hill that the new Freeguild was 100% gonna be updated Renaissance Empire to go with TOW because “why spend extra resources on something they can just crossplay?” and they were dead wrong because GW wants to separate the two. And now it’s certain they’re making seperate Empire human lines just for TOW. And if they’re likely doing 4 factions of each for the civil war then I can’t possibly see why chaos, vampires and lizards also won’t get seperate lines(plus discontinued repacks) and players paying double out of nostalgia. but I agree here- It’s pointless to argue further with this when we barely have half the picture of what GW & FW have planned. So time will tell.

Except it is. Those model lines would’ve been brainstormed years before TOW was an idea. That’s why the chaos knights & skeletons are so crazy dynamic and big they don’t rank up. Like we saw Chosen concepts back in early 2019. Meanwhile TOW started with just a logo ready in late 2019 because they needed to steal Kings of War’s 3rd edition Thunder. Even Runebrush on this very thread showed there was no communication between teams. “As an addition, I was in the Age of Sigmar seminar earlier and Ben Johnson confirmed that there isn't any form of formal discussion between the Specialist Games and AoS studios (I'm meaning interdepartmental discussion here, not that they've fallen out with each other). This is deliberate and as Ben pointed out makes The Old World really exciting for players such as him that have played classic fantasy battle. What that means is it's no use pestering him (or other people within the AoS studio) for information - they have exactly the same amount of knowledge that we have!” The current stuff is just AoS’ own updates on stuff that needed it and fit in the setting. Not planned for cross-compatibility. If that was true people wouldn’t keep asking for increased base sizes. 🤣 Did people already forget Lumineth looked rank fitting too? Some military formations just look better in lines, not because of squares.

They may not be. If they want to remain true to the old scale then it can justify AoS bigger Seraphon vs TOW smaller rankable ones. This is what remains to be seen. If they do actually confirm base size changes then fine but otherwise stuff like the Seraphon would be a no-go and things like Hastings being suspicious that the new Bret & TK stuff are just upgrade sprues for old models will prove the fly in the ointment of all this. Time will tell.

Oooh! Exciting! Thank you for any updates you’d like to share! 🤩

Not saying they’ll hate it but it won’t be an easy sell if the popular characters aren’t there. Like the Magnus and Teclis examples won’t happen until the timeline advances enough for the Great War so they won’t even be there initially and they’re gonna gamble on the three much lesser known leaders of the civil war to hold fans attention. Do these look like faces that’ll get TWW players to drop over $500 on a hobby they’ll have to push themselves into? Because they want to keep selling new models. Two different sets will sell more than one set people can just magnetize the base on. We’ll see how it pans out but with how much has to be redone and increased in size just to get Seraphon to work already sounds like more problems than a specialist game is worth.

At best they could do an Sigmar avatar ala the Khaine one as one of his aspects takes over a new physical form.(just imagine the wheel cult countering a Skaven Doomwheel with a “God-wheel” possessed by his essence ) But otherwise that’s the point of the Celestant-Prime in acting as his arbiter since the God-king has resigned himself to the back lines controlling his cosmos spanning empires to keep them regulated and growing. If he takes to the field he can wreck million strong chaos armies, decimate mountain ranges and undo all chaos corruption in the area but literally everywhere else will be falling apart, disorganized and chaos will strike in full. It was a hard lesson he had to learn after the Burning Skies when he accepted he couldn’t be everywhere at once and couldn’t stay a Warrior-god if Order was to survive. He had to become a God-king and handing his hammer over to the Prime symbolized that. So TLDR: maybe some form of Sigmar golem but not the god himself. At least not until far faaaaar down the line for a big shake-up. However the Lion speaks well for more Azyr Lords down the line like Yndraste and Bastion. I could see something like that for the Celestial Vindicators. Huge new armored lord covered in knightly swords to venerate their Father of Blades god and can even have the little dudes around him as Vindicators die to reforge themselves a lot on purpose to become living weapons and one side-effect is having so much Azyr energy leaking from you that it creates strange homunculi creatures around the Stormcast(a Knight-Venator is said to cause that oddity as he flies with strange cherubs nearby) Good sir that’s called IMMERSION! 🧐 The monster trees grab up the troopers like the little snacks they are! (but seriously the Gnarlwoods are terrifying. Not only do they move and usually do so to encroach on sleeping travelers to eat them but when enough of them are in a group their roots go down to form those “Roothalls” UnderWorlds is in right now and all the flesh roots and walls down there is like the Sarlac pit. They’ll grab you and pull you against the walls to digest. And Gnarloaks are a common Ghur flora!) Regardless if you say they’re gritty generic soldiers or high fantasy fable/Discworld guards anything will look better with those clean bright metallic walls than the pajama renaissance men of old. The new Freeguild actual look like heavily equipped militia a prosperous cosmic empire could afford on average when compared to barefoot pajama Larry of not!HRE. More so because you can see bits of their armor share the angular design popular in both Azyrite architecture and duardin construction so they do fit well together. So bring militia captain Sevyon Ghurbrand to his walls! (There’s plenty of gritty work gangs outside those heavenly walls anyway) Oh merciful Dracothion no. I just bought so much Kharadron stuff + the limited edition tome and a huge assortment of classic Stormcast, Lumineth and regiments of renown. My wallet needs a breather before it dives into the box and future CoS content. 😵 That’s actually an interesting idea. I wonder if it’ll be revealed that’s why the Bloodpelt looks like a Beastclaw character? He was putting up signs for Cities to hire him in his trailer so maybe for CoS he’ll have a named character variant that’s a BCR so keeps limited contact with the cities before going back to the frozen wilds or else their city will freeze? There’s already some examples in Soulbound of Icebrow hunters with similar arrangements with Ghur settlements that they and their cursed winters will protect the towns in exchange for food(since nomadic life is hard to get fat on). In Era of the Beast Soulbound that’s a scenario for a Icebrow to protect a coast village from Deepkin with his Frost powers being of great use against their watery foes. Also on the extreme periphery of chances maybe that’s what the “Cold One” head is? New Freeguild lizard cavalry tease since they’re keeping druchii and it’s Covens & Order Serpentis that’s bio-engineering those drakespawns(Cold Ones) so maybe they’ll end up sharing new ones with the city lancers?