Baron Klatz

Yeah, at least it’s a cool idea in concept and Stormcast can play with it more since they ground zero of new ideas & god powers that can expand instead of 40k’s stagnation and decline tones. I mean if you’re gonna go out in a final blaze of glory might as well be as an avatar of war and storm made flesh. (I prefer the Death Company comparison than Flagellant because that makes it look like they’re diving in naked rather than being suited up war masters that are the final stage for those whose souls couldn’t carry on in war’s eternal demands of dehumanization) Yeah, Cathay looks a lot like AoS and has been pointed out before especially with the new floating “not metaliths” everywhere. Personally just happy AoS & Cathay are working together to liberate warhammer from the old trope that only Chaos gets all the cool weird stuff. 😄

One hopes so. Deepkin have waited unfairly long for some undersea magic plastics that are long overdue(alongside sea knights & battle crabs 🦀) 🌊

The Abomination/Retch campaign unit from Realms of Ruin could be a good candidate. Massive swamp blob puppeteering skeletons and monster bones to make up it’s grotesque gelatinous body powered by Mork’s Breath. And with that the big spell the support spell could be a Kragnos totem that generates an earthquake causing -1 To Hit by enemy troops in it’s proximity(and damages those in cover) while the mid-spell is a Amber Net flying up from a fissure used to drag down flying monsters(represents the Kragnos blessings in Soulbound which are obviously anti-dragon miracles) Terrain could be a swamp bunker that allow Kruleboyz to go underground and teleport to a heavy terrain piece with a defense buff for their Vietcong tactics.

I wouldn’t call it quits so soon. People have been doomer posting about beasts since 2018 from everything from soup to squat so I hardly see AoS flipping the table on them so hard now of all times after they did so much new art, narratives and a solid rules boost for them.

I mean I agree* but this IS the rumor thread so even if just sum-ups of previous rumors with a new twist it’s better than nothing(or worse dumb speculations like all 2022-2023 had with everyone having a new soup theory every month ending on Ogors + SoB from a joke tweet about Battletome: Dad Bodes people took seriously 😂) *I think he played his hand too soon with the TOW rumor of orcs & dawi at the end of January. I don’t think we’re getting dawi at all this year since if you look at the old teaser art it was Bret, TK, Orcs & Empire. Dwarf dice may have been a red herring he fell for.

Very Doubtful. Even Soulbound was made D6 to match-up with AoS’ use of it and Cubicle7 reported that system was a big success and will continue it into the 2nd edition.

It’s possible, though AoS3 took the opposite route and shrunk the armies way down to go with smaller table sizes and more skirmish focus which so far has remained solid even for Skaven armies healing instead of swarming. If the Stormcast Spearhead is anything to go by for an average near-1000 point set then it’s looking likely to remain similar to now. Edit: I can’t imagine this knocked down much.

It takes this route so TOW doesn’t have to and can stay rules dense with the names mostly un-copyrighted.(similar why 40k is Matched streamlined to the Eye of Terror and back so 30k can remain hefty as well) Basically the main games are this for the side games against corporate pushes: It’s just how it is. At least there’s way more alternatives now if you’re not on-board with the Sigmar grindset me and the others are. 😎 👍

That’s awesome! 😍 Also I wouldn’t have even noticed the seem job if you didn’t mention it, nice work! 👌 Love the art and the action(props to the stake bayonet) but especially the juxtaposition in the background. Ya got Witcher crossbow troops in the foreground but the background’s Aqshy forge works could be an industrial pipe complex from modern times(to even some 40k flavor there). That’s peak AoS to me seeing humble mortals battling over large scale magi-tech works to hint what they fight for is on a massive cosmic level. 👍 ⚡️

So a GW main game then. 😄 But I think you’re just wanting different things with a much more in-depth system with heavy Narrative involvement rather than how AoS is designed for streamlined(to watered down levels) of a fast system that’s easier for them to balance and patch up quarterly. Something had to be sacrificed for that which we saw with them chucking out AoS2’s heavier customizations.(fortunately that Thondia Tome can be found on Amazon for $10 and is an excellent piece for Narrative game heroes & lore 👌) Agreed. Every edition has done an era jump so this is set-up the same way to keep the narrative moving.(with thankfully Aqua Ghyranis established properly in battletomes to show why mortal humans can live for over a century) I won’t be surprised if just like new NightHaunt & Soulblight warbands dropping in Era of the Beast we see Ghur stuff hit next edition which could be Bonesplitterz & BoC to be a link back to Ghur and window what’s going on back over there.

Either reborn in plastic or left in limbo for all eternity as GW marked him as an official AoS character IP so won’t be back-ported to TOW(same as he’s off limits to CA). AoS isn’t touching any resin kits so it’s glorious plastic or nothing. Hopefully he’s reborn, he looked pretty dang cool.

Yeah it’s fair to say it can go either way. I just feel it’s not gonna be as big a change because it still feels like we’re riding off the waves Broken Realms caused so we’re still on “tour” around the Realms to see what’s changing(getting refreshed) on the ground level, what hidden gods are coming out of the woodwork and the new narratives picking up the plot lines BR didn’t resolve. With how lower stakes the current Dawnbringer books are the build-up looks a lot more laid back to me like we’re only entering another chapter in AoS rather than a massive shake-up Malign Portents & Broken Realms were. Could be wrong but it might be AoS5 with the long awaited Tyrion & Malerion that finally sees that as we don’t have to play catch-up with the older factions by then(hopefully).

Haha, thanks for the vote of confidence guys. It’s appreciated. 😄 I wonder if it could play into a “boiler” playstyle too. Wound Charts that actually build up their stats every turn as their bodies and daemon-engines pile on the coal so you need to hurt them bad mid-game or get completely mecha stomped late game when they go full steam ahead? 🚂

It does feel this way after the Weirdbrutes “shamanized” some of the Ironjawz units to be closer to Bonesplitterz flavor of mad magic berserkers. However! I don’t have the tome on me right now but I recall the lore guys saying it noted sometimes even Kruleboyz might hear the cal of Gorkamorka and join the Bonesplitterz. So it’s possible we could also see a Bonesplitterz refresh with units including both Gorruks & Morruks as the new thing to show their tribes are pulling in the others as the beating wild heart of their two-headed god. 🧌👺

I wouldn’t be surprised if that becomes a lord mainstay of them all using mech bodies to move their stone forms around after eons in the Realm of Chaos. Heck that might be why they need things like the Horns of Hashut to lay the groundwork’s for them since they’re too clunky to get somewhere fast.

Because if you don’t then you get to watch your entire village burned down by that single Loonboss able to kill the entire garrison with ease.(which was actually a case during the Age of Chaos so many turned to the Dark Gods for survival, it was mad apocalypse times of needing any power for protection) So you use the power of the gods or magics of the Realms to just even the playing field. 😄 But in the end to each their own, I get why you want to customize a blender but I think the “arcadey” streamline style of AoS gets it’s point across too for people that just want to throw down cool models quick. It’s actually a bit funny to me because that’s your go-to example of why you hate AoS heroes but I remember back in 2015 before points the Gobbo boss vs Chaos champion was used as praise for how balanced the game was as people tested ten fights between the bosses & a unit each and it was a 50/50 win split on each so no obvious power creep at the time by having the better model.

It’s probably nothing but the new store competition mats do seem to have the Dragon-Ogor art on them so at least there’s that olive branch delivered by Ghyranian dove maidens to the Beasty bois. 😄🕊️

Eh, in AoS the Loonbosses are empowered by their physical moon god and copious magic shrooms so are far deadlier than the usual fantasy faire you get with. Even in the recent stories when they slay enemy warriors they cause the spilt blood to immediately sprout more magic mushrooms. So that fits to me. It’s same as Wfb Black Orcs now becoming common cannon fodder in AoS as ‘Ardboyz. The power scaling’s gone up on all sides so even chaos warlords aren’t the biggest talk in town when there’s multiple demigods around the corner. As for the other companies and prices, that’s completely each their own. Nothing beats AoS’ aesthetics for me so that’s where my focus & wallet stays. 🫡

Eh, some new mechanics and a big celebration we’re changing Realmscape focus with the GHB’s & Narrative books would do it. Especially if they are planning to drag their feet a bit with the system as it keeps getting new editions every 3 years. The opposite end is expect massive overhauls every 3 years and unlearn everything you’ve built up which has big problems too. For me I’m on team “stay clean & simple, keep building on the path AoS1 set”.

Yeah and AoS fits that design philosophy. GW’s bigger mark ups means it’s more feasible they focus on skirmish sized games with common monster centerpieces & elite troops they can go absolutely ham on with details, designs and extra bits to justify the price tag with AoS’ over-the-top Epic Fantasy setting they can express through those crazy designs down to even Steelhelm infantry being walking canvases. It’s kinda the opposite of Wfb/TOW which branches out from a hero design and spreads out into multiple types of infantry. AoS take one infantry type and branches out into multiple types of monsters & heroes. A World conquered by armies vs Realms conquered by gods & monsters.

I mean the 40k overhaul practically turned it even more into AoS than it was before(coincidentally when it got good again with 8th ) so I don’t think there’s much change needed either when we are the master mold. Just a few tweaks and cleaning up of faction tactics is all that’s really needed. The AoS scene is stronger than it’s ever been before so we’re in a really solid place.

Going by what lore bits, hints and Realm themes we’ve gotten I’d imagine: Ghyran Mantismen Ghur Mammothmen Ulgu Sharkmen Shyish lionmen(though I could see jackalmen for an Anubis nod) Hysh might have more chimera-like ones that’s hard to identify(though could be more felines based on the Sphiranx who once served Teclis) Aqshy antelopemen that are also on fire Chamon is already Tzaangor territory and Azyr cleansed. But yeah, hoping they get some proper Realms magic affected evolutions and that Gnarlwoods story arch has it finally explode to cause a jumpstart to the evolutions across the realms riding on the Ghur winds already spread out everywhere.

Doubtful, especially if all AoS4th does is continue on refreshes so it’s fundamentally the same as AoS3 with only a few new twists in rules & Realmscape. Also interesting that’s a Dragon-Ogor Battlemat. Could it be the “GW doesn’t care about BoC” rumors are off bounds like they have been since 2018? 😄

It would be actually cool on a meta level to show certain events in a roadmap chewed out with little ink covered Skaven foot prints trailing of the article to hint they’re building something up. Then come May they can start dropping new faction rumor engines again like they did for Kruleboyz but this time pictures taken* by Stormcast Eternal Vigilors hounding after the rats in the Hammerhal alleys getting glimpses of the new models they’re hiding on the run. *fun bit of flavor it can be from an Ironweld camera using aetherquartz & Shyish magic to trap the images in time. 💡

I think it’s more than likely. Which is why I think it’s gonna end up a giant forge of sorts. The Chambers are always active just not “unleashed” so Ruination Stormcast have existed before. Same with Sacrosanct always being there(even the Realmgate War novels hinted at them in the stormhost meeting room parts) working behind the scenes. So logically Ionus’ tower wouldn’t create them but allow them to open up and operate in the realms. Which could be why it’s at the Adamantine Chain surrounded by active volcanoes & duardin workers if they’re making “bodies” for what I assume are the Ruined and stored away souls.