Baron Klatz

Spider staff and the Grot scuttler-like look does make me think Spiderfangs are included but it could just be apart of the aesthetics and that Gloomspike can mesh with the other Grot factions like Ironjawz does. Minijawz so to speak.

I have hopes for them getting a tome, they certainly feature in the recent novellas and audio dramas enough (Red Hours even has some duardin background drama and when he was cursing he said "Ulthur" among the other ancestor gods names so there may be a new duardin god too), so there's a good chance as far as that's concerned. Thing is they're always mixed in with the rest of civilization be it building the fortresses on the commands of Lord-ordinators or to hold lands taken by the Freeguild. You do get independent clans though like the one that impeded Neave Blacktalon by catching her quarry first and putting it on trial. So there's pretty big odds in both directions of them getting a independent tome or mixed together with other races in a Free cities tome.

Indeed, TK has appeared multiple times from Archaon fighting a warsphinx to a fluff blurb of a Crimson Dynasty using undead chariots to defeat a rampaging Gutbuster army in Shyish. However in Malign Portents you get a more medieval sounding Tomb kings army with purple dragon heraldry and gold chainmail clad Wight kings leading armored halberdiers with undead siege engines while on the Bret call-out side we have a Order of the Sons of Breton in Ghyran (spear of shadows), the kingdom of volpone in Aqshy with it's knight army defending a sacred river along with stuff like the Three Duchies or the honorable Sir Roggen and the Knights of the Furrow who worship the Lady of Leaves(Alarielle). They're in the lore but at the same time they're just frames for the setting as without their World-that-Was history all you have is generic ancient tomb skeletons and feudal knights whose model lines were heavily loaded down with metal and resin with only a handful of good plastic. So I definitely don't blame them for using the opportunity to clean house while keeping some footnotes around for players to use in the lore at least. It's better in my view to overhaul the armies anyway so they can actually stand out in the new setting like they did with so many others. Turn Tomb Kings into Crypt Empires as entire civilizations of ancient soldiers, mages and primordial skeleton beasts rise up from the Age of Myth and make an Orders of the Realms as the numerous knightly orders from Azyr to Shyish sally out and defend civilization with lance, faith and fantastical beasts. Also hoping for a Spider Grot battletome, I think the lore they've gotten has been pretty neat and could be expanded on further. They should get the DoK treatment and get more of those spider hybrids from Silver Tower as infantry. Also, new Audio drama just dropped today. The humble Wanderer hero Prince Maesa journeys to Ghur to hunt down a Mourngul. The free audio extract is very nice. https://www.blacklibrary.com/prod-home/new/advent-2018-21-hungerfiend-mp3.html

You have a Slaves to Darkness Necoho army?! 0.o. Well hopefully the Destruction rumors prove true and 2019 will be to Gorkamorka what this year was to Nagash.

Well he just meant they'd be more creative like instead of a regular grunta mount the warboss would get either a sub-species of their frog-like Wyvern(smaller and more lean but can jump like a squig for a surprise pounce) or even realm related like a mechanical Grunta changed from the magic in Chamon(heavy armor, can be repaired, heavily advised to paint it's flesh-hull red). While a chariot would be a near fortress centerpiece on spiked wheels dragged by such a unique creature. Also hope the mangler squids make a return with the tome. Fellow on Reddit was so happy he got his model put up alongside it on their store page. (You can actually still see a part of it on the left )

You say that but then they release "Realms-o-War, the naval/aerial AoS expansion" and it'll all come together.

Yeah, "Iron Grots" I think would be better filled out by a Grots Sky pirate faction of it's own. With ships, monsters and artillery they could supply their allies with. For Ironjawz I feel it remains better to be the armored green battering ram army. Though I Could imagine something explodey for them like a grenadier unit that one-time hurls explosive squigs to weaken units or bust through defenses before charging into melee.

Oh it's definitely limited which is what I saw as the point, they're elite tribes that can smash civilizations on their own or corral together other Orruk tribes, Grot hordes, Ogor raiders or wandering gargants to make a devastating Waaagh. They could get something new but i'd think a good update is just to make them the Stormcast allies of Destruction and so can mesh with all their allies easier and better for more varieties of Destruction armies.

Oh neat, I knew about Gorkamorka's teeth breaking off to form their sacred mountains because of the moon but didn't know it itself was a diety. I can certainly see that being played for a fun new spin in their tome. Both fluff and rulewise. Also I wouldn't be surprised at a revamp of the initial tomes. Those factions keep getting spotlights on their sites, white dwarf, Herald and even the recent novels(card game too as Beastraiders just got a campaign focus as a winter battle) so it'd only makes to bring them up to speed with a quick revisit. It'd also match-up with those Ironjawz 2019 rumors I heard so there's that.

Haha, hard to say in mortal realms when wyrmstars that turn things undead exist and moons can come close enough to the land to affect things with their gravitational pull (in the Hammers of Sigmar novel during the Aqshy campaign). Fungus growing to the dictates of celestial bodies is the least crazy thing to see. Though I am concerned what it means and why you can't look at it. Is it a moon cursed by Mork that'll drive people mad? Is it a Shaman spell that'll turn them into squigs?(endless spell?) Matches with Destruction Rising at least. Looks like they rise with the moon.

I mean there's already an AoS app game heavily modeled after clash royale(and it's actually very fun, bravo to them for winning game of the day) so I don't think they'll be That protective. I think the main reason is because the AoS license only went on purchase at the tail end of 2016 where as Wfb has always been waved about and is why you get a mix of TWW, Mordheim, Vermintide for high end games and Man-o-War, Skaven Doomwheel app and that Warhammer Wizard game nobody heard about for the low tier stuff. At least so far AoS champions & Realm Wars have been great so the future's looking good there even if it does take until 2021 for an rpg or the like. Until then I'll just head canon TWW as Ghur with the Lantic Empire trying to ruthlessly retake all of it's lands and Vermintide as a gnaw-hole opening up in ShadeSpire.

^ Yep and that's an excellent reason to see both World-that-was souls and for them to introduce heroes from the Age of Myth like Lantic Empire commanders and powerful mages bringing back lost spells from when the Realm cities had harnessed magic to create such wonders as the prismatikon and infinity gears. Hahaha! XD Excellent point. Either he thought she was just being her famously flirty self(who even tried to seduce Nagash) or she was in snake form and the tail writhing counted as a dance.

Should be the end for him. So far there's been very specific avenues to getting reborn in the Mortal Realms and an intact soul has been crucial. Even if it was intact in Slaanesh for an aelf requirement. Undead like vampires are an exception as when they truly die the soul is destroyed too but Nagash can personally recreate them to continue loyal service to him. So unless Malus made a last minute pact with Nagash his chances aren't good. But who knows? Maybe he was the soul that eavesdropped on Morathi and Malerion in Malign Portents and was sent back into the pit?

Ah, then it was someone else who pointed out his remains in another book. My apologies! Yeah, the fellow said he heard of such a rumor though it was unconnected to the Realmslayer story itself. The audio drama just made him wish for Gotrek model as a new Fyreslayer hero. (Which from the sounds of it he'd probably give debuffs to any friendly Fyreslayer near him. 😛 ) Also, to hide spoilers use [Spoilers] in front of the sentence and [/Spoilers] behind it. (Remove the S at the end of those to make it work) Also, someone may need to add "Steel cats" to the AoS cat list here for Chamon as they get mentioned in Red Hours. http://whfb.lexicanum.com/wiki/Cats

It does have me wishing I held my hobby budget a little longer to grow my Khorne army. Especially because i bought a bunch of Gryphhounds earlier for a hunting party. Could've set-up a huge dogfight battle. Hopefully I'm able to refill my hobby funds early next year.

Might be, haven't gotten to reading it yet. Can you clarify this, Shinros? You're the expert Nagashite that noticed him in the first place. @shinros

Haha, not the first "off-screen" comeback death. GA: Death hinted that Krell could be in Shyish's northern wastes defending a place called Helpoint and in Soul Wars there's a long destroyed undead matching his description. I think those are fun ways to point out their models are still around but they died as characters long ago. XD Also, was reading that great Realmslayer review here and saw someone mention a rumor about new Fyreslayers in the future. Any more word on that?

Indeed, the returns have made sense as it's usually the older characters being reborn into the new setting if they're not immortals like daemons & undead. I give Skaven a pass as they're in the chaos realm now which doesn't obey the laws of time. I mean heck, the Grand Alliance Order book back then put Azyrheim in a Lordran situation that had time flow unnaturally so you got strange people from eons past stumbling around the city lost and speaking ancient unknown language. Also really sorry for the derail but I need to respond to this from Rex so spoilers.

Why are we acting like there's some huge flood of them? It's only been a handful with Gotrek and Drycha the only "I'm back!" ones. The others are all hidden and take someone pointing them out before it becomes common knowledge they've returned in a new form. If it wasn't for their nostalgia value they'd be raindrops in a pond rather than the ripple causing pebbles with weight behind them. Meanwhile the AoS novels have given us dozens of new heroes since the get-go, quite a few showing up numerous times if not getting spin-off stories, and continue to pump in new faces all the time with new outlooks on the realms.

Now that seems an overreaction. Only fellows they brought back so far were Gotrek, Gelt and Gotrek's aelf friend and none remained the same but were altered to become apart of the new setting just as all the older races were. (Or did firebelly Ogors seek to devour the miniature suns in Aqshy as back in the Old World? 😛 ) This is the case with the Beasts of Chaos tome too. A certain undying fiend does return but has been upgraded from a mere fiend looking to corrupt a world to a lovecraftian nightmare seeking his own twisted Godhood and to bring about a rule of pure chaos beyond even the dark gods. No, i've seen no retcons but GW continuing building the lore up more and more and expanding the unique setting with it's fantastical realms. I even noticed subtle callbacks to the beginning like how the first starter book said the chaos hordes initial invasion were stalled by the duardin Korsh's famous cannonade and where does the Corebook show Khul's invasion of Aqshy started? The Duardinia mountains. They're doing an excellent job with making the setting unique while balancing the requests of getting a grounded feel of the setting. We're getting more human views of the realms but they're still the wild magic realms we started with where we see floating continents with cities built upon them and God-beasts wrapped around it or entire fields of flesh that seek to devour the tiny creatures upon them in Ghur. Anyway, on a somewhat separate note, my Christmas Order came today and with it the Deepkin battleforce and several of the new books! (love the little Christmas cards they sent with it, merry Christmas to you too, GW!)

GW won't drop anything now. Every army has been put into the new lore at this point and used like the Swiftwings whose warscrolls actually give more lore details. Besides, it's been 3 years and we got rough Order equivalents of everything the Old World had. The time to tell people to ditch their old elves & dwarfs and go for the new ones has already passed. Instead they continue to focus on them, combine them with the new stuff (Sylvaneth allegiance with Dispossessed, Scourge privateers as Deepkin allies, DoK, etc). I'm confident from here out that at best the old models will get the DoK treatment and at worst they're placeholders for updated versions (like I'm betting for Greenskinz). You don't mean the demonic looking form he was revealed to have in the very first starter book do you? Cause that's Malerion's new form that he woke up with when he found himself in Ulgu. 1d4chan is the rumor spreader that he fused with his dragon Seraphon but that's a lie. It's unknown why but the most likely reason is because he along with most other gods went through the chaos realm to reach the mortal realms and that had dire effects like Tyrion's blindness, Alarielle's mind, etc. (It's likely the reason Grungni tied himself and Grimnir to an anchor of sorts so they'd speed through the chaos realm faster with less damage, though Grungni did suffer an ailment regardless) Edit: I enjoyed and played AoS at the beginning and knew many others who did. The freedom of building was very welcomed and it lead to balanced player made point systems like the Azyr system or tournaments going by wounds while adding their own spin to things. (The 2015 Halloween tourney with zombie rules was a fun one) It wasn't lucrative though in that too much was free with battletomes just fluffbooks + warscrolls and new players had a hard time with casual games since they had to agree on point systems. Add this to GW overhauling all it's machinery for new quality models and it's no wonder profits dropped here. However they added points the next year and kept to their promise of an evolving ruleset and world with their increased community input. So it's no surprise that + their new gorgeous models lead to skyrocketing success.

I'm taking Scales + Heights + Moonclan tease + Destruction RISING to say Skypirate Grots that will tie into the tome as an elite air unit. Scales are on a flying Squig leviathan rode by a captain wearing that earlier rumor engine hint of a spiked helmet with a face on it.

Indeed. Hopefully they'll fix it after Christmas and holiday shopping is over where a condensed format helps most for sales. Factions like Wanderers and especially tome ones(Pestilens) need to stand out for what they are.

It makes sense, it's been the way the AoS site has had the factions condensed so the GW site following suit is reasonable. https://ageofsigmar.com/factions/destruction/ The hubbub around the Greenskinz does have me curious. They are especially hard to find compared to other factions like the aelves and aren't even mentioned on said site. Makes me think there's something to the Ironjawz 2019 whispers on some sites. They could be seeing either an update or replacement(Personally hoping due to Orruk scrapfleets). Time will tell but fingers crossed for next year being Gorkamorka's time with Ghur focus. (Helps that I've been planning on getting Bonesplitterz)

Oh, that's cutting it close. And I'm among those willing to argue against that. The Strike Chambers were Sigmar's first hammer strikes to fall upon and break the chains chaos enslaved the realms with and by Sigmar they'll continue to safeguard them till the very end! Besides that I agree, it's the way of everything especially an evolving franchise, just imagine the times when warhammer was still fleshing out and armies were being defined but then got shook up by the craziness of herohammer and back again to massive armies that made many people's forces obsolete like Empire players giving up their war wagons for shiny new steam tanks? You just gotta roll with the punches. Like me and my Bret obsession since 2008. Ten years later and I'm still using them but now as Deepkin proxies for matched (working on a sea theme is much easier than individual colors, haha) as well as to test fantome ideas and narrative battles. And I'll definitely be using my Stormcast armies 40 years down the road too (if i'm still around and not a over-cosplaying Nighthaunt😛 ). That's the beauty of models and TT gaming. It doesn't ever really become obsolete like a videogame(trying otherwise though, still got my gameboy color!). If you got the models and creativity you can use them forever.