Baron Klatz

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.

Well of course, youz can't clobbah gits wid the long end in yer hand can yah? Anyway, i'm with the "just a site organisation change" group on this. It's a nice way to tidy up so newcomers are less confused. Especially if the Age of Sigmar site was their starting point which had the armies just like that. With how battletome armies got grouped, this has no effect on say Scourge privateers getting updated along with a tome and a Free Cities tome for human, duardin and aelven factions to be used together.

You could've asked "Hey guys, so what's the latest rumors? Having a bit of a tough time sorting through the backlog. " In which we would've said Slaanesh focus,daemon point adjustments and a possible update of Skirmish which has us excited. And going from there to your friend's question we'd ask what army interested her and that maybe the upcoming Slaanesh + Skirmish would be just the ticket for a new army and way to test it out.

Very much this as one of the multitude of reasons I adore AoS and the Mortal Realms. The diversity you see is crazy. In "Hammerhal and other stories" you get a band of a witch hunter, Ironbreaker and lion ranger hunting down cultists in the city while even noting at the skydocks how Kharadron vessels are side by side with human airships and aelven skyships. You get things like Sylvaneth who range from loners to having aquatic (and surprisingly peaceful) versions of themselves that ally with Deepkin, ones that maintain relationships with undead as seeing them as a natural life cycle and even the Ironbark Sylvaneth with metal weapons and iron veins that have close ties to duardin with strongholds in Aqshy and Chamon. Them going amongst city dwellers in Ghyran cities is a very inspiring image. Then you have stuff like in the "Sea Taketh" that has Order and Destruction mingling in Shyish. And THEN you have religious diversity like within the Crawling City. "The city, once freed from the Skaven, is highly cosmoplition and as well as traders, priests of many religions for all faiths are welcomed, although only one is truly honoured - Sigmar who the inhabitants call Sahg’mahr, as is evident from the many wayshrines in the streets. A visitor could expect to see Nagashites, white-robed and golden-masked Hyshites and even covens of wild-haired forest-brides singing eerie hymns in praise of the Lady of Leaves, all in the same area." (I like the detail that Nagashites hand out pamphlets extolling the glories of Nagash ) And it's awesome to see the city variety used from these in people's army projects. I'll stop here but I could easily go on(and on and on) why I'm in love with the lore.

Hmm, I think it more likely it was a concept seen during the End Times that was planned for AoS from the get go. They showed it's early build phase off in December 2016 which puts it's origin around 2014-2015 where as AoS was already underway with development teams in 2010 under the codename project Stanley. (Like the golden paladins for Brets and Archaon on a dragon ET rumors that were AoS leaks) That said I wouldn't be surprised at every chaos faction getting their own FW monster to terrorize the Mortal Realms with. (Maybe one day even you too, Necoho. You mighty/non-existent and glorious/fake diety/contrived coincidences.) Hmm, Brets I have 0% belief for a return. Stormcast already cover the role of holy paladins that slay evil, badass mythical cavalry, can be humble people that rise up and go on quests with both Errants and Questors. The latest tome even has the ones from Hysh accustomed to have squires. Likelier we'll see supplementary knight orders for the Free Guild that give them knights and Cavaliers from across the realms with different mounts and deities that play into their allegiances. Like with the knight Orders in Ghyran. (Q&A with Josh Reynolds) "What makes The Knights of the Furrow. The Order of the Green. The Order of the Last Flower. The Knights Ghyrlion different from each other? -The Knights of the Furrow are demigryph riders - one actually features in The Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows. I imagine the Order of the Green are an order devoted to tending a grove of soul pods, and the Order of the Last Flower are devoted to taking vengeance in the name of a fallen kingdom. The Knights Ghyrlion are a crusading order, devoted to spreading the glories of the Lady of Leaves to other realms." Returning TK are more likely as Shyish is already filled with ancient kingdoms of sentient skeleton warriors. Settra just needs to make his way out of the realm of chaos first and start a rebellion. 100% Agreed here. A natural transition is much better. Also is the fact that the factions are so diverse in the lore that such a simple culling wouldn't work to cover all the races in the cities and realms. It'd end up crippling the lore in several ways as we lose so much. There's "high elves" already in Hysh as well as the other realms with the life realm city of Phoenicium being a major city controlled by the Phoenix Temple and eldritch council with more loyalty towards Sigmar and Alarielle than Tyrion and Teclis. Meanwhile there's a human city full of Hyshites that worship Tyrion over Sigmar and are noted to have many light wizards and luminarks guarding the city. The Mortal Realms have diversity in spades and many Aelves owe allegiance to Sigmar and Azyr thus becoming crucial parts of the Free Cities. We need to see these light aelves anyway to judge. Them being angelic and "perfect" in Teclis' eyes doesn't mean they'll be regular aelves or anything close. (In Pantheon Teclis appeared ethereal so the light aelves might possibly be aelf spirits of light more than flesh and blood which puts them in Sylvaneth territory) And likely yes, we'll end up with a mass of Aelf factions. I imagine they'll eventually be: Light, Shadow, Deepkin, Wanderer and Free City Aelves with stuff like DoK and Swiftwings as sub-factions to them. In time I suspect this huge variety to be commonplace (and hopefully well organized with proper tomes)

(Golem's post) ^^^^ 110% this! I love the new aelves of the Free cities and how they'll mingle with the other races. Just having Prince Maesa(the Wanderer Nomad Prince) talk on an equal level with a regular person was so refreshing as well as the Privateers being awesome underhanded yet charismatic allies. The one from "The Denied" audio book was such a charming rogue without the Druchii edge which was brilliant. So yeah, hopefully they keep aelves as another race amongst the cities. Hammerhal Quest background having their nobles alongside the human nobles while going on about how they ventured to seedy taverns to start fights was also ace. The Sankrit are in the Hamilcar Bear-Eater short story as they waged war with the Jercho city-states from their empire n the northern edges of the Sea of Bones. Wasn't a lot on them (short story that focused more on Hamilcar and Jercho) except that they're reptilian warriors with claws on their knuckles as a notable feature. Could be expanded upon in the future when Ghur becomes the main stage.

I could see that, kinda like how a Tzeentch sorcerer used a crystal golem army to defend himself on a Great Worm city he conquered. I imagine other stuff like that will fit Destruction eventually, Cogmen, Steppe Khanates(fire worshippers & gargant warriors), the two species of Merfolk mentioned by the Deepkin tome, the reptile race of Sankrit with their empire in Ghur and a good deal of other mentions. No end of possibilities there. (with hopefully some God-beast focused factions one day) Also agreed on LoN being a great tome. Hopefully we'll see more of that to bind together the sub-factions. A Free Cities one would be a day-one pre-order for me.

Very possible. I imagine will see several more DoK situations with the aelves to round out the future armies. On the lore side of that note, I really liked how the Stormcast battletome follows up that information with Sigmar using the Shadowblades to silence the mortal feuds from all the refugees swarming into Azyrheim and sought to settle age old grudges and wars despite the threat of chaos. Poor fellow had a ton of weeding to do for his last bastion of order to survive.

Cause GW always take the obvious route.. 😛 (which I'm quite happy they don't) I'm betting from the importance and stand out high borne Aelven factions we'll see this: Swifthawk agents expanded into own faction. Eldritch Council, Phoenix temple and Lion rangers combined into a Free Cities book that's Order's version of Nagash Legion's as large elements of humans, aelves and duardin are all put into it. Order Draconis combined into the new Hysh Aelf army as they gather under Tyrion's power for a full reconquest of Hysh. Really that's Order Draconis, Lion Rangers and Phoenix Temple. Swiftwings and Eldritch Council were shown in the Dawnspire set's background that they were also in Hysh to help defend it from chaos (thus with Tyrion and Teclis) while others like the Draconis are specifically mentioned in the GA Order book that they had to rely just on their skill and horsemenship to survive in the Realms as their kingdoms fell and they set to help others who couldn't make it to Azyr. So it's a mixed bag but regardless they're still worshipful of their gods as much as Devoted of Sigmar never lost faith even when living in caves with brayherds breathing down their necks. Very likely, that's just holdovers from the beginning and it'll be much more lucrative to put them in Legion-esque battletomes that combine multiple armies acting like GA 2.0's. Shadowblade you can squeeze into a couple aelf forces? Alright. Shadowblade you can combine with a a mixed force of human battles mages, Duardin heavy infantry and Aelven Phoenixes on top of unique allegiances? Heck yeah!

You put a frown there but I'm relieved. Already blew my hobby budget on all the crazy stuff in this month that hasn't finished it's reveals! Give people's wallets a breather. On my part I was just taking a wild guess that it'd be an opportune time for them to work on it with all the small scale stuff like UnderWorlds taking off. That Skirmish's fluff was centered around ShadeSpire means now it's plot can advance as the warbands delve deeper and Slaanesh threatens to break free. It also would build player hype for a new global campaign with the updated warband battles and serves as excellent filler until we see something big again like a new Warhammer Quest or the like.

Pedantic response but Khorne is kinda the exception there on account his no magic policy screwed his armies against enemies who mastered it during the invasion of Aqshy. He had to personally intervene (or rather his country-sized fist) with both the Steppe Khanate capital city due to the Sky titan barriers and again when the floating continent housing the prismatikon lenses fried his armies. They can always proxy the few heroes that don't fit into their AoS army if not keep them just as a dedicated Skirmish force.(though i think allies work well for that. Shadowblades into a DoK army seems fine to me) The hope is a 2.0 will be there to make such small battles more appealing while hopefully promoting uses of models in other small games like a skirmish version of Gorechosen, Warhammer Quest and finally a segway into the upcoming rpg. On the note of Shadowblades, their mention in the Stormcast battletome raised my eyebrows (im both their appearance and that Sigmar enlisted them to quell the feuds in Azyrheim). I wonder if it's a nod that they might get a DoK treatment with Malerion's Shadowkin someday? Yeah and a Skirmish campaign runs the risk of alienating non-skirmish players. Probably best to treat the campaign as an add-on for scenarios and missions where as Skirmish gets it's own book like the difference between Malign Portents and the Endless Spells. Connected but still independent from eachother.

Actually much further than that. After the end of the Seeds of Hope campaign in 2016 Rountree announced they had the next 5 years of production planned out for AoS. As for my guess on what's gonna happen next year. Well there's no way Slaanesh's prison and ShadeSpire's essence are that close to eachother in the void without a reason. I'm betting on the next campaign focus that pushes the plot to be either UnderWorlds or even Skirmish(2.0) focused as a starved Slaanesh reaches out for the tasty morsel that the city full of trapped souls represents. On how it got a bit of freedom to do this, well I've been hearing new Ironjawz rumors which along with the Moonclan make me think Morathi will be hardpressed by Khorne, Nighthaunt and the new Waaaghs which force her to pull on even more souls and thus loosen Slaanesh's bonds. That's my guess anyway, I think Slaanesh won't be fully released until 2020 (unless we see a campaign to release it sooner) as there's still a lot of drawn-out plot potential there.

Man, this thread is such a reaction drain. You guys are insanely awesome!

Whoa! That looks great. I love that it's adjustable. Haha, I have always been wanting to catch the enemy off-guard with a melee focused fleet just for fun. "Advance the wall of skyhooks and damn the aether-torpedoes!" Charge in with the toughest troops, aggresively use fumigators to tip the melee scales and even charge in the airships just to get troops into battle faster. Fluff for it would be a fleet who set-up a port in Ghur because of an unprecedented amount of aether-gold was discovered there but after a few months of successfully harvesting it they discover the aether is coming from the back of a mountainous mineral beast that was hibernating to expel it's precious subterranean gases and promptly digs back underground leaving the port bereft of resources. Having to live a harsh life among the wilds of Ghur, these overlords have had to adapt to be aggressive in their tactics while also conserving as much ammo and aether-gold as they can, which they have little of, and seek out the legendary beast to reap it's riches once again. Though it did leave behind many small off-spring whose gases have been fortunately plentiful for both airship and fumigator fuel.

I'd think since Hashut originally came from Khorne then maybe they would do something like take the blood and suffering of countless slaves and use it as a mold for different melted down realmstones to create the warped building blocks they'd need to rebuild their god?

Also in the rumor mill for upcoming ShadeSpire stuff: "From bols: Shadepire is getting some new cards and a third game board tile this week. We already have a decent set of warbands but insiders say to look for a refresh of the game in late Q3-early Q4. It’s a but fuzzy if this is a Shadespire 2, a new 2018 starter box, or just a new release wave of warbands. GWis said to be adding a new 4-6 warbands to the blighted city. These names have been bandied about: Stormcast Eternals (the new ones) Nurgle Mortals Kharadron Overlords Nighthaunts Disciples of Tzeentch Aelves (unknown sub-faction)"

A note on that earlier part about them helping Khorne by building the Dreadholds, they were confirmed on facebook to be the Furnace Kings that also took part in creating the black rift and making weapons for chaos up until the end of the season of hope where Order retook Aqshy and toppled their kingdom in the Furnace lands. "The Furnace Kings are the rulers of the Bale-Furnace in the Realm of Fire. The Khorne Bloodbound paid homage to these kings for weapons and armors.[1] The Black Rift is one of their creations, forged with warpfire and shaped by impossible tools." "Volundr of Hesphut (from Spear of Shadows), He was born a slave in the chattel-pens of the Furnace Kings who forged weapons and armour for the servants of the Dark Gods, before the Azyrites cast down the Bale-Furnace and scattered its rulers. Now he is assisted by large Gors, descendants of the Raxulian herds that had once haunted the crater rim of Klaxus."

Hey man, if it wasn't for us putting cities everywhere then all you daemon lovers would have to do all day is butt heads with eachother, scatter a few roaming bones and stomp some greenskins. Be thankful that we make things interesting.

It's the 3rd anniversary of Age of Sigmar and I just wanted to say thank you to such an awesome community of hobbyists and that from my long time obsess-er-Happiness with Warhammer fantasy then to Age of Sigmar from it's beginning when I saw so much creativity in both narratives and armies to now with AoS being a booming success with so many new and great hobbyists swelling it's ranks everyday! Looking forward to the years ahead with all of you as we continue to battle for the glorious Mortal Realms and see more of their wonders revealed to us! (P.S. I know it's technically past July 4th as it is a few minutes past twelve here but the sketch took me six hours and my back is still healing so cut me a break, eh? ? )

Can you ask if you can get a refund on them? Otherwise you might add notes to the backs of the ones that changed.

Question, anyone have info on that Fyreslayer heraldry that looks like a Samurai helmet? Between that and the oriental cues from Aqshy I was planning to do a Fyresamurai conversion in the future. Cut down the crests and use the dragon pieces and u-shaped metals, repurpose crests as neck and shoulder coverings while turning their axes into large naginatas. I really like the idea of a volcanic warlord fortress defended with lava spewing dragoncannons with perhaps Sylvaneth as allies from a mountain garden (likely will proxy with Stormcast scrolls for anything serious).

It's not like you're going against anything if you do go pointless. That's why GW so heavily supports narrative and open play afterall with even the white dwarf battles encouraging friendly force discussions rather than point lists. They know even with tournament and community feedback they're never gonna be perfect with such a vastly variable game and that they want every player to have something to enjoy in it, be it with points, a friendly brawl or just beginners who only have a handful of models they loved the look of and wanted to play right away.

So much the same, even before mention of Stormkeeps I had my hopes constantly up for a Order version of the Dreadfort. (Same with a Order version of Gorechosen that took place in Azyrheim's colosseum. ) Really hope we get one in the near future. Maybe whenever the Ruination chamber gets released with some more Stormcast engineers? If it ends up being a small release like the Extremis chamber then giving the new artillery a place to fire from would be a good idea. Also, about the flying fortress or CogFort question, it's likely a flying fortress of whichever Order civilization is being threatened. In the Malign Portents short story "The Offer" the CogForts are described moving on piston driven legs so unless that's a new model (certainly not out of the realm of possibility) it's likely something else. (Another hope of mine is that CogForts become a future Freeguild centerpiece. Like a Kharadron airship but made for a slow powerful advance.)

I can't imagine them ever turning back but rather pushing forward. Turning back means losing fans to "it's been done" generic boredom and puts them at the at the mercy of imitators and recastors. Also, holy cow I slept through a lot. Great stuff to wake up too, though.

Wouldn't battletomes being updated be a good thing? I've certainly heard Seraphon and Skaven pestilence players wanting such upgraded battletomes to get those bells and whistles. (Or at least use the General handbook to boost them) The rumor engine did show what looked like a shield with a lion over anvil symbol so a hero Stormcast release looks likely unless the anvil part is more significant.(possibly as lore-wise it was Grungni who made their armor so a dwarf hero that reminds the Stormcast of that wouldn't be out of the question)