[The Rumour Thread]

25 minutes ago, Gitzdee said:

Also seems to follow the Aqshy rumour. Solid guess.

Edit: funny thing is that SCE seem like they cant return.

Yeah, we went from rolling between Ulgu or Chamon next to Chamon or Aqshy. 😅

Still hope for Chamon though as the main realm focus with Aqshy as the big second.

And on Ruination chamber I meant return from the statues they’ve been locked in up in Azyr. They keep the souls too broken to be reforged properly up there so that works as “Returned” with them finally coming back to the battlefield for one final service.

Reforging is too baked into the identity of the faction and lore of the setting(especially Azyr which has multiple resurrection themes). That’d be like taking Runes away from Dawi. Some break but the majority stay strong with it.

15 minutes ago, CommissarRotke said:

if SCE can't return at all, half the Realms should be reclaimed from Chaos already

Indeed. Their immortality and ability to respawn back into the fight is one of the main things keeping the Realms from being overrun from all the other immortal forces out there attacking every corner of the Arcane Cosmos.

That’s not going anywhere. Ruination chamber may just show the final form of what abusing that privilege without a strong enough soul can cause(or those too tormented like the ones freed from the NightHaunt but unstable from the tortures)

If they’re anything like the Thunderous Ones from the Excelsior lore then I could see the more violent chambers viewing immortality as a cocoon of sorts until they reach the final stage after near a thousand years where they’re lightning encased in armor and exchange it and their humanity for barely restrained god powers turning opponents to ash just by looking at them. ⚡️ 

[The Rumour Thread]

3 hours ago, mawhis117 said:

I was intrigued by this short paragraph at the end of Dawnbringers 4 entitled "The Embergard Visitation"

  Hide contents

Even as the Dawners purged the last undead from Embergard's surface, passages were discovered leading into the mountains of Ashenmount. Within these catacombs were discovered two prizes: glowing veins of emberstone and the signs of a buried city of death. Yet rather than some new attack by the undead, all that met the crusaders was silence - though those who first began mining operations still murmured of phantasmal shapes scurrying though the blackness

 

Oh dang! Maybe we will see Clans Shrykt in AoS4 afterall as the new “Kruleboyz”?

AoS4 Era of the Returned. Skryre backed by phantasm Clans lost in immaterium between Realms vs Thunderstrike backed by the locked away hollowed lightning souls of the Ruination chamber?

(and the return theme running with Death being the hero and re-emerging races like the Gholemkind & Drogrukh)

[The Rumour Thread]

1 hour ago, CommissarRotke said:

alright that's even dwarfier 😅

A nice thing is, disregarding the Thryng who are hard-nosed conservatives, it being in the Code as guidelines and a clause does keep grudges from being as societally halting as they were since Kharadron(Mhornar & Drekki especially) can find loopholes to get rid of them, slip around them or more importantly put them on hold until much later when they can reasonably handle them(in comparison to old Grudges which could easily get a dawi killed because they obsessed over them as a major ruling)

A fun example is “The Book” has a changed meaning for them as something to chart new courses and better lucrative futures(in comparison as something to put past wrongs in and fume over)

@Vasshpit

I got caught up in the excitement yesterday so forgot to give more info on Grindworms. They had some extra info here and there through 2015-2017 and how Ghurian places around the Bone Sea dealt with them but we got our best look at them after the Nagash parley went wrong and the Stormcast pursued Mannfred into the Bone Sea.

 

There’s an interesting part where they’re such a threat that the massive paddleboats the Ironjawz use to traverse the Bone Sea desert have amplifiers to scare them away.

And now going by the new Andtor stuff there seems to be an ice variant in those lands. 
 

Dawner settlers reporting of entire settlements flash frozen mysteriously overnight. Later to be found the cause were giant ice worms who when they burst up from the ground they unknowingly unleash all the trapped Everwinter ice magic beneath the soil which geysers out and freezes everything around and they prey on the hapless frozen people around.

Would be a good unit for either Gitmob or Kruleboyz as powerful beasts they wrangle and then given a sub-species trait to go from sand Grindworm to ice worm.

[Warhammer - The Old World]

41 minutes ago, LordSolarMach said:

The real reason is likely GW not wanting for TWW to step on the toes of AoS: Realms of Ruin. 

With Space Marine 2’s “secret villain” revealed to be Tzeentch it’s likely Tzaangors will show up there too giving even more reason to specialize their IP license.

[The Rumour Thread]

2 hours ago, Grungnisson said:

And I'm just here to quietly celebrate some weapons range increases for FS, NH and SCE ☺

Preach.

Vanquishers should’ve been 2” from the get-go just like all Stormcast Eternals greatswords deserve to be.

Thankfully the Soulsworn already had it for theirs but these celestial behemoth blades that can get a nod from Guts himself never had business being treated like a regular weapon.

 

[The Rumour Thread]

1 hour ago, Gitzdee said:

If they want me to buy 4th edition tomes again they really need to step up their game. Not add 1 new page of lore and be done with it with all recycled art. The tomes are becoming way to expensive compared to the models imho and it has to be worth the cost. 

That’s fair and true.

Though to be honest the battletomes at Seraphon and onwards were absolute bangers(I’m buying a second AoS3 CoS tome just because of how good this one was) and that definitely includes the latest Flesh-Eater Court tome which if you jumped from the 2019 to the current one feel like a completed refreshed book lore and art.

If the AoS4 tomes are anything like CoS & FEC then we are golden! 👌😎

 

[The Rumour Thread]

32 minutes ago, Gitzdee said:

What if GW is going to remove tomes completely and we are getting something new. AoS is the system where they try out new ideas for 40k. I dont think it’s likely, but it could happen.

Tomes & Codexes make way too much money to scrap from a mainline product so extremely unlikely. Like if anything gets to that level from specialist they’ll just add a codex system to that as well to make more money.

(plus they need something as an unlock key for the App 😄)

Which as a lorenut and supporter of physical media over digital I’m happy about as I love me Battletomes to an obsessive degree. 😁📖

[The Rumour Thread]

2 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Where did you get those pics from? Are they AI generated?

God No! I’ll hack my fingers off before I touch that stuff. 🤢 

It’s from the artist Wolfdawg Art who makes a lot of warhammer and crossover arts.

(hashtag support real artists and creators)

[The Rumour Thread]

5 minutes ago, MitGas said:

That‘s just dinobots with fewer steps. AT-AT Grimlock has the secret power of being fined for copyright infringement!🥴

Don’t worry, if the star-vessel art & Warcry terrain that has an old one as a broken ship’s figure head are anything to go by those walkers would be Froggobot At-Ats and highly protectable.  🐸 

 

[The Rumour Thread]

 

7 minutes ago, ScionOfOssia said:

I’d personally give “Worst Tome” to the Kharadron. 

Funny to hear a negative on Kharadron when they’re flying high right now.

Like I agree I wish their tome had more lore stuffed into it(though what is there is great and happy I bought the limited edition) but I think they’re a solid force especially how them being a ranged army was fixed to make them more eager to freight train their way into battle on their airships.

Looking forward to the next one and hoping the gholemkind race shows up for them like this tome teases.🤞 🤖 

[The Rumour Thread]

40 minutes ago, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

I personally don't hold Gitz as having flawed battletome design though, just flawed points values.

And even then they suffered like 5 years of being the “play to goof around, not to win” army so Gloomspite getting bonkers buffs was accepted as deserved good karma suffering for so long.

42 minutes ago, RocketPropelledGrenade said:

(which could be fixed by making the divide between Coaelesced and Starborn closer to OWC style with separate winrate tracking and balancing the units as if they were separate warscrolls per version).

I’d like this especially if it heavier pushes them into their own distinct factions instead of recolors.

That way down the line we can get more advanced Starborne units with a better ethereal star-daemon flavor and unlocked in the star-vessels above-

 

While Coalesced continue to separate as the primal off-shoot to the space Dino’s catching bigger Dinos in the Realms and attuning closer with the Realmscapes for models to show Aqshy variants spewing flames and swimming through lava.

 

[The Rumour Thread]

Yeah, if index does happen it all comes down to execution and hoping they looked at what made 40k stumble and avoid that(hopefully keeping the sub-factions and rules flavor in among those fixes)

The Ossiarch situation would be among the chief reasons they do it, get everyone invested at once with rules right out the Realmgate instead of faction veterans telling new players to wait 1 or 2 years before they get into the faction that interested them.

So only time will tell. Fingers crossed it’ll be AoS’ best and most streamlined edition yet with lore book filled goodness in the coming years for both battletomes & narrative books. 🤞 ⚡️ 

3 hours ago, Clan's Cynic said:

Crappy Valentines Day? Never fear, the Hammerhal Herald is here.

Ahhh! Agony Aunt is back!

That made me way happier than I expected to see her again. 😄

One day I hope they fully reinstate the Hammerhal page again, loved these articles.

(personally still find it funny almost no one got the joke during Broken Realms that the Hammerhal Herald news on DoK concert traveling to the Living City was sold out. Players were thinking it was a hint that Morathi-Khaine was plotting against Alarielle but the lore joke is Verdia is a male continent with mostly native men that has to wait until mating season until it hooks up with the female continent and it’s lady population to mate. So a bunch of beautiful DoK on tour was like water in the desert to them. 😂)

[The Rumour Thread]

3 hours ago, Vasshpit said:

Wasn't there army shots that had the old models in it?

O&G in TOW? Yeah, every wolf rider shot is the old ones they plan to re-release.

Since they classify Snarlfangs as only wolf-like creatures that’ll likely be enough to never let them touch the World-that-Was similar to how the recent Total War statement said they won’t do Tzaangors with beaks as that’s a different breed exclusive to AoS & 40k than old world’s blue goats.

(plus the aesthetics are different with Snarlfangs being much better self-equipped and professional nomads than the old wolf ones who can’t even make saddles or flags since they’re just crude bandit looters compared to AoS’ Grots that descended from Chamon and actually skilled tinkerers)

3 hours ago, mawhis117 said:

Going from memory, but I think the rumour was that they were made for AOS to prevent them from being used in TOW.

Nah, they were based off the UnderWorlds one that was made way before TOW was even an idea and just got popular enough as an ally unit for Destruction factions that they saw something good to make into a full unit and fit the Era of Beast army themes.

That rumor is up there with people trying to say Deepkin “must have been a Wfb army for fish men” just because they’re trying to make a reach why they like the faction despite being a Wfb player.

AoS studios were never in communication with the TOW team so Snarlfangs were always made and intended for AoS only:

”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!”

-Runebrush 2020

[The Rumour Thread]

12 minutes ago, Gitzdee said:

I hope u are right so much. What kind of units do u think we will get for Gitmob? I hope we get:

AoS version of Grom, big grot riding a big sandworm.

Shaman riding a Scorpion

Rock lobber/ Doomdiver hydrid

Some kind of desert glider/catamaran.

Grot mob with nasty skulkers

Yes i really hope they go with a desert theme here.

 

 

Doomdiver & glider are probably taken by Grotbag Scuttlers with their Wingboyz but it would be cool to see the giant Grindworms from the Realmgate Wars show up again after how deadly they were in the Bone Sea being able to swallow a gore-gruntaz & Ironjawz rider at once(could bring back “grindworm arrows” too that the Jercho city soldiers used made from their teeth)

Would also be cool to see them use rogue spirit constructs since Gitmob inhabit both Ghur & Hysh. Ghur has some Soulbound notes that it’s land spirits can be channeled like those of the Alarith to inhabit masked constructs and Hysh has some stories were the spirits went mad from inhabiting the wrong thing like a mountain spirit possessing an old broken wall so it attacked travelers out of pain as a walking pile of rubble and flying bricks.

So Gitmob shamans could do something with that to make more sun-beast looking spirit golems.

[The Rumour Thread]

Moulder’s so iffy to me. On one hand that would fit the Ghur focus and especially whatever’s going down in Gnarlwoods building up mutative energies(which could be 4th’s link back to Ghur with new Bonesplitterz hunting these twisted wretches)

 

But dang has so much stuff been Skryre & Pestilens focused I’d lean on them instead. But who knows? Maybe getting unlocking one of the 13 plagues thanks to Kragnos’ stolen fur was their win for these editions and will be built up for something down in 5th?

[The Rumour Thread]

1 hour ago, Gutsu17 said:

Same aplies to Verminus and Masterclan, you look at them, and think, why is it even a thing?

I can see Verminus getting focus.

Some of the stronger elite martial elements are under them and they recently got badass lore when Sigmar’s tempest broke upon the Realms and the Stormcast Eternals took all chaos by surprise across the Realms their clan’s holding actions until Chaos got momentum back was the only reason the Skaven weren’t exterminated completely from the Realms(which is a nice build upon RGW saying since the start the Stormcast had slain countless billions of Skaven, so getting reaffirmation on those numbers and a reason why they survived that was nice) 

They might make make Skryre, Pestilens & Verminus the main clans for now as an easier objective to focus on(and a theme of 3 like their gnaw-holes). It was always hopium we’d get a massive refresh of everything, especially now when they’re biting off more demands than they can chew.

 

[The Rumour Thread]

23 minutes ago, The Red King said:

I know beasts could be reimagined and I'd be happy but Whitefang has only hinted at removal. Nothing else. If he wants to tell us to be hopeful than yay but right now all I've heard is beasts are going away and stormcast are getting some guys with more skulls on their armor.

I understand that but do you really want him to give away stuff that might put his job position at risk?

Just nodding at this stuff probably is risky enough without revealing future plans that let’s them zero in on where he is in the know.

[The Rumour Thread]

28 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

What are the odds of finding them?

I mean better than before. The boyz were literally rubbing away cave paintings they made. His people may have ran to Ghyran to heal & repopulate with it’s life magics that’s why Donse was nothing but broken ruins.

Could be nothing but I won’t be too surprised if Karazai & Seraphon knock him senseless and he stumbles onto more signs of guidance in a daze.

30 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Mainly because the number of armies has to be limited and the release schedule is also limited.

Thus the Beasts on the theoretical chopping block to make room. 😗

[The Rumour Thread]

Just now, ScionOfOssia said:

Maybe while Kragnos is out hunting he can also find a reason for us to care about him. 

Last Dawner book leaned harder on him trying to find his lost people which the Mouth of Mork is intentionally hiding from him, killing off Ironjawz that find out and having his goons remove the signs they left behind so there is that. 
 

Might ultimately tie-into the BoC fate if his people and realm beasts are gonna be their focus in Destruction rather than Chaos.

[The Rumour Thread]

1 hour ago, mawhis117 said:

It's one of the reasons that I'm inclinded to believe that BoC are going - the whole faction feels unfocussed.

That is hard to argue with. Hopefully if the worst is to happen they’ll do as some theorize and pull a AoS1 where they just break down the faction to it’s more unique core elements(dragon-Ogors & primordial ooze mutants) to build on as sub-factions, perhaps leaving the beast element to new Destruction factions.

@Ejecutor

On Liberators, I actually think they can stay distinct in their own box with the slightly different male & female armors, nose-bar masks, top-divot shields, hammers, swords, dual-swords, champion great weapons and maybe even dual-hammers added.

They could combine them with Knight-Questor hero packs to emphasize their duelist nature as newly reforged warrior-heroes compared to the grizzled veteran infantry-wall focused Vindictors who’ve been through reforging more than them.(think Steelheart’s champions)

Their perchance for going out on their own to do heroic battles has been focused on a lot in novels & tomes.

Also saw this being sent out in eastern stores& Australia:

I was wondering why Kragnos was promoted there until I realized it’s his hunting season for the Year of the Dragon. 😆

[The Rumour Thread]

Well I know I did everything to support it, I ordered the limited edition version on day 1. 😄 (worth it!)

But now they’re super cheap on retailers that still have any in stock. Saw Amazon ones going for $10.

Puffing serious hopium AoS4 will have better stable years than the “fun” Covid to Brexit years to release more narrative tomes like that.

[The Rumour Thread]

41 minutes ago, Garrac said:

Whether BoC get chopped or not, it was really funny to see a whole narrative arc set on the BEAST realm, and not have even a single actual beast involved.

Actually the Beast shaman character who is a disciple of Morghur from Broken Realms does show up as the main antagonist in the Thondia Tome story alongside the Bonesplitterz they allied with.

Since the whole plot point was they were gonna awaken Incarnates across the Realms to rampage and bring everything back to a primal state with civilization ruined and everyone turned into beasts* by their powers it might have been shelved along with the Spider incarnate(and possible bigger lore focuses in Gallet) due to outside problems that changed GW’s design decisions.

*definitely the most interesting bit was it was non-chaos mutations the incarnates cause, even the Stormcast later were temporarily turned into lion & dragon-men in the battle around it.

[The Rumour Thread]

Big yes to having an interactive map again like we did back in Malign Portents.

It was so cool to see info on Glymmsforge and the far off locations ranging from Hallost’s underworld containing an afterlife of assassins next to a monster graveyard from Ghur that orruks regularly frequent to hunt their spirits again to even a humble place like a famous underworld inn known for it’s bread that the Order forces going to Shyish praise in the otherwise barren haunted lands.

Doing that again would do wonders and they could use it to advertise both WH+ & Flash Points by updating the lore on the maps and having links to “Realms News Flash!” to what caused the change.

[The Rumour Thread]

Haha, typical GW. Customization options at the price of a soul. 😆

1 hour ago, Ejecutor said:

The thing for me is. Can they delay refreshes for the stuff that comes in the box? The ed is going to be packed as hell if they do so. So I don't expect that to be the approach.

Eh, they push out tons of stuff from the big starter boxes so I wouldn’t be surprised.

Having the new box be mostly elites for easier collecting & painting with refreshed infantry, hero & support add-ons later would fit the bill.

2 hours ago, DeLewko said:

Ok by gathering all the bread crumbs from Whitefang has left here is my theory:

Good theory. Could tie-in to the previous Vs Boxes Skaven shenanigans of trying to steal Sylvaneth soulpods & the submarines that started “Fury of the Deep” might be why the Fuethan are desperate in “The Long Hunt” with Skaven underwater fleets invading their enclaves for more soul research.

They could be gearing up for a large Aqshy invasion with mechs & soul cannons which would fit since Aqshy is crawling with ethereal forces like legions of blood daemons and ghosts that they would need the new weapons to defeat(that’s why the Bonesplitterz Drakkfoot clan is from Aqshy as they learned to specialize in hunting ethereal creatures there and later taught the Sons of Behemat how to stomp ghosts in their “Sole Wars”)

Also interesting from the short story is Blight City becoming more wracked by common shakes. Since the dark gods still don’t know where it is I wonder if that will be a surprise Chaos Duardin plot point of them drilling towards the city for tech and daemons to steal? Would go with “evil turns upon evil” theme that Chaos indulges in.

Lastly going through the SCE tome I wonder if the “Thunderous Ones” were early hints of Ruination champions?

 

27 minutes ago, Grungnisson said:

That's precisely the point. Togetak suggested that staying in one realm for the duration of the whole edition makes the game boring, and I'm not sure that's a valid argument, since the entirety of WHFB took place on a map much smaller and yet remained engaging.

Yeah, as said it’s just the narrative played it too safe until it got stale.

We barely got to explore much of Ghur at all and an even more interesting campaign happened over in Lendu through the Flash Point white dwarfs which a lot of people missed.

We had swamps, bug tunnels, a meat forest and now a tundra but could’ve had everything from savannah hunts on shifting lands trying to eat everything, battles among spine covered flesh fields, sieges of kingdoms in sky-oaks, defending the Crawling City upon the Amber Steppes while retaking the crystalline Tzeentch worm, seeing the inner shell catacombs of the Nautilar mega-structure or fight trench battles in the sprawling Ogor fortresses to the north, exploring the Lynx claw isles to aid the Sylvaneth & Kharadron traders against Ogor & Darkoath poachers going after the exotic feline spawn of the god-beast whose fallen claw broken on Gorkamorka’s face the continent was created from, big etc.

They only did 1/5th of the interesting things Ghur offered for a 3-year edition. We should’ve gotten more mini campaign books and Thondia tomes for Gallet, Andtor, Gnarlwoods, Lendu, Carcass Donse to really sink our teeth into the hungry realm.

Like just imagine this White Dwarf Donse campaign made into a full narrative book with rules to simulate and build on it along with lore notes of explorers finding signs of Kragnos’ people there, how the Carcass was once it’s own continent of Donse before Thondia devoured it to digest it as it does now, the southern kingdoms having to survive the Everwinter from Beastclaw raid parties that keep it frozen while the rest is arid wastes, nearby Seraphon dinos from Mekitopsar being attracted by the fighting which locals try to tame and expeditions made to the Stone Nautilar bringing back armor & artifacts of a lost race not dissimilar to the Silent People?

The Realms have so much flavor and literally infinite potential. Hopefully it was just global events that threw monkey wrenches into everything so next edition can really buckle down and do justice to what the Mortal Realms have to offer. 🍻 🌟 

[The Rumour Thread]

Yeah, 1st & a lot of heroes squeezed & reforged to Thunderstrike.

Libs obviously.

Retributors turned into one unit instead of 3 paladins as they’re lore-wise needed to train into Annihilators.(probably get the storm axes to differentiate from the meteor hammers)

Judicators I think likely because they are actual artillery units compared to Vigilor mid-range rangers and have a knight leader.(would love a variant with Blacktalon’s Typhoon Crossbows)

and Prosecutors and the other winged angels would look amazing in a refresh. Some sword & shield ones diving in would be excellent among flying lantern bearers & winged archers.

 

Extremis & Vanguard chambers I imagine are being saved for later.

And Ruination if it’s gonna be the new box force would need at least 6 units since it’s a Chamber and not Thunderstrike mixing in stuff.

So I’m guessing a centerpiece leader that’s a Lord-Relictor on spooky mount to Shepard his broken charges, 2 big commanders looking like they’re about to burst with soul fire, infantry between new elites of cold automatons & storm rage berserkers with a big unit like a golem for the lightning souls too broken for flesh.

I’m guessing similar to Skaven. New Chamber vs new Clan in the starter boxes, then refreshes for both throughout the year.