[The Rumour Thread]

Ngl, I saw the notification he reacted and was bracing hard for a confused react. 😅

Thanks for keeping my stomach settled and not in knots after dinner, Whitefang. 👌 

So either weird beasties very likely for Destruction or the angel thing or something i obtusely didn’t even notice I said in all that. 😄

I’ll be happy either way. 🍻 

[The Rumour Thread]

Skimming over topics since last I was here.

On Paladins staying gone, sad but makes sense. Between Annihilators and now the new huge Ruinators their place as the super armored units has been filled twice.(and I kinda wondered if that was why Libs took the Protectors nose bar so someone kept the design the Hallowed Knights use on their emblem)

I’ll be interested in the lore explanation they might give. Since the last tome said Retributors become Annihilators maybe they’re pulled back as training gear in the Gladiatorium instead of being an active battlefield & death training via reforgings.

Only thing I really wonder on now is if we’re getting two Prosecutor variants. Ones in the trailer have blink-and-you’ll miss it Ionus skulls on their shields.

So I wonder if we’ll see that they’re spear &shield Ruination angels with ghost fire wings while the Warrior Chamber gets a refresh with dual hammer light wing angels again?(or something new like swords & lanterns).

And on weird things, that can literally be anything and especially based on fan interpretation like how weird they saw Kragnos or Lumineth in general.

8 minutes ago, GloomkingWortwazi said:

confirmed to him in response to his previous video musings about Kragnos, that Kragnos was definitively not designed for BoC and was a design request for a "centaur-like destruction god" as we have been told before. It also mentioned that the information included 'receipts' to him to verify it.

Now, in the spirit of the rumor thread (and rumors in general) - obviously this doesn't make it objectively true... and we've heard this before, the tinfoil take was always that it was a model pivot - so if we give that information high confidence also, it reinvigorates me hope that this means it's a setup for a destruction 'beast-people' army on the tabletop and not just a very weird direction given to the design team.

Yeah. I was always in that camp too because early in AoS they leaned toward animal people in Destruction.

Fimir were made Destruction.

Silver Tower Ogroid started with the lore Ogroids worked & worshipped under Gorkamorka before they went to Chaos for more power.

And literally anything that wasn’t Beasts of Chaos goats was a natural creature of the Realms no matter how surreal or twisted it was.

And no matter how hard people bleated about Kragnos I always saw him as too clean for chaos, not having any centigor claw hooves or any mutated scales on his body.

So I fully agree it’s just GW’s future plans to eventually make beast people a Destruction thing because there’s more neutrality & narrative room there than the corrupting children of chaos can offer who taint everything they touch.

Like just look at how hyped Total War fans are for Tigermen that are neutral anthro creatures?

Apply that to an AoS army of beastkin, centaurs and possible insectoids & eagle people that can work alongside any city or faction they want and you got an easy winner.

[The Rumour Thread]

Hopefully with the Kragnos hunting horn guy from the warband.

I’d love them to really lean into Monster Hunterz now between the Bonesplitterz niche needing to be filled and as they’re no longer on a cosmic villain spree it’ll give them a new direction to do as they chill a little(and echo back to when Gorkamorka was Sigmar Pantheon’s main monster killer)

[The Rumour Thread]

Yeah, a lot of Stormcast designs rocked variants of a nose ridge. Neo-Libs are just pushing it hard as the Protectors did.

 

 

[The Rumour Thread]

17 minutes ago, Dragon-knight77 said:

presumedly nu-prosecutors (the image seem to be them having the same exact helmet as the nu-liberator)

Eh, the top of the helm seems a lot thicker so it’s just smoothing out the mask-under-ridge nose-helm look they always had.

[The Rumour Thread]

Stalkers a good term. It definitely looked more like a predator that waited for an opportunity to pounce compared to some of the burlier gryph-chargers that charged in with their horns at first notice.

45 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Why another new role? Didn't they learn from what happened to the Sacrosanct? 😭

Of course not. Bloat, smooth out, bloat back up. That stirs the currents that makes the money flow. 💸

(That’s why I know Sacrosanct will be back with a new coat of paint in an edition or 2)

3 minutes ago, Dragon-knight77 said:

Admittedly i don't remember if the underworld or warcry team came first

Warcry in Catacombs first and later in UnderWorlds with NetherMaze.

Still a good shout though. 

[The Rumour Thread]

I imagine the other stuff that fell to the side was due to being designed back in 2017-2019 and then when they were ready to go the changes in design philosophies by 2019(TOW) had them released anyway but knew in the closing future they were gonna be put on a separate path for factions ear-marked to be back ported.

(Like Kurnothi may have been their answer for AoS unique Asrai but now they’re gonna double down on plant people because another system answers that design niche)

 

 

[The Rumour Thread]

2 minutes ago, Luperci said:

this is exactly what people said about combi weapons in 40k being merged in the indexes, "surely they won't keep an anti armour and an anti infantry weapon on the same clunky profile that doesn't really do anything" and sure enough they did

Yeah, no way they showed off beta scrolls for a grand reveal.

Those are the standard going forward.

3 minutes ago, Luperci said:

in the aos 4th trailer

All the Death emblems annd crow features are so interesting. Makes me think Ruination is ultimately an expansion of the Relictors and Temple of Ages.

Necromancer-paladins replacing mage-paladins, for a time at least.

[The Rumour Thread]

2 minutes ago, Ookami said:

Guys, I’ve missed the point a bit, but… Do they really made pair weapons/shield options equal? This doesn’t make sense besides visual aesthetic. I can understand that spear and sword for example equal now, but shield or another weapon instead - this is pretty awkward. Too bad they didn’t think over this point. 

I’m guessing they want units to fulfill different unit purposes.

like Libs are tough units that can take & hold objectives while Vindictors and other spear units will get different abilities(and this is a guess) like “Brace(Rend)” that increases Rend against charge attacks and a special ability to get better hits against Cav & Monster keywords so those units have a role to block opponents and chase down beasties.

We’ll have to see the whole picture but I’m excited to see how they expand from here and streamline AoS for a refresh to new players.

 

Also now that Lib weapons are cosmetic only we can unleash the true Chad weapon choice.

Dual Shields! 🛡️🛡️⚡️

[The Rumour Thread]

3 minutes ago, Mcm6495 said:

Apart from this, you think that we will get other miniatures

Oh definitely. Just look at AoS3, a lot of other cool stuff didn’t launch until after the Starter set and Draconith waited until December.

So I’m sure the box is only the beginning for both armies getting a bunch of releases afterwards to refill the Stormcast Eternal Ranks and bolster the Skaven hordes.

[The Rumour Thread]

1 hour ago, Chikout said:

The new system sounds potentially interesting. I hope the incentives they mention encourage players to continue to use regular units. My worry about the sub factions is the loss of lore. I don’t want to lose 4 pages of lore from every battletome. I hope they keep them in even if they don’t have a place in the rules. 

This is my only wrinkle with the news.

Love the Freeform nature of the list-building so you can take/spam what you want as fits the over-the-top nature of AoS & the Mortal Realms with heroes the big focus befitting the mythological nature of the setting.

However sub-factions we’re big for the flavor.

I guess I can have a fool’s hope that it means they’ll return to AoS1 Battletomes where we got a boatload of diverse lore-only sub-factions we could theme our forces to for fun. That’d mean the lost battlefield flavor gives us a denser lore book which I could live with. 😅

Just give us tons of fun lore to play around with and theme our own armies to then(at least the days of “what? He’s locked to this sub-faction!” are over)

Manifestation lore sounds cool. I wonder if that’ll be for summoning numerous things like Endless Spells, Incarnates and Terrain to shape the realmscape battlefield.🤔 

[Poll: SCE in every starterbox set?]

Yes. They’re excellent starter forces that are elite & huge smooth armored Goliaths so very easy to paint and collect for beginners.

And we only have to look at Lumineth, Gloomspite, DoK or Soulblight to know it doesn’t matter if you’re a starter faction if you get lots of love in an edition, if anything the Starter forces get a bum deal after the first half-year is over and they go on the backburner.

Plus now that we got Hallowed Knights we can properly see Stormhosts themed down the editions like Anvils of Heldenhammee vs Death, Astral Templars vs Destruction, Celestial Vindicators vs Chaos, etc to mix things up.

[The Rumour Thread]

6 minutes ago, king.del said:

My theory is that the "Knight-Ruination" will be equipped with something like (or with) a Redemption cache (like Sequitor Primes) and act like a "clean-up" hero for when the Ruination chamber die.

That’ll probably be a revamped Lord-Relictor(as it’s the Relictors job to safeguard Stormcast souls) to replace the original one(based off Ionus) that in the box acts as Ionus’ adjutant in bringing those broken souls to the Black Tower for a mysterious purpose(probably bound lightning gheists)

My gut feeling is he’ll take up those 2 guesses knight slots so he’ll be the last big reveal as a powerhouse necromancer-Paladin priest to go with the Death themes of the Ruination.

[The Rumour Thread]

Haha, best gif for these. I remember when they first released and people called their lore like Machine Men and now they even have closer frames. 😂 

 

 

[The Rumour Thread]

7 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Kislev and Cathay were originally said to be coming to the game but then weren't but now maybe are again??

It did feel a lot like the “Tomb Kings are classified as Evil race” to “Oh we just meant Core Race, haha!” and that ended up happening anyway.

They were too blunt, had to back pedal with positivity but things still happened as they said(in this case the “not in the foreseeable future” likely meaning 2027 & 2028 releases)

[The Rumour Thread]

38 minutes ago, The Lost Sigmarite said:

I think you’re onto something here. That something is about City dwarfs being closer to ironweld than anything else…

I think Cities is going to change its subfactions. It’s no longer gonna be humans, dispossessed, darkling covens - we have to start thinking in terms of freeguild, ironweld, wilder corps as the new fubfactions. 

And don’t forget the electrifying personalities of the Devoted of Sigmar/Order of Azyr!

 

We need that angle for both higher up Azyrite authorities watching over the native settlers and the links to those who push themselves to try and be chosen for Stormcast Eternals.

 

[The Rumour Thread]

18 minutes ago, Chikout said:

Any way they phrase it the news is awful but if they'd shared the news in March it would have given people time to rebase their army, choose a different army or go and play Conquest so by the time the new edition launches there isn't a shadow hanging over it.

Probably the reason right there. They’re waiting until the 1st quarter financials are officially over before they break the news on whatever the change-up to BoC is so not to hurt sales by even 1%.

[The Rumour Thread]

23 minutes ago, Dragon-knight77 said:

Confusion well something not right

Probably devil in the details like not all the BoC are going extinct(such as dragon-Ogors), dwarves don’t count as safe if Dispossessed are gone, Bonesplitterz have their own monkey’s paw, etc.

That’s why it’s best to just wait for the indexes than start getting in a panic over what we can only speculate on.

[The Rumour Thread]

4 minutes ago, Gaball Slaaneshi said:

So, can we imagine htat GW could release them in one year ? It's a year without big releases so they could do it.

Remember it’s a small team doing that stuff under the specialist studio. They don’t have anywhere near the resources like the main studios.

You’re looking at something like full Kislev in a year but it’ll take up any other TOW release for that year.

[The Rumour Thread]

Yeah, they can barely get a handful of old factions out in half a year and even then only provide a few new sculpts for them. Nevermind full new factions of fresh models, that’s gonna be a good number of years away like right on the heels of AoS5.

They needed that article to set expectations but leave it to fandoms to blow everything out of proportion.

55 minutes ago, Dragon-knight77 said:

 

A big Aqshy wyrm would be sweet centerpiece 

While Stormcast have dragons those are more Azyr dragons even the Dracolith doesn't really showcase the traditionalist red fire breathing dragon. 

There also play with Volcanic glass and make a Magmadroth variant of  crystal lizards

For me I think that 4-winged lava wyvern would be ace and look totally different than any other faction’s drakes.

Soulbound also has lava spiders that can be tamed which would be a very unique flavor for Fyreslayers to have at least one arachnid element for their fiery cave systems.

Other things I’d like to see is based on Elden Ring ideas with a ancestor face warmachine(weaponized battle forge on wheels) to even a possible chariot and that whole “Grimnir & Vulcatrix will be reborn combined together” the Lofnir believe which can lead to those magma drake warriors.

 

[The Rumour Thread]

Well since we’re back on this topic for the 50th time I’ll weigh in that I say just double down on the Fyremancer & magmabeast-master aesthetics with lava Spartans in kilts the base design.

Above all else the Order factions symbolize each of the elements of the Mortal Realms opposing Chaos and Fyreslayers are the Realm of Fire made manifest. 🌋 

And indeed, as someone once pointed out there’s actually no reason for the Realms to naturally have volcanoes as they have no magmic core & tectonic crusts shifting from that.

The volcanoes of Aqshy, Ghur & Hysh to the ghost Fire mountains of Shyish, the molten mercury mountains of Chamon to the Sap volcanoes of Ghyran are all due to the Fyreslayers origins as their gods Grimnir & Vulcatrix battled, exploded and their sparks scattered across the realms causing volcanoes to grow where they touched.

This is why every volcano is a shrine & home to the Fyreslayers as it’s literally grown from their father.

Thus making them the prime fire faction should be, in my eyes, GW’s #1 priority. 🔥 

(and later chaos duardin as the evil corrupt version of that same as Hedonites are a dark mirror of Lumineth with many similar units)

[The Rumour Thread]

9 minutes ago, Nezzhil said:

All these is impossible without removing other stuff

Well before Adepticon anyone saying which faction was gonna get new faction terrain would’ve been “impossible” with the GW production issues cited as a reason so while I agree we probably are due “out with the old, in with the new” for the older stuff I still refer back to my earlier comment only GW really knows.

[The Rumour Thread]

5 minutes ago, Nezzhil said:

We are gonna have new factions every edition and that implies remové old stuff or unify to have space

I mean we’re looking at possibly 3 removed armies(hopefully not fully) of BoC, Bonesplitterz, Dispossessed and possibly CoS Darklings too. So the unify isn’t exactly necessary here.

Also tone it down on the “reality” stuff. You did this same song & dance back in 2021 about duardin in AoS3 and even had Whitefang behind you and it turned out to be hot air.

End of the day only GW know what they’ll do next so let’s just enjoy some cool art and factions working together as they do in the lore without going overboard, eh?

[The Rumour Thread]

8 hours ago, Dragon-knight77 said:

Ok here me out.....what if both Crudades fail; Embergard  by the darkoathand Verdigril from Abraxia

But the actual city that raised is actually Hel crown from a random diffrent crusade?

The ultimate subversion

One guy’s theory is it might be what Khul goes after next since that area is in front of a gateway to Khorne’s domain.

a “hell crown” for the top of his pyramid as he ascends to daemon princehood.(probably will do something heavy metal like melt all the skulls down into a giant brass skull for the topper)

 

[The Rumour Thread]

1 hour ago, Snarff said:

It's not an actual rumour afaik, this cover is just why it's come up again. Any Grombrindal rumour is paired with Duardin soup at this point, since you apparently cannot have inter-faction cooperation in lore without immediately putting them in one book and merging their armies.

Remember the good old days when we could see something nice like a Kharadron giving a Fyreslayer a model sky-vessel for Christmas and people just went “aww” instead of “Soup! Soup! It’s a hint!!”?

I miss back when.

 

Not sure what happened but ever since AoS3 people have been so soup crazy for every faction(remember when it reached a head with a “Big Dads & Little Lads” tweet for SoB + Ogors people said was gonna happen?) even though GW have been doing the opposite(partly so they can sell more tomes & box sets)

And now with AoS4 having a chance to offload a bunch of factions back to TOW it seems even less likely than before.

 

But yeah, I think the cover is just in the spirit of AoS duardin and Grombrindal trying to lead those that will listen to him. So if not a model probably just special RoR coalition rules that won’t affect what actually happens in AoS4(he’s had no where near the time to unite races across multiple planes of reality)

It does seem a sour note that Dispossessed are left out entirely. Hopefully they’ll get an Ironweld refresh to be closer to CoS aesthetics, would suck otherwise for players to be told the armies they just made are only good on squares(with double the numbers) and nothing else.

At least we’ll know I a few months thanks to how Indexes work so it won’t be 2 whole years of doom-posting and debates about resources(which surprise surprise the “no more terrain” ones went right down the drain)