Shearl

Who?

Here's a couple (hopefully) unpopular opinions: The majority of drama online rarely translates into anything real while playing the actual game. Frankly a lot of the points of contention which provoke vigorous debates on this forum and other online platforms rarely come up when actual playing the game in person, and if it weren't for seeing them online you might never think of them. The Silent People will never be released as an army or in any other form, and they don't need to be. They were created to bulk out the plot of Beastgrave and add a degree of mystery to the setting. AoS has numerous far more deserving ideas which could be added to the game instead.

I’m more into the hobby side of AoS rather than playing, so I value the customizability of a kit pretty highly. If a unit doesn’t have options and it’s something I’ll include multiples of almost always end up sawing them apart to add some variety. I have found the new gutrippaz set to be a nice balance between multi part and monopose, as the bodies and legs are all unchangeable yet all the weapon arms, shields, and heads can fit on any of the torsos. Naturally some arms fit some torsos better based on poses, but you have a lot of options.

My friends through the divination of entrails and the study of the stars I have been given a vision of what these outlines must depict. Behold!

While I’d love for beasts to get a big release to replace a lot of their finecast, frankly I’ll be delighted if we only get a new impressive Shaggoth. While I think the quality of the sculpt it self is nice, it’s just far too small for a monster as powerful as they’re supposed to be.

I’m a bit disappointed that the Warclans and Stormcast weren’t announced this week. I painted all the orruks in Dominion and started a path to glory with my group hoping I could grow my force organically as the new stuff got released. It’s looking like I might not get to add any new exciting stuff till the end of the campaign at this rate. Not the end of the world but kinda annoying, yet again I wish they’d give a heads up when things get delayed. Well I picked up some rockgut troggs today to add as allies to pad my list.

I have a hard time imagining the hobgrots will ride gnashtoofs (gnashteeth?) as I believe it’s stated that the gnashtoof is described as being a swamp creature. If smaller gnashtoofs are coming I think they’ll be ridden by orruks, although a pack of riderless ones might be pretty cool too. Within the Kruleboyz context the hobgrots are kind of auxiliaries and middlemen between the orruks and the chaos dwarfs, so I doubt they’d have Kruleboyz specific beasts. If I had to guess they might get wolf riders as part of a chaos dwarf army release.

We’ve only seen two previews for the new battletomes and a smattering of warscrolls from Dominion. I think it’s safe to say we haven’t seen nearly enough to determine the actual quality of these armies. I realize speculation is half of the fun, but we should be careful declaring if something is good or not at this point. There’s some concerns that the Kruleboyz will be lackluster, maybe, or maybe the unseen sub-factions and buffs of the many heroes might make them very strong. Basically it still seems too early to start putting these battletomes on either a pedestal or in the bin.

I really like these drakes, they’re honestly better than I thought they’d be. If I had to guess Lumineth will get their own dragons eventually and they’ll be more in the style of the old High Elf serpent dragons. But I have to say if we’re talking about the best dragon design it’s not even close. This is the ideal dragon body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.

I feel like the Skaven sculpts have been a deterrent for a long time. I’ve always loved the skaven lore, but before the clan rats got updated the idea of painting over a hundred of the old monkey rats kept me from starting them. Even after they got refreshed (which look great) the rest of the range is pretty dated which made the idea of branching out to the other clans less appealing. Essentially I believe the quality of the models have fallen short of the lore for years, Skaven are a great concept and there’s a lot of great art yet they’re saddled with too many goofy plastics (Eshin, Rat Ogres, etc.) and old resin. A lot of folks talk about the Flesheater sculpts not reflecting their lore, I think Skaven are in the same camp.

I have a bunch of forgeworld Fimir and destruction monsters that have been relegated to legends.

I wish you the best man. Hobbies and games like this are meant to be fun and if you’re not having a fun, why stick around? Personally I’m pretty excited for 3.0 and starting the new crusade system my my gaming group, but I can totally get why you might be turned off. I’ve had moments in the past while playing video games where I realized I wasn’t enjoying key components of the game such as grinding, and it dawned on me that why should I spend my leisure time doing something I didn’t enjoy. In this hobby I try and focus on the things I enjoy and avoid what I don’t. There’s a lot of drama online which I try and avoid as it doesn’t better my experience with the hobby, and rarely actually impacts my gaming community. This is an expensive hobby that I do for fun, why seek out negativity. But If a major shift happened and I found I no longer enjoyed Warhammer, I’d leave too. I hope you continue to find enjoyment in other games and maybe we’ll see you back here again in the future.

Yeah I think only the Murknob’s banner has Kragnos’ likeness at the top. The next plaque down represents the orruks and matches the shields.

Accidental double post.

I’m not convinced the kruelboy shields are supposed to be squigs. They’re reminiscent of the old hammer face shields which weren’t based off squigs. Plus many of the shields have details like studs which directly correlate with the face/helmet of the orc carrying it. I think they’re just supposed to be brightly painted faces to scare their foes.

@KingBrodd Are you ready for the royal rumble between the new Stormcast drakes and whatever monsters the Kruelboys have in their swamp?

I'm pretty certain he means the shield in question has a face on it like the metal faces in the email banner image, the totems on Kragnos' base, and the rumor engine pic. I think if you're expecting we're getting steppe hobgoblins you're going to be disappointed. Here's another pic: (I feel like the spikes and tassel are more inline with his head than his back)

I'm pretty happy with the short glimpse of our new green friends that we received today. As a staunch follower of our seer @Whitefang I've been expecting something similar to this. Just like the rumors said we're getting greenskins between an orc and a gobbo, with crude spikey gear, and look similar to Tolkien orcs. I feel kinda bad for my fellow Fimir lovers who were convinced we'd be getting some attention, or those who convinced themselves it was skaven or beastmen.

Stop! He's already dead! I doubt we'll be getting Fimir, but reading these past couple pages has brought a tear to my cyclopean eye. In regards to their old method of reproduction, the very short FW lore blurbs mentioned them laying eggs so a rework has already begun. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion of course and not everyone likes every army's esthetic, but the notion of Fimir looking too "generic" is confusing to me. If anything they're more unique than the skeletons, zombies, dwarfs, elves, guys in armor, red horned demons, giants, and many other things that are staples of Warhammer.

You best be staying outta my marsh then long legs... But as much as my army of Forgeworld Fimir and monsters could use reinforcements, I'm believing it will be greenskins like our prophet @Whitefang has foretold. I'm guessing a new "breed" of evil means a new variety of orc, rather than a new species.

I'm really hoping Thursday has some Warcry reveals, it's been a while since anything new has come out.

Ultimately I'd say mortal wounds have a place but like others have noted I think they're a bit too common at the moment. One point I would maybe disagree with is the idea that they've become so common simply as a tactic to sell new armies. I think the cause is instead that mortal wounds are an easy (and kind of lazy) method of injecting flavor or highlighting the armies particular strength. "X army" is good at a specific thing and so when they do it they cause mortal wounds, proving that they are indeed experts in it. The problem stems from the fact most armies are good at something and thus the ability to cause mortal wounds becomes more and more common. Ideally I'd like rend to become a bigger factor or warscroll specific reactions as a method of highlighting strengths than an over reliance on mortal wounds.

Personally this thread has devolved into me looking for @Whitefang's cryptic posts and then seeing how he reacts to other comments. So far what I think I've decoded: The 3.0 box will have some greenskins, but not an entire mounted hobgoblin force The "bretonian stormcast" might be Order of Azyr humans rather than true stormcast

Nah you can't take my poor ogors' buddies away. Ogors and gnoblars go together like guts and gutplates! I'd love a Hobgrot army but I think they should have the bigger meaner gobbos and their wolves rather than poaching anything from the ogors. Plus the ogor kits come with so many gnoblars I'm not sure how you could do away with them without replacing the majority of the range. What I think gnoblars could use is a cheap junky hero, either a gnoblar chief of some kind or a discount sorcerer (ideally with a chance to blow himself up or something).

Like others have said its kind of a case by case basis. At independent game stores as long as alternative miniatures are clear in what they represent then you'll most likely be fine. And in regards to GW stores, my local shop is pretty cool with stuff like that. Alternative parts and heads are fine, and the manager even let someone use 3rd party flesh hounds and just asked they they didn't post pictures of them in use in the store. The company line is probably more strict but the managers seem to have some wiggle room, especially the one man stores. Its probably safe to say that the more "official" the store or event the more strict they'll be on the 100% GW issue.