Clan's Cynic

Yep.

Apparently the moulds they use for the limited run plastic models don't last long at all, which serves their purpose for something like an Anniversary model, but long-term they'd have to replace it so often that it wouldn't be viable and is more expensive than resin moulds (which still break pretty quick, but is cheaper all around). The price of a resin character and a plastic character have been narrowing steadily. The resin Necromunda Squat characters are actually cheaper than some of the plastic Votann HQs now, despite being about the same size. Kind of crazy that, but here we are. The main advantage resin still has is that it's still the better material for detail. Now, whether or not GW/FW actually take advantage of that (cough the new Librarian) is a different story, but the potential is there.

Probably 40k, but there's reasonable guesses for AoS and even TOW with this one I think.

I think there's just always people who get upset about resculpts regardless of game. The new Deathwing Terminators for instance, haven't escaped that despite the reaction generally being positive. Chances are they'll probably still buy them anyway, even as they grumble. It was funny seeing a lot of the people bemoaning beakies as the posterboys for Horus Heresy 2.0 still buy the box which contained 40 of them...

GW was haemorrhaging money on all fronts back in 2015. Even 40k sales were tanking. Considering End Times stuff usually sold out during pre-orders - something which rarely happened on anything back then - I think GW realised too late there was a market for stuff, they just couldn't sit back and not release anything new for years and expect people to keep buying (thus the aggressive release cycle we've had ever since). I dunno, it's difficult for me to get too cynical, when I remember similar discussions about Horus Heresy in the runup to 2.0 and assurances "none except neckbeard grogs want to play 7th edition rules. It's going to be dead within three months". All that talk quickly dried up. Similarly I remember being assured "the hype for Legions Imperialis is gone, the delayed killed it"... and then everything sold out on Day 1, and I see a lot more internet and real life excitement for TOW than I have HH 2.0 or LI (except in AoS circles for... reasons I can speculate).

I can't help but feel like if they did immediately drop brand spanking new Skeletons, the reaction would instead be, "GW DESTROYS players old collections!!! TOW is a MONEYGRAB! New Skeletons are HOW MUCH??? DEAD ON ARRIVAL?!" I recall a lot of muttering that "TOW will make you rebuy entirely new armies! Damn you GW!" initially, so it's kind of funny to see that flip to "TOW is making you buy old models??? Damn you GW!" years later. That post on WarCom about units like Peasant Archers coming in boxes of 32 does give me a tiny bit of optimism they'll be 'competitively' priced. Obviously GW is adverse to actually lowing prices, but the way they seem to get around that is by bundling more bodies in the box before setting the price. The new Mark III Tacticals being 20 for £45 surprised a lot of people, so hopefully we see something similar here (a lot of models in a box for a decent price, even if I doubt it'll be 'cheap').

Well that's the thing, they're not aiming it at people who are completely new to tabletop games. The miscommunication about "there won't be a starter set" more or less confirmed that, since GW's idea of starter sets is for total newbies to wargaming - though I believe their investor reports have said similar things about Horus Heresy.

GW probably intends to grow TOW via Lil Timmy thinking "golly gee whizz, rank-and-flank sure sounds interesting!" and going from there. Similar to how Horus Heresy is seemingly pitched for an older audience than 40k, which is increasingly 'arcadey' and tournament-focused. They share a setting, but they're pretty different games. Also this. It's probably not a coincidence they announced TOW the same time as Kings of War Third Edition and started showing off "Tomb Kings are coming back!" articles when KoW was putting out it's Not!Nehekharans. I know quite a few people who were eyeing or building up KoW and other rank-and-flank armies who promptly abandoned them completely and were perfectly happy just waiting years for TOW to drop. The Games Workshop name, rightly or wrongly, carries a lot of weight to a lot of people.

"Elves were really cool in Lord of the Rings" I think was the crux of it.

Warriors of Chaos and High Elves were always the most popular in my experience, with everything else being a relatively good mix depending on the local scene.

Not releasing a new Bretonnian model for twelve years (by 2015) almost certainly did their sales no favours. I think End Times taught GW a very important lesson in how important it is to have new product for people to buy into and continue to expand an army, something the plastification of SoB likely further reinforced. That aside, Tomb Kings and Bretonnians being the initial posterboys is probably a knowing nod to those being the two armies that were outright squatted by AoS.

Depending on the price of the boxes, I do wonder if they'll be shooting themselves in the foot if only Bretonnians and Tomb Kings are getting these boxes initially. I imagine a lot of people who are more interested in Empire, Orcs & Goblins, Dwarfs, etc will simply choose to hold off on building an army straight away if they expect a big discount bundle - with a rulebook and everything - will be releasing in the future, especially with the rumours of Empire vs Orcs in Summer. Unless of course they drop all of them immediately (or at least reveal them), in which case my concern would be unfounded.

To be fair I wouldn't call it 'nostalgia' when people have been asking GW to bring back Fantasy for seven years. My take is they realised there is a market for rank-and-flank games they left the door open for other companies to fill (Kings of War, Conquest, etc) and recognised it was a blindspot they should be filling themselves, since GW know most people are always going to stick with their offerings unless there's literally no option there. In terms of the lack of models, I imagine if TOW is a decent success they'll eventually start putting out updated sculpts. Horus Heresy got new Mark III only a year after second edition dropped, despite being a relatively modern sculpt (younger than AoS even).

And the other side.

Well this has started doing the rounds.

Nah fam Gorkamorka got rizz we bussin on Sigma no cap fr fr Chaos hella suss.

Is that an arm/hand?

Grail Knights rules preview for The Old World.

Grail Knights in The Old World preview.

Skitter Stab-Stab for Blood Bowl is today's new model reveal. I'm sure he could be used in AoS without much (if any) trimming/converting.

Bretonnians vs Tomb Kings guarantees it's the obligatory tie-in novel to the new boxset then. Somehow I doubt it will be of high quality in that case, since them being decent is usually the exception (Soul Wars, Dominion) to the rule (all the others, including Cthonia's Reckoning).

Well, at least it's not a Space Marine. I guess. He just looks like any other Ork Warboss though. Alternative sculpts are nice, but would've preferred something AoS (or even Fantasy) after last year.

Too many Marines.

Underworlds Cities maybe?

Miniature of the Year 2023 Voting has started. Obviously Angron or Lion El' Johnson will win just because of 40k's number dominance, but there's been so many excellent AoS models this year, especially in terms of centrepieces, I think the vote is going to be extremely split when it comes to the Mortal Realms' offerings. In the end I went for the Harbinger of Decay.