Clan's Cynic

Rumours are the Champions format of Underworlds (AKA the deck building) is getting taken out back next season and will just be Rivals. If one huffs a bit of hopeium, it might be they end up re-released with cards redesigned for Rival decks for the new season.

There was a time, not too long ago, when it was easy to justify picking up any Underworlds warband that took your whim. Sure I don't need the cards and models, but I would really like to practise painting yellow. The Ironjawz warband it is! After all, they're only £15... But looking at The Exiled Dead, it's £26 for 6 basic zombies and the vaguely necromancer-Vampire. A few more quid and I can pick up a whole AoS unit... or hell, £9 more for 20 Zombies. It was only a couple of years ago that buying the Kharadron warband for the Aether-Khemist was actually cheaper than buying the standalone AoS model. It's no wonder that Underworlds has rapidly started drying up around me with the new price hikes, when it was with Beastgrave that the game was really picking up momentum as the fast-and-cheap option for people who wanted something a bit more competitive without splashing out for a whole army. It was also cheap enough that people were less wary of spending money on a non-40k/AoS game that might go into cardiac arrest at any moment the way most people are with other games. Just a rant.

I'm surprised to see the Beastgrave Warbands go. The Wurmspat Sorceress is a better model than the new plastic.

New Rumour Engine. Guessing it'll be for the Underworlds Witch Hunter warband?

Skaven look great. Shadowstalkers look identical to the existing ones and we already had a DoK warband at the end of Beastgrave, so it's pretty soon. Seems like a wasted opportunity to put out difficult sculpts for others who actually could've used the diversity.

Engagement metrics probably. High numbers of 'clicks' looks good on a chart when you're justifying your existence in meetings. They want to gather as many people in one place furiously F5'ing Warhammer-Community rather than hearing the news second hand as a surprise, or missing it entirely.

Pretty sure we haven't seen the Yeti before?

I'm pretty sure Vince is an influencer and one of the painters who gets stuff in advance, but I doubt he or Tom would compromise that if they actually knew something.

We did it Reddit.

Squat League Familiars.

New Rumour Engine. Resembles this one from before.

Another Norscan for Blood Bowl. Great paint job.

Squats had Psykers in the fluff. My guess is they'll have a closer ranged, slightly more elite feel than Tau.

Might've committed suicide. Between the Tyranids having largely wiped the Squats out in the previous lore and how fitting a starship would be for Kill-Team (Zone Mortalis?) terrain, I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption they'd be the two teams in the new box.

Remember that the Big Leak from last year said Squats were coming and has been proven 100% correct on everything else. The sources who fed Valrak, who's apparently been accurate thus far, also said they were arriving at some point. Releasing it on April 1st shifts the narrative from "When are Squats coming?" and into "Haha s-surely April 1st means they're not REALLY coming... right?" Which both creates discussion/Community clicks/consumer engagement etc whilst pouring a bit of water onto the raging fire of leaks. Also consider how high quality the trailer is. It looks like more of the animation budget went into it than every episode of Hammer and Bolter combined. Are they really going to throwaway that much money for a joke?

Ironically the non-Marine parts of 30k have some of the best sculpts GW/FW have ever done.

Arena of Shades up for pre-order next week. Also White Dwarf 471 on W+.

SELLING FAST!

I'm definitely let down by the Exiled Dead. You could print/greenstuff/buy some tesla boils, green stuff them to the SBGL Zombies and none would notice any difference. To say that they've not been afraid to be a bit more 'out there' with unique Underworlds designs I was surprised at how lacking they are and I say this as someone who generally dislikes 'overdesigned' models. My prediction we'd see a splatbook was correct then. Pity. The Tibia Mariner for Nighthaunt was a pleasant surprise. Be interesting to see if he'll be on the cover of the Battletome, therefore vindicating the theory a potential new model spoiler is why they used recycled art... even though Fyreslayers similarly were recycled.

Wasn't expecting an Elden Ring crossover but here we are.

Ulgu Elves, Frankenstein Zombie, Ash Wastes something, Chaos Knight, ???

I think it's just the Imperial Knight aegis, since we know there's a good chance of the new Chaos Knight stuff being unveiled there as well.