RuneBrush

AoS is still in a great place in truth and we're still seeing a lot of good stuff coming out from GW at the moment. What we are seeing is that the popularity of 3rd edition isn't as high as 2nd edition, due to a variety of reasons. Combine this with a market stuffed with loads of great games, and you're seeing groups parking AoS and trying other things out. I know my local group is playing a lot more in way of skirmish games, because it means we get more games in and a bit more social time. It's not that AoS isn't popular - we've all got AoS armies and some are still painting armies up, just we're putting our limited gaming time into different systems if that makes sense?

Squares is one of the few set in stone facts we know of. I'm not sure how much Chaos we're going to see initially, but I think a number of current AoS model are too large to be ported straight over to The Old World. I'm not so sure - we've multiple boxes of space marines in slightly different armour marks, so anything is possible.

Zombie dragon wings would likely also be about the right size

Completely agree with this. I think the play modes need to be updated to reflect how people actually play rather than three arbitrary ideas. For most people the default way of playing is a matched play structured army, but with a casual approach.

I think it's really interesting to see how command abilities have evolved over the few years we've had AoS. Originally if your general had a command ability on their warscroll they could use it. That was it, very simple, very limited but added a surprising amount of flavour to a game depending on the general you used. As time rolled on we've seen various changes - command points, generic command abilities, heroic actions, reactions and some armies are able to "play" with the core mechanic, gaining more command points and preventing some abilities from being used. The issue is that the current usage of command abilities is that it's being used to "solve" a multitude of problems, but they're spread across multiple phases, books and rules. If I had a magic wand, I'd like a bit of an overhaul. You can use X warscroll command abilities each turn (based on game size 1000 = 1; 1500 = 2 etc). You then pick X + D3 command cards from a deck at the beginning of the command phase - those cards include generic options like inspiring presence, all out attack etc, plus some specific for each army. A unit can only benefit from one card per round and each card has the use conditions on it (e.g. only usable by a Khorne Hero). The biggest issue is that there are so many different units and abilities that grant / steal command points, you'd almost need a system reset to make it work.

Sorry, just realised I've completely contradicted you in my comment above 😂 I could see them looking at pre-Empire as a time period as it's an interesting one that people are curious about and as such would be popular. I can't see it being as encompassing as they're talking about currently and be more like Viglius or Malign Portents in release scale.

Very possibly, the early founding of what became the Empire had Sigmar as a mortal and sort of culminated in the first Battle of Black Fire Pass. Lots of human, Dwarf and Orc action going on there! That said, that is set in a much earlier time period than the Age of the Three Emperors, so would likely be a standalone "book"

Just caught up with this thread. One thing I'm going to point out is that way back The Old World was being talked about as a historical version of Warhammer. With each release/edition focusing on a specific time frame and including the main protagonists for that period. If this is still the case then it immediately limits the miniatures that need to be sculpted/re-released. I foresee that we're going to get a Core Rule Book which contains all of the rules. We'll then have a compendium style book that includes profiles for the vast majority of old world armies allowing you to play games with models you have tucked away in cupboards. We'll then get the "black book" for a specific time frame and a miniatures release that corresponds to that (it may or may not have a copy of the core rules in) - probably in a big old box set. It was talked about this would be set in the Age of Three Emperors, so I imagine we'll get a Magnus the Pious model and Gorband for example as they form part of the main story arc. I cannot imagine we're going to get a huge amount for lesser actors (e.g. Lizardmen), although I think ranges that no longer physically exist will get some support (e.g. Tomb Kings). I could well be wrong and know that there have been a number of new sculpting jobs advertised over the past few years, so who knows! What I will say is that I think we're safer expecting less releases rather than more and being disappointed. I am confident that we'll get enough to allow people to use their old armies in some manner though.

I've seen a similar reduction in my local group with the odd exception. The pandemic killed off all of the random games that we'd normally play across all systems and now we've started to come back to a bit of gaming, we're choosing to mostly play skirmish sized games such as Necromunda and Aeronautica. The thought of playing a 3 hour game just doesn't appeal to most of us at the present time, when we also want to catch up from a social aspect too. I would agree that the release schedule is brutal from GW and I'd love to see it being spread out a bit more. 5 years between editions of the game rather than 3 and put a bit more into each army revision rather that one model and a new book. However I cannot see that changing. What I am hoping is that when 4th edition appears we see a lot of the chaff being removed and a general streamlining of the rules. The joy of 1st edition and to a certain extent 2nd edition was that it wasn't a difficult game to learn, the core rules were short, concise and although some bits were open to interpretation, generally you could have an enjoyable and pretty quick game. What has recently inspired a few of us is doing smaller path to glory style forces. Although it's super impressive to play a massive game with huge monsters, there's something appealing about a lightweight army that doesn't have those powerhouses in. I see this more as a supply issue rather than anything else. I've long been of the opinion that once the initial stock of a new release is sold out, that product needs to go into a made to order phase for the rest of the pre-order period. You shouldn't lose out on a product because you weren't quick enough in the queue.

Just seen this on Facebook and confirms @JerekKruger's email 🙂

My own interpretation is that they've misread the ranges they're putting into the magazine. Stormcast aren't as popular as a faction as Space Marines within 40k and Kruleboyz are what I'd call "marmitey" combined with a fairly limited range of models available. If we're honest, AoS3 didn't go down as well as previous editions either and I've certainly seen (and experienced) less enthusiasm for AoS since 3rd edition launched (which makes me slightly sad). With the 3 year release schedule it also means that by the time Stormbringer finishes, the new edition will likely have just landed, which could well invalidate most of the how to play section. Stormbringer would be a great introduction for a new player who wants to get into AoS and wants to collect Stormcast or Kruleboyz. For people already in the hobby it's of significantly less value. Most people have enough Stormcast to comfortably build multiple 2000 point armies, including Dominion which people were picking up exceptionally cheaply for some time. Let's be honest, anyone who did Mortal Realms likely still has a mountain of Stormcast and Nighthaunt to assemble. A Heresy collectable magazine would on the other hand be exceptionally popular. It already has plenty of background to fill the magazine out and one range of miniatures will cover any of the 18 legions. I think the only restriction would be special characters as we only have a handful in plastic. Personally if they were to do another AoS magazine, I'd love to have a more ecliptic mix of models and focus the magazine more on a path to glory campaign and building multiple 750~1000 point forces. However I may well be on my own with that 😉

+++ MOD HAT +++ Could we move discussions about tournaments into another thread and keep this loosely rumour/release based please

The rules of the ability always supersede the core rules. My interpretation is the caster would take them all if that's how the ability is worded. However without seeing the actual wording of both the ability and how the champion can cast, it's not an easy one to call. Would certainly suggest an FAQ email into GW!

Btw, don't bother emailing Hatchette at the moment, their inbox has been full since Friday 🤦‍♂️

It does feel suspiciously like a second trial, which suggests the first one wasn't as successful as they'd hoped.

I always found WHSmiths locally had copies of the other subscriptions (Mortal Realms, Imperium etc), however it does seem to be really sporadic and I think after a while a lot of places just stop stocking it. Not sure if it's still the case, but previously Forbidden Planet sold the magazine 50p cheaper than you could pick it up - but you had to order it manually.

Think I'm going to pass on this one. Although it's amazing value I'm also conscious that I've the contents of the last two subscriptions still to paint 😂 I may try and dip in and grab the odd issue here and there - I've not any of the newer style Stormcast so could be tempted purely to paint up

The group of people I game with most often have all deviated towards more skirmish games in truth, so Necromunda, Aeronautica, Titanicus. They need less models, have more stable goal posts and because they're shorter length games you can get more games into the same timespan. Still plenty of releases to spend money on if wanted of course! I think we're going to get something completely new rather than a tweaked version. Could well be wrong on that front of course, but I think the rules devs working on TOW are very aware of all of the problems that the last few versions had.

I think we've always had that in one form or another. My own feeling is the difference is that AoS has become a less casual and more competitive focused game in the past few years with quite a significant creep in battletomes, so not "keeping up" can sometimes result in one-sided games even in a friendly environment.

A few GW staff have admitted that if they were able to go back in time and change how they introduced AoS they'd do a number of things differently. Without getting too far down the rabbit hole (as it's not healthy and now firmly in the past), WHFB wasn't making GW any real money and the entry cost was horrifically high, so "something" had to change. Where The Old World has grown from is a realisation that there is a wealth of lore and love for Warhammer as a setting. That's been proven by Total War and Black Library amongst others. The key thing as hobbyists to bear in mind is that The Old World will not be a regurgitated version of WHFB. The intention is something akin to the Horus Heresy in terms of setting and narrative flavour (or at least that was the intention the last we heard).

I'd be tempted to send them an email, would be a great thing to add to the range!

Without the pandemic I think they announced it around the right time. There was always a caveat that it was a long project, but covid effectively stuck 2 years on it and meant we've lost the momentum and enthusiasm. What I do think has been a mistake is going completely radio silent and not communicating a renewed timeframe - which they must have worked out by now. But lack of communication is something we're seeing fairly commonly if I'm being critical. I think it's far too early to make a call on this with the sparse amount of information we've been given so far. The Specialist Design Studio have got a reputation for creating pretty solid rulesets without a horrific amount of creep, so we may actually find the new ruleset to be really solid. GW lost a large number of customers when they moved away from a rank and file based game and it's those that the bean counters will want to get back. Again, I think it's too early to talk about prices. Personally I think the prices and box composition that we've seen coming out for the latest Age of Darkness release have been pretty decent on their price point. If we see similar for TOW then GW could be onto a winner on that front. Who knows thought! Certainly I expect an army to cost less then they did towards the end of WHFB 😂

There's not been anything recently. Normally people get odd snippets of information from Open Days and similar, but we've not had (m)any of those this year for people to quiz the developers. I did hear that the pandemic had caused TOW to be pushed back by a chunk though. My gut feeling is that we're looking 2024 for release.

I'm guessing you mean jigsaw puzzle rather than a puzzle book 😊 I've personally not seen any yet and a very quick glance at https://merch.warhammer.com/ doesn't bring anything up sadly

Have you read Soulslayer yet? Trying to not give away spoilers, but I'm not quite sure she'll get a model following the events of that book.