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 Mr_Rose wrote:
So does anyone else think they’re going to do a second round of Arcane Journals after they have one each for the nine main factions?
Or would they by that point be ready to introduce new army lists with a third compilation book to go with ravening hordes amend forces of fantasy?

Because at roughly 1 per quarter, it’ll be January ’26 by the time everyone has one AJ each.

If the rumours are true and Cathy and Kislev are on the table, we are going the see Army Books return after the 9 Journals are done, maybe with an updated rule book

Selfcontrol wrote:


When GW killed WFB, WFB accounted for less than 10% of their total sales while 40K (and more specifically, Space Marines of all kind) were accounting for the majority of their sales.

and I have never seen a source for that but if this would be the reason, GW would have killed AoS as well instead of trying to fix it.

So why GW decided to fix AoS to make it sell but for WHFB decided to kill it instead of making it sell
And no, past mid 7th they did not even try any more, despite the game being more popular than 40k in Europe (not just France)

One thing that there was is that 40k was more popular in the US since the beginning, and GW started focusing on the US market, so a 40k like fantasy game was their choice
Just that what GW thought people like and why people played 40k was something very different

 kodos wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
So does anyone else think they’re going to do a second round of Arcane Journals after they have one each for the nine main factions?
Or would they by that point be ready to introduce new army lists with a third compilation book to go with ravening hordes amend forces of fantasy?

Because at roughly 1 per quarter, it’ll be January ’26 by the time everyone has one AJ each.

If the rumours are true and Cathy and Kislev are on the table, we are going the see Army Books return after the 9 Journals are done, maybe with an updated rule book

I agree. We've seen GW use compendium rules releases before, Index in 40K and the like with big edition shake ups; heck they also did it for the first wave of AoS, though that was a little different because it was the super casual joke rule system more than the serious normal wargame rules that they make. And we also saw it in Necromunda,


GW has a tried and tested system of doing big compendium releases with either no split (Necro) or major faction splits (Grand Alliances, Good and Evil etc). It's a great method for starting a game and keeping both GW's investment down and player investment down plus they encourage players to dip into more than one faction at the start. Then when the next edition rolls out GW launches with their regular House/Battletome/Codex release pattern. Normally to positive reception because the rules go a little deeper; the units get broadened out and the faction gains a good chunk of lore, story, artwork and photography along the way

 kodos wrote:
and I have never seen a source for that but if this would be the reason, GW would have killed AoS as well instead of trying to fix it.

So why GW decided to fix AoS to make it sell but for WHFB decided to kill it instead of making it sell
And no, past mid 7th they did not even try any more, despite the game being more popular than 40k in Europe (not just France)

One thing that there was is that 40k was more popular in the US since the beginning, and GW started focusing on the US market, so a 40k like fantasy game was their choice
Just that what GW thought people like and why people played 40k was something very different

It's likely GW saw the rank and file nature of WFB as its biggest flaw as a product, hence AoS becoming a skirmish game.

As to why they batted for AoS, but not for WFB? They already burned down one bridge and likely weren't willing to burn another, especially a brand new one. The AoS salvage effort also coincided with the change in leadership in the company, as far as I can recall.

Seems we get our first glimpse at the new Skaven next week.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/07/sunday-preview-green-or-gold/

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Seems we get our first glimpse at the new Skaven next week.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/07/sunday-preview-green-or-gold/

Cannot wait to see updated clanrats.

Cultist here who remembers when GW killed WFB and went to AOS. AoS replaced WFB so it wasn’t that one was supported and the other wasn’t. WFB was too complicated, battles took too long, and the cost for entrance was too high for most new players. When the majority of WFB players already have large armies they are less likely to purchase more armies or spend more money (huge reason so many meltdowns happened- don’t blame people who have invested huge blocks of time to building, painting, learning rules, etc. just to see all that get squatted.) Clearly the move paid off since according to GW - AoS is almost as popular as 40k- where with WFB it wasn’t even close. I’ve bought every starter set since 6th edition (orcs vs empire) and I’m looking forward to the new Sigmarines vs Skaven.

 Jammer87 wrote:
Clearly the move paid off since according to GW - AoS is almost as popular as 40k- where with WFB it wasn’t even close.

...excuse me if I take that claim with a small mine of salt.

Being to complicated and too expensive too start is the "reason" why we get a reset for AoS now

The AOS starter sets were clearly overproduced.

 Shadow Walker wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Seems we get our first glimpse at the new Skaven next week.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/07/sunday-preview-green-or-gold/

Cannot wait to see updated clanrats.

I'll forget the range culling '24 when they show us one as well.

8th WHFB saw GW being clever to push the size of armies up to drive sales, all they really did was hasten its demise as it was more of less impractical for new players to start as the rules didn't really work below about 1,500 points

AoS 1st was a DoA until they brought out the book with the points, they seemed to seriously think people would play it without and that presumably their job of adding basic rules would get easier

be glad it flopped as 40k was next if it hadn't

Weren't Cathay and Kislev explicitly deconfirmed recently?

 cole1114 wrote:

Spoiler:

 kodos wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
So does anyone else think they’re going to do a second round of Arcane Journals after they have one each for the nine main factions?
Or would they by that point be ready to introduce new army lists with a third compilation book to go with ravening hordes amend forces of fantasy?

Because at roughly 1 per quarter, it’ll be January ’26 by the time everyone has one AJ each.

If the rumours are true and Cathy and Kislev are on the table, we are going the see Army Books return after the 9 Journals are done, maybe with an updated rule book

Selfcontrol wrote:


When GW killed WFB, WFB accounted for less than 10% of their total sales while 40K (and more specifically, Space Marines of all kind) were accounting for the majority of their sales.

and I have never seen a source for that but if this would be the reason, GW would have killed AoS as well instead of trying to fix it.

So why GW decided to fix AoS to make it sell but for WHFB decided to kill it instead of making it sell
And no, past mid 7th they did not even try any more, despite the game being more popular than 40k in Europe (not just France)

One thing that there was is that 40k was more popular in the US since the beginning, and GW started focusing on the US market, so a 40k like fantasy game was their choice
Just that what GW thought people like and why people played 40k was something very different

Weren't Cathay and Kislev explicitly deconfirmed recently?

'Forseeable future' was the language used - that is not 'never'.

anything is possible in an animated cartoon

GW will do them if they think they will make more money than "combat Patrol: Marine Lieutenants"

And this is the AoS thread not the ToW one.

 kodos wrote:
Being to complicated and too expensive too start is the "reason" why we get a reset for AoS now

I have full faith in GW attempting to fix the first problem while at the same time making the second worse with the reset.

 Dysartes wrote:

 Jammer87 wrote:
Clearly the move paid off since according to GW - AoS is almost as popular as 40k- where with WFB it wasn’t even close.

...excuse me if I take that claim with a small mine of salt.

Yeah, we can't know for sure since GW protect their sales data as if they were nuclear secrets, but the few evidences that we have clearly doesnt point toward AOS being nearly as popular as 40k.

As for the range purge, it's pretty much a shame, but I guess it was invetiable. Still it's rather weird that they seems so adverse to having kits being used in more than one game (bar daemon of course). I guess it might be because they feel they can better trace the sales of each game this way but still rather weird.

Weird bit on "too expensive" is that of all the GW game systems if anything AoS has the lowest model count.

in that its actually playable with literally less than a dozen models on the table in total, even MESBG struggles to work at really small sizes.

the old small starter box with a dozen or so worked really well for introductory stuff and actually showed the rules worked at that size, three figures one side trying to stop five or so from the other side escaping etc

streetsamurai wrote:

Spoiler:

 Dysartes wrote:

 Jammer87 wrote:
Clearly the move paid off since according to GW - AoS is almost as popular as 40k- where with WFB it wasn’t even close.

...excuse me if I take that claim with a small mine of salt.

Yeah, we can't know for sure since GW protect their sales data as if they were nuclear secrets, but the few evidences that we have clearly doesnt point toward AOS being nearly as popular as 40k.

As for the range purge, it's pretty much a shame, but I guess it was invetiable. Still it's rather weird that they seems so adverse to having kits being used in more than one game (bar daemon of course). I guess it might be because they feel they can better trace the sales of each game this way but still rather weird.

I wonder if their adversity will eventually shift somewhat, depending on their ongoing production issues and limitations to ongoing range expansions. Especially with Old World/AoS, it feels like a strain to keep everything in production when part of the lines could overlap, reducing required shelf space and production effort. Not making ranges compatible might make financial sense if you can sell two different sets to the same person for use in different systems, but if you don't have the capacity, selling the same set to two different players seems like the way to go. I'm certainly curious to see what weapon options the upcoming Skaven will have, and how well they will rank up if put on square bases... (though with the change to Old World base sizes, little clanrats have plenty of space, and if anything will look much better if using up more of it)
More importantly, the rat ogres have just been in dire need of a resculpt since, well, the previous set was released basically; it's one of those that didn't look good on day 1 and hasn't aged well either. Definitely the most I've been looking forward to a new release in quite a while!

Rat Ogres are all the more frustrating because the pair that came with Island of Blood are excellent. But, there’s only two of them, and they’re in set poses.

So head and shoulders above the multi-parts, they all look proper wonky when piled into a single unit mixing the models.

I for one, and I appreciate this might not be popular, could stomach standard Rat Ogres going bye-byes in TOW, because the Stormfiends just feel much more AoS in design and execution. Plus they’ve got that groovy little Brain Rat for some fun Master Blaster vibes.

Still somewhat baffled at just how much Stormcast is going though. I can’t pretend to be massively familiar with the range, but I do wonder if the majority are just resculpts, with the Sacrosanct Chamber just being too samey to Liberators and that to continue to be a separate unit? Reading the article that’s what it seems to be suggesting anyway.

In real-world terms, it could just be they don’t have the time and resources to resculpt everything, and so Sacrosanct have a fluff excuse to not be seen.

As for “without notice”? That feels like an oddly accurate but also unfair statement. They have given notice, in that article. But the news was somewhat out of the blue itself.

the models they are clearing out are the ones from earlier starter sets and the Mortal Realms magazine series, i.e. models people have enough of to not want more so dare say they didn't exactly sell amazingly well when you can get them pretty cheap, assuming you don't already have them as its likely club members have loads spare

and this being GW they will bring them back with a new hat in a slightly changed pose knowing that far too many will refuse to play against the now "legends" versions.. where had they not bothered with the "legends" bit they would just become straight proxies

what its really done though is show there is little ongoing value to models, that they now have a very definite lifespan after which in game they are essentially worthless

this is taking aim squarely at the second hand market where GW gets no revenue

Another new skaven model sprue seems to have slipped into wild on fb skaven group. Sorta portable warp lightning gun wielding carried by single rat.

Guess whc was right. Except this was 2nd look already

Belthanos wrote:
Another new skaven model sprue seems to have slipped into wild on fb skaven group. Sorta portable warp lightning gun wielding carried by single rat.

Guess whc was right. Except this was 2nd look already

Found it on reddit

Yeah, a lot of the Sacrosanct stuff suffered from being too similar in intent to the OG Stormcast.

For example, both had a unit of basic infantry with sword and board, plus option for a few with two-handers.

OG already had a box that made crossbow dudes...then Sacros introduced some other folks with crossbows.

Then we had the Vanguard 'shooty / scouty' guys who also bought in more units with crossbows, plus a fast moving cavalry unit that sort of overlapped with one of the Sarco units.

I think they took what should have been a few character wizards and turned it into a whole chamber. A very roughly analogy would be Space Marines and Grey Knights.

The other 'problem' is that the OG sculpts quickly started to look outdated. Sacro and then the Vanguard successively improved upon the original 'fatcast' (partly helped by adding females). Then they hit upon the slimmer and much more 'realistic' Thunderstrike armour.

It's as if they squashed two decades of the changes to Tactical marine sculpts into seven or eight years (from the consumer POV).

The other problem was that (thankfully) they haven't made Battletomes for separate Stormcast orders - so all the options are there for each army. My SCE battletome has over eighty entries. It's already as large as some SM Codexes have been.

While I was expecting GW to eventually replace the Sacros I wasn't expecting them just to stop selling them like this.

As an aside, another shoutout for the IoB RatOgres! Really great sclupts. I used them and the one from the screaming bell to make my Drukhari Grotesques. There was a fair amount of arm chopping to mask the duplicates. Although given the end goal, that it perhaps appropriate.

Resolved leak

Someone on Reddit commented that the body looked like a Warlock and now I am wondering if this is more like the Bombardier rather than a weapons team.

EDIT: My logic was that it is on its own sprue, which would seem odd for a weapons team.

A single sprue suggests a character (or perhaps a free mini of the month for GW stores?)

Definitely not a free mini. Outside of the deathwing terminator, free minis are typically just basic core units

my guess is a warlock bombardier, yeah. definitely a character of some kind, definitely skyre


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Spoiler:

Rat Ogres are all the more frustrating because the pair that came with Island of Blood are excellent. But, there’s only two of them, and they’re in set poses.

So head and shoulders above the multi-parts, they all look proper wonky when piled into a single unit mixing the models.

I for one, and I appreciate this might not be popular, could stomach standard Rat Ogres going bye-byes in TOW, because the Stormfiends just feel much more AoS in design and execution. Plus they’ve got that groovy little Brain Rat for some fun Master Blaster vibes.

Still somewhat baffled at just how much Stormcast is going though. I can’t pretend to be massively familiar with the range, but I do wonder if the majority are just resculpts, with the Sacrosanct Chamber just being too samey to Liberators and that to continue to be a separate unit? Reading the article that’s what it seems to be suggesting anyway.

In real-world terms, it could just be they don’t have the time and resources to resculpt everything, and so Sacrosanct have a fluff excuse to not be seen.

As for “without notice”? That feels like an oddly accurate but also unfair statement. They have given notice, in that article. But the news was somewhat out of the blue itself.

yeah, that's how i feel about this. the new edition isn't dropping until june or july, most likely, and the units will be fully playable for another year, so GW is giving players plenty of time to hear about this and come to terms with it or figure out what they're doing with the models not being replaced (or to rebase their beastmen). this being one of the first things they said about the new edition makes it clear to me that they wanted people to know about this in advance. it's not like there's ever going to be a good time for this, so they might as well get it out of the way early

SQUEAK!

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/08/the-new-face-of-hate-fury-a-first-look-at-the-next-generation-of-skaven-clanrats/