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Voss wrote:
The release model will either go off in weird new directions, or be more akin to HH2, Warcry or Newcromunda.
(For books alone) I'd wager on HH2 just for the opening salvo of rules plus good vs evil army books with a vague sense of more later on an uncertain timeline, with some things only getting pdf support. With the audience wishing for their specific faction to turn up sooner or later (like solar auxiliary)

What I expect here with TOW:
Journal books for armies in release of the boxes until all of them are done, and I guess there will be 2 gods Chaos boxes or 2 Empire boxes to get the double release done with 9 factions.

In addition, either during the main release going or after that we will see campaign books introducing more new units or new subfactions with new models for the ongoing story and proper army books after that to have all the units from different books collected in one

big question now is just what is the 3rd game system and with a new Edition of AoS and 40k every 3 years there is a year without major release and either GW makes it the year of side games with a different one each time expanding the side games to 6-9 year cycles, or 3rd main game is chosen

Lord Zarkov wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
With the Arcane Journals; has anyone noticed that there’s nothing to say the extra spells and items won’t be tied to the special army lists, kinda like 40K enhancements and stratagems are tied to their detachments?

Could well be for some tbh, though for the first TK one I assume the spell lore will be Lore of Nehekhara which should probably be usable by all TK armies.

We won't know for sure until they're released, but my understanding is that the two big army books are supposed to allow you to play "standard army", which for the TK requires you to have access to the Lore of Nehekara. You can't really have TK without that lore, which has always been unique to the Tomb Kings, and is required in order to fulfill some fairly basic functions.

I mean, I expect the Dark Elf PDF list to have access to Dark Magic, even though no further Dark Elf releases are to be expected (though I wouldn't be surprised if we see a one-off at some point). Dark Magic is a basic part of the Dark Elves, and it wouldn't be Dark Elves without access to Dark Lore. Similarly, you can't have Tomb Kings without Lore of Nehekara. That lore is part of what makes the Tomb Kings Tomb Kings.

As a result, I suspect that the Lore of Nehekara will be in the Ravening Hordes book, and not in the TK journal. Though the TK journal might have a variant version of it for a specific army list found in the journal.

Dark Magic is a Rulebook lore so DE won’t need a lore in their pdf.

Given Waagh magic is a Rulebook lore despite only one army using it, I’m dubious there’s entire lores in the compendia, though it does seem there are some spells in them according to the article.

Might be TK get Necromancy plus 1-2 of the others in the compendium, then gets the full Lore of Nehekhara in the AJ. Someone needs to be using Necromancy from the main armies given it is a Rulebook lore.

NB, while we know Lore of Nehekhara is coming somewhere, 8th Ed is the one one of the 4 rule sets TK had* which featured a full Lore of Nehekhara, so it’s not that fundamental to them.

*5th Ed WD list, 6th Ed RH, 6th Ed AB, 8th Ed AB

I would guess Necromancy will be an Empire lore - the interactive map aleady talks about the Talabecland

harbouring numerous Witches, Warlocks and secretive guilds

and Middenheim should also have plenty as its the home of the oldest magic guild in the Empire. I agree the TK should not really have it,

You might get the little Waaagh in the journal.

Well as Empire was in middle of 3-4 sided succession crisis for 200+ years in the making then little bit of necromancy isn't too bad.

Or you just end up burned on a stake and get accused of being dirty, soulless vampire.

About that necromancy, since we get the bombard seemingly back, what do you lot think are the chances for liches and revenants?

Not Online!!! wrote:
About that necromancy, since we get the bombard seemingly back, what do you lot think are the chances for liches and revenants?

Unless they're Tomb Kings, I'd say zero since Vampire Counts are an unsupported faction.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
With the Arcane Journals; has anyone noticed that there’s nothing to say the extra spells and items won’t be tied to the special army lists, kinda like 40K enhancements and stratagems are tied to their detachments?

Could well be for some tbh, though for the first TK one I assume the spell lore will be Lore of Nehekhara which should probably be usable by all TK armies.

We won't know for sure until they're released, but my understanding is that the two big army books are supposed to allow you to play "standard army", which for the TK requires you to have access to the Lore of Nehekara. You can't really have TK without that lore, which has always been unique to the Tomb Kings, and is required in order to fulfill some fairly basic functions.

I mean, I expect the Dark Elf PDF list to have access to Dark Magic, even though no further Dark Elf releases are to be expected (though I wouldn't be surprised if we see a one-off at some point). Dark Magic is a basic part of the Dark Elves, and it wouldn't be Dark Elves without access to Dark Lore. Similarly, you can't have Tomb Kings without Lore of Nehekara. That lore is part of what makes the Tomb Kings Tomb Kings.

As a result, I suspect that the Lore of Nehekara will be in the Ravening Hordes book, and not in the TK journal. Though the TK journal might have a variant version of it for a specific army list found in the journal.

Dark Magic is a Rulebook lore so DE won’t need a lore in their pdf.

Given Waagh magic is a Rulebook lore despite only one army using it, I’m dubious there’s entire lores in the compendia, though it does seem there are some spells in them according to the article.

Might be TK get Necromancy plus 1-2 of the others in the compendium, then gets the full Lore of Nehekhara in the AJ. Someone needs to be using Necromancy from the main armies given it is a Rulebook lore.

NB, while we know Lore of Nehekhara is coming somewhere, 8th Ed is the one one of the 4 rule sets TK had* which featured a full Lore of Nehekhara, so it’s not that fundamental to them.

*5th Ed WD list, 6th Ed RH, 6th Ed AB, 8th Ed AB

I would guess Necromancy will be an Empire lore - the interactive map aleady talks about the Talabecland

harbouring numerous Witches, Warlocks and secretive guilds

and Middenheim should also have plenty as its the home of the oldest magic guild in the Empire. I agree the TK should not really have it,

You might get the little Waaagh in the journal.

Empire might have it, and potentially even Dark Magic as well, though even where magic was allowed Necromancy generally wasn’t (it’s what got Dieter Hellsnitch driven out of the Middenheim Guild). Plus, depending on what the spells are, some may not be all that useful if you don’t already have Undead units - the summoning and DD spells would be fine, but the likes of Vanhal’s Danse Macabre or Hellish Vigour not so much.

Tbh even if TK get Nehekhara in the compendium rather than the AJ I expect they’ll get Necromancy as an alternate option as they said most wizards have 2-3 lores and they’ll almost certainly have some Rulebook ones. In 8th Ed they got the Lore of Death (which while not Necromancy itself is used in it) and Lore of Nehekhara and the whole mortuary cult in general is pretty necromancy adjacent. Plus it’d allow you to represent the followers of Arkhan who really should be using full on Necromancy.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
About that necromancy, since we get the bombard seemingly back, what do you lot think are the chances for liches and revenants?

Unless they're Tomb Kings, I'd say zero since Vampire Counts are an unsupported faction.

I'm going to guess that even though VC won't be a faction the Harkon faction in the Border Princes and the other seemingly VC like faction in Sylvania will involve necromancy in some capacity

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

Eumerin wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
With the Arcane Journals; has anyone noticed that there’s nothing to say the extra spells and items won’t be tied to the special army lists, kinda like 40K enhancements and stratagems are tied to their detachments?

Could well be for some tbh, though for the first TK one I assume the spell lore will be Lore of Nehekhara which should probably be usable by all TK armies.

We won't know for sure until they're released, but my understanding is that the two big army books are supposed to allow you to play "standard army", which for the TK requires you to have access to the Lore of Nehekara. You can't really have TK without that lore, which has always been unique to the Tomb Kings, and is required in order to fulfill some fairly basic functions.

I mean, I expect the Dark Elf PDF list to have access to Dark Magic, even though no further Dark Elf releases are to be expected (though I wouldn't be surprised if we see a one-off at some point). Dark Magic is a basic part of the Dark Elves, and it wouldn't be Dark Elves without access to Dark Lore. Similarly, you can't have Tomb Kings without Lore of Nehekara. That lore is part of what makes the Tomb Kings Tomb Kings.

As a result, I suspect that the Lore of Nehekara will be in the Ravening Hordes book, and not in the TK journal. Though the TK journal might have a variant version of it for a specific army list found in the journal.

Dark Magic is a Rulebook lore so DE won’t need a lore in their pdf.

Given Waagh magic is a Rulebook lore despite only one army using it, I’m dubious there’s entire lores in the compendia, though it does seem there are some spells in them according to the article.

Might be TK get Necromancy plus 1-2 of the others in the compendium, then gets the full Lore of Nehekhara in the AJ. Someone needs to be using Necromancy from the main armies given it is a Rulebook lore.

NB, while we know Lore of Nehekhara is coming somewhere, 8th Ed is the one one of the 4 rule sets TK had* which featured a full Lore of Nehekhara, so it’s not that fundamental to them.

*5th Ed WD list, 6th Ed RH, 6th Ed AB, 8th Ed AB

I would guess Necromancy will be an Empire lore - the interactive map aleady talks about the Talabecland

harbouring numerous Witches, Warlocks and secretive guilds

and Middenheim should also have plenty as its the home of the oldest magic guild in the Empire. I agree the TK should not really have it,

You might get the little Waaagh in the journal.

Empire might have it, and potentially even Dark Magic as well, though even where magic was allowed Necromancy generally wasn’t (it’s what got Dieter Hellsnitch driven out of the Middenheim Guild). Plus, depending on what the spells are, some may not be all that useful if you don’t already have Undead units - the summoning and DD spells would be fine, but the likes of Vanhal’s Danse Macabre or Hellish Vigour not so much.

Tbh even if TK get Nehekhara in the compendium rather than the AJ I expect they’ll get Necromancy as an alternate option as they said most wizards have 2-3 lores and they’ll almost certainly have some Rulebook ones. In 8th Ed they got the Lore of Death (which while not Necromancy itself is used in it) and Lore of Nehekhara and the whole mortuary cult in general is pretty necromancy adjacent. Plus it’d allow you to represent the followers of Arkhan who really should be using full on Necromancy.

Witches and Warlock also tend to stray into Chaos magic and having Necromancers also allows some potentially interesting variants which are vampire or Lichmaster adjacent or even reference Drachenfels as he is active at this time.

Good point re the Tomb Kings and Arkhan.

In a setting with no Colleges of Magic, you need to remember that human mages have no idea what they’re doing. They try stuff and see if it works. So some will accidentally stumble upon the combination of shadow, metal, and death magic that makes up necromancy.

Remember the rulebook lores are: Battle Magic, Dark Magic, Daemonology, Elementalism, High Magic, Illusion, Necromancy, and Waaagh! Magic - we know that high and dark magic are almost certainly elf-only and waaagh is greenskin only. We’ve seen spells from the Battle, Illusion, and Elementalism lores too and they look pretty much like random combos of the eight winds as you’d expect. So I feel like necromancy could easily be just another thing human wizards do and would definitely contribute to them being viewed with suspicion or outright hostility in some quarters.

The fact that anyone CAN do necromancy doesn't mean they will, or that the social mores of the day didn't consider it the gravest sin of the already sinful use of magic.

There's no reason to assume that any good force would deploy necromancers even if they can technically learn it.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
In a setting with no Colleges of Magic, you need to remember that human mages have no idea what they’re doing. They try stuff and see if it works. So some will accidentally stumble upon the combination of shadow, metal, and death magic that makes up necromancy.

Remember the rulebook lores are: Battle Magic, Dark Magic, Daemonology, Elementalism, High Magic, Illusion, Necromancy, and Waaagh! Magic - we know that high and dark magic are almost certainly elf-only and waaagh is greenskin only. We’ve seen spells from the Battle, Illusion, and Elementalism lores too and they look pretty much like random combos of the eight winds as you’d expect. So I feel like necromancy could easily be just another thing human wizards do and would definitely contribute to them being viewed with suspicion or outright hostility in some quarters.

Given DE aren’t core I imagine there will be other users of Dark Magic. In 4th/5th Chaos wizards could all use it as could necromancers/vampires (DE were just better at it).

I would therefore be very surprised if WoC and BoC from RH can’t use it, in addition to DE, DoC and probably VC from the pdfs.

There’s clearly necromancers and demonologists etc within the Empire, will be interesting to see if they’re allowable within the Grand Army, or if it’ll be a sub-army thing.

We know that mercenary armies are making a return so it could easily include necromancers within that eventual list.

I guarantee that VCs won't be far away, just because the Von Carsteins were beaten in the Vampire Wars, plenty of others about.

I hope to see plenty of people playing their undead legions using either Bretonnian or Empire lists.

 Olthannon wrote:


I guarantee that VCs won't be far away, just because the Von Carsteins were beaten in the Vampire Wars, plenty of others about.

I guarantee that GW didn't publish a whole article on warcom about how VC were a pdf legends style faction and the arbitrary fluff they made up to justify the underlying business decision that was made to cut them only to about-face a year later and release VC into the game.

You're not getting VC. Its not happening. You'll get something VC adjacent most likely, but it won't be the VC that you remember. The VC model range is staying in Age of Sigmar and only Age of Sigmar.

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Olthannon wrote:


I guarantee that VCs won't be far away, just because the Von Carsteins were beaten in the Vampire Wars, plenty of others about.

I guarantee that GW didn't publish a whole article on warcom about how VC were a pdf legends style faction and the arbitrary fluff they made up to justify the underlying business decision that was made to cut them only to about-face a year later and release VC into the game.

You're not getting VC. Its not happening. You'll get something VC adjacent most likely, but it won't be the VC that you remember. The VC model range is staying in Age of Sigmar and only Age of Sigmar.

I agree there will be something - with both Mousillon and Walachs (Blood Dragons) factions being highlighted on the new interactive map it seems likely that a special army list might be made for at least the Affair of the Black Grail and have wizards using necromancy for this as well.

On that map alone there's 15 years worth of possibilities for release. Could they happen eventually? Of course. Will they happen in the next year or 2, no chance. Journals and related mini releases for the 9 primary factions will probably take 2 years alone.

MaxT wrote:
On that map alone there's 15 years worth of possibilities for release. Could they happen eventually? Of course. Will they happen in the next year or 2, no chance. Journals and related mini releases for the 9 primary factions will probably take 2 years alone.

Yeah, particularly if sone get multiple journals. E.g. Empire could well have 4 in the first round to cover the 4 Emperors and their different styles, with a couple of armies on infamy and some bespoke special characters, magic items and themed units for each.

I can't see them taking 2 years to re-release their 20 year old model ranges. They are giving everyone rules for those armies on day 1. They don't want little timmy taking his mommy's credit card down to the store and buying their competitors products or 3d printed knockoffs because GW doesn't want to sell him 20 year old wood elf kits for another 18 months.

Theres not a lot of lead time associated with re-releasing most of these ranges - the plastic molds are already cut and just need to be rotated through production, they may need some refurbishment and TLC if they didn't store them properly, but some of those molds were in production relatively recently (the Empire kits were removed from production less than 6 months ago, for example) and so probably need no real prep to put back into service. Old metal/resin kits would require more work, but it seems GW is keeping those to a relative minimum and that work has likely already been ongoing for some time, it shouldn't be a significant source of delay. The real delay is going to be for new kits, but with an apparent 1-2 new plastic sets max per faction on release, this is a relative nothingburger and something that GW likely has already had in the production queue for long enough that I would be surprised if they don't already have molds cut for whatever new kits are to be released for the factions after Bretonnia and Khemri. Putting together new molds for resin kits for heroes and the like is pretty quick as well.

Theres really nothing to this that would require extended lead times to put those ranges back into production and sale. If you look at the 40k and AoS roadmaps, you see that GW essentially averages a faction per month for these games (by the one year mark for 40k 10th, there will have been 10 factions released if the roadmap holds up, with 3 more indicated for summer 2024 which will likely come in after that 1 year anniversary). Sticking with 40k, the Tyranid and Space Marine range updates alone are **each** already more new plastic kits than GW is likely to create for all 9 TOW factions combined, and then you have the 1-2 new kits per other faction, plus the more extensive range refresh for Dark angels with a half dozen more kits for them, and whats rumored to be more extensive refreshes/updates for Kroot/Tau and Custodes, as well as what seems to be a possible new faction or more extensive update in the "redacted" category.

AoS is kinda similar - the FEC refresh on its own is, again, more or less more new plastic kits than what all 9 TOW factions combined are likely to get as part of their relaunches (granted, half of them are small character minis, so its a bit of a disingenuous comparison), then you stack the rumored Skaven and presumably Stormcast refreshes this coming summer which will again likely entail more new plastic kits than all of the 9 core factions will receive on release. You've had a handful of new plastic kits every other month basically as part of the end-of-edition narrative event, 6 months ago you got a huge Seraphon update (which was again more than all the core TOW factions combined are likely to get on release), right before that we got a fairly massive Soulblight release (again, more than all 9 core TOW factions...) and somewhere in there you've also had a major Cities of Sigmar (again, more kits...).

Likewise, HH and Legions Imperialis on launch were able to put out a lot more new kits in one go than GW is angling for with these re-releases. GW has the throughput capacity to support a much faster pace of releases for TOW then you are crediting them for (especially now that its factory expansion is done and they seem to be un-screwing the ERP system issues that were slowing down production). My prediction: 2 new armies every 2-3 months until the 9 armies are re-launched. Kislev will launch opposite army #9 at the end of 2024 or early 2025. After that we settle into a HH like groove where its random miniatures releases every couple weeks for the various factions in resin with the occasional plastic kit, and a bigger wave of plastic minis or a new faction once per year.

Well that'd be nice.

chaos0xomega wrote:
I can't see them taking 2 years to re-release their 20 year old model ranges. They are giving everyone rules for those armies on day 1. They don't want little timmy taking his mommy's credit card down to the store and buying their competitors products or 3d printed knockoffs because GW doesn't want to sell him 20 year old wood elf kits for another 18 months.

the difference is, they don't want to sell that to little Timmy, but to his Daddy
and to make that work they give rules for daddies armies in the basement starting with armies hardly anyone had, going full on nostalgia and hoping that enough people have still stuff at home and/or are going to 3D print things for TOW to have a full fleshed out community on release day

they don't need to get old models out that people already have, but simply want people to start an army every 6 months with the new models and changed rules.
like now everyone buys Bretonnia or Khemri and those that don't want to play with their old stuff with the important point that there is a large community ready over night crushing any other game that might have taken the spot and having 50-100 people events going on the first weekend

no problem if people 3D print the armies, as long as they do it to play TOW and promote the game

and to maximise profit, they need to give Timmies Daddy enough time to buy, build and play with the army before the next one comes out that he wants to buy.

Timmy's daddy is just as capable of going down to the store to buy stuff from GWs competitors and 3D printers as Timmy is. GW still doesn't want that to happen, it wants to sell those minis to new players, not the legacy WHFB gamers.

The impetus for TOW was the success of Total War Warhammer. It brought many people into the GW hobby, but quite a few were turned away by the lack of minis and factions they could recognize from the video game. These people do not have 10 year old armies collecting dust waiting for the rules to release, and GW wants to fix that.

Well that ship has long since sailed and was never much of a target anyway.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Well that ship has long since sailed and was never much of a target anyway.

I disagree. Considering how many people got into 40k when I worked for GW simply because of Dawn of War. The target is real. That said I doubt we get much more than a new set of factions every 4ish months. 4 months gives enough time to pad out releases of the 2 factions and then release the next big thing. Also keeps it generally off kilter of the normal cyclical 40k/AoS releases. That would give us close to the entire classic range within about a year with just 1 left to do.

 Hulksmash wrote:
I disagree. Considering how many people got into 40k when I worked for GW simply because of Dawn of War.

40k was on sale before, during and after the release of every Dawn of War game

 Hulksmash wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
Well that ship has long since sailed and was never much of a target anyway.

I disagree. Considering how many people got into 40k when I worked for GW simply because of Dawn of War. The target is real. That said I doubt we get much more than a new set of factions every 4ish months. 4 months gives enough time to pad out releases of the 2 factions and then release the next big thing. Also keeps it generally off kilter of the normal cyclical 40k/AoS releases. That would give us close to the entire classic range within about a year with just 1 left to do.

I further disagree. The amount of people who would pick up the hobby once they actually discover the sheer amount of money and time involved vs just turning on the pc for what is for all intents and purposes a superior experience would be fractional at best.

I'm pretty active on reddit. I used to see multiple posts daily in the various gw subs from people who played TWW asking about WHFB or who started playing 40k or AoS after discovering it as a result of TWW. Even now I probably still see 1-2 posts per week conveying similar sentiments, sometimes spiking when there's a big steam sale etc. It's very much a thing. I can also say that my best friend at this point in my life got into 40k after discovering it via TWW.

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

I further disagree. The amount of people who would pick up the hobby once they actually discover the sheer amount of money and time involved vs just turning on the pc for what is for all intents and purposes a superior experience would be fractional at best.

How's that any different to entry/exit by people who learn about the hobby "normally"? The point is having three high profile extremely successful games will absolutely we increasing the interest in the hobby and people looking to try it. Each game has an estimated install base of well over 1m copies.

Yeah, a fractional amount of 1 million people is still a significant number of new players to a hobby still as niche as GW.

Since we're setting ourselves up for disappointment with wild speculation about future releases I want to see a new Empire War Wagon, not a steam tank.

 RustyNumber wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:

I further disagree. The amount of people who would pick up the hobby once they actually discover the sheer amount of money and time involved vs just turning on the pc for what is for all intents and purposes a superior experience would be fractional at best.

How's that any different to entry/exit by people who learn about the hobby "normally"? The point is having three high profile extremely successful games will absolutely we increasing the interest in the hobby and people looking to try it. Each game has an estimated install base of well over 1m copies.

Because again, time investment and money vs the pressing of a button.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Hulksmash wrote:
Yeah, a fractional amount of 1 million people is still a significant number of new players to a hobby still as niche as GW.

GW is not at the size that can be considered "niche" anymore.

I dunno - compared to football or most sports - GW isn't even on the radar!


It's most certainly not ultra-niche, but its still a niche hobby that isn't mainstream.

I think one of its strengths though, at least in the UK, is that whilst its a niche, its really well heard of. So whilst the number of people who engage with it are few, the general public are aware of it.


In contrast whilst Larping has grown a LOT over the last 10-15 years to be almost a mainstream geek hobby (from niche even within geeks); I'd wager a lot of people wouldn't have a clue what Larping was if you asked them. Though most would know of DnD