The Rumour Thread

[Starfyre]

Has the rest of the Stormcast range gone up in price alongside the new pre-orders?

Karazai at £102.50 and Vanquishers at £42.50 - really?

[Hollow]

6 minutes ago, Nezzhil said:

At the end of 25 we will have more than half of all the BTs

So you think 8/9 BT will be released in 2025? 

[Ejecutor]

1 hour ago, Hollow said:

So you think 8/9 BT will be released in 2025? 

Seems like a proper number. 11 by the end of 2025. That would leave 13 for around 18 months.

[Nezzhil]

1 hour ago, Hollow said:

So you think 8/9 BT will be released in 2025? 

https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Battletome

 

Post-COVID and with all the problems they released 10 battletomes in 2022. Yeah, I am pretty sure.

[Mortal Wound]

1 hour ago, Starfyre said:

Has the rest of the Stormcast range gone up in price alongside the new pre-orders?

Karazai at £102.50 and Vanquishers at £42.50 - really?

I don't believe that changed, I think they've been this expensive for a while. Is it possible you didn't fully internalize the last round of price increases this past spring?

[Grunbag]

16 hours ago, Whitefang said:

Yes, well...

 

Fat goblins inc ? Grom the paunch need to be home again ! 

[Hollow]

16 minutes ago, Nezzhil said:

https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Battletome

 

Post-COVID and with all the problems they released 10 battletomes in 2022. Yeah, I am pretty sure.

I certainly hope so! 

[Tonhel]

21 minutes ago, Hollow said:

I certainly hope so! 

Yes! Hopefully with loads of new mini's. I recently was lured to dwarfs and hopefully they will expand the FS range with the aesthetics of the same level of that amazing FS warcry band.

[LeisureCanid]

Can't. Not. See. Grom...

I wonder if Gitmob will get some artillery?

 

**slinks in a corner to wait for a White fang emoji. ...without a net**

[Vasshpit]

2 hours ago, Hollow said:

IronJawz received 5 kits last year? 

Maw Grunta

Ardboy Bigboss

Anvilsmasha

Updated ardboyz

Brute ragerz. 

 

It seems like more because the ragerz kit is two separate units for whatever reason and the maw grunta is three. 

They really tried stretching those two kits out more than they should have imo. 

 

My concern is that Kruleboyz will not get anything meaningful because of this as it'll be viewed as orruks getting a wave recently when if really means IRONJAWZ  recieved a wave, not Kruleboyz. 

Not going to lie, if ORRUK warclans drops and all we get is the rumored HOBGROT chieftain then I'll be a pissed off costumer and fan. And I even like hobz but come on now. 

Edited October 12 by Vasshpit

[EonChao]

2 hours ago, Lucentia said:

The single hero releases are occasionally the right move, where it's just to replace a tired old sculpts or whatever, but being able to swap the single release to a unit, small monster, or war machine, etc. would go a long way.  Some factions don't necessarily need lots of extra kits, but most if then also don't need more extraneous hero options at this point.

This is a production capacity issue. It's more involving to sculpt a monster, war machine or unit than it is to do a single character. The studio only has so many sculptors and that's not really an issue they can fix easily due to it not being a field with lots of trained candidates looking for work. The single character gives a bit more flavour to the faction or updates an older model whilst also keeping people who collect that faction engaged with it.

19 minutes ago, Hollow said:

I certainly hope so! 

They also did 10 battletomes in 2023 so it definitely feels like that's the target they're aiming for.

[Grunbag]

5 minutes ago, Vasshpit said:

Maw Grunta

Ardboy Bigboss

Anvilsmasha

Updated ardboyz

Brute ragerz. 

 

It seems like more because the ragerz kit is two separate units for whatever reason and the maw grunta is three. 

They really tried stretching those two kits out more than they should have imo. 

 

My concern is that Kruleboyz will not get anything meaningful because of this as it'll be viewed as orruks getting a wave recently when if really means IRONJAWZ  recieved a wave, not Kruleboyz. 

Not going to lie, if ORRUK warclans drops and all we get is the rumored HOBGROT chieftain I'll be a pissed off costumer and fan. And I even like hobz but come on now. 

I don’t see the reason behind keeping them in the single book but with no way to play them together . 

[Vasshpit]

Just now, Grunbag said:

I don’t see the reason behind keeping them in the single book but with no way to play them together . 

It'll end up and army of renown if they do. 

[Ejecutor]

8 minutes ago, Vasshpit said:

Maw Grunta

Ardboy Bigboss

Anvilsmasha

Updated ardboyz

Brute ragerz. 

 

It seems like more because the ragerz kit is two separate units for whatever reason and the maw grunta is three. 

They really tried stretching those two kits out more than they should have imo. 

 

My concern is that Kruleboyz will not get anything meaningful because of this as it'll be viewed as orruks getting a wave recently when if really means IRONJAWZ  recieved a wave, not Kruleboyz. 

Not going to lie, if ORRUK warclans drops and all we get is the rumored HOBGROT chieftain I'll be a pissed off costumer and fan. And I even like hobz but come on now. 

Well, technically KB recently received the full faction 😅

[Grunbag]

2 minutes ago, Vasshpit said:

It'll end up and army of renown if they do. 

So they removed big waaagh … and will add it again later . Weird 

[Grunbag]

3 minutes ago, Ejecutor said:

Well, technically KB recently received the full faction 😅

Both IJ and KB are still under 20 warscrolls , just like kharadron or FS . 

Edited October 12 by Grunbag

[Vasshpit]

3 minutes ago, Grunbag said:

So they removed big waaagh … and will add it again later . Weird 

Didn't say I liked it. 😉 But time will tell. 

[Tonhel]

28 minutes ago, EonChao said:

This is a production capacity issue. It's more involving to sculpt a monster, war machine or unit than it is to do a single character. The studio only has so many sculptors and that's not really an issue they can fix easily due to it not being a field with lots of trained candidates looking for work. The single character gives a bit more flavour to the faction or updates an older model whilst also keeping people who collect that faction engaged with it.

They also did 10 battletomes in 2023 so it definitely feels like that's the target they're aiming for.

I don't think that it takes a lot more time to sculpt a monster compared to a hero. I know a sculptor, who recently sculpted a Cygor and he said that it doesn't really take much more time than sculpting a single character. The amount of details and the amount of work is the same, but you just increase the scale of certain parts, all sculpted in Zbrush.

And ofcourse you already have lots of assets you re-use and rescale if necessary. A dragon or another creature with scales or lots of feathers is ofcourse something else.

The difference is I think is with the mould making and mould cost. For a monster you need a bigger mould, so that's a lot more expensive than the small frame that is needed for a foot hero. So I don't think it's sculpting time, but more the budget they want to allocate to each army.

Edited October 12 by Tonhel

[Starfyre]

1 hour ago, Mortal Wound said:

I don't believe that changed, I think they've been this expensive for a while. Is it possible you didn't fully internalize the last round of price increases this past spring?

Wholly possible, just really surprised at just how expensive they are, relative to other kits

Then again I looked at the portal and saw it was £50 and for the size I went yeah fair enough. And then my next thought was what’s wrong with me.

Maybe it’s because it’s my birthday and I’m feeling old but back in my day a set of 10 models was £12 😂

Edited October 12 by Starfyre

[cyrus]

3 hours ago, Nezzhil said:

Although, the improvement of the production could make that we have a new medium size release per year, but that's all IMHO. 40k increased the number of kits but It was not an huge increased number in total per year.

I think it is not only a production problem but also artistic/sculptor resources and range sustainability. 
 

I personally stick with @Garrac statistics which say 4 big releases and 4 small/medium size releases per edition .

[Hollow]

7 minutes ago, cyrus said:

I personally stick with @Garrac statistics which say 4 big releases and 4 small/medium size releases per edition .

So that would only be 2 "big releases" left for 2025, 2026 and Q1+Q2 of 2027? Skaven and Stormcast have both received significant releases so far. 

Edited October 12 by Hollow

[Chikout]

6 minutes ago, cyrus said:

I think it is not only a production problem but also artistic/sculptor resources and range sustainability. 
 

I personally stick with @Garrac statistics which say 4 big releases and 4 small/medium size releases per edition .

Most would agree that third edition was a little lacking in terms of releases but by the end there were 9 factions with more than 4 kits and two of those factions had two separate waves with more than 4 kits. 

10 releases including the starter factions is a reasonable number to think of. 

The fact that the COVID hangover has passed, the 10th anniversary is on the way, some releases seem to have been delayed from third edition and GW's desire for growth all come together to suggest that we will get more stuff this edition than last. 

Already the Skaven refresh got four more kits than the Kruleboyz.

[Sception]

3 hours ago, Lucentia said:

Some factions don't necessarily need lots of extra kits, but most if then also don't need more extraneous hero options at this point.

Even factions that DO need new kits might not need new heroes, and even factions that need new heroes often don't need the heroes they've gotten.

Back in second edition FEC desperately needed a refresh of existing models and an expansion of their range, including heroes for both.  A new ghoul king would have been ok, stand along models for their courtiers would have been a godsend, and a named hero would have been great as they didn't have any at the time, which left the aos fiction writers without a strong personality to use to draw them into the game's overall narrative.

What they got instead was the abhorrent archregent, not a new ghoul king on foot but a different unit entirely that functioned as a ghoul king + which immediately rendered regular infantry ghoul kings useless and to this day designers are still struggling to find any design space between them as visually and narratively they're the same bloody thing.

...

Or OBR in third.  Their initial release wave in second was one of the stronger ones for AoS original factions, no complaints there, but there were some obvious places to expand - a ranged unit, a larger centerpiece monster, maybe monstrous cavaly or some chariot-like bone construct to help flesh out their cavalry based subfaction, etc.  they even had room for more heroes - an infantry liege, morghast hero, stalker/immortis hero, or cavalry caster would have made a ton of sense.  The one thing they didn't need was another infantry caster, since they had a couple of those already and the devs had already demonstrated difficulty destinguishing them mechanically in a way that still made them all worth fielding.

so of course what they got was the ossifector, literally a boneshaper in a different pose arbitrarily forced to be a different unit even though there's nothing visually or thematically distinguishing these models apart from just knowing which was which.  the sad thing is the boneshaper was a useful & important enough hero that many obr players already ran two, and would have appreciated just an alternate pose.

...

I get that gw prioritizes model design in the sense that the sculptors just make what they want to make without concern for what a faction needs, then the devs just make rules for what they get, but that's kind of a bad system for the game, and even within that system a lot of bad choices have been made.

eg soulblight with over a dozen infantry vamp lord models released since the cursed city refresh if you count special characters, box games, & limited releases, but not a single cavalry vamp lord to ride with the plastic blood knight kit despite an entire subfaction of vampire knights.

or nighthaunt which has so many ancillary heroes choking the range that the devs had to demote one of them a regular unit because otherwise there was no way even half of them would see the table in 4th edition.

I don't know if its just that death factions have been more badly hit by poor choices in hero releases & that's skewing my impression, but it's actively frustrating.  Multiple times I've seen an edition come and go and the only new release some of my armies get is one that makes their model ranges & unit rosters actively worse.

[Asbestress]

8 minutes ago, Sception said:

Even factions that DO need new kits might not need new heroes, and even factions that need new heroes often don't need the heroes they've gotten.

Back in second edition FEC desperately needed a refresh of existing models and an expansion of their range, including heroes for both.  A new ghoul king would have been ok, stand along models for their courtiers would have been a godsend, and a named hero would have been great as they didn't have any at the time, which left the aos fiction writers without a strong personality to use to draw them into the game's overall narrative.

What they got instead was the abhorrent archregent, not a new ghoul king on foot but a different unit entirely that functioned as a ghoul king + which immediately rendered regular infantry ghoul kings useless and to this day designers are still struggling to find any design space between them as visually and narratively they're the same bloody thing.

...

Or OBR in third.  Their initial release wave in second was one of the stronger ones for AoS original factions, no complaints there, but there were some obvious places to expand - a ranged unit, a larger centerpiece monster, maybe monstrous cavaly or some chariot-like bone construct to help flesh out their cavalry based subfaction, etc.  they even had room for more heroes - an infantry liege, morghast hero, stalker/immortis hero, or cavalry caster would have made a ton of sense.  The one thing they didn't need was another infantry caster, since they had a couple of those already and the devs had already demonstrated difficulty destinguishing them mechanically in a way that still made them all worth fielding.

so of course what they got was the ossifector, literally a boneshaper in a different pose arbitrarily forced to be a different unit even though there's nothing visually or thematically distinguishing these models apart from just knowing which was which.  the sad thing is the boneshaper was a useful & important enough hero that many obr players already ran two, and would have appreciated just an alternate pose.

...

I get that gw prioritizes model design in the sense that the sculptors just make what they want to make without concern for what a faction needs, then the devs just make rules for what they get, but that's kind of a bad system for the game, and even within that system a lot of bad choices have been made.

eg soulblight with over a dozen infantry vamp lord models released since the cursed city refresh if you count special characters, box games, & limited releases, but not a single cavalry vamp lord to ride with the plastic blood knight kit despite an entire subfaction of vampire knights.

or nighthaunt which has so many ancillary heroes choking the range that the devs had to demote one of them a regular unit because otherwise there was no way even half of them would see the table in 4th edition.

I don't know if its just that death factions have been more badly hit by poor choices in hero releases & that's skewing my impression, but it's actively frustrating.  Multiple times I've seen an edition come and go and the only new release some of my armies get is one that makes their model ranges & unit rosters actively worse.

And the only infantry heroes CoS has are the Marshal and Alchemite.

Really hope we get like 3-4 foot heroes in wave 2. An engineer analogue to go with the Cogfort, a battle priest to go between the Steelhelm ones and Zenestra, a Bombardier-Major that was mentioned in Dawnbringers to buff artillery, and maybe some other magic lore themed wizards.

[Dragon-knight77]

6 hours ago, Acrozatarim said:

Nice, where did you find this info listed?

Black Library has it up for pre-order

https://www.blacklibrary.com/prod-home/new/ebook-on-the-shoulders-of-giants-and-other-stories-eng-2024.html

there was some book stores websites that listed them