Pizzaprez

This was great! Loved hearing what they were able to recall about them; sounded like they all had fun with it Would love to see a reboot range look a lot like Alan Perry's sketches there

Not to mention those plastic dragon wings he uses were the thing for adding wings to miniatures when I first started the hobby; I remember the splash the LotR Balrog caused when there was a second set of excellent plastic wings in play!

I would love this! A full-on "Grungni's back!" army with him or Grombrindal would be so cool

Just looked into the Rootkings: literally the fanfiction "ghyran duardin" I'd been kicking around fanfictioning in my head for my Human/Wanderer/Duardin Free City up until Dispossesed were looking like an endangered species. That project is likely going to be on hold for a minute until this Cities wave 2/Old World situation shakes out. But once I'm working on it again I'm 1000% trying to make Root Kings, way too cool. I think Dispossesed are on the outs for sure. I would sincerely be shocked if GW threads a way to keep any of them in AoS at all. Initially, Cities was like five flavors of "warrior leader, wizard leader, strong and weak foot troops, something ranged, something mounted, something[s] unique" Now all of that has been set aside for the Nu Humans, who are almost a 1:1 analogue for the WHF humans. I cannot see GW introducing a new heavily armored troop for more than one race within a faction. I can absolutely see GW encouraging Cities players to pillage the "new" Old World range for proxies and such. I think Dispossesed will exist in the margins of the setting; relying on passionate hobbyists to put them on the tabletop If Duardin got dropped tomorrow, the helicopters would be the only niche without an almost direct parallel. I think the human wizard from Chamon with the buff-cubes in his cauldron was it for me: he occupies the same sort of narrative/strategic space as the Duardin priests iirc. I'd love to see a couple duardin and aelf figures included in every Cities unit, even if just as body types. But, since that hasnt happed outside of one Aelf headswap, I'm lowering my hopes for Cities staying as a mixed-race model range. I'd anticipate a new steam tank and new helicopters to share in an Ironweld aesthetic, and I would bet that any strategic roles solely occupied by duardin right now (like heavily armored foot troops) are due to be replaced in wave 2

That's extremely exciting!! I'd love to see some Kurnothi Duardin ngl, I love how many narrative paths that could lead to!

I agree! Khorne, to me, has always sort of been in a weird place with his "I hate magic" slant: guy has so many magitech demon engines and I remember the hoops the narrative had to jump through to have "Khorne demon summoners" in the 40k Siege of Vraks story. I felt like that weirdness was only exacerbated in AoS by Khorne's "not magic" blood rituals and Endless Not-Spells Leaning into mesoamerican blood ritual aesthetics is an extremely neat angle to take them! I remember that same warband had a smith with an anvil chained to his back that stuck out to me as particularly cool: I think it was his not-bodybuilder physique

1) They exist 2) Alarielle sent them to Beastgrave to stop the curse that's leaked out of Shadespire from spreading across the realms and, secretly, Skaeth hoped he and his crew could kill the mountain itself: an act they feel would remove an evil from Ghur. That is literally it as far as I know. Are all kurnothi fawns? I have no idea: the aelf from Cursed City was supposed to be a "kurnothi exile" and she has antlers and aelf feet instead of hooves. Leaves room for all sorts of neat ideas; I'm hoping they lean into the fawn-aelf vibe

Warms my heart to see another gargantuan map of the Old World where the Dark Lands are clearly visible yet absolutely nothing from the Chaos Dwarfs are labelled as even existing at all Won't have too many releases like that left in the grand scheme of things, with Chaos Dwarfs set to actually get into Age of Sigmar they likely won't be forever in the margins for much longer! Also it makes the expensive blanket easy for me to swerve!

I'm thinking Chorfs; mainly bc Sylvaneth just got an update in the form of that new character with the Kurnoth shard. I'd count that as the second "Kurnothi" hint in the form of a release. Chaos dwarfs have had equivalent hints in the form of Hobgrots and Horns of Hashut: the former confirmed with 100% certainty that Chaos Dwarfs are actively in the setting after their two locations and subsequent squatting. Horns of Hashut were added into the Slaves to Darkness as a way to theme your army as "these are the dudes who show up right before chaos dwarfs." Which, to me, felt extremely purposeful. With some of the interviews around the new Flesh-eater release, it was confirmed without a shadow of a doubt that (internally) the team uses some of these smaller warbands to hammer out ideas/sculpts for factions they're looking to hit. The Skaven has so many gorgeous new models that are absolutely setting the stage for their upcoming release. Fyerslayers got a new vibe that directly responds to some aesthetic critiques I see often online Similarly, the Kurnothi were conjured up for Beastgrave but narratively have been sort of adrift: the new "this guy needs to hunt forever or the last sliver of Kurnoth dies" character is the first tangible detail about the faction outside "they exist!" I think the outcast from Cursed City was also a Kurnothi, but she could have easily been a new Wanderer that got some lore tweaked ahead of Wanderers going extinct. I think Alarielle is going to get frustrated and we're going to see a new wild hunt in an upcoming narrative. I'd wager the next time Sylvaneth get a book they'll get a new wave of fawn-aelves!

I've seen strong feelings against adding Malerion and his stuff to the Morathi army, but I think they could fix that with a bit of narrative There are already witch aelves siding against morathi for one reason or another; whether it's betraying her allies or wrongfully claiming godhood. Malerion could be an answer to that; if he's "more loyal" than Morathi, or a "real" god, I could see a witch aelf civil war happening Even if the two gods have an "alliance of convenience" their people may not be all about it It'd also be a direct foil to Tyrion and Teclis being BFF co-leaders

Personally, I think the old "lord on foot" is the perfect dwarf-hat ratio almost a 1:1 scale in height, and looking at Lumineth stuff again, they wouldn't even be the most ridiculous hats in the range

I think I'd keep 'em! The short stories about the ironjawz guy who was "called" to the bonesplitterz did a ton to build them up as something I'd like to learn more about! I'd love a reboot to have the full spectrum of AoS orruk body types! Sneaky former Kruleboyz who are great at tracking, giant bellicose former Ironjawz who supply the heavy support. Find a way to distinguish them visually past "orruks in bone clothes with facepaint" and we're in a solid place: more wild waaagh magic stuff happening, orruks totally losing it; I'd love a unit of big hulking boyz with waaagh magic blasting out their eyes and mouth!

Tbh, I think an axe wielded in a pair of crab claws would unfortunately look a bit more silly in my opinion! You could paint the claws metallic to make them look like they're physically stronger, or use some of the extra bits in the kit to maybe make that guy look a bit fancier: as long as the Slaangor reads as "unit leader" I think you could easily justify him simply being better with his claws than his peers! He did have to earn that promotion, after all. That's just me, though! I think the lack of nimble wrist movement would make holding an axe with claws a bit less believable: however these are "beasts of chaos" and, as a piece of fiction, they can do whatever you think looks cool

I love the narrative beats like "Chaos Duardin suck up rivers of souls as fuel" so much. AoS is a fantasy world with limitless potential, and the Chaos Duardin are out there ready to consume those crazy magic natural resources. I'm hoping Horns of Hashut stay in S2D, or become a cross-listed unit. Same with Hobgrots, actually. Both of them have been written out of the "Legions of Hashut" in small ways; with Hobgrots acting as brokers and Horns as "a horde of barbarians who show up prior to the 'real' legions." I think maybe allowing an allies amount for each could be cool, but I'd rather see a "evil duardin" faction be focused on "evil duardin!" Both of those units fill a "chaff" type role, and unless we get "exhalted Horns" or like chaos beast-mounted hobgrots I would rather see something new! Fighty lord (mounted and unmounted), Magic lord (mounted and unmounted), Bull Centaur Lord would cover their "necessary" leaders Duardin (with and without guns) and better duardin (with and without guns) cover their "necessary" duardin stuff Bull centaurs or some sort are needed, imo, for the faction's identity and Chaos Dwarfs traditionally have a mortar, cannon, and missile launcher of some sort. The only traditional archetypes they'd be "missing" are "fast chaff" (chaos hounds or mounted hobgrots), "chaff" (hobgrots or slaves) and "something weird" like the whirlwind or train. They've also had K'daii and the Destroyer, so "flying glass cannons" and "gargantuan monster" have been things they have had before. I hope they get weird with it. Hoping for extremely unique warmachines and unexpected twists/wrinkles!

Everything we've received so far that isn't tied to their appearance in AoS as their "Legion of Azgorh" iteration suggests we're getting Chaos Duardin like how we got Seraphon, at least the broad strokes for sure The newer Hobgrot lore directly references "Hashut-worshipping Duardin" who sell them munitions and metals on exchange for slaves; a 1:1 copy/paste from how they interacted with the nearby O&G tribes in the Old World outside of explicitly mentioning slavery. Hobgrots are independent intermediaries instead of "the most trustworthy slave race" which is a fine update imo The Horns of Hashut's lore also give some more detail: Hashut is still 100% a big bull, and Chaos Duardin are still "chaos city building expansionists." New stuff here includes a "join us or be enslaved" clause, which has resulted in many nations being eaten by the "Legions of Hashut," losing their culture to the "correct" Hashut monoculture. The Horns are sent out ahead of the "actual" legions to soften a nation up and make it more vulnerable before the Chaos Duardin arrive proper. So, for their culture, we know they still are city building industrialists who are into bull imagery and still worship Hashut. We know that they've conquered swaths of the realms, crushing the cultures of those they absorb underfoot. We know they've got a working relationship with the Hobgrots, and absolutely still use slaves to get things done. We don't know what they look like, what they're actually building, or what they've been up to since they seemingly left the right points and all the industrial stuff they were using to mine there: Warcry suggests that the industrial setting is all "abandoned chaos Duardin stuff that still works." Very excited to see how they could pan out; I'm keeping high hopes for gargantuan hats, though I'll happily convert some myself if need be

I'd be pretty disappointed if they dropped all those Moonclan kits; some of them were made for AoS specifically and the Night Goblins themselves are a GOAT kit as far as I'm concerned For the rest though, I wouldn't be surprised tbh; the steam tank will surely get an AoS version, as will the flagellants (I could actually see the latter staying in AoS) I think "classic Duardin" are getting dropped entirely, unfortunately. Bright side there is I'll finally be able to buy the rest of their range, as I really like quite a lot of it: we already saw it happen with the High and Wood aelves I could see Dryads staying and pulling double duty with the treelord; unless their "basic infantry" role is going to get 1:1 replaced by a kurnothi unit which seems uninspired Unless all those chaos kits get new equivalents, I seriously doubt they're cutting that much tactical utility from S2D. I feel similarly about beastmen; it would just take a "morghur is here!!" wave to give them a solid AoS identity *and* Morghur is a presence in the Old World *so even the new stuff could pull double duty.* it would feel extremely bad to me if Chaos Dwarfs take Beasts's "slot" on the AoS roster. Beasts have a place in AoS

Beyond excited! If the rumblings of the next expansion being in Ulgu pans out, that'll make for an extremely intriguing setting to introduce them, and hopefully also get to see what Malerion has been up to

I've had similar thoughts; with Fyerslayers having huge horned helms and using "Zharr" way more often than dwarfs traditionally did in Fantasy and Kharadron doing "tech heavy," I've chewed on where the CD's fit aesthetic wise. They could be an inversion of the "duardin soup" people kept rumbling out: all the elements from the other duardin but evil but tbh that isn't the most exciting. Reminds me of the demon engine train which, while a neat idea, always looked to be more "normal industry" than I'd pictured for the Chaos Duardin I'm hoping they circle back to the Hellcannon from fantasy as the main design inspiration! "Nightmare flesh technology" is a design space really only held by demon engines and some Dark Eldar stuff; which is fitting tbh. It'd also be unlike anything in the AoS aesthetic palette, especially if they leaned on "flesh + metal = demon engine" vibe; only the Death Guard and Soul Grinder really have that going on, most the rest are "evil creepy machines" at a glance. The articles about Bretonnia have me hopeful that they're looking back to the past. Also give my boys their gargantuan hats! More oldhammer and less Azgorh if I got to choose, despite me coming around on the infantry and character sculpts.

I've had an extremely busy couple of years outside of the hobby space! All positive stuff for the most part, but I'm psyched to get back into things! I've been building up my horde of terrain and working through my Soulblight Gravelords project; my friends are intrigued by Frostgrave, and I just happened to have most the base game's bestiary from my 16+ years of miniatures, so I've been having fun using it as an excuse to plow through some toys! By the time I'm done with the random encounters, I'll have a solid foundation for playing Soulblight Outside of building the bestiary for frostgrave, I really really want to get everything I own for Chaos Dwarfs built ahead of whatever release they may eventually get. That'll mean finishing off the kitbashed Horns of Hashut army I'd started last year! I have some conversions there I'm extremely proud of, and I'd love to be able to plop down a whole S2D army of 'em!

Dragging myself out of lurking to pop in and say how hyped I am that Chaos Dwarfs are even in the discussion at all! They've been my favorite army since I discovered them! I still have fond memories of mutilating the entire Battle for Skull Pass box as a teen in an attempt to ape some of the conversions I saw on the Chaos Dwarfs Online forum Got some Azgorh infantry, Hobgrots, and Horns of Hashut lined up in anticipation: I've been holding off on tracking down any warmachines in hopes that the CD's full blown AoS army (the first full plastic army the faction has ever had btw) has some real cool new stuff. The Horns sort of ballooned into a whole themed S2D army in the meantime, lol Really hoping its true that they're going to appear in AoS: I'd much rather see them causing problems across multiple realms instead of living in the margins of the Old World