Pizzaprez

wouldn't mind someone leaking the next year or so of AoS at all, tbh! Otherwise it's going to be a hot minute before I'm anticipating much of anything out of GW! Won't be picking up the 4th edition box unless my friend is extremely enthusiastic about the Skaven in it, and I'm not planning to finish the Dawnbringers series anymore

Yep. Had my eye on the Biophagus as a healer for my Frostgrave warband, but $33 for one dude was a bit much. And that price is going up now? I'm with you that it really is "discount bundles through retailers that offer a discount on top of that" for me, but that's honestly just hitting the ballpark of what GW prices used to be instead of feeling like an actual discount these days. Not to say GW is not making cool products; I still like their stories and miniatures, but with an exorbitant cost and no credit to the underpaid artists in their employ I'm having a harder and harder time staying "in it" each hike. Like, outside of centerpiece models for a couple armies (that I'll push off buying for much longer now) I'm really just hoping for a bundle of new Chaos Dwarfs and I'll cross my fingers for a holiday box with the Sylaneth models I was aiming to grab for my wife. I'd had some designs to maybe kitbash my Perry knights with Cities and Bretonnia stuff, but at this point I'm just going to enjoy them for what they are. I've got enough to build and paint, so it's not huge loss, but it's wild that I was priced out of this in high school and early college, and now I've got a career and I'm hitting my price ceiling again. Could I afford it? Maybe! Should I? Do I want to? Nah. Yeah that's not it: I have not received a 40% increase in pay in that time! This is a hobby and a luxury and I've already been eyeing 3D printers as a new hobby venture and getting more invested in other miniatures company's products. Not saying "I'm just going to 3D print GW IP " more, like, there are so many other pretty models out there that I'm having a hard time justifying not going for them instead. 3D printing is a whole new venture I've avoided the learning curve on, but it's getting to the point where the "best deal!" starter bundles are just about $180 after tax in my state. I'm sorry; that's insane. There was a point in time where GW would've been my first choice for miniatures, with other studio's offers facing an uphill climb to even get me to consider them. I'd like to play D&D and Frostgrave with miniatures for the NPC's. Moving forward, GW has pretty much priced itself out of that for me.

God I hate how that feels true: get something "divisive" out there for people to unreasonably hyperventilate about to help drown out the very valid "my investment is suddenly trash" venting Went from "well I wont play GW games anymore but their models are great" to "well... maybe not even the models" pretty quick. It doesn't feel that long ago that 10 figures cost somewhere between $30 and $35; $50+ for a box of ten core unit figures has crossed a threshold that has me not very interested in starting any new projects from GW. Wanted to get some more Sylvaneth for my wife, but I think I'm going to build absolutely everything else I own beforehand at this point. I like miniatures, and GW has some pretty ones, but outside the things I've already got rolling any other ideas/projects I have in mind are going to get reworked to avoid using GW kits. It's hard to justify >$50 for ten basic infantry when I don't even often buy full-priced videogames anymore. This does speak to the GW push for Spearhead sized games: if the default is "tiny sized" games suddenly everything on the way to 1,000 points is "optional." Fortunately, I'm in a position where I can budget to jump on the "box of new chaos dwarfs" bundle that'll be a comparatively great deal from LGS I really really like seeing 40k get more inclusive: the tweaks to Custodes was a graceful way to handwave the "boys club" narrative

I agree with you completely, and this is a great example of why I loved the older "soup" style army for cities: you could pretty much make whaever you want and find warscrolls to support it Have we seen the leader for the Stormcast half of the new edition box yet? or is that coming later? Loved the art-deco vibe on some of the older stormcast heroes, and im considering grabbing a couple favs while it's still feasible

I've had this same experience; even when I walk in, verbally display my familiarity with the games, settings, armies, hobby, etc, they've not left me free to browse for more than about a sixty second minute. I once walked in specifically to buy a Bloodthirster for a Khorne player as a gift and had to convince the staff member standing in front of the khorne display that "no, I do not want to buy a Belakor despite the fact that he IS newer and COULD be used" we talked in circles for much longer than I'd have liked until my wife finally asked "are we, like, not allowed to buy the Bloodthirster?" Whether I went in for a few paints or a couple miniature kits, they simply refused to let me say "no I already have an army, I don't want to buy the newest release, i just want what I came here for" and browse for a minute or two. Once, I shipped to store and got a lecture about how I should have called the store ahead of time and let them know I was making an order from the site. Started with "ah! I didn't realize the scope of the shipping problems y'all are having; I'll touch base in the future." but the dude had like an essay he had to vent and I had to stand at the register and hear him out before I could retrieve my purchase.

I feel like that's a pretty graceful solution if the issue is truly "we simply want to track how good the games are selling!" If I navigate to "squig riders" via the TOW part of the site, there is no reason that the kit couldn't look identical to me but have a different SKU on their end! I'm with you on Malerion and Chorfs!! GW makes such great models these days that I think the decades-long wait for Chorfs might pan out into something cool! Also everything hinted about Malerion is sick; demon moons, crazy calvary guys in the art, lots to love and run with there! I'm hoping the wait for Malerion is bc they're cooking something pretty insane! If they printed two barcodes on the back of each box and begged people to scan the relevant one, it could work; tracking that sort of sale from a third party seller could be challenging, but also right now an extremely decent chunk of TOW stuff is GW-site exclusive, so they do still have some time if that was something they were interested in.

I'd love an extended interview with that one dude because whatever their justification is I don't think it's reasonable tbh. It feels out of step with everything they are doing the time period of the first two AoS editions If the Scaremonger does succeed in putting the fear of the sun into the night goblins via a mask and hallucinations... Would the sungrots bully the cavegrots? Make fun of 'em for living in dank basements and eating junk food? Could be a fun dynamic if daygrots were jock bullies; that's a dynamic mostly present in the Orks and Grots of 40k and fantasy O&G but pretty absent in AoS. It'd be fun to have the Grots bullying each other for a change

Aaaaah I've never seen this art before; how cool! Stuff like this and the grot tanks from 40k is the vibe. The realms are so big and insane that they could do absolutely anything with the concept of a "daytime goblin" and if TOW is going to bogart whole races and factions I doubt they're going to just do "common goblins" which is sorta cool Dispossessed are a placeholder as far as I'm concerned. They're rereleasing the old night goblin kits because the idea of having *any* cross system models makes some GW dude sweat through his shirt. If they survive a substantial "not Fyerslayers or Kharadron" Duardin wave I'll be genuinely shocked.

If we're talking gitmob, im going to build on your anti-gloomspite wavelength and suggest that Gitmob would be a great place to see the Grotbag Scuttlers that were mentioned a handful of times Get real weird with it; more weird than "Kharadron scraps held aloft by squig balloons" If Gloomspite is "below" emphasize that Gitmob is "above!" I'd love to see air and land vehicles, calvary like Snarlfangs, and unique goblin troops now that the "vanilla" goblins are firmly a TOW thing. I'd love a fantasy goblin Evil Sunz Clan/Kult of Speed. Spin it out of captured Gholem/Kharadron fortresses and make a destruction "weird science" faction to compete with the Skaven and Chorfs! With all their antagonists taking their respective slice of the "crazy machinery!" pie, surely Gholems and Dispossessed would need to respond with their own toys!

I agree! Gives some weight to my hopes that Gholemkind may hit the tabletop eventually! I almost wish they wouldn't have given him specific rules at all in this case, and released him purely as a hobbyist item. He is very pretty, makes sense to be limited edition, but getting hit with "get-you-by" rules after so much buildup does sort of feel silly. I get that having two "cross-faction dwarf hero fighters" might seem a bit redundant, and I have wondered for awhile why Gotrek was placed into that role instead of Grombrindal, when it's been Grombrindal's thing for a very long time. For what it's worth, it looks like Grombrindal is on a similarly sized/height base as Gotrek, so he does have a counts-as opportunity if you wanted to build a project around him for a GW game. Grombrindal is also a rare case of a character who you could probably use as any dwarf character with some light customization and it'd be in line with how he acts when he isn't projecting his god-aura and making himself thirty feet tall I suppose it speaks to a desire within GW to keep Grombrindal on the sidelines and margins instead of becoming a "face character" in AoS. Maybe, then, he'll pop up in TOW too! Maybe TOW is why he isn't getting a permanent AoS spot... Regardless, his being a solo limited edition mini with legends rules suggests, unless they do something substantially different with him in AoS as to make him unrecognizable, flags (to me) that he will not be leading a duardin soup nor will he be leading a "new" dwarf faction. Maybe the dispossessed will stick with Cities? Maybe Fyerslayers will gain a heavily-armored troop option instead? I feel like Gholemkin is more likely than a "combined" duardin army now, in any case. Which is great, as far as im concerned! I'd like to see more dwarfs, not less!

Grombrindal is gorgeous! I'll have to kitbash him with the Blood Bowl one that looks substantially more nuts Also- I've been assuming that a Grombrindal model could herald a "united Duardin" tome if they went that way; him being Legends out the gate makes that much less likely to me!

If they ever did a Vashtorr range I'd have to buy it just to paint; he's too sick. I'd be beyond stoked if Chaos Duardin looked anything like that Yessss I bought some of the old Reaper Mancubi from Doom it'd be fun to have friends for em

Gah I forgot about that, I couldn't decide if I was excited for 3.0 or let down by Broken Realms when that happened. And I liked Kragnos and that arc! Just sort of petered out with "and then Alarielle cast a gargantuan life spell so big it needed heralds to spread it" and I was like "cool! now what?" Well probably it would have woke up the Incarnates in-universe in the last leg of a Broken Realms book focused on Alarielle and setting up the major confrontation that would have spanned the Seasons of War. Season of War sure does sound like something pretty tied to Alarielle, actually. AoS had a ton of narrative momentum up until that point, and (in my opinion) has been scrambling to get back to the Malgin Portents -> Necroquake pacing since. Story arcs and whole armies being shredded in the background fits some of the weirdness of 3.0 quite well. Broken Realms being a kickoff to a beastmen-focused Season of War sure would've made this feel like the Era of the Beast edit: Broken Realms Kragnos was 2021; that's more than enough time for GW to internally realize 3.0 was going to be messy narratively

From where I'm sitting, that narrative had to eventually introduce Morghur to the setting and have some pretty big fallout for the Realms as a whole. The incarnates seemed to be something important, that were going to be built on, in a similar way to how Endless Spells helped to emphasize some aspects of the setting. GW deciding to drop beasts had to have been something they planned for for awhile internally; likely around when they were nailing down TOW's ruleset. Timeline-wise, this shaking out about two years ago feels right. That narrative just sort of faded away when I was expecting/anticipating at least one sequel. If it was a multi-book story about how the Incarnates started showing up and the Beastmen began to corrupt them into/for Morghur, snowballing into the AoS Beastmen reboot, I could see why someone saying "yo AoS team, you're losing beastmen" would result in the entire narrative getting axed. Alarielle has also been pretty quiet since the Rite of Life, which (to me) supports the perspective her and the beasts would have finally had a narrative arc focused on the Alarielle/Morghur mud wrestling match that ive been thirsting for since 2003

I agree! I feel like the Realmgates really really open up what the "scale" of these stories could be. The Malign Portents and Necroquake arcs, this big "Blight City directly invades" arc, even Alarielle's rite of Life that was sort of glossed over all could/should result in stories that could take place anywhere or in brand-new locations we've never heard of! I think it could also play nicely with the hype/anticipation cycle GW likes; have lots of short stories in between each book! Play with cliffhangers or foreshadow cool ideas that'll pan out in the upcoming book with the narrative hooks they did on Warhammer Community more often in the earlier editions 3.0 could have opened with the Dawnbringer Crusades, and they could have really leaned hard into those stories for years! With their initial terrain ideas, having the narrative entirely focused on crusades for the whole edition wouldve worked great! The initial half of the edition wouldve been buildings under construction while the Dawnbringer books are focused on foundation-setting and outposts, and you could have paired the "finished building" terrain kits with a "alright now we have some new cities, here's where things are going south" in the second half. We'll see how 4.0 shakes out narratively; it seems like stuff internally had Broken Realms get axed before it really got rolling in favor of reshuffling stuff ahead of Dawnbringers.

I'd love something like this; The current "Blight City Incursion" event in the narrative would be a great vehicle for that style of release, and they could even make most of the books self-contained stories that maybe cross over at the end: like how you got snapshots of factions that all met up for the Malign Portent in-canon fight at Nagash's Black Pyramid A book or two a year, focusing on a handful of armies at a specific crossroads due to the overarching problem. You could even just break it up by Realm and focus on a small slice of each! Have a bunch of the protagonists meet in the last book like a crossover comic to fight the Big Bad and usher in the new edition. Looking down the barrel of $150 in books in the next couple months, I wouldn't have minded doing Broken Realms or Dawnbrinders and had a much slower pace for the books

NGL, that would be an extremely fun roadmap if each encounter with the skaven worked to add some to both sides; skaven would get four or five waves of miniatures, and they have so much going on as a faction that I bet you could get a masterclan/pestilines/moulder/skyre/eshin each in a small wave and you wouldn't see much overlap.

Ah! I must have houseruled that so hard that I completely forgot it was 1" in 2.0, ahahaha

Totally fair! Treating it like a rank & flank game with some wiggle room is def the intent GW is going for, but I think I still prefer the older way. I do agree that movement trays are phenomenal for big units, but I prefer the view of more elite units having space between 'em

I'm inclined to agree; I liked the 2" coherency AoS began with. I get that it caused its own set of challenges, but I liked the look of it and it made it easy to keep my guys in coherency using terrain like the Stormvault with it's 2" wide staircases. The ridiculous conga-chains one could do isn't great, but .5" just makes me feel like one would be better off just using movement trays exclusively.

Tbh I loved all the metals from that era; some of the sculpts that got me into GW! The box art was sick bc they were cross-game models so they just said CHAOS across the front. Instantly caught my eye. Daemonettes are some of my fav miniature ladies; cool poses and great sculpts (especially, as others have said, comparing them to the other ladies of the time; see Morathi). I'm all about the miniatures being their "true form" without the magic glamor that people see them as in-universe, but I don't love the way they look at all. They lost all their dynamism in the jump to plastic, and their faces arent as cool Plaguebearers were so good their plastic pretty much just redid them exactly with some more options. Though, tbh, even looking back to Rogue Trader days Plaguebearers were pretty much one-and-done concept wise. Not that thats a problem! Khorne's bloodletters all had sick faces and cool axes; I do like how the current plastics catch the vibe from their much older models; works best for bloodletters imo Tzeentch was between eras where Horrors could split, and their "horror" models were beyond cool. Probably one of my favorite unit sculpts ever from any range; if any of y'all are looking to build some but not use their spindly metal arms (or, if you're like me, you lost a bunch of arms in the last decade or so) the current Blue Horror kit bashes perfectly with them. Limbs are perfect for it. I remember how let down I was seeing models that somehow managed to capture "constantly mutating" in a pewter toy turned into "squigs with arms" when they hit plastic

I sort of get that, if successor chapters didn't exist. Like, why couldn't my pretend neon green Skrunkmarines be Blood Angels successors who specialize in motorcycles? If I wanted to play some games as Death Company and some games as White Scars, it's wild that GW wants me to buy two armies of marines just so I can paint them different colors. If GW makes their most recent marine book objectively better than the other flavors, maybe they should have reconsidered making half of the Warhammer 40k armies marine variants that mostly share kits? That sounds like a GW problem, not a hobbyist problem. Personally, I find the notion I can only use certain rules if I paint my space marine kits a certain color insulting, and I feel like it goes against a lot of what makes tabletop games appealing. But GW not wanting their players to use their armies in more than one book/setting/game system is absolutely not going away based on current trends; no idea if the colors thing is still relevant in 40k but it grossed me out real hard.

oh yeah it was thankfully very short-lived in AoS; iirc it mostly impacted Kharadrons. The color scheme stuff was always crazy silly to me in 40k, where there is an in-universe explanation for some pink dudes rocking Ultramarines rules with the concept of Successor Chapters; some of which look/act next to nothing like their parent chapters. Like, if you're not seeing the Death Company on the field i'd be hard-pressed to assume Lamenters were a Blood Angles successor at a glance.

Love the Hammers and their "big golden boy" vibe, loved that the Sigmarines had a color scheme that took the blue/gold of the Ultramarines and swapped it. I really liked that parallel tbh especially as, narratively, the Stormcast were the inverse of what a super-soldier could be in a Warhammer setting. I also like that their becoming morally two-dimensional was seen as a flaw by much of the people in the setting However, I dislike whenever GW puts a "if you want to use X rules for Your Dudes, you gotta paint them 'right'" rule in place and I didn't love the over-reliance on the Hammers from the perspective of they were generally the "most important!" in a story and most of the named Stormcast characters came from their host. I feel like half of the named characters could have been from smaller/purposefully obscure stormhosts. Ionus Cryptborne is cool and all, but I think it could have been more interesting if he was a brand-new guy from a brand-new stormhost that has entirely disappeared due to something happening during their reforging. That new stormhost could then have become the face of the ruination chamber

I'm holding out some hope we see some really phenomenal stuff come out of the chamber instead of the "not-paladins" we're getting so far. I like the service-dog grandkids but I loved the paladins