Pizzaprez

I feel similarly to you! I *love* GW models but their rules are absolutely not it for "lemme buy these toys and I'll be able to use them for a decade!" If something isn't in a battletome, assume it'll be gone within four years. If a battletome isn't selling well, don't assume it'll be there forever. If a sub faction is something GW wants to put on squares, get ready to consider your options. I don't really like that at all. However, I do understand that they can only make/produce/support so many factions. I feel like the "right" thing to do is to make that faction model agnostic and give it rules that'll be lightly tweaked and updated once an edition. I don't love seeing people's projects get "invalidated." Like, a nonzero amount of people got into Beastmen during 3.0; the "Era of the Beast." Assuming they didn't get into Beasts day 1, that means their time and financial investment will last... a mere few years? Stuff like Lost and the Damned and Legion of Grief are "in the margins" armies from supplements: makes sense they wouldn't be around forever. But idk the culling that's been going on in 3.0 is my least favorite sort of GW. Like when they axed all their free modelling tutorials on their website overnight.

Fortunately I'd bought the sniper rifles for my Handgunners (I think that option is gone now) and had a Freeguild HQ guy sorted so those are out. I have a luminark and hurricanum and I think they're safe! Tbh I'm not touching my City until the faction gets another wave or two I really hope the Beasts rumor is off-base. Give me a Morghur faction or something! Their narrative was cool! Why not have "dudes in the woods" be in both games?

Tbh GW has always had a habit of cutting whole factions, sub factions, and model ranges out of their game with no recourse for years now. It's a frustrating practice that has hit me personally enough times that I've dropped GW games in favor of things that are more model-agnostic: I hate my army going extinct. Squats, for one Tried Lost and the Damned right before they got dropped, made 90 mutants for it Savage Orks were dropped before I was even into 40k Chaos Dwarfs have been cut from GW games three times now, and with them starting as Legends in TOW it'll be four next edition. GW cut Bretonnia and TK entirely from AoS after 1.0; I had bought models for both Dropped legion of grief right after I bought a bunch of ghosts and vampires GW cut HElves and WElves from cities despite them being a core part of the faction identity; my plan for my city was to have both. Also pistoliers got cut right after I converted some I stopped building my AoS beastmen bc they were Slaanesh marked (marked beastmen were back!) and they promtly lost the ability to play nice with the Slaanesh demons id bought. Why did I collect all the Rogue Trader Keeper of Secrets to use as minotaurs, then? GW wants to sell you toys. If they have decided that Beasts will sell better in TOW (especially with new plastic centigors being "new" for that game) they will completely drop them from AoS without a second thought. I'm extremely pessimistic about how GW handles this sort of thing. Theyll probably tell you to proxy them as kruleboyz or "try out TOW!" Maybe they'll get an ApoS reboot. More likely imo they're being dropped to bulk out TOW with their intended-for-aos update(s)

That's *crazy.* Not thrilled about that prospect at all

With my life outside the hobby being busy the last couple years, I've been doing a lot of this! I wasn't smart enough to plan things in points, just sort of got hobby balls rolling and figured I'd make an army out of it Got a soulblight army in the works; old plastic skeletons, Rob Hawkins style metal zombie wolves, lots of the Cursed City zombies, old metal fell bats and bat swarms, blood knights and heroes with Bretonnia helms, most the metal necromancers, plenty of black knights. Was meant to be paired with mostly ghosts for Legion of Grief, which didn't last long. But I've got quite a few of the nighthaunt range too; they were often cheap while they were the poster antagonists! I got a few Thorns of the Briar Queen to bulk out my chainrasp units and add more poses without needing to do conversion work. Love my ghosts; got a dread blade harrow based on one of olynder's handmaidens and used the mirror banshee or whatever to make a lady knight of shrouds I've also got a City of Sigmar out of Perry miniatures! I got stuff to make knights, riflemen, greatswords, and pistoliers and watched in horror while the Wanderers got axed before I could get any for the project. It's on hold until Cities gets a meaty second wave, then I can reassess what I'm doing with it. Still excited! Azyrites living in Ghyran to get both cosmic and nature vibes I've also snagged the fantasy and AoS Realm of Battle board and am going to spend the next couple months texturing and painting them! I also hit some other terrain pretty hard; getting some pieces before they were discontinued, a couple fantasy grail eBay finds, and multiple copies of Warcry and Red Harvest's terrain sets while the getting was good! LOVE the Red Harvest stuff! My current Wargame focus is Chaos Duardin; when Horns of Hashut were ~$20 I couldn't resist when I knew they'd be $65 everywhere as soon as they got a solo release. I've got some of them, combined with Iron Golems and The Unmade, some Hobgrots, and the Legion of Azgorh infantry I'd slowly been hording over the years! Got a finecast Galrauch to lead them and I've worked out some extremely cool calvary using the Exhaled Seekers as a base! The projects are in various stages of completion, but in excited about literally all of them! Ive been terrified of the realm of battle tiles but I'm finally just pulling the trigger on it haha

There was a focus on armies from Hysh in an issue of White Dwarf (i forget the number) and they had a few ideas. Lots of gold/white and undead things tend to burn Seraphon tend to play with other ideas associated with the realms' magic: preferring to fly around in spaceships and summon constellations instead of living "in" Azyr or using storm magic. I'd consider what "else" you could focus on in Hysh. The primary faction is concerned with perfection, meditation, enlightenment, and communing with the living magic behind the realms. In the novel Neferata: A Dominion of Bones, a Khorne chaos lord from Hysh uses the realm's magic to create a gargantuan fortress-laser, burning/melting the space around his domain. Glancing at the Hysh wiki page, it seems like Hysh falls into one of three things: Spiritual Enlightenment, Literal Enlightenment, and banishing Daemons. I think a focus on multiple wizards could draw successful comparisons to the mage-cults of WHF, as could lots of "light" colors in your army's heraldry. For the lizards themselves, I'd probably recommend looking at real-life desert lizards for inspiration! You could also go literal with the "Serpent of Light" and try your hand at kitbashing the old Coatl once they rerelease the old plastic dragon for TOW; painting it bright and luminescent. Could count it as a slaan! If you wanted more, you could buy Luminark or two and use the lenses throughout your army as a motif. Serpents are also associated with Hysh in general, and quite a few lizardmen units have access to 'em! I love the idea of really emphasizing a home-realm for Your Dudes! Offers tons of creative opportunities!

I'd also love to see imperial halflings, ogres, and dwarfs again! Halflings in particular would annihilate my wallet, the rest would be hard not to add to my City of Sigmar. I bet they'd sell!

That swirl is 100% sylvaneth artistic flourish: if they put a spiral on a hive on a branch with leaves sculpted on and it isn't sylvaneth i'll be shook. I feel like spirals are a dead giveaway! Love the sylvaneth in general and each model release they have is better than the last! Don't give me hope! Starting the season with Horns of Hashut and "these guys are panicking bc the Chaos Duardin are on their way and expect the forest gone" and ending it with "the Chaos Duardin are here to fight the forest themselves" would be way too cool! Looking at the Chaos-esque rumor engines, I see a looney tunes looking bomb that could either be CD or Skaven, but the clean craftsmanship makes me thing Duardin I think the monster head, spiky armor, spear, and severed heads could all belong to the same chaos character sculpt: maybe something for Dawnbringers? I've been trying to reel myself in a bit after I spent some time a couple years ago utterly sure all the rumor engine claws were Malerion faction stuff ahead of the Soulblight releases

Ah! Didn't realize that! Dude even has a deer helm! Footslogging knights are my favorite, so I'm stoked to see what the foot version looks like Also wondering if we'll see some equivalent to pistoliers making a comeback! I had a whole Free Cities project in the works using Perry knights and GW rebooted the faction like three weeks after I got started in earnest, lol. Hoping Cities gets their second wave sooner rather than later so I can get back to it!

I'm in the opposite camp: "Arch Knight," to me, implies the existence of "Knight." I'd be shocked if GW doesn't do nu-greatswords and I'd be twice as shocked if their inevitable "heavily armored foot knights," that will likely get released alongside likely new monstrous knights, don't have any design cues in common: the little crown on the lapel is the most "Arch" part of the "archknight" May not be as elaborate, but nothing about the cities releases have made me feel like the knights will be "normal"

If GW don't already have a heavy infantry unit of "grimdark animal knights" in the pipline already then idk what is going on over there lol what a beautiful sculpt!

Oh man a spider that buffs other spiders could be really cool: a squig-adjacent situation where it's really the spiders that are the leaders and the grots are just along for the ride! A spider-prophet? Exalted spider? i'd love to see what they came up with!

Well thanks! I had similar lightbulb moments when GW changed "Dwarf" to "Duardin" and when D&D started self-reflecting on how it handled races/species. I know it caused some waves online, but I'm all about fun spaces being inclusive to anyone who is not trying to exclude others and I feel like its a positive shift! To your point about the Broo; I really liked that the initial beastmen book in AoS had a section suggesting that, if Sigmar hadn't taught the burgeoning Order races how to be racist, the Beastmen could've been alright hanging out in the woods with the rest of the intelligent factions. I think AoS has done a great job recontextualizing familiar WHF stuff like that, so I think I should keep an open mind! I think I disliked the calcification too much on principle, though; there is absolutely no reason GW couldn't write in a myriad of new reasons/speculations for it happening! Just because I didn't like it in Fantasy doesn't mean I cant like it in AoS! With how the narrative has been handled, I could see the rock thing both being in and handled with a bit more finesse. Otherwise how is Astragoth Ironhand going to come back/get rebooted? haha I'd also like to see some amount of opportunities for allies, especially the hobgrots. I finally built up one of my plastics and, compared to the old metals, there are so many tiny design cues they share between them that i'd be a little let down if they aren't able to cross-pollinate at all! Their helms in particular are a metal version of their old hoods, even down to the v-shaped top where it lays on their foreheads. and their sculpts look great side-by-side; the old one is just a bit more pudgey and hunched. They may have to balance allies with what the army has, but tbh I could reasonably see allies in the form of Gitmob, Kruleboyz, Hobgrots, and Horns of Hashut all filling the "chaff" role. It'd be the first time an army has explicitly allowed allies from another Grand Allegiance, which could be fun! Especially if they use it to loosen things a bit more with other factions moving forward!

Omg 10/10 meme, I think the stone bit will stay around tbh and you're right that it's unique/symbolic of the CD's/fun, but I think I actually dislike the notion that channeling magic is so unnatural for a dwarf/duardin that they calcify. I do like the idea that Chaos Duardin have consequences like spawndom, but I don't really like when fantasy games give strict parameters for what a race can and can't do: often times fantasy races are inspired by real life human cultures to some degree, and I'd be equally put off by the notion that Goblins or Orruks are simply incapable of building complex machinery. I think I always interpreted the dwarfen use of runes as "channeling magic is for wimps (we're not good at it 😶) and it's way better/efficient/dwarflike to hammer power into runes." The Chaos Dwarf calcification could be anything else instead! I just am sort of against the idea that "X race simply can't do a thing" in a fantasy setting. Might be my own personal hangups, but I usually interpret "X can't do a thing" as "X traditionally doesn't excel at this thing by default, has decided it isnt for them." Leaves some grey area, and I always like the grey areas! I think I also disliked the "legend" that dwarfs were first carved from stone just being proven 100% true in the Chaos Dwarfs, and that dwarfs use runs because they cannot channel magic. Duardin not casting spells in favor of runecrafting as a cultural preference is something I can totally get behind. Duardin could even still consider it "unnatural" because it isn't the "Duardin way" of doing things! I'd just rather it not be that their race simply can't do it, especially as the Mortal Realms are magical as hell. I don't think a slight retcon there is awful! Especially as we have the Root Kings who are Duardin primarily interested in plantshaping! I also tend to love Chaos Dwarfs as a "capitalism is evil" faction: their lack of environmental care, their disregard for the lives of those working in their nation, their hyperfixation on weapons of horrific war (that are fueled by torture) their rampant selfish consumerism/consumption, their complete willingness to annihilate other cultures and enslave their people are all some of the worst things that nations in real life do, and it's one of the things I like most about them! They're literally mustache-twirling nightmare colonist/capitalists, and I think you're right that their way of life should have consequences for them! I'd hedge my bets on them still turning to stone or something, ngl! I wonder if the reasoning behind it will change at all, or if we're going to also get some lore about early-realms Duardin and how Grungi shaped them from stone! I just hope they don't circle back to "duardin literally can't/shouldn't cast spells bc they'll die:" I'd be fine if they just felt like the gift of runecrafting the ancestor gods taught them was better

I suppose I don't count mounts there: I was more thinking him personally as a guy. he's also rocked a chariot with cool bat wings actually what if he gets his chariot with cool bat wings back?? One of the reasons I've been excited about TOW is the fact that they're using it as a vehicle for lots of new foot heroes: I'd like a return to big mounted kits including a spare pair of legs to make the same character on foot: they're so efficient with sprue space now that I think it'd be worth it! If they did "Arkhan on his sick chariot" as a kit, i'd like it to come with a base for an "Arkhan on foot" for sure AoS has so many named characters for things that could be non-unique that I've found myself circling back to "how could this profile represent an original character?" we have multiple realms each the size of multiple Earths: there can be two ferrymen who drowned so many people that it became noteworthy! You're telling me Alwach is simply the #1 drowner? and only him?

It would be an extremely fun way to put a nail in the "spiderfang and savage orruks are on the chopping block!" speculation by putting out a big new character Actually, with how identical that looks to the Arachanok, I almost wonder if they couldnt make an add-on sprue like King Brodd for a big new Spiderfang character?

On the topic of rumors, I almost wonder if this big wing isn't a Morghast per se, but Arkhan back from the edge of Hysh? I fully don't expect Death and Death Jr. to stay "dead" forever, and I completely anticipate Arkhan coming back as an Ossiarch: maybe he'll be huge? Or bigger than he had been? He was only a skeleton bc he'd been a skeleton for thousands of years: I can't seem to recall him loving being a human-sized skeleton or anything like that. Maybe he'd mix it up a bit? Katakros is a big guy too. I would be sad to lose the only skeleton Mortarch, but at the same time it'd open the role up for something "new" like a Krell reboot

That was one of the things I loved about them as a teen to a certain extent: they were one of the most important industrialized nations in the setting, interacting with most the other races and factions, and insulated from invasion by a semi-natural hellscape. The reality is their being so isolated and mercenary in their actions meant they never "needed" to actually show up! I remember discovering that the chaos dwarfs who ran the Hellcannon made it and come from a whole nation of similarly evil dudes. I was sold! Didn't realize they wouldn't get a plastic release until I was in my thirties, but honestly my middle school self wouldn't have believed it anyways God me too; everything out of GW lately has been phenomenal on the fantasy end of things! I am anxiously awaiting the rumor engine that's just a big tall hat with "oh gosh what could this possibly be??" I'm with you there; I sort of hope that, because the mortal realms are so full of magic, that Chaos Dwarf sorcerers can lose the "ah! I'm a rock now!" thing and they can mutate a bit more. Bull centaurs are one of the kits I want most, but I agree that CD mutants would be awesome! I also love the idea of a hellcannon/missile launcher dual kit: a cannon/missile dual kit and an AoS Earthshaker feel extremely possible Regardless, I saw that The Old World has a profile for the Hellcannon so I am absolutely going to buy that and hope for the best rules-wise. I ruined the one I got growing up in a botched conversion attempt and I could never salvage it nor could I afford to get a few off eBay Also love the idea of K'daii being an endless spell: the invocation the Fyerslayers have is very similar!!

I think the Mortal Realms are going to be really cool to explore that concept in! Literally every realm has crazy magic natural resources to exploit! Based on their descriptions so far, I almost wonder if they aren't going to foil the Cities of Sigmar: the Cities are supposed to be diverse multicultural metropolises, with many diverse cultures/people/beliefs intermingling with one another. Sure, they all hate chaos, but its a bunch of races and factions coexisting as equals (in the best case scenario; AoS has lots of grey morality) The Horns of Hashut are the "people" of the Chaos Duardin cities: they're the ones who will give up their way of life in favor of the Hashut way of doing things. The "melting pot" metaphor instead of the "salad bowl," if you will. I think Chaos Duardin are going to be in a unique position in the Chaos roster: they're the Chaos faction that sets up roots. It's always been a unique part of them, even Tamurkhan mentioned how the chaos dwarfs were setting up bases and supply lines when the rest of the chaos horde wasn't bothering to Slaves and Stormcast are direct foils: Slaves run around the realms wrecking stuff and the Stormcast run around the realms.... wrecking stuff for the good guys. The Chaos Warrior and Liberator profiles are almost identical to emphasize this, and I think it's an apt comparison CD's also foil Order Duardin as part of their faction identity; using mounts and magic and having monstrous hybrids where Duardin tend to focus on runes and contraptions. They also reflect the Skaven, being (in Fantasy) few in number and much more skilled/proficient in their designs. Skaven focus on frankensteining stuff and weird contraptions, where Duardin work to bind daemons instead of abusing warpstone. Their daemon binding also puts them at odds with some chaos factions, since Duardin tend to abuse them. You're also not wrong in that they would not get along with Sylvaneth: their reaping of the realms' natural resources puts them in direct opposition to the treeople as well! My wife plays Sylvaneth, and I've given my Duardin a "they like to bring in monsters to wreck the natural ecosystems they encounter, filling them with chaotic invasive species" slant Im so stoked that the Chaos Duardin are getting into AoS instead of the Old World; they're problematic to almost every other faction in the entire game including themselves and it'll be fun to have them in a setting where they arent primarily chilling unmentioned in the Dark Lands

I'm really hoping they have the CD "archetypes" morphed into AoS equivalents: somewhere between Lumineth and Cities in the vein of "remix" Old World armies! Outside of Tauruses, Lammasus, sorcerers, and hats I'm pretty open to whatever new ideas they come up with! If they drop Bull Centaurs as a concept entirely I'll be crestfallen, though: they're a staple of the faction identity imo I feel like Cities is looking good as a "not-empire" army and lumineth is shaping up nicely as "not-helves:" Chaos Duardin aren't competing against their Old World counterpart visually like some other factions, which leaves the door wide open for whatever they feel like doing! I'm already trying to set aside some money for a couple Hellcannons: looks like they may make a comeback! If it gets the same resin remaster treatment the bretonnia siege weapon got im way past in

Completely forgot about their inclusion in Thondia! I agree: great narrative, so-so rules. Will be a bit salty if we never get another "Season of War" I really liked that idea Honestly the Anvil stuff in WD is part of why I subscribed! I felt like 2.0 had a lot of excellent conversion and rule stuff going on in WD: I was enamored with the series of conversions from each of the Mortal Realms

Yooooo noo that's too cool I don't know how I'd possibly resist that as a model please give me a whole faction of that

Last few years have been "a few times a year" at best. Unfortunately real life has got in the way with things like buying a home and getting married, so I've done more building than painting Aiming to fix that this year, though: I've got two Realm of Battles to texture and paint!

I'm really hoping to see "daemonic possession" as a staple of the faction, ngl. The Tamurkhan list/machines that weren't possessed by default but could be as an upgrade was just about the only thing from that book narratively that I actively disliked: steam technology is, in my head, a staple of the Empire! I didn't love that the chaos dwarfs, narratively, had a "better steam tank" as their main staple: if the main fuselage section looked like the Hellcannon and the cannons on it were demon-powered instead of having like funky cannonball buckets I would've bought it day one. Really hoping to see something unique tech-wise for them as "clean magic steampunk" is now an aesthetic firmly held by the Kharadron

Man all these ideas about a rebel khainite faction are really cool; I'd forgotten the detail about the broken cauldron! I'm actually changing my tune a bit: I'd rather see "Anti-Morathi Khanites" get more focus in the faction and the faction get more crazy greek mythology inspired creatures instead of Malerion's gang I think I got hung up on Malerion's crew being merged with Daughters bc that'd be the same "not all the evil elves are friends" vibe that Dark Elves had in Fantasy, but why just do Morathi vs Malekith again? A "Khanite-but-new" wave would be really neat and help to further the identity of the faction! All that said, I wonder what vibes would be left for a Malerion-only faction? If Morathi has winged aelves, snake aelves, shadowy spy aelves, battle cultists, and "blood" as her stuff, Malerion will have to really be something unique to stand alongside it side-by-side. The Duardin don't have a ton of overlap, I wonder how they could work to differentiate "Shadow-daemon aelves" and "snake/bat mutant witch aelves" in a way that they're immediately recognizable as two different evil aelf factions