Baron Klatz

Recent thread on that here that lists them all: Orders on ones out of stock say it’ll take 180 days so looks like they’re moving to every half-year to help with the storage problems that both 40k & LotR already had to do rotations to assist with. If the ones you want are already gone then you can save up for a spending splurge then. That’s what I did when this news dropped for a bunch of the original Shadespire ones.

You can use a Vengorian Lord for that bit. Some of them rather than embrace their new form as mastery over Death & Beasts will go to extreme lengths of self-denial for their egos that they aren’t total monstrosities. Including making massive elaborate costumes to hide their centaurian half. ”To deny the truth of what has become of them, Vengorians order their minions to do any number of things to hide any reflection of their monstrous form; they will be ordered smash mirrors in advance of their arrival, to construct elaborate ballroom masks and monstrous, form-fitting gowns from the stitched-together flesh of the dead, and to sorcerously rust the armour of enemy troops. Even a goblet of fresh vitae might lead such a beast to catch sight of their dreadful appearance, and so they feed near exclusively upon scabbed and clotted blood.” (That’s my head-canon of certain Victorian killer puppet games like the upcoming “Lies of P”, Realm of Metal city taken over by Death so all the corrupted toy robots/soldiers/ballet dancers are either possessed or Deathrattle in metal & plastic coverings)

This bit of lore from the box is interesting: ”Luckily for the Sylvaneth, Skrittat was always doomed to fail. Unbeknownst to him, his trusted assassin, Deathmaster Virrtik, had been hired by another party keen to see to Skrittat’s downfall. All it took was a well-laid trail of clues allowing the Sylvaneth to follow them back to Aqshy and take their revenge – and stopping the overambitious Skrittat’s rise to power. Leaving her realm for the first time came the Lady of Vines, legendary commander and daughter of Alarielle herself. Cut off from the goddess in her warlike summer aspect, the Lady and her army reap a bloody path straight to Skrittat’s retreating forces, triggering an all-out battle.” My initial theory was daemon Skaven erupting from the cosmic roots digging into Aqshy for this box but they went and made a new narrative that dragged them all into the Realm of Fire anyway. Third box set in Aqshy alongside Fury of the Deep with the acidic coasts of Riftmar and Arena of Shades with ghosts taking Khainite souls on gladiator holiday in former-Anvilgard. Can’t help but think this is pointing to a realm shift next year or next edition being the Realm of Fire now with 3(and possibly more) sets of narrative realm rules and battleplans they could be testing for the new Core Aqshy battle pack.(hope they pick Riftmar realm rules the most, Acid Rains increasing damage and Sulphuric Quicksands hobbling troops make some really fun fights )

Indeed. Also it’s (unfortunately) fair you don’t know the game. It was a super hidden gem of it’s time. I’d say at least give the music a listen. Super Good for something from the Nintendo GameCube era.

Took me a bit but I just realized what they remind me off. They look a lot like the Digger bots from the Metal Arms game(I adored that game) That could be a fun project mixing them with some tech bits & Deathrattle(for the skinny line-limb connections) to make a Glitch Cogmunculus.

Yeah. That wasn’t the pessimist part, he was bashing on all the AoS reveals(which is a good thing in my book. If he doesn’t like them that means AoS is going in the right direction. Yes I very much don’t like him 😛 ) and saying those things as “good news to cheer everyone up”. So there’s little salt on these and likely accurate. We’ll see what happens but it’s about what I expect. There’s already tons of rank-and-flank competitors out there that straight up took advantage of the lose of Brets and TK. They’re not gonna want to waste money trying to capitalize on generic knights and mummies everyone else is doing when the cheap nostalgia option will suffice.

Probably ruins. They were the big heroes and last bastion of Order before everything just kept going down hill for them to comical proportions. Had the known largest empire that spanned multiple realms. From vast metalworks and forges in Aqshy, golden roads through Chamon to their stark Iron fortresses and large holdings even in the Realm of Death. It all got rocked hard by the initial Chaos invasion and shattered it. Their Fyreslayer allies that built their massive defense steambulk walls turned on them for Chaos’ Ur-gold and hit the weak spots of the Great walls with Magmadroth herds had to rally as the last defensive so the countless millions of refugees from the other realms could escape to Azyrheim as Archaon and United Chaos fell upon the last Lantic Bastion. their scattered empire remnants in Shyish that held out on the new hellscapes are infected by Ushoran’s spreading madness and become the first major Flesh-Eater Courts thanks to all their starving peasants. Their empress is zapped up by the God-King to be reforged leaving them even more divided and confused on what’s going on. And the final note on them was after the 2016 Seeds of Hope campaign lead to the Age of Hope and civilizations being built up again in the realms with fleets of Cogforts reclaiming vast tracts of land in Aqshy, the Lantic remnants began a new settlement with them there only for a maw-gate to open and ravenous Ogors to rain down on them snuffing it out. They had the mother of all bad days. Left behind lots of fancy ruins, shattered steamworks and glittering roads tho.

There’s a lot of people on Reddit who confused Flynt for a Votann and now I’m wondering about making the antigrav unit nautical themed and water colored to go with as a Aether-skimmer with harpoon replacements and the antigrav wheels as fancy sky-life preservers on the sides? 🤔

Oh 100%, that’s a big reason why they dragged their feet on so much artwork that barely shows what Incredible stuff is in the lore besides locations. They’re not gonna show off a Freeguild Ghyran Knight, covered in magic wooden armor with a varnish shine, golden embellishments flowing behind him as he rides a Ghyrlion plant-beast to battle with a fey green soulpod axe at the ready, and not have the models to back up that kind of advertisement. My favorite currency bits are with Chamon and Aqshy. In Chamon there’s nobility with flowers on their clothes to show off their great wealth because it means they can afford clean water and pure soil in a Realm of copper-water and silver shard filled dirt little can grow in. These and objects from Ghyran act as currency since gold and silver are so common the Lantic Empire made entire roadworks to their cities and fortresses literally paved with gold. And in Aqshy it’s wooden jewelry for similar reasons but can’t be flowers because they won’t survive the constant heat.

Yeah, Forge World put that out back in 2020 looking for art designers that listed their games with that game at the end. And another posting last year for model sculpters. Also, though he’s a sourgrape and sometimes half-right, that Hastings guy said this after the AoS fest: ”for those of you interested in The Old World project, a I can tell you that Bret and Tomb King plastic kits are going back into production, ready to be available when the project launches.” “Only these two ranges as far as I understand, because many people mourned their loss from the new setting, and GW can make a quick $ off the nostalgia hype and have ZERO dev costs to put into getting them into production again. As far as I understand a LARGE part of the Old World stuff will be resin.” “No sorry, I mean the WHOLE of the Old World stuff, including the new stuff, very large amount of resin kits.” To which all I hear(besides the nostalgia mining) is: Outdated Models Updated Prices. very tiny window of AoS backports due to truescale > small rank posing. And Forge World with lots of Resin to tie that bow off on the package.

The AoS3 Corebook talks about other races as well like the hero ghosts of Hallost who aid the Dawncrusaders in settling the Underworlds. And the Destruction Soulbound book talks about Ogors and Orruks that temporarily find themselves in Freeguild ranks. The other races are just as important as the Stormcast Liberators, Sequitors* and Vindicators that usually lead the crusades. One such crusade was saved by the valiant fortitude of the Fyreslayers. (*just a note here that the classic Stormcasts are fully active with these too. Cursed Skies are a random hazard(so plenty of Liberators make it back by reforging to tell the tale of what danger ended the crusade) that’s bad news for everyone as they’ll swallow up armies that march under them as they mutate the realmscapes and empower daemons under them. Indeed a lot of non-Thunderstrikes have made heroic forays even under them to save civilians or crush daemon forts and put up martyr memorials in their place. They are all each heroic demigods, afterall. No different than all the Stormcasts that go into the Eight-points that can stop their souls) That’s why I expect even if the city duardin/aelves elements are pushed further into the background they’ll still be a very friendly faction that commonly unites with the other races.(just the modern ones they want to advertise like Kharadron and Deepkin ) Tbf, that stuff fits what we’ve seen of Hammerhal Aqshy with the 2017 WHQ art. (this one’s my favorite as it notes the human and Aelf nobles regularly go into the slums to cause trouble and have fun) Plus the icons do have green leaves too which can be for Ghyran and the armor painted to be wooden. if you seperate the skulls from some then you’ll have Dawners that represent the Realms of Azyr, Shyish, Aqshy and Ghyran. Ulgu and Hysh just need paint jobs and Ghur animal bones and furs on your troops. Chamon’s the trickiest as gold armored troops are more Hammerhal’s thing. Might just have to go blue & and odder metal colors along with making anything natural(leaves,wood,leathers) into golds and silvers. Plus pairing them up with things associated with the Metal Realm like some Vindicator forces do(lots of magic swords & Tzeentchian monsters among them) Yeah, a lot of the Malign Portents ones are still showed off in the current material my favorite three among them: and the Shyish dude mentioned earlier: Then Warclaw, Realmslayer and a bottom left part of a “War of the Sky Portals” art had some. and then Soulbound:

Eh, I just see it as being consistent. We’ve had Ogroids since 2016 and they were their own thing like the new Centauroid is. Beasts of Chaos come from Chaos, not the enslaved animal peoples of the realms who are forced into it. Proper BoC should be new ones based on the lore like Ghost-eater the albino lion headed beast lord in Shyish, the giant mammoth-headed gors in Ghur and the the shark mutant Brayherds swimming in Ghyran’s oceans. They should feel like an invasive species if anything that’s adapting to the Realms.

Win, win and win. Chaos religions continue to diversify and show how the Age of Chaos impacted the Realms as various peoples & races needed gods for their survival(Hashut covering smithing) An amazing Centauroid who’s very unique looking. Big thumbs up! and now Warcry can finally explore Ghur so the setting can potentially take place at Ironjawz & Ogor Gutfort fighting pits, monolithic honeycomb pillars fought over between Brayherds and Avengorii vampire-centaurs, feral Sylvaneth striking Khornite hunting parties from creeping gnarlwoods and floating Skyoaks and even Skaven attacking Order crawling cities on the backs of dreadworms by going up through their guts and battling the innard patrols. So much they could do with a Ghurian Warcry that’d perfectly fit the brutal gladiator style out in the hungering jagged plains of the Realm of Beasts and it’s savage god-beasts. Big wins!

Well paranoia aside I am leaning on that they just meant regular mortals by saying Humans since that’s a safe enough term that won’t give a lot away. Like if they actually make new mixed units of humans backed up by aelves and duardin they can’t say Mortals because StD already does that keyword for it’s mixed units. But we’ll see. I can’t lie that I like the idea of a clean slate for them since it’s all just holdovers right now. A fresh AoS with new “humans” working alongside Stormcasts, Fyreslayers, Deepkin, Kharadron, etc would help a lot with cutting the chains off the old stuff it’s dragging around and get people accepting the brand new factions as a new standard.(and maybe the final death of soup talk, God-king willing) Because in talking about coalitions and looking at the Cities in the Corebook we do have the perfect set-up, especially with the move of the Shyish city from Glymmsforge to more aquatic Lethis: Xintil- Lumineth Lake Lethis- Deepkin Hammerhal- Fyreslayers & Sylvaneth Vindicarum- Kharadron Misthavn- Daughters of Khaine Excelsis- Coalesced Seraphon perfect 6 sub-factions for Neo-cities to build around. Plus somebody noted the Skaven cutscene have more of a Narnia Telmarine vibe and those would be perfect to fight alongside the Stormcasts as the high fantasy conquistador look with their own facemasks would be perfect for that Spanish church vibe the Stormcasts have in being golden seraphim masked scary angels.

I’m in full agreement with wanting them to keeps Cities a mix of races(especially human, duardin and druchii) and really hope they go for mixed units that count as human/mortals but include the other races. The same way Warcry/StD does it by having multiple races and keyworded Mortal despite the Ogor, beastkin, aelf or duardin in their ranks. That said I could imagine this is them more wanting to finally stamp out the old models and factions(in part to force players to have to go with only Forge World’s new line) to keep with AoS’ out with the old and in with the new. That’s if this isn’t just a human update we sorely need for Mortal Realms ones. If Neo-Cities/Dawncrusades are all humans but can coalition with every Order faction that could be how they plan to make them heavily mixed race. Similar to how Soulbound keeps showing off all the new races banded together with humans. So we’ll have to see how they handle it all.(I won’t lie. Kinda want a big refresh for the sake of not dragging AoS down with old factions that they obviously don’t want to expand on like Wanderers when it’s clear Sylvaneth and even Lumineth replace them as nature aelves) As for the skull teases. That’s been a thing since AoS started and has been built on since the Realm of Heaven and the Realm of Death have a connection, that’s why the underworlds main colonizers are Azyrites(Heaven and Hades) and has been a thing since the Lord-Relictors strode the field as reforged necromancers to help protect souls with that combined magic of Azyr & Death. and now we have that same focus + skulls needed for the Shyishian Dawncrusades that honor Nagash and the various Death gods there. I could imagine so. As “town guard generic” it may be I could easily see all new humans being armored up like beetles so even the average Freeguild soldier is fantasy Knight level to survive all the Mortal Realms horrors like commonplace daemons, grots that call down moon-strikes and rampaging living spells, elementals and god-beasts as natural disasters that happen way too often. Just like with the new Witch Hunters and how they both have massive magic/holy weapons and beneath their cloaks they’re wearing heavy plate armor to just stand a chance out there.(compared to old hunters who usually just had leather on.)

On the off-chance we get Expansion news soon I’m wanting the crazier Mortal Realms races to pop up if they’re pulling stuff for more one-off character ideas. An Aetar eagle-warrior princess flying in from Ghur with an invite from the beastly Vyrkos council (who want her animal blood to control their totem transformation). A hulking Gholemkin or mechanical Cogman from Chamon shipped in by the Kharadron hero from his home realm for a clock-meat shield. A void crawler from within a cracked Stormvault awakened from Radukar calling in the Nadir and slithering towards the city. A glimmering hero-ghost questing from the Hallost underworld to save the day. The Sylvaneth embassy having a gentle waterkin Naereid hiding nearby in the harbor and get fished up along with a more sinister Valay squid-smith who begins playing his deadly word games to get his tentacles on more Death realmstone to forge. There’s all kinds of otherworldly peoples to explore in a city from the Realms.

I mean they’re literally plants where the Sylvaneth are concerned since that’s exactly how their soul-pods function. Souls made into seeds that grow into tree people and stay inside the Sylvaneth/Kurnothi so once they die the seed can have them be reborn.(and they don’t have to be fancy either, if Sylvaneth grow fruit in their branches they can spread soul-pods that way too so the later droppings will birth new Sylvaneth by taking trace amounts of soul-stuff from the host that ate the fruit) But mostly note that Stormcasts aren’t mortal souls anymore. They’ve been completely remade by Sigmar adding his essence to them so their souls are lightning elementals. That’s why if they aren’t reforged they don’t become spirits bound to Shyish and a peaceful afterlife but will either form into raging lightning gheists or their soul will break apart entirely and cease to be. Also why the Deepkin parlayed with them for the first time when they found they can’t eat or contain their souls. That’s what that lightning bolt really is. Their physical soul trying to get back to Azyr.(edit: not unlike how a vampire made their soul and physical body the same thing, so they are immortal and keep coming back/extremely hard to kill but if they truly died the physical destruction means soul destruction too) That’s why Azyr Lords and Lord-arcanums can have their souls come back at special moments and reform their bodies again. ”Dazzling Radiance: Yndrasta’s god-touched brilliance can call stranded Stormcast souls into the fray once more.” “Cycle of the Storm: A Lord-Arcanum is capable of capturing the soul-stuff of a fallen Stormcast Eternal, returning it to the battlefield to continue the fight.” How they handle souls is a lot more physical than most.

I’ll call it fair. That Warhammer Fest Treasure art already got the rumors chugging like a fresh Kharadron Endrin.

Yeah, feels like Belakor is copying their design down to the Lightning blood. Him needing to be there for the immortality to work feels more like an enforced flaw to bind Eternus to him(as Chaos does) than say how Yndraste allows Stormcast souls to come back and insta-reforge back on the battlefield around her. Also a bit like the first Khorne champion of AoS Korghos Khul who Khorne keeps bringing back from death and was the first legimate threat to Stormcasts as his reality-cutting axe sent them straight to the Chaos Realm with no chance to zap back first. But yeah, not the first time this happened. People kept calling Ossiarchs Deathcasts until the lore came out that Nagash had them ready since the Age of Myth(so before Stormcasts existed) but was waiting for the right indomitable soul to lead them. Honestly I think Wanderers are on their way out as soon as beast-aelves Kurnothi can replace them. But we already had this theory with Dispossessed and the Duardin updates that went nowhere. Pretty certain after GW went through all the trouble to update their official website, store site and app with the name and factions of the Cities of Sigmar they’re not gonna move anybody around or rename anything until they actually get a reboot/overhaul/massive update. AKA not this year when they’re all just getting updates to stabilize 3rd edition. For now Dawncrusades seems to be just narrative and a way to justify things like Deepkin allying with everyone in Cities instead of just the city aelves. On Sylvaneth though I wonder if that bug is a Spite that’ll grow into Spite-revenant beetle cavalry? Was looking at their lore article and that spites can grow into bigger humanoids and insects feels like a possible path. https://www.warhammer-community.com/2019/05/02/lore-focus-spites-of-the-sylvanethgw-homepage-post-3/

Yeah, after they left the remains of the World-that-was and expanded in the void to create their own realities they became separate and purified from Chaos as their own energies. It’s noted that’s why Chaos is so dependent on the Eight-Points and Realmgates as that’s their main ways to access the realms where-as before they could only scratch and whisper at the edges of the realmspheres until someone let them in. That’s also how chaos magic works in the Realms, if it’s not directly from the Chaos Realm then they have to gather the magic from around them and corrupt it first before they can use it. As on it’s own Realm magic slowly replaces and cleanses away chaos since they’re organized into individual powers now. Too orderly. As for Reforging, check out the Lexicanum on it: https://ageofsigmar.lexicanum.com/wiki/Reforging “Reforging is inspired by the cycle of constant reincarnation of Dracothion's children. Sigmar and Grungni devised a process to create armies of virtually immortal humans. Sigmar plucks brave heroes from the Mortal Realms using bolts of lightning. The soul of a hero, chosen to become a Stormcast Eternal, is transported to the Heldenhall and there it feasts for three days, building its strength for the trials ahead. Following these three days, it makes its way to the Chamber of the Broken World. First the raw soul-stuff is literally molten and reforged in the Forge Eternal by the Six Smiths, making it ready for rebirth. If it survives, the soul is sifted upwards into the Cairns of Tempering, where it's given the Gift of the Gods and must endure seven times seven trials. These trials were originally devised by Grungni with the aid of Sigmar and now their nature is a mistery to everyone but the two gods and the Six Smiths. If the soul completes his trials, it's ready to be made flesh and blood once more. Upon the Anvil of Apotheosis they're broken down and rebuilt by the shock waves and the blessings of the World Hammer. From a seed of starlight and lightning sprouts a web of veins and nerve endings, then bones and finally every other organ. The new Stormcast Eternals awakens with a new body imbued with the energies of Azyr and a shard of Sigmar's divine essence.” The Bonesplitterz battletome had a pretty fun note on how Dracoths inspired reforging since they do it too which vexes the orruks on losing the powerful bones. http://www.mengelminiatures.com/2016/07/review-bonesplitterz-battletome.html?m=1 “Continuing on with the theme of the Bonesplitterz wanting bones from creatures they can't get them from we get the orruks versus a Stormcast Extremis Chamber. Lord-Celestant Imperious is on the march through Ghur with his entire chamber, but they are marching on a starlight road high above the ground. The Wurrgog Prophet can sense them though and using his magic, causes a volcano beneath their path to erupt, sending the road crashing down. The fighting is a lot of fun and there were some particularly funny moments in there. These include orruks dancing around in the lightning of dying Dracoths as they are sent back to Azyr, hoping to absorb some of their beastial might, and a Boss head butting a Stardrake. The latter is particularly good, eliciting a bemused response from the Stardrake itself.“

Did that come up after the banner showed Eshin? Feeeels like wishlist but I hope something good for Skaven players regardless. They need the Soulblight treatment.(I would say Lumineth overhaul but I feel that leaves way too many armies destitute if every Clans got cut in half)

If he’s first among the Varanguard in anything then that implies likely even older than Stormcasts. They were around doing the apocalypse before Sigmar made the Stormhosts to fight back. plus you can’t really “grant immortality” to an immortal. edit: remember that Belakor’s been watching Sigmar since the beginning with that gnaw-hole in his halls back when AoS began with the Eshin reporting back to him. He’s had a long time to copy ideas.

Funny it’s an end of an era on the two big 40k memes. No more “where’s squats?” or “Chaos getting 2 wounds when?!”. only Primarus Sergeants shall remain.

Dang, even the Baleful Realmgates, Dominion Nexus Siphon, Penumbral Engine and a lot of AoS1 terrain is gone. I guess it shouldn’t be surprising since they already have enough storage issues that every main game have to go through model rotation and the oversea costs from Brexit are likely what is stopping them from doing anymore faction scenery since a bunch of that stuff was Chinese manufactured. Actually thinking on it now I remember 40k just went this a through a few weeks ago with a lot of their beloved terrain going Last Chance. Tough times.🤷 At least we know they’ll replace them with something cool in the future when things get back on track.

Indeed! It’s a huge boon for both the community and setting. It’s a infinite cosmic fantasy setting, anything can happen and should be allowed to happen. That’s a cornerstone of what makes Age of Sigmar so amazing! Shout it proud! Warhammer’s for everyone! 👏 🎉