Lucentia

Someone earlier mentioned, quite rightly, that the last teaser model has tufts on it's base, which would rule it out as an underworlds model unless they've changed how those are presented.

Have we had Heresy models in the rumour engine before? I can't recall.

Though, of course, you can still play using the rules/missions from older GHBs if you like them or are feeling nostalgic, it's not like the books will self-destruct! But organised events and most pick up games will most likely be using the latest GHB.

Mm, I think the mystery seraphon model is a light, skink cavalry unit with more bird-like raptors, rather than a new monster. Ideally that could be a new dual kit with updated cold ones, but I'm not holding my breath there! I think there used to be a skink cavalry unit for Lizardmen many editions ago? Could be a throwback to that. As much as I would like the final sillhouette to be Slaanesh, I'm not sure that it is, all of the current mortal slaanesh models, from wizards to warriors, have a quite distinctive shoulder pauldron design that I can't quite match up there, but of course it is a just a black shadow! But I wouldn't be surprised if this is part of our mystery underworlds warband either, it doesn't quite read the same as the rest of the Hedonites designs to my eye.

I dunno, I was fairly negative on how the matched play elements from the last GHB ultimately shook out, but at first glance these leaks seem a lot more manageable. Really, in my view, the main issue with the Galletian Veterans system was in the battalions, which sort of vicious cycled one another into redundancy with lists trying to minimise GV units to avoid the threat of powerful bounty hunters, etc. But there doesn't look like there's too much of that in this case, it's much closer to the normal rules, you only need to buy into the battalions if you have a particular plan in mind, rather than just dumping all your hammer units in bounty hunters by default. My main concerns up front would be that useful galletian champion units aren't necessarily distributed evenly between factions, and the sniper battalion might become a mini-bounty hunters where it's the obvious pick for all shooting units, but the effect is much lesser than the damage bonus, so we'll see.

The ogor book is still lumped with resin butchers, slaughtermasters, icebrow hunters, yhetees, sabretusks, and gorgers, so regardless of the maneater situation it's not the case the resin kits are being vanished when books hit 3.0 (unfortunately, given the quality of some of those old sculpts...)

That feels like a lot of stuff to squeeze out in half a year, particularly for Seraphon that seems like wishlisting, but as far as rumours go I could believe most of that list being plausible, sure.

Nice model, certainly, limited release is a little strange/concerning, as others have mentioned. Interesting that they call him a ghoul king, but he looks to be on a 40mm base whilst the current king is on a 32, could be a copy mistake/typo and he's designed as an alternate Archregent on a 40, I suppose.

I could see one of the spring books being a bigger release, if only because they could split it up as 2x2 single hero and a battle box releases, then the leftover spring release is something a bit chunkier. I'm assuming that there won't be too many big 40k releases prior to the assumed 10th edition in summer (mostly the broken realms style books/single model kits) so there's space in the schedule before summer.

Mm, I'd guess in terms of AoS we'll mostly be looking at the next thondia style thing and whatever bits are associated with it, and obviously the next scheduled warband for underworlds. I suspect they'll leave any new army update reveals till the Xmas preview window, (that's what they did with at least some of the slaanesh mortals, as I recall), but we might get a little sillhouette/animated teaser of the next army release or two.

They did do general surveys a couple of times a few years back but, as you say, I suspect the data gathered from them was too time-consuming or limited to parse into anything very useful so we haven't seen any in a while, I think they might still sometimes send them out to folks subscribed to their email, or whatever? With a survey there's also the additional barrier of distribution, how many casual players are going to take the time to bother to fill out a survey on the community site? Or will they even see it in the first place? etc.

Though, obviously, the Stornhorn has the advantage of much smaller unit footprint, it's going to generally be much easier to make all of a Stonehorn's attacks against a single target, where 4 Mournfang might get blocked from going exactly where you need by terrain/other units/each other. I still don't really rate the non-hero Stonehorns though, I'd rather mix in some Mournfang for a BCR heavy list, even if just so the entire thing isn't made of identical models.

It's a shame, cos a Firebelly with Billowing Ash would've been perfect as an ironblaster babysitter, but no trophy rack, as you say. Butcher probably feels like the best play, they can add a little bit of ranged damage with the maw, and blubbergrub when necessary. I don't hate the idea of a bloodpelt sitting back there, but with his best gun at a 12" range it's going to depend on how the terrain is set up, and base 4+ to hit on a ranged hero is a bit of a joke, so you'd have to burn your general + command trait on him, but maybe that's not the worst thing. I'd probably give it a shot for a game or two, good for a laugh if nothing else.

Multipart just means, y'know, multiple parts, it's more of a legal thing so people know they're not buying a completed, single-piece figure, I think.

My guess is the mawtribes book was probably supposed to release alongside the gargants, or at least a little earlier than this, but got snarled up somewhere along the way, and they only had the one promo article lined up.

All the Ogor infantry heroes are on 50mm per the most recent base size chart from 2021, I'd assume the new one will follow suite.

I dunno, if the Ogor release is just the book, hunter, and warscroll cards I could see it slotting in alongside a larger release, I feel like that wouldn't the first time we've seen something like that happen?

Mm, whilst I did enjoy the deck building element, and followed along with the first few seasons of underworlds, it did become too much to keep track of after a while. My ideal solution would be that each warband can build a deck from a specific set of cards, which are supplied with the warband itself, so there's still some flexibility but you don't have to try and work out what exactly you need to buy to get all the cards you need. They don't normally go quite this narrative with the underworlds bands, but I wonder if our mystery symbol could be Anvilguard resistance themed, people who escaped the city and resent Morathi's annexation of it exist in the lore but are unlikely to get actual model kits, so underworlds could be a decent place for them. So basically a Cities warband with a scourge privateer theme, I guess.

If my memory is correct the Lumineth warband appeared after their first tome, but the Bladelord in that unit was the first model of that type we had seen at the time (So potentially they actually dropped in between the initial Lumineth box and the actual battletome release?) Spiky skull mask could be a third DoK warband, but as a DoK player it's hard to see where they could go with it that isn't covered by the other two bands unless it's a new Khainite element entirely, the only existing DoK models that don't exist in Underworlds are harpies, melee snakes, warlock cavalry, and heroes/big stuff.

Second symbol does look kinda dark elf-y, but 'skull with horns' isn't exactly a rare theme in warhammer, I suppose!

Sure, that's true! Though from memory it'd be the first time they've ever done something like that, and realistically they're gonna want to keep selling the separate arch-regent kits, but if we're just wishlisting your solution is a good one.

Definitely looks Slaaneshi, but the sword almost looks a little plain for a hero, and an infantry melee hero might be redundant between Sigvald and the Lord of Pain. Could be something like a banner/icon bearer though, or as said above I do think a warcry band is possible.

Since the Ghoul King model is coming out of the monster kit so they can't just scrap him wholesale, I'd be tempted to redo his scroll so that he's the competent melee hero, compared to the arch regent's magic and summoning. Make the King into a little mini Sigvald/Gotrek type murder missile that can sneak in and do decent damage, and he has a place I think, they could even re-flavour him as a Ghoul Prince, or even Court Champion, to distinguish further from the mounted Kings. It's kind of interesting trying to come up with new units for this faction, cos the internal balance between the scrolls isn't bad, in that the units all have pretty clear roles and use cases compared to one another, just their stats and rules need bumping up to match the current game better. But if I were to try and plan out a second wave I'd probably be considering some of the following: -Battle standard bearer. This is an easy win for a standalone hero, fits the theme, easy to imagine how the model might look, and the faction doesn't have many aura buffs of this type. -Fast skirmish screens. Could be bat swarms, could be ghouls on rotting horses or carrion dogs, whatever, just some fast cavalry bases would provide an obvious utility. -Mini-monster cavalry. I know the horrors and flayers are ostensibly providing the knightly role, but I'd like to see some more mounted sillhouettes in the army without it just being literally 'undead brettonia.' I see these more in the stormdrake guard/pusgoyle blightlord space, very heavy cavalry, hulking, hideous grave-beasties, maybe even ridden by horror-sized knights, adding some toughness to the army with a chunky wounds characteristic. There'd probably be a hero version in the box too, like the blightlords. -Little ranged idiots? I'm a little iffy on this, I agree that I don't think peasant archers or anything really fit, but I could see space for some javelin tossing ghouls hucking sharpened bones, etc. I'm just not sure if a unit like that is really needed. -Highborn/Crown guard. This would be a ~5 model, elite infantry dual kit (potentially with a few extra bodies for squires/attendants). The highborn would be the children/scions of the court nobles, mini-vampire combat monster competing with one another to earn favour and prestige via acts of bloodthirsty savagery. The crown guard would be a defensive, shield/bodyguard unit of some sort. -Another monster kit?? This is mostly just cos I like big monsters, but another monster dual kit (most likely just a named/unnamed variant as they don't really do the zombie dragon/terrorgheist style kits these days) wouldn't hurt. This could also be some sort of fun character diorama kit, the Noble Council, or whatever, but I'd be wary of stepping on Katakros's toes within the same grand alliance.

The original beastclaw battletome was the most interesting ogors have been for me, where they were painted with their own distinct culture, customs, and language formed around survival from the everwinter and holding to totally different principles than most order or chaos culture's, but unfortunately a lot of that got stripped out in the combined mawtribes book, so they're mostly back to bring the 3rd destruction faction of big, strong idiots.

Dang, I think this is the first preview show they've done which didn't hit for me at all, sorry GW, I know it's kinda your thing, but you've gotta show me more than various chunky boys in armour or without shirts to get me interested! New ogor isn't too bad, though he's dying for a headswap, I like the antlers, but the expression isn't doing it for me, fortunately there are plenty of great ogor heads available. (As an aside, a solo hero like this would've been a great opportunity to sneak an ogor woman into the main range...) I'm not hot on any of the gargant models tbf, but Brodd doesn't move that needle for me unfortunately, he just looks like 'another one of those' to me, when I was hoping for something more grand. Ah well, they can't please everyone, and this time it was me!