Lucentia

Amusingly I had the exact opposite reaction, I was very interested to see what a modern, AoS vampire/classic horror faction might look like, so when it wound up being Vampire Counts but again I was a little disappointed! I love the Vengorian Lord/Lauka Vai sculpt, but that's the only kit in the whole range which really speaks to me, I guess I like at least a smidge more off the wall than zombies and skeletons. In any case, the new rumour engine kinda looks Dark Elf-y to me? Those pants with the buckles show up occasionally in the old range, I think the Hydra beast wrangler has some? They're not totally dissimilar from DoK shadowstalkers, the Silver Tower assassin guy, or Drukarii Wyches with the cut-outs either, but those all generally have knee-pads. I'd expect blood bowl models to generally have football pads as well, so I suppose I'm putting my guess on the perpetual favourite of Malerion's stuff, it's gotta be right one of these days!

Sure, something like that works fine too, there's 100 ways you could write more exciting rules, just very few of them are in the battletome! Also I agree that the Keeper should stay in the 400+ points range but with the rules to match its price tag, I know they're probably afraid of rehashing the 2019 Keeper spam of yore, but it's a very different game these days! Also, also, Shalaxi has got to be the least cost effective model in the game, all the other other named greater demons are at least interesting, we can do better than the current scroll, I'm sure!

I do think that bumping up summoning costs and dropping actual points costs would be an okay bandaid patch to make the book function in the interim would be okay, but it would be a bandaid and I think the book has fundamental design flaws beyond that which are going to be tricky to address without a total overhaul. Ultimately the summoning mechanic skews the design of the book too heavily, and it's a mechanic which wants you to play intrinsically opposite to how games of AoS are won. Whilst we're wishlisting I'd love to see better access to the triple tap 6s from the battle trait, right now only daemonettes can realistically use then, and on their weak profile it only really pushes them up to 'okay.' Give me a spell, or CA, or locus effect to turn it on, or something. Speaking of spells I'd honestly love to see a smaller list of better options, the new IDK spell lore only has four options but they're all useful, no point printing twelve spells if, like, eight of them don't do anything.

I'm aware, I meant the next god-aligned chaos faction to get a book, I'm thinking futher in the future here, it's not like the WD articles are the last updates these factions will ever receive.

It kinda reads in part like you're only supposed to be able to hit any one hero with the mortals once per battle, and then you've got to write a new name in the book, but then there's no phrase which actually says that's the case? But the rules do sometimes get chopped around a bit for these community articles, so who knows! If he can bonk someone for 2d6 multiple times per game I think he could be pretty decent, otherwise more of a fun novelty. A bespoke Warcry box would be a good place for Maneaters in AoS, I think.

I don't think that book releases are really driven by model releases these days, the majority of books for both AoS and 40k seem to be accompanied by single hero sprue releases and maybe half of a battle box. That said I'm not necessarily expecting a 3.0 tome anytime soon, as nice (or even necessary to enjoy playing with the faction!) as that might be. I'd put my bets on Khorne getting the next god-marked chaos release slot, and they don't traditionally put those too close together. Then again I can't say I'm not crossing my fingers for a surprise book update every time the tome celestial is revealed to be not Slaanesh again!

Hah, I feel like if I'm in a position to be killing off units of Blood Stalkers and Longstrikes I've probably already one the game, but every little helps, I suppose...

Thank you very much! Only one of the chariots is converted, the other two are stock builds, just with a couple of magnets so they can be swapped between the hero and non-hero version if needed. I was using the old Sigvald model as a herald even before the new one came out! The converted one is generally used as a second Exalted Chariot, though I deliberately built it so it kinda looks like a Hellflayer too, in case I ever want to run one of those. I don't really like having or painting two of the same model/unit in a collection, especially not for standalone/hero units, so I made the second exalted chariot to look different from the first so I can more easily differentiate, say, which one is the general, or has an artefact, or is in X battalion, etc. I also especially dislike how the actual exalted chariot build overhangs its base in almost every direction, so I wanted to make something that actually fit on its base whilst still looking the part. Now, I did build this a fair while ago so I don't remember the exact process, but with all of the Slaanesh chariots I'll build the chassis first and leave all of the blade-wheels to be painted separately, still on the sprue, and then assemble it all once its painted, otherwise it gets way too fiddly. In this case the rear chassis is basically the same as the normal exalted chariot, but then I believe the front axel is split into three, using one of the spare yokes from another chariot kit, to make a kind of fork shape. Once I was satisfied the chassis was sturdy enough I just made a little pile of all the available blades and spiky bits I had to hand and stuck them on symmetrically wherever they'd slot in.

The advantage of Sons of Behemat is that they can basically just release a single new Megagargant kit with 3 new build options and practically double the size of the range instantly, I believe that was kinda how the equivalent big robot faction in 40k was released, a single kit with a few weapon options first, and then a later release adding another type of robot or two with different options. It'd be a big kit (and therefore mold) but presumably still a lesser investment for GW than a multi-kit release or full range refresh for another faction, so I wouldn't be surprised to see SoB come up for an update sooner rather than later.

What a strange rumour engine, there's an almost comedic bent to it, maybe something for the bloodbowl line? For some reason it gives me FEC vibes, though I have no real basis for that. The shape on the left of the image is interesting too, I'm stumped on this one! Best guess is an oddball sculpt for cursed city or something.

Interesting to see the next dual box on the horizon so quickly, perhaps suggesting the DoK/nighthaunt tomes are an early summer release rather than waiting till the very end like idk/fyreslayers? Maybe they want the summer slot mostly free for bigger 40k/Heresy releases? Though trying to guess at the release schedule right now is like trying to read tea leaves, so I dunno!

I was gonna say, suspiciously avoiding the round 3 bonus there I see! Making rituals more limited in timing but more impactful in effect is a good change though, imo.

Like so many places across the span of the Mortal Realms, the Rustplains of Chamon were once home to a multitude of proud and mighty civilizations, bending the metallic elements of their home to their whims through arcane study or force of will, but many such places were brought to ruin during the eternities of the Age of Chaos, an unstoppable spell-plague swept the region, reducing the metal wonders of the peoples dwelling there to naught but twisted, rusting scrap. In these times the entire continent is a sprawling wasteland of wind-blown rust dunes, the descendants of those forgotten kingdoms picking through the scraps and ruins of their ancestor's crumbling palaces for the merest chance of survival. At least, that is how things were before the coming of the Host of Contemplations, robed in fine silks and finer smiles, bringing glittering gifts of daemon-gold and otherworldy metals unaffected by the rusting plague, promising a bewitching return to former glory to the scattered, wretched tribes out on the iron deserts, all one had to do, after all, was clutch a sliver of The Prince's gold to one's chest and contemplate oneself.... Voila, it's taken a little while but I'm finally done painting Slaanesh stuff! (I actually thought I was done months ago, but then they went and blindsided me with a whole bunch more awesome mortal sculpts...) I started this collection just before the first AoS Hedonites book came out, but I never actually managed to get many games in with it due to COVID lockdowns and stuff, and the new book is, ahem, well, it is what it is, luckily the models are, as we all know, quite stunning, and a joy to paint, though I can't say I won't miss straining to pick out tiny fiddly details! I've got almost every warscroll represented (Sorry, Slaangor, even for me there's a limit to how bad the rules to sculpt ratio can swing before you get a spot on my painting desk) and I tried to really push myself with my painting for this army, trying non-metallic metals for the first time, attempting to go a bit further than the usual base - wash - highlight, overall I'm very pleased with how most everything came out! I don't wanna just dump tonnes of pics, so if anyone wants to see more detailed shots of a particular model or whatever I can probably find one.

I think Valkia could be a good shout, certainly I think it's probably something chaos-y. The flying Tyranid sculpts tend to have smoother wing membranes than that. Looks like a fairly small wing, infantry-sized, so a chaos hero/crypt flayer seems more likely than a monster to me. Outside odds of some sort of Possessed update for Chaos space marines, I guess? I think their current kit has a winged backpack.

I'm almost 100% that insect leg will be part of a Tyranid model, they have a codex coming up and that presumably means a single character model release at the very least. It's missing the ridged detailing between the carapace segments which is normally present, but they sometimes don't include it on smaller, atrophied limbs as seen with the Gargoyles, Zoanthropes, and Rippers. I would put my money on some sort of small/mid-sized winged gribbly beast, maybe something akin to the old Parasite of Mortrex character unit which never got an official model release.

Hey, don't forget to leave space for a Lumineth book in there, be reasonable now! My guess would be that we're going to see the Eldar codex out within the next few weeks, which has enough accompanying kits to spread over multiple release dates, and after that is when we're likely to see the first couple of AoS books.

If memory serves a lot of warscroll CAs have been removed for 3.0 books, so I'd expect Morathi's to go the same way, potentially seeing it moved to a once per battle army enhancement option ala Stormcast. I suspect the 3w per turn thing is considered too 'iconic' to change now, but if I were rewriting the Morathi scroll I'd be tempted to have something where there's no wound cap, but Morathi-Khaine can summon a new Shadow Queen onto the board each round if it gets slain, or something along those lines.

Very surprised to see a new DoK tome in the queue, I think I've only managed to play, like, 3 games with the current one (granted there's been, y'know, other stuff going on...) I would not have bet on new models being part of a 3.0 DoK release, but I don't necessarily see why they'd be pushing out a new tome so soon after the 2.0 one otherwise. Maybe the 40k avatar can be rolled in, but it has a lot of Eldar specific runes all over it which don't really match the DoK/dark elf ones, and if there's an alternate build that changes that we haven't seen it yet.

Hah, yes, I was being slightly tongue in cheek, I assume most people aren't buying these boxes for narrative purposes (Though I may well be wrong!) The mini-campaign is more following the Slaanesh hero as they attempt to conquer a DoK stronghold in hunting for Slaanesh, so the Ironscale character is presented more as an adversary than having any particular lore, just generally scary and merciless, nothing especially noteworthy. The campaign missions are all interesting enough, and there's a set of Ulgu realm features that are fairly fun.

The dual box heroes normally have names in the narrative of the box itself, yeah. As we all know and definitely remember the Ironscale from Shadow and Pain was called Tyralla!

It is a little hard to imagine her coming with a better support buff than wychbrew, or the sort of combat punch you'd want to consider running her given the infantry Slaughter Queen already exists and never sees play, but hey, I'm open to being surprised. If she heralds a 3.0 book somewhere down the line it's all up in the air anyway.

I've still got my fingers crossed for some accompanying DoK rules, but given all the eldar runes I'm not exactly holding my breath! Nice sculpt though, I might pick one up regardless.

They generally don't bother doing articles for the stuff they license out beyond maybe a little 'we're releasing this thing!' when it comes out, I assume cos it'd basically be advertising another company's product even if it is using the warhammer license (In theory I suppose Cubicle 7 and the like have their own advertising budgets) but you'd think a little more cross-promotion wouldn't hurt for some of these licensed products.

The exalted seekers are significantly taller than the seekers in the chariot kit (probably by half an inch/three quarters of an inch or so in the saddle area), the tails are longer and more elaborate, and it would be tough to get 4 of them neatly side by side. It wouldn't be impossible to make a chariot with the new and improved seekers, but it would be a more involved conversion than simply swapping them for the regular chariot seekers for sure.

Did we get a date for the re-release of Cursed City? It might make sense for them to throw in the first expansion release at the same time to grab the audience who already owns a copy along with tempting new buyers to double-dip. That might be the sort of thing they could throw into a preview, though I don't know if they'd put the logo in the promos to keep the surprise, maybe.