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I've seen yammering here and there on Age of Sigmar 3rd edition. We are coming up to a spot this Summer where it absolutely could happen. We're seeing Broken Realms (which is pretty much Psychic Awakening for AoS) and lots of factions are getting pretty significant updates.

Here's my prediction.

Soulblight Gravelords vs. Lumineth Realmlords.

The rest of the Lumineth models that haven't been fully revealed will be a part of this big box set. For this edition it might actually not be Stormcast Eternals in the box.

That would be very cool but I think it's going to be Stormcast vs Orruks. There's been plenty of narrative hints that Gordrakk is making for Excelsis and possibly Azyr with his Godbeast battering ram (Grond, Grond, Grond...)

AoS1: SE vs Chaos
Aos2: SE vs Death
AoS3: SE vs Destruction?

I'd be really chuffed if it was not Stormcast and some other faction for them to beat up, but I don't think it will be. It's clear that GW want Stormcast to be the Space Marines of AoS and core to that is putting them in all the starters.

I'd love to be wrong about that prediction though! One of my favourite things about Warhammer Fantasy Battle used to be that the starters could have any factions in them and were often an excuse to start an army...or two!

We already know that the new Lumineth are coming with the next campaign book and that after that we have the campaign book with the recently revealed First Demon Prince model.


So Lumineth are unlikely to be a 3rd edition army.


I'd argue that neither are Vampires; both are too soon in the cycle whilst we still have campaign books.

Thy could go with a classic and use one of the Cities of Sigmar armies, too.

It is more likely they will get rid of CoS than give it something sadly. The only reason I play AoS is that army.

 Da Boss wrote:
I'd be really chuffed if it was not Stormcast and some other faction for them to beat up, but I don't think it will be. It's clear that GW want Stormcast to be the Space Marines of AoS and core to that is putting them in all the starters.

Sure that's why we got sets like Aether War, Carrion Empire, Looncurse, Feast of Bones, Shadow & Pain! For all that sweet, sweet Stormcast love.

I do get what you're saying, but I don't feel like Stormcast are really being pushed in the same way that Space Marines do. They're in the starters certainly, but beyond that...they're not as centralized.

I don't know if that statement makes sense the same way to you as I'm trying to make it sound like.

I'd love to be wrong about that prediction though! One of my favourite things about Warhammer Fantasy Battle used to be that the starters could have any factions in them and were often an excuse to start an army...or two!

Honestly, I'd agree with this if it weren't for the fact that the Battleboxes these days are closer to the starter sets of yesteryear when it comes to AoS+WHFB while sets like Soul Wars and Realmgate Wars are closer to the later offerings like Battle for Skull Pass and Island of Blood.

My personal hope is that they take the opportunity for the next chapter of AoS with Stormcast to actually really add some life to the Vanguard Chamber. It's such a wasted opportunity. Some of the rumors/hearsay that came up with what the Vanguard specific book would have done were aces.

The Vanguard were a brilliant addition model wise. Chocobo Lord and unit especially. If it is Destruction an expansion of the Vanguard chamber would fit and be very tempting.

BlackoCatto wrote:It is more likely they will get rid of CoS than give it something sadly. The only reason I play AoS is that army.

As a general organization. I agree.

However, I could easily see them setting one of the sub-factions with a new name and additions to speed them along, like the basic humans of the "Freeguild". It's not like there are any normal human-centric factions outside of them at present outside of Chaos that aren't mixed up in Cities.

They could have been better though. The heavy crossbowmen, rightfully so, feel out of place.

Scuttlebutt is that the Raptors were intended to be a new unit for the Warrior Chamber while the Gryph-Hound unit would be Vanguard exclusive, creating a fairly "in your face" army. The "Vanguard Hunters" were, again I have to stress that this is all rumored, to be something similar to the Paladins we saw in the Warrior Chamber. Low model count units with decent Wounds and some rules that could pop on their hits/wounds and the ability to charge in+exit combat like Gryph-Hounds could.

There's also, supposedly, an unreleased 'skirmisher' archer unit of Stormcast that had a weird wolfbeast partnered with each as their 'melee attack'.

Orks laying seige to Cities(with stormcast assistence) could be a winner for 3rd edition.

No idea otherwise.

GW have been teasing this huge Orruk invasion for some time. I don't mind nor care if it comes with 3.0 or not; but I hope for Orruk players it comes with a big update of models. I think Orruks need some new ideas and more than just the same concepts played out over and over

At the start of AoS they had 3 forces which were all the same theme of design with just different sculpt styles and armour levels. Even now they are basically 2 armies of identical composition with the difference being if they wear armour or not. I'd rather see them get new ideas that really separate them as concepts and themes or which unite them. Either way give them something fresh.

 Charistoph wrote:

BlackoCatto wrote:It is more likely they will get rid of CoS than give it something sadly. The only reason I play AoS is that army.

As a general organization. I agree.

However, I could easily see them setting one of the sub-factions with a new name and additions to speed them along, like the basic humans of the "Freeguild". It's not like there are any normal human-centric factions outside of them at present outside of Chaos that aren't mixed up in Cities.

I'm hoping they don't get rid of the faction. It'd be a shame, but I already see the signs after that Morathi book.

The realms will shatter and be no more.
Everyone will be forced to live in a place called the old world.

New game will be created called AOS: The old world. and everyone will need to rebase their minatures onto square bases.

 BlackoCatto wrote:
I'm hoping they don't get rid of the faction. It'd be a shame, but I already see the signs after that Morathi book.

I'm looking at it at the loss as them reviving the Elves, Dwarfs, and Humans as their own factions instead of being all clumped together to reduce confusion.

I think it was a mistake to release the Morathi on their own, personally. We may seem them rejoined with the old Dark Elves again much like the Ironjaws and Bonesplitters were rejoined as the Warclans. But the same could be said about the two tribes of Dwarfs out there right now, too, along with their Cities' cousins.

Now, the Cities could keep the name and just be reduced to the old Human Empire models, and I think that would be fine. I think there is a lot of WTFery going on with having the Empire models mixed in with Wood, High, and Dark Elves, along with the old Longbearded Dwarfs as one complete faction.

 Argive wrote:
The realms will shatter and be no more.
Everyone will be forced to live in a place called the old world.

New game will be created called AOS: The old world. and everyone will need to rebase their minatures onto square bases.

You mean hexagonal bases - they are the future not squares nor rounds!

There are still two unrelased stormcast chambers, so there is room for more releases. All the chambers have been in the lore since day 1 of aos.

Some of them aren't full chambers though, but rather just "officers".

Yea, still though I just see it as as a net negative if they do. I want them as their own army, not something more forgettable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

 Argive wrote:
The realms will shatter and be no more.
Everyone will be forced to live in a place called the old world.

New game will be created called AOS: The old world. and everyone will need to rebase their minatures onto square bases.

You mean hexagonal bases - they are the future not squares nor rounds!

Like Battle tech?

 BlackoCatto wrote:
Yea, still though I just see it as as a net negative if they do. I want them as their own army, not something more forgettable.

I think at launch that very much was the plan. For Stormcast to end up with Chambers like Marines have Chapters. Then AoS flopped hard and a new direction was born. One that I think identified that the success of Marines can also be its undoing. When everyone at the club has a marine army, who is there to play against? What "enemies of mankind" are there when everyone goes for Marines and Marines generate the most sales alone? It's both a success and a trap. I think also for the health of the designers and GW's team itself its also a negative. We can almost see that some armies in 40K hardly have any active updates (eg Eldar) and one has to wonder, in a design led team, is that because the Marines have financially done so well that they've wound up with a 40K team who really only like and know and want to make Marine models not 40K models.

AoS has taken, I think, a FAR healthier direction since its launch. They've moved away from the idea of lots of Stormcast chamber armies and instead invested that creative outlet into diverse armies of all kinds. AoS and 40K actually have comparable numbers of factions between the games. However AoS hasn't pushed half of them into one single faction and design aesthetic. Even the Grand Alliance Order, whlist having the most individual factions, has a huge amount of variety within itself.

 Argive wrote:
The realms will shatter and be no more.
Everyone will be forced to live in a place called the old world.

New game will be created called AOS: The old world. and everyone will need to rebase their minatures onto square bases.

Ha! As I've not re-based any of my old stuff I'll be ready day one.

I really hope that Orcs and Goblins do get an update, but I really dislike the aesthetics of the bigger mega Orcs they made at the start of AoS (they look too 40K for me).

They used to have one of the most diverse ranges of miniatures, but now the Orc side has very little variety. The Goblin side is better, and it's true that very few people played Common Goblin armies before so focusing on the Night Goblins as the most crazy and distinct thing makes sense. But I miss the crazy huge combined armies of Black Orcs, Common Orcs, Big Uns, Savage Orcs, Common Goblins, Night Goblins, Forest Goblins, with wolf riders, wolf chariots, boar chariots and boar boars, spider riders and then a bunch of different trolls, ogres, giants and so on. It really was a super diverse army, and a cool mirror of the Empire that was also really diverse.

The orcs side of O&G was always the weaker part. orcs, orcs in armor or orcs with bone weapons, wherease the gobbos got all the crazy war machines and units like fanatics and spiders. Splitting them just underscored how bland orcs themselves were, and it's why Destruction has been dead in the water when it comes to "character" development...they pinned everything on Gorkamorka being the only god of Destruction and orruks being the main force...and orruks are boring.

Maybe they'll introduce the sky pirate grots they've been hinting at all of these books!

I mean. i can hope, can't i?

I feel like the Broken Realms is going to be a lead up to Malekith being the big bad for 3rd.

My theory is that he's been manipulating everything to break up alliances and cause infighting and turmoil for his own gains. Manipulated a Rift between Morathi and Sigmar, Teclis to help weaken Nagash and himself/Lumineth in the process. Infighting with Chaos between Bela'kor and Archeon, etc etc.

 Sasori wrote:
I feel like the Broken Realms is going to be a lead up to Malekith being the big bad for 3rd.

My theory is that he's been manipulating everything to break up alliances and cause infighting and turmoil for his own gains. Manipulated a Rift between Morathi and Sigmar, Teclis to help weaken Nagash and himself/Lumineth in the process. Infighting with Chaos between Bela'kor and Archeon, etc etc.

That would explain why they've been so secretive and hush hush about all the Ulgu stuff and Malerion's version of elves. I could definitely see them as the next big faction for them to market in a 3rd edition starter box.

After Soulblight its the last big hinted at faction from the very start of AoS in terms of lore and impact and it IS odd that lore wise we've basically seen nothing of his actions thus far

 Da Boss wrote:
I really hope that Orcs and Goblins do get an update, but I really dislike the aesthetics of the bigger mega Orcs they made at the start of AoS (they look too 40K for me).

They used to have one of the most diverse ranges of miniatures, but now the Orc side has very little variety. The Goblin side is better, and it's true that very few people played Common Goblin armies before so focusing on the Night Goblins as the most crazy and distinct thing makes sense. But I miss the crazy huge combined armies of Black Orcs, Common Orcs, Big Uns, Savage Orcs, Common Goblins, Night Goblins, Forest Goblins, with wolf riders, wolf chariots, boar chariots and boar boars, spider riders and then a bunch of different trolls, ogres, giants and so on. It really was a super diverse army, and a cool mirror of the Empire that was also really diverse.

So long as they don't screw up my Gloomspite. I'm quite happy with how they play.

Cronch wrote:The orcs side of O&G was always the weaker part. orcs, orcs in armor or orcs with bone weapons, wherease the gobbos got all the crazy war machines and units like fanatics and spiders. Splitting them just underscored how bland orcs themselves were, and it's why Destruction has been dead in the water when it comes to "character" development...they pinned everything on Gorkamorka being the only god of Destruction and orruks being the main force...and orruks are boring.

The funny thing is that they still have the heavy armored orks and the savage orks, they just don't have the ones that are in between that also supervised the siege equipment, too (with the gobbos).

But yeah, they are just infantry with infantry, some heavy cavalry, and then more infantry. This is the main reason I'd be hesitant to start Orruks for anything but Warcry without thinking of planning on Allies from Ogres or Gobbos. The sad part is, I don't know what to include with them that would be in character and stealing from something else, like Trolls or Gargants.

 Charistoph wrote:

Cronch wrote:The orcs side of O&G was always the weaker part. orcs, orcs in armor or orcs with bone weapons, wherease the gobbos got all the crazy war machines and units like fanatics and spiders. Splitting them just underscored how bland orcs themselves were, and it's why Destruction has been dead in the water when it comes to "character" development...they pinned everything on Gorkamorka being the only god of Destruction and orruks being the main force...and orruks are boring.

The funny thing is that they still have the heavy armored orks and the savage orks, they just don't have the ones that are in between that also supervised the siege equipment, too (with the gobbos).

But yeah, they are just infantry with infantry, some heavy cavalry, and then more infantry. This is the main reason I'd be hesitant to start Orruks for anything but Warcry without thinking of planning on Allies from Ogres or Gobbos. The sad part is, I don't know what to include with them that would be in character and stealing from something else, like Trolls or Gargants.

It definitely doesn't help that Gordrakk as a special character has never felt like an actual presence in the overall plot of AoS outside as some force of nature that is wherever the plot needs him to be. He lacks the mystery of Grimgor being a random killing machine that was hinted to be a slave of the Chaos Dwarves that escaped, or the character of Gorbad Ironclaw being one of the most successful Orc tacticians in history.

I'm primarily an Ironjawz player and I feel like they should double down on them being amongst the most heavily armoured of the Destruction factions so far. A defensive brute variant with tower shields of some sort or a brute weapons team where they hurl gigantic morning stars as either a ranged weapon or a melee option. Having an Ardboy Big Boss option and expanding more on what the Ardboyz do as the smiths/manufacturers would also be interesting, possibly giving an avenue for a return of Ruglud's Armoured Boyz with crossbows. Bonesplitterz mainly need a centerpiece unit, which a plastic Rogue Idol of Gork or Mork would do really well with, kind of like the Orky, less wimpy version of the Avatar of Khaine for DoK.