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As a fan of the Skaven of old I wondered what on earth GW is doing with this army now we are 4+ years into Age of Sigmar. They seem like a relic of the past that GW doesn't really know what to do with anymore.

They were transplanted completely from the old system but have seen very little to no support or new releases.
So much of the model line is ancient, resin or even metal and a good portion of it probably wasn't even released in the last 20 years.

Skaven do seem to have retained some popularity though. We have had 2 very successful video games featuring them after all.
So what is the plan for these guys going forward? Do they even get more support? Phased out?
The army turned into something else entirely?

Just something I've been musing.

They're still pretty important in the lore. The Horned Rat got elevated to full Chaos God! So that says to me there are certainly no plans to remove them by any means.

They're not the only current army using a lot of old sculpts too, just look at the recently released Cities of Sigmar.

 Stux wrote:
They're still pretty important in the lore. The Horned Rat got elevated to full Chaos God! So that says to me there are certainly no plans to remove them by any means.

They're not the only current army using a lot of old sculpts too, just look at the recently released Cities of Sigmar.

Cities of Sigmar mostly if not entirely uses fairly current plastics I think.
Almost all of the old metal/resin stuff was discontinued.

I would have liked to see them as a Destruction faction.

I guarantee it will be more than whatever Seraphon get. Skaven make for amusing villains and threatening baddies in video games, as well as in just about any fantasy setting, and play well as a faction currently, with a really nice 2.0 book.

 dan2026 wrote:
As a fan of the Skaven of old I wondered what on earth GW is doing with this army now we are 4+ years into Age of Sigmar. They seem like a relic of the past that GW doesn't really know what to do with anymore.

They were transplanted completely from the old system but have seen very little to no support or new releases.
So much of the model line is ancient, resin or even metal and a good portion of it probably wasn't even released in the last 20 years.

Skaven do seem to have retained some popularity though. We have had 2 very successful video games featuring them after all.
So what is the plan for these guys going forward? Do they even get more support? Phased out?
The army turned into something else entirely?

Just something I've been musing.

1st, The Skaven aren't going anywhere.

2nd, You know that saying "If it ain't broke, don't fix it?" That applies to our Skaven minis.

3rd, As for the model range? Most of it's been released within the past 15 years.

It's important to note that basically ALL of the AoS armies need some support in one of two key directions


1) They are large, but full of old models. Skaven are the worst, but Seraphon, Ogors and others are in the same boat. Being full of very old plastics, finecast and even metals.

2) Being very small in diversity. Even some "new" AoS armies are like this. Flesheaters, Fyreslayers and Daughers of Khaine are some of the smallest armies in terms of model variety and options. Heck Flesheaters you can buy the entire range barring two models from the start collecting set.


Skaven are not going anywhere, they are very key to the game and its very unlikely that GW is going to remove 2.0 armies. Skaven did get one new model, but for some reason GW are being really slow at releasing duel box unique models on their own.
Otherwise yes Skaven need a lot of old plastics, finecast and metal updating.



The only things Skaven have really lost in the last weeks are the Forgeworld models - the Broodhorror and Wolfrats (a huge shame to lose the wolfrats as they are great models). The FW Verminlord is still up for sale at this point in time.

Well Skaven got a new battletome the middle of last year, are among the best armies in the game, and have a huge lineup of unit options & miniatures. They are important in the lore, showing up in novels & campaign books from the very start of AoS. Overall there are few armies in a better place than Skaven right now.

besides the book they've also gotten faction terrain and endless spells, so I don't see them dissapearing. I also think that the current units will stay

terry wrote:
besides the book they've also gotten faction terrain and endless spells, so I don't see them dissapearing. I also think that the current units will stay

They also got an Underworlds warband. So yeah, they seem relatively safe.

With 2.0 release, the last two years were pretty much just non-stop battletome updates. Very few genuinely new models/factions got released. I think now that almost everything is up to speed ruleswise and pruned, they'll start actually updating the lines, and I imagine skaven and seraphon will be heavily involved, as they're the two lines that didn't lose almost any models since WHFB days.

I dunno, even considering Skaven are a fully GW created idea they haven't made any moves to replace the 80% of the range that is still finecast or even metal.

If Skaven are staying mostly as is, I can see a good portion of the range being jettisoned at some point.

Look at Cities of Sigmar. All the old finecast stuff is completely gone. Only the plastic kits remain.

 dan2026 wrote:
I dunno, even considering Skaven are a fully GW created idea...

Skaven are heavily influenced by Fritz Lieber's novel "The Swords of Lankhmar" (1968) which featured intelligent rats as the antagonists.

Raigo the Iron Rat was also a Yokai that appeared as a Rat as big as a man, with skin like stone and claws of metal.

Japanese myth about deceit and revenge.

terry wrote:
besides the book they've also gotten faction terrain and endless spells, so I don't see them dissapearing. I also think that the current units will stay

A great many won't. The finecast & metal ones (of which there are quite a lot) need to be either replaced in plastic or jettisoned. And the Rat Ogres (& friends) and the 'monkey runners' badly needed to be replaced a decade ago.

Looking at the webstore page, around a quarter of the skaven range needs replacement work, and that's counting each vermin lord as its own 'thing,' plus the start collecting, army deals, books and battleforce, and the demoted old Special Characters.

It says there are 43 entries on the page, but I'd only count about 34 (38 if you're counting each vermin lord) as individual unit entries (so not books or army sets), and at least 15-16 of those need to be replaced or culled. That's quite a lot of work to be done, nearly half the proper range.

It is hard to imagine many of the unit options they have left actually going away rather than being consolidated/updated into a new warscroll or simply replaced. Things like the warlock-engineer, master moulder, assassin, warp-grinder, etc. Just aren't going to go away because they are too iconic and too popular.

dan2026 wrote:I dunno, even considering Skaven are a fully GW created idea they haven't made any moves to replace the 80% of the range that is still finecast or even metal.

If Skaven are staying mostly as is, I can see a good portion of the range being jettisoned at some point.

Look at Cities of Sigmar. All the old finecast stuff is completely gone. Only the plastic kits remain.

Voss wrote:

terry wrote:
besides the book they've also gotten faction terrain and endless spells, so I don't see them dissapearing. I also think that the current units will stay

A great many won't. The finecast & metal ones (of which there are quite a lot) need to be either replaced in plastic or jettisoned. And the Rat Ogres (& friends) and the 'monkey runners' badly needed to be replaced a decade ago.

Looking at the webstore page, around a quarter of the skaven range needs replacement work, and that's counting each vermin lord as its own 'thing,' plus the start collecting, army deals, books and battleforce, and the demoted old Special Characters.

It says there are 43 entries on the page, but I'd only count about 34 (38 if you're counting each vermin lord) as individual unit entries (so not books or army sets), and at least 15-16 of those need to be replaced or culled. That's quite a lot of work to be done, nearly half the proper range.

I don't think they will jettison the units, just replace the models. If you look at cities, they've jettisoned the stuff before they where ever in a battletome, which is a different situation to the current skaven stuff

Cities is a totally different kettle of fish compared to Skaven. As noted many of the skaven models are far too iconic to get away with just removing.

I can well see them doing things like removing the multiple weapon teams and making a single weapon team plastic sculpt that has multiple weapon choices - throwers, flamers, tossers and grinders all in one kit.

GW hasn't released updates for them for the very same reason they've not updated MOST of the old AoS armies; and for the same reason that they've still got multiple tiny armies. They simply lack the production slots to update them all in a year and a half. What it really shows is how much GW had let Old World slip behind 40K - though even in 40K there's armies like Eldar who still have a lot of finecast and some really old plastics.

 Overread wrote:
Cities is a totally different kettle of fish compared to Skaven. As noted many of the skaven models are far too iconic to get away with just removing.

I can well see them doing things like removing the multiple weapon teams and making a single weapon team plastic sculpt that has multiple weapon choices - throwers, flamers, tossers and grinders all in one kit.

GW hasn't released updates for them for the very same reason they've not updated MOST of the old AoS armies; and for the same reason that they've still got multiple tiny armies. They simply lack the production slots to update them all in a year and a half. What it really shows is how much GW had let Old World slip behind 40K - though even in 40K there's armies like Eldar who still have a lot of finecast and some really old plastics.

GW has focused mostly on stormcast and space marines

terry wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Cities is a totally different kettle of fish compared to Skaven. As noted many of the skaven models are far too iconic to get away with just removing.

I can well see them doing things like removing the multiple weapon teams and making a single weapon team plastic sculpt that has multiple weapon choices - throwers, flamers, tossers and grinders all in one kit.

GW hasn't released updates for them for the very same reason they've not updated MOST of the old AoS armies; and for the same reason that they've still got multiple tiny armies. They simply lack the production slots to update them all in a year and a half. What it really shows is how much GW had let Old World slip behind 40K - though even in 40K there's armies like Eldar who still have a lot of finecast and some really old plastics.

GW has focused mostly on stormcast and space marines

Actually outside of special edition models they've not released much for stormcast in the last year. In fact I think that whilst Stormcast got a BIG launch, GW has eased off on them a lot. Basically AoS has a lot fewer niches and specialist unit roles within its structure. So you can only add so many models before they are tripping over each other doing the same thing as each other. Which tends to mean one or two end up best and the rest are ignored. 40K gets away with more slots because there's more unit types going on - armoured, super heavies, infantry, swarms, air, anti air, artillery etc.... Even though some (eg super heavies and all the time flying air) have had their hard counters reduced somewhat in terms of nessessity to deal with them; they are still part of the game structure.

In addition whilst I'm sure GW loves the sales that marines generate, I get the feeling that with AoS they wanted to port some of the marine success, but not the entire same structure. I don't think they want a gross over percentage of sales to be marines only. Look at how GW has already made Nighthaunt the other "push fit starter" army which is now in the Mortal Realms Magazine and has a good host of easy push-fit market models within its range. Just like Stormcast. Furthermore they aren't releasing a dozen Stormcast chatpers where the only difference at the start is some niche rules and a shoulderpad (shield for AoS?) and later giving them a few unique models. I think that their plan is far more to have more different races and actual factions in AoS than to have dozens all the same with a few modifications.

You can see this in subtle ways such as how the BL books don't focus exclusively on Stormcast.



I think that one big issue with one faction dominating sales is it can have problems. For one it means that many of your gamers are stuck fighting basically a civil war rather than diverse opponents; it also means that you end up with a catch 22 situation with production whereby one faction is dominating sales so it gets more attention which means it dominates sales. Medium to long term this can mean that other armies get overlooked which means investments made into them are not making the same return and it might even reach a point where you either have to write off the investment (kill the army) or make a further bigger investment to get that armies interest going again.

Sisters of Battle are a prime example where GW has had to make a massive investment after years of "neglect" of an army. Now granted with the right marketing that Gw is doing today it seems that they are reaping their investment really well with high volume sales. So its turning out good, but its a big gamble they take with such releases.

It's not helped by the fact that when GW do put out new models for some of the more unloved factions, they are stuck in expensive boxes with a ton of other models you probably don't want.

It's a terrible anti consumer goddamn practice that GW seem to do time and time again.

I would quite like the Warlock Bombadier, but can I buy him? No.
Not unless I want to pay Ebay scalpers prices.

I don't mind the duel boxes, but I am surprised that GW keeps leaving the unique model without a retail release for as long as they have been doing. One part of me wonders if they underestimated sales of those boxes in the extreme and thought they had a years worth of sales. That said considering they've got the mould it shouldn't take a year to get some packaging boxes from china sent over and the model added to the roster. That is unless they are set to be put into production when the new factory comes online.

The chinese mess last year might've put them in a bad place- Neave Blacktalon and Horticulus Slimux were released after only half a year? Maybe a little longer, but under 1y I think.

What was the Chinese mess?
If you don't mind me asking.

In 2019, Sylvaneth's 2.0 Battletome, new trees and Endless spell release was delayed by 2-3 months. They started their usual cycle of teasing the release for a few weeks/month prior to orders being put up, but GW had to put up posts informing people that there were delays a few times. They chalked it up to issues with the manufacturers in China not delivering the products. As a Sylvaneth player, it was very frustrating for me. And it's hard to tell how this rather long delay effected GW's overall release cycle.

Yeah it had quite a knock on effect as there was a sudden gap of AoS releases followed by GW speeding things up. I don't think Slaves to Darkness was supposed to be in that very final slot before Christmas but a week or two (if not more) eariler. There were also some rumours that Tzeentch was to be the last of the year (which as we know its in a duel box would have put Tzeentch and Khadorans together at the end of the year).

Regardless it did slow things up, but we did get this little gem

Thanks for the info.
Well hopefully now things are mostly back on schedule Skaven will finally get a decent redo. Whatever form that might take.

Like I said personally I see a large section of the models being junked. Whether they are replaced with updated versions or completely new units I think is probably up in the air.

On a side note. I dont really feel right about Skaven being lumped in with Chaos. Honestly feel like they would of fit in better as a Destruction faction.

 dan2026 wrote:
Thanks for the info.
Well hopefully now things are mostly back on schedule Skaven will finally get a decent redo. Whatever form that might take.

Like I said personally I see a large section of the models being junked. Whether they are replaced with updated versions or completely new units I think is probably up in the air.

On a side note. I dont really feel right about Skaven being lumped in with Chaos. Honestly feel like they would of fit in better as a Destruction faction.

Thing is Skaven were always more Chaos. They've been using Warpstone since forever and many of their creations are far more on the "mad science mutation" side that's closer to Chaos. So they've always been considered creatures of Chaos. Much like the Beastmen though (now Beasts of Chaos); Skaven in the Old World were more considered a race influenced by the powers and warping properties of chaos, but not actually worshipping the big four Chaos Gods. In AoS both those armies have come more so under the mantel of the Chaos Grand Alliance; however both in the game and also in the lore its very clear that Skaven are part of chaos, but well to one side of the Big Four. The only nod is Pestilens being able to take Nurgle allies, which honestly I suspect is partly only in there because it was done in the past of AoS and it was retained because of that. Otherwise Skaven are very much their own thing. One of the Inferno/Novella stories even details on a trip to Shyish that they saw Nagash's armies assaulting the Skaven Realm of the Dead. Which means that unlike the regular Chaos followers, who's souls all go to the Chaos Realm, the Skaven still have a "mortal like" death realm (albeit one with doom-wheels and enough undead power to hold Nagash at bay)

Yeah I know Skaven always did have a vague Chaos connection. But to me at least it feels like they don't really fit in with the other Chaos players.

They will never exactly be part of the big 4. No matter where they try and lump the Skaven God. The Big 4 have been the big 4 forever and this applies to 40k as well, where Skaven don't exist.
Then aren't Chaos mortals or part of Archaon's crew.
And they aren't Chaos Beastmen either. At least not exactly.

Skaven kinda feel like the odd man(rat) out.

But hey that's just my opinion. Skaven are full Chaos now, for good or for worse. Maybe it's just because I knew them so well from old fantasy, that they feel so weird in AOS.

I just think they’ve been putting off a skaven model update.
With the tons of kits and sub factions they would likely want to milk it as a faction at a time or they would likely start squatting things.

I’d honestly love to see new kits though like a weapon team kit etc.