Age of Sigmar News & Rumors : Dec 2019 FAQS

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Crimson**

JSG wrote:
Wow, there's an awful lot of wrong opinions in this thread. Personally I love them. I especially like that Wayne Barlowe is an obvious influence.

I was thinking about Barlowe too! These models are absolutely amazing, but people here like conservative boring stuff.

**Da Boss**

I think they look fine for the aesthetic of AoS, very competently done and some cool designs.

I am not a huge fan of that aesthetic since it clashes so strongly with other stuff I own, is all.

**Geifer**

Zingraff wrote:
Overread wrote:
Zingraff wrote:
... What about using the clay soil from a cemetery?

With the whole Asian thing, why couldn't they've made terracotta soldier type golems in stead of this, which in my opinion doesn't succeed in either being "undead" or "golems".

With the way they are designed if you just painted them a reddish terracotta colour they'd be terracotta warriors.
I think bones because its a DEATH faction and it sort of fits their theme more than clay.

Here's the thing, the soil of most cemeteries which have been in use for some time, has at some point been decomposed bodies. Even the bones from the bodies buried there will become soil within a couple of decades.

This is particularly noticeable in the churchyards surrounding medieval churches. The church will appear as if it has sunken into the ground, sometimes sitting in a hollow surrounded by mounds of dirt. When the church was constructed maybe 900 years ago, it was built on the summit of a hill, but the centuries of burying thousands of people raise the ground considerably.

In a way, all this dirt is dead people, tens of thousands of them. Excavating a cemetery and kneading the dirt into a clay, you have a material which is as much infused with the souls of the dead as any bone, if not more so, seeing how one bone = one person, while an equal amount of cemetery soil is a concentration of corpses. If anything clay from a cemetery is MORE DEATH than any single bone.

Not a bad take, but I think GW's most important consideration is how much of it comes across from simply looking at the model.

Made of bones = Bone legion, no doubt!

Made of dirt = Umm, what's that? Clay? Ash? Bone dust? Oh, soul-infused graveyard earth. Hey, I would have guessed that eventually!

GW does work subtler things into their models, but they tend to go for obvious and strong designs for parts that define faction identity so that you look at the model and don't have to put any thought into figuring out what it's supposed to be.

**Sim-Life**

Crimson wrote:
JSG wrote:
Wow, there's an awful lot of wrong opinions in this thread. Personally I love them. I especially like that Wayne Barlowe is an obvious influence.

I was thinking about Barlowe too! These models are absolutely amazing, but people here like conservative boring stuff.

Not liking models looking like saturday morning childrens cartoons is boring and conservative. Gotcha.

The sad thing is we know GW can do over the top stuff well because 40k exists. AoS just seems to be going full on silly and not in a good way.

**His Master's Voice**

Geifer wrote:
That's the first thing about them that I noticed and I think it may have tainted my perception of the range for good.

That's probably the easiest thing to fix though.

Note that I'm not going to argue that the ability to convert a model to look better is somehow a selling point, or makes the criticism of the base kit irrelevant.

**Mad Doc Grotsnik**

I suspect we may also get helmeted bonces for them, because I really like the champion model.

**Geifer**

His Master's Voice wrote:
Geifer wrote:
That's the first thing about them that I noticed and I think it may have tainted my perception of the range for good.

That's probably the easiest thing to fix though.

Note that I'm not going to argue that the ability to convert a model to look better is somehow a selling point, or makes the criticism of the base kit irrelevant.

Nice. Top left one tells me the head is already improved if the nose goes. I hadn't even figured in the nose yet.

I used to uparmor Mk.VII Marine helmets in 4th ed to cover the grille. I could see that working on these guys, too, turning their masks into actual helmets. Come to think of it, I did the same thing with my Darkoath Warqueen.

And while I'm not one of the people who asked for terracotta soldiers, I think terracotta might actually be a pretty cool color to paint their armor.

**Cronch**

Sim-Life wrote:

The sad thing is we know GW can do over the top stuff well because 40k exists. AoS just seems to be going full on silly and not in a good way.

40k is actually pretty bland and "over the top" only in lore. AoS at least tries to put that high fantasy style on the models instead of hiding it in books like Marinehammer.

**Overread**

I've fixed the biggest problem of the Immobile Mortarch - please excuse the sloppy photoshop

BEHOLD

Honestly the war engine looks huge as it is so this might be quite a practical and possible (though not cheap) conversion that really fits with the army's aesthetics.

**Cruxeh**

Overread wrote:
I've fixed the biggest problem of the Immobile Mortarch - please excuse the sloppy photoshop

BEHOLD

Honestly the war engine looks huge as it is so this might be quite a practical and possible (though not cheap) conversion that really fits with the army's aesthetics.

I really do not see any problem with that Mortarch as is, or how he's supposedly immobile. Unless I'm missing something? Do the stairs he's on prevent him and his buddies from just walking off of it?

I might actually have to check the size of this Mortarch, and see if he can be combined with a Mortis Engine/Coven Throne. Might even work better than messing about with what is invariably going to be a hideously expensive catapult kit.

Okay with the models overall, but I'dd need to have them in front of me and be painting them myself before I can properly judge them.

Edit: or even turn the entire stairs thingie he's standing on into a Mortis Engine style platform.

**Tiberius501**

Wow so much hate... sheesh. I get people can like what they like, just wasn’t expecting them to see this much criticism, cos I love these guys. Clearly I have bad taste haha.

**Overread**

Tiberius501 wrote:
Wow so much hate... sheesh. I get people can like what they like, just wasn’t expecting them to see this much criticism, cos I love these guys. Clearly I have bad taste haha.

It's to be expected, very few armies have everyone loving them. Plus lets not forget this is a very surprising take on the theme, and really before now all we knew was "skeleton army". It wasn't even until the last video that we even saw a hint of what they'd look like. So there was a lot of personal dreaming up of ideas. Some will have matched it; some will have been totally different. So there's a bit of "Oh its not what I thought it would be - disappointment!" Also don't forget thus far most of us only have some photos - in my experience it really takes models in the plastic before you can judge them.

I'd wager the "hate" is nothing to worry about. It's only a concern if we reach 2 months after launch and the hate team are going strong and sales are low and the love/buying side are so time its impossible to see them. That's when we can worry.

**Boss Salvage**

Caught these last night, guess my hot take is that I'm disappointed. I honestly was taking deep breaths and preparing to buy a massive legion of skeletons in segmented 'Mortarch' plate ... and we got Eevil Stormcast, Eevil Sylvaneth and Eevil Varanguard. Characters are cool - Kotal Kahn in the house <3 - and the bone constructs are neat as a concept, they just about all fall flat for me due to proportions and dumb heads and what not. I really do want a legion of skeletons in distinctive armor tho, so might cast my gaze back to Mierce's Jutes ...

For those super jazzed by the bone thing, check out Para Bellum's Conquest for another wargame's take.

**auticus**

Tiberius501 wrote:
Wow so much hate... sheesh. I get people can like what they like, just wasn’t expecting them to see this much criticism, cos I love these guys. Clearly I have bad taste haha.

I feel the same way everytime I see people loving AOS double turn mechanics or loving how heavy list building impacts the game.

Its easy to chalk this up as bitter haters that just hate because its not tomb kings hate.

I don't care that they aren't tomb kings.

I care that:

* they look like insects
* they look like they came out of masters of the universe cartoon
* they have big cartoon grins
* they look like a cross between s ylvaneth, necrons, and tyranids
* i want something more skeleton-like

I was hoping for an update to the tomb kings. Skeletons ... wearing high fantasy armor and high fantasy constructs. Instead we have Trap-Jaw and Man-E-Faces and grinning insects. None of those tick any of my boxes.

**Boss Salvage**

auticus wrote:
* they look like insects

*gestures to the AOS thread here on Dakka about whether or not AOS needs an insect race*

**Gallahad**

Wow, those are really bad designs imo. The whole of AOS is just starting to look like a WoW cartoon. No, actually I probably prefer WoW designs to these.
Imagine showing up to play with a well painted Island of Blood style high elf army or puffy sleeve Empire army and having your opponent plunk down these bone-clowns.
I think that is a good illustration of how the visual style has gone off the rails (for me).
They could have done something disturbing but instead we got the ol rubber bone clowns...
No hate for those that like em, and AOS is clearly not for me, but I'm not even interested in playing against the boneclowns.

**timetowaste85**

So to be fair, bare skulls do actually grin, because that's the natural setting for them. But it looks odd on reanimated skeletons. It's rough; I don't like the look either, but I know it's the correct look. And that's not fair to GW-if they go with a natural look, it doesn't look right. And that's nature's fault, but not GW's. But yeah, not really a fan personally. Some parts are awesome, some meh. Thankfully I'm not a Death player who has to decide yay or nay on these.

**auticus**

Skulls grinning, and what those models are doing to me are two different things. They have the face pulled up to look like smiling / grinning, which is different from a bare skull. Those skulls look like they have flesh and that flesh is pulled up in a smile.

**Geifer**

Something just happened to me now as I had a first good look at the battletome's cover. For the first moment I could have sworn I was looking at a Tyranid Warrior.

So yeah, I'm certainly not going to blame anyone for seeing too much of insects in their armor design. It makes me think GW should have tried for a different visual. At least a variation of the armor that doesn't come so close to Tyranid design.

Obviously 40k is a different setting and as such these guys are unique in AoS, but it does invite bad jokes and it's not something I think AoS needs any more of.

Also, the skeleton heads have skull noses on the cover art and people noses on the models. What's with that? I like the ones on the cover better.

auticus wrote:
Skulls grinning, and what those models are doing to me are two different things. They have the face pulled up to look like smiling / grinning, which is different from a bare skull. Those skulls look like they have flesh and that flesh is pulled up in a smile.

Yeah. Skull grin is happy grin. What these guys have is a psycho grin.

**VBS**

Boss Salvage wrote:

For those super jazzed by the bone thing, check out Para Bellum's Conquest for another wargame's take.

The whole bone construct, masks and mention of bio-engineering instantly made me think of the Spires in Conquest. Except the Spires look really decent whereas these bone-things appear intentionally comical and cheap (in design, not price

). Could be a good replacement, though not sure due to scale.

**Boss Salvage**

VBS wrote:
Could be a good replacement, though not sure due to scale.

I think Conquest is a larger scale than AOS? Which could work here, as the AOS Bonethings are larger than man-sized. I would 100% take Brute Drones in place of the four-armed multi-face duders we've just seen.

Also on the topic of GW carapace bois, I'm tempted to get the Mortarch just to rebase all the elements onto their own bases, there are a lot of cool af characters standing around there!

**auticus**

Conquest models are very similar to AOS in scale. They are a tad bigger. But not grossly so.

I am painting my spire forces now. And yeah the bone constructs of the spire look (yes yes IMO) 1000x better and less goofy / saturday morning cartoon.

**auticus**

Spire forces

**His Master's Voice**

VBS wrote:
Except the Spires look really decent

I mean, people like what they like, but those Brutes are not great. Not great at all.

And I say that as someone who's generally able to see something good in almost any miniature.

**eohall**

Crimson wrote:
JSG wrote:
Wow, there's an awful lot of wrong opinions in this thread. Personally I love them. I especially like that Wayne Barlowe is an obvious influence.

I was thinking about Barlowe too! These models are absolutely amazing, but people here like conservative boring stuff.

If they had taken more cues from Beksinski (from whom Barlowe was biting heavily for his "Inferno" images) and made these sculpts more faceless and twisted in form, I would be way more on board with these designs, as I think it's a great concept overall.

**highlord tamburlaine**

Are we posting our painted Spires? Cuz I will too if need be.

I'm actually wondering how well our new bony friends would work in Conquest as some of the other troop choices.

**VBS**

His Master's Voice wrote:
VBS wrote:
Except the Spires look really decent

I mean, people like what they like, but those Brutes are not great. Not great at all.

And I say that as someone who's generally able to see something good in almost any miniature.

To be honest, the Brutes don't look too good. Tough competition with the Bone-tyranid-guards.

However, the rest of the line looks very good to me (like the forge-grown drones or pheromancer), so I wouldn't just judge a faction based on a single unit. If people prefer cartoon bone-clowns, that is totally fine too.

I suppose the scale shouldn't be too bad considering the progressive upsizing of GW minis.

**Togusa**

Herbington wrote:
AOS Conquest anyone?

https://www.warhammermortalrealms.com/

I see they've taken the D&D "Worlds Greatest" line and added it to their stuff. Interesting.

**nels1031**

His Master's Voice wrote:
VBS wrote:
Except the Spires look really decent

I mean, people like what they like, but those Brutes are not great. Not great at all.

And I say that as someone who's generally able to see something good in almost any miniature.

Seriously. The spire guys pictured above are horrible. It looks like something even early Mantic would have been embarrassed by.

If the Ossiarch guys are saturday morning cartoons, those spire things are just a kids random doodle on a napkin while he's waiting for his chicken tenders.

I've seen alot of great memes and jokes about the new reveal, but saying those spire things are in any way superior beats them all.

And I say that as an AoS fanboy who looked at this reveal and was extremely ambivalent(for most of it)

**auticus**

Typically fan boys of any game are going to seal-clap for their game's contents over other games irregardless. *shrug* I've seen dozens upon dozens of kings of war players rave about mantic models over GW models for years because they strongly hated GW and loved Kings of War.

The bone-clowns are to me the worst of the aos releases to date. I usually have liked the models for most of the releases that have come down the pipe since 2015. The only reason I bought the warcry stuff was for the models.

The conquest spire models certainly aren't the greatest things evar I'll definitely say that, but I prefer lumpen doodles over bone clowns that look like they crawled out of a He-Man comic with skeletor laughing behind them. Thats just my own preference though. I don't like cartoony comicesque models or games that feature that aesthetic. Same as why I never got into World of Warcraft for the same reasons.