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As I said previously, Brets were pretty much squatted right after their Battalion box was released in 2009.

I am genuinely surprised by everyone's reaction to this news. It was rumoured since the first endtimes rumours two years ago, that some armies were going to get cut. Since the Nagash endtimes book it has been clear that the tomb kings would be one of the first on the chopping block. My guess is that GW have not had any tomb kings produced in their factory since the end times began and have simply been working through inventory since then.

For me the big surprise so far is how much of the old range has made the transition untouched. One of the earliest rumours was that the lizard men would disappear but they have their own book now. In the future I expect every range to suffer some cuts as they are almagameted into new factions, or are replaced by new ones.

In the future I expect the whole Bretonnian range to go. Most of the empire range will go. Yhetees, gorgers, sabretusks, the ogre special characters, and the gnoblars will likely go.
Night goblins might go, though that would be extremely sad. Forest goblins are almost guaranteed to be safe as they have featured a lot in the fluff and the books. Most of the Orc line is probably safe for the same reason. The dwarfs may see some cuts depending on what the steam heads look like when they are released.

The most uncertain situation is the elves, as we have not even seen any art of thier new style yet. It is possible that they all could go.

We knew that age of sigmar was going to bring big changes to the warhammer line. This is just the beginning.

My instinct is that 30k will eventually replace warhammer as the second tier range, and that there will be about half as many warhammer models as there are now.

Another point is that GW didn't have to do this. models have simply disappeared from the web store many times before, but this time they are not trying to hide what they are doing. It sucks but at least people have a chance to grab stuff before it is gone.

Chikout wrote:

Another point is that GW didn't have to do this. models have simply disappeared from the web store many times before, but this time they are not trying to hide what they are doing. It sucks but at least people have a chance to grab stuff before it is gone.

While this is a technically accurate statement, in my book you don't get points for implementing a stupid idea in a marginally less donkey-cave-ish way than you have in the past. Obviously it being a stupid idea is a matter of opinion yet to be borne out by the facts(that will take a while), but for my money GW get plaudits when they do good things, not for minor decreases in their normal level of idiocy.

GW's website sucks. These Alliance drop downs are bonkers.. There are 22 options, 13 of which have less that 10 items. None of these make any since to me, so how am I going to know where to look to shop. Its like they are continuously inventing ways to shoot themselves in the foot.

When my friend and I went to the book store to get some dice for his Skaven force, I noticed the Chaos Grand Alliance book, convinced him to purchase it and I am happy that I did. Lots of vivid artwork , really a nice collectible.

Looked forward to the Death Grand Alliance book as days went by, some time ago noticed on the rumors that the book was going to be $16.50, I knew at that time I will have to say goodbye to my beloved TK models.

Shame really but it does not surprise me, the revamp of the book that I waited for a long time along with the 'new' kits were not really exciting to me as a long time Tomb King hobbyist , sad but true.

Really taught I was going to be able to take the "Death" motif to the next level by mixing and matching, looks like I will have to stick to pretty much Vampire Counts... oh well!

Now that is not to say I don't see these types of changes being bad for their company, bright future ahead,no doubt. We will always find something that will keep us coming back for their miniatures.

Chopxsticks wrote:
GW's website sucks. These Alliance drop downs are bonkers.. There are 22 options, 13 of which have less that 10 items. None of these make any since to me, so how am I going to know where to look to shop. Its like they are continuously inventing ways to shoot themselves in the foot.

Give them a break. They didn't have more than three (or was it four) million pounds to spend on the website so it's bound to be a bit rough on the edges.

 Bottle wrote:
Considering they are the good guys for Total War, I hope GW will consider keeping a lot of the kits.

You think the video game will have any impact on GW's decisions? Licensed products are just a stream of nearly hands-free revenue. GW has never leveraged it's IP on the back of a licensed product.

I kinda doubt they'll get rid of too many more old factions, after all a widespread rumor was that Lizardmen would get the chop but we all know what happened with them. The other thing is whether a faction outright disappears or certain kits are integrated into a new AoS "replacement" faction, or they just get re-boxings, renames and get added to the new faction ala all the old Chaos Warrior stuff with the Bloodbound and Everchosen battle-tomes.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
Considering they are the good guys for Total War, I hope GW will consider keeping a lot of the kits.

You think the video game will have any impact on GW's decisions? Licensed products are just a stream of nearly hands-free revenue. GW has never leveraged it's IP on the back of a licensed product.

No, not really. I just hope it might have an impact. We got a limited edition Bonesinger after DoW so maybe a limited edition Empire character is more of a realistic hope?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
Considering they are the good guys for Total War, I hope GW will consider keeping a lot of the kits.

You think the video game will have any impact on GW's decisions? Licensed products are just a stream of nearly hands-free revenue. GW has never leveraged it's IP on the back of a licensed product.

Considering the release of Total War didn't stop GW from wasting the entire setting that the game is based on, I very much doubt that the inclusion in Total War will have any bearing on a kits discontinuation. To believe otherwise is just wishful thinking.

nettraper wrote:We will always find something that will keep us coming back for their miniatures.

Will we? 'We' didn't find enough to keep us coming back and keep WFB afloat. The squatting of TK doesn't readily translate to other TK fans just dropping their collection and buying stormcast.

 Vermis wrote:

nettraper wrote:We will always find something that will keep us coming back for their miniatures.

Will we? 'We' didn't find enough to keep us coming back and keep WFB afloat. The squatting of TK doesn't readily translate to other TK fans just dropping their collection and buying stormcast.

No we won't.

The "Customers will always buy from us because we are GW" is what GW wants to BELIEVE but in practice it's already proven that's not the case. If it was FB would still be selling strong, AOS would be roaring success and even 40k wouldn't be dropping in sales.

BUT GW doesn't provide something worth buying, players will be heading elsewhere. Inertia protects them for a while but as their sales show it's starting to catch up...

If I may interject.

They could always make Settra & Co. a separate faction. If midgets can have "fyreslayers", Undead can have something as well. Settra did threaten Nagash he'll be back for him, after taking on Chaos Gods. If GW has taught me anything, it's that nothing is certain. They might re-release / resculpt them, along with round bases, and the army is still perfectly legal to play in Age of Sigmar (doubt anyone plays it without some comps, but I digress) :

From their e-mail to me :

Hello

Thank you for your e-mail.

As part of our regular range reviews we are retiring some of our venerable products from the range to make space for all the new
products we have released and plan to release. This includes the Tomb Kings range. The warscroll compendiums on our website still
have all the rules for using your miniatures in games of Warhammer Age of Sigmar. We have also added these products to our
in-store and online 'Last Chance To Buy’ sections so you can pick up any products you want before they are all gone.

I hope this helps, if you have any further queries please don't hesitate to get in touch,

Kind Regards

It is possible we might not have heard the last of Settra and the Tomb Kings. One can only hope.

Sure. And that Squat re-release could be due any day now.

 Yaraton wrote:
The Lisards are still there, for your white-hating hobby.

Pardon?

 Bottle wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bottle wrote:
Considering they are the good guys for Total War, I hope GW will consider keeping a lot of the kits.

You think the video game will have any impact on GW's decisions? Licensed products are just a stream of nearly hands-free revenue. GW has never leveraged it's IP on the back of a licensed product.

No, not really. I just hope it might have an impact. We got a limited edition Bonesinger after DoW so maybe a limited edition Empire character is more of a realistic hope?

Not sure what the point of a limited edition Empire character would be? To chuck into the bonfire that is WFB? The only models they care about are Sigmarites and some Chaos, the rest are just fuel.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Yaraton wrote:
The Lisards are still there, for your white-hating hobby.

Pardon?

Didn't'cha hear him? Stop being such a racist Kid!



If you're hearing a strange wooshing noise, it's the sound of your point sailing right over their heads.

But, but, how will I finish my Egyptian undead Black Panther army? Each and every model is sculpted spearing a honkey Empire dude in the butt.

And now the model I want to use for Grand Black Prince Kenyan Pharaoh Obamanation is OOP!

Oh noes!

Chikout wrote:
I am genuinely surprised by everyone's reaction to this news. It was rumoured since the first endtimes rumours two years ago, that some armies were going to get cut. Since the Nagash endtimes book it has been clear that the tomb kings would be one of the first on the chopping block. My guess is that GW have not had any tomb kings produced in their factory since the end times began and have simply been working through inventory since then.

I'm not surprised the TK as a faction got axed, but I am surprised they didn't re-fluff their latest generation plastic kits as part of some other faction like they did with plague rats. Seems like a waste of very good molds.

Its kinda rare that an entire army will vanish only to get new kits. i dont remember anything like that... maybe the Chaos Dwarfs via FW.


No army will vanish in AoS huh?

I think anyone who thinks TK are going to get new AoS releases after this might need to get their head out of da Nile.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Yaraton wrote:
The Lisards are still there, for your white-hating hobby.

Pardon?

It was supposed to be joke, you don't have to put him on vacation

Main problem with keeping the more modern kits is that there are none. Even the newer TK stuff is still based on the 5th ed skeleton design, which just looks completely out of place in a game that has the (much more popular) completely different looking modern vamp count skittles. TK archers and skeletons and horsemen are all more 5th ed skeletons. Even the plastic Tomb Guard are 5th ed type skeletons with fancier armor and weapons, and the snake rider and sphinx kits have more of those tomb guard riding them.

There's not a single TK plastic kit not tainted by this problem, and everything else is in finecast. That on top of the range pretty much always being among the worst if not the worst seller for fantasy - Yeah, it was a cool army, conceptually, and it had some dedicated fans, but Tomb Kings really should never have been separated from vamp counts in the first place.

Anyway, it wouldn't shock me at all to see a plastic version off something like ushabti or a bone giant in the future, or new plastic skeleton archers or chariots. The undead are one fourth of the superfactions in this game, and with the TK line retired they're really dying for some new releases to back that up. Not that anything's coming any time soon, else this book would have been delayed till after. We're probably at least a year or two away from new undead anything, assuming AoS even survives that long.

 Malisteen wrote:
Main problem with keeping the more modern kits is that there are none. Even the newer TK stuff is still based on the 5th ed skeleton design, which just looks completely out of place in a game that has the (much more popular) completely different looking modern vamp count skittles. TK archers and skeletons and horsemen are all more 5th ed skeletons. Even the plastic Tomb Guard are 5th ed type skeletons with fancier armor and weapons, and the snake rider and sphinx kits have more of those tomb guard riding them.

There's not a single TK plastic kit not tainted by this problem, and everything else is in finecast. That on top of the range pretty much always being among the worst if not the worst seller for fantasy - Yeah, it was a cool army, conceptually, and it had some dedicated fans, but Tomb Kings really should never have been separated from vamp counts in the first place.

I think the only real problematic TK sets were the core skeletons that were based on the 5th ed kit. It's the one with bad poses and skulls that are ginormous.

All the other stuff didn't look nearly as bad.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Chikout wrote:
One of the earliest rumours was that the lizard men would disappear but they have their own book now.

I'm not sure there were any genuine rumours that Lizardmen were going so much as it was assumed based on the way they were decimated and then left the planet, but that was largely before we knew about how the story was advancing.

One thing to consider is that the Lizardmen surviving - contrary to many expectations - is probably due to their reasonably unique nature. I mean, 'bipedial lizards with weapons' is not exactly a unique idea, but the relatively distinct visual notes in the GW range - and the themes of astrology, Grand Plan, etc - are perhaps what kept them alive. I think that they were kept on not only for being good sellers (unlike my beloved tombies) but also because they fit into the need to create a unique and distinctly novel setting for the game. Fyreslayers - fairly distinct from the traditional Dwarf concept. Stormcasts - being essentially a Sci-Fi faction, fairly distinct in fantasy terms. Bipedial lizards who are summoned by astrologers in space ships - closer to Stargate than Tolkien, and pretty distinct.

We should probably consider the existing model ranges in this light. Some things will make the cut just for good sales, or for being foundational - so Chaos Warriors are still around, as they are the visual bedrock of a large part of the Chaos range. Other things will go, because they cannot be made into part of this new and distinct setting, either visually or fluffwise.

It is quite interesting to watch, actually: the attempt to create a new setting, but one mostly based on the models of the old. The really interesting bit, as many have mentioned, is going to be the Elves; it is tough to look different when it comes to Elves, and I think that GW will be wanting to really capture some new ground with their next attempt at the Elven concept. I know very little about the fluff of AoS, so don't want to speculate, but would be interested to hear what those who have been following the storyline might expect.

coldgaming wrote:

Mario wrote:
Just like the new big chaos knights are technically not a replacement for the old model (they even have different rules) but will be the only thing that looks and works like a chaos knight that you can buy once the transition is over.

That transition would be a long ways out, considering the Chaos Knights just got reboxed and are included in the Start Collecting set and the Lord Heldrath set.

Could it be that they just have boxes of them sitting somewhere and want to sell them? My guess is that once they run out of sprues/boxes there won't be any new Chaos Knights (just the new big ones). It is conceivable that slow WHFB sales have left GW with too much Fantasy stock that needs to be moved somehow and yes that could mean that the transitions is long. Have the Start Collecting and the Lord Heldrath sets discounts or are they full price? Betting on a new box (and bundles) might be, for now, cheaper (or have more potential) than outright destroying/recycling whatever they have left. I don't know what their plan is but it might be that they want to try to make as much money as they can from the old existing stuff before dropping it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

migooo wrote:

No army will vanish in AoS huh?

Technically it's not gone. If you have an army you still have the warscrolls to use it. You just might not get an update, ever (both miniatures and rules).

No surprise with the TK. How many different boxes of skeletons do you really need?

I'm guessing "generic fantasy"stuff is being trimmed, so big cuts (but not complete removal) of men, elves and maybe orcs/goblins. I wonder if they will continue to cut the "worst" line in each case or leave the best models.

I doubt that anything that is in one of the new printed books will be going in the foreseeable future.

 Charles Rampant wrote:


It is quite interesting to watch, actually: the attempt to create a new setting, but one mostly based on the models of the old. The really interesting bit, as many have mentioned, is going to be the Elves; it is tough to look different when it comes to Elves, and I think that GW will be wanting to really capture some new ground with their next attempt at the Elven concept. I know very little about the fluff of AoS, so don't want to speculate, but would be interested to hear what those who have been following the storyline might expect.

The state of the Elves in the Realms is both the biggest thing GW has been been hush-hush on and at the same time most pivotal in the setting.

When the Realms settled in and the Elven gods Allarielle, Tyrion (and Teclis) and Malerion (and Morathi) awoke they were mighty puzzled by the distinct lack of Elves throughout the Realms. The only Elves to be found were in Azyr, those being the survivors of the End Times who (I believe) made their way to the Realms through the chaos realms fighting their way out or were returned to life from the scarred remnants of Mallus aka the World-That-Was. Thus we get the Highborn, Exiles, and Wanderer factions who represent the old Elf models.

Now not too long in the Elven gods discovered they could hear the souls of the Elves-in the belly of Slaanesh who had slunk off after devouring them to recover. Due to Shenanigans on Tzeenth's part Slaanesh's location was revealed to Tyrion and Malerion who left Sigmar's Alliance to capture Slaanesh this weakening Sigmar's alliance. (Which as anyone who has read a thread complaining about AOS seems to be the biggest thing people complain about-the Elven gods beat the crap out of Slaanesh and now he/she is missing from the setting but Slaanesh's followers are still roaming around looking to free or replace their lost God).

What happened when they found and defeated Slaanesh is the big thing that GW has been hush on. We don't know what the state of these Elves are, if Tyrion and Malerion have succeeded in extracting the souls of the Elves from Slaanesh or WHAT?!? My view is that when GW decides to release the new Elf factions they will also have a campaign focused on freeing or defeating Slaanesh.

The biggest guess is that the Elven gods succeeded in freeing the Elf souls and they became the new inhabitants of the Realms of Light (ruled by Tyrion) and the Realm of Shadows (ruled by Malerion). We have heard only a few, bare mentions of Hyish/Light and nothing about its inhabitants (but there is a Short story featuring a Khornate human making war on a city in the Realm of Light. Have not read it but I think the defenders are human). The Shadow Realm (hehe) is more interesting because more numerous mentions are made of "Shadow Daemons" who may owe allegiance to Morathi or Malerion. Possibly these are the souls of Dark Elves transformed? There is a picture of presumably Malerion in the AOS primer and he looks quite daemonic.

So that's what we know so far. Allegedly the Chamon Dwarves under Grungi will get a release late in the year, any Aelf release may be in 2017.

Cataphract wrote:

 Charles Rampant wrote:


It is quite interesting to watch, actually: the attempt to create a new setting, but one mostly based on the models of the old. The really interesting bit, as many have mentioned, is going to be the Elves; it is tough to look different when it comes to Elves, and I think that GW will be wanting to really capture some new ground with their next attempt at the Elven concept. I know very little about the fluff of AoS, so don't want to speculate, but would be interested to hear what those who have been following the storyline might expect.

The state of the Elves in the Realms is both the biggest thing GW has been been hush-hush on and at the same time most pivotal in the setting.

When the Realms settled in and the Elven gods Allarielle, Tyrion (and Teclis) and Malerion (and Morathi) awoke they were mighty puzzled by the distinct lack of Elves throughout the Realms. The only Elves to be found were in Azyr, those being the survivors of the End Times who (I believe) made their way to the Realms through the chaos realms fighting their way out or were returned to life from the scarred remnants of Mallus aka the World-That-Was. Thus we get the Highborn, Exiles, and Wanderer factions who represent the old Elf models.

Now not too long in the Elven gods discovered they could hear the souls of the Elves-in the belly of Slaanesh who had slunk off after devouring them to recover. Due to Shenanigans on Tzeenth's part Slaanesh's location was revealed to Tyrion and Malerion who left Sigmar's Alliance to capture Slaanesh this weakening Sigmar's alliance. (Which as anyone who has read a thread complaining about AOS seems to be the biggest thing people complain about-the Elven gods beat the crap out of Slaanesh and now he/she is missing from the setting but Slaanesh's followers are still roaming around looking to free or replace their lost God).

What happened when they found and defeated Slaanesh is the big thing that GW has been hush on. We don't know what the state of these Elves are, if Tyrion and Malerion have succeeded in extracting the souls of the Elves from Slaanesh or WHAT?!? My view is that when GW decides to release the new Elf factions they will also have a campaign focused on freeing or defeating Slaanesh.

The biggest guess is that the Elven gods succeeded in freeing the Elf souls and they became the new inhabitants of the Realms of Light (ruled by Tyrion) and the Realm of Shadows (ruled by Malerion). We have heard only a few, bare mentions of Hyish/Light and nothing about its inhabitants (but there is a Short story featuring a Khornate human making war on a city in the Realm of Light. Have not read it but I think the defenders are human). The Shadow Realm (hehe) is more interesting because more numerous mentions are made of "Shadow Daemons" who may owe allegiance to Morathi or Malerion. Possibly these are the souls of Dark Elves transformed? There is a picture of presumably Malerion in the AOS primer and he looks quite daemonic.

So that's what we know so far. Allegedly the Chamon Dwarves under Grungi will get a release late in the year, any Aelf release may be in 2017.

There was some speculation of Slaaneshi "chaos elves", but I doubt we will see anything new for the grand alliances that have had books published.

So, should I start moving my ogres to round bases and calling them ogryn...what's the best transport for ogryn? Chimeras?