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 Gamgee wrote:
So on Facebook they were asking questions and said that new model lines are planned for AoS this year. Death of some sort is obvious. What could the second be? Dare we dream of a third?

Unaligned Chaos barbarians, Goblins and Ghosts? 't would fit with the Heralds.

We've been seeing some very Aelfish teasers from the Rumor Engine, so my money would be on that.

 Mangod wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
So on Facebook they were asking questions and said that new model lines are planned for AoS this year. Death of some sort is obvious. What could the second be? Dare we dream of a third?

Unaligned Chaos barbarians, Goblins and Ghosts? 't would fit with the Heralds.

I really would love to see a golbins battletome come out, I was planning on jumping straight into the nurgle train with their release coming out, but now I am gonna wait a bit to see if any goblins are on the horizon.

Grotbag Scuttlers, Shadowkin, Slaanesh at the end of the year/early 2019, and obviously Death. That's what I'm guessing, in no particular order.

 Mangod wrote:

 Gamgee wrote:
So on Facebook they were asking questions and said that new model lines are planned for AoS this year. Death of some sort is obvious. What could the second be? Dare we dream of a third?

Unaligned Chaos barbarians, Goblins and Ghosts? 't would fit with the Heralds.

It’ll probably be a new line of storm cast and 2 new chaos lines.

Aelves are all but confirmed, rumors are saying there will be TWO factions of Aelves (light/dark?). Potentially a new Death faction but not sure of that. The rest I think is wishful thinking, but it depends if they need to bring out new model ranges or not; if not then you could very well see a Moonclan battletome and reboxing, without adding new models.

Wayniac wrote:
Aelves are all but confirmed, rumors are saying there will be TWO factions of Aelves (light/dark?). Potentially a new Death faction but not sure of that. The rest I think is wishful thinking, but it depends if they need to bring out new model ranges or not; if not then you could very well see a Moonclan battletome and reboxing, without adding new models.

Word is Morathi is involved.

Today's video definitely feels like Morathi. After the whole "watching, waiting" thing two weeks ago not being Xenos, though, I can't guarantee that the LVO reveal won't be more Custodes.

Wayniac wrote:
Aelves are all but confirmed, rumors are saying there will be TWO factions of Aelves (light/dark?). Potentially a new Death faction but not sure of that. The rest I think is wishful thinking, but it depends if they need to bring out new model ranges or not; if not then you could very well see a Moonclan battletome and reboxing, without adding new models.

The "rumors" are built off of stuff we already know.

We know there are three factions(as in whole nations of them rather than scattered colonies/clans), at least of Aelves.
Wanderers. This part is a bit speculative but it is mentioned that they're starting to gather and there were hintings at them having something in the works.
Tyrion and his Light Aelves in the Realm of Light.
Malerion and his Shadowkin in the Realm of Shadow.

Where things get wonky is how exactly Morathi will fit into things. Her and Malerion are supposed to have joined forces or some such. Seems odd that she's the one speaking for the Shadowkin, if that's what this teaser today actually was.

So we now know Daughters of Khaine is coming. We know that at LVO they said there would be more elves coming.

We know that Malign Portents is a global campaign that runs six weeks and has three chapters.

We know that its a "choose your own adventure" campaign. Whatever that may mean.

I’ve seen the leaks and it seems we can expect a faction wide nerf.

Well this thread reads oddly.

Has someone had posts deleted?

So, in the latest Malign Portents story, I reckon the grot cave shaman is just sacrificing weak clans to try to soften up the skeleton forces.

What do you folks think?

Stormcast get a comparative stack of release because Stormcast are an entirely new-to-the-genre faction.

They've not had 30+ years of army building and additions that their contemporaries have had - they're starting from scratch.

Sadly, that's particularly highlighted with the super fragmentation of other races and armies GW went for at the outset.

Marleymoo wrote:
So, in the latest Malign Portents story, I reckon the grot cave shaman is just sacrificing weak clans to try to soften up the skeleton forces.

What do you folks think?

Its an odd thing to do as the clans will then just be animated to provide new troops - attrition warfare against the dead is a really bad idea.

Marleymoo wrote:
So, in the latest Malign Portents story, I reckon the grot cave shaman is just sacrificing weak clans to try to soften up the skeleton forces.

What do you folks think?

Reckon he's keeping the Dead Gits pinned in place, before they can wander off and worry 'ard gits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Marleymoo wrote:
So, in the latest Malign Portents story, I reckon the grot cave shaman is just sacrificing weak clans to try to soften up the skeleton forces.

What do you folks think?

Its an odd thing to do as the clans will then just be animated to provide new troops - attrition warfare against the dead is a really bad idea.

Unless they're sticking with the obscure Dust Goblins stuff from an equally obscure White Dwarf.

In that teeny snippet, it explains Greenskins, and Gobbos in particular don't make for good Undead - too much of their spiteful malevolence persists to make them biddable.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Marleymoo wrote:
So, in the latest Malign Portents story, I reckon the grot cave shaman is just sacrificing weak clans to try to soften up the skeleton forces.

What do you folks think?

Reckon he's keeping the Dead Gits pinned in place, before they can wander off and worry 'ard gits.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Marleymoo wrote:
So, in the latest Malign Portents story, I reckon the grot cave shaman is just sacrificing weak clans to try to soften up the skeleton forces.

What do you folks think?

Its an odd thing to do as the clans will then just be animated to provide new troops - attrition warfare against the dead is a really bad idea.

Unless they're sticking with the obscure Dust Goblins stuff from an equally obscure White Dwarf.

In that teeny snippet, it explains Greenskins, and Gobbos in particular don't make for good Undead - too much of their spiteful malevolence persists to make them biddable.

Hmm interesting - don't recall that - is it AOS or WtW? Don't suppose you can recall which WD as like to have a read of that.

In the old world we had greenskins being animated - the Cursed Company even had models, Chaos Champions are being animated in the current MP stories. Maybe they will do that Gorkamorka gives them resistance - be an interesting element to add to the mix.

Very old White Dwarf. Article was written by Gav Thorpe if memory serves.

Included Bog Goblins, Fire Kobolds and some kind of Blue Gobbo variant?

Trying to Google up the article, but here's a pic of a Dust Gobbo in the meantime.





Founds it! Seems I have mis-remembered parts though!




Automatically Appended Next Post:
And for completeness?

New Malign Portents story is up.

https://malignportents.com/story/duel-bloody-sky/

It's the War Queen's turn today. If you're on the fence about getting this model, then this story should help you decide.

Well now we know why she has so little armor. I guess it would weigh you down when fighting huge musclemen like that Flayer guy.

I picked this up today at the FGS. It's a hard cover fairly thin-ish book. It has about a half dozen scenarios to play out and gives you some rules for wizards and general''s command traits. It also has a command point type mechanic similar to 40k. It also has nice art and some fluff.

If they had done this over, say, three White Dwarf issues I don't think I would feel as disappointed even though the price would have been slightly higher. I think I was expecting more game meat.

Picked up my copy yesterday.

Pros: It's cheap, the fluff is good, a lot of the ideas seem interesting.

Cons: Like basically everything here will never see the light of day in any sort of Matched Play game, even though there are two pitched battle scenarios that don't seem too bad. The Prophecy Points stink of Command Points/Stratagems from 40k (which I absolutely despise). The realm of death rules aren't actually crazy unbalanced, but have enough bonuses that you'll never see them used. The Skirmish part was pretty lackluster (but so is Skirmish itself)

So basically, another cool idea that will be totally ignored because it doesn't really fit into the "100% balance" matched play concept so prevalent in the game. Like most interesting things, there are just too many potentials to get bonuses and whatnot for it to be accepted.

For me the issue with non-matched play content is there's already tons of it. There is so much narrative/open play content available that my gaming community would never really play through it all beyond a superficial level even if we didn't do matched play at all. More stuff I'll never get around to seeing on the table doesn't excite me as much as updating/refining what's already there. The path to glory supplement, for example, we get a bunch of mileage out of. To me the battletomes have the right mix since there's something in there for everyone. It would've been great to see the time of war rules rolled into the recent Nagash battletome.

That said, I liked the old campaign books but those were more focused on things to try out/adapt like scenarios/times of war rather than side-rules to layer on top of the game. But that really nails it; I'd rather see more things to do within 'vanilla' AoS than 'expansion packs' that add more laters to the game when allegiance already fills that role.

I also dig me some new fluff so pretty happy on that angle regardless.

I view the book as rules for fighting in the realms of Death.

I am running a two month campaign in April and May, expanding on GW's "choose your own" adventure idea, but incorporating skirmish and Hammerhal as well (rewritten as the dungeons below one of the manses)

I enjoy material like this, but if you don't have an organizer or someone running events using it, I can definitely see no one bothering to pick it up.

I think in our area they sold 2-3 of the book and that was it. There will be more because I'm running an event out of it but otherwise the interest level in my area is near nil because its not tournament oriented.

I do kinda wish the harbingers did more for a variety of armies. They only benefit specific subfactions, for the most part. Like my Flesh-Eater Courts have zero reason to take a Knight of Shrouds.

They do unlock unique portents, which are basically stratagems.

My nurgle force will take a queen because she can read the portents better and has access to the chaos portents abilities.

Mr. Cuddles will sequester her into his warband to help him solve the nightmares he's been having...

The stratagems thing I really despise. Those absolutely did not need to get ported over to AOS, IMHO of course.

Why not? IMO, they add a layer of strategy and can help to mitigate a string of bad rolls. It's one thing I've been hoping to see added to AoS for a while now. Personally, I'm glad to see them.

I bought the queen and will use her in my Chaos army. My local store seems to be participating in the campaign, so hey, maybe I'll even get to use her with all this portent stuff. No idea if she actually does anything for Blades of Khorne one way or another, but the model is too pretty to pass up.

 EnTyme wrote:
Why not? IMO, they add a layer of strategy and can help to mitigate a string of bad rolls. It's one thing I've been hoping to see added to AoS for a while now. Personally, I'm glad to see them.

I can think of a couple of reasons:

1. No idea how the portents are handled, but stratagems depend on how your army is built which is in no way balanced across armies. As a result, some armies simply get more use out of them than others. That can't be desirable.

2. Stratagems are typically front loaded to improve or enable an alpha strike. They don't so much turn around situations or games as prevent games from happening at all.

3. Stratagems are used much more in the list building stage than the game itself. Instead of improving the game by using a tactical option that is wise at the time, and thus using the entire breadth of option available, lists are built around a handful of options, and thus those are the options employed because the decision which tactical choice is the wisest has long been made when the game is played.

I think Age of Sigmar is better off sticking with (carefully distributed) command abilities than adopting stratagems. Stratagems are the formations of 8th ed: you get something for free, but your opponent gets so much more for free that you aren't even playing the same game anymore.

Disclaimer: Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.