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 mokoshkana wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:
Are there any BCR rumors?

Not really a "rumor", but attendees of the Open Day said that Beastclaw Raiders were stated to be in the upcoming Ogor book.

Is there any timeline on that book? I'm looking at building a BCR force for meeting engagements, and I'm not keen on buying the Battletome if its only going to be valid for a few weeks/months.

Beastclaws were shown with a new leader in a video which specifically mentioned the Tithe of bones. The new Death faction is set to be released in October so it would suggest that Ogors are going to get some new content around then. Considering that they've no battletome and releasing a new model on its own would be folly at this stage we can make the guess that from October we might see a new Battletome. I would estimate early November, but the latest December.

That would not just resolve and update Beastclaw Raiders and Gutbusters, but also mean that Destruction Grand Alliance was completed in terms of Tome support.

That would mean GW would hit Christmas with

1) All Destruction fully updated
2) All Death fully updated
3) All Order holding battletomes with only Seraphon and KO being out of date (not 2.0 ready)
4) Chaos being nearly battletome complete with Tzeentch in need of an update and only Slaves to Darkness/Everchosen being without a Tome.


I've heard rumour that Slaves to Darkness were set for a book this year, but that the delays from Sylvanath messed up the release order and Slaves has been pushed into next year. From a marketing point of view this sounds quite believable that GW would focus on getting all armies equipped with Tomes for the Christmas period when sales will peak; then only having to update 2 forces for Order going into 2020, which is fine because Seraphon and KO already have old Tomes and are quite well established. They wouldn't be expecting to lose models or change the lineup in a big way.

Slaves are the last outlier and I still think there's a small chance GW could push to get them released this year. Though considering how chock full their release windows already are (esp with Death and Sisters of Battle being two huge releases in tehir own right and all the specialist games), it might just be too much even at GW's current fast pace.

Is it just me or is there something wrong with the beastclaw raiders? I am seeing lots of folks dumping them off (I am one but for a different reason, not that I "hate" them, they just cost wayyyyyy too many points for my local meta)

 thekingofkings wrote:
Is it just me or is there something wrong with the beastclaw raiders? I am seeing lots of folks dumping them off (I am one but for a different reason, not that I "hate" them, they just cost wayyyyyy too many points for my local meta)

Currently most armies without a 2.0 battletome are fairly poor in the game. Many of the early Battletomes were only a collection of warscroll cards released at the time of printing so they aren't reworked like the 2.0 editions are. Furthermore they typically lack a lot of the allegiance abilities, equipment, spells etc.... So those forces can appear quite weak compared to armies which have 2.0 Battletomes. So some of those dumping might be simply playing the powercurve and dumping a weaker army for a stronger one. Others after the Aelf drop of models from Free Cities, might be panic dropping as they might think that the army could be dropped by GW - even though to date the only details we've got rumour of is taht Beastclaw will be united with Gutbusters under Ogors and that there's every chance both those halves might have their own "force" within the Tome to function - though at present we've no solid details at all.

Personally I'd say if you really love the sculpts get some; if you're on the fence wait until the Tome lands (likely this year); if you've already got them hold onto them. If they get dropped the models will likely go up in value somewhat (or at least maintain a decent secondhand price); if they are kept on they might get a good power increase and who knows could be the next powerful force.

 Overread wrote:

 thekingofkings wrote:
Is it just me or is there something wrong with the beastclaw raiders? I am seeing lots of folks dumping them off (I am one but for a different reason, not that I "hate" them, they just cost wayyyyyy too many points for my local meta)

Currently most armies without a 2.0 battletome are fairly poor in the game. Many of the early Battletomes were only a collection of warscroll cards released at the time of printing so they aren't reworked like the 2.0 editions are. Furthermore they typically lack a lot of the allegiance abilities, equipment, spells etc.... So those forces can appear quite weak compared to armies which have 2.0 Battletomes. So some of those dumping might be simply playing the powercurve and dumping a weaker army for a stronger one. Others after the Aelf drop of models from Free Cities, might be panic dropping as they might think that the army could be dropped by GW - even though to date the only details we've got rumour of is taht Beastclaw will be united with Gutbusters under Ogors and that there's every chance both those halves might have their own "force" within the Tome to function - though at present we've no solid details at all.

Personally I'd say if you really love the sculpts get some; if you're on the fence wait until the Tome lands (likely this year); if you've already got them hold onto them. If they get dropped the models will likely go up in value somewhat (or at least maintain a decent secondhand price); if they are kept on they might get a good power increase and who knows could be the next powerful force.

I have a good size force, I am getting rid of them mostly because I play skirmish and warcry and they are way too points expensive (and large) thats how I noticed so many other lots being dumped off. but yeah, I see hwat you are saying and it makes some sense.

I'd hold onto them as currently there's no Warcry rules for them - a card pack coming out could change things a lot. Also the new mercenaries and monsters book could already add a few of the ogor units into either block.

 Overread wrote:
I'd hold onto them as currently there's no Warcry rules for them - a card pack coming out could change things a lot. Also the new mercenaries and monsters book could already add a few of the ogor units into either block.

with pretty much only 250 pts to work with, the frostlord alone is 420, so I am a bit on the "holy crap" side...I am likely to keep the frost sabres and the frostbrow hunter cause i can meet the minimum 3 models, 1 leader and come in at 200 pts, the rest is just too gawds awful expensive. 70 points for a single mournfang..ouch

They don't have a current army book so are garbage tier. They were the hotness a few years ago and a ton of people grabbed an army since they were also the golden bullet points: low model count AND super powerful.

When they get a new army book they'll likely be at least C tier unless the magic roulette lends them to be OP for a six month - year stretch.

 auticus wrote:
They don't have a current army book so are garbage tier. They were the hotness a few years ago and a ton of people grabbed an army since they were also the golden bullet points: low model count AND super powerful.

When they get a new army book they'll likely be at least C tier unless the magic roulette lends them to be OP for a six month - year stretch.

At the scale we are playing most "armies" are pretty good to go (skirmish at 250 from the new white dwarf rules) or warcry. All the reasons folks have said seem pretty reasonable to me, I was just not expecting it. I haven't kept up with the "big picture" as all our games are smaller (and the amount of terrain we use makes some models have nowhere to stand )

A big thing to keep in mind is that GW wants to be rid of finecast/failcast/resin models (excluding forgeworld) 'by 2020', which I think at this point probably is 'by the end of 2020'.

There's a butt-ton of characters out there that are still resin. Free Peoples dropping off a ton of old models definitely will help clear up a lot of space and make room for new plastic kits.

The things about the Order battletomes that have yet to be updated... KO are a relatively brand new force, coming out in early age of sigmar which is still not that old game-wise. They're beautiful sculpts, they just need some new rules to compete with the extra terrain and endless spells that all the other battletomes have been getting.

Seraphon, on the other hand, are mega out-of-date. There are a few models that hold up very well, like the Skinks and Stegadon, and they have a bunch of new models, like the skink starpriest, troglodon/carnosaur, bastilodon, and ripperdactyl/terradon riders, but then there's still a butt-load of stuff that's either very old or still in resin, including some staples of the line.

Slann are solid blocks of resin, and used to be solid blocks of metal before then. On top of that, you've got almost all of the saurus characters stuck in resin, including the very important astrolith bearer, the sunbloods, oldbloods, skink priests, the relatively new skink starseer, kroxigors, razordons, salamanders, chameleon skinks, and, of course, lord kroak.

That's half the range, and saurus warriors and guard and ESPECIALLY the saurus knights are WAY out of date by plastic's standards, looking hecka mushy and silly.

So, Seraphon really need a big update, not just to their model range but also to their weird lore to really cement them into the new realms. They had a neat story in Malign Portents where they were preparing to go to war against Nagash. Let's hope that pans out and we see some really cool things for them in 2020, because holy heck they need it.

It'd also be nice to be able to build armies that aren't 100% reliant upon the Slann and summoning/teleporting units. :/

Even if they aim for the end of 2020 there's still quite a lot of finecast to dump. Some armies aren't too bad, Tyranids have hardly any to shift.

Meanwhile a lot of armies have finecast, at least in 40K, in hero slots. Necrons have a load in hero slots which means either retiring a lot of characters or a lot of new sculpts to commission in plastic, which means some pretty steam mould investment in models that iwll take a very long time recoup that investment. I wonder if we might see combined hero kits where instead of 1 we might have 3 or 4 on a single sprue with the only downside being if GW really ramps up the price high.

Or we might see multi-kits with multiple parts that can build one of several hero models.


However they approach it dropping all finecast, or even a vast majority of it, by then would be fantastic.

I think that some AoS armies might lag, skaven still has a huge tonne of metal, but at least cast metal doesn't have the huge product support problems finecast still has with bubbles and casting errors.

KO really need a lot of care...right now the best way to play them is to ignore the boats and load up on basic infantry to just make them a spam list, or to run that weird clown-car ironclad list. If you actually want to bring a mix of boats and infantry, you're hurting your chance to win. It's an army with poor armor saves and not enough raw damage to stop enemy from getting into melee with sizeable chunk of their army.

Seraphon on the other hand have a solid list of units (with some stinkers), but abysmally old sculpts on about half of them.

I just grabbed one Beastclaw Raider Start Collecting, and I have two more on the way. There is almost no chance that GW sunsets the BCR plastic model kits when they are only 3 years old. I won't touch any of the finecast units, but fortunately, I won't have two, as three Start Collecting boxes can get to 2k.

As for the complete phaseout of finecast by 2020, that isn't happening. Too much to do, and there are instances which one would assume that GW is fine with special cases here and there. For instance, Sylvaneth still have the branchwraith, which is only available in finecast. Since they just received a new tome and that model stayed, I suspect it will stay for the duration of the book's lifespan.

There is almost no chance that GW sunsets the BCR plastic model kits when they are only 3 years old.

Be VERY careful about your expectations. The tomb kings line (the sphinx, snake riders, etc) were only a few years old as well when they were removed and while I was feeling pretty sure we would see those new kits return with a tomb king reboot, we see that the masters of the universe release has not shown those (yet). So ... maybe those new kits return in the masters of the universe bone mortarch line, but they definitely set a precedent for being removed even though being only a few years old and plastic.

Aye and don't forget we just lost a load of Aelf and other kits including things like dragon knights and the highelf dragon - which was one THE showcase for GW's dragons in plastic.

AoS has broken ALL the trends for releases in general; scrapping stuff that isn't that old; removing whole armies on a whim; a messy launch etc....I think until we see the last Battletome for 2.0 for an existing army/force rolled out we can't predict anything.

Hopefully once that happens we'll see things settle down into much more normal run-of-the-mill release patterns for GW.


Releases of new models, updated sculpts and only retiring models when they release new things (either updating releases or a swap). That's far more normal and healthy for GW and customers than AoS's current stance where almost anything can get the chop with little to no warning from GW.



That said I'd be shocked if the plastics from Beastclaw Raiders were dropped since without them there really isn't any faction there at all. Granted GW could drop them entirely for Gutbuster focused ogres, but I'd not be sure why; esp when at the very least the BCR gives Ogres some really neat and themed cavalry monsters.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 mokoshkana wrote:

As for the complete phaseout of finecast by 2020, that isn't happening. Too much to do, and there are instances which one would assume that GW is fine with special cases here and there. For instance, Sylvaneth still have the branchwraith, which is only available in finecast. Since they just received a new tome and that model stayed, I suspect it will stay for the duration of the book's lifespan.

I think the model will stay but not the sculpt in finecast. It's likely trapped in that hell of "designers haven't made a new one" and "we can't get rid of it but we will as soon as we can". It does make me hope someone whips the design team into filling in gaps not just doing "what they want". Because filling in gaps in terms of replacing finecast/metal in the rang is just what AoS needs. Some armies more than others (skaven need a massive release of new plastics - the bigget shame is a huge number were done but lumped onto a single elf and skaven sprue which meant no chance for individual release without GW making new expensive moulds)

I expect a unified ogre book. Just like a unified orc book.

 Overread wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 mokoshkana wrote:
Are there any BCR rumors?

Not really a "rumor", but attendees of the Open Day said that Beastclaw Raiders were stated to be in the upcoming Ogor book.

Is there any timeline on that book? I'm looking at building a BCR force for meeting engagements, and I'm not keen on buying the Battletome if its only going to be valid for a few weeks/months.

Beastclaws were shown with a new leader in a video which specifically mentioned the Tithe of bones. The new Death faction is set to be released in October so it would suggest that Ogors are going to get some new content around then. Considering that they've no battletome and releasing a new model on its own would be folly at this stage we can make the guess that from October we might see a new Battletome. I would estimate early November, but the latest December.

That would not just resolve and update Beastclaw Raiders and Gutbusters, but also mean that Destruction Grand Alliance was completed in terms of Tome support.

That would mean GW would hit Christmas with

1) All Destruction fully updated
2) All Death fully updated
3) All Order holding battletomes with only Seraphon and KO being out of date (not 2.0 ready)
4) Chaos being nearly battletome complete with Tzeentch in need of an update and only Slaves to Darkness/Everchosen being without a Tome.


I've heard rumour that Slaves to Darkness were set for a book this year, but that the delays from Sylvanath messed up the release order and Slaves has been pushed into next year. From a marketing point of view this sounds quite believable that GW would focus on getting all armies equipped with Tomes for the Christmas period when sales will peak; then only having to update 2 forces for Order going into 2020, which is fine because Seraphon and KO already have old Tomes and are quite well established. They wouldn't be expecting to lose models or change the lineup in a big way.

Slaves are the last outlier and I still think there's a small chance GW could push to get them released this year. Though considering how chock full their release windows already are (esp with Death and Sisters of Battle being two huge releases in tehir own right and all the specialist games), it might just be too much even at GW's current fast pace.

small correction for this comment, the new leader was an ogor leader, not beastclaw raider, there where no bcrs in the trailer.

Ahh sorry yes a new ogre not beastclaw - though honestly I'll be very shocked if its not a combined book when it comes. GW has given every indication of it being a joint book.

I agree, its likely that it becomes a combined book, just not yet confirmed.

Valid points above, but I think there is a difference between things that come from WHFB and things from AOS. Beastclaw are from AOS, not holdovers from WHFB that initially/eventually got clipped. Here are the Ogre plastic kits:
Grots (Displays WHFB box on site)
Scraplauncher/Ironblaster
Ogres
Leadbelchers (Displays WHFB box on site)
Ironguts (Displays WHFB box on site, but showcased in the Ogor Tyrant reveal)
Aleguzzler Gargant
Ogor Tyrant (new kit)
And BCR kits:
Thundertusk/Stonehorn
Mournfang Pack

I would think the kits above (perhaps sans the WHFB variants should they disappear) would make a decent joined army. BCR adds cavalry/behemoth options to the gutbusters ground game.

 mokoshkana wrote:
Valid points above, but I think there is a difference between things that come from WHFB and things from AOS. Beastclaw are from AOS, not holdovers from WHFB that initially/eventually got clipped. Here are the Ogre plastic kits:
Grots (Displays WHFB box on site)
Scraplauncher/Ironblaster
Ogres
Leadbelchers (Displays WHFB box on site)
Ironguts (Displays WHFB box on site, but showcased in the Ogor Tyrant reveal)
Aleguzzler Gargant
Ogor Tyrant (new kit)
And BCR kits:
Thundertusk/Stonehorn
Mournfang Pack

I would think the kits above (perhaps sans the WHFB variants should they disappear) would make a decent joined army. BCR adds cavalry/behemoth options to the gutbusters ground game.

all the beastclaw raider kits came from the WHFB ogre kingdoms, they haven't gotten a single new kit in AoS

The only fully new armies for AoS are KO, Stormcast, Nighthaunt and Bonereapers. Almost all the others are either fully from the Old World or they are added to.

^Idoneth too. Also, I'd say Nighthaunt is more of an extension of the spirits from Vampire Counts (Wraiths, Spirit Hosts, etc...).

There isn't an awful lot of armies that are 100% AoS, but with time I suppose it will be the case. New armies appear to be their own thing and will probably end up replacing every trace of the Old World.

VBS wrote:
^Idoneth too. Also, I'd say Nighthaunt is more of an extension of the spirits from Vampire Counts (Wraiths, Spirit Hosts, etc...).

There isn't an awful lot of armies that are 100% AoS, but with time I suppose it will be the case. New armies appear to be their own thing and will probably end up replacing every trace of the Old World.

I don't think so at all. It would be a disaster for GW to retire more armies once they've got a 2.0 battletome. Wargames rely on a sense of longevity and whilst AoS is still transitioning into 2.0 GW can still remove some old stuff, but once that is done I think we will enter far more normal times where they update armies rather than remove them wholesale. Otherwise people will simply stop buying into it if they feel that their army is gone within 5 years. Just look at 40K, GW has only ever fully retired 1 army, Squats.

Now I can expect that some armies for AoS will get revolutionary new sculpts given time; that styles might change, but a 2.0 Battletome army should be "safe" for a decent length of time.

I'm not refering to the immediate future (ie. v2.0). But rather when all the new army concepts will start unfolding. Shadow/Light Elves, sky goblins, clown-skeletons and whatever else they have planned. There will be a time when most of the AoS line will be full of armies with the "exclusive AoS design" (out-of-the-box/over-the-top/He-Man). This will eventually lead to retire the more "classic" looking armies and models, as the range support can only be that large. This can be in 5 years, 10 years or who knows, but it is quite clear that the direction taken for AoS does not include general resculpting and updating minis on a cycle as they use to do for WHFB. Nor does it include giving the spot light to classic fantasy concepts.
And I wouldn't take 40k as an example. Financially it is on an other level. Business decisions are less radical. Just for fantasy you "recently" had Bretonnians, Tomb Kings and a progressive removal of many units (-> Free Cities). And not to mention oldies like Chaos Dwarves on life-support since 5th or stuff like Fimir.

Chaos Dwarves on life-support since 5th

Chaos Dwarfs's last official army list was in Ravening Hordes, released at the start of 6th edition WFB. Forgeworld did release some models for them later on, but they were gone from mainstream GW lineup for what, 20 years now? Fimirs even longer, they did not have any rules in 5th edition and up I think.

As for utilizing old kits, the best you can hope for is what happened to DoK- you take a handful of kits and release a lot of new ones to make the whole army fit into AoS.

Chaos dwarves had a FW list in Tamurkhan hardback book. It was gw-official and could be played at the warhammer world events. That was the last edition of whfb.

So...as I wrote above, shunted to FW instead of part of main WFB lineup. Kislev had more official representation than chorfs.

They were shunted to FW yes, but their army list was official and was as of 2011 (8th edition) so a few editions past the ravening hordes list.

AoS is just not the game for people who want a more generic, historically inspired fantasy game. It is over the top and high magic, and I would not expect any of the stuff from the old game to last forever. Best to get what you want when you can and then find a game that has a style that you like.

Its a toss up between

1) finding a game you like

2) being actually able to play said game since GW is in many cases the only game in town.

If one could play middle earth or kings of war or conquest like they can with 40k and in some places AOS, I think a lot of the angst we see in public forums would lessen.