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 Dreamchild wrote:

 Graphite wrote:
Don't know about that. Daemon armies must surely be on the cards ahead of Chaos Dwarfs.

That's also seems very likely. However, a potential problem with daemon faction in a TW game is the campaign map aspect. Sure, they may put them in the heart of the chaos wastes and give them some sort of building roster, but with them not being a people (naton/fraction/whatever) may end up boring and probably immersion breaking.

Even on the tabletop, I always thought daemon armies in WHFB never amounted to more than simply being a magical gimmick because of that.

They don't really have a stake of their own (or relatable/understandable longer-term agency) for one to immerse oneself with unlike the rest of the factions, and that may only be more noticeable in a game like TW. It's mainly because of that I'd prefer daemon/mortal combined monogod factions, but again, this is just wishlisting, not a prognosis.

All that said, we'll most probably see an all-daemon faction.

I would rather they went down the Powers route so you have armies of [[Chaos God]] and mix and match Daemons and Mortals then have rules for bringing in other Powers or making Unaligned armies

Daemon's objective should be the continued expansion of the Realm of Chaos so that they can get further south, with severe attrition if they're outside the RoC. Granted "holding territory" as such shouldn't be a major thing for them. It's going to put them in direct conflict with human Chaos worshippers too, as it should be.

Diplomacy should either be nonexistant or very Tzeentchian.

Anyway, this is getting away from the main topic, which is that I think GW are laying down markers of what Kislev should look like as guidance for Total War as priority before dealing with The Old World.

 Hellebore wrote:
Well all we can do is wait and see.

I'd be happy with them just bringing back 6th ed ravening hordes style as that was IMO probably the simplest and best WFB ever was.

They seem to be doing something at least a little new though.

My prediction is:

A new ruleset, but perhaps based on an older version of the game (not just 8th ed rejigged) to bring back the nostalgia people (they did this with Necromunda and AT), not designed as a tournament game but as a nostalgia narrative one based around the Great War, and similar to Horus Heresy.

Focusing on armies of new miniatures, starting with Kislev, Empire and Chaos.

I don't see them reusing existing miniatures in AOS for this because it could dilute or confuse their brands if customers don't know what is what. also if they're going for square bases they'd have to RE RE box old units with square bases again.

You'd either get two of the same unit with different bases, or a single box with twice the bases so you can choose which game you want them for.


It seems to me that the bases and separation of games are a big reason why'd they'd not want to mix units up.


But we'll just have to see...

Tend to agree.

I suspect it'll roughly follow the pattern of the recent Adeptus Titanicus.

Empire versus Empire ( ie mainly human versus human) initially -- basic game rules, army lists etc -- with some flavour units on one side or the other and then the possibility to flavour armies in certain ways later -- say Empire province specific lists or rules or special knightly orders -- much like the various titan legion rules.

This keeps things simple early on and -- much like they had to in the original AT -- keeps the costs down model wise as they can duplicate most/the majority of sprues for each force -- ie both sides might have "Imperial Spearmen" or whatever -- with perhaps one or two unique units for side -- as well as characters perhaps.

This also has the benefit that one could combine the opposing factions into one larger Empire army for later games or as a larger starter army.

I'd then go with something like the next book and minis being something like the 1st Great war against chaos -- uses largely the same empire minis plus new units -- like the Kislev stuff -- and brings chaos into the game -- faction wise not rules wise..... although knowing GW ... -- which is kind of the defining BIG BAD of warhammer.

You could release/test some rules for allied units like dwarfs and/or elves -- and perhaps ramp up the magic quotient/use of spells etc -- maybe whatever equivalent of Endless Spells they might do or just spell affect markers etc.

Then do something like the war of the beard/vengeance -- which subject to scale brings in a lot of units like dragons or those large stone golems the dwarfs had at the time and there was scuttlebutt about at various time back in the WFB era -- maybe new/expanded siege rules too.

Then greenskins -- fight everyone -- and maybe expanded chaos stuff and off you go.

With undead etc etc all rolling out at a later date.

I don;t think it's feasible for them to release mins and/or rules for every faction at once nor do I think it's likely it'll play with existing models any more so than the current Adetus Titanicus does.

We know Kislev's coming in the first setup. They talked about Magnus, they've talked about the Great War Against Chaos. I do not expect anything remotely like Adeptus Titanicus for this.

Additionally, nobody has even remotely suggested there will be "minis and/or rules for every faction at once". Lizardmen, Dark Elves, Ogres, Bretonnia, Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings and Orcs wouldn't be involved with The Great War Against Chaos--or if they choose to make them involved, it would be small one-off sections(and it really only works for Dark Elves since part of the reason why the High Elves sent so little to aid the humans was because the Dark Elves were in the midst of their largest invasion of Ulthuan since the Sundering) that don't necessarily require anything more than rules.

It's all speculation and we can argue about what a limited launch would look like, but it's almost certainly going to be limited and focused at first based on SG's track record.

Edit: Which will lead to much gnashing of teeth.

MaxT wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

MaxT wrote:

Anathir wrote:
Anything less than all 16 of the original races would be a disaster because they are what makes the WHFB setting what it is. It would be like making a 30k Horus Heresy game but basing on what the Eldar were doing at that time, or leaving whole chapters or primarchs out.

Expect it to be a “disaster” then. GW have never got close to simultaneously releasing 16 different forces for any game, ever. And to expect them to is unreasonable

Allow me to introduce you to 6th ed and Ravening Hordes, which contained lists for every single army including Chaos Dwarfs because they'd just invalidated every single Army Book.

Not seeing any models there chuck. GW got out of the rules only business a while ago.

We weren't talking about models there, duder, we're talking about them releasing the rules for armies that already had models pre-End Times so that people can play with the stuff they have at release alongside the newer stuff. You know, like they did with Blood Bowl.

 gorgon wrote:
It's all speculation and we can argue about what a limited launch would look like, but it's almost certainly going to be limited and focused at first based on SG's track record.

Edit: Which will lead to much gnashing of teeth.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how Horus Heresy launched? As in, what was available rules and model-wise at launch?

While it might not be the same, it might give us an idea what we could consider possibly plausible at launch.

Also, I personally find the notion that all this could sort of coincide with a Total War video game release to make some degree of sense. It gives each product a sort cross-merchandise potential, video game players might buy models, table top players might look into the video game.

 Kanluwen wrote:
We know Kislev's coming in the first setup. They talked about Magnus, they've talked about the Great War Against Chaos. I do not expect anything remotely like Adeptus Titanicus for this.

Additionally, nobody has even remotely suggested there will be "minis and/or rules for every faction at once". Lizardmen, Dark Elves, Ogres, Bretonnia, Vampire Counts, Tomb Kings and Orcs wouldn't be involved with The Great War Against Chaos--or if they choose to make them involved, it would be small one-off sections(and it really only works for Dark Elves since part of the reason why the High Elves sent so little to aid the humans was because the Dark Elves were in the midst of their largest invasion of Ulthuan since the Sundering) that don't necessarily require anything more than rules.

Very true - if it is the period they are doing you can have the forces of Chaos as one big force and then:

Kiselv and their Dwarf allies
Empire, their Dwarf allies and Teclis, a few Archmages and their Swordmaster bodyguard
Throw in some Tilean/Estalian and Ogre Mercs

Maybe even the odd Vampire - Lahmians and others were active.

How big a launch could this possible be? Necromunda got 6 kits to start off and that was a huge launch. Assuming this is 28mm 6 kits wouldn't even be one faction, much less all. Will GW really support 3 25mm/28mm mass combat games?

Thinking about it this might be a 2 faction launch, Kislev and Chaos. 4-6 kits each.

Both Blood Bowl and Necromunda had bare bones lists for the old factions on release despite only having models for a couple (albeit Necromunda only had the house gangs not the outlanders) hopefully this will do the same

Ravening Hordes is probably the right comparison - very slimmed down with minimal special rules (USRs aside) or flavour (and 1 para of fluff per army), but enough to use everything.

Could do build an army...

Release a unit box and caharacter every other week for Chaos and the forces of Kislev/Empire/Dwarves/Empire

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
How big a launch could this possible be? Necromunda got 6 kits to start off and that was a huge launch. Assuming this is 28mm 6 kits wouldn't even be one faction, much less all. Will GW really support 3 25mm/28mm mass combat games?

Thinking about it this might be a 2 faction launch, Kislev and Chaos. 4-6 kits each.

Probably a starter box with both those faction to start, maybe rules for a few more but no model support right away maybe? I do like the idea of a Kislev/Chaos box. Although maybe it won't be "chaos" in the general sense. Maybe somethign we're not expecting. I mean Kislev is right next to Troll Country so maybe a monstrous horde? Or even something different like Kurgan Raiders.

 Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
How big a launch could this possible be? Necromunda got 6 kits to start off and that was a huge launch. Assuming this is 28mm 6 kits wouldn't even be one faction, much less all. Will GW really support 3 25mm/28mm mass combat games?

Thinking about it this might be a 2 faction launch, Kislev and Chaos. 4-6 kits each.

Probably a starter box with both those faction to start, maybe rules for a few more but no model support right away maybe? I do like the idea of a Kislev/Chaos box. Although maybe it won't be "chaos" in the general sense. Maybe somethign we're not expecting. I mean Kislev is right next to Troll Country so maybe a monstrous horde? Or even something different like Kurgan Raiders.

There was lots of really cool Kurgan stuff in all the SoC era books that never saw models as the army was always very chaos warrior focussed.
Similarly some interesting marauder units in the TW army that were never represented but are in keeping with the fluff.

So if they want to make it new and different (and minimise cannibalising AoS) Kislev vs Kurgan/Norse with the latter being very marauder heavy might be the way to go .

 H wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
It's all speculation and we can argue about what a limited launch would look like, but it's almost certainly going to be limited and focused at first based on SG's track record.

Edit: Which will lead to much gnashing of teeth.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how Horus Heresy launched? As in, what was available rules and model-wise at launch?

While it might not be the same, it might give us an idea what we could consider possibly plausible at launch.

Also, I personally find the notion that all this could sort of coincide with a Total War video game release to make some degree of sense. It gives each product a sort cross-merchandise potential, video game players might buy models, table top players might look into the video game.

Well...HH was a big campaign book with basic legion lists and some rules changes. Because it was basically a supplement for 6th edition 40K. There was no plastic, it was all resin. And that was 8 years ago. So I don't think we should take too many cues from HH.

 gorgon wrote:
Well...HH was a big campaign book with basic legion lists and some rules changes. Because it was basically a supplement for 6th edition 40K. There was no plastic, it was all resin. And that was 8 years ago. So I don't think we should take too many cues from HH.

That's a good point. I do think, that without any other information, correlating it with the notion of HH and the notion of possible Total War cross merchandising are plausible ways to think about it, both necessarily are not indicative of what we are likely going to actually get. Of course, 8 years and moving away from resin, a no-longer supported rules set and so on means what "like HH" actually means to GW is anybody's guess. Frankly, it might still be, at this moment, something GW isn't sure about yet either.

Personally, I'd guess that, rules wise, we get something like a modified 8th rules set, we get "Campaign Books" or something like it, which might line up with whatever the story/setting of a "new" Total War game might be, so featuring a limited set of armies/units. That being said, there is no knowledge here, no manner to infer how likely that is or is not, of course.

Are Ice Warrior Women or Bear Cavalry in Total war II?

 Mr Morden wrote:
Are Ice Warrior Women or Bear Cavalry in Total war II?

I don't think Kislev is in the game at all. The prospective idea here was that possibly Kiselev might be something featured in a new version of the game, say Total War 3, or something like it, and this project is a sort of collaborative effort in a sense, to have something table top to "go with" the game.

Of course, that is out and out speculation with nothing to back it but the notion of it making some sense in a way. But that doesn't mean it will actually be the case in any way, shape or form.

The problem I'm having at the moment is none of the theories/possibilities quite work for me in the sense of their target audience and long term viability.

The Total War newbies are going to want big armies with big units, and probably won't buy in unless one of their favourite factions gets a look in(and it's worth noting that the "weird" factions seem to have a much broader appeal in this new segment of the audience, probably because they're not playing second-fiddle in the videogame as they often did on tabletop).

A lot of the old grogs are going to want their old armies to be playable.

They're not going to rope in many of the came-in-with-AoS fans unless they really tie the AoS fluff in hard, retconning in explicit links between whatever time period/s they end up using and AoS.

The most plausible theory seems to be an approach consistent with the various Specialist Games, of a very limited possibly even monoarmy AT-style launch, and a Heresy-style buildup that might eventually see other armies involved. The target audience there - and I believe I'm probably in it, for the record - seems *very* small; you're talking about whatever small subset of all the above fanbases care enough about the history of the Empire specifically and this period in particular that they'll buy in to slow-burn campaign style system, that can at least tolerate whatever rule system they end up using, and buy in big enough to at least keep it from getting cancelled.

That seems...questionable. Especially since, at least from what I've seen, the crossover between people who fit that very niche playerbase and the people who're not overly fond of all the high-magical stuff they're choosing to start the marketing push with is quite high.

But then what are the alternatives? They could scale down the size of the battles to more of a Warhammer Skirmish level to enable them to bring out more period-specific factions, but that'll turn off a lot of folk who want their rank & flank mass battle game back/their videogame made real. And if they were planning to go small, you'd think they'd take advantage of their existing catalogue and just begin with Mordheim.

Honestly the only two approaches I can see that *might* work are either a really big initial release with three or four factions, fully realised, and then a "main game" level of support to keep adding more of them asap, or else a Ravening Hordes style set of army lists and the WHFB range as it was in 2014 - or as close as possible - put back up for sale even if direct-only as a basis, and then the new campaign stuff and factions/minifactions as the ongoing releases. Neither seems particularly likely though.

 H wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Are Ice Warrior Women or Bear Cavalry in Total war II?

I don't think Kislev is in the game at all. The prospective idea here was that possibly Kiselev might be something featured in a new version of the game, say Total War 3, or something like it, and this project is a sort of collaborative effort in a sense, to have something table top to "go with" the game.

Of course, that is out and out speculation with nothing to back it but the notion of it making some sense in a way. But that doesn't mean it will actually be the case in any way, shape or form.

They're sort of in it. There's a Kislev faction but AFAIK they're just a copy of the Empire units.

 Yodhrin wrote:
The problem I'm having at the moment is none of the theories/possibilities quite work for me in the sense of their target audience and long term viability.

The Total War newbies are going to want big armies with big units, and probably won't buy in unless one of their favourite factions gets a look in(and it's worth noting that the "weird" factions seem to have a much broader appeal in this new segment of the audience, probably because they're not playing second-fiddle in the videogame as they often did on tabletop).

A lot of the old grogs are going to want their old armies to be playable.

They're not going to rope in many of the came-in-with-AoS fans unless they really tie the AoS fluff in hard, retconning in explicit links between whatever time period/s they end up using and AoS.

The most plausible theory seems to be an approach consistent with the various Specialist Games, of a very limited possibly even monoarmy AT-style launch, and a Heresy-style buildup that might eventually see other armies involved. The target audience there - and I believe I'm probably in it, for the record - seems *very* small; you're talking about whatever small subset of all the above fanbases care enough about the history of the Empire specifically and this period in particular that they'll buy in to slow-burn campaign style system, that can at least tolerate whatever rule system they end up using, and buy in big enough to at least keep it from getting cancelled.

That seems...questionable. Especially since, at least from what I've seen, the crossover between people who fit that very niche playerbase and the people who're not overly fond of all the high-magical stuff they're choosing to start the marketing push with is quite high.

Well, we might be thinking about this in the wrong direction though. Thinking of how this "pays" as a tabletop game might be putting the cart before the horse so to speak. What if it is the case that, somehow, the financial incentive is really on the part of making Total War assets: concept art, setting, story, for use in the game, which then, since it already exists will be (re)used (or repurposed) for a specialist game?

We already know that specialist games are very limited scope and still manage to be made. So, I don't know that, a priori, a limited scope thing is necessarily out of the picture. Of course, we don't know that it is in the picture either. All we can do is guess a plausible, possible cases.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Are Ice Warrior Women or Bear Cavalry in Total war II?

Not really no, They are a proper full faction in Warhammer 3 though, along with Chaos Dwarfs, Chaos Daemon and Ogre Kingdoms. It would not surprise me if some cross promotional work will be involved as well.

 Graphite wrote:
They'll need 4 races for Total War 3 if they want to keep with the previous pattern. Also on previous experience they expand the map, and north and east are the logical directions to go.

That brings in Ogres (who are already pretty sorted for design) and Chaos Warriors of various non-norscan tribes. Probably Daemons. Possibly Chaos Dwarfs rather than Warriors if they feel that the Chaos roster is fleshed out enough, but I suspect they're more likely to be DLC.

To get to either of those things, you have to go through or near Kislev.

I'd be surprised if the campaign doesn't involve a massive Chaos incursion. Possibly The End Times.

So either you expand Kislev, or you leave them like Tilea and the other minor human kingdoms.

Ogres, Daemons, Chaos Dwarfs, Kislev would be my bet. 4 varied races and the most popular races not yet released.

Lord Zarkov wrote:
Both Blood Bowl and Necromunda had bare bones lists for the old factions on release despite only having models for a couple (albeit Necromunda only had the house gangs not the outlanders) hopefully this will do the same

Ravening Hordes is probably the right comparison - very slimmed down with minimal special rules (USRs aside) or flavour (and 1 para of fluff per army), but enough to use everything.

Yes, when they rereleased Blood bowl and Necromunda they did that. But they are not rereleasing Warhammer Fantasy Battles. They are releasing a new game for the first time, from a different time period. They didn’t provide rules for Mordheim gangs when they released Warcry, for example. That’s the better comparison.

The thing is that they could whip up Battalion sets in their sleep from older kits, market them at a good (for GW) price point, and they'd have only to worry about packaging. This would work even better if they had some kits that pulled double duty, ie. Black Guard/Executioners for the Dark Elves.

MaxT wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:
Both Blood Bowl and Necromunda had bare bones lists for the old factions on release despite only having models for a couple (albeit Necromunda only had the house gangs not the outlanders) hopefully this will do the same

Ravening Hordes is probably the right comparison - very slimmed down with minimal special rules (USRs aside) or flavour (and 1 para of fluff per army), but enough to use everything.

Yes, when they rereleased Blood bowl and Necromunda they did that. But they are not rereleasing Warhammer Fantasy Battles. They are releasing a new game for the first time, from a different time period. They didn’t provide rules for Mordheim gangs when they released Warcry, for example. That’s the better comparison.

Is it a better comparison? Warcry is a completely new game in a new setting (AoS), initially focussing on new factions (the various Chaos warbands). We know next to nothing about the kind of game this Old World business will be, but given the square bases and nostalgia it is more likely than not to resemble WHFB in at least some ways, it may play out in a slightly different time period which means next to nothing in Warhammer Fantasy (an Orc horde from the year 1500 would look the same as one from 2500 albeit led by some other warboss, and for Elves or Undead even that doesn't have to be the case), and this "new" game is unlikely to only cover new factions (they'd hardly focus on Kislev, Norsca, Estalia and Araby without covering the better known factions neighbouring them).
The only way in which Warcry is a good comparison is that it was released with some dedicated models for new factions, but also saw several waves of rules for existing kits to enable players of those factions easy access to the new game (or attract players to new factions by requiring just a box of two of those figures, rather than a full AoS army). In the future, dedicated warbands for some other factions are to be released too. In the same way, they are clearly planning to make new models for the Old World for new(ish) factions (Kislev for starters), and may provide rule support for old factions to begin with (not even needing to put all old armies back on sale; just rules to get veterans of WHFB and possibly AoS something to do), maybe alongside some Made-to-Order miniature support, with updated sculpts for those factions slowly rolled out over the next years.

Commodus Leitdorf wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:
Are Ice Warrior Women or Bear Cavalry in Total war II?

Not really no, They are a proper full faction in Warhammer 3 though, along with Chaos Dwarfs, Chaos Daemon and Ogre Kingdoms. It would not surprise me if some cross promotional work will be involved as well.

Unless I missed some big news, we don't know that yet. They are likely to appear as a proper full faction in Warhammer 3 though, presumably along with Chaos Dwarfs, Chaos Daemon and Ogre Kingdoms.
All that's known for sure is that a third Total War game is to be released at some point (it was intended to be a trilogy from the start), that certain factions are missing, and that the above would make for a geographically sensible group, although especially how Chaos is to be treated is anyone's guess.

I really, really, really doubt there will be any synergy with Warhammer Total War.

I can't recall GW ever synergizing their models and their video games. 3 video game versions of BFG, no model release or rerelease. 3 Dawn of War games, no Codex Blood Ravens. Various FPS type games, none of the lead characters got models.

I can't for a second believe that Total War will drive what gets released for WHFB. We're more likely to see tie in models for Warhammer Monopoly and Munchkin.

 Just Tony wrote:

Spoiler:

 Hellebore wrote:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

MaxT wrote:

 kodos wrote:

 Overread wrote:
Did they release models for 16 different armies at the same time? And were those armies at least between 5-10 model kits per army

all models from those lists were available by that time

Yes, over a period of 20 years. Not in the same month or 2

Why are you suggesting they don’t have the ability to release minis that already exist?

They could easily rerelease their entire plastic range circa 8th edition along with a handful of flavorful new kits that expand the setting and generate new interest.

Given their track record I don't think anyone is expecting them to re-release old miniatures. Apart from anything else they have a quality standard now that is far and away higher than any previous WFB products, so releasing old miniatures wouldn't look good to them.

I think you'll find the main reason no one is expecting the entire range to reappear is that no one seriously thinks GW will release 10+ year old sprues again as a core product line.


As nice and 'easy' as that is, it wouldn't make financial, reputational, or qualitative sense to do so.

The thing is that they could whip up Battalion sets in their sleep from older kits, market them at a good (for GW) price point, and they'd have only to worry about packaging. This would work even better if they had some kits that pulled double duty, ie. Black Guard/Executioners for the Dark Elves.

I agree. lots of models from 8th edition are still in use after all. The focus on Kislev is because they dont have any old plastic models. It would be weird for GW to make a nostalgia game and then resculpt the whole range. They also mentioned how this was great news to anyone that has been to lazy to re-base their old models from squares
Just look at the lord of the rings reboot when they started of with a basic box of new plastics and then opened up their old range again.

Funny thing is, I think I will like it whichever way they go, even if they decide to do silly bear cavalry. Very exited to see if they dare do generic knights for Bretonnia -non uniqe GW-IP is what brought the end times to begin with. Just imagine the pegasus knights they could do with modern sculpting technology.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
I really, really, really doubt there will be any synergy with Warhammer Total War.

I can't recall GW ever synergizing their models and their video games. 3 video game versions of BFG, no model release or rerelease. 3 Dawn of War games, no Codex Blood Ravens. Various FPS type games, none of the lead characters got models.

I can't for a second believe that Total War will drive what gets released for WHFB. We're more likely to see tie in models for Warhammer Monopoly and Munchkin.

They are getting better at it - they finally released a Blood Ravens codex in WD, they advertise Total War - its a bit of reah but they even released the new Eltharion in AOS as TW did the same with him in TW2?

I think its more that GW and CA have likely used the same source materials and references. So it might be closer that CA could have advanced ideas on what designs could be or could have been which might line up with what GW releases. That said there's a lot of differences in moving things from a game to a tabletop. Many of the models CA uses can likely achieve higher levels of detail and detail in different places because they've not got to think about parting it for casting.

The regimental standard doing a funny piece related to a new release is about as syncronised as GW get.

Launching AoS about the same time as Total War is probably the most monumental "bad timing" GW ever had.
Perhaps well see "the old world" the same time they release that animated AoS series