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 Baragash wrote:

 Altruizine wrote:
It's super funny to insist that GW has releases planned out on a 10 year horizon when the death of WHFB/debut of AoS occurred 9 years ago.

Mainly because he's wrong (except with regard to the speed at which GW usually develops things) because he's extrapolating based on a narrow view from his experience. Another poster already pointed that out many pages ago, businesses exist that operate with far more capability to react and follow emergent strategies in shorter time frames.

I'm not wrong though. The presence of a 10 year roadmap doesn't preclude any flexibility or lock GW into a plan of action, but generally speaking if it's not in your 10 year plan and was determined to be out of scope for your project when you were boundary-setting, then something extraordinary needs to happen for you to double back on that decision. You set it out of bounds for a reason, whereas if it was a "nice to have" that you didn't have budget for but wanted to get to eventually it'd be sitting in the lower end of your long term product backlog and your communication to your customers would probably be more open-ended rather than consistent statements trying to quash any hope.

AoS definitely had a 10 year roadmap when it launched, it certainly had a 5 year plan and a 3 year backlog. The development of idoneth deepkin and fyreslayers would have begun before AoS ever released in order to meet the release timeline, which means that financial planning needed to be done before any associated revenuevstreams were established. AoS was being worked on as early as 2011, so you're looking at around 7 years worth of planning and execution to get there. Then you look at all the stuff that was basically foreshadowed from the get-go - when the game launched slaanesh was nowhere to be seen and didn't appear until 2021. Did the design studio have that planned out somewhere around 2011? Most probably, yes. Maybe not in super exact detail but they probably had a pretty solid initial roadmap that included making a big deal about returning skaanesh to the setting. They certainly didn't cut slaanesh from the setting with no plan or intention to bring them back.

That's not to say that things didn't change - I very much doubt that it was their original plan to split up ogors into like 5 distinct factions only to merge them together later, but cutting and merging scope is a lot easier than adding scope.

 Mr Morden wrote:

I wouldn't call oblique references to something hitting like a rampaging carnosaur from the jungles of lustria or references to the vampire wars to be "all over the narrative". They are window dressing. They aren't part of the narrative, they are background detail to flesh out the world. Same as things like the Interex, Megarachnids, Hrud, Laer, Jorgall, rak'gol, etc. or hell even orks and eldar are in Horus Heresy. How many of those have rules in HH again? None? Yeah.

Oh dear...

Chaos Ogres - you know Ogres - the legacy army - they have Rules in Warriors of Chaos armies..... is that window dressing?

Hellcannon - now what is its crew - oh yeah Chaos Dwarfs....they seem to have rules in Warriors of Chaos

That's not the same thing. You do know that's not the same thing, right? I'm talking about factions, you're talking about races.

 Rihgu wrote:

 Hellebore wrote:
oof, ethereal BSB general Slann is going to be rough.

Only really as rough as they've ever been. Although in TOW they have the advantage of being able to shunt wounds into nearby Temple Guards - couldn't do that before as they couldn't join the unit for protection.

what previous edition did they allow a slann to become ethereal?


EDIT: Ok i see the 'immune to non magic' rule in the 7th ed army book, released in 2009. 8th was released in 2010 and it killed my interest in WFB, so I pretty much never encountered that ability.

My lizardmen were all 6th ed.

8th had it as a discipline I believe also.

Once the supported factions all have their initial (re)release of models with Arcane Journals, which is unlikely to take more than a couple of years at most, what’s next?

Potential options:

Campaign / narrative releases: with a limited selection of new and/or updated models.

Upgrading Arcane Journals to full Army books: seems unlikely for a specialist game.

Expansions: e.g. Kislev / Cathay / Chaos Demons.

2nd edition: restart the cycle of releases with more updated models. Potential for additional factions to be added, and/or scope to be changed

Dropping support: no more active development.


Even if there was a firm “10 year plan” (there obviously isn’t) so many factors can change, not least both the people involved in design, and the people in leadership roles making high level decisions. We can only guess what this game will look like in a decade, it’s delusional to pretend otherwise.

Checked out the pdfs, generally happy- they haven’t gutted too many rosters (a bit sad about the lack of doomrocket and master moulder)

But I wonder if chaos daemons not having any allies is a “typo”? I was hoping to take Slaanesh daemons as allies for my slaaneshy warriors of chaos - am I out of luck?

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
Checked out the pdfs, generally happy- they haven’t gutted too many rosters (a bit sad about the lack of doomrocket and master moulder)

But I wonder if chaos daemons not having any allies is a “typo”? I was hoping to take Slaanesh daemons as allies for my slaaneshy warriors of chaos - am I out of luck?

Given that every core faction has 3 allies and every legacy faction only has 1 (and Daemons none) this could be an avenue where they intentionally made Legacy less appealing.

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
Checked out the pdfs, generally happy- they haven’t gutted too many rosters (a bit sad about the lack of doomrocket and master moulder)

But I wonder if chaos daemons not having any allies is a “typo”? I was hoping to take Slaanesh daemons as allies for my slaaneshy warriors of chaos - am I out of luck?

I feel like there are two really obvious typos - the ally/mercenary box for Deamons got accidentally missed off and the base size for the Black Coach doesn't cover the newer model.

That's not bad for a GW release! But it will be a shame if the try and stick to this "never updating" line and don't fix them.

 The Phazer wrote:
base size for the Black Coach doesn't cover the newer model.

All base sizes are keyed to pre-End Times models.

bobthe4th wrote:

Upgrading Arcane Journals to full Army books: seems unlikely for a specialist game.

And yet Necromunda did it.

Granted its somewhat messy because they've also done a bunch of expansion books and things like hired help get scatter shot between all the books, but they have done it there.


I figure if Old World sells well enough then Arcane Journals becoming full army books is very likely. Right now Old World is in a growth phase so, within GW's structure, they want to pull down barriers of entry. Hence single combined volumes for a bunch of armies at once. They did the same thing when they had a huge reboot of 40K a few editions ago with compendiums and they did the same thing with the start of AoS with the Grand Alliance books.

It's basically one of GW's go-to methods for a new game to bundle armies into fewer books. Once the game is out, established and people have armies and collections then they are in the system. At that point for GW it becomes more profitable and even an asked thing by many to have separate books for each army "I don't want to lug thus massive book to every game, I just want one for the army I'm playing."


It also means that there's potentially more room in a single book for GW to:
Expand armies with more options
Add new layers of rules such as campaign rules
Add more lore/artwork/hobby content specific to one army.

 The Phazer wrote:

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
Checked out the pdfs, generally happy- they haven’t gutted too many rosters (a bit sad about the lack of doomrocket and master moulder)

But I wonder if chaos daemons not having any allies is a “typo”? I was hoping to take Slaanesh daemons as allies for my slaaneshy warriors of chaos - am I out of luck?

I feel like there are two really obvious typos - the ally/mercenary box for Deamons got accidentally missed off and the base size for the Black Coach doesn't cover the newer model.

That's not bad for a GW release! But it will be a shame if the try and stick to this "never updating" line and don't fix them.

Hmm, hope it’s just a gw style mistake then and not the case of what lord_blackfang has suspected.
Would be quite dumb for all things chaos not to have super bff symbiosis (especially when chaos is in the name).
Are there any mentions of legacy armies in the allies sections of supported factions?

Otherwise I’ll have to use daemonettes as marauders, seekers as marauder horsemen and fiends as spawn or something.. I don’t mind that, as I like those models far better, than their proper representation, but It would be even better for variety if I could just have them as appropriate allied units. And less confusing for opponents, I suppose.

At least the rumour of a last minute Legacy nerf was horsegak. Mountain published his Lizardmen review the second the pdfs went up and the only difference between his preview version and the final was the Slann and Temple Guard went from 0-1 per 2000 pts to 0-1 ever.

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:

Hmm, hope it’s just a gw style mistake then and not the case of what lord_blackfang has suspected.
Would be quite dumb for all things chaos not to have super bff symbiosis (especially when chaos is in the name).
Are there any mentions of legacy armies in the allies sections of supported factions?

the legacy faction allies look more like to cover certain theme lists of the old days rather than any bff situation in general

like Khemri and Vampires make no sense unless it is for Arkhans special force, DE and Daemons for the Slaanesh Cult of old times etc.

DE go with WoC tho

 lord_blackfang wrote:
DE go with WoC tho

Makes sense lorewise - especially during this period in the lead up to the Great war against Chaos but should also include Daemons.

I wonder if they will do a Arcane Journal compiliation like they do with Blood Bowl and made a right mess of with Necromunda.

As I said before a named lords and heroes book could be good.

However more interested in campaign books

Really should have gotten a Allies chart ala MESBG / HH rather than doing it piecemeal like this but I suspect they didn't want any mention of Legacy factions in Core army books.

So every grand army list has the 20% points for mercenaries options, but don't list any allowed mercenaries. Some of the armies of infamy shown so far list mercenaries, but it's at most one or two units.

Are the grand armies allowing 20% mercs but deliberately not allowing units to say something like "this is where you could take mercs, but you don't have any options to do so" or are we waiting for some separate document to tell us who can take what mercs?

It’ll be future proofing I expect for when they do bring out some mercs.

chaos0xomega wrote:
[

I'm not wrong though. The presence of a 10 year roadmap doesn't preclude any flexibility or lock GW into a plan of action, but generally speaking if it's not in your 10 year plan and was determined to be out of scope for your project when you were boundary-setting, then something extraordinary needs to happen for you to double back on that decision. You set it out of bounds for a reason, whereas if it was a "nice to have" that you didn't have budget for but wanted to get to eventually it'd be sitting in the lower end of your long term product backlog and your communication to your customers would probably be more open-ended rather than consistent statements trying to quash any hope.

So. You say they have 10 year roadmap.

At was releatea 2018.

So according　to you safe to say they had legions mapped out then.

They said then no plan to return game with infantry.

You keep proving they haven't said anything yet that actually denies return of say skaven in 2029.

Anybody who claims to know for sure what gw will or will not is a) extremely arrogant b) extremely wrong.

Gw doesn't tell far what they come and will deny plans to release something if asked up to moment they announce it.

From previous patterns we can tell 40k 11th likely coming 2026 but anybody claiming to know for sure is lying.

Individual armies etc even less certain.

I'm not seeing any Mercenaries. Even Maneaters aren't. I'm guessing these will be New Stuff (Tilea, Estalia...) coming much later.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

SnotlingPimpWagon wrote:
Checked out the pdfs, generally happy- they haven’t gutted too many rosters (a bit sad about the lack of doomrocket and master moulder)

But I wonder if chaos daemons not having any allies is a “typo”? I was hoping to take Slaanesh daemons as allies for my slaaneshy warriors of chaos - am I out of luck?

Given that every core faction has 3 allies and every legacy faction only has 1 (and Daemons none) this could be an avenue where they intentionally made Legacy less appealing.

I feel like most people is gonna straight up ignore that.

 Overread wrote:

Lord Zarkov wrote:

Darkial wrote:
Are the Skavens missing the slaves or how was it in 8th?

No Slaves in TOW.

Tbh, they seem to have gone mega heavy on NMNR for Legacy Factions. There’s rules for nearly everything that used to have a model, but loads of things that used to be options but didn’t have a model have been removed. Frustrating, and a very different approach from the core factions.

Though daemons do seem to have gained their AoS herald variants which is interesting.

I always felt that with Old World things that had options but not models were things GW wanted to make at some point. As these Legacy armies aren't going to get invested in (and if they are its 5-10 years away for Old World investment) it makes sense to cut down a bunch of things that GW can't even put on "Made to Order" let alone never produced for people to get hold of.

Then again, if GW won't produce minis for the legacy armies at all, why not retain the options? Besides, weren't the clanrats (the most recent ones, which are still available for AoS) also meant to be used for the slaves anyway? I seem to recall several of the models have shackles or somesuch. The only thing missing from the box are slings, which I think were a metal (?) upgrade available online for a while. But then, isn't the same true for Chaos warrior halberds, which are still an option?

Are there many removed profiles overall then?

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:


Besides, weren't the clanrats (the most recent ones, which are still available for AoS) also meant to be used for the slaves anyway? I seem to recall several of the models have shackles or somesuch.

I no longer have the kit but remember that exactly two of them had shackles. Still I think you are correct, and the box was meant to be used by both.

MaxT wrote:
It’ll be future proofing I expect for when they do bring out some mercs.

Yep agree most likely future proofing since it doesn't force them into a timeline this way, they can release when able. And if sales for TOW make sense to do so.

Shadow Walker wrote:

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:


Besides, weren't the clanrats (the most recent ones, which are still available for AoS) also meant to be used for the slaves anyway? I seem to recall several of the models have shackles or somesuch.

I no longer have the kit but remember that exactly two of them had shackles. Still I think you are correct, and the box was meant to be used by both.

About half of the models had light or no armor, and they other half had slightly heavier armor. You could use the non-armored as slaves & armored as clanrats. Or you could just lump them all together as clanrats. I've still got 40 or 50 of them around somewhere.

There wasn't (isn't) any slings option, but IIRC the last army book I had slaves came with hand weapons, and slings were extra cost add-on. So just build them with hand weapons and say you bought slings.

Didn't slings come white the nightrunners, i do have slings with my nightrunners.

 skeleton wrote:
Didn't slings come white the nightrunners, i do have slings with my nightrunners.

Both units had sling options.
But nightrunner monkey-rat arms don't match the old metal slaves or the better plastic clanrats.

Voss wrote:

 skeleton wrote:
Didn't slings come white the nightrunners, i do have slings with my nightrunners.

Both units had sling options.
But nightrunner monkey-rat arms don't match the old metal slaves or the better plastic clanrats.

But this kit existed:

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Then again, if GW won't produce minis for the legacy armies at all, why not retain the options?

Because if those options don't exist in the back catalogue, their existence in the rules just encourages third party model makers to produce and profit from them. And that's money people could be spending on MTO kits instead...

 insaniak wrote:

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:
Then again, if GW won't produce minis for the legacy armies at all, why not retain the options?

Because if those options don't exist in the back catalogue, their existence in the rules just encourages third party model makers to produce and profit from them. And that's money people could be spending on MTO kits instead...

Which without production will happen regardless ?

Hmm, so kind of off topic. But if GW is bringing back the Old World for The Old World, is there any chance of them bringing back say Mordheim?