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Could be plopped into an upcoming Spearhead box, with the addition of a Vampire lord and some Skeletons.

True enough about the others. We'll just have to see how it plays out with future tomes.

The real bad part of this is that it seems to hint at not only 3-year edition cycles, but 6-year edition resets. (40k will be the next test, as 10th was a reset so 11th should be a rework and then 12th should be another hard reset)

With so many tomes for both AOS and 40k that even if they released one a month (which they don't) it'd take around 2 years for everyone to get one, leaving a year before there's a new edition and another round of tomes, I don't see how this model is going to be sustainable at all for any sort of serious game.

It's already bad enough and they show no signs of slowing down or changing it. At the very least they should have moved away from the Battletome method for just this reason, so there's not gulfs of power imbalance between who gets lucky enough to get a book first and who is stuck with the index equivalent for years.

Even without re-sets every 6 years the 3 year cycle still means you need a new battletome/codex and yep its been said many times now - as soon as GW starts to get the balance fixing; as soon as things settle BOOM they blow it all up again. The 3 year cycle is nuts rules wise and even product wise.


Honestly whilst it generates money for GW I can well see a point at which they simply burn the market out or end up growing their competition

 Overread wrote:
I dunno, they've only removed the Slaves to Darkness Warcry models. Other armies with Warcry sets (and in fairness they are few) haven't been touched, nor have the underworld teams.

I think the Slaves is purely because Warcry has a LOT of Slaves models and trying to balance a dozen infantry units into a faction where each of them is basically in the same slot of cheaper infantry chaff is probably really hard to do.

Flavour wise they are super great, but mechanically its a mess.


Then again you could be right

GW might aim for separation as battletomes are updated, with Skaven and Sigmarines being the obvious two happening now, and everyone else getting their Warcry warband rules removed from AoS when it's their turn. Slaves to Darkness might be an outlier because they get a Darkoath overhaul before the new edition and GW wants to be just as clear as with Skaven and Sigmarines what goes the way of the dodo so people interested in picking up models for the army focus on the new, shiny, more expensive releases?

It's worth considering that last year's removal of a lot of Marine kits wasn't well received not the least because it happened after the kits got index rules. This might be GW giving advance warning well ahead of time to avoid some of the unpleasant reactions?

 Overread wrote:
Even without re-sets every 6 years the 3 year cycle still means you need a new battletome/codex and yep its been said many times now - as soon as GW starts to get the balance fixing; as soon as things settle BOOM they blow it all up again. The 3 year cycle is nuts rules wise and even product wise.


Honestly whilst it generates money for GW I can well see a point at which they simply burn the market out or end up growing their competition

If you take that a full army takes several years to collect and finish off... I mean any informed client that wants to collect an army that he he knows it was updated with new models 2 or 3 years ago, it runs the risk of being trashed next update. Its not a sustainable for this type of products that you need to build and paint so much for a long time. But what do we know? We keep being told we are not the target audience. Weird they do so much nostalgia comeback ranges though.

It's worth mentioning that the WarCry warbands being removed aren't all of the Slaves to Darkness warbands. No Legionnaires or Darkoath Ravagers, nor is the Stormcast group there.

 Tim the Biovore wrote:

So having a shield and hammer gives you the same attacks and armor as having two hammers? Pure idiocy.

 Overread wrote:

 Inquisitor Gideon wrote:
I don't think anyone would have ever bought Radukars court separately. I mean why would you when you could get the whole game for a £100 over £85 for just the court?

Agreed, however GW removing it means they are likely removing those named models from the Soulblight Army for the next update.

As I said I hope this means they'll bring some of them in as stand alone models/infantry/monsters for the army rather than just outright remove them entirely. But this is GW so its very hard to predict what path they'll take.

They're all on the same frame so this seems very unlikely.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Geifer wrote:


GW might aim for separation as battletomes are updated, with Skaven and Sigmarines being the obvious two happening now, and everyone else getting their Warcry warband rules removed from AoS when it's their turn. Slaves to Darkness might be an outlier because they get a Darkoath overhaul before the new edition and GW wants to be just as clear as with Skaven and Sigmarines what goes the way of the dodo so people interested in picking up models for the army focus on the new, shiny, more expensive releases?

It's worth considering that last year's removal of a lot of Marine kits wasn't well received not the least because it happened after the kits got index rules. This might be GW giving advance warning well ahead of time to avoid some of the unpleasant reactions?

The stated reasons are that the Darkoath now (or soon will) fill the role occupied by the Warcry warbands, plus the age of the kits – mostly from the previous edition, although Horns of Hashut were pretty recent.

"With the arrival of the Darkoath, the Slaves to Darkness have finally found their definitive mortal followers. This means that a number of warbands representing the wider worshippers of Chaos in the Mortal Realms will be retiring from the spotlight – and the range. This mostly involves warbands from the previous edition of Warcry…"

The Warcry kits aren't going away, they're just staying in Warcry rather than pulling double duty.

 warboss wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If faster model churn becomes a thing Warhammer will be more like MtG with its insane amount of churn (the main reason I would never want to play competitive Magic). But it's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for GW considering the alternative to sunsetting models and units is an insane amount of bloat that will make balancing the game harder and harder.

Or they could return to a more measured release schedule and use that freed up production time/capacity to not be almost instantly out of stock for key new releases as well as to keep their existing models in stock for purchase so as not to miss out on those sales either, both of which prevent that insane bloat in the first place...

OR... they could do what they used to do for WHFB and actually rotate BOTH factions in the edition starter box so they don't have to keep inventing new units for the poster boys.

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 warboss wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If faster model churn becomes a thing Warhammer will be more like MtG with its insane amount of churn (the main reason I would never want to play competitive Magic). But it's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for GW considering the alternative to sunsetting models and units is an insane amount of bloat that will make balancing the game harder and harder.

Or they could return to a more measured release schedule and use that freed up production time/capacity to not be almost instantly out of stock for key new releases as well as to keep their existing models in stock for purchase so as not to miss out on those sales either, both of which prevent that insane bloat in the first place...

OR... they could do what they used to do for WHFB and actually rotate BOTH factions in the edition starter box so they don't have to keep inventing new units for the poster boys.

or GW could exit wargaming entirely and pivot towards being britain's new premier chocolate company— neither is going to happen. GW is very clear in their intentions, and we know why. rotating the factions in your starter box was never as popular for WHFB as people wish it was. if it had been popular, the game would have made money. now, AOS is sticking to one single army to be the face of the game, and it's making more than fantasy ever did. you're free to not like it, but stop acting like what they're doing is purposeless or that it doesn't have positive benefits to the game as a whole. whether it's stormcasts or space marines, the poster boy factions are what keep the game alive

 Shadow Walker wrote:

 Tim the Biovore wrote:

So having a shield and hammer gives you the same attacks and armor as having two hammers? Pure idiocy.

I was initially bitter about it, as its a level of abstraction too far. Then I recalled how Blightkings have been like that from the start. From buying them at their End Times release to then building roughly 40 all converted with unique heads and weapon loadouts over almost 2 editions, it was probably the most fun I had hobbying in that time period. Its definitely going to be weird, and if I get any new SCE kits I’ll try to keep them with a uniform loadout just due to the visuals. It fits the chaotic nature of the Blightkings, but not the SCE, visually in my mind.

I expect the Liberator kit won’t have enough options to kit them all out with shields or 2 hammers and thats where this rule change is coming from.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

or GW could exit wargaming entirely and pivot towards being britain's new premier chocolate company— neither is going to happen.

Too bad. I think the original chonky soon to be Outcast Eternals are perfectly sculpted for hollow milk chocolate gaming snacks.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

Spoiler:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 warboss wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If faster model churn becomes a thing Warhammer will be more like MtG with its insane amount of churn (the main reason I would never want to play competitive Magic). But it's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for GW considering the alternative to sunsetting models and units is an insane amount of bloat that will make balancing the game harder and harder.

Or they could return to a more measured release schedule and use that freed up production time/capacity to not be almost instantly out of stock for key new releases as well as to keep their existing models in stock for purchase so as not to miss out on those sales either, both of which prevent that insane bloat in the first place...

OR... they could do what they used to do for WHFB and actually rotate BOTH factions in the edition starter box so they don't have to keep inventing new units for the poster boys.

or GW could exit wargaming entirely and pivot towards being britain's new premier chocolate company— neither is going to happen. GW is very clear in their intentions, and we know why. rotating the factions in your starter box was never as popular for WHFB as people wish it was. if it had been popular, the game would have made money. now, AOS is sticking to one single army to be the face of the game, and it's making more than fantasy ever did. you're free to not like it, but stop acting like what they're doing is purposeless or that it doesn't have positive benefits to the game as a whole. whether it's stormcasts or space marines, the poster boy factions are what keep the game alive

Last I checked, there were a handful of other differences between WHFB and AoS besides starter box faction distributions. It might just be possible that any of the other difference also contribute to whatever their difference in sales and popularity is.

Anyway, the starter box factions in WHFB seemed to do a pretty good job in making people interested in starting the included factions, created widely available core plastic sets for ranges that were often lacking them or in need of an update, and subsequently helped create a player community collecting diverse armies. Overly emphasizing a single army to the detriment of others, to the detriment of diversity, and now to the detriment of kit/unit longevity by needing to invent something new for an already complete range? I only see negatives in that strategy. (And if they don't make a set with other armies, I am unsure how they could know it would not be equally profitable, if not more so.)

It's even worse for Stormcast because they aren't selling like Marines. So GW can't just use a subfaction of Stormcast to focus on - its all one big army. So yeah if you're going to do a 10-15 model revamp every 3 years that army is going to get bloated and over-changed above all others.

It's also a baffling strategy considering that AoS has a LOT of other armies that would do really well with a big injection of models. So not only are you bloating one army up but you're also delaying the potential popularity and sales of another.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 warboss wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If faster model churn becomes a thing Warhammer will be more like MtG with its insane amount of churn (the main reason I would never want to play competitive Magic). But it's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for GW considering the alternative to sunsetting models and units is an insane amount of bloat that will make balancing the game harder and harder.

Or they could return to a more measured release schedule and use that freed up production time/capacity to not be almost instantly out of stock for key new releases as well as to keep their existing models in stock for purchase so as not to miss out on those sales either, both of which prevent that insane bloat in the first place...

OR... they could do what they used to do for WHFB and actually rotate BOTH factions in the edition starter box so they don't have to keep inventing new units for the poster boys.

or GW could exit wargaming entirely and pivot towards being britain's new premier chocolate company— neither is going to happen. GW is very clear in their intentions, and we know why. rotating the factions in your starter box was never as popular for WHFB as people wish it was. if it had been popular, the game would have made money. now, AOS is sticking to one single army to be the face of the game, and it's making more than fantasy ever did. you're free to not like it, but stop acting like what they're doing is purposeless or that it doesn't have positive benefits to the game as a whole. whether it's stormcasts or space marines, the poster boy factions are what keep the game alive

Oh yeah for sure, the poster boy stormcast are selling so well. GW was like hey you know what we hate? Money! Lets cut all the kits that are really selling!!

 caladancid wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 warboss wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If faster model churn becomes a thing Warhammer will be more like MtG with its insane amount of churn (the main reason I would never want to play competitive Magic). But it's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for GW considering the alternative to sunsetting models and units is an insane amount of bloat that will make balancing the game harder and harder.

Or they could return to a more measured release schedule and use that freed up production time/capacity to not be almost instantly out of stock for key new releases as well as to keep their existing models in stock for purchase so as not to miss out on those sales either, both of which prevent that insane bloat in the first place...

OR... they could do what they used to do for WHFB and actually rotate BOTH factions in the edition starter box so they don't have to keep inventing new units for the poster boys.

or GW could exit wargaming entirely and pivot towards being britain's new premier chocolate company— neither is going to happen. GW is very clear in their intentions, and we know why. rotating the factions in your starter box was never as popular for WHFB as people wish it was. if it had been popular, the game would have made money. now, AOS is sticking to one single army to be the face of the game, and it's making more than fantasy ever did. you're free to not like it, but stop acting like what they're doing is purposeless or that it doesn't have positive benefits to the game as a whole. whether it's stormcasts or space marines, the poster boy factions are what keep the game alive

Oh yeah for sure, the poster boy stormcast are selling so well. GW was like hey you know what we hate? Money! Let's cut all the kits that are really selling!!

"what they're doing is purposeless or that it doesn't have positive benefits to the game as a whole."

It's not about the game health or the minis or the IP it is, and always will be, about pleasing the shareholders. But that means jack to me since I'm not one and don't want to be. But yeah a bit of perspective about the "Purposes" of these actions.

It's all fair play once you understand their goals. Problem is my goals do not necessarily align with GW's ones and thats ok, less investment on their crack.

Regardless of company and causes of discontinuing vast amounts of kits or ranges, it's ALWAYS sad. The fact that some have only been around 6 years its a record on GW turnaround, people acting it was expected or its healthy due to X or Y are sorry deluded.

 Coenus Scaldingus wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

Spoiler:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:

 warboss wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If faster model churn becomes a thing Warhammer will be more like MtG with its insane amount of churn (the main reason I would never want to play competitive Magic). But it's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for GW considering the alternative to sunsetting models and units is an insane amount of bloat that will make balancing the game harder and harder.

Or they could return to a more measured release schedule and use that freed up production time/capacity to not be almost instantly out of stock for key new releases as well as to keep their existing models in stock for purchase so as not to miss out on those sales either, both of which prevent that insane bloat in the first place...

OR... they could do what they used to do for WHFB and actually rotate BOTH factions in the edition starter box so they don't have to keep inventing new units for the poster boys.

or GW could exit wargaming entirely and pivot towards being britain's new premier chocolate company— neither is going to happen. GW is very clear in their intentions, and we know why. rotating the factions in your starter box was never as popular for WHFB as people wish it was. if it had been popular, the game would have made money. now, AOS is sticking to one single army to be the face of the game, and it's making more than fantasy ever did. you're free to not like it, but stop acting like what they're doing is purposeless or that it doesn't have positive benefits to the game as a whole. whether it's stormcasts or space marines, the poster boy factions are what keep the game alive

Last I checked, there were a handful of other differences between WHFB and AoS besides starter box faction distributions. It might just be possible that any of the other difference also contribute to whatever their difference in sales and popularity is.

Anyway, the starter box factions in WHFB seemed to do a pretty good job in making people interested in starting the included factions, created widely available core plastic sets for ranges that were often lacking them or in need of an update, and subsequently helped create a player community collecting diverse armies. Overly emphasizing a single army to the detriment of others, to the detriment of diversity, and now to the detriment of kit/unit longevity by needing to invent something new for an already complete range? I only see negatives in that strategy. (And if they don't make a set with other armies, I am unsure how they could know it would not be equally profitable, if not more so.)

When GW killed WFB, WFB accounted for less than 10% of their total sales while 40K (and more specifically, Space Marines of all kind) were accounting for the majority of their sales.

You are talking about creating a "diverse player community" but the hard truths are :

1. GW doesn't care about creating a player community. If it happens, it happens organically and it's good for the company, but their primary goal is money. And it's understandable (while unfortunate), the company almost went bankrupt a decade ago. I'm sick of space marines of all kind and this is why I mostly stopped playing 40K. But GW would be insane to not support them a lot. They simply sell ;
2. The so-called "community" was abysmal compared to 40K. WFB was more popular than 40K in only one country ever (France) and by the mid 2000s, 40K became the most popular setting there too.

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 CMLR wrote:
Warcry and Underworlds culling for StD (now this hurts the most if they are not just removing the warscrolls and they are just deleting the models from their other games ranges),

On the webstore, while the Stormcast and Skaven stuff is marked 'Last Chance to Buy', the Chaos boys are not - potentially this means the models will remain for Warcry use, but just be moved out of the AoS battletome. Alternatively, GW didn't update the webstore correctly.

"off sale" when article talked about warcry warbands.

 Shadow Walker wrote:

 Tim the Biovore wrote:

So having a shield and hammer gives you the same attacks and armor as having two hammers? Pure idiocy.

I can imagine me beeing positiv about this and building a dynamic unit, even making use of old stormcast swords, just to see 5th edition invalidating units with mixed weapons

chaos0xomega wrote:
Wait 3-6 years and the pendulum will swing back the other way to strict WYSIWYG and every model option being supported by a strictly distinct set of rules.

They are doing this now because little Timmy is deathly confused by the differences between all the different weapon options.

In a few years time, little Timmy will be deathly confused by why his dudes with a sword and shield do nothing different from his dudes with two hammers.

In few years gw is selling for different timmy than now. Buy army, next customer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 warboss wrote:

 ZergSmasher wrote:
If faster model churn becomes a thing Warhammer will be more like MtG with its insane amount of churn (the main reason I would never want to play competitive Magic). But it's kind of a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation for GW considering the alternative to sunsetting models and units is an insane amount of bloat that will make balancing the game harder and harder.

Or they could return to a more measured release schedule and use that freed up production time/capacity to not be almost instantly out of stock for key new releases as well as to keep their existing models in stock for purchase so as not to miss out on those sales either, both of which prevent that insane bloat in the first place...

And look at lower profits. Wonder what company goes for.

 dan2026 wrote:

 Shakalooloo wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Shame the Plague Monks aren't getting dumped, they're as bad as Rat Ogres.

I see your Plague Monks and raise you a Night Runners.

How are they still selling these embarrasing things?
Who on earth is buying them?

Not anymore!

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:

or GW could exit wargaming entirely and pivot towards being britain's new premier chocolate company

Mark her words!

Call me a cultist or whatever but I love this kind of art. I love that we get to see this kind of influence throughout their studio. The gem that is Blanche drawing up these concepts and the designers making these models a reality.

I dread for savage orcs to not return to TOW, I seriously wanted to buy a solid 2000p of them and now they're just gone and prices will be all over the place, IF they happen to show off and deliver to my country.

Once upon a time,I had a fully painted Savage Orc army, pre-plastics.

The best I could manage was something approaching a kunnin’ deployment, cross my fingers and trust in Gork and Mork.

Between Frenzy and Animosity, there wasn’t much else I could do. But what a gloriously fun army it was. The damage those ladz could kick out, when doing what I could to pick at least vaguely favourable fights was astounding.

Even when I lost? I still had a great time.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Once upon a time,I had a fully painted Savage Orc army, pre-plastics.

The best I could manage was something approaching a kunnin’ deployment, cross my fingers and trust in Gork and Mork.

Between Frenzy and Animosity, there wasn’t much else I could do. But what a gloriously fun army it was. The damage those ladz could kick out, when doing what I could to pick at least vaguely favourable fights was astounding.

Even when I lost? I still had a great time.

my 7th edition Orcs, an army I built because in 3rd I wanted one but the younger me could never afford them never once let me down.

they never won a game, not even by pure chance, I figured if my opponent didn't show up maybe I'd scrape 2nd place, an army quite capable, and which proved it, of doing more damage to itself than to the enemy.

an army I loved, and indeed still love, bless Thangrot the Magnificent and his sidekick Earwax, now lurking in the cellar somewhere, except one chariot which curiously is on a shelf above me right now for %REASONS%

an army that could drive a "serious" gamer to fits as it disintegrated in front of them, defeating their cunning plans and careful movement through randomised self destruction.

Goblins who hate the ever living fear of the great dustpan and brush coming for them..

sadly they are unlikely to see the table in that glory again

So does anyone else think they’re going to do a second round of Arcane Journals after they have one each for the nine main factions?
Or would they by that point be ready to introduce new army lists with a third compilation book to go with ravening hordes amend forces of fantasy?

Because at roughly 1 per quarter, it’ll be January ’26 by the time everyone has one AJ each.

 ImAGeek wrote:

frogert_poj wrote:
Well now that Tomb kings and the Bretonnian ranges are back; Are Stormcast the largest dumpster fire faction in all of Warhammer?

1st, and 2nd edition kits are almost entirely OOP. and 3rd edition has the starter set that gets the award for bargain bin clearance pricing.

I don't think I have seen a worse off and more chaotic line. To top it off, its almost entirely dudes and dudettes in head to toe thick body armor. Who asked for that?

I cant imagine how Stormcast get to be in the starter set for 5th edition. It will be laughable...

Works for 40k…

Dominion was overproduced, but it was also their best selling fantasy starter ever according to one of the investor reports iirc.

I’m going to guess that it sold well in GW’s ledger because they sold a crapton to independent stockings who were then left with a turd on the shelf that they couldn’t even sell when heavily discounted. Still counts as a sale to GW even if the store can’t shift it.

Since we can't say those miniatures got squat in function of squats being a thing again, I propose we say they got Sacrosancted OR Boned, short for Bonesplintered.