Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hot take: I don't like the redesing. Nose is dumb, shoulders are tiny, shield doesn't match and the tabard was way more cool. Those guys are now just Handsome Squidward Vindictors.

James12345 wrote:
Fine but very uninspired. Just a new weapon option on the existing kit. Why not revamp the hunter or wizard chambers?

No different weapons at all.

Better anatomy, which makes them objectively better models, but I think ditching the pteruges in favour of more scale mail was a mistake.

I like them 100% more than the original. I don't like excess cloth dangling between the legs of models in general.

There's only one part that isn't a strict upgrade imo and that's the shield. Just a side grade as I like both.

Glad I never bought more than a single unit of the original. Always hated them lol.

If we're seeing redesigns of 2015 stuff now, there's a lot more interesting things they could apply this to.

Huge upgrade for me, the older shields I did like.

But I feel like the new style just so much better, instantly like Oh I like that over the old ones.

Actually has me a little excited, as much as I can be anyway for this. I still have 5 boxes of the last edition to work on. So I don’t need more.

I mainly like that they look like their own generic fantasy knights thing now, and not a concerted effort to do fantasy space marines.

Limited opinion because I've always disliked the Stormcast aesthetic, but it does feel like an all-around better miniature.

They're presumably a few waves behind, but I hope they reconsider fully armouring the Vanguard Chamber this time around. They missed a trick by being so obsessed with making them Space Marines that they forgot Space Marine Scouts aren't in head-to-toe power armour. Something more along the lines of the Custodes Venatari or the jetbikers would have been ideal in my opinion. Would help put more ground between Vanguard-Hunters and Vigilors, but the latter still being fully armoured scouts seems to suggest that my hope is all but confirmed as pointless

Fwiw, I have this friend, Warhammercurious but still widely unknowlable about AoS, but avid WoW player, and showed him the comparison of Liberators. I asked who he likes better, he said (translation):

Fresh wrote:The silver one, I like more the desing of his helmet and it looks like an armour desing more agile for combat then the other one

Considering this is a soft reboot to AoS, might as well ask to newbies or current or former AoS-naysaysers what they think. They might be aiming for a new audience.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok, I asked him to compare the Vindicator and new Liberator, he liked the lance, the 🗿 head and the gold colour better now, so maybe they shouldn't really went away from Hammers of Sigmar?

In that case I hope they I hope Salamanders or Space Wolves are the poster boys for 40K's next three editions.

 CMLR wrote:
Hot take: I don't like the redesing. Nose is dumb, shoulders are tiny, shield doesn't match and the tabard was way more cool. Those guys are now just Handsome Squidward Vindictors.

James12345 wrote:
Fine but very uninspired. Just a new weapon option on the existing kit. Why not revamp the hunter or wizard chambers?

No different weapons at all.

I think he meant it's just a different weapon for the spear guys from the last starter.

I agree overall, it's a better proportioned figure but the design is worse, the face especially.

 cole1114 wrote:
If we're seeing redesigns of 2015 stuff now, there's a lot more interesting things they could apply this to.

I reckon year of release has nothing to do with it. Sigmarines just happened to be among the last model ranges before the discovery of human anatomy, and as the face of AoS GW evidently wants to maintain a certain standard for the poster boys. Consider the shift in sculpting of big beasties like the Cities manticore and the latest dragons. GW has moved away from its traditional monster imagery and more into realism and, let's call it mass market appeal to wow people. This is something that exists in other ranges now, along with models with better proportions than GW made in 2015. Sigmarines have to compete with that.

Age of Sigmar has generally kept the stormcast in every starter box and the army is already BIG and diverse.

Honestly if they are going to keep them in the starter without question then redesign is the best option instead of either bloating the army even more or going the other path of making specific subfactions of the same design. Which honestly I think only works for Space Marines as a fluke and also isn't healthy for the game design space either.


Honestly I don't think there's problems with the sculpts as they are now; esp when you compare them to armies like Fyreslayers who have very little choice or Beastmen who clearly need some fresher designs and such. But in the end if Stormcast MUST be in the box then redesign is vastly better than army bloating.

I like the new liberator more apart the helmet.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/04/03/how-building-your-army-has-changed-in-newaos/

this is... pretty significant, but just at first blush, i think i'm here for it. it's a big change up, but i think it's an interesting direction for AOS army building to go. not as freeform as 40k10th, and instead is more like a lateral shift from what we had before

it's very different, and maybe that turns out to be bad once it actually exists, but i'm looking forward to trying armies like this once the indexes start dropping

"Every unit within a regiment deploys together as a single drop. You can reinforce most non-Unique units with more than one model, and while there is no longer any limit on the number of units you can reinforce, you may no longer double-reinforce units."


So this sounds like infantry will be capped at 2 boxes per full unit instead of a potential 3 last edition and the one before.

So 20 or so models per full unit max for infantry and 10 for cavalry unless there's any other special rules taking place. Though I AM glad to see reinforcement limits being gone



Also the regiments thematic elements sound a little loose to me. I suspect beyond the drop nature, we don't see a huge army change because of it since in the past that kind of choice was done by buffs, boons and so forth.


I wonder if that choice and design came about from someone playing TW Three Kingdoms because its basically the same army building mechanic they used.

1st feeling over that pretty positive. Doesn't hurt my armies a lot likely but then again i'm not big one at spamming anyway

thinking about this more, i think the most interesting part of this is that units will be restricted to certain characters— it's not a major shift, since i assume the characters will correlate to units you want to take with them anyway, but it's still a restriction, and restrictions like that can have ripple effects

also, how does this affect battalions? the two seem incompatible, so i wouldn't be surprised to see these replace it completely

also also i wanna hear more about auxiliaries and how those work because i think that's going to end up being pretty important. are specific units auxillary-only? can any unit be taken as an auxillary?

That is how Conquest does it.

How interesting, I'm pleasantly surprised by how the rules are coming along so far.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
thinking about this more, i think the most interesting part of this is that units will be restricted to certain characters— it's not a major shift, since i assume the characters will correlate to units you want to take with them anyway, but it's still a restriction, and restrictions like that can have ripple effects

And for us collectors/narrative players, it could be a very nice way to put together really thematic forces in 'bite-size' chunks. Kind of like a themed Spearhead/Combat Patrol, or the way I used to look at some of the more specialised Battalions.

Gets a big thumbs-up from me.

i think this is also going to do wonders for the more bloated armies like stormcast or STD. having a thing that says, you want to take these units with these characters is going to help a lot with stormcast in particular, where they just have so many options, and many that struggle to stand out from each other

the more i think about this, the better it gets

 Tim the Biovore wrote:
Limited opinion because I've always disliked the Stormcast aesthetic, but it does feel like an all-around better miniature.

They're presumably a few waves behind, but I hope they reconsider fully armouring the Vanguard Chamber this time around. They missed a trick by being so obsessed with making them Space Marines that they forgot Space Marine Scouts aren't in head-to-toe power armour. Something more along the lines of the Custodes Venatari or the jetbikers would have been ideal in my opinion. Would help put more ground between Vanguard-Hunters and Vigilors, but the latter still being fully armoured scouts seems to suggest that my hope is all but confirmed as pointless

I think this look is a step forward for creating more separation between the armor types, though.

It might also be a little easier for newbs to paint. Which is a consideration for minis going in starter sets.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
this is... pretty significant, but just at first blush, i think i'm here for it. it's a big change up, but i think it's an interesting direction for AOS army building to go. not as freeform as 40k10th, and instead is more like a lateral shift from what we had before

it's very different, and maybe that turns out to be bad once it actually exists, but i'm looking forward to trying armies like this once the indexes start dropping

Reminds me of Chaos in 4th/5th Ed WFB.

Sorry for the crap-o-vision. My iPad and instagram conspire to pixelate screen grabs.

But more Liberators.

I wonder if swords are still there or only hammers?

pic is ace mad doc...
dang i like those.
odd way to arm them unless its just to showcase options.
possibly part of the rules update?

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
i think this is also going to do wonders for the more bloated armies like stormcast or STD. having a thing that says, you want to take these units with these characters is going to help a lot with stormcast in particular, where they just have so many options, and many that struggle to stand out from each other

the more i think about this, the better it gets

True and it might be a softer way to break up armies in a thematic way like Stormcast or Skaven without creating them as fully separate whole armies. Because then you have a whole lot of other stuff you have to make as well.

Granted we have hd that before too with sub-armies within factions so perhaps those are going away to be replaced with the generals system.

 Shadow Walker wrote:
I wonder if swords are still there or only hammers?

from facebook

Warhammer Age of Sigmar
No sword option, but from a rules perspective they have had the same profile for a while now, so it's just all hammers now!

In game a unit of liberators will take either 2 hammers, or a hammer and shield, one in 5 will be able to take a grandhammer.

Each of the models pictured can take either two hammers, or a hammer and shield. The one build here as a Champion can be built as a "regular" liberator with a slightly different pose too. We may well take a closer look at the kit as their release approches.

I currently don't play Sigmar, I always wanted to try to jump in (I have thousand sons/daemons for 40k so basically have a Sigmar army) but a lot of the rules turned me off. This new edition has really peaked my interest and I think I am going to give it a try with Tzeentch forces so I don't have to buy to get in then expand from there (I think the steam punk dwarfs are really cool looking)

 DaveC wrote:

 Shadow Walker wrote:
I wonder if swords are still there or only hammers?

from facebook

Warhammer Age of Sigmar
No sword option, but from a rules perspective they have had the same profile for a while now, so it's just all hammers now!

In game a unit of liberators will take either 2 hammers, or a hammer and shield, one in 5 will be able to take a grandhammer.

Each of the models pictured can take either two hammers, or a hammer and shield. The one build here as a Champion can be built as a "regular" liberator with a slightly different pose too. We may well take a closer look at the kit as their release approches.

Thanks for the info